Development That Actually Develops

"We dont need streetlights just a new star
Not paralysed by appearences with big ideas
And just way too smart to walk around on the surface
When theres an ocean just beneath its blue-green smile
All the while nothings stopping me from jumping in it"

I have been trying to maintain at least some vague academic aspect to this trip up to this point, but I will probably have fewer opportunities for the remainder of the trip, as I will be moving fast to make it to all the places I still want to visit. I will be moving fast, that is, when there is actually a bus to take me to the next destination. I got stuck in Mwanza, Tanzania for a while in the process of going to Rwanda. I finally caught my last bus at 4:30 am the other morning, after staying up all night worrying I might miss the bus because I couldn't figure out if it was leaving at 4:30 am western time or Swahili time.

I managed to see everything I was planning to see in Malawi and more. I made it as far south as Cape MacLear, hitchhiking in the back of incredibly old, tiny pickups that managed to fit about 20 people in the bed. I usually had to help hold the odd toddler, as long as he or she wasn't too afraid of the mzungu. At Cape MacLear I went diving in Lake Malawi in one of the few fresh water protected areas in the world. It is home to a high concentration of cichlid fish. In theory, fishing is not allowed there; in practice it is difficult to prevent. That afternoon I also managed to find a place to go water skiing and was treated to dinner by my traveling companion, Rachael. Not a bad day considering it was my birthday.

On my way back north, I met up with Trent Bunderson, from WSU, who directs an organization called Total Land Care. He arranged for me to join the Speaker of the Malawian Parliament to tour some of the projects. The organization works to prevent soil degradation and deforestation around Malawi. Their strategies are very simple and easily implemented by many farmers. For example, they teach farmers to plant thick grass and trees between crop plots, parallel to the river in order to prevent rain run off during the wet season, so that the soil is once again capable of holding water which feeds the river throughout the year.

I then continued north to the small village of Nkhotakota, where a branch of the organization exists. The branch is run almost completely by locals. It was amusing to see one man wearing a WSU pin on his shirt collar. There, all the projects relate in some way to maintaining the Chia Lagoon. There are a lot of crop diversification projects, which not only protect soil integrity, but also increase surplus for the local farmers. The most interesting project I saw was the mushroom house, which allows farmers to cultivate mushrooms year round rather than only during the wet season.

The last project I happened to stumble upon while passing through Dodoma, the capital of Tanzania. While having breakfast at a guest house, I met a local journalist who was trained and is funded through USAid. He explained that the project aims to reduce corruption through journalism exposure. He was trained as a journalist through the program and is now supposed to train others. Perhaps more importantly, he explained how he is now safer in his profession. Apparently even though Tanzania has enjoyed a fairly long peaceful period and relatively little corruption, journalist can still be threatened and even killed for writing controversial stories. He said that within the last few years, a journalist was killed for exposing money being taken away from national park funds. When I asked how USAid could possible make journalists safer in Tanzania, he explained that he is substantially safer just through receiving a decent salary. With adequate money he can live in a secure house (just by having windows and locking doors), he can afford to move out of a dangerous area and he can afford to take safe, secure transportation. It all seems too simple, but at the same time, it makes sense to me.

Seeing all these projects helped me have a slightly more positive outlook on development projects and aid money in Africa, as I have become slightly jaded through traveling here and through reading Robert Guest's book "The Shackled Continent". I highly recommend the book to anyone traveling in Africa or anyone who is interested in Africa or foreign aid. The book is not an altogether negative book, but does point out a lot of the current problems in African politics, in the way development projects are managed and in the way aid is distributed. Go read it now!

No Oil, No Diamonds, No Problems

It's the mines, in Africa

That are to blame

After Kili, I went on safari (amazing. . . predictable) then to Zanzibar (amazing. . . predictable) and then got back on the road to Malawi. Now I kind of feel like I am back on track, whatever that means. As opposed to Uganda, South Africa and Tanzania where I had definite plans of things I had to do, now I am once again wandering rather aimlessly. Despite the aimlessness, my current situation seems more normal, or at least expected. If one is going to get back on the track of being off track, Malawi is certainly one place to do it. I am living up to my "mzungu" title, which is commonly used across Eastern Africa to refer to white people, but is derived from a related word which means "to wander around aimlessly like a mad person".

Malawi, a bit to my surprise, is overflowing with backpackers, probably due to the fact that it is the most reasonable route connecting Southern and Eastern Africa. What exactly does this mean for me? It means I meet tons of mad people!

My road trip through Malawi began after spending a night on a ferry from Zanzibar to Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania, where we floated at sea for a large portion of the night until the port opened. I was rocked, or perhaps tossed, to sleep listening to the sounds of most of the other passengers vomiting. Two hours after getting off the ferry I boarded a 26 hour train to the Malawi boarder. Getting off the train, I tagged along with two other backpackers to try to find a mtola (old van imported from Asia, often called a dala dala farther north) to the boarder post. At the bus station, we were ushered into a bus office where we were told we could get a bus across the boarder, all the way to Chitimba, the town we were trying to reach by that night. We easily talked the price down from 18,000 shillings to 9,000 shillings -- this was the first bad sign. Then we got loaded onto a "bus" which was actually just an over sized mtola -- 2nd bad sign. Just before we left, our bus man explained through the window that the next bus across the boarder would have our names -- 3rd bad sign. Sure enough, the mtola took twice as long as it should have and dropped us in the village a few kilometers from the boarder. We were immediately swarmed by bicycle taxis, which we reluctantly agreed to ride down to the boarder. As expected, there was no bus once we crossed the boarder. We improvised back to what we had originally planned to do and just took buses and mtolas in stages.

If there is one thing one needs to understand about public transport in the developing world, it is that it is very crowded. I'm not talking 3pm on the 49 in Seattle when all the high school students join you through Capitol Hill; it is literally twice as crowded. One must expect to share his or her seat with at least one other person, if he or she is lucky. If one is not so lucky, the seat will also be occupied by a screaming baby, several chickens and a bag of fish. Up to a certain point, I was happy to have my two new traveling companions with me to share in my misery. One, an older South American man had been understandably getting progressively more irritated, making me less happy to be with him. Enter crazy #1 (or #2 if you count the bus tout). Eventually the South African lost it and started arguing with the bus conductor on our last bus that he had paid for a whole seat, not half a seat. In the end, he gave in, possibly for fear of being kicked off the bus. When we got off, he was continuing on to the next town. He made it clear that he had to have my friend Rachael's seat, practically shoving her out of it as she tried to free herself from all the people. Luckily, we stayed in a nice hostel on the beach along Lake Malawi, where other travelers commiserated with our story, saying countless others had been scammed by the same bus company in Tanzania.

After a quick visit up to Livingstonia, we headed south along the lake to the fishing village/backpacker hangout of Nkhata Bay. We arrived on a Friday evening, when things were very busy due to the weekly Friday night barbecue. This is where we met our next crazy friend. The owner of our hostel in Livingstonia, Mick, had reserved us dorm beds at the Nkhata Bay hostel and given us a ride there, since he was already going to the barbecue to see his old friend Scuba Steve as well as what appeared to be several girlfriends. When we arrived the hostel no longer had beds for us. I don't know if it was because we had arrived with Mick or for some other reason, but the very energetic, overly friendly owner, Gary, decided to give us a room in his house and a staff room for free. We didn't question his generosity.

The next night is when we got a true taste of Gary. My friends Richard and Rachael joined me at the bar with Gary. Gary was already obviously drunk, so drunk in fact that he was shaking and almost teetering off his stool. At times I was almost afraid he was about to have a seizure. He was very excited to have company at the bar and soon began telling us his life story. The ultra condensed version goes something like this: Gary was a successful hairdresser with 8 salons in South Africa, until he discovered crack and became a self proclaimed "crackhead" (he is perhaps the only person I have ever met who has used this term to describe himself). Later, he was captured by his brother and his brother's boyfriend -- this event apparently involved handcuffs, a white leather sofa and perhaps Celine Dion. Eventually he ended up in Malawi running a hostel. The details of how he got to his current situation were very scattered, but seemed to involve him cutting off a girl's arm with an axe.

The last of the crazies I also met at Nkhata Bay. I actually spent four pleasant days on safari in Vwasa Marsh and Nyika Plateau with crazy Australian before he turned into crazy Australian. I think the transformation was brought about by the 24 hour a day drinking binge he began sometime during the safari. During the safari, he told us about living alone in a cabin in Australia for 5 years. At first I was mildly impressed by this, as he was doing worthwhile things, like living off as few resources as possible and reading tons of books; however, I soon realized this time alone either made him a little crazy or pointed to preexisting craziness. The night we returned from safari, he got into an argument with me basically trying to claim that women are the root of all evil and refuse to do worthwhile work like plumbing. Are you confused? I am. Eventually I escaped him, after he berated me for attacking him by apparently saying things I never actually said. The next day he apologized profusely, but then went straight back to drinking. Unfortunately drinking sometimes seems to bring out certain individuals' true unsavory sides.

My friend Richard summed it up by saying that it seemed to him that expats in Malawi inevitably became alcoholics. Unfortunately, I have to agree that this does seem to happen a lot. You'll notice that of all the crazies I talked about, none were actually Malawian.

For Your Reading Pleasure

From the Malawi Daily:

TWO YEARS FOR WITCHCRAFT
by Mike Chipalasa

The Mtakataka Magistrates' Court last week sentenced four sorcerers to two years imprisonment for bewitching Alindi Jemstala, 18, through a whirlwind.

Dedza Police public relations officer Franklin Gausi, siad the four are Elenola Gilbert, 68; Benson Chimkola, 68; Julieta June, 65; and Jacqueline Gilbert, 64, all from Mlangeni Village, T/A Kachindamoto in the district.

The four were arrested last week and they all admitted committing the offence.

"They picked the girl through a whirlwind and dropped her in Salima but cannot bring her back because it is too late to do that now," said Gausi.

Gausi said the four are currently serving their sentence at Dedza Prison.

Passing judgment, Second Grade Magistrate Yohane Banda said the offence was contrary to Section 6 of the Witchcraft Act.

Banda said he had handed a stiffer punishment to deter would-be witches from committing similar offences, adding the practice was rampant in the district.
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Now, before you become too judgmental and sarcastic, remember that it was not too long ago that we were burning people for witchcraft.