Zambia Journal

January 2009 began for us in Zambia getting to know the MCC team and meeting local partners. Zambia is much more tropical than South Africa with lush vegetation and a wide variety of fresh fruit even in the MCC guesthouse gardens. The heat and humidity was high and the mosquitoes were as pesky as they are in Saskatchewan. Zambia is a malarial area so we took anti-malarial prophylaxis and slept under mosquito nets. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

One of the highlights was visiting Macha Mission Hospital which is very well run medical facility. Everywhere we went we heard about MCC nurse Karen who had made a significant contribution to the HIV/AIDS programme there. Near the hospital we saw a four foot cobra slithering in the grass and then rear its head at us. Our tour guide, Chaplain Keith Mwaanga, who we had met in Canada quite a few years ago with Youth Discovery Team, calmly hit it with a stone and called someone else to finish it off! We were served a lovely lunch at the hospital administrator's home, where many MCC Serving and Learning Together (SALT) workers have been hosted during their year in Zambia. An MCC family is moving to Macha very soon to coordinate learning tours in the region.

Another highlight was meeting Mbole, a former International Visitor Exchange Programme (IVEP) participant who worked on a farm in Drake, Saskatchewan for a year. It was good to see him again and have him show us around his farm. Although ploughing is done by oxen and weeding is done with hand hoes, he and his father are wealthy farmers with 50 people on the payroll! Besides growing corn, they have 100 head of cattle, are starting a dairy herd, have 12 sows and about 500 broiler chickens/month.

We enjoyed singing familiar tunes in Tonga at the Nahumba Brethren in Christ Church (BIC) in Choma. There may be many cultural and language difference, but it is amazing that the same God is worshipped around the world.

MCCers in Zambia are involved in facilitating HIV/AIDS workshops, teaching primary school, working with refugee advocacy (mostly from Congo), teaching peace studies and counselling in trauma healing at a Bible College. MCC also provides funding for food relief, water accessibility, and education through Global Family.

For further information on MCC programmes in Zambia, visit http://www.mcc.org/zambia