Crazy, it’s a new year! I spent New Year’s Eve in my current home, a small town in the North-West corner of Zambia called Mwinilunga. My last entry was about half-way through pre-departure training in Toronto, about 6 weeks ago, so there’s a lot of catching up I need to do in this entry. Let’s split things up like this: 1) Pre-Departure Training Final Thoughts, 2) Arriving in Zambia and In-Country Training, 3) My Team, 4) Initial Impressions from My Current Placement, and 5) Observations (I plan on listing major observations regularly, some of which I will revisit throughout my blog entries).
1) Pre-Departure Training Final Thoughts
Pre-departure training ended very much as it started, fairly intensely and with a high degree of partying and having fun. It really was a great month, and I really had a great crew to spend it with. Lots of funny stories actually, but you’d have to ask me about those… Near the end of pre-dep training I also had the pleasure of having a root canal. Getting your nerves scraped out of your roots isn’t the most fun thing in the world, but on the plus side, I can eat on the right side of my mouth again!
After having been able to spend some time out here, and even a little bit in the field, I’ve come to realize that what was learned in pre-departure training was actually invaluable. There were many resources and different ways of thinking that were presented to us that I have been and will certainly use moving forward. Therefore, great job to Robin (our facilitator) and everyone else that developed the training, it was really good.
On our last day we all pretty much rushed to get packed and haul-ass to the airport. I think all of us left a lot later than anticipated, but luckily we all made our flights. I took a cab with Dan Beck (volunteer in Malawi). We had a final big mac meal in toronto and then a final rickards red at the airport, and off we went!
2) Arriving in Zambia and In-Country Training
I got to Zambia after passing through London and Joburg. It was nice to pass through London, I had about 6 hours there and had the opportunity to spend some time with my good friends Milly and Hannah.
The Lusaka international airport is TINY! There’re a fairly small building behind a fairly small airstrip, with only handful of airplanes in sight. There are no terminals; you just get off the plane via stairs and walk into the airport. There you wait in line for hours and then pay a gentleman 50 US dollars to give you a travel VISA. The immigration guy started hassling me at first, but as soon as I mentioned I was staying with one of my team-mates, who is female, a broad smile came to his face and he started laughing. He said, “Oooooh, it is your girrrlfriend???”…. he seemed happy so I just went with along with it… yeah, she’s my girlfriend, was my untruthful response. Satisfied that I was not actually a terrorist anymore, he let me pass through, still with the big grin on his face. I’ve come to realize that the best way to get by in Zambia is to be jovial, have a happy friendly demeanor, and just make jokes. Seems to be the universal pass-card around here.
Thulasy and Rob greeted me at the airport, I took out 1 MILLION kwacha from the ATM (now being a millionaire for the first time ever), and we headed into town.
Lusaka is a fairly small city, though it’s got a decent bustle. It’s got the typical setup of any other developing city; an open market, dusty roads, street vendors and street urchins trying to rip-off the foreigners, and of course, coca-cola everywhere in sight. In Lusaka, I stayed with Thulasy and Ka-Hay at their place in a middle-class neighbourhood in the city. It’s pretty decent, the only downside is the roads in the area are unpaved and really coming apart, and when it rains they become super muddy, and subsequently so do your shoes. They live with a young Zambian couple and their young baby.
So I began my in-country training, which comprised of a scavenger hunt in the market, a village stay, and job shadowing of another volunteer. And due to timing I also took part in a team meeting and got to meet the team members that are outside of Zambia.
The village stay was definitely the highlight. I stayed with one of Thulasy’s friends, a farmer outside of the town of Kalomo. I spent about 4 days with him. It was really refreshing living in the village (if you are wondering, this means no electricity, no running water… thatched roof huts, chickens and goats etc… like you see on TV). People in these communities are incredibly humble and welcoming and take joy in the simple things. It was really beautiful to be reminded of those virtues. Despite all this, these people are poor, and they do want better for themselves and their families. Part of the value of Engineers Without Borders is that we do care about villager’s needs and realities and try to translate those into bigger picture project-designs and NGO management.
Although I loved staying in the village, I was bogged down by the never-ending supply of nshima (the local staple, which is a ball of mashed corn eaten with almost every meal). Nshima is basically a dense blob of carbs, and my body wasn’t used to being generously forced to eat about 6 balls a day, so digestion wasn’t exactly happening. Add to that my unfriendly reaction to the latrine (a hole in the ground that is visited by huge insects come dark). These things dampened my appreciation for the village a little bit, but at the same time, the experience broke me in… I now actually enjoy eating nshima and have no gripes about shitting into a small open hole in a village.
In-country training was pretty intense, because things happened one after the other with no break in between. I was pretty damn tired by the end and glad that it was over. Despite that, it was valuable and was a good way to break me into Zambia and village life. Thanks to Thulasy for taking care of me when I got into Zambia and organizing my training activities.
3) My Team
My team is the AVC (Agriculture Value Chain) team. Basically, we’re the best and brightest of any of the other EWB sector team… no really, it’s true ;-). I kind of look at what we do as a cross between the US Peace Core and Management Consulting, within the context of the agriculture sector. One of the values that we hold most dear is our experience in the field, living and working with farmers and the generally poor. We have 2 placements, and the first (which is the one I’m on now), is in the field and is meant to give you this field-level experience, which lasts for 3 months. Then you go off to work at a big NGO and work with their management to ensure that farmer-level needs and realities are included in the way big projects are run. Believe it or not, the very people that most projects are meant to help generally see the least benefits… I’ll have much more to say about this at a later time.
So anyways, the team is awesome. Lots of great, well rounded people. Not only is everyone super bright and ambitious, but everyone’s got the balls and street-smarts to work their way around in the capital city of a developing country, and everyone’s got the humility to live a simple existence as a volunteer making only a modest stipend, despite our big degrees and abilities. It’s a pretty wicked combination of traits in a team, so I feel quite privileged to be amongst them.
4) Initial Impressions from my Current Placement
I’m currently placed with a local company that manufactures organic honey. The company is called Forest Fruits. You can check out the product at zambezigold.com. The company is run by a gentleman named Dan Ball who is actually Canadian but grew up here in Zambia. Forest Fruits is a one-of-a-kind type of company here in Zambia because it not only has a culture of openness among employees, but it also is able to work extremely well with small-scale famers to procure honey. So what does this mean?
Firstly, due to the culture here, and in fact, in many developing countries, there is classism. This means that you don’t speak back to a class higher than you. You don’t complain, or contribute. You simply do what you’re told. Anyone that knows corporate culture in the west knows that the emerging and proven way of leadership is to give ownership to all of your employees and cultivate an atmosphere of openness and feedback. This ensures that your employees care and work hard, and also contribute new ideas that ultimately improve your business. Forest Fruits tries to create this atmosphere and does a pretty good job of it, especially with their managers and more senior staff.
In terms of small-scale farmers, Forest Fruits has worked hard to organize small-scale farmers in the regions and develop systems of reliably procuring honey from them every season. This has taken years to get right, and it’s one of the reasons that I’m here. Being able to use private sector to provide valuable income to farmers in this way is a vital part of development, and I’m here to learn why Forest Fruits does it so well.
So, my first two weeks with Forest Fruits were in Lusaka. The guys that I worked with there are really amazing. Very good guys and hard workers. Though I was there for 2 weeks, my real work was up here in the Mwinilunga plant, where I am now. I got here only a few days ago and am still settling in. I’m staying with one of the managers, Chiko, and his family. Again, the guys here are great and I’m looking forward to my 3 months. I’ll have a lot more detail about my time and work here in the next posting, once I’ve had time to settle in and get working. But I will say that Mwinilunga is extremely beautiful and the people I’m working with are great. More to come on the next posting…
5) Observations
As I spend time here abroad, there a number of different observations that I’m making, some of which I feel deserve some attention and contemplation. I’ll make it a point to post these on each blog entry so I can share, and take your comments if you have any.
Observation 1: This relates back to what I was mentioning in number 4 above, about classism. I really have noticed that common workers here fall into a lower class, where they feel and are perceived to be inferior to the higher classes. This is something I’ve noticed in just about all developing countries I’ve visited, and it’s largely got to do with your education and wealth. So it’s nothing new here. It’s an important observation though, because I want to try and see if there’s any way to successfully break people out of this class bubble so that they feel comfortable speaking up to their superiors. This is extremely important. In particular, when NGOs run projects, their field staff often fall into this lower classism and don’t give open and honest feedback up to their managers, causing projects to fail. How do you change people’s behavior, indeed, an organization’s behavior such that people feel comfortable speaking up and being honest? This is something I will explore during my time here. I’ll try different tactics and post results. If you have thoughts or ideas, please share.
Observation 2: Positive re-enforcement is crucial. Sometimes, being an engineer, we get too caught up in looking for problems. Finding problems is negative. Finding opportunities is positive. I met a woman here at Forest Fruits, Bridget, who was doing an organic certification on the honey. She also does some agric training courses with farmers. She mentioned that she learned at a recent conference that it works better to focus on what people already have and build from there, rather than start with what people don’t have, which only causes negativity and a lack of motivation. This is of course common sense and nothing new, but based on my background, I often forget about it. I will try using positive re-enforcement every time I try working any behavior changes on people.
Observation 3: It’s bloody hard to run a small business in this country. Where there is no help from government, no good internet service, shit roads, and a lack of good management, not to mention a local industry unable to meet your basic manufacturing and repair needs, running a business is a challenge. If I ever run a small business in a developing country it’s going to be as simple as possibly with the least number of dependencies. Dan and the management at Forest Fruits have to constantly monitor everything. And I mean everything. It’s a real challenge and takes a great deal of effort to make work.
Observation 4: Despite observation 3, one way TO get help running a small business in this country is from the NGOs, particularly if your business is helping the poor, as Forest Fruits is. For example, early on Forest Fruits was able to successfully utilize a USAID NGO called CLUSA (or CLUSO?), which basically organized all of the bee-keepers into groups, a vital step in working with them. Donors also have bags of money that they seem happy to throw at people, and this is a way to get a cash injection for your business… Beware though, donors also have a bad habit of throwing money the wrong way and disrupting local markets, and generally mismanaging how they want their money spent. While NGOs are a valuable resource that can be tapped into for small business, they must be used with caution.
Observation 5: There isn’t a lot of private business here, at least, big private business, global corporations and the like, but there are a TONNE of NGOs, Missionaries, etc… you see them everywhere. They have the best plots, the best offices, and the best SUVs. How much good are they doing? Who knows, supposedly not a lot, but I’ll have a better idea as time goes on. One thing is for sure, next to government, you get the feeling that NGOs run the joint, and you see them in every corner. World Vision, Oxfam, USAID, CIDA, CARE, IDE, the list goes on and on… it’s really something. If ever you felt like a country was dependent on donors, it’s here… and I’m sure it’s the same in many other developing countries around the world. Suddenly I feel like corporations aren’t such a bad thing after all.
Observation 6: Today I saw a barber shop, where barber was spelled “Ba-Ba”… as it would be pronounced here… I also watched a show on TV, instead of being called people’s choice, was called “Pipo’s Choice”… I love it.
I guess that’s it for this blog entry, and it’s enough isn’t it??? Next posting I’ll put up a lot more photos I promise. Bye for now... Here are some pics from my time with Mr. Tanston and his family during my village stay. Enjoy.
