Chongo School
There was no moon that night, so the woman’s journey was even more difficult
than normal. Stumbling along the dirt road from Chongo, trying to avoid the
potholes, the fourteen kilometres she had to walk seemed never-ending. Oh
yes, she had walked this road many times before – but tonight was different,
for on her back she was carrying Molegwa, a ten-year-old disabled child.
They were on their way to the hospital – the boy had been taken ill during
the afternoon, had grown steadily worse, and eventually there was nothing
for it but to carry him to the mission hospital at Monze because, of course,
there is no public transport in this part of Zambia. No buses, no trains,
no family cars… and no ambulances.
So the woman carried the boy fourteen kilometres, deposited him in the
hospital, and then turned round and walked all the way back – because she
is the schoolteacher at Chongo, and she would have to be up in the morning
to care for two dozen other disabled kids.
"I have been to see Chongo school," reported the director after
his most recent visit to Zambia. "It is an appalling place." This
place is north east of Monze, where of course we are already very active.
Out in the countryside, Chongo school caters for 639 children, of which 26
are disabled, and are cared for as boarders by one house-mother, whose
duties include carrying young Molegwa to hospital.
This is a particularly difficult job, because there is no healthcare at the
school, and no equipment with which to care for them – not even any
wheelchairs. The disabled kids are effectively left to fend for themselves,
and they are accommodated in two distinctly unsatisfactory dormitories –
cracks in the wall, no power, and cooking only on wood fires, with it being
the disabled kids’ job to go into the bush to find firewood. However, there
is a small brick-built room, which looks depressingly like a prison cell,
and if we could get to convert this into a clinic, the mission hospital in
Monze are willing to station a nurse there.
Now, this is our kind of work, isn’t it! We think it will cost us about
£4,000 to repair and extend the ‘cell’, while repairs to the dormitories
will account for another thousand or so. It is difficult to put a price on
the aids for the disabled, but a wheelchair will be £100 or so. There is
no point in our providing a vehicle, because they have no way of
maintaining it or running it – but this is where one of Zambia’s brilliant
new ideas may come in. Recent thinking suggests that donkey-carts are the
ideal transport for this area, and indeed our man up in Luansobe
has already done a lot of work in finding donkeys. A donkey and cart for
Chongo school could be immensely valuable – a team of three donkeys and a
cart will be £500, and we’re working on it. The headmaster is reported to
be ‘thrilled’ that anyone has bothered to help his school.