Zambia – Wednesday

July 22, 2008 at 5:00 pm (Zambia)
Tags: , , , ,

Coldish breakfast, but this time one of the sausage warmers was still steaming and I poured my tea first – so it was warmer. Now I have the trick, I suppose. Also, pineapple juice today, which I love. Our bus driver was right on time again, and we have a small group of people, so we were there early.

I gave them the money transfer number, and they took it so that they could check for it. Their lost bag of money hasn’t shown up yet – I don’t think it will. Very sad. I asked before lunch, and they found mine alright – it was one of the first ones they got! It didn’t have North Carolina or my name on it, which is what I asked them to look for – it was some strange collection of numbers and letters. Anyway, that’s over with and sorted.

Ruth and I looked over the photos that the photographer who’s been wandering around took – one rather odd one of me and Peter. I bought it, even though I looked weird in it.

We also walked around and looked at the few vendors. There is a library automation systems vendor there that I think would be very good if we can’t get Koha to work – Amlib. We asked some questions, and Ruth is going to go the session this afternoon about it. It actually might be better anyway, because somebody would be on call who could help if it went wrong – as would not be the case with the open-sourced Koha.

Also before the presentations, Sarah from the IFLA preconference came rushing up to me – she’d heard I was another American. Apparently, the “Cultural Night” listed on the program for Wednesday meant that we had to do some sort of performance to represent our country. (!) What! Nobody told me! Whine, whine, whine. I am awful at stuff like that. Also, Sarah had thought she’d be the only one and planned to do a South African folktale that some librarian she knows has been performing all over the US. That didn’t sound like a good idea to me. Why couldn’t we use an American folktale? Like Paul Bunyan or Pecos Bill? Neither of us knows either well enough, though, and Sarah is from New York – she’s never heard of Pecos Bill. I thought that was widely known, but I guess not.

Ruth and I also met back up with Prisca, whom we’d met during the IFLA presentation – she’s a Zambian media/television librarian. We three sat together during the meetings and passed notes and commentary back and forth.

Sarah sat with us for lunch, and she and I talked about the performance thing – she suggested doing “Yo Mama” jokes instead, as something that spread from African-American youth culture to the wider US culture. I hated the thought of standing up there in front of all of those people and telling those, but the ones she had were funny… So, I agreed, and we practiced them a bit.

Sarah and I both needed stamps and cash, so we decided to walk across the road to the Arcades during the product demos – neither of us needs anything from them, and I thought that Ruth would do better without interference from me for the Amlib bit. We walked down Mulungushi’s drive, taking photos of statues, antelope, birds, etc as we went. At the Arcades, I got some cash, we eventually found a place that would sell stamps, and we sat and had tea while writing postcards. The Arcades are a great place for people watching, too – ex-pats from the US, Zambians in Western dress or African robes or loose shirts, Indians or Pakistanis in bright robes, tourists from Asia or Europe, Muslim women in full robes, covering all but the eyes…

I also bought a cheap pre-pay Celtel phone, that being the biggest Sub-Saharan African carrier. If I had T-Mobile, I could just get a $5 SIM card to use it, but no-oooo, the US just has to be different, and not use SIM cards like everybody else. It was a promo – only 80,000 zkw.

Sarah spotted a very funny sign on a tree next to the taxi stop – it says, “Mass Media Plot for Sale”! There’s an area of the city called Mass Media and all of the land lots are called Plots, but it’s a hilarious mix of words.

The taxi stop was a nuisance to get through – taxis, registered blue ones and more unregistered ones, wait for people to come by and you can’t walk into the Arcades without several of them calling, “Taxi, Miss, Taxi, Madam!” They are very set on getting business and try to convince you to hire them very insistently. This is also where the blue and white minibuses wait – these are small buses that are very cheap and are absolutely packed – they apparently have a bad safety record and are notoriously bad drivers, but they are also everywhere, very cheap, and the usual mode of transportation for most people. They’re easy to spot everywhere on the roads, and are apparently common in most Southern African countries.

Also, a word about Zambian money – they’ve had a terrible run of inflation, although not like poor Zimbabwee. The smallest bill that I saw was 100 zkw, and it was worth about 3 cents. People usually deal with 50,000 or 20,000 zkw bills. Some people from Kenya and Botswana laughed meanly about this on the bus tonight, and about Zimbabwe’s million-billion dollar currency. It’s very pretty money, though – lots of colors and pictures, and some with gold or silver stamps.

After meeting back up with Ruth and Prisca, we all went over to a restaurant about half an hour away for the Cultural Night dinner and performance. Ruth had brought a headwrap and a chitenje to dress up for the Malawian contingent – the performances are a contest. I was still wearing a suit jacket and unmatching pants, but hey, maybe a suit is the traditional American dress, right?

After waiting for ages for the guests of honor – various government ministers and library professors – we ate, some rather nice appetizer type things with beer and wine or soda. There weren’t enough chairs so I sat on the floor with various different groups or leaned against the wall. I found two more Americans – one from the US State Dept and one from the Library of Congress – very nice people, though not at all enthusiastic about doing “Yo Mama” jokes in public performance. I could understand that!

Then, they called up the Presidents of the various national Library associations – they danced! Some of them were actually very good. Then, they called us up – the various foreign representatives. They had us dance to some song that was written before I was born – a disco thing. This was the white people dance – we had fun (we’d mostly had some beer by then) but were very silly. I think people enjoyed watching us. Ruth took some pictures with my camera that came out well.

Next the good part – each country sent up representatives, mostly their entire contingencies, to compete by performing a traditional or local dance. It started with Botswana and ended with Zambia – Zimbabwe went before them because they were the hosts. They were all fabulous, but Lesotho won – very deservedly – with Malawi coming in third and Zambia and Zimbabwe tying for second.

Zimbabwe was very funny – there were only four of them, and one of them was a Norwegian woman who had married a Zimbabwean man. The last part of their dance, they each held hands in a big circle, and then one after the other threw a leg over the held arms – we thought that the Norwegian woman had seemed a bit tipsy before that, but she did it just fine. :) Even though she’d previously fallen over and put her legs up straight in the air. It’s very sad that only four of them came – Malawi, which also shares a border with Zambia, sent a large number of people, but Zimbabwe can’t, or doesn’t even have the people to send.

Ruth danced with Malawi, which had a very lively line dance, although it wasn’t much like the ones I’m used to seeing. She was great! I got pictures and film of them dancing, with some really good pictures. Ruth is shy about me posting them online, but we’ll see.

One very nice thing – most of the countries called the restaurant staff over, and they went and danced with their countrymen for a bit. Everyone seemed very pleased by that – it was really nice – nobody was exclusionary or snobby about position when it came to the dances.

I got pictures of every country’s dance, and film of most – I’ll post those when I return to North Carolina.

Notice that I didn’t say anything about our performance – that’s because we didn’t do one! Apparently, the decided to make it a more serious dance contest this year, which meant no British, American, or Danish people interrupting the flow to make fools of themselves. Thank goodness. Sarah seemed disappointed, but I’m sure not.

Some people stayed to dance the night away, but I took the first bus back to the hotels – it was great, but we have to get up early the next day. Ruth and I still got home past eleven.

Leave a Comment

Zambia – Tuesday

July 22, 2008 at 12:59 am (Zambia)
Tags: , , ,

Tuesday morning we ate breakfast – cold again – and I dropped my machine at the desk for safekeeping. The bus driver came in to get us right on time – I had been told to expect that Zambian time would be a lot vaguer than I was used to, and people made jokes about this yesterday and today, but the driver is not one to use that concept. We also met the third conference attendee at the Chrismar – Peter Burnett! I had heard him speak about INASP at ALA and wrote down his name to give to Ruth. Funny thing to meet him here barely two weeks later – he seems very nice, and was pleased, I think, that I recognized him.

We picked people up at several more hotels – Chrismar seems to be quite a bit better than some of them, Several people are staying at what is called the Go-Center, the Gospel Center, the National Assemblies, and at a youth hostel at the University of Zambia, All of these seem to be basically hostels and dormitories – our hotel is much better, cold breakfast and showers regardless.

Lusaka is a city of walls – everywhere, everything is surrounded by 8-foot brick and block walls. This reminds me of Phoenix very much, especially because a lot of the plants are familiar. Phoenix is a desert; Lusaka is not, but I think that people may have planted and watered these arid-climate plants in Phoenix because they required less watering than others would. I see bougainvillea, locust, assorted other things that I recognize but don’t know names for. There is one major difference that I didn’t notice right away – most of those walls have barbed wire, in rings or stacked strands, or broken glass embedded, and some both. There are guardhouses with bored looking uniformed Armcor guards outside of a lot of them. Phoenix doesn’t have that, even in the worst parts.

So, we arrive at Mulungushi and are dropped off outside. There are antelope! Several different varieties, apparently, but we just saw one today. They look like deer without antlers, but have different shading to their brown fur.

Sure enough, my registration is nowhere to be found. The one librarian that had been handling the money orders and payments the night before – I forgot to write that we had gone to Mulungushi after the pre-conference and attempted to register, but they didn’t have all of the paperwork with them – had not yet gone to the bank to get the rest of the money orders, so I filled out a new registration form and got a badge made. Apparently, they believe that anyone who is willing to travel from the US is unlikely to be trying to cheat the Zambian Library Association. Not unreasonable, and certainly true. I’m just worried that something weird happened and it really didn’t go through.

An awful thing happened – the purse with the money and receipts from the day before disappeared, lost or stolen. They must have lost thousands of dollars – I’m not surprised that they didn’t have time to go to the bank that morning.

I need access to Internet! It’s the only way to contact the people who did the money order, and to make sure I have enough cash to withdraw if I have to do it. What I ended up doing was spending half an hour to get the bank and then my office email to come up, and then another half-hour to make one transfer and send one email. The wifi at the hotel does not work for me – I can make the connection, but no pages will open – but the desk clerk let me use their one computer in the back room. We shall see. They didn’t respond to the email that I sent asking about this before I left, so I hope they respond to this one.

The conference room is huge and impressive – it looks like the UN room always does in spy movies where some Dr. Evil is threatening to blow up the world. There is a huge relief of Africa on the wall, with Olympic rings below it – they apparently often have major regional conferences here.

We collected some water bottles and sat people-watching until we saw several people in traditional-style dance clothes in green and orange enter the room. They started drumming and dancing – it was very impressive!

They were really good – the dancers were great, and the drummers didn’t miss a beat once. They performed on and off through the opening of the conference. Unfortunately, my camera does not do well indoors in dim light unless you get right close up, and I still feel a bit awkward about that. These are performers, so I expect they wouldn’t mind, but I feel a bit weird about taking photos of people after reading that a lot of Zambians either wouldn’t appreciate it, or would expect to be paid. However, for some reason, the camera can film indoors just fine, so I did. Ruth also got some good close-up photos when I was out of the room.

In the background and in between, we had a large police band that played things like the National Anthem. They were not so skilled as the drummers, but they were fun to watch. Sadly, they also played taps – one of the would-be presenters was in a terrible car wreck and died yesterday. Not a good beginning to the conference.

Lunch was decent conference food – in a huge dining room with lunch lines to walk through, and the ubiquitous pineapple and orange Fanta to drink. They were actually out by the time I got mine, so I got the last thing left – a Coke. I hate Coke, but it was actually good! Coke made with sugar instead of corn syrup is good – who know? The normal US Coke tastes horrible to me.

Most of the talks today were about the Millennium Development Goals – hugely important, but too general to be very interesting to me. The ones I’m looking forward to are tomorrow and Thursday. The sound in the conference is difficult – one of the mikes echoes oddly, and some of the others are too soft. I have to listen hard to understand some people’s accents – oddly enough, the British ones are the hardest for me. I think because both of them used the really bad mike. I see other people straining to hear, and Ruth says she can’t hear everything either. Other than that, it went well today – it was a very full slate of paper presentations.

After returning to the hotel, we decided to eat dinner with Peter in the Cattleman’s Grill – it is the attached restaurant, and it was supposed to have live music on the weekends and some Tuesdays. Not this Tuesday, but the food was good. It was unwalled, but with a thatched roof, like a rondavel, and had a stage and a bar, near the pool area. It was cold, but the waiters lit big baskets of coals and put them near our feet. I liked those – they were pretty and very warming. There was a little tabby cat wandering around begging – I wanted to pet her, but she was shy. I had bream prepared in the traditional manner (still with head, but delicious) and found out that I really like sweet chili sauce, which was used instead of ketchup.

Speaking of cold, the rooms are unheated and have open window panels near the roof. They’re warm enough with the blankets, though – it’s just interesting. Lusaka’s winter is a lot like Phoenix’s – in the sixties during the day and dropping into forties and fifties at night.

I spent another hour dealing with the internet – apparently, they did send the money order, quite awhile ago. They gave me the transfer number, which I think is all I should need. Good – at least I know not to give them any cash. Somehow I think getting it refunded when they found the money order would be difficult.

Leave a Comment

Zambia – Monday

July 20, 2008 at 10:43 am (Zambia)
Tags: , ,

Monday is the day of pre-conferences – meetings that are not directly associated with the conference, but are at the same time because of the kinds of people that will be at the conference. Ruth and I both wanted to go to the IFLA/FAIFE one, on HIV/AIDS education in Africa.

We were at breakfast – early, but it was cold again – when a man came in looking for us, or at least for SCECSAL people. The conference has arranged bus transportation! We don’t have to use taxis, and struggle to find the safe ones, or suffer the minibuses!

Anyway, we got there, some people on the bus grumbling because we made them late to finish our breakfast (Ruth, not me, but we didn’t know to be ready by a certain time). Once at the Holiday Inn Lusaka, which is an extremely nice hotel, much fancier than ours, we go to check in. Ruth’s name is there, but mine is not. Worrying. If the IFLA people didn’t have my pre-conference, do the SCECSAL people have my registration? I’ll see tomorrow. I didn’t get a receipt for the wire transfer from the person who handled it – it was in May or early June, and I’ve been so busy it never occurred to me. I hope they did it! Bad oversight… I should always get all the paperwork, especially when I know to expect internet and communication problems. Anyway, they made me a name tag, and I went in to sit down.

There were about twenty-five of us or so. Everyone in the audience except me was from Africa, from Malawi, Kenya, Zambia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Swaziland, South Africa, or Lesotho – I think there was someone there from every African country represented at the conference except Tanzania, and maybe them too. Actually, because I was there, and the presenter was British, it was someone there from every country at the conference that I’m aware of. The main presenter was from Loughbrough University in the UK. I asked, and it’s pronounced Luff-braaa. Basically. Anyway, he was assisted by a Library PhD student from Syracruse – Sarah Webb. She looks enough like me that I could see some people looking back and forth between us, and somebody asked if we were related later on during the break. We are not, so far as I know.

The pre-conference was very good – we talked about basic facts about HIV, how the library could/should be involved in preventive care and information about it, local beliefs about HIV and sex education and how they affected HIV education, myths/facts about transmission, workplace environment for people with HIV, etc. The myths/facts thing caused some controversy – some people there were very convinced that condoms were not helpful in preventing HIV, and one person thought they increased it by encouraging people to have sex.

Later on we sat at the same table at lunch, and he argued that HIV came to his country with condoms, and segued into saying that marriage was only to pass on the family name, and basically that sex was bad and nobody would do it except to have babies if they didn’t have condoms available. Hmm. I and everyone else at the table disagreed. As we said, you can’t act as if the situation is your ideal – you have to deal with what’s really there. And what’s really there is that people like to have sex, it’s a natural thing, and condoms reduce the rate of transmission of HIV.

Anyway, the last part of the pre-conference was the least helpful, I think because they were rushed – some of the discussion seemed to take longer than planned, although I think it was valuable. We tried to come up with some creative ideas for involving the library in HIV prevention, outside of the actual walls of the library. I think the most valid thing that came up as providing a space for drama and other outreach to vulnerable youth – especially kids who are out on the streets. Unfortunately, I do not think this is very likely for most librarians to do. Creating posters, informational brochures, providing support, yes – actually doing the street outreach? Probably not for the average librarian. Some may find a way to think out of the box on this, however.

One interesting side issue that came up was the difficulty of donor requirements. Many of the libraries there seem to get many of their books from overseas donors, and sometimes the donors require odd things, like having the donated books in a separate section. This makes it very unlikely that people will browse anything sensitive. Nobody wants to go to some area of the library blatantly identified as having to do with a particular disease, or sex, or some other thing that would make it obvious that the person was interested in a stigmatized subject. One librarian took those books, which hadn’t circulated, and put them where they would naturally be shelved and they WERE circulated, very heavily.

At lunch – which was excellent – Ruth and I walked to the dining room through the Holiday Inn’s atrium. I spotted a crocodile! They keep small crocodiles in their pond. Unbelievable. I stared at one through my camera until I saw him blink – he WAS real. I asked later, and they do keep them. They stay in the Holiday Inn atrium until they are bigger, and then they are released at Kamelume Falls.

After the pre-conference, we went back to the Hotel. Ruth had told Craig and Chimemwe that it was my birthday – which it is, I turned 30 today! – so they wanted to take me out for dinner. We’ve been eating a lot of their time – they’ve been really nice – but they seem to really want to do it, so I’m very happy about it.

We went to Manda Hill to O’Hagan’s, which is (obviously) an Irish pub. There were a lot of ex-pats there, and I heard at least two Irish accents. Craig and I tried hot pot, which is a stew. I liked it, but I think Craig was disappointed – he was thinking of the Chinese version. Ruth got peppered pork, which I think that I liked better than she did. :) None of them drink beer, but I decided I wanted to try the local beer. I got something called Mosi – it was really good. I liked it as well as YeungLing, which is my usual preference in North Carolina. The restaurant was cute, with lots of signs and writings on the walls. We had a good time, and ate too much, as seems to be typical on this trip. It was a nice birthday – out to eat with friends, which is what I most like.

Leave a Comment

Zambia – Sunday

July 20, 2008 at 10:41 am (Zambia)
Tags: , ,

I found out that there WAS a problem with the shower – the rooms have individual water heaters, and mine not only didn’t work but was also switched off to begin with. They switched me immediately. Anyway, I spent a good enough night.

Ruth and I met for breakfast at the hotel. It was cold, but we were there on the late side – we figured we should be there earlier the next day. There was plenty – I ate local sausages with tomatoes and onion, and pineapple juice and tea.

We went to church with Chimemwe and Craig – Miracle Life in Lusaka, right next to the Arcades. It’s an evangelical born-again church, but I’m not sure of the denomination, if any. It was a large sanctuary, and PACKED. Chimemwe said that there are three services, all full, even the 7 am one. We all sang, and there was a signboard at front that showed the word. The power went out half-way through, and the pastor talked about their new generator – no disruption to the service. He was a good speaker – the sermon was a lot longer than a Lutheran one would be, but it didn’t drag. There were a few things that made me, a Lutheran-raised Unitarian Universalist convert, a bit uncomfortable, but most of it seemed very ecumenical.

At one point, though, a woman a few rows over started spasming and waving her hands, yelling out to Jesus, obviously having a personal religious experience. An usher came and watched over her, picking up her bracelet when it went flying off. That sort of thing just does not occur in any of the churches I’ve ever attended. I’m used to people being much more restrained about their spirituality – this would never work for me, but the woman seemed very moved. She later went up when the pastor asked for people who wished to be reborn to Jesus. That was something that I was a little uncomfortable about – I guess because it seemed too spontaneous – I would need to think about a religious conversion a lot before I made it.

Anyway, after church, we stood around out front talking to people, with lots of kids flying around with that released-from-Sunday-School energy, the way you do after church. Then we walked back to the Arcades, where we had parked.

On Sunday at the Arcades, there is a tourist-oriented curio marked. We walked around and looked at that for a bit, and Ruth bought earrings and a belt. We left before looking at most of the rows – I was sorry about that, because I was considering buying a shirt that I saw, but we needed to return something that Chimemwe and Craig had bought, and the shops close early on Sunday. It was very obviously tourist and gift-buying oriented, though, and I’d like to visit a market that locals actually shop at for their regular shopping.

We went to Manda Hill, the OTHER shopping mall in Lusaka, and Craig went to take care of their return. Ruth and I bought face wash, which we had both forgotten, and I bought a variety of Cadbury that I’d never had – the Big Lunch Bar. I’m sorry I can’t get that in the States – it’s good.

After that, we ate at Curry in a Hurry, which is like the slow food places in the US – it’s almost fast food, but they cook it when you order and it takes a little longer. It was great – we got four to share, which was almost too much, and it was all delicious. I love Indian food! They use mutton instead of lamb, and it was really good – perfectly tender. It’s very easy to overdo mutton, so I was impressed. Craig said that some of his foreign clients ask to be taken there every time instead of the expensive fancy restaurants.

After lunch, they dropped us back at the hotel, and asked if we’d like to go to a movie that evening. We said yes. Ruth and I both felt so stuffed that we didn’t need dinner – lunch was enough for the rest of the day. So, we both napped until 7, or 19.

At the movie theater – the only one in Lusaka, and at the Arcades – there were five movies playing. Chimemwe and Craig had seen three, and Ruth and I none. So they picked one of the two – Meet Dave, the new Eddie Murphy movie. I know that I have seen previews, but I didn’t remember anything of them. It turned out to be a sci-fi comedy – I won’t spoil it, but it was absolutely the silliest thing that I’ve seen in a long time, and I enjoyed it thoroughly. :)

Also that night at the Arcades were a bunch of people watching the African Image show – like American Idol – on TV at a performance stage where they sometimes have music. A promoter was revving them up and handing out t-shirts. It was too cold – it’s much colder today than yesterday – but it was fun to watch them. It’s funny how very much the same that sort of event is everywhere in the world – it could have been in Phoenix or New York, or I suppose London or Sydney just as easily.

Leave a Comment

Zambia: Friday and Saturday

July 20, 2008 at 10:35 am (Uncategorized)

Raleigh to DC Dulles to Rome to Addis Adaba to Lilongwe to Lusaka… 22 hours. Janie drove me to RDU at 3:30 – she must really like me – and I flew to Dulles at 6, arriving at 7. I checked in to Ethiopian and wandered around until 9:20 – we were supposed to leave at 10. This was my first taste of the fact that Ethiopian usually does not leave on time. So, I people-watched as lots of apparently Ethiopian families milled around with their toddlers (lots of those) and luggage collections, mixed in with a large bunch of religious and volunteer groups. I remembered that a nurse at my doctor’s office had mentioned a student who had also gotten vaccinated to go to Zambia and wondered if he might be there. Sure enough, someone told me later that there was a kid (really, he’s nineteen) from UNC there. I never spoke to him, though.

Anyway, I was in row twelve, right behind first class and also right behind the row with the hooks for the baby bassinets. I had three babies and a toddler right in front of me, and right behind was another wall with the restroom and a steward’s station. Right behind it were three more babies. Hmm. Most of them were pretty quiet, but there was a set of twins that was separated, and they didn’t like it. The one in my row (they switched back and forth between parents) yelled and screamed piercingly often enough that none of us got much sleep all the way to Addis. The little toddler boy and his grandfather and I became good friends by the time we got to Addis – he was a nice little kid. I gave the grandfather a copy of a grant opportunity that I brought fror Ruth – I can look it up again for her. His son is going to build a library in Ethiopia – he is a doctor, but he wants to help the area his father came from so he’s going to fund a library.

Ethiopian has decent food and is generous with it – there was even cheesecake. There was tea periodically, and everyone was very nice. This flight, though longer and populated by unhappy babies, was much more comfortable than one I took on Continental from France to Houston. I think Continental.

I got into Addis about an hour late, and I had only an hour and a half layover. I booked it up the airport terminal, and then back the other way after I found out the correct gate, and went through a very scaled down security gate. It reminded me of the security gates at Hobby in Houston when I was a kid, before 911. Then I sat around for an hour because the plane took forever to load and sulked while some guy smoked vile cigars right near me. In the airport. Yuck! If I had realized that it would take so long, I would have looked around the big, huge duty free area. Maybe next time!

So, we stopped in Lilongwe. I was so tired I could barely keep my eyes open, but I forced myself to look. The windows were too dirty to see much, but I could tell it looked very rural – the city is supposed to be very spread out. I will find out! It was a small airport – we let some people off and picked up a few more without getting off the plane. Someone later told me that Ethiopian is the minibus of airlines – stopping everywhere to pick up and drop off. Blue and white minibuses, packed to the gills, are the cheapest most favored form of local transport in most of Southern Africa. I can’t wait to go until next week! I badly wanted to stop just to be able to sleep.

I zombie-walked through the immigration and customs line, then stood around waiting for my bags. Lusaka, airport for more than a million people, has only two baggage carousels. I enjoyed watching a wrapped carved spear, tourist quality, go round and round while the one bag man through our bags on the carousel. I got mine, in fine shape, and staggered off to go try a taxi.

First thing I saw were a bunch of SCECSAL signs, and the second was Ruth! She’d gotten there the day before and got her friend Chimemwe to come get me. Thank goodness! It was so nice of them, and it absolutely made my day much, much better.

Chimemwe then drove us to the Arcades, the newest shopping strip in Lusaka, one of two, where her husband, Craig, met us and traded some money with me. Then we walked around – the Arcades are outdoors and the weather was beautifully warm.

They dropped me at the hotel, the Chrismar, and went out again for a meeting. We are going to meet tomorrow, and I’ll go to church with them. I haven’t been in a while because of traveling and volunteer work, and I kind of miss it. I don’t think this church will be much like mine, but it will be interesting to see, and it’s still church.

I ordered dinner to eat in my room. The hotel was nice enough – older but clean, with a bar, a breakfast buffet area, and a restaurant attached. I was horrified to find that there WAS NO HOT WATER on my first night – I was absolutely filthy from the plane and I NEEDED a shower. I took one anyway, so shocked by the cold water I kept gasping. I am sure that there had to be some problem, or maybe just that it was late in the day. Also, the wifi doesn’t work for me – I can see the wireless points, and they seem strong, and I can connect, but the browser won’t open. So, as I expected, no email for at least a week.

Leave a Comment

Interruption

July 20, 2008 at 10:33 am (Uncategorized)

As is obvious, I’ve never posted the rest of the Tarheel Bus Tour.  I shall do so when I return home – none of those posts are on this computer.  I’m currently in Africa, and I’ve had bad access.  So, here’s what I have so far.  Hopefully, I’ll have better access going forward.

Leave a Comment

Day Three: Pathways to Prosperity

May 15, 2008 at 11:04 pm (Uncategorized)

This morning we were able to sleep in until 6:30 – thank goodness. We drove the short distance into Charlotte to meet with Pathways to Prosperity, a group project made up of UNC’s Center for Community Capital, the Charlotte Housing Authority, Third Fifth Bank, and others who work to help improve banking and financial literacy among the clients of the CHA.

Many people fall into a trap, using credit to pay credit, suffering massive health bills when uninsured, or failing to understand how to manage the money that they have. These people are often unable to organize their debts to pay them, or to get a bank account. North Carolina makes payday loans – usually viciously predatory – illegal, which helps, but many people with a low income are unable to use banking services. This group from UNC partnered with CHA and these others to teach the clients of CHA’s FSS (family Self Sufficiency) program to manage their funds and how to least painfully pay off their debts, while also offering a variety of banking services designed to support people with past unfortunate banking histories to relearn how to use a bank account or credit responsibly.

The CHA is also heavily involved in renovating and changing their subsidized housing projects to make them into much more attractive mixed income developments. This has brought up property values and sparked new growth and development near each project, but has also driven property values up massively. Nothing without cost.

This is incredibly valuable – how could anyone get out of debt if they didn’t have a way to manage it? Or have never learned how to think about money?

Leave a Comment

Day Two: Dinner with the Wolfpack

May 15, 2008 at 10:51 pm (Tar Heel Bus Tour)
Tags: ,

Dinner was to be at the Embassy Suites – a joint dinner with the Bus Tour of the new NC State University faculty, who began the bus tour idea and always go at the same time as Carolina.

Before the dinner, David (Public Health) and I wanted to take a walk – we’ve been sitting and standing and eating a lot, but not moving around much. We went across the very busy road (we’d been told that was a bad idea, but hey…) and headed up the gravel track toward – the giant Nascar track. We were hoping to go take a peek, but it was too far off. We walked up close enough to see it a long way off, and spoke to a couple of nice friendly people camping out in one of the many rvs. They told us that there were practice runs occurring at the track. It sounded like chemical release sirens, or air raid sirens in old movies – a loud whining drone rising and falling off in the distance. If I was camping out and heard that, I think I would have nightmares.

The dinner itself was very nice – with even nicer appetizers and drinks before – with a decent buffet and a further lecture on the new Nutrition Research Institute facilities. The best part was that it was with the new NC State faculty, who sat mingled in with us. I met a couple of very nice people from the Veterinary School and the Planning School. Their new Special Collections Librarian came over to visit afterwards when I was sitting talking about Michigan’s economy with the veterinarian (who was also named Susan). Susan the vet and Lisa the librarian invited me and Daniel to come visit them to have lunch and meet their new veterinary librarian, whose background is as a medical librarian. I really enjoyed talking to them and would be happy to meet up with them anyway, but it’s especially good because of the professional connection. That’s exactly what was hoped for with this joint dinner.

Leave a Comment

Day Two: Nutrition Research Institute

May 15, 2008 at 10:42 pm (Uncategorized)

After lunch at the dam, we rode drowsily along to get to Kannapolis, where a new research campus modeled on the RTP is being built. Along the way, Jim Laloudis gave us a talk about the economic and desegregation history of the area, as he had done all throughout the tour. He flew out after dinner that night, which was a loss, but we gained Ferrell Guillory to also give us historical background for some of the rest of the tour.

Kannapolis was a company town for Pillowtex, a very large textile manufacturer that went out of business in 2003. The town began to sink fast, and is at 30% unemployment. David H. Murdock of Dole Foods had an affection for the town as he had once owned Pillowtex in a previous incarnation, so he bought it. He decided to work with the state universities to create a center for research like RTP, focusing on biotechnology, nutrition, and health research. He moved two of his factories to the state and took funding for the universities to use in this project instead of the usual incentive tax breaks for moving the factories – generous. The new UNC Nutrition Research Institute, part of the School of Public Health, will focus on nutrition and food and plant science. Carolina, Duke, NC State, UNC A&T, UNC Charlotte, and others will all have faculty and projects based there, working in many cases in the same labs, as well as assorted private companies focusing on biomedical endeavors.

We were each given a hard hat and a florescent vest to wear – the center is still under construction. I had looked up a few pictures, and there were some in our Tour Book – but nothing could prepare me to see this building. It looked like many other buildings I have seen – vaguely Georgian, with red brick and tall white columns – but is incredibly massive. It’s five stories, but it felt more like ten.

The entry way to the Core Lab – the only one safe enough to visit yet, even with hard hats – is a huge rotunda, going up all five stories. It reminded me very much of the Texas State Capital building, except that it was far more light and better lit, with yellow paint and white marble. The Capital building always reminded me of a cave, although that might be because I always entered it directly from sunlight while wearing sunglasses.

Anyway, Murdock is building for posterity – there is 2-inch thick carved white Italian marble all through the entry way, and will be through much of the first floor. There is a beautiful inlaid marble design on the rotunda floor. Each building is meant to have the absolute best lab equipment, some of which is being designed and built specifically for the new Campus. They are attempting to gain Leed Certification, at least silver, although they think they might be able to get gold for some buildings. That’s very impressive when you recall that they had to import that Italian marble, and that will certainly count against them when the distance traveled is counted.

Two things about the design struck most of us as really valuable, both related to transport – there is a large parking structure built (something to be appreciated by anyone who tries to park on our own campus, especially as a few people just got evicted from their usual parking grounds due to construction), and there will be bike and walking paths from several nearby residential areas. They will install showers and locker rooms in the lab buildings so that people can bike to work and then rinse off – very cool! I myself prefer to walk the distance to a bus stop far off from my house, but won’t on my way to work or when it’s hot because of the need to be clean for work.

The building that is being called the UNC building – its official name is something else, but nobody is calling it that at this point – will be focused on nutrition research and include NC State and other researchers as well. It will be open in about a month, which is only a month behind schedule. The project leader seemed distressed by that, but I thought that was impressive – that seems a small delay for such a big project, especially as so much of it seems to be original to this building. It will have 18 tenured faculty from Carolina, who are currently being recruited. These faculty will be tenure track but not teach, which will be new for Carolina. They will be supervising grad students and postdocs, however.

After visiting the site, we went to a bank in town to listen to Dr Steven Zeisel, the Institute Director, talk about the history of the project. We discovered (while searching for the restroom, which we do a lot of on the bus tour) that the old vault was still there, and the door was open. Very cool – the mechanisms of the vault lock were visible, and some people went into it. It had children’s book mural on the walls for some reason.

Interesting visit – this should be an exciting addition if everything goes well. I am curious how the businesses and rival schools will function together. Everyone is also anxious to see how this will affect the town – there are plans for a community college annex on the Research Campus to train interested residents to function at a variety of research and lab support jobs, and this will certainly bring new money into the community, but it will surely change many things. Hopefully, everybody will benefit as much as there is potential to do so.

Leave a Comment

Day Three: Wireless problems

May 15, 2008 at 7:32 am (Uncategorized)

Good morning!  Your regularly scheduled blog posts will not be available until very late today – the beautiful inn that we stayed at Wednesday night only has wireless in the lobby, and my little computer doesn’t like it.

This is being written on a borrowed Mac – thank you, Kristy!  Suffice to say we had a great time and there’s a lot to write about later on.

Leave a Comment

« Older entries Newer entries »