Wednesday and Thursday proved to both be busy days! Teaching for the teachers as well as sports day with the kids at the school. The last couple of teaching days tend to be the best. I wish these trips were a few days longer because I see volunteers finally get into a good groove the last few days. The children finally have learned our names and instead of “muzungu” being shouted each time they see us they shout out our names.
Wednesday evening was the Malawian cooking lesson and the group had so much fun. I was meeting with Sai while the group cooked so when they finished they told Sai and I to please be seated and then served us a wonderful traditional meal. We got to hear who cooked what and everyone enjoyed the food.
Thursday morning the group took off walking around 7am and I walked up to the lodge with Nicole. Nicole needed to check for an email. The hope was that after she checked we would be able to find a ride up to the school. As we left the lodge I call Paul the head builder and asked if he had left yet for Adziwa. He said in 20 min he would be leaving and could meet us along the road. Nicole and I began walking and as it turned out ended up walking the entire way with no ride 🙁 it was fun chatting with her one on one since I don’t get that time with many of the volunteers. When we arrived up at the school we both felt the walk had gone quickly. Good company usually helps!
Thursday while the teachers taught I headed to Adziwa to check the progress of the building and the toilet. The hole was done….but as it turned out it wasn’t deep enough. Myself, James, Ishmael, and Sai all stood around the hole debating if it needed to be deeper and if it did who would dig. The deal was that some of the community members would do the digging as their contribution to the project. We had 4 men plus my volunteer Greg dig the initial hole. After it was “finished” I was informed that 2 of the men needed to be paid…since that wasn’t the initial agreement I told James I would think about the situation and get back to him. We did find someone to dig the last meter of the hole and it was agreed “firmly” that they wouldn’t be paid. We want the community to participate in these projects so that they take some ownership of them. I joked that I had never sat around a hole talking about poop and how much the hole would hold in my life. An interesting meeting for sure. The building crew had begun raising the roof on the Community Learning Center and Thursday before sports the teachers came over to eat lunch and watch the progress.
After lunch I also gave them a tour of Adziwa and showed them our past projects as well as our plans for the future. A portion of each volunteers trip fee goes to help sustain Adziwa and the orphan program we are working on there. The volunteers loved hearing about all of it and were excited about all that WCIM is doing.
Sports day was a blast for all! Everyone was split up playing with big groups on the open field behind the school. There was kickball, duck duck goose, kite flying and even a bit of yoga. Elizabeth was doing head stands and the kids went nuts! She let a few even try and they were amazed at how hard it was despite Liz making it look so easy.
The plan Thursday evening was to relax and pack for safari. I decided to call for a car to come pick me up and take me to the hospital to check on Tamweka. I had been trying to reach the hospital for 2 days and the calls wouldn’t go through. So despite the cost of transportation I just figured I would go myself. Liz came with me and by the time we reached the hospital I was so excited that I could finally see her and make good on the promise Tovia and made on my behalf. We stopped in the market to buy some chips and an orange Fanta so we were ready! When we went into the children’s ward she was asleep. I found the nurse to see what they could tell me about her status. I was told that she had improved dramatically. She was officially diagnosed with an incredibly bad case of pneumonia. I had never known it could get that bad! Th nurse asked if I had seen what condition she was in when she arrived and I let her know that I had because I had brought her in. She told me that she was on a 5 day treatment and had 3 days to go. I went back to the room and decided to wake her because the nurse said she had been up playing and it was fine to wake her up. I started whispering to her that I had brought chips and Fanta and slowly her eyes started to flutter awake. When she opened her eyes she first had a confused face and then a very happy one. She reached out and hugged me. Then she quickly sat up and asked for a bowl to put her hot chips in. We sat talking and giggling. After a while I said her that I would see her Monday. Her face dropped 🙁 she thought I had come to take her home…I felt awful but soon enough I was able to make her smile again. Her caregiver told me that she needed soap for a bath and washing soap for cloths so Liz and I left to get them some. I went to bed feeling much better about her situation and I look forward to seeing her healthy and back at Adziwa.
Thursday night was Mongolian stir fry and we all got to do our own plates in the pans. I had a little help from Jess, she is our culinary expert and mine was amazing!
Everyone trailed off to bed excited about the weekend ahead. Jess and I stayed up chatting business and once the generator turned off we decided to also head in for bed. Friday we would be leaving early for the 6 hour trip to Zambia!!
I will post about safari as soon as I can.