Malawi Memo 3 March 2006

I last wrote just before we were expecting our colleagues from Perth. We had a very busy week with them but the meetings we attended were largely very positive and when we reached the end of the week we felt confident that our timescales are not impossible and that there is enough will within the various government departments for the project to go ahead. We are not counting our chickens yet (will anyone be counting their chickens at this time in history? Instead I think we might have to start counting our reptiles or platypi or something else that hatches from eggs) but we’re hopeful.

Apart from that it has been a trying few weeks here in Malawi. Since I last wrote, we have had 12 days (the most recent period is now into its 9th day and I’m sending this from an internet café) without a landline phone connection (and thus no fax or internet), almost no post despite the fact that we know people have sent us things, several hours without power (when you add up all the power outages) and last Sunday we hit the pinnacle: at 5:30pm we had no phones, no power and no car (the battery died on Saturday). No power means no means of cooking (or in Martin’s case, no coffee) and no car means no takeaways so for dinner we settled for cold leftover chicken and baked potatoes by candlelight.

Baking potatoes is my latest scheme to address the food shortages. I’ve been buying bags of potatoes, baking them and then taking them with me when I go out and about. When people ask for money I give them a potato instead. Most have appreciated it because it’s food they don’t have to go buy and cook and I prefer giving food to giving money. The price of rice and maize at the moment is prohibitive for many people who are literally surviving on the goodwill of others.

I have written much about the poverty in Malawi, especially the food issue, because that’s probably the most obvious and acute issue facing the country. Thankfully the rains this year have been better and the maize in many areas is looking strong. The government is forecasting a 96% increase on last year’s crop and let’s hope they’re right. In the meantime there is another issue I want to focus on in this newsletter: the plight of women and children in Malawi. It is less obvious than the food shortage because I don’t have women approaching me on the street asking, “Madam, can you please save me from my husband who beats me” (unless, of course, you count the events in my own backyard) and, of course, a lot of the violence happens behind closed doors.

However, recently the newspapers have been reporting more and more stories about violence to women and children. Last week there were 2 days when the n newspapers contained 5 articles between them, 2 about sexual abuse of children by their fathers – one girl was 15 and became pregnant and the other was just 5 months old! Another was a 12 year old girl being sexually abused by a man unknown to her and the other 2 were about the plight of women in general. Two of the men had been tried and convicted and sentenced to imprisonment, one for 3 years and one for 12 years. It appears that incest attracts a maximum sentence of 5 years whilst “rape and defilement” is a more serious crime, and attracts a longer sentence!

One article, entitled “Hunger with a feminine face” talked of families selling their daughters or forcing them into early marriage so they could afford food (in Malawi men pay the dowry.) Of course some women have turned to prostitution to make enough money to feed their families. Statistics show that women are far more likely to be HIV positive than men of the same age. Other women have died eating poisonous roots and berries while trying to find alternative food sources for their families.

Even more disturbing, I think, is an article in which the writer quotes a village headman who believes that a woman’s refusal to give her husband sex on any given occasion constitutes gender-based violence. To quote the article, “If you give a woman the right to say no to sex with her husband, you are at the same time giving the man the right to have sex outside the marriage. And this right will bring death in the family through HIV and Aids”. Village headmen are the traditional leaders in Malawi society and for that reason are very influential.

Another problem, not covered in recent newspaper articles, is that when men die, their extended families often lay claim to their possessions. There are many, many stories of families racing to banks to drain bank accounts, forcing the wife and children out of the home and onto the street and at times even killing the wife so that she cannot make any claims herself.

I think I have been in self-protective denial about the awfulness and extent of this problem, probably because there seem to be so many needs in this country, and probably because of yet another attempt to flee from the emotional demands of family law issues. However, I’m really pleased that the government is taking these issues seriously and there are a number of government and non-governmental initiatives to bring positive change in these areas. Our church has joined this throng and I’m excited about getting involved.

Tomorrow Martin and I are off to Karonga for a few days. I will be providing further training for Twisile (pronounced Tweesiray), our accounts clerk and will be helping Martin to look at Occupational Health and Safety issues. Martin will also be catching up with the local chiefs and making sure everyone’s up to date with their information. I was hoping that we’d have time to do a bit of travelling in Tanzania while we were up that way but unfortunately we don’t have the time this time. We’ll get back to Lilongwe on Sunday and then Martin has to leave for Blantyre (opposite end of the country from Karonga) on Monday morning. I’ve been spending quite a lot of time home alone lately as Martin also had a 5 day trip to Namibia recently.

You’re probably getting sick of the sound of my voice by now, (that’s humorous irony for the less subtle amongst you) so I’ll draw this to a close with an Arnold update. We had to give him a written warning for not being on the premises during work hours for the nth time. Since then he’s been immaculately behaved. In fact he has little time to get up to mischief because the grass has been growing so fast, and we have so much of it, that as soon as Arnold finishes mowing it, he has to start again.

By the way, we have hired another gardener whose name is Kennedy (we affectionately refer to him as “Gunshy”). He is so thrilled to have a job that he has been bobbing and bowing whenever he sees us, much to our embarrassment (For heavens sake, man, I’m Australian. We don’t believe in bowing to ANYONE!) We gave him some money to help him get to his father’s funeral recently and he rewarded us today with more bowing and a vow that he will keep working for us “until my life is finished.”

Life is precious. Bye for now and talk to you again soon.