What was the last poem you wrote about? For some that might have been a long time ago back when you were forced to in grade school [hopefully not though]. What was the subject? High school love? Snowboarding? The mountains? The prairies? The Ocean?
Katalausha took me to see the Livingstone School art competition, the winners of which would go on to compete at the district level. Sadly I couldn’t see his pupils compete because, as National champions, they only had to defend their title at the higher levels. But I did see many other schools perform. I saw the tribal dances that are performed when a girl comes of age and she is sent away to be taught about issues with being a women. Several other tribal dances [there is quite an array with all the tribes there are in this area]. Also poetry readings, the most beautiful coral music, and drama.
The poetry was what really struck me. I am remember the poetry my classmates made when I was in grade school, and it is a far cry from the poetry of Zambian children. The themes they write about are child trafficking, HIV, and sexual abuse. One, very small boy, standing on the stage in his rags which are his stage clothes, spoke with such profound outrage that I would be tempted to say he was speaking from the bottom of his feet but the amount of outrage could never fit into such a small body. As if Zambian children not only have the invisible bounty of energy you see in children world wide, but an invisible bounty of outrage at how the world can be stacked against them.
Tuesday, July 3, 2007
Sponsoring DoDo
So one of my relatives asked me if I had considered setting up an education fund for DoDo after I had written about how I fear for her education. I had not at the time, and after thinking a good while on it I have decided firmly against it and I want to explain why.
It started as a gut reaction from my male instincts which compel me to be a good provider for my family. That is not to say the women I settle down with can’t work or needs to make less than me, but simply that the end of the day I need to be able to provide for me family. [hopefully Josephine, another EWB volunteer who is a strong feminist will not come after me for saying that – they are instincts Joe! I can’t help ‘em!]. So, putting my place in Katalausha’s shoes, if I was told that some Canadian chap wanted to pay for my daughters education I would be a bit insulted. It’s the whole, I am a Canadian and have more money than you so I will pay for your daughters education, thing. I would be suggested that he couldn’t support his own family. Though he might be grateful, I at least would be insulted.
Now I am now out rightly criticizing the sponsoring of children. With the HIV pandemic, it has been said the Zambia is a nation of orphans. There are heaps of child-headed households. Any education makes all the difference in the world. There are children who have absolutely nothing and it’s not because anything except where they happened to be born. The only thing that separates you and your privilege to any one of those orphans is a fluke of birth. There is another thing to truly meditate on.
Anyway, I intend to keep in touch with this family I have grown to love so much like my own family [which means all my relatives reading this now has vicarious Zambian relatives]. I intend to learn more about the economic situation because I don’t understand it right now [how do you ask someone if they are poor?]. If I learn of difficulties such as problems paying for education, I will ask the family what I can do to help them. And we will figure something out.
It started as a gut reaction from my male instincts which compel me to be a good provider for my family. That is not to say the women I settle down with can’t work or needs to make less than me, but simply that the end of the day I need to be able to provide for me family. [hopefully Josephine, another EWB volunteer who is a strong feminist will not come after me for saying that – they are instincts Joe! I can’t help ‘em!]. So, putting my place in Katalausha’s shoes, if I was told that some Canadian chap wanted to pay for my daughters education I would be a bit insulted. It’s the whole, I am a Canadian and have more money than you so I will pay for your daughters education, thing. I would be suggested that he couldn’t support his own family. Though he might be grateful, I at least would be insulted.
Now I am now out rightly criticizing the sponsoring of children. With the HIV pandemic, it has been said the Zambia is a nation of orphans. There are heaps of child-headed households. Any education makes all the difference in the world. There are children who have absolutely nothing and it’s not because anything except where they happened to be born. The only thing that separates you and your privilege to any one of those orphans is a fluke of birth. There is another thing to truly meditate on.
Anyway, I intend to keep in touch with this family I have grown to love so much like my own family [which means all my relatives reading this now has vicarious Zambian relatives]. I intend to learn more about the economic situation because I don’t understand it right now [how do you ask someone if they are poor?]. If I learn of difficulties such as problems paying for education, I will ask the family what I can do to help them. And we will figure something out.
Dust to Dust
Ashes to ashes. Why am I quoting scripture? It amazes me how in Zambia people make a life out of absolutely nothing. Even the earth which they grow food from is like dust. They don’t need to rent a storefront in a mall, they set up a little shack on the corner of their property and sell various things. They don’t need a set up a garage, they just lay their tools and spare tire parts along the side of the road and take a nap till a customer shows up. Heck they don’t even need petrol stations!
When I first arrived in Zambia one of first things that struck me were the sheer number of people milling around doing seemingly nothing. Sitting by the side of the road, taking a nap under a tree, just sitting around chatting. Seemed the whole country was just hanging around waiting for something to happen. Well I know a bit of what they are up to now. Some people are waiting at mini-bus stops which are only marked by the fact that the bus happens to stop there. Others are petrol stations. They have drums of gasoline in their place, and they bring some jugs out and sit on a bench by the side of the road and offer their services to any passing cars.
Incidentally this contributes to the incredible number of fires in Zambia, which is another of those first things that struck me. With the country as full of that dry grass as it is I am surprised the fires ever stop. Some are started by personal petrol station accidents, some are good old slash and burn farming, maybe some were set by a mob of people trying to burn down a witches or, in keeping with the Christianization of the country, a Satanists house. Others were just set to chase all the rats, mice, rabbits and other critters out of the area so they can be caught for food. Life from nothing. Dust to dust.
When I first arrived in Zambia one of first things that struck me were the sheer number of people milling around doing seemingly nothing. Sitting by the side of the road, taking a nap under a tree, just sitting around chatting. Seemed the whole country was just hanging around waiting for something to happen. Well I know a bit of what they are up to now. Some people are waiting at mini-bus stops which are only marked by the fact that the bus happens to stop there. Others are petrol stations. They have drums of gasoline in their place, and they bring some jugs out and sit on a bench by the side of the road and offer their services to any passing cars.
Incidentally this contributes to the incredible number of fires in Zambia, which is another of those first things that struck me. With the country as full of that dry grass as it is I am surprised the fires ever stop. Some are started by personal petrol station accidents, some are good old slash and burn farming, maybe some were set by a mob of people trying to burn down a witches or, in keeping with the Christianization of the country, a Satanists house. Others were just set to chase all the rats, mice, rabbits and other critters out of the area so they can be caught for food. Life from nothing. Dust to dust.
The Ailing Digestive Track
Disclaimer: Don’t think, even for a second, that this post is about anything other than what the title suggests. I feel it’s important to give you as complete a picture of life as an overseas volunteer as possible. Skip this post if you are afraid of that.
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Have you ever been around a child who is being potty trained? Perhaps a younger sibling or young cousin. He [I started writing this with “he/she” and it just got annoying… so I have chosen to just go with “he”] gets up off his little Fischer Price mini-toilet and insist that absolutely everyone in the house comes and admires the beautiful little present he has deposited. He is so proud, like a conquering hero. I don’t know whether he is proud of the fact that he did not miss despite the fact that it would be much bigger accomplishment to miss if you are firmly planted on that little Fischer Price toilet, or maybe he is proud of the size [I did go with “he” after all]. Whatever it is, he feels triumphant in the way we students only feel after acing an exam [especially if we initially thought we failed].
Traveling in [Warning: cumbersome yet, in my opinion, more politically correct term ahead] less-economically-developed nations, particularly those closer to the equator… well your stomach won’t love you for it. Nor your bowels. Diarrhea is just a fact of life as an overseas volunteer. But on those infrequent occasions when things are solid… you feel like that little kid and his Fischer Price toilet. Thank your lucky stars that I have drawn the line this side of pulling out my camera.
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Have you ever been around a child who is being potty trained? Perhaps a younger sibling or young cousin. He [I started writing this with “he/she” and it just got annoying… so I have chosen to just go with “he”] gets up off his little Fischer Price mini-toilet and insist that absolutely everyone in the house comes and admires the beautiful little present he has deposited. He is so proud, like a conquering hero. I don’t know whether he is proud of the fact that he did not miss despite the fact that it would be much bigger accomplishment to miss if you are firmly planted on that little Fischer Price toilet, or maybe he is proud of the size [I did go with “he” after all]. Whatever it is, he feels triumphant in the way we students only feel after acing an exam [especially if we initially thought we failed].
Traveling in [Warning: cumbersome yet, in my opinion, more politically correct term ahead] less-economically-developed nations, particularly those closer to the equator… well your stomach won’t love you for it. Nor your bowels. Diarrhea is just a fact of life as an overseas volunteer. But on those infrequent occasions when things are solid… you feel like that little kid and his Fischer Price toilet. Thank your lucky stars that I have drawn the line this side of pulling out my camera.
Travel in the Bush
Just a quick note here about getting too and from the village. Transportation is accomplished via either a truck or motorcycle, but because it is currently winter here it is, apparently, too cold for motorcycle travel [at least to distant places]. You need to have a special license to drive the “GRZ” vehicles [each vehicle’s license plate has three letters and a lot of numbers. The Government of the Republic of Zambia’s vehicles all have the GRZ letters and no one else is allowed. What’s great about this is we just get waved through at any government checkpoints]. Unfortunately that bit of license issue means that Kantu can’t just bugger off to the village, we need to have a driver with the proper license.
So off Mr.Miti, Mr.Kantu, and I go into the bush. That is what they call the rural area here, and it is a fairly apt title. Rural Zambia is an endless sea of, well I am not sure what the proper term is. Dry grass everywhere, scattered little shrubs and bushes, and spread out trees all covering very gently rolling hills [not quite hills, but there are ridges and valleys]. Other parts of the country are more mountainous, but I don’t think there is anything quite comparing to those Western Canadian mountains [I proudly show my couple postcards from the Rockies to my co-workers and friends].
The main roads are as good as a Canadian highway if only someone would fill in the outrageous potholes. I have been told by a couple Zambians that no work has been done on the roads since independence. Other parts of the country I hear are fine, but for some reason the area around Livingstone just has had no work done to fix the roads [which I find particularly strange since Livingstone is the tourist capital of Zambia]. But those roads are much better than the ones in the bush which are dirt. I’d actually call them dust roads because the soil is so dry is like fine sand or dust. During the rainy season, fast flowing water erodes some areas and not others. In some places the two sides of the roads have seemingly taken turns being eroded so the truck bobs from side to side like you are on a ship. It’s slow going on those dusty roads, bobbing up and down. I love them though, great for day dreaming and contemplating development, Dorothy, blogs I write, emails, plans for when I am back in Canada, etc. Years ago the communities near the roads would maintain them because they use them [even if they don’t have vehicles they will have animal drawn carts]. After years of NGO handouts though, they won’t work on the roads till a program comes and pays them to fix their own roads.
So off Mr.Miti, Mr.Kantu, and I go into the bush. That is what they call the rural area here, and it is a fairly apt title. Rural Zambia is an endless sea of, well I am not sure what the proper term is. Dry grass everywhere, scattered little shrubs and bushes, and spread out trees all covering very gently rolling hills [not quite hills, but there are ridges and valleys]. Other parts of the country are more mountainous, but I don’t think there is anything quite comparing to those Western Canadian mountains [I proudly show my couple postcards from the Rockies to my co-workers and friends].
The main roads are as good as a Canadian highway if only someone would fill in the outrageous potholes. I have been told by a couple Zambians that no work has been done on the roads since independence. Other parts of the country I hear are fine, but for some reason the area around Livingstone just has had no work done to fix the roads [which I find particularly strange since Livingstone is the tourist capital of Zambia]. But those roads are much better than the ones in the bush which are dirt. I’d actually call them dust roads because the soil is so dry is like fine sand or dust. During the rainy season, fast flowing water erodes some areas and not others. In some places the two sides of the roads have seemingly taken turns being eroded so the truck bobs from side to side like you are on a ship. It’s slow going on those dusty roads, bobbing up and down. I love them though, great for day dreaming and contemplating development, Dorothy, blogs I write, emails, plans for when I am back in Canada, etc. Years ago the communities near the roads would maintain them because they use them [even if they don’t have vehicles they will have animal drawn carts]. After years of NGO handouts though, they won’t work on the roads till a program comes and pays them to fix their own roads.
USAIDS
One way in which Zambia differs from Ghana is the level of cultural pride. It sounds kinda harsh, but the reality is Zambians are trying to emulate North American culture as fast as humanly possible. I sometimes worry they are replacing Zambian virtues with N.American vices in the desperate scramble for our lifestyle. Men don’t wear traditional suits here like in Ghana, the attire is strictly “Western” and professional.
Another way the two countries differ is when it comes to HIV/AIDS. Troy Barrie, last years UBC Junior Fellow to Ghana, said [hope you don’t mind being quoted Troy] that he was surprised at how much awareness there was and how little of a problem it was in Ghana given what he had heard about Africa. Well what he had heard was about Southern and Eastern Africa. There is an HIV pandemic here. These countries have been devastated. And even now as the world wakes up to the desperate need to turn the tide… these countries have been robbed of the health professionals they need to combat the virus because of how far things have gone. In the Southern Province of Zambia, where I am, the HIV rate is 18%. Who are the four people closest to you in the room right now [proximity-wise not emotionally]. One of you has HIV [ok that’s a bit emotional]. Which is a rate yet beaten by the province with Lusaka the capital.
Despite the vehemently disgraceful amount of development aid the United States gives out, USAIDS [I don’t remember the acronym exactly but I will take a stab at it… United States of America International Development something… that’s who gives out the U.S.’s money for development] is a major donor. And in the cut throat world of NGO’s which all desperately need funding for their worthy causes, approaches get compromised to satisfy the people with money. I’ve mentioned this to you before when it came to the Mulabalaba Dam community being paid to build themselves an irrigation canal. Well USAIDS does not fund organizations that promote the use of condoms… only abstinence will do.
Remember again that all these Zambians are trying to emulate the U.S. culture. Many things are lacking from households here, but satellite TV, big TVs, and great sound systems are not one of them.
You might be wondering what I am getting at. Well…
Watching Zambians import movies [and other media] filled with rampant, casual sexuality, and make a desperate scramble for that lifestyle, from the very same country that refuses to fund anyone who promotes condoms while HIV devastates their country…
the hypocrisy makes me sick.
Don’t just read these words: truly contemplate the tragic implications of that situation. Spend some time and really appreciate it. I am asking this becase I am no writer and have failed to come close to expressing the full emotional reality of this [though I can likely say that about each of my posts]. So think on it a while. You’ll know when you’ve thought enough when you have the urge to spit because the potency of the hypocrisy has left a vile taste in your mouth. Which makes me wonder…
How much of the ailing digestive tract is not caused by foreign food, foreign microbes, etc. but the raw emotion of coming from a more-economically-developed country to a less-economically-developed country.
Another way the two countries differ is when it comes to HIV/AIDS. Troy Barrie, last years UBC Junior Fellow to Ghana, said [hope you don’t mind being quoted Troy] that he was surprised at how much awareness there was and how little of a problem it was in Ghana given what he had heard about Africa. Well what he had heard was about Southern and Eastern Africa. There is an HIV pandemic here. These countries have been devastated. And even now as the world wakes up to the desperate need to turn the tide… these countries have been robbed of the health professionals they need to combat the virus because of how far things have gone. In the Southern Province of Zambia, where I am, the HIV rate is 18%. Who are the four people closest to you in the room right now [proximity-wise not emotionally]. One of you has HIV [ok that’s a bit emotional]. Which is a rate yet beaten by the province with Lusaka the capital.
Despite the vehemently disgraceful amount of development aid the United States gives out, USAIDS [I don’t remember the acronym exactly but I will take a stab at it… United States of America International Development something… that’s who gives out the U.S.’s money for development] is a major donor. And in the cut throat world of NGO’s which all desperately need funding for their worthy causes, approaches get compromised to satisfy the people with money. I’ve mentioned this to you before when it came to the Mulabalaba Dam community being paid to build themselves an irrigation canal. Well USAIDS does not fund organizations that promote the use of condoms… only abstinence will do.
Remember again that all these Zambians are trying to emulate the U.S. culture. Many things are lacking from households here, but satellite TV, big TVs, and great sound systems are not one of them.
You might be wondering what I am getting at. Well…
Watching Zambians import movies [and other media] filled with rampant, casual sexuality, and make a desperate scramble for that lifestyle, from the very same country that refuses to fund anyone who promotes condoms while HIV devastates their country…
the hypocrisy makes me sick.
Don’t just read these words: truly contemplate the tragic implications of that situation. Spend some time and really appreciate it. I am asking this becase I am no writer and have failed to come close to expressing the full emotional reality of this [though I can likely say that about each of my posts]. So think on it a while. You’ll know when you’ve thought enough when you have the urge to spit because the potency of the hypocrisy has left a vile taste in your mouth. Which makes me wonder…
How much of the ailing digestive tract is not caused by foreign food, foreign microbes, etc. but the raw emotion of coming from a more-economically-developed country to a less-economically-developed country.
Don’t I have a job? [Project Update Part 2]
What next? Well having determined the success [at least in the short-term] of the methodology at the dam it was developed at, but what about other dams? The methodology has to not be location-specific, so the mobilization process was started again, this time at the Manyemuyemu Dam Community.
[If these names are starting to frustrate you, here is a trick I picked up from Clare… say the last syllable, then the last two, and so on. So:
yemu… yemu-yemu… man-yemu-yemu. It is actually pronounced more like man-yay-me-yay-me]
But wait! That’s not all! The manual has to not be user-specific. The methodology is a fusion of Nick’s and his co-worker, Ernest Melelele’s, methods, but what about other people? So now that we have a brand new Junior Fellow, lets pair him up with a different TSB officer. So currently I am running about the Zambian countryside with the previously pictured Kantu Kantu [his first name is the same as his last]. Perhaps I will find the time to write about him at a later date.
The Manyemuyemu dam was chosen because it has some severe erosion problems. The level spillway has to be level so that the water flows over it as slowly as possible to prevent erosion. The spillway is fairly level, but at the end of it things get a little less level as the water flows down into a shallow valley where the stream usually flows. The gully was not fixed after it started to develop and now… I can stand in it and ground level would be over my head. [picture to come later]. Very impressively, however, was the amount of work that the community had done in the form of fencing. An NGO had offered to provide the barb wire to fence in the dam embankment and spillway to keep it safe from livestock… all the community had to do was make and plant posts to attached the barb wire. They did that and the damn NGO backed out! But at least that means the committee is working somewhat, just need help figuring out the erosion problem. One area I see being a problem for my project is that a lot of the problems and/or possible solutions being identified by the community are all to do with needing external resources. They need to find a new donor for barb-wire and they need cement donated so they can make the spillway concrete and avoid erosion. I asked in an interview why they needed barb-wire and couldn’t use sticks and thatch which was what protects everything else in the villages, including their gardens, from their very same threat of livestock… but so far I haven’t gotten a good reason. Years of “hand-outs” style development have ingrained a dependency that is quite frustrating to the more participatory, down-up instead of top-down, ownership building development that goes on now. That being said, it hasn’t completely stopped either. That wonderful irrigation canal the community is building to better utilize their dam and improve their agriculture… not only has the materials been externally funded, but the community is being PAYED to do the work! The TSB officers don’t agree with it. Even some of the community members expressed their disbelief that people were being paid to build themselves something that would benefit them. But… the donor feels people need to be paid to work…
Back to Manyemuyemu…
Kantu and I are currently still in the information gathering stage of the manual. We have held a meeting with the community to discuss the uses, problems, and possible solutions of those problems, of the dam. At that meeting we also did a community mapping exercise which was really fascinating to see. We had the attendees split up into four groups [young men, old men, young women, old women] so that the women would not be intimidated by the men and the young not intimidated by the old. The usefulness of this exercise had been expressed to me in development literature, but seeing how detailed people know the area is really amazing. The Old Women group even made a key in the bottom of the map which denoted various types of structures [school, clinic, villages, locations of Village Headmen or subukos] and the different types of bridges. It was very entertaining watching the groups present their maps [and their ideas of uses and problems] to the other groups and all the laughter and criticism that accompanied fixing mistakes on the maps.
Now we are doing the interview part of the information gathering [where the real story is uncovered]. The interviews are conducted privately, in one-on-one sessions. Their responses are confidential and will be compiled and presented back to the community in another big meeting so that they can discuss and decide what to do. This process is to allow those meek voices in the community to be heard. We try to get a good representation of the community, but it is a particular challenge with the Manyemuyemu Dam Community as there are 9 villages that use the dam! Not only that, but the last community meeting they held was about whether or not to allow the villages beyond those 9 use the dam because some villages are closer to this dam than their other options [in the wonderful spirit of Zambian collectivism they decided to let them use the dam].
Anyway, in the mean time, interviews shall continue until the lengthy, and tedious, process of compiling and analyzing all the responses is undertaken after the EWB retreat at beautiful Lake Karibba.
Future plans of mine include doing interviews [yay! more interviews!] with TSB officers and other extension workers to find out if there are similar manuals they have used that they found very useful, what made them useful, how they would like to see a manual designed, etc. Even if the methodology is good… it doesn’t mean anything if the manual is too cumbersome to be of real use in the field. Currently I am under the impression this will be my biggest add value to the project. The methodology is quite comprehensive [with the exception of a few ideas which Kantu and I are testing that were suggested when Nick and Ernest presented the manual to a group of officers] and I will only be able to add small bits of improvement to that. Also the field skills of an EWB trained volunteer [trained in Canada], while a solid foundation, do not compare with those of extension workers who have attended post-secondary school in this field and have years of field experience. What I can do is try to translate all those skills and the wealth of knowledge contained within these officers into a manual that up and coming extension workers can gain from. But who knows, maybe my biggest add-value will show up somewhere else!
[If these names are starting to frustrate you, here is a trick I picked up from Clare… say the last syllable, then the last two, and so on. So:
yemu… yemu-yemu… man-yemu-yemu. It is actually pronounced more like man-yay-me-yay-me]
But wait! That’s not all! The manual has to not be user-specific. The methodology is a fusion of Nick’s and his co-worker, Ernest Melelele’s, methods, but what about other people? So now that we have a brand new Junior Fellow, lets pair him up with a different TSB officer. So currently I am running about the Zambian countryside with the previously pictured Kantu Kantu [his first name is the same as his last]. Perhaps I will find the time to write about him at a later date.
The Manyemuyemu dam was chosen because it has some severe erosion problems. The level spillway has to be level so that the water flows over it as slowly as possible to prevent erosion. The spillway is fairly level, but at the end of it things get a little less level as the water flows down into a shallow valley where the stream usually flows. The gully was not fixed after it started to develop and now… I can stand in it and ground level would be over my head. [picture to come later]. Very impressively, however, was the amount of work that the community had done in the form of fencing. An NGO had offered to provide the barb wire to fence in the dam embankment and spillway to keep it safe from livestock… all the community had to do was make and plant posts to attached the barb wire. They did that and the damn NGO backed out! But at least that means the committee is working somewhat, just need help figuring out the erosion problem. One area I see being a problem for my project is that a lot of the problems and/or possible solutions being identified by the community are all to do with needing external resources. They need to find a new donor for barb-wire and they need cement donated so they can make the spillway concrete and avoid erosion. I asked in an interview why they needed barb-wire and couldn’t use sticks and thatch which was what protects everything else in the villages, including their gardens, from their very same threat of livestock… but so far I haven’t gotten a good reason. Years of “hand-outs” style development have ingrained a dependency that is quite frustrating to the more participatory, down-up instead of top-down, ownership building development that goes on now. That being said, it hasn’t completely stopped either. That wonderful irrigation canal the community is building to better utilize their dam and improve their agriculture… not only has the materials been externally funded, but the community is being PAYED to do the work! The TSB officers don’t agree with it. Even some of the community members expressed their disbelief that people were being paid to build themselves something that would benefit them. But… the donor feels people need to be paid to work…
Back to Manyemuyemu…
Kantu and I are currently still in the information gathering stage of the manual. We have held a meeting with the community to discuss the uses, problems, and possible solutions of those problems, of the dam. At that meeting we also did a community mapping exercise which was really fascinating to see. We had the attendees split up into four groups [young men, old men, young women, old women] so that the women would not be intimidated by the men and the young not intimidated by the old. The usefulness of this exercise had been expressed to me in development literature, but seeing how detailed people know the area is really amazing. The Old Women group even made a key in the bottom of the map which denoted various types of structures [school, clinic, villages, locations of Village Headmen or subukos] and the different types of bridges. It was very entertaining watching the groups present their maps [and their ideas of uses and problems] to the other groups and all the laughter and criticism that accompanied fixing mistakes on the maps.
Now we are doing the interview part of the information gathering [where the real story is uncovered]. The interviews are conducted privately, in one-on-one sessions. Their responses are confidential and will be compiled and presented back to the community in another big meeting so that they can discuss and decide what to do. This process is to allow those meek voices in the community to be heard. We try to get a good representation of the community, but it is a particular challenge with the Manyemuyemu Dam Community as there are 9 villages that use the dam! Not only that, but the last community meeting they held was about whether or not to allow the villages beyond those 9 use the dam because some villages are closer to this dam than their other options [in the wonderful spirit of Zambian collectivism they decided to let them use the dam].
Anyway, in the mean time, interviews shall continue until the lengthy, and tedious, process of compiling and analyzing all the responses is undertaken after the EWB retreat at beautiful Lake Karibba.
Future plans of mine include doing interviews [yay! more interviews!] with TSB officers and other extension workers to find out if there are similar manuals they have used that they found very useful, what made them useful, how they would like to see a manual designed, etc. Even if the methodology is good… it doesn’t mean anything if the manual is too cumbersome to be of real use in the field. Currently I am under the impression this will be my biggest add value to the project. The methodology is quite comprehensive [with the exception of a few ideas which Kantu and I are testing that were suggested when Nick and Ernest presented the manual to a group of officers] and I will only be able to add small bits of improvement to that. Also the field skills of an EWB trained volunteer [trained in Canada], while a solid foundation, do not compare with those of extension workers who have attended post-secondary school in this field and have years of field experience. What I can do is try to translate all those skills and the wealth of knowledge contained within these officers into a manual that up and coming extension workers can gain from. But who knows, maybe my biggest add-value will show up somewhere else!
Don’t I have a job? [Project Update Pt.1]
Looking back on what I had previously posted on my work here… well it isn’t much. Basically that was all that I knew coming to Zambia. So how does that shape up after a month?
Things got off to a terribly slow start. Unusually slow. I mean this is Africa, and things don’t move fast, but nothing happened the first couple weeks. That is because Zambia has decided that all farmers should be registered in a fat book for easy reference. I think it is a good idea, but I am not really sure what you would need that reference for. There is also the question of how quickly that information will change. In any case absolutely all MACO personnel were out in the field in a big rush to accomplish the registry. In the mean time I was left to gather any information I could about dams in Zambia, participatory approaches, etc. and take a good long look at the manual produced during Nick’s placement.
After talking with the District Agriculture and Cooperatives Coordinator [the DACCO], who is essential my boss, it became clear that he wanted the methodology that was developed to be verified. Does it work? Or is that manual a pile of wasted paper. And while refining the manual I would of course be helping communities organize themselves to better maintain communal assets like an earth dam [the direct impact on Dorothy].
I decided the first thing to do in terms of refining the manual was make sure it worked in the first place. Most of Nick’s work had been at the Mulabalaba Dam Community [it is utilized by 5 villages so I shall refer to them as a dam community]. To how things had changed in the aftermath of the mobilization, I conducted interviews with the community similar to the one-on-one interviews, prescribed in the manual, for the initial information gathering when mobilizing a community. However, people are not stupid so I couldn’t go with my usual co-workers [the Technical Service Branch officers] because if a TSB officer is standing their translating questions about how you maintain the dam less than a year after the TSB and another muzungo conducted a mobilization exercise… well you are going to tell him exactly what you think he wants to hear so they will be pleased with you. Similarly when you are asking questions you can’t lead the interviewee by saying “You use the dam for…”, because the tendency will be just to agree with you so you have to ask “What do you use the dam for?”. There is a cornucopia of little issues like that which turn a one-on-one interview into a very complicated, walking on eggshells, affair. To distance myself from the initial work as much as possible I went with a social worker who acted as an impartial translator [I explained everything to her] and asked for “dumb” questions as if I hadn’t the first clue about dams in Zambia. So instead of “What maintenance work do you do on the dam?” I’d ask “Does the dam need any work to protect it or can it be left untouched?”. My earnest efforts to get an unbiased picture of how things had changed were somewhat mitigated by the fact that a little over 8 months after Nick had left, here is another muzungo, who happens to be from Canada, asking questions about dams again. But I did what I could. Also it is difficult to gage how the newly elected dam committee [no one was happy with the old one] was doing was the fact that there was a canal project going on which was under the supervision of the committee with the help of the TSB [see picture of TSB officer Kantu Kantu standing on the canal construction]. As a result of this, most activity being coordinated had to do with the irrigation canals to better utilized the dam water.
The results of the interview were very positive. Pretty much everyone knew what was going on with the dam, knew about the rules of use and maintenance, and felt the new committee was doing a bang-up job. No severe disparities were uncovered by comparing the responses of men vs. women, individual villages, or age groups. However there was a lack of consensus on what the punishments were for breaking the rules or disobeying work orders [some examples or responses include: fine a goat which would be sold and the money put toward dam maintenance, nothing would happen, they will be arrested and taken to the city by somebody]. Also, only a fraction of the community felt that if the committee was not doing its job that their ineffectiveness would lead to the election of a new committee [other responses include: the dam will fail, nothing will happen]. Thus two minor things which could be given more focus in the manual were revealed. It shall be edited to include emphasis on asking questions about punishments and dam committee failure so that the community can discuss it together and come to a community decision on what to do that everyone knows about.
Things got off to a terribly slow start. Unusually slow. I mean this is Africa, and things don’t move fast, but nothing happened the first couple weeks. That is because Zambia has decided that all farmers should be registered in a fat book for easy reference. I think it is a good idea, but I am not really sure what you would need that reference for. There is also the question of how quickly that information will change. In any case absolutely all MACO personnel were out in the field in a big rush to accomplish the registry. In the mean time I was left to gather any information I could about dams in Zambia, participatory approaches, etc. and take a good long look at the manual produced during Nick’s placement.
After talking with the District Agriculture and Cooperatives Coordinator [the DACCO], who is essential my boss, it became clear that he wanted the methodology that was developed to be verified. Does it work? Or is that manual a pile of wasted paper. And while refining the manual I would of course be helping communities organize themselves to better maintain communal assets like an earth dam [the direct impact on Dorothy].
I decided the first thing to do in terms of refining the manual was make sure it worked in the first place. Most of Nick’s work had been at the Mulabalaba Dam Community [it is utilized by 5 villages so I shall refer to them as a dam community]. To how things had changed in the aftermath of the mobilization, I conducted interviews with the community similar to the one-on-one interviews, prescribed in the manual, for the initial information gathering when mobilizing a community. However, people are not stupid so I couldn’t go with my usual co-workers [the Technical Service Branch officers] because if a TSB officer is standing their translating questions about how you maintain the dam less than a year after the TSB and another muzungo conducted a mobilization exercise… well you are going to tell him exactly what you think he wants to hear so they will be pleased with you. Similarly when you are asking questions you can’t lead the interviewee by saying “You use the dam for…”, because the tendency will be just to agree with you so you have to ask “What do you use the dam for?”. There is a cornucopia of little issues like that which turn a one-on-one interview into a very complicated, walking on eggshells, affair. To distance myself from the initial work as much as possible I went with a social worker who acted as an impartial translator [I explained everything to her] and asked for “dumb” questions as if I hadn’t the first clue about dams in Zambia. So instead of “What maintenance work do you do on the dam?” I’d ask “Does the dam need any work to protect it or can it be left untouched?”. My earnest efforts to get an unbiased picture of how things had changed were somewhat mitigated by the fact that a little over 8 months after Nick had left, here is another muzungo, who happens to be from Canada, asking questions about dams again. But I did what I could. Also it is difficult to gage how the newly elected dam committee [no one was happy with the old one] was doing was the fact that there was a canal project going on which was under the supervision of the committee with the help of the TSB [see picture of TSB officer Kantu Kantu standing on the canal construction]. As a result of this, most activity being coordinated had to do with the irrigation canals to better utilized the dam water.
The results of the interview were very positive. Pretty much everyone knew what was going on with the dam, knew about the rules of use and maintenance, and felt the new committee was doing a bang-up job. No severe disparities were uncovered by comparing the responses of men vs. women, individual villages, or age groups. However there was a lack of consensus on what the punishments were for breaking the rules or disobeying work orders [some examples or responses include: fine a goat which would be sold and the money put toward dam maintenance, nothing would happen, they will be arrested and taken to the city by somebody]. Also, only a fraction of the community felt that if the committee was not doing its job that their ineffectiveness would lead to the election of a new committee [other responses include: the dam will fail, nothing will happen]. Thus two minor things which could be given more focus in the manual were revealed. It shall be edited to include emphasis on asking questions about punishments and dam committee failure so that the community can discuss it together and come to a community decision on what to do that everyone knows about.
Who is Dorothy?
I will be making references to Dorothy on my blog. And given that a number of people reading this include my family [I even have an Aunty Dorothy, which made the EWB-Dorothy concept a little hard for me to get used to] who don’t know this terminology so I will briefly explain her.
Dorothy is my boss. She is the boss of everyone in EWB, including the Co-CEOs Parker Mitchell and George Roter. At the end of the day, all the work we do is for her. She is an archetype. I don’t remember quite how the concept developed and got the name Dorothy, but that’s how we know her. She is the millions of people out there living in extreme poverty. She is our client. Whether she is a man or women, old or young, etc. All those faces you see on World Vision advertisements. Each one of those faces is Dorothy.
On my Myers Briggs personality type test I am an “I” [intuitive] and not an “S” [sensing] which means I am much more of a concept person than a concrete examples person. So my explanation of Dorothy is lack-lustre because for me Dorothy is an abstract concept I see manifest into a million forms everyday while I am over here. Perhaps someone from the chapter who is an “S” can leave a comment on this post explaining it better.
Dorothy is my boss. She is the boss of everyone in EWB, including the Co-CEOs Parker Mitchell and George Roter. At the end of the day, all the work we do is for her. She is an archetype. I don’t remember quite how the concept developed and got the name Dorothy, but that’s how we know her. She is the millions of people out there living in extreme poverty. She is our client. Whether she is a man or women, old or young, etc. All those faces you see on World Vision advertisements. Each one of those faces is Dorothy.
On my Myers Briggs personality type test I am an “I” [intuitive] and not an “S” [sensing] which means I am much more of a concept person than a concrete examples person. So my explanation of Dorothy is lack-lustre because for me Dorothy is an abstract concept I see manifest into a million forms everyday while I am over here. Perhaps someone from the chapter who is an “S” can leave a comment on this post explaining it better.
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