Since the last blog, I have been working at site, trying to keep myself busy and tie up the loose ends in my projects, since my contract will be ending in September. It has definitely been the hardest month of my service: adjusting to everyday life without Claire, my best friend and confidant, and also trying to come to terms with the end of this wonderful experience. It is difficult because in many ways, I feel like the goals that I set for myself at the beginning of my service are not fulfilled. But, I take solice in the fact that most of those goals were either unrealistic or inappropriate, and this was due mostly to my lack of cultural understanding at the time they were set. As always, its better to look at the positive side of what has been accomplished. In this instance: I've gained a much broader perspective, learned to appreciate the beauty and simplicity of the Bemba culture, met beautiful people, and learned about myself and my culture in a global context.
However, there are still some goals that I have been striving to meet. The most important one: provide my host father, Ba Kasonde, with breeding fish (Brood stock). We were able to accomplish this last week, with the help of my Department of Fisheries agent, who brought the fish to our farm. The first step was at the Government research station, where we sexed the fish in a 3:1 female to male ratio, to ensure proper reproduction rates. The next was organizing the transport, and ensuring the fish were properly conditioned for the journey. Luckily, I was able to coordinate the fish transport with a visit from Watson and Jeff, two of my buddies from DU. They came to the village and got to experience a little of what Zambian life is like, and Watson even got to kill his first chicken.
When I picked them up in Lusaka, we went out on the town for a few drinks and visited some of the night clubs that PCVs frequent in the "big city". The next day, we awoke after about 1 hour of sleep to hitch to Kasama. Our luck wasn't that great (maybe I had worn out all my hitching luck with Claire) and it took us almost 20 hours to reach Kasama. Needless to say, it was a tiresome and hectic day, but I must say the two of them handled it like old pros. They also got to check out the local waterfall, and witness one of the coolest events I've seen in the bush. At about 22 hours, my host brother came over to borrow my headlamp. They had a bushbaby trapped in the treetops, and were hunting it. I had to check it out. I could hardly see the animal they were describing, but when it moved, I saw the leaves shimmer in the moonlight. I was caught up in the excitement of the hunt, but Jeff and Watson decided running through a snake-infested bush in the middle of the night wasn't their idea of fun.
We chased the bushbaby for about an hour, as it danced from tree-top to tree-top, pausing to balance as its weight swayed the tiny branches. I think this delay after every jump was the only thing that let us keep up. One of my family members, Ba Mwelwa, is a deadly shot with a 'catapult' - a homemade slingshot made of branches and rubber. He kept firing at the frightened animal with rocks, sometimes hitting it, but mostly just scaring it into another dash atop the trees. After chasing it in circles from the grond level for another 20 minutes, we lost the small primate. We were almost sure it was somewhere in the tree-tops directly above us, but somehow we lost track of it.
We waited... It seemed like an eternity. Just listening. Then, suddenly, the bushbaby sprung back into action, leaping to a new tree. This time, Mwelwa had his sites set - he knew he couldn't miss again. He hit the animal in the side, but it didn't stagger, or even move. However, after a momentary pause, the animal decided it had taken enough abuse, and it scampered down the trunk to the ground. A mad chase ensued, as the four of us sprinted through the thick underbrush trying to catch this small animal. Finally, we pinned it in a thicket, and Mwelwa deftly clubbed it on the head.
Once they caught it, and the thrill of the hunt was over, I found myself pittying the small animal, which looks like a fluffy, grayish-white lemur. I called Watson and Jeff over to see our catch - all the while wishing there was some kind of catch-and-release hunting. I knew better: this is Zambia, and my family needed the meat. Jeff and Watson were stunned that my family could kill such a cute animal, and were protesting a bit as Mwelwa slit its throat. I tried to explain to them that cuteness is irrelevant in the face of hunger, that the people had been hunting these bush babies for hundreds of years, that our way of life is multitudes more damaging to flora and fauna than my family's... I don't think they fully understood - after all, how could they? I can't really even grip that reality, and I've been living in and among it for almost two years.
There will be more on all of those issues in a future post. For now, I'll end this blog emphasizing what a great visit I had with them, and what in-depth discussions we enjoyed about culture, lifestyles, and the consequences that living conditions exert on surrounding environments. I am happy they got to see what life is like here, and that they watched Ba Kasonde and I accomplish what will hopefully become one of the most important tasks he must overcome in order to become a more successful, profitable fish farmer.
The brood fish will remain in the pond in which we stocked them, and in the hot season (september or october) they will begin breeding. We will use the propogated fingerlings to stock all of his surrounding fish ponds, all of which will be used for fish production. The supply of quality stock is one of the biggest issues facing fish farmers in Zambia, and hopefully this step will allow Ba Kasonde to provide himself and the surrounding farmers with healthy fish that have good growth potential. Maybe (just maybe) in the future, enough fish will allow the bush babies to peacefully exist in their treetop homes... But for that to work, we would all have to live more sustainably.
