2: Cement, sand and water are mixed together

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3: Mix is put into the mold

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4: Tap, tap, tap the mix into the mold

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5: Walk the block to a corner

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6: Gently remove the mold

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7: Viola, le block!!

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After taking stock of the current status of construction, the Ping Pong team had a mini-conference with Tabitha and the contractor Charles back at the Linga Longa guesthouse. Charles gave us the estimate of how may bags/sacks of cement and heaps of sand was required to make the cement blocks needed to raise the wall. We advanced some funds to enable them to buy the necessary cement and sand to commence the block-making.

Next morning, when we reached the site by 8am, work was in full swing.

Pastor Shern
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Mahesh, Abigail and Tabitha
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The number of children at the HOME keeps changing as the orphan children come to the HOME through many sources: sometimes through the church members, sometimes left abandoned on streets until some kind soul brings them over, sometimes brought by police but mostly brought to the HOME by the social welfare department. While Pastor Shern and Tabitha enfold these children readily into their household, register them in schools with Pastor’s last name, pay the fees, take care of all their needs and treat them with love and care, there is always the thought that these children belong not to them but to the ‘government’.

Desmond, Costa, Naomi and Nawminga
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The current home has three bedrooms, one for the boys, one for the girls and one for Pastor and Tabitha. There is also a reception room where visitors are received and where children watch some TV. There is a small dining room capable of seating only four-five at a time. The store-room was empty when we visited. The sparse pantry room and a functioning kitchen and two washrooms cater to the needs of all these people.

While there are two caregivers (a male and a female as required by law) at the HOME during the daytime, Tabitha handles all their needs at night time herself. She also washes all their clothing by hand everyday.
Store Room
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Dining Room

He started off with it’s independence in 1964 from British regime. The Zambian Flag, has five colours each with a significance:

Green to denote growth and prosperity

Red to denote the blood that was shed for their independence

Black to denote the colour of the people

Orange to denote the abundance of copper

and the Eagle to denote  freedom.

Pastor also elaborated the education system prevalent there. Primary schools offer education from grade 1 to 7 and secondary schools from grade 8 to 12. Although the government has declared that education is free for all Zambians, most public schools charge fees named as ‘building fund’ or ‘laboratory fund’ or ‘library fund’. Students who cannot pay the fees are not sent home from school, but will not be allowed to write the year end exams necessary to graduate into the next grade. All public school students wear uniform.

There are also missionary schools and private schools who charge even higher fees than the public schools. There are also some community schools which offer trade and skills to help the budding adults seek gainful employment, but these schools are few and far between the various towns.

So, my next question to him was, how come English is so commonly spoken among young and old, office-workers or farm-workers?

Pastor Shern, explained how English came to be adopted as the ‘working language’ . After independence in 1964, the neo-government could not get a consensus among the 73 tribes and 20+local dialects. Due to British occupation, most of the tribes had some English speaking members among them, that is decided to let English remain as the official working language of Zambia. He added that Dr. Kenneth Kaunda, the first President of Zambia integrated the various tribes by making the children from one region seek education in another region. As education was offered in English only and all offices and banks functioned in English only, all citizens gradually picked up the language for economic reasons and simply for the matter of survival.

Thanks to Dr. Kaunda, tourists, immigrants, international aid workers and volunteers such as yours truly Ping Pong Team find it very easy to work/live in Zambia. Thanks a bunch, Dr. Kaunda for your vision!!

Our guest house ‘Linga Longa’ was only few minutes away from the DOCSEK Home. From the front porch or verandah where we sometimes had our meals, we could see the children walk to the school. Almost always they would call out a ‘hello’ to us and beam their lovely smile. It was so surprising to hear everyone speak English, young and old, educated or not, office go’ers or labourers….

“Proud of you!!! Did my first small bit of donation today – planning to do more as I save more! ”

and for also reminding me that:

I am proud of you too, my darling honey-bunch!!

Most people never feel secure because they are always worried that they will lose their job. lose the money they already have, lose their spouse, lose their health and so on. The only true security in life comes from knowing that every single day you are improving yourself in some way, that you are increasing the caliber of who you are and that you are valuable to your company, your friends and your family- Anthony Robbins

Thank you  Bala, for encouraging me to continuosly increase my caliber in every way possible even though we did not see eye-to-eye on many things. Thanks for walking by my side even through uneven and unknown paths!!