One month down...eleven to go!

It's hard to believe that we've been here a twelfth of our stay already, this last month really has flown by, which can only mean things are going well. We've been feeling really positive this past week in particular. Here's a 'little' run down of our last week.


Monday night we played host to our first dinner guests; Matthew and Kristin, a young Canadian couple who are here for another volunteering with a missionary. Despite me throwing a little pre-dinner nerves wobbly about not having enough vegetables in the cupboard Henry's curry went down a treat. And we're off hiking up Kanjala (hungry) hill with them this Friday afternoon, they've assured me that its unlikely we'll come across any snakes. We've had enough run-ins with exotic wildlife this week.


A couple of nights ago I heard a high pitched screech coming from the bedroom, a second later a paler than usual Henry comes running into the living room claiming to have seen the biggest spider this side of Timbuktu. Unfortunately he wasn't exaggerating. Mr Hitler (we've been naming the resident bugs in the hope that it makes them less scary), was as big as my hand. We zapped him with DOOM bugspray only to have to stand on the sofa for the next hour whilst he ran around with anger or delirium. We're telling ourselves that he disappeared into a little nook and curled up to die but I'm still taking extra caution when opening any cupboard doors!


The next morning we woke to find Lieutenant Pointy Snout swimming in the toilet. Pointy Snout was the resident mouse that we'd seen a week or so earlier scurrying about the kitchen. We tried flushing the loo and that didn't work, so we left him for the morning thinking he'd tire himself out and drown. Four hours later the little blighter was still treading water but thankfully some of Henry's colleagues were round for a workshop. One of the boys solved the problem, fished Pointy Snout out, popped him in his pocket and told us he'd enjoy spit roasted mouse for dinner! At least there's no chance of him reappearing. My natural vegetarian compassion seems to have gone out the window! I've made it sound as if our house is crawling with creatures but its really not that bad.


My employers were visited by a UK based grant-making trust on Tuesday and were awarded funds for a new programme entitled 'Chipata after Dark.' The project is designed to empower commercial sex workers to protect themselves against HIV, seek health advice and ultimately gain skills in income generating activities which will allow them to earn a living by means other than sex work.


In preparation for the donor's visit I was asked to organise a survey of a sample of local bars, the results were pretty upsetting but unfortunately not unexpected. The peer educators counted over 45 bars in only three small areas of town almost all of which had CSWs present, some as young as 12 years old. The reasons for such high numbers are numerous; poverty, the breakdown of traditional extended family support structures, food insecurity, gender inequalities, the impact of HIV & AIDS, the effect of being a border town on the main route between two capital cities...the list is endless. The need for such a project is obvious so working on it in its first year should be quite exciting. (The photo is of Tikondane peer educators showing the funders a drama sketch they'd prepared.)

Thursday was a bit of a turning point for me with one of the organisations I'm working for. I managed to convince the Zambian I'm working alongside that I'm not able to work miracles and magic money out of thin air, or single handedly design the entire peer education programmes from scratch. I've also started to overcome the problem of getting inaccurate answers to my many questions. It seems people have been telling me what they think I want to hear rather than what the reality actually is. For example, I've been asking if certain documents exist – like do peer educators sign any sort of code of conduct – and for the first week or so everyone kept saying they did even though no one had ever seen them let alone signed one. But Thursday's meeting was great because we sat down and chatted through everything I could think of to do with the peer education programme (or lack of it) and made a LONG list of things to go onto OUR action plan.

Most people work half day on Fridays. Last week my morning was filled by a meeting with a big international NGO (I'll omit their name just in case I upset someone rich and powerful!) The meeting started an hour late as many of the young people attending had walked 10klm to get there. The lady chairing the meeting decided to leave just before everyone eventually arrived to 'nip' to the pharmacy. When the meeting did finally start I proceeded to make my first enemy in Zambian. There's a lot of confusion about how this particular NGO fits into youth activities in Chipata so I thought as an newly arrived outsider I'd have nothing to lose by asking some probing questions like - why won't they promote condom use as part of an HIV prevention strategy? Apparently young people in Zambia don't know how to use condoms properly therefore it's too risky for them to try and use them, the idea of teaching people how to use them properly doesn't seem to have crossed their minds! Ahhhgggg I was fuming especially as I'm yet to hear any more encouraging messages from any HIV prevention projects in the area.. However not all is lost, I took one of the male peer educators aside after the meeting and we agreed that by the end of my time in Zambia every young person in Chipata will know how to use a condom, standing on their heads with their eyes closed.


Despite the mouse and spider fiasco we had a pretty good weekend. We went to a party Saturday night for all Eastern province volunteers. It got off to a great start when the power cut out on our way just at the moment when Roger, another VSO, had put his visa card into an ATM – hard to believe the timing! The party was pretty tame although we did get home after midnight which is an achievement in itself as we've been in bed by 09:30 every night so far.

And now I'm writing this on Sunday evening, we've done all our washing - by hand in the bath tub, ironed all our clothes to avoid the pusey flies (spelling?), played a bit of frisbee with the cute kids that hang around our front gate, had scrambled egg on toast and drunk endless cups of tea. Great!