Banking with Bwanas

I walk into the crowded Standard Bank in Zomba. The odor of a hundred people who walked to the bank today hits me in the face as I walk in. They all stand in a long snaking line leading up to a few open counters, with tellers handling stacks of 500 note Kwacha bills. They are the largest denomination worth about three US dollars each. If I were a middle class Malawian, I would now be residing myself to a fate of waiting perhaps an hour or more in this line just to deposit a few thousand Kwacha, the equivalent of fifty or sixty bucks.

But I am not a middle class Malawian, at least not any more. Since I left the Peace Corps, were I made about as much as an average college educated Malawian as a volunteer, I’m now in a different social class. I own my own car. I live in Mulunguzi, the 90210 of Zomba. I travel to the lake for weekend get-aways. I am the director at work and I have four employees at home. I am now a bwana, a boss.

Now when I walk into the bank, I walk through the crowded lobby and locate the staircase leading to the second floor. I walk up the stairs, pass a vault on my right and head into the next office. Faith recognizes me when I walk in, saying “Good afternoon Mr. Dalious, how can I help you today?” I sit down in a clean and comfortable chair, which seems always to be empty and waiting for me. Faith, my priority banking representative, hands me the form I require to withdraw or deposit funds. I either surrender or accept a large stack of Kwacha, a few hundred dollars, and thank Faith for her time. I am already on my way back down the stairs, through the lobby and out the front door. On my way out, it seems like no one has moved in the lobby since I entered, and that more than a few people are looking at me inquisitively. But then they realize that I am a bwana.

Being a bwana comes difficultly for me. I don’t feel like I have worked all that hard to get here; it seems more like a privilege or inheritance for being born in a certain place. Nor do I want to be a bwana. Its not that I do not want a car or to live in a nice house, but rather that I wish everyone would have the opportunity to acquire such things. And I don’t mind being an employer, in fact I am coming to enjoy it, but I would like to think that all my employees could hope to one day rise to my position. This is not the case in Malawi and given the current state of affairs, it doesn’t seem like it will happen any time soon. The problem with being a bwana here is that with the status you are granted an unjust entitlement to have what you want while others go without.

So what can I do? I answer when someone calls out bwana. I enjoy my mobility and my comfortable home. And I do my best to respect those around me. For I have been around long enough to know that there is little I can do personally to lift this country out of poverty, to create opportunities for those who have been given few, but also to know the worth of treating those waiting in line, the people who work for me and even the crippled beggars waiting outside for loose change with the respect they deserve. Though it often feels like an insignificantly small gesture to acknowledge someone, the alternative is to deny that which not even a bwana should be entitled to deny, an individual’s dignity.

A journey home

Down four steps, the asphalt is still damp from the midday showers. The air is cool, but humid as the sun begins its decent. Pedaling out the gate, barefoot villagers pass carrying loads of firewood off the plateau balanced on their heads; men, women and children. The load varies accordingly, though they are all carrying more than one would deem possible for the length of their journey. Down the hill, soldiers wait idly by the road to have their turn at driving the lorry around the bend and up the hill. The large ‘L’ warning all that they should be given wide berth as they learn to take the corner. Passing over the drainage ditch, which has suffered heavily under the weight of the attempts gone wrong, I enter into a world of green growth. All matter of plants, urged on by the heavy rains, have begun their upward exploration is search of sunlight. Men swinging machetes respond with accuracy gained over a lifetime. The single track down across the bridges is dark brown with hints of glittery quartz. It shimmers as I glide quickly over the hills and down towards the stream. With the clambering of loosely nailed boards I fly over the stream and start to pedal again up the far side. The red bricks of the cathedral and the fresh green growth give a hint of Christmas as the temperature hovers around 80 degrees. Emerging from the green, the traffic rushes by in three directions. Taking the fourth, I continue downward. It is a long and steady descent from here which takes me past university students walking in pairs of two and three. The asphalt comes to an end, but my journey continues. Here the rich brown soil, cultivated into rows like corrugated tin roofs, gives life to future nsima paddies, and the road begins to show signs of the heavy rain, exposing rock and creating ditches. The plateau off to the left stands proud as magnificent clouds approaching from the southeast catch colorful rays of light. Rounding the corner, I slow, responding to the children. Mzungu bo!?! Bo, bo! Close now, their bright eyes and warm smiles regain the dignity lost to their dirty, hole-ridden clothes and lack of shoes. Riding past every day for six months now has only served to encourage their curiosity as they run along shouting greetings in English learned from an older sibling. Weaving through an unplanned community, I arrive to the grid like streets of Matawale. A right turn, followed by a quick left brings familiar faces calling out my name. Always the same: How are you? I am fine. How are you? I am fine. Thank you. Thank you. The green gate and tree laden with avocados signals the end of the journey home. In fifteen minutes, an experience, lived over and again, can prove to be as calming and mundane as it can a source of unexpected inspiration.

World AIDS Day

Today I co-facilitated a community dialogue with the faith community of Zomba City. We had Catholics, Baptists, Seventh Day Adventists, Muslims, Protestants and several other small denominations all in the same room to discuss the response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic. After introducing them to the concept of a community dialogue, we asked them to share their beliefs with the group related to human rights and HIV prevention, treatment, care & support and impact mitigation.

Allowing them to express their beliefs in an informative way, rather than a preachy way, we were able to go around the room and hear from everyone. With attention paid to the differences, but emphasis placed on the similarities, we were able to come out with an action plan that includes teaching religious tolerance, accepting people living with HIV/AIDS and continuing the dialogue by inviting additional denominations to the discussions. And that was just my morning…

After returning to the office to write some emails and prepare for my sessions with the new volunteers, I was called upon to teach an employee how to properly use a condom. This is not really within my scope of work, however our AIDS Coordinator was still out at her community dialogue session and I learned from my colleague that the gentleman was HIV positive and his wife was not. He came into the main office today, World AIDS Day, because his CD4 count was falling and he was afraid that his wife would become infected. Since his diagnosis nearly three years ago they have been practicing partial abstinence, but his failing health forced him to consider using condoms and to request food supplements from the city to help him recover.

As I taught this young guy how to put on a condom, I was struck by how unfair life can be. Here is a guy younger than I contemplating his actions and his death. I could see it in his eyes. He was scared and I was scared for him. As my colleague translated what I was saying, I had brief moments to reflect on my own life, on my own worries. Me, concerned about finding someone to love, versus him, concerned that his love will die because of him. I am telling you I could see this in his eyes, in how he held himself. It is a moment that I will not forget and one that will serve to humble me.

Dark Star Safari

I have been reading the book Dark Star Safari by Paul Theroux for over three months now. Theroux was a Peace Corps volunteer here in Malawi during the 60’s, the final years of the British Protectorate. In the book he is documenting his present day travels from Cairo to Cape Town.

Each morning as I wait for my ride to the office, I sit on my front porch, read a few pages and reflect. Theroux is traveling mostly over land to experience Africa some forty years after serving as a teacher in a school near Zomba. His writing is highly critical of both the “agents of virtue” and the state of African development. Constantly questioning the charities running feeding programs and even the work of foreign teachers, he contrasts his memories to current realities, being disappointed by the resulting conclusion that things are worse now than they were then.

As a Peace Corps volunteer, it is not a cheery read. Theroux, turning 60 during his long safari south, is a man torn by his compassion for the continent’s people and his frustrated desire to see things improve. I struggle with his grim assessments and find myself comparing myself to those in his writing. Will what I am doing last? Or is what I am doing further stunting the development of an independent and productive Africa? And on a more personal level, will my compassion only lead to a frustrated and bitter life?

Professionally, it is my responsibility to continue to ask these difficult questions, to evaluate my work with a critical eye. However, I often think that being who I am and having experienced what I have experienced, I have little choice but to continue. I see my happiness in the fleeting moments when I connect with those around me, in the discovery of new places and ideas and I see the contentment I seek which rests in the self acknowledgement of my earnest, if modest, efforts. Though I am uncertain of my impact, I am confident in my good intentions and that is the best that I can go on.

So as I read of a journey south through the heart of Africa, I open my mind and my soul. I listen to the criticisms and doubt. I acknowledge the potential for benefit or harm. Daily I live the pages of this book and share in the experiences of so many others making small steps towards a more just world.

Monday Morning

Monday morning rolls around. I wake up with two cups of coffee and head into the office. What to do this week? I have made my annual plan, my monthly plans, and each week I come up with a list of things to do. These plans help to keep me heading in one direction, but they are by no means day-to-day plans. You can’t force things here. It is a game of patience and diligence to accomplish anything. To know the right people, to approach them in the right way, to do so at the right time, and it often seems, to have a bit of luck; this is what it takes to check off each item on the list.

In a resource-starved environment often with under qualified though thoroughly networked staff, round about ways of accomplishing tasks develop that while being foreign to an outsider get the job done. When I get locked out of my office, there is not one person to go to. Instead I ask around until I find someone who happens to have the spare key to the room where the spare key to my office is located. When I am trying to obtain a copy of the reporting forms for health centers, I visit the health centers that refer me to the District Health Office then to the Zonal Health Office then to the central ministry and pick up an additional form or two at each place I visit.

Complicating things, at every step of the way there are three additional tasks that could be taken on. I am working to improve the coordination of the HIV/AIDS response in Zomba City by creating a monitoring and evaluation system that will collect key pieces of information from health providers in the city, which will be later used to make informed health programming decisions. However, right now we are not able to properly administer our bursary funds for orphan and vulnerable children meaning that there are children out there who could be in school but aren’t. We are not providing food supplements to city employees living with HIV which help them take their medications and retain their jobs. And sadly, I have just been informed that one of our secretaries, who has been cooking lunch for me since I arrived, has died from rabies after being bit by a dog this weekend. Apparently we need to revisit our rabies vaccination efforts as well.

In the face of it all, it is easy to understand how people can become demoralized. Some blows can take away your breath while others seem to deprive you of the air around you. However, day by day we make incremental steps towards a healthier Zomba City: by teaching an environmental health office how to use a GPS unit; by encouraging our data entry clerk to submit timely reports even to government agencies that are not cooperative with us; by incorporating rabies control efforts into our M&E system. Though they often do not appear in work plans and are difficult to measure and appreciate, they may be the most lasting efforts we make. They quite literally are the blood, sweat and tears of development.

Zomba City Council's Website!

Check out the Zomba City Council's website. (where I am working as an HIV/AIDS Technical Advisor)(www.zombacitycouncil.org) It has some nice photos of the city and talks a little about the services that our office provides.