As a volunteer in Zambia, I find myself constantly struggling with the reality of what I'm actually getting done over here. Most days drag by really slowly and I have to force myself to stay busy. Getting 'actual' work done is a frustration due to how slow everything runs. Motivation within the communities is also a big problem. You can't really blame the people, because life for them is hard. When the majority of your days are taken up with trying to produce enough food to just get by, taking the time to go to meetings voluntarily isn't a high priority. Naturally people want to see some instant improvements in their day to day lives and usually overlook the fact that knowledge actually leads to development. One of the most important tasks of volunteers in Zambia is just trying to motivate communities to want change and want knowledge.
As I said above, "Success feels splendid." I say this because I've devoted so much of my time in the village to trying to motivate my communities (I have 8) but don't usually feel like I've had much of an impact on them. But out of my eight villages, I have found 2 villages who show me time after time how eager they are to learn and actually want to try and change their positions in life.
The most recent example was a nutrition workshop I just put on in August in this particular village. I was lucky enough to find some free soya beans last year and I gave them to my Neighborhood Health Committee to grow. They harvested the beans in June and ended up tripling their yeild. This alone made me proud, because often even simple projects like this fail because of lack of cooperation between members. So the first day of the workshop we focused primarily on nutrition and malnutrition and all the ins and outs that go along with healthy diets.
The second day we had a full day of cooking demonstrations, mostly on cooking soya, and discussed the benefits of soya beans. That part was really a lot of fun. We made soya milk, soya sausages, soya flour, soya nshima, and different veggies with soya flour. Cabbage, cassava leaves, rape and wusi (some bitter wild green) to be exact. The gender roles were all over the place, it was great. Usually in Zambia the men steer clear of anything cooking related, but the men in the NHC were very eager to learn all the mechanics of all the dishes. They even had the women teach them how to pound the soya flour and cassava leaves, and learned how to properly pick the leaves off the cassava plant. It was really cool to see both the men and women working together in the "kitchen." Most men get pretty severely ridiculed in the village if they are seen doing a 'woman's job.'
But the most gratifying part of it all was that at the end of the workshop, the participants were very adamant about assuring me that what I had taught them would be put into practice ASAP. They were begging me to type up everything we had gone over so they could always be referring back to it. I guess the main reason I'm writing about this experience is that it is like a breath of fresh air to me. After so many disappointments in the village, I do struggle to keep my own moral up at times and having these two villages really convince me that they took something from what I taught them was just what I needed. And I'm happy that it was nutrition that they took something from. Not that other sujbects I train on (TB,Malaria,etc) aren't important, but I feel like malnutrition is the ONE thing they really have control over. You can sleep under a mosquito net and cover your body completely at night but still catch malaria. You can take all the precautions to aviod TB and still get it (believe me on this one!). But malnutrition is the one major problem in the village that can be controlled pretty easily with proper knowledge on the subject and planning ahead. As I tell the villagers, nobody is going to come and feed your kids for you. The health center won't give your kid food, its YOU (the parents) to conqueor this problem and now you have the knowledge to do so. So...lets all keep our fingers crossed that the information spreads like wildfire! or bushfire in my case!
As I said above, "Success feels splendid." I say this because I've devoted so much of my time in the village to trying to motivate my communities (I have 8) but don't usually feel like I've had much of an impact on them. But out of my eight villages, I have found 2 villages who show me time after time how eager they are to learn and actually want to try and change their positions in life.
The most recent example was a nutrition workshop I just put on in August in this particular village. I was lucky enough to find some free soya beans last year and I gave them to my Neighborhood Health Committee to grow. They harvested the beans in June and ended up tripling their yeild. This alone made me proud, because often even simple projects like this fail because of lack of cooperation between members. So the first day of the workshop we focused primarily on nutrition and malnutrition and all the ins and outs that go along with healthy diets.
The second day we had a full day of cooking demonstrations, mostly on cooking soya, and discussed the benefits of soya beans. That part was really a lot of fun. We made soya milk, soya sausages, soya flour, soya nshima, and different veggies with soya flour. Cabbage, cassava leaves, rape and wusi (some bitter wild green) to be exact. The gender roles were all over the place, it was great. Usually in Zambia the men steer clear of anything cooking related, but the men in the NHC were very eager to learn all the mechanics of all the dishes. They even had the women teach them how to pound the soya flour and cassava leaves, and learned how to properly pick the leaves off the cassava plant. It was really cool to see both the men and women working together in the "kitchen." Most men get pretty severely ridiculed in the village if they are seen doing a 'woman's job.'
But the most gratifying part of it all was that at the end of the workshop, the participants were very adamant about assuring me that what I had taught them would be put into practice ASAP. They were begging me to type up everything we had gone over so they could always be referring back to it. I guess the main reason I'm writing about this experience is that it is like a breath of fresh air to me. After so many disappointments in the village, I do struggle to keep my own moral up at times and having these two villages really convince me that they took something from what I taught them was just what I needed. And I'm happy that it was nutrition that they took something from. Not that other sujbects I train on (TB,Malaria,etc) aren't important, but I feel like malnutrition is the ONE thing they really have control over. You can sleep under a mosquito net and cover your body completely at night but still catch malaria. You can take all the precautions to aviod TB and still get it (believe me on this one!). But malnutrition is the one major problem in the village that can be controlled pretty easily with proper knowledge on the subject and planning ahead. As I tell the villagers, nobody is going to come and feed your kids for you. The health center won't give your kid food, its YOU (the parents) to conqueor this problem and now you have the knowledge to do so. So...lets all keep our fingers crossed that the information spreads like wildfire! or bushfire in my case!
1 comment:
Tamra, what a wonderful update! I have such a clearer view of your work and play since we hit those dusty rough roads! Meeting all those beautiful people there makes me realize your efforts are being very appreciated. They love you and I now have special people I love there. Keep up the good work. Good luck on your garden. Love, Grama B
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