Dear all,
I walked the length of Cairo Road, the main street of Lusaka, thrice on my first morning in town
. Once in search of SIM cards, then to pick up registration forms for the cards and again to get the details of the SIM card vendor for said forms. All this so I could surprise the children with some mobile phones that had been donated. Honestly then lengths I go to for these kids… is apparently 5.4km.
I'm back in Zambia again to visit WONS Ministries, a small orphanage in the Chunga Township on the outskirts of the capital Lusaka. Not only have I been involved in raising money and donating clothes, toys etc. for them since 2007, but the Ireland Supporters’ Club in London have as well because of me. As it is three years since I was last there, it was time I made a return visit. However travel plans were complicated by British Airways’ decision to pull out of the London to Lusaka route, meaning it was no longer possible to fly directly between the two. Alternative flights on BA via Johannesburg were a staggering £1,100. Thankfully KLM had a much more reasonable route at £700
. And so on New Year’s Day, accompanied by generous soul and larger-than-life Ireland supporter Tommy Feely, we embarked on the journey to Zambia. There was a stopover in Amsterdam first, with an overnight stay in the nearby Ibis, before flying on to Lusaka with KLM. An uneventful flight, save me being seated next to an elderly Dutch lady who spoke no English, yet I somehow managed to explain to her in German how to fill in her landing card. Still vaguely proud of that…
By the time we touched down, cleared customs, and reached our hotel (Protea Cairo Road, always nearly empty, but at a spot-on location right in the middle of Lusaka, and obtained at a great flight/ hotel combo rate) it was after 01:30, and Tommy’s companion Himelda had already checked into their room. I headed to my room and straight to bed, but little sleep was to be had. The alien environs, coupled with a small tropical storm outside meant I was up just before seven. So after unpacking properly and breakfast, it was down to business
. Money was converted to the local currency, the kwacha (revalued, with a few zeroes knocked off the end since I was last here) and went in search for the aforementioned SIM cards.
Once again, friends and colleagues have been staggeringly generous in donations to bring to the orphanage. One thing I hadn’t brought to them before was mobile phones, the use of which has been booming in Africa for several years at a rate that outstrips even Europe or the Americas. Here in Zambia, even the simplest handset can be used to provide communication to the remotest areas and send money, and I had been given a few to bring to WONS. I naively thought I could just get a few pay-as-you-go SIMS cards, top them up with a few kwacha of credit and the phones would be good to go. But no, a convoluted registration process was involved and could only be completed by the new owners of said phones. So much for the surprise…
Early afternoon, we were ready to head on to WONS
. It was only now that I noticed the lock on one of our luggage we brought over, an oversized bag containing over 20kg of clothes from the Ireland Supporters’ Club, looked rather unfamiliar. An awful realisation dawned that we actually had someone else’s bag, and ours was maybe still at the airport, or maybe even similarly missing. But the orphanage was expecting us, so we had to leave it for now. I felt physically sick about this on the journey through Chunga Township. But I now had to set it aside and brave face it in front of everyone at WONS.
Once we saw the ecstatic reactions of the children, this turned out not to be difficult at all. Their evident delight at seeing us again was so uplifting that spirits could not but help be lifted. It was a joy to see their faces; familiar but having grown in the years since I saw them last. WONS Orphanage was founded by Eunice Bwalya in 2004 with no government funding or aid, relying entirely on donations. I have been helping them since 2007 and, helped massively by the Ireland Supporters’ Club, built them two dormitories, paid for their school fees and raised thousands of pounds for their upkeep
. The children have even become member of the Supporters’ Club themselves.
It’s so gratifying that friends and colleagues give so much to me to bring to the orphanage everytime I visit. This time round, the children received Brazil training shirts, two laptop computers, children’s books, a DVD recorder/ VCR combo and tonnes of other clothes. When I handed over the mobile phones to the older kids, they could not contain their excitement. Who knew that such a basic no frills Nokia handset could bring such joy? And when star pupil Borniface received Davy King’s old Samsung Galaxy Mini S570 smartphone, he was so happy he was in tears. All this however pales to insignificance to the reaction of the girls to getting some hair straighteners, the shrieks of delights were probably heard down in the whole township.
We left at about 18:15. Dondey our driver had an airport pick up at 19:00, which was handy as I needed to go to the airport to return the mistaken (in every sense) bag and hope against hope that ours was still there. When I reached the airport lost luggage, I didn’t even need to say which bag or what flight. They had been expecting me and luggage owner had been tearing his hair out waiting for it to be returned. I signed the paperwork and expressed our sincerest apologies and deep embarrassment about it all. And yes, our original bag was here all along. HUGE relief…
Saturday was all about organising the day out for the kids. We narrowed the potential spots down to two; both of them were far out of town. Parays Game Ranch offered lion viewing and had a pool; however you had to bring your own food to barbeque they did not cater. Chaminuka Lodge is what we went for in the end; beautiful grounds with a barbeque buffet, swimming pools, game drives and boating on the lake. Its only drawback was the long drive over non-existent roads to get there. Still, this is where we will take the children on a day out. The hiring of a bus was done in minutes near the bus depot and the day out was sorted.
As we returned to our hotel, an almighty storm as brewing. Thus far on this trip, the weather had been holding up with just the odd shower in the night. Now however, the monsoons came down, accompanied by a thunderstorm that caused a blackout in central Lusaka and although the Protea Hotel’s back-up generator kicked in within seconds, their Wi-Fi was down and would remain so until the next day. It became all too starkly apparent how dependant I was on an internet connection.
Tommy was remaining in the hotel to meet Himelda’s children, Stella and Margaret, for the first time. I however was braving the rains and dashing out to meet Sue and Vi for dinner. It was lovely to see them again; they took me to a Sichuan restaurant serving what I can only describe as a Zambian take on Chinese food. Beef in beer sauce for instance, sounds a tad inauthentic to me, but I did try it just for the experience. I couldn’t taste any beer, but it was chokingly hot.
More to come
Cathal
Arrival, missing baggage and beer sauce
Saturday, January 04, 2014
Lusaka, Zambia
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2025-02-13