It's just Africa

There is no doubt that the Africa factor is cumulative. You don't realise how it niggles away underneath until something goes wrong and that happens a lot, it is just a matter of how wrong the something is that goes.

I think you have to be a certain kind of person to live in the Third World as a long-term expatriate. We are coming up for four years in Malawi and as a hardship posting, the norm is two to three years so this is getting to be long.

You do develop a sense of humour and plenty of pragmatism and flexibility, otherwise you would go mad. Maybe that happens anyway and you are so mad you just don't notice anymore. There is a madness to such places but whether it is because it attracts the kind, develops madness in certain people, makes the mad even crazier I don't know. Of course it is not us! We know we are sane. Well as sane as anyone ever is living in a generally insane world.

That may sound harsh but you have to live in such places to know what I mean and if you don't or haven't there is not much point explaining.

And you learn to laugh a lot. To not take things too seriously and to understand that really, compared to the problems people face in such places, those of us fortunate enough to come from and return to and live in the developed world do not have problems, only minor inconveniences in the main.

Sure life can be hard but not as hard as it is in Africa.

Photo: Polished Denza bricks on the floor.

One could argue that people are used to it and that applies sometimes, perhaps a lot of the time, but people are people and they feel and care in the same way if they suffer under injustice, corruption, illness or cruelty. In the Third World it is intensified by the powerlessness with which most live. One could and does only wish it were other. But it isn't and it probably won't be for a very long time.

It is what it is, remains a useful thing to remember generally in life, but never more so than here where often, there really is nothing you can do.

On the bright side the water and power cuts have eased drastically and it is quite a novelty to think: Oh, I might cook such and such, and not have to navigate real or possible power or water cuts.

But the internet continues to be erratic despite having a new service. In the past few weeks they have changed the modem, changed the antennae, re-adjusted the antennae, three times, and still it is erratic, off and on, and needs to be replaced with a more reliable dongle. Having said that, and perhaps I speak too soon, today it has actually been working okay for five hours. We shall see tomorrow if we can run two laptops at the same time as that has not previously been possible.

We have a new gardener, Samson, who seems to hover a lot, perhaps having heard that the old gardener, Fred, got a top-up each month, a situation we inherited from the previous tenants who were kind and compassionate and instituted a payment each month to help.

I am sure such payments help and one certainly does not begrudge the money, but it becomes another job on the long list of Africa. We did not continue the monthly payments when our guard service was changed and we are not going to give Samson a payment either, no matter how expectant he looks.

Photo: The garden.

What we will do is give all of them a very, very generous Christmas bonus since that helps them and works best for us given how often we travel and are not around when monthly payments need to be made and as with all of us, they become dependent on the money and it is spent before it arrives and so when we are late with money it actually makes their lives harder, not easier.

And Samson has reasonable English and has taken on board the maxim: Nothing gets cut without asking. Pruning in Africa takes on a 'vengeance is mine saith the gardener' quality with the general view being that if something needs pruning it should be slashed within an inch of its life, or a bit higher, close to the ground. Roses do not mind this but most other things do. Less is more is not a maxim here when it comes to trimming plants.

And half the time they don't have the right equipment anyway with a machete being the general universal tool and hacking, as a result, being the general universal approach. Twice I have returned from Australia to find the garden decimated by the annual prune. No doubt it will happen again - it is just the way of it.

A friend has established a vegetable garden and has been growing wonderful lettuce, something which is hard to get here, and all sorts of greens and filling bags for us as well. It has been such a treat. However, they discovered a few days ago that one of the gardeners had decided to cut back the greens, supposedly because the cook had requested some, and had cut the plants down to stubs, in essence ending their lives as opposed to regularly removing a few leaves, and so the garden will have to be re-planted.

Now, there is a very good chance that the cook and the gardener looked at all that greenery and heard the sound of Kwacha dropping into their pockets and so, over the weekend, they harvested the lot and sold it! However, if there had been some thought involved they would have realised less was more and taking some, not all, some of the time, and not destroying the plant in the doing, would have brought a regular income which might not have been noticed.

But that would be thinking and it didn't happen and so now, chastised, with a more vigilant watch in place, they are unlikely to be hawking lettuce around the streets of Lilongwe again.

Andrew has been scatter-brained this week so I am not sure what is going on in his life. His grasp of English seems to appear and disappear and I don't think it is my accent since that does not change and he should be used to it. Sometimes his brain seems to switch off and he either does not listen or processes what he is told in very strange ways.

A part of the problem, as it was in India, is that generally people are not allowed to think for themselves and so they cannot think for themselves. They function on rote learning and just keep doing the same things no matter how illogical it would appear if they actually thought about it.

Then again, given the outcome for Limited who was able to think for himself and thought himself into getting sacked because of what he did when we were away - bringing girlfriends and women into the house for sex and bribing guards so he could, mostly with our liquor - it is perhaps best if too much thinking does not happen. Although some would be good.

I went down to make a cup of coffee as I usually do about eleven and nearly skidded across the kitchen floor because Andrew had just washed it. Clearly he forgot to wash it earlier before we got up and decided to do it then, not thinking, or remembering that this was a time I was likely to be walking into the room. After going arse over turkey in Namibia a few weeks ago and cracking my head hard on the tiled floor after the cleaner mopped the floor with a liberal overdose of detergent, in that African way, I was not impressed.



Photo: Making bricks, Malawi.


I don't get angry with him, annoyed a bit sometimes but not angry, and I just stated quite clearly that it was dangerous and in future floors needed to be washed early, so they were dry before we walked on them.  Well, the kitchen floor does because it is terrazzo while the rest of the downstairs is polished brick which is not so smooth and where there is plenty of grip. They are quite lovely these floors, made of local bricks from a town called Denza, about an hour south of Lilongwe.

But it has been an exciting week for Andrew because his employment has been formalised and he now gets his salary paid into the bank and gets a bankcard to get it out and the company is providing health cover and superannuation as part of his package. He was not previously on the company payroll. He also gets a bit more money so it is probably enough to have him distracted.

He has had to go into the bank with Sharon the office manager a few times to get it all sorted out and it is strange to see him dressed up in a suit and well-polishes shoes since most of the time he is barefoot or in thongs. He dresses up when he goes to church as I have seen him after special meetings. It is easy to forget but in Malawian terms he is very well paid and one of the more fortunate with a very nice house provided and water and power included.

And in that way of Africa, he went in two weeks ago to open an account and went in a few days ago because his salary had been paid and he wanted to access it, only to be told his account had been closed because he did not use it, which is just an excuse for saying, 'we have lost your account.' The search began and he returned two days later to find the account and his money. So it goes.

We went to a UNHCR refugee aid function the other night and it was something of a shambles in that the date was changed for the event and we only found out because we checked and most people did not so the hundreds they expected and for which they catered, was reduced to a couple of dozen. We arrived on time although the time had also been changed from six on the original invitation to seven, and they were still setting up, hanging flags and getting ready for something which had been planned for weeks. But it is the way of things around here, last-minute everything.

The number of times an invitation arrives for a function the night before or even the morning of, where someone is expected to give an address, grows and grows. Planning, along with foresight and strategic thinking seem not to be valued. The entertainment consisted of a rather wonderful drum performance by Burundi refugees, a very long and not very good poem and an account of one refugee experience. Yes Malawi has refugees and many thousands more than Australia is handling.

The approximately 18,400 refugees and asylum-seekers in Malawi originate mainly from Burundi, the DRC and Rwanda, and reside in Dzaleka camp. The number of new arrivals from the eastern DRC rose in 2013 to an average of 600 per month, about three times more than had been initially projected. Finding the resources to move asylum-seekers from the border entry point to Dzaleka, which is some 600 kilometres away, is a challenge. Upon arrival at the camp, many women and children are in need of psychosocial support.



Photo: Burundi drummers.


We have a new government in Malawi and are hoping for changing times after the Cashgate scandal where hundreds of millions of donor aid dollars were stolen - even to the degree of people driving out of Government offices with billions of Kwacha in their boots.

I would just say that billions of Kwacha is easier to achieve than billions in dollars.   For instance, $100 AUD equals 37,000 MK  and the basic wage in Malawi is K5,000 a month. But billions of Kwacha for an ordinary Malawian is the equivalent of billions of dollars for us, perhaps more so.

The major donor countries, the US, UK and various European, got so pissed off they pulled the plug and said no more funds would be forthcoming until Malawi cleaned up its act. Let's hope they do.

Although even if they do it will probably be temporary. Most of those in power in Africa, as South Africa also so clearly demonstrates, seem incapable of caring about the good of the people or the State and focus purely on lining their own pockets. It is as always depressing but probably has more impact on us because we know differently and we expect differently as the saying goes, 'you don't miss what you haven't had.'

Then again, you need to be able to think about your situation and what it might be to 'miss' anything. And that does not happen much here. It's just Africa.....

Malawi, maize, meanderings and muddling on.

Back again in Lilongwe after being away for two months. It is the wet season and all is green and lush and washed.

Surprisingly there have been no water cuts for the past week and only one brief power cut. It is unsettling!

The avocado tree is groaning under the weight of fruit and so too is the lemon tree, which, I originally thought was a lime and picked them as they grew large, only to find, that if left, they grew even larger, in that Malawi way and turned yellow and were lemons, not limes.

I have not written much about Malawi in recent months. One runs out of puff because it is so depressing. Just before we left we had another reminder of how rotten things can be in this part of the world.

The people who work in the houses in the compound have staff quarters for which we pay.

There are about a dozen houses and families in the compound. A couple of them started planting vegetables  in what was bare, red dirt and I and others bought seeds for them. The garden was absolutely fabulous, with dozens of different things growing,  and given how much costs have gone up in Malawi, invaluable in terms of a better diet for them and their families. So what happens?

The letting agents Knight Frank come along and tell them it is not a village and they cannot grow vegetables and so all of it gets torn up and returned to dry, barren red dirt.

No wonder this continent is doomed.

What is happening in Malawi? Well there is Cashgate where some $250million has disappeared - money provided by donor nations who are seriously displeased as one would expect. It got as ludicrous as people being stopped driving out of Government buildings with their boots full of loot.

The big donor nations like the United Kingdom and the United States have made their disapproval abundantly clear and turned the 'tap' on funds to some degree. No doubt, as in the way of Africa, it will be turned back on again before too long with little or nothing changed.

The President, Joyce Banda spends a great deal of time flying around Africa and the world, in a plane which a newspaper in Joburg said last week had been sold to a South African arms dealer and which was then provided for her use. She said she would sell the plane when she came to power and she did.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/malawi/10588417/Joyce-Banda-an-African-arms-firm-and-the-free-use-of-the-jet-she-sold.html

The truth, as is the way in Africa will be out there somewhere for someone sometime to find, or not. There is an election coming up and every chance the Government will be returned but there is little doubt that those in opposition will dig up whatever they can find to challenge that if they can. There are four months until the election and probably a good chance that power and water supplies will be reliable and diesel will be easily obtained during that time. What happens after will remain to be seen.

For the ordinary people, life goes on much as it did. Food prices are high and still creeping up but the wet season has been good and the maize crop is tipped to be excellent. Andrew's wife went to the village at the end of December, for a month, to oversee the maize crop. It is the life-blood of Malawi for most, as it is in many parts of Africa and the Third World.



The fact that seed suppliers, fertilizer suppliers and in-country systems control food supplies, including maize, is, in the scheme of things, incidental, until there is a crop failure. This year looks like being an exception and given Malawi's tragic history of famine, one can only be happy for the people.

Beyond torrential rains, interspersed with thundering, raging storms and days of steady drizzle, life muddles on. Funerals are sadly still common for many and that is unlikely to change in the short term given the impact of HIV/Aids combined with poor nutrition and malaria. But people do survive and in ways that those living in the developed world might find hard to believe.

We were chasing up raincoats for the security guards this week. They had not been issued with them. How on earth can you expect to walk around and do what needs to be done in torrential rain without coats? Well, the fact is, in places like this no-one cares and I think the owners of the company are Indian anyway and they traditionally treat the workers and lower castes and classes with contempt and Africans worse than Indians.

However, an official complaint from the 'white' Muzungus, supposedly has the aforesaid raincoats on their way in a way that requests from the guards themselves could not achieve. I really hate the way that places like this work. Life is just so often so bloody unfair and means-pirited.

I know that people in the developed world are forever 'lashing' themselves for their racism and intolerance but honestly, when you live in these places, and I have been doing it for many years, you realise that when it comes to intolerance and racism the First World does it the least and has in place systems which actually reduce it. Not so in the Africa's and India's of the world. People get treated like shit and because they are poor and powerless and those who are rich and powerful don't care and see them as inferior, nothing gets done about it.

I do wonder why it is I have spent so much of my life in India and Africa.... no doubt lessons to learn. Perhaps patience, pragmatism, acceptance? But of course, I observe this world, I don't really live it. As a white, as a muzungu, I am separated from the sorts of situations and experiences which ordinary people here take as a given.

There is a fatalism to life in the Third World. There has to be. How else could or would you survive. In truth, the way of life is no different to that lived by most of our ancestors barely a century ago. Times have changed in the past two hundred years and no more so than in what we call the First World. Times have also changed in Africa, although sadly, not as much for the better as one would wish.

The fact remains that after $3trillion dollars poured into the continent in the past 50 years, the average African is worse off than they were 30 years ago. Aid simply does not work because it disempowers people and discourages them from becoming independent and most of the money is syphoned off by those in power and never gets where it is meant to go.

The NGO's beaver away, as often as not driven by God and religion and distracted by that focus, achieving little things at times but not really making much of a difference. Given how long they have been at it, some two hundred years, the do-gooders have clearly had little impact. Except in terms of conversions which was probably always the most important factor for them. Most Malawians are Christian, sadly of the American nutter, evangelical kind, which makes a toxic mix with the underlying belief in withcraft - a natural 'fit' in ways the Christians would perhaps never recognise and if they did, would never admit.

We are heading toward four years in Malawi and probably the only thing which has changed since I arrived, after many years spent in other Third World countries, is that I hold less hope for change than I did before. You can only look around and see the corruption, the slow decay, the impossibility of improving the lot of ordinary people in concrete, lasting terms and think what is the point?

If I had my way I would end aid tomorrow, beyond emergency for crisis situations. But that will never happen and so aid funds will continue to pour in and suck the lifeblood out of the people and the country even as it fattens the pockets of those in power.

Life sucks often, but it sucks bigtime and all of the time, for ordinary people in Africa.

Spiralling down the drain in Africa

It is probably because we are nearly due to have time out of country that I am in a bleak mood about Africa. It is cumulative.

One wishes so much to see signs of progress; to have hopes that things might improve and all that there is to see are signs of steady, consistent deterioration.

Whether it is politically driven; people driven; circumstances driven or just the screwed up way of Africa, things here seem to go ever downwards, from bad, to worse, to basket-case and there they muddle along simply because there is no further to fall.

But all that aid you cry! Yep, all that aid, utterly useless in the main and a part of the process of destruction because it breeds not progress, but more corruption, more greed, more self-serving incompetence and more and more and more pathetic dependence on foreign aid.

 The truly depressing thing about living for so long in Africa is how aid achieves so little and in fact, is probably far more destructive than constructive.

Many people with the best intentions in the West spend a lot of time collecting and sending money to the African continent and it pours down the pit of greed, corruption, self-serving and incompetence like a torrent.

In the past 50 years some $3trillion in aid has come into Africa and the average African is worse off than they were 30 years ago. A few Africans are very, very, very rich.

There are moves by some nations who give a lot of aid to 'control' it by providing it as loans with conditions, but I would be prepared to bet that the Africans on the receiving end are not the least bit interested at the end of the day because they cannot milk it. Sad but true. Westerners caring desperately about poverty in Africa and Africans caring desperately only about lining their own pockets.

I would end aid, apart from emergency tomorrow I it was up to me. The West had to drag itself out of corruption, self-serving and incompetence by its bootstraps and everyone else should have to do the same. Only a fool keeps doing the same thing, no matter how many 'warm fuzzies' they might get from it, when it clearly achieves next to nothing, but momentary warm fuzzies for a few, the illusion of progress for some and it all spirals down the African drain anyway.

And Africa is awash in broken water pumps. Pay for a pump to go into a village and expect any or all of the following:

The local chief steals either all or part of it for a pump outside his own house; the local chief takes control of the pump and makes people pay for water; the pump breaks down and no-one has the skills to repair it or the money to buy parts......

According to a RWSN report, May 4^th 2010 in Africa roughly 50% of the 350.000 donated pumps are abandoned;

http://mamboviewpoint.blogspot.com/2012/03/sustainable-hand-water-pumps-in.html

Excerpt: Providing water to communities in Africa has historically been challenging for many reasons. The litany of failed hand-pumps scattered across Africa is extremely disturbing, both for the community and for the original donors who have invested their time and resources in providing a water solution for the community.  We know it is not sexy to raise money for repairs and we also know the costs involved of maintaining a water source over 20 years are not only more expensive than the original build, but it is more complex in terms of management, ownership, servicing and repairs.

http://www.waterforafrica.org.uk/water-crisis

 

 And the frustration levels do rise for those who live and work here because you so, so, so want and you so, so, so wish that it could be different, that it could be better, that it could be other. But it isn't. The aid money pours in and things remain pretty much as they always were - poverty-stricken, miserable, desperate but manageable and a few Africans get very, very, very rich.



I shake my head at the people behind these aid projects: what on earth are they thinking? Are they thinking? Probably not. Africa does not seem to attract the most experienced or the wisest. It has a lot of people on the ground who are very good, very committed, very devoted and very caring Christians but they have God first and foremost in their minds and salvation more than soap, evangelicals as most are and very unlike the earlier Anglicans and Catholics who did actually achieve something, in those days before such missionary work was considered patronising.

It also has a lot of very young, very inexperienced, very caring, very cheap men and women who come to Africa - or no doubt any other Third World, poverty-stricken hellhole because they have a conscience and want to help. Some of them are driven by religion but not all of them; all of them are however driven by idealism or they would not be here.

They are the gofers, learning a bit about themselves and Africa, providing labour for the aid agencies and religious organisations which abound in Africa - if presence achieved anything this continent would be exemplary. If experience achieved anything the success rate in Africa for aid projects would be at least three out of four, not one out of four.

Beyond African corruption and a lack of community consciousness, trapped as people are into rigid and at times brutal tribal and chieftan systems, the lack of success by aid agencies has been in Africa economically criminal, if not criminally incompetent to levels which even Africans could not manage.

One particularly ludicrous example of Aid money ill-spent are the signs along the road from Lilongwe to Blantyre, in Malawi, telling people to wash their hands with soap after going to the toilet - the signs are in English and the local language is Chichewa, amongst others and the people can't afford soap and it would be the last thing they would buy. What lunatic came up with this idea which probably cost millions and achieves nothing.

 

The other factor which seems never to be taken into account is that when you build something - health clinic, school, water pump then there is a good chance the local chief will appropriate it and force people to pay to use it; that it will break down and no-one will have the skills to carry out the repairs; that it will break down and no-one will have the money or be prepared to find the money to repair it; that the 'parts' may be of more use than the whole and bits and pieces will be 'taken' over time, either to meet the needs of the local chief or to be sold by the desperate...... and on it goes.


Excerpt: One director of an African water charity speaking on condition of anonymity was scathing about how money was wasted. He described how corruption on the ground was rife, giving the example of how some international contractors paid more than $1,000 a day by water charities to drill boreholes had little concern for whether drilling was even appropriate, just as long as they kept themselves in a job. He concluded grimly: "If anyone ever told the truth, no one would give us anything." And this is the catch-22 many good charities find themselves in. They can keep quiet and watch money wasted in massive quantities, or expose the waste and risk damaging charitable giving to the sector as a whole.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2009/nov/24/africa-charity-water-pumps-roundabouts

If nothing else Africa is a lesson in expecting very little because that way you will not be disappointed.

But surely we must do something, they say. Why? If only a fool keeps doing the same thing and expecting a different result, why should Africa be used to assuage your sense of guilt at having so much when others have so little when clearly, that assuaging is destructive, not constructive?

Surely if doing something, doing a lot actually, $3trillion dollars over 50 years is a great deal and no sniff in anyone's economic wind ... and yes, that is a pun because most of that money has amounted to no more than one enormous, smelly fart ... achieves nothing and things are worse than they were, then sanity demands you stop and you do nothing!

For no other reason than for the sake of Africans. Give up the warm, fuzzy feelings you get by donating, that feel-good crap which is great for you and absolutely useless for the people you tell yourselves you are helping. Please, yes, for the sake of this benighted continent, do nothing. Absolutely, totally, nothing!

Counting blessings and saying goodbyes

 Photo: Malawi village.


We have now been in Malawi for three years  - yes, it has gone fast, yes it has been seriously challenging and yes it is practice for living in the now, accepting what is, and being incredibly grateful to be an Australian and to know that we can return to one of the most efficient, sophisticated, egalitarian and nicest places to live on the planet ... and where people generally have a great sense of humour and can laugh at themselves and life.

Then again, maybe it is all that great food, great wine, great coffee and sunshine. But, since the job is open-ended we might have a bit more Africa work to do for some time yet. Perhaps when there is no 'light' at the end of the tunnel you find it easier to accept what is. I am not sure about that but it's a good theory.

What I do know is that living for so long in undeveloped or Third World countries makes one appreciate how good we have it, despite the flaws and the fact that many things could be better and that the veneer of civilization is flimsier than we think and our time is better spent working to preserve the best we have and seeking to improve what is, instead of whinging about what is wrong.

Counting blessings I think many of our ancestors would have called it and people who lived with greater poverty and injustice than Australians today could ever recognise. The same sort of poverty and injustice which still confronts most people in the world today, even some who live in countries which call themselves developed.

And you do need to develop a sense of humour. I had to get down a very large oil painting which had slipped in its frame during the hot months I was away.

I had planned to do it when I got back from Cape Town figuring I could buy the correct tape to do the job, thinking that the painting was a good one and had been framed properly ..... fall about laughing of course .... we got the back off and there was the painting, by a good South African artist, and framed in South Africa, held in place with a few scrappy bits of packing tape. I should have known. All that guilt for nothing. Clearly whoever did the job had never heard that putting the wrong tape on can damage the paper on which the painting is done. And who would care?

So I secured it with more packing tape figuring if it had lasted this long with the 'wrong' tape it would last a bit longer and could be done properly when it got back to Oz. Cutting corners is an art form in Africa and even in the 'most developed' part of it, SA!! It reminds me of the time when we were in India and there were stories, weeks apart, about 'cutting corners' on chilli powder - one was 70% flour and dye and the other 40% brick dust!!!!
 

 But some things are beyond humour. We had to let Limited go this week because there was evidence he had allowed people into the house while we were away, in collusion with one of the guards, and some things were missing, like my hair dryer, mobile phone, four plates from our dinner set, and three bottles of wine and quite a bit of whisky, tequila, cognac (ughhh) and other alcohol. Not to mention a condom wrapper found in one of the bedrooms. Sigh. At least someone was taking precautions which, with the HIV/Aids rate may have been the only sensible act on the day.

While there was no concrete evidence he was responsible for theft, the fact is he was responsible for the house and he had the key in his pocket and when the investigator got written statements from guards and gardener and others about what had happened, there was no choice, for it was a breach of trust.

There had been a party of sorts I am sure and perhaps more than one and no doubt it  was all fun and games in the Malawian way where both men and women think nothing of having lovers and often get into trouble because of it. This place is a veritable sex-fest but perhaps that is because life is short, often hard and often painful. Then again, you would think all the more reason to ensure that when you had a good life, you kept hold of it.

But, after four years, well, three and a half with no problems because it seems this happened in the past six months, it is just sad. It is sad because it is a betrayal of trust but mostly it is sad because this was such a good job - one of the highest paid of its kind in Malawi and it came with big Christmas and birthday bonuses, one tries to help, and accommodation with water and electricity supplied.

He will be lucky to get another job as good and while company policy had to be applied, it has been as lenient as possible and hopefully he will get another job. One could ask what on earth went on in his mind to risk so much, more so because he is the only one of his four surviving siblings with a job and his mother raises four orphaned grand-children? But it is often the way of it in Africa and a common story.

There is a mindset which is hard to understand for outsiders - then again, it is also possible that he thought he would be okay because he had paid for spells to protect him. Yes, it happens. And yes, they believe it. Although you can only shake your head at some of the stories like the guy who stole a television set and who had a spell from the witch-doctor to make himself invisible except of course, the television set was not invisible. And neither was he actually, but when the television was found in his house, that was the end of his job and he also had a good job, well paid and with a future.

But you need to become philosophical. In such situations you do the best you can and leave the rest to fate. One presumes that Andrew has taken note of the lesson, for he is still working for us, and while he knew that was happening and did not tell us - well they can't because it breaches tribal rules - he was not complicit enough to lose his job.

Sad, sad, sad but mostly for Limited although I had grown fond of him, and I think he of me as he was nearly in tears when he came to say goodbye after he resigned. Although I don't put too much credence in it. The reality of Africa is that we are muzungus and most Malawians resent us. I suspect they also think we are stupid or soft, and so do the most insane things themselves and lose their jobs in the doing.

Although sometimes you wonder if there is unconscious motivation so they can go back and sit outside their house in the village. He is 42 and that is an age many Malawians don't reach and if they do, don't live much past it.

But, moving on, we will replace him in time although not for the moment and Andrew is looking after both houses and working very hard, grateful I am sure, to have survived.

It is hard not to become jaundiced in this country where 'shitting in their own nest' as one could put it, seems a traditional pastime at the personal and the national. 

But back to counting blessings.

Death, disease, destiny and homeopathy.

Photo: Funeral of an Aids victim in Malawi.

There is no doubt that Death is a frequent visitor in Africa as it is in the Third World in general but somehow the impact of things like HIV/Aids is much greater here.

The disease is wiping out a generation, probably two generations,  leaving tens of thousands of orphans in the care of grandparents or the State. Malawi is no exception and there are around one and a half million Aids orphans in this country. as it stands too many are destined to die and too many are destined to be orphaned.

The stark truth is that HIV/Aids is de-populating Africa with tens of millions of people already dead across this huge continent. And it's impact is felt powerfully in the ranks of soldiers, decimating the military, which might be a good thing, but also in the ranks of teachers, once thought to be a primary resource for preventing HIV infection. In Botswana for example, 35-40% of secondary school teachers are infected with HIV and in 1999, 100,000 South African children lost their teachers to AIDS. I don't have figures for Malawi but it won't be better - it will be as bad or worse. The loss of teachers is probably the worst part of it, after the loss of parents, because education is crucial to this continent making progress. The future looks bleak.

After two and a half years here the deaths just keep stacking up, as do the infections. I have heard of dozens of deaths and countless dozens of infections, or possible infections given that most disease or symptoms are called malaria but often are not and my experience of Africa is that most people won't admit to HIV/Aids because of the stigma.

I cannot think of an individual I have met here who has not lost one, two, three or more family members from the disease. Word does get out and often it is easy enough to put two and two together. The dying can be slow and often is.

For a complex collection of reasons conventional medicine doesn't seem to get far. It is partly cost, partly corruption, partly inefficiency but half the time the drugs don't help much and in Malawi, the word is, more often than not they get fed to the chickens to boost growth. It's another reason why we don't eat the local chickens. But the fact that they end up being used in this way is a sign that the locals don't find them useful, or don't see them healing or helping as they are meant to.

Photo: Aids orphans in Malawi.



One could argue that the influence of native doctors, or traditional healers,  puts people off muzungu medicine but I don't believe that. Most people are more than happy to go to the clinic or hospital for treatment. They turn away if it doesn't work which is pretty much what happens in the world at large and which accounts for the massive turn toward Traditional Medicine in the modern world. People are not stupid whether they are educated or not, or rich or poor. If something can be seen to work then people will make use of it.

And, even more worrying, for the course of the AIDS epidemic, resistance to antiretroviral drugs is increasing in parts of Africa, according to a new study by the World Health Organization and University College London published in The Lancet.

Antiretroviral Drug Resistance Growing for Africa AIDS Cases

www.nytimes.com


This may well be because drugs used here are corrupted, out of date, or simply not administered properly - or it may just be the fact that in Africa, AIDS is more powerful and innovative than in other places. Whatever the reason it is not working which brings me to a new initiative from homeopaths,Homeopathy for health in Africa, www.homeopathyforhealthinafrica.org,a medical treatment which approaches disease by seeking to get the body and its immune system functioning properly so it can fight the disease, which is of course, how healthy bodies work all of the time.

There is no doubt that the immune responses of people here are compromised from the moment of conception because of inadequate nutrition and then later, malaria and continued inadequate nutrition. Homeopathy works at a physiological, psychological, emotional and spiritual level in ways which stimulate the body's natural protective and healing mechanisms. If the body is in balance then any disease and all disease can be resisted. Restoring balance at an 'energy' level - a word which drives those who oppose Homeopathy utterly insane, but I can think of no other to use - is the focus.

Photo: The pharmacy at the Royal Homeopathic Hospital in London.

In essence what we call energy is a force, a vibration and even scientists will use the word energy including at the sub-atomic level where they talk about potentiality which is energy, or the vibratory nature of this world. Everything in the universe moves and vibrates at one speed or another.

The scientific definition of energy is: the capacity of a physical system to perform work. Energy exists in several forms such as heat, kinetic or mechanical energy, light, potential energy, electrical, or other forms.So 'energy' in homeopathic terms is a remedy which triggers a 'vibration' or 'connection' which stimulates the body toward balance.

In essence the remedy, 'reminds' the body of it's own natural 'vibration' (which is why different people may need different remedies for the same disease or symptom) through targeting that which has thrown the body out of balance, hence triggering a process whereby the body returns to balance and therefore no longer has need of the symptom or the disease.

Given the fact that homeopathy as a healing methodology does no harm and the remedies cannot cause injury or death if you forget to take them, take too many, or take too few, it might be something suited to Africa given that it does not matter if the remedies are not administered or fed to chickens because they cannot hurt.

Homeopathy has become increasingly popular in India where it is the fastest-growing form of medicine and perhaps for similar reasons.  The homeopathic market is growing in India at a rate of 30% annually  It works and it can't really be abused or misused in the way that pharmaceuticals can.

Photo: An Indian government advertisement recommending homeopathic treatment for flu.  

As Dana Ullman, noted homeopath writes: 

Presently, there are over 100,000 homeopathic doctors and over 100 four- and five-year homeopathic medical colleges in (India). Considering how many more trained homeopaths there are in India compared with the U.S., perhaps one day India will send a Peace Corps team of homeopathic physicians to America. 


Homeopathy has achieved such respect that in 1987 the government established homeopathic drug detox clinics in six different police stations in New Delhi. A recent conference in India which described impressive results in the homeopathic treatment of drug addiction received accolades from India's Minister of Health and Family Welfare, the Finance Minister, and the Chief Justice.¹² In addition to the Indian government's support of homeopathic drug detox clinics, they have also supported various research projects and homeopathic hospitals and clinics.

Even Mother Teresa, who for many decades has served India's poorest citizens with medical care, has added homeopathic care to the services offered at her missions. Mother Teresa has a special interest in homeopathic medicine because of its effectiveness and low cost.

At present, four charitable homeopathic dispensaries are run under the guidance of the Mother's Missionaries of Charity. One of these dispensaries primarily provides homeopathic medicines to poor and sick children in Calcutta, while the other three provide homeopathic medicines to anyone who needs them. Considering the serious health problems that poor people in India experience, it is truly miraculous that homeopathic medicines are so effective as the primary method of treatment for many children and many adults.

Mother Teresa opened her first charitable homeopathic dispensary in Calcutta in 1950.

-http://www.homeopathic.com/Articles/Introduction_to_Homeopathy, /The_Present_Status_of_Homeopathy_Internation.html

Of course cost is a major factor  in any medical treatment, and economy is even more crucial in the Third World.

'Allopathic medicines cost more than homeopathic medicines. Due to the low cost, homeopathy is more affordable to most of India's population. Only allopathic and aryurveda medicines are more popular in India than homeopathy. 10% of India uses homeopathic remedies which makes India the #1 consumer of homeopathic medicine in the world.

India has done extensive research on homeopathic medicines. There are 40+ research institutions administering various clinical studies. Most of the research centres are publicly funded.

Homeopathic scientific research has been carried out by Dr. Prasanta Banerji & Dr. Pratip Banerji. They studied homeopathic medicine on brain cancer which was collabrated by University of Texas MD Anderson Center. The trials demonstrated that Ruta 6C and Cal Phos 3X aids in eliminating cancerous brain cells but does not damage normal brain cells.

Other type of cancers have been handle by these homeopathic physicians. The doctors have treated cancer successfully in 30 to 40% of the cases.'
http://www.ubscure.com/Art/9937/198/India-Embraces-Homeopathy.html

Homeopathy 'fits' nicely into India's own medical practice, Ayurveda, but Africans have their own home-grown medical treatments, many of which are effective and deserving of both respect and use. In the best of worlds, both here and in the developed world, making use of all healing methodologies makes sense and will, I believe, ultimately be the outcome everywhere. After all, what those who are ill or suffering want is to be healed and those who seek to heal want to provide that. If one thing does not work then try another....

All I know is given the suffering I have seen and continue to see around me that anything is worth a try. I happen to find Homeopathy to be very effective and have no doubt that it may well be able to help here. Some doctors and nurses may have their doubts or even voice opposition but  I suspect they will be few given that everyone wants to help and anything is worth a try.. The reality of Africa is that everything is 'needs based' and doctors and nurses here have a long history of working with traditional African medicine as well as homeopathy - they just don't make a fuss about it.


Some care is required in handling and administering homeopathic medicine but the remedies are far more durable in the circumstance and climate of Africa than many pharmaceuticals. The success of homeopathy in India is an indication of its suitability for Third World use.