Sponsorship visits are things of amazing joy! Part deux

& The Ripple effect

When I left BC for this trip, our teachers were on rotating strikes against large class sizes and for raises, and numerous other things; I have to wonder if any of them have been to a school in some of the rural areas of the world and how they would feel if they had to teach a class of 80 students with no supplies, in a leaky building with no heat. I’m probably going to get beat-up for that comment, but there you go. I say it because I always come back from these trips thinking how grateful I am for what we have, even if I go to hospital and see dust bunnies under the beds, or hear about another cut back in something. We have it SO good, my friends, let’s be thankful for what we have and quit our whining and complaining. Infact, if even a few of us put our selves out to do a bit extra for each other, instead of expecting the government to do everything for us and tell us what is right and wrong, maybe we would be able to make a few decisions ourselves and have happier lives. Oh dear, I do digress here. So, this is all leading up to leaving Velody’s (with Velody and his Dad in tow) and heading to his school (which we hadn’t visited on our last trip; although we had walked by it and around areas of it).

There are 2 large rectangular buildings on my left and another large building on my right which has no roof and weeds growing through the interior. That, I was informed, was, until just after we left in 2010, another couple of classrooms. During a very intense storm, the roof blew off and the interior was destroyed; there has been no funding to replace the roof and now I doubt the building is salvageable. They make do with what they have. World Vision has been helping; there are 8 brand spanking new latrines in the process of being finished. There is the added bonus of hand washing facilities outside the latrines; large blue containers with taps. No running water though, water is collected from a stream about 15 minutes away, by the students. Sanitation is important, so they are doing the best they can.

A large orchard has been planted (ZBFF’s, do you remember the fenced field in front of the school that we thought was for cows?). The trees are now starting to produce some fruit, although they seem to have been hit with some kind of blight, but again the water must be brought in from the stream.

I made the suggestion of putting gutters on the tin roofs of the latrines and collecting the water in tanks, so it could be used for watering the tress; I wonder if it is an idea they will put to use. It was a something I thought a lot about on my last 2 visits and I even brought a drawing of how it could be implemented, on this trip. It was something that I was to see used a lot more during my travels on this trip; it makes so much sense to collect the rainwater for the gardens and I was really pleased to see it being used more.

From the school we carried on to the Munkolo Clinic, and I was pleased to meet up again with our friend Crispin, who we all took such a liking to on our last trip. He has such a wonderful warm smile and caring way and told us a truly inspiring story about how he came to be employed by WV, when we last met (see some of the posts from the last trip). I was treated again, to the story of how the clinic came into being, with the help of World Vision in 2007, and then taken for a tour of the small facility. I was sad to learn that Eunace, the Nurse Practitioner who we met the previous time, was no longer there, but there was a very kind male nurse looking after the clinic when we arrived. I was shown the ease of the new HIV/AIDS testing kits they had, which is a simple finger prick with a dab of blood on a test strip, rather like a diabetes sugar test. Of course if a positive result shows there is a more extensive test that must be sent out, but for a quick first result, this must be a huge bonus. They are able to tell people their status right away, instead of asking them to come back in 2 or 3 weeks for their results which I am sure many did not, fearing the answer was better left undiscovered.

I then spotted the baby scale that my friend Kathy Munkley had purchased for the clinic on our last trip and had a picture taken with it, to post for her on Facebook. I then gave the nurse a number of bottles of medications my niece had sent with me, along with gloves and a stethoscope. He was so pleased with the gift and informed me that the clinic had never had a stethoscope, nor had it ever had a blood pressure cuff. I was shocked!

It was, unfortunatley, time to leave Velody and his father and head back to Kalomo. I only hope that I will be able to visit again, with all these amazing people.

When I returned to Bulo Bwanaga that evening, I immediately posted the picture of Kathy’s scale and made the comment told to me about the lack of equipment at the clinic. Before I knew it, Kathy (who happens to be a nurse and just got back in December from volunteering for a month, in a hospital in Malawi) had posted back that she was going to do something about that! Within a couple of weeks I learned she had asked for, and received a wish list from the clinic and was in the process of collecting funds and donations. I have just recently seen a post from her that a package is winging its way to Munkolo as we speak, and funds had been previously sent for the purchase of much needed supplies! Kudos’ Kathy!!! What an inspiration. That, my friends, is what I call the ripple effect.