Meredith's Work
i am loving my new job, The work is very interesting and I work with great people. I have had to work on my Australian Accent as I know I can be hard to understand - especially over the phone. The great thing is that my Admin Assistant has lived in Australia for 7 years so she understands me completely and can translate me to others! The other challenge is that most of the project sites are 10-12 hours drive from Lusaka. We have District Facilitators based in each area and they still travel hundreds of kilometres to get to some of the health centres and health posts they support. Travel in Zambia is not easy, roads are often impassable and the distances are huge.

We are working with a number of very remote communities to find ways to reduce the very high levels of maternal and child mortality in their areas. The challenge is that the only real way to do this is to make sure that women give birth at a health facility with a skilled birth attendant. Less than 50% of women give birth in a health centre in Zambia generally. However in some of our areas between 40 - 70% attend a health clinic but only 1-3% get help from a nurse or midwife because so many centres are so poorly staffed. They could end up with a traditional birth attendant or the cleaner assisting them to deliver. We have a lot of work to do to make a difference in this area. To read more about my work you can read the latest newsletter we have produced. MCH newsletter

Tim's Work
The highlight of my new job is definitely the chance to visit communities. I also get to do lots of fun “ceremonial” things, such as handing over a completed health centre to the Ministry of Health (who had already provided staff for the centre), or participating in a “goat pass-on ceremony”, where a new group of 10 women were receiving around 40 goats which were the offspring of goats provided earlier to another group of women.

What resonates for me in these visits is the enthusiasm, energy and pride of the people involved. Local staff commented that the community around the health centre were so animated about their new health centre they gather there the night before the handover centre in anticipation. In their words, “they were so excited they just had to dance it off”. At the goat pass-on ceremony, the women were extremely proud that all of this had been done by themselves, without help from their men, a point highlighted in the drama they put on as part of the event. That event was also full of dancing and singing and drumming – all the things that are superficially associated with African culture, but that are so exciting and absorbing when you experience it first hand. Invariably, I am invited to join the dancing, which then sparks a huge amount of laughter and I am again aware of the differences between my gawkish self-consciousness and a culture where rhythm, dancing and singing are present from birth on.

Beyond the fantastic music, I am also enjoying learning about the culture(s) and history of this country, I marvel at the gracious respectfulness of people here (I was told that I am the father figure for the 140 staff who work for Plan), as well as their enduring friendliness and gentleness. All in all, it is a very peaceful place. Which is a big contrast to some of our time in Timor.

Lower Zambezi
In October, the hottest month here, we rode nearly 80 km towards the Lower Zambezi National Park - until we could ride no more. Aiming for 120km of dirt road riding, cramps got the better of Tim and the huge uphill sections got the better of me. It got the better of our car at times too. Katie was driving in convoy with another car and it tested the transmission of our new secondhand X-Trail to its limit. But Katie is now an experienced off road four wheel driver!

We camped on the edge of the stunning Zambezi River looking down at baboons, hippos, elephants and water buffalo. Boat trips at sunrise and sunset seeing crocs and hippos at close range and more elephants and antelope – incredible. We had resident monkeys too, who were adept at opening eskies and quick to snatch food off tables in a split second if the monkey patrollers looked away for just a moment.  The second night was a bit too close for comfort 'though as we woke at 3am to the sounds of an elephant grazing above our heads with Katie in the next tent - all with a flimsy piece of nylon between us and massive animals. Fortunately we had been warned that they can graze around the tents and even step over guy ropes but it was very hard to listen to and wonder if they would take fright at something and charge through the lot of us… didn’t get any more sleep that night.   The next morning, as we pulled bananas and oranges from the back of our car, we were told that it is not wise to keep such foods inside your car as elephants have been known to smash them open to get at them. Glad we didn’t know that in the middle of the night… Photos

Project for Christmas - Join us
If you are looking for something special to donate to this Christmas - how about Vision of Hope. This is an excerpt from Katie's Blog as she has been volunteering at Vision of Hope every week.

" It’s a project for girls who live on the street. They all get together every week and get cleaned up and fed and bathed and chat about life issues like HIV, prostitution, hygiene etc. Most of the girls that are there are high on this thing called Bostic. I thought it was glue because of the whole Bostic name but its actually petrol sniffing. One of the girls has been on the streets since she was 11 and has been sniffing Bostic since she was 11. It’s done severe damage to her brain. She struggles to concentrate and barely notices what’s going on.
Anyway every week we get together and make doormats and rugs and fun things like that.

"They’re pretty fun. They bought me a card for my birthday and sung me songs. They also make me dance and sometimes they braid my hair. A lot of the time its fun being there but mostly it just makes me want to fall apart. I ’ve pretty much been wearing the same clothes for the last 6 months because the shops here are awful, so I’m probably going to donate my whole wardrobe to Vision of hope.."

It is run by an amazing Zambian woman, Chitalu, who works full time (voluntarily) to establish Vision of Hope. She is trying to raise enough funds to operate the centre full time and offer the girls an alternative home and livelihood to life on the streets. It costs about $150 per day to run the program and she struggles to raise that kind of money every week for just one day. The girls are aged 12 - 18 and it breaks your heart to see these little girls locked into such vulnerable lifestyles. There is one young woman who lives at the back of the premises with her young baby. She has escaped the streets and is a constant source of inspiration for the other young girls. Chitalu's vision is to help the girls develop other skills so they find alternative incomes. If you would like to support this work, please email us at meredith@tribalstrategies.com.au to organise a donation or donate through ChipIn - Vision of Hope . fundraising website.

That's it for now - hope to see you after Christmas. Meredith, Tim and Katie

Link to our first Zambian blog