Less than a month left

We’ve spent much of the past year reminiscing about the UK and making top ten lists of things we’re going to eat (mushrooms, Coop apple and cinnamon English muffins), see (Home and Away) and do (a proper pint at a proper pub.) We’re now counting down the last month in Zambia and it’s started to dawn on me that there actually might be things that I miss about Chipata.

Multi-cultural dinner parties. A couple of weeks ago, for instance, we shared the dining room with a young Indian volunteer who’s spent the last month spending literally heaps of Zambian Kwacha on phone calls home to his wife-to-be who he’s yet to meet. Next to him was Amanda, our English housemate and her parents who are in their mid-seventies but look little older than 55. Opposite me sat Denis, a Ugandan VSO who asked me to explain what ‘sleazy’ meant in between mouthfuls of lasagne. Stephen, sat to my right told us how in his clan back home in Uganda a couple must be able to recite five genealogical lineages to ensure that no ‘cross-breeding’ would occur. Alternatively, the President’s clan must marry their first cousin. And then there was me sniffling in the corner (I had a stinking cold) next to an exhausted Henry (he’d been running a conference since 07:30 that morning.)

Buying in-season veg fresh from the market, the tomatoes here taste amazing, really sweet and always a gorgeous scarlet colour which contrast to the oranges which, if not caught just at the right time are bitter and still green. I’ve definitely missed being able to get mushrooms, red peppers or courgettes all year round but there is something really satisfying knowing that you’re eating fruit that fell from a tree outside your living room window or veg that was grown in your neighbour’s garden. And we’re not even here long enough to see another mango season. Ahhhh!

Having the time to cook the fresh veg into something yummy. There’s not much to do in Chipata by means of evening entertainment so we’ve spent many a night trying out new recipes. I’m under no illusions that I will actually keep up this good habit back in the UK what with getting home after six and having Home and Away and the pub to tempt me away from the kitchen.

SarryAnna No matter where you go in Zambia there is always a gaggle of children ready to jump out from nowhere. In our neighbourhood the children are yet to tire of shouting ‘sarryanna, sarryanna, how are you, how are you, where’s Jimmy? Where’s Jimmy’ I definitely won’t miss the shouts of ‘Oi! Mzungu, give me money’ from the adult men but I won’t put up too much of a fight if the children try and jump into my suitcase.

Having our own personal tailor. I spent last Saturday morning rummaging through my wardrobe and throwing away most of the clothes I brought out with me (most of which are now stained orange from the dust). And my suitcase is now going to be a headache of bright colours from all the bits and bobs I’ve got made out of the local chitenge material. I really can’t tell whether it’ll look alright on a British high street but someone told me bright prints were in?

And of course Jimmy, but my mind was put to rest a little after we visited her new home. She’s going to be living with Franklin, Henry’s colleague who has a house with a court yard, complete with smiling kids and her best friend-to-be; Brucie the neighbours sloth like mut.

So this is it. We’re flying home on Thursday, September 27^th. Henry starts his new job on October 1^st in Lewes, near Brighton and I head for the job centre. Between now and then we’re heading up to Tanzania and Zanzibar to lap up the last bit of African sunshine before heading home just in time for the British Autumn. Great!

P.S. Sorry for the lack of photos but I think the dodgy electrics here fried my camera’s battery charger and I’ve only just got a new so fingers crossed for next time. See you all soon xx

Global Education

As part of the VSO deal, Youth for Development volunteers are expected to carry out a ‘Global Education Project’. Back in October 2006, I started my project at St Mary’s Primary School in Oxfordshire. Thanks to the lovely Mr Slatter, I got to ask the eight and nine year olds of Ash Class what they knew about Zambia and what they thought the lives of their peers living on the other side of the world might be like. At one point I gave the 8 year old pupils some photos of Zambian children to look at and asked them what was the same or different about these children compared to themselves. After a few moments of thought, one little boy stuck his hand in the air; ‘Zambian children all sit on the floor with their legs stretched out and in England we sit with our legs crossed.’ Throughout this lesson and the next this observation kept cropping up and it struck me that being told to sit cross legged on the floor during assemblies and story time is one of my strongest primary school memories. (Much to my secondary school teachers’ dismay, I found the habit hard to break and sat with my legs crossed even after I was deemed mature enough to sit on chairs in assembly.)

In contrast, Zambia is the land of straight legs. One of the veg markets in town is called the ‘ladies sitting with their legs stretched out’ market, (it does have a catchier Nyanja name that I can’t remember right now) our gardener bends from the waist to water the the plants and school children do indeed sit with their legs outstretched during story-time.

In many ways, the differences I’ve observed between children here in Zambia and those back home do boil down to things as trivial as the way they sit or the football team they support. But then, when a little Zambian kid tells me that the thing that makes him most happy is when his Daddy brings a cow home and they can drink fresh milk they suddenly seem worlds apart.

Attached to one of the organisations I work for is a community school. In Zambia, primary education is free up to Grade 7. I write free in italics because many families, despite not having to pay school fees, cannot afford to educate their children. It might be deemed rebellious in the UK to turn up to school wearing jeans instead of the standard black pleated trousers or ‘forgetting’ your tie but here a ten year old turning up to school without the same blue skirt and blouse her friends are wearing would automatically stand out as the ‘poor’ kid. A new uniform, including the right colour socks and shiny shoes would set you back 150,000 kwacha. We pay our gardener a wage equivalent to a yearly salary of 1,440,000 kwacha and he has four school-aged children to clothe, if he chose to send his children to one of the free government schools almost half his yearly income would be spent on their uniforms. On top of this, parents are also expected to equip their children with books and pens and it’s not uncommon for them to be asked to contribute when a roof springs a leak during the rains. Beyond Grade 7, a place in school costs K250,000 a year (not including uniforms).

Community schools that ask parents to contribute between 8000-15000 per term are th alternative. There are over 200 pupils at Chisomo’s community school. The class rooms are grass fences leant up against each other, creating a space little bigger than the size of a double bed or a straw mat under the open sky. The children sit with their legs stretched in front of them with their books on their laps and learn the English alphabet to the tune of Alde Lang Syne. This is where the Zambian side of my Global Ed Project takes place.

“Long time, long time….You have not been seen”

(A Zambian expression usually made by someone you see everyday meaning: “Hello, I haven’t seen you in a while. What have you been up to?”)

For the past two months we’ve been distracted by a few visitors hence the lengthy silence. I apologise.

Visitor No. 1

Hanna turned up unannounced on May 1st, my birthday! Bless her! She came bearing gifts, not one, not two but three jars of pesto, kirby grips, the latest edition of Marie Clare, bday pressies and cards and soap from the airport hotel! We spent the whole day – just as you should on your birthday – eating and drinking. We ate a picnic lunch on the only patch of grass you can find in central Lusaka –Adventure Land – Zambia’s answer to a theme park complete with a Ferris Wheel you manually wind to make it go round!

The following day we travelled back to Chipata where everyone begins calling Hanna ‘Sally-Anne’ – she’s a small, young, white female, she must be me (no one seemed to notice she’s got flaming red hair!) Showing Hanna around my Zambian life was great and in a strange way made everything seem a bit more normal. That was until I ran a session for some of my peer educators and they all start confessing their sins giving examples of when they’d changed their behaviour in the past. Now I know how a Catholic priest must feel during confession…‘I was once a thief’, ‘I played truant’ ‘I used to drink a lot of beer’ and ‘I used to think sex was good!’ After all, peer educators shouldn’t be angels – realistic role models with ‘reformed souls’ is much better. Hanna’s own confession ‘I don’t say “what” anymore, instead, I say “sorry” or “pardon”’ and my ‘I’ve stopped asking Henry if he’s okay coz he finds it irritating’ seemed a bit pathetic.

We zipped across to Malawi for the weekend and drank beer from chilled tankards made in the pottery on the beach and learned to play Bao, Malawi’s answer to draughts. Over the past couple of weeks the wind has picked up in this part of the world so we got to play in some decent sized waves but had to move the tent to the shelter of the car park in the middle of the night as we were in danger of being blown over to Mozambique.

Enter visitors 2, 3 and 4
The following Friday Henry set off to meet his mum, aunt and sister in Lusaka and Hanna and I followed behind missioning it all the way through to Livingstone on the Saturday. We crawled onto the 5am bus in Chipata, caught a connection in Lusaka and stumbled into Livingstone at 10pm. It was all worth it for the free can of pineapple juice complete with floating bits we got on the second coach!

The Falls are spectacular at this time of year – full to the brim after the rainy season. We saw some hippos and a baby croc on the Zambezi. Hanna and Laura (Henry’s sister) flung themselves off the Gorge and Hanna played at being Peter Pan on the flying fox zip wire.

Back in Lusaka we said goodbye to Hanna and jumped on the sixth 6am bus in little over two weeks back to Chipata. A couple of days later Henry and his family went off to South Luangwa national park in search of some leopards whilst I got to stay at home with Jimmy and no electricity!

Visitor No. 4, 5 and 6: Hannah Gibbs and the parents.
Hannah number 2 (my Zambian colleagues and Henry’s family now think that all my friends are called Hannah) had coincidentally been in Lusaka for work and luckily I was passing through to meet my parents.

Henry waved his family off as the four of us took long bus journey No. 8 to Livingstone for another dose of adrenalin.

It was really lovely spending a day catching up with Hannah, reminiscing about Zimbabwe and comparing notes on HIV, Malaria and marvelling at how little Lusaka has to offer compared to Harare despite the troubles.

Visitor No. 7, Cousin (or sister according to Zambian family structures) Lucy
Lucy arrived in Lilongwe, Malawi on June 1st. The following morning she was greeted with a freak two hour down pour just as we were gearing up for a day of sunbathing. The rainy season in Malawi is supposed to finish in March! After swimming on horse back, a crash course in pot making, a couple of African braais, two lionesses with three tiny cubs, a Zambian pop concert, four long, tedious bus journeys, explaining repeatedly that two condoms are not better than one, lengthy theological discussions, a new wardrobe of chitenge outfits and a run in with an immigration office she’s now safely back in the UK and we’re once again home alone.

Filling in the gaps

I realise I haven’t written for a while and I’m not sure whether it’s because nothing much has happened or that I’ve just been feeling lazy. Actually, I’ve tried to upload some photos a few times but connections have been a bit slow recently – something to do with the end of the rainy season?!?

Anyway, here’s a quick round-up of what we’ve been up to over the past month or so (hopefully accompanied by photos but sorry if it hasn’t worked and you’ve just got a boring chunk of text to read).

A couple of weeks ago we were back in the medium-sized smoke (Lusaka) as I had to attend a HIV/AIDS sector workshop. I won’t bore you with the details but lets just say I’m glad that we weren’t paying!

Besides the workshop, Lusaka was good fun. Our trip coincided with a festival celebrating francophone Africa and finally after five months Henry finally got to see why I first fell in love with Africa…live music! Ba Cisekko was amazing. He’s a chora player from Guinea, West Africa. The drums looked like a giant, electronic hot cross bun and the drummer spent the entire show in a trance with his head cocked to one side, staring into the wings but was amazing. My thighs and back were aching for days afterwards from two hours non-stop dancing.

We had a go at recreating some of the rhythms the following night muscling in on the Lusaka based volunteers’ drumming lessons. There were no electronic hot crossed buns to practice on but the pots and pans were a good substitute. (Dan and Hannah – Luther would’ve been proud!)

Back in Chipata, Jimmy’s doubled in size and she’s still doing shark impressions which are a little more convincing now that her teeth have grown. The list of things she’s chewed up is growing – my sunglasses, Henry’s new sandals, a bracelet, my Birkenstocks, the arm of my cardigan and the VSO Zambia newsletter! The only thing she doesn’t seem to want to chew is the toy rope that we bought for that specific purpose. She is petrified of it – and doesn’t understand when we tell her it’s not a snake!

The rainy season’s all but finished which is great as my skirts will stay clean for more than one day. The sun is still scorching though and we’re told that the ‘windy’ season is fast approaching complete with mini-whirlwinds. I’m not feeling too confident about staying on my bike during a gale! Just in the past week I’ve managed to crash into a big bolder and provide morning entertainment for half of Chipata by wobbling off my bike during rush hour (pedestrian and bicycle traffic jams not motorised vehicles).

As for work, I’ve been feeling a bit stuck and de-motivated recently but I’m not going to launch into another rant – I’ll only wind myself into a tizzy and bore you some more.

Looking forward to the next couple of months is keeping me going. This weekend we’re off to chill out on the beach at Lake Malawi, next week we’re in Lusaka for our 6 month call-back workshop, 6 month anniversary party, another drumming lesson and probably a trip or two to the cinema. The first week of May we’re hoping to make it to Zimbabwe for the Harare International Festival of Arts, May 11th Henry’s family arrive and my parents fly in a couple of weeks later. Things will have quietened down by the end of June but that leaves us with only three full months of work! And before we know it Shoprite will be playing Christmas tunes and we’ll be on a plane home.

Not that I’m feeling homesick or anything!

Feeling Positive

My last blog mentioned in the title that I’d started to see some action at work but I forgot to elaborate. Basically, doing some activities at N’cwala ceremony seems to have sparked motivation in the peer educators and I’ve been trying to keep up with them ever since.

It’s become difficult to work in the Tikondane offices because the group are always hanging around eager for something to do. You have to bear in mind that this was the group that only a month ago had gone from my favourite to bottom of the pile as they were failing to turn up outside of pay day. In the last two weeks they’ve done more activities than in the entire four months I’ve been here. I’m feeling so positive that I’m willing to put in writing that I think it’ll continue like this for a while. We’ve just been given a bit of money to play with from funds left over following the depreciation of the Zambian Kwacha last year and another VSO, Amanda, has arrived to work for the consortium as a ‘Resource Mobiliser’.

My favourite activity of the past week has to be watching Tikondane Youth perform a ‘skit’ (drama) on the theme of alcohol abuse and STIs. Thirteen of us plus four drums piled into the nine seater Land Rover and swayed our way down the hill to Referendum, a compound just outside of town. I was a little nervous as the group had chosen to perform outside a bar full of young men downing cartons of ‘Chibuku’ or ‘Shake Shake’ the locally brewed toxic milky mush that, according to its own marketing is ‘found in established and questionable joints everywhere.’ Despite the location, their story of a school boy influenced by his alcoholic father who gets drunk, has unprotected sex, passes an STI to a friend and gets expelled went down a storm. They even managed to get some questionnaires filled in that I’d introduced as part of my less exciting role as the nagging monitoring and evaluation geek. We’ll have to do a bit of a rethink as many identified the main message as ‘school boys shouldn’t involve themselves with alcohol and drugs’ – which is ok but absolves the out-of-school youth (majority of the audience) of any need to change their behaviour.


There’s been a problem with getting the peers to turn up on a regular basis at Chisomo. However, things have picked up since the end of last month when, at the insistence of the more dedicated group members, we cut allowances for non-attendance. It was one of the toughest things I’ve had to do here. We introduced a policy of deducting from allowances during the first month or so after I arrived but it hadn’t really been implemented. Cecelia, Chisomo’s Behaviour Change Coordinator who I work alongside, found it really hard sticking to her guns when faced with excuses such as ‘I was at a funeral for the whole week’ or ‘I had to take my dog to the hospital.’ (That’s probably a little harsh, but so often attending your next door neighbour’s, gardener’s, daughter-in-law’s, uncle’s funeral is used as an excuse to be absent at work for a few days. And, I had a little cold last week and everyone without fail decided they were a doctor, diagnosed me with Flu, asked me what medication I was on and if I’d been to the clinic.) Still, sitting behind a desk withholding what, to many of the volunteers is their only source of income, I felt like Scrooge at Christmas and could see why Cecelia had found it so difficult. The money goes straight back into the, normally empty, youth project pot which is great especially as a big room has just been cleared for us to begin setting up a youth-led resource centre. Don’t ask me how you set up a resource centre without any resources, but that’s next weeks problem!

The group at Chisomo have finally reached the conclusion that drama is not really the right tool for what they want to do which is great because their strength lies in acting as themselves. A number of the girls have babies, when I first arrived I thought that this was a bit of a contradiction – they were preaching abstinence and safe sex with a baby clinging to their back. However, I’ve come to realise that young people here (just like the UK) won’t respond to angelic, holier than thou role models that are as far removed from reality as Inspector Gadget. Annie Zulu is HIV positive and has just had a little baby boy who is negative and if she continues to follow all the PMTCT (prevention of mother to child transmission) precautions he should stay that way. Young expectant mothers and young women are much more likely to listen to her reflecting on her own situation and follow her good example, get tested and protect their future children or learn from her mistakes and protect themselves.

Instead of drama, Chisomo youth have been out and about in their target zones conducting one-on-one discussions with their peers. The weekly ‘Go Round’ (courtesy of P&P) during our meeting finally served its purpose when they spoke of the challenges their peers had presented them with and gave each other sound advice on possible solutions. Hurrah!

As for KK, I’m going to forget about the past week when the peer educators all but told me they wanted to quit. They claimed the manager was getting them to do lots of the leg work and pocketing the proceeds. And that they couldn’t type up their articles for their youth magazine because they got dirty looks every time they used the office computer that usually sits idle. A couple of hours before the manager told me that the youths had been spreading rumours about her stealing donor money and that she had half a mind to ask the coordinator (who is unpaid) to leave. This feud has been going on for a while and my previous attempts to open some channels of communication between the two warring factions have been unsuccessful. I arranged to meet with the manager on Friday to agree setting aside a time when the peers could use the office computers and reinstate monthly project update meetings – she called in sick!

…but I’m not thinking about last week! The one before that was much more positive. The peer educators had collected ‘To the Editor’ letters from local secondary school students and we decided to use them as the basis for the first edition of the KK Youth Magazine. I’m hoping that this will be a good way of showing that we are truly youth-led and that the magazine will reflect issues important to young people in Chipata and then we’ll have donors lining up to support us…here’s hoping. We’re responding to letters about masturbation, rape and child defilement, corruption, education, smoking, prostitution among other things. You’ll all be pleased to know we’re including a short step-by-step guide about how to use a condom correctly and attaching a condom discreetly to the inside cover of the Mag.

And to top it all off Amanda, a new VSO volunteer has arrived to join the Chipata crew. And she’s great, really positive, upbeat and the icing on the cake is that she’s an experienced fundraiser and her job for the next two years is to get us some money!

N’cwala Ceremony and starting to see some action

Last Saturday, Feb 24th, was the N’cwala ceremony, the annual gathering of the Ngoni tribe. To be honest I’m not entirely sure what the official purpose of the gathering is but it’s something to do with the tribal leaders and Ngoni people paying tribute to their paramount chief and welcoming the end of the rainy season. The latter is a little redundant nowadays as the rainy season has got later and later in recent years and therefore the rains don’t stop until late March at the earliest.

As if to prove the point the heavens opened as we were travelling to the site 40klm outside of Chipata. This wouldn’t have been too much of a problem had we not been sat in the back of a flatbed truck with no roof. Most of us managed to stay dry by huddling under the gazebo roof we used on our stall and putting up out brollies. Needless to say out umbrellas are no longer waterproof.

The site as we arrived reminded me of Glastonbury 1998, unfortunately there was no pyramid stage or Tony Bennett but everyone was knee deep in mud. It also became obvious quite quickly that rather than fulfilling their tribal responsibilities many people seemed to be there for the party, enjoying the little sachets of purple liquid which as far as I could work out were something close to pure alcohol.

I, on the other hand, was working. Along with the peer educators, we’d jumped in a flatbed truck early in the morning (still over an hour later than scheduled) ready to teach anyone who was ready to listen the delights of condom use, being faithful, abstinence, VCT (voluntary counselling and testing) and the dangers of drug and alcohol abuse. Unfortunately, the latter went out the window when two of the coordinators got drunk, some role models they turned out to be!

That aside, I was really impressed with the peer educators energy and enthusiasm. They genuinely seemed to believe that what they were doing was making a difference and when one came up to me to ask if I’d noticed if anyone was offering VCT on site because they had a young girl who was ready to go for an HIV test, I had to agree. In fact, the whole day renewed my faith in what it is I’ve been recruited to do here. Our stall was inundated with young men whose faces betrayed the fact that they’d never really seen, let alone used a condom before. We carried out over 50 condom demonstrations and distributed 300, we would have given away a lot more had we not run out. Despite the interest during the one2one discussions most people stated that they didn’t trust condoms because they aren’t 100% safe. The ‘abstinence only’ camp choose to ignore the fact that 98 times out of 100 using a condom correctly will prevent the transmission of STIs including HIV and unwanted pregnancies. I suspect as a result, many young people when they do (almost inevitably) become sexually active, write condoms off as an effective means of prevention. Sex, without a condom even within marriage is most definitely not 100% safe especially in a place where the HIV infection rate is over 25% and monogamous relationships are rare.

We didn’t get to see any of the ceremony which I’m not too sad about as the paramount chief drinks the fresh blood of a bull killed during the finale. I was most impressed by a couple of lads we know who watch our bikes outside the supermarket back in Chipata. They’d walked 40klm that morning to sell scones and ‘softies’ at the festival and were at outside Shoprite the following day bounding about all smiles

Introducing Jimmy!

A couple of weeks ago a little boy from a few houses away turned up at our gate with a skinny little three month old puppy with a gammy leg. Some big doses of TLC and a couple of trips to the vet later and she’s a crazy little pup that growls when she wants attention, has tried to eat 1000 Kwacha notes, whilst refusing to chew her dog bone and gets so excited when we come home or wake up in the morning that she pees herself…wonderful!

Anyway here’s some pictures of the crazy little might as promised.

P.S we named her before checking what sex she was!

Wonderful weekends

During our first month or two in Chipata I thought that weekends were going to be pretty boring. I was worried we’d have a bit too much time to contemplate what we were missing from home. But, with work getting more and more frustrating our sleepy Chipata and our ‘empty’ weekends are turning out to be exactly what the doctor ordered.

This weekend was no exception.

We were in bed on Friday night by 8:30, we’d had a ‘late’ night (11 o’clock) on Thursday after pie and mash at Richard’s. So I was wide awake at 6am Saturday morning. After our weekend habit of dippy eggs and toasted soldiers I finished the last few chapters of my book: ‘As used on the famous Nelson Mandela’ written by the comedian Mark Thomas. It is a very funny but bleak condemnation of the international arms trade. Well worth the read.

There’s been a break in the rains this past week which is great for using our solar heated shower bag. We’re still waiting for the landlord to fit a hot water tank – I’ve got a feeling we shouldn’t hold our breath.

One thing I won’t miss about living in Chipata is having to do all our washing by hand. I thought I was being sensible when I packed a cream linen skirt, a couple of white shirts and numerous white vests. Nope, my linen skirt has permanent browny-red spots from the mud flicking up when I’m cycling through puddles and my white tops are now a grubby shade of orange. To make matters worse Zambians, no matter how poor, are always immaculately dressed. Anyway, this weekend we made the most of the sunshine and spent a couple of hours standing over the laundry bucket.

Saturday early afternoon Henry (a colleague of Henry’s) popped round for a sarnie and interestingly asked me what I knew about anorexia. Interesting because the desirable body image here is definitely not super-model thin. Instead, women are admired for their curvacious hips and bottoms and ironically whilst Brits spend too much time on sun beds and fake tans many girls here spend too much money on skin lightening cream.

Saturday afternoon we thought we’d check out the swimming pool that belongs to a campsite just up the road from us. We’re weren’t sure whether it was open to the public but tourists are scarce this time of year so we thought we’d try our luck. We turned off the main road when we saw a sign for the campsite and continued for about 1 ¾ klms up a dirt track at which point we thought we must have misread the sign and turned back. Back at the main road the sign pointing up the dirt track read ‘Campsite 2klm’ Damn it! We turned round and cycled, for the third time, past the perplexed faces of some young girls doing their laundry in a stream and an old white-bearded white man driving a tractor. We reached the campsite only to find out that it is not usually open to sweaty members of the public after all Zambia’s Vice-President had stayed there last night. Off we set back down the 2klm long dirt track passing whispers of ‘crazy muzungus’ as we went.

Thankfully, there’s another, more welcoming, lodge fifteen minutes up the road that does allow smelly volunteers into their pool. (And this one played host to the President of Zambia last year!) A game of frisbee, a quick dip and a plate of delicious homemade chips later we’d forgotten all about the eight klm round trip we’d taken to get there. The cycle back was a bit of an uphill struggle but I quickly stopped my moaning when we passed a man carrying huge sacks of charcoal on the back of his bike. This prompted Henry to write his long awaited blog about climate change.
Saturday evening we were invited for dinner at Alok’s, a VSO volunteer from Indian and as you can imagine the food was superb. He’d told us the week before when I’d served him up my lame attempt at lasagne that he couldn’t cook – I think he was just being kind. Sat round the dinner table were Malcolm and Elaine – self confessed ‘golden gappers’ VSOs who’ve taken early retirement to share skills and change lives, Denis a volunteer from Uganda, Alok from India and the slightly less exotic Henry and I. The conversation was almost as diverse as our backgrounds ranging from the problem of population growth in developing countries to church bell ringing.

Sunday was a little less exciting. Cornflakes and toast for brekkie, a chapter or two of my new book (cheers Ann) and another round of laundry. We took a stroll around about where we live. If you walk to the end of our street you reach what looks like waste land and feel like you’re deep in the bush but if you look a little closer every spare square inch is covered in tall stalks of maize and banana trees.

We’ve just got back from tea and Christmas cake at Malcolm and Elaines. The Christmas cake turned up in a package that was posted in the UK on October 16th! And now I’m sitting on the veranda waiting eagerly for dinner of nutroast, roast potatoes and gravy courtesy of Master Chef McLaughlin. All seems rather British!

Third of the way through...

…not that I’m counting but it’s definitely time for another rant.

So what do I have to show for the past four months?

One of the first things I decided to do when I arrived at my placement was a baseline survey/needs assessment kind-of-thing. It was obvious that the peer educators had huge potential but they lacked focus. They choose the activities that they think are most effective and deliver the same old messages. Before I could argue that these were outdated and weren’t based on what was actually happening in their communities I figured I needed some evidence. I also needed to get the coordinators thinking about how they could evaluate the effectiveness of their programme activities beyond counting the amount of people who were watching their drama performance. So…two months behind schedule the results are finally in and some are pretty interesting.

We asked over 150 young people aged between 15 and 26 what were the most important issues that affect them and their friends. Many gave answers that you’d expect from any teenager no matter what continent they lived on, things like ‘lack of good friends,’ ‘boys/girls,’ ‘peer pressure’ and ‘lack of recreational facilities’. But, overwhelmingly (and thankfully in support of our projects) issues related to HIV and sexual health came out on top. Other popular answers reminded me that we’re working in one of the world’s poorest countries, things like unemployment, prostitution, inability to pay education fees, early or forced marriages, lack of adequate shelter, water sanitation and medication.

But, some of the answers had us in fits of giggles. One question on the survey asked ‘Do you feel you need to gain more knowledge and skills? If so, what?’ One respondent answered ‘I want to be a Kapenta.’ Kapenta are small, really really smelly, dried fish that are sold by the cup load on the side of the road. I only hope he meant that he wanted to be a Carpenter.

Another survey asked bar owners ‘Is there any educational literature in the bar?’ One person answered ‘No’ but to the follow-up question ‘In what language is the literature?’ they answered ‘Nyanja’. The same questionnaire stated that the bar employed no staff but in answer to ‘Who will attend the bar workers training course?’ the respondent answered ‘the bar owner and the bar worker’ – utterly confusing.

Almost everybody could give three ways in which HIV is transmitted confirming that ten-or-so years of awareness raising campaigns has been partly successful but the challenge now is to turn this knowledge into a permanent shift in attitudes and sustained behaviour change. Over 75% of the young people asked admitted that they were sexually active, little more than 50% had used a condom and less than half had been for VCT (Voluntary Counselling and Testing). What this now means is that I have my ammunition – young people in Chipata ARE having sex, promoting abstinence is important and has its place but condoms and other prevention methods must be part of the solution.

Since Christmas, I’ve largely been working to develop project plans for each of the groups I work with based on the results of these surveys. This has meant having to explain what the difference between an aim or goal and an objective is over and over – each time I launch into an explanation I manage to confuse myself a little more. After narrowing down the objectives from a possible twenty or so to four or five, we’ve been thinking of activities that will help us to achieve them and have been setting some measurable targets. Now, everyone has agreed to the programme plans, knows what the activities and targets are, but still someone tells me ‘next week we want to go to a school in x to talk about y.’ Now, this would be fine if it wasn’t for the fact that ‘x’ is usually not in our agreed catchment area and ‘y’ does not fit into our agreed objectives ..arrggghhhhhhhh!

Now if this kind of thing happened with one organisation then I think I could take a step back, breath deeply and calmly explain where it’s gone wrong. But it happens with ALL THREE of the organisations time and time again. I could understand it if I’d gone ahead and planned the projects without their input and fallen foul of the ‘know-it-all Westerner syndrome’ but all I did was put what we’d decided together into legible English. …I’m half way to giving up.

No…that’s not true I’m no where near giving up but am ever-so-slightly frustrated (ok, very frustrated) but determined to get everything running half way to smoothly before my time is up. The biggest thing in my way seems to be working for three organisations at once. I can’t do anything to the standard I want, or support the coordinators as much as is necessary. I decide every other day that I want to stop working with one and concentrate on the other but those I choose to stick with are never consistent day to day. More positively, if I’ve had a rough day at one place there’ll be something good happening the next day at another.

I’m sending off my first funding applications this week. The programmes still have no money in the budget apart from the measly volunteer allowances and I hope that some decent equipment and money for transport, photocopying etc. will make all the difference.

Having said that one group have completely baffled me. From October to January they were my star group, always turning up to meetings, eager for something to do, enthusiastically carrying out any task I set them. But in January their donors released some funds for their allowances (these had been frozen at the beginning of last year because someone had emptied the organisations bank accounts into their own pockets). Since then the numbers who have been turning up to meetings and activities has halved. Where’s the logic in that? They worked really, really hard when they were getting absolutely nothing and then when there’s money up for grabs half of them disappear.

Have I already mentioned I’m a little confused?

Zambia - some random thoughts

Since arriving in Zambia over three months ago, Henry and I have had endless conversations and more than one disagreement over whether there really is any hope for Zambia? Henry sees things more positively than me, perhaps because poverty in Africa is less visible than he’d imagined. We’ve mulled this question over with each other, with other VSOs and with our Zambian colleagues – and every time I get a little more confused and a little less certain of which direction Zambia is headed.

Of course, if Zambia didn’t face quite a few challenges we wouldn’t be here and it wouldn’t be ranked 165th out of 177 on the Human Development Index but just as there are many cracks below the surface in Britain, you don’t have to look too far in Zambia to feel optimistic.

Last week, one of the organisations I’m working for got some money in the bank for the first time in almost a year and started to pay its volunteers three months’ worth of allowances. A mistake was made, and one girl, who had been volunteering for only one month, got the full amount. As far as I can tell it was an honest mistake, a pretty significant one, but honest nonetheless. The manager hit the roof. Saying that, if permanent members of staff were dishonest, what hope was there for the future? She sent the coordinator off to chase after the money, saying that if it wasn’t returned she would deduct it from his (the person who made the mistake’s) wages. The money was returned, everyone was paid the rightful amount and we all went back to work.

Contrast this with another organisation we’re aware of that, before Christmas, received some funding and now, only weeks later it’s emerged that about an eighth can’t be accounted for. The manager’s response when asked went something like; ‘it wasn’t me, I haven’t touched it.’

My point is that in a country where corruption (or “Chiphuphu” as they say in Chipata) is so endemic it was really encouraging and even heart-warming to see a Managing Director so outraged by the slightest hint of wrongdoing.

Corruption, as frustrating and upsetting as it is, at some times seems understandable. If the wages you’re paid aren’t enough for you to buy lunch then why not bump up your transport cost claims just a little. It happens in the UK. Unfortunately, those in a position to add a little extra to their allowances are those who have already risen to a position of power. And to be able to rise to a powerful position you first have to know the right people. I asked a well qualified peer educator why he couldn’t get a job and he said he didn’t have ‘the right face’. What he meant was it didn’t matter how many certificates you had, or how much voluntary work you’d done if your uncle wasn’t on the managing committee or your cousin hadn’t put a good word in for you, you stood no chance.

On top of this there are very few jobs for young people to apply for. Henry works with a group of young people who have all finished secondary school and a large handful of them will have passed their grade 12 certificate with flying colours no doubt. But they struggle to get jobs or rather there aren’t many jobs for them to apply for. Many of the peer educator’s I work with have piles of certificates bearing their names in counselling, in peer education, in basic health care, in treatment adherence but still they scrape a living by collecting minimal volunteer allowances from as many different NGOs as they can. Henry tries to convince me that things aren’t so grim, Zambia’s economy is growing at a rate of 5% which means there has to be some more jobs out there somewhere, this week we heard that a couple of young men we know have interviews with local businesses. I don’t doubt that things ARE improving slowly but what do all the unemployed young people do in the meantime, job centres and the dole don’t exist here. And the only recreational activity that doesn’t involve spending non-existent money or drinking excessive amounts of Castle lager is going to church. And for all the good the church does it has a lot to answer for here – but I won’t get started on my condom rant again!.

Although the extended family seems a burden in many circumstances without it, many more Zambians would be left out in the cold. Beatrice, a nurse at Chisomo, is looking after her granddaughter after her own three children passed away. Yoko has been providing for his two siblings and niece ever since his parents passed away when he was in Grade 10. Since becoming a double orphan Henry has lived with his aunt and granddad. I doubt that there are many households in Chipata that don’t look something like this. But, as depressing as this may seem the support of the extended family in a country with a life expectancy of 37 is surely something positive.

Other traditions are less welcome. When a woman is widowed, it is believed that she must be ‘cleansed’. This basically means that a member of her husband’s family – usually the older brother, must have sex with her to free his spirit. When a colleague’s daughter found herself in this situation she refused to return to her home near her in-laws for fear of the sexual cleansing ritual and of being treated like a slave. After all it is still expected that the groom pay a high price for his bride as if buying a piece of property. On the night of her husband’s funeral she was sleeping next to her own mother when her mother-in-law asked to be with her. As she walked into where her mother-in-law was sleeping the pillow she carried was snatched away from her and she was met with cries of ‘my son is lying cold in stone how dare you sleep comfortably tonight!’ Needless to say that she is now living safely with her own mother but many other women aren’t so lucky.

If there was one thing that I think would really make a difference in Zambia it would be for gender norms to shift. And perhaps coming a close second would be for people to start challenging authority. I don’t mean for there to be a revolution and for people to riot on the streets but just for people to speak up when they disagree with something. Last week I was in a meeting with a lady from one of the bigger international agencies working with youth in Chipata, this organisation has a reputation for making a lot of promises but delivering very little. However, I was on my own when it came to asking questions. After she had left, everyone else let rip. Their undeserved respect for an older lady in what appears to be a position of authority zipped their mouths shut in her presence. Zambians are really proud of their peaceful history, unfortunately passive might be a better way to describe the present.

But, on another positive note, obesity, one of the developed world’s worst habits is all but non-existent in Zambia. The abundance of fresh fruit and veg, that hasn’t had to conform to some supermarket stipulated size and colour is one of my favourite things about living in Africa. Lemons are naturally green it seems and apparently you don’t get avocados all year round!?! Unfortunately, it doesn’t translate that Zambian diets are particularly nutritious. Most people – even those that can afford a more varied diet – seem to prefer to eat Nshima (mealie meal) for at least two meals a day. If I remember rightly, Nshima can only offer 25% of a child’s daily nutritional needs.

Another, more positive reason for people looking fit is the amount of exercise people do. Many walk miles every day. Our gardener, for instance, walks for an hour and a half to our house three times a week. I’ve told him time and again that he needn’t get up so early to be at work for 7am, that he can start later but he seems to think nothing of it and knocks on our gate bang on seven without fail. Before Christmas we ordered a double bed for one of the spare rooms from a carpenter in town. We said we’d pay for a flat bed truck to transport it home, instead they insisted there was no need and that they would carry it the 4 miles to our house. We thought they wouldn’t turn up as the day they were due to deliver it, it was pouring down but a soaking wet bed accompanied by four drenched Zambians arrived on our doorstep, no complaints. Henry’s been inspired to start a carbon neutral home removals business that uses only bicycles back in the UK. Unfortunately, I doubt whether it will work back home but it definitely would here.

I could go on and on about the rows of craters that were once roads in Chipata, or the hospital without an X-ray machine, or the family of seventeen living in a house with no roof across the street but I’m in danger of creating a really pessimistic picture of a place that just doesn’t feel so grim. You hardly ever hear a child cry here and I can probably count on one hand the number of times I’ve been asked for money in the street.

And the most heart warming thing ever happened to me early last week. It was a little wet on the cycle home, I hit a bump and not-so-gracefully came tumbling off my bike. If that wasn’t bad enough somehow, during the fall my toe had got trapped in my front wheel. No matter how much I tried I couldn’t pull it free. No worries, the lady I was swerving to miss when I hit the bump ran over to try and yank it free whilst one man lifted the bike off the road (with the toe still attached) and another dragged me free of on-coming traffic. Teamwork, community spirit and coming to the silly muzungu woman on a bike’s rescue are definitely a tick in Zambia’s favour.

'Twas the season to be jolly...

The traffic lights in the centre of town haven’t worked since mid-November so there was little hope for bright lights in the shape of the latest Disney flick this Christmas. Luckily, Shoprite sells red and green crepe paper so we got to work on some homemade decorations – making paper snowmen and Santa in his winter togs when it’s approaching 35degrees outside did seem a little strange, but I suppose twenty-four years of chilly Christmases can’t be forgotten that easily. Anyway, the local Shoprite had been playing ‘I’m dreaming of a White Christmas’ since early November!


We decided to stay in Chipata for Christmas and see how the locals celebrate. Unfortunately, it seems there is little Christmas tradition practiced in Chipata outside of going to Church – each time I asked someone what they had planned they replied that they had little money spare to spend on lavish celebrations. However, I did definitely notice a growth in the number of semi-live chickens slung over people’s shoulders and fully grown goats strapped to the back of bicycles, on their way to the Christmas dinner table no doubt.


Christmas day turned out to be surprisingly ordinary. We had a couple of other volunteers staying with us. David cracked open his first bottle of beer at 9:30am and got stuck into a Lord of the Rings board game. Dennis turned up with a bottle of brandy in tow. We managed to rustle up a feast of nut roast, roast potatoes, mashed butternut squash (experiment gone wrong – don’t try it), honey roasted veggies, roast chicken, the sickliest chocolate cake ever and mince meat strudel (we could only find puff pastry) complete with Christmas crackers, paper hats and bad jokes. We played cards on the veranda for a while, ate more cake, Henry and Dave had a ‘discussion’ about politics.


A couple of days after Christmas Izzi, a VSO working in Namibia and her friend Joost came to pick us up on their way to Livingstone. They were on the return leg of a mammoth trip across South-central Africa from Windhoek in Namibia, through Zambia to Lake Malawi. Check out Izzi’s blog at www.isabelleinnamibia.wordpress.com.


Despite my rubbish attempts at avoiding potholes we made it to Lusaka safely. We hadn’t been west out of Chipata since arriving back in October and the landscape has completely changed. A few weeks of rain and the brown has turned to green, the dry river is now full and the skeleton twigs are now fully grown trees, beautiful.


When I arrived in Lusaka almost three months ago it seemed small, uninspiring, a little dirty and under-developed in comparison to Harare (no matter how much I try not to, I often find myself comparing Zambia to Zimbabwe). However, after living in Chipata, Lusaka really felt like the BIG bright city. We headed straight for the cinema to see the new (is it still ‘new’?) James Bond movie, which was pretty good. If anyone took a shine to the baddie with the weepy eye check out ‘Open Hearts’ a Danish film Henry and I stumbled across a few weeks ago. Rubbish title but quite thought provoking!


Besides going an hour in the wrong direction, which is almost impossible in Zambia where most major roads run straight out of the capital and have very few turn offs, we arrived in Livingstone a few nights before New Year’s Eve.


Zambia’s Southern Province appears more developed than the Eastern. Most of the towns we drove through were smaller than Chipata but had real concrete pavements and tarmac roads. I’m guessing the reason is that most of the towns benefited from the (now barely used) railway that runs down from Lusaka to Livingstone.

Livingstone was great fun, we met up with another ten or so volunteers who’d travelled from all across Southern Africa. Despite his lack of appetite for adrenaline sports Henry convinced himself to jump 53m into a gorge attached only to me and a giant swing and surprised himself by actually enjoying it.


Livingstone is Zambia’s gateway to Victoria Falls. From the Zambian side you can stand on top of the falls just at the edge before the water begins to fall. We also clambered down to the ‘boiling point’ which is where all the rafting begins just at the foot of the falls. Wearing only flipflops, we weren’t really prepared for scrambling over rocks but made it to the bottom no problems. Just as we turned to climb back up we got a fright as a metre in front of us stood a massive daddy baboon. Thankfully, by the time we’d finished panicking and scrabbling about for a stone to throw he’d disappeared. Henry only decided to tell me when we’d made it safely to the top that baboons are known to attack females and that the giant worm I’d seen on the walk down was actually a small snake….shudder!!!


On New Year’s Eve we saw a family of hippos and a crocodile from the safety of a sunset cruise and spent the rest of the evening becoming quite merry on the waterfront. And now after two days of coach journeys Zambian style (a 6hr journey took 11hours!) we're back in Chipata.

Peer Educator Training Course

Last Friday I heaved a long sigh of relief as a training course that I’d organised for the peer educators came to an end. Looking back it was pretty successful but first I’ll have a little rant…

We kicked off on Tuesday morning behind schedule as expected but by 10am fifty peer educators were crammed into a hall no bigger than the average British classroom. My first task was to explain that there wouldn’t be any ‘sitting allowances’, lunch or handouts provided. Kwacha Kum’mawa had asked if I would arrange a refresher course a couple of weeks ago and asked if it could start within the following two weeks. I made it clear from the beginning that there’s no money whatsoever for such an event therefore we’d do it over five mornings so that the participants could go home for lunch. I repeated a number of times that there would be no handouts, no t-shirts or caps and they would have to provide their own pens and paper. Through gritted teeth they agreed that they wanted the training anyway.

So, you can imagine my disappointment when, on the first morning, I ask the participants to write down their expectations of the course and at least 75% of them write ‘t-shirts’ ‘sitting allowance’ ‘lunch’ or something to that effect.

It seems that lots of money is spent on workshops in Zambia. In fact, more time and energy is spent going to training courses than actually putting into practice whatever it is that is learnt. And the norm seems to be to provide all the above and more. I told the peer educators that if they had come along to the course to get lunch or money then they were in the wrong place and should leave …unsurprisingly no one moved a muscle.

Day one got off to a good start but descended into a fairly heated debate when I asked them whether they agreed or disagreed with a few controversial statements such as ‘you should not have sex before marriage’ and ‘HIV positive people should not be allowed to use public swimming baths’. My heart sank when a majority of the participants agreed with the statement ‘women who carry condoms are cheap and easy’. It sank further when I asked if they agreed that ‘men who carried condoms are cheap and easy’ and most shifted to the other corner of the room to signify their disagreement. Holding back my disapproval, I asked them to justify their opinions, to which they began their answers, ‘well, you have to understand here in Zambia…’ followed by statements such as ‘men make the decisions’ and ‘contraception is a man’s responsibility’.

It didn’t take long to realise that my assumption that peer educators would automatically challenge such beliefs was completely naïve and that if I voiced my disagreement it would be met with cries of ‘but things are different in Britain.’ So after the first day I went home feeling pretty disillusioned; many of the so-called peer educators were not the shining role models I’d assumed.

At this point I should add that many of them are brilliant, intelligent, enthusiastic and motivated young people who believe truly in challenging gender stereotypes, shout loudly about the benefits of condom use and work their socks off for little or no reward. And I think after four days of thrashing out their ideas with each other more and more can be included in this category.

The Programme Manager from Tikondane, who’s a nurse by profession, facilitated most of day two on the subject of STIs. And if the pictures of horrendous STI symptoms don’t put the peers off of having unprotected sex nothing will!

I’d dedicated much of day three to what is slowly becoming my favourite topic of conversation – condoms. During feedback on what are the advantages, disadvantages and myths about using both a male or female condom I took the chance to challenge their beliefs about those who carry condoms. I asked if we could add ‘all women who carry condoms are cheap and easy’ to the myths list, to which there were no objections. Now, I’m utterly baffled, have they all changed their minds in under 48hours and the training course is having a real impact? Or perhaps I’d scared them into submission or maybe they were all playing devil’s advocate on day one? Either way, I got my statement up on the myths board and told them that I thought women who carry condoms are intelligent, sensible and strong individuals. That’s got to be a good start. I’ve just finished reading all the evaluation forms and ‘knowing how to use a condom’ came top of the things that they had learnt during the workshop…result!

On the final day I handed the floor over to the coordinators from Kwacha and Tikondane who got all the boys drawing the female reproductive organs and the girls doing the opposite. Thank God I was allowed to sit out of this one; the boys could name parts of my own body that I never knew existed – utter shame!

And just in case any of you need a brilliant energiser to kick start a boring office meeting try this with your colleagues.
- Ask everyone to think of a company motto such as ‘Sainsbury’s….making life taste better’ or ‘Nike…just do it!’
- Now ask someone stand in the centre of the group and replace the company name with ‘under my pants…’
- The sentences should go something like this ‘under my pants…making life taste better’ or ‘Bostik…the wonder product with 101 uses’.

It’s a great way to break down barriers!

Giant swimming pools, sunburn and synchronised sickness!

Last weekend we finally left Chipata and tagged along with some other volunteers who were driving over to Lake Malawi. We pitched a tent literally three metres from the beach and next door to the cocktail bar (think Tom Cruise in ‘Cocktail’). We couldn’t believe our luck – all for £2 a night.

We were awake by 6:30 the first morning and jumped straight into what felt like the biggest swimming pool on earth, the Lake was completely calm, clear and warm even at that time in the morning.

The rest of the weekend went pretty much as you’d expect, more swimming, lots of reading and frisbee and I stupidly managed to turn a lovely shade of pink. We did manage to horrify our companions at the all-you-can-eat breakfast on the last morning. We just couldn’t resist trying the fresh fruit, muesli, omelette (made while you wait), scotch pancakes, Danish pastries…needless to say we didn’t need lunch!

Back in Chipata, it felt like we’d been away for weeks but the feeling quickly subsided when we both ended up at the doctor mid-week. There was no receptionist at the doctor’s surgery, we just took up our place in the queue and waited for our turn. No one called when it was our turn, instead every few minutes or so the ladies at the front of the queue would peak into the ‘Consultant’s Room’ to see if the doctor was finished with the previous patient. Our turn came and we met Dr. Mutali complete with a smoking rolly between his lips, brilliant! He was pretty good despite first impressions and sent us almost immediately into the next room for a blood slide to test for Malaria. Thankfully, despite all the hungry mosquitoes, we’re both still Malaria free but I think we’ll be taking care to wash our hands more carefully before dinner from now on.

On top of being ill my week’s been pretty tough. I’ve been trying to organise a training course for the peer educators from all three organisations. This has proved to be a bit of a challenge – writing 20 hours of participatory workshops (in a participatory way), finding a venue for fifty people, scraping about for spare flipcharts, pens etc. all with a budget of zero and the course was due to start on Monday (its starting on Tuesday!). I’ll let you know how it goes….

However, to end on a positive note, Friday afternoon we got a game of frisbee going with some of the peer educators. Hopefully it’s going to become a weekly fixture – there’s absolutely nothing for young people to do in Chipata. Reminiscent of the trip to Navatika a few weeks back there were more under 10s spectating than there were people playing. It seems to be the case here – that what ever you try and do there will always be a gaggle of children gathering to stare.

Condoms at last!

I was a little apprehensive about starting work with the third organisation I’m supposed to be attached to. There seems to be so much to keep me busy with each of the other two on their own but I was really excited when I turned up to Kwacha Kum’mawa and noticed boxes of condoms strewn across the office. Finally, a youth education project with a realistic grip on the situation.

I was even more excited when I accompanied a group of peer educators to Navatika (literally meaning ‘poverty’), a high density compound just north of town and they brought a wooden penis along for the show. Not a moment too soon I got to witness a much-needed condom demonstration. My only concern was that the guy doing the demo was wearing latex gloves…I’m not sure we got taught that one in sex ed lessons back in the UK? I asked around to find out why he was wearing them and someone mentioned he didn’t want to get the lubricant over his hands, another said people should wear gloves in case of sores on their hands which may make them vulnerable to HIV transmission. I’m yet to find out which it was but I find it hard to believe that young people are having sex whilst wearing gloves!

Still, it was obvious from the amount of children that had turned up to see the educational video we were showing in the middle of the market place that birth control, let alone HIV prevention, is in short supply.

Actually I couldn’t believe the number of children there must have been five or ten for every adult. I’m not sure why I was so surprised, apparently 50% of the population in Chipata are under 20. Unfortunately though, it did mean that the majority of the audience for our hard-hitting video about a family living with HIV, were under five years old. Apparently mothers can’t watch any remotely suggestive videos when their children are present. And in a place where many women are mothers by the time they are twenty, our messages didn’t quite make it to the intended target group. Having said that the peer educators did manage to distribute about 200 condoms and if only ten percent of them get used the trip was worth it.

Just in case you thought we were starving...

If you thought we’d be eating Nshima (a hard porridge made from maize eaten for breakfast, lunch and dinner here in Zambia and much of Southern and East Africa) and tomato relish everyday for a year you’d be pretty mistaken. I’m definitely surprising myself by my new found fondness of the kitchen. Before coming to Zambia my baking habits just about stretched to carrot cake, banana cake and some pretty poor attempts at veggie lasagne. This past week alone I’ve managed to add pawpaw scones, home baked pita bread, pizza (from scratch i.e. no ready made base), tomato and mushroom stuffed aubergine, home baked chapattis and scotch pancakes to my repertoire. Henry’s become the master of the chip pan since creating some really tasty sweet potato chips and home made curried nut burgers and his banana cake went down a treat at last weekend’s party.

I was so excited last Saturday when I saw avocados in the market for the first time since we arrived. No…that’s not quite right I spotted some one day last week but the lady selling them told me I couldn’t have one until the next day. Some smarty pants later pointed out to me that she was probably saying that they wouldn’t be ripe until tomorrow not that I couldn’t take one home! Note to self – must hurry up and learn chiNyanja!

The market is one of my favourite things about Chipata. Every stall has at least tomatoes, onions and one or another variety of spinach stacked high. But there are so many hidden gems, huge aubergines, piles of bright green chillies, and every kind of bean you can imagine. I tried making hummus with one type the week before last but decided to use peanut butter in place of Tahini – it just didn’t taste the same! Mushrooms are a little scarce at the minute but we’re told that as the rainy season kicks in massive ones, as big as dinner plates, will start appearing at the market. Never thought I’d say this but hurry on the rain!

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!

Funny kind of motorbike!

After all the hullabaloo of carrying a motorbike helmet on the plane over here it’s been most useful in propping the door to our wardrobe open (it’s really scary if we close the door as you never know what creepy crawly will be waiting to jump put at you!). Apparently there’s no money in the kitty to give me a bike with an engine so I’m making do with a engine-less, gear-less, helmet-less pushbike!

I was quite pleased when Maurice from the VSO office told me there was no money in the kitty for a motorbike, what he failed to mention was that the cycle into town is a good half an hour up hill (no gears on the bike remember) on the road equivalent to Briatin's M1! On top of that the three organisations I’m working for are spaced out across town – and some of the target areas where I’m supposed to be doing outreach are a few miles in the opposite direction.

But hey, no one else at work has a motorbike. Some of the volunteer community caregivers are retired professionals and are probably well into their sixties. They walk miles every week to visit their patients at home so a pushbike is a privilege. Anyway at least there’s no chance of me getting too podgy despite the amount of peanut butter and bread I’m eating!

The use of pushbikes here is unbelievable. I went to order a couple of beds for our spare rooms the other day and asked the carpenter if he had means to deliver them. He said he could get them to us for about a quid – I asked how and he said on the back of a bicycle!!! I’ll have to get some photos but people carry charcoal piled at least one storey high, water containers and baskets hang off at all sorts of angles. There are bike taxis that carry up to three passengers on the pannier rack – these bikes have no gears and the drivers look no bigger than Henry at his skinniest I’ve no idea where they get their strength! The funniest but saddest thing I’ve seen is a goat strapped onto the bike rack more than likely on its way to the stew pot. How on earth the rider managed to get it tied on without losing an eye or two I don’t know! There’s also a huge contradiction between rackety old bikes and big shiny, gas guzzling 4 by 4s…you rarely see anything in-between.

Starting work...

I’ve spent the past week trying to get to grips with what it is I‘ve been employed to do here. My official job title is Peer Education Coordinator, working with behaviour change programmes attached to two home based care organisations – Chisomo and Tikondane (the offices in the picture). In addition, I’m told I’ll be working with Kwacha Ku’mawa another organisation concentrating on peer education but more media focused.

It seems that my role will be to inject some new energy into the peer education projects. Many of the peer educators and staff at these organisations are slowly running out of steam – as dedicated and enthusiastic as they are – many haven’t been paid for months but continue to turn up and work for free.

At the moment the behaviour change programmes use dance, drama, sport and peer-to-peer counselling to get across their messages on HIV prevention, care and treatment, the stigmatisation of people living with HIV, child abuse and the promotion of gender equality. The problem here appears to be that people know about HIV, and how the virus is transmitted but people are slow to change their behaviour.

I’ve been disappointed to learn that the HIV prevention messages in Chipata focus largely, or even solely, on promoting abstinence rather than safe sex. Whenever I tentatively begin to challenge such an approach staff at one of the organisations just repeat ‘but we’re a faith-based organisation.’ There could be a steep hill ahead! Abstinence only programmes just aren’t working. I spent one morning last week at an antenatal clinic in one of the poorest areas in Chipata – the number of young, single mothers-to-be there just helps to prove my point.

It’s not all so bad though, the peer educators seem really open to new ideas, in fact one group in particular seem to think I have all the answers to their problems – they even said I’m here to show them the way forward! I’ve had to repeat a few times that I’m a volunteer and not a funder.

So to sum up it seems that I’ll be wearing a few different hats over the next year, fundraiser, drama coach, peer educator, project development officer, facilitator, boat shaker, trouble maker!….