Our first appointment Saturday morning was with Godfrey, our good friend and computer wizard extraordinaire. He met us in town near the university where he goes to school.
Alex and Godfrey
Have laptop, will travel
It is one of our highest priorities for our project in Kantolomba to provide internet service to the people there. Besides making the communication easier between the team in Zambia and the team in America, access to the World Wide Web would create a number of critical opportunities for the people in the compound. For example, a connection fast enough to allow for video streaming could bring teachers and doctors from the U.S. and other places right into our community building in Kantolomba. The community could have their own blog where they document their daily life in the compound and the work they are doing to make a difference. The web could also provide ways for the people to start businesses that could bring money to their remote location. The possibilities are endless.
Up until now the local communication infrastructure has not produced the means for bringing internet to our project. The trouble is that there is a large hill between town and Kantolomba, and this hill blocks access to the towers that broadcast internet broadband to the city. We have found no way around this so far, but things are looking up. Godfrey said that a new technology has arrived called WIMAX that does not require a line-of-sight connection and could be the solution we've been waiting for. We just buy the necessary equipment, pay a monthly fee, and we're online!
As Godfrey explained we got very excited, and soon we found ourselves rushing to the office of the local company that provides the service. To our dismay, we arrived to find that the office was closed for the weekend. Unfortunately, there was nothing to be done but cross our fingers and wait until Monday, when we can learn more about the technology and how much it will cost.
Closed for the weekend
Next stop was Kantolomba. As we drove in, we found Theresa in the process of cutting out photos and handing them to people. We brought photos from America of each person in the cooperative, to be displayed on the community message board. Theresa was not allowed to begin the meeting until she had given a photo to everyone.
Violet and Pascal looking at their photos
The meeting
Christine and Angela
Quickly everyone gathered and we began. Normally, of course, we are separated from our colleagues here in Zambia by thousands of miles. Meetings like this provide a rare and valuable opportunity to create the project together, and through this, to experience ourselves as one community. The meeting began with Dave and Alex explaining the goals of our current trip and asking for input from the team. The conversation then moved towards the needs of the project as the people here see them, and any ideas that they may have.
Beatrice and others look on at the meeting
Alex proposes a design for the desks
The most moving part of the project for us was the discussion of the possibility of expanding the feeding program. It was mentioned earlier that we hope to double the size of the program in the next months, from 400 children to 800. This obviously involves a lot more work on the part of those who are doing all the cooking, cleaning, and supervising of the children, and we have been eager to hear how they would feel about this. The response from the Kantolomba team was a unanimous: "Yes!"
"I say yes," Christine announced. "This is why we are being paid, and I want to do what I can." Several people talked about the enormous need in the community, and how many children are still going hungry every day. "We must bring every child in Kantolomba into the program," said Josephine. "It is our duty," said Margaret. "Those that are children now will be the ones who will be caring for us in our old age." It was wonderful to witness such generosity from those who have so little.
Some children from the program
We have included a video clip of Baby Theresa, the youngest member of the community that joined the meeting.
After the meeting, Alex went to work with his video camera. One of our ambitions for this trip is to videotape everyone in the program who would enjoy participating in that. We would like to record people as they speak about their lives in Kantolomba before and after they became involved in the Living Compassion project. We hope to use this footage to promote the project at home, to help people understand the needs here in the community, and to show how much their generosity is making a change for good in Kantolomba.
Alex interviewing Veronica
Before we left for the afternoon, we heard the women in singing practice. They are very excited about their concert tomorrow and their opportunity to be recorded (as are we!).
"Hey, what's going on in here?"
In the evening we met with Godfrey and Friday at Castle Lodge, partly to discuss the business of the trip, but even more to spend time with these good friends.
Friday
We hope that Friday will accompany us to Kantolomba tomorrow, where he will prepare for the work on the hammermill building scheduled to begin Monday. More soon!