Melody Banda – Proper Nutrition
Melody Banda – Proper Nutrition
Our
first child to arrive in Vima Lupwa Home was little Melody, the inspiration
child who started the whole effort in
With
her father having passed away by the ravages of AIDS, she was one of 15 others
living with their widowed grandmother trying her best to provide shelter in a
one-room mud hut – a home without electricity, no water, and rarely any food.
Once daily the children would walk to the nutrition center in the hopes
of obtaining a bowl of NSHIMA [the basic white cornmeal mush] for all of them to
share as their one meal a day. Melody,
one of the oldest children [9 years old at the time] rarely attended school, as
she was left in charge of the younger children while grandmother would go to
market with a few vegetables she grew in the hopes of selling them.
Melody’s duties included watching over the younger children, fetching
water at the well, cleaning the house and grounds and tending to the garden.
As the nutrition center was only open during weekdays, the children went
with little or no food on weekends.
What a celebration for all of us that Melody was the
first child placed in our home by the Zambian Social Welfare officer.
On the first night in Vima Lupwa Home, Melody snuck into the kitchen in
the middle of the night and gobbled down almost two dozen eggs – needless to
say, she was extremely ill for a few days. A
few nights later a strange crackling noise came from her bed, and upon checking
on her, she was discovered sucking and chewing up the bones of the chicken
they’d had for supper that night. During
the days she would grab a broom and sweep the house and yard, thinking that in
order to stay in her new home required her to continue to serve everyone.
In the last two years with Melody, we have seen
tremendous improvements in her physically and mentally. Having grown almost a
foot in the last year, Melody no longer steals from the kitchen and now enjoys
cooking for the other children. We are hoping to enroll her in a local nutrition
class, since cooking seems to be a passion of hers. She is attending the 5th
grade at