Our team blog

As part of our work for Progressio our team is keeping a blog too.
Please check out

http://www.liwondelions.blogspot.com/

More to follow soon.

Travel to Liwonde

Last Saturday (15^th – sorry i’m a bit behind) we left our training centre and home for the first 2 weeks of this trip in Lilongwe to head to where we’re working. After a stop in Salima for the other half of the Progressio team (and 40 minutes stopped at a police check point waiting for the car containing peoples passports to arrive) we started heading south.

The drive was one of those that annoying travel writers spend pages and pages describing in gushing tones. Long straight roads, blazing sun, small rural communities who now find the road going through the middle. Baobab trees, the mountains rising up on the West and in my case a very engaging local to keep me company. (This local was infact Godwin , Progressio’s Logistics Officer who was driving!!) It was undeniably beautiful, also eye opening – there were many signs for turn off to local charities of all kinds. Living in Lilongwe where we were it was too easy to forget that this is one of the poorest countries on the planet

Liwonde was named after a Yao chief (Yao the majority tribe round here, at one time they lived on the lake and dealt with traders and slavers from North Africa and Arabia – they are majority Muslim) build across the Shire (Shir-ree) River and also giving name to the National Part on the Southern side. The town is split in 2 by the river, the ‘old town’ on the south centred round the bus station and market and a newer settlement called ‘Liwonde Barrage’ north of the bridge which has grown up around a police barrier and several of the lodges catering to tourists on safari. Our accommodation is just east of the market, only 2 minutes from the centre of the old town. It is a lodge – appearing in the travel guide I bought as ‘Shoestring’. That said the rooms are large, the showers work (albeit you can only get hot water in the afternoon after the sun has been heating it – but it is so warm a cold shower is very desirable).  The heat is very oppressive after about 9am, we are in the hottest part of the country and the hottest part of summer, but we will adapt and get used to it.

The centre we are meant to be working at is called Kwatukumbuchire Malayi, I will write more about it in the following weeks. I went with our Director Rev Momore and Ali and Thoko from the partner organisation MANERELA+ (more on them to follow shortly too) to visit the District Officers to introduce our group and be welcomed by the local officials. While we were there fertilizer was being handed out (the government subsides much of the agriculture) but everyone could see that there was nowhere near enough for the number of people who were queuing.

These supply shortages are becoming increasingly common. In Lilongwe the day before we left we ended up trying to drive past a petrol station which was receiving a delivery, the queues were already very long (something we had seen before) and when people saw us some came running up shouting that “we needed to see this” and “this is how bad it is in Malawi”. Others came telling us to leave and that nothing is wrong. (One of the cars in that queue was our minibus for our trip to Liwonde. We had also been sourcing black market diesel all week so we had enough.) These people are supporters of the President, who many other blame for much of the shortages. While getting ready to come to Malawi the British High Commissioner was expelled after one of the wikileaks documents gave away that he called the President “increasingly dictatorial”, aid was stopped and people were generally unhappy. On the Saturday we travelled down it was in the papers that the President had “courageously”  apologised and reinstated ties with the UK. However UK Aid is not resuming fully, the government is putting conditions on it, among them the decriminalising of homosexuality – still a crime in Malawi and something that people working in the HIV field find a real barrier. You can’t even have the conversation about male to male transmission when people deny it happens.

I find this a tricky one – should aid be unconditional and as a gesture of goodwill from countries that can afford it? Or should the UK as a country where freedom of sexuality is protected by law be allowed to support this position outside of its boarders?

Answers on a postcard folks!!

We are waiting for the rains which will hopefully bring the temperature down, and also planning a boat trip on the Shire for this weekend. Many thanks for those who’ve sent me emails/facebook messages. They are appreciated, and I will try and reply in person when i can.

Danny

Village Life

Throughout our orientation we have heard alot from our teachers about the differences between living in the city and living in the village (urban vs rural lifestyles).  Most of the people we’ve been studying with all have their parents and some family living in the countryside who they return to visit. Even though they live away they are still consider part of the village and required to attend for important functions. While life in the cities has been impacted more by outside influences and interaction between men and women is similar to in the West in the village there are still very structured rules governing men and women.

Last Saturday we were invited to go to watch a tomb unveiling in a village called Zoli. The ceremony was for the completion of the tombstone for the former village chief who died about 3 years ago and was attended by all the local chiefs, state dignitaries and villagers (about 2000 people in all). As we arrived everyone was processing to the graveyard (a part of the village that is normally avoided because people fear ‘the spirits’ (more on them later). The men were going in first so we joined them with the women all following behind, led by the family of the deceased chief. This is an occasion where people are free to mourn – many of the women were crying and wailing, men however are forbidden from this. As we went past the tomb everyone offers money which will go to the new chief, Dom, Liam, Godwin and myself started following the other men to go sit near the surrounding trees but were taken aside and given chairs next to the canopy where the chiefs and leaders were, then Francis (our guide) and I were asked to sit with them, Taking photos at a time like this would be very offensive, but Francis had arranged with the chief that 2 of us act as official photographers for him so we were able to get some pictures and have sent them the copies.

After a short service where the chief, the local district commissioner, a minister and few other people spoke about the deceased chief, including a welcome to us as the chief’s quests the women led away (on the way men lead to protect them from what might be in the graveyard, on the way out from anything that may follow) we met many local people (our language lessons paying off somewhat, but many wanted to use their English – a sign of being educated) then were invited to formally meet the chief

The custom is to clap hands when you are entering the chief’s house, this we did then were told that our guides would be reprimanded since on an occasion associated with death the clapping should be a ‘silent clap’, rubbing palms together. We were asked to pay 1 chicken for meeting the chief and a second for offending the spirits. (We had been set up be our guide Francis who knows this village well as he grew up not far away and paid cash instead!!)

Later in the week we went to Kalola village, this visit was to give us a genuine look at everyday life in the rural communities; no one apart from the chief had been told we were coming and we were expected to take part in whatever activities were taking place when we arrived.

The chief was holding the traditional court when we arrived so we were welcomed by his wife. The chief’s wife is known as ‘Masanu’, meaning ‘graveyard’, since either with her husband or in his stead she will receive everybody. After our welcome the women of our group went with the chief’s wife and some of the other women to go and prepare lunch for us all. We were told to go and take part in whatever it was the men were doing. We saw a church being build and helped with thatching a roof. But this is the ‘dry season’ the work of planting and tending the fields isn’t taking place so the majority of the men were either watching the local court or drinking in the bars. The court case was about a village headman who had ordered a graveyard cleared and forbidden 2 people from attending a funeral, neither of which he is allowed to do without permission from the chiefs’ court. He was ordered to pay 1 goat and 6 chickens for that and also 5000 kwatcha (local currency) for lying to the court.

At the bars we saw men (and women when their work is done) drinking together. Village life doesn’t measure time the same way it is in the city or in the West, meals are eaten when a) people are hungry and b) when they are ready. Some people when there is no work to do will start drinking at sunrise. We saw the local beer being brewed and also ‘Kachasu’, a spirit distilled from water, suger and maize husks. I’ve bought a small bottle and hope some of it will make it back to the UK.

Talking with our guide Francis about how development is effecting the way of living in the village, we saw several people with mobile phones which is what made me ask. He believes that people in the village have these only to speak to other local people, not to anyone in the city or anywhere else. He told us how for many people there Lilongwe (the capital only 1 hour away) is somewhere they will never go to and have no interest in. But we also hear how people are moving to the city and staying in touch with their village. I asked about the spread of the internet – Francis believes that people in the village will have no interest since it isn’t part of their world – but I wonder if someone was saying the same about mobile phones 10 years ago.

Arrival and orientation

Sorry about the long gap in posts – the internet is not over reliable here.

I met my team at the airport and flew into Nairobe and then after a connecting flight to Zambia that no one at Progressio London, Progressio Malawi or us had been told about we arrived in Lilongwe; the capital city of Malawi.

After clearing immigration (which was staffed by some of the nicest people ever, they were more interested in the few words of Chichewa (the national language) we spoke than checking our passports) we met Godwin Progressio’s logistics officer and went to Msimba Catholic Centre, a lodge just outside of the city centre where we’re staying. (We had two cars- the one I wasn’t in broke down on the way so we were a bit delayed.)

Over the past week and a half we’ve been studying Chichewa, the national language of Malawi. Chewa are one of the tribes (each tribe has its own language, e.g - Chiyao, Chitumbuka; ‘chi’ means language.) Chichewa was made the national language under President Banda but English is widely used, especially in offices and government institutions.

It was David Livingston’s expedition which first exposed Malawi to Westerners, so the word ‘azungu’ (literally – white people) is applied meaning British. I have spoke with some of our teachers (Francis – our culture teacher) told me that the English and the experience of Empire that Malawi had is viewed as positive; their constitution, political systems, law, even plug sockets are all based on the UK. This comes from comparing it to Mozambique under the Portuguese where things were much worse, and many people immigrated as labour and chose to stay.

The role of women is very complicated and I’ll write more about that when i get chance, but men and women perform different tasks traditionally, even some people living in town keep these roles; neither Francis or Godwin have ever cooked, this job belongs to their wife.

The weather is mostly hot – but we have had one day where there was heavy rain and yesterday was overcast – people are commenting that the rains will be coming early this year. (Normally it would be hot and clear now with the rains in November or December.)

Hope everyone in the UK is well and will message again soon.