Trip Report from a village visit to Mwape
Sept 4-5, 2004
Prepared by Kurt Kornbluth, MIT

Trip Information:

Location: 51 km from Nymba (Nymba is 360 km from Lusaka on Great East road)
Who went: Matt, Phillp, Kurt, and Mary
Guide: Winston Mwale (based in Lusaka)
Host:Chief hosted us in a 4-bedroom guesthouse

Chief is always a woman. Chief Mwape? She presides over 34 villages with about 3000 people. 2 Chief retainers

Villages are 1-a few families. Each has a head person (almost always a man).

Getting there:

Mwape to Nyimba: Car or bus. 4 hour drive from Lusaka (good road)
There are 2 ways into Mwape from Nyimba:170 km "good road" or 51 km "bad road"
2 hr. drive, 4 hr bike ride, or all day walk from Nyimba to Mwape on bad road.

Nyimba
There is a guesthouse, petrol station, small store, bar, and ADRA office in Nyimba.

2 bore holes with concrete cap and hand-operated pump, 40-45 meters deep. Flows like a strong garden hose. Gov't has promised more?

Hand pump is: India mark II deep well hand pump by Insal ltd. Installed by ADRA

Water is untested and untreated. (there are some unreported periodic outbreaks of water related sickness)

No water if pump breaks or if too little rain thus sometimes pump may be inoperable part of year.

No chemicals or fertilizer used on nearby farms.

Also they have another well:
Dug by villagers (villager in pit with shovel), matl's funded by gov't. This is an open pit hole with bucket windlass. Abandoned because it is contaminated (it has a cover, but you need to remove cover and lower bucket to get water).

Building Materials

1) Bamboo woven basket-style covered with mud. Round, with thatched roofs.

2) Fired bricks (local) nr basic village structures, only for more important places

3) Rammed earth, square (using a locally-made mold about .5 M by .2 M that is moved along wall, rammed with blunt sticks). Not waterproof.

Chiefs house and other buildings are of higher standard (cinder block and iron sheet roof?)

Bamboo is grown 3 km away

Types of structures:

Grain storage (basket sealed with mud)

Poultry storage

Round houses

Square houses

Clinics

School

Court house

Food

Staple: corn ground into mealie-meal

Also:

Bananas
Sugar cane
Sorghum
Rice
Tomatoes
Onions
Ground-nuts
Goats (testse fly resistant, cows are not so no cows)
Chickens
Guinea fowl
Fish in rainy season when river is connected to Luangua
Sunflowers (for oil)

Sweet beer from sprouted corn plus some kind of grain alcohol

Agriculture

Some crops are irrigated but only by hand
Flood plain makes for excellent soil not much need for watering
No fertilizer is used (soil appears to be rich)
Cash crop: Tobacco, sold by locals in Nyimba

Machinery

Hand power press for sunflower oil

Made by Jung and co. ltd. in Kitwe, Zambia. Spares available from Petahuwuke. Villagers trained to operate/maintain by ADRA with tools from around village.

2 diesel grain mills (1 working)

Chief's Mill:
Size 1 ½ Hippo mill. 12 kW 1800 watt diesel belt-drive, bought in Lusaka.

Public Health

Stats: (2004, ADRA)

Total population: 2,756

0-11 months: 99, 3.6%
12-59 months: 471, 17.1%
Women of Child age: 606, 22%
Below 15 yrs: 1345, 48.8%
Above 15 years: 1411, 51.2%

Expected pregnancies: 119, 4.3%
Expected births; 113, 4.1%

Nutrition:
Observed many large stomachs on children. Theory: over refined mealie-meal, overcooked greens, unbalanced diet (no beans, don't eat many ground nuts).

Taboos may play a part in this: I.e. " If you eat eggs while pregnant, your children will have no hair".

Clinic

Small, 2 beds + 2 rooms
Solar/battery radio
Paraffin powered vaccine cooler (supplied by a Japanese NGO)
Nyimba is closest hospital.

Medical care person:
One male nurse operates clinic. There are midwives in the village. We asked him of any problems? "Delivering babies in huts (people are afraid of doctors). Poor nutrition. There are also taboos regarding food.

Electricity

No grid electricity in Nyimba or Mwape. Generators are used in Nymba however (They have a petrol station).

Grid may be in Nyimba by 2005.

Solar panels for clinic radio (Zambezi radio 2)

Paraffin Hurricane lamps for chief, flashlights seem popular among chief's lieutenants.

We saw many radios (people listen to football) but no TV (can't watch McGuiver).

Toilets

Pit toilets with mud or concrete slabs

Other Activities

Bee keeping is starting. 35 hives built since 2002. Bees seem to have just begun to move in.

Future: Cash crops of beans and corn, possible sale of gems.(Winston's idea).