Embedding Democracy
“The protests and riots of July 20 are fundamentally about governance and development, the enduring desire among Malawians for the establishment of a sustainable democratic developmental state.” Paul Zeleza in Zeleza Post “Malawi on the Brink” July 21
A number of people have asked me about the current situation in Malawi with questions and concerns about the safety of foreign visitors to the country. To understand the roots of today’s unrest, it is useful to review recent Malawi history. The brutal dictatorship of Dr. Banda and the subsequent, imperfect democratic dispensation have set the scene for today’s unrest. On the one hand, Malawi is cursed by its lack of valuable mineral resources like coltan, diamonds and gold. On the other hand, their absence is a blessing in that there is little incentive for the rise of warlords and ethnic conflict which has been so destructive in other parts of the continent. For visitors, it is re-assuring to note that the problems are largely urban based and that both sides of the leadership have promoted dialogue as a solution to avoid further bloodshed and violent confrontation. The unhappiness remains and the problems that caused it have not been solved, but it is a tribute to a desire to make democracy work that Malawi’s leaders in and out of government are committed to a peaceful resolution.
The 30 years of the Banda dictatorship, hugely frustrated the promises that were evoked during the nationalist freedom struggle. The president’s personal paranoia was reflected in an intolerance of criticism, the creation of a complex multilayered security apparatus, a totally obsequious and fawning media, as well as large numbers of political prisoners and citizens driven into exile. The tourist slogan “The Warm Heart of Africa” belied the daily brutality of midnight arrests and repression that created a climate of fear and enforced silence.
The churches, a few courageous individuals inside the country, and external pressure from opposition groups and international governments and institutions finally led to the end of the dictatorship with the 1994 multiparty referendum. The people conclusively renounced the Banda system and were inspired by the very hopeful appearance of a model constitution, multi-party elections, many new and outspoken newspapers and the complete disappearance of the state security apparatus. Human rights organisations sprang up like mushrooms and monitored all aspects of political life in Malawi. People from all walks of life agreed that they could never go back again to those bad old days.
Unfortunately democracy’s promise was betrayed by the crass venality and corruption of the first set of new rulers. People who had stepped out of prison without a tambala to their name entered government and were suddenly buying estates, flying to shop in fancy stores in Europe and sending their children to exotic, foreign, private schools. Things seemed to be improving with the arrival of the second democratically elected president, Bingu wa Mutharika. His controversial first term made him appear to be a straight shooting, honest and hard-working leader, who could unite the country. In the last election, people turned out in large numbers across the ethnic and regional divides to give him a massive majority in Parliament.
However, soon after the election, the real Mutharika began to show himself as he quickly alienated large sectors of the population with signs that he favoured a return to the bad old days of Kamuzu Banda. Intolerant of criticism, he admired and rehabilitated the image of the late dictator and acted like him by calling his detractors ‘stupid’. He told his party militants to ‘deal with’ his enemies giving rise to fears that the concept of the old dictator’s youth wing hoodlums was being revived. The university closing, the egregious deportation of the British High Commissioner, the changing of the flag and the foolhardy promotion of his brother to be his successor added to the resentment at the arrogance of the leadership. Economic woes accumulated as electricity blackouts have become common, fuel shortages an everyday reality, and government spending on wasteful items like a presidential jet and ministerial limousines aggravated the unhappiness of the majority of the people facing unemployment, low wages and rising prices.
Paul Zeleza, a Malawian historian and commentator maintains that:
Indeed, of Malawi's three presidents to date, he is arguably the worst. He combines President Banda's authoritarianism without the competence of his government, and President Muluzi's corruption without his government's tolerance for democracy. The way President Mutharika has bungled the country's economy and politics boggles the mind. He badly mishandled the July 20 protests, first banning them and making threats, then allowing them to go ahead, before orchestrating a court injunction to stop them on the night of July 19, which only inflamed the crowds that gathered the next morning and ensured the violence that ensued….” Zeleza Post “Malawi on the Brink” July 21
The protests of July 20 follow more than 2 years of discontent and warning that the new direction was unacceptable. The widest read newspapers are privately owned and have consistently spoke out against the authoritarian tendencies and mismanagement. Their online versions along with numerous blogs have been denouncing the government’s democratic and economic backsliding. The concerns are widespread to all layers of the population, but to date the protests have been largely limited to the urban middle classes and township dwellers. The government and its police and army were unprepared for the level of anger and the widespread support represented by the call for protests on July 20. The heavy-handed response shocked and upset Malawians as well as close observers of the country unaccustomed to this kind of violence in the Warm Heart of Africa.
In classic Malawi fashion the response has been to try to talk the problem through. A committee was set up with representatives of the President and civil society discussing their way through a set of problem issues they want to settle. There are no warlords or caches of weapons or easily exploited mineral resources such as what fuelled the crisis in many other places (diamonds in Sierra Leone, coltran and tin in Eastern Congo). Family members in town and in the village indicate that they are unconcerned about safety or security. Violence has not become the norm. There are still political meetings and rallies of the opposition parties and everyone is planning for the next elections in 2014. An article in the Malawi News On-line, is titled “Dialogue teams tackles two points only” and the writer, Caroline Somanje, (8 September 2011) typical of the opposition press in Malawi tries to sensationalise how little has been accomplished through the talks. However, what is going on is rather interesting in that parties on both sides of the dispute are discussing not fighting. Rather than being viewed with trepidation, the protest, debate and political movements in Malawi should be seen as totally normal and relatively peaceful components of the growth and embedding of democracy.
Sunday, September 18, 2011
Wednesday, July 6, 2011
Clearing the graves of the ancestors
Clearing the graves of the ancestors
Thursday, June 30
I spent yesterday afternoon relaxing and talking in the summer hut with Koni and Terna. Women, especially the older generation, from all over the village began walking by with buckets of water going towards Frazer’s place. It was most unusual. Finally, I called sister-in-law, Chifundo aside to find out what was happening. She explained how the women were making tobwa, boiling maize and millet into a sweet, thin, opaque porridge for the men. Apparently it used to be an annual rite to call out all the descendent s of the early reverends of the church to a special graveyard reserved for these elders right beside the church and clear the site of the weeds and undergrowth that had sprung up since the previous year. I didn’t even know this special cemetery existed. Of course, with my religious predilections, I have not spentany time over the last 40 years visiting and acquainting myself with the old church and its surroundings.
The Reverend LameckPhiri was the first of that line.He was Nellie’s grandfather, the father of her dad, George and his siblings. He was a lakeshore Tonga who had come from Chinteche or Bandawe as a teacher and then become the first of the African ministers in the early decades of the last century. As aneducator, he had taught the young Kamuzu Banda whose school bench is still painted black in his honour in the old church / school built in 1903.
Lameck had come from Bandawe Mission on the lakeshore to Chibweya with the Free Church of Scotland. He was amongst the early converts to Christianity and school leavers from the old system where Standard Three represented a lot of schooling. He qualified as a teacher and went inland as part of the missionary enterprise. In Chibweya, he met and married Leya, a Chewa lady and they began their family. A number of lakeshore Tongas followed a similar path, including the family ancestors of our old friend Timothy Ngwira and gradually became assimilated from a patriarchal to a matrilineal and matrilocal tradition.
The Dutch Reform ran the mission at Chilanga and they must have had some agreements with the Free Church of Scotland, since Lameck was teaching in the school at Chilanga when Kamuzu was there in the early years of the mission before the First World War. Sometime in the 1920’s the 2 churches formed the CCAP, Church of Central African Presbyterian, and it would have been under those auspicious that he became the first African minister at Chilanga.
The tobwa was for the menwho had come out to work,almost all of them related to the early reverends. By 5h00 in the morning, a large group of them had collected and begun hoeing up the weeds in the several paths leading to the graveyard and burning the leaves and debris that had been collected.
By 7h00 the work was over and Theodore (Feodolo) Saka at 90 years old, the last surviving son of the reverend Lameck, called the men together and they knelt or sat on their hoes around him as he sat on his father’s tomb and recounted the history that had brought their ancestors and their wives to this spot. It was fascinating for what it represented.
The CheĊµa people have great respect for their elders and to see so many of them kneeling in front of Theodore listening in silent respect was very impressive at a time when many people have walked away from traditional obligations and practices. It was also a reflection of a pre-Christian time when the dead and the living all formed part of the same community. The late departed were honoured as elders still living in the community, just present ina different way and place. I have not read enough about Chewa early religion, but in many ways one sees traditions maintained that do not derive from the Christian mythology, These practices have been slipped in as complements to or add-ons because they have been part of the people’s traditions from time immemorial. Just as the christmas tree and the easter egg date back to pre-christian time in Europe, many Chewa people are looking for sanction from the current churches for practices of their ancestors dating to before the arrival of Christian missionaries who were dedicated to destroying those ‘pagan’ belief systems.
The way the women and men shared the work and came together so willingly to honour their ancestors is a tribute to the power of some customs and traditions. I spoke with a couple of the young men who had sat at Theodore’s foot as he taught and they were very happy to learn from him and be part of the process. It creates a powerful sense of inclusion and brings the history to life and contributes to keeping it alive in a way no school textbook could ever hope to accomplish.
Thursday, June 30
I spent yesterday afternoon relaxing and talking in the summer hut with Koni and Terna. Women, especially the older generation, from all over the village began walking by with buckets of water going towards Frazer’s place. It was most unusual. Finally, I called sister-in-law, Chifundo aside to find out what was happening. She explained how the women were making tobwa, boiling maize and millet into a sweet, thin, opaque porridge for the men. Apparently it used to be an annual rite to call out all the descendent s of the early reverends of the church to a special graveyard reserved for these elders right beside the church and clear the site of the weeds and undergrowth that had sprung up since the previous year. I didn’t even know this special cemetery existed. Of course, with my religious predilections, I have not spentany time over the last 40 years visiting and acquainting myself with the old church and its surroundings.
The Reverend LameckPhiri was the first of that line.He was Nellie’s grandfather, the father of her dad, George and his siblings. He was a lakeshore Tonga who had come from Chinteche or Bandawe as a teacher and then become the first of the African ministers in the early decades of the last century. As aneducator, he had taught the young Kamuzu Banda whose school bench is still painted black in his honour in the old church / school built in 1903.
Lameck had come from Bandawe Mission on the lakeshore to Chibweya with the Free Church of Scotland. He was amongst the early converts to Christianity and school leavers from the old system where Standard Three represented a lot of schooling. He qualified as a teacher and went inland as part of the missionary enterprise. In Chibweya, he met and married Leya, a Chewa lady and they began their family. A number of lakeshore Tongas followed a similar path, including the family ancestors of our old friend Timothy Ngwira and gradually became assimilated from a patriarchal to a matrilineal and matrilocal tradition.
The Dutch Reform ran the mission at Chilanga and they must have had some agreements with the Free Church of Scotland, since Lameck was teaching in the school at Chilanga when Kamuzu was there in the early years of the mission before the First World War. Sometime in the 1920’s the 2 churches formed the CCAP, Church of Central African Presbyterian, and it would have been under those auspicious that he became the first African minister at Chilanga.
The tobwa was for the menwho had come out to work,almost all of them related to the early reverends. By 5h00 in the morning, a large group of them had collected and begun hoeing up the weeds in the several paths leading to the graveyard and burning the leaves and debris that had been collected.
By 7h00 the work was over and Theodore (Feodolo) Saka at 90 years old, the last surviving son of the reverend Lameck, called the men together and they knelt or sat on their hoes around him as he sat on his father’s tomb and recounted the history that had brought their ancestors and their wives to this spot. It was fascinating for what it represented.
The CheĊµa people have great respect for their elders and to see so many of them kneeling in front of Theodore listening in silent respect was very impressive at a time when many people have walked away from traditional obligations and practices. It was also a reflection of a pre-Christian time when the dead and the living all formed part of the same community. The late departed were honoured as elders still living in the community, just present ina different way and place. I have not read enough about Chewa early religion, but in many ways one sees traditions maintained that do not derive from the Christian mythology, These practices have been slipped in as complements to or add-ons because they have been part of the people’s traditions from time immemorial. Just as the christmas tree and the easter egg date back to pre-christian time in Europe, many Chewa people are looking for sanction from the current churches for practices of their ancestors dating to before the arrival of Christian missionaries who were dedicated to destroying those ‘pagan’ belief systems.
The way the women and men shared the work and came together so willingly to honour their ancestors is a tribute to the power of some customs and traditions. I spoke with a couple of the young men who had sat at Theodore’s foot as he taught and they were very happy to learn from him and be part of the process. It creates a powerful sense of inclusion and brings the history to life and contributes to keeping it alive in a way no school textbook could ever hope to accomplish.
Malawians must not doubt my leadership – Bingu
Malawians must not doubt my leadership – Bingu waMuthaika
The deterioration in the relationship between the president and his country, reached a low over the weekend after the president’s speech declaring that it was important for the Malawian people not to doubt his leadership after all he had done. Maybe he had begun to believe the PR campaign on the billboards lining the roadside which vaunted his many achievements - the port at Nsanje, the improved roads, etc...
But since his re-election at the end of 2009 with a massive majority in parliament, he has accumulated a litany of errors in judgement that have squandered the goodwill he had fostered in the first 5 year term he served. It seems eerily similar to the Harper majority recently acquired in Canada. For that past 5 years, the government had to present a smiling face and espouse an agenda of reasonableness and good-will even though underneath it was clear there was an agenda filled with thorns waiting to be imposed. Now with a strong majority the iron hand had come out of the velvet glove.
The newspapers here are filled with commentators who outline the woes and the mistakes of leadership. But perhaps the more significant emblem of the arrogance of power and misreading of the temper of the people and the reality of Malawi’s position has been the spat betweenBingu and Britain. The many heavy handed policies which seemed to presage a return to the dictatorial tendencies of the Kamuzu era were commented on in a secret communication between the British High Commissioner and his home office. The communication contained material much less scurrilous than what appears regularly in the Malawi press. The cable (or probably an email these days) was leaked to the Malawi press who jumped on it to confirm their contentions about Bingu’s rule and rather than calling in the High Commissioner to berate, reproach or protest, Bingu declared him a prohibited immigrant and obliged him to leave the country like a common criminal.
It was clear that personalpride and not material consequences formed the basis for the decision, because within weeks the major donors used the action to underline their concerns about governance issues and to use the aid stick to oblige a return to conformity. British aid which has underpinned government running costs since independence was cut and a freeze imposed on many programmes from other donors while the situation was reviewed.
The old man pressed ahead and damned the consequences. He had to present a budget to parliament so he and his finance minister cooked up the unlikely text book zero-deficit budget. As far-fetched as it may seem in a country as far down the development index (number 160 out of 172), the budget made no bones about the people of Malawi bearing the brunt of making up for the loss of international aid. Here is DumbisoMoyo’s dream come true. According to this Zambian World Bank free market economist, without aid, governments would have to be more responsible and end inefficiencies and corruption in order to make it in the cruel dog-eat-dog world of market capitalism.
I was visiting some old friends in Karonga, the far northern town of consequence in Malawi when Mutharika delivered his speech.Everyone I met was laughing at and deriding the president for his lack of foresight. Sitting with these now retired gentlemen once again brought back tremendous memories of being with someof them in very different circumstances. Under the Kamuzu dictatorship there would have been no possibility of sitting in public and ridiculing the foolishness of the leader. Even in exile it was dangerous to be too identified with any criticism of Banda and his regime. Several of the men, I was with had sat on different sides of the fence during the dictatorship, but they now shared a common critique of an unpopular government which was fast losing traction.
One had been fairly senior civil servant and had served as an accountant in the foreign service and the Cabinet office. He gave an illustration as his critique of the zero-deficit budget. He told the story of the district museum, built as a local initiative, which gets its mail in a private bag, which used to cost K5000 per month in post office fees to maintain. As of July 1 that fee has been raised to K75,000 per month – an astronomical 15 fold increase. Police have been instructed to raise K28 million every month to pay their salaries by enforcing all possible road penalties. So at roadblock after roadblock we are asked for our license, emergency triangles and fire extinguishers and the swarm of window stickers is inspected with a microscope for shortcomings – certificate of fitness, insurance, license fees, Revenue Authority tax etc…, etc…, etc...
In order to update the system for allocating passports, the government invalidated all passports and obliged everyone to buy new ones regardless of the life expectancy of the old one and no credit for time left on your old passport. Now a new passport with a two week minimum delay is K15,000 but for a meagre K35,000 you can get it on the same day.Because the Malawi embassy is closed due to the diplomatic row between Bingu and the UK government, Malawi citizens in the UK and other countries of Europe represented through the Uk are now obliged to forwarded all their materials to Lilongwe.
The people are being made to pay at all sorts of levels. The prices of beer and newspapers have gone up as the VAT was applied to a wide variety of goods.
BakiliMulizi chose Bingu as his successor to avoid Aleke becoming the presidential candidate as the 1st vice-president of the UDF party. He was vaunted as the economic engineer needed to put the Malawian economy right. He did, in fact, do some interesting and progressive things that heped return the country to food self-sufficiency and give the appearance of one of the highest economic growth rates on the continent. One policy initiative in particular has come back to haunt and debilitate. In an attempt to stabilise prices and provide a form of equity for the many smallholder tobacco growers, he tried to fix a minimum floor price at the auction floors to prevent prices going so low that the farmers couldn’t realise an adequate return to cover their cost of production.
It worked for a year or two while the transnational companies adjusted their supply chain to ensure they could get super-cheap tobacco form other sources and then they imposed their will by rejecting huge quantities of the tobacco crop sent to the auction floor this year. By not even offering to buy the crop they cornered the government into allowing the price to float downwards to allow some sales to occur, but the damage has been done. The Kasungu area where Makupo is located sells itself as the Greeleaf capital of Malawi and the effect of the low sales and prices has impacted the economy hard. Poor, cash-strapped farmers must sell now to have some money available for current needs. They do not have the substance or the reserves to wait out the current prices lump and sell when prices go up. Every merchant in Kasungu will complain about the economy and the poor business they are doing.
As an economic engineer, his dreams of acquiring plentiful cheap power from the CaboraBassa hydro-electric dam and making the lower Shire river into a regional transport hub have fallen afoul of his own mismanagement of international relations and the exorbitant demands of Mozambique trying to maximize its leverage over a landlocked country by charging top dollar whenever possible. Malawi and Mozambique couldn’t agree on the price to pay for the power they wanted. Now electric outages occur with such regularity that it has become confusing trying to distinguish between planned and advertised load-shedding and ESCOM incompetence. The huge investment to make Nsanjea deep water port capable of receiving heavy goods barge traffic was meant to be the first step in a regional plan in which containers would be off-loaded to trains for shipment to the commercial centre of Blantyre and further beyond to Zambia. But a dispute with Mozambique over managing the waterway has kept the port inactive. It would have been logical to assume that such a basic step as ensuring such agreement before the project was begun and the investment was made.
Do not even bring up the fuel shortages as another sign of bad financial management. The poor hardly feel the loss of petrol and diesel except when they travel and the minibus operators charge back the black market prices they are forced to pay for fuel. The elite who own cars are fit to be tied.
It has never been this bad and it is all tied together: forex, deporting the British High Commissioner, tobacco prices, increased taxes, zero-deficit budgets, ports that do not receive any traffic, electricity outages. It is small wonder that people doubt or even mock his handling of the affairs of state and rather economic affairs. Still he says; “Trust me.”
The deterioration in the relationship between the president and his country, reached a low over the weekend after the president’s speech declaring that it was important for the Malawian people not to doubt his leadership after all he had done. Maybe he had begun to believe the PR campaign on the billboards lining the roadside which vaunted his many achievements - the port at Nsanje, the improved roads, etc...
But since his re-election at the end of 2009 with a massive majority in parliament, he has accumulated a litany of errors in judgement that have squandered the goodwill he had fostered in the first 5 year term he served. It seems eerily similar to the Harper majority recently acquired in Canada. For that past 5 years, the government had to present a smiling face and espouse an agenda of reasonableness and good-will even though underneath it was clear there was an agenda filled with thorns waiting to be imposed. Now with a strong majority the iron hand had come out of the velvet glove.
The newspapers here are filled with commentators who outline the woes and the mistakes of leadership. But perhaps the more significant emblem of the arrogance of power and misreading of the temper of the people and the reality of Malawi’s position has been the spat betweenBingu and Britain. The many heavy handed policies which seemed to presage a return to the dictatorial tendencies of the Kamuzu era were commented on in a secret communication between the British High Commissioner and his home office. The communication contained material much less scurrilous than what appears regularly in the Malawi press. The cable (or probably an email these days) was leaked to the Malawi press who jumped on it to confirm their contentions about Bingu’s rule and rather than calling in the High Commissioner to berate, reproach or protest, Bingu declared him a prohibited immigrant and obliged him to leave the country like a common criminal.
It was clear that personalpride and not material consequences formed the basis for the decision, because within weeks the major donors used the action to underline their concerns about governance issues and to use the aid stick to oblige a return to conformity. British aid which has underpinned government running costs since independence was cut and a freeze imposed on many programmes from other donors while the situation was reviewed.
The old man pressed ahead and damned the consequences. He had to present a budget to parliament so he and his finance minister cooked up the unlikely text book zero-deficit budget. As far-fetched as it may seem in a country as far down the development index (number 160 out of 172), the budget made no bones about the people of Malawi bearing the brunt of making up for the loss of international aid. Here is DumbisoMoyo’s dream come true. According to this Zambian World Bank free market economist, without aid, governments would have to be more responsible and end inefficiencies and corruption in order to make it in the cruel dog-eat-dog world of market capitalism.
I was visiting some old friends in Karonga, the far northern town of consequence in Malawi when Mutharika delivered his speech.Everyone I met was laughing at and deriding the president for his lack of foresight. Sitting with these now retired gentlemen once again brought back tremendous memories of being with someof them in very different circumstances. Under the Kamuzu dictatorship there would have been no possibility of sitting in public and ridiculing the foolishness of the leader. Even in exile it was dangerous to be too identified with any criticism of Banda and his regime. Several of the men, I was with had sat on different sides of the fence during the dictatorship, but they now shared a common critique of an unpopular government which was fast losing traction.
One had been fairly senior civil servant and had served as an accountant in the foreign service and the Cabinet office. He gave an illustration as his critique of the zero-deficit budget. He told the story of the district museum, built as a local initiative, which gets its mail in a private bag, which used to cost K5000 per month in post office fees to maintain. As of July 1 that fee has been raised to K75,000 per month – an astronomical 15 fold increase. Police have been instructed to raise K28 million every month to pay their salaries by enforcing all possible road penalties. So at roadblock after roadblock we are asked for our license, emergency triangles and fire extinguishers and the swarm of window stickers is inspected with a microscope for shortcomings – certificate of fitness, insurance, license fees, Revenue Authority tax etc…, etc…, etc...
In order to update the system for allocating passports, the government invalidated all passports and obliged everyone to buy new ones regardless of the life expectancy of the old one and no credit for time left on your old passport. Now a new passport with a two week minimum delay is K15,000 but for a meagre K35,000 you can get it on the same day.Because the Malawi embassy is closed due to the diplomatic row between Bingu and the UK government, Malawi citizens in the UK and other countries of Europe represented through the Uk are now obliged to forwarded all their materials to Lilongwe.
The people are being made to pay at all sorts of levels. The prices of beer and newspapers have gone up as the VAT was applied to a wide variety of goods.
BakiliMulizi chose Bingu as his successor to avoid Aleke becoming the presidential candidate as the 1st vice-president of the UDF party. He was vaunted as the economic engineer needed to put the Malawian economy right. He did, in fact, do some interesting and progressive things that heped return the country to food self-sufficiency and give the appearance of one of the highest economic growth rates on the continent. One policy initiative in particular has come back to haunt and debilitate. In an attempt to stabilise prices and provide a form of equity for the many smallholder tobacco growers, he tried to fix a minimum floor price at the auction floors to prevent prices going so low that the farmers couldn’t realise an adequate return to cover their cost of production.
It worked for a year or two while the transnational companies adjusted their supply chain to ensure they could get super-cheap tobacco form other sources and then they imposed their will by rejecting huge quantities of the tobacco crop sent to the auction floor this year. By not even offering to buy the crop they cornered the government into allowing the price to float downwards to allow some sales to occur, but the damage has been done. The Kasungu area where Makupo is located sells itself as the Greeleaf capital of Malawi and the effect of the low sales and prices has impacted the economy hard. Poor, cash-strapped farmers must sell now to have some money available for current needs. They do not have the substance or the reserves to wait out the current prices lump and sell when prices go up. Every merchant in Kasungu will complain about the economy and the poor business they are doing.
As an economic engineer, his dreams of acquiring plentiful cheap power from the CaboraBassa hydro-electric dam and making the lower Shire river into a regional transport hub have fallen afoul of his own mismanagement of international relations and the exorbitant demands of Mozambique trying to maximize its leverage over a landlocked country by charging top dollar whenever possible. Malawi and Mozambique couldn’t agree on the price to pay for the power they wanted. Now electric outages occur with such regularity that it has become confusing trying to distinguish between planned and advertised load-shedding and ESCOM incompetence. The huge investment to make Nsanjea deep water port capable of receiving heavy goods barge traffic was meant to be the first step in a regional plan in which containers would be off-loaded to trains for shipment to the commercial centre of Blantyre and further beyond to Zambia. But a dispute with Mozambique over managing the waterway has kept the port inactive. It would have been logical to assume that such a basic step as ensuring such agreement before the project was begun and the investment was made.
Do not even bring up the fuel shortages as another sign of bad financial management. The poor hardly feel the loss of petrol and diesel except when they travel and the minibus operators charge back the black market prices they are forced to pay for fuel. The elite who own cars are fit to be tied.
It has never been this bad and it is all tied together: forex, deporting the British High Commissioner, tobacco prices, increased taxes, zero-deficit budgets, ports that do not receive any traffic, electricity outages. It is small wonder that people doubt or even mock his handling of the affairs of state and rather economic affairs. Still he says; “Trust me.”
Saturday, May 21, 2011
The Poor Man Pays
Kayelekera Earns Malawi K23bn – The poor man pays
Dumbani Mzale reported in the Daily Nation of 19 May that the Kayelekera Uranium Mine, near Malawi’s border with Tanzania, had earned Malawi K23bn (about US$149 million). This was according to a press release issued by the owners and developers, Paladin Energy Limited. Paragraph after paragraph of Mzale’s article uncritically quotes the companies line about how much it contributes to the Malawi economy.
It turns out that total sales from the mine are $148,888,500 with increases likely as the volume of output increases. This is not the same as Malawi earning $149 million as the headline implied. According to a company spokesman quoted in the article,” Clearly, this has generated valuable foreign currency for Malawi as well as resulting in significant royalty payments to the Government of Malawi…”
From the Malawi end the reporter quotes the Minster of Energy and Mines, the Minister Grain Malunga who, “…lauded the contribution Kayelekera is making to the Malawi economy. He said apart from substantial forex being generated; the mine is also creating employment in the country. There are also a lot of tax being paid to the government from the mine. Government is also getting royalties. The company has employed over 1,000 workers. In addition, the people surrounding the mine are providing foodstuff to the workers and are earning income in return, said Malunga.”
Nobody in the Malawi media wants to hear the bad news. It is not spoken. It is not tolerated. Early on, as the mine was being planned, concern about and opposition based on environmental issues was raised by civil society organisations and even some chiefs. It was widely under-reported and sternly put down by the powers-that-be in the country, who are blindly wedded to the free market, private enterprise, World Bank model. The mine is bringing money into the country. In their view, investment - any investment - will benefit them and according to the dribble down effect, it is therefore good for the whole country. On that basis, they would not brook any opposition to the mine. Businessmen, politicians and even journalists labelled the dissenters as ignorant and purely obstructionist for opposition’s sake.
Even dear old Malawian friends of mine who have shared so much politically over the years looked askance at me with a patronising tilt of the head when I denounced the mine and its consequences for Malawi. They didn’t argue with Doug, their old friend in his greying years, but he must clearly be missing the point of how important this mine is to Malawi. There he is on another one of his radical rants.
The issue of uranium is old stuff in Canada. The testimony of survivors or Uranium City in Saskatchewan and Elliot Lake in Ontario and a militant and informed citizenry have literally pushed the uranium mining industry off the map in Canada. Nonetheless, commodity prices have risen over the last few years driving the price of uranium to record highs, so the industry started ramping up a come-back strategy.
All the government doctors in Sept-Isle threatened to resign en masse if a licence to prospect uranium close to the city was granted. The scenario resembled Malawi in many ways except for the power of democracy. The Quebec government, which incidentally shares with its Malawi counterpart many of the same basic economic principles, initially condemned the doctors for blackmailing the population and fear-mongering. It tried to isolate the dissenters, trivialise the concerns and maximise the benefits. The business dominated media sided with the government and industry.
That is where the power of democracy and an informed citizenry came in. Considerable mobilisation went on in the Sept-Isle community, where there is a history of labour militancy. The tragic stories of former uranium towns were recounted. The science behind the dangers and risks associated with this toxic product were once again presented for all to see. The lack of real economic benefit and the tragic scars left on the environment were pointed out once again. The community fell in solidly behind the opposition and the credibility of government and industry was once again left in tatters for defending the indefensible and promoting development that is anti-people and anti-environment. People won out over profit.
That is what is missing in the debate in Malawi. It is not a question of respecting the cultural values and sensitivities of Malawi. These are class issues not cultural ones. Real democracy is a long way from being deeply rooted in this country. The wealth owners never suffer when mines pollute, workers are poisoned and the local environment despoiled. There is some profit for a few some people. In a country of 14 or more million people, the small business elite may be reaping considerable benefit for themselves, but the overall negatives, all well documented, are not to stand between a business elite determined to enrich itself and the long term consequences for the people and their land.
Even the workers are not happy with their circumstance. A sort of apartheid exists between the Malawi employees and the foreign workers brought in to run the place which has led to considerable resentment. Again government comes down forcibly on the side of business and against the workers and their legitimate rights and demands.
International organisations of great repute have shown in considerable detail how African countries including Malawi are exploited at considerable human and environmental cost by the quick talking and slick presentations of the multinational mining industry. Uranium is one of the worst for long term pollution, falsifying the benefits and leaving a mess behind for others to clean up. Royalties are underpaid and tax returns are grossly overstated and underpaid. In fact, with the World Bank encouragement, governments give the companies huge tax exemptions, agree to take greatly lowered royalties and accept the cooked up figures the companies provide to pay less at the Malawi end and offer bigger profits to their shareholders at the other.
In the end, as the famous song from South Africa says, the poor man pays. He pays as cheap labour, his environment is despoiled and his women are reduced to prostitution. The rich man is happy.
Malawi has the double dilemma historically because it was always told that it had no mineral wealth. Now that it possesses mineral wealth, it is hard to accept that it is poison. During colonial times, Malawi was a labour reserve for the mines of South Africa, and Southern and Northern Rhodesia. My brothers-in-law, Frazer and Madalitso both went with WENELA (Witwatersrand Native Labour Organisation) for those famous nine month contracts in the mines. Frazer went down seven times over the 70s and 80s before the operation was closed down by the militancy of the South African miners who wanted to shut out this source of cheap labour. Malawians see those mines and the riches they produced for those countries and are not happy being told that they shouldn’t benefit in a similar fashion.
A front page article just last month in either the Nation or the Times denounced the fact that government had lost out on billions in taxes on the diesel fuel that Kayelekera imports for the generators it needs to process its ore. Kayelekera Uranium Mine was granted a tax exemption on all the fuel it needs to import. Meanwhile fuel prices almost cripple the ability of ordinary people to get around the country for whatever purpose. Again the poor man pays.
This is not to be one sided and critical of Malawi and its tiny elite which has its own battles to hold its own against many factors working to Malawi`s detriment. In Canada, despite years of civil society militancy, publicity and denunciation, the mining industry and its collaborators in government remain blissfully immune and impervious to pressure for change. With their lobby they have rendered the struggle to make the industry accountable and impose corporate responsibility just about ineffectual. Even the name of their recent conference and exhibition tells the story of their ability to go where they want and do as they wish: “Mines Without Borders.” The battle over the private members bill to make mining companies accountable revealed the industry’s power and arrogance and its ability to mobilise to impose its will.
In an article I received by email from Canada covering the mining industry conference, someone pointed out that “… With 75% of the world's mining companies registered on the Toronto Stock Exchange, Canada is a global leader in the mining industry. Without effective government regulation, Canadian investment - public and private - will continue to fuel violent conflict and environmental destruction around the world.”
Palladin is owned in Australia, but the issues are the same and here in Malawi, and the rest of Africa, the poor man pays.
Dumbani Mzale reported in the Daily Nation of 19 May that the Kayelekera Uranium Mine, near Malawi’s border with Tanzania, had earned Malawi K23bn (about US$149 million). This was according to a press release issued by the owners and developers, Paladin Energy Limited. Paragraph after paragraph of Mzale’s article uncritically quotes the companies line about how much it contributes to the Malawi economy.
It turns out that total sales from the mine are $148,888,500 with increases likely as the volume of output increases. This is not the same as Malawi earning $149 million as the headline implied. According to a company spokesman quoted in the article,” Clearly, this has generated valuable foreign currency for Malawi as well as resulting in significant royalty payments to the Government of Malawi…”
From the Malawi end the reporter quotes the Minster of Energy and Mines, the Minister Grain Malunga who, “…lauded the contribution Kayelekera is making to the Malawi economy. He said apart from substantial forex being generated; the mine is also creating employment in the country. There are also a lot of tax being paid to the government from the mine. Government is also getting royalties. The company has employed over 1,000 workers. In addition, the people surrounding the mine are providing foodstuff to the workers and are earning income in return, said Malunga.”
Nobody in the Malawi media wants to hear the bad news. It is not spoken. It is not tolerated. Early on, as the mine was being planned, concern about and opposition based on environmental issues was raised by civil society organisations and even some chiefs. It was widely under-reported and sternly put down by the powers-that-be in the country, who are blindly wedded to the free market, private enterprise, World Bank model. The mine is bringing money into the country. In their view, investment - any investment - will benefit them and according to the dribble down effect, it is therefore good for the whole country. On that basis, they would not brook any opposition to the mine. Businessmen, politicians and even journalists labelled the dissenters as ignorant and purely obstructionist for opposition’s sake.
Even dear old Malawian friends of mine who have shared so much politically over the years looked askance at me with a patronising tilt of the head when I denounced the mine and its consequences for Malawi. They didn’t argue with Doug, their old friend in his greying years, but he must clearly be missing the point of how important this mine is to Malawi. There he is on another one of his radical rants.
The issue of uranium is old stuff in Canada. The testimony of survivors or Uranium City in Saskatchewan and Elliot Lake in Ontario and a militant and informed citizenry have literally pushed the uranium mining industry off the map in Canada. Nonetheless, commodity prices have risen over the last few years driving the price of uranium to record highs, so the industry started ramping up a come-back strategy.
All the government doctors in Sept-Isle threatened to resign en masse if a licence to prospect uranium close to the city was granted. The scenario resembled Malawi in many ways except for the power of democracy. The Quebec government, which incidentally shares with its Malawi counterpart many of the same basic economic principles, initially condemned the doctors for blackmailing the population and fear-mongering. It tried to isolate the dissenters, trivialise the concerns and maximise the benefits. The business dominated media sided with the government and industry.
That is where the power of democracy and an informed citizenry came in. Considerable mobilisation went on in the Sept-Isle community, where there is a history of labour militancy. The tragic stories of former uranium towns were recounted. The science behind the dangers and risks associated with this toxic product were once again presented for all to see. The lack of real economic benefit and the tragic scars left on the environment were pointed out once again. The community fell in solidly behind the opposition and the credibility of government and industry was once again left in tatters for defending the indefensible and promoting development that is anti-people and anti-environment. People won out over profit.
That is what is missing in the debate in Malawi. It is not a question of respecting the cultural values and sensitivities of Malawi. These are class issues not cultural ones. Real democracy is a long way from being deeply rooted in this country. The wealth owners never suffer when mines pollute, workers are poisoned and the local environment despoiled. There is some profit for a few some people. In a country of 14 or more million people, the small business elite may be reaping considerable benefit for themselves, but the overall negatives, all well documented, are not to stand between a business elite determined to enrich itself and the long term consequences for the people and their land.
Even the workers are not happy with their circumstance. A sort of apartheid exists between the Malawi employees and the foreign workers brought in to run the place which has led to considerable resentment. Again government comes down forcibly on the side of business and against the workers and their legitimate rights and demands.
International organisations of great repute have shown in considerable detail how African countries including Malawi are exploited at considerable human and environmental cost by the quick talking and slick presentations of the multinational mining industry. Uranium is one of the worst for long term pollution, falsifying the benefits and leaving a mess behind for others to clean up. Royalties are underpaid and tax returns are grossly overstated and underpaid. In fact, with the World Bank encouragement, governments give the companies huge tax exemptions, agree to take greatly lowered royalties and accept the cooked up figures the companies provide to pay less at the Malawi end and offer bigger profits to their shareholders at the other.
In the end, as the famous song from South Africa says, the poor man pays. He pays as cheap labour, his environment is despoiled and his women are reduced to prostitution. The rich man is happy.
Malawi has the double dilemma historically because it was always told that it had no mineral wealth. Now that it possesses mineral wealth, it is hard to accept that it is poison. During colonial times, Malawi was a labour reserve for the mines of South Africa, and Southern and Northern Rhodesia. My brothers-in-law, Frazer and Madalitso both went with WENELA (Witwatersrand Native Labour Organisation) for those famous nine month contracts in the mines. Frazer went down seven times over the 70s and 80s before the operation was closed down by the militancy of the South African miners who wanted to shut out this source of cheap labour. Malawians see those mines and the riches they produced for those countries and are not happy being told that they shouldn’t benefit in a similar fashion.
A front page article just last month in either the Nation or the Times denounced the fact that government had lost out on billions in taxes on the diesel fuel that Kayelekera imports for the generators it needs to process its ore. Kayelekera Uranium Mine was granted a tax exemption on all the fuel it needs to import. Meanwhile fuel prices almost cripple the ability of ordinary people to get around the country for whatever purpose. Again the poor man pays.
This is not to be one sided and critical of Malawi and its tiny elite which has its own battles to hold its own against many factors working to Malawi`s detriment. In Canada, despite years of civil society militancy, publicity and denunciation, the mining industry and its collaborators in government remain blissfully immune and impervious to pressure for change. With their lobby they have rendered the struggle to make the industry accountable and impose corporate responsibility just about ineffectual. Even the name of their recent conference and exhibition tells the story of their ability to go where they want and do as they wish: “Mines Without Borders.” The battle over the private members bill to make mining companies accountable revealed the industry’s power and arrogance and its ability to mobilise to impose its will.
In an article I received by email from Canada covering the mining industry conference, someone pointed out that “… With 75% of the world's mining companies registered on the Toronto Stock Exchange, Canada is a global leader in the mining industry. Without effective government regulation, Canadian investment - public and private - will continue to fuel violent conflict and environmental destruction around the world.”
Palladin is owned in Australia, but the issues are the same and here in Malawi, and the rest of Africa, the poor man pays.
The last rain
The last rain
I usually get up in the pre-dawn darkness and park myself out on the khonde with my little notebook. I reflect and write and plan the day as I watch the sunrise brighten the Eastern horizon. Miriam’s house offers plenty of good opportunity with its wide khonde on all sides allowing me to follow the sun or the shade as the day moves from morning cool to mid-day heat. The weather pattern since I arrived has been comfortable evenings and mornings then intense mid-day heat. Even Wednesday three days ago, the heat was so bad at 1:00 in afternoon that everything and everybody sort of crawled to a stop. Christopher had walked to town in the middle of it and suffered from the intensity of the “classic African sun.”
But Friday the low cloud settled in and the day never really warmed up. It was a very comfortable ride to town. The road is mostly downhill going except for the last kilometre where the road crosses the dam and rises into town. On the other hand, the ride home is 4 km of what the French call a faux plat – a steady constant uphill grade –that even the big trucks have to down-gear for as they grumble their way up. By the time I am back at the village regardless of the hour on those hot-sun days, I have worked up a good sweat. In the great heat, it was a huge drenching sweat, but today it was just a hanky wipe to recover.
The morning breeze is cool now and as I sit here, I reminded of the sunrises over the Kiamika reservoir. Long slowly transforming light shows and before you are aware the full day is there and the show is over. Saturday morning there was a very overcast sky with low clouds that gave the eastern sky a lovely hue, but to my surprise a black cloud skudded over and let out some very light rain. It was so light, I only really noticed it by the noise on the tin roof. The ground is so dry that I couldn’t see the raindrops landing because it was sucked up like a blotter by the thirsty soil. Exceptional for its rarity and I guess that is why it was exciting even if it didn’t last very long.
I usually get up in the pre-dawn darkness and park myself out on the khonde with my little notebook. I reflect and write and plan the day as I watch the sunrise brighten the Eastern horizon. Miriam’s house offers plenty of good opportunity with its wide khonde on all sides allowing me to follow the sun or the shade as the day moves from morning cool to mid-day heat. The weather pattern since I arrived has been comfortable evenings and mornings then intense mid-day heat. Even Wednesday three days ago, the heat was so bad at 1:00 in afternoon that everything and everybody sort of crawled to a stop. Christopher had walked to town in the middle of it and suffered from the intensity of the “classic African sun.”
But Friday the low cloud settled in and the day never really warmed up. It was a very comfortable ride to town. The road is mostly downhill going except for the last kilometre where the road crosses the dam and rises into town. On the other hand, the ride home is 4 km of what the French call a faux plat – a steady constant uphill grade –that even the big trucks have to down-gear for as they grumble their way up. By the time I am back at the village regardless of the hour on those hot-sun days, I have worked up a good sweat. In the great heat, it was a huge drenching sweat, but today it was just a hanky wipe to recover.
The morning breeze is cool now and as I sit here, I reminded of the sunrises over the Kiamika reservoir. Long slowly transforming light shows and before you are aware the full day is there and the show is over. Saturday morning there was a very overcast sky with low clouds that gave the eastern sky a lovely hue, but to my surprise a black cloud skudded over and let out some very light rain. It was so light, I only really noticed it by the noise on the tin roof. The ground is so dry that I couldn’t see the raindrops landing because it was sucked up like a blotter by the thirsty soil. Exceptional for its rarity and I guess that is why it was exciting even if it didn’t last very long.
Sunday, May 15, 2011
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.
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.
Monday, May 9, 2011
The tour of the guards
The tour of the guards
The knock at the door was so discrete it was almost imperceptible. I had asked Alinafe (20) to come and fetch me at 21h00 so we could do our rounds and see if the rest of the watchmen were awake and on duty. Alinafe is brother-in-law, Enos’ second son and a tall, handsome, polite, young man. He has finished his MSCE and like so many others is just waiting for something to happen, for some benefactor to appear out of the blue.
We have built a relationship of trust, so about once a week he escorts me around the various sites where we have night watchmen posted. The late night walk is a challenge for me because the nights are so dark without the moon. Alinafe has been out in the night adjusting his eyes to the obscurity, while I have been staring at the glowing screen of my faithful laptop. We walk without our torches so we can approach the guesthouse and the professors’ lodgings without the guards on duty being alerted to our coming. For the first 10 minutes I am blind and depend on him to guide me through the village footpaths which are not at all smooth and even. Tonight, as we approach the guest house, the guys are ready for us and one, two, three flashlights announce their presence in different corners and under different camouflages where they have staked out their respective view of the amazing guesthouse we have built.
There are six of them at three different sites, not because there is a major crime problem in the area, but to allow as many people as possible in the village to share a bit of the money being earned through the educational visits by Canadian students. The budget is only for 1 watchman for each of the three sites, but each household contributes a young man and they share the salaries six ways. Each one of these young men is a reflection on a school system that fails its pupils and the society it should be serving, by providing an inadequate, inappropriate education.
The Malawi School Certificate of Education is achieved after 4 years of secondary school education. The students write national exams to get out of Standard 8 of primary school. If they have had a good grounding, then they get selected to the better secondary schools in major centres, but with the fees attached to these better schools many of the students from poorer families are unable to muster the resources and drop out or are relegated to the omnipresent Community Day Secondary Schools (CDSS) which struggle to survive at the bottom end of the secondary school pecking order.
These schools can take anyone who passed the primary school leaving exam and the whole effort is sustained through the meagre fees that the students are asked to pay. Even that is enough to force some to drop out. The only government support is the teachers’ pay. The teachers until recently were almost all primary school teachers who gradually managed to upgrade their credentials to be promoted to secondary. All the teachers in the good schools are degree graduates but few of these university educated teachers want the rural life and often more difficult living conditions found at the majority of the rural CDSS schools.
The real shame is that the system is essentially a colonial relic. The first formal schools in Nyasaland were set up by the missionaries to train clerics and functionaries for the churches and the nascent civil service. Subjects were imported intact from the British syllabus and while there has been a certain Malawianisation of the curriculum, it has remained intact as an elimination system which favours elite development and disdain for manual labour. Rote learning, discipline, obedience and a slavish honouring of everything foreign discourages creative thinking and real problem solving. Students graduate from the CDSS with weak academic skills and none of the life skills and certainly no initiative to return to their homes and implement new ideas that could be useful to help develop these rural settings.
Back at the guest house we first find Leonard. He is about 20 now and another orphan from the original Makupo village down in the Rift Valley below Dedza. He would be the great-great-great-grandson of the agogo who settled our village. He and his other 2 siblings were sent to this Makupo from that much poorer Makupo when their parents died and this village was in a better position to raise them. That was in the early 2000s around 2002 or 2003. After losing their parents, and being dislocated to a largely unknown village to stay with little known relatives, Leonard and all his siblings were at a real disadvantage in their schooling. Leonard has tried to rewrite the Form 2 Junior Certificate Exam 3 times and still failed to get accepted into the Form 3 and 4 to go on to the MSCE. His English is so weak and he is so shy and modest around me that it is hard to know what he is thinking about. His sister and brother have gone to Lilongwe and Moses is being trained as a tailor by sister-in-law, Ivy, at her hotel complex. But there is not much future for Leonard and Frida, when they don’t even have those kinds of skills. Training schools for trades like bricklayers and carpenters are priced way out of the league of poor people. At least if he stays in the village, he will always have food and a place to stay but because of his orphan status he will always be something of a servant to the elders.
Then we found Chitani under a bush at the edge of the clearing at the front of the house. Frazer’s son never was good at school, does not speak any English and barely finished primary school. For a long while he considered himself a Rasta, but he has cut the dreadlocks now and looks a lot straighter. When I arrived in April, his father asked for my help with Chitani, because “he doesn’t do anything”. Frazer is a hardworking man, and I am sure he is frustrated because his son doesn’t seem to share his ambition. Chitani works hard on his guitar and would like to be an entertainer, but like the others he has not developed real life skills that can earn a living in Frazer’s eyes.
Around the other side of the guesthouse was Mwayi. He merits an article of his own. His English is excellent and he has many talents, most of which are channelled into entertainment. He is a big fan of the late Tupac and has written and sung a complete ode to the rapper. He has learned karate from movies and books and runs his own dojon. Marijuana is his substance of pleasure and he can be seen early in the morning wandering off for his fix, but it would never occur to him get up in the morning and do something for his long suffering mother, Anasimango. He is capable of hard work and his uncle the chief now has him working as the labourer for the contractor building the chief’s new house. But he shows no interest in picking up the skills of the builder. He is still waiting for his break. He ha sung some of his rap for me and in his dreams, he sees one of the lady visitors marrying him and taking him back to Canada to find his pot of gold.
And poor Paliche – even his name is a cruel joke. I have nothing. His father was Hastings, a brilliant, articulate man exiled to Makupo in the 80s and 90s after having drunk himself out of a very promising career and marriage. He kept the village poor and intimidated with his drunkenness. One day, a local woman appeared with his baby and just as quickly abandoned the child with agogo anaTembo. Paliche did not like school and did not finish his primary education. Agogo loved him especially because he was her oldest son’s child, but she never gave him any firm guidance and his father died a bad role model. With his skills he should be aspiring to be a farmer but there is no land and because he hangs with the school leavers he has not taken the initiative to acquire other skills.
We finish at the guest house and make our way to the big house where the profs are staying. I am getting to know Baolin little by little, Esnati Mbewe’s son. She was the Frida from the poor Makupo in the early 1970s. He speaks excellent English. I ask if he has completed the MSCE no – why – fees. So when will you write the exams – I plan to do my driving license instead. If I get money, that will be the first priority. He is able to see past the illusion of the credentials. One look around rural Malawi and anyone can see the number of young men with weak MSCE sitting in their villages waiting for a non-existent job to fall on them. Baolin sees the need for real skills and the futility of the MSCE system. He is smart and perceptive and acting on it. So many others are still waiting for the Godot that he school system has promised them.
These are only 6 of the “boys” as they are still called. There are others, like Kenny, Themba, Francis and Fred still hanging, still hoping and still going nowhere. In countries across Africa they share a similar fate. After the debacle of the Kenyan election, pictures of young men like these were flashed around the world carrying clubs and torching the supposed enemies that their unscrupulous leaders turned them against. In Liberia, the Congo, Ivory Coast, they are the cannon fodder for the warlords. Bored and young they are easily mobilised by someone with money to fight their nefarious wars.
And what about the girls, since there are more women than men in this country? Almost all the girls the age of these boys have fled to the city. Ulemu, Mwayi’s twin and Undeni, Themba’s older sister, Frida, Leonard’s sister, Kenny’s sister, Rhoda, and Chifundo’s wayward daughter Ruth would all rather take their chances in the hustle bustle of the urban environment and escape the drudgery of a woman’s life in the village.
To be continued.
The knock at the door was so discrete it was almost imperceptible. I had asked Alinafe (20) to come and fetch me at 21h00 so we could do our rounds and see if the rest of the watchmen were awake and on duty. Alinafe is brother-in-law, Enos’ second son and a tall, handsome, polite, young man. He has finished his MSCE and like so many others is just waiting for something to happen, for some benefactor to appear out of the blue.
We have built a relationship of trust, so about once a week he escorts me around the various sites where we have night watchmen posted. The late night walk is a challenge for me because the nights are so dark without the moon. Alinafe has been out in the night adjusting his eyes to the obscurity, while I have been staring at the glowing screen of my faithful laptop. We walk without our torches so we can approach the guesthouse and the professors’ lodgings without the guards on duty being alerted to our coming. For the first 10 minutes I am blind and depend on him to guide me through the village footpaths which are not at all smooth and even. Tonight, as we approach the guest house, the guys are ready for us and one, two, three flashlights announce their presence in different corners and under different camouflages where they have staked out their respective view of the amazing guesthouse we have built.
There are six of them at three different sites, not because there is a major crime problem in the area, but to allow as many people as possible in the village to share a bit of the money being earned through the educational visits by Canadian students. The budget is only for 1 watchman for each of the three sites, but each household contributes a young man and they share the salaries six ways. Each one of these young men is a reflection on a school system that fails its pupils and the society it should be serving, by providing an inadequate, inappropriate education.
The Malawi School Certificate of Education is achieved after 4 years of secondary school education. The students write national exams to get out of Standard 8 of primary school. If they have had a good grounding, then they get selected to the better secondary schools in major centres, but with the fees attached to these better schools many of the students from poorer families are unable to muster the resources and drop out or are relegated to the omnipresent Community Day Secondary Schools (CDSS) which struggle to survive at the bottom end of the secondary school pecking order.
These schools can take anyone who passed the primary school leaving exam and the whole effort is sustained through the meagre fees that the students are asked to pay. Even that is enough to force some to drop out. The only government support is the teachers’ pay. The teachers until recently were almost all primary school teachers who gradually managed to upgrade their credentials to be promoted to secondary. All the teachers in the good schools are degree graduates but few of these university educated teachers want the rural life and often more difficult living conditions found at the majority of the rural CDSS schools.
The real shame is that the system is essentially a colonial relic. The first formal schools in Nyasaland were set up by the missionaries to train clerics and functionaries for the churches and the nascent civil service. Subjects were imported intact from the British syllabus and while there has been a certain Malawianisation of the curriculum, it has remained intact as an elimination system which favours elite development and disdain for manual labour. Rote learning, discipline, obedience and a slavish honouring of everything foreign discourages creative thinking and real problem solving. Students graduate from the CDSS with weak academic skills and none of the life skills and certainly no initiative to return to their homes and implement new ideas that could be useful to help develop these rural settings.
Back at the guest house we first find Leonard. He is about 20 now and another orphan from the original Makupo village down in the Rift Valley below Dedza. He would be the great-great-great-grandson of the agogo who settled our village. He and his other 2 siblings were sent to this Makupo from that much poorer Makupo when their parents died and this village was in a better position to raise them. That was in the early 2000s around 2002 or 2003. After losing their parents, and being dislocated to a largely unknown village to stay with little known relatives, Leonard and all his siblings were at a real disadvantage in their schooling. Leonard has tried to rewrite the Form 2 Junior Certificate Exam 3 times and still failed to get accepted into the Form 3 and 4 to go on to the MSCE. His English is so weak and he is so shy and modest around me that it is hard to know what he is thinking about. His sister and brother have gone to Lilongwe and Moses is being trained as a tailor by sister-in-law, Ivy, at her hotel complex. But there is not much future for Leonard and Frida, when they don’t even have those kinds of skills. Training schools for trades like bricklayers and carpenters are priced way out of the league of poor people. At least if he stays in the village, he will always have food and a place to stay but because of his orphan status he will always be something of a servant to the elders.
Then we found Chitani under a bush at the edge of the clearing at the front of the house. Frazer’s son never was good at school, does not speak any English and barely finished primary school. For a long while he considered himself a Rasta, but he has cut the dreadlocks now and looks a lot straighter. When I arrived in April, his father asked for my help with Chitani, because “he doesn’t do anything”. Frazer is a hardworking man, and I am sure he is frustrated because his son doesn’t seem to share his ambition. Chitani works hard on his guitar and would like to be an entertainer, but like the others he has not developed real life skills that can earn a living in Frazer’s eyes.
Around the other side of the guesthouse was Mwayi. He merits an article of his own. His English is excellent and he has many talents, most of which are channelled into entertainment. He is a big fan of the late Tupac and has written and sung a complete ode to the rapper. He has learned karate from movies and books and runs his own dojon. Marijuana is his substance of pleasure and he can be seen early in the morning wandering off for his fix, but it would never occur to him get up in the morning and do something for his long suffering mother, Anasimango. He is capable of hard work and his uncle the chief now has him working as the labourer for the contractor building the chief’s new house. But he shows no interest in picking up the skills of the builder. He is still waiting for his break. He ha sung some of his rap for me and in his dreams, he sees one of the lady visitors marrying him and taking him back to Canada to find his pot of gold.
And poor Paliche – even his name is a cruel joke. I have nothing. His father was Hastings, a brilliant, articulate man exiled to Makupo in the 80s and 90s after having drunk himself out of a very promising career and marriage. He kept the village poor and intimidated with his drunkenness. One day, a local woman appeared with his baby and just as quickly abandoned the child with agogo anaTembo. Paliche did not like school and did not finish his primary education. Agogo loved him especially because he was her oldest son’s child, but she never gave him any firm guidance and his father died a bad role model. With his skills he should be aspiring to be a farmer but there is no land and because he hangs with the school leavers he has not taken the initiative to acquire other skills.
We finish at the guest house and make our way to the big house where the profs are staying. I am getting to know Baolin little by little, Esnati Mbewe’s son. She was the Frida from the poor Makupo in the early 1970s. He speaks excellent English. I ask if he has completed the MSCE no – why – fees. So when will you write the exams – I plan to do my driving license instead. If I get money, that will be the first priority. He is able to see past the illusion of the credentials. One look around rural Malawi and anyone can see the number of young men with weak MSCE sitting in their villages waiting for a non-existent job to fall on them. Baolin sees the need for real skills and the futility of the MSCE system. He is smart and perceptive and acting on it. So many others are still waiting for the Godot that he school system has promised them.
These are only 6 of the “boys” as they are still called. There are others, like Kenny, Themba, Francis and Fred still hanging, still hoping and still going nowhere. In countries across Africa they share a similar fate. After the debacle of the Kenyan election, pictures of young men like these were flashed around the world carrying clubs and torching the supposed enemies that their unscrupulous leaders turned them against. In Liberia, the Congo, Ivory Coast, they are the cannon fodder for the warlords. Bored and young they are easily mobilised by someone with money to fight their nefarious wars.
And what about the girls, since there are more women than men in this country? Almost all the girls the age of these boys have fled to the city. Ulemu, Mwayi’s twin and Undeni, Themba’s older sister, Frida, Leonard’s sister, Kenny’s sister, Rhoda, and Chifundo’s wayward daughter Ruth would all rather take their chances in the hustle bustle of the urban environment and escape the drudgery of a woman’s life in the village.
To be continued.
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