Am I hip? Or am I more punk? – May 28

Men hold men, women hold women, but never will you see a man holding a woman in public. Many men wear what we'd call women’s pants. I can't tell who'd be considered "the socially awkward," “the cool,” “the punk,” “the hip.” Haha, I don’t know – but my natural "stereo-typing" techniques from Canada definitely can't be applied here; hence my senses are going bonkers. And who knows where I fit in – wait can I fit in? I wear a jetengje (wrap around skirt), which 99% of the women in Ntchisi wear and use for everything. And my hair style is like most women here – short. Though it’s growing straight up and out, and kinda spiky. Most women have short hair like the men because it takes time and money to maintain it. Plus it keeps the bugs down. One of the first questions I got when I arrived in Ntchisi was: “Do you have lice problems in Canada?”

I’m still horrible at remembering people’s names and where I’ve met them and I still get people confused, which makes me feel horrible. Yesterday, I said hi to a gentleman at work. I thought I’d met him last week...so I said that I’d forgotten his name. We exchanged names and it became evident that we actually hadn't met last week and that this was our first encounter...I’m hoping things got lost in translation.

Never ending root causes – May 25

Many of you EWBers have done the Root Causes of Poverty Workshop which involves having to try to understand the complexity of poverty. Being here made it ten fold more complicated for me, and more depressing. An NGO comes into a village and digs a borehole, giving the whole village easy access to clean, safe drinking water. The NGO leaves. There is still diarrhoea and children are still sick. The borehole breaks down after X years. The villagers don't have the parts to fix it, so revert back to old habits of fetching water. Back to square one.

The NGO didn't engage the village in the project, leaving the villagers feeling like the borehole doesn't belong to them. With no sense of ownership or understanding of how it works, there is no will to fix it when it breaks. NGOs often only focus on structural development – not the social development.

Little effort is put into education about hygiene and sanitation, meaning the villagers don't see the link between hand washing and the spread of diarrhoea, and they are left with little motivation to change their everyday habits (using a latrine instead of the field, washing hands after using the latrine…). To put it into a Canadian’s perspective: we know how descrutive our polluting ways are and that we should change, or at least that's what people keep telling us. But we don't. We are too comfortable in our habits. Plus we don't really know what will happen if we continue our habits because there are so many factors. See the similarity??

That’s the problem that I’m facing now – there are so many variables which can make a kid sick that it is impossible to see the link between washing hands after using the potty or not.

I'm volunteering with a small Malawian NGO called Work for Rural Health (WRH), who's funded by European Union (EU) for a three-year project in Ntchisi (July marks the half way point). We are partnered with another NGO, CARE. WRH does hygiene and sanitation - while CARE focuses on Health/Nutrition Education, Food Security, and Village Savings and Loans. We work in the same Traditional Authorities (T/As)* with the same villages, but at different times. The idea is that if a village is successful with the 4 projects, then they will be stronger, healthier and more prepared for when the rains fail. Capacity building, empowering and sustainability are very popular words. WRH uses the PHAST (Participatory Hygiene and Sanitation Transformation) Approach which uses 7 steps to facilitate the village in identifying their own needs/problems (i.e. diarrhoea, malaria, hunger...) and to decide as group on solutions. It’s a great program in theory – like many – but we’re majorly lacking on Social Development and Monitoring and Evaluation, meaning the project starts off great, and then the energy from the village fades.

Not too sure why this happens, but I think it’s because WRH’s program is paying too much attention to numbers and not enough attention to the why's. So the installed facilities just sit there unused or broken…Pretty frustrating and depressing when you look at how much money in being pumped in NGOs all over the world – yet poverty is still with us.

So, what’s not working and what is?

I don’t have any answers and in my 3 month placement I probably won’t get many or have much impact. How’s that for a happy thought? Ha ha.

This is what I’m doing with WRH in Ntchisi, Malawi: Computers and Feedback. I’m working with the three people in my office on their computer skills in Word, Excel and typing. I am also working on their data analysis files – basically working with Excel to have it where they input the monthly data and it automatically feeds into different graphs and forms to make analysing and reporting quicker and easier. For feedback, I’m kinda like their mini M&E system – when I notice something, I tell them and suggest things. Somethings they love, some they don’t – just like home! I’m currently reading a book called Changing Minds, I’ll let you know how it goes~

Other NGOs/government org. in Ntchisi:

World Vision
World Relief Malawi
Volunteer Services Overseas
Red Cross
National Initiative for Civic Education
CAYO
National Aids Commission
And three others which I forget the names of, but have to do with youth development. And I’m sure there are a few more hiding from me.

That’s 12, plus EWB, 13 – that’s crazy for a small town/district like Ntchisi, though it is one of the least structurally developed.


*T/As: there are numerous T/As in one district. They are a step in the communication path or hierarchy (Villagers → Village Headman → Group Village Headman → T/A...)

The Introvert – May 20

There is no going to my room and closing the door after work. There’s no going for a walk after dinner. The first is cultural, the second is safety. But it means that I'm always with people, except during the hours of sleep. Walking down the main road to the market, I’m a low-time celebrity – every child is screaming “MZUNGU” and every tenth person asks “Muli bwanji?” (How are you?).

Coming from our individualistic society and big, impersonal Montreal, makes this Malawian, smalltown society a constant bombardment for anyone, regardless if introverted or extroverted. The family that I currently live with likes to play the radio and the tv at the same time and ALL morning and evening. At night, I hear the bars playing their reggae music on these giant horrible sound systems well into the night. Ntchisi, Malawi never seems to be quiet. My ear plugs are my only escape into silence... and running is my down time.

It's wearing me out a little, but I love it. The people are so unbelievably generous and friendly, that I'm happy to be around them all the time. This culture is constantly energising, with everyone greeting each other in the street, little kids running freely in big herds – definitely a bigger sense of communitythan I have ever experienced in Montreal . Plus this way I have no time to be home sick~

As I sit here and write, there is eight-year-old Delipha tapping the rhythm of the song from the radio on the head of two-year-old Bliate, who dances to the commercial on the television and screams “AUNTIE” – that’s me.