Part Five: August 10-12

The offices of Zim Rights, one of the leading Human Rights organisations in Zimbabwe

My first interview in Harare is with Matthew Takaona, the President of the Zimbabwe Union of Journalists. Matthew was fired from his job as news editor of the Sunday Mail in 2004 for appealing personally to President Mugabe to reverse the decision to shut down the Daily News on Sunday. He recounts the sad tale of the destruction of Zimbabwe’s free press over the last six years and the mass exodus of experienced journalists from the country and out of the industry; fired, bullied and intimidated into submission by the Mugabe regime. Over three million people have now left Zimbabwe to escape Mugabe’s reign of terror.

In the afternoon I meet the Director of Zim Rights, Dzikamai Machingura and the next morning I meet with the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights team and interview Otto Saki, a human rights lawyer and member of the Zim Lawyers Secreteriat. I am slightly in awe of both men. They are both young, Dzikamai is 30, Otto, 25 and their abundant clear headedness, self-assurance, determination and bravery in the face of one of the most brutal oppressive regimes in the world is impressive. I am proud to be part of an organisation that is supporting them but I feel the scale of their task is much more than daunting and feel angry that the international community and NGOs are not doing enough to help. I also think if I was in their shoes, I would have run in fear from the country years ago.

On Friday night, our last night in Zimbabwe, we properly unwind for the first time in two weeks. We meet up with the guys from KFM, a Zimbabwean firm that offer financial and accounting advice and are working with Trócaire’s partners in Malawi and Zimbabwe. For a change, we don’t talk about work but we do talk about the Zimbabwe economy. And with Daniel, Raanga, Kutsai, Zed and Gabriel we break the two bottles of beer limit we’ve been holding to till now and have a bit of fun.

On Saturday morning, just as I am about to get in the Taxi with the Professor, ten policemen circle me on their bikes. I am it would appear to have the privilege of being part of the great Zim Dollars hunt that is sweeping the nation. An operation that the Police are using as an excuse to steal money from Zimbabweans left, right and centre. From across the road, Niall sees what’s going on, but in fairness to him, he does not do a runner. He does however deposit his laptop with the hotel staff just in case Zimbabwe’s finest happen to be after us for supporting human rights groups. For about twenty minutes, we have our bags searched thoroughly for Zim dollars. Luckily we have none – we spent them in the bar last night. We do have a few hundred US dollars between us though and we are told that we should have declared them with the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe. When we repeat that we have a flight to catch in over an hour we are told we will not be able to leave the country today. We are asked to count our money, and several police officers take turns handling it.

Bizarrely, after a while, they back off and their leader tells us he will let us go on but is certain we will be stopped at another roadblock on the way to the airport. The Professor, thankfully knows where one of the roadblocks is and avoids it. We are lucky to avoid the remaining roadblocks and arrive at the airport in time. As we wait for our plane, I watch Mugabe’s propaganda TV: a youth programme called Wise Up; on it, a group of teenagers discuss the relationship between the concepts of heroism and nationalism and talk of the need to love your country and the need to respect and compensate Zimbabwe’s liberation heroes. I am chilled. I want to get back to my rainy, Irish democracy now and luckily for me, I have that option. Thirty hours later we arrive back in Dublin.

Part Four: August 5

Mchengawedi, Dedza, Malawi Vegetable Garden Group

The last four days in Malawi are quiet enough. I spend most of my time catching up on writing up on all the people I’ve met so far and get two more good interviews with Rexa from Cadecom on food security and John from Malawi Health Equity Network. Sadly visits to Likulezi and other partner interviews have not come together for various reasons. I spend Wednesday morning tearing around Lilongwe trying to get enough Kwacha together to pay my bill and packing up. The receptionist at Nelly’s is peeved at Niall for telling me about the good rate he got paying in dollars and won’t extend the deal to me! We leave for Zimbabwe in the afternoon. I am apprehensive I must admit.

We arrive in Harare’s pristine and almost empty airport late on Wednesday evening. The Air tower looks like a Mosque and President Mugabe’s portrait looms out from all quarters. Niall has two splendidly christened regular Taxi drivers for his visits to Harare; the Professor and Rhodesia. Rhodesia had three cars all in fine condition when Niall met him first, four years ago. Now Rhodesia and the Professor both drive absolute bangers. Neither car has seatbelts in the back, most worryingly, you can hear both cars creaking and rattling along the road. Rhodesia’s has to be kick-started with a push each time after which it jerks violently back and forth for a few seconds before taking off. A slew of Taxi drivers wait outside the Bronte Hotel where we are staying, desperate for business. All my interviews over the next two days are within fifteen minutes walking distance of the hotel and I disappoint the Taxi men each time I leave the building, walking out into Harare’s New York like grid of wide streets, with high rise apartment blocks and commercial buildings. You can tell that Harare was clearly not a bad place to live once upon a time.

Zimbabwe’s Taxi drivers are an obvious metaphor for the cataclysmic political, social and economic decline of this country over the last six years which has been well documented on the Trócaire website I work on. So I am already sufficiently spooked about being here before I’ve even met with any of our partners or been harassed by the police. In the morning, walking the streets of Harare, the Army are a very visible presence. In a fifteen-minute walk, I count over fifteen soldiers: “Not good” as Niall is prone to say.

The currency change is the talk of the town here. The Zimbabwe government has issued a new currency which has three less noughts but its value remains the same. The old currency is to be phased out from August 21 and Zimbabwe citizens have been told it is illegal to keep over $100 million (€100) on their person. This has given the Zimbabwe state yet another excuse to harass, intimidate and humiliate its citizens. Roadblocks are being set up all over the country to search people for the old currency. The currency has also been devalued by 60 percent. Inflation here last month was 110 percent, and in the last year, over 1200 percent. On payday, people queue at the cash machines to spend their money immediately before it loses all its value.

Part Three: August 4

The Piggery Youth Group in Dedza - Front of Photo L-R: Selina Saires (17), Konsolada Charles (17),David Saires (19) Chifundo Chikoko (19) Frank Baulen (21)

Friday, and I’m off to Dedza, a rural area just over an hour’s drive from Lilongwe. My first glimpse of rural Africa is unforgettable. Catherine, Relief and Rehabilitation Coordinator from Cadecom who implement Trócaire’s Integrated Rehabilitation Programme, arrives in Lilongwe shortly before eight and we head out reaching a stark, dry, bleached landscape of hills and mud and daub houses with thatched roofs like nothing I’ve seen before. Catherine, who has a magnificent Afro incidentally, worked as a teacher and then as a physical planner with the government before joining Cadecom. As we drive to Dedza, we see the odd patch of irrigated green jumping out of this brown landscape. While I admire the view, Catherine points out the level of deforestation here, which has caused soil erosion problems, damaging the fertility of the soil and contributing to the food security problems. She notes that Malawians are obsessed with Maize, a crop that has not served them well; their climate does not suit it. It needs more rain and better soils than Malawi can provide but the people are very attached to it. Catherine stresses the importance of persuading Malawians to move away from their reliance on Maize.

At the Cadecom Dedza offices we pick up Sprian, who is a Cadecom Agricultural field supervisor and I grab enough material for an interview with Sprian and Catherine at the start and end of the day. In between we drive around Magunditsa , Luweya, Kapesi, and Mchengawedi meeting people who have benefited from Trócaire’s programme. Catherine keeps apologising about the bumpy country roads which aren’t bothering me at all; she’s an excellent driver and the four wheeler truck has fine suspension plus I’m too busy trying to stop my jaw dropping at what seems like a whole different world to me. Children run out of their homes to wave and smile at us. In Magundita, we arrive at Ruth Kamkwale’s home to talk to her about her vegetable garden; a swarm of kids crowd around the vehicle, the youngest ones shouting Mzungu (white man). Catherine is worried that I might be offended but of course I’m delighted to be called a Mzungu for the first time ever and start laughing. I guess it probably loses its novelty after a while.

The people here are so friendly but one feels a bit awkward in that some almost pay you too much respect because you’re from Trócaire and Catherine introduces me in Chichewa by saying this man is from Trocaire, the people that give us the money (!). I spend a lot of time saying Zikomo (thanks in Chichewa) to compensate and asking Catherine to tell people I am grateful for their time. In Kapesi, Agnes and the other members of the Chicken group there teach me how to say ndiri bwino (I am fine) when they say muli bwanji ? (how are you?) and they all laugh with me (or at me?) when I try to say it. In Mchengawedi, walking over the ridges in a vegetable garden to take a photo, I slip and send soil flying. I’m horrified and think the people are going to get mad at me for wrecking their garden but they just start laughing at me too. In Luweya, I meet a fantastic bunch of young people who are members of a youth group that have been breeding pigs and providing home-based care in the community. I interview Frank who leads the way for the group as his English is quite good. Towards the end of the day I’m tiring and fail to get a useable shot of Elizabeth Boko who received a goat as part of Trócaire’s global gift scheme. As my batteries and the batteries on my digital camera run out and it starts to turn dark we head back for a late lunch/dinner at the Dedza pottery and café shop. Catherine and Sprian have been brilliant and as I head back to Lilongwe. I feel I’ve learnt a lot from them and in Dedza today. It has been an amazing experience for me personally and is the highlight of the whole trip.

Part Two: August 2-3

Women's Craft Group organised by the Medical Missionaries of Mary in the Lilongwe Townships, Malawi

On Tuesday I met Paul Msoma who has set up the catchily titled Institute for Policy Research and Social Empowerment. Trócaire are funding the Institute’s research into the implementation of Malawi’s HIV and Aids strategy. Paul’s aim is to turn the Institute into the premier think tank for public policy issues in Malawi providing alternatives to the models of development imposed by donors and the international financial institutions. He’s also chair of the Southern Africa Social Forum that will bring approximately 7000 people from the 14 countries in the region to Lilongwe to discuss trade, agriculture, health and HIV and Aids later in the year. But despite all this commendable work, what I will most fondly remember Paul for is sorting me out with a loan of a Malawian mobile phone for my 10 days here; the man is a legend for this alone.

On Wednesday, I finally got out of the NGO offices and into Lilongwe’s townships with Sister Mary Doonan from the Medical Missionaries of Mary (MMM’s) and I get to meet some Malawians who don’t work for NGOs. Sister Mary drove me out to the townships of Mtsiriza and Nthandire to see the extra English classes and women’s craft groups the MMM’s are providing there. As Sister Mary talks about the problems people face in the townships, the list is overwhelming; the lack of water supply, HIV and Aids and all its opportunistic infections, Malaria, Tuberculosis, the burden of orphans, widespread violence and sexual abuse of women and children. The nearest hospital to the township is about 10km away, but like many hospitals in Malawi it doesn’t have drugs. Sister Mary has set up a small fund to provide people with drugs. Salome Myirenda, a local women who is helping Sister Mary provide the craft workshops, describes the negative attitude to orphans in the townships. Families that are having difficulty providing for them selves cannot take on the burden of more children. “You have people unemployed with nine, ten, eleven kids and there are less and less grandparents around to support in child rearing”. Malawi’s life expectancy has dropped to 37 and the dependency ratio is huge. Unemployment is over 70 percent. As we leave the townships, we see three tired looking women sitting down outside one of the houses. Sister Mary says they are the home-based care workers in this area who help the sick and the elderly. I find it impossible to describe the effect of seeing all this for the first time, without descending into cliché and sentiment, but there is a sense of privilege in witnessing the spirit and warmth that people like Salome and Sister Mary bring to their work in this environment. There is also of course an awkward sense of embarrassment at the grotesque gap between the opportunities I have had in life compared with the children and women I have seen today.

I am plunged back into the world of NGO discourse, at Trócaire’s Malawi Civil Society Workshop at the Cresta Crossroads hotel in Lilongwe on Thursday. Trócaire are planning their civil society programme for the next three years and this two-day workshop is an opportunity to get our partners input in designing the programme. NGO’s working on health, education and agricultural and broader economic and social issues are present. I’m taking the notes on the discussions for the day and it gives me a chance to meet people from all our civil society partners here and gives great insight into the extent of the issues they are working on and the problems they face.

Innocent Abroad in Southern Africa

Part One: July 30 to August 1


Five weeks ago I was offered the opportunity to take an “exposure trip” to Africa; “exposure trip” being Trócaire’s term for a first-time visit by a member of staff to see our projects and meet our partners in the developing world. I arrive in Lilongwe, Malawi on a Sunday afternoon. Over the next two weeks I will be “exposed” to Malawi’s colourfully corrupt and feckless politicians and Trócaire’s partners who are working to make them more accountable; I will have my first encounter with the conditions of a typical African township and the work of the Irish missionaries there; my first eye-opening view of rural Africa in Dedza and Trócaire’s efforts to rehabilitate the livelihoods of those affected by the food crisis of 2002; and some up close and personal dealings with Zimbabwe’s rotten to the core police state and the courageous human rights defenders who are fighting against it.

After 26 hours of planes and airports we arrive: Dublin-Amsterdam-Nairobi-Lusaka-Lilongwe; it’s not the most straightforward of routes. Accompanying me is the hardy, well-travelled, unflappable Corkman Niall O’Keeffe, Trócaire’s Southern Africa Programme Officer for the last four years; on his umpteenth visit to the region; he knows the place like the back of his hand and is pumping our Taxi driver for information as soon as we get in the Taxi. The taxi man tells us that Malawi’s MP’s are looking for a rise from 300,000 Kwachas to 1 Million Kwachas and refuse to pass the country’s budget unless their demands are met. The former President has been arrested on corruption charges and promptly released again, and the man who arrested him, the head of the Anti-Corruption Bureau, Gustav Kaliwo has been fired in mysterious circumstances. So, a slow news week for Malawi then.

Malawi’s current head of state, His Most Excellency President Bingu’s portrait hangs on the wall at the reception in our guesthouse. We also see his beaming visage at the hotel where Trócaire’s civil society workshop takes place a few days later; a sign of Malawi’s old authoritarian political culture still hanging around perhaps. We’re in the middle of the Malawian winter here which is warm and sunny, about 25 degrees Celsius but it turns pitch dark and cold within an hour from five to six.

In my first days here I’m noticing, I guess, probably the same things all innocent abroads’ in Malawi notice such as the bright brown almost orange coloured sand that covers the many dirt tracks or temporary roads and roadsides. On Lilongwe’s roadsides, Malawi’s informal economy is ubiquitous; people trying to sell tomatoes, peanuts, eggs, maize, their services as a painter or plumber. Malawian women have a superb line in headgear, the colours and the patterns are striking but more impressive is the way they gracefully carry all sorts of cargo balanced on their heads. Men are also to be found practicing ingenious feats of transportation unusual to the western eye; transporting goats with their bicycles being my personal favourite. Another spectacle for the African newbie is Malawian men’s chief mode of transportation; the back of a truck; trucks go by with sometimes as many as ten to fifteen men in the back. I keep thinking one of them leaning over the side of a truck is going to fall out but Malawians assure me this is not a problem.

On Monday morning I meet with Chris Chisoni from Trócaire’s partner, the Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace. Chris is working on their Parliamentary Liaison Programme monitoring and documenting the degenerate behaviour of Malawi’s politicians; their widespread absenteeism from parliament and their constituencies; their keenness to vote for generous allowances and expenses for themselves; their endless bickering over trivial non-issues in parliament and failure to pass effective legislation: all can see this last offence; the proceedings of Malawi’s parliament are broadcast extensively on public TV here. Their antics would be amusing if they weren’t so costly for the Malawian people. MP’s in Malawi earn about 2,000 U.S. dollars a month while the average Malawian earns 160 dollars per year. Like many people I spoke to here, Chris feels that Malawians civil and political rights have strengthened greatly since multi party democracy emerged in the 1990s, but their social and economic rights have declined. And these politicians are at the heart of the problem as far as I can see.

Later in the week on the drive to Dedza, I read President Bingu has refused to give in to MP’s demands for huge salary increases and they have finally caved in and passed the budget but not without, the Nation reports, something in the region of K180 million ($1.3 million) in extra allowances to MPs. The finance minister Gondwe thanks the MP’s by taking them all out for a slap up meal in the Capital Hotel. An excellent use of the Malawi people’s taxes don’t you think?