Village Extension Agent

I am finally out of the bush and in Kasama taking care of some report writing, closing my bank account, ect. Leaving the village was hard and was full of mixed emotions including sadness, a sense of accomplishment, wondering whether the program would carry on, and many others. I met so many great people there and it is hard knowing that I will be going back to a place with grocery stores bigger than some of their villages. I did have one success story before I left the village that I will share with you.

For the past two years part of my job has been to train village leaders to be village fisheries extension agents. Essentially, they will take over my job when I am gone. I have been working with a handful of these village leaders in the last year and some have become quit accomplished in the different skills I have taught them (pond staking, pond digging, fish feeds, integration systems, etc.). Despite their acquired skills and knowledge, they always try to insist that I accompany them when they go to visit other farmers. It has been a real challenge for me to get them to go on extension visits without me.

A few weeks ago I went to visit one of these farmer leaders and when I arrived at his house I could see that he was preparing to go somewhere. He finally came over and greeted me as I was sitting and chating with his wife. He told me that he had no time to meet with me that day because he was heading off to meet with some potential fish farmers in another village. He told me that his wife would prepare lunch for me and he left without even thinking to invite me along with him on the visit. At first I felt a bit insulted that he had not even invited me to go along with him, but then I was overcome with joy when I realized that he no longer needed me to accompany him on his farmer visits. I humbly ate lunch with his wife and children as he went off to do my job, which is now his job. Peace Corps service is full of ups and downs. When things go bad you wonder what you are doing here and start to question whether it is all worth it. When things go right you feel like you are on top of the world. I guess I will just ride this small success story all the way out of Zambia. I have realized that my job here was not to be a hero and bring prosperity to the people I worked with, but instead to make heroes out of them and letting them create their own prosperity.

I will be in Kasama until Monday and then in Lusaka until Friday and then off to Spain! I will try to blog again before leaving the country.