Don’t let the Bed Bugs Bite!

The fine wiring at First Choice
photo by Colin & Christy Zacharias

Tuesday May 18th -
Upon our return from Livingstone and our wonderful weekend, we again drew numbers from a hat for our rooms for the week. Each room was slightly different, some having more spiders than others, some fans that worked, some showers that worked, others had no roaches under the fridge. I love Chris’s remembrance of his room’s shower:

My alarm went off at 6:15, a bit early for my liking, but I knew this would be the time I would be waking up each day here in Zambia. As mentioned, I had discovered on the first day that the shower that the guest house had only had a hot water tap – no cold. Colin Zacharias, one of our team members from Saskatchewan, offered to fix this by letting me use one of his tools to turn the cold water on. I was appreciative, as the Zambia soil from the day prior was clinging to me, and a shower would be the perfect way to start the day. I was not going to let something as small as a missing tap get in the way of a good shower, so I must admit I had a smile on my face as I stood there with the shower head in hand, with the knowledge that I had fixed the issue. I turned the water on – both hot AND cold – and awaited the blast of water from the shower head. But, there was nothing. Waited longer, still nothing. ‘That’s odd’, I thought to myself. ‘The taps are on, but where is the water?’. I had been foiled again….the metal hose was split and the water suddenly started spraying every where but where I needed it. Needless to say, I gave up on using the shower outside of my room. In fact, the water supply was turned off today for some unknown reason. Just another of those conveniences, such as electricity that works with all of what we require to be charged and powered up, lights that remain on at all times, and reliable water sources that we all are going to be adjusting to. For us Canadians, it is an inconvenience. For the people of Zambia, just a regular part of life.

By the next morning, Brea was complaining about bug bites all over her legs, and other body parts - ah, the dreaded bed bug! None of us others, complained about that problem, thank goodness, and the room had been Brooke’s the week before, but I have noticed a post from Brooke about putting her clothes and such from the trip in the freezer when she got home, so I’m not sure if that was just as a precautionary step or not! Anyway, by that evening, Brea was moved into a new room within the main building, now with only the shower problems to worry about! It was such so much like camping out that it was actually getting to be funny. We also had our second day of water outage! I had heard and witnessed power outages, but hadn’t heard of water outages before. Seems there was some sort of problem at the dam. Was fun to get up in the morning to wash and turn the tap on and nothing came out! Pouring a bottle of water over your head sure wakes you up fast, and then there was the fun of the buckets of water that were distributed, to aid in the flushing of toilets.

Now, on with our day! Today we were to met MED (Micro-Enterprise Development) beneficiaries in the Chilesah district, 25 km away, and a farmer who has been trained in improved agricultural techniques. Boyd Mweemba a father of 5, was the first farmer we visited. He had received financing from World Vision and a one week training program learning about improved agricultural techniques and running an agricultural business. He was presently growing maize, bananas, sunflowers, had planted 14 orange trees and was a bee keeper. Traditional bees have been kept in bark hives, which is made from stripping the bark from large trees and making them into a log shape. One of the problems faced with this kind of hive was that to check how the honey production was coming along, they would have to cut into the structure (it is only open at one end) and this of course would destroy a lot of the honey comb. The newer method they are being taught is to use a hive more like the ones we see here in Canada, except the hang theirs in trees. We were told that there are so many bees (I assume these are all what we consider ‘African Killer Bees’!) that as soon as a new hive is strung up, it is full of bees by the next day. The newer hives have the removable combs, that can be checked easily without any destruction and therefore a better yield. Another problem with the old hives, was that the removal of the bark from the trees would ultimately kill the tree,and as deforestation is a big problem for Zambia, the new methods are beneficial all around. He is able to sell his honey to the surrounding community, a great example of how a small amount of training and a small loan (which he has paid back in full from his earnings) has helped his family to become self-sufficient. He has also raised enough maize this year to support his families needs.


photo by Colin & Christy Zacharias
The next visit was to Oliver Mana, another father of 5. Oliver raises goats, has a dairy herd and a large vegetable garden. He too received training from World Vision in improved agricultural techniques, and was given 8 goats and one billy. By the end of the first year Oliver had 30 goats, and with the sale of some of the goats and produce from his fine garden, he was able to purchase the cows for milking and with help in ploughing the fields. He was also able to purchase some chickens and now sells eggs and chickens at the market. World Vision provided Oliver with seeds for his garden, tomatoes, spinach, rape and carrots. He is extremely pleased with his tomato crops and could not wait to show us his new generation of plants ready to be transplanted from his ‘nursery’ (a small corner of the garden). Oliver’s garden is a considerable distance from his home, but it is located near where the necessary water source is located. He now has an irrigation system which is a treadle pump, rather like a ‘stair-master’, using one man/woman to ‘walk’ the treadle, while another primes the vacuum to get the water flowing through the large rubber hose that snakes down to the part of the garden that needs water at that time. Many holes and tears in the hose made priming a necessity for most of the time, as there are few materials at hand to fix the leaks. It would be an all day process of walking on the pump to flood the one field, and needless to say, there were other fields to water on a continuing bases. Oliver has re-paid World Vision 50% of his loan already and is now able to support his family and pay school fees so his children can attend school. The people of Zambia are so hard working, and so willing to make a life for themselves with just a small hand-up. They don’t want charity, they want to look after themselves and their families, they want to be self sufficient! Teaching about the better ways to farm is just one small step to reduce the 80% unemployment rate of Kalomo. People will return to their farms and be able to live good and healthy lives, not come to the towns to live in squalor, hoping beyond hope, to find a job to buy the food and necessities to support their families.

Our next visit was back in Kalomo to the Mapono Youth Group, started several years ago, with the help of World Vision. Starting with just a small group of under 50 children they now have over 500 that attend. The Youth Group is a way to keep the children engaged, off the streets and to teach about HIV/AIDS prevention. The have groups that play ball, sing, do poetry and soon hope to get the financing to start a small enterprise to help earn money for the groups projects. The act as peer counsellors, go around to different schools and try and get more children/youth involved. They treated us to some wonderful rap-type music that taught about HIV/AIDS and other singing.

photo's by Colin & Christy Zacharias

It was then on to another of the photography workshops of which I had missed a few, running late in our home visits. The children seemed to come in a few different groups now, depending, I suppose, on prior after school commitments, homework and such. Today, I met a wonderful woman named Stella, who had accompanied a number of the children. She seemed to be a sort of caretaker for these particular children (I’m not sure if she was a housemother, or had a sort of daycare) and was quite open in telling me that one of the little girls was HIV positive, but was doing extremely well as she was very contentious about taking her medication. She also told me

about another little girl, one who had not attended the workshops since the first ay. She explained that the child was the daughter of a second wife, and as such was not treated well. Her clothes were very poor and ragged, and she had felt very out of place that first day and so had decided not to continue attending. I told Stella what a shame that was, especially as it is what's on the inside that's important! Stella was crocheting a small bag at the time and I was taking a keen interest, as the wool looked very stiff. She explained that it was actually a sugar bag (they’re a heavy plastic there) and she had spotted it at the side of the road, and really liked the colour; so she took it home, washed it out and then proceeded to cut it into tiny little strips that she was using to make the bag! She had finished the bag by our last day and I know one of the team members has a picture of Stella and I holding her bag for display, which I’ll post when I see it.

It was another great day, of learning experiences, meeting enterprising people and witnessing the wonderful difference that World Vision and the ADP staff are making in the lives here.

As I was the only one left, at the end of that day, with an actual working kettle, I took it along to the tea-party, this time to celebrate Brea’s new room. Everyone brought cookies, chocolates and whatever was in their stashes to help celebrate.
photo by Chris Schroeder