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WEEK 1 AUDIO CONFERENCE QS AND ANSWERS
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Click on a question from the first audio conference, to read Marjory's answer.
Questions:
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- What are the similarities and differences between Malawi and NZ?
- What would NZ$1.00 and NZ$10.00 buy in Malawi?
- Do people have running water and electricity?
- What is the worst disease for people living there?
- When someone dies in Malawi, what type of ceremony do they have?
- What impacts have you seen on families who are struggling to cope with HIV/AIDS?
- Have you met the ‘Circle of Friends’? Were they happy to see you?
- Do they have different schools for different ages like in N.Z?
- What is the most difficult thing about being in Malawi?
- In the short time you have been among the people of Malawi, what have you learnt from them?
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Question 1:
What are the similarities and differences between Malawi and NZ?
Mansell Senior School
In some ways Malawi and NZ are really world's apart. One of the most obvious differences, you'll see it on any map, is that Malawi doesn't have any ocean around it. It is surrounded by land, except for the one lake, so that really affects what kind of country it is. They do still have beaches on the lake but they don't have any access to a port, which affects the economy as well. Another difference is population. New Zealand has 4 million people. Malawi has 12 million people - quite a few more people. Like New Zealand there are three main groups of people living in Malawi, people from the North, people from the Central region and people from the Southern region. Even though they are all from Malawi they have quite different customs. The biggest difference though, the one that really sets New Zealand and Malawi apart, is Malawi is somewhere around the eight poorest country in the world. There is just no wealth. People here are very poor. They work hard for everything they have and they don't have an awful lot. There are things that we take for granted in New Zealand like being able to go to the doctor. In Malawi if you don't live in the city it is a huge deal getting to a doctor because the doctor is quite far away. And because it is such a poor country the roads are not very good. I've been bumped all over the place in this country in a 4-wheel drive, all over roads that look more like footpaths. I keep teasing my driver about driving on a footpath cause he suddenly just heads off into the bush. Also because the people are quite poor we are lucky to be driving around in a vehicle. If people are really wealthy they have a bicycle. Most people walk. The other thing is I've had to tell people I don't grow my food but buy it at the shop. In Malawi most people grow their own food. They really rely on the weather a lot, and often don't have extra. They are looking at not having enough food this year, because the rains haven't come like they should. They really struggle for the basics like getting enough food and getting health care. At the same time what brings us all together is that we all have the same needs, we all have dreams and hopes.
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Question 2:
What would NZ$1.00 and NZ$10.00 buy in Malawi?
Greta Valley School
I need to explain something before I answer this question. I don't want you to get the wrong idea. It's really important for you to understand that the price of things is only part of the picture. Earning $1 in New Zealand is a whole lot easier than earning $1 in Malawi. So you're going to think the prices are really cheap but to Malawians they aren't. Think for a second how much you can earn. Some of you deliver flyers or babysit. Some of you get pocket money for doing nothing. Think about how much money you get doing that. Then I want you to think about this for a second. A Malawi man who works in a factory might earn about NZ$170 a month to feed his family. So you have to keep that in mind before I tell you how much you can buy for $1 or $10. Because $1 in Malawi is a lot harder to earn than $1 in New Zealand.
But to answer your question, for $1 I can buy a loaf of bread, I can buy a pack of sugar, a packet of biscuits, a packet of peanuts that sort of stuff.
Just again so you don't get the wrong idea, $1 in New Zealand is about how much a man will earn in Malawi in one day. So you work for a whole day to buy a loaf of bread.
$10 can feed a family of five in Malawi for a day. That's pretty basic food, just food grown in Malawi - nothing imported. You can also buy a soccer ball or a simple pair of shoes with $10. So for people who are coming from another country it's not very expensive to live but if you are a Malawian who works here then it is very expensive.
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Question 3:
Do people have running water and electricity?
Pukete School
I do but in Malawi I’m rich. 80% of Malawians, that’s 8 out of 10 people, don’t have running water or electricity in their houses. In the cities lots of people do have running water and electricity. But even in the capital city, Lilongwe where I am right now, people don’t have running water and they have to go out to public taps to fill their buckets with water for their homes. Most of them also have electricity in their houses in the city but they also have to pay for that.
When you leave the cities and go out to the country, some people do have running water and electricity. But most of these people work either for the Government or organisations like World Vision. They’re not like ordinary Malawians so they are quite well off. Every body else in the country depends on boreholes like what Jessie uses near her school. They basically don’t have electricity in the houses at all. If they are doing really well they might use a paraffin lamp which is a kind of oil, but that’s pretty expensive as well. So usually when the sun goes down they go to bed. They also get up when the sun gets up which is really early because they don’t have artificial light. The only time that changes is when it’s a really moonlit night. You can expect people to be up telling stories and dancing in the moonlight.
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Question 4:
What is the worst disease for people living there?
Pukete School
The worst disease is called malaria. It kills more people in Malawi than any other disease. It's a parasite spread by a certain type of mosquito that bites at night. I sleep under a mosquito net at night so I don't get bitten by mosquitoes. I also use insect repellent and wear long sleeves and trousers so that I don't get bitten. Most of the people in Malawi can't afford to do this and so they do get sick with malaria. There is a cure for malaria but it's expensive and you have to be able to go to a doctor to get it. If you get malaria really badly you die within a week so it doesn't last very long.
Even though that's the disease that kills the most people it is actually HIV/AIDS that affects more people. That's partly because HIV/AIDS usually affects people in the age bracket of 15 to 45 years old. People of all ages can get malaria but it's the people who are 15 to 45 years old, the ones working and building up a community who usually get AIDS. Because that's the age that gets affected there is a big gap in society and the grandparents have to do the extra work. They are really tired but still have to keep on working. So a whole lot more people are affected by HIV/AIDS. A person who gets HIV can be sick for a really long time. This is hard for the family because when someone is sick for a really long time then someone else has to take care of them and that person can't work. So that means the family doesn't have as much food or as much money. That's why HIV/AIDS is the most devastating even though it doesn't kill as many people as malaria.
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Question 5:
When someone dies in Malawi, what type of ceremony do they have?
Greta Valley School
If someone in the community dies than everyone in the community participates. People stop working as soon as they get the news that someone has died then they go to the house of the person who has died. The only exception is the children. They are not welcome unless it is their family. When people get to the house, there is a lot of weeping and crying – quite loud and really upset. If the person who dies is from a church then the church people will get together and sing all the way through the night. If you go to someone’s house who has died you will spend the night sleeping outside the house and the family provides food for all the people. While that is happening they have to make decisions about where they are going to bury the person who has died. That depends on what part of the country they come from. People from the north will do it one way, people from the south will do it another way. Apparently if what is called a labola (dowry) has been paid – that is when the man pays money to the family of the woman when they get married, the wife will be buried near the husband, if not then she will be buried with her parents. In the early morning after the night of sleeping at the house, some people will go out and dig the grave and the village headmen will decide where that will be. If they are Christian then they will have prayers and things like that. Traditionally, but something doesn’t happen as much any more, at the end of the funeral the close family will shave their hair and then they will all stay at the home of the deceased person for a month. That was as long as it took for their hair to grow back again. Nowadays because people have jobs in the city, and paying the food for all those people is costly, people usually only stay a few days now.
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Question 6:
What impacts have you seen on families who are struggling to cope with HIV/AIDS?
Greta Valley School
This has been the hardest part of being here because I have seen lots of families affected by HIV/AIDS. Probably the most powerful experience I had was when I visited one family in Nthondo. The wife was really ill. Apparently she had been sick in bed for two whole years. They had never taken her to the hospital because they couldn’t afford to. So somebody had to look after her every day. Usually it was her husband looking after her so he couldn’t go out to the fields. And he couldn’t figure out another way to earn money. The impact of it is so much more because they are so poor. They need to work every day just to get enough to eat. So the husband was really tired and having trouble feeding the family. Her parents were also helping but they just looked so tired and worn out. I’ve never seen people look so tired. That was the saddest thing I’ve seen. All the children from the Circle of Friends have been affected by HIV/AIDS. Each one has a story. Jessie’s mum when I visited showed me a wall she had built herself. That’s something women don’t do but she had to learn how to build a wall because her husband wasn’t there anymore. Benson and Benwell built their own kitchen. It’s certainly something they might have done but they would most probably have done it with the help of their Dad, if he had still been alive. Kunthata is sick herself which means she doesn’t have the energy to do a lot of things and her grandmother has to walk 2 kilometres each way to get water. I don’t know if you read my diary but I’ll tell you walking to get water is hard work. And here is her grandmother who has done it all her life and still has to do it. So every one of them has been impacted and it makes the poverty and the hardship, which they are already living with, twice as hard.
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Question 7:
Have you met the ‘Circle of Friends’? Were they happy to see you?
Mansell Senior School
Yes I’ve meet all of them except Lute and Chimwemwe, although I did meet them walking along the road to school. But when I go back to Nthondo the first thing I will do is go and visit them. But l’ve met everybody else. Some of them were really surprised to see me. Because when the people came to make the video and take photos for the poster, the families thought that was it and they didn’t expect anybody else to come and visit afterwards. So they were really surprised to see someone else. Everybody has treated me like a huge celebrity. They have dressed in their best clothing and been really polite. Every one of them was a bit shy at the beginning. But what always breaks the ice is when I pull the poster out and show them the pictures of themselves. Then they get laughing and we get excited about that. I’ve got to meet all of their families and that was really cool. And it’s really neat because they don’t really look the same as on the video. They look the same but then they don’t. They look younger and smaller. More like you guys. The next time I go to Nthondo which is next week I am going to take the video with me. We have to take a computer with a DVD player and a generator to make electricity. We’re going to show the video at Jessie’s school so that every one in the community can actually see the movie. I think that is going to be very exciting. Once they got past being nervous we got on really well and I’ve done some neat things with them.
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Question 8:
Do they have different schools for different ages like in N.Z?
Pukete School
They do have different schools for different levels. Primary schools start with Standard 1 and go right through to Standard 8. You’d then go on to secondary school which is four more years, and then university. But there are some differences. At the end of every year, even Standard 1, you have to sit an exam. If you don’t pass the exam you have to repeat the year. Some children don’t pass because their parents were ill and they couldn’t go to school or they had to stay home to work or look after younger brothers and sisters, or they might be ill themselves. So if they miss too much school then of course they don’t learn what they need to that year and they don’t pass the exam. So they have to repeat the year. Some children can’t go to school because they can’t afford to. Even though the fees are free they still have to buy the books. If their family is really poor they can’t afford to and so they can’t go to school.
So because of this you will find children of a range of ages in any class. For example I went into a Standard 4 class and the youngest student was 8 years old and the oldest was 16 years old.
At the end of Standard 8 they have to sit a big exam, which gives them a primary school leaving certificate. If they pass that then they can go on to secondary school but it costs money to go to secondary school and there are not many secondary schools. So any kids that want to go probably have to travel a long way or they have to find a place to live close to the school. One of the things World Vision does is pay the school fees for orphans who have lost their parents to HIV/AIDS. Lute’s eldest sister is away at secondary school. World Vision knows that when their grandmother is gone because she is getting old, their sister will need to look after the girls, so they want her to get a good education.
The other interesting thing is that school is taught in English right from the beginning so by the time they finish school they are really good at English.
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Question 9:
What is the most difficult thing about being in Malawi?
Mansell Senior School
Probably the most challenging thing for me is that every day I go out and meet a whole bunch of interesting people and hear their stories. We usually go to two or three places a day when we are up in the villages and everything is new to me. I’m also trying to learn to speak the language. It’s all really exciting but tiring. And then I get home at the end of the day, and I’m really tired and I have to sit at my laptop and write it all down because I’m afraid that I might forget it because I know tomorrow I’m going to do a whole bunch of new things. So that’s the biggest challenge for me.
As far as living here, I’m being spoilt completely. I’m being looked after, they make sure that I have good feed to eat, make sure that it’s clean, they translate for me – that’s a tricky thing too, not knowing what people are saying around you and that can be frustrating at times. But being in Malawi is fantastic.
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Question 10:
In the short time you have been among the people of Malawi, what have you learnt from them?
Greta Valley School
It is a short time. It feels like a long time. But you are right I haven’t been here very long at all. The most important lesson I’ve learnt is that no matter what is happening around you, the most important thing is the people. There is a Maori proverb that also talks about people being the most important thing. Malawi has taught me that as well. The communities that I am visiting work really hard to help each other. They don’t leave anyone alone to do it by themselves. Even their welcomes and greetings show this, taking the time to say hello properly, rather than our quick Hi, giving a proper handshake to everybody.
Respect for your elders. Every time I visit I am expected to honour them in my speech. That’s how I start my speeches, by honouring the elders that are there.
Malawians laugh a lot. I think it’s great because I think you should laugh every day, as it’s good for the soul.
And it’s part of Malawi culture to give the best you have and be the best you are. And that’s a really strong lesson I have learnt from them. They give me their best and share their best with me. They are so generous and kind. It’s humbling really. It’s also good seeing the hope and promise, being positive in the situations they face.
That happiness is not about material possessions, and they don’t give you dignity. It’s the relationships that you form with the people around you.
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