Money matters

Mary, my housemaid, asked me for money the other day. It was the first time that that happened, and I was willing to help her, but she wanted 50.000 kwatcha (around 250 euros) to buy a fridge.. I almost fainted. She cannot believe that my volunteer allowance is less than that, and that I didn’t buy the fridge that I have at home, it was provided by the college of medicine. How can she believe it if I live in that house? The rent of my house must be 500 euros, which is a fortune here, but the college of medicine is paying for it..

She could never buy a fridge (her salary is 30 euros per month). The disparity between what I have and what she has is enormous, she lives in Ndirande, one of the poorest townships of Blantyre, and she supports her 5 children and two of her nephews. I live on my own in a house probably 3 times bigger than hers, and I earn 10 times her salary..

special entry about travelling by minibus

While I was writing about coming to work by minibus I thought that I had to explain how they work… Minibuses are the most common way of public transport in Africa, They are usually Toyota Hiace, second hand imported from Japan or some Asiatic country and they are in quite bad state.. you can see a picture here

http://www.flickr.com/photos/acodina/2049180363/

 

They have no seats, only benches, and they seat 4 people in a bench, regardless their size or the luggage they carry. That means that, if there is a ‘traditionally built woman’ in the bus, her bench colleagues will be quite squashed.. Apart from the driver there is somebody in the back that collects the money. He is supposed to use one of the sits, but sometimes they will prefer to pick up an additional passenger and he’ll stand (but there is not really room for him, so sometimes he may sit on the lap of somebody)

 

The minibus does not set off until is full, this can take anytime between 5 min and an hour (or more). Then, it will stop along the way to drop/pick up people. If it is packed, when somebody wants to go out 3 or 4 persons will have to go out too. Sometimes the minibuses break down and you may have to wait for a while in the middle of nowhere.. This makes the trips really amusing, and you get to meet a lot of people.. but is not reliable at all.

 

You never know if you will get on time to your destination, but well, as they say here:’ the important is not at what time you arrive, but that you arrive!’

 

 

off we go!!!

The course has started, and we start to fight with the typical problems, too many lectures to give, not enough staff, not enough room! There are 3 new buildings at the college but they are not finished yet, (they were supposed to be finished one year ago, then they said that they would be ready last autumn, then it was postponed to January, and we are still waiting..)

 

The students arrived last Monday, but for some of the programs there was no timetable, lecture rooms or lecturers for some of the subjects. On Wednesday they asked me if I could teach an additional course of chemistry for the lab technicians program, so the list of courses that I have to teach keeps increasing.. and I have to prepare my summer school in South Africa!

 

Apart from work, we are having a quite hard raining season, I don’t know if you have read the news, but is raining loads in southern Africa due to some kind of meteorological phenomenon called ‘la niña’. Everything looks very pretty, green and lush, but when it rains it seems as if everything is going to be washed away, the internet stops working and there are power cuts that made work (even) more challenging.. all good fun. As you can imagine cycling is not a good option, so I come to work by minibus, which makes the beginning and the end of the day more interesting...

Update Zambia III - Victoria Falls

Voila! After recovering from New Year eve in Lusaka we drove to Victoria Falls, between Zimbabwe and Zambia. We stayed at a hotel in Livingston, A town 10 km away from the falls. Vic falls is a big attraction in southern Africa, and there are many tourist agencies organizing any kind of activity; rafting, canoeing, bungee jumping, boat cruises etc.. The Zimbabwean side used to be more developed but the political situation is making more and more people to visit the falls on the Zambian side. The visit of the falls is very impressive; the Zambezi sort of disappears in a crack 1.6km long and 100m deep and continues its course passing several gorges. In some parts you can get very close to the falls and the spray is so intense that you need a rain coat!

 

We wanted to do rafting but they didn’t do half a day activities in this time of the year, and we didn’t want to leave Bwenzi the whole day on the hotel (although the receptionist said rafting would be a great experience for her! ) So we went for canoeing. For the Belgians, you can imagine that canoeing in the Zambezi is not quite like the descent of the Lesse, but we still thought that it was going to be relaxed compared with white water rafting! Well, that was until our guide started to talk us about what to do in case of a hippo attack! We found out that hippos are very territorial and they don’t like people crossing their land in canoe.. So the guide would pass first hitting his canoe so that the hippos would pop out their heads and we could see them. Everything went ok until one big Bully (Male Hippo that has been kicked out of a family) scared us so much that we dragged the canoes outside the river until we passed his patch and we could continue.. I will never forget the moment when I heard it growling behind us, it was so close!!

 

 That was almost the end of our holiday, we drove back home in 2 days getting ready for the back to reality. Now, lecture preparation, the pharmacy students’ start next week!!!

Update Zanbia II- Lusaka

Hello! Continuing with the Xmas holiday update, our next stop after South Luangwa was Lusaka, the capital of Zambia. The road to Lusaka was beautiful, really green, with many trees and hills and about 100km where the road was just potholes linked together with tar… Our first impression was that Lusaka is much more developed than Blantyre or Lilongwe, the main cities of Malawi. Several shopping malls, much busier traffic and much more movement in general. We managed to do some shopping, get money and we found a guesthouse where to stay… Since it was New Year eve, we wanted to go out!! So we followed instructions and we took a taxi to Manda Hill, (one of the shopping malls) where we met some people in an Irish bar. One of them had been to Germany and he had such a good time that when he learnt that Ivonne is German he adopted us and invited us for beers, took us to a club for free and back home… It was a really nice experience, there was so many people on the streets and in the bars.. The next day we decided to chill out a bit and we stayed in Lusaka. We were tired of all the driving on the previous days and Bwenzi the dog was fed up of the car, she got car sick on the dirt roads and parts with potholes and she would panic just getting into the car!! We had pay a visit to the vet and we sedated her on the following days but I don’t think that she has a nice memory from this holiday… The second of January we hit the road again, destination: Victoria falls!!!!!!

Update zambia I - South Luangwa Nat park

We set off for Zambia on Boxing Day, quite late, because Ivonne was on call at the hospital the previous night and she finished at 1 in the morning. So we packed all our camping stuff, a 20L petrol can and a puppy with all her things in a Toyota Rav4 and we hit the road! Our first stop was south Luangwa, one of the best game reserves in Africa, ‘just’ across the border from Malawi. I say ‘Just’ because is only a bit more than a hundred km away from the border but the road is terrible and it took us 3 hours to get there! In some parts we almost got stuck in the mud, the water reaching the body of the car..  We stayed at croc camp in one of the chalets. Honestly, I love camping, but camping during the raining season was a bit too much!! We saw plenty of animals, lion, hippos, giraffes… it was great, and since its low season there were very few visitors. We also did a night safari trying to spot animals with a torch and we saw several hippos (they come out of the water at night to eat the grass!) and a couple of cats that we thought were leopards but our guide said that they were servals.. (!?)

 

The camp is outside the national park, but we had loads of elephants visiting us! The locals told us that they go to the villages to raid the mango trees. Our dog bwenzi had to stay in the chalet when we visited the park, but she enjoyed looking at the elephants and baboons (from the veranda). We spent two nights and we drove to Lusaka where we spent New Year Eve… but I’ll tell you about that in the next entry J. My laptop has died and I have problems to download the pictures from my camera but I’ll put them soon in my flickr site, promised!