It’s already time for another Kudimba update.
There is a lot to tell…where to start?
We have made good progress with our latest project: the administration building with two bathrooms, office, garage, store room and room for the watchman.
With the help of our French volunteer and a local Malawian plumber, we now have two working showers, sinks and two toilets, the floors in the bathrooms are done and there is electricity in the whole building. We have managed to get motion detection LED lights around the outside of the building which we chose for security reasons and they are very low on energy consumption.
We have been very lucky with our local electrician, a long time friend, who has helped by installing all the electricity in our new building on his days off, free of charge. He has done a fabulous job and in return for his help we have decided to assist him and his family to acquire their own plot of land. In the future we hope to help him to build his own home, a modest traditional house, more about that later in this newsletter.
All of this progress we have managed to realise as our good friend Ruth, our new Trustee who was introduced to you in the previous newsletter has very kindly assisted us with a budget for the roof of this building. It was impossible to continue the works inside the building before the roof was finished, as the rainy season lasted much longer than expected. We have named it Ruthie’s roof.
We still have some more work to finalise in the administration building before it is completely finished, but the end is in sight.
Kudimba also finally has a solar pump with which we can pump water from our own borehole.
Our watertank is now filling entirely by solar energy, which is such a satisfying fact.
It fills completely in only two hours.
We have had our first rice harvest in Kudimba, as we made good use of all the excess rainwater on our land. Cornelio managed to harvest 5 bags of unshelled rice, which will be about 150 kg or 3 bags when shelled.
Further news is that our annual participation in a charity container going from the UK to Malawi was really successful again.
We were excited to receive kitchen equipment, tools, second hand phones and hospital equipment, all of this was delivered in Salima, almost to our doorstep. We distributed the hospital equipment to a local clinic. The second hand phones we gave to the electrician mentioned earlier, for him to check and fix and then set up a small business with which he can generate the funds to build his own family home.
Our next building plans are firstly the finishing of the administration building, then we will start another chalet for volunteers and then hopefully towards the end of the summer our central point: the education centre, more news about these exciting plans in the next newsletter. We are thinking of employing another staff member to join Cornelio and Mr. Gombachika with the building as it still is a lot of work. Cornelio and Mr. Gombachika are working really hard and we are impressed with their commitment and the quality of their work. The work they do is usually more precise compared to the work of outside professional contractors we sometimes have to get in.
In the meanwhile our newest student/staff member Mercy has been occupied with her computer lessons and driving license.
At this very moment she is learning how to look after our visitors, which will be Mercy’s role in the future.
We have got two enthusiastic volunteers in Kudimba at the moment, Kate and Monica, they are Scottish medical students and are working at the local hospital. Right from the moment of arrival, they dived straight into helping out at the hospital, which we are very pleased with and very proud of. Undoubtedly they will have lots to do, usually there are long queues of people waiting in line to be seen at the hospital. In addition, they are guiding Mercy to learn hospitality skills for future guests. We hope they also take a fews days off in their 5 weeks stay in Kudimba to enjoy the beauty of Malawi and to spend some time with the Kunyumba kids.
We have been very impressed with the Kudimba fundraising events which have been happening in Belgium over the past few months. Some of our supporters have organised a strawberry sale on a market in Lauwe which was really successful. Also our long time loyal friends from the Zikomo project have supported Kudimba financially through their bicycle tyre recycling project they have been running over the past few years. Their stall at a Belgian festival was – as usual- a big success. A very big thank you!
More updates after the summer!
The Kudimba team