Back from Chamanuka, Discussion at the Deputy Heads Ambassadors house U.S. on development

Thursday 2010-01-28
Back from Chamanuka, a bwano kwambili resort, for our COS (close of service) conference. Most of the actual conference was fairly straightforward info about what we had to do before we left and options for when we returned to the states. The food was really good and I don't really need to eat for the remainder of my service.
This evening many of the volunteers, several Zambian PC staff and US staff who work at the embassy or for various NGO's went to the deputy ambassador's house (where I had stayed a little over a year ago in the PC home stay program) to discuss development, what it meant and how it was best implemented. The discussion was very productive and really showed how much the people who work in Zambia (be it PCV's, Gov. employees or NGO workers) collectively have a grasp on how to best carry out development. The basic points that clarified, enhanced and added to my idea of how to bring development and/or the challenges in bringing development during the meeting were:
1. That skill and knowledge aid should be the primary focus and that financial aid should only be implemented when it is the only limiting factor impeding the organization from growing.
2. That when possible, any form of aid should first be sought out locally
3. That a large factor contributing to lack of development is the lack of motivation to improve and bring new change and new ideas.
4. That one likely reason for this is the lack of an education system that has resources and sparks innovation in the children of Zambia
5. That, turning the camera in the other direction, if a Zambian came to America and said that they were here to help your town develop, would you except their idea with open arms and readily stop what you were doing and turn to embrace whatever development strategies they employed? The Zambians, in large part do, but the more radical a suggestion is, the more resistance a volunteer faces.

Now all we have to do is actually take these ideas and turn them into action (as is one of my signature* quotes:
Vision without action is a daydream,
Action without vision is a nightmare,
One needs both to succeed.)

20010-01-08 (is the date in which this synopsis [rundown {abridgment}] is being written)

Got back to Dovu village a little after 900 Wednesday and was very, very tired; not having gotten much sleep the two nights (or knights as I had, for some reason, written before reading again). I attempted to put a new rime (the old one was very warped on the special hub that was custom made for my cycle but this tiredness progressed into a headache and a general feeling of bad. I lay down and fell asleep until 1830ish when I debated falling back asleep but finally decided to have some tea and rice. Yesterday I finished putting a chabwino wheel on and biked to the Zingalume Basic head teachers house but he was in Chipata.
Next week I will be doing some or all of the following:
getting the Inoviropreneurship project revised and started with the Zingalume head teacher; getting my pedal powered generator working; making a solar stove using cheap bathroom mirrors; hopefully finally succeeding in making soap; if the big goat in my village has kidded, milking her
The two weeks after that I will be in Lusaka, on vacation/starting to figure out what I am going to do when I return to the states the first week, then attending the COS conference the second.
Wanting to go back to the states but wanting to get more things done here before I leave.

Garden, Generator, Malawi Vacation, Chipata and Quarterly Reports

Well, the month of December and therefore 2009 has almost ended. While I was in Dovu I was mostly working on getting my garden finished being planted and on finally making a pedal powered generator. Then about two weeks ago I headed to Chipata on rout to Malawi on the 24th. After a hectic and expensive travel (the "taxi" [Canter truck] cost me 3,500MK to take me probably less then 10km) I arrived at Wheelhouse Marina in Senga Bay. There is a gorgeous view of the lake and a yurt kind of thing that is on stilts over the lake where there is a bar. Unfortunately the bar plays very loud music all night and I had to camp in my tent. So I moved to Monkey Bay, the town just outside the national park in cape Maclare, early. There I stayed in a dormitory and they didn't blast the music all night. But there were no mosquito nets over the beds and the food was way over priced. The water was very nice and the shore is covered naturally with sand. Although I enjoyed swimming and the view I left early because I was spending too much money being board and because I was getting eaten up even though I put on three different kinds of bug spray every night. I have to say, even though I can't stand dealing with transport of any kind, the bus system in Malawi is much better then in Zambia as there are legit busses that actually leave on a schedule (although they don't go to Chipata so I had to sit in a crowded mini bus and deal with being hassled. Anyway, now I can say I've been to Lake Malawi.
I'll be in Chipata until January 5th or 6th relaxing and working on my quarterly report, then head back to Chadiza to get my Inoviropreneurship program underway.

A Friday of BOMailarging

2009-12-18
In Chadiza charging things and checking email. Have been working on getting my dimba (garden) up and running and finally making a pedal powered generator using a very, very old Landrover generator. I just hope the tork is not too much when I connect it up to a battery. I'm going on vacation in Malawi from Dec. 24th to Jan. 4th and heading to Chipata on rout there pa Sunday. I will be in Senga bay from the 24th to the 28th –monkey bay from the 28th to Jan 2nd and then Senga bay from the 2nd to the 5th (traveling back to Chipata on the 5th).

TLUD, Dimba, Thanksgiving, Getting Stuff, Electronical Failure Mango Chutney, and....

TLUD, Dimba, Thanksgiving, Getting Stuff, Electronical Failure Mango Chutney, and....
The last two weeks before I left for Chipata about a week ago I was basically focusing on two things: dimba and BioChar stoves.
The BioChar stoves (a type that uses small branches and fibery weeds and consists of an inner chamber where the solid fuel goes. This inner chamber has many holes in the bottom for fuel and is coated with a narrow outer chamber that encircles the inner chamber and draws air up so that when it reaches what would be smoke, it is preheated and this smoke can catch fire, meaning that little toxic fumes reach the environment and people's lungs.) have been a huge success. People are really exited about the idea. After doing a test run in my village, I got the students at Zingalume basic to make a second version. At first they were kind of uninterested in the project but when it was done, and the stove was lit, they were very impressed, as was the head teacher.
My dimba has been a lot of work, getting the beds made and beginning to plant. I so far have five beds (about a fourth or fifth of the garden) planted with some tomatoes, two beets (had a bunch more but the grasshoppers love beets, even tephrosia only slowed their demise), some soya, broccoli seedlings up the wazoo, popcorn, carrots, watermelon, cantaloupe(?), and a few other things.
I have also been trying to get strong enough potassium hydroxide (homemade lye) to make soap. I'm almost there. In the BOMA I've been trying for the umpteenth time to get internet in Chadiza, although as of the last meeting with one of the interested parties the meeting still had not happened.
On Monday I spent pretty much all day trying to find transport to Chipata with no success. I finally left Tuesday morning for the provincial meeting and that night we had pizza from probably the only semi Italian family in eastern province (well, there's a radio station called Radio Maria that has broadcasting towers here... maybe it's owned by that family... or maybe it's Spanish).. That afternoon I had also tasted some sour ketchup and threw up all over my sheets that night, feeling miserable until Thursday. The meeting was somewhat uneventful but a little later in the evening we had a talent show and I was impressed at some of the talent, one in particular where one man played the guitar while another woman sang a lengthy witty song about Peace Corps Zambian life she had written. On Thursday at about 10:00 all the LIFE'ers trooped over to the office of the provincial forestry officer where we shared what we were up to and found out what she was wanting to focus on. Then we, or at least some of us, myself not included, got back to preparing our thanksgiving dinner (there were a little too many cooks and another would have spoiled the meal). They had been working on cooking since I got to Chipata and I was very eager to see what they had made, probably compounded by the fact that I hadn't really eaten anything for the last two and a half days. The meal was really good and the dessert equally enjoyably. To say I was not hungry anymore would be an underestimate.
Friday was Eid and since most of the shops are owned by Muslims, everything was closed which kind of put a damper on my plans to get things I needed but I did finally find a reasonably priced old vehicle generator so that I can finally, at long last make my pedal powered generator. This is a good thing because it means I won't need to keep lugging it to the BOMA and back every few weeks.
This weekend I began making some mango chutney that has turned out to taste really good. Why is it that if it can be canned, I can cook it, if it isn't cannable it doesn't turn out quite like I planed?
Going back to Thursday, when I had tried to plug in my external hard drive, nothing happened. I tried to disconnect and reconnect everything that was connectable, to no avail. I am now almost certain that Zambia is host of the electronic demon because my palm is also beginning to freeze up every once awhile (removing the battery, shaking it and bumping it and putting the battery back in usually fixes it). This means that I will be podcastless until at least midterm conference.
Monday I was walking with a heavy backpack for about 8 hours and on my feet from 5:00 until about midnight with only a few breaks, buying things from shops in the "down shops," trying to get MTN to have reliable internet again (the MTN shop is about 4km from the PCPH) and bottling my mango chutney. I didn't get everything done so I won't be going back today but will go back on Wednesday.

A blog post for the tenth of November – the only tenth of November that shall ever come to pass in the year 2009 (all the rest are just fakes, don't buy them)
Well, I've wanted to have my garden planted by now but it hasn't rained enough so the ground is very hard to work. Probably my most successful venture is still my work with Zingalume Basic in doing the Inoviropreneurship program, although we have a bit of a problem of the students coming on time.
The internet program is still facing delays – no one wants to attend meetings but when I talk to them they say that they really want to do it. Hopefully I get something done on this front before I have to go.
My latest push is "top lit updraft" (TLUD) stoves. Basically they are stoves that use small fuel that can be grown quickly and burn the gas that would otherwise come out as smoke. I made one with the head women and that is what I am currently working on at the basic school.
Well, today (right now) we had our second really good storm. (There's been a few quickies that haven't left much) I hope there was the same amount of rain that came down in Dovu. I hope someone plows my garden when the rain lets up.
Of last regard, my solar panel doesn't seem to be working well enough to power my battery (and there have been several days that I hardly think you even need a solar panel photons to charge my battery the rays have been so scorching). My multi meter ran out of juice and it needs a 9v that can only be bought in Chipata so I'm going to have to wait till the end of the month to assess the problem.
Alright, all for now, there's probably more I could add but I should be packing up soon... I hope it stops raining before I need to head out.

A blog post for the tenth of November – the only tenth of November that shall ever come to pass in the year 2009 (all the rest are just fakes, don't buy them)
Well, I've wanted to have my garden planted by now but it hasn't rained enough so the ground is very hard to work. Probably my most successful venture is still my work with Zingalume Basic in doing the Inoviropreneurship program, although we have a bit of a problem of the students coming on time.
The internet program is still facing delays – no one wants to attend meetings but when I talk to them they say that they really want to do it. Hopefully I get something done on this front before I have to go.
My latest push is "top lit updraft" (TLUD) stoves. Basically they are stoves that use small fuel that can be grown quickly and burn the gas that would otherwise come out as smoke. I made one with the head women and that is what I am currently working on at the basic school.
Well, today (right now) we had our second really good storm. (There's been a few quickies that haven't left much) I hope there was the same amount of rain that came down in Dovu. I hope someone plows my garden when the rain lets up.
Of last regard, my solar panel doesn't seem to be working well enough to power my battery (and there have been several days that I hardly think you even need a solar panel photons to charge my battery the rays have been so scorching). My multi meter ran out of juice and it needs a 9v that can only be bought in Chipata so I'm going to have to wait till the end of the month to assess the problem.
Alright, all for now, there's probably more I could add but I should be packing up soon... I hope it stops raining before I need to head out.

Well we had our first rain yesterday, probably 3-4 cm at least

Well we had our first rain yesterday, probably 3-4 cm at least. I was really worried that the new black plastic my villagers had put on would blow off because they hadn't had a chance to tie the udzu (long grass) down yet.
What I've been working on:
Well, I've had quite a few fairly successful classes with some students at Zingalume basic on trying to get them to think in innovative ways. It is interesting to see what things they can do and what things are really difficult. Probably the best class that they really thrived on was when I had them make the paper airplane that could go the farthest. They made one that went quite a bit farther then the quick one I did and even gave good reasons why they tried that design.
I think this time (and what feels like the umpteenth time) I have attempted to organize the Chadiza organizations together for the purpose of internet it will actually work. I'm meeting with the high schools this afternoon and have had several meetings with members of three organizations all of which were very interested (the high schools had already set up a committee to address the issue before I had even returned from Lusaka). Now we just need to have one or two meetings with all the organizations together and get the company we are going through to come and do a technical assessment of the terrain. Then it's just a mater of getting the equipment.
I've also been slowly trying to make some lye that will actually be a basic enough pH to make soap out of fat. I have also been making a fuel efficient stove that burns not only small sticks, maize cobs and other small woody things but also the smoke (like what a roaring fire that has flames shooting out of the chimney does).
Yesterday, after the rain had almost let up I spent an how beginning o prepare my dimba for planting. My garden will (come mbuzi or high water) be bwino kwambili this year!

Before the date and time of 2009 10 02 16:12...

I forgot to mention this in my last post, maybe I was too annoyed or something but I now have a baby named after me. Born a couple weeks ago, Aaron from Dovu is really cute and really likes to sleep (much more then even I, I don't think he even woke up when I held him for some photo's).
This week I met again with Zingalume Basic and set up the date for the first class (Monday). I also worked on my water wheel and need to get some mealy meal sacks for the actual "paddle" parts.
Today I got some more honey, a covered plastic basket to keep food in so it doesn't get eaten by koswe (mice) but still gets aeration and some mealy meal sacks for the aforementioned use. I did not however communicate with the outside world because the MTN network was down... I hope the outside world is OK!

Today stared out a horrible day, Hot, Bread, Zingalume

Today stared out a horrible day. In the morning my alarm didn't go off so I woke up ≈80 minutes later then I had intended. As my 12v battery has not been holding a charge I needed to lug it to the BOMA along with my heavy backpack so what would have been slow going was slower going. I also decided to wear the pair of pants I had that the front pockets don't snap down. About a third of the way there I realized a pill bottle containing my malaria medication had fallen out. Then about halfway there I realized my 8gb flash drive and two rechargeable batteries had fallen out. ARG! I hope someone picks them up.
This weekend I didn't do that much because it was too hot (≈35-37°C). Even though it's the rainy season it still seams humid as well although not as much as in Connecticut. Monday I baked some bread, first started out using my solar stove oven but it didn't get quite hot enough to start the baking process. I finished it off using a new oven idea that is basically a pot big enough to cover my brazier. This worked well. I also went to Zingalume basic school and met with the teacher who is in charge of clubs to discuss trying to integrate the syllabus I worked on last month into the remainder of this term.

The Future Never Happened....

So here's the plan / I have uploaded 1452 new ZamPic's

2009-09-17
So here's the plan: the cycle gets done tomorrow, I ride the heck out of it this weekend - I can't bring it back the next because all of the staff are on a retreat somewhere, then on Monday, assuming that nothing has broken on the cycle, I'll bring the think back to Chipata, then Chadiza. And this epic thing is done. It is going to be sweet to ride (I think, I hope).
Now that is the daytime news, the evening news is that I have uploaded 1452 new ZamPic's (Pictures mu Zambia) onto my website. Check them out at: The Other Realm .

... and then the monitor of my laptop died…

2009-09-15
So when I got back to PCZHQ I got probably about an hour, hour and a half before the network stopped working again... and then the monitor of my laptop died…electronics don’t like me… and I’m begging to not like them…

(2009-09-09, roughly 21:27 hours) - Well, I think I'll go to bed

2009-09-10
Frustrating day, still have a lot to do on the cycle, working on bike cart design and some online stuff.

2009-09-11
Well, I won't be going back this weekend, hopefully Tuesday or Wednesday next week. Right as I am typing this I have a pot full of oats in front of me – this is isn't that important, I just thought you might want to know. Hopefully this weekend I will have time to put up my pictures. All for then...

I want to get out of Lusaka!

2009-09-07
I want to get out of Lusaka! At the same time I want to get my water wheel (and of course my cycle) done before I go back. But I need to deal with red (plus green, blue black and yellow) tape. Unfortunately none of it is duct.

2009-09-06
Finished solar stove – only problem is I don’t have a black pot. Still makes the water very hot though.

2009-09-05
Worked on making a solar stove most of the afternoon, right now trying to get my camera to connect to a PCHQ computer because the wireless router needs to be reset. I think the problem with the connection is with the USB port on the camera… which sucks because that means that capturing is basically impossible…

(or is it the Danish market?!)

2009-08-29
Working on finishing up my Inoviropreneurship syllabus
Also went to the Dutch market (or is it the Danish market?!) and bought some really good Indian food... I didn't see any Dutch food but then other then the chocolate, is there any traditional Dutch food?

Think I'll start put quotes at the end of my blog:
Great people talk about ideas, average people talk about things, and small people talk about wine.
- Fran Lebowitz
Those who flee temptation generally leave a forwarding address.
- Lane Olinghouse

Today was a fair..ly successful day

2009-07-30
Today was a fair..ly successful day. After stopping at the design shop, I went to the Lusaka AG fair. The fairgrounds remind me a lot of the Big-E, only imagine what the Big-E would be like if it replaced the rides and game stands with more AG related things. In about 4-5 hours I found out more about renewable energy and remote internet then I have the entire time I have been researching the subjects. I met with this technology school based in the Copperbelt that had designed a bicycle that could run on solar power alone. The really useful part was when I asked where they had gotten the engine from and they said that it was from a windshield wiper. When I go back to Chipata (tomorrow actually, although I will be back here in a week or so) I will look into getting one of those little things and using it to do the reverse of what the school exhibiting was doing, make a generator out of it. Then I tracked down a digital system engineering company that it was rumored they were making low RPM generators. Although, from the previous stop I had found a almost certainly cheaper alterative to a new specialty device, I thought it wouldn't hurt to talk to someone there. The company did not stock such a machine and was about to exit the building when I thought about asking him about ham radio. As it turns out, he is a licensed operator in S.A. Unfortunately he didn't know how to get a license here, but when I stopped at ZNBC, they really liked the idea of an amateur radio program in local schools and got my contact information about getting a program under way in Chadiza. Finally, I was on my way out of the grounds when I stopped at the Zambia Meteorology Department. I overhead someone saying the word "internet" and my ears picked up. Apparently there is a device that is being distributed throughout Zambia and elsewhere in Sub Saharan Africa that is in essence a Short Wave Wi-Fi that is used for its own intranet. When I got back I Google'ed WorldSpace, the name on the top of the units they were using to connect. Initially I didn't find anything until I found their not-for-profit arm. Essentially they are doing what I have been attempting to do for some time, bring low cost internet to remote villages. Check them out at: http://www.firstvoiceint.org . Alright, still have a lot to do before I get a brief rest and head out on the long trek back to Chipata.

CAD Waterwheel, WiFi, & cycle

Yesterday I spent the morning and first part of the after 1200 hours doing more research in long range wireless radio, then I switched to design and spent the rest of the night doing a CAD drawing of a water wheel pump and printing steps for making a stirling engine. Today I will hopefully be going to DisaCare to work on my cycle and to show them the work I was doing the previous day.

An update of ordinary magnitude

2009-07-02~2009-07-25
Week one(ish) of July (week of Forth of July, Unity Day, Hero's Day) I was in Chipata spending some time relaxing after almost a month in the village as well as finding out how to make soap.
Week two (with a bit added on in the beginning and the end to bring the total up to day 18 of the seventh month of the ninth year of this millennium) I was back in the village doing two soap workshops. Probably my most rewarding workshop was working with the teacher in charge of the JETS club in finally getting the Solar Oven project under way. I also had several good conversations with the head teach, who I get along well with, resulting in asking whether he wanted me to work with the other teachers in doing some programming in the area of Inoviropreneurship (innovation, the environment and entrepreneurship). He liked the idea and when I asked him how much he wanted me to do he said that I should write a daily class for ten of the thirteen weeks in a semester. So I've been pacing myself in writing the fifty lessen plans.
On the eighteenth day I took a dreaded taxi to the city known as Chipata and spent a while working on beginning the structure of the syllabus. I also made pancakes for the first time since I've been here (and a long time before that) and also made some soya burgers that were really good, I just wished my stomach had been feeling better.
Then on the 21st, I headed down to Lusaka to finally get a cycle of sort. Of coarse the shop had not been notified when I would be coming and they were not all geared up to go. Hopefully they will be on Monday. I've been spending a lot of time getting hooked on Amateur/Ham radio. I think it would be awesome if I could get myself and a few local Chadizians' licensed. Then we could communicate throughout the world. The summer CHIP/RAP (CHIP=community health improvement project, a combination of the old HAP/CAHP) intake of '09 came late Thursday night and were at the PCHQ on Friday. They seem like a pretty good group. Alright, back to haming, pondering whether I should spend some time writing lessen plans and working on a CAD drawing of a portable waterwheel for irrigation I'm designing.

Minto Wonder Wheel

2009-06-24~2009-07-01

The 7 or 8 days (depending on how you look at it) have been almost as productive as the week before, it would have been as or even more productive as the weeks before this last week except that my back and left leg were complaining that I had been bending over and favoring my right side too much and so I didn't do any more double digging or composting (although I was approached as to whether someone wanted them to help clear the field of weeds [for a fee of k20,000 for the large side, k15,000 for the small side of course] and they did what would have taken me probably a couple of weeks in a couple of days so I have plenty to compost when I return to the village). I did however make another go at banachar which I got many other villagers interested in and I think it was a success. That is of course contingent on the charballs that the villagers made sure were perfectly spherical burn better then the last ones I made but I think they will. Yesterday I successfully got a taxi to Chipata on the first try and they were only around 40 minutes late!

Tuesday was somewhat of a relax veg out day and I stated up too late watching movies (an ok movie about a Egyptian born engineer married to an American who gets kidnapped by the CIA and tortured because of a terrorist act he did not commit and Fight Club from beginning to end without being interrupted by the pesky parental party). Today I found an ingenious idea for a means of generating power using a small temperature variant. Basically the way it works is you have a bunch of tanks containing a fluid that easily converts into a gas arranged in a circle in such a way as to look like a big watermill (the circle turns). The opposing tanks are joined by a pipe and there is a source of heat in the bottom and something cooler on the top. When the liquid in the bottom is heated and turns to a gas, it rises up to the tube on the top. The tank on the top is cooler however and so the gas converts back to a liquid causing the tank on the top to spin downward towards the bottom and the tank on the top to spin upwards. Although the whole thing does not spin that fast, if you have a large enough circular structure, the torque is enough to give off a descent amount of energy. I am definitely going to build one, the only problem is finding a liquid that changes to a gas easily but is not supper flammable or toxic or both and not really rare. Most of the fluids I have found in that people are using are at least one of the above mentioned heal risks. I would use mercury I think if I was in the states and designing it for a large scale production but to put such a toxin in a place that A. there are almost as many iwe's (children) as there are udzudzu (mosquitoes) this time of year B. most people have an innate need to take things apart and tinker with things C. there is a remarkable lack of mercury in Dovu village and lastly D. that probably most villagers have never seen mercury or have any idea what it is. Therefore I am in search of a fluid that meets the required specifications and is not dangerous or rare in Zambia. This challenge aside, I think the project has great potential to power villages all across Zambia for next to nothing in parts.

All for now, I'm still wondering why this inventive idea is not more widely known and utilized.

Peas, Compost, Solar Cooker, BanaChar, Hoe the day away PLUS... some other stuff

This last week, in all has been a slightly productive week. I planted some more peas, spinach and broccoli, made a Solar Cooker and was going to try it out on Saturday to cook beans but the day was cloudy. I also started a compost pile using the plentiful supply of cattle manure and made a test run of some "banachar" using mashed banana peels, charcoal dust and a little bit of sand. The test bio-charcoal should be ready in a few more days as they are not dry yet. Yesterday I spent aprox. 7 hours working on hoeing my big garden of weeds to get it ready for planting when either I get an irrigation system set up or the rains come. It will be a big process as I only got a small fraction of the field clear, the soil when dry is very hard clay and there is crab grass throughout most of it. Today I am in da BOMA using the internet and hopefully meeting with my forestry counterpart to talk about setting up two projects. One is collection of plastic bottles for use in drip irrigation and the other is clearing fields using biochar instead of open air burning that is very harmful to the environment and people's health.

Finally made it back to site a day late because my taxi didn't go to Chadiza the day I was intending it to leave. I feel like I have been trapped in my village for the past week because I don't have a bicycle and my ankle has still been hurting me. I did a thorough cleaning of the "kitchen/living room" part of my hut and finished building my table. It looks really nice and is really solid; the only thing is it is really tall. I also did my first attempt at a solar stove but because I didn't have the proper glue I had to use duct tape and couldn't get it to be flat enough to reflect the rays all in the direction of the pot. I also began making a bed using the "double digging" method that I we had learned before. I planted a few peas and will plant some spinach and broccoli probably tomorrow. Wednesday I will hopefully make it to the Zingalume basic school where I am trying to work with the JETS program on the umbrella solar cooker as well as some other projects.

The second part of my journal entry of the past three weeks; I wanted to get it posted in case the power goes out like it did for most of yesterday

4^th week of May...

Sunday I felt better. The taxi came a little after 8:00 and we said good bye to my Zam-Fam and flew as fast as a small sedan loaded with luggage and people can go over bumpy dirt roads back to Chipata. The day was rather uneventful because it was Sunday and just about everything was closed but we bought food at Shopright and I loaded things onto my new mp3 player my family had brought.

Monday we took the bus that does usually leave on time and got to Lusaka about 1500. There we took a taxi to the same guest house we had stayed in the last time we were there and after buying some cloths detergent headed to the Mahak Indian restaurant where they have a really good meal that has free refills.

Tuesday we toured several organizations that make adaptive equipment. We went to APTERS (Appropriate Paper Technology) where they make chairs not that different in concept from the ones my father makes as well as office supplies like the pen holders my family bought. We also went to DisoCare, the wheelchair and general design company that is building my cycle. I came expecting the cycle to be well under way but they were still waiting for payment which was frustrating. The last stop we went on was the Ubuntu office which looked like an office. We bought a shirt made by the wife of the person who was bringing us to all the places who does clothing fabrication and after seeing the house he lives in went to a craft market run by orphans to get some things to bring back as gifts. Then we quickly headed back to the Peace Corps HQ to deal with the cycle issue. We also were going to meet with my APCD but he had gone to northwestern on site prep. Having dinner at Black Night, the really good bread & pizza restaurant, we found a good bus company to Livingston that leaves when it is scheduled to, flagged a taxi and got ready for the next leg of our travels.

We woke up really early again, packed and then waited for the taxi to show up. We were shooting to leave at 5:00 but apparently he had overslept and so shoed up at around 5:40ish. We still were able to get a ticket and this time the bus left almost exactly when it said it would. I really wish this company had a route to Chipata. We got into Livingston at about 13:30 and walked to Faulty Towers lodge where we dropped our luggage and had a lazy rest of the day.

Thursday morning we had breakfast at the guest house and got ready to go see the falls. The falls are very impressive and the climate directly adjacent to them is kind of like a mini rainforest. Like a rainforest, it is very, very wet – it made me think we were in the middle of the rainy season again. My right foot was really rolling over and I decided I needed new boots – and the fact that the ones I was wearing were waterproof did little to prevent my feet from squeezing out water when I walked by the end of the walk. We went back and had a late lunch and walked to a Chinese restaurant for dinner where we met another PCV and her friend visiting from the States.

Friday we had a hurried breakfast and my Dad and I headed out to go on a microlight flight while my Mom and sister were headed to a horse back ride. Although expensive, the flight was wonderful. It definitely reinvigorated my desire to take up flying when I get back to the states... and have the money and time. We got back around 10:00 and waited for the other family faction to arrive. Their excursion was equally enjoyable. We went to the Livingston Shopright and bought a few things for lunch and breakfast Saturday morning, then headed back. For dinner we tried the pizza place there. It wasn't as good as the one at Black Night but was still not bad.

Saturday we got up somewhat early, ate a quick breakfast and headed to the bus stop. When I got there I realized I didn't have my water bottle. Against my families concerns I ran back, found it, and took a taxi back to the terminal with 10 minuets to spare. Unfortunately, because I was wearing my water shoes that had less support, I strained my inner ankle in the run back. We made about as good time as in coming to the city and got back to Lusaka at about 1500. First we dropped our stuff at the guest house, and then we went to the PCZHQ to download the photos from my sister's computer. We forgot my Dad's which sucked but at least we got my sisters pictures from her semi professional camera. We then took a taxi that was supposed to be headed to the same Mahak Indian Restaurant that we went to last time we were in Lusaka, however none of us could remember how to get there. We finally got directions, but they were for the other Mahak eatery in Kabulonga that didn't have the same all-you-can-eat dish.

Sunday we regretfully said good buy early because I needed to go to Manda Hill to get shoes and they needed to head to the bus stop. We walked to the end of the road together, and then we headed our separate ways. I think it was a good trip in all. I was successful in finding shoes that fit, although the pair I bought were some of the only ones in the store big enough. Zambians must have small feet. After getting some things from Shopright I took a taxi back to the PCZHQ and started trying to get windows working again on my laptop. I was actually successful in finding the solution to my problem and finally, after 4 months, had it working again. I got to bed really late though and only got about 4 hours of sleep.

Monday I had a few more things to do on my laptop, I needed to check in on the progress of the cycle which of course no one knew what the status of it was, and I tried to get a new mosquito net but apparently they only have the exact number of ones that there are volunteers and they are shipped from Washington so they were not available. I finally got everything packed and got to the bus around 1500. Fortunately, or unfortunately it took an hour before it finally left but I didn't get there until after midnight meaning another 4 hours night sleep. To make maters worse, I got sick on the bus and just barely made it to the window to through up a couple times. Luckily I was feeling a bit better by the time I got to the house.

Tuesday we had our provincial meeting which was somewhat standard and then in the afternoon there were some workshops for project ideas. By the end of the day I was incredibly tired and I got to sleep before 2100. There was no power or water for most of Tuesday which was sindibwino because I wanted to begin writing this blog.

Wednesday the power came back on and I began writing this epic blog and scanning my laptop for viruses but didn't do much else because my ankle still hurt.

Thursday, today, I am hopefully going back to my site finally for a good long stay.

The fist part of my journal entry of the past three weeks; I wanted to get it posted in case the power goes out like it did for most of yesterday

Well this month has been, as far as actual village work is concerned, not much of a month. However it seems like it was one of the longer months I've been in service because I've probably traveled (lets see, Chadiza to Lusaka twice round trip and Lusaka to Livingston once round trip) well over 3,000-4,000 km this month, sleep in nine places and generally been continuing my whirlwind. Things should get back to normal this month at least then probably in July I will hopefully be going to vacation in Malawi and (/ maybe or) hopefully getting my cycle.

The Following is a Semi-Dramatic Textual Documentation of the Events That Have Taken Place in the Last Three Weeks:

2^nd week of May...

Three and a half weeks ago, after the mid term conference was over I then began designing my cycle. Working with a local design company called Disocare we came up with a design that should work, but there are a lot of if's that still need to be worked out. I found a source for irrigation tubing that is much cheaper then anything in Chipata. Therefore the only thing left to do is write the grant to buy it and get the villagers more involved – the later being the biggest challenge. I also did more research into how to make soap and typed up steps to milking goats as well as downloading a bunch more podcasts. Then the tension built as I waited for my family to arrive the next day.

3^rd week of May...

Sunday the 17^th of May marked the exciting day my family was to arrive. I left before 8:00 by an expensive taxi and got there much faster then I was expecting. I fortunately had brought a Times magazine that I read until around 10:00, then I went to the gait and waited for the plain to arrive. And waited. And waited. The flight monitor showed that the plain would be delayed 40 minuets and it took well over that time for the passengers to start coming out. But none of them were my family. While I was waiting, someone approached and said that he was a founder of the organization called Ubuntu that my family had found through a friend of a friend. Ubuntu does education and advocacy for the disabled in Zambia and my family was very interested in finding more out about the challenges here as opposed to in the States. Finally, after virtually everyone had left, we spotted them.

They apparently had been the last ones off the plane. We piled into a vehicle stuffed with luggage and headed for the guest house. Unfortunately, that vehicle did not make it there on account of a flat tire so we, minus the Ubuntu guest house, finished the transport in a taxi. Everyone was very tired so we had a quick dinner of things we bought at the local Spar and went to bed.

Waking up incredibly early the next morning, we headed to the bus terminal and boarded one of the many busses headed to Chipata. Unfortunately the bus we chose was almost empty. Finally, after waiting around 6 hours the bus finally was full enough to leave. Yeah, that day was not the best part of the trip, but at least my family got to see the anti-exquisiteness of transport in Zambia. Finally arriving at the Chipata guest house we very quickly went to bed, quite possibly even more tired then the night before.

Tuesday we finally were going to get to our destination. We left later then we had wanted to as usual, after having repacked, banked, and food shopped we got a taxi and headed out on a very bumpy road. Getting in just before dusk, we were very glad to not need to travel for two days. Sitting and looking out at the wildlife that it was amazing the amount of given that virtually everywhere else in Zambia the only mammals are farm animals and mice we finally got to relax. While we were sitting a woman who works at the camp greeted us and when we engaged in discussion she seemed to tell us about how she grew up in Zimbabwe on a farm but as a teenager had to leave because of the redistribution of land by force that was going on. She fled to New Zealand where she went to college and gave up her initial plans of taking over the farm from her father. Not comfortable with the more urban life she was leading she came here and is working as a teacher in the morning and training to become a park ranger at night. Well that was an interesting enough story but then she began talking about her future plans to kayak the entire length of the Congo River, a feat not done before. To just kayak down the rapids there is a daunting task in of its self, but to do so in the Congo Rainforest with all the natural dangers of such a climate plus the fact that many stretches are in the middle of a guerilla war is almost ludicrous. She can probably talk her way out of a fight with a lion though as she wove her fascinating tale effortlessly.

We still needed to wake up very early the next day because our wildlife tour began at 6:00 and breakfast was at 5:30. We ate quickly and headed out on our mini exploration. Although it was kind of the standard Sub-Saharan wildlife you see in nature shows on TV, it was good to see them in real life and to learn a little bit more about them. We took a lot of pictures and I shot some footage, both of which I hope to post on my website the next time I'm in Lusaka. After the morning escapade we ate lunch and relaxed some more until about 1600. Then we headed out on our night trip to see more of the pray that ate the animals we had seen in the morning. We saw some lions, a jaguar, and caught a glimpse of a wild dog, which is supposed to be very rare as well as many more animals. Of the two trips, I would definitely say the daytime one was better because we could see all the wildlife instead of needing to stare out at the ever moving spotlight. We had a good three course dinner and stared out at the night sky for a little while, then went to bed fairly satisfied we had had a good day.

Thursday marked a lull in activities and we had a lazy day reading magazines and chatting. I was somewhat frustrated as my feet had slipped out from under me when drying off from a shower the day before my family arrived. My tailbone and left buttock really hurt when I walked more then a few meters so I wasn't able to go exploring the limited "safe" part of the part, so the day was mainly a day of rest because tomorrow would be another long taxi ride to my village in Chadiza.

When Friday rolled around, we hurriedly gathered our luggage, ate a quick breakfast and then the taxi came at 8:30. After the three hour bumpy ride to Chipata, we got some more food, ate some of it for lunch and then took another taxi to Dovu. We were welcomed by everyone and we chatted fairly easily, surprisingly enough, the headwomen and her son and law knowing much more English then I thought.

Saturday morning the first thing we did was go to see my chief, although whether he was expecting us or not. This was actually the first time I had been to the Zingalume palace, although I had met the chief before when he had stopped by my place. We gave him k50,000 and some homemade goat soap as gifts and heard afterwards that he really liked the soap and wanted to learn how it was made. The meeting was fairly quick and more of just a formality, and afterwards we got a tour of Zingalume village of whom the head women is the sister of the Dovu headwomen. After getting oranges picked from the trees in front of her house, we headed back to our village. Then my Dovu and U.S. family set about making peanut butter. Everyone was in a good mood and all chipped in shelling a huge bowl of ground nuts. After the shelling was done, we ate a lunch of Zumba, a local leaf that is dried and cooked with ground ground nuts, some baking soda and a few tomatoes. Because the first time I had eaten it I had said I really liked it, they now often bring me some when they make it, however I'm actually not that thrilled about it, and it is definitely my dad's favorite dish. During the course of our return back to Dove from our morning trip I started to have a bad headache. I thought it was because I was thirsty and I drank a lot of water but it wouldn't go away. I really wanted to climb a hill that I had climbed almost a year ago and had an amazing view so we headed out despite my pain. Most of the hill would require climbing equipment to even attempt the ascent but there is one side that is climbable although still difficult because it is covered with loose pebbles and grainy sand. I somehow made it up, my head pounding and my stomach not doing the best. After some hopefully good photos and a brief rest we headed back down. By the time we finally got back, (or actually well before) all I wanted to do was lie down, which sucked because the rest of my "families" were enjoying watching the young ones dance and sing. My headache finally subsisted and I think lying down was just what I needed. After a dinner that lacked much flavor we went to bed.

I'm now a double digging convert and have found a purpose for 2L plastic bottles

Well, last week we had our mid-term conference. The first two days were a permaculture workshop that was surprisingly useful. I'm now a double digging convert and have found a purpose for 2L plastic bottles (water root drip irrigation). We also had our medical sessions and a few LIFE related workshops. Now, up until my family comes I am working on getting a recumbent trike that works. Then, in almost exactly a week MY FAMILY FROM THE STATES ARE COMING! I'm excited and egger to show them around.
I think one thing I will spend my time here doing is write simple, clear guides on to how to make soap and maybe goat milking. Then I will try to get the language instructor or someone else who knows good chichewa and English to translate the steps into the local language. That way when I finally get back to site I can set up workshops on those subjects and give the steps as handouts.

The Weekly Whirlwind

The last two weeks or so have been a whirlwind. This time a week ago I was in Lusaka although it seems like a month ago. I got some x-rays of my neck because that was where the discomfort had been and there was nothing out of order. However I stayed in Lusaka until Thursday because PC was finally going to work on my cycle to make one which was ridable. Last Friday I went back to site for the weekend and set up a jury rigged “irrigation” system that basically consisted of 25' of hose connected to the 200L barrel I bought a while back. The kids were eager to help and filled up the tank several times and watered what was in the range of the hose.
On Monday I went back to Chipata to investigate possible bicycle engineers in the area to work with on the creation of a ridable cycle, however this was in vain. Although there is probably the biggest bicycle plant in Zambia here, they didn't want to deviate from the standard cycle ridden by practically every Zambian. Another engineer was more interested, however he didn't really have the resources to work on the complexities of designing a three-wheeled cycle using local materials. All this means that it is back to the same designers in Lusaka in May. Monday afternoon I went to the Msekera Conservation Farming Center because I found out that they have low cost irrigation systems for farmers in the area as well as training in their use. They were going to come to my site on Friday the 24th, however since then they have said that their schedule is too tight and it will have to be sometime in May. The one thing I was able to get is a rhizome of bamboo to plant in my Village as the closest place to find bamboo in Chadiza that I or my villagers know of is in Mozambique.
I tried to go back to site Wednesday the 22nd but the taxi didn't come until after 1700 and I didn't really want to get to bed at 2300 hours so I didn't take it and will go today hopefully around noon.
Although I would have liked to set up an irrigation system this week (next 7 days), I've set one of my goals for before I go to Lusaka for the midterm conference is to get a working brick oven. I made one a while back but I have yet to try it out. I also got an innovative way of making a solar oven that uses an umbrella turned upside down. I also plan on making that in the next week. All for now.

This week, this horrible week

Had a rather scary bike accident Monday where I blanked out briefly. I first couldn’t remember what I had been doing that day, and had gaps in my memory in other times. That had mostly gone away that night and was completely gone the next day. My neck hurt though and I just felt kind of off that next day. I got a ride with the Eastern Province General Service Officer and spend the night in Chipata, then headed to Lusaka the next day. To make this week even more horrible, my wallet with all my bank card, my ID cards and a million kwacha (just about a months pay) in it. PC reimbursed me for the money but it was the irreplaceable things like my college id and such really sucks to loose. Hopefully someone will find it.

THE CHISWE’s INVADE!

2009-03-23~2009-04-06

Well, one of the reasons I haven't posted so far is because the charger for my laptop, along with a bunch of other electronics was left in the taxi I took back to my site. Supposedly it got dropped off at the provincial house; however I haven’t been able to get to Chipata since then. Hopefully I will be able to go sometime this week. Another reason I need to head there is because I am trying to build an irrigation system for my demo plot before the dry season starts in earnest. I got a 200L barrel and about 16-17m of house however I still need to either get a lot more hose and try to design a pump, or get about 300m of strong rope and a bunch of pails. If I had more time, I would try to apply for a PC grant; however by the time one would be approved, my vegetables would have dried up and blown away.

Yesterday… THE CHISWE’s INVADED! I was walking behind my hut when I saw, as I have seen several times before, a line of ants moving in a narrow steam. In passing I hoped that they didn’t come into my hut but it wasn’t until I was surrounded by them that I realized that there hundreds of thousands or maybe millions of them. And that they were red ants. And that they were angry. I quickly made my escape, but not before they had begun occupying my entire body. After having taken off my cloths, picked the little buggers off me, and given my cloths a hardy shaking, I headed back out to face my foes. In the short time I had been in my hut they had almost entirely encircled the house and were demolishing virtually everything living. A villager had some meali-meal she was spreading out in a line to try to prevent their advancement but I realized more drastic measures were required so I was glad I had bought some ant spray, at the time to try to prevent termites (to little success). This eventually did the trick. Realizing that they were facing a mighty adversary, they eventually retreated. Just as fast as the countless tiny fiends had come, so they vanished, leaving not a living one in site. I wish I had a picture of the reddish black ground to show of the hero pyrethrum isotopes really are.

This last week I have been in Chipata in a HIV/AIDS training session

This last week I have been in Chipata in a HIV/AIDS training session with local counterparts. It is interesting to here the Zambians speak openly about sex and the differences between men’s and women’s sexual relationships and their perceptions. The training ended on Thursday and I have been busy trying to install a Linux build on some flash drives which I finally achieved but now the problem is that I still can’t access the internet on my cell phone because it requires an .exe (windows) program so I have been trying to find a windows emulator, so far unsuccessfully. Short one I know.

Ah, Zambia has an electrically repulsive field about it... that makes everything crash

2009-02-21~2009-03-08
The weekend in which the days of February 2009 21st & 22nd was included I found a internet place that, although it was fairly expensive because you paid by the hour, it was the cheapest if you needed to download things, which I did because they didn’t have a bandwidth limit. Also, if the last sentence, to the reader, does not seem extremely convoluted, you have laxer reading standards then I. I got most of what I really needed to do, done save for working on the quarterly reports and researching whether it is possible/feasible to by a stepper motor/generator from a treadmill from the states and have it shipped here. I got a few things from the down shops but didn't get much done during this visit because there was no power until my taxi came on Monday when, as we were moving my luggage to the car someone was turning on the power. The last week of February I didn't do that much, just did some weeding and planting. There was supposed to be a meeting the day after I got back of the Chadiza Entrepreneurs Associationo at 900 hours, and my bike was still in the boma because I didn't pick it up the night before when I was headed back Ku Dovu. Therefore I got up at 400 and walked the 10 km. However first the meeting was moved from 900 to 1400, then just before I was headed there, I got a text saying that the meeting had been canceled.
The eventful catastrophic however, was that I had left my laptop transferring files from my external hard drive to my mp3 player while I went to get some things from the market. When I got back, my computer had one of those blue screens that means fatal error. When I tried to restart windows, part way into the boot up I got, and kept getting, the same "unmountable_boot_volume" message every time I restarted windows. I can still "use" my computer by booting from the Linux OS I downloaded the last time I was in Lusaka. However the build I chose was a bad choice because it doesn't come with useful programs, tends to crash and can't play mp3 files, therefore I can't even ad things to my mp3 players. Oh, and what's even worse is that my mp3 player has crashed or at lease needs a re-installation which I can’t do because windows doesn’t work on my laptop. What's more I can’t put things on my ipod because my Linux build won’t run my external hard drive and can't play mp3 files anyway so I’m down to searching shortwave for channels that come in. (So far I’ve listened to BBC, VOA, Radio Canada, Radio Netherlands, Deutsche Welle Radio, Radio France, Radio India, China Radio, Radio South Africa, Voice of Russia and some other stations I can’t remember). The only problem is that most of them only come in for a couple of hours and even then not that well and that my radio player is not really portable in the sense that you can listen to it while moving from place to place. I finally was able to put some podcasts on my new phone, however the battery life on it is not as good as my devices for the sole purpose of playing music.
The first Monday of March, I happened to meet with the person from ALLINET I had worked with off and on in the past. We got to talking and we decided to start documenting the history of Chadiza by doing interviews with people who had lived in the area for a long time. On Tuesday we started looking for people to interview, however it started raining and we didn't interview anyone that day. On Friday, the Chadizain who was working on the project with me had found some people who knew quite a bit about the district and we began filming. However the tape soon ran out of film which means that we could only get one interview in in its entirety. Oh, one other thing I have been working on is building a table using some wood I bought in Chipata a while back and finally had delivered when a PC vehicle picked up some volunteers in training who were doing their first site visit... yeah, probably first site visit was one of the best weeks of training. Anyway, I got the top of the table made and have started getting the legs of the table from local tries. However the tree I chose was a real workout to cut down and the problem I now have is that it didn't really fall but just slid of the stump but is still vertical. My arm muscles are definitely not used to the rather awkward angle I needed to do the sawing, but the wood seems pretty good quality hardwood. I actually felt kind of bad about cutting down the tree because it had probably been there for 75 years. Hopefully I can rig up some means of horizontalizing the tree for easier cutting.
On Sunday, after having exhausted my arm strength for the day, I ate some beans I had cooked the day before and typed part of this journal entry while the rain came probably the hardest it has all year. When the rain finally let up, I checked a cup that had been sitting out in the rain and it was almost full, probably 5-7cm (4-5 inches). I went down to the closest stream and began to take pictures however a drunk man started insistently asking me to take his pictures so I began walking down the gushing river. I was about to go back and start preparing supper when the head woman and later an entourage of teenage villagers told me to follow them. They brought me to a rocky area that reminded me of Devils Falls back in New Hartford, CT or the tidal rapids in Blue Hill, ME. There were many pictures taken of various people in various poses from various angles and then I was told I would have supper with the son of one of the farmers.
Oh, and hopefully I will have time next week to post some blogs about what people do and what people like to do next week because I know that a lot of people have wanted to learn more about what Zambian culture is like.

This week I have been working mu ndi and submitting, for the umpteenth time, a version of my internet proposal

2009-02-12~2009-02-18
This week I have been working mu ndi dimba (in the garden) and doing some other things including submitting, for the umpteenth time, a version of my internet proposal. This time it went to the Chadiza Business Association and this is probably my most promising avenue through which I have gone yet, probably because they reinitiated the contact where as all the previous organizations have not followed through. There is a meeting scheduled for next Tuesday. Yesterday, (Tuesday the 17th) I got another bed. The one I had my mattress on before was actually someone's grandmothers and I'm sure she was glad to get it back. I had paid the wood for a local carpenter to make one back last November, however apparently the person he in turn paid for lumber to, never gave him any. That is why my bed is a double bed for a single mattress because I guess he had made a double bed earlier. Anyway, now my house is a little more crowded. I need to get varnish in Chipata to make sure it doesn’t get eaten by termites. Incidentally, I am going to Chipata tomorrow (Thursday) and will stay there until next Monday, getting some things and meeting with some of the incoming LIFE/RED PSTV's who are going on first site visit. It's kind of surprising (and at the same time not at all surprising) that I will have been in Zambia for a year.

Working in my garden and creating a "fuel efficient" oven plus the internet-in-Chadiza saga

2009-02-07~2009-02-11
The past couple of days I have been working in my garden and creating a "fuel efficient" oven which is going to take forever for the clay to dry in this wet weather. The latest turn on the internet-in-Chadiza saga is that I have been approved by the Chadiza business association about getting internet. I made a bit of modification to an earlier proposal I had written for schools and am just looking for a printer to print it out and give to the chair of the organization.

2009-02-04
Wednesday I began making a "fuel efficient" oven (hopefully uses a small amount of fuel but still burns... the small amount is likely to be achieved but the "still burns" part maybe not), however I ran out of clay so I will finish it this weekend. At ≈1630-1700 I walked to a small market across from Zingalume basic school in search of mangoes. The market is usually mostly closed but today everything was bustling. I guess it was because it was Wednesday when government employees (teachers) get paid and therefore that is when all the shops are open because everyone has money. I wonder if doing some training on fiscal frugality would be of use.

2009-02-05
Went to the BOMA in my search for an alternator, preferably a K1 model that is found in things like Ford Fiestas and Escorts. There is one store in Chadiza that is where everyone brings there maize and other goods to be sent away and therefore probably has 6-7 18+/-wheelers of varying levels of assembly, however they didn’t have anything. The store owner however said that someone who has a house next to where my closest volunteers live has a bunch of car parts lying around so I will check there.

Back in the Village

2008-02-01 – Sunday
-spent the morning packing up and then online, although the power went out so I only had two hours of battery time
-called a taxi and after having gone to the market, left for a 3 hour ride the ≈90km (50 miles) back

2008-02-02
-planted some more watermelon, plum tomatoes, and "winter" squash

2008-02-03
-went to the BOMA and charged my various devices. The smaller connection of my USB wire that I used to connect my (non-ipod) mp3 player to my laptop got crushed so that it won't fit in the slot. Fortunately the wire that for the new phone that I got is the same size.

Last week of January, 2009

My dimba (garden) is almost fully planted (when I say fully the term is more reflecting the fact that there isn’t that much more room [although I'm debating the merits of intercropping the rest of my soya and beans) basically all that’s left is to plant more viny things and some plum tomatoes.
Last Wednesday I took a taxi to Chipata and spent the last three days on my feet walking from shop to shop trying to find a number of things, the most important of which as a new phone as the phone I brought with me kept turning off plus I broke the SIM card slot and needed to take the thing apart in order to get it out. I finally got a locked MTN phone that I can connect up to my laptop and use it as a dial up modem connection. The speed varies from about the rate of using LAN line dial up to worthless but at least I can use my laptop. The phone was, relatively speaking, cheap however I could probably get another QWERTY smartphone for the same price if I was in the states and ordered it from eBay.

First three weeks of a new year

2008-01-03~2008-01-21
Spent Saturday trying to download Fedora Live (a popular Linux build) and podcasts but while the network at the deputy US ambassadors house had been fairly fast during the week, this weekend the connection was close to nothing so on Sunday I took my laptop to the PCZ HQ, where the Wi-Fi wasn’t much better but I started downloading the program on the PC computer using the separate LAN line connection where the speed was faster (although it still was going to take something like 6-8 hours for it to complete).
When Monday rolled around and I was supposed to leave, I took a taxi to the PCZ HQ and checked to make sure that the download had been completed. It hadn’t. Extremely annoyed because this had to be close to my 10th attempt at this, I began the download once again. After hemming and hawing a little bit I decided to spend one more day in Lusaka to make sure that the download got completed as this was a large reason I had gone down there in the first place.
On Tuesday, after a late night spend ensuring that the download would be complete, I got a complete, I got what I had intended to be a few hours sleep the I woke up and realized I had gotten quite a bit more then that because the alarm I had had not been set. I eventually took the mini bus to the Intercity Bus Terminal and made the mistake of following the over "helpful" assistance of terminal workers who, although they didn’t say it, worked for one company that cost 35,000k more then I could have gone down here for and waited 3, 4, or maybe 5 hours for the bus to be full, scratch that, very full. I didn’t get to Chipata until something like 2200 hours and was really annoyed and frustrated. I'm definitely hitching back from now on.
Wednesday I went to the down shops in search of electrical components for trying to build my pedal powered generator and after some asking around, (got sent to one place that didn’t have any electrical parts, got sent to another place that had thousands of components but the people working the shop weren’t knowledgeable enough to be able to help me without a part number so I got sent to a third tiny little store down a back road that had old TVs, computer and unidentifiable circuit boards piled to the ceiling) success!. After some searching around, the store owner who was probably the most electrically savvy person I've met in Zambia came up with three of the .47Ω resistors to detune the alternator so that it will be still pedalable when the battery is low and some 12v diodes to make it so that connecting the charger the wrong way around wont fry it. He then took me to still another store that had multi-meters and soldering irons which I didn’t get because I wasn’t sure whether I would be using the tools someone in the Chadiza BOMA has or not. I think I will get them next time I go.
I decided to take an extra day at the provincial house so on Thursday went to the down shops again I think to try to find a stainless steel pot to try to do some canning from. I was outside of one of the shops trying to enter some more talk time into my phone when I someone said something to me and I looked up. The next thing I knew my wallet was gone (it had over a million kwacha in it as I had just gone to the bank to get cash for my coming time in the village where there is no ATM). I gave chase but I hadn’t gotten a good look at the guy who had taken it. Fortunately other people saw that I had gotten something stolen and they also gave chase. Before long I got lucky because they had got him and after a little bit of a tug of war, I had gotten my wallet back. By this point there were probably fifty to a hundred people on the seen causing quite a ruckus so I decided to end my search. I went and gathered my things and started off but before I had gotten far some law enforcement officials showed up in a SUV and gave me a ride back which was nice. My taxi that I had called never showed up and I almost thought I would have to spend another day in Chipata but fortunately when I called my forestry counterpart he said that the Chadiza police man, apparently a close friend of his, would be going back today and after some calls and finally a walk to the station, I found him and got free ~2 hour ride back.
I was somewhat discouraged the next day because I had been counting on the new dimba (garden) I had paid someone to be build had not been completed but my expanded fence which I had put udzu (grass) around had been re-grassed. I would have been glad that they had done it as it would last a lot longer, however I had planted quite a few vegetables which I was really looking forward to their being up but which the majority of them had either been trammeled or had just not grown.
My fence didn’t get done until late Sunday or Monday January 18th or 19th although I planted three or four rows of maze on Saturday and I'm worried the rain will stop before its ready. I started planting the rest of the maze on Tuesday January 20th and was expecting this to take several long days in the field to complete. It wasn’t that long, however, before someone who I realized was the guy who had been building my fence, started helping. Before long he had take over the planting and had the entire field done in about an hour. I guess if you’ve been doing it since you could barely walk, you can do it slightly better then a muzgu.
While I was waiting for my dimba to be ready to dimbanize I have been still trying to work on the internet proposal and try to see if anyone wants to make a short movie for a competition being put on by the US embassy on what "democracy means to you". So far these two projects have not really gotten anywhere. I have also have been trying to learn more about VOIP and java ME programming for cell phones although there is a mountain of things to learn if I think I want to pursue this project.

This Week in Lusaka...

2008-12-29~2009-01-02

Monday & Tuesday

In Lusaka for a week, probably spending most of it online downloading things and doing research, also getting some things that can only be got here. Arrived pa Monday and spend last night and will spend tonight at a home stay with the US deputy ambassador. There house just goes to show what people with money can get in Zambia – it looks like a house that someone with a six-seven figure salary would live in back in the states. I felt a little better about it being so posh when I learned that the majority of the large things there are not theirs but are just US Government property and probably the reason it is so grand is because that is where they bring all there guests – many of which probably have as grandiose of a place as there – and might not look good to have it look like a village hut. (there is an argument for why it would, but I'm not going to get into that). Because they have a lot of guests, the food they cook (or their cook cooks) is exquisite.

Wednesday

A frustrating day spent trying to do work on my laptop using the Wi-Fi connection at the PC house that would only work in about one or two minute spurts, and then stop working. I didn't get much done. That night (New Years Eve) my home stay had some other embassy friends over and we played a round of cranium.

Thursday

My home stay said yesterday there was Wi-Fi at their house so I went early in the morning and got my laptop from the Volunteer lounge and spend most of the day using their DSL satellite connection to download podcasts, upload some Chichewa words that I had recorded myself saying and edited the little bit of footage I had shot of Dovu village, Chadiza district and Chipata.

Friday

Went to the PCHQ and after some waiting, got a ride to try to get parts for my cycle (to no success) and some electrical components (0.47 ohm resisters among other things) however although there was a wide selection, the only thing they did have were some fuses which I probably could have gotten just about anywhere. I then went to the shopping mall (Manda Hill) and stocked up on some more granola (although they didn’t have the type or the size I was looking for) and some shampoo (although they were all out of the size I was hoping for). Surprisingly undiscouraged, I waited around at the PCHQ for a while, trying to wait for the rain to let up and for someone who I had thought would know where there were some used bicycle wheels that were lying around, but apparently they had all been either auctioned off or trashed. I started walking back to the house I had been staying at but my APCD drove up and gave me a ride the rest of the way. I spent the rest of the day working on uploading my video and my photos. Now I am really tired so I think I will go to sleep.

Journel Entries Dec 11th through 26th 2008

2008-12-11~2008-12-26

The last two weeks I have basically been doing two things: working on my dimba (garden) and going to the BOMA. I said I would pay someone in my village k100,000 to plow and build a fence around a new space close to my nymba (house), however when I left to go to Chipata for Christmas, they hadn't really started, a week and a half after I left. I did plant a bunch of things inside my expanded fence that I put udzu (grass, not plural for the lethal weapon) along. The only problem is the water doesn’t drain well so I get water in the holes I put my seeds in. I should have made mounds not holes, but oh well, hopefully they will still grow.

In talking to someone in the BOMA who works with the organization ALINET we had the idea of creating a Chadiza TV show. I think this would be great if we can actually see it through. I talked today, (Friday the 26^th) with someone at ZNBC, the national broadcasting body run by the Zambian government, about how hard would be to submit the show, and he said it would be very easy.

On Monday I got up at 3:15AM and biked to the BOMA with someone from the village who was going to get his maze milled carrying the axel to my cargo trike I was going to have ground down and threaded so I can make each wheel able to turn independently. Well I tried to find a government vehicle going to Chipata but it seemed that none were. After hemming and hawing over whether to leave my stuff in the BOMA and try again tomorrow or take a taxi, when someone kind of acting as a taxi showed up, I decided to pay the 40 pin and go. We went a different root then we usually go so that part of the way could be on tarmac, however that meant it took longer, the time compounded by the fact that when we had too many people in the vehicle so just before we reached a check point where we would have been stopped, we dropped someone off. Then after the vehicle had been checked by a police man, we drove a little farther and waited for the other guy, who had gotten a bike taxi to take him to where we were. When A little while after I got to the provincial house, I realized I had not gotten the axel from the taxi driver and had no way to contact him. He never showed up so I'm kind of stuck. I guess I will have to look for a long 9mm piece of threaded rod. I was really tiered from getting up pa 315, so I didn’t do much the rest of the day

Tuesday I went to the market and Shopright, then went to ProNet for a while. Coming back, I worked on typing in the words in Chichewa and English that I had recorded audio versions of and also had dinner that some people had cooked with everyone.

Wednesday I spent a while recording audio which is slow going because the flash cards that have the spelling of the Chichewa were not really in the order I had recorded them. Fortunately Chichewa is written almost 100% phonetically so it's not that hard to get the spelling correct. In the evincing we had a many course dinner that a volunteer had cooked and had chocolate fondue and apple crisp for desert.

Thursday I spent a while typing in more Chichewa, then someone came and said that it was time to open presents, which I was not expecting. We had a good time opening presents and I wished I had brought the stockings my family ku America had given me so I could also put something in them and give them to people. I got a goody bag, some pottery that had been mate locally and some rechargeable AA batteries which was a large gift it seemed. We then had a Mexican meal for our Christmas dinner which was really good. After washing some dishes, another volunteer and I watched the movie Fight Club – not at all what I was expecting – although I didn't see all of it because my family called. It was nice to talk to them and hopefully we can have a video VOIP call when I go to Lusaka next week.

Friday went to the market and got some more black plastic, this time they had some heavy stuff that was good, and a bicycle spoke truing fork for hopefully putting the wheels back on my new bike. While at the market I brought my video camera and filed some footage of the market and downtown Chipata. Around 1200 or 1230 I went to the internet place for a while. Then at a little after 1600, I headed to the office of ZNBC because someone had said they had electrical parts I could use to make the pedal powered generator I would like to build. The guy there wasn’t sure why someone had said they have electrical parts, but we talked about internet and putting the Chadiza TV show on their station. I then spent a while chopping up vegetables for some stew, but it wasn't ready by the time I wanted to eat, so I just had peppers, mangoes, frozen bananas & broiled zucchini. After dinner, the acting PCVL, one of my nearest PC neighbors, had a writing workshop where we all wrote for 10 minutes about a word that had been chosen at random from a magazine, then read them out load. The quality of the writing was impressive given that it was just free flow, never leave your pen from the paper/fingers from the keyboard. The ones I wrote are down below:

The police...

They showed up at ten. The sky was over cast and the wind blew like a dieing fan, sputtering. You see, the police came because there had been another incident, and this time it was worse. This time there were many small fragments coming together and they were beginning to make sense.

It all started some time ago, the first incident that is. Then, there were only a few involved and the whole thing seemed innocuous enough. I wouldn't have noticed it if it weren’t for the fact that I had seen the two together before, always speaking in hushed tones and glancing side to side like they were being followed. When they caused it to occur I had been watching them through the tinted glass of my beat up 1964 VW bug. They started getting things out of the pockets of there trench cotes – that was it! Their trench coats were the key. I saw it now but what if it was too late. And it was.

Gift Certificate

I got this gift certificate in the mail with no name, no return address, no way to tell who had sent it. It was to a store that had been around for some time, though I had never been there. Well, now I had a reason to go in. I think they sold clothes; there was probably something else that was there. But who had given it? Had they meant to put a name, or were they just trying to act as one of those anonymous philanthropists? I never understood why people didn't want to get credit for what they did. Maybe they just figured that when they had given enough, it would slowly trickle into people's consciousness who had been.

Then there was the obvious idea that it was a promotion, but it had been all hand written. Maybe I should go to the store and ask. Anyway, I didn't have any need for more cloths, or anything else for that mater, except for some occasional trips to get food I couldn't grow and a few other things.

6 months. A quarter. A half of a half. Six months in 18 to go. In one sense it's an enormous amount of time, 18 moths before I graduated from college, I was still thinking I would make a movie for my final project, but it isn't really enough time to get anything really substantial done. I wish I had known exactly what I would do when I got posed, but I'm still not sure I have any idea what I'm doing now. Well, I know what I would like to do, but the challenge always is making a dream a reality. Isn't strange how true the ying and the yang are? every action has an equal and opposite reaction, even when it doesn’t seem action has an opposite like an apple, what's the opposite of an apple?

In the corner,

We were sitting,

Sitting in our little room,

Writing things that made no sense,

Writing with no purpose, none,

Save to practice ancient skill,

Once known to just a few,

This ancient art can bring down foe,

Can be the meaning of a life,

However is it not so strange,

That words cannot be used,

For the purpose of an interface

Between another two,

Unless they have that shared knowledge,

Of a common idiom.

Problem. Mavuto. Mavuto Problem. You see that’s the problem, try as I might, ndi Chichewa is still pagono pagono. Isn't it strange what words you pick up and what words, you read over and over and over again and still, a few minutes later, you can't think of it if your life depended on it. I think it's kind of true that if you actually set out to learn a specific word, it's expediently more difficult to remember. And that’s the problem, you need to pretend that its not important, and you'll remember it.

Problem, if there were none, there would be no solutions. It is just that one cannot always choose the problems one faces when they arise out of the occurrence of something not initiated by you.

Problem, what makes things interesting, challenging, but not always fun

Journel Entries Dec 1st through 10th 2008

2008-12-01&02

Spent most of the day at the ProNet internet place doing research on various ways to connect to the intent and some other things.

2008-12-03

After getting some stuff at the market I went to talk again to an electrician who I have inquired about making a pedal powered bike generator and who had suggested my looking into a "dynamo" type generator (I was a little unsure what it looked like but he had said that it was a generator used to electrify bicycles). I basically went to all the bicycle stores in Chipata in the last few days, and although the thing seemed familiar to some of them, no one had it. After doing some internet research, I found that dynamo generators also referred to DC generators old used in old vehicles like VW bugs. I got a circuit diagram for use in regulating voltage in this type of generator as well as a diagram which required far fewer parts for use in regulating voltage of a more modern AC car alternator with the built in circuitry to convert it to DC so that all you really needed was the proper resister and a few fuses. I got a recommendation of where to find an alternator for the later of the two designs and this store did have one although the price was fairly steep.

-went to the internet place briefly after calling a taxi because I didn't really feel like trying to deal with the hassle of trying to hitch and I would almost certainly need to find a taxi to go the last 10km from the BOMA to Dovu village.

-at about 1430-1500 the taxi came and after waiting a while for another passenger at Shopright, finally left and we headed back

2008-12-04

-Spent the morning planting things and the afternoon reading

2008-12-05

-went to the BOMA and charged my devices and got some things

-came back and planted some more things

2008-12-06

-spent most of the day cleaning my hut and putting black plastic under my ceiling to prevent the sawdust from the termites and other burrowing insects that are slowly eating my rafters from falling down on everything. Also directed a villager in putting up another tarp and some black plastic.

2008-12-07

-planted more things then cooked some tomato sauce/salsa. Read some and went to bed early so I could get up early.

2008-12-08

-met with the DFO regarding signing a leave form for some days I plan on going to Lusaka at the end of December.

-went to the market and got some mangoes and other things, including a Zambian native squash type thing that my banja had given me earlier and tasted pretty good

-charged my devices and finished a memo I was working on to the Chadiza environmental committee about the health and environmental risks the open-air burning of brush and trash (lupya is the Chichewa term for it) that has been rampant in the BOMA and elsewhere (at least until the rainy season has come.)

-tried to fax the leave form but the first place I tried didn't have a fax, they sent me to the district commissioner where it was out of order so I finally went to the Zamtel (government run company that handles land lines) office where there was a fax but the boss wasn't in so I will need to try again Wednesday

-planted some more things then had dinner at dusk

2008-12-09

-late start (woke up at 6:30!)

-at about 10:00 I started working on clearing an area that I want to have fence put up around to have as a garden closer to my site. My wrist got a bit tired of all that slashing so I turned to raking what I had slashed into a compost pile until it started raining at 1430

-studied some Chichewa and cooked my squashy vegetable

2008-12-10

-went to the BOMA and successfully faxed my leave form

-got bananas and mangos from a rode side mini marketplace that has more then one salesperson on Wednesdays I guess because that is went most people get paid and so that is when there are more people selling things.

-went to the District Resource Center as dark clouds looked over head and called PC Lusaka to try to set up a home stay for the few days I'm in Lusaka around the new year.

-the rain that came never completely abated until I needed to leave so I put on all my gear a headed out. Of course, as soon as I got on the road the rain went away so by the end I was more wet from sweat then I would have been from rain had I not put on my gear.

Long over do journel update #2

2008-11-19 – Wednesday
-Had a laidback day reading physics
-Was going to go to Zingalume basic school to see whether the chongolowa club (a national environmental education club) was meeting but I could see rain just about where the school is

2008-11-20
-got some things at the market and tried probably with no success to help someone setup an email account on his phone
-Began reinstalling windows, first tried to repair the OS but to no success so I had to wipe the entire drive and completely reinstall it, it was still in the process of reinstalling when I needed to go to the meeting
-had another computer lab meeting and we agreed to set up one computer at the District Teaches Resource Center (DRC)

2008-11-21
-tried to install word but MS installer was not installed, so I spent a long time trying various things

2008-11-22
-read physics
-packed a little

2008-11-23
-packed a little more
-read a little more physics
-were supposed to be having a meeting to finish the goat milk stand but I guess everyone was at a funeral

2008-11-24
-spent the day trying to reinstall word but the power kept going out so I read PDF's on electronics and neuroscience I had put on my phone until I needed to leave

2008-11-25
-today was supposed to be the big day I began my move to the Farmers Training Center so I spent the morning packing and making sure everything that couldn't go on the first trip there would not get wet by the leak in my roof
-at about 1300-1400 my APCD and the eastern GSO finally came and that is when I got the news that I would not be moving.
-apparently they felt that there were more reasons for me to stay then to move. Why they couldn't have just had a phone conversation a month ago and I could have gotten this message then I have no idea but I am just going to put this ordeal behind me and move on. The biggest annoyance is that I should have started my rainy season garden a month ago.
-road back with them to Chipata and got there at about 1700
-went to the market and Shopright and got fruit, vegetables (about 40 tomatoes because I was going to make tomato sauce) and some other things although I didn't get quite everything

2008-11-26
-First went to the bank and got a debit card so I can get money when the bank is closed, then went to the Zain (used to be Celltel until they were bought out) and got another SIM card because the one I had wasn't working. I guess the person who can do that wasn't around so I will need to go back tomorrow
-went to the internet place but the person working there had to go out so I couldn't use their power source but needed to sit outside and use the internet there. The speed was going slower then dial-up so I went back to the house and had lunch
-when I went back to the internet place it was back open and I was able to use an Ethernet connection which was the fastest I've had since I've been here. I spent most of the time looking into ham radio as a means of connecting to the internet. Basically what I found is that ham internet is the same thing as Wi-Fi only instead of being limited to around a watt of power it can transmit at say 100 watts. The only issue is finding out what Zambia's regulations are regarding radio transmission.

2008-11-27
-went to the "down shops" in search of a bunch of things
-went to an electronics store to see whether they could make a generator that would function at the proper rpm. They said I should get a "dynamo" charger and they would modify it although I wasn't sure about that, I said I would look for one.
-got back and finished cooking some sauce I had made, then watched movies until the big feast began. I ate enough to last a week, the food was good although I missed my aunts cooking back in the states and the one thing a great deal of my extended family can back really well (with the exception of me) is pie. The pie here was pretty good, and someone had made three ice-cream cakes although they used a lot of artificial flavor and color.
-I then sat in on some high stakes poker until it was time for a phone call from my extended family. The VOIP connection wasn’t working however which was really frustrating

2008-11-28
-In the morning we had our provincial meeting, then I tried to use the internet, but the power was out so I went to the Zamtel Chipata office (they're the land line telephone provider) and inquired about dial-up costs as that is the way we will connect up to our computer lab until we can find funding for a broadband connection.
-the power was still out so I went to the market again in search of the generator and a few other things. I got almost everything I needed save for a generator specifically designed for a cycle. I think I will have to get a vehicle generator, then change the rpm by using a big wheel connected to the small axel of the generator if I still want to pursue this project.

2008-11-29
-went to the market and got some more bananas and mangos
-sat outside the internet place and used the Wi-Fi access till the power ran out on my battery. I did some research into cell phone call back that would let me dial a pre-assigned number, then that number would call me back and let me enter the number I was trying to call. Since Zain and MTN don't charge for incoming calls the call would be free. I haven't found quite what I'm looking for but I hope I can before I need to go back so that I can call anyone for basically free. I also did some research into how to grow pyrethrum from seed for extraction and data to back up a letter I want to right to the appropriate ministry in Chadiza about why the rampant burning of trash and brush going on in the BOMA is bad for peoples health, bad for the environment and why there are better ways to improve soil.
-when my battery got drained, I went back to the house and ate lunch and then worked on PC paperwork for the rest of the night.

Long over do journel update #1

2008-11-03 – Monday
-Biked to BOMA and met with DFO
-met with member of ALINET were going to go to Chadiza boarding but he had to meet with some people who are building a new house for him
-went to Chadiza boarding and met with the computer teacher regarding internet. The plan we came away with is that for just the school to get satellite would be too expensive so to get dialup until a meeting can be organized of interested people in the district about setting up a community computer lab and then every member paying a portion of the fee.
-went to the market
-went to the FTC and talked to the person in charge to make sure that she new that PC admin are coming tomorrow, then charged my various devices.

2008-11-04
Well, today was supposed to be the big day I moved to the FTC, however it appeared I was naive in thinking it could be this simple. At a little after 10:00, the PCVL and the GSO (General Service Officer) came and we discussed the steps necessary to move. It seems I was thinking in an American mindset and was not taking into account the impact it would have on the village and the chief. There needs to be a meeting with the chief and a Dovu village meeting first. Now the date I will be moving won't be until early December. We met with the person who oversees the FTC and showed the PC people the house I would be moving into. It's not really the picturesque hut I live in now, but it's bigger and hopefully won't have the termite problem that my current one does.
-met with the head teacher at Zingalume basic school and talked about trying to set up a demo plot in their garden as well as continuing my work with the JETS and Chongolowa clubs

2008-11-05
-Got these really good indigenous fruits that are really sweet and good as well as some mangoes
-clouds loomed over the horizon as I biked to the FTC to charge my various devices, then shortly after I got there the downpour began
-the power was intermittent so I wasn’t able to completely charge things
-the rain hadn't completely let up by the time I needed to leave, so it was fortunate that I had brought my pack cover to cover the basket with my computer and food items, although I didn't have my other rain gear. Fortunately the centimeter a minute rain that had been coming down had abated.

2008-11-06
-Made the mistake of not doing my activities under the open sky first because it began to rain again before I was really able to get much of anything completed

2008-11-07
-Bought a bunch of bananas from a guy carrying them on the back of his bike, then realized I couldn't bring all of them back in one go what with my backpack and other produce so I had them dropped off at my forestry counterparts house
-Got some stuff at the market then used my computer at the place I had dropped off my bananas because the FTC was occupied. I tried to print fliers advertising a meeting about getting a community computer lab with satellite internet access in Chadiza, but the power kept going out.

2008-11-08
-I was surprised that my roof had not been a sieve but there had been a few leaks so I spent part of the morning putting a tarp on the roof with the assistance of a village teenager who scaled the wall easily. I wish we had tied down the tarp in more places because when it got windy, the tarp billowed and the noise was really loud.
-My solar panel had not been charging my battery that well so Friday I bought some longer wire and went about doing a little bit of rewiring. Then I got the assistance of another village teenager to put the panel up at the crest of the roof. The only problem was that that night the power for the battery still wasn't charged so I think it most have had some sort of bad connection.

2008-11-09
-I climbed up the somewhat tipsy tripod stepladder that the villager had used to reposition my solar panel and went about tying another washer of the tarp down to the roof. I then found that one of the new wires I had gotten had come disconnected. I reconnected it and was beginning to try to climb back on the later when it fell. Basically all I had to keep me up there was friction and some twine which I held onto with dear life. I tried to remember the Chichewa word for help but to no avail so I used the English version. The one kid who was nearby obviously did not know the word and I decided to definitely memorize it.
-At 1400 African time (close to 1500) we had our dairy goat meeting which basically the main outcome of it was to schedule a date to actually begin construction of the milk stand.

2008-11-10
-spent a while trying to find a printer that worked to print some fliers advertising the internet meeting and finally printed from a random office in a building that has a bunch of different government offices in it. Met with the DFO about the internet meeting and whether they had any honey left (they have some combs that need processing). Put up some fliers and went to the market, then charged my devices and went home.

2008-11-11
-well I was going to go to the BOMA today until the construction of the milk stand had been scheduled. However, only few people showed up and we canceled it which basically meant the day was a waist.

2008-11-12
-went to the BOMA and met with the person who at Chadiza Boarding school who may be teaching some classes after having gotten two pints of honey from the forestry office.
-Had lunch with the ALINET person who was going to show me his office, but needed to wait to hear back from someone
-left the BOMA for Zingalume basic school where there would have been a chonglowa club meeting if the students hadn't needed to work on the construction of some new buildings. Yep, that’s right, you want a proper school house – go build it! (After having gotten approval of the head master and hired a building contractor that is)
-my solar panel had still not been charging my battery so I had my village brother/atate (he's probably around my age or a few years older, but I think he has kids who are more then just toddlers so I fell alright calling him my atate) climb up on my roof again and try to secure the connections again, which I tested by trying the lights, which worked so I new the break had been fixed

2008-11-13
-went to the BOMA as early as possible and after trying unsuccessfully to find the ALINET guy to see whether he still has the price quotes for satellite internet I had given him, went to the market.
-I was more successful in my attempt to get the price quotes at the FTC, although the people there said they would be unable to attend the internet meeting
-at 11:00 I went to the District Teacher Center where the internet meeting would be held (had to wait until then because grade 5 was having exams until then) and typed up an agenda for the meeting
-we started a little late and it wasn't until around 15:00 when everyone who would be attending had trickled in. It wasn't quite the turnout I had hoped for (basically the people there represented the two high schools in Chadiza and an HIV/AIDS organization) but at least some people came. The main out come of the meeting was to try to set up a community computer lab first, then to worry about internet. Some people who going to look into a location for the lab, either a building where the fair grounds are, or someplace right next to the district resource center.

2008-11-14
-went to the market
-went to FTC to write some journal entries
-large clouds loomed over the horizon as I packed up hurriedly
-unfortunately I did not leave soon enough, as I was nearing the crest of a hill, the ski opened up. I quick covered my cargo and put on my rain gear but not before getting wet enough so that if hadn’t been a veritable torrent I wouldn't have gotten that much wetter. One of my anti-wetness protection garments blew away in the process and I had to go running after it. It was slow going the rest of the way, I could hardly see the road but I finally made it.

2008-11-15
-it was a typical Saturday without much planed. At about 1500 another storm loomed overhead. As it came near a fierce wind came roaring up, so fierce was it that it tore the top layer of my roof off. After the wind came the rain and the next hour or so was spent trying to keep my possessions from getting drenched. When the downpour let up ndibanja (my Zambian family) helped me put the plastic back on and new grass on top of that, however it got dark before we could tie the grass down

2008-11-16
-because I don't go to church, my Sundays mornings are usually fairly laid back
-in the afternoon we had another milk goat meeting and today we actually started to build a milk stand. I had needed to rethink a little bit how I wanted to teach the construction because to build it just like the stand I milked my goats in the states would require getting k50,000-100,000 worth of lumber not to mention the nails and other hardware. The design we used will be a permanent fixture because the platform the mbuzi climb up on will be made out of bricks and the part they put their heads threw is put in the ground. Basically I think the only thing that is not something found locally is a the one nail that was used to make the part that closes around the goats neck to prevent it from getting out. We got done with the front part that goes in the ground and hopefully we can complete the construction before I need to move.

2008-11-17
-spent a long time trying to print some memos to get more people to go to the next internet/computer lab meeting because the computer I was trying to print from, and therefore my flash drive were infected with a virus
-finally printed and gave a memo to someone at Eatright restaurant, the business which is owned by the person in charge of the Chadiza Entrepreneurship Association. I went to the market and got some mangos, then distributed some memos to the Chadiza AG ministry.
-I then had lunch and found that in running the antivirus program on the computer that I had printed from, I had infected it worse and basically made the computer un-runable.
-I met with the person from ALINET and we went to a building that had been sited as a possible place for the computer lab. It seemed pretty nice although not quite computer-lab-esk
-I was going to go meet with my forestry counterpart but dark clouds again loomed over the horizons so I instead packed up and put on my rain gear. I felt somewhat silly for wearing it however as the rain never came

2008-11-18
-went to the market
-tried to fix the computer in the day high school computer lab to no avail the reinstallation CD is at a teachers house so I will have to reinstall it Thursday at the earliest.
-chatted with one of the teachers and got my journal up to date

No Power, No Patty

2008-10-09

Didn't feel that good so spent most of the day listening to my last audio book. At about 1800 hours my new cycle came but it still had some problems. First of all, they hadn't hooked up the rear break so stopping is really jerky. Second, the placement of the seat is too low, but I fear that raising it so that it is at a conferrable height would make it more likely to tip over on turns. The break issue can probably fairly easily be fixed but the seat issue will probably require some more substantial work. A chair that I scavenged when I was in Lusaka also came but the driver had to take off the back and didn't bring the screws to put the thing back together which kind of sucks. Hopefully I can find something else to put it together with. What the driver didn't bring, and that I was really looking forward to, was some fruit chutney that I had asked to bring up with the other things. This was annoying.

2008-10-10

Went to the BOMA to charge some things and meet with the person from ALINET to see whether he had gotten the CD's back from someone he had loaned them out to but analibe (he didn't have). We did chat for a while however which was nice, he came from southern province about a year ago and his daughter speaks a combination of English and Chitonga but not really any Chichewa. She is really cute though.

2008-10-11

I spent most of this Saturday cleaning the area of my hut around my bed to try to get rid of the mice. They haven't been as much of a problem lately now I think the main sound that keeps me up at night is the wood bees chewing through my roof. Across the valley I could see a downpour which means the rainy season is fast approaching. I put a tarp over my new cycle as a precautionary measure.

2008-10-12

Well, I was clad that I took the precautions because it rained most of today. This meant that the meeting we were supposed to have got canceled. I spent most of the day reading and doing the last bit of the cleaning that I didn't get done yesterday.

2008-10-13

I woke up at around 400 hours and biked to the BOMA where, after plugging in my laptop to charge my mp3 players, I went to the Chadiza farmers training institute. I had a look at the field where I will probably be planting a demo plot. Then we discussed my moving my living area to their facilities. The person who had given me the tour didn't know whether there were any houses that were free so we met with someone at the Agricultural office and our discussion seemed fairly promising that there would be housing, he just needed to confirm and said he would get back to me by Friday. I was then going to meet with the forestry officer but he was in a meeting and the District Education Resource Center (I'm going to shorten it and call it DERC), where I had left my laptop, was occupied so I couldn't be on it. I went to the market to get lunch supplies, then went back to the DERC and was able to get my back pack with my cell phone charger out of the office. I went to a guest house and charged the phone and ate my lunch. When I got done with that, the meeting was over and I tried to add new podcasts to my ipod but I think my external hard drive has been bumped a few to many times because it wouldn't turn on. This was annoying to no end and the casing doesn't have any screws to open the thing and see whether there are any loose wires. So this put a damper somewhat on my previously good day. I then met with my forestry counterpart to tell him about the possibility of my moving sites and to see whether he knew of any vehicles going to Chipata tomorrow as I think I will spend until Friday there, relaxing a little bit, getting a few things, namely a new battery because the voltage of the one I have is too low and to get price quotes on satellite internet. Well I got back to Dovu village later then I wanted because the forestry officer had gone in search of a ride on my behalf. I packed and ate dinner, then went to bed.

2008-10-14

After getting up at 345 hours and getting to the village at just past 630, I picked up my big backpack that I had left at my counterpart's house and dropped off my bike. He didn't know of any definite rides so I just was going to go out to the rode and look for likely means of transportation. I spied a ministry of education vehicle and was on it like a hot chicken sausage. The ride was quick, if fairly bumpy. I don't know why Landrovers, supposed to be really good for off-roading, have such jarring shocks. I got to the PCPH at about 830 and first had breakfast, which I hadn't had time to do before, then went to Shopright and the market by which time it was 1230ish. I did some procrastination, then went to the internet place till it closed. I went back to Shopright, both to see whether they now had brown bread and eggs (had eggs, bread kulibe), and because I had forgotten to get condiments for the vegetarian burgers I had bought. To my dismay, there was no power when I got back so I couldn't cook the patties I had been looking forward to.

Monday the twenty ninth of September, approximately 1720 hours: inhaled first fly

(the remaining days up to now to come, probably tomorrow)
2008-09-29
I went to the BOMA with the plan on helping someone involved with the Chadiza based adult literacy and education organization ALINET set up their computer but unfortunately he had gotten in a motorcycle accident and was at a hospital. I went to the post office and found that my absentee ballot was waiting for my attention. I then did some other things and charged my various electrical devices, went to the market, then prepared to head home. The forestry officer had said that he had a letter that had been accidentally delivered to his church at his office so I stopped by there and picked it up, then was on my way back to Dovu. The letter had a bunch of photo's of home and the garden there which was great (it made me envy my water deprived plot here). Fairly soon into my ride I became plagued by a persistent fly bussing around my face. Despite numerous attempts to blow and sweep it away, the pesky bugger remained. I was just about to round a bend when I solved the problem once and for all by inhaling it. I have yet to be beleaguered by another one of these pesky critters.

2008-09-30
Today I studied a little Chichewa, wrote a little on my laptop, went to the dimba (garden) and did a little reading. All and all it was a laid back day as I recall.

2008-10-01
After doing my usual morning routine, I went to the Zingalume Basic School for a meeting of the JETS (Junior Engineers, Technicians and Scientists) club. They didn't have any projects underway but we shared ideas and agreed that I would come the next time with a program in mind for the design of a windmill powered pump for irrigation. (I think I will try to make a scaled down model to bring the next time.

2008-10-02
Today was a busy day. I got up at 500 hours, went to the BOMA and met first with the Chadiza boarding high school about doing some programming in the areas of computer science and appropriate technological design. Then I went to the Chadiza Farmer's Training Institute and met with the director and lead farmer about doing some programming in agroforestry and conservation farming as well as looking into building a wind pump there as well. After stopping at the post office to deliver a magazine (it pleases the postal people they are given magazines) and find a package I have been expecting for a month now still not delivered. I then when to the BOMA and got some bread, tomatoes, ntochi (bananas) and this type of caned fish that is pretty good with crackers although not quite as good with the bread I had. Did some things on my laptop until I needed to get headed home, and then surprising enough, actually headed home.

2008-10-03
This day which is and will always be remembered as a Friday I again headed for the BOMA, although today later then Thursday. I typed some journal entries, then did some administrative phone calling, went to the market and then head home. When I got back to Dovu, I noticed that there was some sort of meeting in progress. When I went over to see what they were doing, I noticed a bunch of little pieces of paper scattered around the ground with names on them and people talking adamantly in Chichewa. Someone came over who spoke some English and explained that the pieces of paper represented households in Dovu. I guess Dovu is a lot bigger then I thought because there had to be thirty of so names laid down on the ground. This was a good opportunity for me to tell everyone about a meeting that we had set up for the Dovu community to come and talk about starting an IGA.

2008-10-04
I got up and prepared for the meeting which was scheduled for 800 hours. It was to be held at a church across the street from my house, and I was walking there when a bunch of people said they wouldn't be able to make it because they were going into the BOMA for a church service. There wasn't anyone there when I got there, and I wasn't sure whether anyone would show up. I was walking back when someone said they were coming to the meeting and that there was more coming. People trickled in, however no one who spoke English, or maybe understood a few words. We had the meeting none the less and decided that there should be two areas to pursue: one of soya bun making and another of goat milk sales. We set up another meeting for two Sunday's from now and the head women said she would advertise a lot. Hopefully there will be a fluent English Chichewa translator there to help facilitate. The rest of the day was fairly uneventful although when I went to the dimba to water my vegetables I found that all but three tomatoes and two squash had been plowed under which was really frustrating. I am either going to move my garden to the local Zingalume basic school and/or create a demo plot at the Chadiza Farmers Training Institute.

2008-10-05
As far as I remember, all of Sunday was a fairly uneventful day spent mostly reading.

2008-10-06
I rode to the BOMA and met with the person with the computer at ALINET, however he hadn't gotten a chance to get the CD's that were needed to run diagnostics and potentially reinstall windows. My new cycle was supposed to be coming sometime this week but I wasn't that sure what day so I called Lusaka and they said that it was in Chipata and would be coming tomorrow. This was great, although I had wanted to meet with the Chadiza Farmers Training Institute tomorrow. I spent the rest of the day charging my various electrical devices and adding more music to my mp3 player. It takes a long time to find good tracks out of almost 10,000 songs, most of which are rap/hip-hop garbage. I checked mail again but still no package... ARG.

2008-10-07
I woke up and hurriedly got ready as the person I had talked to yesterday had said the person would be coming early. Then I waited... and waited... Finally at 1430ish I tried to call various people but as my service where I am is really bad, it wasn't until after 1500 that I actually got through to someone. Apparently the vehicle wasn't in Chipata it was still in Lusaka waiting for funds to get the 400-500km to Chadiza. I was fairly annoyed that I had wasted a day waiting, but anyway.

2008-10-08
Today, even though there was a slight change the vehicle might be coming, I didn't want to waste another day stuck in Dovu so I texted the driver yesterday and told him I would be in the BOMA and to call me when he was definitely coming. First I stopped at the Farmers Training Institute to see whether they would have time to give me a tour of the farm but they were busy today so I set up another meeting time for next Monday. Then I went to the Chadiza Boarding High School where I met with the head master. This currently looks like my most promising avenue of getting internet into Chadiza and they also have a machine shop that I would like to develop a program around renewable energy. I have a meeting set up for Friday morning to get a tour of the facilities. Then I went to the market, had lunch and called the PC headquarters again. They said a vehicle would be coming Thursday which was somewhat of a good thing as it would be somewhat of a tight schedule if they were coming Friday although it would have been great if they had said it was on its way today. After lunch I met with the ALINET guy but he still hadn't gotten the necessary CD's. My lunch resting somewhat hard on my stomach and making me sleepy I updated my journal. I then check email, went to the Post Office and the package I've been expecting for over a month still was not there, and then I headed back home.

Today was more of the same; hopefully we gave some good ideas

Today was more of the same; hopefully we gave some good ideas as to how to go about implementing several projects that had been identified as key. Tomorrow I will go back to Chadiza without my cycle (I thought until about noon today that it was in transit to Chipata but the vehicle supposedly wasn't fit to ride the 500km there so it will probably be another two weeks till I get it now. Frustrating to no end.

In Chipata for a workshop in evaluating the LIFE program

Last week was a somewhat slow week as I was adjusting to being back at site and reconnecting to people I had been working with previously.
Two Sundays ago I went to my garden to see how my plants had faired since I had been away to find the little pit that I had been getting my water from was dry. Most of my plants that had been there two weeks previously were still alive though.
On Monday I met with one of the few women in my village that speaks English and we organized a meeting to see what projects Dovu village would be interested in getting underway. I also went for a walk and met the head teacher at a local basic school and we agreed to meet Tuesday as well.
However Tuesday there was a funeral so the headman and the majority of the village members were gone. I did talk to one person who worked on health education about what issues he thought should be addressed and what my areas of specialty were.
On Wednesday I planted a bunch of things in pots but didn't do much else.
Then on Thursday I went to the BOMA. There I saw the closest volunteer in my program who was presenting a proposal to the district entrepreneurs organization about getting trash cans for the BOMA because people just through their trash wherever they feel like. They thought it was a really good idea and I found them to be people that would be good to work with. It seems you meet the best counterparts you can work with by chance. I then met with the district education resource officer who said that as it was getting near finals for this semester, no one would be able to address the internet proposal and that it would make sense to try a NGO or the local business association. I was walking out of that office to try to find one of the leaders of a local NGO (AllyNet) that I had met with when he showed up on his bike. He said that they had just gotten a computer and wanted me to set it up but it was getting late in the day so I couldn't do it then.
Friday was going to be cleaning day because the mice had been driving me crazy at night but I didn't know what they had been eating as everything was in containers. As I went to move one of the big zipper bags I found I had been chewed through and they had plenty to gorge on. It took four or five hours but I got the "pantry room" part of my hut clean and everything that the mice could possibly chew through is now suspended with twine from the sealing.
Saturday, my APCD, PCVL and someone from Washington were coming to meet with me and the other Chadiza LIFE volunteer for part of an assessment of the LIFE program and I thought to bring my new cycle. My cycle was not included in the things that came (some plants, a bunch of seeds and a 5L jug plus the three people). The meeting went alright and I had thought that they would be spending the night; however they said they needed to leave to go back and prepare for a workshop on Monday and Tuesday (of which I was also not aware of). After sharing some nshima with my family they left with whether I would attend the meeting still up in the air. I didn't have any rides set up and I wanted to meet with the person who had just gotten the computer on Monday so I was fairly sure I wasn't going to go. However I called my closed volunteer to see how they were getting there and he said that he didn't have a ride yet but that he was going to see whether his neighbor who has a vehicle that he uses as a taxi sometimes could bring us. The volunteer was going to call me back, but service around my village is spotty at best so I never heard back from him.
On Sunday I through some things together just in case the taxi did show up and then spent the day as usual. It was getting to mid-afternoon and I had figured that the volunteer had found other transport so was just about to go to the garden when the taxi shows up. I quickly get my stuff together and we head to Chipata.
Today we had sessions addressing the findings from the meetings the person from Washington with the volunteers, then we spent the rest of the day addressing the issues the volunteers had found with our government forestry counterparts.
Tomorrow I believe will be more of the same.
Oh, I also have a cold and it's hot.

Well, I’m now in Chipata

2008-09-12
Well, I’m now in Chipata, took the bus back early this morning enroot to Chadiza. Hopefully everything growing that I started is still growing and is ripe with vegetables. Next week I hope to meet with some teachers at the closes school to me and plant a bunch more vegetables because I don’t foresee my needing to be out of site for longer then a couple of days until late November (thanksgiving/provincial meeting) when the rain is beginning to come. On Wednesday someone from Washington and my APCD are coming to assess the LIFE program and deliver my new cycle. Hopefully they’ve made all the modifications necessary. Alright, hope to keep bloging via cell.

Successfully uploaded 1021 photos

Successfully uploaded 1021 photos, you can see them by going to http://otherrealm.org and download them by clicking on the little link down at the bottom right hand corner ( ). Going back to Chipata tomorrow and Chadiza pa Friday by bus because I guess I've been out of site too long but hopefully the cycle will be rideable. It is coming up on Wednesday when the LIFE program assessment person from Washington and our APCD come. I'm definitely ready to go back to site; I just wish I could make sure the cycle was exactly what I want it to be.

Well we now have Wi-Fi at the PCZ headquarters

2008-09-09
Well we now have Wi-Fi at the PCZ headquarters although the speed is not as good as the old LAN-line one that can only be accessed on the government computers and therefore cannot be used to upload. Anyway, this means that I have a way to upload all my photos to my website the only question is whether I can get them all uploaded by the time I leave. Hopefully I can.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY CARA!!!

I'm still in Lusaka - now the estimated completion date is Wednesday. I’m ready to go back to my village just about now. I think what I’m going to do is make a photo album website like the one I made of my photos in the states ( http://otherrealm.org/ ), then, time permitting when I go back to Chipata I will go to the Wi-Fi place and upload them there. I think I can get the total size down to under 100mb although the photos won’t be print quality. I think I will take some more pictures of my banja and try to have them printed at a photo place in Chipata or maybe there might be a place in the Chadiza BOMA and maybe also try to go into the “city” part of Lusaka and take some pictures to contrast it to the village live. In response to who cut my hair, it was a now COS’ed (Close Of Serviced) RAP (Rural Aquaculture Project) volunteer did it. She was a veteran hair cutter apparently she had cut 25+ peoples hair during her time in Zambia. While stuck here in Lusaka I’ve been spending a lot of time in the Volunteer lounge on the internet or chatting with other volunteers in other provinces. Although there is a wider range of produce in the Lusaka markets, the price is four to five times more then even in Chipata and it is cheaper to buy at the local grocery store. Fortunately that store is owned by Zambians so I don’t feel quite as bad as buying from Shopright which is a South African chain that sells throughout Sub Saharan Africa. Alright, all for now, have to go email my sister and wish her a happy birthday. HAPPY BIRTHDAY CARA!!!

The other RED volunteer in my province with the Country Director

Me, before my haircut
Me, after my haircut

All the volunteers of my intake at ISTT for IST

Well I will be in Lusaka for about a week

2008 09 02
Well I will be in Lusaka for about a week while the cargo-trike is being created. Being in Lusaka feels like I am in a different country from the village. Lusaka is kind of like Hartford would have been like in the 1990's if it didn't have any environmental regulations on vehicles. Whereas the village is kind of like the US in the frontier towns of the 1800's (save for prevalence of cell phones, radio and plastic bags/bottles). Lusaka actually has sky scrapers and strip malls. I will try to take some pictures of the city this week so that it can be contrasted. We went to the machine shop around 830 and came up with a rough idea of how to convert the one speed very heavy cargo trike into something comfortably rideable on roads unpaved and sandy with steep hills. Ideally I wanted to convert it into a recumbent cycle however that required buying some more parts, which required going back to the PC headquarters to try to get the funds to go and purchase the parts. This took until lunch time and it seemed that the funs would not really be available because PC was facing a budget crunch (like every government office except for the military) so we would have to go after lunch. In the mean time I talked to some volunteers who were headed back from a vacation in Malawi. I also found that a bunch of "junk" that had been piled up since I had been here was going to be trashed or worse burned. Most of the "junk" however could have been used in schools (most of it was chairs that had a few problems with them but could be fixed very easily) or other places in need of resources. I asked, or more pleaded with a number of PC admin people however they all seemed to think it would be too much of a hassle and they had been sitting there for six months and they needed to go and that transporting them. I thought, surely in those months a volunteer could have found a place that was in need of some chairs and a vehicle that was not loaded to max to bring them but the truck had already left but anyway. I wish Sub Saharan Africa had the infrastructure to transport things using methods other then petrol but as first world countries do not, it’s a fantasy in the near future. Had lunch from the cook at the headquarters then met for a while with the APCD. At about 1500 I went back to the shop and we did a little reworking of the plan. Unfortunately we won't be able to begin work until Thursday because Wednesday the 3rd is the day of Mwanawasa's burial and is a national holiday so pretty much all business and a lot of roads will be closed. Got back and spent the rest of the evening on the internet.

Back in Chadi... Ur, Lusaka -Blegh

2008-08-23
I got up about a half-hour after my alarm went off and hurried to get ready because I was going to go with my DFO (District Forestry Officer) and a few other Eastern province counterparts. However, when I got down, they had already left. I ate breakfast then went to the main rode with some other PCV's where we took a taxi to the bus terminal. The taxi driver dropped the others at a bus to central province first, then me at a bus that he must have had a relationship with the driver. I then began to whish I had gotten there earlier when the first group of busses left because it was over three hours before it finally had enough people to depart. The ride was alright, and they showed some movies. I actually slept a little toward the end. However, when I got off and tried to get awake I walked to the cargo area where they had put my bag to find that it was not there. Panicking slightly, I talked to the driver and he said that someone had called and said that a backpack had been left at the St. Francis hospital in Katete (There was another white lady on the bus who got off there and I guess they thought the bag was hers). Hoping that the driver's explanation was correct and that it hadn't been stolen, I got the contact information of the bus driver and the person who had called regarding the bag and then got a taxi to the PCPH. Fortunately I had put my laptop in my small backpack I brought with me on the bus and the "Zam-bag" (somewhat sturdy zipper bags that are sold at Shopright and that everyone uses to carry groceries and just about everything else imaginable in and which are really useful) that was not taken off but the only cloths I had were what I was wearing.

2008-08-24
I got up having gotten a relatively good night's sleep although I was still tired and had a slow start – or actually I didn't really start that day I think because I needed to unwind from the past week of busy schedules and the calamity that had taken place yesterday. I called the number the bus driver gave me who was helpful, and said she would call the driver. Then I txt'ed the driver to see whether he had left yet, and if so whether he had the bag, however he had not left. Still not sure as to what the status of my backpack was, some good luck came my way in the form of the PC General Service Officer (GSO) for eastern province coming and saying that he was going to pick up the Country Director because she would not be flying in on account of the late president being flown in and having a wake Monday. The hospital was on the way and he could pick up my bag, so I quickly txt'ed back the bus driver and told him not to big up my bag because someone else was. I was fortunate that he had not left and picked it up already, now the only question was whether the GSO could find the bag as I had not been able to get a hold of anyone who knew who had the bag. I then brought out my laptop and spend the rest of the day creating a CAD drawing of a cargo trike I am going to have made while half paying attention to the movies that were playing. About mid afternoon, the driver called and said that he was at St. Francis hospital but didn't know who to ask about the bag. Fortunately someone else in the room who had spent some time there did. A little while later, he called and said that he had gotten the bag!

2008-08-25
No one was sure whether anything would be open today, but at about 10:00 I got out and went first to the cell phone store, which was open, and got some more talk time, although I didn't get that much because I wasn't sure whether the bank would be open. It was and I got some more kwacha, then when to Shopright and got some eggs and spices. Most of the market was closed, and therefore the stores that were open were selling things for higher prices. I got some peppers, cucumbers carrots and a few bananas but didn't get a ton because they were really expensive and weren't the variety that I like. Then I went back and had a little to eat. My next stop was going to be the Wi-Fi place, but unfortunately it was closed. Feeling kind of sick, I walked slowly back, getting some more talk time on the way. That afternoon about all I could do was sit and work on finishing up my CAD drawing. In the evening, the Country Director showed up, along with my backpack. I don't think I'm going to put my backpack in the cargo area again. I was really annoyed that I wasn't feeling good because the rest of the volunteers had made a really good meal, and had made an apple pie for desert, but the power had gone out before they could cook it in time for it to be eaten right after the meal.

2008-08-26
The country director, my two closest volunteers and the PCVL all loaded our stuff into the bus and left at about 800 hours. We stopped at the other education volunteer in the district's site and had nshima with the family, then we went to the BOMA and met with counterparts that had gone to ISTT for the last two days for the program development training, one of whom was the DFO. He said that the district commissioner would like to meet the director and so we met him, then we went to my closest volunteers' site, had lunch and finally went to my site. After the Director, PCVL and the GSO had left, I read a little bit, but not feeling that good again went to bed fairly early. I think the reason might be the water filters at the PCPH because it seems like it is nearly every time I drink water from it I don't feel my best.

2008-08-27
Got up, studied a little Chichewa, read a little on DC electronics, then went to the dimba. A lot of things had not survived my being away, and it looked like nearly everything had been eaten by ngonbe (cattle). Watering went quickly though because I had the help of some Zambians visiting from the Mozambique border. Having more time as a result, I started putting up some DC lights I had gotten in Lusaka. On of the men in my family was very interested and helped me put the lights up. It was very nice to actually be able to read without the use of my headset.

2008-08-28
Today I went into the BOMA and met with members of a new organization that is just starting up in Zambia and that I think I will be able to help out a lot with. Then I went to the market and then I wrote some journal entries which I was going to try to post but the cell phone network was going slow and I kept getting Google page load errors so I was not able to post then. When I got done I biked back and started top make a salad for supper. When I had just finished making the salad, my atate/abale (father/brother [apparently the previous volunteer at Dovu and some other volunteers referred to him as their brother but I kind of think of him as a father because he has several children]) came and invited me to share nshima with their banja. In Zambian culture it is impolite to refuse nshima unless you have a very good reason not to eat it (came down with malaria, are deathly allergic to corn...). It's a good thing that I enjoy Zambian food, although I wish they put less saladi (the Zambian [actually South African] name for cooking oil] and salt in their relish.

2008 08 29
Today I was going to make a solar stove. I somewhat cheated in that I had found one of those emergency blankets that are very reflective (was going to use aluminum foil) and spent a long time trying to make a frame to make the thin mirror like material concave. With some of the boys in my village's help, I made a semi-semi-sphere by forming a circle out of a flexible stick, taping the reflective material over it, then putting a little bit of water in the bottom so as to make the material concave. When I put my hand over the area, it wasn't incredibly hot and all my pots are made of unpainted aluminum so they don't attract that much heat (somewhat silly when you think about it). I will try to get some black paint to paint the outside. After this somewhat disappointing experiment, I headed out to the dimba. When I was only a little ways on my walk there, I got a txt saying that I needed to go to Chipata Sunday to go with the GSO to Lusaka on Monday to deal with looking into getting a three wheeled cargo cycle (a pedi-cab that instead of another seat has a cargo area). This was slightly frustrating because I had just been in Lusaka and wished I had just stayed there but anyway. I quickly watered everything, not having time to transplant some tomato seedlings that were in need of transplanting because it was getting dark.

2008 08 30
Went to the dimba first thing today, calling a Chadiza-Chipata taxi on the way and transplanted a bunch of cherry tomatoes which I hope will survive when I'm away. That took until about 1400 and was fairly hungry as I hadn't eaten breakfast. I was coming out of the dambo area (an area with a low water table that is where people cultivate) and stopped to great a family that had an adjacent dimba to mine and that of my banja. They invited me to share some nshima which was nice. Then I went back and didn't have that much motivation, however I finally got up enough to pack and eat some of my perishable food. It is officially the hot season and I was in that transition phase. Therefore I didn't really feel like eating... or drinking... (although this I needed to do as I was sweating like crazy) or doing much of anything.

2008 08 31
Woke up at 400 and hurriedly got ready, was just starting do drink my cup of coffee when my ride showed up about a half hour early. I hurriedly downed my mug, then got in the vehicle and headed off. We picked up five more passengers. It's a very small car that has buckles for four passengers and we were six total, seven if you include the driver. My leg was almost asleep by the time we got there because I was sharing the front seat with someone else. I got to the PCPH about 900 and did some laundry, then washed one of the water filters because I think that's the reason I haven't been feeling good often when I am there. Then I went to the market, got back and put some ntochi (bananas) in the freezer for a little treat. At about 1500, the to be new volunteers (RAP [Rural Aquaculture Project] and HAP [I think Heath Action Project although the A & P could stand for something else]) showed up and we did our introductions. I will be going with some of them part of the way, then dropping them off and going the rest of the way to Lusaka mawa (tomorrow). It seems like a really nice group of new volunteers and I had nice conversations with a couple of them.

2008 09 01
Well it was about 1230 before we left for Lusaka; the PST's got dropped off for their 2nd site visit, then the driver came back and loaded nine bikes and we left. We got in at about 2150ish and then my family called and we had a nice conversation.

I hope you have a big pot of synthetic pig tails ready at a moments notice

2008 08 22
Well, I'm done with In Service Training and will probably be going back to Chipata tomorrow. The IT guy at the In Service Train Trust gave me the keys to the computer lab so I will be able to use the internet for a little bit longer. Need to go pack and see how my counterpart is getting back so that I know whether to travel with him. Will probably be in Chipata till Tuesday when I will go back to site with the country director. Till then, I hope you have a big pot of synthetic pig tails ready at a moments notice (synthetic because we wouldn't want to offend the vegetarian story tellers now would we).

Well today is our first day of training with a Zambian counterpart

2008 08 21
Well today is our first day of training with a Zambian counterpart. I think the first three days were slightly more informative but it was nice to hear the differences in views between the Zambians and the PCV's as to what the challenges are. Downloading some more podcasts and doing a little more research then I'm going to hang out with some PCV's who will be going back to there respective provinces in two days time.

The president of Zambia died Tuesday

The president of Zambia died Tuesday. In other news, there's free internet at ISTT...
Because the president died we had what I thought would be a free dinner at ISTT and I talked to a Lusaka forestry person for a while.
Today we in the morning we learned about how to file our quarterly reports, then had a meeting with the country director. After lunch we had breakout sessions on topics volunteers had expressed interested in learning more about. I attended sessions on fuel efficient cook stoves, jatropha oil making and community radio. Now I am doing some research on pedal powered and wind generators, (slowly) downloading some podcasts and sending some emails. I will be able to leave my laptop connected though so hopefully a couple of the 207 podcasts I would like to download will get done. Tomorrow we will start the second part of the training which will be a two day workshop on project design in which we will work with community counterparts, in my case my DFO (District Forestry Official)

Got up at 345 and got to the bus stop at 515. I was slightly worried when I got there because there was no one there...

2008 07 20
Got up at 345 and got to the bus stop at 515. I was slightly worried when I got there because there was no one there, but I called a number that was on a flier at the stand and he said he would be coming shortly. The bus left at 600 and got there at about 1530 (9 ½ hours if you don't want to do the math) then I got a taxi to Shopright, bought some good granola, powdered skim milk 1kg of peanut butter and maybe a few other things that can only be found here in the capital. I then walked, carrying my hiking backpack loaded down with everything I brought with me from Chipata plus everything I had just bought, the kilometer or so to Arcades, the other mall, because I remember the grocery store there had good bread. Well they were all out of whole grain just about everything, although I finally bought some whole wheat buns. Spar is basically Shopright except everything is more expensive. Got a taxi to Mogul, the guest house all the PCV's who have business at the Zambian PC headquarters stay. Checked in, started to walk to the office but, as it was then dark, wasn't certain where the headquarters was so I went back and met the other PCV's who was staying there then decided to splurge on Chinese food because I basically hadn't had any since I left Connecticut, however it wasn't the best dish I've ever had. Got to bed later then I wanted so I probably won't get quite as early as a start as I wanted.

At IST (In Service Training) in the ISTT (In Service Training Trust, no relationship just a coincidence that they have the same name)

2008-08-17 to 2008-08-19ish
At IST (In Service Training) in the ISTT (In Service Training Trust, no relationship just a coincidence that they have the same name). Sunday night a bunch of my intake from a bunch of provinces went to an Indian all you can eat restraint for 20pin, then everyone else wanted to go to a bar and I didn't really want to pay for a taxi myself so I went along. It was alright, there was good live music although loud, but I was really tired. Finally some other people who were also tired and I flagged a taxi and we got back. My room mate at the dorm we were staying at and I chatted for a while about what our last four months had been like, then I went to bed it being after 2300 hours and use needing to get up early. Pa Monday in the morning we started on "processing" how our last few months have been, then we had a visitor from the conservation farming organization. After a good lunch, we had medical and safety admin stuff for most of the afternoon and then about an hour more of "processing." When this was done I tried to use the wi-fi here at the ISTT to do a few things but only was able to download some antivirus updates before the connection stopped working. I tried to reconnect for a while but finally gave up and ate some bread and ketchup, broccoli and ntochi (banana) mostly because they would go bad sometime soon definitely not because I was hungry. Then I cam out of my dorm and played a game with some other volunteers until about 2230 when I went to bed.
Today is my second training day, we have a little more "processing" then I think we are going to learn about citrus propagation. In the afternoon I guess we have medical all day.

In Lusaka now

-Well, Monday I met with the District Commissioner who said he would talk to the District Education Head. I then talked to my Forestry counterpart about finding a ride to Chipata or maybe directly to Lusaka for a dental follow up and then for In Service Training and he said he'd get back to me about a ride tomorrow.
-Tuesday I packed up and debated bringing a load of my stuff to the BOMA that day so as to lighten the load on Wednesday but finally decided I wouldn't do a trip that day. I studied a little chinyanja and read a little, then went to the dimba (garden) and watered everything really good.
-Wednesday I got up at 400 hours and had a slow ride with all my luggage to hopefully find a ride as I hadn't heard back from the Forestry officer as a result of insufficient cell service at my site. I just missed one government vehicle that was going past me as I rode in. No one in the forestry or education commissions knew of any vehicles headed for Chipata that hadn't left already so I started walking towards the market to see whether I could find anyone there. As I was halfway there, I saw a SUV coming my way and I flagged it down. It just happened to be going where I wanted to go so I had a ride, although it was going to be a little bit before they left. They were with the health department and were just in the district to do checkups. I got to Chipata around 1200 I think and they let me off at the bank because I was down to k100,000 and the bus plus taxi was going to cost more then that. Then I worked on a web photo album with the hopes that I would be able to upload it in Lusaka if the Wi-Fi system had been seat up yet. Then I went to the market to stock up on vegetables because they are way more expensive for the most part in Lusaka and then went to bed because it would be another early rise tomorrow.
-Thursday I got on the bus to Lusaka for k30,000 more then last time as a result of petrol prices going way up. Then I sat on the bus for till almost 1600 hours. When I finally got off for good, I got waived by a taxi (instead of waiving too one) and he took me first to the place I bought my battery and a florescent light as the bulb for the light had gotten broken. He then took me to Shopright where I stocked up on granola, and then finally to the guest host were I was to spend the night.
-Friday (today) I walked to the PC Zambia headquarters around 700 hours and found that there was, in fact still not Wi-Fi. I met with the doctor who said I had an appointment with the dentist at 1000. I then met with the General Services Office (GSO) about what the next step should be on finding a tree wheeled cargo cycle, then at 1000 went o the dentist who basically said that it was still the same problem as the last diagnosis had been and suggested that I get Senseodine toothpaste that has something in it that is supposed to help sensitive gums. Then I met with my APCD who said that next week during IST we would do some more looking into companies that could make the cycle I'm looking for. I then had a lunch in the cafeteria there of lepu and kapenta. After that good lunch, I went to try to find someone who had been helping me finally file clams on the insurance I had on my camera that died. While I waited for here, I tried to download podcasts on the PC computers but it was annoying because the mp3's I was trying to download would open using Windows media player instead of downloading. I finally met with the person who knew about the insurance company and we filled out everything with her writing something that would hopefully substitute a police, airline or embassy report. I then went back to my trying to download podcasts and successfully got the computer to not auto play using windows media so I could download two podcasts instead of one at a time.

I now am going to go back to the motel and sleep as I am very tired for some reason.

Somewhat uneventful weekend, working on photo album and meeting with people in BOMA today

Well, this weekend I did basicaly what I had told you last time I
would - read a book I had downloaded to my phone and water things.
Today I met with the district education head & the person in charge
all the district ministries about my internet idea. I am now working
on a photo album that I hope to be able to upload while I'm in lusaka
for IST.

--
Aaron E-J
http://otherrealm.org
http://aaronej.blogspot.com

Somewhat uneventful weekend, working on photo album and meeting with people in BOMA today

Well, this weekend I did basicaly what I had told you last time I
would - read a book I had downloaded to my phone and water things.
Today I met with the district education head & the person in charge
all the district ministries about my internet idea

--
Aaron E-J
http://otherrealm.org
http://aaronej.blogspot.com

Back In Chadiza for a short while

Well, I will be here for a week or so
then I will go into Lusaka for in
service training. I got back to my village yesterday night via taxi
and went to my dimba in the morning, then biked in to the BOMA to get
some ntochi and tomotoes, meet with the
District Education Official who was still in Chipata, and also the
Forestry person. When I get done with this blog, I will see whether I
can find any cardboard to use for the solar stove I want to make.
this weekend will be fairly layed back involving dimbianization and
reading of some digital electronics matereal I downloaded to my phone.

--
Aaron E-J
http://otherrealm.org
http://aaronej.blogspot.com

Trying to post via phone

2008 08 06
Today I went looking for a basket and couldn't find one so I got some
things at the market and then had an early lunch and started out to go
to the market. At the end of the driveway, I saw a bike loaded down
with baskets. They weren't really what I was looking for, being too
shallow, but I bought one anyway. Then I went to the Wi-Fi place and
foundout how to post via email which I will use to post via my
cellphone which this is a test run of

--
Aaron E-J
http://otherrealm.org
http://aaronej.blogspot.com

2008 08 06
Today I went looking for a basket and couldn't find one so I got some
things at the market and then had an early lunch and started out to go
to the market. At the end of the driveway, I saw a bike loaded down
with baskets. They weren't really what I was looking for, being too
shallow, but I bought one anyway. Then I went to the Wi-Fi place and
foundout how to post via email which I will use to post via my
cellphone which this is a test run of

--
Aaron E-J
http://otherrealm.org
http://aaronej.blogspot.com

planted some more broccoli in pots and charged some batteries...

2008 08 01
...planted some more broccoli in pots and charged some batteries
...started walking to the dimba carrying the "urea" I had "made" last night and got stopped and asked about the "natural liquid fertilizer" I was carrying and somewhat awkwardly explained that I mixed the "urea" with ash to neutralize the pH & then put it on my dimba
...also was collecting cow manure and some young kids saw me doing it and asked if they could help. Together we filled the bag in no time. I felt like I was really a PCV at that moment where as yesterday people had been calling me muzungu more then usual as I had brought my big hiking backpack to the BOMA the last couple times
...watered everything and picked some more lettuce and a little spinach
...had my 3rd salad and some lentils & brown rice then started reading "the quincunx"

a frustrating ride to the BOMA....

2008 07 31
...a frustrating ride to the BOMA
...left stuff at Dist. ED Ext. office, the went to the market where the one time I hadn't brought any plastic bags they were out of them
...came back and was going to work on my laptop but the power was out. I guess the power always goes out at lunch time.
...Tried to buy popcorn but it was dilibe at all the stores. I did find a tea strainer that I will use for the non-instant coffee grounds I bought (although first I need to use the stuff I brought with me from the states)
...power finally came back on and I charged and added more podcasts & music to ipod
...was about to leave when I got a call from my banja mu America who were on vacation in Maine. Maine is great and this will be the first year I haven't been there since I was born, something I can't say of anywhere else. They were doing the usual things we do in Maine and I guess the blueberries are great this year. The phone call needed to be short because they were calling on their cell phone
...went to the post office but it closed at 1600 so I biked back. I hadn't put on my bike shorts so my nether regions were very sore by the end

went to dimba and planted some of the cantaloupe seeds that had come in the mail and also some more watermelon seeds as well...

2008 07 30
...went to dimba and planted some of the cantaloupe seeds that had come in the mail and also some more watermelon seeds as well
...planted broccoli seeds in pots

woke up pa 530 went to meeting about sanitation and had a free luch at the gov. guest house...

2008 07 29

...woke up pa 530 went to meeting about sanitation and had a free lunch at the gov. guest house

...waited around at the Dist. ED ext. office and checked email on my phone but couldn't blog because connection was to slow and I had to view a variation image to use mobal blogging - somewhat discouraging

...talked to district education head and the meeting of all the heads of all the district boards still had not happened because the person in charge was at a workshop mu Chipata

...biked back and got there as dusk was falling

2008 07 25, 26
...went to dimba and the person I had asked to water had & also fertalized which was sweet
...planted tomatoes & tephrosia which I had gotten from the PCPH

went to bank & market...

Blog 2008 07 24

...went to bank & market

...packed everything up had lunch and took a taxi to the taxi rank, where there was a taxi to Chadiza which was great except it took about three or more hours before it left so I didn't get home till dark

got up pa 345 (early) and took a taxi to the bus terminal

Blog 2008 07 23

...got up pa 345 (early) and took a taxi to the bus terminal

...bus ride took about 9.5 hours (700-1530) most of which I spent listening to some of the podcasts I had downloaded

...got to Chipata, took taxi to PCPH and I think the power was out so just hung around, although I might have done something else

Am in Lusaka today although will be on the road to Chipata early tomorrow

Am in Lusaka today although will be on the road to Chipata early tomorrow. According to the dentist, the reason my gums have been hurting is because I have been brushing too hard. She prescribed a mouth wash that I am supposed to use after every meal until it get used up and said that I need to brush more… although apparently lighter. Hopefully her prognosis is correct. All this was yesterday. Today I met with Ba Donald, my APCD (Associate PC Director, the head of the life program), and we discussed getting a three wheeled vehicle. Then I tried for a final time to get internet on my phone, going first to one cell phone company (MTN), where it wasn’t successful and I guess they don’t even do email so it wouldn’t be that useful anyway. Then I went to another company (Celltel) where, low and behold – SUCCESS! So I will now be posting a lot more. Put 23 fairly large sized photos on my blog site (see below), couldn’t put them on http://www.otherrealm.org because the Wi-Fi at the Lusaka office needs some parts, but it was nice to have a fairly fast connection with unlimited band width, even if it was on a government computer that doesn’t let you do anything. A longer blog detailing the past two weeks still hopefully to come. Till then!

More Pictures

The Provincial Agricultural Fair

The Zingalume Basic School where another life volunteer and I were holding a “Chongalowa* Club” meeting
*probably spelled wrong
The market where I buy my zakudya (food)Ndi banja (my family) Transport Zam style
My forestry counterpart at my site when I was visiting it for the first timeThis Landover is on its last ride
My Pre-Service Training host family All of the Peace Corps Zambia spring 2008 intake and trainers after being sworn in as volunteers One of the countless lizards that are around my house eating a butterfly
“The Men” doing a traditional Chewa dance during my first site visitThe trainees move to where our home stay families will be When I arrive at my home stay site, I am greeted by a rainbow Me with where I had tech training in the background My closest LIFE volunteer sitting with the many iwe (kids) during our second site visit Some other LIFE trainees trying to start a fire with many onlookers
Just one of countless sunsets
A meal at first site visit
The azimie (women) dance during first site visitA market place we stopped at on the border between Lusaka and Eastern Provinces on the way to first site visit
And the journey begins

Training in Washington

Got up at 345 and got to the bus stop at 515. I was slightly worried when I got there because there was no one there...

2008 07 20
Got up at 345 and got to the bus stop at 515. I was slightly worried when I got there because there was no one there, but I called a number that was on a flier at the stand and he said he would be coming shortly. The bus left at 600 and got there at about 1530 (9 ½ hours if you don't want to do the math) then I got a taxi to Shopright, bought some good granola, powdered skim milk 1kg of peanut butter and maybe a few other things that can only be found here in the capital. I then walked, carrying my hiking backpack loaded down with everything I brought with me from Chipata plus everything I had just bought, the kilometer or so to Arcades, the other mall, because I remember the grocery store there had good bread. Well they were all out of whole grain just about everything, although I finally bought some whole wheat buns. Spar is basically Shopright except everything is more expensive. Got a taxi to Mogul, the guest house all the PCV's who have business at the Zambian PC headquarters stay. Checked in, started to walk to the office but, as it was then dark, wasn't certain where the headquarters was so I went back and met the other PCV's who was staying there then decided to splurge on Chinese food because I basically hadn't had any since I left Connecticut, however it wasn't the best dish I've ever had. Got to bed later then I wanted so I probably won't get quite as early as a start as I wanted.

Well again the power was out in the morning so I couldn't work on my laptop without draining the battery...

2008 07 19
Well again the power was out in the morning so I couldn't work on my laptop without draining the battery. I was also going to go to Shopright, however their generator was broken so they were closed and would not open until 1200. I think the power came back on before 1200 so I might have worked some on my laptop, then I went to Shop when the time was right, packed everything up to leave before dawn tomorrow and did something else which might have involved eating dinner and conversing with other PCV's, although I'm not sure. I went to bed early

Dental Disaster

This is a quick blog saying what I will be doing the next few days, a more detailed one stating my resent adventures is to come. Sunday (tomorrow) I will take a bus to Lusaka because the lower gums on the left of my mouth have been hurting me. Although I would have rather not have this dental disaster it will hopefully mean I can get some things from stores that are only in Lusaka and meet with some PC admin people face to face to talk about what I'm doing and get some feed back. Might be back in Chadiza on Tuesday, might be there longer, might even be going to South Africa (I hope not). Anyway, a longer blog to come.

The first thing we did after a hurried breakfast was to go to the visa office which thankfully was open and four out eight of us got our work permit..

2009 07 18
The first thing we did after a hurried breakfast was to go to the visa office which thankfully was open and four out eight of us got our work permits so we won't need to go and renew our visas every month. We weren't sure why the permits for the other four, thankfully not including me, were not there but hopefully they will come soon. That done, we waited outside the visa office for a while to get picked up by the PCVL for out field trip to the farm research place where the former Dovu volunteer now works. We got a tour of the pig barn where there were some rather large hogs, then picked up someone to learn the art of potholing – what, did you think the awful roads in Zambia were simply the act of natural erosion? Just kidding, the potholes we dug are holes which, come rainy season, can be easy places to sow seeds. It also means that fertilizer can be more concentrated, less soil needs to be disturbed and therefore weed seeds have less chance of sprouting and in general less work needs to be done for those farmers who do not have cattle of their own. After that, we learned about why cassava is a good security crop (not as good as moringa in my opinion but probably planting both is the best option) and got a tour of the rest of the research going on before we went back to the PCPH. The next two things on our agenda were how to make beds by double digging, and how to eat lunch although I can't remember the order of which came first (possibly because I think I ate eggs). The rest of the daytime hours were spent on the second resiliency session, and then we all pitched in for a family style dinner of Indian food (the only other prevalent cuisine other then nshima and relish). When I say pitched in I refer to washing dishes; it was actually somewhat enjoyable as there were others working on our task, it is just that the water was out so we needed to do it dish-pan style. The dinner was excellent and I ate large servings of everything.

Today was our first day of LIFE training, mainly intended for those PCV's who are not in the LIFE program, but also to share skills learned in the...

2008 07 17
Today was our first day of LIFE training, mainly intended for those PCV's who are not in the LIFE program, but also to share skills learned in the field for those who are. After an introduction from the previous volunteer based in Dovu, we had a guest speaker from a Conservation Farming organization and then a quick session on composting. After lunch in which I ran to the market to get produce, my intake walked to the visa office which apparently closes at 1230 on Thursdays (I wonder why not Fridays) so we will need to go first thing mawa. The rest of the afternoon was spent discussing "resiliency." We talked about what our challenges were and then began to try to find solutions. Although I'm not one to go in for discussing feelings and whatnot, it was a well done session and I probably got something from it. I was going to compose some emails and blogs but the power went out (yet another ARG in the technology field).

Well I got to the BOMA at around 700 hours and got the stuff I had left in my counterpart's house pa Monday...

2008 07 16
Well I got to the BOMA at around 700 hours and got the stuff I had left in my counterpart's house pa Monday. I got a confirmation of sorts that the AG vehicle was going to Chipata and thus began the wait. Well, at first I was worried that I had heard wrong that it was going, but then a little after 800 hours people finally started showing up, all confirming that it was. But it wasn't until around 10:00 hours that it, a flatbed truck, finally came. When I learned that my transport would be in the back of this vehicle I definitely wished I had spent the 30,000k and taken a mini-bus. It wasn't that bad though, I sat on my backpack which cushioned most of the many bumps, and other passengers had equally "pleasant" rides lying on two mattresses. I only had a t-shirt on though and the wind and clouds made it a rather chilly experience. When I finally got to the PCPH it was just too late to call Lusaka about the specifics of when I needed to get there and had to wait until 1400. I guess I'm going there on Sunday and will meet with the dentist first thing Monday. I also talked to my APCD and the IT person to see whether there was anything I needed to do to use the Wi-Fi connection that was being set up just after I got posted three months ago. Well, I wasn't thinking Zam-Time because they were still waiting for some switches or something to come. This means I might not be able to download the many hours of podcasts I was hoping... ARG! Then I went to the place there is Wi-Fi in Chipata but couldn't login although I spent a long time trying to connect and was just about to give up when someone else was able to log in, having gotten another username and password. I did the same and checked e-mail but didn't have time to do much else as I wanted to get to Shopright before it got dark. Hurried to the store but they were out of almost everything I wanted to get, it's a good thing I am going to Lusaka where there will be a wider selection and whole grain bread! I got a ride back with a friend of the PCV I had replaced. I definitely wished he still worked in Chadiza because he seemed really nice.

Went to the dimba and watered everything good, some of my squash plants are starting to flower so hopefully I will have squash sometime soon...

2008 07 15
Went to the dimba and watered everything good, some of my squash plants are starting to flower so hopefully I will have squash sometime soon. I asked a villager if she could water my garden while I was away and she said she would. Hopefully this will mean my vegetables do not dry up. Went back and sowed a new button on my pants. It's the second pair I needed to sew and I used about 20-30cm of doubled thread each time so hopefully I won't need to do it again. Packed everything up, ate dinner and went to bed somewhat early because I need to get up really early tomorrow and leave as soon as it gets light out because I'm not 100% certain the AG vehicle is going mawa or Thursday.

Started out on the road after pumping up my bike tire again...

2008 07 14
Started out on the road after pumping up my bike tire again. First I went to meet with my forestry counterpart to see about finding transport to Chipata; however he too had come down with malaria and was bed ridden. His wife relayed the message that there was possible transport via agricultural office's vehicle which would be getting ready for the provincial AG fair this weekend. It works out just right that I will be in Chipata then to go see it. Next I went to the district education resource center to use their electricity only to find that the power was out. Read some rather dated Newsweek magazines for a while, then decided to use the battery of my laptop to write some emails that I would send when I went to Chipata. The power finally came back on and I was able to charge my laptop, my ipod and part of my cell phones' batteries'. Biked back to Dovu village after having dropped off my first load. I charging my cell phone some more using my solar panel's battery and the noisy way over kill 600 watt inverter I inherited because I had left my 75w one in the BOMA. It cuts out at about 10.6 amp hours or so, so I didn't get to finish charging it.

Had my first flat but I pumped it up and was able to ride to the BOMA...

2008 07 11

-Had my first flat but I pumped it up and was able to ride to the BOMA and back without it going flat.

-Met with DFO (District Forestry Officer, my counterpart) and talked about spay paint (diliba?[there is none?]) and getting to Chipata.

-Checked mail, not expecting anything to have come yet but had a pleasant surprise. The company that I had bought my solar panel from, Olympic Camping Gear , found out before I left the States that I was joining the Peace Corps and they thought it was awesome. They sent me some woven bracelets and a letter explaining that the bracelets were from a pacific island, a project started to bring a means of income to the people living there, a glowing review of this company to come!

-went to market and had lunch of tomatoes and popcorn with Trevor

-Went to an open prison and met with the person in charge. There was a scheduling conflict however so it had to be brief

-this fact that the meeting was brief meant that I finally had time to take some pictures of the market, some of which can be found below

-biked back and had lentils and rice and read a book

First I met with someone who had given me some tephrosia ...

2008 07 10

... a while back to find out where she had gotten them. All but one of the plants had dried up but I got a few leaves which I will put in water I use to water my vegetables. Then ndi pita ku dimba (I went to the garden) and watered everything using the tephrosia. The main reason my dimba is barely surviving is because I haven't had time to water it daily. I then rushed back, had a quick bite to eat and road to Zingalume basic school where the other LIFE PCV, a local farmer and I held a chogalowa (as are most chinyanja words I write, probably spelled wrong) club meeting with the leader of the club and a few other teachers. These are school clubs throughout Zambia that are related to environmental conservation and sustainable agriculture. We did a name go around and then talked a bit about various trees and planted a few varieties in Shake-Shake (a potent maize alcoholic beverage so I found it somewhat unethical, but anyway) containers. We also split up into groups to work on varies projects.

Today I went to the BOMA and finally met...

2008 07 09

Today I went to the BOMA and finally met with the District Education Minister about my internet idea. She too thought it was a good one and said the next step was to put it on the agenda for a meeting of District Officials although the date for this had not been set. Although it would have been great if she had said "that's a great idea, these people would be great to be on the committee and there are these organizations that would be great to get in contact with" but I wasn't really expecting that and that she is putting it on the agenda for a meeting is a good sign. Then I went to the market and tried to get some fertilizer but there still wasn't any at the market.

Well last weekend I felt pretty much better and now I'm here for an extra day

Well last weekend I felt pretty much better, save for the frequent runs to the bathroom. And the bathroom here makes me wish it was my place of excretion back in my mudzi (village), here – at lease when the water is out (fortunately hardly at all this time, other times it's out for days) – I need to get a bucket of water to "manually flush." Anyway, sorry for bring up such a subject, it's just that I've been spending a lot of time there. Well I'm here for an extra day, my ride isn't going back till Tuesday – I'm glad I txt'ed him and found out, although this means I will need to take the bus unless he text's me again and he says he is definitely coming. This means, however, that I won't be able to water my dimba for yet another day, or actually two because Wednesday I'll be in the BOMA, although there's a slight chance I might get back in time to go mumadzulu (in the afternoon). The house has been quite the past two days, only me, the PCVL and his girlfriend, although someone has just come in from a very long ride (northwestern [western most province] to eastern [eastern most province]) bearing a fresh pineapple.

A few photos of Chipata, the provincial capital of Eastern Province

Images from the Chipata Market
I felt kind of weird taking pictures, kind of like I'm a tourist and they're on display, but people back home wanted to see what a market looked like and I only can post pictures when I'm here in Chipata.. Probably in Chadiza it will be different because they aren't so used to tourists there. I know, I know, why haven't I taken more photos yet, well when I'm in the BOMA I'm always busy and I either don't have time or I've forgotten.

The mosquitoes here are few but deadly

Wednesday I went into the BOMA and met with some education officials and found one possible person to be in a group working on bring internet to Chadiza district schools. Then I spent the rest of my time running around trying to getting things and trying to help an education officer with computer troubles but I needed to leave before I had fixed the solution (reinstalling windows). When I got home and started to make supper my lower body felt like I had just biked the 90km from Chipata not the 10km from Chadiza. That night I felt awful and hardly got any sleep. The next morning I finally decided that I wouldn't feel that much worse if I was up, which was obviously a naive wish as the pain behind my eyes was excruciating. I made it to my chimbuzi just in time, then I looked up the symptoms of malaria in my PC medical handbook and sure enough the symptoms matched. I took my Coartem and txt'ed my PCVL and PCMO (PC Volunteer Leader and PC Medical Officer) and I was told I needed to come to the PC house. I tried to find transport but I guess the only one I could find was of my closest volunteers' atate driving me at 5:00 to the bus, then me taking the bus to Chipata. Well I went to bed really early and that night got a much better sleep so that felt much better though that morning and wasn't sure why I needed to go to the PCPH, save for the fact that I had to wake up at 4:00.

Well as it turns out I didn't because my ride never showed at 5:00. At 6:30 I decided I would have to try to bike in. So with a backpack packed like I was riding in a vehicle, I started to try to make my way to the BOMA. After we got to the top of the first hill my ride showed up. I guess I was going to be going in a flatbed truck owned by the manager of some businesses in Chadiza and we finally got going at about 8:45 and got there at about 11:30 and fortunately I didn't need to ride in the back. When I got there I tried to call the PCMO but forgot it was the Fourth of July back in the states and PC offices are closed then. I finally got through to the 24 hour line and she first said I should take a test but I think the parts were from several different kits and the instructions looked like they had been typed on a typewriter 10 years ago. After having called her back she said that that if I was feeling better I wouldn't need to try to take it and wouldn't need to go to Lusaka. I will probably be here for the weekend and then go back Sunday afternoon or Monday. The house is having a 4^th of July party so I guess it was kind of good timing in which to get sick.

Here are some Photos although I need to take more and my singal strength is low:

Banja (family) and I use this land as our garden

A view from one of the many hills that jut almost vertically up

My banja working on making a sturdier fence

Some of my intake before we were posted

Arg, dimbanization, hidden AG fair, funeral, cleaning...

Arg! I think the problem with my battery or solar panel (through which my 12v outlet runs) is that, although it should be able to power my laptop for about 4 hours based on that it should store around 26 amps, somewhere in this system the voltage is not quite enough to run my laptop after about 10 minutes. I can still use it without losing that much juice on the laptop battery; it is just that I have this incredibly annoying flashing on the screen as the thing switches from AC to battery and back and forth about twice every second.

I spent Wednesday, Thursday and Friday doing some dimbanizing, then Saturday I went to the BOMA early (got there around 8:30am I think) but spent about 2 hours trying to find an agricultural fair. I finally found it but it was a little bit of a letdown because the only displays there were the various ministries and NGO's in Chadiza (10 or so) and there were more stands selling things at the market place then there were there. The organizations with the displays though were very gung-ho about showing off what they had done because I guess they were being judged and there would be prices awarded. I then was going to spend the early afternoon trying to work on some emails, this blog and maybe a story I've been trying to write but the District Education Resource Center, the only semi public location with electricity, was being used for a meeting. The education department in Zambia has some of the hardest working government officials (hence working on Saturday); I just wish that they could get funding to get better materials (like the internet program I'm working on which I think the only way it will be possible it through a grant, but also text books).

Sunday I decided was cleaning day, and my kunyumba needed it. I got a good start on the day and was in the middle of clearing everything out so I could sweep when my Atate came and asked me to go to a funeral. Well I hurriedly changed and put on sun block and then we walked about a kilometer to the house of the woman who had recently departed this life. There was probably 100-200 people there and it was a traditional ceremony that was much like what we learned during PST. There was much singing and pastoral speeches in the local dialect. Then we all walked up a hill, the family carrying flags made of cloth with a pattern of what may have been some significance although if there was, I'm not sure what it was. There was more singing and speeches and then the coffin was lowered into the grave and men took turns filling it in. I wish it had been on a different day though because it meant that it wasn't until dusk when I got done cleaning. I'm glad I did because it looks much better. My banja gave me some selves for my books which was really nice because I wasn't sure how I was going to get one brought from the BOMA to my village. Today I have a meeting with some district education officials about getting a project for internet access put together. I also want to get some been and maybe Chinese cabbage (the only vegetable other then broccoli to have this really potent antioxidant that may act as a kind off sun block and definitely has anti-cancer properties) seeds. I'm not thrilled with vegetable, but I think I might try to make sprouts from the seeds, which I think may have a concentrated amount of the healthy chemical.

Back in Chadiza for a while

Well Friday I waited... and waited... and waited for my ride to show up. Finally, as the sun was beginning to go down, I texted him and he said would be there shortly I don't think it was until 1800 hours that we actually left in the pickup truck that I had been told was a van. When we got to the Chadiza BOMA the priest dropped me off at my Forestry counterpart's house. I waited for a bit, watching one of the Euro 2008 football games on satellite (kind of weird, I think it's the first time I've watched anything but staticy antenna TV since I've been in Zambia) as the only people there were the government official's progeny. When he finally came I made a decision to call someone with a vehicle which I somewhat regret. I think he was going to have me stay the night and when I made the decision all I wanted to do was get home but now I wish I had taken his offer and spent more time with him. Oh well, what's done is done.
I spent Saturday and Sunday working in my dimba. I found some plum tomato seeds which I planted two rows of and also planted some more cucumbers. Cuc's are very sensitive to the kind of dirt they are grown in; only a few of the ones I planted in my fenced in area around my house came up because the dirt is very clayey but I have had more success in my dimba because there is one area that is more loamy I think as a result of it being one big ant colony. The ants don't seem to be affecting the plants though... I'll have to wait till they start producing to see how true this holds up. I also planted some more cucumbers and hot peppers in my yard, this time adding compost. Hopefully I have more success. Just before I left on Friday I dug up some strawberry plants from the front of the PCPH and I also planted them in my yard.
While I've been "dimbanizing" I've also been listening to probably, no almost definitely, the best book I've ever listened to. The way you can gauge how good a book is is by how much you talk about it to others. If it's awful you tell everyone not to read/listen to it – the last book I listened to, "The Lion's Game," was such a book. If it's ok, but just ok, you kind of forget about it and don't really mention it to anyone – incidentally I can't think of a book that falls into this category. If it's good, you tell everyone to read/listen to it – the book I read before "The Lion's Game," "The Eight," a book about chess, would fall into this category if it were not for the end which is so bad it makes the rest of the story, which is really good, not worth it. But the book I'm reading now falls into a category few ever achieve. Its descriptions are so vivid, its plot is so well established and the person telling the tale does such a good job at giving just the right accent to the characters that you want to keep it a secret from all but you very closest friends. You want to be able to use it as a secret weapon. If this book falls down the same path that "The Eight" did – and this would be next to impossible – I may have to ET and go into rehab... well maybe not something that drastic but you get the picture.
Dzulu (yesterday) I bought some "Zumba" (probably doesn't have a "correct" spelling so I just wrote it somewhat phonetically) leaves (from red hemp I think although I don't remember for sure). Last Tuesday my Zambian banja (family) made this relish that was really, really good out of it. So the next time I went to the market I decided to see whether I could find some, then go to my amae and ask her to show me how to make the relish. After that I gave my internet proposal to the district resource coordinator and added the last segment of my exquisite audio book and some more music from the gigabytes I copied from the PCPH. Then I left in a hurry to try to post all this to my blog that day before I needed to go back, however I forgot to pick up my cell phone. Well there was no one at the Agriculture Support Programee (I think it's a Dutch program and that’s why there's the "e's" at the end) where there is internet access and those two reasons are why I am posting today. I also met with the district education, I think, project director about my internet idea and we set up a meeting time for next Monday. Well that's all for now.

Thursday was a good day all in all.

Thursday was a good day all in all. The morning wasn't that productive, a couple of volunteers and I were going to meet with a LIFE trainer at 9:00 but realized he was on leave, not in his office. But I texted him and he said he would come to the PC house in the afternoon. Then I spent a long time trying to find a shop I had been in twice before but it took me about an hour and a half to two hours to track the place down. Bought another pot and a good thermos. Then I went looking for broad band internet and that's when my day got better. Yesterday when I was at immigrations renewing my visa I asked the lady stamping my passport whether she new of anywhere that had high speed internet. She gave me an office number and that was the first place I went. They did have broad band, but only for corporate clients so they directed me to another office down a narrow alleyway and up some stairs. They said that they had Wi-Fi that covered most of Chipata which somewhat blew me away, only drawback was that you needed to pay 20 pin for 100mbs, but it's still the cheapest way I've found so far. The power promptly went out so I was unable to try it out. Next thing to do is to find grant money to get this service done in the schools in Chadiza so that will be something I'm doing a little research on. Then pa 14:30 I the PST LIFE tech trainer came in a mini-bus his family owns and took us to his house and gave us coffee and sweetbread and we had a nice conversation. When I got back I found I was unable to receive Wi-Fi service at the PCPH but I went back to the office where I had paid for the service and was able to download an update to my antivirus in 10 minutes that had been still downloading via dialup after more the 4 or 5 hours.

Madzulu (afternoon) I will hopefully get a ride back with a priest in the Chadiza BOMA. I'm glad I'm finding places where I can connect and blog somewhat more frequently. Till the next time I'm connected: Tizanana!

Well, I'm at the PC house to renew my visa and will stay until Friday

Well, I'm at the PC house to renew my visa and will stay until Friday afternoon when I'm probably getting a ride back with a priest my Zambian government counterpart knows. Last Friday I planted some pepper and broccoli seeds I got from a store in Chipata, the only thing is the seeds are from 2005, hopefully some will grow. A somewhat lazy weekend then Monday I went back to Chadiza and spent the morning trying to do some research on existing information technology programs in Sub Saharan Africa. I also was trying to update my antivirus software but since my connection is only something like 48kbits a second and in reality like 1kbit it was slow going and I didn't achieve much. Tuesday my PC LIFE program director (or APCD) and Provincial Leader were coming in the afternoon. I pasted the time waiting for them to show up by replanting some cucumber seeds along the fence in my garden. When they came, my banja (family) gave us a late lunch of nshima and a relish I will have to try to make on my own as it was very good. After a while we went to my dimba and I showed them what I had planted and I watered a little bit, then we had to head back because it was about to get dark. It never did get dark as we had a full moon over our heads and spend a while chatting which felt good as it had been a long while since I had had people I could do this with and actually understand what everyone was saying. Then, although we were still full from the last meal, we got dinner of nshima and lepu. The atate from my host family drove up (one of the only people on my road other then the chief to have access to a vehicle) and talked to the APCD for a while. After a little bit we went to see some dancing and costume (feather headdresses that were very intricate) wear. We were all very tired but I still needed to pack for the next several days in Chipata so I didn't get to sleep until close to 23:30.
Today I got up and we left around 9:00 which would have been sooner but my family gave us a big bowl of roasted groundnuts. We went to meet with my closest PCV's and while the APCD and the LIFE PCV chatted, his wife took the Provincial leader and I by bike to their dimba where they had envious amounts of broccoli seedlings which I may try to get some of if mine do not come up. After we had biked back and loaded everything into the Landover we drove to meet briefly with our district forestry and tourism counterpart, then drove to Chipata. I went to the bank then we renewed our visas and went to Shopright to get some food, but they were all out of a lot of things like cereal. I hope they get more of the things I need and want before I leave. I had crackers dipped in tuna and ketchup and rice with moringa (the really healthy tree) leaves which took forever to pluck each little one from its stem.

Well, I finally found an internet connection in Chadiza!

Well, I finally found an internet connection in Chadiza which I can actually use my laptop to connect, although I just realized that I can probably do the same in the PCPH. This means that I will finally be able to start doing research into my internet in rural schools idea. It also means I will be able to blog more often which is goodJ. Monday my LIFE coordinator/leader/adviser (the PC term is APCD) and PC provincial leader will be coming to see how I'm doing and to stay overnight, I hope they bring at least one tent because my house is really crowded with junk and I only have one very small tent. It rained yesterday which never happens in June... global warming my host Atate says. Well I have to make this short because I need to get on the rode so I can get back before it gets dark. Zikomo!

Well, I'll be leaving Sunday to go back to my village

Well, I'll be leaving Sunday to go back to my village and for once I'm kind of glad I'm going back, although getting there will probably be a huge hassle. I will spend next week working on my internet in schools idea and trying to create some drawings for making my new bicycle which just came in and my old one into a quadracycle. Also some more gardening and community fitting in will hopefully happen.

Do you see what I see?

Do you see what I see?
Do you see what I see?
Some words,
Some words,
Some real chinyanja words,
Which when I've learned,
Will help me seek,
The end to poverty,
For knowledge is the key to life,
To winning in this game,
And if I bring this power now,
Combine it with the friendship here,
The world will look a new,
Will see that what is needed now,
Is knowledge and much love,
We do not need to fight or hate,
Just work in harmony,
The nations that are growing strong,
Have schools that teach the facts,
Where education tends to lack then hardship does abound,
But here is just the place to start,
This global change for good,
And if I have the strength to lead,
It will happen very soon.-Aaron E-J

Well, I'm beginning to do more then just get my garden started

Well, I'm beginning to do more then just get my garden started; I've started to get the ball up and running on an idea I've had for a while of bringing internet to schools. I typed up a one page proposal that basically is just my thoughts on what I'm interested in doing and why I think it's a good idea and it has gotten good feedback so far, next step is to bring it to the provincial level. Grasshoppers have eaten most of my beets which is discouraging but I finally got some tephrosia (it’s a tree which is a natural pesticide) leaves and soaked them in water over night, then pored this water over the plants. Not sure whether it worked because the damage was pretty much already done. I am definitely getting a paraffin (kerosene) stove when I'm in Chipata because I'm really tired of having to wait an hour to get (sometimes) boiling water, but I'm really glad I don't need to start it from scratch every time because I can usually get coals from my host family. Oh the address where you can send things to is: Box 520103 Chadiza, Zambia

Well my first three weeks at site have been good

Well my first three weeks at site have been good although I still have a ton to do (well, two years worth of stuff to do. Most days I wake up at around pa 6:00 koloko (+ or – 30 min) do some stretching, get some coals from the family near by, and then while water is waiting to boil, take a bucket bath. When I'm done with my bath the water is always boiling away so I use most of it for tea and use the remainder for Soya porridge which requires a bit of sugar to make it edible (it has a bad taste to it). I wouldn't have bought more but they're the only cereal that has some protean and vitamins in it that you don't need to buy ten boxes of and spend hundreds of thousands of kwacha on to last a month. After eating breakfast, maybe listening to the BBC if I can find a station that comes in (I don't think there's a shortwave station that comes in well for more then 2 or 3 hours, but there is about 10 frequencies that play the BBC at various times throughout the day) and putting on sun screen, I either do one of three things.
-Go to the dimba (garden) of the same family I get my coals from (they gave me some space) and plant and water things. The garden has very clayey soil so I need to make sure to add some more loamy dirt so that the area near where I planted doesn't turn to a solid substance which the seeds cannot worm their way through. Although clayey, the soil seems very fertile and I hope this means vegetables do well.
-Go to the BOMA, (market/town center) and buy produce and maybe meet with my forestry counterpart or with someone at one of the schools.
-Or stay home and read or try to converse with other village members or plant things in my very small garden inside my fence. Where back home in the states we have a fence to keep the goats pended in, in Zambia we have a fence to keep the goats out.
My village has to be in one of the most beautiful areas in all of Zambia (See Photo below). Small mountains jut almost vertically up out of no where made out of sandstone and granite, obviously left over from the ice age. My fenced in yard is filled with flowers and fruit tree saplings and I have started some cucumber, pepper and tomato seedlings to add to the mix. The weather has finally gotten colder and probably gets down to at least 50°F during the night and then heats up to 75 by mid afternoon. Lately it has also been really windy. I'm crossing my fingers that I can finally get internet on my cell phone which would mean that I could post a lot more.

A view from my front porch

My host atate in front of my kanyunba (house)

Welmp, maybe it's tomorrow the momentous occasion finally comes to pass…

Well, I wasn’t posted on Tuesday after all, as I didn’t feel good Monday and have been was simodzi modzi on Tuesday and Wednesday. Now I’m probably getting posted on Friday, I’ve gotten almost everything I need save for an ax, a bunch of twine, 2 more small jerry cans and my phone with internet on it which I’m so pissed it doesn’t work. I have no idea what I will be doing for the next couple weeks but it will probably involve a lot of settling in and maybe getting some seeds started which reminds me that I need to collect a bunch of cans and bottles to use as pots. Alright, that’s all for now but I will probably be back within Internet usage in two to three weeks as I guess I need to get my visa renewed. That is, of course if I still can’t get internet to work on my phone… gerr shouldn’t have waited and bought it there. Why don't you call on Saturday