Pictures! Finally!

Our visit got moved to today (Thursday) and instead of posting again on Wednesday apologizing and promising future pictures, I waited until I had pictures uploaded onto my computer. So here they are. Click on an image to see it at full size. They're good resolution.

Travelling down the malaguane in the open back of a 1.5 ton truck. It was the world's deadliest highway until they put a cement divider in the middle. It's moved down a bit since then. Great view though.

Now we're climbing out of the valley up the mountain toward our farmers. This dirt road kills fewer people, but probably only because fewer people drive on it. Bumpy!

A picture from in front of one of the chicken houses. That's just looking at the mountain next door. Those are a couple farms, but as you can see, vast areas of unused land. I can't help thinking that there's SO much potential here and I have no idea how to capture it.

I turned around. This is the chicken house I was in front of. Those tarps on the side open to let heat out or close up to keep it in, depending on what the farmer needs. Chicks need it warm, so right now it's about 32C in there (about 90F).

Chicks, baby chickens, etc. The black thing is a feeder and the white thing on the left is a drinker (upside down bucket, pretty nifty).

One of the farmers talking to Tinashe as she stands right outside the brooder (a smaller space inside the chicken house for the chicks).

Now she's holding one of her chicks. Simply adorable.

Do you know where you'll be spending your next 35 nights? She does. Our farmers sleep in their chicken houses, waking up periodically to fill feeders and drinkers, as well as to put coal in the stove to keep it warm.

Here's the inside of the chicken house. As the chickens grow, she'll open it up to let them use the whole thing. The green bags are feed, and the white one on the right is coal.

Another farmer in her brooder with her chicks. Her chicks were doing very well and we were excited by how they were looking. You can tell from the dispersal of chicks in her brooder (near the stove and farther away) that her temperature is just about perfect.

Not only does she sleep here at night, she's taking care of three kids during the day! They're playing on her "bed" if you can't tell. 

On to site two. They've got their chicken houses up, and they'll get their first 2,000 chicks (2 farmers worth) on Monday. They're excited and very motivated. I was impressed by their efficiency and effort.

The inside of one of the chicken houses. It's divided in the middle (you can't see because it's chicken wire) so two farmers will share it.

Looking out at the next house over. They're all basically identical, which appealed to the orderly side of me.

This is one of the two houses they've used for training. As you can see, there are some feeders and stoves in here. They've also got the tarps up on the sides.

This is the meeting where Pastor Daniel and Tinashe talked to them about the plans and answered their questions. It went well and they're excited to get started. Nice people. They all wanted to hear me greet them in SiSwati, which actually made me bashful.

A look down the center row of the houses. You can see more hillside across the little valley. Again, beautiful area. The mountains and landscapes are amazing.

Kids playing by the fence. We dropped this material off late Tuesday afternoon and they were already half done enclosing the area by Thursday morning. That's work ethic.

More analysis and things tomorrow. Now I've got to get home, as it's about dark here.

-Ben

Go Packers... and Lions?

Not even a full day in and this week is already interesting. Today I went out with Pastor Daniel, our field guy, to the first group of chicken houses. After a brief pause (waiting for the processing plant to pay us), we placed chicks today. Normally we would only place 2,000 but today we placed 4,000 because we have a special order asking for more chickens. That means two houses were filled, and two farmers split each house. At this stage, each farmer only uses about 1/3 of their space because the chicks are quite small (1 day old). As they grow, they will be given more room to move about and the temperature will slowly decrease as they become capable of keeping themselves warm.

Naturally, being a philosopher, I forgot my camera (I've got to blame it on something). Luckily, I'll be going back out with Tinashe on Wednesday, so I can promise you many pictures then. The area is really quite stunning and the houses are really neat to see.

The women were friendly as always, but most of the conversation was in SiSwati, so I mainly observed. I did hold a couple chicks, which is about as exciting as you'd imagine (apparently exciting enough to write home about).

One random note: When I went with Tinashe out to the World Vision event, we passed a tiny rural village (more like a wide spot in the road) with a little shop. The name of it was "Hitler's General Store" and, had I not been seat belted in, I would probably have fallen out of the car. Tinashe saw what I was staring at and laughed. He correctly guessed that such a store would be highly offensive where I come from, but apparently it's not so uncommon to name a man Hitler here. Looking back, I find it very funny that there are probably only a few places named after Hitler in the world and this one is visited almost exclusively by people who are anything but members of the Aryan Master Race. At least it was worth a chuckle.

Anyway, pictures to arrive Wednesday!

-Ben

Another Late Post!

Again, apologies for the late post. The power in the office went out yesterday and I was forced to again postpone until Saturday morning. Of course my parents and grandparents are on there way to Dordt to see my brother's football game (Go Defenders!), so at least they won't notice.

Slowly and steadily, I am building a sense of normalcy here. This week I acquired a refrigerator. That means I was able to have cold milk with my breakfast this morning. For someone who, during one summer, drank a half-gallon for lunch each day, going this long without cold milk has been a trial. But I'm happy to say it's past. Tonight I plan on having grilled cheese sandwiches and a salad for supper.

I also have a real bed with sheets, a blanket, and a comforter. I just got the comforter yesterday, having believed a blanket would be fine for Africa. But I've learned that the temperature here is based entirely on the sun. When the sun is out all day, it will get hot (up to about 95 degrees), and will grow cooler but stay pleasantly warm through the night. However, when it rains, nothing warms up. It might get up to 60 or 70, but nights still get cooler. With no insulation or central heat, that means my bedroom can get pretty chilly. So a comforter was a good investment. It's a new climate, but I think it's nice that summer rain isn't followed by sauna-like weather.

Thursday Tinashe and I went to a World-Vision event out in the country. It was about a 1 1/2 hour drive, and I can see why most people have Toyota pickups or Rav-4s. It was muddy and the roads were not in prime condition. It also seemed like there is less adherence to the concept of lanes here, though that may just be a Tinashe thing. There's no danger (if I'm running on the side of the road, cars will actually move to the complete other side of the road to avoid me), but the painted lines weren't holding the same sacred importance as they do for me.

The event was interesting. World Vision works in the same village or area for 15 years (I found that to be an incredible commitment), and during the past week, they had conducted a business training class for a few dozen young people. The event we attended was a graduation, with presentations from a few NGOs (non-governmental organizations; that includes us), banks, World Vision, and a member of parliament. Although it was in SiSwati and I only caught a few tidbits, Tinashe filled me in on the ride home. It was interesting to see a different development model (a week-long training course), but I felt like it barely helped. These young people now knew how to make a budget, but they didn't have businesses. And unless they had a great idea and got a good loan from a microlending NGO (they have no collateral for a real bank loan), they were in the same spot as when they started. I think World Vision's community-building initiative is great, but I kept thinking how great it wold be if they contracted us to do the business development. It would cost more than a 1-week training seminar, but it could have a serious impact on the community and provide a real change.

I hope everyone is well outside Swaziland as well. I'm sure there's some celebrating in Milwaukee after the Brewers finally managed to clinch the division (after losing a series to the Cubs). Today and tomorrow both Wisconsin and Green Bay test their 2-0 records and I urge my fantasy football teams on to victory (which may depend on whether my cousin trades me Cam Newton). Please pray for missionaries and interns like myself who are going through many of the same things I am. It's also a great week to pray that world leaders see the wisdom in peace and reconciliation and make whatever sacrifices are necessary for it.

-Ben

Edit: I forgot that Wisconsin has played 3 games. And won all of them by gratuitous margins. Of course things will get interesting when we give Nebraska their first taste of their new conference.

Riots and Meetings

Yesterday I got an email from the embassy warning me not to go into Manzini (the commercial hub of Swaziland, just up the road). Apparently, all of the Kombi drivers went on strike and were protesting.

A kombi is a small van that somehow fits 20 people inside and is the main form of public transport in Swaziland.

To get an idea of how this affects Swaziland, imagine all of the cabbies in New York going on strike. While there are more of them,  it's probably equal relative to the smaller population of Swaziland. Except that more people use public transportation here than in New York. In NY, there are taxis everywhere, but they're mostly empty. In Swaziland, they're still everywhere, but they're all full. So when all the drivers go to one spot, don't work, and burn tires to block roads, there's a major problem. One child was killed when police fired tear gas towards the protesters, and a number of protesters were injured by the tear gas, live and rubber bullets, and whips used by the police. So that wasn't good. But the protests mostly died down and the kombis were back at work today.

I was hoping to get to the village today to take some pictures and such, but because it's cold and rainy today, we had our meeting with the farmers here. It was a good time for us to go over the most recent cycle and discuss it with them. There are a few areas where it feels like we're pulling teeth, and I talked to Tinashe about it afterwards, impressed with how calmly he handled them. He just explained that they're family, and I immediately had to repent of my impatient feelings. Which of us wouldn't explain a concept over and over and over again to a family member (for that matter, which of us hasn't!)? You just keep explaining until they understand.

Slowly, so slowly, God is teaching me how to love others as he loves them. And someday, when people are complaining about the fees they're paying on the income that I've just worked extremely hard to help them earn, I hope that I'll be as calm as Tinashe in explaining that we charge fees because it's not free for us to finance them, set up inputs, train them, etc. Today, however, I was simply reminded I've got a long way to go.

-Ben

AfricaWorks Model

I've talked a lot about our business model, so I feel like I should explain it a little bit further. I generally like government programs better than non-governmental organizations (NGOs) because their scale is much larger and can help more than a few people. But both Partners and AfricaWorks have business models that make me wish all aid projects (governments and NGOs) would mirror them.

Step 1: We locate a target group. We were aided by Advocates for Africa's Children. They gave us two groups of women (11 & 14 women in each group) who are taking care of their families and a few orphans each in the community. These women are all rural villagers.

Step 2: After some basic training in the classroom and helping them form an organization, we do hands-on training on how to build a chicken house. We start with the first one and train there, but each woman eventually gets her own chicken house. These aren't cheap, and they make payments over their first three years to pay them back. They are not handouts.

Step 3: Once a farmer has her chicken house and she has been through a few training cycles at the training chicken house, she gets 1,000 chicks. We pay National Chicks about $3,000 to provide 1,000 chicks, vaccinations, medications, and coal for the furnace.

Step 4: The women work hard to raise their chickens. There is a surprisingly complex system of feeding, watering, heating, ventilating, and lighting that needs to be adjusted so it's just right and checked frequently to make sure it stays that way (I had just assumed you spread some feed and make sure the water troughs are full). During this process, Pastor Daniel works with them, giving them weekly reports and answering questions and concerns. He is paid by the farmers at a rate of E0.50 for each chicken brought to the processing plant (This comes to roughly $66 per farmer per cycle on a good day).

Step 5: After about 5 weeks, Pastor Daniel brings the chickens to the processing plant. They are dressed, weighed, and sold to the plant for E19.00/kg (dressed weight). On a good day, the average chicken weights about 1.4 kg and 940+ chickens will be processed. From the final total, AfricaWorks is paid back for the inputs (loan + 3.5% per month), they make a payment on their chicken house, and they keep the balance (anywhere up to $350 or so).

Some challenges that we've run into:

1. The farmers saw no need to hire Pastor Daniel. We convinced them otherwise by showing them they had no way to get the chickens to the processing plant and had very little working knowledge of chicken farming. And we explained to them that we do not exist to give them free goods and services (which is what makes this model unique).

2. Ownership. One of our main goals is to have our farmers recognize their ownership in their farms. This can be seen by the cold snap I mentioned when I arrived. A few of the farmers ran out of heating coal. Most of them simply looked on helplessly while their mortality rates rose, but one woman simply collected firewood and kept her furnace going. That's not the action of an employee, that's the action of a business owner. We're trying to get all of our farmers to think that way.

3. Losses. Some of our farmers haven't gotten very good at this yet. We had two farmers who went to the processing plant last week. Their average weights were around 1.2 and their mortality rates were high. As a result, they ended up posting a loss after everything. Because the entire association (all 11 farmers) guarantee each other, that meant that the association had to cover for them and pay back AfricaWorks for the loan. The association executive committee came to us and wanted us to ask those farmers for reports of what went wrong. We had to explain that the loss was something they needed to work out between themselves and their employee (Pastor Daniel). While we provide training through Pastor Daniel, we're trying to help them understand that they are a business and they need to take responsibility for each other and demand accountability from each other rather than us keeping them in line.

Benefits:

1. Some of the farmers are really getting it. They've been reducing mortality and increasing rates and have seen their profits drastically increase because of it.

2. Sustainability. Once we get the $3000 per farmer for inputs, that money continuously cycles over and over and over, endlessly. AfricaWorks operating costs (both salaried employees) come out of the financing fees (that 3.5%), meaning that both AfricaWorks and the farmers will keep on going no matter what donors do. We are, however, dependent on donors to increase the number of farmers that we can help. Right now, we have our group of 11 farmers going full time (7 cycles per year). Our group of 14 farmers has their chicken houses constructed, but we don't have the $3,000 per farmer to start them raising chickens. That's why we're going after this EU grant.

I hope that helps you understand what we're doing here. It's an exciting model and I'm proud to be working on it.

-Ben

Sometimes...

I apologize to anyone who noticed about the late post. The reason is pretty simple. I was distracted throughout Friday checking news updates. Thursday afternoon (US time), a small plane crashed in central Indiana, killing two young men. They were engineering students at Purdue. I knew the pilot, and although we were not close friends, we knew some of the same people and had shared some very interesting conversations. My thoughts and prayers are with his friends, family and community as they mourn the loss of a good young man. Earth has become a little poorer and heaven a little richer.

One of the strangest things about life is that it keeps going, either in indifference or in defiance of pain and loss. This morning I got up and walked down to Healing Place Church (where I've been attending). A small group gathered and we drove out into the rural areas to a small homestead with probably around a dozen children (although counting small children is never easy and it seemed like 20+). If I understood correctly, the woman there cared for all of these children, but I'm pretty sure they were not all hers (judging by their ages). They had a shelter (3 half-walls and a tin roof) where they met for Bible classes on Sundays, but it was not very suitable shelter from rain, and as the rainy season enters Swaziland, they needed something a bit more suitable. So for 3-4 hours, I hammered nails, sawed logs, shoveled cement, and tried to be useful.

6 20-27 year-old male interns from the Global Leadership Academy (a ministry connected with Healing Place Church and Children's Cup Ministries) came to work with Paster Roger, Stephan (Children's Cup's construction manager), Mitch (Children's Cup's Director), myself, and two guys that Pastor Roger knew (Gifts and Mohammed). Gifts and Mohammed pretty clearly knew what they were doing, but they mostly kept quiet in the face of the raw and untrained enthusiasm displayed by the rest of us. I tried to find a balance between "the white guy who stands around watching" and "the white guy who gets in everybody's way". It definitely was not easy.

So now the entire structure is expanded and enclosed. It was a joy to exert effort to do something with an immediate and clear result (although I was also reminded that I work in an office and am not conditioned for construction). Still, as the Children's Cup guys talked about making this a new "Care Point" (Children's Cup locations where they distribute food, take care of kids, and do some preschooling), I couldn't help but appreciate what I'm doing with AfricaWorks and Partners. While Care Points are great, they require a significant and uninterrupted flow of funds from donors (mostly in the US). I'll explain our model further on Monday, but the money that we get from donors is invested in farmers who pay us back the money and keep the profits when they sell their chickens.

May God be with you,
-Ben

Things we should have kept to ourselves

Now that I know more than I ever thought I would about raising chickens (I've been reading manuals), I thought it might be interesting to get a feel for the culture of Swaziland. I'm going to do that by listing some things we gave (directly or indirectly) to Swaziland that could have been done better. And also some things that we haven't exported that we should have. I realize that Swaziland was a British colony, so a lot of things come from them (we drive on the left side of the road), but bear with me.

1. KFC

So far, it's the only chain that I've recognized. That's nice. And it's not that there aren't plenty of other fried chicken fast food places. It just feels like KFC is not what we want to be known for around the world. Maybe Culvers, but it seems like a Applebee's would be a good step up. So far, I've avoided it simply out of pride, but I'll probably check it out at some point in the next 11 months.

[Just realized: I don't know what I'll compare it to, I don't remember the last time I ate at KFC in the US]

2. Look left-right-left before crossing the street.

This is what children are taught in schools here. It's what I was taught, and it seems like a pretty good rule. However, traffic flows the other way here. The first cars you meet will be coming at you from your right. And if you start taking a step while you're still looking left, that step could easily be your last (I've had some close calls). Again, it's not a big deal, but a better safety education program would probably tell them to look right-left-right.

3. WWE "Professional" Wrestling

I was in a store the other day and all the display TVs in the store were showing this theatrical, "athletic" and gratuitously violent show. If I listed the shows I'd rather watch than wrestling, I would be blogging until next week. I think it would also put a good spin on how we choose what we're going to watch. If the world knew one thing about Americans, do we want it to be that we watch Jersey Shore and The Bachelor?

4. The '+Tax' button on the calculator

It's a great idea, especially as the tax rate here is 14%. One problem: tax is already included in all prices. That's right, Things that are marked 9.95 actually cost 9.95. Well, actually they cost 8.73, but with tax you pay 9.95. It's wonderful. If you have E100, and you pick up something that costs E80, and see another thing that costs E20, you can get both! Also, we don't have pennies. 5 cent pieces are worth less than pennies, but at least we don't have pennies.

4. Oreos

I think there are some sort of oreo snacks here, but not the double-stuffed creme stuck between chocolate cookies and stuck in rows into a thin plastic tray. If you are wondering how I've lasted a month without eating oreos, trust me, the thought is mutual. Cookies here are called biscuits (British) and mostly resemble Girl Scout shortbread cookies. While this would be great for my father, I miss the soft, pink-frosted sugar cookies that fell apart as you ate them.

5. Biscuits

When I ask if we have biscuits that aren't hard here, everyone kind of looks at me. Someone really shold to start selling Pillsbury buttermilk dinner biscuits over here. Not only are they delicious and pretty cheap, they are the perfect size for a poor recent graduate who can bake one can and eat them before they get stale.

6. Plastic currency

You know what I mean: credit & debit cards. While some people have them, the vast majority of transactions are completed in cash and coins. This is perfectly fine most of the time. But when you go to the bank, and the guy in front of you pulls out his shop's weekly deposit, you know you'll be there a while as the teller counts stack after stack of cash.

Of course most things that you would think were standard are available here. I can even get a loaf of banana bread at the store (but it's nowhere near as good as Grandma's). And Ramen noodles, and snickers bars, and all sorts of fruits and vegetables. Pizza isn't huge here, but I'm surviving (who would've guessed?).

On a different note, if you'd like to see where I'm living (at least the roof), you can go to google maps and search: -26.319657,31.133709. There are 3 small buildings, garages. Then there's a big building that is the 6 apartments that make up the main complex. On the far southwest corner of that is a 7th apartment (probably constructed for a groundskeeper or something). That's mine! It's a nice little place, and it's home for another 11 months.

-Ben

Takin' Care of Business

Today I've been working on our Training Needs Analysis. This is basically a survey that will help us determine what our farmers know and what they need to know in order to succeed. So I'm putting together a survey of the things that chicken farmers should know how to do. It's a little scary, as I've never really learned how to take care of chickens. So tomorrow Tinashe and Pastor Daniel (our more-or-less expert on chicken farming who spends most of his time working with the farmers) are going to go through it and make sure it covers the essentials and will communicate clearly with the farmers we're surveying (who may not know English or read and write). Once we've got the survey nailed down, I believe it will be my job to give the survey to the farmers. I'm hoping to survey our group of 11 who are currently working, our group of 14 who are waiting for us to find money for their inputs, and a control group who haven't gotten any training from us yet. I'll let you know how that all goes.

I'm also trying to draft a personal statement for my law school application. I've never been particularly good at writing about myself, so if you have a theme you think I should focus on, feel free to let me know. I don't want this to get to the admissions committees, but I haven't chosen adventures based on how they reflect my persuasive or analytic attributes.

This morning I listened to the speech Father Greg Boyle gave at Calvin College's January Series in 2011. I was actually there to hear this speech, but I've been thinking about it over the past few weeks as I've been struggling to serve here. Honestly, it's one of the best speeches that I think a Christian can hear, and it has been enormously challenging and uplifting for me. If you'd like to listen to it, you can watch or download it here (Father Boyle begins speaking at 3:55). If you can't find an hour, I would suggest downloading it, putting it on your iPod, and listening as you drive or work out. If anyone can listen to his passion and love without being stirred or challenged, I'd be surprised.

-Ben

An African Spring?

Today was the final day of the planned protests. It's been a more eventful week than was anticipated. The protests took place roughly as planned. However, on Wednesday evening, some students were throwing rocks at police officers and then they attacked the officers. The officers fled, but reinforcements poured in, there was a bit of gunfire, and police arrested and beat a number of protesters. It wasn't a great event, but that was the exception to what has largely been a peaceful week.

Today was something else though. There were about 1000 protesters waiting in the middle of Mbabane's busiest intersection. The police were allowing them to go one direction, but they had all but walled off the other streets. Officers were lined up 3 deep along the side of the road, many carrying nightsticks. About ten yards behind them were a number of officers, some with guns, most with riot shields, helmets, and clubs. Behind them were auxiliary vehicles, one water cannon vehicle, and tactical officers with grenade launchers for teargas (I hope). I understand why everyone was out there, but I have to admire the responsibility of the police and the conviction of the officers. It was 95+ degrees out there and the sun is hot here.

The protests were larger than Monday, but most of the people just walked past or watched. Still, unrest here is a pretty unique situation. Unlike Syria or Libya, the risk of large scale conflict between the population and the authorities is pretty low. It's only one tribe and it's a very small country, so not only do many people know each other, a significant amount of them consider each other to be family. So the police are pretty unlikely to crack down on people they might know, or even distant cousins. Because of that, the critical mass of these protests might be much smaller than those in other countries.

So it could be an interesting year here as the politics of this place get sorted out. Nevertheless, I'm going to try to keep most of my posts focused on the work I'm doing. Next week you'll hear about the Training Needs Assessment I'm putting together for our farmers so that we can see what training will be beneficial and what won't be. At least I hope that's what I'm supposed to be doing. So far I've been lead by Google in many of these business-related topics (with help from Tinashe of course)

Have a good weekend. God bless the whole world.
-Ben

Political Situation in Swaziland

I know I may be a little bit more politically minded than many of you, so I'm warning you now that this isn't particularly relevant to my mission here. But I did make some vague references to the politics of Swaziland in my last post, and I think it might be interesting to a few of you at least.

Swaziland is the last true monarchy in Africa, and one of the few remaining in the world. The king not bound by anything, and has the final say in any real decision. He is basically the President except that there is no veto override, he appoints portions of the legislature, and he owns most of Swaziland's property and "holds in trust" many of its profitable public businesses.

As far as I can tell, the king is not oppressive. It seems like dissent is allowed, but is simply not popular. I'm sure there are some small abuses of power, but I have not noticed any of daily significance or egregious injustice. The main problem is that the government (legislature) doesn't have the authority to use most of the public funds, which are just the king's personal property. This has become a glaring problem with recent economic crises here, requiring a bailout from South Africa (SA). SA claims this will be the last bailout until reforms are made, and the IMF has long since cut off Swaziland until reforms are made.

So some of the protesters are demanding real democratic policies, maybe a sort of constitutional monarchy where the king's power is limited by the constitution and the people. Some students are angry because the University of Swaziland doesn't have the funds to open, and the students are demanding that the government pay to open it (the government pays university tuition here). Many civil servants are angry because the IMF has demanded that the government cut salaries in the civil service. For a while, the government had taken that off the table, but with SA and the IMF both demanding it, the government has reopened the possibility and many civil servants are angry.

The problems are really quite far-reaching. Unemployment is around 40% here, and 70% of the population is reliant on subsistence farming (someone should ask the CIA factbook how those numbers add up). I think most of the people feel frustrated, but don't have clear solutions to the problems. Everyone wants things to be better, and some people think it will be better if A, B, and C occur. I think there are certainly steps that should be taken, but I think it's going to be a long time and a lot of work before Swaziland's problems are resolved.

I have received some requests for clarification on the best way to contact me. Some of you have left comments on my blog, which is great, although I don't always read all of them before I post. If you'd like any questions directly answered, you can email me at BenjaminCVerhulst@gmail.com. I try to respond when I have a free moment, but sometimes it takes a bit. Nevertheless, I will respond.

If you're wondering how to best follow my blog, I think the easiest way is probably to enter your email address in the bar at the top of the page. Otherwise, you can bookmark my blog. I'm trying to update it MWF, but that will be dependent on material.

-Ben

Happy Labor Day

Actually, labor day isn't celebrated here in Swaziland. But tomorrow is Independence Day, so I have another day off in a two-week span. I don't know if there are fireworks or parades here, but I guess we'll see tomorrow. I'm pretty doubtful on the fireworks, based on what I learned yesterday at church: Swaziland basically runs during daylight hours. Apparently, everyone goes home after work, cooks supper, maybe relaxes a bit, and then goes to bed (and I thought I was just lame). No one goes out to dinner because the restaurants and public transport (which many city workers depend on) close down at 5 or 6. So social time is during the day, and "Missionary Midnight" is at 9pm. A very interesting phenomenon.

This week is already pretty interesting. Besides my work on the grants, I got to see a Swazi demonstration. This week many opposition groups are marching throughout the country. Today they were in Mbabane (they should be elsewhere until Friday if the schedule holds up). So there was a crowd of demonstrators carrying signs, followed by a dozen or so red cross workers, and there were police and correctional officers everywhere. I didn't realize the Swazi police were so prevalent, but they were out in force today, with groups roving up and down the streets, and concentrations of them on corners and near banks. The ATM in the mall was guarded by four police with one shotgun and two machine guns between them. Although this protest is significant for the simple fact that it's happening, not many people (besides the police) are taking it seriously. I think there are some fairly legitimate complaints (I may elaborate further on political developments later), but I'm not sure the protesters realize that their proposed solutions may not help everything. Democracies still have some pretty major challenges.

Anyway, enjoy your days off, and good luck for all those beginning or continuing classes tomorrow.

-Ben

Grants

The two days have been a crash course in grants. Yesterday we went to a meeting where the people from Microprojects (part of the Swazi government) explained two grants cosponsored by the European Union. I think it would be fair to say there was good deal of confusion. Let me see if I can lay it out properly.

We arrived having read the grant notices. We were familiar with the format and the goals, so we were thinking about our approach, and how we were going to structure our proposal. When we arrived, the people from Microprojects tried to lay out the main aspects of the grants. In doing so, however, they focused pretty heavily on small-scale irrigation projects. This surprised us, because there wasn't much in the notice about irrigation, certainly no more than any other type of agriculture. This was pretty concerning to us, because we are in poultry production.

Of course Tinashe always has about 12 ideas swirling around in his head, and so he immediately started thinking about the kinds of things we could do if the grant was only for irrigation. He'd seen a very impressive small business model in Kenya at the Partners conference, so he started thinking about how we could do that, even using the nitrogen-rich chicken manure for fertilizer.

Anyway, today we went to meet with the administrators in a more private setting. We explained to them the kind of business we have, and why we like the model so much. We explained that our model is very sustainable; it's practically ad infinitum once we get the money to start (about $3,000 per farmer). We also explained that we already have a contract with a slaughterhouse who will purchase the chicken from our farmers. The man we talked to was very excited about the kinds of stuff we do, and he's going to email the EU contact to see how best to fit it into the grant proposal. He admitted that they had as much information as we did, and that they were still learning how all this works. So I'm very optimistic about working with them to get some grant money and expanding our operation. Currently, we have a group 11 chicken farmers going with 7 cycles per year (that's full capacity). We also have another 14 houses in another group. The houses are built, but we're still trying to scrounge up the money (that's the $3,000 per house) for the inputs (chicks and feed).

Now Tinashe is also thinking about how we can do this crop thing from Kenya as well, so I'm looking into that a bit. There's a lot going on here, and it's exciting to be getting into some of it.

-Ben