A typical day in the life of John and Ruth

John and I are finding ourselves getting use to a routine here in Zambia. We are getting use the currency which has the lowest bill as 50 and highest as 50,000 (the conversion between US dollars is roughly $5,000K for $1US). The money here is very colorful and was hard for me to distinguish between at first, but now I am getting the hang of it.

A "typical day" for us involves getting up around 6:30 or 7:00am and starting breakfast cooking. We often eat eggs and potatoes for breakfast sometimes bread and jelly or lefts-overs like rice, beans, ground nuts or nshima with some sugar (I also like to put peanut butter in it, but John thinks that is odd and I think most Zambians would agree). We go to the office at 8:00am and greet people and ask what is the "program" for the day. Then we talk about what we would like to do that day. For me this usually involves going out to the field to scout and collect weeds or observe what is going on: weeding, planting etc. For John this ranges from working in the lab (pictured above) or going out to collect water samples.

The picture below is of a fish pond in Mansa, the farmer is very motivated and keeps excellent fish ponds, John was interested in seeing what the nutrient levels of the pond were so we collected samples from inside the pond and outside the pond in the nearby dambo (wetland) area. This farmer, besides having a 7 fish ponds (his goal is to build 10), has ducks, turkeys, kittens, dogs, chickens, pigs, and goats. He also grows maize, vegetable garden, pineapples, bananas, and palm oil. He owns his own vehicle but insists that he is "a poor man". Our friend and driver, Ben, insisted later that this man is not poor. While his living might be modest in the USA he is wealthy compared to many Zambians.

After working in the field we will come back to our home to take lunch (normally from 1-2). Then we will go back to the field or the office to do work and finish around 5:00. After work we like to get dinner going and then go for a run in the evenings. We spend our evenings preparing meals, replenishing our water supply, taking showers and we relax by reading, watching movies on our lap tops, playing cards, playing the harmonica, or talking. We hope to get some sport equipment when we are in Lusaka to have some community games that we can play with people after work, there seems to be great interest in Volley ball and of course soccer.

We recently bought bikes and road them into town. They kept breaking down on us... but thankfully there are many bike repair men in town. We actually had quite an adventure on Valentine's day, finding ourselves biking home in the pitch dark! This is not advisable, because it is so hard to see the road or people or anything but the stars were so beautiful! Thankfully we made it back to our home safe and sound.

We plan to be out of our "routine" for a bit as we are heading down to Lusaka to get our study permits and meet with some people. We love you all so much!

Rainbow and Mumbuluma Falls

Here are some pictures of the Zambian country side! The one with the rainbow was taken just a few minutes walk from our house here. The other two were taken at Mumbuluma Falls, about 40km outside of Mansa. We stopped for a visit on our way back from Mwense, a town north of Mansa. The government is working on developing the Falls area into a tourist location, but for now it is remote, mostly undeveloped and cost $4US for a car full of people to visit. It is a beautiful place!

In Mwense we were delivering cuttings to a local farmer for on-farm research and extension. The goal of the project is to get farmers to grow the new varieties and then pass cuttings along to their neighbors to spread the new, higher yielding varieties. There is a great potential for the cassava market, millers are requesting 450 Tons for processing, but demand can not be met. However, a communication link is missing because the farmers in Mwense who grow cassava say that there is not market in it, that they can not sell their goods. So, there is work going on to try and connect the growers to the market.

John was also able to sample some streams on the way back from our trip yesterday. He always has a large group of children following him around, wondering what he is doing and wanting to help. We also saw the Luapula river on our drive yesterday (there is so much water) and looked across the boarder into Congo (it is so close). Apparently Zambians sell many of their goods to Congo like fish, cassava, goats, and ground nuts since the market is very good. We passed the hydro-electric dam which powers much of the Luaplua region of Zambia and bought bananas and reed mats in Mwense-town (everything for $1US). The bananas come in bunches of 5 and are smaller than the bananas in a US grocery store, but they are very delicious! The reed mats are a nice surface to do exercises on in the morning or bring outside to sit in the yard. We have been calling about our immigration study permits but have had trouble getting through, I got through today but they told me to just have someone come by and check. I think we will go to Lusaka to pick them up next week. We love you all very much and think of you often!

One month in Zambia

It is another lovely day here in Mansa, with the sunshine bright and a slight breeze to keep things cool. This morning I was busy collecting sweet potato cuttings and then re-planting them in a field for multiplication purposes. The process is a fairly simple one. First you go to a place where there are establish plants (for the purpose of having parent material in which to create new varieties), you cut the veins into about 15cm in length, you note from what parent they are from and tie them into a bundle (we collected 30 cuttings per parent). Then you drive out into the bush where a field has been cleared for planting and ridges have been made (this is all done with hoes). Ridges are about 0.5 m in height and 1 meter apart. You then take a stick an poke a hole on the top of the ridge 15cm apart (10 per ridge) and then you stick 3/4th of the vine you cut into the hole and press the soil around it. That is all-you have planted the sweet potato! The environment will take care of the rest.

We also scoped out some cassava fields and met some workers who were weeding. The weed pressure is great, because they have not weeded yet this year and many weeds have already gone to seed. I told them about our saying "one year seeding, seven years weeding"... the weed control needs to be done much sooner to prevent so many from going to seed and building up the weed seed bank. There was a discussion that took place between the researchers and the workers, the workers said the weeds were too many they could not complete 20 ridges per person per day (the agreed upon work-load). They told me there is always this tension the between employer who wants the worker to do more and the employee who wants to do less for more return. The workers here are sometimes paid in food, such as, so much of an area of cassava harvest, other times they are paid cash. I am not sure how this all works out yet.

I have not yet learned the division of labor. Sometimes the researchers do not do the work such as the cutting and planting etc. but sometimes they do help out. I try to do what I can, so I can learn. Most of the people hired to do weeding and planting at the research station are men, because they do more work. Hopefully I can pull my own weight and be helpful- no matter what the task. There is also some sort of cultural hierarchy of respect, most scientist are referred to as "Mr. so and so" whereas in the states we refer to everyone by their first name (except maybe department heads), this has been difficult for me to remember to do because many people's last names are foreign to me- making them hard to remember. John and I just go by our first names.

You all might be interested in know that John wears pants here in Zambia (at least during the week). This is so funny to me because in the US it will be snowing and he will have mesh-shorts and sandles on! Now it is boots and long pants! Another funny thing is our toilet seat. So, back at Jenn's house we managed to break the toilet seat, not big deal, we just go to the store and get a new one. So, in the process of setting up the house here in Zambia we bought 2 toilet seats, because the one was broken before we moved in. Little did we know that these cheap plastic seats perpetually break... we now nearly have a solid duct-tape toilet seat because it has broken in so many places! The duct tape now allows for some flexibility so hopefully we can keep it mostly intact for the rest of our time here!

This is a big week for us. On the 12th it will mark our 1 year engagement, 4 month wedding anniversary, 1 month in Zambia, and Abe Lincoln's birthday! So much to celebrate in one day! Love you all much! Grace and peace!

ZARI: Zambian Agriculture Research Institute

John and I have finally set up a "home" here in Mansa. We are living right next door to the research station, which is conveniently close to where we work. We have begun to set things up and are figuring out the water schedule. Water is pumped 3 times a day, so for the rest of the time you need to store water in containers for use. We are still trying to figure out a good system, but are getting there. When we first moved into the house on Monday we were welcomed by a FLOOD. The plumber did a poor job on the shower and it leaked and flooded the bathroom, hallway, kitchen and into the front room. Water was everywhere, we had to mop the floors and get the water out, but at least we were able to get the floors clean!

We have begun our research projects. John has gone to one school in the area to scope out their water sources and search for snails. Yesterday I helped plant sweet potato trials; three variety trials and one weed management trial, which I will be heading-up. I have also been observing and familiarizing myself with the weed flora. Its always an experience when you go out the "the fields" from the research station offices. The fields are scattered around the property and seem to be hidden, I do not know how the drivers find there way because the roads aren't always visible. The grass is up to the windscreen and we just seem to drive and then appear in a clearing! I guess this is typical of the rainy season, however the grass will all die in the dry season.

I am going to try and upload some pictures for you all to see of our house and of the area. Lots of love! Stay warm, know you are in our hearts and prayers!