So it's my last day in Kafue town. I'm heading to Lusaka on Sunday morning, and presenting with IDE field staff/management on Monday. A few last-minute details of things to work out - my time since my village stay has gone SUPER well and everything has worked out, until today. Bah. I'm waiting on a few things that are taking longer than I had hoped. Things were going way better than normal, but now... ahh!
I'm getting a chitenge (african cloth) hoodie made, as well as a couple shirt and a dress for Julia. I'm also bringing a UVic EWB chapter gift home! But all of those things are delayed.. and it's my last day.. ahh!
My host mom made a tie-n-die chitenge for me - her woman's cooperative was taught to make them by Jairos!! So that'll become another sweet traditional shirt.
And all three of my Kafue girl friends have presents to give me, hehe.
A few weeks back, when Mike H came to visit, the internet cafe guys said that that Saturday would be my "special day" for being such a good customer (I come a few times a week, maybe 1-2 hrs/week). I put it off because it was the National Agric Show, but today I've learned what "my special day" is -- free internet!!
And it's saturday and it's fast. Or maybe they're shaping the bandwidth specially for me.
Melissa, my EWB coach, brought up relationships as one of my strengths during retreat (5 weeks into my placement). I haven't really figured it all out, but relationship building with everyone is pretty crucial. The armed (AK-47) guard selling scones on the street, shop owners, strangers that I pass, and of course farmers. I'm definitely (un)consciously incompetent with so many social functions - books could be written just about verbal and non-verbal greetings. But a good things are happening from me being myself, smiling, being open to greetings from people I don't recognize, whatever. Is this a strength? Is it due just to the friendliness of people accepting all the rude things I do (without being aware they're rude in Zambian culture)?
What am I trying to say? My connection to my host mom, my counterparts, and some farmers is just awesome. There are lots of people in town now that say hello when they recognize me, since I'm the only muzungu biking around town!
Every time I talk with other JFs, we swap some stories about our placements (good and bad happenings) and often I think we feel pretty jealous. I think everyone wants to have done things other people accomplished, and it's ALL good. In the end, our own choices and circumstances way beyond our control created valuable experiences for everyone.
Time to go. I've said my goodbyes to just about everyone I've wanted to - my host brother Aubree gave me a frickin solilique last night (he likes to talk, and boy, he wanted to say all the good things about my presence in Kasengele/Kafue). I'm sad to leave, but just about peeing myself excited to continue this adventure. My time in Kafue is up, but the experience continues! Lusaka until Tuesday, Malawi until Saturday, Nairobi/Amsterdam for a few hours on Saturday/Sunday, then Toronto until Tuesday. Then I'll be HOME on the 25th. God that's a scary thought.
This post is turning into more of an email. Or something.
Saturday, August 15
Thursday, August 13
Chikupi!
My JF placement has a portion of staying in a rural village for 7 days and nights, give or take. I chose to stay in Chikupi, which is about 20km from Kafue town (maybe 40km from Lusaka). I wanted to stay with a typical farmer with that IDE group, but I ended up staying with the chairman/lead contact farmer. He's far from the 'Dorothy' that EWB describes, which is a future topic of discussion.
Staying in the village was great! I even tried to keep a daily journal of activity. Around day 4-5, I got some really crappy diarrhea and even puked up breakfast by late afternoon (I had really enjoyed those sweet potatos, too). I think my GI system was just kinda stuck and waiting for me to flush out the latter parts. The family has an open shallow well - it's uncovered, and maybe 3-4m deep. They drink it untreated (they say they treat it in the rainy season). I definitely drank some of it untreated, or barely - tea, chibwantu, sometimes a glass of water after a meal. I try and treat my nalgene and only drink that.
There's also flies everywhere. Gross. Those probably made me sick, since they were impossible to keep off your breakfast and lunch (supper was after dark).
I spent a lot of time being a really terrible farmer. Mr. Mulilo (Mr. Fire!), the head of the household, gets up at 0600 to start working in the garden. Irrigating, digging, weeding, whatever. He calls me up around 0630, and I jump out of bed to join him. The cows needed to be milked (I'm awful at that, I never actually managed to obtain a useful amount of milk/in the bucket. But milk still warm from the cow is tasty!), then herded to graze. The petrol pump had to be primed and started after laying out the 2" PVC pipe where you wanted. The well is not deep because he hit some hard rocks while digging, so you can only run the pump for 15 minutes.
We stop for breakfast around 0900, and lunch around 1300-1400. In the afternoon we usually chill a bit, because it's hot, and people sometimes visit. Then more work until dark (1700-1800), supper in the sitting room inside, and bedtime after some tonga lessons!
In the garden is rape (organic and chemical fertilized), amaranthus, chinese cabbage (all vaguely similar to lettuce), eggplant, green pepper, orange trees (mandarin, washington navel, and something else), and lemon trees. He's got a drip irrigation system for the eggplant, which means you just fill a resevoir tank and open a valve. I spent a lot of time running around the 10x20m eggplants, adjusting the rows of microtubes.
Then there's the cattle - maybe 10, and a couple oxen for an oxcart (the bed from a small pickup truck). He fetches firewood with the oxcart, and rents out transportation services. There are about 30 goats, maybe 10 chickens, and a few dogs. In the rainy season, he has been growing maize, groundnuts (by his wife; it's a woman's crop), tomato, and cabbage.
Have you counted all the different income generating activities for the family?! Diversification is one of the tenets of rural livelihoods, but I never internalized the problems associated with it. 'Record keeping' is often touted as a reason for problems with [rural] smallholder success, but shit, for 10-20 activities it's intense! In canada, we usually have 1 or 2 income generating activities, and the paperwork can be done by someone else! All the sources also pay for different things - the cow milk was sold to pay for the farm labourer. What happens when there's a shock? What if someone in the family or next-of-kin dies? What if there's a flood? What if the engine has a breakdown?
This post is incomplete but I want to just push some thoughts out there. Mr Fire isn't in poverty, but he's not very happy about his situation and always working hard to improve. I've got a lot more to say about my experiences in the village.
Staying in the village was great! I even tried to keep a daily journal of activity. Around day 4-5, I got some really crappy diarrhea and even puked up breakfast by late afternoon (I had really enjoyed those sweet potatos, too). I think my GI system was just kinda stuck and waiting for me to flush out the latter parts. The family has an open shallow well - it's uncovered, and maybe 3-4m deep. They drink it untreated (they say they treat it in the rainy season). I definitely drank some of it untreated, or barely - tea, chibwantu, sometimes a glass of water after a meal. I try and treat my nalgene and only drink that.
There's also flies everywhere. Gross. Those probably made me sick, since they were impossible to keep off your breakfast and lunch (supper was after dark).
I spent a lot of time being a really terrible farmer. Mr. Mulilo (Mr. Fire!), the head of the household, gets up at 0600 to start working in the garden. Irrigating, digging, weeding, whatever. He calls me up around 0630, and I jump out of bed to join him. The cows needed to be milked (I'm awful at that, I never actually managed to obtain a useful amount of milk/in the bucket. But milk still warm from the cow is tasty!), then herded to graze. The petrol pump had to be primed and started after laying out the 2" PVC pipe where you wanted. The well is not deep because he hit some hard rocks while digging, so you can only run the pump for 15 minutes.
We stop for breakfast around 0900, and lunch around 1300-1400. In the afternoon we usually chill a bit, because it's hot, and people sometimes visit. Then more work until dark (1700-1800), supper in the sitting room inside, and bedtime after some tonga lessons!
In the garden is rape (organic and chemical fertilized), amaranthus, chinese cabbage (all vaguely similar to lettuce), eggplant, green pepper, orange trees (mandarin, washington navel, and something else), and lemon trees. He's got a drip irrigation system for the eggplant, which means you just fill a resevoir tank and open a valve. I spent a lot of time running around the 10x20m eggplants, adjusting the rows of microtubes.
Then there's the cattle - maybe 10, and a couple oxen for an oxcart (the bed from a small pickup truck). He fetches firewood with the oxcart, and rents out transportation services. There are about 30 goats, maybe 10 chickens, and a few dogs. In the rainy season, he has been growing maize, groundnuts (by his wife; it's a woman's crop), tomato, and cabbage.
Have you counted all the different income generating activities for the family?! Diversification is one of the tenets of rural livelihoods, but I never internalized the problems associated with it. 'Record keeping' is often touted as a reason for problems with [rural] smallholder success, but shit, for 10-20 activities it's intense! In canada, we usually have 1 or 2 income generating activities, and the paperwork can be done by someone else! All the sources also pay for different things - the cow milk was sold to pay for the farm labourer. What happens when there's a shock? What if someone in the family or next-of-kin dies? What if there's a flood? What if the engine has a breakdown?
This post is incomplete but I want to just push some thoughts out there. Mr Fire isn't in poverty, but he's not very happy about his situation and always working hard to improve. I've got a lot more to say about my experiences in the village.
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