Malawi Program Visit

Elizabeth Bara and Tom Arsenault have recently returned from visiting both the ASAP Malawi program and the ASAP Zimbabwe program. In Malawi, some days were spent meeting field officers in the rural areas where the projects are implemented. They were able to meet many of the Village Savings and Lending (VS&L) club members and hear firsthand about the various activities of the project.

One of the members is doing a great beekeeping project with ten beehives. Some are doing piggery, some fowl and eggs while others are cooking doughnuts and cakes. The majority of members are buying and reselling for their income generating projects. Buying and reselling involves quite an number of different products such as tomatoes, dried fish, clothing, flip-flop shoes, various nuts, vegetables and many others. There are even a couple of groups doing larger whole group projects – making and bottling achar (a type of relish) and fruit jam.

The Malawi program is relatively new and it is so exciting to see how these women have gone from zero to having their own money for school fees and farming inputs as a result of the training from ASAP field officers. And they all certainly expressed how happy and grateful they are for ASAP’s extensive training in VS&L.

5 more years

On Sunday afternoon, President Robert Mugabe was inaugrated once again as President of Zimbabwe. He is the only President of Zimbabwe in my lifetime..

When I was born, Ronald Reagan was the US President. After him- George H.W Bush had one term, Clinton served two terms and George W Bush has also served 2 terms. All that time- Mugabe has been in power. And that is not even the start of Mugabe's reign- he had already been in power 8 years by the time I was born!! Hard to compare? I think so...

On Friday of last week, as Zimbabweans "went to the polls", inflation was reported to have reached 9 000 000%. I really dont know how to put this in comparison- maybe by comparing it to US inflation which is currently 4%. Nothing that we can compare it to will put it into perspective.

The USD is trading at around $1.99 to the pound at the start of this week. Compare this to the Zimbabwe figure of 85 Billion Zimbabwe dollars to one British Pound.. It is pretty accurate to say that the USD and pound will trade at around $2 this week- normally I just double any pound figure to get the USD figure. However, the Zimbabwe exchange rate will fluctuate greatly by the day- possibly by the hour.....

What is next for Zimbabwe????

Yield to Oncoming Zebras

Every day on my way to work I pass this sign, which reads Zebra Crossing. And every day when I see that sign I smile to myself at how bizarre and exotic living in Africa is. Where I’m from in Atlanta, all we have are duck crossings!

Last week I asked my coworker Michael to stop the car in front of the sign so that I could take a picture of it. He looked a little confused, but pulled over to the side of the road. When I got back in the car he asked me, “Don’t you have crossings in the United States?” I replied, “Yeah, for people, but not for ZEBRAS!”

He looked confused for a moment and then burst out laughing. In between laughing fits he explained to me that a zebra crossing is not for zebras. It’s just a normal crosswalk named “zebra” for the black and white diagonal lines that mark where people should cross. Every since then whenever we pass a zebra crossing, Michael smirks and says, "Stephie, look out for the zebras!"

Sigh. This picture is yet another symbol of how much I still have to learn about life in Zimbabwe.