Tuesday, November 17th - Mchinji, Malawi

I had a great night's sleep.  I can't say it was because of my new air conditioned room because we had no power again.  However, the weather was definitely cooler after the rain storm and the room was very comfortable.  It was also very dark so I slept very well for a full 8 hours!  

This morning after breakfast we went to Mkanda Community Secondary which is about 40 km away.  As a community school it does not have residences and most of the students come from the local community.  We just learned this distinction the other day.  Some are District schools and they have residences and some are Government schools and they too have residences.  The community schools are the easiest to get into and the government schools are the hardest.  The government supports them all and the curriculum is the same but they are on different standards.  

The head master at this school is the person who leads the Entrepreneurship Club.  He is very interesting and interested.  Three other students joined him for the presentation, which we did in his office, so it was a very nice informal setting with a nice breeze coming in the window.  They do not teach any business courses at the school but they did start the entrepreneurship club right after our students visited them back in May/June.  The head master was very happy to have us return with more ideas of what he should do with the 20+ students in the club and I think the workbook and what we talked about will give him lots to do.  There are 12 teachers at the school for 281 students.

From there we went to a nearby elementary school where Aaron and the two of us were greeted warmly in two classrooms.  The younger children crowded around us at a safe distance as soon as we arrived - very curious but not quite sure about the white strangers who were visiting their school.  As we entered each of the two classrooms the students all stood and greeted Aaron with a loud "Good afternoon, sir.  How are you?"  He answered and asked how they were and they all replied "Fine, sir, thank you, sir."  I'm not sure how much English they understood but they certainly all knew their lines for this kind of situation.  He gave them all a pencil and they were quite happy with that.  He just had a bag of used pencils of all different colours.  I wasn't sure exactly where the white pencil was going to be used but someone took it happily.  The two classrooms we visited were grade 8 and grade 7 and both were full.  There were desks three across the room and five deep and each one had 3 students at it.  The one classroom also had four students sitting on the floor right at the front.  The students were all smiles and certainly looked happy.  I'm not sure if that was happy to be at school or happy to have a break from their studies because we were visiting.  The whole visit seemed rather contrived to me, as if he wanted us to see what a great guy he was and handing out some used pencils to some students would do that.  He even made them hold up their pencils for a photo which seemed even stranger since he was supposedly the donor so wasn't taking the picture to prove to the donor that the pencils got delivered.

We also stopped at a clinic while he did some big transactions.  Again, I think we were supposed to be impressed with what he was doing.  However, in this case, he never did tell us exactly what he was doing so it was hard to be impressed.  We just tried to stay cool in the shade while we waited.  Then he gave his brother a ride from there to his home and never bothered to introduce us or anything so we rode in silence.  It was a strange situation.

That's when we drove another 12 kilometres on a very bumpy, badly torn-up dirt road to go visit Aaron's father and family on the family farm.  There wasn't much traffic other than pedestrians and bicycles so we could use whatever part of the road we wished, which was a good thing.  At one point we were just following a path through a ploughed field but eventually we made it.  The farm is quite large and they plant maize, peanuts, peas, potatoes, beans, tobacco and probably some other crops that I am missing.  They also have banana and mango trees that I saw and probably others.  There were also chickens and goats and cows around.  I didn't see any equipment of any kind so I'm sure everything is done manually.  Every day we see men and women in the fields with their hoe-like implement working up the ground, and I assume it is the same here.  The family appears to be self sufficient and also takes crops to Lilongwe to market.  To get any other groceries they would have to walk or take one of the bicycles to the nearest town.  The children of various ages all have to walk or bike to school as well.

The father is 80+ years of age but very fit and healthy.  There are five brothers and one sister on the farm and a couple of other households as well - perhaps older grandchildren.  There are certainly a lot of people around.  We were there in the afternoon which is obviously rest time as everyone just seemed to be sitting in the shade.  One man was making a reed mat but the others just seemed to be sitting around doing nothing.  There were several ladies sitting in the one area and lots of little children around them.  However, they didn't speak English and we cant speak Chichewa so communication was a problem.  Aaron was with his father and brothers so not there to help us at the time.  The young children were afraid of us strange creatures, which wasn't surprising, and tried to hide or cried when we got too close.  The adults all thought that was pretty funny.  

We had lunch with the father in his home - a very solid home (brick? cement?) with strong walls, glass windows, working doors and a corrugated steel roof.  The main room was very large with comfortable chairs around the outside of the room.  The walls were bare.  The floor was cement and there was a large reed mat on the floor.  That's where the serving dishes were placed and we each helped ourselves to the chicken, rice and pumpkin leaves.  Of course we all had to wash in the basin first - another very African custom which is most civilized.  After the main course we had some mangos, another variety that we hadn't yet tasted.  My preference is still for the bigger avocado pear variety - strange name but it works - as they are so firm and tasty and easy to eat.  The smaller ones are perhaps juicier but they are also messier.

I should also mention that they have well water here.  The river is not far from the homestead and is at the edge of the property.  Despite that, the well is quite deep - 60 feet I think.  They have to pump it by hand to fill a tank that they have set on a stand about six feet high.  Then it runs by gravity only through a filter Aaron bought in Australia into another tank set on a lower stand.  The filter works really well and the water is supposedly clean and pure.  We didn't try drinking any of it but we did eat the mangos and vegetables that had been washed in it.

Now to continue with the strange day, Aaron continually told us how he bought the property, he built the home for his father, he bought the water pump and filter, he provided all the seed for them and he had to tell them exactly what to do.  The whole day was just a bit too much.  And to top it off, after we saw Aaron talking secretly with the hotel owner, our room rates just suddenly more than doubled.  The rate for my room is 8,500 kwacha as posted in the office but now supposedly the rate is 20,000 kwacha.  And this is not the first time this has happened on this trip.  We are of the firm believe that we are being ripped off big time but we have not been able to prove it.  Aaron's budget called for $45 US rooms each night.  Every time we get one that translates into less than that, suddenly the rates go up, and we firmly believe there's some backroom negotiation going on.  Things may really blow up tomorrow over these issues so the rest of the trip could be interesting.

Anyway, we got back to the hotel to both electricity and water which was a treat.  I took a shower and did some blogging.  Aaron ran some errands and washed the vehicle.  Lynn went for a walk.  By the time they got back there was no water again, and before we went for dinner at 6 we had no power again.  It's definitely an interesting situation.  We've decided we should go into the generator business.  If not selling them we could always service them or just deliver fuel to keep them running all the time.  Apparently this is only an issue during the dry season and right now is the end of the dry season and the water level in the river that produces hydro electricity is very low.

Dinner was once again chicken and rice but this time we got some real cooked vegetables, not just pumpkin leaves.  You know things are desperate when you get excited to see vegetables on your plate!  After dinner we sat around for a while and then it was bed time.  Only two more schools on each of the next two days and then we are free to do some touring!!!