A Bit of Wisdom

“What was the most meaningful change that you contributed to during your placement?” asks my programme manager, Alice. It is Tuesday morning. I leave next Monday. We are sitting in my office surrounded by a year’s worth of memos, plans and reports, newsletters, resources, files and documents. It is my exit interview. I am being asked to reflect upon the successes of my time in Malawi and I don’t know what to say. Never before has an interview question left me so stumped for an answer.

I survived. I worked hard, I completed my placement and I kept my sanity. But honestly, nothing much has changed. Development? Progress? What meaningful, positive change have I contributed to?

“I managed to rid the office of rats,” I say. My programme manager laughs, thinking I am joking.

It has been a tough journey at times. One of the crutches upon which I leaned was an old poem, one that I have always loved: ‘A Bit of Wisdom’. Now, as I think back on my year in Malawi, the poem takes on extra significance. I understand it like never before. It means more to me now.

I contributed very little, changed nothing and nobody, but I am at least a little bit wiser.

A Bit of Wisdom

“The problem is a lack of time; what is the solution?” asks the smartly-dressed gentleman standing at the front of the classroom. All eight groups of Primary Education Advisors seated before him begin to debate this question with earnest.

Within a couple of minutes, all forty-or-so delegates agree that teachers should simply extend the length of the school day. “If they just did that,” argues one advisor, standing proudly so that everyone can get a good view of him, “there’d be sufficient time for the entire standard 8 curriculum to be taught before learners sit their final exams.” Broad, confident smiles appear around the room and a sense of success and collective achievement seems to fill the air. This group of advisors are on top of their game.

I quietly open my notepad, calculate how many hours it would take to cover the curriculum and how many days exist within the school calendar before exams begin. Recalling my fading memory of the long form, I divide the first answer by the second and end up several minutes later by writing the number 9.5 at the bottom of the page.

Nine-and-a-half hours of lessons per day might be asking a little too much of the teachers, I think to myself. It might just drive the kids insane. But I don’t say any of this aloud. After all, who cares for the troubles of teachers or their pupils? These advisors are doing what they do best. The solution is that teachers should simply extend the length of the school day. Done. These advisors are on top of their game.

People are often unreasonable, illogical, and self-centred;
Forgive them anyway.

“So where are you from?” asks the market trader, smiling amiably. I tell him I’m from England and we engage in conversation about the Premiership, Manchester United, Liverpool, Chelsea and Arsenal. I tell him I support Birmingham City and the conversation ends abruptly.

“So how much for this chitenje?” I ask, fingering an intricately patterned piece of fabric. “For you, brother,” replies the trader, “only twelve-hundred Kwacha!” He looks at me and smiles again. I do not smile back. Around the corner I can buy the same thing for four-hundred.

If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you;
Be honest and frank anyway.

“But why are you really doing this?” asks a local colleague, somewhat sceptically. He wants to know why I left my job in the UK, why I decided to come and volunteer in Malawi. He fixes me with a mean stare and then continues. “Will you get a nice promotion when you return home…? A big pay-rise…? Some kind of award…? Eh?”

No. I will get none of those. I’m doing this because I want to help.

If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives;
Be kind anyway.

“This is going to be a close game,” says the fan sitting to my right. He follows his observation by asking what I studied at university, as if my choice of degree may somehow have a bearing on the outcome of this quarter-final. The sudden and tactless change of subject can mean only one thing... “I would like to study in the UK, myself” he continues. “Maybe, my friend, you can get me a scholarship. It doesn’t have to be three years, I’d be happy with two or one.” Two-one, I think. Two-one to Silver Strikers, final score. Not a bad prediction. I’m not really listening.

I get asked to arrange scholarships all the time. It seems that many people here confuse graduates for admissions tutors. But it’s Saturday afternoon and all I want to do is watch the football. I’m just a fan this afternoon.

“I’m sorry; I can’t help with a scholarship. But best of luck with your studies,” I say, before turning to the supporter sitting to my left and complaining about the referee. My friend, the aspiring student, gets up and walks away without another word.

If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true enemies;
Succeed anyway.

“These classrooms were built by the Department for International Development,” explains the Headteacher. “You won’t find any more like these around here. The children keep throwing bricks and stones onto the roofs. They break the tiles. We can’t stop them.”

A small child who should be in class walks straight past us and pauses to retrieve a pebble from the empty flower bed. He hurls it onto the roof. The pebble lands with a dull thud and no doubt the children inside receive a little shower of dust. I’ve experienced that myself. None of us says anything for a moment.

“That’s why DFID don’t use tiles anymore,” continues the Headteacher. “They just use tin now because it doesn’t break so easily. No, you won’t find any more classrooms like these around here.”

What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight;
Build anyway.

“They’re like pigs,” argues the old traveller. “I’ve seen it! You can clean them up and bring them into the house, but when you turn your back they head straight on outside into the mud.”

Incredulous, I don’t know quite what to say. There’s a great deal of racism in this world and I want to feel offended and indignant. I want to defend the people of this country. I want to distance myself from these abhorrent views, register my disgust. But deep down, my experience reminds me that there is some small truth in this man’s provocative rhetoric.

Donated computers, so riddled with viruses and damaged by misuse that they are completely unusable, sit idle at Ching’ombe Teacher Development Centre. I have seen it.

Books, tattered and torn, cover the floor of Mpingu School’s model library, established by one of my predecessors. Yes, I think to myself unhappily, I have seen it too.

The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow;
Do good anyway.

“So why haven’t we been successful?” I ask my colleagues. I want to know what I can do to help, what problems persist, what challenges remain. I want to help. The Headteachers sitting before me could say that it’s because of a lack of funding, insufficient training or inadequate resources. These are the answers commonly given to such a question, but on this occasion we all know they would be lies.

On this occasion, I did my best. I invested a great deal of time—evenings and weekends—conducting the research, reading the documents, preparing the resources and planning the training. I took my work to the experts, humbly received their feedback and dutifully accepted their input. I recalled my own training and followed the advice of the experienced veterans and the development academics. I offered the best explanations I could and answered the questions with thought and care. I did my best.

“So why haven’t we been successful?” I ask again. Nobody says anything.

Give the world the best you’ve got and it may never be enough;
Give the world the best you've got anyway.

You see, in the final analysis, it is between you and God;
It never was between you and them anyway.

Poet Unknown

Bad Moon Rising

When the newspapers finally reported the national fuel shortage, they echoed the Government’s claim that the ports in Mozambique and Tanzania were at fault. Congestion, they said. Technical problems. At the time, it seemed somewhat coincidental that two ports, separated by hundreds of miles, located in different countries and managed by different organisations, should experience the exact same problems at the exact same time.

Later that week, a delegation from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) called for an end to the practice of arbitrarily fixing exchange rates. The Government’s overvaluation of the Malawian Kwacha, they said, was one of the reasons behind the country’s current shortage of foreign exchange, and hence its inability to purchase fuel on the international market.

A day later, the manager of Mozambique’s Beira port told journalists that the problem at the depot was not one of congestion, but of inactivity. Fuel supplies to Malawi had simply been suspended due to the fact that the country had defaulted on its payments. The manager went on to say that Malawi had asked to borrow fuel and that this request had been rejected.

The story was the same in Tanzania. The Chief Executive Officer of the Northern Development Corridor, which operates the port in Nacala and the railway system that delivers fuel to the north of Malawi, told the media that the country had run out of foreign currency and had been cut off.

Authorities in Mozambique and Tanzania were understandably annoyed by claims that their countries were to blame for Malawi’s fuel shortage. It has since been reported that Mozambique has withdrawn its support for a $6 billion waterway project that plans to link Malawi—and further upstream, Zambia—with the Indian Ocean. The landlocked countries are relying on Mozambique as the trade route would need to pass through several hundred miles of its territory.

The Nyasa Times, Malawi’s sole online newspaper, then reported that President Bingu Wa Mutharika had recently purchased a luxury jet. The press had not been officially informed of the development after some reporters responded negatively to the President’s earlier shopping spree, which saw six Hummers and 22 Mercedes Benz vehicles purchased at taxpayer’s expense and flown into the country for use by the President and members of his Cabinet. The Nyasa Times implied that these purchases might have contributed to the fact that Malawi’s foreign currency reserves are now well below the minimum level recommended by the IMF.

The next scandal to break was that President Bingu had leant $100 million to Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe, and with just a month left until the loan was due to be repaid in full, not a single dollar had so far found its way back to Malawi. The President had freely leant $100 million to the corrupt leader of a bankrupt economy, sanctioned the world over by all discerning governments for his brutal disregard for the rule of law and human rights, and it is now the people of Malawi who are suffering.

Faced with such damaging accusations, the Government decided to act. They first called upon the middle classes not to purchase Christmas presents from abroad this year, a practice that would further damage the country’s balance of payments situation. “We are in a crisis,” stated the Governor of the Reserve Bank of Malawi. “In hard times like these, we cannot afford luxuries.”

As the debate about Government’s ‘extravagant use’ of foreign currency escalated, and with the Governor’s warning ringing loudly in the ears, the Minister for Youth Development and Sports travelled to Burkina Faso to watch Malawi’s final qualifying match for the African Cup of Nations.

After the team lost 1-0, but still qualified for the finals in Angola next January courtesy of the Ivory Coast’s victory against Guinea, the Minister hosted an all-night celebration for players and officials at his luxury hotel in Ouagadougou. The team, which was roundly criticised back home for its poor performance, was invited by the Minister to party all night at the taxpayer’s expense. Newspapers reported that player’s efforts on the dance-floor were an improvement over their efforts on the field earlier in the day.

The President then asked his troop of much-travelled ministers to restrict themselves to no more than six foreign visits per year, and asked that no visit should exceed 14 days in duration. Again, this measure was designed to restrict the outflow of foreign currency from the country.

The President attempted to set the example by refusing to attend a Commonwealth summit in Trinidad and Tobago. Unfortunately, his gesture saved the national coffers very little as he sent two representatives in his stead. Malawian reporters, who had already travelled to the Caribbean to cover the President’s visit, flew home before the summit even started.

The Government then moved to put an end to the immediate shortage of foreign currency, and hence the shortage of fuel, by borrowing money from a regional development bank. Malawi borrowed $50 million in total, or about the same amount of money it would cost to purchase a luxury jet, six Hummers and 22 Mercedes Benz vehicles, and have them all flown into the country, express delivery.

Such comparisons do not make for comfortable afternoon debates in Parliament for the President’s governing Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). The final chapter of this tale then tells the story of how the Government recently changed the rules in Parliament, allowing the entire House to elect the leader of the opposition.

By virtue of the fact that the opposition are, quite obviously, in the minority, they now effectively have their leader chosen for them by the governing party. The Government chose a young, first-time politician to lead the opposition, a man renowned only for being a DPP sympathiser.

A week later, a Government-sponsored bill on police reform was put before the House. The bill seeks to give the police powers to search without warrant, to prevent public gatherings and to enforce regional curfews. Ironically, the new legislation, which aims to limit human rights and empower the police to exert more control over the actions of civilians, will also see the ‘Police Force’ renamed as the ‘Police Service’.

Newspapers reported that Honourable Abele Kayembe, new leader of the opposition, gave his support to the bill.

Escape from Blantyre

Slowly, for I have eaten a little too much, I make my way back to the lodge and the warm bed that waits for me. I pass the Petroda filling station on Glyn Jones Road. This was the last place in town to run dry of diesel. Earlier in the evening, as motorists and men with large gas cans fought for supremacy of the pumps, the police moved in to control the mayhem here. Masterfully, police officers settled the dispute by helping themselves to the little diesel that remained. The pumps now sit idle. Abandoned vehicles clutter the forecourt and the surrounding roads. All is quiet.

I quicken my pace as I walk beneath the railway bridge, holding my breath as the stench of human waste fills the air around me. Up the hill and left past the tranquil bus station I continue. It is dark now and all around there are cars and vans, trucks and buses, all sleeping peacefully. There is no fuel. There is nothing else they can do.

“Good evening, sir!” says the guard, welcoming me back to the lodge. And before I can respond, the calm is abruptly broken by the roaring of an engine. Like a large and powerful predator, a blood-red Mustang pounces through the gate. The car pauses directly beneath the solitary security light and settles to a gentle, growling roar. The number plate reads ‘WILD 1’. The driver cuts the engine and quiet returns. An elderly gentleman with white skin and silver hair emerges from one side of the vehicle wearing camel-coloured shorts and a light brown shirt. From the other side strides a dark-skinned young beauty wearing a dress of bright yellow and vivid green. The two head towards the bar. “Good evening,” I reply.

I wake early the next morning and begin to kill the useless hours with long walks around town interspersed with generous periods of poolside reading back at the lodge. I make a habit of visiting the fuel stations and quizzing the attendants on the likelihood of deliveries. Just like the day’s newspapers, they tell me nothing. I don’t know how long I will be stranded here. I begin to yearn for Sky News. I need my crises updated on a minute-by-minute basis, not day-by-day. But this is Africa, I remind myself, and things happen far more slowly here. I realise then that the national fuel shortage may well endure for a fair while yet. The unread pages of my book are diminishing at a great pace. I need to go grocery shopping and I need to find a bookstore.

Thursday ends much as it began. There is no fuel in town but it is the shortage of information that proves most frustrating. I saw the blood-red Mustang again earlier in the day. The old man knows something. There is fuel somewhere.

Friday. Dawn breaks upon another serene Blantyre day. Beneath faultless blue skies, I head out in search of breakfast. I walk out the gate and pass the station, noticing how the busses sparkle in the early morning sunlight. Not able to drive them, their owners console themselves with the fact that they can at least clean them. What else is there to do?

I walk on to the BP station and repeat the question I have asked many, many times over the last two days. The attendant regards me carefully, looks around and whispers in a conspiratorial tone: “9 0’clock... Maybe.” I sense the excitement in his voice, though also fear, like a General who has just received orders of an impending battle. “Thank you,” I reply. “I won’t tell anyone.”

The time is closing in on half-past seven. Though it struggles to start, the engine of my white Toyota eventually finds a little life and I manage to drive as far as the BP station on Chileka Road. I know I will be able to go no further than here, but I trust the words of the attendant. I have been starved of information and now that I have a little, I will not doubt it. There are no maybes today.

9 o’clock comes and goes without any sign of a tanker. My bookmark continues to work its way through the pages, getting ever closer to the back cover. I didn’t manage to find a bookstore yesterday. It is now 10 ‘o’clock. In my time in Malawi, I have been lied to on a regular basis. People here would sooner deceive you with false optimism than speak a disappointing truth. I should be used to it by now. There is still no mention of the fuel shortage in this morning’s newspapers and I begin to long for home where you are told the truth, nomatter how brutal or painful it might be.

And then I look up at the bright sign above my head, the letters ‘BP’ rendered in vibrant green. I remember what the letter ‘B’ stands for. I smile at the man in the navy shirt with the green shoulders, my faith instantly restored, because this man works for ‘British’ Petroleum, from the land of truth and efficiency! He smiles back, and right on cue a large tanker bearing the same initials thunders down the road towards the station, and continues right on past. I look back at the man. He is still smiling and nods to me and I suddenly realise that the tanker is simply turning at the roundabout at the bottom of the hill so it can enter from the other side.

I am in the van, the engine fires and I am first in line. Within minutes, the station is besieged with cars, trucks, busses, a fire engine, and men with fuel tanks, gas cans and empty bottles that at one time contained a large amount of vegetable oil. The fight is about to begin, but thanks to the General, I have the perfect position.

I leave the tumult behind, the blaring horns and the manic shouts, and drive on with a full tank of diesel. I feel sorry for the BP attendant who helped me out. He now faces several stressful hours trying to manage the battle and limit the casualties.

It is strange how something so ordinary and so mundane can leave you feeling so utterly ecstatic. I guess the lower you go, the more frustrated you become, the less you need to put you back on an upward trend. A small piece of good fortune is great news indeed for the unfortunate, while for those with everything, it is meaningless. And I think again of the old man with the silver hair and the blood-red Mustang.

I drive on. Will Smith’s ‘Gettin’ Jiggy With It’ is playing on the radio. I roll down the windows of the old, dented Toyota, increase the volume, and drive right on out of Blantyre like a Wild One!

There Are Worse Places to be Stranded

I have only been to Blantyre on two previous occasions, yet there is something very different about the city this evening. The great metropolis of the south does not hum with the same rhythm as before, does not throb to the same beat. The sidewalks are quiet and there is little moving on the roads. As dusk falls, the greatest action is in the air. Hordes of bats can be seen taking to the skies on their nightly hunting excursion; the action above contrasting dramatically with the lack of it below. There is a national fuel shortage in Malawi and the city of Blantyre is slowly grinding to a halt.

While making the 320-kilometre journey from the administrative to the commercial capital, I stopped at every filling station I could find in search of diesel. The conversation was always the same. “Do you have diesel?” I would ask. The attendant simply shakes their head. “Do you know when you will get the next delivery?” I continue, more in hope than expectation. The attendant would shake their head again, though this time with the added accompaniment of a forlorn, sympathetic smile. The fuel stations are all still open, yet it seems the attendants are now employed in a head shaking capacity only.

And so I coasted down the long hill into Blantyre with an empty tank, nothing but fumes and positive thoughts keeping the engine going. I was thankful to make it to the lodge, to get a comfortable bed for the night and to finally dispel the fear of having to sleep in the van that had plagued me for the last hour or more. Having driven with the air-conditioning turned off—to save fuel—I was thankful also for the chance to take a cool shower. And between a cool shower and comfortable bed there is only one thing I need. Walking to my favourite greasy spoon café, accompanied by a few stragglers and the bats above, I dream of piri-piri chicken and masala chips and think to myself, there are worse places to be stranded.