Love, Hugs and Ringworm!: What to do.... (and pictures)

As many of you know Zambia has been in the middle of a Cholera outbreak for the last few weeks meaning we were unable to open school at the beginning of January. Many markets were closed, street vendors banned, public meetings of more than 5 people banned and the army were sent out into the city make people to clean.

It was pretty difficult getting information about what was really happening. The ministry of health website has been down and people have had to rely on Facebook posts and radio reports which may or may not be 100% accurate!

While we were closed I used the days to do some training with the teachers. They cleaned and learnt how to paint. We replaced wooden doors on the toilets with metal ones that don’t reach all the way to the floor! If the children came to find out what was happening they got to pick vegetables, mangoes and were given bars of soap and we finished knocking down and clearing the old building. I did lots of paperwork and taught the teachers how to paint, got rid of mould in my office and sorted it out. As the days went on it became quite difficult for the teachers to get to school as they were made to sweep the streets before they were allowed to pass and soldiers would quiz them where they were going so by the end of the first week, when we had already achieved lots on the 'cholera closure' list I had made, I told them not to come back until I called them.

I also spent some time doing nice things. I had Marcus come for a sleep over, went for coffee with various friends and spent lots of time with Memory before she headed back to University.

In the last week the government has rolled out a vaccination program with many people getting treatment and finally we were told that schools were able to open on the 22^nd. So we did!

It has been so nice to be back in school with the children. The little ones seem very little and everyone has grown.

We are so thankful to have been able to open school again. Pray for the country that the opening of schools will not lead to a further spread of the disease.

We are also desperate for rain in Lusaka. It hasn’t rained properly for a long time. Normally rains start sometime in November however if it had been raining the cholera spread would probably have been much worse.