Such a busy time

May 8, 2008

Here we are back in Livingstonia and the trips back and forth to Mzuzu keep getting harder and harder. Thank goodness we only have to make that trip 3 more times, although from May 18 to June 3 we are going to be traveling all over the countryside, and I can’t say I’m looking forward to it. More on that as the time goes on. As we were coming up the escarpment road yesterday, I swear it is getting bumpier and bumpier, but I also wasn’t feeling too great so maybe it was just that. For the first time, I was feeling a little like what carsickness must feel like, a bit queasy and just wanting the vehicle to stop rocking and pitching. That road is really amazing and impossible to describe to anyone.

I think I have a touch of the flu, as I feel kind of achy and feverish and congested, and that might be why the trip was bothering me so much yesterday. Of course John and I have commented of late that it has become normal to have a digestive system that doesn’t seem to be functioning quite properly. We’ve been very careful about the water and raw foods, but people here eat so many fried foods that it could just be all the oil or the daily malaria drugs. You’d think we’d both be losing weight with all the walking, but instead we have both gained with all the high fat foods and Smelton’s good cooking.

My small world story from yesterday was connecting with Dr. Trywell Nyirongo in Mzuzu. I learned about Dr. Nyirongo before leaving the U.S. as 40 years ago he was sponsored by, and lived with some members of the Unity Unitarian church that we attend in St. Paul. Dr. Nyirongo came to the U.S. to attend High School and college starting in 1961, and I got an email address for him from a church member and tried contacting him before leaving in January, but didn’t hear back from him. His story is quite an amazing one – he had gone to Tanzania and Uganda first as he was determined to get an education, and then was chosen to be part of a very small group of young people who were chosen by the dictatorial government of the time to leave African and receive a Secondary School education. John’s friend Justin Funsani, and the former ambassador that we met in Lilongwe were part of that same group, and many of them know one another even though they went to very different places for their education.

I kept thinking I should call him ever since we arrived, but hesitated to do so as the road from Livingstonia to Nchenechena where he lives was impassable during the rainy season so I knew that even if I could reach him, I wouldn’t be able to get to see him despite the short distance of only about 20 miles. Plus of course, we have no transport and I wasn’t sure how I would get there even if the road were open. But after Smelton arranged transport to his house a couple of weekends ago, it occurred to me that I could hire transport in Livingstonia somehow.

When we were at David Mhango’s last weekend we were talking about it again as some of his training and work will be based at Nchenechana and I mentioned wanting to meet Dr. Nyirongo. As soon as I said it, David recognized the name as Dr. Nyirongo is very well known, and is thinking about running for Parliament. John knew I was thinking about hiring transport and suggested that we could take David to his training in Nchenachena on May 18 and visit Dr. Nyirongo at the same time. So I decided to try one more email, and to my surprise got an answer the next day this time, and Dr. Nyirongo was very excited about meeting us having heard the Unity Church contact person that we were here in Malawi. I sent him another email message to check his phone number and he replied immediately, while I was sitting at the Internet cafe to say it was correct.

A few hours later, we were all loaded into the vehicle and leaving the Presbyterian Synod compound in Mzuzu where the University offices are for our trip back to Livingstonia, when we saw our friend Macdonald, and Paulo, who is one of the owners of the new pizza place in town where we had our going away party for Bruce and Karin the night before. They were chatting with a Malawian man and we stopped to say hello. After a few seconds, the Malawian man said “is Susan Goll here?” When I said “yes, I’m Susan Goll” with a little question mark in my voice. He says “I’m Trywell Nyirongo” and I think I screamed a little with shock. I said “you didn’t mention in your email that you were in Mzuzu too” and he commented that since I had said we were leaving Mzuzu for Livingstonia soon, there’d been no point.

We chatted for a while and he said he wanted us to come and stay the night when we come to visit on May 18, but I’m not sure how we are going to do that since we need to be in Mzuzu on May 20. Although John suggested that we could stop to see him and continue to Mzuzu if there is public transportation, or maybe Dr. Nyirongo could arrange some transport. I told John maybe helping Trywell with some of his community development work could be our next project in Malawi at some point in the future, as I don’t think either of us see coming back to the University unless something drastic changes with the leadership, although John has mentioned he could see himself working with the College of Nursing again here, as could I.

May 9, 2008

More bad news from home – our house was broken into. Our friend Cathryn who is staying there sent an email saying that someone broke in through an unlocked, and I think partially open window, ransacked her dresser drawers, grabbed a bunch of her heirloom jewelry, 3 generations and lots of money’s worth, and left through the front door. It happened sometime yesterday afternoon, and our neighbor Jim across the street who was out in the yard didn’t even see anything, and he and all the neighbors keep a close eye on each other’s houses.

I don’t know yet if any thing in our room upstairs was taken, but it didn’t sound like it. She said they took out the silver chests from the linen closet on the first floor, but didn’t take the silver, just left the chests out and open – John’s Mother’s silver is monogrammed so would maybe be harder to pawn. The police told Cathryn that her jewelry might show up, as it will likely be pawned. I sure hope so. I feel so bad for her, and am just grateful that her cats didn’t go out the open window after the thieves left, so at least that loss wasn’t added to the rest. It is so strange to get this kind of news from thousands of miles away – unreal, disembodied, hard to process. This makes 3 deaths, and one house break-in we have learned about in a little over 4 months. That’s a lot of bad news to process from afar.

May 10, 2008

We had electricity for the whole day yesterday for the first time since we got back from Mzuzu. First we had a problem with the main switch on our house here. It is a shame, but just like in the U.S. you have to watch your builder all the time, and the builder of our house, which was new in 2007 really skimped on a bunch of stuff. We’ve had repeated problems with the electricity, plumbing, windows, and in one of the hard rain storms a small leak in the roof – and these were nice, and quite expensive houses by Malawian standards.

After the main switch got repaired, we learned that there was a scheduled power outage the following day that was supposed to last about 3 hours and instead lasted over 6 - then the next day and the next day more outages that were not announced. I realized how spoiled we had gotten with having power that worked reliably for the past few weeks as the rainy season has started to wind down.

It was nice because David Mhango was able to come home for a weekend visit and we could make lunch for him when he came by to visit today. He was so funny, he said he had told his family at 6am he was going to come visit us, and they told him that was too early. He said it had been a whole week and he was eager to see us and didn’t want to wait. Thankfully he did wait.

There was a wedding in town today and you could hear all the excitement all day today and last night before. We could have gone, as everyone is invited to these things, but since we had never met the bride and groom decided not to, but were loving the music and seeing the bride and groom ride up and down the road after the ceremony. It was one of the students who graduated last September, and since he met his bride here working at the small hospital, he came back here for his wedding and asked many of the College people to be a part of it, including “giving him away.” (Both the bride and groom are escorted by their families.)

May 11, 2008

Sunday morning sitting on the konde, one of my favorite things to do any day, but on Sundays I feel like I can stay as long as I like. It’s not quite the same these days though as there is an Australian Mining company doing some test drilling for Uranium directly across the valley from us. The beautiful wooded hillside is now scarred with roads and clearings – we watched them bring in the caterpillars and bulldozers and knock over trees like they were twigs. I can hear the engines from their equipment even though it is Sunday and they are over a mile away, and there is smoke coming up from something, which we also see commonly now. I don’t even want to think about what that beautiful hillside will look like if they find quality ore there and set up mining operations.

It’s been an odd thing. When I first heard about the possibility of Uranium mining I was kind of excited thinking that it would bring money and probably jobs for people, but we understand that the local authorities have been paid off to keep quiet about it, and there are almost no jobs as the company brought in their own people who stay on that side of the valley and don’t even bring any money to the local merchants. Let alone the health concerns as the testing is taking place on a hillside that drains down into a small river, which then drains into Lake Malawi. The locals are very concerned and are feeling quite powerless, as they were told that this was going to be something quite different than it has turned out to be in size and scope, and they feel like the government is steamrolling it, and that the local authorities have been duped and bribed. The poor are treated the same worldwide it seems.

May 14, 2008

The Vice Chancellor and his wife have returned to Livingstonia and the knowledge that we are leaving soon has become very real. We are trying to make as smooth a transition as possible and pass along our completed and in process projects, debriefing where we are. It’s challenging as so much of what we did, is still in process, and it’s also been challenging to let go of the outcome of not only our projects, but also whether the College will survive.

They seem well aware of the precarious position of the College of Education, which they helped to start, and with that, the University of Livingstonia that they also helped to start as the umbrella for all 5 colleges. That has to be incredibly frustrating, and must weigh very heavily on them. On the other hand, John and I are getting frustrated because we seem to keep going over the same things with them that we have been telling them via email and phone conversations for the past few months. It seems that they are not able to take in our assessment that the problems they are facing are all caused by the lack of financial, managerial or administrative leadership, structure and any kind of accountability – and the suggestions we have made for fixing those problems we know are not easy. Maybe it’s just too much to accept since by virtue of their titles, they have the ultimate leadership role, coupled with their confusion and frustration about the difficulty involved in fixing the problems.

It triggers all sorts of unhealthy behavior in me too, as I keep trying to find a way to do more, and fix things somehow that are beyond my capability to fix. It’s been yet another lesson in letting go, and a constant reminder of the serenity prayer, as so much of this is out of my control. I keep getting hooked into how hard these students have worked to get here, and how they deserve so much better than they are getting and then I start getting angry. I think the straw that broke the camels back for me was the student that was dismissed improperly back in March, and the students who were recently told to go home due to non-payment of fees, which was handled so badly. And of course, the dismissal of our friends Bruce and Karin, who were such advocates for the students and staff members. And all of those things relate back to the poor financial, managerial and administrative leadership and accountability, which I can’t fix, but someone needs to – and if not the Vice-Chancellor, who.

May 15, 2008

Time for a lighter note again. When I was walking back to our house just now, I heard a pig squealing – not in a panic, but definitely unhappy about something. I looked over and saw 2 men walking down a path not too far from out house, and am not sure if they were trying to shift the pig from one person to the other, or if one of them was trying to help reposition it on the other, but the pig was being draped across the shoulders of one of the guys for a walk to who knows where. Once the pig was settled it grunted a little as the guy walked, but seemed generally content with the situation – or at least stopped complaining.

I hate to go back to “chicken stories” again, but one of the other things I get a kick out of here is chickens being carried around in handbags – or at least that is what it looks like. You’ll be walking along and see a woman carrying something that looks like a purse, and a little head will be poking out, looking around curiously – a chicken. It’s kind of a Malawian Paris Hilton thing, except that unlike Hilton’s little purse sized Chihuahua, I didn’t figure the woman was taking our “pet chicken” out to visit. I have been surprised at how content the chicken always seemed to look sticking out of those “purses”, as I always had a feeling it would end badly for the chicken, but like the pig on the guys shoulders, the chickens didn’t seem very bothered by it

More Favorite Things here in Livingstonia and Malawi:

1. The stars. One of the side benefits of only 5% of the population having electricity and no streetlights is the amazingly dark night sky and what that means for stars. With little or no ambient light, the stars are absolutely amazing – there are so many and so bright that it doesn’t even look real.
2. Being “in the clouds”. Because we are on a mountain, we are sometimes in a fog, which is not like any fog you experience on the flat lands because we are actually in a cloud. You can see it coming across the valley sometimes, the bottom of the cloud before it reaches here and becomes fog.
3. The eagerness of children to learn. Children walk for miles to go to school here, and to go to Secondary School almost always means a boarding school because people live so far out and so few go to Secondary School. They always want to greet you in English and sometimes want to have a short conversation to practice, and they are curious and want to know about where you came from.
4. Adults are also very curious and love to hear about the U.S. and what it’s like there. They are shocked that there is no malaria there, and no bananas, and that there is no rainy season – and really shocked that the lakes freeze so solid where we are that people can drive on them, they just shake their heads in amazement at that one.
5. Eating food grown right near by. It tastes so fresh and the fruits are so sweet. It’s not pineapple or mango season right now, but I am especially going to miss the way they taste when they are picked ripe.
6. I know I mentioned the chickens on my last list (and on so many other blogs you must think I’m obsessed), but I love all the “free range” animals. We had a little pig in our yard one day and today there are 5 goats staked out to graze just down the hill from us.
7. The way they chose a cow to slaughter. All the cows are herded to where the butchering will take place so none will know which one is the one to be chosen, and the chosen one will not be alone or frightened – and a blessing is said for the chosen one as well.
Head wraps on women. They look so elegant.
8. Packaged cookies that really taste good. Must be the British influence, they do love their biscuits with tea.
9. Eating breakfast or having morning tea on the konde watching the sun come up over the mountains across the lake in Tanzania.
10. The people oriented aspect of the culture. I remember John saying that he returned from one of his trips here and was in his office when someone came in and launched into what he needed, and John's first thought was "how rude - he didn't even ask me how I was". No one would dream of starting any kind of conversation here without proper greetings and finding out how you are (as well as your family usually). It may not be good from a business or economic standpoint as people think nothing about closing down a business or school to deal with a problem that affects members of the community - hardly a productive way to do things, but the emphasis here is on relationships not on results. It will be odd to go back home where the emphasis is on results not relationship, although I have to admit there are times I just want to ask a quick question of someone and get on with whatever I am trying to do
11. More great names that I have heard this past week: Gift, Lovemore, and Trywell.

Things I’m really looking forward to back home:

1. Seeing all the people I love and miss.
2. Jack, our cat.
3. Getting to meet John’s new grandson Oliver.
4. A shower with real water pressure (some of the hotels we’ve stayed at have nice showers, but unfortunately the one at our house is pretty wimpy and dribbly)
5. A toilet that actually flushes rather than just swirling around madly and often quite unproductively. (Again a function of our house not the whole country – I think they skimped on plumbing)
6. Ice cream. I tried it once here and I wouldn’t have known if was ice cream if it hadn’t been labeled as such, and it is one of my favorite things even though I don’t eat it that often at home.
Frozen bars of any kind. They sell some on the street, but I don’t trust the street vendors for any kind of food. John and I ate a lot of those at home.
7. Movies. They skipped right over movie theaters here and just sell DVD’s. Rather than movie houses, there are little single car garage sized shops that show videos – and often double as a store or, in Livingstonia, the barbershop. Bruce and Karin had a few that we borrowed from them and it was a real treat to have “movie night” complete with popcorn sometime, and shown on the DVD player on my computer.
8. Reading the Sunday newspaper – or any newspaper for that matter – and to have them delivered to your door will be amazing.
9. Comfortable furniture – this is a nice house, but was furnished with the locally made wicker furniture and then cushions made that are only about 2 inches thick. If you want to sit and read a book, there is really no place comfortable to stretch out (we just have love seats and chairs). And our dining room table and coffee table are wicker too, so everything tips over on them.
10. Electricity all the time. We have continued to have a lot of power outages this past 2 weeks – almost daily. With the rains pretty much over, and no electrical storms for a long time, I’m not sure the reason. It will just be nice to know that we can have hot food or hot drinks any time we want.
11. A haircut. I haven’t gotten it cut since December, and it is really getting long, although I have trimmed around the front a little bit. I didn’t trust anyone here to cut mzungu hair, although I’m told there were some people in Mzuzu who were able to. John hasn’t gotten his cut since we got here either, so we look like quite a pair.

It is later in the day, and we just got a call from David Mhango that his wife had her baby – his new daughter Susan Mhango! I am honored beyond words that about my namesake and we will go to the hospital tomorrow to see her. David isn’t sure when he will be able to get away from his training program for his new job, but we will see him on Monday when we go to Nchenachena to see Trywell Nyirongo. How exciting!! More later – with pictures.