Home at last

We experienced a whole gamut of emotions on the trip from exhilaration, excitement, hope, and joy to sadness, and compassion that boggled our sense of reality. And talk about optimism! Members of the community surrounding the Chipulukusu School have already dug a foundation for classrooms even though there are currently zero funds designated for the expansion. There are so many good people in the world reaching out to others. No matter how little some people have in life, they seem to find ways to make life a bit easier for those with even less.

It was definitely a growth experience for all of us that sat under the Mupundu tree -- we certainly saw good fruit fall and even more ripening for the future.

CHAZ

We again visited Church Health Association of Zambia (CHAZ) where Dr. Dhally Menda made a very informative two-hour presentation to the SIFE students. CHAZ is actively involved in small income generating activities and had very helpful handouts. A couple of days before leaving Zambia, Dr. Menda and his wife invited Jac and Sherri to their home for dinner. In addition to Dr. Menda’s role with CHAZ, he and his wife have sponsored a school in the Eastern Province for over 12 years. They were able to share some of the lessons they had learned that will be helpful to us. We’re looking forward to an ongoing working and personal relationship with the Menda’s.

Ministry of Health

One of our primary goals for the trip was to investigate training courses for new community health workers. After several visits to various Ministry of Health offices, we met the dynamic and friendly District Community Partnership Coordinator, Lynette Mambo. The Zambian Ministry of Health freely admits it cannot meet the health needs of its citizens alone and actively seeks partnerships with NGO’s. Lynette was excited to learn of our interest in training health workers. She herself conducts the training and will personalize a curriculum to meet our needs if we provide for the training costs. We’re now looking toward June as a possible training date. We had over 100 people volunteer to be trained at the two sites. Knowing that number will dwindle over time, we estimate we will probably end up with 25 or 30 serious candidates – certainly enough to make a huge impact on communities with little or no health care.

Rotary Partners!

Fortunately, there are many people working diligently to address the huge issues facing Zambia and many other areas in the world. The pastor and co-founder of the Chipulukusu school introduced us to the immediate past president of the Ndola Rotary Club. We were subsequently invited to attend a Rotary luncheon and share some of the needs of the Chipulukusu school such as water, benches and desks, and textbooks. Having just completed several other service projects for children in the Ndola area, they were eager to find new ways to serve. Before we left the luncheon they said “we’re onboard!” Rotary has a fantastic 3 way matching program with local clubs providing a token financial donation and providing the major oversight of projects with U.S. Clubs providing a matching grant which is again matched by Rotary International. Now we need to find the U.S. Rotary Club partners. If you have any leads please let us know!!

Visit to Catherine

Our next visit to a middle-aged woman’s home was equally sad. Catherine, an AIDS widow, and her daughter live alone in a little two-room mud-brick house. Both mother and daughter have AIDS. Catherine is now quite ill and her feet and legs are swollen making it difficult for her to get around and impossible for her to pursue any income generating activities. The most pressing issue the day we visited was lack of food. The daughter was out in the neighborhood looking for food while the mother was home awaiting the results. It was obvious from the kitchen shelves neatly lined with newspapers and the attractively arranged meager possessions in the house that Catherine had once taken pride in her surroundings. Now her total existence revolved around finding food for the next meal. There was literally no food in the house – not even a few dried beans or handful of cornmeal. At the end of our visit we had prayer with Catherine and took our leave.

Totally sobered by the impact of our visit and knowing there were many more just like Catherine in the neighborhood, a little emergency fund of $400 was set up with donations made by our team for the Kafwa to use. They immediately set up a bank account, developed an accounting system, and spent 68,000 Kwacha (approximately $15 U.S) to purchase enough food to last Catherine and her daughter for two weeks. When the food was delivered, Catherine said with tears in her eyes, “God is so good to me!” The Kafwa estimate that the $400 will last about 6 months if they use it only for the most pressing emergencies.

Home Visit to Felix

We ducked under clothes hanging on a front porch clothesline to arrive at our first scheduled home visit. We were welcomed into a small dimly lit room to meet Felix, a young man in his 20’s who is suffering from the late stages of AIDS. Felix has already lost one child to AIDS, has another child, Esther, who is HIV positive, and has a wife with AIDS who is currently hospitalized. Felix and his family are totally dependent on his gentle mannered parents who have a total of 10 people depending on them. In the U.S. having someone in the hospital might temporarily lessen the demands on the caregiver. Not so in Zambia. The only food patients receive in the hospital is that prepared and brought by the family. Felix’s parents now have the added burden of finding money for transportation and food to take to the daughter-in-law.

Sobering Visits

The Kafwa meet life at its most desperate level. They invited members of our team to accompany them on home visits to 4 of their clients. We had just started walking through the village toward our first home visit when we came across a woman writhing and moaning in the open doorway to her little mud-brick home. The Kafwa immediately sprang into action, diagnosed the problem as a probable miscarriage and began arranging for a wheelbarrow to push her to the nearest clinic. Fortunately since we were in the area with a car, it was called into service to transport her to the clinic and later on to the hospital. Last we heard she was recovering well. For many other women, however, transportation and facilities are not available and the story has a very different ending. According to UNICEF’s 2009 State of the Worlds Children, 1500 women die every day while giving birth. That’s a staggering half a million women per year.