First three months at site (continued)
So, here I am, back at the internet cafe...
As for my site, other than my house and my kitchen still being slightly under construction, overall I really like it (or imagine I will when it's finished). My village is about 75km from the Kasama house, which makes for a pretty nice 4-hour bike ride when I come in for meetings, shopping, banking whatever. I could take the train that runs through my village, but it's a little sketchy, only runs on certain days and only stops at like 3:00am, so for now I'll stick with the biking. Although this past trip in my neighbor decided to ride with me since he had to go into Kasama for a doctor visit. That was an awkward ride. If I'm not going to talk to anyone, I'd much rather ride by myself, but having someone right beside you for 4 hours who's not speaking is just kind of weird.
But overall I enjoy my neighbors. My house is in a group of three houses. The other two are owned by brothers so everyone's related. My neighbor has 7 kids (aged 20-<1), which are all pretty cool. And in the second house, they breed dogs. So there are always puppies and dogs around to play with which is really cool. One of them was so cool that my neighbors and I both wanted to keep it (usually they sell them all). So technically they keep it and feed it, but everyone jokes that he's my dog. He's a little sweet heart.
It's a little rough though because I"m the first volunteer at my site. So having an American around is quite the attraction. In the beginning it was horrible. People would just stand outside my fence and stare at me. Or even worse, groups of people would just let themselves inside my fence and plop down on my porch and not speak to me, just stare. I'm fine with visitors, but you've got to be willing to try to have a conversation. The whole thing is made worse by the fact that my house is situated on the main road through my village between the school and the clinic and the train station and the market. So there's A LOT of traffic. It's slowly getting better though. I think the novelty of the American is slowly wearing off.
As for fish farming, I've got a bunch of people who are interested but many of them have the problem of not having an adequate water supply. The last couple years in Zambia have been really dry so water sources that have NEVER dried up in the past, are now dry. But I have managed to measure and stake 7 ponds and those farmers are progressing well. Hopefully we'll do a fish transport in January. The biggest problem I've encountered (other than lack of water) is Zam-time. In Zambia, if you say something is going to start at 900, maybe by 1100 people will start to show up. I've tried to make it very clear to most of my farmers that when I say 900 I really do mean 900. And most of the farmers that have actually started working are actually really good about it (and they all have watches, so it's not like any of them don't know what time it is). But the farmers in my area are not only not starting work, but they're consistently late or absent from meetings. Oh well, fine by me. I"ll just focus on the farmers that are serious about getting things done.
I've also started working with a women's group (unfortunately in a village that's an hour bike ride away... no one within 30 minutes of me is doing anything). I've recently worked with them about starting an IGA (income generating activity) where they used the soya beans they had tons of and no use for to make a flour that they can make a sort of fried dough/biscuit thing out of and it's selling pretty well. And just before leaving site this time to come into Lusaka for IST I worked with them on making a fuel-efficient cook stove out of clay. These stoves are awesome and I can't wait to build one at my own house.
Anyway, I'll be out of site until after Thanksgiving. I think we're going to manage to cook up some sort of Thanksgiving dinner back at Kasama after IST is over. Then it's back to site for about a month before I take off someone for Christmas and News Years. Still haven't really come up with a concrete plan, but I'm working on either scuba diving in Lake Malawi or off the coast of Mozambique. It just depends on who I can get to come with me where. It wouldn't be the smartest thing in the world for me to just go galivanting around Africa alone. But I'll keep you all posted.
OH... and I put up a few more pictures. Sorry, again, there's just a few (6) but they take forever to upload... http://community.webshots.com/album/555560296qPwnqj
As for my site, other than my house and my kitchen still being slightly under construction, overall I really like it (or imagine I will when it's finished). My village is about 75km from the Kasama house, which makes for a pretty nice 4-hour bike ride when I come in for meetings, shopping, banking whatever. I could take the train that runs through my village, but it's a little sketchy, only runs on certain days and only stops at like 3:00am, so for now I'll stick with the biking. Although this past trip in my neighbor decided to ride with me since he had to go into Kasama for a doctor visit. That was an awkward ride. If I'm not going to talk to anyone, I'd much rather ride by myself, but having someone right beside you for 4 hours who's not speaking is just kind of weird.
But overall I enjoy my neighbors. My house is in a group of three houses. The other two are owned by brothers so everyone's related. My neighbor has 7 kids (aged 20-<1), which are all pretty cool. And in the second house, they breed dogs. So there are always puppies and dogs around to play with which is really cool. One of them was so cool that my neighbors and I both wanted to keep it (usually they sell them all). So technically they keep it and feed it, but everyone jokes that he's my dog. He's a little sweet heart.
It's a little rough though because I"m the first volunteer at my site. So having an American around is quite the attraction. In the beginning it was horrible. People would just stand outside my fence and stare at me. Or even worse, groups of people would just let themselves inside my fence and plop down on my porch and not speak to me, just stare. I'm fine with visitors, but you've got to be willing to try to have a conversation. The whole thing is made worse by the fact that my house is situated on the main road through my village between the school and the clinic and the train station and the market. So there's A LOT of traffic. It's slowly getting better though. I think the novelty of the American is slowly wearing off.
As for fish farming, I've got a bunch of people who are interested but many of them have the problem of not having an adequate water supply. The last couple years in Zambia have been really dry so water sources that have NEVER dried up in the past, are now dry. But I have managed to measure and stake 7 ponds and those farmers are progressing well. Hopefully we'll do a fish transport in January. The biggest problem I've encountered (other than lack of water) is Zam-time. In Zambia, if you say something is going to start at 900, maybe by 1100 people will start to show up. I've tried to make it very clear to most of my farmers that when I say 900 I really do mean 900. And most of the farmers that have actually started working are actually really good about it (and they all have watches, so it's not like any of them don't know what time it is). But the farmers in my area are not only not starting work, but they're consistently late or absent from meetings. Oh well, fine by me. I"ll just focus on the farmers that are serious about getting things done.
I've also started working with a women's group (unfortunately in a village that's an hour bike ride away... no one within 30 minutes of me is doing anything). I've recently worked with them about starting an IGA (income generating activity) where they used the soya beans they had tons of and no use for to make a flour that they can make a sort of fried dough/biscuit thing out of and it's selling pretty well. And just before leaving site this time to come into Lusaka for IST I worked with them on making a fuel-efficient cook stove out of clay. These stoves are awesome and I can't wait to build one at my own house.
Anyway, I'll be out of site until after Thanksgiving. I think we're going to manage to cook up some sort of Thanksgiving dinner back at Kasama after IST is over. Then it's back to site for about a month before I take off someone for Christmas and News Years. Still haven't really come up with a concrete plan, but I'm working on either scuba diving in Lake Malawi or off the coast of Mozambique. It just depends on who I can get to come with me where. It wouldn't be the smartest thing in the world for me to just go galivanting around Africa alone. But I'll keep you all posted.
OH... and I put up a few more pictures. Sorry, again, there's just a few (6) but they take forever to upload... http://community.webshots.com/album/555560296qPwnqj
posted by Elise at 8:22 AM
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