The Orphans of Kalikiliki

Before arriving in Zambia, my roommate Sarah made a connection with a woman named Dorothy who works at an organization here called CINDI, which stands for Children in Distress. CINDI is not an orphanage, but their mission is to help families who are supporting orphans and they run all kinds of programs in various neighborhoods around Lusaka. This morning we had the opportunity to join Dorothy and her coworker Mike for one of their weekend youth group sessions. They picked us up at the office, and in yet another ubiquitous white SUV with NGO names painted along the side, we drove to a neighborhood in the eastern part of Lusaka called Kalikiliki. We had never been there. It’s not a planned neighborhood, it just sort of sprang up. There is no clinic there. It was almost flattened by the government. It was almost completely flooded when a dam was opened up. Finally, the city government officially recognized it, and now there are international partners working to establish it as a real neighborhood, doing projects like building roads and community centers. To me, it looked much like many of the other compounds- rough, narrow, packed dirt roads lined with haphazardly placed houses. It was there, at the community center, that we met all the children for the morning program.

We walked into a room lined with children who looked like they ranged in age from 5 to 12 or so. At first, it felt very much like a classroom. A woman at the front of the room had written, “Learning to work together,” on the board, both in English and in Nyanja. But it soon became clear that it wasn’t a classroom lesson. The morning was full of games, many with a teambuilding theme. There was a simon says type game, which caused occasional outbursts of laughter from the entire room. There was a game outside, where they scattered rocks on the ground, one person would be blindfolded, and everybody else had to guide them through by telling them which way to step. It was great to see this group of kids, all of whom are orphans, really having a chance to enjoy themselves. Some of them left impressions on me, and I tried to capture them in pictures, but I don’t know that I managed to do it so well.

After the youth group, we drove a little down the road to a small shop. CINDI is also involved in giving out microloans. The woman who owned the shop was grandmother age, wrinkled, short, wrapped in chitenge of various patterns, hardened from life but with a smile underneath. Age can be deceiving here, I always peg people as older than they are. I think life here takes its toll. She, together with some other women, have been given a microloan to start this shop. They don’t sell much-some cooking oil, soap, some beans, some mealie meal, one single little girls dress. But it’s enough. I think she enjoyed practicing greeting us in English just as much as we enjoyed greeting her in Nyanja.

So our little morning trip to Kalikiliki was interesting indeed. We will be returning. They hold youth groups in other neighborhoods, in addition to groups for widows. Seems like a very fulfilling weekend activity.