Finding Similar Opportunities At Home

I went home to Michigan in July for a month of very needed vacation / down time, and I'll admit that I struggled the first week or so to really find my place in the United States.  I was happy to be there and reunite with family, friends, my culture and nation, but it took some time getting used to.

Gardening 365 strives to teach food security through do-it-yourself trainings, but also to open a stream of revenue generation for the Leila Arboretum Society through horticulture.  Vegetables grown in this green house are sold in local farmers markets, as well as being sold to local restaurants.

A lot of people asked me how Zambia was, how were things in Africa, did I have ebola, and so on and so forth.  But, I quickly realized that while some were genuinely interested, most just weren't sure what to ask me about.  And I couldn't really blame them... there seemed to be a large disconnect between my daily life and what I work on here in Zambia and what people's lives back home consisted of.  Usually I can talk to nearly anyone, but I even feel silent at times in asking about their lives.

Some of the Gardening 365 team working in their green house to sort, package, and then ship some fresh produce.

However, it all changed to a certain degree when I was lucky enough to be invited to the Leila Arboretum Society's urban farm for a brief tour.  In these small gardens off Michigan Avenue I found a small part of Battle Creek that resembled my Zambian work and interests.  The search was over.

A range of colored peppers are pictured here.  Battle Creek, like many other places throughout the United Staets is home to "food deserts."  These are places where people can't find fresh produce, instead they're forced to opt for processed foods.

I was amazed at the kind of work they were doing there - in fact, they were doing largely the same kind of work that I have been working on here in Zambia for the last 2.5 years: food security programs.  Battle Creek, like so many other cities across the nation is plagued by "food deserts."  These are areas where finding an apple, a tomato, or ever an ear of sweet corn is nearly impossible because of price or availability, but finding a Twix bar or bottle of Mountain Dew only requires you leave your house and enter a convenience store.  It's a real problem that's leading to further gains in our population's desperate race to become twice the size of a normal humans.

Through community engagement, trainings, and actual production / growing the Leila Arboretum's Gardening 365 program is ensuring food security for those willing to learn throughout the Battle Creek area one small garden at a time.

The Gardening 365 demonstration garden is full of all kinds of vegetables that with a little bit of practice any local gardener could easily produce at their own home.

Not unlike here in Zambia, people in Michigan also love their tomatoes.  Here a hybrid variety is growing in the demonstration garden.  Efforts like that of the Leila Arboretum Society's go a long way in helping community members live healthier lives.

It made me really happy to consider that even when my time here in the Peace Corps is complete I'll have opportunities to continue working on similar projects to what my time here has been focused on.  It will also help with being back home, fitting back into my own country and avoiding those awkward moments when I catch myself staring at other Americans and thinking, "I have no idea what to say... this would never come up in Zambia."

The minds and muscle behind Gardening 365: Brett, Kathy, and Mike

The Ferocious Chaz

Chaz is my neighbor.  He's a chameleon, and he lives somewhere near my house - in either the guava tree or orange tree behind my house, I would guess.  It doesn't matter where he lives exactly, only that he occasionally pops up when I stumble upon him.  And whenever I do see Chaz moving ever so slowly I have to stop and watch him.  Chameleons really are interesting: they move exceptionally slow, have oddly shaped feet / claw-type things, and do in fact change colors before your eyes.

I cut these bananas from a tree near my house and as soon as I opened the cluster up I saw Chaz.  He was just sitting there; exactly how he is in this photograph.

However, the most interesting thing, to me, about chameleons is how incredibly terrified Zambians are of them.  I once found a chameleon in a tree, deep in the forest, and showed my local Department of Fisheries Officer (who happened to be with me that day) my find and not only did he jump high off of the ground, but he ran to the nearest termite mound and refused to come back around until I put the chameleon somewhere high in a tree... where it couldn't bite him.

Look at his weird claw foot as it is grabbing the banana down to the left of him.  I assume it's a he, but it could be a she.  Who knows?

The next day I went to take my clothes off of the clothing line and there, sitting atop my boxers, was Chaz. 

That's right - where it couldn't bite him. You see, Zambians believe that the bite of a chameleon will bring "masham" (bad luck) at the least but death in the worst case scenario.  Some time last year my village headman told me a story about the bite of a chameleon and it went like this:

Outside the city of Ndola a woman was stopped by the police at a checkpoint.  The police asked her to get out of the car she was traveling in and to show them the contents of her bag.  She did this and upon opening the bag a chameleon clambered out.  It immediately bit the woman's hand.  She seized up and fell to the ground... dead.  Her body then turned all sorts of different colors from black to green to blue, red, back to green, and many other hues.  The chameleon crawled away and since then Zambians have been afraid of chameleons, or so my village headman claims.

He's not the most fleet of foot, so his slow motion movements gave me plenty of time to run inside my house, put my camera together, and get outside in time to get some pictures of him before he made his way into the guava tree.

When I asked my co-worker Chipo about chameleons she said, "Ah... I don't like them.  Not at all.  The way they walk, the way they change colors... and the skin... I don't like it.  Stay far from them."  She laughed when I told her the story my headman passed on to me, but it was more of an uncertain laugh, as if to say, "Yeah, that could be real.  It's possible."

Who knows when I'll be seeing Chaz next, but I'm sure in the meantime I'll hear more stories about the power of a chameleon's bite and their dubious nature.

As I don't believe in the power of a lowly chameleon's bite to induce harm and masham on my life I'll continue studying Chaz whenever he shows up next.  He's one of the more interesting looking neighbors I've ever had.

What I Do Now

I've left Makiya Village - my home of two years - for a new job, a new region, but the same Peace Corps.  Although I decided to not extend for a third year in the village as a Peace Corps Volunteer, I was not quite so ready to leave my beloved Peace Corps and my home of the last few years - Zambia, so I applied for and was accepted to stay for a third year while working with an organization in Southern Zambia.

Most of the work I do at my new job is done in meetings with community members, whereas during the past two years my work was done largely one-on-one or in small groups and out in the field.

Now I work with a US-based organization called Project Concern International (PCI).  I have an entirely new job (no longer am I a forestry extension agent) and a new job title: Disaster Risk Reduction Specialist (DRR Specialist).  As a DRR Specialist I work with local communities in Southern Zambia on a project entitled Sustainable Health and Agriculture for Resilient Populations (SHARP).  This project, like my work two years previously, focuses on food security throughout these rural communities.  The project has three aspects: agriculture and food security, water and sanitation, and disaster risk reduction.

The agriculture and food security part deals with about 1,000 local farmers from Choma and Kazangula Districts in Zambia's Southern Province.  This part teaches farmers better agricultural practices and methods in the hopes of increasing their agricultural productivity.

The water and sanitation part deals with just shy of 10,000 community members from the same districts in Southern Province.  Water and sanitation is focused on reducing water-borne illnesses that stem from poor sanitation and hygiene.  The program focuses on building toilets, hand washing stations, and other structures that can help a community to stay healthy and happy.

Issues with water and sanitation, like seen here where the well is open and unprotected (this allows easier access to pollutants - animals), are a main focus of the project I now work on.

This husband and wife took the training they gained and quickly built a hand-washing station and a pit latrine (seen in the background with the door open.

Now comes my program: DRR.  This is important throughout Zambia, but especially in Southern Zambia due to the region's drought and flood prone environment.  These kinds of natural disasters happen frequently in the region, but due to climate change and its impact they're more likely to occur in the area.  Where traditionally there may be a drought in one year and then no other drought for 7 to 10 years, climate change reduces that reprieve to maybe only 2 to 4 years.  So, communities don't have time to rebuild before the next disaster strikes.  My job, as DRR specialist, is to work with the communities on coming up with plans and management strategies for their communities to follow in case of a natural disaster like a flood or drought, or even disease outbreaks in cattle or humans.

I work with communities and their residents (over 2,000 individuals) to create these plans for their benefits.  Everything is derived by the residents themselves, with myself merely acting as a facilitator.  The job isn't without it's difficulties though.  It can be very hard to get people to create plans for an unknown future, and even harder to get so many people to agree on one plan of action.

Some of the women from our group in a community called Kabuyu as they wait for a meeting to start.

The job is interesting though and I think it's implications go much further than two small districts in Southern Zambia.  Climate change as a global problem affects not only countries and regions, but also individuals and their families.  Projects like the SHARP program have potential to really benefit people at an individual level, as well as at the community level.

Another large community meeting that we held in an area near Livingstone, Zambia.

Plus, taking on this job gives me the opportunity to stay on with the Peace Corps in Zambia for one more year, which I'm very thankful for.