Endings and Beginnings

{I penned this reflection/rant/anything while waiting for a flight in an airport somewhere after being grounded due to an on flight illness midway from Lilongwe to Nairobi. So I was sitting in the departures area waiting for the flight and decided to write this. Sort of. Most of it anyways. The writing was kind of... really... okay entirely messy so I had to fill in the blanks a little here and there.... Well most of it.}

Pale soul. Pale with regards to a loss of colour caused by remorse and regret dripping with nostalgia. Pale soul. To opt for an oft used metaphor that "life is a road" it feels as though we're all wanderers, drifters really, and each fleeting moment is really just a step forward to our mutual destination. Perhaps time in Zambia was just spent wandering in about in the fog of the unknown and what lays beyond. A unique blur; maybe I was a blank canvas upon arrival that was painted with the faces encountered and the stories they shared. A unique blur of mere glimpses into the lives of so many - the family who called me their own in Twapia (their love, joys and adversity), the women and men who were interviewed for NGO work (their challenges and desires), and the fellow JFs within Zambia and Malawi (their stories, friendship and support). As return to Canada looms ever closer and closer - counting down in hours now instead of days - I cannot help but feel as though all these faces are drifting away, becoming permanently blurred and lost, especially those from Zambia.

So perhaps the canvas brought to Zambia is finished - no more will the child's call of "musungu! musungu!" colour memories of walking down the street, no more will I dine with Joseph and his family and hear his insights into Zambian culture and NGO work, no more will I receive those late night (which in Zambia was 19:00) text messages from fellow JFs. All the time allotted for Zambia has been spent. On top of the connections created with fellow musungus and Zambians alike I feel that spending the short amount of time overseas presented me with an opportunity to drive bits of change within NGOs and in the field.

Traveling to Zambia gave a different perspective of what the word "life" might mean compared to Canada... It does not feel so different. People still have their share of laughter and joys coupled with tears and sorrows. Hope still drives dreams of different tomorrows and change, but what is different is the opportunity for those hopes to blossom into reality. The women, men, and children of Twapia still dream of a new future for themselves - maybe it's an electrified house - they too dream for their children - maybe it's the chance to go to school -  yet even after working twelve hours a day seven days a week for months and years such dreams aren't tangible. Where's the opportunity? What can be done to create it?

The return to Canada? Maybe it's an ending, but the ending of most aspects of life is the beginning of something new. I feel that there is an immense and overwhelming potential for Canadians to knock down barriers to opportunity without ever setting foot on an airplane. Global citizenship..., responsibility on our part for our actions and the understanding of how we are citizens of the world (whether we like it or not) and that within this complex sphere of the world our actions can have strange and unanticipated ripples. There's opportunity to create opportunity, to catalyze opportunity..., to create change in our homes and in our class rooms, in the coffee shops and in the newspapers, in our governments (of all levels, not just federal) and in our conversations. In the actions we take every day after we arise the potential to make change happen is ubiquitous. Change happens in Canada, not just overseas. Change happens when we as Canadians realize that we can create change by holding our government accountable for its policies or when we encourage one another to take actions as responsible global citizens. Change happens in Canada.

The sun sets every day in Zambia, it sets every day in Canada. Each night the sun sets on a world where opportunity isn't found in every nook and cranny, it isn't flowing through life in places such as Twapia. Wouldn't it be something amazing if the sun didn't rise on the same world every morning, that as light falls to the ground it passes into a world of incremental change? So if each day is an ending and a beginning it's time to make each beginning a different one, a new one - for each sunrise to be greeted from all our actions the day before. Driving small changes on a day to day basis. With each new sunrise, each completion of the endings and beginnings,  let our actions contribute to building a world of opportunity.

the sun too shines in Calgary

It's a strange place..., this city of Calgary. But the same sun that shines on the fields of Canola bordering the city and the concrete city core within also shines on the lush green trees of Mapalo and the metal roofs of the families of Twapia. The same wind that shakes the Baobabs and mango trees of Zambia also rustles the maple leafs of Canada. Life lives in Zambia and Canada. Humanity - we're all connected world over by the most honest, simple, and beautiful things - the sun, the wind, the ever blue sky and the clouds that dot it. So why isn't something as simple as opportunity just as universal? Why will the child born in Calgary have far greater opportunity than the one born in Ndola?

The sun too shines in Calgary, just as it does in Twapia. The sun shines worldwide - why too doesn’t opportunity?

Internal roadblocks to change

As difficult as it is for an organization to achieve project success based on conditions in the field there are also difficulties inherent within organizations that are roadblocks to change.

When considering a hypothetical organization - at home or overseas - various factors influence its ability to achieve what it sets out to do. Management styles, internal structure, organizational values / perspective, and ability to plan can all hinder the progress or "success" of a project before workers even hit the ground.

For a moment consider the idea of different “management styles” (which is a very broad term). It is important to look at who holds decision making authority. Is this person a complete autocrat with a glorious vision of the way things "are" or "should be", or are they an open minded individual more concerned with both the project and those working on it reaching their potential? Does the manager actively try to understand the strengths and weaknesses in the team and work to make sure that the right people are doing the right job? Does the manager try to motivate people to achieve the goals of the project by understanding why or how they are motivated? Does the manager take into account the needs of the team? Ect. . . Does the manager connect the dots or dictate?

Organizational values can sway the definition of "success" of a project away from one that actually conflates with "change" for the intended beneficiaries to one that is merely justification to continue whatever the project is for the organization. Essentially, if the organization's values are not in line with the heart of the matter / the reality of the situation then there is the potential for the organization to justify its work as "good" without considering what "good" is actually being achieved. When the desired change is quantified in terms of organization's perspective, as opposed to that of the beneficiary, there is a great potential for projects to roll forward - full steam ahead - in a way that pleases the organization or maybe the donors, but not necessarily the intended beneficiaries. Does the organization put value on planning ahead of time? Does the organization put value on personal or professional development of its staff? Does it value the input of all stake holders? Is it concerned with the impacts its work will have on the communities? Does the organization value new idea generation and innovation? Does it value the thoughts and lessons learned from its staff who are in the front line, or only the desires of the upper echelons of the organization’s structure? Is the organization committed to driving change through deep impacts? Does the organization’s culture put value on critical thinking? The motivations and abilities of those within an organization can be directly impacted by its values, perspective, and motivation.

What about hierarchy? Does the internal structure of an organization make decision making a slow and cumbersome process? Who is responsible for decision making on important matters? For example, should the big bwana / person at the top of the pyramid be able to make unchecked decisions about all programmes without consultation from those who are actually informed about the issues? Are team leaders able to make programme critical decisions without having to ask higher authorities and wait for a “timely decision”? The hierarchy of an organization can drastically cripple the ability for meaningful decision making. Will the hierarchy be an intuitive map of shared authority and decision making power or a synthetic “power grab” division of responsibility that hinders change from occurring? Streamlined decision making vs. confusion? Can an organization structure themselves in such a way that those involved feel ownership over their role, empowered in their decision making, and able to drive the change they want to see, while at the same time having an organization that is accountable and effective?


Plan, plan, plan. Part of planning is to establish a realistic metric for success (a working definition for the change the project is trying to create). As obvious as it sounds - before moving forward the team should know exactly what it is they want to accomplish or change. What's a reasonable way to determine a definition of "success"? It all depends on the context. Ideally all the stakeholders will play a role in determining what success might mean. (example - in Canada if the city is going to commission a major road they'd speak with the communities that will be affected. If a NGO is going to work in a community hopefully they'd involve that community in planning, problem identification, ect . . . as opposed to: HERE'S OUR SOLUTION.) Gathering information about whatever it is the project desires to change or achieve would be a logical starting point. What is the cause of the ‘problem’ – what indicates there is a problem? (the problem being a situation or condition within a community that could or should be changed?) What are the indicators related to this issue? Indicators of the base problem or issue that is trying to be resolved are essential. It’s not enough to say “there’s bad water” or “the traffic piles up” – actually indicators, qualitative and quantitative, for the problem need to established. A realistic definition of success seems to be contingent on gathering accurate information about the present situation as well including all stakeholders in definition generation.

In a project management course I once took, a prof talked about risk and how risk can never be completely removed from any project, but through proper planning it could be mitigated. Inside and outside of the classroom this statement seems to draw water - there is risk in everything we do, whether it is designing a water provision development project in Zambia or a roadway system in Canada. Smaller scale activities in day to day life - such as buying a cup of tea - too have their associated risks. Risk in this sense is the potential for an internal or external event or change to hinder the project from reaching its defined success.

When risks are simplified there is potential for disaster - the risk of failure is an accumulation of various other risks which need to be planned for carefully. Contingency plans need to be developed. Failure to succeed - is it a risk of supply line failure? Oops we're no longer able to have access to an all necessary part. Is there a risk of low adoption rate of whatever the project is? That's probably not the end of the story. Why is there a risk of low adoption rate? Do the intended beneficiaries not desire the project? Not understand the benefits? What about changes within the community - what risk do they present for project success? ect . . . On top of managing risks that may be apparent or possible it is also essential to not make a project plan too rigid so that it cannot adapt to unimaginable risks. What seems impossible today may be a cruel reality four months down the line when the project is in full swing. This "unlikely possibility" or "unimaginable situation" might derail the whole project if the original planning is too rigid to adapt to changing circumstances. Essentially a project is an attempt to work within an ever changing system (ie a community. A community may be composed of households. Think about all the changes that occur in your household on a day to basis. Multiply that by four months. Multiply that by hundreds or thousands of households. Now think about environmental changes. Political changes. (both likely and unlikely) - communities are very dynamic) .

Planning also needs to take into account how to determine if the desired change is actually occurring. Meaningful indicators relating to the change should be established and a way to gather the pertinent information related to said indicators needs to be developed. If a project is designed to have some success or drive some change what reflects this change or success? What about the indicators mentioned earlier (the ones for “how do we know this issue / problem exists?”) – can they be used as correlation? If the same indicators for identifying the problem are used to identify successes or change will that create a more accurate picture?

So those are a few thoughts on "planning" - the key idea is that any project, complex or simple, needs to be well thought out. Understanding what change is desired and how to measure it along with what might hinder that success is important. Of course this post is an over simplification of “planning” but I just wanted to highlight a few drops in the bucked that contribute to an organization’s ability to create their desired change.

Not a comprehensive look at roadblocks to change that can occur within an organization, but rather a few thoughts I wanted to jot down at 3:22 AM . I figured in the very least it’d make a new blog post. I’ll try to come back and update this one as more comes to mind.

an apology for my terrible tendency..,

..., to wrinkle up the most valuable [things] in life and shove them into a pocket with all the useless spare change, wrinkled napkins and bloody Kleenexes found while walking down life's road. What should have been framed was tarnished.

From Drop Box

Full House

It feels as though it is four and half minutes to midnight on New Year’s Eve. Last minute conflicts, regrets over the year's happenings, bouts of laughter, reflections on circumstances, and hurried last minute preparations to welcome the New Year accompany the last breaths and struggled mutterings of the old one.

However it is not 23:55:30 on some December 31st in some year Anno Domine, it is August nineteenth 2009. The stage has emptied, no encore no continuation. The house lights are on and the room is emptying in a surreal manner. Acquaintances become memories as they furtively rush out of their seats, into the aisle, and out of the theatre. A placement has ended and conscious thoughts drift from the present reality in Southern Africa to another world far removed from present circumstances. A world of maple leafs and electric powered public transit trains. A world of five dollar cups of coffee and drive by apathy.

Febrile Chills - Sleepless Nights - Morning brings a lucid, cruel, cruel, reality

"A child dies of malaria every 30 seconds" - WHO



A statistic I have heard before several times - Spread the Net Campaign Advertisements, commercials for one NGO or another, and friends have all shared this chilling fact with me. However, I feel that this fact is a cold statistic. It doesn't carry the weight of the whole story - it's an accountant's attempt at poetry. Honest yet simplistic; this is an important message. But in a culture so far removed from Malaria we hear many stories - how can we understand what it is like to have Malaria, how ubiquitous it is, how many times or how many ways it alters one's life? So here is yet another stab at Malaria, take it for what it's worth.

This figure doesn't just indicate that every thirty second the laughter of one child is suddenly extinguished forever, replaced by the weeping of loved ones and friends. Malaria isn't a quick and tidy death - for children it's a drawn out process lasting days. It indicates that every thirty seconds a young one has succumbed to an illness that has sapped the life from them in a painful, discomforting, and usually completely treatable process. Malaria seems as common in the Ndola region as the flu seems in Canada. People get it, it slows them down for a few days and life goes on. Many people I met keep a supply of treatment on hand and know the early symptoms. If treated early perhaps the brunt of the illness can be mitigated.

Most cases of Malaria are treatable; while there is no vaccine;however, treatment drugs are cheap and readily available. For around ten dollars one can walk into a Chemist / Pharmacy and buy Coartem. But for households where the monthly salary is only three hundred thousand kwacha it is a sacrifice born of necessity to roll out fifty thousand Kwacha for yellow pills. This little yellow package contains enough artemesinin derived medication to treat Malaria in three days. After the first day of medication some symptoms subside, by the end of day two the patient is walking rapidly down the road to recovery, and once the third day's dosage is complete lingering symptoms should vanish in a day's time.

Symptoms of Malaria which may overwhelm the child after infection are varied - nausea, diarrhea, vomiting, body pain, head ache, chills, and fever are some of the symptoms one may encounter one to two weeks after being bitten. These symptoms, as I described in a previous post, are intense. The chills are enough to deny much needed sleep. The fever induces all manners of discomfort. The pains immobilize and cause suffering. The vomit and diarrhea hinder nourishment and cause dehydration.

The infection begins with a simple mosquito bite at night time. Such an event is hardly considered cause for alarm in Canada. As the parasites enter the human body they move to the liver and multiply. Upon re entering the blood stream they destroy red blood cells. Eventually the previously described symptoms are followed by coma, kidney problems, and death. I've heard from many a typically nasty condition known as "black water fever" for the colour of the victim's urine arrives once Malaria has begun to take it's toll on the body.

For me when I felt ill it was a simple trip to the doctor to receive medicine to address the discomfort caused by symptoms and medicine to treat the infection. I'm white, wealthy, and have medical insurance. I've had Malaria three times this summer while trying to avoid infection. I've taken prophylactics. I've used a bug net. I've sprayed my arms countless times with mosquito repellent. I've have Malaria three times. I can't imagine what the symptoms may be like without medicine to lessen their toll, without being healthy and well nourished, with out having a doctor to quickly diagnose and treat.

I cannot imagine what the symptoms would feel like without drugs. At the worst of times the room never stopped spinning due to nausea, my bones felt shattered, and the chills reminded me of Calgary winters with no jacket. These feelings occurred with medication given to me to lessen these symptoms. What would Malaria be like without medication?

Every thirty seconds a child dies after suffering through fevers and intense pain, diarrhea and vomiting, nausea and head pain. All of which is preventable with bug nets and bug spray. All of which is treatable with cheap medicine. If only life were so simple. That's the cruel reality - you'd think something as simple as medication for those who need it could be easily facilitated. Yet these problems still exist.

Like many things I have encountered in Zambia, there is a white get out of jail free card for Malaria. The treatment exists within the walls of so many Chemists and Doctor's Offices. It exists, it's cheap, and it's readily available. So why do such staggering problems still exist? Why can't every human be entitled to such simplistic medicine? Why do children succumb to Malaria after days of suffering from such dire symptoms?

It's not as simple as giving nets to people or producing more drugs. Nets and Drugs are out there. People have to perceive a need for nets. I've heard stories of people using mosquito nets to catch fish. Is it an issue of developing the capability of public health provision? Arguably that's still an issue in most "developed" nations. I’m not an expert in medicine, health care, or anything for that matter. I do feel that having had Malaria three times now and having been easily treated each time that this problem is complex and confusing.

Every thirty seconds a child's struggle with a brutal disease ends with the loss of life.

Stuck inside of Lusaka with the Malaria blues again

The plan was perfect - leave Ndola early on Sunday morning to arrive in Lusaka by Noon. Spend the day in Lusaka doing last minute preparations and final work related emails and then head to Kasama for a village stay. Head to the market on Sunday and grab a gift or two for my intended host family, eat a good meal and most importantly GET SOME SLEEP!

But plans never work out as intended, which is why I am not a fan of rigid plans. Saturday night I felt ill - not desperately, but even my last meal with the Bala family was strained due to aches and fatigue. Sunday morning greeted me with similar symptoms and accompanying vomit. "Maybe it's a flu..." I boarded the motor coach in Ndola around 6:30. After a quick call and a text again thanking Joseph for his hospitality over the last six weeks it's already 6:52. The bus is full now and hitting the road. Symptoms persist. I try to dose on the bus in between conversations with my new friend headed to Mazabuka. I wonder if in Canada complete strangers can become fast friends just by sitting beside one another on a bus?

Upon arriving in Lusaka I felt improved - I met up with some other EWB volunteers (OVS). In the evening the symptoms came back in full force - they even brought their ugly cousins "chills and body pain". By nineteen hours (or so) I was slumped on a chair. The next day I went to the doctor with the help of an EWB volunteer. "You have Malaria." He handed me a bunch of pills for addressing the various symptoms (vomiting, pain, ect..) some coartem to kill the parasites... and Doxy to treat some other infection he thought I had. I left the doctors office with a pocket pharmacy and crashed.

Malaria round three. Despite wearing bug spray and sleeping under mosquito nets one (or more) little vampire(s) was able to bite me "seven to fifteen days" ago. Tricky mosquito, it must have known my plans and set out to destroy them with one little bite. What foresight on the part of a tiny insect.

So I'm stuck in Lusaka till at least Thursday. The doctor (who oddly was from Kasama. And all around the best doctor I have visited while overseas) told me "Kasama is very nice, but you can't travel for three days. Maybe more." So now I am waiting so patiently in Lusaka till I'm done my medicine and feeling well enough to step out into the world. Hopefully I can make it to Kasama on Thursday, but I'm not counting on anything!

Moral of the story: don't make time dependent plans at the last minute that can be easily derailed by something as tiny as forty thousand ish parasites swimming through your blood stream munching on red blood cells while throwing a party in your liver.