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I have arrived in Malawi! I know I have been here a while and haven't written, but it’s been packed full of funness, excitement and work since I arrived. I’m sitting now in my house in Area 12 with my roommate Rachel, dog Claire and cat Peanut. It’s a bit odd to think I’m half way across the world when I look around, especially since it gets chilly at night when we’re sitting outside, but venture much past the front door and it’s a whole different place.
Lilongwe is a weird city; unlike any other capital I’ve visited. It’s divided into areas, we’re in Area 12, I work in Area 19 and friends in area 10, 43... etc. There are no real high rises and really spread out so it feels very un-city like. Loads of green, which is amazing. And Toyotas. Only Toyotas.
I arrived to Lilongwe after a really nice stop over in London, during which I had a picnic in Hyde Park with my dear friend Holly, who I met in Hong Kong. We had a great time catching up and wandered around the centre city. I was amused by the congestion charging signs (our class
Lilongwe
The streets of Lilongwedid an interesting project on it this year!!). So nice to see her! I missed seeing Gino by one day. Next time my friend.
Brief stop over in Addis Ababa airport, which looks sort of like an Indian emporium, then flight down to Lilongwe. Not a huge airport at all. Had a guy there waiting for me when I arrived from Theatre for a Change. He had brought his kids with him to watch my plane land; they had only ever seen them in the air.
As soon as I arrived, I was whisked off by my immediate supervisor, Claire (who also did the MPP program and is great!), to the Theatre for a Change retreat in Salima right on Lake Malawi. The location was beautiful. Trees, monkeys swinging from branches, beaches, and lots of little nooks and green spaces to do our theatre games and activities. Yes, we did drama games. It was great! Things like Zip/Zap/Boing, fill in the space, short skits, and a lot of good discussion and reflection. It was actually a fantastic way to meet people in the organization, get acquainted with the work and see a bit of Malawi. We got to
know each other over meals, a mixture of Western and Malawian food, which is generally a vegetable, maybe some meat and
nsima, a mixture of maize and water that makes it a doughy substance that is eaten with your hands. It is delicious, especially with the beef stew!
Both groups that TfaC works with participated in the retreat. We have people in 6 of the 9 teacher training colleges across the country who run workshops with the student-teachers. Since teachers in Malawi have the third-highest prevalence of HIV (about 25%!)(MISSING) TfaC, with support of the Ministry of Education, recognizes the importance of doing intervention. The advantage to this, of course, is that it has the potential to affect two populations, the teachers and the students they teach in the future. Our Primary School Project, to monitor and provide support for these teachers, is getting underway.
The other group, who came the second part of the week to the retreat, are the people who do the Alliance for Behaviour Change (ABC), TfaC’s other core program. They are all former sex workers who work with current female and male sex workers in Lilongwe to try to reduce their risk of
Cande Beach
on the coast of lake malawi contracting HIV and where the opportunity exists, allow them to explore other career paths. With an HIV prevalence rate of 70%, an intervention in this population is very important.
The aim of the retreat was to bring people together from both programs to share best practices as well as provide support for each other, talk out problems that they might be encountering, and be creative in the way that they deliver programming. It was fascinating as a newbie to the team to be able to see where the successes and challenges lie in the organization so as to anticipate some of the issues that might come up.
I’ve only had five days of work thus far in Lilongwe, but it’s going really well. My main responsibilities are in the Monitoring and Evaluation front, measuring the impact of the work. TfaC has developed a curriculum that incorporates HIV knowledge with a behaviour change program geared to make people aware of human rights and social justice around gender and sexuality. It also incorporates a course in participatory learning, which was developed with St. Mary’s University in the UK. Overall, quite good and worthwhile from what I can tell. Excited about
learning more.
Well, working five days and doing a week-long retreat doesn’t really add up to the 3 weeks (!) that I’ve been here. Fortuitously, I had a week long break while the office was closed in which I had some interesting experiences with some African chickens, a long hike, and great people.
I started out after the retreat on a week off from work to go with Claire and company to Cande Beach just up the coast from Salima. It was a beautiful beach, and because of the incredible wind, had crashing waves onto the shore making it appear to be like the ocean. We spent three days lounging, playing games, and swimming in the surf! Quite odd when it’s not salty!
From there I headed up the coast to Nkhata Bay, another great stop: fishing village/port/tourist spot. I took a mini-bus, the primary public transit here. They are essentially those vans that have 3 rows of bench seating in them designed for maybe 9 people to sit comfortably in the back. Most of the time, however, I rode with about 15. During one especially packed journey, I shared the van with 28 people. That was
the mini bus where I sat beside a very nice woman who was carrying a chicken. Who stared at me the whole ride (the chicken, not the woman).
Nkhata Bay centres around the port. Boats leave to service places up and down the coast as well as the islands that Malawi owns close to the Mozambique border across the lake. Sunday is sailing day which causes an explosion of markets, football (soccer) games, and people dressed up for the chance to impress the increase in traffic. I wandered through town, past the vendors selling potatoes, tomatoes, and a host of knick knacks from toilet plungers to second-hand Old Navy trousers; past Obama’s Number 1 Men’s and Ladies’ Shop (complete with stencil); trucks unloading more Coca Cola and Green (Carlsberg); and people boarding ferries and picking up mini-buses. Bustling excitement!
The next day I moved on to Livingstonia a small community on top of the escarpment up from the lake. After a 15 km (uphill) hike from the road I arrived to a beautiful hostel overlooking the lake and surrounding valleys, amazing. I walked past the coffee and maize fields past the biggest waterfall in Malawi (not big!) at
Lukewe Lodge
On the road to Livingstonia most times with an entourage of children practising their English. We had some good games of hackey sack and tic-tac-toe in the sand. Beautiful views from above and interesting mission of Irish doctors with whom I had lunch.
Back to Lilongwe via Mzuzu. For the second time, a chicken was beside me. Half way through the bus ride, the bird wrestled free of the twine holding its legs together and began running through the bus under people’s feet. It wasn’t until we were stopped at a check point and an officer boarded the bus and picked up the chicken that she was again restrained.
So, that’s it from me for now! Will try to keep this up to date sort of. No real pictures yet as my camera was stolen. These pictures are ones I found on the internet... Haha. Hope all’s well wherever you’re reading this. Sending hugs!
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iona anderson
non-member comment
GREAT
Ian you enrich my life. Looking forward to your blogs.