Not Even the Hot Rays

Mazuba Mwiinga

Its World Porridge Day. October 10. This year, the day is as special as a memory of spiritual renewal. Mary’s Meals Zambia remembers its 10 years of Keeping the Promise to learners, of a meal every school day. The 10th Anniversary celebrations however, brazed the hot sun rays yesterday, October 9th. The tale nevertheless hinges on the day before.

My team members and I, lazily trotted from one office to the other, a checklist in hands. Emails coming and going on task updates. It looked like everyone involved was too content to realise how foolhardy the whole extravaganza may turn out to be.

On top of the agenda, was the guest list. Oh, boy - bloated like some thin me, who had just suddenly realised needed some fatty food for some extra pound of flesh. Whether it was worthy a penny of validation, or needed some pound of trimming, didn’t attract enough time for rational decision making. The hand of time wasn’t our ally.

The venue for a high-level meeting with people who brush shoulders with respectable public figures, could only be test-run in the night when hotel conference business was on recess. We could see chairs in heaps round an empty cosy rectangular conference room but we could do nothing about it. The anxiety could be felt warming my knee joints.

“Just tell me how you want the setting to be. And we will set it up in the night,” an over polite hotel attendant, almost sounding an instruction more than it could have sounded like a request, said, looking at us with a hotelier smile. ?

Fishing out my mobile phone from the back pocket of my jeans, I found myself talking to the lady hired to set up a tent and deco for the outdoor event at a second venue. Kapara Primary School.

“We are starting off now going to the school.” It was mid-afternoon.

My colleague behind the wheel, we drove to the school with government Protocol Officers. Their interest? Security for the visiting government delegates. Our interest? To see that the tent is set up and chairs arranged accordingly. Four hours later, the lady and her crew had not arrived at the outdoor venue. It was dark, but for the flames of fire from homes around the venue. The adrenaline was comprehensible, but less amusing.

Then my phone became a buzz of incoming calls. T-shirts were on high demand. Sad fellas, I wasn’t in charge. The conversations, mostly ended in discouraged tones from the other end of the line.

We drove back. Our idea? To meet up with the tent and deco lady. Her phone was no longer reachable. Twenty minutes into the drive, a light truck with hazard lights flashing, was moving towards us. That was it!?

An hour later, a huge tent was up, like a Pyramid of Giza. By the time my colleague and I were leaving the outdoor venue, it was past 21hrs. At the hotel venue, another colleague called us. We needed to check the set up. Amazing!

Having tested the 10th Anniversary Film on a big screen in the conference room, we were all smiles.

As our day began at 06:00hrs on the D-Day, it was clear we were up for a blazing time.

With temperatures reading 32 degrees, nothing nevertheless, could stop the tested energies of the MMZ Team, as the dancing, songs and poems from the learners and volunteer cooks rocked the dazed atmosphere. The eloquent and oratory speeches eulogising the Mary’s Meals School Feeding Programme in 10 years, added syrup to the fervent mood of the attendees.

In that moment, no sweat was felt, neither hunger could diss the tummies, for the heat appeared dim, as the joys of keeping the promise to learners was just mesmerising.

Surely, not even the hot rays of the droughts, could stand on the way of a happily ever after anniversary celebration.