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.