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.

grubbiness

Ive been wondering for a while how to convey the grubbiness of living here... everything has a layer of dust- varied only by depth... and moisture content. At the end of a day I can roll the dirt- sunscreen mix off my face. my work-shirt collars don't come clean anymore and my feet? - you'd be forgiven for thinking they get washed once a week- not the twice daily ritual of soaping and scrubbing they endure. I can't tell the difference between tan and in-grained dirt anymore!

Anyways, last night, 3 of us ladies (all well groomed individuals in Australia I might add!) were discussing the state of our feet and I decided it was time to blog it.

i call it: 'grubbiness a la africa'

I have so much to write about- farmer training, weekend retreat, political rally's and preparations for religious celebrations...but Im too tired today. I woke up witha cold and am now (10am ) heading back to bed. til next time!

Friday

I slept appallingly (sp?!) Thursday night and decided at 3.30am that I wasn't going to get up at 4.50 as planned to be at the farm by 6am. My commitment to the farm is 3 days a week. I had met that commitment and didn't think it wise to drive more hours than I'd slept. So...I got up at 5.40 to tell the farm manager I wasn't coming and slept wonderfully til 7am. I spent the morning baking bread, working on my draft Farm Plan Report and chatting to Mama A- the lady who cleans our house 3 mornings a week. I had taken her to visit her daughter in the village yesterday on my way to the farm and visited her home here in town which was nice. She is such a sweet old lady and very patient with my ciYawo and my wanderings through the house while she's trying to clean it!

A colleague came over for lunch (smelt the bread?! :) and it was a great few hours discussing and sharing how life here has impacted us so deeply. What will we do when we go back to Australia? We've changed and we won't fit our old lives any more. To be honest, the future looks lonely and uncertain. Neither of us regret coming here and being a part of this world for a short time- its a privilege. But when we consider the future we've both started to realise that the cost is possibly greater than we ever imagined. I suspect the benefit is going to be greater than we ever imagined too. The sheer scale of God's plans always amaze me and he's been good and faithful til now so I really have no reason to doubt his faithfulness in the future!
There is a song by Sara Groves called 'Painting pictures of Egypt' that I think captures the feeling well. The chorus says "I've been painting pictures of Egypt, leaving out what it lacked, cos the future feels so hard and I wanna go back, but the places that used to hold me cannot
hold the things I've learned- those roads were closed off to me while my back was turned...'

After that I had a 2 hour language lesson. Although my teacher was quite despondant the other day about how much vocab I've forgotten :( I would like to point out (in my defense) that I am now much better at using the vocab I DO have in an understandable sentence structure. I can also distinguish words and process them when different people are speaking now MUCH faster than before-so Im understanding alot more of waht is going on around me, even if I am slow to form sentences in response. Either way, whether Im doing better or not- we're both working harder at my language which a good outcome :)

After language I collected all the veggies in our veggie patch that were ready (about 20 tomatoes and 20 capsicums) and decided we really needed to eat a lot of capsicum for dinner! SO we had fish, steamed veggies and indianish stuffed capsicums. The recipe was so yummy I've put the link in for you. The only thing I did different was add a tiny bit of liquid to each capsicum after stuffing it so the masala mix didn't fall out.
http://fooddownunder.com/cgi-bin/recipe.cgi?r=248791

After dinner we watched one of my favourite movies- 'Japanese Story'. Normally it is the storyline that hits me the hardest, but I have to admit I felt terrbily homesick watching the scenery and felt a bit teary during the 'Perth International Airport' scene (!!!) remembering my own departure from those bleak gates. I lent it to a South African friend last week and I heard (via the rumour mill) that he loved it so much he edited out a few scenes and showed it to his village friends?! I wonder how it interacted with their world view? How would they interpret it? He's coming 'round for dinner tonight so I'll have to ask him how it went.

A Week in my Life - Wednesday & Thursday... the following week

Hmm, didn't keep to the 'everyday' thing too well did I? well- i wrote a long post last Thursday evening- then the power went out and I lost it all...after that I couldn't be bothered. sorry.

This week has been another full one. My life seems to revolve around drains and coming up with new strategies to deal with all the things that challenge my world view on a daily basis.

The drains are coming along well and about 80% to plan- so that's pretty good. The training facility has been halted for a few weeks due to financial issues, but is now progressing again slowly.

The farm manger told me a few weeks back that he has leased one of the adjacent farms (about 2 acres), so I had been watching with interest as his workers raked up all of last years crop residues into windrows. I finally asked if he was going to burn it and was disappointed to hear that yes, he was going to burn it and put himself into debt to continue using inorganic fertiliser this year. I decided to take it as a challenge to make our demo farm SO good that he'll be making his own compost manure within 3 years :). Anyways, on Monday we were working ( I dug a few meters of the drain! ouch!) when I noticed a lot of smoke from alarmingly nearby... As the flames moved rapidly from his farm into the adjacent bushland, my heart was in my mouth! The flames were big and aided by a hot, dry wind it was fast approaching where we were working- but no one else batted an eyelid. The guys kept working and the women continued to relax under a tree (lunch break), only moving when the fire was within meters of them and had enveloped them in smoke. After a while the farm manager had to go off to fight the fire where it was getting too near to some village houses, but didnt seem phased at all - just slightly annoyed that the children had lit in the middle of the afternoon rather than the evening when it was easier to control.

I found the contrast of our culturally learnt responses to fire amazing. 4yr olds play with fire here all the time. The fires lit this time of year burn vast areas- but its seen as a good thing here. If this fire doesn't burn it, the next one will ...

I was feeling really upset and indignant the other day about how I had been treated in a situation. It wasn't right, or fair- but then a local friend visited and gave me the gift of perspective. We discussed her life at the moment- her bicycle that she uses as a taxi business is broken- so she has no income, her sisters have gone to live with their husbands in another village- leaving all their children with the grandmother and eldest sister who are struggling to find enough food to feed them. My friend also suspects that she and her youngest child- who is always sick- need to have an HIV test- but she is terrified of the answer and can't summon the courage to do it. Her husband is dismissive and doesn't want to talk about it. While we were talking her youngest child was constantly crying and whinging with the occasional tantrum. I offered to get her a drink and got her some milk and biscuits whilst thinking to myself that she could probably do with some discipline as well. It was only after the child ravenously devoured the food and sat down with a contented smile to quitely amuse herself that I realised that she had been hungry -really hungry and I wondered when my friends last meal was if it's at the point where there is no food for the kids either... Malawians are opportunistic- and the brazen few will harass you for money in public and make you feel like everyone views you as walking ATM. But Malawians can also be very proud and tend to ask less when they are really in need- that is, until it gets desperate- then they will knock on a rich persons gate and throw themselves on your mercy or calousness as the case may be...

Im still really struggling with the material discrepancy between human beings- all made in Gods image. Poverty- now THAT's not right or fair.

A week in my Life - Tuesday

Thankfully today was a little more orderly than yesterday. Started the day with a lovely time of reading, thinking and praying through Deuteronomy 28-30 in preparation for taking on Micah-the next book in my 'read through the Bible' quest. :)

Whilst munching my porridge I managed to figure out how to download the GPS waypoints myself (very proud) and sent them off to a kind friend to be made into a 'proper' map- then headed into work and spent the morning drafting a funding proposal for the farm (anyone got some spare cash they'd like to see go to a good cause?!) and chatting with a colleague.

Its good having another chick to swap stories and commiserate with. The current 'issue' for me is pay rates. no, not mine :) but another whitey would like to take on my language helper but apparently isn't willing to pay what Im paying- and it's partly my problem because I upped her pay rate from the previous employer -who's doing the advising...so it's all a bit messy. Yes, Im paying more for a few hours than some people get in a day -but just because the economy here doesn't work doesn't mean I have to be stingy. I decided to base what I pay on what it actually costs to live rather than the 'standard' wage. The standard day wage for unskilled labour could currently buy you 1 kg of rice and 2 tomatoes, or 7 eggs- its not even enough for a carton of milk!!! grrr Im SO glad Ive only got 1 persons pay to worry about!

I had salad for lunch- a short lived treat after a visit to the markets in Blantyre on the weekend. lettuce, broccoli mmm, answered a few emails then a short nap :) and back to work to type out a government brochure on how to make compost manure. The brochure was in Chichewa, so I asked a colleague to translate it into ChiYawo... for me to type, format and print for the Farmer Trainings happening...soon. By about 4pm my office felt like a sauna and the girl in the office behind me was taking a nap, so I knocked off early and went and had a cuppa tea with another colleague of mine :) we talked about...how we've changed and what it'll be like to go back to Australia, relationships, life...girl talk :)

Tonight I cooked chambo for dinner- its Lake Malawi's prime fresh water fish- and the best tasting fish ever I think it's safe to say! and, Ive spent the rest of the evening finishing off the documents I was working on today and printing them for tomorrow. Its all one big party here (yawn) g'nite

A week in my life- Monday

Im out of the habit of writing- to everyone. Its not that I don't have time (we always find time for the things we really want to do) and its not that Im so used to everything here now that I have nothing to write and opinionate about. No- not at all. Its that...well, Im not a tourist, just observing any more- Im 'in' it. I think ive been here long enough now to realise that so many things don't have easy explanations...and the tragedies and celebrations happening around me are happening to people I know and care about and it affects me deeply. I find it hard to write about things that matter to my heart. But i also want to share what life is here with you...so im going to do a 'week in the life of me' which'll give you a snapshot and hopefully get me back in the habit :)

SO

Today is the first day of Ramadan, which, in this part of the world has meant an over night swap from the excesses, drumming and wild parties of the Unyago initiation celebrations to pious fasting as outlined by the Quran. Food and drink and sex are banned during daylight hours for the next month. "Fasting is a shield," said the noble Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) "Whoever spends the month of Ramadan in complete faith and self-rectification, his previous sins will be forgiven."

I've only ever experienced Ramadan and Idul Fitri in Indonesia, so Im not sure what to expect here. In Indonesia I was living with a devout host family. In Indonesia I fasted- but this morning I ate my brekky with thanksgiving and filled several large water bottles in case the farm workers weren't feeling so devout after several hours digging in the hot sun. Then after fuelling up the car I popped into the office for a few minutes to touch base and let the boss know where I was for the day- then off to the farm. Not quite direct though- some friends of mine- an expat couple with a young daughter were moving house up to a town near the farm today, so I stopped by their place, picked up the mother, daughter and a car load of boxes and delivered them to their new place...then I went to the farm.

When I arrived around 10am, the farm manger was lying in the shade and workers had just about finished for the day. They had no qualms slugging back the water. They've progressed really well on the drains distance-wise, but not quite according to design, so I chatted to the farm manager about that for a while and he nodded in agreeance. Im a bit worried cos he has a massive boil on the back of his neck that he's had for 3 days. It looks/is super painful but he was adament about trapesing all over the farm with me to get the last few GPS co-ordinates I need for the map...for the Farm Plan...for the funding proposal etc. "Its my jobo' he said with a grin. It was hot work- the season has definitely changed- its hard to believe a few weeks ago I was wearing a jacket and stockings under my skirt for warmth!

I dropped him home just before 12 and headed to the only resteraunt in the area. Are they serving food? yes- rice and chicken please. A colleague saw my car and came over for a chat. Apparently at the last meeting when the boss had promised the farmer training would happen in September, my colleague had retorted 'this year or next?!'. hehe I guess locals DO feel the same frustration at delayed timelines and empty promises. The training faciltiy is 5 weeks overdue. We're meant to be training 300 farmers in compost manure making and contour ridging- but we have no roof. sigh

After lunch I went to my friends house and played with their daughter and eventually got her to sleep while they unpacked and got on with moving in. Boxes and chaos today, comfortable home tomorrow! I left there around 4 pm and headed down the mountain. Its about a 45 min drive home down a pretty steep, windy road in places. The police pulled me over and wanted a lift to the next town. sure. I think the one in the front seat was trying to see my speedo- but he wasn't wearing his seatbelt so I felt safe with ammo :)

At the next police stop, near Mangochi, the policeman seemed to be just on the verge of asking for a lift when my friend from the village appeared and butted the police man out of the conversation! She attends Islamic school so had her black smock and headscarf on today. I spied 2 other women from the village with their babies behind her so I told her to hop in and informed the policeman I would be turning around now. Their village is only 12 km away- but thats a LONG way when you're lugging a kid on your back- whether you've eaten that day or not! They told me they'd been getting immunisation shots for their kids and visiting another friend from the village who had a baby in hospital today. a little boy, safe and sound. yay! Back at the village I greeted everyone, held a baby etc then headed off. so tired. Unloading my car at home I discovered that one of the kids had peed in the car :-z

got home around 5.30pm, hopped straight in the shower and my house mate cooked pasta for dinner while I finalised my receipts and cash records for August (yawn) then I cooked a cake for desert cos we've got lots of mushy bananas that need using today. cake was good :)

now- its 9.20 and im looking forward to bed! g'nite

Ladies and Gentlemen- may i present 'the drain'!

this is going to take all the run off water from that hill and slowly transport it to the nearest natural drainage channel- protecting all tha tlovely soil from erosion and providing plenty of opportunity for the groundwater to be re-charged! its good, very good :)

Unyago- Initiation Celebrations

I was very privileged to attend an initiation celebration today. wow. Im not quite sure how to convey both the incredible significance of this celebration as a right of passage in this culture...and/vs my own 'outsider' response. I guess part of my problem is that we don't really have anything in our culture quite like it. We don't get initiated. Sure we still largely keep the 21st Birthday tradition, but we certainly don't head off into the bush one day - a child- and return a month later a more valid member of society.

The initiation celebrations mark the end of the childrens month in a secret place, being taught the things that make them Yawo- make them man, or woman- make them 'belong'. At the end of the month, the shelter where they have been living is burnt, they are dressed in their finest clothes and they return solemnly to the village, paraded and treated like royalty while the villagers dance themselves into a frenzy. The atmosphere is part family parade, part nightclub- with the drummers competing for dancers, the inebriated young men concentrating on staying on their feet and the women- from the toddler to the granny- 'shakin their booty'...

But let me go back to the beginning...

It all started with the drums. Ive been hearing them every night for the past month- but today I actually got to see the 'culprits' :). As we arrived, one group was tuning their drums over a small fire. The blade of a hoe and assorted whistles were also used to accompany the singing. The drummers set off out the front and we followed behind singing and dancing 'til we met the initiates. Then the villagers gathered around them and escorted them with much - noise :) to where there were shelters with couches and food waiting for them. There were 3 groups of initiates that each came in about 10 min apart. Each group had its own drum trio and dancing villagers that would storm through another dancing group, luring dancers to their rythm. It seemed that once a group got too big to move easily, they settled in to their spot in front of their initiates and ...boogied :) young and old, black and white alike :)(my housemate reckons I look like the madonna in this pic :)?!)

Meanwhile ...the 'lil initiates were sitting in luxury, with food and drink and money...all of which they were not allowed to touch. They were to keep their eyes down and their mouths covered in all seriousness, while people danced and put money in the plates in front of them. These 2 kids were covering their mouths with the highest denomination in Malawian currency.

Then...we rested a bit, and went and 'helped' (hindered I suspect) the women cooking for everyone!...and then we went home . What an afternoon!

I am very much indebted to my housemate who has a gift for capturing the action and took many of these pictures- thanks!

Demo Farm Happenings

Its been a great time for our demonstration farm- all systems are go! never before has this property had a driven white woman 'making things happen'!

So...firstly- our training facility (or my skyscraper as Dad affectionately called it when he saw the size of the foundations) is a month behind schedule- which means that training of 300 farmers is now also a month behind schedule... but as a trained 'trainer' i really don't think it is expecting too much to provide a roof over our trainees heads- and its not like its a group of 20 that we can park under a tree- its 10 sessions- with 30 people at each one. So construction continues.

Now this was an area where I felt I should 'facilitate' rather than 'dictate' -so i facilitated permission for the structure from the director, and facilitated the building foremans transport to assess the site...and left the rest to local expertise. im not sure of the wisdom of that now that north eastern corner of the floor is a full foot lower than the rest- but i guess it'll be easier to mop. Having said that- given the technology available to these guys I think its pretty impressive.

Now a few weeks ago I had some 'visitors' - Aussie speaking farmers who also know a fair bit about reading landscapes and developing farm water management plans, so- after a few brainstorming meetings about the farm with my colleagues last week- i was given the 'ok' to proceed with stages 1-3 of the drainage channels kindly designed by the Aussies. These channels will protect the farm from the massive runoff generated by up to 2000mm rainfall falling in a 4 month period off the adjacent bouldery hill (ie water doesn't soak into boulders and hills mean the water is moving fast by the time it gets to the farm = erosion) So- drainage channels- there'll be 4 of these babies- each 2 m wide, 30 cm deep, running across the property to take excess water slowly to the existing drainage line.

I've been muttering under my breath the past few months about the locals penchant for burning everything- even this evening as I came off the plateau i spotted a dozen decent fires on the plain. But today, I developed a much greater appreciation for WHY. ya know how the grass looks really thick? WELL IT IS!!! and today 3 guys spent 4 hours cutting/scraping a 3 m wide, 80 m long corridor through it. I felt really sorry for them and pitched in to help -only to retreat at the first deep grass cut iiiish cringe. only 200 m to go folks! Nah- hopefully they'll get to the bit where the land was cropped last year by mid morning tomorrow and it should be a lot easier- then the digging will start.

The guys are awesome and I we can communicate (in a fairly rudimentary way) which is cool. It was interesting to see how the farm mangers approach to staff management vs my method. He didn't tell them what they were building or why- he just gave instructions and of course they didn't get it so he had to stay and 'supervise'. So when he wandered off for a chat I pulled out the map and tried to show how far they had progressed (for encouragement more than anything). They smiled and nodded politely until one of them exclaimed 'amapu!'. Once they realised that what was on paper represented real life they started asking questions and I explained - through yawo and elaborate sign language (hehe) that we were going to construct a big drain etc. they cleared the grass inthe right place after that :). Before knocking off i recorded their names so the farm manager could pay them. I suspected they were illiterate so I offered to write but couldn't help smiling when one of them exclaimed (in ciyawo) 'she says she can't speak Cichewa- only Ciyawo- but she knows how to write Cichewa!' yeah. all the languages here are written phonetically in 'normal' letters. apparently their names are Chewa :)

On the way home drove through an initiation ceremony dancing down the road...i can't quite begin to describe it. Ive been invited to one late August so I'll post the photos from that for you.

What the?!

there's alot of thinkin going on this 'lil head of mine that'll prolly make it to the www soon, but in the mean time -I'll try n take advantage of the internet being on right this minute (don't take anything for-granted!) and share with you some snaps from the past fortnight...What a cool dude!yes, that is bamboo scaffolding for a singlebrick high-rise car park

proof that any human insecurity can be turned into a saleable item! i didn't buy any- but i could probably do with a set :)Ouch! Apparently the driver wasn't the owner adn ran away after exiting through the sun roof. Mum commented that wasn't passing on the inside lane as frequently after seeing this one.

the first dam ive seen in Malawi

more writing next time hehe

Update

Hi all- I have had a crazy few weeks that aren't over yet! But I plan to be back to posting regularly next week. I've spent a week visiting organic/permaulture demonstration farms in the central region of Malawi, caught up with my folks while I was in Lilongwe to pick up some visitors ...and have spent the week putting them to work at the demo farm, marking contours and being taught how to 'read' the landscape for farm planning purposes. I've learnt so much, driven so many km's, been asked so many questions and been in so many amazing conversations bouncing ideas about development around that Im pretty much- stuffed :)
So- back to Lilongwe (4hr drive) today (to make sure they are there in time for their flight tomorrow morning), 2 nights de-fragging in Lilongwe and God-willing, back safely on Sunday.
Catch ya then!

A week in pictures

I had a crazy busy week last week, (with a healthy sprinking of power blackouts and internet outages), followed by a lovely weekend at a lake resort thanks to some visiting Aussies. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so here goes...

Monday- no piccies- just meetings, cooking and entertaining guests.

Tuesday- taking our Aussie vistors out to the village- but first we stopped to help push a truck that had run out of fuel (Mangochi has run out of diesel) off the road- only to find we had a flat ourselves. So, in true Aussie style we bamboozled the locals with hackey sack.

Wednesday- was the inaugural opening of a local Community Library that we've had a lot to do with. The ceremony started an hour or two late and went for an hour or two longer than the programme said - but hey- the local school and the villages in the area now have access to books to support ther functional education classes..and it's also stocked with sports equipment and a bicycle ambulance. awesome

Thursday- I attended the National Manure Campaign Launch at a farm a few hours drive away. Although the official proceedings resembled the previous day- i actually really enjoyed the displays and networking with other NGO's and organic farming oriented people. Im hoping to head back to that farm sometime in th enext few weeks for a few days to have a proper look around.

Friday- I took our visitors to a translation project, local orphanage and of course- the farm!

The little babies I held last time I visited the orphanage were now toddling around and a whole new set of babies moved in.

Saturday n Sunday... was a bit cold, but we all had some much needed fun, reflection time and R&R

Happy Malawi Republic Day!

Today, July 6th is Malawi's Republic Day.

From the late 19th century until independence, Malawi was a British protectorate called Nyasaland. Today in 1964 they declared their independence from the British, and 2 years later became the Republic of Malawi.

During the reign of the 1st President- his Excellency, the Life President Dr Hastings Kamuzu Banda, Republic Day was celebrated with huge functions all over the country (mandatory attendance). For the past 10 years, however, the celebrations have been abolished and this year is the first time in 10 years that Malawians have been encouraged to celebrate this special day. Word is that those not politically aligned with the current ruling party won't be welcomed (ie there are no major celebrations planned in our district) but hey- we get a public holiday tomorrow!

The Malawi flag features a black stripe that represents the people of Africa. The color red stands for the blood spilt in Malawi's struggle for independence; while the color green symbolizes the country's vegetation. The rising sun represents the dawn of freedom and hope on the African continent.

image used from http://flagspot.net/flags/mw.html, flag explanation from http://www.worldflags101.com/m/malawi-flag.aspx

Smokin'

Its burning season.

Mangochi is down behind that hill- smothered. Bring on the rains - only 3 months to go!

Hysteria

Hysteria / Hysterics
A nervous affection, occurring almost exclusively in women, in which the emotional and reflex excitability is exaggerated, and the will power correspondingly diminished, so that the patient loses control over the emotions, becomes the victim of imaginary sensations, and often falls into paroxysm or fits. [Webster1913]

I sat on the bench wanting to laugh- long and loud - uncontrollably for all the world to hear. It was then I started pondering the definition of hysteria. maybe 'hysterical laughter' wasn't a phrase to be used lightly if this was the urge i was feeling...

All I wanted was a map- a map of the farm with topography. In Australia I'd have called my mate John at Harley Survey and a few hours later it'd pop into my inbox with a poem or joke to brighten the day. I'd asked for this map 6 weeks ago, and finally deciding I'd been given the 'African yes' went hunting for it myself.

Several hours, several offices and a request for bribe money later I was sitting on a bench in the town records office- a small room lined with bookshelves and pigeon holes crammed full with tatty, yellowing manilla folders, labelled with peeling masking tape – the excess stacked in toppling piles on the floor. The clerk was slowly and systematically looking through every file for some tidbit of archived information for the man further up the bench. When it finally came to my turn it was 20 minutes 'til lunch so I had to go back in the afternoon.

He was held up some where else that afternoon, but very cheerfully handed the file to me this morning. It did contain a map - of sorts- but it wasn't what I was expecting it to be. sigh.

This culture shock stuff just goes on and on doesn't it? For some reason it still surprises me that my expectations don't fit here and I think completley differently and somehow miss most of the nuances in possibly every interaction.

Well- back to my comfortable task oriented cultural paradigm- If anyone knows how to measure and map topographic information for a very hilly piece of land I'd really appreciate it :)