Rain

I've been back in Malawi for a few weeks now, with intermittent internet. Unfortunately Malawi's been hitting the international headlines for all the wrong reasons. The rains which should have begun in late November, didn't start until late December, and since then, they haven't stopped.

Floods across the country have left nearly two-hundred people dead or missing and two-hundred-thousand homeless. The Government of Malawi has declared half the country a disaster zone and has requested international assistance to support the rescue and recovery efforts. Organisations, including the UN agencies, donors (including DFID) and various NGOs, are providing assistance - in the form of temporary shelters; food aid; and rescue helicopters - to help in the short-term.

Clearly, dealing with the immediate consequences of the flooding is a priority, but the longer-term worry is the effect the erratic rains may have on the harvest. Malawians plant their crops at the start of the rainy season around November/December and harvest once the rains dry up in March/April. They then live off the food they have harvested (mostly maize) until the next harvest - a full year later. Due to the floods, many farmers have had their newly planted crops washed away, and, conversely, if the rains stop early (i.e. before March/April), then many crops will be ruined. Bearing in mind that around 80% of Malawians are subsistence farmers, who are entirely reliant on a good harvest to see them through the year, the consequences of a poor crop would be significant.

Where the countryside isn't hidden by swollen rivers and waterlogged fields, the dusty brown that I left behind when I flew back to England for Christmas has been replaced by a beautiful lush green. In fact, it looks a bit like Hobbiton. Lilongwe - where I live - has been unaffected by the floods, which are concentrated in the south of the country.

I recently returned from a non-flood related field trip to the South, where I was looking at some of the projects DFID funds to support local communities to work together with local authorities to improve the provision of services, like schools, wells, and roads.

On the road in Southern Region

Mango service station

The last project I visited was at a school, where I met Brenda Banda. Brenda is 17, and is the youngest of five sisters. She is the first of her siblings to go to secondary school (secondary education is neither free nor compulsory in Malawi) and has been able to pay her school fees thanks to a scholarship from a small, British charity. She is in her final year at school, and when she is finished she hopes to go to university, and eventually become an international journalist.

Unfortunately, while Brenda's scholarship pays for her school fees (around £6 per term), it does not stretch to pay for the costs of boarding at the school (£45 per term). The school is several kilometres from Brenda's village and so she chooses to 'self-board' - a common occurrence in Malawi, whereby students find private lodgings close to their school, which they rent at low cost.

Sadly, often the lodgings are of very poor quality and insecure. In 2014, three girls were raped in the lodgings where Brenda stays. The project which I was visiting had helped bring together students, parents, teachers, landlords, and local councillors to resolve some of the issues which were putting Brenda and her fellow students at risk. Together, they have helped ensure Brenda has a lock on her door, wooden shutters over her window, and a brick wall around her outside toilet; teachers are now clear that they have a duty of care for the self-boarding students, and make regular visits to the lodgings; and the school are working with the local community to build a new boarding block within the school grounds which will expand their capacity to take in boarders. The situation as it stands is by no means ideal, and it was pretty depressing to look at the single 6ft by 6ft room that constitutes Brenda's living quarters, but at least things have improved.

Brenda, outside her lodgings

In a final piece of good(?) news, we have acquired another puppy. Tiger (named by Robert after several days of consideration) was being taken to market when her owner made the fateful decision to walk past my front gate. The rest is history. Harry likes to sniff her; Ginny is scared of her; and Tiger bounces happily around the garden. She's about eight weeks old now.

Robert and Tiger

To scale

Suddenly, everybody's Charlie

This post isn't about Malawi. Through the magic of the internet, I've been following the unfolding events in Paris - and the subsequent media comment - with mounting anger. My anger, perhaps surprisingly, isn't directed at the perpetrators of the Charlie Hebdo killings - there will always be those willing to kill in the name of some misheld belief, and there's not much more that can be said about that. My anger, is at the hypocrisy of the British establishment - the mass media, the MPs, the commentariat, and possibly you - which, after a decade or more mired in moral cowardice and ambiguity, has belatedly turned a volte-face and is now proclaiming that it too is Charlie.

I should preface this note by saying that I don't normally write like this anymore; that is to say, about issues that matter. In fact the last time I wrote anything of length about real issues was nearly five years ago, on a long forgotten blog which I hope nobody ever finds - mainly on account of the quality of the prose. In short, in the age of the internet, there's too much noise. Everyone has an opinion and, frankly, I prefer not to add to the racket. But I'll make an exception today because I'm angry, so please excuse me.

Today, everybody seems to be Charlie. My Facebook feed is full of people proclaiming their Charlie-ness; politicians are tripping over each other in their efforts to be the biggest Charlie; and hacks and columnists are penning lengthy screeds in an attempt to out-Charlie one another. Everyone - or almost everyone - is lining up to declare their unyielding support for the principle of being able to say or write - or draw - whatever the hell they want, regardless of how offensive that might be to some. And that's all well and good, but what really fucks me off is that no one wanted to be Charlie a week ago, or a year ago, or ten years ago. And that was when it mattered: when individuals and small, independent publications were risking - and losing - their lives and their liberty in defence of the freedom to say what they wanted without fear or favour.

It's not brave to be Charlie now. It was brave when those who published irreverent cartoons in the face of death threats - often realised - were criticised by the mainstream media and politicians for lacking judgement and damaging the fragile fabric of inter-faith relations. So it's irksome now to see so many people proclaim 'je suis Charlie' when they have been nothing of the sort. Not only have they not been Charlies, but they've actively discouraged those who would be and isolated those who are, and in doing so have contributed towards the climate of intolerance and appeasement that - I would argue - led to Wednesday's atrocity.

The best way to normalise a taboo is to repeat it, and repeat it again, until it becomes barely noticeable. If a word triggers a violent reaction, that word should be repeated ad infinitum until those it antagonises have got bored, and gone home, and realised that oppression is fruitless. For every journalist or filmmaker that is threatened with violence in response to their work, ten more should step forward to reprint and republish and redistribute. As well as being a moral imperative, there is a practical application to such proliferation; as the activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali has said, we need to 'spread the risk'.

It might be an uncomfortable truth, but it is a truth none the less, that it is not a small minority of Muslims who have an issue with freedom of expression. When it first published cartoons of the Prophet Muhammed in 2006, Charlie Hebdo was sued (unsuccessfully) by the Grand Mosque of Paris, the Muslim World League, and the Union of French Islamic Organisations - hardly fringe groups. And despite Wednesday's events, mainstream Muslim commentators - like Tariq Ramadan and Nesrine Malik, both writing in the Guardian this week - continue to warn media outlets against the publication of cartoons of the Prophet, on the grounds that they are offensive.

The painful irony is that the virulently left-wing, anti-racist Charlie Hebdo didn't print pictures of Muhammed because it had a free-floating urge to offend Muslims, but because it had a problem with exactly the sort of oppressive sentiments expressed by Ramadan and Malik, who would wish to impose the requirements of their own sensitivities onto those around them. Charlie Hebdo printed those pictures on a point of principle - the principle that nothing should be sacred, nothing should be beyond the pale; that the freedom to say what one wants without fear of violence is one of the most important freedoms we have. And that's a principle which should brook no challenge.

Maybe now we've got so many new Charlies, things will change. It's just a shame that more good people had to die to bring that about. Vive le crayon. Vive la liberté. Vive Charlie.

"It's hard being loved by jerks"

Christmas in England

I've been at home in England for the past two weeks, enjoying Christmas and the New Year with family and friends after a busy few months in Malawi. I split my time between London - seeing friends and enjoying the city in full Christmas swing - and Whitchurch, the small village in Buckinghamshire where my parents live - relaxing mostly!

I fly back to Malawi this evening, and while sad to be leaving family and friends here in England, I'm looking forward to seeing the dogs and Nepear and his family, counting the new chicks that will have hatched while I was away, and speculating on whether Strawberry is pregnant or remains stubbornly chaste.

A large portion of my Christmas list was given over to books pertaining to smallholder-related activities (see picture below) so I'm looking forward to spending 2015 knee-deep in home-brew and chutney. All being well, this year we should have a litter of piglets to fatten up and sell, a large flock of egg-machines and a booming cider-making operation.

I have also invested in a new tent, which will be winging its way to Malawi shortly, breaking all-records for 'largest item in the diplomatic bag' in the process. So I hope to spend some time in the New Year exploring the more remote campsites of Malawi.

Happy New Year all!

Frosty morning from my bedroom window

Mum, Dad and Szilvi walking in the village

Christmas Books

The Strand, London

Sunset over the Vale of Aylesbury