I love toast

i do.

I love toast and butter.

Sometimes though, my love for things doesn't quite equal my attention span for making it happen.



GET A TOASTER! I avoided buying a toaster for the longest time. Too luxurious I said. I don't need one.

And then we got one. and it broke within a few months. I think it was Chinese made. And it lived up to that reputation.

Toast and butter. It's all about the simple things in life.

Development measured by potholes?

"Curses!! "

"Curses!!!"

I was struggling to walk in a straight line because my eyes were squinted shut, doing my best to keep all of the dust and sand from exfoliating my eye balls. This, I told myself, is why god did not make our eye lids out of sandpaper. What a smart guy.

What's happening you say? Well, they're paving the main road by our house.

We live in Kabwata Site and service, a nice middle class area. I love it. I love it because it is very, well, simple. And has a sense of community. We live about 500m from the Chilumbulu Road, a main thoroughfare. If you're coming from town, you get off at St. Patrick's corner. This corner is an epi-centre of business. You think Superstore has selection? You should check this place out. You can fruit there, you can get vegetables there, you can get your shoes repaired ( though, from experience, you may not get them back in the time they were promised). You can get your hair done after you picked up some rebar, before going on to buy wooden beds, wooden shoe racks, wooden coffee tables. Talk time, roasted maize and roasted cassava. You can get live chickens, you can get used shoes, you can get the latest shipment of the latest fruits fresh from the field out of the back of a pick up. You can catch a taxi there, you can get accosted by mini-bus conductors there and if the need arises, you can even visit Dr. Yi, at the aptly named Chinese run medical clinic. ( "Your friend…no?" ask the shoe repair guy. No, sir, no, not my friend. ).

Glorious fresh fruit sold by Sarah at the Supercorner

500 m down this unpaved road, is our house. This road, is notorious. Notoriously bad that is. It isn't paved, and by 'isn't paved', I mean it's like a mogul run. During rainy season, it was like mogul run meets rally car racing. Taxi drivers charge us more to go down it ( I don't blame them). "ah, you live where?, that will be 30 pin then. The extra 10 is for cleaning". It would be unwise to wear nice shoes if walking because they would go from nice shoes to mud clogs in about 10 steps. And it would be unwise to not concentrate on walking because you never know when a hole could jump up and grab your ankle, twisting it in ways it shouldn’t be twisted. Everyone would click their tongues as you bounced up and down the bumps, and cars would delicately and cautiously inch along, so not as to bottom out.

near our house

"They'll pave it. This Lubwinda's area" in reference to the senior MP in the opposition party and kabwata is an opposition stronghold. They told us this 10 months ago when we moved in. And because i've lived here for the last 2.5 years, I have learned to file expectations and anything that finished with a 'Now Now' under the ' do not disturb' folder.

And it was a-ok. I actually really liked it. the unpaved road was part of the reason why I loved the neighbourhood. Two weeks ago when I had just come back to Lusaka from being away for a month, I was walking back home, stubbed my toe on the rock that jutted out, and after the pain subsided, I realised how much more I preferred that to the sidewalks of Toronto. Something about it was more simple. I looked down the dusty road that continued over the railway tracks and wove down through unfinished houses and I realised what it was is that I really liked that raw feeling. Like things weren't perfectly put together, like there was movement, like things were in the process of building, of being created, it felt like it was alive. Less superficial. And that was something that I really enjoy.

the road right after they had graded it the first time. note that citizen action lead to a speedbump to slow down traffic

A few months ago, instead of paving it, they graded it - as in, they came by and tried to flatten everything out we thought that that was going to be the extent of it. Last Wednesday, Kumoyo, our taxi driver friend told me that they had come to measure the road. " Ya, they came that other day. they said that they were going to come to put down gravel tomorrow. That was yesterday, meaning today" ( don't ask me to clarify dates. I always get confused by how dates are referred to here. and I don't have the mental capacity to figure it out right now). "Ah, but they're probably already chewed the money". "It's true" I agreed, "they probably did".

But lo and behold, things do change. "Now now" might actually arrive one day and on Monday this week, the gravel trucks came! They really came! And within 5 days, they've laid down a nice solid layer of earth about 1 KM long ( I have no idea how 1km/5 days measures up in infrastructure but hey, it's fast to me.). Where mogul bumps were, there is now a fresh track of smooth, packed in, road. No tarmac yet, and not sure when that's going to come. 'now now' I'm sure. But it doesn't matter. The main thing is that the promise of the road actually is starting to come true!

And also, where there were cars, gingerly inching along, are young chaps CRUISING along. CRUISING! Honking, and cruising. Passing when they're not supposed to be passing and being one of THOSE drivers. And I'm starting to be one of THOSE citizens.

Which takes me to the beginning of this post.

I was walking along this morning to catch a mini bus near the Superstore corner. Just enjoying the fact that now the road was closed to being paved, I could daydream and walk without risking a sprained ankle. And I hear this rumble, this loud, rumble that was coming fast. And whoooooosh, this huge -- it must have been 100 tonne -- construction truck blew by, and made like it was the 401. dust flew everywhere, swirling up, down, in my ears, under my eyelids. It was like the skies had opened up and poured dust down. Everyone was shocked. Coughing. A number of"Hmmmmmmmmmm" squeals came out. I'm sure, if I listened hard enough, I could have heard a baby yelping even

And it kept happening. This evening, when I was heading out to buy candles as the power was out, whoooooosh, white car speeds by. Whoooooosh, whoooooosh. Someone's going to get hit no doubt. (Yes, KH, given my calamity factor, there is a high chance that that someone might be me).

And so I asked Noah, the guy who sells me the candles on the side of this road: hey, what do you think about them paving this road? 'well, it has its good parts and its bad parts". then I went thinking. Here was a road, something that was simple. It served its purpose. And now, we have to go and pave it. and what's going to happen is that cars are going to zoom in and out. someone's going to get hit. And if I think about the drainage problem that we're going to have ( and already have), we'll probably have increased rates of malaria in the area because we know that this area sure gets a lot of water, and it doesn't seem to have a lot of places to go. ( see photo, this is infront of our house. It hasn't rained for months and yet, we have a perfect festering pond for mozies.)

So, is this development? paved roads? Is this the trade off between mud clogs and well kept cars? Is this the meaning of progress?

Yes! Yes! more roads! some would say. This is exactly what development is! more infrastructure!

No! No! no more roads! this is the path that we went along and this is wrong! don't follow us!

Well, in all of this, I recognised 2 things: first of all, i might be resistant to change that Zambians might themselves enjoy. I like living on a dirt road, but maybe that's not what Zambians themselves want. which leads me to my second thought: hey, unless I'm going to be living here for the rest of my life and make Zambia my home peromanently, then the most important thing in all of this is that a leader listened to its people, found a vision, and has taken action on it. Maybe that is the measurement of progress.

(Don’t worry, I'm going to stop philosophical musings come November when the rains start to fall and my feet are nice and dry.)

Zambian made phones

So, you can now buy Zambian made mobile handsets...

http://mtechzambia.com/news.htm

Maybe not manufacturing but assemblying. And this seems to have coincided with an increase in tarrifs on foreign made handsets. Is this a start of diversifying the local economy outside of copper and agriculture?


This initiative is supported by various dev agencies including JICA. Interestingly they are implementing kaizen in plant operations.

I wish the development sector would implement Kaizen.

ngombe

Check this out: I came across this article in NYT today on French farmers diversifying their investments. Into cows!

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/12/world/europe/12cows.html?_r=1&ref=global-home

When I first arrived in Zambia in 2007, I worked on the PROFIT project that is trying to improve smallholder participation in the beef industry. One of the focuses was to develop private vet services available to rural communities to improve livestock health so that farmers could start managing their cattle as an income source and supply improved quality into the formal beef industry.

I remember the conversations in communities and with farmers who looked to cattle as social status, and for a select group, who were starting to manage cattle as an income source. I remember trying to wrap my head around how farmers saw cattle - as a social status, as bank to invest profits from this year's maize harvest into, as a dowry for wedding, as an ATM for withdrawing money when they needed to send a child to school, or as a losing stock by selling it at 50% price when it was sick. Trying to explain this to colleagues and friends back home was difficult as having a bank on four legs doesn't exactly register for you if you live in Vancouver. But I guess what's interesting is that a farmer in France could have more in common with a farmer in Malama community in Zambia.

http://kumvera.blogspot.com/2007/03/out-of-lusaka-and-into-something-more.html

As much as the NYT article might highlight a similar valuation of cattle between farmer in France and a farmer in Zambia, that might be where the similiarities stop.

Take for example, a French cow has access to a massage contraption (see first photo) . In Zambia, farmers are trying to figure out how to keep their cows alive as foot and mouth disease, CBPP and other tick born diseases will devastate herds, resulting in lost capacity for farming ( as cattle are used in land preparation) which has direct impact on food security, or resulting in regional travel bans on cows, limiting farmer access to markets ( and thus the income available). A COW in France receives approximately $2/day in subsidies….contrast this with ~60% of Zambians ( read: PEOPLE) living on less than $1/day). Something about that just doesn't seem quite right.

There has been a really interesting initiative coming out of the EU: http://farmsubsidy.org/ that has advocated for EU countries to publish agricultural subsidies as a move to increase transparency. Turns out that subsidies are somehow subsidizing Weight Watchers meals for the US and the UK.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/08/business/global/08farm.html. Something about that doesn't seem quite right either...

Patience young grasshopper

You know, we just can’t seem to shake it.

Chinese I mean. We’ve got a lot of stereotypes. I’ve written about it before. http://kumvera.blogspot.com/2007/05/robbed-blind.html

Our family seemed to always have fought them ( we grew up in Wallaceburg, none of us are doctors, lawyers, and sure, maybe two of us went through engineering, but look at what we're doing...) . But the reality is, we just cant’ seem to escape them because it just runs in our blood ( see my brother KK’s evidence http://themintmansion.blogspot.com/2009/04/cousins.html)

Consider this exchange that I had with Teddy, our housemate....(who lives in the chicken koop...but that is another story) the last few days.

Sunday: I had walked into our living room one day to see him watching a Zambian karate match on TV. Thinking it was a harmless joke, I said, “eh, Teddy, I’ll teach you this.” “ OH YAH!? I want to learn”

“no on, I’m just kidding, I don’t know, but everyone thinks I know."

Monday evening: I’m working at the kitchen table, and Teddy pulls up a chair. “ so, sister Ka-Hay, when are you going to teach me the “ insert a few hand jabs into the air “ these moves”.

“ uhhh what?”

“you know, the KA-La-Tey” .

“oh ya. Sorry teddy, I’m very sorry. I was just kidding”

“AAAAAAH…no. no no. come one. I really want to learn”

“Ya, I’m sure you do, …..but really I don’t know.”

“ah, no, please please. Please teach me. I can to learn….”

“ and…I know these “ and makes the gesture of bench pressing “ and I can teach you how to do them". Seeing as he had a bandage on his left eye last week because he had dropped the bench press bar on his face…that didn't necessarily sweeten the deal....not that there really is one. And hey, what’s he saying…that I need to do some weights? shit....i'm getting soft.

“ Sorry teddy. I was really just joking when I said I knew. I don’t know. not a bit! Have no idea! Sorry. sorry. Did I disappoint you?” I was expecting the typical Zambian polite response.

“ah, BAD. Very BAD” shaking his head and shoulders slumped. interesting, I think we have a pretty open and trusting relationship.

Tuesday: Teddy is in the kitchen, doing dishes. I walk in.

"Hey teddy, how’s it going?"

“So, you really are not going to teach me?”….

I'm starting to feel really bad now. Anyone have a quick 12 step guide to ka-lah-tey they can lend me? I need to put him out of his misery.

king cobra in the state hoowwwwwssseee?

The polls have closed. The country waiting for the results of the presidential by-election and if in fact, King Cobra will head to State house and take up where the Special Cabbage left off.

It was an interesting day. I spent a couple of hours wandering around Lusaka with a colleague Hans and chatting with locals who had just voted. I absorbed the significance of today and a couple of things struck me.

First, for some reason, it was surprising to me that the entire country shuts down for this. Shops are closed, the roads are empty ( we could hardly even fill a mini bus that usually takes 30 secs to fill), and if you have a formal job, you don’t go. I remember the last time I voted in Vancouver, needing to rush from work back to my riding before the polls closed, and voting day wasn’t much different than any other day.

That democracy requires supporting systems. ‘Duh, obviously’, you would say, however, today I internalised it. In a country of 12 M people, there are just under 4M registered voters. Because of the unexpected nature of this election, the government did not have the capacity to update voter records since the last time the election was held in 2006. This meant that no new voters could be registered, and you had to vote in the same riding that you did in 2006. it means that those who came of age over the last 2 years, don’t have a voice in this. Or, in a country where the life expectancy is just shy of 40 years old, how many of the 4M will actually be around to vote? Or what happens when people move? The current news on TV is reporting low voter turnout.

There is the passion for voting here. I was inspired by the commitment of people to go and vote and the sense of pride from doing so. When I walked down the road from my house, people along the road yelled’ eh! Have you voted!”. When friends saw each other on the street, they would look at each other’s thumbs, or flash their thumbs to display the ink used to market someone who already casted their ballot. It was almost a source of pride and made me wonder, could we adopt this as a social marketing tool that would get more people out and vote? ( I have to confess however, that because of my travel schedule in Sept – Toronto, Vancouver, zambia, I didn’t vote in this last election!)

Zambia is really still a young democracy. This is its 5^th multi-party election since independence 44 years ago. The father of Zambia’s independence, Kenneth Kaunda cast his vote this morning, which is a pretty remarkable activity, seeing as KK himself led Zambia to independence in ’64 and the following 27 years using a one-party rule until ’91.

Democracy across the generations. Given that multi-party elections, are still recently, I saw some of the remnants of old days. Jacob, a middle aged man accompanying us on our walk shrunk away from the polling station as Hans and I walked up to take a look at a sample ballot. He had warned us that it would be particularly sensitive around the polling station as there would be security officials and who knows what they could do. In contrast with Jacob’s hesitation, we met Aggri, a young accounting student who owns a boutique along Cairo road and has travelled to China a few times for business. Aggri was completely open with what he thought, sharing viewpoints, and making opinions, all the while standing an arms’ length away from the polling station. He did not flinch when a policeman wandered by and when I asked him about that, he just said’ well, I know my rights, what can they do?’. To me, this signified an interesting divide, the history of a lack of democracy in Jacob’s older mind, and the freedom that Aggri—the youth of Zambia believes he deserves. I wonder what this means for Zambia’s future?

I’m always curious about how significant events here are covered in the international media. More often than not, front page coverage is usually reseved for violent tensions like the situation in the Congo right now and end up reinforcing negative stereotypes of countries in Africa. I saw a country that was peaceful and hopeful during a point of potential transition of power and this is rarely found in the international media.

To my surprise, I just checked on FT and there, on the front page under World, was an interesting assessment of the elections.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/6958bdba-a6a4-11dd-95be-000077b07658.html?nclick_check=1

I’m also usually disappointed by the lack of coverage in Canadian media so I was also pleasantly surprised at the discovery of CBC’s attention being paid on the election. That subsided quickly after noticing that immediately, the headline jumped to negative association to vote rigging, rather than the peaceful months that have lead up to this, and the continued peace that currently exists as the ballots are being counted. Canada, I expect more.

http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2008/10/30/zambia-election.html

The reports that Sata is leading might be true. Almost everyone that I have come across here in Lusaka IS a Sata supporter. ‘Change’ is what most say they want. However, with 50% of the population living in the rural areas, who knows what the outcome will actually be?

More to come tomorrow!

it's erection day!

I’m still alive here. Yup, sweating it out in the heat of the dry season.

What’s the occasion that breaks the blog silence? Erections! Errrr I mean eLections

Small aside: Zambians, rike any other culture where Engrish is a second ranguage for many, seem to mix up their ‘ L’ with their ‘R’s. Sometimes, it can be confusing, as in, ‘do you have a lazor brade?’, or ‘ oh, the lain has come early’. Mostly, however, it is extremely amusing, especially today, as Oct 30^th is Election day!

Gutter humour aside ( I know, GROW UP!), it’s true, I’ve been in the thick of election fever. From Canada’s recent secret ballot bonanza ( where the most signficiant outcome was that it was the lowest turnout since confederation), to today in Zambia to the US on the 4^th, 2008 seems to be the year of elections.

The election here in Zambia was unexpected. Near the end of August, Zambia’s President Levy Mwanawasa died of a stroke that he suffered during the AU summit in July.

This time his death was real.

http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?click_id=13&set_id=1&art_id=nw20080703180911345C945113

http://uk.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSWEA096120080703

Mwanawasa, though not perfect, or inspiring, certainly provided leadership, when considering the situation in Somalia, in Zimbabwe, in the Congo, in Sudan, that was in a class of its own. http://www.economist.com/world/mideast-africa/displaystory.cfm?STORY_ID=11968403

What's election season like here? Well, mostly serious and i can't help but think how incredible it is that this country, is still rather young in this process with multiparty elections being held just 17 years ago in 1991. Everything is closed today so that people can go and vote. Hop in any cab, or mini bus, and the best conversation starter is So, who are you voting for? People here are all to happy to share with you their viewpoints. ( unlike my mom, who, whenever it comes to elections, always says ' i can't tell you, it's a SECRET'. true enough mom, true enough). People CARE enough to vote.

I was walking down the street on Tuesday and nearly got ran over by a truck overflowing with people honking horns and waving support for Rupiah Banda - a career diplomat who was Mwanawasa’s VP and the current acting president. But it appears that many in Zambia have caught on to Obama’s message of CHANGE and are noting that it is time to vote in another party, after MMD has ruled since 1991 when Chiluba took over from Kaunda. Michael Sata, the leader of the main opposition party Patriotic Front, is his main candidate. In 2006, Sata made a run for office, made Chinese investment an issue and although won support in the urbanized areas along the line of rail, failed to get enough support in the rural areas. This time around though, people seem excited about him, if not for his policies, because at least its different.

The other option for CHANGE is HH, or Hakainde Hichelema, the 46 year old business man who for many, seem to offer best bet against corruption as he is already a highly successful business man, but for most, is ‘still a young chap, lacking experience’.

Among the three however, I can’t really seem to discern the biggest difference between them all. They’re all going to fight corruption, they’re all giving out free seeds and fertlisers, they’re all trying to help Zambia develop.

Whichever one does end up in office, I can only hope that they do provie the leadership that the 12 million people here deserve.

But more to come later. i'm out the door to see that election day in Zambia is all about.