This is an entry with some strong content so those sensitive might not want to read. It is written more for my friends working in Africa and international development in general, but it might be good for others to read as well, to understand the context of the situation I work in. Writing this is primarily a way for me to vent and release so I can deal with the situation. Writing is cathartic for me. I wrote this a couple days ago and have been sitting on it since, wondering whether or not to publish it. I decided to post it in the end.
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Monday, Aug 25, 2008
I don’t know if anybody else, especially those working in Africa, are having this experience but the incredibly high death rates are starting to wear on me. I mean not to the point where I want to quit or anything – I love my work here, its what I want to do and I am seeing it through there is no doubt in my mind – it’s just that its difficult to have to deal with suffering and death on such a massive scale, especially in such a peaceful country where the people are so warm, friendly and hardworking.
We’ve all see it on TV, read the papers, talked about it at conferences, discussed it in class but working in the midst of it is another thing altogether. At first I found it odd and annoying (not to sound harsh or inhumane). It was interrupting my work schedule at least twice a week; I couldn’t go to assess villages when the whole community was in mourning for two days. I only have three months on this contract so losing two days a week was seriously compromising my schedule. But what can you do? You just deal with it and become efficient when the time is right. Make hay when the sun shines, as the saying goes.
It was OK for the first month, but then someone I knew died. Macdonald, the program officer from WUSC Malawi who met me at the airport, helped me out during my first week, introduced me to his two darling little girls, such a kind person, died two weeks ago. I’m not sure what he died from, I was told asthma. At first I was shocked and thought I could just sweep it under the rug like I’ve done with every other death here but when I told my supervisor about it I lost it and starting crying in her office. I detest crying at work. I think its weak and doesn’t help a woman’s position in a challenging workplace (it seems like all the work I’ve done I’ve had to prove to men I was strong enough). I am normally so composed and tough, you know me, but at that moment I lost it. Fortunately my supervisor is another strong woman and she understood and a half hour later I was back working again.
While Macdonald seemed fairly strong until his death, I’ve also seen the slow suffering death of full-blown AIDS. About three weeks ago, after a meeting with the aquaculture specialist at Bunda College, a co-worker of mine, Spriano, said that since we were close to his brother’s place he wanted to stop by to see him. He was sick and perhaps I could raise his spirits, he said. Sure why not, I thought. I just wished he had prepared me for what I was walking into. We entered the house (it was a lovely home, upper middle class for Malawian standards, he was a university educated engineer). Spriano told me we had to greet him in his bedroom because he was weak. OK. We went into his bedroom and the dear soul was lying on his bed resting under a quilt. He had wasted away to just skin and bones. His face was gaunt, eyes hollow. He could barely lift his arms. I was given a seat, placed directly in front of him, in the centre of the room, surrounded by all his relatives. I was rattled but tried not to show it. Spriano said, go-ahead talk with him. I’m not sure what I said, I started rambling on about who I was, the work I was doing, made some stupid jokes about getting chambo and chamba mixed up (fish and marijuana), anything that would take his mind off his impending death. After a half hour or so we left.
Now don’t get me wrong. I have no problem visiting those suffering from HIV/AIDS. I have no stigma or prejudice. I’ll shake their hands and treat them with respect. But when it comes to seeing someone on his deathbed I just want to be mentally prepared for it. For both my sake and the person who is ill. I don’t want to make them feel even worse because of my reaction. If he had told me the condition his brother was in it would have been easier for me to deal with the situation at hand. But here people won’t tell you the severity of the situation. People here are either fine or sick, there is no scale of how sick someone is so you’ll never know what they mean until you are right there. No one ever says that someone is dying from AIDS. You have to figure it out for yourself. So now I have to prepare myself for the worst everyday. And that’s tough.
I found out today that he had died. Spriano didn’t show up for work this morning and Judith told me that he had gone home for the funeral and wouldn’t be back until later that week (we were supposed to go to Ntcheu to meet the fisheries officer to work out the details for the workshops I have to conduct in two weeks – now I’ve lost 2 or 3 more working days).
There are constant reminders of death all around me. The ubiquitous coffin shops on the roadside, the funeral notices in the media, the HIV testing and counselling centre across the road from my house, the orphans, the requirement of including HIV/AIDS aspects into every proposal I write. These deaths are hard to deal with in so many ways. It affects every aspect of daily life here. Of course there is the emotional side of it, but from a more practical side, it greatly impacts work productivity as well. How can you keep working when your family member has died? Then the frequency of the deaths means that there is always someone taking time off for funerals. Everything gets delayed. Deadlines are nearly impossible to meet. The productive and well educated are dying en masse and the country loses its most valuable resource, its people.
This whole situation can be depressing, yet in a strange way it can also be motivating. I feel my work is going to help people – they need to produce more food, have protein to eat, learn income generating activities to buy medicine – so that’s how I’ve come to deal with it. My work will help improve the life of people here in a small way. I never thought that growing fish would be like this!
I think I’m done with my vent. I just needed to write this because this morning was crappy. Not even sure I’ll post this to be honest. But I feel better now, more focused, so I will get back to work. After all, the people of Dedza need fish to eat!
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
I have the power!
Dedza finally has electricity again! At both my house and the office. Yay! The power outage lasted for only 2 weeks. I just wanted to share that with you. I am very happy about this.
Saturday, August 16, 2008
Assessing My Needs
Friday, August 15th, 2008
Activity 1 of my work-plan complete! I handed in my needs assessment report to my supervisors today. I have been reliving IPMP 103 for the past month: PLA, literature reviews, semi-structured interviews, SWOC analysis, Stakeholder analysis, recommendations for course of action. Rupen has prepared me so well J all that frustration and long hours in the fall semester were so worth it. I have to say that doing this work in the field, meeting real beneficiaries in their villages next to their fishponds, was much more enjoyable and motivating than doing it in the classroom.
Now I dive head-on into Activities 2 and 3 – the proposal and workshop. I have unofficially been approved funding for the workshop, but the head office in
So what else is new? Let’s see… my office has indefinitely relocated to another part of town that has electricity. So I can actually write on my laptop for more than 2 hrs, yay! However, the bathrooms were not operational, as someone had cut and stolen the pipes on the outside of the building leading to the septic tank, eeww that’s really gross. The maintenance staff had replaced them last night and they were working for the first half of today. Unfortunately, just before lunch one of the pipes going from the water tank to the toilet burst and flooded the ladies room. Always so exciting here in Dedza! There is always a surprise waiting for me at work each and every day.
As much as I crave working under adverse conditions and travelling off the beaten path, it does begin to wear you down. There are times when I think my feet will never come clean again. Do you remember reading those bible stories about how the people made a big fuss about washing the feet of the guests? Growing up in
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Lights Out
Tuesday, August 12th, 2008
Today marks my one-month milestone. I can’t believe I’ve been here for a whole month already. The time is just flying past. I only have 2 months left for this project – eek! But I feel I am making good progress. I have finished the needs assessments, and the report is 90% written, hopefully I’ll have it finished this week assuming there are no major interruptions, which you can never be sure of in these parts.
On the bright side, I had a meeting with the WUSC-Malawi head office on Friday to present my workshop budget. They have a special events funding allowance that I hope will fund my workshops next month. As usual we fussed over some of the details but at the end of the meeting Mr. Mapemba said that ‘The workshop will happen’. Yay!!
On the dark side, and I mean this literally, there is still no power in Dedza. It is going to take some time to order the piece for the transformer. I think they have to get it from Jo’berg. So my house is still in the dark – at night its candlelight and charcoal stove. Still camping. The generator, which broke down Thursday, still has not been repaired (I don’t think they can afford the new part). So the office has been moved to another part of town. Or so I’ve been told. I’ve stayed in Lilongwe to write (where I can plug in my laptop) over the weekend plus 3 days, but I will be leaving for Dedza again this afternoon, after my obligatory visit to the internet café of course.
If I may throw in one more twist of irony – this morning when I woke up there was no power in the house. Well I thought to myself, we had gone 4 whole days without losing power, so finally losing it for the usual couple hours was to be expected. Alas this was not the issue. Apparently the housekeeper had forgotten to top up the electricity meter and now the house is without power until he does (hopefully sometime today). So yeah. It’s quite a different billing process from the Canadian way. Instead of just getting a bill in the mail and paying that, in Malawi you get a top up card (just like your cell phone), which you top up your electricity meter with. And when your card runs out so does your electricity. How do you like that? I suppose it may be a more efficient way for ESCOM to run their business. Imagine the # of unpaid bills they would have?! And it would make you think twice about leaving the lights on in the empty room. But if you forget to top up your meter and you’re in the middle of cooking dinner, or if you’re gone for the weekend and your fridge stops running…that would be rotten.
Today marks my one-month milestone. I can’t believe I’ve been here for a whole month already. The time is just flying past. I only have 2 months left for this project – eek! But I feel I am making good progress. I have finished the needs assessments, and the report is 90% written, hopefully I’ll have it finished this week assuming there are no major interruptions, which you can never be sure of in these parts.
On the bright side, I had a meeting with the WUSC-Malawi head office on Friday to present my workshop budget. They have a special events funding allowance that I hope will fund my workshops next month. As usual we fussed over some of the details but at the end of the meeting Mr. Mapemba said that ‘The workshop will happen’. Yay!!
On the dark side, and I mean this literally, there is still no power in Dedza. It is going to take some time to order the piece for the transformer. I think they have to get it from Jo’berg. So my house is still in the dark – at night its candlelight and charcoal stove. Still camping. The generator, which broke down Thursday, still has not been repaired (I don’t think they can afford the new part). So the office has been moved to another part of town. Or so I’ve been told. I’ve stayed in Lilongwe to write (where I can plug in my laptop) over the weekend plus 3 days, but I will be leaving for Dedza again this afternoon, after my obligatory visit to the internet café of course.
If I may throw in one more twist of irony – this morning when I woke up there was no power in the house. Well I thought to myself, we had gone 4 whole days without losing power, so finally losing it for the usual couple hours was to be expected. Alas this was not the issue. Apparently the housekeeper had forgotten to top up the electricity meter and now the house is without power until he does (hopefully sometime today). So yeah. It’s quite a different billing process from the Canadian way. Instead of just getting a bill in the mail and paying that, in Malawi you get a top up card (just like your cell phone), which you top up your electricity meter with. And when your card runs out so does your electricity. How do you like that? I suppose it may be a more efficient way for ESCOM to run their business. Imagine the # of unpaid bills they would have?! And it would make you think twice about leaving the lights on in the empty room. But if you forget to top up your meter and you’re in the middle of cooking dinner, or if you’re gone for the weekend and your fridge stops running…that would be rotten.
Friday, August 8, 2008
Supa Supa #1
Thursday, August 7th, 2008
My original work plan was to assess and build capacity for the villages in the diocese of Dedza, that had fishponds (somewhat) established. I had thought there were only 5, but it was brought to my, and the field supervisor’s attention, that there was one more (in the village of Muyowe) that should be included. So now I have 6 communities to work with. Which is fine, as long as every week someone doesn’t point out that there are more and more villages that I have to work with. I can only assess, train and hold workshops for so many people in my time here. Hopefully these are the only places that have actually initiated fishponds in the Dedza, as compared to the people who are interested in fish farming. So one more site visit isn’t so bad. Honestly, I’d rather be out in the field than sitting in the office.
Especially since there is still no power in Dedza, it’s been out all week. I might as well be in the field as opposed to an office in the dark, my laptop battery dead, scribbling on notepads. The real icing on the cake here is that the generator at the office has now broken down too. It was at this point that Catherine decided that when I get back from the field this evening we were going into Lilongwe to work. She’s hilarious. She started packing up half her office to take home with her – she packed her desk PC, modem, printer and half the papers in the office. I packed my laptop and clipboard.
So back to work - the site visit was a good one. The woman who was running the pond told me that she had stocked her pond with fish 2 yrs ago but the otters ate them all. Kind of sad, especially since there is a very simple strategy to deal with that – you can build a wooden lattice through the centre of the pond, with holes big enough for the fish, but not the otter. So whenever the otter enters the pond the fish swim to the other side of the wooden lattice. Rudimentary but it works.
Just like every other villager, this woman was so nice. After the assessment she ran off with her machete to cut some sugarcane for me. Like any good mother, she didn’t want me to leave hungry. It was my first time eating fresh, raw sugar cane. It’s not easy to eat. You need teeth of steel. You bite off the bark and strip it with your teeth. Then you suck the sugar from the wood pulp inside, then spit that out and tear into your next piece. Hard work, but its sweet and cool and refreshing. Villagers ice cream they joked.
On the drive back Spriano and Judith wanted to stop for a drink. If there’s one thing you need to know about Malawians it’s that they cannot miss a meal of Nsima (the maize-meal staple food). But for those on the road, you can’t always get a plate of hot and delicious Nsima, so they have invented Mahewu a maize-meal energy drink. It’s hilarious. I call it ‘Nsima-to-go’. It comes in a plastic milk carton type jug and its labelled Supa-Supa #1!! I bought one as well (you know, when in Rome…) but I have to say I’m not a fan of it. The ingredients listed were: water, maize-flour, milk, sugar and stabilizers. I simply cannot explain what it tastes like; I’ve never tasted anything like it before. When I took my first sip Spriano and Judith both looked at my face to anxious to see my reaction. But I had none - all I said was that ‘it was unusual’. They busted out laughing and then I did too.
The highlight of my day though occurred after the Supa-Supa #1 break. During the drive back Judith nonchalantly pointed to a huge rock cliff on the side of the road and said ‘See those caves up there? That’s where the pygmies used to live and made cave drawings.’
Que? What was that? We were driving past an ancient archaeological site in Africa? I must see it!! Ever so obliging (and probably not really wanting to get back to the office so soon either) the driver turned off the rugged dirt road onto an ever more rugged road and before I knew it I was 4x4 off-roading my way back into history. The cave site was really interesting. After a steep uphill walk you came up to a huge rockface with several shallow caves. On the rock walls were drawings of a lizard, hyena and a group of people holding hands. Pretty neat to think about how long ago they were marked there and by whom. Its also pretty neat to think that I’ve seen some amazing things that the average Canadian will never get to see in their life. I feel so lucky to be doing this.
My original work plan was to assess and build capacity for the villages in the diocese of Dedza, that had fishponds (somewhat) established. I had thought there were only 5, but it was brought to my, and the field supervisor’s attention, that there was one more (in the village of Muyowe) that should be included. So now I have 6 communities to work with. Which is fine, as long as every week someone doesn’t point out that there are more and more villages that I have to work with. I can only assess, train and hold workshops for so many people in my time here. Hopefully these are the only places that have actually initiated fishponds in the Dedza, as compared to the people who are interested in fish farming. So one more site visit isn’t so bad. Honestly, I’d rather be out in the field than sitting in the office.
Especially since there is still no power in Dedza, it’s been out all week. I might as well be in the field as opposed to an office in the dark, my laptop battery dead, scribbling on notepads. The real icing on the cake here is that the generator at the office has now broken down too. It was at this point that Catherine decided that when I get back from the field this evening we were going into Lilongwe to work. She’s hilarious. She started packing up half her office to take home with her – she packed her desk PC, modem, printer and half the papers in the office. I packed my laptop and clipboard.
So back to work - the site visit was a good one. The woman who was running the pond told me that she had stocked her pond with fish 2 yrs ago but the otters ate them all. Kind of sad, especially since there is a very simple strategy to deal with that – you can build a wooden lattice through the centre of the pond, with holes big enough for the fish, but not the otter. So whenever the otter enters the pond the fish swim to the other side of the wooden lattice. Rudimentary but it works.
Just like every other villager, this woman was so nice. After the assessment she ran off with her machete to cut some sugarcane for me. Like any good mother, she didn’t want me to leave hungry. It was my first time eating fresh, raw sugar cane. It’s not easy to eat. You need teeth of steel. You bite off the bark and strip it with your teeth. Then you suck the sugar from the wood pulp inside, then spit that out and tear into your next piece. Hard work, but its sweet and cool and refreshing. Villagers ice cream they joked.
On the drive back Spriano and Judith wanted to stop for a drink. If there’s one thing you need to know about Malawians it’s that they cannot miss a meal of Nsima (the maize-meal staple food). But for those on the road, you can’t always get a plate of hot and delicious Nsima, so they have invented Mahewu a maize-meal energy drink. It’s hilarious. I call it ‘Nsima-to-go’. It comes in a plastic milk carton type jug and its labelled Supa-Supa #1!! I bought one as well (you know, when in Rome…) but I have to say I’m not a fan of it. The ingredients listed were: water, maize-flour, milk, sugar and stabilizers. I simply cannot explain what it tastes like; I’ve never tasted anything like it before. When I took my first sip Spriano and Judith both looked at my face to anxious to see my reaction. But I had none - all I said was that ‘it was unusual’. They busted out laughing and then I did too.
The highlight of my day though occurred after the Supa-Supa #1 break. During the drive back Judith nonchalantly pointed to a huge rock cliff on the side of the road and said ‘See those caves up there? That’s where the pygmies used to live and made cave drawings.’
Que? What was that? We were driving past an ancient archaeological site in Africa? I must see it!! Ever so obliging (and probably not really wanting to get back to the office so soon either) the driver turned off the rugged dirt road onto an ever more rugged road and before I knew it I was 4x4 off-roading my way back into history. The cave site was really interesting. After a steep uphill walk you came up to a huge rockface with several shallow caves. On the rock walls were drawings of a lizard, hyena and a group of people holding hands. Pretty neat to think about how long ago they were marked there and by whom. Its also pretty neat to think that I’ve seen some amazing things that the average Canadian will never get to see in their life. I feel so lucky to be doing this.
Thursday, August 7, 2008
Slow But Steady
Tuesday – Aug 5th, 2008
I have now completed the needs assessments of the 5 villages I have targeted. Which isn’t so bad, considering that I’ve been working at the Dedza office for only 3 weeks and have had several events either cancel or postphone my work (funerals, equipment breakdowns and power outages).
Friday (Aug 1st) I finally got out to Ntcheu district to see the last 2 sites, Chinyamula and Njuli. They were at fairly opposite ends of the development spectrum.
Chinyamula has an extensive irrigation system dug for their crops and they had recently extended it to form their pond. I was impressed with the work they had done on the canals actually. They dammed off a river with sandbags, dug a 300m canal with hoes that took them 1yr to complete, and used the canals to irrigate their crops (maize, tomato, cabbage) as well as their new fishpond. They had several hundred fish in the pond already, which were obtained from the fingerling pass-on project initiated by CADECOM (the NGO where I work). They identified the biggest problem facing them was that they have not yet harvested because of lack of harvesting gear. They built the pond 2 yrs ago. That and of course lack of training.
The pond at Njuli has only been dug recently and needs a lot of work. The canal system is small and narrow, sourced from a nearby natural spring. They lack all of the equipment and any training. Apparently they have only 20 chambo in the pond, bought from pooled money from their fishpond committee, which they cannot harvest either.
All the villagers are very self-empowered and enthusiastic despite their lack of resources and training. However, they are using very rudimentary systems and lack very basic aquaculture knowledge which has led to some bad habits. They do not want to drain the ponds to harvest the fish, instead they insist on using nets even if it’s their mosquito nets. But they don't realize that bacteria can build on the bottom of the pond over time and may kill the fish. Not to mention the chemicals on the mosquito net that is now in the water. As well there is valuable fertilizer just sitting at the bottom of the pond… Aw I have so much material to cover in the workshops. I have started developing a basic training manual to leave with the NGO staff and the community extension officers (which I need translated into Chichewa) before my placement ends. So much to do, so little time!!
So the latest drama/development obstacle: there is a weeklong power outage in Dedza. Apparently someone stole oil out of the electricity-transmitting tower for the town and it broke down as a result. ESCOM has to order another one and it will take at least a week, happy happy joy joy. There is a generator that powers the main office building at work, but I work in one of the side buildings so my office doesn't have power even with the generator. To mitigate this I have now set up a make shift office in the reception. At least I can charge my phone and laptop there. Alas, there is no generator at the house, so we cook and heat water over a paraffin stove and charcoal stove. Catherine and I joke it’s just like camping. Well I knew I wasn't going into this expecting luxury...it’s a far cry from downtown Toronto. But honestly I can’t say that its really all that bad considering the good work that I am doing for the villagers here. So it’s a sacrifice I am willing to make.
On the brighter side on things, Anna has finally arrived in Lilongwe to start her internship. Anna is a friend and fellow classmate from IPMP and it is great to have a familiar face around. I’m hoping to go into Lilongwe this weekend to see her. And also to have electricity and the internet café again!!
I have now completed the needs assessments of the 5 villages I have targeted. Which isn’t so bad, considering that I’ve been working at the Dedza office for only 3 weeks and have had several events either cancel or postphone my work (funerals, equipment breakdowns and power outages).
Friday (Aug 1st) I finally got out to Ntcheu district to see the last 2 sites, Chinyamula and Njuli. They were at fairly opposite ends of the development spectrum.
Chinyamula has an extensive irrigation system dug for their crops and they had recently extended it to form their pond. I was impressed with the work they had done on the canals actually. They dammed off a river with sandbags, dug a 300m canal with hoes that took them 1yr to complete, and used the canals to irrigate their crops (maize, tomato, cabbage) as well as their new fishpond. They had several hundred fish in the pond already, which were obtained from the fingerling pass-on project initiated by CADECOM (the NGO where I work). They identified the biggest problem facing them was that they have not yet harvested because of lack of harvesting gear. They built the pond 2 yrs ago. That and of course lack of training.
The pond at Njuli has only been dug recently and needs a lot of work. The canal system is small and narrow, sourced from a nearby natural spring. They lack all of the equipment and any training. Apparently they have only 20 chambo in the pond, bought from pooled money from their fishpond committee, which they cannot harvest either.
All the villagers are very self-empowered and enthusiastic despite their lack of resources and training. However, they are using very rudimentary systems and lack very basic aquaculture knowledge which has led to some bad habits. They do not want to drain the ponds to harvest the fish, instead they insist on using nets even if it’s their mosquito nets. But they don't realize that bacteria can build on the bottom of the pond over time and may kill the fish. Not to mention the chemicals on the mosquito net that is now in the water. As well there is valuable fertilizer just sitting at the bottom of the pond… Aw I have so much material to cover in the workshops. I have started developing a basic training manual to leave with the NGO staff and the community extension officers (which I need translated into Chichewa) before my placement ends. So much to do, so little time!!
So the latest drama/development obstacle: there is a weeklong power outage in Dedza. Apparently someone stole oil out of the electricity-transmitting tower for the town and it broke down as a result. ESCOM has to order another one and it will take at least a week, happy happy joy joy. There is a generator that powers the main office building at work, but I work in one of the side buildings so my office doesn't have power even with the generator. To mitigate this I have now set up a make shift office in the reception. At least I can charge my phone and laptop there. Alas, there is no generator at the house, so we cook and heat water over a paraffin stove and charcoal stove. Catherine and I joke it’s just like camping. Well I knew I wasn't going into this expecting luxury...it’s a far cry from downtown Toronto. But honestly I can’t say that its really all that bad considering the good work that I am doing for the villagers here. So it’s a sacrifice I am willing to make.
On the brighter side on things, Anna has finally arrived in Lilongwe to start her internship. Anna is a friend and fellow classmate from IPMP and it is great to have a familiar face around. I’m hoping to go into Lilongwe this weekend to see her. And also to have electricity and the internet café again!!
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