More Musings from Malawi

So yes, long time no speak. The problem when you write a “day in the life of….” blog is that it kind of pre-empts all future blogs that involve any sort of daily news. So I guess I was waiting for something pretty momentous to happen before I reported it, and nothing major really did, but that made me realise that maybe there were other day to day interactions and things I’ve been learning out here that didn’t really fall into that category but that people might a wee bittie find interesting.

But yes, with regard to work news, I think the Day in the Life of pretty much summarised it. If you multiply it by the 150 or so working days I’ve done in Mulanje that’s pretty much it – inching forward day by day. I would like to add at this juncture, however, that I AM NOT just linking schools out here. I am discovering, to my horror that lots of people think that that is what my job is out here, which would be a monumental waste of everyone’s time. In fact we are delivering a range of management training to primary schools, and supporting the district in their planning processes and school support….Just like to set the record straight on that one!

With regard to a collection of other observations and interactions please see the ditties below.

Welcome to Mulanje

“Welcome to Mulanje” my neighbour greeted to Pennie, our new staff member transferring from Dedza to Mulanje. “Home of fruits…” she paused and lowered her voice “…and juju”. There was an unmistakable look of pure mischief in her eyes. Juju is the universally understood term for witchcraft in east Africa and beyond.

Now I know I’ve talked about witchcraft before but even after 8 months I still don’t get it. This marks a cultural gulf that I’ll never bridge. Because Pennie got it straight away. Her eyes also widened as they prepared to swap tales of debauchery, with the attendant moral outrage.

Like the stories surrounding Mount Mulanje. Mount Mulanje is pretty much the most impressive and awe-inspiring mountain you will ever see. It has everything – drama, beauty, excitement and, as I’ve realised, its own microclimate. But above all the drama. The sides of the mountain are so steep it defies belief. If you don’t believe me (which is, I suppose, what it means to defy belief) then check out Google Earth. And if you aren’t the type to get onto Google Earth then think of any photo of Table Mountain, Cape Town that you’ve seen and double the scale. Seriously, double. I still have an intake of breath every morning when it comes into view on my way to work.

So I can imagine there would be a lot of tales and mythology surrounding such a mountain. Hell, Alex and I discuss what ‘mood’ the mountain is in most mornings, in rather deferential tones. I also hear there are people living up on the mountain – rastas who drum, Christians who pray. But the story I heard the other day didn’t quite seem to fit the picture.

Gerald, our finance guy in Dedza, used to live and work in Lujeri tea estate in Mulanje, which is quite close to my home. One day when I asked him if he had been up the mountain his eyes hinted at fear as he shook his head. He proceeded to tell me the story of the bananas.

“You know, if you go up that mountain and get to the very top, it is said that you will find a big big mountain of bananas. And once you see those bananas you must eat the whole heap. You cannot ask your friend to join you [it is important to share food in Malawian culture] but you must eat all the bananas yourself.”

“And so what happens if you don’t?”

“If you don’t eat all the bananas then you will disappear”.

The story was told in all seriousness (and in much more superfluous detail) and not without worry on the part of the storyteller for repeating it.

Now this story confuses me to this day. Fairy tales, myths and legends in Europe always seemed quite straightforward. There was good and bad, right and wrong, heroes and villains, winners and losers. But this story wasn’t so clear-cut. Is it a necessarily malevolent spirit that conveniently provides bananas after climbing a mountain? Or is perhaps the malevolence in that one guy can only watch with, presumably, quite an appetite on after 10,000ft. But then who is judging who has to eat the bananas – is it who saw them first? What if the 2 climbers aren’t sure who initially spotted them? And who would benefit from the consumption of so many bananas? It would seem that most bad spirits that I am familiar with generally have something to gain from the plots that they hatch. And of course the whole thing is topped off by the imagery of the most comedy of all fruits – the banana. No matter how hard I’ve tried I can’t be freaked out by this story, and give it the reverie it supposedly deserves.

Slightly more freaky, however, are the baby eating stories. Apparently there are some tales that my neighbour, a big boss at Lujeri tea estate, has been known to eat babies. Now I KNOW that isn’t true – it’s nsima maize porridge 3 times a day for him or nothing. But apparently us white people are prone to eating the odd baby ourselves. Now I can’t speak for any other azungu in the neighbourhood because I don’t really know many of them but I know that’s definitely not true on my part. But at least I get this story – harming children is pretty much the worst mud you can sling. And I also see why rich visitors or people from out of town would be targets for this kind of slander.

My neighbour’s wife Barbara is really the bridge for me between my relatively privileged life in a house on a hill in Mulanje and the reality of village life in Malawi. Barbara has had to make somewhat of a transition herself from the town life of her prosperous family and upbringing to life in a more rural setting. She feels the loneliness of losing peers and friends of a similar mindset, and the pressure to adapt her behaviour and attitudes to fit in locally. The 60km from Blantyre to Mulanje does not really do justice to the gulf of opportunity, education and standards of living, and in some ways for Barbara it feels like another world entirely.

I had a good chat with Barbara on the subject of witchcraft just the other week.

“Why do you always ask me about witchcraft” she smiles, warily.

I’m not entirely sure. Perhaps it’s fascinating because we don’t really have an equivalent in our day to day lives in the UK. Superstition of course, but not deep-set beliefs in the occult that cross-cut class, race or tribe, age and education levels. In fact I’m not sure we have any beliefs at all that are so widely accepted in the UK. Any answers?

Satisfied, at least, that I’m not mocking, Barbara proceeds to give me a bit of background on the relatively recent resurgence in witchcraft beliefs and practices. She talks about the influx in the 1970s of a large Chinese population in Malawi (who, like the Indian population, tend to be economically very successful), which seemed to spark stories around child eating. She’s not sure of the exact context, but thinks these stories jumped the racial divide to include white Europeans, and talks of literal ignorance in rural areas with regard to seeing and interacting with foreigners of different skin colours and the root of such myths. With regard to her husband Sam the stories are linked to his travelling late at night, which is always associated with illegitimate or repugnant behaviour.

Barbara also explains of a marked change from the view of witchcraft as a hereditary set of practices (and therefore relatively confined) to the proactive spreading of witchcraft behaviour by its proponents, preying on vulnerable members of society. True to say a newcomer like me is struck by the litany of witchcraft stories in the national press. It’s truly front-page material; a national obsession.

Barbara reminds me of a recent story at the local mission hospital. When I was admitted there in May an older Malawian woman came into my private room uninvited and insisted on praying for my soul incredibly loudly and at length, gesticulating wildly. I was unimpressed at her timing and put my head under my pillow until she went away.

Imagine my surprise to hear this woman had been arrested recently at the centre of a witchcraft training scandal based at the nursery she ran at the mission. By all accounts some children at the nursery began to reveal stories that they were being taken out of their homes at night by the nursery owner and being trained in ways of the occult. The matter went to court but the laws around witchcraft are, unsurprisingly, rather vague and open to wide interpretation. This case, however, is not unusual in people with access to children exploiting their position.

What I have got no closer to understanding, however, is what these witchcraft practices actually consist of. People are uncomfortable in discussing it, which I can understand, but the most commonly cited answer is that these young children are taught “bad behaviour” and “bad words”. Well, if bad behaviour is a sufficient condition of witchcraft then the people of Malawi would no doubt suffer a heart attack on entering the average primary 3 class in the UK, wondering at the grasp of Satan on the neck of the developed world.

However apparently after some time of learning ‘bad behaviour’ these kids are eventually taught to kill their mothers or other members of their family. Quite a leap, I should think, from repeating naughty words picked up in the playground to matricide. It confirms my suspicions that many of these stories aren’t really founded or have any substance at all. They seem to be fuelled by fears that are difficult to define; fears of poverty, death, losing children – the precarious nature of balancing lives in poor, rural Malawi.

As if to illustrate Barbara concludes by citing the use of witchcraft and charms by businessmen in Lilongwe to protect themselves and their business and to thwart any looming competition.

“It seems that juju is always used to justify or explain when bad things happen”, I remarked. “Bad things and juju are never far away from each other. So which comes first? Does witchcraft cause bad things, or maybe so many bad things happen make people believe (and use) witchcraft?”

“Now THAT”, she replies, “is a hard question!”

In any case my first knowing encounter with a witch didn’t trouble me too much. I was out of hospital the next day, and it sounds like she’s off to prison. One up to me on that score.

Madmen and Englishmen

Mad people are everywhere in Malawi. They’re generally pretty easy to spot. They usually have excessively ripped brown clothing, if wearing anything at all, and have longer, unruly hair or dreads and facial hair. They’re also usually smack in the middle of the road, totally unaware of the traffic, people or any other hazards around them.

Now, this is not to say there are proportionately more mad people here in Malawi than, say, in the UK. But they are a lot more visible here and that is a reflection on how society supports and manages those who are mad, or deranged, or with psychiatric illnesses or whatever is the current terminology. And a bit of time here, or in Tanzania or plenty of other places prompts a well-needed shake up of our own ingrained assumptions and fears concerning those who we marginalize in society.

Most people will be familiar with the system of community care that is the backbone of social support in many African societies. “Care in the Community” is not something that needs reinvented here because, it is a concept that never went away.

There is a cultural element to this of ‘the extended family’, kinship, blood and belonging, increasingly irrelevant in places like the UK. There is also a pragmatic element in that there is a low level of welfare provision in many of these countries and a need to look after your own (and of course what goes around comes around – your own form of health insurance is helping others). Whatever the root of the differences is, however, it means that those who we marginalize from society in the UK are, for us visitors, strangely visible at the centre of everyday life in Malawi. There is one national institution for those found to be clinically insane, mainly reserved for those of greatest risk to themselves, but outside of that there are no local support networks for people with psychiatric illnesses in Malawi.

Yet, considering the number of such people you see every day the difficulties you encounter are virtually nil. One lady latched on to me for a while and followed me around town. She even followed me into the District Commissioner’s office on the one occasion I was honoured enough for him to give me an audience, to everyone’s confusion but no one’s real inconvenience. I later learnt of her plot to take me to Mozambique, but it was easily foiled when I drove off in my car without her.

There was one recent occasion that really summed up the contrast in my culture and attitudes as compared with those of my Malawian colleagues. Recently at the National Day of Education celebration in the local sports ground one such madman had attached himself to me for the day, following me around and trying to communicate with me. I had been, on reflection, a little rude on my part in minimalising any discussion to avoid encouraging him. At one point a colleague on the main stage spotted me in the crowd and sent someone to get me on stage to the top table. I was a little embarrassed given that I had no formal role in the day but eventually obliged.

Within 10 minutes or so my friend the madman had darted up onto the stage and sat at my feet. I panicked and automatically looked around for support and assistance, presuming he would be removed quite quickly. I remember feeling slight relief when my colleague reached out towards the man. Instead, however, of moving the poor man or shooing him away, he offered him a bottle of coke and some snacks. The man was happy enough, uttered something in way of thanks and eventually moved off the stage of his own accord. I felt very very sheepish indeed but, luckily, I don’t think anyone had known what I was feeling privately and escaped with my pride in tact.

When discussing the differences between Malawian and British attitudes recently with a Malawian friend I remarked on this in particular. Now whilst I am not up to speed by any stretch with developments in psychiatry I do know that you don’t often see people with severe learning disabilities or psychiatric illnesses roaming the street in the UK. And more often than not people with mental disabilities are mainly categorised by and intervened upon based on what threat or burden they cause to the outside world, rather than their existence as people themselves.

“But they have rights!” my friend says. “They have rights to be free and walk around and make choices”. And he wasn’t talking about life long choices about where to be, but the practical freedom to choose every day where they will go and what they will do, no matter how strange these choices may seem to an observer.

That seems pretty simple, but quite a poignant statement from my friend behind the bar.

I listened to a Radio 4 documentary just this week that was comparing psychiatric treatment in an institution in Berkshire as compared to a witchdoctor somewhere in Western Nigeria. The presenter concluded that despite access to some medications and techniques not available in Nigeria the hospital in the UK was forced to overmedicate and constantly restrain its inmates, due to lack of available skilled staff that could avail more progressive solutions to complex conditions. Both countries claimed to have more humane responses to supporting people with these conditions but with different justifications, which resonates with the situation in Malawi. One lacks what might be deemed to be the sophisticated, humane psychiatry techniques but has a supportive and humane environment with which to enact it. The UK might be described as entirely the inverse situation. Yet there doesn’t seem to be much point in being at the forefront of humane and progressive psychiatry if you don’t have a humane and understanding community to support these people or any budget with which to enact them. If forced to choose one environment or the other I’d say most would rather be wandering around town in Mulanje than be lying overmedicated in a bed in Berkshire.

Stone’s Throw In Malawi

I was enjoying a Carlsberg green with a couple of colleagues from the District Education Office recently. We were discussing how dire employment prospects are in Malawi, and the recent stampede of people trying to upgrade and improve their qualifications to get ahead in the better jobs or promotions.

This has partly been a result of the incumbent President’s focus on creating more of a meritocracy in Malawi. His executive has been promoting the need for education at all levels and appointing staff on the basis of qualifications, not on years of service. This has had repercussions at all levels of the system, from girls beginning to strive to stay in school, to their primary school teachers upgrading their own secondary school qualifications (now a requisite A-Level minimum). Higher up the system there are fast-tracking graduates, division managers obtaining their masters, crowned by the presidents’ staff with postgraduate degrees and the President himself with his impressive doctorate.

It is a welcome move from the days of nepotism and cronyism, although it has not come without controversy in Malawi, and lost the President some old time ‘friends’. But the rejuvenated emphasis it has placed on the value of education has been quite significant, and highly progressive.

It is not, however, rosy for everyone, in that the Malawian economy can’t meet the expectations of the hundreds of fresh-faced university and college graduates. The newspapers debate the difficulties around what is truly an employer’s market, in that businesses and NGOs can demand years of relevant work experience and high qualifications. This debate is not a million miles away from what you might find on a UK broadsheet; the difference here is that the often affluent, privileged graduates have extraordinarily high expectations that the world is at their feet and so have further to fall.

Anyway, as ever in Malawi, we did not spend too long on such serious subject matter and my colleague moved on quite quickly. He said whilst numbers of graduates increase in Malawi, they are rocketing elsewhere in Africa, like Nigeria.

“You know Kathy”, he says, “they say when you throw a stone in Nigeria, you will hit a graduate. But if you throw a stone in Zimbabwe, you will hit a fool!”

I laughed along, though previously unaware that Zimbabwe was the butt of jokes in Malawi – clearly the local “paddy” equivalent. I also thought of a few Malawian graduates I’d met recently who weren’t entirely sensible themselves.

“So what happens when you through a stone in Malawi?” I asked.

“You hit an NGO”.

27.3.07

Warning – LONG POST. Not to be attempted at work.

Day in the life of – written in ‘real time’ (just kidding!)

I’m sat here having a Kuche Kuche beer in my house in the tea estate after a typically exhausting day and decided that if anyone out there is interested in a ‘Day in the life of…” then today is as good as any. Please excuse if you find this a tad self-indulgent (I used to be very anti-blogging for this reason! But I’m coming round….) – it’s not meant to be….

I awoke to the usual sound of the slightly troubling swallows. When Anita and I first came to the house I thought the swallows were so pretty and thought in my temporary wave of hippy-dom that we would live in harmony in this beautiful place of nature. Not so. The swallows are leading an increasingly violent campaign against my home and have moved to storming the bedroom windows at one gable end. They smack against the window confused, it would seem, by its transparency (but why only the bedroom windows? The attack is targeting me at my most vulnerable). They practically line up to take the next hit. I am completely at a loss what to do, although closing the curtains does seem to assist….for now. If anyone has read du Maurier’s ‘The Birds’, this imagery does not seem completely misplaced here. They too started in small numbers…

6.30 am (a lie in!) I get up and talk half Chichewa and half English with Stanford, who works in the garden, about the itinerary for the day. I have been trying for some time to get the carpenter at the tea factory to come and fit curtain rails that cross slightly but he has balked at the challenge of bending the rails at the end (DIY specialists will know what I mean here). I am not convinced of his credentials. Drawing a diagram for Stanford the light came on and I’m left happy he can explain to the carpenter. We discussed the progress of the tomato saplings, which is good. We also discuss one of our most environmentally and socially friendly schemes of all. I gave Standford all my empty plastic bottles the other day which he took to market and sold for 50p. He gave me the money back the next day but I suggested he used the money to buy some cabbage seeds, which he had seemed keen to grow in our garden. In the end he has bought some spinach which he has planted, and will eventually sell or eat with his family. So in summary the plastic was recycled, income generated, nutrition promoted and environmentally friendly plants planted. Alex nearly cried when I told him….

Stanford inspecting the progress of the tomatoes in the morning, my neighbour Barbara modelling a Chitenge and my commute to work

I pick up my neighbour Barbara en route to take her to the Boma (administrative centre in Mulanje town) which is about 6km. It’s easier for her than a bicycle taxi to the tarmac road and I like catching up with her. Barbara’s husband works at Lujeri tea estate and she’s a partially (!) trained journalist. Barbara has recently decided to go back to Secondary school to graduate with higher marks so she can enter university and is going to town early to study for her first exam. Going to university there is not like in the UK, when maybe one in three or even more make it to quality tertiary education. Here it’s more like 1%. If you meet a graduate here you know they are going to be one smart and determined cookie (and quite often well off too, is the sad reality).

Barbara and I have a brief chat about the party we are planning at the end of April. We’re going to have some drinks and snacks (I think you can already guess the division of labour on THAT one) at my house as a joint housewarming and birthday party for Barbara, who will be 23. Luckily, despite being a born again Christian, Barbara is NOT overtly against alcohol consumption so I have a free reign at the bar.

I drop off Barbara and subsequently pick up Chris – my newly acquired informal IT support who is a graduate from the best university college in Malawi. Chris had at the weekend bought me a usb modem for my laptop having had my last one fried by lightening down the telephone lines. I was pretty impressed with Chris’s rapid diagnosis (“Was it raining when you were using the internet?”) and he generally is a very switched on, funny guy. He told me the story of an NGO here that he was working with removing viruses from their PCs. The NGO, not, perhaps, the most IT savvy, has refused to pay him because they accused him of stealing their “D” drive (assigned letter of a USB port). In fact I think the letters had been reallocated to different ports as Chris had been doing the work, but the NGO are accusing him of stealing the whole drive. I tell you I nearly cried with laughter as he told me that story….

Anyway, the modem had proven faulty and so I drove the 70km up the Robert Mugabe highway to Blantyre, with the hope of returning it (it’s the fastest road so no time for ethics on that one). Chris and I chew the fat on the way. He creases up when I tell him about Alex’s journey in progress – Alex is currently just off the Canary Islands on ship to Cape Town. He suggested the difference is a drop in the ocean of carbon omissions. I say that may be true but there is a growing group of people who are changing their behaviour based on principle and the environmental lobby is really gaining currency in the UK and elsewhere. I also mention that poorer countries like Malawi, dependent on agriculture are often hardest hit and less adept to deal with changing weather patterns.

We shelve that one, however (I suggest we have the conversation again in 20 years), and get on to localized environmental stuff, like the government’s attempt (as in Tanzania) to ‘ban’ charcoal production when they don’t offer any feasible alternative for people in towns (where charcoal is chiefly consumed, for obvious reasons). He made a very salient point about how much hydroelectricity there is generated in Malawi and how this is to some extent ‘free’, but incredibly overpriced. We also talk about Chris’s previous work with an environmental NGO and a friend of his that does ‘mapping’, be it social, environmental, economic for an NGO. My ears prick up and try and get a voluntary placement for Alex. The cross between the environmental, the field work, the purposefulness of the task and the numbers and software may well make him the happiest boy alive.

We arrive in Blantyre but the computer shop is not yet open so I buy Chris breakfast. We continue to talk about a whole load of things, including, interestingly enough, witchcraft. He asks me “Does witchcraft exist in the UK?”. I said not really, although people have their superstitions. I also cite the case of the (was it Congolese?) women in the press a couple of years ago who burnt their niece as a witch. I told him about the way the story was reported and the shock it caused in the UK as distant, almost alien concepts such as witchcraft emerged on their doorstep. Some papers explored the issues of cultural insulation in diaspora communities.

“According to the government” says Chris “witchcraft does not exist here. But you can see stories about it in the paper almost every day”. I’m reminded of a first year philosophy lecture about whether a ‘unicorn’ can be said to exist as people all have the same or similar concept when they refer to one and so it exists as an idea. Not the time, with egg and chips at breakfast, to tangent on THAT one though. “Do you believe in witchcraft?” he says.

“I believe in the power of the mind to create and reinforce the social world people are living in” I said. He looked mildly disappointed. “Do you?” I asked, rather surprised that a university graduate believed in such a thing. “I believe in the devil” he said “and that he acts in particular ways”. And so lies the relationship between fervent religious belief and a fear/fascination of/with the occult. Religiousity is so high in Africa and so strong. Traditional beliefs have been incorporated into imported belief systems and the result is pervasive and powerful. The source doesn’t necessarily lie with barbarism, backwardness or tribal practices. It is religion’s gravity in promising a better future for those who have a lifetime of struggling to make ends meet, alongside the fear of the unknown and a culture of sharing spoken stories and tall tales. Add onto that the longstanding system of traditional beliefs and maybe that might go someway towards an explanation; far more complex than a dismissal of barbarism or ignorance.

Wow, so it’s still only 9.30am! We go to the shop and I decide, based on the terrifying presence of the pitbull manager not to try for a refund but get a replacement instead, which was victory enough. I get a receipt for another previous purchase (if you don’t pay government surcharge you don’t get a receipt so I forked out) and then drop Chris back at the minibus terminal. I find out at this juncture he wasn’t coming to Blantyre for other business, as I had assumed, but just to help me as he had originally purchased the modem. I felt terrible, as I could have easily managed alone, but reminded again how many decent, honest and genuinely helpful people I had met in a short time in Malawi.

Cue the morning phonecall from Liz, the project Manager for Dedza (first district) once again voice raised with panic. Yesterday it was a call to warn me that the army was in Mulanje dispersing an opposition rally. That turned out to be true – a little out of town – but it completely bypassed me. Today it was an issue regarding our vehicles in that our application to register these vehicles duty free had been rejected. The long of the short of it is that I’ve been driving around since the 10th of March in an illegal vehicle. Luckily when I am stopped at roadblocks they only want to see my insurance and my driver’s license. Seemingly whether a vehicle is legally registered is covered in the advanced ‘corrupt traffic police’ course.

Liz wants us both to leave the country, meet in Mozambique, switch cars and then return back via our respective border crossings, flummoxing the border staff. I suggest we hold off on that brainwave and promise to find out what I can in Blantyre and email relevant people in LCD (Liz has been without email for 1 week so need to do so on her behalf). After dropping Chris off I hit the Council for NGOs in Malawi (CONGOMA) and actually make some progress. A whole load of legal speak, 90 minutes and a headache later I leave and email work peeps the news the relevant information.

I try to head back to town in my illegal vehicle with the hope of dropping in on the Ford Dealer to fix my bonnet which doesn’t shut properly. After 8 hours over 3 days at a garage near Mulanje the mechanics were none the wiser how to close the thing and so I have been driving for around 3 weeks with a bonnet that could be ripped off into the windscreen at any moment. “That is very dangerous” I am regularly told. “That is true”, I say, “Do you know anyone who can fix it?” No, didn’t think so.

Fixing the Ford was one of the main reasons for coming to Blantyre. Unfortunately my road to the dealer is blocked by about 200 protesting students, no doubt loving the weekend’s events in Mulanje as an excuse for some good old civil disobedience. I’ve heard about this lot from my colleague Wilford in Dedza. The university is a hotbed for protests but many of them are just bandwaggoning and students aren’t always sure what they are protesting for. Either way, I can’t get through to the Ford dealer and turn back.

Next on the list is immigration – it’s now 1.30pm. I’ve been trying for some days (in person, only ever in person) to get a file number for my employment permit application lodged at the beginning of February – thus proving it was at least along its way in the system. Unfortunately it would appear immigration have lost the file. It’s not an earth shattering surprise for me. They lost two of Liz’s and the guy who took my application told me it was probably his last day ever. I have not seen him, or my file, again. Of much more newsworthy note was the apologetic stance by the immigration officer who told me a) it was their fault and they will transfer the first payment to the new application on producing a receipt b) they could accept my photocopies of my first application as my new application, rather than new originals of everything c) he was going to take it straight to the boss for instant initial approval – ie application complete - and the boss duly stamped it.

This is the point I nearly fell off my chair. It was almost worth them losing the first application as I think with that stamp I gained about 3 months of time. It took Liz 9 months to get her full permit altogether (including about 3 days’ of my time). To get this far in 6 weeks ain’t bad – at least people (including the big boss) are aware of the application.

On the way home I bought some creature comforts at the posh shopping centre and cruised back down Bobby Mugabe. I picked up some paintings that I had had framed by a local carver in Mulanje, stopped off to invite some people to the party and get home to find the carpenter had found inner inspiration and attached the curtain rails in the curtain box.

It’s never a dull moment here and I find, as I sip my beer with another beautiful sunset, that I’m in a fantastic mood. Trying to pinpoint why exactly, after such a heavy day, I decide that not only did I move that bit further forward today, but I had the support of some awesome people doing it.

Hope this finds you all well. Photos will follow when I hit Cape Town in 2 weeks – I can’t seem to upload anything that big onto my blog!

Thanks for all your comments! It’s really nice to have people keeping me company!
xxx

11.3.07

Hello! Muli Bwanji nonse? After being berated for lack of blogging well here I am. So, I’ve been based here in Mulanje now for over a month now and it’s been pretty full on but mainly really positive. My boss was with me for the first couple of weeks before heading back to Lilongwe then Dedza in which time we met the District Commissioner, my immediate colleagues in the District Department of Education, found a house, found some ‘desk space’, helped host some visiting Scottish teachers for a day from another organisation (i.e Simba’s!) and generally kick started LCD Mulanje…

I’ll start with the house finding. This isn’t an easy thing to do around here. Most quality housing is owned by the tea estates and there is a lot of competition – not least with expats and NGO workers in the area, of which there are quite a lot. The first house I saw was an ENORMOUS four bedroom old colonial style brick house currently owned by the Tea Research Foundation. I was almost tempted looking at the huge veranda and the enormous sitting room and fireplace, thinking of the mad old parties I could have in there. Except it dawned on me that I probably wouldn’t have that many people to fill the place of a Saturday night and it was just so big I would probably have to close off the west wing. Also it was right by the tarmac road to Mozambique with no gate or fence so I figured once word got round that a lone female was there I’d be a bit of a sitting duck.

Back to the drawing board. Simba had given me a few phone numbers from her previous time in Mulanje, including the number of a wife of one of the South African managers of a tea estate. After giving her a call she gave me a few managers’ numbers to follow-up on and, 3 links down the chain later, I was off to see a couple of houses in a tea estate not far from the district offices in town. That’s basically how we ended up finding this place – with three bedrooms and an inside bath and toilet. And the view is something special – about 10km of tea estates and then mountains in the distance that are in Mozambique. Funnily it is one of the few places in Mulanje (excluding inside people’s toilets etc) where you can’t see all 3000m of Mulanje mountain but it isn’t too far away.

View from outside house my house in the day and first thing in the morning over the teafields. The mountains are in Mozambique. Also my bedroom - the beds, mats, cushions, lampshade and curtains all made from scratch! Took a while....

After finding the house it was time, believe it or not, for a quick holiday with Simba. We hit the lake, chased some giraffes on horseback, got stuck in the mud in the truck (twice) before moving into the new place back in Mulanje. Here are a few of the highlights…

Sunset at Kuti national park, Simba on lake Malawi, chasing giraffes on horseback, boys on the beach at Senga bay

I since started a regular working routine, or as regular as I think it’s going to get. I’ve met all the Primary Education Advisors (13 of them in Mulanje who live in a zone of about 10 schools that they support) and 4 zones have been identified to work with. I’ve visited some schools in all of those zones and profiled about 8 schools fully, meeting the headteacher, school management committee, PTA, learners etc. It usually means arriving at the school by 7.30am and hitting the next school by 9.30am, mud permitting. The mud is certainly a bit of an issue. The car isn’t 4x4 and is absolutely massive – it must weigh over a tonne! I’ve had a few incidents already whereby mobs form around the stuck car and tractors need to be found. It tends to be a bit stressful as I don’t have much of a support network here yet and no Malawian staff…Anyway, I have another week of profiling like this coming up before having to stop for an inspection week and then end of term examinations….Luckily this time a colleague from the Dedza office will be coming down to assist.

Road to Mulanje school - we didn't make it that day! Mulanje primary at foot of Mulanje Mountain

On the social side, well, Mulanje ain’t that bad! There’s one nice lodge with bar right up on the hillside that is pretty spectacular for a sundowner and the staff are good fun. I went to play pool in town with one guy Felix and ended up coopted into the town’s pool team. There’s also a rather exclusive golf and country club, which is packed full of South African tea estate managers and wives and children with some expats but I’m not sure if it’s going to be my cup of tea, so to speak. I’ve also met a pretty cool guy from Blantyre a few weeks back who runs a Malawian arts and culture website and events – www.portraitmalawi.co.mw. I almost ran him over in Blantyre yesterday crossing the road carrying a tennis racquet, so my first tennis partner is set! He’s coming down to play in Mulanje in a few weeks time which is very exciting indeed.

Sundowner Spot over Mulanje

So take it easy guys - thanks for your comments - keep in touch!
x

28.1.07

Mwadzuka bwanji? I’m just writing this on my first day off, it feels like, since the weekend before I left the UK 12 days ago. I’m sat on the porch outside my room at the pottery in Dedza with the usual magnificent view of lush hills and then mountains. The only downside is the constant dark rain clouds but I’m learning it’s not so much of a downside unless it’s raining. Oh and my feet are a wee bittie cold.I’ve had quite a hectic induction here. Nothing was planned, as such, but I’ve had a week in the life of the project here in Dedza and it seems you should expect the unexpected. On Thursday I got dressed as usual ready for the office. Anita (my immediate boss) was going to work in her room at the pottery to prepare for Saturday’s training. We had all given up on seeing the new Principal Secretary (2 down from Minster) at Lilongwe, which had been a possibility but we’d had no confirmation. At 8.10am Liz received a call from his secretary that we were to meet at 10am (bearing in mind it is 100km away). But we made it and Anita presented to this guy about Link’s work and he seemed really receptive. However the frequency with which civil servants are moved around in Malawi means that whatever his intentions are it may not help us in the long term. Liz is about to work with her third district education manager in one year.

Friday was probably the best day of the lot. I shadowed Liz as she visited 6 schools on the east side of Dedza – very rural areas that edge towards the southern-most part of the lake. It had already been a very eventful morning, having arrived at the bank and it wasn’t working (the whole bank it seems), the usual drama at the petrol pump and so on. We finally left town and not long after turning off the tarmac we rounded a corner to see the vicious face of a small boy who pelted stones at our windscreen. Our driver Emmanuel screeched to a halt, jumped out of the car and chased the boy back to his village. He grabbed one by the arm and his even smaller cohort was slung over his shoulder. The boys were petrified. Eventually Emmanuel, the two boys and their mother came down to apologise. It was all a bit much, especially because the boys were in such a state. At this point I was far more worried about the hot water pouring out from under the bonnet of the car and down the hill. I wished Emmanuel would worry about that rather than roadside etiquette.

Liz - not too happy about disappeared driver and water running down the road

The first school we went to had previously no teachers’ housing which, I’m beginning to understand, is crucial to attracting and retaining good teachers in rural areas. Since a Scottish teacher was placed here last summer and told the school she would fundraise, the school and wider community have chipped in and made a start on building the houses for free. Funds will come to help the clay plastering and tin roofs to be put in place. Here is the headteacher with the new buildings.

Headteacher with house Me, Emmanuel and Headteacher discussing house construction (!)


We had another few schools which began to merge into one another in my mind, but I do remember one particular school – Chikololere, linked with (I think) Prestonfield in Edinburgh. Imagine the surreal sight of offroading for 30 minutes to the school to see a Scottish flag in the central gardens of the school. The school was really well run and the staff friendly, and so the students were confident and friendly. They all remembered my name, which was of course amusing at first and rather irksome after the hour visit. The school brought out some ‘gifts’ for their link school – beautiful carved goblets and dishes. Liz and I were really impressed. Imagine our amusement at the next school when we received the exact same set of carvings (complete with the same ‘made by Damian’ on the bottom) at the next school along, who also swore it was ‘by the school’.

Students at Dedza School Linked school display


One of the last schools we visited I walked into a classroom where there were a range of murals, started by their global teacher, when I noticed probably the largest rat I’d ever seen run up past the window. It was probably about 7 or 8 inches long. As I pointed to it Liz thought I was looking at the murals and was pleased at my utter amazement at the artwork. The next classroom was the World Food Programme storeroom and the rats were having a full on party in there. Those schools selected for this programme typically use their best classroom to store the huge sacks of maize donated by WFP. Some of the maize comes in from, predictably, Europe and the States. This having passed through nothing but maize fields to get to the school....something is seriously wrong there. Arguments about nurturing local economies aside, from the school’s point of view the best classroom is out of use, meaning further overcrowding in the poorer classrooms or increased use of baobab trees for younger years.

Use of classroom for WFP storage


Anyway, back to the rat school as we stepped into the WFP classroom all the rats eating the maize scuttled away. There isn’t too much the teachers can do, except perhaps leave poison and put up with the smell for the next month or two (and hope the maize isn’t contaminated). The teacher then showed me the ‘argos’, provided by the WFP with which the school can place their next order directly with Rome! Noone knows how it works but it is something to do with the mysteries of satellite technology. A funny Steve Bell or Private Eye-esque cartoon came into my mind; two rats are furiously trying to open the argos with their ratty paws squeaking ‘quick, tell Rome we’re gonna need 10 more bags’.

After 6 hours offroad we were pretty peckish and so stopped at this village for chips. There were, possibly, the best tasting chips ever. Note my utter delight at our chips with peri peri. And we were glad we decided to eat in, cos the banter was pretty good.



Anyway, I’ll probably stop there – it’s far too long already. Suffice to say all is going well – I’m completely immersed both in the work and, usually, in mud. But happy as a pig.

Hope you’re all well and remember, witty comments please so I know some of you are out there
xxx

Blog 24.1.07

Moni! Muli bwanji?

Greetings from Malawi! This is one out of date blog but not a HUGE amount has happened since the last entry and now, bar illness, leaving South Africa early, having a month at home and now I’m back at work in Dedza, western Malawi.

I MUST start with the journey from Centurion, SA, to the airport on Monday (22nd). I woke to the radio travel update that, not unusually, half the traffic lights in Gauteng province were out which meant there was chaos on the roads. We spent most of our time trying to get out of Centurion. As we sat at a crossroads, cursing at being stuck again in a huge queue I looked to my left and there were two elephants. I didn’t see them at first despite looking at them because they were so out of my sphere of reference (despite being in southern Africa). Then I thought they were cows, and then finally they revealed that they were, in fact, definitely elephants, at which point we all just creased up. The circus was in town, but what was the funniest part was that these elephants were just cruising around the wasteland, happy as larry, not far from the road. And the backdrop was the Centurion shopping mall and beyond that the manmade lake. The elephants were pretty unfazed so clearly well travelled.

If that wasn’t enough 5 minutes (and around as many metres) later the taxi driver decided to cut offroad across the wasteland to join another road instead. We popped out at the back of the bus station, bits of grass flying off, and got back on track. Hats off to the guy – we got there on time and made the flight, arriving 10 minutes before check-in closed.

We arrived without a hitch and without too many questions from customs and were picked up by Liz, Programme Manager for Dedza. We headed straight to the Ministry of Education in Lilongwe (nothing like starting your induction straightaway) and chased people around. Liz still hasn’t been given a permit for employment after a year, and it turned out she’d been told the wrong thing (or rather she’d been told the official procedure which isn’t really what you do de facto).

After a tour round Lilongwe and a stop off for supplies we arrived in Dedza. It is beautiful, but absolutely pours from 3pm every day. I’ve hardly ever seen such rain. Our guesthouse is a little removed from the town, set in beautiful lush gardens with mountains in the background. It is apparently a popular haven for ex-pats altough I haven’t seen that many. There is a pottery in the grounds, set up by an ex-VSO who’s been in Malawi for around 16 years. I’m going to meet him tonight...

Induction has been going really well! I’ve learnt loads, had lots of apprehensions assuaded whilst others have entered the equation. I have also been reassured that I know a bit more than I realised. I’m really excited. Today we went out to some schools and I saw what ‘good schools’ looked like, with positive leadership, structures and so on in place. I also had a go at the 4x4...I got to the first school ok, which was really not far from the main road. But the rain continued to fall and we went higher up the mountain! In the end I conceded defeat and gave the driver Emmanuel back the helm. And a good thing too as these were the sights around the next corner...



Anyway, that takes us up to about now and it’s time to go home. Laters!

XXX

Hi there

Greetings again from SA. I finally got round to putting some photos onto my PC which prompted me to write this post. To avoid another weekend knocking around the guesthouse I decided to get down to the northern Drakensberg, in Kwa Zulu Natal. The Drakensberg are a mountain range that are around 900 km long. I was coming from Jo'burg after work so headed for the most northern access point. The Drakensberg mountains cover parts of Free State, KZN and Lesotho.

I got caught in horrendous traffic around Jo'burg so, despite leaving work early, was driving in darkness the last 2 hours which in SA is not really a good idea. It passed without event though, and I arrived at the backpackers in total darkness to find they didn't have a dorm bed for me. This ended up working in my favour as I was given the TV room to myself complete with (surprisingly) TV, DVD player and en suite bath.

Anyway, I fell asleep by about 9.30 despite the party going on in the bar. Imagine my happiness when I awoke the next morning to this....A pool, abut 30kms of grassland, and the Drakensberg in the distance.

Despite having my own car I decided to sign up for the backpacker tour. Turned out to be an incredible rip-off, but at least I had some company, didn't need to jump straight back into the car after a long drive, and a guide to tell us about stuff along the way.

The Drakenberg are stunning - very identifiable - long escarpment, flat on top. When we got to the top we saw the 2nd highest waterfall in the world. Not the most stunning, but satisfying after a long hike!


Anyway, haven't worked out what interesting thing I'll find to do this weekend, but will keep you posted.

Take care - keep in touch
x

Hi there!

Greetings from South Africa. Things have been good. Hectic few days at work. My job seems to involve a lot of deflecting angry people. Luckily I can (contrary to popular belief) be quite good at eating humble pie.

Anyway for those of you who wanted to see what my new 'home' looks like it looks like this...not so bad eh? It hasn't really been hot enough, except the first few days when I arrived, to try out the 'pool' and it's not exactly big enough for lengths.

And if anyone wanted to see what my first two rhino looked like...

There are two there, back to back. Kinda sweet. I know all safari photos are pretty lame so I'll save you the trauma of lots of grassland photos with the vague outline of something that COULD resemble an ostrich / giraffe / tree / telegraph pole in the distance. But I was kinda chuffed to see these two as every time I've been to a nature reserve with rhinos I've been pretty out of luck.




Also, I know I mentioned, I went out to a school last week which was really interesting. It was the link of a school I knew of in the UK. It had the appearance of a really well resourced school, in Soshanguve Township, just north of Pretoria. Actually turned out their budget is miniscule but there is a very wily headteacher there who seems to be incredibly resourceful. Of course the cameras generated the usual chaos..

Anyway - I hope this all finds you well. Please all keep in touch, it's kinda slow socially out here so all contact gratefully received.

Hey everyone...

Greetings from South Africa. First things first and thanks to all who could make it to the leaving do. Here are some hilarious shots on flickr

http://flickr.com/photos/alexbutcher/sets/72157594329503805/

It was also really nice to see lots of family at the wedding in Dublin - photos of that to follow.

So I arrived here on Tuesday after quite a long delay but the sight of the guesthouse soon perked me up! It's really quiet with a nice pool and the guy is really friendly (not least because LCD give him so much business!). I am now set up with a mobile and a car (borrowing one in the meantime) because you really do need one to get around this neck of the woods. There is no public transport from where I live to work. Not because it's underdeveloped - quite the opposite. The guesthouse is in quite a plush area so everyone has cars. I enjoy driving past the 'hijacking hotspot' sign on the way home from work!

I made the silly mistake of going out with 2 south africans staying at the guesthouse for training. They said they were going out just for a couple of drinks and were planning to be back by 9.30. 4 cocktails (one pint sized with 5 shots), double jack, 3 shooters and 2 beers later the driver was ready to go home. I'd had one frozen margherita and a beer in the meantime! I was really nervous but was kinda stuck with him for a lift home. It was pretty hairy on the way back, especially as he was showing off. I had mentioned it but forgot how agro saffers can get when you discuss drink driving as a bad idea. ANYWAY, lesson learnt, never again. I'll take my own car next time.

I was out at a school this morning which was fantastic. I knew of the link from my time in the UK. It was in Soshanguve township north of Pretoria. Good to finally see some schools from the other side of the equation. Photos to follow.

I'm off to a couple of nature reserves this weekend and so will take some shots.

Hope you're all well
Kathy