Blog Post Two
Buying gourds along the highway leading to Ndola.
We arrived safely in Lusaka and spent the first couple of days at the Franciscan friary there. As always we were warmly welcomed by the friars, who took good care of us while we recovered after the long journey. Here we are in the kitchen cleaning up after an evening meal.
Our first assignment was to get from Lusaka to Ndola—no easy task because of all of the donations we brought from the U.S. We split into two teams, one traveling by public bus and the other in the Living Compassion vehicle purchased earlier this year.
It was a pleasure to arrive at our new “home” in Ndola, a guest house run by the Catholic Diocese. It is safe, clean and comfortable. Even better, there is a big field next door where we can play Frisbee.
The next day was Sunday. The thing to do in Zambia on Sunday morning is to go to church—a not-to-be-missed experience that includes colorful clothing, music, dancing and drumming. Here parishioners are greeting one another as they leave the service.
After church we went to Kantolomba, the site of Living Compassion’s food program, to meet the children we are feeding. The priest from the guesthouse where we’re staying described Kantolomba as the worst of the worst of shantytowns in Ndola.
We learned during that visit that rather than the 60 children we thought we were feeding, we are actually feeding 100 children. Here are a few of them.
As the lunch program has been growing, one of the parents suggested that there is more that could be done for the children. It was proposed that a pre-school (a free, community school) would be of tremendous benefit to the children and the community at large. Unbeknownst to us, residents of Kantolomba found an available building, refurbished it, and began the pre-school. Two teachers and a coordinator have volunteered. This is inside the school house.
On the way back from Kantolomba we stopped at the Living Compassion house to see the children for the first time this year. It was so much fun to see them again! Womba and Hope especially have grown in the last year. Here we all are in front of the house.
Monday we spent the morning laying out our calendar for the next week. We have meetings lined up with the mayor, governor and local community leaders to discuss Living Compassion projects in Ndola. In the afternoon we walked around the city doing errands, getting the lay of the land, and finding a reliable Internet source for sending this blog. Here’s a local carrying a heavy load.