village stay in rural zambia (sept 14 – 19)

As part of my in-country training, I had the fortunate opportunity to stay in a rural village with a traditional African family for one week. I stayed in a village 45 minutes from the town of Kalomo (4 hours south of Lusaka) called Siaamambwa.

The farmer that I had the fortunate opportunity stayed with was named Tangson Sialanga. Tangson has 2 wives, 8 children, 1 child he inherited from a cousin, and 1 granddaughter. On top of taking care of his 12 member household, Tangson works very hard on his farm and plays many leadership roles inside the community.

Tangson is considered a lead farmer. He volunteers his time on many committees to help other less fortunate farmers: lead farmer for CARE, executive member of the village HEIFER project (donor cattle distribution), chair person for the Home Care Project, and just a recognized overall leader in the community whom people turn to for advice. Tangson has also worked closely with other EWB volunteers, Thulasy B. and Jon Beale, in the past through CARE.

Beneath the leadership and status, Tangson still struggles and faces the many constraints typical smallholder farmers do all over sub-Saharan Africa. Tangson and many farmers around the area work very hard to take care of their cattle (and other animals), grow maize (corn), vegetables (like tomatoes, green beans, sweet potato, rape) but face many obstacles with their agricultural operations to sustain a decent livelihood:

• Lack of sustainable access to agricultural inputs (seeds, fertilizer, agricultural technology)
• Lack of productivity-increasing agricultural technology for production (cultivation equipment, low-cost irrigation technologies e.g. treadle pumps)
• Lack of access to natural resources (e.g. bodies of water for irrigation)
• Lack of market information to determine demand and prices for different crops
• Lack of transportation to deliver crops and thus face losses
• Lack of connection to external markets
• Continued dependency on donors
• Exploitation by middleman purchasers
• Some more vulnerable farmers lack food security

Despite these challenges, the community remains happy and optimistic. A big pillar for rural farming communities are their abundance and wealth of social capital. Reliance on relationships with other community members is critical to their livelihoods during good and tough times (e.g. droughts). When they lack output markets, they rely on each other’s generosity, sense of community and kinship for support.

After living in the urban centre of Lusaka for 2 weeks, this past week in the “bushes” was an amazing learning experience. Below are some photos documenting my experience:

Me with the Sialanga children

A neighbours home

Village elders making craft baskets. Unfortunately there is market for them to sell these amazing works of art.

Me in a field of lettuce

The two nurses from the local health clinic

Big shift in mindset from social capital relaitonships to strictly business relationships (NO CREDIT!!!!)

The latrine (toilet). Not every home in villages have latrines. Hygiene and sanitation are big issues in rural Africa.

Me in a field of maize.

Neighbours in their fertile field of maize

Being greeted by students of Ikumbi basic school

Being served nshima while visiting some neigbours


My room

Spending an afternoon with the family

The Sialanga home

The Sialanga home

Me with a maize grinder

My host father Tangson facilitatinging a HEIFER meeting (determining which villagers will receive donor cattle)

Dancing with the villagers to celebrate HEIFER donating cattle

Neighbours field of vegetables and banana trees

Making chibwantu (corn juice) with the family

Pumping water from a borehole

Cooking nshima with one of my two host mothers Nancy

My host sister Sorai giving her daughter, Souda, a bath

Me pouring "chibwantu" (corn juice) for the village headmaster

Me with my host family before dinner

Saying goodbye to the Sialanga family

Saiying goodbye to Tangson

nshima nshima nshima

Maize (or more commonly known as corn) is the staple crop here in Zambia. There are multiple uses for maize. It can be made into beer. It can befurther processed at a mill and ground up into what they call mealie-meal. Households purchase the mealie meal and can be further made into porrdige and can be made into Zambia's (and Malawi) most common dish and staple food, nshima (dish on the right in above picture).

Maize --> Mealie-meal --> nshima

Nshima is served with a meat and a vegetable relish. You roll the nshima into a ball with one hand, make a compression with your thumb, and use it to pick up the delicious combination of meat n' veggies. I absolutely love it.

I absolutely love it. I finished all 3 lumps and pparently that's a lot. What can I say, I can take my carbs well. I look forward to a year of good grub.

At a tiny restaurant in Kamwala market

Zambian woman cooking nshima for customers in Kamwala market

the market middle man?

The AVC team and I traversed into the famous Lusaka Tuesday market. This one-day-a-week local market is known throughout Lusaka for its high quality produce.

Behind the hustle and bustle are smallholder businesswomen and businessmen trying hard to earn a living through the informal market system. But, who are the sellers/vendors at the market? Where did they get their produce from? How profittable are these small-scale businesses? How big is competition a factor in these informal markets? Are they effective means of earning a living and sustaining livelihoods?

• Are they farmers themselves, selling their own crops?
• Do they buy their produce from other informal markets in town?
• Do they purchase their produce from local small-scale farms?
• Do they purchase their produce wholesale from commercial farms?
• Are they selling imports? (e.g. from South Africa)

All very important questions. From my questionning and conversing with the vendors, there seems to be a variety of all the above, with the bulk of them purchasing their produce from other informal markets in town. In these cases, where other informal markets are used as the middle man, I am curious as to what their profit margins are.

The vegetables are very high quality. I have been eating market veggies almost everyday. It's addictive!

agric value chains sector team retreat at siavonga

The southern Africa AVC team

The Agricultural Value Chains (AVC) sector team (both from Zambia and Malawi) is in the middle of a big transition. Big ideas in big minds are waiting to explode. From Friday September 3-7, the team and I had a sector retreat at a facility in Lake Kariba which lies along the Zambezi River in Siavonga, Zambia (located southern province).

I arrived at the perfect time. The AVC team is going through a big change in terms of strategy and direction and I was glad to be part of the process and amongst the flow of ideas.

On the way to Siavonga

Nyami Nyami house- Siovanga, Zambia


Thinking hard during day-long team meetings

Passion meter- OFF THE ROOF!

AVC team sailing along Lake Kariba

common bug-eating lizards - OUR FRIENDs

Siavonga, Zambia

the importance of greetings

Greetings are very important in Zambian culture. In Toronto, we’re used to just going on with our business without any interaction with strangers. In Zambia, on the other hand, it is very common for strangers to greet you along the street, especially as a Westerner. When they do, it is polite and proper to return the greeting properly with a special handshake. I definitely need to learn some basic Nyanja (the main native language in Zambia)!

scavenger hunt in lusaka markets

As one of the first duties of EWB in-country training, I was to head out on a scavenger hunt into the markets of Lusaka on my own. Having to be on my own and having to take the crammed mini-buses from the EWB house out to the markets was very intimidating at first. When I arrived at the markets, it actually wasn’t that bad.

Walking along Lumunba Rd. in Lusaka

Lusaka mini-bus stop

Lusaka mini-bus

Inside a Lusaka mini-bus

I managed to befriend two shop keepers, Sydney and Paul, and they helped me find these items (with names I was unfamiliar with, so I didn’t know what those items were). I managed to purchase a pair of flip-flops (they call them tropicals), some beautiful Zambian fabric called chitenje in Nyanja, some Jon Cena’s (bread named after a famous wrestler.

With Sydney (left) and Paul (right) in Lusaka City Market


Inside Lusaka City Market

Sydney and Paul are two young men who own and work at two stalls at the Lusaka City Market. So that morning Sydney and Paul greeted me as I wandering the busy market alone. Being the only foreigner in the market, they were more than happy to help me out. As we walked through the extremely packed market, there was great conversation about life in Zambia and I asked them about themselves. They were two men working very hard to earn an honest living by selling jeans (imported from South Africa) and dress shoes. Even though they owned competing stalls, there was definitely an air of comradery between members of neighbouring stalls. The sense of community was very strong. Both men don’t earn a lot but have very positive and optimistic outlooks in life. They left their stalls to help me out that day without asking for anything in return. I was super grateful. In a few months when my own jeans start to wear out, I’ll definitely go back to Sydney and Paul. Making these types of connections make me feel more at home.