If you know me, you know how much I love cows, having grown up on a dairy farm and yada, yada, yada... So, I was in cow heaven yesterday when I took a tour of Heifer International’s dairy cow project in Mchinji district in the western part of Malawi. The staff at Heifer Malawi were kind enough to set up a very nice tour for me and two of my fellow Peace Corps volunteers, and I can’t begin to adequately express how impressed and inspired we were by what we saw.
See an entire photo album of the day here:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=196707&id=535098122&l=d58b84274d
For a quick summary, there were several things that really stuck out to me about the day. First, the quality of the cows that Heifer has provided to their project participants is, I think, remarkable. I spent many years judging dairy cows in the States, and I can tell you that these cows are as good as any cows on my family’s farm in North Carolina, and in a dairy show, they would stack up with the best. You would expect that cows sent to poor people in a third-world country would be second-rate, but these were top-notch. Heifer runs a classy operation. Secondly, I was amazed at the determination and drive of the Malawian participants in this project. They started their group, the Bua Milk Bulking Group, in 2005, with a vision of having a large project to bring milk cows into the area to provide nutrition and income for participants. For years, they applied for assistance and tried to find ways of making the dream a reality. Finally, last year, Heifer International decided to work with this group as its first project run out of the newly created Heifer Malawi office. The fact that they worked for four years toward a goal that must have seemed impossibly out of reach is a clear indicator of the passion and fortitude of these people. Now that the project has started, the participants are putting in countless hours to build pens, gather feed, and care for the animals. I’m inspired by the people I met yesterday and I hope that I can find that same drive in the people of my community.
You can support Heifer International at www.heifer.org.
I’m running out of computer time right now, but hope to tell you a little more about this project, and what I’m doing at my site, in the very near future.
Friday, August 6, 2010
Friday, July 2, 2010
Community Integration - How to Win Friends and Influence People in Malawi
Three of my neighbor’s children, Enita, Amosi and Richardi (ages 12, 10 & 6, approximately), came over to my house the other day to give me a school book to study Chichewa. They’d determined that my Chichewa wasn’t good enough for a Form 4 book (fourth grade), so they brought me a Form 1 book (first grade). They were right. I eagerly looked through the book that labeled pictures of everyday household items and animals, and had sentences like, “Galu amadya nyama,” or, “The dog eats meat.” We sat on my front porch as I admired the book and thanked them for bringing it, but after a few minutes, it became apparent they had no intention of leaving. What was I supposed to do with these three children just sitting on my porch? I asked them a few questions, like “what grade will you be starting in school in September,” and “did you play soccer today?” But soon, my Chichewa was exhausted and the kids just sat there chatting with each other and folding a piece of paper into various shapes. Finally, I decided that I had work to do, and I’d go ahead and do it whether they were there or not, so I went to the kitchen and got a big bowl full of peas that needed to be shelled and sat down next to them to shell the peas. To my delight, they immediately grabbed handfuls of peas and started helping me like it was their duty. I played some Malawian music on my iPod and speakers, and we all sat there working together and moving to the beat. After a while, the Malawian album finished, and I put on a Will Smith album, knowing that would have a good beat. The kids loved it, and little Richardi even got up and danced for us as we laughed and the kids joked. Once the peas were finished, the kids said they were going and left to start chores at their house. It was so much fun spending time with them, and it was nice to feel that they were accepting me as part of their community – someone they could just hang out with.
In the last few weeks, I’ve started meeting with individual villages to learn about what problems these small communities face and how they think I may be able to help them. There are 24 villages in the area I’m serving, so it’s a bit tedious to visit each one individually, but I think it’s important to get to know the villages better, and for them to know me and feel comfortable with me. I keep hearing the same needs over and over – start-up money for businesses or IGAs (Income Generating Activities), fertilizer for better crop production, and livestock to provide money and nutrition. I’m going to try to address all of these in my time here. For the businesses, I first want to do some trainings in basic business skills. I have an idea of doing a community lecture series, covering a different business topic each week. Anyone could come to the lectures, and at the end of the series, anyone who has attended most or all of the lectures, and who submits an appropriate business plan, would get a small grant or loan for start-up money. Of course, I’ll have to get funding for those grants, but they would be small amounts, so I think it’s possible. For the fertilizer, I don’t want to encourage synthetic fertilizers because they’re very expensive here, and simply providing them wouldn’t be sustainable. I think I’ll address that need by providing training in using compost and manure, and by teaching farmers to incorporate crop waste back into the soil. Right now, many farmers simply burn leftover corn stalks or bean vines after the crop is harvested. Perhaps they don’t realize that they’re burning up nutrients the soil could use. If they could turn that crop waste back under the soil, I think they’d dramatically improve their crop yields, without expensive synthetic fertilizers. But, that would require additional labor, and it’s hard to get people to change the way they’ve been doing things all their lives, so even though it seems like common sense to us, getting people to adopt this technique may take some work. For livestock, we’re going to address that need with the big projects I mentioned in my previous post, and maybe we’ll try some other smaller side projects in livestock as well. The local HIV/AIDS support group has decided it wants to do a dairy goat project, which makes me very happy. My not-so-secret personal desire is to get someone to do a dairy cow project, but so far that’s not on the agenda.
There are a few other needs that have been expressed, including extending a water tap to a couple villages so they won’t have to draw drinking water from the river, a new wheelchair for a disabled boy, and glasses for an older man who is very nearsighted. All of these are small projects and do-able – I just have to figure out the best way to address these needs. A lot of my job is simply finding resources that are available, and bringing them to the rural community.
One additional reason for holding the village meetings is to make sure everyone in the community knows my name and calls me by it. There’s a tendency here for children to see me walking by and start shouting, “Azungu! Azungu!” This is a generic term for a white person, and they shout it because they’re excited to see me, but my counterpart and I think it’s important that the children, and everyone else for that matter, know that I’m not just any azungu – I’m a member of their community, so they should call me by my name. Of course, now when I walk down the road, the children yell, “Say-la! Say-la!” They call me Say-la, because they have a really hard time pronouncing Sara as we would. I feel a bit like a celebrity here – everyone knows who I am and they’re really excited when I come around. It’s fun, but also means that I have to constantly be “on” when I leave the house. There’s no such thing as anonymity here in the villages.
Stay tuned – I’m hoping to have a video post for you next time! Fingers crossed that I can upload video on Malawi’s very slow Internet. Please leave any comments, questions, or suggestions for me, whether about the blog, my work, or anything else.
In the last few weeks, I’ve started meeting with individual villages to learn about what problems these small communities face and how they think I may be able to help them. There are 24 villages in the area I’m serving, so it’s a bit tedious to visit each one individually, but I think it’s important to get to know the villages better, and for them to know me and feel comfortable with me. I keep hearing the same needs over and over – start-up money for businesses or IGAs (Income Generating Activities), fertilizer for better crop production, and livestock to provide money and nutrition. I’m going to try to address all of these in my time here. For the businesses, I first want to do some trainings in basic business skills. I have an idea of doing a community lecture series, covering a different business topic each week. Anyone could come to the lectures, and at the end of the series, anyone who has attended most or all of the lectures, and who submits an appropriate business plan, would get a small grant or loan for start-up money. Of course, I’ll have to get funding for those grants, but they would be small amounts, so I think it’s possible. For the fertilizer, I don’t want to encourage synthetic fertilizers because they’re very expensive here, and simply providing them wouldn’t be sustainable. I think I’ll address that need by providing training in using compost and manure, and by teaching farmers to incorporate crop waste back into the soil. Right now, many farmers simply burn leftover corn stalks or bean vines after the crop is harvested. Perhaps they don’t realize that they’re burning up nutrients the soil could use. If they could turn that crop waste back under the soil, I think they’d dramatically improve their crop yields, without expensive synthetic fertilizers. But, that would require additional labor, and it’s hard to get people to change the way they’ve been doing things all their lives, so even though it seems like common sense to us, getting people to adopt this technique may take some work. For livestock, we’re going to address that need with the big projects I mentioned in my previous post, and maybe we’ll try some other smaller side projects in livestock as well. The local HIV/AIDS support group has decided it wants to do a dairy goat project, which makes me very happy. My not-so-secret personal desire is to get someone to do a dairy cow project, but so far that’s not on the agenda.
There are a few other needs that have been expressed, including extending a water tap to a couple villages so they won’t have to draw drinking water from the river, a new wheelchair for a disabled boy, and glasses for an older man who is very nearsighted. All of these are small projects and do-able – I just have to figure out the best way to address these needs. A lot of my job is simply finding resources that are available, and bringing them to the rural community.
One additional reason for holding the village meetings is to make sure everyone in the community knows my name and calls me by it. There’s a tendency here for children to see me walking by and start shouting, “Azungu! Azungu!” This is a generic term for a white person, and they shout it because they’re excited to see me, but my counterpart and I think it’s important that the children, and everyone else for that matter, know that I’m not just any azungu – I’m a member of their community, so they should call me by my name. Of course, now when I walk down the road, the children yell, “Say-la! Say-la!” They call me Say-la, because they have a really hard time pronouncing Sara as we would. I feel a bit like a celebrity here – everyone knows who I am and they’re really excited when I come around. It’s fun, but also means that I have to constantly be “on” when I leave the house. There’s no such thing as anonymity here in the villages.
Stay tuned – I’m hoping to have a video post for you next time! Fingers crossed that I can upload video on Malawi’s very slow Internet. Please leave any comments, questions, or suggestions for me, whether about the blog, my work, or anything else.
Sunday, June 6, 2010
Pictures!!!
I've finally uploaded pictures! Click the link below. You should be able to see them, even if you're not a Facebook member.
Photo Album on Facebook
Photo Album on Facebook
First Month at Site
My neighbors think I’m crazy. I don’t blame them – I give them plenty of good reasons to think it! Like earlier this week – it’s 5:30am, and I’m slowly walking down the road with a latex glove on one hand, a bucket in another, head sweeping slowly side to side. Every once in I while I bend over, pick something up to put in the bucket, and then keep going. When my neighbor asks me what’s in the bucket, I reply, “Manowa.” Yep. Manure. My garden soil is in desperate need of nutrients, and the cows and goats in the community leave these beautiful little gems of fertilizer right on the road! I figure, why let it go to waste? Of course, people here know about using manure to improve the soil, but they wouldn’t dream of picking it up off the road to use! In the States, you could just go to your local farmer and take all the manure you wanted, but here there are fewer animals, and they’re only confined at night, so there aren’t such large deposits of manure in animals pens. Plus, if I want to get manure from one of my farmer neighbors, I have to walk a long way over a hill to get it. So for now, I’ll do some small-scale gathering, early in the morning, when only a few people are out and about, so it doesn’t become a spectacle!
I’ve been at my site for just over a month now and am really enjoying it. There are some tough days when I feel lonely, but for the most part, it’s been fantastic and very busy. I’ve been spending a lot of time working in the garden. It’s a big garden and was neglected for about two months between the previous volunteer’s departure and my arrival, so the weeds have taken over. As I’ve pulled up the weeds, I’ve discovered wonderful surprises hiding underneath, such as pineapples, peanuts, and beans. My greatest discovery was the strawberries that I knew were there, but couldn’t find at first. Sadly, the berries are about the size of the end of my pinky finger, but they taste wonderful. I’m hoping with a little extra care and water, they’ll grow bigger and more plentiful. I have a ton of sweet potatoes that I’ll harvest in July, and tons of cassava, the traditional staple food plant of Malawi. I’m not too excited about the cassava, but look forward to making lots of sweet potato casseroles when the time comes! I think I’ll enjoy spending a lot of time in my garden in the next two years.
Here's a pic of my house, with part of the garden in the foreground. Sorry for the poor picture quality - I've been neglecting to take pictures, so snapped this quickly before I came to Lilongwe yesterday.
Speaking of food, I’ve been so pleased with what I’ve been able to cook here. I made tacos one night, including making tortillas from scratch. They were amazing! I managed to make a wonderful chocolate cake, practicing for a friend’s birthday party in August. And, I’ve had stir-fries with fresh veggies from the garden and egg and potato scrambles for breakfast. It’s been a lot of fun trying out new creations with whatever food is available in the area. Right now, there are a lot of lemons and avocados, so I’ve been having a lot of guacamole and lemonade! I also learned that you can make an amazing version of chocolate pudding by mixing mashed-up avocado, cocoa powder, and sugar. Try it – you’ll like it! I’ve also found that I actually like nsima now. I eat lunch with my counterpart’s family about once a week, and it’s nice to have nsima on such an infrequent basis. Every day is too much, but once a week, it becomes a comfort food.
As I mentioned, the first month at site has been busy. Besides getting the house and garden in order, I’ve been having three to four meetings each week with community groups and residents of the different villages in the area. In Malawi, small villages each have a Village Headman, or Chief, and then a number of villages get grouped together under a Group Village Headman. Then, a number of village groups get lumped together under a T.A., or Traditional Authority. In my area, there are four village groups, with four to eight villages in each group. I’ve decided to start my work with four major projects – one with each village group. I held meetings with each group and they decided what type of projects they wanted to try, based on what they thought would be most beneficial to the villages and most likely to succeed. Three of the village groups chose projects to raise pigs, and one group chose a beekeeping project. Stay tuned for details of those big projects as we start working on them. The big challenge will be to find funding, so we’ll be applying for grants from NGOs and other sources. After that, the big challenge will be to make the projects successful! I’ve been advised that many projects fail, but I’m optimistic that these will succeed. I’ll also be doing a number of smaller secondary projects with different groups such as an HIV/AIDS support group, a beekeeping group that funds orphan and elder care, and a women’s enterprise group. Already, the area has a number of projects going, including an impressive irrigation scheme and plans to grow macadamia and coffee trees as cash crops, and I may be able to help with some of these programs as well. There are so many ways I can get involved with the community, and I think they’ll keep me super busy!
I’m still working on overcoming a few challenges. First, I’m hoping to buy a Blackberry or other Internet-enabled phone while I’m visiting Lilongwe this weekend. I’m also hoping to buy, or at least research, a large solar panel and battery that would allow me to charge my computer at site. There’s really no way to charge it without biking 18 kilometers down the hill and back to Ntchisi, the district capital. Fingers crossed that I’ll get the power and Internet situations figured out in the next month or so, so I can communicate with you more often! There’s also a problem with transportation to and from my site. I can bike to Ntchisi, but it takes about an hour to get there, and three to four hours to get back up the hill carrying the goods I buy there. The other option is taking a matola, the big flat-bed trucks that carry goods and people. Unfortunately, this time of year the matolas are incredibly crowded with bales of tobacco and bags of beans, soya, peanuts, and potatoes, all going to market. Plus, they’re crowded with people who have money at harvest time, so they’re going to the market to buy goods. This makes the matolas dangerously overloaded, and not a fun way to get around. I’ve tried to avoid them as much as possible, but the few times I’ve had to take one, like to get to Lilongwe this weekend, I’ve climbed up and hung on for dear life, hoping I don’t fall off or that the matola doesn’t go tumbling over an embankment because it’s too top-heavy. The overloaded matola is the one thing I’ve found in Malawi that I have to say is uncivilized. I really can’t adequately explain my frustration with the danger and discomfort people have to endure just to get to their nearest market.
One other challenge – no mail. I’ve heard that apparently there was an anthrax outbreak in South Africa, so all the mail that came through South Africa to get to me in Malawi had to be sent back to the States because it might be contaminated with anthrax. This makes no sense, I know, but welcome to my world. As a result, I’ve so far received only two packages and eight letters since arriving here more than three months ago. Alas! I’m hopeful that everything you’ve sent will arrive some fine day.
That’s all for now. I hope to update you again in July. Please add any questions or comments you have here. I love reading them, and will be happy to respond as best I can in my next post. Tiwonana (See you later)!
P.S. - Check out http://www.ntchisi.com/to see the website for the tourist lodge that's about one kilometer up the road from my house. It has some good information about the area, and pictures! And, check out my new mailing address in the column to the right.
Also, here's a pic of me with my host family from training. From left to right - Lias, Heatherwick, Me, Jennifer, Jackson.
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