We are definitely feeling the lack of a car and are increasingly concerned that the auto saga is not going to have a happy ending. Every day we get another piece of bad news. Our wonderful mechanic Friday is balancing a full-time job, single parent care of his two young children, some sort of nasty legal battle with his ex-wife, and our soap opera of a car. He is devoted to getting us on the road again, perhaps for no other reason than that he can get back to his life, but every thing he tries turns out to be the beginning of another problem. Alas, the car has not had proper care for a very long time, and we are now reaping the benefits. It's not surprising really; finding a good, honest mechanic is tricky anywhere, not just in Zambia. We remain hopeful. In the meantime, we're pleased that we can contribute so handsomely to the local economy through our copious use of taxis.
Jen and Cheri used the morning to catch up with meetings and make plans for more meetings. Becoming trusted, involved participants in this community is as important to us as anything else we're doing here. Our circle of acquaintances and friends grows daily, and we appreciate how important solid relationships are as we face the regular challenges of accomplishing big goals in a culture so very different from our own.
Work at the guesthouse. If you have to catch up on administrative work you can at least find a beautiful spot to do it.
Brian and Troy returned to Kantolomba to finish taking pictures of the children; Tom and Bryn accompanied them, bringing additional medical supplies for Purity, the young woman with the sore on her leg.
Giving meds to Purity on Monday
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Brian takes in the beautiful Kantolomba scenery.
A sneak preview of the adorable 100 children
photos soon to be posted on the web.
After photos, the fellows turned their attention to soap making. We're all hopeful that this simple procedure can not only give folks in Kantolomba access to a much needed (and prohibitively expensive to purchase) product for themselves, it might just become a community business.
Brian, Bryn and the Living Compassion women working on the soap experiment.
Tracey and Dave came up to the guest house for lunch, some satellite email time, and a quick strategy meeting, then returned to town to pick up a mattress for Tracey (hers developed some wires poking through) and a mosquito net to replace the rather ineffectual one that came with the apartment.
Back at the apartment, we found clogged drains (the apartment next door shares a kitchen drain with our apartment and our neighbors are fond of trying to poke leftover mealie-meal down a drain that lacks a garbage disposal), a sink full of dirty dishes that can't be washed until we get the drain fixed, and a pretty high level of unwillingness to try to "make do." Tom was leaving the next day for the U.S. (he has a weekend meeting and will return next Tuesday--more time in airplanes and airports than on the ground for his visit!) and offered to take us all to dinner at Michelangelo's. Yea!
At dinner we had a great discussion about doing service work from a place of "nothing wrong." This was our first opportunity to talk about something other than the content of what we're doing here. It was fun to get to respond to some of the questions the fellows had about Buddhism, Living Compassion, social responsibility, activism, non-separate reality, and acceptance.
The guys stayed on to transfer the 100 children's photographs and the Everesto video to DVD for Tom to bring back to U.S, while the rest of us rounded up taxis for the trip home.