Questions from Elementary School Students back home.

Thanks for the questions...I hope I answered them all!

What are you eating?

Tomatoes are the easiest thing to buy near my house, so I put them in pasta or rice. I eat things like cereal, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, potatoes, and soup. I have become pretty good at making French fries and as a treat, I will make popcorn. So far, I have avoided eating roasted mice, which are sold on the side of the road. You can also get a lot of fruit depending on where you are. The most common are mangos, bananas, strawberries, coconut, and apples.

You can get lollipops and donut like breads while waiting on the bus. Pop is cheaper than water. It costs anywhere from 40MK-100MK or between 30-70cents a bottle. They call them softies here, and you can get coke, sometimes sprite and always fanta (in orange, pineapple and exotic).

How do you cook?

Pretty well everything I eat has to be cooked. I either boil or fry all my meals, and I use a hot plate to do so. The power goes out often so I sometimes have to wait for the outage to end before I can eat. I would have to buy coal to cook outside.

How do you like Africa?

Living in rural Malawi is a lot like how you would live on a camping trip. This is a good thing, as I love camping. In fact, the only downside so far, is that because I live alone, and mostly work alone, it can get pretty quiet after a couple months of not having people around to talk too.

Why do you have to stay home after 6?

6 is when the sun goes down. Since there are no streetlights, or buildings that give off a lot of light, after 6, you cannot see anything. So for safety reasons, mainly not being able to see people or animals that are out, I have to stay inside my house.
What do you do when you are not working?

I live in the coffee fields that surround several villages. After work, I usually spend a lot of time walking around exploring the fields. At home, cooking and doing work around the house takes quite a bit of time but I’ll read, do crosswords, yoga, listen to the radio, and I had a few movies to watch on my laptop if the power hadn’t gone out but I’m all out of those for now.

On weekends I tend to do a bit of travelling like up to Lake Malawi, Liwonde National Park(where the hippo was), and the Zomba Plateau. I am also planning to go to Mt. Mulanje soon.

Have you found a way to kill the spiders?I think I finally have the spider situation under control. I don’t see as many big ones anymore. My fly swatter broke, but I find that throwing my hiking boots can get rid of them. The best way to get rid of spiders, rat, roaches and the like though, has been to keep an impeccably clean house. Dishes never stay in the sink longer than it takes to eat the meal, and nothing gets left on the floor. I also have a spray called DOOM, that’s meant to get rid of some of the crawlers. Even though I spend the night under a net, I still get some pretty strange bug bites.

How close were you to the Hippo?

When we saw this baby hippo, we were about 4 or 5 metres away in our canoe. He was sleeping on the shore until we got a little too close so he submerged back into the Shire River.

I’ve always thought hippos were interesting animals. They walk in single file on land and can snap a croc in half.

Is it hot enough to fry an egg?

I haven’t tried yet! I bet if you get up to the tarmac roads you could probably fry an egg on the hottest days I have had here.

What other animals are there?

There are all kinds of animals here. I have a family of vervet monkeys who live in the tree that leans against my house. As far as big animals go, there are hyenas, leopards, elephants, and crocs. Malawi is known for its hundreds of species of birds.  I have also seen tonnes of lizards that have either neon orange or blue tails and even some chameleons (with greyish/green stripes at the time).

What do the kids like to play?

I see the kids playing netball and football. On the weekends, there are always football games at the field near my house.

What language do the people there speak?

The main groups of people living in Malawi are called the Sena, Lomwe, Tonga, Ngoni, Tumbuka, Yao, and Chewa. To know what language they speak, simply add Chi before the name of the people. So where I live, the language is Chichewa as I am around Chewa villages. Chichewa is the national language, while English is the official (business) language. Very few people where I live speak English.

How do you do your laundry?

 I do my laundry in a bucket while sitting on the floor in my hallway. It’s all done by hand with a bar of soap. Fill the bucket up the first time to scrub everything, and then a second time to rinse, and then I wring out as much water as I can before hanging it up. I have to do it a couple times a week, not because there is a lot of stuff but because the clothesline I made that runs down the hall between two doors, can only hold so many things. Also, since the water is tinged, all my clothes have turned slightly red.

Have you made any new friends?
I have been able to meet many new people. Some are other volunteers both from Canada and around the world. The people in Kalino (the village where I live) have been incredibly welcoming, and despite the language barriers I have become friends with lots of people I see every day.

learning to horseback ride on Zomba mt.

one view from my bedroom window

Winding it back a few years, more like six, and I find myself, like usual, people watching. This time eavesdropping too.  I was standing on the street outside of St. Georges in Kingston Jamaica, watching the funeral procession for a former Prime Minister go by. A girl my age was asking others in our group why we were there. She was given the response that our group was there to help, as we were volunteering with youth in the area. She refuted, asking how we over others would be able. When talking at a high school assembly back in the day about what I was grateful for from my experiences in Jamaica, that moment sums it up. It was that I was challenged to think about actions I take, and how, if at all, it matters. Over hearing a stranger challenging my choices encouraged me to have the mindset to challenge my own decisions and to figure out the how and why. Critical thinking about one’s own actions...I’m working on that... but here, with critical thinking in another realm, I’m really struggling.

I’m tasked with mobilizing resources. I’m not holding back any details as the entirety of my instructions was to go mobilize some resources. Problem, no one can tell me what they want money for and they have no program defined enough to apply for, and there is no concept of funding priorities. I asked to look at their last grant application which happened to be to the good old Canadians. In the proposed budget they asked our government for funds for a pool table. Last week they happen to have an application passed on from another group(all other applications I am to discover on my own). It was for educational grants, something I think is direly needed here.  Now my job is supposed to be to work with the staff to put together and edit the proposal. The  first question on the form was asking for an “outline of the education program to be funded”. My supervisor shrugged his shoulders when I asked him what program he wanted funded. When I tried to draw suggestions out of him for potential projects he just said, “sure sure you work on it” and then he left for town.  It was easy enough to come up with something but it uncovered that they don’t have priorities or plans for funds...they just know they need money. Also, they can’t tell you what their programs do or what projects they want to undertake.

So what does this have to do with being challenged? No matter how long I am here, no matter how much I pour into my work, the experience of people here, will never be my own, and I can never fully understand life here. My coworkers will always know the situation better than I. Yet they take everything I say as right, as best, when I know it is not. No one here will engage in discussion or debate to push your thoughts and creativity to the next level. When your ideas are challenged and others contribute or suggest alternatives, ideas are revised allowing new and better alternatives to surface. This is THE frustrating thing about working here, they want me to come up with all these projects with no input from them.

Furthermore, my being here is not permanent. Whatever is set up, or applied for, is helping with potential solutions that are not going to be carried out by me, so my logic makes me believe the more my coworkers are involved in all steps, the more committed they will be to following through. I met with them today...well the 3 of 10 staff who were there for the half day of work and they said they would think about things over the weekend.

T.I.A.

Its the cliché used by anyone everywhere here.  It’s in the context of any combination of chaos, confusion, the general unpredictability of life and the like. It’s usually said with undertones of exhaustion but is meant as acceptance and taking life in stride...that’s not what it meant for me yesterday. (21^st)

If I time getting back from town to where I get a bicycle taxi to around 5:00, I get the experience when I am most content here. See if you take a bicycle up the hills at that time you’re in for a spectacular view. Think National Geographic in real time as the sun begins dropping behind the mountains. People are out, but since it’s the end of the day its quieter and you can hear drumming and singing as you pass through some of the villages, but really my senses are overwhelmed with the view of the sunset and for me it is one of those T.I.A moments when I find myself saying This. Is. Africa.

But I’ve been having the more typical T.I.A moments too. This past week especially, as things have become pretty frustrating and contact with friends and family has become intermittent and difficult. This is largely on my end as technology hampers communication.  Keeping sending emails when you can!

dzeleke camp

Excuse me Mister Kikoma? Would you stop cleaning up nature...

 The comforting sound at night which is heard amongst the monkeys, owls, miscellaneous drumming howls, chips, and bug noises, is the sound a machete makes when it hits stone. I heard it today meaning my watchman is back from hiatus. He always drops it on the ledge of the porch when he gets here. (I have a guard from around 7pm-5am(I’m guessing 5 as that’s when the sun comes up, but I’ve never noticed when he actually leaves)

 I tried to tell him that I liked all colour from the fallen yellow tree buds around my house...he torched them anyway.

And for another month I won’t get deported

Visas upon entry to Malawi are good for 30 days and then you have to get them renewed. The Organization I am here with assured us that they were to take care of it, and I diligently checked in weekly about it. But of course the visa was allowed to lapse with nothing being done. Here’s the problem, to travel anyway in country, even just to town, you risk being stopped by the army or police at check points and can ultimately be deported, as some volunteers recently have been. So for me to even get to town to renew my visa was a little on the stressful side and of course when I got to Blantrye the printers at the immigration department were not working so it took several hours. It only takes 1.5 hours to get to Blantrye but getting home took 4.5 as I got dropped off on the wrong side of a town I had never been to needing to catch another minibus. No Longer is my presence illegal...until the 1^st week of November. Oh and I snapped and got mediocre internet access for my laptop at home so I can read emails.

Health and productivity

Poor health hinders productivity. Two of the major health concerns in this area are HIV/AIDS and Malaria. In Malawi, HIV prevalence is around 12.4% (according to AHOSO info) for those aged 15-49. The higher end of the age bracket is the age of life expectancy.  In the district I live, the prevalence is 17.8%. There are 6 HIV positive females for every 1 male and HIV/AIDS is the credited cause of status for half of the 1,050,000 OVC in Malawi.

A note on Malaria....

My watchman Laston has not been here in over a week likely due to Malaria. Smart, the Program Coordinator at AHOSO who I should be working with has been away looking after his son, who has malaria. The executive director did not come to work yesterday...malaria. Anecdotally, malaria prevents people from doing their jobs. An organization recently stopped distributing bed nets, not because of the lack of effectiveness but because of their repurposed use.  People use them in the rivers instead of in their homes. Why worry about getting malaria if you first need to worry eating, it’s a pretty basic recurring fatalistic approach.

A note on HIV/AIDS

According to Dr. Stanley Last name indecipherable, you cannot get free ARVs unless your CD4 count in below 200, they are hoping to get that number up to 350. ARV also stands for Anti Rabies Vaccine so you have to be specific when you ask questions.

Meetings...

So I have written an OVC monitoring strategy, and AHOSO is holding meetings to gain feedback and begin implementation. The first round of VBC reports will come in at the start of November so we’ll see what info we can get then. It was received with much support from the Traditional Authority, and several of the local headmen and women, along with VBCs and other attendees. Round two of the meetings will be this Saturday.

Organizing meetings out here is a bit of a production. You can’t send an email or make a phone call to invite people; it’s all word of mouth. You also have to find a way to transport everyone, along with refreshments and food(which is pretty well a requirement), and paper and pens etc., for those who can use them to take notes. And you have to find a venue...we took over the antenatal clinic a few villages over. If we say the meeting is staring at 8, it will start maybe by 10:30 and if they say it will be on Thursday, they really mean Saturday.

The meetings are held in Chichewa, which means when I talk, someone translates for me. The problem is, they don’t translate Chichewa back to English for me, so I don’t follow much.

MacDoads and other Malawian eats

While staying in Lilongwe, breakfast consisted of eggs, French fries, a sausage and 6 pieces of toast...way too much for a stomach still in a different time zone. At the guest house we made poutine to give them a taste of food from home. Cheese, though, is painfully expensive (I bought feta as a treat at my place).  Dinners were consistently chicken and rice. Now that I am out of the city, meals are a little different.

When eating with others, its nsima and miscellaneous greens, like boiled sweet potato leaves. Nsima is a staple in many African countries, though it would be known by a different name. It is boiled corn meal flour that you eat with your hands. They are pretty particular about the process of eating nsima and it is a food you are expected to play with. As long as it is with something, it’s pretty good, and definitely filling. The difficulty is in the nutrition, the lack of protein especially. You can buy fish at the end of the lane, but there is not a lake anywhere near here. Furthermore, in a few months the flour will be hard to find as the season changes.

Fruits and vegetables are dirt cheap and widely available. I will hereby reclaim my health... by default. A pound of strawberries costs just over a dollar, and mango season is starting soon. A pound of potatoes is less than 20 cents.

So far the meals I have been making myself include rice and tomato soup, fried sweet potatoes, pasta, peanut and preserve sandwiches, garlic bread, and real oatmeal...trip food anyone? Meat and eggs, for now, have to be consumed in town as I can’t transport them in a timely manner. I envision eggs on the back of a bike taxi not ending well. Everything has to be boiled or fried.

My tap water runs red and after boiling it is pretty hard to get all the sediment out, and I should have brought a ceramic pump but I can manage. I have had to bring in water, juice, and as a treat, a bottle of coke. There is no Dr. Pepper here. No matter how you carry a sealed 5 litre bottle of water on a bicycle taxi, it will leak.

There is a food oddity I will avoid. The small cousin of the cow, as Rex from WUSC described it, is a delicacy. This ‘cousin’ when in a home, is a rat, and I have one of those, but when the rat leaves the house and crosses the street it is a mouse. These garden mice are fried on the side of the road and served on a stick.  To eat a mouse you are expected to start at the tail and eat up, bones and all. I’m not needing protein that badly yet.

Now MacDoads...it is exactly what you think, but red arches on a gold background with “your lovin’ it” written underneath.

Ethical eatin’... where I live is a little ironic and you knew this was coming

If each day you had the choice to support or deny others the opportunity of things like health and education, what would you decide to do?

You probably know the deal but here’s the recap:

I have a bit of a preoccupation with the implications of corporate social responsibility policies’ relationship to structural violence, in particular to the limitations on incoming generations which can result in constrained opportunities.

Passive, rather than active assertive, decisions are often made as consumers. It can be questioned if a dollar spent one way or another really matters and the impact one’s choices is often ignored or even brought up for consideration.

Reasonable alternatives, ethical consumption, Fair Trade, or whatever you happen to know it as, is one of the fastest growing markets in Canada. A few weeks ago, a friend asked if I was glad it has become the newest fad. Mainstream publicity maybe what is happening, but I don’t think it is a fad or trend. If it is, at least it is increasing the awareness of how one’s consumer decisions can create change for the producer of their purchases, and in turn their families. I hope people now have the awareness to see how easy and accessible alternatives are now. Think rice, cocoa products, sugars, coffees, teas, bananas, red grapes, wines, spices, soccer balls, cotton, dried tropical fruits, even rootbeer, as a few examples, go overseas and there is much more.

It is not about boycotts or depriving yourself of anything.

The gourmet palette is no longer where the Fair Trade market is mainly geared, as for example, Cadbury and President’s Choice supply certified Fair Trade chocolate for a reasonable price. Nestle, you lose, but I would still really like some smarties.

 So for seven years, the goal has been to first be a consumer within the borders, and in the case of importing, to find the most ethical reasonable alternative. For now, the ethical bar is fair trade. Reasonability covers the availability of the product and/or ability to create it without inconveniencing oneself. For example, is the ethical alternative sold in Canada or can one readily make it(you can make a lot of things out of sugar).

I was curious as to what would happen with my eating habits when I got here, but it’s been pretty simple. There is no middle man distributor here as I get my rice and sugars straight from the farmer.

I live in a gigantic coffee field. Hundreds of thousands of coffee trees is a conservative estimation. The factory seasonally employs most people who live in this area. Each day coming into work I am frustrated by the lack of funds in this community to support their initiatives when the potential lies in those plants. Fair Trade typically allots 10% to go back to the community to be used as necessary. As an example, Cocoa Camino products come from a Coop that has used this %10 to things such as build roads, a school, and fund a teacher’s salary. On top of this, workers receive a salary that allows for the decision of how many meals a day to serve their children, instead of a default of what can be scrounged. 

The poking around this field has begun...

I’m craving banana bread.

I have no idea how they finally got it out of there, but they did.

On the way to Thondwe, the closest trading centre to me, is a very steep hill that sharply inclines again. They have been bridging the bottom of it so that vehicles can scale back up it. While this construction has been going on, there has been a big sign with red lettering indicating that the road is closed to heavy vehicles (not that much with a motor comes in this way).

Somewhere around 30% of men and 80% of women in this area are illiterate and most don’t speak English.

And thus there was an 18 wheeler truck full of bananas blocking the way to Thondwe.

Im having trouble uploading photos...check facebook for pictures of liwonde

AN UPDATE ON WORK

I have been told I am running three meetings next week, one in each catchment zone, with 10 villages in each.  Attendance will include various AHOSO stakeholders such as members of the police force, faith based leaders, teachers, the Village Based Coordinators, headmen etc... It is not going to be held in English.

I’m going through a draft of a monitoring and evaluation policy of OVC programs which I put together this past week from scratch in the hope of formalizing and creating some consistency in the care and support of OVCs in the area. It is an opportunity to allow for community input.

A few weeks ago we were told that problems here are not our own(the WUSC interns)nor can they be our burden, but we can assist in finding solutions. But here I am in a situation where I see the absence of anything to do with monitoring and evaluation and I am left to do it on my own. I have been given excessive freedom in doing it and it is a bit of a struggle as there is a huge knowledge gap in the expectations and goals in the care of children in Malawi. I’m no authority on the matter, nor is there any information to access as a guideline. I am struggling to keep people in the office involved with it, and find myself working directly with the Executive Director. Pretty much no one challenges what I come up with, which is weird and difficult to start discussions, and I wonder how much value there will be in this without more contribution from the AHOSO staff. It is hard to take it to the next level.  Focus groups and what not are being lined up, and I’m digging around about things, like what consists of basic daily needs here etc.

There are absolutely no resources here except for the living library which I bombard with questions, but if it is a market day, or anyone in anyone’s extended family is sick, I find myself alone in the AHOSO office.  Also, it’s that time of year when many of the staff has asked to go home to work in their fields.

If there is a funeral in the village, work ends at 12. If Staff are arguing over firing a security guard, work ends at 12. If it’s Friday, which it is, work ends at 12...yet I am sent home at 10:30. It’s a bit of a short week for me, and it is also already October.

What do you mean I’m not allowed to paddle? What do you mean there are no paddles? This isn’t canoeing...

This heart is on fire.

They say Malawi is the heart of Africa, both in the meaning of its name and in its people. 

This past weekend I ventured to Liwonde National Park. After my bicycle taxi was an hour and a half late and facing two barely successful minibus rides (running out of gas) followed by a 9km bicycle taxi to get to the park I was able to go canoeing for the afternoon. At the edge of the park is a hill that borders on being a mountain but you can barely see it through the smoke.

When you look around Malawi, the hills and mountains are widely scarred with scorch marks, most areas still smouldering and many more still on fire. I have yet to look around and not see fire. Don’t get me wrong, I have no problem with a good fire, and often get lost in watching one’s flames...my siblings seem to think I’m a bit of a pyro, while others know I can’t help but fidget with lighters, candles and the like. Going into this adventure I thought there would be many opportunities for campfires. During blackouts, I would be more than content to cook on a fire, but I am not able to as there is absolutely no dead fall. You don’t collect deadfall here to cook; you either cut down a tree, buy fire wood, or use coal. It seems like obsessive compulsive cleaning since there is nothing left on the ground as anything and everything has already been ignited. I can’t get my head around this logic yet, so I have been asking around about the reasoning with no sufficient answer yet. Here the fire is excessive and unlike in the city, people are not setting them to burn down their garbage. Nor is it consistently an act in preparation to cultivate the land.

Throughout Malawi, there is extreme environmental degradation, with deforestation leaving little left except where trees are untouched to mark burial areas. Going into a National Park I did not expect the fires to continue within its live wire fences.  In Liwonde, the billowing smoke was caused by poachers utilizing it to force the antelope down the hills. This is the most logical, yet disheartening, justification I have heard for the fires here, but it by no means explains them all.

I’ll let you know if I figure all the fires out.