Rural Leaders ― a Travel Log Vol. 7

A journey to meet ARI graduates in Zambia & Malawi, 2024

We are sharing with you a series of travel logs written by ARI staff member Steven, who visited Africa in August.

Despite various difficulties, people are living strong!
Day 8 was filled with the moments that made us want to say, “This is Africa!”
Let’s get started on our trip to Africa.

【An African journey to visit ARI graduates, Day8】

Continuing the northward journey
We set out at 6:00 AM and immediately hit a truck jam in front of a weigh station. Luckily, we were able to bypass it and continue quickly.
As mentioned before, the trucks are loaded with copper which is heavy. In the hot seasons the asphalt softens and gets squished into grooves under the truck’s tires, making for a dangerous driving situation. John took it slowly the whole way.
Since we were up close to the border with the DRC, a lot of trucks were loaded with livestock and produce to sell on the other side. According to Judy, they can sell everything in just a few hours and get a good price, because the Congolese “don’t like to work.” They prefer singing, dancing, and drinking beer and they have a lot of money, from their mineral mines. I later asked a Congolese participant at ARI, whom I saw to be a hard worker, if this were true, and he said, that, well, there are some people like that, especially the ones that are good at dancing and singing!
One truck came whizzing around us loaded with three layers of livestock. Like the musicians of Bremen, it had pigs on the bottom, goats on the second floor, and chickens on the top.

Entrepreneurs
Each region we pass through has its own products they are selling along the road.
Along one section of road there were hundreds of gourd vessels for holding water. They were so cool and the moment I decided I seriously wanted to buy one, they could no longer be found. Judy was excited to stop for some Myumbu. It is like cassava but can be eaten raw. It tastes like raw potato, which, believe it or not, I like! Local honey, sold in water bottles, is another popular item. But don’t confuse it with the petrol, which is also sold in water bottles alongside the road.
Sometimes, boys will flag down truckers who will sell them their fuel right out of the tank. The truckers profit because they are essentially stealing their company’s fuel and the boys sell it at marked up prices to travelers. Geoffrey might call this another “This is Africa” moment! Charcoal could be found along the whole route. It is causing a lot of forest loss, but when the crops fail, it is the only source of income for many people, so what can you do?

The Chinese are building a second road alongside this road, so it can be a 4-lane divided highway. The Chinese build nearly all the roads in Africa. Huge compounds for Chinese workers can be seen here and there, complete with residences, stores, basketball courts, etc.
At one point I saw a Chinese guy in a very upset condition, shouting loudly at a local worker across the road. It made me wonder how they communicate. Some Zambians go to China to study, where they learn the language and can serve as translators. Employing local workers is a great step for the economy and I am happy to see it happening, but there must be some nights when those Chinese engineers go home with a massive headache!

“Wherever they take us, we will make a paradise!”
We arrived at the well-planned town of Ndola around 9:00 and Getrude (2013 ARI Graduate) navigated us by phone to her church.
She was transferred to this region two years ago and serves two churches; one in Chifuhu (where we were) and the other in Chifulukusu. This church has 250 members. Getrude is one of 9 women pastors in the Church of Central Africa Presbyterian. There are 71 male pastors. So…they haven’t quite reached that 50 / 50 ratio.
She was quick to show us a garden on church lands that she fertilizes with chicken manure and waters with water from a shallow well. The well dries up in the dry season so she desperately wants to dig a borehole, but that costs money. The garden was started on her own initiative and later four women joined her. The small group is called Wesiwachuta, which means “Grace of God.” They take some produce home and the rest they sell at a nearby roadside stand, and they normally sells out by 10:00 AM. Back in her hometown of Lwansha, about 10 kms away, they have a 10 Hectare family farm where they grow Irish potatoes, white corn, and popcorn.

When she was at ARI, Getrude was serving a church in Lundazi and had a good farming program going on there. Apparently, money that was supposed to go for that program was mishandled by her superiors and then they transferred her. “The Jr. Pastor cannot be more successful than the Sr. Pastor,” Getrude explained. They get jealous. These are the kinds of church leadership power plays that happen in Africa. Happen everywhere! It’s not common for churches to have farming programs such as these, and each time she is transferred she has to start over again. But she takes it in stride saying, “Wherever they take us, we will make a paradise!”

Getrude then brought us to her home for a late breakfast and to meet her family. Her husband is also a pastor.
While in Ndola, we stopped by a huge Catholic Church to greet Judy’s sister, Scholastica. She is 77 and still working there in the education department.

A humble pastor’s big imprint
In the car on the way to Kitwe, John spoke of his work with Angolan refugees in the UNHCR in the Northwest Province in the 1980s. Everywhere we went in Zambia, John pointed out places he had worked or been a pastor. It seemed as if there was almost no place that was untouched by John’s presence and his long career of serving people. When he speaks of ARI, he is always proud to say he is the first one to go from Zambia.

We also talked about strict church hierarchies in Africa. The fact that ARI wants to train lower-level leadership poses a challenge to African church systems. Judy says we need to let Participants understand the challenges facing them back home, and that graduates should just start practicing their new ideas, rather than first trying to convince their sending bodies. “Just start and let the organization see.” Although, I don’t know how that would work in the above-mentioned hierarchical context!

We made it to Kitwe
We rolled into Kitwe around 2:00 PM and went immediately to the Mindolo Ecumenical Foundation (MEF), our hosts for the next couple of days. It has a huge campus, part of which they rent out to other organizations. Paul Samba (2004 ARI Graduate) was waiting for us!
Paul is now a Dean of the United Church of Zambia University (UCZ University), which is also on MEF grounds. When he was at ARI, he was still the principal of the Chipembi College of Agriculture, a UCZ college, where we had just met Lidia. School holidays had already begun so around 40 students were out on attachment, working in local churches all over Zambia, but there was still a small contingent of students on the campus.
Paul led us to the chapel from which voices of song were flowing out the windows and doors. This was meant to be an official welcome, and so we entered, sang, and a few words were said to us by Paul and other Deans, and a few words from us were given to the students.

Sorry, I can’t stop talking about good food!
Soon after, we were treated to a lavish meal at a local restaurant, complete with a traditional thatched roof, called The Hut. The menu consisted of massive meat cuts of different animals. I went with the pork ribs and Kai the lamb ribs. It was an unforgettable feast!
The roughly one-hour wait for the food was filled with Olympic women’s weightlifting on TV screens throughout the restaurant, which turned to talk to a Zambian bronze medal winner in the men’s 400 m, and a Ugandan who set an Olympic record in the men’s 10,000 m.

The official chat with the UCZ University
On returning to the compound, we were led to the conference room for a Management Meeting with the United Church of Zambia University complete with typed agenda – important formalities.
The Vice Chancellor explained that there is a school of theology and religious studies which provides training for ministry, social engagement, and primary and secondary school teaching. There is also a nursing college located elsewhere. The Chipembi College of Agriculture mentioned above provides agricultural education. Due to high demand, there are plans to revive a school of public and environmental health. Facilities for that are being updated.
Paul was eager to point out that the university does not only provide education for degree seeking students, but also gives shorter skills training sessions to “empower the youth with survival skills.” Students from 7th, 9th, and 12th grades can enroll to get hands on training in professions such as driving, restaurant cooking, tailoring, IT, carpentry, welding, etc. Because “the youth need space!” “When they go out, they are very good,” says Paul.

Judy added some words about their organization, EDF, and about ARI. John explained that he was the first Zambian graduate. “When you are a minister, you are a servant to the people. I continue to work for the rural people to this day. ARI equips and transforms people to work as servant leaders.”

African men in the kitchen?
MEF kindly provided our accommodations and meals free of charge and the beef stew served that evening was awesome.
Dinner conversation turned toward men cooking after we explained how men take part in cooking in the ARI kitchen. The response was that in African culture, women don’t want the husband in the kitchen! One man at the table came from a tribe called the Luvale, where men are forbidden to cook. They believe if the man cooks it will delay him getting married. They also have a traditional mask dance ceremony for boys that includes going into the bush get circumcised. When asked if he did this, he became embarrassed and said, yes.
Talk then turned to the fact that boys in university can’t cook and so they just eat bread rolls and eggs. For an energy boost it is popular to mix half a glass of sugar with water, stir it with your figure and drink it down. They call this ZIGOLO!
Good night.

Written by Steven Cutting (Graduate Outreach Coordinator)
Travelling with Kai Shinoda (Admissions and Recruitment Coordinator)

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