Well, who would have thought I was going to put myself right in the thick of things!
No work in the office yesterday, it was deemed it too dangerous to try to get to work. The national demonstrations were occurring in Blantyre (and two other cities), and were quite an event. Peaceful at first, but things inevitably turned ugly, with violence, looting, shooting and tear gas – all a five minute walk from my place on the hill. I had no idea what, if anything was going on, so wandered down the hill around 2ish, in search of some food. Nothing was open in town, so I wandered to the local hotel to find a THP team who were doing a workshop, and sat in with them. When that finished around 6:30pm, there were no taxis (not that there are an abundance of taxis anyway, I haven’t actually seen any yet!), so the ‘concierge’ in the hotel called his ‘mate/brother/cousin/neighbour’, who turned up promptly to take me the two minute drive up the hill and charge me K800!! (Now that is only $4.50, but by Malawi standards it is about a week’s wages!). In my little place later I could hear gun shots not all that far away (but not close enough to make me feel unsafe!), which was apparently the police “keeping the peace”. Apparently looting was going on well into the night.
Thursday was supposed to be business as usual, but by mid-morning I detected from the office chatter that all was not as it was supposed to be. The CD told me that there was looting going on over the road from our office (we are on the second floor and look over the street, so had quite a good view of everything), and I watched as hoodlums walked out of the electronics store over the road with their arms full of computer printers (office size, not portable ones, so it was slightly entertaining watching). Then the police turned up, and everyone scattered and calmed down. At this point, it was decided to evacuate the office (in about 5 mins from “I think we should close the office” to leaving). Seven of us piled into one vehicle, along with the driver). This was the Microfinance team, who have been doing the workshop. This includes the head of Microfinance from NY, plus each representative from Ethiopia, Uganda, Mozambique, and Ghana. They all thought it was just as bizarre as I did, so we giggled all the way back to the hotel.
I then convinced Russel the driver to take me back to the Shoprite (at this stage I had no food in the house, and I wasn't confident that I would get another chance to get any food anytime soon, as most shops had closed by this time). Russel and I went back, ran around the supermarket to get some essentials, then stopped to get a pizza each for lunch (I am not sure what the protocol is for buying drivers lunch, but in this situation, protocol had been thrown to the wind. Russel wasn’t going to knock back a free pizza, although I could sense him going through the trade-off – what happens if something happens to the Aussie bird I am in charge of, vs a free pizza). We ordered take-away, but sat outside near the vehicle while we waited for them, in case we had to leave instead. We took our pizzas and my groceries back to the truck, and knew we would be ok driving back to my lodge, coz if we were stopped by looters we could offer them pizza!!! As it turned out, again things were quiet, so I have been sitting at home (writing diaries and emails) all afternoon!!!!
Naturally the power went off for two hours around 6pm, it does every Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Sunday, so at least you can plan for how you spend your time with no electricity. This is where my iPad becomes invaluable, as it is the only thing that can entertain me when there is no TV and all I have is one candle – thank god I don’t need heating!!!!! Oh, and did I mention that every day on the TV is..... Masterchef Australia (but I think it is an old series, coz I met one of the contestants at last year’s grand final event at the MCG!!)
While I have my SIM card for the phone, it hasn’t been activated because Airtel’s systems in Malawi “are being updated” .. that has been going on for nearly 2 weeks, so no-one with an Airtel phone has any data usage like emails or internet. I can’t believe how much I took everything for granted in Australia, where everything, most of the time, just works. And I never thought I would say this, but even Julia G looks good compared to the President of Malawi!!
So here’s hoping tomorrow is going to be a good day. I would love to get to work and start doing what I came here for. I know enough about the work of The Hunger Project after writing a few reports that I REALLY WANT TO GET GOING!
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