Pictures from October 2011

Here's the link to our Facebook album for our October 2011 in Zambia:

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150536529794896.476304.508904895&type=1&l=8d0b664a51

 

- Enjoy!

Hailing in Rainy Season

It's hailing, yes hailing, in Mwense this afternoon.

Shaun and I have come down to the boma today to meet with the Mwense District Women's Development Association at their office in the boma. I am sitting in their office now and the hail pounding on the metal-sheet roof is deafening. It's so loud that covering my ears isn't keeping the pain of the noise away. I need to leave the office. Luckily, there is a small walkway outside where I can stand and not get as pelted by the hail as if I were standing under the mango tree outside. This walkway is still under metal sheets, but the sound has somewhere to go, rather than just bouncing around the office walls and into my eardrums.

Even out here on the covered walkway, where all of us have gathered, stray pebble-sized balls of ice pelt us. I am in the middle of this walkway, but Shaun is on the end near You And I Restaurant. He is laughing as he gets hit by the ice pebbles bouncing off You And I Restaurant's roof and onto him. The whole scene is incredible: what was just 20 minutes ago a brown, dusty ground in front of the office is now a wet, puddled clay mud carpeted in ice pebbles, little clear pebbles of ice. And just 20 minutes ago, we were sweating and fanning ourselves due to the typical and very high temperatures the end of dry season brings. Literally, when I arrived to the office after lunch it was over 100F, and now there ice is falling from the sky and covering the ground.

 

 

During the hailstorm, men hide under the metal sheets at You And I Restaurant

During the hailstorm, a view of the mango tree in front of the MDWDA office in Mwense.

 

As strange as this seems, it is actually quite normal. It wasn't until the hail started that I realized this same phenomenon happened this time last year. I don't know the scientific reason why the first big, hard rains of rainy season bring hail, but our Zambian friends tell us this happens every year at this time. I see it as is the clashing of seasons: as the hot dry season is coming reluctantly to the end of its reign, rainy season forces its way to power. There are days like today when aging dry season flexes its muscles making it unbearably hot, causing rainy season to respond (to our delight) with a thundering, stormy, cooling downpour. It makes me think of a scene I once saw on a game drive: a lion and an elephant exchanging roars and trumpets as pride and herd passed on a slender riverbank.

Rainy season had better seize that throne, or we're a bit screwed. No rain means no water for gardens, crops and fish ponds, which means no food or income. Rainy season had also better force out dry season because the rain is the only thing that cools things down. And we really need things to cool down- it's really, really hot.

Zambians Looking out for Each Other

Our counterpart, ba Godfrey, is currently hosting a woman and her infant child at his house. We had met the woman the other night, but she was very hesitant to greet us. We had assumed the woman and child were relatives of ba Godfrey's. It wasn't until yesterday we learned that in fact our counterpart did not know this woman much at all. He'd met her while he was in Mwense boma the other day checking on when fertilizer would be coming in.

The woman lives in Lukwesa, about 35km away. She walked, with bare feet and her baby on her back, to Mwense boma, where she is awaiting the judgment about her husband. A few days ago he was arrested and thrown in jail for (allegedly) stealing goats. Her husband, allegedly, set up trails of maize and other food that would lure goats into his house. As most people in these parts do not house or tie up their goats from May to December, goats roam free. So eventually, some goats came across the food laid out for them and followed it straight into the man's house. When the goats were inside, the man would shut the door and lock them in. Then, he slaughtered the goats for food to eat or sell.

Ba Godfrey told us that in Zambian culture, if he meets someone in need of shelter for a night, he must help that person by providing a place to sleep for a night or two, if he has one. Ba Godfrey and his family are good, generous people so they naturally offered this woman a place to sleep at their home in Chebele while she waits for the judgment against her husband. The judgment should come in the next couple days, and then she'll head back to her home Lukwesa.

I should add that in Zambian tradition, while ba Godfrey and his family have the social obligation to take in strangers in need, they also have the prerogative of saying, “OK, we've hosted you a few days. Next time you need a place to stay, you need to ask another family in the community because we can't support you all the time. We have our own family to support, house and feed.” When ba Godfrey added this bit to the end of his story, I thought it sounded quite reasonable and reminded me once again of  the practical side of Zambian culture.

Laundry Day in the Village

Welcome! Today's blog update is brought to you from the comfort of our little house in Chebele village. It's about 10:30a and Shaun and I are just puttering about today- quite typical of our free days in the village. I am able to type up this blog entry thanks the long battery life on our handy little netbook, and also thanks to our “Zam-tricity” set-up. We have a car battery that we charge each month in the boma, and when I hook up our inverter and plug the netbook into the inverter, I am able to maintain a charge and use the computer. Cisuma saana! (“Very good!” in Cibemba)

I've spent the morning tackling the mountain of laundry we have spilling out of the dirty laundry Zam-bag, which is like a big re-usable grocery bag that zips up, hanging on the wall. (I hang it on the wall to keep creepy-crawlies and slitherers out. So far, so good.) I do all our laundry by hand, a chore I enjoy because it gives me some quiet down time (Shaun is usually elsewhere when laundry-time comes around, hahaha!). Also, splashing and scrubbing in the buckets of water keeps me cool on our hot, hot days. I am also lucky because we have little helpers always ready and willing to earn 500 Zkw (10 US cents) to fetch me a container of water, so I don't have to trudge back and forth to the stream with the laundry.

After washing and rinsing the laundry, I hang it out on the line to dry in the bright sunshine and warm breeze coming over the forested hills behind our house. The remaining, dirty water I dump out on the dry, sandy area of our front “yard” to help keep the dust down. If there are little ones around, sometimes we joke with them that it's “infula” (“rain” in Cibemba), and Shaun and I will sprinkle the water on them. The kids scatter as the giggle with delight. Last week, I did laundry was on an exceptionally hot day, so when we played “infula” it turned into a huge, hilarious water fight between Shaun and an army of kids from the village. We must have had 25 children running around our house laughing and splashing water on each other- and especially at Shaun. They were even running to the stream and back to get “ammunition”- it was great!

Reminders of Life's Fragility

Today was supposed to be the third and final of a Poultry Production Workshop we're facilitating for a Women's Group (at Road's Camp just outside Mwense boma). Sadly, tragedy has struck so we've postponed today's meeting until after the Independence Day holiday (24 October). We learned this morning that the mother of one of the women in the group had passed away sometime in the night. So, the family and community is grieving today. They will hold the funeral today and bury the woman's body this afternoon. I don't know what caused the woman's death, but perhaps solace can be found in that she was a mature woman who'd lived a full life, able to watch her children grow into adults and have families and children of their own.

Today is Friday, and since the week began we've learned each day of the death of a loved one of folks we know here. Perhaps most startling have been those deaths of a baby and a young girl here in Chebele.

On Monday, a friend ba Sally^, who lives in Mwense Central, stopped to greet us on her way to visit her granddaughter, who lives on the other side of our community. The girl was about 13 years old and attended Grade 5 at Chebele Basic School. She had been suffering for 7 years from tapeworm. Her symptoms started with pain in her stomach and grew pain throughout her body and she was now unable to eat or drink.

For most of those 7 years, the girl's parents refused to go to the Mwense Stage II Clinic just 5 km away. They preferred to use traditional medicine and practices to help their daughter. Unfortunately, these did not cure her. Finally, after years, the family took their daughter to the Mwense Stage II Clinic, only to find that at that point the tapeworm had grown so strong there was nothing the clinic could do. The clinic staff scolded the family for not bringing the girl in much sooner. The girl's condition and prognosis were so poor that the clinic staff refused to refer the girl to Mansa General Hospital, saying there was nothing that could be done there for the girl either.

On Monday when our friend visited her granddaughter, the girl was still alive. On Tuesday, we returned home from our programs in the evening to a grieving community because the girl had passed away.

On Thursday, we returned home in the afternoon to learn that a funeral was in progress for a year-old boy who'd died early that morning. We asked what had caused the death, but our neighbor said he didn't know. Just then, the funeral procession passed by our house. The procession looked to have been 40-50 men, and at the head of the group were three men carrying a small coffin, about a meter long and covered in a blue and orange chitenge. They were singing in Cibemba as they walked to the cemetery in Chebele to bury the coffin. As they passed, we all sorrowfully sat down, following Zambian custom, to show our respect for the dead and for the grieving family.

Typically, it is the role of the men to build, carry and bury the coffin during a funeral ceremony. It is the women's role is to gather with the bereaved family around the dead body, either inside the family's home or in a church, crying and wailing together. Unfortunately, Shaun and I have attended several funerals in our village, and I can tell you from experience it is a sad, sad thing. It's also a bit jarring for a westerner because the Zambian customs surrounding funerals and grieving are so different from ours. It seems the grief that we westerners internalize or process quietly over a period of time, Zambians externalize and process loudly, together, for just the day of the funeral and then life seems to go “back to normal.”

^ ba Sally is not our friend’s true name. I have changed it here to preserve her anonymity.

Road's Camp Poultry Workshop

Shaun and I, with the help of our friends fellow PCV Jessica and Zambian counterpart ba Chastity, facilitated a 3-day Poultry Workshop for a Women's Group at Road's Camp in Mwense boma. This group of consists of about 20 women who live in the Road's Camp community. The women are mostly married women, but there are four who are unmarried- none are widows. Ba Chastity introduced us to the group a couple weeks ago. She arranged an introductory meeting where we all met and discussed the group's activities, needs and how Shaun and I can help. In our meeting, we learned the following:

• The group has been keeping broiler chickens for sale for under a year, perhaps just six months, but they have never been formally trained on keeping broilers and the business thereof. They purchased the chickens (about 150 to start) and raised their start-up capital (for initial feed, opening a bank account, building houses, etc.) through a loan provided by a local government office (I believe the Office of Community Development).
• On their first round, they purchased 150 chickens and necessary commercial feed from Mansa, raised the broilers for 6 weeks and then sold them for 30,000 Zkw ($6 USD) each. The group said they lost a lot of money on their initial round for 2 major reasons: selling on credit and spending too much on feed.
  
  
• When they sold on credit they found that many folks simply did not follow through on payment. So essentially, they gave away for free chickens that were sold on credit. The group learned a very valuable lesson with this and has since enacted a policy where they do not sell on credit. They sell on a cash basis now which seems to be working well.
  
  
• While the group was able to solve their first problem, they were stumped as to how to solve the feed problem. They knew they were spending too much money on feed, which they have transported up from Mansa. However, they were also unsure how to cutback, or if they reasonably could, without damaging their product- the chickens.

Based on this information, Shaun and I designed a workshop around the basic necessary knowledge about keeping broilers and how to resolve the business problems they were facing. The women asked that the workshop be facilitated over 3 morning sessions, and Shaun and I had an 3-day opening in our schedule the following week.

To ensure maximum participation, we let the women set the schedule, knowing our availability, and they decided upon the following Wednesday-Friday 08hrs to 12hrs. Having worked in Zambia for over a year now, I was a bit skeptical about the 08hrs start time, as it seems things never really get started until 09hrs or 10hrs. Nonetheless, we agreed, understanding that the women may need more flexibility when the workshop actually happens. Afterall, they have households to run, husbands to ready and feed before work, and children to bathe, dress and feed before school.

Shaun and I with the women's group in front of their very nice chicken house.

Fast-forward now to the following Wednesday: the first day of our workshop... We arrived at 08hrs at the compound where a few of the women stay. We found only to find 3 women present, but busy sweeping and dressing children- not at all ready to begin the day's workshop. I laughed to myself, as Shaun, Jessica and Chastity and I took a seat in the classroom and pleasantly chatted amongst ourselves until the whole group had arrived. We started at 09:20.

This wasn't a problem for us, and I do not mean to present a negative image of the ladies. I point it out only to provide an illustration of how Time is a very different thing in the U.S. than it is here in Zambia. I have also had Zambians arrive at 07hrs for meeting that isn't scheduled to begin until 08:30. I believe the term for the way Zambians view time is “polychronic”.

Anyway, at 09:20 we launched into our Poultry Workshop. As is customary, we took the next 10 minutes setting the time table for the workshop, so everyone present can agree more realistically on what they can commit to. We decided we'd meet Wednesday to Friday from 09hrs to 12hrs and we elected Irene^, one of the women, as timekeeper. Then we spent another 10 minutes coming up with the “norms”, or rules, we'll follow during our workshop: phones on low volume or vibrate; reduce classroom movements; respect everyone's contributions; keep time; speak through the chair (which is the equivalent of raising your hand to speak).

Following this, Shaun launched into a “theory” session about chicken nutrition, housing, egg-layers, laying periods and cycles, using your own layers to produce your next generation of laying hens, etc. After the “theory” session, we went out to the chicken house to observe the groups' current feeding regime so we could make recommendations the following day. We observed the women filling a bucket of feed and then filling the feeders, which hang down from rafters in the chicken house, until each feeder was full. However, they did not measure out the feed to know how much they were providing our how much filled the feeders. 

Thursday we were on schedule, starting just after 09hrs. We started the day with a “practical” session on daily feed requirements and measuring the feed given to the chickens. Using the Agromisa and CTA guidelines for small-scale chicken-rearing in Africa, we calculated that their flock would need 15kg of feed per day. So, we decided they will need to measure out 15kg of feed per for each day. This is a change from their previous, non-standardized method of simply filling the feeders until full.

To measure the feed, I taught the women how to measure out their feed using a “village scale.” This is my favorite trick to teach rural Zambians- it is so simple to create and learn, and people seem to feel empowered to learn it. All you need is: 

• a liter of water
• a lightweight container for the water
• a stick strong enough to balance 1 kg on either side
• a fulcrum of some kind (chair back, post, etc.)
• a plastic bag to hold whatever you're trying to measure. 

Since 1 liter of water weighs 1kg, you fill your lightweight water bottle with 1 liter of water. Then you hang it on one end of your stick. Using the chairback or post as your fulcrum, hang the plastic bag on the other end of the stick, and then fill the bag with what your measuring, in our case, chicken feed. When the liter of water and the plastic bag balance, you've got 1kg of feed! If you want to measure more than 1kg at a time, use a bigger lightweight water container, more liters of water and a bigger stick (wink).

Measuring feed using a "village scale"

Measuring feed using a "village scale". That's my excited mzungu hand saying "we've reached balance!"

This addressed the women's problem of giving the chickens too much feed, thus losing a lot of profit. They brought out their normal feed daily ration, and we measured 15kg from that. There was an enormous mound leftover, which represents wasted food, and their wasted profit. The women were very excited to see this very tangible illustration of why they were losing money and how to solve the problem. They understood the scale and measuring really well; they were all smiles at the end of the lesson!

After this, we moved back into the classroom for a lesson on record-keeping. Record-keeping is essential to running a successful business, big or small, and it is a skills very few in Zambia understand and practice. We talked about keeping 2 types of records for the group's operations: daily records and financial records. The daily records record daily activities and other things that relate to the daily operations of the poultry business: feedings, illness, vaccinations, inspections, other official visits, flock size, etc. The financial records record expenditures, sales, other income, and provide the group's financial balance.

To get the group started right away, I purchased 2 notebooks in Mwense boma for 10,000 Zkw ($2 USD) each and gave them to the group. As Peace Corps Volunteers, we provide knowledge, not things or money, as a means of contributing to sustainable development. So, I do not usually give things to the people and groups we work with, but I didn't want these women to have any excuse for not keeping records! The women were very appreciative, clapping and whooping and thanking us for the workbooks. It was a very warm feeling.

This session led us up to noon, when we knock off for the day. The women were so impressed with the lessons they treated us to a delicious lunch of “ubwali wa mataba” (maize nshima), ifisahi (vegetables, in this case bean leaves and African eggplant, cooked with pounded groundnut meal), and rape (a green leafy vegetable, usually pan-cooked with oil, tomatoes and onions). As we were their guests of honor, the women prepared the meal for us and set a table in the nicest room in the house, the dining room, and left us to eat by ourselves. Meanwhile they all ate together sitting on a reed mat in an entirely separate room. This is the custom popularly observed in rural Zambia- men and guests of honor eat in the nicest room or place available, while the women and children eat together, usually sitting on the floor, in another room.

Sadly, our session Friday was cancelled because the mother of a woman in the group had died in the night. So, the family and community is in grief. They will hold the funeral today and bury the woman's body this afternoon. I don't know what caused the woman's death, but perhaps solace can be found in that she was a mature woman who'd lived a full life, able to watch her children grow into adults and have families and children of their own. We have planned to resume and wrap up our workshop with a session on Business Planning and Cashflow Management in November, when Shaun and I have time available once again in our calendar.

^ real name not used to preserve anonymity.

 

* * *

Shaun and I are in Chebele to promote and teach rural aquaculture, but I find there is as much a need in this area to educate folks about keeping chickens. It still amazes me how many people here keep chickens yet seem to have little understanding of how to fully utilize them. Chickens are very popular to eat and to keep, even to buy and sell, but what in The States we'd consider basic knowledge is lacking here.

No one in our village sells or eats eggs, which are a great source of protein, fats and vitamins- things noticeably and detrimentally lacking from local diets. There are no chicken houses in our village, and these could easily be built out of locally available material (sticks and grass, the same things they use to make insaka roofs and bathing shelters). These houses would provide a localized place for hens to nest, allowing easy egg collection, and for collecting manure to use on fields, gardens and in fishponds. Many free-roaming chickens are snatched by predator chicken hawks or die from Newcastle disease, for which there is a free vaccine available at the Ministry of Livestock district office just 4 km away. However, the vaccine is not widely administered. Last year, a pastor in the boma lost 39 of his 40 chickens to Newcastle disease- that's 39 nutritious family dinners or 1.17M Zkw ($234 USD) when sold at market price of 30,000 Zkw ($6 USD) each.

Another notion has occurred to me in facilitating these chicken workshops and analyzing the business of keeping chickens, especially broilers. Granted, poultry rearing is slightly more capital-intensive than fish farming. However, keeping broilers seems less labor-intensive than fish farming, and selling a batch of broilers every 6 weeks seems to bring in more household income, and more often, than fish farming- which runs on a 6-month harvest cycle. So, while there is a higher barrier to entry (i.e. more start-up capital required) to a small broiler operation, the resulting profitability for keeping broilers is much higher per cycle and per year than keeping fish on the village level.

This is not at all to say that fish farming should be abandoned. Fish are a very popular relish (i.e. side dish to the staple nshima) and there is no end to demand for it. Zambians LOVE their fish! (Slightly more than they love to eat chicken). Also, fish present a varied source of protein, vitamins and minerals that is important to the Zambian diet. I just mean to point out that perhaps the rural populations could be well served by putting more effort into poultry training than we currently see in our community.

Salaula Business in Zambia- Part 2

Ba Kelvin's new business has made me also ponder the secondhand industry in the United States. Back in the U.S., I made regular donations to the Goodwill GoodNeighbor Stores in Fullerton and Brea, an example set by my Grandma Pat. I would donate “old” clothes, shoes, small kitchen items and other household goods I had purchased but grown tired of or wanted to replace with something new- or I just realized I'd accumulated too much stuff to fit in closets, cabinets and pantries. When I was a student or otherwise on a tight budget, I shopped Goodwill's GoodNeighbor Stores for clothing, furniture, kitchen supplies- even party decorations.

While seeing the validity in criticisms of Goodwill, there are still several things I like about it: it seems to provide services to many factions of American society. First, it's a place for wealthier Americans to discard unwanted, gently used stuff accumulated through impulse purchases, gifts, and a general addiction to “consumption” or “buying things we don't need”. This has become an fascinating and inextricable part of American culture, psychology and economy that to knock or condone would be an entirely different blog entry.

Secondly, donations to Goodwill, and the resulting revenue, provide local employment at GoodNeighbor Stores for folks of limited skills and who haven't found employment elsewhere. At the stores I've shopped, some of employees are disabled and others older folks bridging the gap between income and expenses. Reflecting on it now, I imagine these folks had limited employment opportunity, but bills and expenses like the rest of us. And besides the financial resources employment brings, we all at some level crave the sense of empowerment and accomplishment found in employment.

Goodwill stores also present a low-cost option for low-income community members- struggling familes, students, pensioners, etc.- to purchase basics and even little luxuries.

Additionally, the unwanted items donated to Goodwill are things not going into landfills, which have become overburdened in many parts of the U.S. Thus, Goodwill provides a recycling service! Goodwill's website states that it, “receive[s] more than 500,000 donations every year and divert[s] over 13 million pounds of goods away from local landfills.”

Finally, there are the things donated to Goodwill, yet that do not sell. According the Goodwill's website, these items: “are sold to salvage merchants who ship the material to third-world countries where jobs and wages are created through sorting and selling these items.” And this circles back to our friend ba Kelvin and his new success as a “salaula” retailer.

In fact, at any market in Zambia, from Lusaka to Mwense boma to Lukwesa, you'll see secondhand clothing being sold and quite a lot of it. Here in Zambia, secondhand clothing, or “salaula”, has become an industry of serious economic importance, as evidenced in ba Kelvin's recent success. Critics of the development of this industry in the developing world claim that the availability secondhand clothing from the developed world suppresses and eventually destroys local textile industries. Perhaps Zambia serves as a case point: secondhand clothing is very popular here and the textile industry, as I understand it, is effectively defunct.

During Pre-Service Training, my Peace Corps Cibemba Language-Culture Facilitator, ba Golden, taught me that “salaula” comes from the Cibemba word “ukusala” (to chose, to select). “Salaula” refers to the secondhand clothing one buys in the market- one must rummage through a pile of clothing and chose the pieces he wants to buy.

Here in rural Zambia, everyone in our village wears salaula, as does everyone is all the other villages I've visited. It's very popular- we often see adults and children alike wearing T-shirts from small American sports teams, 5k runs, or schools. In Mansa, I once passed a youth wearing a “Newport Swimming” sweatshirt. Our friend ba Frinch's favorite shirt is a green polo shirt with an anchor and the name Ron embroidered in gold. Even as I type this, there is a group of children playing “njuka” (cards) on our front patio. They are all wearing salaula: a faded, torn “Hornets '08” T-shirt; a drab-colored children's U.S. Army T-shirt with big holes around the collar; a ragged, torn nightshirt (worn as a dress) that says “Some Bunny Loves Me”; a yellow “Belle” Halloween costume dress that now is held together by a few threads at the seams. These are salaula items that have likely been passed down from big sister/brother to younger.

Now, all this secondhand clothing in Zambia certainly does not come solely from Goodwill, but I'd wager a significant portion does. There is a book on this topic which I am interested in reading: Salaula- The World of Second-hand Clothing and Zambia, by Karen Tranberg Hansen (ISBN-10: 0226315819, ISBN-13: 9780226315812). If anyone has an extra copy lying around, feel free to send it my way. Of course, I will keep browsing the salaula book stands for the title, as well.

Salaula Business in Zambia- Part 1

Our good friend, ba Kelvin, stopped by our house today to tell us that he has moved from our village, Chebele, where he was raised, to Lukwesa, another small town in Mwense District about 35km from Mwense boma. Kelvin is single, about 23 years old, finished Grade 12 a couple years ago, speaks great English, and is very intelligent. Despite all these fine characteristics, he did not score well enough on his exams to be admitted into college, the main path to formal employment. So, he has moved to Lukwesa and started his own business selling secondhand clothing, called “salaula” here in Zambia.

He is doing surprisingly well: he confided in us that he's bringing in 1 million Zkw a week ($200 USD), 300,000 – 500,00 ($60 – 100 USD) of which is “profit”. By “profit”, he means revenue above all expenses, excluding his own labor; like many small businesses in Zambia, he does not consider his own labor as an expense. That said, he's making more money than a Peace Cirps Volunteer earns from his stipend, which is commeasurate with what a school teacher earns.

Kelvin earns his money by travelling to Lusaka where he buys secondhand clothing from mostly Chinese, Indian and Zambian merchants at Kamwala Market. Kamwala Market is the huge open-air market in Lusaka where all manner of goods are exchanged. Kelvin visits different “salaula” merchants there and picks out clothing he thinks the people of Lukwesa and Mwense will want to buy. He spends about 500,000 to 700,000 ($100 – 140 USD) on clothing- shirts, dresses, skirts, trousers, shoes, etc. Then, he transports his merchandise up to Lukwesa (by Peace Soldier or Juldan buses), where he sells the clothing at the Lukwesa market. His customers are mostly fellow Zambians who live in Lukwesa and nearby villages, Mwense boma (the capital of Mwense District) and Kazembe. He also has a large Congolese customer base who cross the border (the Luapula River) at Lukwesa to purchase goods for less than they cost in DR Congo. These Congolese customers either use the items for themselves or they turn around and sell them for a profit in DR Congo.

I find this story of Kelvin's recent success very encouraging- as does he!- because Kelvin comes from a large, poor, not-politically-connected family in an impoverished rural village. Just eight months ago, after he did not get into the trade college in Mansa, he seemed to have resigned himself to being “just a farmer”- his words.-  as that was the only other way of life he'd been exposed to. However, now he's widened his view and his perception of what's possible for him.

I think the secret to Kelvin's ambition, creativity and success comes from his father. Kelvin's father, ba Godfrey, is a pioneering and committed fish farmer in Chebele. He is quick to take on modest experiments with new income-generating farming practices (like conservation farming, rice farming, fish farming and beekeeping) and then scale them up as he sees their profitability. He is also one of the few fathers ensuring every one of his 7 living children are educated through Grade 12, which means he works very seriously to raise money for school fees. He is faithful to his wife and family, abstains from alcohol (“problem” drinking is an underaddressed issue in Zambia), and is constantly seeking information about nutrition, HIV/AIDS prevention, sanitation and other issues that ail the community.

I look at Kelvin's budding entrepreneurship and see an evolution of ba Godfrey's diligent commitment to build a better life for his children. This, along with his positivity, is the foundation Kelvin, consciously or not, has used to build his business. He is not hindered by obstacles, but encouraged to find alternative opportunities. Starting his salaula business is a case in point- rather than giving up on a career when he could not get into college, he has created his own employment- and found himself on a path that could potentially bring more prosperity and freedom than working for someone else would.

Our friend, budding entrepreneur ba Kelvin, with his newly purchased merchandise. We are inside the very nice shop he rents in Lukwesa.

Traveling Back to Site

When we were back in The States last, we got a lot of questions about how we get around Zambia and how we get to our village. So, I thought I'd tell you about our latest transport adventure this past week traversing the country, from south to north.

When planning our travel time, we give ourselves 1 full day for each leg our trip. In this case, we gave ourselves 4 full days to travel from Livingstone and Victoria Falls at the southern tip of Zambia to Mwense in Luapula Province in the north of Zambia. Our plan looked like this:

Monday, Day 1: Livingstone to Lusaka (capital city)

Tuesday, Day 2: Lusaka to Serenje (Central Province)

Wednesday, Day 3: Serenje to Mansa (capital of Luapula Province)

Thursday, Day 4: Mansa to Mwense and then to our village, Chebele

Often, we don't need as much time as we a lot for our travel, but we've learned after a year here that anything can happen so it's best to allow yourself time for contingencies.

On Sunday afternoon, Shaun went into town (Livingstone) and bought us tickets for Mazhandu Bus Company's “luxury class” bus to Lusaka leaving Monday morning at 09:00 and arriving in Lusaka around 15:00. This exceptional Zambian bus company is safe, clean, comfortable, on-time and requires tickets to be purchased and seats reserved a day in advance (all of which is a refreshing rarity in Zambia). Tickets for this trip were 100,00 Zkw (about $20USD) each.

We could hitchhike from Livingstone up to Lusaka instead of paying for a bus ticket because there is a lot of transport/traffic on that road. However, so far we've enjoyed the certainty of riding Mazhandu. We know we have a reserved seat on transport that departs at 09:00, which means we can have a relatively leisurely morning with breakfast rather than having to get to the road by 06:00 to flag down vehicles. We also know the bus will take us all the way to our destination (Lusaka, or even further north to Kapiri-Mposhi or Ndola), compared to the crap-shoot of hitching, where we may need to hop in several vehicles to get to Lusaka. Lastly, we feel pretty comfortable and safe in Mazhandu buses. But again, let me stress this is one of the rare instances where we prefer taking a bus in Zambia over hitchhiking. I'll go into this more in a bit.

So, on Monday we awoke around 07:00 to thunder and rain, finished packing up, breakfasted leisurely and sipped our tea, caught up on the morning's news. At 08:30, we strolled from Jollyboys Backpackers over to the bus station. We bought some cheap and fresh oranges, apples and bananas from the stand next to the bus, placed a small bag in the luggage storage under the bus, boarded and took our reserved seats. At 08:50, the bus driver honked the horn in a “all aboard” warning call. At 08:55, the conductor made sure the last 2 passengers who weren't already on the bus were herded on and into their seats. At 09:00 we were on our way as it lightly showered outside. We passed the time reading the news on our phones, watching the countryside villages and farms of Southern Province go by, cat-napping and reliving our adventure in Chobe National Park. At just after 15:00, we rolled into the bustle of Lusaka Inter-City Bus Station.

Upon arriving to Lusaka, we de-boarded the bus struggling through a small army of taxi drivers crowding the door to be the first to greet passengers and snag some business. We grabbed our small bag from under the bus and began negotiating with taxi drivers as we walked out of the station. We talked to 6 or 7 taxi drivers before one accepted our price of 25,000 Zkw ($5USD) to take us to Manda Hill, the very big and very “western” fancy shopping mall in Lusaka. There we treated ourselves to a burger, salad and iced coffee at the restaurant Mugg N Bean- yum!

Our next stop was Mogal Guesthouse where we spent the night. Mogal is convenient because there is usually a room available (albeit pricy at 100,000 to 150,000 Zkw per night), and it is close to the Peace Corps office, bunkhouse and Volunteer Lounge as well as various grocery stores and restaurants. Mogal also has a karaoke rooms that are a lot of fun. We could have requested to stay for free with one of the Lusaka households that participates in Peace Corps' Lusaka Homestay program. However, that required a level of forward-thinking we were lacking and Shaun likes Mogal because there is a puppy there he can play with.

Tuesday morning, we awoke at 06:00, showered, packed up and we checked out and on the road hailing a taxi by 06:30. The taxi took us to the petrol station near Olympic Stadium on the north side of Lusaka. We grabbed some buns and softies, and we stood at the side of the road for an hour trying to flag down a vehicle to take us 4 hours north to the Kapiri-Mposhi junction. Of the 40-50 vehicles that passed us, a handful stopped while most went by either not acknowledging us or signaling that they were just staying local. Most of those who stopped we either not going as far as Kapiri-Mposhi or they wanted too much money to take us (one driver suggested the unreasonable amount of 120,000 Zkw- $14USD- each for the ride; we declined and walked away).

Around 07:30 a graying Zambian man in a clean, well-maintained Toyota Hulux headed to Ndola pulled over and invited us to join him to Kapiri-Mposhi. He was alone in the vehicle and there was plenty of room for us and our bags in the backseat. The man, we learned, was named ba Boas; he is a medical doctor educated at University of Zambia in Lusaka and now living and working in Botswana. He is well-traveled, having visited and lived in several European countries and African countries. He grew up in Lusaka and his parents, though of very modest means, tried to give him western-style education and very much encouraged him in school. We had a wonderful ride with him, discussing the differences in American and Zambian cultures, methods of education, even parenting. The hitch transformed into a fascinating culture exchange- one of the many reasons we prefer hitching to riding the bus.

There are other benefits to hitchhiking instead of taking a bus, aside from rich cultural exchange and good networking opportunities. When hitching on more well-traveled roads we often can get rides in newer and maintained cruisers or trucks. Buses are usually old, beat-up, over-packed and overweight. Buses also tend to break down and it's very unlikely for passengers to have tickets refunded. When hitching, we talk to our driver when negotiating the ride which also allows us to gauge his state of sobriety. We hardly ever get a chance to know who is driving a bus we're on until we are on the road- and intoxicated driving is a problem we've seen in Zambia. Lastly, hitches are often free or a small cost, whereas with buses one must pay, whether the bus makes make it to your destination or not. Our friends found this out the hard way about 6 months ago when their bus broke down in the middle of the night. They were forced to sleep on the side of the road in the bus and start hitching at first light the next morning 900+ kilometers to Mansa.

But I digress...

After getting dropped in Kapiri-Mposhi we got the name and number of our new friend to connect with him if we find ourselves in Botswana again. We had lunch at the shwarma stand and then got back on the road to hitch again. We'd figured we hitch a ride to Serenje, a couple hours north of Kapiri-Mposhi, and then stay the night in Serenje. And after a short time after getting to the road, a South African miner friend of ours, who we'd gotten a ride with back in July, drove by and stopped to give us a lift to Serenje. So, we hopped in the back of his truck and away we went.

It wasn't until stopping at the petrol station in Mkushi that our friend mentioned he was driving all the way to Mansa, and he'd be happy to bring us all the way back to the Peace Corps Provincial House in Mansa. This was a big win for us. Not a lot of traffic heads to Luapula Province or Mansa which means we usually end up waiting a long, long time at the turn-off to Luapula (called Tuta or “potato” junction). So, we usually plan to stay a night in Serenje so we don't risk being stuck at that empty junction anytime near dark. In fact, this last time when we came up we saw a total of 7 vehicles on that road- counting vehicles going BOTH directions.

So, we rode with our friend Leigh from Kapiri-Mposhi 6 hours to Mansa. Leigh is a very good, safe driver, so we got a free, safe, ride up to Mansa, arriving a day early. It was great! And today we head up about 110km north to Mwense, by bus, and then hike up about 5km to our village, Chebele.

Birthday Safari Pictures

To celebrate my birthday, Shaun and I went on a 3-day, 2-night safari in Chobe National Park in Botswana. it was amazing! Check out our pictures here:

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