Malawi

Click here to see my pictures from Malawi.

Malawi is an incredibly beautiful country, covered by broad, rolling expanses of yellows, greens and purples, mountains and the huge Lake Malawi, which is more like an ocean. It is also an incredibly poor country. The average annual income per person is $160, making it one of the 10 poorest countries in the world. And because it suffers from one of the worst HIV/AIDS epidemics, with around one million people infected and half a million children orphaned by parents dying of AIDS, the workforce is increasingly being decimated. The average life expectancy is only 37 years old.

Rarely for such a state of poverty, Malawi is a very peaceful country. 1/4 of the population is Muslim and the rest are Christian, but there are no major religious or ethnic divides. In fact, our taxi driver told us that "things like that are other countries’ problems – we don’t understand it here!' There is a growing political divide between the current government and the opposition, however, which is to be watched because of everything else going on in the region. Neighboring Zimbabwe isn't exactly a success story. So the upcoming elections may be a concern.

Unlike my time in Ethiopia, I was really able to get out of just the capital city and see different parts of the country. I arrived on Saturday afternoon and two of my colleagues and I took a day trip on Sunday to Lake Malawi. The hour and a half drive from Lilongwe through the incredible scenery was almost as enjoyable as our time on the lake, with its beautiful beaches and crystal blue water. I had some of the most delicious food there – fresh chambo, a white fish only local to Lake Malawi, and mounds of maize. This was really my only “local” meal – the other local food, “Malawian sausages,” or rats being roasted on the side of the road, didn’t look too appealing!!

When I wanted to have chambo again a few nights later back in Lilongwe, I discovered a striking example of the lack of development in the country. The man I was with explained that it wasn’t readily available, and if it was, it wouldn’t be fresh. As for the huge quantities only an hour and fifteen minutes away in the lake? The systems and infrastructure aren’t in place to pack the fish, transport them in a refrigerated truck, and deliver them to Lilongwe.

My next trip was for work. I drove north of Lilongwe, once again through the beautifully endless savannas, to work with one of the CARE projects improving food security and nutrition in one of the poorest areas of the country, Ntchisi. The project focuses on several areas to increase livelihood sustainability for rural families, with a specific focus on chronically ill and single woman-led households: providing basic assistance with seeds, crop diversification and updated agricultural techniques; enabling community members to access microcredit; and bringing together farmers, local organizations, chiefs, village councils, international organizations to advocate to the government about certain food issues. I spent the day with the staff working in the area and learned a lot about the successes and shortcomings they’re facing with their work, and then they gave me a tour of the village and explained a lot of the issues facing farming communities.

85% of the population live in rural areas like Ntchisi and live on what they can grow to eat (called subsistence farmers). Their survival is therefore very dependent on the harvest and the level of rainfall, and even during good harvests food security never really exists. Alarmingly, over half of all children under 5 are chronically malnourished. Besides growing food for consumption, the major cash crop in Malawi is tobacco. Tobacco is Malawi’s main export, accounting for 60% of the country's earnings. It’s really hard on the land and expensive to grow, and farmers are 4 times removed from the actual profit. They grown the tobacco, harvest it and dry it, and then a buyer comes to the villages and purchases the plants that he wants, then takes the purchased plants to Lilongwe and sells them to a trader, who sells it on the trading floor to the tobacco companies.

The tobacco harvest had just occurred, so I was able to watch the villagers drying, packing, selling and shipping the tobacco to Lilongwe for the trading floor. So as you can imagine, the farmers themselves make next to nothing for their work, and they and the overall economy of the country are at the mercy of international tobacco prices. And with one of the lowest 3 GDPs in the world, Malawi doesn't seem to be profiting much from all of the labor and cost and land use that goes into producing tobacco.

I had a great trip, especially because I had several opportunities to see the country. Although the traveling part of it wasn't so great - I had to fight my way onto the plane headed home, they lost my bag, and I sat next to an 85 year old elephant poacher from Texas who talked to me the entire 19 hour flight back to Atlanta! I arrived back just in time for Joshua's graduation.