This week has been very uneventful and we haven't ventured far from the house at all. In fact, I've been getting over being sick and we've used that as an excuse to lay low, stay home, and stay out of our farmers' hair while they work their fields.
It is now rainy season, which means everyone is focused on maize farming and gardening. There is no irrigation here- all crops are fed by rainfall. So, when rainy season starts, farmers drop everything else and work solely on their fields and gardens. This takes all their time and energy because it is a very labor-intensive process: everything is still done by hand and with a hoe (they don't even use ploughs here), which is a whole 'nother topic. So, fish farming (along with nearly every other activity)takes a hiatus until rainy season is over, crop and gardens are harvested and the farmers can think about fish ponds again.
I've been catching up on mountains of laundry (in rainy season laundry goes slow because it takes so long for things to dry), GRE studying and my book, The Count of Monte Cristo. Shaun's been reading a lot too. He's reading a fascinating and well-written book called Africa: Altered Stated, Ordinary Miracles by Richard Dowden. The book is addicting and his writing about Africa is real, multi-dimensional and human. It is mirrors our experiences in the village, in towns, traveling around, meeting Africans, African culture, the aid industry and even our own reflection on our changing psychology. Everything I've read of the book is recognizable in terms of what we've experienced- everything right down to his personal transformation.
Last night, however, was quite eventful. In the afternoon, half our yard, but thankfully not our house, was overcome by a river of small black ants, “imposhi”. I let them be hoping not to alarm them and signal a distress and attack call among them, especially since they just seemed to be searching for food and then they'd be gone again. But when our counterpart saw the ants he said he'd come back in the evening with pesticide because the ants like to come at night and swarm houses. He said, “When they come at night, you can't sleep because they will be biting you all over in your bed.”
These are the ants I've heard about devouring small animals (like chickens) that get in their way, just by their shear number, taking millions of tiny bites. Our counterpart told us a story of a man in Lukwesa, about 35km away, who got drunk one night and fell asleep on the road. These ants came along that road that night and since he was in their path they began biting him, basically eating him. Because he was so drunk, he didn't realize what was happening and didn't get up to save himself. In the morning, people came upon his dead body, still with ants crawling on it.
After hearing this anecdote, we enthusiastically agreed to let our counterpart spray pesticide around our house. In exchange for our counterpart generously sharing the pesticide he had brought back from Lusaka (the only place it is available, a day's journey away), I gave him a loaf of the cinnamon-raisin bread I'd made earlier that day from scratch on our brazier. It was the first time I'd ever made bread in my life- and I quite amazed myself by pulling it off so well, from scratch and on a brazier.
We accompanied him back to his house, where his wife and eldest daughter were preparing dinner in their “kitchen.” It was very dark in there, as the sun was setting and there is no light in the house, but the women were having no trouble cooking the ubwali wa mataba (maize meal nshima).
Shaun and I sat down with them as they cooked and we talked and joked. They ate the bread as a sort of appetizer and loved it. Immediately, our counterpart asked what ingredients are needed to make bread and how I did it. So, I explained the process to the family, who were all ears. The bread was a big hit and I have a feeling I'll be asked one day soon to show bamaayo and the eldest daughter how to make it.
When dinner was ready, the whole family- mother, father and the 4 children still living at home- gathered in the kitchen room, sitting on the floor around a collection of dishes. They offered Shaun and I food, but our relationship is close enough where we could decline the offer without offending them. We had dinner prepared at home already (leftover pasta from lunch) and we were only interested in their company. We didn't want to force an unexpected sharing of their meal, for which they'd worked very hard all day, with the two of us who had done literally nothing all day.
Our discussion after dinner turned once again to farming. We talked about seeing ploughs used in other parts of Zambia and Africa (Tanzania) to work fields. We asked why people here in Mwense don't use them. Our counterpart explained that the roots of the trees in Mwense are too big and too strong for using ploughs. These must be dug up by had with axes and then the fields dug by hand with hoes.
He went on the explain to us for the first time how new farming is to the people of Chebele. He has lived in this area all his life, but it wasn't until 2005 that he started cultivating maize, what here is known simply as “farming.” Before then, he was only growing cassava, relying on fish caught locally in the Luapula River, or buying in the market fish from Lake Tanganyika, Lake Mweru or Lake Bangweulu. He did not garden or engage in any other farming or food-generating activities beside growing cassava before 2005, and this arrangement was typical of the other households in Chebele. People were generating income for school fees and market-bought fish through the chitemene system of going into the bush, burning an area, and making charcoal from the trees. According to him, that was it: cassava, fish and charcoal.
I was amazed to learn his farming and gardening had started so recently. This man, who is a very good, industrious and pioneering small-scale farmer, gained most his knowledge about farming after I graduated from university. I was struck by how rapidly he has learned the skills and trade. I was struck by how recently the concept of farming, something thousands of years old in the Western world, started being put into practice here.
I suddenly realized my previous ideas that agricultural progress was delayed or stagnated here were incomplete. In fact, if the turn of the century is when folks here began cultivating crops and gardening, they have progressed very rapidly. Also, once again I was struck by how concepts I've spent thirty-plus years understanding and building upon are completely new ideas to many of the folks we live with here. My mind immediately realized the implications of this ripple deeply, and they are likely manifest in much of what I see everyday. However, to digest and begin to grasp these implications may take the rest of my lifetime.
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