Journey Home

 Today was our last morning in Zambia.  We woke up and did all our last minute packing.  We also made some homemade cards to give to Mubanga, Mwape, and Steven and Jackson at Fountain Of Hope.   Mwape and Kizito came to pick us up at 10:30 and we said our goodbyes to Mubanga and Francis (now it’ll just be Ivy, Francis, and Mubanaga in the house. So sad!).  We drove to Fountain to donate our things and say bye to Roy and the boys.  We had about 4 bags full of clothes to donate to Fountain as well as some towels, pillows, shoes, and other random items.  They really appreciated everything and Steven and Jackson really liked their cards.  Chrissy showed them how to use the Frisbees she brought for them…they laughed and said “these aren’t for sports, they’re plates!” Then we were off to the airport.  On our drive there we were mostly quiet and Kizito asked us what we were thinking about.  Chrissy said she was looking out the window at everything and taking it in, and I was thinking about how I wished we were staying longer.  Once we arrived we got our boarding passes printed (they were kind of sketchy looking but apparently fine).  Then we checked our bags, waved goodbye, and went through security to our gate.  When we were waiting to board our plane we looked out the window at the runway saw a large Zambian flag waving in the wind.  Goodbye Zambia, hopefully we’ll be back again soon.

The flight wasn’t as miserable as the one from JFK to Joburg, but it was still really long and boring.  When we landed in New York we turned on our phones, knowing that there’d be a flood of messages.  Sure enough, two month’s worth of emails and texts started registering.  Gaahh!  Finally they settled down and were done.  We called our parents to tell them we had landed safely.  Then I immediately checked my email to see how the team had done in their game.  One of the players had said he would email me, but he hadn’t so I emailed him.  About five minutes later I got a response saying that they had won, 79-72, and had played with heart and determination just as I had told them to.  During the whole flight I had been sad that I was leaving, but this news really cheered me up.   I knew they could do it, I just wish I had been there to watch them play.

We emailed Mwape to let him known we’d landed safe before exiting the airport. It was the fastest two months of our lives, but packed with some of the most meaningful and awe inspiring memories. From befriending an entire basketball team to watching babies entering the world, safari to bungee jumping, coaching p.e. to advising a teenage girl on telling her parents she has HIV, and sampling nshima to mastering the wild bus system, the trip was enlightening and rewarding from start to finish. Despite the challenges, we both grew so fond of Lusaka it’ll only be a matter of time before we find ourselves back on a plane to Zambia. 

Last Day

We woke up at 7 a.m. to start prepping the rest of our lunch party. We had to make enough mac n cheese with mince meat, cheeseburgers, grilled cheese with tomato, nshima and beans, and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for a lot of people. It was a true test of our ability to work together in the kitchen after two months of practice and we succeeded with flying colors. We had everything going at once and managed to get by without burning a single thing.  We were very proud of ourselves and very excited to share our American cuisine with our Zambian friends. A lot of people were able to come, and all of them went back for seconds J. It was nice to visit with everyone and we were able to give John and Robert, the two boys who did housework and gardening work for Mubanga, big plates of food. We think they’re both so nice and friendly, so we were really excited to see their faces light up when we offered them so much food. Robert said it was the best and happiest day ever. We gave Roy the rest of the leftovers to take back to the boys at Fountain of Hope.

After a really crazy morning of nonstop cooking and then hosting all of our friends, we were both pretty tired but still had things left to do.  Lazzy picked us up (for the last time- so sad) and we went to the cultural village to buy our final souvenirs.  We gave Lazzy the present we had gotten him, a Chelsea key chain since he is such a huge Chelsea fan.  He really liked it and put it on his keys right away.  Chrissy and I traded our cell phone (or what we call poop on a stick, trust me it really sucks) for some really cool wooden carved giraffes.  We also each got a few more things.  Chrissy and Francis walked back home with our things and I headed with Lazzy over to Munali to go meet my senior team.  They told me to get there around 5, towards the end of their practice, and to plan to be free the rest of the night.  When I walked up to the court all of the guys turned to stare.  This was the first time they had seen me in normal clothes and with my hair down.  I guess I look pretty different than when I have on baggy shorts and my hair in a bun because one of the guys dribbling the ball up the court just stopped and said “woowwww.”  I just started laughing and yelled, “guys, I can wear normal clothes too, keep playing.”

After practice they had a team huddle and told me that I had to sit on the sideline for a minute.  I swear they were talking for about 10 minutes before they called me back over.  After the team prayer and cheer they all started to leave and told me to go with two of the players and that they would see me soon.  I went with them to go pick up some food and then we drove over to one of the guys’ apartments.  The whole team was there, clean and changed, and they had the grill ready to go – they were throwing me a goodbye party.  It was really fun getting to hang out with them in a non-basketball setting.  They joked about burning my plane tickets and stealing my passport so that I couldn’t go home.  A part of me wishes that they actually could have done that.  They also all said that if I stayed they would set me up with a house, job, school, etc.  A little while into the party the coach got there.  Shortly after he told me that I had to sit down on the couch and he brought the whole team into the living room.  He gave a really nice speech about me, saying how much I meant to the team and how much I had helped them improve their games.  He said he was shocked that together they could even organize something like this because it had never happened before.  The boys piped up and asked when I would be coming back again.  To that I could only say that I would try to soon but it’s so expensive that it’s hard.  Then the coach said that the team had a gift for me to say thank you and also to remember them by.  As soon as I started to open it I could see that it was a jersey.  I thought it was just a Spartans jersey, but when I unfolded it I saw that it had “Sarah” and my number (15) on the back.  I was already emotional enough, and this personalization made it even harder for me to hold it together.  They then told me to turn it inside out, and on the other side it said “Dalitso.”  They all cheered Dalitso, and a few said that I was their blessing.  I couldn’t help crying because it was honestly the most thoughtful gift I have ever received.  Somehow I had had enough of an impact on these boys for them to go out of their way to buy me one of the most personal and sentimental gifts.  I was speechless.  The party continued with more music and them making me dance “the Zambian way.”  I also go to see them dance which was a lot of fun and had some great conversations with a few of the players.  Then when some of the players had to leave I called them all together to give my final goodbye and team pep talk.  I gave them all little slips of paper that said “determination” and told them to put it in their basketball shoe before the game tomorrow.  This would make them play together with the same goal in mind, which is determination to win.  They huddled up and Timo gave a final prayer for me and said that they were going to win their game tomorrow for me.  I really wish I could be there for their game, and to be honest I just wish I wasn’t going home.  Saying my goodbyes to all of them was really hard, but eventually I had to do it and go home for the night.  I still hadn’t packed for our flight the next day but I decided I could put that off until tomorrow morning.

Chrissy went back to the house with Francis after going to the market. They spent the rest of the night hanging out with Mubanga in the kitchen. Chrissy introduced them both to the website Sporcle, and has definitely created a monster. Not ashamed. All in all, it was a great last day in Zambia. We were really sad when we went to bed and realized that it would be the last night we spent there.

Workshop and Last Day at Work

This morning was our long anticipated HIV/AIDS workshop. A bunch of the site coordinators, peer leaders, and Sport In Action directors were in attendance. Sarah still didn’t have her voice, so I did most of the talking and Sarah whispered all of her input for me to say outloud. It actually worked out well given the circumstances. We went through all of the slides, explaining our program goals, curriculum, and highlighting the major findings our of questionnaire-based research. The Sport In Action audience was very shocked by some of the findings, especially at Chipata (i.e. 35% of girls reported feeling that they’d have to have sex for money at some point in their lives, etc.). They were also very interested in hearing our opinions as to why there were such large disparities between the responses of the Tionge and Chipata students.

We concluded the workshop with a long question and answer period. Sarah and I were both really excited to see how interested the Sport In Action team seemed to be in all of our findings. I was especially happy when Frank, the director, said that he thought this was an excellent opportunity to continue more HIV/AIDS education in the future. He said that SIA had been focusing a lot on sport and coaching recently, but one of their missions is to improve HIV knowledge and the data we produced showed that the need for information was definitely there. It felt good to finally show everyone what we’ve been working so hard to produce. We gave Mwape all of our data and documents and promised to put together more thorough lesson plans for peer leaders to use in the future.

After the workshop, we got fritas (the fried balls of dough) from the Kabwata market and walked to Fountain of Hope. Sarah eventually left for basketball. I stayed there for the rest of the afternoon before meeting Francis at the office. We bought about 35 pieces of fruit to use for a fruit salad for tomorrow’s lunch party and then we went to Arcades to meet Sarah.

From Sarah: Today was my last day of practice with the Spartans for both my U-15 team and my senior team.  The practice with the younger ones was great and I had my largest turnout thus far.  By the end there were 10 boys there and we were able to end with a scrimmage.  Afterwards I got a white t-shirt I had written “Spartans” on and had them all sign the back.  I also gave them cookies I had bought and we took a lot of pictures.  They were sad and said they didn’t want me to go because “it’s going to be bad,” but I assured them that they would be fine.  The older team’s practice was really good too.  We prepped for their game on Sunday going over offenses and I taught them a new in-bounds play.  I asked the captain what he wanted to name the play and at the exact same time he and two others all said “Sarah.”  It was so cute. We then practiced running through Sarah a bunch of times and then scrimmaged.  At the end of practice when we had our team huddle they told me that they had chosen a Zambian name for me.  They said that they had picked it as a team and it came from their hearts.  It was a name that stood for what I meant to them, and the name was “Dalitso.”  Dalitso means blessing.  They then told me that I had to give the team prayer as their Dalitso.

We reunited at Arcades to buy last minute groceries for tomorrow and then meet our wonderful host, Mubanga, for dinner. We had a really good time and talked for the entire time about the most random topics, from life in Zambia to Mubanga’s future trip to Disneyworld. We got fancy drinks and even dessert before we left to visit a local bar that Mubanga wanted to show us.

It was a really cool place, very “African” and boasting the coolest decorations and music ever! Sarah and I were very pumped. Two of Mubanga’s friends were there, and they insisted on buying Sarah and I three margaritas each before we were saved by the onset of a migraine for Sarah (Never thought I’d be happy to discover that Sarah was getting a migraine—on this one occasion it saved us from drinking way more than we wanted to). We thanked Mubanga’s friends for their generosity and returned to the house. Sarah went to lie down in the dark for a while I sat down to cut up every single piece of fruit for the fruit salad (while listening to fun dance party music of course). By the time Sarah came into the kitchen to visit me, I’d finished the fruit salad and just took a batch of brownies out of the oven. We went to bed at 2:30 a.m., tired but confident that we’d have time to finish preparing the rest of our lunch the following morning.  

Vision of Hope, Chipata Goodbyes, and Final Prep

I (Chrissy) woke up this morning to make one last trip to Vision of Hope. When I arrived, I spent the first couple of hours just hanging out with the girls. They were happy to receive the small pile of clothes that Sarah and I had donated and invited me to stay for lunch. I knew that staying would definitely be cutting it close—it takes a while to get to Chipata from Chawala, but I felt it would be rude to refuse their invitation.

One of the girls spending the day at Vision looked really similar to a girl we met when we went on our street walk with Vasco. I showed Sarah a picture of her later, and we’re both pretty sure it was the same girl. I’m happy to see that she might be starting to make the transition to life back off the streets. Another girl, Susan, is in the middle of that transition period now. She’s 17, but has a five year old daughter who lives with her Aunt in the Misisi Compound. I have a feeling she has very little involvement in her daughter’s life, and the fact that she gave birth at 12 years old suggests that she’s probably been living on the streets for at least 6 or 7 years now. The “mom” on duty told me that she’s HIV positive. Every once in a while, Chitalu and the other “moms” at Vision will hear that Susan is doing really poorly on the streets. They’ll hear that she’s really sick—covered with sores and extremely weak. They’ll send someone to tell her to come back to Vision. Eventually, she’ll show up just in time to get treated with ARV’s and recover her health. She’ll stay at Vision for a little while before returning to the streets. That cycle might be working for her now, but eventually she needs to make a full commitment to stay off the streets and take her ARV’s steadily, otherwise she’ll become resistant to medication very soon and be unable to find treatment for AIDS.

The “mom” on duty also told me about her life as a Zambian in Lusaka. She spent about 25 years working as a teacher at government schools, but eventually gave up the job to work at Vision of Hope. She says her passion for the girls and that work is too strong to keep her away. She told me all about a period when she worked on a community banking project. She taught local women in compounds how to formulate their own “self help groups” through community banking and microloans. It sounded like something that I would really like to do in the future, so I asked her a ton of questions.

At the end of the conversation, I asked her if she thought the street children crisis and impoverishment in general was improving in Lusaka. She said that from her perspective, the problem was absolutely getting worse in the area and had been for several years. It was unbelievably frustrating to hear a local Zambian admit that before the HIV/AIDS pandemic, things were improving, but now it’s all falling apart again. At one point she said, “Visit the local cemetery nearby. All of the graves are for people under 35”. One disease has singlehandedly destroyed decades of progress.

Shortly after that, Betty arrived from spending the morning in the town market with Chitalu. She is so awesome and I’m so happy that I was able to support her by buying one of her rugs. She sat and chatted for a while before initiating a full dance party to Sawa Sawa with all of the girls. It was so fun to share that moment with girls who have totally different lives from me. Wherever you go, it’s never hard to get a solid dance party going.

For lunch, we had nshima, rape (that’s a vegetable) relish, and capenta. Capenta is the one Zambian food I have avoided like the plague. I’ve avoided it even more than the deep fried caterpillars. Capenta are these tiny, dried fish that the Zambians deep-fry in the markets. They gross me out because you can still see the fish’s eyes, scales, and they’re constantly covered with swarms of flies in the markets. Generally unappetizing. When I saw the spoonful on my plate, I knew it would be rude to refuse it. I gritted my teeth and cleared the entire plate. Not going to lie, it was actually not that bad, but I still felt like I was starring on Fear Factor or something. Right after lunch, I paid for my rug from Betty, gave hugs to all of the girls, and promised I would try my best to visit again some day. I left feeling excited to know that I ever return to Lusaka, Vision of Hope will definitely be one of the places I work with.

I (Sarah) had some major struggles today since I had no voice.  It’s funny that when you can’t talk other people forget that your ears still work.  I was whispering, using sign language (which I had learned this summer), or writing things down.  Some people then did the same things to communicate with me and I had to remind them that I could hear them perfectly so they could speak normally.

On the bus to Chipata I got overcharged but since I couldn’t speak I wasn’t able to argue with the bus conductor.  I decided that I didn’t care, I mean it was probably a difference of about twenty cents.  I got to Chipata a little early and Chrissy was a little late, so that left me with about 30 minutes to fend for myself.  This consisted of me filling up 3 sheets of paper with writing in order to have conversations with people – so sad.

Chrissy showed up completely out of breath after running through the compound to make it to our session on time. (note from Chrissy: apparently, Zambians don’t think white people can run because they were falling over laughing when they saw me sprinting through the compound. They were all like “muzungu! Muzungu what are you doing?!!”)

Just our luck, the students at Chipata had also been given a holiday. We were able to track down a few students, including two of our favorites, John and Gabriel, who saved the day by rounding up the rest of the students nearby. So, we were able to teach a lesson and administer the questionnaire. Unfortunately, only ten of the students present also took the pre-program questionnaire 5 weeks ago. 10 is too small of a number to use as non-biased data, so between that low turnout and the bad luck at Tionge yesterday, our data is just not going to be what we’d hoped. However, the numbers we do have will be helpful for SIA to gauge the level of knowledge at the Chipata and Tionge sites, so it wasn’t a complete waste of energy.

We took a cab ride back from Chipata with Lazzy and managed to get our presentation ready for tomorrow morning. Sarah drank a lot of tea with honey, and we went to sleep crossing our fingers that her voice would be rested and restored in the morning. 

7/28

Today started off pretty well and we were really excited because we were going to have our last HIV/AIDS class with Tionge.  We went to the office and got copies of our HIV/AIDS final questionnaire and review sheet to give the kids.  We also bought cookies to give out at the end of class.  After getting all our papers we went to Fountain to do some more work on the website.  When we got there the computer was being used, so instead we hung out with Chris and Shazeda in the library for a little while.  Then, as we had promised him the other day, we sat down to talk to Steven, one of our favorite people at Fountain.  He grew up at Fountain after living on the streets himself. Now, he runs all of the sports programs there for SIA and is such a great role model for all of the children.  He is super friendly, personable, organized, and responsible, so we trust him a lot.  He had asked to speak to us before we left, telling us that he really wanted to make sure we had a clear picture of Fountain Of Hope.

Steven basically explained that there have been a lot of organizational challenges at Fountain in terms of who is reliable and who can be trusted. He gave us some unique insight on some of the “darker” happenings at Fountain and gave us explicit instructions who to trust and how to continue working with FOHA in a way that will ensure our aid actually reaches the boy. Jackson, another one of our friend who is equally as capable and admirable at Steven, joined us and reaffirmed everything we’d just heard. We were a little bit surprised to hear that not everyone at Fountain is reliable, but it certainly did help to explain some strange phenomena that we’d noticed over the last 7 weeks. We were really happy that Steven and Jackson were comfortable enough to confide the truth in us. We feel much more equipped to work with Fountain effectively from the United States.

Chrissy and I then left because we had to go to Tionge to teach our last HIV/AIDS class.  We were so excited because we were going to see how all our hard work paid off by measuring the improvement on the questionnaires.  As soon as we walked through the entrance gate at the school we had a bad feeling, though neither of us wanted to say it.  The school seemed pretty deserted other than a few kids walking around.  We thought that maybe they were in the classes or maybe they had gone on a short break.  Sadly we found out that the students had all been sent home already because their exams start tomorrow.  ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?!  We have come here every single Wednesday to teach the Anti-AIDS Club except last week.  We met with them twice last week and reminded the class.  Last week we met with the head teacher and teacher in charge of the club and reminded them we would still be meeting next Wednesday – aka today!  We even saw the head teacher write it on her calendar and we told her it would be our last day.  Damnit this country can sometimes be so dysfunctional and disorganized.  First, we were really pissed off, but then just really upset and disappointed.  We had prepared so much for this class and were so excited for it.  However, no matter what we said or thought, there was nothing we could do to change this situation.  We immediately called our contacts at Chipata to make sure that they were still expecting us tomorrow.  I guess this is just one more situation that we can learn from. 

Chrissy then went back to the office but I couldn’t because I had to coach in a few hours.  Chrissy did a lot more work on the Fountain Of Hope website as well as additional slides for our Powerpoint presentation for this Friday.  I stayed in the library at Tionge and planned out a full practice schedule and then headed over to the courts a little early.  Practice was great and there were 17 guys there!  That’s the most I’ve ever had so I was able to run a bunch of drills, as well as make them run a ton.  I was yelling a lot, and I had been starting to feel sick that day, so I could feel my voice slowly starting to go.  After practice when I back at home my voice continued to get worse and I knew from experience that it would be completely gone by tomorrow, mehh.

Pediatrics, the Hot Seat, and Pizza Tuesday

Again, I (Chrissy) woke up pretty early to make a second attempt at shadowing in the pediatrics ward of UTH. This time, it finally worked out and I was paired with doctor in one of the many wards. Of course, there was a huge disparity in the experience that children have at UTH compared to the children in my own country. It was decorated with cartoon paintings and had a friendlier atmosphere, but the children were all crammed very closely in the rooms. There was no privacy, little attention from doctors and nurses, and no televisions or video games, of course.

Most of the patients were very poor, coming from compounds I recognized included Misisi, Chipata, Kamwala, Chawala, and more. One of the girls had been in the hospital for two weeks with fungal meningitis. The doctor told the girl’s mother she needed to stay for a further two weeks. I definitely understood the mother’s frustration—to sit around in a hospital for two weeks with the doctor attending your child constantly changing and very little information is very irritating. After another two weeks, she’ll have been in the hospital with her daughter for a full month. I can only assume she has other children at home that are also dependent on her presence. Her daughter was ten and HIV positive. She’s been on anti-retroviral drugs her entire life.

There was another child in that particular room (contained 5 or 6 patients) who was HIV positive. He was a 13 year old boy who was also sick with meningitis. That seems to be a very common ailment for children in the area. Another girl in the room was from Chipata and so sick with meningitis, her file indicated “3^rd degree nerve palsy”. I’m not totally sure what that means but she was being taken to the hospital for surgery while I was there. Over the past few days, the swelling in her brain has gotten so bad she’s lost the ability to speak and sit up on her own. The doctor told the nurse she needed to be taken to surgery with all urgency, and her family couldn’t “afford to wait”. I don’t know what ended up happening, but I hope she’s okay.

One of the medical students who was there doing a shift asked me a lot of questions about the United States. He looked so puzzled and surprised when I told him that children do not die of meningitis, Tb, measles, cholera, and other infectious diseases at the rate that they do here. He just smiled sadly and said he hoped that could be the future for Zambia. It made me feel really upset and helpless to talk to him about it, especially in the presence of pre-teens dying of AIDS. It was a good learning experience, but I was kind of happy when it became time for me to say goodbye and leave to meet Sarah at Fountain of  Hope.

I  (Sarah) got up around 7:30 and went in to the office to do a few things before heading to Fountain Of Hope.  When I got to Fountain they were about to do the hot seat.  Every week the boys at Fountain have a hot seat session.  Some of the boys who have been causing problems must sit in the middle of a circle, one at a time, and all the boys around the outside can ask them questions.  The boy in the middle has to answer all the questions.  Vasco and Kenny usually facilitate the discussion, and Vasco asked me if I wanted to sit in on this weeks session.

This past weekend two of the boys, Rafael (Rafa) and Moses, had stolen four small laptops from FOH.  The laptops had been donated and there aren’t many of them, so losing four was a big deal.  The boys had been caught down by the intercity bus station by the police and had been kept in custody at the police station over night (one boy for 2 nights and one boy for 1 night).  Vasco and Kenny had just picked them up on Sunday, and only two of the laptops had been recovered.  Today Rafa and Moses were the boys to sit in the hot seat. 

Rafa was first to sit in the middle.  Right away the boys started raising their hands to ask him questions.  When ensued was one of the most intense interrogations of a child I had ever witnessed, and Vasco and Kenny participated.  All the boys were all speaking in Nyanja but Vasco took the time to repeat the questions and answers in English so that I could understand. and also to reiterate what had been said.  The boys do speak English but it’s just easier for them to speak in Nyanja.  Rafa first said that he stole the laptops and left because one of the boys (Frank) had told him that he was going to be kicked out of FOH soon.  Vasco asked Frank why he would said that to Rafa.  Frank replied that it was because he heard that the boys could only stay at Fountain for 6 months.  Frank then said that he didn’t know where he heard this information, and Vasco went on to give examples of all the boys who had been there for over 6 months, and all the way up to 10 years.  One of the boys then asked Rafa what he was going to use the money for after he sold the computers.  Rafa said that he wanted to buy a bus ticket to go back home.  Vasco called him out on this and reminded Rafa that he had already run away from home once, and on a bus ride back he had gotten off and come back to Fountain.  They had also called Rafa’s family after and they had said they didn’t want Rafa back because he stole too much.  Rafa had stolen over 3.5 million kwacha (around $700).  Rafa couldn’t seem to get his story straight as to why he had stolen, but he did admit to convincing Moses, who was younger, to help him steal.  It’s crazy to think that these boys are only 9 and 12.  After about another 10 minutes of questioning Vasco had to go deal with another problem and left the hot seat.  Unfortunately for me this meant that everything went back to being in Nyanja.  I stayed for another 25 minutes, struggling to understand the conversation, and then got up and left.  Another 30 minutes passed and they were still talking, and I was on the basketball court with some of the kids when I heard a loud “smack.”  I looked over and saw that one of the teachers was hitting Rafa in the back with a rubber stick.  This was still in the middle of the circle, in front of the rest of the boys.  I guess this is the type of punishment they get for breaking the rules.  To a certain extent I can see how they feel it’s necessary, but it was still really hard for me to watch.

I then went into the office to start working on writing up the information to put on Fountain’s website.  Chrissy and I had been asked to help with the organization’s website, which was quite incomplete.  A guy in the UK had created the website but there was still no information on it, so that became out newest task.  Chrissy got there shortly, and we worked together for a little while before I had to leave for basketball practice. Chrissy stayed to continue compiling information for the site before meeting Francis to get pizza and groceries for our big goodbye party this weekend.

Both practices went fine and I was really happy with the turnout in numbers for the younger team.  The older boys had a full team by the end of practice, but I was upset that so many had come late, especially after this weekend’s game.  After practice we had a really long team talk where both Coach Robert and I said a few things.  He really dragged on his part and I could tell that most of the boys had stopped listening and were bored and cold.  At this point it was about 6:30 and was really dark out, really cold, and even I just wanted to finish up.  Finally he was done talking and then I got to remind the team that I had promised to take them out to pizza today.  I was going to treat the boys who had played over the weekend, but some of the others decided to come along as well.  We piled into two cars and went over to the closest Pizza Inn.  I could only afford to go somewhere with BOGO, otherwise I would be broke.  I ordered 12 medium pizzas, one for each of the boys and one for me.  I spent a decent amount of money but it was worth it.  The wait was really long but it was fun just getting to hang out with the guys.  I only know them in a basketball setting since I only see them at practice, so this was a nice change.  After we got our pizzas we all parted and I got dropped off at home.

7/25

I (Chrissy) got up really early and went to spend my morning at the pediatrics ward at UTH.  Of course, I got there and things seemed a little disorganized. I got shuffled from office to office and person to person until finally a secretary told me I had to come back tomorrow. Gah. Meanwhile, Sarah was working more on the workshop and research prep that we needed to finish for Friday’s workshop. I knew that she was heading over to Munali shortly after lunchtime to work with her basketball teams.

With a mid-day and afternoon suddenly open, I decided to walk down the road to Fountain of Hope. There wasn’t too much going on, so I took advantage of the free time to meet with Roy and ask him all about Fountain of Hope and its history. Sarah and I both feel that it’s really important to gauge the organization’s background and challenges so that we can continue to support them from the United States. Roy explained all of the funding challenges, organizational barriers, and the association’s successes over the years. I was especially excited to hear about his ideas for a business that Fountain of Hope could start in order to produce its own income. I think a secondhand clothing shop (very popular in Zambia) and a car wash are the best options. The car wash is especially idea because it doesn’t rely on international support at all, where as the secondhand clothing shop depends on a consistent supply of donated clothing.

I left Fountain of Hope in really good spirits and met Francis and Sarah at the office so that we could walk home together. Sarah’s practices went well and we were happy to dissect everything I had learned from Roy that afternoon. We spent the night working on our workshop and planning out the rest of our last week in Lusaka.