Welcome to Mufulira. It’s the rainy season, FYI, in case the periodic, deafening pounding on the tin roofs didn't give it away. Oh, and the enormous flying ants, landing in your food, hair, and/or mouth, would also like to express their pleasure at your arrival.
We are all gathered at 158 Jomo Kenyatta (take a look on Google Earth):
· Tannen, fearless leader, slightly jetlagged
· Megan, sidekick, coffee addict
· Johnny, faux blond, ending his tenure of a year’s stay in Zambia
· Sarah, biologist, recent PhD, but we won’t hold that against her
· Tessa, counselor, cuts her teeth on this teaching thing tomorrow
· Dr T, Tricia, and Andre, the South African contingent
You know you’re projecting the right image when on your taxi ride from the airport, a boy on the side of the road, seeing your car full of muzungus (pasty people, such as ourselves), shouts with great enthusiasm, “MONEY!”
Today was spent in Murundu, visiting Hilda and Martins at the Enfys orphanage school, currently occupying the clinic building that has yet to become a clinic. We got a tour of the toilets & showers in progress, septic tank is installed but no water yet. I’m waiting for the day they get that up and running, because as we were leaving, several kids sprinted outside, hiked up their skirts and publicly relieved themselves next to the clinic. I think some commentary on that will need to get incorporated in tomorrow’s hygiene program…
Several of the boys from the Earn It program were working on rebuilding the feeding shelter, where the orphans are fed every day. Earn It is designed to employ local youths to help with the farming, infrastructure maintenance, milling, etc, and in return pay for them to go to school. So far, 14 youths are employed for a few hours each week and are back in school.
After a long walk through the very red mud, we had a late lunch of traditional nshima with relish and chicken, and were collected by Dr T. We went with him and Bishop Muleya, from the church planting school, to observe a home cell church that was established by one of their students, who will be graduating on Saturday. It was in a very rural village, which appeared to be comprised of mostly children, with a healthy population of chickens, goats, and stray dogs. It’s also mango season, so the mango trees are all heavily laden, and many of the kids were clutching the juicy fruit and biting right through the skin.
More to come…
Megan
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