News From A Rain Soaked Choma

Another late posting!

The weekend was busy, on Saturday I went on a half day trip to the Kafue Game Park which is the size of Wales. The Dumdumwenze Gate to the park is about a two hour drive from Choma along a mixture of tar and dirt roads. the condition of the dirt road can be described as variable. Most of the road maintenance on the dirt road network in Zambia is done in the dry season (May - November) We are now three months into the rains and they are taking their toll on any road that was not in the best of order at the start of the rains. It is the off season for the game parks, the grass is high and the animals disperse over a much wider area as water supplies throughout the the park are more abundant. It is when there is less water about and when the vegetation is more sparse that the animals concentrate themselves around the more secure water sources and are easier to find. In terms of game viewing the trip was somewhat disappointing but the drive there and back was interesting.

The Park is the size of Wales - I was at the Dumdumwenze Gate

At the Dumdumwenze Gate - The game rangers live in the houses in the background 

There was lots of Baobab trees in the park around the Dumdumwenze Gate, these are strange to look at and are sometimes called upside-down trees as the branches look very much like roots. The trees are very long lived and some are known to be 1,200 years old. The larger ones can store up to 100,000 litres of water in their trunks. They use this to survive through the dry season.

Baobab Tree

I can spend an extra hour in bed on Sunday and look forward to this as I am usually up at 05.30 during the week.  There is no problem here in getting up in the morning. It is light by 06.00 and the temperature is usually between 18 - 20c at that time in the morning. On Sunday I visited a Choma Farmer, Mike Beckett at his dairy,beef and sheep farm. He also grows some tobacco but the farm is primarily livestock. I was in the dairy during the afternoon milking and it reminded me very much of the set up we had at Chambeshi almost 30 years ago. Some things change very slowly in Zambia . Mike keeps Boran cattle in his beef herd, a breed that I know well from my farming days here. His sheep flock number around 2,000 head, a large number by any standards. Mortality is high especially in the rains as it is very difficult to keep on topmof the worm burden that the sheep carry at this time of the year. They require to be dosed at least every three weeks and that can be expensive with the size of the flock that Mike has. farmers in Zambia are also into diversification and his daughter runs the local Spar shop in the town. 

My time at Choma is coming to an end and I am in my second last week here. I have started to draft my final report on the Carpentry production unit and the viability of the venture. The workshop has been very busy since my arrival and there is enough work to keep five men occupied on a full time basis. New customers visit the workshop on almost a daily basis. I do so hope that they will be able to turn a profit and I do not see why this should happen if they tighten up on their management control systems which at the moment are way too lax. 

One of the things I will be recommending is the introduction of quarterly financial reporting using the PSYBT AR3-1 reporting forms. I have set up the templates for the 2014 financial year and am running a workshop tomorrow on how to use the system and  on general financial control.

Until next time..

My Trip to the Copperbelt

Apologies that I did not manage to post to the Blog last week. I was in Kitwe over the weekend. Jenny Featherstone, the principal at Chodort worked in Kitwe for about five years or so before she came to Choma. One of the projects she was involved in was a playgroup for children in one of the townships on the outskirts of the city. It is an area that I know as it is approached along Racecourse Road which also leads to several farm holdings that I know well. The Kitwe racecourse no longer exists and the township has now taken its place. Jenny helped to set up the play group “Play 4 All” about two years ago and she was attending the second anniversary celebrations which were held on the Saturday. Hence her trip to Kitwe. I was more than happy to tag along, as was the Swedish Volunteer Mickey. He had worked at Mindolo Ecumenical Foundation before moving to Choma. We had a full car as far as Lusaka as Jenny gave a lift to a student who was attending his graduation at the University of Zambia. We left Choma at 05.00 and were in Kitwe by 18.30 with a stop for lunch at a restaurant/lodge/conference centre just north of Lusaka. I remember the place as a farm. It is still owned by the same family, the Woodley’s, who have taken advantage of their proximity to the Capital and their position on the main road to the Copperbelt to diversify into tourist related enterprises.

Lusaka - Kitwe, A Six Hour Drive  

Chisonkoni Market, Kitwe

The Edinburgh Hotel, Kitwe

Kitwe is much changed – It now has city status with a population to match. Traffic jams in the centre and on the main approaches are common and finding a parking space is next to impossible. I hired a vehicle so that I could visit a number of old friends who lived out of town. A number of them along Racecourse Road.  My first visit was to Riverain Farm, owned by Craig Wright, the son of old friends Mike and Jill Wright. Mike was our company vet and Jill worked at Border Farmers, a farmer’s co-op that I was involved with when I lived on the Copperbelt. I remember Craig as a young man and as a student at Gatton College in Queensland, Australia; it was here that he learnt the practical skills that have stood him in good stead now that he runs the family farm. His sister Mandy lives in Kitwe and is married with a family. The family home overlooks the Kafue River and the river is home to crocodiles and hippo.

The Kafue from the verandah at Riverain

Crocs large & small frequent the river and can be seen from the verandah 

I also went to visit Joseph Silweya, who I worked with for a number of years. Joseph was the assistant farm manager at Twin Rivers, my first farm on the Copperbelt. He moved with me to Chambeshi and later started his own contracting business, which is still going strong. I was able to go over to Chingola, which was where Annette worked before she gave up full time work when the twins were born. Both the twins and our younger son Oliver were born in the Mine Hospital at Chingola. Seeing it again brought back many memories.

The Town Centre, Chingola

The Mine Hospital, Chingola

I could not be in Kitwe without a visit to the Kitwe Showground and Border Farmers Co-op, old stomping grounds for me. It is pleasing to me to see that both institutions continue much as ever. The annual Copperbelt Show is less focused on Agriculture these days and more on industry. There was an attempt last year to revive the livestock but with limited success. Unfortunately the Equestrian competitions are no more but the Dog Show continues albeit on a smaller scale. I was able to meet with Bill Osborne and his wife Rose, Bill was able to bring me up to date with news of comings and goings. Some of it was sad but mostly it was good news. Bill is now the Chairman of the Board for both the Show Society and Border Farmers.

My final day on the Copperbelt was spent visiting with Mike and Jan Fisher and Cedric Whitamore. Both have properties on the outskirts of Kitwe. Cedric is not in the best of health but the farm continues much as I knew it under the able stewardship of his son Michael.   A number of years ago Cedric set up a primary school to cater for the children of his farm staff. The school is thriving and now has 300+ pupils. 

Cedric 

A classroom at the Primary School set up by Cedric for the children of his farm workers

 Mike and Jan live on the next-door farm to Cedric and their house is on the banks of the Kafue River, which also bounds Riverain further up stream. I was able to sit on the verandah and watch the comings and goings of the local crocodile population.  .

We stopped over for one night on the way back to Choma in Makeni on the outskirts of Lusaka. This gave us the opportunity to visit Mr. Mwango, the Vice Principal of Chodort who was an in-patient at UTH (The University Teaching Hospital) He is waiting for an operation. He was on the list on two separate occasions over the pst couple of weeks and did not get to the theatre either time. He is now back in Choma and will travel up to Lusaka on Monday to try his luck for the third time.

There has been consistent rain in Choma since my return and the days have been overcast and dull. Temperatures have been in the low 20s, which I find very pleasant.

I am now half way through the Challenges Worldwide assignment and my desk is filling up with paper! I have spoken with lots of people and spent time attending staff meetings and observing the activities at the Centre. Although I am specifically charged with looking at the viability of the Carpentry Production Unit the activities and enterprises are so tied up together that I find that I am looking at a wider picture than I first thought.  I must now start to organize my thoughts and the copious notes I have taken into some recommendations that I can make that hopefully will improve the performance of the production unit. I am not going to be around long enough to see if the recommendations I give are acted upon and result in a financially viable carpenters shop.