Protests

I read some of the online newspapers from Malawi to see what is happening there. I am keen to go, as you can imagine and this gives me a window to peer through to heighten my expectations. Nine more days…

Last week, a girls’ secondary school about 2 hours north of Blantyre, was closed because of protests from the students. The details are sketchy, but the young women were upset with the food (nsima, beans, relish — the local standard meal) and trashed the place. Many Malawians and even Africans in general exist on one meal a day, so this school-supplied meal was probably pretty important to the young women. A couple of years ago, I saw some primary school kids eating a meal at a school in Malawi.

This meal that I witnessed was some kind of porridge, as you can see from the picture. Nsima as I know it is more the consistency of a muffin, but with far less flavour. It wasn’t reported what was wrong with the food at the secondary school: perhaps poor quality or quantity. It might have been like this gruel at the primary school. The secondary school students were sent home and will need to find sustenance elsewhere until the school reopens.

Update: There was a followup news article saying the students were also complaining about unsanitary conditions and under-staffing. Some of their classes were cancelled because there weren’t teachers available. Or busy watching TV, according to the news article. At the more-rural primary school I mentioned, it didn’t look very clean, but the students’ hands were washed before they ate.

The Presbyterian Church works to educate children through PWS&D. You can donate to this work..

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In earlier education news, in the capital city of Lilongwe, an Anglican church-run school decided that their female Muslim students would not be allowed to wear their traditional head-covering. Christians represent a large majority in Malawi, so people of other faiths naturally feel oppression keenly. The government recently made a policy that allows girls to cover their heads in school. Ensuing riots against the church’s school damaged buildings owned by both Christians and Muslims. I guess it’s not just Canada where we can’t get along over this issue.

A week later, and Muslims in Malawi called for peace and love. https://mwnation.com/muslims-urged-to-uphold-peace-love/

These are relatively minor compared to the political protests after the election in May. It’s reminiscent of Nora’s and my experience in Bangladesh after their elections in the 90s. The losing party typically refused to cooperate in any way and seemed to call for general strikes every week until the next election was called. The other party would win and the roles were reversed. The national pass time was protesting the protesting the protesting of protests. Malawi seems to be moving toward the Bangladesh model.