Paul Update

So, this week we changed the location of camp due to a double booking at Dunamis, our current location. This created quite a distressing situation for our friend Paul, whom I wrote about last week.

He arrived to camp on Friday afternoon, very cranky and upset. I greeted him and he started yelling at me in Nyanja, and I therefore could not understand what he was saying. One of the Zambians approached and informed me that Paul was saying he was feeling very sick, he was very tired.

You see, what Paul had done on Friday was this: he arrived at Dunamis and found that we were not there, so he then proceeded to walk on foot to every previous location of camp. This is no small task, as we have had camps all over Lusaka and he must have walked 30 miles (hours and hours) only to find that we weren't at any of the previous locations.

He finally arrived to our new location, GO Centre, late in the afternoon on Friday just before the kids were dismissing. He was quite personally upset with me, as he thought it was my doing that camp had been moved. I quickly apologized to let him know that I did not decide where camp happened, but that we had missed him tremendously (which was true) and that I was sorry. He complained of a headache, so I quickly obtained some lunch for him, and wet a bandana for his head. He felt quite warm. He didn't seem very interested in talking to me during his lunch, but we sat quietly outside on the front porch of GO Centre. I finally walked him outside (still not talking) and he fell asleep on the floor while I scratched his back and made him drink lots of water for rehydration. It's quite cold at night (around 30 or 40 degrees) but during the day it is quite warm. The sun beating down on Paul's poor body all day had exhausted him.

In the end, all was well but I went through tremendous pains to explain to Paul that camp would not be happening next week, so he need not show up or he would be disappointed to find no one.