Market Research!!!

Wohooo!!!! I've been doing looooooads of this over the past 3 days!

The organisation I'm working with does an ongoing programme entitled the "Basic Needs Basket". The research I was describing in my earlier post was a new measure to try and extend this same programme, which has been running in urban centres in Malawi for years, into rural areas. What they do is they spend 3 days to a week going around various urban marketplaces - we did 9 over the last 3 days - and get quotes for, say, potatoes, onions, fish, vegetables, etc sufficient to feed a family of 6 for a month. They then publish this information, and compare it to people's actual incomes on a monthly basis. I've been asking lots of questions about it since I started and the disparity between the cost of living here and the amount people actually make is shocking!!

It's now estimated that it costs just under 50,000 Malawian Kwacha (approx. 250 euro) per month to feed an average family of 6. By way of contrast - a shop assistant at a popular supermarket here earns about 3,000 MK - 8,000 MK per month (approx. 15 - 40 euro). I'm not kidding - they've actually asked people this, this is what they get paid. A police officer gets between 15,000 MK and 30,000 MK a month (75 - 150 euro). So, it doesn't take a genius to figure out that the majority of Malawians fall depressingly short of earning enough to fulfil their basic needs. The government-designated minimum wage here is the equivalent of a couple of cent per day.

So, armed with my sunhat - which was a pain in the bum to lug around with me - my sunglasses and a big bottle of Factor 50+, off I set to scour the marketplaces for the best value spuds I could find! I had a great time - I know I keep raving about my colleagues here but they really are fantastic. I've learned some basic Chichewa from them already - "Moni" (Hello/general greeting), "Muli Bwanji?" (How are you?), "Ndili Bwino, kainu?" (Im fine, how are you?), "Zikomo Quambiri" (Thanks very much), "Dapita" (Goodbye), "(Mu)Ana" (child/children). I'm probably after spelling ALL of those wrong, but then, I have seen none of this written down, I'm just learning how to say it so I'm probably spelling it all very phonetically. I'm hoping to get lessons soon!

The kind of foods they eat has been a real eye-opener! Almost all of the fish they eat is dried, which I hadn't really encountered before I came here. And they're so TINY!! They eat this kind of dried fish, heads and all, called kapenta - it's a pale beige colour and bout half an inch long, they often mix it with tomato paste, apparently, and eat them whole. They're supposed to be delicious, but I haven't tried them yet. I might be convinced sometime, but I'll have to work up the courage :-D Some of the larger fish have been guteed and opened up to dry, and to be honest they look more gruesome than appetising, but they're cheap so people eat them. No lemon-and-herb crusted sole fillets on a bed of Cos lettuce for these people. Oh no - but it's still interesting to see!

One thing a colleague of mine bought that it very popular in Malawi, which I will decidedly NOT be sampling, is mphalabungu. To cut a long, gross story short, it's a type of dried tree worm that, en masse, greatly resembles the droppings of a tiny mammal. "Ew ew ew ew" would sum up my reaction to it, at the time. My colleagues thought it was hilarious, my process of initial curiousity, followed swiftly by absolute revulsion. Needless to say, my curiousity didn't quite stretch to a bowl of mphalabungu stew or something. Another one I won't be trying, but which we didn't see at market, is ngumbi, a kind of giant white ant that I understand tend to be spit-roasted before eating. Both are supposed to be quite tasty, but I think I'll opt for taking my colleagues' word for it...

But I've learned a lot, even in such a short time! I've had conversations with people in situations I'm still struggling a bit to get my head around, and I think that I'm beginning to come to an understanding of the reality of abject poverty that I never could have obtained through study at college. To add to this, a lot of what I read about it in an academic context seems to make a bit more sense to me, now that I have a practical grasp of the issues involved too, so that's great. It is hard - there's no getting across to someone who hasn't seen it, what it's like to speak face-to-face with someone who laughs hysterically when you ask them how much (on average) they spend per month on the hairdresser. Not my question, I might add!! But regardless of what anyone might say, I think it's good to be affected by it, to some extent.

Before I got this gig with Trocaire, I had an interview for another placement in Kenya where I was asked to outline my biggest weakness. I always think this is such a ludicrous question - I mean, who really answers this honestly in an interview context?? "Well, I'm a complete scatterbrain and I'd forget my head if it wasn't screwed on" would be a completely honest answer, LOL! But another one I thought of, which didn't make me sound like a dithering idiot, was my sensitivity. In a sense, I think it's both a strength and a weakness. I'll be perfectly honest, I'm an enormous softie. I cry at films, I cry at book, I cry at songs, I cry at stories on the news, I cry at pictures... the list goes on. I find it very hard to see people scrape a living out of the ground, living in a dwelling made entirely of mud and grass, with no food, what little clothes they have torn and ragged, little or no access to medical treatment, sick and hungry and tired, and grateful for the kind of things I take for absolute granted - and not feel like crying from sadness and a little bit of niggling guilt.

I am convinced that telling them this lost me the placement. They had been really positive about me up to that point, and I suppose that to an extent I can understand where they are coming from in not wanting a huge softie on placement with them. But I in no way meant that I was going to spend the entire 6 months in hysterics and not doing anything constructive. I simply meant that I can't view poverty dispassionately. I don't think this makes me a great person - I just think I need to get up off my ass and do something with my passion. Why is it considered a bad thing to be sensitive about this? I don't know. Personally, I think a great deal more harm than good has been done by those who view poverty entirely in an empirical, macro-economic sort of way, like a series of numbers and statistics on a page. How can you hope to solve the issue of poverty if you don't feel the urgency of it, or if you don't understand its personal aspect?

M'eh. I'm whinging again - sorry, I've been doing a lot of that lately! Big shout out to my friend Savannah with her Fairtrade sugar from Malawi! Both Fairtrade sugar and Savannah rock my socks!!

I think that's all for today, my fingers hurt. :-D

So this is how it went

Well. Let me tell you all, I had quite the experience. Whether it was good or bad, largely depends on how you look at it. I certainly had an experience I won’t be forgetting for some time. I saw a lot of things I will never forget, but unfortunately they were seen through the rather distorted lens that comes with being very ill. This is a long one, so bear with me!

I set off Thursday afternoon, as planned – myself, and four men who work for the centre. I was the only one who didn’t speak Chichewa, so one of them came as my translator. The journey was long and fairly arduous, certainly longer than the 2 hours I had expected. I had a bit of a headache, but didn’t want to take anything or drink too much water because I foolishly thought that if I drank too much I’d just end up dying for the bathroom halfway there. Peeing alongside the road isn’t quite so easy as a girl, you know. LOL

I managed quite well to amuse myself, however, with gaping at the stunning vistas as we were passing through hills and valleys, town and markets and tiny villages. We weren’t going to do any interviews until the following morning, so when we got to our destination we dumped our things in our two different accommodations – as the only girl, I stayed with the local nuns – then we headed to a restaurant for something to eat at about 7pm.

Now, the word restaurant probably conjures up pictures in your mind’s eye of Nando’s or Wagamama’s or something. This was neither. This was a tiny, tiny place obviously run and operated by a local family, and it had a very limited menu – basically tea and 2-3 different nsima (prn. “seema”) dishes. I chose nsima ya nkhuku, chicken with nsima. Nsima is very much a staple food in Malawi – absolutely everyone eats it – made from maize flour, with a sort of porridgey or mashed-potatoey texture. It’s quite bland to taste, like rice or couscous, but with the chicken dish I was served with, it was delicious. I had been told earlier that nsima can be very hard on the stomach that is not accustomed to it, but unfortunately I very much underestimated the truth of this statement, and ate away happily.
I paid for my folly the next day.

Basically, the following 24 hours revolved around throwing up, resting in the car, trying to eat something, then throwing up again. For anyone ever heading to Africa in future – approach nsima with caution, if it’s your first time, only have a little bit. I did do the interviews, but they didn’t start off well. I hadn’t slept much the night before, so I was tired. When we got to the first village, I quickly had to find the first pit latrine I came across, where I promptly gacked up everything I’d eaten for the previous 24hrs or so. I’m sure I made quite the impression on the locals... or not.

I feel kind of disappointed, really, in that I’m sure I would have enjoyed the whole experience a lot more if I hadn’t been sick. I was absolutely miserable the whole time, and my colleagues were just worried about me. The combined nausea, the vomiting, the now agonising headache, the dehydration, the exhaustion, the hunger and the fact that it was bloody ROASTING and I’d forgotten both my sunhat and sunglasses, really made for a pretty nightmarish few hours. I felt like I was going to faint on more than one occasion while interviewing people, and when I got back at approximately 5pm on Friday, I went to bed and slept until about 8am the following morning, and then I still wasn’t feeling kosher.

Having said that, I had to acknowledge certain positives to the whole experience, even through my foggy veil of thorough miserableness :-D LOL!! The local people in the villages welcomed me with so much enthusiasm and warmth that I couldn’t help but be touched by it, no matter how sick. The conditions in which some of them were living were truly shocking, and yet when I arrived with my translator, they would go to so much pain to ensure that we had a mat – probably the only one they had – to sit on! Also, what I had underestimated, apart from the mighty stomach-churning power of nsima, was just how much of a novelty I would be to the local people, especially the children.

The children were probably the best aspect of the whole event. They are, without a doubt, absolutely the most perfectly beautiful little creatures you could ever, ever possibly imagine. Anyone who knows me personally is well aware of how fond I am of children in general, but to me, these precious little things represented all that I love about human beings. They were a perfect blend of shyness and curiousity, guileless friendliness, innocence and playfulness. They would get so excited by this azungu (“white person”), smiling at them or waving at them. I even ventured a “Muli Bwanji?” (“How are you?”) with some of them, and although several of them nearly ran away in fright when I spoke, they were delighted. I absolutely adored them, I can’t describe to you how beautiful I found them. I was surprised by just how interested they were in me, though.

I suppose I am so accustomed to my own whiteness, that it didn’t occur to me that it should be interesting to these kids!! But lo and behold, I would step out of the car and immediately more or less every child in the village would be by my side semi-instantaneously. I loved it though :-D it really made my day. And in a funny sort of way, so did the care of my colleagues while I was sick. Africans, generally, are capable of so much warmth, with a lot less of the guile and polite sort of standoffishness I associate with home. The guys were so genuinely concerned about my health, and they took such good care of me, offering me drinks and giving me their hats to keep me cool, etc. I was well cared for, anyway!

Africa has been such a mixed bag so far – there are aspects of it which I honestly love, and those which I am still struggling to come to terms with. The villages were, as I expected, a shock to my senses. I have seen mud huts innumerable times in pictures and in books, and yet somehow it still came as a shock to me that people actually live in these tiny buildings made from mud, with no windows, no electricity, no running water, no locks, nothing. I can’t imagine how to explain why this is still shocking to me. Possibly because the reality of it was always so distant, it never really occurred to me to think how I would feel, if it were myself and my family living in these conditions, rather than just accepting the existence of some sort of parallel dimension where it’s normal or ok for people to live like this.

Anyway, I could go on forever about my first field trip, so I’ll try to stop now. Suffice to say that whatever impression this azungu left on the people of Kalulu village, it’s nothing compared to that which they have left upon me!