Another lovely post written for us by Mama Vernon...
The anticipation and excitement were almost unbearable.
Months of planning, packing, organising every last detail….. then the day came to leave Tamworth. Three of the group had travelled ahead four days earlier, as they were going to a conference in Phuket and would then fly over and meet us at Johannesburg airport on the morning of 6th May. We would all then travel up to Livingstone together.
There was some anxiety around…. ‘what if the flight from Singapore is delayed and we miss the connection?’. ‘Sorry’ said I, ‘we are going ahead to Livingstone and you can come on later. Victor will be there waiting for us at Livingstone, I can’t be late!!’. They made the connection and there was great excitement when all six met up at the departure lounge for Livingstone at Jo’burg Airport.
And, Yes, Victor was at Livingstone to meet us and drive us in the comfortable new mini bus to Shackleton’s. The two hours went by quickly as I sat up front with Victor to catch up on 18 months worth of village and school news. We even saw Zebra in the Mosi-oa-Tunya National Park... what a great welcome to Zambia.
Soooo loved being back, to smell Zambia and feel the African sun on my skin.
When we arrived at Shackleton’s there was a huge welcome party of children, staff and some parents from Sooka Community School. Victor indicated that ‘the kids will be there’ but I decided to surprise my friends…. Perhaps ‘overwhelm’ my friends would be a better expression. Lovely singing, traditional dances and speeches took place and it was just a wonderful occasion.
The headmaster said “ If we could remove our hearts from our body and lay them on the grass before you, you would see how they would jump with joy”……. My heart would have been there joining in the party!
Day one: The dental clinic commenced and the girls looked at 52 children’s teeth the first day, being a long day when they would normally see 22 to 25 per day in Australia.
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| Louise & Elyce ready for poolside dental clinic |
Every child had photos taken of their
teeth, records were taken, teeth cleaned and fluoride treatment applied. All
children were also measured and heights recorded.
Day two was a bit quicker with 54 being
treated by lunchtime. Most staff had their teeth checked and when word got out,
a few children turned up from other villages. All children were also provided with a
plastic box with a toothbrush and toothpaste and their name printed on top. We
originally thought these would stay at the school for cleaning teeth when the
children arrived at School but the management committee decided they should go
home, so children could clean their teeth at the weekends.
Mwandi Boarding Secondary School opened to Grades 8 and 10 this year. My dream was to get one or two
children to this new school on scholarships. Can you imagine my delight to find of the
16 children who graduated from Grade 7 at Sooka Community School the end of
2012, 10 are at the new school (3 as boarders and 7 as day students), 4 are
walking the 14km round trip to Mwandi High School daily and 2 left school after
Grade 7.
I find this is quite remarkable and am SO
proud of the community and their dedication in providing a good education for
their children. They must be making huge sacrifices but their children will be
so very grateful. Francis (teacher at Sooka Community School)
and I walked the 20 minutes, through thick sand, over to see the children from
Sooka who are attending the new school. They are very special to us, as the
first class to attend (and graduate from) Sooka Community School. They all
looked extremely happy and so smart in their black and white uniforms.
Can you believe this lovely modern new
school has a library with not one book in it? However, the structures look impressive,
they have power and will eventually have computers. We met with the headmaster
and he is very keen to see as many local children as possible at this school
and said they will be very flexible with payment of school fees and plan to
make arrangements with farmers and gardeners to buy produce and vegetables
locally. Hopefully there will be job opportunities at the school for local
families too.
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| 10 students are attending the brand new Mwandi Boarding Secondary School |
The red sports shirts arrived safely! Some children had them on for our arrival celebration and the following day Howard and Victor collected 4 more boxes from the post office and all the rest of the shirts were there, plus second hand blue netball shirts for girls and grey shorts for the boys. They were all dressed in these the day I departed at my Farewell Disco at 7.30am. They looked just beautiful; fresh and bright.
So thank you so much my friends Janelle and
Rod for donating the shirts and St Edwards School, Tamworth for the netball
skirts and boys shorts.
Too much news for one blog entry, more soon!
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| Children sing the Zambian National Anthem & raise the flag |
