Bigha, an arrival and Nkhata Bay (at last!)

A previous blog recorded the 'sensitisation' (awareness raising) Nkhata Bay Natural Way (NBNW) event with the local community in Kasasire.  NBNW focuses on Temwa's work to promote sustainable agriculture and forestry.  A key target group for support through NBNW is families affected by HIV/AIDS. It is estimated that 16% of the Nkhata Bay North population aged 15 to 49 have HIV/AIDS and a separate Temwa project, the Mobile Voluntary Testing and Counselling Clinics (MVTC), is aimed at prevention, diagnosis and treatment of HIV/AIDS.

Fishani (right), the project lead, on a motor bike with one of the Peer Educators, encouraging people to be tested.

The MVTC project is led by Fishani, who started with Temwa in a voluntary capacity as a Field Facilitator on the Farmers' Training Support Project, moved on to be a Field Officer, and is now Temwa's Health Project Officer.  Like most of Temwa's field officers and project officers, Fishani is from the Nkhata Bay community and therefore has a real commitment to tackling the issues his community faces (there is an interview with Fishani on the Temwa website which provides more on his background - it's at http://temwa.org/interview-with-fishani/). On Thursday he was coordinating an HIV/AIDS Testing and Counselling (HTC) session in Bigha, on the road to Usysia. Liz, who had arrived on Tuesday, and Elle, a UK volunteer working on Temwa's communications, joined him.

Watching events unfold

The event itself reflected Temwa's multi-faceted approach to addressing HIV/AIDS.  Community ownership of the challenges HIV/AIDS present is core to this and so the mobile clinics are turned into a whole community event aimed at encouraging people to test, educating people about how HIV/AIDS spreads, and addressing issues about the stigma that can be attached to people who are HIV positive.

'Shasha ndne' translates as 'wise up!'

Outside the clinic - 92 people were tested on Thursday

Market day in Bigha

The testing clinic was one of eight carried out over a period of four days, testing a total of  549 people.  Fishani plans the clinics to coincide with market day to maximise the number of people attending and, according to Liz, this together with the Temwa organised events all added up to a festival atmosphere. Peer Educators - young people from the community who have signed up as volunteers and promote understanding of HIV/AIDS issues through plays and other means - going around on motor-bikes with loud hailers encouraging people to get tested.  Temwa tee-shirts with messages about HIV/AIDS on them being handed out.  A food stall where chips are made.  People queueing for the HIV/AIDS test clinics. Children playing with and showing off their home made toys.  A play performed by the Peer Educators involving full audience participation - one scene involved one of the actors chasing another through the audience and around the village streets.  And after dark, a film show with the projector powered by a bicycle generator, with films that were a mixture of drama involving actors from the local community and interviews with local people who had been diagnosed with HIV/AIDS.  Throughout both the play and films, there was a huge amount of interaction between Fishani and audience members, with impassioned debate about the issues the play and films raised.

Chips made from 'Irish' (the local term for potatoes) are yummy

Children show off their home made trucks

Peer Educators, who sometimes walk up to 36 km to attend events, perform in their play

Lots of people from the village - and surrounding villages - turned out to watch the play

Fishani encourages audience participation during the play

Greham, one of the field officers, powers the projector whilst others watch the film

Liz's journey from London to Mzuzu had been pretty hassle free.   We're used to ten hour car journeys from London to Oban, followed by a five hour boat journey to Castlebay - or seven hours if via Lochboisdale. So a six hour flight to Addis Ababa followed by a four hour flight to Lilongwe followed by a five hour car journey (Thumbiko who had picked me up from Lilongwe picked Liz up from the airport) is not that different - although a four hour wait at Addis Ababa starting at 6am is not everybody's cup of tea.  Liz was feeling bright enough to do the 20 minute walk to the Macondo Camp restaurant which has comfortable outside seating in what feels a very secluded area and lovely Italian food, with meal and drinks for two costing 12,000 kwacha (around £14) - what's not to like?  She's had a pretty full on week what with finding her way around Mzuzu on Wednesday and the trip to Bigha (they left about 1pm and got back about 9pm).  But she wants to make full use of her time whilst she is here. She met Steve and Rose from a Mzuzu based charity, 'Wells for Zoe', on Friday and will be looking into what other opportunities there are this week. So watch this space to find out what she ends up doing.

In the meantime, we got away for our promised trip to Nkhata Bay which lived up to all the hype. Mind you, getting there and back was pretty hair raising.  Shared taxis are the mode of travel and very cheap - 250 kwacha each (30 pence) to get into town and a further 1,300 kwacha each (£1.60) to get the 50 odd km from Mzuzu to Nkhata Bay.  But the taxis are not in brilliant shape; they are overcrowded (on the way back we had 9 adults and a baby in a small 7 seater with Liz and me crushed in the back two seats alongside a third passenger); they travel an average of 60 km per hour along pot-hole filled roads avoiding all sorts of obstacles (stationary lorries, people on bicycles and foot, monkeys - I thought they were dogs at first - hens, cows and so on).

Windscreen of 7 seater we got back from Nkhata Bay (before we set off) - luckily this is the passenger side!

We stayed at Njaya Lodge which is a couple of kilometres out of Nkhata Bay.  We had our own small apartment with views through trees out to the Lake, our own semi private beach, and sight of numerous colourful lizards sun-bathing on the rocks (and the occasional larger monitor lizard scuttling away).  The bar/restaurant is a short walk up the hill and has a wonderful outlook over the Lake, well manicured gardens and great food (fish from the Lake and those yummy chips).  Nkhata Bay faces east across Lake Malawi so there is no sunset - but we decided to get up for sunrise (around 5.30am) and were not disappointed.

View from our apartment at Njaya Lodge

One of many multi-coloured lizards sunbathing on the rocks

Sun rise over Lake Malawi (as witnessed from the balcony of our apartment)

Men firing bricks near Njaya Lodge

The brick kiln

Men mending their fishing nets on Chikale Beach, next to Njaya Lodge

Mangoes ripening on Chikale Beach 

Dixon, who works at Njaya Lodge and took us to watch  Swansea v Arsenal in a backroom at Kaya Papaya restaurant in Nkhata Bay

So I'm back to work this week whilst Liz looks for a suitable volunteering role.  Another AFID (Accounting for International Development) volunteer, Julie Anderson, who will be supporting SPRODETA, an NGO working with small producers, is arriving on Wednesday so we will be helping her to settle in in Mzuzu. We managed to arrange accommodation for her with Maria, the Micro-Finance Business Manager at Temwa, so she will be staying nearby.

More to follow....