NIMBY

There is nothing that will raise your environmental consciousness as quickly as living in a city where there is no rubbish collection service. Anywhere.

Back home I was never much into ‘the environment’ and ‘pollution’ and ‘separating household rubbish’ to ‘save the planet for our children’ and what not. I recycled glass only because I could get fined if it was discovered in my rubbish bags by the rubbish police. True, I did stop short at tossing empty batteries in along with everything else, but other than that I pretty much couldn’t be bothered. Animal, mineral, vegetable, chemical: off it all went, snugly together in a stylish gray plastic bag to God knows where, to be dealt with in God knows what manner. Buried? Burned? Distributed amongst the poor? Couldn’t tell you, didn’t care.

What I can tell you though, is that all this changes when rubbish collection stops. And it becomes your personal responsibility to try and get rid of every single thing you bring into your house. Then, believe me, you start to care. With every plastic carrier bag they give you in shops, you agonise: “Oh no, not another plastic bag?! Where am I going to put that?!”

Fortunately I have discovered that a lot of the stuff you bring into your house, you can get rid off by eating it. I have tried this. This works. If you have a toilet connected to the city sewage system, so much the better. If not, eating will only offer temporary reprieve. But for everything that cannot be transported from your house through the plumbing, you must find another solution. That is to say: bury it, burn it, or distribute it amongst the poor. There are people in Lilongwe who make a living sifting through other people’s rubbish and resell some of the things they find. I buy empty mayonnaise jars for my herbs and spices from a guy who sits by the side of the river with a collection of ‘reclaimed’ containers in all shapes and sizes.

As for the rest, the non-reclaimable stuff, every house has its own waste disposal unit. This unit consists of: a pile. That’s right: every house has its very own pile of its very own garbage sitting in its very own back garden. How charming. This obviously started out as good idea in the time when most of people’s waste consisted only of organic stuff. Unfortunately this is no longer the case. Sometimes the pile starts out as a pit, but after a number of years, this will have grown into a mound. The stuff just doesn’t go away, does it? I too have such a mound in the back of my garden. In fact I inherited Alfred’s! Aren’t I the lucky one?! The answer, quite surprisingly, is: yes. Apparently my pile makes very strong fertiliser. Even peppered with all kinds of non-degradable junk, I am told it is perfect compost for my garden. So here am I, staring despondently at years of empty toothpaste tubes, pens, sandwich bags, broken flip-flops and an assortment of unidentified pieces of heavy iron sticking out of what I hope will become my vegetable garden, while Mayeso cheerfully exclaims: “This is very good topsoil!”. Yeah, well, let us first see what the tomatoes taste like, that’s what I say.

But one good thing has already come from all this. I have finally started separating my household rubbish. I have divided my pile into two sections. Kitchen and garden waste on the right, the rest on the left. (Right is buried, left burned.)

Section 65: the story continues

In the interest of continuing the exciting events in the Malawian presidential race, you will be glad to learn that Parliament is due to convene on 28 April. Parliament has been called to discuss the 2008/2009 national budget as Malawi’s financial year runs from 1 May to 30 April. However, the opposition is not so much interested in debating the budget as in invoking Section 65, which would help them throw out all defecting MP’s from the National Assembly. The current president Mutharika: “Parliament must discuss budget, nothing else but budget. No budget, no Section 65”.

Meanwhile, the revenge thirsty Muluzi has problems of his own, trying to convince his party to nominate him as the UDF presidential candidate at next week’s UDF convention:

 

The Nation, Thursday, 17 April 2008

 

UDF presidential race saga:

CLERGY WANT CONVENTION POSTPONED

 

By Olivia Kumwenda

 

Religious leaders from Balaka and Ulongwe have agreed to write UDF national chairman Bakili Muluzi to consider postponing the forthcoming convention for the party to come up with an alternative plan in case the law catches up with Muluzi and Vice-President Cassim Chilumpha. Both Muluzi and Chilumpha – the only UDF presidential aspirants at the convention scheduled for April 24 – have pending court cases.

Muluzi faces a constitutional case on his ability to run for presidency again after serving two consecutive five-year terms from 1994 to 2004 and a corruption case where the Anti-Corruption Bureau is probing him over 1.4 billion Kwadcha donor money allegedly deposited into his personal account. On the other hand, Chilumpa has a pending treason case for allegedly plotting to assassinate President Bingu wa Mutharika.

The clergy – who opted for anonymity – are reported to have held a meeting on Saturday in Machinga, where they discussed that having a person with a pending court case as a presidential candidate is not healthy for the party.

[…]

 

Well… quite. Surely everyone agrees that when your party’s only two presidential candidates are alleged criminals, postponing the convention is going to restore the health of the party.

Thank God for the clergy, that’s what I say.

 

New series!! The completely obscure yet universally admired Malawi Mai Quiz! (Edutainment for the geographically challenged)

Welcome to the first installment of the Malawi Mai Quiz on my Blog! A new and exhilarating way to learn about some of the interesting, moving, endearing, funny, important and/or downright stupid things I come across in my every-day life in Malawi.

What’s with the name? Well, ‘mai’ is the Chichewa word for ‘madam’ and also for ‘mother’. It is the polite way to address a woman. Malawians are very much into this formal style of address. Like the French they may call their best friends ‘madam Suchandsuch’ or ‘mister Whatsit’ even after they have known each other for a hundred years or more. In short, this quiz is about women in Malawi. It’s a multiple choice quiz. Which means that you can choose multiple answers.

Are there prizes to be won? Of course there are! A quiz would not be a proper quiz if there wasn’t a thousand Kwadcha at stake. That’s right! One zero zero zero crispy Kwadchas for the winner of each exciting episode, to be collected in person at my house in Area 49B (It’s the one with the white wall and light green gate, just knock, and if I don’t come out at once don’t worry, just knock again because I may not have heard the first time, I’m sorry it’s probably nothing personal) in Lilongwe. (Did I mention that Malawi residents are excluded from participation?)

A warning before we start. A quiz is not for everyone. If you are one of those ‘I-have-just-come-home-from-work-where-I-have-been-thinking-deep-and-complicated-thoughts-all-day-for-frankly-not-enough-money-if-you-ask-me-but-nobody-seems-to-give-a-shit-especially-not-my-boss-what-else-is-new-and-now-I-just-want-to-read-something-light-and-fluffy-for-God-sake-something-that-will-put-a-smile-on-my-face-and-help-me-relax-you-know-instead-of-having-to-do-more-bloody-thinking-I-don’t-care-for-how-many-freakin-Kwadchas-so-quiz-mai-foot-ha-ha-pun-intended’ kind of Blog reader, this may not be for you. In which case, not to worry my friend, just scroll on! (or surf to www.hormonetherapy.com). For the rest of you: here we go!

 

Malawi Mai Quiz: episode 1!

 

Where does a Malawi Mai keep her mobile phone?

Is this in:

 

A: her handbag or purse?

B: her hair?

C: the same place she keeps her money?

D: her bra?

E: Don’t be such an arse Caroline; this is obviously a trick question because Malawian women are too poor to even have a mobile phone!

 

Looking forward to your answers. Good luck!

Malawi is a land with problems (3)

The Daily Times, Friday, April 4, 2008

 

Reserve Bank of Malawi

 

PRESS RELEASE

Handling and Storage of the Malawian Currency

 

1.Introduction

The Reserve Bank of Malawi (the RBM) has the sole statutory authority to issue banknotes and coins as legal tender in Malawi in accordance with section 17 of the Reserve Bank of Malawi Act.

The RBM would therefore like to sensitize the general public on the proper handling and storage of banknotes and coins which will assist its efforts to improve efficiency in currency management.

[…]

 

4. General Guidelines for Handling Banknotes and Coins

Banknotes

·         Large amounts of cash should not be stored in homes or business premises but must be deposited in banks for safety.

·         Do not scatter banknotes on the floor during weddings and other similar celebrations but place the banknotes in baskets/trays arranged by the cashiers.

·         Do not step on banknotes.

·         Do not crumple banknotes.

·         Do not mutilate banknotes, as doing so is a criminal offence.

·         Do not staple banknotes.

·         Do not write on banknotes or make drawings on them.

·         Do not use Malawian Kwadcha banknotes in advertisements without proper authorization from the RBM.

·         Do not rub or wash banknotes

·         Avoid storing or placing banknotes in moist places.

 

Coins

·         Avoid putting coins in tins or burying them in the ground as they will get rusty.

·         Do not deface or smelt the coins as doing so is a criminal offence

·         The coating on the K5 and K10 coins is not gold; hence attempts to separate the inner and outer components of the coins in search of the perceived gold are not worthwhile.

[…]

 

6. Conclusion

The Bank would like to inform the general public that the Malawi Kwadcha banknotes and coins are legal tender in Malawi. Accordingly, the public should undertake financial and business transactions using the Malawian Kwadcha banknotes and coins.

 

(Signature)

Victor Mbewe

GOVERNOR

Azungu

In Malawi white people are called ‘azungu’. It is a positive word, originally a greeting with which you welcome foreigners. Walking down the street children point and wave at me in enthusiastic surprise, chanting “Aaaah-zuuung-guuuh!!” When I wave back at them, their joy is complete. They have a story to tell each other for the rest of the week. Browsing in the market salespeople call out to me to attract my attention: “Azungu!”, “Madam!”, “Azungu!” I am white and therefore rich, a good customer to have. They can try and charge me ‘azungu prices’. My 200 euro salary does not make me feel rich, most of my Malawian neighbours are certainly wealthier than I am, but they do not know this. As far as they are concerned all azungu are millionaires. They have seen the movies. They have seen the diplomats and aid workers in their big four-wheel-drive all-terrain vehicles. They have seen the gadgets even the poorest looking azungu tourists adorn themselves with. They know everything about azungu they need to know. Sometimes this knowledge leads to truly amazing behaviour. What to think of the young men that walk up to me in the street, brashly demanding: “Azungu, give me your bicycle!”. This happens a lot. “Azungu, give me your money!” Recently I have started to challenge people who do this. I say: “What do you think you are doing, approaching a total stranger in this manner? You don’t talk to rich Malawians this way, do you? Do you think that just because I am azungu you can walk up to me and shout ‘Give me! Give me! Give me!’?” This response baffles them. Because what else are azungu for but to give, give, give? It is not their fault that they think this. We have taught them this. Without realising it, without wanting it, we have taught them this. Unknowingly we have taught them things about azungu we are quite unaware of.

One Saturday evening when Mayeso arrived to start work, he noticed that I had done a lot of work in the garden, collecting rubble and putting it on big piles. Perplexed he stammered: “You have really surprised me, Madam, you have really amazed me.”

Confused I asked him: “Why is this?”

“Because I did not think you could work hard.”

Even more confused I said:“Excuse me? Why not? I am healthy. I have arms and legs. Why should I not be able to work hard?”

“Because you are weak. You look like a baby.”

By now I was stunned: “I beg your pardon?! I look like a baby?? You mean just me or all azungu?”

“All azungu. You look like babies. Because your bodies are soft, like babies. They do not look as if they could work hard, like we do. But you, you are active, Madam! You are like an African! That is why you have amazed me.”

I must say I was amused at the ease with which he was insulting me. He did not seem to realise it. It was all delivered in the friendliest of explanatory manners: The sky is blue, papaya’s grow on trees, azungu are like babies. It is no surprise that he should think this. All azungu that come to live in Malawi are told we must have staff to do our manual labour for us. Cleaning, gardening; it is our social obligation to provide employment for poor local people. They, clearly, draw their own conclusions. It reminds me of a ni-Vanuatu colleague who thought that white people were inherently smarter than the ni-Vanuatu because all white people went to university. For those were the only white people she ever met. I explained to Mayeso that azungu in their home countries do not have staff like they do when they live in Africa. At home they do all the work themselves.

He nearly fainted: “No! This cannot be true! You are not strong enough!”

When I added that they do all the work themselves because they cannot afford to have staff - what with having to pay a living wage and all – things moved outside the realm of the comprehensible altogether. I did not want to upset him too much: I asked him to start digging the flowerbeds. Order was restored.

Section 65

Malawi is in a strange political deadlock at the moment. Parliament has not convened for months and months because of a neat little snag in the constitution called ‘Section 65’. It would actually be funny if it wasn’t so seriously depressing at the same time. To explain it we must go back in history a little bit, and look at the origin of this impasse.

The year 1994 saw the end of the of the rule of a Dr. Kamuzu Banda, a dictator who had ruled Malawi since its independence in 1963. He had started out as a democratic leader, but pretty soon after his election to the office of president it became clear that he planned to stay there for the rest of his life. Indeed he managed to hang on for 30 years, but then he was forced to resign and call for elections. Exactly how his fall came about is a different story, what is important for our story here is that the 1994 elections were won by a man named Bakili Muluzi of the United Democratic Front. He was reelected in 1999 and when his second - and therefore constitutionally last - term drew to an end he too started to develop a serious wish to remain in office for the rest of his life. After all, one would agree that a job that ‘allows’ one unlimited access to public resources and use them for one’s own benefit is pretty hard to leave behind, wouldn’t one? So first he tried to convince parliament to make him president for life. But they were having none of it. Then he organised a referendum asking the Malawian people to allow him to run for a third term in office. Once bitten twice shy, they too were having none of it. With no options left to hold on to the presidency himself, he proceeded to handpick a successor - the relatively unknown outsider Dr. Bingu wa Mutharika - to run in the elections for the UDF, which they won. But while Muluzi started to get ready to use Mutharika as his marionette for the next 5 years, he got the surprise of his life listening to his protégée’s inaugural speech. In it Mutharika introduced a zero tolerance policy on corruption and declared his intentions to bring to justice all corrupt leaders from the past ten years who had stolen so much money from the public. One can only imagine the shocked outburst of disbelieve and anger this must have caused in Muluzi. The one thing on his mind since that day has been: REVENGE!!! As Muluzi was – and is – still party leader of the UDF he then conspired to throw Mutharika out of the party and thus out of office. Mutharika, not the dimmest of men as you may have gathered by now, made a surprising move. He quickly left the UDF, the party that brought him to power, and started a brand new party of which initially he was the only member. Imagine this: the current President of Malawi is the leader of a party that did not even exist, let alone took part, in the elections that put him in office. And the party that won the elections and put the president in power is now: the opposition. Welcome to Malawian politics.

Pretty soon more Members of Parliament left the UDF to join Mutharika’s new Democratic Progressive Party. Not that this new party had any better or more interesting policies to offer than any of the other parties. ‘Policy’ is not something that Malawian politicians tend to get involved in a lot. Politics is mainly about regional alliances, mudslinging and trying to get your hand in the till. So a few MP’s must have thought it worth the gamble to ‘cross the floor’ as switching parties is called, or more likely someone made it worth their gamble. Mutharika needed this support badly: one cannot rule a country without any support in parliament even if one is the president. But this is where Mutharika’s luck ran out and where the constitutional snag, the by now famous Section 65, came in. Because Section 65 of the Malawian constitution stipulates that any MP who crosses the floor will be thrown out of parliament at the earliest opportunity. Obviously the UDF did not waste time trying to invoke Section 65 by having it put on the parliamentary agenda for debate and submitting a motion that the defecting MP’s would be removed from parliament. However, again Mutharika surprised everyone. Faced with the risk of losing what little support he has in Parliament, Mutharika quite simply ‘suspended parliament’. It seems the man likes to operate on the very edge of democratic possibilities. This all happened last year. The budget for 2008 was passed five months too late in a special ‘one-off’ session of parliament. At the moment it is unclear when Parliament will finally meet again and what will be on the agenda. In the mean time Muluzi and Mutharika are slugging it out through the media. Not in a very sophisticated manner I might add. But then, that is probably a little bit too much to expect after the rather less than elegant events of the past years. For your enjoyment I copied most of a full page spread that the DPP took out in The Daily Times last week to ‘put the record straight’.

 

The Daily Times, Monday, March 31, 2008

 

SPECIAL BRIEFING TO MALAWIANS ALL OVER THE WORLD

 

We hereby present this briefing to all Malawians all over the world in an effort to explain the clandestine campaign being waged against His Excellency the State President Dr. Bingu wa Mutharika both in the electronic and print media. We have reason to believe that opposition United Democratic Front under the auspices of former State President Bakili Muluzi and his bench men are behind this smear campaign. Muluzi who already served his two terms of office but is now an aspirant for the high office has made no secret that he has an important unfinished business meaning to remove Bingu wa Mutharika from power come what may. In his own words Muluzi has stated that this is the only thing on his mind. Most probably out of such desperation he has resorted to tactics that can only be described as tacky and provocative.

 

ON LINE NYASA TIMES PUBLICATION

Nyasa Times which is domiciled in the United Kingdom has been in the forefront maligning the State President, members of his immediate family, government officials and members of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party. The stories that appear on this on line publication are very novel, defamatory, damaging, disrespectful and full of anger that can easily create tension and distrust in our country. In addition, there is no truth at all in what is being published on Nyasa Times. The stories are not factual, they are unfair, unbalanced and ethically bankrupt.

Nyasa Times has not even been civil in the way it has tackled stories about the President. Opposition leaders should realize that just because one is in the opposition, that is not a licence to be disrespectful to the country’s leadership. Speculation has been rife on Nyasa Times on the health of the State President, which possibly intended to cause unnecessary alarm. But surely, Malawians know that the State President is enjoying the best of health and it is Muluzi instead who has been going for medical check up to the United Kingdom. But the picture being painted by Nyasa Times is as if the contrary was true.

We are seriously monitoring the reports on Nyasa Times and those involved should know that we have the capacity to fight back. We have got our reputation to protect and we are not going to allow an online publication to throw mud at the State President just because someone desperately wants to become president again.

 

Maize availability

It is customary that maize is always in short supply around February both in Malawi and the region as a whole. This is well known phenomenon in Malawi and there is no way that UDF/Muluzi should claim that there is hunger in Malawi. We are aware of all the many tactics that have been employed to create fear and panic. In all fairness Muluzi should be the last person to comment on maize shortage and the scare for looming hunger.

People of Malawi still have fresh memories that under Muluzi’s leadership people routinely survived on maize husks and green mangoes from as early as August onwards. There were huge quantities of maize being imported and the silos were empty. That is not the case this time around. Yet Muluzi/UDF secretly sold maize to East Africa when the country was without adequate maize. The former president ans his party are deliberately distorting facts and they are unsuccessfully trying to compare the self inflicted crisis they created in their time to the current situation. They are forgetting that Malawians know all too well the meaning of hunger. The situation is being politicized and therefore being blown out of all proportions. In most of the areas crops are maturing and there is a whole array of foodstuffs. Is it right to say we are in a hunger crisis? By the way, what happened to the proceeds of the sale of maize to East Africa during the Muluzi era?

In 2005, 4 million were unable to feed themselves and they had to rely on food aid while in 2006, this figure reduced by 80%to 800,000who benefitted from food aid. The fact that 11 in every 12 people could be described as food secure in 2006 means that the country had attained Food Security. The situation in 2007 was even better as input subsidies helped increase agricultural productivity which led to the largest ever maize crop. But Nyasa Times and UDF would like the world to believe otherwise.

[…]

 

MULUZI’S LEGACY

Muluzi should refrain from trying to compare his ten years of mismanagement to the four years of President Mutharika’a success story. The former State President should not think that people have forgotten his legacy and how things were in his time which was characterized by chaos and ineptitude.

As an aspirant to the high office there is totally nothing that he can offer than enriching himself. People should not forget that donors walked away from this country and the IMF and World Bank could nit bail us out because of lack of transparency and accountability of the Muluzi administration. There is nothing new he can bring to the country since in the ten years he was on the driving seat nothing much changed for the better. The man just likes making empty promises. We are appealing to Malawians to clearly scrutinize this man and his intentions. The people who he promised to provide jobs he did not and even those that had already worked in the mines such as ex-TEBA employees, his agents embezzled their pension money. Whatever he says must therefore be taken with a pinch of salt.

 

PRESIDENT DR. MUTHARILA’S ECONOMIC SUCCESS

 

[Ten paragraphs full of lots of good stuff about Mutharika’s achievements such as lower inflation rate, lower poverty rate, increased export value, etc. etc. etc. ]

 

CONCLUSION

This briefing is aimed at informing the public of what is going on and to put the record straight. We urge those contributing to the Nyasa Times not to peddle lies and that we reserve the right to seek legal redress if they do not stop.

We have been forced to react to these unwarranted attacks being made on the State President and his government and we will not just standby and look on this a his detractors continue on this futile campaign of misinformation.

 

Chikumbutso Mtumodzi

STATE HOUSE PRESS OFFICER

LILONGWE

March 25, 2008