Cheng's Fish Farming

We visited Cheng in her village. She is working hard to establish a source of income for the local fish farmers through establishing fish ponds. If done correctly it can help provide the financial income, provide protein consistently in their families meals. We shared a meal in her nsaka, her living room.

The hike thru the bush. Never seen grass this tall before.

There is a science to building a fish pond, it has to be sloped to a certain angle, have a inlet and outlet water source. Everyday the fish farmer must feed it compost, manure. The fish learn to recognize you that you are feeding it. All you do is tap your foot in the same place everyday at the same time.

Frog Eggs, the predator of the fingerlings (baby fish).

Thanks Cheng! We enjoyed seeing your work.

Bats!

Over the weekend, Rachel and I joined the Brubachers and some other friends on a little camping excursion in Kasanka National Park.  Besides being home to baboons, man birds, hundreds of puku (a smallish type of antelope), hippos, and an elusive herd of elephants, Kasanka is host to the world’s largest annual mammal migration.  And what mammals are these, you ask?  Bats.

Kasanka holds a unique geographical position, occupying the borderland between the jungles of central Africa and the savannas of eastern and southern Africa.  Every year, somewhere between eight and ten million fruit bats come from all over the Congo basin – traveling hundreds or even thousands of miles – to spend a couple of months in this unlikely resort.  No one is quite sure why they come here.  To be sure, there are many fruit trees here from which to pick, but that is true of many places all over Africa.  They don’t come here to breed – they do that in their various home bases at a different time of the year.  As far as anyone can tell, they make this yearly journey for the sheer spectacle of it.

Rachel and I were hesitant to come.  Millions of bats in close proximity?  Really?  Millions of rodents with leathery wings buzzing around our heads?  But the invitation was extended, and we’re not ones to pass up a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, especially if it is one that will provide us with years of unassailable bragging rights.  So we went. 

It was a surreal experience.  As bats are nocturnal creatures, we made our way to the viewing grounds towards evening.  Standing in a clearing about a kilometer from the stand of trees where these millions of creatures sleep through the day, we set up our cameras and waited.  As the sun sank and the pale light gave way to a heavy blue twilight, a black cloud could be seen rising from the tree line.  As the cloud rose, it spread, but with more and more bats following, the cloud hardly thinned.  Soon the bats were flying over us, uncounted black darts thirty feet above our heads.  This flurry continued unabated for about an hour before it finally dissipated and we left for camp.  These bats would spend the night in whatever grove or glade they fancied, then be back in the same stand of trees by daybreak, to start it all over again.

For being a furry hoard out of some unsettling nightmare, it was actually sublimely beautiful.  Which is not how I would describe the experience we had upon returning home.

Allow me to provide a little background: Before we arrived in Samfya two months ago, other occupants claimed the space that we now call home.  They are – you guessed it! – bats.  Though smaller than the fruit bats we encountered in Kasanka, they are considerably less pleasant.  While the fruit bats possess a rather fox-like countenance, our unwelcome roommates look like mice.  The fruit bats, viewed from a distance, command a certain respect.  Our bats just give me the heebie-jeebies.

Unpleasant as they are, the bats in our home have been kind enough to stay out of sight.  Our house is an A-frame construction, with a corrugated tin roof and panels of plywood affixed to the interior to serve as a ceiling.  It is between these layers that the bats have settled down.  We hear them squeaking and chattering and scratching around, but they stayed out of our way.  Until last weekend.

At some point during our absence, the bats found a way to get into the house.  As we were emptying our camping pack and making dinner on Sunday night, we heard that old familiar squeaking.  But this time it sounded much nearer than usual.  I looked to see a bat hanging on a curtain behind the chair where Rachel sat.  I told her to get up slowly and go into the bedroom.  I got the nearest weapon I could find – a wide shop broom – and advanced.  I knocked it down from the curtain and swept it out of the house.  The next bat appeared later that evening as a blur whizzing past our heads.  Rachel took cover again, and I swatted at the little monster as it made careening circles about the room.  One swipe finally connected, and this bat I also disposed of quickly. 

The infiltrations continued on Monday and Tuesday, waking us up in the middle of the night as another bat would come into the house and dart around in desperate laps.  I continued to do battle with the aid of my trusty weapon: the Broom of Doom!  The Reaper’s Sweeper!  The Dreaded Bat Bat!  To be sure they were dead, but to avoid bloodshed, I ended up sweeping them into a bucket where I drowned them.  If bats give me the heebie-jeebies, then watching a bat drown makes me sick to my stomach.  It was not a pleasant start to the week.

I left the office early Wednesday afternoon to spend some time sealing up any remaining cracks in the house.  It was meticulous work, because these bats can squeeze through tiny spaces.  Lumber and putty seemed to do the trick, however; that night we had our first unbroken sleep in four days.  And no bats.  Good grief.

I feel grateful to have been able to witness one of nature’s most mysterious and glorious events, and even more grateful to be able to go inside and shut it out completely.  Now, where did that pesticide go?

Tropical Bieber Fever

It began last Thursday.  I was in my office at the SCCP building, diligently filling in various spreadsheets so as to prove my nerd pedigree to my coworkers and to our committee members in Chipako, when I was rudely interrupted by – how do I put this delicately? – some Unsolicited Bowel Movements.  Once these UBMs did their work, it was my head’s turn to do its pounding, which it accomplished with great enthusiasm.  After that, the fever set in.  My body had trouble deciding whether it was terribly hot or miserably cold, but it was certain that it was not comfortable.  This condition of temperature confusion continued vigorously throughout the night.  I was especially grateful in those hours to have a patient and skilled nurse for a wife. 

The following morning, Rachel and Carmen thought it best that I go to the Samfya clinic to get tested for malaria.  Furthermore, we agreed that it would be a waste to experience such an event without proper documentation – hence the photographs you see here.  After a short wait, I was given a needle prick in my ring finger, and the blood drawn was deposited onto a glass slide.  The doctor in charge of the clinic was kind enough to allow the three of us into the lab, where we waited a few minutes as my blood sample came to the front of the line.

I sat down, pale and somewhat delirious, hoping that it was indeed malaria.  This strange hope struck me for two reasons, one practical and one philosophical.  The practical reason was that if it turned out to be malaria, then the diagnosis would be clear and the treatment plan would be clear as well.  Problem named, problem solved.  The philosophical reason I worked out in this foggy state was that if I am to be working for and with people in a place where malaria is so maliciously endemic, I ought to identify at least to some extent with their struggles.  I can only empathize with a malaria sufferer if I, too, have suffered from malaria.  The blood sample now ready, a lab tech dropped a purplish liquid onto the slide and put the slide under the microscope, where he examined it for malaria viruses.  I turned out to be negative.  Boo.

After that unpleasant episode (and a difficult week for Rachel in her clinic), we needed a relaxing weekend.  I woke up on Saturday feeling much better, so we borrowed the red pick-up from the Brubachers and took a day-trip past the provincial capital of Mansa to a lovely place called Mulumbula Falls.  While Zambia is known for the magnificent Victoria Falls, dozens of humbler but still beautiful waterfalls are scattered throughout the country.  Mulumbula has two levels of falls, each about 15 feet high.  The flow of the water, right now at the end of the rainy season, is low, making it easy to hop from stone to stone.  We are told that come February, these falls will be a torrent.  We are excited to return for a little cliff-diving.

Before Rachel and I headed out to Mulumbula on Saturday, we heard a Justin Bieber tune drifting from the direction of a passing boy’s mobile phone.  I must admit, it was a pleasant surprise.  It’s strange how such silly reminders of home can be so comforting.  If you’re out there Justin Bieber, we salute you.  Oh, and that bug that took me out for two days last week?  We’re pretty sure it was salmonella.  Touch raw chicken and lick your fingers, get it anywhere, salmonella.  Lame, I know.

Photos!

It has been a month and a day since Rachel and I arrived in Zambia, and it is starting to feel like home.  We have been very busy, and looking at the date of my last blog post, I am way behind on my writing.  Rachel and I, however, have been taking a lot of photographs.  Below are just a few that should give you a little flavor of our life in Samfya.  Stay tuned - more thoughts and photos are on their way.

Lake Bangweulu

Hudson, head of the counseling dept. at SCCP, conducting a training session

A medical building on the island of Mbabala

Constantine, a loan client in the village of Chipako

Sunrise on Mbabala

First Week in Samfya

“See this bicycle pump?  If you get sold any bad gasoline and the engine starts to die out in the truck, just disconnect the gas line in the hood and hook it up to this thing and pump it into the line until you get a feed.  Then you should be good.”  These are the words of my boss, Mark Brubacher, deputizing me as the official driver for Bright Hope and the Samfya Community Care Providers (SCCP).

Rachel and I have been in Zambia for just over a week now, and we are jumping right into our work.  While there is support all around us any time we need it, there is definitely no opportunity for hesitation.  Rachel has begun work in the SCCP clinic.  Even as an experienced medical professional, she feels like a rookie nurse.  There are so many new things she has never seen before: open wounds leaving large patches of exposed muscle, malnutrition, malaria, trachoma, and one vicious infection that has left the right side of the woman’s head deteriorated to the skull.  She is also figuring out how to navigate the challenges of translation in a culture where people do not communicate directly about such personal matters. 

While the clinic is often quite busy, there are quieter periods.  Rachel has taken advantage of these quiet moments by talking with her interpreter Christerbelle, getting to know her and learning more about Bemba culture.  In exchange, Rachel has been teaching Christerbelle some essential medical skills, such as how take patients’ blood pressure.  Christerbelle hopes to eventually become a nurse herself.  Prayers are definitely appreciated for continued wisdom, confidence, and hope for Rachel as she establishes her Zambian practice.

This first week, I was taken under the wing of Charles, one of two directors for SCCP’s Microloan Finance Program.  A native son of Samfya, Charles knows the community well and understands the challenges and rewards of developing the local economy.  I have much to learn from him.

I have also been driving, usually with Charles as my guide to the road.  We have visited a church for a quarterly loan audit, given a ride to a team of young men that build pump wells for communities that have difficult or no access to clean water, tracked down bags of seed, and visited an outlying village called Chipako, where I will probably be doing much of my field work.  I even had a chance to drive Rachel around for home healthcare visits; it makes me proud to see the good work she does.

It has been an exciting week, but it has also been difficult.  There are so many new things to process, and we miss our friends and the comforts of life in Chicago.  The pace of life is slow here, and we definitely notice it when we are not working.  Though this slowness will not doubt be restorative, it will take some getting used to.  Still, life in Samfya is not without its rewards.  The sun goes down before the moon comes up, and the sky in that space of time is absolutely glorious with stars.  Below, the inky lake is also covered by points of light.  These are not reflections of the stars, but kerosene lamps from the fishing boats that come out in the dark to ply their trade.  Sitting on the porch with a cup of tea, feeling the breeze coming off the lake and watching the still beauty of the night – not a bad way to end a day in Samfya.

Great North Road, Global South

The road leading from the capital city of Lusaka to the district of Samfya takes about nine hours of steady driving.  It is a clean highway, a much smoother blacktop than most of the streets we are used to traversing in Chicago.  Built decades ago to carry copper from the mining towns of Zambia, and straight through Tanzania to the trading ports on the coast of the Indian Ocean, the Great North Road is well used and well kept.  All along this stretch of highway are thousands of grass and mud brick huts, some clustered together in busy villages and some standing quite alone in the bush.  Considered in context, this shouldn’t be surprising.  These homes are built by and for their owners with the materials they find around them – no different than a log cabin in the States.  And, after all, to build your home at no cost save your own time and sweat seems wise.  But still – and this may reveal more about my own assumptions and prejudices than about our new surroundings – it seems an unfair contradiction to have a sign of such industry cutting through a land of such basic living conditions.

The district of Samfya, while rural and poor, is metropolitan compared to the grass huts I describe.  Right now, Rachel and I are sitting on our hosts’ veranda, which sits on a hill overlooking the expansive Lake Bangweulu.  Children are laughing and swimming at a small sandy beach; men in their wooden canoes are paddling through the reeds to the south.  Two small brown hawks circle over the water.  Like the men, they are searching for fish, an essential local resource that has been dwindling in recent years. 

It seems an active and thriving town, yet the signs of poverty are present.  Thinking about the paved highway cutting through the interminable kilometers of bush, I am struck by our own position.  A year is not a long time.  I hope that we are not just cars passing through, no more than a glance out the window.  I wonder what we can do to help the people of Samfya.  I wonder how much our help, uninformed and unsolicited as it is, will be accepted or needed.  Despite these uncertainties, I am convinced that this is where we are supposed to be.  I am excited to learn what the year has in store for us.