Lows to Highs
“Boo-hoos and Woo-hoos time!” It’s part of our rhythm here. Over the evening meal we take time to share the highs and the lows, as part of processing the day together. We laugh, we cry. This blog is called Visit Home of Hope, and it's important not to romanticise. I woke up this morning to no running water. This I discovered after shaving and thirty seconds in to a shower when the pressure suddenly dropped to zero. I rinsed my face and washed my hair with half a small bottle of drinking water left over from yesterday, then went out to investigate. (There are water supply taps outside the building and the children sometimes turn them off…)
I mention this because it inspired my first “Woo-hoo” this evening! I don’t like an interrupted shower any more than the next person, but what I absolutely loved was the complete un-phased-ness of the team, as one by one they woke up and learned it was a dry-tap Tuesday. And this after a 30 hour journey here on Monday. Not one person said, “Alex! You used up all the water in the tap!! Where’s my shower???!!!” Gill was next to wake up and took it all in her stride, working out quickly that the large metal laundry bins full of water near the loos were for such a time as this. Matrida, who with her friend Deliah cooks our traditional breakfasts and evening meals, kindly brought more water in buckets. It was a problem somewhere upstream of the gravity-fed elevated tank that stores water from the hill, we learned later. So, we entered the morning more splashed than showered.
After our lovely, lovely maize porridge, with those of our group who are new to Home of Hope, Phil and I went to meet with Rev and Mrs Chipeta. We were going to learn from them how all this began. Meanwhile, Gillian, Ruth and Sue set about the task of organising the contents of our 23 x 23kg suit-cases - no mean feat! - ready to start distributing the Vocational Training Centre (VTC) tools, the medical equipment and the teaching supplies we carried here to the relevant departments over the coming days. Those of us in the Chipetas’ sitting room heard about Rev Chipeta’s loss of both parents at age 14, and the journey that lead to him, and his wife of 70 years, caring for many hundreds of parentless children to this very day. Rev Chipeta is now 95 years old, Mrs Chipeta, 87. “What gave you the boldness to ask to open an orphanage, when you had money neither to start one nor to maintain one?”, asked one of our group, Deborah - herself a minister. Twenty five years ago Rev Chipeta told the government officials interviewing him, “‘A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy dwelling. (Ps 68)’”. “I told them that this will be God’s orphanage, and so it will be God who provides all the money to start it and sustain it.” This proved persuasive. “Why shouldn’t we let this old retired pastor have his orphanage? Let’s watch and see what will happen.” And we have seen.
Induction and lunch done, time to start work. For many years we who have visited Home of Hope have heard the difficulty of finding funding for building-maintenance. New construction is needed, and continues, but areas of the site that sprouted near the beginning are looking decidedly wilted. The Jane Glaves Primary School is one such. Gill and Rafal on our team are into their DIY. (Rafal can build you a house - plumbing and wiring and all - if you ask him nicely!) They, with Phil and I, met with members of the VTC staff, HOH building team, the Primary School “Standard Seven” teacher Patricia, and Thompson - a member of the core HOH leadership team. We met briefly in the HOH Admin Office before deciding the real need was to walk the ground. Over three hours we inspected the nine rooms that make up the school: Nursery; Standards One through Eight; Library; Staff Office. Inside and out, we noted repairs to be made and estimated costs as we went.
Patricia Chataika and Rafal inspecting the Primary School
Rafal, Phil and I wrote up the notes this evening to confirm we’re within budget, and tomorrow Thompson will oversee the purchase of the first materials. In fact, the work has already started: many of the school’s 36 cement-block grill windows have already been knocked out by the building team, the openings ready to be rimmed with bricks then fitted with iron-work lattices. There will be no glass. (New window panes, abundant children, abundant stones, soon no window panes!) This change, along with fresh light-coloured paint in the interiors, and some serious elbow grease on the translucent roof panels - all should shift the classrooms from dull to dazzling! No holes in the floors, no holes in the walls, smooth and freshly-painted blackboards: we hope the Primary School students and staff alike will enjoy their lessons all the more in refreshed surroundings from this September.
Fun! But not the MOST fun being had this afternoon. Others of the team were busy engaging dozens of children in craft activities (some absolutely beautiful colouring-in of masks and pictures), then some singing and dancing lead by Debbie.
Lows long forgotten. High on memories of our first full day at Home of Hope, 2023.
Alex
Comments
Post a Comment