Africa, Aid and assistance!

I don't think you can live in the Third World without being almost constantly aware of poverty; of how much you have compared to how little most others around you have.

Perhaps some people get used to it but I don't. I never got used to lepers and child beggars on street corners in India; or people living, giving birth and dying on the street. Africa is not as bad as India, at least the bits I have seen are not as bad but it is bad enough.

And Africa is a place of contrasts. Where we live and how we live, power outages and surges aside, could be anywhere in the First World. The suburb, Area 43, is truly lovely with beautiful gardens and nice homes. It is where most of the embassies are so that is not surprising. And where a lot of expats live.  But Lilongwe is one of the prettiest and cleanest African cities I have seen. The Old Town is a bit raddled and worn but in general, it is safe, clean and functional.

Karonga, an eight hour drive to the north, where the mine is, has much higher levels of poverty and looks very different to here. Although there are also pleasant places to be found there as well. But whatever the good bits may be, the reality is that Malawi, like most of Africa, is poor.

No doubt it is the Virgo in me which maintains a level of 'guilt' along with the awareness and one does what one can but it never seems much. I bring clothes for Limited and Andrew's children when I can and want to collect some for the local orphanage.

When I throw paper away, if it is not personal (when I tear it into small pieces) I do not fold it in cause Limited wants to collect it so his children can draw or write on the unused back. We pay good salaries, provide money for taxis to the hospital .... Andrew was sick on Friday and needed money to get to the hospital and back and something extra  for any medication... money for funerals and money for unexpected crises.

It doesn't seem much but it is better than nothing and it is just the way things are around here. I am not sure what was wrong with Andrew but it sounded like dysentery. It doesn't take much to push people over the financial edge in Africa; they live so close to it most of the time.

I suppose it is the day to day issues which one sees which makes me ponder more deeply the absolute failure of international aid to Africa. That is at least how it seems to me after some 14 years of travelling and living around the continent.

When I was a child Africa was poor and now, fifty years on, it is still poor. How many of us can remember our parents, encouraging us to eat our dinner,  saying: 'Think of the starving children in Africa.'  And by Australian standards we were also poor but I knew the African children were much, much poorer. The image of starving children was very real and remains so in various parts of Africa, even today.

Images such as that above have been with us for generations. Most of us in the developed world know that people in Africa are, in the main, terribly poor and in need of help.

That's why when the clarion call comes, as it does so often, to give aid to Africa, people dip into their pockets and support the cause. It is noble, generous, considerate, compassionate .... and generally ineffectual.

Anyone who lives in the Third World can see, if they are prepared to look, that aid does not actually achieve its goal. Or more to the point, despite the billions if not trillions poured into the problem, the goal remains distant if not unattainable.

Perhaps we have reached a point where instead of giving we need to start to demanding. That is if we really want to help Africa. If aid doesn't work then we need to find out what does and start demanding that our own government and the international community start thinking outside the square and doing what needs to be done to help Africa in ways that actually make a difference; a lasting, enduring, functional difference.

The bandaid business of international aid has had a long history of failure. Of course there are success stories; of course there has been some programmes and assistance which have actually helped, but, in the main, the goal of helping Africans rise out of poverty has failed miserably. If any 'business' had failed in such a monstrous way it would have been done away with long ago.

Not so aid to Africa and the question we need to start asking is Why? Why does this keep going on when it is not doing what it is supposed to do? Why do we keep giving more and getting less, or rather, we keep giving more and Africans keep getting less. Well, most Africans keep getting less. There is no doubt the money goes somewhere but not where it is needed and most definitely not where it is meant to go.

We all know that quite a few African leaders, over the past half century  that the international aid tap has been turned, on have become immensely wealthy. The facts are published in the media. They are frequent and far from unusual.


The latest revelation, after the Egyptians finally rose up against tyranny and poverty, was that their 'leader' Hosni Mubarak, may well be the richest man in the world with some $70 billion dollars in his 'pocket.'  And Angola's president, Jose Eduardo Dos Santos, who has been in power for about the same length of time as Mubarak, is often referred to as the 'richest man in Brazil!' Well, his money is salted away in Brazil that is while most of his people fail to benefit from the massive oil and diamond wealth of that small nation.


Where do they get this phenomenal wealth and why is aid still being poured into those countries because most people who live there, do so in abject poverty?  People are shocked, horrified and railing now about Mubarak but his wealth was common knowledge before the Egyptian people decided they had had enough. No-one cared then about the disparity between his egregious wealth and his nation's terrible poverty.


India is another case in point. While most Indians live in shocking poverty and literacy levels are appalling, the government still has the money to fund a nucler arms programme; a space programme and a massive military. Logic suggests that Indians need housing and education long before they need a space programme even if one does take into account the 'ego soothing' which comes from being armed with nuclear weapons and having a massive military complex at the nation's disposal.


At what point do people need to take responsibility for their own poverty? That question needs to be asked even more strongly after countless decades of international aid have achieved so little. It is a question some have asked and more will hopefully ask in the future.

In an article published in the Wall Street Journal, in 2009, written by , Dambisa Moyo and titled, Why Foreign Aid is Hurting Africa, made the point that:

‎'Over the past 60 years at least $1 trillion of development-related aid has been transferred from rich countries to Africa. Yet real per-capita income today is lower than it was in the 1970s, and more than 50% of the population -- over 350 million people -- live on less than a dollar a day, a figure that has nearly doubled in two decades.'

LEFT: Billions of dollars in aid and slums in Africa keep growing.

That is a lot of money, which has gone somewhere, but not where it was and is needed. As the saying goes: 'Only a fool keeps doing the same thing and expecting a different result.'

'Throwing good money after bad,' is the next one.

Of course people want to help but if the help which is given does not help then what purpose does it serve except to fill the pockets of some and fund yet another inefficient aid agency?

And yet even in the face of such clear and abject failure the calls grow louder for a doubling of the $50billion or so in international aid which is poured into Africa every year. Only a few float on the sea of money which washes through Africa annually.

Moyo, a former economist at Goldman Sachs, is the author of, Dead Aid: Why Aid is Not Working and How There Is a Better Way for Africa,  makes the point that aid has not only failed to help it has made the poor poorer and slowed economic growth. The insidious aid culture, he says, has left African countries more debt-laden, inflation-prone and more vulnerable to the vagaries of the currency markets. In addition it has served to deter top-quality investors and increased the risk of civil conflict and unrest.

With over 60% of sub-Saharan Africa's population under the age of 24 with few economic prospects, aid, he says, is an unmitigated political, economic and humanitarian disaster.

It is hard to disagree. A friend who was here some 40 years ago asked me what the basic wage was and when I replied it was about a dollar a day, he said: 'Nothing much has changed then?'

And no, it has not, but it should have changed. And the question the world needs to start asking is why has international aid failed to help Africa and where has the money gone!  How can one trillion dollars just disappear into such a swamp of failure without people asking questions or saying; 'No more, enough is enough?'

Of course politics are involved, of course diplomacy is involved, of course corporate greed and vested interests and corruption and incompetence are involved but the point of all of this was and is to help Africans rise out of poverty. If what is being done is achieving little or nothing then it is a waste of everyone's time, a shocking waste of money, and no more than some hypocritical tinkering  as far as poor Africans are concerned.

Although some questions are being asked, or have been asked, not a lot seems to change. In a United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations in May, 2004, Jeffrey Winters, a university professor, argued that the World Bank had participated in the corruption of around $100 billion of its loan funds intended for development.

And two years before this, the African Union estimated that corruption was costing the continent $150 billion a year as international donors turned a blind eye to aid money being re-directed.

We are now, by African life expectancy, a good three generations into serious international aid donations and yet children in the main have little hope of a future where they will earn more than their grandparents earned. That is not just wrong it is ridiculous.

There are few countries in Africa where corruption is not working at the top levels of government and right down through the system.  Some countries are better or worse than others but all share the same sorts of problems and the people suffer because of it.

Bureacracy is a part of the problem, says Moyo. Governments need a functional and effective civil service but such systems are always prone to misuse and red tape. The aid money flow rolling through such systems merely makes the danger of corruption that much greater.

It is easy to criticise people for corruption but in the Third World you are pretty much on your own and without trustworthy government and effective social welfare safety nets, you will always have corruption because people have to look after themselves.

In Africa and India, as I saw, and as is the case in all Third World countries and the less developed nations, when you fall you fall all the way into the gutter. The only safeguard anyone can have is the support of family and friends who either have money or contacts, or influence, or power or all of the above.

It is a vicious cycle where a lack of security in life virtually ensures that the system will be corrupt and a corrupt system will never offer any sort of security. And so it goes, around and around and around and aid money only makes it all that much worse because aid offers a source worth tapping; a prize worth stealing; a chance to get the money that will make you and your family secure.

No doubt cultural attitudes toward tribal affiliations,  those in power, and the importance of demonstrating one's position or power play a part as well.  I remember when I was living in India and discovering that within the culture was a belief that a person who had a position of power would be 'shamed' if they did not use that power to benefit their family and community.

What we in the West call corruption can have many different names in other cultures even beyond the fact that making full use, legally or illegally,  of position or power can be a matter of survival.  That is not to say such attitudes are healthy, but they exist as a part of tradition and make it much harder for people in those societies to resist 'milking the system' for their own ends and for the benefit of those who expect them to share their good fortune.

Foreign aid is the biggest African 'cash' crop and governments expend most of their energy in making sure the harvest is a good one and that it gets better every year. As long as the focus is on foreign aid there will be little time or money spent on developing the local economy. And why would there be? Aid money is 'easy money,' or as Australia's Aborigines first called it; ' Sit down money.'

The only thing you need to continue receiving this money for nothing is to remain poor and in need. Why would you risk self sufficiency when you, and by that I mean those who are in power, are actually doing okay. 

And the aid agencies are no different. While their raison d'etre may be altruistic, the reality is that they also need a continuation of the poverty and the need or they are out of a job. And for most of those who work for aid agencies, it's a good job. They get good accommodation, a decent car to drive, a reasonable salary, an interesting job and they get to feel good about the fact they are 'helping,' even though in reality they are hurting more than they help.

This may seem a somewhat cynical view of aid but having notched up nearly 20 years living in India and Africa it is the result of what I have seen, heard and reasoned. I return at this point to the one trillion dollars of aid in the past 60 years as a reminder of how tragically ineffectual it all is.

Moyo goes on to say that the; 'Proponents of aid are quick to argue that the $13 billion ($100 billion in today's terms) aid of the post-World War II Marshall Plan helped pull back a broken Europe from the brink of an economic abyss, and that aid could work, and would work, if Africa had a good policy environment.

The aid advocates skirt over the point that the Marshall Plan interventions were short, sharp and finite, unlike the open-ended commitments which imbue governments with a sense of entitlement rather than encouraging innovation. And aid supporters spend little time addressing the mystery of why a country in good working order would seek aid rather than other, better forms of financing. No country has ever achieved economic success by depending on aid to the degree that many African countries do.'

There are too many African leaders who rank amongst the world's richest, their money safely squirrelled away in foreign bank accounts,  while their people still struggle in poverty. There are too many African nations with enormous natural resources which produce billions of dollars every year and yet most of their people still struggle in poverty.

No-one would deny that disaster aid is invaluable and more so in the Third World, but country aid, on a regular basis simply does not work.

I don't have any answers and I wish I did but I do know, having lived and travelled in various parts of Africa over the past 14 years that not enough has changed for the better. And it should have.

But it is too easy to point the finger at African governments, aid agencies, corporate investers, international aid donors or even the African people as the root cause of this tragedy. As with most things it is not just the fault of 'one' but a shared problem created by the many.

I just hope it is a problem which can be solved sooner not later. Africans deserve as much and that includes everyone; those at the top and those at the bottom.

Research, rage and reality!

Researching Malawi in particular and Africa in general is a reminder of how dark and cruel life was in Africa before the colonial period which began in earnest in the 16th century.

The first record of exploration in Africa is attributed to a Moroccan, Abu Abdullah Muhammad Ibn Battuta  (1303-1365), who traveled through Africa, across the Middle East, and into parts of the Far East. He was a Muslim and he set off on a Hajj (a pilgrimage to the holy town of Mecca) from Tangier, Africa, in 1325. His journey lasted for nearly 30 years, covering over 75,000 miles (120,700 km) and travelling both on sea and land.

The Portugese were the first to explore Africa in an official, as opposed to individual sense, and following an intitial landing on the West African coast in the late 1400's, they began colonising in the early 1500's. The British were not far behind and neither were other Europeans.

The African 'pie' was being devoured quickly and in the late 19th century the European powers divided it amongst themselves in an arbitrary and arrogant act of power. It was of course the way it was done and the way it had always been done through millenia; by Europeans, Africans, Asians and all alike. The Europeans did not invent colonisation and were in fact themselves, the result of it.

All peoples in times past, colonised.  Those who hold close the injuries of their colonised past today, are the result of older colonisations of others. There is even a suggestion that Australian Aborigines, while resident on the land for probably 40,000 years, dispossessed others before claiming it as their own. And if the experts are right and we all originated in Africa anyway, then the only truly indigenous people might be some Africans! But I digress.

It is easy in these times to condemn the wrongs of the colonial era, and there is no doubt that colonisation is wrong by today's standards, but to forget that within the curse of colonisation there were gifts. For all its faults colonisation did bring an end to some of the most bloody practices of Africa, such as kings summarily executing dozens, if not hundreds of people, on a whim, by cutting them into tiny pieces, while keeping them alive as long as possible or burning them alive.

Wholesale slaughter and day to day cruelty and supertitious ignorance were part and parcel of life in Africa in the past and sadly, in some places, in more recent times and still today.

And while the 'slavery flag' is often waved to berate the muzungu's of the past, the reality is that murderous, vicious, cruel slavery was a part of African life long before the Arabs arrived to turn it into a profitable business and the Europeans took over to corporatize it. And it was, of course, the 'barbaric' foreigners who eventually brought an end to slavery in general although no-one denies that various forms of slavery still exist in the world, including Africa.

While condemning colonisation, within the enlightened hindsight of the modern age,  I do believe it is important to retain perspective of just what it meant, in the best and worst of ways. Living in India and researching that country and its history and culture first brought that home. The British were there for hundreds of years and should not have been in a moral sense, but, while they also had their bloodthirsty moments, they did, as happened in Africa, work to lower the levels of injustice, cruelty and barbarism.

It was the British who banned suttee, the burning of wives with their husband's corpse and who gave the history of India back to the Indians by transcribing the ancient Sanskrit texts so that ordinary Indians could read them. It was the British who created the great cities of Bombay, Calcutta and Madras, to name just a few, which have since been renamed but which did not exist before the British built them and who worked to save some of India's greatest monuments and ancient buildings. And it was the British who criss-crossed India with rail lines; a life blood for the Indian continent then and now.

The British and European missionaries worked hard in both India and Africa to change the way women were treated; misogyny being at its worst in both places. They had some success, not enough, but better than nothing. Along with equality for women as a goal, they also offered education and skills training.

India's religions, both Hinduism and Islam, were well established and relatively organised when the missionaries and the British arrived, but this was not the case of Africa. While there was and is a lot of commonality of belief, there was no organised general religious structure.

Everything was in the hands of the mercurial local spirits, who, if not honoured in exactly the right way would punish with death, illness, poor harvest, injury, fire, floods or any convenient catastrophe or simple misery.... there was no escape. Christianity on the other hand, while preaching everlasting hell, was comparatively forgiving. There was always the chance for deathbed salvation. The Christian God, compared to Africa's trickster spirits, was pretty reasonable.

So, the price may have been religion, and I and many others would not deny that can be a high price, but in many instances it was a price worth paying. Particularly in Africa where traditional beliefs were often so limiting and frightening. Christianity may invoke a 'fear of God' at the time of death but a lot of African belief was a daily litany of fear with spirits every present, watching, judging and ready to take revenge.

So, without being an apologist for colonisation, it is a reminder, as with all things that within the curse will be a gift; and vice versa. But back to the stories of Malawi in partricular and Africa in general.

I have been reading V.S. Naipaul's book while having my morning coffee but some of the gruesome details are just not suited to such a moment. It is a fascinating book but not a relaxing one. Not that I expected it to be. Blood and guts is the general theme although I am not halfway through the book as yet. Kings killing all of their brothers, dozens of them, usually by burning; or slaughtering half their harem for the hell of it is hard going in a book. And yet to look at the horrors of Africa in recent times it is hard to see much difference.

Perhaps the violence which has been Africa and in some places still is, has been so much a part of life for so long that people are still learning to live in other ways. It can help to explain the readiness of Africans to embrace religions, particularly those of the fundamentalist kind which offer simple answers and certain salvation.  There is a lot of fear in Africa and a lot of rage.

Naipaul's book is well named for there is much of the mask in Africa and there are many masques, from which he takes his title. There is no doubt that people are welcoming, generous and polite but that is the way most people are in most parts of the world.

I just feel that within ex-colonial cultures, particularly in the third world, there is more at work.There is also, as in India, a lot of resentment of muzungu, or foreigners, hidden behind the smiles. I don't think it matters where you are and I have lived in Angola, Zambia, South Africa and here, there are old angers sourced in the colonial era which are projected onto all foreigners.

As an Australian I have some understanding of this. We have had something of an edgy and competitive relationship with our old colonial master, the Brits, although it has eased a lot in recent decades. I suspect the reason that we did not also have the anger as one sometimes finds in India and often finds in Africa, is because, we knew that life in Australia was far better than life in Britain - in other words, we were one-up (if not more) on our former colonial masters. It is easier to forget if you are content with your life.

For Indians and Africans, living as they do in Third World not First World countries, and wishing to be other; believing in their own worth (as they should) if not their own superiority, it must be harder to forget the wrongs of the past. After all, as long as the finger can be pointed to the past then there are excuses for why things are not as good as they should be. All blame can be handed over to the past and the former colonisers rather than taking responsibility for one's Self.

LEFT: Traditional African healer

And local belief also plays a part. In Zambia, which is not far from here and probably linked in terms of tradition and belief, if not tribe,  there is a belief that 'good fortune' or 'good luck' means one is associated with evil. This does not stop people trying to make money or better themselves but it must complicate things with friends and family when they do well.

No doubt such a belief also increases the anger with foreigners who, because of their wealth, comparatively, have clearly had great good fortune and must therefore be even more evil. Africa is still a very superstitious place and while christianity may be the 'dress' that many nations display, the hidden 'underwear' is that of African belief, myth and tradition.

It is not that there is a problem with that, but it is worth remembering that what you 'see' in places like Africa is not necessarily what you 'get.' No doubt this paradox is as confusing at times for those who live it as it is for those who observe it.

In both India and Africa, at the time of handover, certainly where the British were colonial masters, countries were in much better shape than they are now. When Zambia gained independence for instance it had an economy better than Singapore and the towns of the Copper Belt were some of the loveliest to be found anywhere in Africa, if not the world. Not so today on any count.

It is human nature to want to blame someone and Africans are no different. India has done better than many African countries but that is because India had a long history of education which only improved under colonial rule. It is education which allows people and nations to grow and prosper. It is the lack of education which holds so many African nations back today.

I think one other difference with India also was the fact that when independence came, the colonial masters left. A few Anglo-Indians, the result of some four hundred years of inter-marriage, a practice encouraged by the East India company who first arrived in India in the early 1600's, remained. When the British government took over from the East India Company such inter-marriage was discouraged. So, while of reasonable size, the Anglo-Indians made up a tiny percentage of India's huge population at the time of independence. When the British left there was little to remind Indians that they had been colonised for nearly four hundred years.

Not so in Africa, here they stayed as a constant, no doubt shameful and irritating reminder, of colonial power. More to the point, while there was some inter-marriage, the colonists who stayed were, in the main, very European; very non-African, at least in looks. Many white Africans descend from families which arrived hundreds of years ago; long before Australia was first settled. Africa is their home as much as Australia is mine. The difference is that because of their history and because of their colour they remain other.

In Africa, anyone who is white is a reminder of a colonial past which rankles. To be colonised means to be overpowered; to be weaker. To feel inferior. And never more so than in Africa, or India for that matter, where bigoted religious teachings, in Islam and Hinduism as well as Christianity, created environments where Africans were considered to be inferior, if not less than human, and were treated as such.

There is no doubt that the 'white masters' in Africa and India treated the indigenous people appallingly as they did in other colonising enterprises in the United States, Australia, Canada and New Zealand but, there is also no doubt that within all of those indigenous societies and cultures there was an equally appalling history of subjugation, prejudice and cruelty.

However, being treated badly by one of your own is not the same as being treated badly by someone who is 'other,' alien and clearly superior in terms of material development. To be overpowered by such a powerful enemy must be humiliating for anyone who takes pride in their own culture and society. The colonised have to hold to a belief in their own value while recognising their own weaknesses.

It is the nature of things that an inferiority complex will be compensated by a superiority complex, although both of these may, and frequently do,  function at an unconscious level. It is only when we are conscious of such beliefs and feelings that we can work with them rather than have them work us. In much of Africa, this inner conflict remains very much unconscious.

And that is why, behind the smiles, one often feels the anger. Not that any of it is particular to Africans or Indians for that matter. Australian Aborigines, American Indians, New Zealand Maoris, Tibetans, Palestinians, Chechens.... any colonised or occupied peoples... all grapple with this inner conflict. And why would they not? Even Australians still care more about beating the Poms at cricket than beating anyone else. Despite having a quality of life which ranks as one of the best in the world, we still have not quite gotten over our colonial past, nor brought to resolution the inferiority/superiority complex which colonisation breeds.

And perhaps, again, in that way the psyche balances itself unconsciously, there is greater resentment in cultures which are the most courteous.

Africa as always teaches me as much about myself and my culture as it teaches me about itself. Living in a foreign culture we can see ourselves more clearly reflected. The image is not always welcome but it is always fascinating.

Beliefs, beef and blowflies.

We have been back a week and I feel as if I have achieved nothing. Well, Virgos always feel they have achieved nothing even when they are flat out but I seem to have done little, yet again, beyond chasing up repairmen and technicians and overseeing repairs and work.

It is too boring to go into detail but the familiar faces have been here again, my team of electricians, Steve, Andrew, John and Mike and they fell about laughing the other day when I said I thought they were here so much they might as well move in. Or maybe they just liked me! That cracked them up even more.

In that two steps forward and one and nine-tenths steps back of Africa, we finally got the circuit breaker board sorted and fitted with names so we knew what was what, only to find, by me putting one and one or one and ten together, as it feels, that whatever was done to the house electrics has made quite a few of our sockets 'unstable' and as soon as we plug anything in, the circuit breakers are tripped.

There has been a lot of running up and down stairs to flip them back on which while a tad tedious, is, I am sure, good exercise for the body if not the mind.

We found the first of these Monday when plugging in my new laptop, which finally arrived courtesy of Hewlett Packard to replace the one I bought 18 months ago which overheats and has a dodgy hard-drive. Snap went the circuit breakers downstairs as soon as we turned on the power switch.

The laundry fluorescent light was doing the same thing and as I write, despite two attempts at repairs, is still doing the same thing. We are in the process of identifying all the now 'dodgy' power sockets so my merry band of electricians can come back next week to fix them. That at least is the theory.

And it would not be a week in Africa without countless power surges, mornings are worse, which turns off my monitor for 20 seconds and then turns it back on. Luckily I don't lose work but it is, to say the least distracting.

And it would not be a week in Africa without the internet working half the time instead of all of the time or half working most of the time where it gasps to pull up a page and then collapses in a heap. I know that weather plays a part and in the Wet there are more problems both with telephone and internet but I gather one downtime of seven hours was caused by vandalism on the line.

You might think, why would anyone vandalise a server or telephone line and I would say, everything in Africa is either valuable or useful or both and you take what you find where you find it. It's a pretty good bet the vandals don't have internet or telephone so why should they care? I mean that last as comment not criticism. Those of us who do not live with and in poverty have no idea how desperate people can become.

It reminded me to get organised and bring back some clothes, courtesy of friends and family, either for the children of Limited's brother who died or perhaps the orphanage. I really was not sure how old Limited was ... Africans like the Asians don't seem to age as fast as we do, at least in looks if not life.

But Limited told me his dead brother's children are grown up and Limited himself has a 16 year old, 13 year old and the little two-year- old I met when I arrived. He grinned when he said to me that she often talks about meeting the Muzungu!

'We call you foreigners Muzungu,' he explained.

'I know you do,' I replied and he looked slightly embarrassed although I am not sure why. Perhaps the Malawians think we know less than we do and I am sure on many counts they would be right.

I suppose they also know little about us and perhaps think we are not interested. I don't pry too much into their personal lives but then I don't do this with people who work for us in Australia. Maybe it is just me but I keep a distance which I think works better. But I am interested in African belief.

I bought a book when I was in Joburg called The Masque of Africa, Glimpses of African Belief, by V.S. Naipaul and I am looking forward to reading it.

I think the more one knows about the beliefs, traditions and myths of another culture the easier it is to understand. Apart from which it fascinates me. Africa in particular has been, and remains, a traditionally superstitious culture. Despite the overlay of religion, often evangelistic christianity, there is at work a deep and often destructive 'religion' of superstition and myth. Again, this is comment not criticism because some of it is sound and the destructive aspects are no more destructive than the superstition one finds in religions of all kinds.

Other than that it has been a pleasant week with something of a social life because some of Greg's colleagues have been up from Perth and others down from the mine at Karonga. We had a buffet dinner at the Sunbird hotel the other night, with them and some visiting analysts and then had dinner at Kumbali Lodge (see pic below of downstairs deck) on Tuesday night. 

They have a beautiful deck downstairs, overlooking the lawns and we sat on the couches and drank gin and tonic before dinner. Malawi Gin is so aromatic and I love it. I don't think it is quite as strong as some other gins which is good since they seem to serve doubles most of the time.

The sounds of night were drenched in a wonderfully reflective full moon as we sipped our G&T.

It is avocado season and our avocadoes are almost ripe.  We have a bumper crop, and while already huge, they are apparently still growing. Some have fallen from the tree and we have allowed them to ripen but they have a slightly watery taste as opposed to the creamy indulgence of a properly ripened avocado.

Photo: Kumbali Lodge restaurant.

Anyway, Kumbali decided to make the most of avocado season and did a Mexican night. The chilli con carne was much too chilli for me in that numb lips when you eat and wishing something else was numb the next morning, way. But it was tasty even as it was ultimately testing.

They served an entree in a glass with salsa at the bottom, avocado puree on top and finished off with sour cream. Freshly made nachos came with it and it was delicious although a bit on the large side.

Later, someone called us outside to look at the halo around the moon. We stood on the lawn, in the dark cool of night and looked up at the brilliant moon surrounded by a rose-coloured haze.

'Armageddon?' said one guest.

'Who knows,' said another.

'A volcanic explosion somewhere,' I ventured.

'Best place to be if it is Armageddon,' we agreed,  having noted the well stocked bar and comfortable chairs on the verandah.

It wasn't Armageddon of course and the only 'blaze exploding' that night was the chilli in our Mexican dinner.

I made avocado soup last Saturday when my Danish neighbour came over for dinner. She had been on her own for a week and Greg had gone up to the mine so I invited her over.

Luckily I decided not to do the 'generator dance' because I could not be bothered with a repeat of my last dinner where it kept shutting down and we had to keep going out to reboot it. I opted to cook some beef fillet to have cold and to make potato salad. I turned on the oven only to find it did not work. The cooktop did but not the oven.

Why was I not surprised? The electricians had been here while we were away to re-do the circuit breaker board and clearly something had been wrongly wired, not wired, or just forgotten.

I tracked down Manuel who has been doing all this work for us and he said the electricians would come over to fix it. They did, about three hours later and surprise, surprise, they  discovered that they had forgotten to re-wire the oven after they worked on the board. Why was I not surprised?

Photo: One of our avocadoes on the tree in the garden.

We actually get really nice beef fillet here from Foodworths and given that the chickens taste as if they have been soaked in engine oil and there is no lamb, apart from the carcases hanging by the side of the road on the way to the airport, the menu options are limited.

I know some of the Christian missionaries do buy this meat because I have seen them stop on the way back from the airport but they have God on their side. It beats the skinned rats which were sold along the roadside when we lived in Zambia but I am not adventurous enough to buy roadside meat with its 'blowfly coat.'

So beef fillet is a staple for us. I don't know why but it is actually quite inexpensive. Maybe it is buffalo but I don't care. The fillet is also great cold and avoids any cooking issues arising once guests arrive. I made some potato salad and Birgitte brought a salad of mango, apple, walnuts and red lettuce.

The avocado soup I made is so easy. I found the recipe online. Puree avocado with spring onions and garlic and a little lemon juice and then add chicken stock, salt and pepper, some cumin powder and thin with a little ice water. You could also add fresh chilli but I opted not to. I had some coriander looking a bit limp because Fred the gardener had clearly forgotten to water it while I was away, but still alive in my pots on the verandah but I would have liked more. I had to top up with parsley which is not the same.

Cold soups are great and I did a tomato and capsicum cold soup on Wednesday night when Greg invited three of his colleagues home for dinner. I also cheated and did the beef fillet and salad again. I had people working on things in the house all day and did not have the energy for generator issues, should they arise. By the time guests were due I was ready for my second chardonnay!

Apart from the fact that I have not been outside the house - Greg did the shopping on his way home from work - it has been a good week. I have been busy with my writing and have done some submissions for novels and poetry which may drop into the great cosmic ether as such things often do, but who knows?

The cake and biscuit tins are topped up and I have come up with a great apple cake recipe after stuffing up the one I was following and having to improvise. The recipe had pureed apples in the middle and sliced apple on the top, but, distracted as I was by the ever changing energy environment in which I live, I started creaming sugar and butter only to realise that the cup of brown sugar was meant to go in the water for the apple puree and the cake itself needed only half a cup of caster sugar. Bugger.

But all was not lost and I have been cooking long enough to know the science of it so I added more butter, flour and milk and made my cake with sliced apple in the centre as well as on the top and it turned out beautifully. The brown sugar actually gives a caramel taste to it and I will use it again.

And I have just cooked what looks like and probably is, half a bucket of rice. Greg spotted the black dots in the two jars of rice. Locally bought of course. The Basmati and Arborio, both imported are weevil free but my two lots of Malawi rice were riddled. I used to have the same problem in India particularly with flour, even when we kept it in the fridge and had to sift my flour before baking but it has not been such an issue here. I did buy some white dried beans which, upon cooking, I discovered were full of weevils and weevil tunnels, but, until today, my life has been weevil free.

So into the pot with water went the rice for a sluice and a soak and a rinse with what looked like hundreds of weevils floating to the surface. I don't like to kill things, even weevils, but if I had left them in it would have been black rice not brown. All that protein, Greg said, watching the poor things float on top of the saucepan.

It would have been high in protein of course which, apparently, according to studies done in the UK is what keeps the vegetarian Indians alive. It is an irony of course because they refuse to kill living things and yet only live because their food is full of weevils. This fact was discovered some years ago when Indians living in the UK, eating the same diet, had problems with lack of nutrition. The missing ingredient in food produced outside of India was weevils!

I have put a rice pudding in the oven with the now weevil-free, cooked rice and will use the rest to make salad and Hopping John - black-eyed beans, bacon, and of course rice. We and Limited and Andrew will probably be living on rice for a week. Greg may well be pleased that he has a few days at the mine because he is not a 'rice-boy' apart from rice-pudding.

Life in Malawi muddles along in its own way although I think the fuel shortage has finally been resolved. At least for now. It seems to be a recurring event due to foreign exchange issues which leaves a dozen tankers lined up at the Mozambique border waiting to come in.

I gather there was something of a protest by Malawians this week about the fuel problems and you can hardly blame them. Queuing for countless hours to fill the tank of your car must get tedious. It is something which we in the developed world rarely face. Then again, most things in the Third World take so long that it is hardly surprising development is so slow. What we can do in the West in a day can take a week or month in places like Africa.

For all the criticisms of democracy it still works better than any other system and by that I mean real democracy where the people have free and fair elections and where corruption is at a minimum not a maximum. Too often those of us who have it take it for granted.

Musing on Mandela and South Africa

We arrived back on Friday to a green land pressed beneath black, brooding clouds. It may have been a dry start to the Wet but it looks like the rains have come just as they should.

It was a fairly smooth landing in Lilongwe and interesting to see the massive black clouds overhead as we drove away from the airport. I am sure the South African Airways pilots are used to weaving their way through storm clouds at this time of year. They had pretty seamlessly tracked their way through electrical storms when we landed in both Joburg and Cape Town. I have had rougher flights in Australia.

But there were two massive electrical storms while I was in Joburg. The windows in the hotel shook as the thunder smashed through the sky and the lighting was like knives cutting through cloud to find the earth. I always find storms impressive but prefer to be safely tucked up at 'home' when they are around. Not that one can choose at this time of year. It is the time of storms. But then Africa seems to be a place of storms of one kind or another.

It is always nice to be home after sleeping in hotel beds and living in hotel rooms. I had work to do and so spent a lot of time at the computer but then I was visiting places where I had lived so it wasn't as if there was much to discover. I am a lazy tourist at the best of times.

Five days in Joburg and five in Cape Town, returning to old haunts and old homes for that matter, was a pleasant respite. Joburg really constituted the airport and Sandton City and Cape Town the Cullinan Hotel and the Waterfront but having lived in both places, and given the 'complexities' of South Africa, I had no need and even less desire to play tourist.

But it was nice to have a facial, pedicure, haircut, massage and to buy some basics, like more flat, cool shoes and organic shampoo and conditioner. And books, lots and lots of books. Well, about eight actually or I would have been up for excess baggage on my travels.

We have been staying at the Sandton Sun for more than ten years now and there is a familiarity about the rooms (see pic above)which is comforting. Old homes for us for many, many years. We are creatures of habit. Familiarity breeds familiarity and we like it. Standards have dropped a tad though but the word was that the hotels got greedy about the World Cup and lost money as a result. Hence, no doubt, why mini-bars no longer exist and bathroom toiletries are of the modest (cheap) kind.

But it is still a comfortable hotel and the staff are lovely and it is what it is.
Sandton doesn't change much although they always seem to be working on it. It was interesting reading the South African newspapers again. A breakfast treat which we don't have here in Lilongwe. Although treat is probably not the right word given the murder, misery and mayhem which makes up most of it.

It's the V word which permeates SA newspapers; violence. Which means it is not a great breakfast read. I usually retreat to the feature pages and the letters to the editor.

But one 'letter to the editor'  did explain something which I had wondered about; the almost paranoid reaction of South Africans to the possible demise of Nelson Mandela. Of course he will die. We all do and he is old and he is unwell.

'Can't they see that,' I said to myself when I read online about the recent hysteria when he was admitted to hospital. But as always there is good reason for the response, I just did not have enough understanding of  what fuelled the perception and the fear.

According to the Joburg papers, at least in what I gauged from some letters to the editor, people are terrified of what will happen when Madiba dies. Madiba is the name by which he is affectionately known, his Xhosa name which means Father. What people fear, and this is understandable, is that the government restrains itself while Madiba is alive but once gone it will be no holds barred and many look to Zimbabwe and shudder at their possible future.

South Africans have a deep respect for Mandela and a deep gratitude for his guiding hand when it was needed and this applies to all South Africans, no matter how enlightened or ruthless they may be at any given moment.  And I qualify this by saying I am sure that enlightened people can be ruthless and vice versa.

It won't be the day that Mandela dies but in the weeks and months following that the government of the day will reveal just who it is and how it plans to act. At least this is what many South Africans believe. No doubt white South Africans more than the rest.

It does make sense. The Government was making noises last week about privatising the mining industry which would be truly insane and which would stop international investment in a nanosecond. But rationality can be in short supply in Africa where 'personal' needs are concerned. Sadly, many if not most African governments 'falter' in the second term and leaders seek to do anything they can to stay in power.

The death of Nelson Mandela will be a test for South Africa. Of that there is no doubt. I just hope that the fears are wrong and sanity will prevail. South Africans deserve as much; as in fact do all Africans. As in fact do all nations, looking as we have been at the Egyptian movement for freedom and democracy. One wonders why something so simple should be so hard to get and to keep. No doubt religion, tribal beliefs, traditions, arrogance, ignorance and habit all lock hands to keep people in their 'place.'

But I like to think the world has changed and it is now much harder not only to keep democracy out, and by that I mean true democracy.... there is a lot of pretend democracy around, particularly in Africa ...but to lie to people. Mandela at his age may not have a long and healthy life ahead of him but one can only hope South Africa does.

Capstadt actually looked a little cleaner, tidier and more vibrant than when I last saw it eight years ago. I am talking about the city centre. The Waterfront has always been clean, tidy and vibrant. Table Mountain still looms, sullen as ever, at least to my mind. Perhaps it broods a little more because the local paper said murders, robberies and muggings of tourists and hikers on the mountain have escalated massively in recent years; at some points averaging one a day. This is bad news for Cape Town as top tourist destination and sad news for such a beautiful mountain. I may find it sad and sullen but that makes it no less beautiful.

There are times when it pays to be relaxed about exercise and hiking was never going to attract me. Instead I took the hotel shuttle to the Waterfront one day and walked around as I had so many times when we lived there. It's a lovely shopping centre but a bit soulless although I do admit to bias because I am not a shopper at the best of times, unless I am in a food or antique market.

There is no denying though that on a sunny day, the harbour and views of the Table Mountain (safely away from muggers and thieves) are absolutely stunning. Scenically Cape Town has so much going for it, at least in a natural sense. My only hope is that one day I will drive from the airport to the city and the waterfront without passing mile upon mile of shacks and shanties. I am sure South Africans hope for exactly the same thing.

We had some excellent food in Cape Town and it has always been something of a foodie haven. We went to Groot Constantia for an Austrade function and had some good fun and good, but simple food. The Cape Dutch architecture is so pretty and the view from the vineyard at sunset is truly stunning. It reminded me of Adelaide where the lights spread far and wide at the foot of the hills.

We also went back to Aubergine, reputed to be one of Cape Town's best, if not the best and last visited nine years ago. It was also very good but not as good as it should have been. A bit too much salt, a little too much fiddling and a huge pinch of pretension took the edge off it for me.

As did the sommelier who recommended a ten year old Pinotage which had 'not lasted the distance' and when we said so to the waiter, who was very professional and courteous, was replaced with something else but without sight of or word from our original sommelier who had made the recommendation. Simply not good enough for a restaurant which considers itself to be top of the league. Perhaps he was embarrassed, but that is an excuse, not a reason.

But 95 Keerom (see pic above) was my favourite. Italian, simple, elegant and delicious food. The gnocchi I had the first night was brilliant and I figure if you can cook good gnocchi you can cook anything. They also had a warmed yellowtail (local fish) carpaccio which was superb.

I had black wilderbeast, springbok and kudu on my second visit as a main course and again, it was cooked perfectly. I won't say these meats have a great deal of flavour.... you may as well have steak.... but it is interesting to try them all the same. One of the nicest meats is ostrich because at least it has some distinctive taste.

But, food aside, I do weary of the penchant for fifties style decor which seems to have consumed restaurant designers around the world. It was pretty tasteless in that cream and brown way in the fifties and I don't think it has improved with age. Smart, yes, stylish, yes, boring, yes.

But what would I know? In the modern world there seems to be a 'sameness' to design wherever one goes. The Africans do still manage to introduce a bit of 'local design' but they too are being swallowed by the Fifties 'cream and brown' design monsters. No doubt this fashion, like all others, will also pass.

Or perhaps I will come to like Fifties design? Probably not but who knows?