Will power

Truth is, outside of the main cities in Malawi, most people don’t have running water in their house and have to walk sometimes long distance to fetch water. The waterpoints that are considered safe and protected are either a borehole, a shallow well, a tap or a protected spring. Most villages have at least a few protected waterpoints, if not many, that have been installed over the last 25 years by NGOs or government or someone else. Some remote and hardly accessible areas are less lucky and don’t have any safe water to drink. But in general, one of the problem that we see, is that waterpoint users (villagers or communities) are not willing to pay for the water (taps) or to repair their boreholes. When NGOs come to install a borehole in a community, they set a waterpoint committee. They train them to fix some of the smaller breakdowns and to do the maintenance, they also tell them that they will need to have the users raise money to cover for the expenses. This fails in most cases. The majority of the committees don’t raise money on a regular basis, but decide to ask contributions only once there is a breakdown. This leads to water shortage, sometimes for a few days, sometimes up to over a year. In some cases, people don’t want to contribute and decide to go use a different functional waterpoint further instead of contributing money to buy spare parts and get their borehole fixed. The committees don’t have enough motivation or authority over the other villagers to enforce payment. They don’t really keep track or record how much money was spent, who contributed and how much they have. They normally don’t have a bank account, so the treasurers need to keep the money at their house. Right now, I’m doing a research to see if the traditional authorities (village’s chiefs) are taking responsibility of the waterpoints to help the committees with raising money. I’m trying to see if bylaws exist and if so if and how they are enforced. In Malawi the waterpoints in villages outside of the BOMA (city), fall under the responsibility of the community, not under the responsibility of the government or traditional authority.  So if the communities are not ready to take care of it, chances are they will run out of safe waterpoints to draw their water from. It is a concern, it is a key and it is an important place to spend energy trying to find solutions to help them.

In Canada, if I didn’t have to pay my bills because no one was enforcing the laws, and if they would let me go and I would still have gaz, electricity and water even if I don’t pay , I would probably not pay. Would you? Even if I consider all these things really important to have and would not want them to break. People in villages have money, not a lot but sufficiently to cover for the amount of money that the waterpoint committees are asking them. The problem is that they prefer to spend this money somewhere else than raising money for the next repair. And when comes the next repair, they might not have the money right away because it’s the dry season and they are broken, or simply because they don’t have the will to pay, knowing that someone else in the village will eventually cover for them. No one really enforces or keep track of the payments. It’s so frustrating. I’m trying to see if bylaws and fines, or punishment exist in some villages to see if these community have a better functioning rate (waterpoint) and less water shortage. So far, I’m disappointed with the way that most villages work. It would be so easy and so much better if someone was putting their foot down and making people pay. In my interviews with chiefs and waterpoint committee’s chairmen, I’m hearing a lot of lies and non sense. It’s hard to get a good and accurate idea of what is really happening and what they trully think of their system. I saw some great chiefs though, with a lot of leadership who care about the well being of their community. These chiefs have, on the side, a development fund to assist the village. They’re either raising money on a regular basis to save in a bank account or they have small communal businesses to raise money. Example I’ve seen are: moulting bricks businesses. Some men are making them and selling them to contractors outside of the village. The money goes to the development funds. I’ve also seen a village where each waterpoint had a communal garden to take care of and the money from the sells were going to the development fund to offer assistance for the eventual repairs. Men and women were taking turns to work on it. Communities with such cooperatives seem to stand out and be a bit more self sufficient. Is this a key on how to help communities raise money? Who knows, they are not frequent enough right now for me to draw conclusions. Although it seems to be working well and it is inspiring. Could we have every chief starting such a thing, would this work in every village? Does it take a certain type of leader to have these businesses or coop running well? I’ll try to push this idea and answer these questions through my research. I still have 25 villages to visit and two or three weeks to go.

To my coworkers, think about a bad day of fieldwork or a badly managed project…this is like my everyday work here! Thinks are very poorly organized and management is definitely lacking. The main problems: Malawians seem to have a vague idea of the concept of being in time. Everyone is consistently late, and I mean up to a few hours late! Malawi has a fuel shortage, so every now and then, there is no fuel available to go in the field with the motorcycle. Other days it’s the rain forcing us to start late. Right now is the wet season, so people are busy in the field harvesting, it makes it hard to meet them. Most of the time it is a combination of all of the above and more. Some odd days are going surprisingly well though. Most days I go back home with maize, a few pumpkins, eggplants, some unknown and delicious fruits or veggies and yesterday I even got a watermelon. The people we meet are super nice and are generous. I think they are glad to be heard, to be considered in my research. Hopefully we can someday find a way to help them help themselves!

Ok, I’m done for now. I’m going to the lake now. Good way to end the day and wash the sweat away!

Ge

To the blind man’s eye

Sunday morning, I’m done with washing my clothes, I went to church at 7am, because that’s what people do here. My mon and dad will be so proud of me. I sat my the choir by mistake so I had to get up and sing. I realized I don’t know any of the prayers in English, but it was still easier to follow than last week as it wasn’t in Tumbuka and it was a catholic church not an African one. Thanks to my parents for sending me to a catholic school went I was a kid, so I at least knew what to do and how to receive the communion without looking too too stupid.

Religion is definitely one of the most important things in Africa. It seems to hold a lot of falling pieces together; it seems to give them hope and light in a really though place on earth. I’m not sure where I stand on this ground, but I know that having faith in whatever is a way to ease the pain and suffering of one’s. When the think they’ve been abandoned and left behind, they still have the faith that God is with them and in them, that he will save them. Part of me thinks that religion can be a really powerful and dangerous way to take control over people, sometimes leading to war and abuse. I’m not sure that each and every preacher who exists is necessary a good voice to lead people who, in most cases, blindly believe. I was in the bus the other day coming from Lilongwe and there was a preacher yelling stuff about how sickness will be cured by God, that God will save us and deliver us. He was in a twisted way taking about HIV and AIDS. He was saying that if you believe in Christ, you will not suffer, that he will protect you from it, that he will save you if you have it. I still believe that protection should come from using condoms, and I think it’s misleading to use religion to such a tangible and huge problem. I believe in spirituality and in karma, but I fear the church and the interpretation it has made to explain things. Anyway, religion can’t be that bad when it brings people together like it does here in Malawi. It gives them a reason to dress up and get together to pray for things to get better. From where I come from, we pray to get a better life as well, but I realized this morning that we have good lives, we have everything we need and so much more, what can we really wish for. What can we dream of, when a big part of this world we all share is praying for health, water and a good harvest so they can have food to survive. I’m questioning how can things be so different. It makes me sad and reflective. I don’t think I can comeback to Canada without considering my life and the way we act in a different light. We hear about people’s misery and reality, but it won’t touch you until you actually live in it and see what it means to be poor, to be sick and to fight for survival. And somehow there is so much to be learn about their internal strength to go through this with a smile, pride and courage.  

I had a long chat yesterday with my friend Abell, the pastor, about beliefs, religion, relationship, culture, differences and life. He is 30 years old, has a beautiful wife and two kids. He was asking me questions about Canada, about snow, washing machine, oven, electricity, comfort. He was also interested to understand our views of parenthood and marriage, my views on relationships as well as religion. In a way I was feeling super connected to him and at the same time, so far. I think he understands and respect my differences, but can’t completely understand what I’m describing. He is well educated and open minded for a Malawien. We are good friends I think; we go running every other morning and go swim in the lake every now and then; he is also helping me learning Tumbuka. Contrary to many people, he sees me as someone just like him, not as a muzungu and he is super kind and fun. It’s good to be able to talk with someone even if there are many things I can’t tell him.

This morning I woke up to my roommate, the hen, chatting with her new born chicks. We are now 12 of us in my room: myself, the hen and the 10 chicks. I’m not counting the unwanted visitors like the scorpions, the spiders, the crickets, the termites, the ants and the frog (I kind of like the frog though as it eats the others!). Then I got dress and on my way to the latrine realized that the rain over the night destroyed it. It makes me doubt the stability of my own room as it’s made in the same way! I also learnt that my “Mama” was badly sick. Then I went to fetch water for my bucket shower.

In my next post, I’ll tell you about the findings of my research project so far. I’ll describe my work in the field with Malawians, its complexity and challenges.

Have a great Sunday

Ge 

45 km from Tanzania

I’ve now been leaving in a small village a few meters from the lake and a couple kilometers from de town of Karonga. When I say town, it really means the size and convenience of a village in North America. The village does not have electricity, but it is connected to the water system, which means that they have a tap available, with water running only in the morning, to get their water from. At 5:30 am every morning, the women gather and chat around the tap while waiting in line to fill their buckets. They bring the buckets on their head, back to their yard. Then they wash the dishes left from the evening before as it was too dark. They start boiling hot water to make some tea. Breakfast is normally a few slices of white bread (with nothing on it), tea and sugar. On the weekends, they have maize porridge with salt and sugar around 9am. After breakfast, they clean up the house, swipe the sandy backyard and porch, wash the clothes by hand and themselves using a bucket or directly in the lake (awesome option, but you need to keep a shirt and a skirt on to bathe!). The rest of the day is relax, they work at drying osipa  (small local fish, not so good and cooked with the head, too small to take the bones out, so you have to eat the whole thing. It tastes really salty, just like everything else, and it is bitter, but it is the main source of proteins for most family. People here love osipa). They also farm maize, cassava and other stuff. Lunch and dinner are the same thing: nsima (a super super thich porridge made of water and maize flour), white boiled greens (leafs from anything, taste a bit like spinach, I love it) and a some kind of relish made out of beans, boiled eggs, boiled meat or boiled fish with some tomato and something that seems like onions (normally not bad). Basically, there is almost no diversity in the food, everyday is pretty much the same thing here, but it’s cheap and filling, so why bother, they love it this way. I came to understand that people in Malawi are extremely simple, they don’t have much, they do with it and they don’t seem to need more. In a way, having no options and not much makes them more satisfied with what they have than we are and probably will ever be. At night, the kids play while the men and women hang out, generally in separate spaces, but not necessary. They listen to the radio (working with batteries) and tell stories until someone yawns and decides to go to bed, normally around 9-10pm. The men’s job here is mainly fishing during the night or farming and some of them work in the town. I haven’t seen many of them in the village as they normally hang out on the beach or in town during the day. Most of them are more educated and speak English, so they come and talk to me.

Most houses don’t have any furniture. The house is made out of mud bricks and weak cement. The roof is made out of a plastic sheets and branches, unless you have a bit more money and can afford a metal roof (way noisier when it’s raining, but at least it’s not leaking and it’s not eaten by termites). People sleep on a hay mat, directly on the ground, surrounded by a mosquito net. I can’t say that it is confortable, but people are use to it and prefer this to stinky (rain, humidity, pi) mattresses which attract bugs (like bed bugs an other). Most people don’t have tables, couches, chairs or dressers. The house is a few rooms made for sleep. There is one storage area to put the dishes at night. There is only a few open windows, so it’s cold and dark. The yard is playing many roles: kitchen, living room, dinning room, laundry room, playground. It’s a cool place to hang out.
Once in a while people gather in a communal open space and the women dance and sing while the men drink, watch, chat or play drums. I had the chance to see that on Saturday. It was awesome, man can these women dance.

On Sunday morning, they go to church. African church. Not sure what religion it is part of, but I went to see and make them happy. It’s definitely more fun than ours, as they dance and sing a lot. The women are seating on the ground on one side with the kids while the boys and men are sitting on benches the other side. The part where they talk is normally done by men, and they are yelling, like a preacher would do. I’m not going to lie to you, it’s still church, it’s two hours and it’s not that fun. But people are really religious and they feel like it’s required, so I might make an effort to go, even if it’s painful and in Tumbuka, so I don’t understand much of what is being said.
That’s about it for the life in a village. Hope you enjoyed the story. So far I'm feeling lost a bit, tired from all the learning and the heat. Life here is definitely different than my normal life use to be. Everything is more complicated for me even though they live a really simple life. I wake up with a smile every morning so it's not that bad.
Friends please email me stories of your life or ask questions. I miss you guys, tons.
Ge

Les 12 travaux d’Asterix

Change of plans, instead of Rumphi, I ended up in Karonga, in the north of the country, by Lake Malawi, 45 km from the border of Tanzania. We decided to change the research project to investigate on the existing bylaws in villages regarding the waterpoints and their effect on the money raised for the repairs.

Karonga is the district where Duncan use to live for the last year before he moved to Mzuzu. I’m staying with his “family” in a village by the lake, just a few kilometers from the town of Karonga (that’s where I am right now to use internet). I’ll be going all over the district on a dirt bike with Patrick, my translater, friend and also, on the side a prince of a tribe here! haha, how cool is that. He is a carpenter and past rastaman, he must be about my age.

I’ll tell you all about my life in a village as there is a myriad of things to say (sleeping on the ground, leaking roof, bucket shower, learning to speak chetumbuka and cooking nsima, church on Sunday…), but I’ll do that on my next post. For now, I really want to share something else: my trip from Mzuzu to here and also, how to get a learner’s motorcycle licence.

Keep in mind that all this happened in one day…

On Thursday morning, I woke up in Zolazola, a slum of Mzuzu, at Duncan’s. We left from there to go get my learner’s motorcycle licence. It felt like being part of my favorite cartoon Asterix et les 12 travaux. For those of you who might know what I’m talking about, think about “la maison qui rend fou” challenge. Something that would normally be taking 15 mins, took over three hours, the priviledge of being white and Duncan’s collar shirt to get through. Here are the multiple steps to go through:

1. Fill out the form in room 1 (8:45am)
2. Bring the form to room 3 to pass the test with the senior examinator. But this includes 1.5 hours of waiting in a not so clear line up…apparently, the principle of the line up is inexistant here. So everyone just goes in when they fell like it, but it took me a while to understand how it works and who to go see. Anyway, I finally made my way to the examinator, but he didn’t want me to pass the test as I don’t have my working visa yet, nor a letter from my organization to explain why I need a licence now. So Duncan stepped in and pretended to be my supervisor (thank you collar shirt). We had to meet the big boss and explain the situation in order for me to pass the 5mins test and get a form saying that I passed.
3. Bring the form to room 2 to get another form to bring tp the teller to pay the application fees.
4. The tellers gives you a receipt that needs to be brought back to the lady in room 2 for her to print you a form.
5. Then you have to go to room for to get your picture taken. It was 12:15 at this pint and it’s unbreakable lunch time until 1 or 2pm. We needed to go to a meeting and then be at the minibus station for 2pm.so we had to force the process using the white priviledge and once again, the collar shirt. We convinced a guy to take my picture, my finger prints and then print my licence. Apparently I have bad quality pinkies and they had to adjust the scanner to my pale skin tone! haha.
6. You need to bring the licence to room 2 fro them to put it in the computer, go figure, they just printed it! But anyway, they give you another form.
7. Then you need  to bring this new form to the woman in room 3, who will give you a form to bring to the teller to ge pay your licence fees.
8. Guess what now? the teller gave me a form for the lady in room 3 and there it is, a print of my official learner’s licence…
9. Now that I have the licence, I need to learn how to drive the motorcycle (dirt bike)though, and that on the opposite side of the road.

Mission accomplised, I got my licence. Now we have to rush to a meeting and up on (or squeeze in) the minibus for a four hour ride on windy roads to Karonga with chickens, fishng gears, luggages and a ton of people. About 30mins from Karonga, we ran out of fuel. There is a fuel shortage in Malawi due to their fixed money in the floating market. Plus most people don’t have a ton of money to get fuel even when there is no shortage in the city! Anyway, the closest place to grt fuel is far and the driver ups on a bike to get there. At least an hour after, it’s dark and we decide to hitchhike instead of waiting. Another minibus stopped and picked us up. As soon as we arrived in Karonga at the bus depot, an unstoppable thunderstorm started. Since the village is not reachable by taxi and the bike taxi don’t want to ride the muddy path in the storm, we decided to stay at a cheap and dodgy guest house for the night.

That was day one…it’s now way more peaceful, but not easier. I’ll tell you in my post next weekend. My access to internet is really restrein and I need to be in a cafe for to get it, that is, when they don’t have an electricity outage.

Bye for now my dear readers, thanks for following me

Ge

The things we take for granted

Everyday, I realize at least one new thing we take for granted in the western world. All those things make our lives so much cozier, easier and certainly more efficient...but do they make us happier at the end of the day?

I’ve been warned before coming here about all that, but it really means nothing until you experience the absence of these convinient things. I’m talking about simple stuff: toilet paper; toilets, either attached to a building or at all; electricity; running water; fuel and transportation; internet connection, especially for work; access to education; access to a repair shop; non-corrupted government and authorities; opportunities and choice; diversity; health system; entertainment; money; credit and debit cards; real juice; cheese; pets without rabies; silence and time to reflect alone;  schedules; and so many other things.

I’ve been here for two weeks now and I can’t tell you how many times the power went out and that, even in Lilongwe (the capital). This means that the ATM machine won’t work, that you can recharge your electronic devices, you have no light, the restaurants can’t cook most of the stuff on the menu. I’ve heard that it often extends for a few days, so the food that needs to be refrigerated go bad, etc. I’m only talking about the power outage in the cities or town, but remember that most villages in periphery of the towns don’t have electricity at all.

Same for the water, the other day, I was in a small hostel in Lilongwe and all of a sudden, none of the taps were functionning. I realized soon enough that the entire neibourhood did not have any running water. It took a few days to fix the problem. Breakdowns like this happen all the time in Malawi, for different reasons. Once again, it is to be noted that there is no running water system, nor sewer system outside the cities and towns. Villages’ water is coming from a protected drilled borehole or a shallow well when they are lucky, otherwise, they get their water from an unprotected waterpoint such as a creek, a river or a puddle.

…

On the other hand, here are the things that makes Malawi so special and that our western culture does not prioritize:

One thing I love and respect about the Malawian culture is how they make the best of the situation. Since they can’t be efficient because of logistic problems, they take the time and actually make a point of socializing and helping each other.

At the end of the day, there is one thing we rarely take for granted although this thing is what really matters here: the people around you, your community, your familly and friends. Even though they have close to nothing, they will go out of their way to help each other. They are caring, welcoming, genuienely friendly, smiling and I want to say happy. Think about it next time you pass a coworker or neighbour and you look down instead of smiling and greeting them.  I honestly think this strength is one of the most amazing force of Malawians. Even though they don’t have much and can’t dream big, they are more happy and way less depressed than the average north americain. There is a lot to learn from being more community oriented than individually oriented.

I can’t say if one world is better than the other as we all have our flaws, and the main difference are huge, but I know that a combination of both would be fantastic.

When the curtain falls

This is probably going to be the only descriptive post of an entire week, but I thought you’d be interested to know what life is here behind the curtains and what I got to do on week one. The first week is always an in country training and followed by a shadowing experience of someone else for a few days, it felt a bit more like a trip than work, but my work starts next week. I’ll write another post soon with a little more reflection. But here you go for now. Enjoy! Ah, I also added some more pictures on my Flicker account (go see under the photo tab for the link) 

I left Lilongwe on the 6th to go observe Devon’s work for a few days at the district in Nkhata Bay. Let’s just put it this way: there is no such way as easy and fast way to travel in Malawi if you don’t have a car. I travelled with Anna who was going to Mzuzu to meet Duncan. We actually had no problems, it was “sort of a perfect trip”, I think it can only go worst from here. It took forever though. In Malawi, the buses won’t leave before they are FULL, completely full. So even though we got on the fullest bus, we had to wait for two hours. It is hot, humid and the bus is packed with people, bags and chickens…haha, imagine the odour! Lovely. Anyway, we finally left and the trip was fine but slow, oh yeah and they are praying and singing on the bus which makes it really interesting. I got to Mzuzu around 8:30pm; it was pitch dark, so Duncan put me on a cab to Nkhata Bay as it was safer than the bus. On the way, we stopped a few times for various reasons: buy cigarettes, gaz, check the price of tires and the best of all, to pick up one of the driver’s friend…a fisherman friend, with all is smelly gear. He was going fishing at night on Lake Malawi in Nkhata Bay, something really common apparently. Devon as a great place by the lake, I had my own room and got to sleep with his kitty! Yay.

We had a meeting at 7:30 with the district water officer (DWO) who is also the district environment officer. It was a good meeting, partly in Tumbuka (which I’ll also have to learn since I’ll work in the North of the country for a month), partly in English. After the first meeting, we went with DWO to his other meeting. It got really…humm, how to decribe it… interesting: First, he didn’t have a projector, then a power bar, so he went looking for it, in the meantime, people were leaving the room. After two hours, the meeting finally started. It turns out it was a meeting about editing a report on sustainable environmental and health practices. Since we were in the room they ran the meeting in English. I realized how easy internet and/or printers made editing our reports. Instead of sending a copy of the report through internet to our coworkers, like we do to get feedback on, they were having a meeting. I’ll let you imagine how chaotic and long editing a report the way can be. They were arguing a bit, but seemed to be having fun. For snacks we had a woman bringing Fanta and chips; I note this because the refreshments and allowance are the most important incentives to have a meeting happening! Since it was a meeting organized by the district and not an NGO, they had to discuss who was paying for the lunch and finally agreed that everyone would pay their own meal. NGOs, over the years and by giving allowance for people to meet, distorted the system, so now, it is really complicated for district (with not a lot of money) to have meetings happening as everyone expects money.   After lunch with them, we decided not to go back as we didn’t have anything to bring to the conversation. So we went in a cafe to get access to internet and send some emails for work. That night, we got a ride back to Devon’s place on a small boat, so we paddled on lake Malawi, it was fabulous.

I stayed one night in a village near Nkhata Bay with an amazing family. They did not speak English but were super welcoming and they treated me like a princess, I had my first butterfish and nsima meal, hummm!

The next day, I was on my way to Mzuzu, were we meet with Jim and Andrew from Water for People for a talk about the projects they are working on. In the afternoon I went in the field with a local entrepreneur who runs a sanitation business. He is a visionary and he is certainly not afraid to take risk in order to make things happen. It was really inspiring. Me, Devon, Anna and Duncan took a bus back to Lilongwe that night as we have a team meeting this weekend, so I’ll finanlly get to meet everyone on the team.

Duncan brought me, Cath and Anna to the village of Chikandwe where he used to live. We took a few mini-buses and then rented bikes from a bike taxi stand to get all the way down the 2km muddy path in the maize crops that would lead us to the village. Thanks Duncan for doubling me on the bike! Good times. We met his family, spent the day there and had lunch with them. We walked in the field to see the crops they are growing and the new borehole they installed 8 months ago, big improvement as they use to only have a few non protected shallow wells; we also met a lot of people and had to greet all of them along the way, as this is what people do here. My greeting in Chichewa is getting way better. Ten minutes after we left the village, the chain of our bike broke. Then, out of nowhere, two guys offered their help. They took an axe and within a few minutes, the chain was fixed and we were on the go. Thank you kind strangers! We ended our day by going dancing at a bar, called Zanzi Bar.

For those of you who are interested to know, I’m heading to Rumphi on Tuesday for a month. Before I get sent on my official placement, I’ll be doing a researsh project on the communities willingness to pay for their waterpoints repairs. I’ll be going to about 60 villages to run interviews and see how things work to get a better understanding on the amount of money that the communities should be able to raise and have for repairs. There seems to be a treshold amount over which they can’t get to fix the major issues, like a broken pump or corroded rods. Right now, most communities, don’t do the regular maintenance of their boreholes or wells properly, so the approximated time between failures is around 8 months. Most of the time, they won’t get together to raise the money to get an area mecanic and the spare parts to fix it, they’ll wait until an NGO comes and does the work for them. In the meantime, they’ll use an alternative source of water, which is most of the time unprotected. Clean water, even though values, does not seem to be something the communities are ready to spend money on as it is where most NGOs are investing money, so they often prefer to wait. We are trying to see if there is a way to break that circle by having the NGOs help after the community has raise the trehold amount of money. Therefore, the NGOs would save some money that could be invested in other communities to fix more waterpoints. This research project will be done with the partnership of Water for People. The willingness to pay and ownership of the communities seem to be an important key to more sustainable habits. I’ll keep you updated on my findings.

Ok, I guess that’s it for now. Hope you are enjoying your day, wherever you are.

Ge

And up we go!

Morning number three, beatiful sunny day. So far, I got to the hospital for minor problems, got biten by bed begs, got a sun burn, got a hot shower and had a lot of fun during my in country training. I even had  few lessons of Chichewa, I’ll have to learn and most importantly remember what I’m learning. It is not an easy language, or I should say that the structure of the language is completely, completely different than any language I know.

Anyway, I don’t have a ot of time to chat with you guys this morning, but I just wanted to give a quick update so thay you know what’s happening.

The flights and lay over were long but good and nothing happened. We’ve been in Lilongwe since Thursday. We had training and dinner with our team members. Today, I’m leaving for Nkata Bay by bus (or mini-vus, not sure!) until Wednesday. I’ll be shadowing Devon (another EWB staff) in is day to day work and life. I’ll also stay in a village for a night or two! Yay. Oh, yeah, and just so you know, Nkata Bay is by Malawi Lake and it is suppose to be warm and gorgeous, I might have my first swim. On Wednesday night there is a meeting in Mzuzu with Duncan (EWB) and Jim from Water For People, shall be interesting. We’ll be back for a team meeting in Lilongwe on Friday. Then sometimes next week, I’ll be heading north for a month to do a research project. I’ll have to learn Tumbuka (language spoken in the north). The project is about the willingness of the communities to pay for their water and waterpoint repairs as they are suppose to, but it is so far not working well and not everywhere. I’ll update you on that later. I’ll have to go on the field with a motorcycle (and my helmet!), talk to people and everything. I can’t wait. After that month, I’ll be placed somewhere else for three months at least starting to work in my placement. And, sorry folks, I still don’t know where this will be as there are many possibilities, I’ll know next weekend I think.

Ok, so I have to go, I have a morning meeting with Owen.

Talk to you soon

Ge

“Waste Land”

Here I am, in the air somewhere between Toronto and London, somewhere between my past and my future… I’m still not sure if I’m terrified or excited about my adventure in Malawi, but I’m ok with both feelings.

My month of training gave me the oportunity to open my mind on the complexity of the development system. I realized that every step forward to change things required many failure and step back. I know I’ll be facing a significant amount of challenges and frustrations over the year, but hopefully, I’ll be able to do some good moves leading to success…not sure how I’d define success, but in one sentence, I hope to make things better, not worst.

It’s now 2am on March 2, I’m exhausted, but can’t sleep. I just watched a really interesting documentary called “Waste Land”. It was done in the biggest landfill of Rio de Janeiro. It’s about the poor people living and working there, called the “pickers”. To make some money, they started a picking recycling buisness. Basically, they are in the landfill, collecting whatever is worth selling to recycling compagnies. An artist, born and raised in a poor neighborhood of Sao Paolo, decided to to hear their stories, photograph and document their activities. He gets attatch to the pickers and decides to make them help him create the artwork he’s trying to make. It’s super interesting to see how people can find ways to organize chaotic and dramatic situations. These pickers found a way to make a living out of something that most people prefer to have out of sight. It was extremely inspiring to see some of the great leaders that started the idea and developed it, even without money, without support, they saw it was one way out of poverty and/or drug dealing and/or prostitution. I can’t wait to meet people like those in Malawi and work with them, learn from them.

Hense, I know that the system will be complicated to improve to its sustainable state, but I know that I’ll be surrounded by good people, maybe some leaders that only need a little bit of training and support to achieve great things.

That’s it for now. Next time you hear from me, I’ll be in Malawi. Yay!
Have a good one, wherever you are
Ge