Lidson

Wednesday we drove to Kasungu and the Children of the Nation orphan village of Chiwengo. They have about 88 orphans living on this compound, complete with it's own primary school and church. My understanding is that the former 'President for Life' (i.e. dictator) President Banda used this compound for his extended family when they visited. There are several homes - the younger orphans live in one of the homes - House of Hope, House of Joy or House of Love. When they are old enough to go to secondary school (grade 9) they are seperated into boys (House of Power) and girls (House of Purity). The younger orhpans have house parents and then 'assistant' parents - sort of like aunties who help cook, clean, etc. Each house has about 14-16 kids. ranging in age from babies to ~15 years old. I have sponsored Lidson since he was about 6 (he is 15 now), and I have met him before, but COTN had always brought to Lilongwe. This time we thought we would drive up and see his house. We also met the on site administrator, Eric, who is also a house parent. He introduced us to 'Joseph', a ~14 month old boy. Joseph's mother died at birth, his father ran off and his elderly grandmother was trying to care for him. The social services found him and asked COTN to come and look, to see if they could take him in. Eric said the boy was about 2 months old, the grandmother was very poor and frail, the mud hut was falling down around them, and she had been feeding him Coke and Fanta to keep him alive. COTN agreed to place him in Eric's home, but first he spent ~ 3 weeks in the hospital with pneumonia and malnutrition. As you can see from the picture of Jose (AKA Joseph) and little Joseph, he has recovered quite nicely! We were thrilled to see Lidson's home and to meet some of his 'peeps' in Chiwengo! Although he confided to me as we were leaving 'have them bring me to Lilongwe next time'!! I think he likes the road trip and the fun of getting to travel! He is, as Eric says, 'a lovely young man'. Very quiet and shy.