June 24th- Stacia Cammarano

This morning, we Seattle Academy students visited the Mother of Mercy Hospice a few kilometers outside of Lusaka. The morning bus ride was relatively quiet because all of us were secretly a bit nervous to visit a place that housed and cared for many HIV positive patients. As soon as we got to the hospice, some of the anxiousness melted away. The head nun for the hospice brought us into her clean and cool work office just a building away from the dorm rooms for the patients. She explained the origins of the hospice and what they do for people. We discovered that Mother of Mercy houses patients who are mostly sick with HIV or AIDS and also distribute ARVs to not only the patients, but also to people in the community. After a quick tour, we split off into the male and female dorms to talk to some of the patients. Instead of finding dim rooms housing thin and waning patients, we were all pleased to find bright dorms filled with a few beds who held smiling and hopeful looking patients.
We talked with the men and women about their everyday life, their favorite foods, what books they like to read, and of course, who they wanted to win the World Cup. Later, we all agreed that the ongoing soccer games in South Africa were a lifesaver when I came to starting a conversation with a complete stranger. While I was at the hospice, I talked to Marjory who had been a patient for two months. While her English was limited, I found talking with her very pleasant. When I told her I had greatly enjoyed the nsima (a Zambia corn staple) I ate yesterday, her face broke out in a huge smile and nodded in agreement about how it fills up the stomach very quickly. Talking with a complete stranger is difficult for me already, but I knew my day was a success when Marjory was beaming at my simple topics of conversation.
We also visited the school associated with the hospice. Children would often visit their sick parents, but would continue to stop by even when their parents had passed on from the hospice. The nuns soon found a growing need to set up a learning place for these orphans or simply for the boys and girls nearby who were too poor to go to school. All in all, everyone found the school a bit shabby and in need of funds. However, the rooms were plastered with student posters and the children were so excited to talk with us!

The bus ride back into town was much louder than the ride in and the air was filled with stories of patients that had been met. We ate at a small mall area and we soon drove a little ways on Cairo Road to Saphique’s Fabric Shop. Upon entering the cement building, our eyes were dazzled by the thousands of cloths that greeted us from the walls, ceilings, and makeshift crates on the floor. The fabrics were bright and traditional, but we also found delicate and exquisite silks hanging all around us. For many minutes, all of us wandered around the shop in a complete daze. Where to start? How to start? How much to buy? All of these questions were spinning through minds and also said out loud to equally confused friends. After 45 minutes in this fabric heaven, everyone had picked out several meters of colorful fabrics. Some of them were picked for skirts of shirts in mind. Others were to be used for bags or pants. All of us were very pleased with our purchases!

We spent 1 hour at a nearby grocery store. In that time, the warm sun sank into the tree line and cast deep orange beams through the dusty windows of our bus. We were all happy to go home and recharge in preparation for our work at Birldland School the next day.