It was good to read everybodies' (body's? bodys?) 4th of July/summer break experiences. I love how you are sharing with us how your summer "doing development" challenges your conceptions (preconceptions? concepts?). I know convoluted sentence; I'm still trying to figure out how I'm functioning on 3.5 hours (6.5? .5?) of sleep.
Development news on my end: While looking through my RSS feed reader (use one!) I found a website devoted to jobs in development. http://www.devj.net/ I've never heard of it, but maybe one of you out there can speak to its utility or lack thereof.
In the developed world: I just got back from watching my brother get hitched. One of the happiest days of my life. Going to end this before I do a faceplant on my keybo-trsghb
Update: Found a blog from WASH in Africa. Severe water shortage in Lesotho.
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
Tripppin' on a flux capacitor
(once again, all pictures can be found back on my own blog)
This past weekend I saddled up my pony and moseyed down yonder to Mozambique for some fun in the sun. The picture to the left is the main reason I decided to fork over the greenbacks for the trip. Too much time in the office makes Michael go crazy.
I flew to Johannesburg, South Africa where I met up with my friend Jessica, the Robin to my Batman on this trip as she prefers to be called. The plan was to rent a car and travel overland to Maputo, the capitol of Mozambique to meet up with our friend Christina. It gave me an opportunity to try driving on the other side of the road, while steering from the other side of the car. After dodging a few pedestrians in the parking lot and looking the wrong way a few times to turn, we finally headed out on the road to Maputo. Well, to be exact, we camped in Pretoria for the night and then strolled down the road.
I eventually became comfortable with the driving, but I never quite became acclimated to the scenery. In fact, it was the first time that I really experienced some bit of culture shock since arriving in Africa. My guide book informed me that the small district in South Africa which houses both Pretoria and Johannesburg accounts for 10% of the wealth of the entire continent of Africa. It basically looks like any part of the US with well-kept towns and four-lane highways filled with millions of modern cars and hardly any signs of poverty. This is in stark contrast to the one-lane country roads of Malawi filled with mule-driven carts and ratted old buses plugging across a landscape dotted with tiny villages of mud huts.
Towards the end of the trip I realized why going to Malawi hadn’t bothered me as much as leaving it did. I think in my mind I had prepared myself for Africa to be as poor as I could imagine. I was prepared for people to be living out in the bush with no permanent housing and completely cut off from the world. I knew this wasn’t the case, but, maybe as a defense mechanism, it’s how I prepared myself. So every time I saw something modern like a road with no potholes or power lines, or a fine Indian or Italian restaurant I became more and more impressed by Malawi’s development. But when I arrived in South Africa it was like jumping ahead five decades. In fact, that’s a pretty good comparison for Malawi. It reminds me of what the US might have been like back in the 40’s and 50’s when the US was still a mostly rural society, at peace, and just starting to stumble upon some economic progress. It was probably what Doc Brown and Marty felt like when they hopped out of the Delorian.
Maybe that’s why people in the circumstances I find in Malawi seem so content. They really don’t know what they’re missing. They’re happy to see a new hotel being built, or, more locally, to see a road that can bring commerce to their little villages. They’re happy to have a bike when most people are still forced to walk. I hate to say ignorance is bliss, because I don’t like the word ignorance there. But I feel like if they were exposed to such development things would be a lot worse. This is why there’s so much conflict in places where there’s such severe inequality.
The trail to Maputo carried us into the small kingdom of Swaziland. Swaziland is its own country, completely surrounded by South Africa and Mozambique, and one of the last true kingdoms in the world. It was a fascinating little country, very clean and seemed to be as developed as South Africa. It actually may have been one of the favorite places I have ever been. The landscape was beautiful and it was filled with modern amenities. It was almost impossible to remember that Swaziland has the highest rate of HIV/AIDS in the world – almost 40% of the population is infected…two out of every 5 people. In the early nineties the rate was only 3%. Jessica and I stopped at an incredibly beautiful little restaurant overlooking a garden, followed by fields of sugar stalks all set in front of distant mountains. Apparently it’s a pretty popular spot since there was a plaque that informed me that “Jimmy Carter, President of the United States of America, Stood Here”. The curious part about the plaque is that it was in the urinal. And if you think I didn’t take a picture with that, then you’re crazy.
On we traveled, and by the time we reached Maputo it was already dark. Maputo is a large, dirty city that apparently has quite a crime problem. In fact, our car had not been parked outside Christina’s apartment for 30 minutes before we had a hubcap stolen. True story. We paid a teenager to watch the car for the rest of the night and luckily we didn’t lose anything else. We dined at a restaurant in Christina’s neighborhood where I tried a cut of meat I haven’t had a chance to try before (If you’re a vegetarian or Bambi-lover skip to the next paragraph). The special of the night was Gazelle served as a kebob. And it was delicious!!! It was easily one of the best cuts of meat I have ever tasted. If you’re ever at a restaurant in Maputo and gazelle’s on the menu I definitely recommend it.
The next morning we landed at a beach two hours north of Maputo and basically became vegetables for the next 24 hours eating whatever was available on the menus (which was about half the items actually listed on the menu) and drinking cold beverages. While lounging around I learned that I could communicate with the Portuguese speakers of Mozambique fairly well with my Spanish. More proof that I could probably learn Italian or Portuguese in about a week. I also spent the whole weekend waiting in vain for the chocolate cake at the restaurant where we spent most of our time. It was mentioned in the guide book as one of the best desserts around. Those of you who know me know how much this excited me. Unfortunately they didn’t have it when we first got there. But they said it would be there in the morning. So we checked back in the morning after another beautiful sunrise (see picture). No cake. Check back in the afternoon. But, alas, we were gone by then and I did not get my Mozambican chocolate cake. (But those of you who know me, also could bet that when I made it back to Malawi I made a chocolate cake that is delicious.)
This reminds me of a book I’m reading. The author talks about time in Africa and how different it is from time in the West. For instance, if you see a bus and ask an African “When is this bus leaving?” you’ll likely get a strange look. That’s because, to them, the ‘bus’ does not exist yet. It only exists (and leaves) when there are people on it. Without people, there is no bus, and when there are people the ‘bus’ exists and it leaves. It’s just a different way of interpreting time. So, unfortunately for me, the ‘chocolate cake’ did not exist this weekend, and by the time it came into being I was already gone.
Unfortunately the beach could not be home for long enough and Jessica and I were forced to return to our normal lives. On the way back to South Africa we took a more direct route that bypassed Swaziland. Unfortunately it was also the more traveled stretch of road because everyone is trying to get into South Africa, which meant that the line leaving Mozambique and the next one for entering South Africa each stretched about 75 meters which probably would have taken a total of four hours to get through. Luckily a guy came up to us before we could even get out of our car and said that he could cut in line for us to get our passports stamped for a small fee. Once we figured out what he was talking about we readily agreed and got through each border post in about 10 minutes. It turns out that the guys we talked to bribes the guard at the door and the agent inside to get our passports stamped early. I don’t know why they didn’t put that in my Lonely Planet guide book. Best piece of advice I could give somebody crossing the border from Mozambique to South Africa.
After some more driving through the extensive bush of South Africa (and a few extra turns along the way J) we made it back for the night and I was back on a flight to the 1950’s the next morning. The crazy part is that on the way back I realized how much I had missed Malawi while I was gone. It doesn’t have all the luxuries and amenities of South Africa and Maputo, but it’s becoming my own little corner of Africa. The trip was a nice break and a chance to catch up with friends, but in the end it made me glad that I chose Malawi for my first experience in Africa. Or maybe it chose me. Hard to say.
This past weekend I saddled up my pony and moseyed down yonder to Mozambique for some fun in the sun. The picture to the left is the main reason I decided to fork over the greenbacks for the trip. Too much time in the office makes Michael go crazy.
I flew to Johannesburg, South Africa where I met up with my friend Jessica, the Robin to my Batman on this trip as she prefers to be called. The plan was to rent a car and travel overland to Maputo, the capitol of Mozambique to meet up with our friend Christina. It gave me an opportunity to try driving on the other side of the road, while steering from the other side of the car. After dodging a few pedestrians in the parking lot and looking the wrong way a few times to turn, we finally headed out on the road to Maputo. Well, to be exact, we camped in Pretoria for the night and then strolled down the road.
I eventually became comfortable with the driving, but I never quite became acclimated to the scenery. In fact, it was the first time that I really experienced some bit of culture shock since arriving in Africa. My guide book informed me that the small district in South Africa which houses both Pretoria and Johannesburg accounts for 10% of the wealth of the entire continent of Africa. It basically looks like any part of the US with well-kept towns and four-lane highways filled with millions of modern cars and hardly any signs of poverty. This is in stark contrast to the one-lane country roads of Malawi filled with mule-driven carts and ratted old buses plugging across a landscape dotted with tiny villages of mud huts.
Towards the end of the trip I realized why going to Malawi hadn’t bothered me as much as leaving it did. I think in my mind I had prepared myself for Africa to be as poor as I could imagine. I was prepared for people to be living out in the bush with no permanent housing and completely cut off from the world. I knew this wasn’t the case, but, maybe as a defense mechanism, it’s how I prepared myself. So every time I saw something modern like a road with no potholes or power lines, or a fine Indian or Italian restaurant I became more and more impressed by Malawi’s development. But when I arrived in South Africa it was like jumping ahead five decades. In fact, that’s a pretty good comparison for Malawi. It reminds me of what the US might have been like back in the 40’s and 50’s when the US was still a mostly rural society, at peace, and just starting to stumble upon some economic progress. It was probably what Doc Brown and Marty felt like when they hopped out of the Delorian.
Maybe that’s why people in the circumstances I find in Malawi seem so content. They really don’t know what they’re missing. They’re happy to see a new hotel being built, or, more locally, to see a road that can bring commerce to their little villages. They’re happy to have a bike when most people are still forced to walk. I hate to say ignorance is bliss, because I don’t like the word ignorance there. But I feel like if they were exposed to such development things would be a lot worse. This is why there’s so much conflict in places where there’s such severe inequality.
The trail to Maputo carried us into the small kingdom of Swaziland. Swaziland is its own country, completely surrounded by South Africa and Mozambique, and one of the last true kingdoms in the world. It was a fascinating little country, very clean and seemed to be as developed as South Africa. It actually may have been one of the favorite places I have ever been. The landscape was beautiful and it was filled with modern amenities. It was almost impossible to remember that Swaziland has the highest rate of HIV/AIDS in the world – almost 40% of the population is infected…two out of every 5 people. In the early nineties the rate was only 3%. Jessica and I stopped at an incredibly beautiful little restaurant overlooking a garden, followed by fields of sugar stalks all set in front of distant mountains. Apparently it’s a pretty popular spot since there was a plaque that informed me that “Jimmy Carter, President of the United States of America, Stood Here”. The curious part about the plaque is that it was in the urinal. And if you think I didn’t take a picture with that, then you’re crazy.
On we traveled, and by the time we reached Maputo it was already dark. Maputo is a large, dirty city that apparently has quite a crime problem. In fact, our car had not been parked outside Christina’s apartment for 30 minutes before we had a hubcap stolen. True story. We paid a teenager to watch the car for the rest of the night and luckily we didn’t lose anything else. We dined at a restaurant in Christina’s neighborhood where I tried a cut of meat I haven’t had a chance to try before (If you’re a vegetarian or Bambi-lover skip to the next paragraph). The special of the night was Gazelle served as a kebob. And it was delicious!!! It was easily one of the best cuts of meat I have ever tasted. If you’re ever at a restaurant in Maputo and gazelle’s on the menu I definitely recommend it.
The next morning we landed at a beach two hours north of Maputo and basically became vegetables for the next 24 hours eating whatever was available on the menus (which was about half the items actually listed on the menu) and drinking cold beverages. While lounging around I learned that I could communicate with the Portuguese speakers of Mozambique fairly well with my Spanish. More proof that I could probably learn Italian or Portuguese in about a week. I also spent the whole weekend waiting in vain for the chocolate cake at the restaurant where we spent most of our time. It was mentioned in the guide book as one of the best desserts around. Those of you who know me know how much this excited me. Unfortunately they didn’t have it when we first got there. But they said it would be there in the morning. So we checked back in the morning after another beautiful sunrise (see picture). No cake. Check back in the afternoon. But, alas, we were gone by then and I did not get my Mozambican chocolate cake. (But those of you who know me, also could bet that when I made it back to Malawi I made a chocolate cake that is delicious.)
This reminds me of a book I’m reading. The author talks about time in Africa and how different it is from time in the West. For instance, if you see a bus and ask an African “When is this bus leaving?” you’ll likely get a strange look. That’s because, to them, the ‘bus’ does not exist yet. It only exists (and leaves) when there are people on it. Without people, there is no bus, and when there are people the ‘bus’ exists and it leaves. It’s just a different way of interpreting time. So, unfortunately for me, the ‘chocolate cake’ did not exist this weekend, and by the time it came into being I was already gone.
Unfortunately the beach could not be home for long enough and Jessica and I were forced to return to our normal lives. On the way back to South Africa we took a more direct route that bypassed Swaziland. Unfortunately it was also the more traveled stretch of road because everyone is trying to get into South Africa, which meant that the line leaving Mozambique and the next one for entering South Africa each stretched about 75 meters which probably would have taken a total of four hours to get through. Luckily a guy came up to us before we could even get out of our car and said that he could cut in line for us to get our passports stamped for a small fee. Once we figured out what he was talking about we readily agreed and got through each border post in about 10 minutes. It turns out that the guys we talked to bribes the guard at the door and the agent inside to get our passports stamped early. I don’t know why they didn’t put that in my Lonely Planet guide book. Best piece of advice I could give somebody crossing the border from Mozambique to South Africa.
After some more driving through the extensive bush of South Africa (and a few extra turns along the way J) we made it back for the night and I was back on a flight to the 1950’s the next morning. The crazy part is that on the way back I realized how much I had missed Malawi while I was gone. It doesn’t have all the luxuries and amenities of South Africa and Maputo, but it’s becoming my own little corner of Africa. The trip was a nice break and a chance to catch up with friends, but in the end it made me glad that I chose Malawi for my first experience in Africa. Or maybe it chose me. Hard to say.
Monday, July 7, 2008
Still in Rwanda...
I thought you might be interested to know that I am the first white person who has ever lived. Everywhere I go, kids chase me, yelling “mzungu!” (white person) and getting as close as they dare before screaming in fear and running away. Even adults aren’t above stopping dead in their tracks and staring at me, or unapologetically touching my skin as they sit next to me on the bus. One day, one of my co-workers Julienne was walking with Jen and me and because she wasn’t used to all the attention, got a bit frustrated. When a group of kids started screaming “mzungu!” she stopped and yelled right back at them, “They’re not mzungus! They are human beings just like you and me!” Nice. Now that’s a phrase I wish I knew in Kinyarwanda.
Yesterday, I was sitting on the front stoop of SEVOTA’s office in Ghinga, just hanging out and watching people pass by when a large group of prisoners in matching pink jumpsuits came walking along picking up trash on the side of the road. This certainly isn’t an uncommon sight in Rwanda, whose prisons have been packed since the genocide. In fact, a year after the genocide in the town where I live, the prison held four prisoners per square yard! In order to deal with the overflow of the accused, the government instituted a traditional legal system called gacaca, where essentially anyone who participated in rape, beatings, or killing, but not in planning for the genocide, could admit their crimes to the community, ask forgiveness, and then perform community service, like this road cleaning, for a few months while living at home. It’s not exactly justice, but what would justice be in a small country with hundreds of thousands of killers and hundreds of thousands of victims?
Anyway, I was feeling a little unnerved as the prisoner-workers all stopped to gawk at the mzungu, when my friend André came up to talk to me. I was just grateful to have something else to do besides stare back at all these admitted killers and we had a good conversation. He told me about his time at university, I explained the rental market in DC, and he tried to convince me to marry his youngest son. Normal.
He left to go finish his yard work and my boss Mama Muhire came out to sit with me. She spotted André across the street and said nonchalantly, “You know, he just finished his community service last month.” My stomach dropped at the reminder that not every killer is wearing a pink jumpsuit. “What did André do to require community service?” She waved her hand dismissively, “He participated in the genocide. I don’t remember exactly.” She then stood and in her loud Mama Muhire voice yelled across the street for André to come over and greet her. He smiled and ran over. Then in the daily miracle that is Rwanda, this man who committed acts of genocide embraced this woman whose husband was killed in the genocide.
I realized then that I see people here in neat little categories: widow, rapist, orphan, killer, mzungu… Well, as Julienne would say, they are human beings just like you and me. And God knows all of our pasts could use some explaining. I’m just not sure how to see people outside the context of their personal histories. I don’t know how yet, but I want to learn to look at people and ask, “Who does this person want to be NOW?”
P.S. The weirdest place I've seen the USAID logo was in an overpriced expat grocery store on cans of vegetables they were selling. Food donations for sale to Americans?
Yesterday, I was sitting on the front stoop of SEVOTA’s office in Ghinga, just hanging out and watching people pass by when a large group of prisoners in matching pink jumpsuits came walking along picking up trash on the side of the road. This certainly isn’t an uncommon sight in Rwanda, whose prisons have been packed since the genocide. In fact, a year after the genocide in the town where I live, the prison held four prisoners per square yard! In order to deal with the overflow of the accused, the government instituted a traditional legal system called gacaca, where essentially anyone who participated in rape, beatings, or killing, but not in planning for the genocide, could admit their crimes to the community, ask forgiveness, and then perform community service, like this road cleaning, for a few months while living at home. It’s not exactly justice, but what would justice be in a small country with hundreds of thousands of killers and hundreds of thousands of victims?
Anyway, I was feeling a little unnerved as the prisoner-workers all stopped to gawk at the mzungu, when my friend André came up to talk to me. I was just grateful to have something else to do besides stare back at all these admitted killers and we had a good conversation. He told me about his time at university, I explained the rental market in DC, and he tried to convince me to marry his youngest son. Normal.
He left to go finish his yard work and my boss Mama Muhire came out to sit with me. She spotted André across the street and said nonchalantly, “You know, he just finished his community service last month.” My stomach dropped at the reminder that not every killer is wearing a pink jumpsuit. “What did André do to require community service?” She waved her hand dismissively, “He participated in the genocide. I don’t remember exactly.” She then stood and in her loud Mama Muhire voice yelled across the street for André to come over and greet her. He smiled and ran over. Then in the daily miracle that is Rwanda, this man who committed acts of genocide embraced this woman whose husband was killed in the genocide.
I realized then that I see people here in neat little categories: widow, rapist, orphan, killer, mzungu… Well, as Julienne would say, they are human beings just like you and me. And God knows all of our pasts could use some explaining. I’m just not sure how to see people outside the context of their personal histories. I don’t know how yet, but I want to learn to look at people and ask, “Who does this person want to be NOW?”
P.S. The weirdest place I've seen the USAID logo was in an overpriced expat grocery store on cans of vegetables they were selling. Food donations for sale to Americans?
Saturday, July 5, 2008
"We are the Silenced"
As I've been reminded by friends in Africa, doing development work in a middle-income country like El Salvador is officially, is a lot different than in a really destitute country like 80% of Africa. In a context like the one I'm observing and partially experiencing, the message that's shrieking into my ears is about power.
Amartya Sen in a lot of ways revolutionized the way people like us think about poverty. He put it in terms of voicelessness instead of a lack of material wealth. Of course, a lack of material wealth is a critical part of what poverty is, but the principal cause is a lack of power. I think these distinctions are actually best viewed in industrialized countries, but personally, I see them particularly strongly here... maybe it's just the change of scenery, or maybe it's the deeper poverty contrasted with the daily and highly visible exhibitions of wealth. (I live in a huge house with a family I had a connection to through work, and a block and half away is a neighborhood where everyone has a tin roof and it also houses a clique of MS-13). And so I'm becoming more and more interested in power relations locally and nationally between the people who have it, and the people who don't.
My basic conclusion is this, and I'd be curious to see if anyone else out there has been experiencing or thinking about similar things: I just don't think you can consider something "sustainable development" if it doesn't work to empower people without any, and therefore ultimately change the system of power relations that led to the situation of poverty and oppression in the first place. So in other words, the things that I'm doing with my internship that doesn't have anything to do with advocacy or trying to change the system, then I'm not doing development. There are many good things that we all could do, but it will take more than a series of good things to create or facilitate that kind of change.
I had a conversation with a remarkable Salvadoran woman today. I was telling her about my recent revelations on the topic I've been trying to explain here, and she said something to me that I thought was profound. It took many cliches that have seemed perfectly helpful and reasonable to me, and made them utterly ridiculous and exposed how my thinking still doesn't reflect the kind of thinking that works for justice: the "voiceless" are not the voiceless, "We are the Silenced;" live simply so that others may simply live? No, I want to decide to live simply too; You want more equity for the poor? You want more justice? I want EQUITY, and I want JUSTICE!
How small my thoughts on development have been. We can work for development, offer some nice charity "From the American People" that these poor saps didn't deserve but we decided to give in our benevolence... or we can work for justice/human rights (whichever you prefer ;) ). I hope you're inspired to really change something today... and tomorrow.
Amartya Sen in a lot of ways revolutionized the way people like us think about poverty. He put it in terms of voicelessness instead of a lack of material wealth. Of course, a lack of material wealth is a critical part of what poverty is, but the principal cause is a lack of power. I think these distinctions are actually best viewed in industrialized countries, but personally, I see them particularly strongly here... maybe it's just the change of scenery, or maybe it's the deeper poverty contrasted with the daily and highly visible exhibitions of wealth. (I live in a huge house with a family I had a connection to through work, and a block and half away is a neighborhood where everyone has a tin roof and it also houses a clique of MS-13). And so I'm becoming more and more interested in power relations locally and nationally between the people who have it, and the people who don't.
My basic conclusion is this, and I'd be curious to see if anyone else out there has been experiencing or thinking about similar things: I just don't think you can consider something "sustainable development" if it doesn't work to empower people without any, and therefore ultimately change the system of power relations that led to the situation of poverty and oppression in the first place. So in other words, the things that I'm doing with my internship that doesn't have anything to do with advocacy or trying to change the system, then I'm not doing development. There are many good things that we all could do, but it will take more than a series of good things to create or facilitate that kind of change.
I had a conversation with a remarkable Salvadoran woman today. I was telling her about my recent revelations on the topic I've been trying to explain here, and she said something to me that I thought was profound. It took many cliches that have seemed perfectly helpful and reasonable to me, and made them utterly ridiculous and exposed how my thinking still doesn't reflect the kind of thinking that works for justice: the "voiceless" are not the voiceless, "We are the Silenced;" live simply so that others may simply live? No, I want to decide to live simply too; You want more equity for the poor? You want more justice? I want EQUITY, and I want JUSTICE!
How small my thoughts on development have been. We can work for development, offer some nice charity "From the American People" that these poor saps didn't deserve but we decided to give in our benevolence... or we can work for justice/human rights (whichever you prefer ;) ). I hope you're inspired to really change something today... and tomorrow.
Friday, July 4, 2008
WWIDSD?
Ok, so I met this girl who is traveling, and she has a dilemma. She is supposed to be doing work for this development NGO in Central America, but so far she hasn't had a great experience with them, and they are supposed to pay for her expenses but seem to be unwilling to put out much in the way of resources while at the same time expecting a fair amount from her. She doesn't really want to keep working for them because she could be spending her time doing things that are far more enjoyable (or at least where her efforts might be appreciated or she might be taken seriously), but on the other hand she feels bad because she told them she would be working for them before she arrived and found out what the real situation is.
On the one hand, she can stick to her commitment, tough it out and get some good resume building material, or she can tell the NGO that she won't be working for them anymore.
What would IDSers do?
On the one hand, she can stick to her commitment, tough it out and get some good resume building material, or she can tell the NGO that she won't be working for them anymore.
What would IDSers do?
Thursday, July 3, 2008
Apollo says...
HAPPY JULY 4TH EVERYONE!!!
To my fellow international interns: I hope you appreciate the fact that you're spending today the way our ancestors did, by taking a long and arduous journey across an ocean and working for peanuts.
It's been a quiet week in Lake Wobegone...
(If you don’t get that reference, you’re probably under 40)
Have I told you how quiet Lilongwe is? It’s one of the aspects of this summer that I wasn’t quite prepared for. I think I’ve mentioned that Lilongwe is set up in two sections. I heard a story that it’s like that because the Apartheid government of South Africa some decades ago paid for and designed the city. As a result, the wealthy and foreign residents of the city are housed in one section, while the native African and poorer people live in another section. In the rich foreigner section we all live in big houses with increasingly bigger fences, based on status I presume. I.e. the US Ambassador has a bigger fence than some ordinary citizen. My wall stands proudly at 9 feet tall.
The crummy part of this set up is that you really need a car to leave my section of town where there are no bars, restaurants, or even grocery stores - just miles and miles of walled-in houses. So the evenings here, which start at about 5:45pm, can get pretty long and boring. Combine that with my job kind of slowing down this week and I’ve been struggling to find things to post here.
Luckily things will be picking up in the next few weeks. Tomorrow I go to South Africa for some fun in the sun with some friends from my graduate program. We’re going to rent a car and drive over to Mozambique to relax on a beach, order drinks with little umbrellas in them, and get in touch with our inner-Jimmy Buffett. I’m going to really watch out for those pot-pots so I don’t blow out a flip flop. Then, I’m organizing some trips for work that will include visiting schools that are doing innovate things to keep kids involved, free of HIV/AIDS, and safe from violence. I’m also going to visit some summer camps for Malawians that should be loads of fun.
In the meantime, about all I could muster for this spot is an update on the political turmoil taking place in Malawi and some strange things I’ve noticed around Malawi…
Seeing all of the problems going on in Zimbabwe makes me really glad that Malawi has never had any kind of nation-wide violence like that. They had a somewhat benign dictator, Hastings Banda, who finally submitted to multi-party elections in 1994. Of course he lost, and willingly gave up power. The new president became Bakili Muluzi (muh LOO zee) who represented the Southern Region of Malawi, which is the most populous. He didn’t really distinguish himself as a very bad or very good president. After serving two terms, he tried to have the constitutional limit of 2-terms for a sitting president amended so that he could continue in power, but failed. So instead, he hand-picked a member of his party to run for him and basically be a puppet. That guy is the current president, Bingu wa Mutharika (moo THAW ree cuh). Unfortunately Bingu (as he’s affectionately and derisively called here) decided he didn’t want to be a puppet and went about being his own man. He even went so far as to create a new party, of which he is the head. Obviously this made Muluzi pretty mad and he has been scheming to get back into power ever since. He decided to make Bingu’s life a living hell until they could run against each other when Bingu’s term runs out in 2009. This is kind of like if Bill Clinton tried to get back into the White House after George Bush’s term ended…wait, never mind. That would never happen in the States.
In the meantime, like I said, Muluzi is doing everything he can to ruin Bingu’s presidency. The battle has really been heated over the fact that Bingu switched parties and convinced other members of parliament to do the same. Well, apparently this is unconstitutional and anyone who switches parties is supposed to be kicked out of office, which is what Muluzi is screaming. At the same time Bingu is trying to run the government and pass a budget and stuff. Bingu finally had to shut down parliament because he was so afraid that all of his party members would get kicked out and he would get impeached and also because nothing was getting done because of the political deadlock. (Aren’t you glad our Congress isn’t like this?!...wait, never mind.) And so now we sit, and these two heavyweights sling mud at each other and try to make each other’s lives miserable. And all the while serious problems are going on in Malawi and nobody is able to fix them. This will probably continue until the elections take place in May 2009. Everyday the parliament meets, Bingu’s people try to start the budget process, while Muluzi’s party screams about the constitution. Wild and crazy stuff.
Ok, I really needed to get that off my chest. I feel better now, and I’ll keep you posted “as the world turns” in Malawi. It’s really some great theater, so I’ll post some of the juicier news pieces such as when a member of parliament yelled called a Muslim member “al Quaeda”.
Other news and notes:
-It’s getting colder and colder here in Malawi. This morning I could actually see my breath, and I started using the heater in my room. Definitely didn’t think this would happen in the heart of Africa. Stupid southern hemisphere.
-I was talking to a coworker of mine about music in Malawi because I’ve been dying to find a guitar here I can borrow. Over the course of the conversation I found out that, inexplicably, Malawians are in love with Country & Western. But not just any C&W. Only the old stuff. We’re talking Hank Williams, Sr., Kenny Rogers, and the person they love the most – Jim Reeves! This has been verified by every Malawian I have spoken to since hearing the news. They all give me an embarrassed little smile and then tell me it’s true. Too much fun. So, of course, now I have this grand idea of bringing my guitar back here one day and kicking off my career as a traveling C&W singer in the heart of Africa. Wait, this makes too much sense. I better just move on…
-There’s a belief among Malawians here that if you are a man and you eat raw cassava plants freshly picked out of the ground, that you will inherit strength and virility. They even have a modern song about it with the chorus “Fire, Fire, Cassava. All the women get worried when they see men with cassava because there’ll be no sleep tonight.”
-And I finally hit up a very Malawian church. It was a neat experience, culturally speaking. The room had about 100 people in it, and about 60 were kids. I thought it was so cool that they just let the kids run all over the church while they played songs. One interesting thing about Malawians is that kids never seem to be a nuisance to adults. They don’t notice crying babies and pay very little attention to little kids running around. This transfers to church where kids are just running around having such a good time. I loved watching it. They all played a game of “who can stare at the lone white guy the longest”. There was one little baby crawling on the ground and I never did figure out who his mother was. He kept getting picked up by a different woman every five minutes or so. They also had a time to meet the new visitors – which was me. Their tradition is that every member of the church comes over to shake the visitor’s hand. So I sat there while 60 kids all practically jumped on me trying to shake my hand. It was a little embarrassing at first, but after awhile I enjoyed kidding around with the kids. Good times.
Happy July 4th Ya'll!!! Have some hamburgers, applie pie, and sweet tea for me!!!
Have I told you how quiet Lilongwe is? It’s one of the aspects of this summer that I wasn’t quite prepared for. I think I’ve mentioned that Lilongwe is set up in two sections. I heard a story that it’s like that because the Apartheid government of South Africa some decades ago paid for and designed the city. As a result, the wealthy and foreign residents of the city are housed in one section, while the native African and poorer people live in another section. In the rich foreigner section we all live in big houses with increasingly bigger fences, based on status I presume. I.e. the US Ambassador has a bigger fence than some ordinary citizen. My wall stands proudly at 9 feet tall.
The crummy part of this set up is that you really need a car to leave my section of town where there are no bars, restaurants, or even grocery stores - just miles and miles of walled-in houses. So the evenings here, which start at about 5:45pm, can get pretty long and boring. Combine that with my job kind of slowing down this week and I’ve been struggling to find things to post here.
Luckily things will be picking up in the next few weeks. Tomorrow I go to South Africa for some fun in the sun with some friends from my graduate program. We’re going to rent a car and drive over to Mozambique to relax on a beach, order drinks with little umbrellas in them, and get in touch with our inner-Jimmy Buffett. I’m going to really watch out for those pot-pots so I don’t blow out a flip flop. Then, I’m organizing some trips for work that will include visiting schools that are doing innovate things to keep kids involved, free of HIV/AIDS, and safe from violence. I’m also going to visit some summer camps for Malawians that should be loads of fun.
In the meantime, about all I could muster for this spot is an update on the political turmoil taking place in Malawi and some strange things I’ve noticed around Malawi…
Seeing all of the problems going on in Zimbabwe makes me really glad that Malawi has never had any kind of nation-wide violence like that. They had a somewhat benign dictator, Hastings Banda, who finally submitted to multi-party elections in 1994. Of course he lost, and willingly gave up power. The new president became Bakili Muluzi (muh LOO zee) who represented the Southern Region of Malawi, which is the most populous. He didn’t really distinguish himself as a very bad or very good president. After serving two terms, he tried to have the constitutional limit of 2-terms for a sitting president amended so that he could continue in power, but failed. So instead, he hand-picked a member of his party to run for him and basically be a puppet. That guy is the current president, Bingu wa Mutharika (moo THAW ree cuh). Unfortunately Bingu (as he’s affectionately and derisively called here) decided he didn’t want to be a puppet and went about being his own man. He even went so far as to create a new party, of which he is the head. Obviously this made Muluzi pretty mad and he has been scheming to get back into power ever since. He decided to make Bingu’s life a living hell until they could run against each other when Bingu’s term runs out in 2009. This is kind of like if Bill Clinton tried to get back into the White House after George Bush’s term ended…wait, never mind. That would never happen in the States.
In the meantime, like I said, Muluzi is doing everything he can to ruin Bingu’s presidency. The battle has really been heated over the fact that Bingu switched parties and convinced other members of parliament to do the same. Well, apparently this is unconstitutional and anyone who switches parties is supposed to be kicked out of office, which is what Muluzi is screaming. At the same time Bingu is trying to run the government and pass a budget and stuff. Bingu finally had to shut down parliament because he was so afraid that all of his party members would get kicked out and he would get impeached and also because nothing was getting done because of the political deadlock. (Aren’t you glad our Congress isn’t like this?!...wait, never mind.) And so now we sit, and these two heavyweights sling mud at each other and try to make each other’s lives miserable. And all the while serious problems are going on in Malawi and nobody is able to fix them. This will probably continue until the elections take place in May 2009. Everyday the parliament meets, Bingu’s people try to start the budget process, while Muluzi’s party screams about the constitution. Wild and crazy stuff.
Ok, I really needed to get that off my chest. I feel better now, and I’ll keep you posted “as the world turns” in Malawi. It’s really some great theater, so I’ll post some of the juicier news pieces such as when a member of parliament yelled called a Muslim member “al Quaeda”.
Other news and notes:
-It’s getting colder and colder here in Malawi. This morning I could actually see my breath, and I started using the heater in my room. Definitely didn’t think this would happen in the heart of Africa. Stupid southern hemisphere.
-I was talking to a coworker of mine about music in Malawi because I’ve been dying to find a guitar here I can borrow. Over the course of the conversation I found out that, inexplicably, Malawians are in love with Country & Western. But not just any C&W. Only the old stuff. We’re talking Hank Williams, Sr., Kenny Rogers, and the person they love the most – Jim Reeves! This has been verified by every Malawian I have spoken to since hearing the news. They all give me an embarrassed little smile and then tell me it’s true. Too much fun. So, of course, now I have this grand idea of bringing my guitar back here one day and kicking off my career as a traveling C&W singer in the heart of Africa. Wait, this makes too much sense. I better just move on…
-There’s a belief among Malawians here that if you are a man and you eat raw cassava plants freshly picked out of the ground, that you will inherit strength and virility. They even have a modern song about it with the chorus “Fire, Fire, Cassava. All the women get worried when they see men with cassava because there’ll be no sleep tonight.”
-And I finally hit up a very Malawian church. It was a neat experience, culturally speaking. The room had about 100 people in it, and about 60 were kids. I thought it was so cool that they just let the kids run all over the church while they played songs. One interesting thing about Malawians is that kids never seem to be a nuisance to adults. They don’t notice crying babies and pay very little attention to little kids running around. This transfers to church where kids are just running around having such a good time. I loved watching it. They all played a game of “who can stare at the lone white guy the longest”. There was one little baby crawling on the ground and I never did figure out who his mother was. He kept getting picked up by a different woman every five minutes or so. They also had a time to meet the new visitors – which was me. Their tradition is that every member of the church comes over to shake the visitor’s hand. So I sat there while 60 kids all practically jumped on me trying to shake my hand. It was a little embarrassing at first, but after awhile I enjoyed kidding around with the kids. Good times.
Happy July 4th Ya'll!!! Have some hamburgers, applie pie, and sweet tea for me!!!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)