Almost 3 months have passed in Malawi now and I am getting nicely settled in to Mzuzu. The weather is getting colder now that we are getting closer to winter. Well winter in Malawi cannot be compared to winter in Finland, I would still consider this as a Finnish summer. Our house starts to feel more like home every day and I am learning how to cook Filipino food which is so delicious.
The president died some time ago so we are facing big changes now in Malawi. The national mourning started with 10 days but was soon extended to 30 days. The whole episode was quite strange and I am convinced that the whole world knew about the death of the president before the news were finally released to Malawians. The dead president was travelling around the country, he came to Mzuzu also. The money spent on the funeral exceeds over 1,1 million in euros which is just a bit too much in a country where people die of hunger every day. But we have a new woman president now and hopefully things will change for better in time.
I have done more office work in the last 3 months than I probably have ever done in my life. But we´ve seen some cows too. Malawi has an “ancient” system of setting up boards and committees. It´s probably something that started long time ago and they just never got rid of it, anyway it´s a great honor to be a member of a board or a committee. But for worker´s like us it makes it pretty much impossible to do any programs without consulting the board first. And it´s extremely time consuming too because to call the board for a meeting can take up to 1 week with good luck and up to 1 month with worse luck. And after all the board itself has nothing to do with the actual work we are doing but we need their approval for any program that we want to carry out. So our work is a lot about writing proposals and I guess after two years I will be pretty good in that.
The president died some time ago so we are facing big changes now in Malawi. The national mourning started with 10 days but was soon extended to 30 days. The whole episode was quite strange and I am convinced that the whole world knew about the death of the president before the news were finally released to Malawians. The dead president was travelling around the country, he came to Mzuzu also. The money spent on the funeral exceeds over 1,1 million in euros which is just a bit too much in a country where people die of hunger every day. But we have a new woman president now and hopefully things will change for better in time.
I have done more office work in the last 3 months than I probably have ever done in my life. But we´ve seen some cows too. Malawi has an “ancient” system of setting up boards and committees. It´s probably something that started long time ago and they just never got rid of it, anyway it´s a great honor to be a member of a board or a committee. But for worker´s like us it makes it pretty much impossible to do any programs without consulting the board first. And it´s extremely time consuming too because to call the board for a meeting can take up to 1 week with good luck and up to 1 month with worse luck. And after all the board itself has nothing to do with the actual work we are doing but we need their approval for any program that we want to carry out. So our work is a lot about writing proposals and I guess after two years I will be pretty good in that.
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