Teach Yourself Swahili Part 2

I was feeling pretty smug as I got to the airport in Zanzibar, knowing that I would arrive in Arusha mid-afternoon fresh as a daisy, raring to go with my 3 week Swahili course. I was chomping at the bit. I had also been toying with whether I would reward myself with an in-flight beer and subsequently wondered what I could attribute said reward to. These thoughts kind of fell by the wayside as my flight was finally called (shrieked?) and I headed out over the tarmac to the plane. I was behind a couple of Australians and it appeared we had a choice of plane. Both looked rather teensy to me but they asked our steward if they could go in the slightly newer model, and the steward referred to the pilot. The pilot shrugged and said get on whichever plane you want, so the couple started towards the newer plane. Having seen Flying Doctors and knowing all aussies take the plane to get to the nearest pub I made after them. ‘By the way’, shouted the first pilot, ‘that one will go via Dar’. There was the catch; losing several hours going the wrong direction. Quick about turn and we got on the original plane. I think we’d mildly insulted its pilot. In-flight beer? The 10 seater didn’t even have anywhere to put your bags. I almost had as good a view out of the front window as the pilot! Think VW campervan with wings.

I had only been on a plane that size a couple of times and since cutting down on the old air miles it had been almost 10 years. You feel so vulnerable in something that small. Mild turbulence translates into a sudden vertical drop and my fear was far from inconspicuous both audibly and visually at those times. I was glad I wasn’t sitting in front of the seasoned aussies– I lost several years of f my life on that plane. In saying that, the flight was truly awesome on such a clear day. Over the Zanzibar archipelago and then Tanzania mainland. It reminds you how huge Tanzania is, obviously, but also how sparsely populated huge areas of the mainland are away from the main roads. Coming into Arusha looked a bit like a video game from where I was sitting around mountain ranges, with Kilimanjaro and Meru in sight. When you come into land in a plane that size you actually go down slightly head first to lose altitude, and I could see the incoming airstrip from miles away. It genuinely felt like a rollercoaster ride, which isn’t really my strong point. Epic journey.

Despite working up a bit of a lather on the flight and feeling slightly wobbly in the terminal, I still had residue smugness due to my organised pick-up. I didn’t need to worry about anything for the next three weeks – all was in hand. Hmm, not so. I waited almost two hours, convinced the training centre wouldn’t muck up something so basic, before resigning to more sweaty dalla dallas and negotiating across Arusha for the first time. I arrived at the TCDC ‘Danish’ centre 4 hours after landing and utterly exhausted and dehydrated. No matter though, as it was a really lovely sight that welcomed me. Set on the foothills of Mt Meru, the grounds of TCDC are lush and green, away from the road and with nothing but cheeky vervet monkeys breaking the silence. There was a bar, our own personal ethno-tat market (bone earings and the like), library, gym, sauna, pool. Well, no sauna or pool but you get the idea. The place was truly awesome and all the fresh fruit and salads were highly welcomed after a week on the hoof. Pig in mud.

Life at the lovely lush TCDC centre

Morning monkey madness - Get off my roof!!

Next morning, however, as our class of five convened, I was somewhat taken aback firstly by the fact that no one else in the class seemed able to string a sentence together. Secondly, by the entrance of our teacher Kisanji who bounded in like something out of Sesame Street. Think Dave Benson Phillips but in Swahili, if that’s not too uncomfortable. I checked the front of my course folder again; what the hell had I signed up to? And so, the next few days proved a bit of a tussle between the teaching staff and the course participants. From the teacher’s perspective there were very few participants and no beginner’s course running parallel and so they were forced to put us into one class or not offer the course at all. From the learners’ perspective it was plaintively clear our differing levels were not going to help ourselves get anywhere. By the end of the first day one girl had been forceful enough to drop out to get 1.1 teaching at beginner level. I made some noises that I felt I would need to be stretched but the teacher assured me this was normal to have such different levels. ‘I have never taught learners who are all the same level’ he said, quite coldly. There was another, rather sinister side to Dave Benson Phillips that read ‘do not even think about disrespecting my authority’ and so I was willing to defer to that for a day or so for politics’ sake. Come Wednesday, however, after listening to one woman struggle for several minutes to say ‘my baby is fine’ (oh yes, NB there was a baby too…) I picked up my books and walked out of the class.

So, forced into a corner I had no choice but to approach the centre administrator who was highly sympathetic and helpful. We made arrangements for me to get 1.1 tutoring in the morning and then join with the class activities in the afternoon. In the midst, however, of these negotiations, I was suddenly hit by quite an intense fever and took myself off to hospital for a malaria test. Having had it a couple of times before I was taking no chances, but of course there is always the worry you get a diagnosis too early. Us wazungu are pretty sensitive to the early stages of the illness when the parasite enters the liver, but at which stage they do not show up on a blood test. It’s a bit of a lottery when you go to get tested – too early you have a negative result and too late you end up in hospital for a week with 9 bags of intravenous quinine, as I did circa 2003. I was sent home with a negative result and some painkillers and waited it out hoping it wouldn’t get worse. Luckily after a few days things improved and by this time the first week had ended.

So 1.1 started the next week, and was a marked improvement. I had a really lovely older lady Mama Lois, since retired from the centre but who did contract work, who was very supportive and I appreciated her more reserved approach to adult learning. Leave the pashas at the door Dave (SPWers will know what I mean…). The first full day’s learning 1.1 was so intense it felt like something out of the matrix and I was reeling by the end of it. We had got so carried away, however, that we had forgotten the agreement was 1.1 until lunchtime only, and were duly reminded the following day. The problem, however, was that the two classes’ timetable diverged, the less the afternoon activities stopped matching my studies. On top of that, the remaining 3 Germans, including a couple with the baby, had started to drop out of afternoon activities preferring to revise the morning’s class as the pace was too tough, or to spend time with the baby. So before I knew it I find myself back to self-study in the afternoons. Hmm, Teach Yourself Swahili Part 2.

The lovely Mama Lois

On the occasions that Kisanji (Dave) was free we did some ad lib spoken work in the afternoon. What I was finding with the course materials, which were absolutely fantastic, was that I had been stuck a bit in a comfort zone language wise so struggled with the new topics such as education, politics, development and research. Kisanji himself had undertaken research at masters’ level and so was helpful in translating lots of my research terms. Not that I will end up using them no doubt – by the time you get to that level of topic it’s kiswaenglish all the way. And so my experience at the centre was a strange mix of intensive 1.1 (although I’d confess Mama Lois was not as strong a teacher as Kisanji), some activities that worked, some that didn’t, some that never took place, and periods of self-study. Overall I guess I felt some level of disappointment but I certainly moved forward. Some of the teaching staff said I was actually a lower advanced level (and as such hinting that I had chosen the wrong course!) but I really couldn’t agree as I was finding the new topics so challenging.

Social life at the centre was mixed I have to say. I started off trying to network, meeting mainly east Africans studying for a BA. I tried to mix with the Germans and other expats too, with initial gusto. It did not prove, however, an easy task as many of the Africans (mostly male) had rather inflated egos that comes with prominent positions and salaries and rather looked down on me as a paltry (female) researcher. The Germans were as stereotypically German as you can get with such literal senses of humour it bored me to tears. And of course whether they had been in Tanzania for 6 weeks or 6 years they knew it ALL, better of course, than the Tanzanians. Reminded of my general dislike for expats I resigned myself to a quiet beer before dinner in the evenings before retreating to the delight of endless wifi, emailing and skype in my room. I also took the opportunity to hit the gym and aerobics classes, eat healthily and generally be good to myself.

Weekends were not incredibly eventful – on one I met with a friend from Bagamoyo and his parents and their home in Arusha. The welcome was incredibly warm as we shared a meal of ugali, beans and dagaa (little smelly fish I’d successfully avoided for some years) and chatted about Scotland, where Mama Baraka, rather unexpectedly, had visited 10 years before. The next Friday we had a night out in Arusha, although I spent much of the evening worried about how to get home after dark. On the Sunday, however, myself and one German joined a group of 3 other girls living in Arusha for a day trip to Ngorogoro crater. It is a much trumpeted wildlife attraction, to which I had never managed to visit due mainly to its inflated entry fees and had been somewhat put off by reports of how crowded the crater had become. Somehow, however, this time as a day trip it was just about affordable.

We left at the crack of dawn and headed west through Arusha and then northwest towards the crater. There is a lovely brand spanking new bit of tar to the park, courtesy of the Japanese government. With the road in western Tanzania from Mbeya to Kigoma not yet complete it’s great everyone’s got the roading priorities straight. It’s firmly Maasai territory on the road to Ngorogoro and we saw plenty of Maasai herdsmen and villages en route, including lots of adolescent men dressed in black with black and white face paint, marking they were preparing for the circumcision ceremony and enter into manhood. I had asked a friend at the centre whether Maasai men still kill a lion as part of the ceremony. He was adamant that it did still take place outside of the nature reserves although with lion numbers as low as they are it is hard to imagine it can still go on to any great extent.

Ngorogoro crater floor

Ngorogoro crater itself is quite a sight to behold. The crater has a massive 20km diameter of flat grasslands, surrounded by the high crater rim which is thick, wild forest and mountain peaks. It is quite disorienting to have such thick vegetation above you when you are on the crater floor; it was almost like a mountain had been turned upside down and inside out. We were lucky viewing that day, seeing black rhino, several prides of lions and even a cheetah, which probably tickled me the most. We saw herds of young elephants up high in the forests and older, grumpier ones with giant tusks on the crater floor, due to the minerals in the grasses. The setting itself was probably one of the star attractions for me; I’d never seen anything quite like it and it was definitely interesting to see the maasai live side by side with their cowherds and in the heart of all of this tourism. I was reminded, however, how uncomfortable I was with the safari experience in queuing up to watch lions by the roadside and take photos of maasai children. I haven’t quite worked out why I feel like that – the lions and maasai certainly don’t seem to mind. I guess it’s something to do with commodifying those animals and children to such a crazy extent for the enrichment of others. I think it’s probably the last time I’ll go chasing either.

Chasing cats

Hangin out horses - check out the lion queue in the background

Zanzibar's Still Got It...

Now I can visualise you, particularly, say, my brothers, throwing your heads back in hysterics but I felt like I was warranted a bit of a break after one month’s study in Bagamoyo. It’s quite hard-going speaking a language you aren’t really proficient in all day and I guess I felt a bit of relaxation might be nice as well as the chance to remove my earplugs. On top of this, Bagamoyo was a veritable hive of excitement in the run up to Zanzibar’s renowned Busara Music Festival as all the artists were getting the best examples of their work ready to sell and display. I was obviously not averse to going either.

I had thought I had my transport over in the bag. Getting to and across Dar to catch one of the speedboats seemed quite an exhausting, not to mention expensive, prospect so I thought I had organised to travel over by jahazi (dhow) with Mrisho, a local artist. It was not without its risks (it is prohibited for foreigners to do so from Dar) and as a night crossing it wasn’t likely to be comfortable. But I weighed it up; the winds were good and the right direction, it was cheap and simple (£4!) and I would be travelling with friends. But of course nothing goes to plan – the night I was supposed to leave it turned out many of the captains suddenly had concerns about taking foreigners and by the time we found one willing to take me the immigration office had closed, where you needed to sign some kind of life waiver. So, in the end, a Swedish art student Frida and I were stuck with the Dar option the next day.

I (eventually) arrived in Stone Town expecting monumental changes since my trip in 2003 but to be honest most things looked relatively similar. I guess as a UNESCO site there’s not that much that can change in the centre, which is such an awesome, atmospheric place. I’d say the town sprawls further and there are a lot more vehicles in the old town centre, making it less easy to just wander the streets. It would seem quite obvious as a UNESCO site they might make a simple traffic plan and close off some of the smaller streets. But still when Rome hasn’t managed to work out how to protect their building heritage from traffic, or even London when you think of St Paul’s, why should anyone else. Anyway, I got my festival pass sorted quickly and hot-footed it north to a place called Matwemwe. It was a nice enough stretch of sand but the prices of the once beach hut place had doubled and there were a lot of papasi on the beach trying to get your attention. So I headed back to Bwejuu on the east coast of Zanzibar with fingers crossed that it was as peaceful a place as I remembered…

Matemwe Beach looking less inviting...

On the way I met a (predictably) eccentric Austrian woman, who had been living on the island for a year and who helped me find affordable accommodation at Bwejuu, which isn’t that easy any more. But the beach there is just so beautiful it is hard to describe. The sand feels more like flour underfoot and it goes on for miles. It is so quiet, although there are plenty more hotels and developments than before. I saw one morning 5 gung ho beach bum kite surfers heading out to sea, at least one of whom must have been called Brad, so I guess more people are discovering Bwejuu’s allure. But what a place to kite surf – those guys were incredible and jumped metres into the sky catching, what I believe it is termed, big air.

That afternoon I set off for a guesthouse where I ate with a friend in 2003 called Robinson's Place. At that time they were trying to get their own farm off the ground and so we sent them the natural pesticide guide that we were using in the villages, which I hear worked out well (contrary to how it panned out in the village!!). I wondered if it had gone or would have changed any. In fact, apart from a few buildings, nothing much had changed. The welcome was warm and Anne and Eddy had gone even further in reducing their guesthouse’s footprint by cutting out their use of kerosene and replacing it with micro-power generation by wind and sun. Captain Planet would happily have stayed there forever I shouldn’t wonder.

Anyway – to the festival! I arrived on the first day of the festival proper and located, with rasta help, our guesthouse. Sella flew in from Dar an hour later (too scared to get on the boat), which was not enough time for me to memorise the route from the bus stand to our hotel as the Stone Town streets are seriously labyrinth. You think you’ve got your little landmarks and shop fronts down when, as we were to find out later, something pretty major changes in the matrix. Sella seemed rather taken aback that I couldn’t lead her confidently to the guesthouse, although we got there in the end. I guess as I had been there a few times she expected I would know the ropes on her first trip. Not so.

We made an enthusiastic start to the festival arriving in time for the opening parade and a pretty decent opening act from Zanzibar itself. This, with such an atmospheric setting as the Ngome Kongwe (Old Fort), which had been really brought to life with lighting, stalls and a buzzing international crowd, made for an seriously exciting start. Unfortunately, this was then offset by seemingly endless ngoma troops which, after sitting on the rock-hard ground for some hours, left us rather deflated. It was at that point that I read about the festival cutbacks and their focus on ‘upcoming talent’, which explained a few things about the line-up. Either way, watching ngoma from afar kind of defeats the object; it is more a participatory activity. The night was rescued for me by Ary Morais, although the Cape Verdean struggled to connect with the east African audience. But I got to throw some shapes. The night was then rescued for Sella by some highly questionable Taraab music, which seemingly involves groups of women standing up and whining at length, using Arabic maqam scales, about various sexual issues but exclusively through the use of metaphor. All of this is quite hard going on the chromatically-trained, vernacular-oblivious Westerner’s ear. Time for bed, although, easier said than done. All of our carefully memorised shop fronts had since disappeared after dark and we got completely lost on the walk home. Thankfully the streets of Zanzibar are safe, despite looking quite the opposite after dark.

Roaming the streets in Stone Town

The rest of our days were spent eating, sleeping, chatting, sipping drinks on rooftop bars and wandering the streets. We opted to enter the festival much later to avoid the chaff as well as the arse ache. One evening we watched with bemusement from a rooftop bar sipping cold drinks as a massive freighter caught ablaze in the harbour and nothing was done for over an hour. I started to make crude calculations as to how far metal might travel from an exploding oil freighter, but finally it was towed away to another location presumably to finish burning or to explode completely. On other afternoons, we had been trying to avoid entering conversation with a strange francophone group, some from Africa and some from France. One guy had asked Sella for her Blackberry PIN to message her. The next day in the same restaurant another guy asked for my programme and held the picture up next to his friend to ask whether I thought it was him. I replied in the negative, after trying to recreate the pose in the photograph, saying his teeth were different. Of course, lo and behold, they turned out to be the entire Fredy Massamba band. I could have mixed with the stars. Sella could have made sweet love over messenger. What dickwads we were.

Sella and I sip juice enjoying the Stone Town skyline, interrupted only by the smoke from a burning oil freighter

Highlight of the festival though, by far and away, was the mindblowing Nneka, who blew the rest of the festival away on the final night. I am not sure I have seen a live vocal performance quite like it, and her stage presence was amazing. Whilst Sella and I had disagreed on much, we couldn’t fail but be united on that one. I’m not sure I can do it justice though so I’ll stop talking.

Electrifying Hanitra from Madagascar gets intense 4pm slot in baking sun

Massively dubious modern Taarab

Teach Yourself Swahili, Part 1

Well, I would say 3 weeks in that I was possibly a little ambitious as to how much I would be able to achieve during language training. It is one thing to make yourself understood but quite another to get to grips properly with a language. I’ve always known that, I am not sure why I temporarily overlooked it. Time to pull my head out of the sand.

My mornings have basically been spent wrapped up in ‘Teach Yourself Swahili’ which, having both taught and been taught various languages, I think is absolutely flawless as a learning aid. Some people said they found it too grammary. I fricking love grammar; the more the better (except obviously in the context of this sloppily written blog). So the more I understand the language the more I see exactly how the author has put together the book and why, which in turn helps me remember it. I have been busily unpicking bad habits forged when I previously lived in Iringa in 2003. I seem, for example, to have completely bypassed getting to grips properly with the different noun classes at that time. My audience must have been extremely tolerant people – I could only have sounded like I had just emerged from the cave, grunting and pointing.

(For those unfamiliar, Swahili has eight noun classes, which relate to either the kind of word and/or its origin. Swahili is a relatively simple language with fewer irregularities than English and a much more restricted vocabulary, but those verb classes are a major stumbling block and dare I say pain in the ass. All verbs, adjectives and even to some extent numbers are modified to agree with noun depending on its class. In essence you get eight slightly different words for ‘my’, for ‘this’ for ‘big’ (give or take a few). Summary: painful learning and makes for dull blog content.)

This self-teaching process is then supplemented in the afternoons when I hit the town and go and find someone to have a chat to. In the market I go to great pains to ask for ‘those mangoes over there’, just because I read about it in the morning. My market Swahili is coming on a treat. All the traders flatter me with great, although probably slightly tongue in cheek, compliments at my prowess. Little do they know if they asked me my favourite colour I would crumple into a dribbling mess. Some people are great at modifying their language. There is a guy at Sella’s work who has a great talent for grading his language so I can understand. We had a great chat for about 30 minutes and I was most buoyed at my progress. Then I come home and I can’t even understand Alvira when she asks me what I want for dinner.

In the evenings then, I go off to meet Sarah who is my Swahili teacher, in a rather loose sense of the word. Warning bells went off at her suitability as a teacher right at the beginning when, after quite a long chat about why I want to learn Swahili, where I learnt it before, family situation and musical and artistic interests (all of which took place in Swahili), she brought out some teaching resources with basic greetings on them. She seemed surprised when I said I felt I could do all that (in Swahili). They asked for more detail about what I wanted to learn. I gave an example of ‘this/that/these/those’. Even then they asked for more detail (in Swahili). I wasn’t really sure how to give more detail than that. The conversation was highly confusing. Anyway, despite all this I decided to take a chance as Sarah seemed like a pretty cool chick to me, and it’s not as if I had an enormous choice of language trainers here in Bagamoyo or any other pressing plans.

We proceeded to meet three times a week for about an hour and a half on the beach for lessons, speaking only in Swahili. Sarah normally had prepared 10 or so sentences using the language point, but the lesson would involve her repeating the sentences over and over again, even when I had no idea what was going on. The lessons therefore evolved more into a place where I could just practice what I had studied in my book, which in fact started to work really well. In a strange role reversal I started bringing my own flashcards and teaching ideas along to the lesson. Given she teaches lots of wazungu introductory Swahili maybe some of it will come in handy, who knows. And when the conversation began to flow more freely towards the end of the lesson I found out snippets of Sarah’s interesting life stories, having lived in India as a performance artist, Zanzibar working for a UNICEF arts programme and she has big hopes and dreams for the future.

Lastly, all this has been supplemented by picking up appropriate vocab to life here in Bagamoyo, ably abetted by Alvira and Sella. In the village I seem to remember I knew the names of different kinds of insects, that thing that you sort rice on, the moon, a hoe, mud. These days I am more likely to need the vocab for electricity, the water is back on, humid, there is a live gig tonight, he was wasted and I prefer wood carvings over performance art thank you. Oh and today I learnt ‘Wow, I really stink, I need to shower’, whereas I would say in the village the other extreme would probably have been more noteworthy.

Anyway, onwards and upwards to a three week intermediate Swahili course in Arusha. I just hope after all this I’m ready!

Return to Bagamoyo

Truth be told I’d been feeling a little, well I don’t want to say old, so let’s say vulnerable. Gone are the days when I could through ‘2 of everything’ into a backpack, clock in at 12kg and leave for far flung places within the hour. I spent a mad few weeks sending off cards and presents, seeing friends and (new) family, saying goodbyes, celebrating birthdays, planning, packing, handing stuff over and threw in a week of consultancy work for good measure. I fretted about the right clothes, the right travel adapters, avoiding malaria, skin cancer, vitamin supplements, leaving the house and our new student lodgers. I fretted about my luggage weight which hit a new record at 18kg. And of course I was worried about leaving Alex. But despite the added anxiety that accompanied that process of leaving, it’s probably with hindsight a positive thing. I guess my roots just go a little deeper these days.

I did, however, continue to feel my age on the flight. I turned up in Nairobi to see that my onward leg had been cancelled, without any explanation or apology. We were bumped onto another flight leaving seven hours later. I was pacified by the promise of breakfast and the use of an executive lounge but was subsequently refused admission. I was tired, and hungry. And in the back of my mind I was worried about the onward journey to Bagamoyo – at least 2 dalla dallas across Dar es Salaam (with no room for luggage) before the onward Coaster to Bagamoyo. Funny, none of those things used to faze me at all. But I was fazed.

But things started to take a turn for the better. I changed a tenner at a decent rate in about 3 seconds with no commission, passport, signatures or faff in any form and found a corner in a café to start eating through it. I had the biggest, tastiest Spanish Omelette I’d ever had, served with spiced fried potatoes, onions and a massive beaker of tea for a couple of quid. I fell asleep in the café corner for three hours looking like a pile of old rags and no one had batted an eyelid. Then Sella texted to say she’d called in a favour and a friend was going to pick me up from the airport in Sella’s car. Lots of things are tricky about working and living in Africa, but some things are definitely simpler. (Still, I was wondering whether I’d made the right call when the guy who picked me up hit a cool tonne (145km) on the decidedly narrow road to Bagamoyo that you share with dalla dalla (minibuses), bajaji (tuk-tuks) and pikipiki (motorbikes) alike, along with a host of pedestrians, animals and the rest.)

On entering Bagamoyo I felt a dual sense of relief – one was definitely to do with getting out of the car. But the second was that funny warm feeling of familiarity and homeliness that you can generate for a place even after a short acquaintance. That feeling that you know what is what, who is where and generally how it is. I felt a definite sense of optimism on taking up my previous abode in Sella’s home after warm reunions and the signature awesome home cooking.

Awesome fish with coconut - coastal cooking! And my temporary pad at Sella's....

The days that have followed have consisted of reacclimatising, particularly to the humidity, getting sim cards, realising what I’ve forgotten, checking in with home and looking up old acquaintances. Some previous acquaintances remembered me, some did not. I couldn’t decide which was more reassuring. I had an amusing encounter with a previous art seller whose calls I had spent avoiding on my last trip – he has an overly aggressive air and is inevitably was under the influence of at least one substance. We went through the same rigmarole as last time, cataloguing his various accomplishments and travels and his part surprise, part irritation that I was spoken for. But anyway, this time I was careful not to give my number in return and have been ducking down alleyways pre-emptively as required.

One other acquaintance at the art market, in the same touristed area of town, seemed more promising. A guy I bought some oil paintings from over a period of several days’ negotiations last May remembered my face and we spent a good time chatting. He is heading over to Zanzibar for the illustrious Busara music festival next month. He has a relaxed air and always seems much clearer headed than many of the other rastas based in that area of town. After hearing my interest in learning Swahili he hooked me up with a teacher friend of his, Sarah, who gives mainly beginner lessons to foreigners visiting Bagamoyo. She seems like a live wire and almost everyone about town seemed to know who she is. This could turn out to be a good or a bad thing. But in the meantime I might do a couple of one to one lessons, just to see how it pans out.

Anyway, after trademark fretting about finally nailing Swahili 9 years after I first started, and now in my mid-thirties, and I’ve had a couple of realisations. The first is that I shouldn’t put too much pressure on myself. I have a reasonable grasp of the basics and as long as I try to immerse myself over a prolonged period, things should come good. This also means focusing on one thing at a time, and not worrying too much about research contacts this trip. Secondly, and on reflection very obviously although it hadn’t dawned on me until now, is that when conducting research comprehension is going to be far more crucial than my own fluency. So I just need to get really good at asking the right questions.

So all in all settling in. Bagamoyo is a very cool (metaphorically), relaxed place. Most people are happy to talk but also happy to leave you alone. I spent a lovely weekend with Sella and Alvira chewing the fat, cooling off down at the beach and on Saturday night we stumbled upon a live, open air gig which was massively good fun. In many towns this size in Tanzania that would be unusual, but in art-loving, music-thumping, hip-shaking Bagamoyo that’s just seems to be par for the course.

Open air gig in Bagamoyo (another one!!) and cooling off at the beach

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!
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