Lake of Stars

Last weekend, I traveled south with six other Engineers Without Borders volunteers. We were headed for Lake of Stars - Malawi's biggest music festival. The festival was started four years ago by a British man who volunteered in Malawi and decided to create a music festival. The festival is always held on the shores of Lake Malawi, and this year the venue was Mangochi. Mangochi is very (very) hot, and very (very) beautiful. The white sands are scattered with palm trees and baobab trees. The lake offers a very welcome opportunity for a swim to cool off from the heat.

The festival itself seems to be a brilliant idea (I'd love to hear other's opinions). Lake of Stars mixes Malawian artists (Lucias Banda, The Black Missionaries, Tay Grin Third Eye, and D One, amongst many others) with European artists (Sway, and The Maccabes). There was also a pretty fantastic acrobatic group from Lilongwe. The crowd was pretty mixed. There were Malawians, lots of volunteers from different places in Malawi (and Zambia I think), and there were travelers who came from England and other places in Europe just for the festival. Personally, I like to see more of this kind of thing happening in
Africa. It seemed to be a positive experience for everyone involved. It brought tourists into the country. It supported local businesses.... and I think raised a little money for a local charity.

We had a fantastic few days at the festival. I enjoyed all of the music. I finally got to see the Black Missionaries (I've heard them many, many times - especially traveling around Lilongwe on minibuses). I also heard Third Eye and D One for the first time. And, of course there was quite a bit of dancing, and some frisbee on the beach. How can you top that?

For pictures that are better than mine (and some more background if you're interested) check out the news stories below.

BBC news story

Guardian news story

Magetsi! (electricity)

We had a short power outage this morning. It's not really a big deal, especially when I have my laptop charged (which I didn't this morning). It only happens now and then. At home it's a bit of a different story, we usually have two scheduled outages in the evenings every week. Anyway, today while we were waiting for the power to come back on I found out that Malawi's utility company, ESCOM, recently changed their slogan from

'Power all day, every day'

to

'Towards power all day, every day'.

Thought that might be worth sharing... (although possibly it's only funny for those of us temporarily without power).

World Cup Qualifying Excitement

On Saturday, I made the 5 or so hour journey to Blantyre to watch the World Cup Qualifying match between Malawi and the Ivory Coast. Sadly, Malawi had already been knocked out of a qualifying position. In fact I think that the last game, which took place in the Ivory Coast, ended with a 5-0 win for the Ivory Coast. However, the Malawians that I met on the way to the stadium were all very upbeat and many stopped to ask me if I was supporting the Flames (team Malawi) or the Ivorians (that could be my own name for them). Of course, I always expressed my support for the Flames.

The first half was pretty exciting. The Flames showed extremely good defense and the ball was in the Ivorian end as many times as it was in the Flames end. We were all pretty impressed with Team Malawi. As we headed into half-time our area of the stands was feeling pretty good. In fact, there were a good number of Malawians around us predicting a win for Malawi. However, those who knew football let the rest of us know that Drogba the Ivorian star player hadn't been played yet. (Drogba is apparently a star striker for Chelsea). So, we awaited the second half with much anticipation.

The second half started... and still no Drogba (I can only speculate that perhaps Chelsea wanted their star player played as little as possible). The play was intense for the first few minutes. And then... Malawi scored. The crowd went absolutely wild and we were all on feet cheering. There was much flag waving, yelling, and spraying of water (it was very hot so being sprayed with water was quite nice). So, now the crowd is elated and play resumes, and without much fanfare Drogba is sent onto the field. Sadly, within minutes Drogba has scored. There is no cheering, but the crowd still seems pretty happy to have seen their team score. The minutes tick away and each team holds its own. Final Score: Malawi 1, Ivory Coast 1. Happily, every Malawi that I talked to after the game was very happy with the result. And me, I had a fantastic weekend.

At home this morning

Thought I'd share a couple of pictures I took this morning just after I got back from my run. The first one is just outside my house. If I gotten there a little earlier I could have captured the sun rise. As you can see it's pretty dry right now. The bricks and the sand are for a new house next door to us. The bricks are made locally. I'll share some pictures soon to show the process (it looks like hard work).




The second picture is of two charcoal stoves sitting just outside the house. They are heating water so that we could take hot baths this morning (no water pressure means no hot water at our house).

(Sorry Christie, still no pictures of me!)

Moving Water

While in Zambia, I went with Hans (another EWB volunteer) to visit a medium-scale farming project called Chanyanya. The project has been set up by the NGO that Hans works with. I’m a little fuzzy on some of the details, but I believe that the NGO negotiated with local farmers to get them to sign over a large block of land. The land was then divided into a big bit, which has been designated as a commercial farm, and a small bit, which is run by the farmers themselves. A portion of the profits from the commercial farm will be paid to the farmers, until all the original capital investment (irrigation equipment, tractors, etc) has been paid off – and then all of the profit will go to the farmers. The other part of the land is being run more directly by the farmer group. They have received a loan and installed irrigation equipment (shown in the picture) and they are currently growing many (a highly accurate term) acres of wheat. On the farmer side there are two of the large irrigation systems like the one shown in the picture. It was a really interesting experience to visit the farm and to see so much greenery during the dry season. (In case you don’t know, and you’re interested, the dry season here starts around April and end around October).

I’ve started a little garden in my host family’s garden and watering is time consuming and it’s work! I’m growing some okra, pumpkins, and some lettuce like plants (rape, and Chinese cabbage). Each morning I fill my watering can two or three times and walk across the yard to do my watering. When the water pressure is low (it has happened quite a bit lately) it takes several minutes to fill my bucket. So, sometimes it takes me 10 or 15 minutes to water my little plot. It’s definitely given me an appreciation for the irrigation projects being carried out in Malawi. (Pictures of my little garden to follow – probably when it gets a little bit more impressive.)

Kamwala Market

Not far from where I stayed in Lusaka was Kamwala market. It is a big market where you can get just about anything, from lunch to a tailored outfit made just for you.

I went to the market several times with a few different EWB volunteers. The first time was with Arthur - the latest volunteer to arrive overseas. We ventured into the food part of the market and tried out some nsima. Nsima is made from maize flour, which is boiled until it can be formed into balls. The nsima itself is quite tasty, but it is primarily used as a vehicle to transport whatever else you are eating (called ndiwo) into your mouth. There are lots of excellent, delicious vegetarian options. Everyone seems to eat meat and vegetables with their nsima at every sitting.. and they eat nsima a lot. Most people in Malawi will have nsima for lunch and dinner. In fact, I've heard several people here say that you haven't eaten at all until you've eaten nsima. Me, I'm fairing quite well on one nsima meal a day.


The second trip into the market was with another volunteer, Colleen. We were on a mission to find some chitenges (colourful pieces of cloth with many, many uses). Kamwala market has several chitenge wholesalers, which meant we had an overwhelming selection of chitenges to choose from. The second part of our mission was to get some mending done. The tailors were more than happy to oblige us, and our mending was done in less than 5 minutes. Yay!