Dear friends and supporters
On July 31st we were able to say goodbye to 12 students at the agricultural school. I briefly wrote about it in the July report.
Here is a picture of our three students from Malawi with our four teachers:
Desire Msiska was by far the best vegetable producer and Etone Kapira had the best grades. As you can see in the picture, this is one of the things with the Covid measures, some adhere to the guidelines more strictly than others. Since much of life takes place outdoors, where the risk of infection appears to be lower, most people wear a mask when they enter a room, like a shop. In July the number of Covid positives had risen, but now we’re back to almost zero across the country.
Change of government in Zambia
The presidency and parliamentary elections took place on August 12th. Feared unrest did not materialize, despite the fact that the previous incumbent and his party clearly lost. As usual after elections, there is now a lot of hope in the new people, especially here in Zambia, that the overwhelming corruption will subside. The new President Hakainde Hachilima may be more knowledgeable than the previous one.
School policy during Corona
I don’t even remember how often the schools here were closed and reopened in the last three months. In between, only the final classes should come to school. Then everything was closed again because of national mourning on the occasion of the death of the first President Kenneth Kaunda. Then, for political reasons, the schools were reopened shortly before the elections, but there are many schools in the country also serve as polling stations and the majority of the teachers are used as polling officers, the schools were closed again after three days. Then, one day before the elections, it was decided that schools should finally start again on August 23. In the meantime, however, August 24 has been set as a public holiday because of the inauguration of the new president. Many parents have simply kept their children at home for weeks and are waiting for the school to really start up again before sending the children to school. Despite COVID, foot-and-mouth chaos, we’re not doing badly. In the last few months we have restricted personal contacts with friends in order not to spread these two viruses unnecessarily, but ours Daily routine is hardly changed. There are enough reasons to be happy and thankful every day. We hope that you are all well and greet you very warmly for today
Your Klaus and Christiane