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swollen rivers and waterlogged fields, the dusty brown that I left behind when I flew back to England for Christmas has been replaced by a beautiful lush green.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