Galvanized by tragedy

Truck accidents are an all too common occurrence around Mazabuka.  This morning, there was another horrible accident at the Shoprite intersection.  A truck loaded with several large bins of ice was en route to the Kafue River to collect fish when it slammed through the fence and rolled over.  The biggest tragedy is that there were several people riding in the back of the open trailer.  I am told that eleven people lost their lives and that another eight are in hospital with various fractures.  The scale of the tragedy is truly difficult to comprehend.

Incidentally, today was the scheduled quarterly meeting of the Full Council.  As a result, the councilors were definitely talking about the morning's accident.  They resolved that the Council officers should move ahead with the by-pass road and, as an interim measure, find some money to install warning signs and additional speed humps on the current route through town.  The sticky situation is that the Councilors are determined that the work should proceed on a different by-pass route than the one proposed in the IDP - essentially replacing an entire 60 kilometre stretch of highway.  While their proposal goes through much flatter terrain than the current highway, it will be an astronomically expensive route to build and will disrupt a number of small villages.  In contrast, the other by-pass road is about 8 kilometres, crossing through three large farms.  No solution is ever perfect...

The day's deliberations.

Recognizing the dangers of the Shoprite intersection, the Council did recently get out and paint the road with some markings to control traffic.  I've spent a bit of time observing the intersection and have noticed that people do pay heed to the lanes and the stop line.  It's a start, but it won't stop any runaway trucks.

More fresh produce

It just keeps getting better. Now the local bananas are back in season, along with these strange looking oranges called “naartjies”. I assume that's just Afrikaans for “orange” since in Spanish the word is “naranja” and in Italian “arancia”. The naartjies have a greenish-yellow peel which makes one think they've been picked too early; however the insides are much like tangerine – decidedly orange and decidedly tasty.

The finger bananas don't look like much on the outside (one would expect to see them on the mark-down rack at the supermarket), but inside they're oh-so-sweet and full of flavour. The texture is very smooth and creamy.

Local produce - yummy!

In addition, the maize crop is about ready to harvest. After a dry spell of a few weeks duration, the rains came back but with not as much gusto as in December-January. Nevertheless, the rains returned at just the right time to rescue the crops from an otherwise disappointing (disastrous?) harvest. Stella, our cleaner, planted maize in the garden, which has grown to about three metres tall. I never knew maize would grow that high!

The towering stalks of maize in the backyard.

Under African Skies

As we begin the transition from the southern summer to winter, the sunset comes earlier – around 5:45 p.m. It's now pretty much dark by about 6:30, whereas during December we still had some light in the sky after 7. Not a huge difference I know, but it is noticed nonetheless.

While people find inspiration in evening skies just about everywhere on the globe, those found in Africa must be among the most beautiful. These days, when I go running after work, I run under beautiful cloud formations painted all shades of gold, blue, orange, pink and purple. It's quite a nice treat after a sometimes difficult day.

I've decided to post some of the evening sky shots I've taken over the last several months, to give everyone the idea of what I mean. A photo will never fully do justice to a full sky-scape... I guess you'll have to come and see for yourselves some time.

Sunset over Lake Kariba

Setting up camp on the Lower Zambezi River after a long day of paddling.

The blues, golds and purples of Kasanka N.P.

Sunset on the walk home from work.

Skies over Mazabuka

Another evening sky phenomenon is also worth sharing. During the sugar harvests, the fields are set alight to burn off all the unwanted plant matter, which leaves the cane to be cut more easily. The first time I saw the fields on fire, I actually heard it first. It sounded a bit like the roar of a heavy rainstorm on the roof, but not quite. I went outside to investigate and was amazed to see the tongues of fire rising above the treetops!

Fire's burning, fire's burning, draw nearer, draw nearer, in the gloaming, in the gloaming, come sing and be merry.

This looked and sounded particularly impressive.

Colourful Currency

I've always been interested in nerdy things like currency and stamps. Yes, I said it, I'm a nerd. Didn't you know?

So, I've done something to further prove my nerdiness... I took photos of all the banknotes and made a collage. Hey, I had to test the fancy features of my photo editing software somehow...

ZMK 86,650 = $18.05

Environmentalism?

A few months ago, I bought a few of the “green” shopping bags proudly on sale at the Shoprite store. Since there's virtually no recycling, and waste disposal is a difficult issue here, I thought I'd do my part to reduce the amount of waste going to the dump.

The problem is that every time I go to the store, I get hassled by the security guard to check my environmentally-friendly bags at the store manager's office. At the checkout, as the cashier or bagging clerk starts putting things in plastic, I yelp, “Wait, I've got bags!” So I go off to get them, return, and find that the groceries are all wrapped in plastic anyway.

Today I did a major shopping and brought my knapsack, plus the reusable bags to carry everything home. I still ended up with eight additional plastic shopping bags... head office policy obviously hasn't reached Mazabuka.

"Shoprite bag saver: A Shoprite environmental initiative."

My actual grocery wrapping.

More trouble on the street

Today when I went into town for some shopping, I happened upon another scene of devastation on the main street of Mazabuka. Apparently a truck with failed brakes came careening down the hill towards the Shoprite, hit a bus and then flipped on its side before coming to rest in a series of storefronts along the main street. When I got there, a heavy piece of machinery was set up to drag the truck out of the way. It was more or less spinning its wheels.

There was plenty of debris around since the truck had wiped out several pillars from the colonnade along the storefronts. My thoughts also leapt to the fact that usually several informal salespeople are stationed directly outside those stores. I understand from another resident that two of the fruit sellers were injured but that nobody was killed in the accident.  This is all quite alarming... let's get crackin' on that by-pass road folks!

International Women's Day

Tuesday March 8 was International Women's Day, which is celebrated as a public holiday in Zambia. To celebrate, women (and a few male allies – good to see) march through town under various banners in coordinated outfits. The march ends up at a central location for a variety of speeches and other activities. It was certainly a nice treat to have a day off for this.

This year, so I am told, the riots of the previous week had disturbed the planning for International Women's Day. So the march was pushed to Friday. Of course, I went out to have a look and add my support. Everyone appeared to be having such a great time that Friday became a de facto holiday as well. I returned to the office for most of the day, where it was nice and quiet for a change!

 

Ladies from the Council marching in the parade.

Dangerous driver

After many months of walking, I rode a bicycle for the first time today.  It was quite a liberating experience.  However, after the first 200 metres, I wondered, "Why is that car coming directly towards me?"  It was at that moment that I realized I should be on the left side of the road.

Old habits die hard...

An international audience

The other day, I realized that I could check the statistics on how many people are reading my blog.  I was really astonished to find that my blog has had over 5,000 visits since I started it up last year - an average of about 18 per day.  Okay, perhaps that's not a huge amount of traffic, but I still find it interesting.

I was most surprised to see where my readers come from (South Korea and Ukraine were the most surprising).  The top ten are shown in the column on the left.

Page views since inception - click to enlarge

Peter's Farewell

Sadly, another farewell party. This one was for Peter, a Ugandan volunteer who has been working with the Council for the last two years. His placement was to assist in implementing the Council's Workplace Policy on HIV & AIDS. It's no secret that HIV & AIDS is devastating Africa and Zambia is no exception. Though I'm no expert on the issue, I have heard that the prevalence rate exceeds 15% here. Scary stuff.

Peter has made an important contribution to the Council's understanding of how to respond to the human resource aspects of HIV & AIDS. Most Council workers are affected by the disease in one way or another – either they are personally infected, or else family and friends are. This can result in missed work days due to illness or the need to take care of family members, inability to do certain tasks (particularly physical ones), and significant strains on household resources.

This post is not intended to dwell too much on the HIV & AIDS side of things (plenty of other resources out there), but I did want to point out that the personal nature of the work Peter has done really made an impact on people working for the Council. As a result, when we had the farewell party at the Council motel on Wednesday evening, it was touching to hear all the comments offered up by those in attendance. Each person had an opportunity to say a few words about their experience working with Peter. I recalled his friendly and unique way of greeting me each morning: “How are we?” and how he thoroughly entertained the University of Zambia students last December, all the while disseminating some very serious information on HIV & AIDS prevention. That's a talent.

After the speeches and formalities, we all tucked in to a tasty braii and found our groove on the dance floor! Peter will be missed by many.

Posing with the Planning Department (Peter: 3rd from right)

Posing with the Deputy Director of Planning and the Mayor

Peter imparting a few final words of wisdom to the Council and accepting a gift of appreciation.

All smiles!

Leaving Livingstone

Two weeks ago, my friend Emily returned to England after her year as a VSO in Livingstone.  To send her off, a bunch of us went down to Livingstone for a celebration.  I saw a new and impressive aspect of the falls called the "Boiling Pot", which required a somewhat arduous descent into the canyon below the falls.  Frankly, the hardest part was keeping a footing on the slippery path.

It was sad to send off another good friend but I guess this is just the way it goes.

Enjoying drinks (or about to, I guess) at the Royal Livingstone Hotel.

Victoria and Andrew - all smiles!

Emily contemplating her next moves... in more ways than one.  Best of luck!

The Boiling Pot below the falls and the Zambia-Zimbabwe bridge.

Posing at the Boiling Pot

We had to tread carefully around the mother baboon and her babies on the way up.

Juxtapositions 3: The Mazabuka Olympics

The Mazabuka contingent of expats and volunteers has acquired a reputation as a party crowd. Befitting the reputation, we organized an Olympics party last weekend. Competitors vied for the medals in Darts, Ping-Pong and Billiards. Teams of two were drawn randomly, along with the country they were to represent. In a strange twist of fate, I was the only person who drew his own country – Canada!  It was a close competition, but the Zambian team prevailed to snatch the gold medal. 

Double 19 to win!

Refreshments between events!

Posing with Victoria

... later declared the bronze medalist from "Team Germany"

The gold medalists from "Team Zambia"

Juxtapositions 2: Birthdays

Despite the tensions in Mazabuka, there are always reasons to celebrate... such as birthdays. My colleagues and friends Pami and Ennie celebrated their respective birthdays a few days ago and insisted that I take some photos. Camera ownership is not so common in Zambia so people usually find it a great novelty to have their snaps taken. Now that I've posted the photos, I'll need to make good on my promise to print them out for the ladies...

Posing with the birthday girl, Ennie

Ennie with Rob and Judy

Pami (2nd from left) and colleagues

Sweet treats

Juxtapositions 1: Modern Life in the Capital

Upon leaving Mazabuka amid the protests, store closures and the general sense of unease, I came to Lusaka for a long weekend. My friends Helen and Dan have been generous hosts on short notice. It's always a pleasure to spend time with them.

I spent Friday morning at the VSO office catching up on some correspondence, updating my computer and informing the VSO staff about the situation in Mazabuka. In the afternoon, I went to the clinic for an overdue check-up (all fine), and then off to the mall to replace my decaying dress shoes (the uneven pavements and muddy roads have badly abused my shoes!) I tried setting up an appointment to see Habitat for Humanity, but seeing as it was short notice on a Friday, I got nowhere with that request.

As I sat at the mall enjoying a delicious cup of mocha java at Mugg & Bean, I couldn't help but think that this felt like such another world from the one I'd left the day before. A shiny new mall, a western-style coffee shop, and several styles of shoe to choose from...

Manda Hill reopened in November after a major renovation.  Could be the Eaton Centre.

 

Not so different from Loblaws