During the past week EWB sent me off to Malawi, Zambia's neighbour to the east. The purpose of my trip was to visit my colleague Anna-Marie Silvester in Lilongwe (Malawi's capital city), who is currently partnered with an international NGO called CNFA. The CARE-ADAPT agro-dealer project (
the project that I'm currently seconded to, with CARE International - as I discussed in a past blog post) is almost identical to a project that is currently winding down with CNFA. Both ADAPT and CNFA are funded by AGRA (Alliance for Green Revolution in Africa), and are both attempting to develop commercially-driven agro-dealer networks in rural areas to improve smallholder farmer access to agricultural inputs. Other than the difference in NGO's, the differences between the two nations stands out to be the most significant contrast between the two projects.
Despite sharing a fairly open border, having similar languages, and both maintaining peace, Malawi and Zambia differ in many ways. Though smaller in size, Malawi has a larger population. The people have different mannerisms, art (music, fine arts, and movies/TV) is appreciated in different ways, and within the context of agric development projects, smallholder farmers depend on different crops to sustain their livelihoods and operate on different terrain and types of soils. For example, tobacco is an extremely abundant and important crop in Malawi. As I rode the bus into the country, almost all the farming households that I passed had large racks of hanging tobacco leaves to dry. However; in Zambia, only in Eastern province (the province that borders Malawi) is tobacco significant.
As the only other country I have visited apart from Zambia, I have realized the richness in differences and the uniqueness of cultures within individual sovereign nations: grouping and referring to all countries within the continent simply as "Africa" is flawed and sometimes considered offensive to locals.
It was a delight getting to go out into the field and having many interesting conversations with Anna-Marie's Malawian colleagues at CNFA. I took home many lessons (staff capacity, monitoring and evaluation, organizational learning, etc...) that I can apply to my work for CARE-ADAPT.
I must say Malawi is an absolutely beautiful nation with so much heart, full of pride, and so much potential. It's no surprise as to why EWB decided to make impact in this wonderful country.
Agro-dealer shop after renovation. Capital and support provided by CNFA
CNFA M&E office, Khumbo, chatting with the agro-dealer regarding her progress
Agro-dealer standing in front of her shop and tobacco leaves
Neighbourhood of Kasiya, near the border town of Machinji, Malawi
Malawian children excited to see a foreigner in their neighbourhood
Another agro-dealer shop in Kasiya
Malawian boy carrying water in Kasiya
Malawians gathering dried tobacco leaves
Malawians gathering dried tobacco leaves
A market in Lilongwe
The photo above is of a delicacy found here in southern Africa called Inswa (in Zambia it's called inswa... I'm not sure what it's called in Malawi). This insect comes out during the rainy season in large numbers. Locals, like my family in Pemba, capture them, fry them, salt them, and eat them up. Some Zambians and Malawians even eat Inswa in handfuls like peanuts. You can buy a bag of these buggers for approximately $0.50 US on street markets and just go wild. At first, I was a little grossed out... but being true to my principles I gave it a try and, not surprisingly, I ended up loving them! I finished a bag full! Though apparently they're extremely fattening. I'll lay off the fried insect diet for a while... need to stay fit!
Malawian boys trying to sell us bags of inswa as we drove by
