At the lake

I was down in Mangochi this week, the southern tip of Lake Malawi, for a work conference. It was blistering hot for most of the time, but I only managed one dip in the lake. We were staying at a hotel called Sun n Sands, which has clearly seen better days. It felt like a dated hotel in 1980s Margate, a relic of a bygone era. This one was huge, and sprawling, with two olympic sized swimming pools, one which had several kiddy slides, a massive play area for kids with safari animals made out of what looked like paper mache, and its own private beach. 

Only thing is, I didn't see any tourists. There were maybe 30 people staying in a hotel that could comfortably serve 200, 20 of those were from Save, the rest from the UN, who were also having a work conference. The beach itself was dark sand and gritty, and the lake murky, possibly due to the two effluent pipes that jutted out into the lake, although I didn't see anything coming out. On a walk one morning, I passed dozens of women and children washing in the lake, themselves, their pots and pans, their clothes. I thought how ridiculous it was - I was out for a walk to get some exercise - they had already walked more than I would the entire week, just to get water from the lake.  

On my first workday just over a month ago, I attended a workshop where staff were discussing how to improve our organisational performance. I wrote in my journal that night how impressed I was at the professionalism of some of the staff; they expressed concern about the missed deadlines and about the churlish behaviour of some staff, and spent hours discussing ways in which to improve. They spoke eloquently and knowledgeably about the need for systems and checks, and passionately about making missed targets a performance issue.  I remember thinking, ‘wow, what’s there for me to do here? I might as well start booking my weekend safaris now!’.

Oh, what naiveté!

  

Last Monday, I decided Malawi was a bit of a ridiculous country. And not just because the top headline was that opposition politicians were reportedly using whatsapp to plan a coup, with the connivance of the US ambassador. Well, at least they didn’t employ a tank to obliterate the opposition members’ homes.

No, but because the smart dressing, the eloquent English, the prevalence of BMWs and Jaguars in Lilongwe and the forced civility is all just a facade. This is not a developed country. And many of the people with whom I work are not consummate professionals; they just know how to act like one (caveat: some of the people I work with are absolutely brilliant!).

For example, if you need something to be done by deadline, you are always told it can be done, even if you ask the question several times in several different ways “are you sure we can meet this deadline? It’s not a problem if we can’t. Better to have a realistic timeline we can meet, than one we can’t”. They assure you it’s possible. And then on the day it’s due, they are conveniently sick, or they hide or they don’t answer your phone calls. If you chastise them, they sulk! Oh, the sulking!! If you say, no, I want it done this way -  and hey, I’m the manager, I get to say that – they argue and argue and then they sulk! Ok, so in South Sudan, they sulked a lot too. But the country had been at war for 40 odd years, many of the staff had lived in refugee camps for most of their lives.  They had brothers, sisters, aunts and uncles who died of preventable illnesses all the time. I have never had so many deaths in an office before. So, I give them a bit of leeway.  But in Malawi, there’s really no excuse.

The country is peaceful and beautiful; land is arable; roads are tarmac; there is no sectarian or ethnic conflict; and it has a massive fresh water lake that takes up nearly a third of the country. But it’s poor, one of the poorest countries in the world, and it is getting poorer, as the local currency, the kwacha plummets on the back of reduced demand for tobacco, and the effects of climate change leave some 2 million at risk of starvation. The main subsistence crop here is maize, and it’s grown everywhere; anywhere you can plant a seed. Driving across the country, it stretches as far as you can see – a multitude of people’s crops – it grows along roads, in backyards, in vacant plots in the city centre. When the rains are delayed, as they have been across much of Southern and Eastern Africa, the maize fails, and people starve. Smallholders supply the entire country with a staple food, and they rely on rains. Ridiculous.

While tobacco and sugar plantations (cash crops) have been subsidised to develop an irrigation method using the lake, the country has not done this for it’s main food crop. 

What’s even more ridiculous is that decades of aid in Malawi and not one donor has tried to help the country develop a sustainable industry, or an irrigation system. Well, the World Bank is trying to do this now, but still, why has the government of Malawi not said, ‘hang on, we don’t need yet another project trying to get more girls into school, what we need is to make our country more food secure and an irrigation system for smallholders?’ the answer is because no one asks the government of Malawi what it wants. Oh sure, we consult with them, but it’s more like, we want to do this project, it will bring x amount of money into your country, do you want it or not? What are they going to say, no?

And so instead of acting like a government, and delivering services for its people, it sits back and allows the NGOs and donors to do this, and uses its tobacco money to build well-manicured roundabouts, and install a couple of traffic lights that work only sporadically. But this is the danger of aid. We create generations of dependants (both at government and citizen level); people who look sharp and know all the latest buzz words, but won’t ever take action or responsibility for their own development. Oh, actually, that’s not fair, in a bid to lure more investors, the government just lifted a ban on exploration for oil and gas in Lake Malawi. Georgia and Kazakhstan have expressed interest.

What else is ridiculous? Well, while Malawi has a three pin sockets, the same plug as the UK, all its electrical items are imported from South Africa, which has a different plug. And can you find an adaptor anywhere? No! So, I spent the afternoon slicing off S African plugs, and fitting on three pin ones.

I’ve just moved into my new house. It’s massive. Three bedrooms, three bathrooms, over two gargantuan floors. I feel a bit ridiculous knocking around in here on my own. All I have so far is a bed and a sofa and chair. 

You really have three choices for shopping here. You can buy your items at GAME, which is a South African store a bit like Walmart or Asda (without the groceries).  Most of the furniture is plastic or plastic looking. But it has towels and sheets and cutlery etc. Or, you can have furniture made. I had a carpenter make me a bed (£60) and another woman make me a cane sofa and two chairs (£300) or you can find someone who is leaving Malawi and wants to sell all their furniture and items, which is also what I did at the weekend. Although I haven't been able to find a mattress. The mattress shop everyone keeps recommending is only open Monday to Friday 9-5! 

I have met one of the neighbours. A young Indian guy – who looks about 15 – and his wife and kids, his mother and her mother. And their dog FeeFee.

The house is on the edge of the city. I say city, but Lilongwe is really like a big park with a few tarmac roads. I am just off the tarmac road, where it turns into a red mud road. I rented a car for the weekend, and was amazed at how easy it is to drive here. Virtually no cars on the road, except on Saturday morning when everyone is out, and then it’s just a few long roads and some roundabouts. 

I rented a car because it turns out the one I tried to buy was not legally registered, and there’s a new system in place where the previous owner has to be in the country to sign over the ownership, and in this case, the owner was not in the country. So it's back to the drawing board. 

Greetings

Muli Bwanji (the first greeting I have learned in Chichewa)

These past couple of weeks, I’ve been living in a different guesthouse; just 5 minutes drive from the office, and half the price of my old one.  It’s pretty here, and I have the most extraordinary room, with a four poster bed and chaise lounge; balcony that is large enough for me to do yoga on, and which overlooks a trellis of hyacinth; two walk-in cupboards that seem excessive for my eight hangers’ worth of clothes and a bathroom the size of most single rooms.

It’s also got a beautiful courtyard with a towering tree rising up through the middle, and it’s here where I sit in the morning to have my poached eggs and fruit salad, or write this blog; leaves occasionally falling onto my plate, or keyboard, with such force you’d think it was a nut. There is also a pool, although so small that you could probably reach the other side in two strokes, a gym, with rusty and dilapidated equipment and a spa (where it professes to do massage and pedicure, but I have yet to see anyone working there).

What is also different about this hotel is the clientele. Where Ufulu Gardens, or home number 1, as my taxi driver Andrew calls it, was full of families (small children) searching for a home, Madidi (home number 2), where I am staying now, draws a different crowd, mostly travellers pouring over their “Zambia, Zimbabwe and Malawi” Lonely Planet, as they sup on the local brew, Green Carlsburg (yep, there’s brewery here). They stumble down stairs for breakfast as I’m just about to leave for work, and there’s a tang of envy I can taste, of their freedom. Not that I don’t love what I do, but really, who enjoys going into an office each day? And when surrounded by national parks teeming with wildlife just a few hours away, can you blame me for wanting a bit of freedom to explore?

But overall, work is going well. I now remember about 80% of the names of the 100 plus staff in the Lilongwe office, mostly because I have to greet everyone by name, every time I see them for the first time. So every morning, in the office, it’s “Good, morning Cassie, how are you? Me: I’m good thank you, how are you (Lexon, Prefer, Bester, Felix, Mervis, Masford, Kalako, Angel, Snowden, and my particular favourite .. Elvis)?” Sometimes I forget. The other day, my friend came to pick me up in a taxi we regularly use. As soon as I got in the car, she and I launched into a long discussion about her last day at work. When we had finished, Andrew, the taxi driver says: “Cassie, you haven’t greeted me, yet!”

But it’s the same on the street; men cycling up the narrow paths will call out, “Hello Madam, how are you?”; women selling pineapples by the side of the road will call me over and first ask, “Hello madam, how are you?” before launching into the price negotiation; even the beggar, sitting with twisted legs by the side of the dusty road wants me to first ask how he is before he hits me up for some spare kwacha.  

Cultural sensitivities. They also mean that it’s hard for me to criticise anyone, or point out what they are not doing/should have done, without risking a full on sulk, or refusal to work (if they don’t complain to my boss about me that is). I’ve spoken at length to some expats about it, and it’s a common enough trend. One person who has been here a couple of years, says the best advice she has to offer is that you have to spend a lot of time praising local staff, and then you can add in one negative comment for every four good things you say.

Sheesh. This posting will teach me patience, if nothing else.

Women and the work we do

My week started well.

Monday, I was in the office kitchen making a cup of tea, when in walked, P, who is head of finance. We’ve had a rather tetchy relationship since I started (yes I know, I’ve only been here three weeks!), as one of her staff is supposed to be working 100% on my project, but isn’t, and I have said I will not pay 100% of his salary unless he does (this is a common stand off in our industry). We gave each other a strained smile, and then I glanced at her shoes. ‘Wow P, those look amazing,’ I said. They were about four inches high, black, with a Louboutin-style platform, and studded. ‘They look designer. But how do you walk in them?’ She grinned, and replied. ‘I was thinking the same thing … about your stomach. How is it so flat?’

On Tuesday, I bought a car. Save’s staff drivers poured over it, running the engine while poking about under the bonnet, taking it for a test drive three times, each time with someone else driving. ‘It needs new tyres, alignment and new ball joints,’ they announced. I had the expat woman selling it knock another $500 off the price.

On Wednesday, I looked at houses. As lovely as the hotel where I am staying is, with its pool and leafy green garden, I am getting a little tired of living out of a suitcase. Plus it’s on the other side of town from the office and that 25-minute commute each morning is killing me (will I ever be able to return to London-length commutes?). There are four main property companies here, and I have gone out with all of them except K’s. K is Indian, but has lived in Lilongwe for 25 years. My driver the other day told me that 10 years ago, the Indians used to run all the small shops, but now it’s the Chinese and the Indians have moved up to corner the housing market. K picked me up from my office in her Mercedes Benz, and we navigated the back roads of Area 9 to a see a three-bedroom, stand alone house. I had been told by a number of people – including one who runs a security company – that Area 9 was a bit sketchy, and has had several house break ins and car jackings (no casualties). K, however, insisted Area 9 was fine. She has lived there for 25 years. The house was massive: 3 bedrooms, each with their own en-suite, a lounge with fire place, a dining room and a weird porch like area that the previous tenant had used as a gym. There was a separate house for laundry, and another separate house for ‘your staff’. It was too big, and I would feel very isolated (plus, I really don’t want to live in Area 9).  So we see another house in Area 3, a more popular area with expats, and closer to the office. The garden is a jungle with a massive acacia tree stooping over the house, fruit trees, a vegetable garden and an army of bushes and flowers that cascade down on three levels. I love the garden, but the house is old, dated, run down and very dark. I don’ think it’s for me either.

Thursday, I drove out to Salima (one of our implementing districts, about 1.5hrs from Lilongwe) with two education advisers from DfiD, the UK government’s aid arm, and our donor for this project. Although I lead the project, DfiD is effectively the big boss, and they need to know if we are making good use of their money (well, your tax money, good UK people!).

Save’s Keeping Girls in School project has two main branches that together holistically address a multitude of barriers which keep girls from attending school, or staying there and learning. A cash transfer of £7/term per girl supports them to buy school items, exercise books, uniform, shoes etc. While school itself is nominally free (tuition is free, but there are exam fees and a ‘registration fee’), school items can sometimes be the reason that children don’t go to school. Uniforms get handed down from sibling to sibling until they are in tatters. For the little ones, this is not a problem. For a girl in adolescence, having to wear a uniform that barely covers her thighs or is ripped in the wrong places, can be enough to keep her at home. With no shoes, the walk to school (2km each way at least) can be painful and deter any child from going to school. Without exercise books, how will a child learn, or study?

The second branch addresses what happens to a girl at school and what support she gets from teachers, parents and the community. 

Up until about the fourth year of primary school, Malawi has achieved gender parity. In fact, there are often more girls in the first few years of primary than boys. But at 14/15, this is when we see the change. In Primary 4, for example, a school may have 135 girls. By primary 7, that has fallen to 30. In secondary school we are looking at a handful only.

Early pregnancy, early and forced marriage, additional domestic chores that cause a girl to miss school or slip behind with school work are all influencing factors. At school, as they see their peers drop away to get married and start families, it becomes harder and harder for a girl to retain motivation to stay on, especially if they aren’t doing well and even more so if school is a place of constant harassment, bullying and often mental, physical or sexual violence.

Being a girl is hard.

So one of our ‘interventions’ is to train female teachers to be role models and mentor and champion girls. It sounds common sense, that a woman who overcame obstacles to finish her education and gain a certificate as a teacher would mentor or support a girl to overcome those same challenges.

But apparently it’s not that obvious. After observing the first training, where a male facilitator is making the women memorise the characteristics of a good mentor, I ask if I can ask the women a question. Most urban/peri-urban people here speak English, and English is the medium of school instruction for kids over 14/15, so the trainings are all in English.

What is it, I ask the group of about 40 women (female teachers from all 16 schools in the zone), that makes you the perfect role model for girls? Each woman who answers, dressed in a glorious riot of colour and flounces, some with babies strapped to their backs, stands up to answer me. Some shyly, some with more force. “Because we are female teachers”; “Because we model good behaviour”; “Because we are close to the girls and they tell us their problems.”

All good points I say. But what, more than anything, makes you the best person to support, counsel and advise these girls when they come to you with a problem?” No one answers.

So I tell them: “Because you were once girls; you know these problems the girls face, you know how to overcome them, because look, here you are now!” A murmur goes round the group and everyone nods and I hear, ‘that’s right’.

Luckily, I had already highlighted to DfID my concerns about some of the facilitators; that they were teaching in abstracts; that there wasn’t enough of a link to what we wanted them to do. What we wanted was not to have female teachers memorise what a mentor does but to think about how they could support girls to achieve their educational and life aspirations.

This is a direct result of the education system, where learning does mean memorising what’s in a textbook. Repeating, repeating and repeating until you regurgitate word for word, without ever really understanding what you are learning. I have seen this in so many countries where I have worked; where I am constantly pushing people to tell me what their understanding of something is not just to repeat a line from a  textbook or manual (some of you might say I'm like that in my social life as well :-)). What we are asking is for people to be critical thinkers, to analyse something, to give it context rather than just repeat it. But this is  not something that we can change overnight.

We see two more trainings. The second is better than the first, more participatory, and the facilitator (another man) is very engaging, but still it’s about what it says in the manual, and when he talks about problems for girls, I feel there’s something missing.

At the third training, the female facilitator is brilliant. She has the women performing role plays; getting them to act out different scenarios where the girl is in trouble, and a female teacher mentors or supports her. She also has the women singing a Keeping Girls in School song (there isn’t one, but she made it up), clapping and dancing (‘who wants to come to school and listen to lectures all day long; women/girls they want to dance’). The conversations around girls' problems and how to help them is vibrant, and there’s a, dare I say it, powerful sense of sisterhood. When we leave, the three of us (me, and my two female DfID colleagues) literally skip out of the room, beaming. One of the DFID advisers leans over to me and says, ‘I guess this confirms every gender bias we have’.

On Friday, I find a house I like.