On Wednesday we began the process of finalizing communication with the heads of all of our projects. It was a full day and a half!
Needless to say, Wednesday was somewhat of a rest day with a later start to the morning. Because Sande had to be driven to Lusaka that day (due to her earlier flight departure), we packed as much of our luggage to go with her as possible. With her having to go, it was clear that our time in Zambia was coming to an end. We made our final gasshos and sent her off.
For lunch, we took Ignatius out to the Santa Fe restaurant, owned by Muntambwa, who we had met last year in Zambia. Muntambwa is interested in assisting with the projects Living Compassion has started in Zambia. At the restaurant we enjoyed many traditional Zambian dishes, includes fried pumpkin leaves, chard greens in a peanut sauce, sweet potato fries, and of course nchima (a corn based dish–the staple food of Zambia).
As we had been discussing ways to get nutritious simple meals to the children at the school, we took a trip over to a food distribution company that sold dried milk products we thought could make a good source of protein. They gave us some very helpful advice and gave us many ideas to consider for this project.
As we were leaving we realized how fond we had become of our extended family in Zambia.
This photo speaks for itself.
We went back over to the Living Compassion House for a final visit. Some of us met with three mothers and their babies who are the pioneers of the Adopting Hope Program, others were playing games with the children-including teaching them to play “Go Fish” which (if nothing else) was a good English lesson. Final goodbyes with the children were difficult as we had all gotten to know and care about each other.
The day we said goodbye to Grace, Ignatius and the kids, Grace had assembled a few women from the neighborhood with small babies who were interested in participating in the “Adopting Hope” program. The mother and baby in this photo are to be partnered with a mother and baby here in the United States who asked us to find a Zambian family for them to communicate with.
Everyone was tired and we turned in early in anticipation of our next day’s departure.