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Guest Column: Trip to Africa shows startling similarities

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November 29, 2009

by Chris Cantoni

Chris Cantoni is a Hudson native and filmmaker, currently living in Los Angeles. Children of Ubumi recently commissioned him to visit the orphanage and gather footage for a video on the work of Ubumi Africa. The following is his account of his visit to the orphanage.

Traveling to Zambia in October, I learned many things. But the single most important thing is a paradox I still have trouble comprehending: Everyone around the world is exactly the same and completely unique, and I learned it because of Ubumi Africa.

Ubumi Africa is an organization in Kitwe, Zambia. OVC is how it's classified, as in orphans and vulnerable children, whose parents are in no condition to take care of them. Generally, when we think of kids in developing countries, our minds immediately go to distended bellies and being asked to give money so a child somewhere can eat for another day. While that might be true in plenty of places, Ubumi is not one of them.

Being in Zambia, and I'd imagine any other foreign country, is incredibly isolating. You're alone, it's difficult communicating even in English because of our various accents, and there's nowhere to run. I can't pop down to the local Starbuck's and feel at home, or call a friendly voice without outrageous international charges.

But the kids at the orphanage, along with the wonderful Ubumi staff members, taught me something both incredibly easy to feel and excruciatingly difficult to understand: You don't need the same culture or language to love a person. As it is with children everywhere, I found my heart quickly wrapped up in them.

I could see my own childhood personality in some of them, their innocence and wonder, and the great promise held in their futures. They are well tended, fed, educated and secure. They laugh, they cry, they are polite and mischievous. They are exactly like any other kids you've met, and the similarities in such an unfamiliar place will startle you.

I don't mean to sound wistful. Zambia is a place where it's not safe to drink the tap water; where intimidating walls surround homes because there aren't enough police to prevent robberies. Where flies and ants are not nuisances to be dealt with, but constants to be ignored. No amount of donated money can stop these things. They are too big in scope for us. Donating money to a charity is not about big changes, but small ones.

I can't eliminate HIV/AIDS or malaria. I can't keep those kids from experiencing the tragedy of growing up without parents. The best I can do, the best anyone can do, is help them reach higher up the ladder, not in grand steps like a water-treatment plant, but in small steps like a school uniform.

Ubumi is working on several projects designed to generate income and, eventually, give them self-sufficiency.

With an orphanage, a community school, a nutrition program to prevent malnourishment, a grinding mill to increase community self-reliance, and a chicken coop to raise both food and income, Ubumi is creating a pocket of strength in a world of fragility.

The desire to give money to them is not out of charity, but investment, because any one of the wonderful kids I met now has the chance to be educated, to learn responsibility, and to achieve whatever he or she can dream. Ubumi is laying a foundation of growth. We can just provide a little concrete along the way.

Editor's note: The Children of Ubumi column is provided by Penny Frese, who will provide periodic updates on the Ubumi Transit Home in Kitwe, Zambia, which the city adopted as its orphanage in April 2009. To learn more or become involved, call Frese at 330-650-2864.




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