BACK TO LUSAKA

BACK TO LUSAKA Today we head to the airport in Livingston for our flight to Lusaka. On the way to the airport we made a stop at the Mahatma Gandhi Memorial Clinic in Livingston, primarily a clinic focused on women’s health. The Rotary Club of Mosi oa Tu in Livingston has been providing them with assistance. The Clinic’s needs are enormous, exceeding the locally available resources. The local club would like what ever help they can get. The clinic lacks much of the basic equipment essential, such as an ultra sound machine. That’s just the tip of the iceberg. The flight to Lusaka was a quick up and down 1 hour flight on a small turbo prop plane. Minutes after checking into our hotel we were whisked off by a local Rotary club to visit several schools. One would like to modernize their computer and science labs and the other a school is dedicated to serving learning and physically disabled students. On our way back to the hotel our Rotarian driver, an architect wanted us to see his crown jewel project. The Latitude 15 hotel. This place is a piece of artwork in itself. Day two in Lusaka started out slow. Our ride showed up 2 hours late. Miscommunication and heavy traffic due to parades celebrating National Women’s Day, a National holiday in Zambia seemed to be the culprit. Once we got going our day got busy. First stop was to a project that is producing washable sanitary pads for young women. This enables young women to not miss valuable time in school. The next stop was a heart breaker, an orphanage located in a “compound” AKA very poor neighborhood. They sang us a song when we arrived. Their needs are immense. Somewhere in there we were treated to a traditional African lunch by the Lusaka Metro Rotary Club. The food was good and quite different from what we traditionally eat. The day was capped off with a traditional Indian dinner cooked and served in the home of a local Rotarian. It is now the time of year where the Festival of Color is celebrated in Indian culture. After removing our shoes we each received several splashes of colored material on our faces. This was followed by a delicious vegetarian meal. It was here we all said goodbye to District Governor Claudia, our fellow traveler. She is heading back to the US tonight so she can take part in PETs training for our district. Tomorrow morning we say goodbye to Carolyn who is heading to Uganda on Rotary business.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

ALL GOOD THINGS COME TO AN END

Image
ALL GOOD THINGS COME TO AN END It is time to say goodbye to Zambia. Last evening we visited with two more of Lusaka’s Rotary Clubs. The host club, Lusaka East a new club only 3 years old with a very young membership. We were again received most warmly. There was great fellowship with exchanging of contact information. They have several projects that they are very passionate about and are welcoming to any help that we may facilitate. The hotel we are staying at has agreed to a late check out at no additional charge as our flight is a night flight. The day is spent taking care of any last minute details. Several of us manage a walk to the the “Zoo”. As it turns out the Zoo is the grounds of what appears to be an agricultural fair. The only animals we saw were a kennel of dogs. In closing it can’t be overstated how nice and kind all the people have been. There seems to be a gentle nature to Zambians. Now the hard work begins in trying to determine ho...
Read more

A Busy Day

Image
What a busy day! It was also a most interesting day. We were treated to a full day of seeing how the Healthy Learners Program works. We visited two schools in Lusaka and were shown how the program was implemented in their schools, a Ministry Of Health facility, had lunch in a local restaurant and saw a program at the office of the Healthy Learners. There are many insightful concepts built into the program. The day was capped off by attending a Local Rotary Club’s weekly meeting. At our 1st school we were greeted by a group of girls singing a welcome song. We meet with the head teacher( principal), Learners(students), school health workers( teachers with special training). We were shown the Health Room that might be comparable to the Nurses Office. The program is structured to leverage existing infrastructure and personnel. This has gone a long way increasing local buy in. In short the health workers work to fast track care for the Learners. They also are a conduit to preventive car...
Read more