Sixth Letter From Africa March 5th 2008

Monire Mose! (or Hello everyone!)

Yes, I'm into my fourth week of language study and happy to find I can remember most of what I'm learning. Some lessons are great (nouns) and others feel like I'm wading through molasses (verbs!) but overall there is progress :).

Angella, my language helper, has taken to the task like a natural and keeps me on my toes! She's 22yrs old, was raised by her aunty along with 14 cousins and siblings (after her parents died in 1998) and did her Dip. Business Studies with a scholarship but the funding cut out. She is now doing the Advanced Diploma by herself just using text books and finding it a struggle. She is approaching another funding organisation to see if she can get her fees covered to do the course by correspondence. Once qualified she hopes to get a good job and help her siblings with their education. So young to have suffered so much and to have such a big load of responsibility.

Chris' workload has increased dramatically and he spends three days a week working with a couple of helpers to buy enough food to feed 650 people! A cooler truck with driver now transports most of it to the site so that has been a big help. When he is not filling the orders he is doing the bookwork or arranging to have cows and chickens slaughtered, then picking up the meat and putting it into the 6 big freezers ready for the next delivery. He has started building the pedestrian suspension bridge up near the minesite so workers can get home when the river floods.

On Feb 2nd Chris and I were involved in catering for a big dinner for the Managing Director of Paladin and a whole lot of other VIP's from Australia - about 30 people in all. Chris worked with the guys cooking 2 small goats on a spit and barbequeing chicken and sausages while I Iooked after salads, dessert etc. It was a really nice evening and everyone appeared to have a good time. The following weekend we were invited to a neighbourhood birthday dinner where we enjoyed lots of delicious African style food with coleslaw, potato salad and a birthday cake. One of my favourite dishes is beef and banana curry - must get the recipe!

We are planning to visit Rina in Mangochi at Easter, driving down on Tues.18th March so we can visit villages in her area on the 19th to learn about their Total Life Care programme. We're hoping strategies that have proved sucessful there can also be implemented to improve the economy of farmers in our area. After the long weekend we will go on to Blantyre to buy furnishings for our rental house - which we are hoping will be a reality by then!! Meanwhile we have had a young carpenter here make us some bedside cupboards, a coffee table, spice rack and a big bookshelf for starters!

Continuing good rains have sent the maize crops soaring to two and three metres in height ( the song lyrics 'the corn is as high as an elephants' eye' from the movie "Oklahoma!" have taken on a new meaning!) I also read in the paper the rape increase during the wet season when women working in the gardens are hidden in their crops and are more vulnerable.

I'm enjoying being part of the neighbourhood now and look forward to seeing my friends at the markets or walking to and from work. One afternoon I found myself sitting on a neighbours porch enjoying a game of Scrabble with her and a friend! Another lady told me I'm her sister, so Chris is her brother-in-law and we don't need to be lonely while we live in Karonga because her family is our family - now that really makes us feel accepted!

I've started an ambitious project - crocheting a bedspread for our bed! It's supposed to cool down enough to need a blanket from March to August and to date have a 140x140cm square (consisting of 31 squares) that almost covers the top of the bed - guess that means I'm about half way!! There are doonas and blankets in the house if the situation gets desperate :) I'm using 4 ply 'wool' from the market in mainly dark green, light green and white with highlights of yellow and orange - looks cool and cheerfull. I washed most of the wool before using it as it was so dirty - didn't know you could do that, but the balls dry very well over three days pegged to the clothesline!)

We'd love to hear from you if you have time to drop us a line.

Warm regards, Chris and Anne Mattinson

Fourth Letter from Africa November 22, 2004
Greetings from Africa,

We got off to a good start with our letter writing but lost enthusiasm when it became apparent that many of our e-mails didn't get through to the recipients. If you haven't recieved "Greetings from Africa" 1, 2 and 3 then you will now know why you haven't heard from us. Could you please drop us a line if you receive this one.

It's hard to believe we will be back in Australia in just over three weeks! We leave here on the 15th Dec and arrive in Perth on the 16th. Our return flights are booked for 2nd Jan. Our three main events in the meantime are to organise a Christmas party for about 250 children at the Kayelekera (minesite) village, find a house to move to in the in the new year.and make the 6-7hr trip down to the capital (Lilongwe) to meet Rina when she arrives on Dec 1st. She will spend a week with us here in Karonga before starting her assignment in Mangochi on Dec 8th. We're really looking forward to seeing Rina again and showing her our part of Malawi. Some of the Malawian staff will help us find a suitable house and then Paladin takes care of the rental contract.

The last few weeks have been a good time for making new friends, trying to learn some of the local language and becoming part of the community. We have started attending the english service at the Presbyterian church, had four neighbouring ladies over for afternoon tea and attended a thanksgiving mass, feast and party at our neighbours house (went on until the wee hours of the morning!!). We had a visit from 2 bored volunteers who invited us to visit and gave us a grand tour of a nearby Catholic campus (high school and Tech college) where they and 4 other American young people work. We then enjoyed a delicious meal of hamburgers and cake! They are such a nice enthusiastic and dedicated bunch (3 guys and 3 girls) and we were really impressed with scale and scope of the work there.

We have been working with local ladies at Kayelekera to plant an irrigated vegie garden with mixed success - some of the seeds just didn't come up! :( The produce will be a drop in the bucket of what will be needed but it gives them a chance to be involved and earn some money, also a good opportunity for us to get to know them and get in some language practice.

We have been looking at warehouses to rent so we can set one up with a cool room, freezers etc. to store meat and vegetables for the supply line to the mine. We've chosen a warehouse now and are going through he process of sorting out a contract. It will need to be cleaned out and painted, new windows put in etc, but with the cool room, freezers, ute and freezer truck all on order it looks like its' coming together now.

We have been interviewing applicants over the last few weeks and today our new Agricultural Community Liaison Officer (Assistant!) started working for us - his name is Stafford Kaluba, a local man about our age with extensive horticultural knowledge and experience.

The locals were predicting an early start to the wet season but there have only been a few light showers since the heavy downpour on Oct 23rd. The weather is continuing to be hot (35oC maximums indoors) and very humid, but we're surviving with our trusty little fan blowing most of the night!.

We're hoping to catch up with most of you over Christmas.

Warm regards, Chris and Anne

Eleventh Letter from Africa, November 2008

Hi Everyone,

The strong winds that blow dust over every surface have thinned out the excess mangoes, and the trees are groaning under their prolific load of expanding fruit – just a few weeks and we’ll all be enjoying them - mmmm!

Other trees all over the country are putting out new leaves in anticipation of the rainy season. Doesn’t make sense, does it? Leaves come out after the rains, right? It’s even harder to comprehend if you could see of how parched and hot it is at present.

The big, old Boab at our front gate not only has leaves but its big white flowers delicately perfume the air each evening. I’ve heard the aroma described as both jasmine and baked potatoes! Did you know that tartaric acid is made from the Boab fruit? It is commercially produced a can be found in the baking section of some shops.

Chris has continued his food buying programme, which is now streamlined to the point that his workers can do all the purchasing with minimal supervision. He holds the purse strings, keeps check on the freezers, checks the delivery invoices and does the accounting and reports. He has been greatly assisted by the arrival of two large freezer units (one of which is running beautifully now that the electrical problems have been sorted out!) and an 10 tonne fridge/freezer truck which greatly helps with transporting food to the mine – the only problem is that its refrigeration unit doesn’t work yet! Such is life in Malawi!

The new Community Health Workers, Jim and Robyn Nottingham arrived late September and it’s been great having them here. They have adjusted well to the heat and frustrations, and made very positive progress in their work in just a few weeks.
Gregarious Jim loves getting to know the people, and Robyn, an avid photographer, is never short of something to photograph! (See chameleon below.)

At the beginning of October I went with Jim and Robyn to show them Mzuzu, a lovely town in the hills about three hours drive south. While there I had a meeting with a Malawian Presbyterian minister, who, with his brother, has translated the Good News Bible into the Chitumbuka language. (Although ‘retired’, he works full time teaching at a Seminary and running the Mzuzu branch of the Bible Society!) He is keen to translate the Christian Family Living course for me and said it is a very important book for the people of Malawi. Two weeks later, after meeting his team (3 translators and a consultant), we formalised the agreement by signing a contract for them to begin translation right away. I had a meeting with them on Monday and they are making excellent progress, and plan to have it completed by mid - December. I will need to make another visit then to do some back translation checks and fine-tune the formatting. The next step will be getting it printed – there are not many local options, so we may need to have it done in another country.

On Sunday I showed Jim and Robyn the town of Livingstonia named after the famous Dr but not established by him. It is located about 1½ hrs drive from here, at the top of a high plateau with a fifteen kilometre, 19 hairpin bend road to negotiate – it’s incredible to consider this was once part of the main road linking Karonga with the South! They were suitably impressed with the distinctly Scottish atmosphere of the stately buildings making up the university, Technical College, High School, Hospital, Museum, huge church and numerous dormitories and staff accommodation. We also visited a nearby waterfall – it took some persuading for Robyn to get me that close to the BIG drop!

I had a weekend with Rina in Lilongwe recently, and we both enjoyed reading, talking for hours at a time and eating out at restaurants! She had come to see a doctor, as antibiotics prescribed in Blantyre for a throat infection weren’t working, in fact she was steadily getting worse. The new, stronger ones did the job and she was feeling much better after a few days.
We have tickets to fly home to Perth on December 19th, arriving in Perth on Saturday 20th at 11.35am. We then fly back to Johannesburg on Jan 7th, overnight, and get to Malawi the next day. Chris is flying to Sydney on January 2nd to have 4 days with his Dad and brothers before the Jo’burg flight. We’re looking forward to catching up with lots of friends and relatives, but not to arriving with jet lag in the midst of the Christmas rush!

Warm regards,

Chris and Anne Mattinson
10th November 2008

Tenth Letter from Africa, September 2008
Hi Everyone,

Today (Sept 17th) is the first anniversary of our arrival in Karonga. The year has been a huge learning curve with lots of joys and frustrations, but an enriching experience we wouldn’t have wanted to miss. In the past Africa was one of the last places in the world I would have wanted to live, but now it is the one place I want to be – it feels like home and that’s a good feeling.

So, what have we been up to? Chris has been as busy as ever with the food procurement programme which has now reached 8 tonnes of food weekly. He is now concentrating more on the accounting side and training two extra guys who will hopefully be able to take over all the purchasing in the new year. By then, the numbers to be fed at the mine should have dropped to around 250 - 300 men.

I have almost finished supervising the renovation of the unit (curtains finished this morning!) and it should be ready by Monday for its first occupants. They will be our good friends, Jim and Robyn Nottingham, who are arriving to begin work with Paladin as Community Heath Officers. We are excited at the prospect of working together with them, and in the meantime we’ve been e-mailing almost daily to answer their questions, make suggestions etc. Monday is looking pretty chaotic – plane arrives 10 am, lunch here for Jim and Robyn plus 5 VIP’s, then in the afternoon between showing all the visitors around town etc, I’m helping the head caterer from the mine to do a barbeque for us all next door at the office – 30+ people?

Tuesday afternoon we will all be going up to the minesite to celebrate 2,000,000 injury free work hours, with speeches, singing, dancing and then a big evening meal for everyone. After that, Jim and Robyn might get to see what ‘normal’ life is like here!

I’m now translating (from Indonesian) the 9th of 10 chapters of the Christian Family Living course. I have taught 6 classes to the staff at the Lusibilo Orphanage and the response has continued to be positive. A number have asked for a copy of what I’m teaching from - which is difficult as I’m working from a draft copy that I edit as I teach to be sure it is communicating effectively. The matron asked for a copy (and received it!) because she wants to translate the next lesson each week into the Chitumbuka language so those in the class who don’t have good English can still understand. I would love to see it published in Chitumbuka (Northern trade language) and Chichewa (Southern trade language) as Matron said those two languages would cover the whole of Malawi. But, first things first, I need to fine-tune the English version!

On Sunday the power was off for 17 hours and the water stayed off for two days. Chris had to quickly organise three generators to keep about a tonne of beef, chicken and fish chilled/frozen in all his freezers until the power was restored. The internet has also been down for the last two days, so if you don’t receive this today you will know why! But none of the meat went off, the water came back on, my vegies are growing, there are zillions of mangoes forming on trees all over Malawi - and life is good!!

Warm regards, Chris and Anne Mattinson (17th September 2008)