A Saturday in the Life of Me

'A day in the life of’s ...are usually very exciting because the person recording either compiles several days to make it sound more exciting – or plans their day –knowing it will be recorded...
Not so here. This is my normal (mundane-perhaps) day.

Its my day off, so I slept in… and was woken by a very welcome phone call from Oz. If it had been a local ‘flashing’ me (not as dodgy as it sounds- it’s a Malawian specialty of leaving a missed call so you call them back at your expense) I would have been less impressed, BUT it was a familiar voice from my old life and I beamed from ear to ear. It was a terrible line – echoey, dropping out AND delayed- so I asked her to call back on the landline. Ten min later she managed to get through to my mobile again and there was only a 4 second delay- so we talked until it dropped out. Then I checked my email, had a fried egg on toast (wholemeal sourdough! Its been one of my projects for the week!) and had my morning shower. I even blow-dried my hair- it’s nice to have it completely dry once in a while :-)

It’s one of my best friends birthdays today (happy birthday babe!) so I set off on a mission to get some phone credit to call her - and drop by the markets on the way home. I put on my sunscreen, hat and wrapped my chitenji over top of my skirt…and off I went. I’ve learnt to walk in them now- with patience and small steps !

Down the road a few kids were playing with trucks made from cartons and bottle tops. When the camera came out I was suddenly surrounded by a mob of kids eager to get in the picture. They laughed and hooted when they saw their pictures.

I wandered for about a kilometre. The middle of the road is for cars, but either side, the traffic consists of bicycle taxis, goats and pedestrians. Under every shady tree or lean-to, some sort of business is set up; selling fried balls of dough (sand optional!), coconuts, woodcarving and carpentry, the local mechanics- fixing bicycles and repairing tyre punctures. I got to the river before I realized I was on the wrong road for the Celtel phone credit shop. Doh! I’ll get a sense of direction one of these days.

Retracing my steps, I was greeted by people walking and riding past, picking up snippets of conversations- words that sounded familiar. A small child was sitting alone by a stall. Two men walked past and said something…and suddenly I realized I recognized the words- ‘where is your father?’ WOOHOO!!! All that ‘Where is the goat?’ practice is paying off already! I didn’t hug them- I just smiled to myself and kept walking.

As I was buying the ‘Malawi News’ from a curb-side vendor, a large group of women went past, singing and taking long rhythmical strides down the road. I watched bewildered and he helpfully explained ‘they are happy- someone wants to married’. It’s cool seeing such overt and public displays of celebration! I’ll ask Mama S- about it later.

At the markets, the boys playing checkers by the front gate…were still playing checkers. The Yawo vendors recognized me and called out- talking at me in Chiyawo ‘til I smiled and reminded them (in English) that I’ve only been learning 5 days! I directed them back to the script. ‘How are you? I am fine. How much are these? I want… Thank you. Stay well! Go well!’ Then on to the next one. They are learning their lines very well (hehe) some even have good enough English to talk and translate for themselves so I can have an impromptu language lesson every time I buy bananas or tomatoes! It’s worth their time- We buy a lot of bananas and tomatoes.

From the markets I wandered down to the BP servo- plan B for phone credit. The BP area seems a bit seedier than the rest of the town- maybe because its right on the highway, or maybe it’s the higher proportion of men that makes me wary… either way, the men lounge around under trees smoking, drinking homemade spirits and calling out. Big trucks pull in, piled high with goods and people, and fish are sold here too- all laid out on the dirt. The flies were in full force in the midday warmth…bingo on the phone credit.

I made it home seconds before the sky opened up, dropping buckets of water. The power went out and the internet went down (both temporarily)- so I busied myself with trying to put the credit on my phone. No luck. R- and I had lunch together- more sourdough bread, tomato and some boiled peanuts we had been given, divine! Its such a shame raw peanuts in their shells are so hard to come by in Australia!

After lunch I finally asked one of the guards to help me put the credit on my phone before it was too late to call Perth (7 hrs ahead). I made the call and sang and everything… only to discover her birthday is on Monday. Oh well. Dates have never been my forte. Points for effort :-P We talked ‘til my credit rang out, then we talked ‘til her credit ran out…and I felt very privileged to have had TWO chats with friends in one week let alone one day!

Its now 3pm and Im starting to think of all the things I should/could be doing: reviewing word lists, planning next weeks language lessons, do some baking, or start dinner…but I think I’ll curl up with a book and enjoy the chance to completely relax. I’ve been really enjoying a book called ‘Ünsuitable for Women; An Anthology of Women Travelers’ that is excepts from women travelers journals and writings from the last 200 yrs…so I think I’ll travel to the middle east this avo :-).

I’ll write ‘A day in the life of...’ a weekday someday soon so you don’t get the impression Im completely slack!Ahh, the daily afternoon aroma of cow dung to excite the senses…. Wish you were here!

A Foreigners guide to Malawian Cooking

We had a short 'formal' language lesson today and hit the markets to give me a chance to show off my newly aquired language skills. ahem ...panic! With the visual cue of a language helper at my side, people were coming ot of the wood work (ok- market alleyways) to greet me...unfortunately not all in Chiyawo- there was Chichewa and who knows what else thrown in the mix- but the experience got me off my 'Im doing great' high-horse and reminded me that I need to actually speak this language with comprehension one day...and that will require more than the 2-3 hrs a day I've been putting in this week. Time to ramp it up.

Anyways, we came home and cooked up a feast to provide maximum opportunities for Mama Swabila to state the obvious in chiyawo for my benefit ( I am chopping the tomatoes, you are washing the pot, we are cooking...) I am amazed at her patience.

I am also amazed at the Malawian womens ability to make delicious meals from simple ingredients. If you had asked me a month ago to make a 3 dish meal using only milly meal, oil, salt, tomatoes, onion, green and eggs- I probably would have cooked you 3 omelet’s. You may not be interested in cooking- but just in case you are, I have put ‘recipes’ (I use the word very loosely) below.

‘Greens’
Finely slice required quantity of green leafy vegetable (keeping in mind it will shrink lots). The locals love the bitterness of the dark green outside leaves of Chinese cabbage as well as pumpkin leaves (de-strung) so don’t be scared to branch out. Steam in a pot with a little water and salt. Finely dice 1 large tomato and place on top of steaming greens. When the tomato looks really soft, stir through the greens and serve hot with Ugali.

‘Eggs’
Hard boil enough eggs for 1 or 2 per person. Shell.
Heat about ½ cup oil in a pot and add finely diced onion (they use small, purple salad onions) and a finely diced tomato or 2. Stir well until the mixture resembles tomato soup. Add salt to taste.
Place whole boiled eggs in ‘soup’ to heat through before serving.
I know there is gobs of oil in this- but it tastes so good its actually my favourite ‘relish’ so far.

‘Ugali’
Ok- this is a hard one to describe, so if this ends up being incomprehensible- google it. Works for everything else!
Buy yourself some maize or white- millet meal (in Perth you can get it at Kailis Brothers in Northbridge or Kailis Sisters in Freo).
Half fill a medium-large sized pot with COLD water. As it heats, stir in 2-3 handfuls of the flour with a strong wooden spoon. It should be like thick soup. Let it boil and glop for about 10 min or until it starts kinda sticking to the bottom. Put on an apron, put up a ‘do not disturb’ sign and stir firmly with one hand while adding more flour with the other hand. This should take the mixture to quite stiff and separating from the sides of the pot - but still moist with no lumps. The stirring method is systematic, repetitive and built into the genome of every Malawian woman. Its easy and obvious- just like carrying water on your head- but for the rest of us, I’ll try and describe cos it is the difference between ‘good ugali’ and ‘inedible’.
Stir from 12 o clock clockwise to 6 o clock (simultaneously moving the porridge off the sides and the bottom of the pot) , then back through the middle to 12 o clock, then anti clockwise back to 6 o clock. At this point, you repeatedly smush the porridge with the spoon against the front of the pot- then resume the stir sequence… for 5 - 10 min until the porridge holds its own shape and is thick enough to scoop into large almond-shaped serves (use a big serving spoon).

Eating
The trick to eating is to leave your hands wet after washing - before the meal so the ugali doesn’t stick to your fingers- thereby minising burnage. Place a serving or 2 of ugali on your plate, along with some of the relishes outlined above. Break off pieces of ugali with your RIGHT hand, dip into the relish and enjoy a simple, delicious and filling meal.

Wisdom Wednesday

Some Yawo proverbs for you to ponder:

'To cry for rain is to cry for mud'

'Baboons don't laugh at each other's tails'

Can you guess the meaning of this one?-

'Two buttocks cannot avoid hitting each other'

Men, babies and Noun Classes

Got your attention? hehe

Its raining here...again. And the sky sounds like its hungry. Its been grumbling for hours.

I know you are dying to know how my language lesson went today... so I'll cut the suspense. Im proud to announce that after 2 hours of brain pain, according to my 'word log' I am now familar with 16 nouns and 4 verbs.

This is a man. This is a baby. This is a goat.

Where is the goat? (I point to my drawing of a goat) Where is the man? (again, I point)

The baby is sleeping. The man is walking....

which all sounds really easy doesn't it? Until I tell you that the first line actually sounds (well looks- for your benefit) like:

Awa jwamule. Aju mwanache. Aji mbusi.

notice something horrid? Of course you do- you notice that the 'this is' part of the sentence (first bit) changes for each noun! AAAAAHH

After 2 rather enjoyable hours of pointing at pictures with Mama Swabila, I watched an introduction to Yawo grammar DVD and discovered something very ... daunting :)

the Yawo people (surprise!) order their reality differently to the english language. They have over 10 differnt noun classes that have their own set of prefixes, suffixes and ways of being morphed into plurals.

Its like walking into Kmart. As department store shoppers, we know that you have to walk through the mens wear section to get to the 'fun' electrical gadgets, and through the womens wear section to get to the 'housey' electrical gadgets. They are all gadgets- but we have a standard way of spiltting them up. Same with every object/thing in the Yawo language. It belongs to a group. Its got friends. So, all the peopley relational nouns are together (like chief and uncle) and all the abstract ones in another group (like ignorance and life), then you get a group that seems to be comprised of things that have length (like rope, river and neck)...the other ones...are a bit beyond me- like goat chicken and bicycle...and you go ahah- thats things that move! but the next category has birds, trees and toilets in it?!!! Guess I'll know Im Yawo when I intuitively 'get it'. Until then...where is the goat?

Philosophising Self worth

My words have dried up the last few weeks. Out of sorts, emotional, culture shock, transition - call it what you like. But now I have a language lesson tomorrow- something to work towards, a step forward...and a smile.
I was writing to a friend this avo...so many emails now that I have a smile... and I was able to crystalise into words that Im really struggling with the fact that because Im new and don’t know anything- I really don’t have anything to contribute here at the moment.

I’ve arrived to a huge job description and can’t do any of it until I become a child, find someone to help me...and learn how to talk, relate, find my place in a new society...all over again.

I think this process is likely to be the topic of many blogs to come- but at the moment Im processing the self-worth bit. I don’t like waiting- but its more than that- Im driven to do something. Do something useful, something worthwhile…make the uncomfortable feeling go away…

What is this uncomfortable 'edge'? I think we all have it to some degree-perhaps me more than most-but what do we do when there’s nothing to ‘do’?

Desperately fill the space.

Why? Why do we seek constant activity? Do we cram it with entertainment? Perhaps we are we avoiding the silence…or the feelings that surface and are heard only in silence.

Do we feel compelled to overflow it with people and ‘important work’? Perhaps we fear not being needed. Perhaps we’ve perpetuated the lie that our self value is solely in our productivity-in which case ‘nothing to contribute’ is a terrifying place to be. Where do we/should we derive our self worth? Relationships? Skills and ability? Looks? Do we have intrisic value separate from our function and interactions? ow! brain pain.

I believe my value is in God- my creator, savior and friend- and his purposes for me...and yet, just 2 short weeks of 'nothing to contribute to my world ' has been an emotional walloping. God has not allowed me to fill the space. Ive had to sit with him, in the silence and acknowledge the inconsistencies between heart and mind... and because he loves me, he will ensure we continue to sit together until I have learned this lesson and learned to trust. It is comforting to know that King David, thousands of years ago learnt this same lesson- and wrote it so eloquently, recorded in Psalm 127
'Unless the Lord builds the house,
those who build it labor in vain.
Unless the Lord watches over the city,
the watchman stays awake in vain.
It is in vain that you rise early and go late to rest,
eating the bread of anxious toil;
for he gives to his beloved sleep.
On that note...Im going to bed because Im being munched by mozzies out here. But if you actually bother to read this far, and you have any thoughts on the matter- please comment, cos I think this could be a theme for me for a while yet.
G'nite

technology

Its amazing how much of our communication is dependant on satelites. Spend time repairing a satellite...and thousands (tens of thousands?) of people suddenly get web-withdrawals.

Other than that, Ive got my first meeting with my language helper tomorrow. Excited. Daunted. this is what Im here for- yay!! This is my ticket to relationship- getting to know people, getting a peek at ther world view, maybe- just maybe doing something useful to alleviate their poverty. baby steps.

Wisdom Wednesday

Courage doesn't drive out fear, it merely manages it.
It is only love, the perfect love of God that drives out fear.

1John 4:18a There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out all fear.

1 Corinthians 13:4-7 Love is patient and kind, it does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

2008 Already!

Happy New Year everyone! I know its well and truly morning 'back home', but here its 1.30am, 1st Jan 2008! Its raining, 30 deg, 82% humidity (in the kitchen), and there's whistling, cheering and music coming from next door, and everyone is in high spirits- including me :)

I had a lovely evening- we went to a south african guys (P-) place for a 'braai' (bbq?!), followed by coffee and apple and mulberry pie (yum).Then we played rummycub by lamplight (the power in his area blew a few months ago and the electricity company havent gotten 'round to fixing it yet) whilst getting delerious on the local Malawian toxic brand of softdrink called coco-pina. Half way through P- got called out to the gate and asked to take a malawian guy to hospital cos he had been 'play fighting' (yeah-right!)and sustained 2 machette wounds- one to the head, one to the face. They couldnt stop the bleeding, so P- drove the guy 15km back into Mangochi to the hospital.

We thanked our Father for 2007 and commited the New Year with prayer with some of our Yawo brothers and sisters, then went outside to let off some fireworks with/for the local youth who turned up drumming on buckets and yelling 'Happy!'. Then it started raining and we greeted everyone and headed home...wishing the drunk policeman/army dude? at the road checkpoint a very happy new year.

Ok- Ive gotta sleep cos I'm getting up in... 6hrs for interviews with 2 prospective language assistants (SO EXCITED!!!).

So happy New Year- May this year be one of growing love and understanding for others, inner joy, peace and patience (I'm getting heaps of practice on this one already!), fulfilling work and good relationships. yep.

Thought for the day:

'The key to the ability to change is

a changeless sense of who you are,

what you are about and what you value.'...and a photo from my stroll around Mangochi this morning for free!

Food glorious Food

I gotta say- we really do live in a 'convenience, fast food' world in the west. nothing brings that home better than leaving that world and going back to doing it all by hand. I really enjoy it though. Before I left Oz I was making an effort to buy local, buy in season...buy responsibly. I had been reading the Mennonite 'More-with-Less' cookbook and their goal/philosophy of
'looking for ways to live more simply and joyfully...that take their shape from living faith and the demands of our hungry world' really sat well with me. They take it beyond mere purchasing preferences, however, and challenge our consumption. While a huge proportion of the worlds population is undernourished ( see http://www.fao.org/es/ess/faostat/foodsecurity/FSMap/flash_map.htm for a really interesting time series map), we over spend and over eat. We over eat calories, protein, sugar and processed foods - to the detriment of our health and our planet. Culturally, most of our protein comes from eggs, milk and meat- the most input intensive form- rather than grains and legumes. The cook book really challenged the way I thought about food.
Anyways... out here buying local and in season is the only option- and there's no fast-food (except for the chargrilled maize cobs sold by the side of the road) or supermarkets (in our sense of the word), so I've been having a crash course in DIY food.

Storing in-season veggies for out-of-season
I have learnt that if I see anything in the markets that I like, and haven't seen sold before (ie carrots and beans) buy in bulk, because it could be months before you see it again. One day I came home with 3kgs of green runner beans ($1.50!). After the excitement of finding a green vegetable other than cabbage, okra or rape wore off, I decided to prepare my own frozen veggie packs. I washed, strung and chopped them all up (took ages but was quite thereputic) then googled how to blanche veggies. I discovered that you bring a big pot of water to the boil, dump in the veggies for 1 minute, then scoop them into ice water, drain and freeze. It was so exciting I did it with carrots a week later and I was proudly able to contribute beans and carrots (among other things :) to our christmas lunch.

Meat
The 3 chickens we ordered for Christmas arrived last night. Better late than never. I was excited- so my housemate left me to it. Then I understood why. I gave them a good rinse, finished plucking them, stuck 1 in the freezer whole for a roast, then looked at the other 2, willing them to turn into drumsticks and breast fillets all by themselves... alas, alack! it didn't happen, but google came to the rescue and I found a website with step by step instructions for chopping up chicken...and the best thing is we can turn the carcasses into chicken broth and not waste anything! Buying whole chooks is the cheapest way to get chicken with the least waste and the most scope for DIY pride :)

see: www.gourmetsleuth.com/cutupchicken.htm

Bread
I've always liked cooking bread, and here I've had plenty of opportunities. It takes a bit of time, but its really not that difficult, and, if Perth is still having a heat-wave, you'll have no problems getting it to rise. The recipe I use goes like this:
Ingredients:
1.25 cups warm water
1 package yeast (~tbspn)
1 cup milk (soy milk in my case)
2 tbspn melted butter/marg/oil
2 tspn salt
2 Tbspn sugar
6-6.5 cups regular flour.
Method:
Stir yeast into warm water and stand for a few minutes (while you find the other ingredients)
Stir in the rest with about 5 cups of the flour. By this stage it'll be getting too thick to stir, so wash your hands, roll up your sleeves and get your hands in there, adding enough flour to form a ball of dough- not too sticky, not too dry. Tip it out on a lightly floured bench top and knead it for a while. If you don't know how to knead bread- google it :) Once its all nicely kneaded, put the dough back in the bowl, cover it with a teatowel, put it in a warm place (I have the privilidge of being able to just leave it on the bench :) and when its doubled in size, set your oven to 180 deg, punch the dough down, knead it a little bit, then drop it into a large greased bread tin, or 2 small bread tins. If you don't have a bread tin- dont panic- grease any oven tray you've got, mould the dough it into an oval loaf shape and stick it in the oven for about 45 min. When its cooked it should sound hollow when you tap it on the bottom- but that can be a bit hard when its in a bread tin, so if its not burning, leave it in the full time to be safe.

Poetry

I love poetry. To be honest I haven't actually been exposed to that much of it, but I brought 1 book of Selected Poems by T.S. Elliot with me and have been enjoying savouring them. If you have a favourite poem- please find it on the web for me and send me a link. One day I'll post my top favourite poem 'The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock', but for today I'd like to share this beautiful little verse I came across (S.L. Lenzkes, 1983)

There is a place where the wounded soul goes to hide,
a place that cannot be reached by human caring,
though it nods at the effort.
It's a dark, retractable place,
without windows and doors;
a place where the soul would be more alone
than it has ever known
unless Someone-
Someone able to walk through walls-
was not already there waiting.

Christmas!

Well, Christmas wasn't at all dull like I feared it might be...
after no sleep, thanks to an all night party next door (that I didnt attend) we had a yummy breaky, opened pressies, cooked-lots GOT A PHONECALL FROM AUSTRALIA!!! yay! and joined the rest of the team for a Chrissy lunch. Ready for a nap now!

Merry Christmas Eve

24th Dec 2007
Christmas present to me…we got internet back tonight! Hallelujah!
Ok, so it’s really slow for broadband… but we have it. AND the power is on :-) cant complain!
Merry Christmas everyone- may it be a special day with your family celebrating the birth of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ!

Language Learning

21st Dec 2007
I just had my first impromptu language lesson! I learnt 2 phrases this morning before I headed off to the markets- the equivalents of good morning (tujimwiche kwali ajetu) and how much (akutenda uli?), then when I got back R- introduced me to all the language learning resources and talked me through what the process would be once we found a language helper for me- basically I’m in for a 3 months intensive. I felt pretty daunted as I went off to read through the MILL (Maximum Impact Language Learning) handbook, then managed a decent procrastination of baking a few batches of Christmas cookies….but then Robyn got back form the hospital with her language helper ‘Mama Dave’ who has just recovered from a bout of malaria. Mama Dave loves teaching and decided now was as good as any time for a language lesson. So we chose 4 items on the coffee table: paper, book, flower and cup. Then we wrote the numbers 1 to 4 on pieces of paper. I’m not meant to speak for the first 40hrs of lessons- that way I don’t have my own, wrong pronunciation competing in my head with the correct one, and I can get really familiar with the sounds and patterns before stage fright kicks in…so, I pointed to objects and she named them, then I introduced numbers – one flower, 2 flowers, three flowers, one cup etc and listed to the changing prefixes and suffixes for each one. Apparently there are classes of verbs in this language, each with their own set of sounds…yay. But what was really exciting was that within 10 minutes, I asked her to test me by randomly saying (in Chiyawo) four papers, two flowers, one cup…and I was actually able to hold up the correct number with the correct item. I can recognize 8 words- (other than ‘thank you’) and my fears have subsided…slightly :)

Queues and Miracles

19th Dec 2007
On Monday, we left 5.30am and drove down to Blantyre with a mission: Get my Temporary Employment Permit (TEP), get me Malawian drivers license, pick up my freight from the airport. Easy right? Huh.
Ben dropped William (Malawian) and I at the Malawi Road Transport (MRT) building and went off to immigration to queue to enquire regarding the status of my TEP.
I queued, got a form, filled it out, queued again…and got told I needed a photocopy of my passport and Aussie drivers license. The MRT photocopier was broken. They didn’t know where the nearest photocopying place was. Ben had the car. We walked. The fourth photocopying shop we went to had a working photocopier. Back to the MRT. Back in the queue. ‘We cannot process this without a TEP’. Same story with the freight. Meanwhile, Ben is standing at a counter, watching the immigration officer un-exuberantly and down right slowly sift through a huge pile of brown envelopes. That ones not it. Nope, neither is that one. Come back this afternoon. The whole day followed in a similar fashion. Ben had a huge ‘to do’ list, and not one of the items listed got ticked off. I wrote ‘lunch’ on the list and put a tick next to it to make him feel better.
Tuesday followed in a similar fashion- except that I got told that the TEP wasn’t in the pile- it had gone upstairs, and the mann upstairs was away and they didn’t know when he would be back. Maybe next week. It was then that we appealed to Rev Fraser to intercede on our behalf. He walked into the immigration office at 2.30pm, and came out with my TEP, and a stamp in my passport at 3.30pm. That guy has friends in high places! So Ben and William dropped me at the guesthouse and returned to Mangochi, with the promise to send Asedi in the troupe carrier in the morning for the freight.

As Ben unlocked the house he showed me how to padlock and chain the cage like structure around the front verandah, showed me the 2 panic buttons- one in the hall, one in the master bedroom and of course the pepper spay. Nothing like an orientation to make you feel at home. After they left it started raining and the power went off for a few hours. I spent the evening reading magazines by romantic candlelight- refusing to feel spooked.

Wednesday the miracles continued. I got my drivers license in a record 2 hours – beating the existing record by an hour. The process is almost funny- requiring 4 visits to the cashier, 4 signatures, a few stops at counters for people to shuffle your papers and tell you the next counter to go to, and of course the mugshot and fingerprinting of EVERY finger. Each counter required re-joining a queue. Thankfully I kept getting intercepted by a helpful man who didn’t seem to like the length of the process and was perfectly happy to bypass the paper shufflers and provide signatures as required. I could have kissed him. Meanwhile my freight was cleared without inspection (?!!), Asedi and I had chicken and chips for lunch (again), picked up the cleared freight at 2ish and headed home ecstatic. He got into my MP3 player and discovered that he really likes Moby and the White Stripes while I put my newly acquired drivers license to the test and dodged goats, trucks, people, drunk staggerers, chickens…

Rubbish

16th Dec 2007
There is no rubbish collection service here. No tip. No recycling. No council to complain to. My rubbish is my problem. I know this shouldn’t be a new concept- but I have to admit, having lived the last…15 years in the first world, its come as a bit of a surprise.

Compost goes in a hole in the back yard. When it’s full, we dig another one. Glass soft-drink bottles get returned to the shop for a 25 kwacha refund (~15c?). The rest gets burnt. You don’t feel very proud of yourself tending a fire belching black plastic-burning smoke into the atmosphere…but is it really any worse than burying it in a tip? Time capsules of pollution. Thoughts and comments on this matter are welcome.

Home

A picture of homeliness... the herb garden.

15th Dec 2007
Mangochi town is reasonably big- with 2 petrol stations, a restaurant, small (drygoods) supermarket, bookshop, agriculture co-op, bakery (of sorts) and the bustling market place that sells everything from eggs and veggies to DVD’s and cloth-if you know where to look. It is slowly being re-built after it burnt down a few months back. Mangochi is the last ‘major’ town on the ‘highway’ heading to southern Mozambique border crossing, so it’s built around a wide road with a strip of bitumen down the middle. All other streets are dust- or puddles at the moment. The town taxi service are guys on push bikes with a narrow wooden board attached over the back wheel as a seat.
My home for the next 2 years is a spacious western style place. The floors are lino/concrete with glass louvers and bars in all the windows. Its simply furnished and homely which is nice. There is a lot of lawn, trees with little possums and mango trees that are loaded right now (Im devouring 3 small mangoes a day while they last as the season is almost over) and a huge veggie patch run by our gardener - Im not sure if Im allowed to touch yet :). Next door plays a lot of loud music, and on the other side is a small cow pen where about 15 cows get locked in for the night. Great smell on a hot, still afternoon.

Our house...is a very very nice house...

The garden...all ready to be planted with the rains.

My street. I don't know its name- It probably doesnt have one. This is the view towards town from our front gate.

Arrival

14th Dec 2007
After a 13hr drive from Karonga, we arrived in Mangochi at 8 pm. The power was out- had been since mid morning. A huge storm the previous evening evidently damaged what there is of the power grid… and frazzled our broadband email. Welcome to Mangochi!

Malaria

9th Dec 07

Excerpt from ‘Bedlam in the Blood; Malaria’ by John Stanmeyer, published in National Geographic July 2007 (fascinatingly informative, but not for the queezy!)

It begins with a bite, a painless bite. The mosquito comes in the night, alights on an exposed patch of flesh, and…plunges her stiletto mouthparts into the skin.

The mosquito has long, filament-thin legs and dappled wings; she’s of the genus Anopheles, the only insect capable of harbouring the human malaria parasite. And she’s definitely a she: Male mosquitos have no iterest in blood, while females depend on protein-rich hemaglobin to nourish their eggs. A mosquoito’s proboscis is a sheath of separate tools- cutting blades and a feeding tube powered by two tiny pumps. She drills through the epidermis, through a thin layer of fat, then into the network of blood-filled microcapillaries. She starts to drink.

To inhibit the blood from coagulating, the mosquito oils the area with a spray of saliva. This is when it happens. Carried in the mosquito’s salivary glands - and entering the body with the lubricating squirt - are minute, worm-like creatures. These are the one-celled malaria parasites, known as plasmodia. Fifty thousand of them could swim in a pool the size of the full-stop at the end of this sentence. Typically a couple of dozen slip into the blood stream. But it takes just one. A single plasmodium is enough to kill a person.

The parasites remain in the blood stream for only a few minutes. They ride the flume of the circulatory system to the liver. There they stop. Each plasmodia burrows into a different liver cell. Almost certainly the person who has been bitten barely stirs from sleep. And for the next week or two, there’s no overt sign that something in the body has just gone horribly wrong…

This year malaria will strike up to half a billion people. At least a million will die, most of them under the age of five, the vast majority living in Africa.

Inside these cells, the malaria parasites eat and multiply. They do this nonstop for about a week, until the cells original contents have been entirely digested and it is bulging with parasites like a soup can gone bad. Each falciparum that entered the body has now replicated itself 40,000 times.

The cells explode. A riot of parasites is set loose in the blood stream. Within 30 seconds though, the parasites have again entered the safe houses of cells – this time, each has drilled into a red blood cell, flowing through the circulatory system. Over the next two days, the parasites continue to devour and proliferate stealthily. After they have consumed the invaded cells, they burst out again and once more there is bedlam in the blood.

For the first time the blood realises it has been ambushed. Headache and muscle pains are a sign that the immune system has been triggered. But if this is the victim’s first bout of malaria, the immune response is mostly ineffective. The alarm has sounded, but the thieves are already under the bed: the parasites swiftly invade a new set of blood cells, and the sequence of reproduction and release continues.

Now the internal temperature begins to rise as the body attempts to cook away the invaders. Shivering sets in- muscle vibrations generate warmth. This is followed by severe fever, then drenching sweat. Cold, hot, wet; the symptoms are a hallmark of the disease. But the parasites exponential growth continues, and after a few more cycles there are billions of them tumbling about the blood.

By this point the fever has reached maximum intensity. The body is virtually boiling itself to death- anything to halt the attack- but no avail. The parasites can even commandeer blood cells to help aid their survival. In some cases of falciparum, infected cells sprout velcro-like knobs on their surfaces, and as the cells pass through the capillaries of the brain, they latch on to the sides. The adhesion keeps them from washing into the spleen, which cleans the blood by shredding damaged cells. Somehow- no one is quite sure how- the adhesion also causes the brain to swell. The infection has turned into cerebral malaria, the most feared manifestation of the disease.

This is when the body starts to break down. The parasites have destroyed so many oxygen-carrying red cells that too few are left to sustain vital functions. The lungs fight for breath and the heart struggles to pump. The blood acidifies. Brian cells die. The body struggles and convulses and finally falls into a coma.

The outcry over over this epidemic, until recently has been muted. Malaria is a plague of the poor, easy to overlook. The most unfortunate fact about malaria, some researchers believe, is that prosperous nations got rid of it. In the mean time, several distinctly unprosperous regions have reached the brink of total malarial collapse, virtually ruled by swarms of buzzing, flying syringes.

First Rains- Karonga, Malawi

8th Dec 07
The land is dry, red and dusty. The tall, yellowed grass has been cut for roofing, the land burnt to encourage new growth – but nothing will grow in this searing, relentless heat. The hills are covered with skeletons of trees- most leafless, but some optimistically budding in expectation of the rains. Burgandy, amber and brown leafs turn to irridecent pale green. ‘The trees buds to call the rain’ says the chief. It will come.

The clouds have been threatening for days- towering pillars of a magestic temple. The pressure and the temperature rises. All is still. It will not rain today- maybe four, five days time the villagers say, digging the hard ground into dusty ridges, placing the maize and bean seeds in the hole together, carefully watering the germinating seeds by hand.
It starts.
The sky has darkened, then comes a splash, and another. One by one huge rain drops fall, slowly gaining momentum until the sound of thundering rain drowns out all other sounds. The temperature drops below 30 degrees for the first time in months. People take shelter and watch as the dust turns to mud, the roads to rivers, and the rocky river beds swell to muddy torrents. The rains have come.

Culture Shock

Madagascar is completely different east from west. The central eastern part that I saw was green forests, with an asian-french feel and the people were asian in stature and facial features- although there seemed to be people (perhaps of mixed malagasy french descent?) who had milk coffee coloured skin with wide faces, high cheek bones and pale green eyes- Benicio Deltoro style :-)

The taxi –brousse trip from Tolear to Ranohira was stomach churning. Not because of the cramped seating, the heat, belching black smoke from the diff, bumpy road or eratic overtaking… no, they were all familiar. It was the barren landscape and abject poverty- obvious even from the windows of the taxi-brousse. I felt like I had arrived in Africa and my two year commitment…the extent and weight of poverty and the harsh landscape hit me full-force. Madagascar’s status as the 8th poorest country in the world (WHO Report, 2006) leaks out of cracks in the city’s façade, but in the south, where the landscape dries to a crisp before the rains, it’s a lot harder to hide.

Little village’s were scattered across the baren landscape. Some of the ‘houses’ (the larger ones were perhaps 3 m square) were costructed from thin wooden poles with mud slapped in between. Most however, were simply grass tents. At first I thought they must be chicken houses of some sort, but the more I saw, the more I realised these were peoples homes.

Scattered palms and dry grass growing in orange clay. Cacti and dry grass over shale limestone, tall, scrawny boababs rose up over sparse, stunted shrublands. Family grave rock mounds, constructed several meters high and 3-4 m square from white limestone outnumber the huts in some places. The landscape is not designed for human habitation-The only obviosly edible thing I had seen growing was casava (a nutritionless, last-resort crop) what did people eat? We passed 50 or so people by the side of the road, standing within rectangels marked out with string. Assigned garden plots? The soils looked like highly leached cracking clays- barely able to support the grassland and occasional resiliant Boabab tree let alone enough food to support a family- or a village year round. The rains were coming, maybe that would provide a different picture. Maybe I was being as desparately optimistic as the villagers knocking down the last of the dry grass in their assigned plots. We passed numerous villages sitting conspicuosly on de-nuded hills selling bundles of firewood. Survival. It was heart breaking- I can’t even imagine the uncertainty and anxiety of not knowing how you are going to feed yourself or your family for the next week …the next 3 months. I am humbled by my obscene wealth, ashamed that I ‘tour’ their poverty.

Accessing Money - Madagascar

The moral of the story is: When travelling to Madagascar, take a fat wad of crisp US$50 notes to exchange in the cities along the way and a VISA card for emergencies. Virtually nothing else works without a huge amount of effort and anguish. Several tourists I met along the way were cutting their holidays short because they couldn’t access their money.

So, my story begins with catching a pous-pous down the dusty tracks of Tolear to the Bank of Africa. I walk past the armed security guards to the ATM and optimistically put in my bank card. Something flashes on the screen and it spits it out, so I assume that’s a ‘No we don’t take Cirrus or Mastercard’.

I walk into the bank. One counter has a queue out the door. Another desk is closed ‘fermee’ and the other 2 have 10-15 people huddled around. None of the desks seem attended with bank staff nonchalantly wandering from office to office behind the meter-wide wooden counter. Lots of people are clutching forms and no-one seems too pahsed. Its only 10am and they’ve got all day. Im hoping to get cash, catch a pous pous to the station, get on a taxi-brousse for 3 hrs and arrive in Ranohira tonight. I survey the bank and re-consider.

I join a huddle for 10 min and finally hand my mastercard to the bank teller- a wirey, middleaged man peering at me over the top of his glasses. He turns it over and studies it upside down for a moment. I reach over and point to the ‘mastercard’ logo and he sifts through the papers on his desk, finally producing a small form ‘Demande Paymente Mastercard’. I smile. ‘Merci’ and retreat to decipher the form and calculate the available credit to local currency ‘Ariary’ taking into account the unknown fees/commissions from both sides. I go conservative- I really want this to work first time.

I rejoin the huddle and notice the sweat trickling down my back and the onset of withdrawals as my bloodsugar drops from the baguette, jam and industrial strength coffee I had hours ago. All these people and I still havent seen any money. The wirey bank teller finally takes my bankcard, passport and form and wanders form office to office as I watch my passport like a hawk. He returns without the form, hands me my papers and says something. He smiles quizically that I don’t understand. Why would you travel in a country where you don’t speak the language? Stupid tourist. I point to myself and point to the ground. He nods- I think, so I move to the empty counter 2m to his left and wait. There must be money here somewhere….

A french couple walk in looking hot and confused. ‘where to exchange money?’ Its mildly comforting to know I am not alone. They look at the queues for a moment and leave.
At 11.30ish I rejoin the huddle. When I get to the front he says ‘foroclok!’ with an exasperated ‘tsk!’.

My travel plans change to sleeping plans and I heave on my backpack and negoiate a pous-pous to a nearby hotel. It’s a classy establishment run by an exuberant french pimp. I fall into a restless, sweaty sleep in front of the fan in my dingy room.

3.10pm I wakeup and decide to head backto the bank ‘just in case’. The pous-pous driver refuses my payment- wanting the guarantee of the return fare. He follows me into the bank. I rejoin the huddle. When I get to the front he heads off with my papers after a lively conversation with the woman next to me. She introduces herself and explains that she is an english teacher. I ask about the joke and she said the teller had commented that I only spoke english- she suggested he learn and he retorted that that I could teach him after we were married. Of course. She points me in the direction of another queue and explains that the bank closes at 4pm. I slide in at the front of the queue, sign some receipts and the man counts out my Ar 250 000.

All that effort and waiting for $150. I’ll have to do it all again in a few days. I turn to leave and the bank doors are barred and bolted with 70 people inside. I knock on the closed door that people were pointing too and am eventually let out- my pous –pous driver is no where in site. He was more daunted by the queues than I was and had gone to find himself a shady spot to rest. I walk back to the hotel. He’ll find me- I owe him money and he knows where I live :-)

Tolear and De L'Isalo National Park- Madagascar

This place is written on the map as Toliara, but Malagasy don’t seem to pronounce the vowels at the end of a word- so it’s pronounced ‘Tulear’. People who don’t live there aptly call it ‘the cooking pot’. It’s a dusty, spawling coastal city- in the mangrove sense, with one bitumen road through the middle, serviced by hundreds of colourful ‘pous-pous’ – brightly painted carts with a seat and shade roof, powered and steered by a man. Except for the pous-pous operators, the city appears to suffer from acute lethargy- no doubt from the oppressive heat, and barely wakes up even in the evenings. It reminded me strongly of Joseph Conrads ‘Lord Jim’ I wonder if Conrad ever visited Madagascar?







travelling pous-pous style. (forground-my bag held together with a trusty nappy pin, generously donated by little William).

My new friend who loved his photo.
Street scene.

I didn’t like the idea of being ‘carried’ around in the pous-pous by a black man running in the scorching heat. It felt really wrong, but it seemed to be the prefered mode of transort by the local Malagasy women and I figured the poorer pous-pous drivers needed the money more than the taxi drivers who could afford the car…

In Tolear I was also became aware of the huge tourist sex trade in this country. Almost everywhere I stayed (and I moved several times in a vain attempt to not patronise such establishments) were seedy old men with beautiful young Malagasy girls on their arms. I was assured that the Malagasy girls have ‘no trust’ and would have their own Malagasy boyfriends and were therefore equally ‘using’ the tourists for money…but …its still wrong. It makes me so angry that people travel to use and abuse. It really made me look at my own motives for travel- what was I hear for? To enjoy…what? And at who’s expense?

Ranohira
Ranohira is a few hours taxi brousse trip from Tolear, and is right next to one of the most amazing national parks I have ever seen: Parc National de L'Isalo. wow. the guide book says: 'the flat grassy plains of the hauts plateaux near Ranohira are abruptly broken by the towering sandstone massifs sculpted by wind and water into gorges and scraggy bluffs.' I stayed at 'Chez Alice' and had stunning panoramic views of the park. As they say- a picture is worth a thousand words so I'll quit writing now.

The small cottages at Chez Alice

The view from my cottage door...

Elephants foot 'boabab'- that actually isnt a boabab at all.

The cutest little cameleon!

Paradise?! pretty close!

I think I may have found the 'King of the Lemurs'!!yellow for poisonous I was told

Madagascars own Grand Canyon

Not so cute cameleon

I felt like I was in the Pilbara!

Ok...so I like lizards...but ya gotta admit- this is a good shot.

Andasibe and Perinet National Park- Madagascar

From Antananarivo (Tana) we caught a taxi-brousse (bush taxi) to the Perinet National Park.

The Malagasy have a saying that ‘the human is not the chicken’- which may not sound that profound, but has a profound impact on their public services (compared to Indonesia that is J). For long trips (approx greater than 4 hrs) they will only pack in 3 people to a seat (15 to a taxi) –and only 5 per seat (25 plus children) for shorter trips. There are also toilet stops !! where the women take one side of the road and the men the other (thank God I’ve been wearing skirts!) and the driver will wait patiently for passengers to buy snacks through the window of the taxi…in fact they are so patient in waiting for people (and $) [1st to sell enough tickets to fill the seats and second for all the ticket holders to finish their shopping and odd jobs for the day and congregate at the taxi brousse at the same time] that they often leave 2 to 3 hrs after they are ‘scheduled’. For this the Malagasy have another phrase: ‘mura mura’ which describes their attitude to life and means ‘slowly slowly’.

The bungalow accomodation here we stayed was about 3hrs taxi-brousse (bush taxi) ride from Tana via Moramanga. The bungalows and resteraunt were nestled in along a riverbed overlooking the national park.

The next morning, snuggled up under a doona and mozzie net, I was woken up (4.30am!) to the sound of the indri-indri hooting and howling in the forest to mark and protect their territory. Two animals can make such an amazing racket! We took a day tour with our guide ‘Leiver’ and saw so many animals…
The common brown lemur

Sifaka’s (white golden and black)

Indri-indri (having a bad hair day!)

The hedgehog tenrec (moved too fast for me to get a piccy)
Ring-tailed mongoose (ditto- but very cool looking critter!)
Parsons chameleon
Leaf chameleon
Day gecko
Millipedes…

The coolest thing though were the groups of Malagasy school children seeing their national parks and native animals wild for the first time. I was aware that a programme had been set up to educate Malagasy communities about the value of the unique natural environment of which they are part…and I was stoked to see it in action.

After 6hrs of trapesing through the ‘jungle’ animal spotting, I still hadn’t had enough and we headed into Andasibe, a small town 2 km walk from the park entrance to have a look and find some lunch. The shell of an imposing colonial style hotel marked the beginning of the town. Prince Charles and David Attenborough had stayed here in its glory days. No more. The town was hot, dusty and sprawled either side of a rail line that now transported supplies to Tana. The place seemed largely deserted under the weight of the afternoon heat- except for a bunch of kids set free from school playing soccer.

The train was due in 30 min…or 4 hrs, so I sought the shade and promise of good food at a small wooden ‘hotely’- or ‘warung’ as they would call it in Indonesia. I love eating at such places. The Australian government stongly warns travellers against it, but then again- if you took all your travel advice from them you would spend your whole holiday worrying… Such eateries are dotted all over the third world and are invariably constructed from wood and tarpaulins. It’s often dim inside, with a low roof and wooden tables protected with garish plastic table clothes. Those of us who regularly eat in these places know that its where the locals eat – so the food is usually simple, cheap and absolutely delicious (or you spend the next 24hrs on the toilet with your head over a bucket!). The family lives behind and the menu is… well, I never had any luck with reading menus in Madagascar, but I ended up with a divinely delicious meal of mildly flavoured butterbeans, carrots and green beans with chilli, rice and ‘rice water’. I think ‘rice water’ is a povo-special invention – but it almost had a sweet nutty flavour.

Recipe
Cook your rice.
Burn it. If you don’t want to burn it before eating, scoop out the cooked rice for your meal, then slowly heat the rice stuck to the bottom of the pan until the edges curl up brown.
Add water. Boil.
Serve resulting hot tea coloured water to your guests.
Warn guests about rice dregs.
Enjoy Madagascan cultural experience.

Let me know what you think once you’ve tried it!

The following day it was time to leave my travelling partner and go our separate ways- he was heading to Ile St Marie to the north-east and I was heading back to Tana to catch a flight to Tolear in the south-west. We got up early, skipped breakfast to be out at the T-junction on time for the taxi-brousse at 7.30 am…and waited. Then we realised it was Sunday.

It was so beautiful, people walking to church along the road in little groups through the clearing fog. Old men in suits and hat, 1950’s style. Women in colourful long dresses and wide brimmed straw hats. “Bonjour Madamoiselle!’ ‘Salama!’ Everyone in their Sunday best. We sat on our bags and waited. The church bells rang. The men fixing the truck on the corner finished putting all the pieces back in and push started it down the hill. The road was deserted. The taxi-brousse never came, but several hours later a passer-by took us to Moramanga.

Antananarivo, Madagascar

Ive been here less than 24 hours, and I must say I am at a loss to describe the place (Antananarivo that is). It feels so familar, yet so ridiculously foreign
some reflections on the last 20 hrs...

• the smell of of the indian guys I was squeezed between on the flight in.
• the humidity.
• relief that customs and visas took 5 min.
• dinner at an upper class french resteraunt with a jewish guy I met on the plane (jeremy) who scarily reminds me of Fred.
• drinking beer and eating zebu whilst being serenaded in french by an over exuberant malagasy man .
• tossing and turning all night as my mind made a feeble attempt to catch up with my body .
• watching a man defecate in the drain outside my room.


• the stunning views of antananarivo- jacaranda lines lakes, small european style buildings crowding into every nook of the undulating hills. steep staircases and narrow cobbled streets with renaults fighting for right of way.


• wooden scaffolding on building sites.



• road works with fires by the sides of the road heating up drums full of bitumen, spread by the wheelbarrow load.
  
  
• croissants and a shot of expresso for breakfast- parlevou fronce? nope. i wish.


• more language problems: chronic giggles when I thought I had ordered vegetables and rice for lunch and the waitress arrived with a cheese pizza.



• market stalls lining the streets, people, cars, vegetables, shoes, flowers...


• the glazed eyes of a dead man lying on the road in a pool of blood. life is cheap apparently.


• the beggars. so many, but today one of them scored a cheese pizza :)








• the beautiful universality of a smile and nod of acknowledgement.


• little groups of men playing dominoes in an alleyway.
  
  
  
• a woman breastfeeding, perched by the side of the road...
  i think you get the picture...or some of it at least