I started this blog as a documentary about my project raising funds for Ketty, my young deaf friend in Eastern Province, Zambia. Truth to tell, Ketty’s fine……
…. she and I have grown closer in a most delightful way. She’s 11 years old now and the path that has unfolded for her appears to be very much one she would have chosen. She loves her school and as I hoped, it’s now an outlet for her intelligence
and ability to learn. I also grow closer to her family. Alice, her mother, is a dear friend, and even I am accepted by Alice’s mother, more of a traditional person where it’s difficult for people outside the tribe to be accepted. It’s an honour.
…. so now, as things groove along nicely, let’s change the tone of this blog a little. I want to start trying to paint a picture of life in this vast world of people who have very little. Vast as in two thirds of the world’s population.
ABOUT TEN PER CENT of the population of the world live in Extreme poverty. That’s defined as less than $1.90 US per day to live on. Now standards come up a bit in the East and Latin America, that leaves the vast majority in Sub-Saharan Africa…..
World Bank, IMF, UN World Poverty statistics.
Most of the people who have become my friends, in Eastern Zambia, live on the equivalent of $0.5 US per day.
That’s one third of extreme poverty rates. Get your head around that. 😂🤣 You have to laugh, otherwise you might just weep with sorrow for the miserable state we’ve allowed our beautiful planet, with it’s myriad beautiful people and cultures and colours and customs and all, to come to.
Ok let’s get positive. We can all work for change. That’s up to you, your choice, don’t accept moral pressure. I’m doing my bit, a little late in life I grant you, but the griping pain in the guts that hit me whenever I heard about poverty and starvation in Africa is a lot better now thanks. THERE IS SO MUCH TO DO!!!!
When I first went out, I hadn’t a clue what I was supposed to do. White people running useless projects for paying volunteers. OMG. There are also many good projects of course… saving lives. But not where I went. Spend time learning culture, customs. As people trusted you more then the way becomes clearer.
That’s the way of it, isn’t it? Relax, let Life show you the way. It always has anyway, you just didn’t see it.
Next post, I’ll tell you a bit more about what’s happening here, how people are living life now the tourists have stopped passing through on the way to the game parks because the world has closed down, everyone’s gone home, gone to bed, turned out the lights….
 all who live in a village; it’s the only way to get food to eat. There are no businesses, no offices, no factories. Just bush. Having said that, where other work is available, perhaps in an NGO or one of the many struggling one-man businesses, then people have to get to work by either walking (often for hours) or if you’re lucky and have a bike, on two wheels. The Great East Road is the main route through the area going from Lusaka to Malawi. Always there are people walking on the sides of that road. Village to market or back, going for firewood or charcoal, going for water, kids walking for miles to or from school. Nearer the towns there’s the bicycle taxis if you can afford one. A network of unmapped dirt 
roads leads maze-like to villages; further into the bush just tracks and remote villages that only the residents know how to get to, or of course the Peace Corps boys and girls who manage to find their way into them, following their missions whatever they may be.
There are some NGOs out there trying to make a difference to agriculture methods and encouraging entrepreneurship. When you see the government agencies and advisors coming in and promoting use of inorganic fertilisers, you start to give up hope. The region grows maize as a carb staple which is fine when the rainy season behaves, but as the climate changes and weather patterns seem to be more unpredictable, we’ve seen crop failure on a catastrophic scale. It’s tragic to see a huge field of maize, planted and cared for by the whole local community, with shrivelled cobs not even fit for animal feed.
