Blog 1 Some Goals

Friends of Makupo

Most of you received a list of my goals for this trip especially as they pertain to the projects we might undertake as Makupo Development Group.

Basically it looks like this:

Makupo projects

- To work with Makupo citizens to develop projects, establish reporting systems, take pictures, write project reports, write thank you letters, plan visits.

- Work with Chief Makupo on project support.

- Work with Kaomba and Mlangali to set up future projects.

- Work with Chilanga schools to prepare for visits and project proposals.

- Work with Machesi on projects for the disabled (Cyclo nord sud).

- Youth Skills intiatiaive for Cyclo-nord sud

- Visit Fair Trade farm in Mchinji with farmers.

- Visit Ripple, KUDO, Malawezi

- Meet WUSC & CIDA for hosting visits.

- Prepare for Vanier visit in June 2009.

Other projects:

- Visit Alice Trindade (take Makupo women to see the piggery project)

- Visit Bunda to deliver thesis to library and research updates.

- contact Clement Mushane and Archibald Mwakasungura

- Lake of Stars for The National Parcs

- Write blog entries – 2 per week

- Update masters thesis

I have 3.5 weeks to do all of this which could mean a fair bit of running around. My preference would be to sit in the village and not move. Then I could work on community development, but that looks to be only a small part of the work.

What is happening so far?

1 Frazer has built a rondavel for meetings. Two things became apparent from the two visits in January and March. First the village of family members has grown beyond the point where it can behave like a family pure and simple. Six or seven family units operated as independent entities and like most families just about anywhere they only really came together for weddings and funerals. Given the size of the family village, there is a real need to sit and meet in governance on a more or less regular basis to make decisions about the collectivity and plan for the future. Secondly, the meetings we tried to hold in the living room of Amai’s[1] big house were very difficult because of the small room and awkward seating.

The rondavel concept is a thatch roofed structure with open walls and room to sit in a circle for a much larger group. I am not sure where the word “rondavel” comes from, but the idea of having meetings of the whole community and discussing issues until consensus is reached is an old time honoured custom.

2 The citizens of Makumbo have asked for their own chief. Ours is a village headman and in the hierarchy he reports to Mlangali, the headman of the nearby village of which we are a part and also to Senior Chief Kaomba who has several hundred headmen (there are very few female village heads and the term headman is still very often used even in their case) under his jurisdiction. Following the tradition, the eldest son of the eldest daughter in Nellie’s grandmother’s lineage was asked to take on the role. In ChiChewa matrilineal tradition, chieftainship is chosen by the mother’s line. In this case, Nellie’s cousin, son of Mrs Kamanga, her senior mother, has been selected. Japhet Chiwanda is a graduate of agricultural college and was looking to settle back at home after many years away. Different family members are helping to build him a house and getting him installed. The ceremony for his investiture just took place in September and it is our hope that he will become a key player in making Makupo a real centre of development in our area.

3 The five young men involved in the agricultural resettlement project have started clearing land for next season, burnt the bricks and organised the construction of their house so they have a proper place to stay. I hope to spend a night with them there. I also want to take a couple of them and a couple of the women from Makupo to see the projects at KUDO, RIPPLE Africa and maybe to Dedza to see the pig breeding operation set up and run by the Trindade family. The late Anna Maria Trindade lived since the mid 1960s in Magog, Quebec with her husband, Jean Paul Bessette, and her 4 kids who are now grown and have their own families. We have been close to them ever since we came Montreal in 1979 and they like us have been sending money home to support their elderly parents and other family members in need. In January, I went to Mtendere near the Mozambiquan border just west of Dedza to visit Anna’s sister Alice and was very impressed with her son Brian’s efforts to reconstitute the family farm, and especially his pig growing operation. With a half-a-dozen sows and a good boar her raises litters of piglets to the point where they can be weaned and sold to other farmers to finish the raising for market. Our farmers with some good planning can get into that kind of commercial farming and gain a revenue more regular and superior to what can be gotten from tobacco, the most common cash crop.

4 This also ties in with the pig raising scheme that the women of Makupo proposed last March. Vanier College Library has already collected $400 to build the pig barn. The women of their own initiative had already made the bricks and were waiting for money to buy the wood needed to burn the bricks hard. I hope we can build a symbiotic relationship with our relocated farmers by paying them a good price for the feed grain. Normally they would sell at a low price to whichever businessman had the means to transport it to market and the women would have to pay higher market prices for the feed they need. If we can work collaboratively we should be able to ship the grain the 40 kilometres from the farm directly to Makupo for its needs. In this way the farmers can get paid a fair price for their produce and the women will pay less than what the market board charges for buying grain.

5 The village tourism has not gone at all well since the March visit of the OPSEU delegation. I had hoped for a group in June or July and another in October, but my inexperience and lack of planning meant they never happened. Since then, Vanier’s International Education department has received a grant from CIDA for public participation and they were so pleased with the wonderful way the January 2008 AIDS education trip went that they are including a 3 week stay in June / July 2009 as part of a study on “Education for All”. There may be as many as 10 people which will help bring some revenue for the Makupo residents who host and work with Vanier. In the meantime, I have started to talk with Jim Munro in Vanier’s Continuing Education Department and Judy Macdonald from International Education to see about the possibility of including a tour each semester as part of the life skills offerings in Continuing Education. The Ontario Public Service Union OPSEU last year contributed funds to allow us to renovate two houses into visitors’ hostels. Smokey Thomas the president and his

assistant, Ron Lavigne from OPSEU and I have spoken about study work visits by OPSEU members but we have been trying to meet since last March and not managed to find a time in their very charged schedules. In addition, WUSC often brings groups of young Canadians to Malawi for work / study and we are hoping to host one of these in the near future. With Vanier, OPSEU and WUSC we could have visitors coming very regularly as part of our plan for sustainable tourism.

Where do we go from here? That is very much the reason for this trip. I found when I was hosting visitors, I was so preoccupied with their agenda and everyone’s welfare that I couldn’t do a lot of groundwork for the future projects, hence the list of goals and almost a full month to work things out. I will keep you posted on what comes up.

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[1] Nellie’s mother is known by everyone as Amai which is a very respectful term meaning mother.