First impressions on India

One month after we left Malawi our journey continues on a different continent, in a country which is as diverse and astonishing as only few others: India.

Read about my first impressions on Goa on the background of African memories.

The sun doesn't seem to be as strong as in Malawi. Which means you can actually walk a few minutes without a sunhat even if the sun is completely out (what hasn't been the case very often, most of the time it's quite hazy). And the good thing is you can have an umbrella with you even if you don't have a newborn baby. It rather seems to be a sign of caste here than a sign for a mother. By the way, where are the babies? Certainly not on the back of the women. Very seldom can you spot a mother with her baby on the arm. So how come that there are so many people everywhere?

When I get out of a building I keep being surprised how hot and humid it actually is! Air conditioned buildings let you forget about it too quickly. And as there is electricity everywhere, there is also Air con. Nevertheless we have already experienced the first power cut whilst being in the middle of a night market. The power cut rendered the world in black helping me to sneak away from an insisting seller who tried to sell me a sari.

Being on the streets is not only because of the sellers quite entertaining and stressful here. The number of vehicles on the narrow roads is most impressive. And how they drive! Just never walk on the wrong side of the street where you can't see when you have to jump out of the way. And never ever be startled when someone beeps at you. You might fall exactly in front of the person trying to warn you... Using their horns seems to be the favourite activity of all drivers here. But don't mistake the beeping for one of the friendly beeps indicating a free taxi, no it simply means "Here I come! Get out of the way!". The fact that they are all beeping from different sides doesn't make it easier though... Safest option seems to be hiding behind a cow.

Cows still live a very comfortable life in India. Being allowed everywhere at any time they never have to fear for their life (even though the elite seems to have started to enjoy a beef burger from time to time). Unlike in Malawi, where the main staple diet is consisting of nshima and usipa (fish), we can find here plenty of vegetarian food. And: It's hot without putting Nali on top of it! Which makes it tricky to pick the right dish for me...

Trying to understand the menu is the other thing… Language is an issue as usual while travelling. India has got many spoken languages. And as much as I love to learn languages none of them is (yet) in my repertoire. Sometimes Vijay's Gujarati helps to get some discounts (one seller actually started to deal with us at a lower price than he just did with a completely white couple), sometimes it even leads to more confusion when they happily start to immerge us with their local language (Konkani). So there's body language left. Good to know that wiggling your head means "yes"!

Strolling along the beach you see - apart from the red burnt tourists - people playing in the water. Again: rarely any kids, but adults enjoying the water! As in Africa women don't show much uncovered skin: they go in with their saris on! Men on the other hand seem to have a preference for covering each other in sand. One poor guy who fell asleep on the beach got a sexy woman corpse made out of sand on top of him...

Volunteering in Africa

The basis of volunteer work is to do work that requires to be done for the benefit of society or the environment without any financial recompense.  It is a socialist concept and one that isn’t tremendously popular in our predominantly capitalist society.  Whilst living in north-eastern France for the last three and a half years, I discovered that the concept of volunteering is at the heart of their society.  I too participated and was a member of a particular group that organised music festivals and cultural events in the local area.  There was no financial reward and if you were to break it completely down we were typically out of pocket due to travel expenses and such.  But the sense of achievement and fun we had typically made up for losing our weekends and evenings to long hard days of cooking food, pulling beer and being on our feet for 15 hours at a time.

But this article isn’t about the wonders of volunteering in France but what we were astounded by when we went to Southern Africa this year.  My girlfriend and I have just returned from a three-month trip in Southern Africa.  We hitch-hiked from Namibia to Zimbabwe and continued through Zambia into Malawi.  Our journey covered thousands of kilometres, meeting hundreds of people along the way.  The cultures and languages within countries and across borders are fascinating and vary to a greater extent than those between neighbouring European states. 

What we found in southern Africa was that ‘volunteering’ is a massive industry.  But the definition of volunteering is different.  What we discovered was that the premise of most ‘volunteer’ projects is that the locals are incapable of developing themselves because they are inherently incapable or culturally inept in making the necessary changes.  This premise has to be true in order to justify, say, an eighteen year old, with no previous experience of development work nor knowledge of African culture or history to start telling communities what to do in teaching or health or construction or whatever projects he might be involved in.  It is quite simply absurd to think that untrained westerners have a better idea of how people from a different continent, culture, lifestyle, climate should live their lives than they do, or what is best for them in terms of development.  Even the experts are continually getting it wrong.

I have seen ‘volunteer’ projects advertised for teaching assistants, sport teachers, medical projects, helping to build a school/hospital or helping to look after animals.  Expertise required to join these projects?  None.  The volunteer does not have to be an expert in his field.  The teachers do not have to have any previous teaching experience, the medical helpers no medical or nursing experience and the one helping to look after animals, no zoo-keeping experience or zoology knowledge.

These projects are funded by the volunteer who makes a payment of between hundreds to thousands of pounds to attend a project of duration of typically two weeks to two months.  I find that a simple way of determining who is the real beneficiary is by following the money.  Whoever is paying is the ultimate beneficiary.

The volunteer benefits from learning about a new culture, experiencing a different lifestyle or close interaction with children or animals. In comparison, the communities that the volunteer has come to help in put up with the westerners with bemusement and with the infinite politeness that is common in these parts.

One day, we inadvertently overheard a conversation between a volunteer agency and leaders of the local community.  The volunteer agency stated that they had X number of volunteers arriving soon who want to be involved in teaching sports. They asked the local community leaders whether they could accommodate this.  It seems that the ‘need’ for volunteers has not come from the community but rather it is suggested to them from savvy volunteer tour agencies. The link between supply and demand has been lost somewhere in the world of business.

I believe it is important to think about what sort of volunteers are required for a particular need.   Wouldn’t, for example, asking a group of professional teachers to lead a course to train local teachers who will stay in the community their whole lives be more beneficial for the long-term development of a school?

Nevertheless I must finish by saying that most of the volunteering programmes are not inherently bad.  From my point of view they are tourism trips and should be labelled as such.  They are rewarding to the participant and if managed properly the projects may benefit the local community.  However they can be detrimental to development when communities stop doing things for themselves: We came across one village chief who mistook us for volunteers. After greeting us he declared that it is good that we are there and that he is relying on us to develop their country for them.

Malawian Sachet Culture

The sachet, as it is popularly known, is a small transparent plastic packet containing about 60ml of cheap, hard liquor.  They are available in all the popular brands of alcohol common in these parts as well as other sachet only varieties with fancy names and colourful packaging.  They cost as little as 15 kwachas (five pence) each and are typically bought in packs of five or ten. It has become the drink of choice for the poor, young, uneducated or vulnerable.

Such is their negative effect on society that Zambia has recently created a country-wide ban on the sachet industry.  Just three months after the ban came into force, when we passed through Zambia we didn’t come across their existence.  However when we passed across the border into Malawi, the sachet culture slapped us in the face.  We first come across the discarded empty sachets littering the dirt road and countryside.  They are everywhere and littering the towns, countryside, beaches and forests.  The litter problem, typically a Western defined problem (Malawians don’t share the same values on litter) is not the main problem of the sachet-culture, the effect on certain social groups is debilitating.  More than once we were harassed by men, madly drunk, incoherent and dangerous.

The affordability and availability of this cheap and potent alcohol means that life even in the most idyllic and rural settlements is being severely affected.  Men, who are typically the main consumers, are drunk before midday.  Teachers and parents are complaining of the effect on teenage boys who are dropping out of schools to drink sachets.  Even children under the age of ten are known to be drinking the substance.  Others complain of a rise in domestic and sexual violence.  The sachet culture also affects those not directly connected; the transport system based around private mini-buses are becoming increasingly more dangerous as drivers keep themselves awake with the use of sachets.

For a country with a high unemployment rate, such an increase in unproductiveness of the population paralyses development.

Malawi has tried banning the product but a labyrinth of free business, vested interests and long legal processes means that the government required great political will to pass a ban.  They do not (yet) have the will.  A small success has been had from the Malawian government as they have increased the taxes on alcohol to 250% in the latest budget with the idea to price out school children from the market and make it uneconomical for others.  Sadly it still remains too cheap and the sachet problem will not be solved until a total ban is enforced. 

Further articles:

http://www.nyasatimes.com/malawi/2012/11/04/malawis-chanco-student-dies-after-consuming-alcohol-sachets/

http://www.nyasatimes.com/malawi/2012/07/01/chiefs-back-ban-of-alcohol-sachet/

http://mwnation.com/opinion-and-analysis/weekend-investigates/6767-should-malawi-ban-sachets

http://www.faceofmalawi.com/2012/09/zambia-bans-liquor-sachets/

Azungu!

Mzungu (plural Azungu) is the southern, central and eastern African term for a person of foreign descent. Literally translated it means "someone who roams around aimlessly" or "aimless wanderer". 

As soon as a Malawian kid catches sight of my light skin, it immediately sounds a warning cry: "Azungu!" Within seconds there's a whole bunch of children surrounding us. They will then make use of their communication skills in English: "How are you? What's my name?" (mistaken for "what's your name?"). Or they will straight away proceed to their most popular plea: "Give me picture!"

Vijay pulls out his camera and the children pose for a photo. Watching them when they have a look at the picture is the best part of it! Everyone tries to be as close as possible to the camera. The small ones - at the back - jump up and down in order to catch a glimpse of the photo. And they all erupt in laughter.

Enjoying Lake Malawi

The village of Chona (no electricity, no running water) PRESENTS: A special lecture on Aeronautics

The village of Chona, Zambia is not really a village at all but more of a focal point, a place of infrastructure where the wider community gathers.  It has a health clinic, a school, a small market and a well meaning everyday the community for miles around descend to Chona before heading back to their small plots of land and huts in the evening.  It is here at the local school, with so many pupils that the school starts at 7am to 5pm working in two shifts, where I offered to give a lecture on Aeronautics to the eldest math and physics class.

The small classroom, packed with fifty Grade 9 pupils wait patiently as I am presented.  As with the impeccable politeness of all Zambians they stand when I enter the class room, greeting me formally yet warmly.  I forgot to ask them to sit and they continued standing until the head teacher intervened and gave the instruction.

As with schools in the UK, all the pupils wore a school uniform, shirt and tie for boys and skirt, blouse and jumper (?) for the girls.  At this age in school, their shirts were not torn or over used and almost all had a note book to write in.

I started at the beginning.  The most that any of these children had ever gotten to an aircraft is seeing the large airliners silently cruising through the blue skies kilometers above them.  Had they ever asked themselves about how it could fly?  Or even how big these aircraft were?  From their astonishment I would say no.  Their initial shyness, coupled with ignorance soon gave way to intrigue and fascination.  Aircraft, aeroplanes, helicopters are understandable to small villagers like themselves who may have never even been in a car before.

They started answering the questions I posed them.  One boy, even answered correctly as to why the aircraft needed a tail using his knowledge of the large African birds around them.  Another correctly answered to what would happen if the aircraft started to go too slowly.  Their questions too became more sophisticated, 'Sir, how do you get oxygen into the aircraft?', 'Why can't you open the windows?'

The greatest part of the lesson was taken up by practical maths.  They were to work out in relation to other modes of transport how fast an aircraft travels at.  Speed is not something they are accustomed to.  The question 'How fast can you travel by bike?'  Was met with shrugs until they could think about how far their house was and how long it took to get to school.  30 minutes to travel 7km equals 14km/h.  The car, which most had never travelled on, was worked out to be at 120km/h.  But how do you work out the speed of an airliner?

I gave them a few clues: 1) Airliners cruise at roughly Mach 0.9, 2) Speed of sound is roughly 300m/s.  A few brave children, came to the black board to work it out.  Having no calculators all calculation must be done long hand or mentally.  When they worked out the speed at 972km/h they were astonished!  Shouts of surprise and murmurs of disbelief filled the classroom and exploded to a raucous when they found out that fighter jets can travel at 2-3 times that speed.

Hands were shooting up now and the questions flowed one after another non-stop.  But time was now over and I left them in a state of wonder.

As Mr. Moses, the senior teacher, said as we left, "Thank you.  It is inspiring to the young village children to realise where they can emerge with studying and the usefulness of it."

What has happened to Travellers?

One of the many joys I used to have was to meet other travellers.  Each meeting used to be an explosion. Two sets of experiences clashing and fusing into a helix of conversation, telling stories and sharing ideas about about the ills and woes of our host country and with wild and crazy and sometimes intelligent ways to solve them. These conversations starting at midday would stretch into the early hours of the morning and even the occasional incoherent ending fueled by local beer would give nuggets of gold.

My conversations now seem to revolve around where we've been, where we're going before falling back on life in Europe.

What happened to the politically wired travellers with an axe to grind? And the ones with several axes? Where are the socialists, the communists, the capitalists, the anti-capitalists and the anti-capitalists capitalists? Where are the environmentalists and the anarchists?

I call all these people to come find me and let's toast to Africa's successes and woes. Let's solve the continents' issues with useless rhetoric and see where our ideas lead us.