Tada! A short photo tour!

And here it is folks, the moment you've all been waiting for (and the one that took me several hours and several thousand Kwacha at an Internet cafe to complete). PHOTOS! Yay!



The plan here is to take you on a mini-summary of what I've been up to so far. Enjoy the ride!



























The view from the South African Airways flight landing in Johannesburg at 6:50am. This is quite possible the longest and the largest sunset I've ever seen.

The gang spent a few days together at the Kuomboka Backpackers in Lusaka getting acquinted with life in Zambia. If you're ever looking for a nice cold beer and a friendly bartender, this is the place to go (plus they have a hot shower!).

<<>>

While in town we met with some important folks like the man in the middle here - the District Commissioner for Mazabuka District. Our photographer liked to take photos of us getting ready to take photos so I've included this one rather than the 'good copy' since it's actually better. e were also given some VERY yellow shirts (and hats, but Mary and I preferred not to wear those...).

And finally, a look at the place I call work. The Information Kiosk (or container as everyone has come to call it). I'm working on getting a name for this place though, something that captures what it is or could be, rather than just the facts that it literally contains things.

The view on the way into or out of (I can't remember) the bustling metropolis of Lusaka. I think these must be the suburbs...

More view, this time the sun setting near Mazabuka. The haze is a result of burning the sugar cane fields. The sugar cane doesn't burn itself, but all the snakes do, so it's safe for harvesting.






I think I mentioned this is a previous blog. Stacks and stacks of watermelons!! All the way from Lusaka to Chibombo (where Mary is working). They're also only about $1.50.

While in Chibombo Mary and I got to check out some pretty neat sites. Including this strange swampy place where lots of fisherman make their living...using mosquito nets to catch fish.

I eventually move to my village, Simwaba, where I share this house with Lindah. There are several more like this is our clearing, and a big one as well where most of the family sleeps.

This is Lindah, holding my chicken.

This is me (duh), hanging out shelling groundnuts to make peanut butter. Behind me you can see most of the big house as well as the small house that's used for storage and a broom.

This is our kitchen during sunset, and the tree that all the chickens and roosters sleep in. The tiny white line in the sky is the moon.

This is half of the inside of my house (the half with the bed). To the right is a small table that my bag has exploded onto, and on the right is where Lindah keeps her things. The pink and black fabric in the left corner is the divider between "bedroom" and "rest of house".

I am trying to wash my clothes. Lindah only lets me do the easy ones right now but I'm hoping to graduate to jeans soon. The fabric I'm wearing around my waist is called a chitenge (che-ten-gay) and is a stable for every woman in Zambia.

Right, count your blessings I had the patience to upload that many (a few of them several times). Hope that was a little more enlightening. Lemme know what you want to see next and I'll do my best to have the patience to upload it.

Thanks,

~Kate~

not your ordinary workplace

Another one worth writing down (at least if you're me, and you like goats).

I work in the middle of nowhere, or at least, what I would call the middle of nowhere. I don’t know what it is by Zambian standards but if small herds of goats go grazing by several times a day it definitely meets my Torontonian standards of “nowhere.”

I’ve always liked goats and living in close proximity with them (ours sleep about 15 feet from where I sleep) hasn’t dampened that fondness one bit. I’ve also had an opportunity to get a hold of their communication structure.

The rules are simple:
1. When you are a lost goat you yell out “blahhh?”
2. you hear a lost goat you reply with “blahhh!”

That’s it. Those are the only two things goats communicate. Translated into English it reads like this:
“Where?”
“Here!”
~repeat until united~

Now just the other day I was at work, in the middle of nowhere, working with two VCFs on some simple computer operations. As per a usual day at work, a small herd of goats go grazing by. And as per usual, a few get distracted by whatever distracts goats from following the rest and it begins…
“Blahhh?.........Blahhh?..........Blahhh?”

I generally tend to find loud noises, bleating and such, to be quite distracting while I try to teach someone how to use the computer so I eventually get tired of listening to the lost goats and take some action. I’ve seen where the rest of the herd went and start to walk behind the lost ones trying to direct them towards the rest. The lost few get a bit alarmed and up the pitch and volume of they’re bleating…
“Blahhh?!...Blahhh?!...Blahhh?!”

A few short minutes later from the bushes in the distance,
“Blahhh!....We’re here!” a goat replies.

The lost ones pick up the pace and scamper off into the distance. I return to my desk to continue on with the days work. Everyone is happy.

That’s it, that’s the whole blog. I just wanted to share “the day I went to work and re-united goats.”

Keep the questions coming, although I've done a good job of ignoring some of them (sorry). I'll work on that for the next blog.

~Kate~

a spot of tea in the village

I haven’t been keeping a journal since I’ve been here but there are occasional moments worth writing down. This was one of them.

Having found a decent enough routine I’ve gotten used to having tea in the afternoon between coming home from work and getting started on making dinner. Today, however, lunch was late (around 3:00) so come tea time the pot I’ve come to know and love is still dirty. I’ve been trying to do my share of the dishes but Lindah still thinks I’ll need help if she knows my pot isn’t clean. She even took a picture of my washing a pot yesterday while I called out “I wash pots at home y’know, this isn’t something new.”

Luckily for me, and not so luckily for Lindah, she was feeling tired and wanted to take a rest before dinner. Opportunity had struck! I announce I’m going to make tea knowing full well that my pot needs cleaning.
“But Ketty, the pot, it’s still dirty!”
“I know Lindah! But I can clean it!”
She hesitates, “…okay, you’ll find me here if you need help…”

“Triumph!” I think. Yet another opportunity to prove that somewhere, somehow I’m actually a fully functioning adult (my parents are laughing at this).

Now, this pot isn’t any kind of dirty, it’s freshly cooked nshima dirty. Nshima, for those who don’t know is made from ground corn kernels, meaning it’s very starchy. Meaning it can also be likened to glue…cooked to a pot and set out to dry.

Further complicating the issue my trusty cleaning utensils are as such: a tablespoon, a teaspoon, my fingers, and a dry corn cob minus the kernels. Cutting the boring details, 20 minutes later the inside of the pot is clean enough that my tea will only taste a little bit like nshima (I can’t be bothered with the outside for now).

Filling the pot with water, I head to the kitchen to make miracles happen. I’ve cleaned nshima from this pot before but only after a good twelve hour soak so I’m feeling surprisingly proud of my small accomplishment (while still happy no one else wanted tea and won’t have to taste the nshima-water that comes out of this pot). My stride to the kitchen gets arrogant, thankful I didn’t have to ask for any help.

But then, there it is, a fate worse than a dirty nshima pot – the fire has gone out and I will need to make a new one. Not wanting to come this far and then revert back to my child like status (although I think even the children could make a fire without trouble) I resolve to try to make my own fire. I’ve made the occasional fire in my lifetime but usually not without sometimes highly flammable to put in the centre like fire starter, or lighter fluid, so this is going to be interesting. Gathering all the necessities, grass, small sticks, medium sticks and big sticks I pile them up into what looks like something that might catch fire. The only advantage I’ve got here is that there are a few bits of charcoal still smoldering and I don’t have to do this from matches. Similar to cleaning the pot the in-between details are quite boring. It involved a lot of flapping with a pot lid and getting my hands quite sooty, but alas, victory was again mine. A fire was made. The water got hot. I had my tea. I’ve since made two other excellent fires and a few smoldering piles of grass as well.

I am happy to report though that I’ve gone from being offered help bathing in case I didn’t know how to washing some of my own clothes, heating my own bath water, preparing tea and relish (!) for nshima on my own and even cleaning the house I share with Lindah.

It’s been an interesting road learning how to get by at home, all the while I thought work was going to be the challenge. Turns out, it’s both.

Three and a half months sounds like a long time...

Three and a half months sounds like a long time, and for the most part it kinda is, but on the cusp on the day that marks exactly half way I can’t help but feel like I’ve only just gotten here and still have plenty to do before I go. In a way I think one could always feel like that here. The learning never stops so you’re constantly figuring out new things as you go giving you the feeling that you’re only just getting to know the place and the people. At the same time, you’re constantly seeing potential and possibility in the people you meet and the ways in which development could create change giving you the feeling that there’s so many opportunities for your organization to contribute that the work would never stop.

Then there’s the plane ticket in your bag telling you that you finish on August 26th no ifs ands or butts about it. It’s a strange dynamic to work with.

I’m writing this after my first day back at work after the mid-placement Junior Fellow Retreat in Siavonga (one of the most beautiful places I’ve been). The energy generated by ten Junior Fellows half-way through their placements is more than I can capture and those are days I won’t forget.

Now the real challenge is figuring out where to focus your energy to do the right things in the right way over the teeny tiny bit of time left.

And here’s the kicker, you’ve got to wade through the things you’ve been asked to do, the things you’ve identified you’d like to do and the things that need to be done in order to have any kind of organizational impact. Maybe some context would help…

There are several tasks, easily measured and relatively easily accomplished that I’ve been asked to do, and they’re going according to Zambian schedule. Included in that category is computer training for the VCFs, helping to facilitate meetings to develop community action plans and creating a template for project proposals for donors.

Easy enough, but I’ve added to the list myself as well. Some of my own goals include creating some kind of communication system from the field (thus far ‘weekly reports’) back to the head office in Lusaka, opening up horizontal communication channels with the other area in which this pilot project is taking place, and documenting our best practices and lessons learned so that future projects can benefit from past experiences. It would also be great if some of the VCFs had the capacity to do computer training on their own before I leave so that lessons will not have to stop, but this of course will require extra lessons and perhaps the development of a VCF-friendly computer training manual. And lastly (not that these sorts of ideas stop popping into my head) it would be very exciting to run some skill building sessions on facilitation since it’s one of the words in the title the VCFs have been given.

So there are some challenging tasks in there, but the challenge works as inspiration right now to keep trucking along knowing that should these things be accomplished I wouldn’t feel guilty about giving myself a pat on the back. But then, there’s the slightly more daunting task of ‘organizational impact.’ Working where I am, at the community level I sometimes feel a little removed from this, not that it’s not a goal, but that it’s slightly more difficult to achieve. Some of my other tasks aim to achieve this: fostering communication from the community back up the chain so it’s not always coming one way, documenting best practices for future projects, and building the local capacity as well. I’m relatively comfortable with these and excited to see them come through.

There’s another side to it though…what if your organization, your project just aren’t geared for success? Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying this is how I feel about my own project, but there are definitely some difficulties to overcome not least of which being that the slow pace is wearing down the communities such that they’re starting to doubt the whole project themselves. They are scary questions to ask yourself –what if this model of community development was flawed from the beginning, what if it won’t work in this area, with this community? What then? And what kind of role do I play in all of this?

No answers on these yet. For now I’ve still got seven or so weeks to figure it all out.

~Kate~


And now the silly things you only read through my blog to find:

Other lessons I’ve learned:

Your arm doesn’t have to be right in the flame to singe the hair off.

The rocks that are used for the slingshot that the watchman of the Kiosk uses are great for holding down the corners of pages you’re reading or writing on.

And lastly, when looking through flipchart to find a blank piece, you have to be mindful of small scorpions because they like to hang out in between the pages.