Advertisement
Published: February 11th 2010
Edit Blog Post
I’ve working all morning to finish the newsletter which is taking me ages with the help of my friend Damian from Great Liberation Ltd, the email marketing company; he is one of our sponsors.
I will make a move now to Shangarai for the widows meeting. Japhat and Rebecca have invited all of them so we can meet them and have a chat about their lives and their needs.
Will let you later how it goes; I’m very excited about it.
I also need to check how is Nicey doing.
Well, the day was just AMAZING! It was just unbelievable;
I got to Shangarai and went straight to check on Nicey’s leg; I can’t really explain my feelings for that girl; I’m just simply crazy about her, I only wish I could communicate with her; I have left my Swahili lessons aside but I need to retake them cause I am missing so much not being able to communicate that I hate it.
Nicey is much better; I spent some time with her, Wisdom her little brother and her mum and dad; very young, very lovely. I asked them if they would let me put them the typhoid vaccine
and they agreed so that was the next step; fighting with Wisdom took a while but with a sweet he forgot about it.
I went back to Japhat’s holding hands with Nicey and Dory her neighbour.
Ah! I forgot to say that now everyone thinks I’m a doctor so they keep asking me about their pains, wounds etc; this is getting serious; the ladies complain of chest pain and though I’m not a doctor, I know basic stuff and the first thing I asked was about whether their “kitchens” were inside or outside; I told them they had to stop cooking indoors or their pain would increase; I can not really describe the smell, smoke etc when they cook inside in those little houses with little or no ventilation; they burn anything from tree branches to cheap charcoal and yesterday I also learn that they burn sawdust.
The widows started to arrive, some of them very slowly cause they are either old or have some health problem; please bear in mind that some of them have to walk very long distances to get there.
I went to see if I could help Rebecca and Veronika who had been
cooking since 6am.
I greeted the ladies who were sitting outside; they all looked very smart; they are extremely poor but they always try to look as nice as possible so they were wearing their beautiful Kanga or typical dresses.
Among them was Medrad’s mother (the 14 years old that we are supporting)and the neighbour with the 15 years’ old daughter and 2 years’ old grandson.
Once they finished arriving we went inside and the event began. Japhat said a few word in Swahili and Ezequiel (Sumary) translated in English; the event was to celebrate that we were there and helping them.
Evan and Lisa from Boston are supporting the orphanage site and they are here for a week to check the project; they are important but it would not have happened without Andrew and Linnea’s passion, commitment and hard work; they are truly amazing and have given up everything back home to help the orphans.
Japhat then started to pray and the widows with him; I had never seen anything like that, it was awesome; I am catholic and a great believer but what I saw there was bigger than anything; they prayed a lot and then they
sang and that went on for more than 2 hours; They never get tired of it, they do enjoy it The faith these people have is really touching; they have nothing but they are still are grateful and thank God for that.
They prayed for us and sang for us.
We stopped for lunch so I helped Rebecca with the portion for the widows. It was a great menu with rice, chapatti, some meat stew, banana an cabbage.
Bear in mind these ladies have no food very often and if they do it is only ugali (maize flour) and never rice or meat.
After lunch they prayed and sang and danced; i recorded a couple of videos cause it is worth it seeing.
Rebecca then went outside while Lisa and Francis and Ezequiel were preparing the food they were giving to them which was: 10 kilos of maize flour, 5lg of beans, soap, 2 kanga and sugar.
They queued for it and each one got their sack; then they lined and started singing and dancing again to say thank you and then in a circle we all ended up dancing and giving thanks to God.
Then they call us cause
they waned to pray for us so they out us (the white people) inside a circle and they held us while praying.
All sort of things cross your mind such as why I was there if I don’t deserve it; what have I done in life to help them? I am a privileged because where I was born so I did not really have to fight for things like they have and still keep doing.
When they finished we hug and then I started looking for help for them; Some are too old to even walk so hoe on earth were they going to carry 20 kg? I felt sooo bad but I also felt embarrassed of myself when I saw them carrying that on their heads. Wow!!!
Being a woman in Africa is a real challenge!
Japhat then gave us a lift back home and I felt sooo bad; I told him we did not need a lift at all; we were not carrying anything…but he insisted.
We came back to Kundayo at around 7 and went to have the first glass of wine in 1 month as Lisa had brought a bottle with her; it felt
good but I had a terrible headache the day after I have not missed alcohol at all and is a luxury we don’t need here.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.13s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 9; qc: 55; dbt: 0.0631s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb