Ain't it the Life

GVH Kambalani is a beautiful area, filled with vast fields spanning to the horizon and split by dirt roads and paths like a giant net over the earth. Although the ridged fields are currently barren as it is winter, I can only imagine what it must look like right before harvest. The main crops grown in the area are maize, tobacco, groundnuts, sweet potato, cassava and beans. Farmers may also have smaller garden plots to grow other fruits and vegetables such as tomato, Chinese cabbage, pumpkin, papaya, sugarcane, banana and onion.

There is a central market – Chikowa Trading Centre. At Chikowa, you can find small general shops selling a variety of things from cooking oil to laundry soap to cookies and soft drinks. As well, there are some tea rooms where you can get (you guessed it!) good Malawian tea and scones.

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Malawian Tea:

1. Make some piping hot tea using Malawian tea leaves.
2. Add some milk.
3. Add 3 heaping teaspoons of sugar to every cup.
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Celtel Hill: The cellphone network sweetspot in the area. Also the site of numerous dropped calls.

(Can't insert pic at the moment, but insert picture of small dirt mound here)

“Hello? Hello… Hello? Aw this network, it is very bad.”

In the area, there are also tailors, carpenters, bike mechanics, butchers, an auto mechanic, chip stands (chips = fries = breakfast, lunch or supper), barber shops and vendors. In terms of fruits and vegetables at the market, tomatoes, bananas and sugarcane are readily available, and sometimes cabbage and Chinese cabbage are sold.

However, every Tuesday is a very special day at the market… it’s market day. On Tuesdays you can find all the usual things, but now the market space fills up with vendors selling all sorts of things – shoes, clothes, chitenges (sheets of patterned material used as many things such as bags, clothes and for strapping a baby onto your back), electronics (cassette players and radios), cassettes of the latest musical artists such as Lawrence Mbenjele and Simon + Kendo Kamlanka, school supplies, bags and all sorts of other things. Between vendors, you can shimmy your way through the congestion of people like high school halls between classes. The flurry of people and noise attracts everyone to the market, even if just to walk around. Some people travel from villages such as Kwere Kwere and Folopezi, a good 12 or 14 kms away to buy or sell at the market. It’s an incredible scene and only happens once a week.

On Sundays, everyone gathers at the grounds to watch the greatest Football team in the land destroy its rivals. The Chikowa Football team wears the colour red so that they don’t have to wash the blood spatter from their shirts as often. I am only kidding, it’s good old Football, not Murderball. But after every goal, the fans storm the field in full out celebration, only to return to the sidelines a minute later. It is incredible to see the mass of people outlining the field, and makes the game that much more exciting… that and the many chickens on the field.

But this incredible place is the focus area for the Moving Beyond Hunger project. It’s an amazing place, and I haven’t even touched on the greatest part yet – the people. I think that’s a blog entry of its own, so I’ll wait to touch on that.

Long Time

It’s been a while since I’ve posted, and with good reason. I’ve learned more in the past month than I have in a long while.

I just want to get thoughts straight to you, so I won’t be writing in a very organized fashion.

FOOD

With very few exceptions, lunch and supper consist of nsima and relish. Nsima is basically maize flour mixed with boiling water, and you keep adding more flour until you get something with the consistency between pizza dough and mashed potatoes. You take small amounts of nsima and roll them in your hand, then dip it in the relish. There are many different types of relishes – cooked beans, eggs and tomato, boiled rape leaves or Chinese cabbage and tomato, telele (they use okra, and it has the consistency of runny egg white), chicken, goat, tiny fish fried up, big fish fried up – the list is endless. But something really interesting is the nutrition guide in Malawi… Animal fat and cooking oil are consumed here, whereas in Canada, we’ve got the George Foreman grill trying to knock it out of our diet.

For the very few exceptions, nsima is replaced with good old rice. Maize is the traditional crop here in Malawi, and its origin goes far back past Malawi’s independence.

Either way, it can be the tastiest food at times, and at others it can be the heaviest. But it’s pretty awesome if you ask me – fresh local food.

PROJECT BACKGROUND

Moving Beyond Hunger – CPAR Malawi has just completed year 1 of 3. The project focuses on providing inputs to allow 500 beneficiaries to grow the crops and raise the livestock of their choice in order to establish food security in GVH Kambalani – an area within TA Kabudula, Central Malawi, consisting of 33 villages where farming generates well over 90% of the income in the area. Inputs include training for livestock farming, some construction materials for livestock housing, livestock, seed, fertilizer and tools.

Soon to happen is the distribution of 46 solar driers in the area along with training to improve the preservation of vegetables. The training will be emphasizing nutrition and conserving the nutrients in the food being preserved.

It is nice to see collaboration among NGOs – Probec, a branch of GTZ, is promoting clay stove making as an entrepreneurial initiative in the area. 20 residents will form a club and will be trained on how to make them, which will hopefully generate more income for those 20 residents. As well, since cooking with clay stoves is more efficient than the current 3-stone fire, it will save firewood (firewood = time and money) for those people who purchase one.

My role in this project is to assess current processing and preservation methods as well as markets and make recommendations on how to best improve food security through those areas. So I have spent two weeks in GVH Kambalani to assess the current situation.

I worked with Steve, a remote CPAR employee based in the area, to interview farmers. I am planning on putting together the findings of the assessment as a case study for anyone interested.