Aunt Maryann's Gift

You can go back many posts to see the early days of our work at Ipusukilo School in George Compound. With generous help from family and friends, we've been able to make progress. We made structural changes to the school a year ago. Over the last few months we finished digging and building a new pit latrine to be used by students and teachers. The lack of sanitation was obvious when we first visited. We knew that the old latrine needed to be demolished, it just wasn't fit for use. The ministry of education has statistics on how toilets affect the retention of teachers. Female teachers are less likely to stay at a school that does not have proper sanitation. The inability to attract/keep good teachers is a limiting factor to building a successful community school.

These were some of the things that Michelle and I talked to Aunt Maryann about this summer. Bob's aunt (Karleen's sister), was a teacher and librarian for 30 years (I'm guessing...but a long time). She got tears in her eyes as we talked about the project and the very basic barriers that children face in Africa. She wanted to help.

Aunt Maryann lost her battle with pancreatic cancer the week after we left the states. We didn't get enough time with her but she left us with clear instructions on how she wanted to help our efforts. She wanted us to build a toilet for some kids and teachers in Africa. She even gave us the financial resources to do so. It seemed like one of those things that made her fight less finite.





We worked with a local organization called "Seeds of Hope". They helped procure supplies and mobilize the community. What started out as lines in the dusty dirt turned into a large hole.



Fast forward...





Our good friend Andrew came out to help paint the school on 19th December. This stall is reserved for teachers. Aphunzinsi is Nyanja for "teacher"



Michelle painted this door for "boys".



Bob painted this one for girls... and darth vader should he ever be in Lusaka. Not proud of this one. The kids couldn't even tell it was a girl. Not my best work.



Andrew thought it would be cool to paint the name of the school in the shape of Zambia. Then we couldn't agree on the shape of Zambia. The kid in this picture pulled out his notebook which included an exact drawing of Zambia. He guided Andrew with the chalk outline. Ipusukilo. It turned out pretty good.



I'm not sure that Aunt Maryann would have wanted the school tagged with her initials. Andrew and I came up with a variation of MAW (Maryann Westgor...which she used as a nickname as well...at least I remember it from her license plates. The kids were a little confused since "maw" means "word" in nyanja. When we explained that MAW was an angel that had given them this as a gift, they seemed to think that was sort of neat.



The faces of some happy kids.