EWB Saskatchewan

Well friends, today is the day.

It's been a hectic few weeks, full of report writing and team meetings, but as of 1:15 p.m. I'm on my way home. I feel like I need to write something profound here, or share my biggest insights, or any number of other useful things, but I think instead I'll just talk about life in Malawi instead.

The following is a list of things I'll miss:

Garbage fires, goat herds, smoke, open-fire cooking, pirate-women, haggling, reckless travel, 10-hour nights, my families, singing trucks, repairing ANYTHING, soap ads, buying units, and going slow.

The following is a list of things I probably won't miss:

Rascism, Rastas, nsima, chibuku, afridust, azungu prices, gospel music, and a lack of toilet paper.

I'm sure I'm forgetting to add many things to these lists, but from my very hasty reflection, these are the first things. I hope you ask me about a few of these things when you see me next! Which could be as early as Saturday night, if you're my family!

Dreading the flight,

Mr. Kutemwa Kubeka Yayi

5.      The way everything is carried on people’s heads, no matter the size; from a cup of sugar, to a stack of coal taller than its carrier.

7.      Friends and strangers offering to share their food, right off their plate. A woman in my taxi this morning even offered me some of the stick she was chewing on. I politely declined.

9.      Holding my breath while I pass right by a butcher hacking away at a slab of meat on a hot sunny day in the market (and trying really hard not to get hit by a fly-away chunk).

10. Never being afraid of theft or exploitation because mostly everyone is honest, and people look out for one another. For example this afternoon  when I asked if the popcorn I was about to buy was fresh, the seller said, “No,it’s not.” He lost a sale but at least he was honest.

I want to take some time to talk about the outcomes from my work here. If anyone has been following the other volunteer blogs this summer (http://blogs.ewb.ca/world/index.php#page=1), you will likely have noticed that a lot of my fellow Junior Fellows have started the process of measuring their impact, evaluating their projects, and quantifying the change that they have made this summer. This got me thinking, ‘what exactly HAVE I accomplished this summer?’ I haven’t designed or implemented a project, per se, nor have I taught office skills, given workshops on facilitating, or any other number of things that other volunteers have been busy working on. So given that I haven’t been doing any of those typical JF things, I’ve been struggling to identify just what it is I’ve accomplished this summer. I know I’ve done something, but it hasn’t been very tangible. 

First of all, it’s important to understand what my capacity here was supposed to be from the start. As I said in my very first post, my task was one of field learning and information sharing. So what did that end up looking like? 

Well, the field learning was my time in Jenda. My two months there were spent getting an understanding of the day-to-day realities that influenced business. I spent time with farmers, fertilizer dealers, chemical dealers, extension workers, and everyone else in Jenda, it seemed. Information sharing is what’s going on now at the office. Basically, there are some long-term volunteers coming to pick up where Lucas and I left off in our learning, so we need to create a report to pass our learning. We also need to come up with some documents examining the business models we saw in the field, which will be used to compare versus other business models observed in Zambia and Ghana. Additionally, we’re developing a report on the status of CNFA / RUMARK’s various projects \ as observed from the field, and some sort of list of recommendations for AGRA, which EWB will use in the future to direct their messaging to donors. The final step (literally) in our placement is delivering a presentation on our learning to the entire EWB agriculture team the weekend before we fly out. 

So the impact that’s come out of my summer placement seems to be mostly internal. EWB will have more field knowledge, and CNFA will have a better picture of what their projects are achieving. From those two things, more people will be better equipped to achieve true change. We didn’t develop and implement field level programs that directly benefit people here in Malawi, but instead contributed to the learning that must take place before those programs can be properly implemented. I suspect that if you look at many of the other JF projects this summer, if they were at the implementation stage, they were operating in an environment that was ready for those programs. We were part of preparing that environment. 

I somehow feel like I’m trying to justify not having accomplished anything of value, but I think it would be much worse to have designed and implemented a shotgun program just for the sake of ‘creating change’. Without laying a proper foundation, a project isn’t likelihood to be enduring or sustainable. As such, I’m pleased with what we have contributed to the program, and I’m excited to stay involved and see where the project goes.

 

That’s it for now! In two weeks I’m on my home, and in under three I’ll be back in Bridge City, so anything I’ve been forgetting to tell you about – well, soon you can ask me in person! 

Holy Hannah and Heavens to Betsy!

In 3.5 weeks I'm back in Toon Town! And with the final day in the office being the 18th or 19th of August, we have a lot to do in a little time. In this blog I'm going to get right into what my work is these days, and talk a bit about my new home.

This our workspace at the CNFA / RUMARK office. We have taken over the meeting room, and as you can see, it quickly became as messy as my room in Canada. Some habits are hard to break, I guess. Perks of the office: Power, Wireless internet (BWAHHHHH?!), Running Water, Cheap Lunch, and Great Co-workers!

At current, I'm writing a summary report on the field learnings that Lucas, Victor, and I made during the past two months. This involves an analysis of successes, shortfalls, assumptions, and information gaps that we identified in CNFA programs. This report is going to be used as knowledge transfer within EWB, passing on the information to the long-term volunteers who will continue our work when we go home. The report will also be useful for CNFA as feedback on their programs, and could even be a starting point for making recomendations on program improvement.

We are also in the process of mapping out different business models that we have seen here, and analyzing the factors that influence their success. This involves a lot of flip-chart paper to visually represent what we're thinking, a lot of Openoffice Draw Flowcharts (yay!), and a lot of communication with other JF's working on similar projects in Zambia and Ghana. This process of looking at business models should help clarify some of the things that determine business effectiveness in Malawi, and from that we can hopefully see some places where CNFA programs could be implemented to improve businesses here. It might also help EWB unify its strategy across the Agriculture Sector, but that's a big MIGHT, and a story for another time.

For AGRA, the big donor that supports CNFA / RUMARK, we also need to write a report to share field-level learnings that are tough to communicate upwards through an organization. We have the luxary of having spent two months in the field, and so it is important that what we learned gets into the hands of people who can make decisions about where the programs go from here. It's exciting to be part of this process, and it will be very interesting to see how this develops from here.

That's work! Every day I leave my home in Chinsapo Village, walk the ten minutes to the tarmac road, catch a fifteen minute minibus ride into town, then walk another fifteen minutes to the office. I usually arrive here around 7:45 a.m., but I often pick up a loaf of bread on my way to work, which I can snack on throughout the day. For lunch, Lucas and I sometimes walk down the hill and get take-away from one of the few restaurants downtown, but more often than not we get Memo, which I will explain. Our office employs a security guard from the big private security firm here, Group 4 Security. Patrick (our guard) suplements his income by cooking nsima for the office. For only MK 100, we can get a good, hearty lunch of nsima, green veggies, and sometimes meat. I leave the office at 5:00 p.m., and make the same journey in reverse to get home.

This is my home in Chinsapo! No pictures from outside yet, but it's more or less what you expect: mud bricks plastered with mud, and a thatched roof. I love it though! When I get home, it's usually just coming dark (roughly 6:00), so I sit in the main house which belongs to Mr. Liwonde, and we talk or listen to the radio, or both. I like to go and help cook the nsima around 6:30, and we eat at around 7:00. My housemate Peter (Mr. Liwonde's brother) and I go to our house around 7:45. Peter and I spend every night talking by candlelight, while he teaches me how to make bicycle pumps. He has a room, there is a main room (pictured above with the chair), and I have my room (also pictured above). Around 9:00 p.m. we blow out the candles and I tuck in my bed net to protect against mosquitos and ants. 6:00 a.m. sharp we get up, sweep out the house, then sweep the dirt yard around our house. By 6:30 I'm bucket bathing, by 6:45 I'm eating sweet potatoes, boiled cassava, or occasionally bread (and always drinking tea - sugar, no milk). 7:00 I head for the tarmac, and I've already explained what transpires after that! That's my daily routine now, so let me tell one last story from yesterday, and then it's back to report writing.

Yesterday, I bought a live chicken at the Chinsapo Market when I got back from town. I brought it home and told them I wanted to learn how to cook it. Everyone thought that would be great, so Othelo (my sister) and our neighbour took on the task of showing me how. Of course, the first step of cooking a chicken, after buying it, is to kill it. We brought it around back of the house, and they showed me how to hold it (one foot on the wings, one foot on the feet, one hand around the head). They then handed me a knife, and looked expectant. I gestured to a spot on the neck, and asked, "Apa?" ('here?'). Othelo shook her head, pointed to a spot an inch lower on the neck and replied, "Apa". I'll spare the graphic account of what followed, but needless to say, I now know how to kill a chicken. After that we put it in a pot of hot water, pulled off the feathers, cut it into bits, fed the dogs the left-overs, and my host mom tells me that she bought, killed, and dressed a chicken that morning already. Aw, come on! So we took my chicken to the neighbours who have a fridge, and today I learn how to cook it. For the less faint-of-heart, you can e-mail me for some tips on the whole process.

One last interesting fact!

Google Malawi exists!

Take care, folks, and remember: If a car doesn't have a reverse, it still has MANUAL reverse! (Malawians think this joke is one of the funniest things you can say. In fact, saying that anything is 'manual' is a sure way to get a really great laugh)

Cheers,

Payton Banda (my Chichewa name)

I finally took the time to figure out how to re-size pictures to uploadable sizes! The hardest part is picking which photo should be the first one I upload... Wait, I got it!

Of course you wanted to see me! I want to see all of you too, but I have to wait four more weeks!

It's been two weeks since my last post, so this one will have a lot to say. July 18th was my last day in Jenda, which was fairly sad, but also fairly uneventful. Of course, I'm going to visit again before I leave for Canada, so that's when the real good-byes will have to be.

On the 2oth, with my buddies Keith and Lucas, I headed off for a one week, whirlwind tour of Zambia. We traveled all day, from 6:30 a.m. - 5:00 p.m., arriving dusty and exhausted, at South Luangwa National Park, where we got the last accommodations avaliable at Flatdogs Camp.

We settled into a 5-star Safari Tent, facing a dramatic sunset across the river. There were several monkeys about, but we crashed early after a nice azungu dinner - not nsima WHAAAAAAAA?! Next morning, we went for a Safari drive starting under a sunrise similiar to the above sunset, at the decent hour of 6:00 a.m. I can't share all the incredible pictures, but I'll post the one picture that stuck with me the most.

It was like the Great Valley from the Land Before Time movie series. Just breath taking! After the drive, we drive back and spent the night in Chipata, the nearest town. The next morning, we were on a bus at 4:30 a.m. to Lusaka, the capitol. At 4:50, every bus in the depot, full or empty, gunned it for the gate, and completely gridlocked the exit. After 10 minutes of miraculous navigating and suprising turning radii, our bus departed at 5:00 sharp, in suprising contrast to the 'wait-till-its-full' strategy in Malawi. The ride to Lusaka took 9 hours, and it was very suprising to see the differences from Malawi. Seeing large scale, irrigated, commercial farming was certainly suprising. In Lusaka, we ate at a Subway (bwaaaaah?!), then the three of us shared a bed in the cheapest backpackers lodge we could find.

Again, we headed to the depot at 5:00 a.m., but we didn't get a bus until 9:30! Gross. A 6 hour bus brought us to Livingstone, where we stayed in a very NICE backpackers lodge, and we went for nice italian food. Can you say azungu? We got up at 5:30 the next morning, and were waiting at the gate for them to unlock our way into the Victoria Falls park at 6:00. As the first three people in, we had a very unique experience at one of the most beautiful places in the world.

We stayed that night in the Zambezi Sun, a 3-star hotel that could have been anywhere in the world, but happened to be in Zambia. After that, we rode busses all the way back to Lilongwe.

So this turned out to just be a Vacation Update, since the office is closing now and I gotta get home to my new village! I promise, next week I'll tell you about my new home, my current work, and everything else you want to know! Gotta go!

Cheers,

Payt

I’ve cunningly avoided explaining the specifics of my placement so far haven’t I? To be quite honest, it took a fair bit of time for me to carve out my exact role. But now that I have, I’d like to share it with you.

I have what EWB calls a bit of an experimental placement. There are two main streams to my work; researching the tailors and fabric industry in Ghana, and researching the challenges of entrepreneurship (especially agricultural entrepreneurship). I’ve been given a lot of free reign to make this placement my own, which is both exciting and intimidating.  

 It all started because some past EWB long term volunteers have shown interest starting businesses to help out the clothing industry in Ghana. Clothes here are so much fun. Thousands of roadside shops are selling yards of fabric; some of which is made in Ghana and some of which is imported. The fabric is supplemented by thousands of roadside tailors and seamstresses who sew beautiful garments. I’m sure you can imagine how much fun it is to shop around for a fabric that you love and then to draw a picture of the outfit you want and find someone to sew it for your exact measurements. Now, the idea is that a lot of Canadians might also find this fun, so a large part of my placement is to learn about the feasibility of starting a business to support this industry in Ghana.  I’ve been preparing a small pilot project including a catalog of clothing samples to get an idea of what consumers are interested in buying, if anything. The biggest challenge is in working toward consistency in sizing and a high level of quality in the garments. In Ghana, if something isn’t fitting right you go to a tailor, whereas, in Canada, if something isn’t fitting right you don’t buy it. I’ve been working with some tailors and seamstresses to learn how to use patterns and standard sizing charts. Though it can be frustrating and intimidating to use patterns (especially due to illiteracy), the tailors and seamstresses have been so eager and happy to gain a new skill and further their knowledge in the trade.

The other half of my work is to learn about entrepreneurs in Ghana. I’ve been interviewing various people around the country about their thoughts about the challenges of entrepreneurship. Though there are so many people selling things, and trying to make small amounts of money, few are taking risks to be true entrepreneurs. A lack of access to capital lends itself to a society who is afraid to take financial and business risks. This lack of risk taking means people essentially copy their neighbors rather than innovating. For example, “Mohamed is selling cell phone minutes on Bolgatanga Road and he has been doing it for a while so he must be making money. I’ll also set up a kiosk there and make money”. This copycat environment lends itself to a highly competitive market, where everyone is trying to sell the same products. So what’s the root cause of this problem?  Okay well I haven’t exactly figured that out yet, and I think that even if I were here for 10 years I still wouldn’t. But I can tell you that I’m seeing firsthand the importance of not only education, but quality education.  Though I don’t remember ever learning directly about entrepreneurship before university, I was still being taught the core values, skills and attitudes needed to innovate and have success in business. Even as early as primary school we learn about estimation, problem solving, mathematics, public speaking, language skills, critical thinking and independent learning skills. Now I’m certainly nothing close to an expert on the Ghanaian school system, but it seems to be missing some of these aspects. In Ghana, school is often a memorize and regurgitate scenario, for those who are lucky enough to attend. I’m hoping to learn more about the way education plays into entrepreneurship in my last month here.  

I’ll leave you with a quote from my host Mom, Amina. Earlier this week there were some presenters in our village giving a talk (in Dagbani) about methods of protecting yourself agaisnt Malaria. People were asking questions in the crowd and talking and laughing. The presenters seemed a bit flustered and Amina seemed annoyed and embarrassed at what the local people were contributing, so I asked her what was going on. She told me “Villagers are not educated. I’m telling you, illiteracy is a disease.”

This one will be short and sweet! 

I had a tailor make me a shirt in traditional chitenje fabric, and it is completely bwanna! I’d post a picture, but with transfer rates in the range of 30 kbps, I would say Malawian internet isn’t even a series of tubes, but one single drinking straw. And you can’t fit pictures through a drinking straw. I apologize for obscure/nerdy references, but being completely severed from the culture in which ALL of my humor is based, I’m pretty thirsty for references. 

Today I interviewed four Agro-Dealers in Mzimba, the Boma for my district. I am told there are 20 CNFA trained Dealers here, but most are not actively dealing in chemicals. I talked to one internet entrepreneur (a gutsy move, as the preceding paragraph can attest to), and a metal fabricator, plus two active Agro-Dealers. I’m learning lots, but for now it’s still a lot like… let’s say pottery. I keep adding and adding to the clay (learning), so I know I have the material to make something pretty neat. The trick now is shaping it into something useful (reporting). 

Holy Hannah, at the rate that my blogs are becoming metaphorical, two weeks from now I’ll just post a picture of an avocado, captioned “Get it?”. 

Next week my buddy Keith and I are going to Zambia for six days. His passport visa expires on the 20^th, but if we come back before the 25^th, we have to pay to extend our visas again anyways. As such, we are making the most of our predicament and heading to the beautiful national park in southern Zambia. Stay tuned for pictures of me wrassling with a hippo. 

Alright folks, I’m realizing that this was mostly filler in a blog that was solely written to keep up the façade of weekly updates. Next week I’ll include some substance, I promise! 

Take care folks, and remember: If you keep telling people you don’t like fish, then the one time they cook REAL, DELICIOUS fish, they won’t cook any for you.