The first thing we noticed upon arriving at the property was that today is “casual Friday.” That means the women don’t wear their uniforms, but instead, wear whatever they like. If you’re a chitenge -lover, you would enjoy the variety of colorful dresses the women wear. To us it seems anything but casual—the outfits are quite beautiful.
Jen listens to the women singing while they wash dishes.
Brenda is looking lovely in her chitenge dress.
Various tutorials began once we arrived. Jen lead Theresa and Muyunda in a sort of “Photography 101” workshop. They went around the property practicing how to select interesting subjects and get the best shot. Meanwhile, Rebecca and Veronica continued their heroic work on the child-photo project. Veronica had never used a computer in this way before – downloading pictures, sorting and naming files, and then emailing them. She caught on very fast to this complicated task. You can imagine the organization skills needed to track the photographing of 800 children without benefit of electronic spreadsheets (We figured adding in a lesson on how to use Excel just wasn’t the kind approach!). We needed the help of some of the 5th grade girls who knew every child’s name and grade as we were going through the photos. It was critical assistance for us, and very fun for them to get to feel a part of the project. While the adults were learning photography and computer skills, a group of children were nearby reading and doing spelling lessons on the chalkboard. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, our focus this year is English, English, English. But, when you consider that repetition is how people learn things, we figure that’s appropriate. There is such a hunger to read. We want to feed that hunger wherever we see it.
The whole photo project team. On the far right are Evelyn (to be honest, the jury is still out on this girl’s actual name--we have seen it spelled at least 3 different ways) and Beauty, assisting us in identifying the children’s photographs.
Veronica practices the eye-hand coordination needed for dragging files.
Regina is learning her vocabulary words.
A young lady reading aloud. This was part of our photography lesson. We talked about the big difference between seeing a photograph of a large group of students sitting and learning and one where you can see the large group but you focus in on one particular pupil—much more fun and interesting! We are hopeful that you will start seeing more such engaging photos over the next months that the team will send back to us and we will post both on our Africa Facebook page as well as in a monthly update on the happenings of the project. Stay tuned.
We love the braids!
Happy learners.
Odria, Christine, and Sophifya sorting through the rice for today's lunch.
This was an artsy shot taken during our photo lesson. The color of skin against the white of the rice and the bright patches of color in the chitenge—beautiful!
Mabel sorts the greens for lunch while the steam from the rice wafts by.
(Nice photograph, Theresa!)
Benendetta prepares the greens, Eugenia makes tea in the background.
Georgina, Josephine, and Donna started making chitenge bags to sell on Sangha Market. When the patterns we brought proved too complicated, the ladies simply designed their own bags, and they turned out so cute! Look for them soon on Sangha Market. (That's www.sanghamarket.com.)
Georgina and Donna look over the pattern for the bags.
Georgina's daughter Ruth brings baby Gloria to Georgina to nurse.
As we mentioned yesterday, all agreements made during the last trip were met. Today, in recognition for their accomplishment, we treated the team to soy-chip snacks and flavored drinks after lunch. During the “party,” we recognized Foster’s act of generosity in giving her blanket to Ann (see yesterday’s blog). In the presence of the whole team, Jen presented Foster with a beautiful, new blanket. Foster accepted the gift with her customary humility. If we could take Foster’s big heart and humble spirit and give everyone on the planet just one drop of her goodness, this world would be a much happier place. One of the things that was very moving for us was how happy the whole team was to witness this—everyone cheered and clapped. There was no hint of jealousy, at least none that we could detect.
Reuben swings the hammer, shaping the top of one of the stoves.
Jen, Theresa, and Josephine prepare to pass out the snacks.
Jen acknowledges Foster’s generosity and offers her a new blanket.
Foster accepting the gift of a blanket.
Before calling it a day, we went over to where Rose was with her girls. They were busy working on their needle work project--the one Gertrude at Castle Lodge had liked so much and wanted to incorporate into her designs. It is such a pleasure to see the girls engaged in something they enjoy. It seems so clear that along with English skills and having basic physical needs (food, clean water…) met, receiving the loving attention of an adult will factor strongly into a bright future for these young girls. We are immeasurably grateful to Rose for providing that attention and greatly enjoy being able to give just a little of it ourselves for the few days we are here.
One of Rose's students learns to sew.
This is Evelyn (in the foreground). She is clearly intelligent and articulate and a natural leader.
We see bright things in her future!
Miriam very focused on her task. (We love learning some names!!)
Our budding photographers catch the interesting light in this scene.
Then Rose introduced us to two of the four candidates for the pilot skills program she is going to implement in 2012. Rose feels strongly that young adults (those who are clearly not going back to school) need to learn a trade, something they will enjoy that will allow them to support themselves. With the help of the women in the cooperative she has identified four people, two women and two men, that she feels are motivated to make a difference for themselves. Living Compassion will provide the funds for one year of trade school, and Rose will mentor these four people through the school process and then will assist in job placement. We hope that January 2013 will bring good results on this pilot program and that we will expand to many more candidates. Rose realizes that if these four are successful, they will serve as an example of what is possible for the whole community.
Jen sits between the two skills program candidates, Floriano (he was named by an Italian priest) and Zika.
After leaving the property, we stopped by the fabric store for yet more chitenge. The Zambian-owned store, called Needle Work Centre, recently started carrying chitenge. They were happy to see us back again today. We asked them to pass along to the owner (a woman!!!) that were she to start carrying a lot of chitenge, we would be her best customers. We want to buy from Zambian shops whenever possible. The salesclerk was only too happy to pass along that message! One of our favorite things about this story is how much fun the employees always seem to be having—says a lot about their boss.
The storm clouds were rolling in, and Theresa (our driver for the week) still needed to return the car to Martha for the night and then walk to catch a minibus home. Later that evening we enjoyed a delightful thunderstorm and refreshing rain. We hope Theresa didn’t get drenched on her way home!
Mangos ripening on the property.
A nice picture of Jen and Veronica.
This is another of our photography class photos. Here we were talking about how seemingly mundane things can tell a little story. Here is what looked like a thin part of a tree left standing after the rest of the tree had fallen. In fact, it is a piece of lumber the men buried securely in the ground just opposite a tree. They affixed a block to the tree and, voila, any time they need it they have a workbench simply by resting a piece of wood on the block and the top of the piece of buried lumber—ingenious!
Storm clouds begin to roll in.