Last year, I received an email message from Zambia. I was about to dismiss it as phishing when the name "Chitambo" caught my eye. In 2001, I went to Zambia and did some volunteer eye safety education in a village called Kapini. While there I stayed in the home of Gideon, his wife Florence and their three children, Chisenga (9), Chitambo (7) and Musa (5). Florence was pregnant with a 4th child when I was there, she gave birth to a daughter later that year.
- chitambo1.jpeg (18.23 KiB) Viewed 1701 times
This is Chitambo aged 7 in 2001.
- chisengchitambogilbert.jpeg (7.98 KiB) Viewed 1701 times
.
The two older brothers and a friend appeared at the door of the hut soon after my arrival.
- chitambo&musa.jpeg (17.25 KiB) Viewed 1701 times
.
These are pictures of Chitambo with his younger brother Musa.
.
Gideon(the father) tragically contracted and died of meningitis the following summer. The family was pushed out of their home and land by Gideon's brothers and I lost contact with them. I always wondered what happened to Florence and the kids.
21 years later, I get an email from Chitambo who was 7 years old in 2001 now 28. Well, as often happens in Africa, life was pretty difficult for them. Florence remarried someone who physically abused her. Chitambo's older brother Chisenga, drowned while swimming in a river when he was 13 years old. The family moved around quite a lot.
- circleoffriends1.jpeg (26.31 KiB) Viewed 1701 times
. The boy at the front looing at the camera is Chisenga(9) who drowned 4 years later.
This is Chitambo, his younger brother Musa, now 26, and their mother Florence.
Chitambo used his mobile phone and searched on the name of his old village and to his surprise found my eclipse report with a number of pictures of himself as a child in the report. He didn't remember me but his mother, still alive and well, did. He also asked his mother who the other children in the photo were and she told him they were all his best friends and an inseparable pack back then.
Somehow, in the midst of all the obstacles life threw at him, he managed to get himself through both school and university and qualified as a teacher. During the year, Chitambo and a colleague started their own small and very modest private school.
.
They were struggling because they were running short of funds could not get approval for a bank loan for extra start-up money. They were struggling to pay rent on buildings and buy enough furniture for the school to grow its student numbers.
After some contemplation and checking to make sure he really was who he claimed to be, I loaned them some money. It was not a lot, in the realm of what you might call "microfinance," and an amount that I can afford to lose if things go bad and they can't repay the loan.
It's been a source of great pleasure to see what they have achieved in a very short time. The money enabled them to pay rent, buy extra seats and desks, hire two more teachers and the school is now growing rapidly. They had 108 students before the loan with other students on a waiting list when the school could increase numbers of seats, desks and other infrastructure. I think the day school has almost doubled since I sent them the loan.
.
They have also launched a night school teaching adult vocational skills in areas like ICT, Tailoring and clothing design, Cosmetics and beauty, Art & Design, Food and Production, Secretarial Skills.
.
He says if things go well, he'll be able to pay back the loan in the next 3-6 months. I'm just happy to see things going so well and I'm flexible on the repayments if they come at all. I might just tell him to treat it as a donation that they can use as an operating buffer but for now, I want to see if he operates the school into a financial position where he offers to pay me back.
Well that's my feel good news story of 2022 and I am looking forward to hearing more updates on how they're going during 2023.
Happy New Year to all.
Joe
Amateur astronomer since 1978
...................Web site : http://joe-cali.com/
Scopes: ATM 18" Dob, Vixen VC200L, ATM 6"f7, Stellarvue 102ED, Saxon ED80, WO M70 ED, Orion 102 Maksutov, ST80.
Mounts: Takahashi EM-200, iOptron iEQ45, Push dobsonian with Nexus DSC, three homemade EQ's.
Eyepieces: TV Naglers 31, 17, 12, 7; Denkmeier D21 & D14; Pentax XW10, XW5, Unitron 40mm Kellner, Meade Or 25,12
Cameras : Pentax K1, K5, K01, K10D / VIDEO CAMS : TacosBD, Lihmsec.
Cam/guider/controllers: Lacerta MGEN 3, SW Synguider, Simulation Curriculum SkyFi 3+Sky safari
Memberships Astronomical Association of Queensland; RASNZ Occultations Section; Single Exposure Milky Way Facebook Group (Moderator) (12k members), The Sky Searchers (moderator)
Plus, I don't have the overheads working from home that a commercial building would have.
