Today started off with a tour of the CCAP new dawn preschool. The 40 plus children showed us their preschool rooms and sang us a few songs; it was very emotional for us to see the young children sing with such passion and joy. We were all glad to see Rosa back and ready for action along with a new driver named Jack. As we headed out towards Hoya Paul astutely noticed a farmer and his wife irrigating their crops from a shallow pit using a stairmaster style driven foot pump. After we all screamed for Jack to stop we all piled out of the bus to observe the rare sight. The farmers showed us his crops of tomato, corn, pumpkin, raip which is similar to kale, papaya, and some melons. This simple pump is giving him a huge advantage to provide for his family. As we were talking to him a cattle farmer approached with his herd and we all got a laugh at his son and daughter throwing rocks at the cows to help direct the herd. Adam asked about certain breeds of cows and he told us they only have a word for cows with horns and another for ones with horns. He said they give each cow a name so we told him he should call a particularly grumpy cow Adam.
We were happy to have a bit of cloud cover at the worksite today. We helped pour a cement cap on the footings. This cap helps control ants as they are not able to walk upside down on it and enter the building. Tomorrow we will begin building the walls on this cap.
We ended the day a bit earlier and had a tour of the nearby health clinic. The nurse there told us some interesting facts. Every Zambian gets free health care. Some of the vitamins are provided by the Canadian government. Outside, behind the clinic, is where they incinerate the medical waste in a pit.
After the clinic, Philemon led us to a nearby village for a tour. We talked to the family and learned a bit about how they live. The young couple there had a newborn son and some of the woman asked to hold him. Jody was the last and ended up with a lap full of pee.
The ride home was again a bumpy ride as we took a different route, apparently shorter but not really faster as it is much rougher. It has been an emotional day for many of us.
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