rural versus urban: Post - Malawi, Southern Africa. Back in Obama's US of A

after effects less than two months later

2009-06-29T09:21:00.002-04:00

One night I dreamt that I was part of a street scene. Some people seemed either short or shaped different. Upon waking up I realized the short and misshapen people were those who had club feet, flipper arms, and one walked with his bottom on the ground with sneakers cut to fit into his hands. You don't see that kind of scene here in the States with correctable surgery and vaccinations such as polio. The misshapen people I've seen in Malawi were not limited to the poor.

Hygiene is heavily emphasized, especially with risk of cholera. Waiters or servers in any restaurant would come to your table with a pitcher of water and a basin for you to wash your hands. Or, there's a complimentary water jug with soap at the entrance. However in fast food places like the Hungry Lion, a dingy looking sink is screwed into a wall. Least there's running water and soap handy. In more fashionable chains such as Nando's - there's a pretty sink set-up in a nook. Back in the States, I was in a restaurant last Thursday with a friend and we spotted a small bottle of Purell on our table, next to the napkin dispenser. I thought, how nice, not need to get up and go to the toilet to wash hands.

Madonna has Mercy now. Finally. With so many poor people already taking care of relatives, it's unfathomable for someone to come and adopt a child from already overflowing orphanages. Most of the children are already sick from HIV or other communicable diseases. Many orphaned children prefer living on the streets than in orphanages and I can't say I blame them because some orphanages can't take care of every child.

a month and few days after the return

2009-06-08T22:08:00.002-04:00

I have more or less adjusted to life back in the US. The excessive materialism (and I'm guilty, too having been sucked into H&M today - but hey I did need new shirts) still bothers me. The very available stacks of toilet papers and paper napkins are still beyond me. Before Malawi, I used loads of napkins to wipe my mouth or hands when eating or drinking, terribly conscious of any mess I might make. After Malawi, I use one napkin or not at all. A couple weeks after return to the US, I was prompted to use a napkin - probably because I was licking my lips and fingers clean. I don't use tissues much as I used to. If I have sniffles I would suck it in or ignore it altogether.

So far, especially in allergy season and having hay fever, I've not been sick other than typical morning sniffles. At all.

I discovered something during my stay in DC in the last few days - I can't do buffet style meals anymore. My stomach goes out of whack and I'm in and out of the toilet the next few hours, sometimes with a ring o' fire or two. Also, since my return I've not eaten many processed or canned food. The food I've eaten since January is usually straight off the stove or freshly prepared. Again, I've not been ill from seasonal allergies and rarely touch the sudafaded. Odd.

Other things beside the food - the streets (not counting cities) seem oddly bare of life. In Malawi, there's people everywhere at all hours - working, loitering, chatting. Even daytime here with no one on the streets is depressing. Highways and streets were not always occupied by automobiles - Malawians also walked on foot or on bicycle usually carrying their wares. There is no one riding on the back of pick up trucks and lorries. Automobiles and people are far apart.

Internet access - practically unlimited especially with the active Blackberry device in my hands - is disturbing. I'm fickle with the internet use because I no longer have to set time to be tied to my laptop for a fixed time frame. Once the fixed internet time was done I could focus on doing other things, not thinking I ought to be checking the laptop or the BB every other minute. I have been lax with my overall daily structure. A month has passed now - no more excuses!

Post from route 50 west - One week and three days after return to the US from Africa

2009-05-13T11:59:00.002-04:00

I'm typing a quick blog from the Bolt Bus - quite a change from several weeks ago. The bus has its own internet and my laptop is plugged into a socket. Sweet. After months of being in a mild homogeneous environment in Malawi and upstate New York - I made a stop in New York City for several days. I'm now headed to Washington DC to graduate with my MA in International Development with a concentration in People with Disabilities and tie up any loose ends (like loans - eek) on campus. And see my poor and overworked Academic Advisor :-). New York City was nice and a rude slap. I'd forgotten how many nationalities live and work in the city, and how much I enjoyed its energy especially during peak hours riding the subways. Other than bathroom stalls stuffed full of toilet papers (totally opposite in Malawi) - fashion wasn't scarce either. The 80s style have been creeping in the last several years and after months away - every other young man is wearing Clark Kent style glasses frame. Whew. People watching is great. Malawi isn't a very materialistic country when it comes down to napkin rings and wearing the most trendy hat.

In a way, it's good to be home but I know I'll be back anyplace in Africa in the near future. I just turned 33 years old and is becoming quite set in my ways - but I will make this work.

Liwonde National Park, Malawi

2009-05-10T23:49:00.003-04:00

I decided to make my own trip before returning to the United States - I chose Liwonde National Park because according to the Bradt travel guide, it's supposedly the more pristine of the game parks in C entral Africa. The park is approximately 548 square kilometers close to Lake Malawi and one other lake, and the Shire River goes through the Park. The park is populated by hippos, crocodiles, elephants, antelope, monkeys, birds, and the African Buffalo. Three days without electricity and the prices were reasonable. Long as I chose only one tour activity I needed not to carry wads of kwachas money since like many places, the lodge I stayed at doesn't take credit or debit, in cash only. I did go a little over because I forgot to include the 16.5% VAT and I was not expecting entrance and exit costs of the Park itself. I was around 600 Malawian Kwachas short (5 dollars).

Chinguni Lodge was my choice of the place to stay, slightly cheaper than Muvuu Lodge, also in the Park. It used to be a home of a game warden so the common rooms were full of skulls belonging elephant, buffalo, imapala, baboon, and hyena I think. The environs were very rustic and nice - I wished I opted for thatched huts that supported covered canvas tents and a patio. I had a nice room inside the lodge with the beds covered by high quality mosquitoes nets, candles, my own hot shower and toilet. The meals - prepared English style - were decent and filling, but when you're not walking around like you're accustomed to, your clothes start to feel awfully tight after several square meals.

A favorite spot of mine to pass the time over the next two and half days was outside in a shade that did not change and breezes were consistent. The chairs were canvas with wooden frames, severed tree trunks served as a side table for either your drink or your feet to put up. The spot overlooked the lagoons of the Shire River. Nice. Sometimes I'd be sitting there with a bottle of Carlsberg Green and a novel or diary. The Lodge is part of the Park so one would be a lucky to spot an animal to saunter by. Once, a yellow baboon visited the lodge grounds munching on this and that in the bushes. It heard the loud rip of the brillo pad as I opened my camera and off it went. The morning I left the Park for Lilongwe and Zambia - I saw a large lizard that appeared prehistoric slowly crossing the open plain maybe 10, 15 yards in front of me. Consulting my guide book - it's a Monitor Lizard, a very big lizard that looks like it came in through a time machine.

I wasn't allowed to walk on my own outside the lodge - once I was wandering after taking some pictures of the baboon and the wildebeest, and a staff approached me on his bike with a note from the management. It said something like "you are not allowed to be on your own - the elephants are not friendly". Whoops. I didn't see any :(

My only mini safari trip was the canoe. It was good - more stimulating along the lagoons but out in the water, was kind of boring. Also, I'm accustomed to be paddling on my own - two men accompanied me; one as my guide (he patiently wrote out the sights) and the other to paddle. We didn't see any crocodiles, but saw hippos at some distance. My best photograph attempt were tops of their heads and fluttering ears. We saw several fish eagles, islands of moving reeds (I never could grasp that concept), and varieties of birds including Egyptian geese. It was a mild trip because many animals basically kept away from people and it was hot outside. The lodge provided a hat woven by reeds, shading my face and neck quite well.

Possibly the most thrilling part of the three-day stay was riding the motorbike. The lodge's safari truck - their only mode of transport - broke down so the lodge sent a motorbike to pick me up. I've never ridden on one before and the ground was uneven so a very nerving one for me. Wearing a helmet and gripping the seat strap, I tried to channel my fright into trust for the driver. Parts of the road were muddy so we skidded one or twice, sometimes the driver would go into the forest between trees, and some bushes scratched at my legs. I was very relieved when we arrived at the lodge but had a small pang of disappointment that the ride was over. The driver thought I was an awfully good sport.

MANAD in Mulanje, Blantyre

2009-05-06T15:06:00.004-04:00

Several days after completing the Karonga-Chipita Survey Trip, I met Euphrasia and other MANAD officials in Mulanje for a five day training in Organizational Capacity Training (how to work as an advocacy, identify issues pertaining to the Deaf, etc). Mulanje is a southern most town in southern Malawi not far from the Mozambique border. Due to long training hours I could not explore much of the area. On the upside, our motel where we also had the training contained a perfect view of the Mulanje Massif (for geological information, go to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mulanje_Mountain_Forest_Reserve) behind us. Because of low clouds (not unusual in Malawi) that the Massif is often referred as “Island in the Sky” and we did not get the view of the full mountain until the end of the training when it cleared up. As far as Thyolo, I could see the giant base of the Massif, like Jack the Beanstalk's Giant's Elephant foot through the low and heavy clouds.

A minibus took me to Mulanje, from south of Blantyre via Thyolo (the tea capital of Malawi) on M2 which took over an hour. On the way back with all of us in the minibus – needing no additional passengers) took the M4 road which is a shorter route, a strikingly different scenery. On the M2, within couple kilometers south of Blantyre and all the way to Mulanje were fields upon fields upon fields of tea. I think at the moment all of the tea picked, cured, dried and made into individual cups of tea – everyone in Southern Africa that consists of 12 countries plus the tea loving United Kingdom and Ireland can drink at the same time. Tea plantations are quite busy, some open to tourism (nope never had the chance to go though I’ve planned it one time or other  ). A deaf Malawian I know used to work in a plantation, he and his wife picking tea leaves from morning to dusk. It depends on which company owns the tea plantations – some are generous with benefits for its employees while others are not.

It was rather hypnotic with miles and miles of tea fields and people employed to pick the leaves. In the old days, one had to pick by hand which can be painful. Now they have a special kind of large hand (hedge?) clip with a small basket attached to catch the cut leaves. I observed men and women in the fields with large baskets strapped to their backs, cutting and collecting and tossing it over their shoulder into the giant basket. Long hours for little pay unfortunately.

Thyolo, where I changed minibuses – we passed near one of the largest marketplaces in the country with dizzying variety of produce. There were maybe 5 foot piles of cabbages and kale freshly brought in. I never had the opportunity to shop there.
That’d be sweet. For a while we passengers in the minibus watched touts (conductors) fight over passengers, and one tout dissing a couple who decided to switch minibuses. Often we don’t have the pleasure of choosing what minibus to take. What can really anger a tout is if you go into his minibus and you change your mind and go into another minibus. You either argue with the tout or let the touts argue among themselves. It’s mostly shouting and finger jabbing but I’ve never seen it escalate. Other touts would interfere and calm the angry tout down. Sometimes the passenger would return to the original minibus to shut them up.

Anyways, since I arrived early at Mulanje, I decided to try an Italian place for lunch (real mozzarella cheese!). Couple hours later I was ready to go to the motel – I asked the waiter to hire a taxi for me because I was not in the mood to be piled upon by taxi drivers and pick one, hoping I will not be a sucker and pay too much money. The waiter returned and introduced me to the taxi driver. We went outside and expecting to find a cab, he gestured to his bike. I’d forgotten. Many towns do not have taxi cabs, only taxi bikes. I had my rucksack not only with a week worth of clothing but with some paperwork and laptop inside. The motel is two kilometers down the road with some rises and slopes along the way. I pointed at my rucksack and pantomimed whether the taxi driver is strong? He laughed and told me to get on. I tightened my rucksack, securing all belts and loops, and made myself comfortable on the passenger seat. I was grateful for the extra handlebar too, giving me more security to hold on. Not topple over backwards.

As in any other Malawian town – there are more pedestrians and bike taxis than cars, every other bemused (or amused, depending!) face looked at me grinning. All I could do was wave.. A mazungu with a rucksack, on the back of the bike. The driver pumped his legs up and down the whole way and I was impressed he didn’t stand up for more traction. I gave him a tip for his good humor :). When we arrived at the motel, two MANAD Board members were grinning at my grand entrance.

Mulanje Massif attracts hikers and backpackers around the world – it is no easy feat. Some from my lodge went and returned with sore muscles and nasty blisters on their feet. The Malawian Deaf told me about local myths that the spirits and witchcraft cause disappearances of several backpackers. Evidently the Netherlands and one other country sent their teams and the backpackers were never found. Usually because they never hired guides – people I know went they came back because they hired guides. Better safe than sorry! Several times during training if a MANAD official was very late we’d go “witchcraft! Maybe taken away!”.

will post a picture or two..

Back stateside

2009-05-04T14:29:00.002-04:00

Been hit by hay fever already. A nice welcome back. I am in a weird transition phase where I'm back in familiar surroundings (my parents' house) and thinking wow, did I really go to southern Africa then back here?

My 4 year old PC Dell laptop barely survived the trip. The poor thing needs rehabbing. Lots of clean up, backing up, and resting. Its internet won't work. Sigh. Will tinker with it til the internet start working.

Yes, will catch up blogging this week...

ta for now.

Behind in Blogging at Lusaka, Zambia

2009-05-01T09:11:00.004-04:00

The last two weeks have been hazy pending the last days in Malawi with MANAD and impending finals via online course. I spent half the time researching and writing, and the other half having anxiety attacks thinking about the finals. I rarely do well mentally and physically at the end of the term. Especially since this is my last semester of my graduate career. To do an online course in a developing country’s weak internet infrastructure in your last term and prone to being neurotic, it ain’t funny. With the slower broadband connection and schizoid wifi – I've given myself so much grief. I think I have much more grey hair now than I came in with on December 30.

I just sneezed and took a look around in the internet café I’m at. No one is looking at me in fright. The Swine Flu hasn’t hit Africa yet (I'm enjoying the jokes on the FB, especially the bogus article about Miss Piggy getting arrested at the border) – so far as the information is released things seem decent. Malaria and AIDs here are scary enough. Perhaps with my uneven tan and faded clothing they think I’ve been here long enough not to carry the virus. I wonder what the scenery will be like when I pass through Heathrow and JFK airports this weekend. They'd probably detain me for sporting a Dorothy Hamill haircut (I had a decent clean up job yesterday from homemade haircuts I’ve been inflicting on my poor hair) the stylist did a good job and my hair was blown dry for the first time since Christmas. Still it’s wee short, but least the stylist cut my hair with intent on growing it out.

I have maybe four posts to write regarding my work with MANAD, griping about the internet, and touristy travel in Malawi prior to Lusaka. Will post again from London or stateside.

Chipita Deaf and “not Deaf”

2009-04-20T13:08:00.004-04:00

Chipita is a small and isolated town in the highlands close to the Zambian border. M26 is the only road linking Chipita to Karonga, nowhere else. If there was a road from Chipita to Mzimba, a town south of Mzuzu but closer to Chipita – the travel might be easier. The two days were used by returning to Karonga to spend a night and take the reasonably priced coach bus back to Blantyre that leaves only at noon. The town is unpaved with cattle and goats roaming the streets and between marketplaces. Mazungus must be far and few because many children were fascinated by my presence. Many would wave hello or stare at me. One child came up behind me to look at my tattoo on my forearm – I nearly jumped when a fingertip traced my tattoo. A group of school children went out of their way not to cross my path. One girl was afraid of me and her friends tried to pull her across but they took a back alley and around a building.

We had much work to do in only two days and we were exhausted but we plowed on. We stayed at this Roman Catholic Church lodge complete with a bar (“Papists” The Poisonwood Bible’s Bible-thumping Baptist minister Nathan Price would have muttered) for two nights. Exhausted from the 5 hour trip ordeal in a taxi cab on M26 – we retired early just in time for a blackout. Also during our stay, the showers weren’t running but we were supplied with pails filled with hot water for bathing. The hot water at my lodge in Blantyre was broken for nearly two weeks by the time I left for the trip so hot water was heaven for me, even by pail.

We had one solid lead in Chipita – a teacher at Karonga gave us this schoolteacher’s contact information in Chipita. Karonga had called ahead and the schoolteacher that met us – riding his bike – with a stack of handwritten lists of student names. They were all “deaf”. We soon found out that Chipita had an oddity – many, many students and adults had a degree of hearing loss. Many of them complained of an infection in their ear and very few we met were functionally deaf. At least one man we met wore a hearing aid donated by a South African NGO. The rest wanted a hearing aid. And they do not sign. Like in Karonga, a national association for hard of hearing will be better suited for these goals. We also met a hard of hearing school teacher who relied on his students shouting their answers back to him. We distributed survey for the record keeping purposes, that many hard of hearing people reside in Chipita.

Not all is lost. The schoolteacher contact is very resourceful. After meeting a classroom full of students with a mild hearing loss – Project Advisor Euphrasia Mbewe asked them if their doctor said they have hearing loss. Upon replying no, Mbewe sent them out – all left except for one student. Her father came by to affirm that she does indeed have a hearing loss. We hired bike taxis (the townspeople would stare at a long line of hired bikes passing by – one teacher on his bike, four Malawians and one mazungu clinging onto the rear of their bikes) since it was the main mode of transportation. Taxi cab drivers, upon noticing me = my presence means money = would demand higher prices. Not worth it.

We rode out to an edge of town where many villagers lived. We walked through the cornfields, passed a few huts until we arrived at one. A man came out to greet us and several moments later, his wife dragged their 8 year old girl who did not want to be out there with us. She was struggling and kicking against her mother’s hold. She calmed down once she and her mother sat behind the father and once in a while would peek at us. The family only spoke Tumbaka not Chichewa, so there was quite a lag in translating process. The teacher translated the father’s answers into English and Haji our MSL interpreter translated the answers into MSL. Advisor Mbewe wrote down the answers on the survey form. The situation is really sad – the only positive thing is that the family came up with home signs to communicate with the daughter. They are aware of Karonga School for the Deaf, but it is too far and the transport, clothing, and fees for books are costly. The deaf daughter can not benefit from Chipita local schools because sign language is not promoted. The family requested for access to open a small business so they can afford to send her to Karonga. We really, really felt for them.

Word spread quickly about our presence in Chipita. Our first morning there, two men on a bike brought a secondary school age male student who was in Form Four. He was oral and very bashful in our presence. His brother was the informant, filling out information. At the end of our first full day someone left a letter at our motel lodge requesting to meet us the next morning. The man brought his daughter, and his neighbor and wife brought their deaf son. The man and his daughter, it turned out her hearing loss was caused by her seizures (they were advised to get a hearing evaluation from their doctor) so away they went. The second family, like in the village with the little girl, they communicate with their son in home signs. Again, they knew about Karonga School for the Deaf but distance is too great. The village family and the local family recommended Chipita open their own Deaf unit within its schools or establish a school for the Deaf. The latter family also brought a written list of names of families that rely on signed communication with their deaf families.

Our survey trip to Karonga and Chipita was a big success despite starting with very few contacts. We were fortunate because school teachers and families of deaf children needed help and made sure that we knew of it.

M26 Between Karonga and Chipita

2009-04-17T03:37:00.004-04:00

There are three signs in MSL for Chipita, a remote town in the far northwest of Malawi near the Zambian and Tanzanian borders. In Blantyre it’s “C” shaped hand sign in front of your face, forming a shape of the very top of Malawi meeting another hand, signifying the border of Zambia. In Chipita, it’s a “C” shaped hand above your head, outlining the top of the country border line. In Karonga, your hand snakes a few turns above your head before becoming “C” shaped and follow the shape like the second sign. The third sign is the most appropriate description especially if one is travelling to Chipita from Karonga.

Chipita, a town due northwest from Karonga is probably 150 kilometers long across southern Africa’s Great Rift Valley including many twists and turns that can last for miles. From our experience going there in a hired cab, and our return trip in a 4x4 pick-up truck the trip takes about 4 to 5 hours. I believe it is the last major motorway unpaved. The current Malawian president, Bingu wa Muthiraka, his paved road projects have made much more headway than previous presidents despite fits and starts with foreign assistance. His re-election campaign (presidential and MP election is May 19)’s motto is something like “look at the work my hands have done for Malawi” frequently with the road projects as a backdrop. M26 is facing delays possibly due to available contractors needed. And there is an uranium mine located on the motorway – we joked that Iran is buying from Malawi. Apparently, the muzugnu presence is far and few so I got more stares than I’m accustomed to. Another joke we had is I’m the real leader of the team, not Euphrasia. Once or twice during the trip, I shamelessly made the act of leading the team just to satisfy the stereotype.

Outside of Karonga, the dirt road is flattened, some areas obviously blasted and shaped for some miles and it becomes rough. Very frequently we come across a road partially collapsed by flooding (rains are frequent between November and May) and lack of maintenance. Some collapses are tiny and others are huge.

The population in northern Malawi is very sparse and the villages are far and few between Karonga and Chipita, including cars that aren’t many. I actually prayed for our cab and pick up truck not to break down in middle of nowhere. There is also a dead cell range smack in the middle. Outside of both towns, villages (growing mainly tobacco leaves, maize and cassava) were a-plenty.

On our trip to Chipita in a hired cab – it took five hours. The automobile suspension is low and whenever we tackled a difficult collapse, the men in our group – Byson, Malonje, and Haji would get out of the taxi cab and walk alongside.
Euphrasia and I remained in the taxi with the driver as he navigated the deep and/or wide crevices. Because the sun beat down on us the taxicab was stuffy and windows remained rolled down despite my left side of face and hair became grimy from the dirt. It took some good washing at the motel that night especially the crevices where my nostrils and cheeks meet. On the return trip to Karonga we rode on a pick up truck with its open bed piled with people, some standing and holding to the Hillux frame (the big black frames attached to the rear of the cab of the sporty pick up truck). The cost was probably almost cheaper by half than hiring a cab. Many lorries and pick up trucks, most of them empty after delivery would make extra cash by transporting people between the two towns, there are no minibuses or buses that travel on the route. Euphrasia and I squeezed inside the cab in one seat, and again I had the window. The driver indicated I should be the one riding inside, being white and all, but I invited Euphrasia to sit in with me. The men in our team were in the open bed with other passengers. The truck being 4x4 and higher suspension despite the heavy load of passengers in the open bed were able to navigate across the collapsed parts more easily than the taxicab and without incident. Once in a while the driver would pour water into the engine under the hood to cool it – the engine is working that hard. The trip back was shortened by one hour. The sun was really beating down and I wrapped my arm in my chitenga because it was burning. My left knee was sore from continually pressing against the door to give Euphrasia leg room, so the driver could shift gears without smacking into her leg. We encountered quite a few pedestrians along the route and the truck made stops for people to board and deboard. More people boarding actually, and I can’t imagine how the many passengers on the open bed with luggage and some produce squeezed inside the truck bed – it’s a regular sized pick up truck.

When we got off in Karonga, the passengers were encased in reddish orange dirt. Haji, our interpreter, used a t-shirt to wipe dirt out of his ears. My rucksack was also encased in dirt. I was grateful that the truck had slightly better shock absorbers than the taxicab and a little less bouncing and rattling around. Hands down, that is the toughest road I’ve ridden on. Some twist and turns would last for quite a few kilometers before returning where we turned, maybe a couple kilometers ago.

Karonga Deaf and the Town

2009-04-15T05:29:00.004-04:00

We were very fortunate to find a group of deaf people in Karonga one of the northernmost towns because MANAD, to our knowledge never made contact there. A schoolmate of one of our team members lived and worked in Karonga so we contacted him prior to the start of the trip.

After our appointment with Karonga School for the Deaf, we headed to the market section of town. Limba works as a trained carpenter, sawing and fitting shelves into walls of small shops. Because he is hard of hearing and has many hearing friends, Limba is successful at what he does. He also uses sign language but one can tell he doesn’t use much opportunity to utilize them. The team walked through a semi-maze of shops and found him measuring planes of wood to cut. Two teenage boys assisted with grunt work. After being introduced to the team, he was actually puzzled at the concept of an interpreter but once explained he got it and seemed mildly impressed at the role, saying he’s never heard of one. Limba had contacted several deaf prior to our arrival and they met with us. Since they were illiterate and not reliable informants in how they acquired their deafness (none of them were born deaf far as I can remember), Euphrasia instructed them to take the survey forms home with them to their families and return the following morning. A hearing friend of Limba’s who seemed to hang around the place, took an active role explaining to siblings of the deaf of what is needed to be done (mainly because he can speak three languages, English, Chichewa, and the regional language, Tumbuka) since Haji, our interpreter is fluent both in English and Chichewa, other than Malawi Sign Language (MSL). Limba mentioned that two deaf – one worked as a tailor and another in a hospital were unable to come due to work, but gave us information where to find them.

The next morning, we returned to find the two same deaf individuals in addition to Limba (one never returned – we were told she was on her way from quite a distance. We could not wait for her) plus couple of new faces. They all brought their brothers and one her eldest son. I thought two of them smelled quite fishy and I couldn’t help but think about cholera (the smell is associated with the illness) but it turned out, much to our shock, the deaf mother and hearing son waded across a fast moving river – up to their chests – to meet us. When enquired why they not use a bridge, the mother explained that the bridge is too far away and would add more hours (eeps) to their trip to meet us. Other than Limba, the mother (names kept escaping me unfortunately because I was overstimulated) is the most verbal about feelings about being deaf and problems encountered. She had very little schooling and her primary communication is sign language. Her son communicates with her using sign too but was rather bashful doing it. The two other deaf women we met were not very forthcoming about their views – as if they were never asked what or how they thought and feel. I have met a number of deaf people like it back home in the US and it’s like pulling teeth to get information but they do not do it on purpose – they rarely had opportunity to be expressive with thoughts, feelings and ideas. The glimmer of information we were able to use about the deaf conditions in northeastern Malawi, one woman makes her living by sifting dirt and stones out of rice and beans and paid very little for it, and one man makes an almost decent living by doing a dirty job most people wouldn’t do – collect refuse and dispose of them. (Not all towns have sanitation control – certain neighborhoods in Blantyre, for example, do) The deaf mother ekes out a survival as a villager by growing her own food and making them into meals and selling the remainder of the crop. Her children and her siblings do subsistence farming and odd jobs for the family to survive. They don’t look shabbily poor – just barely to make ends meet and be able to present themselves well. The three, not including Limba, because of their profound deafness, never made it far in school because of oralism. They were either ignored or promoted through. One woman, in a rare moment of clarity, said she was not motivated to do anything because no one gave her reason to. That’s my best attempt at describing her situation in my words. She eventually left school after grade six or seven because she was not getting the benefit of education.

After we left the market, we searched for the two other Deaf. The hospital told us that she was home sick and gave us directions to her home – we did find the deaf tailor, a rather impressionable woman who gave us information however she thought we wanted it. She signed very little and relied on her younger sister who also worked as a tailor as an informant/interpreter. Euphrasia, a veteran in taking surveys immediately became suspicious at the information provided, eventually got the needed information. We ran out of time and unable to find the sick hospital worker, we left for Chipita another target town of our trip.

Karonga was very successful because we only had one person to start with and we added a deaf school to MANAD’s knowledge. We were very fortunate to come across two men with different spectrums of hearing loss – within an hour of our arrival into town fresh off the 14 hour bus coach trip from Blantyre. The first one, Briton, was a Deaf, capital D, from Mzuzu who was in town visiting a (hearing) friend. He spotted us signing and apprehended us, ensuring that we were really signing not gesturing like hearing people. We were very thrilled because he is one of the FEW deaf Malawians who do not use their mouths to form words as they sign (think Ben Moore in DC. MSSDers and Gallaudetians from the 1990s should know! Ben, I say this with love and honor ) – that is how repressively oral Malawi is. One of the motels we hoped to (and didn’t) secure – one man who is hard of hearing boarded there. He works as a senior administration director at the District Assembly office in town. He wears a hearing aid (he can talk on his cell phone easily – he was constantly interrupted by his mobile) and doesn’t sign. What really blew us away is when he informed us that his office did indeed receive the survey forms that MANAD circulated in mail last December. Steven, his name is, forwarded them to some offices such as welfare he thought could be of assistance but they were never returned to him. And MANAD didn’t get any from Karonga area.
Through Euphrasia, one of the things I am learning about is the population limit MANAD can serve – signers only. But for survey reasons we did not discard information from people like Steven. The MANAD Constitution explicitly says the primary mode of communication is sign language. To our knowledge, and probably not yet, there is no hard of hearing association in the country to better serve the interests of people like Steven and people we would soon meet in Chipita.
Karonga town, the sign name of it is “boat” “sailing” due to its proximity and growing reputation as a major northern town situated on Lake Malawi for boaters and hikers (tourism, what else?). The town is also a major crossing point for those coming from and going to Tanzania, Zambia and Mozambique. I took every opportunity to eat chambo fish because they’re fresh out of the lake, not refrigerated and shipped inland. My family and those who know me well will be shocked to learn that I ate the generous meat portions off its head, neck and behind the gills. Since my sister isn’t around to scrape them off for me, I sucked it in – tried to think of it as chicken as I scraped the skin and gills off the meat, then the meat off the bones, and picking remaining cartilage bones out. I set the remains in the bowl far away from my field of vision, and mixed the meat in with the rice and vegetables. My appetite remained, thank goodness.

Cattle roamed freely around Karonga and one had to watch out for the cow piles. Some resembled dry stacks of pancakes. I had the pleasure of stepping into a couple. One time, I was forced to walk through a herd that was grazing in front of the magistrate court (I didn’t have the camera on me!) they were all bigger than me and though mild-looking, their humps in addition to their horns and hooves seemed threatening. I tried not to jump as one of the cows bellowed in my direction. I must admit the calves with their little humps were adorable.

Long accustomed to southern Africans with the presence of people from Zimbabwe, Zambia and Mozambicans among the Malawians, I was struck by the migrant (mostly beggars) population in Karonga – the Somalis and Sudanese. They were much taller, their facial features showing part Arabic ancestry and lighter skinned. Children were around, and Somali/Sudanese men loitered in groups. I don’t recall seeing the women anywhere. There were also few men that I identified as pygmies. They were much shorter than me (I’m 5’2ish) and well proportioned as full grown adults.
Karonga is more famous for its dinosaur, commonly known as Malawisaurus a 12 meter long remains of a plant eating beast with long neck and tail and tiny head, exhibited at its cultural museum in the among small exhibitions. We just returned from Chipita and we had a free evening before returning to Blantyre the next morning and though tired and fried I was I immediately took off to see it. The museum is nice and small with Karonga’s origins from the Iron Age before colonialism – the Portuguese and English, the local skirmish between British and German colonial armies located along the Lakeshore coast during the First World War. My fried brain, exhausted from the weeklong travel and fresh off the five hour trip on a dirt road through the mountains inside a cramped pick up truck – took in very little information from the museum. Then came independence from the British, the dictatorship and repression under Kamuzu Banda and the eventual lead into democracy today as Malawians know it with Bingu wa Mutharika.

For two days and nights, we stayed at this motel lodge along the Lakeshore. I did have the pleasure of seeing the Lake’s famous sunrise (well maybe after the first 45 minutes) despite heavy clouds. To my disappointment, the shore is fenced off due to security reasons and once we asked permission from one of the lodge staff to unlock the gate and he acted as our brief guide. I think at least 50 feet of marshland between the shore and the fence, we had to walk through a maize garden (what they call cornfields) to reach the solid shore for a look. Sunset had set in and we did not have our flashlights. Cattle also roamed the lodge grounds. Once I showed my exasperation when beef wasn’t available for lunch, I commented to someone that someone could at least walked out there to whack a cow and butcher it. The reply, dryly returned said that the local cattle aren’t tasty.

Karonga School for the Deaf, Karonga

2009-04-13T01:12:00.003-04:00

We received tips from Karonga locals that there is a school with deaf children, but we got the impression that it might be a unit within the school (think resource room). Much to our surprise and pleasure, we officially included a fifth school in Malawi to MANAD’s knowledge, Karonga School for the Deaf. Like Embangweni, it is funded and operated by the northern Synod of Church Central Africa Presbyterian. It is much smaller and sparsely equipped. We hired a cab from our motel lodge since it was rather a distance from town and we arrived late in the afternoon and the students were doing their afternoon activity, learning and practicing traditional dancing.

We met with the head teacher who turned out to have taught at one of the deaf schools near Mulanje, south of Blantyre. After requesting and securing an appointment to visit the school and its students for the next day, the students demonstrated their dances. I hate to say, but the boys’ dance is much more entertaining than the girls. The girls marched/danced around a teacher banging a drum with various arms, legs, and hip movements. However the boys stood in a semi circle around the drummer with one experienced boy leading. It’s very hard to describe – it consists of synchronized movements with their arms and legs, some boys holding a cloth in one hand. I took a brief videoclip of it and will post it somehow.

The next day, we returned to explore the campus and interview some older students. Children under ages 10 aren’t always reliable informants, requiring presence of parents. Those entering secondary schools are more ideal interview candidates than those of primary age. The school itself is small and rooms are used as classrooms and eating areas, and a couple, sleeping areas. The CCAP is in process of expanding the school – we saw some buildings in progress and shown a design of the new campus.
There are only three classes – divided into age groups. The lessons provided at our visits were; letters via speech and some English and Tumbuka languages in total communication method. Chichewa, despite the national language status is not widely spoken in the North. Sign language presence and recognition in deaf schools is still weak in Malawi. Mountview School one of two schools in Mulanje promotes full sign language while two others rely strictly on oral methods. Karonga and Embangweni use total communication (voice and sign) and teachers – in our very presence – preferred the students to use both voice and sign, not sign alone. The students, hopefully not for show for our visit, were eager to give answers to teacher’s query. In the beginning the teacher would review name signs of each student, and other students would point at the named student.

The enunciating of speech brought back memories of my own speech therapy lessons when I was their age. The teacher would hold a chicken feather and sound (and hiss/breathe) the letter. One student used a stick to indicate the correct letter on the blackboard. The teacher would lead a resounding round of applause. If a student made a mistake, the teacher would make a comical show of disappointment. It is a positive learning atmosphere though with good intentions. It’s a double load (and I can testify to that!) to learn the three R’s and speech each day. When I left the mainstreamed school and transferred to a deaf high school, there I slowly learned critical thinking. It took me years to learn and gain confidence in discussing issues as opposed to being one sided on things. I doubt that oral and total communication method leave room for critical thinking on various school subjects. Back to the point – it was really a trip down the memory lane for me.

The second class was having a maths lesson when we arrived. The location was in a corner of a church. Like the first class, total communication was used. One thing that struck me that day is that they used small rocks and stones for adding and subtracting. The teacher would point at one mathematical question on the blackboard and the chosen student replied with the numerical answer and supported it by counting out (in voice) their answer by placing the correct amount of stones in a chair for all to see. The students had their homework assignments done and with the teacher’s permission, they rushed to the five of us, Euphrasia, Byson, Haji, myself, and Malonji pushing and shoving each other to show us their answers for us to correct. Once order was improved, we were able to mark off the answers.

The third and oldest class held a Tumbuka lesson, in total communication. The teacher used individual words cut out in paper strips; placed one under his lips and enunciated the word by syllable. One word, wazungu, all the students, smiling, pointed in my direction. Confused, I turned to look what was behind me. Euphrasia smiled and said I’m a wazungu (a variation of muzungu). Oh. Ha.

Next, we visited the sleeping quarters. No beds for younger children, not even dressers or wardrobe – the school is that poor. The boys’ room we visited is one large room with dozens of mattresses and mats lined up by the wall with suitcases at the head. There is one bed for a head boy. I have to admit that the room is very clean and orderly. We also visited sleeping quarters for older girls – a small room with maybe four or five beds placed together, sharing few bed nets. The suitcases were at the foot of each bed. The bathrooms were favorable – showers and toilets.
After exploring the partially built new classrooms, we returned to the third classroom for lunch with teachers (the students had cleared out the benches and blackboard, swept the floor). The room was transformed into a dining area with pots of food waiting for us. We enjoyed a delicious lunch of chicken stew and boiled kale with nsima.

Some moments later, the five of us with three teachers in attendance interviewed two oldest students. They were both slightly intimidated by the large group looking at them, the girl more than the boy. Since they did not comprehend much of the Blantyre Malawi signing, one teacher helped translate. I think he did a little of prompting, too. The boy gave a little background and thoughts about pertaining issues around his deafness. The girl mostly shrugged as her answers to baseline query. We did not get much as we hoped out of the visit for the baseline, but finding the school existence and observing the classroom was a big deal for us.

M1 between Blantyre and Karonga

2009-04-09T11:35:00.004-04:00

It is the longest route in Malawi by coach bus I think. Including stops in towns and two layovers (1-2 hours), the trip took about 14 hours. If we took a minibus it might take two days or more and valuable time would be wasted. We, Project Advisor Mbewe, MANAD Executive Director Byson, Haji the interpreter, myself, and a last minute addition, Malonji a Board member set off in early evening and reached Karonga the following morning. Not all went as planned – due to miscommunication (mainly me) I went to the wrong bus station. When the 5pm departure passed and difficult SMS (Blackberry is so much easier) failed to unite me with the others, I decided to take an available bus that was leaving the following hour. No way was I missing out on MANAD’s third and final baseline survey trip. I texted Euphrasia I would be meeting the team in Karonga, and she replied, promising to inform me of the lodge status. My bus left around 6 30 pm and made stops through Zomba and Liwonde. In Dedza, around 10pm or so, I was nodding on and off. Someone shook me awake and it was Euphrasia. I could not believe my eyes, thinking it must be a dream. Euphrasia indicated that I must get up now and go with her.

Confused, half asleep and babbling how she can possibly be there in my bus, I gathered up my things and followed her out to her bus. Byson later told me that he watched the whole thing through the windows from their bus. My head was lolling around with mouth open, and when Euphrasia woke me up I stared at her and went back to sleep. Euphrasia shook me awake again and I was half asleep following her out. We were very fortunate. Their bus had a flat tire and took some time to fix it. The group kept an eye out for my bus, certain that I would catch up. After the flat tire was replaced, they asked the driver to wait a little longer. When they thought they spotted me, Haji yelled through the window until a man replied. Haji asked if a muzungu woman was on the bus and an affirmative was shouted back, he and Euphrasia went to get me. We were happily reunited. She was terribly relieved to see me in one piece.

We went back to sleep, and waking up from time to time whenever the bus made a stop. Once or twice, everyone in the bus had to exit and wait outside to allow the police to check inside and the cargo. All major towns – district capitals I think – have police checkpoints for smuggling purposes. The bus reached Mzuzu at around 5am, the last major town on the route for a two hour layover. We munched on some things, went to the toilet, slept some more. With a fresh driver, the bus departed for Karonga our destination four hours away. A couple hours in, Lake Malawi – my first glimpse – slowly began to come into view. Chitimba, a lakeside town took some time to reach. M1 crossed through the one of the biggest part of Great Rift Valley and the 20 minute drive downhill to the lakeshore was rather disorienting. So many turns in the road, barely long enough for the coach bus to complete each turn. Left, right, left, right, left, right. I cannot imagine driving down that road. Looking at the valleys by the Lake you can almost read that the ancient waters carved them into its present day state. The Northern Lakeshore of the Lake Malawi is the most mountainous and stunning. From our lakeshore lodge in Karonga, we could see Tanzania’s Livingstone Mountains across the Lake – that is where the Lake narrows and taper off. A number of villages depend on the lake for fishing – many, many sardines were being dried on tables (stinky), and the chambo fish (very tasty) hauled onto the shore and sold either smoked dry or fresh out of the water. We arrived at Karonga around 11am feeling very out of sorts and anxious to find a lodge to unload and freshen ourselves up to begin working.

Karonga to Blantyre

It was very uneventful ride back. We had a successful survey over the week and it was hard work. We left Blantyre Sunday evening and arrived on Monday morning in Karonga. For Chitipa, the second town in our survey trip we left on Wednesday afternoon and returned Friday afternoon. On Saturday, we left at noon and did not arrive to Blantyre until around 4 30am. The day before, we rode a four hour trip on a pick up truck on an unpaved road from Chitipa, an isolated town out northwest from Karonga near the Zambian and Tanzanian borders. Before reaching Chitimba to turn off across the Valley, the police checked the bus but we were allowed to remain inside. Euphrasia who was across the aisle from me, remarked that a dog had some fish in its mouth and is running away. From my side, I observed a somewhat lighter skinned man and woman opening the cargo under my window, showing the police their stamped papers and gesturing at whatever was inside. I described the scenery to Euphrasia. She said they are probably Tanzanians transporting their goods to sell in Malawi.
The zigzagging route up the Valley was not as hypnotic as the way down, and for a split second I spotted a Yellow Baboon monkey by the road. That was when I had just put my camera away. Darn darn darn darn.

Mzuzu, again the two hour layover – we were restless, wanting to continue the trip. We sought out some food, toilet and newspapers. The major bus stops never have books or magazines. The shop stands sold food and electronic items such as DVDs, CDs, radios, even large TVs. Insane. A deaf man met us at the stop, a friend of Malonji’s from Lilongwe who is a college student in the area. I met him briefly when I was in Lilongwe at the end of the second baseline survey trip. From the bus, I watched a man, assisted by two men struggle with a large load of charcoal to load it on top of a coach bus. I even videotaped them with my camera. The man, achieving balance of the load on top of his neck, climbed the ladder attached to the rear of the bus steadily. Upon reaching the top he leaned over to let the load roll off. Eventually they loaded four or five large loads of charcoal on top of the bus and tied them down.

The bus left half an hour late and made a couple unscheduled stops along the way. Like the trip to Karonga, the bus lights were turned on whenever the bus made a stop to drop off or pick up passengers. Peddlers selling variety of food and occassionaly socks and toothbrushes would crowd around the entryway into the bus or raise their wares into our windows for us to see. Being a muzungu I sometimes have to beat them away. The bus was full, unlike the trip to Karonga and there was no room to stretch out to sleep. We were sleepy and cranky in Lilongwe, another long layover at 11pm. Upon arriving to our stops in Limbe and Blantyre, we quickly dispersed to our homes desperate for some solid sleep after two days of hard travel.

The budget did not allow us to fly to Mzuzu and Karonga to save some time and energy for work, but we did get a taste of how far it takes one to travel up north and observe the changing environment from the densely populated southern region to sparsely populated north. And the northern region is the least developed with more dirt roads and tiny shops packed with everything one can buy from ladies underpants to biscuits to bleach liquid in one store.

Karonga/Chipita Trip in Short

2009-03-31T02:16:00.004-04:00

The seven day survey trip was overwhelming and wonderful. And hard. Returning to Blantyre at 4am, in my sleepy state (and my eyeglasses off) I thought I was back in Scotland. That's how developed Blantyre is compared to the rest of the country, especially the far and remote North.

The trip was a success - we managed to track down at least five signing Deaf in Karonga and collect information. Chipita - we also found two children whose families invented sign language. We went into an actual African village to meet one family - we had to take a bike taxi there.

The M26 approximately between Karonga and Chipita is the absolute toughest road - the road to Embangweni School for the Deaf mentioned earlier in a post looks like a piece of cake. The 150 km trip took nearly five hours in the dirt and crossing or bypassing partially collapsed sections.

Lake Malawi is gorgeous. It's the size of Vermont, the 3rd largest lake in Africa and 11th in the world, I think. Many village livelihood depend on the Lake.

Tomorrow, I leave for the south - Mulanje - for MANAD Board training. Mulanje is also where southern Africa's largest mountain is. Woot!

Deaf in Development

2009-03-22T09:35:00.003-04:00

With Project Adviser Euphrasia Mbewe back in Malawi in the second week of March, work began for me. Within the first week I saw how development worked from the coordination and activities to achieve goals/objectives of the project based on Annual Negotiation Meeting (ANM) as agreed between MANAD (Malawi National Association of the Deaf) and FAD (Finnish Association of the Deaf) from December 2008. Ms Mbewe and I poured through survey results as a project activity, to see what the prevalence of deafness, family and societal attitudes around them as a deaf person or with a hearing loss, education and employment barriers if any, their experiences visiting their doctors or hospitals, and other general living conditions they experience. In the survey forms, there is space provided asking what suggestions, priorities that MANAD should focus on (ie sign language instruction, improved access to higher education) and additional comments. They are now being compiled into a report format organized by city or district with recommendations based on United Nations’ Optional Protocol of Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. (The Optional Protocol is for countries that do not have sufficient resources to meet the Convention requirements to incorporate the rights into national legislation). The Articles that the recommendations are based on; Article 31’s Statistics and Data Collection and Article 4’s General Obligation. Article 31 contains three sections that describe the privacy of individuals the data is collected from, the legal safeguards (human rights) with intent to eliminate identified barriers, which the national government is to implement. Article 4’s General Obligations (for Disabled Persons Organizations DPOs to perform in consult capacity) to persuade the government to include DPOs, such as MANAD and FEDOMA as consultants to write policy to ensure the identified barriers are eliminated.

A little fewer than half the survey forms were filled out in English and the rest in either Chichewa or mixture of both English and Chichewa. I complied dozens of results into a format developed by Ms Mbewe grouping the data into year of birth, prevalence of deafness (i.e. at birth, from malaria), their communication experiences at schools, hospitals, place of employment and so on. Ms Mbewe is compiling the Chichewa language survey results to include them in the draft report. Some information we have are from the trips we made to Embangweni and Kasungu back in January. The next trip will be the far north of Malawi, Karonga and Chipita to meet deaf adults there and interview them.

Some mornings and afternoons when the new staff, Executive Director Byson and Administrative Secretary/Accountant Edna is present and available together, Ms Mbewe trains them how to operate an office, the hierarchical structure, how to comply with MANAD Constitution from 1993 and Plan of Action agreed from the ANM, job descriptions. For me, it brought many memories of training I’ve received at New York Society for the Deaf and FEGS back in New York City. Not all that different. Ms Mbewe allowed me to share input from my own experiences in office and management work.

Now that MANAD has an office, two full-time staff (with two vacancies left – Programme Officer and Accountant), the MANAD Board can focus more on governance and manage less. The Board has already approved the activities, budget and policies for this year. The MANAD office staff is to implement and carry out the activities outlined in the Plan of Action agreed between MANAD Board and FAD. Ms Mbewe used training materials from other African countries she was Project Advisor for but they are adjusted slightly according to a national NAD’s needs.

So far, the experience is a very positive one for me. This is even better than case studies back in the graduate classroom, taking it at face value. I am interacting with MANAD staff and Board, observing how they work; and how Ms Mbewe uses the information compiled from the survey, as part of the Organizational Capacity Training regarding living condition awareness of what’s out there and what to expect.

Zomba Plateau and Cutting Wood

2009-03-18T13:18:00.004-04:00

I have had enough of Blantyre and MANAD planning that I needed to get out for couple days to have a change of scenery. Saturday afternoon on March 7, Annie one of the med students at Kabula Lodge and I travelled via minibus to Zomba town. There is a very limited coach bus run between Blantyre and Zomba so Annie and I opted for the minibus – for a 67 kilometer ride, it took us a little over an hour to get there. The minibus sped on the road so fast that clutching my rucksack from slipping, I actually got a little carsick. The seats are not 100 percent secured to the floor so whenever the seats rocked from sharp turns and jarred from potholes I’d be lurching to and fro. On the return trip to Blantyre, I was by the window; my head occasionally bumped the window.

Zomba town is a quiet and leafy town, the former capital of Malawi until 1975 when Banda, Malawi’s post-independent President moved the seat to Lilongwe. The Parliament still has a seat there. I did not see much of the town since Annie and I were concentrated on gathering provisions needed and trying to shake peddlers and taxi drivers off our tail (we averaged at most three yapping and arguing access for poor Annie’s ear). They’re more persistent in Zomba, compared to Blantyre and Lilongwe. The beggars are the same as elsewhere. They often beg at entrances and exits of food stores and I’ve long become accustomed to their presence. When Annie and I left the store, a beggar woman was chatting to another beggar woman. Once she realized our presence – she seemed to shift her identity. One moment she looked like she was gossiping, and the next moment she gave us her best pitiful face and begging motions. Anyways, after going nowhere being tailed by the peddlers we enlisted assistance from a police officer who was kind enough to find a taxi driver and escorted us to our hostel on the Plateau.

The road from Zomba town to the plateau of the mountain took quite some time, navigating the winding road both tarred and dirt. It was nearing 4pm and we observed many people walking up or down the road with wood piled on their head or high on their bikes (our hiking guide later explained to us that wood chopped and carried into town on a person will earn K500 (around $7) and those using bikes, K1500 ---?). A number of women and children carried produce and few children were finishing school. After a while, we reached the Trout Farm, an up and coming eco-tourist type of lodge that depends on breeding trout and attract tourists. The cabins and room did not contain electricity (as advertised) so we depended on candle light and campfire. Sorta like camping. Our room was large with wooden floor, a sofa and a plush arm chair, one table with a candleholder, two beds with bednets, and a large freezer (huh??). The ceiling is made of mats and simply tailored curtains covered the windows (and plastic sheeting too).

Since there was some daylight left, we opted to check out a local waterfall with the guide. Soon as we set out the rain poured by the sky but we trooped on (our clothes would not dry properly overnight) and checked it out best as we could see through the downpour. We were properly soaked to the bone and our sneakers were squishy. As I write this a week and half later, my toenails are slowly recovering from two days of wearing soaked sneakers. After changing into dry and warmer clothes, we prepared our dinner by candlelight – avocado mixed in with tomatoes, onion, and canned tuna. We bought some wood for fire (a “camp-boy” from the UK asked to share with him so he paid us some kwachas) and cooked baked beans and canned sausage in a pan. We ate the tuna salad after. It’s actually pretty delicious once the taste of tuna with vegetables is acuired. I’d prepare the same for next camping trip back home.

At dusk when we began the fire, it was pretty eerie. We were high up on the Plateau that the fog and clouds were moving through the Trout Farm. The misty fog created a very ghostly presence. Later during the night all the light sapped by the mist, Annie and “camp-boy” were a little skittish. I then looked where they were looking and saw a strange light flickering on one of the lodge windows. Eventually we figured out it was the reflection of our fire. Some moments later, Annie and Camp-boy jumped in fright and trained their torches (flashlight) in the direction of the source of their fright. It was some reddish light and it moved to reflect our guide’s torch and his heaving laughter. He obviously made some creepy noise and followed it with some torch-playing to have some fun with the two.

After a while, I hit the sack and Annie soon followed. Oh - before I went to bed, with the heavy fog, I basically had to feel my way to the bathroom – the flashlight was useless in the mist and I had the visibility of maybe two or three feet front of me. One time I nearly walked into one of the water farms. I made it to the bathroom and back without incident. Early the next day, after a breakfast of very powdery and sweet orange juice, crumbly bread (squashed from Annie’s rucksack) with peanut butter, we two and the guide set off to cover the highlights of the Plateau; the two viewing points, one of the lakes from dams, a waterfall, and through the woods. It did not rain this time, thank goodness.

The walk to the viewing point on the road and through the forest was a long one. But interesting. Many people who lived nearby and at the base of the mountain were up there, cutting down and stacking wood to take into town and sell them. With the increased rolling blackouts in Malawi more and more residents are turning to firewood and charcoal for cooking and cleaning purposes. Since I’ve read so much in my graduate courses in development about cutting down wood not because of environment destruction ignorance, but for survival, I *had* to take pictures of men and women cutting and tying strands of wood to take to town. They were friendly with the guide engaging him in chitchat. The Trout Farm also grows and plants new trees to replace the cut down trees. It is a matter of how much the Farm can keep up with the deforestation.

The waterfall we visited, a man was sitting near the top watching women across the waterfall cutting and gathering wood. One of the women, possibly in her late teens was attempting to cross the stream (flowing through and over boulders) between two points where the water fell and the next falling water, with a strand of ten foot long wood balanced on her head. One hand held the wood on her head and another hand shielded her eyes to give her a better look at where the bottom of the stream to place her foot in (barefoot I must add). The man remained up there, watching. The woman looked very unsteady. The guide approached her closely as possible and talked her way through the water. As the woman stepped into the rushing water she nearly lost her footing (the water went up almost to middle of her shins) and in my mind’s eye I could see her abdomen core muscles working to maintain her balance. We thought she would actually fall over, be crushed and pinned down by the wood strand or be washed away downstream. After some tense moments, she fought to maintain her posture and righted herself. The ten-foot batch of woods balanced on her head did not fall or shift. Impressive. When the woman reached closer to us through the stream, the guide grabbed and held the end of the wood to help her out of the water. When it brushed by me it felt so heavy. The man waved at us as to thank us. Asshole. Another woman came by with the wood and the guide was able to talk her out of it and find another way.

That young woman the guide helped earlier could’ve been a typical causality of hard life. She could have had a fatal blow to her head from falling down or break many bones in her body if the rushing water carried her through another waterfall below us. In disability studies of developing countries some women became disabled or confined to wheelchair as a result from this type of work.

On the lighter side, we reached the two view points, the King Haile Strasse View (named after an Ethiopian King who visited and viewed at this very spot) and a smaller view point called Queen Elizabeth (no, not HER)view named after a famed mistress of President Banda’s who enjoyed the view from that viewing point. We were on the same level with the clouds – and Zomba sprawled below us and we could see as far as Mulanje Mountain (close to Mozambique border). Sometimes the clouds would pass through us and we’d see nothing but each other, the ground and the whiteness of the cloud. We were standing at an elevation much higher than Michuri (find out height). Then we walked around a small lake created by a dam and greeted hello to a young man fishing. Some of the trout bred by the Trout Farm is stacked there. We walked through the woods and passed men and boys cutting wood and stacking them in bundles or tied to bikes. Some men were all muscle, bone and tendon. Chopping and shaving wood with axes and machetes, sometimes using their bare feet (no I am not dramatizing the scene) to hold the wood as they chopped or shaved the bark off.

It was a very enlightening walk and good exertion of our bodies. The dirt road was slippery from the rains so we mostly kept our eyes down making sure we walked on grass, crumbly rocks for traction. There were several times when I slipped and danced to keep my balance. Annie – once, all 5’10 of her slipped, and all I saw was her arms pinwheeling as she danced to the side of the road. I was doubled over, my mouth covered by my hands – I was afraid that if I laughed, I’d fall down.

A visit to the ER in southern Africa

2009-03-14T11:56:00.005-04:00

The day before I visited the deaf in Ndirane, I decided to go to the emergency room to get the itchy hives on my neck, shoulders and arms checked out. The Kabula Lodge recommended the Adventist Hospital catering to those who can afford medical care. The hospital is on the intersection of Michiru Road and Kabula Hill Road so it was only a 15 minute walk for me. I set out first thing in the morning hoping the wait would not be too long. In the US, the average wait can range from an hour to three hours depending how you are triaged. I once went to one in Bristol, UK for a case of nasty food poisoning. The visit at the Adventist Hospital is probably and my only shortest visit ever. I was out with prescription pills and creams within 50 minutes.

At 8:30 am, the waiting room was already packed by those waiting for appointments and others, like me, needing treatments as a walk-in. Several long and navy blue banners trimmed with white or silver, hung from the ceiling with verses from the Isaiah book of the Bible. Something about God is watching over you. A South African morning news show played on the television. The majority of the people, judging from the way they looked and dressed (not all women had chitengas) were working class and upper, and there were a couple of elderly white men among the people.
Portraits of Malawian President Bingu wa Mutharika, hung in each room (as in every other public place in Malawi, including banks) and another portrait, nearly equaled in number was a woman to direct complaints to. I recognized her when she came to the cashier’s office – she made a point to wave at me that all is well, although I was being shuttled from one place to next with efficiency.

At the reception, I wrote a brief note signifying my deafness and purpose of visit. Someone handed me a form with clipboard (how familiar is that?). I filled out the necessary information such as origin of place, my name, date of birth, purpose of visit and so on. A form was made available for me to sign promising to pay for services rendered (I gulped, hoping that 2,000 Kwachas I had on me was enough). A document, very much like a HIPAA back in the States promised me confidentiality of my visit. Several minutes after I handed in the completed form, a staff escorted me to a cashier’s office and I paid 800 kwachas for consultation fee, then directed to a different waiting area. Not a minute a nurse took me to a room to take my vital signs. I couldn’t see what my BP was and it was the first time I read my weight in kilograms instead of pounds. A thermometer was inserted in my armpit, not my mouth. It was awkward, not moving my arm out of fear dropping the thermometer. She took a look at my hives and wrote a note in my file. The nurse instructed me to wait until a doctor is available to see me.

Five or ten minutes passed after discreetly sitting away from a young woman looking feverish and coughing, a doctor beckoned me to come in. She appeared to be Indian. I wrote down when the hives first appeared and I’d been scratching non stop at night since Friday. The doctor gave me a look over and diagnosed that I had an allergic reaction to something. She told me she will write a few scripts and give them to the pharmacist. I went back to the waiting room. Some minutes passed and I was told to go to the cashier’s office and to pay 600 kwachas for three different medications (one oral and two topical). The total dollar I paid amounted to around 12 dollars. Shocking. Lastly, I was told to go to a third waiting room where people were waiting for their medication to be dispensed to take home. I did not wait long to receive mine.

“Is there a place I should go to next, or am I done?” I asked the pharmacist desk. He told me I’m done and can go home now. I think my deafness and as a foreigner contributed to the speedy visit. It’s been said that many hospitals and clinics (well, probably those that catered to the poor) that treated Deaf Malawians, would put them off until the end of the day, or asked to return the next day. The Adventist probably wanted me to get treatment quickly and be done with.

Deaf in Ndirane

2009-03-11T01:07:00.003-04:00

On March 3, Martyr’s Day in Malawi (a national holiday to commemorate the sacrifices the Malawian nationals made against the British rule in 1914 and in 1959), MANAD Chair Juliana and I visited Ndirane, a northeast Blantyre suburb where many Blantyre deaf people resided. It’s one of the poorer areas where corrupt politicians thrive by buying votes from the suburban population via cash giveaways, gifts, and other ways to win over the people. I found this out when I noticed a dozen small children following Juliana and I through the neighborhood, I commented about it and Juliana replied that they are expecting me to give them money. Later, during the meet up with the Ndirane deaf, I made the allusion to the group of children and Juliana brought it up as a point to the deaf gathering that they must work and not rely on handouts like the children outside.

We found our destination, a small apartment squeezed in behind a store. It was apparent that the room was prepared for our arrival and anticipating the size of the gathering, the straw mats were laid out on the floor and chairs set back against the wall. In a short time, less than two dozen deaf people and children squeezed inside the tiny room. Some were late deafened and six children ranging from age 3 to mid teens and one elderly man, are learning sign language from one of MANAD members. The member found them throughout the suburb and is providing sign language instruction for two hours a week. A handful of deaf adults in attendance were employed, carpentry, tailors, a go-to-guy (who is fortunate to have many hearing friends who constantly referred business to him), a woman who counted medicine pills for an Indian manufacturer, and a man who worked for a disabled office constructing and attaching mobility assistive devices together.

Juliana gave a speech about the intent of MANAD, its mission to collect and advocate for the rights of the deaf to the Malawian government. She also announced the new head office and its location and encouraged them to visit. During the visit we collected some comments and feedback from those in attendance, they desired for better access to medical facilities and communication with its personnel and secondly, it seems the hot topic is that they felt they are in the middle. The disabled community sees the deaf as able bodied, able to do many things physically. However, the hearing community view the deaf as incapable to have jobs and do tasks. One interesting fact I learned is the Muslims in Malawi, in accordance to their religion and beliefs celebrate Ramadan and other holidays by giving gifts and money to the disabled community (including the deaf) as a cause. However, the average disabled group or individual would receive K1,000 (around USD 6 or 7) more than the deaf because many local Muslims felt that the deaf are more capable.

It was the first time for me to interact with the deaf community that does not revolve around school. Many deaf persons there reflected the rest of the hearing (and able bodied) poor and working class Malawians I’ve observed around town and in the newspapers; they own few articles of clothes and often wear their best shirt and trouser/skirt – their only pair – each day, travel long distance to work, have at least one meal a day mainly to save money, and rely on a well for drinking and washing clothes. The “well” is a single faucet at the top of a two or three foot pipe jutting up from the ground. In the outskirts of Blantyre I see two dozen women waiting for their turn at the faucet. I asked someone how long she waited for her turn but she only replied “we get very little water each time”. There is much for MANAD to do.

Feasting on American blood

2009-03-01T07:20:00.002-05:00

Upon the eve of my two month stay in Africa, the mosquitoes, spiders and whathaveyou feasted on me. I woke up in the morning with bites and rash on my shoulders, top shoulder area under the back of my neck, arms and some on my feet. Some of them itched like a son of the bitch. Unfortunately the more I scratched, it spread. It’s not too bad during the day but at night – I’d be awake for an hour in the middle of night, furiously scratching my elbow, knee, ankle or right hand until it burned lulling me back to sleep. Yesterday, I took the sheets, pillow case, and blankets off and deposited them in the laundry room. I lay the foam mattress upright on the wall, sprayed it and the pillow with bug spray, and the bed net as well. They were left like that for the majority of the day. Before going to bed, I made sure the ends of the bed net were tucked in securely under the mattress. But the opening remains a problem since the mosquito can crawl around the net until it finds the opening. The first month l lived here in Kabula they weren’t really a problem and I would let the bed net hang loosely around the bed. But no more.

With the increasing summer rains, the mosquitoes are plentiful. They also frequent the showers and bathroom that doesn’t have outside vent. If I’m lucky I’m able to shoo them out the door before doing my business. In the showers, they’re a menace. There are half dozen squashed mosquito carcasses on the bathroom wall from me and others. Some are bloodied. Nice. When I slapped one against the wall it burst into blood (hopefully mine) and I quickly washed my hand and splashed some water on the wall.

Since there is no malaria in the US, I have no immune system against malaria like the local Africans do. I remember the doctor’s lecture during SLI training week, talking about malaria – he swept his hand towards me and two Scots saying that if we didn’t take anti-malaria meds we can die or suffer from cerebral malaria after returning home. I can tell some locals have recurring bouts of malaria – the way they bend down with their head on their arm or lap waiting for it to pass. I take Doxy, an antibiotic each day and if I’m not careful with what I eat and how much I eat prior to taking it, the nausea from the med can really, really make you feel sick and want to keel over. Consuming dairy less than two hours before and after can cancel out the effectiveness for Doxy to work. For me it usually lasts half an hour or so and if I’m at home I can sleep it off. But if I’m around town all I can do is to find a place to sit, drink soda and wait for it to pass. As of few weeks ago, I began to master in making breakfast that doesn’t require dairy. Oatmeal without using milk and butter, a piece of bread with peanut butter, tea with sugar or honey, fruit and vegetables if I have any left in the morning, and orange juice. Yesterday I had an engagement in the morning and I didn’t eat early enough for it to pass, so on my way into town I bought a block of bread from a vendor. Last week I made the mistake eating a meat pie so I could take the med while about town. I got a mild food poisoning from the meat pie AND nausea as a side effect from Doxy. It was awful. Meat pie is a gamble in Malawi – one can be good while the other will make you sick. As someone I know put it as “a recipe for disaster!” Before the two hours expired I filled myself up with bread and took the Doxy. No nausea came. The label says to either consume a full glass of water or eat snacks with Doxy, it does not work for me. I need to have a full breakfast before taking it. Like my program adviser, Dr Wilson says, better to be alive!

Who knows – I hope the mosquito that passes my blood to a local person, perhaps my Obama fervor will make a difference for them to vote peacefully and inspiring for May 19 presidential and parliamentary elections. My jadedness seems to be replaced by corniness since I began living here. Vey’s mir!

Update: I've been reminded that the rash and itching may be a result of bugs laying eggs in my clothes while they hang to dry. Evidently one is supposed to iron clothes after drying. Ack. Now I appreciate the drying machine back home!

Kabula and its people, foreigners and local

2009-03-01T07:13:00.001-05:00

Kabula, a suburb in close proximity to Blantyre’s city centre, Kabula has an interesting mix of residents varying from wealthy and the celebrity (no idea who), some hostels catering to both foreigners and local, Indian business owners, some whites, several NGO offices including a FICA Small Loans, a Muslim private school, a couple orphanages, and many peasants in the outer reaches of Kabula by the Michiru mountain. On the way back to the hostel from the Michiru Mountain I glimpsed a great vegetable market down Michiru road but quite a walk and I’ve yet to do so. They contain more variety than the supermarket, and cheaper. On Kabula Hill Road there is Chez Maky, a 1930s house that serves a rather boring menu, but delicious food. Their crepes and French pressed coffee are out of this world. I love their crepe filled with chocolate cake and ice cream – sinful. There is a swimming pool at the charge of K500 (a little less than $4) if you do not order their food. I’ve used it and it’s very pleasant. If I have some money and decide to treat myself, that’s where I head to. Additionally, their wi-fi is superfast compared to Kabula Lodge.

Walking on the road towards the city centre, people continue to gawk at me even though I’m not the only white foreigner living in the area, but possibly the regulars have figured out that I don’t hear at all or they just like to look at me. Sometimes children would try to test me out but what can I do, really? Smile at them and wear invisible horse blinds, and proceed. That is part of my deafness that I’m unable to communicate with them with some reservation. Mine is all the way up, especially men who try to talk to me (one tried to sell carved wooden figures after initiating a conversation with me) and sometimes children who beg. It’s not worth my energy. Several times, I walked with a couple other hostel guest and they engage in easy conversation with locals. It’s reassuring for me but I cannot afford to let my wariness down.

Part of the road adjoining Kabula Hill Road is pretty narrow due to some deterioration of the road, with little room for two lanes. At the corner there are some vendors selling bananas and phone charge cards (I’ve bought these from them frequently – so convenient on the way home), pine or ground nuts, cigarettes, and sometimes maize. Automobiles speed by (no speed regulation) and I think my neck has thickened from constantly craning and twisting my neck to check because if the car speeds up I can’t hear the engine. If it’s slow I don’t hear it until its right alongside me. Hearing aids make a little difference. Also they pop up from nowhere, seconds after I’ve noticed. More than once there are inches between me and the car. Once, the speeding SUV was so close that I could feel the engine’s heat. Last week or so, I had the umbrella up (very hot and sun was hard) and someone grabbed it. I looked up and a minibus sped by and the driver shook his fist at me. I retorted by slapping my ears with a “nothing” sign. The driver gave me an apologetic wave. I’ve noticed Africans, yes hearing, in both Zambia and Malawi have some gestures for communication purposes – most commonly, “nothing” and numbers like ten. They are also incorporated in both Zambian and Malawian Sign Languages. It’s been helpful in many situations.

The area is not vulnerable to water shortages (I’m told to blame the Water Board) and electrical blackouts, they can overlap or occasionally happen at the same time that borders on annoying. During the outages, meals consist of munching on available cold vegetables and fruit, bread, other snacks that doesn’t require water or stove to cook. The locals probably have a laugh on our expense – we’re only supplied an electrical kitchen with running water, stove and oven, and appliances. When we have blackouts that interfere with our meals (lunch or dinner) we don’t have access to firewood and charcoal to build a small fire out of a small pot with a tri legged stand and a grate on top. Oh well. I recently saw a blurb in the paper that a local hip hop celebrity put his name to run for the commissioner of the Kabula suburb because of the “old infrastructure” (I have to assume water and electricity), that it’s a shame due to its being so close to the city centre. Two weeks was possibly the worst with water being out for three days, and an hour or two shy of the restoration of water, the electricity went off. The rest of the week, it seemed that the water and electricity took turns to be shut off. It was maddening and I’d lost a few, thankfully a few items in the fridge that I had to throw out. I spent money on dining out if I couldn’t abide another cold meal or one consisted of snacking. If it’s during the day, I would eat out and hope that the power and/or water are restored by dinner time. I have a couple tuna fish cans handy for such dinner outages. The newspapers warned that the blackouts will continue more frequently due to summer rains and the continuing corruption of ESCOM (electrical company) and the Water Board.

One morning, as I started to handwash some clothes some water faucets slowly drained out. It had a domino effect on other sinks and toilets until just after lunch, no running water. In the early evening the electricity went off – fortunately it lasted couple hours – the electricity came back on with running water. We were overjoyed. Now, it’s a daily occurrence either the water or electricity shut off – it’s a good day if it’s only one shut off that lasts couple hours. Candles come cheaply – less awkward and expensive than flashlight batteries when you’re in the bedroom reading, or trying to conjure a meal in the kitchen without cooking and using water. Candles and matches are sold in batches in the stores. I never realized that lighted candles can produce some heat when you’re using two on the table you’re working at. Can get a little hot sitting by the candles. Window and the door are opened in my room to tempt in the evening breeze. The summer daylights hours are very different from the US, even in the height of the season. Sun comes up around 5am and dusk is at 630pm – if the sunlight continued until 8 or 9pm as it is back in the Northeast, it’d be tad easier. So far, the longest and strangest daylight hours I’ve experienced are in Ireland since it’s pretty far up north. 10pm, the dusk time. I can imagine my friends up in Finland will scoff and say so what – I think they’re the same latitude with Alaska containing few hours (or less) of nighttime. Poisonwood Bible, one of the few novels about Africa I read prior to coming here, one of its main characters described that daylight begins and end in the Congo (where the story took place) at 6am and 6pm no matter what season. Possibly Malawi is close enough to the equator to have almost even number of day and night times.

The people I live with and are exposed to daily – cheap rooms, communal bathrooms and showers, and sharing a kitchen to cook in, aren’t the NGOs I hoped to mix in with. There are NGO folks that come and go, they don’t stick around much most of the day. One day, I saw a JICA truck (a very well-known Japanese development agency) but its people were hardly nonexistent and I’ve had a glimpse or two of them. The folks that I live and share the kitchen with are the younger sorts from the UK, Australia, and continental Europe coming in for several weeks or two months to volunteer at orphanages. That is approximately one half. The other half are medical students usually from the UK – a new one from Holland arrived the other day. And there’s the German one. They come here to do rotations, or research on tropical diseases and HIV, or explore practicing medicine in other countries. One of them, a brave one, works with children. She sees dead children – or those that come to die - nearly every day. I don’t know how I can stomach that (and I told her so). This week, she treated children ill from cholera (she said they smell like fish). There are some Malawian interns (doctors) that are staying in more expensive rooms and receive meals at the government’s expense. The child doctor grumbled to me that all that money could go to supplying medicine, not to pay for housing. I opined to her that it’s probably an incentive to tamp down the flight of skilled medical personnel to other countries such as South Africa. For orphanages I’ve heard there are both good and bad ones. I’ve not gotten around to (though I’d plenty of opportunities) visiting them.

Earlier in my stay, I befriended a speech therapist – out of all people. Her task in Malawi is to train rehabilitation staff to work with stroke victims to regain speech. She recently expanded to schools that have students with disabilities. I saw her today briefly after she returned from a two week stint at SOS Village School (the very same that I visited in Lilongwe to meet and screen teachers for the deaf for SLI training). The speech therapist was very frustrated how some teachers and speech therapists treated deaf children and children with disabilities. She asked me for some resources to “inform” them; for instance, a child with severe cerebral palsy unable to speak the staff would WAIT to determine whether the child is deaf or not. My friend told them it didn’t matter – find a way to communicate, even sign language, must be utilized to avoid development delay and affect cognitive abilities. They looked at her as if she came from another planet. It is too bad she doesn’t have much say in training these staff. There are few organizations that come to mind that specializes in training these staff for child development intervention but I need to flip through my resources to give her specific information. I’m glad that I might be of use for her. I can’t imagine her seeing that everyday for two weeks.

Michiru Mountain Trail, a “Third World Conservation”.

2009-02-25T07:03:00.005-05:00

I’ve learned my lesson. Not to wear my LL Bean (teva) sandals on a trail and not to ASSume the trail is like any other I’ve encountered in the Northeast (US) and parts of its Appalachian Trail. When several volunteers from the hostel invited me to come along, I’m like oh cool, a hike. I’ve not gone on a proper hike (not counting a small mountain near where I grew up, and miles of streets in New York City) for years.

The Michiru Mountain conservatory is one of the closest one to Blantyre, about 9 kilometers away. The road was difficult, some smooth, a couple short wooden bridges (in a taxi cab – nerve wracking), and a gap in the road that the cab cautiously drove into and out minding the tail pipe wouldn’t be scraped out from under . Eventually we reached the conservatory. There were several trails ranging in difficulty and one trail for birdwatching. The group opted for the difficult trail all the way to the top of the summit which is 1,470 meters high. Why not?

Unfortunately, because my Doxy med (anti-malaria) can’t be taken for two hours if I consumed dairy products (sometimes a challenge for breakfast) so I had taken it just prior to the hike. And in combination with my other prescription meds, my heart went sky high from climbing a short steep hill. I was sweating profusely. I was more embarrassed than winded. It never happened to be before with my heart rate this high and rivulets of sweat running down my body from my head and neck. Several times I had to stop to rest and continue to drink water – I felt old and sick. Also my sandals attracted snagging by long plants, grass, and rocks on the trail, so in addition to being winded, I kept tripping, occasionally stumbling. After the first rest, my heart went to normal thudding properly from an exercise. However when we neared the top, I started seeing black spots, and sat down for good 10 or 15 minutes. The other three continued to the summit and the guide stayed behind with me with his rifle. I guess I’d be a weak prey for the large mammals (leopard, jaguar or big baboon monkey) – eventually I reached the top with the guide and I thanked him for not shooting me because I was weak and idiotic for wearing my sandals. One other volunteer in the group, a German medical student also wore tevas sandals – he didn’t have a problem but he was a little faster than me. The two young English women, 18 years old and wearing sneakers, full time smokers and first time on a trail were perfectly fine other than being winded. It looked like it was a little rough walk in the park for them.

The height of the summit was amazing. The Shire Highlands and other koppies (South African word for small mountains – more like big hills) appeared as dollops on the ground. We could see several towns laid out between or at the base of the koppies. Blantyre is a very hilly city – not as steep as San Francisco streets though. We could see Mulanje mountain (about 70 kilometers away) that is bigger than Michiru and possibly Zomba mountain. We took several pictures, posed on the summit and our guide as well.

The trip down the trail to the base was even worse, more work on your feet, knees, thighs, and hips to maintain balance, not to pitch forward. And plants and grass snagging at my toes and sandals – about three-quarters of the time I’d be stumbling and falling down. But I bounced back and I’m still amazed I don’t have bruises – only minor cuts from plants and fallen tree branches, a wicked blister, and a calloused skin torn off from my big toe. My feet were sweaty so the callous softened and scraped off, from the exertion of keeping my balance on the steep trail. Sort of like a rough pedicure on the trail. Matthias, the German med student kept monitoring me, reminding me to drink water and dawdled behind me. I think he conjured up quite a number of possible scenarios involving me – him treating me for a cut, scrape, or even worse a broken bone. He was a tad nervous. Near the bottom I did have a nasty fall – we were walking down a relatively easy trail but I missed a step. The next thing I knew, I was on a steep side off the trail, my hands holding to thick plants and my feet anchored. Matthias had to pull me up – I strained my left shoulder from grabbing the plants for anchor.

I sure kept the group entertained. We reached the bottom and in the last 100 feet or so I kept the stumbling to a minimum until I slipped on a small dirt mound on a very level ground by the office and fell on my butt. The mountain had its last word with me.

We (I missed them due to communication barriers – not fast enough for a paper and pen) saw a bushbuck, a vervet monkey and some sort of a large bird. Afterwards, we took the taxi back along the same road we took earlier we spotted a large baboon monkey in the middle of the road. The taxi slowed but inched a little further and further for a better look. I managed a picture until the monkey left the road into the cornfield.

MANAD and Deaf Action (Scotland)’s Sign Language Interpreter Training (SLI)

2009-02-19T07:15:00.003-05:00

This is my first exposure to a NGO working with Malawians here, not someone (both white and Malawian) driving around in vehicles with a NGO logo pasted or painted on its sides, or a signpost announcing an ongoing project (which is plentiful), sponsored by this and that in coordination with this and that, and the estimated duration. I do not work for Scotland and since Finland (Finnish Association of the Deaf that placed me with MANAD) will not be here in the duration of my internship, so I sat in the training for the sake of experience and exposure. Since I do work for MANAD, I provided some assistance as an extra hand (or body) for Betty and Erick, and feedback to the trainees along with the Scots.

The training is a second phase with returning trainees from the first phase last June. It lasted for six days with themes; religious, medical, and legal along with fingerspelling practice, voice to sign and sign to voice translation and self-care such as avoiding a common interpreter malady, repetitious injury. The facilitators who organized the SLI training, Betty, the top interpreter in all of Malawi and Erick, a deaf man, some couple years ago received training at Edinburgh in interpretation and sign language instruction and curriculum development. The Scots, a deaf man who freelances in sign language instruction, Bryan and an interpreter Nicola, sent by Deaf Action to observe Betty and Erick, to determine whether the funding for SLI to continue and provide input to both the facilitators and trainees.

Recognition of MANAD, and the need for the deaf and hard of hearing population’s right to access to information, and other human rights are nascent in Malawi only 15 years old. There are around 11 sign language interpreters in Malawi, but their skills and fluency varies and all is voluntary meaning very little opportunity to work. In some ways similar to Ireland back in 2001 once they emerged as a Celtic Tiger. When I lived there, there were only 13 interpreters but none for the city I resided in. I told this to Betty and the trainees so that seemed to help their anxiety some. The Woodford Foundation (UK) is currently working with MANAD to provide funding to pay the interpreters in the near future. Many of the trainees are not skilled signers especially in the eyes of the UK and the US (the best ones might be considered level 3 below the top), but there is an alarming need of interpreters hence the MANAD and Deaf Action’s decision to provide both signing and training for interpreters as a foundation. There is a talk about a separate training for Malawian Sign Language (MSL) instruction and learning. For trainees, there are promising individuals such as several teachers of the deaf, a young man whose parents worked for deaf schools and grew up playing football with deaf students, and a rehabilitation worker who occasionally has a deaf patient.

Probably the most interesting part of training was the first day which fell on Sunday beginning at a church (St Michael’s) a CCAP. One interpreter refused citing personal reasons but others including a Muslim woman wearing a headscarf, several Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Catholics, and a nonbeliever (me) gamely went as part of the training to interpret in a religious setting. The trainees took 5 or 10 minutes rotations, interpreting the sermons from the reverend (a Scot I believe with a thick accent who attempted occasional phrases in the Chichewa language that sounded awful to Malawian ears), Malawian deacons (or elders?) and some choir singing. It was a real exposure to the trainees because the average Malawian often uses English (official language) and Chichewa (national language) in the same sentence or lectures, even in the newspaper. I learned that part of the Malawian culture is to mix in proverbs in Chichewa for wit, and to describe a particular situation. Talk about throwing the trainees in water with a weak life ring on the very first hour of the six day training. One part of the training, later in the week was translating Chichewa into MSL and vice versa. It proved a challenge for many, especially one woman a pastor from Zambia who spoke a different dialect of Chichewa.

There were many words in legal and medical terms that are not in MSL, in addition to regional sign language. MSL used in the towns or cities of Mzimba and Lilongwe can be vastly different from Blantyre and many trainees were frustrated on what is the right sign language. The facilitators and Scots, pitching in, offered some consolation (very little in the trainee’s eyes – that was obvious to see) that MSL as a national sign language is still relatively new and over the years MSL will continue to evolve and once MANAD becomes stronger the MSL will become more uniform. There was also encouragement (I also pitched in) that the trainees to form local support networking with deaf people to share MSL. MANAD has a registration of interpreters around the country for support and new names will be added and they will be provided upon request. That seemed to appease the trainees some. Betty was very intent on not using ASL or BSL (British Sign Language) but there were already some signs recognizable no doubt due to the missionary influence in the past. I would sometimes tease her that I would tell deaf Malawians that ASL is better and Betty would laugh-shriek and tease me that my true intent is to oppress the Deaf here. Zambia Sign Language has a heavy ASL influence with some tinge of BSL. MSL is probably more national than Zambian sign, though some signs are in ASL or BSL. But it is relatively common. For instance, the Irish Sign Language has some BSL influence because of deaf Irish working in London to send money back home (long before Ireland became the Celtic Tiger). ASL has roots in French Sign Language and Martha’s Vineyard Kentish sign language in addition to home signs from more than 200 years ago. ASL evolved as any other language on its own, despite regional signs but it is still understood in conversations.

Medical and Legal also proved to be interesting sessions as well due to numerous deaf people being seen at clinics or in emergency rooms and being arrested for simple misunderstanding with police officers. Best scenario is that an interpreter or a signer would show up, help clarify matters and the deaf prisoner released with apologies. But sometimes actual petty crimes do happen such as stealing and battery. Awareness about the Deaf and those without hearing is still slow but worse in the rural parts. The visiting lecturers, a doctor and a magistrate provided typical scenes what to expect in a legal (court room or prison) and medical (conversing with doctors and nurses), the common terms – such as body parts, diseases, medication dosages and court procedures. I provided some input with basic scenarios because I spent five years in NYC working with deaf people in both medical and legal settings, which the trainees and the Scots seemed to appreciate.

One sign to voice interpretation (both English and Chichewa) session involved Erick signing funny scenarios such an animal, a dog or monkey stealing food from a local who worked hard to get it, a man driving by staring at a shapely woman and crashing into a tree as a result, and so on. It was evident that the trainee’s receptive skills is better than expressive (in MSL) and there were many laughs when they took turns translating what Erick said. Many got it right, some got it wrong. The group or paired work, and role play exercises were more enjoyable for the trainees, taking turns to be deaf, interpreter, a doctor, a lawyer, judge, police, and magistrate and so on. Betty, Erick, and sometimes Charles, and two other deaf Malawian resource persons when available to attend went from group to group to provide feedback and criticism. Bryan and Nicola pitched in, too.

Deaf Action is pleased with the overall improvement in how MANAD coordinated the training and the future together is ensured. I know it’s corny but looking at two interpreters and two deaf people of different nationalities (and First World and Third World) working together as equals were really inspiring. There are some cultural differences and I could tell Deaf Action tried not to let their British culture interfere with how the Malawian trainees should learn but as long as the basic foundation in interpreting is covered, and MANAD has enough to go on. There is a very respectful relationship and partnership between MANAD and Deaf Action. Yay for cooperative development!

pictures posted

2009-02-14T08:06:00.004-05:00

PAH! I've uploaded couple pictures to each post. Scroll down and enjoy! - kb

PS - a shout out to my fellow ID classmates and professors. A Worldvision office near Mzimba. And its headquarters isn't far from the Gallaudet campus.

Embangweni School for the Deaf and the Ministry of Persons with Disability and Elderly

2009-02-11T09:19:00.004-05:00

The first school we visited for the three and a half city seven day survey trip is Embangweni School for the Deaf, a primary school that relied on total communication method within the huge Livingstonvia Synod of Church of Central Africa Presbyterian (CCAP). The Synod also consisted of several primary schools, a couple of secondary schools, a mission hospital, and a colonial house where the head minister and his family live. All hearing, in case you were wondering. Some deaf students would qualify for a secondary school but not very many of them. All teachers and administration live on the CCAP grounds as well.

Our visitor’s quarters had toilets and showers which I know the student housing does not provide. During a walk, I saw students, both deaf and hearing receiving water from a well to wash their clothes or carry the bucket inside to bathe. During the survey session I had “to go” very badly cos I’ve had too much instant coffee at breakfast - the guest toilets were too far away so I had to settle for student toilets – cement “outhouses” with doors marking “girls” and “boys”, and rectangular holes in the ground. Unfortunately someone pooped out a bad breakfast and missed the hole. The pile was covered by flies, so, no. I used the boy’s outhouse hoping that a boy wouldn’t walk in and have living daylights scared out of him by discovering a white woman sitting on her white haunches. Fortunately that did not happen.

We started the next day (a Friday) by accompanying students and staff to their morning prayers and greetings. The teacher who led the prayer used both his voice and signed, but naturally more voice than signing. They talked about the value of hard work, that God does not reward lazy people that sort of talk. For a demonstration, the boys gathered to ring out something (something like a Xylophone I cannot remember but it sure brought back memories of my own “hearing-impaired” class doing the same thing when I was in second or third grade), had bells and rang out a song with a teacher pointing at notes. I was wearing my hearing aid and all I could hear was different bell and jingling sounds, and some singing (not signing). The boys finished, and then the girls got up and signed/sang a chorus, with basic foot movements to count out the beats. Voices rang out differently to my tone-deaf ears.

Students, ranging from ages 5 to 20, and several students that I later found out were in their late 20s, one as old as 37 settled down to listen to the announcements of the day. Most of them were watching us, at Charles and Betty who were signing to each other. I couldn’t help but be amused and smile when I noticed some students discussing among themselves who is deaf who is hearing “no no that woman is not deaf that woman is interpreter I’ve seen her before” “that man is deaf” “white woman maybe deaf”– the universal deaf culture assessment and discourse of strangers in their midst. They were used to receiving hearing visitors, both white and African, but not Malawian signers and a deaf white woman too, so they were very intrigued by us. After brief introductions, the headmaster sent the children to their morning classes.

The headmaster held a brief meeting with us, explaining the school’s background (established in mid 1990s) to meet the need of having a deaf school up north since most deaf schools are in Central and South regions. The Embangweni school is also considered a place for students who failed in other schools to try their luck there. They are permitted to take exams for a number of times to give them a fighting chance to pass their certificate exams. Some thrived but others did not. Those who were unable to pass were placed in carpentry and tailoring classes to give them some skills (and hope). Hera, the headmaster placed the importance of Charles’ visit – not only as a leader of MANAD, but also as an employee at a Ministry office – that he is a role model to the children who’s never seen a deaf adult in that capacity.
Next, we joined the faculty for their tea break – and they asked Charles and me a series of questions about our experiences in deaf education. One thing that really turned me off (and I would later see in other schools, too) that there were exam results and announcements implying failure of students. And a teacher would point to a student and tell us that she failed four or five times before being placed in his carpentry class. I made the choice to share a personal story with them that I was not a star student in my early years, that both my parents and teachers were frustrated with me and pushed me to work. When I found an interest in history and social studies, I began to show more interest and improve. I encouraged the teachers to find their students’ interest and work with them on these.

The survey/needs assessment session a long and grueling one, for me because I was still learning Malawian Sign Language (MSL). Charles and Betty began with MANAD’s purpose of being and partnering with Finland to gather and document information from Deaf and hard of hearing Malawians, to see what needs and problems they have to enable Finland to provide more funding to help MANAD work on improving the Deaf living conditions in Malawi. I introduced myself as an intern for MANAD to learn from their work, shared my experience in a total communication school environment that I learned the same way as they did. I saw some heads nodding as if they understood that I went through the same thing they did.

Charles opened the floor asking students to come up and share their problems or experiences with their villages, schools, hearing family members and friends. Quite a number volunteered, saying that their home villages are generally OK, some thought they were “mad”, good relations with their neighbors, one student complained about a hearing soccer team pulling dirty plays to card the deaf players, among many others. Really not different from what deaf people everywhere encounter. The only differences are technology access since most of them do not have TV and media information, and acknowledging their rights for better things in life (education, jobs, etc). After bread and soda break, we then moved on to health information – access to clinics, communicating with doctors and nurses, the depth of information about TB, HIV+, cancer and AIDS. Many of students said they relied on their hearing family members or friends as interpreters. One young boy maybe 12 years of age, shared his experience about finding the right kind of dosage. He described going from nurse to nurse, finding information on instructions he could not understand until he found someone who were able to gesture with him, by using the hand as a clock or placement of sun during the day. “morning” “2 pills” “night” “none”. We three cheered him on and Charles encouraged that kind of initiative to the students.
Then came the toughest part. I’d already had a tense five minutes. Betty received a call and she and Charles had to step out. They told me to take over the floor – the students were patient with me and helped clarify signs for me. Since most of the students were weak with both English and Chichewa languages, Charles, Betty, and I were surrounded by students demanding assistance filling out the survey forms. Several teachers helped out to lessen the demand. I had four (or five) girls with me and a teacher helping out with communication barriers. It seems most students became deaf from an illness such as malaria, grew up with at least one signing family member and/or friend, and have overall stable relations with their families. For health information such as HIV they know the word or letters mean something bad, but not the depth or details about it. For priority goals for MANAD to work on, most asked for improvement in education and jobs. Charles was very impressed with the teachers (all men) who maintained good rapport with students and really communicated with them. The students rarely complained about their teachers, only that they wished for more materials to use.

At the end, I took a large group picture and many students wanted pictures taken of themselves. I gladly put my camera to use. We didn’t have lunch until 4pm and Charles was demanding (jokingly) that we have to give him our lunch for him to eat – then we ate dinner at 7pm with faculty and staff. All the information from the day was leaking out of my eyes and ears and I went to my room for some downtime. Then hit the sack early after observing Betty screen two teachers as candidates for the 2nd phase of interpreter training.

Two days later, we visited a deaf class within a hearing secondary school (name escapes me) in Kasungu, a couple hours north of Lilongwe. We met with five or six students and they are not doing so hot because their teacher’s signing skills deteriorated evidently under pressure from the school to pursue oral methods. It was rather depressing collecting information from them, especially after our experience at Embangweni. Charles sternly lectured the teacher for letting his signing skills slide, thus hurting the students’ chances in school and after. Most of the students didn’t know what they would do after completion of school – they are already taking tailoring and carpentry training. I recommended to Charles of a project in the future to construct and update (if any) a resource career guide for secondary school deaf students.

The classroom had small windows and was very dark, especially with a thunderstorm happening outside. We had trouble following conversations. Charles requested the teacher to turn the lights on, urging the importance for the Deaf to see each other. The teacher declined saying the Braille machine (the size of a small suitcase) is plugged in and he couldn’t unplug it. The dark classroom contrasted with bright and cheerful classrooms we saw in Embangweni and another in Lilongwe. We left the school, concerned and depressed about the future of those students we met.

On Monday, our last full day of work and travel we went to SOS Village School in Lilongwe, a primary and secondary school that contained two classrooms for younger and older deaf students. We didn’t meet the students however Betty screened three teachers for the deaf for the 2nd phase SLI training with Deaf Action. They had various signing skills and the classroom we used had large windows, the red brick walls and wooden ceiling reflected light well. Student’s work were pasted on the walls and strung up across the room. We left the school; a deaf secondary student found us and chatted with us on the way back to Lilongwe on a minibus. He knew Charles and Betty but chatted with me, and an opportunity to use my ever-improving MSL.

Before visiting the SOS Village School, we had coffee and cookies with Mr F Sapala, Director of Disability Program with his other subprogram directors, at the Ministry of Persons with Disability and Elderly. Charles and Betty gave their reports about the MANAD’s status in projects assisted by Finland and Scotland – evidently something they liked to hear about and that the relationship with both countries is ongoing. Charles also mentioned that MANAD is currently developing a project with the British High Commission Office for a second attempt at Deaf Awareness campaign. The people were very pleased that MANAD is working. They were particularly interested in my MA program in International Development specialsing in Persons with Disabilities and asked what courses I took. I replied and gave them the website address and Dr Wilson’s email as well. A woman, the head of a rehabilitation program asked if I studied rehabilitation and I affirmed saying its part of our coursework. She appeared to be content with my answer. One other program head informed me he had gone to Gallaudet in 1980s for some sort of disability related conference. He did enjoy the nightlife in DC, he added. Mr Sapala mentioned to me that his ministry along with the Malawian government very much supported my “new government” and is looking forward to working with President Obama’s administration. I felt that I was somewhat an US representative in the room and did my best to present honest but diplomatic answers. I did answer honestly that our race relations isn’t perfect when they asked me that. That was when they interjected saying President Obama is a good man for change. I think so, too!

on the road - smooth and bumpy

2009-02-10T13:00:00.002-05:00

This post is typed two weeks late – not as exciting as the previous posts. I’m trying to cram as much information as possible. Will write a post shortly about deaf students, then another about the SLI training. – kb
Out of the seven days we traveled, approximately good four days of it consisted of being on the road or waiting for a bus or minibus filled with passengers and luggage to the driver’s content before leaving. The longest we waited for our minibus to fill up and depart was two hours in Mzimba with destination to Mzuzu. We missed our meeting with Deaf adults in Lilongwe because of the paperwork needed to be done and travel from Kasungu.

The toughest road was the one from Jenda to the Embangawe school for the deaf, one of the several primary and secondary schools in a huge Embangwei/Loudon synod branch of CCAP (Church of Central African Presbyterian) of Livingstonvia , in the southern portion of the large Mzimba district bordering Zambia. One hour on 30 kilometers of hard dirt road filled with lumps, crevices, holes, and mud spots that can test the car shock absorber and tires. The first ride to the school was in a 4 x 4 overland an ancient ambulance truck that our contact head teacher hired. It was a very bouncy ride in the dusk. Within a quarter of a mile from the synod, the truck blew a tire in the pouring rain. We three (myself, Betty and Charles), Hara the teacher and two other passengers with a small baby stood outside under the trees, watched the driver change the tire with assistance from a couple of passersby. On the way back two days later, one sunny morning the head teacher secured a pick up truck to take us three back to Jenda to take a bus to Mzimba for long detour to Mzuzu for a last minute meet up with a retired teacher to distribute survey forms. To make the trip leaving the school quicker, Charles, assisted by Betty interpreting had to negotiate with the driver on an agreed price to make him hurry up. However the driver resisted a little preferring to add a couple more passengers before leaving. Betty and I were squeezed in the truck cab with the driver and Charles rode in the open truck bed with several other people and our luggage. I wanted to ride in the back for the sake of experience, but Charles wanted to enjoy the sun and breeze. However, he told me that if it rains he’ll gladly trade places with me. The ride was smoother, probably because the truck didn’t have 4x4 wheels and the driver seemed to maneuver around the lumps and crevices more expertly. Along the way, we picked up few more passengers. There were many bikes riding up and down the road – costing MK 600 for a ride on the extended seat behind the rider. There aren’t bikes in Blantyre and Lilongwe, possibly due to the volume of automobiles (they were scarce up north) only outside the cities for those riding in from the rural parts.
Along the way back to Jenda – we spotted two cut branches of leaves on the road placed in a way to slow us down and pass through the narrow space provided. Betty explained that it’s to warn drivers and pedestrians that a funeral is in progress. After passing the second set, a group of men sitting near a graveyard spotted us and begged for money (for burial payment Betty reckons).

After nearly an hour and half on the back road, we reached Jenda and immediately boarded a minibus ready to leave for Mzimba. The drive lasted maybe two or three times the actual distance of the trip, due not only frequent pick ups and deboarding of passengers along the way but to navigate hairpin curves on the road. There’s a slogan in Malawi for its roads – “Arrive Alive!” and “Speed Kills”. We eventually reached Mzimba and expecting to leave again, but the driver and conductor preferred to wait until the minibus filled to capacity. Two hours were spent breathing in the diesel fumes from the running engine, a kid (well a young man) would come up to move the bus around every 10 or 15 minibus. Occasionally he’d shout and bang onto his door as if he owned it. Several other passengers going as far as Mzuzu were not amused but were silent. An internet café sitting across the street tortured me. But I knew I’d have a nervous breakdown whenever I see the minibus move, thinking it’ll go to Mzuzu without me. The minibuses are that unpredictable.
Finally, filled with passengers including several with large maize bags, and one man holding a flat of live baby chicks – occasionally a tiny feather drifted by my face – the driver decided to depart for Mzuzu. Like Jenda and Mzimba, the route between Mzimba and Mzuzu was long, but filled with scenery. The northern region is heavily forested, filled with timber mills. I had become accustomed to seeing people live in concrete dwellings with either a tin or thatched roof, the dwellings were all wood looking like it was clapped together with nails and mud. The planed wood beams piled like large grates dotted along the road. Occasionally we’d see a lorry or large truck hauling cut or uncut wood. Sometimes we’d pass acres and acres of deforested land, land lying bare with thin trunks poking out. Other lands and hills consisted of new trees – afforestation is big here, and the government is trying to promote an afforestation campaign. Once in a while, a man riding a bike (or pushing his bike) with cut wood piled high on the extended seat, as high as four or five feet, held together by braces or splints of some sort. The route also went through or on top of the highlands, with steep or narrow roads.

The route from Mzuzu (a small but upcoming city, filled with bike taxis, many registered and so jazzed up with colorful padded passenger seats with complimentary handlebars – I was angry that I didn’t have the camera on me at the moment) to Jenda, then Kusungu were uneventual. It was becoming dark and we were becoming bored and restless being on the road. Charles and I traded and fought over newspapers before dusk. I happily gave him Chichewa language pages. Some he translated for me. We arrived into Kusungu and we were grateful for the ride a friend of Betty’s gave us. We arrived in time f or a late dinner then totally crashed for the night.
After visiting a secondary school outside Kusungu, and few stops in Lilongwe (including a visit to the Ministry of Disabled and Elderly office) Betty and I headed back to Blantyre on a slow minibus. After seven days of packing and repacking my rucksack I was glad to settle into a more permanent housing at the Kabula Lodge.

The motels we stayed at, does not cater to the Westerners. The rooms and its bathrooms are pretty grim and Spartan like, with mildew damage, cement and bugs. I quickly became accustomed to toilets without seats, shower or bath with freezing or scalding water (sometimes I bathed out of the bucket to reach acceptable water temperature) – one place had perfect water temperature I think. After few weeks in Malawi I’m not as bothered by bugs and ants as I used to be. I merely flick them off or scoot them away. I was grateful that in all situations at least the toilet flushed without problems, running water, warm but simple beds and rooming with Betty. The Malawian sign for “bath” is the action of splashing water to one shoulder then to the next. The motel menus basically consisted of rice or nsima with chicken or beef and vegetables. Nutritious though.

a brief post....

2009-01-29T10:40:00.005-05:00

Ignore my hair - it's going through an awkward growing-out stage. A couple pictures from Embangwei, a deaf school up north near Mzimba. The painting was hanging in the guest dining area - I love the quirkiness of it. (shoot. the pics failed to upload. will keep trying)

The seven day baseline survey/needs assessment of some deaf students was an eye opening experience for me. I returned Tuesday, settled in a new hostel and now nursing a cold praying that it will not progress into a flu since it's been going around. Next, I will participate and assist with Betty and Deaf Action (Scotland)'s 2nd phase of a six day sign language interpreting training starting this Sunday. It also include religious, medical, and legal themes so the training should be quite interesting.