Saying goodbye - at last

My name is Tisaiwale Chekumbutso. Before I left, my coworkers threw me a surprise goodbye party, and gave me a Malawian name; I felt incredibly honoured. It means “Let us not forget good memories”.

Having returned to Canada, I’ve had some time to reflect upon my experience in Malawi. I have to restrain from pulling my hair when people ask, “How was your trip?” because I always feel as though “trip” refers to a vacation. It wasn’t a trip. I stayed in one country, in one region, in one town, for almost four months. And I learned so much. The people I became close to, the culture, and the sense of community are a few of the many things I will miss.

Of course, I promised myself and others that I would share my experience in different ways, and the fact that I never managed to conclude my blog updates has not gone unnoticed by several people. So here I am, finally settling the nagging feeling that hasn’t disappeared since reuniting with Canada. I’ll put this blog to rest, and continue this new journey of sharing that involves face-to-face interactions with people in Canada. The blog was intended to connect Malawi and Canada, and now that I’m back, it makes little sense to continue. I think part of the reason I never finished is that I had trouble leaving Malawi; I didn’t want to let go. My mind is now in Canada and schoolwork, my body is physically in Canada and Nova Scotia, but my heart is still across the Atlantic, and I don’t think part of it will ever leave.

A few days into school, during orientation week, I received an email from a co-worker at Concern Universal. Apparently, my 69-year old host grandmother Agogo had just died. This news spread through the small community in the Dedza township, which reached my friend who runs a tiny restaurant near the bus depot (he was the one who helped me find a host family). My co-worker who occasionally eats at the restaurant found out from my friend with the restaurant and later emailed me. This really hit hard because I vividly remember making the tough decision to pay $45 for a two-week hospital stay in Lilongwe because the government hospital in Dedza didn’t have the resources to treat her illness. It was a tough decision because I could have spent the $45 on something impact, perhaps on younger individuals who “hadn’t already outlived their life expectancy in Malawi”, as one Canadian friend described it. But the thing with development is that we cannot follow a set of rules that call us to always make the practical, sensible choice of maximizing utility for all people. The ideal of maximizing impact (i.e. with time, money, other resources) sometimes gets thrown out the careening minibus window where personal relationships are involved, which I why I ended up helping my host family pay for their grandmother’s hospital treatment.

To refocus, I think I’ll go about describing what happened with my placement this summer, in terms of work. Some people have been emailing me, still confused about what I was doing – and rightly so, because I don’t think I was ever clear about that.

I was working within the rather complicated hierarchy at Concern Universal – and this was only at one field office! I wasn’t even at the national office…

Acronyms:

HSA – Health Surveillance Assistant

VHWC – Village Health and Water Committee

CU – Concern Universal

TMO – Training and Monitoring Officer

CBM – Community Based Management

WSF – Water Environment and Sanitation Facilitator

NGO – Non-Government Organization

M&E – Monitoring and Evaluation

WESP – Water Environment and Sanitation Program

DC - District Coordinator

The basis of my placement centered about three work streams, which essentially formed the goals for the outputs of my placement. For my coworkers’ privacy, I’m not going to their names or positions, especially those whom I worked closely with. And trust me, working as a Junior Fellow wasn't nearly as put together as the following description of the placement sounds. I've just have some time form to form my thoughts since then...

As I mentioned before, I was partnered with Concern Universal (CU), which is the largest NGO implementer of water and sanitation projects in Malawi. I worked at CU’s field office in the Dedza region, about 1.5 hours south of Malawi’s capital city, Lilongwe. Concern Universal’s national office is in Blantyre but there are several field offices throughout Malawi. The basis of my placement centered about three work streams that were partially structured beforehand by CU’s country director, CU’s WESP manager, and CU’s two TMOs, in addition to three long-term EWB volunteers who have worked or are currently working with CU. Janelle Murray, another EWB Junior Fellow (who worked at CU’s Ntcheu field office), also followed these three work streams. Working with CU and its wonderful staff was an incredible, invaluable learning experience.

The first of the three work streams was the primary focus of my work. This involved conducting a rigorous field-level analysis of the improved monitoring and evaluation (M&E) system that was designed and implemented by past EWB volunteers. I conducted field-level research in Dedza while Janelle conducted similar research in Ntcheu. Janelle Murray (working in Ntcheu) and I collaborated to develop a research plan which involved designing the research methodology; for example, village level transect walks to cross-check M&E data, separate semi-structured interviews, and surveys with various field-level stakeholders (TMO, WSFs, HSAs, VHWCs). We then reported back to Concern Universal on the effectiveness of the system at ground-level, external factors affecting the system’s functionality, and strengths and weaknesses of the system. We then made recommendations for the current system which included viable solutions to the identified bottlenecks, and tried to synthesize the lessons learnt from the system’s implementation phase into recommendations for future M&E systems similar to or based on this system. The entire point of our doing this was to fit in with the context of the work that the long-term volunteers are doing in Malawi; essentially, making sure this M&E system is working or not.

The second of the three work streams was a smaller focus of work. This involved providing computer skills training, focusing on Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Access. The purpose of this training was to build on the existing skills by teaching time-saving tricks and to increase the level of managing, processing, analytical, and reporting on data from the M&E database. The third of the three work streams involved coaching in professional skills development. This posed some learning curves, given my limited experience working with any sort of people in management positions, but I stumbled around a bit and eventually found my feet.

The most rewarding part about working, at least immediately, was the people I met and developed relationships with. After all, we are primarily accountable to Dorothy, who represents the people we are working for; and secondarily accountable to our NGO coworkers. And of course, we are responsible to EWB (but I take that as a given).

But here comes another question that some people, including myself, have been wondering....

What about us, in Canada? Do we all have to go overseas to make an impact? In my opinion: Not at all. As Owen Scott (an EWB volunteer in Zambia) put it:

“If you want to change the world, please don't rush overseas and try to make a difference. Stop, think, learn, think some more, and if you're still sure you want to go, and can articulate why you want to go, what you're trying to do, and what are the possible positive and negative outcomes and impacts from your planned actions, then please go and I'd say Zambia/Africa is lucky to have you.

So what else can people do? Really, infinite things. If you want to volunteer overseas, then put a little thought into it and you'll probably end up doing some really good work. If you want to work in Canada, then join an EWB chapter, or go to a protest, or write a letter to your MP, or read a book on development, or donate to a charity, or basically do anything that you feel is worthwhile (here are some more ideas). I will, in about a week, add my own page of links to this blog for people who want to learn more. The fight against poverty won't be over quickly, and so sustained passionate action on many fronts is what's needed. If everyone plays their part then maybe in 20 years stories like the one I told about my friend in Zambia will be firmly in the past.”

In Ivan Illich’s somewhat controversial (and in my opinion, a bit cynical) speech “To Hell with Good Intentions” about volunteering thoughtlessly in developing countries, he has some interesting things to say which I find quite thought-provoking. It isn’t specific to Africa, but it makes one stop and think about why we work overseas and what we are trying to do.

"If you have any sense of responsibility at all, stay with your riots here at home. Work for the coming elections: You will know what you are doing, why you are doing it, and how to communicate with those to whom you speak. And you will know when you fail. If you insist on working with the poor, if this is your vocation, then at least work among the poor who can tell you to go to hell. It is incredibly unfair for you to impose yourselves on a village where you are so linguistically deaf and dumb that you don't even understand what you are doing, or what people think of you. And it is profoundly damaging to yourselves when you define something that you want to do as 'good,' a 'sacrifice' and 'help.' I am here to suggest that you voluntarily renounce exercising the power which being an American gives you. I am here to entreat you to freely, consciously and humbly give up the legal right you have to impose your benevolence on Mexico. I am here to challenge you to recognize your inability, your powerlessness and your incapacity to do the "good" which you intended to do. I am here to entreat you to use your money, your status and your education to travel in Latin America. Come to look, come to climb our mountains, to enjoy our flowers. Come to study. But do not come to help."

I urge you not to feel cynical about his speech, but to think about alternate ways we can be active in human development here in Canada. I strongly believe that volunteering in Africa isn’t necessarily the ultimate solution. Far from it. As Canadians, we have work to do here. There are so many barriers to development, such as Tied Aid (which, by the way, the government finally committed to eliminating after years of campaigning!), unfair subsidies, and restrictions on trade. Depending on each of our skills, interests, and capabilities, we can all work on something different for a common goal. For some people, working in a developing country will transform them into development champions or a lifelong development worker. For others, becoming educated and changing our workplace or community into a more global-minded environment is the best way of creating change. For yet others, achieving success in a career and donating to effective charities will be their role. And for others, becoming politically active or a voice for those without will be their calling. But for all of us, we can make small daily changes in our lives in many different ways, which have an impact in the long-run.

As Canadians in Canada, we can…

• Spur technological innovation – we have the financial wealth and a wealth of knowledge to research solutions to problems in developing countries

• Travel and learn about poverty and share with Canadians, but in a way that is not thoughtless and damaging – there is some merit in being exposed to developing countries

• Travel to experience new cultures and simultaneously break down the stereotypes that contribute to prejudice, bigotry, and apathy towards people in developing countries (e.g. the westerner coming in to ‘help’ the poor, helpless people)

• Lobby western governments to make smart choices about where to focus in regards to international affairs – and how best to use money directed towards international development initiatives (i.e. get rid of Tied-Aid)

• Continually learn about development – we have access to an incredible amount of information, and can use things like the Internet to educate ourselves by keeping up-to-date on current global events and international development news

• Direct charitable donations to the right places – there are thousands of NGOs and a million more ways to spend money, but we can learn about where our money will have the greatest impact

• Buy consumer goods responsibly – taking care to think about the effects of our actions and trying to maximize the benefit of our purchases (i.e. buying Fair Trade products)

I would like to add something that another JF, Binnu, said, because she says it so well (and I would urge you to check out her blog):

"So what did I learn over the last 4 months from all these people that I met in Malawi? Well, a lot. But the one thing that really stands out is the realization that poverty is complex and will take a long time to combat, and the people on the forefront of this combat are the people of these developing communities. They are the real agents of change, but that doesn’t absolve us of our responsibility. As Paul Collier, author of the Bottom Billion said, “We can help the reformers in these societies who are struggling for change, that’s one modest role .”What would this modest role look like? It could range anywhere from making more responsible consumer choices (buying fair trade coffee to ensure fair wages to farmers or driving less to help reduce the hike in fuel prices) to using the upcoming elections to make sure that our candidates have a plan for more and better development aid from Canada. Below are a few web-sites you can check for some inspiration on what you could do:
http://www.ewb.ca/en/whatyoucando/index.html [suggestions for action from Engineers Without Borders]
http://www.results-resultats.ca/action/actions/default-en.aspx [influencing the Canadian government]
http://www.makepovertyhistory.ca/en/take-action [promoting the cause of international development]
http://transfair.ca/en/fairtradeproducts and http://transfair.ca/en/ethicalpolicy [making fair-trade consumer choices]
drive less for poverty article [exploring other ways to alleviate poverty]"

And here I’m not trying to be preachy or anything, but I really think that everyone inherently wants to make a difference, even if that difference is simply buying a cup of Fair Trade coffee that increases the income of farmers in a Fair Trade cooperative. Poverty still exists. And poverty – I don’t believe – is a thing either. Poverty is people. Poverty is all the people who are vulnerable to external factors out of their control and who lack the opportunity to create a safety net for themselves. Poverty is Amandiwe Tchawuya, a 56-year old woman who delivers thousands of babies and raises her daughter and her grandchildren by herself while farming for a living. Poverty is the father who smuggles bundles of charcoal from Mozambique to earn a living so he can send his children to secondary school. Poverty is the girl who just lost her husband to AIDS. Poverty is the boy who wanders around the bus depot selling used, washed plastic bags from one hand and ripe bananas from the other hand. These people are the faces of poverty, but that’s not all. They are also hope, courage, strength, joy, love, and so many other things that we often forget about when we think of these individuals. And I think, most importantly, these individuals are similar to us in so many ways. I’m posting a video of my 18-year old host brother, Juseck, who is an orphan taken in by my host family who currently can’t afford to send him to secondary school ( I wrote about him in my last post). He is a smart, endearing goofball, and I love this video because it highlights how all people just love to be silly sometimes, especially with their family members - no matter what country they are from. One day Juseck asked to learn how to use a camera, so I brought mine out reluctantly and spent 10 minutes teaching him how to point-and-shoot and take video clips. I then lent him the camera for the weekend because he wanted to borrow it to try out, and he surprised me by interviewing all the family members to give me something to remember everyone by. And he added this goofy dancing video too which I didn’t discover until I was back in Canada....

Oh, and the answer to that quiz I posted a long time ago is “Ndili chachiwisi.” Hah.... so most of you got it wrong – or just went with the majority vote! “Ndili chachiwisi” means “I am fresh”.

Thank you so much to everyone and goodbye. Zikomo kwambiri ndi ndapita.

The small room was dark and cold. The only source of light was a paraffin lamp that sat flickering on the table, casting odd shadows around the room. I crouched in the corner behind the door, peering through the crack above the bottom hinge. 13-year old Elemas stood nearby, frozen still. We heard loud footsteps approaching. They grew steadily louder. “Abwera.” she whispered. He’s coming. She looked at me with questioning eyes. I put a finger to my lips, warningly, “Shhhhh….” She nodded slowly, anxious, unsure of what to do. I motioned for her to stay hidden in the shadows. In silence, we waited. Suddenly, the door creaked open and a deep voice began to speak. Immediately I shouted loudly, “Boo!” and burst out of the corner flailing my arms wildly, my eyes crossed and my nose scrunched. With a startled yelp, 18-year old Juseck jumped a foot into the air, then looked at me and exploded into laughter and did not stop. The rest of the family, sitting in various places around the room (but all hidden in the shadows) burst into loud giggles. For twenty minutes we roared with laughter at my prank that wasn’t particularly clever in the first place. But my family had participated willingly, curious about my stilted explanation in Chichewa of how to surprise young Juseck as he returned from visiting his girlfriend in town. Then with tears on our faces, we decided it was time for bed. “Gonani bwino, banja langa.” Good night, my family.

People Who Inspire Me (Part 1): Three females in Malawi

It has been a long time since my last post, and for that I apologize. A few people contacted me to ask if I was okay. That prodded me to write a new post, something that I had been neglecting to do. Almost a month ago, I moved in with my current family. I’ll try to describe them a bit. My family lives in an area called Kanduna, a section of Mandala Village where the people indigenous to Mandala Village remain. Most of Mandala Village, in recent decades, has been sold in small plots of land to business owners who want to live close to the town centre. The newer, 'more developed region' of Mandala is filled with families who own restaurants, small shops, or with those who work for the government as teachers, police offices, nurses, etc. However, my family of 22 people in Kanduna owns several acres of land, where they grow maize, Irish potatoes, sweet potatoes, turnips, pumpkins, soybeans, onions, beans, and tomatoes (it's too cold in Dedza for tangerines and bananas). The land is owned by Agogo (grandmother) Esnut, a 69-year old widow who shares her land with the 22 other family members who span 5 generations (see family tree below - I can't make it any less blurry). She is a lovely woman who used to be actively involved in the CCAP church (Central Church of African Presbyterians) as a women's choir director; now her family is basically the choir of the church. They remind me greatly of the Von Trapp family from ‘The Sound of Music’; quite a few evenings have been spent sitting around an open fire, roasting maize kernels, and singing a cappella.

I could write much more about my family, but I’ve decided to dedicate instead this post to three people I have met. I am now going to share three stories about three spectacular females.

One: Bursting a balloon

Meet Elemas, the 13-year-old girl living in the same house as me, and with whom I share a room. When I first arrived, she was sullen, silent, and quick to hide her face. I investigated. She lives a harder life than most others in her family. Not only does she feel pressured to exceed academically at school, but she also carries the burden of being the only unmarried girl (of her generation) still living at the household. So, at the same time, when her Canadian counterparts might be involved in after-school activities she may never learn about, Elemas is being groomed into a traditional female role of carrying water, washing clothes and dishes, cooking nsima and relish, among other reproductive duties. This young girl, who I can tell is incredibly bright and would thrive at school without the daily stresses she lives with, wakes up every day at 4:30am when it’s still pitch dark outside. She walks to the open shallow well up the hill while the rest of the family has yet to wake up. Some of the water she collects gets heated for my bath, which is usually prepared and waiting for me in the bath shelter when I get up. I want to get up before her, one day, and carry that 18-gallon bucket of water on my head, and prepare a bath for her. But I’ve learned, in my time in Malawi, that two things prevent that from happening: (1) Her parents would never let me do that since it would look badly on them, and, (2) I physically cannot carry that much water, let along balance it on my head and walk home without sloshing it on the ground wastefully. Elemas, it seemed to me, always gets the short stick. If I or anyone ‘above’ her (be it someone older or male) looks cold, her blanket goes to that person without question. If there isn’t quite enough food, her serving gets skipped for that particular meal. At 13, she’s the size my own sister was at 9. But lest you think I am asking you to feel sorry for Elemas, I want you to know that she’s perked up incredibly since getting to know her nightly. Recently, I’ve noticed that she always has a huge grin on her face, and like the other children, she runs and greets me when I arrive home. She’s not sullen, silent, nor bashful, as I’d originally deemed her to be. Yes, she faces a million challenges, and yes, she may not overcome all of them. I want you to admire her, to appreciate her, and to learn from her determination, her strength, her courage. She is in Standard 5 (grade 5) at school, and because she lives in the native rural area of Mandala Village, called ‘Kanduna’, she sometimes endures teasing from her somewhat better-off classmates whose parents may be teachers, nurses, or business/restaurant-owners, etc. While Elemas is still shy and soft-spoken, she’s also smiley, tough, smart, and likely physically stronger than most Canadian girls twice her age.

I had moved in with this family, supposedly being this open-minded ‘development worker’. And ‘develop’ I did. I quickly ‘developed’ this balloon image of poor Elemas: poor Elemas, the uninspired 13-year old whose struggles would demotivate her from growing up and succeeding in school. How humbling it was then, last night, as we lay on our sleeping mats, when Elemas turned and told me that she wished her school didn’t force girls to shave their hair off. She reached over and tugged my long hair. “I want to be pretty,” she said in Chichewa, then batted her eyelashes and giggled. She then added in clear, perfect English, “But I have decided to be smart instead.” Pop.

Two: A role model

In Malawi, a woman’s role is centred almost entirely on the husband or the family, and very rarely on herself. Even getting her hair done nicely at the hair salon is “for the husband”, I’ve heard women say. Often, there is such huge pressure to marry that women often find themselves in unsuitable marriages because they fear scorn from their families. Meet Irene, the trailblazer. Beautiful, kind, and intelligent, Irene’s chic hairstyle changes few weeks. Last time, it was a shiny black bob; this time, it’s an orange braided weave. ‘Women working in NGOs are almost always single,’ said Irene, who works as CU’s Gender Mainstreaming Officer. She makes sure that CU’s projects take into account gender differences, fight cultural biases against women, and target vulnerabilities of women. She’s a pretty awesome woman who prides herself with the fact that other people scold her for “being a bad influence on our daughters”. She used to be married, but she divorced her husband when their marriage didn’t work out. “I don’t plan on depending on a man ever again”, she added. So why does she still spend time to look fashionable? “So I can put decent photos on Facebook, and not embarrass my nieces in the UK”, she laughs. Oh yeah, that’s right. She also supports her three nieces’ schooling in the UK with her salary, although she’s never been to the UK herself. Of course, when I stayed with her one weekend, there were still household chores to do: clothes to wash, floors to clean, food to cook. But chores exist in Canada, not only in Malawi. The difference is that unlike other women, she has a choice. She has freedom in addition her responsibilities. She’s educated, smart, stylish, and independent. And many girls have told her that they want to be like her when they grow up. So often, we focus on the oppression of women and how African women are still trapped in traditional reproductive roles, but we forget about women who are role models. Even so, for every uplifting story about a person like Irene, there are still countless women who spend their lives’ energy simply sustaining their family. Never, with any of the women I have stayed with, has the woman done something just for herself. In Malawi, I think, some women are forced into a selfless role.

Irene: freedom

Three: A dignified woman against all odds

The beginning of July, I left the 3-day Junior Fellow retreat in Senga Bay, Salima (on Lake Malawi’s shore) feeling refreshed and energized, still with many thoughts in my head but at least with some of them organized. After taking a minibus back to Lilongwe, a few of us (Jenna, Alison, Binnu, and I) tagged along with Duncan, whose outgoing personality had enabled him, a few days before, to befriend two Canadian volunteers interning at the United Nations who had graciously invited us to visit them. Specifically, they were working at the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR). So there we were, lowly development workers, arriving to this seemingly out-of-place, multi-story, gleaming glass building in Lilongwe. I felt like I should be wearing a business suit instead of my sweatshirt and flipflops. We went up an elevator (!), passing gilded signs announcing those UN departments we only read about: WFP (World Food Program), IMF (International Monetary Fund), UNICEF. We finally reached UNCHR on the 7^th floor; I was still marvelling at how a building in Lilongwe had several floors. We then met the two friendly, UNHCR volunteers and hopped into a white UN truck; we were on our way.

Welcome to Dzaleka refugee camp. It’s currently the only refugee camp in Malawi, but has been around for over 20 years. Let me rephrase that: this camp is over 20 years old. That’s older than me. That’s older than 1/3 of the people living in it. From my understanding, the camp was originally established due to the war in Mozambique over 20 years ago, but now refugees hail from Sudan, DRC (Democratic Republic of Congo), Zimbabwe, Somalia, Burundi, Rwanda, Mozambique (?) and even one man all the way from Sudan. Now, there are about 9000 people living in the camp. There used to be over 100,000. This isn’t a closed-in, walled camp filled with tents a la ‘Blood Diamond’. At first glance, the individuals from a wealth of different African countries appeared to be living together in a village-like atmosphere. But a closer look revealed differences: no Chichewa, no opportunities for work, and few choices for the future. Despite UNICEF’s large presence, the camp was a remarkably unsustainable environment. The most common complaint we heard from people was, “Food aid handouts aren't being distributed on-time, so 1 month’s rations might have to last for 2 months.” People have four options (but don’t quote me for unequivocal accuracy, I’m just sharing what people spoke to us about):

1. Move back to their home country (met with both positive and negative reactions depending on whether villages were destroyed, etc)
2. Stay in the refugee camp (where UN officials are trying to push people out to reduce their numbers to look successful)
3. Apply for a World University Services Canada (WUSC) Refugee Scholarship (to go to university in Canada)
4. Work in Malawi (but very few work permits are given and a few xenophobic Malawians have gone to lengths to bring successful refugees down b/c they're seen as a competition for jobs and resources).

But back to people, and in particular one 21-year-old woman named Maya (not her real name). Maya is from Rwanda, where both her parents were killed in 1999. In 1999, as a young teenager, she left for Burundi; but, because of war there, she soon moved to Tanzania. She stayed in Tanzania for 1 year, and by chance met her mother’s sister who was looking after her own children as well as Maya’s siblings. Together, they moved to Dzaleka Refugee Camp in Malawi. Maya is intelligent and educated: she finished Form 1 – Form 4 (secondary school) with the top marks in her class at the refugee secondary school, and has her MCA certificate. She applied to WUSC’s refugee scholarship program (a mandatory process for all refugee secondary school graduates in Malawi). However, despite her stellar academic score, she was rejected because as the most educated living member of her family, she has ‘legal dependents’ (her mother’s sister, her cousins, her siblings) and WUSC doesn’t grant scholarships to those considered to have dependent persons, for obvious reasons. So here at the camp she stays, but cannot work. “I am just waiting,” she said. She has a tiny plot of land next to her home with which she produces 30kg of maize. The Red Cross provides blankets and clothes, but for any other needs she or her family has, she has to be creative to earn much-need cash. Literally. She showed us beautiful doilies that she makes from yarn. When I asked her where she sells her creations, she replied indignantly in immaculate English, “Where?! We don’t have the market to sell. No one wants to buy this.” Nevertheless, as the sole breadwinner for her relatives, she keeps fighting the current of erratic food rations and no job opportunities. Her outlook on life? “I don’t know my future, but this is my family.” Personally, I think Maya is an extraordinarily strong person. In her circumstances, what would your outlook on life be?

An update on my work with Concern Universal, plus Questions and Answers

As I woke this morning at 4:30am, I realized that my mosquito net had fallen down on my head, and that the head of the 8-year old girl who shares my sleeping mat was on my stomach. For some reason, my grouchy mood of the night before dissolved away and I burst out laughing at the rather unhilarious situation, which woke her up. We giggled and shivered, snuggled into our second-hand army blankets, and returned to sleep for another half-hour, until my cell-phone alarm woke the five girls in the small mud room with a shrill, ridiculous version of Liszt's Liebesträume. I was reminded of high school sleepovers and although the standards of living may drastically differ, the similarities between Malawi and Canada struck me as her 18-year old cousin threw open the door to the cold with a loud "Madzuka Bwanji, Em-ee-lay!" ("Wake up, Emily!" or "How did you wake, Emily?").

Unlike yesterday morning, I got up on the right side of the mat, and cheerfully followed the older girl – who carried a small pail of steaming water – to the bathing hut. At this point, the similarities of Canada and Malawi seemed less obvious. I squeezed myself into the pail and sat in the corner of the bathing hut, freezing cold and most pathetic looking, my pale legs sticking out at odd angles and barely illuminated by the sunrise peeping through the holes in the thatch; I was briefly savouring the welcome bit of warmth that the tiny amount of heated water provided. After bathing, I walked back to the sleeping room with muddy feet. I then realized with dismay that I had to use the latrine, located behind the pig's house. Not wanting to tarnish my positive mood, I grabbed my roll of pink toilet paper and rushed to the pit latrine with my cell phone as a flashlight, and returned quickly. The less time, the better. At this point, sweet tea, and boiled sweet potatoes had appeared on a plastic plate, along with four mugs and a bowl of brown cane sugar. We, the four girls, ate breakfast in silence, each of us lost in thought. I thought about the night before, my humiliation, isolation, and eventual frustrated scream of "I just don't understand why you're all laughing at me!" in English. This, of course, had prompted another outburst of laughter and whispers, at which point I covered my head in my blanket in a fruitless attempt to shut out the noise and get to sleep (at 7:30pm). I thought about why I was feeling isolated, my poor Chichewa skills, and the actions I needed to take to make things better (e.g. learning the language to communicate better). I thought about how I had finally cracked around 2am and more or less shouted at the older cousin, "Chonde mawa mupita chipatala!" (Please, just go to the hospital tomorrow!") after yet another round of her racking lung coughs of blood that broke the silence of the night every 15 seconds or so. I'm almost positive that she has tuberculosis (perhaps because of HIV AIDS) and her 8-year-old cousin, who sleeps next to me, has starting coughing too. My lack-of-sleep induced grumpiness due to nightly cough sessions had brought out the worst in me; it made the girls' amused laughter seem like jeers and taunts, and turned my worrying about their health into unexpected bouts of anger. I later realized that mentioning the 'hospital' might be akin to a death sentence, as the hospital is somewhere where people often go and never return. Though ironically, she really needed to get some medical attention.

Ultimately, however, my reflections were interrupted at 6:30am by the mosque, calling people to worship. Deciding it was time to head off to work, I picked up my pack, slipped on my dusty shoes while waving a "Tionana ndapita conchito" to the girls as they prepared for school. I don't usually get a chance to talk to the aunt and uncle, who also speak no English and seem perpetually shy in my presence. Along my 25-minute walk to the CU office, I picked up two pieces of banana maize-cake for 10 kwacha, a supplement to the small sweet potato breakfast. Some people greeted me, others returned a smile, while some just ignored my presence. I noticed, however, that nobody blinked twice at me (a 'muzungu'), which was quite different from the rural village stay I wrote about in my last post. I walked past men struggling uphill with one-speed bicycles loaded down with at least 100 pounds of market goods. I walked past women carrying 8-foot long bundles of firewood on their heads. I walked past young children in purple uniforms, heading to primary school. And I walked past young girls, maybe aged 6-9, carrying a baby sibling on their backs and a 25kg sack of maize flour on their heads.

So now, since many of you have asked me questions either on the blog comments or via email, I will attempt to answer as many of them as I can, taking into consideration that I may not understand the full scope of the true answer.

Q: Have you found a permanent host family yet? What is your host family like? Can any of them speak English? How do you communicate with them? What is the house like?

This is a complicated question, as I’ve been staying at a variety of places, of all levels of society. As you may remember, I did a rural village stay several weeks ago.

Rural village stay (several weeks ago): cooking nsima

I also stayed with my CU counterpart, Fredson, for a weekend – he has a large house with several rooms, a bathroom, a TV, and a DVD player (about as rich as you can be in Malawi).

Weekend with Fredson’s family: Learning to harvest maize; a meal of nsima (from maize) and various relishes

Two weeks ago, I moved in with a family on a co-worker’s recommendation, but found that it was so far from the office that I had to take a motorbike to and from work each day. Also, I later found out that it was a village chief’s family, so I was getting more reverence than usual, which is something I try to avoid. And I was getting pretty sick from the paraffin lamps they would use all night, as the fumes were filling up the room where the daughter and I slept.

The family of the chief in the village I stayed in for a week

Just last week, I moved in with another family, closer to Dedza town centre (the “boma”) so that I could walk to work. This seemed like the perfect arrangement, finally, until I realized that I wasn’t happy there. And it wasn’t just the older girl’s worsening illness that made me worry about her constantly, or the fact I couldn’t get any sleep at night because of it. It was my realization that my efforts to live with the most impoverished families possible posed some problems that would hinder my learning as well as my ability to be effective both here in Malawi and when I return to Canada. First, the family spoke no English and my Chichewa isn’t nearly good enough to have many meaningful conversations. At first I thought that this environment would be ideal, because I’d learn one of Malawi’s official languages faster. But after talking to Janelle, who is living with a family where the parents speak English (and obviously, they’re a bit more well-off and educated), she’s learning more simply because she can have discussions with the family, who can explain some cultural aspects of Malawian life that cannot be understood by observation alone. Second, living with the poorer (and often more rural) families means I am often treated like royalty by their standards, and am not allowed to participate in any activities. The village stay was different, because a facilitator explained to Amayi that I wanted to learn, and she was extremely responsive to that request. But with this family (her aunt and uncle whom she lives with), I was ushered into my sleeping room every night after work, and not allowed to help cook or clean or heat the water, and I felt like baggage to the already hardworking family.

Chimwemwe and her tomato garden; a young girl carrying a baby (an accessory for females of all ages)

Chimwemwe’s friends, family, neighbours

While I did learn a little last week, I realize that I learn more with middle-class people to whom I can explain that I want to learn about day-to-day activities; however, I will have to justify living in middle-class household with my desire to learn as much as possible. And third (though this will sound selfish), I think it’s important that I stay healthy. With this latest family, no soap was ever used to wash hands after using the latrine or before cooking, even after I bought some and used it myself. I feel awful about saying this, but nothing was hygienic by even Malawian standards, and all week at the office I had been sick and not working to my full potential. For a few days as a break, I will be staying with Irene, the CU Gender Mainstreaming Officer, who lives in a house with her niece and is not married.

Mashing bananas with Irene’s housekeeper to make Malawian deep-fried banana fritters

Making some reciprocal [Canadian] banana bread muffins with Irene’s niece, Vanessa (without a recipe)

I sometimes feel disgusted with myself because I’m picking and choosing a family, a task that is incredibly difficult and much harder than I ever imagined. Sometimes I wish my own family was here instead – there’s no choosing with that. It’s a balance, then, to find a family who I can effectively communicate with, and that will allow me to participate in their lives without being annoying or obtrusive, and where there is an understanding that I may go away some weekends to visit other parts of Malawi to learn. What do you think? Should I try to find another non-English speaking rural family, or look for a more middle-class family despite my previous avoidance of tin roofs?

Q: The kids are running around in pretty threadbare clothes. What is the temperature like?

In Dedza, it's very cold! Malawi in the southern hemisphere and it’s wintertime, although the rest of Malawi (except for Mount Mulanje) is still pretty warm. I’m on Dedza mountain at 5400 ft, and people here know what snow is. I hear that June and July are the coldest months. Daytime temperatures are pretty mild, but at night it gets very, very chilly thanks to the continental climate. When I sleep at night, I wear long underwear, sweatpants, 3 shirts, a hoodie, my winter coat, 2 pairs of socks, wool gloves, and a toque.

Realizing that my motorbike helmet makes a very good pillow and heat insulator (Tionenso is finding my attire incredibly amusing)

Q: Do you have any pictures of Dedza and the people in Dedza?

Q: I'm interested in Amayi's method of preventing infants from contracting HIV from the mothers. Is HIV/AIDS a big problem in Malawi?

Yes, HIV is a huge problem in Malawi. According to UNICEF, 14.1% of Malawians aged 15-49 are HIV-positive Bear in mind that this figure doesn’t included the majority of children or elders. I'm not sure about the HIV AIDS rate, however. It’s doubtful that Amayi’s shoelace method prevents HIV transmission from mother to child via umbilical cord blood, but she’s trying.

Q: You mentioned that a young woman died before her husband could get medical help for her. Is there a hospital or clinic in Dedza?

Yes, it’s government run and within walking distance, but most government-run hospitals are incredibly understaffed and under-resourced. I visited the subsidized ward, and there were about 24 beds in one room, with a few people on mattresses on the floor. Hand-written signs on the wall said, “Airborne Diseases”, “Blood-Transferred Diseases”, “Other Infectious Diseases”, “Malaria”, and “Other”. It’s not surprising that while healing from one illness, someone contracts another. The missionary hospitals are much nicer, I hear, than the government-run hospitals. However, private hospitals have the best facilities and often have Western-trained medical staff, so wealthier people will go to those. Health clinics can be found in rural areas, but from a few visits, I’ve noticed that most have little to no medical equipment, are extremely run-down, and rely on funding from NGO sources. Coworkers have told me (and this is hearsay only) that the staff there are usually under-trained due to funding constraints as well.

A bathroom at the government hospital; a nurse who was nice enough to let me take me picture while working

Q: Do people have to pay or is it a publicly funded system? Is it expensive?

The government hospitals are subsidized partially, but there are some wards have extra fees for better care. Also, drugs are not free. People must pay for private hospitals per night and for any prescribed medications. Missionary hospitals also have high fees, but not as high as the purely private ones. The price of a one-night stay in the hospital ranges from MK1000-MK6000, depending on which hospital one chooses, and the level of care one pays for. This is as astronomical price for most Malawians, so most will either go to cheaper health clinics instead of a hospital, or avoid the medical system altogether.

Women waiting in line at the Dedza government-run hospital; “Breast-fed children are healthy”; “It’s up to us to stop AIDS”

Q: Are there drug stores?

Yes, I have seen some pharmacies in Lilongwe (the capital) and Blantyre. The one I was in was unpacking donations from the UN, OXFAM, and other international NGOs. I saw them sticking price tags on the bottles and putting them on shelves for sale. It may seem unethical, but sick people need drugs, people need to make a living, and businesspeople need drugs to sell. We cannot judge until we understand how difficult it is for a store to get their products in the first place.

Q: How many people work at your office?

I’m not exactly sure, because people are always coming in and out – there are always some people at the office and others in the field. Also, there are different sectors of work that people are involved in. At the Dedza office, I’d say there are about 20 people who come into the office at least once a day.

Q: How is your work going?

To be quite honest, parts of work are extremely interesting, while other parts are less so. I think this is true for any job, though. I don’t know how much to say because I don’t have explicit permission to be discussing Concern Universal (CU) publicly, but I can give some insight into what I’ve been doing. Specifically, I am working on the 5-year Dedza and Ntcheu Water and Sanitation Project, although CU also has Food Security and Livelihoods programs and Disaster Relief efforts. Crosscutting issues in all programs are Gender Issues, Human Rights, and HIV AIDS. Past long-term EWB volunteers (meaning 1-3 years) working with CU have been developing a brand-new Monitoring and Evaluating (M&E) System, a critical component of the entire project. Rather than focusing on project inputs (like financial and physical capital), the M&E system focuses on monitoring the outputs of the projects via an enormous number of indicator factors (e.g. how many boreholes drilled, training of village health and water committees). Evaluating whether these outputs are having a positive impact on the community (e.g. improvements in health, changes in hygiene behaviour) involves analysing the data collected from hundreds of villages. This is all easier said than done, and there are issues in data collection, forms filled out by rural communities, databases, information analysis, computer training, motivation of field-level support staff (underpaid by the government), transportation problems, training of village committees, equipment, reliability of medical reports from rural health centres, and general overall effectiveness of the project. Janelle (in Ntcheu) and I (in Dedza) are essentially monitoring and evaluating the brand-new Monitoring and Evaluating system currently being tested. The new system, for the most part, is successful; but as always, there are many challenges and potential improvements. On top of that, we’ve been doing skills and capacity building such as computer training in Access, Excel, and PowerPoint in order to increase the efficiency of things at the office. I guess this falls under ‘organizational development’ rather than field-level development. In the past few weeks, I’ve been doing a lot of learning by going to project villages with facilitators and by reading project documents. Sometimes it’s incredibly interesting, while other times, I’m faced with little to do except find something to learn by myself.

One of CU many considerations in their Water and Sanitation projects is social attitude and behaviour changes: Kids are considered unclean or germ-covered and are therefore neglected from normal hygiene practices (e.g. daily bathing; washing after defecating and before eating)

Uncovered shallow wells are nesting grounds for mosquitoes and are often epicentres of cholera outbreaks

A covered shallow well prevents contamination; A deeply-drilled borehole provides immediate safe-to-drink water

Q: I hear you can get your clothing made fairly inexpensively. Is this true?

There are tailors in all cities (Lilongwe, Blantyre) and towns (Ntcheu, Dedza); these are identifiable by the sewing machine sitting outside the shop. You can either bring your own material (e.g. cotton, a chitenge, linen) or buy some material in the shop if it is available. Custom-made outfits are inexpensive by North American standards, but are still well above the average Malawian’s price range. I finally got around to getting an outfit made (with a black, red, and white chitenge I bought a couple weeks ago for MK400). I went to the tailor shop owned by Grace, the wife of Fredson (the training and monitoring officer at CU, and my work stream counterpart). After choosing a design (with some modifications that I don’t know yet were understood), the male employee took my measurements. Now, in general, African women are blessed with larger behinds, so he took my butt measurement 3 times just to make sure he hadn’t made some sort of mistake. It was quite hilarious. The price? Not so amusing, but still affordable at MK1,450. It should be done in a few days, so I’ll decide then whether it was worth it!

Q: Is there a market in Dedza? Is it like a farmer's market, with locally grown food?

Yes, there’s a market, and yes, it’s like a farmer’s market. There are stalls filled with people selling their produce; Dedza is known for their Irish potatoes (because of the climate). People will also sell sodas (e.g. Coke, Sprite, Fanta), cookies, white bread, margarine, tea leaves, and other random goods. It is unfortunate that there are so many people selling, but the demand is not high enough. I have seen people with hundreds of tomatoes to sell, so I asked what people do with their surplus tomatoes, and I was told that they are thrown away. One would think there would be some sort of tomato sauce canning and export system in place, but there isn’t. It’s unfortunate because many people’s farming labour goes to waste simply because there aren’t enough people buying what they produce. There are other organizations working towards establishing strong AVC's (agricultural value chains) to increase people's incomes and improve Malawi's economy overall. Duncan, another JF, is working on cassava AVCs with the IITA , so check out his blog for better information.

Q: How do most people earn a living?

Most people are farmers (some are subsistence and others sell their goods at the market) and earn the lowest income. Earning a middle class living generally means you are a small business owner (e.g. restaurant, tiny grocery shop), a government-worker, a nurse, or a schoolteacher, etc. The upper class (usually university or college graduates) work for NGO’s such as Concern Universal, UNICEF, Save the Children, World Vision, etc. Many people however, move to the EU or nearby countries with better economies (Botswana, Nigeria, South Africa, Mozambique) to start businesses, work for heavy industries (e.g. mining), or work in the informal sector. They’ll either take their entire family (less common) or send remittances back home.

Q: Do most kids go to school? Is it free like in Canada or do people have to pay?

Primary school – from Standard One to Standard Eight – is free and paid for by the Malawian government. Of course, like Canada, there is a stigma attached to public schools and the wealthier families will send their children to more elite private schools. After Standard Eight, there is a rigorous qualifying exam, a stringent sieve that only allows the top students to go on to Secondary School. Secondary School – from Form 1 to Form Four – is not free at MK17,700 per year (~ $125 CAD per year) for government schools or MK105,000 per year (~ $735 per year). As you can imagine, this system not only selects for the students academically, but also financially. Students from wealthier households (with hired help, and electricity at night) will have more time to do homework and study. They will also be more likely to afford the tuition fees for secondary school in the first place. The average annual income for Malawians is $170 USD. After secondary school, there are a few skills colleges (sometimes run by NGOs) and universities. Again, unless a student manages to get a government scholarship, they are hard-pressed to pay for post-secondary education unless their parents can easily afford it. Also, there is a severe dearth of jobs available for graduates, such that many don’t see the value (time or financially) in pursuing tertiary education; often they have to move out of the country for jobs, work for NGOs (most desired), work for the government (politics, healthcare, education), start a business, or go back to farming. There is brain drain, and the government focuses its investment on primary education (not secondary or tertiary or linking graduates to jobs). The way I see it (and with my limited knowledge of Malawi, education, and economics), the foundation is there (primary school-wise), but unless higher education is made more widely accessible and career opportunities are created and sustained, then the cycle of poverty, at least in the education sector, will continue to exist.

Q: What is the predominant religion in Malawi? Are there religious conflicts?

From asking around and doing some background research, it seems that Christianity is the most common religion (~90%), but with countless denominations. Islam is also evident from the various mosques I’ve noticed and heard. Common Christian denominations are Roman Catholic, 7^th Day Adventist, Jehovah’s Witness, CCAP (Church of Central African Presbyterians), and Pentecostal Assemblies of Christ. Because I’ve been living with so many different households over the past month, I’ve had the privilege of attending a Pentecostal church (Assemblies of Christ), a Roman Catholic church, an African traditional beliefs church, and a Living Waters Christian church. All the churches were run-down to varying degrees, but all had more enthusiasm than any church I’ve been to in Canada. Sitting on the women’s side of the Catholic church, I tried to contain myself when 4 or 5 live, flapping chickens were carried down the aisle along with the usual offerings of bread, maize, juice, and money. Three men dragging a reluctant goat by a rope were at the rear of the procession of offerings. At the Pentecostal church, I was a little taken aback by the variety of languages I hear from at least 30 or 40 people, until someone explained that they were speaking in tongues. At the traditional beliefs church, I didn’t understand much, but I could appreciate the amazing music and joyful dancing.

At the Living Waters church, I witnessed the most incredible way of raising financial capital I’ve ever seen (explained to me by Irene). The church is trying to raise about MK5,000,000 to build their church from the ground up. Hold hands and singing, we stood around the church’s foundation, a grassy field with trenches dug already (for the walls) next to a large pile of homemade bricks. That day was a special service, 5-hours long, and people had been saving their incomes for months. People wearing suits were called up, and they danced in the centre of the circle, tossing cash into the air as though it was grass. People wearing red were then called up, so I went along with the red-clad folks and threw all my offerings in. I didn’t realize I would be up again. And again. Different, random, and on-the-spot made up categories were called out, and people kept going to toss cash into the circle. One businessman was cheered on as he threw in MK500 bills, until he was at last exhausted at his MK20,000 donation. Women had cooked chicken pieces, and ‘auctioned’ them off for hundreds of kwachas. The old pastor stood in the middle and danced while people threw money at him, laughing and encouraging him to create crazier moves. Men gave about 20 times more than the women, since they are often the holders of the households’ money, but the generosity was the same with all. People were donating 3 times their monthly income, all for their church, a cause and a hope they believe in. It was absolutely incredible – the energy and the collectivism – and in the end, the group of about 130 people had raised MK380,000!

As for the question of religious conflicts, I haven’t heard of any, nor read about any in the newspapers (which are really good with reporting actual news). You may find it interesting that the village chief whom I stayed with (before the current family I’m with) was a Roman Catholic. But his wife is Muslim. And his daughter goes to the African traditional beliefs church, while his son is a Jehovah’s Witness. When I asked him why his family all went their separate ways on Sunday, he replied that he and his wife had decided to let their children choose whatever religious path suited them best. “Praying is praying,” he said (loosely translated by someone else at the time), and “faith is faith. So as long as we all are praying and believing and working hard to be good people, then as chief, I have hopefully done my duty.”

Q: What is the main mode of transportation?

While a few households (the very well-off ones) have personal vehicles, the majority of people walk, bicycle, or take a minibus (for longer trips). Minibuses are quite the cultural phenomenon. They are boxy vans, filled with vinyl-covered seats (no seatbelts), which can usually pack up to 19 or 20 people. The legal limit is 3 people per row, but often 4 people will be squashed into one row for efficiency and higher profits for the driver and conductor. To catch a minibus, head to the town’s bus depot, where minibuses await with handwritten, cardboard signs in the front window that show the destination. In Lilongwe, the bus depot always seems to have a couple hundred minibuses. Usually people are shouting out the names of the destinations, and it is up to the passenger to find the correct minibus amidst the traffic, noise, bustle of people, and street vendors. Once on a bus (and I’d suggest finding a full-ish one), the minibus will not depart until it is full to capacity. This may take from 5 minutes to a few hours, depending on the time of day and popularity of the destination. Often with music blaring, the minibus will then hurtle down one of the few paved roads in Malawi (e.g. the M1 highway between Lilongwe and Blantyre), a curvy road that follows the topography of reddish yellow hills and farmed valleys. During this time, the conductor will collect the transport fee from every passenger and eventually give everyone their due change. The length of the trip may vary, depending on whether the driver decides to stop at a random road stand to buy potatoes for dinner. Minibuses will stop along the way to the destination to let off passengers and pick up new ones, at which point vendors will crowd the bus, shoving fresh produce and local packaged foods up to the window. I think this is my absolute favourite part about minibuses - I can enjoy a fresh snack or lunch from window of the minibus and know that I'm supporting the local businesses. I’ve often bought reasonably priced peanuts or bananas this way. Overall, I really like the rather perilous experience of riding minibuses. I say perilous because of Malawi’s statistical reputation for being #1 in having the highest incidence of road accidents in the entire world (per km of road). I witnessed this first-hand, and it was not a happy experience. I was on an extremely packed minibus to Lilongwe, gazing out the window, when I heard the driver blare the horn (to let people know a fast vehicle is approaching that is not prepared to stop) and a shared gasp by the passengers. I looked out the front window, saw a blurry shape of a body, and heard a loud thunk as what appeared to be part of a bicycle hit the roof of the minibus. I turned around and noticed two figures lying on the road, one obviously a bicycle. There was absolutely nothing I could do as we kept careening down the M1, but it didn’t stop me from feeling like a cruel hit-and-runner.

Walking is the main mode of transportation – children carrying bundles of groundnuts (peanuts)

A bicycle carrying 23 chickens (I counted); Lilongwe minibus depot

Q: What is the most interesting food that you have eaten?

“Noun 1. offal - viscera and trimmings of a butchered animal often considered inedible by humans”

I would have to say that Offal takes the cake for ‘most interesting food’. Offal is almost always found at stalls on the side of the road. Offal is an assortment of goat heart, liver, stomach, and large intestine, deep fried in vegetable fat or lard over a fire. One usually dips the chunks in salt for taste. People will stop and pay 30 kwacha for a few slices of large intestine, the most popular offerings (which aren't cleaned out properly, so as they cut the intestine, nice bits of brown goo are squished out). Of course, my coworkers insisted on my trying some (despite knowing that I’m a vegetarian), so I tried a piece of large intestine about the size of pea. I’m usually excited about trying new foods, but as another volunteer pointed out, there is a reason why offal rhymes with "awful".

Mmmm! Different stages of offal preparation

*** And…whoever manages to translate the following gets some prize (which I haven’t decided yet). And this doesn’t include any of the current Malawi JFs! ***

Chimwemwe: “Hahahahaha! Ndili ongsangala. Mumandiseketsa! .””

Me: “Mukuseka chiani? Sindikumvetsa.”

It’s nice being so tall. (or am I?)

Jumping into the deep end before learning to swim – the rural village stay at Chidzade

Friday:

I suppose that none of the Junior Fellows fully understood what we were getting ourselves into when we signed the job contract. Nevertheless, we did anticipate adventure and excitement!

I arrived to my 4-day village stay (thanks for CU's desire for me to see their water and sanitation projects at the field-level) at Chidzade, a tiny rural village far from the one and only highway in Malawi. This is not where I'll be working during my time in Malawi; it's just for a few days so I can better understand the communities that CU works with. I think I may have found my Dorothy (the EWB name for that special person we decide that we are working for during our placement). I stayed at the house of Mawandiwe Tchawuya (pronounced: "Ma-wan-dee-way Cha-wooey-ya"), who asked me to call her Amayi Tchawuya (mother tchawuya). Amayi is a 56-year old traditional midwife who runs a 'hospital' from her home, a small, dark, mud hut with a thatched roof. She is blind in one eye and half-blind in the other (it looked like cataracts). She has delivered over 3500 babies, and women travel long distances for her services - for which she asks nothing in return.

When I arrived, Amayi sat me down and within 5 minutes had me scraping kernels of dried maize off the cob onto a large woven mat. I obviously didn't have the developed calluses for the job; 4-year olds sat next to me and shucked kernels faster than I did, and my ineptitude provided the adult women with some entertainment. 40 painful maize cobs and 4 blisters later, Amayi called me over into her hut. "Relief at last!" I thought. Well, not exactly…

Little did I know that I was about to partake in something I knew nothing about. I entered the dark hut and was immediately struck with a metallic odour I couldn't quite put my finger on. Amayi gave me a pair of XL plastic (not latex) gloves and told me to close my eyes. "So you be blind like me," she explained. Closing my eyes didn't make much difference as the hut was almost pitch dark in the middle of the afternoon, and was only lit by a candle I had brought as a thank you gift. But I closed by eyes, and let Amayi take over. She took my hand and my finger and placed it somewhere as I heard a quiet moan. "That is head of the baby," she told me in her limited English as the tip of my finger poked an indescribable surface.

I was in such shock that the next 20 minutes passed by without much thought. The birth was surprisingly muted and happened very fast (unlike how movies make them out to be); the woman giving birth (named Melissiana) was silent except for an occasional quiet groan. But the most shocking part came after, when I realized I had delivered the baby myself. Amayi had simply stood at the head of the bed, supporting the woman's head in her arms, while I stayed at the other end and pulled the curly-haired baby out. Amayi motioned for me to take 4 pieces of used shoelace and tie the umbilical cord in 4 difference places in order to prevent the flow of the mother's blood into the child. I asked why. "Because," Amayi replied, "Melissiana has the HIV AIDS. And so, we try to protect the daughta.” This is Amayi, so strong and so caring towards every woman who journeys to her one-room 'hospital'. And she surprised me with the revelation that the birthmother had AIDS, because I find that in Malawi, often people are ashamed of contracting AIDS (it suggests infidelity, among other things) and will attribute deaths or illnesses to a number or other diseases.

A few weeks ago, I never would have believed that I would be delivering a baby, but a large part of me feels incredibly guilty that just because of the colour of my skin, I was given the privilege of participating in something in which I have no experience. Moreover, I had the honour of being the first (!!!) person to hold the baby and wrap it in a chitenge (the cloth I described in a previous blog post). It isn't fair, like many other things, and I feel a little sick when I think about it. Nevertheless, it was a magical experience, standing there at the foot of the bed, surrounded by the mixed, heady scent of iron-tinged blood (I now realized what I had smelled before!), damp mud walls, and raw maize husks.

Later that day after stripping dozens more cobs from their kernels, Amayi came to me and told me that the birthmother, Melissiana, had asked me to be the sister of her new daughter and to give her a first name. I spent some time protesting until a Concern Universal HSA (health and surveillance assistant) – who was stopping by to inspect the community's boreholes and shallow wells – explained to me (because he spoke English quite well) that if I refused to name the baby, the baby would be given my name. Now, up to this point I thought my name had been pronounced "Am-ee-lay". I don't think I could have lived with the thought of a baby bearing my name without good reason. So I agreed to give the baby a name and asked that I be given until tomorrow. I was then given a photocopied, blank birth certificate and was thanked. I really don't deserve any of this.

That night, I was paraded around the village as though I was a prize. Sometimes I wonder whether it is me that people find so interesting or whether it is my camera. I shared a dinner of nsima, beans ('nyemba'), and potatoes ('kachiwere') with Amayi, her daughter, and her grandchildren. The community, which consists of about 20 households, also included me in their nighttime dancing session (~1 hr), complete with awe-inspiring dance moves and homemade drums. I captured the audio of this lively, musical session that occurs nightly but due to poor internet services I can't upload any videos (or photos for that matter…yet). The joys of the nightly music made up for what became another nighttime adventure: sleeping on the dirt floor with only my mosquito net as a protection from the many rats I heard scurrying around me (apparently they like to nibble at Amayi's supply of dried soybeans).

Saturday:

I found myself spending my spare time chatting with a couple HSA's to get their opinion on how CU's projects are working at a field-level. I became a little annoyed with the attitude of one in particular (who was born and raised in Malawi), when he replied to my question of why children in the village are not sent to school with, "It is because village people are savages. They do not understand the goodness of sending their children to school. So, it is because these people are savages, ya." This is exactly the kind of stereotype that permeates some Canadian opinions, and is the stereotype that I want to fight. It hit me like a wet pile of nsima; I realized how difficult it would be to change misperceptions in Canada when there are people here with the similar misperceptions. I find that Malawians in general are more kind, generous, and more community-oriented than any other place I've lived (but I mean no offence!). Regardless, I asked the HSA what was the most difficult part of his job as an HSA (I was trying to understand him a bit after his comment that I disliked). He told me that the government doesn't provide enough materials to cover the open shallow wells with concrete slabs and a pump, so the water below becomes contaminated. People in the communities he is responsible for get cholera and often die. "And there is nothing I can do," he said. His face expressed discouragement, hopelessness, frustration…

I also tagged along with another HSA to a CCAP (Church of Central African Presbyterians) church service. Unfortunately, my presence created a huge ruckus; 60 or so children followed me into the pews made of hardened mud – children that I doubt attend the services regularly. Their giggling and pointing disrupted the rhythmic gospel music and swaying; several times a choir member would turn around and tell them to be quiet or go away. Incredibly guilty, I tried to leave [discreetly] but was chased by all the children, who laughed and shouted as they followed me down the dirt path.

Before meals, Amayi would usually call me into her cooking shelter to demonstrate how to cook nsima and various relishes. We had some great conversations (in her broken English and my very limited Chichewa) during these cooking sessions. I discovered that she had 10 children, but 4 died young from AIDS. Of her 6 living children, only 1 is female. She has discouraged her daughter (18 years old) from marrying until she is at least 21 because she has witnesses the consequences of having children at a young age. This is very different from conventional Malawian culture (at least in the areas I've visited), where girls in rural areas are often married at 14 or 15 and become pregnant soon after. Personally, I've been asked many times why I'm not married yet, or don't have any kids yet. I've been told, "You must get marry soon. You are not so young. We women, ya, we think you look like an old woman. Why are you not married?" (Apparently, as I found out later, looking like an old woman is a compliment…).

Amayi cares for several grandchildren, including Maggie (2 years old), the first-born of Amayi's eldest son. Amayi informed me that traditionally, the first-born of the first child belongs to the grandmother. I don't know if this tradition is ubiquitous across Malawi. Amayi's situation is little different to other women in the area in that she doesn't have a husband to do many of the productive activities that men participate in. When I inquired about this, she replied, "I am not married." So I asked her how she had her children, to which she explained, that she had been married once, but after her first 6 children, her husband began drinking a lot and spending half the family's income on alcohol (especially "Chebuko"). She said it made him "crazy" to the point of beating her and her children. He also contracted HIV AIDS when having an affair with another woman unknown to Amayi. Thus, her next 4 children died of HIV AIDS.

Amayi took her 6 children and ran away to this small village where she set up her hospital. Now women come from faraway villages to have their babies delivered by her, so I am assuming she has a high success rate for stopping AIDS from being transmitted from mother to child using her shoelace method. She says her dream is to stay alive as long as possible to deliver as many babies safely as she can. To do this, she needs to continue taking antiretroviral drugs to combat her ongoing battle with AIDS. Since these drugs are expensive, she has diversified her crops so that she grows groundnuts and soybeans in a field about 2km away, in addition to maize (Malawi's staple crop). She taught me how to pull up a bunch of groundnut (peanut) plants and remove the peanuts off the roots; it is extremely labour intensive. She also grinds soybeans into soymilk. Her third-born son then sells the groundnuts and the soymilk at the Lilongwe market (~10km away, across the Yampri River). She earns 105 kwacha (~$0.80 CAD) per kilogram of groundnuts.

Sunday:

I still felt a bit sick to my stomach, but not from any illness I could identify. I don't know if it was because people from other villages would continually visit me and bring food offerings of tea, groundnuts, sugar, millet, cassava, and bread (which they would compel me to eat in their presence!), or simply because I would receive all this undeserved attention and honour.

I was taken to more villages, carried on the back of a rusty bicycle, always with dozens of children sprinting after me, jumping, waving, and shouting "Muzungu! Muzungu!" Then the village chief would usually come out to greet me and thank me for coming, followed by some important village elders who would profess how proud they are of me. As the day progressed and with each warm welcome, I inexplicably felt worse and worse…. Sometimes I'll simply have to address every person individually, separately (this is the Malawian custom). At other times, I'll be shown the community's uncovered shallow wells and asked to agree to tell Concern Universal about the problem. Sometimes, my hair or skin is touched briefly with curiosity. I simply don't deserve all this attention just because I'm a 'muzungu' (white/foreign person). I can't even call it an honour; it's simply attention. On one hand, I feel increasingly worse about the poverty I see: women of all ages pounding maize with a huge mortar and pestle made from a hollowed-out tree stump and a bamboo rod, children with torn, donated clothing and dirty faces. On the other hand, however, I am touched by the genuine kindness and humour of people I meet, the honest and open belly laughs of the women and children when I mispronounce a word or do something with great ineptitude. I am awestruck and humbled by the serious dedication and commitment that goes into every ounce of labour (be it farming, schoolwork, starting a business, or delivering children safely), and the love for family that people are willing to extend to visitors like me. And I particularly like how Amayi calls me "my daughta"!

Monday:

On the back of another bicycle, I went to the Lilongwe market (Lilongwe is across the Yampri River, I think I mentioned before) and asked Amayi if she wanted me to pick up anything. She did, so I ended up buying mustard leaves, tiny dried sardines, and tomatoes (I bought some soya-maize-banana cake too, for dessert). She used these ingredients to cook a feast of relishes to go with the nsima she taught me to cook (it's still lumpy, by the way… I need more practice). After this lunch, I was packed on another bicycle and taken to the main village headman's house, where the 10 surrounding village chiefs awaited me, sitting in a formal semicircle. An impromptu ceremony ensued after I greeted the 11 people individually: the headman said prayers in Chichewa, women arrived and sang songs, children danced, sweet potatoes and pumpkins were consumed, a goat was roasted in my honour, and I was thanked for coming. I was also asked to give a speech (!), so I complied and improvised on the spot for about two minutes. Who said introverts can't give speeches at a moment's notice? Fortunately, I doubt that many understood what I was saying.

Later in the day, as we were stripping more maize kernels off the cobs and shelling raw peanuts, I heard a shrill cry from down the dirt road. I got up and looked but couldn't see anything. Within 5 minutes, a wooden wagon appeared, pulled by women and followed by men pushing bicycles. I was told that a funeral was approaching, so we dropped what we were doing and joined the procession as they passed by. Everyone was extremely sombre; the men followed silently, stepping in unison, while each woman took a turn wailing and announcing to the next household of the funeral's arrival. We walked for about 1km in solidarity, and then turned back. Apparently, it is customary to walk with the deceased's family in support for a while, and then return home when appropriate. Amayi told me it was a 26-year old woman who had died. Her husband had noticed she was coughing up blood but couldn't get her to the clinic in time; it was too far for her to walk and she died on the way. I felt pretty terrible at this point, but, of course I wasn't alone to think about anything for too long. Soon, enough, some kids arrived and taught me how to eat sugarcane. As I munched and crunched, the overwhelming experiences of the weekend threatened to dissolve into sugary goodness, but the pain from my teeth (not strong enough for sugarcane fibres apparently) didn't let me forget.

Before I left, I helped Amayi cook one last meal of nsima and relish. By now, I had realized that people seem to boil their vegetables for about half an hour, which probably leaches out all the water-soluble vitamins. I tried to communicate this to Amayi as she prepared to toss the cooking water onto her garden. Amazingly, she understood what I was trying to say, and replied with, "Okay, so I make the masamba (vegetable) soup". She proceeded to add a pinch of salt and drink the entire pot of veggie water! She then happily replied that she would make soup from now on so that her family would be healthy (!); I hope this lasts!

I know this was a long, long post – because so much happened. I don’t pretend to fully understand the people I met after spending a few days with them; rather, I now have a greater understanding than before, which I am hoping to share with everyone who reads this. In my next post, I will try to explain what's actually happening with my office and fieldwork at CU (for those of you who asked). If you have any questions that you want to direct at anyone in particular (a child, a mother, a CU coworker, a teacher, a farmer, a businessperson), just leave me a message on the blog comments and I'll do my best to find you an answer.

Some call it culture shock - temporarily feeling low

I was warned, so I knew the time would come when my life in Malawi didn’t seem so rosy. EWB calls it culture shock. Megan (my coach who lives in Ntcheu) says it is caused by reacting to a whole bunch of specific things that you don’t even realize until you break down. All I know is that when I burst into tears in front of one of the administrative staff at the Dedza field office of CU where I work, I knew something was up and that I needed to figure out what I had been bottling up / avoiding in favour of being completely optimistic about everything that I encounter.

I like making lists, so I figured that sharing some of the reasons I’m at a low would perhaps make certain aspects of Malawi a bit more personal to those back in Canada.

• Three people died this week, although I don’t personally know any of them. What I do know is that people around me are enduring an incredible amount of loss and grief.

o The first is the young child of a guard at CU – the child choked on something and could not be saved in time. Some office staff were away today to attend the funeral. I can’t imagine how terrible it would be to lose a child.

o The second is a person I don’t know, but whose family spread two lines of leaves across a dirt path upon which we travelled on the way to a meeting yesterday. The two lines of leaves signify that a death has occurred at a household somewhere between the two lines, and that vehicles should slow down in passing as a sign of respect.

o The third person is one of a few Malawians who have been killed in South Africa by a few resentful people who want foreigners out of the country (they believe foreigners are taking job opportunities in South Africa that should be reserved for South Africans alone). A CU co-worker was friends with one of these Malawians killed, and walked around the office this week looking very lost.

• I have yet to find a family to stay with. I never expected this to be a problem, but with every day that goes by, and with every night spent in a sketchy, gloomy, concrete guesthouse room with nothing to do except to go sleep at 6:30pm because it isn’t safe to be out after dark, I get more and more anxious. It’s much more difficult than I anticipated to walk into a nearby village and tell everyone that I’m looking for a family to live with for the next few months. I’ve spent a few nights with friends I’ve met, here and there, but I don’t want to couch-hop for too long. I’d like to settle soon. And not having a family is lonesome, isolating, and probably a major contributing factor my current (but hopefully temporary!) state of distress.

• Explosive diarrhea. I know this sounds funny (and before it happens to you, I fully understand how the concept is rather hilarious). But frankly, if you had lined my intestines with firecrackers and set them off, it would have been better than whatever bug was trying to exit my system in what felt like an Indy 500 race. Not to mention that it occurred within a few days of beginning work in the office, while I was still trying to meet everyone… Well, sprinting to the office toilet with an intense, panicked expression will make anyone look like an otherworldly freak of nature in a professional office environment.

• The poverty in Malawi is simply widespread. There really is no other way to describe it. So far, I’ve been absorbing the positive side of poverty: the collectivist / sharing nature of communities, the hard-working attitudes, and the close ties to extended families. However, the negative side of poverty have been creeping up on me, and up until now, I’ve been pushing them aside: poor sanitation, malnutrition, lack of access to clean water, vulnerability to weather that causes poor harvests, a parent’s inability to fund their child’s education, a variety of diseases that are rare in the developed countries, among others. These are all factors in a cycle of poverty that so many organizations are trying to help people break themselves out of. And the determination is there; it is alive and abundant in all aspects of people’s lives. It is just frustrating to see people’s determination being blocked by barriers supported by the very same countries funding aid organizations.

I know that these issues rank very differently on the worldwide scale of importance. Nevertheless, they each are a struggle, so my hope is that the beauty of Malawi will once again shine and bring my motivation back up to normal levels.

The First Day in Dedza

We arrived in Dedza yesterday afternoon and the first thing I noticed is that the air smells alive, fresh, and spirited. The view of the mountains is incredible; the sun strikes the leaves of the pine, tangerine, and eucalyptus trees, highlighting the infinite shades of green against the sky and the red earth. The temperature here is much cooler than most other parts of Malawi, and the constant breeze on my skin reminds me of Nova Scotia.

Two girls in a village on the outskirts of Blantyre (the commercial capital)

Two cousins, also from the Blantyre village we visited

Like the village we visited in Blantyre the day before yesterday, the people here are very friendly – they usually stop to say hello and correct me when I practice my Chichewa greetings in return.

“Muli bwanji?” (How are you?)

“Ndili bwino. Kaya inu?” (I am fine. And you?)

“Ndili bwino. Zikomo.” (I am also fine. Thank you.)

“Zikomo.” (Thank you.)

“Ndapita.” (Goodbye / I am leaving.)

“Muyende bwino.” (Go well.)

Tsalani bwino. Zikomo.” (Stay well. Thank you.)

Some very shy kids who fortunately let me take their picture (sort of)

Two sisters whose family we had dinner with: Trynnis who is 11 yrs old and Chisomi (nickname: Chisi) who is 4 yrs old

Megan (my coach), Janelle (the JF who will be living in Ntcheu) and I spent some time with Jenn (a visiting LTOV from Zambia). We discussed some of Jenn’s research on social marketing and behaviour change. We planned to stay at Brett Stevenson’s house (that she rents) in Dedza while she's in Canada. When we left work, it was already dark. That night, as we ate dinner that we had picked up along the way to the house, I heard children singing quite loudly not too far away. So we left Brett’s house and followed our ears…

Luckily, a couple kids saw us approaching and ran ahead to notify the other kids in advance. As such, we were greeted with song and dance, and we spent the next hour alternating between teaching them songs (the Macarena, the Hokey-Pokey, Head & Shoulders Knees & Toes, and There was a Great Big Moose) and learning songs (which were far better) from them. My embarrassment reminded me that I was exiting my comfort zone and entering my learning zone. Unfortunately, it was dark and my video was only able to capture the audio and not the visual aspect of the night, both which were quite impressive. The kids have some moves that are simply unbelievable. We had a blast moving and shaking, and even the village women eventually joined in our great big moonlit dance party on the dirt road. It was beyond fun.

When we finally retired to bed, Janelle and I slept on the concrete floor on a 1-cm woven mat with a couple blankets bought from the market that day. The blankets didn’t really do much to fight the high altitude, however. I don’t think I’ve even been so cold or uncomfortable during the night, ever. But I know I can adapt to hard floors, and hopefully I’ll just acclimatize. It makes me happy to be able to break the stereotype that all of Africa is one big hot desert.

After a fitful sleep (under a mosquito net to hopefully stop my mosquito bite count at 34), I woke at 5:30am to the sounds of birds, crickets, several determined roosters, a faraway drumbeat, and the sound of sweeping brooms. We then refreshed ourselves in the bathing shelter by pouring cold water from a bucket over our heads. I tried to carry water on my head, but only managed to walk about 70m – in all my life, I doubt I’ve ever received as many point-and-stares (and as much laughter at my expense). Jenn and Megan were busy helping to stabilize the large bucket and probably didn't notice.... Luckily, those standing nearby on the dirt road were kind enough to be subtle with their amusement.

Carrying Water...

Children carrying maize flour ("ufa") and sugarcane ("zimbe")

As we walked to work, we passed by the minibus depot and each bought an enormous roasted sweet potato for 10 kwacha and dense bread made from cornmeal, soybean flour, and bananas for 10 kwacha. We ate these along with yesterday’s purchase of guavas and tangerines. Overall, a filling breakfast that complemented this day of new experiences. As I write now at Brett’s small table, I can hear the laughter of children outside.

Malawi is truly a beautiful country... more to come later at some time that I cannot promise. I will be away for the next 4 days or so on a village stay in [very] rural Dedza.

Ndapita. Tsalani bwino!

Arrived in Malawi and full of nsima!

We arrived in Malawi four days ago, and I’ve picked up a few key phrases in Chichewa. We spent 3 days with the some of the overseas volunteers (OVs) who gave us some in-country training; we discussed many things including health and safety, culture, history, past EWB Malawi work, and general development in Malawi. As thrifty EWBers, we enjoyed several meals of peanut-butter-and-banana sandwiches.

Today, Megan (my coach) took Janelle and I for the head office of Concern Universal (CU) in Blantyre (the commercial capital of Malawi). At the morning recap meeting, we learned just how busy everyone’s schedules are at this level of management. I've met Samson, the country director of Concern Universal (CU) in Malawi, and Masauko, the Water and Sanitation (WatSan) Program Manager of CU for Malawi. I’ve also met a few other staff members at the national office. It’s pretty intimidating at times, but everyone is very friendly and I think I’m going to enjoy learning about CU and working at the field office in Dedza. Right now I'm using their internet for emails, etc. I bought a few brightly coloured chitenges at the market (long, multifunctional pieces of cloth used as skirts, aprons, baby-holders, mats, towels, blankets....).

I’m still expecting to experience some culture shock, which we’ve been rather sheltered from so far. We visited a small village in Blantyre, where we ate a wonderful dinner of nsima and relishes with Thomas and Mr. Soko. Nsima looks and feels like thick mashed potatoes, and is made from maize flour (most often), cassava flour, or sorghum flour. Water is boiled and a ton of flour is added, and a special stirring technique ensues to avoid lumpy nsima (a big no no). From my limited experience with nsima, a normal serving is usually very hot (temperature-wise) and the size of about 4-6 decks of cards. Thus, it is extremely (extremely!) filling, especially as it expands in one’s stomach if you drink fluids along with it. The way one would eat nsima is very particular and simultaneously inexplicably satisfying. You take a small piece (half-a-kiwi size) and roll it into a neat ball between the fingers of your right hand (as the left hand is associated with being used as toilet paper). Most people put a dent into the nsima ball, and then dip it into a “relish”, which is unlike the typical North American relish or associated with hotdogs and hamburgers. Basically, anything eaten with nsima are considered “relishes”. These could include, for example: chicken, okra, rape/canola leaves (with lots of oil, onions, and tomatoes), sweet potato leaves, beans, or ‘tasty soy pieces’. Although Malawian meals tend to be somewhat oily, nsima with relish is delicious (I love it!), and every nsima meal tastes a little bit different and unique from the last. I have decided that to complete the satisfaction of upcoming meals of nsima and relish, I’ll need to develop the equivalent of a Metamucil-based relish.

So, how to make nsima is something else I will try to bring back to Canada, so I can share it with all of you! Ndakuta!

Positive Deviance, Hippoes, Impact, Context-Specific

I apologize for the title which is filled with inside jokes. I also apologize to those readers who may not understand some comments or photos. Future posts won't always be this way, I hope. I figure a picture is worth a thousand words, so since this blog is the last one before we leave for Ghana or Malawi....I'll make it fun and post in a visual framework (sorry...!).

I'm incredibly excited as we leave tomorrow, and I know I have a ton of challenges for myself, in terms of personal goals, how I will take ownership of what I learn, taking initiative during my placement, and reflecting upon why I'm doing what I'm doing.

Team Malawi .... from a grassroots approach (a.k.a. form a bottom up camera perspective)

After days of learning and living together, we get super-comfortable with each other.

Pre-departure Team Malawi...with Duncan (centre guy) as the Beta Male. After Jenna the Alpha Male (girl on far right).

Team Ghana and Team Malawi. What we'll probably look like when we inevitably get an explosive episode of The Brown Menace (a.k.a. diarrhea).

The grey Akwaaba House (25 people in about 18 beds).
Our EWB home.

Learning during our first day of predeparture training

What happens during the first day of predeparture training?

I’ve realized that anything and everything is an opportunity to learn. For a lighter example: It’s possible to fit about 25 people onto 18 single mattresses in a tiny house that may or may not have bedbugs (and may or may not be the epicentre of the current bedbug epidemic in Toronto, from what we’ve heard).

The goal of the JF program is to link our university’s chapter work with EWB’s overseas work. Basically, predeparture training runs from about 9am to 10pm each day for the next week or so. Each day, in either the Malawi team or the Ghana team, we learn in sessions held in rooms at the University of Toronto. Last night, we left off at the introductions and logistics phase, in terms of house rules, what to expect in sessions, and attitudes. This morning, we started with some more team introductions, and also spent some time learning about communication and miscommunication. We later received an anticipated visit from Dr. Wise, a travel doctor who squashed some of the myths many of us have encountered regarding parasites, bacterial disease, and antimalarial pill side effects.... yum!

We tried to build a structure using the ‘telephone’ system, where I (at one end of the chain) knew what the structure looked like, and Duncan (building the structure at the other end) did not. There are aspects that we don’t realize we’re not clarifying until we see the final result which is different than we envisioned, so we have to be conscious that we can’t make the assumption that people will understand what we’re talking about. We then jumped into the specific goals of predeparture training, and some of the ideas we brainstormed are: getting ready, separating from family and friends, forgetting other distractions (school, work, grades), accessing resources & tools, having a comfortable transition while getting out of out comfort zone into a learning zone, doing some teambuilding, questioning, skill building, setting expectations, identifying challenges, getting super pumped up, letting go of exam mode and entering EWB mode, learning about development theory, living communally and sharing or compromising.

We also discussed our expectations / hopes, our fears, and traits of a development worker. At first I thought that these 31 ‘traits’ that we brainstormed were essentially a wish list of what we’re supposed to become (i.e. superhuman). I won’t list them all, but I realize that we’re just working towards some of these attitudes and behaviours that would be key for most development workers.

What really struck me was running about UofT campus and nearby Kensington market, asking random people how they define “poverty” and “development”. We found a range of responses, from nothing to simple to complex:

A bunch of grade 8 kids (9 of them):

How do you define poverty?

“People that can’t afford education, food, clean water, or basic necessities.”

How do you define development?

“Ninjas!” “Humanity” “No other ideas”

Man in the sushi restaurant:

How do you define poverty?

“Someone who doesn’t have the means to meet their basic human needs: food, shelter, clothes, warmth – for themselves and their family.”

How do you define development?

“It depends upon where it is; in Africa, Canada, or Mexico, the impact of development will be different, especially if it is broken down into human development or urban development, etc. But I suppose that development, for me, are the stages that are gone through towards being able to meet basic needs and being able to make that sustainable, both ecologically and economically.”

Distinguished, seemingly educated elderly woman:

How do you define poverty?

“I can’t answer that question. My head just isn’t into it.”

Man of the UofToronto bench (who we found out also runs an engineering magazine and once interviewed George Roter):

How do you define poverty?

“The inability to provide for oneself or one’s family and having no resources to find material needs to sustain life.”

How do you define development?

“A way of providing for an individual’s sustainability and survivability so they don’t have to rely on others (i.e. governments, other countries). It requires cooperation, less statehood, and providing access but no giving handouts.”

I love how such a simple question generated so much discussion and thought. I found that a lot of similar phrases and ideas, such as “sustainable”, “basic needs”, “life” and “one’s family”, came up a lot when talking to our small sample size of Torontonians. When talking with EWBers further, we decided to add “dignified life”, to the common idea of ‘human life’.

Later we compared and contrasted three case studies (from India, Japan, and Haiti), and analyzed how our Canadian worries, for the most part, have much less long-term impact than those of the individuals in the case studies. Moreover, we have a much higher ability to control the outcomes or implications of our worries.

What exactly am I DOING in Malawi?

So I suppose that about now, I should introduce my placement and the partner organization, Concern Universal (CU). Megan Campbell is the current longterm overseas volunteer there, and Luke Brown just left from my understanding. EWB has been working with CU for a while now, and Janelle and I will be working with three work streams that CU has. One of us will be based in Ntcheu, and the other will be in Dedza.

To quote Eli, since I currently know very little about the workstreams:

“The first is a field level analysis of the new Monitoring and Evaluation system they are implementing. The second is computer skills training of your counterpart (excel and access being the focus, don't worry if you don't know access we'll get you reference guide and I'm sure your comfort level with computers will be sufficient to allow you to add value here). And the third is coaching your counterpart on management skills (an example would be helping them develop a Personal Development Plan).”

Concern Universal works in many countries across several continents. Again I’ll do some copying and pasting because I think CU describes its focus eloquently. I strongly encourage you to click on the following links to read more about CU’s values.

Human Dignity

Community Focus

Integrity

Partnership

“We support practical actions that enable people to improve their lives and shape their own futures. Concern Universal supports initiatives that improve the daily lives of people living in some of the world's poorest communities - for instance providing greater income earning opportunities, improved health care, or clean water supply. Last year, our work benefited approximately 1.5 million people internationally.

In Malawi, Concern Universal's largest country programme, our work focuses on five key areas: supporting communities in emergency situations (particularly drought-related food shortages), improving people's ability to grow and buy the food they need to eat, providing credit and other financial services to poor people living in rural areas, supporting people infected and affected by HIV&AIDS and improving living conditions and health through clean water and sanitation provision.

Concern Universal began working in Malawi in the late 1980s, supporting both Mozambican refugees who were fleeing the conflict in their country and the Malawian host communities. When the conflict in Mozambique ended and the refugees returned home, the focus of our work shifted to long-term development support in Malawi, empowering Malawians to identify and achieve their own development objectives.

Today, our work in Malawi focuses on five key areas:

1. supporting communities that are in emergency situations (particularly drought-related food shortages) and helping the rehabilitation of communities after times of crisis;
2. improving people's access to food throughout the year, and developing their opportunities to earn a decent income;
3. strengthening the ability of Malawian organisations to support and promote the development activities that are taking place within their own communities;
4. increasing the availability in poor communities of appropriate financial services, including savings schemes and small-scale loans; and
5. ensuring that people have access to clean water and sanitation, necessary for a healthy life.

Looking forward, our overall strategic objective to 2011 is to give more and better quality support to people who live in poverty by deepening and expanding our operations in the five key areas in which we have considerable expertise and experience. We strive to achieve the overall strategic objective through ten specific objectives, including:

• To improve communities' ability to withstand impacts of unpredictable weather conditions;
• To improve opportunities for economic and financial security of communities;
• To increase communities' awareness and access to sexual and reproductive health services, especially family planning;
• To develop an enhanced and comprehensive organisational response to HIV&AIDS;
• To contribute to improving the effectiveness of Malawian civil society organisations as essential stakeholders in democratic society.

We also work to build the capacity of local organisations from all regions and districts.”

I know today's post wasn’t much of my own words, but I’d just like to end this tired post by sharing something that I received in an email from a special Dalhousie chapter member:

• "I hope that you teach much, but learn even more.
• I hope that you build amazing friendships and relationships that you will remember for your lifetime.
• I hope that you have experiences so powerful they bring you to tears.
• I hope that you try at least one new thing each day."

If you have any questions, want to see me posting more around a certain theme, or anything else... let me know! I love hearing from people, to know I'm having a little impact.

Laptop Central at the Akwaaba House

Erica, Alison, and Janelle representing their 'amoeba framework' for "Culture"

Kim, Henry, Henry, Bevan, Duncan, and Glynnis spending their stipend on breakfast

Sylvie and Ashley at breakfast

Mapping out ideas from case studies

Predeparture training in Toronto!

Right now there are about 22 of us in the Akwaaba House in Toronto. Five of us are squished on 2 single mattresses (because we arrived later)!

Tonight we covered introductions, logistics, and sorting out some house rules for the next week.

More news to come as the week progresses! And I will describe my placement with Concern Universal soon....

So what is this Malawi place you speak of?

It does get frustrating at times when the first response I usually get when telling people where I’m going is, “Malawi…I think I’ve heard of that. Didn’t, like, Madonna adopt a baby from there or something?” I must admit that, before learning that I would be going to Malawi, I knew little more than the location of this landlocked country that boasts a lake (Lake Nyasa/Malawi), which is almost 1/3 the size of its total land area.

That being said, I thought it would be a terrific time to introduce you to my new home for next four months. There are few books about Malawi, forcing me to go online for any information. Now, I realize that my perception of Malawi now is probably radically different than it will be in four months time. I just hope that the following won’t be too offensive to those who have been to Malawi and who didn’t expect to read a dry CIA Factbook country synopsis on an EWB blog.

Malawi is located in the southern region of Africa. At first glance, it appears somewhat forgotten, squashed in there between Zambia, Mozambique, and Tanzania – but I anticipate the people I meet will more than make up for its tiny size! (Total area: 118,480 sq km)

And now for a closeup:

The capital city is Lilongwe (pop: 500 000), but the commercial centre is Blantyre (pop: 550 000). 90% of population work in agriculture, and 10% work in industry and services. Malawian agriculture focuses primarily on the following: tobacco, cassava, sorghum, sugarcane, cotton, cattle, goats, tea, corn, macadamia nuts, pulses, potatoes, and groundnuts. Malawian GDP per capita is $800, whereas in contrast, Canadian GDP per capita is a shockingly high $38 200!

Malawi’s total population is about 14 million, which is growing at rate of 2.4% per annum. Maybe for perspective, I’ll compare its population structure to that of Canada.

	Malawi	Canada
Population > 65 years old	2.7%	14.9%
Median age (years)	16	40
Life expectancy (years)	43	81
Infant mortality rate (per 1000)	92	5
HIV prevalence rate	14.2%	0.3%
Total fertility rate (per woman)	5.7	1.6
United Nations HDI rank	164th	4th

I know that this information all seems rather detached and impersonal, as I’m just showing numbers when I’m supposed to be sharing stories and experiences. But I have a feeling (or I hope at least!) that my posts will become more interesting as the weeks progress, as I make new friends and see Malawi with my own eyes.

What in the world is a "Junior Fellow" anyway?

My name is Emily Stewart and I am an undergraduate student at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. I was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba and have lived in Surrey/White Rock, British Columbia for the past 16 years or so. This summer I will be living in Malawi as part of the Engineers without Borders (EWB) Junior Fellowship Program.

The Junior Fellowship program, for those who don’t know, is a four-month overseas volunteer placement open to EWB university-chapter members; it exposes students to development and provides leadership training. Each Canadian university with an EWB chapter is sending one or two Junior Fellows (JFs) overseas this summer, chosen from a group of applicants from the chapter’s university. This summer, there are about 40 JFs in total.

However, the program isn’t really only 4 months long; we’ve also been completing a 3-inch binder full of learning modules. We’ll be meeting for a week-long pre-departure training on May 1^st, and our goal is to share their experiences with our chapters, our universities, and our communities when we return in order to maximize the impact of what we've learned.

You may be thinking that this is another one of those, “Give us $5000 and you can volunteer in an orphanage for 2 weeks and change the world”-type programs. I asked a few friends what first came to mind when I said “Volunteer overseas”, and they came up with a long list, including “saving sea turtles, building houses, feeding poor children” among others. Not that there’s anything inherently wrong with these programs in theory or intentions, but according to EWB’s website, the goal of the Junior Fellowship Program is as follows:

“These placements offer an introduction to development and a rigorous leadership training to members. They are as much about building great leaders and providing members with their first exposure to development work as they are about having impact overseas. We understand that four months is a short time to have a lasting impact overseas; while our volunteers will have some impact in the community in which they work, their greatest impact will be in their home community and at their university upon their return. Through talking about what they learned and experienced with people here in Canada, they will play an integral role in raising awareness about the urgent need for development overseas.”

When I first came to Dal, I joined the EWB chapter because of two people I knew from home, Emily Gibson and Ben Best, now presidents of the University of Victoria and University of Waterloo chapters, respectively. Ben was a Junior Fellow as well, and after he gave a presentation on his experiences as a JF and the work that EWB does, I decided to join a chapter after hitting university.

I suppose that at this point, I should clarify something. Engineers without Borders is a non-profit organization started by two University of Waterloo engineering graduates (George and Parker!) who wanted people in developing areas have access to technologies so that they can improve their own lives. Now, however, with over 20 000 members, EWB is composed of engineers and non-engineers alike.

“Poverty is not about weakness. For the 800 million people who go hungry each day and the one billion who lack access to clean water, poverty is an absence of opportunity. We believe that technology, when appropriately incorporated into each community's social, cultural, economic and political context, can drive extraordinary change. EWB believes that sustainable development requires more than the simple installation of technologies however. To have the greatest impact overseas we focus on building capacity rather than the delivery of technological goods.”

There’s so much more I could say about EWB as an organization and as a group of passionate individuals who want to help developing communities exit a cycle of poverty. I've learned an incredible amount in a short amount of time, from member learning modules here at Dalhousie, and especially at the National Conference in Montreal in February 2008. EWB raises awareness in Canada about how we can all make better decisions that will have a positive impact on overseas, developing communities. EWB also works with our government to be a leader in alleviating poverty. EWB sends volunteers overseas to spread innovative, sustainable, and appropriate technological solutions that keep in mind the needs and wants of communities. EWB also does high school outreach work to promote development learning, problem solving, and understanding amongst youth. But if you want a more detailed scope, check out the Engineers Without Borders website.

So why did I want to learn more about our world? This gives some background as to why I’ll be going to Malawi this summer – some of the following is taken from my JF application:

Frankly, it’s all too easy and a lot more comfortable to cocoon oneself in the cozy little town of White Rock, BC. White Rock is a nice, relatively affluent retirement community with great weather and few concerns (like the impending development of high-rise towers and big-box stores). Luckily, it's filled with wonderful people, many of whom do care enormously about our local and global community. I've had the chance to meet some of these caring individuals.

For those who have known me for a while, I'm passionate about international development even though I have very little experience with it. I suppose that my interest in the world, since I was young, can be attributed to my parents discussing current global events at home. Being a person who could not choose inaction regarding injustice or poverty, my passion thus began locally. It helped, too, to have teachers and school administrators who supported my frequent dabbling in volunteer projects, clubs, and campaigns. It also helped to have IB teachers that emphasized the captivating human aspects of easy-to-make-mundane subjects like geography.

I learned about EWB through two older friends: Emily Gibson, who is now President of the EWB chapter at UVic, and Ben Best, a returned Junior Fellow and current President of the UWaterloo chapter. These two got me so enthused about EWB through various discussions that I encouraged the International Action Club at Semiahmoo Secondary to attempt similar poverty campaigns.

Last summer in 2007, I did some Habitat for Humanity work in El Salvador and visited a community called ‘Tierra Nueva’. This is another story, as I now see how differently Habitat and EWB approach development work, and have since formed some critical opinions of my own. After a few weeks there, I still had loads to learn about Tierra Nueva’s development concerns in El Salvador’s complex political, social, and economical context, including their past civil war, the fight against needless expropriation, and the recent privatization of water by the Arena government. What blew me away was how committed each individual was to changing their lives for the better – I vowed to facilitate that process in any way I could.

So I joined Dal’s EWB chapter in September 2007. Though not in engineering, I still love the EWB philosophy of identifying problems and creating effective action plans that incorporate the specific needs of a community. After writing a long application, I had an intimidating interview with Lisa Butler (our current president) and Angie Alambets (last year’s Dalhousie JF). I was exhilarated when they called to say I had been chosen for the 18-month Junior Fellowship Program (with the 4-month overseas portion); but, even then I don’t think I quite understood what I had gotten myself into.

I don’t know much about what to expect as a Junior Fellow. All I can expect is that each day, as I discover where my skills fit into the structure of the community and the partner organization I’ll be working with, I will participate, learn, and contribute with enthusiasm, compassion, and an open mind. I hope I'll be able to bring back and share ideas, stories, skills, and experiences. I want to be able to motivate others to create change in any small way they can, in Canada or elsewhere.