April 26th

Ellen and I began our day by carrying her 3 water buckets to the bore hole to pump water. We made it about three feet from her hut when we were surrounded by children asking to carry our water buckets. “Bon Rachel! Bon Ellen! Kutapala meema!” The short journey, about the length of a football field, took about 15 minutes; stopping every few feet to greet and shake hands with everyone you see as is the custom, man, women, child, and baby.  Ellen had taught me the night before how to greet in Kaonde (Byepi muani); however she did not inform me that mani means relish. I am sure that you can tell where this story is going. I greeted the first group of women by saying “good morning relish.” They all thought it was hilarious! We finally made it to the bore hole in a cloud of children with my new boyfriend, Jeravy, perched on my hip and my spare hand clasped tightly by his sister.  “Watch me pump, watch me pump” the children cried in Kaonde (Ellen translated for me); each child as excited as the next to show me how well they pump water and anxious to see me try.

Later in the day with very little provocation 8 children helped Ellen and I knock down an old abandoned hut to gather bricks for our new bathing shelter. The current one is 6 months old and made out of grass; it is more of a peep show than anything else. The process of gathering bricks was not at fun as I had originally anticipated. The bricks are made out of mud and clay which are perfect homes for spiders and ants and termites, oh my. Lucy, a girl around 11 or 12, spend 3 hours meticulously breaking braking bricks loose with a large branch and placing the 10 pound blocks on the other children’s heads to carry to Ellen’s hut. Despite being covered from head to toe in dust the children were still laughing and smiling and joking. They completed all this work for two pieces of bubblegum!