Billy asked Bill and me to write some notes of our thoughts about Malawi, as he was too busy when he first arrived to make blog entries about an outsider’s first impressions. So, here are my thoughts after a very few days in the country. A couple of days in Blantyre, one of Malawi’s largest cities, and two forays to clinic sites with the Project Peanut Butter staff. Obviously, that hardly makes me a Malawi expert, so you’ll have to take thse observations with a grain of salt …
It’s 6 a.m. as I write these words and Blantyre has come alive. I’ve been listening to the horns tootle and engines roar by on the road nearby. I’ve seen the scene for the past two days and I can envision what is happening outside in the city and countryside.
The streets are fairly teeming with people walking or cycling to work. Malawi is among the poorest countries in the world and few of its people own automobiles. Some people ride in crammed white mini buses, but most people do all their daily traveling on foot. No matter what the size, condition or location of the road, it is sure to have a constant stream of people walking along it. I have never seen so many people on foot. It’s not like the crowds you see at rush hour in the city. It is a steady stream of people who must walk miles in each direction, often in bare feet or worn flip flops, to attend to their daily business. Women have babies tied comfortably on their backs, cradled in colorful chitenjes. They balance amazing configurations of bundles on their heads. And they walk and walk without complaint.
Many vendors move their goods to their little stalls by bicycle. I’ve seen a vendor with four newly made side chairs strapped to his bike. Bundles of wood, charcoal, sugar cane – you see all kinds of things balancing on the back of bicycles, extending far to either side, like a tightrope walker’s pole.
Cars careen through the streets at speeds higher than seems advisable. As the driver approaches pedestrians or cyclists, or zooms past a slower moving car, they tootle their horn. As Billy says, car horns are used “conversationally” in Malawi. Not “get the hell out of my way” like we do in the States, but more “hey, I’m coming up on your right.” Everyone has nerves of steel, for the cars pass within inches of people on foot and bicycle and no one flinches a bit.
There are stores in Blantyre but there are also hundreds of vendors. Each has a minuscule stall – maybe four to six feet wide – from which they sell their wares. The more successful vendors have stalls made of cinderblock with a corrugated metal roof. Most of the stands are built of sticks. Not planks of wood but sticks about an inch in diameter, seemingly lashed together, often listing to one side, looking as if a wee bit too much pressure in any direction would send the whole thing toppling over. Row after row of these stands are set up on muddy clay fields to form the markets for the poor of Malawi.
While the business center of Blantyre is paved, its neighborhoods are likewise built upon rocky, clay streets. The road surface is riddled with deep crevices and boulder-like rocks. Driving on these streets is jarring to both vehicle and passenger. This is true in fairly affluent areas as well as in working class neighborhoods. In the mornings we drove to pick up one of the nurses near her home. She and Billy liked to joke that her street was the worst in Malawi – but one of its side streets looked far worse, more akin to a rock climbing route than anything that a wheeled vehicle should ever traverse. It was startling to see that a fair number of the pedestrians wore business attire – suits, nice dresses, shirt and tie – as they trudged down the muddy, rocky streets to go to work. It must take concerted effort to keep their appearance so crisp and clean when their daily commute is so messy.
Another ubiquitous feature of Blantyre neighborhoods is high walls. In richer neighborhoods, the walls are thick and topped with barbed wire, razor wire or jagged shards of glass. Labor is absurdly cheap in Malawi, so every walled home has a staff of “guards” who open and close the gate for cars of the owner or visitors. As you drive down the street in an affluent neighborhood, it’s as if you’re passing through a bumpy canal, as you are surrounded by high cement walls on both sides of the road.
Poor neighborhoods have their share of walls, too, albeit homemade ones of tall sticks that are lashed together. Coming from the open suburbs of Southern Maryland, where even open fences are rare, it felt like the whole city has a fortress mentality.
It’s easy to understand, though, the need for theft deterrence. The income gap between the haves and the have nots is enormous. By upper middle class American standards, the homes of the “haves” seemed fairly modest. No enormous kitchens with steel appliances and marble countertops. Furniture and walls looked a little worn. But the homes are of a size that would feel comfortable to most Americans. They have electricity, running water and fully functional bathrooms.
In contrast, the poorer neighborhoods are populated with houses that are tiny squares – ten or twelve feet on a side. Probably no running water or electricity in most of them. It’s hard to imagine how a family can survive, much less thrive, in such a confined space.
In the city, begging is fairly common, especially begging from the azungu (white man). In the city, as soon as you step out of your car, you are accosted by someone with his (in my limited experience, the beggars were usually male) hands cupped together at his chest. “Hungry, mama. Hungry.” The staff at Project Peanut Butter made a joint decision not to give alms to any beggars. They felt it warps the economy if able bodied adults – and children who should be in school – learn that the most profitable use of their time is to beg. It was difficult to say no, knowing that we are wealthy beyond the imaginings of these people; but we did abide by the rules that the PPB team have set for themselves.
In the countryside, you see Malawi’s peasant farms struggling against incredible obstacles. There is absolutely no farm equipment. When you see a farmer hoeing the fields, she (usually it is a woman) is doing it by hand, with a homemade hoe. I’m told that Kamuzu Banda, who was the dictator of Malawi for 30 years, in a misguided effort to protect small farmers outlawed heavy farm equipment.
Less than 5% of Malawi’s arable land is irrigated, so there is only one growing season – and that one is vulnerable to the weather. Either too much rain or too little will doom the single harvest for a whole year. Most rural communities lack both paved roads and any sort of motorized transport, so farmers cannot move their own crops to market for sale. They are beholden to the middle man, who can pay low prices to farmers who must unload their crops before they go bad.
So much is broken in Malawi that it’s hard to imagine how to fix it. The infrastructure that supports a robust economy is completely absent – paved roads, public transport, irrigation, a good public health system, a broad electrical grid, industry to provide employment … all lacking. Project Peanut Butter’s Malawian staff says the current president, Bingu wa Mutharika, and his administration have made strides in paving roads and fighting corruption. In the current election, there is much discussion about improving food security for the country. The old ruling party proposes giving fertilizer to every farmer. The current administration proposes investing in irrigation, a more far-sighted solution.
According to Wikipedia, Malawi has made measurable progress in reducing poverty in the last 10 or 15 years. It’s hard for me to imagine what conditions must have been like in the late 80’s if that is the case.I think Billy’s concerns about the dependency that comes from begging can also apply on a national level. This is part of the argument that Dambisa Moyo makes in Dead Aid. I haven’t read her book – only heard about it last night – but I did some research and found some reputable experts* who think she doesn’t really support her argument that foreign aid is what is holding Africa back and should be eliminated in a few years. However, I do think that it’s really important for individuals and countries to be given the tools to eventually stand on their own economically.
So next year I think I’d like to give my contributors a choice of two ways to assist Malawi. Project Peanut Butter or an organization that is dedicated to fostering long term economic growth in the country. I’m thinking of supporting a microlending organization, maybe like http://www.microloanfoundation.org/ which has been set up specifically to help small entrepreneurs in Malawi. They make small loans and require the borrower to take training in setting up and running a little business. They don’t just hand out money; they help to ensure the borrower will be successful. I haven’t really decided yet … just starting to research alternatives.
As Billy mentioned, when he asked us to write, the text just kept flowing … I’ve been about writing a book on my observations. I will send him my Project Peanut Butter notes later. I’ll just say I was really touched by this trip. I am so glad we had the opportunity to visit … to see Malawi and PPB and Billy in action.* Here are two critiques of Moyo’s arguments:http://blogs.cgdev.org/globaldevelopment/2009/03/dambisa-moyo-discovers-key-to-ending-poverty.phphttp://zambian-economist.blogspot.com/2009/03/dead-aid-by-dambisa-moyo-review.html
