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Karonga

What are we ready to cope with?

I’m sending this post from Mzuzu, where I’m back for a few days until I head down south on Wednesday for a team meeting and eventually to my new placement in Salima. I left Karonga on Friday morning. I was suppose to go camping over the weekend with a friend and head back to Karonga on Monday but the whole town of Karonga, including my village, was under water on Friday morning. The market, the bus depot, the streets, the guesthouses, the houses, the gas stations, the banks, everything was flooded. Plus it was raining in my room the night before so I had to leave and find a new place to stay. The hut I was living in collapsed on Saturday and my family had to move to another place. Most houses and huts are made out of mud cement or bricks and weak mud cement, so when it rains for an extended period of time, they eventually collapse. I think the main problems with the construction of these houses, is in most case not the leaking roofs made out of plastic and branches (compare to metal sheets roofs), but the weak cement holding the walls together, the weak fondation also made out of weak mud cement and the lack of drainage around the house and villages. Deforestation of the land is certainly not helping the floods, as there is nothing to keep the soil to be washed away, but this is another issue.

Since my field research was done, it made more sense for me to stay in Mzuzu to write the report as power outage happens less often here than in Karonga. Although there was a water shortage all Saturday and there is no fuel in the city for the last week. Anyway, I’m crashing a friend’s house with a real shower and a kitchen, I can sleep in a bed and I even had crepes with maple syrup and an espresso on Sunday morning! I’m not going to lie, it’s good to have all that for a few days before I go and live in a village again.

Although as I was leaving my village Friday morning, I was feeling sad and upset that I had an easy escape when they don’t have this chance. I had a place to go to and I felt like I was running away when things were getting messy. I felt so much like an outsider. It’s crazy all the things these people have to cope with in life. And yes, they were still smiling throughout this shit… How can they do this?

Here is a link to a great article talking about Karonga floods and showing some pictures. I felt like it was my time and place to take picture of the disaster, so out of respect, I didn't.
I got on an over crowded minibus to Mzuzu, one of the few that was going to leave Karonga that weekend because of the lack of access to fuel (constant problem in Malawi). They over charged us because they knew they could, and over packed it, because they always do. Anyway, it was really hot and uncomfortable, as usual, and there was a little girl in front of me, sitting partly on her sister’s lap, partly on mine. At some point, she started throwing up on me and the two guys next to me. There was no way I could move out of there, as we are over packed. I was so upset at the driver for letting this situation happen, for over charging and over packing the damn minibus. He eventually pulled out and stopped so we could go clean up our clothes. There was obviously no running water, so we all went in the ditch to get some muddy water to wash our clothes. It worked out fine, we were not too smelly. I realized that the other guys were ok and not upset at the situation. They were just washing their things. Why was I finding this situation crazy and they were not? Why was I upset? So I asked one of them who was super nice and he looked at me and said: “it’s Malawi, that’s how things are, always a mess and people cope with it, without saying anything. You know better, most people here don’t, that’s why you see craziness when we just accept to live in shitty conditions”. We both started laughing at this nonsense, high fived and got back on the bus as if nothing happened. It’s my life now. That’s how things are.

My reflection: Are we complaining too much or are they accepting too many things? Am I trying to fight a system that is not willing to see problems or am I starting to accept things as they are? Are they smiling through adversity because they have no choice or because they simply don’t know better? If only I could answer these questions, if only I could understand… haha…I’ll get there eventually!

Also, on a different note, April 6th was " A day without Dignity". Here is a link to a video about wrong perspectives on what is really needed (A Day Without Poverty Video). Three of the pictures with proud business owners and their stand of shoes toward the end of the video are mine. Thanks for taking a second to look at it and share. Thanks for helping us make a difference.

How does it work?

As far as I can remember, I’ve always wanted to discover the world. When I was a kid, there was a TV show I loved and would religiously watched every week, called: “La Course Destination Monde” (“The Race Around the World”). It was a few young journalists who where sent in the world to get stories of whatever they wanted, to interview people, film them and broadcast the news in 20 minutes or so. They had to have a different story every week and they needed to be in a different part of the world every other week. Each journalist had the choice of where to go and what to report on; they had only a small budget to make it happen. They were competing against each other, so they had to be awesome, and most of the time, they were, at least to the eyes of a 7 year old like me. I was inspired and I remember I wanted to be part of it when I’d grow up. Unfortunately, after a few years, the show stopped for a lack of funds, and I was never part of it. So I guess my being here, my writing this blog is my own way of reporting about what I see and sense in a world far, in so many ways, from the one I left behind.

I’m excited to be here, to live in a challenging and different scene, to be part of the change that is slowly occurring.  I humbly recognize that I’m not going to be the main reason why things change, but I will always be proud of myself for working hard at trying to make a difference, for being here on the front line and if anything else, for bringing more awareness to the Western world and hopefully changing your views and perspectives on what needs to happen, my dear readers.

I’ve been in Malawi for just over a month now, and I’ve already realized a bunch of things. I’ve had great discussions with people open to change and some frustrating ones with people who don’t want to be part of it. Change is at the door step of conventionalism, it’s waiting for people to let it in. A great example of this is what is happening right now in some universities in Malawi. The president had three excellent teachers fired a few weeks ago because they talked about the government in a negative way. I’m not quite sure what they said to their class (if anyone knows, please comment on this blog, I’d love to learn more), but the President of Malawi got upset and scared of the effect of such discussions about them on the students who are the next generation of decision makers. This is a clear evidence that freedom of speech is not yet part of Malawi. But what is surprising and different than before, and what shows a hint of willingness of student for change is that, by firing these teachers, the government created a lot of frustration at the university level; the students and some other teachers are now on strike, in the street, showing their desire for a different type of leadership. For the time being, such a behaviour will certainly be accused and reprimanded by the government, but the fact they are they are ready to cope with that to push boundaries is fantastic. I’m curious to see what is going to happen next.

I often wonder what made our society change. Not so long ago, I’m thinking about my grandparents’ generation, people in Canada use to be poor and underdeveloped. Schools and governments were under the influence or power of the Church. People were being told by the Church that they needed to procreate otherwise they were going to hell, so families would keep expending. Parents were poor, farming in some cases or working in some dodgy industry with no regulations for a small pay check. A lot of kids were not sent to school because they were too far and the families did not have the money to afford sending their kids to secondary schools, especially the girls. They would eventually get married and stay at home to raise their kids and do cores, so why bother? The road system between villages and towns was terrible. Electricity was not affordable or not provided at all, so people were using candles and fire oven. Women were washing clothes and dishes by hands. Computers were not being used and internet did not exist. And community sense was way more developed, people less selfish and individualistic. Not so long ago in Canada, things were not that different than they are here in Malawi. Even my mom grew up in such a reality and she’s only 60 year old.

I can’t help but wonder what happened, what are the steps we took to change the behaviours of an entire society. I’m not saying that all the changes we made in Canada are for the best and should be applied here, not at all, but I’m curious to see what triggers change in mind sets. The reality and culture in Canada over the last 40 years have dramatically being modified, in so many ways. What was the catalysis to all this or what were the walls that needed to fall for the rest to follow: what it religion?; what is education?; was it desire for equality and equity? was it getting better system, regulations and laws to help people?; or, was it the use of computers and eventually internet? What happened exactly, who made it happened? Can we learn from these things to help changing ways, mind sets and behaviours here in Africa. And don’t get me wrong, I don’t think the same exact things should occur here, I believe some of the habits and values that followed the changes we had in Canada are bad and are restraining us to evolve towards a right and sustainable direction.  All I want is to be able to see if we can learn from the mechanisms, from our experience to help drive changes here. So if anyone has good thoughts on this subject, feel free to let me know.

I’ll leave you to your reflection on this, but I’m asking your feed back on these questions. What do you think was good and bad in the changes we made? What do you think was the catalyst reaction to change and/or what walls had to fell for the rest to follow?

Thanks and have a great day

Hope this can lead to some fantastic reflections and discussions with you guys.

Ge

Perspectives

I woke up Friday morning around 6am sick with a cold. I had slept horribly. I didn’t feel like going to work at all, but I got up and went at 7:30. My Malawian coworker (translator) was once again late! He showed up around 9am and said “sorry Gen, my house got flooded last night, so I had to move my stuff to a different place over night and this morning”. I felt so bad for him, if my place in Canada would have been flooded, I would not have gone to work the next morning. But he did, because he knew this was important for me. I was glad to see him and know that he was ok. Even if he was tired, he was still enthusiastic and positive so he said: “Let us move now”.

Then we left to go in the field. As we were riding, I realised that most of the villages we were passing by, got flooded the night before. The water was up to half the height of most houses. The crops of maize, rice, cassava and all their gardens were submersed by muddy water. All of a sudden, by cold, by bad night of sleep and my complaining about it, made me feel selfish. Seen in a different perspective, with another lens, my problem was not really a significant one. These people whose houses were mostly ruined by the water, had lost all of their flour, grains and seeds. They were washing their clothes by the side of the road and drying them on the ground. They were sitting on the street, meters from their houses hoping the water would dry so that they can go back. In some cases, their house are ruined. The houses in these villages are built out of weak mud bricks and even weaker mud cement. That’s it. So I’ll let you imagine what happens when the rain comes and washes away the mud cement holding the house together… It was a very sad morning and I was somehow troubled and I spend the entire day reflecting about the challenges of the villagers, their poverty and willingness to pay for things (like waterpoint repairs!). I once again was facing the difference in the challenges to overcome here in Malawi.

The soil gets really dry during the day as it is hot, so when it starts pouring rain at night, the top part of the soil gets saturated really fast and no water can get in. It creates a flash-flood and water eventually either infiltrates slowly or runoffs to the flood plain. The soil found in Karonga is a fine sand to sandy silt, so the drainage is poor. Some people decide to build their houses and plant their crops on the flood plain as it as it is richer in nutrients and better for farming. Plus people need to live somewhere so they often settle where ever there is land available. Most of them are not well educated and don’t understand the impact of living on a flood plain and there is no one to tell them the risk of doing so. It rains a lot here during the rainy season (hence the name!), sometimes for many hours, sometimes with violent intensity. They don’t get flooding like this one every time or every year, so people forget about the risks. This is a well know fact, it does not only happens in Malawi. People forget the risk of their surroundings: they build houses on the beach, at the top of a cliff, on or near a volcano, too close from a river with digs or too close from a nuclear power plant! Studies are done by statisticians about security perimeter that should be established in risky places to keep people safe and out of trouble, and also to keep insurance companies from paying if something happen within the set perimeter. Perimeter inside of which, people should not build houses or buildings. In most cases I’ve seen, the perimeter is established by the 100 (or 10 depending on the risk and situation) year cycle recurrence event that will lead to a catastrophe. By the way I’m far from being a statistician, so don’t quote me on this, as I’m not sure how these studies are made. In the case of a flood plain in Malawi, there is no need for a statistical analysis to know that this will happen again in a few years from now. People are people, they tend to forget the risks or are willing to live with them, it’s a gamble game.

Most people don’t have insurances here to cover their things, so when something happens, like a flood, an earthquake, etc., they lose everything. They rely on their community to work together, roll their sleeves and start all over again. Anyway, some villages had to be abandoned that day, most were ok at the end of the day, but hundreds of families lost their food reserve for the year to come. This will be hard on them. They can rebuild their houses, but not replace the flour and crops they lost. This is reality, this is how things work here, this is Africa!