January 2025

Mangoes are in season at Living Compassion. Pauline, Veronica, and Foster share out the fruit.

The rains are finally here and yes, everything is green and weeds are growing fast. Here, Pauline and team are clearing weeds. In the background are our three water tanks!

The team is always in high spirits when it comes to work. Cooking for the children is their passion—along with making sure that the food is served on time! Here Susan, Florence, and Docus are sorting beans.

Memory showing her passion for teaching. After being trained as a teacher, she has helped a lot with the children here at Living Compassion. Parents have come to appreciate how much their children have progressed. Keep it up, Memory!

Learning how to read and write is key, and at Living Compassion, doing so at a very early age is the way to go. Here little Diana and Precious enjoy their writing in class.

Solar

Theresa doing solar research in town. We had many false starts with our research. We would find a company, only to learn they didn’t have what we needed, or charged far beyond what was reasonable, or never called us back, or.... Finally, Theresa found what we were looking for!

The items have been purchased and installation begins.

More of the necessary items.

Finally we have lighting!

After so many months with no electricity, it is hard to believe we can once again turn on the lights, charge our phones, and use the computers and the internet. We are the only ones here in Kantolomba that have progressed this far. Thank you so much, Living Compassion USA!

Water

 

The new tank, announced in an earlier post, is fully installed. Because of the ongoing, severe drought, we had to make sure it was safe for our well before we started pumping more water.

 

John holds the pipe where our water level is: 20 meters from the bottom of the spring to the top of the water.

The representative from the water company assisting. They perform this service for us free of charge.

The testing is complete and the pump is about to go back down and continue its important job. We got a 100% score on our well! We are good to go to pump the water we need.

Eco Stoves

 

Our new stoves have arrived! These are very economical braziers that use far less charcoal than our normal braziers. The ultimate goal is to use alternative briquettes, made from bi-products of agriculture, and not use any trees at all! Sadly, Lazarous, the local entrepreneur who makes the briquettes, is having the same electricity challenges we all have and cannot run his machines to make the briquettes. So for now we are using traditional charcoal, but at a much slower rate!

 

Veronica happily smiling as she helps arrange the stoves.

Drumming, singing, and dancing as the stoves arrive.

Vero and Memory in the foreground as the whole team celebrates.

We tie our chitenge to dance as Brenda plays the drum.

Pauline shows off her new stove.

The Team with their stoves, singing while Brenda beats the drum. A big THANK YOU to everyone on Team USA for the stoves!