Thursday, November 26, 2009

Our Project


The Lusuntha Economic and Agricultural Development Project (LEAD)



LEAD Project
PO Box 530376
Lundazi, Zambia

Phone: +260 979 121 697
Website: https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=resources.donors.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=611-051




A Village in Need
The village of Lusuntha lies on the border between Malawi and Zambia. To the ten thousand people who call this place home, little is known of the opportunites that exist outside the village. They accept that the earth is barren and incapable of providing the nutrition they need. They accept that half their children will die before their fifth birthday, mainly from malnutrition and related diseases.
Unaware of modern farming techniques that can revitalise the soil, the people of Lusuntha cannot provide enough food and nutrition to feed their families and raise their children. This is not their fault. Infertile soils lead to poor crop yields; poor crop yields mean low incomes; and low incomes mean hunger, poverty and an inability to gain the knowledge and resources necessary to better agricultural techniques. Sinking further into the dark spiral of poverty, the parents of Lusuntha are forced to watch their children grow up malnourished and starved – literally dying of hunger.
The fact that such a cycle exists in the 21st Century, the fact that children cannot live to see their fifth birthday, is a tragedy that can and must be stopped.

The Circle of Life
As hopeless as the situation may seem, it can be stopped. The soil can be improved and the cycle can be broken. Sustainable agricultural techniques (commonly referred to as organic farming) allow farmers to produce crops indefinitely while replenishing soil nutrients. By recycling crop and livestock waste, employing nitrogen fixing plants, and increasing seed diversity, the stewards of Lusuntha can bring everlasting fertility to the earth and soil. Thus the cycle breaks: fertile soils result in higher crop yields; higher crop yields lead to increased incomes; and increased incomes mean improved health, more education and better farming techniques. The Zambian countryside contains all the sun and water required for organic farming, all that is needed is the spark of knowledge. By equipping the community with the knowledge and seed necessary for sustainable farming practices, we can provide a brighter future for the families and children of Lusuntha for years to come. But if we do not act now, the lives of Lusuntha are doomed to wither away alongside their crops.

How will it work?
The Lusuntha Economic & Agricultural Development (LEAD) Project, in partnership with the Zambian Association for Sustainable Projects (ZASP), will provide training in agricultural techniques that empower local farmers – endowing them with the knowledge and skills necessary to farm sustainably. LEAD also plans to supply comprehensive education in business, nutrition and HIV/AIDS prevention and care. Beginning in 2010, LEAD will provide a wide range of seed for soil-friendly and highly nutritional crops, such as beans, soy, and peanuts. In order to maintain sustainability all participants will return an equal amount of seed after harvest, further extending the number of beneficiaries reached by the LEAD project.

Who will benefit?
Within the first two years, LEAD will help under-privileged Zambian families (those either currently headed by widows or are orphan caretakers) to develop their own lucrative and sustainable agricultural projects. By 2013, a projected 120 families will have been trained in conservation farming techniques and provided with a wide variety of seed. Expansion will occur after 2012 and with oversight by ZASP, the Swedish funded NGO founded in 1991, residing 12 kilometers from Lusuntha village.





The Chicken and The Egg
The LEAD project can end the crippling malnutrition and starvation plaguing Lusuntha today, bettering the lives and condition of its citizens for many years to come. However, we can not do this without your support.
In order to maintain sustainability and ensure the project continues to help people for many years to come, LEAD plans to set up a non-profit chicken and egg business that will generate the funds needed to pay for seeds and training. In order to do this, LEAD needs $4000 to pay for the materials, chicken, and feed necessary to start the egg business. We need your help to raise this money and to start providing the endless gift of knowledge.
Your donation to LEAD is crucial to the development and implementation of the project and without it the citizens of Lusuntha will never rise above destructive poverty. Every dollar donated to the LEAD project helps!

What is Microfinance?
Microfinance provides small loans to community members who cannot access traditional bank loans. The community decides which group member will receive a loan, and the repayment is made directly back to the community so new loans can be provided. If the money is not repaid then it is the debtors’ family, friends and neighbours who will suffer. Because of these social pressures, repayment rates for microfinance schemes around the world average 98%.

A Brighter Future – with your support!
By August 2012, LEAD aims to have helped over 100 families deemed most at risk become self-sustainable in the practice and business of sustainable agriculture. Once the projected number is reached, LEAD plans to expand its loaning program to include other environmentally and culturally sustainable businesses, on a microfinance basis.
Our project uses the principals of microfinance to increase the community’s ability to better their income, nutrition and lifestyle. It focuses on providing community members with very small loans – generally no larger than $100 – in concert with specialized training. The power of microfinance comes from its ability to provide financial support to those people completely unfamiliar with our western financial traditions. It does this by specifically tailoring those services to fit the traditions of a certain culture or society. So instead of lower credit scores, fines, bankruptcy, etcetera being the driving force for loan repayment, motivation comes from social forces already existing and familiar within that community. With repayment rates averaging 98% throughout the world, this system of development insures the betterment of lives for many, many years to come!


To donate please visit our website at https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=resources.donors.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=611-051.

THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!

Friday, August 7, 2009

A salad.

Ok. Lets start with something simple. A salad. These ingredients are
in no way easily available in Zambia, so this probably isn't the best
representation of make-due-with-what-you-have Zambian cooking. As time
goes on I'll bring harder to make, more elaborate recipies, but lets
begin with food easily found in western supermarkets. Most of these
ingredients were found in a Lusaka supermarket, and yet with no
iceburg lettuce or fancy dressing, concessions were made. What follows
is the recipie written as cooked. Feel free to subsistute the blander
parts with fresher, tastier components.

What you need:
200g haloumi cheese
1 pkg bacon
2 large avocados
1/4 cup unshelled sunflower seeds
1 med head cabbage
3 lg carrots
1 cup mushrooms
3 lg tomatoes
1/3 cup black olives
green beans
olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

Fry bacon and set aside on a paper towel. Slice the cheese roughly one
quarter of an inch thick and pan fry on a dry pan until brown. Cut
veggies, cheese and bacon, cube avocadoes and combine. Top with olive
oil and sunflower seeds. Add salt and pepper to taste. Thats it. Easy.
Simple. Edible.

Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Sans-Fluff

OK. I gotta be honest with you: I don’t like this blog. I don’t like writing it and I sure as hell wouldn’t like reading it if I was on the other end. Now, I’m sure this sounds negative and pouty, but there’s good reason behind my blog-aversion. My everyday life in Zambia has become just that – everyday life. And while it might sound interesting to you, it’s not all that fantastic to me. I love living here, don’t get me wrong, but how many times can I write about mud walls, wells and pit latrines? You try writing a blog about your kitchen sink and toilet and see how far you get. What about work? I certainly could write loads about that, right? Yeah, I could – but I’m not going to. Peace Corps work – and I’ve made peace with this – Peace Corps work is a difficult endeavor mired in cancellations and corruption. Again, don’t get me wrong, I have had successes; I do have a good ending or two, but its frustrating getting there. And while I still believe in development work, I’ve turned somewhat cynical – and nobody wants to read about that. So I’m leaving work out too.

Then what? Why have a blog if I’m not gonna write anything? It’s just gonna take up cyberspace and the time you invest in checking it. I previously intended to simply delete this fluff blog and forgo the frustration of trying to think up another inane post. Long story short, I was talked out of it. I’ll be keeping the blog, but instead of the usual dribble I’ll be writing about a new founded passion: cooking.

As I’m sure most of you know, I love dining out and did it quite often back in the states. Unfortunately this hobby has completely lost its appeal since all the restaurants in Zambia serve exactly the same thing – nshima with chicken or nshima with beef. I was soon confronted with the question, who will make my pizzas? My tacos? My charbroiled avocado double cheeseburgers with garlic fries? These became deeply troubling issues. And while I was physically sated eating the same vegetable stir-fry night after night, dreams of fettuccine Alfredo and my mom’s chicken casserole became more intense as time went on.

Enter John Crockett, a Welshmen with an enthusiasm for cooking. Volunteering for VSO, he and his Spanish girlfriend, Betty Alie, work in the nearby township of Lundazi. The international couple has continually shown us an incredible degree of hospitality, frequently opening house and stocked kitchen to me and my fellow Peace Corps comrades. Over the past eight months John has taken me under his culinary wing, instructing me on recipes such as curry, risotto, and quiche. But, as all things in Zambia, cooking isn’t a straight forward practice. Being 150 miles from the nearest supermarket, we are forced to be inventive, making simple ingredients entirely from scratch. The total and complete lack of ricotta cheese, egg noodles, and jam frequently leads us to find ourselves curdling milk, rolling dough, and preserving fruits. And while these practices are frequently time consuming and somewhat bothersome, the situation only gets worse in the village. With no refrigerator, no oven, and no stove, the methods of preserving and cooking food become even more extravagant and creative. Making bread, pies, and burritos on a charcoal brazier isn’t impossible, just requires time, patience, and the ability to stomach failure.

So that’s it. Over the next two years, I’ll be bringing you tried and tested recipes from the African bush. It’ll be fun. Well, more fun than the pit latrine stories.

Oh and if you want to read blogs about development check out John’s blog, http://www.devex.com/blogs/208 . He’s much better at it than I am.

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Highs and Lows

Hi all,

I'm sorry that I can't update more regularly (its hard to access the slow and bulky blogger out here) and I'm sorry but this isn't going to be a long post.

A lot has happen in the past three months. I went to Spain with LeeAnn and had a fantastic and wonderful week with her there. We went to Madrid for three nights and the southern Seviea for four. It was so good to see her and I'm already missing again. But life moves on and here I find myself back in Zambia.

Site has been quite nice. My village has been granted three new boreholes (clean water sites) in the past month! Its definitely a step up since, as it is right now, nearly 1600 people depend on one clean water source - and as you can imagine its very very crowded and over used. So much so that children (who commonly fetch the water) will collect water from polluted streams and ponds instead of waiting in the long lines. This is extremely dangerous. Many families do not have pit latrines and instead use the great outdoors as their toliet - resulting in human feces to be washed into the streams. These two conditions makes cholera and diarreaha an very very common threat. So you can see how the boreholes are a very very welcomed addition to our community.

I'm looking on a much lonelier service here in Zambia. Before I left for Spain, one of my very best friends, Aman, was sent home for medical reasons. And while it was disappointing, I tried to keep my head up, being grateful that I still had any friends at all here in the bush. Unfortunately, again, I recieved word that my other very close PCV friend Nick is also being sent home for medical reasons. I'm looking at returning to site in a sad light. Both were integral parts of my service and have helped me through the toughest of times and celebrated the best. I'm continuing to plug on - I know it'll get better, but here and now, its looking a little dismal and dark.

Sorry for the downer, but unfortunately life out here in the bush isn't all smiles and laughs. Hopefully next post I can be a bit more positive. Sending my love and best wishes to all!

--Ryan

Friday, February 6, 2009

I know, I know - its been a while

February 6, 2009

Hey everyone!

So below is an entry I wrote a week ago. I wrote it on a friend’s computer and planned to upload it the same day but - as usual - things didn’t go as planned, formats were confused, and it all ended in epic failure. Read it, its all good stuff.

Again I’m in the Lundazi BOMA taking care of some work. I had to go to Chipata this week to - yet again - take care of my visa (it’s an unnerving, recurring situation I’d rather just not talk about), but I’m back and ready to head home. Nothing much has changed since the entry below - the big extended village run starts today I guess (with occasional trips into the BOMA). Tiger’s doing quite fine (getting kinda fat though) and even proved himself more valuable after he took care of my mouse problem for me! Other than that, I start working (big time working) on Monday with my counterpart and continue to look forward to my reunion trip to Spain with Lee.

Hope all is well at home - and PLEASE email/call/write/comment! I’m parched of all the happenings at home!
Loves,
Ryan
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
January 30,2009
Hi all!
Six months. Six months ago I landed in Zambia. Of course it doesn’t feel like six months – but that was expected. I hate to attach some kind of overarching conclusion to the past half year, simply because I know I still have another year and half to figure this all out. Yet, I feel that I can say – with some semblance of conviction – that Lusuntha, Lundazi, and Zambia now appear not so much as a foreign land, but as a home (of sorts). Like I said, its too early to pick these ideas apart. They’re young and immature – still in the process of development. I’ll let you know when I know more.

So a lot has happen (relatively) since November. The rainy season arrived in December and even though it took a bit of adjusting to, Zambia has flourished into a temperate, lush, green paradise (of sorts). The temperature has cooled, the crops are rising, the fields are green, and the air is clean. I was a little worried about this season, to tell the truth. I pictured it as a 24 hour downpour that would only make life damp, muddy, and miserable, but as it turns out rains generally pound the ground for two or three hours a day and then its back sunny, happy Zambia again. True, it makes drying clothes a little difficult, but it also affords a couple hours of extra sleep in the morning. Because people are so hard at work in their fields during the rainy season, the villages are deserted from 7 am to 10 – leaving me peace, quiet, and an empty to-do list. It’s an extra treat when I wake up in the morning to pounding rains – I just roll over, pull my blanket tight, and sigh knowing I have absolutely no reason to get up. It made not sound all that glorious, but it’s actually one of my favourite recurring moments in the village.

And village life is Good! I’ve put up some posters, bought some sheets for my bed, built a fence, established a routine – overall I think I’ve figured the living thing out. Work is another issue and while I’m working on that, village life has turned into a type of therapy for me. Especially now that the general landscape is so beautiful, I’m walking around the village almost on a high. Again, it’s best that I not pull it apart right now, better that I just appreciate the euphoria – ride the high. While I’ve become incredibly good friends with other volunteers – I always leave my site with a little apprehension/anxiety that is absent in the day to day. Nonetheless I have left my site quite a bit in the last two months.

For the holidays, a group of my really good friends and I went hitchhiking across Malawi and Mozambique. I’m not even going to explain the transport situation getting to the Mozambique coast, all I’m going to say is that it took 48 hours (of which we were moving for 40 hours) in the back of flatbed trucks and through scorching sun, drenching rains, and bouts of dehydration. I don’t want to come off as melodramatic, but: probably one of the worse experiences of my life. Aanyways, once we reached the Mozambique coast, we realized all that hell was worth it. White sandy beaches, clear warm tropical waters, and mounds of seafood and beer greeted us the minute we stepped out of a sardine can that nationals like to call a ‘mini bus’. I’d like to explain more of Ilha de Mocambique (The Isle of Mozambique), but we all agreed the place was so beautiful and strange, we could only covey it through pictures. So, if I can, I’ll try to post some picture – if not, I’ll send a memory card home in a few months. After the Isle, we travelled back across Mozambique into Malawi and spent New Years on the shores of Lake Malawi in a place called Cape MaClear. It’s kind of a tourist destination, so the place was packed with ex-pats, South Africans, and Peace Corps volunteers – making New Years Eve an concrete party. But it was also very relaxing. We went snorkelling among the fresh-water-tropical-fishes, ate much-awaited western foods, and lounged on the beaches with fruity concoctions colored blue and red. Needlesstosay, after two weeks of vacation, returning to my village was the most wonderful thing I’ve done in a long time (sorry again for the melodrama – but, again, its true). Unfortunately, we only had a week to decompress at home before we had to return to Lusaka for training.

I’m not going to say much for training. Consider this: 30 twenty-something-year-olds, who are all very good friends, emerge from rural isolation into a metropolitan city where they spend a week together, training during the day and catching up at night. It was a lot fun and I was very glad to see everyone again - but, again, I was very happy to return to the peaceful, relaxing village I now call home.

And back to now. Now I’m sitting in Lundazi, writing this entry, before I go back home for a month and a half. Again, I am thrilled to go back. I can’t wait to see tiger, garden, read, write, relax, and – most of all – really start working. It’s going to be a long haul, but at the end of that month and a half I’m flying to Spain and spending a week with LeeAnn!!!

That’s it. All in all, things are going very well. I’ve found my place, found some work, and found some really great friends. But while things are good here, I miss my friends and family more than ever. I think about you guys everyday and am so grateful for all the support you have lent me. I hope all is well at home and I would love to hear from you all. Call me (+260979121697), write me (P.O. Box 530376 Lundazi, Zambia, Africa), email me (ryaneugenekeating@gmail.com) , or even just leave a comment – I’m itching for some news. Thanks all!!!

that guy in Africa, what’s his name? oh yeah,
Ryan