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.