Silverfish, sabotage or spells?

We keep finding holes in our clothes - so far two of my linen shirts and a pair of linen trousers, luckily everyday standard and nothing good and half a dozen of Greg's business shirts which are more of an expensive problem.

At first I thought silverfish although the holes are large but I reasoned small holes not attended to would become large through washing. Perhaps something tearing things in the washing machine although given it is a Miele front-loader that is a bit of a stretch. I checked it out, as did Limited, and nothing to catch or tear there.

Hmmm, some of the holes look awfully like they have been cut with scissors... but who would do that? Only two opportunities and I don't want to go there but decided as of today, with the trousers, that I would pull out the sewing kit and repair them as opposed to throwing them away to possible future lives. I am also washing Greg's business shirts, or rather, having them washed in the machine at the guesthouse to isolate our washer as the culprit.

I know it sounds a bit crazy but this is Africa and witchcraft is a reality here and yes, I do believe in its power to some degree, so spells also have to be considered. Is there a use to which a small piece of fabric from our clothes can be put? Probably. Spells are spells and all is energy and our personal energy is in everything we wear and particularly in those things we wear or use frequently.

 I must have been in this frame of mind, at least unconsciously, on Saturday when Greg asked me to cut his hair with the beard trimmer ... our hair trimmer being in Australia and neither of us yet having been prepared to try a local hairdresser... and I made sure I scooped every last hair out of the bath and flushed it down the toilet. Hair is particularly powerful when used in spells.

And no, I don't really believe this but it is Africa and I do believe in trusting instinct and in being careful. And there were all those missing bits of cloth to consider... I might have to up the ante with my spells and call my guardian angels in for some help. Not that I really do spells, more prayer and supplication but I did bring my Jesus icon back from Oz with me figuring that it doesn't hurt to have some serious 'backup' in a place like this.

I have my shamanistic bone and feather goddess picture in the dressing room ... maybe that's why pieces of cloth have disappeared... to counter her power? All conjecture of course and not something I can raise with either Limited or Andrew, not at this point anyway.

As another 'safety' measure I have packed up all my good clothes, which I don't wear here anyway, and put them in a suitcase for safe-keeping .... well away from silverfish, spells or sabotage.

Beyond the esoteric it has been more banal with time spent organising and overseeing repairs. Does it ever end? Probably not but at least we are making progress. We bought some screws at Game to repair the handle fittings on our bedroom door which were loose. They screwed in beautifully but of course the heads are slightly too large so we cannot screw back the covers. They were the only screws we could find in the right size although they are not really the right size but as good as we could get. We now either need to buy a file... probably in Joburg... and file the heads down or find the right sized screw.

We have also organised for our Miele dryer to go down to Joburg to be either repaired or assessed. We are sending it down on the company plane on Friday which makes it an economical option given that when we put in our claim to the insurance company for replacement they complained that it was more than six months since we made the move and they would need an official document saying it had been damaged in transit!!! Clearly they don't understand Africa.

Why are so many insurance companies such 'shits.' They make enormous amounts of money on 'maybe's' and are singularly unreasonable and unpleasant as often as not when asked to pay something back. Captive market is no doubt the answer.

We sent them emails showing that our first contact with Miele South Africa and Miele Australia had taken place in November 2010, a week after our goods arrived and had been unpacked, it had then taken us six months to find a local technician, with the help of advice from MSA and MA to try and fix it... which he couldn't... and to write a note saying so which accompanied our claim, but they insisted they needed an official document saying it had been damaged in transit which clearly only a Miele technician, if anyone, could provide and SA is the nearest place we can find one.

I have had lengthy email conversations with the Miele technician in Joburg, who is originally from Romania it seems and is a trained fighter pilot, or so he said when I mentioned the company plane. Anyway, he was invaluable yesterday when the shipping agents came to pack the dryer, in helping us figure out.... me and Limited and Andrew and three guys from the shipping agency... how to get the dryer off the stacker. And yes, I did get the manual as my adored father-in-law Roy would have said to do, but nothing in there about stackers and removing said dryer from!

I am not technically minded and neither it seems were the five Malawians although they may just have been scared of damaging it. So I rang Mihai in Joburg, twice, and he talked us through first of all finding the screws at the front which needed to be removed and then removing the metal plates which would allow the dryer to slide off the stacker. I am sure anyone who thinks laterally would have worked it out in an instant but, like the guys, I was also worried about damaging the damn thing.

The first problem was discovering we did not have the correct screwdriver for the task, because in fact we needed alum keys, which we do not have and then experimenting with various screwdrivers to get the screws out. 

It all takes time. There were six of us crammed around the dryer in a relatively small laundry... well, not so small, just full of stuff including two ironing boards .... Limited and Andrew like to iron together... a bank of 24 batteries which is our inverter and various tubs and buckets.

It took nearly an hour but finally it was done and the dryer will go down on Friday and either be repaired, which would be the fastest and easiest and cheapest option, or not, in which case we can continue with our insurance claim for replacement. I have also taken photographs of the dryer  so we have some proof of its existence and its condition ... this being Africa.

The other thing I did  this week was go with Limited and Andrew to have a look at their houses to see if there was room in the kitchen for a cooker. We are bringing another new, spare cooker down from site for the guesthouse and that means that each of them can have one of the old cookers for their kitchen. They said there was room but I have learned to never assume and thought it was time I went to have a look at their accommodation anyway.

The complex is next door to ours and has been built in a square with a large, iron gate at the entrance.  I did not know what to expect but was pleasantly surprised to see it was clean and the 'road' in the middle was lined with vegetable gardens. Mostly Limited and Andrew's work, they said, and much of it from seeds I had given them. The garden was abundant and lush: pumpkins, tomatoes, beans, spinach, capsicums, eggplant and lots of other veg I did not have time to identify.... one of the healthiest vegie gardens I have ever seen. 

Limited's little girl, Hannah, who is three and who has only met me once but who has probably seen the muzungu more than I have known, came running up to give me a 'knee hug.' So sweet. Kids are divine and I adore all of them. Andrew also has a little boy who is four, who also gave me a knee hug, and the son of Mathew, who works for our Thai neighbours also came running up. He is about three.

There was a gaggle of gorgeous children and I asked Limited how many families lived in the complex and he said twelve. I know he and Andrew both have three, the older ones being teenagers and I could only wonder if the little ones had become possible because they had gotten the jobs at Mala Flats, which is what the locals call our complex. I wondered how many children there were in all and Limited said quite a few families have four or five children so that means probably fifty children in all. That's a lot of children but the complex is actually quite large, and, vegetable gardens aside, has a lot of  well swept, red earth as playing space.

The houses were also much bigger than I expected with large kitchens ... plenty of room for a cooker although I will have to get the electrician in to put another socket on the wall and connect it up. The kitchens have a concrete bench at one end, about six foot long, with a power socket on the wall. It is the only socket from what I could see and the only counter space but, compared to a mud hut it is a palace. They cook on a portable double hotplate.  It was all very clean and tidy with 'cupboard space' provided in the form of stacked wire baskets. Their wives looked shy but welcomed me in between cooking lunch.

Limited and Andrew both took me to have a look at their living rooms. They were well furnished with odds and ends of chairs and coffee tables but all very tidy and comfortable. No television sets of course but I would not be surprised if the power sockets in the kitchen are the only ones in the house. There were three other doors so I am guessing two bedrooms and a bathroom.

We recently organised for their homes to be painted (and the guardhouse at the complex) so the walls were brightly white. They had both been delighted when we said we would get the houses re-painted. It was even more satisfying, having done it, when I could see what pride they took in their homes.

All of which makes me think about how hard it is for them when employers leave and they lose their jobs, as happened when the Danes left and Mfundu lost her job because the new tenant did not want to take her on, and as will be a possibility when we leave.  It's another reason why we are glad to be able to help them build homes in their villages so at least if the job ends they have a decent roof over their heads.   Although I doubt it would ever be as good as they have now. The Mala Flats were built in the 1970's and was actually a project done by the then president, Banda, and full credit to them for the quality of the project and the enlightened approach to the construction of staff quarters.


And, as it happens, it looks like our Thai neighbours will be on the move within months instead of years. I feel so sad about it even though after years as an expat I should be used to it. The expat life means frequently saying goodbye to people you like and whom you may never see again because they live across the world and your paths are unlikely to cross. There is no doubt that at times enduring friendships are made, but even then distance makes it difficult to see much of each other. I suspect after so many years as an expat I know this and hold back from getting too close to people.

But, on a positive note my mutilated shrubs are beginning to sprout new life and leaves and hopefully they will survive to 'fight' another day. 

It is a reminder that the only constant in life is change and that certainty is an illusion. I have also decided to sort through the toys we brought over, hoping to have grand-children come to stay sooner not later, and give both Limited and Andrew some for their children. Ours will have grown out of most of them by the time they get to visit Malawi anyway and I am sure they will bring far more delight to the little ones next door.

Kids are great and seeing the children next door just makes me miss the little people in my life even more. Perhaps it is a form of compensation that I decided to make creamed rice today. I am doing it in the slow cooker, which, if it works, looks like being the easiest way to do it.... none of that constant watching and stirring ...and if the power goes out the slow cooker keeps on cooking because the inverter can run it quite happily whereas the stove needs the Genset to be operational.

Talking about generators, the power supply has been fairly reasonable of late but we have had a diesel shortage and there are protests tomorrow so who knows what will happen for the rest of the week. Greg is closing the office tomorrow, just in case, and we shall hunker down. Hopefully all will be peaceful and Lilongwe will return to normal on Thursday.

My joblist is actually getting shorter although today I have been chasing up an electrician because the security lights on the fence on one side of the compound are not working because a circuit breaker in the guardhouse is broken. At least I think this is the cause. Andrew also pointed out to me that a length of wire from the electric 'fence' is hanging down outside the guesthouse and is dangerous for the children so hopefully he will fix that as well.  Hopefully.

In that one door closes and another opens way of life in Malawi I am sure that as one job is done another one or two or three will appear.

Ponderings, prunings and plumbers.

The photo above shows the results of 'pruning' and I use the word lightly, as carried out while I was away, on just one of the half a dozen or more lush, leafy, six foot high bushes around my garden.

It amounts to persecution not pruning and I was reminded of that this morning when walking around a neighbour's garden which, despite being pruned had not been reduced to stumps in the way that ours had. And that made me ponder the symbolism of it all, for everything is symbolic and nothing happens without a reason, whether that reason be known or unknown.

Everything is energy and everything is connected and everything which happens in our lives, all manifestations of our material world, reflect what is happening at an inner level. That is what I believe. And interestingly I could see that the elements of being 'savagely cut back,' 'harshly pruned,' 'reduced to the 'bare minimum,' left 'naked, bare, vulnerable and ugly,' by circumstances beyond one's control had been at work in my life on other levels.

'Reduced to the stub of one's self' applied both to person and to plant. If foliage 'dresses' a plant and allows a soft and beautiful 'face' to be presented to the world, then being 'laid bare' means it is taken back to the very substance of itself and in that place, until new growth begins, it will be revealed as the 'least of itself.'

And it is with the prunings that we get to 'see' who we are behind the facade, behind the foliage. Often it is not a pretty sight but unless we know the 'roots' and 'core' of Self then we do not truly know who and what we are. 

The fact that the gardening 'party,' and I am sure there was vigorous enjoyment of the 'laying waste' to leaf and branch, should so reduce my garden when they have not done so in any of the three other gardens in the complex, is also a message that one has happened has meaning beyond mere twig and leaf.

 I can only hope that the savage cutting has not taken the plants back to such a vulnerable state they cannot recover.  But perhaps that too is a message; that we can be 'cut back',  we can be 'reduced' to the 'stump' of ourselves; we can be 'laid painfully bare' and yet we will recover. Although it is a reality, that some do not, whether plant or person.

'It  will grow back,' the head gardener said when he came to inspect the devastation. 'When the rains come it will grow fast.'

And the rains will come in a month or two for windy days and overcast skies portend the return of the wet season. I wonder if those rains equate with the tears shed in recent months and if it is tears, the 'rain' of our soul, which waters, nourishes and restores. I am sure it is. And if so then I have had and at times continue to have, to a lesser degree, my own 'wet season' of mammoth proportions. And that means my 'growth' will be fast and it will be strong.

Love sends 'shoots' bright-green from the most mutilated 'twigs' of self. My garden will rise again from the dust  and cut of suffering and so too shall I for that is the nature of life.

On a more practical note, beyond sorting out the phone at the guesthouse which, of course, would not recognise the pre-paid phone card and which then required time spent ringing the telephone company to rectify the error, I am busy trying to organise a plumber.

It is a watery task and fits the circumstance given that water represents emotions and we have a need to remove a potential danger and make some small repairs. More symbolism.

It seems, according to the electricians who were working here recently that we have a second hot-water geyser in the roof which is not connected to the power. We actually knew that. What we did not know was that it is full of water and that is dangerous and so the geyser needs to be emptied and removed.

At a symbolic level I am pondering what massive 'collection' of emotions there may be in my 'mind' which threatens to be dangerous if not emptied and removed. I would have thought I did quite a bit of emptying in recent months but shall be pleased to see the problem on the material level removed before gallons of filthy water come cascading into my life.

I am also hoping the plumber will be able to replace the missing tap in the guest toilet. It has been missing since we moved in and according to Andrew, was missing for years before that. It takes a while to get things done in Africa but I have said that before.

And we need the plumber to fit new shower heads to the guest-house bathrooms. Greg fitted them here but we did not realise, until after we purchased the shower heads, that the pipes at the guesthouse are a different size and will not take the new fitting. There are no other shower heads to be found so the task will be to change the pipes, if indeed such a thing is possible.

The other development is the arrival of our new stove which was brought down from site the other day. We will need to get the electricians back to fit it because they have created a two-phase connection system between the cooker and the generator so it is not a matter of merely plugging in our new stove. I am just hoping that it will be more energy efficient and resolve once and for all any issues with 'overload' when the generator is running. 

Blossoms, beauty and beggars.

There is such an abundance of blossom on our avocado tree it stands as a tribute to the abundance and energy of nature. The lushness is so beautiful.

Lilongwe is dry and dusty at this time of year with a permanent haze from the ongoing 'burning-off' which is traditional African practice. I do wonder if it is one of those things which may once have served a purpose but no longer does and yet people keep doing it because they have done it so long it has become habit and the reason for the habit is forgotten.

It's a bit like the story, told in various versions, of the preparing of the lamb for the roast where the end is cut off and finally a young girl asks her mother why she does it and she does not know so she asks her mother and she does not know either and then they ask the great-grandmother who said she did it because her roasting pan was small and the leg did not fit unless she cut off the end. Generations had repeated a practice without purpose, purely out of habit.

Supposedly the burning off promotes the growth of fresh grass and seeing the peep of occasional green it is clear this does work but traditionally it was done to create more feed for stock in the dry season and yet huge areas of land around Lilongwe, and in Africa in general, where no stock are kept, are burned to black annually as a part of this traditional practice. One wonders why they did not think of cutting grass for hay as happened elsewhere.

The blackened verges, fields and roadsides create a permanent haze and coat leaves with a dark, dust dressing. The rainy season is a few months away but I am looking forward to it already if only to turn the leaves green once more.

There are not many beggars in Lilongwe, which is one of the good things about living here.... less guilt triggers.... but I did see one this morning at the intersection when we went to do some shopping. He was sitting in the brown-black dust with withered sticks of legs at odd angles, possibly from polio, but whatever the cause, crippled all the same.

I did read recently that there are a lot of child beggars on the streets of Blantyre. You just don't see them here but then this is where the Government is so perhaps they are moved on or perhaps in the city, the seat of government, things are better than elsewhere. Poverty, family breakdown due to HIV/AIDS are said to be the reason why so many children are begging on the streets. It is said some 80 percent of the street children are orphaned by HIV/AIDS.

There is also no doubt that recent increases in costs, taxes and fuel shortages have impacted on people's always vulnerable lives. People in Africa live on a knife-edge where it doesn't take much to tip them into the gutter.  It doesn't seem fair that those who have so little should still be challenged so much but that is the story of Africa.  Why it should be so hard to establish security and some certainty in Africa is the eternal question, particularly given the billions in aid which have been poured into the continent for decades.

All one can do is try to help a little. While we were away we organised for Limited and Andrew's houses to be painted and we also had the guard-house painted. Everyone seems delighted. Our neighbours have given the guards two comfortable cane chairs in which to sit and their little house which is not much more than a tiny hut with an even tinier toilet in a separate 'room' looks so much brighter.

The electricians also came, the day before we got back .... only two months late....to connect Limited's house to our inverter so he still had lights during power cuts. And the power cuts, it seems, have only gotten worse. 

Limited's house is also going well, he said so if we do nothing else we shall leave him with a home in his village. Colleagues who were here before us helped Andrew build a house in his village so now both of them have homes.

To build a house costs about 60,000 Kwacha which is $A375. Andrew was loaned the money for his house but we decided that monitoring loans was much too difficult and so we gave Limited 40,000K saying that because he did not have to pay it back he could save the rest and use his Christmas bonus, which is usually K25,000 to finish his house.

It isn't a matter of the money because to us it is nothing, but of striking a balance between giving too easily and helping out where he remains empowered and responsible. I think he understood when I explained to him why we had decided to give him most of the money instead of loan him all of the money.

He said he expected to pay back K5,000 a month but I said I doubted he would be able to do that and then I would have to chase him for it and neither of us would be happy. This way he had enough money to get started on building his house and he could save whatever he had expected to pay back on a loan.

There is so much which needs to be done in Africa but perhaps it is enough to help a few people a little and to leave them better off than they might have been if we had not come. They are certainly eating better now that I am back with cake, biscuits, fruit, cheese for morning tea and even meat and vegetables left over from dinner. Nothing goes to waste here and that really is as it should be.

Actually it really is as it should be everywhere, including the First World, where our wasteful habits may yet exact a greater price than we may have imagined.

Gardens, generators and grizzles.

What is the saying, while the cat's away the mice will play? Well, in my case someone has been 'playing in my garden and to use Jane Austen terminology, I am seriously displeased.

When I left there was lovely, lush, leafy green to hide the red brick wall and the hideous razor wire and I returned to find mature shrubs cut back, decapitated actually, down to about six inches off the ground.

This is not pruning, which is how Fred the gardener explained it to me.... not that he was responsible.... this is destruction. I have called the gardening company which looks after the complex and asked them to come and explain to me why my garden has been reduced to shreds and I am now staring at red brick and razor wire instead of peaceful green?

Thank God for the enormous avocado tree which dominates the lawn and distracts somewhat from the paucity of foliage which I now face.

I know that in many ways it is something of a useless exercise but I have to try. They did this last year, although actually, not as badly and I asked them to talk to me first before embarking on the slash and murder of my plants. Fat chance!

Organising anything in Africa is next to impossible but I cannot look at what has been done to my garden and do nothing. At least there will be a conversation which, even if it achieves nothing, will make me feel better. I know it amounts to a grizzle but that's really the only satisfaction I am likely to get so I may as well go for it.

It is, as always, a salutary reminder that certainty is an illusion and change is constant. The garden will grow and perhaps my lesson is to learn to look at stark reality, no matter how unpleasant it may be. I think I am a bit lessoned out of late. I am beginning to understand why some people disappear into sports, soaps and anything which prevents too much pondering on the insanities and frustrations of life. Perhaps after all that is the true lesson of Africa!

However, beyond the brutalised garden all looks good. Limited and Andrew looked delighted to have us back... there is no doubt the food is better when I am around and there is more of it, but I also think that they get a bit bored when we are away and I have been gone for two months and Greg for most of that time. Our Thai neighbours have also been away and our new neighbour, Malawian born Indian gentleman who lives in London has still not appeared so the house across the way looks sad and empty still.

We have been back two days and flew straight through from Perth with nearly 12 hours Perth to Johannesburg; a five hour stopover which we sensibly spent in a transit hotel and then two hours to Lilongwe. It is only six hours behind Perth so adjusting to local time is pretty easy and after two nights sleeping through we are both feeling that we are back in Malawi time.... probably on all counts.

I was reminded of the vagaries of life in Africa yesterday when we lost power in the morning and I could not get the generator to stay on and so I was chasing electricians to see what was happening.

I did get surprisingly fast results with them arriving within hours although at this point we do not know why the Genset cannot cope with oven hotplates and oven at the same time when it did so happily before I left.... change is a constant in this part of the world... but I am beginning to wonder if a final solution might be a new oven which is more energy efficient. Apparently there is a spare one which was ordered for the mine site and so if we bring that down from Karonga we might finally have what we set out to get nine months ago... a permanently functioning oven and stove-top courtesy of our very large, very noisy and costly generator.

But such things are minor and after quite some time living out of suitcases it is wonderful to have something approximating a normal life and a decent bed in which to sleep. Getting back to a quiet and relatively ordinary life is the goal.... a bit of dullness will go a long way!

Things have not been dull in Malawi however with riots some weeks ago owing to fuel shortages, new taxes and higher costs and the President has only just appointed a new government after getting rid of all of his ministers a fortnight ago. Let's hope, for the sake of Malawians, that things begin to work better than they have been. 

N.B. Roderick and Charles who are responsible for the gardening teams sent by the nursery have just been and apologised profusely saying this is not pruning this is destruction and they will be more careful next time. Here's hoping. Even they could not disagree with my assessment that the bushes had been not so much cut back as cut down. Perhaps it is part of the psyche here to cut back hard.... then again, I do think men in general have a different approach to pruning than women. For women it is more likely to be a 'less is more' approach and for men, a 'more is more' approach. Slash and burn no doubt has a genetic memory in men more than it does in women and perhaps it is enough to hold a 'weapon' in their hands to want to use it!