My Work

Wow….this past week has flown by. Time in Zambia seems to go much faster than in the States, although you’d think it would be the opposite! Well, so much has happened in the last week. I am finally settling into my weekly schedule. This is what I will be doing while I am here:

The Mango Tree community center – I will be working with the staff at the community center to start some programs (in the next few weeks we are hoping to start a mentorship program for the youth, as well as an adult literacy class). I am also working on ideas to help generate enough income for the center so that it can be self-sustaining within 6 months. So far, the Mango Tree is generating income from the library (membership fees), the restaurant, as well as rent fees for those who want to book the classroom to hold meetings/clubs/classes. Since the center just opened a few weeks ago, the income stream has been very slow but we are hoping that the recently-finished sign will draw people in as they pass by on the Great North Highway. I realized that I in my last post I included a lot of pictures of the center while it was being renovated, but not many pictures of the completed project. Here are some more pictures that will give you a sense of what it looks like now:

PVCW (Program for Vulnerable Children and Women) – I will be assisting Joyce Ngoma, the director and founder of this small NGO in Mpika (the nearest town to my village). This organization reaches out to communities in remote villages by teaching them income-generating skills (like making small rugs, peanut butter, vaseline, tomato jam, etc) and PVCW sells these products for them in Mpika. PVCW also gives communities seed loans and pig loans. I traveled with Joyce and Marjorie, another woman who works for PVCW, to the remote village of Milunga. Here, we checked on the two pigs which PVCW gave the village. The village is required to provide PVCW with 4 pigs in return when the first litter is born. We also met with the Women’s Group and discussed the products that they will be making to sell in Mpika. The women provided us with a delicious lunch before we headed back to town.

I will also be working at the Chilonga Hospital one day per week. Every Friday, mothers from surrounding villages bring their babies to the “Under 5” clinic, where I will help to weigh the babies, chart their progress (the women come to the clinic once a month), tell them what vaccinations they need, and explain what foods to incorporate into the babies’ diet to make it more nutritious (if the baby is malnourished).

So, that gives you an idea of what I’ll be doing on a weekly basis here. Besides that, I’ve been enjoying making new friends here in the village, and getting used to the way of life here. I’ll attach some more pics below. The purple trees that line the road to my house are beautiful...the market where I buy all my fruit and vegetables...hitchhiking is a way of life here- you jump on a passing minibus or the back of a pickup truck and hold on!.....oh, and the roaches....not my favorite aspect of life in Zambia....I have found that the "Doom" cockroach spray is not entirely effective, so my hiking shoe is getting a lot of use :) Thanks again for your prayers and emails!

Hello from Zambia!

Muli Shani! Hello from Zambia! It has been nearly three weeks since I arrived in Zambia and so much has happened already! The team and I arrived in Kaombe village and were greeted with a huge welcome ceremony. We all watched and listened as members of the village gave speeches, sang songs, played drums and danced. My favorite part of the ceremony was when a group of women stopped their dance to pull John out of his chair so that he could join them in shaking his hips! Needless to say, John’s dancing impressed the entire village :)

The next few days were spent in renovating the Mango Tree building. It was great to work alongside of the villagers and see the building totally transformed in a week’s time! See the “before and after” pictures of the Mango Tree below. Bonnie did an amazing job with the mural on the front of the building. When you enter the front door, the first room is a café with five tables for people to come in and buy tea, coffee, fritters and scones, all made in the adjacent kitchen. Then there is an office, followed by the library. The library was so much fun to put together. As soon as we put the books on the shelves, both kids and adults started swarming inside to begin reading! The final room is a classroom. This is where the village preschool will meet from 9am-12pm every day, and the rest of the time it will be available for the villagers to reserve the room to hold various classes or meetings. This can be anything from a bible study, to an Anti-AIDS club meeting, to a class in proper nutrition.

When the renovation was completed the village hosted the opening ceremony of the Mango Tree. The ceremony was held outside the entrance of the Mango Tree, and we estimated that about 500 people were in attendance. Many people had traveled for hours by foot just to see the Mango Tree and thank our team for helping to do the restoration on the building. The four-hour ceremony was packed with many speeches, dances and performances, and it was slightly difficult for our group to sit under the hot sun for that long :) We had a great time though.

It was hard to say goodbye to John and rest of the team, but I was so thankful that I was able to spend my first two weeks in Africa with them. It was fun to make the transition to no running water, no electricity, no toilet, and no shower with all of them. Actually, I only had to really “rough it” for the first two weeks while we camped outside of Katie’s hut. After the team left, I moved into the guest house at the Chilonga Mission Hospital, right up the road from Katie’s hut. See below for a few pictures of my humble abode. After two weeks in the bush, I feel like I moved into a five-star hotel – complete with electricity and running water! I was also really blessed to have my own desk and sink in my room. My only complaint concerns the enormous spiders and cockroaches that share my new home. Without John around, I’ve had to overcome my somewhat irrational fear of all things creepy and crawly and fend for myself. Although, I don’t think I’ll ever get over the sound of that sickening crunch and splatter when another cockroach meets it’s death at the bottom of my flip flop. Yuck.

Anyway, I’ve spent the last few days getting settled in, practicing my Bemba, getting caught up on school work, etc. Oh, Katie, Jeremiah and I went on a hike the other day through the mountains that surround the village. It was an intense climb but it was great to be out in the fresh air and get some exercise. We even had two local tour guides, Emmanuel and Timothy, who managed to make the 5.5 hr hike barefoot! We took some fun pictures, including a few that were taken in a field of termite hills.

Well, I will try to update my blog more frequently in the future so that I don’t have so much to write at once. I am sorry that it has taken me a long time to post my first blog. Thanks so much for your prayers and emails! Keep them coming! Love, Beth