We’ve arrived! Two red-eyes in a row, over 36 hours later—nothing to it.
Obligatory photo in the Johannesburg airport
Jen and Tracey are the team. This is Tracey’s fourth visit to Zambia with us. She is well-versed in the project and is ready to “do whatever I can to be most helpful.” It is not feasible to do these trips alone—it takes many hands to be on-the-go all day with meetings and project activities and then at night write blogs, do trip finances, catch up on communication with the team at home, etc. Needless to say we are grateful Tracey could join.
We landed midday yesterday (Tuesday). As we walked into the immigration hall to pass through customs we waved to Peggy, a South African Air agent and friend, remarking we hoped we would not have to come visit with her today (she is the one who always sorts out our lost luggage). Sure enough, all of our bags made it!!
We had a huge welcome—Theresa, Mukonda (the nurse we recently hired), Martha (the project accountant) and Muyunda (our loyal taxi driver) had all come to greet us. Big hugs all around and on to Castle Lodge to get settled.
Theresa and Mukonda waiting at the airport
Arriving in Ndola
So nice to be back in our Zambian home. We got to see all the Mashanos (the family who owns Castle Lodge) within the first 30 minutes of arriving—a treat as they are always on the go and we sometimes go a whole trip without seeing one or more of them. Grace and Alex (the parents) are leaving for Malawi tomorrow for a conference. Alex has the conference and Grace is “tagging along as hand luggage.”
A couple of our Castle Lodge friends
It was wonderful to catch up with Eunice (the elder Mashano daughter who runs the guesthouse) and Gertrude (younger daughter). We had been especially eager to talk with Gertrude to tell her of Jasmine. For those of you who follow our updates you know that Jasmine is a Zambian-born Canadian woman who is very interested in working with the Kantolomba sewing cooperative to produce baby blankets and other product she plans to make. Jasmine is very experienced in the fashion world and thus an excellent contact for Gertrude who went to fashion school in Durban, South Africa, and is eager to find further opportunity in that world. Her passion is designing clothing.
Beginning this endeavor with Jasmine is one of the main projects for this trip. We have samples with us that Jasmine sent of potential designs for the cooperative tailors to create prototypes for us to take back. This has the potential to be a gigantic leap forward for the cooperative. Serendipitously, we just received a grant to buy several industrial sewing machines so scoping out the best place to acquire those is another big project. Being such a small city with very little capital running through it, Ndola is not a place you can simply walk into a department store and buy something like a quality industrial sewing machine. It will take many local contacts and much deliberation to find the right avenue for getting the best machine. We have already arranged to go with Gertrude to see a woman she knows with good contacts. We have also talked with Mwando, a fabulous local tailor we met last summer, and are going to meet with her today or tomorrow to see what she might suggest.
Other things we plan to undertake in the next 7 days:
Discuss malaria with the Kantolomba team. It has been a very bad malaria season, and we are eager to hear folks’ ideas on further prevention measures.
Continue on the epic journey of getting internet to Kantolomba. We have made contact with a company that uses Wimax technology. They have some ideas of ways we might be able to get that set up on the Living Compassion property. We shall see.
We have much work to do on our communication project. We persevere in our efforts to explain to the team here that the more communication we get from them the better. We would like to get weekly photos, reports, and even little stories of how things are going. We tell them endlessly that those of us in the U.S. LOVE to hear all about the detail of that day-to-day happenings at the project. So far, we have not been successful in getting those communications regularly. We actually have a fun, out-of-the-box idea of something new to try: Muyunda (taxi driver) is by far the most reliable person we have met here. He is always on time and follows through on his word. AND, he is interested in Information Technology. So… we may just train him to take photos and send them along to us. We asked Theresa yesterday what she thought of the idea, and she had obviously already considered the idea herself. “I know he is ready to leave pirating (the word they use to describe driving informal taxis—it is beyond impossible and prohibitively expensive to register and maintain a legal taxi) and work for Living Compassion.” Very exciting. We shall keep you posted.
Muyunda
And then there is all the usual business of getting finances in order, going over record books, checking on the progress of the projects, etc. It is a tall order for one week and we are feeling up to the challenge. Off for a huge first day on the town and will report back this evening.