More thoughts on Malawi needs…..

A boy playing soccer in our yard.

Fishermen on the lake

Children following us down the road

One of the village kids

Before we left on this trip Mark had obtained a copy of the book Dark Star Safari by Paul Theroux.  Paul had worked in Malawi through the Peace Corp as a teacher in the early 60’s.  This book was his account of an overland trip that he was taking from Cairo to Capetown to celebrate his 60^th birthday.  He has written a lot about Africa, but it seems that he hadn’t been back to Malawi in a long time, maybe 30 years or more.  He paints a very disparaging picture of Malawi in the 21^st century compared to when he was here in the 60’s and I am very, very glad that I had not read it before we came here.  I definitely would have had some preconceived notions and the experiences and observations that he recounts in his book are not what we have seen.  He feels the people have  become rude, lazy, and smelly.  There is no respect from the younger generations (don’t we all complain about that) and the violence, corruption and theft has skyrocketed.  Some of these things we don’t experience here partly because we are isolated from it because of who we are and are only here for a limited period of time and partly because we haven’t spent any time in the cities where some of this is worse.  But, we have found the people to be very polite for the most part.  Most people we meet along the road smile and wave and return our greetings.  They do not seem resentful of us.  Only the very small children beg and that almost seems like play to them.  Sort of like, “Let’s try.  Who knows, they might give us something.”  As I have said before (I think) we don’t give them anything at all because if you do you will be absolutely mobbed and there will never be enough for everyone and then they (the kids) will fight over it.  And I mean hitting and punching.  And of course, we don’t blame anyone for asking us for something.  We carry more in our suitcases than the vast majority of people here own. 

 

But anyway, about the book.  Part of the change in Malawi has to do with the changes that came about under Banta, the president turned dictator of Malawi, who was in control for over 30 years and then the first elected president who was in office for 10 years.   When Theroux was here, Malawi had just gained its independence.  It was a very poor country and had plenty of issues, but it also had the British system undergirding a lot of the infrastructure and systems.  Banta ruled for a very long time and there are many things that got worse and worse in Malawi.  A lot of things just fell apart, literally.  Buildings, roads, public works, sidewalks, utilities like electricity, not to mention the issues of  poverty, health care and education.  No one bothered to replace them or repair them.   There have been aid organizations, NGO’s and charities who have stepped in to try to fix what the government lets fall through the cracks.  Theroux believes that the NGO’s are part of the problem, that the vast majority of them are not empowering Malawi and that as long as they stay here things will never get better.  These are all of the things that we discuss around the dinner table every night here.  What’s wrong and can it be fixed?  We discussed that it’s similar to the welfare reform program that came about during the Clinton years.  It turned out that we could stop just giving a hand out and with the right support people would begin helping themselves.  This is certainly what many people are advocating for Africa as a whole.  I heard our own president speaking about it from here in Africa the other day. 

 

Just now, with the current president, who is only the second ever elected, I think that Malawians believe that things are getting better in their country.  They seem very hopeful that this president will improve education and healthcare.  They point to this wonderfully smooth road that runs from Blantyre and Lilongwe as examples of good things that the government is doing.  It’s interesting that Theroux points to Zimbabwe as an example of a country that it was doing it well and making it on its own, but all you have to do is check on Wikipedia to see how that has all turned out. 

 

My own experience of Malawi is that it is a beautiful place (even in the brownish tones of the dry season) with very beautiful people.  It is also a place of great, great need.  Will I be able to help?