Erika May REPORT (DI)

After 4 months in Sweden, 6 in Norway and almost three days of road we got to Lusaka. It was worm outside, and we were still together, so even it all of us were very tired we enjoyed a lot this day. The second day we had to split, and go true our projects. The road was long, if I remembered well almost twelve hours. Ieva and Martin were together with me until Mkushi , and they have already talked with the project leaders. Mine was not answering. After a while I started to panic, and started to think that what will happen if nobody will come and pick me up and I will have to spend the night alone outside somewhere, but soon my project leader called, he was in a meeting in Challenge, so when I arrived at 3 o’clock in the night his son came to pick me up. My first night in Samfya I spend it at the office, and I was so tired that I slept until the next morning, when my project mate woke me up with a sandwich.

The next three days I was just walking around Samfya, to get to know

and get familiar with the place and with the surroundings. The place is beautiful, amazing. From the window of the main office, you can see the Bangwalo lake , and the garden is full with some trees with interesting flowers, but also orange trees and mango trees. Looking at this nature, and to all the combination of colors, and to the sky with seems much closer and it is very clear, at the night you can see every constellation, every star, the milky way, you get a feeling of piece. The beach is very close, two minutes from the office, and it is very nice. The water is blue and clear, and in some parts some trees are growing in the water.

After getting familiar with the place I had the meeting with my Co project leader, Eleanor, and the next days we visited the ministries: the ministry of education, life stock, agriculture, fishery, NZP+ (nation of Zambian HIV positive people), all the people with who I will work, and by the end of the first week I went for the first time in the field, in Mundubi. The road until Mundubi is like 22-30 km from Samfya, and I am going usually with the bicycle, but its beautiful. Somewhere to the middle of the way from Samfya to Mundubi it is a bridge, and the lake is so blue and clear. On the way you can also find the houses of the ants between the green big grass. The smaller lakes and swampy areas on the way are full with lake roses, and all the

way you can see interesting trees and flowers.

The houses are small and different. Sometimes I tend to think that they are matching with this nature. The people are young, they are singing all day, most of them are nice and they would share anything they have with you.

They seem really happy.

They are very religious, and they also know how to have fun. In the Mundubi area they have some kind of tradition, that the youths are gathering together every night, and they go true the whole area singing, dancing and playing drums. I also heard that in some of the communities people are still practicing witchcraft. I didn’t had the chance to talk with them or to see them yet, but in 6 months I will have time. In the way true the communities, and in the communities the kids are following me everywhere and they are yelling after me “muzungu”, or “how are you”, but it is too bad that most of them cannot speak English and they know only a few words, so I cannot talk with them. In the city, in Samfya it is a little bit different. For ex. I have a neighbor, her name is Aggie she is 5 years old, and she has a very good level of English, she can also tell stories in

English, and she is drawing very nicely. She is a smart girl. Her mother cannot speak English, but usually she is translating. Now I am in Mundubi, but when I am going in a place I am looking at what is needed to be done, and I am doing that. Until now we established to form a new pre school in the Mubembe

Village, with the village action group, we started to make a playing ground for the pre school in Mundubi, I had a lot of meetings with the support groups, village action groups, and I hap presentations about HIV/AIDS, nutrition, health and hygiene, food security, safe food storage. For safe food storage we also made a fruit dryer, and present it to the area leaders to promote it, and we are also promoting it, because mostly in the mango season a lot of fruits are going bad. This way they could dry the fruits, and have fruits also later. In the communities I am also promoting the fire wood saving stoves, and the tree planting, because if we are just cutting trees in a some years we could remain without this beautiful nature. I am also promoting the importance of clean places, clean dishes, the importance of the dish racks. As I heard a lot of pregnant woman and kids, mostly fewer than five are getting sick, so I prepared a presentation about maternal and children under five cares, to present it in the communities, and

to the support groups. Every time I have the chance I am telling them about the importance of the safe, clean, boiled water, or instead of water the use of the tea. I was surprised to see that in the communities only a few people are drinking tea, so I had a presentation about all the benefits the tea has, and I had also demonstration with tea in Mundubi Pre School and in the school. For the demonstration I used the lemon grass, Artemisia and moringa , because this plants are also known as prevention against malaria, so I am trying to promote them as well. Most of the support groups are making business with agriculture, but most of them they don’t have seeds, and they don’t receive support all the time from the ministries, so I am trying to teach them to save some seeds. If they are eating a papaya, to do not throw the seeds, to keep them, dry them and plant them. They can do exactly the same thing with tomatoes, maize, beans and so on. Most of the people in the community are selling everything without leaving anything to eat, so I am also trying to explain about the right balance between the food grown to eat and to sell. Because the hot season is coming soon, and in this time people cannot keep the food neither for one day I came up with the idea to make a natural refrigerator. It is very simple to make, we need two clay pots, a bigger one and a smaller one, with is placed inside the big one, the space between the two pots is filled with wet sand and it is covered with a wet cloth. The food is placed inside the smaller pot, and it can stay for two days or more. This way the people can store their food safely and it is also another option for business. Some people could start making clay pots and they could sell them. The thing witch seems a little bit more difficult is making them understand that they are not doing things for me, or for DAPP, that they are doing everything for themselves. Most of the time they need somebody to push them to make things. I would also be happy if I could see them trying to do things, and not just waiting even if they don’t know for sure how, if they would start experimenting things.

Beside this things, together with my project mate, we are also participating at common actions, so we made a plan for “Keep Samfya clean” , everything is ready, we are just waiting for the ministry of environment to establish the exact date. Some advices for the next DI’s who are coming in Zambia, would be to learn bemba, because mostly in the communities only a few people are speaking English. You can survive also without because you have one area leader with you who is translating, but it’s not the same. It is better if you know. He is not with you all the time. So, kisses for all of you, and see you in less then five months!!