2006.07.30: July 30, 2006: Headlines: COS - Zambia: Fisheries: Catholic anchor: Joe Sullivan spent two years teaching people to build fish ponds for tilapia in Zambia

Peace Corps Online: Directory: Zambia: Peace Corps Zambia : The Peace Corps in Zambia: 2006.07.30: July 30, 2006: Headlines: COS - Zambia: Fisheries: Catholic anchor: Joe Sullivan spent two years teaching people to build fish ponds for tilapia in Zambia

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Joe Sullivan spent two years teaching people to build fish ponds for tilapia in Zambia

Joe Sullivan spent two years teaching people to build fish ponds for tilapia in Zambia

In 1998, Joe Sullivan retired from Alaska’s Fish and Game Department, and when his last daughter graduated from college in 1999, he decided to put his knowledge to work for the poor. Sullivan entered the Peace Corps, and with the consent of his wife — "she had to sign a notarized letter saying I could go" — left for Zambia, where he spent two years teaching people to build fish ponds for tilapia. Later, Sullivan would help in the same way through another federal program in Tajikistan, a former Soviet republic where the Taliban from neighboring Afghanistan "destroyed everything," he said. And in September, he leaves to assist the government of Kyrgyzstan, another former Soviet republic, with a similar project involving trout.

Joe Sullivan spent two years teaching people to build fish ponds for tilapia in Zambia

Aquaculture in Zimbabwe, with a big help from Anchorage

By Effie Caldarola
Anchor Writer

So how did you spend your summer vacation?

If you want a unique answer to that question, ask Jesuit Father Vince Beuzer and local parishioner Joe Sullivan.

The two men visited what Father Beuzer called a "remarkable" group of religious sisters in the African nation of Zimbabwe. There, Sullivan led the women in the hard labor of building a "fish pond" for sustainable fish harvesting, while Father Beuzer shared his knowledge of St. Paul.

And along the way, the two men collected and delivered to the sisters’ clinic $10,000 worth of pharmaceuticals contributed by donors in Anchorage.

Zimbabwe, a country of 12 million, is bordered by Zambia, Botswana, South Africa and Mozambique and was formerly known as South Rhodesia. The sub-Saharan nation is in the grip of burgeoning inflation rates and deepening poverty.

Enter the Sisters of Jesus of Nazareth, a group of Shona tribeswomen (the largest African tribe in Zimbabwe) whose order is affiliated with the Benedictines.

Their leader and foundress, Mother Lydia Fabian, studied at Gonzaga University, a Jesuit institution in Spokane, Wash., where she became acquainted with several Jesuits, including Father Armand Nigro. It was Father Nigro, a spiritual director at Holy Spirit Center in Anchorage, who first invited Father Beuzer to Zimbabwe, where the two visited the sisters three years ago.

"In three years, Mother Lydia got two degrees (from Gonzaga), one in history and one in religious studies," said Father Beuzer, who added that when she returned to Zimbabwe after her studies, her religious community had taken a turn away from the contemplative lifestyle she favored.

So she started her own community, using a large tract of land donated by her family, which she and her sisters have turned into a virtual cornucopia, growing guava, mango papaya, and about 30 other fruits and vegetables.

The sisters support themselves and feed up to 25 people who come to the convent begging each day. They also keep a clinic stocked for the occasional doctor who comes through.

The complex includes solar panels on the houses, a windmill that pumps drinking water, a private chapel and a church for local Catholics.

"These women are farm girls and they know how to work," Father Beuzer said. "The whole place is one big miracle."

Fish on

So what more could they need?

Although the sisters had a small lake on their property, it provided scarce fishing opportunities.

Enter Joe Sullivan, a man with the valuable combination of technical expertise in a field and the desire to use it for the good of others.

Sullivan and his wife, Faye, who often attend Mass at Holy Spirit Center, are members of Holy Cross Parish.

Sullivan is something of an expert on tilapia.

"It’s a white fish," explained Sullivan. "It’s the most widely raised fish in America."

So widely raised, he said, that Alaska, which prohibits all fish farming, is the only state in the union in which tilapia is not raised commercially.

"It’s a warm-water fish — in many states, it’s raised indoors," he said.

Sullivan, 59, has a doctorate in fisheries and allied aquacultures from Auburn University in Alabama, and he has spent his career working in the field.

In 1998, he retired from Alaska’s Fish and Game Department, and when his last daughter graduated from college in 1999, he decided to put his knowledge to work for the poor.

Sullivan entered the Peace Corps, and with the consent of his wife — "she had to sign a notarized letter saying I could go" — left for Zambia, where he spent two years teaching people to build fish ponds for tilapia.

Later, Sullivan would help in the same way through another federal program in Tajikistan, a former Soviet republic where the Taliban from neighboring Afghanistan "destroyed everything," he said.

And in September, he leaves to assist the government of Kyrgyzstan, another former Soviet republic, with a similar project involving trout.

Building a fish pond is a very precise operation. First, Sullivan and the sisters located an area where, even though it was the dry season, water was still standing amid the rice stocks.

Next, the sisters — there are 15, and 11 of them are between the ages of 18 and 32 — began clearing the land of all vegetation. A few relatives and locals assisted.

Then, using "strings, sticks, hoes and shovels — what people have," Sullivan said, the hard labor of digging the shallow, 300-square-yard pond began.

Although the sisters might have been able to obtain better equipment, they wanted to learn how to teach other farmers to build a pond.

"And no farmer could afford earth-moving equipment," Sullivan said. "No one can afford cement."

The final step was transporting fingerlings (juvenile tilapia) from the reservoir on the property to the new pond.

Sullivan, who brought back pictures of smiling sisters hauling huge wheelbarrows of dirt through mud, marveled at the way the sisters could remain cheerful, and clean, through all the labor.

He likes to point out that the fish placed in the pond is a variety of tilapia called Galilee tilapia.

"It’s the same fish Jesus caught," Sullivan said. "When you read in the Gospels Jesus saying, ‘Cast your nets out here,’ he must have known where the warm springs were."

After the "box," or basic pond, was dug, the sides had to be sloped precisely.

"Tilapia like to spawn in shallow water," Sullivan said. "We want the sun to penetrate to the bottom so that photosynthesis produces oxygen throughout the whole pond."

Sullivan consulted with a Jesuit, Father Roland Lesseps, who has spent 25 years in Africa working in organic agriculture, to provide advice to the sisters on organic farming and "appropriate level farming" — using what you have available.

For instance, certain leaves are high in necessary nitrogen, Sullivan said, including beans, peanut leaves and sun hemp. Some of those leaves went into the pond.

A Mass of Thanksgiving marked the end of the "big dig," and the first fish were blessed and released. Six months from now, at least 60 pounds of fish should be ready to harvest, Sullivan said.



Back to Zambia

While in the country, the men took a side trip into Zambia. For Sullivan, it was a return to the country he had served, and for Father Beuzer, it was a chance to visit Jesuits who labor in the Province of Zambia-Malawi, where the order has assisted for 100 years.

"The Oregon Province has had exceptional numbers of men go there — we’ve had about three men serve as Zambian provincials," he said.

It took the two men nine hours for what should have been a three-hour drive into Zambia. Problems at the border, plus a lorry that spilled its load in front of their car on a mountain pass, extended the drive.

It was a reminder of the difficulties faced each day by people in that part of the world, they said, and the resilience of a group of women determined to overcome some of the problems.





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