Wednesday Afternoon

Well I guess I finally got my "wish" -- daytime rain. Timing? Interesting to say the least. Today I was at Hope Village, visiting the school. I spent a bit of time in each class, from pre-school through seventh grade. Hope that what I said in each class will help reinforce the importance of these at-risk children staying in school. Parental encouragement is not always forthcoming. Asked them to promise me that they would stay in school because the future of Zambia rests on them!

I had remarked to several of the adults that the one thing that I found really jarring was the lack of infrastructure maintenance, specifically the side roads and side streets in the city. Those roads/streets are in horrendous shape. When I said the word "maintenance" Pr. Daka (one of Charlie's long-time friends) told me that there is no word in Bemba (the local language) for maintenance. So, given that fact, then there is no concept of maintenance either! That explains a lot. The local mentality is we use it until it breaks and then try to fix it. Having said that, I think the roads and streets are broken and still don't understand why they don't fix them I'm talking about potholes that are sometimes 18" deep and troughs in the roadway a foot deep. You crawl through some stretches...if you try to go any faster you'll either hurt yourself or your vehicle.

Talking about vehicles, most of the vehicles on the road here are Japanese. Interesting business, that. They are used vehicles, shipped from Japan to here, "refurbished" and sold. Cars, vans, mini-busses, larger busses, delivery trucks, etc., all second hand from Japan. New cars are only purchased by corporations and the very rich. I've seen one Mercedes since I've been here. Toyota reigns supreme.