I mentioned a while back that I was going to blog about Machaworks, after visiting them while I was in Zambia, and then never got round to it. This is why: Blogging from the bush: How ICT-led development is working in rural Zambia.

There’s tons of stuff I ddin’t mention in that piece though – but I’ll get round to it..

On the whole, though, this is a bit churlish. The Gates Foundation does do good work that otherwise wouldn’t get done and we live in an imperfect world with imperfect solutions, and all that. I do, however, disagree with Bill’s line early in the video (around 2.30) that “health aid really is not much affected by corruption”.

Here’s how it was explained to me in Zambia a couple of years ago. Aid agencies and governments decide to donate medical supplies to poor countries, say a bunch of CD4 measuring devices for HIV/AIDS victims. Rather than just shipping a few crates of the monitors to the hospitals that need them, the recipient government is given the money to buy the devices from, say, a European company that makes them.

Not hugely objectionable, indeed, possibly a great way of stimulating economic growth in both countries at the same time. But what happens is that every government official who deals with the transaction wants to take a ‘commission’ or cut, because that’s the ‘traditional way of doing business in Africa’ (their generalisation, not mine) you’re told. The Europeans can’t agree to this, because that would be seen as corruption, which they can’t sanction. Even though they’ll take their own legal cut from the deal, which we call profit.

Instead of confronting the issue head on or alerting the relevant anti-corruption watchdogs, the European company doesn’t want to lose out on the highly lucrative deal, or jeapordise future business, so it comes up with a plan.

The supplier sells the montiors to a local distributor, who handles all the dealings with the government and makes sure the right palms get greased. The distributor, naturally, also takes a cut for its efforts in ensuring the smooth flow of business.

The upshot of which, of course, is that far fewer CD4 monitors arrive with the impoverished AIDS victims who need them. Goodwill is lost between donor and recipient nation and everyone gets a little more world weary and cynical next time the call goes out for help.

This may all seem rather innocuous given the flagrant abuses of aid money in some areas. But it’s just the iceberg’s tip. Don’t take my word for it – Sweden announced just three days ago it was cutting its support for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria because of graft.

Ironically, the GFFATM (I don’t think they often go by that acronym, thankfully) is protesting at the Swedish claims, but it too axed funding to Zambia for exactly the same reasons last June.

So yes, Bill, I’m afraid there is corruption in health aid.

Sonia in the old schoolhouse still, originally uploaded by nisuspi.

I do love this shot of Sonia, still teaching in the old schoolhouse. She had her third child last year, who is suffering from measles at the moment, yet she still walks the 7km commute to Kalomo everyday.

Bisca’s class, Grade 4, originally uploaded by nisuspi.

This time processed using Lightroom on Windows, rather than Bibble on Linux. Can’t say I’m as happy with the results, may reprocess them at some point.

Kids at Simakakata on the first day of term. Now with added windows.

A chance encounter with an administrator from Care International today resulted in my wife opening a nursery for the people rural of Simakakata in Kalomo District, Southern Zambia.

She doesn’t know about it yet, so let me explain.

Today was my first day back at Simakakata Community School, finding out what’s changed over the year and a half since I last visited. I’ll share more thoughts about that here and on the LearnAsOne site, but just as I was leaving, Boyd from the Kalomo Care office arrived – also to check on the progress the school has been making (excellent, in case you asked. Since last year, the Grade 7 pass rate has doubled).

Boyd asked George, the headmaster, if he’d be interested in a project to build a pre-school playground using locally sourced materials and recycled tyres. It wouldn’t cost much, and Boyd believed he may have some funding left over from a similar project further north that he could use.

“Not at the moment,” replied George, “We had a nursery school, but the teachers were recruited from the community and had no training, so they left. We have a room and equipment at the church hall, but it is not being used right now.”

I asked George why a pre-school was important, when building the primary seemed to be the priority.

“One of the big problems we have is that when children start Grade 1, they are not ready,” he explained. “They speak no English (the lingua franca in Zambia) and don’t know what school is for. Often they struggle from an early age, and then they stop coming. With a pre-school, we can help the children and the parents as well to understand what school is for and how they will benefit in the long run, and the children won’t start Grade 1 already behind those from urban areas.”

No pics of the nursery yet - I'll visit tomorrow. So here's one of the classroom LearnAsOne has funded being built.

In order to make the pre-school work, George is convinced that he needs to hire a professionally trained and committed specialist teacher. He’s done the sums, and reckons he would have to charge families around 45,000kwacha (£6) per term, but because the local subsistence farmers don’t understand the benefit, they are unwilling to pay.

“It will cost us a million kwacha per term to hire a teacher,” he said, “If we could just get it going and people see the benefit, I’m sure enough children would come.”

By a happy and strange co-incidence, just before I left for Zambia my wife gave me £200 to pass on to George. She had an unforeseen windfall last year, and wanted to give some of the money to Simakakata. After buying some Christmas presents for the children there (shoes for some of the ones who had to walk in the rain barefoot), there was about £150 left over – which is almost exactly one million kwacha.

I’m not going to ask George to dedicate the new nursery to Tamsin, although it’s certainly a thought, but the money will subsidise it for at least the first two terms by supplementing the fees of those who can pay until the whole community sees why it’s a good idea. That’s the plan, at least – if it works, it’ll show how a little really can go a long way in development.

General impressions are not good – more corruption, less proactive work for the poor – but the forthcoming elections may change all that.

Physically, Livingstone hasn’t changed at all. I’ve spotted one new shop so far – everything else is as I left it.

For those who don’t know, Livingstone is a town of between 100,00 and 140,00 people, with one main shopping street – Mosi-oa-Tunya Road. Tourism is big, and all the main NGOs have offices here, but it’s clearly not very well off compared to an English town of this size. Like Bath, for example.

Security on the Guatrain is three guards per carriage. They aren't as blurry in real life.

Leaving Johannesburg was odd. After spending so much time there it was starting to feel like a home away from home, and quite a pleasant one at that.

I switched off over the World Cup because of my antipathy towards football, but the effect of that and falling crime levels made the city feel completely different to last time I was there in 2007. Then, crime was at its peak, Mbeki’s administration was imploding and the bizarre behaviour of president in waiting Zuma convinced many of my friends that South Africa was about to go the way of Zimbabwe.

This time, no-one talked about being scared any more, everyone seemed more confident in the future and upbeat about their prospects. The papers hardly carry any crime stories at all, and there’s a sense that some things are changing for good. It made me regret not moving there four years ago, when it was a serious option, and feel like we probably will relocate some time soon.

View from the Gautrain leaving Joburg. People are really excited by this.

The success of the Gautrain and a crime free world cup have, I think, shown people that South Africa isn’t, perhaps, as bad as they thought. That’s not to be naive – theres still a massive murder rate in the townships, the political class is so brazenly corrupt it defies belief and a staggering unemployment rate means the tax base is way to small for the size of the problems at hand.

Worst of all, you don’t have to drive far from the wealthy northern suburbs to hit some of the most shocking poverty and living conditions I’ve seen.

My biggest reservation about Johannesburg, though, remains its reliance on the car.  You can live there without one – 80,000 people a day get to work on the Metro buses and hundreds of thousands more by the four wheel deathboxes they  call taxis. But heavy handed zoning regulations mean there’s no such thing as a local shop or pub, and hundreds of malls serve a city of drivers who’ve faced 20% rises in fuel costs this year alone. Even if you can look past the enormous carbon wellyboots of this place, the car-based lifestyle isn’t going to be sustainable for long and it’s doubtful the government is really prepared for the additional problems that will bring.

Few people there seem to have figured out that complaining about the traffic is silly when you are the traffic.

That said, the Gautrain and related bus services are a big step forward for public transport and, if all goes according to plan, will eventually be a modern metro network with a reach much greater than its current four stops. Much as I enjoyed riding it to the airport, there’s a certain sense of irony in that you have to navigate the heaviest traffic in the city just to reach the central terminal (Sandton).

I think, all in all, we’ll be back soon – probably for while.

I'll be making a fool of myself in a bigger classroom

Here’s the post I’ve written for LearnAsOne explaining the next few days.

“Season’s greetings and a happy new year. For those of our supporters who’ve been stuck in northern Europe’s coldest winter for decades, my commiserations. I’ve been away in South Africa visiting relatives for the festive period, and have been slowly baking away in a hot, muggy climate for the last couple of weeks.

“I will atone for my good fortune, though. Since I’m in this part of the world anyway, I couldn’t resist treating myself to an extra present – a plane ticket to Zambia and a journey to visit our friends at Simakakata.

“It’s been nearly 19 months since Steve, Nerys, Brenda and I first went to see George and his staff at Simakakata Community School, which is just outside the historical capital of Zambia, Kalomo. Then, over 200 children were receiving a basic education in a derelict farmhouse. They had no access to clean water on site, little in the way of classroom furniture and got by largely thanks to the dedication and passion of their teachers.

“New term begins

“I can’t wait to be there when term starts on 9^th January. I’ve spoken to George by phone several times over the last year and a half, so I know that thanks to funding from LearnAsOne and Care International a new schoolhouse has been builtand is slowly being equipped up to standard. I know local government has begun work on a borehole for the site, and that several new members of staff have joined George, Sonia and Edwin.

“Thanks to supporters of LearnAsOne, who have read, watched and listened to the community telling us what they want, rather than simply sending what we think they need, the people of Simakakata have started on an exciting journey of development. Their children will receive a proper, high standard education from which the whole community will reap the economic benefits. With just a little bit more help from us, and you, this chapter in their history will be finished and they’ll be well on the way to self-sustainable development for the future.

“I’m really looking forward to meeting George and his team again, and finding out how much has changed and what still needs to be done. There will be lessons for all of us to learn from the work of the last 19 months and, as ever, I’ll be posting updates with photos throughout my trip and when I get back to the UK later in January.”

Which I think says it all.