Crooked Toward the Sun: Globe, Arizona

    Heat, but at least it's dry. More often than not that's the first line some new coworker or community member lets fall from their mouth once I tell them I'm from Portland.

    This week has consisted mostly of a series of small talk; pleasant get-to-know-you's and nice gestures. The community here in Globe has greeted me with open arms and are instilling in me a sense of purpose, which will be necessary to carry out an effective year of service in Americorps. When I'm introduced in meetings or community events, I receive an all-around applause. From store clerks to theatre performers to gardeners, people are genuinely interested in The New Girl in Town. And, oh, everybody knows.

    My new little abode-next to a former family-owned gun shop and home to a herd of curious javalinas, overlooking the mountains of the Sonoran Desert. My landlord led me in on Monday evening, offering a basket of fresh fruit and a caramel sundae from Dairy Queen, both of which I graciously accepted. As we sat at my new desk and she traced the rental agreements with her fake pink nails, I drifted off and gazed around at the living room, eyeing out wall and shelf space and little crevices for the modest items I managed to fit into my suitcase, wondering how I would transform this 600 square-foot, three room space into a home.


     In a couple of hours I managed to do just that. After essentially two years of traveling, I'm becoming well-versed at this. I slipped the pillowcases out of their plastic wrapping, propped up friends' paintings on shelf space and pasted Zambian chitenges over the concrete, white walls with blue putty. I dusted off the side porch, essentially three planks of splintered wood leading to the garbage and recycling, bound by a wire fence. Coasting back over the freshly-carpeted living room with bare feet, I hung my clothes in my giant walk-in closet. While unpacking the same pictures, the same paintings, and the same worn-out clothes in a new place, I hoped the old would fit in with the new. I understood from experience that I'd need to learn to adapt. Quickly.

   The first step: To become acquainted with the town's layout. Tuesday afternoon I packed my camera and headed to the old town, trying to color in an outlined map in my head with shops and parks and sidewalks suited for biking. As I walked down the main stretch, my initial glance at a telephone pole that in Portland would have offered me a sigh of relief at the sight of a concert advertisement was replaced with a gnawing stomach pain, realizing that for the next year I'll be glancing at missing persons ads--the kind in the old days you'd find on the back of a milk carton. The giant, silver apple logo has not yet taken over mom&pop microwave and stereo repair shops. Propped up next to a bar posting the sign "No firearms allowed" is a gun shop. This is middle America. This is the ol' Wild West.

 

Downtown Globe

Downtown Globe

Downtown Globe

   I have never experienced culture shock like I have here. Maybe it hits so close to home because I identify with these people in a way I never could abroad. These are the people I am supposed to identify with under the creed of our nation's name and constitution. These are the people who hold political clout over the fate of my future, and the people with whom I have to collaborate and therefore try and understand. I am not just freewheelin' anymore. There's a stake here.

     I realized the nature of my fate during training when my new acquaintances at Americorps training from small-town Texas repeatedly joked around that "a town ain't a real town 'till WalMart comes around". But this is why I came. I constantly read in newspapers, hear the prejudices about these rural towns spoken by their liberal counterparts and conjure up my own opinions, and I want to see, experience and learn for myself. I want to learn the good qualities from both sides of my fellow countrymen in an attempt to eradicate the wall that keeps us all in gridlock. I want to lay concrete on my views of America.

    Food. There's a concept we all seem to understand. No matter what background; religion, political affiliation or otherwise, we all agree: Organic farming is the wave of the future. Big-buck companies spreading GMO's are to be questioned, and the large-scale, monocultural, industrialized farming techniques serve as a large disadvantage to the well-being and fertility of our nation's land and its citizens. I'm looking forward to furthering my knowledge of organic gardening, and I'm especially inspired to improve and make sustainable the Farmers' Market here that was started by an Americorps volunteer two years ago.

 I feel at peace arriving in Globe. As alien as my surroundings may seem, I know that soon I'll come to regard this place as home. What once constituted my world view will again be lifted, and my initial aversion to the splintered planks of wood that buffer the fall from my back door will soon offer a sense of comfort and belonging that comes with laying down roots, even if those roots only grow for a year. Even if those roots are a far cry from all I've ever known.

My branches are growing crooked. But this time, they're growing crooked toward the sun.

I have no choice but to jump right in. 

A Village Co-Op in Zambia Needs Your Help!

Hey all, the following is a letter Stefan wrote home requesting financial support for implementing a project in his village that will lead to a sustainable source of income and protein for village members, heightening food security. 

To make a donation, follow this link.

"To my family, friends and loyal readers on the far side of the world,

I write to you today with what humility I can muster to ask for your

assistance. This is the first - and will be the only - time I come

before you in this fashion to request outright financial support for a

Peace Corps project here in Zambia. If it made economic sense, I would

gladly ship you all out here with shovels in hand to show the people

of Mwanachama the commitment of my countrymen through a physical

display of ardent manpower. But alas, you all have your own

responsibilities and obligations on the home front and, unfortunately,

it is not just willing hands and open hearts which we need. No. Above

all else, the project which I have helped set in motion in this

village needs materials - 50-kilogram bags of cement, feed, water

drums, iron roofing, lumber, tools, hired vehicles - materials which

render this effort cost-prohibitive without outside help in the form

of hard capital.

But make no mistake; outright aid does not work. No lesson has been

more clear during my past year spent in Africa. I have seen water

towers slowly rusting in the courtyards of schools where children line

up to lower a dirty plastic bucket into a well for a drink. I have

seen decrepit hammer mills lying in a pool of soot-black machine oil

like some slain metal beast as the villagers across the yard pound

maize into flour with mortar and pestle. I have seen borehole pumps

missing their handles with metal placards on the side still legible

reading "A Gift From the People Of Japan," though years ago people

broke open the cement casing and now use the hole as a shallow well.

How many times have NGOs interrupted segments of the evening news to

flash photos of emaciated children with distended bellies rummaging

through garbage piles across your television screen? How many times

have your heartstrings been tugged asking for your "dollar a day"? I

do not intend to follow this paradigm. I do not think true

philanthropy can be achieved with a guilt trip. Whether you choose to

accept this appeal and give to this project what small token you can

manage, or whether you decide this is not your battle to fight, I will

understand. No one ever can or ever should tell you how to feel about

these issues, or what constitutes "enough." I simply write to you

today to testify on behalf of this project as one of its architects,

to share my optimism for its success without promising it, to vouch

for the organization which will be implementing it, and to leave in

your lap an opportunity to, in a small way, improve the lives of those

who have much less than you do. What you decide to do when these words

run out is your business and your business alone.

The Story:

Mwanachama Multipurpose Cooperative Society is a 34-member male and

female farmers co-op based in my village. It is comprised mostly of

maize farmers and vegetable gardeners, with some members endowed with

technical skills such as bike mechanics, carpentry, blacksmithing and

charcoal making. I have worked with several of them on projects

relating to agriculture - mostly gardening and composting - and one

man in particular, Patrick Kabaso, has become a close friend of mine

through our casual work interactions.

Ba Patrick is the secretary for Mwanachama Co-op, and together with

the chair and vice-chair, he approached me several months ago with the

idea of starting a poultry project which would generate income for the

organization and provide greater food security to the village. I sat

in on several preliminary meetings with the co-op executives and

general members, and developed a rough idea of the scope of this

project. Collectively, the co-op decided to raise 300 broiler chickens

in 16-week cycles and to sell them both locally in the village and to

truck them to Mansa to be sold in the open-air markets and at local

restaurants. In addition to the nutritional and income generating

aspects of the project, what piqued my interest initially was an

opportunity to vastly expand my push for conservation farming and

organic vegetable production in this village with the use of chicken

manure.

I have been hawking organic agriculture since the day I set foot in

Mwanachama, and this past growing season I cultivated all of my maize

using the pungent brown cake from a poultry farmer operating on the

outskirts of town. But where farmers were enticed by the prospect of

saving money by cutting down on their inorganic crop inputs, they were

repelled by the logistics of transporting that much chicken shit. I

would pass them on the road coming from the poultry farm in Senama

with a 50-kilogram sack of manure on the rack of my bicycle and they

would just shake their heads. And I understand why. These men and

women break their back every day fighting back the jungle in order to

eek out a livelihood and literally put food on the table, and I can

see how any added labor inputs would be out of the question. But to

have a reliable, perennial source of organic fertilizer right here in

the village - a stone's throw from the fields where it would be used -

would cure this aversion completely. And so, this project is

multifaceted, and has the potential to feed and economically empower

many people, as well as make a pivotal stride in championing organic

farming.

The co-op executives decided on a plot of land owned by a fellow

member where they will build a poultry house with all the fixings - a

cement floor, iron roof, limed and painted mud-brick walls, windows

for light and even a small office building in one corner to store

records and supplies.

Multiple budgets were written and then re-written, and I embarked on

the task of finding the money to pay for it all. Every Peace Corps

Volunteer in every participating country has access to one-time

funding source called the Peace Corps Partnership Program (PCPP)

Grant, whereby volunteers solicit funds from friends, family members,

former co-workers, religious groups, schools and others to pay for a

small development project of our choosing. The maximum amount we are

allowed to request is USD 4,000, and the total cost of this project

will be just over USD 3,800. The money will be raised in a dedicated

Peace Corps account managed from its headquarters in Washington, D.C.,

and when the total requested amount is reached, will be transferred to

a Zambian bank account in my name. I will then work with the co-op

leaders to spend the money as outlined in our budget submitted to

Washington, and to account for every last kwacha by means of

collecting and logging receipts. Finally, a completion report will be

submitted to Peace Corps Zambia headquarters in Lusaka before I

complete my service here in April of next year, where I will compile

all financial records of the project's implementation and at last hand

all control of the project over to the co-op."

To make a donation, follow this link.