In a tiny village of Lumela, lives a little boy called Chipego. Chipego lives with his father, mother and his little sister Mutinta. There is one more special member of the family, Pendo the cow.
Chipego helps his father to look after Pendo in exchange for pocket money that he uses to buy books.
Meet Chipego. He is 10 years old and in Grade 5 at the village school. Chipego always comes top of his class. "What's his secret?" his schoolmates ask themselves.

"He's excellent in reading and writing. How does he do it?" they wonder. Chipego tells them it is because he reads lots of books. While they waste their time doing nothing, he spends all his free time reading.

Chipego sometimes earns K80.00 a week in pocket money. He spends most of the pocket money on books at the second-hand book shop in his village.

So how does Chipego earn enough pocket money for these books? Read on to find out.

Meet Pendo, the family's milking cow. She produces over 20 litres of milk per day. Chipego's father sells the milk.

A cow needs food and water, and time to graze in the field. So each day after school, Chipego helps with this work. Chipego's father gives him pocket money for the work he does. And it is this money that Chipego saves to buy books each week.

First, Chipego gives Pendo a bunch of carrots. He gives her exactly eight carrots a day. Each day he picks the carrots from his father's vegetable garden, enough for a day at a time.

You can work it out. You will find that Pendo eats nearly 60 carrots a week. Can you tell exactly how many?

After that, Chipego takes Pendo to graze in the fields. His father warned him to watch the time and give Pendo not more than three quarters of an hour to graze.

Pendo usually starts grazing at about14:15 hrs, so that Chipego can take her back to the milking shed at 15 hours. In winter when it gets dark earlier, Chipego may start grazing earlier, around 13:30 hrs.

Next Chipego gives Pendo water. Without water Pendo won't produce milk, no matter how much Chipego feeds her. Chipego fetches buckets of water from the village pump because there isn't one nearby.

Pendo's trough holds about 30 litres of water. Chipego's bucket only holds 5 litres. So to fill the trough Chipego has to make many trips. Can you work out how many trips he has to make?

Then, Chipego takes Pendo to his father to get her daily 12 kg bag of grain. Chipego calculates that's almost 90 kg a week.

Each bag costs K39.00. Chipego works out the cost of grain for each week. First he works out the cost of 7 bags at K40.00, which makes K280.00 Then he subtracts K7.00 to get K273.00 "That's over K1 000 a month!" Chipego estimates. Is he correct?

Chipego's father milks Pendo twice a day. She produces about 24 litres of milk a day, so about 12 litres for each milking.

Sometimes Chipego helps with the milking but it is not as easy as it looks. "One day," he thinks to himself, "I will have my own cows and I will have to do all the milking myself."

His father pours the milk from the big bucket into smaller two litre cans or one litre bottles. He then sells the milk for K8.00 a litre.

Once a week Chipego's father donates 25 litres of milk to Bulela School feeding scheme. Each child gets a quarter litre of this milk. That means that 100 children get milk on this day.

For each litre of milk sold, his father gives Chipego 50 ngwee. That doesn't sound like a lot, but if his father sells 24 litres a day, it adds up to quite a bit. Can you tell how much?

Chipego saves his money until Saturday when he makes a trip to the book shop. Each book costs less than k10.00, so in a good week, he can buy quite a few.

Chipego also loves to drink Pendo's milk. His father says that milk helps to build strong bones and teeth and makes a person fit and healthy.

So by drinking milk and eating lots of vegetables from his father's garden, Chipego is strong and healthy. He seldom gets sick and never goes hungry. His mother loves making mabisi using Pendo's milk too. His young sister enjoys adding the milk to her chibwantu! Hmmm! Yummy!

Chipego never forgets to thank Pendo at the end of each day. He rewards her with extra carrots or spinach leaves that he finds lying around the garden.

"Thank you Pendo, you are my best friend! It is thanks to you that I am strong, healthy and clever. If not for you I would never be able to buy all the books that help me be top of my class." One day I will be a veterinary doctor because of you!
Pendo is very lucky because Mutinta, Chipego's mother and Father also rewards her! What an amazing cow!