Category: (c)2008 Aaron E-J

Well, I’m at the PC house to renew my visa and will stay until Friday afternoon when I’m probably getting a ride back with a priest my Zambian government counterpart knows. Last Friday I planted some pepper and broccoli seeds I got from a store in Chipata, the only thing is the seeds are from 2005, hopefully some will grow. A somewhat lazy weekend then Monday I went back to Chadiza and spent the morning trying to do some research on existing information technology programs in Sub Saharan Africa. I also was trying to update my antivirus software but since my connection is only something like 48kbits a second and in reality like 1kbit it was slow going and I didn’t achieve much. Tuesday my PC LIFE program director (or APCD) and Provincial Leader were coming in the afternoon. I pasted the time waiting for them to show up by replanting some cucumber seeds along the fence in my garden. When they came, my banja (family) gave us a late lunch of nshima and a relish I will have to try to make on my own as it was very good. After a while we went to my dimba and I showed them what I had planted and I watered a little bit, then we had to head back because it was about to get dark. It never did get dark as we had a full moon over our heads and spend a while chatting which felt good as it had been a long while since I had had people I could do this with and actually understand what everyone was saying. Then, although we were still full from the last meal, we got dinner of nshima and lepu. The atate from my host family drove up (one of the only people on my road other then the chief to have access to a vehicle) and talked to the APCD for a while. After a little bit we went to see some dancing and costume (feather headdresses that were very intricate) wear. We were all very tired but I still needed to pack for the next several days in Chipata so I didn’t get to sleep until close to 23:30.
Today I got up and we left around 9:00 which would have been sooner but my family gave us a big bowl of roasted groundnuts. We went to meet with my closest PCV’s and while the APCD and the LIFE PCV chatted, his wife took the Provincial leader and I by bike to their dimba where they had envious amounts of broccoli seedlings which I may try to get some of if mine do not come up. After we had biked back and loaded everything into the Landover we drove to meet briefly with our district forestry and tourism counterpart, then drove to Chipata. I went to the bank then we renewed our visas and went to Shopright to get some food, but they were all out of a lot of things like cereal. I hope they get more of the things I need and want before I leave. I had crackers dipped in tuna and ketchup and rice with moringa (the really healthy tree) leaves which took forever to pluck each little one from its stem.

Well, I finally found an internet connection in Chadiza which I can actually use my laptop to connect, although I just realized that I can probably do the same in the PCPH. This means that I will finally be able to start doing research into my internet in rural schools idea. It also means I will be able to blog more often which is goodJ. Monday my LIFE coordinator/leader/adviser (the PC term is APCD) and PC provincial leader will be coming to see how I’m doing and to stay overnight, I hope they bring at least one tent because my house is really crowded with junk and I only have one very small tent. It rained yesterday which never happens in June… global warming my host Atate says. Well I have to make this short because I need to get on the rode so I can get back before it gets dark. Zikomo!

Well, I’ll be leaving Sunday to go back to my village and for once I’m kind of glad I’m going back, although getting there will probably be a huge hassle. I will spend next week working on my internet in schools idea and trying to create some drawings for making my new bicycle which just came in and my old one into a quadracycle. Also some more gardening and community fitting in will hopefully happen.

Well, I’m beginning to do more then just get my garden started; I’ve started to get the ball up and running on an idea I’ve had for a while of bringing internet to schools. I typed up a one page proposal that basically is just my thoughts on what I’m interested in doing and why I think it’s a good idea and it has gotten good feedback so far, next step is to bring it to the provincial level. Grasshoppers have eaten most of my beets which is discouraging but I finally got some tephrosia (it’s a tree which is a natural pesticide) leaves and soaked them in water over night, then pored this water over the plants. Not sure whether it worked because the damage was pretty much already done. I am definitely getting a paraffin (kerosene) stove when I’m in Chipata because I’m really tired of having to wait an hour to get (sometimes) boiling water, but I’m really glad I don’t need to start it from scratch every time because I can usually get coals from my host family. Oh the address where you can send things to is: Box 520103 Chadiza, Zambia

Well my first three weeks at site have been good although I still have a ton to do (well, two years worth of stuff to do. Most days I wake up at around pa 6:00 koloko (+ or – 30 min) do some stretching, get some coals from the family near by, and then while water is waiting to boil, take a bucket bath. When I’m done with my bath the water is always boiling away so I use most of it for tea and use the remainder for Soya porridge which requires a bit of sugar to make it edible (it has a bad taste to it). I wouldn’t have bought more but they’re the only cereal that has some protean and vitamins in it that you don’t need to buy ten boxes of and spend hundreds of thousands of kwacha on to last a month. After eating breakfast, maybe listening to the BBC if I can find a station that comes in (I don’t think there’s a shortwave station that comes in well for more then 2 or 3 hours, but there is about 10 frequencies that play the BBC at various times throughout the day) and putting on sun screen, I either do one of three things.
-Go to the dimba (garden) of the same family I get my coals from (they gave me some space) and plant and water things. The garden has very clayey soil so I need to make sure to add some more loamy dirt so that the area near where I planted doesn’t turn to a solid substance which the seeds cannot worm their way through. Although clayey, the soil seems very fertile and I hope this means vegetables do well.
-Go to the BOMA, (market/town center) and buy produce and maybe meet with my forestry counterpart or with someone at one of the schools.
-Or stay home and read or try to converse with other village members or plant things in my very small garden inside my fence. Where back home in the states we have a fence to keep the goats pended in, in Zambia we have a fence to keep the goats out.
My village has to be in one of the most beautiful areas in all of Zambia (See Photo below). Small mountains jut almost vertically up out of no where made out of sandstone and granite, obviously left over from the ice age. My fenced in yard is filled with flowers and fruit tree saplings and I have started some cucumber, pepper and tomato seedlings to add to the mix. The weather has finally gotten colder and probably gets down to at least 50°F during the night and then heats up to 75 by mid afternoon. Lately it has also been really windy. I’m crossing my fingers that I can finally get internet on my cell phone which would mean that I could post a lot more.

A view from my front porch

My host atate in front of my kanyunba (house)

Well, I wasn’t posted on Tuesday after all, as I didn’t feel good Monday and have been was simodzi modzi on Tuesday and Wednesday. Now I’m probably getting posted on Friday, I’ve gotten almost everything I need save for an ax, a bunch of twine, 2 more small jerry cans and my phone with internet on it which I’m so pissed it doesn’t work. I have no idea what I will be doing for the next couple weeks but it will probably involve a lot of settling in and maybe getting some seeds started which reminds me that I need to collect a bunch of cans and bottles to use as pots. Alright, that’s all for now but I will probably be back within Internet usage in two to three weeks as I guess I need to get my visa renewed. That is, of course if I still can’t get internet to work on my phone… gerr shouldn’t have waited and bought it there. Why don’t you call on Saturday

Blog 2008 04 27
Well, trainings done (thank goodness, I hardly had time to think). Just have a couple more days of chaos getting the stuff I need (the list is endless) and then I’m going to be posted. During training, what I did in my “free time” was spending it studying chinyanja. Tech was for the most part pretty good although, though called “tech,” it wasn’t technical enough for my liking, but I like to get into the details more then some. The last week has been a whirlwind. Tuesday was the eventful day that we would all be tested on our language. I somehow managed to memorize enough chinyanja to pass. The tech test was a breeze, it just started too late so that it was dark before I had finished. I passed everything though. Wednesday was “Cross Cultural Day” in which we invited some of our host family members to come and hear some presentations done by soon to be PCV’s in the various Bantu dialects spoken where the PCV’s were going to be posted. After the speeches were done, we all ate a Semi-American meal (Soya Tacos and burgers and dogs) which the volunteers had prepared. It was good, especially because I had been eating bread for a lot of my breakfasts and nshima with lapu (rape) or chiŵaŵa (I think I have the spelling correct, think of the small dog and you basically have the pronunciation right – it’s pumpkin leaves) relish for just about every other meal I had with my family. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t bad, just I was used to a more diversified diet.
Anyway, getting back to the last week, on Thursday we put all of our stuff on the bus and drove to the Lusaka main office for admin sessions the majority of the day. Then we moved to a resort/campsite/cattery/bar place for this night and the next, I guess just to relax a bit after training was over.
Friday was our swearing in ceremony in which we all dressed up, some in traditional garb, others with ties/skirts. The ceremony was somewhat formal; the guest speaker was the minister of Tourism, Forestry and Environment which is the LIFE programs department. After the ceremony was over and we had all been sworn in and eaten lunch, I got a driver/admin person to drive me to a solar panel store to buy a deep cycle battery. As it turned out, the address I had been given was the same place I had been before, although having seen the battery I eventually got at action at a wildlife sanctuary we had gone to, I was more willing to get it. This didn’t stop the ordeal from taking 3+ hours of trying to test my various devices on the battery (which is an un-sealed lead acid battery)
Then Saturday, with our Landover’s almost twice their normal height what with all the luggage plus everyone’s bikes stuffed onto them, we set out on the long ride (8-10 hours, depending on whether you get stuck behind a smelly 18 wheeler going 20km an hour) to Chipata.
Today we went to Shopright, the grocery store and one of the only stores open on Sunday save for a few vegetable stands, and bought enough food to last at least a month. The Provincial House is almost just like a college dorm, save for the daily power outages and with them, no running water. It’s a homely place with great people and I wish we would be able to stay a few more days just to relax before the eventful day we get posted (probably Tuesday). Tomorrow I need to buy an insurmountable about of things because I am moving into a bare house. Alright, hopefully I also get internet working on my cell phone so that I can post more regularly.

-Tidzionana (We’ll be seeing each other [again, I think I have the spelling correct, chinyanja is a very vocal language so you don’t see things written a lot])

Muli Bonji?
Learning Chinyanja is hard but tech is going great. More culture shock than I thought I would have, mostly because I don’t know the language and, of course, because there is no electricity, internet and my inverter for my solar panel got fried. Technical devices have been failing me left and right.

2008-02-21

Going to Zambia tomorrow, probably won’t have internet access for a while…. The momentous occasion looms close! The last two days have been similar to most “training” programs and haven’t really been the meat of leaning about Zambia. That should begin when I get off the plain very early Saturday having spent close to a day (15.5 hours or so to South Africa, 3 hour layover and then 2 hours to Lusaka) traveling. Got my Yellow Fever shot and took my first malaria medication, fortunately I’m taking the daily medication that doesn’t cause sleepiness, nightmares (and daymares) and other even more serous side affects. Only thing I need to do is always put on sunscreen and I’ll be fine. I think I’ll get some sleep…