Trip to Chinkankata Village

Volunteer caregivers who help take care of people living with AIDS and children orphaned by AIDS. They visit their "clients" 2-4 times a month and help with cooking, cleaning, take care of medical needs and provide hope.

A reporter from The Sun in the U.K. asked to see our malaria work since he was in Zambia to do a story on Christian Aid (a UK-based NGO). The reporter, Oliver Harvey, described The Sun as a "voracious tabloid" - it's apparently a step above the National Inquirer, but not so gossipy and slick as People magazine! He was doing a report to support Malaria No More so wanted a project that had benefited from mosquito nets.

Part of my job with RAPIDS will be to take reporters like this to see our work. For me, it was great to be in the field to meet the caregivers who are carrying out the work - and to better understand some of the issues the community faces.

One of the caregivers, Nurse Nakalonga (her name is Nurse, but I don't think she's a nurse), age 55, said this about being a caregiver:

"We know that at some point we will die and we feel humbled. We've seen relatives who have died from HIV/AIDS. We thank God because he has spoken to us and now we're working for our community as volunteers; we feel encouraged. We're not used to staying home because we like doing the work."

I also met a grandmother, Regina Moomba (who is 79 years old, which is a phenomenon in a country where the life expectancy is 37 years). She is caring for 10 grandchildren (the oldest is 34 and the youngest is 10). Her daughter and son in law both died of AIDS and her oldest grand daughter (at 34) along with her child are both HIV positive.

They have 14 people living in their compound, but only 3 mosquito nets... thankfully, they know to put the most vulnerable people: those with HIV/AIDS under the nets. Members of the community said that they noticed a sharp decline in cases of malaria once they put up their mosquito nets - but you can see that more are needed...

Here's a link to more photos from my trip: http://picasaweb.google.com/miyonkautz/ChikankataVisit

Peter's Open House at School

The American International School (AIS) had a "follow your child for a day" day - and John went with Peter. Here are some photos from that day:

http://picasaweb.google.com/miyonkautz/PeterSSchoolDay

When you look at the kids - don't think they're American... Peter told us that there is only one other American kid in his class!

Where do we shop for food?

People have been asking where we get our food, so I thought I'd take some photos of our local haunts. People were staring at me, wondering what I was up to!

We have two major supermarkets: Spar and Shoprite. They're both well-lit, semi-air-conditioned, have electronic scanners, etc.

Shoprite takes credit cards which is pretty amazing because I think there are only a handful of stores in all of Lusaka that take credit cards. It's a time consuming process because a manager has to be called over to swipe the card and pull out the receipt. The other day, we were in Shoprite and when the receipt popped up, I said to the cashier "oh, you can pull it out and I'll sign it" - and she said that she couldn't pull it out, the manager had to pull it out... so we waited several more minutes for the manager to return, just to pull the receipt out of the machine!

Shopping at Shoprite

We have our local small grocery store: Melissa's that has pretty decent prices. It's almost always busy, but more like a family run grocery store. I wish I was brave enough to take a photo of the meat counter (but there's always someone hovering nearby!): it's an open counter (that I think is refridgerated, but it can't be very efficient since there is no cover over the top) but there are hunks of beef, sausages, etc. just sitting out in the open. Nothing is sealed...it just looks bad and you know the meat can't be good for you...

Vegetables for sale at Melissas

Every Tuesday is Tuesday Market (pretty clever with names, eh?). This is a very fun day to do our vegetable and fruit shopping. As you can see there are lots of vendors all with their wares on the ground. It's hard to decide which person to shop from...one World Vision staff member told me that he chooses either older women (widows) or young women with children because he figures they need the money the most.

In the few weeks we've been here, I already have a pattern: we buy our bok choy (chinese cabbage), spinach, bean sprouts and sometimes tofu from the chinese folks in the corner. Then buy our fruit (apples, pears and oranges) from the lady who has fruit from South Africa. Our housekeeper, Virginia (who always comes along to carry my bag) thinks I'm getting ripped off and that I should bargain more. But, when I'm only saving about 15 cents per kilo, it hardly seems worth it to dicker over the price. Maybe I'll try harder in future shopping expeditions.

I did notice that Virginia likes to come along but doesn't buy anything. She does, however, get some freebie handouts from what I buy. My guess is she must be telling the vendors: hey, this lady is spending more money than she has to, so give me some free bananas, ginger, or whatever she happens to need that day. So, the last couple times, she's taken home some additional fruit/veggies that she hasn't had to pay for...not too bad...

There are lots of Zambians, Chinese, Indians, other middle easterners (women completely covered in black with just their eyes showing) who are there with their baskets dickering over the price of various items. It's pretty interesting to watch; I can spot the pros - they're the ones who come with their own weighing scale to make sure they're not getting ripped off!

We get there at about 7:30a.m. and are out of there by 8am...the market continues until 5pm. I can only imagine all the haggling that goes on during those hours!!

The Watering Hole

Almost every day, Peter, Mutele (12), Mwansa (6), Billy (10) and Sophie - all pictured above - go swimming in our pool (the three brothers are our housekeeper's sons). They have a great time playing although they're never in for very long because the water is so cold. Our pool guy - that would be John !! - is still trying to figure out why the water is so cloudy... We don't think the kids will contract some disease since there is so much chlorine in it, but it would be nice to see the bottom of the pool!

Sophie and Her Curly Hair!

Sophie decided that she wanted to have curly hair - so I got out all the socks, tied them in her hair - and voila, the next morning she had a head of (almost too) curly hair!




The night before:





The day after:

Our Wall

The wall, the gate and the guard's hut from our front porch.

I've been thinking about our wall lately. It's a 8 foot plaster wall with electric wires on the top (to shock anyone who tries to jump over the wall). There's a metal, automated gate that opens with a remote.

We can't see what goes on, on the other side of our wall. So, I was surprised when I drove out to go to the grocery store one evening, how many people were walking along our street in twos and threes. They seemed to be out for an evening stroll...We need to be out strolling and meeting others!

Msuzi Road in the early morning hours and all the homes behind walls...

We don't ever see our neighbors (because they're behind their walls), but we can hear their dogs barking (reminds us of the incessant barking from our neighbor's dogs in Tacoma), roosters crowing and the ongoing car honking (to signal the guard to open the gate). Even though we can't hear our neighbors, I have a feeling that Peter and the three boys (Muteli, Billy and Mwansa - our housekeeper's sons) are heard throughout the neighborhood screaming, yelling and laughing as they play in the yard.

As we sit on our front porch (looking out at the wall), I realize that there's some comfort in anonymity - we can be...and no one stares at us...and we can enjoy the peace and beauty of the yard.


Should we be more open to the public? As the "mzungus" (foreigners), it's nice to not be on display... but I must be feeling a bit guilty about not interacting more...


One of the first days we were here, we didn't know how to open the gate - and didn't have a key to open the door (on the gate) - we were locked in! That wasn't very comforting.

The Guards:

We just got rid of our day guard...I don't think Virginia (our housekeeper) was very comfortable with him (he did seem a little sketchy). He just sat - and often spent his time staring at us! Talk about feeling on display! Here he is in his usual position:

The evening guard, Goodson, seems like a decent guy - and has even taken on the day shift when the day guard didn't show up! 24 hours of work!