18th January 2009

 

3rd February 2009

 

1st March 2009      20th March 2009

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

20 March 2009.

 

Dear Friends,

 

Greetings from Lukulu!

Early last year in a village I often visit, I was approached by a community leader to assist with a small child who could not walk. I asked to see Sandira, and judged she was both physically and mentally challenged as well as malnourished. Though she was four years old, she was the size of a two year old.  My assessment was that possibly her mind was not telling her to walk as her legs looked quite sturdy and that she did not have long for this world. Any way the community leader would not let the matter rest until I did something about Sandira. Hence has begun an association with Cheshire Home in Mongu, with Pat and I providing transport between Lukulu and Mongu for handicapped children. Already our Christian Brother neighbour Frank was providing this service when possible so we are working in tandem now. Mongu is a five to seven hour drive from here depending on the weather.

Sandira, her mother, Anaeda and Frankie, the little brother, spent the middle school term in 2008 at Cheshire Home.  Preschool children come with their mothers and school children are provided with schooling.  In fact the whole service is free.  I picked up the trio from the bus when they returned to Lukulu and drove them the 16 km to their village.  The jubilation of the village was overwhelming when Anaeda placed Sandira on the ground and she started to walk tentatively. Sandira also learnt a few gestures at Cheshire including waving goodbye. Cheshire Home suggested Sandira be fed with maize but the community is so poor that they only grow cassava.  Maize needs commercial fertilizer but cassava grows well in the sand without fertilizer but is not as nutritious.

Pat and I have now provided transport to or from Mongu a few times.  There is a local Lukulu lady who keeps an eye out for handicapped children and they gather at her home prior to travelling to Mongu. One time I anticipated picking up 2 children but instead a group of seven people, five children and two mothers, were waiting for transport. Pat who was driving to Mongu in the other car had to totally repack it to accommodate the extra numbers. Two of the regular young boys, Nyambe and Mulako we have got to know quite well. On one occasion Pat got a puncture and they stood along side holding the nuts etc. doing their bit.  Mulako had his lower leg removed at the end of last year. This term he is being fitted with a prothesis but we have already heard that it is too small as he has grown so fast, so now there will be a delay before he is on two legs again and he will need a lot of physio to enable him to walk easily.

Another two year old I brought home at the end of last year, had his foot in a plaster cast. He has a club foot and it will take a series of operations to straighten it. The concern was that he had to have the cast removed at Lukulu Hospital during his holidays, otherwise there would be damage to the foot. Making sure that the mother understood the need for the cast to be removed was quite a challenge.

Cheshire Home, Mongu, celebrated twenty five years in December 2008. They provide a wonderful service in a state of the art facility (by African standards). They rely on visiting medical specialists from Lusaka and also use the services of the Lewanika Hospital, the government hospital for the Mongu district. They provide the rehabilitation between times. They rely on overseas volunteers, but recently acquired the services of a fulltime physiotherapist paid for by the government.

On a sadder note Sandira died of an undiagnosed condition at the beginning of the month.  Some of her family put it down to witchcraft! I will provide Anaeda with the above photos as she will have no visual record of her daughter.

Till next time. Elizabeth.

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1st March 2009

 

Dear Friends

 

Greetings from Lukulu, where the rains are in abundance and the river is rising steadily – it is amazing to see the speed and volume of water flowing past the front of our house!   But this time I won’t share further on the river, but rather on the forest.

 

Lukulu District has an abundance of forested areas, with rich hardwoods.  There is a thriving local subsistence charcoal industry (sadly for the forest, as little attention seems to be given to future planning or sustainability) and the trees are also used by local small scale carpenters for the making of basic but very good quality furniture.  However, most of the timber leaves the district with seemingly little benefits to the local community.   

A trip down the Lukulu road reveals intermittent piles of accumulated logs awaiting transport on big trucks owned by outside contractors.  The logs will have been cut by axe or hand-sawn and dragged to the roadside by oxen and chains.  Then the owners of the logs will, on the roadside, chop them into the required ‘square’ shape ready for loading. 

The loading onto the large trucks is done manually by a team of local recruits as seen in the photos below.  Two logs are placed at an angle against the bed of the truck, and the log is harnessed by ropes and dragged up the logs by a team of workers.  It is certainly back-breaking hard labour. 

The going rate appears to be in the order of K 10,000 per log for loading, which is the equivalent of about Euro 1.60  Considering the team that I observed consisted of 16 people, it meant that they were earning in the region of 10 cents each for every heavy log loaded onto the truck.  A full truck earns the average worker about 5 Euros.  It is meagre for such hard work, but provides a little in terms of cash flow and the means to provide for basic necessities for their family.  Most people in Lukulu district have a tough existence!

Until next time

Pat

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Feb 3 2009.

 

Dear Friends,

 

Included here are photos of the way in which the people of Lukulu use the local environment for their needs.

The standard pit latrine is made by digging a large hole in the ground, inserting the woven cylinder, compacting the soil around the outside of the cylinder and erecting a grass fence around it for privacy.  The cylinder is made from saplings and slit reeds. Some local people make these cylinders for a living. The lifetime of these pit latrines obviously depends on usage, but for example a pit latrine for an extended family can last a year.  Note the grass fence in the background.

 

 

In the photo below bark fibres are being used to prevent the crows sitting on the rafters and making a mess of the veranda.  Again individuals make their living by stripping bark from trees and splicing it into long thongs that are then wound into standard sized bundles that are sold in the markets and on the streets. In order to use the fibres they need to be soaked in water so that they become pliable. Fibres are used for all sorts of purposes, including linking poles that make up the framework of house, securing thatch to rafters, securing grass fences etc.

 

 In the photo above are examples of the baskets used by women for fishing.  Men use other techniques. There is the smaller conical shaped basket as well as the more common larger two peaked basket. Women tend to fish standing in still waters.

 

Buildings, in this photo a church, are built from timber, fibres, mud and thatch. The thatch is initially secured at the lower edge of the roof and then grass is added in layers until the top of the roof is reached.  In this photo the roof is nearing completion. Each area has a specific thatch pattern.  The patterns in the Lukulu district are simple, partly dictated by the poverty of the area. The stooks of thatch are another source of income and sell for K3000 each.

Sleeping mats, which are able to be rolled up, are made from parallel reeds sewn together. The reeds of the sleeping mat provide a cushioning effect. Another form of mat is woven from split reeds and is used primarily for walls, both interior and exterior.

The netball poles show a degree of innovation using various parts of the tree in their construction.

Till next time. Elizabeth

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18th January 2009

 

Dear Friends

 

Best wishes for a happy new year from Lukulu, where we have finally settled again after an epic journey south.  As usual at this time of year, Elizabeth and myself travel to South Africa for a Provincial meeting with our sisters.  Only it was a little different this time as we decided to drive!

 

And so at the beginning of December we set out on a round trip of 5 000 kms from Lukulu to Pretoria.  Although our meeting was in Strand, near Cape Town we decided that we would park the vehicle in Pretoria and fly the last leg of the journey.  Our trip would take us on familiar territory for the first two legs, from Lukulu to Lusaka and then from Lusaka to Livingstone.  Then we were to head off on a bit of an adventure through Botswana, especially for Elizabeth who had never been to Botswana before.  (I myself had travelled through part of the country about 18 years ago when living in South Africa).

 

Our preliminary plans had taken a bit of a nose dive in prior months.  Wanting to avoid the difficulties of Zimbabwe, we had enquired about Botswana visas when in Lusaka a few months back.  Elizabeth was misguided in being told by the Embassy that she needed a visa for Botswana.  The logistics were impossible from Lukulu, and so we were faced with the dilemma, either brave the precarious situation in Zimbabwe or forget about our adventure.  As luck would have it, on browsing various websites when back in Lukulu we discovered that Elizabeth apparently did not need a visa!  A follow up phone call to the  Embassy confirmed this when a very contrite and relieved official confirmed that she had indeed mistakenly given the wrong information.  And so we were free to travel through Botswana!

 

 

We crossed the Zambezi by pontoon at Kazangula and took a leisurely 4-day trip through Botswana.  Elephants on the road were the most noteworthy feature of the first days drive, potholes on the second day (a notorious stretch of potholes on an otherwise very good road), and throughout, the lack of habitation, people and indeed extreme poverty (certainly a big contrast to Zambia).  We safely arrived in Pretoria with no hassles along the way. 

 

We decided, having experienced a good sweep of the country on the way down, that we would take a shorter route back, and traveled from Pretoria to Francistown and then Kazangula in a total of two days.  The overloaded, broken down, clapped out vehicles heading with supplies towards Zimbabwe were a major feature on the first few hundred kilometers heading north from Pretoria.  We counted at least 45!, and that tells its own sad story.  We arrived in Kazangula on Chrismas eve after surviving the most appalling driving conditions with incessant torrential rain for most of the journey between Francistown and our destination (not forgetting the potholes and the elephants to be avoided!).  

 

But Christmas in Kazangula is to be highly recommended.  We found a little local Church in nearby Kasane for morning Mass, followed by lunch in the riverside lodge where we were staying and then we had the most wonderful 3 hour river cruise in the late afternoon/evening.  Away from the gross commercialism and frenetic activity which usually abounds at Christmas the peace and beauty of the surroundings was profound.  The scenery of the Caprivi Strip and the Chobe river, simple though it is, comprising only of water, grass and sky is indescribable in its beauty, and the abundance of hippos and gigantic crocodiles at close range was an added bonus.  It was a marvelous way to celebrate the profoundness of the occasion.  The following day we had another delightful adventure exploring the beauty and the abundance of animals in Chobe National Park.

 

Our return crossing from Botswana to Zambia on the pontoon was the last novelty on our trip before venturing into familiar territory once more.  Waiting our turn for the ferry in apparent chaos, amidst many trucks, cars, mud, currency touts, and local pedestrians we observed huge black marketeering in diesel fuel.  Fuel is half the price on the Botswana side of the river as compared with Zambia and every ferry crossing (15 min interval) brings a hoard of pedestrians carrying as many 20 litre drums as they possibly can.  From our observations it seems that there are convoys of taxis waiting, not to take the people, but the drums for filling at the fuel station (about 2 kms away).  They then return (bearing in mind that a border and customs gate exists in between), a flurry of activity takes place with offloading of fuel (we observed 25 drums being offloaded from one small pick-up alone) and exchange of cash, before people scurry for the next departing ferry with as many full drums they can carry.  We saw women wrapping them in Chitenges and putting on their backs and on their heads, while men just lugged as many as they could.  All part of a life of survival for many!

 

Then it was back to reality, and after a further frantic few days of shopping for supplies in Lusaka we are now happily ensconced in our familiar and peaceful surroundings of Lukulu.

 

Until next time

Pat

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