Chicken Run!

JR is coordinating a weekly Poly-wide meeting on the development of a new program in Applied Biology. It’s been a fun but challenging and time-consuming opportunity to interact with the few scientists on campus and to talk about scientific skills that need to be cultivated in Namibia. This week’s topic was research, largely motivated by the fact that the new qualification will entail a research project, and there are more than 20 research-related courses already available at Poly to choose from. In a fortuitous turn of events, I also got a glimpse of scientific preparation by judging 7th and 12th grade chemistry entries in Namibia’s National Science Fair, which was held on the Poly campus in September. There’s an interesting dichotomy of perspective about whether training programs need courses in research (e.g. Research Methodology to define research and walk through the development of questions and research designs; no one debates the importance of separate, detailed statistics courses) or need research embedded in courses. For our part, we’re taking the latter approach with Non-ruminant Husbandry.
With the class, we’ve developed a 2-factor experiment to test how a change in agricultural practice would affect productivity and profit. The largest limitation to growing non-ruminants in Namibia is the feed cost – these feeds have to be nutritionally balanced (not just grass, as in ruminants), and the ingredients are almost all imported. So we asked the question of whether we could use cheaper, local feed ingredients and still get satisfactory performance. We chose to focus on chickens (rather than pigs, horses, or fish, our other non-ruminant options that would be impossible to house on campus) and to compare diets of commercial vs. hotel left-overs, with or without earthworms. A rule of thumb for chicken diets from scratch is 50% grains (bread crusts, rice, pasta, corn flakes), 25% protein sources (meat, egg, nuts, beans), and 25% greens (lettuce, chard, herbs), all chopped finely enough to make it down a small bird’s throat without chewing. The chicks get energy from the grains, proteins for building muscles, and vitamins and minerals from the greens.
There have been a few hurdles to overcome. First, chickens are illegal in Windhoek. Well, we’re only raising chicks, and they’ll be moved elsewhere when the experiment finishes at about 6 weeks. We didn’t even ask about whether it was okay to keep them for the first week in our apartment (we finally found a good use for our space heater!). Second, because the poultry industry is essentially non-existent in Namibia, there are few sources of large numbers of day-old chicks in the region. They must be imported from South Africa or purchased from Mashare Agricultural Development Institute, which is maintaining a line of Potchefstroom koekoek chickens after the end of a large trial comparing productivity of 4 breeds. Third, the veterinary fence was closed to all agricultural products from early August, when FMD broke out in the Kavango region. Chickens don’t carry FMD, but Veterinary Services doesn’t issue permits for anything when the fence is closed – until we called for weeks and finally went straight to the head vet in Namibia to get a special “red cross” permit to bring the chicks from Mashare, north of the red line, to Windhoek. This was our “chicken run.” We left Windhoek after class on Tuesday, traveled 5 hours to Roy’s Camp where we stayed the night, then pushed on to Rundu and Mashare, where we picked up the chicks, got the correct permit, and made the 8-hour drive back south to Windhoek by Wednesday evening. Roy’s Camp deserves a special note because it was one of the funkiest, most restful places we’ve stayed. JR went for a walk (!) in the bush (Roy’s camp doesn’t have any large predators) and was surprised by a LOUD barking snort that turned out to be a male kudu warning his group – I guess he was as surprised as I was! We had a wonderful dinner of kudu pockets (Okay, there are no kangaroos or other pocketed marsupials in Namibia, contrary to a variety of children’s books. These turned out to be pieces of kudu wrapped in bacon) and a half dozen different salads, most involving some sort of creamy dressing. We saw a whole herd of eland come to the waterhole at dusk, just as the “torches” made of wicks in glass bottles were being lit around the camp.
The chicks grew from 50 g at week 1 to 250 g at week 5, but faster on commercial feed than on urban leftovers. Worms helped their growth, too. We suspect that the leftovers were protein-deficient (it was a lot easier to get leftover pasta or porridge than leftover lamb or fish!) and missing some vitamins, because six of the birds began sitting on their haunches with curled toes a few days before the end of the experiment. We immediately took these birds out and put them on commercial feed with extra vitamins and minerals, and they were back to normal within a week! We’re having some feed samples analyzed chemically by the Ministry of Agriculture, so ultimately we’ll have data on what the birds actually received nutritionally.
The experiment has now ended and, despite our interest in giving 100 6-week-old chickens to a student interested in starting a chicken business, no one was able to write a business plan that actually showed a profit. The chickens moved instead to an organic farm in Okahandja – the garden city an hour north of Windhoek, where they’ll do a little grazing on cover crops, get some fishmeal from Walvis Bay, consume vegetable scraps and leftovers, and eat a bit of expensive organic nutritionally-balanced chicken food. We wish them happy (if not long) lives!

Independence Day (a belated report)

On July 4, the US ambassador invited more than 500 people to her party (our invitation was number 517). Over a buffet lunch, JR mingled with politicians, heads of university departments, press, and a few other Americans. An a capella group sang national anthems of the US and Namibia, and after speeches, the group toasted each country and its president. For a stiff protocol-ridden event, it was a surprisingly moving experience. There’s nothing like being next door to Zimbabwe to make you think a little more fully and practically about democracy. Have you kept up with this saga of southern African news? Robert Mugabe is a liberation hero of Zimbabwe, a land-locked country just northeast of Namibia and bordering the mile-wide Victoria Falls. Mugabe has a street named after him in Windhoek (so do Mahatma Gandhi, Fidel Castro, and many national heros). After leading his country for (hmmm, I forget exactly) some 30 years, he stood for reelection this year. Zimbabwe used to be the breadbasket of southern Africa, with ideal climate and soil for rain-fed crops – we’ve heard the country was food-independent and exported substantial amounts, for instance to Namibia where the land is generally too arid for successful crop production. Today, Zimbabwe’s agricultural production has ground to a standstill, and, with inflation at triple digits annually, the treasury just issued a billion-dollar bill (and now may just remove 7 zeros from each denomination). Needless to say, people in the country were dissatisfied with their conditions and were prepared to vote for an opposition candidate. Two elections were held: In the first, no candidate received a majority vote (and Mugabe was overall 2nd), so Mugabe declared it void and kept himself in power, although finally agreed to a second run-off election. In the meantime, opposition supporters were harassed, tortured, and even killed, and the opposition candidate actually withdrew from the run-off, presumably to prevent escalation to civil war. On July 4, the ambassador reminded the gathering of some of the principles of democracy: free and open elections, the ability to disagree civilly, an organized transfer of power. Both the UN and African Union have noted that Mugabe is no longer a rightfully elected leader (although the heads of southern African countries have been rather quiet – deep connections from liberation struggles make it hard to criticize a fellow freedom fighter). The ambassador went on to use the US as an example: when parties lose, they go back to their constituents and try to figure out what would allow them to win next time. Without naming Barack Obama directly, she impressed upon the crowd that democracy cultivates leaders, and the strong African-American candidate indicated the on-going development of democracy in America. (The cynical part of me noted that she didn’t mention the contested outcome of the Bush-Gore presidential race, nor the role of corporate interests in determining election results, nor the relatively small spectrum of party platforms that are competitive – democracy everywhere can still use improvement.)
Meanwhile, Katie played with the kids of a fellow Fulbrighter, and we returned after the reception to chalk paintings of the American flag, complete with all Stars and Stripes. Alan spent the weekend at the “farm” of Detlef Klein, one of the Salt Company owners. This farm is on the edge of the Namib desert, so just productive enough in its 10s of 1000s of hectares to support the required minimum number of cows and goats. Over the past two decades or so that Detlef has owned the farm, the numbers of wild animals have increased dramatically – that’s what happens when they’re only hunted occasionally, rather than to remove competition with stock or to provide regular recreation for Spanish ship captains (as happens nearby). Nevertheless, Alan got to go hunting, which he’s really been longing to do in Africa, even though the last time he hunted was with his grandfather as a teenager. According to his report, two shots, two animals: a springbok from 150 m through the head (otherwise the meat is ruined, because the body size is relatively small), and a gemsbok at 250 m through the heart. The latter was so big it had to be winched into the back of the truck. Most of the next day was spent turning these animals into mince, steaks, and biltong, and we’ve been happily eating game ever since.

Namibian Business Innovation Center

AT is one of 2 advisors for NBIC, which the Finnish government may fund for Polytechnic to foster… business innovation! He participated in a 3-day brainstorming session Apr 2-4 (while K and J played with the local kids and spent an enjoyable morning at the craft center selecting handmade gifts to send to cousin Emma for her 6th birthday). And found it somewhat frustrating for the same reasons that have puzzled us about development of other programs here as well: The plans emphasize buildings and outcomes, not the people who actually have to carry out the plans. Our epiphany was this: we are essentially a business innovation center ourselves. Alan’s analysis of the high mortality of oysters in Walvis Bay has had the growers buzzing for weeks, considering ways to “harden” oysters. After all, wrote Alan, Crassostrea gigas is essentially an intertidal species, and hardening the spat is an essential step in its culture everywhere in the world. In Japan where it is native, scallop shells are hung in Sendai Bay for recruitment, then moved to intertidal racks in a small cove over winter, then moved back to Sendai Bay where the oysters grow in clusters to harvest size. In Washington, oyster shells are packed in mesh bags to receive recruits, and these bags are stacked in piles in the intertidal zone over winter, before being broken apart and scattered for the oysters to grow on bottom. In contrast, hardening has not been part of oyster culture in Walvis Bay. There, oysters remain submerged from the time of settlement, removed for perhaps a day every 6 weeks for cleaning, which chips the thin, subtidal, fast-growing shell. These chipped individuals certainly cannot close up against toxic conditions, and even the intact ones have poor abilities to close. Hardening could help these oysters through some periods like those experienced in March. The oyster growers here are getting other help and advice as well, about triploids, clams, phytoplankton, … and all out of the back of our Kombi! The point is, you don’t get a business innovation center (or a marine lab, or a degree program) through a building and a plan on paper. You get it with qualified people.

It’s funny to me that I regularly give Alan a hard time about not writing up his scientific papers, which on average 7 people ever read (a scientific fact!). But, many more than 7 people have read his oyster mortality report, and they’re actually experimenting with some new practices as a result!

Polytechnic strategic planning

Only read this if you want to know the nitty-gritty details about the fact that we're doing more in Namibia than looking for oryxes, ostriches, and oysters, oh my!

For better or worse, the Polytechnic is in the midst of strategic planning, their third such process since the institution was founded in 1995. We – especially Alan – find ourselves deeply involved in the process. It is an interesting higher-level perspective to accompany the program-building that we are doing within a single department. But first, a step back:

Namibia – a country of around 2 million with 40,000 high school graduates each year – has two institutions of higher learning. The University of Namibia is based in Windhoek and has satellite campuses (for instance, several agricultural campuses and an engineering campus in the works) throughout the country. UNAM was founded in 1992 but (I think) was mostly renamed from an existing institution. The chancellor of the university is the founding president of the country. And UNAM is widely recognized as being responsible for producing bachelor degrees. The Polytechnic of Namibia, in contrast, is responsible for training technicians. Its schools include Business (6000 of 8000 students), Engineering (where new programs are just starting in biomedical and environmental science, go figure), Communications (largely responsible for making sure all students have functional English skills), Information Technology, and Natural Resources and Tourism. Within the last, there are 4 departments: Agriculture, Nature conservation, Land management (including surveying), and Hotel and tourism management. We are in Agriculture, responsible for helping to develop a new program in Aquaculture and for teaching Non-ruminant Animal Husbandry next term. (Technically, it’s JR’s responsibility, but early on we got permission from the Rector of PoN to job-share, hence AT’s involvement in strategic planning.)

Agriculture currently has 6 faculty (plus a seventh whom we have not met: He was recently hired to teach agribusiness courses but has not arrived due to delays in work permits). Their entering class is about 30 students each year. They offer a 3-year diploma, and, with an additional year or two of distance courses and research project to receive a Bachelor of Technology – we remain pretty uncertain about what constitutes a BTech, which is okay, because it’s being phased out anyway. The faculty are largely trained in agribusiness but very committed to providing students with hands-on training that would allow them to become successful farmers. So the students take a course in building with concrete, electric fences, etc. They also spend one term (out of 6) working on a farm or with some other agriculture-production oriented business. What we are beginning to realize is that the department’s vision of their role in Namibia may be somewhat different than that of the administration (but isn’t that why strategic planning happens – to reconcile those views?). Driven by the administration, Poly is in the process of transforming from a technical college to a university: this involves more than a name change to University of Science and Technology, but also an accreditation process and direct competition with UNAM. Some might say that UNAM doesn’t present much competition, since, for instance, the Fulbright Fellow posted there hasn’t even been given an office after 2 months, and her teaching responsibilities will be guest lectures. Right now, nothing is happening at UNAM because the faculty are on strike for 12% raises. We have heard that BSc preparation out of UNAM does not provide students with equivalent skills as they could acquire at a South African university, where most of the best students in Namibia still go. However, the two institutions certainly compete for resources, and we have heard that Poly gets much less government support than UNAM.

Last year, the Department of Agriculture developed two new curricula, an update to their agriculture programs and a new curriculum in aquaculture. The curricula are matched explicitly to NQF/NQA criteria – these stand for Namibian Qualification something or other – which require that the degrees and each course within the degree contain specific learning objectives. The learning objectives are scored by level (sort of like Bloom’s taxonomy – a course where students learn to identify is at a lower level than one where they have to compare, apply, or evaluate) and by Notional Hours (which incorporate both contact hours and study time on their own). Then, specific numbers of notional hours at specific levels are required for certification as a National Diploma or Bachelor degree. Some of this is very familiar from similar attention to learning objectives at the University of Washington. However, other parts have taken some getting used to: for instance, the degrees proposed for Agriculture Management and Aquaculture Management have no electives – all students in a class take exactly the same 5 courses each term. Also, curricula are being built in the absence of faculty to teach the courses. This is particularly obvious in Aquaculture, where one inspired faculty member read a lot of books to put together a curriculum, which will need to be taught by at least 4 additional people trained in aquatic science or aquaculture.
The curricula proposed by the Department last year passed through the Board of Studies (essentially a “faculty meeting” of everyone in the School) but stalled at the Senate (which consists of upper administration), which requested that the Department develop BSc degrees, in addition to the Diploma. Now, if Poly is to become the University of Science and Technology, it definitely makes sense to have BSc’s. But, the department’s response was to add an additional year of courses to the diploma (courses in agribusiness, marketing, plant production, and animal production – even though students have already had 3 business courses, and 5 taxon-specific production courses) and call it a BSc. Our first contribution to program-building was therefore sort of negative (well, hopefully constructive criticism). We pointed out that the amount of math (accounting), chemistry (1 term), physics (none), and biology (some physiology and ecology in the context of agriculture species and rangeland) did not align well with any other BSc’s with which we were familiar. We suggested that it was not possible to build a BSc on top of a technical diploma (unless students wanted to take all of their physics, organic chemistry, and calculus in the final year, which sounded neither fun nor useful), but a BSc could be developed in parallel, with (gasp) electives, use of courses offered in engineering, and synthetic seminars to help students draw together, say, strands of preparation in genetics and farming. Resistance has been high, on a number of grounds: we have heard that Namibia doesn’t need scientists, that UNAM is charged with producing those sorts of graduates, and that graduates of an agribusiness program at Poly would still be better than UNAM graduates. Okay, well, it is sort of funny to be thinking about what distinguishes a farmer and a scientist (like, the scientist can’t actually grow food), since these are two paths that we’re personally interested in. But, we mostly wonder whether the disparity of vision between administration and department is as high as it now seems – what is the role of this institution, and how can it best contribute to economic development in the country? As scientists, we have seen opportunities for research at every turn, from tracking mountain zebras to understand their competition with cows, to growing salt pond Dunaliella in culture to extract beta-carotene, to more marine ecological issues of top-down vs. bottom-up controls on oyster production. But then again, we’re not asking to be paid to work on scientific questions – it’s a passion, not a 7:30-4:30 job (which reminds me, the culture at Poly definitely emphasizes “seat time” for faculty – definitely not the way we work!). Alan was up past midnight last night learning about boring polychaetes and summer mortality in oysters, which will allow us to avoid taking our research down well-trodden territory. I counted isopods until dark last week to get a first sample of the Paridotea population. But we do wonder how many scientists Namibia could support, with no national funding for research and industries struggling to break even, let alone support research.

Exploring Windhoek

I find it amusing that we so recently moved out of our apartment in Seattle, wiping our hands of that phase of our life for a time. And now we’re back in an apartment that is strangely similar: kitchen, dining room, and living room combined, 2 bedrooms, 2 baths (sort of: one has a bathtub, the other has a toilet, both have sinks), and a balcony. The views are better here, as we have an end-apartment that allows us to see both north and south, and to some extent east. We have to walk up a flight of stairs for unobstructed sunsets.

Someone else chose the furniture – thankfully, as it surely saves us both time and money. But I chuckle each time I look at the glass-fronted china cupboard that we will never use: only 2 50-lb checked bags for the 3 of us, so we brought only clothes and electronics, not our best china.

The apartment has an amazing number of appliances: toaster, coffee maker, tea kettle, beaters, television, even a clothes washer, but no clock. I’m not actually sure if the time is 3 in the afternoon or 2, as I write this. I wonder if this is a subtle hint to be aware of African time. Regardless, the days are long – in hours and because we’re still exhausted from travel and from unfamiliar heat.

This morning we spent about 4 hours walking north into a busy urban shopping area, where we began to pick up the few essential items that were too heavy to pack: sunscreen, antibiotic cream, dish soap, hand soap. Katie played for a while in the Zoo-park, which hasn’t had a zoo for decades, but has a fine playground. We had been warned that they’re a bit dangerous: all we discovered is that the metal parts are very hot in the sun (especially as Katie had bare legs), and some of the wooden boards are missing. It was more than made up for by the children there, who asked Katie to “come and play,” then picked her up and had her join in their adventures with a galloping 5-seated horse. Yesterday, we spent some time with 12-year-old Lisa, who is visiting next door. She was totally excited about a gift of stickers, fascinated by the animal flashcards, and amazed at how many toys Katie has (in fact, we only brought out a fraction of Katie’s full complement, which is dwarfed by the toys we left in Washington): this was my first truly eye-opening cultural experience. The second came when I realized Lisa didn’t know the term “mammal” and didn’t know continents on a map – although this may simply reflect language barriers. (A day later: the kids at Poly Heights, where we have our 7th floor apartment, have been equally welcoming to Katie. She is in heaven playing with them, much happier than when she's with mom and dad running errands.) I am beginning to think that, although English is the official language of the country, it is no one’s preferred or default language except for us. And, by the way, every storekeeper recognized us as tourists (clothes? accent?). We stand out enough that the guards at the Polytechnic didn’t even ask to see our ID cards when we returned from our walk.

Walking is easy for almost everything we can imagine needing (except a car seat). We are still wondering why the embassy employees took Alan by car to a distant shop for a few groceries last night - but we suspect it may have to do with what's "acceptable" for whites. We still have a lot to learn about race relations. But our logistics will actually be much easier simply by walking: within 4 blocks is a Pick and Carry for staples and household items, and a Fruit and Veg City for fresh produce, meat and fish, and some preserved fruit and nuts. The clientele is diverse. Walking has seemed safe, though we tried very hard to have nothing accessible, and Alan has been very particular about our path. We've been warned about some locations to avoid at night, because of property theft. But the days are long, and we have plenty of time to accomplish our initial goals of simply settling in.