Developing Value Chains in Zambia

Great Paragraph on Social Enterprises

2011-06-07T14:19:00.003-06:00

Rent-to-Own has been used as an example in a Next Billion Blog by Mark Hand of First Light Ventures.

I think he accurately identifies an inherent tension found in a lot of CSR-type activities, including the one-for-one model that Tom's Shoes operates under.

"Serving two masters isn't easy. When social enterprises sell goods and services that directly benefit the poor, they align their social and financial missions. Rent-to-Own, for example, finances the purchase of agricultural tools by rural Zambian farmers. The more plows Rent-to-Own finances, the faster it grows and the more families it reaches. Profit maximization also maximizes impact, and the sale of services directly to farmers creates a feedback loop that prevents Rent-to-Own from providing shoddy product. The financial and social missions of one-for-one models, however, are diametrically opposed: every dollar spent on ensuring the social impact of a donation is one less dollar of profit, and every dollar spent on driving sales is one less that can be spent benefiting the poor. This tension may be healthy and creative at first, but it is a long-term time bomb."

http://www.nextbillion.net/blog/2011/06/07/when-the-shoe-doesnt-fit-an-investors-take-on-one-for-one-models

3 years

2011-02-01T06:23:00.001-07:00

3 years

This seems to be the time it takes to really know a new place. After 3 years of living in Zambia, I now feel settled, the relationships that started long ago are now strong, knowing how to make things happen is clear, and I now know what it’s like living away from home. Last week I returned to Zambia from another one of my one month trip to Canada, which I now do twice a year. Every time I go things there have changed, and I also see how I have changed. For example, in the past six months, I’ve transformed from being an NGO worker to a business owner. The business has 105 people living in rural Zambia who owe us over $100,000, and my team of people are working hard to collect this money and grow this amount to $300,000 by October.

One thing I noticed while in Canada, was the persistent lack of jobs. Extremely capable people are deciding to go back to school in hopes that maybe two years from now, with even more academic credentials, they’ll be able to find a nice job. The contrast to Zambia couldn’t be more stark. Anyone with any skills or education in Zambia is in high demand.

I recently read about the “emerging emerging markets” in the Economist. They show the statistics behind my anecdotal conclusion. They show that growth in developed countries will continue to flat-line, and that Brazil, China and India are everyone’s favourites and over-highlighted. Meanwhile, impressive growth rates exist in other countries. “The biggest concentration of overlooked markets is in Africa” where they mention Nigeria and Kenya, alongside Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Pakistan as emerging frontier markets.

The world is becoming globalized, and it is for the long term benefit of all of us. There’s no doubt in my mind. I can’t help but feel lucky to have gotten into the action a little early, and I can’t help but see a trend where supply and demand for skilled labour start to balance out – supply in the developed countries and demand in the developing. Life abroad isn’t easy, but it is exciting. Here I get to dream an idea and make it happen, all on a shoe-string budget, and all the while helping thousands of people lift themselves out of poverty.

My old job, as manager of my Dad’s cheese company, is really interesting to see now. The jobs are simple, and require nothing more than a high-school education to do well, yet all of the staff are either working on their university degrees, or have already finished one if not two degrees. These people are better educated that the average CEO or government official in Zambia, meanwhile they’re working the til and sticking labels onto blocks of cheese. (if not better educated, equally educated) Maybe they have figured it out, and a simple job is a beautiful job, but for those with ambition who aren’t quite sure where to direct their attention – I have to suggest the “frontier” countries where anything is possible, and where your skills are much needed. Before long, I expect to have the experience needed to apply for those jobs that say ask for 5-10 years experience.

BRAC

2010-12-12T02:52:00.004-07:00

I could go on and on about BRAC, and what a phenomenal organization it is, but first, I want to finish this book I'm reading called "Freedom from Want" by Ian Smillie.

As I read the book, I realize that Rent-to-Own, the business I started just over 1 year ago in Zambia, has a lot of similar challenges and goals. Of course we're still small and have just $100,000 of micro-credit in action, I can see how we can quickly have 3 or $4 million in the next few years.

What the story of BRAC is making me realize, is that it'll never grow to its full potential without some help.

So for this post, I'm asking for some assistance. Rent-to-Own is expanding into new parts of the country and could offer credit to as many as 50,000 people within the next year if all goes well.

I'll get into the details of what I found cool in the book on my next post, right now I still have 100 pages of reading to do.

If you like my work, I would really really appreciate a small donation. I can't express how much it does for the small businesses and farmers that we work with.

Mr. Bombwe beside his vegetable farm.

He has a new diesel pump so he can expand his farm.

click here to help - https://perspectives.ewb.ca/markhemsworth

Thank you kindly.

Mark

Success (part 2)

2010-10-28T02:55:00.001-06:00

In my last post, I mentioned how I came to the conclusion that investment was the answer to the development of Zambia. I also mentioned that Zambia has to become more productive to compete on the global markets so that it can first get ahead before having the capacity to refine the way it operates to reach some sort of equilibrium state.

If I were President, I would look at the entire country the same way I look at my company. I want everyone to be busy, to be productive, and to be happy. There are millions of people though, all of different skills and different ages – meanwhile what is required to run the country has a complexity beyond what I can know. So instead of thinking of all the things I don’t know, here is my best guess based on what I do know.

There are three different time frames for the investments that are needed.

Short term (under 5 years), Medium term (5-19 year), and Long term (20+ years)

Short Term

Zambia needs to first improve its low skill work force. Simple things like the trades (construction, mechanics, etc). The life expectancy for the average Zambian today is just 39 years. So if we want to see changes in the next 5 years, we need to look at trade schools which can improve a person’s skills within 2 years. Right now the state of the government trade schools is pathetic and this forces Zambian companies to import these skills to get the job done, thus increasing the cost of doing business, and decreasing the competitiveness of its exports on the global market.

Medium Term

Zambia needs to look to two things, its health care and its infrastructure. Infrastructure, at least, has grabbed a lot of attention from the government, however, the purpose for this attention isn’t to improve the enabling environment for businesses to operate in, and instead, it is to gain votes for the next election. There are hundreds of km’s of roads that were built just 2 years ago and are already falling apart because the contractors who built them were not monitored properly, or the gov’t used cheap specifications when accepting bids for those contracts. Regardless, the end result is a perpetual state of repair which is so inefficient that it hurts.

Then there is health care. A year ago there was a photo of a woman giving birth to child in the parking lot of a health care clinic (with no nurse or doctor in sight) which was published on the front page of the news. The photo captured the essence of a defunct health care system where the vast majority of the population is effectively without access to any health care professional. The impact this has on the quality of life, and on the economy, is astounding. In a country where some 25% of adults are HIV positive – and not living to the age of 40, clearly this is an area that has to be addressed before Zambia can feel any success. I remember the day my friends wife went into labour, and we drove from one clinic to another, continuously being turned away because either the power was off, or the water was off, or the doctor was out. Then I learned that the biggest hospital in the country, UTH (University Teaching Hospital) was no different – they didn’t have a water tank!!!! Seriously, the hospital shuts down when the city turns off the water, which is often.

Long Term

Investing in education. There are many days when I think of stopping everything I’m doing with Rent-to-Own and refocusing all my effort towards education in Zambia. There are so many reasons why this is the most important thing for Zambia’s long term development. The first reason is for health awareness. The link between education and health is undeniable. There is a stat that indicates something like every extra year a girl spends in school; the chances of her getting HIV go down by 10%. Then there is the use of family planning – which reduces the average size of a family, which allows parents to invest more in each child. Then there is the skill level of Zambians and their ability to contribute to the economy. The talent pool. The list goes on, and the reason I think I care about this so much is because I believe that a good education should be a human right. It’s true that Zambia has mostly free primary education, but it’s also true that the quality is outright pathetic. Kids are in class a maximum of 60 days a year, and most of those days they’ll receive less than 4 hours of instruction. This is how someone can graduate from high school without knowing what a percentage means, or knowing how to spell simple words.

Please don’t rush out and donate to an organization that is building schools, because much like hospitals, the problem isn’t to have another building, the problem is to have qualified people doing the teaching and providing the health care. I’ve been to schools here where there are over 300 students and just 2 teachers. I’ve seen how the average student receives just 12 hours of instruction a week, and how failure rates for standardized tests can reach 95% in rural areas.

What does the first step look like?

Unfortunately, underlying all these investments, there needs to be a tax base. Luckily for Zambia, there are thousands of tons of copper being produced every week. So what is the problem here? Low royalties. The current government scrapped windfall taxes that earned Zambia some $400 million when the price of copper goes above $6000/ton. Well, prices are now above $8000 and the same tiny taxes are being collected. I could go on and on about this, but instead I’ll put a link to a blog that does this for me - http://www.zambian-economist.com/search?q=copper It is common knowledge that the Chinese (and other) mining companies that operate in Zambia, pay bribes to the government to control these taxes – and that the Zambian government accepts these bribes. So if I were to add an “immediate term” change that is required, I’d adjust the royalty scheme so that more money is paid in taxes and less in bribes. I also wonder why the president didn’t immediately come out and condemn the shooting of 10 miners by a Chinese manager! Seriously, what is going on here? Chile’s president comes to save their miners trapped underground, meanwhile not a peep from Zambia’s president when his miners are being shot at. - http://bit.ly/b9RKwE

With adjustments to the royalties collected, the gov’t could work towards training better teachers, paying wages on time, paying better wages, and starting to privatize the trades institutes, and paying for more research into HIV and Malaria prevention, and focusing on quality infrastructure.

The bottom line here, don’t forget, is to run the country like a business. Have happy citizens, healthy, educated and productive citizens. Somehow I feel that this isn’t the goal of the current government, and somehow I feel like Zambians don’t expect their government to live up to these standards.

Time to put my head back down and just keep doing what I know. Rent-to-Own. More productive SME’s in the rural areas and more jobs.

What is Success

2010-10-12T01:14:00.002-06:00

Success

Before coming to Zambia, I spent 4 weeks training with 10 other people in Toronto. The training is part of EWB’s program to prepare us for a new culture and to explain why the development sector operates the way it does. Within those 4 weeks, the most useful exercise I found was examining a single word. Accountability was my favourite.

Now I wonder about SUCCESS, what does it mean? What does it mean to me, and for Zambia, and especially for the millions of households across rural Zambia?

Since I arrived in February of 2008, my personal success has been divided into different areas. I knew I wanted to help rural Zambians get ahead. I knew I wanted to help my partner organization which purchases Honey from 6000 farmers every year. And I knew I wanted to contribute to a team of EWB volunteers who are all working to achieve the same goal. So I analysed for over a year, trying to figure out how I could help more. There were hundreds of epiphanies along the way, including one where I realized that everything is a process. From a cooked meal and all that goes into it, to the movie I watch on my laptop. So if everything was a process, then everything required work – and thus jobs. It might be true that one job can create 20 more jobs, but how do you get started when the biggest concern most people have is just on surviving. How do you go from subsistence living to a life where you can specialize in one area, and develop those skills to compete with people in other countries? I thought about this and finally came up with Investment as my conclusion. But how can this happen, and why isn’t it happening already? This opened up a million other questions about the world and the way the economy works. The simplest answer I could come up with for why it wasn’t already happening was that it wasn’t easy, and it wasn’t profitable.

Let’s get back to success. In short, my conclusion was that more investment in rural Zambia would bring success. I later added the idea that equipment was the way to invest since equipment increased efficiency and productivity, thus competitiveness.

But I have to back up, and ask if I went the wrong way somewhere. I have an amazing friend in Regina who has this ability to take everything I have considered success and put a new light on it. To question it from the foundation. She asked me two questions that stumped me at the time. The first, was about the end goal for rural Zambia. She asked if increasing productivity was really the answer. True that it might increase incomes, but in her mind, that was following the same path that Canada and other western countries have taken. Is this the right path? Flying into any major city, I have to admit that the pollution seen in the air makes me second guess everything. Then looking at the morals of our society, I also second guess. Then even worse still, looking at the spiritual health of our society – and our pathetic connection to the food we eat and the land we live on, makes me really doubt that this is the correct path.

The second question she asked was about a year later. I told her that the best part about helping businesses for development, rather than NGO’s, was because every business transaction has two players who are both empowered and have the freedom to choose if they want to transact or not. (whereas most donation type transactions are a one way street, and thus the recipient is actually powerless in the process) Her response was that even business influences the way a population develops, and who am I to direct this?

She had taken my success and ripped it up from its core. I stopped everything and had to question my own actions, the actions I believe in and have dedicated so much time and energy towards.

After some time reflecting, I realized that the question to her first question was simple. I don’t know how else a country can develop. The world has been effectively globalized, and the benefits of being part of this global economy outweigh the costs. Education and health care are the biggest benefits. My belief is that Canada and much of the west are only at stage 5 out of 10 in their development, and that my friend is right, the end goal is not for Zambia to be like Canada – however, Zambia does have to follow a similar path to reach that final goal. Look at the possibilities of where Canada can go in the next 50 years. It’s amazing. I picture people thinking more long term, making smarter purchases based on quality rather than satisfying an imaginary need - and I picture electric cars and cleaner energy sources. I picture stronger communities. But all of this isn’t possible without first becoming productive and wealthy. Maybe Zambia won’t spend as much time at stage 5, but first it has to get through stage 3.

To answer her second question, about whether it is morally right to guide the changes for another culture, whether through business or otherwise, I have to say that I don’t know. I have to say that it’s true that my actions, whether with other Canadians or with Zambians, will affect both myself and the person I’m with. If I’m in Canada, maybe I create a change that is bad for Canadians. The same can happen in Zambia. The important thing to me is that I try my best to always have a holistic perspective so that my actions aren’t selfish, but rather beneficial to everyone involved. What I do know for certain, is that giving something for free is a terrible way to try and help someone. Selling something with a subsidy is much better since at least there is some buy in from the customer (this includes health care and education) but definitely the ultimate goal has to be straight up business.

So my personal success seems to be back on track for now.

Then there is Zambia’s success. What does this mean?

I’ll get to this in my next blog post.

How Lucky am I?

2010-09-25T13:09:00.001-06:00

There’s a trick that my Dad once taught me... well, actually, I think I learned it from comment he made to my sister. It was something like – all it takes to be in a good mood, or to be happy, is to tell yourself that you’re in a good mood. Not sure I ever really put this into practice, and fairly certain my sister didn’t either, but it stuck somehow and here I am reading a book many years later thinking about it.

Since coming to Zambia, I’ve been acutely aware of all the difficulties that I’m surrounded by. It can be hot, it can be difficult to communicate - eating, sleeping, walking, sweating, and trying to do pretty much anything is more difficult than it is in Canada. That is, unless I have a whack of cash – then it doesn’t matter where I am in the world, things get easier.

Anyway, so here I am. Where exactly? A place that isn’t on the map. In Rent-to-Own we have an agent here, and we call it “Kasempa Turn-off”. Yup, I’m at a place that is defined by a junction in the road going to somewhere else. It’s about 800 km from the capital city of Zambia. There’s no power, no running water, not even any surface water. There are people around though, and through some odd circumstances, we chose to have an agent here.

Six months ago I came here to hire this agent. I really had no idea what I was doing, but something told me that Rent-to-Own might work in other areas outside of the one community that I knew – Mwinilunga. Now that I look back, it was ridiculous and truly difficult. The trip was my first to see the entire province, and I’ve since labelled it “two guys in a RAV4”.

Today, I realized halfway through my trip to visit all 10 of our agents, that this trip is actually the culmination of 6 months of hard work. We now have a truck of our own, and we have almost $60,000 of new capital to put towards renting more equipment. We have 5 employees and are a proper registered company here in Zambia. Possibly the biggest difference to me, is that I no longer have other duties (well, of course I have some but by and large Rent-to-Own is my main priority).

Yes. Driving 3000 km for 20 days in rural Zambia might sound like a haul, like a job, or like a sacrifice even. However, the beautiful thing is that it’s a dream come true. Every day I wake up and spend it talking to business owners about how they can grow their business. We go from 6am to 6pm. In essence, we are like investors, looking for small businesses that can pay back the original capital, plus a return. Not just a financial return, but a social return. If you think about it, I’m pretty sure you’ll discover that a financial return for any business, whose annual revenues are less than $2000, is actually synonymous with social returns. Even if they’re cutting down trees, or growing tobacco. The only sustainable life I’ve seen, is a life that exists on more than $5 a day.

So here I am, under the Milky Way stars, happily reporting on how things are in a place that doesn’t exist on a map. I can easily see how my situation could be viewed as a pile of brutal work, but with trying, just like my Dad said – being happy is all in how you think about it.

Today, it’s no longer two guys in a RAV4, it’s now “3 guys in a Canter Truck”

what's the difference?

2010-07-06T11:11:00.002-06:00

what's the difference....

I’m getting to see a new part of Africa. Two weeks in Ghana. All I know of Africa is Zambia, and a glimpse of Johannesburg. If you asked me last month, how I would rate places on their development, it would be something like this.

Germany – 9.9

Canada – 9.5

South Africa - 8.0

Zambia – 4.0

.....Ghana - 6.0

I’m sitting in an internet café in Tamale, Ghana. I’ve only spent a day and half exploring, but the differences are stark. The difference between Canada and Ghana is huge, same with Canada and Zambia...but now I can clearly see how Zambia and Ghana are not alike.

This reminds me of when I couldn’t see the spectrum of wealth in Zambia based on people’s houses. They were either rich families in a house with glass windows, painted walls and a wall fence. Or they were run down mud-brick houses that looked like it could cave in if you push against it. Then I lived in a mud-hut, and slowly the tiny differences revealed themselves. I didn’t have a door, or window....so I got them ($40). Then I wanted a bed and a mattress ($115). Then after a while I got tired of the termites eating through my floor, so I decided to put in a cement floor ($20). The wall was rough and always dirty, but I didn’t want to spend another $30 to plaster it and paint it. The roof was the ceiling, and the roof leaked. Also, there were tiny particles that always dropped and I’d wake up to find them on my bed in the morning. So I got creative and made a ‘ceiling’ from used sacks. ($10). After a few months without a mirror, I wanted a mirror ($8). And of course in the cold season, I needed an extra blanket ($10). In less than a year, I’d taken my little room through 5 levels of improvement at a total cost of $200.

If you asked my Dad what he saw, I’m sure he’d say “a mud-hut”. Meanwhile I’d invested a lot in it. To me it was clearly better than the neighbours.

So now I look at Ghana and I see the same things. The government actually does stuff here. The mail system works. There are street lights. There are sidewalks. And people are busy – the computer next to me has 4 people surrounding it, reading about college application requirements, the guy on my left is organizing something on the phone. Phones! The cost of speaking to someone is about 1/3^rd of what it is in Zambia. Transport! The cost of fuel is almost half what it is in Zambia, and taxi’s are about 1/3^rd of Zambia’s rates and a 5 ton truck to travel over 800km is of course much cheaper (about 75% of Zambian rates). Electricity is more money here, recently hiked up to $.14 /kWhr compared to Zambia’s $.05/kWhr – but its on all the time!

My friend Chiko asked me “what’s the difference”?

I didn’t have the heart to say;

“Ghana's economy is 20 years ahead of Zambia's”.

“Thousands of women are riding around on motorbikes with their babies behind”

“It's cheap enough that I can call people and have patient real conversations with them, even internationally”

“The internet is way faster – and they’re looking forward to a fibre optic installation this year”

“They have an intersection with 3 levels of overpasses on it”

So instead I told him

“its hot here”

“the people are nice, but Zambians are the nicest in the world”

And I could’ve said “people prefer to shit outside, so it stinks in some places”

I find it extremely humbling to see Ghana. It hits me hard because I didn’t realize that I would rate Ghana as a 6 out of 10...and be forced to rate Zambia as a 3 or 4.

Sorry Chiko, the truth is that Zambia has a ways to go. Zambia needs to use its copper assets to improve education, health care, infrastructure and the legal system. They need donors that can see the difference between Zambia and Ghana, and that solutions in one don’t always work in the other. When you’re here long enough, the differences are stark.

Visitors

2010-05-18T03:06:00.016-06:00

A PHOTO UPDATE

After 2 years of doing my thing in Zambia, my Dad decided it was time to see what exactly that thing was. We coordinated with Sandra, a big supporter of EWB, so that they could get the same tour of Zambia. Sandra brought along her Dad, Herb, and my Dad didn't come alone either, he brought a fellow Rotarian, Peter.

The Four of them met some of the EWB folks in Lusaka.

Then off we went to the bush. Here we're standing with Rowland, Rent-to-Own's first full time employee. The two most popular observations on the drive were - "there's a lot of people on the road" and "look at that goat!"

Mwinilunga. After arriving in the night, the group woke up to watch the fog lift off the river. Kwakuwahi Lodge.

Before everyone was too comfortable at the lodge, Chiko wanted them to come and meet one of the Rent-to-Own clients. What they saw was a bull becoming an oxen.

Then we were off to the village. But before you can bring visitors to the village, the chief has to welcome you. Here we are being introduced to the customs and rituals before meeting Senior Chief Kanong'esha.

It was really interesting. The Senior Chief was extremely happy, he'd never had visitors direct from Canada before. He really took to Sandra, it was probably a new experience for him to meet a women who was so successful at business and engineering, but he took it in stride and we had a great visit.

Afterwards we had a chance to get a photo together. He's such a good guy. He gave my Dad a traditional bow and arrow, Sandra was given a live chicken, and Herb received a hand-woven basket.

The next day I got sick and left them to discover Mwinilunga with the help of Mr. Matulu (my host father) and Mr. Chris Nawej (the manager of Forest Fruits). The honey factory is super busy this year, running 16 hours a day trying to keep up with the biggest harvest on record.

Here's my Dad standing in my old place. That was my room for 8 months - the roof definitely is going downhill. The visitors were greeted in proper Zambian fashion, it was a shame I missed that visit.

My favourite meal was served too.

Mr. Matulu is building a new house. This is his daughter Rachel standing where a window will soon be.

Chiko was a big help, organized the village stay and much more.

After another 12 hour ride, we were back in Lusaka to meet Dan. He interrupted his vacation in South Africa to come see Sandra and my Dad for a day. At the end of it, I believe there was a new partnership formed between Jordan Engineering and Forest Fruits.

I sent my Dad and Peter to Livingstone so I could actually do some work. They blew some money, saw some elephants, and walked around Victoria Falls. I bought and shipped off our first large truck of equipment off to the bush (some $15,000 worth)

Finally the last leg of the trip. We set off for Lake Malawi for a days rest.

The trip made me realize a few things.

First, life is easy when you have money and a nice vehicle. Zambia is a completely different country via public transit. I would guess that 99% of visitors have no idea how tough it is to move around and get anything accomplished here. 12 days is a start, but it takes months of trying to understand, of living in a village, of taking public transit, of talking to various Zambians, to actually get it.

Second, stories from Grandpa are probably the most under valued pieces of information in Canada. Herb sat with one of the Forest Fruits managers (Evans) for about 30 minutes, telling him how they didn't have electricity, running water, or even roads, when he grew up in Newfoundland. These stories are forgotten in Canada, and they're entirely unknown to a continent that is currently going through similar hardships. It completes the story of Canada, without them, there is no appreciation for what has been accomplished, and there is no sense of the path to take for millions of Africans.

Third, handouts are a natural reaction to poverty. We had a big discussion about the effect of giving something for free. Imagine you've worked hard your whole life, have made a comfortable living, and you see people experiencing harsh poverty...so you give them a bit of cash to take the edge off for a while. Maybe that means a nicer meal, some new clothes, a few drinks, whatever. Whats the harm? Does it create dependency? I think the important thing is to know what the results are when you're giving money. One person walking through a village giving money out is hardly systemic. But an organization with millions of dollars working in thousands of villages across Zambia, thats what creates dependency. Thats what destroys peoples natural feeling of ownership over their destiny.

Huge thanks to my guests. They were fun, kind, polite, and open minded throughout the trip.

A real Rent-to-Own Update - March

2010-03-21T13:47:00.004-06:00

Sometime back in October I started testing a business idea that I had, called Rent-to-Own. I started writing about it and promising updates, but have been terrible at that because I don’t know what to write. There is really too much to say.

Today, I figured that too much information is better than not enough information, keeping in mind that it is indeed the start of a business, so I can’t divulge everything (without jeopardizing the viability of it)

Context

This week I have been travelling around the North-Western Province of Zambia to visit the 7 agents that are now working for Rent-to-Own. Two weeks ago I hired an assistant/accountant because I knew that I would be based in Lusaka, which is 1000km away. This assistant would be able to visit the agents on a regular basis so they don’t feel neglected. Six of the agents are new. I met them just 1 month ago and briefed them on the details of Rent-to-Own and asked them if they were interested. Some people deferred me to a better suited person in the community, others accepted right away. In total, I spent about 3 hours with each one, so this time I hoped to spend at least 24 hours with each one to ensure that they understand Rent-to-Own and all their responsibilities.

The following is a collection of notes and thoughts from the past week.

Here I am with one of the agents (this is actually from last month)

Content

The first client we sat with was a very nice lady who was widowed 5 years ago and has thrived and grown her farm to about 5 hectares. I showed her the questionnaire which is designed to introduce herself and her business to me. She asked “what is your company name and where is it based – why don’t you haveit written on your questionnaire?” This took me a bit by surprise, and I quickly realized how amateur I was. We don’t have an official office address, or name, or even a logo, yet we expect people to share the ins-and-outs of their business activities with us. Oops. I guess every start-up has its amateur points.

Fork in the Road

The million dollar question on my mind lately has been – “do we become a distribution company with a catalogue?” So far, Rent-to-Own is a means for people who don’t have enough capital to obtain equipment that is much needed to grow their business. But what about all the people who do have cash and want the same equipment? Surprisingly (or not) in rural Zambia there aren’t any salesmen from the big equipment companies in the capital city. Without really trying to, I have set up a network of agents that are essentially salesmen for these companies, and they happen to have the option of doing Rent-to-Own. I imagine that each agent could sell about $20,000 worth of equipment each year – about half through rent-to-own and half through cash sales.

Back to the question – “do we become a distribution company with a catalogue?” – my best guess right now is YES. The primary goal is to get more equipment into the hands of rural entrepreneurs – and renting is expensive and risky, so better to sell whenever possible. The only possible ‘con’ to this would be people seeking to rent equipment who really aren’t able to pay it off, and they request equipment only because they see it in a catalogue. My thoughts are that the in-depth business plan and questionnaire, paired with trained agents, will filter out any of these scam artists.

Organizational Culture

It became obvious that some of the agents were more excited about the newly endowed popularity than they were about helping businesses or even about making a commission. (they earn 15% once all the money is paid) Quickly I remembered the reality in which these agents have lived in their whole lives. That is, in Zambia, there is a hierarchical culture within most organizations. This culture doesn’t allow for information to flow from the bottom to the top, so the boss seldom actually knows what’s really going on. The result is that there are very few role model managers in Zambia, and so when a person is promoted they automatically act the same way they saw their boss acting.

In Rent-to-Own I need to pay careful attention to the way I treat others, and also the way anyone within Rent-to-Own treats people involved in the business. My theory is that role modeling from the top will trickle down. This will ensure that problems are addressed quickly, otherwise, when a client (farmer or small business owner) is struggling, there is no chance for me or anyone else to assist them because we wont even know what we can do to improve our support.

Free Consultation

The best thing we do is force each client to do a business plan. Its amazing how many business owners here don’t even keep records, let alone plan their cash flows or strategy for the upcoming year. This week we completed 16 business plans with potential clients. I can imagine a bank asking for a business plan and getting nothing but blank stares…kinda like when we ask the business owner what their average sales are for the month of April. Everything is based on intuition. These owners know how to survive by cutting costs and trying to sell more, but most do it without really analyzing if they even made a profit at the end of the day.

For each Rent-to-Own client we sit for about 1 hour to analyze their business and then create a plan on how they can grow their business once they have the new equipment they desire. Its difficult to extract the information because there is a lack of clarity or records, and its even more difficult to get business owners to connect the plan to reality. Most see a lot of numbers – but don’t see the connection. In essence, we are providing them a service that would normally come from fairly high paid consultants.

The White Advantage

Although we chose people who were already respected in the community, its difficult for people to get excited when one person goes around saying he can get equipment to them for just 10% of the price, and that they can pay for it over 10 months. Some will think that the 10% will disappear and the equipment will never come, others believe that the agent is honest but that the program will take years to take off (which is unfortunately common amongst donor projects). Luckily, I am white, and when a white guy shows up twice in the same month, that means he’s serious, and everyone knows that the white guy has money…so chances are that the agent is trustworthy and the equipment will actually come.

Witchcraft

A week in the bush wouldn’t be complete without a little witchcraft story. I decided to buy a tent for my travels because I like camping, and because I wanted to be closer to the agents (camping on their property) and because it’s cheaper than staying at a guest house (motel). The first few nights were great, no mosquitoes and the tent was holding up very well with the heavy rains. But last night we got in and turned on our wonderful LED light as we prepared our sleeping bags, and as if from nowhere, literally thousands of moths came to the top of our tent between the screen and the top rain-fly. My new employee, who is from the area, said the powder from the moths can cause a rash, and its likely bad to breath it in. I asked him where the moths came from – he said “there is a lot of witchcraft in this area”. Witchcraft is a really interesting aspect of Zambian culture. People believe that magic can happen against you if another person wishes it upon you. Jealousy is a common reason for one person to dislike another, and its always a freak thing. How do you explain why someone’s house was hit by lightening? Or why one person in a family got sick and died 2 days later, but no one else did? Same, how can you explain where thousands of moths came from? Of course they were attracted by the light – but still, it’s a bit freaky and when information is so limited, and science isn’t down to a science, then the default explanation is magic.

We closed off the light so the moths would leave. I guess tents have their weaknesses after all.

That’s my Rent-to-Own update. I’ll keep taking notes while in the field and write down the ones that I feel don’t jeopardize the business.

Jesus has become tough.

2010-03-11T12:00:00.007-07:00

Tough Love

Things have changed a lot in the past 2 months. Everything I know about Zambia continues to change, and luckily, its for the better.

My first two years here were largely about me discovering a new culture, and attempting to help out an amazing visionary who's life's work will have dramatically improved the lives of some 50,000 people. I lived and worked in a relatively well defined space, at home it was with a family, and at work it was with a well established business. This was a safe space, where my mistakes were never too big.

Today I was driving around Lusaka buying this and that for Rent-to-Own, and one of my stops was at a bearing store which I've been to at least 20 times. Like a handful of other shops, the workers get a kick out of calling me Jesus. There are definitely worse names to be called, so I play off their fun a bit.

Zambians seem to have an amazing ability to read into peoples lives. Whenever I'm feeling a bit down, they notice right away, whenever my mind is somewhere else, they recognize it. So today at the bearing shop, one of the guys says "Jesus has become tough". And I think he's right, I've changed and probably don't take the time to be soft and joke as much as I use to.

Ironically, I bought some $3 glasses today for when I'm riding my bicycle. I got it a week ago and have been using it a ton to get around town, some friends and I even created our own bike-gang. Finally today I got the shades to go with it. (and no, I wasn't wearing them in the store)

I did wear a Black t-shirt today.

The point is actually fairly serious. I've said "tough love is needed" a million times before, but is this really the way I'm heading?

I'll have to hear it a few more times before putting too much weight into it, the love side is still much bigger than the tough side. (in my mind at least)

To switch gears - here is a quick rent-to-own update.

EWB has given me a 6 month pilot period to test the viability, profitability and scalability of the idea. I set a target of 35 businesses for end of April. I also identified that the model, which is essentially EWB-me-agent-entrepreneur, had its weakest point at the agent level. I also set a target of 100 businesses by October (if the pilot continues). Quickly I realized that an agent can only handle about 20 or 30 businesses at one time, so I decided to aim for bringing on 5 new agents, rather than just 1 or 2.

Chiko and I set off on a tour of the province. We visited 7 of the 8 districts and hired on 6 new agents. I also quickly realized how much work it was going to be to visit each one and get them up to speed, and of course, keep them up to speed. They're going to be collecting money and trying to choose the most viable business ideas. So I decided to hire someone to help me out. On Saturday we're setting off together to visit each agent for two full days to go through the entire process of selecting businesses and explaining to entrepreneurs how the rent-to-own system works.

There are a thousand photos to post from the last trip, but I'll do that later. Lets just say that it was raining almost the entire time, but that every stop was worth it. We'd try to find a person who is running a business, is well trusted and really knows about all the activities in the area. Almost like clock work, we'd find someone and before we left town there were people coming up to us asking about rent-to-own.

Hope thats a good enough update. There are too many things to talk about. For now, its time to print some catalogues, go and do a few dozen business plans with the agents, train my new assistant, collect starting fees, buy the equipment, ship it up to the various places and then wait for the rest of the money to start rolling in.

There are a few ideas around making rent-to-own more profitable and potentially into a proper business. The ideas are testing my balance between wanting to connect Canada to Africa, and trying to just make something work. To be honest, I'm leaning towards just making it work, and leaving the lofty connecting to Canada part behind. Possibly more on that subject another time.

A Week in the Mud

2010-02-09T05:09:00.012-07:00

Last week we headed down to Chiawa, an area on the north shores of the Zambezi river. Our job was to assemble & distributed 150 hives to 70 people on a rental basis. It was a lot of hard work, but the team was strong and we managed to get them out there.

This week I'm heading up to start a new phase of rent-to-own.

The stories are in the pictures. Enjoy.

Stuck again. My ability to drive in the mud is fairly limited, who knew.

James built his own hive to save money and still be able to sell honey this June.

There was a huge community effort in getting the hives assembled, very impressive cooperation and I guess finger painting is fun no matter where you are.

Here I am with some of the crew.

Piles of wood waiting to be assembled into beehives.

We worked with a group to extract honey and wax from the comb. Everyone enjoyed this.

Each hive weighs at least 20 lbs. These women are tough, they carry baby and 50lbs on the head for kilometers.

Part of the crew parked beside a baobab tree. These trees can be 800 years old!!

We're walking back to Joster's house as he carried little Jane.

Rent-to-Own Update #2

2009-12-19T07:11:00.007-07:00

Chiko & I creating a business plan with a potential Rent-to-Own Farmer

The rent-to-own project has come quite far in the past 2 months. I wanted to take the time and explain two major steps forward. Next month I'll get into the business plans and the actual payment collection stories.

First Step - hiring an agent

I knew I wasn’t going to be based in rural Zambia 365 days a year, so I needed someone to collect payments. As well, there are a thousand little bits of local knowledge that would come in useful for choosing entrepreneurs (and being politically correct) that I wouldn't manage on my own. So I spoke for hours and hours to Chiko, who is now my agent, about the perceptions people would have of rent-to-own and how we could maximize the likelihood that people will make their payments. We negotiated and he agrees that getting 15% of the asset value as a commission will work, and he only gets paid after all 115% is in the bank.

A couple key things I learned. First, was that people had to see everything as a business. In fact, similar initiatives have existed in the past and were done by the government, but they didn’t repay partly because the government didn’t try hard to collect, but also because people knew they could get away with it. Another big lesson was that we had to visit the local police and courts and the head chief so they all knew what was going on and how it works. This accomplished two things, first it gets us in their 'good books', and next to ensure to our entrepreneurs that the 10% they gave upfront wasn’t just part of a scam where I disappear and they've lost their money.

Next Step - choosing entrepreneurs

Chiko and I decided to create a questionnaire for when we interviewed entrepreneurs. It’s a funny thing when you get in the field, because if you have more than one thing to do, chances are you'll get back home and realize you forgot to accomplish part of your job. So we created this questionnaire that helps with a lot of different things. First, it’s to bring out the basics of the persons business, next its to see how they think (are they entrepreneurial) and lastly, its to drive home the idea that the equipment is for rent, and that its not a loan. Rent-to-Own is not a business idea generator, we simply want to take already existing ideas and allow them to become a reality. This is another key point that I had to have clear with Chiko because its really tempting to start making suggestions which may or may not work. And if they don’t work, the blame is on us for having the idea.

Our First Customer - He is renting an ox-drawn plough and harrow.

Below is an example of a completed Questionnaire. After completing the first 6 alongside Chiko, he has now completed 12 more without me and the quality of responses has remained very high. Reading them is like eating candy, its so interesting to see how people have tried growing their business and what they want to do next. Another big thing has been getting Chiko to answer his own questions. Of course I am here to help guide everything, but in reality he's the one who will have problems collecting money in the future if he doesn’t choose the right person with the right ideas. The tendency was to ask me about every detail.

________________________________________________

RENT-TO-OWN QUESTOINNAIRE

Introduction on RENT-TO-OWN

We are running a business which rents equipment to operators in Mwinilunga. If the rental payments cover the cost of the equipment, the person renting is able to purchase the equipment for a small fee of 5% the cost of the equipment. For this to happen, the person renting first needs to come with a starting fee of 10% the value of the equipment.

Please fill this questionnaire to introduce yourself and your business to us. A farm qualifies as a business if you sell some or all of your crops.

Name:	Mr. Banda
Address:	MWINILUNGA
Phone Number:	0971234567

Are you operating a business? YES or NO.

If YES:

a. What are the functions of the business? (what do you buy, what do you sell?

Crop production-maize, beans, cassava, and groundnuts for sell. Buys fertilizer and seed

b. For how long have you been in this business? 10yrs

c. Who are your customers?

Community , schools and FRA

d. What do your customers say about your business?

My crop not enough demand is high

e. How much sales have you had in the last year? Circle one

Less than 1 million ZKW

1- 5 million ZKW,

5-15 million ZKW

15-30 million ZKW

more than 30 million ZKW

If you farm, how much land did you cultivate during the last season?

2 Hac maize, 2lima beans and 2lima groundnuts

f. What have you done in the past to grow your business?

What ideas have worked

Use to use man power to plough but now I hire animals with a plough.

Increased my land from3 lime to 2 hac

What ideas have failed?

Acquiring of chemicals

g. Do you have any plans for increasing your sales to grow your business? (yes or no)

If yes, what are your ideas?

Avoid hiring of the Oxen and just buy my own.

Start production of vegetables.

Acquire a pump

h. What is the biggest challenge you face in your business?

Transportation of products

Buying of fertilizer

If NO;

a. How do you earn cash?

How do you get enough food to eat?

b. Have you had a business in the past? Yes or No.

If yes, what was the business?

Why have you stopped that business?

c. Do you have an idea for a new business?

Can you explain what the idea is?

Do you have any assets? What are they? (examples: house, vehicle, shop, machines, animals, inventor

House 1. Plot (indium cost) 1. Bicycle 1. Honey press

Do you have any liabilities? What are they? (examples: loans you have taken, other debts)

None

Have you ever rented anything before? (examples; a house, a vehicle, a shop)

What was it? house

How long did you rent it for? 4 yrs

What was your rental charge per month? ZMK200,000

COMMENTS – is a retired agric officer looks to be serious. Ready to pay 10% fee. Partners with the wife and asking for an oxcart after finishing the first loan

No One Said It Would Be Easy

2009-11-19T13:29:00.007-07:00

Having some fun showing off a bee-suit.

If I’m ever short on blog material, I can be rested assured to find plenty by heading into rural Zambia with a mission. A rent-to-own update is overdue, but this is actually a post about starting a new outgrowers system in Lower Zambezi.

First off – an outgrower system/scheme is meant to remove the marketing component of farming, so a buyer makes a deal with some farmers (possibly a contract) to buy a crop from them at an agreed upon price. It can include technical support to farmers and its also common for buyers to supply inputs for free and deduct that expense from the price they pay at the time of buying.

This old guy is really looking forward to becoming a beekeeper.

The goal is to get 125 farmers onto beekeeping in an area called Chiawa, which is on the northern shores of the Zambezi River. Most people have never tried beekeeping before but they are eager to do another cash crop. Common crops here include cotton, corn, bananas and sorghum. I have spent the past 3 days in an area where few crops are grown because elephants eat or destroy them. Oh ya, lets take a second to explain my current surroundings.

I’m currently being stared at by multiple frogs, which are really my friends because they jump around catching the bugs. The Zambezi river is about 20 meters away and I can hear the hippos making crazy noises every once in a while. It’s a 30 minute walk to the village where we set up 45 farmers in the past 2 days. Kind of a great feeling getting up and walking through 30 minutes of scrubby bushes (wondering if an elephant will get in your way) and looking forward to a day of mobilizing farmers to produce honey. Oh ya, and there are packs of baboons around too.

Why am I walking? It’s a long story, but our vehicle broke down twice and is now being carried back to Lusaka. Luckily we made out better than this tanker, who tried to cross the same river as we did.

Where was I? Outgrower system, no vehicle, lots of animals….right. Did I mention that its 38 degrees in the day time, in the shade…and at night its still too hot even with t-shirt and boxers on. I can definitely see why people pray for rain, not only to feed crops, but to cool things down. A wet towel on the head seems to work well.

The stories are plentiful, but at least here are some photos of the sweet progress so far. We built these hives in an attempt to reduce the cost down from $45 a hive to $20 per hive…we almost got there, but will end up selling them at a loss. PLUS we are doing a bit of a rent-to-own system with the farmers, they get two hives plus beekeeping gear for just $50 but only pay $5 down. It’s a tough job getting all the records right, and I imagine it’ll be a lot of work collecting the money, but maybe that’s just what it takes to get things rolling? Long-term we hope to get a couple local carpenters building hives so there is no loan type contract in place and we can just worry about buying honey.

A bike loaded with two hives ready for honey.

A new beekeeper signing a contract.

Digging Deep

2009-10-10T05:10:00.004-06:00

Just one week and it feels like I've been knocked down half a dozen times.

Last week I learned that a great guy I had met died in a car accident. Ryan grew up in Zambia, went to Australia for school and spent a few years in Scotland until he heard his dad died in March. Then he moved back to Zambia to begin the process of taking over the family business (an impressive commercial farm). So when I called his number, I was surprised to hear his grandfather answer the phone and to give me the news. A year ago it was his dad who was to run the company, 2 months ago it was Ryan to run the company, now it’s the grandfather.

Tuesday night I got home and my friend Kennedy, who is normally the happiest guy I know, tells me how his uncle is in jail and how he caught his wife cheating so he beat her…which ended up killing her. Tough and terrible, but the thing is I remember meeting Kennedy just over a year ago, he was sleeping on a dirt floor with just a thin blanket. Kennedy is an orphan and has had a tough life. His only family is his uncle. So when he learned that for $1400 he could post bail,

Kennedy sold everything he had bought and used all his savings to get his uncle out.

Kennedy - we call him popeye

Wednesday, my good friend Rogers didn’t show up for work. His phone was off and I had no idea what was up. The next day he showed up with a dark red eye and some swelling. Around 10pm on his way home he was attacked. People see that Rogers is getting ahead by working hard, so they figure he has money. He has been building a house in a new neighbourhood but its not finished, luckily he has enough money that he can afford to live in a better area and plans on moving as soon as possible.

Thursday, near the end of the day, one of the guys comes running in to say that the carpenter cut his finger off. We are building hives for farmers in lower-zambezi who want to start beekeeping. We figured that a long-term solution was to have local carpenters build the hives and sell them directly, although for now we're kick-starting the whole thing by building a few hundred and by training a couple carpenters at the same time. So the first carpenter we're training failed to stop when his eyes were getting full of sawdust, and next thing you know he was cutting his fingers. Luckily, they're all still attached and he'll be back to normal fairly soon.

The carpentry shop - we're building the roof today

Friday, I get my list of things to do and head into town. On the way, I realize my gas light is coming on. I try the first gas station, they are out of petrol. I try another, and another and another, and all the while I'm running on fumes. The fifth place had fuel, so I was just 30 minutes behind. But it looks like the whole country is running out of fuel and I have no idea when that situation is going to get better. Imagine you cant buy fuel.

Today (Saturday) I get news that the company Zambikes has lost its lead guy. Here's a business that does a ton of good and has been fighting the good fight for the past couple years to make something, and now their lead man dies.

As much as I'd like to share the all good news for the week, because there has been some good stuff, I'll just share one bit of news. My friend Rogers and his wife Cleo had a baby boy on Thursday night. He looks amazing and both mom and baby are healthy.

Only 4 hours old - He's Looking Good

Each time there is bad news or unexpected road blocks along the way, it makes me wonder if I'm going down the right path, and if I want to continue down that path. If Zambia has taught me one thing, its to know how to dig deep and keep on going.

Rent-to-Own

2009-10-05T14:44:00.005-06:00

What is Rent-to-Own?

I've started a little project called "RENT-TO-OWN" where I rent stuff to people until they own it. Seems so simple that I can't believe no one else is doing it.

Its founded on the belief that the two biggest constraints for a business to grow in rural Zambia are Capital and Knowledge. Unfortunately right now the culture of most people in Zambia holds a belief that all loans are 'soft' loans and if you have a good excuse not to pay it back, then you don’t actually have to pay it back, and most people don’t have any collateral to collect either. And in an environment such as rural Zambia, everyone has a good excuse. Its just a fact that relatives die, they leave kids behind that need to be looked after, parents and siblings get sick and require money for treatment. If I were to loan capital in the form of cash - I'd never be able blame anyone for giving the money for something else. That’s why I think renting the required capital can work. If the person renting continues to rent for a long enough period, then they become the owner of the equipment they're renting.

Update

I have hired a friend to be my agent in Mwinilunga. So far there are 8 people interested in renting from us and we'll be choosing two of them before the end of this month. As well, we've decided to work with both those who do have some collateral and those who don’t. Originally I thought we should only aim for those with no collateral, but then realized that social benefits could come to the community from both types of entrepreneurs. I figure we're just learning so why not try a one of each to start.

I've pasted the RENT-TO-OWN agreement below for those who are interested. You'll notice there is an effective 15% interest if the person successfully completes the contract. (10% upfront and 5% in the end) Some people feel this is too high, but when you compare it to what's available, 50% per month is not unusual, then it looks too low. Truth is that business in rural Zambia is extremely difficult. Imagine no power, no cell phones and terrible roads - then add on the cultural norms. That 15% can be chewed up very quickly. Chances are it could run sustainably at somewhere around 25% interest not including my time, so I'll look to subsidize the loans by about 10 - 15% to make up the difference.

The whole point is to turn money over and help create more efficient and productive businesses.

I'll be posting updates on how it goes here on my blog, including profiles of the people we end up working with, the equipment they rent and how its affecting their business.

-------------------------DRAFT COPY ONLY -----------------------

A RENT-TO-OWN BUSINESS AGREEMENT

BETWEEN

Mark Hemsworth (THE OWNER)

AND

NAME OF ENTREPRENEUR (THE OPERATOR)

This Business Agreement (the "Agreement") is made by and between Mark Hemsworth of 34 Lutuba Road, Roma Township, Lusaka and NAME OF ENTREPRENEUR and ADDRESS OF ENTREPRENEUR (the parties).

The parties agree to the following terms and conditions;

SETUP

The OWNER will purchase a name of machine (the asset) and rent it to the OPERATOR for xxxxx ZKW per week. The full value of the asset including delivery is xxxx ZKW.

The OPERATOR has paid 10% (xxxxx ZKW) of the value of the asset in advance. This is a one-time fee for setting up the contract.

Upon receiving the asset, the OWNER agrees to train the OPERATOR on the correct actions for maintaining the asset and operating the asset. The OPERATOR must understand this training completely before using the asset.

PAYMENT SCHEDULE

The OPERATOR agrees to pay the rental payment on the following days. The OPERATOR will be given a book in which all transactions are recorded and both parties are to sign and date each transaction for good record keeping. The payments are to be made to the OWNER at the location of the asset.

October 7

October 14

October 21

October 28

November 4

November 11

November 18

November 25

December 2

December 9

December 16

December 23

December 30

January 6

January 13

January 20

January 27

February 3

February 10

February 17

February 24

March 3

March 10

March 17

March 24

March 31

POSSIBLE SCENARIOS

1. If the OPERATOR rents the asset for xx weeks straight as outlined in the payment schedule, and pays full rental fee of xxxx each week, then the OPERATOR has the right to purchase the asset for 5% of its original full value, which is xxxxx ZKW. Upon receipt of this purchase fee payment, the OWNER agrees to end this contract successfully and the asset now belongs to the OPERATOR.

2. If the OPERATOR can’t pay the full amount on time, the OWNER must give 7 days’ extra to deliver the money if this is the first time payment has been late. If the money is received before 7 days, the contract continues. If payment is still not received, scenario #3 occurs.

3. If the OPERATOR can’t pay the full amount as the schedule indicates, and the OPERATOR has been late before, then the OWNER has the right to take the asset away from the OPERATOR and end this contract in failure without any further payments to the OWNER. As well, the OWNER doesn’t pay back any of the rental payments or the 10% starting fee.

4. If the OPERATOR loses the asset, the OWNER and OPERATOR will launch an investigation with the police in hopes that the asset can be retrieved. The OPERATOR continues to pay the weekly amount owing until all scheduled payments have finished and the 5% purchase fee is paid, at which time the contract is ended successfully.

5. If the asset breaks down, it must be repaired. The OPERATOR is to report the breakdown within 24 hours. The OWNER is obligated to repair the asset as quickly as possible. While the machine is being repaired, all rental payments are paused until the asset is back to the OPERATOR and is working properly. The full cost of the repairs is split between the OWNER and the OPERATOR.

a. If the OPERATOR cannot pay their half of the repairs within 2 weeks of getting the asset working again, then scenario #3 occurs.

b. If the OPERATOR pays for half the repairs within 2 weeks, the contract continues and that amount of money spent by the OWNER on the repair is added to the 5% purchase fee.

TERMINATION OF CONTRACT

A successful contract results in the OWNER receiving the net amount (the 10%, the cost of the asset, the 5%, plus any cost of repairs paid by the owner) at which time the OPERATOR now becomes the OWNER of the asset. The OPERATOR is now able to use or sell the asset however they see fit. Furthermore, the OPERATOR can apply for a new RENT-TO-OWN asset if they like, and the OWNER will take into consideration the fact that the application is from someone who has demonstrated some credibility.

A failed contract results in the OWNER remaining with the asset and the OPERATOR does not receive their 10% payment fee back or any of the rental payments that have been made. The OPERATOR is free to apply for a new RENT-TO-OWN asset, however, the history and circumstances of the first contract will be taken into consideration. The OWNER has the right to sell, utilize or rent the asset to an operator.

Today’s Date: ___________________________

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, the parties have caused this Agreement to be executed by their duly authorized officers.

Signed by

For and on behalf of For and on behalf of

The OPERATOR the OWNER

Name: …………………………… Name: ………………………………

Signature: ………………………. Signature: ………………………….

NRC No. ……………………….. NRC No. ……………………………

Date: …………………………….. Date: ………………….……………

Witness:

Name: …………………………… Name: ………………………………

Signature: ...…………………… Signature: …………………………

NRC No. ………………………. NRC No. ………………………….

Date: ……………...…………… Date:….……………………………

This contract is verified to be an enforceable document by the Zambian Police.

Signed:

So, what is Mark really up to these days?

2009-09-17T13:54:00.005-06:00

My life has become sorta normal again…although normal in a whole new way. Being sick for most of June and part of July has forced me to reset the way I think about life in Zambia. It's made me want the "nice stuff" a little more. So now, after 18 months, I feel totally comfortable about spending the entire weekend hanging out with other ex-patriots, eating at restaurants and such. So its nice to balance my Zambian life and ex-pat life.

The reason I'm writing though, is because a new EWB volunteer named Arthur asked me what I was doing here, and as I was explaining the 4 big projects I'm workign on at the moment, I found myself getting pretty excited about it all. Not sure why I was surprised by it, but either way - I figure I should share that same conversation here on "the information super highway".

THE BIG PICTURE

I am helping a company that has a lot of good social impact, specifically in rural Zambia. With any luck, they'll have more good impact because I'm around.

Largely, I believe companies are busy trying to stay afloat, which involves either improving current operations - or creating new operations.

My first 18 months here has been focused on the first way to stay afloat, improving current operations. I've put more details about this at the end of my blog. (I'm not offended if you skip over the list)

THE NEW EXCITING STUFF

I'll introduce each section here, and if it seems important, I'll follow up on another blog with a full description.

JOB #1 - INCREASING HONEY PRODUCTION by helping Forest Fruits get 500 new farmers producing honey in a new area.

An outgoing farmer from a totally different part of the country has been pestering Forest Fruits for 2 years to come and work with him and other farmers in the area. Finally we're going to do it, but the big obstacle to beekeeping is the price of the equipment - which is essentially the beehives & the protective gear. This job can be split into two parts.

A - get the cost of the equipment to be as low as possible

B - create some financing so the beekeepers can afford the equipment

Item A involves making hives ourselves by setting up a workshop and hiring a carpenter. (this is this weeks job) Then next week we're brining in two of the local carpenters from the village to work with us and learn how to make them so they can sell them directly without our involvement.

Item B involves a sort-of loan system. We haven't figured it out yet, but I'm liaising with the agent to put something in place that'll work for everyone. (likely a rental-type agreement with a small down payment)

JOB #2 - CREATE NEW PRODUCTS for Forest Fruits to diversify its markets

I wish I were a food technologist, or a chemist, or something. Anyway, there are a lot of opportunities to create new products from honey. Just look at what Burt's Bees has done. Right now it looks like I'll be going to South Africa for 2 weeks to train with a PhD on how to make mead. I will be responsible for bringing this knowledge back and setting up a small meadery here in Zambia so that Forest Fruits can have another high value product.

JOB #3 - RUNNING MY OWN PROJECT called rent-to-own

A few months back I got the idea of renting machines to business owners so that they could pay them off as they use them. Business owners includes farmers. Imagine a farmer who sells tomatoes and cabbage during the dry season, she'll have to carry water from the nearest source one bucket at a time to irrigate her crops. But what if she had a pump, it costs just $500 for a good diesel pump and that could boost her income by $2000. Rent-to-own just requires a deposit of 10% so the farmer only needs to give me $50 to make their business idea into a reality, rather than the full $500. In the next month I'll be starting at least 2 of these "owner - operator" relationships as a bit of an experiment. But I think it'll go well.

JOB #4 - SCANNING THE PRIVATE SECTOR in Zambia

EWB has evolved over the past 6 years as its been working in Zambia. We started by working directly with farmers, and slowly realized we could have more impact by helping organizations that were working directly with farmers. The default was to partner with NGO's. In Ghana, EWB has worked with the government, which isn't a viable option in Zambia. So the time has come to do a fresh scan of potential partners, and I am heading up the private sector scan. I am interview companies to see what their vision is, how closely do they work with small farmers and what are their current challenges.

AND NOW I'M BUSY

Turns out, these very exciting jobs are also very time consuming. My schedule for the next 3 months is a bit out of control. Should be fun though.

Please send me any questions, suggestions, thoughts, etc.

----------------------------------------------

And for those interested...

here is my list of what I've accomplished by working with people inside the company over the past 18 months. As I mentioned, most of it has been towards making current operations better.

Better management systems;

§ Standard operating procedures (SOP's) are now in place

§ The management team is now able to create their own SOP’s

§ The field database on farmer info and purchasing info is now useful

§ Improved computer skills for the team (everyone is on email and can use excel)

§ New Structure for out-grower system - (group leaders now get a commission)

§ Inventory control system in place

§ Supplies procurement system on the way

§ Logical Accounting system for retail sales

§ Improved information flow via weekly reports, meeting minutes & inventory

Engineering systems I've helped to install;

§ New 500kg Weigh scale

§ New Water supply/reservoir for when the city water is turned off for days

§ Diesel burner for when the electricity is turned off for days

§ Drum filling system for higher quality honey

Creating new business operations;

§ Construction and design of the retail packaging plant

§ Design and implementation of the honey straw filling system

And We're Back

2009-08-14T03:15:00.016-06:00

Its been a quiet couple months on my blog because I've been feeling less than optimal. Africa has all kinds of curve balls to throw, including a plethora of health related ones. Unfortunately I caught one of these tick born disease and have been fighting to get it out of my system for the past 10 weeks.

I am currently enjoying some time in Lusaka while developing new products from Forest Fruits. Not sure what I'll be doing from September - December.

Here is a series of photos showing a bit of what I've been up to.

Three days ago we headed to a community on the Zimbabwe border.

Got a sense of the farmers commitment to keeping bees and set up a few demo hives.

Gorgeous place this time of year, but next month it'll be too hot to move.

Was in Joburg to see a doctor last month. The city has a
big industrial sector much like Toronto's.

Went to Zambia's agricultural show with my friend Rogers and his son.

Got to visit an amazing farmer in Malawi - Mr. Ngulube.

Have had some good times in Lusaka with EWB friends.

Thats all for now. Some interesting stuff is coming down the pipe and I'll be sharing that here on my blog.

Can't Fake Time

2009-06-17T13:42:00.006-06:00

Not long ago, I was asked by Melissa Lefas - "what is different about the way you make decisions now that you've spent so much time in one community?"

My answer was fairly simple - "I want to stick up for them"

Unfortunately in my first year in Zambia, the combination of circumstances never allowed me to feel settled in. I was always just about to move to another place.

Luckily, this year, I was able to spend 4 uninterupted months in my little community inNorth-Western Zambia.

My very cozy home since December.

Never again will I be the same. When someone speaks about beneficiaries, my mind will cycle through the experiences I have shared in my community. There wont be an abstract image of someone in a photo, or in a video. And it wont be about a person I met once when I visited a village. It will be about my friends, about the people who stuck up for me when I was sick, people who sincerely appreciated my efforts and who are always happy to see me.

One of my friends has helped to teach me the local language. After months of hanging out, I finally went to visit his home and got to meet his family.

They are very humble. In a year they earn about $700 - they stretch every penny, even so much so that this year he purchased "iron sheets" which are the key ingredient to a modern home but cost $240. But with tight budgeting and a reliable income, he made it happen.

After sitting in his house chatting, his wife arrived and was thrilled that I was able to visit their home. They explained how this house was going to be given to the oldest child in 5 years and they would live in the new house for now while collecting about $6 a month for renting this one out.

As I left, Charles loaded me up with some corn from his garden - ensuring I only got the best ones - then he handed me 10 pin ($2) so I could buy a drink because he said there was no way I could visit his home without a drink.

This two dollars represents a third of what his family will make from renting their house for a month.

That was it. My heart, sole and mind will forever be attached to this community.

Is there a shortcut to feeling nostalgic?

A Team

2009-06-17T02:44:00.003-06:00

After a year and a half of being on a team, I realized that just maybe I wasn't really giving back to the team. It was a difficult realization because I consider myself a bit of a team player and maybe even a bit of a leader. So why didnt I feel I could help lead this particular team?

I guess the important thing is that I now want to make the most of it and be a strong team player.

Development is tough work - so we have to do something to keep us sane

Being John Malkovich

2009-05-23T12:32:00.004-06:00

This week was a blur. It started out great, I arrived in Lusaka and couldn't sit still. For the first time in months, I had access to;

stores selling cheese and wine
Canadians I could hang out with
electricity, even through the night
internet that works

but after 12 hours of this sensory overload, I started to feel like Cameron Diaz when she was controlling John Malkovich...except this was reality, and it was like I was watching a movie in which Mark Hemsworth was simply a stand-in who had nothing to do with the plot.

Luckily this city has somewhat competent healthcare professionals, so I started my malaria treatment right away.

What a waste of a week. I am now left contemplating what makes me happy, because I know I had some blips of good times this week, but I cant really remember them - so whats the point of having fun if you can't remember having fun?

maybe now I better understand the importance of being healthy?

Bearded me with Seleyi and Jasford as we fabricate a new honey filling unit.

Education

2009-05-11T13:36:00.015-06:00

Finally, enough people have kicked me to go check whats the deal with this rash that occurs from time-to-time on my arm, so today I jumped in the vehicle and went with Mr. Matulu to the Kelene Mission Hospital.

An amazing women named Rachel greeted us and offered to have us over at her home for lunch.

The trip is about 100km and it takes a good 2 or 3 hours to get there. A secondary goal on the trip was to buy cassava chips for people to eat at lunch at the factory. I quickly learned first hand why buying from rural farmers here is not ideal...at least for such a one-off purchase. First people tell you that you can buy it 15km down this road, but you drive down this terrible road, and its hot and the vehicle is complaining but you get there only to find out there is nothing to buy. Then when you do find someone selling, they have to run off and collect the food, then count each little bit one-by-one and it takes the whole day to buy just $100 worth. These farmers have to be organized and given the large distances and inability to communicate using phones or radio…the only way to do it is through repeated visits.

Anyway, we managed to buy some cassava and Rachel took me to see the doctor and it seems my arm will be back to normal again with this medicine he gave me.

We bought 50kg of dry cassava chips from this lady.

Fairly average day right?

Not really. The lesson learned on working with small holder farmers is HUGE. And I feel I learned something else first hand that is equally important, something that has been right in front of my nose all these months. My experience was this;

While sitting at Rachel’s having lunch, her daughter who must be about 11 years-old, contributed to our conversation in a way that floored me. Same with Rachel’s son who is even younger still. We weren’t just joking around, the conversation was a bit serious and they were helping to answer my real questions and doing it in a methodical, intelligent way! And they spoke with confidence.

Rachel’s kids attend a school called Sakege, which costs over $2000 per year, and its known that everything about the school is top notch (including volunteer teachers from Europe). So as I’m enjoying my meal, I almost had to stop because I wanted to cry. For the first time in my life I could see the glaring difference between a world class education system and one that can only be described as a failed attempt.

It was beautiful but sad. Of course Zambians are fully capable but most just don’t get the chance. The government here isn’t in a position to provide a good education. They cant even afford to put paper in their USAID funded printers.

All that being said, something is better than nothing. I live with a family who has adopted a girl who’s mother died. Mary sits at home while the other kids go to school. I managed to convince the school headmaster to enroll her into grade 1. Mary is 8 years old and has never been to school before. Even though I know the education she is getting is a sham – it is a hundred times better than sitting at home. At least she can feel like she belongs to something big. We bought her uniform and school supplies and she is so excited it melts my heart.

This is Mary - we have a tres cool secret handshake

(as I spoke to the headmaster and paid the $5 to register her, there was an old man next in line hoping to register his grandson who had to be 10 years old, but they didn’t have the $5 to register, and I didn’t have a dime in my pocket to help them out – the fate of this boy was being played out in front of my eyes)

some kids where we bought cassava

I had all the kids dancing to music (railroad earth)

this guy was really into it

More Photos

2009-05-03T08:39:00.009-06:00

This was a particularly good week for photos. I had two trips to the field plus I had two different Canadian friends to visit me in at my home here in Mwinilunga.

This is Mary joking around with me - her character is so strong.

Off we go to pick up a load of honey.

This is Benard after we loaded buckets of honey from his house.

These are the newly 'hired' contact beekeepers after a great season.

Here you can see Binwell recording the number of buckets we loaded

The orchard at Mujila Falls

Yet another photo that doesnt do justice, this one of Mujila Falls.

LUNCH

2009-04-27T04:58:00.002-06:00

Lunch time always consists of chit-chat, or actually, a better description would be gossip. We eat nshima, which is a porridge like corn meal, and this is accompanied by some sort of fish or meat and one vegetable cooked in oil (such as pumpkin leaves).

I am always the last to finish even though I eat the least amount. I carefully chew on every ounce of food, the rest of the guys and girls swallow nshima almost like jello.

More than half the time the conversation is in Lunda, so I have a hard time following the intricacies of the conversation. Partly I feel the guys get tired of speaking English at work, and partly I feel they want me to catch onto Lunda and this is my chance to learn.

Today Chris decided to eat with us, normally he goes home to eat with his wife Lisette. Chris has emphasized English within the company for 7 years - so when he's around the conversation always flows in English, and today the gossip was kicked off by the mention of a funeral, and that funeral was due to a young guy being HIV positive. As usual, there was no official mention at the funeral about the person being positive, instead they are understood to have died of some illness….maybe malaria, maybe TB or just anything else. A sad twist to this funeral was that the boy was only 15 - and his parents had died long ago, so chances are that he was born with HIV and he may have never even of known it. Imagine the confusion at the age of 14 when you start losing weight and feeling unlike yourself, then it just gets worse and worse….

The conversation was then fuelled by the relation between drinking and promiscuous late night activity. A very intelligent, hard working young guy at work was caught drunk last Saturday when he showed up to work saying he had to do a job and borrowed the motorbike only to wipe out. This person is very well trusted and I consider him a friend - yet a few drinks led him to risking his job and injuring himself.

Then there was another story of a person who is well respected who started drinking and everyone knows they are HIV positive….and we talked about the local "guesthouse" which is like a cheap motel, or hostel. Truth is - it’s a full blown brothel for soldiers, truck drivers and many others. We talked about a song that a local musician made - where they sing about a government guesthouse which is also known to have sex workers 'servicing' the guests.

Before I knew it the gossip went from one person to another about who you knew that was HIV positive, and how they got that way, and about all the children these people will leave behind before long - about how some women, when they don’t have a strong man in their life, will pass the children to their mothers to raise. A full half hour went by and I became a bit frozen, the guys would laugh once in a while when they talked about a certain person many of them know - I guess its hard to condemn something that is so prevalent and depressing - so laughing helps a bit, not laughing at the persons situation or anything like that, but just laughing at the ridiculous simplicity of it. HIV comes to those who fool around and don’t use a condom, everyone knows it, yet 40% of adults in Mwinilunga have it.

And there is zero mention of ARV's to keep people alive once they have it. (It was announced a couple years back that Anti-retrovirals are free in Zambia, but I figure its just free in the big cities)

Now I sit and type on my computer and I still feel frozen, numb. The weight of the situation is incredible and I don’t know what to do about it.

People make logical decisions, and based on a given persons reality, one may choose to risk contracting HIV. Everyone knows how you get HIV, and everyone knows how to stop it - you can preach ABC (or just AB if you're the pope!) for an eon but it wont change the fact that underlying the disease is a persons belief that their future is not worth much. At least not worth enough to never risk getting HIV.

How can this change? How can a person in Zambia believe in a good future?

"fast" internet

2009-04-12T03:04:00.007-06:00

Ok, so I'm in Solwezi and they have fast internet here - well, fast enough to easily upload photos, but not fast enough to see youtube, so I feel compelled to put up some photos.

For Easter weekend I'm visiting a friend who lives in a village 50km from Solwezi (so just 350km from Mwinilunga).

This is Marissa admiring Joe's earings from his Samaritan's Purse box.

So Marissa has been in Zambia for a year and I got a chance this weekend to go visit her and see what her project is all about. She is working on building a high school 50km from Solwezi. Learn more on her website - http://www.sameworldsamechance.org

This baby was named after Marissa.

Here is Kalusa sewing together used sacs to create a bee suit.

And Mr. Matulu shows off the result. Is he going to crop honey or launch into orbit?

After all the Samaritans purse boxes were open, the kids still played with their 'truck'.

Ya, this truck is amazing. First of all, the one kid made it all on his own, and if you have a good eye - you'll notice that it has real stearing capabilities. Ya, they hava rack-and-pinion system just the same way a real car would have.

Total inginuity from 8 year olds!

Stability - Growth - Jobs

2009-04-03T12:33:00.004-06:00

Is it any surprise that people in Zambia want the same thing? Jobs, stability and Growth...

The weight of the economic crisis has been on my mind for quite a while. Everyone knows that GDP is shrinking so it can be called a global recession now, but there is something about the tone of that word…or maybe its the fact that a recession is capable of leading to a depression, and this stirs a very sick feeling deep in our stomachs.

Two of my uncles have lost their jobs because of the recession, many of my friends are also recently unemployed - some are now living back at home "temporarily" and taking any job they can just to get by. I remember two years ago when I put up the HELP WANTED sign at Springbank Cheese, and after 4 weeks of waiting, I might have received 6 resumes from high school students or recent grads, and I hear that these days, the same sign in the window draws dozens of resume's from people, even with university degrees.

Here in Zambia the global recessions' effects are delayed because it isn't tied into the system nearly as closely as Canada is tied in. However, this also means that Zambia hasn't seen all the benefits of being tied in over the past 40 years.

The times, they are a changin.

Last week I met a pretty cool group of Americans who are with Peace corps in Zambia. I quickly realized how far I have come in the past 5 years because I use to be the left leaning guy who thought socialism was necessary, that things like welfare, free health care, and free education are the way to go…and really an overall safety blanket for the public. I also thought the more aid to developing countries the better.

Now my thinking is almost on the other end of the spectrum. After working as a manager, travelling the world a bit and analysing how people are motivated and what income generation really means….well, ya, my conclusion is very much in line with what Mr. Barack Obama said last night;

"the market is the most effective mechanism for creating wealth and distributing resources to produce goods and services that history has ever known,"

During the conversation I had with these Peace corps volunteers, I made a statement which would've been totally counter intuitive to me 5 years ago. I claimed that "to reduce the gap between rich and poor, what's needed is for everyone to be given a fair chance, NOT for the rich to be taxed more such that the money can be given to the poor". In other words, I believe the current set of rules, which includes both international trade rules and various government regulations even in Canada…I believe that on a whole, these rules are not fair. I also believe that if they were fair, I would be content to go home, mind my own business and focus on being a decent member of my own community. If they were fair, I believe absolute poverty wouldn't exist, I believe people would have a justified feeling of hope and the vast majority of us would work hard to ensure that life for the next generation will be just as good if not better. For me, this might mean protecting the environment, for others with less money, it might mean sacrificing today so their children get a good education and a better life tomorrow.

However, this is a pipe dream. The current situation is not fair. The current situation kills hope. Rules are in place which put women at a huge disadvantage. The WTO (World Trade Organization) monitors a set of trade regulations which work to the advantage of the rich countries, not because the WTO itself is evil or even bad, but because the power lies in the hands of very few who want to protect their interests.

If I had a magic wand, I would change these rules. But I don’t.

In a couple of my blogs I mention the idea that peace comes through business transactions, or on the global scale, it comes through trade. I also believe that the exact same tool for bringing peace also is the key to development and wealth creation.

Trade trade trade …. maybe I am way off, but I would love to hear why. Its not going to be easy, but I only have to listen to the stories of how my grandpa only went to school up to Grade 6 and would go for days away from home chopping wood in the middle of winter, and where they would even sleep in the same shelter as the horses to help keep warm. Lets not forget where we came from, we still have one foot in the past and we need to appreciate how far we've come.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

I liked this Q&A with Mr. Obama at the G20 summit.

Q: My… question is(on behalf of the world): politics is very local, even though we've been talking about global solution... How can you make sure that you will do whatever you can so that local politics will not trump or negatively affect good international economics?

Answer from Mr. Obama:

"I'm the President of the United States. I'm not the President of China…And so I have a direct responsibility to my constituents to make their lives better. ... how concretely does me being here (at the summit) help them find a job, pay for their home, send their kids to college, live what we call the American Dream. And I will be judged by my effectiveness in meeting their needs and concerns.

But in an era of integration and interdependence, it is also my responsibility to lead America into recognizing that its interests, its fate is tied up with the larger world; that if we neglect or abandon those who are suffering in poverty, that not only are we depriving ourselves of potential opportunities for markets and economic growth, but ultimately that despair may turn to violence that turns on us; that unless we are concerned about the education of all children and not just our children, not only may we be depriving ourselves of the next great scientist who's going to find the next new energy source that saves the planet, but we also may make people around the world much more vulnerable to anti-American propaganda"

Whats Up? (some photos)

2009-03-22T01:54:00.012-06:00

Just some photos from the past couple weeks.

This guy can play some seriously great music

(he made the guitar from carving a tree and using bicycle spokes for frets)

Matimba - climbing the truck.

Some of our retail packaging. (see website for more - zambezigold.com)

Two reasons why Forest Fruits is succesful - awesome team culture & management

Trying to get this bicycle engine to work.

Couldn't do it without some help from my friends.

A Guest Blog from Chris Nawej

2009-03-15T03:11:00.004-06:00

Today I’m happy to introduce my first guest writer on my blog, his name is Chris Nawej and he is the Operations Manager for Forest Fruits Zambia, he grew up in the DRC and has now worked in Zambia for 7 years. I work closely with Chris and was lucky enough to have EWB host him at a conference in Toronto just two months ago. Chris has put some of thoughts down to share with you. Below are some photos from the trip.

- Mark

Among the things I learned in Canada (other than what it’s like to shovel snow, and how expensive everything is) I have never known that telling someone that they’re fat is such a problem, or even an insult because in Africa we are used to people coming and saying “Chris you have become so fat”. Surely being fat is not something I want to do, I want to reduce it. On my trip to Canada I met Kristy and I don’t know if I told her she was fat or how it came about, but she said “Chris, shut up. You shouldn’t say that - here we don’t say that”. It was good to learn about the culture. So something that I’ve been using for the past 30 years in my vocabulary, now I can’t use it. Imagine a world where when I say to someone that they are fat - it means they are eating well – but now I’ve learned that in Canada someone getting fat, it’s like they are lazy. Yet they are the same world. It was good to have people around me who understood me and where I was coming from.

My biggest impression from my trip was to find people with so much energy and passion. Passion for things that are not personal, such as clothes, movies personal careers etc, but a passion to see another part of the world to develop. Why was this impression so big? Because I live in a world where people are self centered , they think of themselves so much. Even though people claim to work for other people (NGO, gov’t or business) they are using their resources to advantage themselves more than the people they say they’re serving.

At the EWB conference. Through being with Mark, I learn that yes, EWB was about really finding out what the issues are. But I was really impressed and touched – not so much from the presentations given by big NGOs, these I’ve seen in Zambia through my 7 years at FFZ – their language is full of sweet talk, but because when I looked around in the room during the conference and listened to the questions people were asking, they really wanted to know about the effect and the results of all the interventions and decisions that are made. That really opened my mind to see that people were really interested to see results, people wanted to know how have the lives of people been changed.

Another thing was – what I can call – the approach of EWB. In the past it was more on technology that could change the lives of people. Throughout the conference I discovered that EWB is at the level where it wants to invest in the development of people, I could see that it’s more about people rather than just the technology that they are using. I believe in this approach because for me, I believe the good way of helping Africa is to help Africa develop themselves. Africa has all the resources, Africa is rich, but many people in Africa haven’t seen that they can change their lives with what they have. This was also supported by what I got through the conference where one of the guests said “the development of Africa has to come from African’s themselves”.

It’s time for young Africans to change their mindset, to change their belief to learn that they have to work to develop themselves… not to expect people from outside to change it. We have seen it, a lot of people have come from outside, but it’s like we are still at a receiving point rather than to work hard.

A story that touched me was the story of untying aid. I didn’t expect to hear that story. After being around 600 EWB members, I can say I’m no longer surprised, but when I first heard it I felt it was a big signal. For me I knew that something needed to be done, because … for example, for the UN, it is said a lot that more than 70% of the expenditures remains in the western countries. They believe that when you want to give help to Africa you need to spend on things to give to Africa, and also to spend on wages of expatriates. This story showed to me the love that people in Canada have for Africa, that people want to see that Africa is being helped in a good way – not in a way where the help is hiding something behind. I have to say thank you to EWB, this is a good effort.

I can also say that I have never spent time to think about the work I’m doing and the way I’m changing the lives of people, until I had this trip and to see the place that Forest Fruits had to have during this conference. I felt that many people were happy with the work we do, before I thought “yes we’re providing a market to people”, but I’ve never spent time to really think about it. This gave me an opportunity to get feedback from people and it encourages me to continue the work I’m doing, maybe not always with Forest Fruits, but wherever I am, my work has to have a positive impact on other people.

One surprising thing at the conference was to see the lack of African students involved with EWB. I was both a bit surprised but also a bit happy. I felt embarrassed when people asked “are there not African engineers who can do the same thing that EWB is doing the same” – the answer is yes, there are many in Canada, but the truth is maybe we don’t have these people with such spirit. This is why I encouraged three Zambians I met to stay with EWB and to meet and discuss with other African students to become members. I didn’t feel good to see so many others getting so concerned, but this is a movement I’ve seen that is strong and with young people who really want to help.

To close, I met really good people. The way I was greeted and with some people like Kristy and Liz, we could interact as if we were knowing each other for a long time. And if that is the spirit in EWB, then I have found the right people to share with. I can say that I would be happy to become a member of EWB and I will even send my $40 this month end.

I would like to thank all the EWB staff, starting with George and Parker – we had some good discussions - and special thanks to Mark my colleague who taught me about this conference, to Robin who helped organizing me to get to Toronto and to everyone who contributed. I won’t close this without thanks to my two new good friends I met, Liz and Kristy.

Here we are - at a jazz bar, in Toronto.

Chris gave a presentation on his vision of Forest Friuts at the EWB conference.

The Videos

2009-03-08T04:29:00.004-06:00

As promised, before I left the land of high speed internet (Canada) these videos were put onto youtube.

I didnt realize how poor the quality of a youtube video was until now.

Oh well, enjoy.

Me on the back of a motorbike with Chiko - we're entering the town of Kabompo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_V3soZxQn9Q

The neighbour's little boy is dancing up a storm one morning.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0paUAYajYc

Here we get stuck on a desert plain on our way to visit some beekeepers.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9HJUg0HXBc

Chiko and I are preparing to cross the kabompo river - I find out I'm getting in with the bike.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfEP50aBkaY

Evans and Seleyi are standing in the middle of swarming bees at the factory.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjQhrUrLoeI

All is well in Mwinilunga. The rains are heavy and the honey season is almost over.

My guest blogger will be writing very soon.

The Highest Potential

2009-03-04T02:20:00.001-07:00

An article I received

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/matthew_parris/article409644.ece

This articles ends like this - “children anxious to learn, anxious to help, itching to be and become, he would see what every traveller with time on his hands sees: the tremendous, untapped genius and energy of youth in Africa. And he might ask, as I ask: where does it go? What happens to them? What is it that keeps killing hope in Africa?”

What I’ve seen in Jasford and Patel

Last July I started working with a young guy named Jasford, he had worked hard at Forest Fruits for 6 months to save about $150. He managed to save by living at home and commuting from his village to save on rent and food, and he also avoided alcohol and splurging on nice clothes. When the honey season ended, he worked with his brother, they started one of the millions of informal businesses in Zambia. Jasford wanted to go to college to learn how to be a mechanic, he needed $2000 to pay for tuition. With his brother they bought and sold gasoline from the nearest fuel pump which is 300km away. After 6 more months passed, he had almost $500 saved. Someone suggested he buy a cow and sell it when prices would go up for Christmas. He spent the $250 on the cow, unfortunately it died and he only got $50 from the carcass.

There goes some hope.

But he was far from giving up. We met and went over the numbers, he kept repeating how important profits were, not revenues. We found that he could make the most money by working at Forest Fruits and going to buy gasoline on weekends, then his brother could sit by the road and sell the fuel while he was at work. He was on his way, it was going to take two years, but that was alright.

Jasford then asked me to help him with mathematics so he could pass his entrance exam. I asked him to bring his final high school exam, and we’d start there. We sat for a good 6 hours trying to get through the first question, and it became obvious that somehow he had passed grade 12 without ever knowing what a variable was – for example, in the equation “x + 5 = 21”, he wasn’t taught how to solve for the variable x, or even the concept.

The government high school had failed him…there goes some more hope.

His friend Patel is another example of a young guy who works so hard I can’t help but dream a better future for him. This guy is the ultimate handyman and he’s only 20 years old.

But. Just today his relatives came and asked the boss if he could be excused from work today to attend a funeral. How does this effect his approach to planning for the future? His hope?

Evans

I work with another amazing guy named Evans, and I would love to have him as a guest on my blog one day as well. He is in the second highest position in the company, and yet you can find him without a dollar to splurge on a cold drink. For months his nephews and cousins were staying at his house and eating for free. They would sit around while he worked over 40 hours a week and studied another 20 hours for business management degree via distance education. They just sat.

Even though Evans has found a way to make a good life for his wife and kids, he is part of a system that can pull him back. Why should anyone work as hard as Evans when they see that he doesn’t even get to keep the rewards?

“Where does it all go?“

In some ways it may not be all that different from Canada, we get older, more cynical and sometimes more humble. It reminds me of something Ralph Nader said last year at the EWB conference: our 20’s are beautiful because we don’t know what isn’t possible.

Here in Zambia its just more severe and systemic, things we (in Canada) take for granted such as health care, education, law enforcement… just don’t work well in Zambia. Everyone starts out with a truckload of hope and potential, but as the years go by, as most attempts become failures due to circumstances beyond control, then the natural result is a sincere life of living within your means. You become modest and VERY risk adverse.

This is why I strongly believe the highest potential and the biggest rewards will come from empowering Zambians who are in their 20's.

(3 weeks ago Jasford started studying to do electrical work at a college in Kitwe, his church has sponsored him for the part of the tuition)

The Language of Business

2009-02-18T08:57:00.003-07:00

“The Language of Business”

Feet on the ground

After two weeks of trying to get back into my Zambian life, I am still finding it difficult to re-adapt. Ideas, memories, people, places... everything that had happened in my five weeks in Canada has been running through my head. The whole experience at home was some sort of sensory overload. And saying goodbye is one of my least favourite things to do. But I suppose this isn’t unlike trying to settle into any other job after a whirlwind vacation.

A honey delivery

As I drive with Dan to drop off an order of honey, it all seems too familiar. Both Dan and Barb (the owners of Forest Fruits) go way out of their way to make a sale, and to make the customer happy. I remember a time at Springbank Cheese when I questioned my Dad's enthusiasm for selling just $50 of cheese at wholesale prices...which would give a meagre 4 dollars profit. I remember he'd spend a lot of time making sure the order was perfect and he'd even drive 30 minutes to drop it off himself.

One such customer ended up becoming Springbank Cheese's biggest at 10 grand a week, most of the others disappeared and many never grew beyond $50 a shot.

Now I see the same at Forest Fruits in Zambia. Huge amounts of time and energy go into the tiniest of details to be sure that no sales opportunity is missed and that every customer is happy. Similarly, in the development sector, huge amounts of time and energy go into making the customer happy, however, the customer isn't the Zambian living on a dollar a day, its the donor who provides the money.

A common language

Every four months I get the chance to meet with the other EWB volunteers and talk about ideas we have and things we're seeing. As I take it all in, I notice that development has its own language, each of the other volunteers are working with non-governmental organizations (NGO's) and this jargon-filled development language is always used. Words like - capacity building, beneficiary, monitoring & evaluation, participatory learning.... they are NOT used in regular business.

Capacity building means investing in people/employees.

For us, the beneficiary is everyone – business, employee and beekeeper.

Monitoring & Evaluation is like a customer survey.

Participatory learning is like dialogue between customer and producer.

These buzzwords start out as meaningful but after a few years they are thrown around in project proposals so much that the meaning is lost.

Maybe its just me - but somewhere between the good ideas and the lingo and what actually happens on the ground, any hope of transparency in the development sector is lost.

A visitor from Zambia

Chris and I at the EWB gala banquet.

The operations manager of Forest Fruits had the opportunity to come and attend the EWB conference in Toronto. I have spoken about Chris before in my blog, and there was this surreal moment of picking him up at the airport - "worlds colliding" was all I could think of.

At the conference, just minutes before a panel discussion was about to take place, Chris was asked to speak on what he's seen at Forest Fruits. He went last and his presentation was like a breath of fresh air. He spoke about very tangible issues on the ground, and about the ways in which Forest Fruits has dealt with them. The contrast to the other presenters was undeniable, the other three were from NGO's, talking about high level issues dealing with multiple countries, whereas Chris was speaking about 6000 farmers and about running a business.

I have asked Chris to be a guest writer on my next blog - I'm sure he'll have lots of interesting things to say.

Tired but Awesome

2009-01-19T12:56:00.011-07:00

Tired

After being home for a few weeks, and having talked my head off, I am now preparing for an EWB conference - 4 days (and nights) of thinking and discussing development amongst people who dedicate a large portion of their lives to making the world a better place.

Lets just say I'm taking the day off to watch movies and to be antisocial before it begins.

Awesome

The one thing I've noticed is that everyone I have met-up with and spoken to is excited for me, and not one person has doubted my work. They believe in me and what I'm doing, and they want to help. Some have even given sizable donations. The kindness is overwhelming. I couldn't have asked for more.

Strangely, my work isnt the typical development work. I'm not going to build a school for 3 weeks, I'm not giving out cool new water filters, or shoe boxes, or medicine. I am working to allow people access to the benefits of globalization.

If I could put in point form what I want to say to everyone in Canada - about my last year in Zambia, it would be this.

I am enjoying my time - the people are great, and I'm learning a lot.
The world is connected - when the world stops buying copper, business in Zambia is directly affected. Internet looks the same no matter where you are in the world.
Its not going to be easy, but there is hope, and I have seen progress.

Knowledge

The enthusiasm and sincerity of my friends & family really gives me hope. One person almost pleaded with me in asking what they could do - it just seems too complex of an issue, and too far away, and they couldnt see their way through the maize.

So for all of you who want to help, but dont know what to do.

I first recommned taking care of yourself.

Then I recommend clicking on guide below, which can explain how keeping your money at citizens bank is different than TD and BMO, and how you can better connect to the people who produced your food by purchasing fair trade products.

I worked with a team of people in Calgary to produce this little guide.http://calgary.ewb.ca/Files/TangibleAction08.pdf

I know learning hurts, but you definitely dont need to go overseas to make a difference.

Thanks again to everyone for all your support.

Random photo of Calgary

Videos

2009-01-16T13:10:00.002-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjQhrUrLoeI

I'll try to put up some more videos while I still have fast internet.

Home for Christmas

2008-12-28T07:26:00.003-07:00

Here I am back in Calgary for Christmas. Indeed its a good feeling to be home to relax and visit everyone...and to look in the fridge and find such items as smoked salmon, pumpkin pie and eggnog.

Yes - Mom is happy, and yes - thats whip cream on that pie.

My surprise was made possible because I have extended my contract with EWB up to March 2010, which means I am back in Canada for a month to visit everyone and to attend the EWB National Conference in January.

Spencer - This guy showed up while I was away.

Cariann - way taller than the last time I saw her.

Can't say that I feel any reverse culture shock. Mostly things are exactly how I remember them from 11 months ago. I can say I've noticed the fast internet, the good roads, the over packaged food and the amount of clutter in peoples homes. We just have stuff everywhere....

Some entertainment if anyones looking

A video from some volunteers in Western Africa

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAX92zkKtJM

A video from us in Southern Africa

http://www.ewb.ca/en/whatsnew/features/sa-chapters08.html

So This Is Christmas (in Rural Zambia)

2008-12-21T07:51:00.012-07:00

December 20th

I am sitting on a bus heading south through the copper-belt of Zambia. My arm is swollen from a bee sting, I just finished 5 delicious bananas that I bought through the window of the bus at the last village - and under my seat I have 2 pineapples which cost me 20 cents each. Under the seat of the old lady sitting across from me there are 2 chickens sitting in a plastic bag. No, they're not frozen chickens, they're actually alive and this is fairly common because power (and hence refrigeration) are scarce, so the best way to keep your meat from spoiling is by keeping it alive. It seems this lady is travelling with her grandchildren and they are sharing a bottle of coca-cola.

In the seat behind her, there are three people, a baby, a mother and another lady who seems to be another grandmother. They look so happy that its giving me that warm, fuzzy feeling inside. ( Grandma swings baby's hands and creates a smile, later baby cries and mom makes funny noises to try and distract her) I can only guess that they are travelling to visit some family back in their home town/village. And I can only guess that those two overwhelmed looking chickens are going to be Christmas dinner for a lucky family.

Further to the front of the bus, there is a gentlemen taking honey to the city of Kitwe. I asked him and he says he bought it from farmers in Mwinilunga and he is pretty sure he can sell all 400kg of it at a handsome profit tomorrow. This is a good sign because it means the farmers have multiple buyers.

The man sitting beside me is a mail man, and two times a week he takes the bus 300km to the provincial capital to drop off all the outgoing mail and collect the incoming mail.

My New Home

This past month I've been staying at my new place in Kabanda - which is a compound in the same town as the honey factory. Its been great to finally have my own place and to learn more of the local language and more about the people. (the majority of the people here belong to the Lunda tribe) For half of the month the town was without power, and it didn’t make the slightest bit of difference for me because my new house doesn’t use power - we have charcoal for cooking and candles for light.

The open door is to my room - check out the nice glass window!

I live with a family of 5 children. The father is Mr. Matulu, he is one of the workers at Forest Fruits. The mother works at a small restaurant - which requires her to work from 7am - 9pm every day, including half a day on Sunday.

Last week I went to plant maize with the firstborn son and some other relatives. Mostly though we saw a lot of women in working in the fields - and do they ever have big biceps!

I still have blisters from this day.

Roy is on the right - he loves music too much.

Stellah

My neighbours are Mr. Matulu's sisters, one of which owns a small bakery. Stellah has two children, her husband died ten years ago and she has managed to make a good living by selling her baked goods. She has even managed to build a second house which she rents out for extra income. I'm working with her on ways in which she can differentiate from the other bakers in town so she can increase her sales.

Disconnected

As my shirt gets sticky from sweat, and I watch the lush green countryside pass by, I find it hard to imagine Christmas back home. I officially feel disconnected. Here, Christmas is unnoticeable, there is no Christmas music and no special "gift giving" advertisements. On Christmas day the average family will go to church and maybe save up a bit of money to buy some beef or a chicken, so they can then make a nice meal to celebrate.

Please dont forget to give a little to my campaign to support my work here through Engineers Without Borders. Seriously, whats an extra $20 on your credit card?

Click Here to Help me

I wish a merry Christmas to everyone back home. I miss you all.

Random Photo from last week - this bee is busy.

An Enabling Environment

2008-12-09T02:02:00.005-07:00

A short note about the place I live - where nothing can be taken for granted. I've been warned not to post a blog that is like a rant, but its just too interesting to layout some of the challenges I'm seeing here.

In this past week, since returning from Kabompo, here is a list of some of the things that you would think would be available in a town of 20,000 - but unfortunately are not.

Power

The town runs on a diesel generator which costs about $.40/kWhr to supply electricity, yet the government owned supplier charges just $.03/kWhr - so we have anywhere from 1 to 5 hours of power per day.

Water

The town needs power to run its water supply, and so we get about 2 hours a day where there is water in the taps.

Construction Supplies

May not be so dire, but seriously, something as simple as a welding rod, a cutting disk - or as simple as a screw - you can't find them here.

Phone

The main phone provider was down for two days.

Fuel

There are days when you cant find a drop of gasoline. (even at $2.50 per litre)

Health Care

I had to travel over 30km to get some medicine. The government hospital which is a short walk away only employs 2 doctors and stocks medicine for Malaria and diahrea, but little else.

Banking

There hasn't been any cash at the bank now for two days. Imagine!

All things considered, its still pretty good. We can get vegetables and fruits are so plentiful they are rotting on the ground...and there is chlorine so we can treat the water, and there are trees so we can cook the vegetables.

And of course, the people are great - and the motorbikes almost never break down, and cell phones usually work, and ya...things arent all that bad.

Letting Go

2008-12-05T03:32:00.007-07:00

A trip to Kabompo

For whatever reason, it was decided that I should go to Kabompo with our buyer Chiko. The part that makes sense is we want to buy more honey, so we're hoping to find it there. The part that doesn't make perfect sense, is why am I going...

Either way, I found myself catching a lift in a nice NGO sponsored SUV, sipping on Coca-cola and chewing on some biscuits while watching 250 km of landscape unfold bofore me.

Chiko was suppose to follow me on the motorbike, but he was held up so I had the day to myself. What a weird feeling, I didn't have my laptop, I actually didn't even have my bag since it was dropped off at his sisters place and I couldn't get a hold of her. So it was just me and my phone and a little bit of cash...oh ya, and an amazing little town in the middle of nowhere africa.

The Kabompo River

This River is apparently the second deepest in Africa, when engineers came to put a bridge, they weren't able to put any columns, so it had to suspend all the way from one bank to the other.

Chiko arrived on Monday and I got to meet his friend, 'sister' Jean. She is the sweetest person and was sure to take care of us much the way my mother would appreciate it, reminding both of us to brush our teeth, don't drive too fast, make sure you have enough water....and on and on.

The best part about small town Africa is that you get to walk around at night and not worry about it. For most of my time so far, I've been stuck in Lusaka where its not advisable to walk around after 8pm. On our walk that night we were treated to a very stary night that was highlighted with a crescent moon sitting exactly between jupiter and venus.

The Motorbike

My skills on the motorbike are just so-so. I can go about 80 km/hr on a perfectly paved road. On the side road, maybe 50 km/hr, and on sand - lets just say its something I'm working on.

Tuesday we set off and I quickly discovered the sensation of flying on a motorbike. The logic is perfect, when I explained to Chiko that I dont like going over 50 - he says "you dont feel the bumps if you go fast" - and he was totally right. Next test, sand. Deep sand on a narrow pathway. He let me try for about 10 minutes, but I was way too slow. We switched, and before I knew it, we were going 80 km/hr on this tiny little path and we were litterally floating on sand. The back tire would swing left and right and Chiko negotiated the path the way he's been doing for 6 years.

The feeling was totally liberating. It felt like a thrill ride that lasted for 30 km. My life actually felt completely out of my control, and once I accepted that, it was a nice feeling. The air became fresher, the sky looked bluer and the trees looked taller.

Needless to say, I found out why everyone says a little prayer and does the sign-of-the-cross before getting on the bike with Chiko.

An Option

The next day, the beekeepers we were going to visit were located on the other side of the river, and we had to drive about 80 km just to cross the river using the bridge. Then we went about 30 km into the bush. On the way back, Chiko told me there was a boat that could save us this 80 km stretch. He said last time they tried it, they fell in before even pushing off...so he vowed to never do it again. However, we were told by one other guy that he took his motorbike over successfully, so there we were trying.

Here goes.

Now this river looks innocent enough, and these guys take people across all the time, but let me tell you...there are hippoes and crocodiles in this river, and if the bike drops in there is about a 0% chance we'd ever get it back. Whatever the logic is here, we decided to go for it.

And 2 minutes later, for just $1, there we were on the other side, dry, safe, and still with 80km worth of fuel in the tank.

Back Home

I'm now back in Mwinilunga, after riding through a lightening storm at crazy speeds on the back of Chiko's motorbike for 3 hours, the blood in my veins is still jostling around as if I were still on the bike. It reminds me of the way I felt after water skiing in BC. Not sure if mom would approve of all this, but thats the way things work around here. We would travel a distance of150 km or more, just to speak to a beekeeper for 20 minutes. Imagine if we could just call them instead!

Time to get back to office work again. The cash is heading out into the field, and the honey is coming in.

Chiko gives a thumbs up before setting off into the bush.

Moving Around

2008-11-16T04:17:00.010-07:00

So I have been very movious as of late.

(still not sure if its a real word, but people here use it often - and I guess that makes it real. A movious person is a person who moves around a lot)

All the EWB volunteers in Southern Africa met in Dedza, Malawi.

There are 8 new volunteers since I arrived, so all of a sudden I'm not the new guy on the block. Not sure how I feel about it since it still feels like I am just settling in and as I look ahead to how much I want to get done in the next 5 months, I realize I have to start working more efficiently.

Nothing too dramatic to report at the moment, I hope to have a post in 1 week about my new living situation.

My trip to Malawi

When you get on a bus here, the bus driver will tell you "we leave at 06 hours", but what he really means is the earlies we'll leave is 06 hours. In fact, what happens is the bus doesn't leave until its full. Needless to say, after spending the night watching the american elections with some other volunteers we got to spend 3 hours waiting to actually start our 15 hour journey to Malawi. Luckily, fellow EWB'r - Ashley Raeside, had her handy mp3 player which also has a radio. So I sat and listened to history in the making, as John McCain gave his concession speach and new president elect, Mr. Barrack Obama gave his speach, I sat on this bus and felt my skin tingle .... as if maybe there is hope, maybe we can make things better, and maybe the government of the United States will take actions that will actualy lead to peace in the world.

(Not two weeks later I found out Zambia is heading for a serious recession as it closes down its copper mines because of the global recession and falling copper prices)

My view from the bus as I listened to history in the making.

In Eastern Zambia, cotton is the major cash crop.

I could speak for hours on the complexity of how a business can be good or bad for the small-holder farmers of Zambia, but instead, I'll just say that a company like Dunavant has a lot of potential to do good, yet, because of the lack of competition and transparency, I have to say that Zambia would probably be a lot better off without this particular company.

A very nice town in Eastern Zambia, Chipata

Yes, Obama is popular here.

On my way back to Mwinilunga, I am spending a few days working in Lusaka, which is nice. Imagine a place where you can just go buy cheese and icecream! Better fill up on the good stuff since I know it'll be a long time before I see those goodies again.

The guys in front of yet another truck that has been overhauled.

Turns out, transportation is by far our biggest cost at Forest Fruits. Its becoming painfully obvious as we try to buy honey and the trucks are all down. Meanwhile the competition is 'stealing' our honey from our beekeepers. Oh ya, and this isn't just regular competion, this competition is funded by donors from Europe. Of course the donors dont really know what there money is being used for, and therefore have no idea of the affect this is having on the ground. The survival of the company is in jeopardy. Some might say this is no big deal, as long as the farmers are able to keep selling their honey...isn't that whats important? YES. But what happens when the donor money stops, lets just say, hypothetically, there is a global recession and all of a sudden this particular donor decides not to fund 'rural empowerment' in Zambia, then the farmers cant sell their honey because they caused Forest Fruits to go out of business. Now imagine, hypothetically, that the donors didnt bother in the first place, voila, Forest Fruits is still functioning and the farmers can still sell their honey.

Its not quite so cut and dry, but this is really happenning, and peoples livelihoods really are at stake.

Kicking and Screaming

2008-10-06T04:52:00.017-06:00

Kicking and Screaming

These are the two words that come to mind when I think about doing business in rural Zambia. Note the caveat, RURAL. I’m talking about a place that is 1000 km from the capital city, and this capital city is another 2500 km from the nearest ocean port. Business in the city on the other hand seems rather easy, there is a huge lack of competition – however this too is slowly changing as deals are struck with China and India.

A few months ago my boss decided this year Forest Fruits was going on a training safari. The team designed a 14 day trip which would cover over 1000km and would allow us to visit all 6000 of our beekeepers. The purpose was to get feedback from the beekeepers on what the company could do better.

3 weeks ago, it was time to suit up and head to the bush. This included purchasing some 600 cups, plates and some giant pots for cooking. Sure enough the vehicle was highly overloaded, it overheated, was leaking a ton of oil and started making new sounds as if to reject the large load we put on top of it.

Never-the-less, we reached our destination and organized the team of 10 who would make up the travelling crew. A big part of the plan we had designed was around food. I have fed 2000 people cheese before, but feeding 6000 people a hot meal in the bush was another story. The plan was to buy vegetables and cows in the villages, we would slaughter the animals and bring a freezer with us to store the meat since it would have to last more than 1 day. Animal #1 & 2 were already cut and put into the freezer before leaving, but what a terrible smell! We set off into the bush in true Zambian fashion – by push starting the truck.

Despite the heavy downpour while trying to set up our tents, things were looking up when we reached our first camp site, ‘the rapids’. It was beautiful, the water was perfect for bathing and even though we didn’t have cell phone reception, this place did have power so we could plug in our freezer.

The first meeting was very exciting, the beekeepers showed up singing and I was anxious to see what they would say about the company.

So these beekeepers are the people everyone hears about when World Vision or Oxfam talks about statistics where people live on less than a dollar a day. Imagine how resourceful you would have to be if all you had was $300 a year to live on? They want loans, they want a higher price for their honey and they want to feel sure that the company will be on time this year to buy their honey.

We spoke to the principal of the school in Salujinga and he said he has just two teachers for the 300 kids. I was at least impressed to see solar panels…although I’m not sure how this helped learning when there are just 2 teachers?

This meeting had 280 beekeepers show up.

Mr. Dan Ball having fun doing a demonstration.

Here I am trying to help in the kitchen.

Here are the real pro's at work.

I took shelter from the rain with these kids, they would run out and eat the hail.

If you look closely you can see the route we travelled is highlighted in yellow.

After a while a pattern emerged and the days started rolling by. Some meetings would have 80 people, some would have 280.

More 'Kicking and Screaming'

The roads

As I moved with the honey team we travelled about 1300 kilometers on roads which connect the far remote corners of Zambia to the rest of the world. In Canada, these 'roads' would be considered unpassable, long forgotten pathways. Meanwhile, for the thousands of beekeepers and their communities, it is their sole connection to the outside world.

We got stuck in one of the sandy planes. (it's a lot like getting stuck in deep snow)

Here we are navigating through the bush.

C’est moi - at another spot we had to get out of the vehicle – this time we had to go off-road..

All in all it was a great couple of weeks. The weather here is perfect, low of 15 for great sleeping and highs of 30.

A perfect waterfall beside our campsite.

I definitely enjoyed bathing in this lagoon. Paradise.

This is part of the mission station we stayed at for a day off.

The reason behind it all, the Mbambe (Beekeeper)

This old guy (mwanta) is about 80 years old and still has a lot of fight in him. The beekeepers walk for miles through thick bush to harvest honey, they risk falling from a tree, they get stung countless times, and then they have to carry it back.

I saw a lot of good things on my tour; smiling faces, waterfalls, forward thinking and teamwork. And I saw a lot of things that concern me; 12 year-old girls breastfeeding, disappearing forests and terrible roads.

The best we can do is work with them to create a sustainable business. There may be a lot of kicking and screaming in the process of getting it going, and maybe there is a special set of skills required, but isn’t that the same for any business anywhere? If it was easy, it would've been done before.

Training Safari

2008-09-21T01:03:00.003-06:00

Well, I'm off to the bush for two weeks on a training safari. I'll be camping with 10 other people from the Forest Fruits crew and we hope to meet and discuss issues with all 6000 beekeepers.

Sure is nice to be out of the city again. The air is clean, the birds are singing and there is no power at night. (or in the day most of the time)

Logic

2008-09-04T11:46:00.004-06:00

So I realize that I haven't been the most vocal person in the last two months. Maybe no one really noticed anyway because the dog-days of summer are just wiping your conscience free of the concept of time?

Either way, I feel compelled to write something. So what happens if I don't have anything to write. Let’s just have a glass of gin and juice, pick a cool word and let the writing times roll.

Gin and Juice - check.

Cool word...hmmm, how about Earth.

C'est tres cool, everyone loves the Earth.

Here we go. A few of you may have known that I spent 4 years working with my Dad, I took care of Springbank Cheese in Calgary. It was a great time, and all the while I kept my ear to the ground for what was happening around the world - http://www.globalissues.org

In January 2006, I fulfilled my two year resignation plan and headed to Quebec. My heart wasn't in it anymore, and not just the company, but development also. I didn't know if poverty alleviation was what I wanted to focus on.

Off I went to Quebec, completely directionless. All I knew was that my soft side wanted to help people, because that made me happy. My logical side wanted to prevent the extinction of the human race. Sure, maybe I'm a bit drastic, but I think I see some large indications that good ol' mankind was heading in the wrong direction. My first instinct wasn't to become a monk, it was to change peoples minds about consumerism. I read a few books and watched every TEDTalk I could - http://www.ted.com

After all that, consumerism still bothered me...but wait a minute, isn't there something called supply and demand? So if you want to live a consumeristic lifestyle, you'll just have to pay for it. As the Earth's supply goes down, the price will go up. (even for things which should be fundamental human rights, such as chocolate, cheese, HONEY, and beer)

Problem solved.

So what is the real problem?

There is an irreversible component. If you believe that driving your car causes global warming, and that this could trigger an ice-age or at least economic hardships, then hippity hoppity, lets stop driving our cars or at least reduce the greenhouse gases associated with it.

So maybe I believe in global warming to be man made, or maybe its caused by solar flares on the sun...either way, there are millions of people and enough money behind solving that issue. Plus, it's possible that one technical discovery could actually solve all the worlds energy problems AND global warming concerns. And it could happen almost overnight, something like....nano-solar? http://www.nanosolar.com/

What else could the real problem bee? What else is irreversible?

Pollution, species extinction, war?

It was interesting to see that the Nobel Peace Prize was won by a guy who started a Bank which helped extremely poor people get a fair price for the business they ran. Nobel peace prize and Banking, hmm, but where is the link? Peace and Poverty, Poverty and Peace. How are they related?

Turns out, the whole globalization thing is a fairly new phenomenon. Back before the advent of the airplane, the world never had to think as a whole. In fact, there are only two reasons to consider the people in a different part of the world.

1. WAR

2. TRADE

Either you worried about them attacking, or you worried about the cost of those things which can't be produced locally, hence you needed to trade for them.

So there you have it. WAR and TRADE, now if TRADE is related to wealth, and WAR is obviously related to peace...then it becomes clear that Peace and Poverty must be related. (ok, I'll leave it to the Nobel Prize folk for explaining in detail, maybe its not perfectly clear)

Either way, the conclusion is that More TRADE = less WAR.

Less Poverty = more Peace.

My decision was to work towards less poverty via more trade. The trade doesn't need to be international per se, but the further away the customer the more peace it promotes. The underlying reason why more trade creates more wealth is because it causes specialization which effectively leads to more efficiency. Instead of owning my own land, planting my own crops, watering, cropping, storing and cooking my own food, I can divide up these jobs and choose to do what I do best. Maybe storing is my specialty. If I work with 50 people, the sum of our output can be triple what we could do individually. This is REAL wealth, there aren't even complicated outside forces to dispute it. With specialization comes technology, the more time you spend doing one repeated task, the more you can benefit from a tool which can help you do that one thing.

Engineers Without Borders - Promoting human development through access to technology.

Indeed a shameless plug for EWB, but maybe there is something to it?

Whatever the Logic, the work I'm doing feels right, so maybe I'm really just following a feeling.

Around The Yard

2008-08-27T12:50:00.009-06:00

So around the yard also means around the factory.

Laure-Eloise convinced me that I should put some more pictures up.

The guys stirring the honey before we 'process' it.

Unloading the new machine for bottling the honey.

A (yellow) flower.

Me on a Sunday afternoon.

I have a few ideas rolling around that I hope to share on my next post, coming soon. The weather in Lusaka has changed dramatically in the last 3 weeks, we now get +30 during the day and the low at night hardly requires a blanket. The hot season is upon us.

The Honey Team

2008-08-09T12:37:00.028-06:00

his is what its all about...

well ok, maybe it was just nice to have a lot of friends around. This last week I was lucky enough to attend the Zambian Agriculture and Commercial Show, which was amazing. There were a lot of development organizations, but also a lot of businesses.

Rogers checks out a 30 ton trailer

We got tired of walking around so went to have a few beers and watch the marching band from the bar.

This Wednesday & Thursday we had our Year Plan Meeting for Forest Fruits at a lodge 50km out of town. The meeting itself was amazing, I was asked to facilitate (which was a good experience) and it was really good to see what everyones ideas were. I think we all left the meeting with enthusiasm and now we have a vision to work towards for the next 12 months.

Vision, ideas, sharing... those are all great, but for sure the best part was seeing everyone again. I have spent just 5 weeks up in Mwinilunga, but while I was there I made friends with the management team and now I realize just how much I missed them. I took some pictures during the breaks and now I'd like to introduce...

The Honey Team

starting with Evans - he was the one who saved me from the red ants

Chiko - knows all 6000 beekeepers and is a madman on the motorbike

Alice - holds down the fort and keeps us from starving.

Matimba - a real sucker for new gadgets (zen being the latest)
.
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Womba - still giving it 100% at 8 months pregnant!
Mr. Jalata - he is just too nice
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???? - is this guy ever going to cut that hair. ..
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Chris - my pushup buddy who's trying to shift some belly weight into muscle mass

Dan Ball - busy eating and eating before his wife (Barb) returns from Canada

So ya, no picture of Barb, she should be enjoying her time in Algonquin park right about now.

--Insert picture here--

Barb - the mom/nurse to the bunch who keeps us in good health.

We got to see lions, giraffes, elephants, zibras and gazelles all in one hour!

And then before we knew it our 2 days were up.

A great team, a great place and an exciting year to come.

What is Development to me?

2008-07-16T13:27:00.003-06:00

"You have a great placement"

This is what my friend Hans told me after spending a couple of days at my place since he was temporarily homeless in Lusaka because the house he was living in was sold and his landlord inconveniently forgot to inform him.

The word placement shocked me. I really don't think of it as a 'placement', to me its become my life, and I have to agree, I have a great life.

Why am I here?

I'm here because I care and I feel I have something to contribute to development. (and the thought of returning to Canada to engage in a job that doesn't directly contribute... sorta frightens me)

What is development to me?

Not exactly sure, but if I start with the basics - I feel that everyone wants friends, health, knowledge and a decent income. (friends are plentiful, so I figure its about having a job, healthcare & education) Problem is that not everyone has access to these, nor do they have the power to gain access.

So this results in two fundamental things. 1 - power, 2 - ability to get power. Since you can get number 1 if you have number 2, then I guess even more fundamentally, development is allowing people the ability to get power.

What gives you power? Of course this depends on the situation. It could be your wealth, or it could be your age, gender, education, language, good looks (or other characteristics like strength, athleticism, musical talent, etc), your nationality, race, religion, location, caste or even your friends. In Canada the amount by which any of these can empower a person is different than it is in Zambia. Race, religion and age in Canada mean relatively little compared to what they mean in Zambia. Many of these are things you are born with, others you can obtain, but to obtain them you often need to have access to health care, education or a good job. Back to square one.

Wealth is the usually the easiest to translate into power regardless of the situation.

(As an aside - I feel healthcare and education are critical to a good life and the basic levels are very much the role of government. But if your government isn’t capable of providing this, then development projects should fill this gap.)

A solution that actually works?

There are a few organizations here that are funded by Canadians/westerners and are hoping to address the issue of income generation. The magical formula which has worked in the past, goes something like this. Paul and his wife Samantha are farmers that live in a village, they have 2 hectares of land to grow corn, peanuts and vegetables along with a few chickens and cows. They don't have access to health care or good education for their kids, plus they have no savings. But, life is actually pretty good right now, there is food, shelter and you can hear laughter coming from the kids playing outside. This is the case until someone gets sick or there is a drought or a flood. They have very little capital to deal with problems.

Now for the magical part: all you have to do is introduce them to someone who wants to buy something they are producing, this will allow them to save some money (aka. connect them to a market). Or introduce them to someone selling seeds or fertilizer or vet services so they can produce more to save some money (aka. access to better inputs). Or even better, have Paul and Samantha create a cooperative with all their neighbours so they can save money by bulking their inputs or crops to save on transportation costs.

My impression is that there are hundreds of organizations across Africa trying to do one of or all of these things.

It is a bit like a dating service, the organization searches for sellers and looks for buyers and then introduces the two. Of course its not so simple, they also have to facilitate the process and remove some of the risk that exists on both sides so that in the event that it doesn't work out, they haven't actually made things worse. And to make it even more difficult, the organization is on a contract with a donor who has given just enough money to get it right in 2 or 3 seasons.

A common problem is that the organization ends up not only facilitating these relationships, they actually become an integral part of the relationship...like the role of the telephone, without them, the buyer and seller don't communicate and so after 3 years with some successes, the donor feels good and the org. is happy but if you check in a year or two later you find that the relationships fell apart and it was all for not. Another common problem is the org. becomes the transportation from the field to town, which again is a critical function. Either way, there is pressure from the donor for results, and there is pressure to 'buy-down' the risks to the farmers, so the org. ends up stepping in and becoming part of the relationship and the whole thing becomes unsustainable.

1 year after the project ends, Samantha and Paul are no better off and the org. is out looking for more funding to start another project. Oh ya, and the donor feels good because they were told that the results were good.

Donor => pretty happy (seems to be good results, don't need to give any more money)
Org. => sorta happy (they had good paying jobs for 3 years)
Farmers => hardly happy (lot of effort into changing lives, few benefits seen)

Is there a way all three stakeholders can be really happy?

Sustainability.

What can be sustainable?

It's only a theory, but I think more organizations should just accept that they will become part of the relationship and they should try to make money doing it. If they aren't able to make money at it, then how do they expect a business to make money at it? Whether its transportation, personal contacts, food processing, access to inputs...whatever it is, an organization that employs educated people and is able to invest some money in the activity, is much better suited to turn a profit than a business that is already strapped for time, labour and investment capital. If the organization is successful, they can use the profits for funding a new project or they can streamline the operation and put it up for sale, and maybe even one of the employees will see that they can make a living from it?

If a profit can be made, then everyone is really happy.

Learning

If not, then something different should be done, but at least there are no false impressions about sustainability.

The current system is blind, no one knows how to measure success accurately and therefore it makes learning very difficult.

Where I fit

My partner organization is called Forest Fruits. It is a private enterprise which provides training, inputs, transportation, communication, processing, exporting and soon bottling. As a whole, it is profitable and therefore sustainable. It is buying from 6000 farmers who earn about $1 a day and just maybe the extra income allows them to save up a little for their future.

In essence, the 6000 farmers use to have no choice in where to sell there goods. Now, every year, Forest Fruits shows up and offers to buy their products. ie. A business now wants what they have, and to me, this is empowerment.

Kickin it by the Lake

2008-07-10T13:15:00.007-06:00

A couple weeks ago, I was pealed away from my work here in the capital city (Lusaka) to go on a 10 day excursion involving 2 countries, 20 Candians and 2 EWB retreats. After regretting the idea of being away from work for such a long time, I quickly got over it when we arrived at our destination on Lake Malawi.

The restaurant on Senga Bay is an old house without a roof!

A picture of the restaurant from 'outside'.

The EWB Longterm Volunteer Crew.

So then it was back to Zambia for the short term volunteer retreat. I thought there was no way it could get any better than Senga Bay in Malawi, but I was proven wrong. The location is right on a point that juts out into Lake Kariba, and is part of a town called Siavonga. The owner is an architect of some sort and has built a house for his wife and three kids which looks a bit like a castle. They run a children's inspirational camp here and is a development project.

The owner's house at the camp in Siavonga.

The fire pit sits right on the point and is beside an Amarula fruit tree.

Looking out at Lake Kariba from our "meeting room" in Siavonga.

Up and coming is the potential that I'll have a work visa in my hands within a week, and this Sunday me and some EWB folk will be having dinner with Ian Smillie.

The New Truck

2008-06-27T04:58:00.003-06:00

Just three weeks later and our new-used truck is looking good.

Our Mechanics proudly stand beside their work.

Photo for Mom

2008-06-26T14:48:00.004-06:00

I was speaking with my Mom on the phone and said I'd send her a photo of what it looked like at the very moment. Turns out there was a nice sunset.

World Order

2008-06-26T14:05:00.003-06:00

I am heading to Malawi for a week and I am pushing to get some things accomplished before I go.

Meanwhile, the Zimbabwe run-off election due to take place tomorrow, June 27, 2008, yet the winner of the first round of elections has pulled out due to the level of violence in the country, I read this article and it really made me think twice about the 'World Order' that the west seems to be pushing for. How does someone like Mugabe view the efforts?

Is it a matter of suffering a bit now for a good future, or is it idealism that will never bare fruition?

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Africa's unjust deserts; The world has spent billions in its attempt to punish those who have perpetrated horrendous crimes against their fellow Africans. But is this effort paying off? Globe and Mail correspondent Stephanie Nolen finds that not only is international justice a Catch-22, prompting unwanted leaders to cling to power, the redress it offers isn't even what the people really want

The Globe and Mail
Sat 14 Jun 2008
Page: F1
Section: Focus
Byline: Stephanie Nolen

JOHANNESBURG -- the first, electric days after Robert Mugabe lost the opening round of Zimbabwe's presidential election, it seemed as though he might simply accept defeat and step down. His family and closest advisers were telling him that, after 28 years in office, it was time to go. He opened secret negotiations with the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) on a deal that would guarantee his party a share of power, provide him with a peaceful retirement and, crucially, make him immune to prosecution for crimes committed during his long and troubled tenure.
The MDC was amenable, and a tentative optimism took hold of Zimbabwe. But then, six days after the March 29 vote, Mr. Mugabe emerged from a long meeting with his "politburo" in Harare, vowing to fight a run-off election and saying he'd soon be sworn in for a sixth straight term.
Call it the Charles Taylor Effect.
Over the next few weeks, the story of Mr. Mugabe's about-face gradually emerged: Stunned and embittered at his loss, he had been prepared to go, but those around him - in particular, the five generals known as "the securocrats" who oversee the armed forces, the prison service and the police - refused to let him.
"The Old Man is staying," a senior member of his ZANU-PF party told The Globe and Mail, "because I'm not ending up in The Hague."
Once again, the long arm of international law had reached into the heart of an African conflict and extinguished the possibility of a quick and peaceful resolution. Zimbabwe provides the latest evidence that a concept heralded as a way to bring justice to ordinary Africans, but driven by a largely Western- based hunger for prosecution, can instead prolong their misery. Mr. Mugabe might have been offered a deal, guaranteed by South African President Thabo Mbeki. But the men and women who had carried out his orders during a decade-long campaign of abuse against his perceived opponents (including executions, mass forced displacements and withholding food aid to the starving) had no faith that they would not end up being prosecuted.
And with good reason. I have satellite TV, the ZANU-PF boss said. I have seen Charles Taylor on trial. And it's not going to be me.
Mr. Taylor, one of the modern era's truly notorious figures, presided over a civil war in Liberia in which boy soldiers were deliberately addicted to drugs and sent (often tricked out in wild wigs and wedding dresses) to rape, pillage and murder, even members of their own families. From his seat in Monrovia, Mr. Taylor not only laid waste to Liberia, he visited his personal brand of devastation on much of West Africa, sending his forces into Sierra Leone, Guinea and the Ivory Coast in search of diamond and timber riches to salt away in his European bank accounts.
In 2003, painstaking efforts to broker peace in Liberia were under way when a special court set up by the United Nations to try war crimes in Sierra Leone indicted Mr. Taylor for crimes against humanity because of his role in that country's brutal civil war.
The peace process recovered, barely, and eventually Mr. Taylor accepted a deal, brokered by Mr. Mbeki and other African heavyweights: He got retirement in a villa by the sea in Nigeria, and Liberia got peace. The country voted in Africa's first female head of state, donor money poured in and, while people remained outrageously poor, it was a time of greater promise than any living Liberian could recall.
That was all well and good, except that Mr. Taylor's continuing freedom flew in the face of efforts to bring a new era of accountability to Africa, under the banner of "international justice."
Liberia's new President, Ellen Sirleaf-Johnson, pleaded with the world to leave Mr. Taylor alone, fearing his arrest would reignite the civil war. But she came under heavy pressure from the United States, as did the Nigerians who finally arrested Mr. Taylor in 2006 as he was trying to flee, and shipped him to Sierra Leone to stand trial. With his appearance in Freetown - a moment so stunning, so unprecedented in Africa, that people stood six deep on rooftops to watch his vehicle roll by - the era of international justice really began. Before long, he was transferred to The Hague, purportedly for security reasons, although many saw it as an admission that the West was really behind the trial. Mr. Taylor, who stole billions from Liberia, claimed destitution, so hundreds of thousands of dollars were spent to provide him with a skilled defence. No more impunity, cried the human-rights activists: There will be justice for victims.
Lost in the hullabaloo were quieter voices warning that trying Mr. Taylor - and breaking the promise of asylum he was given - just might not be the best thing for Africa.
"I kept making this point," says Peter Kagwanja, who now heads the Africa Polity Institute, a think tank in Nairobi, but was working for a major human- rights organization when Mr. Taylor was arrested.
He says he was the sole African in the debate and, no coincidence, the only one who argued that "it is right in principle to punish Taylor and to find a way of getting Taylor to pay, because allowing him to go scot-free builds the culture of impunity. But I said, 'Let them get Taylor the hell out, let him rest comfortably in Nigeria where they can be in charge of him - let Liberia have peace.' "I said, 'Whatever you do in Liberia has direct implications for Zimbabwe.' Because we knew even then Mugabe was paving his way out. If the promises given to Taylor were broken and he ended up in The Hague ... now you trace the unravelling of Zimbabwe to the contravention of those promises."

CHILD OF NUREMBERG
The world's first experiment with international justice was the Nuremberg trials in the late 1940s. The end of the Cold War made it possible to talk about regional, and then international, courts, and by the mid-1990s the concept was discussed most often in the context of Africa. It was intended as a system that would punish the worst atrocities - those that transgressed universal ideas of human rights; it would act where individual governments could not or would not, and it would end the sense of impunity that seemed to allow the most savage crimes to be committed in Africa, in one country after another, by leaders who were never called to account.
After the genocide in Rwanda in 1994, the international community, which had stood by and watched as 800,000 people were hacked to death in 90 days, stepped forward and offered up a United Nations criminal tribunal for the alleged perpetrators, housed in a vast, air-conditioned building, all blond wood and high-tech gizmos. Twelve years and an estimated $1.2-billion later, it has obtained 25 convictions. The Rwandan tribunal established some important precedents: For the first time, rapists were found guilty of a war crime; suspects were arrested abroad and returned to Africa to face trial; members of the clergy were convicted for any roles they had played.
But almost from the start, it was also clear that the tribunal would be considered a failure - or, at best, not considered at all - by those most affected: Rwandans. The court sits two days' drive away in Tanzania; for the first seven years, it neither made its judgments available in Kinyarwandan, the language of Rwandans, nor did any outreach with them. It was achingly slow and outrageously expensive and few Rwandans polled saw it as justice for what was done.
Nevertheless, the tribunal (and the simultaneous international tribunal for war crimes in the former Yugoslavia) led to a hybrid "special court," half UN and half local, which indicted a dozen leaders of Sierra Leone rebel groups who prosecutors argued bore command responsibility for atrocities in the civil war.
Then, in 2002, came the International Criminal Court (ICC), a permanent tribunal based in The Hague, created by a treaty ratified by 106 countries (the U.S. is the notable resister) and given a mandate to try cases involving war crimes and genocide. All 12 of the people it has indicted so far are African. Thomas Lubanga Dyilo, a Congolese rebel leader accused of recruiting child soldiers, was to appear in the ICC's first trial on June 23, but this week his case was postponed a third time.
The ICC is working on cases in five African countries, and its proponents say high-profile trials will build true protection for human rights. Until now, countries such as Sierra Leone and Liberia have had "a culture of low expectations: The ones who are powerful will get away with whatever they want," says Corinne Dufka, a former investigator for Sierra Leone's special court who now monitors that country and Liberia for Human Rights Watch.
"That has practical implications for democracy. People also expect impunity for corruption. ... In Sierra Leone, the efficacy of the special court in helping to establish the rule of law, which is the bedrock for a peaceful society, is very hard to judge - and won't be judged by the indictment or acquittal of 10 people. It's much longer-term." That may be true - but Ms. Dufka, while hugely respected for her knowledge of the conflict, is an American, and a remarkable number of those who support the court and other forms of international justice are also outsiders. In Africa, critics are more common: They accuse the ICC and other international-justice initiatives of derailing prospects for peace in some of the more intractable conflicts, deepening the gulf between states such as Sudan and the West, and being highly political and subject to a Western agenda. Perhaps most gravely, they say, the courts have done little or nothing at all for victims.
"I'm not putting a price tag on justice, but whose justice is this?" asks John Caulker, who heads an organization called the Forum for Conscience in Freetown. "In whose interest do we have the ICC? I should not be saying this, as a human-rights advocate, but when I put on my Sierra Leonean hat, I have to ask: Is this justice to please the international community or to meet the needs of ordinary Sierra Leoneans?" He runs reconciliation programs in which he meets thousands of people who suffered horribly but know they will never receive redress: " 'Yes,' these people say, 'the court is trying those of greatest responsibility, but every day in the road, I have to live with the person who did all the things to me.' "

NIGHT OF TERROR
The young man who "did things" to Kadiatu Fofanah may still live nearby, but, mercifully, she says, she would not recognize him. Late one night in January, 1999, when the brutal Revolutionary United Front (RUF) seized Freetown, a rebel soldier who she believes was no more than a teenager burst into the room where she was hiding with her children. He shoved the kids out of the way and used a machete to cut off both of her legs at mid- thigh. Incredibly, she survived the night, and in the morning, neighbours took her to the hospital, where medics gave her the little morphine they had left and stitched over what remained of her legs.
She now lives with her husband and nine children in a little yellow bungalow an hour outside Freetown. The house is part of an "amputee village" erected by a Norwegian aid group - a suburban idyll on he grimmest of foundations. She survives by selling candy to passersby and begging every Friday in the capital.
In 2002, even as the war-crimes tribunal was setting up shop, Sierra Leone launched a truth and reconciliation commission to try to establish the root causes of the war and promote healing. Ms. Fofanah was one of the first to testify - she wanted to hear as much as she could about those who had led the boy who maimed her.
She also used to listen to the proceedings of the special court on the radio, but soon gave up in frustration. She understands that the court has a larger purpose - to enforce the idea of accountability - and will prosecute nine or 10 ringleaders while the country's peace deal gives all other offenders amnesty. "They are trying these ones to make the others become afraid."
However, she adds bluntly, "That is good for them, but not for me. We amputees have been told to forgive and forget to sustain the peace. But what makes me forget is having something to eat and my kids going to school - so they can ... bring me something to survive. That's what would allow me to forget."
Ms. Fofanah sees the elaborate court building (like some Frank Gehry knockoff plunked into a rubbish-choked city) and its parking lot jammed with SUVs. She hears that the trials have cost $150-million thus far and sees in newspaper photographs that the accused have gained weight and smart wardrobes while in jail.
"They should have spent money on all of us, taken care of us, and then run a special court," she says, shifting in her wheelchair, a gesture of discomfort she repeats all day long. "Then things would have been good for the country."

A COURT ABUSED
International justice is a disappointment in Sierra Leone, but many people in war-ravaged northern Uganda describe it as a complete disaster.
In 2005, the ICC issued its first-ever indictments, against Joseph Kony and four of his senior commanders in the Lord's Resistance Army. Since he began his rebel movement more than 20 years ago, Mr. Kony, a self-styled prophet, has ordered the abduction of tens of thousands of children and terrorized them into fighting a savage 21-year war.
Ostensibly, he seeks to oust the government, but rather than fight Ugandan soldiers, he attacks his own people.
The ICC began to investigate just as mediator Betty Bigombe, who had spent years of building trust on both sides, was negotiating a truce and persuading the combatants to talk. With the announcement of the investigation, the LRA immediately withdrew from peace talks. Just like the securocrat in Zimbabwe, Mr. Kony told Ms. Bigombe he would never end up in The Hague.
The court had been invited to Uganda by its President, Yoweri Museveni, and agreed to step in even though it has a mandate to act only when a local justice system can't or won't, and Uganda's is quite robust. But Mr. Museveni was only a half-hearted supporter of the peace process, and with this move - which even proponents of international justice such as Richard Dicker of Human Rights Watch call a "shrewd" use of the court - he wound up with ample excuse to continue military offensives against the LRA.
Later that year, a peace agreement in Sudan cost the rebels their haven there, and soon there was another window of opportunity for a ceasefire. Lengthy negotiations culminated in a deal that was to be signed two months ago. But once again, the indictments got in the way. "The ICC has made it impossible for Joseph Kony and any of his commanders who think they are going to be imminently indicted to come out," says specialist Erin Baines, an expert on Uganda and transitional justice with the Liu Centre for Global Issues at the University of British Columbia.
Indictments can be suspended, and last year Mr. Museveni - under pressure for having called in the court - asked it to do so, but prosecutor Luis Moreno- Ocampo refused. Peace negotiators were trying to offer Mr. Kony a judicial process in Uganda instead, which could include traditional truth-telling and reconciliation rituals, but he reportedly was certain he would be handed over to the ICC - that Charles Taylor Effect again.
And so today, Prof. Baines says, Mr. Kony is out rearming his forces and abducting new child soldiers. He now operates in the Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo and Sudan, which, with Uganda, are the only countries whose governments have invited in the ICC. As a result, she says, "you have these rebel leaders saying, 'We have nothing else to do except band together and find new ways of fuelling our movements.' "
Matthew Brubacher, a Uganda-based analyst with the ICC, says he understands the concern, but there is no proof the indictments are anything but an excuse for Mr. Kony to dodge a peace deal. "The fact is that the court is not a political institution; we can take matters of security into consideration in terms of victims and witnesses, but our overall decision making is determined by the crimes and the responsibilities of the perpetrators.
"If the court becomes embroiled in political matters" - such as its impact on a peace process - "then we lose our independence."
For the more than one million Ugandans living in wretched refugee camps because of the war, this sort of debate is an absurd luxury. When people survey the civilians of northern Uganda, those who have lived through the war for more than a generation, justice barely registers as a priority. They want peace. Prosecution is also fine - until it starts getting in the way.
When nearly 3,000 Ugandans were polled by the International Centre for Transitional Justice last year, they listed their top priorities as peace, health care, education for their children and the ability to farm their land. A mere 3 per cent chose justice. Asked what should be done with those responsible for major human-rights abuses, more than half said they wanted "forgiveness, reconciliation, or reintegration for LRA leaders." Just 22 per cent said they wanted them tried, and, if convicted, sent to prison. Asked if they favoured peace with amnesty or peace with trials, 80 per cent of respondents chose peace with amnesty.
"What constitutes justice for people is not necessarily prosecution," says Moses Okello, a Kampala-based expert in international human-rights law. "Of course, people want some accountability done, but in northern Uganda it plays out like this: 'You killed my father, or you abducted me and I lost the chance to go to school, I can't get a job, I'm basically a basket case - it does not make sense for government to take you away to jail. If we work something out locally, there will be compensation for what I went through.'
"We're not saying that accountability is not important, but it can also take the form of taking responsibility for the livelihood of the families of the aggrieved."
Although institutions such as the ICC see justice as a civic or political affair, Mr. Okello, who heads a program on transitional justice and is from northern Uganda, says many Africans see it as a social and economic issue, a perspective he considers equally valid.
But Tim Allen, a professor of development studies at the London School of Economics who has studied northern Uganda for decades, argues that implicit in this argument is the abhorrent idea that somehow northern Ugandans are less deserving of having their human rights defended. "Using 'traditional justice' risks implying that ... northern Ugandans need their own special justice measures, because they are not yet ready for modern ones," he wrote recently in defence of the court.
For Prof. Baines, however, all of this debate misses the underlying point. "There are two different languages and even when people are trying to attempt to listen to victims and ask what want for justice, they ask, 'Is it trials or truth commissions?' instead of really trying to understand how they might be defining justice in really different ways. Maybe justice is 'I want to bury my dead and move on,' or, 'Honestly, I want to forget.' "
Corinne Dufka, the veteran investigator into Sierra Leone's war, says that ideas of justice imposed from outside may not always be consistent with local ones, but she "can live with" some paternalism. "Most Sierra Leoneans I ask say that [RUF leader] Foday Sankoh should have been tortured and hung, that the rebels should have had their limbs amputated - if you go just by what people say, the bar would be set pretty low. One man's paternalism is another man's entrenchment of basic human rights. Dismembering Foday Sankoh is not okay."

EASY TARGETS
If the ICC's first steps in Uganda were awkward, the warrants issued since have done little to improve its reputation.
Last month, human-rights groups heralded the arrest in Belgium of Jean-Paul Bemba, a former rebel leader and vicepresident in the Democratic Republic of Congo, as a sign that, in Mr. Dicker's words, "no one is above the law."
But supporters of Mr. Bemba, who is to stand trial before the ICC for abuses committed in neighbouring Central African Republic, staged angry demonstrations in Kinshasa, arguing that, if he is a suspect, so is DRC President Joseph Kabila. Others warned that his arrest represents a serious threat to the Congo's fragile peace.
"It's a risk to stability," says Mr. Kagwanja of the Nairobi think tank. "Bemba is a key player; he and Kabila could talk, and they're arresting him when the eastern part of country is already in flames - they are setting so many fires."
But the ICC depends on the government to be able to operate in DRC, he notes, so it is unlikely to move against Mr. Kabila or anyone in his administration. Similarly, both Ugandan President Museveni and Rwandan leader Paul Kagame have been implicated in the atrocities committed by their armies in eastern Congo. "They have indicted those who were politically easy to get, not necessarily the most responsible," Prof. Baines says.
By its very existence, she argues, the ICC risks entrenching dictators. "They all know they cannot leave power: Museveni cannot leave. He's just as guilty for crimes committed in Congo. Where's he going to go?" Two years ago, he pushed through an amendment to Uganda's constitution ensuring he could run repeatedly for office again. "Where's Kabila going to go? ... There's the moral high ground and then there's reality."
Yet, at the same time, it is impossible to evaluate the ICC and other international attempts to bring justice on the basis of what hasn't happened - which warlords did not abduct children, or send their armies into diamond fields - because the courts now exist and could indict such people.
And without prosecution, what's left?
Deal-making, say critics of the rigidity of international justice: some shade of grey.
William Schabas, a Canadian legal expert who sat on Sierra Leone's truth and reconciliation commission, says the courts can't see past a "knee-jerk, mechanistic" definition of justice. He recalls hearing a group of visiting activists in South Africa recently remark with satisfaction that "what happened in South Africa in the early 1990s would never be allowed to happen now."
They were referring to South Africa's decision to grant amnesty to former apartheid-era officials and liberation fighters who had committed abuses, in exchange for full disclosure before its truth and reconciliation hearings. Prof. Schabas, who now runs a human-rights centre at the National University of Ireland, was astounded.
"I said, 'What happened in South Africa in the early 1990s was the best thing to happen in my lifetime.' " The activists, he says, ignored the fact the amnesty allowed a transition from a vicious, intractable conflict to a peaceful, democratic, remarkably functional state.
And South Africa is not alone. People such as Mr. Dicker of Human Rights Watch contend that accountability is required for a true and durable peace. But there are countries across Africa, such as Namibia and Mozambique, that have built strong democratic institutions and the rule of law without revisiting atrocities during their civil wars.

CAST OUT THE DEVIL
Outside Freetown, in the yellow bungalow next door to Kadiatu Fofanah, Sosie Sawaneh does his best to raise his nine children; at 65, he struggles to work a small field since the RUF amputated his left arm in 1999. He was a witness for the prosecution at the trial of the RUF leaders and, although he bemoans his reduced circumstances, he admires the special court, which he says "has done great work for the country."
"If they were not around, somebody would kill another person and believe they would go free," he says. "Because the special court came and tried some of these people, others are now afraid - and that is a great thing for the country. "
In the eastern Congo, one side effect of Thomas Lubanga Dyilo's arrest and pending trial is that it is now widely understood that recruiting children to fight is illegal. Although in the short term that means rebel leaders now hide their underage fighters when child- protection authorities come to their camps, it may discourage the practice in the long term.
But Mr. Kagwanja suspects that these are slim victories. "Africans don't trust the court - it is a Western court that might be doing its duty, but it is undermining the process of stabilizing the continent from decades of chaos."
Ask Zimbabweans what they think of the Charles Taylor Effect, he says. They want Robert Mugabe gone, and if that takes a seaside villa and a gentle retirement, if it takes a blanket amnesty for his henchmen, fine. "If the devil has to exist somewhere, let him be" - just get him out of Zimbabwe.

Stephanie Nolen is The Globe and Mail's Africa correspondent, based in Johannesburg.

Mr. Thomas

2008-06-11T11:54:00.005-06:00

It's a cool grey morning in Lusaka. My friend Thomas passed away two days ago at the age of 40.

A few things come to mind when I think about Thomas. Tough as nails is the first. This is a guy who built a warehouse almost single handedly, and could write with a welding stick just as clearly as he can write with a pen. And after welding some metal, even though it was scorching hot, he would pick it up with his bare hand and then dip it in water before letting me touch it. I always thought of my grandfather growing up in rugged conditions when I watched Thomas work.

He numbered the beams...1, 2, 3, 4, etc with weld.

Caring is another word to describe Thomas. My second day of work he took me aside and told me that Zambian women just want you for your money, so take care, and definitely don't spend the night with one unless you first go to the clinic to get a blood test (to check HIV). Just one week ago I was in town purchasing various things with him and on the way one of the street vendors that I know was trying to sell me something, Thomas didn't know my history with the guy so he figured this vendor was trying to take advantage of me. The look in Thomas' eyes was of pure vigor, he was protecting me. It is really hard to read most Zambians, and the same is true for Thomas, I couldn't really tell if our relationship meant as much to him as it meant to me, so seeing him stand up for me with conviction was proof to me that we had created a good relationship...even though we hardly showed it to each other.

Another image that is crystal clear in my mind is the way he 'show boated' when we finally got a new drill for him to use. The drill took 3 weeks to arrive and when we went to pick it up, the drill came in a nice case, which resembled a sort of briefcase. When I handed it over to him, he opened it up, smiled, then after inspecting he closed it and pretended he was a business man, or more acurately, he pretended to be the boss and proceeded to point at some of us and deliver a few commonly used phrases that our boss uses. It was priceless, especially coming from a guy who is so quiet and humble.

So now Thomas has passed away. He died of TB, and he was HIV positive. The cause of death sounds like a broken record here in Zambia.

As for development, this represents the root of the problem. Short life expectancy.

There are other employees here who have great potential, they, like Thomas, have built up knowledge and skills over their life time and if they were living in Canada they would easily have another 25 years of productive time before feeling the need to retire. I can't say with certainty that they won't follow a similar path.

It is easy to accuse people of making poor choices.

I honestly think that if I were in their shoes I would make the same choices. I mean, imagine if I were born into a situation where I've never been able to afford a vehicle, but I see others driving them and having a good time; I've never been outside of the city, although I hear about all the beautiful places that exist in my country; I see people eating at restaurants and I'm only able to afford going once a year. In short, the things that may seem pleasurable to me are out of my reach. Surely I would make the best of the situation, enjoying visiting friends and family etc. When it comes to alcohol, and if it costs less than $.25 a beer, maybe I can rationalize a few drinks throughout the week to make my life seem better.

Then there is sex. Surely this is a pleasure that is sacred, and luckily enough, can be enjoyed by those of both high and low income. As for condoms, most Zambian's are at least vaguely aware of them (no thanks to USAID in recent years). But why would you reduce the amount of pleasure? What is the risk? The knowledge of HIV is relatively low and relatively unthreatening. It is a disease that is slow and hidden such that others don't see it or really fear it. Nobody even dies of HIV, the cause of death is TB or malaria or something else, which just happens to kill you because your immune system is weak. So when it comes time to decide about safe sex, the risk seems fairly low. Then there is the issue with women. Women seem to be at higher risk yet have very little say in most relationships.

We are leaving for the funeral in a few minutes. I fear for the future of his baby girl. His wife will be left with very little, the house they rent will soon be unaffordable, the furnature will be sold off along with any other assets. She will likely try to sell food at the market, but in the end she will likely try to find another husband, one that may or may not treat her well, and the baby girl will likely be a very low priority in his mind. What choice does she have? Maybe one of her parents are still alive and she can go live with them?

When I visited their house 3 months ago I was welcomed with big smiles and an ice cold coca-cola. I was impressed with the nicely painted rooms (both of them) and the modern furniture that was very clean, bright red and was free of stains or rips in the material.

What I realize today is how fragile that impression was.