Thinking Positive

Malawi Proverb: One day of rain far surpasses a whole year of drought.

As I reread some of my previous musings, I realise it’s high time to show Malawi in a more positive light. Here, for example is a story about a young boy in the capital city who invented an agricultural implement to harvest peanuts. His hero is William Kamkwamba of wind turbine fame. The 13-year-old in the story won a science competition for inventing his machine. When I’ve talked with people about conservation agriculture they recommend using ground nuts to inter-crop with a taller crop, maybe pigeon peas –I can’t be sure. If they want me to teach agriculture at the prison, this will be the height of irony.

In another interesting news article from Malawi, a report of an impressive woman named Ngale Massa. She works with girls, encouraging them in their self-esteem and helping them to make better life choices. This is the kind of work a lot of NGOs strive to do. Oh look, here’s a Presbyterian project you can donate to!

Maybe Ngale Massa or someone like her talked with this woman who’s successfully completed studies in the male-dominated geology sciences. “I want to fill the gap that is here in Malawi. There are few female geologists in the country and very few girls are currently studying earth science at Ndata School of Climate and Earth Sciences,” Eneless Rasheedah Nsalima says… Her research project was about hydro geology assessment of borehole water quality in Chifunga area in Neno District to determine salinity levels and establish spatial variation of major ions and general groundwater quality. Whew! At least someone is tackling the issue of spatial variation of major ions. Sure, the county has a lot of problems like low literacy rates, but this is encouraging.

Further celebrating women in STEM fields, Catherine Chaima has developed a process for making soap and has been short listed for a prize for engineering innovation. Her soap process uses agricultural waste and plant extracts. The agricultural waste may just be animal fat and other oils. The description doesn’t suggest the soap is vegan-friendly, but it could be. One other innovation competitor developed uses of water hyacinth. Those of you who have been to Bangladesh will remember those plants clogging waterways and you’ll appreciate the potential.

As Nora and I make our final plans to leave Canada, Malawi is planning “a feminist and femininity art and book festival” in Lilongwe. We’ll miss it, since we’ll land in Blantyre around noon on the last day of the festival (four hours away). There will be artists and authors (I guess an author is an artist) from several African countries. Nora has tried to buy some books by authors in the region, without success so far. We’re not sure if she should try to teach English from some local authors. It must be hard to do a print run if the literacy level isn’t supportive.

Finally, an article about Meghan Markle in Malawi. She’s British royalty of some kind, but she also visited Africa in September and was pictured wearing a dress designed by a Malawian designer, Mayamiko. “Mayamiko works with a charity set up by Italian entrepreneur Paola Masperi that supports young creatives in Malawi by teaching them about sustainable and ethical fashion trading.”

So, I think up to now my posts have given a too-negative view of what Malawi is like. It certainly is a poor country, but there’s also a lot of hope there. And with good reason when you consider the good stories. I hope to be able to spread more goodness and light in future posts.

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