Update...

 

Feeding Programme's

 

Last week I travelled up north to Mzuzu for a quick stop to see the farm up there and go and visit Wakisa who runs the feeding programme up there. Disturbingly, there seemed to be more men being fed than small children but it's very difficult to tow a hard line with things like feeding programmes as it's virtually impossible to judge who is hungry and who is not, especially over a bowl of cheap and not very delicious porridge... I've been buzzing with ideas of how to improve the feeding programmes, and I am hoping that this will remain a priority on my agenda of things to do whilst here...

 

Firstly we want to get the porridge that is provided to be made on the farms (currently bought from a shop but much cheaper to grow the maize on site and make up into the likuni phala aka porridge). Secondly it would be good to scrap the notion of a 'feeding programme' and instead replace it with daily activities which provide a meal at the end of said activitiy. This stops the programme's from being a free handout so blatently. So for example, we will look at setting up a pilot programme on one of the farms where we provide basic schooling for children (english learning, songs and so on) each morning from 8-11 and provide a bowl of porridge at the same time. We would also be able to work with the women who come for feeding (mostly breast feeding or pregnant women) and work through issues like malaria, HIV/AIDS, nutrition and so on whilst at the same time providing a meal. at the weekends, we could just run with sports activities with the children (many more children attend the feeding program at the weekend because they're not at school).

 

Disability clinics

 

Other developments this last week have been just as exciting. I have a friend here, called Evelyne, who is a Dutch physio. She works monday to friday at the clinic in Lilongwe and on Saturdays she travels by local bus for 3 hours to get to a remote village (near one of our farms) where she has now set up her own NGO, working with children and adults who have disabilities. She is wonderful and inspires me with her hard work and dedication... she helps encourage young mums how to encourage their children to sit up properly, to learn how to eat from a bowl with cutlery and so on. She has adapted wheelchairs for severely disabled children who are upsettingly tiny, by using a normal wheelchair and wedging in big thick chunks of foam with gaffa tape. (This is how we do things in Malawi....). We've been so interested in the work Evelyne is doing and I think we're now finally in a position to extend her work to the farm close by. Evelyne has agreed to look at setting up work based on the farm, for disabled children and adults surrounding the Mchaisi estate (which is towards the Zambian border in the west of Malawi). It will involve some site visits from myself and meetings with different folk but it sounds promising... Now that she has registered as an NGO, and has got some funding in, it's a lot more feasible to extend her work compared to the last time I visited her at Chimteka when it was just her on her own, desperate for resources and funding! it's great to see such an awesome idea succeed and start to do well. Disability is a big problem in Malawi, largely because of the social stigma it carries. If a child is seriously sick with cerebral malaria for example, they will often be discharged from hospital not because they're back to full health but because they're improving and the doctor needs the bed for someone else. There are no out patient facilities, no aftercare available and so the child will normally be left for a year before someone realises that something is wrong and by that point, people like Evelyne have to really backpedal to catch up with the damage done. It would be really awesome to get to a stage where we can have someone like Evelyne running disability clinics once a week on ALL the farms. That would really be amazing.

 

And in other news....

 

I have been lucky enough to visit good friends Keith and Christeen, a couple of times, who are missionaries up near the Mozambique border. They are such good friends to me and despite being a good 3/4 hours away (hmmm used to take 5 hours... think i've been driving a bit too fast!) they will always be my first port of call in a crisis! i'm living with a lovely family here in Lilongwe, and they're great which is a huge blessing as living so far away from home - especially on your own - can be a bit of a daunting prospect at times. But there's something in Keith and Christeen that is even more special, perhaps knowing them for several years helps in that! But it's great to have 'family' here who are totally unrelated to the work i'm doing and who are so willing to welcome me into their home. I hope to spend Easter with them, which is only a few weeks away! Time is flying fast.

 

I was sick yesterday, and felt like death. However I am grateful to have lasted this long without getting sick! Thankfully it was a flash bug as i'm feeling better today, and I don't have a fever, so with any luck i've held off Malaria for another day....!

 

Prayer Requests

 

Prayer needs at the moment are really for the vehicle situation to be resolved soon, so that I can actually leave the office and do field work. Major prayer is needed over all the work i'm doing here, and why i'm doing it. We're changing a lot of things, and the charity Africa Link is going to be going through some major transformations. We really need prayer for that, that we're going with this in the right direction and that we're listening to what people are telling us rather than doing what we think is right.

 

Living as an expat

It's a tough life, picture this: ice cold gin and tonic, white sandy beaches, hot sun and a warm lake to swim in. The peace and serenity of Lake Malawi brings us all a lot of happiness from an often frustrating and utterly bizarre life living in one of Africa's big cities. Personally, i'm not cut out for the expat vibe that buzzes around this place; it's a melting pot for diplomats, NGO and government workers with way too much money and an arrogance that goes beyond belief! There's your die hard old Tobacco biddies, earning upwards of 250K a year just to work the 6 month tobacco season in Malawi, and then there's the general do-gooders (like myself) who are all still naive enough to believe they can make a difference in an otherwise poor and underdeveloped region.

I went to a party with a dutch physio friend of mine recently. She's the kind of person who works long days, and parties long into the night - she knows everyone and is generally a great person to be around. So there was a house party that she had heard of and we tagged along. Turned out to be the house party of a top ranking US embassy worker, who lived in the most palatial mansion I have ever seen. There was a huge satellite dish (approx 20 feet tall and 8 feet wide) just in the corner of the garden... veuve clicquot bottles were used as candlesticks and there were trays and trays of catering. not the kind of party we had expected, and full of some rather unsavoury characters I must say... Met some interesting people though, and did the whole networking thing. It did just make me laugh though; the whole thing was a bit surreal. Here's a country where my strongest and fondest memories are of sitting in the dust in my chitenge talking with rural women in remote villages far away from the NGO tarmac track (despite having fleets of brand new twin cab pickup Hilux's, many NGOs are unwilling to stray too far from the tarmac which somewhat limits the scope of their work in a country that is predominantly rural and remote). So the comfortable life in Lilongwe, with money and champagne bottles etc was all new for me... nothing particularly wrong with that I suppose, I just know that I would rather spend my time here honestly (there's the dogooder in me), without flashing money around and then be able to go home and enjoy something a little nicer than VC with my family in England!

so it's an interesting time to be here, and working for a company rather than a charity per se provides a completely different insight into the work ethic found here, and the attitudes of people who are living here for business rather than to change the world... I'm almost certain we could drink NGOs under the table!

In other news, I have settled in well and I am living with a great family. The house is in a great part of town which is quiet and feels relatively secure. Ive spent time in Mangochi with old friends as well as a trip up north to Mzuzu to visit one of our farms - KTW - and to spend time monitoring and evaluating the feeding programme that has been left to run itself for almost a year... Tomorrow I am supposed to be doing another farm visit in Mangochi, reviewing the adult literacy staff and circles on another of the farm's followed by a weekend with close friends up near the Mozambique border. However, I am not so sure of these plans! Wherever I go, vehicles always seem to trouble me... when I was here in 2009 I made do with a very old Toyota corolla and managed to negotiate roads that are really only meant for higher clearence, four wheel drive vehicles. It was not without its challenges, particularly being a young female driving alone. It's less than ideal to break down or have problems when you're young and alone. I was overly optimistic about this new job, given that part of the agreement was a suitable vehicle to use. I've been here a few weeks already, and still no vehicle. I made do with hitching lifts for a wee while, but ive now been given a VERY old corrola to do a 5 hour journey tomorrow then another 5 hours on sunday....

....last night it broke down in the drive....

suffice to say Im not having any of this! Have sweet talked our logistics guy, and he laughed out loud when he heard that our boss had instructed me to do the journey in that car.... showing its obvious unsuitability!! with any luck I'll have something else lined up later on today... but I am hoping that soon these vehicle frustrations will get resolved. The last thing I want to be, is one of these fussy Europeans demanding brand new big cars! But there is a balance to be had, and I am physically unable to do work in the field unless I have a suitable vehicle to drive from A to B. I certainly did not sign up to work in an office for 6 months... I did that in London, with 4 times the salary.

Mzungus have a tough reputation in Africa, and it's a difficult task to balance the realities of working in this environment, and sticking to good old common sense and reality. All this time I have spent in Africa and I still havn't worked it out!

My chichewa is improving slowly, and I have even managed to remember one or two phrases of Chiyao. It's a difficult language to understand but once you grasp a few phrases you're well on your way! So until next time...

...Asigale chenene... (stay well)

It's not all peaches and roses in Africa....

Egypt has been at the forefront of international media since January 25th, when thousands of protesters took to Tahrir Square in a peaceful bid to remove the regime and have democractic change and reform in the country.

Tony Blair, amongst many other high profile diplomats and political bigwigs, spoke of the change taking place in Egypt and the positive change happening throughout Northern Africa and the Middle East with a new drive to see the 'Liberal Peace' extended through the region. Little do people know though, that in a small landlocked country in southern Africa (just a hop, skip and a step away from Egypt), there is a country whose citizens have tried protesting peacefully in their thousands . However, instead of meeting military officials encouraging of peaceful protests (as has been the case in Egypt) these protesters have been met with heavily armed police ordered to shoot or kill anyone protesting unlawfully. The protests have been to do with fuel shortages and unfair new laws - for example a new law that criminalises anyone caught farting in public - and the quashing of public opinion does nothing to advertise this country's renewed move to democracy, openness and a move away from corruption and oppression.

It is certainly a shame that whilst protests and violence are continuing in Libya and elsewhere, little attention is drawn to the plight of a small, unknown country where the rule of law is not upheld and protesters are unable to exercise their own freedom of speech.