Owen in Malawi

New Playpump Post

2010-04-12T01:46:00.000-07:00

With the help of some friends, I've put up a couple videos showing a Playpump in action, and getting reactions to the technology from staff at a school. Check it out at:

http://barefooteconomics.ca/2010/04/11/the-playpump-iv-playpump-vs-afridev/

New Blog

2010-02-18T01:14:00.000-08:00

Hey Everyone,

After a lull in blogging while I try to get things set up, I'm almost ready to launch my new blog.

That's right...this blog is finished (although the side will remain up).

The new blog address is: http://hookedonmangos.wordpress.com/

New features include:

- email subscription, so you can get an automagically generated email every time I post something (if you want to)

- nested comments, so I can reply directly to specific questions left in comments, or readers can respond to each others' comments

- a slightly nicer layout

- a more nonsensical name

That's about it. Seemed to be worth the switch though. I've transfered all the old posts over, so from now on, the new blog is the place to find me. Happy reading.

The Ethical Ocean

2010-02-09T01:56:00.001-08:00

Dear blog readers, whoever you are.

Just this week, an old friend asked for my help promoting a new project. Since it’s a really cool project, I figured…sure.

The project is The Ethical Ocean – an online market place for ethically traded goods. Seriously, after trying (unsuccessfully) for months to find a good pair of animal-product free dress shoes last fall, I’m pretty glad this exists. And whether it’s animal-rights, fair trade, or concern for the environment that motivates your shopping, this is the place to look.

So check it out. Explore a little. Help make the first week a success. www.ethicalocean.com

For those who want more detail, below is a message from my friend:

The concept for my site is simple; North Americans are becoming increasingly aware of the importance of how they spend their dollars. Companies like Apple and Cadbury have shifted to focus not only on profit, but also on ethical values like eco-friendly goods and fair trade goods; this speaks volumes of how consumers' mindsets have changed when evaluating products. Unfortunately, shopping according to your values still isn't easy. Businesses selling ethical products, though growing rapidly, are still badly fragmented and it is difficult to consistently purchase a wide range of products that align with what you believe it. That is where Ethical Ocean comes in. My site brings together quality vendors, selling products with ethical values that you care about. I believe strongly that the transformation that will take place in consumerism will be realized as a community action, and Ethical Ocean is built around a community foundation, where buyers, sellers and experts can discuss and interact. Please pay us a visit. I hope you'll find some products that interest you. If you know other people or companies that would also be interested in the site, please pass this message on WIDELY as this is our first day in business!

Sincerely,
David
http://www.ethicalocean.com

Igniting Powder

2010-02-04T23:47:00.001-08:00

Living in Africa has changed me – there’s no doubt about it. From my time in Zambia in 2007, to my current life in Malawi, I’ve benefited from a continual process of incremental growth in almost every aspect of my person: problem solving, resourcefulness, self-awareness, empathy – I could go on and on.

I don’t want to make this too overblown, so let’s take a very simple example. Earlier this week I was cooking dinner at a small house which EWB rents in Lilongwe. From the beginning I thought I smelled burning plastic, but couldn’t figure out why. Eventually, midway through cooking, the cause revealed itself, although not directly.

First, the hotplate that I was using switched off without explanation. I tried tripping the breaker on the powerbar – no luck. Then I tried unplugging the hotplate, and that’s when I figured it out: the smell or burning plastic was from the hotplate’s plug heating up and fusing itself to the powerbar. In my efforts to pry them apart, one of the tines for the hotplates plug snapped off, remaining lodged in the powerbar. Oops.

This was frustrating for a couple reasons. First, because it was ridiculous – cheap imported electrical parts heating up and fusing together. Second, and much more frustrating though, was that I was really really hungry at the time, and was left staring at a half-cooked meal.

A year ago that would have been the end of it. I’d have thrown out the food, or maybe walked to a neighbour’s to borrow their stove. Luckily though, it wasn’t a year ago – and I’d been living in Malawi in the interim.

So, instead, I grabbed a pair of scissors, cut the plug off of the hotplate, peeled back the black outer casing, stripped the inner wires with me teeth, twisted up the exposed copper strands, tripped the ground mechanism in the outlet with a ballpoint pen lid, and shoved the bare wires directly into the wall socket. Ten minutes later I was enjoying a delicious meal. So simple.

This is what I mean by the personal growth I’m enjoying in Malawi. Every day comes with it’s own new set of challenges, and every day I get a little better at meeting them. The regular difficulties of living here become fodder for learning, and the more I get used to being challenged, the more I push myself.

A while ago I was talking to a South African commercial farm manager. He has a couple sons living in the U.S., and he said they’re quickly becoming very successful. He said South Africans living abroad are almost always successful – they come from an environment that’s immensely challenging, but they’re still accountable for regular success. They learn to be resourceful, and to get sh*t done. When they get to the comparatively less challenging environments of North America or Europe, they flourish. It’s not surprising.

The whole thing reminds me of a quote from a book I finished last month, The Count of Monte Cristo. Edmond Dantes, the hero of the story, is talking to the Abbe, his mentor. The Abbe has been imprisoned for years, alone in a dungeon, but still has managed to do many incredible things, including writing an entire book on the unification of Italy. Let’s pick them up in conversation:

‘I was reflecting, in the first place,’ replied Dantes, ‘upon the enormous degree of intelligence and ability you must have employed to reach the high perfection to which you have attained; - if you thus surpass all mankind as a prisoner, what would you not have accomplished as a free man?’

‘Possibly nothing at all; - the overflow of my brain would probably, in a state of freedom, have evaporated in a thousand follies; it needs trouble and difficulty and danger to hollow out various mysterious and hidden mines of human intelligence. Pressure is required, you know, to ignite powder: captivity has collected into one single focus all the floating faculties of my mind; they have come into close contact in the narrow space in which they have been wedged. You know that from the collision of clouds electricity is produced and from electricity comes the lightning from whose flash we have light amid our greatest darkness.’

Of course, I’m not comparing living in Africa to being in prison - however, much of this still resonates. Trouble and difficulty definitely push me to grow as a person. Meanwhile, the concept of “a thousand follies” definitely speaks to my experience living in Canada in between my time in Africa – I try to accomplish too much, I feel like the whole world is at my fingertips, and I end up accomplishing nothing. And, to be honest, when I think back to living in the village in Zambia, without electricity, in a small mud hut, I realize that I read, wrote, and learned more during that time than in any other similar-length period of my life…maybe there is some truth to the “narrow space” idea.

As a final note, I’m not comparing myself to the imprisoned genius from the above quote, nor am I saying that I am reaching some above-average level of intelligence or resourcefulness from living here. I’m just saying that compared to when I’m in Canada, I learn and grow about 100 times faster in Malawi. It’s one of my biggest reasons for staying here.

As for the base I’m starting from or the plateaus I’ve reached – I’ll leave that to those who know me to figure it out – but suffice it to say, it’s nothing particularly special. Maybe give me a couple more years ;)

Loti Ching’oma: Memoirs of a typical villager

2010-02-01T00:49:00.001-08:00

This post was transferred from my old blog. See the original post (with comments) at:

http://thoughtsfrommalawi.blogspot.com/2010/02/loti-chingoma-memoirs-of-typical.html

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Preamble

Loti Ching’oma is a former development worker in Malawi, now studying on a full post-graduate scholarship at the National University of Ireland in Dublin.

Loti read my recent article, Stupid Problems (Pillar Version), after it was reposted on a colleague’s blog. He then wrote this response (also originally published on Colleen’s blog).

I’ve never met Loti, but I thought this response was amazing. Please read it. (Also, small world: Loti probably doesn't know it yet, but I’m good friends with one of his old roommates in Malawi. But I digress).

So, with no further ado, a great article on water access in rural Malawi!

Memoirs of a typical villager

I was born in the village and spent 15 years of my childhood in the village and have some considerable traits of a typical villager. I will not claim that I know or remember everything about those years because the other 15 years I have been staying in town has seen my village mindset being progressively transformed and at times forgetting the everyday hurdles that characterized my upbringing and the familiar villagers’ menu of challenges which Mr. Scott has clearly articulated. My village I believe, had more than 2000 farm families (households). It used to be very big and at that time people used to have more than 6 children per household. So I can approximate that there were at least 12000 people. At the time I was leaving the village to go to town, our village didn’t have a standing water point or Borehole or a protected well.

That was in 1993.

There is river that runs through the village and people used to fetch water from there. However the river used to dry up in the month of August every year. At times like these I used to see several shallow wells dug right in the middle of the river stream. This is where my mum could get water which I proudly drunk, bathed, and used for any activity requiring water.

At some point in 1995, I visited my village and one thing caught my attention. There was a ‘shallow well’ a few meters (15m) behind my dad’s grass thatched house. My mum told me that dad had dug it because the distance was far for her (mayi) and that they thought it would be healthier to drink from this new well unlike the one at the river. Both reasons made sense to me because my memory took me back in time and remembered how she felt ill when a big storm of rain had found her on her way to the common shallow well. About the water being good for drinking, I also 100% shared her opinion at that time, because I remembered when I was a young boy, having let my dad’s 4 cows drink from one of the wells which people used.

I spent five days and saw that the shallow well beside my dad’s house served not only my household but also the surrounding neighbourhood. Mom explained to me that when the shallow well went dry the neighbours came (all of them) to participate in flushing out the mud and deepening it until an aquifer is found and so they were assured that they had water all year round.

Three years later I went back to the village and found that a great number of households had sunk household shallow wells which were fully maintained and running all year round. By the way, there was no water project which facilitated this idea by then.

In 2006, while on leave from my job I paid another visit to the village and found out that the village had been given a borehole (AFRIDEV pump). Just like any other donor funded project it had its own prescribed dos and dont’s. The borehole is located 1.2 km from my dad’s house. I asked mom if she goes to the Borehole to fetch water. She told me ‘yes’! But just for drinking and ‘mostly if visitors like you (meaning myself) are coming’. ‘Of course I knew what she meant.’ I quickly thought about the distance as possible reason why she doesn’t go to the borehole. But I also felt that much as the distance was long, I think she should have managed to go get a 5 litre gallon. At this point I knew there should be another reason (but I didn’t know what it could be by then).

The borehole functioned for two years and its now in ruins but on the other hand my dad’s shallow well and the many others that were there before the borehole are still functioning.

The reasons why the borehole is not functioning are the same as what Mr. Scott has pointed out in his article. The whole questions hinges on how did the borehole get to the village in the first place. Who brought it and how did they bring it?

My opinion is that the idea of bringing boreholes to the villagers is not at all bad and in fact statistics claim huge positive impact in diarrhoea prevention as a result of borehole installation. I agree to this because, I fell the victim to diarrhoea during my childhood days and felt significant change when I moved to town.

However, with all the due respect to all the donors and the government policy makers and indeed all development workers (including myself), it seems to me that something is not right with the way projects are designed, funded, planned, implemented, monitored and evaluated. This may apply at all levels of decision making. In my country, Malawi, where Mr. Scott is working, governments have been changing for the past 46 years. Changing governments have been accompanied by changes in policies as well. We are told, promised and coaxed now and again to believe that Malawi is developing (development means change for the better) and one of the indictors which we are told that we should see is infrastructure.

One of the highly, politicised infrastructure development are these boreholes, which to the best of my knowledge most of them are indeed not functioning. The question that I ask is why are things the way they are? Why is dad’s shallow well of 1995 still there and not the borehole of 2006?

The project documents for water and sanitation are awash with such statements like ‘community participation’, participatory rural appraisal, sustainable development, gender, promote human rights etc. These phrases connect so well such that they form a winning formula to convince the bald headed and highly respected donors where ever they are like CIDA, EU, DANIDA, USAID among others. Of course the donors with all their good intentions fund these projects but some of them tie demands to the aid such that it makes it difficult to be flexible to implement the projects that can leave the desired impact. The end result is that more donor money is spent, more non functional boreholes (standing metal museums) are created, more children and other vulnerable groups are denied the opportunity of drinking safe water, and more hospitals are filled with patients that were supposed to be home and work or go to school.

However there are those people who, in addition to reading about poverty issues in Africa on news papers or watching it on TV in the comfort of their houses abroad, have come down right to our villages eating what we eat, sharing beds with rats and the notorious mosquitoes, and sometimes drinking the very unsafe water, not as spectators but being part of the new chemistry of change.

I don’t know Mr. Scott, but I have been privileged to work with some of the Engineers Without Borders volunteers. Through working with these colleagues I found out that their conceptual model to development brings with it both practical and realistic dimensions, in that not only are they willing to mentor and motivate the working partners, they are also able to highlight and help build basic but fundamental implementation and project monitoring tools. Through such tools, lessons are learnt; hopping that if the provisions for flexibility to the projects’ designs were there, some of the policies would have been reformed, donors would have had a bigger picture of development as seen by a villager, and then more boreholes would by now have been maintained and not added to the list of non functioning ones.

The Second Tragedy of International Development

2010-01-25T11:20:00.001-08:00

This post was transferred from my old blog. See the original post (with comments) at:

http://thoughtsfrommalawi.blogspot.com/2010/01/pillar-article.html

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I wrote the below article for The Pillar, the engineering student newspaper at the University of New Brunswick (where I studied Civil Engineering). A friend recently suggested I share the article on this blog. So here it is. (Also, apologies for going 1.5 months without posting anything).

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DIGESTING DEVELOPMENT
BY OWEN SCOTT ENGINEERS WITHOUT BORDERS

EXPLORING CHANGE Promoting human development and driving extraordinary change requires a solid understanding of the complexities of poverty and the challenges to development that exist in both developing communities and here in Canada. This column examines the work of Engineers Without Borders volunteers, offers examples of new perspectives on old development problems, and shares our learning along the way.

STUPID PROBLEMS
For the almost 6 million people in rural Malawi who lack access to a safe supply of clean water close to their home, a lack of life-sustaining water is a daily challenge.

More than a challenge though, it's also a tragedy.

Without a safe water supply, young children become victim to dehydration from diarrheal diseases, leading to over 11,000 preventable deaths caused by diarrhea every year. That's five times the number of kids under 5 years old in Fredericton, dying every year from something completely preventable.

If that's not a tragedy, then the word has no meaning.

More insidious, but in many ways no less tragic, is the burden of carrying water, which falls almost exclusively on women and girls. Frequently having to travel several kilometers to the nearest water source, women and girls in Malawi lose countless hours, and expend valuable energy, on this inescapable chore. This time and energy could otherwise be spent studying, resting, or growing additional food on the farm, to name only a few alternatives.

Together, these two factors - preventable childhood mortality from diarrheal diseases and chronic fatigue from carrying water - represent what's often called the First Tragedy of international development, poverty itself. The First Tragedy is enough to get people caring. You can take the underlying statistics, add a few sad looking pictures, and start a fundraising campaign. People will donate. People will support your work.

However, all of this neglects the Second Tragedy, the fact that
things don't need to be this way. Over the last 40 years Malawi has received enough investment in its water infrastructure that rural water coverage could be 82% and growing, instead of being at only 50.7% today. The difference would be almost another 4 million people with clean water access.

The problems are simple - too simple. Infuriatingly simple.

The first problem is maintenance - everyone wants to install water infrastructure, no one wants to maintain it. $10,000 pumps sit broken for lack of a $1 part. Rather than repairing them, international donor countries (like Canada) prefer to pour money into new infrastructure. It's a huge wasted opportunity, and it's measured in human lives.

The second problem is planning. Pressured to spend their budgets quickly, organizations don't plan properly for the location of new infrastructure. The result is that some villages end up with more wells than they need, while other villages are chronically ignored.

This bad planning is exacerbated by commonly held views that foreign aid money needs to "get to the ground", leading donors to pressure organizations to minimize overhead - a classic case of confusing efficiency with effectiveness.

The result is...well, bad results.

Poor planning means that money spent on water infrastructure doesn't go as far as it can.

So there it is. The pie chart shows the impact of these stupid problems, lack of planning and lack of maintenance, on water access in Malawi. It shows the Second Tragedy of international development. It shows that we need to get smarter, that we need to use our aid money better. It shows the problems that we're working on at Engineers Without Borders. They're pretty important problems. We could use your help.

Owen Scott is a UNB Civil Engineering graduate working with Engineers Without Borders Water-Point Functionality team in Malawi

Rugby!

2009-12-13T09:58:00.001-08:00

The road to my first rugby game in Malawi was a random one. I was spending a night at a youth hostel in Lilongwe when I saw a rugby ball lying next to the pool. I hadn’t touched one in almost a year, though not for lack of dreaming. I picked it up, and started teaching a friend how to pass it. Before I knew it I was throwing it around with a couple of South African guys who had been sitting nearby. One of them had been living in Southern Malawi for a few years, and knew of some guys who were trying to set up a club side. That’s how I finally found out about rugby in Malawi.

I got some phone numbers and learned that there was touch rugby every Tuesday in Blantyre, and club rugby practice every Thursday. For weeks I wanted to go, but couldn’t because of timing. Finally I gimmicked my schedule to get me into Blantyre on a Tuesday. Great choice. Touch rugby was awesome. And I learned there was a real game planned for three weeks later.

Initially I thought I wouldn’t play. “What if I got injured in Malawi?” Plus I knew I wasn’t in game shape. However, as the thought of playing rugby lingered in the back of my mind, those concerns quickly passed. After about 5 days I got over it and committed to playing in the game.

Gratuitous UNB-Era Rugby Photo (photo: George Wilcox)

The day of the game illustrated a fundamental maxim of life in Malawi: ambition = stress. I woke up with only two missions; buy a mouthguard, get to rugby. I had about 5 hours. You’d think it would be easy. You’d be wrong.

I set off intrepidly by minibus to Blantyre’s main shopping mall to see if the big box store, Game (sort of like a Walmart/Futureshop crossover), sold mouthguards. They didn’t. However, I found a small sports store that did sell them – only they were out of men’s sizes. Passing on a junior mouthguard, I followed their directions to another sports store back in town.

By the time I arrived at the sports store it was about 12:30. I went to the door only to learn that it had closed at 12:00, a standard for Saturdays in Malawi. This was shortly followed with the realization that if I had just gone to this sports store in the first place, I’d already have a mouthguard. Instead I had nothing. Frustrating. (Earlier that day I didn’t even know that the store in question existed.)

Without any other options, I paced back and forth on the sidewalk trying to think: what random item can I boil and convert into a mouthguard? As item after item failed my thought-experiment, stress started building. This was compounded by the fact that Colleen Duncan phoned me to say she was locked out on the porch of the house where we were both staying, and I had the key.

Finally, snap decision, I figured the best bet was to rush back to the mall, get a junior mouthguard from the first store I visited, then boil and mold it until it would fit my mouth. The main purpose of a mouthguard is to prevent concussion (from the shock to your skull of your teeth clicking together on a tough hit), so I figured even a small mouthguard would be infinitely better than having nothing.

Back onto a minibus, retracing my doubly-retraced steps from the morning, I set back off for Chichiri Mall. Arriving quickly, I power-walked my way to a quick mouthguard transaction. I then got back onto a bus – my fifth of the morning – and started back towards town.

After about five minutes, we deviated from the main highway and took a parallel road towards town. Buses do this a lot, and normally it’s no big deal. However, today: big mistake. The road we deviated onto had a filling station on it, and a rumour had spread that the station had fuel. Because of Malawi’s on-going fuel shortage, an absolute mob scene had developed, with both lanes of the road taken up by cars trying to get into the station. Our bus ground to a halt, and I was forced to get out and walk the rest of the way to town, quickly leaving my fellow passengers in my dust.

Reaching town I grabbed anooother minibus, and headed back to the house where Colleen was. Letting her in (finally), I then fired up the stove, moulded my mouthguard with boiling water, and threw together a kit bag. Back on a bus again, we eventually reached the field. By this time, however, it almost seemed anticlimactic – but at least I had a lot of stress-adrenaline to invest into the game.

The whole ordeal, illustrated through a novel technique known as "frustration mapping".

Because I was late, I ended up on the bench. Having been a second string player all through university, I’m no stranger to the bench, but it still sucks. I was also an embarrassment to the sport of rugby. With all my kit stowed away in Canada, I arrived at the game in running shoes, basketball shorts, and a t-shirt. Definitely amateur hour. (Luckily one of the guys helped me out with some cleats, or I’d have really been in trouble).

Beyond this, I should note that I was set to be completely outclassed by the guys I was playing with. Not unsurprisingly I was the only Canadian there. Most of the guys were either from South Africa, Zimbabwe, or the UK. A second string Canadian player, in basketball shorts, against competitive guys from some of the best rugby countries in the world. Let the demolition begin.

Rugby in Malawi. If you look closely you can see me sitting on the sidelines. (Photo: Colleen Duncan)

True to form, when I finally got onto the field (45’ into the 60’ game), I made a complete f’up of my first touch, knocking on a pass at the other team’s 22 – a pass which I could have ran for 10m. Pretty garbage.

Luckily the next touch was better, diving onto a loose ball, again at the 22, and gaining my feet until support got there. From the ensuing ruck my team spun it wide and scored on the far wing. Not nearly as glorious as breaking for 10, but I figure it’s the little things that win rugby games. At least that’s what I tell myself…

From there I didn’t do too much else. One more dive on a loose ball, a couple decent rucks, and one more touch on the last play of the game. We got the important part right though, winning the game 15-14. And we got the even more important part right too, sticking around for beers after.

All in all, pretty fun. As I’m writing I’m back in Canada for the holidays, and I guarantee I will have my rugby kit packed up for the trip back to Malawi. Hopefully this is the start of something.

A Lesson from Laundry

2009-11-23T04:41:00.001-08:00

Yesterday I was in Blantyre, staying the weekend with my colleague Megan. As Sunday is ostensibly my day off, I spent a bit of the morning catching up on some of my chores, namely handwashing my laundry.

After spending over 12 months in southern Africa, handwashing laundry is becoming old news to me. A bit of time invested, some soap, and some effort, and everything was finished pretty painlessly.

However, when it came time to dry it, I hit a snag. Looking outside, I saw that every single clothesline in the yard was covered in clothes – it seems I wans’t the only one with laundry on the mind that Sunday.

Ever resourceful, Megan suggested I take a clothes rack from her room and set that up outside. “Sure,” I thought, “makes sense.” So I did it – I put my clothes on the rack and set it up outside in the sun.

Figure 1: The Aforementioned Clothes Rack

Those who’ve been to Malawi, however, will know that something so unorthodox will never be tolerated here. Within 5 minutes Megan’s neighbour, Peter, came over.

“Owen, your clothes will not dry well unless they are spread out.”

“But there’s no room on the line.”

“Let me move some things for you.”

“Please, don’t worry. I don’t have any pegs anyways. My clothes will dry fine on this rack I think.”

“I’ll give you pegs. Your clothes will not dry well unless they are spread out.”

“Sigh, ok Peter.”

Here’s the thing: Peter was probably right. Clothes will dry faster on a line, where sun and breeze can get to them all easily. The thing was though, I didn’t care. My clothes would also dry on the rack. And I’d already put them on the rack – I felt the problem was solved, I didn’t care about optimizing. Besides, I’m an adult (kind of), I can dry my clothes where I want to.

Think for a second how you would feel in the same situation? Do you like being told how to do things? For a lot of foreigners here, it’s super frustrating. It’s the neighbour telling me how to hang my laundry. It’s a woman correcting me on how I sweep my yard. It’s a kid telling me I’m putting too many onions in the dinner I’m cooking. It happens a lot, and it gets old pretty quick.

If you’re nodding along with me though, if you’re feeling my frustration, then think how people feel when the situation is reversed. Think how people here feel when development workers come and tell them how to grow their crops. When volunteers promote new technologies and new ways of doing things. When foreigners tell them to use condoms, or to wash their hands before eating. Is it really that different?

In the end, people are people. When you have a way of doing something, you don’t want to change. Even if Peter did have a better laundry drying solution for me, my pride and effort was already invested in my laundry drying solution. Changing for him was the same thing as admitting I’d made a mistake.

This kind of thing has huge implications for development work. There are changes people here need to make. In Malawi, with HIV/AIDS prevalence at 20%, and high infant mortality from diarrheal diseases, condom use and handwashing need to take off. But we’re not going to get there without a little empathy on the part of the development community. How do you feel when someone tells you to change the way you do things? When they tell you that your way is wrong. Well, it’s no different for anyone else.

The good news is that there’s light at the end of the tunnel. My 12 months in southern Africa have resulted in dramatically improved laundry washing skills. When I was in Zambia, women and children were correcting me all the time – to my immense frustration. Since coming to Malawi though, the criticism has dried up – I’ve learned. It wasn’t pleasant, but I’ve learned. I can wash my own clothes. Now I just have to learn to dry them…

With a little empathy, with a lot less criticism and a little more understanding, behaviour change like this can be possible – and it can be much more pleasant. In the same way that many foreigners like me have learned to do laundry the “right way”, more people can be convinced to start using condoms, or start washing their hands before meals.

However, it won’t happen unless we realize that frustration with being lectured at, pride in your normal way of doing things, and natural resistance for change is the same for villagers in Malawi as it is for you and me. No one likes to be told that what they’re doing is wrong. No one likes to feel pressured to make a change. No one likes to take their laundry off the rack. But with a little more empathy, and a little more understanding, change is possible. We can make it happen.

A World of Opportunity

2009-11-18T07:21:00.001-08:00

Last year I helped with an online fundraising campaign for EWB, entitled “The Gift of Opportunity”. Through the amazing generosity of friends, family, and even a few strangers, I received support of over $1,000 in a few short weeks, all for EWB’s overseas programs. Also, out of hundreds of participants, I had the 6th most contributors – testament to the amazing people in my life.

Well, we’re at it again. Please think about giving again this year. Friends, colleagues, family, strangers who like this blog – you’re all welcome. Your donations will help make our work overseas possible, and I guarantee your support will be a huge source of personal motivation for me. Every little bit counts.

The following is my campaign write-up for this year, which you can also see by following the blue link above:

This picture shows me with Mr. and Mrs. Moritia, an amazing couple that have hosted me several times since I arrived in Malawi. Each time they’ve treated me as their own – mwana wanga, “my child”. They’re two of the nicest people I’ve ever met. (I’m the one in the middle).

Hello Everyone.

Last year I participated in this campaign and with the help of amazing friends and family (and even a few strangers) we raised over $1000 to help support EWB’s work overseas – work which I have been deeply engaged with ever since.

Connecting Canadians to Africa, and Africans to Canada, is something I am extremely passionate about. It’s why I work so hard on my blog. It’s why I make an effort to connect with EWB chapters as much as possible. It’s a big part of how I think change will happen in Malawi, and it's a big part of my motivation to get up every morning and keep working here.

I dream of a day, however, when connections between Canada and Malawi won’t be so reliant on westerners like me. I dream of a day with more Malawians on the internet, a day with more cell phones in the village, a day where people have more wealth, and more free time. I dream of a day where more Malawians can visit Canada, where Malawian youth have the same opportunities to travel the world that I have. Think about it: young Malawians backpacking Europe on their gap year. It’s a long road to get there, and there are a lot of important issues to address in the interim, but a prosperous, globalized, and connected Africa is a vision I can’t let go of. It’s a vision that gets me through the tough times here, and inspires me during the good ones.

In a recent Munk Debate, held in Toronto, famous Zambian aid-critic Dambisa Moyo made the following remark:

“I’m going to conclude with a comment that a friend of mine from Nigeria made. He said, ‘Why have you bothered to write this book? It’s a complete waste of time, nobody cares.’ And he added, ‘You do know why they give aid, don’t you? Ultimately, it’s because Africa is to development what Mars is to NASA. We spend billions of dollars every year, analyzing, researching, quibbling about data, but ultimately, nobody really believes that we’re going to live on Mars and nobody believes that Africa is actually going to develop.’ “

In many ways I agree with this. We desperately need an aid sector that really believes in a bright future future for Africa, and is working hard to help find creative new ways to get there – we don’t have one right now. However, I disagree with her conclusion that aid should be stopped. I think aid just needs to get better.

I truly believe that EWB is helping to lead this charge; that we’re helping to make aid better. I’m excited to be part of it, and have committed at least a second year of my life as a volunteer in Malawi, continuing to support our work here. I hope you believe in us enough to lend a little support as well. Thanks for anything you might contribute.

http://opportunity.ewb.ca/page/outreach/view/connectedcontributing/Owen (if you’re interested, and I really hope you are, follow this link to donate)

Getting Licensed

2009-11-13T05:52:00.001-08:00

It took me three separate trips to the road traffic office back in March/April before I was finally issued a learner’s permit to ride a motorcycle in Malawi. It was really frustrating. Long waits in line-ups, pressed up against sweaty bodies, sometimes only to find out I was queued in the wrong place. An extremely anticlimactic road safety test (“Which side of the road do we drive on in Malawi?” – seriously, that was it). And a heated encounter with a uniformed man in Lilongwe which led to me being thrown out of the office entirely, and told not to come back. (He wanted a bribe, and I kind of made a mess of the situation too…I just got my license in Blantyre instead.) Quite an experience.

My more recent trip to the road traffic office was much more mundane, but perhaps also more illustrative of the day to day challenges of trying to get things done in Malawi. Bribe requests here are actually quite rare (at least in my experience). Monotony and frustration, on the other hand, are quite common. Anyways, let me get back to the story – you’ll see what I’m talking about.

The ‘recent trip to the road traffic office’ in question came just last week. Six months had come and gone since my original license was issued, and the dreaded moment had come – it was time to get it renewed.

Knowing that the whole place moves at half-speed after lunch, I arrived at the office bright and early, 8:30am. Not knowing where to start, I lined up at room 3, “Enquiries”, which seemed as logical a place to start as any.

Immediately the guy at the desk told me to go down the hall to room 2. I reached the hallway leading to room 2, and found a long queue.

“Is this the queue to room 2?”

“Yes”.

Five minutes later my whole ‘queue’ learns that the real queue leading to room 2 is snaking around the corner and out the door ahead of us, and we’re in a ‘queue to nowhere’. So we give up on our plan and get in the much longer real queue. Oh, and did I mention that both queues were aimed at a closed door with no sign of life inside? Well, they were. The whole thing was starting to feel like a lost cause.

Eventually, however, room 2 opened. Because I was only getting a renewal, I got shuffled to the front, along with a couple other lucky people. We each got given a form.

“Fill this out and take it to room 3.”

“Room 3?!?!? You mean the room I started in? Why can’t you just keep these f’ing forms in room 3? Why the long line-up for room 2, and now the re-line-up for room 3? Gaaaaah!”

That’s what I said in my head anyways. Outwardly I probably just said something like “thanks”. But the frustration was mounting.

For better or for worse though, my frustrating experience was about to be abruptly ended. When i returned to room 3, the guy at the desk was telling the person in front of me that: “The system is down. Come back tomorrow.”

Being next in line, I figured I may as well try to give him my form. He took it, and told me to wait in the hall.

“But isn’t the system down?”, I asked. He confirmed and told me to come back tomorrow. I still wonder what would have happened if I had waited in the hall.

Two days later I get back into Blantyre and visit the office, again early in the morning. I pick my form back up from room 3. Someone has added a stamp and a signature to it. I’m told to take it to room 5.

Room 5 has a huge lineup. I wait for over an hour, then they take my form. It vanishes into the back for a while, then when it comes back out, I’m told to pay 300 Kwacha. I pay the money, they print me a receipt, then I’m told to go back to room 3.

I turn around and walk back to room 3. I get through to the desk pretty quickly. The man at the desk takes my form, scribbles something like “please issue license” on it, then appends his signature. I’m told to go back to room 5.

This starting to seem a little ridiculous to anyone else? Check out my journey in a series of pictures:

Step 1: Short lineup at room 3, then told to go to room 2.

Step 2: Collected a form from room 2 (after a long lineup), then told to go to room 3.

Step 3: Delayed for a day because the system is down. When I return, my form had been signed and stamped in room 3, then I was told to go to room 5.

Step 4: After a very long lineup wait, I paid K300, then was told to go back to room 3.

Step 5: In room 3 my form was signed again, then I was told to go back to room 5.

Step 6: After another long lineup wait, I was finally issued my license.

Wow, what a mess. You see, to me all of this could be done in one room. Basically all that needed to happen was this:

Customer collects a form
Customer fills out that form
Someone with authority signs and stamps it
Customer pays K300
Someone with authority signs to verify that they’ve paid
Customer pays another K1000
Customer gets issued a license

All you’d need to do is the following two things: (1) Put a stack of blank forms in room 5, (2) Put someone with signing authority in room 5. From there you’d now only require customers to queue one time instead of six times. I think it would make the system much faster, and more pleasant for everyone.

On the lighter side though, there’s the story of how I finally got issued the license. By my second journey to room 5, I was getting really tired. One thing I’ve failed to mention is that the day before I’d come down sick, and I was running a 99.8 degree fever this whole time. Not life threatening or anything, but definitely not pleasant.

On this second trip to room 5, I saw sort of an extra window in the room, obviously used for special cases, which had no lineup. Seeing that the real lineup wasn’t getting anywhere, feeling light headed, and sweating pretty bad from the fever, I decided to be a jerk and sidle up to that window. A bit miffed that I had tried to pull this, the guy at the window gave me a look, then greeted me in Chichewa. I think he figured this would deal with the situation.

Instead he got a Chichewa answer back, and lightened up immediately. This led to full on Chichewa banter (simple stuff: how are you, where do you live, etc.), during which he mercifully took my form and started processing it. By now we had a full on audience to this random foreigner speaking Chichewa with the guy at the desk.

At this point the form had got another few signatures, but it was looking like I’d have to go back to the original line to get my final license. However, the Chichewa banter was still going.

We reached a pivotal moment when he asked me if I was married. I told him that I wasn’t. Then he asked me: “when will you marry?”

The trick to Chichewa banter is to always say something, even if it’s fairly meaningless. However, my vocabulary is pretty limited. In this case, I had no idea how to say “I’m not sure when I’ll get married, because I don’t think about it that often. Maybe it’ll happen if/when I find the right person and other things in my life also make it make sense.”

So, instead I just say something random. “2013. I’m going to get married in 2013.”

For whatever reason, the crowd loved this. Everyone in the room was laughing. The guy at the desk was falling over himself. Waters parted. Behind the scenes my form got processed without me having to get back into line. And, instead of people being mad, I was virtually being patted on the back on my way out, with cries of “2013” still echoing behind me. It was one of those situations that makes me love Malawi, even though I felt more than a little guilty for cutting the line. Sometimes a good fever just takes the imperative, and I’m lucky Chichewa banter was there to save me.

A final note: after I got the license, I got delayed again because I couldn’t find fuel for my motorcycle. Due to fixed exchange rate policy (in my opinion at least), Malawi is currently suffering from a major forex shortage, which has crippled fuel imports into the country. As such, many gas stations are dry. The saga of trying to accomplish things here continues…

The Playpump III – “The challenge of good inquiry.”

2009-11-03T07:37:00.001-08:00

The third in a series of posts on the playpump. (Post 1, Post 2, Post 4)

The last couple posts I’ve written on the Playpump seem to be attracting some attention. Good. I think the Playpump is a pretty weak idea, and if I can use social media to get the message out, then so much the better.

Recently I’ve visited a couple more Playpumps and shot more footage. Right now I can’t upload the footage, but maybe sometime in the future it’ll be possible. Stay tuned.

What I can show is some pictures, that I think are deeply illustrative of the challenges of this type of journalism. Each time I’ve visited a Playpump, I’ve always found the same scene: a group of women and children struggling to spin it by hand so they can draw water. I’ve never found anyone playing on it. But, as soon as the foreigner with a camera comes out (aka me), kids get excited. And when they get excited, they start playing. Within 5 minutes, the thing looks like a crazy success. Kids are piling on top of each other to spin around on the wheel, and women can fill their buckets without having to work (although I’ll note that the buckets still fill slowly).

I’ve always figured that as soon as I leave the excitement wears off and the pump reverts back to it’s normal state: being spun manually by women and kids. I’ve heard that kids do occasionally play on it even without camera-bearing foreigners around, but not for long enough to make a serious dent into filling the storage tank. The only really excited spinning I’ve seen is always for the benefit of a foreign guest, aka me. This morning I took a series of photos that I think illustrate the phenomenon. I hope you enjoy:

Photo 1: When we arrived at this pump there were a few women manually drawing water, with a couple of kids sitting around on the ground. Our arrival caused an immediate change to that scene. Kids ran over and started playing. The women relocated to the tap to take advantage of the situation and fill their buckets. This photo was taken about 10 minutes later. By now the excitement had worn off, and most of the kids had moved on. Only a few stragglers were left.

Photo 2: As the saying goes: inquiry is intervention. As soon as a I started taking pictures of the pump (i.e. as soon as I took “photo 1” above), the kids knew it was time to start playing again. As if on cue, they jumped on the wheel and started it spinning.

Photo 3: Now it was really go time. Kids were running from the woodworks. An azungu (foreigner) with a camera must be accommodated. Only a huge crowd of children will suffice. This seems to be a rule that kids in rural Malawi have ingrained into them from birth.

Photo 4: Wow, just like the commercial. Effortless water extraction! A friend who was with me suggested that if we just issued one full-time foreigner with a camera to every Playpump in Malawi, maybe the technology would be a success.

Photo 5: This photo illustrates the problem. To take this photo I used the powers of my magic camera to get the kids away from the pump. It seems that it wasn’t the roundabout that interested them so much as the azungu taking pictures. And what’s that in the background? Women, manually spinning the pump, back to work. All that playing by the kids was only enough to fill a couple buckets, and by now it was business as usual.

Photo 6: The pump, in it’s normal mode of use: women working hard to pump water slowly. Note how hard it was to get this picture. Maybe this is why so many people think the Playpump is a great idea – being a foreigner in rural Africa tends to distort things quite a bit.

The point I’m trying to make is this: if you show up in a community with a Playpump, it will look like a success. Kids will play. Water will flow. But all of this is likely only happening because you are there. And if you can’t ask the right questions, or if you are travelling with a guide who has a vested interest in the technology (e.g. an NGO worker who installs Playpumps), then you will never know the difference. Same goes if you only watch the promotional videos on the Playpump website.

In reality though, this technology is about little playing and slow pumping. I’ve visited 3 now, and each time the women I’ve talked to would prefer to have their old pump back. They’d prefer a functional, simple handpump, that can supply water with little effort. They’d prefer to not have to wrestle around a giant wheel to get water after an already tiring day. Wouldn’t you?

10 Reasons to Work with EWB

2009-10-24T11:07:00.001-07:00

A new round of overseas applications is open. It’s time to get thinking about applying. We could use more great people over here. If you’re reading this, that probably means we could use you. You don’t have to be an engineer to apply. So get on with it.

In the spirit of the season then, I thought I should explain why I think a job overseas with EWB is one of the best things out there, and why I think more people should come here and join us. And I figured why not do it through pictures. Hope it works.

As a disclaimer, I’m only talking about Malawi, because that’s where I live. But I can assume most of this applies to Zambia, Burkina Faso, and Ghana too. Actually I know most of this applies to Zambia because I lived and worked there in 2007. So wherever you might want to end up working with EWB, Malawi or not, start getting excited. Anyways, 10 reasons to work overseas with EWB.

1. Meet Incredible People

This is me with Mr. and Mrs. Moritia. They hosted me for two weeks in a village near Thaboni, in southern Thyolo District. During that two weeks they were the most amazing hosts I could ever ask for. They cooked me great food, introduced me to other people in the village, talked to me when I was bored, gave me space when I seemed to need it, and taught me about their life. It was incredible. From the beginning Mrs. Moritia was referring to me as “Mwana Wanga”, “My Child”, and she really lived up to it. I still go back and see them every chance I get.

2. Experience a New Culture

This picture is of a Gule Wamkulu dancer, performing in a village in rural Chikwawa. Dances like this are a ubiquitous part of Malawi’s culture. The drumming and singing is really fun too. A tourist once told me that she was really upset because she’d heard of these dances, but hadn’t managed to see one. In my head I told her that’s why she should come live here for a while instead of just passing through.

3. See a Beautiful New Country

This photo was taken on the coast of tiny Chizumulu Island, population 3,000, nestled in the heart of Lake Malawi. The island is only accessible by a ferry that comes twice a week, but it’s well worth visiting. I’ve been to few places more beautiful and relaxing in my life. And it’s only one on a list of amazing places worth exploring in Malawi, and in the surrounding countries.

4. Be Part of Interesting Work

This photo shows a volunteer work crew fixing a broken pipe on a gravity fed water scheme in rural Thyolo. We didn’t have any pipe couplers, so they lit a fire, melted one pipe, and jammed the other one inside of it to make a bell socket. The guy on the left, Mr. Chiwaya, is now pulling out the one pipe, while the guy next to him cools the socket end with a wet cloth. Just like that, a bell socket. Working with these guys was really fun, and for a while every day was an adventure.

5. Try New Things with New Friends

This photo shows me learning to cook nsima, with my neighbour and friend Jackline Damaso supervising. Just one of the many cool new things I’ve gotten to try since coming here. Yesterday Jackline and I were talking, and there’s a chance that in November I’m going to travel to her farm in southern Chikwawa and help her with the harvest. The conversation was all in Chichewa, so I’m a bit hazy on the details, but it seems the journey will involve a minibus, a bike taxi, a boat, another bike taxi, and then some walking. Sounds like an adventure in the making. Wish me luck.

6. Work with Great Co-Workers

In the above photo is Mr. Banda, one of the Water Monitoring Assistants I worked closely with in Thyolo, posing next to a tap on a gravity fed water scheme. It’d be hard to find a more positive spirited guy, and he’s also a pretty smart and capable field worker. The two of us spent day after day ripping around rural Thyolo on our motorbikes, meeting with tap committees, trying to sort out problems, and generally having a good time. In the field, there was never a dull moment.

7. Push Your Comfort Zone

On one of my first nights in the village, this is where I slept. At first I wasn’t sure if I’d sleep a wink. After a bit of trying though I got used to it, and slept like a baby. My current bed is quite similar, except it’s only half this size. I’m actually getting jealous looking back. Just one of the many ways an OVS placement can push you. You’re not forced into any of this stuff, and everyone sets their own limits, but if you want it, it’s there. If reed mats aren’t for you, there’s a million other ways to push your comfort zone too. Malawi is a great place to be, but the challenges here are also bigger than anything you can get in Canada. Embracing those challenges is one of the best parts of this experience.

8. Do Some Stuff You Really Don’t See Coming

On the right is Melissa Lefas, a former EWB co-worker of mine, and obviously a friend too. In front her, kind of obscured by bad lighting, is our friend Salim. On the left, rocking the editing software, is our friend Max. Together we’re recording a hip-hop track. Owen Scott on guitar, keyboard, and vocals. Salim and Melissa also on vocals. Max spittin’ rhymes and mixin’ tracks. It actually came out pretty well too. Maybe I’ll share it sometime. This is the side of things that sometimes gets lost in the shuffle, hidden behind tales of village stays and rural living. In truth, Malawi is a very dynamic place. There’s all kinds of interesting and unexpected stuff to do. You just have to get over here to find some of it.

9. Reflect and Grow

No job that I can think of will offer you more opportunity for personal reflection and growth than this one will. No job will offer you with better coaching and mentoring. And no job will offer you more better opportunities to apply that personal growth to new and challenging situations on a real-time basis. This alone makes it worth putting in a few years. Seriously.

10. Make a Difference

Finally we come to the end. The root of things. The foundation. This is what it’s all about. Trying to make a difference for people in Malawi. Trying to create a world of opportunity. Trying to limit the burden of carrying water for women. Trying to limit the burden of preventable water borne disease for children. Trying to help improve water supply in rural Malawi. Trying to help Malawi become more prosperous, with healthy and empowered people leading their own development. This is what we’re working on, hand in hand with Malawian partners, co-workers, and friends. It’s not easy, and you don’t always see the results, but the dream is still enough to keep us going. There’s no better reason to be over here than that. See you soon.

Stupid Problems (That Shouldn’t Exist)

2009-10-11T07:10:00.001-07:00

***This is not an official EWB Publication***

Ok, nothing on this blog is an official publication. Especially this though. This is just my idiosyncratic way of trying to explain our team’s strategic focus.

What team, you might ask? Well, I’m part of EWB’s Malawi Water Supply Team. We have two major focuses. Their common theme, in my opinion, is that each focus is addressing a “stupid problem that shouldn’t exist”. Not coincidentally, these stupid problems relate to the provision of rural water supply in Malawi.

Water Supply: The Current Situation

As of 2005, safe water supply in Malawi could have looked something like this:

Pretty good hey? Actually, very very good. 84%…almost there. However, the problem is this graph is real. Why? The stupid problems.

Stupid Problem 1: Breakdowns

At any given time, a large fraction of water infrastructure in Malawi is non-functional. What fraction? Over 30%. Breakdowns make the situation look like this:

Not as good. Now, I know what you’re thinking: of course infrastructure is going to break down. This is true. However, what makes this a “stupid problem” is that there’s almost no one even working to make sure that these breakdowns are prevented or repaired. The policy in Malawi is Community Based Management. Or, put otherwise, “install it, forget about it…the community will take care of it”. And, about 31% of the time, it doesn’t work out. Kind of a waste. Breakdowns lead to the following equation:

Equation 1: The Effect of Breakdowns on Functionality

Stupid Problem 2: Inequitable Siting

This next problem is even simpler than that of breakdowns. Inequitable siting means that some communities get more water infrastructure than they need, while others remained underserved. It means that sometimes you can find two boreholes within 100m of each other, and other times you can travel kilometers without finding anything. It’s simply an inefficient use of resources. Inequitable siting makes the situation look like this:

Leading to the following equation:

Equation 2: The Effect of Inequitable Siting on Functionality

Summary – Why The Problems are “Stupid”

So, there it is. If only these two stupid problems could be addressed, then we could see a 39% increase in the impact of new water infrastructure in Malawi.

Now, why have I been calling these “stupid problems”? Well, because they’re eminently addressable. Some organizations are making good progress in supporting maintenance of water infrastructure. There have also been successful case studies in data management for more equitable siting. In fact, EWB is working hard on the latter, and exploring the former. These things can be done.

It’s not just that they “can” be done, though. It’s that they’re high leverage. I mean HIGH LEVERAGE. See the diagram:

Seriously High Leverage

By my estimates (note that actually every single number in this post has been “by my estimate”), we can say the following:

Installing a New Borehole w/ Pump: $10,000
Supporting the Repair of a Broken Waterpoint: $19
Improving the Siting of a New Waterpoint: $7

Wow. And yet, people are installing new boreholes like it’s going out of style, and few people are looking at improving siting or maintenance. Meanwhile, many of the new boreholes will go the same way of the old ones: either be sited where they’re not needed, or break down and not get repaired. Either way, potentially another $10,000 wasted.

It’s like: one step forward, 39% of a step back. All because of two stupid problems that shouldn’t exist. That’s why we’re working on these issues.

Random Updates II

2009-10-07T07:45:00.001-07:00

I’ve been thinking recently that my last few posts have been pretty idea oriented. I thought it’d be worth a minute to give a few more updates about my daily life for any “friends and family” types that may be reading this.

1. Where I am

Right now I’m based about 70% of the time in Chikwawa District. Chikwawa is in the south-west of Malawi. I’ve coloured it a shocking share of green on the following map:

Map of Malawi showing Chikwawa. Also shown: Lilongwe (capital city), Blantyre (largest city), Thyolo (district where I used to work), Machinga (district where I work about 20% of the time).

In Chikwawa I’m working with the District Water Office to help them establish a monitoring system for water access in the district. Essentially we’re trying to figure out two things:

where broken water infrastructure it (so it can be fixed)
where underserved areas are (so new infrastructure can be directed to them)

The people I’m working with are awesome, so the work is progressing quite well.

Meanwhile, my home life has me living in a small house about a 40 minute walk from the office. The house is quite small and simple, but at least the rent it good (about $4.50 per month!). It’s also good because being in a more rural setting lets me practice my Chichewa, and also forces me to cook over a fire, and do other things that I might not otherwise experience.

My new house. Pretty cozy. There’s a small ecosystem of bugs sharing it with me right now, but I hope to start winning that battle soon.

2. Malawian Carpentry

If you look at the above photo, you might notice a pretty nice bench in front of my house. It’s perfect for chilling out and playing guitar, cooking food, etc. Definitely beats sitting in the dirt.

In my last house in Thyolo, I definitely fell into the “I’ll only be here for two months” trap. As such, I didn’t buy any of the things I needed to be comfortable like…furniture. Two months sitting on the floor was not fun. This time I was determined not to make the same mistake again.

Little did I realize how easy it would be to address this problem. Yesterday I wandered over to an outdoor carpentry workshop near my office and asked about the price of a bench. K350. About $2.80. “When can it be ready?”

“This afternoon.”

Awesome. Just goes to show that the problem in Malawi is not the skill or work ethic of average people. Seriously, take a look at this thing. Pretty solid for $2.80. I’m having a second one made this week.

Why did I ever live without furniture?

3. Back to School

Well, kind of. My major toss up when deciding to extend my contract was this: grad school, or another year in Malawi. That decision kind of got made for me though, because I wanted to do grad school in economics – I quickly learned I wasn’t qualified for any programs because my undergrad was in engineering.

Well, all that’s about to change. I just got a letter of acceptance after applying for this program, a Diploma in Economics for Graduates from the London School of Economics. What makes it really cool is that I can do the program by correspondence, and that they have a testing center in Malawi. Once I’m finished the program then I should be qualified for a full grad school program in economics, and have learned a tonne of cool stuff too. Problem solved.

4. NHL Hockey

Seriously, it’s killing me not to be home for this. Sens are 1-1 though, so already doing better than last season. I hope it continues. Enjoy it for me.

5. Successes in African Development

This work is really hard sometimes. Some days hope is all that really keeps me going. Hope that something will change.

I saw this link on Twitter the other day. Definitely worth checking out if you have a minute. We rarely talk about the successes in African development, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t exist.

Well, that’s it for this edition of “random updates”. Until next time.

The Playpump II

2009-10-02T04:30:00.001-07:00

The second in a series of posts on the playpump. (Post 1, Post 3, Post 4)

How often do you get to hear about the results of a development project from the people who are actually using it? Not that often. Most of what you hear gets filtered through layers of PR. Well, with post, I’m trying to change that. It might end up being a bit anticlimatic, but read on for an on-the-ground consumer review of a new piece of “development” technology.

I spent last weekend in Blantyre, at a team meeting for EWB, running a high fever the whole time. Monday I was feeling a bit drained, so was definitely glad when the opportunity came up to hitch a ride back to Chikwawa with Joseph, one of my Malawian co-workers, rather than enduring the minibus.

Joseph and I have talked about the Playpump before, and he’s not a huge fan. His feeling is that it’s expensive, hard to maintain, and not as user friendly as a handpump. Is this becoming a familiar refrain yet?

Anyways, as we were driving, low and behold, what did I see on the side of the road but…a Playpump!?!?!

I asked if we could go check it out, and without hesitating Joseph hit the breaks, pulled off the road, and drove us down a dirt path to the towering structure.

When we arrived, there were two women drawing water, with a bunch of kids hanging around. One of the women was locked in a full body struggle getting the wheel to spin (picture her heaving it around with both arms, throwing all of her weight into each motion).

With every rotation I could hear a small splash of water in the tank (about 20ft above), followed by a splash of water into the lady’s bucket on the ground beside us. Because the tank wasn’t full (which I figure they almost never are), the lady was essentially having to exert herself to move the water 20ft upwards, just to have it come back down again. I don’t know what you think, but to me it seemed like a bit of unnecessary extra effort to fill a bucket.

The pump’s storage tank is behind the billboards. Sorry for the dark photo…it was dark outside.

Upon noticing that a foreigner and a Malawian in a pickup truck had just come to see their pump, the kids dutifully climbed onto the wheel and started spinning and laughing. They actually got the thing going really fast – dizzyingly fast in my opinion. After a few minutes they lost interest and climbed off. Maybe I was supposed to give them candy or something.

A bunch of smiling kids and the women, standing with their Playpump.

Joseph and I asked the women some questions about the pump -neither of them were very happy with it. You see, previously at the school there was a handpump. A simple, easy to use technology, that has stood the test of time in water supply everywhere. But when the Playpump came to town, the handpump was removed and replaced to make way for development and progress.

As we were talking, I had the thought to snap a quick video to let you see for yourselves what one of the women thought about this new technology. This is my first stab at the world of documentary film, so apologies for four things:

1. The stuttering quality of my Chichewa. I got kinda nervous being on camera. (not that my Chichewa’s that great anyways).

2. Not really asking that many questions. I only had enough room on my SD Card for a short video, and this was all somewhat unplanned. I think we covered the basics though.

3. Not getting the woman’s name. That was just plain bad manners. Won’t happen again.

4. The darkness. Forgot my floodlights in Blantyre…

Anyways, with no further ado, a quick user-review of the Playpump:

Well, that about sums it up doesn’t it. Anyone want to give this thing another award?

For Lack of a Guitar

2009-10-02T04:25:00.001-07:00

What would the world look like if it was a little bit of a better place? If people had a few more chances? If life was a little easier? If opportunity was a bit more evenly distributed?

When I’m in Lilongwe, I usually stay at a backpacker’s hostel called Mabuya Camp. After being there enough times, I’ve gotten to know most of the staff.

A while ago I promised one of the day guards, George, that I would teach him to play guitar. His first lesson was to be at 6:00pm, an hour after his shift ended. I showed up on time, guitar in hand but, for whatever reason, he’d already gone home. However, one of the night guards, Peter (“Peetah” in Malawi Pronunciation), nearly jumped into the ceiling when saw I had a guitar. He asked if I could teach him to play, so I said sure.

I’ve been playing guitar for over 6 years now, and in that time I’ve taught a fair number of people the basics. Some have gone on to become fairly good, and still play now. Others lost interest within the first 5 minutes. No one, however, has ever learned half as fast as Peter. Not even close.

To be honest, I was completely amazed. Dumbfounded. Most people struggle to play a chord when they’re first learning. He was making the guitar sound good.

I asked him if he’d played before, and he said yes, but not for a long time. Four years ago someone showed him how to play. He got to practice for two months, a couple times a week, and then that was it.

Two months of intermittent practice, and then four years without playing. Not very much to go on. He didn’t even remember the chords. But it didn’t take more than 20 minutes before he had the thing sounding really nice.

The thing is, Peter is obviously a natural. Learning an instrument is about a lot more than moving your fingers. It’s about knowing what good music sounds like. It’s about intuitively being able to understand an instrument and the music it produces - to understand how what you do with your hands relates to what you hear. It’s not easy.

As he was playing, I couldn’t help but think about how good Peter could probably get if he had a guitar of his own to practice on. But he doesn’t.

I don’t know what Mabuya pays, but the typical salary for a guard in Malawi is somewhere between K4,000-K9,000 per month (CDN $31-$69). At best a couple dollars a day. Barely enough for the basics. Certainly not enough to think about a guitar any time soon.

But it goes so much further. Peter could be a great musician, but for lack of the opportunity - for lack of an instrument. For the lack of a guitar. How many other people in the world could be something they’re not, for lack of a few more dollars a day, for lack of a little opportunity? What kind of world could we live in? Would it be a better place? A more interesting place? A happier place? I think so.

If you’re still reading, just take a second to think about this too. Stop what you’re doing, sit back, and press play on this video (turn your volume up nice and loud, because it’s pretty quiet). Listen to Peter playing guitar – his first time in four years – and think about what the world could be like if opportunity was spread a little more evenly. Think about the world we could make.

Peter on Guitar (music starts around 0:25).

Guilt

2009-09-17T04:03:00.001-07:00

This post was transferred from my old blog. See the original post (with comments) at:

http://thoughtsfrommalawi.blogspot.com/2009/09/guilt.html

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This post deserves a preface. I wrote it a couple days ago, first as a journal entry then as a blog post, when I wasn’t feeling too great.

This happens sometimes – part and parcel with my life and work in Malawi. This time, however, I thought it would be worth sharing it. Before reading though, understand that I really do enjoy my life here, and am really committed to the work we do. It’s just a bit of a roller coaster sometimes. Consider this post your front row seat at the side of the track.

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From My Journal

September 15th, 2009, Chikwawa Water Office, 1:01pm

I just got back from one of the local restaurants here in Chikwawa. I went there for a quick bit of lunch – nsima with eggs, and a side of cabbage.

It was probably my third time there, and since my second visit the server, Blessings, has been interested in getting to know me. This time he sat down as I was eating some food to ask me a few questions.

“Kodi mumakonda kusewela pa mpila?”

“Do I Like to play…[something I didn’t understand]?” Not knowing what he’s talking about, I look confused and ask him to say it again. After a few more repetitions of the same thing, he switches to English.

“Do you like to play basketball…volleyball?”

Oooh, he’s asking me what sports I like. I answer that I like to play both basketball and volleyball, but that I’m not very good at either. Based on past experiences, I refrain from trying to explain what ice hockey it.

This sort of conversation carries on for a few minutes. We talk half in English, half in Chichewa. He has a lot of questions, and I answer them as best I can.

“I work in three places: Lilongwe, Machinga, and Chikwawa.”

“I stay with a friend in a house near the junction to Blantyre.”

“No, I don’t come from the same country as Enrique Iglesias, but yes, I do know his music.”

And so on.

I learn a few things about him too. I learn that he lives in the same restaurant where he works. I learn that his home district is Chikwawa. I learn that he’s an orphan.

Since he’s intermittently speaking in English, I figure he’s had some schooling. I’m curious how much though, so I ask.

“Kodi munapita ku sukulu?” (Have you gone to school?)

“Yes,” he answers, “up to form 2.” (Grade 10).

I ask him if he’s going to school now, but he answers no. He doesn’t have money for school fees.

I ask him if he’s saving for school fees from his job, but again he answers no. School feels are K3000 (CDN $23) per term, he tells me, and his job pays only K1500 (CDN $11.50) per month. The money he earns, he says, is only enough to give him the minimum of food and clothing – and he has no relatives left to help him.

As I’m sitting there I’m thinking: “His situation really sucks, and I could so easily help this guy out.” Courtesy of the sparse locations of Malawian banks, I’m carrying enough money in my pocket to pay for this guy’s next four school terms. But, like always, I don’t help him.

Instead, I thank him for the meal, and I get ready to go. “Ndiyenera kupita ku ntchito” - “I have to go to work.”

Thanks for the meal.

And with that I reach into my pocket, and casually hand him a K500 bill – one third of his monthly income. My outward facade is probably not revealing what’s going on inside my head. He gives me K200 in change. I pick up my bag, and I walk out. Back to work.

Back to work. Back to an empty office. Back to helping the district government develop a monitoring system for district water access that’s a million miles removed from directly helping anyone. A system that may or may not ever be institutionalized and used at the district. A system that if used, may or may not result in better planning – better planning that might make only a fraction of a difference for Malawi’s development. Better planning that’ll certainly never help pay the school fees for a guy like Blessings. Don’t get me wrong, I believe in what we’re doing, but we’re up against some pretty big challenges to get it right. And if we get it right, we’ll have still only made a tiny dent in the broader challenges Malawi faces.

Walking away from situations like this, from taking the easy road, from buying away my guilt, I used to tell myself it’s because I’m trying to help solve bigger problems. I used to tell myself that the work I’m doing will help create a better situation for people here, and that that work is more important than individual handouts.

After a while though, that’s worn thin. Now I don’t know what to tell myself. So instead, I say nothing. My capacity for rationalizing these things is gone. But I still walk away.

And sometimes, it’s not that easy.

Standardization (or: On Crazy Pumps)

2009-09-11T04:14:00.001-07:00

Quite a few people seemed to have liked my post on the Playpump a while ago, so I thought I’d share something else.

I was just taking a look at a large data set from a general survey of waterpoint functionality in Malawi, covering most of the country. The survey was completed in 2005. While I was looking at the data, I decided it would be fun to analyze functionality by pump type. Here is what it showed.

Type of Pump	# of Functional	# of Not Functional	Total #	Functionality Rate	Percent Difference from Average
Afridev	17354	4441	21795	79.6%	17.7%
India mark	210	71	281	74.7%	10.5%
Malda	887	333	1220	72.7%	7.5%
Nira	115	54	169	68.0%	0.6%
Vergnet	103	50	153	67.3%	-0.5%
National Mark V	1829	989	2818	64.9%	-4.0%
Maldev	16	10	26	61.5%	-9.0%
Aquadev	53	34	87	60.9%	-9.9%
Climax	107	315	422	25.4%	-62.5%

Total or Average	28912	13840	42752	67.6%	-5.6%

[Disclaimer: the above information is not an official release of anything by anybody. It’s just me goofing around with pivot tables.]

Despite the relatively low functionality rate, the data is still actually fairly promising. Why? Because Malawi has a new handpump standardization policy, which indicates that all new pumps installed in the country must be either Afridev or Malda – at least the two that were chosen are up at the top of the list.

The reason for the policy is to make spare part supply chains more viable (by increasing the volume of demand), to make repairs easier (because mechanics now only have to learn to fix two kinds of pumps), and to ensure that pumps installed are affordably priced and relatively good quality (as far as I know both Afridev and Malda pumps meet these criteria).

So there it is. It seems like the last thing Malawi needs is a new and improved kind of pump. The challenge, in my mind at least, is to get these regulated pumps out to more communities, and to improve systems for regular maintenance. Thoughts?

Halfway but Not Halfway

2009-09-03T14:49:00.000-07:00

Yesterday marked my six month anniversary overseas. Halfway through my placement. But not halfway. Why? Well, I've decided to extend my contract with EWB. In addition to my initial 12 month commitment, I'm commiting to at least another 8 months overseas, possibly another 12. Details are still in discussion. The good news is that this likely means I will be home at Christmas, and will hopefully be seeing many of you.

Beyond blogging, I also spend quite a bit of time writing in my own journal and notes. In honour of this six month occasion, I spent some time tonight reading through some of what I've written.

Given the occasion, I thought it might be fitting to share the first ever journal entry from this trip. In some weird way, it almost says more about my extension decision than anything I could say now. Enjoy.

March 1st, 2009 – Above the Mediterranean

Well, here I am again, on another flight. My three legs of travel are Toronto-Frankfurt (complete), Frankfurt-Johannesburg (in progress), and Johannesburg-Lilongwe. I should be in Lilongwe by tomorrow afternoon.

I’ve traveled a lot before, but I’ve never been away from home for this long – 1 whole year. Thinking about it is really hard.

The question I’ve been asking myself all day, and the question I’m still asking myself, is: why am I doing this? Why am I moving away from so many people I will miss so much? A year is a long time.

I’ve wanted to work in development – to work in Africa – for so long now that I’ve started to lose track of why. The desire and they drive, they’ve simply become a part of who I am, of how I interact with the world. I think it all starts from a fundamental desire to see fairness and equality in the world, and a visceral pain from coming face to face, every morning, with a world where it doesn’t exist.

More than any other generation, we can be the one to see an end to extreme poverty – we can make it happen. Further, people like me can be part of the process of unlocking the potential in Africa and Africans, assisting already intelligent and hard-working people to access more resources, and contributing to a stronger enabling environment for innovation and growth.

I want to be part of that, but more than that, I want to be part of unlocking my own generation’s potential in Canada, the potential to be better global and local citizens). I also want to be active in unlocking my own potential, to be better able to live out my ideals, as well as to be better able to influence others.

I also hope to be able to take some time for learning, and some time for conversation and interaction with a new culture, to further enlighten my understanding of current and ideal conception of the human condition, as well as gain an improved understanding of how social change happens.

This year is not going to be easy, but it is an opportunity to work directly on a way to help end extreme poverty, as well as leveraging that opportunity in order to influence Canada, and to learn and grow as a person.

I hope to use and enjoy this opportunity, and I have to be excited about it. I also have to make sure I keep in good contact with my family and friends. [note: how am I doing?]

The weirdest thing about this, is that one of the values I hold most dear – that no one should have their meaningful relationships with people threatened by factors extrinsic to those relationships – is not actually wholly consistent with my actions. I value other people’s relationships but have chosen to walk away from the most important ones in my life, for a year, to pursue external goals.

I think the only way to reconcile this contradiction is to make my goals here a meaningful part of my relationships back home. I want people to believe in this work. Moreover, through them and their support, I want myself to believe in this work. I want them to believe, like I do, that this is important enough to leave things in Canada behind for a while.

I don’t know where this process will end up, or what that place will look like, but for now I just need to take some first steps: land in Lilongwe, get a cell phone, eat some nsima, make some phone calls home, and start enjoying this opportunity.

About Me

2009-08-26T11:52:00.001-07:00

Well, where to start? I finished a university degree (B.Sc. Civil Engineering, Minor of Arts in International Development Studies from the University of New Brunswick) in April of 2008, and after working a couple jobs in Canada, I set off to work in Malawi with Engineers Without Borders Canada. I’ve been in Malawi since March ‘09, and will be here at least until March ‘10. I work on rural water supply issues.

The last few years of my life have been all about learning – both about the world, and about myself. Not surprisingly, this hasn’t stopped since coming to Malawi. In fact, it’s picked up considerably (including learning a new language). It’s a little hard sometimes, a little uncomfortable sometimes, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. I love it here.

Contact Me

2009-08-26T11:47:00.001-07:00

Whether you know me or not, if you’re reading this, if you want to contact me, please feel free. Questions, comments, hellos, or anything else are completely welcome. Please also feel free to leave comments directly on the blog.

(One thing though: if you’re going to call, please check what time it is in Malawi first. Thanks.)

Email:
owenscott (at) ewb.ca

Twitter:
oweninmalawi

Mobiles (Malawi):
+265 995.479.904 or +265 888.314.840

Mobile (Canada):

+1 613.608.5601

Skype:

owen.m.scott

Ground Mail:
P.O. Box 2207, Lilongwe

About This Blog

2009-08-26T11:38:00.001-07:00

This blog is about my work overseas with Engineers Without Borders (EWB) Canada, and about my life and thoughts more generally. This blog is not an official publication of EWB Canada. Posts on this blog represent my own thinking only, not that of the organization I work for.

To give me the freedom to write for a few different (and possibly distinct) audiences, I’ve split my posts up into 5 different categories.

Thoughts and Stories – The main section of this blog. This has stories about my life in Malawi, and things I’m thinking about relating to my life and work.

Work and Approach – More technical posts about the work I’m doing with EWB and our partners, and about the water supply sector in Malawi. Many of these posts are targeted specifically at EWB members in Canada who want to learn more about our work.

Technology Notes – From the engineer in me, notes about some of the technologies I’m encountering in the water supply sector in Malawi. I figure I have enough nerdy friends that someone will find this interesting.

Backpack Malawi – This country is beautiful, and I think more people should come down here and see it. I don’t get much vacation, but whatever I do manage to see, I’ll share here. Hopefully this will lead to more travelers coming down this way.

Random Thoughts – Things I’m thinking about, that aren’t really related to my life or work in Malawi, but that I think are worth sharing anyways. Call this the “random” category. (That’s why I chose the title).

The Playpump

2009-08-26T05:07:00.001-07:00

The first in a series of posts on the playpump. (Post 2, Post 3, Post 4)

For whatever reason, this morning I got thinking about one of the things I loathe the most in the African rural water supply sector: the Playpump.

What is the Playpump? Well, check it out for yourself. Easily accessible online is a schematic diagram, and a short video. Either one should explain the concept well enough.

Judging by the attention and support it’s getting, apparently this thing seems like a good idea to a lot of people. However, I would disagree.

Why? Well, a few reasons. It’s probably hard – if not impossible – for local mechanics to repair. (Where would you even get spare parts?) It’s also probably kinda awkward to spin that giant wheel if you need water and there’s no kids around to play. Further, as far as financing, advertising revenue is not widely available in rural areas (who would pay for a billboard?). And the list could go on and on.

Critiquing the Playpump on the above grounds, however, is not what I want to do. My problem with the Playpump starts well before the challenges listed above. It starts from the idea itself – or rather the problem that the idea seems to be tacitly trying to solve. I call that idea “the motion”, and I’ve outlined it in the following figure?

Figure 1: The Motion

I mean, come on, is this really what the bottleneck in water supply is: moving a pump handle up and down? Is harnessing the active energy of kids really a meaningful solution?

The problems in rural water supply in Africa are many, but the up-and-down arm motion required to operate a standard pump is not one of them. Some of the real problems are around financing (e.g. getting more $ to install water supply infrastructure), routine repairs, monitoring of water supplies, planning of water supply projects – to name only a few.

The Playpump, in my opinion, does nothing to address these problems (and is in fact regressive on some of them). In a competitive market place, with real incentives and accountability, the idea would probably be thrown to the curb in a heartbeat. Instead, in the development sector it’s gaining traction (10 getting installed in Thyolo apparently – replacing existing functional pumps) and winning awards. Go figure.

A Map

2009-08-24T03:39:00.000-07:00

The following is a map I made of everywhere I've been (e.g. walked around, slept, lived, etc.) in Malawi. I'm going to somehow embed it more permanently in this blog, and update it regularly, but for now I just thought I'd share it as a post. Red pins contain links to blogposts, while blue pins are places I've been, but haven't written about yet.

Hopefully this will help to give a more complete picture about what my life in Malawi is like. (hint: a lot of time on minibuses).

View Where I've Been (Malawi) in a larger map

Sponsor a Borehole

2009-08-17T06:29:00.001-07:00

It goes without saying that most of you have seen the ubiquitous “sponsor a child” commercials. For most people in Canada, they’re (sadly) a principle source of insight into Africa. They’re also a very effective fundraising tool.

Well, why not sponsor a borehole? Boreholes need help too. And they provide water for children. This started out as a bit of a joke, and it’s still kind of a joke, but I did realize some interesting things along the way.

Sponsor a child programs don’t actually work by “sponsoring a child”. Your money gets pooled into a fund which then goes towards community projects. Children who live in those communities get photographed and profiled for sponsorship, and get other special attention (like gifts, etc).

By the same logic, you could run a “sponsor a borehole” project, without people’s actual money having to go to a specific borehole. The project could be for a whole district, doing general borehole maintenance, and with “sponsored” boreholes serving as the main source of funds.

Who do you think will earn more money?

So, how much would it cost? Well, I ran some numbers. The organization these come from is one of the best in Malawi at helping communities operate and maintain boreholes. However, the numbers are also extremely unofficial. Remember, just for fun.

The average annual cost per district (excluding national overhead) of running the borehole maintenance program is about $7,684/year. During that year, using a network of area mechanics, about 400 borehole repairs are facilitated. Meaning, $19.21 per borehole repair.

So, for only 5 cents per day, you could sponsor the repair of a broken down borehole.

Getting a bit off topic now, but these numbers make me think of it: why are so many people drilling new boreholes anyways? Operational budget to facilitate the repair of 400 boreholes: $7,684/year. Cost of drilling one new borehole: $10,000. And yet, everyone is drilling boreholes, and very few people are working on repairing and maintaining them.

What a crazy world. Better get started on my sponsorship project…

How It Works

2009-08-14T10:07:00.001-07:00

I spent my first three months here in Malawi working with gravity fed water systems. Taking advantage of my new cartoon drawing kick, I thought I’d take a few minutes to explain how one works.

The pictures I used are from a real gravity fed system, but obviously the cartoon schematic below is not accurate or to scale. I just drew it to try to show all the fundamental elements of a system, and how they fit together.

1. The Intake

There are two major types of intakes: river intakes and spring intakes. A river intake involves damming a small river. Water pools behind the concrete dam, and then flows into a pipe. Excess water overflows the dam and continues down the river.

A river intake on the Sankhulani scheme, shown with Mr. Alizeo (repair team member) and Mr. Utumbe (government water supervisor).

A spring intake involves finding a spring right where it bubbles up on the ground, and capping it to protect it from external contamination. All of the water then goes into a pipe and down into the system.

A spring intake on the Sankhulani scheme.

2. Screening Tank

Sorry, I don’t actually have a picture of one of these. The basic purpose of a screening tank is to get sediment and other debris out of the water before it goes to people’s taps. It’s been a while since I’ve seen one, but this is a (very) rough approximation of how it works.

A “schematic” of a screening tank. Water flows in one side, debris settle to the bottom, and water flows out the other. A dividing wall in the middle eliminates water flow at the bottom of the tank, ensuring that debris settle.

3. Sedimentation Tank

On most of the scheme’s I’ve worked with, I don’t think there’s really any design difference between a sedimentation tank and a storage tank. A sedimentation tank is basically just a big tank where any sediment that makes it past the screening tank can settle to the bottom.

Mr. Friday (Sankhulani scheme repair team member), cracking open the hatch on a sedimentation tank.

4. Break Pressure Tank

Water flowing downhill can build up a lot of pressure. Excess pressure can damage taps, break pipe connections, and cause all kinds other problems. That’s why break pressure tanks are used to reduce water pressure. They’re very simple. Water flows into a concrete tank, hits the far wall, sloshes around a lot, and then flows out the other side. Goodbye pressure.

Mr. Alizeo and Mr. Utumbe opening up a break pressure tank. The concrete slab in front of the tank has a valve under it, in case you want to shut off water flowing into the tank. The top pipe on the right is an overflow pipe, and the bottom one is an outlet pipe (for draining the tank before cleaning).

The inside of the tank. The pipe on the right is the inflow, the pipe on the left is the outflow. Notice that they’re not directly aligned, ensuring that the water will have to slosh around in the tank before flowing out. The pipe at the top of the picture is the outlet pipe for cleaning.

5. River Crossing

Most gravity fed water systems have many river crossings, which are like Achilles' Heels for the systems. During heavy rains, trees frequently wash down the river, knocking out the pipes. When the pipes get knocked out, whole sections of the system lose water, and repairs usually can’t be done for months (until the rains slow down). Without water, people stop paying monthly contributions, meaning that there’s less money available to do the repair when the time comes. Dealing with river crossings is definitely a tough gig for scheme management.

A river crossing. (Note: crossings are supposed to be done with galvanized steel pipe to reduce the risk of washout, but once that pipe gets washed out, it often gets replaced with PVC, increasing the risk of a washout next year.)

6. Air Valve

Although these systems are powered by gravity, water still sometimes has to flow uphill. (See the first schematic). When it does, there is a risk of air getting caught in the pipe. If air does get caught in the pipe, it essentially gets trapped (since it can’t flow through the water), builds up pressure, and blocks flow. It can sometimes also burst the pipe.

To prevent this, air valves are used to let the air out of the pipe. I’m not sure how they work exactly (I’d love to take one apart some day, but the chance hasn’t come up) but somehow they allow air to exit the pipe but not water.

Mr. Friday inspecting an air valve that’s obviously broken. This picture gives a good idea of why it’s broken: too much water pressure. The valve pretty much just flew off, but we found it close by. See the next picture for Mr. Friday’s clutch repair strategy.

All better, assuming the water pressure never gets strong enough to knock these rocks off. The pipe at the bottom is the main line for the system. The riser coming off of it is leads to the air valve.

7. Storage Tank

Think you can take a guess at this one? Well, you’re right. A storage tank is pretty much what you’d think it is: a tank for storing water. This helps regulate water pressure in the system, and also ensures that taps towards the end of the line have water even when flow from the intake is low.

There it is. A storage tank. The pipes coming out of the top allow air to get out when the water flows in (and vice versa) preventing air locking.

Inside the storage tank. One of the echoier places I’ve ever been.

8. Water Tap

Finally, a water tap. The point to these systems. Where the magic happens.

The big gravity fed schemes in Thyolo, where I was working, have between 80 and 100 taps each. This gives communities way denser water coverage than drilling boreholes (one borehole with a pump costs around $10,000, so you have to be sparing with them) meaning women and children have to spend less time walking each day to fetch water. The water is also usually safer than what’s available form traditional sources.

A water tap on the Sankhulani scheme. To give an idea of scale, the intake for the system is on the far side of that forested mountain in the background. To further that idea of scale, this tap is only about halfway down to the end of the system. These things are big.

A water tap on a smaller system in Thyolo, this time with community members posed for a photo. Nice.

Well, hope that was interesting. Gravity fed systems are an example of a pretty simple technology (just simple pipes and concrete) that can make a pretty big difference in people’s lives. Keep in mind though, these things need to be maintained. Imagine cleaning all those tanks, fixing all the breakages, searching along kilometers of underground mainline every time there’s a leak. And it’s all up to community volunteers. It says something about the strength and work ethic of Malawians that these things ever keep running.

The Case for Ladders

2009-08-11T23:23:00.001-07:00

This post was transferred from my old blog. See the original post (with comments) at:

http://thoughtsfrommalawi.blogspot.com/2009/08/case-for-ladders.html

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The first in a series on leadership and HR in Malawi.

I spend a lot of my time thinking about development in Malawi. So do a lot of my co-workers. Recently, I’ve had some thoughts that I think are worth sharing. Talking about development can be a bit boring sometimes though, so I figured I’d use cartoons. Hope it helps.

Picture 1 – The Ideal Situation

The key to this picture is that the person driving the car is Malawian (the car is being driven along the road to development…it’s a metaphor) . I think having Malawians (competently) running this show is good for two main reasons.

1. The Philosophical Reason.

It’s easy to say the word “development”, but it’s a lot harder to know what it means. Development is about social change – getting from somewhere to somewhere else. It gets complicated because not everyone can agree where that “somewhere else” is. I think, then, that it makes sense then to have the people driving this process be from the society that’s being transformed. This is what I mean by “self-determination” on the above road sign, and I feel it’s valuable in its own right.

2. The Pragmatic Reason

Not surprisingly, there are a lot of Malawians in Malawi, and most of them will stay here for their whole life. Also not surprisingly, these Malawians speak local languages and understand local norms and culture.

Meanwhile, there are very few foreigners in Malawi, most of whom don’t speak local languages, and almost all of these foreigners will stay here for less than 5 years. Given the above, if Malawians were the core of the “development” process, if they were driving things, if they were (competently) in charge, I think a lot more would get done.

Picture 2: The Current Situation

The problem is, however, that most Malawians are not driving the metaphorical development car. Most Malawians are not starting medium/large businesses, are not driving NGO policy, and are not engaged in dialogue around national development. For most Malawians, that car is on a cliff, and they don’t have a way up there. To start driving their own development, they could really use a ladder. (FYI, I know this is simplified, and I will elaborate on it in future posts … that’s why this is “the first in a series”)

That ladder could take many forms. It could be money to pay for education. It could be capital to start a business. It could be leadership training to really be able to manage an NGO. It could be work experience to learn new attitudes and skills. It could be confidence from having received positive feedback. It could be a lot of things. But for many people here, that ladder is not available, and for that reason, someone else usually ends up driving the car - often travelling too slowly to the wrong place.

Picture 3: Another Philosophical Note

While some of this post also relates to skills and experience, what I’m talking about here is leadership development. Whenever you start talking about leadership development in Malawi, you often get asked “leadership development for what?”. In a lot of ways this is a really great question, and one we need to be asking. However, in other ways, its pretty dangerous.

The danger comes from two things. Firstly, this is a bit of a throwback to an old-school mechanistic way of thinking. That way of thinking says that if we’re going to invest resources, we should have some clear and measurable intended outcome. That way of thinking has been the norm in development for the past 40 years. And while it still can be valuable, in many ways that way of thinking has failed.

Secondly, the question “leadership development for what” ignores half of my premise for why this is important in the first place: development should be a process of self-determination. So, in a way, leadership development work (and skills development work, etc.) should be seen as a way of helping Malawians do whatever they think is good for Malawi, not what we think they should think is good for Malawi. It’s a hard thing to let go of though.

4. The Way Forward (sadly putting philosophy aside)

I think getting more people up that ladder, so they can drive that car, is the way forward for development assistance. I’m tired of foreign driven NGOs trying to determine what “should” happen in Malawi, while also consistently failing to make it happen. It’s time to put Malawians in the driver’s seat, help them get the ideas, education, and experiences to make good things happen, and then let those good things emerge on their own. That is the way I see development actually working – the role of the development sector should be helping to get people that ladder.

In accomplishing this though, there is a place for pragmatism. Despite my lofty philosophical points about self-determination, in the end this new approach for development would still be about allocating finite resources, and thus there is a (partial) role for mechanistic “cause-effect” thinking.

Take a hypothetical example. You have two promising youth, both smart, both with extremely high potential. You have enough money for one scholarship. One of the youths wants to study English Literature, the other one wants to do an MBA. My gut call would be that the one doing the MBA will contribute more to creating a future where many talented Malawian youth can study both English Literature and MBAs than the one studying English Lit. So maybe there should be a bias there.

This bias is why I drew the above picture with a car on the road to the “ladder factory”. For now, it’s worth thinking about what cliffs we help people climb. Thus unfortunately “leadership development for what?” isn’t a dead question yet. We just need to make sure it doesn’t jeopardize freedom and self-determination.

This is a new approach to development. It exists in rhetoric, and in a few scattered programs, but for the most part “development work” is still about running programs designed or mandated from the outside, with concrete on-the-ground “cause-effect” type objectives. And, for the most part, development assistance is not really working.

In my mind then, development assistance should be about using our resources to give real concrete support (in the form of educational assistance, experiential opportunities, leadership development, etc.) to promising Malawians who can then really help drive development themselves. From this, a more successful, and more self-determined development process could emerge. I think this would be a much more successful use of resources than what’s currently being done in the development sector. As always though, I’d be curious to hear what other people think.

Trying to Maintain

2009-08-10T01:40:00.001-07:00

Over the past couple years, EWB has shifted from a individual placement approach to a team approach. This means that my past work in Thyolo, and the work I’ll be doing in the future, is not stand-alone. It’s part of a team effort, involving 2 other current volunteers, and several past volunteers too.

The issue we’re working on is called operation and maintenance (O&M), and when you get into it, it’s really a nightmare. O&M deals with the ability of people or institutions in Malawi to repair and maintain water sources. Right now, that ability isn’t too hot.

Researchers estimate that in Malawi, at any given time, 30%-50% of improved water sources (e.g. protected shallow wells, boreholes, taps from gravity fed systems) are broken down. My own field experience has confirmed the number at around 50%. Imagine…50% failure!

For every $1 that gets put into water, $0.50 ends up wasted – contributing to nothing more than a few years use and then a broken pump or tap. Worse, almost no one is dealing with this issue – which is why EWB is trying to step up to the plate.

The following pictures is my foil, my nemesis, my torment – a broken handpump. (In this case a broken AfriDev handpump, installed in 2004).

The aforementioned broken handpump / arch nemesis.

The date of installation, just so you know that I’m not making this stuff up. (Unless you think I’ve got a lot of cement, and a lot of free time).

There are waaaayyyyyy too many reasons why these once innocent and wide-eyed handpumps end up in this kind of mess. So, welcome to a new post series: “Why Pumps Fail”.

(Bonus points for submitting more creative title suggestions. My first tries: “Pumped Up – Let Down: Distress and Disappointment in Community Water Supply”. Or maybe: “Washed Away: How Dreams of Safe Water Turn to Dust”. Anyways.)

With no further ado, the brief introductory issue of:

Why Pumps Fail (Part 1) or

Pumped Up – Let Down: Distress and Disappointment in Community Water

Today, the thing on my mind is community ownership versus private ownership.

In Malawi the target for people/pump is 250, meaning 250 people are responsible for using and maintaining 1 pump. Ok. What if they don’t all know each other? What if the pump is between two villages, and there is no coherent “community”? What if no one in the community feels like going to the trouble of collecting monthly payments, and doing repairs? What if the village headmen is an irresponsible drunk, and sabotages the whole process? What if the four most active and responsible people in the community are already on five other committees? And the list goes on.

Studies have shown that even if people feel “ownership” of their water supply, that doesn’t mean they’ll maintain it. Ownership does not eliminate the million problems that are created when that ownership is collective ownership.

Individual ownership – household level water supply – typically works much better. If you promote household level water technologies, and get households to pay for them, you’re much more likely to see them maintained.

Just think about it in Canada. If the tap in your kitchen breaks, you’d probably fix it. But if the watermain on your street broke? What would it take to get you and all your neighbours out on the street, chipping in money, buying spare parts, and fixing the problem. I’d be willing to bet just about anything it wouldn’t happen. But you’d all fix your kitchen sinks. Ownership, not collective ownership.

But hey, not every household in Malawi can afford to pay for its own water supply. And now how could we ever promote something, like household water supply technologies, that could actually work, if it won’t benefit everyone. That’s not the development way. Water is a right. Better to build a community managed hand pump that has a 50% chance of failure than to even think of promoting household level technologies that will be unevenly distributed. After all, since we’re not trying to make money, we have no real incentives anyways, so who cares if our project fails. At least we tried to do the right thing.

Ok, I’m being facetious now, and maybe even dangerously sarcastic. Community managed water can work. Right now it just doesn’t…50% of the time anyways. Where else but the African development sector could you have failure rates like that without losing your funding. But I digress. (Oh, and as a further digression, the “we” in the previous paragraph was a hypothetical “we” representing the development sector, not a specific “we” representing EWB or anyone I’ve worked with here).

Anyways, if you’re still interested in this stuff, then check out a short, powerful, and tangentially related read from a former EWB volunteer. I’m becoming more and more sympathetic with this kind of thing every day. Enjoy.

http://www.cashewman.com/2009/08/8-reasons-to-charge-people-for-your-development-solution/

Ok, enough. Happy reading.

Owen

Got an Hour?

2009-08-07T00:12:00.001-07:00

This post was transferred from my old blog. See the original post (with comments) at:

http://thoughtsfrommalawi.blogspot.com/2009/08/got-hour.html

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I’m usually against memorization exercises in school, but I really feel one place the Canadian school system could use more of them is in geography.

How many countries in Africa can you name? You know I’m working in Malawi (hopefully), but how fast can you find Malawi on a map?

Well, give it a try. Seriously, if you’re from my generation, and you’re on a computer reading this, then we both know you’re probably just killing time. So kill a little more, and learn something while you’re at it.

http://www.purposegames.com/game/countries-of-africa-quiz

This game helped me go from knowing a couple countries in Africa, to being able to find them all easily – and it didn’t take long at all. Give it a try. Then, next time you hear about Togo, Djibouti, or Swaziland on the news, you’ll know the location their talking about.

More posts coming. I think I’m back in blogging action.

Owen

Safari Styles

2009-08-03T04:48:00.001-07:00

This post was transferred from my old blog. See the original post (with comments) at:

http://thoughtsfrommalawi.blogspot.com/2009/08/safari-styles.html

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Hey Everyone,

Sorry for the long delay between real blog posts. A lull in my motivation happened to coincide with a spike in my work-load, which has made it a bit challenging to get anything written in the last while.

Anyways though, I think it’s about time to put up some pictures from my first every safari. After a net time in Africa of about 6.5 months (counting my JF placement in Zambia in ‘07), in mid June I finally bit the bullet and went to see some animals. The story leading up to it is probably worth telling too though.

With the weekend approaching we knew we wanted to go somewhere, but were debating exactly where to go. Liwonde National Park, a small but popular place, close to Blantyre, was high on the list. Still, I think we needed something to kick us into high gear, blast away the Thyolo-induced inertia, and really make sure we were on a bus by Saturday morning.

Luckily, that something came a day early. For all of Thursday, my nose had been a bit swollen. It was annoying, and painful if I pressed on it (which, being human, I obviously did about every 5 minutes) but no big deal. However, I woke up Friday morning and, first thing, realized I could barely open my right eye. My photo-in-lieu-of-mirror indicated that my eye was, indeed, super swollen.

Self-portrait eye examination to start the day. My facial expression is probably trying to convey the following message: “I’m tired, I just woke up, why the f’ is my eye so swollen.”

As the day went on, the eye didn’t get any better. In the afternoon I took off from work to go to the Thyolo District Hospital, but found a crazy long line-up of people waiting for admission to an office that didn’t have anyone in it. Someone told me they’d all been waiting since morning. Not feeling like joining this mess, I decided that since we do have pretty rock-star health insurance through EWB, a trip to the private clinic in Blantyre was probably in order.

Long story short, at the private clinic the doctor said it didn’t look like an infection, and it was probably a bite. He “prescribed” some over the counter anti-inflammatories, and said to come back in a few days if the swelling hadn’t gone down.

Over the course of the weekend the swelling did come down – by pouring out my nose in a slow, clear, runny mess. It was a nice experience. Further inspection also revealed a small bit mark under the eye, close to my nose. There are few things as heartwarming as the thought of swelling-inducing bugs biting your face while you’re asleep…

Another self-portrait-in-lieu-of-mirror later that night. You can see that the general facial swelling had come down, better highlighting the localized eye swelling. Nice.

Ok, so, the good news in all of this was that the private clinic trip got us halfway to Liwonde National Park. We weren’t out of the woods yet though.

The next morning we took off around 8:30, hoping to get to Liwonde early. However, the minibus we found wasn’t filling up fast. Luckily, it compensated for this with ridiculousness.

In Malawi, busses don’t leave until they’re full. Everyone knows they don’t leave until they’re full. However, sometimes they still feel the need to rev their engines, honk their horns, pull in and out of the parking space – basically trying to do anything they can to trick their foolish passengers into thinking they’re about to leave, so they don’t hop on another bus.

Our bus was even more ridiculous. Its battery was too weak to be able to rev the engine at will, so they had a team of people push-starting the bus out of the parking space, only so it could drive 20 feet, stop, honk the horn, and then back up to where it started. This happened a few times, and each time the bus had a little more trouble starting than the time before. We began to wonder whether the bus could actually make it to Liwonde.

Shortly after the bus finally left, our suspicions were confirmed. The bus didn’t make it more than 1 km before breaking down on the side of the road, still well within Blantyre. True to form though, they didn’t let us off right away (which would mean losing the potential income from our fares). Instead, the conductor barred the door, while they tried to fix it.

Finally, we got frustrated, and bailed off the bus. We immediately managed to flag down another one, hoping to get to Liwonde before it was too late. Unfortunately our first conductor thought this was a breach of mini-bus ethics, and started yelling at the driver of our new bus. The driver wasn’t very impressed, and started driving away, at which point our conductor hopped on to the bus too, to better continue his yelling. When yelling was no longer enough, he then decided to start punching the driver of our bus in the face. Our driver responded by aiming wild punches back at the conductor – all while continuing to drive down the busy streets of Blantyre. So, here we were, sitting in the back of a bus being driven through the downtown of a large city, while our driver is actively engaged in a fist fight. Just another day in Malawi…

Long story short, after waiting for our new bus to load, and a few more random delays, we eventually made it to the city of Liwonde, probably around 2:30. It was at this point that we realized we’d made a few mistakes – we didn’t have a guidebook, we didn’t know the names of any of the places to stay in the park, we didn’t have a way to get transport to the park, and we didn’t have any money. Travel planning at its best.

The money bit, luckily, was easy. There turned out to be a bank in Liwonde, and we just had to walk for about 25 minutes to get there. No big deal.

As for the rest…what are friends for. I phoned up Alynne and Garrett, two EWB volunteers, who interrupted their lunch, busted out a laptop, fired up the Lonely Planet pdf for Southern Africa, and got us the name of a lodge – Chinguni Hills – that caters to the backpacker crowd. I called Chinguni and they said that their car was in Liwonde, and so if we could meet it, they’d drive us in for free. We got there just in time for the 4:00pm sunset safari drive. Luck, thy name is Liwonde.

Liwonde park was really awesome, and Chinguni Hills was beautiful. Before we even got to the lodge, we’d already seen a herd of elephants. We did the sunset safari drive, saw a bunch more animals, and then woke up the next morning for a canoe safari on the Shire River before booking it back to Thyolo. In between, we were served wicked meals in a fun communal dining room with all the other guests. Good stuff – highly recommended to anyone.

Anyways, writing about the trip to our safari was fun, but writing about the safari itself is probably unnecessary. I’ll let the pictures (and captions) do the talking. Apologies for my cheap camera and lack of skills. Either way though, enjoy.

Elephants on our drive in, totally debunking my suspicion that Malawi doesn’t have African-style animals.

They didn’t call it a “sunset drive” for nothing.

The rare Hiphopopotomus.

Multiple hippos. Chillin'

Hippo out on land. Apparently we were lucky to see them out this early. Usually they hide until night.

Dorms at Chinguni. $15/night isn’t too bad when you’re in a park. I think most lodges charge in the hundreds.

Beth looking like a total safari dork on the river trip, along with our guide in the background. (They gave us the hats and binos). Stay tuned next week for a picture of Beth looking angry because she found out that I put her safari dork photo on the internet.

Shoreline elephants plus beautiful scenery.

Hippopotami in the water. (Can’t believe I spelled that right. First try.)

Illegal fishermen and hippos – something for everyone.

Giant-Ask Termite Mound. (I kept thinking how much it would suck if you were skydiving and accidentally landed in one of these).

Awwwwwwwwwwww.

Baboon or monkey or something, playing it cool behind Chiguni Lodge.

Dining room at Chinguni. Pretty nice communal meal scene.

Relaxin’ room at Chinguni. Also pretty chill.

Ok, just a quick note that I left out. On the first night, when we were walking from the dining room to the dorms (about a 5 minute walk), buddy we were walking with came like 1 foot from stepping on a giant snake. He freaked out and yelled, and then we shone the lights, and just see this giant snake, all coiled up and hissing and stuff. Luckily Liwonde’s only about a 15 minute drive from a hospital, so he’d probably have been fine. Might have lost the leg though…

Anyways, awesome time, fun safari. It kind of felt like a commando operation: in one afternoon, out the next. Good fun though, and I’m glad I’ve finally seen some animals.

For anyone who’s curious, the dorms cost $15/night, dinner cost another $15, breakfast cost like $8 or something, and each safari trip cost $25. So, all told, it ran about $88 for an overnight, meals, a safari drive, and a boat trip. So this kind of thing is definitely (occasionally) affordable on the backpacker budget, if anyone’s thinking of coming down here.

Still catchin’ up on posts and stories. I’ll have more later.

Owen

Obama in Africa

2009-07-14T09:43:00.000-07:00

Sorry, more detailed posts on what I'm actually doing coming in a few days. For now though, I just read Obama's first speech in Sub-Saharan Africa, and thought it was great - worth reading, and worth sharing.

"We must start from the simple premise that Africa's future is up to Africans."

Nice. Exactly how I feel. Seems a little funny, then, that I'm here doing "development work". Oh well (for now). More on this later. Now the speech:

THE PRESIDENT : (Trumpet plays.) I like this. Thank you. Thank you. I think Congress needs one of those horns. (Laughter.) That sounds pretty good. Sounds like Louis Armstrong back there. (Laughter.)

Good afternoon, everybody. It is a great honor for me to be in Accra and to speak to the representatives of the people of Ghana. (Applause.) I am deeply grateful for the welcome that I've received, as are Michelle and Malia and Sasha Obama. Ghana's history is rich, the ties between our two countries are strong, and I am proud that this is my first visit to sub-Saharan Africa as President of the United States of America. (Applause.)

I want to thank Madam Speaker and all the members of the House of Representatives for hosting us today. I want to thank President Mills for his outstanding leadership. To the former Presidents -- Jerry Rawlings, former President Kufuor -- Vice President, Chief Justice -- thanks to all of you for your extraordinary hospitality and the wonderful institutions that you've built here in Ghana.

I'm speaking to you at the end of a long trip. I began in Russia for a summit between two great powers. I traveled to Italy for a meeting of the world's leading economies. And I've come here to Ghana for a simple reason: The 21st century will be shaped by what happens not just in Rome or Moscow or Washington, but by what happens in Accra, as well. (Applause.)

This is the simple truth of a time when the boundaries between people are overwhelmed by our connections. Your prosperity can expand America's prosperity. Your health and security can contribute to the world's health and security. And the strength of your democracy can help advance human rights for people everywhere.

So I do not see the countries and peoples of Africa as a world apart; I see Africa as a fundamental part of our interconnected world -- (applause) -- as partners with America on behalf of the future we want for all of our children. That partnership must be grounded in mutual responsibility and mutual respect. And that is what I want to speak with you about today.

We must start from the simple premise that Africa's future is up to Africans.

I say this knowing full well the tragic past that has sometimes haunted this part of the world. After all, I have the blood of Africa within me, and my family's -- (applause) -- my family's own story encompasses both the tragedies and triumphs of the larger African story.

Some you know my grandfather was a cook for the British in Kenya, and though he was a respected elder in his village, his employers called him "boy" for much of his life. He was on the periphery of Kenya's liberation struggles, but he was still imprisoned briefly during repressive times. In his life, colonialism wasn't simply the creation of unnatural borders or unfair terms of trade -- it was something experienced personally, day after day, year after year.

My father grew up herding goats in a tiny village, an impossible distance away from the American universities where he would come to get an education. He came of age at a moment of extraordinary promise for Africa. The struggles of his own father's generation were giving birth to new nations, beginning right here in Ghana. (Applause.) Africans were educating and asserting themselves in new ways, and history was on the move.

But despite the progress that has been made -- and there has been considerable progress in many parts of Africa -- we also know that much of that promise has yet to be fulfilled. Countries like Kenya had a per capita economy larger than South Korea's when I was born. They have badly been outpaced. Disease and conflict have ravaged parts of the African continent.

In many places, the hope of my father's generation gave way to cynicism, even despair. Now, it's easy to point fingers and to pin the blame of these problems on others. Yes, a colonial map that made little sense helped to breed conflict. The West has often approached Africa as a patron or a source of resources rather than a partner. But the West is not responsible for the destruction of the Zimbabwean economy over the last decade, or wars in which children are enlisted as combatants. In my father's life, it was partly tribalism and patronage and nepotism in an independent Kenya that for a long stretch derailed his career, and we know that this kind of corruption is still a daily fact of life for far too many.

Now, we know that's also not the whole story. Here in Ghana, you show us a face of Africa that is too often overlooked by a world that sees only tragedy or a need for charity. The people of Ghana have worked hard to put democracy on a firmer footing, with repeated peaceful transfers of power even in the wake of closely contested elections. (Applause.) And by the way, can I say that for that the minority deserves as much credit as the majority. (Applause.) And with improved governance and an emerging civil society, Ghana's economy has shown impressive rates of growth. (Applause.)

This progress may lack the drama of 20th century liberation struggles, but make no mistake: It will ultimately be more significant. For just as it is important to emerge from the control of other nations, it is even more important to build one's own nation.

So I believe that this moment is just as promising for Ghana and for Africa as the moment when my father came of age and new nations were being born. This is a new moment of great promise. Only this time, we've learned that it will not be giants like Nkrumah and Kenyatta who will determine Africa's future. Instead, it will be you -- the men and women in Ghana's parliament -- (applause) -- the people you represent. It will be the young people brimming with talent and energy and hope who can claim the future that so many in previous generations never realized.

Now, to realize that promise, we must first recognize the fundamental truth that you have given life to in Ghana: Development depends on good governance. (Applause.) That is the ingredient which has been missing in far too many places, for far too long. That's the change that can unlock Africa's potential. And that is a responsibility that can only be met by Africans.

As for America and the West, our commitment must be measured by more than just the dollars we spend. I've pledged substantial increases in our foreign assistance, which is in Africa's interests and America's interests. But the true sign of success is not whether we are a source of perpetual aid that helps people scrape by -- it's whether we are partners in building the capacity for transformational change. (Applause.)

This mutual responsibility must be the foundation of our partnership. And today, I'll focus on four areas that are critical to the future of Africa and the entire developing world: democracy, opportunity, health, and the peaceful resolution of conflict.

First, we must support strong and sustainable democratic governments. (Applause.)

As I said in Cairo, each nation gives life to democracy in its own way, and in line with its own traditions. But history offers a clear verdict: Governments that respect the will of their own people, that govern by consent and not coercion, are more prosperous, they are more stable, and more successful than governments that do not.

This is about more than just holding elections. It's also about what happens between elections. (Applause.) Repression can take many forms, and too many nations, even those that have elections, are plagued by problems that condemn their people to poverty. No country is going to create wealth if its leaders exploit the economy to enrich themselves -- (applause) -- or if police -- if police can be bought off by drug traffickers. (Applause.) No business wants to invest in a place where the government skims 20 percent off the top -- (applause) -- or the head of the Port Authority is corrupt. No person wants to live in a society where the rule of law gives way to the rule of brutality and bribery. (Applause.) That is not democracy, that is tyranny, even if occasionally you sprinkle an election in there. And now is the time for that style of governance to end. (Applause.)

In the 21st century, capable, reliable, and transparent institutions are the key to success -- strong parliaments; honest police forces; independent judges -- (applause); an independent press; a vibrant private sector; a civil society. (Applause.) Those are the things that give life to democracy, because that is what matters in people's everyday lives.

Now, time and again, Ghanaians have chosen constitutional rule over autocracy, and shown a democratic spirit that allows the energy of your people to break through. (Applause.) We see that in leaders who accept defeat graciously -- the fact that President Mills' opponents were standing beside him last night to greet me when I came off the plane spoke volumes about Ghana -- (applause); victors who resist calls to wield power against the opposition in unfair ways. We see that spirit in courageous journalists like Anas Aremeyaw Anas, who risked his life to report the truth. We see it in police like Patience Quaye, who helped prosecute the first human trafficker in Ghana. (Applause.) We see it in the young people who are speaking up against patronage, and participating in the political process.

Across Africa, we've seen countless examples of people taking control of their destiny, and making change from the bottom up. We saw it in Kenya, where civil society and business came together to help stop post-election violence. We saw it in South Africa, where over three-quarters of the country voted in the recent election -- the fourth since the end of Apartheid. We saw it in Zimbabwe, where the Election Support Network braved brutal repression to stand up for the principle that a person's vote is their sacred right.

Now, make no mistake: History is on the side of these brave Africans, not with those who use coups or change constitutions to stay in power. (Applause.) Africa doesn't need strongmen, it needs strong institutions. (Applause.)

Now, America will not seek to impose any system of government on any other nation. The essential truth of democracy is that each nation determines its own destiny. But what America will do is increase assistance for responsible individuals and responsible institutions, with a focus on supporting good governance -- on parliaments, which check abuses of power and ensure that opposition voices are heard -- (applause); on the rule of law, which ensures the equal administration of justice; on civic participation, so that young people get involved; and on concrete solutions to corruption like forensic accounting and automating services -- (applause) -- strengthening hotlines, protecting whistle-blowers to advance transparency and accountability.

And we provide this support. I have directed my administration to give greater attention to corruption in our human rights reports. People everywhere should have the right to start a business or get an education without paying a bribe. (Applause.) We have a responsibility to support those who act responsibly and to isolate those who don't, and that is exactly what America will do.

Now, this leads directly to our second area of partnership: supporting development that provides opportunity for more people.

With better governance, I have no doubt that Africa holds the promise of a broader base of prosperity. Witness the extraordinary success of Africans in my country, America. They're doing very well. So they've got the talent, they've got the entrepreneurial spirit. The question is, how do we make sure that they're succeeding here in their home countries? The continent is rich in natural resources. And from cell phone entrepreneurs to small farmers, Africans have shown the capacity and commitment to create their own opportunities. But old habits must also be broken. Dependence on commodities -- or a single export -- has a tendency to concentrate wealth in the hands of the few, and leaves people too vulnerable to downturns.

So in Ghana, for instance, oil brings great opportunities, and you have been very responsible in preparing for new revenue. But as so many Ghanaians know, oil cannot simply become the new cocoa. From South Korea to Singapore, history shows that countries thrive when they invest in their people and in their infrastructure -- (applause); when they promote multiple export industries, develop a skilled workforce, and create space for small and medium-sized businesses that create jobs.

As Africans reach for this promise, America will be more responsible in extending our hand. By cutting costs that go to Western consultants and administration, we want to put more resources in the hands of those who need it, while training people to do more for themselves. (Applause.) That's why our $3.5 billion food security initiative is focused on new methods and technologies for farmers -- not simply sending American producers or goods to Africa. Aid is not an end in itself. The purpose of foreign assistance must be creating the conditions where it's no longer needed. I want to see Ghanaians not only self-sufficient in food, I want to see you exporting food to other countries and earning money. You can do that. (Applause.)

Now, America can also do more to promote trade and investment. Wealthy nations must open our doors to goods and services from Africa in a meaningful way. That will be a commitment of my administration. And where there is good governance, we can broaden prosperity through public-private partnerships that invest in better roads and electricity; capacity-building that trains people to grow a business; financial services that reach not just the cities but also the poor and rural areas. This is also in our own interests -- for if people are lifted out of poverty and wealth is created in Africa, guess what? New markets will open up for our own goods. So it's good for both.

One area that holds out both undeniable peril and extraordinary promise is energy. Africa gives off less greenhouse gas than any other part of the world, but it is the most threatened by climate change. A warming planet will spread disease, shrink water resources, and deplete crops, creating conditions that produce more famine and more conflict. All of us -- particularly the developed world -- have a responsibility to slow these trends -- through mitigation, and by changing the way that we use energy. But we can also work with Africans to turn this crisis into opportunity.

Together, we can partner on behalf of our planet and prosperity, and help countries increase access to power while skipping -- leapfrogging the dirtier phase of development. Think about it: Across Africa, there is bountiful wind and solar power; geothermal energy and biofuels. From the Rift Valley to the North African deserts; from the Western coasts to South Africa's crops -- Africa's boundless natural gifts can generate its own power, while exporting profitable, clean energy abroad.

These steps are about more than growth numbers on a balance sheet. They're about whether a young person with an education can get a job that supports a family; a farmer can transfer their goods to market; an entrepreneur with a good idea can start a business. It's about the dignity of work; it's about the opportunity that must exist for Africans in the 21st century.

Just as governance is vital to opportunity, it's also critical to the third area I want to talk about: strengthening public health.

In recent years, enormous progress has been made in parts of Africa. Far more people are living productively with HIV/AIDS, and getting the drugs they need. I just saw a wonderful clinic and hospital that is focused particularly on maternal health. But too many still die from diseases that shouldn't kill them. When children are being killed because of a mosquito bite, and mothers are dying in childbirth, then we know that more progress must be made.

Yet because of incentives -- often provided by donor nations -- many African doctors and nurses go overseas, or work for programs that focus on a single disease. And this creates gaps in primary care and basic prevention. Meanwhile, individual Africans also have to make responsible choices that prevent the spread of disease, while promoting public health in their communities and countries.

So across Africa, we see examples of people tackling these problems. In Nigeria, an Interfaith effort of Christians and Muslims has set an example of cooperation to confront malaria. Here in Ghana and across Africa, we see innovative ideas for filling gaps in care -- for instance, through E-Health initiatives that allow doctors in big cities to support those in small towns.

America will support these efforts through a comprehensive, global health strategy, because in the 21st century, we are called to act by our conscience but also by our common interest, because when a child dies of a preventable disease in Accra, that diminishes us everywhere. And when disease goes unchecked in any corner of the world, we know that it can spread across oceans and continents.

And that's why my administration has committed $63 billion to meet these challenges -- $63 billion. (Applause.) Building on the strong efforts of President Bush, we will carry forward the fight against HIV/AIDS. We will pursue the goal of ending deaths from malaria and tuberculosis, and we will work to eradicate polio. (Applause.) We will fight -- we will fight neglected tropical disease. And we won't confront illnesses in isolation -- we will invest in public health systems that promote wellness and focus on the health of mothers and children. (Applause.)

Now, as we partner on behalf of a healthier future, we must also stop the destruction that comes not from illness, but from human beings -- and so the final area that I will address is conflict.

Let me be clear: Africa is not the crude caricature of a continent at perpetual war. But if we are honest, for far too many Africans, conflict is a part of life, as constant as the sun. There are wars over land and wars over resources. And it is still far too easy for those without conscience to manipulate whole communities into fighting among faiths and tribes.

These conflicts are a millstone around Africa's neck. Now, we all have many identities -- of tribe and ethnicity; of religion and nationality. But defining oneself in opposition to someone who belongs to a different tribe, or who worships a different prophet, has no place in the 21st century. (Applause.) Africa's diversity should be a source of strength, not a cause for division. We are all God's children. We all share common aspirations -- to live in peace and security; to access education and opportunity; to love our families and our communities and our faith. That is our common humanity.

That is why we must stand up to inhumanity in our midst. It is never justified -- never justifiable to target innocents in the name of ideology. (Applause.) It is the death sentence of a society to force children to kill in wars. It is the ultimate mark of criminality and cowardice to condemn women to relentless and systemic rape. We must bear witness to the value of every child in Darfur and the dignity of every woman in the Congo. No faith or culture should condone the outrages against them. And all of us must strive for the peace and security necessary for progress.

Africans are standing up for this future. Here, too, in Ghana we are seeing you help point the way forward. Ghanaians should take pride in your contributions to peacekeeping from Congo to Liberia to Lebanon -- (applause) -- and your efforts to resist the scourge of the drug trade. (Applause.) We welcome the steps that are being taken by organizations like the African Union and ECOWAS to better resolve conflicts, to keep the peace, and support those in need. And we encourage the vision of a strong, regional security architecture that can bring effective, transnational forces to bear when needed.

America has a responsibility to work with you as a partner to advance this vision, not just with words, but with support that strengthens African capacity. When there's a genocide in Darfur or terrorists in Somalia, these are not simply African problems -- they are global security challenges, and they demand a global response.

And that's why we stand ready to partner through diplomacy and technical assistance and logistical support, and we will stand behind efforts to hold war criminals accountable. And let me be clear: Our Africa Command is focused not on establishing a foothold in the continent, but on confronting these common challenges to advance the security of America, Africa, and the world. (Applause.)

In Moscow, I spoke of the need for an international system where the universal rights of human beings are respected, and violations of those rights are opposed. And that must include a commitment to support those who resolve conflicts peacefully, to sanction and stop those who don't, and to help those who have suffered. But ultimately, it will be vibrant democracies like Botswana and Ghana which roll back the causes of conflict and advance the frontiers of peace and prosperity.

As I said earlier, Africa's future is up to Africans.

The people of Africa are ready to claim that future. And in my country, African Americans -- including so many recent immigrants -- have thrived in every sector of society. We've done so despite a difficult past, and we've drawn strength from our African heritage. With strong institutions and a strong will, I know that Africans can live their dreams in Nairobi and Lagos, Kigali, Kinshasa, Harare, and right here in Accra. (Applause.)

You know, 52 years ago, the eyes of the world were on Ghana. And a young preacher named Martin Luther King traveled here, to Accra, to watch the Union Jack come down and the Ghanaian flag go up. This was before the march on Washington or the success of the civil rights movement in my country. Dr. King was asked how he felt while watching the birth of a nation. And he said: "It renews my conviction in the ultimate triumph of justice."

Now that triumph must be won once more, and it must be won by you. (Applause.) And I am particularly speaking to the young people all across Africa and right here in Ghana. In places like Ghana, young people make up over half of the population.

And here is what you must know: The world will be what you make of it. You have the power to hold your leaders accountable, and to build institutions that serve the people. You can serve in your communities, and harness your energy and education to create new wealth and build new connections to the world. You can conquer disease, and end conflicts, and make change from the bottom up. You can do that. Yes you can -- (applause) -- because in this moment, history is on the move.

But these things can only be done if all of you take responsibility for your future. And it won't be easy. It will take time and effort. There will be suffering and setbacks. But I can promise you this: America will be with you every step of the way -- as a partner, as a friend. (Applause.) Opportunity won't come from any other place, though. It must come from the decisions that all of you make, the things that you do, the hope that you hold in your heart.

Ghana, freedom is your inheritance. Now, it is your responsibility to build upon freedom's foundation. And if you do, we will look back years from now to places like Accra and say this was the time when the promise was realized; this was the moment when prosperity was forged, when pain was overcome, and a new era of progress began. This can be the time when we witness the triumph of justice once more. Yes we can. Thank you very much. God bless you. Thank you. (Applause.)

The Story so Far (about my actual work)

2009-06-15T05:19:00.001-07:00

This post was transferred from my old blog. See the original post (with comments) at:

http://thoughtsfrommalawi.blogspot.com/2009/06/story-so-far-about-my-actual-work.html

-------------------------------------------------

Hey Everyone,

Sorry I’ve been a bit intermittent with the blog posts lately. It’s probably no surprise to anyone who knows EWB, but recently I have been busy (italicized for emphasis). Plus quality internet access has been pretty sparse.

Just as a random note, the internet situation has recently taken a turn for the better. At our last EWB team meeting, we discussed for the umpteenth time how communication challenges really hurt our effectiveness. Magically, however, this time we decided to do something about it. As a result, I’m now the proud owner of a fancy little USB internet thing – meaning I can now get wireless internet anywhere in Malawi that I can get cell phone service.

Now, I’m sure some of you are thinking: “how on earth can someone get widespread mobile internet access while working in a fairly small, fairly rural district of one of the least developed countries in the world?”

To you I say: welcome to modern Africa. Few things exemplify the contrasts in modern Malawi more than readily available wireless internet signals being broadcast through villages of mud and thatch huts. Modernity exists everywhere here; it’s access that’s the problem. But I digress.

My intention with this post is to share a little more about my actual work here. For the past 2.5 months, I’ve been stationed in Thyolo, partnered with the Thyolo District Water Office.

Thyolo is one of two districts that benefitted from COMWASH, a $11.9 million Canadian funded project that worked on water access, sanitation, and health in Thyolo and Phalombe districts from 2001-2007.

In Thyolo I am working with four gravity fed water systems (GFS) that were installed or rehabilitated by COMWASH. My goal here is to learn about challenges being faced by the GFS management committees, and make recommendations to improve the schemes’ long-term sustainability.

The challenges facing the schemes are formidable. Just over 2 years after the end of COMWASH, there is definitely a mixed picture of scheme functionality. The four schemes I work on are called: Limphangwe, Didi, Mvomuni, and Sankhulani. Each of the schemes has between 80-110 water taps, connected to small springs and rivers in the surrounding mountains.

A water tap at the Sankhulani GFS. The water comes all the way from the forested mountain in the background, powered only by gravity (hence the term “Gravity Fed Scheme”).

Since the project finished, the Limphangwe scheme has been working consistently at 80-90% functionality (e.g. 80-90% of the taps are working at any given time). Meanwhile, the Didi scheme has been the polar opposite, falling to around 20% functionality. Numbers for Mvomuni and Sankhulani are harder to come by, but I believe they are both somewhere in the 50-70% range. (Note: the above numbers are based on my field observations and conversations with scheme management, not on full surveys – they are not meant as official, but I believe they are fairly accurate).

What I am trying to do is to learn what factors make the schemes succeed or fail, and translate that learning into concrete recommendations to improve scheme management.

One thing I can say right now is that managing these schemes is not easy. Most of the work is done by volunteers, and the work is hard. I spent a week shadowing repair teams at the Sankhulani scheme, and I swear I have never sweat that much in my life. Almost every day that week the scheme broke down, or we had to do routine maintenance, sometimes necessitating 20km+ walks through the mountains. The work was exhausting, but worse still, it never seemed to be finished.

Volunteers and paid staff fixing a pipe at a river crossing on the Sankhulani GFS. It rained heavily the night before and the subsequent flood washed a tree down the river, knocking out the pipe. In the village where I was staying we woke up without water.

On my last day with the repair teams we fixed a leak at a road crossing (the pipe had been hit by a tractor grading the road). After half a day of work the pipe was fixed, and I assumed it was “problem solved”. However, I have since learned that same pipe became clogged later that day, and since that time (almost 5 weeks ago) no taps downstream have had water. This kind of thing is frustrating for both repair teams and water users, but it happens all too often – illustrating how challenging it is to maintain a GFS system.

Mr. Alizeo, a paid repair team member (and all around nice guy) shoveling out mud at the main water intake for the Sankhulani GFS. A dirty job preceded by a half day of uphill walking to get on-site.

One thing I am working on directly is helping the District Water Office do improved monitoring of the GFS performance. To that end I have worked with District staff to create a financial auditing program, and to implement a first pilot over the last few weeks. The system we are using is very simple, and I believe is quite similar to something that the COMWASH program attempted to implement.

Just for fun (e.g. unrelated to most the content above or below): me standing with Amayi ndi Abambo Mauritia, the couple who hosted me while I was at the Sankhulani system. The house in the background is where I stayed for the two weeks I was there. (Coinciding with the two weeks I had no internet and almost no phone, for those who were trying to contact me).

GFS management committees are supposed to hire revenue collectors, who will travel around the entire system collecting money from taps each month. The households who use each tap are supposed to collectively raise 100 Kwacha monthly (about 80 cents) which will be used for spare parts and other expenses related to maintaining the scheme.

Based on past work by COMWASH, and our recent work at the office, we are thinking of re-implementing a very simple form for tracking revenue collection and system performance, with a few small changes. The form looks something like this:

Tap Name	Revenue Collector	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	Etc

The following may only appeal to monitoring and evaluation geeks, but I think it’s pretty interesting. Each revenue collector gets a copy of this form, with her/his tap names already filled in. For each tap, they keep monthly collection records. If they manage to collect 100 Kwacha from the tap, they write “100” in the box for that month. If they don’t manage to visit the tap that month, they write “DV” (didn’t visit). If the tap-users refuse to pay because the tap was broken down that month, the revenue collector writes “BD” (broken down). If the tap-users refuse to pay for any other reason, the revenue collector writes “RP” (refused payment).

This seems very simple (because it is), but in fact it puts a lot of information in one place – information we don’t currently have. Currently we document revenue collection with receipts. This means to figure out total money collected for a month, a year, etc., you have to sort through dozens or hundreds or receipts, copying them out and totaling them up by date and tap name. With this new system you’d just need to quickly look at a one-page form.

This new system will also give information that the receipt system doesn’t. For instance, if there’s no receipt for a given month, there’s no way to know whether the tap was broken, the community refused to pay, or the revenue collector didn’t visit. With the new system, we can get the following:

Total amount of money collected for any period
Functionality statistics for the system for any period (because the form records breakdowns)
Information on the performance of the revenue collectors (e.g. are they visiting all their taps?)
Information on community payment (so the management committee can shut off taps that are routinely refusing to pay)

Best of all, the system doesn’t require any use of computers or outside staff. You don’t have to take all the forms and amalgamate them (although it might be useful), you don’t have to put it into Excel – each management committee has the information right in front of their eyes. Further, the information is displayed in a very clear and useful form – it’s easy to see if a tap has been broken for months (so you can fix it), or if a committee hasn’t been paying (so you can shut off their tap), or if a revenue collector isn’t managing to visit all their taps (so you can get them some help). The system will hopefully enable decisions to be made easily at the field level.

Finally, the system will allow the District Water Office to do easier audits of financial records and performance for the schemes. The form would make it easy to get figures for total revenue collection (although we’d still need to check some receipts, just for verification). The figures for total revenue collection can then be checked against expenditure receipts, bank records, etc., to ensure that all the money’s ending up in the right place. Finally, the form would give easy information on scheme functionality, making course-correcting faster if a scheme starts to show signs of failure.

Of course, all of this is still a work in progress. The form will likely go through 1-2 more iterations, and will definitely need to be translated into Chichewa. Following this, I still have to get final buy-in for it, and then the biggest challenge: implementation.

So, like all of EWB’s work overseas, no guarantee this goes anywhere. I think it has a fairly good chance though. There’s good buy-in form people at our office, and from the management committees we work with. Many of the community volunteers are extremely dedicated to making these schemes work, and see the value in this information as much as we do.

I leave Thyolo in 3 short weeks, onto the next phase of my placement (still to be determined). By that time, I will have this system finished and in the field (most of the legwork is already done). My co-workers are very competent, and I believe they will take things from there.

I will also be submitting my final report on general recommendations, which I think will have some good ideas, and which I know will be taken seriously. I’ll definitely provide some updates as things move forward.

As always, thanks for reading.

Owen

It's Official

2009-06-02T07:22:00.000-07:00

I was wondering when I'd cross over to being a "development worker". In Zambia two years ago, I never felt like one. Now that I've got the motorcycle and the uni degree, it feels a bit more real. Anyways, it's in writing now. The following is from a recent Globe and Mail article, written by a journalist that my co-workers and I spent a day showing around some water projects in Thyolo. (Also, kind of cool to get quoted in the same article as Stephen Lewis).

Then the Canadian International Development Agency launched a $13-million water-supply project for 243,000 people in more than 500 southern villages. Today, the people of Njale take clean water from a tap, and cholera deaths have stopped.

“It has helped us so much,” says Esnat John, a 42-year-old farmer who sells her bananas from a tiny roadside shop. “There were a lot of cholera cases before, but now there are none. This project has allowed us to live. We will always be grateful to Canada. Without it, we would be dead by now.”

Ms. John's story is powerful evidence that Canadian aid saves lives among the poorest of the poor – and is deeply appreciated. “I'm getting a lot of heartfelt thank-yous when people hear that I'm from Canada,” says Owen Scott, a development worker in southern Malawi for Engineers Without Borders, a Canadian group.

- http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/banned-aid/article1160311/

Now, I'm pretty sure I've never said the word "heartfelt" before (anyone?), but the sentiment behind the quote is definitely real. When my coworkers tell people I'm Canadian, and make the link between Canadian projects in my area and me, I get a lot of thanks. If you read the article, take special note of the part about Canada previously being the single largest text-book donor to Malawi - this gets Canada a lot of positive response here, as most people value education highly. Luckily for me (as a Canadian living in Malawi), people don't know yet that we've pulled out under cover of darkness.

Please read the whole article. It's really interesting. Comments are welcome.

Swarmed

2009-05-20T06:22:00.001-07:00

Hey Everyone. Sorry for the long delay in posting. So much has happened since I last managed to write anything.

The catalyst for my brief blogging retirement was two weeks without internet or electricity. About three weeks ago I set off to the Thaboni, in the south of Thyolo, to spend 3 days watching community training. I liked it so much I didn’t come back for 2 weeks. Due to poor planning, I failed to tell anyone. The place itself was great though. I’d forgotten how much I missed life in thatch, bucket showers, reading by candlelight, and struggling in Chichewa for almost every conversation.

Since that time life has been a whirlwind. I was back in Thyolo for only 3 days, during which I had to get caught up in the office, move into a new house, and host both George Roter of Engineers Without Borders and a reporter from a major Canadian newspaper. Add a breakdown on the road to Lilongwe, a case of the flu, the arrival of all the new Junior Fellowship volunteers, and picking Beth up at the airport, and things have been pretty crazy. Still though, nothing tops what happened Sunday morning.

A few hours before picking Beth up, myself and some fellow volunteers were walking from the Golden Peacock (the guesthouse where we were staying) to a nearby hostel with internet. On the way though, something happened; something you wouldn’t expect in a developed urban area of Lilongwe.

First we saw one bee. Then we saw a few more. We started mentioning the bees. For whatever reason, I was walking ahead of the group. I noticed a cell phone on the ground. I picked it up, thinking how strange it was to find an abandoned phone in Malawi. Then a bee stung my arm. I looked around – bees everywhere.

Being in the lead of the group (and the furthest into the bees), some sort of leadership inclination took over. I yelled a command, in as concise a manner as I could: “F**k, RUN!”. However, I quickly proved that good leaders are not made by virtue of position alone, by proceeding to charge headlong into the cloud of bees rather than retreating. After about five steps I looked up and could see nothing but bees. They were everywhere. The air was thick with them in all directions. Feeling the forward path was not the best, I corrected my decision and issued another panicked command: “****, run back, the other way!!!!”. By this time I was already covered with bees, being stung mercilessly. The others, though slightly better off (to varying degrees – a couple got it as bad as me) were also suffering the same torment.

We ran as fast as we could back to the Golden Peacock. It was about 100m and bees chased us the entire way. Colleen fell and hit her head on the concrete, but in my panic I didn’t even notice. Luckily she got up and kept moving, getting back ok.

At this point I must have had hundreds of bees on me. They chased us all the way into the guesthouse, down the hall, and into the bathroom. Mike ran into the shower and turned it on – a good choice. I felt that the shower curtain didn’t offer enough protection from the swarm, so instead jumped into a stall and closed its tight-fitting door.

Inside the stall I proceeded to make my last stand. What I hadn’t realized was there was no swarm chasing me, just an amazing number of bees crawling all over my clothes and hair. I crouched in the stall, killing them as fast as my two hands would let me, but they kept stinging. Finally Mike yelled for me to get in the shower, and just in time, Lewis (a guesthouse employee) raced in with a can of insect killer and sprayed me down. After that it was into the shower, and the worst of it was over.

Crime Scene Photo. Floor of the bathroom stall where I made my stand.

As soon as the bees were off of us, Mike and I ventured out of the shower to see how everyone else was doing. Luckily, it seems like I probably got it the worst (from a bee perspective, with many infinitesimally close second-place winners who might actually challenge my title) and more importantly everyone was fine, if a little shaken up.

Crime Scene Photo. Bathroom floor outside the showers.

We spent the rest of the day resting, picking stingers out of each other, discussing the story over and over again. The whole situation was surreal; when Anna-Marie went back by car to get the bags we dropped, she found two abandoned cars running on the road, tonnes of bags, people running in different directions, and a poor tourist who had resorted to sticking his head in a bush. Seems we weren’t the only ones caught off guard.

We later learned that the bees were on the prowl because a couple days ago someone burned their hive (standard practice) but failed to also poison them (supposed to be standard practice). Funnily enough, today I read in the newspaper that a swarm of bees in the same area interrupted polling in yesterday’s general election. I’m guessing it’s the same one.

Anyways, pretty crazy stuff. An interesting experience if nothing else.

Sunshine and Cell Towers

2009-04-23T07:28:00.000-07:00

Can solar panels be “the next cell phone” in rural Africa? Although far from relevant to my main line of work, at a few random moments the back corners of my mind have been working overtime on this question. If this sounds random, that’s because…it is. Still, let me elaborate.

Although visitors’ experiences and perceptions in Africa are extremely diverse, there is one thing most people would agree on: cell phones are taking off like crazy here. From major telecom companies to entrepreneurs in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, it seems like everyone is getting into the market. This is happening because the market demand is keeping pace: in Malawi one in ten people has a cell phone, and more are getting them every day.

But why cell phones? Shouldn’t landlines come first? That’s what happened in the western world. And in Canada, having a landline telephone is still way cheaper than a cell phone. Why isn’t Malawi’s industry developing along the same path?

Well, what I believe we’re seeing here is a good old case of “technology leapfrogging”. For the same reasons that it doesn't make sense to run Malawi's factories (yes, there are factories here) off of 18th century steam engine technology, it also doesn’t seem to make sense to start with landlines and move into cell phones later. If, as a country, you’re joining the game a bit late, you may as well use the best of what’s out there. This is happening all over the industrializing world, and Malawi is no exception.

So what makes cell phones a “better” technology than landlines? I would propose two reasons: affordability and quality.

While I haven’t run the numbers, I would say that at this point, building a cell phone network in Malawi is probably more economical than building a landline network. With landlines you have to string wires down every street and path, into every community, and then run smaller lines into every house. With cell phones you just have to put up one tower and you can provide a large area with coverage. I haven’t actually run the numbers, but I think that because of , cell phones service is cheaper to disseminate than landline service.

The second reason why I believe they’re taking off is because cell phones are an infinitely superior technology to landlines. Why? You can carry them with you. I think this is the main motivation for the trend in my generation of Canadians as we all move out of home: not owning a landline. Although having a landline might cost less in Canada, since we’re all going to have cell phones anyways (for the convenience of carrying them around) why bother having both. I think the same sort of thing applies in Malawi too.

So how does this all bring me to talking about solar panels? Well, since arriving in Malawi I’ve seen a fair number of solar panels. At first I figured it was just a classic “appropriate technology” push, funded by altruistic westerners, and largely irrelevant to average Malawians. Names like “Malawi Solar Project” on the side of shops provided further evidence for this interpretation.

However, this assumption was challenged when I started seeing solar panels in actual shops. In my first few weeks, I also saw a couple people carrying recently-bought panels on minibus trips. Finally, when I stayed with Enos Banda last month, he was even talking about buying some solar panels to power outside lighting for a new livestock arrangement he was trying to start. All this got me thinking “hmm, maybe solar panels aren’t just some donor-funded ‘appropriate technology’ fantasy”.

After following this thought path, the question I was left with was: can solar panels actually work here in Malawi, as a major energy source? Can rural Malawians leapfrog the traditional fixed electrical grid idea, and get off-grid energy directly from the sun? I find this prospect exciting for several reasons.

First of all, it would be good for the environment. Not that Malawians should have to worry about their carbon emissions (in my opinion climate change, ethically speaking, should be our problem to solve, at least for the next few decades), but still, it would be cool if the world’s next wave of industrialization happened using renewable energy.

Further, and more importantly, off-grid solar could give rural Malawians access to electricity far faster than waiting for the national grid to spread out to villages. Currently, only 5% of Malawian households have access to electricity – if this sounds bad, also take into account that the small number of households who do have electricity suffer regular blackouts, as the supply can’t always keep up with demand.

Given that Malawi is already tapping a lot of its hydro-power potential, and doesn’t have any large reserves of coal or fossil fuels, this challenge seems insurmountable. A small grid, supplying a tiny percentage of the population is already experiencing blackouts, and 95% of the population still lacks electricity.

At the current pace, it could be centuries before this problem is solved. For just for a second though, imagine if solar panels spread like cell phones. Huge parts of the country could be electrified in a few decades. It could revolutionize Malawi’s electricity potential.

And what could people do with electricity? So much. It could mean light for kids to study with by night. It could mean some women being able to cook over a small electric stove instead of an open fire. It could break rural dependence on firewood for energy and help curb deforestation. It could radically transform rural life.

Of course all of this is just dreaming. It’s just pie in the sky. Solar panels right now aren’t spreading like cell phones. They’re still too expensive. They also might not be useful for the half the stuff I’m dreaming about. Sure you could power a radio and a LED lightbulb using one, but a stove? Probably not. At least not now. But still, imagine.

Whenever I get back to Canada and settle down (assuming this happens, which is almost certainly will at some point), there’s a good chance I’ll end up working in the Canadian environmental or renewable energy sector. Maybe, by working on off-grid energy technology for our own use, I could also help development here. More research, development, and implementation of off-grid energy technology in the west will develop the technology and drive down prices here. In some strange, weird way, by supporting renewable energy in Canada, we might be supporting rural development here. Welcome to the interconnected world. Of course, it’s still just a dream, but most big things start that way. So, as for me, I’ll just keep dreaming. Hoping you all do the same.

Owen

Random Updates

2009-04-15T08:02:00.001-07:00

Hey Everyone. This definitely falls into the category of one of my least “thought-out” blog-posts. I just wanted to give a bit of information on how I’m doing here, and what I’m up to.

My Placement

As of last week, I have started getting settled in Thyolo, one of the oldest districts in Malawi (identified with a number “25”, at the bottom of the map to the right; map taken from Wikipedia). I am working with the Thyolo District Government on the future management of four new and/or refurbished piped water schemes in the district. Our initial terms of reference commit me to being here for three months (e.g. until July 9th), but there is an option for extension. The work is pretty interesting, and will warrant a full post sometime soon.

Thyolo is really beautiful, with lots of huge tea plantations. Sometime this week I’ll take some pictures and get them up here.

Living

Currently I am staying at a rest-house here in Thyolo (staying at a rest house = one small room to myself, outdoor bucket showers and latrines, decently comfortable bed). Starting early next week (hopefully) I will be moving to the southern tip of the district to live in one of the communities affected by the water schemes. Because of another personal commitment (Beth coming to visit!) I will likely only be able to stay there for a few weeks, but that is probably best for my sanity; the community where I’ll be living is 1.5 hours by motorcycle to the office. I figure three weeks is probably the maximum amount of time I can manage the three hours of commuting per day, especially in addition to all my other time-demands. (Upon re-reading, I realize the irony of talking about my “time-demands” in a vaguely serious manner, before following up with my next topic. I swear I am busy with work too…)

Champions League

Well, I had to replace hockey playoffs with something. Champions League Football is huge here, and I’m getting really into it. Unfortunately my arbitrary choice to cheer for Liverpool has already resulted in disappointment (although brilliantly exciting disappointment, which anyone who follows such things will appreciate), but now I’m switching to Arsenal (again, arbitrary) so we’ll see how that goes. I’m writing this post offline though, and Arsenal plays tonight, so it could be that by the time this is up on the blog, I’ve been disappointed twice. Let’s hope not.

Also, for anyone who’s curious, I don’t have a TV or anything. I watch the games in a restaurant that’s been converted to a movie theater / sports venue, usually with 1-2 of my friends here who initially showed me the place. It’s basically a small room, with a smallish TV on a table in one corner, and 50-80 spectators jammed onto benches all around it. Each person pays 40 Kwacha to watch the game (about 35 cents) so the owner is actually onto something pretty good. It’s not the most comfortable place in the world, nor is the air inside always the freshest, but every seat has a good view of the game, so no complaints here.

Running

Unlike many previous attempts during my life, since arriving in Malawi I’ve actually managed to cobble together a pretty regular routine of running in the morning. The apparent key: walking. The more tired I am, the more I walk before I start to run. I think it’s what, in sports-science terms, they call “warming up”. The thought of having this “warm-up” drastically reduces my dread of the morning run, and now I can almost say it’s an integral part of my day. Only took 23 years…

Chichewa

Apparently learning a new language is hard. Still, I’m making progress. How much progress, however, I don’t know. Some days I feel like I’m on the fast-track to fluency, others I feel like I’m never going to get anywhere. The newest challenge is that many people in Thyolo speak Lomwe, but Chichewa is still the national language (along with English), it’s what’s spoken at my office, and most people in the countryside speak it too, as Lomwe is apparently slowly fading away. So I guess all I can do is keep working at it and see where it leads.

Pirates?

Last week I finally bought a radio. I now once again know what’s going on in the world. Unfortunately “what’s going on in the world” seems to mostly consist of piracy, nuclear escalation, and some sort of an economic recession.. I guess it’s a good time to be in a geopolitically insignificant, landlocked country, especially one that isn’t highly integrated into global financial markets.

So shifty…

A sort of a side-activity for me since getting here has been supporting EWB’s in-Canada efforts to demand transparency and accountability from our government in light of a recent shift of Canada’s foreign-aid priorities.

For a quick summary: in late February, the Canadian government announced that we would be refocusing our foreign-aid on 20 countries (down from 25). Further, many of those countries are ones we’ve never had a major presence in before, such as Peru and Colombia. Six African countries previously supported through our programs were dropped, including Zambia and Malawi. Several affected African governments learned about the shift from the news.

While I won’t pass specific judgment on the details of the shift yet (that post is coming soon), I would to draw attention to this: the shift was made without consulting affected governments, without consulting NGOs working in those countries, and without informing or consulting opposition MPs. The government initially issued only a three line press release (in explanation of a policy-shift that will affect millions of people), within which they explicitly said the shift was being made to support foreign policy. This is not how I believe international assistance priorities should be set.

There is currently an online petition available relating to this issue, started by the University of Manitoba chapter of EWB. The petition does not make any specific criticism of the policy, it only asks the government to better explain its decision, and the rationale behind it. Right now, this is only about transparency.

If you have a spare minute, please consider signing. For bonus points, email it to friends, post it up on Facebook or Twitter, or spread it by word of mouth. This aid shift might not seem like a big deal in Canada, but over here it matters. Signing the petition is a small gesture, but it helps – for most Canadians, I think it would be three minutes well-spent.

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/canada-aid-shift

If you want to learn more about the aid shift, there’s a plethora of articles about it online. EWB’s internal message board, myEWB.ca also has a new discussion on the subject almost daily. I’d strongly encourage further actions on this, but if you have a minute, please at least consider signing the petition.

Well, that’s it for my random updates for today. Hopefully I’ll be back online sometime soon with additional updates on life in Malawi.

Thanks,

Owen

Livingstone – The First Development Worker?

2009-04-10T09:50:00.001-07:00

Tomorrow (Saturday, April 11th) is the 150th anniversary of Dr. Livingston’s arrival in Malawi, and there are public celebrations planned in most major cities. Despite being the first British explorer to “discover” Zambia and Malawi, eventually leading to almost a century of British colonial domination of these two countries, David Livingston is held in high esteem here. Take a few city names: “Livingston” at Victoria Falls in Zambia, “Livingstonia” in northern Malawi, and “Blantyre”, the largest city in Malawi, named after Dr. Livingston’s home city in Scotland.

Photo of Dr. Livingstone (Wikipedia)

Unlike many other explorers, Dr. Livingston didn’t (explicitly) come to Africa to exploit its natural wealth, or its people. In fact, I really believe he came here with the “best-interests” of the people at heart (which is to say, his interpretation of their “best-interests”).

Angered by the slave-trade (which at this point had been outlawed by the British, and was practiced in the region largely by Arabs and the Portuguese), Dr. Livingston set out for the region west of Mozambique in 1858, with the intention of bringing to Africa three C’s: Christianity, Commerce, and Civilization. He felt these three C’s would be enough to end the scourge of the slave trade. He was especially sure that commerce was a solution – by giving African leaders profitable trading opportunities that didn’t involve selling their own citizens, and citizens of their rival communities, he felt the slave trade could be brought to its heels.

“The Lake people grow abundance of cotton for their own consumption, and can sell it for a penny a pound, or even less. Water-carriage exists by the Shire and Zambesi all the way to England…and it seems feasible that a legitimate and thriving trade might, in short time, take the place of the present unlawful traffic.” (Narrative of An Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries: And the Discovery of the Lakes Shirwa and Nyassa 1858-1864, page 141).

In the spirit of the “holiday”, I thought I would share some interesting excerpts from the above journal, which I happen to be reading. I think there’s some pretty interesting parallels between his thinking, and the thinking of the modern development sector. How much have we learned in the last 150 years? Keep reading to find out.

A modern reproduction of Dr. Livingston’s original journal (all 638 pages of it). “Lake Nyassa” is Lake Malawi. (to the actually interested: don’t let the length scare you, it’s really well-written and makes super easy reading).

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The Goal for his Writing

“This account is written in the earnest hope that it may contribute to that information which will yet cause the great and fertile continent of Africa to be no longer kept wantonly sealed, but made available as the scene of European enterprise, and will enable its people to take a place among the nations of the earth, thus securing the happiness and prosperity of tribes now sunk in barbarism and debased by slavery…” (page 2)

“…enable its people to take a place among the nations of the earth…”. This dream mirrors one of my biggest motivations for wanting to come and work in Malawi; especially for wanting to work on leadership development with Malawian youth. Does this mean I’m embodying a secular version of his mindset, 150 years later? To some extent, probably yes…

Then and Now

“The main object for the Zambesi Expedition, as our instructions from her majesty’s government explicitly stated, was…to improve our acquaintance with the inhabitants, and to endeavor to engage them to apply themselves to industrial pursuits and to the cultivation of their lands…” (page 9)

If you modernized the language a bit, this is the same expressed goal as thousands of development projects that have been undertaken in Africa in the last 40 years – over a century since Dr. Livingston’s writing.

Cultural Sharing and Influence

“Though [research] collections were made, it was always distinctly understood that, however desirable these and our explorations might be, her majesty’s government attached more importance to the moral influence that might be exerted on the minds of the natives by a well-regulated and orderly household of Europeans setting an example of consistent moral conduct to all who might witness it; treating people with kindness, and relieving their wants, teaching them to make experiments in agriculture, explaining to them the more simple arts…” (page 11)

Hey, it’s a bit like the Peace Corps – act primarily as a cultural ambassador, but then also try to do something useful for “people” while you’re at it.

Talking to Malawians (oops)

“…it is a curious fact that Europeans almost invariably begin to speak with natives by adding the letters ‘e’ and ‘o’ to their words, ‘Givee me corno, me givee you buscuito,” or “Looko, looko, me wante beero muche.” Our sailors began thus, though they had never seen blacks before. It seemed an innate idea that they could thus suit English to a people who all speak a beautiful language…” (page 77)

Why “oops”? Here’s an excerpt from language learning document I was given, which has been used by EWB volunteers/

“In Nyanja (and in most other Banthu languages), syllables always end in a vowel. This means that when a person whose first language is Nyanja or Chewa tries to speak English – they will always end in a vowel. An example of this is the word “of” – often pronounced “ofu”. Adding vowel sounds to the end of your English words will drastically help with people’s understanding of your English.”

In our defense though, Chichewaized English words always end in vowels, e.g. buku (book), thebulo (table), supuni (spoon), sukulu (school), etc.

A Mistake that We’ve Never Stopped Making

“We brought cotton-seed to Africa, ignorant that the cotton already introduced was equal, if not superior, to the common American…” (page 81)

Ok, during the next century, the development sector will figure this one out. From now on: find out what people already have before bringing new technologies and new ideas. I’ll check in on this in 2108 to see if we’re getting any better.

We Sure Messed this One Up…

“When we meet those who care not whether we purchase or let it alone, or who think men ought only to be in a hurry when fleeing from an enemy, our ideas about time being money, and the power of the purse, receive a shock. The state of eager competition, which in England wears out both mind and body, and makes life bitter, is here happily unknown.” (Page 104)

Good thing, 150 years later, we’ve finally managed to fully share our system that “wears out both mind and body, and makes life bitter”. You’re welcome Africa…

(I’m being facetious, of course, but hopefully you get the point).

Causality or Correlation?

“The juices of plants, and decaying vegetable matter in the mud, probably form the natural food of mosquitoes, and blood is not necessary for their existence. They appear so commonly at malarious spots that their presence may be taken as a hint to man to be off to more healthy localities.” (Page 108)

Hey, that makes sense, because, wait for it…mosquitoes carry Malari. How many more decades passed before people figured this one out? (I’m actually curious).

The Difference between “a market” and “The Market”

“In a few hours the market was completely glutted with every sort of native food; the prices, however, rarely fell, as they could easily eat what was not sold.” (page 118)

These days a lot of people are starting to farm semi-commercially, and rely on selling a large part of their harvest. Take, for instance the thousands of Malawians who grow big fields of tobacco – you can’t eat tobacco leaves if you don’t like the price.

A Final Lighter Note - Drinking

A lot of people (or at least a loud and visible minority) in Zambia/Malawi get very publically and belligerently drunk on a regular basis. When in my mindset most predisposed towards unjustified assumption making, I used to muse that maybe it was some symptom of post-colonial dislocation, or a reaction to having limited social and economic opportunities. Apparently though, at least for some people here, drinking’s been around for a while.

“The Manganja are not sober people; they brew large quantities of beer, and like it well…The veteran traveler of the party remarked that he had not seen so much drunkenness during all the sixteen years he had spent in Africa.” (page 129)

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So, that’s it for my Livingston-related writing, at least until I get a bit further in the book. Don’t read too much into the above thoughts – they’re just the product of my brain at it’s most random. My one major take-away though: reading history is really interesting. I’m getting a lot more from actually reading Livingston’s writing then I ever would from reading a summary book about colonialism in Malawi. I highly recommend this kind of thing for anyone who’s interested in learning more about the history of European-African relations.

Ku Mudzi

2009-03-30T06:18:00.001-07:00

“Ku mudzi”, “at the village”, this is how I spent my last weekend. For much of my time in Malawi I’ve been based at a youth hostel in Lilongwe. Although I’m kept quite busy by EWB’s programs, and my own learning objectives, I still don’t have a formal placement arranged. Things are in the works but, as those who have been to Malawi likely know, sometimes things can be a little slow in this part of the world.

The youth hostel is comfortable, but it isn’t at all representative of Malawi – the crowd is mostly other volunteers and travelers, plus some expats and Malawians who come in at night to hang out at the bar. For this reason I’ve been taking every opportunity to get out into the field, and deepen my connection to rural Malawi.

The only picture of the hostel I’ve taken – random plants just outside the patio. I’ll come up with something better later.

Luckily, just such an opportunity came this past weekend. Graham Lettner, a fellow EWB OVS and recently acquired friend, offered to organize a weekend stay for me with his old host: Mr. Enos Banda.

For Enos, I think hosting EWB volunteers is a bit of an old-hat. Danny Howard, a former OVS and current EWB Canada Director of Outreach, lived with him in 2007 for three months. Following that, Graham lived with him for nine months, becoming quite close with his family. Finally, through those connections he has had as guests, for varying lengths of time, no less than six other OVS, and one of EWB’s co-CEOs. All that to say, he’s pretty used to having EWB people as visitors.

The informal EWB Guest Room at Enos’s house. Not the world’s most comfortable bedding arrangement, but not that bad at all. It’s actually kind of nice sleeping on a reed mat – it’s strangely humbling, at least in some romantically self-deceptive kind of way.

His comfort with visitors was actually the biggest draw for me when thinking about the stay. Although he is actively learning, currently Enos speaks very little English. Graham, intent on learning Chichewa, used this to his advantage, as it forced him to speak Chichewa every day at home. As a result, Enos is now very used to speaking Chichewa to second-language learners, and Graham is now nearly fluent.

During my visit he spoke slowly, enunciated clearly, and checked regularly to ensure I was understanding (“mukudziwa?”). After only 3 days with him, I feel like my Chichewa skills have improved tenfold. Returning to the youth hostel, for the first time I managed to get past simply greetings, and did my whole check-in, small-talk, and room selection with Dennis (one of the staff) without needing to lapse into English. A small victory, but at this point I’ll take it.

I really enjoyed my stay with Enos. For two people with very little linguistic overlap, it’s amazing how much we managed to share in such a short time. Before leaving, I made sure to tell him I would return (“ndidzabwelanso”) and I definitely meant it. If nothing else, I have a few pictures (below) that I will need to drop off to his family. He’s also got a lot of cool stuff in the works after the harvest (moving to a new house, considering a heavy investment in livestock, and, most exciting according to my biases, thinking of setting up his house with a solar power system for lighting), and I look forward to keeping in touch with him as things move forward.

Enos (seated, bottom middle), his wife Naba (back right), and their children: Nehemiah (front left), Reniah (middle left), Andrew (back left), Esmie (middle lap), and Brenda (far right). [Big shout-out to Graham for helping me get/spell all the names right]

Staying with farmers like Enos, deepening my connection to Malawi, learning Chichewa – these things number among the most important for me during my time here. In recent years EWB has upped its ambition substantially. We are trying to become a major player in the water and sanitation sector here. We are trying to influence major donors. We are trying to punch above our weight. All of this has meant a shifting of our priorities: more phone calls, more internet access, more meetings and retreats.

These things are important, and I believe in our new approach, but I also believe that if we lose contact with the field – with farmers like Enos, with families, with the people we are trying to help – then none of it will matter. In the end development is about people, but not the people in board rooms, not the people in shirts and ties, the people sitting behind computers, the people riding around on motorbikes and collecting lunch allowances.

Development, at least to me, is about farmers like Enos, trying to make ends meet, trying to put their kids through school, trying to improve their lives in a world that has not provided them with the same opportunities it has given me.

Practice picture I took to show Enos how to use my camera. Actually much nicer result than my usual photography…

To clarify quickly (despite the above generalizations), I know that in reality there is no typical “villager” or “farmer like Enos”, and I’m not trying to put him up as one. He is a unique person, just like all people are. I know that even by staying with him, by trying to learn his language, by trying to understand a bit of his world, that I am not gaining some universally applicable understanding of “rural Malawi”, whatever that even means.

A new family member in the mix? (nope, just a guest posing in a family photo).

Still though, through these experiences (this was my second stay in a village so far) I feel like I am gaining something, and whatever it is, I think it’s important. Without it, I feel like I’d be lost here – so thanks to the hospitality of Enos and his family, I think I can say I’m a tiny bit less lost. If nothing else, I guess that’s a start…

Ntchisi Forest Lodge

2009-03-24T04:09:00.001-07:00

As discussed in my post about the gravity fed water system we visited in Ntchisi, there is a tourist lodge in the Ntchisi Forest Reserve. While we were there visiting the system, Garrett, his co-workers, and I stopped in for a quick visit.

When we came up on the place, I was absolutely floored by how nice it was. The building that now houses the Ntchisi Forest Lodge was built in the 1920s, when Malawi was still the British Colony of Nyasaland. The Ntchisi District at that time was part of the Nkhotakota District, which has its capital right on Lake Malawi. Apparently, being on the lake was too hot for the British District Commissioner during the Malawian summer, and so he built this building as his summer home. Since then it has been used for forestry purposes, before being converted to a guest house. The following are some pictures.

The lodge.

Alternative energy technologies (an effect of partial Danish ownership?)

Backyard for camping.

One of the rooms (photo doesn’t do it justice).

Dining area.

Sun porch, w/ bar in background.

View from the sun porch (apparently clearer days you can see Lake Malawi, 50km away, and the mountains of Mozambique on the other side).

Another thing worth mentioning is the Ntchisi Forest Reserve itself. Most of Malawi is very deforested. The Forest Reserve, on the other hand, shows a glimpse of what the country might look like with less environmental pressure. I’ll finish this post off with a few pictures, although like most things in this tourism section of my blog, there’s no substitute for a real visit. This reserve is just one of many treasures in Malawi; it’s not even on the radar compared to other attractions. Still though, Garrett and I thought it was pretty amazing, and spent much of the visit craning our necks to take it all in. Hopefully more field visits will take us to places this beautiful in the future.

Forest (kind of a big deal for Malawi)

View on the drive up the mountain.

Ntchisi Gravity Fed System

2009-03-24T02:31:00.001-07:00

This is the first post in the Technology Notes section of this blog, based off of a trip Garrett and I took to the Ntchisi Forest Reserve to check out a gravity fed system (GFS).

GFSs are all the rage in Malawi right now – they’re being built and rehabilitated across the country. We’re mostly interested in them because of their management structures (we want to learn how money is collected from users, who is responsible for the maintenance, and how the arrangement is set up). However, in this case, the technology was interesting enough to be worth discussing in and of itself.

The reason a GFS was chosen for this area was mountainous terrain. High in the mountains the water table is usually too low for normal wells (the standard water access technology choice in Africa), and this mountain was no exception. To get around this, a water system was set up by damming two springs near the top of the mountain, and routing the water through underground pipes to a series of taps in surrounding villages.

Eston (system caretaker, front left), Garrett (EWB OVS, front right), and Peter Moyo (Ntchisi Assistant District Water Officer, back left) inspecting one of the dammed springs (labeled Headpond II on schematic below).

The two dammed springs allow water to collect in headponds, and then spill over back into the springs once they are full. The headponds outlet through pipes into a small sedimentation tank, which then outlets into a larger holding tank. Water from the holding tank is then distributed in two directions: there is a line going to 14 different taps in surrounding villages, and another line going to the Ntchisi Forest Lodge, a tourist establishment which is also on the mountain.

Rough schematic of the system layout.

Above-ground line running from Headpond II to the Sedimentation Tank

Ntchisi District Water Office Driver (I’m embarrassed, I can’t remember his name) inspecting the Sedimentation Tank

Peter standing next to the Storage Tank

All in all, a pretty impressive system for rural Malawi, at least in my opinion. According to Eston, the genesis of the system was the work of a Peace Corps volunteer (John Fort?), who lived on the mountain around 2005-2006 and worked on community mobilization for the establishment of a water system. At the time he left (due to illness, again according to Eston) he had helped the community develop a proposal for the system, and they were busy searching for a donor. Shortly thereafter, the District Government came in as part of Ntchisi’s recent Integrated Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Program (funded by the African Development Bank) and provided funding to construct the system.

One major word of caution though – the system was only finished about 5 months ago. How communities will collect money for its maintenance, who will undertake the maintenance, who will supply spare parts, and how those relationships will be established and maintained, is still very much up in the air. These are the questions we are in Malawi trying to answer. Many impressive water infrastructure projects have been built in this part of the world – making them last is the real challenge.

Fertilizer

2009-03-18T04:59:00.001-07:00

I’m not exactly a full-blown supporter of organic farming, but I certainly have strong sympathies for it, as do many of my close friends. I’ve been involved in the organic urban agriculture movement in Ottawa, I’ve done a lot of reading, I’ve gone out of my way to buy organic food, but always, in the back of my mind, is the often repeated idea: as it stands right now, without chemical fertilizer the world probably can’t feed itself.

Now flash back to a week ago. After spending 6 days in Lilongwe (Malawi’s capital) I took the two hour bus trip to visit fellow EWB OVS Garrett Schmidt in Ntchisi District for a week. While there, I saw a maize (corn) field in Malawi for the first time. My reaction: “holy crap!!!”.

Garrett, all 6’5” of him, standing in a maize field. (also, randomly, note the symmetry with my profile picture).

The stalks of maize were huge. Most had at least two, sometimes three ears on them, all of commercial size. Based on these observations, and talking to people, it looks like many Malawians are set for a bumper crop this year.

In Zambia I didn’t once see a stalk of maize that was taller than me. I also didn’t see a single one with multiple cobs. The maize I did help harvest was underdeveloped, with cobs that fit easily into the palm of my hand. Granted I arrived in Zambia at the end of the farming season, when much of the better maize had probably already been harvested, but I still feel the maize I’m seeing now on smallholder farms in Malawi is a cut above.

An example of the maize I helped harvest in Zambia.

So, what is the magical reason behind Malawi’s bumper crop. The first ingredient is good rains. In 2007 when I was in Zambia there were heavy floods during the rainy season, stunting maize growth. This year in Malawi, according to several people I’ve talked to, the rains were very good. However, rains don’t tell the whole story. Another big part of Malawi’s success is, as the title of this post suggests: fertilizer.

In 2005, after a terrible maize harvest that left many Malawians reliant on international food aid to survive, the country introduced a fertilizer subsidy program, attempting to target the poorest farmers with coupons for the purchase of heavily discounted fertilizer.

During the next two years, the program worked wonders. Reports indicate that almost half of Malawian families gained access to subsidized fertilizer through the program. Helped by good rains, on a macro-level Malawi became a surplus-food producer, selling thousands of tonnes of maize to surrounding countries and the World Food Programme. This year it looks like that trend is set to continue.

Maize fields in Ntchisi. Both fields were planted at the same time. The one in the foreground was planted without fertilizer, the one in the background was planted with fertilizer. Note the difference.

Although there are many critics of the fertilizer subsidy program (cue Google searching for readers interested in exploring the issue further), Malawian farmers that I have talked to are very happy with it. Having enough food is also an essential foundational element of development. Learning, schooling, entrepreneurship, innovation; all of these things are very hard to do on an empty stomach.

That being said, I still remain a little uncomfortable with the program. Chemical fertilizer is a hydrocarbon derivative. We are inevitably approaching a peak oil crisis, likely within the next half century. When oil supply begins to diminish and prices skyrocket (assuming we haven’t found a better energy source), fertilizer prices will probably skyrocket too.

Making the switch to productive organic farming takes years of hard work, but a fertilizer price spike can happen in minutes. Is this program, by making investments in natural soil fertility (through better composting, crop rotation, etc.) unnecessary, setting farmers up for an even greater food production collapse in the future? Taking a longer term view, shouldn’t our number one priority be to move away from fertilizer use, before price shocks make chemical agriculture impossible, especially for the poor?

I don’t have the answer. What I do know, from my time working with the Organic Producers and Processors Association of Zambia, and from talking to many farmers, is that best-practice organic farming is hard work, and many farming families are already strained with the work-load of traditional approaches. The thought of being able to put something extra in the ground that increases yields, without demanding extra labour, is almost too good to pass up.

Full stomachs and economic growth can set the stage for further innovation. It is possible that this program can grant farmers the prosperity and stability needed to move towards more sustainable agriculture. In my mind, however, two significant questions remain: Will it happen? And is there enough time?

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(Note: This post was not meant to be a detailed research effort on the Malawi fertilizer subsidy program, just a discussion of some things I’ve been seeing and questions I have. Most of the information came from this article, and conversations I’ve had with Malawians. More research by interested blog-readers is highly encouraged, and please feel free to post thoughts, ideas, or research as comments to this post.)

Introduction

2009-03-17T02:20:00.001-07:00

First off, let me say that I am sorry for the delay in starting this blog. The 5 weeks of pre-departure training in Toronto kept me so busy that I was unable to find the energy to get a blog started. Following this, during my first two weeks in Malawi I continued to experience a bit of an energy deficit, which, when coupled with a lack of quality high-speed internet access, led me to delay the start of this blog even further. Since that time, however, I’ve become a bit more settled, and promise to update this blog regularly moving forward.

Since keeping my last blog during my time in Zambia (http://www.oweninzambia.blogspot.com/) I have tried to refine both my understanding of my audience, and my goals for messaging. Looking back, I believe that blog’s readers consisted of several different groups, with distinct interests, and this time around I want to make sure I offer something to all of those groups.

I am writing this blog for friends and family who want to know how I’m doing, and understand my day-to-day life. I am writing this blog for EWB members in Canada who want to gain a better understanding of our overseas programs. I am writing this blog for engineers and engineering students who want to learn more about technologies used in rural Malawi. I am writing this blog for strangers (likely including Malawians) who could be reading it for any number of reasons.

All of these people have different interests. Therefore, rather than trying to engage everyone with every post, I have decided to break up my blog into a number of different sections, all of which I will hopefully update regularly. This will also allow me to exercise my desire to constantly be writing, without overwhelming any one group of people with posts.

The planned sections are as follows:

Life, Thoughts, and Stories

This section, the main one of the blog, will contain many different elements. Stories about my day-to-day experiences. Accounts of interesting trips to the field as part of my work. Discussion of how I am growing and changing as a person. Clarification about what my daily life looks like. Descriptions of things that I am thinking about that relate to my experience in Malawi.

If something really interesting or exciting happens in my life, you’re likely to find it here.

EWB Approach

This section will contain a more detailed and technical description about what EWB is trying to do in Malawi, and how my placement fits into it. It is my attempt to help EWB members in Canada better understand what we are doing overseas, but is obviously open for anyone to read.

Technology Notes

There are lots of simple and interesting “appropriate technologies” being used in water and sanitation in Malawi. As a somewhat nerdy engineering type myself, I feel obliged to offer some descriptions of these when I encounter them, so that other nerdy engineering types can enjoy them as well. This section is where you’ll find those descriptions.

Backpack Malawi

While my main reason for being here is the work we’re doing, I have already come into contact with elements of the backpacker/tourist side of Malawi, and will likely continue to do so throughout my placement. I also want more people to come to this part of the world and experience the amazingness that is Southern Africa. With that in mind, when I see cool tourist things, I intend to write about them.

Random Thoughts

This is definitely the most self-indulgent section planned for this blog. I think, read, and write a lot about things that are fairly unrelated to EWB’s work, or to daily life in Malawi. This section is where I will put them. Feel free to read or ignore them as you choose.

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As of right now, this is where I am at with the blog. I intend to start updating it with posts in the next few days, and to do so continually throughout my placement. Comments are always welcome, and help me better understand who is reading this and what you are thinking.

Take care, and much love from Malawi.

Owen