Loans schmoans

At the beginning of July was Heroes Day and Unit Day - national holidays in Zambia. IDE also had some sort of holiday, so we only worked on Friday. Saturday was the provincial show for Lusaka Province. IDE Kafue office and Lusaka field offices attended/presented together.

I got a VCT! I proudly wear the yellow wristband. And I'm HIV negative.

The show was pretty chill but still fun. I rode in the back of a pickup truck back to Lusaka! Windy windy and uncomfortable with the truck packed with a desk and pumps and pipes and water barrels and stuff.

I spent the IDE holiday with the CETZAM loans officer, assessing 60ish farmers in Mungu, Chikupi, Muchuto, and Nutrition groups. I learned tons about growing irrigated vegetables! The farmers are first asked to create a plan for a small loan, to establish trust that they will repay. Then they are eligible for bigger loans. This is all contingent on their current assets - if they're a successful household, they are immediately eligible for larger loans.

A typical loan is for 1 to 2 million Kwacha - $212 to $424. A petrol pump might be 1.5 million, a treadle pump is about 1/2 of that. Barbed wire for 1 Lima (50m x 50m, a quarter of a Hectare) is maybe K300,000. Inputs for a Lima of vegetables - maybe tomato or cabbage, including fertilizer and pesticides - cost maybe K600,000. After 3-4 months, the farmers can sell their crop, with expected income of a few million.
They get a grace period of 2-3 months; however long it takes to start selling the crop. Then they are a charged a flat 4% per month, of the principal amount.

So... they apply for a loan and get an assessment of their assets and current vegetable activity. If accepted, they pay 10% of the total cost of what they're asking for, then receive items (not cash) asked for in the loan. Chemicals, pumps, seeds, whatever.. they are purchased wholesale by the loan institution, and the retailers handle distribution. I think.
After a few months, they begin selling. Say it takes four months to totally clear the loan - then they have paid 4*4% = 16% to access the loan, over a total period of 6-7 months. Not bad, considering lending institutions here start at like 20% per month, and don't work with smallscale farmers anyways.

That's the good stuff. There are a lot more details to the scheme, both known and unknown to me. So far, the plan seems to be good.. but implementation definitely is lacking. CETZAM and IDE are pretty new at this, but my field office has been dedicating a lot of time to help this initiative start. I understand that it's new, and there's a lot of learning for everyone involved during this period, but it's frustrating me so much. My field staff are being pulled from other duties to fill gaps in prior planning/lack therof.

Microfinance is virtually non-existent here in Zambia.. there's one other institution, Micro Bankers Trust. But besides MBT and CETZAM... farmers are pretty out of luck for credit.

'Cause baby, prevention is better than cure

So I haven't updated in a while. Yeah.

In the last couple weeks I've gotten to a much better point in my placement -- my relationship with Alice and Jairos is much deeper, more friendly.. just better! I'm starting to be able to push them a little on issues, we respect each others opinions, whatever. I've noticed my counterpart speaks much less formally and inserts more.. vernacular.

Jairos and I went to Chanyanya, I got to see Hans (an EWB Long-term OVS) and his commercial/small scale project with PROFIT. Wicked to see a center-pivot irrigation system up close and in action!! Less wicked to see how the small-scale farmers were doing, with cooporating on a commercial farm scale. Ah well, it's their first time.

Then we continued northerly and passed Kafue Sugar. Gigantic sugar plantation near the Kafue River, which uses massive electric pumps to flood fields of sugar. Hundreds of hectares, and a small community of homes to work in the fields/processing plant.

And onwards to a new group in Lusaka West. We were gauging their potential to join into IDE's program.. it was pretty neat to come along! The second time we visited, I really stepped up and took an active role in the conversation - a retired councilor (politician of some sort) was being a real jerk and I was doing a good job of getting back to root causes. Jairos was ok with it, he said he was happy to sit back and relax.

The next day we visited Lusaka supermarkets together to do some research on their vegetable purchasing. After returning back (and after a couple beers), we had ridden 350km together in two days! No wonder my back was killing me (the roads southwest of Lusaka are brutal).

Frick! My time here is almost up. I'm going to the National Show this weekend, I have a week village stay, a few days left with my field staff, a final presentation to HQ... and then I head home!ohmygawd ahh

I'm running out of time for so many ideas I had.. I guess it's part of the expected "you'll just get the feeling that your placement is going well, you're finally able to start having some impact, and it's time to leave". My nyanja and tonga are slowly picking up, I've got tons of good relationships throughout town, my family life is good, work is getting very good... yahweh.

What's my message in this blog? I don't know. But life is good right now.. just rushed.

A Chat With Leon

Ok, one more crappy story before I return to more interesting/happier stuff.

Most of this week is a holiday in the office, but CETZAM needs to finish farm appraisals and I volunteered to come. But on Monday I couldn't, because the village's farmers are spread out and the CETZAM officer needs to carry someone on his bike to show him around. So I decided to hang out in the office after buying some ketchup, bread, and chocolate milk (2 of those I don't regularly eat!).

Early in the morning, a woman came into the office and asked for K5000, then K3000 ($1ish, then $0.75 ish), and I said 'no' and saw her young son was outside too. I kept the door a little more shut after that, but I think most passerby people see the white man regularly come to work here.

Around noon I sat outside to read some documents about marketing and farm record keeping. A young man came and sat with me and chatted. He indirectly asked for money every once in a while, but wasn't too bad. I learned some information from him and it's sort of hitting me now.
Leon Mukulolo is a Tongan in his early 20's. He's an orphan, but because of that the government paid for his secondary school (cool!). He has a brother in grade 9, and they are taking care of their grandmother in Zambian Compound. If you look at Kafue on Google Maps, that area is west of the railway switching yard - essentially Kafue's slum. I haven't been deep inside it yet, and I probably won't go there alone.He says he doesn't take alcohol or smoke, and I half believe him on the first -- he wasn't drunk by noon, and he was asking a lot of intelligent questions about Canada/USA. He did ask for money and said he hadn't eaten since saturday (meaning he hasn't had nshima since then). He showed me K2500 ($0.53 CDN) he made that morning of piece work of slashing (mowing grass with a curved blade), which I believed. He said he was wandering around asking for piecework. That's how our conversation started, actually.

In our JF retreat, one item we discussed was our return to Canada. It can be accompanied with a major low (worse than anything overseas) when 'shit hits the fan' (thanks Mike Kang). I've heard something similar to myself in other JFs - we're receiving this information from people and witnessing poverty, but storing it away and not processing it. And then it all comes out when we return to Canada. FML, what am I setting myself up for?

So back to Leon. I can honestly say I didn't feel very sorry for him. I feel angry for the situation he's in, and I abhor the ignorance and injustice of people in positions of power to fix this. Maybe I just empathised with his lack of power to fix his situation? He asked me for advice, and I thought pretty hard before we discussed some things. One of his root constraints was lack of capital, for which I didn't have a solution. Then he mentioned working for MBT!

Sidestory -- Micro Bankers Trust had a partnership with IDE here in Kafue, and they would provide micro-credit/finance for farmer groups. After farmer buy-in and investment into the application process, something fell through. It broke some trust of the farmers with MFI and the field staff here, I'm sure.

Anyways, I said he should make some sort of proposal/plan for MBT to pay for capital of transporting village chickens. I really doubt he'll follow through on this, but it was the best I could do. The venture would be him going to nearby villages, purchasing chickens (they're sold for about K12,000 to K20,000), and then selling in town (Kafue or Lusakaa) for maybe K25,000 to K40,000. One or two chicken sales would cover the transportation cost. A bicycle trip (1-2 hours each way) would be much cheaper but needs higher initial investment.

So what am I setting myself up for? What lessons and stories do I want to share with Canadians? People have great potential, with some investment - but what activities are needed to do that? There are no silver bullets, but sure, some micro-finance methods can help.

How hard is reintegration going to be?

Lizard

This little guy was hanging out in my latrine, watching me do my business. I pulled him out with my camera case (he clamped on with his teeth). He was stuck in a crack from the other side..

Kasaka Roadside Market

The Kasaka Roadside Market has launched! It's a few kilometers south of Kafue town at the Kasaka area, it's a market, and it's beside the road. Woot.
The three nearby farmer groups - Muchuto Waterworks, Kasaka Clixby, and Nutrition - worked together to clear land, build temporary stands, and sell vegetables every Saturday. IDE played a strong role in facilitating the market committee to work out the details, and paid for some advertising of the launch. Rather than a market operated by traders ('marketeers') like what's in Kafue town, or one of cartels of traders (Sowetto in Lusaka), this market will be managed by farmers themselves, and farmers will sell their goods. The two buyers will be marketeers and highway traffic - both enticed by the low prices and ease of access. The marketeers will be purchasing wholesale. In Zambia, that means what you can carry to sell piecemeal at another market, like a 20kg crate of tomatoes.
Since I arrived in Kafue, I've visited this place almost once a week. I've even got some pictures of progress.

The launch day was pretty fun. I sort of chilled around all morning and talked to farmers and field staff, met Zamseed and Zambian Fertilizers agents, and got to take some pictures/video. We had the Distrit Commissioner attend as the honoured guest, and had some speeches and drummers/dancers perform. Good times. And then everyone came to drink chibwantu (not chibuku!) from shared plastic mugs.

I want to reserve my judgement for the future, when I've seen more market days and talked to more farmers and the marketing committee about their thoughts. For now, I think they totally dropped the ball on advertsing and publicity, and they haven't been very organized for the launch. There was a lot of ambiguity about what would happen though, and it's only been open for one day. There is a lot of enthusiasm and buy-in/investment from the farmers though. So it may start slowly, but hopefully remains and becomes successful.

I know the district plans on funding three markets between Lusaka and the bridge to Southern Province. This is the first market, and they will receive funds for a permanent structure. It was built on United Church of Zambia lands, donated to the farmer groups, so political action should be restricted to funding. I really hope this serves as a successful model for other farmer groups/other IDE work/Zambia/whatever. There's still a lot that needs to happen and it sucks I can't be around for all of it.

Impact Plan

I'm very uncertain of my plan for overseas impact. UVic's returned JF (many awesome coffee date discussions), Mark Brown, had a pretty unique placement as far as overseas placements go. This year, EWB has partnered 5 of its 7 Zambian JFs with IDE - it's partly an experiment to see the effect of directly working with field staff and building their capacity.

I'm still coming to terms with my position. I am like a field officer - I accompany them to the field and meet farmers and attend farmer group meetings, and I participate in office activities; at the same time I am like a consultant, critiquing the organization, working on methods to improve their resources or structure; yet I sit outside the hierarchal structure of IDE which presents more opportunities. I can relate to the field staff and their superiors; I can talk to clients of IDE and relate to them outisde of IDE, and maintain my own relationships with other market actors.

I've also got that 'white privilege', which is definitely useful. If I chat to someone, they'll want me to visit their factory/industrial plant/church/farm and get a tour from them. I haven't taken much advantage of this yet.

During the JF retreat, we discussed switching field offices for a day or two to see the differences. Then we discussed field staff doing the same - it costs a few days, but they would witness different approaches to field work, structure of farmer groups, organization/planning within the field office, and maybe build some more relationships. It could also be motivating.

If IDE doesn't like the idea (ie, cost is more than benefit), then EWB can possibly step in and fund it anyways. It's a little ballsy or bold of me to say this, but I like the idea.

Some of the southern africa OVS are thinking about touch typing software. If EWB buys a site license (unlimited copies), we can give them to all the people we work with. Right after reading this discussion, I was asked to type a couple documents for my field office. We were short on time and they had some handwritten pages, so I typed them. I guess I really impressed the staff because the next day they were asking me to help teach them how to type without looking at the keyboard, quickly, etc. (I have abhorrent typing skills.. I'm probably well into RSI and arthritis and all that good stuff from my poor hand position). Field staff spending less time bumbling on a keyboard = increased output = impact?!

Does an open source (free) touch typing exist for Windows, that's on par with standard ones? I used something in Grade 9 and it would work just as well in Zambia.

Ahh, I had a fanta, half a liter of water, and over half a liter of chibwantu ('mukoyu' or something in Nyanja) in the last hour. Chibwantu is amazing.. thickly ground maize, some sort of root, and a little sugar boiled together for a while. Tasty and chewy drink but damn am I urinating. Which reminds me.. does larium/mefloquine (my malaria prophylaxis) have a side effect of increased urination? Vicki and I both lamented this. It sucks to get up 2-3 times per night. My other diagnosis is diabetes from all the sugar and carbs.

What will be my office impact? After doing an individual assessment with my staff, individually, I might be able to coach them/link them to EWB resources on self-improvement. Possibly facilitate this or create resources. Maybe this will tie into my in-Canada impact (I'll save that one for another blog post).

Mechanical Engineering, Zambian Style

Required tools to repair anything mechanical in Zambia: a heavy blunt object (metal or rock), a sharp/pointed object (uusally metal), some stiff wire, maybe some soft wire, and occaisonally a screwdriver or pair of pliers or wrench. Bicycle maintenance/repair, doors, motorbike clutch cable, under-the-tree car repairs.. it's all covered.

Why?

Something that's been really bothering me lately is the reason why I'm here. For over fifty years, Northern people have come to the South with the intention of direct, positive change (large or small), but the bigger impact always seems on making the Northerner a better person/learning. That seems greedy to me and I'm part of this culture. EWB wants to foster better leaders in engineering, in Canada, in development, wherever.. but is this just another resource being plundered from Africa? We're abusing the South's hospitality by taking our experiences home and making the North a better place.

I guess this is connected to how powerless I sometimes feel, here in Zambia. The institutional and government/international constraints are enourmous. There are just so many things that make this country a broken system, including past aid and current aid. Everyone may have their own opinion of how to fix Africa, but I sometimes feel like all our efforts and learning based on those efforts still are not leading us to that end goal.

I know that I can have a really small positive impact on the people I interact with, and who I work for/with. What does that accomplish? Is that all I'm capable of here? My IDE district is relatively successful, and I don't really know how to improve the field staff. They have their own challenges that I can help with, but blah! I'm a little lost. But just stuck in a rut that I'll work myself out.