City lights
Being the villager that I am, I still woke up at 5 this morning even without the dulcet crows of roosters. I’m in Lusaka once again and there isn’t much to do in the wee hours. Especially when you can’t find a blank quarterly report form. I won’t be home until mid-May. At that point, I’ll only have 6 weeks or so in my village- which is distressing. There is still so much to do. I have to get my roof fixed, find a good home for my dog, spend much more time hanging out with my zamily.
My farmers on the other hand seem to be handling this much better than I. Before I left, I scribbled measurements for 4 farmers and expect to go back to 4 RAP standard ponds ready and waiting for fish. They do keep telling me that they are going to miss my visits. I’m sure I’m very charming when I show up to there houses after a 2 hour bike ride guzzle water, tell them everything looks good and bike back. I do love seeing them ever week, hearing the local gossip and how much they love fish farming. I do have a feeling that if they didn’t expect me to show up regularly at least a few would be more lax with management, but then don’t need me too much anymore. I am working with new farmers too, but they’ve all done their research and talked to their neighbors and have a good idea of what they’re doing. How sustainable.
To encourage this, I am practicing a form of studied neglect, seeing old farmers less and less. New farmers, with first hand experience on neighbor’s ponds, are very quickly becoming old farmers so I seem to have less contact with each individual than I did in the beginning. Now I see most farmers every 2 weeks instead of once a week and some even less. Since I have much more farmers than I did when I first started this isn’t too much of a break. Blah blah blah goats, furrow issues, vigilante justice. So that’s the village.
I’m in town for meetings about training, my close of service conference (means I am in the home stretch) and to finish off my vacation days with a trip to Mozambique. Seafood, diving and laying around on the beach. I’m pretty stoked. I’ll try to put up pictures soon soon.
My farmers on the other hand seem to be handling this much better than I. Before I left, I scribbled measurements for 4 farmers and expect to go back to 4 RAP standard ponds ready and waiting for fish. They do keep telling me that they are going to miss my visits. I’m sure I’m very charming when I show up to there houses after a 2 hour bike ride guzzle water, tell them everything looks good and bike back. I do love seeing them ever week, hearing the local gossip and how much they love fish farming. I do have a feeling that if they didn’t expect me to show up regularly at least a few would be more lax with management, but then don’t need me too much anymore. I am working with new farmers too, but they’ve all done their research and talked to their neighbors and have a good idea of what they’re doing. How sustainable.
To encourage this, I am practicing a form of studied neglect, seeing old farmers less and less. New farmers, with first hand experience on neighbor’s ponds, are very quickly becoming old farmers so I seem to have less contact with each individual than I did in the beginning. Now I see most farmers every 2 weeks instead of once a week and some even less. Since I have much more farmers than I did when I first started this isn’t too much of a break. Blah blah blah goats, furrow issues, vigilante justice. So that’s the village.
I’m in town for meetings about training, my close of service conference (means I am in the home stretch) and to finish off my vacation days with a trip to Mozambique. Seafood, diving and laying around on the beach. I’m pretty stoked. I’ll try to put up pictures soon soon.
posted by Laura in Zed @ 7:39 AM
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