The largest tender note in Malawi is a 500 kwacha note valued at about $3 USD. Due to government restrictions, you cannot use Visa or Mastercard in shops - cash is the only option. The resulting stacks of money are outrageous. Single women walk alone in the streets with big bags full of cash. You have to go early to the bank because the ATMs run out of bills. When we bought 200 liters of petrol at $2 per liter, there was a significant weight to the transaction.
Malawi doesn't export anything except the Carlsberg beer manufactured in Lilongwe. The European Union's logo appears on nearly everything - it seems to be an economy propped up entirely by foreign aid. This does not stop the Malawian government from loving Hummers and other flagrant displays of excessive spending. The government didn't manage to pay their petrol bill this time round, causing the current nationwide petrol shortage. Strange given that the fuel budget is apparently aid money. It is no wonder then that when children learn English, they learn "hello" "how are you" and "give me money."
Malawians subsists on a diet of mostly corn and fish. The corn is served as a paste called nsilo, and the fish is usually dried for distribution. The fish are just minnows due to overfishing which I unsuspectingly took part in. It doesn't seem that Malawi's dependence on foreign aid is destined to curtail any time soon especially given Malawi's population density, the rate of overfishing, the current drought, and a total absence of grain storage or foreign currency.
I have Schistosomiasis, a parasitic worm which lives in your blood. Contracting this disease was originally one of my big fears when coming to Africa. In the end, I gave it to myself nearly on purpose. It's just inevitable if you come to Lake Malawi. The treatment is just three pills over three days for less than a dollar. It seems funny that I was so scared of this back home.
The ants in Malawi are radiculous. Last night they found a 5 mm diameter hole in my tent and when I woke up there was a thick black line of ants up the side of my sleeping bag, across the tent above my head, straight to the jar of peanut butter. I would wager there is at least one ant in ever square meter of Africa. They can't get up into Ralf's truck by the wheels; but the kitchen is swarmed with them if a single blade of grass touches the outside of the truck, or if a branch rests against the roof.
When we first arrived at the lake, we noticed thick black smoke rising out of the center of the lake. We assumed one of the fishing vessels had caught fire. Today we learned that the 'smoke' is actually swarms of flies.
Sunday, February 21, 2010
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