An Update Of The Week, From Jess

Tuesday we spent the morning at the Chipembi Girls’school with teaching professionals about how to improve the testing results and raise the literacy rate. We were split into groups of two with the teachers. The groups were; head teachers, deputy head teachers, PTA and the senior teaching staff. All of the groups approached the problem in different ways. For example, the head teachers group was run by the head of the district and he was asking questions for the head teachers to answer concerning the role that they play in the school. In the afternoon the group was invited to the Agricultural college to shell beans. To do this we had to hit the pile of beans with sticks which breaks the beans apart so that they fall to the ground, then pour those beans from one bucket into another bucket so that all the chaff blows away with the wind.

Wednesday we were fortunate enough to be able to attend the health clinic seminar for expecting mothers. Before the meeting began we were given a tour of the clinic.  The clinic itself has an open air feel to it. The main part of the building has an open area with patient rooms and offices around it in a rectangular shape. The meeting for new mothers was being run by, the equivalent to our UCW, and they began with explaining what was going to happen. Omega translated for us as most of the mothers did not speak English. The women’s group sang a few songs, Reverand Hastings said a prayer and then the group handed out bundles of baby clothes to the expecting mothers.  One mother that we talked to said that she rode her bike to the clinic about 30km away and she was 8 months pregnant. She was planning on riding the bike back to her village after delivering her baby with the baby tied onto their back with a large piece of material.

In the afternoon we went on a walk of Omega’s property to see all the land that isn’t visible from the house. On the walk the cows were following us around because they thought that we were going to feed them.  We also got to see the two baby goats and had the chance to hold them if we chose to. The babies were twins and the mother was not too happy with us.  We also helped out a bit in the corn field by picking up  stalks of corn and piling them into a tee pee formation so that they stalks don’t get eaten by termites and destroyed.

Thursday morning we went to the school to help out in the library. We spent time there cataloguing books that had just arrived from a donation. The books were sent from Canada, even though they were all British curriculum books. We are going to return to the library to continue that work as there were a lot of books left to be put on the shelves!  In the afternoon one of the neighbours came and taught us how to make bread. He had built a bread oven for Omega just for this purpose! He made a fire in the oven first to heat up the bricks and once that was done we put the bread in to cook. It didn’t take very long for the bread to bake in the oven. Our group volunteered to make dinner that night. We made various salads to use on the bread we had just baked. That night we all gathered around a bonfire and had a discussion on how people in Zambia are able to live positively with HIV. We were able to talk to a woman who is HIV positive and hear her story from how she found out to how she is living her life to the fullest now.  It was an emotional conversation but also a very powerful one.

Friday we were presented with an incredible opportunity, we were invited to help out with a mobile clinic. We drove about 20km to a nearby village where we jumped right in. We were weighing children under 5, some were as young as one week old, keeping records of immunization and distributing condoms. The work wasn’t easy and the conditions of some of the records were less than ideal, but we made do with what we had and kept on going. The children were weighed using a scale similar to a vegetable one that hangs and then placed into a piece of fabric to get their weight. Others that were older were able to just grab onto the scale and hang of it. Since this was a clinic that dealt with over 200 children, we were helping there all day. There weren’t enough vaccinations to go around and there were also several children there who presented with malaria symptoms (and given medication for it). One thing that the whole group noted was that the mothers walked and waited for long periods of time to ensure that their children received some medical care. Mothers are the same in every country; they do whatever they need to in order to care for the children.

Saturday was a tourist day for us. We were taken to the Chaminuka game reserve.  We went on the safari drive, cheese tasting and boat cruise.  We were able to see many animals including; zebras, elephants, giraffes, birds, antelopes and some wild cats as well. The cats were kept in a separate area that was completely fenced in and some were even covered over the top because they would try to jump over the fence. We tasted the best cheese in Africa, and for a tasting we were given much more than we needed. We tried to eat it all but it was done right before lunch. The tasting was held in a fabricated cave because that is how they discovered how to make cheese. This whole outing was made possible by the partnership with the girls’ school.  The manager of the reserve was gracious enough to give us the day at the reserve and out meals because we were working with the girls’ school here in Zambia.

After that we went to a reptile park where we saw snakes (mostly behind glass), crocodiles and various other lizards.  The crocodiles were the most impressive just based on the large number that they had there. After a busy day, and a bumpy ride home, we were able to eat dinner and relax for the evening.