Fabric Shopping in Kamwala

We awoke still rejoicing! Stephanie for her cup of hot coffee, and me for a glass of fresh squeezed orange juice. (I brought my electric juicer from home.) After a hot breakfast, Catherine came and Siwali took us to Kamwala. There is just no American way to describe Kamwala! It is a large business district, with hundreds of very small shops all crowed with people. Very dirty, the dust is usually blowing, not today because of all the rain, though! Instead the entire roads are covered in water. Siwali drives right up on to the sidewalk, so that we can get out of the car without having to wade in the very deep muddy water that is everywhere. We have tried to capture Kamwala on film, but have learned that the people there DO NOT like their pictures taken. If Siwali sees a camera he says put it away if you want to keep it.
We entered the fabric store, where we have purchased hundreds of dollars of fabric, three treadle sewing machines and all the supplies for the counselors to make over 10,000 potholders. We are met with big smiles as Mr. Patel greets me and inquires about the team. We select 14 more 15 meter pieces of African fabric, and 4 large rolls of black fabric. We inquire about a part that is broken on one of the treadle machines, and are given the part. With that we say good-bye and return to the car. We make one more stop, at the only large department store in all of Zambia. The store is called GAME and it is in a small mall area, called Manda Hill. They are adding on to this mall, so the parking is a nightmare, Siwali lets us out and says he will meet us back here when we are finished shopping.
We return to the Service Center and begin the HUGE project of cutting all the fabric into 8” squares. Everything is done on the floor, and I am very thankful for the nice tile floors in the service center. We work together, Catherine, Stephanie and I for the entire afternoon, stopping only for the only lunch we know in Africa PB&J’s! The power has been on for the entire day, and we are worried it will go out this evening, but it doesn’t and we make our dinner, eat with lights instead of candles and check our emails. Shortly after 7 pm the power does go out, and we look at each other with sad faces, light the candles and find the lantern and flashlights. But, it was a very short outage, maybe 20 minutes and we were back in the light! Stephanie put the movie The Changeling into her computer and we sit and watch, while we pin potholders together. Another day and we rejoice as we head off to bed.