Strathaven Scouts Trip to Zambia - Mission Accomplished

Mission Accomplished!

The sixteen strong party of Strathaven Explorer Scouts and their leaders are back home after  their return visit to Zambia where they carried out work on behalf of Health Help International. It was always going to be difficult to repeat the success of the Explorers’ previous memorable visit in 2008 but this year’s team did just that and achieved everything they had set out to do. For all those who took part, young and old, this was another memorable experience and the sixteen days spent in Zambia were filled with a wealth of varied and life changing experiences. Individuals and communities will benefit from the Scouts efforts.

The Explorers were based at HHI’s HQ in Monze where they camped in an adjacent play park but their activities took them further afield to camp in the more challenging environments of the Ntambo Community and the Lochinvar Game Park and, as a reward for all the hard work they had put in  a final two days in the relative luxury of the Fawlty Towers Camp Site in Livingstone.

THe team mixed extremely hard work with pleasure and everyone in the party will have countless memories of the experiences they enjoyed but the following stand out.

Firstly the amazing inauguration ceremony for the hand-over of the Hammer Mill and its building provided for the disabled community of Ntambo thanks to the building efforts of the Explorers and the support of the  Strathaven community. The mill itself was paid for by Friends of Strathaven Scouts, partly from the monies raised at a recent Round Stra’ven 50 cycle event. The building to house the Mill with adjoining store and a shop was built by the Explorers in just five working days. As you can see it is a substantial building, one which will benefit the community for many years to come - helping them to improve their lives.

The opening ceremony, enlivened by the singing and dancing of the Zambian women, many of them disabled, was carried out by the Government representative, District Commssioner Mrs Joyce Nondo, who praised the performance of the Explorers and the work which HHI does in Zambia for many of the country’s disadvantaged and disabled people. While building the Mill House the Explorers camped nearby experiencing, for just a few days, the very primitive conditions in which the local people exist all the time - limited toilet facilities, water drawn from a well, no modern communications and situated some thirty miles by a very rough unsurfaced road away from the nearest medical facilities.

Secondly, while camping for two nights in the Lochinvar Nature Reserve, the home to an amazing  variety of birds and herds of antelope and buffalo, the experience of breakfasting on the banks of the Chonga Lagoon and seeing a Hippopotamus emerging from the water just 200 yards away. A downside to the two days spent in Lochinvar was the theft by the local monkeys of all the bread and other provisions leaving the Explorers to exist for their final day there on a boiled egg each and half a tomato.

Other highlights included being received by the local tribal leader, 90 year-old Chief Chonga, a rare honour, the visit to the Victoria Falls, well worthy of the title of one of the seven natural wonders of the world, the sunset cruise on the river Zambezi  from which the Explorers were able to watch a herd of elephants drinking at the water’s edge just 100 metres away from their  boat.

But perhaps what made the most impression on all the Explorers was the friendliness and cheerfulness of all the Zambian children they met wherever they went and in particular at the two schools they visited. One of these, Chonga School, has 700 pupils including about 30 resident handicapped children and the Explorers were able to spend two days there painting one of the school buildings and repairing about 50 of the 150 broken windows in the classrooms. There are only 3 classrooms and the children are taught in shifts by the heroic teachers who have to work with a minimum of facilities.

The Explorers were able to hand over much needed paper, pens and pencils and games equipment which were very gratefully received. When our children or grandchildren go to school we know they will have all they need for their education. This is not so in Zambia - even the basics like pencils are rare.

The school has no running water and no electricity and from the funds which are still available it is the intention of the Explorers to pay for the provision of solar panels for all the classrooms in the near future.

Although the limited time available allowed the Explores to do just a small part of the re-glazing and the painting, they were able to leave the school with the glass to complete the other 100 broken panes and paint to complete all of the school buildings.

Iain Park, one of the party leaders, who also attended the previous Explorer visit in Zambia in 2008, says he will remember the trip for the overall exemplary behavior and contribution of the young people in the party, their willing efforts in working in difficult circumstances under a hot African sun, with great enthusiasm and good humour, and also for the friendliness and kindness shown to their visitors by all the Zambian people they met, most of whom are among the poorest in Africa.