Dinner parties in Lusaka

Last night, a Jordanian friend cooked up an amazing meal consisting of rice with toasted almonds and pine nuts (need to inquire where he found pine nuts in Zambia), hummus, greek salad, roasted chicken, warm pita bread, and a pudding like dessert. Damn, it was good; I’m salivating as I type this. More than the great food was the interesting company of about twenty people from at least ten different countries. I never know what kind of crowd to expect. Sometimes, it’s a lot of UN people, other times the crowd is mostly Dutch, but sometimes like tonight the crowd was interestingly diverse. Some notable conversations included a debate about the movie Paradise Now with a Palestinian guy, an interesting chat in French with a woman who worked in Cameroon (I considered doing a placement there), and an odd discussion on the interior decorating industry in Lusaka with a Greek-Zambian woman. I’m a becoming a huge fan of dinner gatherings in Lusaka. Let’s hope I’m interesting enough for people to continue having me over.

Welcome to Zambia (officially)

For the past five days, I’ve been attending my official in-country induction i.e. Welcome to Zambia, we will tell you everything you need to know about security, health issues, culture, history, politics, gender, and HIV/AIDS in a nice five day package. Some of the sessions were interesting, but my brain is feeling a little numb from information overload.

In a way, I’m glad that I didn’t get an official introduction when I arrived in December. It is nearly impossible to get a grasp of what happens on a day to day basis from a lecture, even if it gives some people comfort to have a gist of what is going on. It is appropriate to address issues like safe ways to travel at night and how to assemble the water filter. However, many other questions will be answered by experience. I am all for being well informed, but the right attitude will go much further than knowing how everything works. Someone in the cultural session asked about greetings. I suppose a fair question as it’s good to know what to expect when meeting someone for the first time. The Zambian handshake involves a thumb pivot (i.e. clasp like a Western handshake, thumb pivot, and clasp). No explained this to me, but it is possible to figure out the first time it happens. I can’t imagine someone being continuously puzzled by the handshake after experiencing it a few times. Admittedly, it took me a few tries to fully get it. I think a learning-as-you-go attitude has served me well. I can’t say too much fazes me. Although, I was nervous I would not be able to follow the kneel/bow and clap a few times greeting in one community. So much of what I know does not come from a guidebook, but from day to day conversations with people, Zambians and non-Zambians.

Being told some do’s and don’ts now is kind of funny:

1. Don’t go into the shanty compounds
Well, maybe don’t walk through a compound alone at night. Not a lot of foreigners walk in compounds, but in Lusaka, people living in compounds need the most assistance and many NGOs have projects with communities in compounds. There are seven schools in Lusaka that I work with – all of them are in compounds. So, it is essential and beneficial for me to spend time getting to know the teachers and parents. I understand the warning because it is inevitable that everyone will notice you, but that would happen anywhere. I wouldn’t go looking like I had anything valuable on me. And, I wouldn’t walk through at night, but I would never have a reason to do so. Plus, I would be afraid of falling into a ditch. I think when the facilitator said flat out don’t go into compounds, it took too much of a big, bad Africa tone for my liking.

2. Only take official taxis
Official taxis are painted blue. Many other cars are also taxis. I’m not entirely clear on what makes a taxi official (aside from being blue), but there is probably some kind of registration system that involves a fee. In my opinion, a better suggestion would be to only take taxis that look to be in good condition with sober drivers. My preferred taxi guy is super religious, listen to sermons on the radio, and tells me about his children, and his car isn’t blue.

3. Wash your veggies with boiled/filtered water.
In Lusaka, I really can’t be bothered, since in most areas it is perfectly fine to drink tap water. If I lived closer to an area with a Cholera outbreak, I might actually heed the advice. The real issue is that I am too lazy to make sure I have enough filtered water to waste on washing veggies. I will continue drinking filtered water because when I took the filter out to clean, it was covered in yellowish slime. I guess it was filtering something out. And, someone recently told me that once in a while the water treatment plant runs out of chemical, so another reason to boil and filter water.

New clothes

I have new clothes! Until today, my work wardrobe was a rotation of three skirts and one pairs of trousers (thanks to the influence of my British housemate, I no longer say pants, which to her means underwear). Bold patterned fabric called chitenge is widely available here. There are some great designs, but inevitably, there will always be someone else with clothing in the same fabric or worse, curtains and cushions. Since January, I’ve been buying pieces of fabric in hopes of new skirts. Last week, I finally got a tailor to come to my house, measure me, and interpret my bad drawings. And today, three skirts were delivered! I have practically doubled my wardrobe. Hurrah!

Tailors are everywhere here. Since all government, private, and mission schools require uniforms, tailoring is a good income generating activity. This is the first time I’ve had clothes made for me. It’s feels a little strange to have a skirt made exactly to fit me. The tailor made a few tops with the excess fabric. They fit, but are nearly impossible to get one because the zipper only goes up to the smallest part of the shirt… the small part of my rib cage. This is hard to describe, but to get the shirt on means squeezing my shoulders and chest through the circumference of my ribs. Needless to say, I had to enlist some help getting the shirt off… seems rather Victorian, needing someone to help get dressed/undressed.

This might be my most boring post yet. Sorry. Honestly, new clothes made my day!

Building a community school teacher training package

I am currently involved in a workshop to build a community school training package. There is a wealth of teacher training materials in Zambia. The training manuals are rich with methods, techniques, and support for teachers. The acronyms still boggle my mind, but I uncovered a few:

CHANGES – Community Health and Nutrition, Gender and Education Support
REX – Read on Express
SPRINT – School Program In-service Training
GEMS – Gender in Math and Science
SHN (pronounced shin) – School Health and Nutrition
HIMs – Head Teacher In-service Meetings
ZATEC – Zambia Teacher Education Curriculum

I was sceptical with what another training package would do, but in the last few days I am encouraged with the focus on how community teachers can actually use the materials… sort of a guide to existing materials. Perhaps, maybe the manual developed help get materials and support to schools on the ground. It is easy to fall back to theory, but having community teachers in the workshop is keeping people grounded to making materials practical and useable. Sweet (or so I think).

A nod to B

B, previously referred to as the fabulous travelling companion and fellow Canadian in Lusaka pointed out that we are now on week 12 in Zambia… whew! Three months! Where did January go? I must have stopped counting after the first month because I can’t seem to recall marking two month in country. With people on placements, there are those who count up and those who count down – 21 months to go for me (okay… so a countdown is a tad premature). Since B and I arrived at the same time, it’s nice on touch bases on our experiences so far.

I think we’re both settled in our houses. Mine came with housemates and their input on minibus routes, work issues, and life in Lusaka have been invaluable. I initially wrote about my house being too nice and too far out of town, but I must admit that I appreciate having a quiet place to come home to at the end of the day. I just need to get rid of the kids and/or the trampoline next door – Saturday, 7am trampolining is unacceptable. B’s house is even further out of town. It is a relatively new community with nameless streets. Getting a taxi means going to find one on the major road off the roundabout because directing one to the house is practically impossible.

My house and office are on opposite sides of the city. Luckily, most days I get a ride. The times that I’ve taken public transport to work took me an hour and a half for what is normally a 10 minutes journey by car. It is possible that walking might takes less time than catching a bus into town and then back out the other side of town. However, I should not complain because B has been dealing with a 45 minute bike ride or a two hour minibus journey. B riding his shiny bike through a compound stirs up all sorts of attention. Literally, people come to a complete stop and stare. I suppose white men on bicycles don’t come through compounds too often. If there weren’t enough hazards on the road, the people who get so distracted by B almost cause accidents themselves.

In terms of work, we both work with organisations that specifically work to meet the needs of orphans and vulnerable children. I work with a network of community schools: teachers, student, parents, and community leaders. B’s organisation comprises of a community school, health centre, drop in centre, and orphanage that provides for street kids and orphans in Lusaka. In one way or another we are both supposed to be build the capacity of the organisation. The question is whether the organisation and our colleagues are actually receptive to building their own capacity. I think everyone has expectation for their external advisor, but unfortunately most people focus on how B and I can bring in money to our respective organisations. Even with the issues of management and accountability, I will say that B unapologetically works for the children.

B, I’ll try to keep up your superstar status in this blog ;)

Motivations

Volleyball is my Thursday night activity. Seeing that the last time I played a real volleyball game was almost ten years ago, I never expected to find myself regularly showing up for games and making a concerted effort to improve my limited skills. There are a few very competitive players, but I think most come out because it is a social activity that draws a nice mix of people.

In fact, the group of people really could not be any more diverse. There is the crew of people who own some sort of business in Zambia ranging from toys to cement. Some work for the many international schools in Lusaka. Of course, there is the bunch that fall into the development sector: Peace Corps, development agencies of various countries, UN, and other NGOs. In amidst the group there are a few Zambians, US marines (as far as I know their sole job is to guard the embassy), family members of diplomats, a professional hunter (!), and a few other people who call Zambia home. Since everyone comes from such varied backgrounds, where you come from and who you are really does not matter as long as you can more or less play volleyball.

However, people do wonder what brought you to Zambia. A while back I read Helen Fielding’s satirical novel about humanitarian aid workers, Cause Celeb. One character wears a T-shirt printed with a multiple choice test – An aid worker is a: (a) missionary? (b) mercenary? (c) misfit? (d) broken heart? (sorry, don’t have the book on me, so not an exact quote). I was reminded of the book because every time I meet someone new, the standard questions asked include how long have you been in Zambia? Where are you from? What do you do? How long are you staying? That is, something must have brought you to Zambia because you can’t just be here. Why want to live and work in a developing country, when you could be in a developed country with all of the modern day conveniences. I don’t think I fall into any of the four categories, but my motivations probably include some part of each. Missionary – believing in a more just world. Mercenary – wanting to do something good. Misfit – not wanting the suburban life. Broken heart – who knows. I suppose knowing one’s motivation depends on how honest you are willing to be, but I think most people I’ve met here have in common curiosity, adventure, and a desire for something more.

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In case you are wondering, my hair is awesome… side swept, flippy ends and all. Now I think I am supposed to return the favour, but I’m not sure if I want to be responsible for someone’s hair.

Training untrained teachers

The majority of community school teachers are not formally trained. Some teachers have only completed grade nine. The majority complete grade twelve, but do not meet the requirements for college. Various NGOs and development agencies have developed training packages and manuals to build basic teaching skills in untrained teachers. In the confusing world of acronyms, some of these training programmes include SPARK, SPRINT, REX, CHANGES, QUESTT, AIMES, and GEMS. I would share what the acronyms stand for, but I barely know myself. Most programmes produced are in collaboration with the Ministry of Education, but it seems every international agency promotes its own package.

Some of the programmes focus on increasing literacy levels and others try to integrate gender, HIV/AIDS, life skills, health and nutrition programmes, etc. into basic school curriculum. There is also an interactive radio instruction programme where the teacher tunes into a radio programme that provides the lesson plan and content for a class. Aside from turning on the radio and keeping the class in order, the teacher does very little (actually, the teacher probably does a lot seeing that some classes have over 100 kids). With the plethora of materials, it is a difficult choice to decide which to promote. Then again, the community school teacher uses the materials, which are available to him or her and not all programmes have been equally promoted. Not surprisingly, schools within a three-hour drive radius from Lusaka benefit the most. Although each district or at least each province in Zambia has a teacher resource centre, individual teachers have very little access to the resources.

As a supporting organisation to community schools, one of our roles is to link and facilitate teacher training programmes to reach teachers on ground level. At a stakeholders’ meeting today, the Ministry of Education with funding from USAID announced that it will put together a comprehensive training tool kit specifically geared to build the skills of community teachers who may never formally upgrade their qualifications. I was encouraged when various ministry people recognized that manuals were being produced, only to be abandoned and then reproduced with a different name. Under an initiative called CHANGES2, the Ministry of Education will somehow work with partners and community stakeholders to bring together the various training programmes into a Community School Toolkit.

Aside from being somewhat sceptical whether this toolkit will be anymore usable than any previous programmes, it was a cool meeting be a part of where people including some working for the ministry were critical about previous initiatives. If I had my way, I would stop making manuals with only words in them. Or, stop doing training in the form of manuals. In most schools I’ve visited so far, those manuals just hold open doors, collect dust, or worse get used as toilet paper.

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In other news, my housemate cut my hair! I am somewhat afraid as to what I will look like tomorrow…

The little minibus that could

It started out as a typical minibus ride home. I was squashed somewhere in the middle of a bus with a door that barely closed and the man sitting next to me wanted my phone number. Up until now, I thought I had experienced everything possible on a minibus: 50 kg bag of maize under my feet, a child sitting on me, two marriage proposals in the span of one block, someone trying to sell me a scrabble board, a very lively conversation about kicking Chinese people out of Zambia (thank goodness I looked Japanese that day), and the list continues.

I was one stop away from home and when I thought this journey might not have a notable moment, the bus ran out of gas. The logical thing to do would be for someone to run to the nearest filling station and get gas. Seeing that people would most likely get off and catch any number of passing minibuses, the conductor’s logical solution was to jump out and push. Imagine a little blue van packed with 15-18 people and one skinny-legged conductor pushing. He took a few running starts and then we were off. Luckily for him it was a slight downward slope to the filling station. We must have picked up some speed because he soon broke into a full run. However, in the end his plan failed because everyone on the bus got off.

It was probably quite a sight. The picture I have in my head is that of clowns jumping out of a tiny red car at a circus. Or, the commercial where a NASCAR team pops out the back of a hatchback. When I got out of the bus, I overheard a bunch of taxi drivers shouting a Chinyanja word and laughing. I learned from a colleague that the word means to vomit. That is, the minibus vomited. It might be a while before I experience a minibus ride to top that.

Blood Diamonds to snap out of it

You may have noticed my blogging absence. I don’t have any excuses, well a few sort of excuses: blackouts, no internet access outside of Lusaka, a bad week with nothing nice to say. I have uploaded a number of posts from the last few weeks. There is always stuff happening, but at the end of the day I have no desire to rethink the things I’ve been thinking all day. It seems that days are either really good or really bad – sometimes both in one day. To break out of my manic-depressive work trance I went to a movie tonight. A movie! In a theatre!

After overcoming the initial shock of sitting in a typical North American movie theatre complete with big cushy seats, overpriced junk food, and people on first dates, I realised that a big screen and thematic music was just what my brain needed. I’m not sure what this says about me, but it took a Hollywood movie with Leonardo DiCaprio set in the diamond fuelled Sierra Leone civil war to snap out of constantly dwelling on everything going on around me. It’s funny how I needed something as artificial as a movie to remind me that there will always be things happening, whether I am here or not. Leonardo DiCaprio’s characters says something to the effect of ”Peace Corps come to Africa and only stay long enough (two years) to learn that they can’t make a difference.” I don’t see myself getting to the point of being so disillusioned that I don’t bother doing anything, but I can understand how it happens. For the most part, I can still find some purpose in organising a meeting or facilitating on one workshop at a time. However, it is distressing to learn of how many people have come before me to do what they can, but ultimately they leave and nothing really becomes of it. People create manuals and hold workshops, but ten years later people are more or else still producing the same manuals and workshops. It’s unfair to say that small improvements are not made, but I make my own head spin wondering if there is a better way.

Side note: someone I know here, who used to trade gems in Angola says the diamond industry really is as insane as portrayed in the film. I am curious how this movie will affect diamond sales and how many people will let go of the diamond ring engagement fairytale.

Black and white

“My Zambian neighbours gave me avocadoes the other day,” I say on the drive to volleyball. “Black Zambian or white Zambian?” he asks. “Oh, ah, um, black.”

I am starting to realise that I am more uncomfortable with the mention of race than I care to admit. I lay blame on an overly politically correct upbringing. Part of me want to believe that when referring to someone it isn’t necessary to refer to their race, but I know in context a black Zambian is a different person and has a different story than a white Zambian. I don’t think of race as an essential descriptor and the mention of race inevitably brings up stereotypes. Then again, I suppose it never really is a choice whether you’re labelled and what label people attach.

My label the past week has been the Chinese president. Since the newspapers started writing about his visit to Zambia, I have literally been called Hu Jintao. Apparently, I look like him. It was somewhat amusing the first day, but now I am ready to call it racism. In being open-minded and culturally sensitive, I was trying to be understanding that I look different and people can only base reaction on previous experience. But, I really have no idea what to do when people make a dead stop in front of me, stare, point, and say, “Chinese! Korean! Japanese!” (I get all three about equally). Not wanting to be impolite or stir up any more attention, I usually ignore and keep walking. What can I really do? Do I point back and say Zambian. One particularly bad day, I turned around and told a guy he was being rude (okay, not exactly the perfect comeback), but I couldn’t believe how dumbfounded he was. He kept saying, “Forgive me madame.” I guess his stereotype of me was that he could call me anything and I was not going to say anything back.

Community ownership

My organisation does not own nor operate any community schools. Promoting community ownership encourages community investment and responsibility. Naturally, a community that has burned the bricks to build their school will more likely ensure the maintenance of the school than a school completely built by external resources. I am happy my boss is passionate and understands the meaning of sustainable development. He encourages people to think about how much pride they will feel when they say they contributed to something completely their own instead of the instant gratification of just receiving something. For example, when a community decides it want to improve its school infrastructure, my organisation will provide harder to obtain materials including concrete, doors, and roofing sheets as long as the community agrees to provide labour and locally available materials such gravel. Similarly, the community finds way to pay their teacher through income generating activities, which can range from tuck shops to a piggery. The operation of the school is completely in the hands of the community. In addition to providing material support, my organisation provides skill training to build the capacity of community member in the management and operation of their school. I think this is precisely why I wanted to work with a local organisation – direct investment in community.