This was from an email within our IDE team of JF's. It encompass alot of things that I have been doing. I took out some sensitive details..please pardon that.
YOYOYOYOO!!!!
Today was day one for me (Tuesday the 26th). I arrived here on friday and met with my counterpart and we talked for a while but the rest of the team was out in the field (more on that below). SO she droped me after her friends place where I would be staying. This house I am staying at is really great, my family is awesome and they have welcomed me with open arms. There have been somethings I have had to get used to such as their religion (or most people in Zambia according to the ones who i spoke to) as my mum is a religous leader in our community so daily (very daily ) prayer is a must. I live with two kids, a 17 year old teenager their mum plus her brother which is father to one of the children. There is also another man who lives here who is renting a room, his name is Anthony and is a rad dude. We have become solid friends. But life is not perfect. Some members of the family have been asking me for money a little to easily and it has been very hard to say no...i also feel like one of them has been taking the liberty of going through my things (like finding an old cell phone burried in my stuff then asking if they could have it...its broken so i said yes but i am rather disapointed that this is happening...at the same time i understand that they see me as a rich person and these things dont mean much to me....glad pre dep talked about these things before leaving...) and their religion is very intense, i have been to church (we went for 10+ years from what I can remember) and it was nothing like this. I have never been so scared in my life. Other than that I feel like I could be pushing my comfort zone more...but I dont know how..I have tried so much and things are going really well...I have really connected with this family and have gained my role in it...and I have slowly started gaining responsibility in this household..I am looking forward for the moment when I am not a guest but a true member (hopefully this happens).
Anyway, to IDE!
Well my office is composed of three staff.
-Aggie the team leader, she has a diploma in agriculture/forrestry
-Chiseba the Kitwe office dude - he is in charge of all activities in Kitwe (although there are not many farmers in Kitwe but outsdie of it)
-Mwakoi the Ndola leader who takes care of all activites in the Ndola region. He is also the Irrigation technology guru.
From being in the office one day here are my observations:
-this team is ultra indepedent, they only meet once every two weeks to discuss their projects in between those times no one really sees each other but does their own thing. We had a team meeting today (thankfuly) which made me understand how good this team works...I am going to have a hard time finding my impact (although this was day one) or maybe not. I don't know but I am so impressed with the high functionality of this team. I showed they my terms of reference so we could all be on the same page on what I was there to do in order to plan accordingly. They were excited to know I would be working specifically on market linkages which seemed to be something they are really stressing about, they then informed they had VERY HIGH expectations of me...so i better perform.
As our meeting ended they asked me to create an action plan for myself and have in done in 30min...something I could work on for the whole summer but they wanted me to create a project for myslef on the first day....that through me off. Anyway after wondering what the hell I was going to be making I came up with the idea of having a market information database that could be accessible by the staff, zone and group leaders as well as their promoters (do they breakdown their regions in this way for you guys too??). They seemed to be interested but as I presented I also stressed the need for me to spend some serious time understanding the environment I am working in and how they work and what I can help with. They agreed and so everything was cool. I was also informed that their previous marketing student was still in town and that I could draw much knowledge from her so that I was not blind. One of their major faults right now is they have tons of market info...in their heads and not physically accessible...which means for the next few weeks I will be slowly extracting data from the three teams leads and the past student when she is avaiable.
In short:
-My team is super functional and independant
-They know what they are doing
-They expect a lot for me, so I have quite the challenge ahead.
-There is much information within the office but it needs to be extracted and made accessible
-Right now I feel as if the office could benefit for a buisness student more than an engineer but who cares...i will learn.
As for the XXXX situation:
As you all may know by now the price was set at XXXX which is about XXXX is the dollar does not dip or the kwacha does not get any better (my office thinks the kwacha is on the rise for now which is not very good). They are not stoked on the fact they have to go and tell all their farmers the contract was re-neged and they would be get XXX less than they were promised (they too were under the impression that it would be XXX). I am going to the feild tomrorow to visit some farmers and assess their quality and quantity of beans with Chiseba.
I would re type my mind/body/heart but its on my blog. I worked on it today. Over all my body is wierd..still getting used to all this food, i need to exercise more. Mind is ok but I feel guilty at points..I feel like I should push my comfort zone more but I do not know how...i will call mark in a few days and discuss...i would consider moving but i have made such strong connections with this family and my boss assured me this a very true and honest zambian/kitwe life experience. heart is mixed, i am feeling good and down at the same time..i hope to get in a good groove soon, maybe once work really kicks in. kitwe is great but not very rural, maybe i set my expectations too high for a rural experience and need to be realistic about how living works where i am.
hope you are all very well. i miss you all much.
take care and much love,
tony
thats all folks.
more to come.
photos soon i promise.
ah and mom. if you want to post on here you must create a google account. it is very easy.
just goto gmail.com and go from there. it will change your life.
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