Heartbreak & New Beginnings

It’s Thursday at 6 am, and my apologies for the delay in the blogging. I find it’s taking me a lot longer to get things down that I had anticipated (was at it till 1 am last night), along with problems of the rocket sticks not working, so everyone is generally taking over the office of the ADP to be able to get at the blog sites, as they find time. There’s certainly been problems with getting connections, even there, and all social network sites have been blocked, so we can‘t get on facebook or at the blog sites, except for the 2.0 site, when things are working, and you hold your tongue just right. I know you’re a patient bunch, so I haven’t been pushing to get in, and the rest are getting their’s up in the meantime for you to read. keep I’ve been putting great pressure on myself to get the blogs done, as I know there is anticipation out there, but have decided to do it as I am able, or I won’t be able to enjoy myself and as I’m already having a hard time trying to process the amount of things we are seeing and hearing, it will put less stress on me I hope. I have almost been thankful for the tech difficulties, as it gives me a great excuse! Along the way I’ve lost a day and keep thinking it’s a day earlier because of our travel day.

I’m sitting here this morning, able to be drinking my cup of tea and eating a bun with marmalade, thinking how truly fortunate we are to be able to do and have these things after visiting families yesterday, who quite literally have nothing. We are all beyond fortunate to live the lives we have. I have been witnessing how devastated these families are and realize more and more what a difference a simple thing like $40 a month can make in peoples lives. Then I thought, that through last years trip, and this past year I have, with the generosity of friends willing to sponsor been able to touch the lives of 10 children and communities, along with sponsors I have talked to at the different venues I have helped at for World Vision over the past year, which in total must reach over a hundred. That makes me feel so inspired to reach out to more people to change their lives and the lives of those they sponsor.


LATER THAT AFTERNOON…..
This morning we visited Namwinga (original building built in 1947, new WV wing added 2008)) & Mutala Basic Schools ( built 2009), built by World Vision. We heard at both schools how thankful everyone in the community is for having the schools, but how much more there is still to do. Some of the children will walk 25 km or more to get to school and camp in a dormitory type building (I didn’t hear of any supervision in the dormitory) during the week so they are able to attend class. They bring their food with them and cook for themselves in a open, but covered area. Imagine wanting and needing schooling so bad, that you would send your child, on their own, to travel that distance and look after themselves!! Godwin the ADP manager told us that he himself walked 25 km to school as a child.

With the left over materials from the construction of the Mutala School the community has come together and has almost finished another set of 3 classrooms. We are witnessing such an enthusiastic and resourceful people, doing the most with what they have and so appreciative of any help they receive. Everywhere we go World Vision and Canadians in general are held in high regard, treated with respect and thanked profusely.
We then broke into 2 groups, to go on home visits. I went with the group to meet Charmaine & Breanna’s sponsor children in the Namwianga area. Our first visit was to the the Mudenda family to meet Charmaine’s sponsor child, along to help explain and interpret were the ADP staff consisting of Godwin, Kabbila, Edmond and Helen. We were humbly offered their best seats, introductions were made all around and we were then introduced to the community leader who gave us a warm welcome and told us how much the community was being helped by the efforts of the ADP (again with mentions of how much was still left to be done). He was a very intelligent and articulate gentleman. We then met the child’s father, who was so excited to show us the progress he has made in his endeavors to improve the life of his family. He took us across a field to where he has dug out a tiny pond which he is filling with fish fry that he has been catching in the nearby stream. He explained that he was, at first was using a hook, but found the fry were being injured, so has taken to using a net that he had fashioned himself out of wire and mesh. He also had another small pond nearby, but I can’t recall what he had in it. He is using the first pond as a nursery and as the fry grow he is planning to move them to another larger pond where they will mature. He will then re-stock the small pond with more fry, and on the cycle will go. He will be able to supply his family with fish and also have enough left over to sell and generate an income. Such a smart and enterprising man! We were led back to their Nganda (house) where Charmaine had the chance to sit down and visit with her child. Meanwhile around the back, dancing was being performed by the village children, with special guest appearances of the ghost dancer and another comedy type dancer. Reminded me very much of the Hopi people of the southwest and their Kachina dances. The comedy dancer was very comical, with a maize bag covering head to waist and shoes attached to both front and back of the feet, so you really couldn’t tell which way he was actually standing; the children where in hysterics at the antics. To find out more info on the child and family’s life you will have to visit Charmaine’s blog , as I must admit, I was out back enjoying the dancing.

We took our leave and carried on to meet the Njanya family of which Breanna’s child is a member, and where into our group of staff were added Dessie, Masauso & Keyana. One of these staff members will be the ‘case’ worker for the family and the one who will facilitate the letters between child and sponsor, making sure the family is as healthy as can be expected. His family consist of a widowed mother with 4 small children to raise. She has no job from which to earn an income and so travels around the community looking for what they call ‘piece work’, anything she can do to earn a few kwacha’s to be able to feed her family. Even though WV has built a bore hole with pump within the community, she is charged for her water, 50 kwacha (which is no more than a few pennies but which she cannot afford on most days) by the local community, which helps to maintaining the pump for the bore hole. I find it hard to fathom that there are people so poor that they must decide on whether to have water to drink or food to eat. When I asked an ADP member what would happen to her without the help of having a sponsored child, he responded that they would starve. In shock I asked if the community would not have helped and was told that there was not much the community could do except offer her small jobs at the pump to enable her to earn enough to purchase her water! The sponsor child was also quite ill looking, with what seemed to be a respiratory infection, and we learned this week, that the ADP staff had taken him to hospital where he was treated for what was probably asthma. Without the sponsor ship of the one child I’m not sure how the family would have survived. Sponsors for the rest of the children would make a major impact on their lives, so let’s all think of people we know that might be willing to open their hearts and help this devastated family.

All the families seem to understand the concept of how the community benefits from sponsorship, but when asked, are also hoping for some small bit of help from the ADP in regards to school uniforms, shoes and warm blankets for the children. We were able to take a peek into their home where we discovered it was no larger than shoe box, the mother sleeping on one side of a drape strung across one end of the structure , the children sleeping together in the main area, possibly sleeping on nothing more than a a floor cloth made out of Maize bags. I have been finding it actually quite cold in the evenings and wonder how those poor little tykes must feel. It just makes you want to cry at their suffering. Everything within this tiny home was clean and as neat as a pin.
It amazes me how resilient these people are, never asking a hand-out, just dealing with their lot in life. Now that a child of the family has been sponsored I’m hopeful there will be many changes for this small and vulnerable family.

We then broke for lunch at Zu’s Guest House. Was very much the same fare as served at First Choice, but it did have a little more flavour. This was the same venue where we were meeting the group of children for the 1st photo workshop. We had 10 children attend and Colin & Christy explained to them the basic principles of camera operation. Then one volunteer and one of the ADP staff then went along with the child to practice taking pictures around the Guest House. There was much giggling and laughing going on as they all got a turn with the cameras and to pose. The 2 hours went by very quickly and we are looking forward to the next workshop.