Well, my days in Mwinilunga are quickly drawing to an end. I have only about a week left, after which i'll be taking a 2 weeks holiday in south africa to visit my huge family there. So, being that it's the few days, i've written up what i won't miss, and what i will miss, about mwinilunga. Also a couple other things about 1) The meaning of "suffering" and 2) Mining in Zambia. Enjoy!
9 THINGS THAT I WON’T MISS ABOUT MWINILUNGA
1) The dogs. People keep dogs here, but for some reason their dogs are always angry and vicious. Likely because they mistreat them and possibly don’t feed them enough. In general I have to carry stones or a stick on the 2km walk home because of the dogs along the way that often bark at me and run up to me. This morning was bad. I was walking to work and there were about 5 of them that just ran up in front of me and started barking angrily. Luckily there was a big stick right there that I picked up before they got there, so I slowly backed away while facing them and slamming the stick on the ground. They kept slowly advancing towards me and barking though until luckily someone else came up behind me and then they ran away. Good thing I knew enough not to turn and run otherwise they would have just chased me down. Funny enough, I wasn’t really scared, I was just really really pissed off that this was happening. As I passed one of the houses where I know some of the dogs stay, I started yelling at the woman about the dogs, and I asked her if they were her dogs. She guiltily said “no” even though I’ve seen some of them eating and staying at that house. Today I’m going to go and talk to the District Commissioner. This problem is getting worse and worse and someone’s going to get hurt soon. This is something I will definitely NOT miss about Mwinilunga living. It’s a good thing EWB pays for rabies vaccinations… oh wait, they don’t.
2) Not having electricity or water at home, and sometimes not even at work… enough said.
3) My “shifting” bed frame. The boards aren’t stable or fixed down so sometimes some of them will move around and fall to the ground under me.
4) Being stared at (and laughed at) on a regular basis, and as a walk by, being called mzungu (white man), chindeli (also white man), and even Chinese (because there’s a bunch of Chinese here from a mining company and since people have virtually no exposure to foreigners, many of them associate me by default with the Chinese because I’m different).
5) Being solicited for booze.
6) Lack of spices and any kind of flavoring in food, other than salt.
7) Lack of chocolate… and real coffee.
8) Daily pounding rain and muddy roads (meaning no going outside to play and muddy shoes and pants). Though fortunately the rainy season just ended, so I can enjoy dry weather for the remainder of my time here.
9) Having to use this crappy expensive GPRS modem for internet.
14 THINGS THAT I WILL MISS ABOUT MWINILUNGA
1) The stars. Since I’ve always lived in cities, I’ve rarely been able to enjoy an open sky full of bright stars.
2) Full moon nights. When the sky is clear and the moon is big, there is plenty of light shining down. It’s like an eerie pale twilight ambience that’s all around you.
3) Lighting. During the rainy season you see lightning almost every night, usually in the distance all around you. Sometimes it’s really close though, right on top of you, and you can just enjoy the show.
4) The lush forest. There’s crooked, “Africa-style” trees everywhere, shrubbery, tall grass, giant ant-hills… it sorta reminds of the forest in Avatar. Amazingly beautiful. And fruits a lot of the time all over the place growing on the trees; mangos, guavas, figs.
5) Open sky with big fluffy clouds. The sky seems to go on forever here. When it’s clear it’s a beautiful blue color and the clouds are really big and fluffy. Combine this sky with the forest environment, and a misty morning, and you have something truly gorgeous.
6) Helpful, generous people. People are truly genuine, gracious, and helpful. I think it’s the first time in my life I’ve lived in a place where a total stranger can say hello with a truly genuine smile. Plus, people will always watch out for you. Even though I’m lonely here, I’m comforted by the fact that if I ever need anything all I have to do is go to the nearest person (whether I know them or not) and they’ll help me any way they can.
7) The way people greet each other. When people greet each other, they bend one knee to lower themselves a bit, and also lower their head as a sign of respect. They do this for people of equal stature or for those that are more senior. It’s nice.
8) Happy children. The children here are really happy a lot of the time, despite what little they have compared to Canadian children. This morning, I saw a child playing with a kite crafted out of string, sticks, and old plastic bags. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Canadian kid as happy playing with toys as this kid was with his kite. You also see lots of kids playing with simple toy trucks made from local wood, and of course, the kids rolling the wheel along the road with a stick, running behind it. And happy .
9) Pineapples and mangos. The pineapples here are famous. They are incredibly sweet and juicy… and the mangos are amazing too. Too bad the season is over, but I did enjoy them while they were around.
10) T-bone bries at Chris’ house with pickled chilies and garlic.
11) Laughter. People here are really quick to laugh. In Canada, conversation often tends to be intellectual; even humor has to be witty somehow. But here, people get together to laugh, and they laugh easily and often.
12) Not having to care about what I look like. Since it’s a small, ghetto town, I can wear whatever I want, be disheveled, whatever. It’s no biggie!
13) No worries. I don’t really have anything to worry about. The town is small, there are not many people, there’s nothing to do, and you don’t need a lot of money. Basically there’s nothing here that can stress you out, so things are super chill all the time.
14) Space to think. Since there’s nothing to do here and it’s really peaceful, I’ve been able to just think a lot and come up with a lot of ideas and thoughts. In the city often you are so distracted by other things that you don’t just give your mind a chance to do its thing. It’s amazing what it’s capable of, given the chance.
WE ARE SUFFERING
I went out to the bush last week, to an area within the Mwinilunga District called Salujinga. I stayed in the village with one of the Forest Fruits agents that lives there.
One thing I noticed when I was there was that people often say to me, “we are suffering…”. And it made me realize that people have said the same thing to me in other villages I’ve stayed in.
But really, I had to ask myself, “are you really suffering”? These people have food, enough trees to make fire and cook, and mud structures with roofs to sleep under, and of course, family all around. I asked the agent, John, if he and his family ever go hungry, or if they always have enough food. He said he always has enough. So then, what is suffering, right? Are you suffering because you don’t have TVs and electricity, or because you are starving and sleeping under the open sky? Okay okay, fair enough, I’m judging a little bit. Who am I to say that these people are not suffering? But what is suffering really? If you have everything you need in life, are you really suffering? Granted, there are many things that would greatly improve the quality of life in the village, LIKE electricity, television, easier transport to town and school, and more means of making money than a few agricultural activities. Also, as an amendment that i'm making to this entry, Mark also informed me of a very important point about malnutrition, whereby even though people have enough to eat, they don't necessarily get enough protein and vitamins which causes physical and mental development problems, which is a further roadblock to getting ahead in life. This isn't always an obvious thing visually. It's an important thing to keep in mind though. Back to "suffering" though...
I think the problem is that people equate “suffering” to not having things that others have. It’s the same thing everywhere, people always want what they don’t have, and they don’t appreciate what they do have. For me, when I’m in the village, I appreciate the simplicity of life people lead, the strong community ties, the love for children… I appreciate these things because they are not really present in Canada. In a way, we suffer spiritually. But when the villagers look back at me, they see a fancy backpack from the west, a nice digital camera, clothes that aren’t torn, and a motorcycle, and they think that they suffer for not having these things.
So again, it comes back to that question, what am I doing here if people are doing more or less alright? I think it comes back to the point I made in another entry, that for me, poverty here isn’t so much about having the essentials for basic survival, but about having access to opportunities to get out of the village if you want to, getting a good education if you want to, and getting a job that you want, without succumbing to the vices of alcohol and unsafe sex. The thing is, when I look at the kids in the village, and I try to imagine how they could possibly get a good education, a university degree, and a good job, well it’s really difficult. I can’t even fathom how they can do it, without A LOT of help from someone outside. And malnutrition is certainly an opportunity-blocking factor as well. So for me, I think this is why I’m here and where I need to try and make an impact: opportunity.
So, what I’ve written here is based on my very brief experiences in the field, and is not representative of all of Zambia, let alone all of Mwinilunga. Though when I asked Evans about this, he said that he too, has never seen real hunger in the village. Although when I asked Simeon, he said that he has seen hunger when out in the field (he used to go out often prospecting when he worked for the mining companies). He said that he’s seen really poor villages with children eating maybe only a meal a day, if that. Chris though, says also that there isn’t really hunger in the villages, and that when you do see hunger, it’s a result of laziness more than anything else. He says that there is always the ability to grow food, so if people are going hungry, it’s likely because they’ve made a choice not to grow food, but that nonetheless, variety of food and malnutrition is a big problem. Anyways, just to make this clear, what I’m writing is only based on my brief stints in the village and from what I’ve heard from others, and is certainly not representative of all cases. Still, I think there’s an important point to be made about what it really means to “suffer”.
IS MINING BAD?
Yeah, I don’t know much about this topic, and haven’t done much research. I can only speak about what I’ve heard and seen, but it’s an interesting topic, so I’ll give it a go.
We hear a lot of bad things about mining, and let’s remember that Canada has a major mining footprint around the globe. Most of our pension/mutual funds invest in Canadian mining companies. Anyways, that’s another point. Yes, we hear a lot of bad things about mining companies, and we see lots of documentaries slamming them. We see them portrayed as big corporations that care only about profits, and that will happily destroy the natural environment and people’s health to get what they need. And in return, they give little, if anything to locals who work for them and don’t do enough for the local communities. I’m not disputing this, I’m sure it’s true in many cases.
BUT, on the flip side, mines DO create jobs, they do raise income levels substantially, they do spur development. Yes, they are not a permanent solution to income-generation, but hey, they’re better than nothing I say. I was speaking with a missionary a couple weeks ago, and he was happy to slam the mining companies, saying that they make Zambians work and then they don’t even bother to pay them, and that they cause deforestation, etc, etc. To the contrary though, all I have to do is think about Simeon (my old roommate).
Simeon worked for one of the big mines in the country for a couple years, made good money, and managed to start a few successful businesses as a result. He managed to save money and will be heading back to school in a few months to get an advanced degree. And generally speaking, I’ve seen and heard of many examples of people getting ahead because of the income they get by working in the mines. In a land of EXTREMELY little opportunities, I say we have to look at lesser evils. Yes, mines are not ideal, but they are, in my opinion, a lesser evil than, well, having nothing. Anything that can get people a step up on the ladder of development is good, in my opinion. And if you have a problem with mines and you are going to criticize them, then you sure as hell better provide an alternative for people who are just looking for honest work and a way to get ahead in life, before you start complaining.
THAT'S ALL FOLKS
That's it for now! As usual, if you do have comments, please send them to sarf2k@gmail.com.
I don't really check facebook these days, nor do i visit this blog site often, so email is best. Thanks!
Monday, May 3, 2010
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
March Blog Entry
It seems like the intervals between my blog entries are getting longer and longer. Probably the slowness of a slow town is starting to catch up to me. Suffice it to say, I do have plenty to write about, as usual. So let’s just get right into it.
WHERE AM I AND WHERE HAVE I BEEN?
Looking back at my past blog entry, I realize that I’ve gone through some recognizable phases of adaptation already in the few months that I’ve been living in the small isolated town of Mwinilunga.
The first 3-4 weeks were basically shock. Imagine, my first time living in anything smaller than a city, let alone a tiny isolated rural town in Africa. During that period I kept asking myself, what am I doing here? Why am I here? I could be back home living a comfortable life with my friends and family; a life that I know and that is mine. I felt like I was floating; a foreign character who doesn’t belong to the strange setting that makes up the temporary background of his life. Being the only foreigner in town and being stared at regularly doesn’t help either.
After that initial shock period, I really started to warm up to the place, and I started to recognize certain changes in me that I embraced. The idea of living one’s values is special, and it’s hard to do in the west, unless you value money and material possession above all else. If you value community, generosity, laughter, and simplicity, then small-town Zambia is the place to be. I was never alone, and everybody wanted to be my friend. Granted, no one could really relate to me or my situation, but still, I had become a part of a community. I had made friends, I could joke around with people and share stories. At work, I got along well with the guys, and after work, I could hang out with Joshua and Simeon, my roommates, and spend some time with the young boys living at home. Mostly, I embraced the simplicity of my life and for the first time in a long time, I didn’t feel like a selfish prick. I thought about others regularly. I wanted to stay in Mwinilunga for a long time, and continue to live the values that I wanted to live.
As peachy as the last paragraph sounds, it wasn’t to last. At this point, to be frank, the values that I live have become a part of my day to day. I still appreciate them, but they don’t have that shiny special veneer they did a month ago. And glaring cracks in the community have permeated into my own life. How do you help people that won’t help themselves? And if I’m not helping anybody, then why am I here?
My roommate Joshua is probably the perfect embodiment of what I’m talking about. He’s an amazing individual, and I believe that he truly loves me as a brother. He would do anything for me, and I can’t say that for many people in this world, let alone a poor Zambian guy who I’ve known for 2 months. But Joshua is ruining his life before he’s even given it a chance. I sadly came to the realization a few weeks ago that Joshua is an alcoholic. He’s an alcoholic with no money to buy alcohol, but with plenty of friends to buy it for him, including me at one point. Joshua has a few dependants he says, and his parents are also piss-poor, so they could really use his help. He has a rare opportunity that many people here don’t get. Joshua was fortunate enough to be taken in by a mission when he was younger where he was looked after and put through high school. Then a Dutch couple who were once visiting the mission sponsored his college certificate as an automotive technician. Now Joshua is working at the same place I’m working, Forest Fruits. Everyone likes him, including me. And Forest Fruits is the type of company where if you show initiative and work hard, there are opportunities to better yourself through loans and school sponsorship. But Joshua doesn’t take advantage of any of this. I told him I would help him budget the little money he makes so that he could try and save something and try to start some small business ventures to get ahead. He makes about $100/month. I don’t even know how you budget that in a place that’s frankly, expensive. Anyways, when Joshua got paid a few days ago, the first thing he did was go straight to the bar. The next day he went straight to the bar. I used to give Joshua money sometimes, but when I realized about his habit, I stopped.
So what now? I have a month left in Mwinilunga. All I can do is try and sit down with Joshua and try and make him realize he’s pissing away his life when he has so much more than most people will ever have, and hope for the best. I will do what I can, but at the end of the day, I feel that until he realizes this for himself, nothing will change. And it’s not just Joshua. The kids in my house too. They are the dependants of Simeon, my other roommate. There’s 3 boys in the house, not that young, the youngest is 16 or 17. Simeon is supposed to look after them, and he does when he’s around, by buying food. But he’s often not around, he might go for a week or two stretch away from Mwinilunga for work. When that was happening I ended up buying food for all of us, since Joshua never has money. I was more or less okay with this for a while, until last week when I realized the boys had stolen some things from my room and gone through my stuff. It was nothing big, but enough to annoy the hell out of me. I was pissed off. I had done a few things for them to make life at home more comfortable and this is how they repay me? Well, anger was my initial reaction, but really, it’s not anger that I feel as much as sadness and disappointment, not just in the people I live with, but in the whole town. I see so many young people piss away their lives with alcohol and sex and stupid behavior. Not too long ago, I saw a person passed out by the roadside, in front of a bus. Because there’s no streetlights, you couldn’t have even noticed him unless you stumbled into him. Let me remind you he was in front of a bus. The next week I saw the same thing, but a different person. People do ask me for things in town sometimes, since I’m foreign and they think I have money. But what they ask for isn’t knowledge, or school sponsorship, or food for their family. It’s always alcohol. What a waste.
So that’s where I’m at now. Sounds bad doesn’t it? I’m frustrated with this place. I’m lonely. No one understands me. If I tried to explain certain things to anyone in this town, they’d look at me perplexed. It’s not their fault, it’s just the way it is. But despite all of the flaws of this place, the lesson has come through loud and clear. Poverty is not really what you see on TV, of skeleton-framed African children with flies buzzing around them. Poverty is what I see in this town. It’s alcoholism, ignorance, unprotected sex, and an inability to see past today. As Chiko said to me once, “poverty is not about what’s in your wallet, it’s about what’s in your mind”.
There’s a guy that lives in the small servant quarters behind my house. He lives there with his wife, and his name is Crispin. He’s also Chris’ house-maid. Crispin recently impregnated a woman (other than his wife). He just told his wife about it 2 days ago. The same day she found out she drank sulfuric acid. Luckily it wasn’t terribly potent, and she’ll survive. Apparently this kind of thing happens here all the time. Crispin says that once she’s out of the hospital he’s going to divorce her. Not sure if it’s true or not, but still a pretty dark thing to say.
So things aren’t great right now, but I know this feeling is also part of the journey, and it may be the most important part. And I know that it will pass. And I do take solace in looking at some of the guys in the factory like Chiko, Evans, and Chris, who have worked hard, and have gotten ahead. I know it’s possible, but you really do have to be smart, work your ass off, and have some luck. If this were Canada, you’d just have to work your ass off.
I’ve got about 5.5 weeks left in Mwinilunga and then I’m off to Lusaka, where my life will change dramatically. I’m happy to be soaking up not just the good, but also the bad.
WHAT IS DEVELOPMENT?
This is a question I’ve been grappling with for some time now. I often ask myself what it means to be developed. Does it mean to have a TV, and frozen food, and a big house, and a flush toilet? Does it mean to have healthcare, education, running water, and security? Or does it mean having a community that will take care of you and a deep sense of spirituality? Does it mean being able to depend on others, but also having others depend on you, for your whole life?
I have a theory. If you have a scale of development, where “developed” was in the middle, and Zambia (and other such countries) were on one side, the “under-developed” side, then where would Canada be, and other western countries for that matter? Would it be right in the middle of the scale, on “developed”? Or would it be on the other end of the scale, opposite of where Zambia is? And if it’s sitting on the other end of the scale, then what would it be called? Certainly not “developed” right? Maybe “over-developed”…? Think about that. What does that mean to you?
What makes a country “developed” anyways? In my opinion, it’s when everyone has the basics. Healthcare, education, clean water, security, equal rights, etc. are the basics. These are things that many developing countries are striving for, at least for their poor. But these are all fairly tangible, material things. What about the less tangible, but in my opinion, equally important? Community, spirituality, generosity, humility? Should a developed country not also possess these moral social values? Or are the materialistic values sufficient? If you see where I’m going with this, you’ll see that what I’m saying is that Canada is not developed at all. Zambia is not developed either, but for different reasons. We should all strive for that middle-place where there is balance, but Canada has missed the mark. I won’t say anything more about this, I’d rather you think about it for yourself.
But what does this mean in Africa? Why am I here? Am I here so that one day people can have fridges, and TVs, and McDonalds? Hell no. One thing that’s become clear to me is that all I want here is for people to get the basics. Once they have that, the rest will take care of itself, and I will hope hardily that having the basics will not on its own bring out the materialism that morally devalues our own western cultures. If having the basics means one day idolizing television and money, then I’d rather leave Zambia now, figuring that Zambians without basics to be far better off than the Canadians who have it all. When I’m with people here, when I’m in the village, I feel a richness that is not known to most “developed” nations, and for these people to lose that would be a horrific loss. Maybe it’s better to just leave Zambians as Zambians and go back home?
EDUCATION
The education system here is horrific. I’ve come to the conclusion that education is pivotally important in the development of a people, and spending time with youth here scares me for the future of this country. Apparently a while back, education in Zambia was top-notch, but then in the late 80’s or so, things changed for the worse. I’ve heard different explanations for this. One person blamed donors who had too much money to spend and decided to introduce too many new programs to the Zambian curriculum in a short period of time. I’ve also heard that it was the structural adjustment programs of the IMF. I’m not sure exactly, but one thing I know is that the education system here is a big fat joke. When I talk to older generations, I see that they are articulate, knowledgeable, and thoughtful. When I speak to the younger generation though, well, put it this way, I can barely speak with them because their English is so bad. No, Zambia isn’t England, but it was an English colony, and as such I’d expect people to be able to speak English, especially since it’s an incredibly useful language to know in this world. And especially because the older generations speak it effortlessly, and actually, even better than me. It’s sad. So what should be done?
NGOs
Sorry, I have more bad news. One thing that I’ve learned from Engineers Without Borders, and from newer development books, and from what I’ve seen on the ground, is that many NGOs don’t have a clue. This has become apparent. Believe it or not, most people working in NGO offices have never stayed in a village. So how do you help people that you know nothing about? Strike 1. Then, you realize that many NGOs don’t work for the poor; they work to satisfy the donors that give them money, by writing flowery reports that make them happy, and make it seem like all is well on the ground, even when it’s not. Strike 2. To top it all off, it seems like NGOs rule this land. You land in Lusaka, and instead of seeing corporate offices and advertisements, you see NGO offices and advertisements in their place. Let’s put a few things in order; NGO’s pay decent, and there aren’t a whole lot of jobs in Zambia. NGO’s want good people. So guess what? NGO’s get good people; good Zambian people who would otherwise be working in the private sector or in entrepreneurship to further the economy. But instead they’re stuck in an NGO trap where they lead lives of relative comfort but accomplish virtually nothing for their country, while the private sector can’t get good people because they’re all being poached by the NGOs. Strike 3.
Right, I know it’s not all that bad. Although 60 years of development work and trillions of dollars of aid have accomplished virtually nothing, and actually, probably set things further backwards than forwards, there have been some good interventions and good work done. I know that, but let me have my rant.
Coming from a results-driven, high performance consulting firm with a succeed or be fired culture, it’s hard for me to accept that in an industry where human lives are the biggest stake, that a culture of ignorance, blunder, and outright stupidity have been allowed to thrive for so long. And frankly, it doesn’t make the private sector look too bad. Sometimes I wish we could just set all of the Accenture consultants on the big project of development; give them their salaries, their bonuses, and the same results-driven culture that they have now, and make sure they know that their client is the poor, NOT the donor. I’d suspect you’d see some results.
Yes, there are plenty of concrete examples of NGO’s screwing up. PLENTY, but you don’t hear about this much in the west.
SOLAR ENERGY IN MWINILUNGA
In the isolated rural town of Mwinilunga, many things are hard to come by, including food with taste, but that’s a different story. When you do find stuff, it’s terribly overpriced. Rob (fellow EWB volunteer) came up to visit me recently, and we decided we’d sell someone a solar kit from Lusaka and set it up. We wanted to see how a solar kit would do in a poor community environment.
Rob put together a kit from Lusaka for a cost of about $230. The same kit would have cost 2-3 times as much in Mwinilunga. I found someone at Forest Fruits, Tobet, who purchased the kit. Because he doesn’t make much, we gave it to him on an installment plan scheme.
Tobet lives in a very small, simple home with no electricity. We wanted to set up the solar kit in this type of environment. We want to see how solar energy will fair in a poor village-type community. Will Tobet try and use the energy to make money? Will his neighbors be jealous? Will someone try to steal the kit? Will the kit we purchased produce enough energy? These are all questions we want to learn more about. Already, Tobet has asked me to bring him some electric shavers so that he can start a barber-shop business, so I’m happy to see that he’s thinking in terms of $$$. We just installed the thing last week, and I need to go back and visit to learn more.
I’m sure I’ll have more to say about this in the next entry, but it’s very interesting. One thing I’ll say is that there is a huge potential for solar energy in this area, because power is incredibly unstable. Did I mention that just 2 weeks ago power went out for 9 days? Do you know why? Because the government power company ran out of diesel fuel. Oh, the country had plenty of fuel. Someone just forgot to make an order, or send the truck . So anyways, there’s a lot of demand here for solar, if it can come cheap. We know that it can come cheap from Lusaka, but we’re testing it out with Tobet, and we’ll go from there. I’ll talk more about this next time when I have more to say, but it’s very interesting.
I’M A LAND-OWNER!!!
On a happy note, I’m a land-owner! I’ve bought a plot of land along the main road in town. The size of the plot is 40 X 140 metres. I paid $667 for it. It’s in a (currently) undeveloped area, but in an area where the town is getting ready to build a bunch of government buildings. This will mean a lot more development in the area. Also, the main road where the plot is situated, is being fixed. This road leads to Angola. As the stability of Angola increases, it is expected that trade will begin to steadily increase. This route through Angola is also the fastest route to an ocean port, which hopefully will increase traffic a great deal in a few years time. Anyways, there is a lot of potential for the land. I’m excited . I have plans for it for the future, but for now, it’s a beautiful grassy patch of land with a few giant ant-hills on it. Who would have thought the first land I bought in my life would be in small-town Zambia?
SOME THOUGHTS
Sometimes I get random thoughts in my mind. Here’s a couple:
1) Development as a Rubik’s Cube
Lately I’ve been thinking about development as a Rubik’s Cube. It’s a complex problem with many sides, like the many sides of a Rubik’s Cube. For example, you have Business and Entrepreneurship, Gender Equality, Public Services, Culture and Values, Infrastructure, Agriculture, etc. It seems like when you’re trying to run an intervention on one thing, you end-up screwing up something else, like in a Rubik’s Cube you might get all of the red squares on one side, but then you realize you’ve screwed up the side with the yellow squares. For example, you may try and increase farmer income by buying a bunch of produce from farmers at an inflated rate (to help them out), but then you may inadvertently screw things for another legitimate business that’s trying to buy the same product at legitimate, market prices. You may be trying to line up the reds, and accidentally take out the yellows. To make matters worse, there’s numerous hands trying to work the same Rubik’s Cube, and they’re not always aware of each other. You have Donors, NGOs, Social Investment Funds, Governments, Missions, etc. Rubik’s Cubes always frustrated the hell out me…
2) Something Missing in the Behavior Change Framework
I think all of the behavior change / change management frameworks that I’ve seen are incomplete. They are all missing two vital steps that should be documented and studied further. All behavior change/change management frameworks (that I’ve seen) generally start at the “trigger” stage, sometimes also called “create urgency”, or “unfreezing” or whatever else. But I think there needs to be two things added:
i) Research the culture (whether it be organizational culture, people culture, whatever)
ii) Job shadow and create relationships
iii) THEN Trigger/Unfreeze
iv) …
v) …
I think that in EWB we all do these first two things somewhat implicitly because we realize the importance, but I think there would be a great deal of value for others in adding these two steps to the change framework, and documenting why they are important, what works and what doesn’t work, etc. etc. Especially for capacity building practitioners.
This is definitely the process that I’ve followed at Forest Fruits and really, I don’t feel that it would be a good idea to try and move on to trigger without first having a good idea of what and who you’re dealing with. These first two steps also really help with the subsequent steps in the framework.
EN FIN
Well, in the end, I know this blog entry was a bit dismal, but thank god for that. If everything was just peachy all the time, what would I have learned? There are lots of problems here, and not a lot of good solutions as yet, but I guess that’s why I’m here. Wish me luck.
Ciao for now. As always, if you have comments, please email me at: sarf2k@gmail.com (I DON’T check my facebook anymore, by the way; it’s way too expensive where I am, so please email me thanks).
WHERE AM I AND WHERE HAVE I BEEN?
Looking back at my past blog entry, I realize that I’ve gone through some recognizable phases of adaptation already in the few months that I’ve been living in the small isolated town of Mwinilunga.
The first 3-4 weeks were basically shock. Imagine, my first time living in anything smaller than a city, let alone a tiny isolated rural town in Africa. During that period I kept asking myself, what am I doing here? Why am I here? I could be back home living a comfortable life with my friends and family; a life that I know and that is mine. I felt like I was floating; a foreign character who doesn’t belong to the strange setting that makes up the temporary background of his life. Being the only foreigner in town and being stared at regularly doesn’t help either.
After that initial shock period, I really started to warm up to the place, and I started to recognize certain changes in me that I embraced. The idea of living one’s values is special, and it’s hard to do in the west, unless you value money and material possession above all else. If you value community, generosity, laughter, and simplicity, then small-town Zambia is the place to be. I was never alone, and everybody wanted to be my friend. Granted, no one could really relate to me or my situation, but still, I had become a part of a community. I had made friends, I could joke around with people and share stories. At work, I got along well with the guys, and after work, I could hang out with Joshua and Simeon, my roommates, and spend some time with the young boys living at home. Mostly, I embraced the simplicity of my life and for the first time in a long time, I didn’t feel like a selfish prick. I thought about others regularly. I wanted to stay in Mwinilunga for a long time, and continue to live the values that I wanted to live.
As peachy as the last paragraph sounds, it wasn’t to last. At this point, to be frank, the values that I live have become a part of my day to day. I still appreciate them, but they don’t have that shiny special veneer they did a month ago. And glaring cracks in the community have permeated into my own life. How do you help people that won’t help themselves? And if I’m not helping anybody, then why am I here?
My roommate Joshua is probably the perfect embodiment of what I’m talking about. He’s an amazing individual, and I believe that he truly loves me as a brother. He would do anything for me, and I can’t say that for many people in this world, let alone a poor Zambian guy who I’ve known for 2 months. But Joshua is ruining his life before he’s even given it a chance. I sadly came to the realization a few weeks ago that Joshua is an alcoholic. He’s an alcoholic with no money to buy alcohol, but with plenty of friends to buy it for him, including me at one point. Joshua has a few dependants he says, and his parents are also piss-poor, so they could really use his help. He has a rare opportunity that many people here don’t get. Joshua was fortunate enough to be taken in by a mission when he was younger where he was looked after and put through high school. Then a Dutch couple who were once visiting the mission sponsored his college certificate as an automotive technician. Now Joshua is working at the same place I’m working, Forest Fruits. Everyone likes him, including me. And Forest Fruits is the type of company where if you show initiative and work hard, there are opportunities to better yourself through loans and school sponsorship. But Joshua doesn’t take advantage of any of this. I told him I would help him budget the little money he makes so that he could try and save something and try to start some small business ventures to get ahead. He makes about $100/month. I don’t even know how you budget that in a place that’s frankly, expensive. Anyways, when Joshua got paid a few days ago, the first thing he did was go straight to the bar. The next day he went straight to the bar. I used to give Joshua money sometimes, but when I realized about his habit, I stopped.
So what now? I have a month left in Mwinilunga. All I can do is try and sit down with Joshua and try and make him realize he’s pissing away his life when he has so much more than most people will ever have, and hope for the best. I will do what I can, but at the end of the day, I feel that until he realizes this for himself, nothing will change. And it’s not just Joshua. The kids in my house too. They are the dependants of Simeon, my other roommate. There’s 3 boys in the house, not that young, the youngest is 16 or 17. Simeon is supposed to look after them, and he does when he’s around, by buying food. But he’s often not around, he might go for a week or two stretch away from Mwinilunga for work. When that was happening I ended up buying food for all of us, since Joshua never has money. I was more or less okay with this for a while, until last week when I realized the boys had stolen some things from my room and gone through my stuff. It was nothing big, but enough to annoy the hell out of me. I was pissed off. I had done a few things for them to make life at home more comfortable and this is how they repay me? Well, anger was my initial reaction, but really, it’s not anger that I feel as much as sadness and disappointment, not just in the people I live with, but in the whole town. I see so many young people piss away their lives with alcohol and sex and stupid behavior. Not too long ago, I saw a person passed out by the roadside, in front of a bus. Because there’s no streetlights, you couldn’t have even noticed him unless you stumbled into him. Let me remind you he was in front of a bus. The next week I saw the same thing, but a different person. People do ask me for things in town sometimes, since I’m foreign and they think I have money. But what they ask for isn’t knowledge, or school sponsorship, or food for their family. It’s always alcohol. What a waste.
So that’s where I’m at now. Sounds bad doesn’t it? I’m frustrated with this place. I’m lonely. No one understands me. If I tried to explain certain things to anyone in this town, they’d look at me perplexed. It’s not their fault, it’s just the way it is. But despite all of the flaws of this place, the lesson has come through loud and clear. Poverty is not really what you see on TV, of skeleton-framed African children with flies buzzing around them. Poverty is what I see in this town. It’s alcoholism, ignorance, unprotected sex, and an inability to see past today. As Chiko said to me once, “poverty is not about what’s in your wallet, it’s about what’s in your mind”.
There’s a guy that lives in the small servant quarters behind my house. He lives there with his wife, and his name is Crispin. He’s also Chris’ house-maid. Crispin recently impregnated a woman (other than his wife). He just told his wife about it 2 days ago. The same day she found out she drank sulfuric acid. Luckily it wasn’t terribly potent, and she’ll survive. Apparently this kind of thing happens here all the time. Crispin says that once she’s out of the hospital he’s going to divorce her. Not sure if it’s true or not, but still a pretty dark thing to say.
So things aren’t great right now, but I know this feeling is also part of the journey, and it may be the most important part. And I know that it will pass. And I do take solace in looking at some of the guys in the factory like Chiko, Evans, and Chris, who have worked hard, and have gotten ahead. I know it’s possible, but you really do have to be smart, work your ass off, and have some luck. If this were Canada, you’d just have to work your ass off.
I’ve got about 5.5 weeks left in Mwinilunga and then I’m off to Lusaka, where my life will change dramatically. I’m happy to be soaking up not just the good, but also the bad.
WHAT IS DEVELOPMENT?
This is a question I’ve been grappling with for some time now. I often ask myself what it means to be developed. Does it mean to have a TV, and frozen food, and a big house, and a flush toilet? Does it mean to have healthcare, education, running water, and security? Or does it mean having a community that will take care of you and a deep sense of spirituality? Does it mean being able to depend on others, but also having others depend on you, for your whole life?
I have a theory. If you have a scale of development, where “developed” was in the middle, and Zambia (and other such countries) were on one side, the “under-developed” side, then where would Canada be, and other western countries for that matter? Would it be right in the middle of the scale, on “developed”? Or would it be on the other end of the scale, opposite of where Zambia is? And if it’s sitting on the other end of the scale, then what would it be called? Certainly not “developed” right? Maybe “over-developed”…? Think about that. What does that mean to you?
What makes a country “developed” anyways? In my opinion, it’s when everyone has the basics. Healthcare, education, clean water, security, equal rights, etc. are the basics. These are things that many developing countries are striving for, at least for their poor. But these are all fairly tangible, material things. What about the less tangible, but in my opinion, equally important? Community, spirituality, generosity, humility? Should a developed country not also possess these moral social values? Or are the materialistic values sufficient? If you see where I’m going with this, you’ll see that what I’m saying is that Canada is not developed at all. Zambia is not developed either, but for different reasons. We should all strive for that middle-place where there is balance, but Canada has missed the mark. I won’t say anything more about this, I’d rather you think about it for yourself.
But what does this mean in Africa? Why am I here? Am I here so that one day people can have fridges, and TVs, and McDonalds? Hell no. One thing that’s become clear to me is that all I want here is for people to get the basics. Once they have that, the rest will take care of itself, and I will hope hardily that having the basics will not on its own bring out the materialism that morally devalues our own western cultures. If having the basics means one day idolizing television and money, then I’d rather leave Zambia now, figuring that Zambians without basics to be far better off than the Canadians who have it all. When I’m with people here, when I’m in the village, I feel a richness that is not known to most “developed” nations, and for these people to lose that would be a horrific loss. Maybe it’s better to just leave Zambians as Zambians and go back home?
EDUCATION
The education system here is horrific. I’ve come to the conclusion that education is pivotally important in the development of a people, and spending time with youth here scares me for the future of this country. Apparently a while back, education in Zambia was top-notch, but then in the late 80’s or so, things changed for the worse. I’ve heard different explanations for this. One person blamed donors who had too much money to spend and decided to introduce too many new programs to the Zambian curriculum in a short period of time. I’ve also heard that it was the structural adjustment programs of the IMF. I’m not sure exactly, but one thing I know is that the education system here is a big fat joke. When I talk to older generations, I see that they are articulate, knowledgeable, and thoughtful. When I speak to the younger generation though, well, put it this way, I can barely speak with them because their English is so bad. No, Zambia isn’t England, but it was an English colony, and as such I’d expect people to be able to speak English, especially since it’s an incredibly useful language to know in this world. And especially because the older generations speak it effortlessly, and actually, even better than me. It’s sad. So what should be done?
NGOs
Sorry, I have more bad news. One thing that I’ve learned from Engineers Without Borders, and from newer development books, and from what I’ve seen on the ground, is that many NGOs don’t have a clue. This has become apparent. Believe it or not, most people working in NGO offices have never stayed in a village. So how do you help people that you know nothing about? Strike 1. Then, you realize that many NGOs don’t work for the poor; they work to satisfy the donors that give them money, by writing flowery reports that make them happy, and make it seem like all is well on the ground, even when it’s not. Strike 2. To top it all off, it seems like NGOs rule this land. You land in Lusaka, and instead of seeing corporate offices and advertisements, you see NGO offices and advertisements in their place. Let’s put a few things in order; NGO’s pay decent, and there aren’t a whole lot of jobs in Zambia. NGO’s want good people. So guess what? NGO’s get good people; good Zambian people who would otherwise be working in the private sector or in entrepreneurship to further the economy. But instead they’re stuck in an NGO trap where they lead lives of relative comfort but accomplish virtually nothing for their country, while the private sector can’t get good people because they’re all being poached by the NGOs. Strike 3.
Right, I know it’s not all that bad. Although 60 years of development work and trillions of dollars of aid have accomplished virtually nothing, and actually, probably set things further backwards than forwards, there have been some good interventions and good work done. I know that, but let me have my rant.
Coming from a results-driven, high performance consulting firm with a succeed or be fired culture, it’s hard for me to accept that in an industry where human lives are the biggest stake, that a culture of ignorance, blunder, and outright stupidity have been allowed to thrive for so long. And frankly, it doesn’t make the private sector look too bad. Sometimes I wish we could just set all of the Accenture consultants on the big project of development; give them their salaries, their bonuses, and the same results-driven culture that they have now, and make sure they know that their client is the poor, NOT the donor. I’d suspect you’d see some results.
Yes, there are plenty of concrete examples of NGO’s screwing up. PLENTY, but you don’t hear about this much in the west.
SOLAR ENERGY IN MWINILUNGA
In the isolated rural town of Mwinilunga, many things are hard to come by, including food with taste, but that’s a different story. When you do find stuff, it’s terribly overpriced. Rob (fellow EWB volunteer) came up to visit me recently, and we decided we’d sell someone a solar kit from Lusaka and set it up. We wanted to see how a solar kit would do in a poor community environment.
Rob put together a kit from Lusaka for a cost of about $230. The same kit would have cost 2-3 times as much in Mwinilunga. I found someone at Forest Fruits, Tobet, who purchased the kit. Because he doesn’t make much, we gave it to him on an installment plan scheme.
Tobet lives in a very small, simple home with no electricity. We wanted to set up the solar kit in this type of environment. We want to see how solar energy will fair in a poor village-type community. Will Tobet try and use the energy to make money? Will his neighbors be jealous? Will someone try to steal the kit? Will the kit we purchased produce enough energy? These are all questions we want to learn more about. Already, Tobet has asked me to bring him some electric shavers so that he can start a barber-shop business, so I’m happy to see that he’s thinking in terms of $$$. We just installed the thing last week, and I need to go back and visit to learn more.
I’m sure I’ll have more to say about this in the next entry, but it’s very interesting. One thing I’ll say is that there is a huge potential for solar energy in this area, because power is incredibly unstable. Did I mention that just 2 weeks ago power went out for 9 days? Do you know why? Because the government power company ran out of diesel fuel. Oh, the country had plenty of fuel. Someone just forgot to make an order, or send the truck . So anyways, there’s a lot of demand here for solar, if it can come cheap. We know that it can come cheap from Lusaka, but we’re testing it out with Tobet, and we’ll go from there. I’ll talk more about this next time when I have more to say, but it’s very interesting.
I’M A LAND-OWNER!!!
On a happy note, I’m a land-owner! I’ve bought a plot of land along the main road in town. The size of the plot is 40 X 140 metres. I paid $667 for it. It’s in a (currently) undeveloped area, but in an area where the town is getting ready to build a bunch of government buildings. This will mean a lot more development in the area. Also, the main road where the plot is situated, is being fixed. This road leads to Angola. As the stability of Angola increases, it is expected that trade will begin to steadily increase. This route through Angola is also the fastest route to an ocean port, which hopefully will increase traffic a great deal in a few years time. Anyways, there is a lot of potential for the land. I’m excited . I have plans for it for the future, but for now, it’s a beautiful grassy patch of land with a few giant ant-hills on it. Who would have thought the first land I bought in my life would be in small-town Zambia?
SOME THOUGHTS
Sometimes I get random thoughts in my mind. Here’s a couple:
1) Development as a Rubik’s Cube
Lately I’ve been thinking about development as a Rubik’s Cube. It’s a complex problem with many sides, like the many sides of a Rubik’s Cube. For example, you have Business and Entrepreneurship, Gender Equality, Public Services, Culture and Values, Infrastructure, Agriculture, etc. It seems like when you’re trying to run an intervention on one thing, you end-up screwing up something else, like in a Rubik’s Cube you might get all of the red squares on one side, but then you realize you’ve screwed up the side with the yellow squares. For example, you may try and increase farmer income by buying a bunch of produce from farmers at an inflated rate (to help them out), but then you may inadvertently screw things for another legitimate business that’s trying to buy the same product at legitimate, market prices. You may be trying to line up the reds, and accidentally take out the yellows. To make matters worse, there’s numerous hands trying to work the same Rubik’s Cube, and they’re not always aware of each other. You have Donors, NGOs, Social Investment Funds, Governments, Missions, etc. Rubik’s Cubes always frustrated the hell out me…
2) Something Missing in the Behavior Change Framework
I think all of the behavior change / change management frameworks that I’ve seen are incomplete. They are all missing two vital steps that should be documented and studied further. All behavior change/change management frameworks (that I’ve seen) generally start at the “trigger” stage, sometimes also called “create urgency”, or “unfreezing” or whatever else. But I think there needs to be two things added:
i) Research the culture (whether it be organizational culture, people culture, whatever)
ii) Job shadow and create relationships
iii) THEN Trigger/Unfreeze
iv) …
v) …
I think that in EWB we all do these first two things somewhat implicitly because we realize the importance, but I think there would be a great deal of value for others in adding these two steps to the change framework, and documenting why they are important, what works and what doesn’t work, etc. etc. Especially for capacity building practitioners.
This is definitely the process that I’ve followed at Forest Fruits and really, I don’t feel that it would be a good idea to try and move on to trigger without first having a good idea of what and who you’re dealing with. These first two steps also really help with the subsequent steps in the framework.
EN FIN
Well, in the end, I know this blog entry was a bit dismal, but thank god for that. If everything was just peachy all the time, what would I have learned? There are lots of problems here, and not a lot of good solutions as yet, but I guess that’s why I’m here. Wish me luck.
Ciao for now. As always, if you have comments, please email me at: sarf2k@gmail.com (I DON’T check my facebook anymore, by the way; it’s way too expensive where I am, so please email me thanks).
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Mwinilunga Days
It’s been a while since I’ve written my blog and I have a TON to write about… so here goes.
I think we’ll break this one up as follows: 1) Mwinilunga (the town I’m living in), 2) Where I Live, 3) Work, 4) People, and 5) A Day in My Life.
1) Mwinilunga. Mwinilunga is a tiny town in the North West corner of Zambia. Actually it’s something smaller than a town. It’s known as a BOMA or something, which stands for British something something municipal administration or something… basically, it was an old British term for the place meaning an administrative centre. It’s still called a BOMA, people don’t even refer to it as a town.
The North West of Zambia is incredible beautiful. It’s essentially all forest, and largely untouched. It’s extremely green and lush, there are plenty of trees and shrubbery, and rivers. And one of the most surprising and incredible things I witnesses was the ant-hills, or more specifically, termite hills. They are HUGE. In town, you can find ones that are a good 10-12 feet tall. When you go out to the bush you see even bigger ones, 20 feet and more, and even wide all around. People actually even use the hills to make bricks. Something about the saliva the termites use (I think) makes the dirt really hard and solid, almost like concrete. They also make for really rich soil. You see plenty of vegetation coming out of the ant hills. Often there’ll even be a tree growing off the top.
Also, it RAINS like crazy. The area borders the equatorial rainforest in Congo, so it rains like big fat cats and dogs and giraffes and hippos and all of noahs arc coming down. Since there are virtually no paved roads, this also means its muddy everywhere all the time. It was actually raining for the past 36 hours non-stop, hard! It just stopped this morning. This is a reality of living here, but it’s what makes things so green and lush I guess!
Mwinilunga is pretty much an isolated, forgotten town. It seems like the federal government doesn’t care much for it. Electricity is pretty much only available every 2nd day to households. There are plenty of rivers around though… hmmmm… hydro power? But instead, it’s diesel generators powering the whole town. It seems like the energy company just doesn’t really care enough. It’s also hard to find stuff. One day I was hungry so I went to a “restaurant” and asked if they had any meat pies (which you usually find easily in Zambia). The two waitresses started laughing at me, so I left. Then I went to another place that said “Take-Away” on the sign, thinking they must have something I can grab (I was in a hurry by the way) and leave quickly. I went in and asked what they had for takeaway. The boy working there said “Coke”. At least he didn’t laugh… A lot of the products here have to be brought from somewhere else so they tend to be a bit more expensive as well. Yeah, I’m a city boy and this is my first time living in a town, let alone a tiny town in rural Africa, so it’s definitely different… sometimes I think I’m going a little crazy because there’s nothing to do and no one I can relate to (as a westerner) here. But I’m taking it all in stride…
2) Where I Live. I’m living with one of the guys that works here at Forest Fruits, Joshua. He’s 27. We live with his friend, Simeon, 25, and two boys in high school. The two boys are looked after by Joshua and Simeon (and now me, sort of). They also do all of the household chores, like cooking and laundry etc. We live in a brand new house. So brand new in fact, that there aren’t yet doors, paint, a toilet, or even water or electricity. So it’s basically a roof with walls. It’s located sort of at one edge of town, and just below it the land drops down into a valley. As such, the view is really beautiful. The path to get home is really muddy, so usually by the time I get there my shoes have an added weight of 1 or 2 tones from mud.
How do I go to the toilet and take a shower and cook and see with no water and electricity you ask? I generally use the toilet and shower at work, but for emergencies, there’s a hole dug out in the back yard that serves as a toilet. We cook with charcoal, and so does almost everybody else in the region due to the lack or unreliability of electricity. For light, we use candles.
Oh yeah, and bugs are a fact of life. I usually have bites somewhere, and when I wake up in the morning it’s not surprising to find something crawling on me. The worst are cockroaches, because they’re big. The best are spiders and lizards, because they eat other things. I’m okay with mosquitoes because there aren’t too many where I am. Though I did have bed bugs in the place I lived before. Those were the worst because I could never spot them… There, that’s my rant on bugs.
All in all, even though the house isn’t finished, it’s quite spacious, tidy, and like I said before, great view.
3) Work. I work at a honey manufacturing company called Forest Fruits Zambia. They basically get honey from beekeepers in the area, process that honey, and sell it (mostly to Europe). This is good for the beekeepers because they get money, and this is how Forest Fruits (and therefore the private sector) can be very good for helping those with little to no income.
My job at Forest Fruits is mainly to help the management team improve. This is what’s known as “capacity building”, a term you may have seen tossed around before. This is of course where my experience with Accenture really comes in handy. I basically became an expert in management systems, processes, and tools, and I’m able to spot areas for improvement here at Forest Fruits and help the team. Frankly, it’s a bit boring! It’s slowly and I have to work around everyone else’s schedule. I prefer to have my own work and help people out on the side. But still, it is rewarding when I see that one of the team adapts a process or new way of looking at things. Very rewarding indeed.
The environment here is like a typical plant floor, for anyone that’s worked in a plant, factory, warehouse whatever. It’s unskilled labor, a bit hectic, lots of yelling, physical labor, and yup, BEES. Bees everywhere. But bees are cool, all they ever want to do is work; I respect that. Plus, I’ve only been stung three times, which is okay. I have no fear of bees, I even consider them my fuzzy friends . (this is where you see the craziness of small-town life kicking in…)
Because the owner of Forest Fruits is originally from Canada, and because someone else from EWB was here before me for almost 2 years, the company has already adopted a number of good management systems and ways of thinking, and is very open to learning, which makes my job a lot easier. People here really want to learn and improve themselves, and that’s something I really respect.
Another aspect of my job is going out to the bush. Last week I was in the bush for about 5 days. I stayed at a mission. By the way, there are missions everywhere, usually each run by an old white person with donor money. I’m not knocking the missions, I just find it a little funny that everyone’s already Christian but there’s still all these missions everywhere. But they do a lot of good work, I know that… Anyways, the mission was beautiful, with cattle, tall grassy plains, and a river. I went for a bath in the river and a swim which was great.
My most memorable experience in a village was at a particular village we were in to weigh their honey. The people, to my great surprise, were Ba-Hai. I had no idea there were Ba-Hai’s in Zambia. Apparently there’s 15,000 of them here. They were really remarkable, extremely kind, curious, and generous. They asked me lots of questions about Canada, and gave me mangos (lots) and bananas. One of the children in the village asked his dad if I was their relative, and he said, yes, I was. That’s something. The Ba-Hai’s believe that everyone (men and women) and all races are equal and should be treated equally.
I love going out to the bush. It’s beautiful and I meet lots of people. I’m looking forward to getting out again, probably in March.
4) People. People are my favorite part of being here. They are kind, humble, considerate, self-sacrificing, and gentle. And they love to laugh. In town people who I don’t know often say hi to me, mostly because I’m a foreigner, but to some extent because it’s a small town.
So, I want to say a word about self-sacrifice. People here with even a little money being made, are pretty much obligated to take care of their relatives. My roommate Joshua, makes about $100/month, and is also putting two of his nephews through school. Simeon (other roommate) makes about $230, and is doing the same. He also has a kid. The father at the last place I lived (and one of the managers I work with at Forest Fruits), has 2 of his own kids, but has adopted 6 others and is supporting them. People here really do support each other. Which is very good. Very very good and selfless. But also bad at times, because people become dependent and don’t work to better themselves. It also puts a big strain on those that get even somewhat ahead. But that’s the way it is. The manager here at Forest Fruits, Chris, says he couldn’t even fathom an African volunteering abroad with no pay, because s/he has so many responsibilities to others at home.
I hang out with Joshua, and a few others that I see around. The town is small so I usually spot people. There’s also a local pub that it seems everyone goes to. Sometimes I go there and meet people. It’s hard sometimes not having any foreigners around, because I can’t fully relate to anybody here, but at the same time, the people here are extremely welcoming and friendly, so I never have to be alone.
Oh, and there’s more self-sacrifice. Joshua gave me his room, while he sleeps in the living room. He won’t have it any other way, and he refuses rent. The family I stayed with when I was in the bush rented me out a room in the mission because they wanted me (a foreigner) to be comfortable. I didn’t like that because I don’t like being treated differently, that’s not why I came here. Still, the man of the house wouldn’t accept money for the room, despite my efforts. At the same time, the wife apologized to me one day for the food being “poor”, because they hadn’t been paid yet. I thought the food was just fine, but the point is that they did so much for my comfort when it was probably quite difficult for them financially. The point is, people here can be truly amazing.
Also, people are really really Christian. One of the people at work once asked me if I “knew the bible”. I said I’d read parts of it, but no not really. He asked me, “why”? I said I wasn’t Christian. He said, “So you’re not close to Jesus”? I said, probably not. This BLEW his mind… I don’t know what more I can say about that… but it’s a pretty typical response here if you say you’re not a Christian.
Oh oh, and the best part… people stare at me like I’m an alien from another planet. I guess in a way I am. Everywhere I go I’m stared at, mostly by children. In fact their heads are capable of swiveling around like an owl as I walk by, so they can get a full 360 degree look. Often their mouths are even gaping open. It’s quite disturbing I have to admit. I feel like some kind of weird spectacle. But the worst is when they point and laugh. C’mon kids, that’s just rude (well, where I come from anyways). But actually, the kids here are wonderful. When they’re staring, you just talk to them, or poke them, or something, and then they come to life and usually smile or laugh, and all is well. Children here are really happy, curious, polite, and take joy in simple things. And they’re rugged. I sure as hell haven’t heard of a child here with something as stupid as a peanut allergy. Even when they’re sick, they still go out and play and have a good time (not like in those World Vision ads… but I’ll get to the NGOs soon…).
Wait, one other thing on people here. They’re promiscuous I have to admit. I don’t know if they’re any more promiscuous than people in Canada or the USA, but the problem is that they don’t use condoms, so the results are very very evident. You see lots of young mothers with no father in sight, and of course, a lot of people have HIV (though this is not so evident, you can’t see it). Part of the problem is that’s it’s sort of the norm and almost accepted, at least that’s the impression I get. Although you do see ads everywhere telling people to use condoms/abstain to prevent HIV and babies. I’m not sure how effective these are though.
But but but in the end, people here are WONDERFUL. And they are humbling me greatly and breaking down a lot of the capitalistic, materialistic, selfish traits that I’d picked up living in the western world all my life. I just hope it lasts.
5) A Day in My Life. A lot of people have been asking about this. I’ll use yesterday as the day in my life.
Morning: I woke up, found a couple spiders crawling on me, and brushed them off. Joshua started yelling at me, good morning or something. The guy has crazy energy; he popped into my room and told me to get up for work. In my room there’s no shelves or closet or anything. All my stuff is on the floor, sort of lying on top of (or in) my bag. I picked up some things to wear, put them on, popped in my contacts, packed my bag, and was good to go. I had to pee, but didn’t feel like peeing outside in front of one the neighbors, so waited until getting to work. The walk to work was muddy, but beautiful, with lots of trees and shrubs around. As usual, I got stared at by people, but it doesn’t seem as bad when I’m with Joshua. It takes about 25 minutes to get to work. I think I picked up a meat pie on the way, and some talk time for my phone.
Work: I used the facilities and had a cold shower, got dressed and stepped into my office (which I share with Evans, the manager of processing). I had a session with Chiko (Purchasing and Logistics Manager), trying to improve his data management and reporting skills. Then I had a session with Evans, teaching him how to identify problems in his data entry system and fix them. The theme of the week, if you hadn’t noticed, is data management. We get lunch at work. Yesterday we had beans, rape, and nshima (lump of tasteless white processed maize). After work I had a session with Mary, the admin assistant, trying to figure out the best ways that I can help her. I think the rest of the time I checked email, goofed around a bit with the managers, and started to develop a learning plan for Mary. Oh and it rained like hell.
Evening: After work Joshua and I picked up some food. I decided to have a go at cooking this day. I got some proper western food (pasta), and some meat and beans. Unfortunately I couldn’t get any spices anywhere, so it was going to be boring-ass pasta night. I got home to find my laundry hanging out on the line, soaked, from all the rain that day. That’s a regular occurrence here. If anyone can bring cheap solar-powered clothes dryers here, hurrah! The rain doesn’t help you dry your clothes. Anyways, I got in and we got to cooking. Joshua lit up the coals. Albert, one of the high school boys was helping me. It’s hot cooking with coals, and the pan gets hot too. We cooked on the floor with candle light. I sat on a crate, and so did Albert. I did the meat, then added some chopped tomatoes and onions, and then the beans. Then I realized, for pasta, we needed forks, and didn’t have any… so much for my foreigner food. We had nshima instead, which Albert made. He tried to teach me (unsuccessfully) how to do it but I gave up, and decided some things are better left to those who know what they’re doing. We ate dinner. We sit on the floor in the living room. You start by washing your hands in a bowl of water. Everyone uses the same bowl of water. Then you eat with your hands, and then you wash your hands again.
Night: Last night we were all pretty tired so we went to bed early. I peed out in the yard first, since there’s no toilet in the house. Then I removed my contacts and got to bed. But first, I decided to watch an episode of top gear off my laptop and kill a cockroach that was roaming around. On other nights, we might just hang around, listen to music, and talk. Often the guys speak the local tongue though, so I’m just sitting around listening. But they make an effort to speak English with me sometimes too. Or I might try and teach Joshua some computer skills. He’s trying to learn, so I try to give him a lesson every night.
Okay, there’s a pretty typical day. Sounds boring don’t it? That’s my life… but it’s rich in a lot of ways, so it’s good for now.
…
I wrote A LOT. And I have more to write about, mostly about what I think about development, NGOs, private sector, etc. But I’ll leave that for the next time. If you’ve read all of this, you’re a champ. Pat yourself on the back. If you have any comments send me an email at sarf2k@gmail.com. Big Love from Mwinilunga…
PS I’ll post pictures somewhere in 2 weeks when I’m back in the capital for a team meeting and it’s more affordable…
I think we’ll break this one up as follows: 1) Mwinilunga (the town I’m living in), 2) Where I Live, 3) Work, 4) People, and 5) A Day in My Life.
1) Mwinilunga. Mwinilunga is a tiny town in the North West corner of Zambia. Actually it’s something smaller than a town. It’s known as a BOMA or something, which stands for British something something municipal administration or something… basically, it was an old British term for the place meaning an administrative centre. It’s still called a BOMA, people don’t even refer to it as a town.
The North West of Zambia is incredible beautiful. It’s essentially all forest, and largely untouched. It’s extremely green and lush, there are plenty of trees and shrubbery, and rivers. And one of the most surprising and incredible things I witnesses was the ant-hills, or more specifically, termite hills. They are HUGE. In town, you can find ones that are a good 10-12 feet tall. When you go out to the bush you see even bigger ones, 20 feet and more, and even wide all around. People actually even use the hills to make bricks. Something about the saliva the termites use (I think) makes the dirt really hard and solid, almost like concrete. They also make for really rich soil. You see plenty of vegetation coming out of the ant hills. Often there’ll even be a tree growing off the top.
Also, it RAINS like crazy. The area borders the equatorial rainforest in Congo, so it rains like big fat cats and dogs and giraffes and hippos and all of noahs arc coming down. Since there are virtually no paved roads, this also means its muddy everywhere all the time. It was actually raining for the past 36 hours non-stop, hard! It just stopped this morning. This is a reality of living here, but it’s what makes things so green and lush I guess!
Mwinilunga is pretty much an isolated, forgotten town. It seems like the federal government doesn’t care much for it. Electricity is pretty much only available every 2nd day to households. There are plenty of rivers around though… hmmmm… hydro power? But instead, it’s diesel generators powering the whole town. It seems like the energy company just doesn’t really care enough. It’s also hard to find stuff. One day I was hungry so I went to a “restaurant” and asked if they had any meat pies (which you usually find easily in Zambia). The two waitresses started laughing at me, so I left. Then I went to another place that said “Take-Away” on the sign, thinking they must have something I can grab (I was in a hurry by the way) and leave quickly. I went in and asked what they had for takeaway. The boy working there said “Coke”. At least he didn’t laugh… A lot of the products here have to be brought from somewhere else so they tend to be a bit more expensive as well. Yeah, I’m a city boy and this is my first time living in a town, let alone a tiny town in rural Africa, so it’s definitely different… sometimes I think I’m going a little crazy because there’s nothing to do and no one I can relate to (as a westerner) here. But I’m taking it all in stride…
2) Where I Live. I’m living with one of the guys that works here at Forest Fruits, Joshua. He’s 27. We live with his friend, Simeon, 25, and two boys in high school. The two boys are looked after by Joshua and Simeon (and now me, sort of). They also do all of the household chores, like cooking and laundry etc. We live in a brand new house. So brand new in fact, that there aren’t yet doors, paint, a toilet, or even water or electricity. So it’s basically a roof with walls. It’s located sort of at one edge of town, and just below it the land drops down into a valley. As such, the view is really beautiful. The path to get home is really muddy, so usually by the time I get there my shoes have an added weight of 1 or 2 tones from mud.
How do I go to the toilet and take a shower and cook and see with no water and electricity you ask? I generally use the toilet and shower at work, but for emergencies, there’s a hole dug out in the back yard that serves as a toilet. We cook with charcoal, and so does almost everybody else in the region due to the lack or unreliability of electricity. For light, we use candles.
Oh yeah, and bugs are a fact of life. I usually have bites somewhere, and when I wake up in the morning it’s not surprising to find something crawling on me. The worst are cockroaches, because they’re big. The best are spiders and lizards, because they eat other things. I’m okay with mosquitoes because there aren’t too many where I am. Though I did have bed bugs in the place I lived before. Those were the worst because I could never spot them… There, that’s my rant on bugs.
All in all, even though the house isn’t finished, it’s quite spacious, tidy, and like I said before, great view.
3) Work. I work at a honey manufacturing company called Forest Fruits Zambia. They basically get honey from beekeepers in the area, process that honey, and sell it (mostly to Europe). This is good for the beekeepers because they get money, and this is how Forest Fruits (and therefore the private sector) can be very good for helping those with little to no income.
My job at Forest Fruits is mainly to help the management team improve. This is what’s known as “capacity building”, a term you may have seen tossed around before. This is of course where my experience with Accenture really comes in handy. I basically became an expert in management systems, processes, and tools, and I’m able to spot areas for improvement here at Forest Fruits and help the team. Frankly, it’s a bit boring! It’s slowly and I have to work around everyone else’s schedule. I prefer to have my own work and help people out on the side. But still, it is rewarding when I see that one of the team adapts a process or new way of looking at things. Very rewarding indeed.
The environment here is like a typical plant floor, for anyone that’s worked in a plant, factory, warehouse whatever. It’s unskilled labor, a bit hectic, lots of yelling, physical labor, and yup, BEES. Bees everywhere. But bees are cool, all they ever want to do is work; I respect that. Plus, I’ve only been stung three times, which is okay. I have no fear of bees, I even consider them my fuzzy friends . (this is where you see the craziness of small-town life kicking in…)
Because the owner of Forest Fruits is originally from Canada, and because someone else from EWB was here before me for almost 2 years, the company has already adopted a number of good management systems and ways of thinking, and is very open to learning, which makes my job a lot easier. People here really want to learn and improve themselves, and that’s something I really respect.
Another aspect of my job is going out to the bush. Last week I was in the bush for about 5 days. I stayed at a mission. By the way, there are missions everywhere, usually each run by an old white person with donor money. I’m not knocking the missions, I just find it a little funny that everyone’s already Christian but there’s still all these missions everywhere. But they do a lot of good work, I know that… Anyways, the mission was beautiful, with cattle, tall grassy plains, and a river. I went for a bath in the river and a swim which was great.
My most memorable experience in a village was at a particular village we were in to weigh their honey. The people, to my great surprise, were Ba-Hai. I had no idea there were Ba-Hai’s in Zambia. Apparently there’s 15,000 of them here. They were really remarkable, extremely kind, curious, and generous. They asked me lots of questions about Canada, and gave me mangos (lots) and bananas. One of the children in the village asked his dad if I was their relative, and he said, yes, I was. That’s something. The Ba-Hai’s believe that everyone (men and women) and all races are equal and should be treated equally.
I love going out to the bush. It’s beautiful and I meet lots of people. I’m looking forward to getting out again, probably in March.
4) People. People are my favorite part of being here. They are kind, humble, considerate, self-sacrificing, and gentle. And they love to laugh. In town people who I don’t know often say hi to me, mostly because I’m a foreigner, but to some extent because it’s a small town.
So, I want to say a word about self-sacrifice. People here with even a little money being made, are pretty much obligated to take care of their relatives. My roommate Joshua, makes about $100/month, and is also putting two of his nephews through school. Simeon (other roommate) makes about $230, and is doing the same. He also has a kid. The father at the last place I lived (and one of the managers I work with at Forest Fruits), has 2 of his own kids, but has adopted 6 others and is supporting them. People here really do support each other. Which is very good. Very very good and selfless. But also bad at times, because people become dependent and don’t work to better themselves. It also puts a big strain on those that get even somewhat ahead. But that’s the way it is. The manager here at Forest Fruits, Chris, says he couldn’t even fathom an African volunteering abroad with no pay, because s/he has so many responsibilities to others at home.
I hang out with Joshua, and a few others that I see around. The town is small so I usually spot people. There’s also a local pub that it seems everyone goes to. Sometimes I go there and meet people. It’s hard sometimes not having any foreigners around, because I can’t fully relate to anybody here, but at the same time, the people here are extremely welcoming and friendly, so I never have to be alone.
Oh, and there’s more self-sacrifice. Joshua gave me his room, while he sleeps in the living room. He won’t have it any other way, and he refuses rent. The family I stayed with when I was in the bush rented me out a room in the mission because they wanted me (a foreigner) to be comfortable. I didn’t like that because I don’t like being treated differently, that’s not why I came here. Still, the man of the house wouldn’t accept money for the room, despite my efforts. At the same time, the wife apologized to me one day for the food being “poor”, because they hadn’t been paid yet. I thought the food was just fine, but the point is that they did so much for my comfort when it was probably quite difficult for them financially. The point is, people here can be truly amazing.
Also, people are really really Christian. One of the people at work once asked me if I “knew the bible”. I said I’d read parts of it, but no not really. He asked me, “why”? I said I wasn’t Christian. He said, “So you’re not close to Jesus”? I said, probably not. This BLEW his mind… I don’t know what more I can say about that… but it’s a pretty typical response here if you say you’re not a Christian.
Oh oh, and the best part… people stare at me like I’m an alien from another planet. I guess in a way I am. Everywhere I go I’m stared at, mostly by children. In fact their heads are capable of swiveling around like an owl as I walk by, so they can get a full 360 degree look. Often their mouths are even gaping open. It’s quite disturbing I have to admit. I feel like some kind of weird spectacle. But the worst is when they point and laugh. C’mon kids, that’s just rude (well, where I come from anyways). But actually, the kids here are wonderful. When they’re staring, you just talk to them, or poke them, or something, and then they come to life and usually smile or laugh, and all is well. Children here are really happy, curious, polite, and take joy in simple things. And they’re rugged. I sure as hell haven’t heard of a child here with something as stupid as a peanut allergy. Even when they’re sick, they still go out and play and have a good time (not like in those World Vision ads… but I’ll get to the NGOs soon…).
Wait, one other thing on people here. They’re promiscuous I have to admit. I don’t know if they’re any more promiscuous than people in Canada or the USA, but the problem is that they don’t use condoms, so the results are very very evident. You see lots of young mothers with no father in sight, and of course, a lot of people have HIV (though this is not so evident, you can’t see it). Part of the problem is that’s it’s sort of the norm and almost accepted, at least that’s the impression I get. Although you do see ads everywhere telling people to use condoms/abstain to prevent HIV and babies. I’m not sure how effective these are though.
But but but in the end, people here are WONDERFUL. And they are humbling me greatly and breaking down a lot of the capitalistic, materialistic, selfish traits that I’d picked up living in the western world all my life. I just hope it lasts.
5) A Day in My Life. A lot of people have been asking about this. I’ll use yesterday as the day in my life.
Morning: I woke up, found a couple spiders crawling on me, and brushed them off. Joshua started yelling at me, good morning or something. The guy has crazy energy; he popped into my room and told me to get up for work. In my room there’s no shelves or closet or anything. All my stuff is on the floor, sort of lying on top of (or in) my bag. I picked up some things to wear, put them on, popped in my contacts, packed my bag, and was good to go. I had to pee, but didn’t feel like peeing outside in front of one the neighbors, so waited until getting to work. The walk to work was muddy, but beautiful, with lots of trees and shrubs around. As usual, I got stared at by people, but it doesn’t seem as bad when I’m with Joshua. It takes about 25 minutes to get to work. I think I picked up a meat pie on the way, and some talk time for my phone.
Work: I used the facilities and had a cold shower, got dressed and stepped into my office (which I share with Evans, the manager of processing). I had a session with Chiko (Purchasing and Logistics Manager), trying to improve his data management and reporting skills. Then I had a session with Evans, teaching him how to identify problems in his data entry system and fix them. The theme of the week, if you hadn’t noticed, is data management. We get lunch at work. Yesterday we had beans, rape, and nshima (lump of tasteless white processed maize). After work I had a session with Mary, the admin assistant, trying to figure out the best ways that I can help her. I think the rest of the time I checked email, goofed around a bit with the managers, and started to develop a learning plan for Mary. Oh and it rained like hell.
Evening: After work Joshua and I picked up some food. I decided to have a go at cooking this day. I got some proper western food (pasta), and some meat and beans. Unfortunately I couldn’t get any spices anywhere, so it was going to be boring-ass pasta night. I got home to find my laundry hanging out on the line, soaked, from all the rain that day. That’s a regular occurrence here. If anyone can bring cheap solar-powered clothes dryers here, hurrah! The rain doesn’t help you dry your clothes. Anyways, I got in and we got to cooking. Joshua lit up the coals. Albert, one of the high school boys was helping me. It’s hot cooking with coals, and the pan gets hot too. We cooked on the floor with candle light. I sat on a crate, and so did Albert. I did the meat, then added some chopped tomatoes and onions, and then the beans. Then I realized, for pasta, we needed forks, and didn’t have any… so much for my foreigner food. We had nshima instead, which Albert made. He tried to teach me (unsuccessfully) how to do it but I gave up, and decided some things are better left to those who know what they’re doing. We ate dinner. We sit on the floor in the living room. You start by washing your hands in a bowl of water. Everyone uses the same bowl of water. Then you eat with your hands, and then you wash your hands again.
Night: Last night we were all pretty tired so we went to bed early. I peed out in the yard first, since there’s no toilet in the house. Then I removed my contacts and got to bed. But first, I decided to watch an episode of top gear off my laptop and kill a cockroach that was roaming around. On other nights, we might just hang around, listen to music, and talk. Often the guys speak the local tongue though, so I’m just sitting around listening. But they make an effort to speak English with me sometimes too. Or I might try and teach Joshua some computer skills. He’s trying to learn, so I try to give him a lesson every night.
Okay, there’s a pretty typical day. Sounds boring don’t it? That’s my life… but it’s rich in a lot of ways, so it’s good for now.
…
I wrote A LOT. And I have more to write about, mostly about what I think about development, NGOs, private sector, etc. But I’ll leave that for the next time. If you’ve read all of this, you’re a champ. Pat yourself on the back. If you have any comments send me an email at sarf2k@gmail.com. Big Love from Mwinilunga…
PS I’ll post pictures somewhere in 2 weeks when I’m back in the capital for a team meeting and it’s more affordable…
Saturday, January 2, 2010
New Years in Mwinilunga
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.
Sunday, November 8, 2009
2 Weeks To GO...
Well, i'm about half way through my pre-departure training and i felt like this would be a good time to make an entry in what i hope will be a useful and informative blog for all my friends and family.
Here's some things I'm going to write about: Training, The EWB House and my fellow OVS in training, Development Sector Revelations, and Looking Forward...
1) Training
Training was sold to us as (hopefully) the MOST intensive learning experience of our lives. It has been intense there is no doubt about that. We have sessions throughout the day and plenty of assignments and project-work to keep us busy in the evenings. The training is "self-driven" which mean we as the students have a lot of sway in terms of what we choose to do or choose not to do. That doesn't mean any of us decided to slack on anything though, if there's anythings\ I've learned about EWBers, it's that they're keen and super hard working.
What are we learning? Mostly we are learning tools and frameworks that we can apply to development, largely in a rural or community context. Basically, we are taught to expect and live with ambiguity (a bit of a challenge for me!). The idea is that there will be many many situations when there is no "set" correct answer, and you have nothing but you're own brain and motivation to find solutions that work. And finding solutions to the problem of poverty is no easy task either... But the idea is to tackle things one piece at a time and learn learn learn, adapt, try again, learn learn learn... you get the idea.
So has it been uber-challenging??? I find that in terms of learning HOW TO DO THINGS, Accenture was far more intensive, and that has a lot to do with the fact that Accenture was real, things HAD to get done and get done well, and on a deadline. In a school environment, I can never take things quite as seriously, for better or worse.
HOWEVER, what has been truly amazing, and beneficial, and eye-opening, has been the significance that training, and EWB as an organization, places on self-reflection. We each have a personal development plan and we are taught to constantly self-reflect and ensure that we are reaching the personal goals that we set for ourselves, in whatever context that may be. We are encouraged to support each other by giving direct and honest feedback, and to do so in a setting that is constructive and friendly. While Accenture may have taught me to do things efficiently and with high quality, EWB has so far taught me how to look into myself, really know who i am, and constantly work to better myself and my peers. That experience has been invaluable.
2) The EWB House and my fellow OVS (Overseas Volunteers) in training.
The EWB house is an old house in portugese town. There's about 8 of us living here at any given time, though depending on the volunteer sending period, i've been told there could be over 30 people here some weeks... i'm glad its not one of those weeks! It's cozy and comfortable and there's a really positive communal energy in the place, no doubt worn off from all of the exuberant, inspired volunteers that come and go from this place. There's photos from overseas of volunteers and african counterparts, and there are inspiring messages posted on the walls. There's also a CRT TV, Monopoly, and other odds and ends.
My fellow OVS (there are 6 of us total, 3 girls and 3 boys) are AWESOME. We've really bonded in the past 2 weeks, a little too well in some circumstances, because sometimes i feel like we spend more time partying than working, but it's been a blast. The other people in my group are Dan (UVic), Romesh (McGill), Meg (Concordia), Cat (Waterloo), and Eileen (Mac). All are engineers except for Eileen who comes from a development background, which is a great contribution for the group. I'm sad that none of these folks are going to be in my team and that i have no idea when i'll see them again, but then, i'm used to making strong friendships and then having to say goodbye, and there's always facebook!
3) Development Sector Revelations
This is probably the most interesting thing going on in my head right now. Not coming from a development background, I am slowly learning how the development sector works, and pretty soon i'll be able to start learning first hand. Basically, from what i can tell, there is a large contingent of the development sector that SUCKS. SUCKS = not taking into consideration the needs of farmers and communities, putting self-interest and donor money ahead of all else, having very poor management practices, and being generally careless. And this has been going on and on and on and on... i feel like it's only recently that some concrete changing are being made to address some of these inadequacies. Luckily EWB is one of the organizations that's doing some of this tackling. Coming from a strong project management background, and looking at how some of these projects are run with not only dollars on the line, but PEOPLE's LIVES, I'm frankly appaled at what I'm learning... I'm sure I'll have lots more to say about this in future blogs, but basically there is some real overhauling to do and I'm ready to get my hands dirty.
4) Looking Forward...
So what will i be doing? I still don't know 100%, but i have a better idea. When i first get into lusaka I'm supposed to spend a month doing in-country training, which will involve a one week village stay, motorcycle training, and some other logistics. After that I may be going to a remote location in NW Zambia to work at a honey manufacturer called Forest Fruits with a veteran volunteer named Mark. This would be for 3-4 months to give me a solid foundation in rural livelihoods... basically so that i can experience life first hand living with some of the people that we aim to help. After that I'd likely get placed at an office of perhaps an NGO and work with them to change their management practices so that they are more effective in helping the people that they're supposed to be helping. I won't get into too much detail about this yet, but I'll say that i'm VERY excited about it because it interests me greatly and because i know that with my Mgmt Consulting background there's a lot of value I can add here. Still not sure about anything though, especailly because the team is finalizing its strategy for the next 3 years currently, and the direction may change, but i'll keep yaz all posted.
Well i think that's plenty o writing for now. I feel like this post has been a bit on the boring side and i'll try to do better, but i wanted to get all of this out so you all have a picture of where i am and where i'm going.
Lotsa Love from Sarfy!
Here's some things I'm going to write about: Training, The EWB House and my fellow OVS in training, Development Sector Revelations, and Looking Forward...
1) Training
Training was sold to us as (hopefully) the MOST intensive learning experience of our lives. It has been intense there is no doubt about that. We have sessions throughout the day and plenty of assignments and project-work to keep us busy in the evenings. The training is "self-driven" which mean we as the students have a lot of sway in terms of what we choose to do or choose not to do. That doesn't mean any of us decided to slack on anything though, if there's anythings\ I've learned about EWBers, it's that they're keen and super hard working.
What are we learning? Mostly we are learning tools and frameworks that we can apply to development, largely in a rural or community context. Basically, we are taught to expect and live with ambiguity (a bit of a challenge for me!). The idea is that there will be many many situations when there is no "set" correct answer, and you have nothing but you're own brain and motivation to find solutions that work. And finding solutions to the problem of poverty is no easy task either... But the idea is to tackle things one piece at a time and learn learn learn, adapt, try again, learn learn learn... you get the idea.
So has it been uber-challenging??? I find that in terms of learning HOW TO DO THINGS, Accenture was far more intensive, and that has a lot to do with the fact that Accenture was real, things HAD to get done and get done well, and on a deadline. In a school environment, I can never take things quite as seriously, for better or worse.
HOWEVER, what has been truly amazing, and beneficial, and eye-opening, has been the significance that training, and EWB as an organization, places on self-reflection. We each have a personal development plan and we are taught to constantly self-reflect and ensure that we are reaching the personal goals that we set for ourselves, in whatever context that may be. We are encouraged to support each other by giving direct and honest feedback, and to do so in a setting that is constructive and friendly. While Accenture may have taught me to do things efficiently and with high quality, EWB has so far taught me how to look into myself, really know who i am, and constantly work to better myself and my peers. That experience has been invaluable.
2) The EWB House and my fellow OVS (Overseas Volunteers) in training.
The EWB house is an old house in portugese town. There's about 8 of us living here at any given time, though depending on the volunteer sending period, i've been told there could be over 30 people here some weeks... i'm glad its not one of those weeks! It's cozy and comfortable and there's a really positive communal energy in the place, no doubt worn off from all of the exuberant, inspired volunteers that come and go from this place. There's photos from overseas of volunteers and african counterparts, and there are inspiring messages posted on the walls. There's also a CRT TV, Monopoly, and other odds and ends.
My fellow OVS (there are 6 of us total, 3 girls and 3 boys) are AWESOME. We've really bonded in the past 2 weeks, a little too well in some circumstances, because sometimes i feel like we spend more time partying than working, but it's been a blast. The other people in my group are Dan (UVic), Romesh (McGill), Meg (Concordia), Cat (Waterloo), and Eileen (Mac). All are engineers except for Eileen who comes from a development background, which is a great contribution for the group. I'm sad that none of these folks are going to be in my team and that i have no idea when i'll see them again, but then, i'm used to making strong friendships and then having to say goodbye, and there's always facebook!
3) Development Sector Revelations
This is probably the most interesting thing going on in my head right now. Not coming from a development background, I am slowly learning how the development sector works, and pretty soon i'll be able to start learning first hand. Basically, from what i can tell, there is a large contingent of the development sector that SUCKS. SUCKS = not taking into consideration the needs of farmers and communities, putting self-interest and donor money ahead of all else, having very poor management practices, and being generally careless. And this has been going on and on and on and on... i feel like it's only recently that some concrete changing are being made to address some of these inadequacies. Luckily EWB is one of the organizations that's doing some of this tackling. Coming from a strong project management background, and looking at how some of these projects are run with not only dollars on the line, but PEOPLE's LIVES, I'm frankly appaled at what I'm learning... I'm sure I'll have lots more to say about this in future blogs, but basically there is some real overhauling to do and I'm ready to get my hands dirty.
4) Looking Forward...
So what will i be doing? I still don't know 100%, but i have a better idea. When i first get into lusaka I'm supposed to spend a month doing in-country training, which will involve a one week village stay, motorcycle training, and some other logistics. After that I may be going to a remote location in NW Zambia to work at a honey manufacturer called Forest Fruits with a veteran volunteer named Mark. This would be for 3-4 months to give me a solid foundation in rural livelihoods... basically so that i can experience life first hand living with some of the people that we aim to help. After that I'd likely get placed at an office of perhaps an NGO and work with them to change their management practices so that they are more effective in helping the people that they're supposed to be helping. I won't get into too much detail about this yet, but I'll say that i'm VERY excited about it because it interests me greatly and because i know that with my Mgmt Consulting background there's a lot of value I can add here. Still not sure about anything though, especailly because the team is finalizing its strategy for the next 3 years currently, and the direction may change, but i'll keep yaz all posted.
Well i think that's plenty o writing for now. I feel like this post has been a bit on the boring side and i'll try to do better, but i wanted to get all of this out so you all have a picture of where i am and where i'm going.
Lotsa Love from Sarfy!
Sunday, October 11, 2009
Who is this guy? (2 weeks prior to pre-dep...)
So! I'm new to EWB, and plenty of folk don't know me or anything about me, and pretty soon I'll be working with a bunch of you! En fin, this blog is largely for you! If those who know me are reading it, read on, who knows maybe you'll discover or something knew.
So it's 1:30AM in Vancouver, I just had two wisdom teeth pulled out today, I'm listening to Ravi Shankar and I have a tea bag stuffed into a corner of my mouth (apparently this helps...). And all I can really think about is starting pre-departure in Toronto with EWB.
Okay so, for the kids that don't know me so well yet, here's a super abridged version of my life story, so you have some idea of who i am, where i come from, and why i'm an overseas volunteer! ...
Mom: Indian (from New Delhi)
Dad: South African (ethnically Indian, though family's been there for several generations)
Love Connection: Dad was sent to India on a boat when he was just 10, met my mom in school, fell in love, they got hitched, my sister and i arrived, rest is history.
Interesting story: Parents had to move to Canada originally right after getting married, since due to apartheid laws you couldn't bring a non-white wife into the country from another country. parents lived in TO for 7 years in the 70s and wore bell bottoms (i wasn't born yet). Went back to SA once law was changed.
My early years: Lived in Durban, SA till I was 5 then parents decided to give Canada another try mostly since SA very dangerous. Moved back to Canada, though this time Vancouver, since weather and many other qualities, infinitely better than Ontario (sorry Ontarians, but you know its true!)
I lived in Vancity til 17, then went off to Carleton to study Aerospace Engineering (and either be an astronaut or design spaceships).
Interesting story: drove between Vancouver and Ottawa 6 times during summers. Only got stopped by cops twice. Only got suspected of being a terrorist during one of these instances, in Manitoba, by a cop who asked if i'd ever "worn" a moustache before and if i went by my first or last name. Luckily he spelt my last name WRONG and i got off from paying the ticket.
Confession: Was a star trek fan/addict, even went to several conventions, though when VERY young... whatevs i know you've all watched some star trek in your day and LIKED it...
The Turning Point: Things changed in 4th year on a year-long exchange in Madrid. Horizons opened. An al-queda bomb exploded. I started paying attention seriously to world events for the first time in my life.
Epiphany: Who cares about space travel? People are suffering around the world. What's more important than helping them? Does the US really spend half a billion on each space shuttle launch?!?!?
I still finished my program, since i was just about done, and it never hurts to be able to say you're a rocket scientist (even if not technically true...). ;-)
Graduated: April 2006
Then: Lived in Montreal for a while, worked in a deaf relay call centre (i have some funny stories, ask me sometime)
Then: Got a job offer as a change management consultant with Accenture in Toronto... took the job not knowing exactly what consulting or accenture was all about
But was HAPPY because: needed to pay massive student loans!!!
In the background, I knew that my passion was development and that eventually i wanted to change career paths. So in the meantime, I got pretty involved with Oxfam in Toronto and helped start an Oxfam Toronto Professional Chapter; great experience and learned some things about development to boot.
The next turning point: A friend sends me a link to apply for an EWB overseas position
The problem: Who am i to get an EWB position? I'm not practising rocket science and i've never been involved with EWB before!
BUT: Tis better to apply and be rejected, than never to apply at all....
THEN: The stars aligned, the rockets fired, I got accepted as an OVS (who knew!!!). There was a definite beginning to the first path on my dream of being a development worker (kazaam! )
I transferred back home to Vancouver last spring and here I am, awaiting my imminent departure to my new beginning.
How do i feel?: Honored, privelaged, extremly happy, and excited!
What now??? Keep counting the days until pre-dep... and possibly get another tea bag!
Also, really looking forward to meeting all of you that I'll be working with soon. Ciao for now :-).
So it's 1:30AM in Vancouver, I just had two wisdom teeth pulled out today, I'm listening to Ravi Shankar and I have a tea bag stuffed into a corner of my mouth (apparently this helps...). And all I can really think about is starting pre-departure in Toronto with EWB.
Okay so, for the kids that don't know me so well yet, here's a super abridged version of my life story, so you have some idea of who i am, where i come from, and why i'm an overseas volunteer! ...
Mom: Indian (from New Delhi)
Dad: South African (ethnically Indian, though family's been there for several generations)
Love Connection: Dad was sent to India on a boat when he was just 10, met my mom in school, fell in love, they got hitched, my sister and i arrived, rest is history.
Interesting story: Parents had to move to Canada originally right after getting married, since due to apartheid laws you couldn't bring a non-white wife into the country from another country. parents lived in TO for 7 years in the 70s and wore bell bottoms (i wasn't born yet). Went back to SA once law was changed.
My early years: Lived in Durban, SA till I was 5 then parents decided to give Canada another try mostly since SA very dangerous. Moved back to Canada, though this time Vancouver, since weather and many other qualities, infinitely better than Ontario (sorry Ontarians, but you know its true!)
I lived in Vancity til 17, then went off to Carleton to study Aerospace Engineering (and either be an astronaut or design spaceships).
Interesting story: drove between Vancouver and Ottawa 6 times during summers. Only got stopped by cops twice. Only got suspected of being a terrorist during one of these instances, in Manitoba, by a cop who asked if i'd ever "worn" a moustache before and if i went by my first or last name. Luckily he spelt my last name WRONG and i got off from paying the ticket.
Confession: Was a star trek fan/addict, even went to several conventions, though when VERY young... whatevs i know you've all watched some star trek in your day and LIKED it...
The Turning Point: Things changed in 4th year on a year-long exchange in Madrid. Horizons opened. An al-queda bomb exploded. I started paying attention seriously to world events for the first time in my life.
Epiphany: Who cares about space travel? People are suffering around the world. What's more important than helping them? Does the US really spend half a billion on each space shuttle launch?!?!?
I still finished my program, since i was just about done, and it never hurts to be able to say you're a rocket scientist (even if not technically true...). ;-)
Graduated: April 2006
Then: Lived in Montreal for a while, worked in a deaf relay call centre (i have some funny stories, ask me sometime)
Then: Got a job offer as a change management consultant with Accenture in Toronto... took the job not knowing exactly what consulting or accenture was all about
But was HAPPY because: needed to pay massive student loans!!!
In the background, I knew that my passion was development and that eventually i wanted to change career paths. So in the meantime, I got pretty involved with Oxfam in Toronto and helped start an Oxfam Toronto Professional Chapter; great experience and learned some things about development to boot.
The next turning point: A friend sends me a link to apply for an EWB overseas position
The problem: Who am i to get an EWB position? I'm not practising rocket science and i've never been involved with EWB before!
BUT: Tis better to apply and be rejected, than never to apply at all....
THEN: The stars aligned, the rockets fired, I got accepted as an OVS (who knew!!!). There was a definite beginning to the first path on my dream of being a development worker (kazaam! )
I transferred back home to Vancouver last spring and here I am, awaiting my imminent departure to my new beginning.
How do i feel?: Honored, privelaged, extremly happy, and excited!
What now??? Keep counting the days until pre-dep... and possibly get another tea bag!
Also, really looking forward to meeting all of you that I'll be working with soon. Ciao for now :-).
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