Letter from a Malambo Grassroots Zambia volunteer

Hi there everyone, Happy New Year !

Thought it about time for a letter - our email has been not working but I am on the farm now on a borrowed computer - luxury! I shall attempt some other email suitable for ROSE publishing - but this is more just to keep touch with you all more personally.

I am at last getting my feet on the ground. Since I arrived the temperature has not gone below 100 – and has been, frequently, a lot higher. I arrived to find John with his rash again- convinced he was being eaten from the inside out by bugs which were laying eggs in him.. I have at last figured out it is not bugs, but what my grandfather used to have – prickly heat – and it can be treated with antihistamines - so I got a prescription from my aunt and he is much better. 5 dips a day in a pool or shower helps too. Siavonga is much hotter than Monze...

It's been good to be here. I'm a bit split between Monze and Siavonga - the reality of trying to get on our financial feet here in Zambia as well as roll on with our projects. The first part has not happened - so far we just spend money. The second part much easier...

Up early every morning, cappuccino near the pool as we watch the birds and hope for the hippo/croc, and then busy for the rest of the day. We have had a lot of guests, so although we have not left to go to Lusaka for supplies, we are not at all isolated. Every one brings us supplies and our fridges and freezer as a result are loaded.

I have started teaching the woman who works for us (Maureen) how to do rung hooking – with the idea of rugs as an income generating group. She is choosing other women to join with her and she is teaching them. I think I will suggest each woman works individually rather than a cooperative as I have found my papier mache group (works individually) more motivated and problem solving than our cooperative group. Makes sense I guess. She is a good teacher as she is fussy and has been in the community a long time. I still need to get to know more people. So far she has some ladies who don't speak English - so it works well that she can help me with translations.

I am starting with fabric donated from set dec – so the start up expense is mostly time and designs, not money luckily as we don't have much. They are proud as punch with what they are doing – nice to see - though they are all rather dubious regarding if things will sell. And although they enjoy doing it - the process - the idea of a hobby of any kind is not around. While the people in the village are intrigued - they also think it a waist of time - so we shall see. This is a very different community from the farm which is used to these ideas. (excuse the rotten spelling) In Monze we have been doing this for a while so women are used to the idea of selling things they make - in Siavonga where there is high unemployment, when I ask what people are doing, I often get the response 'just sitting'

There is a market day this coming Saturday and I will take up the pieces the women have made and do some market research and then we shall be able to evaluate. I am also experimenting with a paper pulp idea (very low monetary input). As we have this base in Siavonga which is tourist oriented (but no craft industry), and because unemployment is huge, I thought being self employed making and selling things might work well. We have spoken to council regarding a plot suitable for a common craft market - but this is really a far hope. But there are enough hotels around for people to flog their wears. (Please excuse appauling spelling - I am on a dutch computer which corrects my spelling and between that and my atrocious spelling - it all just gets worse.

A kind contact has lent us some large earth moving equipment for 2 weeks with 3 drivers to level the ground and pick up rocks, sand and cement. This has motivated John to expand his project list. It has also resulted in us hiring a lot of people – we have about 16 guys now, and each morning we have a huge crowd at the gate asking for work. It’s hard to say no – I feel bad for them. Such a huge need for jobs. And the people we have now work very hard, come early and leave late. John figured out what he thought minimium should be so people can cover living expenses and education costs for kids and so we pay accordingly. The minimum rate here is not livable - as you probably know.

We are also repairing the walls surrounding the land that got a huge pounding in June July this year. The wind storms were so huge that waves were going right over our neighbor's house, and their parents, who live further back from the lake, had waves pounding through their house and hitting the back wall of their living room. No one remembers storms this big before. So really our first priority is strengthening the walls around the land. We lost meters and meters to the lake.

We have Heidi coming out mid month next month. So I prepare for that. John and I working on getting all the customs papers for the container she has sent full of musical instruments for the music school - I never want to do this again. A very slow process and painful process.

I have touched base with our 4 income generating groups. Our chicken ladies need to expand – they sell out regularly and the villagers complain that there are not enough eggs. So we have strategized how to do this. We have to wait until August when the next group of chicks will be ready.

The papier mache goes very well as well – total sell out every time – so that too is expanding and we discussed how to do a skills test for an interview. They are also asking for input on designs as a British woman has asked for an order of 45 bowls with butterflies. So I go down later today to work this out with them. A second international order has just come in as well.


The original textile group has had a bit of a rocky time as leadership has been up and down with the effects of AIDs – but they are on treatment now so things improve I hope - though they have a big burden trying to do this while ill, and all of life's other difficulties. We have quite a few orders for them so things get busy.

We are also reaching our 20th anniversary on the 2 Feb and so will be celebrating with a cooking competition – we discussed the menu yesterday – all traditional dishes and the judges will be 3 Tonga women from outside the community. One who runs a restaurant and is huge fun, one who runs a cultural center and radio station ( I will ask if she can film it as well), and I am hoping my friend from Choma who runs a craft store and works with anthropologists. She has done a number of workshops with these groups so they know her well. We also invite the Dutch ambassador and I will do an exhibition of crafts and photos so they can see the fruit of their donation all these years later– they generously funded our center to be built and cut the ribbon when we opened.

We are also going to train 2 more young women in pattern making and tailoring with a view to broaden and improve the product line for this group. Of the original group, about 14 old ladies remain (many died or retired) and then we have a large number of women in their early 20's. I wish we had funds for a VSO volunteer who could help us, or a volunteer in design and marketing. I applied last year and they were keen to give us a volunteer but as the global economy has tightened, they now want the indigenous organization to pay the wages which is beyond us. However the work load is large and I still have this ticking over in my mind.

Our last group also thrives. Last year a woman I work with on our Barbie shoots funded a young 19 year old in a year long training in tailoring. She has now completed, and has returned to this group – and their works improves by leaps and bounds - tho she still needs more training. So from this we have decided to send a couple more young women who can perhaps help the original group improve too. This also helps balance that there are few girls being further educated as the schools expel them when they get pregnant. So the drop out rate for girls is high (include the fact that parents support boys more fully than girls for further education)

The scholarship program takes a lot of work. I get the more enjoyable part of it as participants just want to chat to me and let me know how they are doing. It’s fabulous seeing how well they do. Later I will be going tho the book keeping and trying to do a bit of a breakdown on what our graduates from past years are doing now. As I am between Siavonga and Monze I can't help much this year as I loose all the threads on the applications.

John also takes on projects. He is busy trying to figure out how to get a pump donated and transported here to take water up from the lake to the large village next to us who have very little access to water (I'd think about 3000 plus people). He also is working on a second container to come over in a year, with hospital equipment for Monze hospital, the paraplegic center in Monze and a handicapped center in Mazabuka which my sister and a friend have started building. However his Vancouver rotary contact seems to be backing out after being very enthusiastic to start.

I am getting to know a Zambian Open Community School - just near by in Siavonga. Hopefully we will start supporting what they do too. Plus the child headed house holds school in Monze...So we are busy! All round. Trying to balance how to live here as well as all the projects. Makes things interesting.

Hope you are all well...

J


Malambo Grassroots website

African Nights 2011 'The Movie !'

Teaching in Haiti Dec 2011: Doug Campbell writes...

 Haiti for me was an emotional rollercoaster. A land of despair, poverty, mayhem but also a land of hope, optimism and pride. These last 3 sentiments are what stick with me as I reflect on my experience. After all, it is the people that leave an impact on you.

When I was planning the trip I wasn't entirely sure what to expect. I had never travelled to a 3rd world country before, let alone one that has been

devastated by a massive earthquake and is still struggling to recover.  The airport was a typical chaotic scene for a small carribean country, but as I travelled into the Heart of Port-au-Prince I was struck by the massive tent cities, line ups at watering stations, chaos of the driving, etc. Yet throughout this atmosphere was the continued activity of daily life. The boys and girls coming home from school neatly dressed with colorful clothing, the merchants on the street selling fruit, etc. Haiti was continuing on despite much of the damage from the earthquake still obvious almost 2 years after the fact.

The teaching our team carried out, filled us with hope and optimism for the future. Nurses and physicians travelled from across the country every day to participate in our teaching sessions on how to become instructors in newborn resuscitation, followed by them teaching the sessions themselves. The students were not shy about jumping in and taking control of a situation. Their passion was evident in how they imparted knowledge to their colleagues. The pride on their faces was clear.

The most touching moment for me was at the end of the teaching one day when the students (now teachers themselves) sang us a song. Then a senior nurse came over to us and said:   "Thank you. Thank you for not just giving us some fish, but for teaching us HOW TO FISH."  That's when I knew that our team had made a difference, perhaps small but real nonetheless.