The north...

During my weeks in the north I visited many, many agrodealers who are working to establish and grow their business under challenging circumstances. The ladies on the left (along with CNFA staffer Aaron) want to open a new store in Jenda. They were part of a women's group made up of nine woman who wanted to start an agrodealing business. Although groups and cooperatives are often touted as solutions in development, sometimes they just don't work. Gloria and Mafunasi have decided to open a shop by themselves and have located the building shown in the picture. Right now they grow tomatoes and onions and sell them in the market. Opening a shop will be a big jump for them. Gloria and Mafunasi have the money to rent the shop, but will be able to afford a very limited amount of stock. They have applied to get help from CNFA. Hopefully, CNFA can help them in a couple of ways. The first way would be to help them renovate the building a little so that it is ready to be opened as a shop. And, the second way is to help them get credit with their suppliers so that they can put stock in the shop.

During my weeks in the north, I also stayed in some really beautiful places. The picture shows a lake formed by a dam. I took the picture just before breakfast. The night was actually really cold (there was frost on the ground when I woke up in the morning). Because the lodge that I stayed at that night was almost full I ended up staying the hostel part of the lodge. The large room of bunk beds felt pretty much like an ice box... but I figure it's good for me. Ice boxes preserve things.. hopefully this applies to people too. The entire area surrounding the lake was beautiful. It was surrounded by forest because it's in the middle of a Forestry Reserve.

During my weeks in the north, I saw a minibus on fire! Really, I have no good reason to include this other than the titillation factor. It provided, me, my coworkers, and a big crowd of people in Mzimba with entertainment for a good twenty minutes or so. We arrived as people were throwing sand into the vehicle trying to put a small fire out (everyone was already out of the vehicle). Within probably a minute of our arrive the fire spread to the whole vehicle and every part of the vehicle that could burn was burning. At this point one of the passengers who had been trying to put out the fire went to the back of the bus and managed to open the door, carefully and quickly reached around a bit and then walked away with his bag. I thought he was a little crazy because we were all standing a good distance from the bus in case something decided to explode. In retrospect though, the bag probably contained a significant portion of his worldly belongings. Eventually, the fire died down but people's interest remained pretty high. We passed by the burnt out remains several times during the day and there were always a few people taking a look.


Finally, during my weeks in the north, there were always children. These ones chanted 'jambuleni' (picture) at me until I got out my camera and took a picture. For some reason children love to do some kind of 'kung fu' pose when we foreigners are taking pictures.

Thanks for reading all!