First we have to go back in history a little bit. Normally I used to wake up at 5.45 to greet my night guard, Mayeso, enquire about the night’s events (weather conditions, amount of burglars, etc) and send him on his way. One day last week however, at half past midnight, I caught him like this: blissfully asleep in the middle of my shed.
For 30 seconds after I woke him up he actually tried to convince me that he had been fully alert and carefully guarding my life, my stuff and – as you may remember – my purple furniture, all the while cleverly disguising this dutiful activity as ‘sleeping’. But when I showed him this picture, he glumly said: “How long have you been standing there…?” Quite. He was so fast asleep that I – or any robber thus inclined – could easily have murdered him – and me! - in his sleep. It took an empty aluminium watering can thrown crashing on the concrete floor beside him to wake him up. And what a rude awakening it was. This wasn’t the first time, so I send him on his way with a month severance pay, my best wishes for the future and my instructions never to come back.
In the background of this picture you can see the bicycle that VSO has given me during my stay here. Currently I cycle to work 3 times a week. I am afraid my little legs aren’t quite strong enough yet to manage the 45 minute up-hill-down-hill cycle twice every day of the week. On the days that my legs are resting I ride a mini-bus. Interestingly enough this also takes 45 minutes, but costs much more.
So nowadays: 6.00 am and I open my front door to see if all is well. That is my front door, right there:
To those of you who entertained romantic notions of me living in some pimped up mud hut in the middle of nowhere somewhere – I apologise. I live in a 3 bed roomed house in quite an affluent neighbourhood of Lilongwe. Many of my neighbours are civil servants and such, have satellite t.v. and big cars. What is more, in the back of my garden is a separate building with 2 rooms, a toilet and a shower: the servants quarters.
o:p>
They are empty right now, but may be occupied in a few weeks time by a friend in need of 2 months accommodation. Housing is so scarce in Lilongwe that I regularly have people knocking on my door asking if they can rent my ‘boys quarters’ as they are also known, as many people have ‘house boys’ as servants to look after their houses and themselves.
The garden looks pretty awful in this picture, but is actually looking much better now with some grass, flowers and behind the house a vegetable garden with both local and familiar vegetables. All of this fertilized as you will remember with soil from my lovely pile:
Then at 7 a.m. on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays Mrs Jere arrives. Mrs Jere is my cleaning and washing lady. She is a widow with 3 young children, and she lives only a few houses away from me. Her husband was a bank manager and when he died a few years ago the bank only provided for a little pension for the children, so the extra cash from working for me is very welcome. Mrs Jere’s first name is Ruth, but since she refuses to call me by my first name (“Noh!! I cannot do! You are my boss!!) and calls me Madam instead, I decided call her Mrs Jere. It seemed more polite that way. As a term of endearment she has now started to call me ‘Mammy’ which I find even more embarrassing than Madam! Thank God I have managed to stop her curtseying all the time! I did this by curtseying back at her every time she did this, so she was in stitches half the time. The best thing about Mrs Jere is that she is lovely. This is the picture she wanted me to show you:
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But in actual fact she looks like this 95 percent of the time:
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She just smiles and laughs all the time. When she comes in at 7 in the morning looking like this and laughing out loud I ask: “What is going on with you? Why are you laughing so much? Are you in love?” Big laugh, giggle:” No Mammy!”. “Are you on drugs or something?” Even bigger laugh, giggle:”Noooo, I am just happy Mammy!” Then we discuss the things I would like her to do that day – it is almost always the same: washing up, sweeping, mopping, washing clothes, ironing. She works so quickly – and thoroughly! - that all this is done by 8.30! Then obviously once a week she cleans toilet and shower etc. Often I come home and she has changed the furniture around. I guess she has not got enough to do... But that is fine. She helps me with all kinds of other errands and helpful advice so it is really nice to have her around.
By 7.15 I should be off to make it to work at 8.00. (This is the theory. In practice this never happens. 8.15 is more like it.) I get off at the mini-bus ‘depot’ near my work, which is actually nothing more than a big sandy place with lots of vans on it.
The vans have rows of benches screwed into them and people climb over and under each other to find a place.
From the mini-bus depot it is only a short walk to my work, passing interesting signage on the way. (Where would Malawi be without the indispensible Lilongwe School of Petrol Attendants?)
Then only a few more metres and there is the entrance to the premises of the Teachers Union of Malawi. Can you see the sign on the wall?
The funny thing about the location of the TUM is that it is situated in an area that consists of street after street of car wreckers, spare parts dealers and mechanics.
The place basically is one giant garage! Everywhere you look you see mechanics working on cars. These guys have their shop outdoor, just outside the TUM gate:
That is to say, this guy is just fooling around for the picture. The guys doing the actual work are hiding behind the car:
I have made a few friends in the area surrounding the office. In the building you can see behind the car in the penultimate picture work (from left) Julius, Nixon and Graham. The only really important one is Julius: I buy samosa’s from him. Graham is a good second: he is a big fan of Bingu was Mutharika and got me the picture that you saw behind Mrs Jere on my kitchen wall.
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Clearly these three men are not mechanics. Oddly enough they sell air conditioners…
Next door we find Mike:
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Mike used to work at the National Bank of Malawi, was a very good football player once and now owns this little spare parts shop. He is a big Manchester United fan and he regularly is hoarse on Mondays from watching them play over the weekend. He is quite a shy and friendly guy and I regularly drop by for a chat or to swop newspapers with him.
Then, just around the corner is a shop that looks like yet another spare parts outlet, but this is actually my Fanta dealership.
The guy behind the window likes to sell me Fanta’s not just from a business perspective, but he gets to teach me new phrases in Chichewa in the process. Obviously these are too difficult to remember for me so unfortunately I have already forgotten: “Can you open it?” and “Here is your change”, etc.
That’s all outside the office. Once inside we find the following people:
Jackson, the driver and registrar in the smallest office in the world. Apart from typing and laminating ID cards for teachers who need these cards in order to procure a loan, I am not sure what he does. He runs a lot of errands.
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Nancy, the secretary to the Executive Secretary (and everybody else). She is also the gate keeper to Alfred’s office. He hides in his office most of the time. (So no picture of him here) Even though his office is less than 10 steps away from mine, in the extremely rare circumstances that he wishes to communicate something to me he writes a memo, gives it to Nancy, who hands it to me. When I want to ask a question or discuss something with him, I ask Nancy if he is free, then knock on his door and wait for his reply. I can then enter and ask my question. All of the above Alfred calls: the open door policy of the TUM office…
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Grace, the treasurer. She thought she wasn’t wearing a very nice outfit the day I took the picture, so a head shot only. Another widow.
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Marc, the assistant accountant. His sister has just moved into a house across the street from me. The accountant, Vitalis, is currently on leave, so unfortunately no picture of him yet.
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Then the very important Mr Gowa. He makes the tea! As well as keeping the inside and the outside of the office area clean and tidy, playing receptionist, typing ID’s for teachers when Jackson is not around and generally being bossed around by Nancy – but in a nice way, because she is nice too.
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And last but not least, Denis the Menace, the SG who, I have to add, does not always dress like this. Normally he is a suit and tie man, but this day he attended some multi-culti type meeting which required …pink outfits? Who knows.
So after a hard day at the office doing …virtually nothing (TUM, VSO and myself are still in the process of discussing what exactly I might contribute to the organisation. TUM had a little fantasy of having been given a free project officer (at the expense of the previous one whose contract was not renewed at the end of March) who would write project proposals for them so donors would give them money. A fundraiser, really. I thought that I would be doing more or less what I did in the Netherlands: together with the elected officials discussing and finding the best way to implement the strategic plan, giving training where necessary. Most certainly I did not envisage pushing a Malawian project officer out of a job! I guess the phrase “ Facilitating the implementation of the strategic plan” can mean different things to different people…As I said: the matter is still under discussion: I will keep you up to date) I take another mini-bus home to my area called Gulliver.
After I get off the mini-bus (you can see it on the main road in the distance) there is an opportunity for some last minute shopping of mops
Fruit
Or even hiring an assortment of handy-men.
If I am lucky there is no power cut in the evening and I can cook and eat my dinner in a leisurely fashion. If I am unlucky I race against the clock to get my dinner ready in time because several times a week there is no electricity between 6 and 7.30. Then at 9 at the latest: time for bed.
