A year in Zambia

It has been a year since I came to Zambia (in detail, I arrived at Lusaka on March 25, 2011). I still remember the day I got here and how excited I was at that time... I feel like it was just a yesterday... I still am enjoying what I do and my life here, which is definitely a good thing.

Now I can officially say that this is going to be my last year in Zambia, so I really have to focus on the on-going and new projects that I am currently involved in. I will try to get done with them as much as possible before I leave here next March! I am already excited about going back to Japan next March yet quite nervous about it... let's see how I really feel when I am actually going back.

Cannot wait :) 

Trip to Kasama

I went to Kasama to visit an urban planner at the northern province earlier this month. It was such a wonderful opportunity to see how he worked at his office as a planner from a different country.

On the 1st day, my friends and I took Tazara Railroad from Kapiri Mposhi to Kasama. The train was delayed for a few hours but it was so much fun traveling in a train. It was really shaky somehow but being there reminded me of the time when my family and I were visiting our grandparents by Blue Train (long-distance sleeper train).

When we got to Kasama station after about 12 hours of train ride, we visited his office in a township. I was really impressed to see what he did and how he made some changes at his host organization. It was hard to believe that he has done all those things just in 2 years! I still have a year to go until I leave this country, so his work really made me think of how I should work and what I should focus on from now on.

Also, his coworkers made me feel I was welcomed. This was definitely because he did a great job working with them at the office as well as being good friends with them outside of work. It was overwhelming and heartbreaking for me to see them being sad when they had to say goodbye to him as he was leaving for good. I guess saying goodbye is always hard...

He also took me to Chishimba Falls. It was definitely smaller than the Victoria Falls in Livingstone but I really liked the way that we were able to get so much closer. I was able to feel the water splash coming directly from the falls. It was not as major as the Victoria Falls, so the nature was still untouched and we did not have to deal with too many tourists.

I really enjoyed my time there in Kasama. I would love to go back there sometime soon to see the falls as well as the people there (especially the staff at the planning department)!

GIS Training 2012

My co-worker (an urban planner who works for the other provincial office) and I organized a GIS training for 2 weeks this month. The national-level training turned out really well and all the participants learned a great deal out of this!

We had been prepared for the event since last October. The things we did for the training included; arranging the venue, making a training guide, requesting guest lecturers from various organizations, making presentations about the GIS in general and some case studies in Japan and the U.S., leading training sessions as instructors, etc. It definitely was a lot of work but was definitely one of the best opportunities that we were given during our stay here in Zambia (though, I do have another year to go until my contract ends...). 

The best part of the training was that the 20 participants really got interested in GIS and now are quite fluent in basic applications of GIS. They can now make maps and do some analysis, including buffering, overlaying, etc. They even mentioned that they were ready to launch GIS programs at their provincial offices and willing to invite us as instructors for the the follow-up training in their provinces.  I cannot wait to see new changes in those offices / provinces!

To be honest, I already miss being an instructor of the training so much... The good news is that we might be able to host the follow-up training sometime in August or September! I cannot wait for the day to come soon :)

Chipolopolo beat Black Stars!

Last night, Zambian national team for soccer, nicknamed Chipolopolo (meaning the copper bullets), beat Ghanaian national team, Black Starts, at the Africa Cup of Nations semi-final! 

Since their first win over Senegal on January 21, Zambians were so excited about their team. They even started talking about winning the cup. Of course I wanted Zambia to do well, but I just did not think it was realistic... Here we are, though, beating Ghana at the semi-final and moving onto the final with Ivory Coast this Sunday, I now believe anything could happen to our Chipolopolo boys! 

Since last night, most of the Zambians are celebrating their victory for now. Wherever you go in town, you see a lot of people wearing in Zambian national uniforms, scarves and caps, as well as vehicles with national flags. You can also hear loud music (they are usually either "Donchi Kubeba" song or "chipolopolo" song) and people honking each other. 

I am sure that the game will be rough because we will be playing against one of the best teams in Africa. I only hope they will do their best. As Zambia has never won the cup, it will be awesome if we win the title though! Go Chipolopolo!

Annual review meeting

Board members for our planning authority and us, the secretariats, came to a lodge at the outskirts of Lusaka for our annual review meeting. We discussed about what we have achieved in the year of 2011 and what kind of activities / projects we should focus on this year.

I needed to make a presentation about our use and application of GIS in 2011 and proposed GIS activities in 2012 at the department. There are variety of things that I want to do by using GIS, including GIS training to the staff here, improving our GIS database, collecting and creating necessary shapefiles for our jurisdiction, and so on. As I only have a little longer than a year left here, I should consider which tasks need to be prioritized before starting new projects.

I guess the annual review meeting was a success. There were so many issues that needed to be discussed... Of course I learned quite a bit from the meeting, but, to be honest, I was glad when the two-day long meeting was finally over!

GIS workshop was postponed!

Since last November, my colleague and I had been working quite hard to hold a two-week long GIS training from the end of January to early February. Twenty planners / planning assistants / surveyors all over the country were supposed to come to Lusaka for that. We even wrote a training material (more than 130 pages long!) so that the participants could practice using GIS on their own even after the training. We were about to place an order for the printing when we were informed of BAD news...

The training has been suddenly postponed until the end of next month because an administrative issue occurred. The worst of it was that it might get cancelled if the situation did not improve by a certain day. Although I knew there was nothing we could have done about it, I was really sad and disappointed about the decision. It was scheduled to start within a week!

I had been very busy ever since we started to organize the event. Besides from writing the training guide, I visited some professionals / offices to organize the event and deal with issues, as well as submitted a proposal, just to name a few... I was so ready for it.

I really wished we could have hold the training as we planned. Though, at least, I was able to learn how it is to work in a developing country in a hard way. I only hope I could react better if a similar thing ever happens to me next...

New Year's Resolution

Happy New Year!

So many things happened to me in the year of 2011, good and bad things alike. Overall, though, I think I am enjoying my life in Zambia and glad to have an opportunity to work as a planner here.

As the life in Zambia is so much slower and I have more time here, I have a lot of things that I want to do this year:
- To complete the Luangwa IDP
- To start the Kafue IDP project and finish the inception report as well as the status quo report
- To improve the GIS database at the office
- To make the DPPH GIS training a successful one
- To continue the GIS workshop at the office
- To study GRE in order to apply for grad schools
- To start learning a new language (preferably French)
- To travel to Tanzania and Mozambique, etc

But I think my new year's resolution will be to stay healthy. It is very simple but I think it is very important since I need to be healthy to achieve all those things mentioned above.

Anyways, I hope the year 2012 will be a prosperous one for all of us...