The Dream

Blog 4
22 December

The dream: Looking back at the last 4 years and seeing the past through the eyes of people in Makupo and those of the people in Montreal.

We have a dream from 2 polar ends of the development spectrum. From Canada we would love to help the people of Makupo village set up a self-sustaining economy that will give employment and generate revenue for as many of them as possible. The buzz words of development planners from time immemorial. The answers seem so simple. We also made a promise to ourselves that we would try to send one Canadian representative each year to support the efforts this side and as evidence of good faith. From the Makupo end, the dream is to escape unemployment, poverty and dependence, but the answers for them are far from simple, despite appearances to the contrary.
In January 2004, we promised to help the young people. There were nine at the time, who wanted us to buy a piece of land that they could farm and become self-sufficient. It took until 2006 for the land to be found and the money to be sent when they finally got 40 fertile acres with the deed signed. Then they had a struggle to get to the land let alone stay on it. After one valiant season, the four remaining members gave up and stayed home, leaving the land fallow in 2007.
What happened? Many things. Three of the original group succumbed to town life and so Rhoda works as a security guard, Moses is doing some private farming down in Dedza and Temba is following a course in Community Development. Bwelezani got accepted to Teveta Technical Institute, a Canadian sponsored school to do a 4 year course in welding. That left Kenny, Chitani, Mwayi and Palije.
The land is very fertile and relatively underdeveloped, by standards. It is commercial land that we bought, because you cannot buy traditional land which is now occupied to its limit. As a result, it is not very near the home village, in fact by the odometer it is 44 kilometres by road. It may be as much as 10 or 12 kilometres less by bicycle cross country, but the path is very sandy and hard to ride especially with a heavy load. They stayed in a room near the land and since they only had one bicycle to share they took turns riding home in shifts to see the family, take a break and to bring in food, seed and fertiliser.
The South African High Commissioner was quoted recently as saying Malawians are poor because they are lazy. I would like her to meet the hard working young people of Makupo. Their reward when the crop was ready to harvest was to find the majority had been stolen by unscrupulous local folk who knew they were away for protracted periods at the end of the season when farmers are waiting for the maize to dry for harvesting. With no funding for housing, and needing more seed grain, fertiliser, and food, they had no choice but to abandon the project for this season.
Wednesday afternoon, Jack Kamanga and I drove with Bwelezani, Kenny and Fraser to the land. It took 1½ hours to travel the 44 kilometres over VERY BAD roads. We passed through the village of sub-chief Kawomba who was busy at his depot distributing subsidized fertilizer to the farmers who qualified for coupons. Those who do not qualify for coupons are very bitter, since the subsidised fertilser is MK900 versus the full price of MK4,000 per bag. The Makupo men are respectful of village protocol and we stopped to greet the headman in the midst of the busyness of distribution.
When we finally and gratefully go to the farm we understood the kind of problems that the guys had been dealing with. Given the bruising the road had handed us in a car imagine doing all the distance with a heavily laden bicycle. We in Canada thought that by simply offering one piece of the puzzle, the land, the whole solution would appear. It is clearly a far more complicated problem not easily solved with simple solutions. Something far more comprehensive must be envisaged. If all they need is land and hard work, then the solution should have been at hand.
By contrast Just near Makupo on a large estate is a rich crop of tobacco already being harvested. The estate owner has access to capital, loans, and all the inputs to make more money. Our guys cannot even open a bank account because they do not have jobs, let alone a loan from the bank or anywhere else. They are the reserve army of the unemployed, available as cheap labour, despite their education and good farming skills and their hard work, and despite what Madame the High commissioner says.
So what is the theme: Solidarity not Charity. The guys want a chance, an equal chance to prove themselves. We are only talking about 4 people out of 13 million and even with support they are not in a position to make it.
The question has been posed that solidarity was easy in the days of the anti-apartheid struggle. There were sides to be on, the enemy was easily defined and justice was a clear cut thing. How do we convert that history and apply it to the struggles of rural people whose daily life revolves around the struggle to survive the day?

More ruminatons and ranting to follow as I head off to Nkhata Bay today with nieces, Sautso and Undeni and their daughters. I will be vacationing for a few days over Xmas, sitting on the beach with a cold Carlsberg in my hand and thinking of my Montreal connections with cold hands on the shovel. Happy holidays.

Peace and love
Doug