Well September has come to a close. By the time I post this it will probably be well into October, but one thing’s for sure, it’s hot now and it will be hotter then. September has been an interesting month. I turned 24 at which point my friend told me I was entering a very unlucky year according to the Shinto calendar. He wasn’t quite done with his unlucky years, but decided he would pass on his charm anyhow, as I probably needed it more than he did. His dog promptly died a week later (R.I.P. Muchima) and he contracted malaria soon thereafter. I fashion myself a man of rationality, but I’ve been keeping the charm with me nonetheless.
I guess charms can’t protect against everything— my dog, Lukatasio, died last week as well. There are quite a few theories going around the village as to the cause of death, but my theory is that it’s somehow connected to the rabies shot I gave him a few days before he died. Anyhow, he’s passed on and I was/am sad, but it’s funny how quickly you get over something like the death of a dog when no one around you cares about dogs the same way we do in the states.
Ha, ok well I was trying to make this blog post the positive follow up to my last one but I guess it’s off to a bad start. Work is going well here. I’m working with a local bee keeping group to try and boost their productivity and gain access to markets. Our bigger plan is to organize the groups within the district so that they can process, package and sell in such a way that they get their honey out of Kasempa where it currently sells for about $1.50 a liter. This project suffered some setbacks as I had to go to Solwezi last week due to “medical issues” which caused some missed meetings. But I’m back now and pacheche pacheche (bit by bit) we’re making progress.
As it turns out, I left Solwezi for my village just in time. The Peace Corps bunk house/office was robbed at gunpoint the day after I left. No one was hurt, but the house was full of new volunteers waiting to get posted to their sights, so it was a bit of a rude welcome to the province. It’s something that I guess could happen anywhere and I have felt safer in Solwezi than I feel in places like Chicago, New York or even Tacoma. But again Solwezi is much smaller and a dynamic area with all the mines and close proximity to the DRC so I guess the small town feel can be deceptive.
Saturday, October 30, 2010
Sunday, September 12, 2010
Seedless Gripes
I have a great job. I get to work with fascinating people, in a fascinating place, doing work, that if successful, will leave a lasting positive impact on a community as well as myself. I make my own hours, decide what projects I’ll work on and learn something new every day—not to mention I make hundreds and hundreds of Kwacha an hour. It’s hard to complain, yet I’ve found myself this past week reflecting on some of the challenges that come along with this gig.
The vast majority of the challenges stem from the fact that I’m living thousands of miles away from everyone I’ve ever cared about. I’ve missed the death of my Granddad, something I had come to terms with as a probable reality before I left, but nonetheless hard to be the only grandkid not there to say goodbye to a man I loved and respected. Both my two brothers are growing and changing in ways that will shape their lives and it’s a bit hard to swallow that I’m missing out on my chance to help nudge them in what I see as appropriate directions. I know they are doing great on their own, yet as an older brother I like to at least pretend my “wise” advice is given some credence. Friends are forging lives for themselves in which I currently play a minor to nonexistent role and a girl I love is attempting the same. I guess the hard part is the realization that life is dynamic and back home will never be the way I remember it. This isn’t a horrible thing, but enough to cause some melancholy musing once in a while.
The job itself also comes with its own set of hurdles. I don’t speak the language. Sometimes I think I’m getting better but almost as often I feel I’ve taken a step backwards—especially having just come back to the village after a month’s hiatus. I have a lot of ideas I want to get people here excited about, but it’s difficult to get them jazzed to follow somebody who stands up in a meeting and says “I like trees. We can like trees together by having bees.” People are friendly about it, but I can tell a lot of the time we just miss each other.
While like I said, it’s nice to set my own hours, the fact is that I’m supposedly on duty 24/7 while in the village. Sometimes I’m busy, and sometimes I’m not. I know the nature of work here requires quite a bit of waiting around and that it’s important to give myself time to do nothing, but it’s hard to shake the feeling that I could/should be doing something instead of sitting on the porch finishing my third book of the week. There is so much to do here that sometimes I get frustrated working at the village level. The system in which my farmers operate limits their set of options. Part of me wants to go straight to the top and address these issues rather than teaching one at a time to make compost and burn their fields… less often. At the same time, especially when I’m feeling tired; I think it would be nice to have a place where I go to work. A place where someone has decided what it is that I need to do that day and when I finish, I’ve finished.
Anyway I hope this hasn’t come off too gloomy. I just thought it would be good to write about some of the issues that keep life here interesting and challenging so that y’all don’t think I’m spending my days frolicking with monkeys and zebras through some lion kingesque safari advendutre. Zambia is a beautiful and mysterious (to me) place. It challenges me every day and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
The vast majority of the challenges stem from the fact that I’m living thousands of miles away from everyone I’ve ever cared about. I’ve missed the death of my Granddad, something I had come to terms with as a probable reality before I left, but nonetheless hard to be the only grandkid not there to say goodbye to a man I loved and respected. Both my two brothers are growing and changing in ways that will shape their lives and it’s a bit hard to swallow that I’m missing out on my chance to help nudge them in what I see as appropriate directions. I know they are doing great on their own, yet as an older brother I like to at least pretend my “wise” advice is given some credence. Friends are forging lives for themselves in which I currently play a minor to nonexistent role and a girl I love is attempting the same. I guess the hard part is the realization that life is dynamic and back home will never be the way I remember it. This isn’t a horrible thing, but enough to cause some melancholy musing once in a while.
The job itself also comes with its own set of hurdles. I don’t speak the language. Sometimes I think I’m getting better but almost as often I feel I’ve taken a step backwards—especially having just come back to the village after a month’s hiatus. I have a lot of ideas I want to get people here excited about, but it’s difficult to get them jazzed to follow somebody who stands up in a meeting and says “I like trees. We can like trees together by having bees.” People are friendly about it, but I can tell a lot of the time we just miss each other.
While like I said, it’s nice to set my own hours, the fact is that I’m supposedly on duty 24/7 while in the village. Sometimes I’m busy, and sometimes I’m not. I know the nature of work here requires quite a bit of waiting around and that it’s important to give myself time to do nothing, but it’s hard to shake the feeling that I could/should be doing something instead of sitting on the porch finishing my third book of the week. There is so much to do here that sometimes I get frustrated working at the village level. The system in which my farmers operate limits their set of options. Part of me wants to go straight to the top and address these issues rather than teaching one at a time to make compost and burn their fields… less often. At the same time, especially when I’m feeling tired; I think it would be nice to have a place where I go to work. A place where someone has decided what it is that I need to do that day and when I finish, I’ve finished.
Anyway I hope this hasn’t come off too gloomy. I just thought it would be good to write about some of the issues that keep life here interesting and challenging so that y’all don’t think I’m spending my days frolicking with monkeys and zebras through some lion kingesque safari advendutre. Zambia is a beautiful and mysterious (to me) place. It challenges me every day and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Friday, September 3, 2010
Out and About
I haven’t felt like writing a blog post for a while which is why I haven’t. Who wants to read something forced? Anyway I have been bouncing around the continent for the past month and am preparing to bike back to my village tomorrow.
The beginning of august found me in Lusaka where I was attending a two week peace corps training session. From there I took my first vacation with friends to Malawi.
Malawi was a lot of fun. We hitched there and had some of the best rides I’ve gotten yet in Peace Corps. The first ride we caught was with the American ambassadors personal driver. He had been to defensive driving school in the states and he had working seatbelts. From there we caught a ride with a very quiet rasta man with a nice pickup and then got in the sleeping bed of a semi truck who took us almost all the way to lake Malawi.
The lake was beautiful and the fish was the best I’ve had in a long time. We stayed there for a few days and then went down to Blantyre where we stayed at the nicest hotel in southern Africa for four days . My friend adam knew the CEO of the company who owned the hotel so we got to stay for free. The breakfast buffet and shower were some of the most sublime experiences I’ve had in a long time.
I’m ready to get back to my village and settle into a more productive existence that doesn’t revolve around finding transportation and dinner. I’ll write more when I have something to say about that.
The beginning of august found me in Lusaka where I was attending a two week peace corps training session. From there I took my first vacation with friends to Malawi.
Malawi was a lot of fun. We hitched there and had some of the best rides I’ve gotten yet in Peace Corps. The first ride we caught was with the American ambassadors personal driver. He had been to defensive driving school in the states and he had working seatbelts. From there we caught a ride with a very quiet rasta man with a nice pickup and then got in the sleeping bed of a semi truck who took us almost all the way to lake Malawi.
The lake was beautiful and the fish was the best I’ve had in a long time. We stayed there for a few days and then went down to Blantyre where we stayed at the nicest hotel in southern Africa for four days . My friend adam knew the CEO of the company who owned the hotel so we got to stay for free. The breakfast buffet and shower were some of the most sublime experiences I’ve had in a long time.
I’m ready to get back to my village and settle into a more productive existence that doesn’t revolve around finding transportation and dinner. I’ll write more when I have something to say about that.
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
A Disjointed Effort
I put off writing these posts until I am eminently bound for a sizable population center with internet. Things usually come up and I don’t write anything, so I figured I will just write this post and then pretend it is up to date when I actually post it, which should be in a week or two. I spent this last weekend in Kasempa attending the agriculture show where I found, I think, the only man growing coffee in the district, hence it is 23:30 and I’m writing a blog post in my hut. The coffee is very good and he said he’d hook me up with some seeds if I visit his farm so hopefully I’ll get some more people around here interested in growing coffee, if only for my well being over the next two years.
I made it to Solwezi on my bike trip without much incident. Provincial meetings went well and then I came back (exciting I know). I built a solar cooker the other day out of a cardboard box, wrapping paper from ken’s girlfriend and the plastic cover off my tech manual. It works great, I’ve managed to cook beans rice and then combined the two to make a pseudo chili… it was good though. While on the issue of food, I slaughtered my first goat last week. Uncle Charlie should be proud as the knife he gave me was christened with its first kill. Slaughtering a goat is intense here in that there is no refrigeration so once you kill the thing you are in a race to eat it as fast as possible. I got my meat fix, which is a rarity these days.
This Paragraph is 3 weeks older than the above two but I think my last blog post could be inserted in between and we’d have a coherent time frame. Otherwise, it doesn’t really matter the order of things, so long as they happened.
I attended a burial for a man in my village yesterday morning which marked my first up-close experience with death and funerals in Zambia. I walked the 2k to the burial site with a couple of teacher friends, and arrived fashionably? late just as they were lowering the coffin into the ground. We weren’t the last people to arrive and we even found some leaving as we approached the cemetery. So I guess, like all other events here, attendance is constantly in flux and gatherings don’t begin so much as they begin to grow.
The sounds of the funeral were some of the most eerily beautiful I’ve heard. There was a constant drum beat and women singing accompanied disconcertedly beautifully by the unconstrained wailing of women who must have known the man well (most didn’t, but all are expected to attend a funeral in the village). Even the shovels throwing dirt over the coffin kept time and those men speaking over the grave fit themselves into the overall sound of the event such that they seemed only to be speaking a verse of the larger composition that was the funeral. The light was also intensely beautiful as cemeteries are the only places near population centers where the trees are allowed to grow to their full potential. Thus the light penetrating the canopy was filtered in such a way that everything touched emitted a muted glow. Anyway it’s hard to put into words—it was neat.
I’m in Kasempa at the moment trying to remedy Lukatazho’s (Luke) flea situation. Did I mention I have a puppy? He’s pretty cute and loves pooping under my bed. He’s impossible to take a photo of due to the fact he never stops moving but I’ll work on it cause I’m sure you all can’t wait to see adorable pictures of a puppy as they’re hard to come by.
I made it to Solwezi on my bike trip without much incident. Provincial meetings went well and then I came back (exciting I know). I built a solar cooker the other day out of a cardboard box, wrapping paper from ken’s girlfriend and the plastic cover off my tech manual. It works great, I’ve managed to cook beans rice and then combined the two to make a pseudo chili… it was good though. While on the issue of food, I slaughtered my first goat last week. Uncle Charlie should be proud as the knife he gave me was christened with its first kill. Slaughtering a goat is intense here in that there is no refrigeration so once you kill the thing you are in a race to eat it as fast as possible. I got my meat fix, which is a rarity these days.
This Paragraph is 3 weeks older than the above two but I think my last blog post could be inserted in between and we’d have a coherent time frame. Otherwise, it doesn’t really matter the order of things, so long as they happened.
I attended a burial for a man in my village yesterday morning which marked my first up-close experience with death and funerals in Zambia. I walked the 2k to the burial site with a couple of teacher friends, and arrived fashionably? late just as they were lowering the coffin into the ground. We weren’t the last people to arrive and we even found some leaving as we approached the cemetery. So I guess, like all other events here, attendance is constantly in flux and gatherings don’t begin so much as they begin to grow.
The sounds of the funeral were some of the most eerily beautiful I’ve heard. There was a constant drum beat and women singing accompanied disconcertedly beautifully by the unconstrained wailing of women who must have known the man well (most didn’t, but all are expected to attend a funeral in the village). Even the shovels throwing dirt over the coffin kept time and those men speaking over the grave fit themselves into the overall sound of the event such that they seemed only to be speaking a verse of the larger composition that was the funeral. The light was also intensely beautiful as cemeteries are the only places near population centers where the trees are allowed to grow to their full potential. Thus the light penetrating the canopy was filtered in such a way that everything touched emitted a muted glow. Anyway it’s hard to put into words—it was neat.
I’m in Kasempa at the moment trying to remedy Lukatazho’s (Luke) flea situation. Did I mention I have a puppy? He’s pretty cute and loves pooping under my bed. He’s impossible to take a photo of due to the fact he never stops moving but I’ll work on it cause I’m sure you all can’t wait to see adorable pictures of a puppy as they’re hard to come by.
Friday, July 2, 2010
Temporial thngs
I have a small field of sweet potatoes intercropped with tephrosia trees (an ag forestry tree that we promote) that is about 2k from my house. It was burned down the other day. I spent a while kicking the dirt but all in all am not too upset as this is the time of year that people burn the bush around here for one reason or another. It did get me thinking though about some of the challenges facing long term agricultural development in the region. There exists a limited ability to invest long term in ones land both due to the traditional land tenure system where land is simply on lease from the chief and because every year your field is likely to be burned down whether you start the fire or not. The ability to put into practice growing trees in conjunction with crops is severely limited if you are unable to protect young trees from brush fires. Next year I think I will try to do some preventative burns in order to protect my field.
Anyway, aside from minor day to day frustrations of living in a culture that is not fully my own, life has been great. I’ve recently joined the futbol club in my village and scored the most amazing goal of my life in my first game. It was a cross that got headed out to the top of the box where I chested it down to my foot and volleyed it into the upper right hand corner. The crowd went nuts.
On the work side of things, I’m managing to stay pretty busy I’ve been working with farmers making compost and manure teas as well as trying to keep up with my own garden. I’ve been meeting with some community leaders about an idea for a farmer’s resource library that I want to see built as part of a larger community agriculture shed currently underway and being built by all the co-ops in the catchment area. People have been very enthusiastic about the idea as it would provide, for motivated and interested farmers, an accessible place to gain access to the technical and innovative ideas associated with agro forestry, conservation agriculture, bee keeping, fish farming, permagardening, etc. On that note we have a bee keeping training tentatively set up for early September with one of the new co-ops in my village who is very motivated. They just bought several 100kg bundles of clothes from the Congo which they are now selling for a profit in the boma to generate some start up capital for their bee keeping, oil pressing and rice growing schemes.
I have found that my a large part of my job thus far dictates that I go around and listen to peoples money making schemes and then try to pick out which ones will work and which ones are scams or ill guided. I’m getting better and I have even started to scheme myself. I feel if it wouldn’t get me fired I could start up a couple of capital ventures here that would make me pretty wealthy.
I’m in Solwezi this weekend for the provincial agricultural show and our nation’s birthday. Nothing like being abroad to turn one into a patriot. I think we are slaughtering a goat for the occasion. Anyway I’m a bit rushed so I think I’ll leave off here but I hope to post again soon because I always am forced to leave a lot out.
Anyway, aside from minor day to day frustrations of living in a culture that is not fully my own, life has been great. I’ve recently joined the futbol club in my village and scored the most amazing goal of my life in my first game. It was a cross that got headed out to the top of the box where I chested it down to my foot and volleyed it into the upper right hand corner. The crowd went nuts.
On the work side of things, I’m managing to stay pretty busy I’ve been working with farmers making compost and manure teas as well as trying to keep up with my own garden. I’ve been meeting with some community leaders about an idea for a farmer’s resource library that I want to see built as part of a larger community agriculture shed currently underway and being built by all the co-ops in the catchment area. People have been very enthusiastic about the idea as it would provide, for motivated and interested farmers, an accessible place to gain access to the technical and innovative ideas associated with agro forestry, conservation agriculture, bee keeping, fish farming, permagardening, etc. On that note we have a bee keeping training tentatively set up for early September with one of the new co-ops in my village who is very motivated. They just bought several 100kg bundles of clothes from the Congo which they are now selling for a profit in the boma to generate some start up capital for their bee keeping, oil pressing and rice growing schemes.
I have found that my a large part of my job thus far dictates that I go around and listen to peoples money making schemes and then try to pick out which ones will work and which ones are scams or ill guided. I’m getting better and I have even started to scheme myself. I feel if it wouldn’t get me fired I could start up a couple of capital ventures here that would make me pretty wealthy.
I’m in Solwezi this weekend for the provincial agricultural show and our nation’s birthday. Nothing like being abroad to turn one into a patriot. I think we are slaughtering a goat for the occasion. Anyway I’m a bit rushed so I think I’ll leave off here but I hope to post again soon because I always am forced to leave a lot out.
Friday, June 18, 2010
Photos
So I've uploaded some photos (http://picasaweb.google.com/taylorjlarson/ZambiaThusFar#) and will upload some better ones once I find my camera cable. I'm too distracted watching a soccer game at the moment to write a quality post but I will soon. all the best
Thursday, June 3, 2010
In Solwezi
It occurred to me last night as I was scooping up my mashed sweet potatoes with a lump of nshima (mashed maze) during dinner that my diet was heavy on the carbohydrates and steamed vegetables, while a bit lacking on the protein side of things. This made me feel a bit better about the severe peanut butter addiction I have noticed developing. It didn’t really occur to me that I had an addiction until I realized upon doing my dishes that I had eaten three tubs in the last week and a half. I’m not sure if there are medical consequences for eating too many peanuts but I guess I’ll find out.
In other news I’m getting ready to bike to Solwezi for a provincial Peace Corps meeting. I’m not sure how far exactly it is but I’ve heard 180k. Sufficiently far to be the furthest I’ve ridden a bike on a single trip. I’ll let you know if I actually make it, or break down and hitchhike. Either way I’ll try and post this when I get there.
Life here has been good and has settled down a bit. I was trying to explain the energy here the other day and I came up with intensely laid back. Meaning that things move at a less scheduled and frenzied pace than back in the states but that everything is new and things have a tendency for coming up all of a sudden. I don’t think I am doing a good job describing it, but Its been fun getting used to it.
I’ve been going to meetings with several of the farmers co-ops in my catchment area and there is a new one which has a lot of exciting ideas that I hope to be able to help them with. They want to start a bee keeping project as well as pool money to buy an oil press to press both sunflower and groundnut oil in order to sell. Also they want to start planting rice which I think would be a great alternative to the massive amounts of Maze currently under cultivation, both for the nutrition of the people here as well as the health of the soil. There is also a man who is interested in starting a coffin making business which is great because there is not a single coffin maker here and people always have to go to the Boma in order to get one—your market is pretty constant.
It’s harvest season here which means people, including myself, are busy. I inherited a modest sweet potato field from the former volunteer which has proved to be the bane of my existence for the past week. It occurred to me while the sun was beating down on my already sore back as I reached down to scoop up another potato from the hole I had dug, that this was perhaps the definition of toil. Not the literary definition of course but the essence of what the words themselves are striving to capture. I’ve been in a hurry to harvest these sweet potatoes due to the fact that both moles and people have been helping themselves. This is just a minor annoyance to me and in some regards saves me some work, but the issue of theft is a big deal to the farmers around here. The government has set prices for agricultural goods, especially maze, and will come in once a year and buy at that price. There is also the black market where what are called briefcase buyers will come before the government buyer and offer a lower price in hopes of then reselling to the government and thus making a profit. The problem is that most of the maze they buy has been pilfered from hard working farmers. No farmer in his/her right mind would sell at the reduced rate unless they were completely strapped for cash. Where as people who steal the maze want to sell on the sly before all the maze is sold to the government. Anyway this is a bit of a rant I guess but it’s a very big problem here and one which people and co-ops are fighting hard to combat.
The other big problem I’ve come across here is deforestation. I live in the most forested province in the country so it’s not as in your face as in other areas but it’s easy to see the strains being placed on the forest here by human populations. Zambia currently has the second highest rate of deforestation in the world behind Brazil. It used to be third but Malawi finished cutting down its major forests so they dropped off the scale. The reasons are clear, people burn either charcoal or big logs in order to cook their meals and rely heavily on the forest for building material. The idea of forest management is not very prevalent I think due to the fact that the forest has always taken care of itself. I’m excited about the bee keeping project because it will help align the interests of the population here with those of the forests and I hope to be able to start other projects along a similar line.
Anyway, if you can’t tell I’ve been typing this post very fast as I’m racing my laptop battery. It says I have 10 mins left but I think I’ll just stop here. If there are things you are interested in or want to know more about let me know. It’s weird just typing to an anonymous audience. I do appreciate the comments, they are nice to read. I apologize if I’m slow on the responses to those and emails and facebook messages, the internet is very slow here not to mention far away so reading them is much more feasible than responding. But I hope to be able to catch up in Solwezi. Until next time…
In other news I’m getting ready to bike to Solwezi for a provincial Peace Corps meeting. I’m not sure how far exactly it is but I’ve heard 180k. Sufficiently far to be the furthest I’ve ridden a bike on a single trip. I’ll let you know if I actually make it, or break down and hitchhike. Either way I’ll try and post this when I get there.
Life here has been good and has settled down a bit. I was trying to explain the energy here the other day and I came up with intensely laid back. Meaning that things move at a less scheduled and frenzied pace than back in the states but that everything is new and things have a tendency for coming up all of a sudden. I don’t think I am doing a good job describing it, but Its been fun getting used to it.
I’ve been going to meetings with several of the farmers co-ops in my catchment area and there is a new one which has a lot of exciting ideas that I hope to be able to help them with. They want to start a bee keeping project as well as pool money to buy an oil press to press both sunflower and groundnut oil in order to sell. Also they want to start planting rice which I think would be a great alternative to the massive amounts of Maze currently under cultivation, both for the nutrition of the people here as well as the health of the soil. There is also a man who is interested in starting a coffin making business which is great because there is not a single coffin maker here and people always have to go to the Boma in order to get one—your market is pretty constant.
It’s harvest season here which means people, including myself, are busy. I inherited a modest sweet potato field from the former volunteer which has proved to be the bane of my existence for the past week. It occurred to me while the sun was beating down on my already sore back as I reached down to scoop up another potato from the hole I had dug, that this was perhaps the definition of toil. Not the literary definition of course but the essence of what the words themselves are striving to capture. I’ve been in a hurry to harvest these sweet potatoes due to the fact that both moles and people have been helping themselves. This is just a minor annoyance to me and in some regards saves me some work, but the issue of theft is a big deal to the farmers around here. The government has set prices for agricultural goods, especially maze, and will come in once a year and buy at that price. There is also the black market where what are called briefcase buyers will come before the government buyer and offer a lower price in hopes of then reselling to the government and thus making a profit. The problem is that most of the maze they buy has been pilfered from hard working farmers. No farmer in his/her right mind would sell at the reduced rate unless they were completely strapped for cash. Where as people who steal the maze want to sell on the sly before all the maze is sold to the government. Anyway this is a bit of a rant I guess but it’s a very big problem here and one which people and co-ops are fighting hard to combat.
The other big problem I’ve come across here is deforestation. I live in the most forested province in the country so it’s not as in your face as in other areas but it’s easy to see the strains being placed on the forest here by human populations. Zambia currently has the second highest rate of deforestation in the world behind Brazil. It used to be third but Malawi finished cutting down its major forests so they dropped off the scale. The reasons are clear, people burn either charcoal or big logs in order to cook their meals and rely heavily on the forest for building material. The idea of forest management is not very prevalent I think due to the fact that the forest has always taken care of itself. I’m excited about the bee keeping project because it will help align the interests of the population here with those of the forests and I hope to be able to start other projects along a similar line.
Anyway, if you can’t tell I’ve been typing this post very fast as I’m racing my laptop battery. It says I have 10 mins left but I think I’ll just stop here. If there are things you are interested in or want to know more about let me know. It’s weird just typing to an anonymous audience. I do appreciate the comments, they are nice to read. I apologize if I’m slow on the responses to those and emails and facebook messages, the internet is very slow here not to mention far away so reading them is much more feasible than responding. But I hope to be able to catch up in Solwezi. Until next time…
Friday, May 7, 2010
bats and such
So it’s been awhile, but hey time’s polychromic here meaning this post is coming exactly when it’s supposed to. Currently I’m sitting in my hut waiting for the invasion of the bats. I thought yesterday I had adequately bat proofed the place, but as it turns out I only succeeded in trapping the bats once they penetrated my defenses. I hope by the end of writing this I’ll have discovered where they are getting in.
Anyway, a lot has happened since I last updated this blog so I’ll give y’all the cliff notes of the last month of my life. I passed my kikaonde test with a score of intermediate mid which from what I gather means I can greet people, tell them what I want and make apparently hilarious semi-sentences— I’ve never gotten so many laughs in my life. I said goodbye to my host family which was a bit sad because I really liked them and then swore in at the American ambassador’s house which was about the swankiest event I’ve been a part of. After a bit of celebration it was off to Northwestern province where I stayed at the Peace Corps provincial house while buying everything I would need for the next two years. I was briefly a millionaire but after buying my pots, chair and mattress I managed to rectify the situation. Then after a couple days in the provincial capital I loaded up a land cruiser with all of my possessions, drove to my village, unloaded everything in front of my hut and watched to cruiser disappear.
I’ve been in my village (I guess I’m not supposed to write its name?) now 6 days. I arrived in the early evening of the district by-elections so the place was abuzz. A different district in Northwestern pulled all the Peace Corps volunteers from their sites due to a bit of violence associated with the elections but things have calmed and those volunteers are now back at their sites. I’ve been working on getting my garden up and going, building my bed and trying to meet and remember the names of every member of this and the surrounding villages. I’m having much more success with the former two. The past two days I’ve been attending an agribusiness workshop that the agricultural camp officer in my village is putting on with one of the local farmer’s co-ops. I really like my camp officer and am looking forward to getting to work with her. Yesterday was her birthday so I helped her make and eat a cake.
Tomorrow I’m riding 35k into the big city of Kasempa where I hope to buy a hoe, borrow a saw, post this blog and meet up with the only other Peace Corps volunteer in this district. He lives a lot closer to town then me and has a house about 4 times the size of mine so I think I’ll probably stay at his place and then come back the next day.
I have a new address in case you’ve been waiting to send me a letter. I’ll put it up under my address section of this blog but here it is. P.O. box 120045 Kasempa, Zambia.
Well I guess maybe the bats aren’t coming tonight but I’m too tired to wait any longer I think it’s nearly 9! So maybe I’ll add to this post tomorrow or more likely I won’t but I’ll try to get them up on a regular basis.
I wrote this post yesterday but I thought I'd add an update. I've been staying in kasempa with Ken and was in a bit of a bike accident this morning with a motercycle hitting me from behind. I'm fine but they guy on the motorbike went flying and is at the hospital. I think he will be fine I'm going to see him today. my bike is pretty busted up so I may have to try and get a new one. Anyway nobody was too seriously hurt and I'm fine, just a bruise on my leg. Nothing to worry about (mom). Ok I'm off, I hope this post finds you all well
Anyway, a lot has happened since I last updated this blog so I’ll give y’all the cliff notes of the last month of my life. I passed my kikaonde test with a score of intermediate mid which from what I gather means I can greet people, tell them what I want and make apparently hilarious semi-sentences— I’ve never gotten so many laughs in my life. I said goodbye to my host family which was a bit sad because I really liked them and then swore in at the American ambassador’s house which was about the swankiest event I’ve been a part of. After a bit of celebration it was off to Northwestern province where I stayed at the Peace Corps provincial house while buying everything I would need for the next two years. I was briefly a millionaire but after buying my pots, chair and mattress I managed to rectify the situation. Then after a couple days in the provincial capital I loaded up a land cruiser with all of my possessions, drove to my village, unloaded everything in front of my hut and watched to cruiser disappear.
I’ve been in my village (I guess I’m not supposed to write its name?) now 6 days. I arrived in the early evening of the district by-elections so the place was abuzz. A different district in Northwestern pulled all the Peace Corps volunteers from their sites due to a bit of violence associated with the elections but things have calmed and those volunteers are now back at their sites. I’ve been working on getting my garden up and going, building my bed and trying to meet and remember the names of every member of this and the surrounding villages. I’m having much more success with the former two. The past two days I’ve been attending an agribusiness workshop that the agricultural camp officer in my village is putting on with one of the local farmer’s co-ops. I really like my camp officer and am looking forward to getting to work with her. Yesterday was her birthday so I helped her make and eat a cake.
Tomorrow I’m riding 35k into the big city of Kasempa where I hope to buy a hoe, borrow a saw, post this blog and meet up with the only other Peace Corps volunteer in this district. He lives a lot closer to town then me and has a house about 4 times the size of mine so I think I’ll probably stay at his place and then come back the next day.
I have a new address in case you’ve been waiting to send me a letter. I’ll put it up under my address section of this blog but here it is. P.O. box 120045 Kasempa, Zambia.
Well I guess maybe the bats aren’t coming tonight but I’m too tired to wait any longer I think it’s nearly 9! So maybe I’ll add to this post tomorrow or more likely I won’t but I’ll try to get them up on a regular basis.
I wrote this post yesterday but I thought I'd add an update. I've been staying in kasempa with Ken and was in a bit of a bike accident this morning with a motercycle hitting me from behind. I'm fine but they guy on the motorbike went flying and is at the hospital. I think he will be fine I'm going to see him today. my bike is pretty busted up so I may have to try and get a new one. Anyway nobody was too seriously hurt and I'm fine, just a bruise on my leg. Nothing to worry about (mom). Ok I'm off, I hope this post finds you all well
Sunday, April 11, 2010
Back from the Bush
As with all blog posts thus far, this one comes to you live from Lusaka, home of the internet. I hitched in yesterday with some friends and met up with some japanese volunteers who together with my buddy Ken cooked up a giant pot of curry which was the best thing I've had since the fried caterpillar my host mom made a few weeks ago.
I saw my site this past week and it is pretty awesome. It's basically a cottage in the woods. I live close to a family and not far from a school and clinic. I got the chance to meet the local headman, some farmers, teachers and clinic workers all of whom seemed excited to work with me. It was incredibly relieving to be able to put a face on what I will be doing and who I will be working with for the next two years. then the past couple days my counterpart from my village made the 13 hour journey down to Lusaka for a workshop where we discussed what I will be doing for the first three months I'll be at site. It was great and appears I will be able to stay pretty busy. I'll try to post pictures when I can figure out how to get my camera working...
Some people are heading out to some Chinese store to buy discounted soy sauce so I don't want to let that opportunity pass me by. Hence this blog is rushed and short. I promise to make a more detailed/interesting post in the near future.
I saw my site this past week and it is pretty awesome. It's basically a cottage in the woods. I live close to a family and not far from a school and clinic. I got the chance to meet the local headman, some farmers, teachers and clinic workers all of whom seemed excited to work with me. It was incredibly relieving to be able to put a face on what I will be doing and who I will be working with for the next two years. then the past couple days my counterpart from my village made the 13 hour journey down to Lusaka for a workshop where we discussed what I will be doing for the first three months I'll be at site. It was great and appears I will be able to stay pretty busy. I'll try to post pictures when I can figure out how to get my camera working...
Some people are heading out to some Chinese store to buy discounted soy sauce so I don't want to let that opportunity pass me by. Hence this blog is rushed and short. I promise to make a more detailed/interesting post in the near future.
Saturday, March 27, 2010
I'm Back in Lusaka today buying groceries and splurging on ice cream. Tomorrow morning I leave to go on second site visit which is where I actually get to see where I will be living/working/being for the next two years. I'm pretty excited and I'll pass on the limited information I have obtained about my site thus far.
I'll be in the Kasempa district of Northwest province in a village about 25k outside Kasempa proper. I'm pretty close to a school and health clinic which basically means I'm downtown. My hut has apparently been painted bright green so you won't be able to miss it if you find yourself bumming around northwestern Zambia. My closest Peace Corps neighbor is my buddy Ken who lives about 35k away on the other side of the Boma (Kasempa). My next closest PC neighbor is about 150k in the next district over. There was a refugee PC volunteer at my site for the past year who had been evacuated from Madagascar due to political turmoil in the country. He's just finishing his service so hopefully I'll be able to pick up where he left off. Other than that I don't know too much but I'll take some pictures and notes this week and try and get those posted up here…
My size of my home stay family tripled yesterday in preparation for a wedding that is taking place today. I'm pretty bummed I have to miss it as I had already, sort of, learned one of the dances. Also weddings seem to be about the biggest party in Zambia. It was funny talking with the sister of my host mom last night about family relationships in Zambia. The way extended family is done here has been a bit confusing for me thus far but I think I'm starting to figure it out. Basically, all family lineage is passed on through the women. I've gathered this is due to the fact that when a woman has a child it can be relatively certain it's hers whereas if a man's wife has a kid, who knows. So for instance the son of my host mom and her sister are considered brothers where as the son of my host dad's brother and his son are cousins. I don't think that last sentence made much sense but just think about it. Anyway, apparently before Western/Christian patriarchy showed up here there was quite a bit of power held by women and many of the chiefs were women. I've been told the British colonial authority refused to recognize many of the women in power and thus overtime they became disenfranchised. This is a gross simplification but it's interesting to think about seeing how much of a male dominated Christian culture Zambia is today.
In other news, there are four (slow) computers at this internet café and about 20 Peace Corps volunteers waiting to use them and groceries to be bought so I think I will try to write a real post sometime after I get back from site visit so that you all don't give up on this blog completely. Everything is going great here and I hope this finds you well.
Saturday, March 6, 2010
New Things
So I’ve made it to Zambia. Actually I’ve been here for a bit over two weeks. I’m writing this now from my bed in my homestay with the hope that tomorrow brings the first chance at internet access since arriving in country. If not then I guess I’ll save this post and pretend I wrote it at a later date. Anyway, things here are great and Zambia is beautiful country both geographically and culturally.
Upon arriving in country, me and 46?... other peace corps volunteers were picked up at the airport… eventually and whisked off via land cruisers to a training center in Lusaka. We spent the first 3 days there attending meetings, getting shots, fitted for bikes and sleeping off jetlag. On day three we were sent off on what is called first site visit. Myself and three other volunteers stayed with a current volunteer, Aurora, in the eastern province for 3 days. She is a LIFE (Linking Income Food and the Environment) volunteer just like me so it was cool to get to see all the work she was doing with farmers and schools in and around her village.
Currently I’m in Chongwe which is about 45 kilometers outside of Lusaka. This is the site for pre service training. I am staying with a host family consisting of my mom, dad, two brothers and some cousins. Ironically this is about the same setup I had back in the states. The family is great and they are helping me immensely in learning my KiKaonde.
Everyday, except Thursdays and Sundays I have 4 hours of language training in the morning and then 3 hours of technical (learning how to farm) in the afternoon. Thursdays the Education and LIFE volunteers meet all together for a myriad of reasons. This week it was for safety and medical meetings where we were briefed on everything that could possibly go wrong over the next two years. For the sake of my Mom I’ll spare the details but suffice it to say 6 of the worlds 10 deadliest snakes live in Zambia. Thursdays also always include a number of shots, I have been pumped full of so many vaccines that I’m feeling a bit invincible at the moment.
My day to day life will be pretty routine over the next couple months as I continue with training. The internet café here in Chongwe hasn’t paid its bills recently and thus is without an internet connection, which in turn makes it hard to raise the revenue to pay the bills I would assume. Either way my access to internet is and will be quite limited for the duration of training. So if I am slow in answering emails or other forms of electronic media, don’t be surprised. You could always send a letter or make an expensive phone call as you are bound to get more interesting stories than I post here (peace corps reads these blogs). I hope this post finds you all well.
Here are a few pictures…
Actually the internet says no, so I'll try to work out the kinks and post pictures next time.
Upon arriving in country, me and 46?... other peace corps volunteers were picked up at the airport… eventually and whisked off via land cruisers to a training center in Lusaka. We spent the first 3 days there attending meetings, getting shots, fitted for bikes and sleeping off jetlag. On day three we were sent off on what is called first site visit. Myself and three other volunteers stayed with a current volunteer, Aurora, in the eastern province for 3 days. She is a LIFE (Linking Income Food and the Environment) volunteer just like me so it was cool to get to see all the work she was doing with farmers and schools in and around her village.
Currently I’m in Chongwe which is about 45 kilometers outside of Lusaka. This is the site for pre service training. I am staying with a host family consisting of my mom, dad, two brothers and some cousins. Ironically this is about the same setup I had back in the states. The family is great and they are helping me immensely in learning my KiKaonde.
Everyday, except Thursdays and Sundays I have 4 hours of language training in the morning and then 3 hours of technical (learning how to farm) in the afternoon. Thursdays the Education and LIFE volunteers meet all together for a myriad of reasons. This week it was for safety and medical meetings where we were briefed on everything that could possibly go wrong over the next two years. For the sake of my Mom I’ll spare the details but suffice it to say 6 of the worlds 10 deadliest snakes live in Zambia. Thursdays also always include a number of shots, I have been pumped full of so many vaccines that I’m feeling a bit invincible at the moment.
My day to day life will be pretty routine over the next couple months as I continue with training. The internet café here in Chongwe hasn’t paid its bills recently and thus is without an internet connection, which in turn makes it hard to raise the revenue to pay the bills I would assume. Either way my access to internet is and will be quite limited for the duration of training. So if I am slow in answering emails or other forms of electronic media, don’t be surprised. You could always send a letter or make an expensive phone call as you are bound to get more interesting stories than I post here (peace corps reads these blogs). I hope this post finds you all well.
Here are a few pictures…
Actually the internet says no, so I'll try to work out the kinks and post pictures next time.
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
The Beginning
I have always thought that I would be the last person in the world to maintain a blog. Talking about myself to an anonymous audience is not something that I am entirely comfortable with. Yet this blog performs the unique function of allowing me to keep up to date those interested in my life while at the same time not flooding those who aren't with massive email updates about how I go about buying groceries. It is impossible to say to what extent I will be able to keep this blog updated throughout the next two year, but I can promise I will do my best.
I leave for Zambia on the 17th of February 2010 as a L.I.F.E (Linking Income, Food and Environment) volunteer— Job title: Forestry Extension Agent. I most likely won't return until mid 2012. This means I have plenty of time to update this blog and all of you have plenty of time to write me a letter or two. I simply wanted to get this blog up and running before I got to Zambia. I accomplished this and thus I will write furthers once I have more to say.
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