Result of procrastination

Ok, so clearly I am bad at keeping up with this. I really haven't had a substantial blog post since I got to site, so I will try to make up for it now.

OK, so my village, Mwamba, is about 350 people strong. As compared to guinea, where my village was over 2000 this one is tiny. Rural Zambia is like this. It is really a lot more rural then Guinea, yet there are more organizations mostly due to a stronger government and many more NGO's. Anyways, although the village is small, I am actually responsible for this and the thirteen surrounding villages that make up the catchment area.

My village has a relativly nice clinic that lacks a full staff. Right now there is a cleaner and a part time high school graduate... Oh boy. We also have a school that has about half of the necessary teachers. Both the headmaster of the school and the person heading the clinic seen very motivated, which is great.

I will give a brief history of what i know of the volunteers that lived here before me. It will help to see my current situation in context.

The first volunteer i know about was a fish farming volunteer some eleven years ago. They teach how to make little man-made fish ponds that are a great way to make money. He started a fish farming cooperative that is now by far the most successful group in Mwamba. I say their budget and they are doing great!

More recently there was a health volunteer, like me, named lisa. She was, by all accounts a super volunteer. She trained a ton of health care workers, built a pre-school, and formed some strong relationships among other things. She would have been a fantastic example.

Now here is the kicker... The volunteer just before me was also a health volunteer but was almost exactly the opposite of what PC volunteers should be. He was in the village for only two weeks before he left but his legacy is just incredible. Before he even got to the village he knew what if wanted to do. First mistake. We are literally only supposed to observe for 3 months so we really understand the problems. Then he, in his infinite wisdom decided to create a fire house and a gym where kids can do physical education twice a day... Ok, sounds wholesome, but consider where i am... We are in the middle of the bush.

You would need to stop the water or find the nearest river to get water from. Then you have to lug it to the house that is on fire. The houses are made of grass roofs. Unless you get there within 2 min, the roof will be gone anyways.

Also, with regard to the gym, kids here are probably stronger then i am. They are constantly running around and even in to the fields and do hard labor. Also, what is the use of am enclosed gym when the vast majority of time the weather is perfect? It gives of the same feeling as when i eat ice cream too fast...

So, as much as I love my village, they have some unrealistic expectations of me. They really are pushing for infrastructue projects that I refuse to do unless I eventually see they are nature enough to keep it sustainable.

Ok, so what I am working on right now... I am starting by re-training all of the community health workers in each of the villages in the catchment area. I will train them on educating on everything from HIV, nutrition, water sanitation, importance of vaccinations, malaria, general hygiene, and more. My major focus will be on helping then better advise young mothers on child nutrition.

Past that i want to work with the health center and the ministry of health to get more baby weighing scales, get a full time staff, and train the current staff on useful simple procedures like suturing and injections.

Due to the highly motivated headmaster at the school, i also will work on that end. I am in the process of meeting each of the clubs and i will help out with the health related ones. Also, the school, er really the entire province did very poorly on the last test. So, the headmaster has asked me to in to a meeting with all of the other teachers to discuss what to do. This should be kind of fun and awesome because it is all in english.

Lastly future projects i want to do include teaching permaculture. This is a style of gardening that produces very strong plants, requires little maintenance, protects against heavy rains while utilizing water efficiently when pains are scarce, and encourages a variety of foods that is good for food security and nutrition. We learned it in our latest training and it seems promising. Also, i would like to see if we can't fix the water pumps in my village. Most are broken or rusting out.

Ok, that is a good place to end for now. I will add more very soon.