Jules's view of our year in Malawi volunteering through the Uniterra Program

2009-05-06T09:52:00.000-07:00

Just a quick note that we are all now home safe and sound back to our postions with the Government of Ontario. We returned to Canada in the middle of February 2009.

Upcoming Article

2009-01-23T00:44:00.000-08:00

I was asked to write a short article for Farmers Union by the International Federation of Agricultural Producers (IFAP) which is the "farmers union" for the world. It will be published in their upcoming World Farmer Publication. Their newsletter can be found at http://www.ifap.org/en/publications/newsletters.html

The short bit I wrote is below:

The Farmers Union of Malawi (FUM), has been a key player in advocating for appropriate responses to the food price crisis. The government of Malawi has implemented an input subsidy programme for selected crops including maize, the staple food crop. The subsidy targets the “poorest of the poor” and gives coupons which cover the majority of the price of the cost of inputs and starting this year, free maize seed. FUM has been a key player in monitoring this programme and, while applauding it, FUM continues to advocate for improvements in the targeting, distribution and logistics of the programme.
Smallholder farmers are still net food purchasers as production levels and land size do not allow farmers to produce enough for each season, so food price is important. FUM continues to advocate for government investment in agriculture and is regularly consulted by government in order to present the voice of farmers and FUM is pleased that Malawi currently allocates approximately 14% of its budget to agriculture, significantly above that called for by the Maputo Declaration. FUM has cautioned government on some of its responses to the crisis though, which include an export ban on maize and a recent declaration that only ADMARC, a parastatal, can purchase and sell maize. FUM successfully advocated that due to the inability to implement this plan, food security could actually be damaged and the government modified its position to allow small scale traders to continue to buy and sell maize. ADMARC’s proper role is in creating a set price that gives an appropriate return to farmers while preventing exploitation of consumers and complements government strategic grain reserves. FUM continues to work to bring the voice of farmers forward in the response to the rising cost of food, recognizing government success while continually working for improvements.

Disturbing Practices

2009-01-23T00:40:00.000-08:00

For those of you who have been following the blog you know that I have from time to time commented on the widespread belief of witchcraft here in Malawi. The following story is disturbing so stop reading now if you are sensitive to such stories. When the story is about crashed “witch airplanes” the stories have a certain ethnographical appeal but last week our day guard at our home was relating how his neighbourhood was very worried due to witch activity the night before. Human body parts are considered to be especially powerful additions to the casting of spells and sometimes graves are desecrated to find these parts. But Grant was worried as witches or those being paid by them had come to his neighbourhood the night before and killed three people. One person had their eyes removed, one their teeth and the other his genitals. Grant and his neighbours are understandably upset but catching perpetrators is often next to impossible here. Hopefully, due to the horror and concern of everyone the perpetrators will not be able to repeat this acts, but as the newspapers here show, they will just move on to another area.
Being in Malawi has definitely caused me to have a different view towards some cultural practices. I have always been fascinated by so-called superstitions held by different cultures and often they are harmless only in that they may not reveal the true nature of reality. But when superstitions cause the kind of acts that occur here and elsewhere in Africa I find it much harder to maintain a neutral position towards the cultural practices of others. When we were in Tanzania over Christmas one of the big stories in their newspapers was the rash of murders of albinos who are considered especially powerful ingredients in spells. An undercover journalist went to medicine men and witch doctors looking for spells that needed albino parts and only two of the 18 or so turned her down. The rest all offered to get it done for price tags around $2000. What was interesting was that all of them diagnosed her with a different condition and all of them prescribed a different cure. When they talked about her family life, her career and her background none of them gave correct answers towards her specific family details and none of them picked up on the fact that she was an undercover journalist.
Often the churches reinforce these beliefs by convincing their parishioners that the witches are real agents of the devil, not that they are conmen as the investigative journalist discovered in Tanzania. In Zambia the Catholic Church is trying to combat the belief in and use of witches. They employ a former witchdoctor who knows all of the tricks and goes to parishes explaining how he used to completely fool his clients in order to get as much money as possible out of him. He relates how the tricks are passed down from one practitioner to another and none of them actually believe they are witches, it is all about making money for themselves.The other damaging side of the coin is the use of mediums to determine who is at fault for a loss of crops, the loss of a child or some other misfortune. These witchfinders will ask the client various questions and will then determine who it is that put the spell on them. Often this is a member of the same village or even can be a fellow family member. The community then will turn their back on this individual and they often can become a pariah for life unless they make certain ritual amends that are accepted by the community. Paradoxically in a society that has a great respect for elders, if you live too old it is considered unnatural and that you must be getting life from others. Therefore if babies or children die (which is common in Malawi due to the state of health care) the first person you may blame is that really old grandfather or mother that you have. Needless to say this cultural belief leads to fractured and broken communities and relationships.

You're Arrested

2009-01-10T00:16:00.000-08:00

Well, now I can add another first to my list of activities I have participated in in Malawi. Yesterday (December 15) the driver for Farmers Union wasn't available so I was asked to drive our Lobbying and Advocacy Committee to the bus station. I agreed and we loaded up and drove to our local bus station. I expected to be back within about 15 minutes.
I pulled up to the station but there were no parking spots so I pulled over to the side of the road. The farmer leaders I was transporting got out of the car and I got out to get their bags out of the back of the pickup for them. I got back in the vehicle having been stopped for about 30 seconds. Behind me was another car stopped doing the same thing. Just as I went to drive away a police vehicle came racing in from a side street blocking the vehicle I was driving. Officers got out and one walked up to me and told me that I was under arrest and then walked away. I thought for a second that he was joking. I waited there while he went to tell the car behind me that they were also under arrest. The car behind me gunned it trying to race away. The police officer on foot ran alongside the car holding the passenger door handle. He was able to get it open and jump into the moving car. Once he was in the car the driver slammed on their brakes stopping the car and then they got out and ran away leaving the car with the police officer sitting in the passenger seat. It felt surreal as I watched the owner of the other car run away. At that point another police officer opened up my passenger door, and got into the Farmers Union vehicle. She said I was under arrest for stopping and letting people out of the car in a no parking zone. We had to proceed to the police station following the car without a driver driven by the other police officer. Once at the police station they looked at the vehicle and told me that one of the tires didn’t have enough tread and that would be a 3000 Kwacha (about $27) fine. Then the officers went off to discuss with other officers about the parking fine. They were speaking in Chichewa but an interesting quirk of Malawi is that they use English for numbers so I could hear them discussing 3000 Kwacha or 6000 Kwacha. Knowing that I had done nothing other than stop to let people out of the car I was pretty sure it would have to be the lower of the two fines they were discussing.
Despite this I wasn’t that surprised when the officers returned to tell me that I was being fined K 6000 plus K 6000 for the tire. I told them that the tire was not a danger and that I did not want to pay a fine for a tire that was working fine on a vehicle that I didn’t own. They seemed to agree to this but still wanted me to pay K 6000 for what they called “dangerous parking”. I did not want to pay such a fine so I told them that I knew full well that the statute that I was in violation of was not dangerous parking but rather parking in a no parking zone (I was completely bluffing I am not familiar with the parking statutes) which is only a K 3000 fine. They looked at each other, discussed with each other for a second and agreed with me. So I paid the fine and insisted on a receipt that declared what I was being charged with. The whole process took over an hour and I felt especially bad because there was still one board member with me the whole time. When I got back to the office our driver was there and he told me that he wasn’t surprised that I had been nabbed as they ramp up their enforcement of minor offences like this before Christmas looking for extra income he said. Unfortunately for them I actually went to the police station with them and insisted on official receipts.

Raising the Voice of Farmers

2008-11-28T05:08:00.000-08:00

One of my major activities is finally complete. I completed a two day lobbying and advocacy training with farmer leaders in Malawi. We invited the Executive Board of the Farmers Union of Malawi, the Lobbying and Advocacy Standing Committee, the Coalition of Women Farmers Association and our District Farmer Union Chairpersons. It was a great workshop. My Malawian colleague Cindy Kacherenga did the initial morning session which involved a session on roles and responsibilities of the different agents of Farmers Union of Malawi (FUM) with the emphasis on farmers having the main responsibility in raising their voice. The FUM Secretariat which I am a part of has a role in supporting the farmers. The issues come from the farmers the secretariat provides the necessary support such a research, technical advice and communication. This meeting also allowed us to get the participants, all of whom are farmers to prioritize the more than 70 issues that have been given to me since I arrived. We had them split into three groups on different themes and pick the six most pertinent issues. Then they chose the 3 most pertitnent from those and finally they chose one to work on in the workshop. For the next day and half I led them through the nuts and bolts of advocacy with a lot of group work where the real learning took place while they put into practice what they learned. At the end I expected them to present an actual advocacy message on their chosen topic. They could have

Witchcraft 'Plane' Crashes in Lilongwe

2008-11-24T05:37:00.000-08:00

The following story was found on page 2 of the November 18, 2008 of The Nation newspaper in Malawi. Of course I would have loved to go and investigate this story but all evidence was destroyed as it always is.

Witchcraft 'plane crashes in Lilongwe
by Samuel Chibaya

Pandemonium erupted at Falls Estate in Lilongwe when a woman discovered an object suspected to be a 'witchcraft airplane' outside her house on Saturday morning.
In an interview with The Nation on Sunday, Maria Khudzani Banda, a resident of White Falls, said she discovered the strange object resting on four legs at the back of her house when she woke up on Saturday morning.
She said in the wee hours of Saturday morning, she heard a sound as loud as a gunshot near her house but saw nothing when she peeped through the window.
"I slept until morning when I woke up and went to the back of the house where I saw the object. The object contained bones, pinkish beads, a dead frog and a porcupine quill," claimed Banda.
When news went about the area, hundreds of people flocked to the house to look at the object.
"I reported the incident to the village headman. With the help of some men, he took the object away and burnt it somewhere. At first it failed to burn but the men later tore it apart and inside were a bottle of glycerine and hair oil. It then burnt," said Banda.
She said she was surprised to receive a visitor on Sunday morning who claimed to be a witchdoctor from Area 24 and offered to help her following the incident.
"I told him off because I don't believe in witchcraft. I only believe in God." she said.
Banda, who has lived in at Falls Estate for five years said sometime back, a mysterious fire was discovered burning at her door.
Meanwhile calm has returned to the area.

Wealth does not always alleviate poverty

2008-10-28T02:14:00.000-07:00

Quote (Answer) from Peter Harrold, World Bank, Ghana from Sector Wide Approaches: Do They Really Help The Poor? – Proceedings of a Regional Forum 13 to 16 November 2001, Accra, Ghana
Question: Why are Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs) focused on poverty reduction and not on wealth creation?
Answer: Because you can have economic growth and wealth in a country without alleviating poverty, and therefore it is important to focus on poverty.

Big Tobacco in Malawi

2008-10-28T02:09:00.000-07:00

The following article chronicles some of the challenges in the agriculture sector with regard to child labour in Malawi.

Playing with Children's Lives: Big Tobacco in Malawi
by Pilirani Semu-Banda, Special to CorpWatch February 25th, 2008

Sickly and malnourished, Kirana Kapito began his working life on a large commercial tobacco estate in Malawi's northern region. The farms sell their produce on the country's auction floors directly to international corporations including Limbe Leaf Tobacco, majority owned by the Swiss-registered Continental Tobacco Company and U.S.-based Alliance One Tobacco. Kirana is one of 250 million children across the world involved in work that is damaging to their mental, physical and emotional development. Some 57 million of these endangered children live in Sub-Sahara Africa. And with an estimated 1.4 million child laborers, the small, southern African nation of Malawi has the highest incidence of child labor in southern Africa, according to the Olso, Norway-based, FAFO Institute for Applied Social Science. Kirana was eight years old when he first went to work in the fields. Estate owners transported him and his parents from their home village, Mulanje, along with 45 other families. The truck journey covered more than 1,000 kilometers and ended in the tobacco fields in Rumphi in northern Malawi. Kirana's mother, Jane Kapito, 45, says the family left home seeking a better life. “Four years later, my whole family is still struggling with poverty. My son has to work as hard as everyone else if we have to afford the basic necessities. The money that my husband and I receive from the tobacco estate is not enough,” she says. Now 12, Kirana has never been to school. For the past six months, his health has been failing and he can no longer work as hard as he used to. His mother says her little boy is malnourished and therefore contracts different infections easily. The family often goes without a proper meal for up to three days. “Just in the past two months, Kirana has been afflicted by malaria, diarrhea and pneumonia,” Jane Kapito said. “He's my only child and I am so scared of losing him.” This family's struggle is repeated throughout Malawi's tobacco industry, where poverty ensures that every member must contribute to the workload. Virginia Import Now Main Malawi Export Malawi's sprawling tobacco estates are not only a source of national economic pride, but of lovely pastoral vistas as well. Up close though, the sight of child laborers in the hot fields exposes the ugliness at their core. Commercial production of tobacco in Malawi goes back as far as 1889, when settlers from the U.S. state of Virginia introduced the crop. In those days “foreign masters” forced the native people and their children to work in the farms for little or no pay. Over a century later, this exploitation continues -- with no end in sight. Increasingly, critics are demanding that the tobacco companies take responsibility for ending the abuses. Given their key role in Malawi's economy, they wield significant clout. Malawi derives up to 70 percent of its foreign exchange earnings from agricultural crops, and the tobacco industry makes up 10 percent of the country's gross domestic product (GDP). Malawi’s exports account for five percent of the world's total tobacco exports and two percent of the world's total production. But the wealth generated by this resource is not spread evenly across the country. The Malawi Tobacco Control Commission (TCC), a local government watchdog for the tobacco market, estimates that it takes $1 for farm workers to produce a kilogram of tobacco, which they usually sell at $.70 for a loss of $.30 per kilo. Hardworking farmers who cannot make a living turn to child labor. TCC's 2008 campaign is demanding that farmers get a profit at least 15 percent above production costs. Despite the TCC campaign, farmers and their families are still at risk of losing money on their crops. And this year the farmers' plight may be further exacerbated by heavy rains that are predicted to cut the country's tobacco production by about 3 percent. Tenant Farmers’ Dilemma Up to two million Malawians, mostly poor, depend on tobacco and related industries for their income. Virtually all of the up to 900,000 adult growers are “smallholder farmers, tobacco tenants and casual farm workers,” according to a 2006 research paper by the Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education (CTCRE), an independent center based at the University of California, San Francisco. Tenant farmers are allocated a plot of land by the estate owner and required to produce a specific yield. The owners loan the tenants inputs including seed and fertilizer and deduct the debt from future profits -- if any. The owners are also supposed to supply food rations, but when monthly allocations run out, workers and their children go hungry. Many also lack such basic necessities as medication, proper housing and safe drinking water. Not surprisingly, workers on tobacco estates and their dependants are among the poorest and most oppressed people in Malawi, according to a survey released last December by the Center for Social Concern, a Catholic organization that monitors the welfare of the people. A minimum of “78,000 children are working on a full- or part-time basis in the tobacco fields, according to the CTCRE study. “Forty-five percent of the child workers are 10-14 years old and 55 percent are 7-9 years old,” the study found. Meanwhile, the tobacco companies have received nearly US$40 million in revenues over four years through the use of unpaid child labor in Malawi. In 1995, the Malawi government, through the Ministry of Labor in collaboration with the Ministry of Justice, started drafting a Tobacco Tenancy Labor Bill to regulate the relations and transactions between the tenant farmers and the landlords. The bill has been taken through a number of revisions but it has not yet been taken to Parliament. Supporting Children or Exploiting Them? Multinational tobacco companies are aware of the public relations implications of profiting not only from tobacco itself, but doing it through the cycle of poverty and child labor. Tobacco companies in Malawi including Alliance One, Africa Leaf (Malawi) Limited, Premium and British American Tobacco (Malawi) are sponsoring the Eliminating Child Labor in Tobacco Growing Foundation (ECLT). The project, which includes other agricultural industries, is run by Together Ensuring Children Security (TECS), a registered trust set up in 2001 by tobacco exporting corporations operating in Malawi: Africa Leaf, Dimon, Limbe Leaf and Stancom Tobacco. In 2001, ECLT budgeted US$2 million for a four-year effort to combat child labor. Six years later, in October 2007, the 20 companies within the supply chain of the tobacco industry had ponied up somewhat less than $100,000 of that amount, according to TECS'S corporate newsletter. The University of California researchers are skeptical of the inherent conflict of interest in having tobacco companies influence social policy. They concluded that in Malawi, transnational tobacco companies are using child labor projects to enhance their corporate reputations and distract public attention away from how they profit from low wages and cheaply produced tobacco. Others argue that even when useful, the TECS program is a drop in an ocean of poverty. Up to 45 percent of the population is poor, according to the 2007 Malawi Millennium Development Goal (MDG) report. Registered as a Trust under the Trustees Act of Malawi, TECS projects have taken what it calls “a poverty reduction strategy approach” to improve food security, water safety and HIV/AIDS intervention and education. The trust has built schools, planted trees and constructed shallow wells to address the use of child labor in tobacco farming, according to TECS Programs Director Limbani Kakhome. While not directly undermining child labor, these programs will eventually bear fruit in better social conditions that will diminish the problem, Kakhome said. “We are also addressing health issues to ensure that the children don't skip school because of illnesses,” says Kakhome. Once they stay home because they are ill, they are easily taken up by child labor.” It is difficult, he said, to supply the market for child labor once the children are absorbed into the school system, have safe water and are financially secure. Too Little, Too Late? It is too late for children like 15-year-old Martha Kalima who dropped out of school at 12 years old to work in the tobacco fields. Pregnant at 14, she continued working in the fields until she gave birth. The father was the 16-year-old son of another tenant farmer. “There is nothing like maternity leave for tobacco workers,” Kalima said. “No one is entitled to sick leave nor is there transport to hospital. I gave birth at home because it was too late for me to get to hospital.” Martha is back in the tobacco fields carrying the baby on her back. Chances are slim that she will return to school. Some 15 percent of girls and 12 percent of boys drop out of school, according to Malawi government statistics. Around 22 percent of primary school age girls never attend school at all, while 60 percent of those enrolled do not attend regularly. The TECS corporate newsletter confirms that children with few options are pulled from school. Some are “coaxed from the poverty-stricken homes to work in order to keep body and soul together. They are exposed to hazardous environments where they work long hours and do jobs not befitting their ages and they are often beaten and abused.” That was the fate of 16-year-old Ekari Maliwasa, says she has just returned to her village in the south of Malawi after working for five years in the tobacco estates in the northern part of the country. “My parents took me with them to work in the tobacco estates in the north [when I was 11] and I only escaped back to my village two months ago after realizing that I was being abused. I am now staying with my elderly grandmother,” says Maliwasa. She says the estate manager beat her whenever he found her resting from the hard work in the tobacco fields. Ekari also went without food or drink for long hours, she said, and was not allowed take a break until she had worked for five hours. Enforcement of Labor Standards Difficult Maliwasa's treatment, like that endured by many of Malawi's child laborers, violated not only international standards but also legally binding treaties. Malawi is a signatory to a number of conventions against child labor including the 1973 International Labor Organization (ILO) Convention 138 which sets a minimum working age of 18, and the 1999 ILO Convention 182 which outlaws child labor. The country also ratified the 1989 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. (ILO has set 2016 as the deadline for countries around the world to eliminate the worst forms of child labor.) Child labor cannot be ended overnight says TECS Executive Director Bobby Maynard. “You can manage the supply chain to a certain degree but you can't control it fully,” he says. “The problem is that over 80 percent of tobacco is grown with no contracts from the tobacco companies -- as such it is difficult to intervene directly.” Tobacco companies note that they are involved in policing child labor violations at estates where they have direct control, and that they subscribe to Good Agricultural Practices (GAP), whose first principle is “no child labor.” But their results in curbing the practice have not been impressive. Relying on British American Tobacco's own internal documents, the University of California study found that, “rather than actively and responsibly working to solve the problem of child labor in growing tobacco, the company acted to co-opt the issue to present themselves over as a 'socially responsible corporation' by releasing a policy statement claiming the company's commitment to end harmful child labor practices, holding a global child labor conference with trade unions and other key stakeholders, and contributing nominal sums of money for development projects largely unrelated to efforts to end child labor.” International agencies are also involved. Kusali Kubwalo, communications officer for UNICEF Malawi, said the United Nations has joined Malawi's government and several non-governmental organizations to fight the problem from several fronts. A national “Stop Child Abuse Campaign” aims to break the silence shrouding all forms of child abuse, including child labor. “The campaign aims to mobilize leadership and a commitment at all levels to prevent and respond to all forms of abuse,” says Kubwalo. “Violations of children's rights take place every day in Malawi and are extensive, under-recognized and underreported.” She insists that Malawi, as a signatory to the 1989 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, is obligated to respect, protect, facilitate and promote the fulfillment of the rights it guarantees. “This instrument must therefore be translated into concrete legislation, interventions and development programs,” says Kubwalo. “Ratification alone is not enough.”
EDITOR'S NOTE: Since publishing this article, Project Manager and Acting Director of ECLT Foundation, Mr. Alain Berthoud, issued a response.

Response to “Playing with Children’s Lives: Big Tobacco in Malawi"by Alain Berthoud, ECLT Foundation Acting DirectorMarch 10th, 2008

Letter to the Editor of CorpWatch in response to CorpWatch article posted on their website on 25 February 2008 Dear Editor, On 25 February Corporate Watch published an article called “Playing with Children’s Lives: BigTobacco in Malawi", signed by Pilirani Semu-Banda Working with the ECLT Foundation as acting Director, and on behalf of the Foundation Board, I would like to make the few following comments which we would like you to add to your article and post on your website.
I remain at your disposal to further discuss ECLT’s mission and activities at your convenience ECLT is cited in the article, but was not contacted for comment. Therefore, as key donor to the mentioned project, we would like to describe in more detail who we are and the project activities. We hope this gives your readers a better perspective. ECLT is a sectorwide alliance grouping the major manufacturing and tobacco processing multinationals together with the growers associations, the global trade union federation dealing with agriculture and tobacco (IUF), and the program for the elimination of child labour, IPEC, of the ILO.
These members have agreed to work together to address the child labour issue in different regions of the world, acknowledging that none of them could individually solve such a complex problem. It is therefore a collective effort against child labour that goes beyond the very specific interests of each single actor. The collaborative efforts, commitment and community engagement of the ECLT are not shown in the article and are an important component in trying to make an impact on the serious issue of child labour. Concerning the ICLEP –Integrated Child Labour Eliminating- project that we support in Malawi, your article does not really explain our approach in addressing the issue of child labour in a global and integrated manner; nor does it discuss the concrete results and achievements, which are quite significant at local level.. Let us provide you with the following data; at the end of the present 4-year project (by mid 2010), with 4 million dollars invested, we will have reached about half of the children population in the concerned areas (15’000 children) or over 2/3 of the child population considered to be potentially involved in child labour. Although needs are immense, we do believe this is more than a drop in the ocean and that it certainly constitutes an example of what can practically be done to fight child labour when interested parties come together in a collaborative fashion. Anyone who has been in this region understands the need for adequate infrastructure, specifically schools. Although it is not exactly the tobacco companies’ core competency to set up schools, via our project tobacco companies together with the other ECLT partners have taken this on. 28 schools blocks have been built or renovated; teachers’ houses have been built to attract and keep the teachers motivated; local authorities and teachers are being trained in order to improve the quality of education. Child labour committees are in place in each community to fight child labour and to monitor children attendance at school; As a result enrolment rates increased by 20% during the first phase of the project, and continued to increase by 12% in the last year during which 500 children, strictly non-school going child labourers, and another 1’100 at risk children, have entered school. Sensitisation is done at all levels; at parents and community level to change attitudes regarding child labour as well as with district officials (including labour inspectors). This also means ECLT and its local partners are taking on the role of facilitating the implementation of the international conventions that, as you rightly say, Malawi has ratified. Poverty is an important cause, as well as the result, of child labour. Beyond the usual approach consisting in withdrawing children from work situation and reintegrating them in school, the ECLT funded project considers the living conditions of the parents so that they can afford to let their children go to school.
The following activities are undertaken:
Access to safe water and sanitation; 22’000 people have now access to a safe water source (topped shallow well or borehole) within a 500m range from their homes. Unfortunately, the burden of fetching water often falls to the child, and mostly girls. The project reduces this burden as well as prevents them from catching waterborne diseases.
Food security; A small scale irrigation scheme has been developed (600 treadle pumps supplied) together with crop diversification to ensure food security at the community level. It goes along with soil conservation and reforestation (300 nurseries, over 2 million trees planted). The burden of fetching wood also falls to the children, something the project attempts to alleviate by making a sustainable supply of firewood available.
Health; Malaria, and above all HIV/AIDS are widespread and certainly play a role in child labour. The project has set up outreach clinics tending to the community needs and training community agents for health prevention. A clinic was built in the project area –in Kasese- and works in collaboration with the existing government infrastructure. In only a few months, the public at large has been provided with tens of thousands of medical consultations. The holistic approach of the project is implemented together with the community leaders, the districts officials in charge of education, health, agriculture, etc… 500 of them have been associated with the project and trained on child labour issues in order to build capacity and to ensure the dynamic of the project will be sustained. At management level, oversight of the project as well as the sharing of good project practices and lessons learned is secured through a project steering committee on which key actors are serving (unions, growers, companies, ministry representatives) or acting as advisors (IPEC/ILO, Unicef, NGOs); it is chaired by the Principal Secretary of the Ministry of Labour. We are proud of the ECLT supported project in Malawi and believe it is an example of what can be done to fight child labour when cooperation of all interested parties is realized. Whether it is too little is a legitimate question, but the ECLT strives to establish demonstrably effective projects that can be 'scaled up' and adopted by other public and private organisations, to reach a much larger number of children and families. The ECLT believes the best approach to make progress on this serious issue is the one of focus and collaboration, and we welcome discussions with others that share that concern. Alain Berthoud ECLT Foundation acting Director, Geneva 4 March, 2008

Seeking Africa's Green Revolution.

2008-10-27T05:45:00.000-07:00

The article below from the BBC gives a good overview of the agricultural situation in Malawi over the last few years and the impact of the most important policy decision the Malawian government has maken recently. We are currently working on tracking the successes of the described subsidy programme so that the weaknesses can be acted upon in order to make it a more effective and efficient programme. The president of Malawi has won two awards in the last few months in relation to the subsidy programme despite resisitence from organizations such as the World Bank initially. Whether it is sustainably long term is yet to be seen but it is an interesting experiment that seems to have resulted in more food for Malawians.

Seeking Africa's green revolution

From the begging bowl to the bread basket: in just two years, Malawi has gone from famine to food surplus - a minor agricultural miracle.
By applying a mixture of crop breeding, soil management, irrigation and diversification, agro-science experts are helping subsistence farmers to cope with climate change and buck the trend in neighbouring African countries.
BBC science and environment reporter James Morgan has gone into the field to meet the families who are sowing the seeds of a uniquely African green revolution - one which is as kind to the environment as it is to the economy.
SUNDAY 05 OCTOBER - SIZING UP MALAWI'S MIRACLE
"If [environmentalists] lived for just one month among the misery of the developing world, as I have for 50 years, they'd be crying out for tractors and fertiliser and irrigation canals."
So said Norman Borlaug, one of the founding fathers of the original Green Revolution - credited with wiping out starvation in Asia.
But can technology really be the saviour of Africa's struggling farmers? It has become a terribly unfashionable opinion in the UK, where "green" campaigners are no longer content to denounce GM crop trials. They simply rip them up.
"Responsible biotechnology is not the enemy," said Borlaug. "Starvation is."
I have decided to take Norm up on his wager, by coming to Malawi to see for myself.
Because no matter how many UN reports I've ploughed through, grasping the root cause of the current "food crisis" in Africa is anything but straightforward.
And neither is my journey to Malawi - a sweaty overnight haul which takes me via Kenya, Zambia, and several re-runs of Indiana Jones films. But for heroic inspiration, I look instead to a speech by Kofi Annan, the new chairman of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (Agra) - a $200m, pan-African programme, funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates and Rockefeller foundations.
"Let us generate a uniquely African Green revolution," says Annan, cutting a heroic pose on my crumpled transcript. "There is nothing more important than this."
It is difficult to argue. Over the last 50 years, African farmers have laboured in the heat, while countries like Mexico, India and the Philippines have undergone a green revolution - applying novel fertilisers and pesticides to churn out bumper harvests of new high-yield varieties of wheat and rice.
Empowering farmers
Meanwhile, Africa has been cultivating greater and greater poverty statistics.
Sub-Saharan Africa is the only region in the world where per capita food production has steadily declined.
The harvests have been great, but still the food prices in Malawi are still rocketing
Malcolm Fleming
One third of Africans are malnourished. Soils are among the most depleted on Earth. Farmers do not have access to productive seed varieties and those that do have neither the knowledge nor the tools to reap the harvest. Slash and burn still reigns.
Climate change is forecasting ever more variable rainfalls, and more frequent droughts. Add in soaring fuel prices and the scourge of HIV/Aids, and the average African finds himself surrounded in the kind of perilous predicament which from which even Harrison Ford would struggle to escape.
But it is this very challenge that has drawn the world's crop scientists and agro-economists to Malawi. They hope to pioneer novel farming systems that propel Africa towards a new era of food security.
It has already been dubbed by members of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) as "a greener revolution".
"Greener" because it works with ecosystems, not against them. A revolution that is "pro-poor and pro-environment", in the words of Mr Annan.
The talk around the conference tables is of "empowering" subsistence farmers to find their own, local solutions - farming techniques which are sustainable, affordable and tailored to local soils, markets and eating preferences.
Over the next week, I'll be taking a look at these projects first hand - catching fish in the desert, planting strange trees in the middle of maize crops.
I'm wondering how women and men, who have been sowing the same maize seeds for generations, really feel about the new hybrid varieties of seeds which are more nutritious, but also more hungry for expensive pesticide and fertiliser.
'Against the grain'
Most of all, I'm curious to find out whether the "miracle" we have read about here in Malawi is bona fide or illusory. Is the revolution underway, or a simple matter of better rainfall?
The facts are these. During the last decade, Malawi suffered six successive years of food shortage, culminating in 2005. One third of the population - 4.5million people - went hungry.
Step forward two years, and Malawi is exporting more than one million metric tonnes of maize, its staple crop.
The government, against the advice of the IMF and the World Bank, has handed out vouchers to 1.5m of the country's poorest farmers, enabling them to buy "inputs" - seeds, fertiliser and pesticides. Meanwhile, yields have mushroomed. Malawians are selling maize to Kenya and giving food aid to Zimbabwe.
The success was hailed last year with Oxfam's Malcolm Fleming describing to the BBC how Malawi was going against the grain of African agriculture.
So when I bump into Malcolm, a well-kent face in my native Scotland, on the flight to Lilongwe, I don't hesitate to offer a warm handshake of congratulations.
"I'm afraid that things have moved on since then," he sighs. "The harvests have been great, but still the food prices in Malawi are still rocketing."
Why? "That's the question," he continues. "The closer I look, the more complicated it becomes. But from what I gather, the maize is being sold abroad at greater prices, and that keeps the prices up in Malawi."
Malcolm is here doing research in the lead up to World Food Day on 16 October. Helping him to raise awareness is another familiar Scottish face, but I'm afraid I am sworn to secrecy. All will be revealed in due course.
"Rising food prices might not be much of a problem for me or you," says Mr Fleming, "but if you spend 80% of your household income on food, and then the price doubles..."
It is a welcome serving of realism pie to chew on as I step out of Lilongwe airport.
The pavements are covered in a blanket of purple blossom - it looks like a fairytale. And the boys cartwheeling down the red dirt roads seem full of beans. But the lumps in their bellies tell a different story.
MONDAY 06 OCTOBER - MAIZE EVERYWHERE
Piled 19 bags high; when I say bags, I'm talking about the kind of sacks you can dam rivers with.
I tried lifting one. At 50kg, that was a big mistake. I left that to the army of youngsters with Popeye biceps, who were loading Malawi's mammoth maize harvest onto lorries, bound for government sales depots around the country.
"If you came here just a few years ago, you would find this storage depot totally empty," says Feckson Kantonga, operations manager for the government-sponsored Agriculture Development and Marketing Corporation (Admarc).
Feckson is standing at the foot of a pile of maize as tall a house. He has put his best suit on to welcome a Kenyan film crew, who had come from Nairobi to find out the secret of Malawi's success.
How exactly can it be, they are wondering, that their prosperous nation has come to depend on little old Malawi (the 13th poorest nation in the world) to supply its staple food crop?
"Malawi?" asks Peter, a business journalist. "We Kenyans know nothing of Malawi. I had to look the place up on Google to find out what the heck was going on here."
The answer is hidden inside the sacks. They are fat-packed with new hybrid corn varieties - strains that were unheard of in Malawi a decade ago.
Bred by multinationals in Malawi, or crop centres in Zimbabwe and Sudan, the plants are high-yielding and fast-growing - plants with bigger cobs and shorter maturation periods.
With global warming, it is essential the plants make the most of any rains while they last - "a crop for every drop", to quote the motto of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (Agra).
But the most popular hybrid varieties are those that remain "poundable". That is, the grains can still be beaten into flour in the traditional way.
"Are you telling me you have you never pounded maize, James?" smiles Cathy, a Kenyan journalist, with a cheeky wink.
"You know in Kenya, a woman is not considered fit enough to be a bride until she can pound a bag of maize. And a boy is not a man until he can build a house."
Where does that leave me? Still out of breath from lifting the maize sack.
And it is not only maize. There are hybrids for every local crop - cassava, sweet potato, soya, ground nuts and legumes.
But the most remarkable thing about these "miracle seeds" is that many are not new at all.
"They have been with us for decades, but they never made it to the fields," says Agra's Fred Muhhuku, an expert on agronomics in East Africa.
"Traditionally, farmers have either been too poor or too afraid to take a chance on these new varieties, even though they can triple their yields," he explained.
"If they plant their hardy traditional strains, they know that come drought or flood, some crop will survive to harvest. The harvest will be tiny - maybe 800kg per hectare - but it is guaranteed, so they take no chances."
The result was six successive years of food shortage in Malawi - beginning in 2000.
"And there was no lack of rains, I can tell you," says Dr Jeffrey Luhanga, technical co-ordinator at the Ministry for Agriculture.
"I experienced the famine in 2005; there were lines of people queuing for food aid.
"The thing you have to remember is that these were the ones who were still strong enough to walk to the depots. The hungriest - the ones who really needed the food - they were stuck at home, starving.
"Now look around Malawi, you see only healthy faces. Yes, this is a green revolution. And it is being driven by science."
He reels off a list of programmes - irrigation, agronomy, planting patterns, science-based economic practices.
"These technologies have been in our research institutes for years, but they went nowhere. Now, for the first time, the technology is in the farmers' hands."
Seeds of hope?
It begins with the seeds. The hybrid maize varieties are high yielding - around 2,500kg/hectare or more.
"I grew 80 bags this year, in the land just around my house. Eighty bags!" says Mitengo Gamr, one of Admarc's regional managers.
"My family no longer queues to buy food."
But they come with a catch - they are addicted to costly nitrogen fertiliser.
"But it is worth the investment," explains Muhhuku, "because the extra maize you grow, you can sell to pay for the fertiliser, buy an animal for your farm and diversify. You can build security."
And what if the rains fail? "Then you have enough left over from your big harvest last year," he smiles.
"It's true, it's a different way of farming and it takes some convincing."
The other drawback is what is known as post-harvest management. The hybrids yield more flour, but the grains are less resistant to worms and weevils.
"In some places, you lose 40% of your storage," says Muhhuku.
The answer, inevitably, is pesticides, another expensive input. The margins are still favourable, but what if you can't afford to invest in the first place?
This is where the Malawian government has stepped in. A month or two from now, 1.5m of the poorest subsistence farmers will begin arriving at Admarc's depots, clutching four coupons: one for seeds, two for fertilisers and another for legumes. This year, for the first time, pesticides will be subsidised too.
It's an enormous cost burden for a developing economy to bear - which is why the past, African governments have preferred to rely on private investment and foreign aid.
Malawi has gambled - and last year, the reward was millions of dollars of maize export revenues.
"I am just back from New York, from a UN conference, where they had an entire session dedicated to Malawi," beams Dr Luhanga.
"Other African countries - they want to know if they can follow our example. Kenya, Tanzania, Swaziland - they are thinking of introducing subsidies. This green revolution - it is truly for the whole of Africa."
Where is the catch? Certainly, the revolution has not stopped the market price of maize from doubling in a year - from 30 kwachas (£0.12) per kilogram to 60 kwachas.
The government, controversially, has passed a law capping the price at 52 kwachas - an emergency measure.
But utter the words "technological dependency" to Muhhuku, and he simply shakes his head.
"We hear this accusation from western development workers. We are told 'why make farmers buy seeds every year? Why let the companies trap you?' But this is based on a misunderstanding. Storing the hybrid seeds - it takes a lot of technical knowledge.
"The farmers can stick to their traditional ways. But the yields are not worth their sweat."
Tomorrow, I will meet the farmers and ask them myself.

TUESDAY 07 OCTOBER - RISING FROM THE ASHES
The women of Mnduka village are pounding their drums.
Under the shade of a mango tree, a crowd is gathering around a masked man, who is twisting, thrashing, throwing himself at the dust, over and over again.
He appears possessed - demonic, even. But everyone is cheering him. This isn't an exorcism, it's a celebration.
"Gule Wamkulu" - literally the "Big Dance" - traditionally marks the end of a successful harvest.
The masked figure is either a spirit, an animal, or a ghost - everyone I ask spins me a different spooky yarn. But what they all agree on, is that he has risen from the graveyard, "and he is very, very happy".
Happy as everyone here in Mnduka village has been at harvest time, since agro-technology arrived.
If you're looking for a model village, to test whether Malawi's much trumpeted "green revolution" is science fact or romantic fiction, Mnduka is well worth the trek.
Having had my fill of analysing national maize export statistics, I came here to ask the farmers themselves.
Thanks to the government subsidy coupons for fertiliser and seeds, the technology is now in their hands.
Despite the bail out, a national newspaper today carries a front page story warning of impending food shortages in six regions, affecting 1.5m Malawians - about one tenth of the population.
Three years ago, Mnduka too was a dustbowl. The drought of 2005 was as harsh here as anywhere in Malawi.
Among the farmers, a quick show of hands reveals the vast majority were already growing hybrid maize but without access to affordable fertiliser, their family stockpiles ran out in three months.
"Every day, we had to look for work just to eat that night, says Esther Chirwa, 28, who supports a household of five.
"We were living from hand to mouth."
"I travelled far and wide just to find food," says Nixon, 58, who harvested only 10 bags, which had to feed a family of six for a year.
"When you are away for so long, your family suffers."
Today, as we are led between the maize fields, the place has the feel of an African fairytale.
Down by the murky brown stream, the local farmers take turns to sweat it out on the irrigation pedal foot pump - mercifully shaded by bushes.
The field alongside - once scrubland - is now blossoming into a small oasis of peppers and maize - "the garden" they call it.
The idea is simple - one village garden will train a hundred farmers how to irrigate.
The foot pump and simple water piping were funded by an NGO, but across Malawi, it is the government which has taken the lead irrigation, with an ambitious program to create a "green belt" stretching along the shores of Lake Malawi.
"Remember - with irrigation, you can harvest three maize crops a year," says Phyness Thembulembu from US-based NGO Citizens Network for Foreign Affair (CNFA).
Meanwhile, over on the hillside, the farmers are teaching each other how to plant cassava - a drought resistant alternative to maize.
"The crop is common in other areas of the country, but back in 2005, very few here were growing it," says Phyness. "After the drought, they had to think again".
But the centrepiece of the village model is the agrodealer. A local shopkeeper has been given grants and technical training to advise farmers on fertilisers and hybrid seeds.
The shop is one of several thousand in a national a program funded by AGRA, and implemented here in Mnduka by CNFA.
"In the past, the farmers had to travel 18km to access the high yielding varieties (CNFA has a target of 5km) - an expensive and time consuming trip, when you are struggling to support a household of six or seven," says Matthews Matale, an agrodealer from a neighbouring town.
Now the seeds are on their doorstep. With support from CNFA, the agrodealer holds annual crop demonstrations and the farmers choose the seed variety they favour.
"The most popular in my shop," says Dinah Kapizan, "are the maize seeds that come in animal varieties - monkeys, elephants and lions.
"Monkeys are the quickest to maturity, the elephants next, and then the longest, but with the greatest yields, are the lions."
A clever marketing ploy, but it's simpler than remembering the difference between MH18 and DK8A31. I for one, am grateful.
Esther, too is grateful for the seeds, the shorter travelling distance to the agrodealer, and most importantly, the subsidies.
"It's clear we are having bigger harvests now, with the fertiliser. I am able to sell some. The only thing I fear for is what happens if they take the subsidy away."
The dependency cannot be underestimated. The biggest round of applause under the mango tree was not for the wild ghost-man dancing, but for the local headman - when he called for fertiliser to be stocked here in the village, like the seeds.
"My worry though, is can this really be sustainable in the long term?", says France Gondwe, of Malawi's International Centre for Agroforestry research.
"The Nitrogen fertiliser is a quick fix - but without it, the harvest is low, because the soils are suffering from years of [monoculture]. Even with the fertiliser, they are not performing to their full potential.
"There are alternatives to fertiliser - crop rotation, manure, agroforestry. But with the food shortages, the government is trapped. And so the people are trapped too."
Back under the mango tree, the mysterious masked man takes a bow and races off through the crowd, and over the hill in the direction of the graveyard.
Mnduka too has risen from the graveyard - but the dancing goes on, for now at least.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/science/nature/7651977.stm

Published: 2008/10/08 16:01:51 GMT

© BBC MMVIII

Mutharika Talks Tough

2008-10-20T11:00:00.000-07:00

"Mutharika Talks Tough" was a recent headline talking about the president of Malawi, His Excellency Dr. Bingu wa Mutharika. When asked about when parliament was going to be opened as it had been closed by Bingu and not reopened despite an agreement reached between the government and the opposition that had set the date of reopening to the day before the article Bingu replied that "he would only call for Parliament if the opposition guaranteed that they would behave responsibly." He then went on to say that opposition MPs are "wasting taxpayers money on parliamentary sittings, which do not yield anything."
Then on a complete different tack the President went on about witchcraft without any prompting from the interviewer. In a unique defense of the right to an education for children, he "took a swipe at people who teach children witchcraft, saying children should be allowed to go to school and then afterwards make their own individual choices if they want to join witchcraft or not."
The persistent belief in witchcraft is quite interesting. Our day staff has been having to take his wife to the doctor repeatedly and so far they have not been able to determine why she is ill. Our day staff member has told me that since the doctor is unable to come up with a clear cause for her illness then it is obvious that her illness is the result of a spell put on her. When I asked what happens next he told me that it is in God's hands now. Thankfully, she has now recovered from this mystery illness.
We are going to Cape Town, South Africa between Oct. 12 and 20, 2008 and we are really looking forward to the trip. Will give an update when we are back.

Source: The Daily Times, September 30, 2008.

The Press Release I wrote for FUM

2008-09-21T23:52:00.001-07:00

Below is the press release I wrote after a lot of research for the Farmers Union of Malawi (FUM). It has garnered a lot of attention and the government has partially backed off on its decision to be the only one allowed to buy and sell corn in Malawi. They are now going to allow small traders to buy and sell, which will be better for Malawians, especially in remote areas as it will allow them to actually have access to the corn rather than having to travel great distances to get to a government deopt. As well the government has now stated that this directive is only for a short time, while at the time of announcement is was completely open ended.

Farmers Union of Malawi Expresses Reservations Over the ADMARC Directive

September 2008

The Farmers Union of Malawi (FUM), which is an apex body for farmer organization in Malawi commends Government for its efforts to achieve food security in Malawi. This has been demonstrated in a number of ways during the past three years, including the increased budgetary allocation towards agriculture (14-16%) which is significantly above the Maputo Declaration which called for a minimum 10% budgetary allocation towards agriculture. Additionally the Government is to be commended for the steps taken to ensure food security including the Targeted Input Subsidy Programme (TIP) which has turned Malawi from a net food importer to a net exporter. For a long time farmers have suffered exploitation at the hands of unscrupulous buyers who were reaping the benefits from where they did not sow and there was little or nothing done to rescue them. In response, Government introduced minimum market prices so that farmers could be protected from exploitation and then went even further by raising the minimum prices for maize, tobacco and cotton this year, which FUM applauded. In support of agricultural processing, in line with the Malawi Growth and Development Strategy (MGDS), the Government has implemented incentives in the livestock sector with regard to lowering levies on the importation of equipment leading Malawi to enhanced economic growth.
That said, the Farmers Union of Malawi has grave reservations regarding the recently announced plan by the government that ADMARC will be the sole buyer of all the maize produced in Malawi. Concerns have been raised both about ADMARC’s operational inefficiency and the extent to which ADMARC actually provides useful marketing services to smallholder farmers and poor consumers.1 ADMARC last year failed to access many rural areas first blaming it on a lack of funds then on impassable roads due to the rain. Being the sole buyer is not a direction the government is supposed to be going. This directive is not well timed and is in contravention with our current era of market liberalization.
FUM feels that there is a role for both ADMARC and the private sector in maize purchasing and selling, especially in remote areas of considerable distance from ADMARC depots and that the directive enforcing ADMARC as the sole buyer/seller of maize, if necessary, may have been better implemented in partnership with the private sector. Competition is good for creating both effective markets as well as leading to a better livelihood for Malawian farmers, better livelihood leads to increased food security.
FUM recognizes a role for properly licensed and reputable buyers. Properly monitored, the private sector can play a role in alleviating food security problems by enhancing competition and providing effective purchasing and distribution networks. Therefore what is required is for the private sector, with monitoring from Government, to ensure that buyers are credible, honest and reputable. The licensing regime should be strict and punish those who do not meet these criteria. This will provide for a viable private sector marketing structure allowing the Government to ensure food security while continuing to allow the pursuit of a liberalized economy.
While FUM understands the step taken by Government is an attempt to ensure food security, the Farmers Union of Malawi, whose mandate is to safeguard and promote the interests of farmers in Malawi, is interested to see that farmers get a good return on their farming investments in the face of high production costs due to soaring global input prices. It is therefore important not to discourage investment in agriculture leading to lower future production and preventing Malawi from taking advantage of the opportunities available due to rising food prices.
FUM believes that a more appropriate approach is temporary export restriction which was implemented in April of this year. This keeps the produced maize in the country but still allows the private sector and market forces to play their expected role in a liberalized economy. Food security also flows out of farmers, who are the majority of Malawians, receiving an appropriate selling price for their produce including maize. With the increasing cost of inputs especially fertilizer farmers need to ensure that they can adequately plan to buy inputs for the next growing season by pursuing the best price. A 2002 study by OXFAM found that “produce fetches higher prices when sold to private traders and at local markets than at ADMARC.”2
FUM feels that the Government needs a medium to long term strategy to build the capacity of ADMARC to effectively compete in an open and liberalized market. This would allow ADMARC ample time to prepare by enhancing its human, financial and physical capacity. Additionally ADMARC needs to ensure that distribution points are within reasonable distances of Malawians, thereby truly contributing to the stated goal of food security for all Malawians. Traveling great distances to ADMARC depots can be a significant cost to farmers, reducing even further their income. This problem is compounded if ADMARC begins rationing the amount of maize that can be purchased requiring farmers to return multiple times. Currently this rationing has already been seen to occur in ADMARC depots in the Southern Region.
If farmers cannot easily sell their maize to ADMARC then "gray markets", where the product trades at prices below the set price will crop up. If the set price is too low compared to neighbouring countries than there is the possibility of maize crop flowing out of Malawi given the porous nature of our borders. In this case, this may be good for Malawian producers as they will have secured a better price but it could undermine the good intentions aimed at food security the government is trying to protect. Farmers naturally wish to sell to the buyer who offers the best price, if the setting of a maximum price of MK 45/kg forces farmers to sell at that price and no better than this would be detrimental to their interests if the private traders would be offering a better price. The set price of MK 45/kg is on the low side of what farmers were actually receiving this season. This may encourage the growth of black market sales as farmers attempt to recoup the cost of inputs.
ADMARC as sole buyer may be harmful to both traders who are pushed out of the market by the ever changing decisions of government on what ADMARC’s role is, and also to producers whose incomes are negatively affected by ADMARC’s presence.3 Support for private sector structures is more sustainable in the long term as it allows for government to get out of the business of buyer thereby freeing up precious budgetary resources. A World Bank study found that ADMARC has been plagued by a history of failure to guarantee food security with the failure attributed to the extremely high cost of the programs compounded by the large inefficiency in ADMARC’s operation.4 Other problems found with ADMARC in the study were that it consistently bought too late in the year and that it often ran out of money in the middle of the season.5 These were serious concerns and provide a genuine justification for the continued move to a more liberalized market. By implementing this directive indefinitely the Government risks losing credibility both with Malawians and with the international community.

For ADMARC to be able compete favourably in a liberalized market economy FUM recommends the following if:
- ADMARC must ensure that it does not ration the maize distributed, causing families to have to return to distribution points multiple times, often at great distances from their homes.
- ADMARC must ensure that it has depots that are at a reasonable distance from all Malawians.
- ADMARC needs to strive to make the maize available so that it is equitably and efficiently distributed to all people and all areas.
- For traders to turn over the maize they may have in storage, ADMARC may need to offer a higher amount to them to cover both the purchase and storage costs that have already been incurred. Some farmers have received higher prices from buyers and it is fair to assume that the traders need to recoup their costs.
- Additionally it is essential that ADMARC has sufficient cash reserves to pay at the time and point of sale and that appropriate stocking of maize occurs early enough in the season.
- ADMARC must ensure that it reaches areas that may become impassable in the rainy season while the roads can still be travelled and that it tackles operational inefficiencies that it has struggled with in the past.
- Preferential treatment in the selling of commodities at the ADMARC depots must stop immediately.
- Private sector contracts to provide maize to large institutions such as hospitals, schools, the military etc. must be honoured and fulfilled by ADMARC
It is imperative that when setting minimum prices the Government should negotiate these prices with the relevant stakeholders including FUM as representative of the farmers of Malawi. The setting of the minimum price was a communication tool to farmers, allowing them to know the price below which they should not sell. Whether there was effective enforcement or not the producers had a minimum price that they could us as a guideline to attempt to enforce fair prices themselves. With rising fertilizer, fuel and other input costs it is imperative, in light of the goal of making Malawi an exporting rather than an importing nation that farmers receive adequate returns on their investments.
The Union would also like to appeal to farmers, who are the key to food security in this country, on the following:
- To desist from selling their produce to unlicensed buyers
- To not sell their produce while it is still in the vegetative state and the actual yield is unknown
- Bartering is discouraged as there are many instances where farmers are taken advantage of in this medium of exchange
- Not to sell all their maize but to stock enough reserves for household consumption to take you through the year
- To start careful planning for next growing season in terms of sourcing inputs. Farmers must remember that farming is a business; they must not spend/consume the capital for their business
- Farmers must remember that the HIV/AIDS pandemic is real and that prevention is better than mitigation. The good income realized from crop and livestock sales should not make farmers forget that the pandemic is having a devastating impact on agriculture and the economy as a whole.
With the announcement of ADMARC being the sole buyer of all maize the government has turned its back on market liberalisation and has refused to allow farmers to take the best price offered to them.

A few weeks of research and writing

2008-09-19T09:17:00.000-07:00

The last few weeks have been very busy for me at the Farmers Union but also very rewarding. Last week I had a full page press release that I wrote published in The Daily Times newspaper of Malawi. Not to get into too much detail, but it was about a recent government decision to outlaw the buying and selling of corn (the staple food crop here) by everyone but the government. The government is getting concerned that there may be a food shortage and that middle men who buy maize from the farmers are hoarding it in warehouses, causing an artificial shortage in order to create a supply crisis so that they can charge higher prices. Then they will continue to sell at a high or even higher price in what in Malawi is called the "hungry season" when people are out of their own food. While it is admirable that the government is concerned about food security the issue is that the government body given the task to buy and sell all the corn in the country is most likely not up to the task. It was never up to the task for 30 years of existence in this era of a liberalized economy the government buyer, ADMARC has become a small player. While the government has the right to do what it thinks is best for the country the Farmers Union had some reservations about this move, its impact on farmers and its impact on food security. I did a lot of research and had a press release published. The government has since backed down on its position allowing some private buying and selling. Many sections of Malawian society have praised the Farmers Union for its stance and its quick response. We have had favourable reviews about the press release from other NGOs as well as the British government and the World Bank. Two news stories about our position have come out after we had it published last Thursday. It is great to see a lot of research and work on writing a position paper have a real impact on government policy, plus get accolades from other important stakeholders. This week I just finished an 11 page overview on the rising cost of fertilizers which have almost tripled in price since last year. I went over the various possible causes and some mitigating measures that can be taken to soften the impact of the extremely high prices.
My parents sent us a wonderful care package which we received this week. It was full of goodies from home and was such a wonderful gesture.
Thanks Mom and Dad

Things You See in Malawi Can Be Different Then Home

2008-09-07T08:17:00.000-07:00

Women carrying huge loads of wood on their head
Bicycles loaded with wood or charcoal used as transport trucks
A man wearing nothing but a plastic bag loincloth
A fully naked man strolling near our house
Monkeys running through the trees
Crocodiles 10 minutes walk from Regan's school (Janna saw this not me)
Herds of cattle walking through our neighbourhood
Sex workers waving down cars
Goats hanging from hooks, pick your piece and it is hacked off while you wait
Live goats strapped to bicycles
Multiple live chickens hanging from bicycle handlebars
Tire repairs taking place under trees
Plumbers and electricians for hire on the side of the road
Everything imaginable for sale by roving salespeople
Drivers pulling over so that they can purchase more alcohol while they are driving
The friendliest, happiest people I have ever seen.

Come, Come and Mend

2008-08-20T00:44:00.000-07:00

It is often in small little surprise meetings that you have amazing stories shared with you. Read the following poem written by a Malawian that I met over lunch a few weeks ago.
The poem is as follows.

Come, Come and Mend

Let me tell you a story concerning a Hockey Ground.
Chancellor College had a Hockey Ground
Near the heart of the campus it was situated.
Evergreen and beautiful it was.
But alas, it has now grown bushes, briers and thorns.
And the students plead,
Come, come and mend.

The administration did us a favour.
“We want to make your ground more beautiful”, It said.
Tractors came and ploughed the ground,
Toyota lorries came delivering the rich black soil,
Old grass was removed and new grass planted,
And yet the students broke into tears:
Come, come and mend.

As if the rehabilitation was not enough,
Taps were installed to bring water to the ground,
Splash, splash, splash, sounded the sprinklers.
“Not enough, not enough”, sounded the Administration.
A hedge of exotic trees was planted surrounding the whole ground.
“Not enough, not enough”, sounded the Administration.
A hedge of exotic trees was planted surrounding the whole ground.
“Not enough, not enough”, sounded the Administration.
A strong wooden fence was constructed outside the hedge surrounding the ground.
And the students cried,
Come, come and mend.

The Ground was now ready and ripe.
Never before had we seen a ground so beautiful.
“Administration”, the students inquired, “how much did you invest in our ground?”.
“K8,000”, it replied.
And that was before a new vocabulary came to us – devaluation.
And the students wept,
Come, come and mend.

Visitors can be entertaining, visitors can be damaging,
Like children of the ‘operational stage’ they came.
Came with sand, sawdust, mafuwa, firewood etc, etc,
With all these they wanted to play.
Of all the places we offered them, “Nay”, they cried.
Our Hockey Ground was turned into a playground.
And the students wept bitterly,
Come, come and mend.

With their firewood, they burned our grass,
With their mafuwa, they compressed our grass,
With their sawdust and sand, they choked our grass.
Jesus! Even the hedge and the fence were no more.
The well tended Hockey Ground went back to the Medieval Ages.
Never before had the students been so sad,
Crying, weeping and sobbing they were,
Come, come and mend.

Asked I the students who shall come and mend.
Looking at one another they said, “Eh! mm! iii!”
It was sad, for they couldn’t talk anymore,
And please, until you come back and mend,
Crying and crying will they be.
Crying for their dead Hockey Ground.
Until we see our Ground resurrect,
We shall never cease to say:
Come, come and mend.

This Malawian man now works in the field of justice and peace with the Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace trying to ensure that Malawians live under a fair and just government. His name is Peter Ngulube Chinoko. We began talking about how hockey is popular in both Malawi and my home country of Canada, the difference being that as a Canadian, hockey to me is played on ice not on a field. This led my newfound colleague to discuss how a poem about a hockey field led to his exile from his country. The Republic of Malawi from independence in 1966 to 1994 was under single party rule led by Dr. Kamuzu Banda, the “life president” until discontent in the country finally brought about the change to democracy.

Chancellor College which is part of the University of Malawi was where Mr. Chinoko was a fourth year Bachelor of Education student (in 1988) when he wrote the above poem. It was in response to the destruction of their new, beautiful hockey ground. The cause of the destruction was a visit by the “life president” (read dictator), Dr. Kamuzu Banda. Whenever he would travel there would be a group of women (Mbumba) who would travel with him singing his praises, performing dances and generally being a sort of travelling pep squad. The stage for their performance was set up on the hockey ground and when they left it was completely destroyed. Such destruction was not considered the responsibility of the Office of the President or the Mbumba. At that time everyone was supposed to be so honoured to have a visit from Dr. Banda that complaints about destruction would not be tolerated.

When Mr. Chinoko wrote his poem it came to the attention of the government authorities, most likely through a group called the Young Pioneers which was an organization of young people who effectively spied on all Malawians and acted as a paramilitary force that could intimidate those who refused to tow the party line. There are even instances where Young Pioneers turned their own parents into the police for negative comments said inside the home against Banda. The university administration was instructed to punish him over his poem which was seen as an attack on Banda and his regime and as a result the students held a rally in support of him which was the first public demonstration against Dr. Banda and his regime in Malawian history.

Soon after this demonstration the university administration told Mr. Chinoko that his family had requested that he return home immediately. As he got on the bus he was handed an envelope that he was instructed to open at home. Once on the bus he opened the letter and it told Peter that he had been permanently expelled from Chancellor College and his Bachelor of Education studies were terminated. Arriving in Lilongwe to stay with his sister for the night enroute to his home village he found out that there was more punishment planned for him. His sister’s husband was a police officer who told Peter that just at the end of the day the station received instructions to arrest him but that since it was outside business hours no action would be taken until the next day so he needed to get out of sight. Peter escaped to his village to see his family and then not knowing what to do sought asylum with the Catholic bishop in his village’s diocese. The bishop sequestered Peter in a room from which he didn’t emerge for four months while the police continued to look for his whereabouts. Realizing that he couldn’t continue to stay hidden forever, the bishop arranged for fake government documents for Peter and he was able to leave the country.

The church put him up in Rome where he was able to continue his studies at the Vatican. Peter told me that he became fluent in Italian and considered never returning to Malawi but the bishop that was his patron told Peter that he had an obligation to return to Malawi as soon as it was safe in order to fight against the kind of situations he had found himself in from ever occurring again. Peter stayed in exile for four years, only finally returning when Dr. Kamuzu Banda lost power. As I mentioned above Peter remained true to the wishes of his patron and he is now the Executive Director of the Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace (CCJP). The CCJP will be one of the major observers during next years election in Malawi to ensure that it remains a fair and equitable event. In a recent poll of organizations working in the field of election monitoring the CCJP was voted the most trustworthy and accurate of all working in this area. It is important for this work to continue so that there will never be a repeat of expulsion and attempted arrest over writing a simple poem about a destroyed hockey field.

From Dictatorship to Democracy

2008-08-19T13:03:00.000-07:00

Dr. Kamuza Banda, member of the Malawi Congress Party (MCP) who was prime minister at independence in 1964 became the first president after Malawi became a republic in 1966. In 1971 he was declared president for life (dictator) and he remained in that post until a referendum was held in 1993 calling for multiparty democracy. In 1994 elections were held and Banda’s party, the MCP lost. What is fascinating is the role the Catholic Church played in that transition from “life presidency”. Due to roving party faithfuls called the “young pioneers” everyone was afraid of speaking against the government. One could never know who was a member of the pioneers and sometimes friends and even family members were turned in for speaking against Banda. This changed in 1992 when the Catholic bishops in Malawi simultaneously had a letter read that detailed the complaints that until that point had been felt but had been unspoken. The Catholic bishops of Malawi had met in secret to draft the letter. In order to have it distributed to every parish in the country they employed ambulances staffed by nuns. Usually in Malawi, even to this day one cannot travel through regions without being stopped by police roadblocks. The nuns in the ambulance had to drive with the sirens on so that they would not be searched at the roadblocks and the letters would be discovered. Those I have spoken to told me that the letter came as a complete shock and how to react to it was mixed. On the one hand what was in the mind of the majority was finally being spoken allowing for a tremendous release, yet there was fear of reprisal and of who might report you if you reacted positively to the letter. At that time the parliament was nothing more than a rubber stamp body for the decisions made by Banda and all the real decisions were hashed out at the MCP headquarters which was beside the United States embassy. The decision was made to assassinate all the bishops in retaliation for their public attack on the government and on Banda. What was unknown to the MCP was that the American embassy was using eavesdropping equipment to listen in on this decision. What the Americans then did was to transmit this to the BBC, which broadcast it live. So all of Malawi got to hear the plan to kill all the bishops and the MCP knew nothing about it until they left their meeting room. Once it was out in the open the MCP knew that they couldn’t kill the bishops so all they could do was to kick the foreign bishops out of the country. This was the beginning of the end of one party rule and within 2 years there was multi-party democracy with a different party holding the seat of president.

Second Field Trip

2008-07-13T02:10:00.000-07:00

I am back from my second visit to the field on behalf of the Farmers Union of Malawi (FUM). I visited Mzuzu with the country director for World University Services Canada (WUSC), the organization that is the coordinator of our volunteering here. WUSC is working with FUM to link a Canadian Fair Trade coffee company with the Mzuzu Coffee Planters Union (MCPU). We arrived on Thursday afternoon in Mzuzu which is a very beautiful area of Malawi. It is in the north of the country and is an area of rolling highlands that has the perfect conditions for growing good quality coffee. About 10 years ago the town of Mzuzu got its first traffic light which for reasons I have never been able to discover are called “robots” in Malawi. It was really confusing at first when people were giving us directions telling us to go past the robot and then turn left at the second robot. Adding to the confusion Malawians when speaking English find the letter R and the letter L indistinguishable so often they call Regan Legan and they call the “robots” lobots. When the “robots” were first installed almost the whole town showed up to watch them for hours as no one could believe that cars would actually stop and go just for lights that changed colour. The television news cameras came to see the installation as well.
Our meeting wasn’t until Friday morning so on Thursday afternoon I visited the processing plant where they prepare the coffee beans for sale. It was a very tidy, efficient operation that has been funded by the European Union and is a real success story for smallholder farmers in Malawi.
On Friday morning we met with the management of Mzuzu Coffee and the president / chairman of the Mzuzu Coffee Planters Union which represents the five cooperatives that produce the coffee beans. I presented my concept paper on a history of fair trade, its objectives and it possible benefits for MCPU. The meeting went well especially because Mzuzu Coffee has already started down the road to exploring Fair Trade so it wasn’t an issue of pushing something on them but rather we will be working in partnership with them to help them get through the certification. For dinner in Mzuzu we met the only other male WUSC volunteer. Out of approximately 25 WUSC volunteers in Malawi there are only two males. From everyone who has experience in international work they tell me that that kind of ratio is normal, for some reason there are not as many men at least in the volunteer sector.

Always Busy

2008-06-10T04:54:00.000-07:00

Not much to report this week. Work at the Farmers Union continues to be busy and I can already see that my workload is going to extend past the time that I have available. Issues in policy continue to crop up, it is amazing the breadth of issues that touch agriculture. In the last few days we have had to discuss climate change, the world bank and international monetary fund policies, government of Malawi policies, genetic modification, farmer rights, fair trade, the world trade organization, gender roles, HIV infection and the role of global multinational corporations to name just a few. I am trying to finish up a concept note on the opportunities for fair trade marketing for Malawian coffee so that I can focus on pumping out some policy positions on climate change, the food crisis and biofuels.
I talked to my parents yesterday and was excited to hear that my Dad has picked a retirement date. I think that it is great that they are going to retire at such a young age after putting in so many years at Canada Post. They will be hosting a belated Easter dinner this weekend so I will wish a belated Easter to everyone that will be attending.

The Chewa Creation Myth

2008-05-29T12:47:00.000-07:00

The Beginnings of Life

In the beginning there was Chiuta-God and the earth.
Chiuta lived above in the sky
and below him was the earth, waterless and without life.
One day, clouds began to cover the sky;
lightning flared and peals of thunder were heard.
Then the sky opened and from it Chiuta-God,
the first human pair and all the animals
descended in a shower of rain.
They alighted on a flat-topped hill by the name of Kaphiri-Ntiwa,
in the mountains of Dzala-Nyama.
After their descent the soft surface hardened and turned into rock.
On this rock the imprints of their feet
as well as the spoors of many animals can still be seen.
There can be seen two pairs of human feet;
the man’s larger than the woman’s.
There are also imprints of a hoe, a winnowing basket, and a mortar.
Plants and trees grew up, yielding abundant food.God, men and animals lived together in happiness and peace.

The Cataclysm

One day, man accidentally invented fire
by playing with two twirling sticks, one soft, the other hard. They warned him to stop, but he did not want to listen.
In the end the grass was set alight, and there was great confusion.
Among the animals, the dog and goat fled to man for safety;
but the elephant, the lion and their companions ran away,
full of rage against man.
The chameleon escaped by climbing a tree.
He called out to God to follow him,
but Chiuta-God replied that he was too old to climb.
In the end the spider spun a thread lifting him up on high.
Thus God was driven from the earth by the wickedness of man.
As he ascended, he pronounced that
Henceforth man must die and join him in the sky.

Tied to and flowing from this story is the belief in traditional Chewa religion that with the rains come spirits and in the dry season, with the inevitable grass fires that occur the spirits return to the sky. Many of the roles of the chiefs are far more than being a local administrative leader but rather they have a clear religious role. Most of the spirits are actually ancestor spirits and the chief is tasked with performing rituals in the dry season that call for the return of the beneficial ancestor spirits who will bring the rain down with them upon their return. The chief is in the same family line as these ancestor spirits so it is left to him (and sometimes her) to interact with their ‘relatives’. These rituals partly occur in sacred groves that have been protected for centuries and where fire is forbidden and also where the chief’s ancestors are buried. Often these groves are managed by a priestess called the Banda who possibly traces back millennia and may be an institution taken over from the former people of Malawi I have mentioned before that are related to the Kalahari bushmen and the pygmies.
Some of the ideas surrounding chiefs sound truly like the Arthurian legends such as wearing pouches of earth around their neck from their area of control. There would also be a tooth from the recently deceased chief in the pouch to show the continuation of leadership because just as a tooth doesn’t decay neither does the continued leadership of the chiefly line. If the chief did something against the spirits he could fall ill and if the chief is ill then his land is ill. Droughts, pests, fire, infertility of the soil, all could result until the proper balance was returned.
Contrast this with Arthurian stories that state the King is the land and the land is the King. What befalls the king befalls the land and in the some of the King Arthur stories the land experiences drought and ruin after the King is maimed. These Arthurian legends came out of Celtic beliefs so it is interesting to see the connections.

Desk Unchained continued

2008-05-29T12:41:00.000-07:00

The group we met with today stated that condoms are for use by vagabonds and then followed that up with the statement that most men are in informal polygamous relationships with 2 to 3 women. The farmers we met with today follow different traditions than what the majority of Malawi follows with regard to what happens in marriage. The majority of Malawians follow a matriarchal society structure where the husband must move to the village of the wife to work and live on her land. So what happens is that all the men in a village are actually from somewhere else. Despite what sounds like a position of power for women in reality they are not treated with equality despite the fact that it is “their” land. This system is called uxorilocal, in contrast where we were today they are virilocal. That means that the wife goes to live in the village of the husband and it is his land. As well in this area a dowry must be paid by the daughter’s family to that of her husband. The men told us that kuchotsa fumbi does not occur in their area but the women told us that it still occurs but is highly secretive. This contrasts with what the men stated about how a woman used to be checked before marriage to make sure that she wasn’t spoiled goods (no longer a virgin) and that if she wasn’t the man could cancel the marriage or negotiate a higher dowry. The men stated that this practice no longer occurs though.
In this area if a man dies the widow will be married to one of the man’s younger brothers. If the widow was the wife of the younger brother she does not marry the older brother as he is seen almost like a father in law to her. Instead he will hire someone to come and have sex with her to get her pregnant with the man staying no longer than 3 days. The men stated that fisi is declining due to the impact of HIV/AIDS. The women described that fisi continues to occur and that it fisi means jackal and like a jackal a man they don’t know will be sent to them in the middle of the night and he will have sex with her and she does not have any say in the matter and never knows who the man was.
Some of the women farmers from today’s session were curious about the origin of AIDS and were discussing ideas that they have heard such as the American government creating HIV, injecting it in Africans who are in American prisons on the agreement that they would release them if they allowed themselves to be injected. Then the prisoners were set free, given some money and deported back to Africa where HIV then was spread to everyone. Another theory was that HIV may not even exist and that when you tell someone they are HIV positive they may die from frustration and despair. Despite these ideas they all could describe the difference between HIV and AIDS, how it is transmitted and what practices encourage it’s spread. All these ideas came from a female farmer that is also a trained nurse and works in a medical clinic. The women in this area also stated that if they asked their husband to wear a condom he would assume they had been unfaithful but what is telling is that the women stated that they think the same. If their husband stated he would want to wear a condom they would assume he had been unfaithful and since they all stated they believe in abstaining and monogamy condoms aren’t needed.
Today definitely put an interesting spin on issues like George Bush’s administration being against condom use. He has been much vilified for the spread of condom use but from the samples we spoke too they wouldn’t want them anyways. Across the board we were told that they encourage unfaithfulness and promiscuity and aren’t needed except by those with low moral standings like sex workers and vagabonds. Religion and the role of the local pastor is extremely important in this as we were told the pastors inform them about the truth behind HIV including the fact that condoms given to Africans are full of holes to let the virus through and that this can be tested just by filling a condom with water and watching the water leak through little holes therefore there is no reason to use them.

Desk Unchained

2008-05-29T12:36:00.000-07:00

I am on my way home from my first trip to the field on behalf of Farmers Union of Malawi (FUM). Janna has been in the field quite regularily but due to the nature of my position of building a lobbying and advocacy department it has not been necessary for me to be in the field up to this point in my mandate.
I am accompanying Elizabeth our new WUSC - World University Service of Canada volunteer who is here for four months to work on gender and HIV/AIDS issues for FUM as she does some field work on those topics. Yesterday we went to visit some farmers. It was a really interesting day and I was impressed with the knowledge about HIV and about AIDS and the differences and connection between the two. The discussions were done with males and females separately and even simple questions like what do you do each day and who makes the decisions on different matters had different conflicting answers between the two groups. Practices that I had been told no longer occur are still going on according to these rural farmers who I would assume would be best placed to know. One of these practices is called fisi and it is when another man is brought in to impregnate a woman who isn’t getting pregnant with her husband. As well we were told that kuchotsa fumbi is still a common cultural practice. This is where a man is brought in when a girl begins to menstruate in order to initiate her into sex. Both of these practices were described to us when Elizabeth asked about what kind of cultural activities may spread the transmission of HIV. It was also clearly stated to us that men often have multiple female partners in a kind of informal polygamy but that it is not possible for a women to ask her husband to wear a condom as it will imply that they (the woman) have been unfaithful. The men stated to us that if the woman asked them to wear a condom they would see it as a challenge to whether they (the men) have been unfaithful. So despite the fact that everyone stated that formal polygamy is very rare (it once was widely practiced) informal still occurs yet people won’t wear condoms because that implies unfaithfulness! The majority of Malawians are intensely Christian with many of them following evangelical and born again denominations and therefore they all state that polygamy is wrong and that condoms are not needed as all that is required is abstaining until marriage and then faithfulness within marriage.

To be continued...

Different Work for the Ministry of Labour in Malawi than in Ontario

2008-05-22T04:33:00.001-07:00

Thought I would paste in this news story. It is about a Ministry of Labour officer having to investigate a worker being fired from the government for being a witch. Quite a bit different than our Ontario Ministry of Labour reactive calls. When you see the word Traditional Authority (T/A) it means a tribal chief who still wield some power here in Malawi and are semi-officially part of the government apparatus which is a British parliamentary style system like Canada.

Sanjika driver fired, asked to relocate over witchcraft allegations

By OLIVIA KUMWENDA(5/21/2008)

A Sigerege family in Blantyre’s Chilomoni Township is in a tight corner after the husband, who until recently was working as a truck driver at Sanjika Palace, was "verbally" fired following allegations that his wife was teaching State Residence children some witchcraft, a development that has been questioned by labour and human rights authorities.The family, of Duncan and Christina Chilembwe, also faces another predicament—that they move out of Sigerege following Traditional Authority (T/A) Kuntaja’s decision acting on advice from a witch-doctor’s report that allegedly implicated the household.Kuntaja has given the Chilembwes up to October-end to relocate, but the family maintains its innocence.According to a Blantyre-based labour officer, there are no regulations in the Laws of Malawi that govern the issue of witchcraft at work-places.Human rights activists have also described the development as "a common challenge" that the nation needs to address, arguing that witchcraft allegations are difficult to prove.The Chilembwes’ saga started last November when the family was stationed at Sanjika Palace.Chilembwe last week told The Nation the family was ordered out of the palace premises after some staff members alleged his wife was teaching children witchcraft.The family moved to Sigerege, just behind Sanjika Hill, where they own a house. But according to Chilembwe, some Sanjika officials later reported the matter to village headwoman Anderson of Sigerege."This time it was alleged that both me and my wife were teaching children witchcraft. Village headwoman Anderson then reported the matter to group village headman Pensulo."[Pensulo] referred the matter to T/A Kuntaja. The T/A told us, including the complainants, to go to a witch-doctor to find out if there was indeed witchcraft among us," said Chilembwe from his home in Sigerege.He said the families of both the accused and the accusers went to a witch-doctor in Mdeka, rural Blantyre, where they spent a night."The witch-doctor gave everyone medicine to drink saying those who do not practise witchcraft will vomit after taking it. After taking the herbs, everyone vomited meaning there was no one who was practising witchcraft."We left the place without being officially told the outcome but we knew that we were innocent as we had vomited just like everybody else. However, we were surprised that when the T/A summoned us early this month, we were told that the witch-doctor has found us guilty of witchcraft," said Chilembwe.He said the T/A then ordered that family to pay chickens to the complainants and relocate.However, Anderson, who said she cannot entertain witchcraft practices in her village, contradicted Chilembwe on the witch-doctor’s outcome."I have heard about Chilembwe’s version that the witch-doctor said those who do not practise witchcraft will vomit but according to an independent observer sent by the T/A, the doctor did not say that," said Anderson.She said, according to the observer, the witch-doctor only said the herbs had several side effects including vomiting. She said she does not know how the witch-doctor came to a conclusion that the Chilembwes are guilty of witchcraft.But Kuntaja defended his decision to evict the family from Sigerege, saying it was made for security reasons."I am not forcing the family to move but normally after such incidents, the suspects are advised to move to another area for fear of being persecuted by the community," said Kuntaja.But at the time of the interviews, the Chilembwes claimed they were not facing any hostility in the community.State House press officer Chikumbutso Mtumodzi refused to comment on the matter, saying under the Laws of Malawi, witchcraft, sorcery and anything related to magic does not exist. But Chilembwe insisted he was verbally fired after the accusations.

Blantyre District labour officer George Chilonga said the country does not have laws on witchcraft practices at the workplace."But for security reasons and when there is public interest, a person suspected to be practising witchcraft can be transferred to another place or have his or her contract terminated. But when he or she is fired, one has to get all the benefits," said Chilonga.

Chilembwe said he is still waiting to hear from State House on his benefits.Meanwhile, Malawi Human Rights Commission (MHRC) executive director Dorothy Nyasulu said the Chilembwes scenario represents many other Malawians who are being harassed following witchcraft accusations."This is a big issue because sometimes people take the law into their own hands to deal with witchcraft suspects. As a country, we need to come up with a way forward as people’s rights are being violated," said Nyasulu.She said village leaders are not supposed to tell the suspects to relocate but should protect them as their subjects.Centre for Human Rights and Rehabilitation (CHRR) executive director Undule Mwakasungula concurred with Nyasulu that it is very difficult to pin down people over witchcraft allegations."This is a challenge. As a country we need to be very careful with the way we handle such cases. Innocent people are being victimised and having their rights violated," said Mwakasungula, who is also Human Rights Consultative Committee (HRCC) chairperson.The Chilembwes have since said they will appeal against Kuntaja’s decision in a court of law.

Tracking Tolkien

2008-05-16T00:45:00.000-07:00

We have had an amazing climb up Mount Mulanje, the tallest mountain in central Africa. We climbed up it two weeks ago taking advantage of a statutory holiday to give us the time to do it. The mountain is an amazing site as you approach it due to the fact that it rises out of a completely flat plain. There are no foothill or gradual slopes that lead to the mountain and it is not part of a mountain chain. This type of geologic feature is called an inselberg which is German for island mountain which is a very apt description. The mountain was quite a stiff hike but it didn’t take any mountain climbing skills. The peak of Mulanje is at 3002 m above sea level which puts it quite a bit below Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania which is 5895 m above sea level but it is impressive nonetheless. One of the huts we stayed in has a view outside of it of Chambe peak which has a 1.7 km vertical rock face, the highest cliff in Africa. Mulanje is significantly higher than our previously highest climbed peak, Mt. Washington in New Hampshire which is 1917 m above sea level.
The views are unbelievable and the scenery continually takes on a different look as you round a peak or enter into another valley. As you rise from a plain you travel through various stages of vegetation until you are above the tree level where only lichen is precariously clinging to the rock. Clouds continually move in shrouding everything in an eerie mist and dropping visibility quite low but then the wind will blow the mist away and you will be treated to what one traveler early in the twentieth century called the best view in the British Empire. J.R.R. Tolkein climbed Mt. Mulanje shortly before he wrote The Hobbit and local legend has it that Mulanje inspired him. The rivers that flow off of the mountain travel through the surrounding plain until they join the largest river in Malawi, the Shire.
The hiking was tiring but well worth it. The first night we stayed at a hut at the base of Sapitwa peak which in ChiChewa means “don’t go there”. Before we left our day guard at our house pulled me aside and told me that it was ok to go to Mulanje but that we must not go to Sapitwa. Sapitwa, and Mulanje as a whole is considered by some Malawians as the basis of all bad magic and witchcraft in the country. It is considered a realm of evil spirits and a place dangerous to visit. Our guard, Grant warned me that the influence and power of evil spirits is strong still on Sapitwa and that people who climb it have been known to disappear. So after staying the night in a hut at the base of Sapitwa the first thing we did was attempt to commune with the spirits (no , I don’t mean we had a séance, just that we attempted to climb the peak). After 3 hours of climbing though we had to regroup, analyse the situation and we realized that we weren’t equipped to climb the peak. While all the earlier travel on Mulanje was just hiking despite its difficulty Sapitwa entered the realm of climbing with a large proportion of smearing involved. One group that we met stated that they were only able to make to the peak using the climbing rope that they had brought so our decision to turn around was a good one despite Regan’s disappointment. She was climbing without any problems and had be been properly equipped she would have had no problem claiming the peak. After that we hiked to another hut, which was at the base of the earlier mentioned cliff and spent another night. The next day we hiked down and returned home.
The whole experience was magical despite the lack of spirits. As well I kept my eyes pealed for the elusive Abatwa, light skinned people of extremely short stature who are whispered to still be on the mountain. In actuality there is some truth behind this legend as when the Bantu people first migrated into Malawi over a 1000 years ago the land was already occupied by the Abatwa people. There are still remnants of these people in Africa but not in Malawi. The pygmies of the Congo and the Kalahari bushmen of Botswana are the remnants of this once widespread people. Their features are very different from the larger, darker skinned Bantu tribes who now cover the majority of sub-Saharan Africa.For anyone who is visiting Malawi I highly recommend Mt. Mulanje, even if it is just to drive to see it as it is spectacular.

Keeping Busy

2008-04-22T01:41:00.000-07:00

The workshop that I helped facilitate was a great success. We held it on Tuesday and Wednesday of last week and we received tonnes of input from the participants. The goal of the meeting was to create a strategic direction for the Lobbying and Advocacy department that I am helping to create for the Farmers Union of Malawi. We invited agricultural stakeholders from across Malawi covering a broad spectrum including farmer organisations, financial institutions, farming input suppliers, government ministries and civil society groups (nongovernmental organisations or NGOs). I was pleasantly amazed that there was no lack of knowledge on what the issues in agriculture are or what possible strategies and actions may help alleviate them. The next step though is the big one, implementation. Once we have collated all the issues we will turn to our members (the actual farmers dealing with these issues) to determine what are the priorities as the list of issues is huge.
Last Friday I spent the day at a workshop dedicated to the interaction between agriculture, biodiversity and trade with the focus on how to make all three workable while respecting biodiversity, farmers rights and food security (making sure people have enough to eat). One of the big issues is the population density. For perspective Canada is 83 times larger than Malawi with a population of about 32 million, while by contrast Malawi has a population of about 12 million. Another way to look at it is that Malawi is only about 1.5 times or 50% bigger than Lake Superior. The land parcels available for agriculture are getting smaller and smaller and the forests are being cut down at an increasing rate. In Malawi forests are one of the only sources of fuel for the rural population. As well, Lake Malawi, the third largest lake in Africa and eleventh largest in the world, is being rapidly overfished. The stories of the declining fish stocks sound much like our east coast fishery stories. I have to admit I came out of the workshop wondering how these problems can be solved. There are some ideas but it is hard to get action until it is too late, look how we handled the collapse of our cod fishery.
This week I will be meeting a Canadian regarding fair trade coffee markets for Malawian coffee in Canada. Fair trade is a concept where the buyer works out a fair price with the farmer rather than dictating the price to them regardless of their cost of production. That buyer can then sell their coffee at a higher price as they can market it as fair trade coffee, demanding a premium from those coffee purchasers who care about the farmers getting enough money to cover their costs.
As well I am starting to work with the International Labour Organization (ILO) on their "Harvest for the Future: Agriculture without Child Labour" program. This is exciting for me as I work for the Ministry of Labour back in Canada. I took part in an international conference with the ILO last year in Toronto so I am looking forward to working with them.
On a happy note, Regan has a clean bill of health. Her kidney is perfectly fine, there is no sign that there will be any reoccurence and it seems that it was just a bladder infection that spread due to the first two doctors we went to giving her an antibiotic that is now known (but I guess not known to the doctors) to be ineffective against bladder infections. Regan starts school again today after 2 weeks off of school. I can't remember if I stated it in another blog, but Regan did very well in school even though we arrived late in the term, receiving second place standing in her class. It is funny, they are really big on ranking here and actually announce your rank in front of the whole class. I really feel sorry for the ones at the bottom of the class as they have to stand as they are called out in front of everyone else. Janna is doing great, but continues to be busy with many trips for days at a time to all parts of Malawi as well as large amounts of office work on top of that. She has a lot of challenges with regard to resources that I don't have but thanks to WUSC (the ones who have sent us to Malawi) she has been given a laptop so that she can have a computer that works both in the office and for her multiple field trips.

Honourary Portuguese

2008-04-14T16:07:00.001-07:00

It is funny, wherever I go I end up being an honourary Portuguese. Janna and I have been looking for a place to get some exercise and we found a place with a great pool, with a nice bar beside it that serves great food. The funny thing is that it is at the local Portuguese club. So we have joined the club, paid our initiation fees and I can proudly say that I am a member of the Portuguese club. I definitely never thought I would be able to say that during my year in Malawi. The club was formed in the 1980's after the mass exodus of Portuguese out of neighbouring Mozambique during its civil war. I don't think that there are many of them left but I have actually heard Portuguese spoken there.
On a side note when I was in Zambia we had to pay a ticket for not having a reflective sticker on our front bumper. The Zambian cop, after looking at my drivers license that I couldn't really be 35. I assumed he meant I didn't look old enough but he said I looked older because I have gray hairs in my sideburns. That was a first for me.
I am excited as tomorrow is the first big event that I have specifically helped organize. The money was sourced by me through Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) funds and it is a meeting with the already partially developed farming stakeholders in Malawi to begin the process of truly identifying the issues that are preventing Malawi from fully developing its agriculture sector so that an effective lobby and advocacy strategy can be developed. We have been able to get the highest civil servant in the Ministry of Agriculture, Food Security and Fisheries to agree to come, here in Malawi that post is called the Principal Secretary rather than Deputy Minister like it is at home. As well it will be our first chance to really meet with some of the large farmers in Malawi who we want to also become a member of the Farmers Union. Our mandate is to speak for all farmers regardless of their commodity or their size. Currently we have mostly groupings of smallholder farmers (less than 1 hectare usually). The benefit to bringing the larger farmers in is that there are many issues that are common across the board for all farmers. The larger farmers have some opportunities to raise the voice on some issues due to their greater agri-business sensibilities and larger resources. What the Farmers Union can offer them is the numbers (most farmers are smallholders) that are needed to influence politicians and public policy. As well many local and international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) will be present including OXFAM and Save the Children. It should be a productive two days.

Safety First Malawian Style

2008-04-14T16:03:00.000-07:00

My fellow health and safety inspectors in Canada will appreciate this story. The vehicle that we purchased (thanks to a loan from my parents) had to be taken in for its annual certificate of fitness which is what we call getting the car “safetied”. I showed up at Road Traffic and Safety and spent about 2 hours to discover that all their examiners go home by noon and that I would have to return tomorrow. I asked when they opened and they told me the gates open at 0730. So the next day I dutifully showed up at 0730. I was first in line and glad that I was going to get this done quickly and that I could then get to work. What I didn’t realize was that open gates doesn’t mean that the safety examiners have shown up. That didn’t happen until almost 0830. The actual safety procedure is a little comical and I kept having the feeling that I was on Candid Camera. While you sit in your vehicle with it turned off the safety examiner tells you to turn your left turn signal on, then your right, then your left, then your right, then your windshield wipers, then your left turn signal again, then your brake light, then your brake light, then your brake light, and then once again your break light. Next came the headlights, the highbeams and then a right turn signal thrown in again for good measure. I lost track of how many times I kept doing the same thing but if I wasn’t observing other vehicles being put through the same steps I would have thought I was being toyed with. Finally I seemed to have convinced them that everything was in fine working order. The last step was for the examiner to get in my vehicle and to accelerate quickly and then to brake, twice in a row. Since our vehicle actually stopped I thought great, I’ve passed, I can get my certificate and go. But that was my overly hasty Canadian thinking. The examiner took a long look at the outside of my car and then went inside to get another examiner. She came outside and the two of them gave my vehicle a long look. Then the examiner looked at me very seriously and stated that my car was a little dirty. I agreed and stated that I still had some road dust on it from my trip to Zambia. Now it was dusty but we aren’t even talking mud splatters here. Both examiners gave me a serious look and then told me that my vehicle could not receive its certificate of fitness as I had brought it in dirty. At first I thought they were joking but by the looks on their faces I realized that they were serious. I asked what they expected me to do, and they told me that I would have to have the car washed and then return to have my car’s safety evaluated. So with no other choice I left and went home and had the car washed. This took almost an hour and then I returned to Road Traffic and Safety. Of course by this time there was a line of cars that I had to wait behind while they went through the process. Finally it was my turn again and I was expecting to have to go through the whole process again, but once they saw that my car was clean they handed me my certificate of fitness. Things like this keep Malawi interesting.

Fair trade not aid can make a huge difference

2008-04-03T00:06:00.000-07:00

Below is an excerpt from a book I just finished reading (thanks Melissa) that is very relevant to the work I am doing and part of the story of why we can keep giving aid to Africa but we find it difficult to see the results.

Excerpt from The Fate of Africa

“Nor are Western governments inclined to amend their trade and agricultural policies for the sake of Africa’s revival. Determined to protect their own producers, industrialized countries operate a system of subsidies and tariff barriers that have a crippling effect on African producers. The total value of their agricultural subsidies amounts to 1 billion dollars a day -$370 billion dollars a year- a sum higher than the gross domestic product of the whole of sub-Saharan Africa. The European Union subsidy for each of its cows is about $900 a year – more than the average African income; the Japanese subsidy is $2,700 per cow. Western surpluses produced at a fraction of their real cost are then dumped on African markets, undermining domestic producers. Simultaneously, African products face tariff barriers imposed by industrialized countries, effectively shutting them out of Western markets.
The case of cotton illustrates the hurdles that Africa has to surmount. Africa is the world’s third largest producer, turning out high-quality cotton at competitive prices. In West Africa cotton provides a living for a million farmers. Cotton production in francophone West Africa has soared from 100,000 tons a year at independence in 1960 to 900,000 tons. In Benin, Burkhina Faso, Chad, Mali and Togo, cotton represents between 5 and 10 per cent of GDP, more than a third of export income and more than 60 per cent of agricultural export income. Production costs in West Africa are about 38 cents a pound. By comparison, production costs in the United States are more than twice as high. But the US provides its 25,000 cotton farmers with an annual subsidy of $4 billion – more than the value of the entire crop. US farmers have therefore been able to export cotton at one-third of what it costs them to produce. Over a period of fifteen years, they have gained nearly one-third of the world market. A study by OXFAM in 2002 calculated that, as a result of the US subsidy, the world price was 25 per cent lower than it would otherwise have been. It is estimated that the cost to Burkina Faso was 1 per cent of its GDP or 12 per cent of its exports; to Mali, 1.7 per cent of GDP or 8 per cent of exports; and to Benin, 1.4 per cent of GDP or 9 per cent of exports. According to OXFAM, the trade losses associated with US farm subsidies that West Africa’s eight main cotton exporters suffered outweighed the benefits they received from US aid.
In addition to US subsidies, the European Union supports its cotton producers with a subsidy amounting to about $1 billion a year. A World Bank study estimated that it would be three times cheaper for Europe to import cotton than to grow it in Spain or Greece, where the subsidy paid to farmers is far more than the market price of cotton. China spends more than $1 billion a year on cotton subsidies. The overall impact on world prices has been huge. Though West Africa cotton production rose by 14 per cent between 1998 and 2002, receipts fell by 31 per cent. The World Bank estimated that eliminating cotton subsidies altogether would raise West Africa’s export income by $250 million a year. In similar fashion, African farmers have struggled to compete against a wide range of other subsidized agricultural products – European sugar, Asian rice, Italian tomatoes, Dutch onions; many have been forced out of business.”
Meridith, Martin. The Fate of Africa: A History of Fifty Years of Independence. Public Affairs, United States of America, 2005, p.684-685.

Another Article I have written

2008-04-02T23:21:00.000-07:00

The World Farmers’ Charter

One of the roles of the Farmers’ Union of Malawi (FUM) is to ensure that not only is the voice of Malawian farmers heard in Malawi but also that our farmers are represented in regional and international forums. One important association that FUM is involved in is the International Federation of Agricultural Producers (IFAP). The farmers of the world, coming from every continent and working under very different conditions met from 13 to 20 May 2006 in Seoul, Korea on the occasion of the 37th IFAP World Farmer’s Congress. This Congress marked the 60th anniversary of IFAP. During that conference a Farmer’s Charter was declared including within it a declaration of principles for all farmers regardless of commodity or size. These principles are relevant to farmers worldwide but are especially important to farmers in the developing world and every farmer should consider the importance of these principles. These principles are statements directed towards government and others parties that interact with farmers. If the decision makers in society follow these principles many of the issues we lobby and advocate for would be solved. I have included these principles below.

Declaration of principles
1- Recognize the importance of agriculture
and the central role of farmers
2- Involve farmers’ organisations as essential
partners
3- Create opportunities for farmers to earn a
fair income
4- Provide equal treatment for rural
communities and urban areas
5- Promote diversity and sustainability in
agriculture
6- Eliminate hunger, malnutrition and rural
poverty
7- Establish fair and equitable rules for
agricultural trade
8- Balance power in the agri-food chain, and
ensure that markets work competitively
9- Address the special needs of women farmers
and young farmers
10- Promote International Cooperation

Source: http://www.ifap.org/en/publications/documents/WorldFarmersCharter_Eng.pdf
Written by Jules Arntz-Gray

What is it that I do?

2008-04-02T23:03:00.000-07:00

For those of you who have wanted more information on what I do I am pasting in an article I had to write describing the department that I am helping to set up for the Farmers Union of Malawi. Work days are long here with the day going from 8 till 5 with a one hour lunch but no breaks. Janna has to work even longer as she has to work from 7:30 to 5 every day. I am lucky that I have competant Malawian counterparts to work with who will be able to continue the work I am doing once I am gone. Janna is in a much different situation. She is the sole person responsible for monitoring and evaluating all of the programs that the Catholic Church in Malawi is doing, especially with regard to disaster assistance. Right now she is working on a program helping people in the south part of Malawi who have lost their homes due to flooding. Current estimates are that 100 000 people have lost their homes and Janna is integral to coordinating the response. One thing that I have learnt here in Malawi is that development work is in some ways different than I thought. Labour is not a problem here, there are plenty of people willing and able to do whatever work is necessary. For instance, there is no need for people to come from the Western world to do things like building schools or to teach simple skills, that expetise is already here in the people and they are already desparate to be hired. What is needed is expertise and management ability at higher levels, some of that exists here but more is needed. Anyways, below you will find a description of my department (which is me and one other person).

Farmers Union of Malawi is Raising the Voice of Farmers

The Farmers Union of Malawi (FUM), just like many other farmers’ unions, was formed to perform the functions of advocacy, lobbying and representation of farmers. During the 2008 Annual General Meeting (AGM) the executive structure was revised resulting in, among other things, the creation of a Lobbying and Advocacy Standing Committee. Part of the duties of this committee shall be to cooperate with the President of FUM in activities involving lobbying and advocacy. The overall objective is to ensure that farmers effectively and meaningfully participate in the design, formulation, implementation and monitoring and evaluation of policies, strategies, programs and plans aimed at improving their livelihoods in Malawi.
To assist this committee the FUM Secretariat has created a Research, Policy Analysis and Advocacy department. We are very excited about this new department as it is fully aligned with the core function of the union. In January we were happy to have Cindy Kacherenga join our team as the department head of the Research, Policy Analysis and Advocacy department. For one year she will be assisted by Jules Arntz-Gray, a volunteer on a one year leave of absence from the Ministry of Labour in Ontario, Canada. This component provides FUM with an opportunity to identify and implement pro-poor research and policy analysis activities in order to galvanise the view of farmers countrywide and to solicit a new perspective on agricultural development issues / processes that affect the livelihoods of farmers. FUM also engages in processes that offer farmers an opportunity to contribute to the development agenda enabling them to create a pathway out of poverty.
FUM networks beyond its immediate membership by encompassing the general public, the private sector, civil society, the donor community and other stakeholders. In addition, the department engages in empowering farmer organisations through training in lobbying and advocacy to collectively speak out and to lobby and advocate for favourable policies that benefit them. Some of the past lobbying activities that have occurred include involvement in agriculture policy platforms conducted with government, civil society and private sector in collaboration with CISANET; representation of farmers in government projects such as the Farm Income Diversification Program (FIDP); and participation in key policy formulation processes including the Food and Nutrition Policy and the recent Agricultural Development Program.
In the last few months our department has been very busy. In February we held our 2008 Annual General Meeting (AGM) where we were intimately involved in preparing all policy related items including the speeches given. Importantly this included the drafting of a speech for His Excellency Bingu Wa Mutharika, the guest of honour who officially opened the AGM for FUM. In March we were involved in budget consultations with the Ministry of Finance (MOF) where we were invited to make a presentation. We successfully lobbied the government to use the population census to facilitate the National Identity Programme, which will lead to an improved and more equitable administration of the Input Subsidy Program (ISP). Currently the ISP will continue to focus on food security issues but the government agreed to consider other commodities as well in future in response to our proposal. Additionally the MOF has agreed to consider increasing the funding available for extension services and research after our request for a review of the budget allocation for these very important services.
Recently we participated in the newly established Network on Science and Technology.
On April 15 and 16, 2008 we are holding a stakeholder lobbying and advocacy session which will bring together members, civil society, government and other interested parties to a brainstorming session with the goal of creating a strategic plan for our department. Later in the year we plan to hold training sessions in understanding policy and in lobbying and advocacy for our members. All of this activity is in line with FUM’s strategic objectives especially the objective to ensure that FUM and its members have adequate capacity to lobby for a conducive policy and legal framework for agricultural production, marketing and fair trade agreements. Working from a five year plan we will pursue the following specific objectives; to identify and evaluate areas for lobbying and advocacy; to ensure FUM has the capacity to understand, analyze and respond to policy and legal frameworks and trade agreements, and using this to develop a lobbying and advocacy strategy.
Farmers are said to be empowered when they have access and control over structures and processes that transform their natural resource assets into outcomes that they desire. Poverty in Malawi could be defined by the poor people themselves as not only “a situation of perpetual need for the daily necessities of life…” but also “a feeling of powerlessness to influence the things around them”. It is this second aspect of poverty that the Research, Policy Analysis and Advocacy Department is focused.
The time has past where farmers are just on the receiving end of policy decisions. FUM is committed to increasing the capacity of farmers in lobbying for the policies that affect them. FUM believes that farmers can and want to be involved in the decisions that affect their livelihood if they are provided with the tools to do so. We look forward to working with our partners and our members.

Written by Jules Arntz-Gray

Regan is on the mend

2008-04-02T22:45:00.000-07:00

Well, as some of you are aware from Janna's blog we have recently returned from Zambia where we saw Victoria Falls. Regan got a kidney infection somewhere along the line (in Malawi before we left) and had to spend up to 7 hours on intravenous for three days in a row. She seems to be fine now but we are going to be aggressively monitoring the situation. WUSC (the group who has sent us here) has a great support system for medical emergencies including airlifting people out to South Africa for necessary care or even home to Canada. That was not needed in this situation but it is nice to know that it is there. Janna, as she always does, rises to the challenge especially when Regan is sick and she ensured that Regan had the best care possible. I don't think that doctors and nurses were used to so many questions and queries regarding treatment and the current medical situation. There is a huge culture of deference here and people often do not question authority figures. If you are ever sick in Africa make sure you have Janna with you because she will ensure that you receive the best care.

Life and Death

2008-03-22T15:19:00.000-07:00

We have finally got internet at our home again and I am able to post some belated blogs.

A friend of ours recently tried her best to help but the story did not have a happy ending. Our friend, who I will call Susan, works with a church group in Malawi but is from England. From contacts that she has she heard that a woman in a village outside of Lilongwe was in an advanced stage of HIV/AIDS. This woman had had a baby one month ago but due to her health she was unable to breastfeed her newborn. For the last month the baby had been fed a corn meal porridge like substance called nsima and was close to starvation. Susan having heard about this baby through her church group decided she would take her car to the village to bring the baby to the hospital for access to baby formula and medical care. Susan arrived at night and the mother was glad to have someone help her with her sick baby. Susan put the baby in a borrowed car seat and began to drive to the hospital, but the mother did not accompany her. While Susan was enroute she realized that something was wrong the baby. When she stopped to check on the baby she discovered, despite her best efforts, that the baby had died. The only option (in a Malawian context, things are different here than in Canada) was to return to the village and return the baby to the mother. I don’t know how she felt but I know that Susan’s efforts were appreciated despite the outcome. What is so telling about this story is that death is seen in such a different context than it is in Canada. The average lifespan in Malawi is 37.58 years and death is such a regular thing here that it is hard to imagine how different the occurrence of death is in Canada. The low lifespan is largely due to HIV/AIDS but that said it was only in the mid 40’s before the occurrence of AIDS. My heart goes out to Susan as I can’t imagine what it would be like to be in her position, she tried so hard but was so unsuccessful. My best wishes to the mother and to Susan for her efforts. (End of February 2008)

Finally, a Picture

2008-02-20T22:50:00.000-08:00

I actually got one posted. Further attempts have failed. This tree was close to the guest lodge that we stayed in when we first arrived and is a few blocks from where I now work. In the background you can see a fence made out of woven grass that is around someone's yard. Most walls in this area are brick with either broken glass shards cemented on the top, razor wire or electric fences or a combination of them. Not the most friendly view, but very similar to neighbourhoods in Brazil.

Call from Mom

2008-02-18T04:35:00.001-08:00

Well, I had a call from my Mom on Saturday which was really nice as we haven’t talked to her since we arrived a month ago. I would like to say a belated happy birthday to her and to wish her well on her pending, possible shift change. It was nice to get an update on family matters in Canada and to get to talk to her and my Dad.
I have tried once again to upload photos but I can’t get it to work. The connections here just can’t seem to handle it. We are going to try Plan B which is to put the pictures on CD and then mail that to a friend who will post them for us. Hopefully that will be viable, and hopefully not too expensive.
That will still take awhile though so I have to ask for patience from all those who have asked to see pictures. Janna went in to her work today and they told her that she needs to leave today for the whole week. That is after she just was away from Wednesday to Friday at midnight last week. There’s nothing wrong with her going and in fact it is great for her to get to see the country, it is just a tad funny to not tell someone with more notice than that. I have found that as well but not to such a dramatic degree. If meetings or work projects go late no one asks you if you can stay or if that is ok. There is no consideration given towards whether you may need to get home for your daughter or other plans etc. That is on top of a long work day. I start at 8 am and finish at 5 pm with no coffee breaks and a one hour lunch. The transportation whether it is bike or minibus takes almost an hour so you have to leave home at 7 am and you return at 6 pm. That is when you are done at 5 pm, twice in the last week and a half my work day has ended after 6 pm so by the time you get home you definitely aren’t a bundle of energy. I feel for my Malawian colleagues though as they often work far later and also work on weekends, all without any overtime pay or consideration of their plans.
We had really nice weather on the weekend even though all we did was hang out at home it was nice. On Saturday we went to a get together for Valentines day at an Englishman named Matt’s house. It was funny to bump into people we had met at the last get together a few weeks ago as the expat community is relatively small.
Janna had a great time in the south of Malawi last week as I’m sure you’ll hear in her blog. It has made us reconsider getting a car again as Janna said that things were so beautiful on the drive and there are not always easy ways to get around and sometimes there aren’t any ways to get to the areas you would like to see. Some of the single volunteers we know seem to get invites in other people’s cars but a family of three doesn’t seem to get that as we have yet to receive an invitation to see anything outside of the city. We are going to look at our finances again to see if we can afford it. The funny thing about cars here is that they don’t depreciate like in Canada. Most volunteers told me that they were able to sell the car for what they bought it for so it is more an issue of accessing the capital to purchase it.
Regan went to a basketball tournament with her school on Friday where one of the big questions from the other schools was if she was the only Caucasion at Mt. Sinai (which she is). It was actually strange to see so many non-Malawian kids from two other schools with their parents cheering them on, one called the African Bible College and one called Bishop MacKenzie International School. Regan seems to be fitting in to her school really well and she has made some friends but she finds their styles outside of school to be quite different from hers. Most of the kids she has met outside of school dress heavily influenced by American Hip-Hop and Regan has said they have no problem commenting negatively on how she dresses. The other day one of her classmates told her that she needs to remove her dark nail polish. This advice wasn’t given as a suggestion but as a necessary action for her to perform. Regan just laughs at all this and remains her own person.

The People

2008-02-15T04:54:00.000-08:00

With a population of approximately 12 million, Malawi is one of the more densely peopled countries of this part of Africa. Most of the population is rural (85 per cent), living largely in fascinating traditional villages. The largest town is the conurbation Blantyre-Limbe (the commercial "capital") in the south followed by the capital city of Lilongwe in the central region. Mzuzu is the only large town in the north. Zomba, once the capital, has, until recently, been the seat of the parliament.The Great East African Rift Valley, of which Malawi is a part, has been home to man from the earliest days of Homo sapiens. Many of today’s Malawians are descendants of the Bantu people who moved across Africa and into Malawi for hundreds of years up to the fifteenth century.The nineteenth century history of the country was one of turmoil, inter-tribal skirmishes and the slave trade. The slave routes from Africa’s east coast to the interior crossed Lake Malawi. Thousands never even survived the journey.The great explorer-missionary, David Livingstone, is intimately connected with Malawi’s history and there are many sites and monuments to be seen which remind today’s visitors of this. As Dr Livingstone was helping to put an end to slavery, the country was becoming increasingly under European influence. The British Central Africa Protectorate (later to become Nyasaland) was established in 1889.After World War II the pressure for independence grew, led, from 1958, by Dr Hastings Banda. In 1963 Banda became independent Malawi’s first Prime Minister and, later, Life President. His autocratic rule lasted until 1993 when Malawians voted for a change to a multi-party democracy. A year later, Dr Bakili Muluzi, leader of the United Democratic Front, became the country’s new President and he successfully fought a second democratic election in 1999. His term ended in 2004, when Bingu wa Mutharika was elected President.The people of Malawi are accurately described as the friendliest on the continent. It is they who make this country the Warm Heart of Africa.

A little more geography

2008-02-15T04:53:00.000-08:00

I have found an online resource that gives a good overview of Malawi so I will post some of the information for those of you who have wished to know more about Malawi.

Malawi is one of Africa’s smaller countries, a little over 45,000 square miles (117 000 sq km), of which about 20 per cent is occupied by Lake Malawi – Africa’s third biggest lake. Much of the country lies within the great Rift Valley of eastern Africa, with Tanzania to the north, Zambia to the west and Mozambique to the east and south. Malawi’s northern boundary comes within nine degrees of the equator.

The country stretches southwards to 17°S.The Rift Valley floor at the lakeshore is almost at sea level but the bordering plateau rises to between 1600ft (490m) and 5000ft (1500m). The highest peaks in Malawi touch 10,000ft (3000m) while the Lower Shire Valley (pronounced Shiray) in the south is at a meagre 500 ft (150m). These great contrasts help to make the landscape of Malawi one the most varied in all Africa. The scenery, including its cloak of vegetation, presents an ever-changing vista.Such is the great size of Lake Malawi and the narrowness of the Rift Valley, that there is little space for lakeshore plains.

In north Malawi, between Nkhata Bay and Livingstonia, the Ruarwe Scarp marks the very edge of the Rift Valley, plunging over 5000ft (1500m) from the Viphya Highlands straight into the lake. Further south, in central Malawi, there are plains but rarely do these extend more than 15 miles (25 km) from the shoreline. Here and there are floodplains, often farmed but occasionally flooded in the rainy season. Shallow depressions, called dambos, characterise some of the lowlands.

The lake itself is a great inland sea, some 360 miles (580 km) north to south and up to 50 miles (80 km) wide. Much of the time this tideless, freshwater lake gently laps the golden beaches which surround it. But on rare occasions it can show its anger in a fierce storm. Its fish-rich waters are home to the mbuna, colourful tropical fish in greater abundance here than anywhere else in the world.To the south, Lake Malawi drains into the River Shire which flows over 300 miles along the Rift Valley floor.

On its way to join the Zambezi, the Shire tumbles over rapids and falls as well as flowing quietly across broad plains.Away from the Lake and the Shire Lowlands, much of Malawi is part of the Central Africa Plateau. This gently undulating land, where not farmed, has a natural vegetation of deciduous woodland – brachystegia, acacia or combretum.Rising to even greater heights are Malawi’s true mountains: the whaleback plateau of Nyika and the mountainous Viphya in the north, the Dowa Highlands in the centre and, in the south, the two great massifs of Zomba and, highest of all, Mulanje, Central Africa’s grandest peak reaching over 10,000ft, which in colonial times was described as the best view in the British Empire.

More Geography

2008-02-15T04:31:00.000-08:00

Not your regular Canadian news story

2008-02-15T02:12:00.000-08:00

Here is an example of how news here can have a different focus. The following news story is from the region we are living in, but not anywhere near where we live, (don’t worry Grandparents) rather it is in the municipal boundaries but in an area that if you saw it you would classify as rural. Parental Guidance warning, this is not a pleasant story.
Hyena preys on four-year-old boy
By Amos Gumulira
A marauding hyena killed and devoured a four-year-old boy at Chiwamba Village in T/A Chimutu’s area in Lilongwe last week after it snatched him from his mother.
Kanengo Police confirmed the death of the boy in a press statement on Monday, saying the deceased, Joseph Chonga, and his mother Matrida Khoviwa, had gone out of their house to urinate around 11 pm when the marauding hyena came, caught the boy and ran away with him.
Kanengo Police public relations officer Beatrice Mwachande said in the statement when the community mounted a search for the boy the following day they only found his jaw bone some 10 kilometres away. The rest of his body had been eaten up.
Mwachande said Kanengo Police in conjunction with Parks and Wildlife Department officials have since mounted an intensive hunt for the hyena.
Stories of hyenas attacking, killing and preying on people are common these days.
Senior assistant parks and wildlife officer responsible for environmental education and extension in Central Region Dixie Makwale said incidents of hyenas killing and preying on people happen because people have destroyed the environment resulting in the creation of an imbalance in nature.
He said because of the growing human population pressure on the natural forests as people’s demand for cultivating land grows, animal habitats are destroyed.
Makwale said because hyenas find alternative habitats within the area in the form of caves or road curverts [spelling theirs], they still hang on in the same deforested areas.
“Now the problem comes when the hyenas want to eat. They find that the easiest prey are humans.
“Believe me, human beings are very easy prey.” Said Makwale.
The wildlife officer said stories of hyenas killing people in the Central Region are common in Dowa, Dedza, Ntcheu and Chiwamba in Lilongwe because people in these districts have destroyed the natural habitats by destroying the environment.

The Nation February 15, 2008 Page 2

An interesting note with regard to the spelling error with the word culvert. For reasons that stem from their native language Chichewa the people here often mix up the letters R and L and in fact use them interchangeably. So Regan is often called Legan at school. When someone is advertising the security of their house they often write that their wall has lazor wire rather than razor wire. It makes for some interesting and amusing signs.

Food and Weather

2008-02-11T22:56:00.000-08:00

Brian Yasvinski commented that I haven't mentioned the food or weather so I will rectify that here.

As far as food goes I would have to say that the warnings I was given turned out to be true. The food in Malawi, and from what I hear much of sub-Saharan Africa is nothing to write home about. Traditional meals are heavy on the carbs and light on meat and vegetables. The climate is conducive to growing all the vegetables that you would want but somehow in the cultural history the eating of vegetables either was lost or didn't occur. When we went camping at the lake we cooked some green beans alongside some noodles and the Malawian with us laughed at us and said "You crazy mzungus and your vegetables" while he carfully removed them from any contact with the noodles and then refused to eat them. The choice of fruit is great and we have been enjoying all the cheap mangoes and bananas, but things here work on seasons so you can't get anything you want at any time. You buy what is in season when it is in season. The staple dish here is nsima which is similar to porridge made from corn and huge slabs of it are eaten at a time. It is almost completely flavourless therefore it needs to either be dipped in the sauce your side dish may be soaked in or it needs a relish. One of the problems with starvation in this country is that 85% of the farming is devoted to corn (which they call maize) for feeding the country. Corn is relatively sensitive to precipitation so in years where there is too much or too little rain the yield plummets and there is large scale starvation. The message about diversifying their crops is one of the goal of most foreign groups working here in agriculture. That said, they have groceery stores here that have the same kind of products you would find at home as well as traditional markets so you can eat similar to how you would at home. The traditional markets have great prices so we usually go there as the imported stuff at the grocery store can be pricey for our budget.
Temperture wise it is usually in the high 20's to low 30's each day down to the low 20's to high teen's at night. It is the rainy season so it rains almost every day but usually just for short periods of time.

Rubbing Elbows

2008-02-11T01:04:00.000-08:00

Last week was a very interesting and busy week. My coworkers had to work even harder than I did (due to the fact that I am more of an advisor than an employee) and worked till midnight on Wednesday after having to work last Saturday until 8 p.m. as well. This was all in preparation for the Farmer's Union of Malawi (FUM) www.farmersunion.mw annual general meeting (AGM). This was their fourth AGM since inception and was an extremely big one for them as the state President, "His Excellency, Dr. Bingu wa Mutharika" was the guest of honour, officially opening the AGM as well as receiving an honourary membership in FUM. The president here is also a farmer, as well as the Minister of Agriculture and Food Security. It was quite a coup for FUM to get him to come and will really help put their name and their issues forward. The visit was a little different than what you might be used to as the pomp and circumstance is wonderfully Malawian. Women dressed in traditional clothing except that the fabric is printed with the face of the President lined the road as his motorcade arrived singing acapella Malawian songs in harmony. Later they were accompanied by African drumming while the women sang in response to parts of the President’s speech that they wanted to support. When the President stated something that the members of FUM really liked they all stood up and broke into a song they had composed the night before about the President’s agricultural policies. I have to admit that I would never have thought of using song as a lobbying and advocacy tool to communicate your viewpoint on government policy. All or most of the singing seemed to be done by women with the men swaying and clapping their hands. It was fascinating.
Also on Friday I met the Irish ambassador who was extremely friendly and very interested in what I am doing and what FUM is about. On Thursday night I met the husband of the Canadian High Commissioner to Malawi and he is interested in working with FUM to promote fair trade coffee. As well we broke off into talk about all things Irish and he will keep me in mind for an Irish appreciation society that is in the works in Lilongwe which will of course include Irish whiskey. (I know what some of you are thinking!)
The AGM was a success and it was great to meet so many of the farmer members of our organization and I am really looking forward to working with them in the next year. As well, it is not often that in a two day span I make contacts with the Canadian High Commission (with an invitation to lunch), the Irish ambassador and be involved in organizing a visit to our meeting from the Head of State in Malawi.

A Bit of Geography

2008-02-10T23:31:00.000-08:00

Malawi is dominated by the lake of the same name which is the 11th largest freshwater lake in the world and the third largest freshwater lake in Africa. The lake occupies the floor of the rift valley made famous by its discoveries of early hominids such as “Lucy” in the Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania which is the country on the northern border of Malawi. Since the lake fills the rift valley which is the result of plate tectonics pulling Africa apart (we’re talking geologic time here) it is extremely deep for those used to the Great Lakes in Canada. The surface is 474 m above sea level but some parts of the lake floor are below sea level. The water exceeds depths of 700 m in some parts making it far deeper than the deepest Great Lake (Lake Superior) at 370m.
When we went to the lake a week and a half ago it was beautiful but at the point we were at (Senga Bay) it was not as wide as it is in other spots as we could see the mountains that are in Mozambique on the other side. Cole, one of the WUSC student placements , came with us and after a flippant comment about swimming across has stated that is his new goal during his time in Malawi (insert skepticism at this point – Sorry Cole).
Malawi depending on how you slice the continent can be described as being in central Africa, eastern Africa or southern Africa but it is normally slotted in as part of southern Africa. As well it definitely looks southward as a country as South Africa is the most developed country in the region. It has a rainy (right now) season and a dry season with the hottest temperatures occurring around September or October. As far as heat it is summer right now and the temperatures are comfortable hovering in the high twenties sometimes reaching the low thirties. Winter can have temperatures as low as 7 degrees Celsius at night so the climate has a far more sub-tropical feel like Florida than the tropical temperatures I experienced in South America.
The landscape is surprisingly varied considering the fact that the country is about half the size of Great Britain and the highest point in Central Africa is in the country. Next week Janna will be traveling to the southern part of the country which can be much warmer than Lilongwe. The river that flows out of Lake Malawi is the dominant feature in the south, are region called the Shire. There aren’t any hobbits Paul but there were reports up until the 19th century of sightings of a people known to archaeologists that weren’t the current Bantu tribes or the former San (Bushmen) tribes but rather what seems to be a mix of those two with additional Caucasian traits. Currently the south is experiencing severe flooding due to the high level of rain and 100 000 people have lost their homes. The sad thing is that this occurs every few years but structures aren’t in place to prevent the same disaster reoccurring year after year. I’m sure Janna will blog about her visit to this area.
Well, that is all I have time for now. Before I go I just wanted to thank Jody Young (and Duncan Martin) for her support for my year in Malawi and for taking me out with the MOL team for lunch where everyone was so positive and supportive about our Arntz-Gray’s in Africa adventure.

My Kingdom for a connection

2008-01-31T04:56:00.000-08:00

Well, I just finished a half hour of typing updating everyone. Ironically as the title shows, I started off with a description of all the internet connection difficulties I have been having. Of course when I hit post the whole thing failed and deleted everything that I had written.
Now I have used up almost all of my lunch hour so will just have to give a quick synopsis.
We have found a place to live which has relieved a lot of stress and we are only two days overdue from when we were supposed to be out on our own. Thankfully WUSC has put us up for a few more days. Janna is looking at furniture as we type this, the cheapest option is to find guys on the side of the road who build it from whatever wood they have access to. We will need to get beds, chairs, tables, a stove, a fridge and anything else that we might need. At first that seemed daunting but after the difficulty getting the house it seems like less of a challenge. Our Regional Director who is based in Botswana is here in Lilongwe and she has mobilized some resources to help us out, as well as taking all the volunteers out for a nice dinner last night.
Minimum wage was raised today and worker groups are quite happy about the spike even though it didn’t get to the level they lobbied for. The new minimum wage is 129.30 Kwachas for urban workers and 95.45 Kwachas for rural workers. On top of this urban workers get a housing allowance of 12 Kwachas / day while rural workers get 10 Kwachas / day. To put this in perspective one Canadian dollar is trading at about 140 Kwachas and the place we found which was the cheapest one we could find that would fit our family plus Heather was 80 000 Kwacha a month. Houses sell for prices like, 7 million Kwacha. Despite these surprising figures it really is quite a hike as the previous minimum wage was 87.50 Kwachas plus a 9 Kwacha housing allowance / day for urban workers and 66.50 plus a 7 Kwacha housing allowance for rural workers. Also, unlike Canada the rural population is far larger than the urban with about 85% of the population falling under the rural worker category.
On Monday and Tuesday I took part in meetings at the World Bank on their proposal for the implementation of weather insurance for crops. It was an interesting two days, especially since the model they are looking at is so different than what we used in Ontario. They are going for a fully private model with no financial inputs from government. As well there will be no coverage for yield loss or income loss. It will be an indexed insurance tied solely to rainfall amounts measured at government rain stations. It the rain is too little or too much a payment will be triggered, but this is where the significant difference comes in. The only access to this insurance will be in a bundled package with private bank loans so the payments will go directly to the bank to come off of the amount owing. In this way it is similar to fire insurance that you might have bundled with your mortgage. The main idea behind it is to try to improve access to credit for farmers as only about 6% are eligible for credit at this point in time and if there are more guarantees for the bank they will be able to expand their lending clientele. The main stumbling block may be the fact that the farmer pays 100% of the fees, and that it may not be optional. It is projected that this might only cost about 4-5% of the loan but that can be a lot when income is so tight.
Anyways it was interesting to observe all the parties, farmers, banks and insurance representatives discuss the various ways to run the program and even little steps can add up to big change eventually.

Beginning the House Hunt

2008-01-20T06:03:00.000-08:00

Today will be our fourth day in Malawi. So far things have been good but we are still trying to wrap our heads around the city and getting ourselves set up. We are being put up for two weeks in a guest lodge which is like a house for rent where you get a room and then share the kitchen and common area with other guests. It is in Area 3 of the city which is how Lilongwe is organized, neighbourhoods are given numerical designations. The only trick is that as far as I can tell there is not any clear system for this numbering as Area 3 has Area 9 to one side and Area 37 on the opposite side. As well there is an Area 47 relatively close by but I don’t see most of the other numbers that lead up to 47 on our map. Either they don’t exist or they just don’t make it on our map, I’m not sure. We have these two weeks to find a school for Regan and we also must find a house. As far as schools go we have found one called Mt. Sinai which seems like it will be a good match. The hours of school here are quite different though as she will have to be there at 7:15 a.m. and then is done at 3:30 p.m. We still have to work out the logistics as the work day here goes from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. with a one hour lunch. Our first day of work is tomorrow but at first we are allowed to get organized as we have to be out of this guest house and into our own place within two weeks of arriving. We went looking at some houses for rent yesterday as unfortunately we have discovered you are on your own to find your own place which is difficult without transportation and without knowing which areas are acceptable. Thankfully one of the workers from the organization a woman who is also a volunteer is with was able to drive us around. We have been getting some advice that some areas of the city wouldn’t be suitable because of the amount of attention foreigners would attract could be a security risk. The problem is that the few areas we looked at yesterday that are considered good choices for foreign volunteers are quite expensive. As well due to the unique layout of the city we are not sure how to effectively get around without a car yet prices are also high in this area. A used car that is about 15 years old here starts at $5000, something a little out of the range of volunteers. Most foreigners here are getting paid salaries that put them in quite a good position with regard to Malawian costs. What is truly surprising is how expensive Lilongwe is considering it is considered to be one of the ten poorest nations on earth. It is much different than my experience in Brazil where I could get by on a few dollars a day. Gas prices here are more expensive than Canada and buying a new bicycle here still costs at least $125. My suspicion is that there are ways to live more cheaply but it will take a while to learn them. A Canadian couple that we visited yesterday so that we could get a sense of their house versus their monthly rent showed to us that it could be done as there rent was half the rent of the houses we saw and it was really nice. The house we saw were not the best, in fact some were a little depressing due to their poor state of repair. When we ask how to get the deals though we are told that it is hit and miss and takes having connections. That is all well and good, but with only two weeks to find a place we don’t have time to make connections. Janna and I are hoping that the organizations we will be starting with tomorrow might be able to help us. That is what WUSC has stated is how it works but we have also been told that the partner organizations don’t have the resources or time to help us. I guess we will see tomorrow.

In the land of Prester John

2008-01-20T05:55:00.000-08:00

Our short layover in Ethiopia was in the capital city, Addis Ababa, a city of about 3 million people. It was founded in by Emperor Menelik in 1887. This relatively young city belies the ancient history of Ethiopia which is unknown by many in the West. The line of emperors of Ethiopia claim direct descent from King Solomon of Old Testament fame, claiming that the Queen of Sheba mentioned in the Bible was from Ethiopia and that she bore a son through Solomon. This began an unbroken chain of emperors that only ended in a coup in the 1970’s when Haile Selassie was smothered in his sleep. An interesting aside is that the Ethiopians claim that they hold the Ark of the Covenant (yes, the one Indiana Jones was looking for) in one of their churches in Axum. An interesting book about this is called The Sign and The Seal by Graham Hancock. As well it is most likely Ethiopia that was the site of the fabled Christian African kingdom talked about in Europe since just after the fall of Rome. In fact when Portuguese sailors first sailed into the Indian Ocean part of their mandate from the King of Portugal was to find the Kingdom of Prester John and make an alliance with them. It is quite interesting that Ethiopia was a Christian island surrounded by both Islam and tribal religions cut off from the rest of the Christian world but it managed to survive. Anyways, exploring Ethiopia will have to wait for another trip as our layover was only for about an hour before we left for Malawi.

In the U.A.E.

2008-01-19T04:40:00.000-08:00

Well, we have made it to the Republic of Malawi. We flew from Toronto straight to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates (U.A.E.), which was approximately a twelve hour flight. The flight was one of the most relaxing we have taken before as the service was wonderful and the entertainment options were the best we had ever seen.
Dubai is an interesting city. It is not that old as far as cities in the Middle East go as it was founded as a fishing village in 1830, but it has truly grown from its humble roots. There is the remains of a fort built in 1787 that was built to protect the landward approaches to the town and has also served as a palace and a jail but it is now a museum. Apart from this fort there is not a lot of visible history in Dubai. It is more accurate to describe the city as a monument to shopping malls and I have to admit that there is not much to appeal to me. Everyone keeps asking us if we have been to the Mall of the Emirates which is the largest tourist attraction in Dubai but all we did in our layover was go to an area called Madinat Jumerah to eat on the advice of the tourist booth. I had some authentic Dubai food, which was basically chicken and rice. It was good, but not much different than chicken and rice as you would imagine it. The Dubai "shops" we were sent to was really just a mall disguised as an "old style" outdoor Arabic market, just one that has a Starbucks and sells really expensive Western clothing and is actually inside a climate controlled mall. This area was beside the famous Palm Island that was completely manmade and has a trunk that is all shopping and entertainment areas and the leaves are high priced housing. Dubai was interesting to see but for me the nine hours was probably enough time for me unless I came to spend a large amount of money.

Next we flew to Addis Ababa in Ethiopia, a country full of history. More on that soon.

Jules

Pre-Departure Shin-Dig

2008-01-19T04:38:00.000-08:00

Our pre-departure get together on January 12, 2008 was a wonderful energizer. It was so great to have so many friends and family come out to show their support for us and our upcoming adventure. I want to truly thank everyone who came out and I hope that you had close to the great time that we had. Everyone was very supportive and the cards, gifts and sentiments written in our book truly brought smiles to our faces. Thank you all for coming.
I need to thank Brian Yasvinski for helping us out by storing one of our king mattress box springs which we just couldn’t fit into our storage containers that we put our stuff into for the year. Packing them was akin to playing Tetris and we did quite well but we just couldn’t fit in the one of the two box springs. (Thanks Brian)
I also want to thank Janna’s parents, Chris and Lisa, for all their support including letting us stay with them for a week and driving us to the airport. (as well as storing the four bags of stuff we had to veto from our repacking due to size and weight constraints) I also want to thank Megan and Paul for their support and my parents for their generous support of our opportunity in Malawi.
Janna and I both feel very lucky to be able to take this opportunity to volunteer in Malawi and are grateful to our employers (and our managers who made it a reality) for the ability to take a leave of absence.
We will give an update as soon as we can once we find some internet access in Malawi, which might take a little bit while we try to get oriented.

Thanks again to everyone,
Jules

You can check out Janna's blog as well

2008-01-08T20:17:00.000-08:00

http://canadiansinmalawi.blogspot.com/

Countdown

2008-01-08T20:12:00.000-08:00

So for those that aren't aware, on January 14th, we are off to Malawi - we will be in the capital city, Lilongwe and Regan will go to school there. Janna and I are both WUSC volunteers and we are being sponsored to go over through a program called Uniterra.The point of Uniterra is to sponsor skilled volunteers to go overseas and use their skills with various local organizations. We will both be working with different organizations on the ground there - I will be a lobbying and policy analyst with the Farmer's Union of Malawi, a national organization representing the different commodity groups working to improve access to markets and stabilize the industry (agriculture is the primary (and pretty much only)) industry in Malawi. Janna will be working with an agriculture and rural development organization called Cadecom as a Monitoring and Evaluation Specialist. Monitoring and Evaluation in developing countries is a bit controversial (debate over appropriate indicators etc.) so she is sure to have an interesting time.We would happily welcome visitors while we are there - the country sounds very diverse and we can't wait to get out exploring on weekends! We each get 4 weeks of vacation, and are planning to add on a few weeks of travel after our contracts are done as well.

The Beginning

2007-12-18T04:26:00.000-08:00

Well, in the interest of chronicling our upcoming year in the Republic of Malawi, Janna and I are starting blogs as they are an easy way to keep everyone up to date. Janna's blog can be found by looking for Canadians in Malawi. Janna and I will both be posted in Lilongwe, the capital of Malawi. Each of us will be working for different organizations, but each with an agricultural focus. Regan will be going to school for the year with us in Malawi. More on Malawi preparations later.