Greetings this March 28
09:52 am
Just a little note on things. In our tree nurseries we use lots of plastic grow pots. They are costly so we have found a new pot, empty, 1 liter beer containers they work great and there are lots around. At least we are recycling.
March 17 2006
09:51 am
It has been over two weeks since I arrived in Zambia and have just returned from Petauke and Eastern Province. I will put some photos on here and a few things on here Monday. The projects are all doing fine, the trees are growing and the wells are full of water.
March 5, 2006
09:50 am
It is Sunday afternoon in Lusaka and it is raining heavely, perhaps too much rain. I am safe and sound and will leave for Petauke on Monday or Tuesday. The Zambian Kwacha has gained strength aganst the dollar and things are getting expensive,my transportation in country has doubled. The flight was long but I have my reward, I am here! The only problem was when I checked in at Victoria Airport and found out that although I was travelling with BA, Air Canada (from the Island to Vancouver) has a weight of 50 pounds per bag; BA is still 70 pounds. So I was 40 pounds over weight between the two bags. May I thank the women on the counter in Victoria that pushed those two bags onto the conveyor belt anyway. Thats all for now.
February 19, 2006
09:49 am
'By the community for the community'
Participative and decentralized democratic networks.
People becoming more important than productivity.
Moving from the pyramid to the circle: from power down to power round.
From bureaucracy to organic structures, that enables a group to serve one another as well as the world.
The movement between people to experience a ‘common life’.
Is a face-to-face gathering of people to share and to act for the betterment of one another and the wider good of others.
The word community means (coming together in unity) individuals coming together in unity.
What A Gift.
09:47 am
Earlier this week our friends from Japan who are in Victoria visiting came by. They have always been very supportive to what I am doing in Zambia; Yoshi had worked as a volunteer in Syria when he was younger. They presented me with a brand new laptop; my old one was getting pretty slow if anyone had been at any of my presentations lately. I would like to thank my friends Yoshi and Terry Yamamoto for such a great gift.
Thanks
09:45 am
I would like to thank Ryan's Well Foundation for the funds to rehabilite four community wells in my Clean Water Project in Zambia. They are featured on their web site at www.ryanswell.ca along with other water projects around the world.
Greetings Everyone
09:43 am
I am heading into my fifth year of going to Zambia as a volunteer Community Developer. It
just seems like yesterday that I got a call from VSO Canada to go to Ottawa and than to England to train as a Community Developer. My assignment lasted 15 months and I returned to Canada. My stay home did not last long; I was back in Zambia visiting my old projects and adding more. That was 2002-3 and I am starting to plan my next visit. This will be my fifth visit.
I received a letter from Zambia today dated December 19th it is from a newly formed team, they don’t want to be called a club. They have called themselves ‘Nkhonzi Aforestation Team’ and they are from a deforested area around Mumbi Village. I had talked to them last visit about this problem when I was there doing water wells and had left them seeds and plastics
to grow the seedlings in. In the letter I received they were happy to tell me the seeds had germinated and were doing well, and could you please bring more seeds when you come back
to visit us.
This news makes me feel very happy and proud of Felix and his team. Not only will the reforestation be an asset for their children and the environment but also they are moving
ahead on their own.
All my adventures in Zambia would not be possible without the support I have received from
my dear wife, Maria and so many others. This support, both financial and moral has made it possible for me to do what I have found a passion for.
Zikomo kwambiri
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
09:42 am
People ask me when are you going back?
I just got home!
But yes
I am going back!
November 22/2005
10:47 am
Soon the rains will start here in Zambia. We have had some showers but not enough to start planting but some farmers remembering that last year the rains before the harvest did not come. They planted too early this year and have lost their seeds to drought. They will plant again if they have seeds. I have just returned from Petauke where I visited my well rehabilitation work. My crew is doing a fantastic job; I get scared just going down the well let alone work at the bottom. Everyday more headmen come to ask for help with their water problems, my facilitator records their names and village, perhaps I can help. In Mumbi village, the well that we cleaned and dug deeper now has 4 meters of clean water in it, not just mud. They are now busy with a water trough for their animals and I have given them instructions in tree planting and have started a tree nursery beside the well with over 2,500 trees in it. I will take them more seeds and plastic pots when I go back next week. In Minga, the group of door and furniture makers is getting ready to register their Association. Here in Lusaka my first solar dry kiln has been commissioned at the Kabwata Culture Village and I will go to Kafue tomorrow and do a workshop with the over 400 carvers there. Even the carvers here in Lusaka want to start a tree nursery; I will give them instructions and supply the seeds and plastic pots. Well, its 3:40 am and it has just started to rain and getting cooler, perhaps this is the start of the rainy season and new hope for these great people in Zambia, surely they will have used up all their bad luck soon. "If you are not good looking you better be a good dancer"
November 5, 2005
09:39 am
Today was my 46th day away from home, well my Canadian home. It is Monday, the day I take my Lariam for Malaria, the number one killer in Africa. The one that takes the life of an innocent eleven-month-old baby girl in a village; down a washed out road not far from the pot holed Great East Road. The last journey from her home is in a reed mat slung across the handlebars of her father’s bike. The whole village follows to the well-used graveyard a short distance from the last hut. Somewhere soon there will be the cry of a new borne, life goes on in rural Africa. And than there is HIV/Aids. Millions of dollars are being spent each month here in Southern Africa on this disease, workshop after workshop, money to burn, a NGO’s dream. But, the disease is still being spread. The cost of buying medicines for the year to combat its affects are more than the average person makes here in a year, that is if they are employed. Remember they still have to eat; these drugs do not work unless they do! Everyone here knows how to put a condom on: in the dark, behind their back, while on their back. What is needed is to give them a reason to put it on! Give them a job! But, in order for us to stay rich; we must have the poor. Oh, and remember that little innocent girl, she was sound asleep in her bed, when she was bitten by a mosquito.
I have had little time to sit at this computer and chat. I have covered ground from Kapasseni in Mozambique to western Zambia. Wells are being rebuilt and dug in Petauke District. Chief Sandwe wants the old refugee camp in his Chiefdom turned into a village for grandmothers and orphans. I must find funding for a roof on a new small community school. As fast as I can find seeds, more trees are being planted at tree nurseries that I have the communities running. With the EU, I am building four solar dry kilns for the carvers across in Lusaka, Kafue, Livingstone and Mongu. The Woodworking Association in Minga will hold their first meeting on the weekend, yes, I will be there. Kapasseni in Mozambique only 1100 kilometers from my projects in Eastern Province will get another visit soon to make sure the hammer mill building is complete and install the hammer mill (perhaps a quick dip in the Indian Ocean). Therefore, I have had little time to sit at a computer and there are no places out there so I can push ‘send’.
I am a little tired but I am where I am supposed to be life.