More Travels - With Send a cow in Zambia



African Wecome

 

MORE OF PAUL’S AFRICAN TRAVELS

Send a Cow Zambia:  Having picked people’s pockets for years for Send a Cow, one  objective of my journey was to to find out if the reality on the ground was as good as the charity’s literature portrayed it.  I was invited to travel to Eastern Province to visit some projects.  Arriving in Lusaka from the other end of the country, first I visited the offices to meet Petronella, the operation manager.  She had a hectic programme planned out for me with the local staff and extension workers, and gave me a full and knowledgeable briefing on Send a Cow Zambia.  I wondered if I was going to keep up mentally or physically!

Journeying Mercies:  After a late night repacking, early morning saw me at Lusaka airport fretting whether they would allow my 25 Kg of baggage on the 12 seater toy aircraft whose ticket clearly said 15Kg only.  We trooped out to the plane then back again – it was faulty.  A few minutes later we were sent out to a smart 30 seater instead.  Baggage?  No worries, my Guardian Angel was at work again.

A smooth 90 minute flight saw us at Chipata, capital of Eastern Province in pleasant green hilly country to be met by my host and guide Musanide.   We dumped my luggage in the Rest Lodge and set off for our first visit, about 30 miles of quite decent tar road with hundreds of heavily-laden bicycles, then 15 of red gravel.  

What a Welcome:  Arriving at the village we were met by a crowd of brightly dressed women dancing, ululating and singing their special Send a Cow song.  They led us to their meeting area and introduced the members of Yobe Mbuzi Dairy Cow Project.   The Chairman and Secretary gave reports.  Their group started in 2002 with 27 member families but made slow progress until 2005 when they heard a program on radio about Send a Cow.  They wrote to the local office and were chosen for training. Now just 20 families, they learnt about animal care, worked  together to build cow houses with yards and grow fodder.  In 2007 they received 15 cows and two bulls.  Since then 5 heifers have been passed on to those who did not receive. 

Food all the year round! All 20 families have obviously benefitted greatly from milk consumption and sales, sale of steers and use of manure on gardens and field crops.  One member has been trained as a Paravet to give simple health care to keep the animals healthy. Several families have been able to build weather-proof brick houses.  All say they have been able to buy farming inputs and improve their crops to achieve year round food security.

Both men and women were articulate about the benefits they had seen.  Typical comments:  “Working together (with Send a Cows help) has helped us make peace and harmony” , “we now can discuss things in our family and make decisions and budget together”,  “we women now have respect because we can feed our children and earn money”.

Doing What it says on the Packet!   I went on to see projects with cattle for ploughing and milk, dairy goats and goats for meat.  Some were just starting, some well established and had passed on numbers of animals to start another group.  All were proud of their efforts and were improving their land and gardens, houses, health, and sending children to school.  The change in their morale, gender relations and working together seemed to be crucial to them.  Whenever I mentioned Send a Cow to others it was well known, I got positive reactions, and other groups were copying the model, especially the “Pass it on” principle.  From all I saw, I can say that Send a Cow is living up to its publicity.

Regina - Send a Cow Beneficiary

Here is Regina’s story in her own words.  “Five year ago my life was very difficult.  I lived in a mud house that leaked.  I had three children  but none were in school.  We did not have enough to eat and my children got sick.  I had some land but I was too weak to dig it.  I had to work in another village but hardly got any money.  I had to get help from my Mother to live. 

From Send a Cow we learnt how to keep animals properly, and I have learnt to budget my money.  With the money from the cow’s milk my life is much changed.  My older children are in school and we have nice clothes.  All the family eat well and keep well. Now I support my Mother and other family. Almost all my land is cultivated now and I am planting trees.  I have got respect in the society and human dignity.  People ask about my garden so I tell them how to use manure to grow better crops.  My young brother has finished school and I am helping him set up a “butik” (boutique,clothes shop) in town.

If someone has not heard of Send a Cow I would say to them ”My Dear you are late, Send a Cow has changed my life!”. I really thank them.  Before, I sat on the mud floor with my children.  Now I have blankets and we sit on chairs. We have a TV and a bicycle and a mobile phone.”

 

Hello! Paul back from Africa!

Hi Folks<
Here I am safe and sound back in England after a marvellous trip - and its just as cold dark and gloomy as the day I left! My odessy was suceesful beyond what I could have hoped for. I reached all the places on my itinery and some that were not and I felt safe and protected every step of the way. My only faillure was keeping up with the blog. After I left Johannesburg it was increasingly difficult to find connectivity. I found I was spending fruitless hours alone fighting my laptop when I should have been enjoying Africa and meeting people. So I gave up. However I kept a log and will write up blogs of each stage and post themover the next few weeks. So thanks for your patience and KEEP WATCHING.
Thank you also to followers who have signed up and contributers. Quite a lot has been sent to me offline and already I have over £1000 towards my target for helping a whole community work their way out of poverty. I will describe my visits to projects in detail but suffice to say now that from all I have seen I can say that SEND A COW DOES WHAT IT SAYS ON THE PACKET!

I loved being back in Africa and felt at home straight away. There were many changes of course - most of them positive and some quite amazing developments.
To set the scene, I am posting a few photos of BEFORE, taken from slides I took forty years ago when I was a volunteer in Zambia.

HERE I AM IN AFRICA!

In Windhoek, Namibia to be exact, where my son, Tim is working at the University with a team setting up the first Pharmacy degree course here. I had a smooth journey out of the dark and cold of Nottingham via Cairo and Johannesburg,to a warm, sunny country, green with the new rains.
After a couple of days chilling out, downloading the books and Christmas presents that had endangered my luggage allowance, we went off to the Skeleton coast for the weekend at SWARKOPMUND.
The journey led from green thorn bush, over a high plateau, up to 5000 feet, gradually drying out to desolate srub, then bone dry hard sand desert with only a few dark shrubs looking like a scattered flock of black sheep. The scare life up here is sustained only by condensation from incoming coastal fogs for a few miles inland. There are no permanent rivers or surface waters. David Attenborough filmed part of his series on extreme environments in this area. Life used to be a great struggle even at the coast. At one point as we began descending, the road, a railway, power lines, telegraph lines and a huge water pipeline all ran along together. Without them modern life could not be sustained.
Africa is full of surprises and Swakopmund was one. No wrecks or skeletons to be seen but a surprisingly english seaside resorty sort of place only full of stolid circa 1900 german buildings and streetnames. The Altes Amtsgericht (Old Magistrates Court) on Bahnhofstrasse (Station Street)for instance. The weather was pleasantly warm with cool misty mornings, a cool breeze bringing in huge atlantic rollers. What fun sea bathing while hearing of yet more snow in Nottingham. The sea fishing here is supposed to be excellent but we spent a lot of time fishing small people out of the waves as they tried to boldly go to S America!
Back in Windhoek, also showing many signs of previous life as a german colony I enjoyed the great museum of ancient and modern history, geology and life forms. Really fascinating. It was good to see that the modern state has not tried to hide the past but seems able to look back without bitterness. Amazing considering some of the terrible things that were done in the colonial and apartheid times. More exploring of the city and game parks to come!

My Route

It's all very well telling you about the route i will be taking, but I felt a picture would better help to illustrate my journey to you. So after arriving in Cairo, I will be traveling clockwise on the red line, down to Johannesburg and then working my way back up through Africa.

Livingstone

My objective in Livingstone is more personal.  I want to see again the fabulous Victoria falls, or more correctly - 'Mosse o Tunya ' 'The Smoke that Thunders' and perhaps stand on the spot where I proposed to my first wife Valerie.  Sadly some friends who used to live there have moved. From Livingstone I will make my way to Kafue where a project called AFRICAM UNWRAPPED run a school and agricultural projects.  I have a guitar and football to drop off for them.  Then on to Lusaka, capitalof Zambia and meet up with Send a Cow Zambia.  They have invited me to visit projects at Chipata in Eastern Province.  I have to investigate transport (ten hours by bus or one hour flight) and whether to go north first and then back East and on to Malawi.  Livingstone had these sorts of decisions too but only a choice of walk or walk.  A friend has given me a contact in Lusaka for retired President Kenneth Kaunda, a great and good man.  Can I get to meet him again?  Questions! Questions!  

Countdown to Africa

     Well Christmas is over and a week from now I shall be in South Africa or even winging it on to Windhoek.  I have had more good news from Johannesburg firming up my visit to Oasis Projects and a warm invitation from the  Principal of the Bible College at Chizela (now Mufumbwe) in Zambia - the area where I worked on a Rural Development Team from 1969 to 1972.   I have been given a contact in Zimbabwe at a centre for research and development in organic farming for small farmers.  It sounds exciting and I am hoping a visit there will be possible en route for Livingstone.
     On the personal side some of my extended family came to me for Christmas - busy but fun. On Boxing Day I took my my daughter to Heathrow to fly to Bangkok.  A 300 mile round trip navigated safely was an answer to prayers, and now she is on a beach somewhere a lot warmer.  Writing this blog and organising the travel and appeal is a serious learning curve for me so please bear with me.  Please some of you cheer me up by making a few donations however small!  Ok you are hard up after Christmas but give now before VAT goes up!!  Make a thank offering for keeping theAshes (or a Sympathy Gesture for all Sad Australians)!!!

HELP! I've gone public - an announcement in our Parish Magazine.

      So, its time to get posting!  I have made several good contacts and the shape of my oddessey is beginning to emerge.  After my time with family in Winhoek I return to Johannesburg on 18th January.  A good friend from my boyhood in Grantham now lives in Jo'burg.  He was also in Zambia when I was there. He and his wife were very kind to the scruffy individual who appeared out of the bush from time to time!  I will stay with them a day or two around linking up with Oasis South Africa who have a project at Cosmo City, north of Jo'burg and spend some time with their "Change Agents" there.  Around 23rd January I will head north, possibly flying straight to Livingstone in Zambia, but another possibility has emerged.  This is an exciting project in Zimbabwe where new methods of organic farming are being pioneered. Watch this space as I wait for more information.  End of instalment.  Look again tomorrow!