Wfp - All in a days work

This was the day we could accompany mom. And the day the driver, Simeon, had his birthday, hence the balloons! We parted Packachere at 7 am, heading out for a mountainous region between Zomba and Blantyre. My GPS did not know the roads we were traveling on...

 We received a warm welcome from the kids that were especcially selected to come to school during their holidays. Wearing school uniforms, waiting patiently for us. And chanting as the headmaster told them to do so.

 We were then escorted to the house of two of the girls. Orphans, living with their aunts. The house in the background sleeps 5 girls aged 9 to 15. They cook their own meals in a little separate kitchen. They do not own much more than the clothes on their back.

 Gytha's actual work is project oversight. She visits schools like this one to make sure they hold up their part of the deal. The deal is this: if you and your village provide the rock, stone, sand and workforce, we provide timber and cement and other building materials. When the building (kitchen, storeroom, feeding shelter) is finished according to plan, you will receive maize for school meals, for which you provide the cooks yourselves.

 And you get a nice sign like this one.

 Silke and Tijl were a little bored as rituals under the tree tend to take a long time in this part of the world. We exchanged a lot of hope, gratitude and shared memories, and finally the headmaster invited us back into the office for a drink, a gift in return.

And we retaliated by giving the kids who needed it most some new clothes, courtesy of Kim Olde Riekerink, who donated her birthday money to this end.

 The trousers were not nearly long enough, but he was very, very happy nonetheless.

 Back to the real work. Inspection at another school. To be seen by the amount of leaves in the trenches not much digging has gone on here in the past week or so. And digging is only the beginning of everything that can go wrong when building....

But they keep on smiling, these folk from PostNL/Wfp. And talking to headmasters, and pleading, warning and everything else needed to make sure this project succeeds!