Kidnapped in Nyimba

I travelled to Zambia last month to attend a workshop on Local Learning and Value Chains, visit the VSO Zambia Office, the Dairy Association of Zambia and write a case study in a little village called Nyimba 450km outside of Lusaka. It’s not a very big place and I think people were pretty excited to have someone new to talk to.  On the first day we travelled to a little chiefdom to monitor one of the Nyimba District Farmer Association projects and the chief himself said “who are we to receive such a visitor’. The only thing that made me special in that situation was that I am a foreigner. Don’t believe the hype, I’m actually nobody.

When I found out that Fridays were half days at the association I decided to bring all my bags to the office so that I could go straight to the bus depot and get to Lusaka by dinner because I was damn excited to see all my friends after a year’s hiatus. My colleagues were not pleased with the sight of me with all of my bags and despite only knowing me for two days they shamelessly guilt tripped me about wanting to leave the entire morning and played the song One More Night. Eventually they convinced me to stay for lunch by saying that there were buses running from Chipata until 17:00.

While we waited for lunch to be prepared I had to go around the room posing for photos as if I was every guy’s girlfriend and after lunch they went through the motions driving me to the bus depot and waited around for a bit despite the fact they had knowingly lied to me about the bus which stops running at noon! So I stayed for one more night in Nyimba. We went out dancing and I had to hide half of the beers people bought for me in my purse so I would be capable of catching the 6am bus. Zambians are my fav!

Malawi Council for the Handicapped (MACOHA)

As a part of my Knowledge Management role with VSO Malawi, I travelled to the south of the country to visit Secured Livelihoods Volunteer, Dinali De Zoysa based in the MACOHA Bangwe Factory which offers employment and community rehabilitation for people with disabilities. As a love-child of the disability rights movement in Canada, I felt at home the moment I stepped through the gates of MACOHA`s weaving, tailoring, screen printing, tie and dye- Textile Factory in Bangwe, Malawi. I was raised by a community of quadriplegics, ‘thalidomide babies’, people with Tarettes, mental health issues, learning disabilities, chronic illnesses…( you get the point) and in all the places I have been in the world I have always found a home away from home in the local disability community.

Dinali has been working with the factory’s production unit to reduce wastage, increase efficiency, access markets and become financially sustainable, as the participants are being currently being paid with government funds. The factory has been selling their garments in outlets on a consignment basis and producing promotional items for companies. Roughly 75 people with disabilities are employed here presently.

Dinali is a friendly, outgoing long term volunteer warming a cold cement office in the 1970`s era building that houses MACHOA. Her offices is off the screen printing department dominated by Deaf people, where I was happy to get a chance to brush up/show off the sign language skills learned in Zambia. I loved the translation of the sign names: Cheer, Cutting Grass, Crying and Sweeping all to do with habits and occupations. I could have spent the rest of the day practicing my sign language and filling in the gaps with theatrics but there was a Partnership Development Process meeting to attend with my bosses I had travelled down from the capital city with.

Past the store front in the first building and up the halls we were greeted by many smiling faces. One of the issues Dinali faces in improving production and developing the factory to be a competative market enterprise is that people seem to be too comfortable here.  Our tour guides brought us onto the weaving room where we were met by blaring music and many blind people in shades. We (the Secured Livelihoods Team) listened to the director’s facts and stats and subtly guided the passers by from bumping into the doorframes since we were taking up so much room and distorting the staff’s orientation with their workspace.  

The Bangwe Factory manufactures a wide selection of products from clothing, hand bags, hats, mats, etc. and supports the local economy by using locally produced materials whenever possible. The factory is also commissioned to screen print logos on uniforms and craft visions inspired by an up and coming fashion designer. Personally, I fell in love with vibrant hammock but there is something for everyone.

My 6’1’’, Bearded, Pathfinder Pops

My Grandparents, met in the Kenya Regiment during the Mau Mau Uprising in the 1950’s. They had my father in Eloret, Kenya and commenced a series of attempts to make a life for themselves at various sites through Northern and Southern Rhodesia and eventually back to South Africa where they raised their family of 5 children. They were not a wealthy family, to say the least, so the family worked side by side with the African farm labourers and became fluent in local languages. Living in the wrath of his rigid Afrikaans father my dad said that he loved boarding school because it was the only time he could rest and he dreaded school holidays. At 18, he was conscripted to the Equestrian Division of the military and god knows what shit was endured there. I only receive short cryptic versions and there are few fading black & white photos I have to refer to.

 In the eighties, my dad went to work at the South African Tourist Board Office in soft, sterile, politically correct Toronto. This is when he met the younger version of my gorgeous, free-spirited mother and so they lived between the US, Canada and South Africa for the next 9 years, dragging their shaggy New York City mutt over oceans and continents with them.  After which he returned to SA to live and has been operating tourism companies introducing wild Africa, its colourful cultures, languages and absurd circumstances that only the African continent can concoct to visitors from around the world ever since.

When I visit my dad we spend the majority of our time driving in a 1980’s Land Rover (although now days he has upgraded to a 1990 something) over great distances, perilous rock formations and sorry excuses for bridges in the shadows of Laurens Van der Post. We would last for days without refuelling the double gas tank or replenishing our water reserves below the body of the vehicle. My dad says that animals see tents as solid formations and as long as I zip it up tightly a lion would never drag me out, so I peacefully dozed to the symphony of hippos, lions, hyenas and zebras.

I celebrated one New Year’s Eve in Swaziland with my brother and my dad, squatting in the grass with a tin cup of white wine listening to the grinding teeth of a grazing bull elephant 10 feet from my toes. When the wind shifted behind us, the elephant smelt our presence it began to charge, I saw my brother’s true colours as we bolted and he pushed me aside to get a head start. The visit continued to be coloured by vibrant animal personalities including Elma the Lonely Ostrich who stalked us for 3 days making us fall for her (actually a he) persistent pursuit despite her hideous ‘Muppet from hell’ exterior, and Swazi the kitten we found and ended up smuggling over the border, who turned out to be half African Wild Cat and still lives with my little sister.

 Anyway, if you would like a similar, yet unpredictably distinct experience you should check out his website.


http://www.dundiditafrica.co.za/

A Dog Named Dog

Dog and his dog, Puppy.

I inherited these dogs with open sores on their ears that wouldn't heal in the damp of the rainy season and the constant biting from the flies. Many dogs’ ears here look like this here. But I tackle them to the ground everyday to put ointment on them and they are looking much better. I am so madly in love with Dog that if he weren’t such a filthly beast I would have him in my bed.

Clucky:

When a woman is feeling broody. This means that she is starting to see babies, and all that having one entails, in a much more positive light. She may start mentioning things like her ‘biological clock’ and maybe even do something as drastic as adopting hoards of children and starting a Branglina Style- Rainbow Family to satisfy her maternal urges.


Clucky like a mother hen. 

A Coming of Age Story

In 1997, my mom started fundraising to have a little boy named Roman come to Canada from a Belarusian orphanage, in order to have break from the contaminated atmosphere caused by the Chernobyl disaster (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster)  He was 7¾ years old, 3 days younger then my baby brother, when he first arrived; skinny, yellow skin, covered in warts and a pungent smell trailing him throughout the house. I swear he was radioactive. He showed up with a carton of Marlboro cigarettes and in the 35 degree heat, he would suck back a whole cigarette in 2 minutes blowing O’s. Only those of you who have previously smoked will know how painfully disgusting that is. Roman had elf like features with small eyes placed close to his pixy nose which was dwarfed by his gigantic ears, surely signs of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. At first his face was flat affect, I am assuming from neglect. How can you learn expressions, if an adult isn’t constantly cooing in your face as an infant? Due to that neglect, he would suck his thumb and violently rock himself to bed at night.

 At 7 he was a harden criminal, who had to fight for clothes and food his whole life in that freezing cold orphanage. I don’t know what kind of education he received there, but within a day of arriving he could count to three in English and say ‘Mommie eat Tampax’. Roman quickly became part of the family calling our mother mommie and our step father Steve. Why would he call him dad if the other kids weren’t? For 6 years he would return to our home. My mom fundraised for the air tickets and had dentist and doctors donate their services. She navigated through the gruelling bureaucratic paper work to try to adopt him and just when we thought we had him the dictator put a stop to all international adoptions unless the child was disabled, because so many people were trying to escape the oppression. 2003 was the last year we saw him. He calls my mother all the time and she sends food, clothes and money and sometimes wonders if he is worse off he knows about how good life is here.

Now, I am living my dream working internationally, hard pressed to find anything that stresses me out. My brother, Jake is nearly 23 living like a hippy out of a van with his girlfriend in Australia and working for a famous artist. As for Roman, he was married and had a baby girl by the age of 19, was drafted into the Belarusian army and shortly after was arrested for ‘fighting’. He has spent the last 2 years in a 3^rd world jail. He is losing his English so it is difficult to know what really happened but I have read about the horrific acts committed in the army initiation practices, perhaps he fought back.

This is a portrait of me that he drew from his jail cell.

Starving in the Land of Plently

Malawi has over 600 indigenous foods rich with nutrients that can be harvested throughout the year. In fact, Hunger Season should be the most fruitful time of year in Malawi. However, nsima is the staple food here and most people focus their efforts on growing maize, which was originally imported from America, to be pounded into Millie Meal for nsima. It was introduced in the 1800’s and local farmers preferred the plant because it is a hardy and maize has its own cover protecting it from pests. Malawians have eaten nsima throughout history and years ago it was made of millet, which actually has more calories per acre than maize, survives fires and does not require fertilizer. In modern Malawi, white nsima is preferred, as white bread is in America. Unfortunately, the finer, whiter second grind (ufa woyela) is preferred to the more nutritious first grind (mgaiwa) for making nisma.

My new passion is learning about permaculture(a theory of ecological design which seeks to develop sustainable human settlements and agricultural systems, by attempting to model them on natural ecosystems). The idea behind Permaculture is to let nature grow the way it wants. If you clear a plot of land and let the soil sit without planting anything it will still begin to grow because nature wants to always go back to its original state. Therefore gardens should not take too much work to continuously produce. Unlike maize which can only be harvested once a year and requires hard labour to till the land, plant and harvest every year which causes moisture and nutrients to escape resulting in a need to water and buy fertilizer.

These are all the foods produced throughout the year on Never Ending Food Farm's 2 acre plot, just outside Lilongwe. http://www.neverendingfood.org/

This is Kristof from Never Ending Food Farm with is maize towering over him. He has inter planted other plant varieties and his maize is twice as tall as the surrounding farmer’s fields and he is yielding more produce per acre.

 

Permaculture also promotes smart design such as using stacking techniques and garden keyholes.

Okay! I am going home to play in my garden now.

Riots in Area 6

Atupele Muluzi, a presidential aspirant of Malawi's opposition United Democratic Front (UDF) was arrested on Friday and put into the prison near my house. I was sent home early from work  as people were rioting outside the prison. By the time I got home Muluzi had been sent to the hospital and the only riots were the neighborhood kids happy to see me come home early because they knew they were coming over for art class.

Something is Brewing in Malawi

The Public Affairs Committee (PAC) held a press conference and passed a resolution on Thursday, March 15^th that called for the resignation of the State President within 60 days or a referendum within 90 days to seek a new mandate from Malawian voters or risk a mass civil protest. Obviously, this may have security implications. Currently the VSO safe houses in Malawi are being stalked with supplies in case the situation escalates. 

Despite my interest in politics, I do not have an opinion on the situation and being a newcomer to the country I can only go by newspaper articles and hearsay, and I have rarely heard anyone talk politics around me. My roommate says she has heard political songs played in the minibuses and when this happens it means that something is quietly simmering beneath everyday political conversation.

Last year, on July 20^th the Malawi was engulfed in protests and riots against the ruling party, which left several people dead and many others injured. In addition, there was widespread destruction of property across the country's major cities. I am not at liberty to inform you about what may cause such hostility, nor am I an expert on Malawian politics, but if you are interested African newspapers are available online.

Lilongwe's Underbelly

                                                           Our version of monkey bars.

 

I bribe children to love me with paint, crayons and balloons and it works!

One of the tricycles that people with disabilities use.

These bridges are 10 cent shortcuts through the market. When I crossed, the kids playing in the water below danced and chanted ‘Muzungu,’ which means white person.

Apparently, every once and a while they open up the barrages unannounced and the water floods the area, rushing through and breaking the bridges, so they are constantly having to be rebuilt.

The market.

Cheeks, my BrotherFromAnotherMother, D-Bear and I confessing our sins at the Vatican in Biwi.

Preparing the host.

I tease him and call him my BrotherFromAnotherMother because he has a long muzungu nose like mine. See?

Tanzanians Do Not Steal

Over dinner at Joyus’ house, we had a discussion about doing business in TanZANia. (That’s how it’s pronounced).  Joyus is considering getting into business and I have told you before D-Bear moves with cell phones to trade for merchandise. D-Bear told us that Tanzanians will trust you with millions of Kwacha to do business on loan because everyone knows that you are not to mess with a Tanzanian. Many are gifted in witchcraft and they put curses on thieves. If you are greedy, they might make you get sick at the sight of money for the rest of your life, or if you steal a fridge, it might get stuck to your back and you will never be able to put it down, for example. That’s why when people do steal in Tanzania and if they do, the spoils are often returned.

If you want to be rich and powerful or if you want someone to fall madly in love with you, you may contract someone to do witchcraft on your behalf. But don’t be surprised if you are asked to collect people’s private parts or the limbs of an albino person for the brew (probably for you to eat!). Haunting for human parts is a disturbing but not uncommon fact of life here, which results in death and disability. The offenders are seldom brought to justice as they are often connected to the rich and powerful. There are some more ‘sophisticated’ criminal organizations who do not see the need to murder in order to harvest human parts and prefer to work with the morgues.

Interesting fact: In Zambia, it was difficult to mainstream commercial hair salons because people were fearful someone would collect their hair and put a curse on them. So take a lesson from me, when you are in Africa always flush the hair that you shave or cut down the toilet, or that may be the end of you!

Hit n’ Runs Continued

Yesterday after work I asked my Malawian friend, Cheeks, about stopping after you hit someone with your car, he said “NEVER! You drive straight to the police station.” But he gave a different reason than the risk of being beaten by an angry mob. He says that people will put dead bodies on the road (I think mostly in the night) so you think that you have hit them and then when you get out of the car conspirers jack you.

It reminds me of South Africa, where they call rocks ‘skeleton keys’ because they are used to smash windows for robbers to get in. But also people will throw rocks at your car windows to get you to stop.   

All this said, in my entire month in Malawi I have never felt threatened.

Flying to Malawi?

Following Kenya Airways and Ethiopian Airlines decision to cut flights from Malawi and to cease selling tickets in Malawi a new airline will be starting next month.
They will only have flights to Nairobi to begin with but later in the year will be expanding to Addis Ababa.
Tickets will be available to buy in Kwacha.
FAA says they will be trying to stop the planes as they are unsure about their airworthiness.
SANTACO said that they will not be beaten on price.
A spacious Business Class is available on the upper deck.
Their is no baggage fee for the first 10 bags. No baggage weight limit.
No fee to change flights to another date or time.
Just show up and the kids and livestock fly free. Half price fares on Tuesdays.
Complimentary meals of Nsima and beans will be available.
Carlsberg Green is complimentary. Bring your own bottles if you want Malawi Gin.
Parachutes are optional.

Black Market Petrol & Hit n’ Runs

Martyrs’ Day long weekend, we drove up to Nkhata Bay to the widest part of Lake Malawi and stayed at Mayoka Village. You should definitely stay there if you find your way to that part of the world.  They have sweet little cabinas, a bar and clean toilets all connected by a maze of stone stairways planted on a hill on the water. Good food, good music, free boating and snorkelling for $10 a night.  Late at night we would stumble through the bush to some local village bars. Authentic village dance clubs with enclosed dirt dance floors and liquor that comes out in the plastic packets that shampoo samples come in. My fav.  My Malawian friends say that until they were 12-13 years old they would have to stay inside and mourn the whole Martyrs’ Day weekend to respect those who died during the independence struggle. Back then, if you were caught dancing or playing soccer you would go to jail for an entire year. Luckily times have changed.

As I have mentioned a million times before there is a petrol crisis in Malawi. Often people are forced to find connections on the black market where petrol is often diluted and sold for 2-3 times the regular market price. At 700 kwacha ($4.12) a litre, we barely made it to Nkhata Bay on a tank of gas. By the time we got home we had spent MK 70,000 ($411) for roughly 750km. But people here in Lilongwe were saying that was cheap because it is being sold for KM1000/litre ($5.88) here. Needless to say, we were short on cash on the way back and with an expired registration we were pretty nervous to be ‘fined’. We had every digit crossed, with smiles ear to ear trying to charm police with our limited Chichewa at every check point. Only once we had a talking to for having these huge rubber balls we bought when we were driving through a rubber tree forest. ‘Don’t you know this rubber is stolen?’ Actually, no, we didn’t. We kept asking ‘what we could do?’ and the police would respond ‘it’s up to you....’ Thankfully, he just let us go because we only had about MK200 combined.

I was terrified speeding through the narrow, hilly roads with tall grass curtains on either side that only allowed visibility seconds before you passed a person or animal. Stupidly, I had told our friend driving about the rules of the road in Zambia, where there are not many rules and so few police and police vehicles that any existing laws could not be enforced. Needless to say, there is an enormity of unnecessary loss of life and limb. While I was in Zambia a friend had a car accident and I was shocked to see the left side of his handsome face covered in deep scars from chin to eyebrow. Later, I found out that the damage wasn’t due to the accident itself but afflicted by a mob of people who beat him up after hitting someone with his car. Street justice. We know the person was not immediately killed because people generally torch the car in those instances. This is such a common issue that the Peace Corp policy is to first drive to a police station before offering help to the person you hit, despite the limited number of ambulances, hospitals and doctors in the country. I say I stupidly told my friend, because I feel like he is going to adopt this as his personal policy and I completely disagree.

Hunger Season

In a Monday morning meeting security briefing my colleagues talked about how the number of break-ins and thief increase during ‘hunger season’, which is a 4 month long season that real people have to endure almost every year. In Ottawa this winter, I was talking to a guy about poverty and he wasn’t concerned about it because ‘people who live in poverty are so happy.’ I tried to point out to him that nobody wants to live in poverty. Poor people have to wake up earlier and work harder everyday just to survive and their health and quality of life is often nowhere near what we are use to in the west, who enjoy fancy things like plumbing, glass or screened windows to keep the bugs out, textbooks in schools, crayons... I hope you can agree with me when I say that guy is an idiot.

First Malawian Friend

I have made my first Malawian friend who I will call D-Bear in order to respect his privacy. We met at Nzazi’s bar and we have hung out a few times since then.  He calls about 5 times a day mostly when he is waiting in line for petrol since there is a serious fuel shortage. Yesterday, he told me he thought I would be pompous because I am white but actually he thinks that I am quite nice. I have been asking him a million questions. How old are you? Are you married? Don’t Malawians get married much younger? Do they think you are a weirdo? And so on. I feel like he is a snapshot of Malawian culture.

D-Bear is my age (28), says he is not married; he lives with two nieces and two nephews. Three of the children are his late sister’s and one is his brother’s. The mother works in Mzuzu and comes to visit from time-to-time. We talk of mixed and increasingly complex family structures in the west but my experience of African families is that they are much more complicated. Life is hard here and many children are orphaned due to the death of their parents and/or other family members who were caring for them. With a population of 15 million there are 600,000 orphaned from HIV/AIDS alone and abject poverty. You will find that most households are mini orphanages within themselves.  A popular expression here is  “Mwana wa mzako ngwako yemwe ukachenjera manja udya naye ”which means “our friend’s child is your own”.

D-Bear works one month on and one month off because he is training to be an accountant and it sounds like he owns a small electronics shop and that is where he works. There is a shortage of foreign exchange in Malawi so when he drives to Tanzania for merchandise he will bring a couple thousand basic cell phones to use as currency. In university, I read that when the Soviet Union was collapsing people didn’t trust that the money would be worth anything. Consequently, people began to use cigarettes as currency instead because whether you smoked or not they did have a value. Before I came to Malawi my friends told me to bring as much US money as possible to exchange because the official rate is 164 Malawi

Kwacha for 1 dollar, but it is sold for 270 on the black market and the IMF is suggesting that it is lowered even further to 300. Good business plan but it takes money to make money and I have taken a vow of poverty.

Malawi Milk Producers Association (MMPA)

I am working with the MMPA, which is an umbrella group of 3 milk producer associations in Malawi. We have been advocating to ammend the milk act in Malawi which was written when there were 5 large state run dairies and now they just protect a oligopoly of privately owned dairies. However, the majority of people cannot afford that processed milk consuming an average of about 6 litres a year, despite the surplus of milk being produced in some areas of Malawi. This surplus is often wasted because 80% of the population cannot afford to shop in the ‘formal sector’ at super markets and the ‘middle class’ in Malawi is not growing. If we change the policies that protect these monopolies and allow the informal sector to thrive more small holder dairy farmers will have access to emerging markets in the poorer areas. Producing milk that is affordable to the poor and promoting a culture that drinks milk would have significant impacts on a country that suffers food insecurity and malnutrition. For example, 53% of children have stunted growth due to malnutrition and Malawi continues to lose productive power in the labour force as the 12% with HIV/AIDS, including people taking ARV’s require more energy in order to have the strength to work.

Counter arguments are about health and safety; however, there are many factors that complement the informal market including the fact that Malawi has a culture of boiling milk even when it is pasteurized and boiling just as if not more effective at killing disease than pasteurization does. The pasteurized milk is collected from the small holder farmers that would be producing for informal sector so you can’t complain about the source and one is more likely to give a cow TB than to contract it through milk.

I’ll give you more information as it develops.

Stupid things I have said…

Instead of saying ‘Khalani pa mpando’ - please sit on a chair, I say ‘Khalani pa Mphatso’ - please sit on Mphatso, which is my boss’ name.

Then I went around the office thinking I was inviting them to my house warming party on Saturday, I went around inviting them to join my political party. Opps!

Stop Stunting

I am pretty used to being the 6 foot baby giraffe towering over everyone, but I do find many Malawians to be particularly short.  I also started noticing public health posters to “stop stunting” all over town. I read that 53% of children have stunted growth due to malnutrition. The main meal here is “nshima” which is corn with all the nutrients smashed out of it and turned into “Miele Meal”, which is then mixed with boiling water and ends up looking a lot like mashed potatoes. At lunch they give you huge portions with a little bit of relish (vegetables), and maybe some local chicken or fish. You use your hands to roll it into a little ball and dip it into the relish. Not very healthy. A lot of the work we do at the VSO Malawi office has cross cutting themes that promote better nutrition and diversifying diets which are vital components of improving food security, securing livelihoods in agriculture, increasing educational levels and improving the quality of life for people living with HIV/AIDS.

Trampy Guard

I live in a beautiful compound surrounded with a high fence wall with electric wires at the very top. There are 3 semi-detached 2 bedroom flats and I live in the middle one between a Kenyan woman and a British woman both around my age. There is a lush garden all around and then another small building where the man who was hired by the landlord to keep up the property.  His name is Noel and he has a wife and two small boys that live with him. Noel is he best! For example, our friend left his bike here with a flat tire and in the morning Noel had already fixed the tire. He always has a giant smile and he is very patient with me when I am practicing my Chichewa. I give his wife 2000 kwacha ($12) a month to clean my house on Wednesdays and do my laundry.

My work gives me 9000 kwacha ($53) a month to hire a night guard. He works 6 nights a week and comes at sun down around 6pm and leaves around 5 in the morning. One of us 3 girls will leave our porch light on and he sets up this 2.5 foot high and 4 feet long makeshift curtain and he sits on the floor behind it with a flimsy school workbook. I think he is in his fifties and he looks like what a homeless person would look like at home in Canada, This is why the British neighbour calls

him “Trampy Guard’,  I know nothing about his life but I feel horrible about what I see of it. Today at 8pm I remembered to check if anyone had turned on the light for him and he was sitting on the step in the dark because my bike was up against the wall that he sits against. He just sat there because he can’t speak English and thought he couldn’t ask me to move it. I have such guilt about sitting here in my comfy bed, under a mosquito net with my laptop while he sits out there. I try to make myself feel better by saying at least it is an income but it is a shitty income and a shitty job. Just because it may be better than what others have here doesn’t make it good.

Trouser Attacks

Just when I accepted the contract (on Tuesday, January 17th ) a shockwave struck Malawi. Youth masquerading as vendors went on a rampage – They stopped, beat up, and stripped women they found wearing mini-skirts, trousers or leggings in Lilongwe, Mzuzu, and Blantyre for “provocative and untraditional attire.” (Women won the right to wear pants in 1994) In the aftermath, vendors have proclaimed their innocence in the attacks and blamed unemployed, youthful mobs lurking the city streets.

In an address to the nation, Malawi's president, Bingu wa Mutharika, ordered the police to arrest those who attack women: "I will not allow anyone to wake up and go on the streets and start undressing women and girls wearing trousers, because that is illegal," Mutharika told state radio. "Every woman and girl has the right to dress the way they wish."

In response to the attacks, men, women, and politicians joined forces to hold a demonstration against such violence. Many wore trousers and mini-skirts in defiance of this most recent display of gender bias. Others carried placards and wore T-shirts that denounced the harassment of women.            

To be safe I happened to pack a lot of dresses! 

It also takes some time to acclimatize to the heat when have been living in 20 below weather for months,  hence why I cannot stand to wear anything other than an my airy dress. On the 2^nd week of work, there was a rumour going around that I hadn’t dared bring pants to Malawi for fear of being attacked. No one failed to comment the next day when I wore slacks.

What brings me to Malawi you ask?

 

Originally, I was recruited by Cuso International to work as a Knowledge Management Advisor for their Making Markets Work for the Poor (MMW4P) initiative funded by Accenture in Nigeria.  I was stoked to be moving to the “Hollywood of Africa’, but  in reaction to the Christmas Bombings, petrol riots and escalating violence throughout the country, I ended up backing out at the last minute.

Luckily, there were 5 of Knowledge Management positions available including positions in Tanzania, Cambodia, Guyana and Malawi. I was fortunate enough to be posted to Malawi instead. You never know where you will end up until your soles have touched the soil of that place. For instance, last year I applied for a job with Mines Action Canada (MAC) in Cambodia, I thought for sure I had it and then they called me saying was not selected for the Cambodia position but would I want to go to Zambia? I was so disappointed and I didn’t even want to go because I thought I knew all about southern Africa already because my father lives in South Africa and has brought me on many tours. But I ended up taking the position anyway and I fell in madly in love with Zambia.