We woke up at 7am to a beautiful Samfya sunrise over the lake and had a traditional American breakfast on the patio.  This really could be built up for tourism, except that it’s so hard to get to and the occasional crocodile.  The lake also is used by the locals to bathe and in the picture below to wash the dishes.

                We then went off to SCCP to meet the program directors of the 3 main programs: education, home based care and microloans.  The education program helps subsidize the tuition cost ($50/term) for basic and secondary public schooling and also assists with scholarships for trade school and university.  The home based care program assists with vulnerable (orphaned) kids and adults with health issues, particularly HIV/AIDS.  New patients are given 3-6 month of basic food and are followed by health care volunteers who follow up in the villages.  The microloan program consists of 2 loan phases obtained directly from the locally involved churches.  Willowcreek provides a capital donation to the individual churches, but is the church that provides the actual loan.  The first loan is $40, and usually is invested into a kitchen garden for the family to grow crops to eat with the surplus to sell and repay the loan within 6-9 months.  If they are successful, they are able to take out $150 loans on a yearly basis, as the loans are repaid with 10% interest. 

                We then stocked the nursing clinic with the medicines and bandages that were brought by the team, including the Band-Aids that Andrew and Katie purchased with the money they raised from the “band-Aid for Zambia” campaign.  

                We then went on our first “Hut-Call”, going out to the small surrounding villages and seeing patients.  This was quite a shock to me, experiencing the living conditions: a small 2 room brick structure and thatch roof, dirt floor, outhouse, outside “bathing hut”, trash/fire pit and a small garden.  Despite this, the people were wonderful and had smiling, thankful faces.

                Holly and I then went to the hospital to help set the OR.  We got the electrosurgical generator running as well as a new patient monitor.  We also opened and separated surgical equipment into procedure trays for sterilization.  They only have 2 small autoclaves, so it will take a while to get everything sterile, also for the fact that their tech was fired just a few days ago for stealing equipment. Lots to do.