Same day (23 April), different post articles:
THE PROBLEM
THE SOLUTION
Monday, April 29, 2013
Tuesday, February 26, 2013
The Green Tree
The Post has had a couple of stories about Kanyama compound in Lusaka flooding over the past few days. We, on the other hand, have had no rain for 10 days, and given the heat of the season (it is high summer) one imagines oneself in a sandy, albeit green, waste.
I'm working from Senanga for the next few weeks (months? years?) as a replacement for the District Program Coordinator, who departed for the greener pastures of Zambia Consolidated Copper Mines Investment Holdings [following that link will give you a pretty good idea of what the parastatal (nationalized) economy was about). Being away from home creates a weird hollow in your lifestyle; without my usual routine of stretching, coffee, breakfast, and puttering around the garden before going to work, I have to come up with a surrogate routine until 8:00hrs. Therefore, I wake up, stretch, jog (ughh), exercise, shower, shave, eat breakfast, and have coffee.
It was rather shocking for me this morning while taking my first sip of coffee and looking out the window at some trees (a sesbania macrantha and two pigeon peas [Cajunus cajun]) I planted in mid-2011. Yesterday, both of the pigeon pea trees were green; this morning, most of the leaves as if by some horrid magic had turned bright yellow. I have no idea what caused this sudden necrosis ... what came to mind was the fact that it had borne so few seeds this year, and on the heels of that thought, the passages in the New Testament where Jesus cursed the fig tree and it withered.
Though I am not aware of the Messiah visiting the Senanga team house back yard in the night or yesterday, it was still disconcerting to see ... particularly as I'd like to use pigeon peas in the next iteration of the Conservation Agriculture project we're planning for the upcoming three years. Pigeon peas, as an agroforestry species, has a lot of pros ... fast growing, fixes nitrogen, helps make soil phosphorus labile (available to plants), fairly drought-resistant (in other parts of Africa not resembling a wooded desert), and most importantly, has an edible seed. Actually quite good, used for dhaal in Indian dishes, known somehow as white gram. However it portends ill to see the leaves withering so quickly. I keep underlining this fact, but it bears repeating: nothing is easy here and don't assume anything as you'll make an ass-of-u-and-me.
Brings one other, though much darker verse to mind; on his march to Golgotha, Jesus admonished a group of wailing women not to weep for Him but rather for themselves (Luke 23:31); "For if they do these things in a green tree, what shall be done in the dry?"
What indeed?
I'm working from Senanga for the next few weeks (months? years?) as a replacement for the District Program Coordinator, who departed for the greener pastures of Zambia Consolidated Copper Mines Investment Holdings [following that link will give you a pretty good idea of what the parastatal (nationalized) economy was about). Being away from home creates a weird hollow in your lifestyle; without my usual routine of stretching, coffee, breakfast, and puttering around the garden before going to work, I have to come up with a surrogate routine until 8:00hrs. Therefore, I wake up, stretch, jog (ughh), exercise, shower, shave, eat breakfast, and have coffee.
It was rather shocking for me this morning while taking my first sip of coffee and looking out the window at some trees (a sesbania macrantha and two pigeon peas [Cajunus cajun]) I planted in mid-2011. Yesterday, both of the pigeon pea trees were green; this morning, most of the leaves as if by some horrid magic had turned bright yellow. I have no idea what caused this sudden necrosis ... what came to mind was the fact that it had borne so few seeds this year, and on the heels of that thought, the passages in the New Testament where Jesus cursed the fig tree and it withered.
Though I am not aware of the Messiah visiting the Senanga team house back yard in the night or yesterday, it was still disconcerting to see ... particularly as I'd like to use pigeon peas in the next iteration of the Conservation Agriculture project we're planning for the upcoming three years. Pigeon peas, as an agroforestry species, has a lot of pros ... fast growing, fixes nitrogen, helps make soil phosphorus labile (available to plants), fairly drought-resistant (in other parts of Africa not resembling a wooded desert), and most importantly, has an edible seed. Actually quite good, used for dhaal in Indian dishes, known somehow as white gram. However it portends ill to see the leaves withering so quickly. I keep underlining this fact, but it bears repeating: nothing is easy here and don't assume anything as you'll make an ass-of-u-and-me.
Brings one other, though much darker verse to mind; on his march to Golgotha, Jesus admonished a group of wailing women not to weep for Him but rather for themselves (Luke 23:31); "For if they do these things in a green tree, what shall be done in the dry?"
What indeed?
Tuesday, February 12, 2013
Treading water ...
My buddy Ger Vaughn from back home in Upper Michigan sent me some Waylon Jennings songs which I'm currently enjoying. The guy was a bard in a beard and a vest; I'm genuinely sad that I never will get to meet him. A bard who smoke and drank and womanized ... boozing, hollering, and whoring. I guess you need some pain in your life to be a poet; a singer; a writer. Or you need to make pain.
Or I suppose you could write from joy. Or insanity? I'm thinking of John of Patmos.
Me, I write out of a sea of boredom. It's not the kind of boredom that results from not being busy enough, that's for sure. We've had a couple of fairly high-level national staff take new jobs, and hiring a replacement is a arduous process; in no small part due to the fact that most qualified Zambians don't want to move to Mongu or Senanga. That says a lot about out Western; kind of a perverse pride for me ... I'll work somewhere Zambians won't.
Work. Work. Work work work. It is endless sometimes; there is really no glamour in the work. I sit in front of a small box with a window on it; in this window are documents that are endlessly revised, magically sent off to Dublin, New York, Kaoma, Lusaka and sent back for revision. Mostly these documents make my head ache; they [the headaches] are augmented by smaller, temporal documents that come through a brutal taskmaster with only one name: Outlook. This demon controls all the magic communication; you have to be careful, as he remembers all you say.
The great Demon Outlook is seconded by a careless imp named Skype. Skype is somewhat less the scrutinizing beast that is Outlook; Skype allows much more levity, encouraging you to communicate with simple pictures of a smiley face, a pukey face, a martini glass, etc. You can also talk to others, though the Imp shows his recidivist side periodically, cutting you off unexpectedly, or amplifying whatever small noise issues from the back of your throat that get interpreted as skeptical guffaws or grumbled curses.
Anyway, my work has little to do with the farmers. I mostly direct my own or partner staff who then go work at the next level down, and those people work with the farmers. When I do visit the farmers, it is usually me fielding their complaints, particularly about us not supplying with enough fertilizer or seeds, or the wrong seeds, or not giving out pesticides (things that kill weeds = herbicides or things that kill bugs = insecticides). You never leave the field feeling really good about what you do or who you work with; mostly, you struggle with a) your inner Republican straining to break free and go all Horace Alger on the beneficiaries, b) your self-doubts about what you're doing, and c) your silent relief that you don't live in the village. Kwa hai is not a forgiving place, especially when it rains; everyone looks and sounds like they just pulled a week in Andersonville; snuffling and shuffling is the rule of the day. You can understand why young men scramble for the nearest town, somewhere where you can possibly Horace-Alger-hustle your way up the social ladder and not have to sleep rough in the damp and cold.
Oh well; gotta take the good with the bad. It's rained quite a bit lately; the corn is growing; there is no crime; food's not spectacular, but there's enough of it. And maybe we'll have Ku'omboka this year.
Or I suppose you could write from joy. Or insanity? I'm thinking of John of Patmos.
Me, I write out of a sea of boredom. It's not the kind of boredom that results from not being busy enough, that's for sure. We've had a couple of fairly high-level national staff take new jobs, and hiring a replacement is a arduous process; in no small part due to the fact that most qualified Zambians don't want to move to Mongu or Senanga. That says a lot about out Western; kind of a perverse pride for me ... I'll work somewhere Zambians won't.
Work. Work. Work work work. It is endless sometimes; there is really no glamour in the work. I sit in front of a small box with a window on it; in this window are documents that are endlessly revised, magically sent off to Dublin, New York, Kaoma, Lusaka and sent back for revision. Mostly these documents make my head ache; they [the headaches] are augmented by smaller, temporal documents that come through a brutal taskmaster with only one name: Outlook. This demon controls all the magic communication; you have to be careful, as he remembers all you say.
The great Demon Outlook is seconded by a careless imp named Skype. Skype is somewhat less the scrutinizing beast that is Outlook; Skype allows much more levity, encouraging you to communicate with simple pictures of a smiley face, a pukey face, a martini glass, etc. You can also talk to others, though the Imp shows his recidivist side periodically, cutting you off unexpectedly, or amplifying whatever small noise issues from the back of your throat that get interpreted as skeptical guffaws or grumbled curses.
Anyway, my work has little to do with the farmers. I mostly direct my own or partner staff who then go work at the next level down, and those people work with the farmers. When I do visit the farmers, it is usually me fielding their complaints, particularly about us not supplying with enough fertilizer or seeds, or the wrong seeds, or not giving out pesticides (things that kill weeds = herbicides or things that kill bugs = insecticides). You never leave the field feeling really good about what you do or who you work with; mostly, you struggle with a) your inner Republican straining to break free and go all Horace Alger on the beneficiaries, b) your self-doubts about what you're doing, and c) your silent relief that you don't live in the village. Kwa hai is not a forgiving place, especially when it rains; everyone looks and sounds like they just pulled a week in Andersonville; snuffling and shuffling is the rule of the day. You can understand why young men scramble for the nearest town, somewhere where you can possibly Horace-Alger-hustle your way up the social ladder and not have to sleep rough in the damp and cold.
Oh well; gotta take the good with the bad. It's rained quite a bit lately; the corn is growing; there is no crime; food's not spectacular, but there's enough of it. And maybe we'll have Ku'omboka this year.
Monday, January 7, 2013
The Perfect Rain
It has, as they say, been raining cats and dogs.
We've had a rain pattern that has not disappointed since the 1st of December ... it rains in the day. It rains in the night. It rains in the afternoon. It rains in the morning.
But never all at once ... there is rarely a day long rain. I can't figure it ... you'll see the clouds brooding, usually to the west, northwest, or north; they march along like death and taxes. Eventually, they move across town as if a grey curtain was being drawn across the horizon.
Today was perfect. On my way home, I saw the Iron Curtain moving inexorably south. I ducked into the Nalumba just in time to avoid the deluge; killing off a beer and chatting with an old comrade from Senanga, the rain had a physical presence, blowing wafts of cold air in the building and dripping through the usual leaks in the asbestos sheeted roof.
No one begrudges rain here. There is such a dichotomy between the dry season and the wet that rivals the arrival of spring in the Midwest ... people seem far happier, far less sullen, much more optimistic about the future.
I reflect on the rain as I get home, staring at my now-soaked New Balance; it's a welcome memory to feel wet socks, transporting me back to the days of leading canoe trips in Northern Ontario. Wet feet from stumbling over rocks in the rapids; wet feet from the cold rains that dominated the summers of the Nineties, trench foot from the continual wet socks.
So tonight is the perfect rain. Steady. Ominous. Heavy enough to batten down the mosquitoes. Good sleeping weather.
We've had a rain pattern that has not disappointed since the 1st of December ... it rains in the day. It rains in the night. It rains in the afternoon. It rains in the morning.
But never all at once ... there is rarely a day long rain. I can't figure it ... you'll see the clouds brooding, usually to the west, northwest, or north; they march along like death and taxes. Eventually, they move across town as if a grey curtain was being drawn across the horizon.
Today was perfect. On my way home, I saw the Iron Curtain moving inexorably south. I ducked into the Nalumba just in time to avoid the deluge; killing off a beer and chatting with an old comrade from Senanga, the rain had a physical presence, blowing wafts of cold air in the building and dripping through the usual leaks in the asbestos sheeted roof.
No one begrudges rain here. There is such a dichotomy between the dry season and the wet that rivals the arrival of spring in the Midwest ... people seem far happier, far less sullen, much more optimistic about the future.
I reflect on the rain as I get home, staring at my now-soaked New Balance; it's a welcome memory to feel wet socks, transporting me back to the days of leading canoe trips in Northern Ontario. Wet feet from stumbling over rocks in the rapids; wet feet from the cold rains that dominated the summers of the Nineties, trench foot from the continual wet socks.
So tonight is the perfect rain. Steady. Ominous. Heavy enough to batten down the mosquitoes. Good sleeping weather.
Thursday, December 27, 2012
Post Christmas Maize Woes
There is a frightening diversity of insects flying and crawling all over the blockhouse tonight ... doubtless, the end to the three or four days of rain has induced them to come out, and as they are wont to do, make a straight line towards any light source. So far, no is too bothersome; after spending a few years in the bush with a candle for dinner company, you get inured to things crawling all over you.
There were exceptions to that rule, notably the specimens of Solifugae (wind spiders) that would emerge from the forest adjacent to my house in October and move with a speed indicative of their name towards the candle that provided my gestation's luminescence. My reaction was an uncontrollable heaving of my plate in one direction and leaping off the porch in the other.
It's far easier (in many, many ways both subtle and not) these days, particularly my ability to light a mosquito coil and prevent any organized attack by the assemblage of the Anthropoda kingdom. Instead, they fly and crawl in happy chaos, randomly hitting me in the face or drinking the sweat off my neck.
********
Three things have been blaring out over the airwaves and newspapers (real and virtual) with regard to maize recently, which I will present in summary fashion:
There were exceptions to that rule, notably the specimens of Solifugae (wind spiders) that would emerge from the forest adjacent to my house in October and move with a speed indicative of their name towards the candle that provided my gestation's luminescence. My reaction was an uncontrollable heaving of my plate in one direction and leaping off the porch in the other.
It's far easier (in many, many ways both subtle and not) these days, particularly my ability to light a mosquito coil and prevent any organized attack by the assemblage of the Anthropoda kingdom. Instead, they fly and crawl in happy chaos, randomly hitting me in the face or drinking the sweat off my neck.
********
Three things have been blaring out over the airwaves and newspapers (real and virtual) with regard to maize recently, which I will present in summary fashion:
- Army worms came out of nowhere with the first rains and hammered the emerging maize crop in November and the first half of December. Though this didn't touch Western (a maize-growing, but not maize-producing region), it nailed the maize belt regions (Central, Southern, and Eastern) quite bad. It was bad enough for the government to expedite the release of 2,000 metric tonnes of seed maize in a relatively short period. Hope it was a 400 series, because Christmas planting is not a sure thing ... depending on our rain, this might be a short year, as the BBC doubtless hopes.
- Mealie meal (maize flour), the basis of Zambia's staple food [nshima] has climbed steadily in price throughout the country due to shortages in the Copperbelt. The shortages are ascribed to people purchasing job lots of the commodity at wholesale (or even retail) prices, throwing all the bags they can manage on a motorcycle, mini-bus, ox-cart, etc., and crossing the border into DRC where the price is substantially higher. Zambia's high urbanization levels makes the price of nshima (which is literally food in this country) a serious political issue. Hence, more maize is being sold by FRA towards the national milling companies, albeit at a loss vs. what they [haven't] paid the farmers. Generally, the high prices are poorly understood by Zambians high or low, who envision the milling companies as gouging them for the sustenance despite "bumper harvests". To me, an American raised with the usual inculcation of cutthroat capitalism, it's not really a surprise whatsoever. The milling companies produce something everyone [thinks they] need. They don't get elected, and they have a golden goose in front of them. Plus, they have bigger silos ... they can buy and buy and control the output of maize meal.
- The poor rain patterns across the maize belt. It didn't really get going until deep into November.
How it will pan out is anyone's guess ... I doubt nationalization is on the table yet, but a poor harvest and a hollering hungry public will doubtless move the government's hand.
Wednesday, December 26, 2012
Kwacha Re-basement (aka. the Death of the Pin)
The Post had as is the pattern of the British papers on which it's modeled, a blaring headline reading:
ATMS RUN OUT OF CASH IN LUSAKA
It's worthwhile to note that as development goes, this story would have been non-existent five years ago (they were always out of cash) or eight (when there were literally a handful of ATMs in the country).
The run on the machines is somewhat related to the time of year ... it is Christmas, and Zambians joining Planet Capitalism are following the well-trod path of purchasing gifts, particularly for their own children to enjoy and the parents of others to envy.
However, as an unidentified bank official pointed out, "It's not just the usual heightened festive season spending, I think there is also the fears of the kwacha rebasing."
Zambian money currently looks something like this:
Denominations range from K50, K100, K500, K1000, K5000 (shown above with front and reverse), K10000, K20000, and K50000. The 'th' sound is different in Bantu languages, so all the currencies with three zeroes are colloquially suffixed as 'pin'. Therefore, a K20000 note is "20 pin" and so on. The current exchange rate is K5,300 to $1.00 USD; essentially, the currency hasn't changed since in the introduction of the K50000 note nine or ten years ago.
Now, for reasons I'm not sure of expressing given my status as a guest in this country (but expressed within this document from the Bank of Zambia), they are killing the pins. Three zeroes will be hacked off each note, ergo K5000 becomes (kwacha rebased) KR5.
The smaller denominations (equal to or less than K1000) will become coins named identical to their predecessors, the "ingwe". Given the prevalence of transactions at value K2,000 and at K100,000, new notes (KR2 and KR100) will also be released.
Internationally, the currency code for the old kwacha is ZMK; on Tuesday
It's somewhat worrying how the transition is simply not getting through to people; I'm sure in the rural areas, people are digging deep holes and stuffing calabashes full of money down them (which will doubtless attract termites by the thousand score). Supposedly, on 1st January, 2013 (next Tuesday), all shops / marketeers will need to post prices in both currencies, and if possible, start paying out the new currency when at all possible. The opportunities for chicanery will be endless ... fake exchange commissions, inflated prices for small items, etc. It will certainly do wonders for already booming calculator sales.
I wonder how it will pan out when paying out bribes to the cops ... will they demand K or KR?
My reaction? Wait. Watch. Pulled out money well in advance. Sleep. Rewrite all my documents with the new values. Y2K all over again.
ATMS RUN OUT OF CASH IN LUSAKA
It's worthwhile to note that as development goes, this story would have been non-existent five years ago (they were always out of cash) or eight (when there were literally a handful of ATMs in the country).
The run on the machines is somewhat related to the time of year ... it is Christmas, and Zambians joining Planet Capitalism are following the well-trod path of purchasing gifts, particularly for their own children to enjoy and the parents of others to envy.
However, as an unidentified bank official pointed out, "It's not just the usual heightened festive season spending, I think there is also the fears of the kwacha rebasing."
Zambian money currently looks something like this:
Denominations range from K50, K100, K500, K1000, K5000 (shown above with front and reverse), K10000, K20000, and K50000. The 'th' sound is different in Bantu languages, so all the currencies with three zeroes are colloquially suffixed as 'pin'. Therefore, a K20000 note is "20 pin" and so on. The current exchange rate is K5,300 to $1.00 USD; essentially, the currency hasn't changed since in the introduction of the K50000 note nine or ten years ago.
Now, for reasons I'm not sure of expressing given my status as a guest in this country (but expressed within this document from the Bank of Zambia), they are killing the pins. Three zeroes will be hacked off each note, ergo K5000 becomes (kwacha rebased) KR5.
The smaller denominations (equal to or less than K1000) will become coins named identical to their predecessors, the "ingwe". Given the prevalence of transactions at value K2,000 and at K100,000, new notes (KR2 and KR100) will also be released.
Internationally, the currency code for the old kwacha is ZMK; on Tuesday
It's somewhat worrying how the transition is simply not getting through to people; I'm sure in the rural areas, people are digging deep holes and stuffing calabashes full of money down them (which will doubtless attract termites by the thousand score). Supposedly, on 1st January, 2013 (next Tuesday), all shops / marketeers will need to post prices in both currencies, and if possible, start paying out the new currency when at all possible. The opportunities for chicanery will be endless ... fake exchange commissions, inflated prices for small items, etc. It will certainly do wonders for already booming calculator sales.
I wonder how it will pan out when paying out bribes to the cops ... will they demand K or KR?
My reaction? Wait. Watch. Pulled out money well in advance. Sleep. Rewrite all my documents with the new values. Y2K all over again.
Tuesday, December 25, 2012
Christmas Crackers
The two Peace Corps Response Volunteers that stay in Mongu and are both good friends came by for a day of hanging out, enjoying some mild libation, eating a 'light' brunch of homemade pancakes and eggs, followed almost six hours later by one of my more of my memorable culinary performances:
- Mongu [Super] Rice (of course)
- Stir-fried tomatoes, garlic, green peppers, mushrooms, sesame seeds, millet, and lightly crushed groundnuts
- Cowpeas, bambara nuts, and harricot beans
- Local squash with sauteed onions / garlic ... baked grilled
- Shin steak
- Plaaswoers (Afrikaans for "farmer sausage", I guess)
- Beer can chicken
It was epic, tasty, and yet simple enough not to overwhelm the our shared bond of loneliness, of separation from kith and kin.
The two Christmas traditions we followed:
- Christmas Crackers - Totally British, but now I know where originated all the paper crowns depicted in English Christmas films.
- Prayer. As one of the PCRV's said ... it'd be a sin not to pray in front of all this food.
To all my friends ... it's been a bumpy year, but you take the good with the bad, and the former usually outweighs the latter.
I'm still doing what I do best, though not very well;
I still am learning more from the farmers than they teach me;
Never take what little / excess you have for granted;
I miss you all so much;
And the best is yet to come;
Take care, Happy Holidays, and Godspeed in 2013
Danny & Carl
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