I should have been there before now, but as they say better late than never; today I have visited Chaanga. What a place! Chaanga Clinic, School and Church was founded by the Salvation Army in the 1940's. The Clinic is now run by Chikankata Hospital so I went there today to meet with the Headmen, visit the Clinic and open a refurbished part of the building. The School is now run by the Government of Zambia. Unfortunately all the buildings have not been kept well so we are making some effort just to do our part by renovating one part and now we will paint the main clinic.

Chaanga is one of the most remote rural Health Centres in Zambia. It's basically in the middle of nowhere. From Chikankata it is about 32 km. It took us two and a half hours to get there and three hours to get back. The road is bad and on some occassion you just drive on rocks! We past the spot where one of the ambulances was blown up by a landmine, a spillover from the Zimbabwean coflicts in the 1980's. Regular reader of this blog, Alan Slator was one of the passengers on that vehicle. Mr Hachintu from Hampande was the driver. Both are still around to tell the tale!

Two things struck me. One is that the Salvation Army has a really rich heritage and in Zambia is going where other people won't go to serve the people. I thought this would be a good motto for the Salvation Army - maybe a bit too in yer face. But the people in Chaanga really trust the Salvation Army and are very loyal to Chikankata. The second thing that struck me is the resolve and effort of the people. Chaanga is a very poor place. Many of the malnourished cases at the Hospital are from such areas. But they really have hope and are really trying to help themselves and build each other up - we from the developed world could really learn alot from Chaanga.