Soil Village

I can't remember the Chichewa name of the village we went to today, but it translated to soil village in English. Interestingly, KASO has a center at Fumbe (dusty) village as well. We held a community meeting to introduce KASO to the village leaders from several surrounding villages and a large group of men, women, and children (actually 3 separate groups). The people were very excited about the programs, especially the Early Childhood Development programs which they hope will allow their children to have an advantage once they get to primary school. They kept thanking Matt and I, which was a bit awkward because we were not really doing anything for them. They kept telling us, though, that we were the first white people to ever set foot in soil village.

On a side note- the biking to this village was awful. It was an hour away totally uphill (nice view from the top!) and up two major highways before getting to the nice safe trails. SCARY!!!

Anyway, it has been interesting to see the beginning stages of a community development project, especially one that is completely grassroots (run totally by and for the local people). It was amazing to see how excited the people were about the programs. The KASO volunteers made a point of emphasising community ownership, how KASO would provide the necessary resources (paint, materials for ECD, group therapy, etc), but that the community development committee would need to arrange for the local volunteers to run the center and to coordinate the production of bricks and the building of the center itself.

Yesterday, Matt bought some building materials to donate to KASO. He was really frustrated to see that they were struggling with, for instance, a level that only had one functioning bubble. Today was pretty funny. The arm of his bike pedal came off. So, he, Alton and Jonathan spent several minutes backtacking to find it and the bolt that came out. They used a rock to attempt to fix it. After saying "this will probably hold for about 30 feet" the pedal came right back off after about 10. This is particularly funny because my bike has been fine this whole trip and yesterday Matt's seat fell off AND his brakes went out. Now...I'm pretty sure my bike is the only one with brakes. Anyway today he was pedaless and brakeless and was flying down a hill
when along came a whilrwind (like a dust devil out west...kind of like a dirty haphazard small tornado) and he flew right into it smack dab in the middle of an intersection. I've seen a few whirlwinds by now and this one was serious...really dark and strong and thick. He actually dissappeared for a minute and I thought he was going to be spit out in Kansas. He was fine, save for a few scratches from flying rocks. I haven't stopped laughing.