1/27/08
We have had power steadily for about a week and it feels very luxurious – I guess I’m adjusting. On the other hand, the weather the past few days has been pretty depressing. Rather than the big rainstorms we were having at night, or the gentle all night rains, it rained all day yesterday and most of last night, and this morning it has stopped raining (I think) but is very dreary and gray.
John and I both had a bad case of cabin fever yesterday and joked about going to a movie or watching TV. Instead, we both worked at our computers, slept, read, played cribbage and another game called Sequence that the Gentili’s left here from their stay and went to bed around 8:30. I went for a walk in the mud and rain around 5pm as I was totally desperate to stretch my legs and there seemed to be a break in the rain. It was spitting a little rain, but the roads weren’t as bad as I thought they might be. The red clay is packed so hard in many places on these roads that, while it was slippery on the surface, I didn’t end up with a pound of mud stuck to my shoes the way I did earlier in our stay so that you feel like you are wearing ankle weights when you walk.
We skipped church today as it was Holy Communion Sunday and since we aren’t Presbyterian, it seemed like it would not be appropriate for us to partake and we were happy to sleep in. Saturday morning we got up early as David Mhango, a young man who had hoped to plant an apple orchard and was thinking that our predecessor Tom O’Meara was going to help him with that, planned to stop by with Macadamia nuts for us on his way to a meeting at church. He planned to arrive between 7 and 8am (on a Saturday morning), and when I got up to put on the tea pot around 6:45 the neighbors already had laundry done and hanging up. People rise early here, and since many have no electricity, go to bed early as well since our proximity to the equator means that the sun rises and sets around 5:30 am and pm every day year round. When he came he brought not only the macadamia nuts but also about 18 bananas.
We met David on our first day here when he stopped by (one of our 17 visitors that day) wondering if we had brought money from Tom to help with his orchard project, 100 apple trees for which he had already dug holes (about $100 worth of seedlings as we understand it). He is 28 years old, a deacon in the church and the 2nd of 8 children of a farming family who raise coffee, oranges, pineapples, tangerines, avocados, bananas, macadamia nuts and some apples. He had talked with Tom about a plan for planting the trees and then contracting with the University to provide apples to the student cafeteria. Since his family is large and poor, he is trying to find a way to support himself and his wife and 3-year-old daughter and he talked about past efforts to find a way to support himself and his family – like working as a surveyor for a construction company who didn’t pay him for 5 months until he finally quit. He attended the Technical College for a short time but then had not more money for school fees. I emailed Tom about him when we were in Mzuzu, to see if he had planned to send money and forgot or if David misunderstood, but we weren’t there long enough to hear back.
He asked if we knew anything about Uranium mining as the crew from an Australian company and their South African technicians arrived yesterday to do some testing right across the valley from us and close to where David’s family lives. David’s grandfather is a traditional chief in his village and the local chiefs have been consulted along with the Malawi government authorities regarding this mining. The mining companies say the mining would be done with no danger to the residents or damage to the environment (hard to believe), and of course it could mean jobs for local people and another market for local farm produce and potentially a boost to the local economy.
I did a little checking on the internet about the Uranium mining before we left Lilongwe as I sat next to a SA mining construction worker who is working on building a mine a few hundred kilometers north of here, and we had been told back in September when we were here that Uranium had been discovered nearby. It is exciting for people here as it could mean improvements in the roads, and of course could give the local economy a shot in the arm as well as bringing large amounts of money into the coffers of the country. One of the contributors to Malawi’s poverty has been its lack of natural resources. I have very mixed feelings though as it would undoubtedly ruin the landscape of parts of this beautiful place despite what the mining officials say. I guess we’ll find out more as the next weeks and months go by.
David has asked if he might come one day next week and update his CV (Curriculum Vitae which is what people in this British system use instead of a Resume), and has also indicated that he’d like to invite us to his 28th birthday party on February 10th. In addition, he wanted to take us down to the Manchewe Falls about an hour away. The falls are one of the big tourist attractions in the area and are supposed to be very beautiful. I wanted to go on the last trip, but they are about 1 to 2 hours walk, downhill all the way there and then uphill on the way back. He seems to be a bright, sweet, hard-working, ambitious young man looking for a chance in life and I’m happy to do what I can to help.
On a totally separate topic is my observation thus far around the impact of the high death rate – whether from Malaria which is rampant this time of year, Tuberculosis, HIV/AIDs or other diseases of hunger and poverty and lack of health care. Malawi’s life expectancy is only around 39 years, having sadly dropped significantly due to HIV/AID’s. During the time we were in Mzuzu last week, the Synod officials had 3 funerals to go to in 4 days. Two parish ministers died unexpectedly and suddenly and the one of the officials we know lost his sister-in-law as well. When we got back to the plateau of Livingstonia we were going to greet Dr. Msiska, the librarian and one of the founders of the University and he was at a family funeral as well, and only a few days before another official was trying to arrange transportation for himself to go to a relatives funeral. Our carpenter’s brother is in the hospital with drug resistant TB and complications from not taking his ARV’s for HIV, and nearly everyone we talk to has some family member in hospital with malaria or something.
I had commented on our last trip in September, that the whole HIV/AIDs problem that I knew existed did not seem visible, except for the signage you see as you enter many towns and villages for “coffin makers”. Learning about all of these deaths at closer range, it really brings home the scope and impact. I am struck by the amount of disruption in people’s daily life that it causes. It is easy to understand the affect it has on families and the social structure, as we all know what it is like to lose a family member – but most of us have no concept of the loss of so many family and community members. John and I commented that we have not met a single family with any means that does not have at least one child from their extended family for whom they are caring. It’s the consequences for the economy and productivity that struck me when we were in Mzuzu, as the Synod officials were only in their offices for 2 days that week, and of course they undoubtedly spent much of each of those days making arrangements related to the deaths. So in addition to the lost time attending funerals, they now have 2 parishes with no minister/community leader. The scale and the repercussions of these losses is almost incomprehensible.
1/29/08
I’m still recovering from our afternoon walk yesterday afternoon. Macdonald Harara, one of the church elders, had come to introduce himself last Sunday and offered to come back yesterday after church for lunch and to take us for a walk to see the water source for Livingstonia. “The source” as it is known around here (which sounds like some mystical place), is a spring that comes down from the Nyika Plateau and was tapped with a ingeniously engineered gravity feed water system designed and created by Dr. Robert Laws, the Presbyterian missionary who founded Livingstonia over 100 years ago. That water system has been in place continuously serving the Livingstonia area since then and was only supplemented with another pipeline following the same route a year or so ago when the area population grew beyond the capacity of the old one.
I thought I remembered from our visit in September that “the source” was quite a distance away, and when I said that to Macdonald, his reply was “not too far” – I should have known that everything is relative when he said it. These people who walk everywhere for miles on end carrying heavy loads have a very different perspective, as we were to learn when we went for our “short walk” yesterday. We asked our cook/helper Smelton the other day how long it takes him to walk home from our house after he finishes work and he said “about an hour.”
We left our house at 1:30, and after about an hour and a half of walking up and down hills (mostly up – or at least it seemed that way) on rough and slippery paths, and through the mud, with a 10 minute or so break to visit Macdonald’s home and meet his wife and youngest child, I whispered to John that if we didn’t get there soon I was going to give up and sit on the nearest rock and wait for them. By then I had stepped in a huge muddy puddle so my shoes were wet, I was sweating so badly that I was constantly wiping salty water away from my eyes, and was so warm that my glasses steamed up every time we slowed down. Macdonald said, “oh just 10 minutes more – it would be less time but we are walking slowly for you”.
I pooped out about 30 minutes later when we were going to have to go across yet another slippery, wobbly log bridge and then jump over to a muddy shore or fall in a stream - I knew my legs were too shaky to make it. It took 2 hours for us to get up there, and then it started softly raining about the time we headed back down. Despite the challenges of getting there, it was also breathtakingly beautiful, thank goodness, and I wouldn’t have missed for the world. The scenery on the way up was amazing, and even after walking for an hour uphill towards the source, we were traversing cultivated fields of corn, cassava, coffee and small villages. The attached photo was taken on the way up. We were struggling to walk on the paths and the local people had to carry their hoes and farming implements up there and then farm a hillside which sits at a 45 degree angle most of us couldn’t even climb. I’ve seen no mechanized equipment since I’ve been here, but I don’t think there’d be a way to get it to some of the fields under cultivation anyway. These people work so hard – the farmland is all cultivated, hoed, planted, harvested and carried to market miles away by hand. Amazing.
On the way down, we were slipping and sliding on the paths even more because it was getting wetter from the rain that was falling and causing the surface of the clay soil to be as slick as ice back home – we commented that we had good practice doing the “duck walk” on slippery footing. I chose not to carry an umbrella and was pretty soaked by the time we got back, saying to John that I was understanding why the African’s don’t mind walking in the rain as it felt cool and good to me. It only took about an hour and a half to get back, and as we were coming downhill much of the way, we were passed like we were standing still by an African grandmother who was barefoot and carrying some stuff – more than a little humiliating.
After coming down, we had to navigate a muddy road back up uphill around a mile back to our plateau, which was getting muddier by the minute in the rain, and our shoes were picking up about a pound of sticky mud each making our tired legs work even harder. By the time we got back we were both dying, but I was also feeling pretty proud of myself - three and a half hours of solid and difficult hiking. We quickly took some Ibuprofen to try to stave off the stiffness, but my thighs and calves are getting stiffer by the minute.
It rained again all night, and much of the morning we were in thick fog (actually, at our altitude of around 4,000 ft, we are in the clouds, so it isn’t like the fog we’re used to) but it was starting to clear off a bit as the day went on and I am hopeful about tomorrow.
Speaking of hopeful, South African air called me back today and said that they finally got a call back from their Johannesburg office and have thought of another area to check for our luggage. It would be so nice if that would show up.
1/29/08
People have asked about the food here and what we eat. The food is very healthy and quite good, and I am grateful to have Smelton our houseman to cook our large meal of the day at lunchtime because there are no “convenience foods” here. Everything must be cooked from scratch, which is part of the reason it is so good. Chicken is fairly plentiful and normally comes whole so must be cut into parts, and since it is “free range” can be tough if not cooked long and slow. Beef is also fairly common, and the fish is very good although we have only eaten it in restaurants so far as I have not found a market to buy fish that I trust. The large population means the lake is getting over fished and John says he remembers large fish fillets when he was here in the late 60’s but those no longer exist from what we can tell.
Vegetables are seasonal, and tomatoes are very plentiful and wonderful, and available nearly year round. Tomatoes and onions are the only vegetables regularly available up here in Livingstonia, but we think that more will be available as they ripen locally. In Mzuzu at the open-air market there are beans, cabbage, potatoes and several kinds of summer squash, lettuce and some other greens, peppers and cucumbers. Everything is fresh and wonderful, and the fruits are really amazing. Nearly everyone has a banana tree, and often mango and papaya too, and pineapples are very plentiful as well. Tonight for dessert we had a mixture of all of those that was fabulous. The bananas and pineapples especially are so different from what you can get at home as they are grown right here and tree ripened so are much sweeter.
People make a lot of soups and stews with a tomato base, and then have rice or potatoes with that. Actually, the staple food is something called nsima, which is like a very thick polenta made with white corn that is milled as fine as flour. There is a lot of use of cooked greens (which I love) with onion, or coleslaw as well. People have a hand washing ritual before eating where the host of hostess uses a pitcher with warm water to wash everyone’s hands as the nsima is eaten with the hands and rolled into a ball, then an indentation is made to put the stew, or vegetables or meat into before popping in your mouth. Since I’ve always loved eating with my hands it’s perfect for me, and actually tastes quite good. While the food is good, it’s a little monotonous and we are happy to have found a great new Indian restaurant that just opened up in Mzuzu(there is a large population of Indian shopkeepers). There is also a pizza parlor in Mzuzu that we haven’t tried yet but plan to – we are curious to see what that is like.
2/2/08
We will be in Mzuzu by the time I send this, and I’m excited about the prospect of checking email and being on the Internet again. Although I got tired of being in the noise and bustle of Mzuzu the last time, I have to admit I’m looking forward to a change of pace, and to trying out the new Pizza restaurant. We have also run out of a variety of vegetables, and since all we can get up here on the plateau are tomatoes, and occasionally a few greens, I’m really looking forward to getting some variety at the vegetable market there. We’re also going to file our official luggage claim as we are still getting the run around from SA, and are told that there is more effort made to find the bags when they are afraid that they’ll have to pay.
We had a wonderful dinner at our neighbors Bruce and Karin(the Norwegian couple I mentioned earlier) last night. They have been here long enough to have an established garden and we had a wonderful salad and some appetizers made with a yogurt cream cheese and fresh herbs from their garden, plus some fish cakes made with the local fish. It felt very luxurious and I’m eager to go shopping so we can have a bit more variety at our house too.
I’m also thinking that the weather might be a bit nicer as they are not as high in Mzuzu. We are at about 4,000 feet here and Mzuzu is only around 2,000 I think, so while it’s still the rainy season there, it wasn’t foggy and dreary as much there the last time. It’s noticeably warmer, but I’ll trade that for some sun right now.
