Meet Sophia Choonga
Zambia
Friday afternoon I left work for the airport, bags packed for a month-long journey to Zambia. Monday morning, three plane rides, a seven hour bus trip, and a truck ride later, I was in a rural village sixty kilometres from any paved road. I was there to meet with EWB's overseas volunteers and their project partners, to learn more about rural poverty in southern Zambia and the ways in which EWB could help.
I began by visiting Sophia Choonga, a fifty-year-old woman who is the chairperson of her local womanÕs group and the village AIDS awareness officer. She came running from her field when we arrived, her small frame radiating joy at the appearance of visitors. Her body bobbed around, sometimes bending over almost double as she welcomed us by slapping our hands (a greeting reserved for friends). She erupted with laughter at my attempts to say "Good morning. how are you?" in Tonga, and wasted no time sitting us down in the shade of a thatch-roofed mud hut.
As we chatted about farming, I pointed to her quarter-filled storage bin of maize and asked how long the harvest would last this year. "Maybe September. October" she told me. "I don't know what we will do after that."
Five months from now your eye might rest momentarily on a small newspaper article or a brief television clip talking about people starving in southern Africa and the West's response: food aid.
And if you are like me, you might picture gaunt people in a desolate, dry landscape, awaiting sacks of grain. But some farmers in this area were actually fine—they used new technologies, planted early and had sufficient harvests to tide them over.
This emphasizes the need to understand why some farmers in the same area do reasonably well, while others are destitute. The image of people lined up behind white UN vehicles while aid workers toss out sacks of food makes good television; the analysis of why a crop failed and how to prevent it next time the rains are sparse is less captivating, but ultimately necessary to helping people in the long run.
Sophia's problems began when she was about five years old. Zambia gained its independence and the new president began an ambitious agriculture program. Farmers were encouraged to move away from traditional millet and sorghum crops and plant maize instead, using subsidized fertilizers and seeds. This is an all too classic story in Africa. Maize, a crop not suitable for long term cultivation in the Zambian climate, was selected because of its export potential.
It worked for thirty years, but then this project's unsustainable nature finally caught up with it. The government was out of money and cut fertilizer subsidies. Ten years ago the price of fertilizer suddenly shot up. At the same time Sophia's six oxen died of a tick borne disease that hit many animals in the region. Finally, AIDS began striking many of the country's healthiest people. Sophia's province, which had been Zambia's breadbasket, exporting large quantities of food, became a basket-case.
So now, after thirty years of fertilizer use, the soils are depleted of nutrients. There are few animals and healthy people to till the earth. People are using a crop that isn't suited to the local conditions, but which they are used to growing, and thus hesitant to change. And most farmers aren't using 'conservation farming' techniques that would enable them to have greater yields—even of maize.
But technology can help. Four of our volunteers were working with treadle pumps. They were partnered with local organisations to promote these simple, foot-powered water pumps that allow farmers to irrigate a hectare of land in an hour or two—a process that takes days when done by bucket.
With these treadle pumps, farmers can engage in dry-season farming, irrigating plots of land on which they grow lettuce, cabbage, canola and other crops that can be sold in their local market. A simple technology like a treadle pump can make the difference for a farmer when the rains fail.
However, the international community's instinct is to address the immediate need of hunger with food aid and not to prevent future food shortages.
Perhaps one reason for this is how we view Africa: a continent waiting for a handout. I ask you to look beyond immediate impressions shaped by the media and see what is beneath the surface.
Before leaving Sophia we asked if we could take her picture. As she composed herself her normally radiant smile became a serious frown and the sparkle disappeared from her eyes. Pictures are very serious here; some people might never have their picture taken.
Looking at this photograph, you see a sad, small, tired woman whose harvest failed and needs a bag of grain. What you don't see is her exuberance upon being shown the photo, as she danced around laughing and smiling and showing her grandchildren. And you don't see the woman who, with the right tools and training, is capable of looking after herself.
At EWB, we recognize each person's resourcefulness and desire for change, and we seek to understand the complexity of their poverty. Though it may not make good television, it can make all the difference between a band-aid and an effective sustainable solution.
by Parker Mitchell
