Day 9: One canoe, one island...and alot of laughing children

It takes an hour driving through the rural country side to reach the MCW Center in Chanyanya. We are switching gears here.... now onto the volunteer tourism segment of this odessey  trip. As an advisory board member of Miracle Corners of the World I like to do a site visit when it is at all possible. This will make three MCW Centers that I have visited in Africa: Tanzania Arusha and Songea and now Chanyanya, Zambia. Check the MCW site for more details on what we do... www.miraclecorners.org  Victoria Falls was a 7 hour drive, or 1 hour and something flight to Lusaka,, that's being in the neighborhood.

Once we clear the city the roads go from paved to paved but the dirt road is better to drive on to dirt. This is very rural and the poverty is too, which actually softens it and makes it not quite so harsh. There is a beauty to the countryside that is largely agricultural between crops and cattle. We are in the valley of the Kafue River and so the mountains are not far in the distance, we have come over and through them yesterday on our drive south.

Chanyanya is a fishing village on the Chanyanya Lagoon which is part of the Kafue River and that flows into the Zambeeze which then flows into the Indian Ocean. A flat delta that is now home to 'environmental refugees' who have been pushed from their home lands by two years of flooding from heavy rains and rising waters. That's better known as population migration but no lectures today.

We are taken out on the lagoon in a metal canoe (we would have taken the wooden hand hewn but then bailing all the way out and back would have been part of the experience) to an island where a number of families used to live and now only 2 with a small chapel. As we walk around fishermen have come to sleep through the mid part of the day under trees. The sun is hot but not uncomfortable and a breeze comes off of the river. . We buy 5 bream (fish) from two fishermen. This is part of their days catch and is all that they have until they go out again tomorrow. Subsistence living...... women in the fishing village sell vegetables and bread.... they welcome me with a traditional greeting that I return. We look to be of similar age. I know that my life has been much easier...... and different.

The mission of this MCW Center is to provide vocational training and skills to the community surrounding the center in hopes of providing more stable and consistent income for many. This center opened its doors last summer and now offers tailoring classes, craft making lessons {such as woodcarving) and later this summer, IT classes. The staff is all local with the exception of Nate who is the area MCW director and oversees other the centers in Sierra Leone, Raawanda and Tanzania as well.
Children are an important part of every MCW Center and Chanyanya is no exeption... school is largely provided up through the 9th grade by the government but there are still fees attached and many do not go. The Center provides afternoon dance and music programs while teenagers do the drumming and the younger ones teach each other the cultural dances. Even little ones come, some in obvious need and others better taken care of .

We have a group lunch that two of the young women prepare over the most basic kitchen equiptment on the floor in the library. A combination of a wood charcoal burning brazier and two electric grills provide the heat.