holiday blues

Here starteth my whinge:
I think the worst thing about being single and living away from 'home' is holidays and weekends...as in- what do you do with them?
I relished the solitude of weekends for the first 6 months...but now Im just bored.
Then I remembered that I have all these holidays to use and started thinking 'great- where'll I go?' only to realise that the excitement of 'travelling through Africa' has worn off somewhat now that I live here... and if Im bored with weekends- whats my headspace going to be after 3 weeks solo?!
The only place that really interests me is Ille de Mozambique which is 2.5 days away by public minivans and train (and they speak Portuguese not English which sucks when you're lost) OR 1.5 days drive on remote, civil war torn roads...again- neither of which look appealing if you're going solo.
POOR ME!!!!
There endeth my whinge. thank you for reading.
There is a storm brewing. It rained at the farm but hasn't rained down here yet. thunder. cool :)
Im going to go back to reading my 'Lonely Planet' guide for inspiration. wish me luck.

Rain!

I was going to write about the joy of finishing budgets and proposals...or about shovelling 7 tonnes of cow manure today, or maybe even about lunch with 'the crew' at a 'resteraunt' in the market place next to a 'cinema' playing C grade videos so loudly we all had to lip read...

But all of todays events paled into insignificance when it started to RAIN.
yup, huge drops falling from the sky, crashing into the parched earth causing mini craters and puffs of dust like miniature red waves...it looked as though the ground was moving.
The children...half naked, running and dancing along the roadside, muddy rivulets streaming down their pot bellies, faces tilted and arms outstretched to the skies in celebration.
The wet season is coming...

Snapshot

I was admiring a police pick-up today- thinking it was in pretty good nick for a car in these parts... then I noticed it didn't have a windscreen.
eh- windscreens? who needs em!

The RAC

So...once upon a time there were HEAPS of contract workers at the farm and it was the weekend, so there were HEAPS of kids around too... so the whitey decided that since everyone had been working so hard for so long that some music would cheer the place up a bit. There was no radio in sight so the whitey decided to use her car as a giant stereo.


Well, with african rasta blasting out across the landscape, the kids flocked to the car to dance and perform to their reflections in the paint work, while the mothers paused to watch and smile. The young men even heartily joined in singing - busting some moves with their hoes (the other kind)


It was one of those perfect moments really, where everyone is smiling and life is good.



Eventually the music stopped- which didn't surprise the whitey cos her MP3 player was low on battery. She explained with a smile that the battery was flat and continued measuring out contour marker ridges. Little did she know the truth of her words.


An hour later the 6 workers who jovially piled into the car to catch a lift home were sadly disappointed. After working 6am-11am, they found themselves pushing a car uphill along a bike track in the heat of the day. We tried roll starting it 5 times and eventually decided to push it the km back to the gravel road. 15 kids joined in for the fun.


The whitey was frustrated. It was Sunday. She was 45 min drive from help. The flat battery was her own fault. She called her dad :) her dad gave great advice but unfortunately was about 12 hours drive away, so the young men from the local village wandered out to show off their manly car fixing abilities. It was the village spectacle. At one stage a guy sat in the drivers seat pumpinng the clutch saying we needed to get fuel through the lines. The same guy wanted to take all the spark plugs off. Thankfully we didn't have the right tools.


Then a battery appeared from somewhere and they connected the terminals using a knife, a pair of plyers, a piece off the jack and a scrap piece of metal. That managed to get enough power to get the starter motor ticking, so they went off in search of wire and returned with some copper wire from a radio. Two hours after the problem was first discovered it was collectively decided that it was time to start pushing again. This time the bonnet was open with the new battery perched on top of the engine. This time a guy ran along side holding the wires to the terminals. This time the car car roared to life. The village cheered. The kids wooped. The 'mechanics' asked for money. Money paid and arguements settled, the workers once again jumped in the car. Fanta? the whitey asked. Applause. Minutes later everyone was sitting in the shade drinking cold fanta and munching on peanuts, the car quietly idling nearby. 'no more music' the whitey said with a smirk.

Life

Its Saturday 1 pm. I had a much needed sleep in this morning (8.30am) but then the day started. I went to help a friend take some bags of cement to her home so she can render it- which then involved filling up with fuel, discovering a puncture, getting the tyre changed, during which time the farm manager left a missed call on my phone...but I had also run out of credit so i went off to buy some more units from the corner store and called him. 'We have 20 contract workers today!' he exclaimed. He'll need more money. We'll need to make sure all the contour marker ridges are measured out and dug so the new workers dig the ridges at the correct angle...I said I'd be there by 3pm. Meanwhile my friend gave me more money to purchase the remaining bags of cement- which I brought and loaded up, then stopped in at the markets to get some fruit- bananas and mangoes. the mangoes (ive got one stickying up my left hand right now!) are still pretty green and sour- but mango all the same! I was home by 12, ready for some breakfast. I'll leave at 2.15pm drop the bags of cement off on my way to the farm and spend the cooler afternoon marking out contours with an 'A frame', wooden pegs and a hoe, wondering how my Saturday got reduced to 2 hrs and 15 min...

Things are coming along really well at the farm though. 25 workers- 5 labourers and 20 contract workers for the next week means there is hope of egetting everythign done before the rains come. We've had a lot of trouble getting enough people to work- even after I figured out there was a boycott over pay which we managed to sort out. If there is meant to be 5, there will ususally bye 2 or 3. If we've got 10 lined up- we'll get 7. "Too many funerals' the farm manager said one day. 'Everyday there is a funeral! - its not good. ' I asked if the people were dying suddenly from malaria or accidents - or had they been sick a long time? They've all been sick a long time. AIDS. don't let the thought creep into your head that its not a big problem. It affects EVERY aspect of life here.

So- my Farm report:

- We've finished the farm plan and decided what to plant where- now we're working on sourcing the seeds and fertiliser etc

- The water management drain is 75% finished and the extra contract workers means the 5 labourers will be available to work on it solidly over the next few days...miracle!

- I've found a local farmer who has about 15 tonne of cow manure he's happy to have cleared away for free?! and a sympathetic local farmer who's willing to let us use his 7 tonne truck at fuel cost price...another miracle. i know I found chicken poo- but it's too strong withount months of composting and we haven't got time. Ive moved it to next years 'to do' list.

- I've been sourcing all sorts of tree seedlings to plant at the first rains while we're waiting to have resources and time to set up our own nursery. Those materials are slowly coming together too, but we should have about 100 fruit trees and 200 woodlot trees ready to plant in the next few weeks. yay!

- our training facility? it fell down. I don't really want to talk about it. lets call it a cultural learning experiance for me-and leave it at that! :-z

- I've also been told there is a donation that I can acces for the farm - so ive been busy not only dreaming big, but researching prices and the best way to go about getting things done and putting together a proposal and budget for the next 12 months...

So yeah- Ive been busy, along with continued language learning and still not feeling 100% after the virus/infection I had last week. Ive also been staying overnight sometimes - housesuitting a friends house near the farm which is awesome to save driving...but there's no internet!!!! waaaa :-) so im getting lots of work done- but feeling very disconnected from the outside world. well- my weekend ends in 10 min. better pack my overnight bag.

til next time

twenty tonnes of chicken poo...

The highlight of the week was...
thats right- chicken poo. more precisely finding someone who can supply me with twenty tonnes of it! "but i don't have any boys to spare- you'll have to bring your own, and they'll need gumboots. That pit is pretty deep" ... after a slight cringe I was stoked. Now I just gotta organise the finances and the truck and the shovels and convince the MEN to pick it up- or maybe next year :)

Other than that, this week has been pretty frustrating. Feeling unwell Monday, trip to the doctor Tuesday and an overnight in Blantyre due to not feeling well enough to take on the 2.5hr drive home solo. Wednesday...got home in the morning and spent the afternoon sleeping. Thursday went out to the farm, attended a staff meeting, sourced manure, got home and slept 2.5 hrs heavily before dragging myself up to make dinner.

Today...we've agreed the antibiotics aren't working, my 'annoying health issue' seems to have become a throat infection of some description and im not up to driving. SO, someone will drive me to the doctors again tomorrow. yay. The good news is that this time the doctors visit will be combined with catching up with my mum who's in Lilongwe for the weekend (Yay!). bad news is that Lilongwe is 4hrs drive rather than 2.5hrs. oh well.

The farm...is progressing painfully slowly. The rains are coming SOON and there is so much to do! how to prioritise? As always, we'll do our best.

A visit to the doctor

Often living here doesn't feel difficult. We still eat, cook, sleep, work... but tonight I found myself packing for a doctors visit tomorrow- and it suddenly struck me as odd. I've never packed an overnight bag for a routine doctors visit before...
its ok- it's not an emergency. im not dying- I'd just like a quick visit to the doctor to get a niggling health issue checked. Easy, right? call in the morning, make an appointment, show up, wait an hour, see the doctor, go home.
Not so Malawi.
Because I refuse to attend the local hospital (which services almost a million people and probably wouldn't look at me anyway cos I don't look sick) I have to get up at 5 am, leave for the nearest city at 5.30am (less people and animalian traffic on the road), drive for 2.5hrs, then I have 2 options- walk into emergency at one of the private hospitals, or take a ticket at the doctors and wait for my number to be called. See the doctor, then I can go home.
Unless...I'm given a prescription to fill, in which case I'll probably spendthe next few hours trying to locate a chemist that has the prescribed medicine in stock... and then do our grocery shopping and then drive 2.5 hrs home again. OR
Even worse- I might need tests- which means either way I'll end up in the emergency department of a private hospital and invariably stay the night whilst waiting for test results. Last time I went to the doctor I had to talk him out of sending me to South Africa for the day!
Sometimes life here conspires to be difficult, but thank God for access to health care I say

Rallies, *amadan and Really hot weather

Its 4.43 Sunday avo. I'm sitting at my desk gazing out the window...wondering what - out of all the events of the past few weeks- I should write about. The light is golden on the guava tree outside. Soon the light will turn crimson red as the sun lowers through the smoke haze...then darkness. It won't cool off much though. Its 34 deg inside and probably won't go much below 30 deg tonight. the hot has arrived. It's funny how fast it came. One day was cool in the morning and hot in the afternoon- then it just didn't get cool again. As fast as that. I have a fan, but I still wake up thirsty and drenched in sweat through the night. It'll probably start raining in about a month, so at least for now the humidity isn't too bad.

Enough about the weather! (good to see Im still a good weather obsessed Aussie at heart!). The last few weeks have busy. The change in weather has signalled that its definitely time to get fields prepared before the rains- so we've been busy at the farm finishing off the drain, starting our tilling (with hoes) and have finally started our farmer training! So far we've had 3 groups of 25 to 30 participants, being trained in contour ridge marking, box ridging and compost making. Here's a few photos...

Using the 'A Frame' the participants made. Digging the contour marker ridge.Making a 'chimato' stack for composting.Meanwhile 'the lads' - the farm workers :) were busy finishing off our new ablutions block. Yay! Now that the grass has been burnt it's increasingly hard to find a discreet place to pee- as I discovered one day when the local chief saw me squatting with a chitenje discreetly wrapped around me and came over to greet me! hehehe

We have another training day this week, then it's full steam ahead getting the farm ready for planting.

One day last week I was visiting a friend for a cuppa after a day at the farm and heard a bit of a commotion coming from the school next door. I went out to investigate and discovered that the opposition leader (yellow party) was about to arrive for a rally. Sure enough he showed up in a big black car in a convoy with body guards running either side... very cool.

Part of the convoy and the opposition leaders car.

I hung around for a bit of the speeches which he delivered with great passion from the back of a ute (he's the one in the yellow shirt on the right), then wandered back to finish my cuppa.

The next day was the celebration day for the end of fasting, so I brought goat meat for my friends from the local butcher and headed out to celebrate with them. It was very different from my experience of this day in Indonesia several years ago- I guess mostly because of the incredible poverty here. In Indo the entire day before the celebration was spent cooking and preparing copious amounts of cakes and goodies. The actual day, after morning prayers, and in fact the following 3 days was spent gorging yourself on the cakes, entertaining visitors with the cakes...then visiting everyone in the town and eating their cakes too!

Everyone was excited about the celebration here too- but I couldn't see much evidence of food. I gave my gift to my friend and hung out most of the morning playing with the kids and drinking utobwa (fermented millet drink- a bit like a strawberry yogurt shake in consistency) then, after prayers, each house prepared their meal and shared it with the other families in that enclave of the village. First there was ugali and chicken, then ugali and fish, then ugali and goat stew, then rice and beans (which I suspect they brought out just for me cos theydidn't think I'd eaten enough ugali- but a) it doesn't take much ugali to fill me up b) even with 3 courses- 1 plate of each doesn't go far between so many people and c) I eat meat more than once a year-this was a special treat for them). It was a lovely communal feel all washing our hands in the same bowl and eating out of the communal dishs...I covered the whole experience in prayer that I wouldn't get sick and I didn't! :)

The market butchery( the butcher declined to be in the photo).

Eating together.

Well, it's now after dinner and this party animal is ready to hit the sack- so I'll leave you with my favourite photo of the week. :)

g'nite.