It was 8am Saturday morning, Anna and I were sitting in the back of the pickup truck, Francesca and Rusty were riding in the coveted cab. We had just set off for a weekend at Senga Bay. Anna turns to me, the wind blowing her hair into a tangled mass, “Was this how you expected to spend your 30th birthday?” Here I was, ass bouncing on the hard bed of the truck, our hair completely windswept, knapsacks at our feet, driving down a dirt road somewhere in the middle of Africa. No, I didn’t expect to spend my 30th like this, but with that said, I honestly had no idea how I expected to spend this or any of my other birthdays for that matter.
I feel like I have lived the last decade as a transient, a proverbial jew lost in the desert. I think I know what I want but not quite sure where that end destination is. The longest plan I’ve had for the future was one year; most of my plans were for 6 months. Looking back at the last ten years, would I change anything? Maybe one or two things, but definitely none of my travels. I am so glad that I have been in every town and every country that I have set foot on. My transient nature doesn’t bother me in the least. Sure perhaps in the future I’d like to do the normal grown up things like buy a house, car, maybe start a family, but I feel happy experiencing the world. All through my childhood I have been fascinated with maps and books and different cultures (besides marine biology), now that I have seized the moment to actually go out and see and do it all I am so happy. There have been so many moments – all so beautiful, precious, scary, hilarious, unforgettable and amazing. It’s been one hell of a way to eek out a living, but I’m loving it.
The truck stopped at Senga Bay, we hopped out and made a beeline for the beach. I laid my chitenje over the sand and gazed out over the water. Although I was far from the ocean, the lake seemed so vast, with waves lapping the shore, you could almost fool yourself into thinking it was the ocean. The sunshine was hot, the water was cool and refreshing. I dropped my towel and dove into the lake. It was a perfect moment.
Later that night the four of us were sitting at the bar, looking out at the waters of Lake Malawi and sipping wine. Anna hands me a birthday gift. I was really touched. I hadn’t expected to receive anything material for my birthday this year. It was a home made card written on elephant dung paper, a Lilongwe Ultimate Club t-shirt and a princess tiara that I had to wear for the rest of the night. What a great present! I couldn’t think of a better way to spend my 30th birthday.
Monday, October 27, 2008
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Food Security Through Aquaculture
Thought I would share this BBC news article with you - Fish Farming in Malawi's Dustbowl. This is similar to my own project with wusc-cadecom. It's just to give you an insight on my work and the good it can bring about. Also how this type of project is gaining widespread news coverage due to the potential it holds for food security. It even comments on how funerals affect daily routines, an aspect that I've simply just gotten used to.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7683748.stm
Happy reading.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7683748.stm
Happy reading.
Monday, October 20, 2008
Out of the Office, into the Bar
Actually made it into work on time, 07h30, this Monday morning. And even though I had two long weekends in a row you would think that I might not have gotten much work done in the past 2 weeks. Well, yes and no. Ironically I think I may have done my best work yet on Friday night far from the office.
I went out to Chameleon (a bar in Lilongwe City Centre) just planning on chilling on the patio with a few drinks. The beauty about going out in a small city like Lilongwe is you never know whom you might bump into. So this night I found myself sitting across the table from the staff of Irish Aid (Ireland’s Development Agency). Irish Aid is a big development player in Malawi and funds several projects in Dedza, including various Food Security programmes and are also a significant donor of Concern Universal’s aquaculture projects. I was considering sending my proposal off to them unsolicited so this chance meeting was perfectly timed. Seeing as how they were Irish, I offered to buy a round (out of my meagre interns salary) and then moved in with my pitch. I think it was well received. Their program officer, Padraig, was receptive to my idea (and most importantly didn’t make an excuse to leave the table!). He seemed to speak bluntly and honest and advised me to submit in late Nov/early Dec to be considered for 2009 funding, as the project fit in with their priority areas. Sweet! I know I shouldn’t get too excited about this but you have to admit it’s encouraging nonetheless. I firmly believe that the best networking does not occur at the office, its best over beers. I think my faith-based NGO is missing a strategic networking avenue, one that I can easily fill – lol!!
Besides networking what else is left to do? The proposal is pretty much finished on my part, now I just need to get CADECOMs final review and approval before I can submit. The English to Chichewa translation of my training manual should be complete this week and hopefully printed and bound early next week. There’s not a lot I can do on this task, besides checking up on Spriano’s progress. Lastly, I am working on a follow up site visit for next week. This site visit will be another big event, as my current funder, WUSC, wants to do a site visit to see how I’ve been spending their money.
There are several things I want to coordinate for this site visit to impress them. The village of Luweya is planning on harvesting their fish very soon. The villages could not afford to buy a fish net so we had to find one for them. Mr Joshua, the fisheries officer (whom I strategically asked to co-facilitate my workshops in order to bring government into the play), came up big time here as he managed to borrow the fishing net from the prison to loan to the village so they could harvest their fish. Yes, apparently the government of Malawi will buy a fishnet for prisoners but not for law abiding poverty stricken citizens – go figure. I want to time Mr. Mapemba’s (the director of WUSC-Malawi) visit for the harvest in Luweya so that he can see the fruits of our labour. It will also be the perfect time for the villagers to tell him what they’ve learned in my workshops. It will take some coordinating as bringing together 4 different players (CADECOM, WUSC, govt and the village committee) on the same date will be challenging, not to mention the logistics of a harvest, but I think it can be done. Cross your fingers for me.
I went out to Chameleon (a bar in Lilongwe City Centre) just planning on chilling on the patio with a few drinks. The beauty about going out in a small city like Lilongwe is you never know whom you might bump into. So this night I found myself sitting across the table from the staff of Irish Aid (Ireland’s Development Agency). Irish Aid is a big development player in Malawi and funds several projects in Dedza, including various Food Security programmes and are also a significant donor of Concern Universal’s aquaculture projects. I was considering sending my proposal off to them unsolicited so this chance meeting was perfectly timed. Seeing as how they were Irish, I offered to buy a round (out of my meagre interns salary) and then moved in with my pitch. I think it was well received. Their program officer, Padraig, was receptive to my idea (and most importantly didn’t make an excuse to leave the table!). He seemed to speak bluntly and honest and advised me to submit in late Nov/early Dec to be considered for 2009 funding, as the project fit in with their priority areas. Sweet! I know I shouldn’t get too excited about this but you have to admit it’s encouraging nonetheless. I firmly believe that the best networking does not occur at the office, its best over beers. I think my faith-based NGO is missing a strategic networking avenue, one that I can easily fill – lol!!
Besides networking what else is left to do? The proposal is pretty much finished on my part, now I just need to get CADECOMs final review and approval before I can submit. The English to Chichewa translation of my training manual should be complete this week and hopefully printed and bound early next week. There’s not a lot I can do on this task, besides checking up on Spriano’s progress. Lastly, I am working on a follow up site visit for next week. This site visit will be another big event, as my current funder, WUSC, wants to do a site visit to see how I’ve been spending their money.
There are several things I want to coordinate for this site visit to impress them. The village of Luweya is planning on harvesting their fish very soon. The villages could not afford to buy a fish net so we had to find one for them. Mr Joshua, the fisheries officer (whom I strategically asked to co-facilitate my workshops in order to bring government into the play), came up big time here as he managed to borrow the fishing net from the prison to loan to the village so they could harvest their fish. Yes, apparently the government of Malawi will buy a fishnet for prisoners but not for law abiding poverty stricken citizens – go figure. I want to time Mr. Mapemba’s (the director of WUSC-Malawi) visit for the harvest in Luweya so that he can see the fruits of our labour. It will also be the perfect time for the villagers to tell him what they’ve learned in my workshops. It will take some coordinating as bringing together 4 different players (CADECOM, WUSC, govt and the village committee) on the same date will be challenging, not to mention the logistics of a harvest, but I think it can be done. Cross your fingers for me.
Friday, October 17, 2008
The beach, the lake and the zoo
As it pans out my workplace has taken care of the visa extension. All I did was leave it in their capable hands, I didn’t had to go to the immigration office or pay anything at all. This is great that I never had to deal with the hassle. Alas I never got my trip to Mozambique in (I’ve postponed that trip until after the end of my internship – Nov 7).
On the bright side I made a spur of the moment decision to take a trip up to Nkhata Bay. The 7hr bus ride up to Mzuzu was pretty awful (hot and slow) but the rest of the trip was terrific. I stayed 2 nights in Mzuzu at the Mzoozoozoo hostel. Highly recommended, the Swiss/American owner is hilarious. I think I paid for 1 drink the whole 2 nights I was there. I had whiskey coming at me from all directions. It was a nice change from the ubiquitous Malawian gin (I’m not really a gin and tonic kinda girl). So the Zoo is not really a place for the sober types. The expat crowd of South Africans and Zimbabweans were at first interesting and boisterous to talk to...although they were a very macho crowd of tobacco dealers, who enjoyed comparing off-road trucks. So during my second night I ended up watching Casino Royale with Charity (the Malawian girl who worked there) because earlier that day I managed to buy a DVD with the entire collection of James Bond movies on it for MK500 ($3.50) that afternoon!! Sweet!! (Well all the movies except for my fav ‘The Spy Who Loved Me’, you know the one where 007 poses as a marine biologist and has a car that turns into a sub and the villain has a tiger shark that he feeds his victims to, yeah, yeah go ahead and laugh I don’t care it was an awesome film).
Luckily enough, as I was talking to the locals at ‘the zoo’ they told me that Monday was a holiday for Mother’s Day. Which was awesome as it extended my trip a day longer!
The next morning I headed out to Nkhata Bay on the Lake to get some serious beach chilling time. It was sooooooo good. The first thing I did when I got in was made a beeline to the dive shop, even before I found my room for the weekend. I booked 2 dives for that day and the next. I wasn’t sure what freshwater diving would be like. I know in Canada the only freshwater dives that are done were for the wrecks – not much else to see in the Great Lakes. But Lake Malawi was awesome to dive in. Saw spectacular Cichlid fishes, tilapia and catfishes. Even got a close up view of the mouth brooding fish I mentioned in my ‘fish sex’ blog. Every time I came too close to mom and her babies she’d open her mouth and scoop them all inside - pretty cool to see in nature, especially after all my discussions on the topic. Besides the fish life, the rock formations were neat too. There were several rock arches and tunnels that you could penetrate and swim out the other side. Fun stuff for the adventurous types as is yours truly. I really needed to get wet and dive under the surface again. I haven’t been diving since May – much too long a surface interval. After seeing Nkhata Bay from below I enjoyed the rest of the afternoon chilling on the beach. It was hot hot hot! I’d tan for 15 min then have to dip into the lake, which I repeated for the rest of the day. When I started to get bored I chatted the local beach boys up and played some bao (an African board game). I’m going to catch up to Anna’s skill level soon. She may not win our next game.
On Monday I packed up, left the Bay and headed back to Dedza. I was lucky to catch a ride back with Lindsay, an American woman I met at the zoo, who interestingly enough was a research scientist studying climate change and also owned a coal mine. Talk about a make work project!! Lol!! Her research was really neat though, she studied climate change by taking core samples of Archea bacteria in the lake to obtain accurate records of temperature over time. The conversation during this ride was much better than the bus!! I don’t get to talk science as often as I’d like and her research was really fascinating. For those interested I can elaborate via email, as I fear I may be losing some of my readers with too much scien-terrific-talk.
Right so on with the trip. As it turns out the Mother’s Day holiday was not on Monday. Oops. Until this year the holiday was celebrated on the second Monday in Oct, but this year it was changed to the date Oct 15 regardless on what day of the week it falls on. So the holiday was officially Wed. Just to confuse me further my workplace decided to take the holiday on Friday instead (Oct 17) - as if things weren’t confusing enough here. Nobody was mad at me though, it was a little funny because some of them thought that my visa had not been renewed and I was actually gone home to Canada, lol. Pleasantly I have this Friday off which makes 2 long weekends in a row for me. Nice.
I suppose I really should get a move on with the jobs I was actually given my extension for. I’ll take care of that on Monday. What’s the rush? It’s Africa right. Chabwino
On the bright side I made a spur of the moment decision to take a trip up to Nkhata Bay. The 7hr bus ride up to Mzuzu was pretty awful (hot and slow) but the rest of the trip was terrific. I stayed 2 nights in Mzuzu at the Mzoozoozoo hostel. Highly recommended, the Swiss/American owner is hilarious. I think I paid for 1 drink the whole 2 nights I was there. I had whiskey coming at me from all directions. It was a nice change from the ubiquitous Malawian gin (I’m not really a gin and tonic kinda girl). So the Zoo is not really a place for the sober types. The expat crowd of South Africans and Zimbabweans were at first interesting and boisterous to talk to...although they were a very macho crowd of tobacco dealers, who enjoyed comparing off-road trucks. So during my second night I ended up watching Casino Royale with Charity (the Malawian girl who worked there) because earlier that day I managed to buy a DVD with the entire collection of James Bond movies on it for MK500 ($3.50) that afternoon!! Sweet!! (Well all the movies except for my fav ‘The Spy Who Loved Me’, you know the one where 007 poses as a marine biologist and has a car that turns into a sub and the villain has a tiger shark that he feeds his victims to, yeah, yeah go ahead and laugh I don’t care it was an awesome film).
Luckily enough, as I was talking to the locals at ‘the zoo’ they told me that Monday was a holiday for Mother’s Day. Which was awesome as it extended my trip a day longer!
The next morning I headed out to Nkhata Bay on the Lake to get some serious beach chilling time. It was sooooooo good. The first thing I did when I got in was made a beeline to the dive shop, even before I found my room for the weekend. I booked 2 dives for that day and the next. I wasn’t sure what freshwater diving would be like. I know in Canada the only freshwater dives that are done were for the wrecks – not much else to see in the Great Lakes. But Lake Malawi was awesome to dive in. Saw spectacular Cichlid fishes, tilapia and catfishes. Even got a close up view of the mouth brooding fish I mentioned in my ‘fish sex’ blog. Every time I came too close to mom and her babies she’d open her mouth and scoop them all inside - pretty cool to see in nature, especially after all my discussions on the topic. Besides the fish life, the rock formations were neat too. There were several rock arches and tunnels that you could penetrate and swim out the other side. Fun stuff for the adventurous types as is yours truly. I really needed to get wet and dive under the surface again. I haven’t been diving since May – much too long a surface interval. After seeing Nkhata Bay from below I enjoyed the rest of the afternoon chilling on the beach. It was hot hot hot! I’d tan for 15 min then have to dip into the lake, which I repeated for the rest of the day. When I started to get bored I chatted the local beach boys up and played some bao (an African board game). I’m going to catch up to Anna’s skill level soon. She may not win our next game.
On Monday I packed up, left the Bay and headed back to Dedza. I was lucky to catch a ride back with Lindsay, an American woman I met at the zoo, who interestingly enough was a research scientist studying climate change and also owned a coal mine. Talk about a make work project!! Lol!! Her research was really neat though, she studied climate change by taking core samples of Archea bacteria in the lake to obtain accurate records of temperature over time. The conversation during this ride was much better than the bus!! I don’t get to talk science as often as I’d like and her research was really fascinating. For those interested I can elaborate via email, as I fear I may be losing some of my readers with too much scien-terrific-talk.
Right so on with the trip. As it turns out the Mother’s Day holiday was not on Monday. Oops. Until this year the holiday was celebrated on the second Monday in Oct, but this year it was changed to the date Oct 15 regardless on what day of the week it falls on. So the holiday was officially Wed. Just to confuse me further my workplace decided to take the holiday on Friday instead (Oct 17) - as if things weren’t confusing enough here. Nobody was mad at me though, it was a little funny because some of them thought that my visa had not been renewed and I was actually gone home to Canada, lol. Pleasantly I have this Friday off which makes 2 long weekends in a row for me. Nice.
I suppose I really should get a move on with the jobs I was actually given my extension for. I’ll take care of that on Monday. What’s the rush? It’s Africa right. Chabwino
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Contract Extension
Good news! I've been approved for a 1 month extension on my contract here in Malawi! This was in the works for the past week but I only found out the funding was confirmed today. So now I'll be working with cadecom until the second week in Nov. I'm really happy about this because it will give me an opportunity to finish 3 things that I was afraid I wouldn't have time to do:
1) Finish & submit the proposal I wrote
2) Translate my training manual into Chichewa
3) Do follow-up visits with the target villages
I knew I took on a large project for the 3 month timeframe but I really wanted to put into practice many of the skills I learned in the past year, and I wanted to do a real pro job on this internship as its a big stepping stone on my career path. I've been working full tilt on this project and I've only taken off 2days since I've been here. I suppose living in Dedza has contributed to my productivity as there is not much night life!!
So what have I accomplished so far? I completed needs assessments for 6 villages, composed a training manual for fish farming specifically tailored to the Dedza area (generic manuals don't tell you how to protect your fish from the nasty katumbu), held 5 training workshops and have completed a draft proposal for the NGO. Not too shabby.
But before I can move ahead and tie up these loose ends I need to figure out my visa situation. It expires on Saturday... I have 2 options. Go through the tedious government channels and pay a pile of cash for my second visa extension OR do a border hop into Mozambique for a few days and then re-enter Malawi and get a free no hassel one month visa. The choice is obvious to me, but I'd better run it by the boss first.
Awww, so much to do, so many paths to travel yet so little time.
1) Finish & submit the proposal I wrote
2) Translate my training manual into Chichewa
3) Do follow-up visits with the target villages
I knew I took on a large project for the 3 month timeframe but I really wanted to put into practice many of the skills I learned in the past year, and I wanted to do a real pro job on this internship as its a big stepping stone on my career path. I've been working full tilt on this project and I've only taken off 2days since I've been here. I suppose living in Dedza has contributed to my productivity as there is not much night life!!
So what have I accomplished so far? I completed needs assessments for 6 villages, composed a training manual for fish farming specifically tailored to the Dedza area (generic manuals don't tell you how to protect your fish from the nasty katumbu), held 5 training workshops and have completed a draft proposal for the NGO. Not too shabby.
But before I can move ahead and tie up these loose ends I need to figure out my visa situation. It expires on Saturday... I have 2 options. Go through the tedious government channels and pay a pile of cash for my second visa extension OR do a border hop into Mozambique for a few days and then re-enter Malawi and get a free no hassel one month visa. The choice is obvious to me, but I'd better run it by the boss first.
Awww, so much to do, so many paths to travel yet so little time.
Monday, October 6, 2008
Reconnected
A quick note to say that I caved and bought a new cell phone. +265 909 4300
It feels like the doctor has successfully reattached my right arm and I can now live a full and complete life again. Yay!
It feels like the doctor has successfully reattached my right arm and I can now live a full and complete life again. Yay!
Friday, October 3, 2008
The good, the bad and the wild.
Everyday I experience a wide range of emotions here in Malawi. Days are either really great or frustratingly bad. When I go to bed at night I can feel so so happy and then other nights I am pissed right off at something. And its unfortunate that the bad feelings always outweigh the good, even if the good thing is disporportionally better than the bad. Why do we dwell on the crappy thing and not move on easily to the happy thing? I'm not sure. I remember reading an article once about a psychology experiment. It went something like this: a person was given a free $20 and then later was robbed $5. Then the person was asked to rate the emotion they experienced after each event. Even though the good thing was much better in value than the bad thing, the person let the bad thing outweigh the good thing.
So to get to the point of the story, although I had a wonderful week one crappy thing happened on Tuesday morning that ruined the whole week for me. As I was switching mini-buses in the Lilongwe market someone picked my pocket and stole my cell phone (only my phone and nothing else). This really bummed me out. I honestly don't want to buy another one, but on the other hand its a really important communication device here. No one has home phones and its isolated enough as is. Sigh. It really ruined my day and left me on a sour note after an awesome trip.
Anna, Christine, Lucas (Christine's friend in Blantyre) and I all went on a safari in Liwonde National Park. It was so good to see Christine again since IPMP ended in June. We had a blast hanging out at the camp, drinking wine and beer, checking out the wild animals (hippos, baboons, elephants, impala, sables, water & bushbucks, warthogs, etc.) on dawn safari and canoe safari. I even had a fish farming moment on the canoe trip. I was asking what kind of fish were in the river and I think I surprised the hell out of our guide, Eliam, when I spoke about the fish using their Malawian names (chambo, makumba, utaka, chilunguni, mlamba). As it turned out his village was in the process of building fish ponds so that evening we met so that I could give him some advice.
After our safari in Liwonde we headed down to Zomba where we did some hiking on the plateau. It was much cooler at the elevation (as compared to the heat of the park). Incidentally enough there was a trout farm on the plateau where you can stay in cottages while exploring the region! So of course that's where we shacked up for the night (I'd like to point out that I didn't even suggest the Zomba trip - it was Anna and Christines idea). One of the guides, Lovemore (what a fantastic name), took me fishing Malawi style. He made his own pole from a 8ft long tree branch, cut with a machete, cut a groove on the end to hold the twine and then tied a hook onto the string. He even made a bobber out of wood. Very primitive but it serves the purpose. I wish I could say I caught a big one but it was not my lucky day. I still had trout and chips for dinner though. :)
Besides fishing we went hiking on the plateau. The trail was spectacular, overlooking the town of Zomba, huge trees towering above us and a rushing river beside us. The best part of the hike for me was visiting the waterfalls. There were 2 - Williams falls and Mandala falls. Whenever I see a beautiful waterfall I have the urge to just dive in, so I did! I suspect my friends think I'm a little crazy but honestly I don't know why you wouldn't. The moment was so right. The rush of the water falling on my head with such a cool force beating down on me was exhilarating. Life is about these moments.
Alas all good things must come to an end. As I said at the beginning of this blog, despite the terrific week with good friends and good travel, I was too bummed to write a blog about it until now, when I have finally shook off the emotion and decided to get back to my writing. It feels nice to be writing again.
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