The Last 3 Months

Let's see...

Well, the building of my house has unfortunately overshadowed everything else for me so let's get that out of the way. A summary: My village made an action plan that said my house was supposed to be done on Sept. 8. I moved in Dec. 16. (and left for vacation 2 days later) I just spent so much time having the same conversations over and over with the same people, different people, pushing and pushing to get things done. I've never been so frustrated about something in my life. Frustrations with my house were also mixed up in some other frustrations, but the house, and things tied into it, have been the only things I've gotten upset about. It's a long story, but in brief, people I trusted in the village lied to me and tried to manipulate me. But now the house is finished and I've moved in so I'll do my best to move on with my work and just spend time with the people I really like in the village. I am excited to finally live in my permanent house after 8 months at site, and I hope to be able to post pictures after I finally settle and make it my home.

On work stuff:

1. I had several good Chongololo Club meetings. It's the environment club we started at my school. So far it's mostly just 5th and 6th graders because the way the schedules work. We talked about trees-why they're important, what we get from them. Tried to stick to simple things in the beginning, hopefully to help them understand why we made the tree nursery.

2. With the Club and lots of other pupils at the school, we planted our tree nursery of nitrogen fixing trees, maintained it, and planted trees around the school the last week of the term! I was pretty pumped it actually got done, and in the end they had even more places for trees than we had seedlings--so we plan to do more next year! They wanted a windbreak but it didn't work out. For the height that our tress will grow they would've needed to be planted right in line with the flag pole, in the middle of the school yard, right where cars drive through. That is, if the problem wind even comes from that direction, which was in disagreement among the teachers. Maybe next year. Also plan to do some fruit trees, especially mango because we'll be able to collect plenty of seeds this time of year. (excited to go back to mango season!)

3. We started a beekeeping training with one of my women's groups that my amazing counterpart Lewis works with. But, we didn't finish. The women's club paid themselves for a local Zambian beekeeping expert to do a 5 part theory training plus practicals. They learned to make modern hives out of mud, with molds, like bricks, so then all they'll have to buy are the top bars which are only about $4. They mud hives aren't very durable but they're cheap and easy and theoretically, you can raise money with the honey from them to buy more durable wood hives. The training started out so well, only about 10 women, but they were really excited. But then training days kept getting postponed, rescheduled, cancelled. Then the busy farming season was coming so the women decided to stop for now. I'm hopeful that we'll pick back up in few months but it has to be the women who want to do it, not me or my counterpart telling them they should do it. So we shall see.

4. I held a little workshop in October on how to make compost. It was well attended, and went well, despite my agreed translator being extra late, my back up translator not showing up, and a long debate between the attendees, in Bemba, about how to do part of the process that I had to cut off, somewhat rudely. Don't know if anyone has actually made or used compost for themselves. I'm going to attempt to follow up.

5. Peace Corps volunteers all over the world host Camp GLOW (Girls Leading Our World), and some other PCVs in Central Province led one in Dec. I wasn't involved with the camp but I sent 2 8th grade girls and a community mentor to participate. They loved it and we're excited to start a girls club at my school this coming term. The goal is to share all the knowledge the 2 girls gained--about self esteem, being assertive, protecting themselves from HIV and early pregnancy, staying in school, opportunities after school, and more--with all the girls in Mambilima.

We got 4 new volunteers in Central and they're all really cool.

I've had lots of good times with my PCV friends.

Thanksgiving at our PC house with the whole crew was really great. We're our own PC family.
It's really weird that I've been in Zambia almost a year now. The new group of volunteers comes in Feb, and it's crazy to think that was me a year ago.

I really love getting letters in the mail. My address is on the side. :)

Ok, I think that's enough to catch up for now.

Christmas Vacation

Just got back from my first big vacay in Africa: Mozambique for Christmas and New Years.

It was just lovely. Yes, I missed being at home and with my family for Christmas. But I really hate the cold and really enjoyed the beach and traveling. And, as a Christian, the true meaning of Christmas is still true no matter where you are. That makes it much easier for me to be away. I was sad I wasn't able to go to church for Christmas Eve or Day, but I had some quiet time and listened to a Christmas-time sermon podcast and Christmas music on my ipod.

2 PCV friends and I flew from Lusaka to Joburg, took a bus to Maputo, then a shuttle to Tofo beach. We had a lovely day at the mall in Joburg. Not that I'm sitting in the village missing the mall, but it was awful nice to spend a day shopping and eating good food. Also, I would definitely recommend Ghandi's Backpackers in Joburg.

Tofo was just ok. We stayed at the party hostel and didn't enjoy the music with it's soul-rattling bass every night, including Christmas Eve. Just not our ideal place for a relaxing holiday. The beach was beautiful though.

So we went up to Vilankulos, which we loved. (After taking the ferry to Maxixe, we got a ride with 2 very nice Turkish men who live in Canada, but were in Mozambique to check on their mattress factory. They drove us 20km out of their way because it was raining.) We had a great little bungalow right on the beach at Baobab Backpackers. It was so nice to sit on our little porch, read or chat, and look out to the beach, watch the boats and tides come in, and enjoy the ocean breeze. We shopped around the market, went on a horseback ride on the beach and went out to the Bazruto Archipelego. The islands are beautiful and there's only really fancy resorts on them so we took a day trip, my friends went snorkeling and enjoyed the view from the top of a dune on Bazruto Island. I went scuba diving! A little nervous since I hadn't been in a while, but great once I got down. Visibility was terrible, but I had fun and saw lots of pretty fish. The New Years Eve party at Baobab was fun, despite that the music was terrible. The cast of characters around Baobab was quite interesting and we were thoroughly entertained by them.

(Side note: Our fabulous beach vacation site--Vilankulos--is also the site of a Peace Corps Volunteer. I live in the bush. Almost no PCVs in Zambia have electricity or running water. Don't get me wrong, I love PC Zambia and don't want to change, I just think that gives us a few points for being way more hardcore than other PC countries.)

Then we headed down to Maputo for a few days as tourists in the capital. It was weird driving down as our ride pointed out places we were driving through that used to be war zones. Can't tell at all now. We enjoyed Maputo, went to the art museum, the Fort (excellent tourist attraction, don't miss it if you go. j/k. but seriously), and the cathedral--really cool, built in the 40s. You can definitely tell the cathedral is in regular use-the nativity scene was complete with flashing rope lights.

We had a day in Joburg before flying back to Zambia so we went to the Apartheid Museum. It was REALLY good. I knew virtually nothing about South African history before coming to Zambia so I learned a ton. It's so hard to believe things were like that so recently. Of course there are lots of places where people still live in unjust conditions, but it's crazy that it was all so official and regimented.

It was great to get away, relax and see new things, but I'm glad to be back. It felt great to feel comfortable coming in to the Lusaka airport. I love being able to understand people again and be confident about how things work. And Zambia is beautiful, so green in rainy season. I'm glad to go back to the village tomorrow but slightly apprehensive since I've been gone so long. But I know once I get there I'll get right back into things. It's going to be strange being at site and just being able to work--so glad I no longer have to pester people about building my house! Excited to finally put things up on my walls. That means you should all send me pictures so I can put them up. :)

Sorry Sorry

Dear people who care about me or are mildly interested in my Peace Corps service,

I apologize for being a terrible blogger. To make it up to you, I've made a half-hearted new years resolution to blog more often. But you know how new years resolutions go...

I realized that one of the reasons I haven't blogged is the same reason why I think some people haven't written me: By now so much time has passed, there are so many things I/you should tell about that the task of blogging (or letter writing) seems too big. It'd take forever to catch up on everything, but it seems weird just skipping all those months.

Well, I would still very much like to receive a letter, even if it just has a few highlights of the past year and then tells me what's going on now. Therefore, I resolve to attempt to get back to blogging. I figure a little something in January is better than nothing since September. Hopefully you agree.

My apologies (in Zamlish: Sorry sorry),

Blair

a bit about work and a bit about other stuff

So, a comment from AZ wants more about my job. Thought I gave a few examples of work related things but guess I should explain more about the Peace Corps program. PC Zambia has 9 weeks of Pre-Service Training (PST) before being officially sworn in as volunteers. Then we go to our sites and begin our 2 years of service with a 3 month community entry period. We’re supposed to get to know our area, our community and people there. Basically get to know people, let them get to know you, figure out how to live in rural Zambia and start trying to figure out how you’re going to work there, what kinds of things seem feasible and weeding out who’s actually interested in working with you from those who just want to be friends with the white girl. We’re not really expected to work much or start any projects, just get to know people and explain what it is we’re supposed to be doing. We’re also not really supposed to leave our villages during those 3 months, not supposed to leave our district except for 1 official provincial meeting, and no vacation or anything. The point is to try to integrate into the community, learn about the problems there, and about what the people’s needs and wants are, not just come in and start telling people what to do. So when I posted those last posts I had just finished that 3 month community entry period. I think I said but I was at In-Service Training (IST) also known as Reconnect because we get to reconnect with our training group that we haven’t seen for 3 months.

So now that I’ve been back at site for a few months I’m trying to get the ball rolling on some projects and trying to start planning things. But dealing with getting my house built is still eating more of my time than I would like. Not much happens quickly here-not house building, not arranging meetings, not starting or doing projects. And I think it would be a mistake to rush into a (big) project without planning. That’s one reason why I haven’t posted about my work-it’s just starting.

But things are moving.
I’ve taught short nutrition lessons at the Under 5 Clinics-baby weighing mostly but they/I “sensitize” the mothers on various health topics before the weighing starts. And sometimes the clinic staff comes (from 17km away) to do vaccinations and such.
So far I’ve been talking about trying to eat a balanced diet with all the food groups and how young children need to eat multiple times throughout the day. I hope to encourage gardening some through talking about nutrition, like that a way to have a variety of different foods for a balanced diet is to grow them, thereby also diversifying your crops. Then I also plan to talk about soybeans (referred to as soya here), about how nutritious they are, different things you can make from soya, and then encourage people to grow it so they have it for nutrition, to sell and to add in crop rotations for improving nitrogen in the soil.
I taught about and made a compost pile with the 8th and 9th grade agriculture science classes. When it’s finished rotting (and if we make more), we’ll be able to use it instead of fertilizer on the school garden, maize field and when we plant our tree seedlings in the field during rainy season.
Hopefully I’ll be starting a tree nursery with my school this week. We’ll plant some trees around the school boundary and for a windbreak. I’ll also plant a few of several different (leguminous) nitrogen fixing trees, at least to have examples of them to show people the different types and, hopefully, also show the benefit of soil improvement.
I’m helping the headmaster at my school come up with a basic business plan for the small shop he’s starting.
I hope to work with a few groups on beekeeping. It’s a good income generating activity because there’s a good market for both honey and wax, mostly just requires good management (though sometimes that’s easier said than done), and the few outside materials needed are fairly easily obtained from the forestry department or NGOs who also promote beekeeping and have expertise to offer. The forestry department will even come out to villages and purchase the unprocessed honey, avoiding the difficulty and cost of transport but not always giving beekeepers the best price.

So those are some examples of things I’m doing or hope to do. I’m still spending too much time trying to get my house finished (though it’s started now), so I’ll be glad when that’s finished.
Though they ran out of bricks and have to make more so who knows when it’ll be done. I’m fairly confident it’ll be done before rainy season though I’m afraid it’ll be down to the wire. I got frustrated with the whole process for a while, but I’m trying to go back to just being patient now.

Thanks for the packages everyone! It’s so nice to know people are thinking about me and sending me treats and useful things. You all (especially my mom) have been taking such good care of me with packages that really I get more excited about nice chatty or newsy letters than I do packages. Not that I’m asking you to stop sending packages, I just really love hearing from friends and family. I don’t always have enough cell phone battery or time in electricity to type emails, but if you write me a letter I’ll do my best to reply. That said, my request for granola bars is still standing. :)

Oh yeah, I went on vacation to Livingstone/Victoria Falls. I’ll just say that Vic Falls definitely deserves it’s place on the list of the 7 Natural Wonders of the World. I’m also happy to report that Livingstone is a really nice place. That’s a bit of a relief to me since I anticipate going there quite a few times if all my potential visitors come and want me to accompany them to see Vic Falls. If you’ve looked up anything about Vic Falls maybe you’ve seen something or heard about Devil’s Pool. We walked out to swim in it. Don’t want to try to describe it, but it’s hands down the coolest thing I’ve ever done.

I have to say I really don’t like blogging, but I suppose my potential readers (=my parents) are in luck today as I’m sort of in the mood for it. I’m at the provincial house basically by myself enjoying electricity and a mental break from the village. But now I’ll try to do a little work to prepare for planting the school tree nursery.

Oh, the other thing I wanted to say is that if you’re looking for a way to support me, you can also support Peace Corps, my fellow volunteers and their communities by contributing to their projects. Volunteers and their communities can apply for a grant to be funded by you, our loving friends and families. I don’t have one myself as I’m still new, and don’t really plan on it, but it’s a possibility in the future if the community is motivated to do a worthwhile project. If you’re interested, check out the Peace Corps website and click on Donate to Volunteer Projects. You can look for projects in Zambia, or any that you think are worthwhile. My friends, Zambian and PCV, will thank you!

(I wanted to post pics but they won't upload. sorry sorry)

A Bit of Daily Life in Mambilima

Again Wednesday August 11, 2010

I get up between 6:30-7:00. Eat breakfast (pb&j, toast, cereal, granola if I can get it, or oatmeal) with coffee, usually just put my tea kettle on my family’s fire to heat the water. Sometimes I do a few chores in the morning and then go to a meeting or work on something. Some days I do chores all day. Sweeping my dirt floor, sweeping my bath shelter and pit latrine, dishes, laundry, fetching water. I usually only cook if I’m home all day and not too busy. I cook lunch more than dinner. If I have bread I eat pb&j, maybe I make pasta or just have like a cup-a-soup and a boiled egg if I have eggs. Or if I’ve been to town and have vegetables sometimes I try stir fry or curry. Sometimes I cook for lunch and then just reheat for dinner, but usually I eat with my family for dinner. It’s just easier not to spend 2 hours cooking and then I get to chat with my host father which is usually great. With my host family I eat nshima usually with cooked leafy green vegetables like rape, Chinese cabbage, or pumpkin leaves, sometimes beans, soya pieces, mushrooms and occasionally chicken. My favorite is ifisashi: pumpkin leaves cooked with pounded groundnuts. It’s like a peanut sauce. So good. My family also helps me heat my bathwater which really helps out with time spent on chores. A hot bucket bath can actually be really nice. After dinner I either tidy up my house or try to get some productive reading, journaling or letter writing done. Then, time for bed around 9pm, sometimes 8:30, sometimes closer to 10pm.

(Sunday 8-15-2010 Ah, I was going to try and give more info about other things I do, but there’s too much going on in Lusaka right now. Too many people I love that I don’t see very often and too many things I want to do. Maybe later.)

Bits of info

7-31-10
Still have laptop battery, so I’ll type another story or 2.
(Still ignoring that my parents blog about me exists. So I don’t know what you may or may not have read about me there. Still think it’s a little creepy)
So July 29th was my 3 months in the village. Crazy. It has FLOWN by. I finally got 2 pieces of my furniture this week, a bookshelf and a food prep table-no such thing as kitchen counters in huts. Took 3 months but the table is fabulous. Never thought I’d be so happy to have a table. LOVE it. I cook sometimes but not much. Partly because I had to take outside, where I’m borrowing a small table from my family and where there’s fire, everything I wanted to use. Me cooking also = the musungu show. (what’s the white girl have today??) Ah, there a lots of other reasons why I don’t cook, too. Working on that. Pretty pumped to get my dining table too, hopefully this coming week. Also in love with my bookshelf. Now, if my house would just get built. My temporary house is fine, but I’m really excited to have a cement floor, and one which is remotely level. Hopefully by the time I get internet to post this, I’ll have a report on some construction progress. Supposed to happen next week. Now, all I have are some bricks, not even enough for the house. And they have to knock down another small house first, where mine will go. There’s some drama there because it’s currently housing 4 boys who have come here for school, grades 8 & 9, because they don‘t have teachers or something where they‘re from. I’m staying out of that one. I didn’t decided where the house would go or make the plan to keep boys there and then kick them out. I just came here to be a volunteer and hang out in Africa. Not cause drama.

(my temporary house below)

I think I’m the only volunteer waiting on a house to be built. Good thing it’s me and not some others. I’m really patient about it, perhaps too much so, in that I didn’t push for it’s construction early enough. My temporary house is round, a former kitchen/store house. Maybe I don’t mind staying in it because I can’t help but laugh every time my batata (host father) tells me I’m staying in his chicken. Never occurred to me that it might be easy to mix up the words chicken and kitchen, but say them, they‘re close.
People seem to want to know what my daily life looks like, a typical day. Don’t think there’s such a thing as a typical day, not yet anyway. I’ll just try to describe a few things. I get water for washing and bathing from a small stream nearby, but have to carry it uphill back to the house. My batata grows sugar cane, which all Zambians LOVE to eat, especially school kids. Batata tries to sell it but they don’t have money so they come a fetch water and do other chores for him and get paid in sugarcane. So lots of days I don’t have to fetch water, which is nice. Drinking water comes from a pump/bore hole at the school. Too far to carry all the water I need for bathing and laundry. Drinking water gets chlorine then filtered. Chlorine is prob not necessary since it’s from the bore hole and gets filtered and now that I’ve been here a while. But I have so many stomach issues I do it just in case. The chlorine is Clorin, special for drinking water, I think subsidized by USAID, but not for sure.
Ok laptop battery is dying, more next week when I get to electricity!

The Rat Saga

Written Saturday July 31, 2010

Got my laptop out in my hut. Crazy. Decided I’m going to use it until the battery dies, so it’s blog post typing time. It’s been 3 months since I’ve been on a computer. My fingers don’t quite remember what to do.

I’m sitting here with my brand new kitty in my lap. She’s teeny, 7 weeks old and ridiculously adorable. Her name is still tentative so that will be to follow sometime. I’m really excited to have a new kitty companion, and we love each other already. I’ve been awaiting her arrival since day 1 in my hut so she can scare away my rats. i HATE rats. Nshatemwa sana koswe. Nalitemwa sana pushi. I really like cats.

So, perhaps unsurprisingly, I’ve never lived with rats before. Maybe this says something about my life that previously my only rat reference was Templeton from Charlotte’s Web. Now, I have several rat stories:
First night in village, they ate a hole in the side of my watermelon. No big deal, just cut that part off and eat the rest.
Rats make A LOT of noise.
Rats like to use mosquito nets to climb up and down from the roof to the floor. Less than enjoyable when one is sleeping under such a mosquito net.
First trip out of the village (week 2) was largely prompted by my desire to purchase rat poison, and get my packages from the post office of course.
If a rat only eats some poison, and not a lot, then it doesn’t die until it climbs somewhere in my roof. Can’t find those until they start smelling. Awesome. Result #1: Maggots in my house, including one, quite mysteriously as I always keep my mosquito net tucked under the mattress, in my bed. Result #2: Dead rat juice (blood?) dripping from the dead rat in my roof onto the corner of my bed. Wasn’t planning on doing laundry that day. FYI-washing a mosquito net with lots of soap because you’re freaked out about dead rat blood leads to the African bush version of the overflowing suds in the washing machine because the kids put too much soap, a la Brady Bunch. Mosquito net=excellent bubble maker. (One rat did die outside on the ground. Praise Jesus.)
Rats really like groundnuts (peanuts to you in Americaland). The Chief gave me a huge bag of groundnuts when I went to meet him. Sweet, but I couldn’t exactly fit all those in my food buckets. My attempts at keeping the rats from eating them failed miserably. I’ll add a pic if I get a chance. I got real tired of sweeping up groundnuts shells and rat poop. As I was sweeping or listening to the rats crunch groundnut shells, I would think about how they were getting fat and happy on my groundnuts. This inevitably made me sing to myself Templeton’s song about how the fair is a smorgasbord.
So I was left with quite a clever rat. Wouldn’t eat poison groundnuts. Got my tomato one night and ate a big chunk out of it. So I said, ok rat, you eat my tomato, you’re gonna eat poison tomato. Put a bunch of poison on the spot it had eaten. Nope, the rat moved the tomato, turned it over, and ate the other, non-poisoned side.

A few days later, I had a rather flexible carrot that I decided wouldn’t be good to eat which I forgot about and left on the floor. Next morning of course found that the rat had gotten it, buy my rat is picky. Didn’t just eat the carrot, peeled it first. When possible, there’s a picture to prove it.

Cross your fingers, now that I have my akapushi (baby cat), I’m done with rats.