Visit to the Chief; Milt has a Haircut

Harley and I were up very early this morning, picked up the Senior Headman (Jackson) at 6:45 am and headed into Kabwe. The mission for the morning was to go and meet Chief Chipepo who is the traditional leader of all the people in the area and to whom the headman reports. The chief lives in what is called a "palace" about an hour's drive again from Kabwe so we were looking forward to seeing the place, although not to the drive on what would, undoubtedly, be a very rough, potholed gravel road. As it turned out the chief was at his Kabwe home as he had a sore leg and was waiting to see the doctor; so that it where we went to visit him. As per the tradition the headman had to go into the house ahead of us, bearing our gifts of money and food to "announce" us and our business. We were then invited in, having to go onto our knees in front of the chief for the initial greeting, as a mark of respect. Thereafter we sat comfortably in his living room and spent an hour chatting - telling him about our plans for the Sungula/Kakulu area and learning more about him and his role in the process. Again our intentions were given official approval and we were thanked for any assistance that we may be able to provide to his people. Next stop was the Ministry of Water Development regional office in Kabwe where Harley had some productive discussions with officials there about the wells in our area and the information that we are looking for.

We returned to the farm for a late lunch to find that Milt had gone to the local barber - Mr Chanda one of the school teachers - for a local haircut ! (He uses a small generator to power his electric clippers and the charge is about Can $ 1.00)

In the afternoon we went over to the school to find that a builder had made a start on the housing project - with a couple of roof trusses up. Very exciting to see some progress with that.