Well, I’ve been meaning to sit down and write my blog for the last few days and just not done it! Then I realised today that I’ve been here about two weeks now and have been in Chingola just over a week and a lot has happened...so I thought I really should shake a leg and get something written...and finally, here I am!
I had a great time in Livingstone - it was so good to stop and relax a bit after the mad rush back home getting ready to go. Add to that the long flight here with not much sleep...that led to a sleepy jo! So a few days taking it easy with an easy introduction to African life was the perfect remedy. We were proper tourists in Livingstone, going to see the falls, visiting the posh hotel to eat lots of cake (although there was no cake races held...) and the highlight had to be going for a helicopter ride over Victoria Falls. It was spectacular to say the least!
The lovely holiday feeling ended rather abruptly on the Sunday morning when we set off at about 7.30am to tackle the 14 hour drive up to Chingola. Thankfully all 3 of us in the car could drive so we took it in turns...but it still felt like a very very long way! The first 2 hours were pretty slow going as the main road out of Livingstone is very very potholed. Along the way there were lots of people standing at the side of the road. When they saw the car coming they threw a bucket full of dirt into the pot holes and then gestured for us to give them money for their efforts. It began to hit home the real difference in poverty levels compared with home. I can’t quite imagine the poorest folks of Burnage standing at the side of Shawbrook Road filling the pot holes in an attempt to earn some money!
We finally made it to Chingola at about 10.00pm by which time I was feeling particularly crumpled up from sitting in the car all day. I didn’t really get to see much of the flat or the surroundings until the next morning.
Chingola is a small town - a bit bigger than Didsbury, but nowhere near as big as Stockport. We have two flats here, one for Andy, Ruth and I, the other for Jon & Jude and their 3 boys, Ethan, Josh & Jacob. The flat is okay - it’s pretty basic, but it does the job! There’s a few quirks; like the way the hot and cold tap do the opposite to what they say they do in the kitchen, the floor tiles that jump out of place every time you walk over them and most annoyingly, the electricity supply that is turned off every now and then (with no warning) in the interest of power sharing. Basically, there’s not enough power generated to serve the area, so they turn it off for different areas at different times. As you never quite know when it will be, you have to be prepared to have a cold bath in the morning or cook your tea on a camping stove at short notice! It’s good to have a supply of candles at the ready and the battery on your laptop at full charge so when all else fails you can always watch a dvd in the dark. The one question that I keep finding myself asking the most here is “Does having a bath in about a quarter of a bath of slightly brown water constitute getting clean?!”
Believe it or not though, we are actually in the nice part of town in some well respected flats! We’re about 10 minutes walk from the centre of town and twenty minutes from the hotel where we can go and use the (very very slow) wireless internet connection! The very best part of living here has to be Rosemary - she is an absolute star! She’s comes and cleans our flats and does our washing, hangs it out to dry then returns it in a neat and tidy pile - it’s like being back at home when you were little and your mum did your washing for you!!! (We do pay her to do all this of course unlike our poor mums!) It does feel a bit wrong though seeing somebody bent over an outside tap and a washing up bowl handwashing your clothes...it’s something I’ve not quite come to terms with yet - I feel a whole lot less guilty about using a washing machine, but you just don’t get them in Chingola!
Anyway - what’s happened since I got here? Well...hmm...Monday and Tuesday were filled up with getting used to being here really, We ran a few errands around town, put up the banner for the conference and planned the big day, which was Saturday, and wrote up a list of all the jobs left to do.
We had a day off conference planning on Wednesday as we were off on what was my first trip into the bush. The team have previously visited a school in a rural village called Kapeshi. The road to Kapeshi is a dirt track that is full of pot holes and crazy bumps and it takes about 45 minutes or an hour to drive there once you leave the main road. It really does feel like you are in the middle of nowhere. As we drove along kids came running towards the road from little houses (which look more like huts that houses) to see who is going past in a car. Most stared and waved at the “Mzungu” (white people) as it’s quite rare to see white people heading out into the bush. The rural villages are quite spread out with little clusters of houses every now and then spread along the road and back from the road.
The school we were heading to was opened in 2000 and was and still is the only school in the area. It was built by a Zambian mission charity and has always had to be funded privately with no government assistance. This has caused difficulties over the years when families have been unable to pay the fees (which are meagre) and the school shut for a year when finances could not be found. Finances are really difficult - there are no banks out in the bush and people tend to get their income at certain times of year when their harvests are sold, so the school reshuffled the way fees are payable making it one lump sum at a carefully chosen time of year and at a reduced rate and now has been able to reopen. It’s clear though that it’s still a delicate balancing act to keep it running and finances are a real issue.
The school has two classrooms about 5x7m with a small office in between. This space serves 142 children, with different ages being taught in the morning and the afternoon. They teach the younger ones in the afternoon so they have longer to walk to school - some of the kids walk for up to an hour or so to get there every day. One year the school provided a meal for the children before they started class, which really helped them concentrate as they often arrive without having eaten anything that day, but the cost of this proved unsustainable and the lady who used to come and cook the food sadly passed away and nobody else has come forward to help out.
We were armed with lots of paint and spent the day painting a huge blackboard at one end of the classroom, giving the really grimy walls a new lease of life and painting the alphabet along one wall. Previously the class had been using one tiny blackboard, about 1x0.75m which meant that the smaller children didn’t have time to copy everything down before the big children were ready for the next bit! The big blackboard will really help with this!
The best thing that is happening at this school though is something a little more subtle. There are about 5 or 6 different churches in the area, all served by this school. Vincent and Joel (two of the pastors we have been working with) have been visiting the school with us and when the painting was done they held a meeting with all the people present. They have encouraged the people to think how they as a group can do something to ensure the school is provided for in the long term, rather than waiting and hoping for some hand outs that may or may not come.
It’s great to see the community and the different churches beginning to look to work together - this may sound like something simple and straightforward, but it really isn’t common. There is a sense where people feel they have to work so hard to look after number one that they don’t look to serve others as well. This is obviously a sweeping statement and I’m sure there are loads of amazing people helping out their neighbours and friends that we know nothing about! However, getting the people to come together and looking to work together is a great step.
There is one thought at the back of my mind though that worries me...although it’s sad to admit it, white people draw attention, particularly in the bush. We are seen as rich. If we are involved in a project, people will come, partly out of curiosity and partly because they hope for money. My concern is that when we step out of the equation it will be much harder for Vincent and Joel to keep the people interested. We have purposely taken a back seat and let them run the show anyway, but our very presence will have an impact whether we want it to or not. It would be great if you could pray for the community at Kapeshi - they do seem to want to help themselves and the first tentative steps to working together have been made, but there is still a long way to go. They are hoping to put in place a community project that they can work on together to raise some money to keep the school running. They need to elect a committee to oversee this project and then begin the very practical task of working out how people all contribute their time etc.
Anyway, on with the week...Thursday and Friday were taken up with last minute planning and organisation for the conference that happened on Saturday. Sorting out simple things takes ages here - like photocopying! It took me an hour and a quarter to get 4 documents photocopied (ok - I needed a lot of copies, but still!) Add to that the fact that I don’t know my way round here and the best places to do things and the days were full in no time!
However, we got everything (well most things!) done and the conference went ahead. The day was open to all and ended with about 100 people there although it started with about 10 - African timing makes me look prompt! The day was entitled “Loving the Lost” and was aimed at encouraging people to reach out to those living in the rural areas.
Jon spoke about the need to go and reach out to others and trust God for the provisions as they arise. There is a real sense here that the lack of resources stop people before they even start. It’s true that distances and transport are very real issues, but if we stop before we even start or try to think of a way to overcome these issues without a huge influx of capital to buy a car then nothing will ever happen.
Ruth then shared about her time working on an Eden Team, actually living in the middle of the people she was reaching out to rather than just going, preaching and leaving. It was really interesting to hear about and I think it shocked a lot of the people present. England is seen as a rich place where all is good - Ruth painted a very accurate picture of an inner city council estate and the poverty and struggles found there. Everyone found it hysterically funny that in England, as a general rule, rich people live in the country and poor people live in the urban sprawl around the cities! Their urban model is pretty much the reverse of that!
Overall I think the day was good. There was a clear challenge to people to go and follow God, even if that bears a cost. I guess we will never know what fruits, if any, will follow. For ourselves, we hoped to meet others who may wish to work alongside us and the pastors already involved in the “Life!” project. On that point, I think we have a number of leads to follow up. It is hard to work out whether people want to work with us because they assume money will follow or whether they genuinely want to because they believe God has called them to do so. This is something we definitely cannot do in our own strength - we can use what we know of people, but I believe this is a point where prayer is so so key!
That brings me nicely onto something else that I haven’t really explained yet...I know I’ve mentioned the five pastors we are working with already, but I haven’t really told you anything about them! They’re called Joel, Vincent, Ponde, Casper and Ranger...that is a great collection of names! They’re a great bunch of guys who live and work in and around Chingola, with 4 out of the 5 living in rural communities. As the Dignity team met them before I came out the join them I don’t know the full story of how we came to be working with them. However, I want to share one part of it that I do know with you. Before we all left England we prayed that God would bring us alongside people who felt, like us, that they were called to work with the rural communities. One of the pastors in particular has said that before he met us he felt that God had called him to reach out to those within his own community as well as other surrounding communities. He had begun to look into how he could do this, ways in which to support the work needed both financially and in terms of freeing up time. He had been praying that people would come alongside him who would help him begin to realise the work he believes he should be doing! If that isn’t God bringing people together, then I don’t know what is!!
Well, that’s about it news wise. There’s lots of things that are different to home, some of which I’m beginning to get used to, others which still amaze me! Like the amount of stuff people manage to fit on one bike, or how far people walk and walk and walk....
There’s a few things that are doing my head in, like having to boil water all the time and then wait for it to cool before you can drink it. I’m fed up of my feet feeling dusty and horrid already - I wash them about 50 times a day, well, okay, about 3 times a day! The crazy electricity is the most annoying of all!!
And there are a few things that I just can’t quite get used to, like being stared at wherever you go...and long drop toilets! Eww!!! Some aren’t too bad, but some are just gross!!!
So far though, it’s all good! I feel like I’m settling into life pretty well and have avoided any disasters so far. There’s times people have told me stuff that’s going on at home and it’s made me sad that I can’t be there, but I feel like I’m in the right place and I’m very much at peace about where I am and what I’m doing, which, I think means that I’m where God wants me to be! I better shut up - I’ve written loads and I’m sure loads more will have happened before I get chance to upload this to my blog, but I’ll save that for another entry as you’re probably falling asleep by now! Well done if you’ve made it to the end!
jo x x
