The most common water points that you can find here in Thyolo include AfriDev and Malda handpumps, taps connected to Gravity Fed Schemes (GFS), and shallow wells. It is the responsibility of the District Water Office to manage these water points and water point committees, oversee repairs and installations, and act as a consultant for donors and organizations siting new water points and rehabilitating old ones. Unfortunately, due to a number of factors, it can be pretty difficult for the water office to actually carry out some of these tasks.

In development water infrastructure has often been looked at from an engineering perspective, design and build, instead of as a sustainable service. In 2006, an $11.9 million dollar CIDA (Canadian International Development Agency) funded project called COMWASH was completed in Thyolo. The goal of the project was to implement sustainable water, sanitation and health programs within the District. This included the construction of the four major gravity fed schemes that currently exist in Thyolo. COMWASH concluded in their final report that one of their key challenges in the project was the complexity of the GFS’s which subsequently was a challenge when organizing Water Point Committees in communities to manage the schemes once COMWASH left. The project also failed to engage the District Assembly in any substantial capacity building and had difficulty raising funds to cover the operation and maintenance costs of the GFS’s. The result of this project is that some of the GFS committees have fallen apart and the 107 tap scheme named Didi has not been functional for over a year. In fact, since January the functionality of all 4 GFS’s has never been higher than 50%.

Poorly managed and communicated projects seem to be the norm here in Thyolo. Donors are supposed to consult the water office before drilling any new water points, however a conversation with my co-worker the other day revealed that some donors fail to even notify the water office that they are constructing a new borehole, much less consult them on where new water points should go. The water office only discovers these boreholes have been drilled when they are later contacted about setting up a Water Point Committee or when the water point breaks. The Ministry has even drilled new water points without notifying the water office. They simply took instructions from an MP on where the MP wanted new infrastructure to go.

This is another serious problem within Districts in Malawi. MP’s can dictate where boreholes will go; they often promise new water points to communities as a way to get votes. The same communities are serviced over and over again while other communities are consistently passed over. Some communities will refuse to pay for a new water point because they believe that water is coming from their MP for free. It is policy in Malawi that donors who are funding new water points also fund Community Based Management (CBM) as well. This involves training for community members on the operation and maintenance of the water point and sets each community up with a treasurer responsible for collecting a monthly sum from each household to be used for maintenance and repairs of the water point. In some cases CBM training is not done at all or is done very poorly. I recently visited a borehole that had been broken for a about a year, it was only installed a year ago and worked for only one week.

To make a long story short, the district water office has a hard time keeping track of what is going on in Thyolo. Pair this lack of communication with an under resourced and underfunded water office and it’s easier to understand why unequal distribution and non-functionality is so prevalent in Malawi. This is why I am spending my semester here in Thyolo; the hope that I can help enable the district to coordinate, get their data in order, and use it make evidence based decisions when it comes to water infrastructure in Thyolo.

The water monitoring system that I am helping implement at the District is one that is both simple and effective. The concept of water monitoring is not new to development, however past systems have often involved GPS’s and complex software that is not within the computer skills of most water officers. The system EWB uses is a simple excel database that stores the number of functional and non-functional water points by village, group village, and traditional authority (these are just further divisions of the district). This information is then automatically entered into a simple pivot table that can show the water coverage rate and functionality rate by TA, GVH, and village. The really exciting part is that the program also generates a map of the district indicating areas with good and poor water coverage.

The information for this database is collected by Health Surveillance Assistants (HSA). Health is significantly more funded then water and has dozens of HSA’s who are already regularly visiting villages and collecting information on water and sanitation. Since Health is also interested in this information, the health office is usually willing to collect additional data on water points. Having this information allows the district to be able to make informed and strategic decisions when siting and rehabilitating boreholes and when working with MP’s and donors. It’s pretty exciting!

Anyways, that’s what I’m doing here in Thyolo; working to increase the coordination between the different areas of the district by getting everyone to work together on this new Water Point Monitoring System. Let’s hope it works! I’d love to know your thoughts, questions and advice. Also thanks for the questions on my last post; I have just made a note of them and should get back to you soon!

Tionana,
Maria

I’ve been getting lots of emails asking me about what life in Thyolo is like, so I think it’s time I filled you all in. I am currently living in a village called Nchima which is just outside the Boma. All district capitals are called Bomas in Malawi. I have currently been living with Mr. Nzengo, his wife, and their three daughters. They have a nice house, complete with electricity, a tv, their own private water tap, and a latrine. I have my own room and I am quite comfortable here. I was expecting that I would not have electricity when I was in Malawi, but I am close to the Boma and a lot of the houses here are hooked up to electricity. I’ve been keeping up with the news; my family is Catholic so we’ve been watching a lot of the Pope’s visit to the UK.

There are banana trees and mango trees everywhere here! Thyolo is known for its bananas; mango season hasn’t quite started yet, but I’m very excited for it. You can always see chickens and goats roaming the roads everywhere here as well; my family has 7 chickens that are always kicking around in the backyard, I feel bad for them though because I know one of these days they are going to end up on my plate (one already has).

I love exploring the marketplace here in Thyolo. It lines the main road through the Boma and it has everything you could ever need! On the left side of the road there are stalls upon stalls selling fruits and vegetables, and on the right side of the road there’s many shops selling soaps and toilet paper (very important to always carry this around with you because otherwise you won’t have any). After that there’s a couple stalls selling bike parts and then you get to the clothing section.

You have to leave the road and continue into the market if you are looking for clothes. If you’re wondering what happens to the clothes you donate, it’s pretty likely it ends up being sold on the side of the road in a developing country. There are piles upon piles of used western clothing being sold here! People here mostly just wear western clothing, except women usually wear a chitenge (an African cloth wrap) over their skirt as well. My favourite part of the market is where they sell all of the African fabrics. They are so beautiful; I could just walk by them for hours. I’ve bought two chitenge’s so far and I’m hoping to get an outfit made soon.

For the second part of this blog I’m going to fill you in on what a typical day usually looks like for me. I wake up at 6:00 every morning and watch my family bustle around the house getting ready for school. I usually take my bucket bath around 6:30 and then get ready for work. It took me awhile to figure out how to wash my hair with just a bucket of water! I started with the “dunk my head in and hope for the best approach”, but I’ve got it to pat now using just my facecloth. At 7, Mr. Nzengo leaves on his motorbike to bring his wife to work (she’s a primary school teacher) and I have a bit of time to myself. When he returns, Mr. Nzengo and I have a breakfast of hot chocolate, eggs, and peanut butter bread. After that I head off to work for the day.

Any number of things can happen at work. Sometimes I go to the field with a co-worker, sometimes I spend time teaching people computer skills, and sometimes I’m meeting with people, just planning my approach or getting to know my co-workers. I’ve only had 6 or 7 days of work so far, but I think things are going to pick up this week. I go home for my nsima lunch at 12; people usually take a 2 hour lunch, so sometimes I head back to the market for a bit or to the internet café.

Work finishes for the day at 5, I head home, have my second bucket bath, spend some time with my family, have rice for supper and usually go to bed around 9. Weekends are pretty relaxing, this weekend I headed out to the town of Limbe and bought myself a bike! I really like it and it’s definitely handy. Now I can get around faster and hopefully explore more of Thyolo. This weekend coming up I’m heading back to Lilongwe for my first APS team meeting. The African Programs Staff are long term volunteers in Malawi, since there are only two JF’s here during the fall we get to tag along on the APS meetings.

A few things now to clue up this blog; I haven’t checked in with you in a while on my physical, emotional and mental state. Physically I am still healthy! I had a bit of a rough go at the beginning of last week, but I am feeling well now; still no sign of Malaria! The sun really takes it out of me though and I’m always exhausted at the end of the week. Emotionally I think I’m starting to come down from the honeymoon stage on the culture shock curve and am starting to miss home a little, but I’m still charging forward now. Mentally I’m a bit frustrated with the speed at which things happen at work. It’s been challenging for me to get used to the slow pace of life at work.

In other news, I posted a few pictures to facebook, I find facebook uploads them quicker then wordpress does, so I think I may continue to post pictures on facebook when I have the chance. Anyways, thanks for all the support, prayers, and emails; keep them coming. Also, I love getting questions, so keep them coming as well. I’m working on a more thought provoking post on my work, so I like getting questions.

Much love,
Maria

If you decide to head off to a developing country such as Malawi, there is one word you are sure to hear! In Malawi it is Azungu, but it changes of course depending on the local language. Azungu means “white person”. I was told I would be referred to as Azungu quite a bit, but I actually didn’t really experience this during my first week. In Lilongwe there’s lots of Azungu’s around so nobody called me Azungu and Thyolo was pretty tame as well (although this is because I stayed in the Buma my first few days which is the capital of the district). But alas, I have had several experiences now being called Azungu, one of which was quite unsettling.

I have been working at the District Water Office (DWO) in Thyolo for a few days now and before I go on I must express how beautiful Thyolo is. It is one of the most beautiful places I have ever been! It is every bit as beautiful as I ever could have imagined Malawi to be. I’m going to try and post some pictures at the bottom of this blog entry if I have time, so fingers crossed! The DWO is unlike anywhere I have ever worked. Everything moves at a very slow pace, not because people are lazy, but because that is the way things work here. On my first day I mostly just introduced myself to people, had a few conversations about the water infrastructure in Thyolo, and worked on increasing the computer skills of some of the staff. On Wednesday I got to go to the field though!

Mr. Banda, the Water Monitoring Assistant (WMA) for Gravity Fed Schemes (GFS), and I went to help out with the repair of a pipe that had been washed away when the river rose earlier this year during the rainy season. Since Thyolo is so hilly it has 4 quite large GFS’s; they consist of an intake gate at the top of the mountain where a spring is located and then the water is transported by underground pipes down several sides of the mountain. There are taps for villages located along the length of the pipes. The civil engineering student in me found it quite interesting of course! Anyways, the scheme is maintained by a repair team who collects money every month from households in every village that is serviced. As the WMA, Mr. Banda went out to monitor the repair of the pipe and I got to accompany him! It was here that I had my first experience as an Azungu.

Along the way we stopped briefly by a school so that Mr. Banda could show me the tap there. As soon as we drove past the school children started chasing us and by the time I had gotten off the motorbike there was literally about 200 children surrounding me, all chanting “Azungu Azungu Azungu” and reaching their hands out to touch me. I felt a bit like the fish in Finding Nemo that the seagulls are all fighting over, “mine mine mine”, “Azungu Azungu Azungu”. It was quite unsettling and made me wonder what a white person represents to them because my presence certainly didn’t benefit them at all. I say they were reaching out to touch me and shake my hand, but looking back they could have just as easily been reaching out for money since many children in the village where I’m staying often run up to me with big smiles and say “Give me my money”. (I don’t think that’s what these school children were doing though). I can’t decide which I prefer, the children who harass me or the children who are afraid of my white skin and run away.

On Friday, I moved in with a family from the office. I’m not really sure how permanent the arrangement is going to be, but I’ll keep you posted. I like living with a family much better than staying in a guest house. Everyone is really sweet, I’m just trying to figure out where I fit in the family dynamic. Right now I am still very much a guest, I try to help out where I can, but I’m also trying to figure out how things work within the family. One of my goals now is to help make nsima some night this week. To refresh some of you, nsima is the staple food here, it is a porridge consistency and you eat it with different relishes. The most unusual relish I’ve had thus far is fish. The reason this was unusual for me was because I was served the entire fish; face, fins, and scales! It took me awhile to figure out how to eat it. Unfortunately my body still seems to be having some problems adjusting to all the new foods and new routine. I usually go to sleep around 9 and wake up around 6.

In other news, it has rained the last two mornings I’ve been here! I thought this was supposed to be the dry season; apparently normal weather laws don’t apply in Thyolo. I was also quite excited to discover that there is a Salvation Army church here. I went this morning; it was quite a different experience to what I’m used to, and it was all conducted in Chichewa so I understood very little. But they sing some of the same songs that I sing at home, I’d never have known though if they weren’t listed in English in the songbook though because the language and tune make songs completely unrecognizable. Christianity is the dominant religion in Malawi; being asked what denomination you are is a pretty common question.

Anyways, call me up or email me this week. I’m a bit slow answering emails, but I’m usually free after 5:30 if you want to call. The time difference between Malawi and Newfoundland is 4.5 hours. So instead of chilling in the UC at 1:00 doing nothing, give me a call! I was going to post some pictures here, but unfortunately it’s WAY too slow and I’m on my lunch break. Better luck next time. Miss you all!

Much love,
Maria