Chicken first aid

Last night, after three months in Africa, I used my first aid kit for the first time. Not for my benefit, I should hasten to add, but for the benefit of one of my chicks who had somehow managed to break its leg.

We spotted it hopping around the pen on Saturday night and on closer examination discovered it had broken its upper leg bone. Two match sticks and a bit of surgical tape later and it looks like its received some first-class NHS care.

It's still hopping around, but hopefully in a couple of weeks the bone will have repaired itself and it'll be right as rain. Apart from the hopping, it's doing just fine.

Before - feeling unhappy

After - still feeling unhappy but now with bandage

Showing off the new bandage

Tales from the farm

It's been a busy few weeks on the 'farm'. Our first clutch of chicks hatched, so now we have ten balls of fluff bouncing around the chicken pen. Momma Chicken managed to hatch 10 out of 12 eggs, which is pretty good going in my book. Another of the chickens is currently sitting on 18(!) eggs, so we're expecting our second clutch to hatch in about ten days. We're now at the stage of collecting eggs for eating, so I'm looking forward to my first home-grown scrambled egg on toast any day now.

In the end, we named the sow 'Strawberry', which isn't quite as Shakespearean as I had initially intended, but it seems to fit. She's having a great time. Currently we're testing out which leaves she likes to eat; so far: pumpkin, soy bean, potato YES; cow pea NO.

As we're keen to get some piglets, we've been on the hunt for a temporary boyfriend for Strawberry. We managed to track a suitable one down in a nearby village yesterday, and we've now hired him for the week at a cost of £6. Upon delivery of a healthy litter of piglets, a further £10 will be paid. I've called him Roy.

Roy's definitely keen on Strawberry, who is playing hard to get. Strawberry is also bigger than Roy, which complicates matters. To stop Strawberry running away we may have to shut them in their little house and let nature take its course over an intense - and no doubt rewarding - couple of days.

Roy 

Strawberry left, Roy right

Roy (back) and Strawberry in a quieter moment

We're still expanded the space for vegetable growing in the garden, and have planted a number of new crops in recents weeks, including watermelon; cassava; sweet potato; and fish bean - which, ground-up and mixed with water, can be used as an organic pesticide. We've harvested our first crop of white beans and in the new year I'm hoping to start using our produce for cooking and preserving.

Oh, and we've acquired a 'top-bar' beehive...

Putting up the beehive

Sport, sport, sport

Last weekend was packed with high-octane sporting endeavour. First up was a football match between a motley crew of 'diplomats' (including yours truly) and ageing representatives from the Malawi Defence Force (MDF). The match was organised by the British High Commission to commemorate the various football matches played between warring British and German troops one-hundred years ago, on Christmas 1914.

The match was played at 'Silver Stadium' - home to Malawi's premier football team, 'The Silver Strikers' - before the final Super League game of the season. All money raised from the game went to support Malawi's war veterans - three of whom attended as guests of honour.

One of Malawi's few surviving veterans of the Second World War at the game. Photo' courtesy of Jenny McNee

A combination of the recruitment of ringers - including Paddy, who played most of the game at the centre of midfield - and the stringent conditions placed on the MDF team (e.g. no under-40s allowed), resulted in a memorable 3-1 win for the diplomats. We even made our way onto the back pages of the national newspaper in an article which began:

"A football team of diplomats accredited to Malawi whacked a Malawi Defence Force (MDF) team 3-1 in a war veterans fundraising football match at Silver Stadium in Lilongwe on Saturday."

The first five minutes of the game were designated 'symbolic' and all the heads of the various diplomatic missions in Malawi made an appearance on the field. The results were amusing; here are my nominations for best faller-overer (photo's courtesy of Jenny McNee):

And my personal favourite...

As if that weren't enough, straight after the football match I took part in a rugby grudge match between Lilongwe and Blantyre rugby clubs. It was the first time in four years that the only two senior rugby teams Malawi had played a 15-a-side game, so everyone was pretty psyched up. It was also the first time I'd played rugby since 2003, when I was involved in a turgid 13-13 draw at Vicarage Road against Watford Grammar School. The end result was a 21-7 win to Blantyre, after a hard-fought forwards dominated game. More games are scheduled for the new year, so watch this space...

Me pictured cuddling another man. Nothing wrong with that. Photo credit: Joe Wilkinson

Smiles all round post-game. I'm third from left on the front row. Photo credit: Joe Wilkinson

New Arrivals

It's been a week of new arrivals. On Wednesday, having journeyed across the Mediterranean Sea, through the Suez Canal, down the east coast of Africa, and overland from Mozambique, my pick-up truck arrived in a shipping container at a railway siding on the outskirts of Lilongwe. The turning circle's terrible and it accelerates like a tractor, but it's got a thing that tells you what gradient you're driving on and it'll comfortably accommodate seven sacks of gaga and a fully-grown sow.

Which is just as well, because yesterday I purchased a pig: a one-year old sow. Nepear finished building the pig pen a week ago, so when I heard that Noah's sister-in-law's brother's cousin had a pig for sale in a nearby village, we jumped in the truck and went to investigate. After a brief negotiation we settled on a price of £60. It took six men to load her into the back of the truck - after they'd wrestled her to the ground and tied her legs together.

She's settling well into her new home and has already twice knocked over her water bucket to make a nice muddy wallow for cooling down. We haven't settled on a name yet, but 'Ophelia' - Hamlet's on/off girlfriend - is an early contender.

The plan is to hire a gigolo boar to do the dirty, and then wait for some piglets to appear. If all goes well, I should be able to eat a home-grown bacon sarnie in a year or so.

One of my chickens has now been sitting on a clutch of twelve eggs for almost three weeks, so I'm expecting the appearance of some fluffy chicks any day now...pictures to follow.

Reversing the truck out of the shipping container

A pig in muck

Photographs from Dzaleka Refugee Camp

Today, Dzaleka Refugee Camp was hosting a small music festival, so I went along to take some photographs of the surround.

Dzaleke is Malawi's only refugee camp - less than an hour's drive from Lilongwe - and is home to nearly 20,000 refugees who have fled conflict-affected states across central and eastern Africa - Rwanda and DRC; Somalia and Sudan. Many were forced to flee alone, leaving behind families who are now lost. The camp was formed in 1994, and is effectively permanent. One of the first jobs a newly arrived refugee has to undertake is to build his or herself a home out of mud-bricks.

Malawian law prohibits the inclusion of refugees in society: they cannot get jobs; they cannot go to university; they cannot become Malawian citizens. Stuck in a catch-22 - unable to return to their homelands for fear of reprisals; unable to build a meaningful future in Malawi; and unable to afford to travel on - most of the refugees have been living in the camp for years. Those I spoke to took a fatalistic attitude; just waiting for something to change.

Mostly I took pictures of kids, because they're a lot more expressive and like having their photograph taken.

 

 

The photograph below is my favourite. Every time I lined up the shot, this girl would stand to attention in her doorway with the most solemn face she could muster. Then when I showed her the photographs she would burst out laughing.

Visit to Maula Prison

Today, I visited Maula Prison in Lilongwe to hand over some clothes and toys, which had been donated by staff at the British High Commission, DFID and the British Council, to two small boys who are in prison with their mothers.



If a woman is sent to prison in Malawi - whether on remand or following conviction - and has a child under five, then the child will be kept with her in prison.

Maula Prison houses both women and men, who are kept in separate areas. Conditions are very basic, and the men's area is particularly over-crowded. But the atmosphere was positive.

Two members of DFID staff - Linda, our Justice Advisor, and Eleanor, a Rule of Law Advisor based in London, who recently visited DFID Malawi - came up with the idea, and I was lucky enough to join Linda when we dropped off the goods. We handed over some soft toys, some building blocks, a ball, a picture book, some dinky toys, and some clothes.

Thanks to all those who made generous donations. You put some smiles on faces!

Handing over some clothes

Gift, with a teddy

Prisoners resting under a tree in the prison yard

Playing together

Mother and son

Malawi at War

The opening naval battle of the First World War didn't take place on the blue-green brine of the North Sea. It took place in landlocked Nyasaland (now Malawi), on the shores of Lake Nyasa (now Lake Malawi) between two drinking buddies.

In 1914, Lake Nyasa separated the northern part of British East Africa (Nyasaland) from the southern part of German East Africa (Tanganyika - now Tanzania). The British and the Germans had only one gunboat each on the Lake - both of which were tasked with fighting the by-then-illegal slave trade. The two ships in question were - for the British - HMS Gwendolen commanded by a Captain Rhoades and - for the Germans - the SS Hermann von Wissmann commanded by a Kapitan Berndt. Both ships had been bought to Nyasaland in pieces a number of years previously, and reconstructed on the Lake. Apparently they would regularly bump into each other as they cruised around the Lake, with the Captains sharing a taste for whisky. 

HMS Gwendolen Source: Daily Telegraph

When Rhoades learnt of the War's outbreak, he set sail for the north of the Lake in search of the von Wissmann. Control of the Lake was vital to securing supply lines to Rhodesia and South Africa. The Gwendolen set sail with five Britons - including a Scottish shop assistant called 'Jock' who claimed he knew how to use the ship's only gun - thirty African stokers, and twenty-five African soldiers (known as Askaris) from the King's African Rifles (KAR) commanded by a 2nd Lieutenant Beaumont, an official in the Public Works Department, who wore a monocle and was known as ‘Champagne Charlie’.

They found the von Wissmann lying on the beach at the German-controlled harbour of Sphinxhaven, where it was being repaired. Rhoades commanded Jock to open fire, who - after a few attempts - managed to land a hit. A furious Kapitan Brednt, who had no idea that war had been declared, rowed out to the Gwendolen to confront Rhoades. Their exchange is alleged to have run as follows:

‘Gott for damn, Rhoades, vos you drunk?’

 ‘Afraid not old chap,’ called Rhoades. ‘Our countries are at war. Best thing you can do is surrender.’

‘Surrender be hanged. Come and have a drink.’

Rhoades' old house in Fort Johnstone (now Mangoochi) at the southern end of the Lake is now a shabby hotel called Villa Tafika, which I had the dubious pleasure of staying in recently. The gun which was mounted on the Gwendolen is outside Rhoades' old house, forming the centre-piece of a roundabout.

The British used their newly established dominance of the Lake to transport troops to the northern border of Nyasaland, at Karonga, in anticipation of a German attack. The invasion came on 8 September 1914, when 400 German-led Troops - mostly Askaris - crossed the border from Tanganyika. The newly-reinforced British-led troops repelled them in the Battle of Karonga, killing 150 men.

This was the only significant engagement of the War fought on Malawian soil, but thousands of Malawian's signed up for the KAR to fight in the East Africa Campaign. While numbers are hard to come by, it is estimated that nearly 20,000 Malawians served as Askaris during the First World War, with approximately 3000 dying in service. But the impact of the War on Malawi went beyond those serving as Askaris: 200,000 Malawians are believed to have been called up as porters (Tenga-Tenga) to transport military hardware and provisions, with many dying from disease during the course of their service. The War in East Africa also led to acute food shortages, which weakened populations and facilitated the spread of diseases which killed hundreds of thousands of people.

Nearly 30,000 Malawians joined up to fight in the Second World War. with most being recruited into the KAR Battalions. Malawians fought across East Africa during the War, securing a number of victories against the Italians in Ethiopia and Somaliland, and capturing Madagascar from Vichy France. In 1944, four KAR Battalions from Malawi were sent to Asia to fight in the gruelling Burma Campaign.

Both Wars had a long-lasting impact on the social and political landscape of Malawi. Malawi's involvement in the First World War was one driver of the failed Chilembwe Uprising in 1915, which is seen as a watershed moment in Malawi's path to independence. After the Second World War, a revived nationalist movement - supported by many returning soldiers - led the way to independence in 1964.

Today, Malawian soldiers serve in UN peacekeeping operations around the World.

The Karonga War Cemetery contains eleven Commonwealth War Graves and six German burials
Source: tracesofwar.com

Further reading:

Victory on Lake Nyasa by Janie Hampton for History Today
The Battle of Karonga by T. Cullen Young - available on JSTOR
The Chiwaya War: Malawians in the First World War by Melvin E. Page