A deep, resonant drumming penetrates my sleep. The drum's pulse increases to a climax, then ends. Time to get up. The horizon is lightened by the just-risen sun - it's 6:15am. The drum calls ACTS staff to morning prayer before breakfast.
Welcome to my day. No one knows what could happen in a day, but there is a general framework that each one fits into. You are free to tag along with me to see a day from my perspective. Ready? Tugyende! (Let's go!)
Still a bit groggy, I leave
tent row and head to breakfast.
There is little question and variance in what I anticipate eating today. Breakfast is
millet porridge (quite tasty w/ a bit of sugar), a
couple buns (sometimes w/ "Blue Band" margarine if we have it), and a hard boiled egg when we have them. Oh, and possibly a banana.
This month the health and environment teams (L to R above:
Edmond, Rachel, Rose, me, Jovanice, Faith) are conducting a baseline survey. We visit homes and ask questions about health, sanitation, agriculture and environmental topics. This helps us know the community and how we should tailor our education programs. We must visit at least 150 homes, and each visit takes an hour. Lots of work to be done!
On the way to our surveying, we stop to see the
first day of digging at the water source, which will provide water to the valleys below. People who will receive water do most of the digging.
After a 20 minute rough-road drive,
we set out on foot past coffee, banana and bean "plantations".
This is
a typical compound of a wealthier family. (Their wealth is indicated by the brick house.)
This is a
more typical mud house. Most houses have metal roofs here, but some are thatched. Our guide told us that both heads of this household have died, so it was abandoned.
We return to camp for lunch at 1pm. The one thing here that is punctual is mealtime. I am always amazed at this because nothing else is "on time". Lunch is
beans and greens with a variety of starch options:
rice, matoke (mashed and boiled green bananas; this is considered a must-have staple),
posho (corn-based "meal"),
potatoes (called Irish potatoes),
maybe sweet potatoes. Sometimes there is shredded and cooked cabbage instead of greens.
After a rain storm complete with hail, we
head back to surveying... It is so beautiful here. The hills still make me stop and stare.
Because Rose wanted to buy beans from a local farmer, we end of
picking beans to make the process go faster! As I said, you never know what could happen in a day!
We arrive back to camp at 5pm for tea. Today we are in for a treat. There were no buns so
Edward makes mandazis - fried pastries.
Tea is my favorite time of the day. It signals the end of a work day and we get to eat the most familiar food I have at camp. :-) We have buns, tea (black tea with sugar and sometimes milk), and often fruit. Yum!
After emailing or doing some laundry or playing cards, it's dinner time (7pm).
Tonight is meat night! We get meat on Mondays and Fridays. Other nights it's beans. The same starch varieties are available, with the addition of
"tapioca" (a meal made from cassava flour). This is the favorite of local people like Faith.
The evening ends with "fellowship": singing, a Scripture devotional, and prayer. (Sorry there's no picture. It gets dark at 7:30pm, so there's not much to see.)
Most people have lights out by 9pm, and I am quickly adjusting to that schedule! If you're still reading, thanks for sharing the day with me. Goodnight!
Children found a place to stand where they could watch the ribbon cutting.
The Bishop of this diocese came to break the ground, and the community members came out to perform for the ACTS team as a way of thanking and welcoming us.
These school children are reciting a poem called "Water Is Life" at the Bwesumbu dedication ceremony.
Of course the celebration included food. There was not question of where our meat came from. Two goats spent the previous night in our compound and were slaughtered on the morning of the celebration. (We watched the process, but I've not shared the more graphic photos.) :-)
