Planting Malawi 2009-07

July 2009

Emmanuel International

Planting Malawi Isaiah 61.3

an update from the VanWoerdens in Malawi

Prayer & Praise:

No Seed to Plant [coming to grips with extreme poverty]

• Malawi boasts a surplus

I learned something the other day – a piece of the poverty problem that never clicked before for some reason. Talking with Nixon, who was doing some piecework for us, I asked him, “Do you have a large garden?” He replied, “Yes, but I didn’t have money to buy seed so I didn’t grow any maize this year.”

maize harvest this year; pray for wise management

• low maize prices keep people trapped in poverty

• we were able to find a nanny to take care of the girls some of the time so Alex has a little bit of free time

• our continuing witness for Christ in “our home village” and in project communities

• solution for elephant problem When we were distributing maize during the hunger gap earlier this year, we surveyed beneficiaries. We asked them how much maize they had harvested. Many of them reported having harvested no maize at all or very little. I

dismissed such responses as nonsense, especially at a time when there appeared to be a surplus harvest of maize in the country. They’re just hoping to get more maize, I thought. Never had it crossed my mind that there were poor farmers who couldn’t even afford to buy seed and fertilizer to plant in their fields. But when Nixon told me that his garden laid waste because he had no seed, it finally clicked. Extreme poverty. A farmer with a wife and three children, but not even enough resources to grow food for his family.

for work back in January or so, and again some time later. It’s hard turning down people, especially when you can tell they’re desperate. But we can’t help everyone either. So we gave Nixon a day’s wages and called it a day. In June he showed up with a small bag of rice from his garden in appreciation for helping him. It so happened that our other guard was going on holidays so we asked Nixon to fill in. And that’s how we got to know more about him. (Actually, we have developed the closest relationships with

Nixon first came to us looking

[see No Seed to Plant, p. 2]

Elephants in my Garden [human-wildlife conflict]

elephant Liwonde National Park

The people of Makwinja Village are not sleeping much these days because they’re chasing elephants at night. T h e y c o me f r o m th e neighbouring Liwonde National Park in search for water and herbage. A few elephants can destroy a luscious vegetable garden in no time. Tender vegetables or even robust cassava just don’t stand up to the massive beasts. That’s why this year they’ve decided not to do any winter irrigation. Last year they were able to grow and sell enough vegetables to buy 4 goats for their

village, even with the elephants damaging their crops. Their goal this year was to buy a bicycle ambulance. But only three days before I was scheduled to meet with park officials about the problem elephants, they struck again. The elephants destroyed Makwinja’s cassava garden, which I had visited only a week earlier and was not far from being mature. With the constant threat of elephants, the village of Makwinja decided it’s not worth the risk to grow any crops during the dry season and attract more elephants –

too risky to grow food! So what’s the way forward? I learned from park officials that a fence was built around the park in 1994 but lasted only a few years before the fence was disassembled by people – fence poles used for hoe handles and wire for making snares to poach wildlife. The fence was rebuilt in 2004 and this time all the villages around the park were involved in the process with education about the purpose [see Problem Elephants, p. 2]

P lant in g Malaw i | July 2009

Problem Elephants

No Seed to Plant

of the fence and shared responsibility in its maintenance. Fence patrols were also deployed to maintain the electric fence and ensure that elephants and people stay on their respective sides of the fence. However, despite these measures, elephants are still trampling through the fence. It probably doesn’t help that since the park has been protected, the elephant population has exploded to some $800 elephants, which is beyond the carrying capacity of the park. So what’s the way forward? We don’t know yet. For now all we have is a lot of hungry elephants and a few angry villagers who don’t feel like feeding them anymore. It might be a bit of a random problem to have, but this is Malawi!

the people that work for us because we see them daily. With our projects, we visit different villages all the time and it’s our field staff that work more closely with the people.) We usually give our guards whatever is leftover from our evening meal. Nixon really appreciated the meat that came with his portion. He vividly recalled the day last December that he splurged and bought 500 grams of meat at the market for his family. They haven’t had meat since then. Six months without meat! (except maybe some small dried fish, like sardines or herring). Not being able to provide for his family, he told us he was ashamed to eat the food his wife prepared at home and he would eat as little as possible so his children could eat. It sounds like his wife had given up hope in his ability to provide for the family. Poverty is many things, but when a man with land can’t even afford to grow food to feed his family, this is extreme poverty. No wonder people get stuck in a poverty trap.

Randomly Malawi: Maize prices are extremely low right now (MK40/kg) but poor farmers are forced to sell for household income. During the hunger gap, many of them will have to buy the same maize back at up to double the current price (MK80/kg). And the poverty cycle continues. It’s the middle of winter and there’s hardly a mosquito to be found, but one of them found Alex and she got a bout of malaria. Apparently the parasites burst the red blood cells, leaving its host very weak for some time. After our puppy died, we took our dog to the vet for a parvo vaccine. After filling a large needle, the vet asks, “Do I give this intramuscular or intravenous?” After instructing the vet on the procedures, we took full responsibility for the survival of our dog. The city of Zomba decided to run a rabies vaccination campaign. It was announced through a loudspeaker on a truck driving through the city: “Get your dog a free vaccination tomorrow or it may be shot dead without notice” (a rough paraphrase).

woman with irrigated garden Because elephants are escaping from Liwonde National Park and damaging crops, it is too risky for villagers to plant irrigated gardens that will only attract more elephants.

irrigation project

damaged wildlife fence, Liwonde National Park

Andre & Alexandra VanWoerden [Lara, Talia, Ezera] Private Bag 12 Zomba Malawi 265.888.169.380 (Andre) or 265.888.169.382 (Alex) [email protected] vw-mw.blogspot.com

“Do you know you have a chicken in your house?” an American visitor asked. It’s a little chick that we rescued from our cats. From lunch to pet, Whiskas now shares a plate with the dog and cats.

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