Cuala 4 Zambia

Two Nations One Voice

by Amy Butler

In October 2023 I was randomly selected with 15 other Cuala greats to travel to the Nsobe School project in Zambia. Cuala’s association with the Nsobe project is in its 6th year and I had always thought it would be an incredible experience to be part of and I wasn’t wrong.

For anyone who isn’t aware, Kevin Spain (aka Mr Nsobe) set the program up to provide a life changing opportunity for TY students to get involved in a project that is, well, life changing. The Nsobe School project not only educates hundreds of children they also help build incredible people. The focus of our trip was to help build a safe house/accommodation  for young female students who otherwise wouldn’t have the opportunity to get an education and for us we got to build a legacy and create memories we will never forget. The building project wasn’t our only focus and we got the opportunity to immerse ourselves in native Zambian culture giving us the chance get involved in traditional games, food, religion, dances and lifestyle. Of course we also had to share the best of Irish culture but more of that later.

After months of waiting I was told I was going to be going to Zambia in June. Let me tell you I have never been so excited for something in my entire life. You see, since we had recently joined the older year in Minors, all we had been hearing were these amazing stories from the girls who had gone the  previous year. Once we had found out who everyone was that was going we started work straight away: fundraising and fundraising and more fundraising, at one point it was the only thing I was doing every weekend.  I genuinely thought it was going to be an easy of couple bake sales and we would be done, oh I was so wrong. I remember the cold mornings in December where we would have to stand outside shops with our buckets trying to get as much money as we could.  Soon we found out that shaking buckets wouldn’t be enough, so we had to think outside the box for fundraising ideas like Bingo, Raffles and we even held a disco in a primary school. With all that teamwork we had the money in no time.

Finally, after all our preparations it was time to start thinking about travelling. On June 7th we headed  to the airport at 9am. Once everyone had arrived we started to look for our flight on the boards, but we couldn’t find it. We thought that it was kind of strange, so an adult asked the airline desk where our flight was, little did we know it had been cancelled a week prior and that we had no flight booked for today!  To our relief we finally managed to rearrange a different flight for 6 o’clock that evening meaning we would still make our connecting flights. So, we had a four and a half hour flight to Istanbul then we ran through Istanbul airport to get on our flight to Addis Ababa which was five and a half hours long, once in Addis Ababa we had a 4 hour lay-over until our final flight to Ndola (Zambia) which was four hours then just a quick 2 hour bus ride to the camp. So easy! Those flights were probably the only  thing I didn’t enjoy out of the whole trip. To be honest, once we landed in Zambia everyone was so sleep deprived it took a while to realise we were actually in Africa. It was so surreal after all the months of hard work  and anticipation.

While driving through Zambia reality really hit us with how different everything was. Once we arrived at the camp we had a warm welcome from everyone. We met Fiona who runs the camp and is the founder of both junior and senior schools, during the trip she really took us under her wing making sure we were all happy and full every day. After one of the best sleeps in my entire life we got split into different groups where over the next three days we would meet our buddies from the Nsobe school and do some fun activities to get to know each other better as a group,  like swimming in the lake, eating Nshima (Zambias national dish of ground maize) and meeting some pretty scary snakes.

Our first weekend there we got to meet our buddies for the trip, my partners name was Diana. She is one of the sweetest most funny and smartest people I have ever met in my entire life. That afternoon we got to play games and talk with our buddies getting to know them and the way they live. We exchanged gifts and each Zambian girl gave each Irish girl a Chitenge. The Chitenge is a Zambian fabric skirt that you wrap around your waist when you are doing chores or when you are around you elders as a sign of respect. Chitenges are normally very colourful with beautiful designs on them. In Zambia, if you were to visit a village it would be very unusual to find a woman not wearing a Chitenge. The Zambian boys gave every Irish boy a football that is made out of plastic bags and balloons wrapped up in netting as this is what they normally use as their football. Footballs are not affordable for ordinary Zambians so they do what they do best and improvise. After a great first weekend learning about their culture and how great the weather was we also knew that the real work was about to start!

Building in Zambia was an incredibly humbling and eye-opening experience. We started with basic construction tasks, mixing cement, making bricks, laying bricks, plastering and putting up walls. The work was physically demanding, especially in the heat, but the atmosphere among the team kept our spirits high especially with our amazing playlist. We would work from 9-1:30 after that we would go down to the schools to help with English lessons or even have the kids teach us their native dances and songs. This was my favourite part of the day. Then we would run back to camp catch a quick sunset swim before it went dark. I cannot describe to you how nice that water felt after a day of being on a dusty building site. We quickly realized that this project was about much more than just building structures, it was about building relationships and understanding the needs of the community.

As we worked alongside local builders and volunteers, we learned a lot from them— not just about construction techniques, but also about their culture and way of life. Language barriers were overcome with smiles, gestures, and the universal language of music. The children in the school were always very curious and would often run up to see what we were doing. Each day, as we saw the walls rise higher and higher, there was a growing sense of accomplishment. We knew that the school building we were constructing would make a real difference in their lives, giving them a better environment to learn and grow. But more than that, we knew we were contributing to something sustainable, something that would continue to benefit the community long after we left.

Some days after our work we would meet up with our buddies and have an activity planned. One day we went to the local market where we would have a shopping list and we would go out with our buddies and try and collect all the items. Another day we walked to a neighbouring town. We also got to go and visit a family’s village which would have entire extended family living on one plot of land.  We helped out with chores like sweeping, carrying buckets of water on our heads ! (a lot harder than it looks) and we also got to water some vegetables, all while wearing our Chitenges. One of my favourite days was when we got to learn all their games, which was great fun while others were quite tricky.

Nearing the end of our stay we were told we were putting on a show for the entire school. So we prepared a song as an entire group. We decided on John Denver’ “Country Road” and thank goodness we had back up on the guitar. We were fortunate to have a few very talented musicians in our group – including a  guitarist, two concertinas, and a flautist who also played a few pieces of traditional music. Then we all had to go out and perform a native Zambian dance which was very entertaining and our Zambian buddies got involved in with us in performing some traditional Irish dances.  Once speeches were said the tears were already starting and so headed back to camp for final goodbyes and of course a game of football.

We had organised some special Tee Shirts to recognise our time together and so we spent some time relaxing and signing each others shirts. Then honestly I think we all kind of broke down into tears. It was one of the happiest and saddest days of my life. Once we had finally said goodbye to everyone we had a talk from Fiona who at that point was basically our second mother. She thanked us for all our hard work and told us what a difference we had made in these kids lives which only set us off again.  But instead of ending our last day like this we all decided to have one final swim in the lake and finish our time in Nsobe in the lake at sunset, just like we started.

What will I take from this once in a lifetime trip to Zambia?

The world is a big place, but we are more alike than we are different.

It’s not what you have in your life but who that’s important.

You can communicate with anyone through music, laughter and with kindness in your heart

Zambia will hold a very special place in my heart and I plan on going back to visit my Zambian friends one day

We couldn’t have travelled that far, raised that much money and had the best trip ever without the guidance of our Cuala mentors…. You know who you are, thanks for everything!