Sheltering Sky
"He did not think of himself as a tourist; he was a traveller. The difference is partly one of time, he would explain. Whereas the tourist generally hurries back home at the end of a few weeks or months, the traveller, belonging no more to one place than to the next, moves slowly, during periods of years, from one part of the earth to another. Indeed, he would have found it difficult to tell, among the many places he had lived, precisely where it was he had felt most at home". PAUL BOWLES
Today I had the best class of economics of my life. Talking to small farmers in Malawi I learned more about the roots of poverty than in all my years of university. Raw economics at its most basic, and yet so complicated.I visited a small development project that provides water pumps and training to smallholder farmers so that they can increase their food production and income. Action Aid Malawi wants to ask the European Commission for funds to scale up the scheme and reach more farmers. That’s one of the projects I’m working on, so I insisted on visiting some farmers already benefiting from the aid. After lunch, Edson took me outside Lilongwe to see a small village.
We rode for a while through sandy roads. When we arrived the sun was on its way down and the air fresh. Kids were playing around, women came from the fields. The village is simple, huts and maize fields, they have no running water or electricity. This is less than an hour away from the capital. Around 80% of Malawians live like this. It looked peaceful and nice. All villagers were excited at our arrival, joked with us, and were very keen to show me how the water pumps worked. They laughed all the time, as the majority of Malawians that I’ve met so far do. The children got very excited when they saw themselves on the display of my digital camera and kept on posing and asking for more. When they saw the pictures they all went screaming at once ‘yeeeaahhh’.
With a small investment farmers have an incredible return. Together with the water pumps, they are provided with seeds and fertilizer to diversify their crops away from maize. They showed me their tomatoes, cabbages, onions, beans and Irish potatoes. The whole aid package costs around 250 EUR per farmer, and they pay part of it themselves so that they feel the ownership. Villagers told me that they had increased their incomes by at least three times since the introduction of the new scheme. They don’t depend just on rains any more and Malawi has plenty of fresh water. It was amazing.Edson -food rights specialist at Action Aid Malawi- had explained me on the way to the village how the system works. Once the food is produced there are still loads of obstacles to market it and get a decent price in return. At the end of the harvesting season farmers are desperate to get some cash, so they usually sell all the produce at a very low price. As part of the project we will provide farmers with storage facilities and food processing capabilities. I got very enthusiastic.
On the way back we talked about Africa: women, children, condoms. When I mentioned how modern relationships work in Europe Edson asked me surprised: “And what does the Church say about it?”In the morning, before the filed visit, we had a meeting with some local associations to discuss the project. I felt useful and nice. I was happy to be where I was.
previous posts
the place where I come from: older posts
- August 2005
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