a not-so-quick and not-so-timely blog update

(Sorry for the delay, I started to write this on Tuesday)
(Sorry also for lack of photos – no excuse)
(warning, this is quite a long entry!)

Hmm…what has happened over the last week... For the first time in about a month I did not do any form of exercise over the weekend as I had to attend website creation training. This was meant to take all of Saturday and Sunday, but in reality I managed to push the trainer to provide me with just the information I need to update the AYISE website, and so managed to miss the Sunday session. These sessions were happening at a particularly slow pace anyway, even for Malawi, so I’m glad that as I was chilling out and reading the paper on Sunday morning, I wasn’t actually missing anything as the “9am” start ended up being after 11am. Rachel and I headed into town instead to a purveyor of fine baking (obviously not up to the standards of Fisher and Donaldson, but not bad for Malawi…in fact, quite possibly the best in Malawi!). They normally do real coffee too, which is my main incentive, but on this occasion they had a selective power cut which allowed the use of a kettle and all the lights, but not the coffee machine…very odd! So this spurred Rach and I to splash out on posh coffee (800MK for 250g of Mzuzu Malawian coffee. Interestingly this coffee is not standardised, and is produced by a co-op of different farmers, so each bag can be different…hit and miss would describe it well…) and a cafetiere (1500MK) so we would never again have to face the unthinkable human rights abuse of having to go a week without real coffee!

For all those who have not yet heard about Friday’s party, I will update now on the rollercoaster ride that it was:

Firstly, the party has been held each time SVA (the students from Glasgow) come, to welcome them into the community. Great idea…The problem, as with all problems, comes down to money.

There is a very strong aspect of pride which goes along with throwing a party in Malawi, which dictates that the host should provide more than enough food and booze for all attendees (the attendee list included around 50 people – all the Brits, plus AYISE staff and friends, AYISE members, local “opinion leaders”, police, immigration staff…etc). This extravagance is fairly morally reprehensible when the majority of the country, especially in the rural areas, are struggling to get enough money for a bit of nsima and veg for their 1 meal per day. It is even more offensive when the host is a charity which is meant to be helping the poor. So there was a bit of a running battle going on with the AYISE staff allocated to organise the party, and the brits (Me, Rach and the SVA lot). Additional issues were that SVA were being asked to contribute a fairly substantial amount of money to this lavish party, having already contributed a significant amount for just such a party to AYISE in their pre-paid fees. So there was the joint perception of AYISE fleecing the newly arrived whiteys to pay for a party for them and their friends, and that the money they were spending could be better spent on charitable projects.
However, there is method in the madness. In the early years of international volunteers, AYISE would pay vast sums of money to security guards in order to ensure the volunteers had a peaceful stay. This was not always successful, despite the great expense, so they have changed tactics to one where the community are invited to meet and greet the new whiteys, and by doing so to realise that they are just normal(ish) people and hopefully to engender some form of mutual respect, which will lead to community protection for the volunteers – far more effective than (potentially corrupt – not like our current guards) security guards. The food and beer is basically a sweetener to create positive feeling towards the whiteys – and is still considerably cheaper than the security alternative. AYISE did back down when SVA (with considerable influence from Rach and I) bartered with them on the expenditure, and the location was changed from a posh place in town to just AYISE’s compound (which is probably more useful), and the booze quota was agreed at a lower cost, although I think in practice a higher amount of booze was bought with the saving from not having to transport people to and from town. (sorry for that really badly constructed sentence – I’ve been speaking pidgin English for too long!)

So that’s the saga of the party ( I think that covers it all).

Since then Rach and I have been very busy at work – which is good, although we sometimes question the benefit of all our slog when AYISE still seem as reliable as any other Malawian, despite being fully aware of how unacceptable this is internationally. Will they ever change…? Who knows…

I’ve been working on 3 funding proposals, one for voter education and electoral monitoring at the upcoming local government elections in November (often marred by violence and apathy at the same time!). Oh, before I forget, there is a rumour that Malawi is changing it’s flag – does anyone know if this is true?
Another funding proposal is to assess the effectiveness of the National Youth Council, which I don’t think we’ll get as we are members of the NYC and so surely we would have a conflict of interest?
And the third one is for a nationwide democracy and human rights project which will visit selected secondary schools in all districts of the country and do a wee play and talk about human rights and democracy, with the hope that the information will trickle down to the families and communities of the pupils, and also with the aim of setting up HR&D clubs within schools, run by specially trained teachers.

Rach has been managing to juggle all the various camps and volunteers coming and going at the moment. On Saturday Rach and I will have to go up to Cape Maclear again until the following Friday (so basically a week) to do the inductions for the international, national and local volunteers who will be taking part in the World Heritage work camp at the National Park there. The place is beautiful but as mentioned in the blog in early May, the atmosphere is a lot less relaxing than Namiyango – which is testimony to the effectiveness of AYISE’s approach at community integration and education about Whiteys. Rach will be doing a lot of the general workcamp induction stuff, whereas I have to give up to 2 days of induction specifically on World Heritage Sites and the Lake Malawi National Park – as the workcamp aims to have the volunteers going out to the villages in the national park to educate them and convince them of the importance of conserving world heritage sites…so I’ve got a lot of learning to do myself before then! We will then provide ‘communication skills’ training which will hopefully combine to leave the volunteers educated and effective communicators who can really help to improve communications between the villagers and the national park authority.

This will be a great experience, and it’s probably the closest thing to what I expected to be doing when I came out here – so in some ways I’m really looking forward to it. Also, the hill behind our accommodation should hopefully provide me with good training facilities so that I will be fit enough to take part in the Mount Mulanje Porters Race next Saturday…yes, the day after we are potentially travelling back for hours and hours in minibuses…good preparation! The website for the race is here - http://www.mountmulanje.org.mw/Porters%20Race.htm – 25km and I reckon about 4000ft plus of ascent and descent (mostly in one huge uphill, and one huge downhill), so should be pretty tough. I’m hoping for a time of around 4 hours, and as the start time is 6am that should get the ascent out of the way before it gets too hot.

In other domestic news, we are still living with 14 students, all but 2 of whom being aged 21 or younger. Things are going ok at the moment, just a bit messy which is hard to avoid with such a big group – but still issues to be raised. A guitar (pink – must get a photo of that) has been found in one of the SVA cupboards, so that’s been great to play again – and some of the SVA guys are pretty musical too, so some fun sing alongs! On that note (pardon the pun), we didn’t go to the Folk Night this month, as the desire to play had been quashed by the presence of the new guitar, and Rach and I fancied a wee date-night at the cinema instead (saw The Blindside – it’s ok, for Hollywood sentimentality).

Well, I think that’s about it, and I really need to get back to real work as I have to write 3 days of training on world heritage sites and communication (no sniggering please!).

I hope all are happy, healthy and enjoying the mid-summer-ness.

Andy (and I suppose Rachel too, although I seem to have really dominated the blogging).

PS – Congratulations to Dave and Claire! (this blog could turn into an Edinburgh engagements notice board – although at a very relaxed speed!)

PPS – Well done Lauren on being a published journalist! And thanks for such an amazing parcel (including chorizo – stroke of genius!) ‘mon the Pride!