Me Talk Pretty One Day

A Bit of Wisdom

2009-12-20T12:06:00.001+02:00

“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

2009-11-26T13:43:00.000+02:00

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

2009-11-19T15:20:00.003+02:00

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

2009-11-13T10:43:00.002+02:00

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.

Workshop Syndrome

2009-11-03T08:50:00.000+02:00

This article first appeared in The Nation newspaper on the 8th May, 2009. It was written by Muza Gondwe, a lecturer at the college of medicine in Blantyre.

“Workshop per diems and daily subsistence allowances have created a new breed of man–the career workshop participant (CWP).

A CWP is similar to a career student (someone who spends most of their life in university pursuing one degree or the other), but the CWP’s main occupation is to attend workshops.

A CWP, for the sake of argument, is usually a fairly senior person in an organisation who travels in a project Toyota Hilux 4x4, demands exorbitant fuel reimbursements, insists on lavish hotel rooms and drinks heavily during the workshop cocktail reception. A CWP turns up late every morning during the course of the workshop, has the audacity to answer his or her infuriatingly loud cell-phone during the session and knows everyone at the workshop having attended similar workshops several times. This person has an arrogant air of self importance and collects allowances before the end of the workshop as he or she has to rush to another workshop on a similar topic by a different organisation at another beautiful lakeside resort.

Everyday, workshops are being conducted under the premise of ‘capacity building’ to improve the provision of healthcare services, quality of education or turning around economic woes. During these workshops, payments in the form of per diems, daily subsistence allowances, transport reimbursement, sitting allowances or incidentals are paid to participants. The allowances, which range from K500 to thousands of Kwacha, are meant to cover the living and travel expenses of participants but it appears these stipends have gone beyond their intended purpose as they are used to supplement salaries.

Some, including myself, argue that in certain circumstances the money spent on a workshop could have been put into good use. It should have been used to build schools, buy drugs or develop infrastructure. I am saying this because the value and outcome of the workshop solely depends on whether the participant is going to implement what has been discussed, which, unfortunately, is not always the case.

The value of workshops is not the subject of this article, but my interest is in the culture of allowances that workshops have indoctrinated. On receipt of an invitation to attend a workshop, people gloss over the objectives of the workshop and focus on the amount of the stipend and the workshop venue. Attending workshops has become a trend, a lifestyle, an exclusive club where the ambition is to attend an international conference in an exotic location with a dollar allowance. Without allowances, people won’t attend, even senior officials who do not necessarily need the ‘salary top-up’. ‘Brown envelopes’ (allowances) are inducements or incentives that secure participation of delegates where the higher the monetary motivation, the more senior and dignified the official.

Involvement in this money-making venture is not limited to people working in the development sector—politicians, government officials and journalists too are culprits in this matter. I met someone at a WHO meeting who refused his per diem, saying it was excessive. He gave it back but the administrator said returning the money back into the WHO system was a lengthy process so he donated it to charity. The CWPs who were attending the same meeting forced the organisers to cut the programme to allow them an afternoon off so that they could go shopping with their ‘hard earned allowances’.

The practice of dishing out money, particularly to senior officials, is a contradiction to the themes of most of these workshops. Is it ethical for workshops to hand out fat brown envelopes if their noble cause is to improve the livelihoods of poor people? Who is really benefiting here? It is almost like CWPs are getting paid twice – a monthly salary and allowances.

If people working in the development sector are truly committed to and believe in their cause, it is high time their actions went beyond their grandiose conference speeches and workshop participation.”

Bad for Your Health but Good for Malawi

2009-10-22T15:01:00.003+02:00

Take the main road north from Lilongwe and you will pass the indomitable township of Kanengo. Traditional, unrefined, industrial, this place is a hive of activity during the hot, dry African winter.

Botswana has diamonds, Zambia has copper and South Africa has the World Cup. Malawi is the poor neighbour in this part of the world for the small country can boast only of its tobacco. Still, Malawi does produce an awful lot of tobacco. Around 270 million kilos of the weed is expected to be exported this year alone, that’s one quarter of all global production.

The main road leading north from Lilongwe is lined with the offices of multinational tobacco corporations while the road itself is often congested between the months of May and October with huge over-laden trucks on their way to the auction floors of Kanengo, arguably the tobacco capital of the world. The dried leaves account for 60% of Malawi’s export earnings and Kanengo is where the sellers and buyers meet. On my visit to the auctions in early September, a small blackboard at the back of a huge warehouse stated that today, 12,578 bales were on offer. Though you rarely see anyone smoking in Malawi, make no mistake about it, tobacco is big business here.

The auction floors are dark, dusty, dangerous places. The smell of tobacco, somewhat different to the smell of cigarettes, hangs thick in the warm air. Like worker ants in a busy colony, small men spend their days pushing large bales around with sturdy metal trolleys. Get in the way and you’ll surely be run down. Men in blue overalls walk amongst the bales which are arranged in long, immaculate rows, opening them ready for inspection. Smartly-dressed gentlemen with clipboards follow, examining the leaves for quality, texture, signs of mould. Another group of men follow them writing up their comments on little cards and attaching them to the bales as they pass. More men in blue overalls follow to re-sew the huge burlap sacks. Finally, another group of workers arrive with their trolleys to move the bales to another part of the warehouse.

In the general melee of things there are stock-checkers too, labourers, cleaners, drivers, police offers and security guards. Given the high population density in this country, it is common to see so many people in such a small place. What is more unusual, however, is to see so many people busy. Every once in a while, a stray tourist like myself finds their way to the auction floors. We are easy to spot, unsure of where to go or what to do, we just try not to get in the way; the activity is intense, dramatic and confusing.

But it is September now—after a few more weeks or so all of the over-laden trucks parked sporadically along the local roads will have disappeared. The men with their trolleys, clipboards and sewing needles will have gone too. The farmers will have collected their modest earnings and will have returned to their villages. The Government officials who set the minimum prices and the buyers who ignored them will have moved on, leaving the arguments and acrimony behind them. Across the globe, people will continue sucking on cigarettes either filled or flavoured with Malawian tobacco. But here in the north of Lilongwe, another tobacco season will be over and the old township of Kanengo will become quiet and still once more.

A Cinderella Story

2009-10-14T15:14:00.000+02:00

Once-upon-a-time, in a land far, far away, there lived two poor young travellers known as Misja and Stuartee, and their evil night-guard who went by the rather absurd name of Benedicto...

And so might begin a very Malawian fairytale. I was away when most of the events unfolded, so provided here are the basic details of the story as I remember them in the beginning, and as told to me by my housemate, Misja. The story is not yet complete, however—we’re still waiting for the happy ending.

Richard, our old guard of whom I have written previously, had travelled north to attend the funeral of a family member. After several weeks he had still not returned, so, assuming he had decided to stay up north with his kin, we asked the landlord if he could hire a replacement. One fine evening, Benedicto arrived. He came bearing a letter of recommendation from the landlord and a list of items he required to perform his guardly duties. I was reluctant to provide a machete, especially as there were chickens to think of, so Benedicto made do with a slingshot and a handful of stones to protect himself and our property.

I remember him as being a man of few words, English or otherwise. Whereas Richard had been a bit of a clown, Benedicto had an intense seriousness about him. His otherworldly quality put me ill at ease and so I never complained about his occasional unexplained absence, being instead grateful for the relaxing solitude. After I left, Misja informs me that one of the chickens went missing. No remains were discovered, he says, and no feathers. Given the slim probability that the chicken was in the process of migrating and following me to Europe, I immediately thought of Benedicto.

His absences became ever more common. So too did the occurrences of his arrival inebriated. Getting drunk is easy in Malawi for there are beers to suit all income levels. Chibuku, the cheap local brew made from maize porridge, is served warm in cartons and continues to ferment long after it is packaged. Eventually, Misja lost patience and informed Benedicto that his services were no longer required. I cannot complain at the decision—I’d have taken vengeance for the missing chicken far sooner. Yet without a guard—competent, sober or otherwise—our home was more at risk to burglary.

And indeed within two weeks the house had been broken into on two different occasions, all of my clothes stolen, Misja’s camera, a pair of dessert spoons and a host of other random household items. More troubling, however, was the loss of a second chicken. Both break-ins occurred on Saturday when Misja, according to habit, was away from home. The coincidences were accumulating.

My housemate spoke with the landlord and soon our home was protected by metal gates across each door and a new night-guard on patrol, the ever-vigilant Aaron Phiri. The following Saturday, Aaron sensed movement in the storm drains out front, and from the small gap beneath the brick wall where the water drains away in the rainy season, he saw a head emerge. The details of the events that followed are vague and confusing. A chase ensued and some shoes were recovered. Aaron declared that the shoes belonged to the would-be thief and our new cleaning lady, Mrs Aida, identified them as being Benedicto’s. She claimed also to know in which village he lived.

And so, a few weeks after my return, I sat in the great pumpkin that is the Toyota Hilux, accompanied by Mrs Aida, our new cleaning lady and fairy godmother, and several soldierly police officers, and took the magical slippers on tour around the local villages of the kingdom looking for a princess with just the right sized feet.

I wish I could provide a happy ending to this story and say that we found that particular princess, but alas, life isn’t really a fairytale—there are no happy endings, just missing dessert spoons and empty chicken coups.

A New Pandemic Engulfs Africa

2009-10-02T07:50:00.004+02:00

The World Health Organisation yesterday issued a warning to foreign nationals travelling to Malawi, advising them to avoid contact with all civil servants and government officials after reports that Verbal Diarrhoea (VD) had reached epidemic levels in the small central African country.

The latest outbreak occurred at the Ministry of Education headquarters in Lilongwe during a meeting of the working group on crosscutting issues in education. One delegate spoke for 25 minutes on the importance of urinals while another reportedly told participants that worms were not a popular parasite amongst the nation’s rural poor.

The meeting, originally scheduled to last three hours, was halted after more than five hours of nonsensical talk and PowerPoint presentations on the advice of doctors.

Representatives of development partners, including the Department for International Development and Voluntary Service Overseas, had been in attendance but many left after Ministry officials began exhibiting symptoms of acute VD.

One delegate, VSO’s Stuart Burrows, told reporters that VD was now widespread in the world of education. “Teachers, Primary Education Advisors, Ministry officials—they’re all affected,” he said. “I once witnessed a lengthy discourse from the Deputy Minster herself, in which she seemed to effortlessly switch between English and Chichewa without any regard for her audience. Things have got really bad. I am dreading the forthcoming training on the implementation of the new Primary Curriculum and Assessment Reform for standards 4 and 8,” continued Burrows before doctors moved in to sedate him.

It is still unclear how VD is transmitted from one sufferer to the next. The World Health Organisation states that short-term exposure does not usually cause any lasting effects but is warning caution nonetheless.

Some observers fear that the disease may spread from Africa to other parts of the world following Libyan leader, Colonel Moammar Gaddafi’s 94-minute tirade at the United Nations in New York last month. His interpreter collapsed after 90 minutes stating: “I just can’t take it anymore!” He was replaced by another interpreter and was taken to a local hospital for observation.

Symptoms of VD include excessive verbosity and repetitiveness, temporary deafness, and the complete inability to judge just when to shut the heck up. There is no known cure for Verbal Diarrhoea but most people affected eventually recover with either retirement or death.

Zimbabwe’s President, Robert Mugabe, is Africa’s longest-suffering VD casualty.

-Reuters

Gaddafi Interpreter 'Collapsed During UN Speech'

100 Minutes in the Life of Muammar Gaddafi

Victoria Falls: Part Four – The Journey to Zimbabwe

2009-09-25T14:16:00.002+02:00

For many hundreds of miles, from the point where the Chobe joins in the west, until the river meets the great Lake Cahora Bassa in the east, the Zambezi marks the border between Zambia and Zimbabwe, or Northern and Southern Rhodesia as they were once known. The only way to cross from one country to the other is to cross the Zambezi. This can be done easily enough by bridge or by boat, but given that September marks the middle of the dry season in this part of the world, and that water levels in the river are, comparatively speaking, low, I thought I would try the journey by foot, taking a route directly across the top of Victoria Falls. “It can’t be done!” said the many local guides who waved me off. Well, as it turns out, they were right.

It takes no more than an hour or so to walk all of the trails of the Mosi-oa-Tunya National Park, and less if you’re being chased by a hungry baboon. Family groups frequent the area to scavenge what they can from the many garbage bins adorning the walkways. One of the rangers told me that they often mistake plastic bags for food. Having just escaped an ugly baboon that attempted to grab the bright yellow Shoprite bag I was carrying, this I already knew. The creatures are a menace, spoiling the tranquillity while adding nothing to the view. They have the kind of beady close-set eyes, long narrow noses and bony, pink furless buttocks that only a mother could love. But baboons or not, after an hour, you’ve seen enough. I doubt there’s a smaller National Park in all of Africa.

And so it was that I decided to venture across the top of Victoria Falls in the direction of Zimbabwe, encouraged by the sight of the many tourists who were happily paddling in the shallows by the river bank. So many white men walking tentatively through the water with their trouser legs rolled up that I could easily have been at some British seaside resort. All that was missing were the ice-cream cones and transistor radios playing Test Match Special.

I kept my trainers on and attempted to seek out a route across the maze of exposed rocky outcrops. It was easy at first. Close to the bank, the water is shallow and slow moving. A slip would cost nothing more than wet socks and a little embarrassment. Further on, the going gets more difficult. Jumping from rock to rock, traversing narrow ledges and scrambling over boulders I felt like a child again, back on the Cornish coast looking for a good spot to cast the crab line.

At times I had to stride across a trickling path of water that made the rocks sparkle in the sun; at other times I had to leap across deeper torrents of white water. Sometimes I ventured farther upstream to ensure safe progress, while at others I was able to walk to the very edge of the cliff and gaze down into the deep gorge below. At one point, I met a twisted and mangled tree growing from an exposed ledge just below the lip of the cliff, seemingly holding on for dear life, its red leaves bristling in the breeze.

I estimate I had travelled several hundred metres across the river, out of sight of the tourists paddling in the shallows on the Zambian side, not quite in view of Zimbabwe. Only the distant shapes of sightseers across the ravine testified to the continued existence of human life; otherwise, I was alone in a world of my own. Such sweet, simple joy I had not known for many years.

And then I ran out of rock.

Rather than turn back, I decided to remove my shoes and socks, take a deep breath, and wade through the shallowest section of river I could find to a sandy, grassy island up ahead. No more than 30 feet away, the island seemed within easy reach. The water, however, flowed more quickly than I thought, produced more force than I expected, and the river bed proved to be more slippery than was comfortable. My progress was painstakingly slow. Each step was measured. Towards the middle, the river became deeper and the water began to flow well above my knees. I had to walk slightly upstream to avoid being gradually pushed closer towards the falls. Each movement was cautious—never a foot was moved until the other had found a sturdy grip and the rest of my body was balanced. After many minutes of intense concentration, I made it to the sandy shores of the island.

My celebration was, however, short lived. Across the narrow island, and before the next area of safe land, lay a greater expanse of deeper, more quickly moving water. Going forwards, I knew, meant ultimately going downwards, and, as beautiful as the falls are, the view from inside is not one I wanted to witness. Backwards was my only option, retreat the only sensible choice. Back through the river I waded, and back along the rocks I scrambled. Back towards the refuge of the river bank and the paddling tourists.

But alas, I could not find the same route back. The water level seemed somehow to be higher than before. Where I had stridden across, now I needed to leap, and where I had previously jumped, it now seemed as if the only way across was to fly. I have since discovered that a hydro-electric power station diverts many thousands of gallons of Zambezi water to fuel its turbines. When the power is not needed, the station shuts down and the water instead flows on towards the falls. Never has a power outage proven to be so ill-timed. I was stranded on a rocky island in the middle of the Zambezi.

But here is where the drama of the story declines rapidly, for one of the local guides, walking on an island further upstream while making his way back towards the river bank, saw my isolated figure and called out to offer help. There was a way back, but not across the top of the falls. I retraced many of my steps for a second time and then waded directly upstream to another island, from where the route back was, though slightly treacherous in places, at least possible.

I have learnt that you can wade across the Zambezi from Zambia to Zimbabwe, but Victoria Falls is not the place to do it. When I returned to the safety of the river bank, I was glad to return my shoes to their rightful home on my feet, glad to once again be amongst the paddling tourists, and yes, even glad to see those ugly baboons once more.

Victoria Falls: Part Three – Mosi-oa-Tunya

2009-09-22T13:49:00.005+02:00

How many wonders of the world can you name?

My friends and I—a well-travelled and intelligent group let it be said, though admittedly that’s more my friends than I—could not reach the requisite seven. Of course, had my suggestion of Birmingham’s Spaghetti Junction not been so roundly mocked and ridiculed, we would have succeeded in achieving the special number. But let me ask you this, how many wonders of the world have you seen? How many have you walked upon, stumbled in, waded through? In this part of the world there is only one of which to speak—Victoria Falls.

It hasn’t rained in Zambia for several months, yet still the Zambezi River flows strong and true. Several miles south of Livingstone, and less than a mile north of the town of Vic Falls in neighbouring Zimbabwe, the river slows and widens like a great delta gently greeting the ocean. This river, however, does not meet an ocean but a precipitous cliff, over which it falls a hundred metres or more into the tumultuous chasm below. The sight is impressive in the dry season. When the rains finally arrive, the intensity of this curtain of water, which spans nearly two kilometres from river bank to river bank—from Zambia to Zimbabwe—must be truly incredible.

Where the river falls, it is like the earth has been torn in two. The gap is surprisingly narrow, squeezing the water into a bubbling channel of dangerous froth. Froth—that word is far too pedestrian and completely insufficient to describe the fast white waters of the Zambezi after the falls, yet I know of no better word to use. Maybe none exists. Maybe there is no place on earth quite like this. Victoria Falls was named after the legendary Queen of England; the great explorer, David Livingstone, thinking no name more worthy for this fantastic spectacle, and no spectacle more worthy for the sovereign’s name. The locals, however, still refer to the phenomenon as ‘Mosi-oa-Tunya’, or The Smoke that Thunders, a description both of the resulting spray and noise far better than any I could here offer.

After the turbulence and chaos of the river’s sudden drop, it eventually escapes into the ravine through a gap in the opposing wall, where it continues at a fearsome pace eastward, and, one can only imagine, further down towards the centre of the earth.

I viewed the falls from the swirling mists of the opposite bank, I walked and waded tentatively across the top—for the first time in my life actually looking down upon a rainbow—and I hiked along fallen trees and across large boulders deep down into the ravine itself, but only from above do I believe you can really appreciate the majesty of this whole place. I am but a poor traveller and such an indulgence was beyond my means. One day, I hope to return to gaze upon this sight like one of Livingstone’s angels in flight. When he spoke so passionately of this place, he spoke true.

The Seven Wonders of the Natural World are:

Victoria Falls
Grand Canyon
Great Barrier Reef
Harbour of Rio de Janeiro
Mount Everest
Aurora
Parícutin Volcano

The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World are:

Great Pyramid of Giza
Hanging Gardens of Babylon
Statue of Zeus at Olympia
Temple of Artemis at Ephesus
Mausoleum of Maussollos at Halicarnassus
Colossus of Rhodes
Lighthouse of Alexandria

The Seven Wonders of the Modern World are:

Great Wall of China
Petra
Christ the Redeemer
Machu Picchu
Chichen Itza
Roman Colloseum
Taj Mahal

Birmingham’s Spaghetti Junction is yet to receive the recognition it deserves.

Victoria Falls: Part Two - The Journey to Livingstone

2009-09-15T11:24:00.005+02:00

Before I can catch a taxi that will transport me through the 30-odd kilometres of nothing between the border and the town of Chipata, I must first escape the flock of locals that now encircles me. These unruly men, with their tattered shirts, dirty flip-flops and hand-held calculators, constitute the unofficial foreign exchange market in Zambia. I will see them at each and every place I stop. All are eager to change money with me, all are offering a ‘good price’ and all are breaking the law.

A lone man stands in the distance by a small, sky-blue Toyota shouting, “Shared taxi! Shared taxi!” but all I hear is, “Salvation! Salvation!” I tighten the shoulder straps of my pack and march away from the currency dealers in the direction of my saviour. I dump my bag in the boot and jump straight into the passenger seat but there will be no quick getaway for me. Shared taxis, I have learnt, like minibuses, do not leave while a seat remains empty. And just like minibuses, shared taxis can transport many people and large amounts of luggage.

Over the next twenty to thirty minutes I am joined by four more passengers who squeeze into the back of this small car. A young child settles himself in the driver’s seat. As the only one with a seat to himself, I get most of the luggage piled on top of me. Several minutes later, the driver—the seventh person in this most modest of vehicles—finally decides to grace us with his presence, at once pushing the small boy to the edge of the seat and admonishing him for getting in the way of the handbrake and gear stick. Before we set off, a man taps on the window and asks if I need to exchange any foreign currency. I slump down in my seat and am quickly submerged in luggage, though from above I can still hear the faint and muffled offer of a ‘good price’.

The bus from Chipata to Lusaka is advertised as being a luxurious 71-seater, a claim I soon discover to be only partly true. There are 71 seats sure enough, though this fact is largely irrelevant as by the time we leave there are many more people on the bus than that. It is mid-afternoon and the temperature is approaching 30 degrees. There is no air-conditioning and nobody wants to open a window. I am crammed into a tiny space like that last item of clothing almost forgotten and forced into the suitcase with so little regard. I am travelling in luxury, or so they say. The capital and a welcome night’s rest are waiting for me at the other end of this, just eight short hours away. The rest does not bear telling.

Early the following morning I return to the main bus station in Lusaka with a deep sense of foreboding. Another eight-hour journey lies before me. I am heading to Livingstone, once the capital of Zambia it is now more commonly known as the ‘Adventure Capital of the World’. I am very much looking forward to arriving in the most adrenaline-fuelled town on the planet so I can find a quiet little corner in which to curl up with my book. As I stand in line ready to board the bus, I am hoping this thought will preserve me.

The bus is named ‘Shalom’ and it is covered with stickers announcing that it is protected by the blood of Christ. I try not to think about it and instead worry about where I’m sitting. A gentleman in bright blue overalls, more like a mechanic than a bus conductor, shows me to an aisle seat next to one of the largest women I have thus far seen in Africa. Forgive me, that’s not entirely true. He shows me to the arm-rest—the aforementioned woman having unavoidably taken both my seat as well as hers.

My friends, I could describe the tortuous journey; the dramatic breaking to avoid stray goats; the dirt roads and their inexplicable speed bumps; the incident when the sunroof flew off and we had to stop while the driver hitched a ride back down the road to search for it; the agony of sitting on an arm-rest; the heat; the humidity; the clouds and clouds of blinding dust thrown up be vehicles in front, obscuring the view; the barrage of banana-toting women who like to bang on the windows every time the bus stops at a small town or trading post; the incessant gospel music played at a deafening volume for eight straight hours; but instead I will simply state that I survived. I arrived in Livingstone just as the sun was setting.

The famed explorer and missionary, David Livingstone, after whom the town is named, once said of Victoria Falls that, “scenes so lovely must have been gazed upon by angels in their flight.” After two days of the most intense discomfort and boredom I have ever known, I can only hope he spoke the truth and the journey was worth it.

Victoria Falls: Part One - The Journey to Zambia

2009-09-10T15:20:00.010+02:00

A man in a crocheted red and green hat taps on the window and holds up a handful of spoons. “I give you good price,” he says in an encouraging tone. “I’m sorry,” I reply, “I don’t need any spoons.”

I am sitting on a minibus in what is commonly referred to as the ‘bus station’ here in Lilongwe. In truth, it is just a desolate area of land behind the main mosque where rows upon rows of tatty white minibuses, all destined for different parts of the country, sit waiting for passengers. There are no timetables here—when a minibus is full, it departs. You might have to wait two minutes or you might have to wait two days for no bus ever leaves with an empty seat.

In the meantime, local entrepreneurs hustle from bus to bus trying to sell to the patient passengers sitting therein, anything and everything they could possibly need for their journeys. There are newspapers for those who like to read, phone cards for those who love to talk, bottles of soda for the thirsty, samosas for the hungry, spoons for the… spoonless? Fortunately, I am heading to a popular destination—the Zambian border—and only two seats remain vacant. Before long, these are taken by a gentleman carrying a rather smart, black leather briefcase, and a lady with a chicken.

The road into the West is straight and flat, bordered on both sides by barren, desolate savannah. The monotony of the view is saved only occasionally by a seemingly out of place copse of banana palms or a lonely mango tree. Every now and then we pass a small collection of huts, made from mud and thatched with grass they seem a world away from the rapidly developing city we have not long left behind. When the rains arrive, this landscape will be totally transformed, awash with lush, green maize; but for now the land lies dormant and the villages seem bleak and deserted.

An hour-and-a-half after leaving Lilongwe, the Zambian hills appear on the horizon. As the hills begin to loom large, the minibus pulls into the border town of Mchinji that nestles quietly in their shadows. It is a sleepy market town with little to recommend it—the only town in Malawi, as far as I know, not to be mentioned in the Bradt travel guide. The centre of Mchinji is a wide open T-junction where locals sit listening to gospel music and drinking beer in front of small concrete shops with gaudy signs. Most of my fellow passengers will go no further than here, but I press on up the road, past the BP filling station, past the soccer field, to the border itself.

Nobody is manning the Malawian side so I pass through the gate and walk on into Zambia as if I were no more than crossing a street. I enter the small customs and immigration office and am greeted by a rather jolly woman in a dark blue uniform who beckons me to her counter. There is nobody else around. She removes a large tube of paper from beneath her desk and surreptitiously unrolls it for me to see. It is a poster of a lion. “He is waiting for you in Zambia!” she whispers. And then she looks at me blankly, and I can’t quite discern her intention. Rupiah Banda, the President of Zambia, stares menacingly from his portrait hanging high on the wall behind. ‘Is she threatening me?’ I think to myself. Maybe the immigration official is simply boasting about her country’s prolific and renowned wildlife, but I don’t trust her smile, so I thank her politely and move on with caution to take my chances at the next window.

Somebody is sitting at the desk there, hiding behind a newspaper. I clear my throat and the paper falls in slow motion to reveal a more sullen gentleman with a large, bulbous nose, staring at me like a wild beast woken from slumber. “Passport!” he growls. Now this is the type of service to which I am infinitely more accustomed. Within a minute my wallet is fifty dollars lighter, and in exchange I have received the smudged stamp in my passport that allows me to enter. I am on my way out of the door, onwards towards the great city of Lusaka, onwards towards the historic town of Livingstone, onwards towards one of the seven wonders— “Hey! Excuse me!” barks the man, pointing to a large mass of paper on a shelf along the back wall. “You have to sign the visitors’ book!” Now I’ve travelled to my fair share of different countries and I can honestly say this is a first. The man holds me with a mean stare, gesturing towards the huge volume. “Can I borrow a pen?” I ask, my voice trembling with trepidation. The man behind the counter thrusts his pen across the desk and lets out a brief sigh of frustration as if to say, “Why would anyone come to Zambia without a pen?”

‘Stationary,’ I think to myself, ‘not cutlery’ is what the man in the red and green crocheted hat should have been selling. I am now standing in a parking lot in the blazing midday sun, surrounded by trucks, ready to continue on my journey to the mighty Victoria Falls that are now only some 1100km away.