This morning was an early morning as we were leaving for the airport at 8:30. We walked up the hill to the Jesuit church for mass. Sr Christine who administers the retreat Centre walked up with us through the gardens. The novice sisters sang beautifully and they all look do peaceful and beautiful in their while veil and powder blue habit. We packed the bare essentials as our total baggage allowance was confirmed to be 20kg. Sister Catherine and has arranged for our excess luggage (stuffed with 330 lbs of donations from Nova Scotia) and the musical instruments purchased yesterday to be driven to Kawambwa, a distance of about 1,100 km. We left Lusaka on a prop plane, landed for about 15 minutes in Ndola and continued on to Mansa where we were met by the sisters and the bus (with a portion of our flight over the Congo). This is the 28-seater bus we helped purchase a portion of, along with Chalice.ca. We stopped at the sister’s convent in Ndola for an excellent lunch and continued on to Kawambwa for about 4 hours.
The drive was most interesting as there were many sights unique to our experiences. The beautiful ladies walking with baskets of fruit and vegetables balanced on their heads were dressed in colourful and beautiful fashions. The roads had many people walking on the side and there were many cheeky goats resting on or by the side of the road who scuttled out of the way just in time. The predominant crops we viewed were just planted sweet potato seedings and ten-to-twelve-foot maize stalks. Interspersed amongst these were huge termite mounds, some perhaps 18-20 feet high. We stopped several times to purchase mangoes, and other fruit from people/children sitting by the roadside. In the area we drove through, about 75% of the homes have a thatched grass conical roof. The others are tin roofs which I was told are much hotter.
We arrived at the St Mary’s School to a warm welcome and had another excellent meal.
Because of the outbreak of cholera school has been postponed until February 12th. We were assured that we will be kept very busy regardless of the absence of students.
It is the rainy season and now at 10:27 PM it is a torrential downpour.
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| Sisters at Mass |
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Geoffrey our driver and Newman the Chalice representative
accompanied us on the ride from Mansa |
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| Graceful ladies carry packages on their heads so easily |
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Neman, Se Beatrice, Sr Sara, Sr Marjory, Sr Florence, John MI and Geoffrey.
We had lunch with the sisters in Mansa. |
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Se Florence and Sr Marjory purchasing two
bags of fruit for $6.00 |
Good to hear all arrived safe and sound.
ReplyDeleteEnjoying your updates. Thank you for sharing. Stay safe!