Day 4 - ISC IMMERSION RETREAT

A community school in the compound. Those living in the compounds are often preoccupied with providing basic food and shelter and education is not always a priority...by providing community schools within the compounds children who might not go to school are provided access to education.

On day 4 we visited a compound in the morning and went to Ng'ombe Clinic & Home Based Care. We sat down with a number of Home Heath Care volunteers. The women greated and welcomed us with a song and then shared about their ministry to the sick of Zambia. The women were very impressive to us. Many of them were quite poor and gave up time working as marketeers in the market to volunteer their time visiting the sick and dying. They keep a register of all of thier clients and when you look in the register book and see the ages of the young children it is very sad.

We also visited Kondwa Community School which is located within the compound. We were very impressed with the orderly classroom setting. The students stood as we entered each room and said "Welcome visitors. We are fine, thank you! And how are you?" They had great respect for the teacher that was showing us around. When we entered the classroom of the older students we had a very nice exchange with them. They started asking us questions and eventually they taught us some greetings in their language and our spanish speakers taught them some greetings in spanish.

Later in the day Dominic Nkata came to ISC and shared his story of what it is like to live with HIV. He was very open and courageous in sharing with us. He also allowed us to freely ask all sorts of questions of him. He shared about finding out he had the disease, reaction from familiy and friends, the stigma involved, the medication and side effects, etc.