Me, I Can Communicate.

Disclaimer: Sorry there are no pictures. It seems I have had some trouble taking them of my solar panels out in the sun. Also why the post has been so delayed.

An odd title I know for someone that hasn’t posted a blog in two months, but what can I say? I’ve been a bit busy with training, eating Pizza Hut, helping prepare for the new Aquaculture volunteers and trying to promote projects within my village. I will also say I haven’t been feeling particularly witty these days and that seriously hampers my desire to write.

I called America this past week to chat with family and was asked 1. How I am always on Facebook if I live in a rural village setting and 2. How I was calling America. This made me realize that I haven’t really told you about some of the “luxuries” I enjoy in this country and how technology is really improving the lives of rural Africans (and Volunteers).

Bad Zambian grammar aside, yes they really do start many a sentence with “Me, I…”, I have been able to stay pretty well connected with the outside world during my service. Lets start with the easiest to explain and work our way back. Peace Corps Zambia is blessed with what we call “Transit Houses”. This is an office located in my province that I am allowed to visit four days a month. Here we usually have running water, electricity and even on a good day, Internet. This is where I write most of my blogs and either schedule them to post throughout the month or just take and excessive amount of hot showers in a few days time. This is also where my laptop and nice(r) clothes live. Things I don’t really need or want to expose to my grass roofed house.

At site, things can get a bit more complicated. I have a small solar that I brought with me from America and another that was given to me from Peace Corps when I entered country. This first is a basic one from GoalZero. I use it to charge a battery pack that was a most beloved Christmas gift before I left that I use to charge my phone and even ipod and speakers. The second came with a light that I use once the sun has left me for 10-11 hours but also conveniently has a USB port and can charge most electronics. This is made by Sun King and they are a pretty affordable option for Zambians.

Thankfully (and not) I live in a Province with little rain and all the sun so I am almost never low on battery.

As far as communicating I have bought a (mostly) smart phone that has good service at my site and use that to stalk you on social media. The way phone communications work here is you pay as you go. Which means that you buy airtime or talktime in certain increments to meet your needs. You also use this talktime to buy data packages to use the internet. I buy, but don’t always use completely each month one gigabyte of data. With the current conversion rate its about $10USD a month. A pretty great deal, but you also have to realize I make about $200USD a month.

You would also be surprised that calling rates are pretty similar for international calls, costing me about 10 cents a minute to call. But again lets be honest that adds up when I am trying to save all my Kwacha for Pizza Hut when I go to the capital. So please call me while I am here, I miss you all. There is also a wonderful app called Whatsapp. This is a great way to “text” me and communicate through the cheap cheap data system. I spend a lot of my free time talking to people through this app, so just ask me for my local number if you would like to keep in contact.

 

Appropriate Technology

Since covering the fish farming work that I do, I imagine you are wondering what other things I do to occupy my time. Great thought. With an agricultural degree I find myself finding more and more projects of this nature to complete. Also, being in a rural setting there are many areas of village life that came be addressed but one issue we always face is how to make it sustainable after the volunteer has left. In these situations we like to call it appropriate technology, using resources that are locally available and making them fit our needs.

Deforestation is a huge problem in the developing world and Zambia is not exempt to it. The majority of the country uses charcoal or firewood as a fuel source and they are quite inefficient. One of the bags pictured below can last a family between 2-3 weeks and takes 2-3 trees to create. 

Maize (corn) cobs are found everywhere since it is the staple food. It is a simple process to turn these from agriculture waste into useful fuel or fertilizer. The process is pretty simple, I dug a hole in my yard, piled the dried cobs and some grass in it, lit it on fire and let it burn. Once everything has caught and burned for 5-10 minutes I threw my large pot (Shoemaker) on top to snuff the fire and trap the heat and smoke. I sealed the edges with sand and let cool for 3-4 hours. The end product is then charcoal you can cook with or turn to dust and add to your garden.

Everyone was very skeptical of me making charcoal when I told them of this plan, but now that they have seen the final product everyone stops by when they see a fire burning in the yard to learn about it.

Since we are on the topic of deforestation I have also started a tree nursery at my house. So far we have moringa, lemon and papaya growing, with hope to get a few more planted soon. It is amazing how little variety my village has and I am hoping to change that. They are most excited about the lemons because once rain season is over we will be holding a training on budding and will bud them to oranges. This is a big cash crop and the village is very excited to learn.

The last one I am currently working on it probably the one I am most excited about. In today’s climate unsure world, relying on rains is risky business. It is the first week of January and there rains are still inconsistent. This is why I have started to teach about permagardens. They are dug in a way that is designed to hold water and aerate the soil so there is a greater root system from the crops. I am still not sure how well these gardens will hold the water, so my area is very dry, but we are giving it a go and I am looking forward to some “american” crops.

I hope to keep the goats and pigs out with my chicken wire fence (not really village appropriate) and enjoy some lettuce and broccoli amount other things.

There are also a couple of other projects in the works dealing with fuel efficiency and food storage and am looking forward to when the village isn’t as busy with planting season to hold the training.

 

 

 

The Smoke that Thunders

Mosi-oa-Tunya or The Smoke that Thunders are what Victoria Falls is know as locally.

This is the first vacation in country that I planned on my own. I don’t count Malawi only because its what everyone does and we always stay at the same place. It was pretty great to have the freedom and flexibility to travel and explore at my own pace.

The trip started off great when a friend and I managed to nab a ride in the back of a pickup truck (for free) to Lusaka. Its pretty significant savings for the start of a vacation and the guys were pretty great. We made great time and even managed to squeeze in a showing of Star Wars (in 3D).

After a relaxing day of shopping and lounging by the pool a few of us loaded on an early morning bus and headed to Livingstone. This is a magical place in Zambia, where nsima is one of the most expensive things on the menu (and American style is cheaper), street kids don’t harass you too much and $12USD a night dorms are ridiculously fancy (also slightly pricey on a Peace Corps budget).

We even have time to make wishes in a fountain.

Since planning this vacation I had only one thing in mind, see the Falls and swim in Devil’s Pool.

Its the end of dry season here in Zambia and the rains have been pretty light so the great and mighty Victoria Falls are still pretty dry. This means that the famous Devil’s Pool, which is literally on the edge of the waterfall is still open. The trek to the pool starts at the top of the falls and over what will soon be a rushing torrent of water.

After about 1.2 kilometers you reach Livingstone Island. Here we changed into bathing suits and jumped in for a quick swim at the top of the falls and over to the pool.

The current isn’t too bad, but there were a couple in the group that aren’t strong swimmers. Once across, its basically a leap of faith into the current and a short swim to the edge where you are stopped by a rock ledge and have one of the most amazing views of the falls.

They even let us stretch out and reach over.

This has probably been one of my favorite vacations. If you are ever here in dry season I fully recommend this excursion. After we dried off and walked back to the park it was time to take in the views from across the gorge and see the area we had just walked.

We even had a passing storm while meandering through the park, so we took that opportunity to walk down to the bottom of the falls and get a different perspective.

While I only spent two and a half days here I wish I had done a bit more. There is a rafting trip that I hear is fantastic and there are a few safaris in the area. I do plan on coming back in July when the Falls are at the fullest and maybe plan a larger budget to do these excursions.

Overall, missed my family this Christmas but had quite a bit of fun.

 

Holiday Season

This is my Peace Corps family. Mostly everyone who resides in eastern province were gathered together for Thanksgiving. Don’t worry, we don’t always look this clean. We put on our fancy clothes just for this picture.

Honestly the holiday season has been hard this year. I have done many a thanksgiving away from my family but this will be my first Christmas with out them and only my second without my mom. Luckily I have some pretty great places to visit and friends to distract me from missing home.

We also took the time this month to celebrate Chaunkkah, having the traditional latke dinner. We even got to make them fancy and had ranch flavored yogurt sauce (thanks mom).

This is the last of the Aquaculture volunteers in Eastern Province. We are a pretty good looking family.

Christmas was a pretty uneventful day. When planning my vacation I decided to make it a travel day, spending the day on the bus from Lusaka to Livingstone. I thought multiple hours via bus would be a great distraction from missing my family. The plus side to that was that I was also landing in the the town home to Victoria Falls. If you don’t know about these Falls stay tuned as I have a hole post dedicated to my adventures there.

I think all in all, we miss our families but have each other. That’s what the season is all about.

Wait, I actually work?

Its true, some would call what I do on a daily basis work. But I guess I haven’t really shown you any of the work. I have mentioned that my program is the Rural Aquaculture Project (RAP) but I haven’t really explained what that is.  I spent three months in the capital learning everything there is to know about teaching others to become successful fish farmers and then I got my site placement and realized that not much of that was going to work. I was placed in Eastern Province which is directly located on the face of the sun. But really, we are a hot province without many water sources. One big river that runs through it, Luangwa River, that also runs dry (or very near) this time of year. The problem is that I don’t live anywhere near this river or any others in the area. So how do I fish farm you ask? Great question. We do have in abundance swamps, yes this Florida girl has once again found herself in the swamp. Only we call them dambos here. Surrounding most villages there is a dambo and there is where villagers keep their gardens. These are areas that keep some sort of water year round and they can water crops throughout the dry season ensuring that they have some food all year. This is where my farmers keep their fish ponds.

The pond on the left is a typical dambo pond(overgrown) and the right is a pond that is in my BOMA that is concreted. They have to add water from a tap almost daily since there is no natural source(also overgrown).

The main problem with this set up is that is creates a seasonal fish farming program. During the hot season, Oct-Dec, most of the ponds completely dry and the ones that don’t generally don’t have enough water to sustain a healthy fish population. Which means that in September and October we have a fish harvest.

As you can see the normal water height is over our harvesters’ heads but we are down to just a puddle. And what fish do you farm Melissa are you asking? Great question we raise Tilapia. Just not Nile Tilapia, they aren’t native to this area.

This is some of our catch from this day and if you are thinking “wow thats not a lot of fish” you are absolutely correct. My farmers are still struggling with feeding and keeping a good algae bloom in the pond so that they fish have enough food to grow bigger. We are also losing a decent number of fish to predators, mostly birds, in my area. All projects I hope to work with them on in the upcoming season.

 

Shhh…We’re Hunting Mangoes

Just kidding, the mangoes can’t run and we beat them with sticks to ensure they don’t start. But seriously, have I told you that its mango season and there are literally piles of them everywhere? No, well its happening and its fantastic. The season started with me yelling at kids who were eating the green mangoes because I was afraid they would eat them all before they had a chance to ripen. It then devolved into me eating the green ones with them because I became desperate and well, I like how sour they are.  But eventually enough time passed and they finally began to ripen. Once my kids learned I loved them they would bring me a few each day, I like to think as payment for the privilege of playing in my yard.

One day they asked if I would like to come and get mangoes with them and well, I couldn’t pass up on the offer of walking around fields with kids while they did all the hard work and I get to go home with a bag full of fruit. And so our journey began.

Early in my service I learned there is no such thing as a low hanging ripe fruit. If you want something you are either going to have to climb, throw or beat your way to it. It just so happens we did all three this day. At 5’9″ I am a bit taller than your average Zambian so I was able to jump and grab a few, but mostly we used the unripe ones that had fallen as ammo to hit the ones we thought would be ripe. When the novelty of that wore off the kids took to the trees.

My job was to collect the ones that they threw down and put them in our chitenge bag to carrying back to the village. We were gone for a few hours and I have to tell you man it was hot. So we took a few breaks, ate a few mangoes and even stumbled across another fruit that is ripe currently called Masuku. Ate a bit of that and my kids also discovered that my dog also enjoyed masuku. They thought I was kidding until she trotted over with few and sat down for a snack too.

It was a great day. I am going to be sad when the season is over, but there is always next year and soon other fruits will start to ripen, like guavas and avocados.

Nitty Gritty

I there is one thing I have learned from my hiking blog its that people want to know more about how I survive my day to day. Now I wish I could tell you what a typical day is like for me but honestly there isn’t a typical day to be had in village life. Some days I may have meetings planned all day in various villages only to have none of them happen and others not a single thing planned but am on the go and working all day. I can however give you a general outline of the basics of my life.

I use to start my day with my neighbor yelling to her son Ipod (yes that is correct) to get up and start getting ready for school. They have recently built a house in what I will call the suburbs of the village and I can no longer hear their activities. After visiting my tiny holed chimbuzi (pit latrine I call a chim) I start to boil water for breakfast and coffee. I know you are all wondering why I keep going on about my tiny holed chim and I am providing a picture to show that it takes great skill each morning just to use the bathroom.

After that I usually do the dishes from the previous day and then go and get water. The well that our clean drinking water comes from is on the other side of the village. I feel its too far for me to carry what I need so I use my handy bike to help me.

Now that its hot season and the shallow wells (read open holes in the ground) are all dry over one thousand people are drawing water from our single well. Once I join the line it takes about an hour before it is my turn and that is usually with a few women letting me skip them since I only need 40 liters. The well is about 30 meters deep and we use this to haul it up.

After that, my main chores are done and the world is my oyster. Depending on the season I may wander out to the garden areas and check on some ponds/visit my friends. I usually walk away with some fresh veg so I try to plan around when I need things. Some days I head over to the school and sit in/teach an English lesson. At least once a week I do laundry, which is just me adding soap, sort of scrubbing but mostly swishing water around like the agitator in your machine and then rinsing it out. Here is an after pic of my water buckets.

Since we seem to be going in the cleaning direction you may be also wondering to yourself how I haven’t come down with some sort of waterborne illness. Great question, Peace Corps issues us a filter when we arrive in country and all of my drinking water gets passed through that. Because I am lazy and it is insanely hard to clean out my water cans I do have some bacteria/algae growing in there which then translates to my having to clean the filters.

Here is an example of what you should not let your filters look like, but hey it makes an impressive before and after. Just look at all the dirt and grim I am not drinking!

My afternoons are either spent socializing in the village, because almost everyone is back from the gardens or fields. I usually walk around until I see a small gathering or a family preparing things like food to sell in town or shelling maize and just sit and listen to them chat.

I guess last on the list of staying clean is my shower room or bafa as we call it. Its just a grass structure with a concrete floor and no roof. Until recently I could look into my neighbor’s yard while bathing, but thankfully we finally got some new and taller grass put in. In cold season I would heat by water put it in a bucket and use a cut to pretend I have a shower head, but now that its hot season I leave my water can in the sun to heat and use that. Its been pretty great. You can just see the colander I bought when I was posting to site that I never used and decided would be be better served as a toiletry holder.

I know I answered nothing of the day to day life in the village, but now you have a glimpse of what some of my daily/weekly chores are. If there is anything you are dying to know just send a message my way and I will do my best to cover it.

Home Sweet Hut

I get it, its November and you still don’t know much about my Peace Corps service. Well, I once again I bought a new phone, one I knew would let me post pictures and support the app for my blog and am anxious to catch you up on my adventures. I thought before we get too ahead of ourselves lets start with the basics, my house.

This is my hut, it is made out of bricks molded from local soil and covered with a grass thatched roof. It doesn’t look like brick now because I had them cement the wall in order to have a chalkboard. It still looks too plain to me and will hopefully be inspired soon to paint.

These two structures are my bathing shelter (left) and my toilet (right). Let’s not all jump for joy on the toilet because it really is a pit latrine and the person who cut the hole has a sick sense of humor. 

This is my kitchen\cooking shelter and dish drying rack. Want to know a secret? I don’t actually cook in there and the drying rack is currently a tree nursery.

It is a nice place to sit in the afternoons when my front porch is being roasted by the sun.

Now you are asking yourselves, what about the inside? It’s been a constant work in progress since I moved in but I think I am getting close to the set up I like.

My utility corner. Where I keep my tools and bike accessories and bag of trash. (Sorry mom, I didn’t clean before snapping these pics)

My true kitchen area. Spices on the shelves, pots on the wall, food in the buckets and dirty dishes under my tippy tap.

Living room area. Complete with shredded tire graveyard and semi-comfy chair.

My everything corner, this bookshelf holds pretty much everything I own.

Closet space and buckets for bathing/laundry.

My bed. Complete with malaria preventing bug net (one day I might even be better about tucking it in.

That’s pretty much everything. I hope to catch you all up on some of my projects soon and more about life in the village.

Zambia!

Its been so long its hard to know where to start with my blog. I know many of you have been following me on Facebook but I always feel limited in telling my story with a quick status update.

For a general recap on my service, I arrived in country in early February, went through three months of training learning the language of Nyanja and all about rural fish farming.

Once I passed my language proficiency interview and learned a decent amount about raising fish, my belongings and I were packed up and shipped off to Eastern Province and my new home of Mnendwe Village of Sinda District.

In the next few blog posts I hope to tell you all about my day to day life in the village, explain more about my project focus and all about the work I am doing.

Finally blogging!

I finally found a platform for my blog to work. I had to switch providers but it should still be the same blog name. After all I really never plan to stop the vacation from adulthood. I am going to use this as a test post to see if it is working and plan a full update tomorrow. Thanks for following along on this next adventure.

On March 14, 2015 By mljabatLeave a comment