I find that I can go along for a few weeks at a time tied up in my nice ex-pat life, worrying about the kids and not taking much notice of what’s going on around me. Then I have a week like last week, nothing big but some small reminders that this a poor country with some major problems.
I went to a talk about the current political situation, which was very interesting and I have also been editing some reports about local government and the state of water and sanitation in particular districts. One statistic that I had forgotten: Malawi has the 3rd worst record of child mortality in the world, the two countries that are worse are both war-torn. So many good things are happening, that make a difference but there seems to be an enormous effort to get them to happen. Local government is a bit of a mess but elections are due to take place next month, let’s pray that they actually go ahead.
I have begun to realise the role the English language plays here. Pupils do not learn English at school until the latter years of primary education, by which point many children have dropped out of school. Many are reluctant to speak English, understandably as it is not their language but it is the official language of the country and all government documents, newspapers, information from the banks and most signs are in English. I found out recently that all job interviews for government employees are in English so without this language people are at a huge disadvantage.
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