They Want a Better Life

Since I came back to Copenhagen I have received emails and text messages from the refugees in the camp practically every day. They keep on asking me what I can do to help them and I am getting quite desperate. Until now I have been patiently explaining that I was there to tell their story to the others and I would do my best in doing so. But now I feel most powerless and have no idea how to answer their everyday prayers. How can I make them understand that I am not a god and cannot take them to a safe heaven?

Yet they keep on hoping. Just to let you know how badly they want a better life I am attaching two images that I received from one of the refugees today.

And they have no idea that Denmark looks nothing like the skyscrapers on the picture or that, although I do have an undoubtedly better life here, I am still an immigrant with dim possibilities of becoming a citizen of this country. They don’t know. For them, I am a path to a better world - the world that they might never have.

I am wondering what happened with the Malawian refugee experience that was so great in the past during the flow of the Mozambican refugees at the time of the civil war in Mozambique (1986-1994), accompanied by a very successful integration of them into the local population and and even more successful repatriation in the end of the war. The same refugee act that has been in place for 20 years is still in power (even though it is currently under revision) but the refugees are not that welcome anymore. I got my answer at the Malawian Ministry of Security and Home Affairs. “Mozambicans are our blood! They speak our language and excercize our traditions. The Congolese are different.” And that was the official verdict.

A temporary status of a refugee seems to make no sense here. These people wait for something that might not ever come. Some of them have applied for the official refugee status but never heard back. According to the reports, less than a third of the camp population has a status. Practically it does not matter much: the asylum seekers receive just as much help as the refugees. But should anything happen, they are at the bottom of the list.

I was leaving the camp with sorrow and a deep respect for people who work there long term, including the wonderful JRS staff, Red Cross, local Malawian volunteers, WFP and UNHCR. You need to possess a true strength and ability to distance yourself from human suffering to be able to be productive. They do a tremendous job. One step at a time.

Probably the only ‘place of choice’ the refugees have

Dinner at Christopher’s

Christopher, our JRS gardener, was a perfect representative of a Malawian to me – always helpful, smiling, a hard worker and a culturally open man. Not only did he know his own culture pretty well and was willing to share it with me, he was also a great language teacher. Thanks to Chris, I learned how to start a basic conversation in chichewa. Together with his wife and daughter, little Chifundo of 1,5 years old, they formed a beautuful traditional Malawian family.

Christopher working in JRS garden

Chifundo and I

I shared my experience and pictures with Christopher almost every day. I found out that despite being a native Malawian, he has never seen the Nyasa lake. As I showed him my pictures from the trip to the lake he kept on asking me what the “white thing” was on the pictures, poining at the foam from the waves. He also asked me what we were walking on which was the wet sand. Unbelievable! A guy that knows so much has never seen a lake.

In fact, my relationship with that family was so easy that I allowed myself to come and visit their house which is right behind the JRS office, one afternoon. They were sitting on the floor in the room with no furniture and were just about to eat. They had their traditional meal standing on the ground which they offered me at a spot. It was a porridge made of maize flour and boiled fish.

“Go ahead”, he said as he showed me how they ate it by taking a lump of the porridge, putting some fish sause on it and tasting it. Discouraged by my recent food-poisoning I was not ready for a new culinary experience and agreed only to taste the meal. I did not touch the fish but I did taste the sause and nsima (the maize meal). It was more delicious than it looked.

Chifundo got a little chocolate bar from me, which she ate instantly and went back to her nsima meal. I left the young family there and returned back to the girls in JRS office.

Back in the Refugee Camp

-Jambo (Hello!)

-Jambo! Abari? (Hey, how are you?)

-Muzuri! (Fine!)

My typical in-camp conversation with the Congolese refugees. That’s about it for my vocabulary in that language! Hardly enough to get by.

I was back in the camp on Monday. Some of the kids interviewed by me before were already waiting for me by the JRS office building. Some of them called on my Malawian number to ask where I was and when they could see me. Some of them asked for my contacts (email). I was quite amazed at their technological skills. There was no Internet at the camp area but these guys accessed it by cell phones. If you gave me a cell phone and asked me to use WAP, I would not know where to start.

I am still astonished at their priorities. This is by far NOT the general rule but I never understood how some of them could have no entrance door to their house but have a cell phone with Internet, or no frying pans but a working TV. I guess the notion of necessities is different for everyone. Or maybe it is their way of maintaining the normality of life as well as they can.

First thing in the morning I went to speak to Red Cross that does all the food and supply distribution at the camp in cooperation with the World Food Program. Red Cross issues the stamps whereas the WTP does the actual foor product distribution. It takes WFP about 1 week to distribute food in the camp, which they do twice a month. Every individual at the camp receives a monthly ‘package’ consisting of 13,5 kg of maize (rice), 1,8 kg of beans, 1750 g of cooking oil, 450 g of sugar and 150g of salt. Apart from that Red Cross distributes blankets, soap, towels and cooking sets to new arrivals.

On top of supply- and food distribution Red Cross is also running community services program, including registration of newborns, training on contraception and gender-based violence and an orphan care committee. They also run recreational activities such as football games, basket weaving for women, book reading and games outside the disctrict to play with Malawians.

Last but not least, Red Cross is also responsible for tracing services, which implies finding relatives in other countries/camps to reunite families.

According to the camp administrator, the biggest refugee group at the camp are the Rwandese whose number is 3845. The Congolese follow next with the number of 2725 and the refugees from Burundi make up 2355 people. The atmosphere in the camp is generally peaceful: the refugees have seen enough of the war and conflicts. There are certainly tensions on an ehtnic basis but they do not tend to escalate.

The camp library

15 refugees preparing to go to Canada for university studies

After interviewing the Camp Administration, Red Cross and the World Food Program I took off on a walk in the camp to visit some of my new acquaintances, Oliver and Espoir. On my way there I was ‘attacked’ by cute kids who just loved my camera:

The kid on the right ran up to me wanting to be photographed. When I asked the others what he had on his head someone told me it was medicine to treat burns.

Little kids at the camp, one of them holding a mandazi in a plastic bag- an African doughnut.

Finding Oliver’s house was easy: I already knew my route to the ‘Karonga’ district of the camp. Besides, kids that I met on the way were nice enough to follow me there so that I did not get lost.

“God, please let us live in peace together”

Having spent some time there I went to visit Espoir’s house, accompanied by my informants Oliver, Mugisha and Espoir, all over the camp:

From left to right: Mugisha, me, Espoir, Oliver in front of Espoir’s house

After a delicious lunch at my favourite Chibani’s I went to talk to the clinical officer at the local hospital donated by UN High Commissioner for Refugees in 2003 which is avaibale both to the refugees and the local Malawian population.

Local hospital room

The clinical officer Mr. Katuli was most kind to have a talk with me. The line of patients was quite long when I came to see him and I felt bad as he left them all waiting to talk to me about the hospital activities. A tired man with incredibly kind eyes, he thanked me for coming and asking about the hospital.

I was surprised to know that they had no doctors at this hospital; it was run purely by largely uneducated clinical assistants and Mr. Katuli who received a clinical officer education and 3 years of experience in the field. They had 4 nurses though including one dealing with the family planning. They were treating immediate minor injuries and giving vaccinations. People with serious illnesses are sent to a district hospital 9 km away from the camp.

Since 2003 the hospital has had 17.166 references from Malawians  and 9.700 from the refugees. I was assured by Mr. Katuli that there was absolutely no difference in treatment for Malawians or refugees. The most common problem of the hospital, according to Mr. Katuli, is that the refugees come with any other demands than medical: complaints of malnutrition, lack of blankets and cooking facilities, etc. One of them even came with a demand of a pineapple. “Refugees will hardly tell you the truth about their lives as it is,” he concludes.

I wonder how much I should trust the stories that I got from the refugees that have now become my friends. I have no possibility or capacity to verify whether what I heard was true and I have to rely on what I heard, and on my basic knowledge of history and politics in Africa, to communicate the right story.

Sunday Bao Game

I decided to spend my Sunday in the best Sunday tradition – relaxed!

Sunday started off with a nice acquaintace over breakfast. I was asking a waiter where I could exchange money on a Sunday in Lilongwe, having received an answer that the only option was a black market outside. A few seconds later I heard a pleasant female voice: “How much do you need?” and as I turned around a saw a woman having breakfast at the next table. I realized that I did not even need to leave the hotel: the black market was right there. Ruth turned out to be an English journalist shooting a film for a regional TV station on a food program in Malawi.

It was the day when it hit me how distant from each other the black Malawian community and the white expat community seemed to be. It only started to make sense to me later, when I realized that it was probably due to the traditional (post)colonial mentality. Particularly, the local notion of a ‘white man’ as a powerful benefactor and a problem-solver. It was practically impossible to obtain a local acquaintance without them tapping you on a shoulder with a friendly “goodbye” and almost necessarily adding a by the way…what follows after that varies in content but it can be anything from be my sponsor or help me with business/education/better life/take me where you live, etc. Their reasons for doing it are completely understandable but it does get quite annoying indeed when you have heard it from the 99% of your new ‘friends’.

After breakfast, I decided to prove myself wrong and show how one can blend in. I hit the local market of the wooden African things right by the hotel. Guys selling their merchandize already knew my name (although I think I only mentioned it to one of them) and all kept on saying “Mazuka bwanji, (Good morning), Anastasia!” They also shook my hand in a special Malawian manner (grabbing you palm – your thumb - your palm again) and I felt like on of the ‘guys’. At the same time it was a little awkward as I had no idea who some of them were! They pulled on of those gorgeous wooden African chairs and let me sit on it. One of the guys brought a bao game – a traditional Southeast African game played with coffee beans. They told me that its name was derived from a tradition of playing it under the baobabs. One of the guys was trying to teach me how to play but I was a slow learner and his English was hopeless. 5 minutes later I felt bad for both of us so I looked around for help. And then I saw a rasta market guy walking around humming “I shot sheriff…” I nearly jumped up and immediately asked him to teach me how to play. The choice was perfect: not only was his English amazing but he turned out to be a perfect teacher too. So I spent 3 hours playing the game. 1:2 to me was pretty good for a start even though they probably let me win. My teacher – Osman- was one of the most pleasant acquiaintances for me in Malawi.

Sunday Bao Game

Then I went up to Kiboko hotel and had a (fatal) lunch with Meghan. The dutch pancake with chicken tasted good but it nearly killed me later in the evening. And who could have thought that I could have a food poisioning from quite a decent hotel? I was out listening to Sunday jazz with some new Dutch and American friends of mine when it hit me that something strange was happening to me. As I tried to reach the bathroom, the lights went off as they so often do in Malawi and I had to search for it in the dark but I just HAD to find it. At one moment I was not sure whether it was dark in my eyes or the lights were out at all. I  shortly collapsed on the toilet floor. When I ‘woke up’ again a couple of minutes later, I literally crawled out of the lady’s room and fell on the wooden bench by my friends. At that moment I was terrified by the fact that I only had 3 days left of my trip and still lots of interviews to do, both in the camp and out. I could not afford to be that sick. Needless to say, I was taken back to the hotel and spent most of my evening in bed. It is unbelievable but I was fine the next day and on my way to the camp again.

The Sight of Lake Nyasa

Lake Nyasa occupies about 20% of Malawi’s territory. It is a gorgeous site worth visiting and when Michelle offered to take us there on a Saturday, I was not even thinking of a ‘no’. The day was sunny and perfect so the six of us took off in a minibus.

Malawian villages on our way there were the most fascinating sight of all. As we approached the lake, the number of Malawians on bicycles have surpassed my expectations. As an every day biker back in Copenhagen, I almost felt like at home.

The image of the lake was indescribable. In fact, it looked nothing like the lake. The waves were huge and the waterline stretched through the horizon. The only thing that actually reminded me that it in fact was a lake was the fresh (non-salty) water.

The waves were just amazing: I only lacked a surfing board to have an ultimate holiday. And they did feel amazing until someone told be about…the bacteria! I was so terrified by their possible effect that I did not even catch the name of it. Apparently it gets under your skin and causes sickness. No need to mention that I got out of the water immediately and forgot all about the waves. And to think that I even tasted the water! Ewww…

After spending some time on the shore we drove to a secluded place on the water to have luch. A perfect place to be surrounded by a guesthouse where you can stay from only $3 per night! We had some drinks and the delicious local fish called chambo for lunch, and headed home to reach Lilongwe before dark.

Our lunch place on the lake

Day 4 – Tourist Flop

There are lots of fascinating things about Malawi but the local Internet connection is, to put it mildly, driving me crazy. I am starting to consider anger management classes as I have nearly smashed my laptop after trying to connect to the wireless this morning for three hours. Oh well, the only connection available at this part of the Earth is a satellite connection, so I guess I should blame NASA for this one.

 

(To tell you the truth, the Skyband card that I purchased at the hotel was a hopeless waste of money but I managed to catch someone else’s wireless waves practically all the time. As long as I did that from the shower. Not the most compfortable place to be with your laptop at but something lost – something gained: a universal balance in action.)

 

View of the square from Kiboko hotel

 

I saw my new acquaintance this morning- a ’double refugee’ Taiko. We agreed to meet some time during the day so that I could take a photo of him but I could never imagine he would turn up knocking at my hotel room door at 6.53 a.m.! I was just getting into the shower. I guess I have to get used to the hard fact that most locals do not have a night life: they go to bed with the dark and get up with the light.

 

Trapped in the minibus

 

I took a public minibus to the office today for the first time. The vehicle was packed, and I was at the bottom of it as I realized that I would need to remove at least 7 people to be able to get out at my stop. As it happens, I completely forgot the name of my stop during the ride and had to ask them to stop at “that white thing looking like an ancient Greek entrance”. Yet it was a nice ride: I love how easygoing Malawians are, I felt nothing but a regular passenger – just like them.

 

With kids at a local flea market in Lilongwe

 

At the moment I am occupying my favorite and self-chosen office space – the kitchen. I am closer to the water boiler and the modem here. So here I am, with the open door to the garden, cool African wind coming in, smelling of hash. I was assured by Jason though that the smell was nothing else than burning grass…

 

Today is also a day when I flopped as a tourist. Having been around my neighborhood I was ready to explore the other city horizons and go and see what was happening in the City Center part of Lilongwe. So I packed lightly but wisely, took my camera and went on my journey. It took me around 20 minutes on a minibus to get to the destination, when I looked out of the car, observed the green area and, without getting off, told the driver to take me back to the Old Town. So much for the City Center: a few higher-storey buildings in bushes. In other words, there was nothing to see.

 

The most pleasant experience of the day was perhaps our regional director’s invitation for dinner to a really nice and quite fancy (in Malawian standards) Indian restaurant. We got to speak about her work and I cannot stop thinking how robust and strong she should be to be able to cope with all the problems that lie on her. 

 

Weekend is coming up, and it means that I will only be able to proceed with my camp research on Monday. Lake Malawi is on the program tomorrow, reportedly quite a gorgeous site. More updates on Sunday, if I can get a www on.

Faces of Africa

The following stories are the narratives of the people who were waiting for me outside the JRS office on my first day at Dzaleka refugee camp. I had no intention, or possibility for that matter, of checking how truthful their stories were. I was just listening to people desperate to be heard.

The stories of these psychologically disturbed kids are striking to someone from our part of the world. One day some of them had it all: private education, travels, even laptops and in a moment all of it was gone, together with their parents and families, throwing them into a tough life of an African refugee. Meet the faces of Africa.

 This is Christopher from Burundi. He is 20 years old. He’s been staying at the camp for 5 years. His past is ruined by the war, his future is unclear. The war has made him an orphan.  During the ethnic cleansing his mixed family was considered to be “unclean” as his parents belonged to two different ethnicities: his father was a hutu and his mom was a tutsi. As a result both of them were killed. Christopher fled to Tanzania where he spent 1 year before being relocated to Malawi. He is alone at the camp and has no hope for future.

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 Meet Nduwaya, 21. Dzaleka has been his home for 1 year now. Another victim of ethnic cleansing and civil war in Burundi and an orphan since 1995, when his tutsi father was brutally killed for his oppositionist political activity. His hutu mom has been missing since 1997. Despite his radiant smile he hopes for nothing and finds no strength to go to the local camp school.

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Isikyu from Burundi is 21. He has been living in Dzaleka for 4 years now. History repeats itself: he is one more victim of the war that took both of his parents. He saved himself by walking to Tanzania where he begged for assistance. The refugee situation is Tanzania was tense at the time and Isikyu was pushed back on the road again: this time his destination was Malawi. Isikyu is visibly psychologically broken by the numerous sights of deaths that he witnessed in his 21 years.

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Masabo from Burundi is 20 years old. He has spent 4 years in Dzaleka.  His family fled from ethnic clashes to Tanzania in 1972 where they stayed for over a decade. However, they had to come back to Burundi in 2003 when politics of repatriation of illegal refugees was strengthened in Tanzania. Upon return to Burundi the family discovered that their house and land were occupied by strangers. The clash resulted into attack on the family and both parents disappeared. Masabo walked back to Tanzania to save his life and get a job. “My heart has no comfort,” – he claims. – “My brain is full of things and thoughts are killing me.” Masabo has not lost joy of life – he still smiles and plays guitar- but he does not think about the future anymore. It hurts too much.

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Mugisha’s story broke my heart. He is only 15. The war in the Congo damaged him psychologically and physically (he showed me his knee that was shot). He has been in the camp since 12. At this point almost naturally, an orphan. Life in the camp is not a heaven but after hearing his story I thought thank God that he is safe and lives in peace now. Back in the days he had it all: life in abundance, air travels, private school and even a notebook. His father led political activity and was involved into human rights advocacy back in the Congo. Once in a while he would be “warned” but he never stopped. And one day all of the family was arrested and put in prison: Mugisha, his mom, two brothers and a younger sister into one cell, and his dad into a separate one. A couple of days later they took Mugisha away from his family to his mother’s cries and led him to his father’s cell where he found his dad dead on the floor in a pool of blood. His neck had a deep cut. “Look! That’s what is awaiting the rest of the family”, he heard from the soldiers. But Mugisha did not care anymore. He cried over his dad’s body until he was taken back to the cell where the rest of the family was. Soldiers would bring them food once in a while. The food was too scarce and unedible.  On one of these food deliveries, his mom got brutally raped by the soldiers in front of the kids. 9 months later she gave birth to a little girl, having died from the blood loss and malnutririon herself just two days after giving birth and leaving the baby in Mugisha’s hands to be taken care of. Mugisha did not have enough food for the baby and shrortly after, the baby died in his hands too. Staying in prison was becoming unbearable and the kids managed to get in contact with a friend of the father that arranged for them to flee from the prison in the middle of the night – Mulisha, his two brothers and a sister. The refuge failed: they were noticed by soldiers  killing them all but Mugisha who was shot in the knee and managed to save himself.  Mugisha reached Burundi’s border and found shelter with the local international NGO. They treated his knee, but it was too dangerous for him to stay, so  they gave him a $100 and their phone number and sent him away, having asked to contact them when he reached a safe destination. By the time he reached Tanzania’s border he only had 50$ left which helped him to get to Malawi. Alone, tired and shocked, he got to the camp where he received a blanket, a casserole and a frying pan.  But he hardly knew how to cook. At present he is staying with a family that has 4 kids of their own. At least he’s got some kind of home. Having been through this all, Mugisha is suffering from nightmares every night but he is a real surviver. He draws and writes poems. Carpe Diem is his pholosphy as he as noone else knows that death can come at any time. Below is a picture of Mugisha’s shot knee.

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Meet Sailas from Burundi. He is 23 and has stayed at Dzaleka for 5 years. He is (alsmost naturally!) and orphan. When ethnic cleansings in Burundi reached their peak in 1993-1996 his hutu family was destroyed. His father was brutally murdered; his mom disappeared without a trace. Sailas took off to Tanzania where he was sent to Malawi.  Lonely and psychologically broken, he still got his dream – to go and study at a university.

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Joel from Burundi is 18. His eyes tell his story without words. He’s been in the camp for 4 years. His tragedy is not only a war tragedy but a bitter family drama as well. After his mother died, his stern father took him to his step-mother’s home. Shortly after he was sent to military by his dad.  Joel fled the military service just 2 days after and took off to Tanzanias border. He was terrified of the consequences and tried to change his name – with no success. Malnutrition and lack of education is not the only thing that drills Joel’s mind. He also has to deal with the bitterness of the fact that his father hates him for nothing.

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Ndayizeye is 23.

“I only have one thing to ask for! Find me a girl in Europe! I will love her till the end and will always be faithful to her, I swear!”

A native Burundian, he comes from a family of illegal immigrants who fled to Tanzania in 1972 and stayed there right until 1993 when they were repatriated back to Burundi by the Tanzanian government (something Ndayizeye calls “political persecution”). Upon return, his dad got killed, his mom disappeared and the kids fled to their uncle in Burundi who was in hiding over all of Burundi until 1996. Ndayizeye is scared to go back to Burundi: he is practically certain he will get killed.
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Meet Mduwimama (I just love African names!). He is a native Burundian, 21, and has stayed in Dzaleka for 6 years now. He has been an orphan since the age of 6. He does not know whether his parents are dead or alive – he lost them in Tanzania. He wanted to go back to Burundi but noone is waiting for him there. Just as no family is there for him at Dzaleka.

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Meet Israel. This 18 year old kid from Burundi is a “newcomer”: he has been in Dzaleka for only 1 year, but he’s been in other African camps before. This orphan shares a camp house with his other 7 siblings and helps his older sister to take care of the rest. His parents were a subject to extermination as a mix of hutu and tutsi. He fled Burundi together with his brothers and sisters in 2005. He has no time to attend school due to the home chores, and his English is minimal.

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Lwangale is 17. A refugee from the Congo, he has been at the camp since he was 7. His mom disappeared without a trace; his dad got killed in the war. He is terrified to go back to the Congo.  Despite it all, he dreams of going to Europe. “I believe in God. God is the one who gives everything.”

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Afisa from Burundi is 18. Her parents are just other victims of the ethnic cleansing of the mixed hutu-tutsi families. Afisa is taking care of her younger brother and a sister. She finds life in Dzaleka extremely hard and cold. She is asking me to find a sponsor for her family.

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Meet Mostafa from the Congo, 17. Having heard his name, I ask cautiously whether is is a Muslim. He is. Then I am asking whether he gets mobbed for being a Muslim at the camp. He says absolutely not. There are two mosques at the camp and several churches and everybody lives peacefully. Mostafa is a rare case: he is staying at the camp with his parents and two brothers. Notwithstanding the ban for the refugees to work outside the camp, his dad has opened a tailorshop in the capital Lilongwe. The family fled from the war to Tanzania where they stayed for 4 years before fleeing to Malawi. I compliment Mostafa’s English and he tells me that he went to a good school in Tanzania. He tells me he would love to study further and to go to a university one day.

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Meet Oliver from the Congo, 19. He has been in the camps now for 3 years and has managed to become one of my closest acquaintances at the camp for his openness and hospitality.  He is staying in a home with his older brother and his family, who fled for the brother’s political activity back at home. I am asking why Oliver is stammering. He tells me he could not speak normally after what he’s seen back in the Congo. Every day at the camp I came by their warm home where they always met me with a smile, gave me the best treatment and offered me a maize meal.

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At Oliver’s house

This is Addany from Burundi, 21. Dzaleka has been his home for 6 years. He was born in Tanzania but repatriated back to Burundi together with his family is 1996. His parents got killed right upon return. Addany was staying with the neighbours for a while but later fled back to Tanzania on his own. From Tanzania he went to Malawi.

“Tell me about life in Europe”, he said.

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Meet Espoir from the Congo, 15. An orphan, he is raising his two younger brothers, Dzini (13) and Emable (11). His voice is only turning into a manly voice. His parents were shot at night while everyone was sleeping. His father was involved into an oppositionist activity. After the shooting they hit Espoir in the face with a gun. Children fled to the neighbouring house and the neighbours took them to a local Catholic church where the children found shelter for about a year before they got to Malawi. Espoir attends secondary school at the camp and he takes his brothers with him to lessons.  Espoir’s home is ornamented by  the words of praising God written with a sky-blue paint.

Dzini in yellow (13), Emable in red (11) and Espoir (15)

Espoir’s home

Espoir’s kitchen

Espoir’s living room

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This is Mahushwa from the Congo, 17.  He has been at the camp for 3 years and he is one of the few, who are staying there with his parents and 11 siblings. The family fled to Malawi from Tanzania. Back at home he had an excellent education in a private school. Here he cannot work outside the camp. Despite it all he dreams about the future.

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Bazotunga from Burundi is 17. Back at home he saw his parents being killed. He found shelter in the local Catholic church before he got to Malawi. His dream is to be responsible for his own life. 

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Bebe from the Congo is only 18. Her family disappeared, and she found shelter in a neighbouring village where she was treated like a princess. After a while her older brother found her and took her to his home. They fled together to Malawi but had no money to get by. Her brother found her a Muslim man and she was his girlfriend for some time. When the Muslim man demanded her to get married to him, she refused because of her Catholic beliefs. She did not love him either. The Muslim man stopped any help to the family and they had nothing to get by.  Her brother tried to take her to the capital Lilongwe and sell her to prostitution. Somehow she managed to escape and return to the camp. She is staying with another family now while her brother lives in the camp as well. Bebe is desperate for a better life.

First Day in Dzaleka

Impressed by the stories I have heard which I will share with you in the next post I thought that my mind was unable to absorb any incoming information so I addressed the needs of my body and went on a mission to find some lunch at the camp. Kids were running around shouting “Mzungu, Mzungu!” (“a white one”) to me and running up just to touch me, or stared into my eyes; some of them apparently have never seen a white person before. I took shots of them and leaned down to show them on the camera screen. They were so excited that they pushed and pulled each other and kept on squeezing the camera out of my hands just to see themselves on the picture. Some of them would cutely shout “Howayu” at you when you passed by. It was clear they hardly understood the meaning of it since they kept on asking you when you had already answered.

 

Nothing expresses the atmosphere of the camp better than the children’s faces, so immediate, genuine and natural!

 

 

 

There were kids of all ages, some of them bearing younger siblings on their backs.

 

It took me a while to get to the local market place in search for food. Luckily, I med Meghan on my way, a legal intern with JRS, who took me straight to the local “fast food” place at Chabani’s. This spot has quickly become our regular as I had my lunch there on practically each and every day of my visit to the camp. Don’t get tricked by the sight of it – it’s warm, welcoming, clean and the food is delicious. A huge plate of rice with boiled sauce beef meant to keep you full all day. And of course, the best chai in the world!

 

@ Chabani’s

 

Business in the camp market area. This goes out to my Russian friends: they still don’t eat people!!!

 

Refugees line up at the JRS office to see off our JRS bus heading back to Lilongwe at the end of the working day at 3.30 pm. Just to say goodbye.

Dzaleka – The Land of the Wind

I am excited! Today is officially the day of my first trip to Dzaleka Refugee Camp. I hardly got any breakfast when I was picked up by the JRS minibus for a 45-minute drive to the site, 2/3 asphalt – 1/3 sand road. I must give a credit to the patient hotel personnel in the following days of my camp visits who adjusted to my way-too-early-getting-up and served a cup of tea 15 minutes before the breakfast lounge actually opened.

 

45 minutes away and you are in a different world. A former area for political prison under the Banda regime, Dzaleka became the home of the refugees in 1994 when the Malawian government negotiated a treaty with UNHCR which resulted into extracting of the refugees from Lilongwe markets; their presence caused unrest with the local Malawians who felt they were deprived of jobs. Back then, they were just a scarce number – below 1000 refugees – the first settlers on Dzaleka land. By 2003 the number of the new arrivals has risen to 6000, resulting into expansion of the camp.

 

Today’s Dzaleka is an open refugee settlement of approximately 10.000 refugees. In reality it resembles a very poor African village, most of its population consisting of the fugitives from Rwanda, Burundi and the Congo. It holds a great number of unaccompanied minors and orphans, whose parents disappeared, died or were killed and raped, in some cases in front of their eyes. Not only these psychologically disturbed and undernourished kids fight for their place here but some of them are raising their younger siblings too.

 

The winds were fierce and considerably colder in Dzaleka than in Lilongwe and I was amazed at how the weather changes just at a 50 km distance up north. I don’t think I had enough clothes with me on the whole trip to keep me warm and I wondered how the refugees were getting by, some of them in shirts with short arms.

 

Dzaleka roads

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 A typical refugee house at the camp

 

 

Most of the buildings are made by the refugees themselves of red sandy clay.

 

Routine day at Dzaleka

 

Two Ethiopian refugees

 

This little kid was running after me shouting “Mzungu, mzungu!” (“a white one”) but when I approached him, he looked scared and shy

 

 

I took off on a journey around the camp accompanied by Charlie, 27, a local pentacostal church priest from the Congo. These were my first images of the camp and I guess they speak for themselves.  

 

Charlie took me home to his neighbour, Bebe, also a refugee from the Congo. I had to bend not to scratch a low ceiling with my head. Apparently they lived, cooked and slept literally on the earth ground. What was exceptionally striking for me is that the modest “living room” has a TV working but there was no door to the house – just a piece of clothes instead.

 

 

Charlie and Bebe in front of Charlie’s home

 

            

           

          

         

        

       

      

     

    

   

  

 

Charlie’s “living room”

 

An hour later Charlie brought me back to the JRS office building where a group of about 20 refugees were lined up looking at me with vivid expectation in their eyes.

 

“What are they doing here?” I asked.

“They are waiting for you,” – he said.

 

Still bombarded with the visual impressions of the preceding hour I totally lost the track of what was going on and why these people were lined up waiting for me. It turned out that the member of JRS courteously arranged for the group to be informants for my article, so I asked for an unoccupied room to talk to them, one by one. I explained I was a journalist from Europe (it was probably the first time I introduced myself as a journalist) and that I was interested in personal stories of each and every one of them. I told them that I will speak with all of them, one by one, and since the room was tiny, I asked them to wait outside. It was freezing even inside the room.

 

What I heard in the next hour was definitely a shocker.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Life Below the Equator and the ‘City in a Bush’

View of Malawi from a plane

                                                                   

I knew it would be a cold season in this part of the globe but I never dreamt of it to be colder than chilly summer in Copenhagen. A cool gush of wind practically slapped me in the face as I peeked out of the airplane door when we made a transit stop in a tiny airport of Lusaka (Zambia’s capital). Then I nearly knew what to expect in Lilongwe since it was only an hour away: 13-16 C, down to 5C by night. So this is now I spend my summer: I go where winter is.

 

I was lucky to be picked up by the local Jesuit Refugee Service team, Michelle and Jason, at the tiny airport outside Lilongwe. As we drove along the flat landscape with short trees with bushy tops I thought that the nature here looked different. Even the roosters sounded uncommon – it was as if they crowed backwards! However, I was not able to put a finger on what exactly was different about this place. It is quite possible that 32 hours of no-sleep limited my ability to absorb the surroundings. At that point I was hardly able to feed my obsession with mosquito bites. What you learn on a geography lesson in a Russian school is that malaria is something lethal and fatal. And it is so far away that I never really cared to get into the nature of the disease. Until I knew I was going to come here. I am working hard on letting go of my malaria fear. It’s time I got it straight: I did not come here to get sick. I got about 6 stings (who’s counting anyway?) since I arrived yesterday, and I am still alive and well. So life is beautiful. Even in Africa.

 

After a sweet sleep in a safe ensuite at a downtown hotel (an involuntary cold shower (1) and a short electricity turnoff (1) count here as regulars) I was ready to go and explore the area the morning after. I was told that the city is quite safe for mzungus (local term for white people) to walk around during the day so I did not spare on my routs. I found myself in the heart of the Malawian urban life with 3 banks just over the road, a post office next door and two huge supermarkets Western style just a block away. These modern lifestyle commodities blended quite harmonically with the females in their colorful traditional garments with ‘luggage’ on their heads and a large local flee market just nearby. There is, however, no place here that does not bear signs of poverty and famine. All from beggars on the streets to tiny stands selling some maize, empty plastic water bottles and other tiny merchandize clearly not enough to get by. 

 

 

I headed straight to Area 2, the place of local markets and many people. I also wanted to check out the local mosques as I heard azaan (call for prayers) the night before from my hotel room. In terms of construction, the city of 400.000- 800.000 possesses vivid traces of the colonial past, divided by the numbered areas spread quite vastly along the urban space, and situated in a driving distance from each other, which is quite characteristic of the former British colonies. As Jason mentioned, someone called it quite truthfully the ‘city in a bush’ for its alternating bush/urban landscape. The British influence is undeniable here, all from a visibly large number of largely UK visitors and expats, British TV, personal names and missionary shop names to the ‘backwards’ traffic and the three-legged British sockets. The most amazing influence of all is probably the fact that EVERY single local person that I have met so far spoke English in Lilongwe, with that pleasant African accent of theirs, regardless of the level of poverty.

 

Lilongwe river by the flea market in Area 2

 

Chiquita on a local market

 

A man preaching on the streets of Lilongwe

 

Women on their way to the flea market in Lilongwe

A local ’shopping center’

Feel like investing? (Just for the record: these ‘investment shops’ are nothing else than general stores)

Kids in front of the hotel

Now it’s time to challenge your prejudice about urban life in Malawi.

 

1. Apart from the fact that Malawians speak their local language and love their traditions, the majority of people here has a very good English language command.

2. Regardless the poverty level, almost all of the locals own a cell phone.

3. While having a strong bond to their own community, Malawians seem to be incredibly welcoming and open-minded. I have never seen a country where Christians and Muslims have coexisted so peacefully. Inspite of my Devil’s advocate questions, Muslims attending both of the city mosques completely denied any discrimination on religious grounds. Europe has definitely something to learn from Malawi in this respect.

4. This one goes out especially to my Russian friends: They don’t eat people!

6. There are no lions on the streets.

7. It’s possible to live here without being sick.

8. These points have been collected in only one day so the list is surely to be continued!

 

People are quite friendly as you barely make a step without hearing “Hey, how are you?” Traditional decorum demands to stop and talk about how you both are but being short of time, I just smiled politely and answered briefly while walking away. In this welcoming atmosphere you easily forget that you are a visitor with a different skin color as most people don’t pay attention to this.

 

On my walk in town I made 3 friends today. The first one is Suliye, 25, an expecting girl who I randomly asked about the way to the market. She said that we could walk there together as she was also heading that way. As we walked she told me she was from area 18 and married to a government employee from the Ministry of Health.  She was quite protective of me when we reached the market and were met by the teenagers trying their best to sell their merchandize to a mzungu (me). As she shopped for baby clothes, I watched the dense market area filled with second hand clothes and shoes, and an indescribable odour, taking pictures wherever possible. Suliye did not trust any of the local guys to take a picture of us with my camera; she found girls to do that instead.

Suliye choosing a baby blanket at the market

 

My other new friend was so shiny and smiling that I could not help complimenting her as she was walking by carrying her baby. It was Helen (21). She let me take a photo of her and took my number on the spot to meet up at a later point and show me around.

 

Helen and baby

 

My third encounter was a 20 year old Taiko, a Congolese refugee, who ironically fled further from Dzaleka refugee camp that I will visit for the first time tomorrow, and which I am supposed to write about. I thought I had to hear his story so I gave him lunch and we talked. Deprived of any prospects for the future, Taiko as many other refugees left Dzaleka camp 4 days ago and was staying with a friend outside Lilongwe illegally selling some goods at the market for shelter. It was obvious he did not have a coin to get by as I noticed him packing the bun that came with lunch, for later.

 

Taiko

 

 

“I am trying to figure out how to start a business here in Lilongwe. I’d like to open a barber shop. Dzaleka is a dead place. Many people flee to the city to make a living for their families, legal or not.”

 

The word opportunity does not live in Dzaleka refugee camp. Malawi’s law allows naturalization of refugees only in exceptional cases, or letting them live and work on their lands. Going home is not an option, so Taiko feels like a captive. He has been in Dzaleka since 2004 with his two brothers and a sister. His father of Congolese origin was shot in Uganda for his rebel political activity. His mother disappeared during the refuge. Their documents were lost and the Congo did not see them as legitimate citizens when they tried to return from Uganda after many years of living there. He barely remembers, or rather does not want to remember, how he and his siblings got to Malawi just to stay alive…

 

I got an sms from Taiko later today: “Ana, thanks a lot for what you did to me. I know you will do a lot than that!”  A modest thank you for a lunch that cost me 5 dollars and meant so much to him.

 

In the evenings, the city dies out immediately, as it’s getting dark with the speed of light here. By 7 pm you will not find a soul on a street (and if you’re sensible enough, will not get out either!). Evenings are killing with silence and the hardest times to bear here as they are a sheer contrast to the crowded and busy streets of the day. NOTHING is happening. Even the bar at my hotel, a nice place in Asian lounge style with couches and cushions, reportedly one of the nicest places in town, is empty. It is a hard fact: evenings are something to survive here in Lilongwe.

 

It will be an early morning tomorrow as we are heading to Dzaleka refugee camp 45 km away from the city. Another day full of experiences.

 

Stay tuned.