Excitement in Livingstonia

March 26, 2008

I didn’t take the time to talk about some of the rest of the things that happened before we went on the walking safari at Nkhotakota I described in my last blog.  I mentioned that while we were still in Lilongwe,  we met John’s old friend Justin Funsani, from his Peace Corps days here in Malawi.  He took us to meet an old friend and mentor of his named Agustin Mthambala– a man who ended up being among other things, the Malawian Ambassador to France and later to Namibia.  Justin met him when Agustin was student teaching Justin’s first grade class.  Agustin was one of only 5 Malawian’s at that time, under colonial rule, who were chosen to receive a college education.  His wife was one of the first registered nurses in Malawi as well.  They are now in their 80’s and we were trying to encourage him to write his memoirs, as his first hand knowledge of the history of Malawi for the past 75 years were fascinating.  We spent the morning, and stayed for lunch listening with rapt attention to their stories.

John has been trying to get Justin who is 72, to do his memoirs for the past 10 years too.  Justin, Augustin and his wife have all lived through colonial rule, the movement for independence, 30+ years of rule by a brutal dictator (Justin was imprisoned during the time of the dictatorship for really nothing more than being educated, and working for and with Americans), and 2 post dictator presidents.  He is also a great story teller, as was Agustin.  They are still part of just a handful of Malawians who are well educated, since the higher education system is just not large enough to provide enough spaces for those who are smart, and even those who could qualify and get a higher education can’t find the money to pay for it.  I guess that’s a big part of why I am happy to be here working to try to help this new University to be a success.

We rented a car in Lilongwe, from our old reliable friend, Sputnik Rent a Car – great name huh.  It was an automatic shift again, which is such a help when you are driving on the opposite side of the road, and dealing with the people, bicycles, goats, cows, and potholes – or in some cases gaping holes.  This however, was the second time we have gotten one with about 150,000 miles on it and not much for shock absorbers, or tire tread for that matter.  So with 4 people piled in a Toyota Corolla, and their 100+ lbs of luggage(John and I didn’t have much, but Steve and Mary Ellen had just arrived for a 2 week visit with lots of gifts), we were riding low enough that we had to get out and walk most of the way when we got to the dirt road to the Safari Lodge.  There were a few places where we had clearance, but most of the road was too rough, or had ruts too deep to be able to clear with all of us in it. 

So it took us about 30 - 40 minutes to go the 3 miles or so on the dirt road to the Nkhotakota Pottery Lodge, only to find out when we got there that the Nkhotokota Safari Lodge was about 400 yards down the beach, and had a separate dirt road entrance off the main tarred road.  So we had to drive back down that road, and go up the highway a bit to get to another 3 mile dirt road to the Safari Lodge.  It only took about 45 minutes for that 6 mile trip, since we all walked over to the Safari Lodge  leaving the car with just luggage so it wasn’t riding quite so low. 

The other really fun thing that happened, at the Safari Lodge was when they announced that there was a local group coming to do some drumming, singing and dancing at dinner that first night.  There are only 6 rooms at the lodge, so when the group arrived, there was just a family with 2 kids and us at the little thatched eating area.  The best part was that it was not some hokey tourist thing -  the Lodge is small, and there are no lights or anything, so they just lined up outside the entrance to the eating area in the dark and started.  They started with mostly singing, then added drumming, and lastly, a male dancer arrived.  It must be the amateur anthropologist in me that enjoys noticing the similarities of indigenous cultures, as the dancing reminded me a lot of Native American male dancers.  We pulled up a couple of chairs, in the dark, after the family left and had our own private show, and when we left after an hour or so, the group just kept on going for the fun of it for another hour or so.  Really talented, and really fun.  They told us that the group was a very popular one to perform for celebrations, like weddings, and that the dancer also performed healings – again, very much like the Native American’s, the Navaho in particular.

We all felt much better afterwards so the healing worked great on us.

March 28, 2008

It has been an amazing week.  We took our friend Steve to the Primary School here, on Monday and had quite a reception.  Steve was going to come and help at the school, as he is a first grade teacher at home, but then learned that the school would be on Easter Holiday the entire time he would be here.  Since he was thinking about coming back next year, he really wanted to learn more about the school and students, so we spoke to the headmaster before he arrived to see if he could meet some teachers or students. 

The headmaster said he would make an announcement in church on Sunday that a mzungu visitor would be coming and quite a few students would come, even though it was their Easter Break.  The teachers would also be there he said.  John and I weren’t sure what to expect, but when we all walked down the ½ mile or so on the appointed morning, we could see about 50 students sitting on the grass in their school uniforms, and after we’d been there for about a half hour, there were probably about 200 - 300 students.  I’ve attached a photo of what it looked like when we first arrived that morning, with the smaller number of students.

Steve taught them some songs, which they loved, and now as we walk around the plateau, kids will come running up and start singing one of the songs they liked.  The kids and teachers stayed and the Headmaster had a meeting with all of us until lunchtime.  They introduced themselves, to Steve, asked questions and talked about some of their challenges – like lack of books, and class sizes that top 100 kids per teacher.  We brought some cookies, thinking that it would be nice to give them something for coming in on a day off, and thank goodness we brought 15 or 20 packages, as I know we only had enough for the first 3 or 4 grades.  Steve and his wife brought over 140 pencils and over 160 pens that had little strings to hang around their necks, and there were barely enough to go around for all the kids there.  The kids went running to tell their parents when they got their pencil or pen and you’d have thought they were made of gold.

March 30, 2008

On Friday, Steve’s wife Mary Ellen, a public health nurse, went to 3 rural clinics to work with Maternal and Child health, and had a great time meeting the mothers and their babies.  She had her camera with her and got some great photo’s with quite of a few of the women going home to change clothes when they saw that pictures were going to be taken. 

Steve, is now “Mr. Tutie-Tot” everywhere he goes on the plateau.  One of the songs he taught had lots of body motions, and the chorus was “a tootie tot, a tootie tot, a tootie tot tot”, so now when he walks down the road the kids will do the arm motions and start singing the song, and smile their wonderful huge smiles.  I’ll try to post a photo of a couple we ran into, one of which grabbed my hand and wanted to keep holding it while we walked – and for the photo.  What a cutie. 

We also found out that David Mhango, who I have mentioned before, who is one of the local young men we have become friends with and tried to help, got a job as the district supervisor for the upcoming census.  We helped him to update a resume and do some cover letters, and mailed them for him when we were in Mzuzu, and they notified him to come in for some testing and interviews.  He walked to Nchenachena, which is about 20 miles one way, and back in the same day to take the test and be interveiwed. 

He scored so high on their test that they automatically put him in a group being considered for supervisory positions.  (He got all 200 questions right, and the next highest score was 158).  After being interviewed, he was hired for the job of supervisor for the district.  It is only a 2 month position, but he is beyond thrilled and this should help him on his resume.  He is so smart and ambitious, but there are just no jobs, and his family was too poor to be able to pay for any post secondary school.  He was the only child in the family they could even afford to send to secondary school (which is not free here).  It can be so hard to know if we are really making a difference, and it was so satisfying to know we had made a difference in this case at least.

So yesterday, we walked to the Manchewe falls(amazing photo attached), which is a popular tourist attraction about 3 miles from here, and then to lunch at an eco-lodge nearby called Lukwe.  David was the only Malawian in a group of 8 mzungu, and I was worried that he might feel out of place, but afterwards he said he was excited to have been included and that was the only time he had ever been the only black in a group of 8 whites.  We knew he wouldn’t have money to pay for a lunch like that, so we told him that it was a congratulatory dinner for his new job so he wouldn’t worry about being able to pay, or about “receiving charity”. 

The view at this lodge is amazing, as it is perched right at the edge of the escarpment.  The couple who own it are from Traverse City, Michigan and bought it about 3 years ago, from some absentee owners who let it run down.  It’s pretty basic, mainly a backpacker type place, but the rooms looked very comfortable, and we said it would be just the place if you wanted a nice quiet place to write a book or something as it is not an easy place to get to.