Blogs from Lilongwe, Central, Malawi, Africa

After a year, I'm back in Malawi! And I'm very happy to be here. It has been wonderful to catch up with everyone here in Malawi, after not seeing them for a year. And it feels nice to be back in this environment, where there is so much going on, so much to see, listen to, people to talk to... Mum and I arrived in Zambia two weeks ago now and stayed in Lusaka for our first couple of days. We spent an afternoon with my friend Liz and her family, who I stayed with when I visited Lusaka last year. It was great to see them all again! However, while we were there, it rained really heavily for about 4 hours, so when we finally left to go home, the ground outside had become a ... read more

Friday 21st - Sunday 23rd We drive through Salima, a prosperous looking town on the west side of Lake Malawi to Cool Runnings, a site opening onto the sand in Monkey Bay. We're right on the beach by the lake, which looks like a sea, stretching to the horizon with gentle waves lapping on the sand. To the left is the fishing village where the men mend their nets; to the right women do their washing in the lake and spread things to dry on the sand. More boys than girls splash in the water, though some do, and four of them came to chat to me. Aged 15 to 21 they say they're not ready to marry yet, unlike the village girls who marry at this age. Two of the girls are at Secondary school, ... read more

We took turns to help the cooks, Sinai and Kinessa, two women from the local village, with the lunchtime meal for all the workers. I was ok at chopping onions and tomatoes, and then went with one of the women to the borehole 500 yards away. We waited our turn and pumped the lever up and down to fill the large bucket, then Kinessa helped put it on my head. I had a small scarf to twist into a circle to hold it steady, which wasn't nearly big enough. The village woemn can carry water this way, often without holding the bucket, but i needed to hold it. Water was slopping down my back, and once water starts slopping, it's difficult to keep it steady. Other village woemn ran out of their houses to laugh at ... read more

8th September to 29th September It is my first Aid Camp International trip, and it won't be my last. This is Aid Camp's first time in Malawi too, and they are working with the Landirani Trust (a local Non Governmental Organisation supporting orphans) to build a Community Building Chidren's Centre (CBCC) about 30 km from Lilongwe. The Centre has been built using a newly recognised method of construction, 'rammed earth' which is actually a traditional method. Brick-made buildings have been used for a while, but brickmaking uses a lot of wood for firing the bricks and deforestation is becoming a problem. Brick-built houses use only one thickness of brick, which is not very stable, and does not keep out the cold or the heat. 'Rammed earth' is done by ramming earth of a certain damp consistency ... read more

Lilongwe, Malawi, 15 August We arrived at the Mabuya Camp at 5.00pm which was well appointed with pool (too cold today), bar, WiFi, plenty of showers and toilets and shade trees. The camp was 5 minutes out of Lilongwe city CBD. In the city we went to the ATM which ‘ate’ Tom’s card. Fortunately the bank was opened so we could retrieve it. We stocked up on snacks and drinks. We went to 4 shops and all the shelves where wine was, were empty. We didn’t find out what has happened. We have, however, read in the newspapers that there is a real shortage of Kwacha notes, the local money so banks are offering 36% interest for investers and charge 40% interest for loans. Some economists are saying that businesses are suffering badly and the whole ... read more

7/27 Sorry it’s taken me so long to write this next entry. We’ve had frequent all day power outages which can make things a little difficult around here! These past 3 weeks have definitely had their fair share of highs and lows with time moving fast and yes, even slow. I’ve had some kind of cold symptoms for about two of them but really I think it’s all the red clay-colored dust and exhaust in the air. Anyway, it’s left me totally wiped, sleeping away half my evenings right after work. Not much writing has gotten done so I’ll summarize my days as they come to me. Our busy times at work have included meetings with DFID (MEJN’s funder), AICC, a policy symposium on agriculture production and an all day Saturday meeting in the Mchinji ... read more

Following the Game Walk, we hired a taxi to take us to the Malawi border. The "taxi driver" was an off duty police officer. Civil servants are generally not paid a living wage. Most survive by charging bribes for the smallest of tasks. Others moonlight. As a bonus, the police officer was a good driver. The first hour of travel was on unpaved road, and was rough on the small car. The final leg was on fresh tarmac. After immigration formalities of stamping exit and entry visas, we got lucky when a Zambia-Malawi bus showed up at the border crossing heading to Lilongwe. Since it was Sunday, we'd considered staying at the border overnight, to give ourselves better choices at traversing the last hour and a half from the border to Lilongwe. This bus goes only ... read more

7/2 - 7/5 Alex and I officially started our first week of work with Fletcher at Malawi Economic Justice Network (MEJN). Fletcher himself is a well known international development research fellow at the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) in the U.K. and has worked all over the world. He is also native to Malawi and good friends/neighbors with our host mother, Sally, which is convenient for rides into Old Town where the office is located. Once in his office, Fletcher outlines the projects we'll be working on this summer. Some of which include case studies centered on Malawian access to justice, water, service provisions and human rights. We get to choose out of 10 projects that our focus will be placed on the Phalombe (Pa-lome-be) District in Malawi's southern region. This research will double for our Applied ... read more

6/26 Salome was kind enough to drop us off into Old Town. We pass by villagers who many have walked 2 + hours just to work in the fields for the day. Alex points out a nearby prison named Maula, which happens to be the largest one in the country. Prisoners, a hundred at a time, are kept in small houses and sleep on the floor side by side living out their days. Malawi has a consistent smell of burning wood as most of the fields in small patches are being burned to rid the crops of field mice. The mice then scatter about only to be caught, dried out, and sold on the side of the road again for a snack, mmmm.... We arrive in Old Town and stop in the office where we'll be ... read more