ESCOM-The Electric Supply Company of Malawi---or---hey, where's my flashlight?

The following is a short rant regarding one of the biggest problems facing a nation struggling to develop its economy and take care of its people.

The power grid in Malawi is, well, interesting to say the least. As I write this blog, we are in the throws of a scheduled power outage in Lilongwe. It started about an hour ago, at 6:30 in the evening, and will probably last another hour, till 8:30 (for all you math wizzes out there, that makes it 7:30 now). ESCOM’s slogan is "Power All Day, Every Day," for which they are currently being sued by consumer and hotelier groups across the country for false advertising. Everywhere in Malawi has "scheduled" outages every day. In most areas of Lilongwe, the schedule is from 6-8 at night, give or take a half hour (Please not that this is the time when everyone would like to be cooking dinner on their electric stovetops and ovens, as only the very elite rich have bottled gas and/or generators). Now, most people could be understanding of this eventuality. Malawi is a land-locked developing nation with limited resources, and as such, the production of electricity here is almost nonexistent. As far as we have been able to ascertain, the power here is almost entirely imported from South Africa. Because of that, and because maintaining the grid requires cutting people off, they are forced to cut power at certain times to certain areas. The problem is that the outages often occur outside of the scheduled time slots. In Senga Bay, for instance, the power is supposed to be off from 7-9 in the morning (another lousy time to not have power), but often it would be out for 3 or 4 hours in the late afternoon or evening. In Mzuzu last Sunday, the power was off from before we woke up until about 7 at night. Lilongwe, it seems, has the most sporadic outages we have encountered. Keep in mind that Lilongwe is the capital of this country, and a city of close to a million people, and yet, ESCOM just can’t get it right. You just never know when you’re going to have electricity and when you’re not. I’m sure they have "valid" reasons for this behavior, but it seems to me that ESCOM is like a rich 8 year old kid who just got a really cool toy for his birthday. He’ll let you play with it for a couple minutes, but as soon as you get comfortable with it, he rips it from your hands and laughs in your face. A few hours later he’ll let you play with it again, and the cycle continues. The Malawians are, by nature, extremely laid back people, who don’t let much get to them. But even they are frustrated by the power situation in their country. Consumer groups and Hotelier groups in Lilongwe and Blantyre have tried to get answers from ESCOM about the random outages, but ESCOM has yet to come up with them. (By the way, the power has come back on…it’s 8:00 now.) Anyway, I don’t have any answers to this problem aside from firing all the management types and starting over, but that’s not a very good solution. I just wanted to let you in on a little bit of the joy of the 3rd world.
Zicomo Kwambili!
Jarrod

African Tradional Religion vs. Christianity

Well nothing new really going on here in Mzuzu. Jarrod is still working very hard building cabinets for the new bathroom in the guest house. I have been busy sewing and uploading pictures. I figured I would write today to educate all of you on some African Traditional Religion.
Since we have been here I have been very interested in the mixing between Christians and ATR. How some can follow both when most of the time the ATR doesn’t follow Christian beliefs at all. The big argument I have is the understanding that having more then one wife is acceptable. People that will call themselves Christians will take 2,3 even 4 wives and still go to church on Sunday, hear the gospel and not feel convicted of such a thing. To most having more then one wife and many many children with each shows what a man you are. That is also why AIDS spreads so fast, if you are not spreading your seed then you are thought to be less of a man so AIDS or not men feel required to impregnate women to show there wealth, power and manliness.
Now if you would like to read on, I would ask that the younger folks turn there eyes…it gets a little risqué.
Once a young girl reaches puberty, when she gets her first period, she is sent off to learn how to be a proper wife. One of the elders, a man, of the village will take her away and teach her. She will learn how to perform dry sex, no pleasure for a women at all, they will salt themselves, this causes them to swell and makes it more enjoyable for the man. The problem with this is that she can swell so much that the man will tare her vaginal walls and she can form infections and it makes her more susceptible to AIDS. During the time of learning the elder, a 20,30 even 40 year old man will teach the girls this by having sex with them. If the girl happens to fall pregnant (which happens a lot) the elder is not responsible for the baby, he was just doing his job. Now in this case the girl will go home pregnant and if she chooses to keep the baby will now be unfit to marry and her child will be considered and orphan (only one parent). So the family will take her away before the baby comes to stay with family elsewhere in a village that no one knows her to give birth the that child. She will then come home with the baby and her mother with take it as her own. I asked, aren’t the people smart enough to know that the girls mother didn’t have the baby? And the answer I received was well yes but it is just a little secret that people know but don’t talk about. Now the girl is not considered un-pure and is able to wed.
Now this is Chewa ATR there are other practices for both the Angoni and Yao Tribes. I am still learning about these two but from my little understanding they are almost the same.
I think that might be enough for all of you today. If you have questions I can most likely get the answers for you. The ATR vs. Christianity has really sparked my interest and I just wanted to share with you a little of the cultural differences that Jarrod and I have been learning about on of journey here in Malawi.

more pictures

Well i think that i am finally up to date with the photos so check them all out.

I have reached my free limit of photos on Flicker so Jarrod and I have to figure something out with that but we will let you all know.

So enjoy the pictures I hope you like them and get a little taste of all the amazing people and things that we have seen along our journey.

Working in Mzuzu

Sorry that I keep writing blogs but Jarrod has been very busy working on the guest house that he is just to tired at night to type. So no super exciting story book read.

Mzuzu is a very nice place, it is much cooler here because it is up in the mountains but now that summer is starting to set in the temperature has been going up. We have been working on the guest house here on the campus. It was built about 10 years ago but Randy never really liked the lay out. It is perfect for Malawians but for us western folk it just doesn’t work. So Jarrod and Mr. Piele (master mason) have no taken down the walls in the bathroom to make it one large bathroom rather then the 3 stalls that is was. Now that the floor is level and they have a blank space to work in Jarrod started building a large cabinet to go in the corner.
I have been making curtains for the bedrooms and kitchen and cleaning up the other room that don’t need demolition work.
That is really all to report right now. Nothing exciting just another day in Africa.

Cast off the Shackles of Yesterday

Here at the Bible College women are to do women things (cook, clean etc.) Manual Labor is a mans job. It has been very hard for me to adjust here and I have become a little depressed because of my feeling of suppression. But yesterday the man that was helping Jarrod take the walls down at the guest house was out sick so I got to step in and swing the hammer, get dirty and bash out my anger on a concrete floor that didn’t know what it was in for. Man it felt good!!!

weekend at the lake

Well of course since we were staying at the lake we stayed at Cool Runnings, the best place in Senga Bay (I would say Malawi, but I have not seen everything yet) The weather was just perfect, the first thing Jarrod did when we pulled in was run and jump into the lake. Barry is still in Senga Bay, he has been working very hard on the library. It is almost all finished and ready to open the doors to the community. In our absents, he recruited 2 Belgium girls, a British guy and school kids to help finish the work. Tables and chairs have been made by the vocational school and Sumani (of the safe haven), Barry built a reception counter and step stool, chess boards were made by 2 local guys and every one helped hang the rest of the shelves and chicken wire over the windows. It is just such a beautiful place and everyone that walks in seems to be excited for the day that it opens.
We were asked, by Randy, to go to a wedding for him in Salima on Saturday. When we got there, there were 3 weddings going on at the CCAP at the same time. Which apparently is very common to help defray some of the costs. Well I figured that I would use the picture of the “happy couple” (they look miserable in the picture) that Randy gave us. I knew that I could not go by the bride because they change their hair so much it would be hard for me to know so I figured I would go by the groom but ALL of the grooms were about the same build same coloring and bald. So no help there. So we watched each wedding assuming the wedding with blue bridesmaids was ours (but not ever really sure). After the weddings we had 2 hours to kill before the reception so we decided to go check out the library. Once we got to the library and we were talking with Austin, Jarrod’s stomach started to turn and he turned very pale. He quickly said “we have to go home” so we did and did not go back for the reception. (total bummer, I wanted to see who our mystery bride and groom were) Jarrod laid down and felt better by the evening (no worries moms, just the heat and too much coffee and not enough food)
On Sunday we attended Senga Bay Baptist, one of the greatest churches, they seemed to be happy to see us again. Pastor asked Jarrod to preach again but Jarrod explained that were only visiting for the weekend but maybe next time we return to the area. The service was very nice. Pastors sermon was on the 10 commandments a very good basic lesson. It was really great because it seemed like pastor got some sermon lessons from Jarrod’s sermon. He carried himself differently then before and made better points and backed them up better with scripture. He actual broke each commandment down and explained each on and how we (as Malawians, hehe) can follow them. This was a much better sermon then the ones we heard from him before Jarrod started preaching there.
We spent the rest of the day out on the boat. Jarrod, Lonia, Barry and Larry (our new Canadian friend) went snorkeling around lizard island while I took picture and sun bathed. What a relaxing end to a great weekend.

the spider by my window

There are some crazy bugs in Africa. Check out these spiders out side our house in Mzuzu.

A day in Lilongwe

On Thursday the 26th we traveled down to Lilongwe to pick up a women by the name of Lonia. She is in university in Israel and studying drip irrigation. She is traveling different African countries to learn more about the drip irrigation systems they use and problems that they might encounter. Lonia was tipped off by another student to contact the Malawi Project for help in finding drip systems in Malawi, so Dick sent us to go fetch her from the airport. Oh the joys of having a car in Malawi, Jarrod always becomes the chauffer. But for all the mom’s out there she doesn’t seem to have the look of an axe murderer.
We stayed the night in Lilongwe at the Chewa House (the Guest House at Blessings Hospital). We talked a bit about our travels and her travels through Ethiopia while we drank tea and entered data into our computers. She entering study information and I the over 6000 titles and authors for the Para Library (yes, even though we are far from Sam I am still working for her).
In the morning we went down to the Mentendere Village, the 150 child orphanage on the Blessings campus, and talked to their farmer Richard. Mentendere sits down in the valley of the Blessings Complex. The Orphanage was started by the Malawi Project and is now being run by 100x Missions. There are 150 children that live there as true orphans (have no mother or father), there is one house mom to ever 5-7 children. The set up of the compound is just brilliant. The children live in homes with their house mom and each house has a shower and toilet. The grounds also have a library and school rooms plus washing facilities and a very large kitchen and mess hall. The farm that is on the grounds is to just feed the children and the produce from the farm alone has cut their food bill from 90,000 MK a month to 30,000MK a month. There are hopes of having the children farm the land but for right now Richard runs the farm brilliantly. In addition to the spectacular farm and compound there is a large rain water collector that fills during the rainy season and helps to water the crops in the dry season. The Malawi Project had plans to build more rain collectors but the government stepped in and said because they are piped city water they are not aloud to build anymore rain collectors. The Project has done such an amazing job setting this compound up, if you find yourself in Malawi it is a must see.

Lonia got all the info she needed and we were off to Capital City. After some time trying to find the US embassy a nice gentleman told us the way. I understand that this is a 3rd world country and street signs are not always their main focus but you would think the US Embassy would at least have a sign but no the only thing that marked it was a half staff flag (Kennedy) that you could not see from the road because their giant wall covered it.

Lonia and I went in, she had to check on a visa for Kenya, since I had no business to take care of there they would not let me past their little, very cold, waiting room. So I sat their looking at there very American pictures of cow boys and eagles hanging on the wall. Then off to the left was a picture Mr. Obama and Hilary but no Joe. There was clearly a spot for his picture but no one seemed to care to get one. Very funny to me, see even in Malawi they care not to honor a guy from Delaware.
After Lonia was finished we went 2 blocks over to the National library to pick up 4 boxes of books that they had donated to the Para Library. Many of the books were math books and learn to write books but they also gave us those really big children’s books that Mrs. Irvin (my first grade teacher) used to read aloud to the class with. No Misses Wishy Washy but still totally cool.
Once I Tetris styled the trunk and made everything fit so nice and neat we were off to Senga Bay for the weekend. Lonia had a farm to see there and we could spend another sunny weekend at the lake.

women's retreat at CCBC

So we spent our first week and a half in Mzuzu mostly relaxing and using the free Wi-Fi. There was a women’s retreat here our first week. The 240 women that arrived were mostly from this area but some were from as far south as Zomba. In the states most Christian women go on retreats to get away from their family and just relax with other women and learn more about their lives with God. Well not in Malawi, on top of the 240 women there were 56 whole food eating children and many other babies. The Malawian mothers don’t seem to mind their children tagging along. Classes are held with children crying, breast feeding and diaper changes as if the children were not even there. The main study of the week was being Christian wife’s and mothers, how to run a Christian home and village. As an added activity for the women, there were crocheting classes. Marty and I gave out yarn and crocheting needles to every women. (the yarn was donated by the Church of Christ in Georgia) It is just amazing what these women can do, most already knew how to crochet and they would teach the others that didn’t. Marty printed out some different patterns for the ladies and explained to them that they can make money by crocheting things. One women that attended the retreat already has a business making crocheted doilies, she charges 4000 MK (about 28$) for each doilies and she is back ordered. Over the week she found 4 women that were good crotchetier and taught them her design and after the week hired them to help her make her doilies.
The women of Malawi are so amazing. They are strong women that can do almost anything and don’t say a peep. On top of raising the children they are also the cookers, cleaners, farmers, food and fire wood collectors and much more.
In most cases Malawian woman choose their husband, in earlier years if a man had a rough hand this meant he was a hard worker and had crops or land that he harvested so he would make for a good husband, now if a man has a soft hand it means he probably works in an office at a computer and is wealthy from that job so he would be a good husband. If the women’s family approve the man then she can say that he can marry her.
A lot of Malawian women are educated and can successfully run and own their own business. Unlike many other cultures, if a Malawian mother gives birth to a little girl the family feels truly blessed and know that only good can come from it.

in bed in Mzuzu

it has now been 3 weeks since are little adventure through Zambia (time really flies here). We have been staying at the Mzuzu Bible College. It is very nice here a little cold for me but nice. we have a lot more to write but I am very tired and not feeling that great today so i will just have to tell you more later. Just wanted to check in with everyone so that you know we are still alive. Jarrod started work on the guest house here at the college. He is taking down 3 walls (when the staff let him work) I will have more to say a little later.