The first thing on the agenda was a meeting with Ms. Chewe, the United Nations HIV/AIDS area coordinator for Ndola. One delegation headed in that direction while another met with Charles the screen printing fellow. Charles explained how he makes the screens (without benefit of computer), assuring us that with the proper material he would be able to create for us a Living Compassion Africa Vulnerable Children Project patch comparable to the ones currently on bags and pants.
Ms. Chewe
The word from Ms. Chewe was that she is new, she is waiting for funding, stuck in the office, but hopeful that soon she will be able to get out in the community to initiate new programs for education, testing, and treatment.
After establishing a mutually agreeable price for the printing, we set off for town with Charles to find fabric for the patches and batting for the placemats. Then Dave and Charles hopped on a mini-bus (a twelve passenger vehicle with aisle jump seats on every row that usually holds eighteen or twenty people on any given journey), to go purchase the screen supplies and ink.
After completing our daily round of errands which includes grocery shopping, a stop at the water store, and the internet we were off to Kantolomba. This was an unplanned visit, our first not as the visiting dignitaries. As we walked through the narrow, rutted, hand-made dirt “roads,” we were confronted with the reality of normal, daily life in a slum. A hundred yards from the school is the nearest water source, a pipe without a spigot pouring contaminated water into a road-side ditch filled with plastic trash. Women and children of all ages were gathered around filling re-used plastic containers of every size and description.
As far as we can tell every child in the compound has a runny nose and a hacking cough. Bare-footed, filthy from playing in dusty, red-dirt roads, wearing only rags these children ran and danced and sang and laughed.
As the sun was setting and the mosquitoes were coming out for dinner we decided to call it a day and head home for our own dinner and an evening that includes hot showers, electricity for all our computers and cameras, hot tea and soft, comfortable, clean beds.
We were acutely aware of and deeply grateful for our own great good fortune.
