Poinsettias, poisons and purpose!

I was wondering, when I arrived at our house in Lilongwe, why a bush had been cut back to a stump. In that way of things where assumption rides to the rescue my thought was:'Why do they chop everything down in Africa?'

Now, to be fair to me, the African way of things is to chop away at bushes and trees in order to take the wood for making charcoal which can then be sold. It is sadly common to see stumps of trees and bushes which would once have been glorious,  lining the sides of roads.


I did ask Fred the gardener why it had been cut back and he said because it would grow. I did not believe him.I looked at my stump last November and thought the worst.

Now, here I am in June having to 'eat my words' or re-process my thoughts because the 'stump' has shot out graceful fronds which, because there were two stumps separated by a couple of feet (never did get to metrics apart from baking), now form a glorious, crimson blossomed arch. Well, what amounts to globes of crimson blossom, as seen in the photo above, balanced upon a long, langorous and looping stem as seen in the photo below.

It must be a form of bougainvillea, I thought. The same plant is commonly seen around the streets nearby. But no, wrong yet again for a search on the net reveals it to be a variety of poinsettia, that other gloriously crimson blossom which for Australia is associated with Christmas. Poinsettia blooms here in June and July, both the traditional version and this one which I had never before seen.

While I don't have a problem with being wrong I am, on this count, absolutely delighted to be wrong.

But, blossoms aside it was poison upon which I pondered last night having picked up a book to read called, The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, by William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer. This book, which became a New York Times best-seller a couple of years ago, is the story of a Malawi boy who dreamt of building a small windmill which would bring his village electricity and running water.

In this land, where magic rules and science is a mystery, as the blurb on the back cover says, a young boy sought to dare the system and succeeded. I am only just into the book and his courage and determination is not what strikes me... hardly surprising given what I have seen of human nature in my lifetime and never more so in the Third World where innovation and enterprise often mean the difference between life and death ... but it is how he talks of the belief in magic which rules the African mind.

Given that last time I wrote about witchcraft I was fascinated to find in this book, more tales of the terror and turmoil which such beliefs have on Malawian minds, both young and old. It is fear which rules this world, woven into dreams and fantasies and stories and superstitions. People don't just die and bad things don't just happen; it is always the work of witches or wizards with their spells and their poisons.

Witches and wizards never reveal their identities he says so you can never know where their traps might lie, nor what shape they will take.

'Men with bald heads, twenty feet tall, are said to appear on the roads outside of Ntchisi, a few at first, then dozens,' writes William in his book. 'Ghost trucks drive the same roads at night, coming on fast with their bright lights flashing and engines revving loud, but as the lights pass by, no truck is attached and no tire marks are left on the road, and if you're driving a car, your engine will die until morning.'

'But the dangers for children are even greater,' says William. 'They tempt them with delicious meats, saying it's the only way to heaven. Once the children devour the tasty morsels, it';s revealed as human flesh. By then it is too late, for once the wizard's evil is inside your body, it controls you forever.

The wizards and witches, he says, command vast armies of children whom they use to do their witchcraft and each night they prowl the villages for fresh recruits. They use witch planes which fly overhead at night and they also use magic hyenas with razor jaws and  magic lions and snakes the size of tractors.

'The children pile aboard witch planes that prowl the skies at night, capable of travelling to Zambia and London in a single minute. Witch planes can be anything: a wooden basin, a clay pot, a simple hat. Flying about on magic duty, the children are sent to homes of rival wizards to test their powers. If the child is killed in the process, the wizard can determine the weapon of his enemy and develop something stronger. Other nights, the children visit camps of other witches for competition. Here, mystical soccer matches are played on mysterious fields in places I've never heard of, where the cursed children use human heads as balls and compete for great cups of flesh.'

Reading such things made me realise that my child terrors of wispy ghosts and spiders in the bed were as nothing compared to what Malawian children (and adults) live with. No wonder the raging God of the evangelicals is seen as worthy of belief. Night terrors in this part of the world take on a magnitude of which even I never dreamt in my worst nightmares.

I am wondering now what Limited thinks of the framed photograph of my Shaman Goddess (see below)  from Yakutia in the Russian Far East! Constructed from bones and feathers and charms and goodness knows what, Greg saw it when he was in Yakutsk on business and took the photo knowing I would love to have it. I had it framed and usually put it by my front door but in this house I have it hanging in our dressing room. It must terrify the hell out of him. Not that he has said anything. Then again, maybe it is like the rampaging Christian God... so terrifying that he figures it protects from the even more dangerous Malawian demons. On that count I have to say it gives me comfort.

It is also Death which rules this world where malnutrition, malaria and Aids cut swathes through short lives and longer lives and where, as William Kamkwamba says you 'run into men and women named such things as Simkhalitsa (I'm Dying Anyway), Malazani (Finish Me Off), Maliro (Funeral), Manda (Tombstone), or Phelantuni (Kill Me Quick). Many change their names, he says, once they're older, like his father's older brother who was named Mdzimange, which means Suicide. 

Reading this rather put Limited's name into both context and perspective. It made me realise that it probably meant Limited in exactly the way it sounded... that life was limited... and yet it also made me realise that his name could have been far, far worse and far more limiting.

How little we understand until we gain some knowledge of the meaning behind things. Because there is always meaning in everything that happens and there is purpose in everything we do. We may not know the meaning or the purpose but we should never forget that it will be there... that there will be a reason why something happens.

It makes me think that the negative names might be a form of 'magic thinking'; the sort of thing children do to 'ward off' bad things. If you think the worst then you will not be caught unprepared and you will also send out magic which will help prevent it happening.

Perhaps the origin of some of the scariest fairy tales and myths was to achieve just this end. And who are we to say it does not work. If you believe something then it will work to greater or lesser degrees depending upon the power of belief.

With death such an ever-present part of life as it is in Africa, no doubt giving your child a name which 'tells' death that you know what might happen and you 'laugh' in its face, is a form of protection, or talisman against it actually happening. I can think of no other reason why you would call a child Tombstone or Suicide!

A story of chutney, jam and witches.

I can't believe a week today  I am leaving again. It was meant to be three weeks but we have changed plans, yet again. I have spent most of the past two weeks on my own with Greg either in Namibia, Joburg or up at the mine so the freezer is full of cakes and biscuits and Limited and Andrew are getting substantial lunches of soup, quiche, curry, cakes and biscuits.

I have asked them to tell me if they do not like certain foods. I know they don't eat pork but they do eat bacon! I don't go there. We can't get pork here anyway so it is irrelevant and I consider ham, which is also rarely found, to fall into the bacon category. I know they don't like chilli but then I use it sparingly at the best of times myself. If I am going to cook I may as well cook things they will like and eat although they would probably eat it anyway even if they did not like it.

But tastes do differ. In a land where maize meal is a staple of the diet and it tastes like 'Clag' the quintessential glue which kids use for pasting things in place, it is clear that flavour differentiation is going to be different. I discovered how different when we had a visitor at the guesthouse the other week and she told me that Andrew had offered her a very strange banana jam at breakfast, when she had asked if jam was available.

She had taken one sniff of the 'banana jam,' looked at it's dark colour and decided it must be Malawian jam. She put a small portion on her plate to be polite but couldn't bring herself to eat it on toast. I don't blame her.

I realised immediately she was talking about the banana chutney I had given them a few weeks before to have with some cold meat. Clearly chutney did not compute. It looked like jam, gluey, albeit a tad dark, and it was banana ... that was a fruit wasn't it? So despite the fact it smelled of vinegar and spices, it must be jam.

I took both Limited and Andrew aside later and clearly explained that chutney was very different to jam and not the least bit pleasant on buttered toast. Well, not to muzungus anyway! Chutney is for meat or cheese, I said, only ever for meat or cheese. Jam is for toast! I am not sure the message really got across but I do believe the banana chutney will not be handed over as jam in the future. 

I made a batch of green papaya chutney the other week and it turned out really well although I had to pulverize the papaya with the Bamix in the end because it was so green it refused to break down. Delicious though. Richly auburn in colour and sweet with a touch of chilli. It probably is the sort of chutney one could eat as jam if pressed.

Beyond my writing, manuscript editing, baking and painting there has not been a lot happening. Well, beyond the fact that there is a diesel and petrol shortage in Malawi and cars queue in long, languishing lines around corners and down streets near any service station which has anything to sell. There's a knock-on effect as well because people conserve their fuel and the roads are much less crowded, but so too are the shops and supermarkets. We are thinking it might pay to be well provisioned just in case.

This week I finished reading a fascinating book, A Voyager Out, the life of Mary Kingsley, written by Katherine Frank. Mary Kingsley was a remarkable young woman who travelled through West Africa in the late 1800's and wrote extensively on what she called 'fetish' - the spiritual/religious beliefs of Africans. Superstition, or what was called superstition was widespread in Africa and is still.

The Africans pretty much as a whole believe that every single thing is inhabited by spirits and everything which happens is caused by spirits, whether for good or for evil. Animistic, pantheistic, fascinating and generally bleak. They also believe that the spirits of the dead remain with them and if not propitiated correctly will cause harm. And they believe in witches. Even the newspapers here carry stories of witches, sadly,  at times, it is children who are accused although the most common target is old women. It was ever thus.

It is little wonder that the missionaries made inroads given the level of fear with which Africans appear always to have lived and with which they still live today. I am beginning to understand too why the evangelicals do so well here with their vengeful, punitive and unforgiving God ..... because this sort of God, powerful, capable of great good and great harm is the sort of God they can understand.

You need to have massively powerful JuJu to counter the forces of the spirits at work in Africa and a God who rages and threatens and punishes and smites sounds pretty powerful indeed. Sadly, the evangelical God is about as unpleasant as most of the African 'gods' and it is hard to know if people are better off or worse.

Mary Kingsley, who sadly died very young, at 37, of typhoid contracted while nursing in Cape Town during the Boer War, remained adamant that the missionaries were the worst thing which had happened to Africa. She saw in their teachings the seeds of destruction for African culture and belief. She may well be right but the fact is, much of the African  belief ranged from unpleasant to terrifying and the culture was misogynistic and unforgiving.

The interesting thing, although perhaps I should say the sad thing is, that despite Christianity washing over Africa in a deluge and soaking the land to its spiritual bone, witchcraft is alive and well on the continent and witches of all ages continue to be attacked and even killed.

Belief in witchcraft runs deep in this conservative country, where curses and spells are blamed for everything from  bad luck, unexplained deaths, illness, the spread of AIDS, or even a lack of rain. And it is not confined to the uneducated but remains a prevalent belief throughout the society as a whole, as it does throughout the African continent.

Belief in witchcraft and the persecution of witches is also still found in India with up to 200 women a year killed in that country because they are believed to be witches.


There is an old British Act which covers witchcraft in Malawi. The Witchcraft Act states that “any person, who by his statement or actions represents himself to be a wizard or witch or exercising the power of witchcraft, shall be liable to a fine of 50 British Pounds and to imprisonment for 10 years.”

The Act is 107 years old and was put in place by Malawi’s colonial power, Britain, in 1901. Back then, the British rulers in Malawi had negotiated treaties with indigenous rulers resulting in the formal laws now governing the country.

About 50 alleged witches remain in Malawi prisons serving sentences of up to six years, says the Association for Secular Humanism (ASH).  Some things don't change and while men and children are at times accused of witchcraft, in the main it is old women who bear the brunt of the fear of witches.



In Malawi, as in Africa in particular and witchcraft in general it is believed that witches and wizards have supernatural powers that they use to make people ill or even kill them.

They are also said to be cannibals and prey on the bodies of corpses. And as in the witch-hunts of Europe, centuries ago, witches and wizards are said to be able to fly at night and to shape-shift - turn into animals or become invisible and pass through solid walls.

It seems that all that religion and Christian belief does not serve to save Africans from a life of doubt and fear. It probably just adds to it. Not only are you tormented in this world by spirits and witches but you face roasting in the fires of hell when you leave it!


But efforts are being made at local government and international levels to bring greater awareness, understanding and justice. 

In a report published this year in the New York Times,  by Chi Mgbako - clinical associate professor of law and director of the Walter Leitner International Human Rights Clinic at Fordham Law School in New York Cit, it said:

Many clients came to our mobile legal clinic eager to learn the status of Malawi’s law on witchcraft. According to the law, currently under review by Malawi’s law reform commission, it is illegal to accuse someone of witchcraft or to hire a witch doctor to identify an alleged witch.

Some clients were resistant to the notion of providing a measure of protection to accused witches, but others were relieved. A female village chief, previously unaware of the law, had been holding town-hall meetings for years to encourage community members to stop witchcraft accusations. After attending our clinic, she was happy to learn that the law supports her stance.

We had many other cases in which individuals sought legal advice on whether they could proceed with accusing someone of witchcraft. We welcomed these cases because they gave us an opportunity to intervene before the belief in witchcraft was transformed into public blame and potential violence.

One young woman with chronically bad luck in love believed that her failed romantic relationships were the result of spells cast by her uncle. After we informed her that it is against Malawian law to accuse her uncle of witchcraft she vowed not to do so. We also dissuaded another woman from branding a local child in the community as a witch. She left the clinic determined to deter other potential accusers.

Many Malawians believe in witchcraft. This belief, in and of itself, is not the issue. It is the transformation of belief into accusation and subsequent harm that is at issue. So although the law does not address the question of whether witchcraft exists or not — individuals are free to believe or disbelieve — it should continue to criminalize witchcraft accusations.

Legislation alone will not stop attacks against alleged witches. Malawi and other African countries grappling with this issue should raise public awareness through nationwide campaigns that enlist church groups, police, the justice system, N.G.O.s and traditional healers to encourage people to refrain from making accusations of witchcraft against neighbors and relatives, especially emphasizing the often irreparable harm these do to children and elderly women.

Anything which serves to set people free from fear and ignorance is deserving of support. It is too easy to forget that such beliefs were common in the Western world, the developed world, in the past. The last executions of people convicted as witches in Europe took place in the 18th century and in the United Kingdom, witchcraft ceased to be an act punishable by law with the Witchcraft Act of 1735. In Germany, sorcery remained punishable by law late into the 18th century.

So, as with the developed world, here in Africa it is a matter of awareness, education, reduction of poverty and time which will put to rest this most evil of beliefs and all its attendant suffering by victims and accusers alike.

It's not that nothing has happened it's just that nothing has been written.

I have been back three weeks and written nothing on this blog. My how time flies. That is not to say I have been idle. Since returning I have been organising electricians to resolve issues, yes, still and again. My internet and monitor were previously connected to the inverter but after the work was done they were not... don't ask why... so the only way I could work was to put the generator on. Sigh. Anyway, finally they came last week and that is sorted. There is a list of things they were meant to do but did not do and they will be back in three weeks.

I have been talking to a painter about repainting a wall at the guest house and the bathroom and also painting the guard's house and the staff quarters for Limited and Andrew. That should be happening soon.

We have been racing around sorting diesel and diesel containers because the new system seems to be more power cuts for longer - 13 hours one Saturday which was a first - and now cutting us down to one phase, not three most nights for six hours. So keeping the generator full of diesel and having diesel on hand is a must. Greg found some great containers at Game which makes the process of filling the genset less messy and wasteful. Needless to say, of late, diesel and petrol queues have literally been a mile long.

And poor Limited is having the hardest time of it because one phase and power cuts means he has no lights because until he told me the other day, and yes, he is patience itself, I did not realise that his house was not connected to the inverter while Andrew's house is. That's another job to add to the list for the electrician who is due the day I go away again for two months!

On the plus side I finally managed to find a carpenter, Mr Chapu Chapu, pronounced Charp-charp, who came and fixed our wardrobe doors which have refused to close and have been tied in place with string half the time. What a joy to close a door and have it remain closed.  He also replaced the laundry door lock because the old one was catching and we need to keep the laundry closed when Limited is not around as I discovered the other weekend when, in laziness, I left it unlocked and we discovered the next day that we had an iron cord and no iron! Someone had cut off the cord to steal the iron more easily.

Suspicion had to fall on the relief security guard on duty that day because no-one else was around and while I felt bad reporting the theft because he would lose his job, I had no choice. It doesn't achieve much but it still needs to be reported. Someone came around and took notes and said we should not have touched the cord because they could have checked it for fingerprints but I doubt that would have revealed much. Anyway, note for next time, hoping there is no next time... don't touch the evidence. 


We have also been trying to finally sort an insurance claim for our dryer which has not worked since arriving. The insurance is doing what they do, being unpleasant and unreasonable, and saying it is much too late and why did we not claim before and then when we sent a copy of an email saying we had raised it with Miele a week after unpacking they changed their tack, as they do, and said we have to prove it was damaged in transit.... what!!!!

It has taken us more than six months to get advice on what might be wrong and to try to fix it and this is Africa after all and still they are trying not to pay. I don't think I have ever dealt with an insurance company which knew the meaning of the words responsible and honourable. They reap massive profits, no doubt because they spend their entire time cheating people.

Actually, to be fair, we use Elders in Australia for our farm insurance and they have always been excellent. They are however the exception, not the rule. Although I suspect the more personal relationship with the agent helps. So much of insurance cover is completely impersonal with little or no contact between human beings.

And we have had internet issues, again, still, so waiting for people to come and fix them and still waiting as they are not fixed......everything here is such a process.The MTL people are very nice and they do come when asked but somehow things never seem to be really fixed. Why should this surprise me? It shouldn't after so long living in the Third World.

And we have had a string of people staying at the guesthouse which has meant more entertaining, cooking, feeding, sorting and planning.We don't have all guests to dinner but do try to make the effort when they are people who are new to Africa, don't spend much time in Africa or who have spent a long time in Africa like the young photographer who was here on Monday night. He does a lot of work in Africa but has been here for more than a month and has a couple of months to go and looked what I call 'Africa-shattered.'

He had a hearty appetite but I don't think it was from physical hunger so much as deprivation.... normal, home-cooked food as opposed to endless rice, chicken and maize! He spends a lot of time in the Congo which is seriously challenging compared to Malawi.He must love his work and if his photos are anything to go by, he does love it. So the sacrifices are worthwhile although I suspect within another couple of weeks he will be wondering if that really is the case.

Where do the days go? On all of it and my writing, and my work, and trying to sort out a holiday in South Africa...

But beyond all that life is good and busy and rewarding. The avocadoes are finished. The days are sunny and the nights are cold which means less mosquitoes but they are still around. We had one buzzy night after the electricians had been here and had kept the kitchen door open for long periods. But mostly, at this time of year, mosquitoes are not a problem and for that one is grateful.

 The herbs in the courtyard are abundant but I still need to buy some big pots and soil and transplant them. The complex seems awfully quiet with our Danish neighbours gone. An Indian from Malawi, based in London, has taken the house but it remains empty and we have been told he plans to visit occasionally.

The change hits the guards and Fred hardest of all because our new neighbour is not here enough to participate in our salary top-ups so they are down to two top-ups not three. No doubt it is better than nothing.  K4,000 a month instead of K6,000.

But I have been busy baking biscuits and cakes and filling the freezer. It always seems to take a few weeks to get things organised again when I am here and then usually, within a couple of weeks, I am off again.

I was meant to be here for longer but plans have changed and we will now spend a couple of weeks in South Africa with our son, his new wife and our little gift grandson. It's all good and all just a part of the moveable feast which is our life and to some degree, life in Africa in general and Malawi in particular.

On the plus side, there is a new and very nice cafe at the Buchanan's complex although the coffee is truly awful. Still, it is a pleasant place to sit and somewhere to go if I need to get beyond four walls. It's a sign of desperation if I am prepared to drink foul coffee. Can't have it all. 

And there must be a mouse plague at present because the kids are out on the street selling char-grilled mice on sticks... or 'bush sausages' as the Malawians call it.