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.