Chris was able to arrange a “farm stay” for us through iDE (International Development Enterprises) in western Zambia, just east of Kafue National Park. This was a novel experience for all parties involved as Brianne and I are far from skilled farmers, iDE and Chris have never set up a farm stay like this before, and the family we stayed with had never met an American.
We coordinated with two iDE employees, Daniel and Gwai, who were heading west from Lusaka to interview several FBA’s (farm business advisers, who are leading farmers in their communities and who receive training from iDE to advise their neighbors and sell them farm inputs like seed or fertilizer), including our hosts, Madam Rem and Mr. Mpofu. We also picked up Moonga, who serves as the regional coordinator working out of Mumbwa. We arrived at our hosts home around 10:30a Thursday morning. Our hosts immediately greeted us in their formal living room with munkoyo - a slightly fermented maize drink that is certainly an acquired taste and one that we failed to acquire during our stay.
After the initial formalities, Daniel, Gwai and Moonga proceeded to train Madam Rem on some FBA-related matters and then we took a walk to survey her fields. We hadn’t really hashed out the details of our stay yet, we didn’t know if we’d just stay one day or two, but when we brought it up Madam Rem was adamant that we stay 3 days, until Sunday. We didn’t want to be rude guests so we agreed and asked Daniel to let Chris know that we’d see them midday Sunday.
Things got real very quickly on the food front. After the iDE guys left, we sat down to more munkoyo, nshima, fried okra and cow bits (lung, intestines, heart, etc.). This meal was carefully prepared and thought out by the family, I’m sure, and I later asked Moonga and he said that they had saved the cow bits for us because this was the best part. I was able to eat a reasonable amount of intestine, at least enough to be polite, but Brianne accidentally grabbed a huge hunk of lung, which she was unable to have more than one bite of. Nshima is ubiquitous in Zambia and is just ground maize with water and serves as the filler for every meal.
After lunch we met the rest of the family. On the farm lived our hosts, Madam Rem and Mr. Mpofu, Aron (their oldest son) and his wife and 2 girls, Miriam and Mary, Fred (2nd son) and his wife (who was pregnant), Mike Jr (3rd son), Felix (4th son) and little Mike (nephew but was being raised there). The also have another son and 3 daughters who were away for school or work.
Life on the farm is certainly tough. They rise with the sun, around 6a, usually don’t eat any breakfast, work until lunch, around noon or 1p, then work until the sun goes down, around 630p. They turn the soil with ox plows, hand fertilize/plant/herbicide/pesticide/lime their land, and pick cotton, tomatoes, potatoes, maize, soy bean, ground nuts, okra and other vegetables all by hand. They survive off of what they grow and sell the surplus, which is a fairly large amount for the family we stayed with as they are successful farmers. The children begin farming around age 10.
Water is fetched from a ground well a mile away using 50 gallon drums and an ox cart. The day I went to help them get water there were 5 men; myself, Aron, Fred, Mike and Felix and it still took us about an hour and a half. I can’t imagine what it’s like when all the boys are at school and the job falls on the shoulders of a single person. Meals are prepared twice daily and always include nshima and sometimes include meat. Everyone there is very tough out of necessity. There are lots of hardships here and the people are very strong as a result.
There is also pretty widespread polygamy throughout this area. It really caught me off guard when on the first day we were there Madam Rem introduced us to her two neighbors and said they were married to the same man. On the second day we played soccer with 20 children, all of them born to the same man and five different mothers. Mr. Mpofu’s brother had four wives and 11 children and counting.
They are also a very tight knit community, lots of their neighbors are blood relatives and they have strong support systems. We met basically every neighbor within two or three miles and some friends and family walked almost 10 miles to meet us and be with the family. We laughed together, asked about each others lives, countries and cultures, told stories and shared many wonderful meals together. We also learned how to properly greet someone (limp-wristed hand shake, left hand supporting the right, no speaking) and how to say “how are you?” and “I’m well” and “star” in Tongan.
Life on these rural Zambian farms constantly ebbs and flows in a way that is foreign to me. There is an abundance of life. The family we stayed with had 10 cows, 25 goats (one of which had a baby while we were there), 35 chickens (two of which were lovingly slaughtered for us after they discovered we like fried chicken a lot more than cow bits), a handful of pigeons (to eat), and 3 dogs. As mentioned, the neighbor family had 26 members (5 mothers, 20 kids, 1 father).
When we woke up each morning, little Mike (10 years old) just headed out with the cattle where he spent his whole day making sure they stayed together and got enough water. Aron and Fred’s wives immediately began cooking for the day in the thatch hut kitchen over an open fire. Everyone else either grabbed a bag full of seed or a pressurized backpack for applying herbicides and headed out into the fields.
There was also an abundance of death. Madam Rem, who gave birth nine times in her kitchen, lost 1 of her children at a young age. Fred’s wife gave birth to twins only a year ago who both died. Getting old here is almost impossible because you need to continue to farm to eat and live. Still, everything continues and there is a feeling that life is what it is on this day and you should live that day to it’s fullest. This was a nice challenge to my planning, future bent mentality.
Chris and Courtney, who only received a short text from Daniel saying you’ll see Erik Sunday, ended up driving out with Moonga to get us on Saturday, because that was our original plan and they had things planned in Lusaka. They arrived while we were at church and their timing was good because church was quite an experience. The church they go to was three miles from their house (everyone walked, including the 20 neighbor kids) and was called the Remnant Jerusalem Christian Church. I don’t know anything about this church and I’m going to refrain from Googling it because it doesn’t make a difference. They had just finished building it several months ago out of mud bricks and mud mortar and it have a thatched roof. There were about five or six families who went to the church, which amounted to about 75 people. All of the fathers of the families served as the pastors or elders and delivered the sermons and lead the dancing.
The church and the teaching was reminiscent of a western Christian church, but the songs and dancing were distinctly African. Chris and I were invited to dance with the elders twice and the dance consisted of keeping to the beat (which didn’t work that well for us) while progressively spinning and waving our staffs faster and harder. Brianne and Courtney danced with the women, the children danced, the youths danced, the young men danced - everyone did a dance. Their enthusiasm for dancing was contagious and the spirit was celebratory and fun. The sermon was straightforward and the pastor delivering was nice enough to preach in English as well as Tongan/Bemba/Shona. Songs seemed to happen randomly as someone from the congregation would just start belting something out and everyone would begin joining in. It was really a beautiful scene to be celebrating God and life with our new friends 20 kilometers off the nearest paved road in the heart of the farming country.
Having some development background from graduate school it was clear to me that there were many hardships that landed our hosts on the radar of aid organizations. The most serious of which was probably the fact that as subsistence farmers they were extremely susceptible to drought. Also, spending many hours a week collecting water certainly cuts into time that can be spent doing income generating activities. Our hosts had their grandchildren monitored by a local NGO who were collecting data on under 5 mortality (U5 is a big deal in development work). World Vision had built a small school room that grades 1 - 7 used. iDE is working with our host to help her generate additional income while helping her neighbors by selling them herbicides and performing farm related services and advice for them while collecting a small commission.
Brianne and I both agreed that we never really felt like we had the good life and these were just poor people. They loved well and enjoyed their work. They smiled, laughed, told stories and sang and danced for hours at church. They were incredible hosts and went to extreme measures to insure that we were comfortable and that we were enjoying our stay. Life takes many forms on this earth and even though our life is very different from theirs we are still friends who can share our experiences, learn from one another, encourage one another and love one another.
We coordinated with two iDE employees, Daniel and Gwai, who were heading west from Lusaka to interview several FBA’s (farm business advisers, who are leading farmers in their communities and who receive training from iDE to advise their neighbors and sell them farm inputs like seed or fertilizer), including our hosts, Madam Rem and Mr. Mpofu. We also picked up Moonga, who serves as the regional coordinator working out of Mumbwa. We arrived at our hosts home around 10:30a Thursday morning. Our hosts immediately greeted us in their formal living room with munkoyo - a slightly fermented maize drink that is certainly an acquired taste and one that we failed to acquire during our stay.
After the initial formalities, Daniel, Gwai and Moonga proceeded to train Madam Rem on some FBA-related matters and then we took a walk to survey her fields. We hadn’t really hashed out the details of our stay yet, we didn’t know if we’d just stay one day or two, but when we brought it up Madam Rem was adamant that we stay 3 days, until Sunday. We didn’t want to be rude guests so we agreed and asked Daniel to let Chris know that we’d see them midday Sunday.
Things got real very quickly on the food front. After the iDE guys left, we sat down to more munkoyo, nshima, fried okra and cow bits (lung, intestines, heart, etc.). This meal was carefully prepared and thought out by the family, I’m sure, and I later asked Moonga and he said that they had saved the cow bits for us because this was the best part. I was able to eat a reasonable amount of intestine, at least enough to be polite, but Brianne accidentally grabbed a huge hunk of lung, which she was unable to have more than one bite of. Nshima is ubiquitous in Zambia and is just ground maize with water and serves as the filler for every meal.
After lunch we met the rest of the family. On the farm lived our hosts, Madam Rem and Mr. Mpofu, Aron (their oldest son) and his wife and 2 girls, Miriam and Mary, Fred (2nd son) and his wife (who was pregnant), Mike Jr (3rd son), Felix (4th son) and little Mike (nephew but was being raised there). The also have another son and 3 daughters who were away for school or work.
Life on the farm is certainly tough. They rise with the sun, around 6a, usually don’t eat any breakfast, work until lunch, around noon or 1p, then work until the sun goes down, around 630p. They turn the soil with ox plows, hand fertilize/plant/herbicide/pesticide/lime their land, and pick cotton, tomatoes, potatoes, maize, soy bean, ground nuts, okra and other vegetables all by hand. They survive off of what they grow and sell the surplus, which is a fairly large amount for the family we stayed with as they are successful farmers. The children begin farming around age 10.
Water is fetched from a ground well a mile away using 50 gallon drums and an ox cart. The day I went to help them get water there were 5 men; myself, Aron, Fred, Mike and Felix and it still took us about an hour and a half. I can’t imagine what it’s like when all the boys are at school and the job falls on the shoulders of a single person. Meals are prepared twice daily and always include nshima and sometimes include meat. Everyone there is very tough out of necessity. There are lots of hardships here and the people are very strong as a result.
There is also pretty widespread polygamy throughout this area. It really caught me off guard when on the first day we were there Madam Rem introduced us to her two neighbors and said they were married to the same man. On the second day we played soccer with 20 children, all of them born to the same man and five different mothers. Mr. Mpofu’s brother had four wives and 11 children and counting.
They are also a very tight knit community, lots of their neighbors are blood relatives and they have strong support systems. We met basically every neighbor within two or three miles and some friends and family walked almost 10 miles to meet us and be with the family. We laughed together, asked about each others lives, countries and cultures, told stories and shared many wonderful meals together. We also learned how to properly greet someone (limp-wristed hand shake, left hand supporting the right, no speaking) and how to say “how are you?” and “I’m well” and “star” in Tongan.
Life on these rural Zambian farms constantly ebbs and flows in a way that is foreign to me. There is an abundance of life. The family we stayed with had 10 cows, 25 goats (one of which had a baby while we were there), 35 chickens (two of which were lovingly slaughtered for us after they discovered we like fried chicken a lot more than cow bits), a handful of pigeons (to eat), and 3 dogs. As mentioned, the neighbor family had 26 members (5 mothers, 20 kids, 1 father).
When we woke up each morning, little Mike (10 years old) just headed out with the cattle where he spent his whole day making sure they stayed together and got enough water. Aron and Fred’s wives immediately began cooking for the day in the thatch hut kitchen over an open fire. Everyone else either grabbed a bag full of seed or a pressurized backpack for applying herbicides and headed out into the fields.
There was also an abundance of death. Madam Rem, who gave birth nine times in her kitchen, lost 1 of her children at a young age. Fred’s wife gave birth to twins only a year ago who both died. Getting old here is almost impossible because you need to continue to farm to eat and live. Still, everything continues and there is a feeling that life is what it is on this day and you should live that day to it’s fullest. This was a nice challenge to my planning, future bent mentality.
Chris and Courtney, who only received a short text from Daniel saying you’ll see Erik Sunday, ended up driving out with Moonga to get us on Saturday, because that was our original plan and they had things planned in Lusaka. They arrived while we were at church and their timing was good because church was quite an experience. The church they go to was three miles from their house (everyone walked, including the 20 neighbor kids) and was called the Remnant Jerusalem Christian Church. I don’t know anything about this church and I’m going to refrain from Googling it because it doesn’t make a difference. They had just finished building it several months ago out of mud bricks and mud mortar and it have a thatched roof. There were about five or six families who went to the church, which amounted to about 75 people. All of the fathers of the families served as the pastors or elders and delivered the sermons and lead the dancing.
The church and the teaching was reminiscent of a western Christian church, but the songs and dancing were distinctly African. Chris and I were invited to dance with the elders twice and the dance consisted of keeping to the beat (which didn’t work that well for us) while progressively spinning and waving our staffs faster and harder. Brianne and Courtney danced with the women, the children danced, the youths danced, the young men danced - everyone did a dance. Their enthusiasm for dancing was contagious and the spirit was celebratory and fun. The sermon was straightforward and the pastor delivering was nice enough to preach in English as well as Tongan/Bemba/Shona. Songs seemed to happen randomly as someone from the congregation would just start belting something out and everyone would begin joining in. It was really a beautiful scene to be celebrating God and life with our new friends 20 kilometers off the nearest paved road in the heart of the farming country.
Having some development background from graduate school it was clear to me that there were many hardships that landed our hosts on the radar of aid organizations. The most serious of which was probably the fact that as subsistence farmers they were extremely susceptible to drought. Also, spending many hours a week collecting water certainly cuts into time that can be spent doing income generating activities. Our hosts had their grandchildren monitored by a local NGO who were collecting data on under 5 mortality (U5 is a big deal in development work). World Vision had built a small school room that grades 1 - 7 used. iDE is working with our host to help her generate additional income while helping her neighbors by selling them herbicides and performing farm related services and advice for them while collecting a small commission.
Brianne and I both agreed that we never really felt like we had the good life and these were just poor people. They loved well and enjoyed their work. They smiled, laughed, told stories and sang and danced for hours at church. They were incredible hosts and went to extreme measures to insure that we were comfortable and that we were enjoying our stay. Life takes many forms on this earth and even though our life is very different from theirs we are still friends who can share our experiences, learn from one another, encourage one another and love one another.
