Tuesday, August 05, 2014
We’ve had two great days back to back. Yesterday we were able to have Immaculee, the director of small village water programs for all of Katanga Province and two of her assistants accompany us to visit several small villages on the road to Kasenga. This is a stretch of road that runs from 15-40 miles outside of Lubumbashi just past the airport near the road to Likasi. Elder Atkinson came with us in the van and drove. His background in construction had him interested in the idea of fixing broken hand pumps rather than drilling new bore holes for water for small villages. There have been thousands of bore holes developed by NGO’s (non-governmental organizations) to help the African people. As many as 90% of the pumps installed are no longer operational because of lack of training, lack of planning and no money.
Immaculee introduced us to the village chiefs and shows us the abandoned pumps in 4-5 villages. We visited with the chiefs, examined the pumps, asked questions about well depth, length of service, when and what caused their failure and how they are retrieving water currently. Unfortunately many revert back to drawing water from the river and other contaminated sources. The Ministry of Health has developed a safe drinking water program but provides precious little funding to the program. UNICEF is their only current partner and they are hoping we can provide additional funding. We’re trying to go to school on their experience and use their political contacts to avoid reinventing the wheel.
Because of our current difficulties in dealing with Johannesburg and water program restrictions, we don’t know if we’ll be able to make any headway but the prospects are intriguing. Elder Atkinson offered to buy all of the repair parts from his own funds if we could hire an assistant to work with him in repairing pumps. He has 4 months left on his mission and his construction program is on hold at the present. He is repairing toilets in sisters’ apartments and looking for something a little more meaningful. We don’t think they would approve our rebel proposal; nonetheless, we are going to personally buy the repairs parts for a single well and attempt to determine how long, how difficult and how expensive a single repair would be.
Today, Shelley and I visited 4 orphanages in the Lubumbashi area. Amas, who is a member of the high council and a director of orphanages for the Ministry of Social Affairs, arranged for our visits. It was a broadly diversified sample. We visited a Catholic orphanage, a Methodist orphanage, ad Muslim orphanage and an orphanage dedicated to babies 0-4 years of age. Their directors were Esther, Rebecca, Miriam and Emmanuel. I found it interesting that all names were from the Bible and these people were definitely saints. Three of the four lived right at the orphanage, usually in a single room with no private life of their own. They had anywhere from 23-52 children under their care.
Their needs varied from school desks to pre-school curriculum materials, to beds, to workshop tools. We usually try to allow them to identify their most important needs. We could see needs everywhere but their requests were generally quite modest. The challenge from the humanitarian perspective is that we are charged with helping others develop self-reliance. We cannot build new buildings or pay for on-going operational expenses. We usually try to focus on educational programs or training that will transfer knowledge rather than simply supplying things that do not change their ability to eventually care for themselves.
It was a very sobering day, but extremely inspirational. I know there are celestial people out there who are not yet members of our faith. These directors were amazing. The children were generally happy, well cared for and healthy. They were extremely well behaved while we were there and respectful. Their living conditions were not anything you would chose and they didn’t either but were making the best of their challenging situation. One orphanage only asked for kitchen utensils and cookware.
This afternoon we attended a planning meeting for the new Kisanga Stake Center open house. President Tondoy Tshibanda is the stake president in charge. We have worked with him on the Katuba Bridge project. This is a big deal for the church in Lubumbashi, with both radio and TV coverage. Mom put together 35 kits for dignitaries that will include community leaders and elected officials and media. It will take up our entire Saturday, but we are excited to be part of this historic event. The last open house for the Mwembila Chapel attracted 2,000 visitors and generated over 500 referrals.
Wednesday, we taught English to the Kisanga zone of missionaries which we really enjoy. It gives us an opportunity to get to know the missionaries and despite the language barrier it is really easy to get attached and begin establishing relationships. Shelley gives an incentive for being on time and it is amazing how much more punctual they have been since the word got out. Elder Iwubu helped me with translation in the open house meeting and I rewarded him with a chocolate bar. He was pleased and the other elders took notice of the small advantages that come from learning English.
We also met with an NGO who is a facilitator for orphanage services. They work with other NGO’s who are involved in orphanage projects. We couldn’t really tell what they could do for us as we usually like to make our own assessment of the needs based upon personal interviews and touring the facilities. I think we’ll pass on this one. Another visit of the day was to Lubumbashi University. We spoke with the number 2 person in charge and he asked us for help with latrines and desks. My feeling is that the university should be self-reliant and they are not the needy of this community. Flavien talked about what a visionary man President Packer was. He said President Packer had been impressed to assist in creating an English language training program at the University. He felt it would be a key in finding employment for graduating students. The program is no longer operating because of lack of funding.
Thursday we visited four local hospitals with a representative from the Ministry of Health. They are still working on obtaining report from the wheelchair project of 2012. The Ministry was to provide a copy of all wheelchair recipients; simple, right? Wrong. They allocated the 200 or so wheelchairs to 11 different facilities and never required a reporting from those facilities. From the 4 we visited, only one produced a report. It may never be completed and the 2014 allocated funds of $240,000 for Lubumbashi will probably be reassigned to another location for lack of follow-through. It was a real eye-opener of the living conditions and the lack of sanitary patient and doctor environment. I seriously don’t know what we would do if we really needed medical assistance. I suppose, we’d have to fly to Johannesburg.
Today we spent time with Sister Riendeau and Rosalee Kot in reviewing Shelley’s preparation for a maturation project. We understand many of the young girls miss school during their menstrual cycle and fall behind. The woman are looked at as property or chattel and are not revered and respected. It seems most of the visible work that is done is done by women. One thought that was proposed was that because of the labola or dote program where a husband has to pay a heavy price for the privilege of marrying, that the husband feels like he owns the wife. The maturation program has been successful elsewhere and the idea is to sew sanitary pads that are reusable that will give the girls new-found freedom and independence. There is a worldwide program called Days for Girls that they are using as a pattern.
The mission president and the Clawsons have been in Burundi this week and have spent the last two days in the Nairobi airport trying to get back to Lubumbashi. The travel here can be a big headache and generally is. Every airport requires a local facilitator who know the ropes and assists passengers through all the intentionally imposed red tape. We spent much of the day either on alert to run to the airport or at home cooking a meal they could eat upon their late arrival. It seems crazy that it is Friday again and another week has passed. We stay as busy as possible and the time passes much faster when we do.
Saturday was the new Kisanga Stake Center open house. We had volunteered to be shadow leadership for the stake committee over the event. We provided recognition bags for the dignitaries who came and Brother Atkinson was supposed to be in charge of showing videos. We delivered the bags on Thursday night and came with all the brochures, pamphlets and Books of Mormon. They decided not to pass out the literature and instead to concentrate on getting completed referral cards where the missionaries could deliver the church publications when they visit them in their homes. They decided to show videos in the chapel area and brought different videos than Elder Atkinson. They didn’t need his computer or his videos. We were not needed and that was the plan. We wanted them to be in charge and they took control without us micromanaging their event. It wasn’t all perfect, but they owned it and we felt success because they did take ownership. Shelley and I were on local TV. The person in charge is a church member and he recorded impressions from people who speak Swahili, French and English. Guess which couple we were?
I didn’t intend this week’s letter to be a daily journal review but I continued that pattern after Monday and Tuesday. We try to attend a new ward each Sunday on the advice of the mission president to visit different wards every week. There are 3 stakes and we try to decide on a different unit each week. Today we went to Upemba Ward. It is Justin’s ward and we saw his wife Christine and their family. We also saw Kennedy, a young man who we have considered using as a translator. We also saw Kennedy yesterday at the open house. He introduced us to his fiancé, who is the daughter of the 2nd counselor in the Kisanga Stake Presidency. He helped us both yesterday and today with translation. We would have used him earlier as a translator but we haven’t had our own car. He also played the piano in sacrament meeting and led the music in priesthood. We met his mother and family today. There are some wonderful people here. His father died last year while Kennedy was serving his mission in Kinshasa. He has graduated from the university in chemistry and is unable to find a job. He is trying to support his family with the loss of his father.
We have had another eventful week and our objective is to find joy in the journey. We’re recording events so we have something to report upon our return. These experiences are changing us and we hope to share them with you. We love you and wish a great week.
Love, Mom and Dad
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