adventures: part 1

Hello!

I finally have access to the world wide web woop woop! Here is a fun story from Malawi:

Two days ago we took a trip to Blantyre (the biggest city in Malawi) which is about 4 hours from Chigamba and our orphanage. We left early around 7 am and got to the city to do some shopping at shop rite (an american style grocery store) and to go to immigration to extend our visas. We also went shopping at the open-air market and got apples and oranges, avocados, and veggies which was nice because for the past 2 weeks I have eaten just white rice, beans, and one time a piece of chicken. It is hard to get fresh foods in our village because we are so far out in the country!

So we leave Blantyre just after dark (6 pm here because it's the winter time) and we are on our way home down the single paved road in Malawi which will take us back to Chigamba. Keep in mind that this "highway" is barely wide enough to fit two cars on it and has no light whatsoever. All of a sudden--boom, flat tire. We get out of the van (6 women, 1 child, and our cook John) and go to call triple A--oh wait that doesn't exist here. A few guys on their bicycles stop to help us change our tire (luckily we have a spare under the van) but our jack doesnt work. We experiment lifting the van ourselves by the back bumper--no luck. At some point, two policemen stop at our van to ask us what has happened and they literally look like they are from a clockwork orange. The policeman is holding his handcuffs out like he's about to use them on us and the woman cop has her baton out and ready to strike. We are afraid but they leave....

So eventually we get the spare tire on our van and guess what--it's flat and we can't drive on it. We all pile in the van anyways and creep down the road a couple hundred feet until we get to a small roadside stand with a light on it where we stop and more men crowd our van to help us fix the tire. At the point we are hungry so we get some fresh fried "chips" from the roadside stand and chow down while John and the Malawians work on our tire. We also encounter an old man eating mice--yes, mice with the fur, teeth, tail, arms, legs, everything intact--and we take his picture. We also notice that the roadside stand offers fried chicken heads as a snack--yum!

We go back to the van and the men are trying to patch our broken tire with plastic bags and sugarcane. I laugh because I am positive this will not work but....what else do we do? Eventually we walk across the street to a "boys club" which is the Malawian equivalent of a bar (except no women allowed). It is a hut with a small coal fire and nice, cold carlsberg beers (cold drinks are not common in rural Malawi). We drink beers with the Malawian guys at this hut for a few hours and listen to sean kingston and have a fantastic time!!!!! EVentually, John comes back over to us to let us know our tire is FIXED! They have patched it with a corn cob. No joke. a corn cob.

We leave and actually make it back to Chigamba, to my utter astonishment. The corn cob tire is still on the van today and doing well...

That's all for now! I have to get off the computer but everything here is REALLY GREAT and I'm having a good time.

xoxo
Marika

T minus 2

2 days to leave and I still have not packed!!!!

T minus 5

Music in Malawi

The musical genre of Kwela originated in South Africa in the 1950s and became popular in Malawi around the 1960s. Kwela is described as "a happy, often pennywhistle-based, street music from southern Africa with jazzy underpinnings and a distinctive, skiffle-like beat." If you are thinking "what the heck??" -- you've heard it before, because it features prominently in Paul Simon's Graceland (one of my favorites albums!). To the left is Donald Kachamba, a popular Kwela-style music artist from Malawi.


In the 1980s, a dance rhythm called "Soukous" AKA the African Rumba evolved in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and quickly exploded over the continent. In Malawi, Soukous was transformed into it's own variety called Kwassa Kwassa, which is referenced in the song "Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa" by Vampire Weekend on their 2008 album.

I tried to find some kwassa kwassa moves on youtube but all I got for you is this poor quality video. Just watch for a few seconds to see them break it down:



In the 1990s, gospel music became popular in Malawi and more recently, reggae (interesting shift?). In 2004, a major music festival called "Lake of Stars" began on the edge of Lake Malawi which is similar to Bonnaroo/Lollapalooza in the USA. This year's line up includes: The Noisettes, Peter Mawanga, Sally Nyundo, Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly., Tinashe, Eddy Temple-Morris, John McClure, Afrikan Boy, Goldierocks etc.

Some of these bands I have heard of, others....not so much, but I know off the top of my head at least two are American, so there must be some American influence on the music scene in Malawi in this last decade.

Malawi's only internationally known musical artist is Esau Mwamwaya who collaborated with a British DJ on a track called The Very Best. I find it off-putting that the DJ is called "Radioclit" but you can listen to the song below.




That's all folks!
xoxo

T minus 6

Today's latest installment will be about health care (yes, probably not interesting to you but interesting to me!)...

Health Care

Life expectancy in Malawi is 51 years for women and 49 years for men, primarily due to the high prevalence of HIV/AIDS, malaria, cholera, and other illnesses in addition to health care limitations.

Malawi has a system of socialized medicine which has the goal of providing free basic healthcare to all Malawians. However, there is a large patient base, a limited number of health care professionals and limited availability of medicines and treatments. All of these factors lead to difficulty in obtaining health services for individuals in this country.

Approximately 80% of Malawians live in very rural areas, therefore the government has set up a three-tiered system designed to deliver medical care to this largely rural population. At the local level there are rural hospitals which to serve ~50 villages (close to 30,000 people) and are responsible for providing basic services such as pre-natal and post-natal care, birthing, early childhood care, malaria and parasitic treatments, and minor wound/fracture care. There are no doctors at these facilities, but there are nurses. As a part of this local branch of healthcare, there are "mobile nurse" units which travel to villages with the goal of providing health education to promote disease prevention through better hygiene and health practices in the villages.

If an illness/injury can't be treated at one of these small rural hospitals, the patient must travel to a district hospital. Malawi only has one district hospital per district, and these facilities have a doctor and better trained/more experienced staff and can provide surgical treatment, x-rays, blood work, and other diagnostic procedures that the rural hospitals do not have the capability of doing.

Finally, there are three central hospitals in Malawi which are better equipped than the district hospitals and provide the best level of healthcare in the country.

It is often hard for individuals to get transportation to a hospital when medical care is needed, and often times they will find that a hospital has no medicine upon arrival. In addition, hospitals are overcrowded and patients may have to share a bed or sleep on the floor. Sanitation in these facilities is often unacceptable by our Western standards.

There's so much more to say on the topic of healthcare, but I'll break it up and put up something else more exciting tomorrow! xoxo

T minus 7

Officially one week until I leave for Malawi! I'm going to be updating this week with different installments about Malawi for you interested readers.

Geography


Location: Sub-Saharan Africa bordering Tanzania, Mozambique, and Zambia.

Here's a more detailed map of the region:

Lake Malawi (also called Lake Nyasa) is the big body of water on the eastern border of Malawi. It is a huge lake ~365 miles long and 52 miles wide!

Running from North to South on the west side of the lake is the Rift Valley which is surrounded by a mountain range. The two tallest peaks are Zomba (7,000 ft) and Mlanje (10,000 ft) which are way taller than Mt. Marcy in the ADKs!

The capital city of Malawi is Lilongwe and the largest city and commercial center is called Blantyre and is located in the Southern part of the country.

On July 13th, I will fly from DC to Addis Ababa in Ethiopia (NE corner of Africa), where I will stay over 1 night. Then I will fly into the capital Lilongwe, and be taken in a car/truck to a small rural village called Chigamba (in the Machinga District) where the organization Littlefield Home is based. The Machinga District is the poorest district in Malawi, which is one of the top 10 poorest countries in the world. On the map below, it is colored red:


The official language of Malawi is English, however since I am in a rural area they will only speak the native language of Chichewa. Hopefully I can pick up some basic words!

More topics coming soon like: history! politics! religion! health! education! stay tuned