Relaxing in Bwejuu

After the hustle and bustle of Stone Town we ventured to the east of Zanzibar to a place called Bwejuu; a quieter, less developed part of the island with beautiful, long sandy beaches. We hired bikes for a couple of days to explore the area, sometimes by road, but mainly along the firm sandy parts of the beach which was more fun and also more direct. The first of our snorkelling excursions began here as we hired a dhow to take a short trip out to a lagoon, seeing some great fish in bath water warm, aquamarine sea. I had my first massage in a long, long time – being covered head to toe in lemongrass oil was very relaxing, and I smelt good too.

 

Spicing things up

Lemongrass, cinnamon, cardamom, turmeric, nutmeg, vanilla, cloves and many more spices that I have now forgotten; Starfruit, jackfruit (described as a cross between a banana and pineapple), coconut (juice and flesh – yum), pineapple, bananas, passion fruit (now my personal favourite) and a young man climbing the coconut tree singing a song (this last part felt very touristy). There was no trip to watch Watford play, betting on the horses at a windswept Wincanton races or a bracing walk on a Somerset beach this Boxing Day; instead Marco and I went on a tour of a spice farm on the outskirts of Stone Town. We learnt about, sampled and photographed numerous spices and fruits. At the same time one of the guides kept on making different items out of palm leaves – a basket to carry our spice samples, hat, tie and glasses – mainly I think to make us tourists look silly when we arrived back in Stone Town still wearing some of the gifts. At the end of the meal we had a basic, but delicious, meal of rice and vegetables cooked using many of the spices from the farm.

Christmas in Stone Town

My first Christmas away from home and away from the warm, cosiness and familiarity of my parents house in Somerset. I have to admit it was strange to be away from them, my brother and the rest of the family. There was no excitable niece and nephew, ripping open wrapping paper and their smiling faces showing off their presents; and no stocking with toothpaste, deodorant, post-it notes or chocolate! Despite this sorrow, if I had to choose to be somewhere else then Zanzibar was a wonderful place to be. A Christmas breakfast of fresh mango juice, homemade biscuits, tropical fruit (more mangos, pineapple and passion fruit), fresh bread and tropical jam (the only let down was the powdered coffee) was a good start, and all took place on our hotel balcony that looked out over the narrow streets of Stone Town and an inviting, lovely blue sea. We then had a lazy day exploring these narrow streets, getting lost, re-finding ourselves and then getting lost again. Locals wished us Merry Christmas despite most of them being Muslims. We were enticed into numerous selling local goods for tourists and resisted any purchases at this stage. In the evening we met up with a number of other VSO volunteers, who had also travelled with us on the train, at an Arabic / Swahili restaurant. We sat crossed legged on mats on the floor, two men played a drum and some form of string instrument in the corner, and we tucked into a number of tasty fish dishes. We then wandered to a bar on the beach and had drinks under candlelight with the sand beneath our feet. All very different to a normal Christmas at home but still nice.

Getting to Zanzibar

Car, bus, train, taxi, foot, ferry and then finally we reached Zanzibar four days later! A bit of a journey to say the least but it was fun and very much all worth it. The train was the longest, most exciting and also most (a little bit anyway) frustrating part of the journey. The ‘Tazara Express train’ leaves from a place from Kapiri Mposhi, a few hours north east of Lusaka, and aside from the train station it is not a memorable town, particularly because like Mazabuka it is a major stopping off point for truckers, which has consequences in terms of prostitution and HIV and AIDS. The three of us (Marco, Davide and I) had a first class compartment to ourselves for supposedly the next two nights, which sounds pretty luxurious and compared to the cramped, sleeping upright conditions in third class we were very lucky. So we read, played scrabble and connect 4, listened to music, wandered around the train, day dreamed and gazed out of the window, had a few drinks at the bar and ate in the dining car as the train chugged along, wandered around the numerous stations that we stopped at, and then repeated all of this activity again and again. At times it felt like the journey would never end and then we were in Dar es Salaam only nine hours late. And by lunchtime on Christmas Eve we had taken the two hour ferry from Dar and set foot on the beautiful island of Zanzibar.

Wheels

It sounds strange but it is nice to be driving again, even if I will only have this car for a few weeks. Basically a friend of mine is back home in Europe for Christmas and I have been trusted with looking after the car. This is all perfectly timed as over the last week or so the rainy season has come down upon us heavy and hard, meaning that Mazabuka is slowly becoming swallowed up by water and mud.

Movies party night

Another party and for no particular reason we dressed up as characters from films. There was the usual great food, lovely people, amusement, drinking and dancing. Life can often be very good here.

Day of the Disabled

To cut a long story short, re-read my comments about Gender Day in late November but then picture this as day as being much worse . . . little organisation, few people and plenty of confusion. Shame.

World AIDS Day 2011

For me this was the big one – World AIDS Day 2011. Judy and I had spent a good few weeks planning, organising, and worrying about funding, and in the end it all went pretty well. Most commemoration events take place in town so this year we wanted to go into a rural area and the community of Lubombo around 30mins by car from Mazabuka was chosen for the event. This was very much the right idea so we could engage with people who often don’t participate in these commemoration days but did create various logistical problems in terms of checking that the community was doing its tasks, and also in getting people from town to and from the event. The second major issue was funding – both what the Government should have been giving us and when, and what we could raise locally. Judy did a great job locally, bringing in around £1,500 from farmers, businesses and our HIV and AIDS partners. The money from the National AIDS Council did not arrive until a few days before the event which meant that decisions on what to buy and in what quantity were all very last minute.

But as I said the event went well, it attracted around 1,000 people who were mainly from the local community which is what we wanted, and not only people working in HIV and AIDS already. There were a good number of information stands by our stakeholders, and the dance, drama and music were all enjoyed; even the speeches did not last too long (I had written most of them!). However, this being the rainy season the weather was kind up to a point as around 1300 the thunder and lightning started, followed by heavy, heavy rain. This brought the day to a slightly premature end. I was the last to leave a few hours later, making sure that everyone had found transport home. And aside from a few complaints about not getting a World AIDS Day t-shirt (50 available t-shirts into 1,000 people does not go!), the Lubombo community seemed happy and honoured to have hosted the event this year.

Malaikha

An Austrian friend here is impressively and passionately trying to establish and build a school for local blind children in Mazabuka. So far progress has been slow, particularly frustrations with local bureaucracy which gobbles up what limited funding she has allocated to the school. Therefore, on Saturday her organisation held a fundraising event for the school. In the afternoon there was dancing and singing (plenty of miming too), and a fairly well know singer in these parts – Slap D – performed; the girls seemed to know and enjoy his songs. But the main event was the Miss Malaikha (beauty) contest. Lucia, an Italian volunteer here in Maz, gamely agreed to take part along with 9 other local girls who took the contest very seriously indeed; apparently they had been rehearsing for weeks whilst Lucia was a lot less serious. It was all very entertaining, especially as some of the contestants were very attractive.

Gender Day

This will sound all very cynical but . . . another week and along comes another commemoration day. I agree with the message and the need for policies, action and education and so on but I am unsure whether a poorly organised, small event, preaching to people who already work in this area (and not the general community), is the right way to go about addressing the issue. Anyway, here are some photos of the usual banner, t-shorts, dancing and drama.

Back to the Falls

I had not been to Livingstone for months and the contrast from my previous visit to the mighty Victoria Falls could not have been greater; much less of the might now. There was barely a trickle (I exaggerate slightly) of water flowing over the Falls, which meant that it was now possible to walk over the top of the Falls. There was little more that a few puddles of water where once was, and soon will be again, a torrent of water. The Falls still remains impressive because of the size of it but being soaked by the spray is much more enjoyable.

DATF Executive Team on tour

The Mazabuka DATF where I work is often quoted as being one of the best of its kind in Zambia but we can still learn from others. A while ago a team from Chongwe (about 45mins to the east of Lusaka) visited Mazabuka as part of a learning tour so this was the return leg. In passing through Lusaka we visited the National AIDS Council (NAC) – basically our HQ – and met with and questioned the Director General of NAC. For me, little was answered in terms of when our funding would start again (almost five months and counting), and also what further support would be devolved to the district level (decentralisation is the buzz word). Then it was onwards to Chongwe and a meeting with their DATF team. It was interesting hear about: the high level of political support that they enjoy (for example, the District Commissioner would just get up and lead all the other senior officials at an event off for testing); the mapping work that they have done of their HIV and AIDS stakeholders (we will shortly copy this); and also how they have managed to get land which will eventually lead on to their own DATF office (Bishop, Judy and I are cramped into one room). A few things we want to bring to Maz.

Rebecca's birthday party

Stella, and her family, have been an integral part of our lives here so when she asked Andrew and I if we could help fund her daughter’s fourth birthday party it was impossible to say no. To be honest we did very little apart from ordering a birthday cake and turning up to take photos. Most of the work was done by various people from the Sunday School at Stella’s church. So for around 2 hours on a Sunday morning we were surrounded by 40 children, singing Happy Birthday to Rebecca and watching them all devour the birthday cake, popcorn and lots of other sweet treats. Rebecca (the girl in the hat and pink dress) was a little quiet and subdued because of the drugs that she is taking but her mum overjoyed and a very proud parent. The children did not stop talking about Rebecca’s party for weeks.

Strategic planning

The work continues on the DATF Strategic Plan.The meetings can be an absolute pain to organise as I can never be too sure how many people are going to turn up, when they will arrive and also whether they will actually stay for the whole session; you are guaranteed that people will get up an important moments to loudly answer their phone. But when we do get the right HIV and AIDS stakeholders it is fascinating, enriching and almost enjoyable to listen to them discuss problems, ideas, issues, solutions, frustration and so on about Mazabuka. The actual strategic plan is a long way off and will no doubt require much more work but at least the material going into will be very rich.

Malawi Study Tour

I did not think that I would be back in Malawi so soon but within days I was travelling along the same stretch of road and passing through the same border crossing. Why? Well this was a work trip, and not for pleasure, as VSO Zambia had organised a study tour on HIV and AIDS issues for a number of its partner organisations and I had been fortunate to be invited along too. A group of 10 of us travelled to Malawi – many who I had met before so it was nice to see this familiar friendly faces. We were joined by a similar group of HIV and AIDS workers from VSO partner organisations Mozambique so my Portuguese language skills improved no end – Bon dia and Obrigado! We spent a week travelling around central and southern Malawi (between Lilongwe and Blantyre) meeting with organisations at different levels (Government, district, community and NGOs) who are all working in the HIV and AIDS field. We listened and questioned (and wanted to question some more if there was time), and were overall impressed by what is being done in Malawi in the fight against HIV and AIDS. It all seems more organised and coordinated, and also better supported; I don’t just mean financially but also in terms of politics, planning and actions. The task now is to bring back some of this learning to Zambia to improve the situation here.

Malawi - Cape Maclear

Then we packed up our tents, happy but a bit tired from dancing into the early hours night after night. So for a few days relaxation we headed to Cape Maclear, a beautiful area on Lake Malawi where we swam, read, hired kayaks to go paddling on the lake, and also hired some snorkels and saw plenty of brightly coloured fish. The only downside of the kayaking and snorkelling was the sun cream rubbing off far too easily which meant more burning than tanning but nothing too serious compared to some. The food at our lodge (Gecko Lounge) was simple, very tasty and much more European than African cuisine, which I hate to admit was a nice change. Leaving this idyllic place for the long journey back to Maz was tough.