Owen in Zambia

A New Beginning

2008-12-09T23:43:00.004-04:00

A big hello to anyone who still has an RSS feed to this blog, or who has just stumbled accross it for the first time.

This blog (the one you are reading) is about the summer I spent in Zambia with Engineers Without Borders Canada in 2007. That summer was one of the most amazing experiences of my life. If you're interested in reading about the experience, please use the archive list on the right to look at my old posts. I think there is a lot in there that could still be considered interesting and relevant, even though the experience is now in my past.

The reason for this post's title, 'A New Beginning', is that I have recently graduated from Civil Engineering at the University of New Brunswick, and have been accepted for a long-term overseas placement with Engineers Without Borders Canada, leaving in February, 2009. The placement will be one year in duration, and I'm very excited for the challenge and the responsibility. I will definitely be keeping a blog again, and I will post a link on this page once I have one set up.

The new link is

Thank you very much to everyone who has followed this blog. Much love to you all.

Owen

Conclusion

2007-09-04T00:48:00.000-03:00

This will be my last official post on this blog. I am no longer "in Zambia", I am in Canada; currently sitting in the basement of my parent's house in Ottawa, soon to make the transition back to Fredericton and back to my university life style.

My time in Zambia is over, but my placement is not. The Junior Fellowship Program is a 18 month commitment: 6 months of in Canada training after selection, 4 months of overseas work, and 8 months of advocacy, leadership, and experience sharing when back in Canada. This is the phase of my placement I'm entering now, and I'm pretty excited.

My transition from Zambia to Canada was pretty smooth. The issues I discussed in my post "Going Home" have not gone away, but they have been mitigated by the cushioning environment of EWB's 3 day return session in Toronto (mainly good because of getting to spend time with all the other amazing people in my program), and then things have been made even better by the excellent welcome I've received from my family and friends. Finally, the thing that is eternally keeping me from feeling too down about things is the certainty I feel that I will be back in Zambia/Africa; the how and when of it still needs to be worked out, but the feeling is there and that is good enough for now.

As I said above, I am now squarely entering the "in Canada" phase of my placement. As such, I was asked by EWB to develop in my final report an outline of the some of the messages I wish to convey from my placement to people back home. In the end I came up with four, which I will now quote word for word from my report. (Note that this report was being written to my partner, OPPAZ, in Zambia, and as such was meant for a Zambian audience).

Messages for Canada (written August 20th, 2007 in EWB final report for OPPAZ)

1. Poverty exists. Not many people in Canada fully realize that there is a world outside Canada. Additionally many people do not understand that the challenges facing people at the bottom of the economic ladder in a country like Zambia are far different form those Canadians deal with on a daily basis. There are serious problems and injustics that exist in the world, and I believe it's important for everyone in the world to be able to join together to address these problems as best we can. However, the first step is for people to be aware; it is one of my main goals to foster this awareness in as many people as I can.

2. Poverty is not simple. Many people in Canada simply see poverty as a lack of material possessions or financial wellbeing. This, I believe, is not the case. I made a statement earlier in this report that "not everyone who isn't rich is poor" and I firmly believe it. There are many aspects of life in Zambia that are vastly superior to the Canadian way of life. There are also many challenges and problems that need to be addressed. I think it's important for Canadians to be able to differentiate between the positive and the negative aspects of life in a developing country, and not see poverty as a universal condition.

3. Western assistance can help. Once people are aware about poverty, I believe it's important for Canadians, Zambians, and people from other countries areound the world, to begin working hand in hand, as equals, to help vulnerable people everywhere make improvements in their own lives. A lot of people in Canada are cynical about foreign aid; they believe it's a waste of money and only supports corruption, or they believe that it is so inefficient as to make it not worthwhile. While this is true in some cases, it is certainly not true in every case, and it doesn't need to be true in any case. We can make foreign assistance and foreign partnerships work for the benefit of everyone, and I believe that that is something which Canadians need to begin making a strong effort to do.

4. Western assistance can harm. Too many people volunteer in a country like Zambia believing that because their heart is in the right place, that everything they do will be unequivocally good. As I have discussed in the above sections, I do not believe this is the case. I think it's important for future Canadian overseas volunteers to begin thinking about both the positive and negative outcomes of their planned actions, and to begin adjusting those actions accordingly.

(end quoted section)

I felt at the time that these messages were simple enough to be able to discuss with just about anyone in Canada, but complex enough to also make them worthwhile for people to hear. I hope they have done the trick. I will now elaborate on one of them, which I feel I have failed to address adequately in this blog.

Poverty Exists

I have deliberately shied away from really mentioning poverty on this blog. I don't want to be one more pessimistic voice telling hopeless tales about Africa. Of course, I have seen so much hope in Zambia that to be that voice would have been impossible. However, by trying to hide poverty completely, I don't think I'm helping anyone there either. For this reason, I will tell one story and let people extrapolate it to the big picture however they want to.

On my second last day in Mpongwe, I went at lunch with my friend Elijah ("Mr. Daka in previous posts) to go get some food and play a game of pool. We were playing at a pool table outside a local bar, when I saw my friend Chris, who previously we had hired as an electrician to work on the dryer.

Excited to get the chance to say a proper goodbye to him, I went over and asked him how he was. "I'm not good" he replied. I asked him what was the matter. "You remember how I told you my baby was in the hospital?". I answered yes, even though I don't think he ever actually told me. Either way, whether or not I knew about the hospitalization was meaningless, because it wouldn't change what he said next: "My baby is dead".

Chris is a nice man, and a brilliant electrician. Hard working and industrious, in Canada he would be squarely in the middle class, with a nice house, a car, a happy family, and almost certaintly a living, breathing baby who he could watch grown up and develop the same way my parents have watched me. Instead, there he was, looking sad, lost, dispirited. Why did his kid, like so many in Zambia, have to die, when in Canada we almost surely have all the resources which could have let the child live.

I hesitated to tell this story. Even now I feel guilty about it. I feel like I'm using Chris, like I'm using my friend and his pain to make a point on this blog, to get people's attention, to attempt to make people feel what its like to live outside of the comfortable cushion that is Canada. However, it's the truth. 1 in 10 children die in Zambia before the age of 5. For the other 9 who survive, the life expectancy is less than 40 years. All of these people, all of these deaths, have faces connected to them, have stories connected to them. They are all someone's friend, someone's family, someone's child. They all matter. It's time that people start acting like they matter.

What you can do.

If you want to change the world, please don't rush overseas and try to make a difference. Stop, think, learn, think some more, and if you're still sure you want to go, and can articulate why you want to go, what you're trying to do, and what are the possible positive and negative outcomes and impacts from your planned actions, then please go and I'd say Zambia/Africa is lucky to have you.

So what else can people do? Really, infinite things. If you want to volunteer overseas, then put a little thought into it and you'll probably end up doing some really good work. If you want to work in Canada, then join an EWB chapter, or go to a protest, or write a letter to your MP, or read a book on development, or donate to a charity, or basically do anything that you feel is worthwhile (here are some more ideas). I will, in about a week, add my own page of links to this blog for people who want to learn more. The fight against poverty won't be over quickly, and so sustained passionate action on many fronts is what's needed. If everyone plays their part then maybe in 20 years stories like the one I told about my friend in Zambia will be firmly in the past.

Conclusions

I hope that anyone who has read this far has gained something from this blog, and therefore from my time overseas. I intend this blog to be in some small way a resource for future volunteers (EWB and other) and so will probably keep adding things to it as I sort through my pictures and notes from the summer. However, this is my last official post and will be the official conclusion of the blog. Comments are very much appreciated (I'm really curious who's been reading this), but silence is cool too. I've enjoyed writing in this blog for the last four months; it's been really nice to have a chance to share some experiences.

Thanks so much for everyone who has read this,

Owen

P.S. for all those UNB'ers, keep your eyes peeled to http://www.unb.ewb.ca/ for the fall's activities.

P.P.S. I added a new (old) post, labeled "Post 6: A Day in the Life". Check it out if you want.

Going Home

2007-08-25T11:26:00.000-03:00

I can't believe my time in Zambia has come to an end. Early tomorrow afternoon I will be getting onto a plane which will be the first leg of my trip home. As of August 27th, I will be in Canada. After that, it's a few days of EWB reintegration training and then I will be fully back into normal life.

I don't know how I feel right now. My last week has been pretty crazy. On Saturday the 18th I traveled to my old community to play some final songs on the guitar, have one more awesome lunch, and say far very hard goodbyes. That was only the beginning. Sunday was a few more goodbyes at work, and following that on Monday I had to say goodbye to some of my host family, to the rest of my co-workers, and to as many other of my friends and acquaintances as I could manage.

Sitting with Elias on my last weekend.

On Tuesday morning I said my final farewells, and walked with Elias (co-worker, ex-host, best friend) to board a bus to Luanshya. From there it was about 7 hours and 4 buses to meet my friend Kate (another Junior Fellow) in Lusaka.

I've heard from past Junior Fellows at UNB that their worst culture shock was not going back to Canada, but going from their home communities to the Capital city (in their cases, Accra, Ghana). For me, this was definitely true.

My friend Kate was doing some food shopping so I met her at the Super Spar grocery store at Lusaka's fanciest mall, the Arcades Shopping Centre. As soon as I arrived there, I didn't really know what to do. The Super Spar would be right at home in the suburbs of any large North American city. It's absolutely gigantic and was very confusing for me. The act of taking vegetables, putting them in a plastic bag, weighing them on a scale, printing out a label, and then taking them to a cash register, instead of just paying a woman on the street a few thousand Kwacha, was almost too much for me to handle without subsiding into a confused state of disbelief (manifested by me laughing and making pointless statements to Kate about how confused I was). The whole time we were shopping I was a bit in a daze, unsure of what really to make of the whole situation.

Grocery store in Lusaka.

I have been back to Lusaka before during my placement, but this time was worse. I had become very used to living in Mpongwe by this time. My vocal mannerisms, casual language skills, and general ease of interaction had grown in my final month in ways they never had in the first two. By the time I left, I felt truly comfortable in almost every situation in Mpongwe, rather then feeling confused and unsure of myself like I had previously. Then all of a sudden I was ripped out of that lifestyle and found myself back in the big city.

The problem wasn't really that I couldn't adjust; I've lived in cities my whole life and am quite comfortable with them. The problem was I didn't want to adjust. I've spent 3.5 months trying my hardest to live like someone from Mpongwe, to speak like someone from Mpongwe, and all of a sudden, all of that effort no longer mattered. It wasn't that bad in Lusaka, where many of the same mannerisms I learned still applied, except that I knew it was only going to keep getting worse as I moved closer to Canada. In a very short time, I was going to have to give up all the features of my Zambian personality I've worked so hard to develop while I've been here.

The few days after that first night were a lot better. I had my final meeting with my partner organization (OPPAZ) and everything went very well. After that, I went for 1 night to visit EWB-UNB co-founder Jen Dysart and her boyfriend Slady in Monze. Jen has been in Zambia for something like 2.5 years since she graduated, working on an EWB long-term placement with WaterAid Zambia. She has a really cool life carved out in Monze, and is doing some pretty cool work and research there; it was really nice to see her.

The next morning, myself and some of the other EWB volunteers did something that our co-workers, friends, and aquaintaces had been telling us that we had to do before leaving Zambia: we went to Livingston and paid a 1 day visit to Victoria Falls. I have to say it was absolutely incredible. I will post some pictures as soon as I can. I can definitely see why it's been labeled for so long as one of the 7 Natural Wonders of the World.

Victoria Falls

So now, after that awesome visit, I'm back in Lusaka, with less than 24 hours left in Zambia. Am I excited to get back to Canada? It's a tough question to answer. I'm excited to see friends, to see family, and to enjoy a comfortable and stable life while I finish my last two semesters of university. However, I am also apprehensive about how I will fit in, how I will deal with things, how I will be able to express what I've experienced in Zambia with people back home. All in all though, in a lot of ways I am looking forward to being back in my regular life.

Now for the other question: am I excited to leave Zambia? The answer is a strong no. I love this country. I love the people, I love the food, I love the lifestyle. I will miss so many things that I can't even begin to describe them. Of course, there are some changes that will be nice. The first time I walk down a street and no kid yells "how are you" at me from 100 meters away, I will enjoy it very much. But those things are very superficial. Realistically, I feel like I could easily stay in Zambia for much longer. I'm almost sure I will be back, if not here, than somewhere in Africa. The only questions are when, and how.

Until I'm back in Canada, I wish everyone a good last days of summer. I'm looking forward to seeing all of my friends and family as soon as possible.

Take care everyone,

Owen

A Traditional Wedding

2007-08-08T06:42:00.000-03:00

In my last post I wrote about some of the harder times I’ve had since being here. I think that was valuable; I don’t want to give an unbalanced view of my time here. On that same note, however, I thought it would be best for me to share at least one happy story on this blog as well.

The good news is that I had a very hard time narrowing it down to one story. A VERY hard time. I’ve had so many amazing experiences in Zambia with so many amazing people that it’s kind of overwhelming to start trying to choose. That is it was kind of overwhelming, until recently when I stumbled upon a pretty good choice.

Flash back to about two and a half weeks ago. I’m sitting around the fire with Mr. Silumbu (the farmer who’s hosting me), and Mr Kuveya (one of the cooperative board members). We’re shelling groundnuts from this year’s harvest. It’s pretty boring work, but the conversation/Zambian radio usually makes it fun.

Earlier in the day I’d been helping the two of them with a business proposal. They’re both board members of the Mpongwe Small and Medium Business Association. They’ve been trying to get funding to run programs for Orphans and Vulnerable Children (OVCs) for a long time, and since I’ve come to Mpongwe I’ve been using some of my spare time to help the Association with business planning, proposal writing, and other skills they’re currently a little short on.

They’re talking about an upcoming board meeting for the Association. Always eager for learning opportunities, I enquire if I can come. It’s supposed to be Saturday, August 4th. “Actually, it’s been delayed” they tell me. After asking why, I’m informed “because of the wedding.”

“Who’s wedding?”

“Mary’s”.

“Mary’s?”, I think. “As in Mary Silumbu?” The answer comes back as an emphatic yes. There was going to be a traditional wedding on my farm in less then a week and I didn’t even know about it.

Anyway, after clearing things up and finding out that Mr. Silumbu thought he told me weeks ago, I started to get excited. A traditional wedding should be a pretty fun experience. At that time, I was feeling pretty happy.

On August 4th, people start arriving. I got home from work around 6:00pm and there was already a good crowd. As the night when on the crowd continued to grow. After showering and eating a quick bite of Nshima (basically corn meal and water) with cabbage, I joined everyone around the fire.

The group had quickly polarized into men and women. Naturally, I ended up with the men. Still, I felt this was the bad end of the deal.

The women had taken the bride-to-be off into a hut somewhere, and there was a lot of activity…singing, dancing, cheering, etc. I’ve heard a lot about African bridal ceremonies in the past. I was thinking to myself that if I was a female JF, this would probably be one of the most interesting nights of my placement.

Instead, I was with the men. We were all sort of just sitting around the fire. There was a radio playing somewhere. No one was really talking. Ok, definitely not the wedding party I had expected. Exhausted from a long day of work, I excused myself around 8:30 and went to bed, slightly disappointed with how a potentially exciting night had turned out.

Two hours later, I was woken up by the sound of drums. “Drums?” I thought drums in Zambia were a myth. I certainly hadn’t encountered any yet. But there it was…drumming coming from across the farm. Singing too, and cheering.

I was still really tired, but I also really wanted to check things out. I made myself a deal: if I stayed awake for another 15 minutes and there was still drumming, I would go check it out. Out of my 15 minute deadline, I lasted for only about 3 minutes before I couldn’t wait any longer.

I found everyone in the farm’s kitchen (a big circular building made of mud bricks and thatch). I waited for a quiet moment between songs and slipped in, hoping to find a comfortable place to stand and check things out. Instead, I found myself standing in the middle of a crowd. All of a sudden the drums start again; the crowd starts dancing. “Ok”, I thought, "I guess I’m dancing too."

Dancing in Zambia is really fun. You can basically do anything you want. I don’t think there’s such thing as bad dancing, as long as you move you hips and look like you’re enjoying yourself. As such, I had a pretty good time. I only wish I had known the words to the songs everyone was singing. Finally, I went back to bed.

The next day was amazing. I joined Joseph and Solomon Silumbu (who are both around my own age) and some assorted other people on a donkey cart mission to get cabbage and tomatoes. After visiting several farms we ended up coming back about 1 hour after the wedding was supposed to start, but this being Zambia obviously it hadn't started on time.

Choosing our cabbage.

About 1 hour after we got back, things got underway. There was a crowd of about 250 people to watch the wedding. The MC had been drinking since he woke up. I know this because initially I had joined him for a glass (not to get drunk, but because I was hungry and maize beer is thick). Still though, he was articulate and hilarious, and took any opportunity to dance by himself in front of the crowd when he thought it was appropriate.

The master of ceremonies.

Half of the crowd.

The wedding was sort of like a Canadian wedding, except a lot less formal, a lot less organized, and with a lot more dancing. First a line of men danced out of a hut followed by the groom, and took up residence in a purpose-built shelter in front of the crowd. Then, from a distant hut, a line of women danced out with the bride and joined them. Next someone put a small cake on a table in front of them. Then, a boy (“the knife boy”) danced out from another hut with a knife, and presented it to the couple, who cut the cake. (Note: there will be a video of the knife boy put on this blog once I get back to Canada).

Bridal entourage dancing out.

Bride and groom together.

During the wedding, I was playing the role of semi-official photographer. I had previously told Mr. Silumbu that I could do this, and then send him the pictures, and he was pretty excited about the idea.

Midway through the wedding, as I was minding my own business and taking some photos, Mr. Kuveya came over to me. “Mr. Silumbu wants to you get your guitar and play one of your songs for everyone. Can you do it?”

“Ok” I thought, it’s only about 250 people. Taking up the challenge with a bit of nervousness, I ran to my hut to get my guitar. As I was tuning it, I already heard the MC yelling at me: “Owen, we’re waiting for you…Owen come on”.

Giving up on tuning, I quickly handed off my camera to someone, grabbed a brick to sit on, and sat down in front of the crowd. With all those eager eyes on me, I suddenly realized I hadn’t decided on a song yet to play. Making a snap decision, I thought that Bob Dylan’s “Blowing in the Wind” was probably the closest thing to a good song to play a wedding that I knew, so I went ahead with it. It’s not like anyone can understand the words when I sing anyways...All in all though, I’d say the song went over pretty well.

The most beautiful moment in musical history.

After that, there was a few more words said in Lamba, and then the bride and groom, together with their entourage, danced off to one of the huts. Now it was time for food.

Entourages dancing back together.

We all gathered in a large enclosure, and then the bride and groom danced back in (again with their entourage), and then groups of people danced up to them to present them with gifts. After that, food was served, and then the formal proceedings came to an end.

The family had brewed 8 barrels of maize beer for the occasion, so definitely the afternoon saw a lot of dancing, a lot of slurring, and a lot of happy Zambian men. I didn’t really take part in the drinking, but sat around and talked to friends, played a bit more guitar, and generally had a good time. Eventually, people started to leave, and by 6:00pm everyone was gone. As for myself, I shared some of the leftover food with the family, said my goodnights, and then retired to bed around 7:00 (it was early, but I was still very tired from the night before). All in all, a good day.

A Day in the Life

2007-08-01T05:05:00.000-03:00

September 3, 2007,

This post was written on August 1st, 2007. However, for some reason, I never posted it, but instead only saved it as a draft in my blogspot account. I think the reason was lack of time to proofread it. Also, part of the purpose of this post was to show that there was a lot of happy times for me in Zambia, and I ended up posting about the wedding just after making that message kind of redundant. Anyways though, 1 month late, here is the post in its unaltered entirity. (I will add pictures later).

_____________________________________________

August 01, 2007,

As I was preparing for my placement in Zambia, one of the things I always found the most useful/interesting was reading about what a typical day in someone's life is as a volunteer. For two really good examples, try EWB Longterm Volunteer Chad Hamre, and EWB former Longterm Volunteer, and current Junior Fellowship Program Support Staff Paul Slomp.

So, to keep up with the trend, I thought I'd take this chance to share what a typical day in my life in Zambia is like. I'll qualify this whole thing by saying that there really is no "typical day" for me here, but this attempt is probably pretty close.

Weekdays

I wake up every day sometime between 6:00am and 7:00am. This is entirely dependent on what time I want to be at work. First thing after getting up, I light a candle, turn on the radio to Radio France International (the only station I get clearly), and start making some breakfast. My breakfast is a very un-Zambian peanut butter and something sandwhich (something varies between jam, honey, or bananas depending on what I have). I used to take breakfast with the family, which would consist of maize porridge (litterally ground up corn mixed with water) and a cup of tea, but I had to stop; the reason being that the family breakfast is prepared according to no percievable fixed schedule, and so partaking in it was making me consistently late for work.

After breakfast, I wash my face, get dressed properly for work, and get all my things together for the day. Then, it's clean my room time: make my bed, arrange my things a bit, sweep my floor (you can sweep a dirt floor infinitely, but it gets really dirty if you don't; it's complicated...), and then it's time for work.

My bikeride to work is about 7km on a rough dirt road. Sadly, due to the road, and my one speed bike which frequently breaks down, this ride takes me about 30 minutes. It's punctuated by polite greetings with strangers, kids yelling "how are you?" at the top of their lungs from places out of my eye-sight, the occasional run-in with a friend or aquaintance, and basically a lot of getting stared at for being a Musungu (foreigner) on a bike on a dirt road. I'm pretty used to the getting stared at thing though, so it doesn't bother me. I'm still waiting for people to get used to me enough to not notice anymore, but it seems to be taking a long time time.

My work officially begins at 8:00am. However I have literally never seen anyone other than me in the office at 8:00am. Most days, the first thing I have scheduled is a computer lesson with one of my co-workers. This will nominally start at 8:00, but I can expect them to arrive anytime between 8:30 and never. (I shoud say that one time Elias got there at 8:00 and I was 30 minutes late...so it goes go both ways). The lessons are scheduled to finish at 10:00am, but since by that time there's still usually nothing happening at the office, they often go longer. If I don't have a lesson that day, or something else to work on, I usually come to work a little later.

After computer lessons, I usually have some task to do associated with the dryer, or I help out on something else the Cooperative is working on. The things I do at work vary so much that I won't try to describe them too much. I think that it will be better discussed in another post.

Lunch is normally at 1:00pm. Since I live a good trek from the office, I usually go and eat at one of the restaurants in town. There are only three, and each serves the same things: chicken, fish, sausage, or offals, usually with a vegetable (usually rape, a.ka. canola, or cabbage), and always with nshima (a mixture of ground up corn and water that you role into a ball in your hand, and then use to pick up whatever else you're eating). One of the restaurants in town also usually has beans, and since I'm trying to revert back to vegetarianism as much as possible I go there most days.

Lunch is either eaten alone, or with the Cooperative accountant Mr. Daka, depending on whether he's in the office on any given day. No one else at work eats in town. If Mr. Daka is in, then after lunch we usually go play a few games of pool together in the market. Otherwise, I head back to work. The afternoon is usually more productive then the morning, and it's when the bulk of my real work usually gets done.

Work finishes at 5:00pm, and following that I hop on my bike and head home to the farm. First thing on the schedule: bathing. Any attempt to postpone, delay, or alter this schedule in any way is met with horror by my family. I guess immediate post-work bathing is seen as a neccessity by them; but it could be equally because it's when it fits their schedule best for me to use the shower stall. Either way, I don't argue.

Bathing here is a bit different than at home. Basically, I have one large bucket of water, one small container, and a bar of soap. I use the small container to scoop the water from the large container onto myself, lather up before it dries, and then use the same process to rinse myself off. At my old house, there was a river about 15 minutes walk from where I stayed, and I used to just go there in the morning, jump in, soap up, and jump out. This had its flaws (Zambian mornings in July are about equivalent to Canadian mornings in October in terms of temperature), but I thoroughly enjoyed it. The bucket system, on the other hand, I don't really like, mainly because I was initially spoiled by the river. Still though, it works pretty well.

After bathing, it's time to help with chores, which almost always means shelling groundnuts (peanuts). The family harvested their groundnuts shortly before I arrived, but to sell them to the Cooperative, they have to be shelled. This means that most evenings we sit around the fire cracking the shells, putting the nuts in a bowl, and throwing away the shells. This ritual has been going on already for two weeks, minimum one hour per night, with no end in sight.

At some point during the shelling process, the women of the family prepare and serve dinner. I eat with the men (aka Mr Silumbu and any male guests), while the women and kids eat seperately. I don't exactly love this, but it's the culture, so I haven't done much to fight it. There's a fine line between representing your own values, and respecting someone else's, and I think this custom is firmly on the "respecting" side.

At my old house dinner was usually nshima with either fish, chicken, beans, eggs, or soya pieces, and a vegetable (again, rape or cabbage). However, where I stay now, food/money supplies are a little tighter, and so typically the meal is nshima with rape, cabbage, or groundnuts. Still though, it's more than enough for me; contrary to many volunteers, I really like nshima.

After dinner everyone continues to shell groundnuts, and I generally help. On the odd night I might pull out my guitar and sing some songs while everyone works, something that is universally welcomed, but I don't do it too often because from a learning/integration point of view I'd rather be helping.

I'm usually pretty tired from work, so most nights I'm one of the first one to bed (somewhere around 8:00pm-10:00pm). Following my usual Canadian routine, I read a book in bed until I'm too tired to continue, switch back on the radio for the evening news, and then fall asleep. This whole process usually takes about 10 minutes because at the end of the day I can be really tired.

Weekends

There's no typical schedule for what I might do on the weekends. On Saturdays I travel to town to use the internet, or go and visit my old community, or go to work (usually when I have to write a report for EWB), or just stay around the farm helping with things, reading, and relaxing. There's usually also some personal chores for me to do, most notably handwashing my clothes which can take some time. On Sundays I sometimes go to church with my family, and other than that have the same combination of chores/work/relaxation typical of a Saturday.

A Happy Saturday

In my last post I was trying to get accross one aspect of my placement, namely culture shock. Since last time I shared a few less than perfect stories, I thought this time I would show the other side of the coin, and share a good day I had last Saturday. This kind of fun day is much more typical of my placement.

The day started off with me waking up and having the standard porridge/tea breakfast with my family. Following this, I hopped on my bike and rode to the office to write my month-end report for EWB.

At work for the last week, Elias (my co-worker, ex-host, and best friend) had been suggesting that I come for a visit back to the old community. Specifically though, he was saying that I should bring my guitar and play some songs, something I did a lot while I was there. So on that note, after the report, I threw my guitar on my back, and rode my bike to the old house.

I was greeted immediately by an awesome lunch prepared by Elias's wife Ethel (who's company I also thoroughly enjoy). Full and happy, I wandered around the old village greeting friends who I hadn't seen for a few weeks. After a bit of wandering, I ran into my friend Roden, who suggested heading down to the river for a swim. Since the sun was scorching hot at this time, I thought it sounded like a plan.

We found the river full of kids playing and swimming...typical of noon on a Saturday. I also found my friend Joseph who was down there for the same reason as we were. All in all, I love the river, so it was a good time. We jumped in, shivered for a while, than quickly adjusted. We had a few swimming races, following which I taught Joseph the front crawl (he's really fast, but has never learned "proper" swimming strokes), and then hopped out and dried in the sun. After this, Roden and I went back up to the house to reconnect with Elias.

As soon as we got back, Elias pulled out a blank tape from somewhere, and said he wanted to record me playing guitar (he's the third person to want to do this). With this in mind, we sat inside his hut and, tape player running, I began to play.

Playing guitar inside is very atypical for me in Zambia. Usually, I play outside and as a result, gather a large crowd of kids who come to listen (and dance). I felt kind of bad to be ignoring the kids to play inside, but for the purposes of sound-quality, agreed with Elias that inside was best.

After playing a few songs, I looked and noticed that there was a shadow outside of the door. Opening it, we found two kids shyly waiting outside and listening. Quickly, we invited them in, closed the door, and I kept playing. A few minutes later, more kids arrived...again we let them in. A few minutes a later, more kids again. After about 10 minutes of playing, every seat, bucket, and bit of floor of Elias' hut was quickly filling up with kids. It was pretty neat.

I played for my little audience for a few more minutes, and then we decided to move things outside. After that, some of the kids dispersed, but there was good crowd, and I was happy to alternatively play guitar, sit with friends, talk, and generally enjoy myself for the next few hours. Following that, I hopped on my bike rode home for a good dinner with my host family, shelled some groundnuts, and went to sleep. All in all, a good day.

Culture Shock

2007-07-24T06:31:00.000-03:00

There can be a temptation for any volunteer keeping a blog to act like they’re perfect. It’s not hard…all you have to do is only post positive stories. However, with my blog I want to try to give a balanced view of what I’m experiencing here. That desire brings me to my current subject: culture shock.

Culture shock can be through of as a sort of psychological disorientation resulting from a conflict between your deeply ingrained cultural values and the different cultural cue and behaviours of the society you have relocated into. However broad-minded you may hope you are, deep down we all have a fundamental assumption that our own culture is right.
Lonely Planet Healthy Travel Africa, pg 232

Travel in another culture is typically thought of in phases. The first phase is called the honeymoon phase. Everything is new and exciting, and you feel like the new culture you’re visiting is absolutely amazing. This is usually followed by a crash (a.k.a. culture shock), typified by feelings of hostility towards the new culture, and strong feeling of superiority of your traditional way of doing things. Following this comes a stage of acceptance and finally adaptation, when you learn to operate fairly seamlessly in the new culture, and lose the idea of “us and them”.

For me it hasn’t worked like that. Culture shock has not been a “phase”, nor has excitement. Generally, my interaction with the Zambian culture can be described on a week by week basis. Every week I have (on average) one day where I love Zambia and never want to go home, two days where I’m very much fitting the definition of someone who’s “culture shocked” and four days where my life feels pretty normal and I’m happy in my daily routine.

(This isn’t necessarily the same for all volunteers. Take this post from EWB-UNB’s co-founder Mike Gallant.)

For me, it’s hard to say exactly what brings on these low periods. Sometimes, it’s tied to being sick (although I’ve only been sick twice). Sometimes, it’s after a particularly frustrating day of work, or an annoying interaction with someone. Thinking about it now, however, two especially poignant moments come to mind, which I thought I would share:

Retreat
At the time of my last posting I had just come back from the EWB mid-placement retreat. Up until that point of my placement, I thought I’d been doing pretty well at this whole integration/adaptation thing. I was in a pretty good daily routine, work was going well, I was getting along with my host family; in short, I had avoided most of the pitfalls I had been worried about.

Then, all of a sudden, I was ripped out of my Zambian routine, and brought to a beautiful lake for an amazing weekend with some truly awesome Canadians. All of a sudden, I began to realize how much I missed interacting with people from my own culture. How much I miss the sheer unbridled fun that is possible when you’re with people who understand you perfectly, and whom you understand as well.

I didn’t feel like leaving during the weekend; in fact, the idea never crossed my mind…until the very end.

Look at all those happy Canadians.

As we were packing up from the retreat, I loaded up my hiking bag, put it on my back, and picked up my guitar. I was now holding all of the luggage I travelled to Zambia with. I remember stopping in my tracks; the thought rushed into my head: “how easy would it be if I was going home now?” No more struggles to interact with Zambians. No more battling with slowing down my speech and altering my vocabulary. No more misunderstandings, no more being an outsider, being stared at, being different. At the time I really wished that the bus from the retreat was going to the airport. But like everything, those feelings eventually passed.

New Home

Realistically, however, me recovery from the retreat culture shock did not last long. As I stated in a previous blog entry, I decided a long time ago to move from my first home in order to get a better idea of how farmers lived (by living with one). I knew at the time that there would be negatives to the decision. I really liked living with my first host family. They fed me well, they treated me well, they let me help when I wanted to, they let me be alone when I wanted to, they almost all spoke English; realistically, it was a pretty good set up.

The old home.

Arriving at my new family’s farm, things quickly changed. I think sometime briefly before I arrived, someone told them that Muzungus (a.k.a. foreigners, or “white people”), where weak and helpless creatures incapable of doing the slightest thing for themselves, and requiring constant assistance and supervision (also, I should mention, that treating guests well is a major part of Zambian culture).

The new home.

For my first few days, I couldn’t even look at anybody without them running to get me a stool or chair so I could sit down, even if that meant vacating theirs. In my hut, I was beset by a constant stream of family members bringing me things: water to bath, water to wash my face, food, tea, a brazier of charcoal, more water to wash my face, another meal. Attempts to refuse food, eat with the family, get things for myself, or help with family activities, were met with little enthusiasm, or outright refusal by the family. As time went on, it kept getting worse. When I went to work my first day, I found my locked hut had been opened (multiple keys). All my things had been rearranged into neat little piles, my bed had been remade, my floor had been reswept, and more of the family’s scarce furniture had found its way into my room. I now had the option to select from 3 stools and 2 chairs every time I wanted to sit down.

Finally, the kicker came my first Sunday with the new family. I saw some of the boys in the family (two my age, two younger) taking the family’s donkey cart to pick up some maize from neighbour. At their invitation, I hopped on and joined them for the ride. I quickly noticed that everyone in the cart was quite concerned over my safety and comfort. I was frequently consulted as to whether the speed was appropriate. Any grimace on my face at a bump (some of them do really hurt) was met by an immediate slowing down of the cart and an apology, even while other people’s grimaces were irrelevant. I was frustrated, but held my peace, and continued riding, trying to laugh and joke with everyone, and show that I was a regular human being, and not a fragile object sent from far away for them to take care of.

Later that same day, we went to church, again by donkey cart. No sooner was the cart on the road, however, when Joseph, the driver, suddenly stopped the donkeys, and quickly said sometime in Nyanja to his brother Adson. Upon hearing whatever Joseph had said, Adson ran off back to the house, and came back bearing a wooden stool. Naively wondering what the stool was for, I continued sitting on the old car tire where I had planned to spend the whole ride, until Adson placed the stool in front of me, and the collective population of the cart gestured for me to sit on it.

“Here, you’ll be more comfortable” they said. While I won’t repeat what went through my head, what I said out-loud was something like “thanks, but I’m quite fine here”, and following that refused to take their stool. Feeling like I had won a small battle, I continued the ride on the car tire (which I also think is more comfortable) until we arrived at church.

Following church, we ate lunch outside the service. Immediately Joseph took out the container of groundnuts he’d brought, opened it, placed it in front of me, took a cup, poured a glass of water for me, set up the stool facing the meal, and stood waiting to watch me eat alone. Again, I felt like this was too much. Refusing the stool, I told Joseph we should eat together, then I quickly drank the water, poured a new glass, and offered it to him in the same manner he had done for me. Finally, things between us began to lighten up. When a few minutes later we noticed that the donkeys had ran away, I ignored Joseph’s insistence to stay behind, and ran off into the bush with him to search for them. I could see that he was beginning to get the impression that Muzungus could actually do things, and were not in need of constant assistance and support. Life was definitely getting better.

So, where does the culture shock come into this story? Well, what happened next was one of the worst bits of chance of my whole placement. I had finally convinced my new host brothers that I wasn’t helpless or fragile. They were beginning to see that I was capable of doing normal things, or riding in donkey carts, of eating as an equal, of standing and not sitting. And then, on the ride home, I began to feel it…fever, headache, nausea…oh no, I was getting sick. By the time we got back home, I felt like I could barely stand up. After quickly saying hello to the rest of the family, I informed them that I wasn’t feeling well, and would have to go to bed for the rest of the afternoon. “What!?”, “You’re sick!”, “Do you need to go to the hospital?”.

“No, I just need to sleep. I will see you tomorrow.”

“Do you need food?”

“Something to drink?”

“The hospital?”

“No, I’m fine, I just need to sleep. I’ve been sick like this before.”

A beautiful self portrait while sick.

The procession of deliveries to my room immediately redoubled in strength, all the more infuriating because firstly, each delivery was now accompanied by a worried inquiry into my health, and secondly, because all I wanted to do was sleep, and people kept waking me up. By the next day when I began to feel better, I was so angry at myself (for being sick), at the family (for treating me like a child), and at the world (for not being tailor made to make me happy), that I had a few bad days. I began to constantly refuse things the family offered me, I became hostile, I became distant; I really let my frustration get the best of me. Eventually, however, I calmed down, and with no harm done (in reality, I did try to hide my frustration as much as I could).

Adaption?
While I won’t go into too many details, let me just say that after a rocky start, things have improved immensely at my new home. While I am still waited on more than I would like, I have begun to be able to eat with the family, I am routinely helping with farm chores, and I have regained some of my privacy (although someone still breaks into my room everyday to re-sweep).

I have accomplished this through several days of strategically refusing things (more so out of culture shock derived frustration than any real plan), by forcing my way into helping with chores and actually being good at them (you don’t have to be Zambian to put maize in a bag), and by honest discussion of some of the issues with my family. Things are definitely looking up, and life on the farm has gone from unbearable to enjoyable in a very short time.

Culture Malaise
Despite focusing on only two insteances, you may remember that I said above I feel culture shock like symptoms about two days every week. This, unfortunately, is still true. The fact is, life in Zambia is harder for me than life in Canada. While I haven’t had much experience with acute “culture shock”, I’ve been experiencing a lot of what I’d call, “culture malaise”.

Sometimes, I’m just tired of integrating; I’m tired of adapting. I’m tired of always being stared at, of always hearing someone yelling “Muzungu” in the distance. I want my simple, enjoyable, normal life. I want to communicate easily with people. I want more than 12 hours of daylight (sunrise during the Zambian winter: 6:00 am, sunset: 6:00pm). I want to see my friends and my family. I want to sit on a beach in Ireland. I want to swim in a nice freshwater lake without having to worry about crocodiles (although I still swim here). I want to see my friends and my family, I want to idle away summer afternoons playing Frisbee and enjoying life for no reason other than to enjoy it.

The Problems
However, more than this, there are other things I want. I want to live in a world where over 1 billion people don’t live in oppressive poverty. I want to live in a world where the basic necessities of life are available to everyone. I want to live in a world where many of the elements of the lifestyle I enjoy and miss so much aren’t contingent on the exploitation of millions of other people. I want to live in a world where my friend Solmon, who is already older than me, doesn’t have to work for the next 2 years to have enough money to finish his grade 12. I want to live in a world where 1 out of 4 children in Zambia isn’t an orphan (Race Against Time). I want to live in a world where none of my Zambian friends have a chance of being infected with HIV/AIDS.

If ending poverty is the challenge or opportunity of our generation, then understanding poverty is the first task for those who want to be involved. That’s what I’m trying to do here, and while at times it can be hard, the amount I’ve learned, the amount I’ve experienced, and the amount I’ve enjoyed myself, overshadows any of the hardships.

I’m amazingly lucky to be here, and I’m amazingly hopeful that somehow, something I do here will make a difference. Whether that difference is made by the on the ground work I’m doing, by any influence I might have in Canada, or by some other means, I don’t know. Maybe I’ll have no influence at all. However, I’m very lucky and very happy to have been given the chance to try. Whenever I start feeling down about life in Zambia, I just remember these thoughts and things start to feel alright pretty quick. I think, for today, I’ll leave it at that.

The end. (yes, you can ride a donkey)

Reflections

2007-07-07T08:10:00.000-03:00

It’s hard to believe my placement is half over. However, that is the case, I’ve just come back from our mid placement retreat on Lake Kariba in southern Zambia. Lake Kariba is absolutely amazing... it’s the second largest man-made lake in the world, and is held back by an incredibly large dam (the Kariba Dam) which was once the largest dam in the world. I don’t have the exact statistic, but much of Zambia gets its power from the dam.

However, on the flip side of things, when it was built over 60,000 people lost their homes due to flooding. Additionally, over 100 billion litres of water is lost from the lake to evaporation every day. I’m not going to try to make an ethical pronouncement on the situation, but can only selfishly say that I really enjoyed visiting the lake and having some time to relax and reflect half-way through my placement.

Kariba Dam (for scale, the gates in the middle are 9mx8m each)

Yours truly on the dam.

Taking the amazing opportunity of having 16 EWB volunteers together in one place, our whole retreat was jam packed with workshops and exercises designed to make us think about how are placement and work are going, and what we can do to be more effective in the short time we have left here.

Rather than attempting to catalogue everything we did, I thought instead I’d share one of the most useful exercises and what I got out of it.

Not a bad place for a workshop.

On the second day of the retreat, we split up into focus groups, where each volunteer had a chance to lay out a problem they were having, and get advice on it from a large group of very intelligent people. The problem I had was a pretty big one: basically I felt like none of the things that I’m learning here were really relevant beyond my own small picture Zambian lifestyle. The problem is that everything I do is coloured by an amazing number of biases. Let me try to explain what some of these are:

1. Who I interact with.
A few weeks ago I was reading what I consider to be one of the better books on development ever written, and came across a pretty simply but chilling statement: "Those who outsiders meet and interact with are likely to be middle-aged or youths, male from dominant groups, and economically better off." (Whose Reality Counts, p 183). Following reading this I immediately made a list of the 15 people I most often interact with; the results came back with 13 men, and 2 women, all of whom were middle-aged or youths, and all of whom were relatively economically better off.

Further, there's the problem of language. It's fast becoming obvious that my Bemba skills are not going to progress much beyond where they are now (the ability to order food and shop for things in the market) before I leave. As such, I don't see myself having many deep conversations with people that I meet unless they speak English. The problem with this is that English here is nobody's first language. This means that anyone I can realistically interact with is well educated, and therefore comes form a relatively better off backround.

2. Where I've been.
The only two areas in which I've spent much time have been Lusaka (the Capital city), and the Copperbelt (the most highly developed area of the country), where Mpongwe is located. As such, fellow volunteers (the ones who have been here longer) estimate that I have seen only the most developed 10% of Zambia in terms of infrastructure.

Also, Mpongwe is only one community. There could be several just down the road that are completely different. However, without being able to spend equal amounts of time in each, there's really no way for me to tell.

3. When I'm here.

Right now in Zambia it's the dry season. Everyone has just finished their harvest, and supplies of both food and money are high. The dirt roards are easy to navigate on foot, bicycle, or car, and malaria and other diseases are not highly prevalent due to the lack of mosquito breeding. Essentially, I'm seeing the country only at its most prosperous and poverty-free time of year.

4. Who I am.

The fact that I'm white, that I'm a westerner, and that I've been raised and educated in Canada, has a phenomenally strong effect on my interactions with people here. Not only does it change how people view me, it also means that I'm surely misinterpreting a lot of what I see and hear around me. I can't escape the cultural lens through which I view everything.

Problem

These few things simply present a basic list of some of the many biases that exist in how I see Zambia. The risk, in my view, is that I will return to Canada with nothing relevant to say about poverty or development beyond the tiny little world that I inhabit here in Zambia. Even worse, I probably won't come close to understanding even this community. While I don't have all the answers, I will now share some of the advice given to me by my amazingly intelligent and useful fellow volunteers, as well as some of my own thoughts.

Solutions

Since I can't get away from the fact that these biases exist, I have to do my best to work through them. This, to me, is a better alternative than simply accepting them, and definitely better than not being aware of them at all. Luckily, my EWB Retreat friends were there to help.

In terms of validating my experience here, one of the most useful pieces of advice I received was also the first: don't think about large concrete things I've learned since I've been here, instead think about how I'll be different when I leave, and how I'll be better able to contribute to my EWB chapter in Canada. I like this because it essentially gives me a continued good reason me to be here, since I won't leave with a full understanding of poverty in Zambia.

The next good one, and something that I'm already trying, is to act on the spots that are controllable. I am actively trying to interact more with women in my community, and soon I am even moving to a new community (with a certain farmer named Mr. Silumbu) to get a more balanced view of life here. Also, at all times I am trying at all times to challenge my westerner viewpoint and to become more in tune with life in Zambia.

However, I can't change everything. I am here during the dry season; that is a fact. Also, I can only interact fluently in English (not much French here), which again can't be changed. Finally, there's not really enough time to see much of Zambia beyond the area I'm in. Still, there's no harm in trying to mitigate what I can mitigate.

Also, I've been advised that since it's impossible to know something about Zambia, poverty, or development with 100% certainty, no matter how much I try, than it's not wrong for me to make certain assumptions about what I've learned that might apply to the bigger picture. Also, I can cross-reference opinions and assumptions I have with other volunteers and people I meet in Zambia to get a clearer idea of what's accurate and what's not.

Finally, the most important thing I've learned is that understanding that I have biases is the most important thing I've learned. It seems other volunteers (not from EWB, of course) and development professionals frequently forget that assumptions based on limited experience and information don't apply universally to the bigger picture, and a lot of bad decisions and inaccurate statements have been made because of this. At least now, I'm less likely to fall into that trap.

For now, I'll just leave it at that, and finish off with a great list of advice that EWB long term volunteer Chad Hamre came up with. They aren't all applicable to me (it's a little late in my placement for some of them), but they're all definitely applicable to someone. Anyone thinking of volunteering overseas in the future, take note:

Trust learning from conversations with others, not just your own hands on experiences.
Get a translator, get out in the field, and try to do a study related to your project.
Hypothesize the effects of biases to better account for them.
Prioritize your learning; you can't learn everything, so focus the most on what you want to learn the most.
Understanding that there ARE biases is the most important thing.
Do an exchange weekend (visit another area or community).
Become an EWB long-term volunteer to get a more complete experience.

Anyway, I think I'll leave it at that for now. I'm moving to my new community in a few days, so expect some new pictures and stories in a few weeks about where I'll be living. It'll be sad to say goodbye to my current home, but nice to get a fresh perspective as well.

Take care everyone, wherever you are. I hope reading this was useful for someone.

Sunset on Lake Kariba

Mpongwe

2007-06-14T06:21:00.000-03:00

Hi Everyone,

I can't believe it's been three weeks since I've last posted. It feels like no time has passed at all. Since I'm in Ndola (the second largest city in Zambia) to sort out some immigration stuff, this is a great opportunity to provide everyone reading this blog with a bit of an update, so here it goes.

Life in Thatch

As I think I've mentioned, I am now living in Mpongwe. Mpongwe isn't so much a town as it is one paved road lined with small shops, bars, and restaurants. However, Mpongwe isn't pretending to be a town, it's actually a large rural district of the Copperbelt Province. Where I'm living is about a 15 minute walk down a dirt road from the central shopping area.

Describing who my host family is can be a little tricky. Currently my "host" is Elias Mutwale, who is also one of my coworkers. However, I believe my actual rent agreement is with his mother. Elias lives in a mud brick, thatched roof hut with his wife Ethel and his wife's younger sister Bertha. I live in a similar hut about 20m from Elias. I have the hut to myself during the day, but am joined nightly by Elias's brother Darrius who lives at his mother's concrete block house accross the street but sleeps at mine. I eat my meals in Elias's hut and Darrius eats in his mother's. It's a little confusing but seems to work well enough.

My house in the foreground, Elias's in the backround.

Work

As I have mentioned previously, my official Engineers Without Borders (EWB) placement is with the Organic Producers and Processors Association of Zambia (OPPAZ). OPPAZ is an umbrella organization which facilitates market linkages and provides technical support to organic farming cooperatives and commercial organic farmers throughout Zambia. As part of their "technical support" services, OPPAZ has seconded me to the Mpongwe Organics Cooperative Society for the duration of my placement. This is how I have found myself where I am currently living.

Cooperatives are a way for small scale farmers to band together in order to have more strength in the market. They allow farmers to purchase farming inputs in bulk, share training, resources, and knowledge, and sell their produce as a group in order to be able to secure a better price and consolidate transportation costs.

In the case of the cooperative I am working with, they are promoting organic farming. The benefits of organic farming in the Zambian context are, theoretically, many. Fertilizer and pesticides are expensive, and serve to reduce the long-term fertility of the land. Organic farming allows farmers to farm without inputs (saving money), and maintain the long-term soil fertility of their land. This allows farmers to be more self-reliant, and provides them with improved livelihood sustainability.

However, organic farming has its challenges. It is a lot more complicated, and requires a lot more labour than conventional farming. Farmers, who, in my brief experience, tend to put a high discount rate on the future as compared with the present, sometimes find it hard to change over to organic farming based on sustainability reasons alone. Conventional farming is already very hard work, and so it's difficult for many people to commit to working even harder without additional compensation.

The Cooperative is working in many ways to confront these challenges. On the issue of technique, with the support of OPPAZ, the Cooperative provides their members with extensive training and support in order to facilitate best practice organic farming. As for the more difficult issue of farmer compensation, the Cooperative's main role is to link farmers with export markets in Europe.

In European countries, organic produce now commands a premium over conventional produce. This means that small scale farmers in Zambia, by farming organically, can in theory sell their produce in bulk to the European market for prices far exceeding what they can usually obtain domestically. Hello, organic farming incentive!

In the past the cooperative has met with mixed success following this method. They hold the record for the first shipment of Fair Trade (http://www.fairtrade.net/) organic groundnuts (peanuts) ever exported in the world. However, they have also had problems finding markets, and in the past have sold their produce at far lower prices than necessary for longterm sustainability. I will hopefully elaborate on this situation in a future entry as I learn more.

Currently the cooperative is focusing on two main products, organic groundnuts and organic wild forest mushrooms (although they are possibly also moving into chilli peppers next season). Dried wild mushrooms have been successfully exported by the Cooperative in the past to Germany and the UK, but last year none were exported. The reason: the Cooperative's industrial mushroom dryer is no longer functional.

This is where I come in; my mission for my placement is to make sure that when I leave, the mushroom dryer is operational, while adding whatever additional value and insight I can to the Cooperative's operations. I won't bother with technical details for now, but suffice it so say that the dryer is big and scary looking, but that the situation is largely under control. For those who are scratching their heads and thinking back to my earlier discussion of solar drying technology, I was as surprised as you are by the details of my placement. Live and learn...

The dryer, and my coworkers Elias Mutwale (left) and Simon Mawele (right).

Integration

Since I've been here I've learned a lot. My lifestyle is like nothing I've ever lived. EWB always stresses integration as crucial to development work. There are many good reasons for this. Without a broad understanding of a local people's realities, doing good development work, or even assessing what good development is, can be nearly impossible.

On the surface I would appear to be integrating well. I live in a thatch hut, exclusively eat traditional Zambian meals with a Zambian family, and my Bemba is coming along well (if somewhat slowly). Furthermore, I have been able to participate in many aspects of the rural Zambian lifestyle: I have harvested maize, I have helped with housework, I have helped burn a firebreak for our house (that was a fun one), I shower with a bucket, my toilet is a hole in the ground, I have friends and aquaintances in the village, and generally, on the surface, I appear to be doing fairly well. For lack of appropriate words, I've uploaded some pictures to try to give a bit of an impression of some of ways I've been passing my time at home:

My friend Roden and my roomate Darrius who are eagerly learning guitar.

Myself and Darrius harvesting Maize.

Burning the firebreak.

This was fun...

The village pool table, where I spend a lot of time.

Why Integrate?

Life where I'm living is definitely good. I'm enjoying myself, and getting to do all kinds of fun things. However, integration isn't just something I'm doing to pass the time. It's a way to better understand the people that my program is trying to help. My current lifestyle is not doing this for me. The main problem is that I'm living with a coworker.

There are two sides to every development project, the implementers (the Cooperative), and the beneficiaries (the farmers). Currently by living with Elias I'm getting all Cooperative and no farmers. I really am finding I understand nothing about the day to day lives of the people we're trying to help; the people the Cooperative staff is working for. I'm feeling like I'll come back from Zambia with some nice pictures that look like integration, but with little actual understanding of day to day life for the people I came here for.

For these reasons, at the end of the month I will be moving away from my current home and out into one of the more remote villages of the Mpongwe District for the rest of my placement. Elias is very understanding and supportive of this which is excellent. Suffice it to say that life is about to take another interesting turn for me in a short while.

Thanks for everyone who read that. I've got to catch a bus back home before I'm stranded here so that will be all for this post. Take care, and I hope everyone's enjoying life, wherever you are.

Lusaka

2007-05-21T13:05:00.000-03:00

Travel

Excerpt from my journal:

May 14th, 10:18PM,

The monitor in front of me says that our plane is over the Mediterranean. We're out of Europe and crossing over into Africa; the continent I've been dreaming about visiting for so many years. While on some levels I am more excited than I've ever been before, I am also besought by intermittent feelings of intense anxiety. Tomorrow, every book I've read, every course I've taken, every essay I've written, and all the training I've received about international development will be meaningless. Tomorrow I won't be studying life in Zambia, I will be living it.

The monitor on the airplane.

Later on the flight,

I just work up after a long sleep on the plane. Right now, I am in the middle of the most surreal experience of my life. I'm staring across the aisle out the east window of the aircraft, watching the fiery sun come over the horizon, while my airplane headset plays South African music into my ears. All my doubts have been erased, this place, here sitting on this plane which will eventually take me to Lusaka, is where I want to be.

Sunrise over the Kalahari.

This was how my trip started. A three day series of plane rides and layovers, eventually resulting in us arriving tired, jet lagged and excited at the Lusaka airport. The sheer variety of emotions I experienced on the plane ride was incredible. At times, I was more worried and terrified than I have ever been in my life. At times, I was so excited I could barely think. Most of the time though, I was probably just thoughtful and tired, emotionally numb from the two extremes I was routinely experiencing.

The road from the airport.

Rough Landing

Our first full day in Lusaka was unbelievably draining. Jet lagged, and terrified of thieves (the first workshop of our in-country training was on avoiding pickpockets), we were sent out into the busy Solwezi market on a scavenger hunt to find a list of items given to us only in Nyanja. The market was overwhelming at first, and this, coupled with my inability to understand people's accents, my new found fear of thieves (again, courtesy of training), and the natural antagonistic relationship between buyer and seller at the market, led to me feeling uncomfortable, on edge, and untrusting the whole time. This first experience caused me to spend the next couple days not trusting anyone, and feeling uncomfortable and unhappy wherever I went.

This excerpt from my journal sums it up well:

May 17th, 2007, 2:26PM,

I'm so stupid in this country. That's the only way I can describe it. So timid and shy, so unable to feel the rhythm of conversations.

I haven't figured my way around greetings yet. Language is making little progress. I am not comfortable here.

Recovery

Ok, so on reading that you might think that I am having a bad time in Zambia. I am not! My first couple of days, and how bad I felt during them, were purely a product of me having too large expectations for myself. Just because EWB volunteers are typically strongly integrated into the local culture and society, does not mean I will be automatically. They all work hard at it and I will have to too.

After coming to that realization my time here has been incredible. I've realized that the awkward response my attempts at Nyanja were getting was because of the shy, timid way in which I was talking to people, not because they were unfriendly. In fact, people here are some of the friendliest I have ever met. I absolutely love it.

Sunday we (myself and some of the other new EWB volunteers) went and did some exploring of Lusaka. We went to the downtown area (Cairo rd.) and looked for some schoolbooks to help us learn the languages in the areas we will be working. I am now in grade 1 Bemba, with high hopes for how I will do. We also happened upon the Freedom Statue which is a very significant landmark in Lusaka. It's so important to the country, it's actually on every single bill of currency, although I suspect what's really important is what it represents; Zambia's freedom from British colonial rule.

Freedom Statue

Freedom Statue plaque.

Lusaka seems, interestingly enough, to be a large city. The fact that it is in Zambia doesn't seem to be affecting this at all. There are cars in the streets, stores selling things, people going to work, kids playing, large buildings on the horizon, trees, lawns, sidewalks (sometimes), and basically everything else I've come to associate with cities. There are, however, many differences from other large cities in which I have spent time before (a non-inclusive list of these would be: Ottawa, Montreal, Toronto, and Dublin). Compared to other cities I've experienced, there is A LOT more activity in Lusaka. Everywhere I go there are people selling things, minibuses off-loading passengers, people shopping, people yelling at each other in languages I don't understand, and basically any other form of activity you can think of. It's truly an overwhelming place that defies me forming any conclusions after such a short time here.

I've taken a few random pictures to try to better illustrate Lusaka:

Just off Cha Cha Cha Rd. (I love that name).

Independence Avenue.

Cairo Rd.

Street near my hostel.

Kaunda Square market.

Train tracks through the city.

Tree-lined street.

People everywhere seem to be enjoying my attempts to speak Nyanja (except for maybe 20% of people who seem fairly indifferent), which is a refreshing change from a few days ago. Sunday I even had a woman and two kids follow me down the street getting me to repeat the 6 or so things I know how to say, laughing their hearts out each time. When I waved and said goodbye (Nayenda), they laughed so hard that all three of them fell over in the street. I don't remember the last time I saw people enjoying themselves so much.

A Few Thoughts

That last point actually brings me to something that's been on my mind for a long time, but has become especially acute since I got here. My question, simply put, is: What is poverty? This is something that sometimes I briefly feel I've figured out, but right now I have no idea. Everywhere I've gone I've seen people working, laughing, smiling, eating, or relaxing. I've seen fewer beggars here than I did during training in Toronto. Other than the obvious cultural differences, people in this city seem to be living out their lives with a very similar degree of satisfaction as we do at home.

That being said, I have seen acute material poverty. Many people here obviously have much less in the way of wealth than I do. Few of them can likely afford to travel to Canada the way I have traveled to Zambia. But is that poverty? A lot of people here seem fairly happy. Poverty has many dimensions beyond wealth. Can you be poor if you are happy?

I know that these observations are virtually meaningless. What I've seen has been only the briefest cross-section of life in Lusaka. I don't know if the woman who smiled at me when she sold me bananas today struggles to feed her family. I don't know if the kids I see on the street have homes. I don't know whether every single person on the street worked harder today, just to make ends meet, than I have ever worked in my life. I do know that statistically, 1 out of every 3 people I see is carrying the HIV virus. Still though, since I've been here I haven't been able to decide if what I see is poverty or if what I see is just life.

The short answer definition of poverty that I always come back to is that poverty is vulnerability to external shocks. You are poor if changes in the world around you threaten your livelihood, and you are helpless against them. However, I'm sure this is not complete. For now, I thought I'd also share a definition from a book I'm reading (which I'd also recommend to anyone seriously interested in international development); a definition not of poverty, but of well-being:

Well-being can be described as the experience of good quality of life. Well-being, and its opposite, ill-being, differ from wealth and poverty. ... Unlike wealth, well-being is open to the whole range of human experience, social, mental, and spiritual as well as material. It has many elements. Each person can define it for herself or himself. Perhaps most people would agree to include living standards, access to basic services, security and freedom from fear, health, good relations with others, friendship, love, peace of mind, choice, creativity, fulfillment, and fun. Extreme poverty and ill-being go together, but the link between wealth and well-being is weak or even negative: reducing poverty usually diminishes ill-being,but amassing wealth does not ensure well-being.

- Robert Chambers, Whose Reality Counts

Conclusions

For now I will leave things at that, and just say that life here (for me at the very least) is good. The people are amazing, the weather is beautiful, and Lusaka is full of crazy surprises. I started orientation at my office on Monday and its been amazing. It now seems I will be leaving this coming Monday morning (May 28, 2007) for Mpongwe and life away from the city. The language in Mpongwe will be Bemba, with English only being spoken by a minority, so it looks like its time to start studying. I've actually been getting help from random strangers all week and have amassed a small collection of things I know how to say, and now I have some books too. My goal is to be able to hold a simple conversation by the end of the summer.

My new school books.

On that note, I think I've written enough for today. On the work front, suffice it to say that OPPAZ (my partner agency) seems to be a truly amazing organization, and I'm very happy with how things are going. I will try to provide more updates as my work unfolds.

Until we meet again,

Salani Bwino ("Stay Well").

Introduction

2007-05-05T12:05:00.000-03:00

Those who have made it this far likely know that I will be living and working in Zambia this summer, on an internship with Engineers Without Borders (EWB). The internship is through EWB’s Junior Fellowship Program, and will be 3.5 months long. This blog will hopefully be my way of sharing some of what I experience with people back home, and to allow friends and family to know that I’m still alive and well.

I don’t plan on writing in it very often, as I want to focus mainly on living my day to day life, but hopefully selectiveness will allow me to put some really interesting stories up here, and also some pictures and things if I can manage it. I’m still not sure what the internet access situation is in the area I’ll be living though, so until I figure that out I won’t know what logistical challenges this blog will face.

About Me

For those who have just stumbled onto this blog by accident, I thought I’d post a quick bit about who I am to put this whole thing into context. I’m a graduate of Nepean High School in Ottawa, and I just finished my 4^th year of 5 years in the Civil Engineering program at the University of New Brunswick (UNB). While this is my first time overseas with the organization, I’ve been involved with EWB since its inception at UNB 3 years ago. Through my involvement, I’ve learned more than I ever thought possible about international development, have broadened my mind considerably, and have also met a whole pile of amazing people. I’d definitely recommend the organization to anyone who cares about international development (you don’t have to be an Engineer to be involved…to see what going on in your area, go to http://my.ewb.ca/profile/SignUp and sign up for your local chapter’s mailing list).

I’ve lived and worked overseas once before, in Dublin, Ireland for 4 months last summer. Although that was nowhere near the cultural experience that I’ll get this year, I feel like it was a good way to have introduced myself to the idea of living in another country. Also, I met a lot of amazing people and had a lot of fun times; something I hope happens again this summer.

About Zambia

I’m not going to try to talk too much about the culture or lifestyle of Zambia (which I thought best left until I’m there), but I thought I’d give some basic facts on the country. These are compiled from a variety of books and online sources.

Zambia, formerly the British colony of Northern Rhodesia, is a landlocked country located in south-central Africa. It has a population of approximately 10 million people, 1 million of whom live in the capital Lusaka. Zambia has been hit extremely hard with the AIDS epidemic, and life expectancy currently stands at around 35 years. The official language of Zambia is English, although many ethnic languages are spoken throughout the country. The main export of the country is copper, which makes up most of its foreign exchange earnings, although much of the population is employed in agriculture. As I understand it, Zambia is also one of the most urbanized countries in sub-Saharan Africa. I will try to provide more information about the Zambian lifestyle and Zambian people once I am there.

About My Work

As far as I know now, I’m going to be living in or near the town of Mpongwe, in the Copperbelt Province. I haven’t got much information on Mpongwe beyond finding it on a map, so I’ll have to fill in the details once I get there.

I’m going to be partnered with the Organic Producers and Processors Association of Zambia (OPPAZ), and my initial focus will be working on solar drying technology for the preservation of wild mushrooms. I have to admit that a few weeks ago I had no idea how solar drying technology works (making me an interesting fit for this placement), but I have been studying hard, and feel now that by the time I get there, I’ll at least have enough knowledge to be able to ask some of the right questions.

Why I’m Doing This

Every day, I wake up in a world full of injustice. A world where 1 in 6 people are living in desperate poverty. A world where hardworking people in countries all over the world are unable to meet their own needs, or the needs of their families, no matter how hard they try. I don’t believe that the poverty that persists on our planet is a natural phenomenon; it is the result of a wide variety of structural problems which promote the interests of the few, at the expense of the many.

For me, one of the hardest things to grasp is that many of these structural problems were created by my ancestors, my government, and my society, and are upheld daily by the society in which I live, and by the actions or inactions of my friends, my family, and myself.

I want to make it clear that I’m not going overseas to change the world through solar drying technology. While I will put my heart and soul into my work while I am there, what I may accomplish will, under the best-case scenario, still not even qualify as a drop in the bucket. I am going overseas to learn about, and to experience, life in Zambia. I don’t want this to be my last time working in international development. For that reason, I believe it’s important for me to begin developing an understanding of life on the ground in a country like Zambia. What better way to do that then to live there, to hopefully become friends with Zambians, and to try to live the Zambian lifestyle as much as possible.

Further, I want to use this trip to try to connect life in Zambia with life in Canada for my friends and family, and for essentially anyone else who I can manage to talk to. Luckily, EWB provides an amazing framework for this, with many opportunities to connect with UNB, and with the Fredericton community when I get back to school. Suffice it to say that I will try to take as many of these opportunities as I can. This blog is a start.

Concerns

The concerns I have coming into this placement are almost too many to list. There are the obvious ones about my own performance: will I adapt to the local lifestyle well enough, will I make friends, will I do well at work, can I learn the language, etc. However, as challenging as those are, they are not the only things that I am worried about.

In general, I am worried about the idea of international development, or more specifically, the idea of western driven international development. I’m worried about the relative responsibility of sending a semi-skilled university student such as myself overseas under the guise of an international development worker (I don’t consider myself to be one, but other people may).

There is abundant literature on why people shouldn’t volunteer overseas, on how volunteering overseas does more harm then good, and on how the inherent ideas and assumptions made in international development are flawed. For an example, take these excerpts from remarks by Ivan Illich (they're about Americans but the ideas are similar):

"I do have deep faith in the enormous good will of the U.S. volunteer. However, his good faith can usually be explained only by an abysmal lack of intuitive delicacy. By definition, you cannot help being ultimately vacationing salesmen for the middle-class "American Way of Life," since that is really the only life you know."

"If you insist on working with the poor, if this is your vocation, then at least work among the poor who can tell you to go to hell. It is incredibly unfair for you to impose yourselves on a village where you are so linguistically deaf and dumb that you don't even understand what you are doing, or what people think of you."

http://tinyurl.com/2ngslq

For another example, I would highly recommend this article to anyone thinking of working overseas:

http://briarpatchmagazine.com/news/?p=345

Quoting the beginning of the article:

"Imagine arriving at work one day and finding a new co-worker has joined your team. He comes from abroad, and he'll only be working with you for a little while; after graduating from university, he wanted to come to a different country and volunteer for a spell, just to gain experience and help out however he can.

You are somewhat skeptical: you've seen this type of person before. But being the welcoming soul you are, you answer his many questions, help out with his difficulties in English, and nod politely when he talks about how things are different (better?) at home. You listen to, and half-heartedly try out, some of his new ideas for your organization, even if you think they're off-base. You are a bit miffed that as a guest, he seems to enjoy privileged access to your boss. After a few months he leaves, and leaves behind a half-done project which never gets picked up."

There is also an amazing book on the subject which I studied in a course last semester. It takes a slightly more academic and in depth look at the problems with international development, and I'd reccomend it to anyone:

http://www.amazon.com/Post-Development-Reader-Majid-Rahnema/dp/1856494748

I won’t talk too much more about this anti-development viewpoint now, but depending on how things go in my placement (i.e. how much I feel like I might be negatively affecting things) you may see it referenced on this blog later. It's definitly a viewpoint which I think is important to consider while volunteering overseas.

My Views

Truly though, my views on international development is that it can work. As Canadians, I certainly believe that we have access to skills, technology, and money, that can make a large difference in developing countries. We also have the opportunity to make changes to our own policies (e.g. agricultural subsidies, trade barriers, food aid, etc.) that can have huge positive outcomes for people all over the world. However, I believe that this needs to be done responsibly, and with the main focus on the needs and desires of people in the countries we are trying to help. For me, living and working in Zambia is one way to begin to understand these desires.

As a Canadian, I don’t believe a lot of the ways we have approached international development in the past have been successful. I don’t believe in handouts and food aid, and the unequivocal belief that any act of charity is beneficial to the recipient. I don’t believe in designing projects in Canada and implementing them overseas. I don’t believe in groups of idealistic students travelling to a developing country to build a school or a clinic (as much as I admire people who participate in those projects).

International development, intervening in people’s lives, is too inherently complicated and risky to be done casually. It has to be grounded in understanding of local people’s livelihoods, ambitions, and desires, and should be derived from their unique cultural and historical perspective. This view makes my placement this summer seem very hypocritical (which it probably is), but my rationale for the legitimacy of EWB’s approach is that I will be partnered with a Zambian organization that is already working in the region, and as such will only be assisting with an already designed program, hopefully grounded in the local reality. I will see how this rationale plays out over the summer, and dutifully report on this blog about how flawed many of my current assumptions likely are.

Thanks to everyone who took the time to read this. Future entries will hopefully be shorter, but I had a lot to say at the beginning of this endeavour. I’m leaving for pre-departure training in Toronto in 3 days (Monday, May 7^th), and am incredibly excited. I hope everyone is having a great summer wherever you are.