3 Weeks in....

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This is going to be a long entry as I’ve been here 3 weeks now and haven’t written a single blog, but here goes….



I met up with Jo (the founder of Temwa) and Alex and Leona who are friends of hers at Heathrow on the 17^th, and after a very long flight via Nairobi finally arrived in Malawi!



The first day was spent in Lilongwe which is the capital. Jo and Alex had a meeting straight away with the minister of foreign affairs which meant Leona and I waited outside watching the truck with our luggage on the back, which amazingly all made the journey from London without getting lost. By the time the others had finished their meeting we were surrounded by men who had come to talk to us having seen us out the window and wanted to come talk to us. After convincing them we weren’t going to take them back to England with us (and realising I should always say I’m married while I’m here!) we had a good chat mainly about Malawi, England, food and football.



After this we headed up to Mzuzu which is where I will be based for the assignment. It’s a reasonable sized town with a good range of shops, supermarkets and internet cafés. I’m currently staying with a woman called Esther and her 2 children…they’re all lovely but we’re all staying in the same room so I’m not getting much sleep as the children do cry a lot!



Friday night I ended up going clubbing with the Temwa accountant and his friend. I was a bit dubious about going clubbing in Malawi but it was actually really good fun. The place was quite chilled, they had a bar, pool table and dance floor and everyone was very friendly. Drinks here are amazingly cheap, it’s around £2 for a double Captain Morgans and coke, and much less if you go for local spirits or beer.



On Saturday we set off for Usisya which is a rural village on the shore of Lake Malawi. The only road to Usisya is in terrible condition and there are often fatal accidents with the trucks which ferry people between Usisya and Mzuzu. Luckily Temwa have 4x4 vehicles they use for the journey. It’s absolutely stunning there; I think I’ve fallen in love with the lake, the village and the people of Usisya. I stayed in a tent on the beach and every morning would wake up to swim/wash in the lake. When walking around the village all the children follow shouting ‘mzungu mzungu’ (mzungu meaning white person!) and if they’re in a group they tend to try to touch the mzungu but get scared if you turn round and catch them in the act! The very small children are also terrified of white people and start screaming if they see you, which is a bit upsetting at first but after a while it’s actually quite funny that the babies all have the same reaction. The parents also find it funny so quite often people will thrust their small children towards you just to see them look frightened and start crying.



Everyone also loves having their photo taken – the kids go crazy if you get a camera out (which usually results in a terrible photo as they crowd round as close as possible and stick their hands up towards the camera so you can’t actually see their faces) but the adults will quite often ask for their photo to be taken too. You could literally start a riot here by getting your camera out around a group of children, and even if you think it’s safe to take a picture of 1 or 2 children then as soon as you try children will appear out of nowhere and start running towards you to get in the photo.



The first couple of days in Usisya were full day meetings in the village community centre which was hard work given the excruciating heat both inside and outside the building. The meeting on the Monday was a committee meeting with all the local village headmen and chiefs who came together to discuss with Temwa what they would like Temwa to focus on and any issues they’ve had, and on the Tuesday was a strategic planning meeting with all the staff. The people who work for Temwa in Usisya are all great and have been trying to teach me Tumbukah which is the language used in the majority of north Malawi. So far I have the basic greetings covered but I still have a long way to go!



On Wednesday we got the boat up to visit some of the projects Temwa work on along the lakeshore. They focus on hard to reach areas, and I think we were taken to the slightly easier to reach ones out of courtesy but they were still a mission to get to once we left the boat. There was a lot of trekking up hills (which I would describe as mountains but the local staff didn’t agree with me!) which isn’t what I had been expecting when I put my flip flops on that morning, in the end it was easier to just go bare foot and try not to tread on anything which looked too sharp.



We visited several agricultural projects as well as some schools where the AIDs Action Clubs (funded by Temwa) put on plays, read poems and performed songs and dances to raise awareness of HIV and AIDs. In a country where around 1 in 7 people have HIV or AIDS it is vital that the kids are educated about it from a very early age, so although on one hand it was a bit strange seeing small children discussing sex and AIDs so openly, it’s also very promising that they are being taught about it and will hopefully be equipped with the knowledge to help slow down the huge epidemic of HIV and AIDs in the country.



That night we stayed in an amazing lodge in a village called Ruwhare which is just up the lake from Usisya. Charlie the lodge owner has been working on building it himself for the last 15 years and has turned it into an incredible place to stay. I have to admit I was much happier than I thought I’d be at them actually having a flushing toilet, however I did still chose a swim and wash in the lake over the hot shower provided.



Thursday we got the boat back down Usisya and visited some more of the beneficiaries of Temwa in the village. This included visiting a boy who’d lost both his parents and who Temwa enabled to go to school, the local HIV and AIDs support group who get together weekly and some more agricultural projects. What I found hard at every place we went to over the couple of days was that at every site they were always asking for more. More seeds, more footballs and feeding schemes in schools, more funding to go to Uni. Jo is very good at responding to this saying that she doesn’t make promises she doesn’t know she can keep as she doesn’t want to let them down, but is taking their feedback on board. One thing repeated over and over again in Temwa is the quote ‘give a man a fish and feed him for a day, but teach a man to fish and you feed him for life’, Temwa want to help people to help themselves so they don’t want to give hand-outs. Everything they do is aimed at being sustainable and they have a 10 year exit plan to leave the community in a way that community can continue to sustain themselves, so it is difficult when people continue to ask for hand-outs which would not be sustainable if Temwa were not around.



On Saturday we headed back to Mzuzu and on Sunday Jo and Leona headed back to England and Alex went to Nkhata Bay for a short trip before heading back to London later in the week, leaving me as the only mzungu left! I moved in properly with Esther over the weekend and after my first night of very little sleep being in a room with a 2 year old and a 4 year old who either don’t want to go to bed or don’t want to get up and go to school I had my first real day in the office on Monday.



The pace at work here is very different to the UK, at first I found it hard to not get frustrated at things just not getting done, or being done much slower, but I just have to accept that things do take longer here for a whole range of reasons. There’s a lot to keep me busy in the accounts department, but hopefully in the next 6 months and with the support of the Temwa UK team I can make some positive changes while I am here.



On Wednesday I decided to head back to Usisya for a long weekend to get some rest in as I hadn’t really stopped since I got to Malawi! On Thursday and Friday I went into the office there but I took Saturday and Sunday off to explore and relax. On Saturday I went on a walk to a couple of villages along the shore from Usisya, though I ended up feeling bad as hoards of children would follow me from one village to the next and I was worried people thought I was stealing them! I had lunch at one of the village headman’s house then climbed up a massive waterfall which was absolutely stunning. On Sunday I went to watch the football at a local pub – I got a fair bit of attention being the only female there as well as being white, but mainly the local men were just arguing amongst themselves, usually set off by the acting chief who was horrendously drunk. There is a huge drinking problem in Usisya mainly down to the sachets they sell (usually 5 shots for 100 kwatcha/20p) which are very potent and men in the village often drink on an empty stomach so there are a lot of drunks around which is sad to see, and there are often stories of people dying from drinking the sachets.



Monday morning at 4am I got the 4 hour boat ride back to Nkhata Bay then a taxi to work so arrived in the office exhausted but not too late to work. Unfortunately I seem to have picked up some sort of bug/food poisoning in Usisya so have been horribly sick since I got back, but I went to the doctors and they ruled out it being anything serious so hopefully it’ll pass soon. The medical centre I went to was very organised and efficient; I just filled in a form with my details then get sent to see a nurse who took my vitals, then along to the doctor to discuss what the problem is. After that I went along to the lab to give a blood sample (which they take by jabbing a sharp object into your finger then squeezing until they have enough for all the tests!) then once the results are in its back along to the doctor to have a prescription written.



And that’s pretty much all of my first 3 weeks… Being ill has meant I’ve actually had the time to sit down and write this, but I will try to do more regular shorter updates soon! I've put a few of my favourite photos up on here but there are plenty more on my facebook...

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