This blog is about my life in Malawi and how it relates to the lives of the other 13 million people in this country. Each and every day it gets a little more interesting. Thoughts, stories, moments, ups, and downs. As I learn more and more what it means to have your life in Malawi, I will share it with you, and I hope to hear your reactions.
Even from beyond the grave, they can still get to you. Check out what got to me last night.
Playing a little game at Megan's place in Blantyre.
Looks like the competition is stiffer than I thought.
Post game analysis. Another job well done!
And here's what got to me in Thyolo last week. Even with a missing leg, a spider this big is scary as hell. This is a local resident of the guesthouse in Thyolo where I was staying. Slowly creeping movements, vicious fangs, and with menacing red streaks on its 7 remaining legs…
Up close and personal.
Don't ask me why I brought my "Save-on-More" card to Malawi, but it came it handy to show the size of this thing.
Watch as I set my camera for a close up video of the spider. I must admit, he gets the better of me...
Justice is contextual, right?So what we can define as just and unjust must depend on a number of factors – what’s just for one person may be unjust for another.Right or wrong?I’m really asking because I’m not sure.Maybe the contextually-weighted injustice factor is…
InjusticeP = (What ought to beP – What isP) X (Right to Take Action) / (Ignorance)
The subscript P’s stand for “perceived”.I have been told before that I over analyze things.I then spent two weeks developing my theory that the people who tell me that are subconsciously taking an easy opportunity to vent repressed childhood angst through passive-aggressive yet constructive feedback.Either that or I actually over analyze things. ;)
I have been thinking a lot about ignorance and action, and under what circumstances action in the face of acknowledged ignorance can be considered responsible.I’ve been reflecting on this even since I got involved with development and have had plenty of opportunity to explore it since living here.Any ideas you might have are more than welcome.
In EWB we talk about the concept of “Dorothy”.Dorothy is a concept we use in EWB to give a face and a name to the people around the world who live in poverty. When I worked with my EWB chapter at UBC, I found it to be a useful metaphor for activities in EWB because it works as a vehicle for discussion – “how will this affect Dorothy?”, “how would Dorothy look at this situation?”, and so on.
The EWB overseas team is writing weekly emails to each other these days to talk about our “Dorothies”.I struggled a bit to come up with what to say because of this metaphor throws me through a bit of a loop these days.Below is an email I recently sent to the EWB people about Dorothy:
“For a few years, Dorothy has been for me an archetype that I found quite useful and even motivating. Dorothy was a face and a name of a person whom I could imagine - she lacked opportunity, she may have lost one or more children, she spent much of her day carrying unsafe water, the list goes on and on. Dorothy provided for me a language with which to make sense of my emotional reaction to what I perceived as one of the world's biggest injustices - continued extreme poverty despite the efforts of a system that claims to be trying to end it. When I thought about a kid, any kid, who doesn't see his or her 5th birthday because of god damn diarrhea, that gave me all the fuel I needed to stay up until 2 AM on a Friday doing important work for my chapter.
Things feel a little different for me now. I always that knew my understanding of how this injustice played out in real life was over romanticized, under developed, and largely based on my own egoic drive to "make a better world", but I didn't know precisely how. I think a person's sense of justice and how it makes them him or her feel is a function of 3 things - the facts of the situation, the control you feel you have over it, and the right or responsibility you feel you have to intervene. Living here and seeing for myself what development looks like, I see that Malawi is as Malawi is, and I'm not always sure I have the right or the responsibility to make it any different. And that makes it hard for me to feel the same pang of injustice from which I have drawn so much strength over the years.
This has left a bit of a hole in my emotional vernacular - I'm no longer sure how to make sense of what I see even if, a year ago, I thought I could. Quite simply, I don't always know how to feel about anything, Dorothy and Malawi included, and for someone like me that is awfully scary. It's been a personal project of mine for some time to figure out how to fill that hole.
Who is Dorothy? I don't really know. I guess Dorothy is just a name to which we add a bunch of baggage about a certain person's living situation, a certain ‘reality’. With that idea in mind, I can say that maybe I never really cared about Dorothy, rather I cared about the injustice I perceived to be causing the difficulties of said reality. And while the actual concept of Dorothy is getting harder and harder for me to reconcile emotionally and intellectually, at least I can still confidently say that there was injustice in the young boy's funeral I went to in February, and in the birth of the many children Chileka who immediately become HIV positive because their positive mothers couldn't get to a proper clinic to deliver them safely, and even in the choice that someone makes to spend their 70 MWK on Chibuku instead of food for their family. These situations are crazy and unjust one way or another, I'm sure of it - that's why it's hurting me to even write this right now and why my time in Malawi hasn't been without its share of tears. But still, my responsibility, my right to take any responsibility, how and whether to do something that I hope beyond hope is not just making it worse, how to intervene - none of these things are clear to me.
That makes taking action difficult - all you can do is rely on your gut to tell you if you are doing the right thing. And right now my gut is whispering to me about my friend Odala. Odala Banda is my friend from Chileka. He is a strong and intelligent man with a good head and a good heart. He is the voluntary Chairman of the South Lunzu Post Test Club, an AIDS awareness CSO. He does this because he has resolved to spend the rest of his life doing as much as possible to end AIDS in Malawi. He does that because he's lost 3 siblings to AIDS (not to mention 5 nieces and nephews to other diseases). He is working hard and slowly making progress, but he knows it's not enough. Still, he smiles and thanks God for what he has every day. Thinking about Odala, I am reminded of the article Graham Lettner sent out written by JK Rowling, in which she says:
‘Imagination is not only the uniquely human capacity to envision that which is not, and therefore the fount of all invention and innovation. In its arguably most transformative and revelatory capacity, it is the power that enables us to empathise with humans whose experiences we have never shared.’- JK Rowling
And I realize that I can't actually imagine Odala's situation. Try as I might I can not put myself in his shoes, nor the shoes of any of the people for whom Malawi is their whole world, not just a 2 year project or a distant exercise to keep azungus emotionally fulfilled and intellectually stimulated. If I can't really imagine his situation or anyone else's, then I can't imagine what choices I would make in the same situation. That means that the aforementioned hole in my emotional processes, my inability to know for sure how to feel, this is my own problem and mine alone - and it doesn't matter a damn bit what I would do in his situation.
I said before that the pang of injustice I have been milking for the last few years is harder to find these days. But that doesn't mean it's gone, because if it was I don't think I would be extending. Perhaps Odala is my Dorothy after all, and even if I'm not sure whether I'm still ‘Doin' it for Dorothy’, I feel just fine ‘Doin' it for Odala.’”
This is where my head is at right now.When I sent that, I got a reply from a colleague of mine reminding me of what was written by Eric Dudley for an EWB conference a while back.I’ve quoted Dudley in this blog before – remember back in November when I asked the question “who is this guy and what’s his angle?”The concept of “Recognized Authorities” used in that post was Dudley’s, from his book “The Critical Villager”.Here’s an excerpt from his stuff for the conference:
“Socrates taught us to recognise our own ignorance. It is about time that we got used to it. The only thing of which we can be certain is that we can be certain of nothing. History is a continuous record of the ways in which that lesson has been forgotten. We know that many of the problems that we face today are of our own making, problems resulting, more often than not, from our own and our forbears’ genuine good intentions.
It is an understatement to say that the process of development is complex. Development encompasses all human activity and the environment as well. In our own lives, both individually and in society, we make decisions which have unintended consequences. This is because we do not fully understand our own situation, and never will. It is hardlysurprising that when we start to intervene in the lives of others we make mistakes.
This is our dilemma. Progress is not achieved by those who wring their hands with worried uncertainty and yet we have every reason to believe that we should be uncertain. The greatest leaders, whether in politics, the military, business, or science, are those who manage the paradox of confident action tempered by profound doubt. While acting boldly, they keep a part of their mind alert to the possibility that they have got it wrong and that a change of direction is required. Highlighting our ignorance is not a counsel of despair or impotent inaction. The recognition of ignorance is another way of saying that we should recognize our assumptions and question them. After all, it was Socrates who laid the foundations for the whole edifice of western thought. The relentless questioning of our assumptions is the characteristic that has been the engine of our progress.
At a practical level we cannot doubt and question all of our assumptions about everything – that way leads to madness. But, in any project, we should try to make explicit the key assumptions that define the context, the problem and our proposed solution.”
Dudley basically argues that we need to change our minds of action in the face of undeniable ignorance if we are going to avoid our worst fears:
The Approach:
Change our minds.
Traditional processes of planning are predicated on the assumption that we know what we are doing; we identify a problem, we state an objective and then identify the resources and a series of actions which, when executed, will result in the achievement of that objective. This is the mechanistic process underlying industrial production. In the context of development projects such certainty is a dangerous fiction. If we are to have any hope of success we require an approach of constructive humility. Such an approach will need to include three characteristics:
·QUESTION ASSUMPTIONS
oRecognize our own ignorance.
Socrates taught us to… [above]
·PROJECTS AS HYPOTHESES
oDesign projects as testable hypotheses:
…the implicit assumption that development projects can be treated as industrial delivery mechanisms is profoundly flawed. Development projects should be regarded more like scientific experiments. A project, like an experiment, embodies an hypothesis…
·EXPECT THE UNEXPECTED
oLearn from unexpected consequences, in particular failure.
… In a sanitation project in Pakistan a workshop was established to make pour-flush latrine bowls which could be sold at a subsidized rate to householders. The project evaluations reported on how many thousands of bowls had been produced and sold. The indicators spoke of success.
The report did not say how many latrine bowls had been bought but not installed nor how many were installed but were reserved for the use only of guests. Neither did the report tell how the pour-flush latrines in use had drastically increased the work of women who carried the water from distant sources.
It is clear that many development projects fail. The reasons for their failure usually relate to a failure of understanding either of the context of the project or the processes by which the project has been implemented. In either case, the mistake is potentially a vital piece of knowledge which can point to future lines of enquiry and changes of policy. As long as funding depends on perceived success, the understanding of failure . the very information which can provide the greatest insights will be suppressed…
Dudley goes on to define “the problem” as “understanding change”, and “the solution” as “change-like aid”.This is good stuff but I won’t quote it here because it’s not quite on point.Though these quotes are not from “The Critical Villager”, I highly recommend reading this if you are all interested in development.The original publication from which these quotes come is also highly recommended.
Eric Dudley is a funny guy.Check out his take on how development implementation can bastardize linguistic jargon:
It’s just that easy!
I guess he’s making fun of how “community participation” is a box that is checked off in development projects as if it will accomplish, like magic, complete community ownership over the initiative simply by inviting the community members to the planning meeting or something.
He finishes with a bang.I get the sense that Dudley may have felt, some years ago (or maybe sometimes now), the way I was feeling when I wrote my Dorothy email:
“The known unknown - The Good Life
From one perspective development aid is simple. We want to do good -we from the wealthy world want to help the poor of other countries. An easy sentiment to understand, a hard one to implement.
…Development [used to be] about finance from the World Bank, technical assistance programs, and replicating the institutions of the developed world. Today, despite a rocky history, some people see this model as vindicated. For them, globalisation is demonstrably successful. Fundamental indicators such as infant mortality rates show that globally the situation is steadily improving; infant mortality has dropped world wide by over 60% since 1960. The phenomenal economic growth in India and China and elsewhere demonstrates how developing countries can indeed develop. The interconnectedness of the global economy has made the possibility of large-scale international wars appear more remote.
It is clear that the success of India and China owes very little to the western compassion industry, whether through the institutions of the UN or countless international NGOs. A case can be made that a couple of generations of Indian and Chinese nationals winning scholarships to attend western universities has contributed significantly to this growth and indeed to other notable achievements such as developing indigenous nuclear bombs. Another case could be made for large-scale vaccination programmes that have made a real impact in eliminating diseases such as small-pox. But as for the rest - whether improved hand pumps or loans of questionable worth, even where they have been considered successful, their impact on the lives of millions is dwarfed by the relentless gallop of industrial growth and the accompanying benefits of health and education that come with wealth.
So, why bother? If the system is working what is the problem? Some argue that globalisation has resulted in winners and losers, where Africa is the big loser. For them the real problem for development is how to bring Africa up to speed; how to replicate in Africa the kind of successes seen in Asia. Other critics see winners and losers within the emergent economies, with small minorities getting very rich while others remain marginalized…
…But others, including myself, are more than a little uneasy….Of course, the poor are as deserving of the benefits of wealth as the rest of us, but it is clear that a world in which everyone enjoys the current life-style of middle-class North America can not be sustained. Yet that consumerist life-style has been the implicit target of development for the last half century.
It remains the embodiment of the good life for billions of people. If that goal is not attainable, then what is the objective of development in the Third World? We have never been less clear about what development means. The framework outlined in this pamphlet is less than useless until we know what the Good Life really is. If we do not know our goal, how can we pretend to offer signposts on the route?”
So, basically, while I’m saying:
“I don’t know if working in development is working towards justice or against some injustice, and I have a feeling it might not be.But I still see problems that need solving.It’s all very confusing.I guess I’ll keep going.”
…Dudley seems to be saying “Yep, I hear you, welcome to my career sonny.You may be even be right, but don’t let it cripple you – just keep acting while asking these questions, and always keep learning.And by the way, get over it you whiner!”
Hmm…
Maybe he has a point.
Questions for thought and reflection – I’d love to hear from you:
Do you agree with Soccrates?Is Dudley’s approach to recognizing our ignorance, working through hypotheses, and expecting the unexpected good enough to avoid, well, whatever you might feel the need to avoid?What about “the known unknown” – what does it mean for the cause if we can’t define our objectives?
Hypothetically, if you have an opportunity to act, but fear that acting could make matters worse, but can’t bring yourself not to act, what do you do?
How do you define what’s just or unjust?Is it different in different contexts or is there an “absolute” definition?Like how, in boxing hitting someone square and hard is a clean and respectable play, but in soccer it would get you a red card. If you knew about some aliens on Mars that were oppressing their people according to your understanding of societal value systems, but you acknowledge that you don’t understand anything about the Martian system, is that injustice to you?
How do you reconcile your own ignorance when doing things you value?Is it that there are things you know you know and be comfortable acting based on those, despite all the things you know you don’t know?Or do you just not think about it all that much?
Credits (I don’t make enough to get sued, and I doubt J.K. Rowling reads my blog, but still…):
Dudley Quotes from “A Guide to Positive Change” – Eric Dudley, Author of “The Critical Villager” (one of my favourite books)
J.K. Rowling quote Copyright of J.K. Rowling, June 2008 - From her Commencement Address at Harvard, Annual Meeting of the Harvard Alumni Association, June 5, 2008
Sorry it’s been such a long time since I blogged. I just got back from a few days of vacation in Nkhata Bay (which is amazing, I’ll blog about it a bit later) for some very much needed thinking and chilling time. I am not very good at taking that kind of time so I it was good that my boss and coach gave me an ultimatum – take a vacation after finishing at Freshwater or be fired!
I am now done at Freshwater, and I am relieved about that. I won’t go into why on here, but we can also chat about it in person some day when we discuss what I think volunteers should and should not be doing with development implementing NGOs, and what those NGOs should be doing, if anything.
I wanted to introduce you to a few friends of mine from the village. Their names are Black, Coffee, and Jackson. They are dogs, and their names are actually quite unconventional as dogs’ names go. Usually, when you meet a dog or a cat, its name will be “dog” or “cat”. Not to far fetched I guess given that English is a foreign language here – it’s like someone from BC naming their dog “chien”, which is actually a pretty lame name but is at least descriptive and somewhat hilarious.
When I first arrived in Malawi, my whole EWB sending group was exposed to a rabid puppy named Jambo. We didn’t know he was rabid, so of course most of us cuddled up with him. Someone from the team was even bitten, and I had quite a bit of oral-salival contamination for reasons I won’t disclose. While we were all told not to touch any dogs while in Malawi before we got here, guest house dogs are supposed to be vaccinated so everyone figured it was fine.
Anyways, since that incident, I have tried to steer clear of dogs a bit more than I usually would (and I usually don’t steer clear of dogs at all). But a few months ago, I caved in with the dogs that live at home and started playing with them a bit. Even since then, Black has been getting very excited whenever I come home, jumping and whining like crazy.
And, for the last while in the mornings, when I leave for work and happen to run into the dogs on my way out, I get a nice escort to work. It’s been quite pleasant, but unfortunately is now all over because I am finished at Freshwater…
I just got back to the office from lunch, and as I was heading back, with my bananas in hand, I decided to stop into one of the local barber shops. I needed a haircut, and I know I’m going to be busy this weekend, so I figured I’d just take care of it now.
As I was getting my haircut today, I had the good fortune to meet a pretty inspiring dude. His name is Gift Kampule, and he is the owner of the shop I went to today. Gift started this shop back in 2001 after having worked as a supervisor in a printing shop in Blantyre. He finished school and then started working with this company until he left because of “some problems”.
When I asked Gift why he prefers to be self-employed rather than work for a company or government, he said this (paraphrased).
“People think that, just because you finish school, you have to work for the government, or some company, or an NGO. I left in 2001 from Blantyre Printing and started this shop in Chileka. In companies, you might work, but the company might not be able to pay your salary all the time. They might pay you 8000 MWK in 30 days. Owning my shop here, I can get much more than that, I always have cash.
You go into town and you see people begging all over the place. This is not good. Just because they can not find a job does not mean they can’t work. They could be farming, or finding other businesses to do. So many people finish school and then just sit around taking what they can from others. They think that because they can’t find a job with a company or government that they do not have to find another way. You can't just sit around and wait for someone to give it all to you. You have to work for yourself to have success.”
Gift says he’s trying to get a hold of more capital to work on different businesses. He wants to come up with 10,000 MWK so he can buy a fridge and start selling drinks. When I asked him how much start up capital he had when he opened this shop, he told me it was only 2000 MWK. I find it hard to believe that you could start a shop with only 2000 MWK unless he somehow came into the location for free or already had some other inputs, but I doubt that he was rolling in cash.
I guess one factor to consider is that Gift must have had some opportunity to take a risk on starting a business. It’s your standard risk versus reward dilemma here: if you have a job already, you could choose to get away from the industrial/ government/ NGO sector, all of which are pretty shitty IF you are a person who wants to be entrepreneurial. But doing so is a big risk and there are no safety nets, so many choose to stick it out and have their creativity hit a brick wall.
What does this mean for entrepreneurialism in Malawi? Well, there certainly is an opportunity gap. Access to capital is hard: loans are very hard to come by and interest rates are ridiculous, I think 30% or so. But it's not just about capital. Gift thinks, and I agree with him, that many people don't see opportunities to succeed as within their reach or withing thier sphere of responsibility to find. From my first glance assessment, I'd say the biggest thing Gift has going for him is his attitude and his willingness to make things happen for himself.
I only met the guy for 20 minutes, but I was still able to see a spark of creativity and entrepreneurialism of which I strongly feel Malawi needs more. Further, when people have that spark, I strongly feel it goes to immense waste in NGOs and government, partly because there aren’t enough people with it (very few, no critical mass) and partly because those whole sectors lack strong enough leadership and professional development for entrepreneurial people to have positive impact on them. Chicken or the egg: if these sectors had decent leadership, good leaders could help them be better, but they don’t, so good leaders just get swallowed in a sea of ineffectiveness.
Here’s hoping Gift and his family can keep leading the charge.
If this story is interesting to you, check out what of a friend of mine, Ryan Coelho, is up to. He is starting an initiative in Ghana called the Proving Potential Investment Fund. I think it’s a cool idea and I'm interested to see where it goes. He recently send out an email about an aspiring leader he knows named Daniel. You can read Daniel’s story here...
You already been introduced to my family.It will be not too long now, not more than a week or two actually, until I move out from that place and head somewhere else.Due to some craziness with EWB’s overseas strategy it’s not very clear where I’m going to end up, but in all likelihood I will be in Blantyre city for at least a while.I’ll then be heading home in November, then back to Malawi in January 2010.
A couple of weeks ago a bit of a bomb was dropped on me about my family.Ndaziona, whom you met earlier, was not going to school, and I didn’t know why.I talked with Evelynne about it, and they did not have money to pay her fees.It turns out at least a few things were going on:
Evelynne had fallen asleep with a few thousand kwacha on her (around $25, quite a bit), and some boys had stolen it apparently.
The dad of the house has been hiding money from the family.This explains a lot of the weird dynamics in the place and how conversations are vastly different between when it’s just the mom and kids versus when he’s around.
The dad of the house, who is Muslim (but who still prays with the family all the time), apparently has 5 girlfriends dispersed between Chileka, Blantyre, and Lunzu, and that’s where his earnings go to.
Does any of this make complete sense to me?Not quite.But what I did know is that Ndaziona was not going to school.I also know that Evelynne values school for her children – she only finished standard 4 (like grade 4), and I think she wants her kids to have more opportunity than that.Ndazi is the younger girl so she bears the brunt of the chores (though my family does do a pretty good job of sharing them between the girls and the boys, and even me when I am allowed and am around).She has also struggled in school and even failed her tests last year, so her likelihood of getting financed to get through school is substantially lower than that of Chinsisi, who is a boy, or Anasi, who is currently studying in Lilongwe.When faced with this situation I couldn’t do anything other than pay her fees, so I did.This, by the way, had to be kept our little secret from the dad.
“Ndi chinsisi chathu, musandandaule” – I remember saying, which means “It’s our secret, don’t worry.”This was met with big laughs.
And when I leave Chileka in the next week or two, I am going to leave behind a sizable sum of money for the kids’ school.I don’t know if that just perpetuates the whole National Bank of Azungu mentality that is clearly alive and well with this family.But honestly, sometimes, I don’t really care.I’ll be finishing up a post about action and ignorance in a couple of days which will explore my feelings about this kind of thing in a bit more detail.
This is Anasi
This is Evelynne
For all the whining I’ve done about my host family (it is quite a challenging environment to live in), I do have a lot of love for them and care about them a great deal.I want to see Ndaziona succeed.That doesn’t mean a woman can’t succeed by just being a good farmer and family wife, but I think Ndazi wants more than that, and she deserves the chance.
Last night I was eating dinner, and the dad had already finished so I was alone.Ndaziona came into the dining room to get something.
“Ndazi, tabwera” I whispered, asking her to come close.
“Aphiri!” she answered with her usual joyful tone.
“Ndazi, umapita kusukulu tsopano eti?” – "you are going to school now right?"
“eee”
“Umapita tsiku lili lonse?” -- “every day?", I asked
“eee, Monday to Friday!”
“OK, ndipo, udzamaliza liti? Sukulu idzatseka liti?” – “when does school close?” I asked her.
“October, ndipo idzayambanso January”, she answered.
zina, kuti upitalize kukapita kusukulu.” – “you know I’m leaving soon.And when I go, I am going
to leave some money for you to continue going to school.”
“OK”, she said, a bit more seriously once she realized I wasn't just screwing around, which is usually the context in which we communicate.
“Ndikufuna kuti upite kusukulu nthawi zonse. OK? Ukuyenera kumwaliza sukulu, chonde.”- “I want you to go to school all the time.You need to finish school, please.”
“OK, ndidzamwaliza Aphiri.” – “OK, I will finish.”
Here's Ndaziona with a bit of her sass
If there are any worries about this action being insulting to the family or something – haha, no.This family has always been quick to take my money so I’m not too worried about that.I am worried about something, but I can’t quite put my finger on it.At the end of this conversation Ndazi got a little cheeky and ask me to give the money directly to her.I laughed and told her I’d be giving it to her mom.
I am also thinking that I’ll talk to Odala about leaving him something so that Desire and Moses, his children, can be sure to go to school.I know that’s one of his worries.If he can use some seed money to start up his business finally, or maybe use in for the South Lunzu Post Test Club, his NGO, or even his save it directly for school fees, I think it’s a worthwhile investment.Maybe that’s the conclusion all azungus eventually reach which is why there’s sometimes this baseline expectation that azungus will give money to Malawians just because.I have expressed genuine frustration with this mentality and my feelings about how it is crippling for development.But I think there’s a difference between a random person asking you to buy them things and assuming you will, and helping someone with whom you have a real friendship.
Here's Odala
I'm teaching him to use the computer
Maybe I’m just rationalizing because my ego can’t stand to take a hit like not offering to help people I know I can help, or maybe I’m actually right.Not sure, don’t care (actually I do care). But I feel like if I choose not to help when I can in a situation in which I would if it were with one of my non-Malawian friends, choosing not to would be ever more paternalistic and would devalue the friendship. You might even call it racist.
Question:
§I’ve talked at length about how aid undermines Malawians’ abilities and drive to solve their own country’s problems.It creates an underlying accountability dynamic of the aid system being responsible for Malawi’s success, so that development actors become accountable to donors rather than to the people of the country. I see a difference between this and helping individuals whom you really know.Do you see that difference, too, or am I mistaken?
“Atate mu dzina la Jesu Kritsu ndikuphempera kuti mundipatse mphamvu…”
That is the sound of Chinsisi’s before bed prayer. If you don’t recall, Chinsisi is the 14 year old boy with whom I live.
Chinsisi (AKA Sisi)
Sisi loves to pray – he is usually the one who has taken off with the Bible when Aphiri the preacher is trying to figure out where it is. Most nights before bed he prays for a good 20 minutes, yelling style. He does this even on nights when the whole family has done a good hour and a half of joint praying, complete with the yelling, screaming, and occasionally crying that I’m used to hearing.
Here's a glimpse of my night life:
On one particular night, a few nights ago, Chinsisi went to bed extra late for whatever reason, so it was about 11:30 PM when he got started. I had to get up early the next morning, so I was relieved when he was finally done. With the prayer done and my body good and tired, I thought it was time for a good night’s sleep. I was wrong.
Some weeks ago several large bags of maize were moved into my room. They had been being stored in another small house (the house that was originally supposed to be mine but still has no floor), but for some reason the family wanted to move them, so I helped Chinsisi move them into my room. Since then, my room has been the village’s hottest new destination for nocturnal rodents to fill up on as much maize as their bodies can hold.
Now, it’s not the rustling of the many mice who have taken a liking to the bags of maize in my room that bugs me. It’s not the mouse shit that I routinely find all over my bamboo floor mat that bugs me. It’s not even the occasional mouse screaming match (I think they are even fighting or fornicating, or both, or one then the other) that bugs me. Rather, it’s the fact that they seem to be organizing some kind of revolution, and they have allies.
On the night in question, after Chinsisi had finished his prayer, it was time to go to sleep. As soon as I had blown out my candles and the loud prayer had subsided, it was time for the mice to come out from wherever the hell they hide and begin their evening ritual. It started with the signature rustling. The mice climb up the bags of maize and seem to do some kind of dance. They don’t just sit still and munch on maize kernels, no, they move around and choose different pieces of maize from different parts of each bag to maximize the amount of noise they make. Sometimes when they do this I throw coins at the bags in an effort to make them shut up, but it doesn’t work.
Occasionally I even try to quietly reach for my flashlight and turn it on to try to spot them, but I never do. They always hear me flailing around in the dark trying to locate my flashlight and then go into hiding. When I turn it off, they are at it again after around 10 seconds. On this night, I gave up with the rustling and munching and just let them go at it. Then, as I was trying to get to sleep, I heard a very light thump. Take a dime and drop in on pillow from a height of 10 cm and you’ll hear the sound I mean. Normally a sound of little consequence, but when you know you are surrounded by critters, it's a bit alarming. My eyes widened as soon as I heard the sound. Was it a mouse who’d jumped on my bed and was going to crawl all over me as I was trying to sleep? I lay there stunned for a few seconds, but was sobered by a light touch of something at my side. Something moving, brushing past me as I lay in my bed. Trying to keep still and calm, I slowly reached for my flashlight and turned it on. I removed my blanket quickly. Nothing. Damn it, where did he go? Is the little fucker hiding under my pillow or between my legs or what? I slowly sat up, eying the halo of my flashlight on the mattress like a hawk. I turned my body, and then I saw him.
A mouse??
No. It was a massive friggin’ cockroach who’d squeezed himself under my lower back. This was not the first time I had been infiltrated by insects in the bed. During the rainy season I’d routinely find bits of chewed up wood on my mattress with dozens of tiny termites in them that had been eating the support beams above. And once, back in April, I rolled over in bed to hear a crunching sound and felt something on my side. I removed whatever it was with my fingers, sort of gooey but not quite liquid. I remember thinking at the time, “I don’t recall having eaten any M&Ms since being in Malawi. But this sort of feels like a melted M&M. Weird…” I then sniffed my fingers in the dark, half expecting to smell choclately goodness. But it wasn’t choclately goodness at all. Rather, it smell somehow acrid and biting; it offended my nose. It occurred to me that it could be a cockroach, and I madly scrambled to find my flashlight to hopefully discover that it wasn’t. But it was! I had squished him to a pulp, which was now on my fingers and smeared across my torso. Pieces of his exoskeleton were still on me. That was unpleasant.
But this time I was having none of that – this thing was going to leave my personal bubble, and fast. I freaked out a bit and used my flashlight to flick him off the bed. It didn’t quite work the first couple of times, so I gave him a stronger flick, launching the roach towards the wall, the flashlight slipping out of my hands and flying after him. At least it was still on so I could find it easily. Time to go to sleep, right?
SCRATCH SCRATCH SCRATCH
The mice in Malawi seem to be huge, and can make a disproportionate amount of noise. And as if I was living in some kind of “Azungu in Malawi” sitcom, the mice decided at this point to have their turn. One of them was outside my door, and as my door is a fine example of Malawian infrastructure, it is unduly snug with the floor, meaning that the mouse couldn’t get it with the door closed or just didn't fee like squeezing. But that didn’t stop him from scratching at the door. He was scratching incessantly trying to get in. I threw something at the door hoping to scare him off.
Ineffective. After several minutes of this, I decided he wasn’t going to give up, and I surrendered. I’d had enough. I went over and opened the door, actually granting access to this mouse so he could join his friends in eating the family’s maize. I had to make this concession because they had the upper hand. It was nearly 1 AM by this point, and they had worn me down. Their revolution appears to be making headway due to a strategic alliance with the cockroach faction.
Here is a video log of number of the different factions I’ve come across in Malawi. Note – between 2:46 and 2:47 of the video there’s a really cool recon frame of a locust in flight. I hope you like my nerdy and lame play-by-play commentary. Enjoy!
I recently talked to Tara back home in Canada (good friend of mine/ ex-girlfriend). And it struck me that I was so disconnected from life in Canada. I wondered, have I forgotten what it feels like to be back home? Maybe not.
I was in the TNM store the other day (one of the major cell phone providers in Malawi), and they had the satellite TV switched on.National Geographic channel.There was a show on called “Wild” that was about predators or something.The show was painting lions to be brutal predators with perpetual bloodlust.It reminded me of the pride of lions I saw in Zambia that were lying face up in the grass, the cubs fighting, the adults sunning themselves and having a nap, and a herd of impalas eating the grass right beside them.No bloodlust there.Then a commercial came on for a National Geographic special on blue whales.
The following thought crossed my mind: “TV is such bullshit.Look how they are portraying those lions!I’d kind of like to watch that blue whales documentary though.”Then it struck me that I found myself thinking in a way I hadn’t in almost 10 months.Critiquing television!I live in a village with no water or electricity and read by candle light each night.But it was a little scary how quickly I found myself back in my Canadian mindset.I bet when I come home it will feel like I’ve never left, notwithstanding all the craziness I have been through since I left Vancouver in October.
Life here is hard to describe in a blog post.I think part of the reason I haven’t been writing home too much is because I find it hard to know quite what to write about.I’m trying to get a better handle on what kinds of things people are interested in reading on my blog.I was putting the time into writing intriguing stories a while back but then find that my momentum was waning to be able to keep doing that.In any case I’d love to hear your thoughts.
I have stopped giving guitar lessons to the preacher because he doesn’t seem too interested anymore.Instead we’ve moved on to computer and English lessons.I had to iterate 4 times with the English lessons before I eventually figured out exactly what he was expecting.I always thought I was a pretty good teacher, but then I realized that teaching is hell of a lot easier when you are talking to people who have been to school already.Aphiri the preacher has never been to school!Not even nursery or standard 1 primary school.Nothing.When I tried to teach him English, I started with subjects – I = ndi, you = u/ mu, we = ti, and so on.Little did I realize that he was so uncomfortable with reading that my attempts to show him English words, even ones that were phonetically pronounceable with Chichewa spelling rules, he was unable to handle it.
So I’ve gone to basics.Last week I made a chart of English pronunciation rules with my best stab at how phonetically explain the letter pronunciation with Chichewa spelling.This is tough in any context, but imagine that Aphiri speaks zero English, has difficulty reading even in Chichewa, and has never been to school!It’s a challenge but I’m up to it.
As I mentioned in my last post, my friend Odala and I discovered a common interest the other day.We are both really interested in local Malawian leadership.My last blog post summarizes my thoughts on all that stuff.Anyway I’ve been meeting with him regularly to show him how to use the computer and how to make budgets and proposals.Yesterday I was helping him formulate mission and vision statements for his HIV/AIDS organization. It looks like their funder, World Alive, is going to move away pretty soon because they thing the club should become self-sufficient now.So I am helping Odala formulate some thoughts as to how to run a financially sustainable organization, and part of that is drafting a constitution with a mission statement.It’s coming along.
Here are some random photos that have nothing to do with the rest of this post:
This is me flanked by Tendai (left) and Florence (right). All smiles.
Garrett, Alynne, and Garrett's brother Graham went to Zambia to see the animals. Note the family of giraffes in the background.
A close up view of a praying mantis that was hanging out at the Freshwater Resource Centre. Every time I brought the camera up to him he tried to attach it and almost fell off the slippery metal thing we was clinging to.
"Jambulani! Jambulani!" I've now managed to bring this cry out each time I walk home now after having taken this photo. It means "Take a picture!" The kids seem to understand that I can't take their photo every day. These kids live in my village.
The view during the rainy season on the path from my home to the main road. I want to climb that mountain in the background one of these weekends...
Quite nice, isn't it?
This was from my trip to the Galufu orphanage. Freshwater drilled them a borehole a few years ago and occasionally Freshwater goes there to show "Water First", a film that was made about the organization by a film maker form the University of Albany. They loved it. I had planned to go there with my guitar to play for them, but I never got around to it.
That's me dancing with the kids. I was giving them piggy backs. A funny thing happened with one of the kids. Most of them were boys dancing, but this one girl wanted to dance, too. I tried to lift her on my back but since she was wearing a chitenge (a tradition cloth wrap that sort of looks like a skirt) I couldn't spread her legs properly to get her on my back. She just kept slipping off...
I'm an Canadian working in Malawi with Engineers Without Borders Canada. I work in Water and Sanitation, but my work is mainly geared toward leadership development. My going theory is that the work I do with my colleagues here will somehow be consistent with my sense of what a just world should look like. I'll keep you posted on that!
Don't ask me why I brought my "Save-on-More" card to Malawi, but it came it handy to show the size of this thing.
