Field Visit

My work as Monitoring and Evaluation Officer has not officially kicked off but I have been doing other things which are not directly in my placement objectives. I am not complaining because it keeps me busy however, I am almost reaching to the point of frustration. When I was informed that I will be joining the Food Security Team to field visits back to back with the monitoring visits of one of Caritas Chipata’s funding agency, I eagerly agreed.

Off we traveled South of Chipata, approximately 65 kilometers of bumpy and muddy roads. The place was called Vubwi, one of the VODP which is part of Chadiza District. It was good that along the way, the vehicles didn’t get stock in the mud. There were two vehicles in convoy, and I traveled with the funding agency’s car. There was a bend on the road which was really muddy where we lost sight of the other vehicle only to find out that they have given a lift to a dead body. Yes, a dead body! I learned afterwards that they picked these people by the road close to the Adventist hospital. Another shocking culture for me because in the Philippines, you would not normally travel a corpse in any vehicle but from a funeral home. I assumed that they probably failed to refuse because there was a nun seated at the front seat of the vehicle. I was relieved that I was not in that vehicle.

After the long trip, we arrived at our destination and the first thing I looked for after the introductions was a toilet. I was shown the toilet which was open pit type and large flies flying out of it. Unable to control how I was feeling, I braved to enter the toilet only to pee on the floor because I failed to bear the flies coming out of the pit latrine.

There was a prepared programme for the monitoring visit of the funding agency representative. I would say a very formal one since it was complete with opening and closing remarks and long messages. After the programme, we proceeded to see the fields of some of the Food Security Programme beneficiaries. I was impressed by the large fields of maize and sunflower. I learned that sunflower is the major source of oil of the people in Zambia. We also visited the hog-raising project which was a communal one. I was surprised that this scheme seem to be successful compared to the Philippines where such project type fails. After the field visits, there was another processing session with the same long speeches.

Courtesy call to the parish priest was done after lunch. Vubwi is a good hideaway place if you want a quiet weekend. It was so cool and probably since it is rainy season, there were greens all over. I also learned that there are saints called Uganda Martyrs. They were the first Christians burned in Uganda when they tried to do their missionary work. The brief courtesy call was the last activity after which we proceeded to Chipata through the border.

I have learned and realized so many things during the field visits in line with culture and probably social aspects. During one of the visits, we have found a family eating with bare hands with flies all over their food. I also realized that learning the language is really important. With my line of work, I must learn how to speak their local language so I would be able to communicate with the people. Through the field visits, I was able to gain insights on how I would approach the M&E when I start the real work on systems installation.