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.