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Agfax themes     Appropriate technology From Ecosan toilets to sack gardens for slum dwellers, practical, affordable and locally-made technologies help solve problems and create new opportunities. view reports     Climate change Coping with increased temperature, uncertain rainfall, droughts or flooding, how can rural communities adapt to meet the challenges of a changing climate? view reports     Fish and forests Fish, whether from coastal fisheries, inland waters, or aquaculture, are a vital source of protein and income for millions. And forests, if correctly managed, are a sustainable source of numerous products, including timber, food and medicine. view reports     Health There are many connections between rural livelihoods and health, including improved nutrition and sanitation, control of disease-carrying insects, hygiene in food processing and safe use of agrochemicals.view reports     Livestock Often seen as a pathway out of poverty, livestock rearing enables people to survive in harsh environments, earn extra income from sales of meat, milk or eggs, and may provide a financial safety net during tough times. view reports

 

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Matongo Maumbi

The Iron Like a Lion In Zion
Zambia

Mobile: +260 977 480 759

Check Out My Blog - Tonga Bull

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful citizens can change the world.  Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."    Margaret Mead

Anna: strong and hardworking

Anna: 'Even now I am still strong. I do all the work on my own.'

Anna became pregnant when still at school. Her family was tough with her, saying she must pay the price of her “negligent body”. She says that she is grateful as she learned to be strong and hardworking. She later married but her husband is ill and they can’t afford the drugs he needs.

Anna believes it is vital for women not to be financially dependent on men. Now her husband is unable to work she has to do everything for their five children, as well as work on a tobacco farm.

Even so, she counts every blessing. “Poverty is having nothing… I am not poor because I am able to sell a few things and when they’re bought I am able to have some money. There are things I lack…. I don’t have a well or a latrine… If I had these things…I could have been vegetable gardening and poverty would be history.”

My name is Anna…I was born in 1956 in Monze. Before going to school, I was helping with farming at home… We grew groundnuts, [sweet potatoes] and maize, and I even [helped] apply cow manure in the field around October…

We were even encouraged to sow seeds and learn how best to do it. They did this to prepare us for our survival in the future. They gave us our own small piece of land to practice on. After harvest, we could sell our produce and earn some money.

To protect the soil and have good growth with our crops, we never applied fertiliser. We just planted. Even with groundnuts, you don’t apply any chemicals. This applies to sweet potatoes too. For maize we applied cow manure. The crops grew well without chemicals.

Crop rotation existed. If this year we had groundnuts, the following year we would have maize. Some years they would grow sunflower, as it transformed the land for better. I got this knowledge from my parents. My grandfather practiced this a lot…

Today

The change I am seeing is that the land can no longer produce good crops without chemical fertiliser… I preferred using manure because you would not need to apply any other chemicals to have a good yield. With fertiliser, when you apply basal fertiliser, you also have to apply top dressing otherwise your maize will die.

What has made my field barren is the use of these different kinds of fertiliser. This year you apply this kind and the following year you apply a different kind. This destroys the fields…

We no longer apply manure as most cattle are dead because of denkete (foot and mouth disease)…so where can you find the manure? My [standard of living is] going down…because I no longer have the yields that I had in previous years…

Back to the past

[In] the past…life was good. Our daily livelihood was very good because we never bought cooking oil, we would pound groundnuts to mix with vegetables and eat this with the children. In samp (pounded maize and beans) we mixed buntele (pounded groundnuts). Nowadays we no longer add groundnuts because…production has gone down…

My father had three wives and he had one big grain bank that he used to help his family and his whole clan. If anyone had a problem, they would go to my father for help. The old man would not take anything from the grain bank of his wives; he would get it from the main bank of the village…[this practice] no longer exists.

Motherhood as a schoolgirl

When I finished… actually I didn’t finish school – I became pregnant [laughs]. I became pregnant in Form One. Afterwards I started growing groundnuts so that I may take care of my child. When time for harvesting came, I would get my yield and have something for my child.

It was difficult to get clothes for my child – they told me that I got pregnant deliberately, to stop school. I was told to raise the child on my own. Whatever problem I was in because of my negligent body, they told me, I was to “find my own way out”.

The difficult part was fending for myself. But this was good, for I learnt a lot of things. I learnt how to farm, how to grow sweet potatoes. Even now I am still strong. I do all the work on my own. This is how I raise money for my children although I am now married.

In the initial stage [of motherhood], I felt greatly troubled… I wanted to continue school after [weaning] the child, but there was no one to sponsor me… Today I have come to realise that what they did was good for me. If they had just kept quiet and left me unpunished, I would not have learnt anything.

They made me strong and I am still strong and hard-working. I am still doing the work I did then. I learnt all this through the punishment they gave me [laughs]… The [first child] is now married and has a farm in Kapiri…

The importance of independence

I would encourage women not to rely on men… Now, [imagine] your husband dies, and you remain with no business of your own – you would really be in trouble.

These days, even when you are with your husband, you must be something too. If you can’t do business… then cut grass. There are plenty of people in need of fodder. Get firewood and sell it. You will be able to find money to help your children.

These days some women are free to do business ventures; others cannot manage. Some have no start-up capital…. Like I said, if you cut grass you can sell it, but some fail even to do this. They are never thinking of where or how to get money to do a business venture.

I am managing because I do not wait for someone to come to buy my goods. Whoever is on the road can buy from me as long as I have my items on display…

Begging for water

I had such a [good] harvest in 1979. I harvested 25 bags of maize. With this maize I managed to send my child to Kalomo Secondary. Now there is nothing. I just have a very few [bags]…which cannot even be put in a grain bank…

If you are based near a stream, you can do vegetable gardening. Problems are lessened when you garden. Water here is a problem, especially now that the rainfall is poor. We have to beg for water from those that have it. The hand pump is broken. The wells are drying up. We go round asking those that have got wells: you get one container filled here and you go and ask another to fill your other container and so on…

I started digging [a well nearby]. The only problem is that I have run out money to pay the ones doing the digging. The well is left at shoulder height due to lack of money. The water is bad [for drinking] because there is no chemical added to destroy the germs [but] my body has somehow become resistant to them.

No money for medicine

The disease that has disturbed my family is vomiting…accompanied by diarrhea. I have lost two children from this disease… We have a clinic but it’s not opened yet… my old man (husband) has had problems with his legs…since last August.

I find there are more diseases now compared to previous years. We never went to the hospital in the past. You could just dig up musampinzyo (wild root) and give it to your child to drink. You would get mululwe (wild root; very bitter) and he would get better. We could cure any kind of disease, but nowadays even when you go to the hospital, you could die. This is where I draw the difference…

What has brought an increase in disease, here in Mwapona, is that the water we drink is not safe… We have also had scabies of late and malnutrition…We go to Shaampande [clinic]. It’s far. We go on foot [and] when the patient can’t walk we borrow a bicycle to carry them. If the drugs are there, they give [you them]. But when they don’t have them, they give you a prescription…

If you don’t have money, you just stop. My old man is in bed. He was given a prescription but he can’t afford to buy the drugs. We still have the prescription…

“What makes me poor…”

Poverty is having nothing…I am not poor because I am able to sell a few things and…to have some money. There are things I lack. I don’t have a well or a latrine. If I had things like the well, I could have been vegetable gardening and poverty would be history.

I would say I had a better life in the past…. What makes me poor is the illness of my old man, the head of the house. I have to fend for everything to help my children, to keep them in school. I have five children going to school… I have to pay for them all.

Previously I never had problems because I had few children going to school… only three. I used to manage to pay for them and the old man at that time was working. When he got paid he would assist me and when I made some sales it would also help. It is now difficult because I am now all alone doing the work to help the children.

I do this through casual work. I work at a farm… I harvest tobacco. At the month’s end I am paid 120,000 Kwacha. I use this money to help my children…We use firewood [for cooking]. We work for it on the nearby farms. Charcoal is available but expensive…

Social change

[In] the past a girl would really reach maturity, and when I say maturity I mean all the features of a girl are visible. You would feel that you are now somebody. This is the time you would think of getting married. These days even a small girl knows how to attract boys. Is it the world that has changed or is it something else? What has gone wrong? I don’t know…

I have a big family with eight children…two have died. I also have grandchildren.

I was in a polygamous marriage and found it to be very bad…the friendship that existed [between co-wives] was nothing but pretence. When you are not there, the other one doesn’t take good care of your children. This is the bad aspect…

Of the children I bore, one is married in Namwala, the other has a farm in Kapiri. These two children assist me a lot. If am in trouble and go to them, they are able to assist me….

A son with HIV

I have a child who was infected with HIV in 1981… My son got infected because he never heeded my advice. It was sad news. I really suffered to take care of him. He was even insulting me when I was trying to care for him. I never discriminated against him. He is my child… if I were to avoid him; he would have no one to take care of him…

In Mwapona HIV and AIDS is widespread… Like now, there are seven funerals in this area… When you have a bereavement, you can go to the [section] Chairman and he is able to donate mealie meal (maize meal) and firewood to help you with the funeral…

Kara Counselling [and Training Trust] is busy teaching us the best preventive measures. They brought things like condoms…[but] the disease will continue to rise because some use them while others do not… Although they are taught what to do, they don’t follow instructions…

Development

Mmmmmh…..the government and development…they had given us a hand pump, but it’s already broken. When there is hunger and starvation, they assist us with food. Recently they constructed a community school…They are also building a clinic though it’s not operational yet. This is the development I am seeing in Mwapona.

[Clubs?] Let me not lie. I never join such groups. The only group that I hear of a lot in Choma is this one that has come to give loans to people… I can’t remember the other one. They give loans to women to start up businesses such selling beer. [About] those other organisations, I have no idea…. there is none [that has helped me].

We have failed to improve our country because farming has gone down. We had the Namboards (National Maize Boards). These are no longer in existence. We had cooperatives; they are also dead. This means agriculture has really gone down.

I have paw paws, guavas and some mangoes [at home]… We need to protect them because when they bear fruit, they are a source of food. You can survive on mangoes in times of hunger. The guavas bear fruit at a different time… so you can also survive on them…

Cutting trees to survive

I know the law that protects trees. They should not be cut because if there are no trees, rainfall would be very poor. A good example is Kapiri where they don’t allow cutting of trees. There is good rainfall there.

Here in Choma, it’s hunger that’s the problem. People produce charcoal for a living. Some have licenses while others do not. Chief Singani had at one time stopped them from cutting down trees, but their response was that it was their only livelihood.

The land has become poor and there is no fertiliser. Even when you try to plant something, there are no good yields. This is what makes them continue with charcoal production – to earn a living…

Tonga traditions

In the yesteryears, if there wasn’t good rainfall, we would hold Lwiindi (rainmaking or thanksgiving ceremony to celebrate end of a good harvest) and we would receive rain. This is now hardly practiced and in some areas it no longer exists…

We need Lwiindi because in the past it was working very well. If they had no rain for a week, they would go to the shrine and ask for rain, and the rain would come whilst they are at the shrine. But today this no longer happens.

The way forward

What I need [from the government] is a piece of land, especially for those of us who no longer have relatives to turn to. When you are given that piece of land, you would settle there. Then you can be able to farm and feed your children. When I have the land they can assist me with fertiliser and seeds. Then I can take it from there.

This interview has been specially edited for the web and cut down by more than half. Some re-ordering has taken place: square brackets indicate ‘inserted’ text for clarification; round brackets are translations / interpretations; and dots indicate cuts in the text. The primary aim has been to remain true to the spirit of the interview, while losing questions, repetition, and confusing or overlapping sections.

Get more of these stories from the Panos website

Dominic: valuing tradition | Panos London

Dominic: valuing tradition | Panos London:

Dominic: 'There is poverty that comes because you have tried and failed'

By Matongo Maumbi - Dominic describes a harsh childhood. His mother became lame in 1964 and his father left when the children were very young. “Most of the time we went without food,” he says. Dominic had to leave school early and married young in order to help his mother “since she wasn’t that able to cope on her own”.

Now the village secretary, Dominic values traditional Tonga customs and regrets the fact that young people belittle them. He says that there was greater unity when conflicts were resolved by traditional means within the community rather than going to the police and the courts.

He says farming was better in his parents’ time when the government provided start-up inputs and there was a greater variety of crops and plentiful harvests. He admits that men don’t want women to get too good at farming, so “we suppress them a bit”.

[In my childhood] we survived by eating wild fruits and roots because the family could not manage to grow enough food… [My mother] became lame in 1964… My father had left us when we were still very young… When my mother fell ill, we remained at my father’s place. It was difficult staying with my father’s other young wife. Most of the time I slept on an empty stomach…

I managed going to [primary] school through rough and tough… I was supposed to go to Rusangu Secondary. I didn’t because of [financial] problems. I felt very bad… I had the desire to continue, but when I saw that there was no hope of sponsorship…these desires disappeared slowly as the years passed…

I have two children that have already completed to high school level, and I am still struggling to send the others through school… Some [of my children] think that my failure to continue with education is a lifestyle [choice]; they don’t understand that I had no one to pay for me. When they see me doing some casual work, they want to help me and forget about school…[but] some of them really are interested in education.

Farming “is life”

Farming in those [early] days was very good… when I failed to go to school I went back to the land. It was really good. You would receive some fertiliser from the government as a start-up… You go and learn on the Muzenge (community programme) and then after some time they would give you bags of fertiliser for top and basal dressing and they would also give you the seed…[We grew] the Tonga variety of maize, Hekural King.

When hunger appears, whatever little you had put in [the grain bank], you would go and withdraw. The headman had a record of all the contributions made by the households to the community bank. This was to prevent selfishness by other people, who liked hiding produce from others… [But today our children would] question why their produce is taken away from them for the bank.

My parents grew millet, sorghum, sweet potatoes and maize… there would be pumpkins, cucumbers, groundnuts and all sorts of crops. But these days these things are not there… They also had cattle and goats… there are very few people who still have cattle. Those that still have cattle use the manure for farming.

Farming is profit to a person. This is life to a person. This is life to the country as a whole. I say so because if you are hard working in farming, and have failed to go to school, you are supposed to get rid of all your problems through farming…

Declining production; rising costs

What has made the change is that we can no longer afford the fertiliser, and the seed has become expensive… I used to grow crops to the capacity of the field. I could sometimes get 200 lots of 100 kg bags of maize. When I did badly I could get, say 150, 120 bags. This was because you could get a loan, say from the bank. These [days] this is not possible because of the expensive farming inputs.

They still [give loans] – even the government is doing something through what they call ‘down payments’. This helps us in some way… Ploughs are available in shops, but the money is difficult to find. Fertiliser is also available through the down payments scheme. Those that have the money do buy, but as for me I have failed…

We are grateful for the government programme of down payments, and the cattle-restocking programme, but we request them to continue with such good policies…

“I do not have enough farming tools”

There is poverty that is brought about by oneself and there is poverty that comes because you have tried and failed. Mostly poverty comes in because of not working hard to help yourself. [1] am affected by poverty in that I do not have enough tools, such that I do not work as I would want to.

There are people poorer than I… Some become poor because the parents, like my mother who [was] sick, have no source of income. They may be sick and disabled and this may bring about poverty…

What has brought this [poverty in my life]? First, the time the cattle started dying. It was also the time when I was getting weaker. And our children also grew in number. Money was being spent in a lot of areas…

The problem in the village is the dying of cattle, so no more draught power. You would find a strong person who really wants to do some farming, but you know us Tongas, we are used to and we grew up with cattle… What has really killed us is the lack of tools. Laziness has always been here, you will always find such people. It’s not the main cause of this problem…

‘We suppress women a bit’

We do not give [women] that much freedom. We would [not] like to give a woman a chance to farm better [than us men]… God put it that they are helpers… Now, if your helper is doing better than you are there is that natural feeling of…you know. Whenever you have a dispute with her, she would say to you’Give me back my blanket or something. It’s me who bought it.’ That’s why we suppress them a bit…

Development: disease and other problems

These days there is what they call conservation farming, where we are encouraged to dig holes to plant different crops such as oranges, maize and others… At the dam there is a project brought by Choma people connected to agriculture. At least 30 people are involved in the irrigation project. There’s a poultry house at Haabuluba.

The contractor did a very bad job [building the dam]; he didn’t dig deep enough. As such it doesn’t collect enough water to last the whole year. We still need help on this dam. Of course [we are affected by water-borne disease].

I have chickens, guinea fowl, goats and cattle… The major problem is the disease that affects the chicks. They are already infected and I have some problems in getting the medication. I also have a problem with goats. They also have a disease that troubles them a lot… You go to the Vet’s office and they tell you to go the following day and again just like that, until the disease spreads and worsens in the animals.

When we come to cattle, even with them there are some problems. We are advised to dip the animals… We are stuck because of the difficulties we have in acquiring funds to buy the drug to add to the tank to make it effective…

Traditional Tonga customs

The main idea for the Nkolola (coming of age ceremony) was to give advice. This is where a girl got proper advice on how she shall carry on with her lifestyle wherever she is going [upon marriage]. [The Nkolola ceremony was] to show that someone has matured…showing others that you can”eat or harvest” from that family now…[that] there is someone of marriageable age now…

To a Tonga the kalumbu (bow with string) is a nice musical instrument. One, it gets rid of loneliness. Two, it sends a non-verbal message to your parents. Because it was a taboo in those days to tell your father in person that you want to get married.

It’s not like the way you do it nowadays, where you can talk to your parents about condoms. We never talked about such things in front of people. Playing the kalumbu was sending a clear message to your [father] that”Please, I would like to get married”…

[Nowadays] the children…refuse to take part in [these customs]. They would say that this is [the] old model. The kids have become clever. They have started using English.

Wider communication

[Communicating with the government?] You take [your message] to the ward councillor, then he takes it to the MP. When we complain, we notice that the message bearers do not take the message right to the end, they just leave it on the way. The problem here is…the same people we send are the ones that put our messages under the carpet.

We receive information through Radio Chikuni. We are really lucky to have such a station. I might be featured on tonight’s news [laughs]. We are delighted to be receiving information through them… [it] is good. In most cases you talk to someone face to face over an issue and then that person discusses that through the radio. It has really worked well.

Some things have become easier. We no longer waste time going by bicycle to deliver a message to different people. When it can be aired [on radio], it becomes much easier… [However,] there are a lot of things happening in the villages that go unreported.

Fading hope

I am not the kind of person who just sits. I sometimes go to the vegetable garden; I mould bricks to sell so that I may help my children… You need to be a hardworking person to lessen life’s problems. To earn a good living, you have to work hard…

I had great hopes but these are now fading. I was hopeful that I would one day buy a vehicle. But I have now started drawing back. Have you seen this cotton? [Points to a trailer with bags of cotton] There are no proper sacks in which to pack it…hopes are fading. I have the produce, but I don’t have any place to sell it to.

This interview has been specially edited for the web and cut down by more than half. Some re-ordering has taken place: square brackets indicate’inserted’ text for clarification; round brackets are translations / interpretations; and dots indicate cuts in the text. The primary aim has been to remain true to the spirit of the interview, while losing questions, repetition, and confusing or overlapping sections.