Mupitanshi

Mupitanshi is located on the Solwezi Road about half way between the cities of Chingola and Solwezi in the copper-belt region of Zambia. It is quite close to the Congo border. The population of this area in a 6 mile radius (easy walking distance) I estimate to be about 800 - 1200 people. Zambia is listed as one of the poorest countries in the world and Mupitanshi is in their poorest region.

Zambia declared themselves a Christian country in their constitution in 1996. Within two kilometres of our village are 6 Churches all different denominations and none of them have a pastor. The tithes or income of each church is about $1 per week! Good strong Christian leadership is lacking. Church buildings are minimal. Hope has diminished with hunger. 

Most of our villager homes are minimal shelters for sleeping in. They have little furniture. Locals dine and entertain outdoors and sleep on the dirt floor on a grass mat or a piece of polythene. Some have 6-8 people sleeping in one room. They seldom have money for toilet paper, or soap to wash themselves or their clothes. No salt or sugar to flavour their food. They eat what they can grow.  Most can’t afford fertiliser so their crop yields are meagre. Their main crop is maize. The only implements they have are a manual hoe and a slasher. One family has a few goats, a few families have 3-5 chickens. Meat is a luxury. They eat fresh water fish from the nearby river which taste and reek of mud. Most families have one meal a day – always the same.  Porridge made from maize meal called Nshima and some vegetable or dried fish to flavour it. The children walk 5-6 kilometres to school each morning, usually with no food till evening. So we built a small two room school for 3-6yr olds which opened in June this year. It caters for 60 children.

Our water well yields brown water and is shared by at least six families. It has a bucket on a long rope that is pulled up by hand.  It dries up in the winter season.  The women carry water to my house for me. For the first time in my life I have learned to hitchhike and wait on the roadside for the huge copper trucks to stop and take me into town to collect supplies from Chingola, 70-80kms away. This mode of transport has become too difficult for me and I need to purchase a mission car.