Blogs from Malawi, Africa - page 26

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

The day I decided to leave Cape MacLear for Lilongwe was a Sunday, which is never a good day for travel in Africa. It was made even worse by the fact that Joyce Banda, the country's new female president was visiting Monkey Bay. Despite getting up early, myself and Dmitri from Belgium, had missed what was supposedly the only pick up going to Monkey Bay to Cape MacLear that day. After a while of asking around, we eventually found another pick up to take us to Monkey Bay. From there, we were put on another pick up to the junction of the road, heading towards Dedza. At Dedza, we were told we could get a bus to Lilongwe. At the junction we found a pick up going to Dedza. We waited an hour and half, in ... read more

I got up quite early the day I eventually decided to leave Nkhata Bay. The only problem was that I wasn't certain where I was actually going to go! I wanted to head south to Cape MacLear, but having not been up in time to catch the 6 o'clock bus there, I was fairly certain that this wasn't possible in one day. I ended up hanging around Mayoka Village for a while longer, so I could get a boat across to the bus station, as opposed to walking up the hill and down again. When I got to the bus station, I found a bus that was going to Salima. I decided I would get on this, as Salima is quite close to Senga Bay and I figured that this might be a good place to ... read more

Getting from Mbeya to the Malawian border was comparatively painless, even if we did stop less than hour away to wait for the minibus to fill back up. I even saw and got to speak to the first white people I had seen in days. After getting over the border, I took a shared taxi to Karonga and from there, a bus to Chitimba. The journey was a measly 6 hours. Chitimba is one of the first towns going south on Lake Malawi. Nearby there are a couple of campsites, where I checked into the Chitimba Campsite and immediately went for a swim in the lake. Chitimba is an idyllic spot, with a big sandy beach. It is overlooked by a couple of mountains and I spent the rest of the afternoon there by the water. ... read more