Category: (c)2008 Aaron E-J

2008 07 14
Started out on the road after pumping up my bike tire again. First I went to meet with my forestry counterpart to see about finding transport to Chipata; however he too had come down with malaria and was bed ridden. His wife relayed the message that there was possible transport via agricultural office’s vehicle which would be getting ready for the provincial AG fair this weekend. It works out just right that I will be in Chipata then to go see it. Next I went to the district education resource center to use their electricity only to find that the power was out. Read some rather dated Newsweek magazines for a while, then decided to use the battery of my laptop to write some emails that I would send when I went to Chipata. The power finally came back on and I was able to charge my laptop, my ipod and part of my cell phones’ batteries’. Biked back to Dovu village after having dropped off my first load. I charging my cell phone some more using my solar panel’s battery and the noisy way over kill 600 watt inverter I inherited because I had left my 75w one in the BOMA. It cuts out at about 10.6 amp hours or so, so I didn’t get to finish charging it.

2008 07 11

-Had my first flat but I pumped it up and was able to ride to the BOMA and back without it going flat.

-Met with DFO (District Forestry Officer, my counterpart) and talked about spay paint (diliba?[there is none?]) and getting to Chipata.

-Checked mail, not expecting anything to have come yet but had a pleasant surprise. The company that I had bought my solar panel from, Olympic Camping Gear , found out before I left the States that I was joining the Peace Corps and they thought it was awesome. They sent me some woven bracelets and a letter explaining that the bracelets were from a pacific island, a project started to bring a means of income to the people living there, a glowing review of this company to come!

-went to market and had lunch of tomatoes and popcorn with Trevor

-Went to an open prison and met with the person in charge. There was a scheduling conflict however so it had to be brief

-this fact that the meeting was brief meant that I finally had time to take some pictures of the market, some of which can be found below

-biked back and had lentils and rice and read a book

2008 07 10

… a while back to find out where she had gotten them. All but one of the plants had dried up but I got a few leaves which I will put in water I use to water my vegetables. Then ndi pita ku dimba (I went to the garden) and watered everything using the tephrosia. The main reason my dimba is barely surviving is because I haven’t had time to water it daily. I then rushed back, had a quick bite to eat and road to Zingalume basic school where the other LIFE PCV, a local farmer and I held a chogalowa (as are most chinyanja words I write, probably spelled wrong) club meeting with the leader of the club and a few other teachers. These are school clubs throughout Zambia that are related to environmental conservation and sustainable agriculture. We did a name go around and then talked a bit about various trees and planted a few varieties in Shake-Shake (a potent maize alcoholic beverage so I found it somewhat unethical, but anyway) containers. We also split up into groups to work on varies projects.

2008 07 09

Today I went to the BOMA and finally met with the District Education Minister about my internet idea. She too thought it was a good one and said the next step was to put it on the agenda for a meeting of District Officials although the date for this had not been set. Although it would have been great if she had said “that’s a great idea, these people would be great to be on the committee and there are these organizations that would be great to get in contact with” but I wasn’t really expecting that and that she is putting it on the agenda for a meeting is a good sign. Then I went to the market and tried to get some fertilizer but there still wasn’t any at the market.

Well last weekend I felt pretty much better, save for the frequent runs to the bathroom. And the bathroom here makes me wish it was my place of excretion back in my mudzi (village), here – at lease when the water is out (fortunately hardly at all this time, other times it’s out for days) – I need to get a bucket of water to “manually flush.” Anyway, sorry for bring up such a subject, it’s just that I’ve been spending a lot of time there. Well I’m here for an extra day, my ride isn’t going back till Tuesday – I’m glad I txt’ed him and found out, although this means I will need to take the bus unless he text’s me again and he says he is definitely coming. This means, however, that I won’t be able to water my dimba for yet another day, or actually two because Wednesday I’ll be in the BOMA, although there’s a slight chance I might get back in time to go mumadzulu (in the afternoon). The house has been quite the past two days, only me, the PCVL and his girlfriend, although someone has just come in from a very long ride (northwestern [western most province] to eastern [eastern most province]) bearing a fresh pineapple.

Arg! I think the problem with my battery or solar panel (through which my 12v outlet runs) is that, although it should be able to power my laptop for about 4 hours based on that it should store around 26 amps, somewhere in this system the voltage is not quite enough to run my laptop after about 10 minutes. I can still use it without losing that much juice on the laptop battery; it is just that I have this incredibly annoying flashing on the screen as the thing switches from AC to battery and back and forth about twice every second.

I spent Wednesday, Thursday and Friday doing some dimbanizing, then Saturday I went to the BOMA early (got there around 8:30am I think) but spent about 2 hours trying to find an agricultural fair. I finally found it but it was a little bit of a letdown because the only displays there were the various ministries and NGO’s in Chadiza (10 or so) and there were more stands selling things at the market place then there were there. The organizations with the displays though were very gung-ho about showing off what they had done because I guess they were being judged and there would be prices awarded. I then was going to spend the early afternoon trying to work on some emails, this blog and maybe a story I’ve been trying to write but the District Education Resource Center, the only semi public location with electricity, was being used for a meeting. The education department in Zambia has some of the hardest working government officials (hence working on Saturday); I just wish that they could get funding to get better materials (like the internet program I’m working on which I think the only way it will be possible it through a grant, but also text books).

Sunday I decided was cleaning day, and my kunyumba needed it. I got a good start on the day and was in the middle of clearing everything out so I could sweep when my Atate came and asked me to go to a funeral. Well I hurriedly changed and put on sun block and then we walked about a kilometer to the house of the woman who had recently departed this life. There was probably 100-200 people there and it was a traditional ceremony that was much like what we learned during PST. There was much singing and pastoral speeches in the local dialect. Then we all walked up a hill, the family carrying flags made of cloth with a pattern of what may have been some significance although if there was, I’m not sure what it was. There was more singing and speeches and then the coffin was lowered into the grave and men took turns filling it in. I wish it had been on a different day though because it meant that it wasn’t until dusk when I got done cleaning. I’m glad I did because it looks much better. My banja gave me some selves for my books which was really nice because I wasn’t sure how I was going to get one brought from the BOMA to my village. Today I have a meeting with some district education officials about getting a project for internet access put together. I also want to get some been and maybe Chinese cabbage (the only vegetable other then broccoli to have this really potent antioxidant that may act as a kind off sun block and definitely has anti-cancer properties) seeds. I’m not thrilled with vegetable, but I think I might try to make sprouts from the seeds, which I think may have a concentrated amount of the healthy chemical.

Well Friday I waited… and waited… and waited for my ride to show up. Finally, as the sun was beginning to go down, I texted him and he said would be there shortly I don’t think it was until 1800 hours that we actually left in the pickup truck that I had been told was a van. When we got to the Chadiza BOMA the priest dropped me off at my Forestry counterpart’s house. I waited for a bit, watching one of the Euro 2008 football games on satellite (kind of weird, I think it’s the first time I’ve watched anything but staticy antenna TV since I’ve been in Zambia) as the only people there were the government official’s progeny. When he finally came I made a decision to call someone with a vehicle which I somewhat regret. I think he was going to have me stay the night and when I made the decision all I wanted to do was get home but now I wish I had taken his offer and spent more time with him. Oh well, what’s done is done.
I spent Saturday and Sunday working in my dimba. I found some plum tomato seeds which I planted two rows of and also planted some more cucumbers. Cuc’s are very sensitive to the kind of dirt they are grown in; only a few of the ones I planted in my fenced in area around my house came up because the dirt is very clayey but I have had more success in my dimba because there is one area that is more loamy I think as a result of it being one big ant colony. The ants don’t seem to be affecting the plants though… I’ll have to wait till they start producing to see how true this holds up. I also planted some more cucumbers and hot peppers in my yard, this time adding compost. Hopefully I have more success. Just before I left on Friday I dug up some strawberry plants from the front of the PCPH and I also planted them in my yard.
While I’ve been “dimbanizing” I’ve also been listening to probably, no almost definitely, the best book I’ve ever listened to. The way you can gauge how good a book is is by how much you talk about it to others. If it’s awful you tell everyone not to read/listen to it – the last book I listened to, “The Lion’s Game,” was such a book. If it’s ok, but just ok, you kind of forget about it and don’t really mention it to anyone – incidentally I can’t think of a book that falls into this category. If it’s good, you tell everyone to read/listen to it – the book I read before “The Lion’s Game,” “The Eight,” a book about chess, would fall into this category if it were not for the end which is so bad it makes the rest of the story, which is really good, not worth it. But the book I’m reading now falls into a category few ever achieve. Its descriptions are so vivid, its plot is so well established and the person telling the tale does such a good job at giving just the right accent to the characters that you want to keep it a secret from all but you very closest friends. You want to be able to use it as a secret weapon. If this book falls down the same path that “The Eight” did – and this would be next to impossible – I may have to ET and go into rehab… well maybe not something that drastic but you get the picture.
Dzulu (yesterday) I bought some “Zumba” (probably doesn’t have a “correct” spelling so I just wrote it somewhat phonetically) leaves (from red hemp I think although I don’t remember for sure). Last Tuesday my Zambian banja (family) made this relish that was really, really good out of it. So the next time I went to the market I decided to see whether I could find some, then go to my amae and ask her to show me how to make the relish. After that I gave my internet proposal to the district resource coordinator and added the last segment of my exquisite audio book and some more music from the gigabytes I copied from the PCPH. Then I left in a hurry to try to post all this to my blog that day before I needed to go back, however I forgot to pick up my cell phone. Well there was no one at the Agriculture Support Programee (I think it’s a Dutch program and that’s why there’s the “e’s” at the end) where there is internet access and those two reasons are why I am posting today. I also met with the district education, I think, project director about my internet idea and we set up a meeting time for next Monday. Well that’s all for now.

Thursday was a good day all in all. The morning wasn’t that productive, a couple of volunteers and I were going to meet with a LIFE trainer at 9:00 but realized he was on leave, not in his office. But I texted him and he said he would come to the PC house in the afternoon. Then I spent a long time trying to find a shop I had been in twice before but it took me about an hour and a half to two hours to track the place down. Bought another pot and a good thermos. Then I went looking for broad band internet and that’s when my day got better. Yesterday when I was at immigrations renewing my visa I asked the lady stamping my passport whether she new of anywhere that had high speed internet. She gave me an office number and that was the first place I went. They did have broad band, but only for corporate clients so they directed me to another office down a narrow alleyway and up some stairs. They said that they had Wi-Fi that covered most of Chipata which somewhat blew me away, only drawback was that you needed to pay 20 pin for 100mbs, but it’s still the cheapest way I’ve found so far. The power promptly went out so I was unable to try it out. Next thing to do is to find grant money to get this service done in the schools in Chadiza so that will be something I’m doing a little research on. Then pa 14:30 I the PST LIFE tech trainer came in a mini-bus his family owns and took us to his house and gave us coffee and sweetbread and we had a nice conversation. When I got back I found I was unable to receive Wi-Fi service at the PCPH but I went back to the office where I had paid for the service and was able to download an update to my antivirus in 10 minutes that had been still downloading via dialup after more the 4 or 5 hours.

Madzulu (afternoon) I will hopefully get a ride back with a priest in the Chadiza BOMA. I’m glad I’m finding places where I can connect and blog somewhat more frequently. Till the next time I’m connected: Tizanana!