I have arrived. I am in Malawi. In its capital city Lilongwe to be precise, my hometown for the next year or so. The journey to get here went very well, although the farewell at Schiphol was rather more tearful than usual. Saying good-bye seems to have gotten harder over the years. In the past I used to practically sprint towards the customs officers, bouncing with anticipation about the new adventures that were awaiting me. This time though, the farewell committee consisting of Janine, Marijn and Fien nearly had to boot me out of the country, wet eyes, wet nose, wet handkerchief and all.
By the time I reached Heathrow I had sufficiently recovered to meet the other four Dutch volunteers who had been on the same flight with me. And at Lilongwe Airport we met up with the rest: a collection of English, Scottish, Pilipino, Indian and Kenyan nationals. A fresh batch of doctors, nurses, teachers, irrigation officers and organisation advisers: we were 14 in total. Queuing up to enter Malawi we were all a bit nervous to see if someone had really come to pick us up. We needn’t have worried. We were met by Margie, a VSO programme assistant who took us to a hostel were she would guide us through the first week of what VSO calls ‘in-country training’. A series of sessions on culture, language and security, a trip to a health centre, buying Malawian SIM cards for our mobile phones, sightseeing in Lilongwe’s old town, et cetera. The most exciting part of the ICT promised to be the ‘employers’ workshop’. The employers of all new volunteers come down to Lilongwe to meet ‘their’ volunteers. Bosses and volunteers then spend two days getting to know each other, discussing organisation culture (What (not) to wear, what to call people, working hours, etc), exchanging mutual expectations and concerns, and planning the first few days at work. Some employers had traveled for one and a half days to attend the workshop, so you can imagine my disappointment when my employer, based in Lilongwe, the nearest of them all, failed to show up! I must say was quite upset. I feared this was Vanuatu all over again, where most organisations did not really give a hoot about volunteers and treated them accordingly. Thankfully the VSO office here seems to be more astute than the one in Vanuatu and a few telephone calls were quickly made to track down one of my new bosses, the Secretary General (SG) or the Executive Secretary (ES) of the Teachers Union of Malawi (TUM). When the SG, Denis, was found he explained that the invitation to the workshop must have been wrongly forwarded to his predecessor, so he and the ES, Alfred, were actually quite unaware it was going on at all. To my great relief he cleared his schedule immediately and joined the workshop as soon as he could. It was agreed that we would catch up on the parts that he missed on Monday morning at the TUM offices together with the ES and some-one from VSO.
Friday after lunch all volunteers re-packed their bags and the big moment had arrived. Everybody was piled into their employers’ cars and set off for their new home and place of work somewhere in Malawi. In five weeks time we will meet again for the second part of the ICT. I cannot wait to hear everybody’s stories!
So what about me? Where did I go? As I had accepted my placement late in December the house that the TUM had found for me was not quite ready yet. It had been approved by VSO only the day before and was now being painted. Therefore the assistant to the VSO education programme, a nice guy called Kayakangu, dropped me at my temporary accommodation and invited me to go and have a look at my new house. Good plan! The house is in ‘Area 49b’, an average Lilongwe suburb, which I think is great. Sometimes volunteers in capital cities are housed in predominantly ex-pat areas where the chances of getting to know and integrating with local people are very slim. Hopefully that will not be the case here. When we arrived at the house we were invited in by someone whom I assumed to be the landlord, and who introduced himself as Alfred. ‘Hey, another Alfred’ I thought ‘Must be a popular name’, and as I was focused on the house I thought nothing further of it. The landlord showed me around the house, which he was in the process of moving out off. This I found a bit odd, but again thought nothing more of. As we went from room to room I pointed out things that I thought needed fixing such as some missing window panes, the odd missing security bar and the kitchen counter that was nearly falling apart. The landlord and Kayakangu assured me that everything would be taken care of. In the backyard I saw an old rusty car without wheels and an enormous pile of rubbish and I politely insisted that I really hoped those would be removed before I moved in as well. Again the landlord gently confirmed that he would take care of it. Overall I was quite pleased with the place and hopefully I will be moving in sometime next week. When it was time to leave we all shook hands and Kayakangu said to Alfred “So we will see you on Monday morning at the TUM offices to go over some of the stuff that was discussed in the workshop”. At first I thought ‘Huh? Why should this landlord be joining us for that?’ (honestly that is how thick I was!) but then it finally hit me. Ooh……my……God……! Oh nooo!!! Had I really been more or less ordering my new boss to do this, that and the other to his own house? The house that he was actually painting and moving out off to accommodate me? What must he have thought of my behaviour?! Even though words could not begin to describe my embarrassment, I started apologizing profusely. For some reason Kayakangu had assumed that we already knew each other so he too apologized for not introducing us properly. Thankfully Alfred took it all in good humour. He seems like a really friendly gentle man. Let’s hope he will get a better impression of me as we start working together!
On the way back Kayakangu assured me that Alfred’s moving out was coincidental to my arrival. I am not completely convinced. I will keep you posted.