Summer in Chilubula (Part 3)

Jo's aunt had patiently knitted lots of gorgeous teddies to give to the children in the nursery class, and it was a great pleasure to hand them out and see the absolute delight on their faces as they each received their own toy!

The other picture shows the sports arena being watered to try and damp down the dust. This may not seem that remarkable, but the water is being transported along a pipe about 50m long and is being pumped from the well using a submersible pump attached to a petrol generator! This was the first attempt at using the pump and connecting it to the generator and was made possible by some excellent work from Leonard and my nephew Mbesha. The pump was able to fill a 210 litre drum with water in about four minutes and therefore saved HUGE amounts of time and energy.

Summer in Chilubula (Part 2)

We had some fantastic clothes and school jumpers donated to us by students from Newstead Wood and Ashburton schools and here you can see Jo sorting out the boxes and handing out the items. Students from age 8 upwards who are on our register of orphans and vulnerable children were able to come and collect some clothing. We saw and gave to approximately 90 children and young adults on just the one day.

Summer in Chilubula (Part 1)

We had three main aims for our visit to Chilubula this year: to organise a community sports' day, to make contact with people at World Vision in Kasama and talk to them about how they might support the Centre in Chilubula and finally to distribute clothes donated by students at Newstead Wood and Ashburton schools.

I am glad to say that we achieved all three of our aims!

The picture above shows me leading some of the crowd in 'The Luckiest Person' event at the Sports' Day, with the winner taking a prize of K10,000;more than a day's pay in the village! We had a crowd of about 650 spectators during the day with many participating in events such as the sack race, pole climbing, three-legged race and the ever popular pea spitting. All winners claimed prizes ranging from bread to dried fish and soap.