being a chinese-canadian in southern africa

It's been 9 months since I first landed in this wonderful nation. Working and living with Zambians and other southern Africans has been a huge eye opener and life lessons. Let me start off by telling you a little bit about myself. I was born in Hong Kong and immigrated to Toronto at the young age of 3. I see myself as Canadian, I grew up in Canada, I went to school in Canada, and I call Canada home. I grew up in classrooms where minorities were the majority. I grew up and lived in a part of the nation where race was never an issue. Regardless of the colour of our skin, we learned, we played and we all grew up with one another without conflict. Immigrants and Canadian-born citizens can co-habitat happily, but yet respect, and maybe even embrace the diversity of religions, cultures, and traditions. As I walk down the streets, eat at restaurants, and work in offices, never have I had to think twice about my actions and rational decisions because of the colour of my skin.

I have lived in many parts of world prior to coming to southern Africa, but due certain factors, this experience stands out and provided me with an immense amount of personal learning. Not until I arrived in southern Africa, did I realize that such a multicultural environment, like the one we have in metropolitan Canada, is very unique in the world. For the first couple of months of me being here in Zambia, I would get stares, points, and stereotypical comments directed at me based on me being Chinese. In the recent years, China has ramped up their investment in Zambia. And not surprisingly there are many Chinese currently residing in Zambia to complete these infrastructure projects. Based on my observations many Chinese do not speak English very well and have a set of values that differ, in some aspects, from those of Zambia. I assume that this clashing of values has resulted in reputations and stereotyping for the Chinese expatriots in Zambia. Without knowing that I am Canadian, Zambians would naturally group me with the expatriots from China.

When I first arrived, I would have the patience to make an effort and engange in one-on-one conversations with those who would "direct comments" at me to breakdown misconstrued assumptions. Sometimes I would joke that I do, in fact, know king-fu, that I am, in-fact, the brother of Jacky Chan and Jet Li. Sometimes I would engage in genuine convesations about being both Canadian and Chinese. However; during those "bad days" or when work became stressful, my patience would start to wear off. I would become frustrated, irritable, and sometimes angry.

My EWB team lead, Ka-Hay Law, like me, is a Chinese Canadian. Ka-Hay has spent the past 3 or more years here in Zambia. She too, had gone through a similar learning process that I have been going through here in Zambia. Through her guidance and advice, the biggest lesson that I took from her experience is to understand my own frustrations and ask myself "WHY". Is it because I feel Zambians are making unwarranted assumptions? Or is it because I haven't made a big enough effort to put myself into the mental shoes of Zambians? I think it's a bit of both. After living in many parts of the world, I have slowly come to realize that, in order to work together with locals while living in other nations, one needs to get to know and understand the values and mindsets that make up the host-culture. After gaining that understanding, I was better able to control my emotions, responses, and actions in a more professional manner.

When someone greets me with "Ni hao ma" or "Kon-nichi wa" to me on the streets of Lusaka, it is because they are assuming that I am a visitor or expat from China or Japan. At times I would get frustrated by this because they are making an incorrect assumption. However; when I greet others here with "muli-bwanji" or "muli-buti", I am assuming that they are Zambian, when in actuality, that may not be the case. So am I not doing the same thing? I, like them, am making assumptions based on what I see. As human beings, it is natural for us to make assumptions based on what our senses tell us. When others make incorrect assumptions about us, it is our job, especially as Canadians, to instead of being frustrated and filling ourselves with strong emotions, is to clarify these assumption and to inform the other party about who we actually are. It is also our job to understand and place ourselves in shoes and understand the mental models of those that welcome us into their countries.

a tasty-crawly southern africa delicacy

The photo above is of a delicacy found here in southern Africa called Inswa (in Zambia it's called inswa... I'm not sure what it's called in Malawi). This insect comes out during the rainy season in large numbers. Locals, like my family in Pemba, capture them, fry them, salt them, and eat them up. Some Zambians and Malawians even eat Inswa in handfuls like peanuts. You can buy a bag of these buggers for approximately $0.50 US on street markets and just go wild. At first, I was a little grossed out... but being true to my principles I gave it a try and, not surprisingly, I ended up loving them! I finished a bag full! Though apparently they're extremely fattening. I'll lay off the fried insect diet for a while... need to stay fit!

Malawian boys trying to sell us bags of inswa as we drove by

job-shadowing in malawi

During the past week EWB sent me off to Malawi, Zambia's neighbour to the east. The purpose of my trip was to visit my colleague Anna-Marie Silvester in Lilongwe (Malawi's capital city), who is currently partnered with an international NGO called CNFA. The CARE-ADAPT agro-dealer project (the project that I'm currently seconded to, with CARE International - as I discussed in a past blog post) is almost identical to a project that is currently winding down with CNFA. Both ADAPT and CNFA are funded by AGRA (Alliance for Green Revolution in Africa), and are both attempting to develop commercially-driven agro-dealer networks in rural areas to improve smallholder farmer access to agricultural inputs. Other than the difference in NGO's, the differences between the two nations stands out to be the most significant contrast between the two projects.

Despite sharing a fairly open border, having similar languages, and both maintaining peace, Malawi and Zambia differ in many ways. Though smaller in size, Malawi has a larger population. The people have different mannerisms, art (music, fine arts, and movies/TV) is appreciated in different ways, and within the context of agric development projects, smallholder farmers depend on different crops to sustain their livelihoods and operate on different terrain and types of soils. For example, tobacco is an extremely abundant and important crop in Malawi. As I rode the bus into the country, almost all the farming households that I passed had large racks of hanging tobacco leaves to dry. However; in Zambia, only in Eastern province (the province that borders Malawi) is tobacco significant.

As the only other country I have visited apart from Zambia, I have realized the richness in differences and the uniqueness of cultures within individual sovereign nations: grouping and referring to all countries within the continent simply as "Africa" is flawed and sometimes considered offensive to locals.

It was a delight getting to go out into the field and having many interesting conversations with Anna-Marie's Malawian colleagues at CNFA. I took home many lessons (staff capacity, monitoring and evaluation, organizational learning, etc...) that I can apply to my work for CARE-ADAPT.

I must say Malawi is an absolutely beautiful nation with so much heart, full of pride, and so much potential. It's no surprise as to why EWB decided to make impact in this wonderful country.

Agro-dealer shop after renovation. Capital and support provided by CNFA

CNFA M&E office, Khumbo, chatting with the agro-dealer regarding her progress

Agro-dealer standing in front of her shop and tobacco leaves

Neighbourhood of Kasiya, near the border town of Machinji, Malawi

Malawian children excited to see a foreigner in their neighbourhood

Another agro-dealer shop in Kasiya

Malawian boy carrying water in Kasiya

Malawians gathering dried tobacco leaves

Malawians gathering dried tobacco leaves

A market in Lilongwe

visiting megan in lilongwe, malawi

I recently traveled to the capital city of Lilongwe in the neighbouring country of Malawi. EWB sent me to Malawi to explore and job-shadow the CNFA agro-dealer project (I'll talk more about this in a future post). But along the way, I had a chance to visit Megan Campbell, who is of my closest friends, and whom I consider my sister. We were both in the same class at Waterloo, we lived together, and got involved with EWB together. And I was ecstatic when I found out she got promoted to be Co-director of the EWB Water Point Monitoring and Functionality team here in southern Africa. It was great to see her again.

Megan and I

On a bike-taxi on the way to our offices

a new home in lusaka

24 Musi Rd., New Kamwala, Lusaka, Zambia

It's been over a month since I moved back to the capital city from Pemba. While it's great to be back in an urban setting, it's not the easiest task to find a decent place to live in Lusaka. Recently, My EWB colleague, Robert Borzychowski, and I found a fairly decent 2-bedroom house in the predominantly Zambian neighbourhood (what I mean by this is that it is made up of locals, not foreigners) of New Kamwala (near Kamwala market). Last Thursday we went out to the Kalingalinga neighbourhood in northeastern Lusaka to purchase some custom made furniture (for a fairly cheap price here in Zambia!).

This neighbourhood is very quaint, friendly, with little shops along the way that sells vegetables, fruits, junk food, laundry detergent, you name it. However; the roads are absolutely awful. Now that it is rainy season, the unpaved roads (formerly paved once upon a time in the 70's) are filled with potholes and giant puddles the size of a lake (I'm exaggerating... but it's still bad). The Zambian government just doesn't have enough money to frequently maintain roads; especially ones in residential neighbourhoods.

We also managed to throw a Chinese New Year / Valentine's Day / Housewarming party. Almost 20 people came over and had a blast! We served Chinese hot pot, had jam sessions, alcohol-sachet boat races, and just great times with great folks.

I must say it feels great to have a base and a place to call home after a long day at work.

Our neighbourhood of New Kamwala

My room

Our living room

My roommate / EWB colleague Rob, preparing Chinese hot pot for our Chinese New Year / housewarming party.

Chinese New Year party jam session

Chilling in our front porch.

my new placement: CARE International-Zambia's ADAPT Project

Agro-dealer named Charity in Kapiri Mposhi, Zambia standing in front of her inventory.

After 3 months of field experience with IDE in Pemba, I'm ready to start something new and challenging. Based on my work experience, my strengths, and interests, EWB decided to pair me up with CARE International-Zambia's ADAPT Project. The acronym, ADAPT, stands for "Agro-dealer Project".
The problem
Smallholder farmers in remote areas lack access to affordable agricultural inputs, such as fertilizer, seeds, and agrochemicals such as herbicides and pesticides. Most smallholder farmers lack reliable and affordable transport and may have to travel at least 50 km to the nearest town centre to access the agric inputs that are necessary to ensure a successful yield in crops.

CARE ADAPT's solution
CARE-Zambia's ADAPT is a 3 year project aimed at increasing access to affordable intputs through the establishment of a network of rural input agrodealers and distributors in the Central, Eastern, and Copperbelt provinces. CARE ADAPT field staff recruits, trains and certifies agro-dealers in rural neighbourhoods. ADAPT field staff help these agro-dealers build capacity by giving them business (i.e. marketing) and technical training (i.e. agrochemical handling). Furthermore, as facilitators, ADAPT field staff organize demand-creation activities, such as field days and seed fairs, to link stakeholders, such as farmers, agro-dealers, and input suppliers.

A new approach to development
Unlike other CARE projects, ADAPT is unique in that it adopts a market value-chain facilitation approach. Activities in traditional NGO agricultural projects come in the form of direct service delivery to smallholder farmers (like what I did with IDE). A Market Facilitation approach addresses overall system constraints by adjusting activities and intervention practices that are in line with the dynamic nature of markets. In traditional projects, NGO's directly intervene by providing farmers with inputs and services (e.g. WorldVision giving away seeds to farmers for free) thus risking the distortion of market realities. In a market facilitation approach, the NGO takes on a neutral role, as a facilitator, and catalyzes linkages, adoption and ownership amongst value chain players; but does not become part of the chain nor interferes in market transactions. This approach is the heart of our focus in the Agriculture Values Chains team at Engineers Without Borders. We only partner with organizations and projects that adopts this approach and with those who envision market-based solutions to development in impoverished nations.

My role as EWB Africa Project Staff
Effective market facilitation requires new organizational capacities and management approaches. To assist with developing these capacities, I will be supporting the ADAPT team in two major management capacity building areas:the development of implementation-level monitoring and evaluation system (M&E) in order to gather relevant information and thus support improved decision making for day-to-day management; and offering on-going support to upgrade staff skills as market facilitators in the form of business training. As an M&E advisor, I will need to strike a fine balance between capacity building for existing staff and gap-filling due to the lack of time and human resources. As an external advisor, I will have to balance between the the needs and demands of various stakeholders at different levels (field staff --> project management --> national office --> international office --> donor), and the practical needs of system design.

Outside Charity's agro-dealer shop in Kapiri-Mposhi, Zambia

Another agro-dealer shop in Kapiri-Mposhi, Zambia

zambia's national fertilizer program: a political cancer

(left to right) Dennis Sunanibamba (Pemba region cooperative leader), Willard, myself, and my host father Silas Muzuma (the other Pemba region cooperative leader) sitting on government subsidized fertilizer waiting to be picked up by local smallholder farmers (December 2009)

Agricultural inputs, such as fertilizer, seeds, and pesticides/herbicides, are critical to crop production. These fertilizers are expensive and sometimes hard to access. Because agriculture plays such a backbone and critical role in the economic well-being of southern Africa and in the livelihoods of its people, various national governments enacted an input subsidy program.

The case of Malawi
In the neighbouring country of Malawi, for instance, in 1998 the national government started a subsidy program to respond to increased food deficits, increased maize prices, and reliance on food aid and food imports. The Malawi subsidy program went through two critical transformations to continuously improve the program. The first program distributed small packages of fertilizer and maize seeds to smallholder farmers for free. This saw a temporary increase in production across the nation but only to result in failure later on due to program inefficiencies, the lack of targeting toward the poorest of the poorest, and the creation of negative impact toward crop diversification. With the slide back to reliance on food aid, the national government decided to turn program efficiency around 180 degrees by engaging in the private sector through a voucher system. By 2006 and 2007, Malawi experienced two years of great harvests. While the situation is far from perfect in Malawi, is the case in Zambia anywhere near as rosie? Not in the least .

Zambian political cancer
While living in Pemba during rainy season (November and December 2009), my planned facilitation activities were greatly disturbed. Farmers were busy preparing their fields and trying to secure agricultural inputs and had no time to attend NGO-workshops. Why should it consume majority of smallholder farmers time? Should subsidy programs be more simple, quick and easy? It's definitely not the case in Zambia. The Zambian Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives (MACCO) subsidizes 60% of the cost of a 4x50 kg bag (2 x pack of basal dressing, 2 x pack of top dressing) of fertilizer. In order to be eligible for fertilizer subsidies, smallholder farmers need to be part of a co-operative. Within the cooperative, every year in late November/early December (beginning of rainy season), farmers pay their cooperative leaders the remaining 40% of fertilizer costs and have to fill out a wad of paperwork. On behalf of the smallholder farmers, the cooperative leaders then have to travel to a nearby town (sometimes as afar as 100 km away), with all the forms and money, book their own transportation, stand in HUGE line ups, and if they are lucky, will they then receive the government funded fertilizer on the same day. If not, the cooperative leaders have to pay for accommodations out of their own pocket. This process may take up to a week before the coop leaders receive all the fertilizer. Imagine... farmer cooperative leaders from all parts of the surrounding area travel to the same depot for pick-up. It tends to be chaotic and disorganized (refer to image below). Once the cooperative leaders receive all that was requested and paid for, they have to travel back home with their rented flat bed trucks filled with the goods. Once at home, cooperative leaders will either distribute the fertilizer or have a pick up depot in the center of town.

In the past, instead of having co-op leaders travel, the government would instead deliver the fertilizer to local depots. Unfortunately with this arrangement, fertilizer would mysteriously "disappear" en route. This is government corruption at its best. Farmers have complained, NGO's have raised concerns, but with a unreliable law enforcement system, nothing has been done to fix this extremely inefficient and corrupt process.

Outreach is also dismal. Pemba has approximately 4000 farmers. Only around 250 of those belong to co-operatives. Out of the 250, only 60% receive this elusive government subsidy. Furthermore, there is no separation between those who are vulnerable and those who are not. This results in extreme corruption and the fertilizer getting into the wrong hands and those who actually don't need it.

Their refusal to budge from the status quo, despite its inefficiencies and being plagued with corruption, allows government members to use the fertilizer subsidy program to maintain the power to swindle and a public presence amongst Zambian citizens.

Alternative solutions
How do you weed out corruption? How do you make the program more efficient? The answer lies in the private sector. When the profit bottom-line is introduced, unnecessary red-tape and corruption can be sieved out. Instead of distributing the fertilizer themselves, the government should allow the process to be run through the market system, by providing citizens with vouchers. Zambian smallholder farmers will then be able to redeem these vouchers through local agro-dealers and input distributors. Not only will the government be able to maintain its presence amongst the people, but it also allows for the strengthening of the local economy through the support of private small-medium enterprises in rural communities all over Zambia. Furthermore, with the increasing use and reliance on mobile phones, even amongst smallholder farmers in the most remote parts of the country, the option of mobile transfer of funds or mobile vouchers is definitely viable.

So what is the government waiting for? The Zambian government doesn't want change. They fear change will bring about the loss of control over a highly coveted system that is rich for swindling and a system that manages to hold majority of Zambian's population by their necks. Unless Zambia elects new leaders, external from the old-guard that has lead the nation since the 1960's independence era, this inefficient political cancer will continue to plague the nation for years to come.

Hundreds of farmers waiting at a depot in Monze, Zambia to receive government subsidized fertilizer

farewell pemba... see you soon

Willard and I in front of the office

Working with Willard at IDE has been a wonderful experience. I wouldn't have gotten through these past 4 months without his support. He is one of the most easy-going and most patient people I have ever met. When I would be frustrated about things, Willard would be there to pick me back up. During weekends, he would welcome me into his home to spend time with him and his family (those rascal little kids). Thanks Willard for a great 3 months. (The man needs a promotion)

Field work isn't easy; especially when the amount of output is so small compared to the amount of time, energy, and effort put into it. Despite the frustrations, I fully understand and truly believe in it's value and the importance of getting it right. It is in the field where the actual interactions with beneficiaries take place. It is in the field where smallholder farmers learn and grow. I will try my utmost best to bring these lessons that I have learned to my work with CARE-International's ADAPT project come January.

Me facilitating a farmer workshop

Willard's son Chinyanta (on top of me), and his niece and nephew.

last week with the family

On Sunday, 20th of December, I'll be moving back to Lusaka in preparation for my next placement with CARE International. These past 3 months in the village have been one of the most humbling and most valuable life experiences. When I arrived in October, I immediately felt at home. The Muzuma family is wonderful and the food they cook is absolutely delectable. I am really going to miss them.

This past week, my host father has taught me so many things about life, about hard work and about nurturing those who are trying hard to succeed in a complicated environment. At 73, his level of energy and alertness has completely blown me away.

Despite the language barrier, my senior host mother (Mr. Muzuma's first wife), definitely took care of me like I was one of their own. Her, and Mrs. Muzuma Jr.'s ability to manage a gigantic family is absolutely beyond me.

I will definitely be back a few times to visit the family within the next 8 months.

Silas Muzuma

Noria Muzuma (Sr. wife)

Albetina Muzuma (Jr. wife)

Banene - the funniest grandmother!

Me a few of the kids

Lunch at the Muzuma's

Host father preparing his field of Irish potatoes

Me with the junior wife's side of the family

Dinner with the Muzuma's

Pre-dinner warming up

Mrs. Muzuma junior cleaning the residuals from the wheat

born to be wild

My sweet ride in Pemba. I'll miss that motorbike.

frog infestation... kermit's not so cute anymore

So after a week of meetings in Lusaka, I come home to my hut only to find a family of frogs lounging around my stuff. Now, these frog don't bother humans and prefer to hide in dark areas. Normally, I would just scurry them out of my hut. But yet they kept coming back. Some nights I would be startled when my garbage bag would start moving, only to find pesky little Kermit inside.

My host father, Silas, says these frogs have a tendency to attract snakes. Snakes?! No thank you! So he taught me how to whack'em. At first, I was like "ooooo poor froggie"... but after they kept returning, I showed no mercy. I think I'll be set for those carnival "whack-a-mole" games when I return to Canada.