[Guest post by Jane Berry with technical support from Rohit Ramchandani] We’re occasionally asked, sometimes quite assertively, why we are encouraging poor mothers and care-givers to spend what little cash they have on a Kit Yamoyo, which contains commercially produced oral rehydration salts (ORS) sachets, when a simple recipe of salt, sugar and water (Sugar-Salt […]
Why FREE won’t work for ColaLife
A retail kiosk on the Road from Mpika to Kasama, NE Zambia Giving things away free to people who need them but can’t possibly afford them seems, on the face of it, to be a totally reasonable thing to do. We rate generosity, philanthropy – it’s the right thing to do. However, there are consequences, […]
Where we went in Zambia – fun with a GPS
DDSP, Mpika, courtesy of Google Earth. Our old house is in the top left and marked with a yellow map pin. Click to see the image full size on Flickr or download the KLM file to see where we went using Google Earth I carried a SPOT Messenger while in Zambia on our last trip […]
Zambia Diary | Day 14 | Meeting Susan
Today (Sunday, 30/1/11) is our last full day in Zambia this trip and we’ve been invited to lunch! We need to return the vehicle we used for the Mpika trip to its rightful owner so I nipped out and got it cleaned although you wouldn’t have known it half an hour later . . . it’s […]
Zambia Diary | Day 13 | Return to Lusaka from Mpika
Not much to report from today (Saturday, 29/2/11) as the day was spent returning to Lusaka from Mpika. This return journey really brought home how far Mpika is from Lusaka (and how big Zambia is). We started off at 9.10am and arrived in Lusaka at 5:50pm. We stopped in Serenje for fuel and just south […]
Zambia Diary | Day 12 (Part 2), Visit 2 | Friday Field Trip
The last kilometre to Mpepo Rural Health Centre It takes about an hour and a half to reach Mpepo from Mpika. The Health Centre lies barely a kilometre from the tarmac road. Again we were astonished to see satellite dishes on one or two of the village houses (see above video). In Zambia, Health Centres, […]
Zambia Diary | Day 12, Visit 2 | You couldn’t make it up . . .
Our old house in Mpika If anyone out there doesn’t believe that truth is stranger than fiction – read on . . . Safely arrived in Mpika, we had time, before darkness fell, to look around the town and our old ‘compound’, still known locally as the DDSP. We quickly found ‘our’ old house, tucked […]
Zambia Diary | Day 11, Visit 2 | Timewarp to Mpika
Stopping for fuel at the Serenje junction Soon after sunrise on Thursday morning we headed out on the road to beat the lorries – well, most of them – in a borrowed car. For us, it was a journey back in time: a 7 hour trip we first made nearly 25 years ago, with 3 […]
Zambia Diary | Day 10, Visit 2 | Logframes, World Vision and Mpika
My trip out today on a Coca-Cola truck fell through last night which was a shame but at least it meant that Jane and I could work together on the pilot design while the hints and tips from yesterday’s session with UNICEF were still fresh in our minds. It also meant that we could meet […]
Second field trip to Zambia is underway
Population density in Zambia (people pre square kilometre). Source: Michigan State University. >> Read or subscribe to the Zambia Diary audio diary here Jane and I are returning to Zambia today (16/1/11) to move the pilot plan forward. Last time we talked with many stakeholders and now we hope to be able to consolidate the […]