Remeber the little guy Obdu?
Lloyd just sent an update on that young man. Not only his he growing bigger and stronger. He is doing very good. He has broken off from being a streetkid and attends school regularly now, thanks to the donations of Stan. Obdu now can fluently read.
No wonder his smile is so smug nowadays 😉
If you feel you want to support a kid’s education as well and help a family pay school fees, please contact us about our sponsorship programme!
You guys probably know that we do have our greenhouse and plantations. Right? Right. Up till the end of 2016 those places were located close to Lloyd’s house as to always have someone to watch over them and make sure our plants and belongings are safe.
Now that we started PAF Community Center the idea came up that it makes sense to move our greenhouse and fields and plantations to the Center grounds.
And guess what? That is exactly what we have been doing in the past weeks. Moving the greenhouse is one thing. But clearing the space for new fields and plantations and preparing those for the new planting season is another.
Working this dry and hard soil is a tough job. Everyone helped with that.
So basically our “garden” has now moved close to PAF center. And to make sure all is safe we had to fence the greenhouse and grounds as well.
As soon as we have solved the issue of securing our belongings at PAF Center we will also move the water tank and pipes and set them up there for irrigation purposes. But for now those remain close to Lloyd’s house to keep them safe.
And now that planting season started we can grow our plants at our PAF grounds. Pretty cool, huh?
So lets just say that things have been moving in Chinkonono 😉
Education is a universal human right and books play an important part in attaining it. Books are scarse in Zambian schools. Usually the “pupil to book ratio” is 1 to 4, so one book for 4 kids…This is worse in homes as village homes never stock books.
To provide books for kids PAF has come up with a plan for a village library. Our library room will be ready very soon as furniture is being made. Thanks to good-hearted people out there we sometimes recieve books for our kids.
This time our friends from Australia have donated books to stock up the library. Thanks to Guama School, Liane Hornig and all who have donated books. Twalumba! 🙂 You brought a lot of smiles to the village and our kids!
The books cover all aspects of life relevant to kids all over the world. We received books for entertainment and education. All aspects of learning have been catered for, such as subjects like History, Geography, Science and Crafts…but also a lot of story books.
So when you visit PAF library be assured that you will find adventures of Alice in Wonderland and books on how to grow potatoes or how to sew a shirt.
Apart from kids books our library has novels ranging from wild west adventures to The Book Thief.
A lot of books are still needed and our humble appeal from our well wishers is to continue helping us. Thank you so much!
As you all know the main objective of PAF is to promote household food security in Chinkonono and the surrounding villages.
It is in this vein that PAF, with the intention of supplementing members’ effort in securing household food security, embarked on a seed and fertiliser support programme. Eleven members who where willing to take part applied and were given 4.000 Kwacha (roughly 400 Euros) from the PAF bank account. This money was paid to the Ministry of Agriculture under FISP (Fertiliser Support Programme). This is a national programme in which farming inputs are subsidised at fifty percent to enable peasant farmers access farming inputs.
Each of the eleven members got three and half bags of fertiliser and one bag of seeds. Hence each of the beneficiaries are able to grow a hectare of maize. The expected harvest for each beneficiary is 75 to 80 bags of maize. Each of these beneficiaries will pay back 400 Kwacha to the project in May. That way we can already raise the money to attend in programme again end of 2017.
Due to this project plus very good rains Chinkonono village is gearing for a bumper harvest. People will have food to eat and the extra will be sold for soap and salt.
We are really loving without borders thanks to all those who contributed to the success of this fertiliser project by contributions and donations.
TWALUMBA 🙂
People these days go crazy about healthy and organic food or superfood. All that for the “western world” is very expensive while in places like Chinkonono it is so easy to get.
One of our coordinators, Wesley (Lloyd’s brother), has sent some pics and info about one of the village’s favourite snacks: Vinkubala…caterpillars.
What? Yeah..caterpillars. What sounds like the most stereotype thing to say about Africa is actually a very, very healthy part of PAF members’ diet.
In Chinkonono those caterpillars are called Vinkubala. Wesley set out to catch them to bring home a surprise for his family for New Years Day.
As you can see the kids went crazy about them.
Those caterpillars can be found in some trees in the field around December and January. It is mostly a popular relish or snack around Southern Region.
Vinkubala provide the body with a lot of proteins, vitamines and many more nutrients. That is why during the 2 months people try to eat as many as they can. They are a valuable and important addition to the regular diet. Even the Zambian government recommends eating caterpillars.
As you can imagine, thinking of caterpillars, most kids at first are a bit hesitant and even scream when they see or touch them for the first time. But on the other hand they are more than eager to have them.
How to eat vinkubala, you ask? Well…obviously you put them in a dish and kids will try sort out the biggest ones for themselves first. 😉 Then you have to get the outer shell off and remove the insides. Apply some salt, let them sit there for a few hours or a day. Then they are ready to be fried or cooked. You can add any ingredients you see fit.
Would you eat them? 😉
Finally! Julie made it back to Zambia after 2 years. And guess where she went: Chinkonono Village of course!
Check our awesome new Slideshow to see what happened in the village and what progress we made while Julie was there:
Julie had a big To-Do-List to check 😉 As you know we have been announcing a market place and kitchen for ages. So we planned to get both structures roofed within that week. We managed for the kitchen. So that is good. The market we only could do half because we lacked grass to that the roof the traditional Tonga way. But we are confident that it will be done very soon.
Also our building that houses the library and sewing room for now was supposed to be painted nicely. Unfortunately there was a lot of plastering to do to fix dents and window sills. But Jason and Albert worked hard. So with a slight delay the ladies, Julie, Wesley and many other hands could start painting.
For the rooms we chose water-based white paint and for the lower part white oil paint so we can wash of prints of dirty kids’ hands 😉 Door and window frames are painted in a dark green. For the front wall and pillars outside we chose white oil paint to be able to wash them too. Also Wesley and Julie practiced their sign writer skills and wrote Planting A Future onto the top part of the front wall.
What can I say? It looks beautiful and bright and people can see it from afar. Our members are so proud, especially the women. They say that nobody has a nicely painted wall our house at home. And to quote Media: “Not all men’s work has to be done by men only. We can do that too!”…she refers to the whole painting job, which was very interesting and exciting for our ladies.
But now lean back and take 12 minutes to watch the Slideshow! Please share if you like it! 🙂
