Looking back

It's been 7 months since I finished my fellowship in Eastern Zambia. What an incredible experience!? I'm certain that I'll be returning, although I have no idea when or under what circumstances. So, could I work in Southern Africa on a long-term basis? I think I would have to have someone with me who was up for the adventure and difficulties of living so far from family and friends - probably somebody who has spent time there, knows what they are getting into, and is looking for similar work challenges.

Before leaving I completed the two landscape assessments for COMACO, despite having to put in some work on my vacation. I delivered two reports with lots of maps, hard data on the conservation challenges that the project is trying to address, and some strategies for approaching them that the staff came up with in brainstorming sessions. I said goodbye to John and Betty and the PC crew after an amazing weekend on Lake Malawi. Their hospitality and friendship made my time in Lundazi so much easier. My dad, Jim, came to visit and travel with me for the last two weeks and we made it to Victoria Falls and South Luangwa National Park, spending several incredible days at Kapamba bushcamp, a gem on the Kapamba river deep in the park. It was an amazing, once in a lifetime experience!

Since I got home one of my good friends, Jaffary, passed away in Nyimba, a shocking, sad, and sobering reminder of the harsh reality of life in Africa. He was my age, maybe a few years older, strong and full of life.... and apparently very sick, although the actual cause isn't clear, so I make the easy assumption. The attached photo is from one of our afternoons fishing at the dambo in Nyimba, with Jaffary's bright, rasta essence standing out! He was a man of peace and truth and love, and I miss him.

That's it for now. I thank everybody who took the time to follow my posts. The access to email and skype really made this experience easy compared to the past in terms of feeling connected to home, and since returning to stay in contact with new friends. Without that connection the isolation can be pretty overwhelming out there in the bush. Until next time! Love - Ryan

Hotter’n’blazes:

10.17.09 - Okay, I’ve been slacking for a while. Dial-up, and really bad dial-up at that, ruins the motivation to get on-line unless absolutely necessary. So does relentless, oppressive heat! My eyeballs are sweating! I arrived with Handsen in Feira on Wednesday, at the confluence of the Luangwa and Zambezi Rivers – the lowest place in the country, right in the corner bordering Mozambique to the west and Zimbabwe to the south. We will be heading back to Nyimba tomorrow morning. I was told there would be A/C at the guest house here, but was misled, and it has been a sweaty, fitful four nights. Tonight will be no better. Luckily, the room is a thatched roofed, and there has been a breeze starting after about 4am that has provided a couple hours of good rest, and the view from this place almost makes up for less than great sleep. I haven’t gotten to fish, swim, or see the Lower Zambezi National Park, but it’s been a nice and scenic stay on the two rivers. I did get out on a couple of the little banana boats of fishermen who offered me a little scenic paddle. Otherwise, for the past 4 days we’ve been meeting with fishermen from most of the villages along the Luangwa Road, discussing fishing methods, trends, and the market to see if there might be some role for COMACO in terms of supporting a more sustainable use of the Luangwa River fisheries.

Handsen and I have been staying at the Imyala Lodge, perched on a rock outcropping a few hundred feet above above the Zambezi. There are two picturesque fishing villages below us on either side, that offer the sounds of village life that make this place feel homey; roosters, children playing, women laughing. The best part is that our meals are made for us here, by the wife of the lodge manager. We buy everything from mealie meal to cooking oil, veggies and relish, and at lunch and dinner we have a homemade plate of n’shima. I’ve felt like all I’ve done since arriving in Feira is ride around in the Cruiser and eat! On

Thursday evening, the 14 year old nephew of Protazio, one of the COMACO extension agents that I’ve been working with was taken by a crocodile in the Zambezi while fetching water. We spent time with Protazio today after arrived back in the boma after the funeral. He told us that the kid had just set the bucket down when the croc burst out of the water and grabbed his leg. The younger brother tried beating it with a stick, while the father rushed from their hut about 100 meters to try to rescue him, but he was pulled under before he could make it there and hasn’t been found. He was supposed to be writing his 7th grade exams very soon. So was his older brother when, in 1991, he was taken by a croc at the very same spot. The things we take for granted when we tell Africans to protect their wildlife!

Charles, the 10 year old son of the lodge manager has become my new best friend, attached permanently to my hip whenever I am around. I met him while taking my obligatory sunset shots a few nights ago, when he and his friends mistakenly thought I was “snapping” them, which I subsequently did at their request. Charles has not been hard to find ever since. Yesterday I left him at the lodge for a meeting, came back three hours later, and he was asleep on my porch. It’s 6am now and he’s sitting on the floor next to me as I write this. Problem is he can see me moving in my room from his spot, a rock outcropping over the Zambezi. He is a budding photographer and took some pretty hilarious shots. I will add new photos within two weeks, but unfortunately the dial-up connection will not handle them! Hopefully you will be able to tell who took what pictures.

10/3/09 – Right now the weather at home must be perfect!?! I wish I could say the same for here, in the valley, where it seems to be getting hotter by the day as I start 18 days of field work. This was really poor planning on my part, ending in October in the lowest lying, hottest part of the country, around the confluence of the Luangwa and Zambezi rivers. Today was my first day back in the field – a short one at that – and I can only describe it as miserable. 46 degrees? I’m not even capable of doing the conversion at the moment, but I’m guessing 110? I chopped off my hair, and that at least has been some relief. I had been telling everyone that Zambia is no hotter than NC, and less humid at that, but today as my brain started to boil I had to concede. Zambia wins the prize for excruciating heat – Ryan loses!

I arrived here in Nyimba last Wednesday afternoon and quickly found my way to the COMACO office, aided by the tell-tale teal green paint job of all Community Trading Centers. There I found Handsen, the Nyimba/Luangwa Regional Coordinator, who gave me a tour of the facilities and town. Nyimba is southwest of where I’ve been thus far, near the border of Mozambique. It’s a small town. I’ve got a room IN the Trading Center, which entails emerging into the workplace in the morning to use the bathroom and bathe. No running water inside – bucket baths - and food and toiletries quickly disappear from the work kitchen and bathroom respectively. And yet somehow I am taken with Nyimba. Handsen is great and has quickly introduced me to all the staff and programs COMACO is running and explained the issues facing the area.

It took me exactly one poorly planned night here to buy a fan, set up a mosquito net, and take the plastic wrapper off the mattress. That first night boiled down to a choice of a) suffocation and dehydration, cocooned inside my sleeping bag liner to avoid the mosquitoes, or b) bearing myself to the skeeters in an already uncomfortably hot and still room. I chose c) all of the above. In the end it was a false choice, as I was bitten through the sleeping bag liner while boiling in a pool of my own sweat on a crinkly plastic mattress cover! Hell, why not throw in a 4am delivery to the CTC and a nice, long, outside-voice conversation between the security guard and delivery man who might as well have been hanging out in my room?

After finishing what I expect to be 18 days of field work in Nyimba and Luangwa I will bee-line it for Lundazi for follow-up meetings and report writing, as well as running water, a private house, and the company of some friends. I should at least get up there for my Mzungu radio show on Radio Chikaya, with PeaceCorps Ryan and VSO John. I had prepared a set-list for the show on my last Sunday in Lundazi, only to have it cancelled by a prolonged power outage. Despite the heat I’m looking forward to starting the field work because my books aren’t going to last and there ain’t nothin’ productive to do to pass time in Nyimba!

Flatdogs - 9/29/09

Flew back to Lusaka on Saturday morning after a wonderful meeting with my TNC Africa advisor, Patrick McCarthy in Mfuwe (pr: mmm-phoooey). Wasn’t thrilled to be here all weekend but had to pick up my temporary permit from Immigration. The mosquitoes in Lusaka are horrendous, and all I can do in the evening is ! I tried to get to Livingstone for the weekend but flights were all booked. Ended up meeting a couple of guys from the States - John and Sam - who are doing PhD research with COMACO and had a good time when I wasn’t working. John is starting a project on Climate Change in Africa out of University of Cape Town, and Sam is studying Economics out of Cornell. We caught the South African Breweries Beer Festival in town on Sunday afternoon, which was a good time. Yesterday I picked up my temporary permit from Immigration, and I will move on to Nyimba at 6am tomorrow.

Mfuwe was amazing. We lodged at the Flatdogs Game Camp on the banks of the Luangwa River, which was an incredible deal at $70/night per person for a nice chalet. Patrick expressed his comfort with my fellowship progress to date and we developed a plan of which we’re awaiting feedback and direction from Dale Lewis before I move ahead with the next phase of field work. I organized a tour of the COMACO facilities and some farming activities for Patrick, and Kristen and Danny who are also visiting from TNC’s Africa Program for a Zambezi River Restoration Conference. It was good for them to see how the project works on the ground, and I actually learned quite a bit myself - constant reminders that many things are happening that I have not been told about. For instance, I was unaware that COMACO is working with conservation farmers in Mfuwe to plant a million trees in the coming year. In Lundazi I was told that COMACO was not currently involved in reforestation programs. In Chama I found out that Zambia’s Department of Forestry does indeed have native tree nurseries that COMACO may or may not be involved with or utilizing. So I refine my previous insight to reflect need not only to “ask the questions” but to “ask them over and over and over again.”

The highlight of the Mfuwe foray was undoubtedly our game drive into South Luangwa National Park on Friday evening. We had a great guide named Robbie, who gave us amazing sightings of a male lion (gazing out over the Luangwa), a leopard (gearing up for the nights hunt), as well as giraffe, elephant, hippo, crocs, and a score of smaller stuff including a civet. The Park has one of the highest concentrations of leopards anywhere, and an amazing assortment of endemnic faunal sub-species that, for habitat-related reasons, tend to be slightly smaller than their cousins elsewhere. The Thornicroft giraffe, and Crawshay's zebra to name just two…… the only two I know.

Back in the real world, I have realized how much my lack of internet access as of late has started to wear on me. Before Saturday I had only two days of contact with you all in three weeks. Unfortunately, I just found out that Nyimba, the town I head to tomorrow for the rest of my field work, has little if any connection. While I am aware that this is what I signed up for and should expect and accept, there is no reason why I have to embrace it and my plan for Nyimba is to bust through the field work, and move somewhere with access to the world, for the report writing and the remainder of my fellowship. In the meantime, I’ll be looking for travel partners from November 21 – Dec 2.

9/9/09 Happy nines

9.2.09 - Come on…. two straight days of ‘Night Nurse’ on constant loop??? IN THE
OFFICE??? Thanks for at least choosing Gregory Isaacs, but for the love of Jah! This should not be surprising considering that the same six ZamPop songs blast on HEAVY rotation from every establishment with a sound system in Lundazi. I’m in the office transcribing data from our Zumwanda data logs into the GIS shapefiles that I converted from the GPS data we collected over 4 days in the field. Tomorrow I head to Magodi Chiefdom to continue this same work there, which should take two days, maybe three, as the area appears to be significantly smaller.

9.4.09 - I just wasted an entire day of my life working off of bad information, and gained a nice sunburn as a physical reminder of my pain. Yesterday I spent a good 15 minutes explaining to Billy, COMACO’s Magodi Area Manager, and our designated point person for navigating the region, the exact purpose of the project we would be working on, and what specifically we need to accomplish, and was assured that this could be done entirely in the Land Cruiser in two days. The only hitch was that Billy doesn’t know the area he was talking about. Huh, you would think someone would mention that? So today, after a two-hour late start that can only be explained by saying that everything went wrong, we left frustrated on the 45 minute drive to Emusa. I should have put my foot down and said that it was a waste of time and resources to leave at 10am for such work, but I wimped out. Even if I had we would have had to find out at some point that the places I am trying to go can only be reached by motorbike or foot. It wasn’t until halfway through the hour and a half trip westward from Emusa that Alfred spoke up about this slight catch, and after confirming this at the last village accessible by vehicle on two separate roads, I cancelled the rest of the day and we dropped of Alfred in Emusa and rode home - three smelly, dusty men, crammed in the hot, dusty cab of the Cruiser, brooding in silent, sweaty defeat.

Counting Hefta and Mwangala’s time, I actually wasted three life-days, although maybe since driving is his job, Hefta’s time should only count as half a life-day….. not to mention the wasted diesel. The best part is that instead of having a half-day of work and starting my weekend, I head back to Emusa tomorrow (Saturday), and ride as Alfred’s motorbike passenger to all the remote villages that we couldn’t reach today. It’s looking like three, if not four days in Magodi now. Time to revise my budget.

9.9.09 - Happy nines! Happy World Cup qualification day! Zambia got knocked out by Algeria a couple of nights ago, saving themselves from humiliation next Summer.
Damn, Magodi is a BIG place! I mean vast. I see what the Chief meant now, when in our meeting on Thursday he said “I have laaaaaaaaaand! Do you have laaand?”, and why it must have seemed so ridiculous when I replied “Just a little….. about 2 acres.”. It’s been five days since my Friday of extreme frustration, and Saturday, Sunday and Monday were spent on the back of a motorbike. Yesterday and today I’ve spent recovering and processing data. 90km, 75km, and 120km respectively, which doesn’t sound like much unless you saw the kinds of roads and terrain we were travelling. Probably better represented in hours, of which we spent 12, 10, and 12 hours respectively on the bike. Add the 1 hour on each end riding from Lundazi to Emusa and back, and you may begin to understand the tenderness of my ass and tailbone! Enough about that. We finished the survey of Magodi Chiefdom and today I leave for Chama, where I’ll stay for about 10 days, probably 7 of which will be in the field. The focus area is approximately 60km x 40km

I’ve been told it’s going to be really hot in Chama, being in the valley. It’s already getting pretty hot here in Lundazi on the plateau, so I can’t say I’m looking forward to that. But, I’ve also been told that I’ll likely see wildlife including elephants and other big game which have been conspicuously absent in my first 9 days of work on the plateau. The closest I came was on Monday, on a winding, hilly, single track road in the Lundazi National Forest, when Alfred and I saw elephant droppings, which suddenly made me think about how such an encounter might unfold, and I realized I was be happy that we didn’t meet whoever left the pile. In fact, I would venture to say that we were lucky to just have one flat and no mechanical issues aside from fouled plugs, considering that there is no cell coverage and we were far from any roads accessible to 4-wheeled vehicles!

After leaving Chama I’ll stop briefly back through Lundazi for a day or two before bussing it to Mfuwe for a meetingwith Patrick McCarthy, my TNC fellowship advisor, and staying at the Flatdogs Game Lodge from September 24th to the 26th. If I fail to see any wildlife in Chama, this will be my opportunity. South Luangwa National Park is top-notch by all accounts, and I can’t wait for the visit. The Lodge is on the Luangwa River and the name “Flatdogs” is a translation of a local word for Crocodile. Patrick and I will be meeting with Dale Lewis, my advisor with WCS here, to discuss my fellowship progress as I approach the half-way point, and how TNC and WCS can best work together down the road. From there I move on to Nyimba for six weeks of similar field work there, by the end of which I will need to have most of my maps finished and recommendations written for the Environmental Assessments so I can take a couple weeks of vacation - location TBD - before heading home.

Lundazi is starting to feel very small. Luckily I have met some really cool people recently, a European couple, John and Betty, who are volunteering with Volunteer Service Abroad, and a few PeaceCorps volunteers, Jessica, Alex and Ryan. If any of you have accidentally gone to ryanINzambia.blogspot.com, then you know the Ryan. I can attest to his culinary skills, and am grateful for them. I met Jessica in Zumwanda and was introduced to the rest last weekend. It has been a nice change of pace from playing pool in a smoky bar for a little social interaction, and going home to eat, read and sleep in my spartan “guest house”. If Lundazi – the Boma or big town - is starting to feel small then I’m going to have to be creative in Chama.

Another day of Night Nurse….. “The pain is getting worse.”

Ask the questions.

8.30.09

Things are going well, and this past week was unforgettable. I got my immigration situation sorted out, and wrapped up my first week in the field for COMACO, travelling extensively throughout the Zumwanda Chiefdom in Eastern Zambia. The field work is going well, despite daily delays. I have not yet learned how, if indeed it is even possible, to make things happen according to an arranged schedule here. In the evenings, before heading home, the driver and I agree that we will depart at 8am, but at 8am there is no Land Cruizer, or somebody is gone with the keys, or it's not fueled up and we can’t find the person who doles out the cash from our pre-approved budget to fuel up, and so on and so forth. It either drives you crazy, or you smile and accept it….. or a bit of each. On Thursday we were supposed to leave at 8am and at 10:15 when everything was finally set to go the driver took 10 excruciating minutes to dust off the dashboard, sweep out the floors and wipe the windows. It’s hard to stay patient as you watch the morning slip away, but in the end the work is getting done so why fight it? When we're going, it's been going well, and we get home at 8 or 9pm, eat and sleep.

Not knowing what to expect, I was woefully unprepared on Tuesday, our first day. Since we had discussed spending the day in Chief Zumwanda’s village, locating and meeting with local point people who could explain the best routes for us to take through the Chiefdom to reach the villages and areas of interest, I was expecting a relatively short day, maybe lunch in the village, and in the case that we did get started on the actual field visits, that I would at least be in the vehicle for the majority of the time. HA! We arrived in Zumwanda, and we were immediately thrown in front of Chief Zumwanda, where clapping and bowing we explained our plans and heard the Chief’s feelings about the state of natural resources in his kingdom. We were quickly given permission to pursue our work and I have since learned that he is one of COMACO’s biggest supporters in the region. Lesson: If you don’t ask the questions, don’t expect the information!

We were assigned the Chief’s son, the prince……. Prince Albert, to accompany us around the Chiefdom, and after watching a traditional dance being practiced for an upcoming rally of the Chiefs in Chapata, we immediately set off. Without hat, sunglasses, sunscreen, water or food we set off at 10:30 to start village visits, with Albert and Mwangala (COMACO’s IT/Data Manager) in the cab with the driver, Hefta, and myself and Zebron (COMACO’s Area Manager/Extension Agent) standing in the back of the pick-up collecting GPS Data. It was a long day. We stopped in 12 villages, interviewing headmen and learning the location of each of the settlements that has encroached into the Lundazi National Forest. At each village Albert expertly explained our mission to the headmen who graciously told us how long they have been settled in this location, where they came from, what crops they are growing and how they are growing them, and the general condition of life in the area. We reached the furthest settlement in the forest around 4:30 pm, already tired, hungry and thirsty, and while visiting the farmer’s fields we split a raw cassava, pulled fresh from the ground, which managed to get me home standing that night. What Mwangala had not bothered to tell me – because I hadn’t yet asked - was that the reason we didn’t buy food ahead of time was that the budget had not yet been obligated in time for us to get cash. Remarkably, I heard not one complaint the entire day, although we have joked about it much since. We finished at the last village around 6pm, and set off for the three hour drive back. Between the sun and the wind I achieved a nice pink tone – not red – but my lips are only now, a week later, recovering from the day! It seems that once every visit to Africa I get one horrible case of burned, chapped, peeling lips….. the worst. It was an incredible day, but I have not forgotten my hat, sunglasses, sunscreen, SPF lip-balm, and plenty of food and water since. It only takes one day like that to learn!

The purpose of these visits to settlements inside the National Forests, and Game Management Areas is help determine the extent and rate of forest clearing in these “protected areas” and focus COMACO’s future activities in the area. Quite sobering.... to be honest, I’m not sure what these designations even mean as there is no enforcement and people therefore view such areas free forest land to clear and farm. Only the remoteness controls the flow. I am gaining a clearer picture of where the worst problems exist (areas most afflicted by charcoal making and forest clearing for farms and settlements), and will helping COMACO focus future efforts on these areas. On Thursday we sat down with an old man living with his family in the Lundazi National Forest, who was able to list 43 villages inside the Forest, in the immediate area. The term “village” describes settlements that can be as small as a single family's footprint, although it is surprising how large that footprint can become with a couple of decades and a few generations on the land. I’m estimating that the average family is consuming 0.5-1.5 hectares per year, per generation, with depleted fields left fallow to regenerate voluntarily, which is a very, very slow process on these poor soils. This clearing, combined with heavy hunting and the mid dry-season burning of the remainder of the forest, which typically derive from a farmers’ field clearing burns and continue uncontrolled into the forest, is seriously degrading these areas. It seems like 75% of the forest I have seen on the plateau has been burned this year, and the frequency of these burns and the resulting low fuel loads, would seem to be the only thing keeping them from entirely killing the forest. As it is they are just hanging on. This is the case on the upland plateau, but I understand that the environmental conditions in the Luangwa River are much, much better, and I am really looking forward to seeing these less impacted areas in the weeks to come.

My hope, however, is that COMACO can work with the Zambian Forest Department and Zambian Wildlife Authority (ZAWA) to slow the rate of additional forest clearing in the "protected areas" through a combination of education, training, and enforcement, and support reforestation of abandoned fields in fruit and nut trees that can support a villages food needs and provide a surplus that can be sold commercially. In addition, planting lumber and fuel species (including legumes to replenish the soil) would help supply other human demands, further reducing the rate of deforestation. Mushroom growing and honey production, fish farming and other COMACO supported activities can also help diversify nutritional intake and fill the time gap while orchards grow, and COMACO is well poised to develop markets for such commodities and processes to add value (dried fruit, spiced nuts), and invest in research into determining appropriate species and the development of seedling nurseries if they don't already exist.

We have one more day in Zumwanda before I move the process for Mogodi the neighboring Chiefdom to the north. In a week and a half I will be ready to move up to Chama for 1-2 weeks to repeat the process there, after which I will return to Lundazi for 1-2 weeks to wrap up synthesize data for the Eastern Region, before moving my entire base to Nyimba, seven hours Southwest, where I’ll be doing the final phase of this work.

“You try not to think about it”

8/24/2009

Yesterday morning I got a call at 8am from a man saying “I am so-and-so at Immigration in Chapata. I’m having your papers”, which kind of freaked me out. I’d been waiting for my passport to arrive from Lusaka by the end of last week, and figured it would show up on Monday. What made matters worse was that beyond that initial line I couldn’t understood another thing the guy was saying. You could say that we experienced a complete failure to communicate. I would try to ask questions like “do you have my passport?” or “do I need to come to Chapata”, but his answers, if he understood them, made no sense to me. Topping it off, we could not keep a connection. We would talk, he would start to get frustrated, and I would lose him. I would call back, sounding extra friendly and apologetic, but he was getting more frustrated and talking in an increasingly loud, harsh tone, and I swear he was hanging up on me, although I can’t say for sure. By the third lost call, and despite being Sunday morning, I decided I needed to call Carol, the woman in Lusaka who was contracted to help me with my temporary work permit. We agreed to worry about it Monday (today), and I tried not to let it ruin my day. It was a windy, dusty day and I spent most of it reading in bed, drinking the cold pot of coffee that I had brewed the previous night in anticipation of not having power. There being none, town was dead until 3pm, when I met my friend Heba for the finals of the soccer tournament that had been going on for the past couple of weeks in Lundazi. The local team, sponsored by the Lundazi Police Department beat the Rangers - from somewhere south of here - in a heated, come-from-behind, 3-2 ass-clencher, scoring twice in the last 7 minutes. Fans stormed the field each time the Police scored. It was a riot! Wish I had my camera.

I was supposed to start my first day of field work today, meeting with COMACO supported farmers in the Zumwanda Chiefdom. Nemiah, the Director of COMACO’s Lundazi Community Trading Center (CTC), had returned on Friday after being away for most of my first week, and we made plans for a quick visit to the District Commissioner this morning to get the official Zambian Government blessing of my work in the area, something which may or may not be a requirement, although I get the impression that where land and land use are concerned, they like to want to know what non-profits/ngo’s are up to. At around 8am FedEx arrives with my passport and the receipts for my work permit leaving me baffled, but it was 3pm before we made it out of the office and to the government offices where the DC was supportive of the project and welcoming, and we moved on to immigration. There I waited an hour and a half for the friendly officer to return from his “computer lesson” at the local internet cafe, by which point it was too late to make any calls about my temporary permit, which I now, however, am reasonably certain is what is waiting at the immigration office in Chapata. Despite having had to wait for him, Mr. Zulu, the Lundazi immigration officer was very helpful and offered to call Carol first thing tomorrow in Lusaka, and find out from Oscar the Immigration Grouch in Chapata, whether my permit can be mailed to Lundazi. Otherwise I will get to spend Wednesday on the bus, riding back and forth along the 170 km long pot-hole that is the Lundazi Chapata Road. Do your magic Mr. Zulu!

Anyway, tomorrow morning I’ll be heading out to Zumwanda Chiefdom with a WCS driver to meet with Zebron the Area Manager responsible for COMACO activities in the area. Zebron will be assisting me with the data collection in Zumwanda, and I’ll work with Billy in Mogodi the following week, and Nixon in Chama the week after that. Tomorrow we plan to visit a few of the villages, collecting GPS data on COMACO supported farms (locations of apiaries, goat, poultry and fish farms, and the homes of poachers who have been transitioned in to more sustainable livelihoods) and meeting with locals who can steer us in the direction of the new settlements that have been cleared near the boundary and inside of the Lundazi National Forest. Even with the satellite imagery we have it is impossible to see the dirt roads we will need. The following three to four days will involve driving to as many of these settlements as we can reach by road, unloading the motorbikes and riding out to the more remote locations that are only accessible by single tract, and collecting the GPS points on newly cleared fields, that will serve as the ground-truthing points for the land cover change maps that I’m working on. The data will also help determine the needs of these communities and how COMACO can best assist them to provide for their families in a sustainable way.

I am interested to see how people react to my presence and to questions about their lives. The people we call poachers come from hunting traditions, feeding their families the same way that generations of men in their communities have been doing, but has only in the past two generations begun to result in the kind of exponential change that will preclude future generations from following the same course. Life is hard here.

On Saturday evening I found out that two friends that I’ve recently made in Lundazi are on ARV’s, and that an alarming number of people in this area are suffering from HIV and AIDS. These friends didn’t tell me this themselves, and the person who did said that he thinks half the population of Lundazi is infected. Half the population……………………
I asked how he knows that these friends are positive, and his explanation struck me as so sad. “Lundazi is just a small town and when someone stands in a certain line at the clinic, a person sees and says to people ‘that person is positive’.” It’s not something anyone can hide for long. About living amid this epidemic he said simply “You know it’s there. You know many many people have it, and you try not to think about it. You know that if you go to get tested, on that day you will be very afraid and will only think about dying. You know that if you find you are positive you will always worry about dying with no way to do anything. You don’t think about it, and when you meet a girl you wear ‘gloves’.” He was unconvinced that it would be better to get tested and get on ARV’s, than to avoid knowing the truth until you are very sick. I came here knowing that many people are positive, but when I meet a young, strong, person in what should be the prime of their life, it’s just about impossible to think that they may already have been dealt a death sentence that they may or may not even know about. The loss that this represents is too hard to fathom when you start to think of all the smart, talented, motivated people – kids who want to go to college and have families, and parents who won’t be there to teach the ones they have, if they aren’t also infected. And it’s not something you can spend all day thinking about if you want to be productive and make friends. So I don’t know, maybe you try not to think about it?

Finding my Niche

This is the last chance I’ll have to post before I head out to the COMACO Trading Centers in the villages of Lundazi, Chama, and Nyimba for what I expect to be the majority of my time in Zambia. I have a bus ticket for a 4am departure and will arrive in the early afternoon in Lundazi, the larger of the two villages where I will be working on Zambia’s eastern boundary with Malawi. I should have occasional internet access at the COMACO office in Lundazi, but will be off-line in Chama. Dale left Lusaka on Monday after us having only a couple of hours to discuss COMACO’s needs, and how to prioritize and plan my work. The notes I made during our discussions are all over the place – a jumbled mix of sentence fragments, incomplete ideas, an un-prioritized list of needs, and a handful of questions mixed with several names and phone numbers - and I have been attempting to decode while I collect all the data I can find and wait for another researched, Andy, to arrive back from the field and help me make sense of this all and get a handle on what I need to get done in my time here.

Andy Lyons, a Duke grad and Berkeley PhD candidate who did his masters research in remote sensing in Zambia in 1997, married a Zambian girl, and has been back yearly since. In the short time we had to talk yesterday evening, in the cloud of mosquitoes in the WCS office, before he caught his plane back to the States this afternoon, Andy relieved my fears about the land cover change assessment that Dale had thrown out there. It seems unlikely that COMACO would benefit from a full change assessment, and we agreed that a simple subtraction of subsequent vegetation index images will provide all the information that would realistically be used for the project, offering a way to visually determine the extent of clearing in an area between two time periods. We also agreed that the data collection work I have been given is already more than enough to keep me busy for the six weeks I have in the area. And, after receiving a big data dump from Andy, I will head off early tomorrow morning infinitely more confident about the work ahead of me.

In addition to providing a land cover change map, I am in charge of coordinating GPS and photo data collection for a long list of categories of interest to COMACO, including recent land clearing burns, areas timbered for charcoal and cleared for agriculture, all COMACO supported apiaries, fish farms, and homes of transformed poachers, as well as assessing the production potential of areas for rice, mushrooms, peanuts, ground-nuts and caterpillars (yes, food caterpillars!), and determining the boundaries and populations of the six Chiefs in the district, which is probably the size of Rhode Island. Despite my insistence that we start off with realistic outcomes for my fellowship, expectations remain high.

Aside from those previously mentioned, I have met some wonderful people in Lusaka. At the bar/beer garden the other night, while watching soccer, I struck up a conversation with a guy I was standing next to who, it turns out, works for the Zambian Ornithological Society. David, a Zambian, studied wetlands ecology at the Univ. Florida, and is a graduate of Florida’s Environmental Leadership Program which spawned the Natural Resources Leadership Institute that I participated in in 2007/2008 in NC. David and I had a long and interesting conversation from which I learned quite a bit about the environmental issues facing Zambia, not to mention finding out some must see places in the country, and I look forward to spending more time with him when I get back to Lusaka.

Of those at the office I’ve spent the most time - several lunches and some GIS/GPS time - with COMACO’s IT guy, Kabila, who seems to have overcome his initial skepticism of me, and is proving to be a very friendly, helpful, funny, and extremely smart guy. Kabila is 31 years old, married with two children, and lives on the outskirts of Lusaka. He is currently trying to get into a masters program in advanced GIS in Europe. His skepticism towards me, while short-lived, is something I’m realizing is not uncommon for at least two obvious reasons; the first and foremost being the perceived danger of sharing valuable, hard earned data, acquired by the sweat of your company, in the context of a non-profit market in stiff competition for very limited funding. The second reason being that I am a Muzungu.

In Botswana I was a Lechoa or “he who was vomited from the sea”. Thus far I have only heard Muzungo explained as “white person”, although I wouldn’t be surprised if I just haven’t been offered a more exact and colorful translation. In any case, I have heard it much less in Zambia than Botswana, and most frequently if I go out in the evening, walking to one of the few bars in the vicinity, coming from the numerous prostitutes that seem to have made Joseph Mwilwa Road the red-light district of Lusaka. Sitting in my room right now, even with my headphones on I can hear them laughing and chatting out by the front gate. Continuing on the subject of standing out, Mosi Lager from the Zambian name for Victoria Falls, has been my beer of choice, and I had to laugh when the drunk guy at the bar asked whether I really like Mosi or if I am trying to seem like a local. Even I caught the sarcasm in that question, so my response which got a laugh from the crowd was “No Sir, I don’t think I will pass for a local. I also like shitty American beers!”

My favorite part of the workdays so far has been sharing lunch out in the back courtyard with the WCS staff. Mildred, the office housekeeper and cook makes an amazing traditional dish every day, available for a very reasonable 6000 Kwache (~$1.50), and typically consisting of the staple maize porridge, Nshima, with some meat and gravy, which is eaten with the right hand. Grab a bite sized hunk of Nshima, roll into a ball in the palm of your right hand, pinch together with a morsel of meat and/or some greens, dip in sauce, and enjoy with lively un-American mealtime conversation, typically of a political or religious nature. The menu this week has been as follows:

- Monday: Chicken and gravy over Nshima with chopped greens.

- Tuesday: Whole fried Breme (fish) and gravy over Nshima with chopped greens.

- Wednesday: Rice and beans.

- Thursday: Beef and gravy over Nshima with chopped greens.

- Today (Fri): Chicken and gravy over Nshima with chopped cabbage, onions & greens.

Lunch conversation has included whether there is a proper time, place, topic, and method of prayer (whether it requires the purposeful construction of thoughts or just a positive, appreciative attitude and general “prayerful nature”, as well as whether Zambia is capable and physically and mentally ready for free and fair elections. It’s also especially nice since my only forms of transportation are expensive taxis or crowded mini-buses, as well as the discomfort of stocking food and cooking in someone else’s kitchen without running water. As a result it’s been tough to make a decent meal. Rosemary has been as welcoming and lovely a host as anyone could be, insisting nightly on supplementing my admittedly budget meals with some form of meat, but it’s just hard. I’ll miss this in Lundazi, but also look forward to having some quiet work time at the guest house! I foresee days of bread and peanut butter, rice and beans, and lots of coffee – Zambia has great coffee – in the coming weeks.

Well it’s getting late and I have to be up at 3am to catch my taxi to the bus station. In the mean time I’ll drift off to the whine of dozens of mosquitoes clamoring outside my bed net, and the not-so-distant chatter of the prostitutes, on-call at the end of the driveway.