The big item on our agenda for the morning was a meeting with Steve and Gaudencia about the construction of the Community Center. They were kind enough to agree to meet us at our guesthouse and give us a ride out.
Gaudencia arrived first, and we had the pleasure of another warm reunion with another good friend. Gaudencia always looks radiant, and this was not an exception. She said she is fairing well.
Gaudencia and Jen catching up.
Steve was a little late. When we called to find out what was going on, he told us he was waiting in line for fuel. Zambia is in the middle of a horrible fuel shortage. The one refinery in the country is not producing gasoline. What fuel they do have, we are told, is being brought in from outside the country. The rumor is that a tanker ship full of crude oil bound for Zambia is stalled somewhere because the sailors have not been paid and are on strike. Most of the gas stations have no fuel to offer, and those that do have lines stretching along the streets for blocks. The price of gasoline right now is the equivalent of nine dollars a gallon. It is hard to imagine how anyone here can afford to drive. After talking with Steve, we worried that we would not have a way out to Kantolomba (Gaudencia’s truck is on the fritz), but somehow he managed to find gasoline that somebody had for sale out of a fifty-gallon drum, and he showed up smiling and ready to go. (Makes us not so sorry not to have a car!)
This photo does not do justice to the lines that are wrapped
around the block in both directions.
At some point we need to take a video camera with us to capture the experience of driving to Kantolomba. On this morning the drive provided a perfect view of life in Africa. Andrew, Steve’s assistant, sat in the passenger seat. We sat in the back with Gaudencia and held on with both hands as Steve drove us at top speed, zig-zagging around pot-holes all the way. He slowed down only when his phone rang, and then only because it is illegal to talk on the phone and drive, and he didn’t want to attract attention from the police. In between phone calls, Steve and Andrew loudly joked about local politics; meanwhile hordes of pedestrians, most of them hungry and out of work, watched us race past and then blended behind us into the dry African countryside.
As soon as we arrived in Kantolomba we went to work. Andrew broke out the building plans, and we went through the half-built structure end-to-end and top-to-bottom, discussing every detail. Before we left on this trip, we did not know that the brickwork had begun, but we discovered it as we descended into Ndola in the airplane. Jen spied our property through the windows, and came out of the plane saying, “We have walls! We have walls!” And the walls look great. The quality of the work is very good, and we are pleased.
Laying the bricks.
For the next two hours we went through all of the decisions, one by one, that need to be made for the construction to continue. Now that the walls are in place, we can actually see what we have only imagined until now, and we discovered one large change that needs to be made. Part of the building is intended to house a medical clinic. We realized as we stood there in the middle of the building that the space we had created for the clinic is just too small. To solve this we will move the clinic to the upper part of the building so that we can dedicate a full one-third of the entire structure to the clinic proper and the storage area it will require. We also have planed a small “sluice room,” a room with a big sink and a drain in the floor, and an area for a receptionist and filing cabinets. We will contact our medical advisors at home for their advice on arranging the clinic for maximum efficiency.
Everyone gathered around the plans.
Steve explaining the layout of the bathrooms.
As a part of our meeting, we discussed the financial aspects of the project, the welfare of the workers involved, and some new communication structures that will assist us as we go forward. It was a good meeting. We feel heartened by the progress of the building and confident about our team here making it happen. At this point it cannot be predicted when the work will be completed, especially with the rainy season about to begin, but the day will soon come when we arrive to find a wonderful, completed building waiting for us, with all the possibility this brings for the people of Kantolomba.
After the meeting we rode back to town with Steve, again bumping and bouncing all the way in the back seat, headed to his office to pick up some papers. On the way Steve and Jen dropped off Dave at Mr. Mbewe’s mechanic shop to discuss the fate of the Living Compassion car.
We came to a decision overnight about the car. We realized that we have lost faith that we have the wherewithal to help that car run again in this lifetime. If we lived here in Ndola, it might be worth another go, but after spending a night haunted by memories of our experience in July (piles of oily car parts everywhere, days spent rummaging through town for the things we needed, and the final disappointment of so much energy spent to no avail), we were convinced that we do not want to go down that road again. Instead, we would like to sell it and buy another at the time when we feel we can afford it. We informed Mr. Mbewe of this decision, and he agreed to help us in any way he could. He also said it would be no problem to leave the car with him until we figure out how to sell it.
Steve generously drove us back to the guesthouse on his way to his next meeting. We took a break for a late lunch, spent a couple of hours working on communication with home, then headed back to town for a couple of final errands.
The primary errand was to meet with Friday, our kind and charming mechanic from July. In actuality, there were a number of happy things that came as a result of the car fiasco from the last trip, the best of which was our good fortune in meeting Friday. We wanted to meet with him to give him some prints of photos we took of him last time, and to ask for his help in selling the car. It was wonderful to see him, as always. Friday and his son Brighton exclaimed delightedly when we showed them the photos. Friday said he could definitely help us sell the car. The two were in a bit of a hurry (they were arranging for a funeral—a very common activity here, we have learned), but we expect to see them again before we go.
Dave, Friday and Brighton
It was still only 6 o’clock when we left them so we decided to walk home enjoying the pleasant evening air. The jacaranda trees are in full bloom and line many of the streets we walked along. It felt a bit like walking through an impressionist painting. We suppose we already mentioned that life is good?
The lovely jacaranda trees.
Some friends we met along the way.
We tried to capture the breathtaking sunset.