Coffee and cakes in Maputo

My impressions of Maputo are that it feels like a proper city with its wide pavements, people busily hawking anything and everything, and markets full of fresh produce (lots fruit and vegetable varieties), which all means that as a capital Lusaka suffers terribly in comparison. There are pasteleria’s selling espresso coffee and small, sweet custard cream like pastries where you can sit outside and spend hours people watching. I am only a bit lost not knowing the Portuguese language; this means people are friendly but it is harder to access the open warmth of the Zambian people. The parts that I have seen showcase a city of contrasts. On one side of the street you can watch maids all dressed up walking the dogs of their rich owners or waiting to collect shopping bags from cars as the owners pass by. The other side has buildings in disrepair, homeless people sleeping on the street and the foul smell of piled up, rotting rubbish. There are beautiful colonial buildings and on the next road towering, 1960s, communist like structures. The warm weather is perfect for outdoor eating and fruit is everywhere with some of my favourite exotic ones like litchi and passion fruit easily available. I like the place.

Christmas in a stable

The title says it all really. We awoke on Christmas morning after spending the night in a stable that had been converted into a bunk bed style dormitory which could have slept another 30 or more people but we had the whole place to ourselves. The horses had been to another proper stable close-by. Christmas breakfast was taken outside in the warm morning sun, we were surrounded by fields and hills, and little much else. To prepare for our planned feast later on we walked and then walked some more, and returned to a tasty meal of roast beef and vegetables supported by a amusingly named red wine of Fat Bastard. Dessert consisted of an electric mix of freshly picked blackberries (which brought back childhood memories of clambering into blackberry bushes by the roadside), cheese and chocolates. Of course it still felt strange, like last year, to not be surrounded by the Wootton family but the good friends and the unusual location still made it a special and enjoyable Christmas.

Swaziland or is it somewhere back home?

The place is very green. There are hills, some look like mountains, very few people and it is drizzling. At first I was a bit confused as to where exactly we had ended up after crossing the border into Swaziland from South Africa. It looked like the Lake or Peak District back home and this view was reinforced over the next few days as we did plenty of walking in between sheltering indoors to avoid the rain and to keep warm. Because it was Christmas we had expected many more people, yet Swaziland felt fairly sparsely populated and as we discovered later on all the South African’s had moved en-mass to the coast of Mozambique. For a whole variety of connotations one pre-Christmas walk involved climbing a mountain called Sheba’s Breast and it did not fail to deliver some wonderful scenery.

Durban and Zinkwazi

The first stop on the three country Christmas tour was South Africa and Durban. It was hard to fairly judge Durban. On the one hand it was just good to be holiday, being away and enjoying some tasty food. We were only in the city for two nights, one full day, and spent that wandering around the city centre and beach front, which was packed with people enjoying the sea, sand and water parks. Live bands played away and there was a good feeling and friendly vibe about the place. The bits of the centre that we saw had obviously undergone a big facelift, mainly as a result of South Africa holding the 2012 World Cup, and had done much to make the city more accessible. Now to be unfair, it was simply not Cape Town, a city that I will happily visit again.

After Durban we headed to a small, seaside hamlet of a place called Zinkwaki, which is around 80kms north of Durban. We stayed with some English doctor friends who Marco had met in Zambia and who were very welcoming as we took over their rather large house for a few days. We walked to the beach which took about 2 minutes, did not move much whilst there and enjoyed nights of good food and wine (plus some peach sparkling wine on Kristin’s birthday – a not to be repeated drink!), and pleasingly did little much else.

New opportunity

Really by this date I should be writing something on this blog along the lines of almost time to pack my bags for returning back to the UK or I am off for a few months travelling, given that my two year placement with VSO will come to an end by February 2012. However, it looks like I will be in Zambia for a while yet, not in Mazabuka but instead in Lusaka.

For a number of months another VSO volunteer and myself have been working on a project proposal to help enable a better understanding of who is doing what on HIV and AIDS in Zambia, where the different organisations are working, the types of activities they are engaged in and how much of the actual activity is taking place. Now none of this is rocket science, yet a simple and coherent system for collecting and analysing this sort of information does not exist at the moment. The answers are not going to solve the problems faced by the country in terms of HIV and AIDS but if we do not have this basic information in the first place then Zambia is struggling to even get to first base.

Hopefully come January the funding for the project will be in place for the first phase of the work and we can get started. It will be a new challenge for me, working at the national level in Zambia but also providing training and support to people in districts like Mazabuka. I will write and explain more about the project (if you are interested) when we finally start. For now I am off on holiday with a few friends to explore the hills of Swaziland and relax on the beaches of Mozambique, which I am hoping will be as good as it sounds.

The Last Supper

There is little to say here. The Maz crowd gathered together at Marco’s spacious house for one last time – for our usual feast of good food, to be served drinks from his homemade bar and to play a few games of pool. We will all have many happy memories from nights at that house and the people we met there.

A New Boy in Town

Next door to my office is a local organisation working for people with disabilities and run by two friendly, charming women called Cristobel and Beauty. As far as I can whenever they have asked for my help and advice I have tried my best to support them, which is not easy given they have very little, if any, funding and people with disabilities remain a marginalised group within society. When Beauty became pregnant she confidently informed me that she would be having a boy and that she would name him Robert. I innocently thought that she was teasing me, just being kind or more likely to change her mind later on and choose a traditional name. Of course I was wrong and I struggle to think of a greater honour as when Beauty gave birth this week she did name him after me, which brought a larger than normal, beaming smile to my face. Pictures of baby Robert will follow soon.

HIV and AIDS Workplace Policy

Feeling exhausted after all the running around from and the chaos of World AIDS Day there was little time to rest as I travelled to Lusaka for a workshop on HIV and AIDS workplace policy. I honestly thought that the next two days would be tedious and not prove to be worthwhile; instead the interesting nature of the discussions and the people proved me wrong. The participants had been selected on the basis that we were all part of the consultations to help develop an overarching HIV and AIDS workplace policy for Zambia. We were now at the point of commenting on a draft policy which was meant to act as guiding principles for all sectors in the country to follow and to encourage them to develop their own HIV and AIDS workplace policy policies.

A lot of detailed and careful work had gone into the document which benefited our discussions as we rarely had to rewrite sections; instead we provided corrections, insertions or additions. The mix of contributions from participants covering Government Departments, Civil Society and the Private sector also helped. My main hope is that our comments and the good progress that has already been made in drafting such a policy is not lost. A genuine effort needs to be made to launch the policy, engage with the different sectors and then support to them so that the sectors, businesses, institutions and other organisations create their own HIV and AIDS workplace policies. What we do not need is another well written policy gathering dust on a shelf.

Photos from World AIDS Day 2011

World AIDS Day 2011

“My last commemoration event”, spoken with a mixture of relief and joy, mainly because so much of the work ends up being done at the last minute and as a result Judy and I end up shouldering too much of the organising burden. Oh to be a fly on the wall after we have gone and when the preparations start for the next event!

This event was no different aside from the added pressure of the Guest of Honour being the Honourable Professor Nkandu Luo MP and the Minister of Local Government, Housing, Early Education and Environmental Protection. There were a few hiccups along the way which always happens but in general the day, activities, marching and everything else went pretty much to plan. The Minister spoke eloquently and passionately (as we had hoped) and the testimonies by people with HIV were especially moving and powerful. The event was seen by most people as a success though a few nagging questions remain in my mind where we need to improve. Some examples:

• World AIDS Day is still seen as a one-off with the people effort and expense being great and all focused on one day. Then everyone returns to their day-to-day duties until we start banging the drum about the next event. Whereas what is needed is a continued focus and effort, not necessarily a World AIDS Day everyday, but the message must be reinforced everyday in a variety of different ways
• We need to understand whether these events actually work and make a difference. Most of the discussions and debates during the planning and then on the actual day concern t-shirts, food and drink, and how much of these things will be available. The self interest and what is in it for me takes over from thinking about we and the community
• Most of the people taking part of already part of the HIV service provider community – the workers, volunteers and activists. These people should know better (though this is not my point but many of these people are happy to preach one thing and then do the opposite). The actual members of the community are hard to encourage to attend the events and only participate in small numbers, particularly if there are no incentives, i.e. t-shirts, on offer. The events, therefore, end up being a commemoration for these people in the know.

Lastly I should highlight the theme for this year’s event which was all about “Getting to Zero New HIV Infections.” Linked to the theme the various messages that were promoted to reach the zero included:

• Sticking to one Sexual Partner to reduce risk of HIV infection
• Protecting your baby from HIV by going for Counselling and Testing during pregnancy
• Using a condom correctly and consistently every time you have sex.

The volunteer exodus begins

Something which I had failed to appreciate before coming out to Zambia to volunteer is how transient volunteering can appear, particularly where I am a long term volunteer (two years) and everyone else comes and goes around me. In Mazabuka the VSO vols like Peter, Andrew and Phyl have already arrived and departed and over the next month or so many of the non-VSO vols (mainly my Italian friends) will be moving on. Of course new people will arrive and new friendships will be formed but I have been very, very lucky with the people that I have got to know and shared many happy times with since I came out here. My timing could not have been much better. And so the leaving process started this weekend with a goodbye party for Lucia and Francesca (and it was Roberto’s birthday party too). I have a vague memory of getting muddy playing football at some early hour and not feeling too great the next day. Good times and with all these new friends the opportunities to travel to other countries increases more and more.

The luggage saga

Take a closer look and some of you might be thinking that Mike was wearing the same clothes again and again during his Zambia holiday. Some of you might argue that there is nothing unusual about this but on this occasion the people to blame were British Airways (BA).

To recap, Mike arrived for his holiday in Zambia minus his luggage. BA was pretty clueless as to where his bag actually was (the UK, Zambia or who knows where?). Their customer service staff failed to contact us with any updates, their telephone number was switched off on non Zambia flight days and they were generally pretty unhelpful. Mike contacted BA by email and simply received a standard response which bore no relation to his problem. Two days before the end of Mike’s holiday we were informed that his bag had arrived though as we were in Livingstone we could not collect it. So on the morning of his return flight he finally got his bag, discovered that it had been tampered with as a few presents for me were missing and then checked in the bag for the UK. Putting aside the frustrations of the bag going missing in the first place, the customer service, or lack of it, from BA was surprisingly poor; we had expected much better. We await a response from BA . . .

Both sides of the Falls

No trip to Zambia can ever be complete without a visit to the Falls and Mike even went up in a helicopter to get the best possible view of all the ferocious water below. We were also in Livingstone on Mike’s insistence that we squeeze another country into the holiday so over to Zimbabwe we ventured. The Zim town of Victoria Falls is remarkably different to its Zambian counterpart, Livingstone. The town is within walking distance of the Falls which makes the visit simply more enjoyable and it is also very much set up for consuming the tourist dollar (not necessarily a good thing). The park itself stands out, not just from the welcoming entrance gate and the informative displays on the history and geology of the park, but also because of the easy routes that guide you around the park and highlight the major sites (i.e. the Devil’s Cataract, Livingstone Island and so on). Zambia could learn a lot from its neighbour and better do so soon or otherwise the tourists will flock back to the Zim side. Finally, we of course had to go to the Victoria Falls hotel to experience High Tea. It was good, we then proceeded to have a few cocktails and feeling lazy we stayed on for dinner too.

Thanks mate for as ever a fun couple of weeks – it was really great that you made it out here to visit me.

Bat-astic

Next it was time for more wildlife watching but of a very different kind – millions of bats! Five of us (Mike and I plus three good Italian friends – Roberto, Lucia and Sue) travelled to Kasanka National Park (http://www.kasanka.com/) to witness the migration of fruit bats which takes place in November and December every year. It was without doubt a spectacular sight as early one morning (something like 5am) and a couple of times at sunset the sky was filled with approximately 5 or 6 million fruit bats; though we were not sure who was counting them. The screeching of the bats echoed around us and for the sunrise viewing we climbed up a 15metre high hide which meant that the bats were within touching distance flying over our heads. It was all quite an amazing, surreal experience.

Luxury and up close with the wildlife in the Lower Zambezi

Hooray, another visitor from the UK! Sadly Mike arrived with a bit of a bump as British Airways managed to lose his luggage (more on that later) but he was remarkably philosophical and in a short time he was kitted out with a new wardrobe – a mix of my clothes and a visit to a few ‘green’ (second hand) shops in Maz.

First stop on Mike’s fast and furious two week holiday was the Lower Zambezi national park and Stefan very kindly lent us his 4x4 which made getting to the park so much easier. Kanyemba lodge (http://www.kanyemba.com/) had been talked up by various friends who had already stayed there and we were not to be disappointed – amazing good, great view over the river, lovely pool, luxury rooms and hippos croaking at night. We managed to squeeze in a couple of sunset cruises, a canoe safari and a walking safari on Kanyemba Island. All were fun, in different ways, though I enjoyed the canoeing the most mainly because of how close it allowed us to get to the elephants, hippos and crocodiles and observe them. My favourite moment, which we were lucky to see a couple of times, was watching tens of elephants lumber into the river, swim across almost in formation and then climb up the bank on the other side; simply wonderful.

Patience is required

Six months after my test, and after regular visits to get my paper version stamped again and again, I now have a smart, new Zambian driving licence. Amusingly it includes no driver restrictions, which means the need for wearing glasses somehow went unnoticed.

Progress

I am sure that I have moaned on the blog before, and definitely to friends and family, about how organising events here often requires huge amounts of time and effort, particularly distributing letters of invitation by hand and then reminding the same people by text a day before a meeting. However, the efforts can be rewarding when stakeholder meeting turns out as it did today. Meaning that: the turnout was good (over 40 people); we started roughly on time (less than 30 mins late); the presentations and discussions were all pretty good, interesting and with helpful inputs; and the Guest of Honour, the District Commissioner, showed a genuine interest in HIV work and the people present. So the report card should read – shows improvement, 7 out of 10 and keep up the good work.

Mazabuka Prison

Some opportunities happen by chance and the visit to the Mazabuka prison was one of these occasions. I have been to the prison a number of times before to speak to some of the officers about HIV but the chats had always been outside, away from the prisoners. This time we were on the inside, amongst the prisoners, unexpectedly part of a delegation going to inspect the prison conditions. The team included the new DC, the Mayor and various other Government officials. We had only gone to speak to the DC about him opening a HIV workshop and ended up in the back of his vehicle being driven to the prison. Nothing wrong with this given the importance of needing to address HIV issues to both prison officers and prisoners.

The Mazabuka prison currently has around 250 male prisoners (a mixture of people on remand and people already convicted and serving a sentence), who share only two toilets and are expected to sleep in two rooms which are the size of your average school classroom. By my calculations the prisoners outnumbered the mattresses (not beds) by around 6 or 7 to 1, so people have to sleep on the floor, in any space or gap they can find, and sometimes in shifts. With no fans and few windows the rooms have little ventilation and only hot, static air,especially in the current hot conditions. The kitchen walls and ceiling was black; burnt out due to the fires made using small metal braziers to cook food. I am sure that conditions are worse in the larger city prisons but from what I saw even the one in Mazabuka should act as a strong deterrent to crime.

Independence Day 2011

In case you were wondering what the colours of the Zambian flag represent, here is a short explanation. The green background represents agriculture or the natural wealth of the country. Red symbolises the struggle for independence, black represents the people of Zambia and orange highlights the country's mineral wealth, particularly copper. The eagle at the top stands for freedom.

Kafue National Park

As Zambia prepared to celebrate its 47th year of independence on 24th October, and whilst flags of green, red, black and orange were being put up on Government buildings, a few of us escaped our towns and cities to take advantage of the long weekend. For a change we did not travel too far, only three hours westwards from Lusaka to Kafue National Park, which as an understatement is huge, roughly being the same size as Wales. For this reason we chose a campsite not far from the main road rather than venturing too deep inside the park.

This meant that maybe it was not the best location for wildlife spotting, though from our tents we could still look down on the Kafue River and see hippos, antelopes wandered freely around the campsite and baboons were ready to pounce on any food scraps as soon as our backs were turned. On the couple of wildlife drives we scanned the bush for any sign of movement, occasionally spotting elephants, zebras and more different types of antelopes. Any cats were nowhere to be seen so my own personal search for a leopard goes on. Otherwise, it was a case of eating, drinking and relaxing around the camp fire whilst insects buzzed, frogs croaked and hippos grunted around us.

A slow, slow day

Little to report but just want to moan as first there was no water at the office and then the power went, and stayed off. So I have been sweating away in the heat and am definitely now back to two showers a day; cold showers never felt so good.

The new rules

Today the new District Commissioner addressed the Heads of Department within the Council and Government Line Ministries in Mazabuka for the first time . The speech mentioned little about policy, aside from stressing the need to alleviate the high levels of rural poverty. Instead, the key messages focused on responsibilities and the behaviour expected of the Heads of Department. It covered: needing to act as leaders, both for the community and for their staff; working as civil servants and not as politicians or business people; being accountable, transparent, honest and impartial; also being punctual and keeping time; observing careful planning, management and reporting of development activities, and being ready to share this information with others; finally, zero tolerance on corruption and any mis-use of resources (transport in particular). Fine words and a very encouraging start. Now for actions if these rules are ignored.

Changes

It has been a strange few weeks. Post the elections the new Government has made a stream of appointments and announcements and we are now waiting for the trickle down effect of these to the district level . The new District Commissioner for Mazabuka will arrive soon and what he says and does is likely to have the most profound affect here, or maybe to be cynical little will change. For the time being people seem to have been placed on pause, just waiting to see what will happen next.

However, the major news is that the Bishop, the District AIDS Coordination Advisor (DACA) and my boss, has gone. His contract with the National AIDS Council (NAC) was coming to an end and he decided not to renew it. My feelings are mixed as at times, for example, in workshops, meetings, giving presentations, talking to the community, helping people to reach decisions and consensus, my boss can be very effective. And without doubt he also has a strong knowledge of HIV and AIDS policy, activities and issues.

But there is a but there has been a lack of focus and commitment from him to his role with tasks being started but rarely finished. Also he has had an over reliance on Judy and I to do the work rather than to support and advise him and others. Overall, there has been an interference of too many non-HIV work activities on a regular basis. Time to stop there I feel. So for now we have no boss, a pretty messy office (but the painting has started!) and are relying on NAC to recruit a new DACA as soon as possible, which based on their current record with other districts with vacant positions this could take a while; and possibly no one will even arrive before we leave.

Cheering on the Chipolopolo

The big match, and the last one of Zambia’s qualification campaign for the 2012 African Nations Finals and we managed to get tickets to see Zambia take on Libya. A win or a draw for Zambia would be good enough to see them through so expectations of qualifying were high. For us the game involved a 1,400km round trip to the Copperbelt as the match was being played in the town of Chingola. It was a lot of kms to cover with not a huge amount to see along the way until we reached the Copperbelt. It was interesting to pass through Zambia’s industrial heartland and see the towns of Ndola, Kitwe and Chingola. Whilst Lusaka is significantly bigger than all of them the city comes across as a maze, whereas the likes of Ndola seemed well planned and welcomed us with tree lined streets, road signs(!) and plenty of greenery.

Back to the footy and the match was being held at the stadium of the Zambian Premiership team, Nchanga Rangers, which had open stands behind both goals and then small covered areas along the sides of the pitch. Supposedly 20,000 people can squeeze in but as a rough estimate maybe 13,000 were watching the game. The fans still generated plenty of noise with their whistles, air horns and vuvuzelas. We fitted in well with our ‘official’ Zambia footy shirts; though official comes in various combinations of red, black, white, green and orange, as well as Nike, Adidas or other brands.

As for the game Zambia played well in the first half, passing the ball around nicely, dominating and creating some good chances. They hit the woodwork three times and the Libyan goalkeeper made a couple of good saves. The second half was much more pedestrian which was strange as we thought Libya needed a win to qualify. We found out later that because of results elsewhere a draw meant both sides would go through. Therefore, the game ended 0-0, the Zambian fans went away disappointed because they wanted goals, whilst the Libyan team celebrated on the pitch (a great achievement given the state of team and the country). I have two abiding memories. First, the warmth and friendliness of the Zambian fans was wonderful as it seemed that some of the post election feelgood factor had spilled over onto the terraces. Second, despite not scoring a goal when their team came close the Zambian fans jumped, screamed, danced and ran around. These celebrations were pretty wild when they hit the post so who knows what they would have done if the team had actually scored!

Sportastic

Quite a good weekend of sports entertainment – shouting at the TV and getting burnt in the sun. Saturday

• England vs. Scotland at rugby (much too close and tense to enjoy)
• Frisbee in the park (continuing the traditional established by Andrew where we are so committed no that we even play on when it starts to rain and we hear the sound of thunder)
• Internet surfing (repeatedly clicking the manual refresh button to check the Watford score; should not have bothered as we were thrashed 4-0 by Southampton)
• Serie A on the TV with Inter vs. Naples (at least one happy Naples supporting fan as they won 3-0)

Sunday

• More rugby with Ireland vs. Italy (explaining the complicated rules to my Italian friends who cheered despite the defeat)
• Maz golf club (we only lost 4 balls this time with three of our disappearing into the darn water hazard, as always)
• Back to the TV for Tottenham vs. Arsenal (sorry Anna but where has the Arsenal defence gone?)
• Final bit of footy, more Serie A with Juventus vs. Mila (or Marco vs. Lucia with Marco triumphant after a 2-0 win)

Now time for rest.

Welcome to the new President

The waiting was tense, then finally in the early hours of Friday morning the Presidential election results were announced and the Republic of Zambia had a new President, HE Mr Michael Chilufya Sata; the fifth president since independence. Mazabuka being a stronghold for one of the other opposition parties saw little of the joyous celebrations that took place elsewhere in the country, though there will still plenty of car horns being honked and generally people wearing smiles on their faces once they had learnt of the result; most people here seemed happy with the outcome.

The handover of power was surprisingly quick and efficient. The former President, Rupiah Banda, had delivered his farewell speech by Friday lunchtime and by the afternoon Michael Sata was taking the oath of office in front of thousands of his jubilant supporters in Lusaka. Marco and I watched the inauguration on Zamia’s national broadcaster ZNBC who sadly never quite got the pictures, nor the sound quality, right for the new President’s first speech. The wonky camera work was amusing. Despite this the pictures of the crowd still conveyed the sense that this was the result that the people wanted. There seems to be a sense of relief that the elections are over and that overall they were peaceful. People also feel that the change in Government can lead to real change and benefit everyone and not just the fortunate few. Both the speeches made by the former and the new Presidents were positive and conciliatory; let’s hope this good start continues.

Inside a polling station

Aside from being interested in the election results my main curiosity was in how a polling station is supposed to function – who does what in terms of the vote, election officials and election observers. So I spent a few hours of election day just watching what was going on, mainly from our office at the Boma which had been converted into a rather cramped (and hot) polling station for the day.

The essentials for a voter are that he/she must be 18 or over, had previously registered to vote and turns up to vote sometime between 0600 – 1800 hrs. An individual can only vote at the centre that he/she had originally registered to vote. They also have to bring along with them their National Registration Card (NRC) and Voter’s card to the relevant polling station. If they turned up with only one of these documents then they were not permitted to vote. Within each polling station there were seated a mixture of Electoral Commission of Zambia (ECZ) officials (normally 5) wearing bright orange vests and election observers from the political parties and civil society organisations.

The voting process then went something like this:

1. A voter presents his/her NRC and Voter’s card to the first ECZ official who searches through a booklet to check that the voter is eligible to vote at this particular polling station. The booklet includes a mini copy of each Voter’s card registered to that polling station. The details on a Voter’s card include a photo, voter number, NRC number, date of birth and gender
2. The voter and NRC numbers are read out by the first ECZ official who ticks off the voter in his/her booklet. The election observers from the political parties and civil society organisations have copies of the same booklet and also check off each voter
3. As Zambians are voting for representatives in Presidential, Parliamentary and Council elections a voter next collects three forms for the candidates under each of these areas. There are 10 presidential candidates for a voter to choose from; only one candidate is female
4. Each polling station should have 3 cardboard cut out polling booths so a voter will proceed to one of these booths with their 3 pieces of paper to then cast their votes
5. The final stage is for a voter to neatly fold each piece of paper (ideally) and insert them into the appropriate sealed ballot boxes. The boxes are colour coded: orange for the Presidential boxes, red for MPs and black for Councillors. There is an ECZ official on hand with a ruler to ensure each paper is pushed deep inside the ballot boxes.

Polling Day

The waiting is over and at last Zambians can cast their vote in the Presidential, Parliamentary and Council elections. With the noise from the political parties on pause for the time being the queues of people in the centre of Mazabuka town started forming very early, some from around 4am, even before the election officials had arrived at their polling stations, and definitely before lazy me got up given that election day had been declared a bank holiday. I think part of this was simply the eagerness of people wanting to be one of first to cast their vote (and to pass this fact onto their neighbours) and then to be to relax for the rest of the day, especially as the temperature has been getting hotter and stickier far too early in the season. In Mazabuka voting has been quiet and orderly with people proud to vote and to show off the black mark on their thumb that proves they have done so. Now the waiting starts all over again for the results, maybe Wednesday, probably Thursday.