2009 07 18
The first thing we did after a hurried breakfast was to go to the visa office which thankfully was open and four out eight of us got our work permits so we won’t need to go and renew our visas every month. We weren’t sure why the permits for the other four, thankfully not including me, were not there but hopefully they will come soon. That done, we waited outside the visa office for a while to get picked up by the PCVL for out field trip to the farm research place where the former Dovu volunteer now works. We got a tour of the pig barn where there were some rather large hogs, then picked up someone to learn the art of potholing – what, did you think the awful roads in Zambia were simply the act of natural erosion? Just kidding, the potholes we dug are holes which, come rainy season, can be easy places to sow seeds. It also means that fertilizer can be more concentrated, less soil needs to be disturbed and therefore weed seeds have less chance of sprouting and in general less work needs to be done for those farmers who do not have cattle of their own. After that, we learned about why cassava is a good security crop (not as good as moringa in my opinion but probably planting both is the best option) and got a tour of the rest of the research going on before we went back to the PCPH. The next two things on our agenda were how to make beds by double digging, and how to eat lunch although I can’t remember the order of which came first (possibly because I think I ate eggs). The rest of the daytime hours were spent on the second resiliency session, and then we all pitched in for a family style dinner of Indian food (the only other prevalent cuisine other then nshima and relish). When I say pitched in I refer to washing dishes; it was actually somewhat enjoyable as there were others working on our task, it is just that the water was out so we needed to do it dish-pan style. The dinner was excellent and I ate large servings of everything.