Life is strange for me sometimes.
Wednesday I was mugging around the streets of Kaoma looking for nshima ... ironically, Zambia's staple food tends to have peak hours, particularly when it's in the low 40's centigrade. Bumping through every little nshima-shack, I got the same answer:
_ifelile. [it's finished]
...sha? Nibata bubobe, nashiwile tala.[I'm not getting you. I want nshima, I'm dying of hunger]
_autaha fa 17:00 hours. [come back at 5 pm.]
Thursday found me ambling around Kasisi gricultural Training Centre (KATC), a sustainable/organic agriculture training facility run by the Catholic Church / Society of Jesus / etc. chatting with the field operations manager discussing the finer points of composting vs. direct biomass inputs and their relative impacts on nutrient solubility, particularly with the reduction of rock phosphate into usable forms.
Friday I was sitting in Mulungushi International Conference Centre in Lusaka attending a conference hosted by the Permanent Secretary for the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock on developing and giving feedback on their new national policy paper. After some head scratching, I commented privately to one official that without addressing FRA and FISP (the government's input subsidy program), the stated hope of diversification of crops and marketing were DOA. I kept doodling a skull and crossbones around POLITICAL SUICIDE in my notebook, as never have a seen something so good at painting someone into a corner as the maize subsidies have done to the Zambian government. Wolf by the ears? Tiger by the tail?
Saturday I was in London. Cold. Not enough sheets on the bed nor heat in the room. No wonder they're so pale.
Sunday I'm in Detroit. Not as cold as London. Burger King!
FYI ... I'm surprising my Dad for hunting season / Thanksgiving.
Now, how do I geo-tag this post??
