My Pups

 

 

 

Living in the Twilight Zone

Congrats to all of you who also ‘survived’ Judgment Day. And as the Malawi Sunday Times headline so eloquently stated; this was an epic fail.

It’s an interesting time to be here in Malawi (although my mother may beg to differ).

Since the diplomatic debacle where the British High Commissioner was sent packing; Britain along with several other EU countries have suspended aid to Malawi:

http://nyasatimes.com/national/britain-germany-and-eu-cut-aid-to-malawi.html

Although President Bingu won’t admit it, this is a huge blow for Malawi. It has also left some of my expatriate friends wondering about their contracts. There is a lot of uncertainty at the moment. How much worse can things get? I have a feeling this is only the beginning.


The current lack of funds in the government these days is being taken out on motorists:

“The Government has . . . asked the police force to intensify traffic patrols and raise money on the spot from offending motorists. The city streets are awash with traffic police hoping someone would not have their vehicle papers in order or over speeding and fine them K5000. The police force is under instruction to raise K28 million every week and immediately remit the same to the Ministry of Finance.”

As if the police don’t harass us enough already. Even if everything is in order, they are now scouring for anything they can to get money out of us. I once had a police officer, frustrated he couldn’t find anything out of order with my car resort to saying: “Well, your car is really dirty.” I’ve also heard via a friend who works for the IMF that the next fuel crisis hitting Malawi soon will be crippling. I’ve bought a bicycle.


To add to Bingu’s charm these days, in true Mugabe style, Bingu went ahead to publically compare homosexuals to dogs recently:

http://www.nyasatimes.com/national/malawi-leader-says-homosexuals-worse-than-dogs.html

I have no idea why people think he is intolerant. Last year Malawi made headlines around the world as two homosexual men were jailed for getting engaged publically. The two men were released after Bingu caved to international pressure. I can’t help but wonder if this was to be case today whether the outcome would be the same. Make no mistake, this issue also reverberates through the international community.


Anyway . . onto more personal news. My beautiful dog Tess had 6 beautiful strong part ridgeback puppies on May 27th. They are lovely, and I'm a touch obsessed with them. They haven't opened their eyes yet, but I can see them getting bigger by the day. I will keep one for myself, so any name suggestions are welcome. My oldest friend in the world, Andrea got married on the long weekend. I was extremely sad to miss it - but the pictures look stunning. On this weekend past, my running friend Charlotte from Toronto ran her first Marathon in Ottawa. I'm extremely proud and she is such an inspiration for me. I will get there. My work life is still a touch upside-down, but work is slowly progressing. I will need an entire post just to talk about work. In the meantime, I'm trying to keep my head in a good space, and out of the Lilongwe poison!

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Hard Road

One thing I feel about my life here is it comes in waves. Hectic waves. Boring waves. Bar waves. Staying home waves. Running waves. NON-running waves. Last week started great – gym, Hashing, running. Then it just fell apart. I miss the Running Room and I miss having a plan and a schedule. My friend Kate who works at the Wildlife Centre has told me they are in charge of organizing a marathon in Lilongwe in September. Can I do it? I’m not sure yet. Its tight on training considering I’m starting from pretty much scratch. I have to mentally commit. That is a difficult difficult thing to do. In Toronto, I had the Running Room – I miss my running friends and the motivation they gave me. You feel like you are in something together. Running alone is hard – especially long distances. When I was easily pounding out the kilometers at the Running Room in a group, even a measly 5km by myself could still be torturous. I also don’t want to fail at my first marathon attempt as I feel like that would fuel my running negative self-talk to a debilitating level. I’m not completely shutting out the possibility, but I’ve got to commit myself.

Despite the fact I JUST had a Lilongwe break I feel like I desperately need another one. Lilongwe can be extremely suffocating. I find myself and others tend to take on a ‘Oh, screw it’ attitude sometimes here. I am more than guilty. Today is not going the way I planned, ah screw it. In Malawi it is incredible how you can work all day, yet get nothing accomplished. I don’t even know what happened last week. Even my Canadian friends here has his facebook status today as “You know when you’re just like “F it?” Ya …. Looking forward to a distraction free week.” As an expat community, sometimes I think we all need to figure out a better way to deal with our stress. A few of my friends and I have been trying to channel our frustrations into working out/running . . . but like last week, I was inevitably bitten by the “screw it” bug. Kate and I started off this week with a 6:30am run this morning (beautiful temperature!) and have planned for another on Wednesday. Hopefully we will be able to keep positive spirits this week.

The title of my post I felt fitting. Mostly because I have revived my love affair with Sam Roberts (I miss Canadian music!) and I’ve been relating to all of his lyrics these days (“… cause there’s no road that ain’t a hard road to travel on …”). I feel like its been a long hard road to where I am now. I have a long hard road ahead. I’m watching a lot of my friends here battle the same things I have, and the same things I will. But as Sam would say “… stay true to your friends, cause they’ll save you in the end.” We’re all in this together guys.
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Malawi and UK ... If you can't play nice, then don't play at all!

You! Get out!

http://www.nyasatimes.com/politics/malawi-issues-official-deportation-order-to-british-diplomat.html

Fine. You get out too!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/mobile/world-africa-13205729


As much as we expats and Malawians all make the obvious jokes on the issue (“Did Fergus fart and get deported?” . . . “But what about the Royal Wedding Garden Party at British Consulate?” - the party did happen by the way but all Malawian government officials invites were withdrawn), this is actually getting pretty serious. Things are already not great in Malawi: no fuel, no forex and apparently we are one bad harvest season away from another famine. So potentially losing our biggest foreign donor over a leaked cable that criticized the President is a big deal. Bingu’s inability to take criticism has now resulted in something that will likely have a major impact on Malawi’s people, and as usual – it will be the poorest of the poor who suffer. Bingu will still have his private jet to run away on when the going gets tough. Before this incident, donors had begun to speak out against Bingu, and talks of pulling aid had already started after Bingu told his supporters that they should “discipline” people who were against his regime. In addition, a protest against the on-going fuel crisis here in Malawi was squashed and organizers arrested before it even began. Will my blog posts be the next to be censored? And as we plod along, unable to protest, unable to speak out, Bingu is lining up his brother to be the next President. And do we really think China can fill the UK’s shoes in donor aid? I’m not overly aware of China’s presence here in Malawi. All I do know is that they are building a 5-star hotel . . . and the majority of the labour being used is Chinese . . . and they are refusing to install any of the electrical fixtures in the hotel (which is very expensive). I’m not convinced that relying on China is the smartest idea.

Ran with Kate and Sinead this past week and chatted Malawi politics. Nothing like fueling your anger during a run to keep you going! Still fighting with motivation issues.

Starting from Scratch Sucks . . .

I rolled out of bed this morning at 8:15am for a run which was quite impressive considering I tossed and turned half the night. My run however was less than impressive (I’m not going to embarrass myself at this point by disclosing my time and distance). Despite at the moment having relatively cool mornings and evenings, by the time I hit the road at 8:30am, it was already hot. That’s the issue with running in Malawi; unless you are running at 6am it’s always hot. Yesterday I had another less than impressive workout at the gym. I think it was the first time I’ve ever praised ESCOM (Malawi’s Electric Company) for cutting the power while I was on the treadmill. Starting from pretty much scratch is not fun; which should be motivation to not let my running fall by the wayside again. Overwhelmed by guilt for leaving my dog Tess for a week while I was in Harare, I took her on the run this morning. This is something I usually immediately regret after I do it. She is either dragging me ahead faster than I want to run, tripping me up with her erratic direction changes, or bringing me to a full stop while she sniffs around in the grass. She will get better eventually right?

I also seem to have injured my back over the last few days so it’s making everything a little more difficult. In an attempt to speed up the healing process, I used my massive bathtub for the first time. I also made use of one of my many essential oils (lavender) that my friend Jenna Smith sent me away with when I left Canada. According to the information she prepared for me it’s supposed to be calming, an anti-inflammatory and promote healing. I’m wondering if I should just stick to swimming till my back heals a little.

The upcoming week will likely be a bit nuts following up my trip to Harare and the long Easter weekend.

Keep Calm and Carry On

While we are on the topic of mantras; this is one I’ve been trying out. God knows, I’ve struggled with it. It’s very difficult to not let things get to me, but I’m trying. With the issues and challenges I have faced over the last few months; I wish I had remembered to run it over in my head more frequently.

In a completely different scenario, I found I had to run this saying over in my head this morning as I was looking for office furniture. I had a pamphlet from my boss for a place called ‘Dyco’ he had visited several years back. When I arrived I found out it was an office, not a showroom. This is pretty much how our conversation went:

Me: Do you sell office furniture?
Man at desk: Yes
Me: Do you have a showroom where I can see the furniture?
Man at desk: Not really. This is one of our desks (points to desk he is sitting at)
Me: Do you have a price list?
Man at desk: What is it that you want?
Me: I need a lot of things. I need to know what you have available. What do you have?
Man at desk: Well, we have executive desks (*points to single photo hanging on the wall*)
Me: You don’t have a price list? Handout? Pamphlet? Catalog?
Man at desk: Not really
Me: *deep breath* Have a good day

These people can’t be serious. Holding down my frustration in situations like this that make absolutely no sense to me is a challenge. How do you EVER sell ANY furniture like that? But ‘Keep Calm and Carry On.’

Tomorrow is my last day in Harare . . . Here are a few things I’ve enjoyed here:

1. Footing it: When I lived in Toronto, I walked everywhere. I’ve spent the majority of my time in Harare walking – and loved it.
2. Being in a big city: Again, Toronto I miss you.
3. Spending time alone
4. Knowing no one and no one knowing me: It’s a nice change from the LLW scene.
5. SPAR: oh the selection . . . they even have a good selection of magazines!
6. Take-away coffee: Nothing beats browsing with coffee
7. Reading the newspaper: Favourite quote from Mugabe’s speech on Independence Day directed towards the former colonial power: “Shut your stupid mouths.” Bingu must have heard the speech and followed suit.
8. Bronte Garden Hotel: Where I have sat to use the internet every day. They have great salads and a beautiful garden – which has provided me with inspiration for my garden in Malawi.

Newsworthy Today from Malawi . . .

All the good stuff happens when I'm away ....

http://www.nyasatimes.com/national/malawi-expels-british-diplomat-given-48hrs.html