24 September 2007

The beat goes on

In Lusaka again, much to my chagrin. We went to Serenje immigration again and were told that I can extend for a long period of time by applying for a visitors' permit in Lusaka. Carrie was going through Lusaka anyway to go to a training in Chipata, so I tagged along. Got here yesterday evening, fell asleep at the guesthouse then went out for some spectacular Indian food. Today we went to Ministry of Health again for the letter only to find that the guy hadn't even gotten to it in the intervening weeks. After waiting around for several hours I finally got to meet him, only to have him explain that I would have to tackle the issue from the bottom up (the exact opposite of what the people at the bottom of the hierarchy pyramid have been telling me). So first I need the Clinical Officer of Mpelembe clinic to write an offer of employment to the Serenje district head. Then the district head has to write to the medical head of Central province. Then the provincial head has to write to the man I have just spoken to. Then he can approve it. Completely illogical, especially when heard from the mouth of the man who makes the final decision. So I decided to not try and extend my visa expiration, in the hopes that I can get this work permit ironed out by October 21st, thus saving myself 500,000 Kwacha.
Been traveling so much lately it's hard to keep track of what's going on. On the way back to Mpelembe from Serenje one day I nearly got stranded in Chalilo (30 km from Mpelembe). There I had my ear nearly talked off by a well meaning drunk guy. He wants Carrie and I to come to Chalilo to talk to people about how to improve their farming methods (saving seed, compost, etc.) and, he hoped, bring irrigation machinery?? Ha. Anyway, after stating all the points he wished us to discuss, he went on about how he must save his family name, all of the high status position he holds, and how he uses latex gloves to pick his tomotoes. The chief arrived at some point and was giving villagers some wood to burn. I couldn't meet him though, because all I had were some small oranges to offer and meeting him outside of his palace would have been a big social faux pas.
On the way back to Serenje from Mpelembe I was explaining to some people that paying for sex is a bad practice as one could easily catch HIV from prostitutes, when one 12th grader asked in a doubtful tone "is HIV real?". When informed that yes, in fact it was real, and no, you probably won't catch it from silverware, he said he heard that they put HIV on all of the condoms at the condom factory. I was pretty depressed and horrified at the idea of a rumor like that going around in a country where 1 in 5 people have HIV/AIDS. I tried to tell him that the rumor is untrue, and that if he is going to be having sex that he should be using a condom.
In the village all is well except for the Headman's daughter's insane screechings that went on for half an hour one night. When the Headman and his son came over to return a bike, they explained that she was "just washing her eyes - it's normal". The next day when we inquired again, the brother, Charles, provided an even more dubious explanation. She has a demon in her. Unfortunately they very much believe that this is the case. He went on to explain some angels' fall from grace according to the bible, and their present role in disturbing people. He cited how Peg sometimes "talks too much, like she's a little odd" and of course her late night eruption. Ultimately, I think it was a parent's disapproval of her biking alone to Chalilo (perhaps to visit a boy) that sparked the incident. Especially since she took off the next day to Chalilo. Charles also told us about witches and their lack of humanity; thus justifying actions like beating them or burning down their houses. It's a weird world.
We also had a guest from Austria stay over one night. Incidentally, also the same night as the shrieking. His name was Christian (which led to much confusion among the Zambians "so he's a christian?" and "so he's travling to Mansa to go to church?") and he was traveling through Southern Africa to see the sights after having gotten his Master's degree. Pretty cool guy. It was nice to play host to a weary traveler, no doubt chocking up some credits to our Karma account. We even made pancakes with our own chicken's eggs (they were delicious and fluffy, but reduced vanilla-cinnamon-sugar-water is no substitute for real maple syrup [add that to my package wish list!]).
As alluded to, our chickens are both laying eggs. More specifically at a rate of 1.02 eggs per day between the two of them. Usually small, creamy colored and sometimes speckled. We put (as neighbor lady insisted) a basket containing sand in the corner of the hen-house. They seem to like that. For a while they were laying at set times, now they lay randomly. Both chickens caught a cold, but have survived. A chicken with a cold is a pretty pathetic/hilarious thing. They sneeze and have a runny beak. Go on and try to imagine a chicken sneezing, you probably are right on the money. After seeing the neighbor's hen surrounded by a batallion of precious little chicks, we've decided to get yet another chicken, so that we can have enough eggs to eat and raise up some fluffballs of our own.
There was another huge fire started in the "forest" this time. I watched it with that glazed fascination humans have always regarded fire until it started getting too close to the neighbor's property. I quickly jumped into the flammable fray with my fire suppression tree branch in hand, but was unable to save the roof of their pit latrine. At this point the Headman came by, not to help, but to point out that he had told the Mumba family that the firebreak must be 10 meters from the house. The neighbors and I managed to stave off the flame's wrath from encroaching upon the cooking shelter, house, and mango tree fortunately. The chickens got a feast though, as grasshoppers and all other manner of insect were driven from the forest and into their gullets by the fire.
The new bed, or as Carrie calls it "[my] bed", in the garden is flourishing in its fully intercropped glory. Portuguese cabbage leaves as big as your head! Tomato plants growing as though they lived next to a nuclear reactor! Carrie attributes all of this permicultural plenitude to my frequent waterings. We'll see, since Peg is watering the garden at the moment instead of me (hope there are no incidents of demonic possession in the vicinity of the garden). The grasshoppers (as mentioned, newly driven by the blaze) are nibbling the cabbage leaves as fast as their little mandibles can move, but their efforts are overshadowed by the rate of leaf growth. I really have to get around to mulching things though, so that our persistent weeds are suppressed along with the rate of water loss from the soil.
It's hot season now. It gets really hot, even early in the morning, and doesn't cool off much until late into the night. (Sarah, Jamie, are you even reading this!?) Unfortunately this is only the beginning. Fortunately, hot season seems to bring a lot of wind and some cloud cover to Mpelembe. It also brought a brief sprinkle of rain - to which Carrie exclaimed "oh no, the Zambians are going to think it's the apocalypse".
I think I'll go to Chipata with Carrie. It'd be nice to see a new province and new town. Anyway that's all for now. Take care.

03 September 2007

Ubwafia Sana (Very Problem)

So unfortunately Carrie and I are back in Lusaka, where everything is 10x as expensive as the village and people aren't as nice. Although being able to eat Indian food and Pizza is nice I suppose.

The 'very problem' is that apparently a letter from the clinic at which I want to work along with my resume are no sufficient to apply for a work permit according the the hardass immigration officer of Serenje. And of course you can't volunteer without a work permit. His approach varies between detective "everything you say is being recorded so I will catch any contradictions you are making", helpful and dutiful Zambian official "you see these two flags on my desk; America and Zambia, we are one" (to which I replied "well if we are one then I don't even need a work permit, right?"), and highly educated bastard who likes to hear himself talk "you see this paper, this certifies that I have taken all of these courses, in your country. Now all you have is this paper, which anyone could type on a computer, it does not certify you" (his was no more official than a resume and could also have been typed on a computer by anyone). Basically we talked for maybe 4 hours, him nitpicking everything I had and every defense I used. He even accused me of trying to contravene Zambian law with a penalty of 1 million Kwacha (like $250) because I had gotten a visitors' visa though I wanted to volunteer. Finally, after making Carrie cry because he needed to expound upon something ridiculous and yelled at her for interrupting him in the middle of his monologue, he felt guilty enough to extend my visitors visa without penalty for another month. Just so I could gather the necessary documentation including a letter from the Ministry of Health in Lusaka offering me a position of employment. He says that everything is centralized in Zambia, so the offer must come from the very top of the Ministry, as opposed to from the people with whom I am actually going to be working with. Ugh, frustrating. I would understand if I was getting paid, but it's silly to go through all this rigmarole just to volunteer.

Carrie and I got to Lusaka yesterday, partially in a totally bwana fast and free ride with an accountant. This morning I went to the headquarters of the MOH and was told I need to type up a letter of my intentions. Luckily the nice people on the ground floor let me use one of their computers to do so. Tomorrow I will go back to find out if they agreed to write the letter or not. If not, I may have to leave and re-enter the country every 3 months and not be able to volunteer with the clinic legally. Or I might try and volunteer with the Neighborhood Health Committees in Mplembe, who don't have an astonishing hierarchy and bureaucracy to get a letter from.

On a lighter note, we got 2 chickens; Fireball and Pocahontas - who are fun to watch and feed but lay no eggs because they are too young (the villagers lied!). We might also get another one that will actually lay eggs now as opposed to 2 or 3 months from now. We build a really askew and unstable chicken house of of bamboo, natural fiber (for which I had to rip the bark off of the musamba tree), thatch, and sticks. It's on a really stable platform though. Sometimes the chickens (or kitchens as my headman likes to call them) follow me around because they want peanuts, and sometimes they run away from me when I try to capture them (they usually try to sleep over at the neighbors' house because they deem themselves subservient to the rooster next door [feminism hasn't caught on among humans nor chickens in Zambia, much to my dismay]). The best is disabling a giant locust and then watching the chickens try to choke it down. Anyway, needless to say they provide hours of entertainment.

The garden is surviving multiple attack from the mole or whatever it is. Sweet potatoes are nice because you can replant the half-eaten stems and they will try to grow the tubers all over again. Swiss chard and green bean are not so lucky. At least it's less water to carry I suppose. That's what we would call the proverbial silver lining of the insidious storm cloud of rodent destruction. Clinical Officer Kasolo claims he has a solution to all of our mole woes which he will reveal upon our return. We recently made a new bed permaculture style - with all of the vegetables and fruits all mixed up with eachother and little space between anything. Carrie doesn't think it's viable. I think it's going to be awesome. The mice will be so confused by the great variety of vegetation that they won't be able to even find the tomatoes to take bites out of! I think we need more compost though, because the soil is pretty poor. The chickens aren't pooping enough. The passionfruit plant is growing spectacularly. And most of the mango flowers on one of the trees has set fruit. Apparently all the fruits will be ripe in November or December. I have a feeling the banana tree will beat that because I have been sneaking it water.

I repaired my crappy bike so it's tolerably rideable. Carrie was away all week and it was rather lonely, though the neighbor kids tried to provide company by sitting on our back porch staring at me while I built the chicken house. Periodically the headman would come over to tell me how the chicken house is wrong and not strong. Zambians have a very set way of doing absolutely everything and put no stock in the idea that there is more than one solution for a given problem. Our neighbor, Iron Mumba, wanted to do the roof of the chicken house and the headman wanted to help build the stand, because they felt I was doing it wrong. I showed them that posts don't have to be as big around as one's leg when you used cross-bracing, and that even Muzungus can thatch a roof. I felt kinda bad about helping deforest Zambia with the saplings I harvested to build everything. But then I though about all of the waste and pollution that would be generated were I to build a chicken house in the U.S. and I felt better. I'd probably use lumber which was harvested far away and took a lot of energy to saw and ship around. Then I'd use nails and screws whose metal had been strip-mined from the earth, maybe coated in plastic which was derived from oil too. It's neat being in direct interaction with the earth. I think that's what I'm liking best about Zambia. In the villages, almost everything is done by hand, and all materials are directly from the environment around them. I wish our garden was good enough that we could grow all our own food, but maybe in time.

We got a beehive built (badly) in Serenje and set it up in the mango grove out back. No bees so far. I think either the entrance is too small or the top bars are too irregular and leave gaps that the bees find unacceptable. I think we'll get the carpenter in Mplembe to make new ones. Maybe the bees will be in there by the time we get back. Who knows.

The neighbors are always asking for food, which I usually grudgingly give them because we have so much more and their kids bellies stick out a bit too far. Fortunately (and unfortunately) they are setting up some fields behind their house for finger millet and sorghum. The unfortunately is because they chopped down a huge swath of trees which they are going to burn. The headman and I were especially upset about this huge mupundu tree they cut down. They are handsome trees and they produce tasty little fruits. Oh well, I guess it's good that they are moving towards self-sustenance. Anyway, I'm thinking we could help them set up a garden too, to grow some vegetables to go with all of their carbohydrate-providing staples. Give a person a fish feed them for a day...

My Bemba vocab hasn't increased much as things have been too busy for bemba lessons. I'm getting more comfortable with the language overall though. Oh! Maurice, the carpenter (who is a really stellar craftsman, Dad - you should see his doors, the wood here is so beautiful) speaks French alongside Bemba and some English. It was neat conversing in French, except I would always use awe and ee instead of non and oui by accident. You'd be proud of me Mom, I didn't screw up my French too much.

Nonna, thank you for your letter! I'm glad you liked Sicko and are so politically radical. I always knew I had the coolest grandmother.
Emilie, Foucault isn't too dry. Also, did you ever get my happy birthday text message? Big congratulations on getting a real job! I hope you like it and your new compartment.
Tony, I wait on tenterhooks for the 14 pounds of glory that is Molecular Biology of the Cell.
John, did you manage to get my account straightened out?

I hope everyone is in good health and trucking along just fine. Much love, Doug