No big ideas - no point

Buses and mini buses - Networking in a small town - Seasonal changes and the maize in front of Miriam’s

I am trying to get over the idea that a blog must always have a point. So here goes an article on all sorts of random stuff that has been going on. There is no thesis statement or logically laid out sequence of supporting arguments. Call them observations.

Buses and mini buses: Times have changed in Malawi since the time when the old United Transport of Malawi UTM had a monopoly and 2 buses a day from Lilongwe to Mitundu where I was teaching. If you missed the morning bus you had to wait till the evening. The arrival of the minibus replaced the big old lumbering UTM buses with faster much more frequent service, but with an intendant consequence of anarchy and insecurity. Vans rated for 12 in Canada would have 21 or more people squeezed in and high speeds and poor maintenance meant there were a lot of accidents and deaths. In addition, the competition for customers created chaos at the minibus stands – but you got where you were going way better than with the UTM, even to the more faraway places.

Some big old buses got bought by private entrepreneurs when the UTM was deregulated, but they were often in bad shape too. I remember flagging down one bus in1996 when I wanted to get from Chilanga to Kasungu, a matter of only 5 km. I was shocked when I realised that the driver had no seat. He was sitting on a couple of huge bags of maize and shifting gears and using the clutch perched precariously on top of the bags with close to 100 lives in his hands.

The government has imposed much stricter standards now. The police enforce limits on passenger numbers in the minibuses. Competition has brought large bus operators to offer cheaper fares and better safety and comfort to take back market share from the minibuses who now tend to focus much more on short trips and in-town transport. I met a minibus operator at Kay Jay Pees, my restaurant / pub in Kasungu, and we had an interesting chat . He said that he owned a fleet of minibuses but that profits are way down as a result of the changes. He certainly didn’t seem to be suffering much personally.

Transport still remains a major problem for rural people. Transport prices have risen steadily with the increase in fuel costs and depending on your proximity to the major roads, the country still has huge gaps in the service to the majority of the population. In that regard, the omnipresent kabaza bicycle taxi has come to fill a major role, going into all sorts of places not even serviced by vehicle traffic. On the lake we also saw water taxis now out-competing the monopoly that the government steamship, the Ilala, used to have on access to all those lakeside villages that were inaccessible by road.

At Makupo, the lifestyle has changed with the arrival of the more efficient service. In the 60s and 70s, before the road was tarred, you had to walk the 5 km to town if you needed anything. You couldn’t count on the infrequent UTM buses even stopping if you were to wait for them. Now people can’t do anything in town without transport. I get asked for bus money more than any other thing. When I put this to Chifundo and Frazer, they just shrug their shoulders and say that is the way it is. The Bishop’s professors and the students make a point of walking into Kasungu and back a couple of times a week but they have to seek takers to join them, because the Malawians just don’t see the point. Why would you walk when there is transport? Even kabaza is better than walking. It’s an efficiency thing for them.

Visas and visits: I had to renew my visitors’ permit, which is no problem, except I have to go to the immigration office in Lilongwe. I headed into Kasungu for about 7h00 in the morning and was lucky with a quick lift on one of the big buses. I caught what I thought was the 7h30 coach and got a really good seat, but because there weren’t enough customers, we didn’t leave till 8h20 when there was barely any standing room left. The whole time we were covered by very loud Malawian reggae music. Immediately the bus started moving, the music went off and an evangelist started preaching and praying from the aisle right beside me and harangued the passengers for a good 30 km before he ran out of steam and the music came back. Those in seats were lucky and no-one was giving up their choice real estate for even the oldest or most pregnant standing passengers. The conductor just kept pushing more people further down the aisle until they started squeezing onto the passengers in the aisle seats. I was doubly lucky that I had a window seat.

By the half way mark in Mponela the reggae again gave way, this time to two or three rowdy stand-up comedians. It was still early morning, but they sure seemed to have sniffed or supped something to make them think they were funny. Half the crowd went along with them and the other half just wore an air of indifference and hoped that they wouldn’t become the butt of any of their humour.

I got to Lilongwe and finished with my immigration business before lunch. You wouldn’t have been able to do that in the 60s and 70s. I could have turned around to return to Kasungu the same day, but I had other business in town and a couple of friends to see. Bright and early the next morning I was left out on the highway for the minibus experience. I was lucky right off with a Kasungu bound minibus, but it was so empty it was stopping everywhere there were people to try and fill the van.

I found myself surprised by the discipline. At a couple of places there were already minibuses lined up waiting for customers and our driver was chased away because he was cutting in out of turn. I was happy because it meant he would have to keep moving forward instead of sitting and waiting until he was full. However at Mponela, all his short distance customers got out and I was the only one left. He was at the end of a long line of buses and had to wait his turn. Apparently the minibus operators have formed an association and there are monitors at various key stops to maintain this kind of order. The monitor came to me and told me that the balance of my fare to Kasungu had been passed on to the bus at the front of the line and he guided me to my seat in that bus. Ten minutes later we were full and off we went.

The discipline was also apparent at the police roadblocks between Lilongwe and Mponela, where they counted the passengers, checked the driver’s licence and sent us on the way. That broke down after Mponela where there seems to be a different operating ethic between the police and the bus operators. The bus was crammed to over-flowing a couple of times with over 21 people. That’s all I could count, crammed into my window seat far from the door. I thought he would drop the excess people off before the permanent police road block at Bua, but instead the conductor got out of the bus and in the time-honoured fashion walked to the back of the bus with the cop and when he returned to the bus we were waved forward. The deal had been cut and we were free to go with as many people as he could cram in. That changed after the Chinkoma Auction floors as we began to get closer to Kasungu. He started refusing to pick up people until we were back to a level of legality and comfort. I presume the police around Kasungu are more rigorous because there were people trying to flag us down who would have gladly done the cram routine to get to where they were going but he drove right by them.

Networking in a small town: I have begun biking the 5 km into Kasungu for exercise. The big bikes and the hills mean that it is a good little cardio workout and gets me out of the seated position where I spend most of my time when I am in Kasungu. Saturday I biked into town, because I had been invited to attend the district Presidential Cup finals by a gentleman I met a couple of times at the hardware store and once at Kay Jay Pees. Mr Mphepho (it means wind or air) is the chairman of the Kasungu District Football Association and like many people who are involved in sports at this level he is passionate about promoting the game. He quickly guilted me, because I had not supported the Makupo football team enough and they had disappeared from the scene. Sponsorship is important if the sport is going to grow in Malawi and new talent given the chance to shine. I promised to do better.

However, the Presidential Cup was not my cup of tea. He wanted me to sit on the honorary guests’ dais and meet the Minister of Finance, the honourable Ken Kandodo the sitting MP for Makupo as well as other dignitaries. I am not very comfortable in such milieu. How often do you meet the Minister of Finance in Canada? I didn’t promise to come to this function even though I would gladly have come to watch some good football. I made the mistake of telling Mr Katengeza the secondary school headmaster about the invitation and how I was planning to hide out in the crowd, but he insisted that it was important for me to attend.

Kandodo did not make it, but the Deputy-Minister for Higher Education and Technology, Mrs. Jere was there as well as a couple of other Kasungu MPs, the District Commissioner and a gentleman from Kasungu on the National Electoral Commission. I ended up seated beside Mr. Patrick Makonyola, the Chief Executive Officer for the Central Region Water Board – a very senior man. His company team was playing in this final against a very strong village team from Nziza in the southeast corner of Kasungu district. Wouldn’t you know it? Makonyola had just been in Montreal at a congress on water in February and was an old school mate of one of the few Malawians resident in Montreal, Kunjilika Chaima. The next thing you knew we had all sorts of things to talk about. We exchanged business cards and he offered to come to Kasungu to meet the Vanier students to talk to them about water needs and issues. I don’t think I could ever have made the same kind of contacts n Montreal or even Lilongwe, but networking in a small town like Kasungu often starts by meeting people in the hardware store or over a beer after work.

Seasonal changes and the maize in front of Miriams: When Julie and I arrived in the middle of April the land was still green and lush looking. There has been no rain at all since then and the tall maize stalks have dried out and the people have pretty well cleared the fields and stooked the maize in preparation for harvesting the cobs. While it is a bit sad to see the green turn to brown and yellow the 3 metre tall maize in front of Miriam’s house has been blocking my views of the beautiful sunset and the western horizon. Now Cecilia, a young relative living in the village to the east of us has been stooking the maize for ganyu as a day labourer and slowly but surely the view is returning. At first it was nice to sit out on the porch as the evening fell. But now the temperature drop is so fast after sunset that we are happy to go inside when we are called to dinner and there is not much sitting around outside after supper.

In April, I slept comfortably with just a sheet, but just two weeks ago, I woke up chilly in the night and had to pull on a blanket. If last year is anything to go on, it continues to get cooler in the evenings until July when it can get downright cold at night – hoodies and sweat pants. Your hands can get quite numb riding the bike after sunset and there can be a sort of London fog dampness in the air even if it is the dry season.

Anyone who is coming during June, July or August will be surprised that it can get this cold in Africa. We are quite a distance south of the Equator and on a high plateau, so with the seasonal switch from the northern to the southern hemisphere it is quite to be expected. A trip to Lake Malawi will reassure you that it is still the tropics. By the time you descend 1000 metres to the lake level the climate warms up considerably.

And that moon. Without the light pollution of North America, the night sky is spectacular. We are a couple of days before the full moon and already it is so bright at night that you can almost read by its light. The women and kids danced and sang in the moonlight for Julie’s good bye last night. It was enchanting and heart-warming. In her short month here she has become very close to everyone she met and the moonlight added a warm glow to the evening.

That’s it for now – no point to make and just a couple of stories to tell.