The Past Three Days in Zambia

June 11-13th 2015
Andrea Feltz

The past three days have been absolutely amazing here at the Fatima School. Although we haven't had access to the internet to blog as often as we wanted and planned, we have been so busy and have been experiencing some truly life changing things. There are so many things I could talk about, but one of the most touching things that has happened was our arrival at the school. Upon our arrival, over 100 girls from the school stood outside jumping up and down, waving and yelling out of excitement. This really set the tone for the rest of the trip, in my opinion. Once we exited the bus, the girls began to sing a welcome song, which included the phrase, "Welcome to our school, your home away from home" and this has really felt like that is the case. I have truly never met a friendlier and more welcoming community than what I am a part of right now. Every person, no matter their age, have greeted us with a wave and a smile, and even began conversations with us despite the fact that we are complete strangers to them. This sort of happiness and friendliness that I am experiencing when in contact with not only the girls at the school, but also the nuns and the people at the clinic or living in the village has completely changed my view on not only life, but how to treat other people. I can honestly say i have never seen this genuine of happiness than I am seeing here. Despite the poverty these people are faced with, or the sickness they are battling, a smile or a simple hello never is missed. I could go on for hours about how amazing this trip has been so far or how inspiring the people i am surrounded by are, but I assumed you (whoever is reading this) would be curious to know about what we have been doing. So, in the past three days we have...
-arrived at the school after two very long days of travel
-gone to bed at 7:00 and woken by 4:00 because of our confused sense of time
-finished painting two of the barefoot school's classrooms and the main hall
-eaten some great traditional Zambian food made by the nuns and novices
-taken a tour of the entire campus
-come very close (we are anticipating the phone call and it is supposed to be tonight) to see a baby being born
-prepared ourselves for eating a caterpillar tonight
-attended a beautiful mass
-I have been the only one to get sick yet, so we are going strong in that category too

These are just a few of the things we have been doing the past three days. We have some awesome things coming up in the next few days that we are really looking forward to as well.

Tomorrow we will be attending an all school mass, which is supposed to be absolutely beautiful and then will be spending the day at St. Anthony's Orphanage. I am really looking forward to see what tomorrow brings and we will make sure to write as often as possible despite our droopy eyes and busy days.