The weekends are spent mostly at Castle Lodge catching up on the blogs, meeting with core cooperative folks, and resting. Here are some highlights from the weekend.
Jen and Gertrude spend time Friday night discussing the potential for Gertrude to assist with the sewing cooperative. She is a clothing designer, trained in South Africa. She is also very interested in making a difference in the local community—a perfect combination. Despite the look on Jen's face, we are, indeed, excited about the possibility.
Saturday morning, Jen and Theresa meet with Nyandwa, a woman who is interested in working with us on our new English literacy program. She just graduated from the University of Zambia, majoring in Adult literacy. It sounds like an excellent program where she received good training in community development and how to bring in new programs. She told us of a typical development story where the government spent a great deal of money to put in pit latrines in a rural area only to discover that culturally, people would not use them. The new, expensive pit latrines stand unused. She could be invaluable in assisting us to put a program in place that actually works with the circumstances.
On the way to the farm we passed the new Ndola stadium. It is the largest stadium in the country. People are expecting a boom in tourism and other related business, but it has yet to open.
On Sunday afternoon, we drove out to Eunice’s family’s farm in Luanshya to visit her parents, Alex and Grace. It is about 22 kilometers outside of Ndola; the air is noticeably cleaner and the property is beautiful.
Grace (Eunice's mother), Rebecca, Eunice, Donna, Jen, and Verocia (Eunice's daughter) at the farm.
This is Verocia's's dog, Nalla. She greets guests at Castle Lodge and loved walking around the farm with us.
Donna had the brilliant idea to put nametags on the children to assist us in learning their names. With a little masking tape and a Sharpie, she, Josephine, and Susan started the task. The children loved wearing their nametag and it made a huge difference in interacting with them throughout the day!
A lovely view of the pond at the farm.
We found these growing and have no idea what they are. We plan to google it when we have a better internet connection.
Our good friend and computer whiz, Godfrey, met us for dinner at Castle Lodge and afterward solved numerous technical issues we'd been saving up. Always have to have at least one IT person on the team!
Tomorrow starts our big race to the finish. Much to do and looking forward to it.