Today I visited the community of Mteleza village which is located in Chipata District, close to the border to Malawi.
Words can’t describe the warmth, creativity and resourcefulness of the people of this village, so it’s probably better if I describe it in pictures. There's even a photos of my colleague Mrs Banda in action during one of her cooking demonstrations. She's great at informing the community of the nutritional value of certain foods and the different methods of cooking them. This is important to communities like Mteleza, particularly as many Zambians are living with HIV, so the Nutrition Group is working closely with members of the community to promote ways of living healthily by using certain cooking methods.
The most insightful thing for me to see was the large amount of food which is being grown in the village. Unfortunatley there are very few markets or opportunities for people to sell their goods. The resources and links aren’t in place for the community to make money on the food that they have, so a lot of the food just rots away as there isn’t enough people to eat it all! In fact, it’s a far cry from the traditional images you see of Africa (i.e. starving children, famine etc). In fact, from what I’ve seen of Zambia, there’s so much food, but very little market opportunities to sell it.
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