Mozambique

first river crossing and head-dunking session to remove some sweat



pretty flowers



another pretty flower



second river crossing, with ladies milling cassava into a powder



rat caught in a trap outside a hut.i guess he thought he'd be ok as he was in the protected zone...afraid not, buddy!



base camp on saturday lunchtime



'Gin trap'



Climbing up through the rainforest to reach the peak



view from the top



pretty flower in a thicket on top



another view from the top



celebrating...or just airing sweaty armpits!



bush with insects mimicking scorpions



descending from the open grasslands of the top 100m, back into the forest



descending in the forest



the trees up ahead had deliberately been killed. Lots of valuable timber there, could be used for anything...but will almost certainly just be burnt.



pretty butterfly. I was being nibbled by ants as i took this photo!



coming back through the villages we were accompanied by a great group of friendly kids



fixing the vehicle



Some of the tea estate buildings


Too many photos again, so there will be another post for the extras!

Hi all,

So, the boring stuff first:

Weather is still good, getting hotter by about 1˚C every couple of days. Currently a lovely mid 20s and clear skies most of the time.

Work is going well, I’m currently ploughing through the final stages of a couple of large funding proposals – one for a project to fight child labour (Malawi has the highest rate of child labour in Southern Africa), and one to create a Peace Education Centre at the youth centre, which would entail doing lots of training and seminars around tolerance and understanding of difference (stop sniggering at the back, I know, pots and kettles…) to reduce the occasional, but very violent mobs that can arise in times of hysteria – for example in reaction to accusations of witch craft.

Rachel’s doing a lot of admin relating to wrapping up and evaluating the workcamps she has run. Also, she has debriefed and said goodbye to all but 1 of the SVA group, and welcomed in 5 new Swedish volunteers. These are folk in the 3 year period between school and uni in Sweden. 3 girls are staying at host homes in the village, which I think they are finding a bit of a culture shock at the moment (nsima for every meal at one house), while a young couple are staying in the compound with us. They all seem nice enough just now, I haven’t really had much chance to chat to them yet though.

Now the fun stuff!

Last weekend the Mountain Club of Malawi (MCM)ran their first trip to a hill in Mozambique called Mount Mabu. This hill was little known until around 2005 when it was ‘discovered’ on google earth by scientists at Kew Gardens who were looking for remnants of rare medium altitude forest in the region. It was then investigated by Malawians working for the Mulanje Mountain Conservation Trust (MMCT), who also happen to be MCM members and were on the trip at the weekend. The hill had managed to keep its forest due to the relatively low population surrounding it, and its inaccessibility. The villagers in the area would use the forest as a hide-out during the civil war (1970s to 1990s). These villagers helped with the first scientific trip to the area in October and November 2008 (when it must have been swealtering!). The scientists set up camp at the clearing where the villagers had taken refuge. Their 2 week trip found new species of chameleon, snake, bird and butterfly, as well as rare species of all sorts. If you are a species which likes medium altitude (around 1000m – 1700m this forest is one of the only areas for miles around, and so many species here are isolated – which has the potential to produce new species. The current situation is that, thanks to the pioneering work done by the first and second expeditions there was enough evidence to persuade the Mozambican government to protect the area (around 7000 hectares). We noticed a small amount of incursion from to the swelling population of the nearby villages, but luckily the protection seems to still be holding out against commercial operations. The local villagers are very poor, ‘peasant farmers’ who grow cassava and other crops and also lay vicious ‘gin traps’ for animals in the forest (small antelope being the main target).

There are lots of articles online about it if you want more info.

Our trip consisted of people like myself who were just interested to see the place, and also some employees of MMCT who were semi-working, identifying any species we brought to their attention, assessing any changes since their previous visits, talking to the local chief and villagers, and generally being very useful individuals!

I was collected on Friday morning, and we headed for the border. Things slowed right down at the border but we struggled through and arrived at the town of Milanje in Mozambique. The Mozambican’s are not keen on people coming in…except on a Sunday, when the border is basically open to encourage trade! We waited in a café and those that had been salivating about the thought of non-carlsberg beer quenched their thirsts. Once all cars had arrived we drove off on a dirt road for 3 hot, dusty, sweaty hours before arriving at an abandoned tea estate just as darkness fell. The tea estate is at the foot of the mountain, and the tea plants are now 30ft tall having been abandoned during the civil war! The buildings are basically structurally sound, but have no roofs or windows. We drove to the highest building, which also happened to be the nicest. Food was cooked up, beer and wine consumed, and stars watched until tiredness came and people retired to their rather plush accommodation!

The next morning we awoke with the sunrise and took lots of photos of our spectacular surroundings before packing up, assigning porters (I was not lucky enough to get one, and had filled my bag with things others could not fit, so I think I must have been carrying around 17kg…enough to get a good amount of sweat going!), and heading off into the forest. First we had to walk for an hour or so around a long ridge, through lots of hamlets, and into the valley which would lead us up to base camp. The hike took around 3 and a half hours for my group, longer for some. After a quick wash in the stream at base camp we discussed whether we had time to go for the peak that afternoon, of if we’d have to squeeze it into an early morning. We opted to go for it in the afternoon and the timing was perfect, due to quite a ferocious pace set by our local guide Othelio from the village down the hill (at 42 he is a father of 10 and already a grandfather…men are in noticeably short supply after the civil war in this are – Othelio is a hunter and so knew where all the leg-destroying gin traps are, as he had put them there!).

The views from the top were a welcome change from the dense forest, which has it’s own beauty but also seems intent on causing as much discomfort as possible to those wishing to pass through it! We hung around on top for a while, noting species (I spotted a bush full of insects which were mimicking scorpions. I had read about these, they are reckoned to be unique to Mabu). Then dashed back down, getting to the camp just before dark. Another wash in the river, sorely needed, and then a lovely evening of sitting around the campfire, chatting, occasionally heading off to a bush to find the native pygmy chameleons (sorry, none of my photos of these inch long little beasts came out), and generally enjoying the rainforest.

Next morning we packed up and headed back, some getting an early and fast start to try to fix one of the vehicles which had slipped off the track just next to our Friday night accommodation and fairly b*ggered up it’s wheel and axel. The decent seemed incredulously hotter than the ascent, and we arrived back at the tea estate thoroughly dehydrated and sweaty! An hour or so of bodging work and the car could be towed up to park at the estate building, to be collected at a few days later, whenever a mechanic could be arranged.

So that was my trip to Mozambique. It was different from Malawi in a few ways, such as the complete lack of ‘asunugu-ing’ of white people, even more laughter than Malawi, and sadly far fewer men for tragic reasons of politics and guns.

extra photos from Ian's visit and Black Missionaries gig

There were too many good photos taken by Ian, that I felt I had to share, so here are the ones which didn't fit in the other blog.


Kids playing a game where you have to throw coins into a specified area, and you can knock other people's coins out. I'm not sure if the winner keeps all the coins or not.



construction work at BAHASI



Namiyango market in all it's glory!



Rachel and some SVA with the kids at STEKA



the bunks where the kids at STEKA sleep 2 to a bed



nuns? or perhaps just members of a church which has a uniform. probably nuns.



Carlsberg brewery tour - chatting to students from the Polytechnic who were very excited to be on the tour!



the heavily laden papaya tree just next to our bedroom



Limbe market



A view from Mandala down into the bustling metropolis of downtown Blantyre at rush-hour



Mandala House, oldest building in Malawi (used to belong to the African Lakes Corporation) and purveyor of fine coffees!



the support band, which were basically the same as the Black Missionaries except some people swapped places!



The stall where rachel bought her hat...

Ian's second visit and other bits and bobs

Namiyango in the mud and rain. Spot Rachel in her easy-to-blend-in-to-a-crowd jacket!



making recycled paper with elephant dung at a charity in Blantyre



Malawian public health adverts



the roaring fire!



our hut on Zomba plateau



breakfast on Zomba



reading the papers in the sun outside the hut



looking down into the Shire Valley from the edge of the plateau near Chingwe's Hole



a pretty flower near our hut



the view from our hut



a typical township scene



BAHASI



inside BAHASI



breakfast time at BAHASI



a kid playing cricket, quite an ususal sight - the game of choice is usually football




Too many photos for one blog, so I’ll have to post the extra’s on another blog soon!

Soooooo….what’s been happening since the last blogging? Well, Ian came back, despite our poor hostingness last time. Perhaps he thought practice would improve our performance…How wrong he was! For a bedroom he was allowed to doss down in my office (which is rather spacious for an office after all!), and was greeted back into Malawi with high winds, cold temperatures (single figures I think at times) driving rain and as much mud as he could have asked for!

He made the most of it though, and frequented all of AYISE’s current local projects, including Bangwe AIDS and HIV Self Help Initiative (BAHASI), which is a day care centre for orphans which Rachel found before Sister A arrived. Since SVA arrived they have adopted it (excuse the pun) as one of their projects and provide assistance to the teachers there, and are building a new building for them to help them expand into a full blown orphanage. Another project was the international work camp rachel organised at the Youth Centre which involved re-painting a lot of the rather dilapidated old buildings. I say ‘international’, it had one American and the rest were Malawian, but still – an experience for everyone I think, given the problems of mud and rain!
Ian also visited another of SVA’s areas of help, at Step Kids Awareness (STEKA) where a young Malawian couple (probably younger than Rachel and I) have decided to turn their home into an orphanage for abandoned/street/orphaned kids. They have around 12 beds and 24 kids, so 2 to a bed. They are constantly being asked to take on more kids too. During their visit Rach and Ian were introduced to a couple of new arrivals, one of which – lets call him Joseph – has since been coming to AYISE since asking for bus money to go ‘home’. This is a very problematic area, the kid obviously has some issues as he’s a compulsive liar, which makes helping him a problem as he tells everyone a different story about why he is not happy at STEKA (including accusations of abuse) and where he actually lives/wants to be taken back to. The most recent chapter in the saga is that AYISE think they have tracked his gran down, and offered to drive him there as they did not want him travelling that distance alone, and he refused to be driven, asking instead for the bus money…which makes one question what he really wants, and what he really needs. I have not seen him today, but he was here yesterday. I am not aware of the latest on the situation – it is emotionally really tough on all of the Scots here, as it is so hard to know what to do, and so easy to latch onto weaknesses in the Malawian child protection system / AYISE’s response (which is typically Malawian in it’s pace, and lack of prioritisation of the child’s needs).
On a lighter note we also visited the Carlsberg brewery (first one built outside Denmark), for which I took time off work to join Rach and Ian. Fun times! The Adamsons also tried out both of the museums in Blantyre, and seemed amused, if not overly educated by both. In addition, every respectable eatery in the town was tried, and a good place found for sunset views and the best burgers in Malawi! We also visited a local charity which colllects waste paper from schools and offices and recycles it by hand, adding in either banana skin fibres or elephant dung!

I took a long weekend and we headed to Zomba plateau for 2 nights. When we left Bangwe (public transport all the way) the rain was still coming down and the mud was thick, but that was the last we saw of the rain. We arrived in a cool but dry Zomba and did some shopping and arranged a taxi to take us from the town up to the plateau. We were to rent a hut owned by the people who run the stables at the plateau edge. The taxi took us to the stables where we were warmly greeted by the owners and their huge dog. They then piled us into a landrover and we headed up the rough tracks to the other, higher side of the plateau where the hut was situated. The hut keeper had been instructed to get the fire going as it had been so cold recently, and the hut had not seen much use. When we got there the fire was roaring and the place heating up. It had a living/sleeping room (with 2 single beds which had been made into a double, so unfortunately Ian was relegated to the floor infront of the fire), a kitchen and a bathroom. They had an ingeniously simple method of heating water for the shower and kitchen, which was similar to Ronan and Sam’s hot tub – a fire under an old oil drum, but with no pump, just convection to draw the water from the tank out to the shower or tap. The atmosphere at the hut was great, with old paraffin hurricane lanterns, the roaring fire and the mist all around (but clearing). The next morning we awoke to absolutely clear blue skies. Our wee walk in the morning, after a relax in the sun to warm our bones from the chilly night, took us to Chingwe’s hole. This is a natural deep cave shaft vertically dropping into the hill at the plateau’s edge. Quite interesting to see, but the views were better – out to Liwonde national park and the shire valley on one side, and Mulanje (which SVA were climbing) and lake Chilwa on the other. And immediately around us, a landscape akin to the borders, with open grassland and forestry plantations. The reservoir at the plateau edge completed the European picture! I gather this is used for hydro power, but I’m not 100% sure.

It was really great to have a break up in the peace of the plateau, where you can take a walk without being Asungu’d or hugged to within an inch of your life! Living in Bangwe has great aspects to it, but a quiet break is much appreciated! Lots of coffee was drunk, newspapers read and duty free whisky supped. The stars were pretty good, as the skies were completely clear, although the moon was too strong to get the stars at their best.

Ians’s whole trip here has been great for lifting our spirits about things which we cannot/should not attempt to change, and making us really appreciate the many positive aspects of life here, such as the indomitably friendly baseline attitude of everyone, and the incredibly different culture and landscapes there are. Of course, his fantastically generous payments for food, accommodation and practically everything else may have biased my views! Thanks Ian!

After Ian left on Saturday Rach and I got the bus back to town (it can be done, good to know) and met up with some of our friends from the Hash for a wee walk out on the other side of town. A quiet evening was then had back in Bangwe. On Sunday I was recruited to join Asungu United in a football game against AYISE Allstars in the morning, but unfortunately both of the decent football grounds were occupied. This left me to head back home to drink coffee and read more of the massive supply of newspapers we now have (thanks to all who contributed so generously!), and then head into town in the afternoon to see a popular Malawian reggae band called the Black Missionaries. This was good fun, during the daylight hours at least. The gig ‘started’ at 1.30 but on Malawi time, so I don’t think anyone was on stage until about 3. This gave plenty of time for perusing the stalls. The Rastafarians were well represented at the gig, and rachel spotted a great hat for the chill of New York in January. The stall she bought it from was trading in 3 things; hats, sandles, and spliffs! Although marijuana is strictly illegal in Malawi it seemed a blind eye was turned for this gig at least. The long afternoon in the heat (and possibly the thick atmosphere) took their toll on Rach and she started to feel a bit off as the evening approached; but as far as we were aware the warm up act were still on and the Black Missionaries were yet to perform. So we waited, and waited, as yet more repetitive reggae was churned out (they actually repeated songs, it’s not just that we are too old for reggae and it ‘all sounds the same these days’!). Then an MC came on and announced something about the Black Missionaries, and the first band left the stage…and then came right back on again! We assumed some sort of mis-hap had occurred, as is likely in Malawi, so we waited some more for the headliners to come on…Eventually, after asking several people and getting conflicting responses we found out that the only difference between the support act and the headliners was a subtly different arrangement of people! To our non-reggae ears it had sounded just the same, and with the same people on stage we had assumed it was the supporting band. Finally we could leave! So we saw them…they’re ok. They are probably better if you like reggae enough to listen to it for 5 hours solid.

The weather update (the most exciting bit I’m sure); things are starting to heat up now, far more warm days, far fewer wet ones in the past week. Evenings and nights are getting warmer, and the days more reliable warm and sunny (temperatures probably mid 20s, possibly pushing 27 some days). The sun has some power now. T.I.A. (this is Africa!).

Work-wise, I’ve been ploughing on with a few big funding proposals, making arrangements for the environmental projects we are soon to start when the Swedes get here (they arrive Thursday 26th), and also seeking funds/awards for the work that MuREA (Mulanje Renewable Energy Agency) have been doing so they can expand their geographical remit to cover other threatened forests near Blantyre. Rach has been working her way through evaluations, finances and admin relating to all the work camps she has organised. Hmm…not sure I have anything else to add on work, general feelings are that it’s going ok – starting to work a wee bit more on the things that interest me, but yet to feel like I’m making any difference to Malawi…but that aspiration is far too big and naïve for me now anyway, I realise I cannot change a country in 7 months, but I hope I can help improve things a wee bit.

Much love to all,

A & R

more photos

me approaching the top of Sapitwa, with Nakodzwe in the background



The group having a break on the slabs on the lower slopes of Sapitwa



A flowering Aloe plant (i think)



Me, taking in the dawn after my first night on the moutain - Sapitwa Sleepover back in June...the epitome of contented peace!



Dusk falls near our campsite on the Majete Crossover


Photos from A, who was on many a trip with me before having to head back to Germany to learn more about doctoring-ness. These are just a few of her photos from the Majete Crossover and Sapitwa Sleepover trips. Thanks!