Tension

I remember being in Canada a few months ago and watching the news. Watching how a simple protest in Tunisia turned into a huge and unstoppable riot. The same happened in Egypt and other places before: France, Algeria... Then I got here, and there was political unrest and riots in Burkina where I was supposed to be sent initially. I remember all those times, thinking to myself, selfishly, “I’m so happy not to be there right now, so happy to be safe and not afraid of going out or travelling”. All those times that I’ve seen something like this on TV, I’ve never realized how people there can feel, what happens in their mind.

When I was here in Malawi in June, hearing about the stupid riots in Vancouver on the night that the Canucks lost to the Bruins, I remember thinking “what a bunch of idiots, rioting, burning cars and looting shops for absolutely no good reason, just because they are a little upset. That is madness, that is unfortunately humankind”.

Now here I am in Malawi, at a time of protests, frustrations and political unrest. Malawi never had riots or protests before, even if they have been having problems for at least six years now. It started with electricity shortage, then water shortage, then lack of foreign exchange. None of these have been fixed, and on top of that, there has been for the last year, petrol and diesel shortages. All of the shortages are more and more frequent and lasting longer, sometimes they are planned, sometimes they just happen randomly. The President made a new law that people are not allowed to fill up their jerry cans at the gas station. He wants to prevent people from buying fuel and selling it on the black market when there is a shortage, which kind of makes sense at first. But when there is no electricity, people, businesses, groceries, mills, and others need to have backup generators to keep working. Guess what, those generators use petrol or diesel, and the owners need to fill up jerry cans at the gas station to have their generators working when the electricity fails. Right now Malawi is not on the right track due to all these problems. Things need to change for it not to fall apart.  Here is a great article summarizing the events of the last year that led to the protests that are happening now in Malawi (Situation Report Malawi).

There was a scheduled demonstration/protest on July 20th 2011. The President did not agree with it and it led to a lot of frustrations. The protest took place. It started by people walking and chanting. Then the President made a public announcement in Lilongwe (during which the power went out!! haha) that made the crowd really upset and the policemen started using tear gas to disperse the crowd. The people took shelter in shops, breaking into them, then some started to steal, leading to policemen shooting people… There were bad riots and protest in the main cities. from south to north: Blantyre, the business capital;Lilongwe, the Capital; and Mzuzu. Although some other district towns also protested, like Karonga. The riots got out of control, especially in Mzuzu. People were burning buses, government vehicles and buildings and police stations. Young men were going in the streets with machetes and scaring the non rioters. It lasted for at least two days, and at least 18 people died with many more injured. Then things calmed down. There is another protest scheduled for August 17th. Protesters and organizers are hoping for a change in the situation before then and they also request the President to resign his mandate. I doubt that any of this will happen. It makes the situation here pretty unstable and scary. Who knows what is going to happen then and how bad things can get. Hopefully, things will not get worse and they will be well controlled this time. But so far it seems like the tension is rising on both sides of the fight, and no one is moving outside of their initial position. We will see. If the situation gets any worse and is still precarious, EWB and other NGOs will have to evacuate their employees. The protests are not targeting expats, but it is hard to predict the reaction of the road blocks policemen and other people in the cities and towns if the riots keep happening and worsen. We stand out, we appear as has having a lot more money and bribing unfortunately happens too often in this country. Even though we are not a direct target, we can easily become prey. Ah, but don’t worry, these are only my personal thoughts and concern for the future weeks, as there is no real threat for now. The situation is unpredictable and unstable but not unsafe.

On my end, things have been going pretty smoothly. I’ve stayed home in Senga Bay. I’m in a good and safe spot. I cooked, I cleaned, I worked, I slept in, I swam in the lake, had some sachets and coke, drank some wine… waiting for things to calm down and go back to normal. Now they are, so I’m back at work.

That’s it for now I guess. I hope that you are all enjoying your summer as well as the peace and freedom that we all take for granted.

Much much love to you my dear friends and family. I’m glad I have you to support me and send me messages when things get tougher like it was last week.

Ge