A letter by Urs and Margreth Mühlemann-Lachat

We spent the whole month of June in the Kalahari Desert at Cecilia’s in order to experience everyday life at the Home.

Every day two school buses donated by our sponsors pick up about 100 kids in D’kar. This poor village, actually just a gathering of huts made of waste materials scattered in the sandy bush, lies 8 km away from the day-care centre, close to the so-called Trans-Kalahari-Route, a sort of paved highway. Most inhabitants are San (Bushmen) and live in miserable conditions. A lot of families are fragmented and adrift because of Aids and its consequences, not to speak of alcohol abuse; in most cases grandparents take care of kids when their parents have died or their fathers have left home.

When the children arrive at the day-care centre at 8 a.m., pre-school teachers and assistants greet them warmly and give them breakfast, usually a bowl of corn pudding and a cup of tea. Then the children get involved in movement games and sing joyful jingles either in their native languages or in English. Finally, before going to their classes, they say a little prayer all together, their eyes shut wide: all the children seem to enjoy this everyday ritual.

A first “tour” in the classrooms is carried out to make sure that the pupils are clean and in good health conditions, otherwise – this is almost always the case! – they have a bath and get neat clothes. Felicia, the nursing assistant at the Home, visits and eventually treats ill kids, asking Cecilia for help in case of serious diseases and when examinations or admission to Ghanzi district hospital (about 30 km away) are necessary.

The children are divided into three groups: the young, the middle (first year preschool) and the old children (second year preschool), which means that a child spends 3-4 years at the Home before attending elementary school. Cecilia does her very best to keep in touch with the kids who have left the Home: she regularly pays a visit to their families and supplies them with clothes, shoes, sometimes even with some food. Moreover, she goes to see the new teachers of the village school on a regular basis too.

This summer Cecilia und Margreth changed the whole children’s winter wardrobe. It took two weeks to give each of them clothes in their size and see them “parade” with a smile on their faces. The staff also choose new clothing and shoes among those donated by the several American friends of Paolo Zanichelli’s Children’s Home.

In the morning counts and nursery rhymes in English or native languages, jingles, numbers and letters resound from the classrooms around the courtyard. From time to time a kid runs or walks slowly and tired in the yard to pick something up, but he/she always has time to smile at whoever greets him/her. While most of the children sit in their classrooms, as mentioned before, some are given clean clothes, others are washed or treated, others learn how to ride a bicycle or walk on stilts in the yard. Many children look for us: they want to sit near us and caress our white skin (especially Urs’ hairy arms). The Home is permeated with a joyful, happy atmosphere; even the women in the kitchen sing and laugh, then, at 10.30 a.m., they give the children their morning snack, followed by a rich meal at 1 p.m.. After a short snap the children play in the yard and, after having an afternoon snack, they are taken back to their village at about 4 p.m..

Maryna, the Namibian assistant of Cecilia, checks the next commitments and discusses the matters held over and the administrative problems with her; furthermore, the whole staff meets quite often to talk about general or specific issues and particular children.

The bird paintings made by Margreth on an outside wall and the board prepared by Urs for a future dressmaking course will be ready in a couple of days. Tomorrow, after a chill night, sunrays will spread once again over the Kalahari and bring some warm at about 11 a.m.; again, the Home will be filled with the laughter and cries of all the chocolate-skinned children who have grown fond of Cecilia.

Urs e Margreth Mühlemann-Lachat