Emily Comont's News from Africa

Hi everyone. I am off to Zambia for 6 months on 2nd January and thought you should all be kept up-to date with what I'll be doing out there.  I'm going with the organisation Soapbox and I'm looking forward to the exciting things God has planned for me.  I would appreciate prayers and make sure you keep checking this page for updates!  The church has been very generous in contributing to this trip, as well as individuals, and so I hope you all feel very much a part of my adventure.

After the second expedition Hi everyone again! We’ve now been back from our month away on expedition for a good few weeks but it’s still fresh in my mind. For the majority of the first week, we were travelling through Zambia and through Malawi to reach our first destination, Nsanje, in Malawi where our host pastor for the month (Pastor Rodgers)was living.  Once we reached Nsanje, it was very very hot, but thankfully we were booked to go and speak at an Easter conference being held up the mountain at the end of Pastor Rodger’s road the following day.  It was definitely a good few degrees cooler up there which we very much appreciated.  The conference was a great success with people travelling from all over the mountain to come and join in.  We each had the opportunity to preach, and we performed a drama or two over the space of the weekend.  The conference was supposed to continue until the Monday, but the food ran out, so the last meeting was on the Sunday night.  This didn’t seem like too much of a problem though, and everyone went home very happy.  Having white people up their mountain seemed to be the main highlight (for the children especially)! After a few days back down in Nsanje, doing street services and hospital visits, we headed back on our travels, this time towards Mozambique.  The following few weeks were spent here, there and everywhere, travelling around different rural churches throughout Mozambique and staying for a short period at a wonderful mission centre.  On the way we had a few challenges which included awkward customs services and various trailer breakages, but all seemed miraculously resolved.   Everywhere we went we were very well received and we had a great time preaching, singing and performing dramas.  We also got lots of opportunities to sample the local foods which mainly consisted of goat, but as we neared the coast of Mozambique, fresh coconuts were a favourite.  At the mission centre, we also got the chance to build a very tall water tower for a local church.  They were planning to supply free water to the local community which seemed like an amazing initiative.  We got the whole tower built in one day and they were very appreciative. As our ministry came to a close, and we were all reaching the end of ourselves, we had a very nice week ahead of us.  We stayed a few days on a beautiful beach on the coast of Mozambique, full of palm trees, sun and a lovely warm sea.  After this, we headed back to Malawi to drop our pastors off (Pastor Rodgers’ friend Pastor Isaac had been joining us too), and then it was back to Zambia.  Before we reached home, however, we had an exciting few days at South Luangwa National park.  We shared a campsite with hippos and elephants and whilst out on drives spotted a wide variety of wildlife.   We were even lucky enough to see two leopards! We arrived safely home on 16th May after a weekend in Lusaka.  We’d all had an amazing time, but definitely needed a good few days of relaxation back at base to recover.  Once our rest was over, however, we were straight back into our normal ministries.  Sadly, I discovered on our return that one of the patients I visit regularly with Lifeline, had died whilst we’d been away.  The last time I’d seen him, however, had seemed very special, so I’m grateful for that and I’m almost sure he gave his life to Jesus.  Otherwise, the ministries have all been going very well.  Our youth group at Sakania has been doing really well.  There are a few in particular that seem to be getting very close to God, and so Jo and I have clubbed together to provide them with bibles. This last week has been a bit different to normal in that we’ve been doing a building project.  Pastor Albert who we’ve been doing our hut-to-hut ministry with wants to build a house out in the bush by his church so that he’s more involved in the local community.  We offered, therefore, to help build the foundations of this house and to provide all the money needed to make the foundations strong.  It’s been a really good week, although very tiring, but we’ve managed to complete the foundations with the help of some of the locals and so everyone is very happy. These next few weeks are now set to be almost normal.  Next weekend, however, we have a trip to Lake Kariba which is meant to be quite a big attraction of Zambia and very beautiful.  It will be a really nice way to finish our time here.  Then we have a final celebration on 25th June and then it’s back to England on the 30th! It’s going to be great to see you all again, and once again, I am so appreciative of all your support. Lots of love to you all, Emily Peter Comont, 22/06/2011 0 Comments  |  Permalink Our second expedition Hi again! We’re just back from our 2nd expedition to Malawi and Mozambique. After leaving on Sunday 17th April, we reached our first destination on the Friday, after sorting a few things out, like Mozambique Visas, on the way. Our first destination was Pastor Rodger’s house in Nsanje, towards the South of Malawi. Pastor Rodgers and his fellow pastor, Pastor Isaac were to be with us the rest of the time. Pastor Rodger’s oversees the whole of ‘The Church of Disciples’ which has branches throughout Malawi and Mozambique, and it was some of these branches that we were due to be visiting. At Nsanje we had the luxury of staying in beds in Pastor Rodger’s house for one night before setting off up Chiddiddi mountain. Here we camped outside one of the elder’s houses and preached and led services during the day. It was the Easter weekend and they were having a weekend conference so it was great to be able to contribute. There were also a lot of kids who were very excited to see white people so a lot of time was spent playing with them too. We arrived back in Nsanje on the Monday and were then there for another few days before heading off for Mozambique. During these days we led a few evangelistic type services in the surrounding villages, led a service at a local church and visited the hospital a couple of times. Nsanje is supposedly one of the top 10 hottest places in the world and we felt this most at night but we managed to survive! So after Nsanje we set off with the Pastors for Mozambique. Our first night there, we camped outside a pastor’s house just over the border in a place called Mulanje (I’m not sure that’s spelt right). Here we led a night service in their lovely outdoor church. They have an Argentinean lady working with the church at the moment, and she’s been doing a great job, especially with some of the young people. Amongst other things, she’s set up an amazing drama group which we were able to experience. Unfortunately we couldn’t stay long, and set off early in the morning. 20 minutes into the journey we heard a loud clunk. We stopped and checked the trailer and discovered that the suspension on one side had broken. Amazingly, we had stopped 100 metres from a car yard and so we cautiously drove straight there. They were very willing to help us, but it took 5-6 hours of waiting around before we could actually set off again. Once we had, we realised that the road to our next destination was a very long and bumpy one. After about 7 hours, we realised we weren’t going to make it (it was already 10pm and we still had miles to go) and we were pretty certain the trailer’s suspension had broken again. So we decided we would drive until midnight and then set up camp. At midnight we finally reached a tarmac road and set up our tents by the side of the road amongst some market stalls. In the morning we set off again, but in the opposite direction to our destination in order to find somewhere to fix the trailer. We found somewhere and they were able to fix it in about 3 hours. Eventually we reached Murumbara (again I don’t know if that’s spelt right) that evening. We had dinner and then conducted another service. Luckily the church was an outdoor church just outside the pastor’s house who’s backyard we were camping in so we didn’t have far to go. After another service in the morning, we set off again. This time we were headed to Inhaminga, a mission centre set up by a Zimbabwean couple. We had a warm welcome and then set up our tents. We had the first proper showers we’d had in a few days! Unfortunately they were cold but that’s a minor detail...At the mission centre, they’ve set up a bible college, and on the first morning I led the students in their morning devotions. The next few days were spent leading services in a couple of nearby churches, and then on our last day we spent the day building a water tower for one of the churches. They plan on using this to give out fresh water to the local community every day. As a thankyou, we had a lovely meal with Rod and Ellie (the founders of the mission centre) in the evening and then set off the next morning. This time we were headed to Dondow, further south of Mozambique. Here we stayed outside another pastor’s house. We were here 2 nights and led 2 evening services and I led some children’s games on one of the afternoons. This was less than we’d planned to do, but apparently most people were at work and school during the times of our other planned services so we weren’t complaining. Dondow marked the end of our ministering days, and we set off for Rio Savane a gorgeous beach on the Mozambique coast. We spent 2 nights here, chilling out on the beach and swimming in the deliciously warm Indian Ocean. It felt so nice to have some relaxation. I don’t think any of us realised quite how exhausted we were. After Savane, we started our long journey home. We stopped off in Malawi to drop the pastor’s off and then spent a night in Lilongwe with a lovely family. After this we headed to South Luangwa National Park in Zambia. Here we had an amazing couple of days. We were camping right on the Zambezi River alongside the hippos and crocodiles. In fact, on our first night we woke up to find a hippo grazing right behind our tent and then on our second night there were 8 elephants right outside the tents! During the mornings, we went on drives and in the evenings too. We saw loads of elephant, zebra, different types of Antelope, monkeys, baboons, buffalo, giraffe and we even got to see 2 leopards. So after an amazing few days we left South Luangwa and headed back home via Lusaka for a couple of nights. We reached Ndola on Monday eve after a minor delay with a completely flat tyre. It feels good to be back, but it really was an amazing time. Thankyou all for your prayers. I now only have 5/6 weeks left which seems crazy, but I’m looking forward to seeing everyone again. Lots of love, Emily Emily Comont, 18/05/2011 0 Comments  |  Permalink Time is going so quickly here 9th April 2011 Hi everyone. Time is going so quickly here and I can’t believe I’m more than half way through! The last 5 weeks or so have been back to regular routine. I’ve been visiting St Anthony’s orphanage twice a week, doing hut-to-hut once a week, helping with our youth group in the neighbouring village on a Wednesday and visiting homes with Lifeline once a week. I’ve also helped run an orphan’s day which Lifeline organise once a week. This involves feeding around 10 orphans 2 substantial meals and giving them a day of activities, crafts, bible study and sometimes cooking of some kind. It’s a really great initiative and the kids love it. Jo and I have also been running our kid’s Saturday club on various Saturdays which have been a great success. The kids have really appreciated having something to do and seem to have absorbed the bible bits too J During our second week back from expedition, we also had a member of Soapbox come out to visit us and to see how we were getting on. He seemed very impressed and we had a good few days together before he went back. St Anthony’s has been a good time of building relationships and having fun with the guys there. We often bring hoops and skipping ropes for the children to enjoy, and have been bringing the babies a bag of toys some weeks for them to play with too. The babies and toddlers, especially, have practically no toys whatsoever, so bringing them these toys has been a real novelty for them. Unfortunately, however, there have been a couple of deaths in the last few weeks. One girl in the Cerebral Palsy room had been deteriorating for a while so her death was not entirely unexpected but still very sad. There was also a baby who died a few weeks ago. He’d only been there a short while and had been very unhappy since he came. I don’t know if it was partly to do with the trauma of coming to the orphanage and the circumstances surrounding it or whether he had some kind of sickness that they hadn’t identified, but he died very suddenly. These are negatives amongst lots of positives, however. Our hut-to-hut ministry on a Tuesday has been really amazing. The families have all been so welcoming and have responded so well to our visits. Pastor Albert’s church is flourishing and he has more and more people asking us to visit each week. I’ve seen my first miraculous healing and many more people have accepted Jesus and even been delivered in some cases. As well as being an encouragement and time of learning for the people in the area, I’ve also learnt so much myself and have really been able to consolidate what we’ve been doing in lectures by sharing it with the guys out here. Our visits with Lifeline have also been very interesting. I still find it incredibly difficult going out each week to these people who are living in such extreme poverty but it has opened my eyes to a lot of things and I’ve enjoyed having the challenge of encouraging people in such difficult situations. Something I find particularly hard, though, is when you’re walking round the streets and people start asking you for money. A couple of weeks ago one guy became almost aggressive when I told him I had no money. It took a threat of the police to get him away. This story, however, was passed round all the volunteers who were very disappointed that someone in their community would be like this and I now have someone to hold my hand each week! The youth group that we’ve set up in Sakania, the next village along is doing really well at the moment. We have around 10-15 teenagers and some younger children each week. Although it can be different people each week, we are beginning to get together a core group who come regularly. They tell us each week how they’re so glad we come as they have very little to do with their time. Last week I gave a bit of my testimony which aroused some good conversation with a couple of the guys there. One guy has just come from Lusaka to live with his mum as his dad died at Christmas. His Dad was in the government and so he’d been used to a reasonably comfortable life until his dad became ill with cancer. He told me how, in the last few months of his Dad’s life, he would come home and ask for food and his dad would tell him they had none. He’s now come to live with his mum who is very poor and I think he’s just finding it a huge challenge. He’s an amazing footballer though and he plans to be a professional. I think coming to Sakania, however, has made this seem a harder aspiration. Everyone that has talked about Sakania talks of it as a place with little hope and a place which is very hard to get out of. Hopefully our time spent here will be enough to encourage these people and to try and produce a different spirit in the young people. Something else which we’ve been involved in in the last few weeks is a local football tournament. AQ have been running this each year for the past few years and it’s always been a great success. We had 6 local teams involved including ourselves (the guys anyway). They were having matches each weekend and it was a great opportunity to get to know some of the local people. The teams were really good but in the end our AQ team ended up winning! Last weekend was the final and we had a celebration in the evening. We invited all the teams to the bible college (which was over a hundred guys) and gave out free hotdogs and soft drinks. We then had some worship together, Tim did a short talk, and we had an awards ceremony followed by a raffle. It was great fun and worked really well, everyone seemed to really enjoy it. We are now just preparing to go off to Malawi and Mozambique at the end of next week (17th April). It should be a great trip. We’ll be ministering in many different churches and camping in the remotest of areas. I look forward to telling you all about it when I get back. We’re also helping lead an orphan’s camp next week, organised by Lifeline. We’ll be taking 30 orphans in their late teens for a fun-packed few days. We’ll be canoeing, fishing, swimming, having campfires, playing games, going on game drives...it should be an amazing time. They won’t have experienced anything like it before so we hope to make it the time of their lives J Anyway, I look forward to writing again once I get back from our expedition, but for now I have to run... Lots of love! Emily Emily Comont, 09/04/2011 0 Comments  |  Permalink Our first expedition March 2011 Hi everyone. I’ve just come back from our first expedition. The Saturday before last we all headed off to Lusaka, the capital, to do some work in schools. Our hosts were a couple who had previously been students at KBC and are now working with a programme called ‘School Missions’. During the week they go into the various schools in Lusaka to speak at their Scripture Unions (like CUs). They kindly gave us their apartment for the week and got some girls from their church to cook for us. We felt very looked after. The week itself was very good, but quite intense and I was exhausted by the end of it. We visited, on average, 3 schools a day. At these schools we gave talks, gave our testimonies and performed dramas. Our main drama, which we performed in quite a few schools, was quite controversial. It was about a girl (played by me) who was getting herself tangled up in sin, and it involved her sleeping with her teacher in order to boost her grade. We had heard that this is actually quite a current issue in Zambia at the moment, but it definitely caused a bit of shock amongst the students! It also caused some good discussion afterwards though. In some of the schools we even had people stay behind to confess things that they had done in their lives or that they felt had tangled them up, and we were able to pray with them. All the schools we visited were very different. Some were wealthier, some were very poor, some had huge Scripture Unions, and some had very small ones. We spoke in classrooms, in assembly halls, outside on concrete platforms. Some of our sessions were actually given in an assembly setting where the whole school was invited! Overall, it was a very good week and I’ve definitely learnt a lot. I had my first proper opportunity to give a talk in front of a group of people and I’ve definitely developed my ability to speak and perform in front of large groups. On the Saturday, we set off for a bit of a break at Victoria Falls. We stayed in a really nice little lodge in Livingstone (the town by the falls), named Fawlty Towers (!) nothing like what you might expect though! On Sunday, we spent the day down by the falls, taking it all in, but got very wet in the process! The falls are really full at the mo so there was lots of spray but it was very beautiful. On Monday, I and 2 of my team mates got up early to go on an elephant safari. It was amazing! I got to ride on their free spirited elephant too which made it even more exciting! We didn’t get to see much other wildlife, but it was just great to be riding an elephant. On Monday afternoon a few of us headed back to the falls, but this time to the Vic Falls Bridge. I had been psyching myself up to this for weeks! In the end, me and a guy from the team jumped off the bridge in tandem. We did a gorge swing, which is similar to a bungi, but you’re attached at the waist and when you get to the bottom, you swing across the gorge. It was terrifying! In fact, the gorge swing is meant to be one of the most adrenaline-filled things you can do, and even more so than a bungi. Another guy from the team, James T, did a bungi as well as a gorge swing, and had previously done a skydive, and said out of all these, the gorge swing was the scariest. It was great fun though and I’m glad I did it! On Tuesday, the whole team, minus the leaders, set off early again to have a day of white water rafting down the Zambezi. Because the Zambezi is so full at the moment, this was the last day of rafting they were doing. It felt that the guys that took us were definitely making the most of their last day rafting! We had a very exciting, but again, scary time. The rapids were ferocious (I was flung out of the boat at one point) and the guys made us jump out into the rapids a fair few times. To make it worse, we’d seen a crocodile by the side of the river just before setting off! It was good fun though, and thankfully, the guys saved their stories of people dying until after we’d landed back on dry land… As well as doing all these activities, we also had a good amount of time to relax back at the lodge, swim in the pool, get a massage etc so it was a very rewarding rest. On Wednesday, we began our journey back to base. We were planning to do the whole journey in one day which was going to take us about 12 hours. We were doing really well until we reached a town called Mazabuka about 6 hours in. As we approached there seemed to be an unusual amount of people around and we eventually reached a complete road block where someone had put a load of branches down to stop the cars going through. The road back to Ndola passed right through the town, and there was no other route we could take so we were a little taken aback. One guy came up to the car and explained what had happened. The night before was the Man U Vs Chelsea match, and the local pub had been crammed full of people watching it. Legally, however, the pubs are supposed to shut at 10.30, but this was only half time so everyone stayed on at the pub. The police, however, came into the pub and threw tear gas everywhere to try and clear out the place. This caused a huge stampede in which 2 people were killed, a 21 year old and a 23 year old. From that point on, huge riots had started throughout the town, against the police and it had become too dangerous for anyone to pass through. It was, in fact, featured on international news so some of you might have heard about it. We were shocked but also concerned about how we would actually get home. In the end, with the help of some locals, we managed to get permission to pass through the sugar plantation which had a route which completely bypassed the riots. So, after about an hour or so we were back en route and managed to make it home by 8.30 that night. We’re now back at base and having a few days of relaxation. We had a fake birthday yesterday for our team mate Jo. We spent the whole day playing party games and then went out for a meal in the eve which was good fun. Unfortunately, however, she’s woken up sick this morning and we might have to take her to the clinic later to check that it’s not Malaria. It would be great if you could pray for that. But otherwise, we’re now just waiting to get back into routine, and we’ll be here in Ndola for the next 6 weeks until we go on our next expedition to Malawi. Lots of love to you all, Emily Emily Comont, 15/03/2011 0 Comments  |  Permalink I've been here a month now! Hi everyone, I’ve been here a month now and I can’t believe how fast time has flown! I will give you a quick overview of what I’ve been doing the past few weeks. Week 2: Spent mornings with the other students at KBC (Kaniki Bible college) taking part in their lectures on praise and worship with a Danish lady called Lene. The Bible college was originally set up by a Danish family and many of them still live in the local area (Lene being one of them). The lectures were amazing and it was a good opportunity to get to know the students a bit better. In the afternoons we worked on building a playground for some of the local children that live on site.   A lot of the time it seems children are of quite low priority, at my local church there is nothing in the way of Sunday school and children are largely taught to look after themselves most of the time.  So as well as giving them a playground, Jo and I (my fellow girl teammate) are trying to set up a Saturday club for the children on site where we’ll play games, sing songs, do crafts and do a bit of bible study.  Our first one is tomorrow… Week 3: We were invited to join the students again for a conference that the principal had set up for the week. The title was Spiritual Formation and they had two guest lecturers come to speak for most of the week. One was a guy from Denmark called Yesper Kure and the other was Bishop Eddie Mulenga from Lusaka. It was a great week with some really good teaching and again it was a great opportunity to get to know the students.  On the Wednesday we also had a new arrival come to join our team from Denmark.  His name is Ben and he has settled in with the team really well. Week 4: This was the first week where we actually started what will be our regular routine. Monday:- Morning spent at St Anthony’s (the orphanage). Felt much more settled this time and had a great time getting to know some of the disabled children and then spending time outside with the more able bodied children. They crave the attention and you often find yourself swamped with 5-6 children clinging onto you at once! In the afternoon we had lectures on the Kingdom of God with Pastor Chris who is pastor of our local Church, El Shaddai. Tuesday:- Jo and I spent the morning with Pastor Albert who pastors the bush church that we visited in our first week. We got on our bikes and cycled into the bush visiting some of the local families, giving them words of encouragement, bible passages and praying for them. Many of them are very poor and often ill. One baby was brought to us who was 13 months old but was very undeveloped with no speech, or ability to hold himself at all. The parents had been to the local witch doctor but were now asking for prayers from us. In the afternoon we had lectures with Lene. Wednesday:- Spent the morning working on our playground project.  In the afternoon we had the second session of ‘Freedom in Christ’ which is a very good discipleship course.  As part of this course I’ve been paired with one of the students, Petronella, who I meet with each week.  It has been great getting to know her and finding out more of her experience of Zambian life. Thursday:- Went back to St Anthony’s. This time we brought some paints to do with them and some balloons. They had a really good time, many of them having never been given the chance to paint before. In the afternoon we had a lecture with Kaluba the principal. Before coming to KBC he’d been pastoring in America. He’s teaching us on Spiritual Formation. Friday:- We got given an introduction to our other project that we’ll be taking part in. It’s with an organization called Lifeline which was set up by Lene and her Dad. For the most part they train volunteers to visit families in some of the poorest areas in Zambia. Most of the families they work with have HIV, TB or both. They spend time talking to the families, giving them access to medical treatment and helping around the house. Their main objective is to help families to be able to help themselves. In the afternoon we had a lecture from Ngoie who is the Dean of students at the college, a lovely man and great teacher. Week 5: The structure above is the general structure of our time whilst we’re here so this week has been doing the same sorts of things. On Wednesdays , however, we are not yet sure what we will be doing. We were supposed to be helping a lady called Grace who lives in one of the poorer compounds in Ndola. She was previously an alcoholic and her vision now is to help some of the orphans and widows in her area. She is also a jewellery maker so her original plan was to spend time teaching some of the local women to make jewellery to sell and we were going to help her. Instead we spent Wednesday being given a tour by her and a friend of the local area and local high school and she is not sure exactly what her plan is. We will have to wait and see what happens here. This week we were also encouraged to hear that all the people we had visited whilst doing hut-to-hut with Albert the week beforehad come to his church on the Sunday. He was very grateful for our support and we were able to visit more families this week. At St Anthony’s this week we focused on getting the babies out of their cots and spent the morning playing with them with some toys we’d brought with us. They had a great time. Today was our first day out in the field with Lifeline. I was paired with 2 volunteers who I should be spending every Friday with visiting the same families. We were visiting families in the poorest compound in Ndola. All the patients we visited had HIV and some of them had TB. Almost always both parents were too ill to work and make money so they were also very hungry and unable to send their children to school. The situation is pretty dire but they seemed encouraged to have me there giving them some words of encouragement and are obviously very grateful for the work of Lifeline. We are currently preparing for our first expedition at the end of February where we’ll be working with School Missions. We’ll be teaching at schools throughout Lusaka the capital city. We’ll then get the opportunity to stay by Victoria Falls where I’m hoping to try out bungee jumping ad hopefully get the chance to go on an elephant safari and possibly to white water raft down the Zambhezi: very exciting! I’m off now but as you can see I’m having a challenging but amazing time. Thankyou for your prayers! Lots and lots of love, Emily Emily Comont, 09/02/2011 0 Comments  |  Permalink Incredible so far! Hi everyone! I’m just coming to the end of my second week in Zambia. I tried writing last week but the internet took an age and I ended up losing all my writing! My time here has already been an incredible experience. Last week we spent some time getting to know the local area and getting a taster for the sorts of things we’ll be doing whilst we’re out here. The bible college where we are based is a beautiful place, full of exotic trees and flowers and we have had lots of opportunities to meet and spend time with the other students that live on the site. Last Tuesday we had a visit from a local Zambian called George who spent some time telling us about Zambian culture. He told us about his childhood and how his grandfather would gather the children each evening and teach them about vital life skills. This included things like ‘how to kill a snake’ but a lot of it was to do with witchcraft which has been a big part of his life growing up and which is very common place in this area. Zambians and I think many Africans have much more of an understanding of a spiritual realm but unfortunately this is often because they have experience of supernatural powers used for evil. George talked about some of his friends who have been given invisible guns, about coffin bearers being dragged to the person who killed the person inside, about transportation and witches flying, about love potions used and many other things. It has been extremely eye opening but also shown how much of a need there is for God in this area. Because of their experience of the spiritual realm Zambians would not question that there is a God but even Christians in the area often still dabble in witchcraft. Last week I also got the opportunity to visit the St Anthony’s orphanage which I will be visiting regularly whilst I’m here. The experience was actually a lot more traumatic than I was expecting. There is one ward which is specifically for orphans with cerebral palsy and a few other severely disabling illnesses. One girl was very close to death and many of them could only lie in bed all day unable to move. There were others who could play on the floor but unable to do much else. Most of them had no speech and many of them were incontinent. In the rest of the orphanage there were over a hundred children. Many of them had mental disorders but they were all very excited to see us. The orphanage itself is meant to be one of the better ones, but the children have almost no structure and the nurses give the children very little attention or affection. Although the situation at first sight seemed almost hopeless on some levels, many of the children even those in the Cerebral Palsy ward seemed overjoyed to see us and I think our visits in the future will be very valuable. On Thursday we also had the opportunity of visiting a small church in the bush which was a great experience. We had to arrange some activities for the children which was tiring but very enjoyable. Many of them had never seen a white face before! I’m afraid I have to go now but I will hopefully get chance to write in more detail next week! Lots of love, Emily Emily Comont, 14/01/2011 0 Comments  |  Permalink