An interesting news story that you may have heard about in the last month is the case of two guys in Malawi who were sentenced by Malawi’s courts to 14 years imprisonment for being gay. They were subsequently pardoned by the president after immense pressure by the international donor community , human rights groups and, ultimately, Ban Ki-moon, the UN General Secretary. Now, as someone that grew up in a reasonably liberal society I certainly don’t agree with the conviction, but there are so many ironic aspects to this story, on both sides, that I feel they are worthy of mention.
First, the fact that the British government were getting involved, warning that aid to Malawi would be restricted if the laws of the country were not changed, when the law that was used to convict the two guys was a British law dating back to the colonial days...we forget that it’s not so long ago that you could go to prison in the UK for being openly gay... Next, is the fact that men share a very close relationship with other men in Malawi due, in part, to the ‘separation’ of men and women (a womans place is still very much in the home) – most bars and clubs that you go to are frequented only by men and a few prostitutes – when you look on the dancefloor you see a lot of men dancing very closely together, hugging and holding hands. If you took a snap-shut you would think you were in a gay club, and yet, if you question any of the men what they thought about the gay conviction, 99% would support it and claim that homosexuality is a disease from America/the West. They will claim that it goes against their culture, indeed, against African culture – an imported disease/idea from the West...and yet I feel that the root cause of a lot of the homophobic attitudes actually come from the West, via Christian bible teaching. Malawi, like many other African countries, is bursting with ‘missionaries’, particularly evangelical churches from America – strict conservatives who empathise the ‘one man – one woman’ relationship and that homosexuality is wrong. Almost all Malawians go to church and really follow and believe what is preached – no questions asked. [having said that, the ‘one man – one woman’ idea doesn’t seem to have taken hold that much...!]. Finally, after all the noise that human rights groups around the world were making, telling the two convicted gays to stand up for their beliefs and condemning the Malawian government for its actions, one of the recently released ‘gays’ has promptly married a woman ‘pleasuring her up to 4 times a night’ according to the national newspaper here... So, it seems, he wasn’t gay after all...maybe he was just after his 15 minutes in the spotlight...or maybe he was given a pill in prison to cure him of his ‘disease’...?!?!?
A few amusing ‘only in Africa’ moments from the last 4 months:
Squash matches being temporarily interrupted by bats...then birds...and finally cockroaches on the court..!
Golf matches being temporarily interrupted by monkeys running across the green...!
Getting stopped by police, reprimanded for not having my driving license on me...then entering into a 20 minute discussion about why I am not married, and that I need to hurry up and get a wife...apparently not being married at my age was worse than violating traffic laws..
Getting stopped by the police, again, and charged £20 for an insurance sticker falling off my windscreen...until eventually negotiating a £4 bribe after a 40 minute stand-off...
Taking a road trip with a Malawian friend in a car that had recently returned from being repaired after a fairly serious accident...the airbag in the steering wheel and dash-board having been ‘stiched’ together...the windscreen wiper lever missing, promptly starts raining and having to operate the wipers by holding two pieces of exposed wire together to make a connection (and several sparks)...noticing a knocking noise getting progressively worse, until I pulled over in the middle of nowhere in the dark and rain to find that the mechanic who had ‘fixed’ the car after the accident hadn’t tightened the wheel nuts correctly – the wheel was almost hanging off!...then discovering there were no tools in the car – ...waiting an hour for my friends brother to turn up with some tools, only for him to forget the tools and have to go back to get them..!
Sitting in a restaurant and watching as slowly, very slowly, the waitress wipes the left-over food on the table directly into your lap...ordering food in restaurants and not getting it...ordering food in restaurants and not getting what you ordered...
Complete and utter apathy from anyone delivering a ‘service’...even when you are going to pay them for this service and the service is to do exactly what they are paid to do anyway...
...but that’s Africa and I love it!
So, back I head to Blighty, after another incredible 4 months in another beautiful country. This time I really would like to settle back in London for a while, to earn some money (almost 24 months without earning a bean now!), to re-forge friendships and put into practice the lessons and experience I have gained over the last 2 years of adventures. Signing off.
Thursday 17 June 2010
Friday 7 May 2010
Living in a Bubble
As mentioned in my previous blog, I am living in an incredible house, with a huge veranda, garden and swimming pool. I have a cook and a security guard. I have access to a car and the majority of my friends are ex-pats. I’m having a great time...but I’m living in a bubble, a complete bubble. This is truly the other end of the ‘African experience’ scale compared to my time in Uganda and, while I’m certainly enjoying myself, I really don’t feel that comfortable. It confirms the opinion I formed when I was in Uganda – I couldn’t live in Africa long-term. Living in a village in Uganda was an incredible experience...but, ultimately, I missed showers, toilets and ovens... Living here, in a big house in Malawi, is also an incredible experience, but it just doesn’t feel real – it doesn’t feel quite right. So many of the population struggle to get access to clean drinking water, and I’m flopping about in my own swimming pool. Don’t get me wrong, I’m incredibly thankful for the opportunity to be here and, as you’ll read below, I really feel like I’m making a positive impact, however small, through the work I’m doing...but I couldn’t live here long term, cut-off from most of the ‘real’ people in the country...
...I was chatting to a friend of mine online recently and she was asking me to compare South America to Africa and which one I preferred – and I had to say South America. Why? Not because the sights in Africa are any less impressive, or the countries are less culturally interesting (in many ways they are more so), but more because I feel like I can just ‘fit’ in South America (once the Spanish is nailed) – you can merge, fully-integrate, become a local...but here, you can never really ‘fit’ – you can never really be considered as an equal with the locals – you are always going to stand out, always going to be considered different and, ultimately, I can’t live my life in that way. It’s important to integrate, to feel comfortable in your environment and to feel equal because, after all, we are all equals – no matter your job, the amount of money you have, your religion, or the colour of your skin – we are all equal!
Sorry, not a particularly original point on which to end those rambling paragraphs...I guess, as with the conclusions I drew from my musings last year, it just proves that someone, somewhere has gone through everything you are going through in your life and, thus, has drawn the same conclusions before... as the human race continues it’s getting increasingly hard to be original..!!
So..work..aside from ‘flopping about in my pool(!)’ I have been working incredibly hard. We have now basically set-up a consultancy company – complete with methodology, templates and processes (Accenture eat-your-heart-out!). I have just completed my first client assignment – producing a business and marketing plan for a private college offering courses in accountancy and business. Not the most exciting business, you may think, but it was a really interesting experience, not least working with, and mentoring, the apprentice consultants that we are training. I received great feedback from the client and the apprentices and I feel like I am finally doing what I thought consultancy was all about before I joined the juggernaut of Accenture – I am having a real and direct impact on businesses – helping them with planning and strategy – making tangible changes that will directly improve their businesses and increase their profits. Yes, spreadsheets are still involved, but this time they are recording cash flow, revenue and expenses, not simply tracking the ‘RAG’ status of project activities.. (apologies for those that have no idea what I am talking about – in essence I’m enjoying what I’m doing, I’m making an impact, I’m doing what I wanted to do when I chose consultancy as a career choice – I’m helping to improve the performance of a business and, thus, the lives of the owners, through direct and practical advice. It feels pretty good and I am feeling something I lost a long time ago with this profession – I feel passionate about what I’m doing).
Something else I’m feeling passionate about is the impending World Cup in South Africa! World Cup fever is well and truly taking hold here and, having extended my stay until mid-June, I am going to at least experience the first few games of the competition In Africa – it’s going to be a cracking atmosphere, can’t wait!
On the social side I have been making the most of my weekends – this really is a beautiful country (see pics). Nothing quite beats driving into a game park in the same vehicle you use to drive to work and coming face-to-face with a ruddy great elephant!! This weekend I am off to climb a mountain to celebrate my birthday in style...29...bloody ‘ell...!!
...I was chatting to a friend of mine online recently and she was asking me to compare South America to Africa and which one I preferred – and I had to say South America. Why? Not because the sights in Africa are any less impressive, or the countries are less culturally interesting (in many ways they are more so), but more because I feel like I can just ‘fit’ in South America (once the Spanish is nailed) – you can merge, fully-integrate, become a local...but here, you can never really ‘fit’ – you can never really be considered as an equal with the locals – you are always going to stand out, always going to be considered different and, ultimately, I can’t live my life in that way. It’s important to integrate, to feel comfortable in your environment and to feel equal because, after all, we are all equals – no matter your job, the amount of money you have, your religion, or the colour of your skin – we are all equal!
Sorry, not a particularly original point on which to end those rambling paragraphs...I guess, as with the conclusions I drew from my musings last year, it just proves that someone, somewhere has gone through everything you are going through in your life and, thus, has drawn the same conclusions before... as the human race continues it’s getting increasingly hard to be original..!!
So..work..aside from ‘flopping about in my pool(!)’ I have been working incredibly hard. We have now basically set-up a consultancy company – complete with methodology, templates and processes (Accenture eat-your-heart-out!). I have just completed my first client assignment – producing a business and marketing plan for a private college offering courses in accountancy and business. Not the most exciting business, you may think, but it was a really interesting experience, not least working with, and mentoring, the apprentice consultants that we are training. I received great feedback from the client and the apprentices and I feel like I am finally doing what I thought consultancy was all about before I joined the juggernaut of Accenture – I am having a real and direct impact on businesses – helping them with planning and strategy – making tangible changes that will directly improve their businesses and increase their profits. Yes, spreadsheets are still involved, but this time they are recording cash flow, revenue and expenses, not simply tracking the ‘RAG’ status of project activities.. (apologies for those that have no idea what I am talking about – in essence I’m enjoying what I’m doing, I’m making an impact, I’m doing what I wanted to do when I chose consultancy as a career choice – I’m helping to improve the performance of a business and, thus, the lives of the owners, through direct and practical advice. It feels pretty good and I am feeling something I lost a long time ago with this profession – I feel passionate about what I’m doing).
Something else I’m feeling passionate about is the impending World Cup in South Africa! World Cup fever is well and truly taking hold here and, having extended my stay until mid-June, I am going to at least experience the first few games of the competition In Africa – it’s going to be a cracking atmosphere, can’t wait!
On the social side I have been making the most of my weekends – this really is a beautiful country (see pics). Nothing quite beats driving into a game park in the same vehicle you use to drive to work and coming face-to-face with a ruddy great elephant!! This weekend I am off to climb a mountain to celebrate my birthday in style...29...bloody ‘ell...!!
Sunday 14 March 2010
Back to Africa...
So, here I am, back in deepest, darkest Africa...this time in the ‘warm heart of the continent’ – Malawi. Yep, after 6 months back in Blighty I decided to pack my bags again and head to Malawi after an opportunity came up to work on a development initiative funded by the Scottish government (oddly, the Scottish parliament have their own development fund separate to the UK-wide DFID fund...something, I suspect, with them wanting to think they are independent nation - bless 'em..!!).
The idea of the project is to train a small group of Malawians in the principles of being Business Consultants to serve the thriving MSME sector in Malawi (MSME = Micro, Small and Medium sized enterprises...’Micro’ being one or two man bands...Medium being up to 100 employees). So, myself and a couple of other consultants are out here putting the training materials together whilst also meeting with prospective clients in the MSME sector to tee-up some work. The training programme will be a mixture of classroom based training and ‘on-the-job’ training (i.e. we will work with the Malawian guys on consulting assignments to build their practical skills and apply what they are learning in the classroom). It’s a 2 year programme, with the intention of different UK consultants coming out every 3 months...my initial contract is, thus, just for 3 months.
It’s a really interesting project, well, it is for me anyway, and kind of ties in with what we do with wannabeamazin out in Uganda – the idea of our wannabeamazin programmes is to encourage creativity in the children which we target. A big problem in Africa, in my opinion, that I noted in Uganda and is apparent here too, is that the way children are educated here really stifles creativity. It is based on the English system 100 years ago – everything is dictated by the teacher and the students simply copy the lessons down word-for-word and learn it ‘parrot-fashion’. I really feel strongly that the governments here need to do a huge review of the education system and teaching methods because what this produces is a workforce that can only do what they are told, following rules or simply copying others.
Conversely, people here are very entrepreneurial – much more so than in the UK, partly, I think, out of necessity due to low-wages. Almost everyone has some kind of business (hence the thriving MSME sector) - even if they are employed, everyone you meet will be selling something to supplement their income. The issue, and one that our programme is looking to tackle, is that knowledge of basic business principles is not that high and creativity is also lacking...culturally, too, people are disadvantaged as it is not in their nature to ‘plan’ – again this is partly due to the hand-to-mouth existence that many people live here – but, when it comes to business, it causes problems as the old adage of having to ‘speculate to accumulate’ is not ingrained into their psyche. (Of course, as with any stereotypes, I am generalising, I am not saying this applies to everyone here, and those that are fortunate enough to go to higher education are a different kettle of fish...but, in my experiences, I would say it’s the majority of the population).
Another cause of the apparent lack of creativity is more a consequence of lack of exposure to different ideas that provide the spark for a new way of thinking. One of the elders in Bajjo village in Uganda made this point to me last time I was there – and I think it is extremely valid. The majority of people here do not travel, rather they cannot travel due to lack of funds. People in rural areas will often only go as far as the next village or the nearest town in their lifetimes...even people that have grown up in the cities will only move in the particular region in which they are born (unless they are part of the small elite that can afford to travel abroad). The lack of exposure to new ideas, new concepts, different cultures and different ways of doing things, something that we absolutely take for granted in the West, indeed something that is very hard to appreciate because it is so ‘normal’ for us, is definitely a barrier for inspiration. Even those people that don’t travel outside their own country in the West are still exposed to an incredible array of different ideas through the medium of television, books and, of course, the internet. But most people here don’t have tv’s, they don’t have access to the internet and, due to lack of access to books, there is simply not a reading culture here (something we are attempting to tackle in Bajjo with wannabeamazin). People don’t seek to ‘teach’ themselves through books, people ‘know what they know’, or they learn through what they see others doing.
This environment leads to a lot of ‘copy-cat’ businesses – someone sees their neighbour selling tomatoes and making a bit of money, so they copy and also start selling tomatoes, rather than perhaps complement what their neighbour is doing and sell cucumbers – nothing wrong with that, but it means the markets are way over supplied, forcing prices down and spreading potential profits over a large number of people. Furthermore, people focus on the revenue they receive from sales, rather than focussing on profit...often resulting in profit margins being extremely low or even, in some cases, non-existent. So our programme is looking to address some of these issues by working with small businesses on the planning aspects and build the capacity of small business owners...as well as providing some locals with the ‘skills’ to continue providing this kind of consultancy service once we leave at the end of the 2 year funding. The ‘creativity’ aspect is, unfortunately, a much harder one to address...
So, anyway, what have I been up to since I arrived 3 weeks ago?...well, it was a bloody hectic start - talk about hitting the ground running – I flew in on 17th February - a Wednesday afternoon - I had dinner with the former high-commissioner to Malawi on Wednesday night, met the Scottish Minister for culture and external affairs on the Thursday morning (at the official launch of the programme I am working on), met 2 potential clients on the Friday and spent the rest of the weekend on the toilet feeling like shit...a year in South America and Uganda and not even a cold...2 days here and I was bed-ridden...the cause? - believing, blindly, the ex-pats and locals who swore to me the tap water was safe to drink....! Hmm, maybe if you've lived here for a few months...but not straight off the plane I think!
The second weekend was all together more pleasant – a trip to Lake Malawi (a huge lake that runs almost the entire length of the country), a spot called Cape MaClear - think sun, clear water, white sand beaches and wooden fishing boats... The rest of my time, when not in work, has been spent getting to grips with driving in Africa (we have a project car) – pot holes, dark streets, pedestrians and questionable driving practices – moving into the project house – huge veranda, massive garden and a swimming pool! – getting used to having a cook and cleaner (im certainly not slumming here – completely the other end of the scale compared to my time in Uganda) – investigating the local markets - tasting the local delicacies (still not sure what I ate, think it was the intestines of some animal), and getting involved in a local running club...
Summary: so far, so good!
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