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

Rice and ocra or plain rice, that is the question?

Or the beauty of misunderstanding …

It was Lisa’s birthday on Tuesday and I wanted to do something fun in the village for her. As I told you before, Lisa has been living with me in the village for the last month. She was doing her field research in Salima District. Celebrating a birthday is not a Malawian tradition…at all. In fact, most people here don’t even know when their birthday is. Anyways, I was trying to plan a big dinner with duck and african cake (banana bread!), me and some neighbours were rehearsing a birthday song and were talking about making something fun for Lisa. So I thought everyone was clear and that things would work well. I got Lisa (and myself) super excited about that duck feast! We went back home earlier that day to be able to help with running errands at the market, killing the duck and cooking. We got home, Maggie was apparently gone to the market (said the neighbour), so we decided to go meet her. We couldn’t find her as the market is a labyrinth. Since we didn’t know what she bought and what was needed, we walked back home without buying anything. It was now almost dark. I couldn’t see a duck anywhere, or any sign of delicious meal anywhere, but Maggie always hides things really well. Eventually, she started cooking rice…which we never have as it is more expensive than nsima, so I was getting exited. An hour later, the rice was ready, but we didn’t prepare anything else yet. Lisa asked Dew and Maggie if she can prepare the relish and they said that there is nothing to prepare. So she left and got the pot of relish that was already prepare in the storage room (Dew’s room!!), but Dew said no, we don’t eat this with rice. She asked what was in the dish, he answered “ocra”. Now both me and Lisa are a bit confused. A few minutes later, came our plate… plain white rice…and a huge portion of it. No duck, no relish, nothing else…ah, and water to drink. Where was the fanta, the feast that we talked about?? Most boring meal I’ve ever had so far in the village. So Lisa asked to see the ocra relish wondering why this couldn’t be served with the rice. He said it is because they cooked it a different way with soda…baking soda??…yes. We tasted, it was ok, but cold. Verdict, both me and Lisa would have totally eaten this relish with rice. But why not them?? After a long discussion and laughter, we realized there was no clear reason except that they don’t eat this type of ocra with rice and we would. This was a nice proof of cultural difference and a big misunderstanding!

I invited Lisa for a big meal at my house in Senga Bay to make up for the failed birthday dinner. We went to the market and got a bunch of food. We prepared burritos and carrot cake! And got some cheap wine. Good times. It was awesome to have Lisa around in the house.

So I moved to Senga Bay, in a rustic cabin that I rent from a couple living in Lilongwe. They rent it from a Malawian but with the fuel crisis, they never go, plus it is cold right now, so I use it in their absence. It has a gas stove and a fridge, a hot shower and a flush toilet. It is on the beach. There are many cracks in the floor, walls and ceiling, so a bunch of bugs. So far I saw spiders, ants (big and small), a few giant whip scorpions, a bunch of geckos, a black snake, and a big monitoring lizard (probably a few meters long. I thought it was a big snake on the beams of my ceiling (inside the house), but then we saw a leg…ouff! I can live with a giant lizard, but not with a snake. Andrew has been in Senga Bay for the last few days trying to help me settle in and try to make the house a bit less bug friendly!! haha. We went hiking over the weekend and had some fun adventure discovering my new neighbourhood. Apparently there are hippos around, but I didn’t see any yet and we didn’t feel like walking to the hippo pool an hour walk through the wood, villages and beaches. Next time maybe! I found a bike that I can borrow from one of the gardeners/staff where I live. So I might take it sometimes to go explore. It is exiting! I’m a bit worried to live in such a remote place, but I’ll get use to my new environment and will be less and less scared of it. I quite like it. I can cook whatever I feel like, I can watch movies, read, do my own things whenever I feel like it. It’s great to have some space and time for myself as the last many many months of my life had been quite busy and I’ve definitely lack some alone time.

I’ll see how it goes, but I have decided to stay part time in the village (Salima) and part time in Senga Bay. I really appreciate my host family and I don’t want to make them sad. The village is 3km from the office where I work. Plus I want to be there with them once in a while. Life in the village is interesting and fun, I feel at home and I don’t want to lose this. My house in Senga Bay is 20km from my work and getting there is a bit of an adventure. I either hitchhike or take a matola (back of a pick up). Then I have to walk 1.5 km or take a bike taxi to get home.

 

Bye for now, I have to go back to work

I’ve added some pictures on my flicker page, have a look!

Ge

 

Note: I got all my gifts from Canada, the same day…haha, it felt like a real birthday (2 months later! yay). Thanks you so so much you guys, this is priceless. I had a delicious coffee on the beach on Sunday and I thought about how amazing my friends and family are. Big big hug to all of you. Everything will be much appreciated. The book was also a great idea, especially now that I’ll have more time to read. And my favorite…the small bottle of Espresso Vodka…haha, you are awesome. I’ll keep it for a though day. Fred, the DVD of our family videos from the 90’s was also ridiculously funny, what a great idea to make me laugh. We have a fantastic family dude. I love you guys and thanks for supporting me out here in my crazy adventure on the other side of the world. I feel loved and it is an incredible feeling. xx

Honk once to let me know you’re around!

To follow up on my last post about cars, buses and roads in Malawi, here is something ridiculous that happened to my friend Lisa. She is using a motorbike to go to the field but the horn is broken. The horn for a vehicle on the roads of Malawi is like the mirrors on a car back home, really important! People use it when they go too fast and don’t want to brake but let you know they are coming, or simply to advise or even better, to say hi to someone on the street. If you don’t honk, goats, chickens, cows, pedestrians and bikes will stay on the roads, so not having a functional horn is a safety issue here. Lisa, decided for safety reasons to go to the mechanic shop to get it fixed. She was in Salima, and there are no real big mechanic shops. She went to one of the small shops, explained the small problem, took an appointment for the afternoon and gave the dude K500 so he could buy the stuff needed to fix the bike. When she got back from the field around 2pm, she left her translator/driver at the shop to check things out and call her when it was ready as she had work to do. Around 4:30, she called him and asked if the bike was fixed, the translator said no, and that she should come. When she arrived at the shop, the bike was in pieces on the ground and the mechanic was drunk trying to fix other stuff. He took the money she left for parts and went and got drunk!! The translator never thought of calling Lisa because he knew she was working and didn’t want to disturbed her. This is a typical Malawian problem…so frustrating! Anyway, she was out of her mind and asked the mechanic to put the bike back together because she needed it. After arguing a bit, the dude did what she asked him. But even after all this, the horn was still not working. She took off without paying him. The next morning, the motorcycle wouldn’t start. She had to push it to another mechanic shop. This mechanic eventually fixed the new problem (collateral damage!) and the horn.

Mechanics in most small towns are not well trained and they make judgement mistakes. They often fix things momentarily until they break again due to the lack of tools, spare parts or knowledge of the actual problem. They are limited in a lot of ways. And costumers don’t like to bring their vehicle to the repair shop because they will often come back unfixed, worst and/or without any fuel left as the mechanics will take it to run errands or visit family. When you find a good mechanic, you hold on to them as they are rare.

This problems also applies to drill rigs. When they break, they take a long time to be fixed because the drillers don’t have enough money for the repair and the spare parts are hard to find. This will obviously affect projects and delay everything.

Maintenance is not something Malawians are used to do. Maintenance of their vehicle, their borehole or mostly anything. Therefore, when breakdowns happen, they are often important ones that could have been avoid if the vehicle (or borehole) would have been serviced properly. But why would you want to spend money on something that is not broken??

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Malawi is now well into the dry season. The sun took over the clouds. The beautiful green luxurious landscape has been replaced by a brown layer of soil. The crops have been harvested, the trees are losing their leaves. The wind is slowly picking up and the nights are getting colder as we are entering, at a strangely fast pace, the cold and dry season. It is still warm during the day, but really cold at night. In some parts of the country (further inland), it gets close to the freezing point. Houses are not insulated and most don’t even have windows to prevent the cool air from getting in. It feels like September in Canada. I was not expecting this climate, so I’m often cold. Grace, I should have brought with me the cute tuque you gave me for Christmas! I regret it now. But the cold weather only last a couple of months. Everyone says that September to November is unbearably hot, even at night. I find it weird that the coldest and hottest months are right next to each other. Then will come January and the rain will start again, making the warm air extremely humid….

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I’ve been feeling sick this week, hopefully it is nothing serious. I’ve also found a place to a stay in Senga Bay. I’ve only seen the outside of it while walking on the beach a month ago. I’m getting the keys tomorrow, so I can move sometimes next week. It is a small and rustic cabin by the beach. It has electricity and a toilet inside, but the best of all, is that there is a kitchen, small, but with an oven apparently! Yay, I will be able to bake and cook my own food… I can’t wait. I can stand living in a village, having a latrine and an outside bathroom. I can stand sharing my room and even my bed. I can wash the dishes using sand and wash my clothes by hand. I thought I would have problems with integrating and making friends in the village, I thought I would find it hard to do the tasks, but it turns out that what I miss most is to cook. Ah, don’t get me wrong, I cook in the village, but I have to cook the things they like (nsima and some kind of relish) the way they do it and when they want to do it. Since wood or charcoal is expensive, I don’t feel like I can cook my own things if I feel like it, which would probably be impolite of me anyways. I’m excited to go to the market, find stuff that is in season, be creative with it and cook something! Pho, burritos, crepes, pasta, apple crumble, cake, oatmeal…and coffee! I’m also happy that I’ll have more freedom and alone time. Time to read, reflect and write, I miss this tons. I thought that electricity and running water would be the things I miss most, but they aren’t. If anything, they make you dependant and when there is a shortage (which is often), you rely on them and can’t do much. I’ll have the best of everything now: power, running water and the lake right in my backyard if I need water (I have a good water filter now, so I can even drink it…thanks Andrew!). The cabin will not exactly be mine, but I am renting it out from an older expat couple, who Andrew knows. They live and work in Lilongwe. They only go to the lake one day every six weeks or so. The deal is that I live there, can use all I want, keep it nice and clean, and go spend a night somewhere else when they are coming. I think it is a pretty awesome deal as housing in Senga Bay is hard to find and pretty pricey. I’ll try to arrange transport with someone living there and working in Salima, but for the moment I’ll commute using a motola (back of a pick up truck!!). It is only 20km away and costs K100 each way ($0.75). I’ll let you know more about my new life by the lake in my next post, I’ll try to send pictures, but it is quite hard to upload them through Blogger. Sorry!

Now, I have to tell my family in Salima that I will be moving. It makes me sad and breaks my heart a little. But I’ll visit them; I’ll go for lunch every week. I just know that they will have a hard time understanding that I’m moving. ahhhh, if only they could read my blog! haha…

Ok, that’s it for now

Ge

Stories from the road

I’ve been on the road a lot lately, traveling to Senga Bay, Nkhata Bay, Nkhotakota, Mzuzu, Lilongwe. I haven’t taken the time to write in the last month, I apologize. I feel like many things happened since last time I posted a note, but I guess I didn’t know what to write about and where to begin. So let’s start with some thoughts I had on the minibus this morning on my way back from Lilongwe where I spent the last week.

There is no easy way to travel within this country…

If you are lucky enough to have or rent a car, it is very expensive to drive, as petrol and diesel are not cheap in Malawi. Plus every other week there is a fuel shortage for a few days, even sometimes for weeks. This is caused by the lack of foreign exchange and a fix currency on the world market. There is NO fuel in gas station, no trucks coming to refill the tanks. It is the case at the moment throughout the country, most fuel station have empty tanks, and the ones that do have fuel, have limited quantities and it creates insane cues as everyone is trying to get some fuel before it runs out. This means you never know when you go on a trip if you are going to make it back. You might get stuck somewhere for days if there is a fuel crisis. There are often people selling it on the black market for a ridiculously high price though. The same problem applies to buses and minibuses, but they have priority on fuel in most towns. They reduce the frequency and make sure the buses are full or over packed before they leave.

Then if you have to change a tire (or many other parts) anywhere else than Lilongwe or Blantyre, it gets pretty challenging. There are no real shops to repair cars or sell parts (used or new), they only have small shops on the side of the road where they sell a ton of other things too. I was on the road the other day with my friend Ron who was visiting from Vancouver, and we had to change a tire on our friend’s car we borrowed for a short trip. We got stuck for 4 hours trying to find a tire that would fit. A normal size tire for a car! They had one that was too small and one that was too big. We had a lot of kilometer to cover and didn’t want to damage the car or get in an accident because of an unfitted tired. So after arguing that it was the wrong size, one of the 15 guys who were working or standing around the shop, staring, went to look in the town, on his bicycle, to find a suitable tire. He finally came back with one. It was a used one, of course and we needed to buy a tube inside, just in case. Jacking the car and changing the tire was not an easy process either. But after four hours we were back on the road, laughing at the situation. What else can we do?

Minibuses and buses are definitely not better! OMG, they are horrible. First, there is no set time, they leave whenever they are full, so you might be waiting for a very long time if you just missed one. They are crowded with people, luggage, chickens, huge flour bags or groundnuts. No alternatives, only one type of bus or minibus…all shitty. They stop every where, sometimes every 5 minutes to drop people off or to take someone at random location on the road. Nonsense! Most times the driver is playing music on the radio, which in theory sounds awesome, but Malawi doesn’t have a lot of songs and they play them until they are beaten to death. So you’ll hear the same 5 songs with a very similar rhythm. Otherwise they play a lot of Acon and Justin Bieber, over and over again. Sometimes, there will be a preacher, yelling stuff for an hour, or women signing. It’s never relaxing, never enjoyable. And this is a straightforward ride, I’m not even talking about the problems that often happens: breakdowns, flat tires, lack of fuel, accident. Just this morning, I saw 2 minibuses on the side of the road that were destroyed.  This happens often, it’s pretty scary. Drivers are going way to fast on super narrow roads, passing when they can’t see in front of them, interacting with other crazy drivers, motorcycles, pedestrians and bikes. I’m terrified every time I’m on the road.

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On a different note, my life in Salima is ok, still living in the village. Lisa, my colleague, is now living with us for a few weeks while she is doing a field research in Salima. Pretty awesome to have her around. We are sharing my 3/4 bed, but at least we got our separate room and some girls in the village gave us a bed frame…great. I cooked chilli the other night for all of us and they liked it. Chilli and nsima, not a bad combination. It breaks my heart every time I go and have to sleep somewhere else, as my family and neighbours will be sad and miss me, I’m like a TV to them, it’s exciting to have a muzungu around. It’s hard to explain why I have to travel for work or why I want to go to the lake for the weekend with my friends. My Chichewa is not fantastic as I’m often gone and I speak English at work. But I can understand.

I’m looking for a house to rent in Salima or Senga Bay to share with my good friend Andrew. He has to go work out of the country and will be coming back to Malawi during his rotation. So hopefully we’ll find something safe, nice and affordable, which is not easy. It’s exiting, but might not work out, so let’s see.

My work is stating to change a bit. Lisa’s research has shown us a different perspective and gave us a ton of information on how Salima District works regarding borehole siting and decision making. It seems to work fairly well, so I don’t feel like I want to change the process, but help it cover the blind spots or biases. To get a new borehole, communities need to apply, raise money to cover future repairs and open a bank account, then there is a selection and verification process done by the District Water. Only major problem so far in this method is the miscommunication. A lot of communities don’t know about the process, so they are being left out or helped by other NGOs. The District Water Officer asked UNICEF, the main funder, to allow budget to have a workshop about water issues with the Group Village Headmen. The District thinks that if they get traditional leadership involved and aware of how to help their communities, they would help solving part of the communication problems. UNICEF, after many discussions finally agreed. I can’t wait to see if this workshop will lead to more applications from different villages. There are many other problems associated to more applications for a limited amount of borehole to install, but it is a start. Some of the issues are that more communities will be raising money and putting it in a bank account. This is not a big problem until they get rejected and need to redistribute the money. Most communities don’t know how to keep record or simply don’t want to keep records of who contributed and how much, leading to fights and stealing when it comes to giving the money back. This can ruin further projects and have communities never applied again, or worst, not want to raise money for borehole repair, as they will get frustrated. This is one of many issues, but most of these things can be fixed if the workshop is done properly. Working in the aid sector is challenging, slow and frustrating. Salima seems to be doing well on their own, they are busy, but have good judgement and they are a good team. Also, I’ll hopefully get to work with other NGOs who are working independently from the District to see how they do things regarding borehole siting and area mechanic networking. I’ll also be evaluating the last boreholes installed by the District over the last two months (20 BH). I’ll check the salinity, the yield and the general location, to see if there are ways to do things differently in the next round of siting. I’ll evaluate the logs and data that were given by the contractor to the District and the salinity test results. No one in the water office can analyse this information, so I’ll have a look and if I see if there are any issues, then I’ll try to see how to manage this differently or who to influence to change the contracts so the boreholes are safe, working and being used by communities. I’m really happy and exited about that as I have being pretty demotivated by my work recently. Especially now with Andrew leaving Malawi and not working for Water for People, as it was great to be having awesome discussions with him about hydrogeological work and issues in Malawi. I was helping him develop strategies to prevent contractors from cutting corners and help communities get better boreholes. My other friends and coworkers all have completely different background so hydrogeology is rarely part of my discussion with them. I’ll hopefully find other side projects to keep my motivation high. I’m pretty sad to lose my friend though; it was good to have someone to exchange ideas back and forth with, and do fun random stuff with every other weekend or so…I’ll miss you Andrew, but you already know that! haha

It was great to see Ron here, kind of surreal though. Erika, bien sur que tu es la bienvenue, j’ai hate de te voir. Deux semaines est bien en masse, tu pourras meme visiter le Mozambique ou le Zambie un peu si tu veux. Je suis pas certaine c’est quoi tes plans de voyage et ce que tu veux decouvrir. Dis moi quand et je m’organise pour prendre un peu de vacances. Je t’aime et je m’ennuie de toi, tu peux pas savoir a quel point j’ai hate qu’on ouvre une tres mauvaise bouteille de vin pis qu’on jase, ca fait la vie que je t’ai pas vue il me semble, puis on a un tas de choses a se dire. Essaies de convaincre Cath de venir aussi…ca serait malade. Grace, let me know if you are still planning on seeing me when you come to Africa and what you want to do if so?

Lindsay, Arainn and Andrew, I hope your birthday parties back in Vancouver were amazing and I wished I could have been there with you guys. Miss ya 

Ok, bye everyone

Ge

Late afternoon scene from Chipse Village

Here are some pictures from my daily surrondings, just wanted to share them with you. Amber this is to answer your request. It's really complicated to upload pictures from Salima, as the internet connection is generally not so great. Sorry for the lack of visual support, and also it's tricky to get pictures of me as most people don't know how to use a camera. I'll keep working on the project though.

All is well here. No I didn't have a birthday cake, but I had a a great time. I'll write a longer post soon.




My home

 



Late afternoon scene in my village

 



By super cute purple bike (need to be fixed every other day as it's too old and shitty!)

 

An hint of randomness

Salima, cute small town somewhere between  lake Malawi and the Capital. This is my home now. My village, Chipse, is about 3km from Salima BOMA. I’ve been living there for a month now. So far, things are between awesome and tough, it just depends at what point during my day you ask me.

The mornings are though most of the time. Villagers wake up at 5:30, if not before, and start sweeping the floor of the house, than the backyard. They go fetch water, do the dishes, wash the floor, take a bath, then eat. By 8am, they are done with everything and they rest and chat for a couple hours. This is so different than my normal life. I find it hard, not so much the waking up at 5:30, but the having to rush to do all the tasks. Mornings were normally, back in Vancouver, a quiet, relaxing time.  I’d wake up, shower, eat, then if I have time, clean a bit, then bike to work.  I enjoyed sleeping in, walking to the market and cooking a good breakfast on weekends. Cleaning the house is not first on my list of priorities, that, I realized! It seems like they start resting the minute I go to work!

I miss having time and space to reflect, read or listen to music, time to be on my own without having to talk. The only time I have is when I take my bucket shower in the morning and at night. By the way, I’m starting to manage really well at washing using a bucket and I’ve found a good system to wash my hair! haha

Work is good and bad: a mix of learning and training; an eternal fight between holding my thoughts and sharing them; juggling between going my pace then slowing down to fit theirs. So far, I went to trainings with traditional authorities, meetings with UNICEF and my counterparts from the district, I went to the field to observe borehole repair done by the water district and also borehole drilling, development and pumping tests. I also went to team meetings with EWB in Lilongwe, went with a Junior Fellow I’m coaching to set him up in Machinga. I’m still working on my research report from my first month in Karonga. I’ve been working long hours and sometimes on weekends too. The district water officer and my other counterparts at the district are extremely busy. When people are good and motivated here, they are being asked to do everything, and they get super busy. UNICEF, who is their main funder, is asking them a lot of reporting these days. They are off schedule due to floods during the wet season a few months ago. They have to supervise and contract local entrepreneurs to build latrines for schools,  supervise the borehole installation, do training and exploring for CLTS (Community Led Total Sanitation). But all this got delayed because of the rain. Funding from any donor is tricky and requires a lot of reporting. UNICEF gave money to Salima District in January to do the work of the first quarter. They have 3 months to complete the work and report in order to get money to do work in the next quarter. So now, they need to work twice as hard and fast to catch up if they want to get the funding for the next phase of work. It puts me in a tough spot, because they will need my help on the next phase of work (siting and installing borehole) but they don’t have time right now for me to really start the work I’m suppose to be doing.

I had to come all the way to Malawi, to start wearing heels at work. People here are super well dressed, so I decided to do the same and brave the sand, the dust and the unpaved roads. I went to the local market to looked for some clothes. I found great outfits for less than a few bucks, plus I made friends with some girls at the same time, because finding clothes here takes a long time, so you have a lot of time to chat!

Life in general is ok. I can’t wait to have the weekend off to go to the Lake with my friend Andrew, who’s coming down from Mzuzu today for my birthday weekend! Yay. My plan: relax, sleep in, swim, paddle, drink wine, chat and recharge my batteries.

Another great thing, my friend Ron from Vancouver is suppose to come visit me in a couple of weeks. I can’t wait. If anyone feels like coming to Malawi, let me know, I’ll be happy to find you a place to stay in my village!

Talk to you later dear friends

Ge

 

NOTE: I’ve posted some new photos on my flicker page, check it out by clicking on the link on the side tab.

Out of sight, out of mind?

This morning, while having breakfast with my host brother (20 years old), I saw how smart he is, and it made me believe that Malawi have the potential to change; Malawi has amazingly bright kids. The only problems is that most of them can’t afford to go to university. He is waiting, crossing his finger to get a scholarship. He wrote the exams and applied everywhere. He is keen. I hope he gets in, in fact I wish that all the smart and motivated  teenagers would have an easier way to go to school, so that they can bring their perspective to the table, so that their point of views and ideas can be heard. I was talking to him about the lunch and learn meeting I’m preparing for my colleagues from Golder back in Canada; he asked what I was going to discuss and I listed some of the issues. I talked about my work, both here and back home and when I expected him to lose interest or not understand, he kept asking super relevant questions. We ended up chatting about the environmental issues that Malawi will be facing in a few years from now, and also about the boreholes and shallow wells issues related to installation, geology, hydrogeology, water quality. He also mentioned the salinity of the groundwater in some places and asked why that is and how contractors can avoid installing boreholes in brackish water. He was particularly interested to know about the use of fertilisers and latrines next to the boreholes and wells. He is concerned that a lot of the mutations and diseases that people in villages are facing might come from that type of contamination. He also wonders how can people stop throwing their garbage away anywhere without caring, because this is what most people do. Everything is put in a plastic bag, even alcohol shots, and often individually wrapped, once done with it, they throw it out the window and forget about it. Out of sight, out of mind! The problem is that it is not really out of sight as the garage are everywhere, but they seem to not see it, or maybe they just don’t know any better, so they get use to it: Alcohol sachets (shots that is put in a sort of ketchup sachet); the phone units (you have to buy airtime by units, the code is written on a piece of paper that is sold on the street; you buy, scratch, enter the number in your phone, and you have a few minutes of airtime!); chibuku cartoon container (beer that is fermented in a sort of milky texture. They wrap it in a container similar to the one use for milk in Canada), beer and soda’s cap, plastic bags;…everything that is not refundable will be found everywhere on the ground. Although Diew (my host brother) had never studied or read about the problems and the solutions that we use in developed countries regarding the above issues, he was blowing my mind with his ideas. He was saying that the government should get involved to regulate before it gets too late; he was suggesting that finds should be given by the government to manufactures if they dispose of their waste in the rivers and lake; he was saying that there should be communal dumps and people should pay to have someone to pick up their trash to the dump, otherwise people would be given fines; he also said that the use of fertilisers should be better supervised and that farmers should be educated about the impact of their behaviours.

My village is really awesome though, they have a holes where they put the dishes, and when full they burn and then bury. It’s not perfect, but it is better than having wrapping and food waste all over the place.

I was in the bus the other day, coming back from Machinga and I was standing up, as usual. So a nice lady offered to share her seat with me. We talked about our work and I realized that both her and her husband work in water quality and environment for the government. She works for the water board in Blantyre, Malawi. Her husband works for the national government in Botswana, with the intention of learning how they do things there to help Malawi. He went to university in Canada, in Ontario. At some point during the bus ride, she asked a man who had just thrown his plastic bag by the window why he was doing that, if he knew the impact of doing that? I was impressed by how much environmental conviction she had. I high fived her and it gave me a big smile.

…So I had a big smile on my face until the bus hit a little 5 years old boy on the side of the road. That was pretty dramatic and terrifying. We stopped to help him. Both his legs were injured, he was bleeding a lot and he also hurt his head. We took him and his father (I assume), in the crowded bus, to the closest hospital, but there were no doctors as it was Saturday, so we went to the next town. To get admitted to the hospital in case of an accident, the injured person needs to have a police report, so we had to go to the police first (weird !?). Drivers here are crazy, the roads are narrow and there are no lights at night, a lot of drivers are drink (beers, chibuku or sachets) and drive. There are a lot of pedestrians and bikes on the side, and sidewalks are inexistent.  Accidents are frequent in Malawi and often deadly. But, one problem at a time… a lot of things need to change here. I learn about them everyday. One clear trend that can be drawn though, is that there is a lack of regulations and a lack of enforcement when existing.

I guess that’s it for now on the dramatic side of things. I also have good news. I’m starting to settle in my new village. I really like it. My neighbours are nice and helpful, so is my family. It’s challenging though to have to relearn everything, like :

• doing the dishes on the ground outside, using sand, soap, a cloth and a bucket;
• washing my clothes by hands, once again, on the ground in the backyard;
• learning how to cook on the fire (on the ground of course!), with no handles or oven mits; or,
• taking a shower, using a bucket, on the ground, outside. Washing my hair is really challenging let me tell you.

But I enjoy my daily bike rides. I enjoy discovering the neighbourhood, the market, the language (most people in the village only speak Chichewa), the food, the culture! I like to go see them play football or basketball on Sunday afternoons. I like to hangout with the girls on the porch while washing our clothes. I miss a lot of things from home, I think about it everyday, but I also realize everyday all the things I’ll miss from here when I go home…I’ll miss all of this, even if it is not always easy. There is just something fantastic about this lifestyle, this culture, this language, this food, these people, their smile and joy for life…I’m slowly starting to adjust to this new life and make it my reality! Today is a holiday, and we are having Jordan and Tessa for dinner. For those of you who don’t know who I’m talking about, they are from EWB. Jordan was with me during the training in Toronto, we arrived here together. Tessa is another EWBer, she just joined our team a few weeks ago. They spent the weekend in Senga Bay. Forgot to mentioned they are a cute couple!! haha. Can’t wait. I went to the market this morning and got some fish, rice and veggies. I’m exited to have my first visitors.

From the bottom of my heart, I miss you guys. I do. Every day I think about you and all the things we use to do, especially on weekends.

Ge

Living out of a backpack

Since December 1st, I haven’t had a place to unpack my bags and settle, I haven’t had a place to call home. I’ve left my apartment in Vancouver on Dec 1st and I’ve been moving from places to places ever since. I spent some time between Vancouver and Quebec, crashing my parents’ and friends’ houses until February, then went to Toronto until March for the training. I arrived in Malawi at the beginning of March, almost two and a half months ago and since, I’ve been moving almost every other week, if not everyday. It’s great cause I got to meet a lot of people and discovered many places, but I’m exhausted and sick of living out of my bags. It’s now time to unpack and finally start making a life here.

I’m in Salima, working at the District Water Office. I moved last Thursday to a village about 3km (on dirt roads) from the office. My new house, well let’s be realistic, hut, is great. We have windows, a door and a real lock. The floors and walls are still made out of mud, but the floors have been polished, so it’s a bit cleaner and less dusty. It almost look like cement. We even have a table, some chairs and few couches. I got myself a mattress because I didn’t want to sleep on a carpet on the ground for the rest of the year. I was suppose to have my own room, which was quite exciting, but it turns out that I have to share a room with the owner, 35 years old lady. The room is big enough for both our mattresses, but this means I’ll have no privacy. I don’t have a lot of place, so until I have a small shelf build for me (when I find the time and money to do so), I’ll still be living out of my bags, which sucks. What happened is that the room I was suppose to have, is the storage room, so it means that if I take it, there will be no place to store the maize flour bags, water containers and dishes. They realized that when I moved in…ahhh, Malawians have big hearts, but they have a poor planning sense! haha. Anyway it’s ok and cheap for now, but I’ll keep an eye open on other options down the road. I don’t think I can stand sharing a room for the rest of the year. I live with Maggie, 35 years old, and her 20 years old nephew (Diew). She is a business woman, she sells soap at the market and also firewood during the rainy season. She’s not rich, but she lives well. She, as most women, doesn’t speak English, only Chichewa. I met a few 18-25 years old girls whose English is surprisingly good, well good enough to have a conversation. Maggie is taking care of Diew until he can get a scholarship to go to university in medicine, engineering or agriculture, depending which faculty accepts him. He is a brilliant kid, who speaks English fairly well and also a little bit of French. So our deal is that he helps me with Chichewa and I help him with French; sounds good to me! He has a lot of patience and he’s well articulate; he’d be a great teacher I think. He asks me interesting questions about life in Canada and the work I was doing. He also asked me what I was thinking about the environmental condition of Malawi, which is normally something that no ones even consider as being an issue. People throw their garbage everywhere, there are no sewer  and garbage collection system, except for bigger cities like Lilongwe, Blantyre and Mzuzu. I was quite surprise and happy with his questions and thoughts.

My village is nice and really clean. Every house has a latrine, a hand washing station and a pit to dispose of the garbage (WOW, this is quite rare and impressive). People are proud, welcoming, helpful and friendly. Our house has a sitting/dinning room, plus three other rooms that are: me and Maggie’s bed room, Diew’s bedroom and the last one, as I mentioned, is a storage room. There is no kitchen, although, there is a small hut in the back yard where we can make a fire to cook when it’s too cold, too windy or raining; most of the time the cooking is done on the front porch. The bathroom and latrine are separate huts in the backyard, both really clean and well taking care of.

To answer Amber’s question from the last post, my village has about 350 households (a household has an average of 5 people). In general, there is a shallow well for every 125 people. There is also a borehole, about a kilometer and a half away from our hut, where they get their drinking water. Boreholes are generally deserving 250 people, but it’s often more people than that due to breakdowns (see previous posts about my research). I got my family a filter so that we can drink the water from the shallow well (which is located about 25km from the latrine), which will save Maggie the trouble of waking a long distance, caring water on her head (she has to do this a few times to get enough water for the day). She is quite excited and happy. I just need to get two plastic containers and a stand to make the set up, but all this is a bit expensive (850 kwatcha  per container and K1500 for the stand-the ceramic/silver filter in itself was K1800 ($US1=K150)), so I’m working on it and I’m trying to find cheaper alternatives. I know it doesn’t sound expensive to you, but it is here in Malawi, when you think that a meal at the market is K200 or a new pair of trousers is K500. My daily salary is about K2800; it is the salary of my colleagues at the district. It needs to cover my cellphone and internet fees (expensive), my travelling, my rent and my food. I also had to buy a mattress and a bike, which were both expensive, as they are considered luxurious goods that most villagers don’t have.

My daily routine on weekdays is to get up when the sun rises (5:30), greet a lot of people, wash the dishes from the night before (as it was too dark then) while Maggie and Diew are sweeping and cleaning the floors of the house and the yard. After, I take a warm bucket bath, get dressed (with a patterned and colourful skirt and a nice shirt), have breakfast (sweet potato or pumpkin or white bread, always serve with sweet tea without milk). Then I hop on my old, purple, single-speed cruiser bike and head to work. At the office, so far, I’ve been doing a lot of reading, I assisted to a training last week and I also went to the field to do maintenance/repairs of boreholes. I go to the market for lunch once in a while. I think it’s nice to walk around, observe people and interact with them in Chichewa. I get whatever they have, which is normally goat or beef with rice or nsima. I bring my Chichewa book to learn and practice. Then I go back to work in the afternoon and I try to ride back home before the sun set, around 6pm. When I arrive home, there are a few chores to do. Right now is harvest time, so my family is drying out the maize in front of the house and getting it ready to send it to the mill, so everyday, we have to put it in bags to store in the house over night. After, I usually have a shower bath and help preparing food, which is nsima and some kind of relish (depends on the season and what they sell at the market, but lately it has been beans, or ocras, or osipa). After dinner on the porch, we chat for a bit with some neighbours, then go to bed around 8:30. 

The weekends are a bit different, well at least for me, as I don’t go to work. I help a little more with the chores. I go fetch water, I wash my clothes, I go to church (I won’t go every Sunday, but I’ll try to make an effort as it is a big deal for people here), I go to the market and learn some Chichewa with the teenagers of the village, while Maggie goes to the market to sell soap and other stuff.

Here is my life… and even if it sounds simple, every day is a new challenge. Sometimes I’m struggling with the language, sometimes with the dust and sand, sometimes with the lack of privacy and alone time or the people invading my space, sometimes with work and the busy schedule of my coworkers, or their lack of commitment (you learn quickly that “yes” in Malawi often doesn’t mean yes, but rather acts as an acknowledgement that one said something!).

Ahh, I forgot, this morning, from my village, I was able to Skype via my iPhone, with Nina in Vancouver. The connection wasn’t too bad, we had a good conversation. So if anyone wants to call me via Skype, you are welcome to try, it’s definitely not perfect, but it’s still better than nothing. My user name is Gennparent, just add me in your contact and tell me when you are available. We are 6 hours ahead of Quebec time and 9 hours ahead of Vancouver time. My phone is often turned off as I don’t have electricity in the village and the town often has power shorage, making it hard to charge it.

Bye now

Ge

When knowledge gets in the way of creativity

Dawn asked me to prepare a lunch and learn meeting over Skype with my colleagues at Golder in Vancouver (Canada), so as I think this is a great idea and really exciting opportunity, I decided to write this post for them. Although, I’ll try to make it interesting for everyone else who wants to learn about the drilling/pumping challenges encountered here in Malawi.

My actual work with EWB is not really directly involving the followings topics but I made it a side project as I get asked a lot of questions on different hydrogeological issues by people from the district and different NGOs. Hopefully you guys can help us find solutions or push our understanding.

Every district here has a main town, called a BOMA in which the water is distributed by the Water Board. Some districts have a few other cities with water distribution and electricity. The rest of the district depends on boreholes, shallow wells or gravity fed pipes (taps and protected springs) to get safe water.

The shallow wells, as their name states, are pumping the shallow source of water using different types of pumps, like the elephant pump (rope and washer system). These shallow sources of water are obviously more susceptible to surface contamination from latrines located nearby, livestock or fertilisers. This is what my village is using right now, and the latrines are located about 20 meters from the well I’m fetching water from. Nobody knows if the latrines are up or down gradient from the well as there is no hydrogeological mapping done here.

The boreholes are in general drilled by a drill rig but can also be done using manual percussion drilling when the time and soil conditions permit it. They are often installed in fractured rock, with a maximal depth of 40-60m as the Afridev Pumps (the pump that needs to be used in borehole) won’t withdraw water over this depth. The Afridev started life in Malawi in early 1981. From the start, the aim was to produce a deep well hand pump that was very easy to maintain at village level and could be manufactured in countries like Malawi, where industrial resources are limited.

The problem is not the actual pump, but the contractor doing the work or in many cases, the drillers. They cut corners short and somehow, they are able to get away with it; they don’t do proper pumping tests, they often install the pumps during the wet season and do not take into consideration the water drawdown in the dry season which can sometimes be lower than the pump capacity, so even if the community were to add extra rising main pipes and metal rods (which is rarely done) during the dry period, the pump wouldn’t be able to withdraw water. The rising main is made of PVC pipes that are clued (solvent) together using a connector as the pipe are not threaded and can’t be screwed together. This means that to do maintenance of the rising main or when it brakes and needs to be fixed, the pipe  sections are cut and clued back together afterward using new connectors. This is a complicated process.

Aside from siting the waterpoints (well/borehole) in the right location and where they’d be needed, other problems that are encountered are the access to good filter pack, the development method, the pumping test and water quality test.

Filter pack

A filter pack is the material that surrounds the well screen to filter the water coming from the aquifer in the PVC pipe. It is supposed to be fine enough to filter the smaller soil particles of the surrounding aquifer, but coarse enough to not be washed away through the screen. To get filter pack here is complicated. The contractor needs to go buy it from a quarry or get it directly from the river bank (cheaper). The material is often too angular, not uniform enough in size. Good contractors will sieve it to get the adequate size, but must won’t and the filter pack will wash away or clog the screen preventing water from being pumped.

Development

The development of the well and borehole is done to wash out the sediments that were created during drilling in order to bring the conductivity and connectivity of the aquifer back to its original (pre-drilling) status. This is a really important step that is often not done properly, if at all. The drilling is done with mud, the lithology is often clay and silt, and the gravel pack contains varying amounts of fines, thus the need for proper development.

The development is normally conducted using a rope and washer pump. This type of pump is only targeting one section of the screen and does not disrupt the aquifer enough to get rid of the unwanted sediments. There is no electricity near the waterpoints to be able to use an electric pump to develop the well and generators function with fuel, so it makes them non reliable due to fuel shortage, and expensive to use as fuel or diesel is expensive.

Pumping test

As I just mentioned for the development, the use of electric or fuel pumps to do the pumping test is not possible in most cases. The pumping tests are done to ensure that the waterpoint will be able to supply sufficient amount of water per day for the number of users. In Canada, the pumping tests are done using a powerful pump that pumps for an extended period of time (12 to 48hrs), more water, at a faster flow rate than needed in reality. The pumping test is usually followed by a recovery test, which gives an idea of the recharge rate. The pumping tests here are done using a hand pump, meaning that someone has to pump by hand for hours. Therefor they are often just run for an hour or two and there are no real analysis of the data to make sure the well will produce enough water. There are no loggers or water levels available to check the drawdown or the recovery.

Any ideas on how we could do the pumping test more efficiently or at least get data on the water level. Remember: lack of fuel, lack of electricity, no western pumps, water level or logger available. Please help me on this one!

Water quality test

A lot of boreholes in Malawi have brackish water or dissolved metals in the water. The contractor should do a water quality test to ensure that the water is potable. The shallow wells often have pathogens and fecal bacteria problems associated to them. The water quality tests could prevent a lot of diarrheal diseases. Most contractors skip this step as they don’t want to have to redrill the borehole. The water analyses in Malawi are pricey and there are not that many labs that run them.

 

Ok, I think this is it for now. I hope some of you will be interested to help us find solutions or at least throw some ideas out there. Let me know your thoughts and feel free to send the link to everyone who might be willing to help.

Bye and thanks

Ge

Updates

Wow, I think I wrote my last post almost a month ago. Time flies. I’ve been here for two months now and it’s seems like I just arrived. 

I’m now living in Salima, which is about 120km east of Lilongwe and 20km from Lake Malawi. It is uncomfortably hot and humid in the town of Salima compare to many places in Malawi, like Mzuzu, Dedza or Lilongwe where it is right cool at night, and even during the day sometimes. I have a hard time sleeping at night, it’s too hot. I moved there about 2 weeks ago now and had been slowly settling in. I’ll love it. I found a place to stay in a village, a few kilometers from the town of Salima, where I’m working (District ater Development and Irrigation Office). I’m moving in sometimes next week, so I’m super excited. It’s a super cute village and I’ll be leaving with a small familly in a 3 bedrooms hut. I actually didn’t see the house, but I met with the mom, she seems great and she’s happy to take me. They don’t speak any English, so it will be a good way for me, or at least a nice incentive to learn Chichewa (now that I was getting better in Tumbuka). I also found a tutor to help me. She is a teacher, she lives 5 minutes from my work and she charges $1,50 (K250) an hour. GREAT!!! I got myself an awesome tanzanian bike last Friday: a cute purple, single speed, with a basket in the front…a sort of old and really authentic cruiser bike! haha. I know. I’m exited to go back to Salima tomorrow and fix the tires, do some maintenance and  bike around my new town, with my new bike…this will be where I’ll be staying for at least the next five months, but probably the rest of the year. I can’t wait to have a day off to bike to the lake for a swim, bring a picnic and a book, and bike back. This will be something I’m planning to do every other weekend…Let’s see how I feel after I do it once (remember I said the bike is old and single speed! so it will be a couple hours to get there), but it will be so woth it. The people I work with seem to be really motivated and clever. They have my age and are using smart phones and like technology a lot. They are extremely busy, but I have a good feeling that it will be a perfect fit for me to work with them. They have to install 40 boreholes over the next year and hopefully I’ll be able to help them with the sitting. About half of the villages in the district don’t have borehole, they share it, and quite a few boreholes have brackish water. It will definitely be interesting to work here, I’ll be learning a lot and hopefully will also be able to help and have a good long tem impact on how they make there decisions. So far, I’ve been going to the field to see how the maintenance/repair of boreholes was done by the district office to help villages; I’ve also been invited to go to a few WASH meeting with UNICEF. I got introduced to a lot of people. Overall, I’m super happy about my new life here and I’m looking forward to get a little bit more settled and know more Chichewa.

Last weekend, for Easter, I went to Nyika Plateau in the north of the country with some friends from Mzuzu. We went camping, saw monkeys, zebras and different types of antelopes. Lovely! It was epic.

Terra, Lisa and Kristina, our new APS just arrived in Lilongwe from Canada and Tanzania this weekend. I came to Lilongwe  on Friday to start processing my working visa and spent the weekend here with them. I went hiking Dedza Montain today with some people who work for UNICEF. It was amazing, plus we stopped for the infamous home made cheesecake (the only place where they even know that cheesecake exist in Malawi) at the pottery shop coffee. I had a fantastic weekend.

My last week in Salima was interesting. I was staying in a small, somehow dodgy guesthouse close to the office. There was no power for five days in the town, and no running water for one and a half day. Hard to get work done. The lack of water made it even harder to sleep at night as I couldn’t take a cold shower before going to bed.  And the lack of electricity made it really complicated to get food. I realized that leaving in a village is not so bad after all, as they don’t depend on running water and electricity.

Anyway, I’m going to bed now, but I wanted to give you guys some news and let you know what was happening in Malawi.

My next post will likely be about my work and how boreholes are installed and how Afridev pumps are working. Stay tune…hopefully there will be power so I can charge my computer and have access to internet. Also, I got my iPhone (thanks Arainn, you have no idea how usefull it is here) set up to receive my emails and tether my computer from almost anywhere. Crazy how internet time and airtime is expensive in Malawi and the networks are not working well most of the time! Ahh

Here is my phone number and address in case someone needs it, if you send me mail, please write the phone number as well, in case there is anything. Also, I don’t have to pay the customs fees for the first six months, so go ahead and send me some birthday gifts (May 31st)!! haha, but no pressure.

Genevieve Parent (+265)992210444

C/O District Council Office

P.O. Box 15, Salima

Malawi

Galerie de La souris mini

La souris mini photostream on Flickr.

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!

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