Zambia Day #3

I am not sure I have the words in my vocabulary to explain my feelings by mid-morning today.

Emotional, sad, shattered, heartbroken, but happy in as much as I think I had brought a tiny bit of fleeting happiness into the lives of a small number of the orphans we visited at St Anthony's orphanage. These children are here through no fault of their own, many having been abandoned as not wanted, sick or just simply surplus to what their families can cope with. Many have disabilities and some are HIV positive.

The staff do an amazing job with them, but to see them - particularly the babies - just in their cots, desperate for attention and affection is heartbreaking. How can you not pick them up and cuddle them? How do you put them down again?

The little boy in red took a lot of coaxing out of the nursery but we won in the end.

Chipo, the girl in the top right was found some years ago living with wild animals and eating what they ate. Even now they have to watch her as, given half the chance, she will give her food to the cats.

The little boy in the middle was chewing on the hard stalk of a cabbage which he then shared with the others on the roundabout we were using.

And the little girl on the bottom right was just........gorgeous.

We then drove on through one of the 'compounds' - townships - where absolute poverty reigns. How ungrateful are we for all that we have? These people merely exist!

Exhausted. And it's only lunch time!