Work continues in earnest, although I’m on a bit of a lull this week. I’ve got as far as I can get before a video assistant starts next week. He will be essential for the contact with Malawians, and helping me understand the culture. There’s only so much I can comprehend. Language is also a major barrier, and although I’m learning, I’m learning pang’ono pang’ono (little by little, and quite slowly). I have so many ideas, but need the cultural information to proceed. We still have no equipment as the Japanese Government have not delivered their promise of funding yet. In a Malawian world, life does not happen at any speed (unless you’re being driven on their roads).

1 did, however, manage to film two short condom ads before my return to Europe, and they are currently being used at the MVU showings. My original idea was totally turned round as it wouldn’t be appropriate in Malawi, and I had to film it a second time as the actor they gave me the first time for a ‘wise man’ didn’t look old enough - he wasn’t grey, therefore not wise enough.

Being asked for money continually happens. I think the first English young children are taught in school is ‘Give me money’. It becomes frustrating at times being the rich white, but when you know you can offer a friend five pounds for his son’s hospital bill that he couldn’t afford, you realise just how lucky you are.

Today I had a break-through in furniture. I have just been to pick up a sofa and table and chairs. It has only taken a few months! 1 will no longer have to place visitors on the floor. They will still have to have a cold shower though! I do, however, feel quite guilty as I know all around me people do not have such luxuries. The Western want is still in me. I am in a situation where I have almost everything I want in town, but I have to remind myself that I don’t actually need it.

A colleague from work got married in July, and so I was able to be part of a Malawian wedding. It went on for several hours, with lots of dancing and giving of money and gifts. By having an ‘azungu’ at the wedding, Richwell’s status rocketed with his father-in-law!

Although my work has not taken me so far in Malawi the last few weeks, at weekends I have managed a couple of trips to the lake. A group of us went for a visit round the Malawian Sugar Cane Company (SUCOMA), visited Nyala Park to see zebras and giraffes, and stayed within another National Park, taking an early morning walk with the wildlife. I have also visited a Traditional Healer, which was quite disturbing. It wasn’t that people were ill, but they were told they weren’t human or there was nothing he could do, sending them away to die. People put a lot of faith in Traditional Healers, and to feel that some people were going away believing everything he had said was frightening.

We hear glimpses of the famine and cholera crises in the country, but I’m still not quite sure anyone knows the true story. The papers here do not tell the truth, and can sometimes be very damaging, hiding the truth, or relying too much on their cultural or religious beliefs.

I realise it may be quite busy with new terms, so I hope I haven’t gone on too much. I hope all goes well. I’m off to the lake for the weekend in a couple of hours before it gets dark at 6.00.

1 look forward to all the messages from wherever, no matter how trivial, particularly news from old students making their way to uni or travelling.

Pitani bwino nonse.

Helen

30 August 2002