“You have to do something, those are our bags, they’re on the wrong plane!”, an exasperated Margaret pleaded with the man between us and the air strip. No luck. We watched as our bags rolled down the runway sans the two of us. Meanwhile, a gentleman escorted us to a private charter headed for Arusha, it also was not our flight, but a pilot had offered us a ride. “Don’t worry, hakuna matata, your bags will go to Arusha”. Regional Air doesn’t tag bags with tracking numbers, they tie a crumbling piece of paper that reads “ARUSHA” to the bag with string. We boarded the private charter we didn’t belong on and set off.
Angie Ruiz (www.kitusumote.org) very kindly arranged for us to visit several projects that she supports in and around Arusha. Her friend, Rebecca, who is also the headmistress of a community secondary school in Arusha met us at the airport, and filled us in on the background of her school and the agenda for the next few days while we waited for our bags. An hour and a half later, a plane carrying one passenger and two backpacks pulled up to the tiny Arusha airport.
The next morning Rebecca took us to an unfinished school perched on the top of a hill over-looking the beautiful valleys around Arusha. We discussed the challenges and triumphs she has found over the short four-year life of the school. Many of the issues are similar to those we see in Zambia – girls drop out to get married, families refuse to fund girls education, boys get physical labor jobs and discontinue their studies, inability to fund or acquire scholarships for higher education, lack of access to hygiene and sanitation, and so on. We got the sense that the government of Tanzania plows more money into such schools than is the case in Zambia. The students themselves all wore identical uniforms and spoke impressive English. Angie is helping them build a much needed science lab. The first class of students is preparing to graduate from Form 12. Rebecca and her faculty are tackling issues head-on with an optimism and talent pool that is refreshing to see.
After lunch, Kesuma, the Director of Kitumusote, picked Margaret and I up to take us out to the first of two maasai villages, Lesoiti. During the three-hour trip out to the Kenya, Tanzania border where Lesoiti sits, Kesuma filled us in on the history of the Maasai and their unique culture. The Maasai are one of the oldest tribal people in Africa with a remarkably preserved culture and way of life. They roam freely between Tanzania and Kenya, herding goats and cattle through vast plains that the government has ceded to them. Traditional ceremonies marking a girls transition into womanhood and a boys into manhood (“warrior”) include circumcision, piercing, animal sacrifice and other practices associated with many lost cultures around the world.
Kesuma himself is a not only a true Maasai warrior, but a rare and exceptional entrepreneur. Through Kitumusote, he has built community centers in Elouai and Lesoiti where the woman can learn Swahili and English, acquire skills that enable them to open shops where they can sell jewelry and crafts, learn about the dangers of female circumcision, the importance of environmental preservation and more. Bridging the gaps between a culture so old and the modern world is no easy task. Fulfilling the requirements of western donor frameworks while living according to the ancient principals upon which he was raised is a truly impressive feat. Africa needs more Kesuma’s.
Visiting the Maasai opened our eyes to a side of Africa we didn’t know. Margaret and I have lived amongst and visited countless villages in Zambia and other parts of Southern Africa. We thought we got it. And then we met Kesuma’s Maasai. Amidst traditional dances and song, they welcomed us, showing us their bomas, explaining how Kitumusote had “opened their eyes and minds”, teaching us.
That first evening they plucked a goat from the herd, tugging it by its ear to our campsite. As a vegetarian, I was sad, knowing he would be their dinner. I soon realized that what was unfolding before me was much deeper than making dinner. This was a traditional slaughter. Every piece of that goat would go to sustaining the Maasai in some way. The goat was suffocated so the blood would not be lost, laid on a bed of leaves, skinned, and carefully and meticulously dissected. The Maasai men (warriors cannot eat meat seen by a woman but we didn’t count because we hadn’t been circumcised) drank the blood, devoured the organs raw, roasted testicales and hooves, sucked bone marrow from the bones, and dried skin. In the midst of being horrified, I also respected how much pride they had taken in caring for this animal in life and how they found a use for every part of this animal in death. However, I was less than amused when a Maasai warrior slid a fresh piece of skin, still wet with fluid and blood, onto my hand. Good luck, not to be removed until it naturally falls off. That night I roasted my hand over the fire alongside the remaining pieces of meat desperately trying to dry the skin without offending our hosts.
The experience sent my head spinning. How do you bring these people into the twentieth century – eliminating dangerous practices such as female circumcision, ear stretching, teeth removal, drinking animal blood, and more – while retaining their beautiful and ancient culture? It is a question Kesuma wrestles with as well, he believes things must start to change, but also that the heart of their culture must be preserved. An important component to his approach is to educate without mandating change. To give them room to change and preserve.
Friday, August 8, 2008
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Sweeping Dust
In Ngoma the women sweep dust, they sweep dust on a ground made up of packed dust, packed red dust. Throughout the day, they sweep, tidying, cleaning their homes and yards. But really they are just moving dust from one place to another, sending swirling clouds of it into the air only to have it re-settle in a nearby location.
What are they accomplishing? What is the point? It clearly gives them a sense of accomplishment, but is it deserved, is it even real? There is value in believing you are achieving something, a motivating factor in it, creating this sense of fulfillment is paramount in any organizational structure, human resources. However, a false sense of accomplishment can also be dangerous, leading to inefficiency and lack of progress. Side-affects that hinder development.
These themes are commonly found throughout the developing world. Between the three of us we have traversed Zambia, South Africa, Mozambique, Malawi, Botswana and Tanzania observing the same “sweeping dust” phenomenon. There are local customs and ways tasks are done in these countries that begs the question: is this really necessary? This question becomes glaringly clear when you see men standing in a street collecting money rather than installing parking meters. You pay the man to watch your car for security reasons while simultaneously acting as a human meter. This is only one of the many examples of job creation that you see throughout Africa being catalyzed by inefficiency.
The Sweat
• One morning, filling-up a tank of diesel turned into a tour of Itezhi Tezhi. We had to personally pick-up five people from their homes – one who ran the office, two who could sign the forms, one who had keys to the pump, and another who could pump the fuel. It took us four hours to get a tank of fuel.
• As we tried each day to accomplish what we would consider a reasonable amount we had to succumb to the inevitable defeat of the waiting game. A commonly used term throughout Africa is “just then, just now”. For instance if we were waiting for an office to open or a meeting to take place it was generally noted that it would happen “just now.” We came to know this to mean anywhere from 1-2 hours of wait time, during which we could do nothing else because we weren’t able to schedule meetings in the meantime.
• Scheduling meetings…a whole other issue. Generally speaking most decisions and conversations are made in person. Instead of calling to make an appointment, Zambians will stop by someone’s place of business in order to make an appointment to then come back and discuss the actual matters at hand. The discussion could be as simple as waiting for a “yes” or a “no” but it must be conveyed in person and while you are seated in a person’s office. Phones and email are not even a fleeting thought.
• When driving through Zambia, and in particular the National Park areas, we came across many ZAWA (Zambian Wildlife Authority) gates. The drill for this is to stop your car, make small talk with the local guard, answer the question, “no, we do not have any guns with us”, and sign a log book with our names, number of people in the car, where we are from, and where our final destination is. To truly appreciate this story you must envision a completely isolated area where there are no modes of communication and where huge sun battered and wilted logbooks exist. One can only wonder what someone in the middle of the bush actually does with the information.
The Sweet:
• We were staying at Eureka Backpackers in Lusaka after a long day of errands and unwinding with a beer and talking to the wife of a local Zambian, Molly. Molly is American and so can appreciate some of the frustrations we have incurred thus far. But she brought it back to something beautiful and true. She said, “but yes, if all that changed it just wouldn’t be Africa anymore.” After awhile you really find that simple statement to be true.
• One extremely hot afternoon we were stuck on the side of the road in the bush with a flat tire. One thing still stands to amaze me in Africa, you think you are in the middle of nowhere and then, out of nowhere, entire villages will start to appear to help. Firstly, how did they know? And secondly, why do they care? There were a series of at least eight people who cycled through our broken down area trying to offer a lending hand and didn’t leave until a solution was met.
• We have countless examples, too many to list in a blog post, of locals going out of their way to help, people who have much less to their name than we do, but who give what they have so completely and without expectation at times that it all you can think is this is humanity, this is what its all about.
There is a charm to Africa and way of doing things that is all their own. Attitudes such as “hakuna matata” (yes it is a real phrase spoken often in Tanzania),“you are welcome”, “feel free” and “we are together now” are felt throughout the continent in unexpected moments and amidst all the chaos. If it were to be altered or westernized, would they lose what is so soulfully theirs? Would an efficient market or culture take away the lending hand mentality? So the question remains, does inefficiency breed helpful people?
What are they accomplishing? What is the point? It clearly gives them a sense of accomplishment, but is it deserved, is it even real? There is value in believing you are achieving something, a motivating factor in it, creating this sense of fulfillment is paramount in any organizational structure, human resources. However, a false sense of accomplishment can also be dangerous, leading to inefficiency and lack of progress. Side-affects that hinder development.
These themes are commonly found throughout the developing world. Between the three of us we have traversed Zambia, South Africa, Mozambique, Malawi, Botswana and Tanzania observing the same “sweeping dust” phenomenon. There are local customs and ways tasks are done in these countries that begs the question: is this really necessary? This question becomes glaringly clear when you see men standing in a street collecting money rather than installing parking meters. You pay the man to watch your car for security reasons while simultaneously acting as a human meter. This is only one of the many examples of job creation that you see throughout Africa being catalyzed by inefficiency.
The Sweat
• One morning, filling-up a tank of diesel turned into a tour of Itezhi Tezhi. We had to personally pick-up five people from their homes – one who ran the office, two who could sign the forms, one who had keys to the pump, and another who could pump the fuel. It took us four hours to get a tank of fuel.
• As we tried each day to accomplish what we would consider a reasonable amount we had to succumb to the inevitable defeat of the waiting game. A commonly used term throughout Africa is “just then, just now”. For instance if we were waiting for an office to open or a meeting to take place it was generally noted that it would happen “just now.” We came to know this to mean anywhere from 1-2 hours of wait time, during which we could do nothing else because we weren’t able to schedule meetings in the meantime.
• Scheduling meetings…a whole other issue. Generally speaking most decisions and conversations are made in person. Instead of calling to make an appointment, Zambians will stop by someone’s place of business in order to make an appointment to then come back and discuss the actual matters at hand. The discussion could be as simple as waiting for a “yes” or a “no” but it must be conveyed in person and while you are seated in a person’s office. Phones and email are not even a fleeting thought.
• When driving through Zambia, and in particular the National Park areas, we came across many ZAWA (Zambian Wildlife Authority) gates. The drill for this is to stop your car, make small talk with the local guard, answer the question, “no, we do not have any guns with us”, and sign a log book with our names, number of people in the car, where we are from, and where our final destination is. To truly appreciate this story you must envision a completely isolated area where there are no modes of communication and where huge sun battered and wilted logbooks exist. One can only wonder what someone in the middle of the bush actually does with the information.
The Sweet:
• We were staying at Eureka Backpackers in Lusaka after a long day of errands and unwinding with a beer and talking to the wife of a local Zambian, Molly. Molly is American and so can appreciate some of the frustrations we have incurred thus far. But she brought it back to something beautiful and true. She said, “but yes, if all that changed it just wouldn’t be Africa anymore.” After awhile you really find that simple statement to be true.
• One extremely hot afternoon we were stuck on the side of the road in the bush with a flat tire. One thing still stands to amaze me in Africa, you think you are in the middle of nowhere and then, out of nowhere, entire villages will start to appear to help. Firstly, how did they know? And secondly, why do they care? There were a series of at least eight people who cycled through our broken down area trying to offer a lending hand and didn’t leave until a solution was met.
• We have countless examples, too many to list in a blog post, of locals going out of their way to help, people who have much less to their name than we do, but who give what they have so completely and without expectation at times that it all you can think is this is humanity, this is what its all about.
There is a charm to Africa and way of doing things that is all their own. Attitudes such as “hakuna matata” (yes it is a real phrase spoken often in Tanzania),“you are welcome”, “feel free” and “we are together now” are felt throughout the continent in unexpected moments and amidst all the chaos. If it were to be altered or westernized, would they lose what is so soulfully theirs? Would an efficient market or culture take away the lending hand mentality? So the question remains, does inefficiency breed helpful people?
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Coconut Fuel
Sitting on a bar deck staring at one of the most beautiful stretches of beach in the world, we met a fascinating and hospitable South African man running coconut factories in Mozambique. His approach to building economy, environment and community through a hybrid model is something that we can all learn from. I did.
The first comment out of his mouth hooked me – “we’re harvesting coconut oil to make biodiesel”. His current factory in Inhambane processes the oil, selling it both to biodiesel plants in Maputo as well as purifying it into cooking oil. However, he plans to build a larger facility capable of refining the fibers as well.
It turns out coconuts have virtually no waste byproducts. The coppa is pressed into oil, the remaining nutrient rich extract is used as an animal feed supplement, the external fibers supply the primary ingredient to nets (in Mozambique largely used to fix sand dunes, preventing erosion), and the inner fibers are a primary component in mattresses.
It also turns out that yields off coconut trees aren’t half bad. 6 coconuts yields about 0.5L of oil and an average tree will throw off 150 coconuts annually. The trees take 5 or so years to start producing and do so for roughly 80 years. They’re cheap to maintain and with diesel prices alone where they are (>$9 / gallon), you’d have a nice business before even factoring in the byproduct revenue. What coconuts do require is a decent chunk of land, but at least for now in Africa, land availability is ready, and the totality of the use makes it attractive from an environmental and economic perspective.
Touring the plant this morning, Bret commented that one of the problems he faces is farmers bringing in the coconuts before they’re fully ripe (harvested at 10 months rather than 12) – the result are coconuts lower in oil content and purity (FFA content is still high at 10 months and hard to process into biodiesel using conventional technologies). The result is economic loss all around, but the impoverished farmers, they’d rather have the cash sooner rather than later.
To encourage them to wait the two months, Bret is plowing the extra profit directly back into the community through education and advancement projects he runs. The program is in its infancy but the communities have shown a positive reaction. The concept is one so many of us are striving to put together – catalyze social change through economic development that creates self-sustainability.
More corporate and social entities need to come together in this way in the developing world. And more international private investors need to look at what really works for these environments. Before today I would have shaken my head at coconuts as a source of biodiesel – internationally I thought of jatropha, miscanthasus, etc., but the reality I find here is that those crops are not only costly and difficult to grow, but poison the soil, creating backlash on a lot of levels. There will be no magic bullet, but open minds, local solutions, and hybrid models really do have a chance.
The first comment out of his mouth hooked me – “we’re harvesting coconut oil to make biodiesel”. His current factory in Inhambane processes the oil, selling it both to biodiesel plants in Maputo as well as purifying it into cooking oil. However, he plans to build a larger facility capable of refining the fibers as well.
It turns out coconuts have virtually no waste byproducts. The coppa is pressed into oil, the remaining nutrient rich extract is used as an animal feed supplement, the external fibers supply the primary ingredient to nets (in Mozambique largely used to fix sand dunes, preventing erosion), and the inner fibers are a primary component in mattresses.
It also turns out that yields off coconut trees aren’t half bad. 6 coconuts yields about 0.5L of oil and an average tree will throw off 150 coconuts annually. The trees take 5 or so years to start producing and do so for roughly 80 years. They’re cheap to maintain and with diesel prices alone where they are (>$9 / gallon), you’d have a nice business before even factoring in the byproduct revenue. What coconuts do require is a decent chunk of land, but at least for now in Africa, land availability is ready, and the totality of the use makes it attractive from an environmental and economic perspective.
Touring the plant this morning, Bret commented that one of the problems he faces is farmers bringing in the coconuts before they’re fully ripe (harvested at 10 months rather than 12) – the result are coconuts lower in oil content and purity (FFA content is still high at 10 months and hard to process into biodiesel using conventional technologies). The result is economic loss all around, but the impoverished farmers, they’d rather have the cash sooner rather than later.
To encourage them to wait the two months, Bret is plowing the extra profit directly back into the community through education and advancement projects he runs. The program is in its infancy but the communities have shown a positive reaction. The concept is one so many of us are striving to put together – catalyze social change through economic development that creates self-sustainability.
More corporate and social entities need to come together in this way in the developing world. And more international private investors need to look at what really works for these environments. Before today I would have shaken my head at coconuts as a source of biodiesel – internationally I thought of jatropha, miscanthasus, etc., but the reality I find here is that those crops are not only costly and difficult to grow, but poison the soil, creating backlash on a lot of levels. There will be no magic bullet, but open minds, local solutions, and hybrid models really do have a chance.
Friday, July 18, 2008
Power Bills
“Do you live here?”. A towering Zambian man in a blue uniform with a hat that said ZESCO across it stood in the doorway to our three room mansion in Ngoma. Jumping out of my camping chair, I said “yep”. “You have an outstanding electricity bill of 3 million kwacha (~$1,000), if you don’t pay it now, we’re cutting the power”. The man worked for ZESCO, the national electricity company within Zambia. They control virtually all the electricity in the country. The sum he rattled off equated to almost two years of unpaid bills.
When we moved in, no one bothered to inform us about the predicament in which the past owner had left, but the theme is common. Electricity lines are installed, rates are set and agreed to, contracts are signed, payments are not made. By the time ZESCO gets around to demanding payment (a system that requires house visits that in rural locations are difficult and costly), the bill has reached a level whereby the owner can’t pay it or has vanished, leaving the new inhabitant and ZESCO in an unpleasant predicament. It happens with both individuals and corporations. In Itezhi Tezhi one of the largest businessmen in town operated a logging facility whose bill had escalated to over 20 million kwacha before ZESCO cut the power. Unable to pay, the whole compound sits idle.
I explained to him that ZAWA had leant us the house, we knew nothing of the past owners bill, we wouldn’t pay it, but we’d pay our portion. He protested meagerly, suggesting ZAWA eat the prior bill or track down the former tenant. We both knew this would never happen and so he reluctantly agreed.
We were lucky. He caved largely because we were white and he knew we could and would pay. Many buildings in Zambia wired to receive power sit in darkness for months, even years, while ZESCO and the inhabitants squabble.
That night over Margaret’s African Risotto, I asked Luhana if he thought Zambia would ever privatize the power sector. His initial response was one of confusion – why would they do such a thing? If they privatized power, the rural areas would not be served, it did not make economic sense to serve them. So government owned ZESCO was doing the country a favor by providing electricity where private companies would not. I wish I could say I was surprised by his way of thinking, but I was not, it is reflective of the country on the whole.
Given that I’ve grown up in one of the most capitalist countries in the world, it won’t be startling that I made a case for privatization. But the proof is there in the developing world. Take telecommunications in Zambia - five years ago when I first lived in Ngoma, no one had a cell phone. Today, every family owns at least one. Privatization spurned viral growth – the biggest players, Celtel and MTN, competitively advertise and price, reach millions of people, and generate huge profits. The model is working: Buy a phone, buy a sim card, buy talk time. When the talk time runs out, the phone goes dead. If these companies relied on individuals paying a monthly bill, they would have gone under long ago. That system doesn’t work here, at least not yet.
South Africa is applying the same model to energy. You can buy “units” of electricity, punch it into a meter in your home, and watch it run down, the same for water. In one of the townships in Cape Town, a South African woman showed us the paperwork, the meter, she monitored it all carefully, power and water are important to her family’s quality of life.
Power, telecommunications, core infrastructure are crucial to pulling the developing world into the second and first world. The impact I see technology having on this corner of the world is profound, and people, the majority of whom are living in poverty, are willing to pay substantial portions of their earned income for phones, power, tv’s, stereos and the like. The challenge they and we face is creating systems that work.
When we moved in, no one bothered to inform us about the predicament in which the past owner had left, but the theme is common. Electricity lines are installed, rates are set and agreed to, contracts are signed, payments are not made. By the time ZESCO gets around to demanding payment (a system that requires house visits that in rural locations are difficult and costly), the bill has reached a level whereby the owner can’t pay it or has vanished, leaving the new inhabitant and ZESCO in an unpleasant predicament. It happens with both individuals and corporations. In Itezhi Tezhi one of the largest businessmen in town operated a logging facility whose bill had escalated to over 20 million kwacha before ZESCO cut the power. Unable to pay, the whole compound sits idle.
I explained to him that ZAWA had leant us the house, we knew nothing of the past owners bill, we wouldn’t pay it, but we’d pay our portion. He protested meagerly, suggesting ZAWA eat the prior bill or track down the former tenant. We both knew this would never happen and so he reluctantly agreed.
We were lucky. He caved largely because we were white and he knew we could and would pay. Many buildings in Zambia wired to receive power sit in darkness for months, even years, while ZESCO and the inhabitants squabble.
That night over Margaret’s African Risotto, I asked Luhana if he thought Zambia would ever privatize the power sector. His initial response was one of confusion – why would they do such a thing? If they privatized power, the rural areas would not be served, it did not make economic sense to serve them. So government owned ZESCO was doing the country a favor by providing electricity where private companies would not. I wish I could say I was surprised by his way of thinking, but I was not, it is reflective of the country on the whole.
Given that I’ve grown up in one of the most capitalist countries in the world, it won’t be startling that I made a case for privatization. But the proof is there in the developing world. Take telecommunications in Zambia - five years ago when I first lived in Ngoma, no one had a cell phone. Today, every family owns at least one. Privatization spurned viral growth – the biggest players, Celtel and MTN, competitively advertise and price, reach millions of people, and generate huge profits. The model is working: Buy a phone, buy a sim card, buy talk time. When the talk time runs out, the phone goes dead. If these companies relied on individuals paying a monthly bill, they would have gone under long ago. That system doesn’t work here, at least not yet.
South Africa is applying the same model to energy. You can buy “units” of electricity, punch it into a meter in your home, and watch it run down, the same for water. In one of the townships in Cape Town, a South African woman showed us the paperwork, the meter, she monitored it all carefully, power and water are important to her family’s quality of life.
Power, telecommunications, core infrastructure are crucial to pulling the developing world into the second and first world. The impact I see technology having on this corner of the world is profound, and people, the majority of whom are living in poverty, are willing to pay substantial portions of their earned income for phones, power, tv’s, stereos and the like. The challenge they and we face is creating systems that work.
Saturday, July 12, 2008
Katie
I had looked forward to having my cousin Katie join us for a few weeks, but I hadn’t realized just how amazing having her there would be. She walked out of customs in Lusaka, setting foot in Africa for the first time at seventeen, to listen to me apologize for the fact that although it was close to 10pm, we didn’t exactly have anywhere to sleep as of yet. Neither this nor the myriad of daily mishaps and altered plans that ensued phased her. The ease with which she adapted - from a hole in the ground teeming with flies for a toilet to passing through armed checkpoints and scrounging for food impressed me.
But the connections she made with the girls of Ngoma, the reaction they had to her and her to them, pulled at my heart more than anything else. She connected and gave something that none of the rest of us could, something that only another teenage girl going through the same things they are, albeit halfway across the world, could.
One Wednesday after the scheduled mentor had completed her talk, I asked Katie if she would mind telling the girls about her life as a student. The girls asked her questions hesitantly and than with increasing excitement – “what subjects do you study”; “what do you want to be?”; “do you have a boyfriend”; “what is it like being a student in your country?”. They giggled and smiled, resonating with answers that Katie carefully phrased to tie into the reality of their daily lives to encourage and inspire them.
By the time the Girls Camp rolled around, Katie was the one the girls would turn to for help with the activities or otherwise. From scavenger hunt clues to a depletion of sanitary napkins, they reached out to her. I marveled as they pulled her into all of their games and clued her into the gossip. A trust and level of comfort had grown between them that escaped the rest of us.
Watching the relationships develop reminded me that despite the glaring differences in the environments in which these girls grow-up, the fundamental issues young girls in both California and Zambia face are parallel versions of one another. What do you do when you like a boy? How do you have a family and a career? What do you do when your parents want something different for you than you do? Both sides have so much to learn from the other, so much which will make each that much better off.
The unfortunate truth is that there remains a lot of misperception among people and cultures around the world, and the personal connections, the glimpses and moments that make the life of someone so different from you a part of your own inspire caring and understanding. Drawing these connections is an important part of mobilizing the global community. Through KnowledgeBeat we are establishing a pen pal program between children in Zambia and California that we hope enriches and changes lives around the world.
But the connections she made with the girls of Ngoma, the reaction they had to her and her to them, pulled at my heart more than anything else. She connected and gave something that none of the rest of us could, something that only another teenage girl going through the same things they are, albeit halfway across the world, could.
One Wednesday after the scheduled mentor had completed her talk, I asked Katie if she would mind telling the girls about her life as a student. The girls asked her questions hesitantly and than with increasing excitement – “what subjects do you study”; “what do you want to be?”; “do you have a boyfriend”; “what is it like being a student in your country?”. They giggled and smiled, resonating with answers that Katie carefully phrased to tie into the reality of their daily lives to encourage and inspire them.
By the time the Girls Camp rolled around, Katie was the one the girls would turn to for help with the activities or otherwise. From scavenger hunt clues to a depletion of sanitary napkins, they reached out to her. I marveled as they pulled her into all of their games and clued her into the gossip. A trust and level of comfort had grown between them that escaped the rest of us.
Watching the relationships develop reminded me that despite the glaring differences in the environments in which these girls grow-up, the fundamental issues young girls in both California and Zambia face are parallel versions of one another. What do you do when you like a boy? How do you have a family and a career? What do you do when your parents want something different for you than you do? Both sides have so much to learn from the other, so much which will make each that much better off.
The unfortunate truth is that there remains a lot of misperception among people and cultures around the world, and the personal connections, the glimpses and moments that make the life of someone so different from you a part of your own inspire caring and understanding. Drawing these connections is an important part of mobilizing the global community. Through KnowledgeBeat we are establishing a pen pal program between children in Zambia and California that we hope enriches and changes lives around the world.
Friday, July 11, 2008
Bus Journey From Hell
Malawi has a warmth to it as if you’re returning to an old friend. It is a country we have high on our radar screen to launch KnowledgeBeat’s programs in. The gentle laid back atmosphere and friendly people cannot help but make you feel welcome despite their impoverished surroundings.
On July 10, we boarded a bus that would take us from Lusaka to Lilongwe, Malawi’s capital. Our bus arrived over an hour late and immediately locals appeared from every corner of the bus terminal to push and shove their belongings and bodies on board. Annie jumped inside to secure seats, booting two women from a three seat grouping in the back. Margaret and I remained on the ground to ensure that our packs got a space. As soon as the baggage doors opened it was a mad dash to get your things on the bus. I threw my entire body in front of a woman three times my size while Marge heaved our bags in my direction. Between the three of us, it was teamwork at its best.
Once onboard, the collection of smells permeating this tired vehicle was shocking. At first I thought it was just rotting cheese, then that smell transformed into rotten cheese and feces, before morphing into something I can only describe as rotting flesh. We were crammed in the back of this putrid coffin for 14 hours.
Watching the landscape transform between Zambia and Malawi was fascinating. Zambia’s dry terrain is littered with mud huts and various types of low-lying bush foliage. As we drove east the land became significantly hillier, greener and wooded. Mud huts turned into tiny log cabins and you could feel dampness in the air very different from that of Zambia. The differentiation in climate was another reminder of the vastness and diversity of this amazing continent.
We crossed the Malawian border at 11pm. The official entrance procedure required all entering persons to sign a book. One glaring problem with this system was that a number of passengers could not read or write. Another speed bump in the process was the fact that we all had to wait for this one book to become available. We crossed the border on foot and jumped into another line to hand in paperwork detailing the reasons for our visit and, yes, you guessed it, sign another book.
Upon arrival in Lilongwe, the entire bus remained asleep, negating to wake us up until about 4 a.m. Annie, however, awoke upon arrival around 2:30am, confused on why we were stopped for so long without anyone getting off the bus, she thought perhaps we had run out of fuel, watched as several violent fights and a fire or two broke out outside, and determined to stay put rather than ask questions until the mayhem had subsided. Marge and I awoke to everyone slowly lumbering off the bus. We ask the woman in front of us, “Where are we?” She answers, “Malawi!” And than says, “Are you going back to Lusaka now?” What?
Once off the bus, we went to open the baggage compartment and claim our belongings. No luck. Can’t open the baggage compartment until 5:30am due to crime. So a bus journey that was supposed to take 8 hours had taken 14 and rather than arriving at 9pm and crashing in a hostel, we were overnight hostages on the edge of the Lilongwe bus terminal. Nothing to do but laugh.
We shuffled into a café where the kindly owner agreed to make us eggs and rice while we waited for daybreak and the departure of our next bus to Mzuzu. In typical fashion, we were told the bus would leave at 7:30am, but it was 10:30am before we rolled out. Exhausted and dirty, we bounced along dusty roads in an overcrowded bus for another 7 hours.
On July 10, we boarded a bus that would take us from Lusaka to Lilongwe, Malawi’s capital. Our bus arrived over an hour late and immediately locals appeared from every corner of the bus terminal to push and shove their belongings and bodies on board. Annie jumped inside to secure seats, booting two women from a three seat grouping in the back. Margaret and I remained on the ground to ensure that our packs got a space. As soon as the baggage doors opened it was a mad dash to get your things on the bus. I threw my entire body in front of a woman three times my size while Marge heaved our bags in my direction. Between the three of us, it was teamwork at its best.
Once onboard, the collection of smells permeating this tired vehicle was shocking. At first I thought it was just rotting cheese, then that smell transformed into rotten cheese and feces, before morphing into something I can only describe as rotting flesh. We were crammed in the back of this putrid coffin for 14 hours.
Watching the landscape transform between Zambia and Malawi was fascinating. Zambia’s dry terrain is littered with mud huts and various types of low-lying bush foliage. As we drove east the land became significantly hillier, greener and wooded. Mud huts turned into tiny log cabins and you could feel dampness in the air very different from that of Zambia. The differentiation in climate was another reminder of the vastness and diversity of this amazing continent.
We crossed the Malawian border at 11pm. The official entrance procedure required all entering persons to sign a book. One glaring problem with this system was that a number of passengers could not read or write. Another speed bump in the process was the fact that we all had to wait for this one book to become available. We crossed the border on foot and jumped into another line to hand in paperwork detailing the reasons for our visit and, yes, you guessed it, sign another book.
Upon arrival in Lilongwe, the entire bus remained asleep, negating to wake us up until about 4 a.m. Annie, however, awoke upon arrival around 2:30am, confused on why we were stopped for so long without anyone getting off the bus, she thought perhaps we had run out of fuel, watched as several violent fights and a fire or two broke out outside, and determined to stay put rather than ask questions until the mayhem had subsided. Marge and I awoke to everyone slowly lumbering off the bus. We ask the woman in front of us, “Where are we?” She answers, “Malawi!” And than says, “Are you going back to Lusaka now?” What?
Once off the bus, we went to open the baggage compartment and claim our belongings. No luck. Can’t open the baggage compartment until 5:30am due to crime. So a bus journey that was supposed to take 8 hours had taken 14 and rather than arriving at 9pm and crashing in a hostel, we were overnight hostages on the edge of the Lilongwe bus terminal. Nothing to do but laugh.
We shuffled into a café where the kindly owner agreed to make us eggs and rice while we waited for daybreak and the departure of our next bus to Mzuzu. In typical fashion, we were told the bus would leave at 7:30am, but it was 10:30am before we rolled out. Exhausted and dirty, we bounced along dusty roads in an overcrowded bus for another 7 hours.
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
Girls Camp
There is a World Bank statistic that says, for every year a girl stays in school, it adds five years to her life. It becomes glaringly clear here that, confidence, and self-reliance are the keys to sustaining girls’ education. Keeping the girls in school is the difficult part. One of the largest deterrents is boys, or disturbances, as they are called here. Many of the questions that the girls ask are around how to say “no” to boys’ “offers”. Taking the girls out of the village, away from disturbances, and to a place where they can focus on their own development, seemed like a good place to start empowering the girls to break free from cultural traditions.
Over the past three days, Annie, Sarah, Katie, and I held a KnowledgeBeat sponsored Girls Empowerment Camp in Itezhi Tezhi for 47 7th, 8th, and 9th grade girls from Ngoma. We chose an activity-based approach to teaching the importance of self-reliance, both financial and social, as well as entrepreneurship and creativity. In keeping with our approach of working through local people, three Zambian women from Ngoma facilitated the camp: the Area Warden’s wife, Colinah, a ZAWA officer, Anety, and a teacher, Lillian. These women were chosen because they balance their lives as women in Zambia. They stayed in school and pursued a career while balancing their family commitments. We hoped that these three women would be role models that the girls could learn from not only during the camp but also in their daily lives long after the camp concluded.
The girls were shy and quiet at first, but as the days went on, they became more vocal and active about what they wanted to be in life and how they were going to make that happen. The activities were designed to show the girls they could make choices at any stage of their life, that they must be creative and self-reliant to accomplish these goals, and that they must think critically to overcome obstacles. Generally the facilitators would run a group activity and then circle together at the end to discuss processing questions; 1. Why was that activity important? 2. What did you learn? 3. What happens when someone tries to stop you from continuing school 3.What did you do to overcome obstacles in the game? Etc. At the end of each day the girls performed an activity called Building Bridges in which they paired off and discussed their goals (both financial and social), how they were going to achieve them, what obstacles might present themselves, and various ways they could overcome those obstacles. This was a highlight to the day in my opinion. It allowed all of us time to get to know the girls on a more 1:1 basis. We could walk around and provoke more thoughts and discussion and answer the questions that they wanted to ask us. The girls were fascinated to know (and would giggle a lot) when they found out we didn’t have boyfriends, we were 27 (Katie is 17), we had finished school, and we were UNMARRIED! What a novel idea…
We had the girls fill out surveys at the beginning of the camp and again at the end to try and capture some of their perceptions and thoughts about what they had learned. The girls said it best in their own words…
“Yes I have changed, I was thinking to be a teacher, now I want to be a doctor.” Meruis Papalu
“As girls we have to put more effort at school so we can be someone in our life.” Monica Kunda
“For me I want [ed] to stop school because of [no] sponsor, but now I know how [to] overcome this situation.” Patricia Phiri
“Anety inspired me in something I wanted to achieve in my life so I can be like her.” Mirriam Nyirenta
“I think this program should not stop it must just continue teaching us so that we finish school and start working. I am very happy with this program. It must continue [to] encourage us. I thank very much for the honor of this program.” Mercy Namukolo
The closing ceremony in which we awarded each girl a Certificate of Achievement and presented the facilitators and cooks with shitanga’s showing our appreciation for their hard-work brought beaming smiles to everyone’s face. As the girls broke out into traditional celebratory dances of appreciation, the challenges and frustrations of operating the camp washed away. Over the last few days we had navigated our way through purchasing live chickens for dinner, beef directly from a butcher (they do not remove bones), being told we had “run out of food” due to adults overloading before the girls got near the food, plucked girls out of the kitchen who had been tasked with washing dishes rather than participating in the camp, and a myriad of other constantly arising issues. But in the end, none of that really matters, and none of that will ever disappear no matter where you are working. What does matter is that for a few days, those girls had an experience that very few girls from rural areas in Zambia ever get a chance to have. Their appreciation radiated from their faces and their parting thoughts. We look forward to learning with them and improving with each future camp.
Over the past three days, Annie, Sarah, Katie, and I held a KnowledgeBeat sponsored Girls Empowerment Camp in Itezhi Tezhi for 47 7th, 8th, and 9th grade girls from Ngoma. We chose an activity-based approach to teaching the importance of self-reliance, both financial and social, as well as entrepreneurship and creativity. In keeping with our approach of working through local people, three Zambian women from Ngoma facilitated the camp: the Area Warden’s wife, Colinah, a ZAWA officer, Anety, and a teacher, Lillian. These women were chosen because they balance their lives as women in Zambia. They stayed in school and pursued a career while balancing their family commitments. We hoped that these three women would be role models that the girls could learn from not only during the camp but also in their daily lives long after the camp concluded.
The girls were shy and quiet at first, but as the days went on, they became more vocal and active about what they wanted to be in life and how they were going to make that happen. The activities were designed to show the girls they could make choices at any stage of their life, that they must be creative and self-reliant to accomplish these goals, and that they must think critically to overcome obstacles. Generally the facilitators would run a group activity and then circle together at the end to discuss processing questions; 1. Why was that activity important? 2. What did you learn? 3. What happens when someone tries to stop you from continuing school 3.What did you do to overcome obstacles in the game? Etc. At the end of each day the girls performed an activity called Building Bridges in which they paired off and discussed their goals (both financial and social), how they were going to achieve them, what obstacles might present themselves, and various ways they could overcome those obstacles. This was a highlight to the day in my opinion. It allowed all of us time to get to know the girls on a more 1:1 basis. We could walk around and provoke more thoughts and discussion and answer the questions that they wanted to ask us. The girls were fascinated to know (and would giggle a lot) when they found out we didn’t have boyfriends, we were 27 (Katie is 17), we had finished school, and we were UNMARRIED! What a novel idea…
We had the girls fill out surveys at the beginning of the camp and again at the end to try and capture some of their perceptions and thoughts about what they had learned. The girls said it best in their own words…
“Yes I have changed, I was thinking to be a teacher, now I want to be a doctor.” Meruis Papalu
“As girls we have to put more effort at school so we can be someone in our life.” Monica Kunda
“For me I want [ed] to stop school because of [no] sponsor, but now I know how [to] overcome this situation.” Patricia Phiri
“Anety inspired me in something I wanted to achieve in my life so I can be like her.” Mirriam Nyirenta
“I think this program should not stop it must just continue teaching us so that we finish school and start working. I am very happy with this program. It must continue [to] encourage us. I thank very much for the honor of this program.” Mercy Namukolo
The closing ceremony in which we awarded each girl a Certificate of Achievement and presented the facilitators and cooks with shitanga’s showing our appreciation for their hard-work brought beaming smiles to everyone’s face. As the girls broke out into traditional celebratory dances of appreciation, the challenges and frustrations of operating the camp washed away. Over the last few days we had navigated our way through purchasing live chickens for dinner, beef directly from a butcher (they do not remove bones), being told we had “run out of food” due to adults overloading before the girls got near the food, plucked girls out of the kitchen who had been tasked with washing dishes rather than participating in the camp, and a myriad of other constantly arising issues. But in the end, none of that really matters, and none of that will ever disappear no matter where you are working. What does matter is that for a few days, those girls had an experience that very few girls from rural areas in Zambia ever get a chance to have. Their appreciation radiated from their faces and their parting thoughts. We look forward to learning with them and improving with each future camp.
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