June 4, 2014 - Clark

Wednesday, June 04, 2014

Today was supposed to be a calm day.  We had only a single appointment with Father Gideon, who is the Catholic Priest in charge of all the Catholic Schools in the Lubumbashi Diocese.  That is over 200 schools and over 107,000 students.  We have decided to pursue a project for one of their schools to refurbish their latrines.  They have 3 schools housed in a single facility and the total student body is over 2,600 students.  They have 16 boys and 16 girls latrines but they are inoperable because the piping has failed and the septic tank was undersized and not serviced or pumped regularly.  They are not using any of them but instead have installed 4 temporary latrines to accommodate all 2,600 students.

We had an appointment with him this morning to review a quote they had received to repair the latrines and upgrade the system.  We had also expressed interest in visiting some schools in need of new desks.  We reviewed the quote together and asked for 2 additional quotes to support our proposal worksheet which is call the “project development worksheet”.  This form is forwarded to Johannesburg for review and approval or rejection by the Area Welfare Manager’s office.   Once it gets to this stage, projects are generally approved with some modifications and coaching.  We asked them for help in preparing the proposal with their contact information and the number of beneficiaries who would benefit from the project.

Father Gideon was busy and asked his assistant, Charles, to accompany us to visit the two schools needing desks.  I must say I believe every school could qualify as needing new desks.  There are as many and 80 children in a classroom with each desk being shared by 3 students.  We visited one school of 700 students where the desk had not been  replaced or rotated in the past 20 years.  They had a great water project that had been completed 3 years ago to develop a well for clean drinking water.  The pump was powered by solar power panels and they had installed piping to the community outside the walls of the school in order to make the water available to the public.  Clean water is a continent-wide problem.  

Our next stop was at a school that housed 2 elementary schools with a student population of around 400.  It is in a poor sector of town and the student population is dropping because the school does not have a barrier wall.  All the schools seem to be walled fortresses.  The parents are worried about safety with motor bikes and access from anyone.  The faculty at the school are not well paid and they had developed a magnificent community garden where the teachers do all the work and use the harvest to feed their families.

Were stopped by 3 men from the immigration office.  They asked us to follow them to their office across the street.  They checked our passports.  We had given up our permanent copies of our passports because they are needed in order to apply for a visa that lasts for more than 6 months.  We hope to be able to travel after 6 months and obtaining the extended visa is our key to freedom.  The copies we were carrying included our visa information but did not include the stamp we had received when we entered the country and had them stamped at the airport.  We had our translator, Flavien, work with them to no avail.  We called Justin in the mission office and the Catholic representative attempted to pacify them.  In the end they wanted a bribe to let us go.  Flavien told them we were missionaries and we had no money but were doing humanitarian projects in the neighborhood.  He also told them that God would hold them accountable for the way we would be treated.  After what seemed like an eternity, maybe an hour plus, they let us go.  Shelley is ready to be a full-time office couple from now on.