Breakfast is Served

October is hot in Zambia. Every year I try to be better than the heat. Every year I try to force myself to do the things that I want to do throughout instant sweat. Instant sweat comes about when you're just lying in bed, surrendering to the afternoon heat and you are still sweating. A couple days ago, instant sweat beat me. So, I decided to take a 'sick day' which consisted of me stretched out on my bed waiting for the heat to pass. Since, I'm not very good at having 'sick days' and shutting off my brain to sleep, I opened up some of my old journals to have a gander. I opened up some of my old writing from 1999 and came across this little note:

'I pretend to know how it must feel to be starving, but I don't and I'll go on for the rest of my life eating like I could care less about children and families who haven't eaten in days. I "NEED" so much from this world but am too spolied to change the way a two year old in Africa will see tomorrow. The bottom line is WE NEED HELP. EVERYONE DOES'.

When I was 15, I didn't know I was going to be living in rural Zambia at 27. When I was 15 I had no idea that I would have started a breakfast program as part of an orgnization that I would be committing my full energy to. I had no idea. At 15 I knew that I wanted things. I wanted to have fun and I wanted a boyfriend I'm sure, and I wanted to play soccer. At 15 though, there was something inside of me that told me I had too much and that I was supposed to do something about that. I was supposed to be concerned about people in far off places, somewhere in Africa and I was supposed to understand their needs.

This is how the world works. The world is in need. In Africa, in North America; people around the world need things. They need food and education and health care and they need love. I need those things too. We are all in the same boat. I'm wondering if that's why SWSC can grow. It can grow because we're here as Canadians who may just be deemed spoiled, working with Zambians who may just be deemed poor. We are here living with them and we are serving the same needs that I expect to be met for myself.

With that said, SWSC is now serving up breakfast. It is expensive. It is costing us about $80 Canadian every week to feed just less than 50 toddlers and kids who make it to our classes every morning. They're coming from more than 2kn away and they're coming to learn the alphabet and write their names.

I figure, if there is NOTHING else that we do but feed a few kids a healthy breakfast, than we have succeeded. I feel good about this. I feel like my 15 year old self would have been happy if she knew this was going on. I guess the heat brings a little more than sweat after all.