I got a great question last week from Ian Froude; I’ve been thinking about it all week and I want to share my insights with you. The question was “What are the major barriers to the development of the community in which you are living? OR if it is already on the road to development, what is fueling that?” My thoughts on this question are based on my own personal experiences in Thyolo and on discussions I’ve had with my host family and co-workers. My family might be a bit biased since they live here, but I did try to be objective.

I think as Westerners a lot of people have this idea that the majority of people in Africa are living in extreme poverty. While it’s true that many Africans are living in poverty, there are also lots of Africans, and in this case villages, that work very hard and are privileged to have opportunities to lift themselves from poverty. While I still see poverty in my village, I think that it is currently on the road to development. I currently live in a village called Nchima. It is basically an extended part of the Boma and it also includes a large tea estate.

What makes me believe that Nchima is on the road to development? First of all, it has the benefit of being located very close to the Boma. This means that Nchima is located within walking distance of the huge MSF (Doctors Without Borders) hospital and government offices located in the Boma. Being located near a hospital has the obvious advantages of lower death rates due to diseases such as malaria and means that farmers spend less time away from their farms due to illness. The hospital has also done a pretty good job of promoting proper breastfeeding and handwashing in the vicinity (but a very poor job of promoting the use of toilet paper).

Since I have arrived in Thyolo the two main roads through the Boma have been flattened out and paved, the underground water system has been upgraded, and a new (and much better) marketplace is being constructed. Every time I walk up the road I have to be careful not to fall into holes that are being dug or get run over by tractors and trucks. There are also people everywhere selling their goods and produce, running small businesses, and preparing for the rainy season which means the beginning of the farming season.

The construction and upgrades in Thyolo are being funded by the Malawian government. I asked Mr. Nzengo why the government was giving Thyolo so much attention but I couldn’t really nail down a real reason. Personally I think it’s due to the fact that the president is from Thyolo (or as they call him in Malawi, “his Excellency the President Ngwazi Professor Bingu wa Mutharika”). Another contributing factor could also be that Thyolo is one of the more densely populated districts in Malawi. It has more than 600 000 people and because it has so many expansive tea plantations there are a lot of people squished onto a small amount of land.

Another reason why I believe Thyolo is on the road to development is because there are lots of job opportunities here. First of all, there are always jobs available in tea plantations as tea pickers. While these jobs are grossly underpaid, if you have a bad season farming you can at least be guaranteed a job to tide you over until the next season (the average tea picker makes MK110 or $0.80CAD per day). Second of all, growing bananas can be pretty profitable in Thyolo. I’m not sure what conditions make Thyolo a great place to grow bananas, but many of the bananas you will find throughout Malawi came from Thyolo. Some farmers in villages will form co-operatives that work together to produce enough bananas so that they can hire a truck to take the bananas to Lilongwe (or other areas) where they can get more for their bananas.

Finally, one last piece of construction on the agenda for Thyolo is to upgrade the road that goes through southern Thyolo and on to Nsanje District, which is the most southern district in Malawi. Right now Thyolo has one main highway that goes from Blantyre to the Boma and then halfway through Thyolo and into the neighbouring District of Mulanje. In order to access Nsanje you must go back to Blantyre and come down through another district called Chikwawa. The main reason that upgrading the road to Nsanje will promote development is because Malawi has just opened an inland port in Nsanje that is located on the Shire River. The Shire River runs through Malawi and up to the Lake, the opening of this port will allow Malawi to connect to the Zambezi River and the Indian Ocean; this should supposedly lower the cost of imported goods such as fuel. I have my doubts that prices will actually go down in any way that will benefit the general public, but a new road should increase traffic through Thyolo.

While there’s lots of exciting things going on around Nchima right now, I do want to mention some of the things that may also be hindering development. First of all, as I mentioned before, Thyolo is a very densely populated District and most of the good farming land is taken over by huge tea estates. Thyolo is also very hilly which leaves countless farmers squished onto terrible plots of land such as along the hillside. My family currently owns about an acre of land but it is located about 5 kilometers away from where we live which makes it hard to visit. My family is currently paying someone else to maintain their land. I haven’t seen the land yet because we haven’t been doing any farming, but Mr. Nzengo has promised to take me there this month when he starts planting maize.

The climate in Thyolo has also been changing and many farmers in Southern Thyolo found themselves unable to harvest any maize (the staple crop) last year. Malawians depend on their farms to supply both food for their families and income during the dry season when no farming takes place. My co-workers have attributed some of the climate change to deforestation that has been happening on Thyolo Mountain.

Anyways, I realize my analysis has been a little more related to Thyolo in general as opposed to just Nchima, but I think it’s all relevant. One thing I’ve been thinking about lately with the farming season arriving is subsidies. The Malawian government has recently started giving farmers fertilizer subsidies to help improve their crop yield. In Canada we tend to look down on subsidies as a bad thing for developing countries (In EWB we do anyways), I’m curious what thoughts you guys have on developing countries jumping on the subsidy train. Do you think it’ll help even up the playing field a little bit, or are developing countries just following in our harmful policies? (My knowledge on how Canadian subsidies work is pretty limited as well, so I’d love for the chapter especially to do some research!)

Missing you all,
Maria

PS – Going on a Zambian safari this weekend!!! Very stoked about it! (After being in Malawi for 90 days on a visitor visa they make you leave the country and come back in)

To begin, I just want to clarify a point that I made in my last blog about some of my culture frustrations. I’ve been getting a lot of emails and questions about it and I don’t think I phrased things right in my last entry. When I say that me and my family disagreed about the best way for me to get better, I mean that they took VERY good care of me and were always pushing me to go back to the hospital, take lots of medication, and eat extra nsima. We disagreed because after it was confirmed that I didn’t have malaria I didn’t want to take up anymore of the doctors time, I just wanted to let whatever I had pass through my system and I certainly didn’t want to eat even more nsima. Looking back on it now a lot of my frustrations seem foolish, but when you’re sick and in a different culture the little things can sometimes get to you.

Since everyone seems so interested in Malawian culture I decided to dedicate this entry to sharing some of the cultural things I’ve experienced or noticed since I’ve been here. I don’t want to make any generalizations about Malawi or “Africa” so my observations are based solely on my own personal experiences in Thyolo and some other parts of the country.

I’m going to start off by telling you about greetings and teaching you the greetings in Malawi. You always greet people you know when you see them and when you get visitors or visit people you always greet everyone who is present. Basically whenever you have any kind of interaction with someone, you greet them. The most common greetings I’ve experienced are “How are you?”, “Good morning” and “good afternoon”. I’ve listed the greetings below in this order. After greeting someone, both people end the greeting by saying “Zikomo” which means thank you. Most people shake hands when they greet each other and it is pretty common to continue shaking hands until the end of the conversation. I found it pretty awkward at first because people would continue to hold my hand a lot longer than I would hold someone’s hand in Canada. Anyways, the greetings are:

Muli Bwanji?
Ndili bwino, muli bwanji?
Ndili bwino

Mwadzuka bwanji?
Ndadzuka bwino, kaya inu?
Ndadzuka bwino

Mwasewela bwanji?
Ndasewela bwino, kaya inu?
Ndasewela bwino

I’ve also noticed some things based on the way people dress and the importance of dressing well here in Malawi. For the most part women never wear skirts above their knees; they either wear a longer skirt or they wear a chitenge. Sometimes in the cities women wear shorter skirts, but for the most part you never see their knees. Malawians also take great pride in the way that they dress for work. You will be hard pressed to find a Malawian working in an office who is not wearing a dress shirt, dress pants, and shoes. Malawians make sure their shoes are always polished and their shirts are always wrinkle free. Children on the other hand will wear pretty much anything. I’ve noticed that a lot or children don’t wear shoes, however I think this is due more to the fact that they don’t like wearing shoes rather then that they don’t have any. This is definitely the case with my family. All of my sisters have loads of shoes, but they usually only wear them to school and church.

On the subject of church, everyone I have met here belongs to a church. When I am first getting to know someone one of the most common things they will eventually ask me is what denomination I belong to. Most people in Malawians are Christians but there are also some Muslims. The most common denominations in Thyolo are Catholic and Seventh Day Adventist. People attribute their successes and blessings to God and they trust in him to provide for their families and to protect them. I’ve spent a couple bus rides listening to priests pray for the protection of the bus for the first 30 minutes. This usually only happens on bigger buses though, not on minibuses.

Finally, one last thing I’ll share with you is that the pace of life is much slower here. I took me a while to adjust to this at work; technically work is supposed to start at 7:30, but people usually start coming in anywhere between 8 and 9. Mr. Nzengo and I usually come in around 8:15 and we’re always the first people there aside from the Water Officer. Lunch is usually a 2 hour affair and the day ends around 5:00. Some days feel very slow but it can still get quite busy here sometimes. Outside of work I really like the slow pace of life here. No one ever seems in a rush to get anywhere, everyone takes the time to greet people and have conversation. It gives Malawi a very chill and relaxed feeling which I quite enjoy.

Anyways, I could go on and on about the differences I’ve noticed between Malawi and Canada, but I’ll stop here. These are some of the bigger things I’ve noticed (and can think of right now) and I’d love to hear your thoughts on them. I’m trying to keep track of lots of the smaller things as well!

Much love,
Maria

I feel like it’s been a while since I last blogged, but my last few weeks have definitely been eventful! Things are starting to get pretty busy at work, I’ve set up weekly training sessions with 7 people in the district for the water monitoring system and hopefully we should be collecting some data on water points in the district very soon.

I spent the weekend at a music festival called Lake of Stars. As the name suggests it took place on Lake Malawi, in Mangochi, which is about a 5-6 hour minibus ride from Thyolo. It was my first time seeing the Lake and it definitely lived up to my expectations. Lake Malawi is huge! I’ve heard that it takes up approximately 20% of the country; it is very beautiful! There is white sand and palm trees everywhere, the water is the perfect temperature for swimming, but is it ever hot! I thought it was hot in Thyolo but it is much hotter in Mangochi!

The Festival was nothing like anything else I have experienced in Malawi. I met up with the rest of the EWB team at the Lake and we built a shelter out of chitenge’s and bamboo and slept on the beach all weekend. The festival was a very different experience because half of the people there were white and the other half consisted of decently wealthy Malawians. It was different, but it was a great experience; I got to see and hear lots of Malawian and African music! It was a nice break from being the only white person in my village.

I think I finally hit the bottom of the culture shock curve when I came home though. The last few days have been pretty physically and emotionally draining. I had a bit of a Malaria scare my first day back after the festival. I woke up feeling pretty sick, luckily though I got a blood test done at the hospital and I am still malaria free! I spent two days lying in bed though feeling pretty rotten. I also got quite frustrated with some cultural aspects as me and my family disagreed quite a lot on what was the appropriate way for me to get healthy. I don’t want to get into in on my blog, but email me up if you’re interested in discussing Malawian culture; things I enjoy and things that frustrate me. I am feeling better now and I am trying to jump back into everything that is going on at work.

I cannot quite believe that this weekend marks the halfway point of my placement. It seems to be flying by! The rainy season is also getting ready to start really soon. Apparently while I was in Mangochi it rained twice in Thyolo and it has already rained twice since I’ve been back. When in rains in Malawi, It pours! In St. John’s we just get disgusting rainy drizzle for days on end, in Malawi when it rains it just starts really quickly, pours for about 20 minutes, and then stops altogether. This will probably change a little bit though once the rainy season truly starts. It is still a bit early for rain and the season won’t really start in Thyolo until mid November. When it rains in my house though it’s all you can hear! We have a tin roof and so the rain just pounds on the roof drowning out all other thoughts.

Anyways, like I said before, it was a bit of a rough week so I’d love to hear from people at home! My phone number here is +265 991 764 034, it’s decently cheap if you want to call me from skype. Apparently Walmart has some decently cheap calling cards as well. Erica managed to get one for $20 that has 113 minutes on it. So yeah, I’d love to hear from you guys! I have also been enjoying the questions, for those of you that posted questions, I have been going back and responding to them slowly in the comments, so check it out. Also, if there’s anything you’re interested in hearing about in my blog let me know, I’m thinking about maybe writing a blog about my family or my experiences with poverty here, but I’d like to know what you guys are interested in reading about as well.

Much love,

Maria