Where I lived for five days.
The house I lived in for 5 days with Grace and her three daughters.
Choolwe, the middle daughter, is 13
Choolwe holding the chicken we would be eating for supper that first night
Aaww, sad little chicken...yummy dinner!
Mary came by to buy some mangos for her mother.
Roina is the 4-year-old who lived on the property with her mom Opher. They rented a small house on the plot.
Michelo, 9-years-old, climbing in the mango tree to get mangos for Mary.
Cheelo, the 15-year-old, was helping Michelo with the mangos. Notice that they are both climbing trees in skirts!!!!!
View from the shelter, looking over the family's maize field.
The oncoming rain looked a bit promising.
The toilet - it's a hole in the ground.
Roina washing her hands.
Roina was a bundler of energy and laughter.
Cheelo was pretty shy, but a wonderful girl. And a very hard worker!!
Michelo has only been speaking English for 3 years and is doing a marvelous job!
Choolwe washing dishes after lunch.
Roina getting a bath outside her house. She got a bath every day.
Mary is 4 and shy.
Very shy.
Yay! A glance!
Chickens and waterbuckets.
The chickens kept me quite entertained. Now I know why we call each other chickens. They sure are skittish!!
Mary again. Still waiting on her mangos.
Michelo is such a sweet girl.
Grace did all her cooking over an open fire. It's amazing what she can do.
Grace cooking chicken for supper.
New Apostolic Church that Grace and her daughters attend. They are still working on funding for the roof.
Fresh flowers for the altar.
The benches are simply bricks stacked on top of one another.
The flowers were certainly lovely...then it started to rain.
Grace and Michelo ready for church.
Once the rain started pouring, we all moved into this little house. It was packed!! And the roof leaked here too. ;-D
There ended up being about 40-50 of us in this little building. One man translated everything into English for me from Tonga.
A girl who attended church with us.
Termite mounds abound. Notice the guy in the background.
This was just before sunrise on Monday morning. The moon was still hanging in the air.
Moon over mango trees.
Sun rise over maize (corn) fields.
Rick Rempel in front of the hospital housing he shares with his wife Tracey.
Hospital Laboratory.
Rest of lab.
Outpatient waiting area.
More folks waiting in outpatient area.
Andrew Mwaanga (right) is Grace's husband. Here he is at the market stall his friend owns.
Renamed “Salmonella Sam's” by some of the locals.
Veggies at the market.
Mmmm. More veggies.
This market had everything. Here you see clothing.
Next door a tire and bicycle shop.
Back to clothing - it's a regular mall!!!
Chitenge fabric (for the wrap skirts)
Not sure why he's so sad.
Temporary housing and cooking quarters for those with family members in the hospital.
People cooking food for their in-patient family members. The hospital didn't always have enough food to feed all the patients.
Cheelo, Twiggy, Choolwe, and Trude. T&T are cousins from another village who go to school in Macha.
Twiggy (center) goes to the girls boarding school.
Trude lives with the Mwaanga family and attends the same school as Cheelo and Choolwe.
Roina practicing carrying a baby.
Cheelo, Michelo, and Twiggy under a mango tree.
I love the clouds during rainy season!
Fantastic clouds over the corn.
Girls begin carrying things on their head when they are very young. Choolwe can aleady carry 25KGs on her head.
Trudy carrying Twiggy's suitcase to the boarding school.
Cheelo carrying water back to the house.
Another termite mound. Just work around it seems to be the motto.
A family compound.
Each of the buildings is what we would consider another room.
The larger house is for the parents, the smaller are “bedrooms” for the older children.
Macha Girls Secondary School
This is a boarding school for girls. Twiggy goes here.
The library
Classrooms
More classrooms - with a chicken!
All the girls wear uniforms.
One of the dorms for the girls
Dorms. The house without a room is a new house being built for teaching staff.
New teacher housing.
More dorms for the girls.
They have their own bus for field trips!!
Kids playing on a tractor on the campus.
Lunch room
Nshima (corn meal paste) is their staple, even at the boarding school.
Nshima is cooked in these pots - they go through 50KGs each day.
Veggies and meat sauces are cooked in the smaller pot (next to Michelo).
Ox-drawn cart carrying corn to be ground.
Michelo with a frangelli flower in her hair.
Hibiscus flower
Water pump at Ubuntu campus.
Housing on Ubuntu campus
Macha Innovative Christian School (MICS) at Ubuntu Campus.
A new section of MICS being built
Bicycle shelter at Ubuntu
Some of the teacher housing. It has no running water and no electricity yet.
The brick houses outside are bucket showers and toilets.
New playground equipment at Ubuntu.
Grace is getting her hair braided by Cheelo.
Cheelo is giving my slippery hair a go with braiding.
I don't care what you say, no white girl should have her hair braided like that!!
Nope. Should nto be braided!
It was fun, but didn't last. Most of the braids came out when I slept.
Michelo playing around in the thatched shelter.
Grace preparing pumpkin leaves for supper.
Choolwe preparing to powder peanuts.
Powdering the peanuts.
Grace never used a cutting board and never cut her hands in the process.
I'm totally amazed by this.
All the women/girls use this method. I'm sure I would end up with my thumb in the bowl.
Michelo in a mango tree, just hanging out!
Silly little monkey!
Grace's sister-in-law's house.
Guest house on Esther's compound
Multifamily house.
First missionary house in Macha.
Missionary and pastor cemetary at the Brethren in Christ mission in Macha.
Children at the elementary day school.
Zambian flag in the center of campus.
Are children any different around the world? :-D
Frances Davidson Secondary School
Grades 8-12
Choolwe and her sister Cheelo and cousin Trude all attend here.
Toilets for students and teachers (all pit toilets!!!)
Frangelli tree on campus.
BIC church and cross in Macha
This was the first hospital in Macha.
Andrew Mwaanga (Grace's husband) gave me tours of Macha everday.
Me with Grace and Michelo as we said goodbye. It was hard to leave them at the end.
Michelo going with her mom to work.
Happy trails to you!
Michelo in a mango tree.
