PAF Shop is open now

Finally. Finally we were able to open the shop at PAF Center.

It took a while to sort things out and get our order done. But now the goods and items were all delivered.

Our PAF member Venuli, the shop manager, was doing a very good job checking the lists and bringing things in order.

You wonder what kind of goods we will be selling? Well…here you go:

• Drinks (only sodas and no alcohol)
• biscuits
• soap, washing paste
• dry cells
• radio batteries
• lotion
• exercise books
• salt, sugar
• tea leaves matches
• Cooking oil
• Painkillers

Of course we will add more items once the initial investment has been covered. We plan to also sell stationary goods such as pens, pencils, rubbers and rulers.

Maybe even eggs and fresh bread and cake, made in the village.

Another idea is to offer snacks and meals, perpares in our community kitchen. This could work well for events, lets say when our PAF Warriors have a soccer match..

First customer 🙂

Taking stock

Getting things in order

Our sweet shop staff

And we also have good news already. After just 20min of the shop being open we already sold items for 27 Kwacha (roughly 2.50 USD). That doesn’t sound like much. But we are happy and expect good revenues. We are sure the shop will attract even more people now. The next shop is several km away…

Thanks again to all our donors and membera for supporting us. Without you guys we would not be able to invest in projects like that. 🙂

And of course that money made will be used for other PAF projects.

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Greenhouse 4.0

You guys all know that PAF basically started with planting fruit trees and handing thm out to people in need. Of course back then we set up a greenhouse to protect the saplings. This one was, how can I say…quite improvised and by far too small for our needs.

So one of our major goals for 2018 was to get a better and bigger greenhouse, and have it close to PAF Center.

All that is easier said than done. A lot of research was needed on how to construct the new one, what kind of shade netting to get, what kind of poles etc. … Wesley and the guys have been running up and down to get the necessary info and samples of the materials.

So now the construction of our new PAF greenhouse has started. This time it is supposed to be much longer lasting and more professional.

That’s why we had our personal super pro advicers around at all times:

Our gang of young consultants looking smart 😉

As usual we used our Zambian ways of doing things. Lets say you wanna bend a pole…well, we have been using a tree to do so:

Bending the poles

 

Or drilling a whole into one of the poles…easy with the right equipment. We only had a hammer:

Drilling holes Zambian style

 

Or lets see how we cut the poles:

Cutting the poles Zambian style

 

After all that it took a massive amount of hard work and even more teamwork. Everybody helped cementing the foundations of the poles, puzzling all the pieces together and last but not least painting the poles in a stylish green and grey colour.

Sorting through the puzzle pieces

Manifestations

Pole Skeleton

The guys figuring “it” out

Materials

Wesley and Kanondo

Getting more stability here

Getting the paint and brushes ready for action 🙂

men at work

Women Power 😉

Green and Grey…that’s how we roll

Painting

Almost done

Skeleton stands

Cementing the poles for stability

The only thing missing now is the shade netting. We will soon update you on this matter. Pinky Promise 😉

Meet Sonic, the PAF caretaker

Many times did we announce that PAF is trying to find a caretaker for PAF Center. And guess what…after years of waiting we finally found someone. Meet Sonic, everyone!

Ready for rumble 😉

Name:                               Sonic

Age:                                   21

Marital Status:                married

Family:                             wife and 2 small kids

Education:                       gold panner

Place of Birth:                 Lusaka

In Chinkonono since:    2017

 

Sonic, you’ll say…sounds familiar in many ways, musically and catchy for sure, not to mention a popular video game hero. But yes…Sonic, that is his real name. 😉

He is 21 years old, happily married and a proud father of two cute and cheeky kids.

Sonic and his wife and baby

Sonic and his young family meeting Wesley and Lloyd

3 guys and 2 kids 😉

Sonic is a resident of Chinkonono. He arrived in the village in early 2017 from Mwembeshi, which is part of Lusaka rural area. Living in Mwembeshi he worked as a gold panner along the Momboshi River.

His new job as caretaker will be completely different. Sonic will now be taking care of the “green gold” in our greenhouses and garden 😉 He will also be in charge of running and maintaining the hammer mill, protecting the PAF grounds and the general upkeep of the PAF Center.

Meet our new PAF Center caretaker, Sonic 🙂

Sonic woking at PAF gardens

Leave that man to work, people 😉

In return a house was constructed for him and his family, so he can stay and work at PAF Center full time. Also, and that is an absolute milestone in PAF history, he is the first person to get “payed” by recieving an incentive for his work. Let me explain the concept here: PAF gives him money to buy diesel for the mill. People come to PAF Center to grind their maize. 4/5 of the profit goes back to PAF to buy new diesel and to invest in other projects. Sonic gets to keep the remaining 1/5 of the profit for himself and his family. Looking at a normal month that is about 90 Kwacha (roughly 8 USD) every 2 weeks for Sonic.

This a way forward for PAF as all members are volunteers and come to work on Mondays, Tuesdays and Fridays….definitely a concept we are looking to expand and transfer to other parts of PAF activities. 🙂

Of course we had to make sure, Sonic is the right one for this job. So he had to apply for it and undergo serious “interrogation” by some of our PAF members.

Sonic at the “formal” interview for the job as PAF caretaker with some of our members

Good Cop, Bad Cop interrogation 😉

 

What do you think? Did we choose well?

 

Cabbage Big Style

You already know that maize and tomato are 2 of the core ingredients of the majority of Zambian and sub-saharan African meals. But we also have to add cabbage to that list. It is full of nutrients and keeps the belly full for a long time.

Of course our villagers and PAF members in Chinkonono are growing cabbage for their own use. But our member Raphael is doing it big style. He has a huge cabbage garden and is growing it for his family’s consumption and for sale.

But Raphael doesn’t only grow cabbage. In his garden you will also find onion, egg plant and tomato.

We say: well done! But take a look!

Proud farmer 🙂

Hard work pays off

Raphael harvesting

now that is one big cabbage

 

On a side note…Lloyd is also trying other good foods 😉

“Which one should I eat first?” 😉

Ta Te Ti Tomato

Since we moved our PAF garden closer to PAF Center it is much easier to grow veggies. People work hard to make sure they supply their families and the village with veggies. This season we focus on tomatoes. Besides cabbage tomatoes are among the most important and popular ibgredients in Zambian cuisine. So it only makes sense to grow a larger quantity of them at our PAF garden.

Unfortunately it doesn’t come that easy. With dry season around it is very difficult to water the plants. Mostly women have to carry buckets and buckets and buckets from the river or a well to water the plants. Not even mentioning the actual gardening work. You get the picture…

But just a few days ago all the work started to pay off and the first harvest could be brought in. What a joy 🙂

Of course we have to face the fact we cannot conserve tonatoes properly. But we are trying new methods to keep them longer. One of them is to keep ashes from cooking and put the fresh tomatoes in a box with cold ashes and store them away in a dry and cool place. Let’s hope it works out!

Chinkonono Shopping Mall

You guys all know what it is like: you just feel an itch and wanna go buy some stuff or go window shopping.

All that is impossible in Chinkonono. You eat what you grow, you wear what you sew or can get on rare occasions in town. The next shop is about 6km walking distance away. And you know…the items you buy will have to be carried back home again.

So PAF decided to re-use the sewing room and make it a shop.

Wesley nd the rest of the members kickstarted this whole project. Shelves have now been carpented and will be set up in the next few days.

Once the shop is all set up our members will sell tomatoes and veggies, bread and maybe cake, the clothes and bags we sew. Step by step we will try to widen the range of products. But to do so we need to find out what people are interested in.

Hopefully the shop will attract and draw more people towrds PAF Center. But it certainly will save our villagers lots of time and effort.

Of course using the sewing room is only a temporary solution until we manage to construct another building amd move the library there to seperate it from the buzzing business 😉

PAF Center Spring 2018

Time flies, folks. Bruni is already back from her 10-days trip to Chinkonono. We are currently working on another slideshow for you guys to see what happened and also some other cool surprises.

But what we can do for now to make the wait worthwhile we want to show you a little tour around PAF Center. Bruni will guide you around and talk about it. It is in German language, but we added the English subtitles for you guys.

Hope you enjoy and are as proud as we are about what happened there in the past years and how far we have already come.