ANNE

Work:

A more cheerful couple of weeks at work, doing a revue of the last 18 months – the successes, the failures. OK, so I have not built 6 classrooms and dug a well but I have done my best! Overall, all 4 schools feel they have benefited from being part of this pilot project and accept that their expectations were a little unrealistic. Now when VSO introduces the education project into other African countries, infrastructure is banned. Unfortunately it has dominated the development plans for all the education volunteers and it is only now that committees actually believe that VSO does not arrive with shed loads of money.

Village Life:

We recently became aware of a little church tucked away behind the market. From a distance it looks like a half built or derelict construction with no roof, door or windows. Inside, it takes your breath away. It was built by the congregation in 1993 but funds have not been available to finish it. They have no pastor of their own but pastors and evangelists from neighbouring villages come to help out on a rota system. I casually mentioned to one evangelist that we would like to attend a service and we were immediately booked in for last Sunday’s service and Communion! On arrival we were shown to a rough bench at the front of the church – this is normal practice with visitors, especially white people.

We then had one of the most moving church experiences we have ever had as the little building filled with worshippers and the service began. The pews are rows of boulders; members bring a cloth to dust them with and then sit on them. The pastor sat on a tree trunk covered with a scrap of yellow brocade and the lectern is a branch with a plank lashed to it. Stones were carefully wedged under it to keep it level. There were the usual instruments and music with some energetic conducting by one of the lady elders. Communion wine was poured from coke bottles, served from a common cup on a battered tin tray but none the less meaningful for that. At the end of the service we were asked to stay behind and then shown into a mud hut which the young people of the church had built for their own use. Women appeared with pans of food on their heads and we were served chicken with rice and makabo, kind of like potatoes, washed down by beer or juice. Hamish and the evangelist had beer – I was only offered a soft drink; not many women here drink alcohol. The whole morning was quite an experience.  Photos show an outside shot of the church, one of it empty on a week day and the third shows it full during last Sunday's service.

Wells are drying up now and some of the forages (boreholes) are slow to produce the water, so long queues are beginning to form round them and the women are spending hours every day waiting their turn. When the hospital water tower overflows, as it often seems to do, people run from the fields to fill their buckets.

I had a 7.20am visit from the pastor’s son this week trying to sell me some of his art work which he does in their attic under an aluminium roof. I can’t imagine the heat. When he spotted some head torches in our house, his eyes lit up and I gave him one. A few days later his father told us that his wife was getting up at 4am to do her sewing work by the light of the new torch. Have we done her any favours, I wonder, as she already works too hard.

Random facts/thoughts:

·         There is to be another wedding on 6^th June! This time it is between “Fred”, the widower and older volunteer, and his young Cameroonian girlfriend

·         Children here use twisted rags knotted together as skipping ropes