The Wielers Come Back From Africa

We're baaaack! Sorry for the long delay between posts, but it has been a busy time getting ready to go home, actually travelling, and then getting home and trying to get reoriented. What a whirl. Here are a few highlights:

Getting ready to leave

We spent the last few days in Lusaka packing up our suitcases and saying goodbye to the many good friends we made in Zambia. This is always the hardest part of moving, but we hope to see some of our friends again some day. We said goodbye to the Zambia MCC team, a lot of whom will have also left Zambia by the time you read this.

The Zambia MCC team

We will miss our partners, the dedicated Zambians like Aaron and Josephine at Chisomo Drop In Center, Esther at Needs Care (and Needs Donuts), Pastor David at Chimwemwe and Aisha (Uncle) Boniface at Aisha School.

We received a nice going away gift from "Uncle" Boniface

Our Zambian partners are incredibly hard working and have great hearts for their communities, and were an incredible inspiration to us. We wish them God's greatest blessings as they continue their often difficult work with Lusaka's most vulnerable people.

We will miss our friends from church, people like Ken and Charmaine, Eckhard and Margriet, Dave and Amanda, PJ and Cynthia, and the many others who made our church experience such a great blessing for us. Once again God has shown us how the message and love of Christ is a universal gift that proves its validity despite geography, history and culture. Thank you dear friends for offering friendship and providing fellowship.

The final few days were a flurry of activity. Particularly noteworthy was the delivery of the high efficiency rocket stove to Needs Care for the donut making business. The donut project picked up a lot of steam in the last few weeks, with a slight change in the business model which saw smaller batches of donuts being made and sold on the same day. The rocket stove is supposed to reduce the fuel costs for the project, which will increase profits. As of this writing I don't exactly know if it is working up to spec, but we will be trying to follow up with the MCCers who are in Lusaka now.

Esther shows off some of the kitchen equipment that FGMB Mom's Group bought for her

Making smaller donuts in the new kitchen (with concrete floor!)

Satisfied customers, look out Tim Horton's

We also said goodbye to some of the normal day-to-day activities. Charlene went to the vegetable market every Tuesday and made some good friends among the vendors.

Our regular fruit lady

Our regular helpers, Joseph (on the left) was also a neighbour

Goodbye Zambia, we will miss you!

European Adventures

On our way home we stopped in Europe for a couple of weeks, so we could show the girls something completely different. We spent the first few days in London, travelled under the channel on the Eurostar train to Paris for four days, took another high speed train to Amsterdam for a few days, and eventually arrived back in London after crossing the channel 0n a ferry. It was a great time, we saw lots of museums and galleries, ate some good food and met some really nice people. Going to Europe just whets our appetites for more travel, there is just so much to see and to do.

In front of Buckingham Palace

The Queen was nice, if a little stiff.

In front of the Louvre

Arriving Home

Finally, on July 15, we touched down in Winnipeg and were met with raucous cheers. It was a wonderful homecoming, and it was great to see our family and friends again. We are in the midst of getting settled back in, shopping for some clothes (no Salaula here, unfortunately) and getting back into a sort of routine. It has to be said, everyone is feeding us great amounts of good food. We moved back into our house on August 1, and John started his job mid-August.

We've been welcomed home with open arms and heart-warming and humbling generosity.

In some strange way, it feels like we never left. Winnipeg and our friends and family haven't changed that much. On the other hand, our whole world view has been altered, and we are guessing the effects of our time in Africa will continue to be felt well into the future, and in ways that we haven't anticipated.

We have heard that it will be a while before we can really gauge the effects of our three years in Africa, but for now we just thank God for the opportunity we had to serve. We also thank you, our dear readers, for keeping up with the blog. This is probably the last entry, at least for this blog, but don't hesitate to contact us directly.

Love,
The Wielers

June Potpourri - By John

There are many miscellaneous things to post about this month.

PYP Exhibition

Yesterday we were privileged to see Erin’s PYP exhibition. The PYP (Primary Years Program) Exhibition is a result of a whole years worth of school work. The focus of the Exhibition this year was “Global Warming”. During the Exhibition the students put on a play, sang songs, rapped and showed off their special projects and posters, all having to do with Global Warming. It was an impressive display and you could really see that a lot of work and thought went into it.

Erin presenting part of a play

The whole class singing an "Anti Global Warming" song called "SOS from Earth"

Ngombe Sports Day

This morning was the sports day for the Community Schools in Ngombe Compound, just down the road from us. I (John) was invited to watch by some of the teachers at Aisha school, one of the schools that MCC partners with. It was only about 12C this morning and there was a cool breeze blowing the dust around, but that didn’t dampen the high spirits of the students as they gathered on the local dust bowl/sports field/football pitch. There was the usual happy chaos at the start, but eventually things were organized and the races were begun. The students all ran good races and a great day was had by all.

I was struck by the enthusiasm of the children. Despite having old or no shoes, running on dirt and rocks, and wearing whatever clothing they happen to have on at the time, they all were having a good time. It reflects a lot on my western ideas that "things" are required to do something, i.e. material possessions are a pre-requisite to activities. I suppose sometimes they are, but I also keep learning that a lot of the time in Zambia you don't need "things" to do "things", if that make sense. It's a good lesson to learn!

The Excited Spectators

And off they go...

Ndubaluba

Danica has just spent the last five days at Ndubaluba, an outdoor training camp for youth. It was a busy and activity packed week, Danica and her classmates had to spend a night outside, cook their own food and participate in a variety of outdoor survival activities. Danica had a great time on the rope course and in the bush race, where her team came from behind and won. More information on Ndubaluba can be found here.

Danica, ready to depart

Five days later, we're happy she's home safe and sound

Needs Food Donut Making Resumes

Zambia has just come out of a big sugar shortage, and after a break the ladies at Needs Care school are back in Donut production mode. They have relocated their premises and sharpened up their business model, so that some level of profit will be more likely. The ladies are also trying to diversify, by introducing a new product: The Cream Filled Donut. Well, it’s sort of like a “Long John” filled with a kind of frosting, but is apparently very popular and will sell well (we hope). Fort Garry Church has raised funds to help with Needs Care school, and those funds are going in part to help the ladies get their Donut business off the ground. A big thanks to the FGMB Mom's Program for your help.

The current "Bakery"

The "New" Bakery, not quite finished

Getting ready to go home

It’s only a couple of weeks until we leave Lusaka and head home. We will spend some time in Europe on the way home before landing in Winnipeg in mid July. We are very much looking forward to seeing everyone again. I am pleased that I will be working for IMT, a Winnipeg based Engineering and Consulting firm (http://www.imt.ca). In the meantime, we are busy wrapping up and starting to say our goodbyes. We will have to have a longer post to reflect on our experiences here, but needless to say we have learned a lot, experienced a lot and grown a lot, and God has been good to us.

Rebecca Grace

Even though we are a mere 5 weeks away from leaving this country we are still learning about the people, customs and traditions. A few months ago Miriam (our maid) told us that her teenage daughter was expecting a baby and she said that when it is born if it is a boy it will be named John and if it is a girl it will be Charlene. At that point I probably responded inappropriately by saying that Charlene is nearly impossible to pronounce for Zambians. When I introduce myself to someone I usually get a blank stare like I just landed from another planet or the courageous ones will give it a shot and come up with something like “Shereen”. I think I was secretly hoping she would have a boy so that John would have a little African namesake but last Monday we found out she’d had a beautiful little girl. I waited until Friday to ask what the name was and was told that they were waiting for me to come and name her! We chatted a bit and I tried fishing for the types of names that they might like but she wasn’t giving too many clues. I explained that in our culture it is always the parents responsibility to name the child and Miriam thought that was very odd as she didn’t name any of her 6 children.

Basically we have found that there are three general categories of names used over here: Biblical names, English words (we have met Happy, Lucky, Clever, Gift, Given, Baby, Beauty, Princess and many, many others) and African names. After some Googling, surveying and advice asking…meet Rebecca Grace Zulu.

We went and visited in their home this morning and got to hold the beautiful new baby. They seemed happy with the name, it was an honour and a pleasure to be involved this way.

L-R: Charlene holding Rebecca, Erin, Danica, Elisabeth and Miriam

Turning Chocolates into Donuts

by Charlene

I feel like I have mentioned ‘Needs Care’ school often in my blogging because I find their situation so inspirational. That school truly serves the poorest of the poor and while every other school we know of charges at least a modest fee, this school was created for the children who come from homes that couldn’t even afford $3 per term for their children to be educated. They meet in a partially built church that has a dirt floor and only half of a roof. There are 6 full-time teachers who volunteer 100% of their time and they are incredibly dedicated. Esther founded the school when she saw the number of children in her community who didn’t attend school. Zambian schools typically have a problem with teacher turnover and teachers who aren’t committed to coming to school everyday but Esther hasn’t experienced that problem. She thanks God for her reliable teachers and she says that she prays for each teacher every day.

In an effort to try to give these teachers a small compensation for their work they have started a donut business on the side. Their goal is to mix up a 50 kg bag of flour everyday to make into donuts to sell to local markets. When school ends at 1 pm some of the staff and some of the parents get together and start mixing the dough, it’s quite a labour intensive operation. Health standards here are pretty much non-existent so it’s easy for anyone to start a business in any place. This one happens to be in a roofless shack off of the back of someone’s house. In order to keep the supply going they are working 7 days a week so today on Sunday afternoon we went as a family and joined them in the donut making venture.

These ladies are starting the tedious hand mixing process.

...don't forget the oil!

When the Mom’s group at our home church in Winnipeg decided to do a fund-raiser selling Valentine’s chocolates and offered to send the proceeds to one of our projects, Needs Care came to mind immediately. The funds are being used to increase their capacity with some necessary tools and we are looking into getting a fuel efficient stove for them. Who would have thought that buying Valentine’s for your sweetheart in Winnipeg could have an impact on these women in Lusaka? We are hoping they will be able to increase their business to offer some regular financial support to the volunteer teachers. Needs Care has named the income generation part of their business Needs Foods!

Here are some of the 'Dolnads' by Needs Foods

A small sampling of some of the finished product (original recipe)

Here’s the original recipe in case anyone wants to try this at home:

25 kgs of flour
4 boxes of baking powder
20 eggs
1 kilo of sugar
a few mugs of oil
a bucket or so of water

Mix and mix and mix until you have a gooey dough and then shape by hand and deep fry.

Much concentration is required when shaping the donuts.

John got a little carried away with stretching his donut shape and it turned into the outline of Africa.

We’re still experimenting with the recipe and this afternoon John mixed up a batch of donut batter using his sour dough starter – his dream is that his starter mix will live on after we depart Zambia!

Kids are the ultimate taste test and they all gave a thumbs up to the sour dough donuts.

Pen Pals

by Charlene

Do you remember having pen pals in elementary school? I do, and ours were from Thompson, Manitoba. Although it seemed a world away at the time it was hardly a cultural exchange. Last year we had an MCC worker in two of Lusaka’s community schools and he arranged a pen pal exchange with an elementary school in Winnipeg. Stefan is back in Canada now so I went back to visit his former students and deliver the final package of letters.

Some Grade 4 students in their doorway

I had met the teacher in the morning and then found out that the Grade 4 class doesn’t arrive until the afternoon as the Grade 3 students use the classroom in the morning. I returned in the afternoon and entered the class and all the students were sitting diligently. When asked where the teacher was, they responded that she had gone home in the morning because she wasn’t feeling well so they were just sitting and waiting to be taught. I took that to mean that it would be a good time for me to share the letters from Winnipeg. I started by saying “I have a friend named Stefan…” at that point I was interrupted by cheering and applause and they were very excited. I think they thought I was going to announce that he is coming back but they were also very happy to receive the letters.

Rebecca with her letter from Winnipeg

In true Winnipeg fashion, many of the letters described Winnipeg weather and talked of all the different seasons and several had drawn pictures of hockey rinks. I had fun “interpreting” the letters for them, it’s difficult to explain the concept of temperatures that go below zero to kids who have never seen an ice cube or a refrigerator. As soon as the bell rang for break the children proudly took their letters with them to their outside breaks so they could show the students in the other grades.

A drawing of an ice hockey rink

I asked them what message they would like to send to Stefan and they said “Send stee-kahs” (stickers) when I restated the questions to say not what you would ASK FOR but what message would you like to send, a girl named Rebecca said to tell him that “the children of Chimwemwe Trust school love him and miss him very much and want him to come back very soon.” All the students agreed and it was very sweet, after that I pulled out a nice pile of stickers that had been sent from the Winnipeg teacher and it really made the kid’s day.

Everyone wants their picture taken

The Last Hurrah!

Zambia’s slogan is “The Real Africa” and last week we discovered that it really is. The girls had a term break and so we used our last week of vacation to do a final safari – our first in Zambia as the others have been in South Africa and Botswana. Our usual experience is to drive up to a park gate which is an entrance in a concrete wall topped with electric fencing. As we approached our lodge which is located just outside of the park, we were surprised to see elephants in the shrubbery on the side of the road. When we checked in at the reception desk we read the warnings regarding walking around the camp and how we need to call for a guard to escort us if we need to go outside after dark – we wondered if they were being overly cautious but later discovered that there are no fences around this game park, only natural boundaries such as rivers and mountains which are easily passable by most of the park’s animals.

Our Chalet

Our view of the Luangwa River

Fun in the pool

Our chalet was beautiful and spacious with a second floor balcony overlooking the Luangwa River and the game park on the other side of the river. We stayed for four nights and had plenty of time for hanging out, relaxing and using the pool. The snorts and apparent laughs of the hippos were always within earshot and we discovered first hand that the warnings at the front desk were not unfounded when we stumbled upon an elephant by the pool who nearly stumbled upon us!

An unwelcome and unruly guest at the lodge

After the first day at the lodge we went on a night drive arranged by our resort. Private vehicles are not allowed in the park after dark so we were in a safari vehicle with a driver, a spotter and another couple (who were very nice, and interestingly, he played 40 games for the Florida Panthers last year). South Luangwa Park is very natural, with no fences, rest stops, fueling station, souvenirs or anything of the sort. The roads were all gravel and some would fall under the category of path rather than road but our driver did not even feel confined to stick to those if there were things to see off of the road. Our first sighting was 3 lions and the safari only seemed to get better and better. We saw many animals and very few vehicles. Even though the leopard that we were desperate to see eluded us we were really thrilled with the experience.

On a night drive

Grrrrrr

The next morning we drove through the park on our own and saw lots of stuff, but nothing very major. It seemed that by about 9:00 AM the animals decided to run into the deep bush and all we saw after that were impala (Local Guide Joke: “Even a blind man can spot an Impala”).

We decided that since we were out in the middle of the bush, we had to try one last night drive. We saw a bunch of different animals before we stopped for our “sundowner” break at sunset, on the banks or the beautiful Luangwa river. While we were drinking cokes out of a cooler, it was interesting for us to see the “Norman Carr Safari” set-up, with fancy safari chairs, lanterns, hot and cold hors d’ouvres and so on. It gave us an insight to how the other 0.0001% live. Norman Carr Safaris cost between $500 and $700 per night per person! After it got dark we drove back into the bush with a big spotlight. Our spotter and driver were excellent and we were rewarded with seeing a male lion, a hyena and finally a beautiful leopard right up close. Seeing the leopard completes the big five for us.

Sundown on the Luangwa

Early the next morning we left our chalet and started our long drive ahead home. It took about 8.5 hours which was much better than the 10 – 12 hours we were expecting. As we drove down the driveway just after sunrise we saw 15 giraffe all lined up as if to say goodbye to us.

Goodbye, dear guests

Erin is 11! by Charlene

Well, we've just finished celebrating what will be the last African birthday for our family. As it turns out, classes were cancelled for the primary school on April 16th (Erin's birthday) for her student-led conferences. Erin got to sleep in a little later than usual and we enjoyed seeing her present all of the work that she's been doing this year. After spending an hour at school with Erin we took her out for cappuccinos/hot chocolate and donuts. She had her party with her friends on Friday and she invited her friends over for her dad's legendary home-made thin crust pizza and we went out to the movie The Game Plan - great fun!

Erin enjoying a mid-morning donut on her birthday.

Erin and her friends at school when we brought in a cake to share

In some ways this three years has gone by very quickly but in other ways - not so. We've been away from home for three Christmases, three Easters and all of us except Danica have experienced 3 birthdays away from home. We are looking forward to moving home and embracing our old family traditions and possibly incorporating some new ones as we think about our future in Winnipeg.

Our colleague Amy recently blogged about having company from home and her story about Grace that you can read here. I really appreciate Amy's insight to the local community and her gift of writing about her experiences.