Transportation conveniences, or inconveniences, are the direct product of social class. No matter where you live- the same income based models appear to be followed. People of low-income are reliant on inconsistent bus schedules, high taxi fares, and the excruciating amount of time it takes to get anything done without your own car. Middle income allows for the comfort of a car (or two). However, gas prices are closely watched and engine trouble could result in some dipping into savings. The upper incomes are allowed to buy and use cars, planes, trains, or (in Portland’s case) bikes. In America this system causes a degree of envy, as public transportation is a luxury only found in cities and car commercials make it impossible to forget what you cannot afford. In Malawi, however, the transportation class schemes are accepted and fixed. Accepted to the point that people appear to acknowledge their allocated transport level, and fixed in that a lack of a credit system dictates no other option. Many of our co-workers live far from the office, upwards of 10-15 kilometres away. One catches a bike taxi to the main road, a minibus to the city center, then a taxi to the office. When his finances are low he wakes up earlier and walks. This is his life, he hates spending the money, but that is just what he has to do. The fact that his boss has a car, comes from the same side of town, and could pick him up... was never even considered. I, however, am told that I “could not manage” and will often get hitches as Malawians feel bad that I am going below my class and walking. I, in the eyes of the Malawian, am somehow less capable to live the low-income life. Transportation is also the direct result of the government who controls it. The President of Malawi will be coming to Nkhata Bay for a visit, and so the road is being paved. In fact, people say that if you want your road paved – invite the President to visit. It seems that the proverbial ‘red carpet’ is laid out for those who have the power to make it happen. There are just two paved roads going North to South in the country (the M1 and the M2) then as the roads weave out into the villages there is nothing but dust or clay mud to welcome you. Additionally, those without cars are not even given a bike lane or a sidewalk. I would estimate that 90 % of the population walk or bike, yet there is no way to assure their safety. Countless road accidents are the direct result of a lack of infrastructure, and the victims are almost always the have-nots. Then there is the transportation never capitalised on, Malawi has the third largest lake in Africa- in fact the country extends along it and was once named after it (Nyasaland – lake land). However, the number of non-wooden/functional boats can probably be counted on one hand. There are ‘wato’ or large hollowed out tree logs which are patched with metal, often needing bailed out with plastic buckets, and they seem to only stay upright with extreme balance. This is how low-income people catch fish as well as transport goods and people to nearby villages. The most unfortunate part of these tippy canoes is that a majority of their owners have never received a single swimming lesson and fatalities from drowning are reportedly high. Next there are timber-wooden boats (all seemingly made by one company out of Monkey Bay in the Southern part of Malawi) which can go 3-4 hours along the lake carrying 5x’s their capacity. These boats also tend to flood, a fact which is even scarier as a sunken ship would take many more victims to the bottom of the lake. Lastly, there is the one large passenger boat (Chilembwe) which recently replaced the steam boat (Ilala) which travelled the lake during my Peace Corps service. This boat charges 6 USD to take you quickly along the lake shore villages. However, it is pointless as the efficiency in which it gets to lake shore villages cannot be afford by anyone who lives in them.
Running to the 5 AM boat departure, or haggling with mini bus conductors – it is all part of the experience (part of why I hate overland tourist trucks which make Africa too easy). However, these things which I find quirky and slightly frustrating... are just the tip of the iceberg for seeing what it is like to live every day in a place. As we travel it is important to see and experience this, or else we may miss a large part of the ever day life of others. This is true abroad just as much as it is domestically - ride bikes in Portland, sail along the New England coat, take a subway in New York... this is how we can begin to appreciate the world.
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I remember in one of my first Anthropology courses we were tasked with mapping out kinship systems. Coming from a large family myself, it took two pieces of paper to draw the intricacies of my complicated tree. In Malawian culture it can be immensely difficult to sort of the interwoven branches of their familial systems as well.In fact, I fear some children would never be able to complete the task. To begin with, your mother's sisters are your 'mothers', and your father's brothers are called 'father'. Then the children along the branch of your 'mothers' and 'fathers' are also your siblings. On the other side, your mother's brothers are your uncles and his children your cousins. This is the same for your father's sisters side falling outside of the immediate structure. Have I lost you yet? Making it even more complex. Many families in the villages are still polygamous (particularly amongst the chiefs) so that layers in second wives and their children. One man I spoke to had three wives and had lost count of his grandchildren altogether. Then, you have inheritance- less common- but in some villages brothers inherit the wives of their deceased brothers. So culturally it can be very difficult, now moving into economics... 1,300,000 children in Malawi are orphans (half expected to be due to AIDS). A whole generation of would-be-parents have been lost to AIDS and other preventable illnesses (malaria, complications during child birth, pneumonia...) This leaves approximately fifty percent of Malawi's population as children. Half of those 6.8 million children will be stunted due to malnourishment and about 30 percent of them will get the chance to go to secondary school (high school). This means Malawi has millions of children being raised by extended family members (mostly grandparents) and with no birth certificate- unlikely to be able to trace their heritage much past their own village compound. On top of that, they are struggling to meet their most basic of needs - food, education - leaving little room for drawing trees or getting themselves out from underneath all the broken branches. On the other side there is some beauty in all of this. It takes a village to raise a child, but it seems that the village steps up to the task. Kids run freely around the foothills of Usisya and have very little to do on the long summer days than practice swimming in the lake or trying to catch some fish in their 'uncle's' boats. This does not mean that their lives are not hard. The young girls bear the weight of carrying water in the mornings, and when planting season comes all hands are called to the fields. But they carry a freedom which has been lost to many American children. In Portland there was a news article questioning if parents should allow their children to be ' free range', and a mother in WV was chastised by police for letting her child bike around the block. Here, however, it seems kids are allowed - if only for a brief amount of time- to be kids. In short, the kinship system here is complex because of the cultural and economic conditions in which Malawians live - and children are tangled up in the game of both having freedom in the moment, yet unstable pasts and unsure futures. I don't know what will become of any of the children in these photos, but I do know that they live on a knife's edge. If only they could have one more year of schooling, one parent back to care for them, one lesson in their ability to be more than what they were given.
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Bonnie HarveyCurrently working in northern Malawi as Programs and Evaluations Coordinator for Temwa Archives
June 2019
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