Day at the Land - June 23, 2008

Day at the Land - June 23, 2008

Another week began, this day we are working on the land again. I forgot to tell you that last time we worked on the land I got a bad blister on my thumb from using the shovel and the picks. Now what you don't want to have in Zambia is an open sore. I bandaged it up as well as I could, but I couldn't do any shoveling or picking this time without irritating it and ruining the bandage.

On the way in we stopped to see where the new school will be built. They have dug the dirt out in the winter because in the summer the ground is much too hard to dig.

Seeing where the new school house will be built.

The first thing I did on this day was help scrape out the cement scrap from the rooms that were ready to be swept clean. Cement and stones were all over the floors of the house. I took a piece of old board and scraped the scrap into piles so that others could shovel the piles into wheelbarrows. Others took the wheelbarrows down to the driveway (long) and filled in the potholes. I scraped part of the kitchen and Kathryn and Helga's bathroom. This was in what is to be the children's part of the building. Kathryn and Helga will be living in this part with the kids. I know Kathryn and Helga will be so thrilled to have their own bedroom and a shared bath.






We had our P and J sandwiches on the bus when we wanted to take a break from our work. This was a more difficult day for me on the land because of what I couldn't do. But what I couldn't do all these young kids were more than able. When I finished eating BJ suggested to me that I read to Miriam and Mabel, the women doing the cooking for the working men. I started reading to them while they worked but they were too interested and stopped working while I read. So I suggested they go ahead and finish their work and I would read to them when they were finished.

I wondered if they really wanted me to read to them. These were all the kids books we carried with us. They both seemed to love it and really wanted me to do it. They giggled when I changed my voice in the stories. It even drew the men over to listen until they had to go back to work. This was the way it was everywhere when I read out loud. They were just hungry for it. Only in the one place I mentioned did the books not go over very well.

Miriam and Mabel

This was a big day on the land because the solar pump finally arrived, was installed and WORKED!!! No more lugging jugs from the pump to water the trees, bushes and bricks. This was monumental.

There was a big surprise for everyone on this day, a surprise for the CRC kids, for the team and for the workers. All of a sudden, out of the blue, we saw several vehicles arrive WITH our CRC kids in them. The kids were seeing their new home for the first time. This was very exciting for all of us to be there when this happened. We got the privilege of taking them on a tour of their new home.. Not only did the kids see where they are going to live but the workmen got to meet the kids. Up until now the workman had not known the kids for whom they were building this new home. This turned out to be a really big day for many reasons.

My special friend, Kupa and Kathryn and me in her soon to be new room.







Fred introducing the kids to the men who are building their new home.

Before the kids left we took them down the new road we had "built" to where the fish pond was going to be. Where they would be growing their own fish to eat!


The end of the road and "king of the hill "Alex!

After the kids were on their way back to their current quarters we went back to our bunkhouse. Everyday when we got back we were greeted by Sharon (Webster's wife) and Enola who had cleaned the bunkhouse and washed our clothes. We paid 10,000 kwachas per plastic bag of clothing to be washed. They washed our clothes out in the yard and hung them on the line to dry. Every day we were there it was in the 70s and low humidity. If they dried before the end of the day they folded them and put them in the house. The first day we asked them not to bother to make our beds because we felt like we should be doing it and not making them do it. It turns out that was a cultural mistake because they felt it was part of their job and were upset that we didn't want them to do it. So the next day we asked them if they would please make our beds and that was resolved nicely.

They boiled water everyday for our water bottles and boiled eggs for breakfast. I have gotten several comments on what I mentioned about the eggs sitting out on the counter all the time we were there. It seems that is what some farmers do. My only thought is that the farmer's eggs are fresh from the hens and I don't know how long these eggs had been parted from their hens. But I guess it was okay, nobody got sick.

Sharon and Enola and BJ, our team leader, Sharon, me, Enola and her grandson.

As we often did, we took Sharon and Enola on the bus with us to the Chikusu house and they took buses home from there.

This was a special night because it was the anniversary of Ireen's sister Vi's death. I had brought with me one of my step-mother, Dorothy's, crocheted pillowcases. I knew we would be leaving a lot of our stuff there and I thought it would be nice if one of her pillowcases ended up in Africa. I thought she would appreciate that if she were to know it. So what we decided to do was give Ireen the pillowcase with a card signed by all of us. I presented it to her just before supper. I told her it was made by someone I had loved and lost and we wanted her to know that she was very much in our thoughts on this difficult day. Ireen was very emotional and touched. She said,"I will honor my sister." We hugged for a long time and everyone else took their turn hugging her. There were many tears.

Some notes from the meeting that night:

Alex's arm was coming along okay, he had to wear a sling the rest of the trip. Kathy said if it had happened to anyone in Zambia they would have lost the use of their arm, either they wouldn't get to see a medical person or most wouldn't have had access to the private clinic that Alex had.

Kathy told us how some of the kids came into the CRC orphanage. The first kids to come came from a child- headed household, their mother was mentally ill and their father had died. They hadn't eaten for a week and they were in very bad shape. Their were five children in the family.

Another boy, Evans, was living in an abandoned chicken run with his 16 year old brother and pregnant girlfriend.

Another girl kept showing up, walking 7 or 8 miles through the compound, asking for Josephine.
Her uncle had badly mistreated her. He kept looking for her because he wanted to sell her. She was sleeping in alley ways to survive and escape him , then one Sunday morning he found her and brought her to MWB and dropped her off. It turns out he was really her father. Two years later they found her sister and then they discovered, unbeknownst to MWB, she had a brother. He is now in the CRC orphanage, too.

Those are just some of the stories of the dear kids at the CRC.

It costs $5000 a month to pay for everything needed at the CRC orphanage

Some other notes of interest:

Education is free in Zambia up to Grade 8, many require uniforms, shoes and pencil and paper. After that there are boarding schools and some good day schools but they are not for the masses. There are many bad schools where teachers don't show up half the time.

MWB's aim is to build a really good school that can be a model for others.

Quote of the day: "One of the greatest discoveries a man makes, one of his greatest surprises, is to find he can do what he was afraid he couldn't do."

Henry Ford

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