Duxbury native teaches better farming to Africans in Malawi

Brian Connors, a Duxbury native, works for the Peace Corps in Malawi helping local farmers and businesses. Despite the fact that Connors described his job as “one step away from the villages,” he often ventures out to check up on projects and visit with local villagers.

There’s a saying that if you give a man a fish, he eats for a day, but if you teach him to fish, he eats for a lifetime.

Brian Connors is teaching men to fish.

Connors, a Duxbury High School graduate, works for the Peace Corps, a government agency dedicated to promoting world peace and friendship, according to their Web site. He is stationed in Malawi, an African nation wrapped around the 10th largest lake in the world (Lake Nyasa) and surrounded by Tanzania, Zambia and Mozambique.

His job as Assistant Director of Environmental Program has him overseeing 40 Peace Corps volunteers.

His job involves small enterprise development, agriculture and water projects. Most important, he and his staff are trying to encourage local farmers to rotate other crops into the Malawi staple, maize, to improve nutrition and to keep fields from going fallow.

“The forest in Malawi has the fastest rate of deforestation in Southern Africa,” Connors said. “Everyone grows maize. What are you planting with that that’s complementary?”

Connors described his job as being “one step away from the villages.” Rather than working with the local people directly, Connors supervises his volunteers and coordinates projects from Malawi’s capital and major commercial center of Lilongwe. He calls his role that of “community educator.”

“My job is finding local people who are interested in improving conditions in their life,” he said.

One of the ironies of a vast undeveloped land like Malawi is that although the land abounds with natural splendor, due to the immense poverty conservation is the last thing on people’s minds. "People won't connserve if they’re not healthy, if they’re not educated and if they can’t feed themselves,” Connors said. “We’re trying to help them be more self-sufficient.”

He said that in many ways, environmentalism is a first world luxury.

“We see the impact of poverty on the environment. It’s such a strong impact, it’s so intense,” he said.

Connors has worked in Malawi with the Peace Corps for 2 1/2 years.

“I always had the idea of going to Africa,” he said. In college, he minored in Afro-American studies and learned Swahili.

It isn’t his first stint with the organization, however.
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After college, Connors moved to rural Alaska and worked odd jobs for seven years.

“If you move to a small island in Alaska you do anything you can to survive.”

His parents, Don and Peggy Connors of Duxbury, had friends in the Peace Corps while he was growing up, and he latched on to the idea.

“Community service has always been in my blood,” he said.

Connor’s first experience with volunteerism occurred in Duxbury. While in high school he went with a group, which he describes as a precursor Habitat for Humanity, to West Virginia to build houses and repair windows.

“Joining the Peace Corps was a natural extension of that,” he said. “I just never lost it. I’ve always had that direction in mind.”

In 1990, Connors volunteered for the Peace Corps in Kenya. Not only did he find his future career, he also met his wife, Ann.

Together they moved to neighboring Tanzania and ran a wildlife conservation area for several years before moving back to Alaska, where Connors worked for a non-profit and the couple started a family. Maria is now 10, Nicholas, 6, and Caroline 3.

But after several years, the call of Africa, and the Peace Corps, beckoned.

When Connors’ third child Caroline was born in 2005, he started looking into the Peace Corps jobs.

“Sixth months later, we were headed to Malawi,” he said. “We knew when we left Africa in 1996 that we wanted to go back.”

He and his wife are glad for the opportunity to give their children a view of the world many Americans don’t get to see.

“Our children are growing up with an appreciation of a world, rather than just a place,” he said. “They get to see village life. It’s real to them.”

The family recently came to the United States for the first time in 2 1/2 years, and Connors admitted there has been some “culture shock.”

“That’s a long time. It’s been good to come to Duxbury and touch base.”

Working in the Peace Corps has been a rewarding experience for Connors, although he said people who work in jobs like his don’t always see a direct result for their work.

“You often don’t know you’re successful until years later,” he said.

Mostly, Connors sees the result of his team’s work in the faces of the volunteers. People will come to him, excited after a village elder or other local figure comes to an understanding about a particular agricultural program.

“Then they’re excited. There’s a sense of accomplishment,” he said.

As an example, Connors told the story of two Peace Corps volunteers picked up by a local man who, when he saw where his two passengers were from, loudly exclaimed that the Peace Corps had “saved his life.”

It turned out the man has contracted tuberculosis, and a Peace Corps worker known as “The Pope” worked with the man’s father to get him treatment at a clinic. Connors knew “The Pope” from his work in the country, and eventually relayed the story.

“He found out 40 years later that the work he did had an impact,” Connors said. “If you’re working with people, your results may not be known in your lifetime.”

M'nM...Marianne in Malawi - First and Foremost

As much as I enjoy spontaneity, I also enjoy symmetry. It is fitting that since I first posted from Canada, my last post should also be from Canada.

I could write many pages of heavy things - thoughts about mission theology, philosophy, more observations, feelings...oodles of things. But as I was reflecting on how this experience has changed me, I wrote down 3 full pages of "firsts" that happened in these 3 months. I will not share them all, but I want to share, for my last post, highlights from the list of "firsts".

In Malawi was the first time I ever...

...rode in the back of a pick-up truck
...rode on a bicycle taxi
...received a marriage proposal
...turned down a marriage proposal
...ate liver stew, papaya, passion fruit, sugar cane, and pumpkin leaves
...partially learned an African language
...worked with a language interpreter
...hired someone
...had a bath in a bucket
...broke through a lock with a knife
...designed a mixed methods study
...saw chickens running through my garden
...saw baboons running through my garden
...hiked a plateau
...played squash
...roomed with a gecko
...saw a cockroach, mongoose, and a banana tree
...assisted a bee out of a window
...played piano for the church service
...won a T-shirt
...ate rice with my hands
...used a pit latrine
...met someone afflicted with polio
...attended a 3-hour church service
...was called "Mommy" by people of all ages
...bought an original painting
...had dreams where cars had steering wheels on the right

Amongst all the things I did, however significant some were (e.g. assisting a bee out of a window, for those of you who know me well), the foremost of all of these will remain the same, no matter where I go and how long I live. The foremost of all of these is the people I have met along the way. I may lose my T-shirt, and my dreams will revert to driving on the right side of the road, but the footprints that we leave in each others' lives are everlasting. I hope too that for you who couldn't be with me in Malawi, that this blog has left a footprint - to perhaps see things differently, or to further some resolve within you that you already had.

For this blog, this is the end, but to you, I say tsalani bwino (stay well), ndikuyembekeza kuti tionaninso posachedwa (I am hoping that we will see each other again soon).

Malawi revises 2008 inflation forecast upwards to 8.5 pct

LILONGWE (Reuters) - Malawi's Finance Minister Goodall Gondwe on Wednesday revised the year-end inflation rate forecast to 8.5 percent, up from the 6.5 percent predicted in his budget statement earlier this year, citing higher global oil prices.

But Gondwe said the economic growth forecast for fiscal 2008/09 remained at 7 percent, while the outlook for interest rates was also unchanged.

"Because of large international oil price increases, it is now projected that in Malawi's circumstances, we would end the year with an inflation rate of about 8.5 percent instead of 6.5 percent that was projected earlier," Gondwe told parliament.

But inflation should head lower in late 2009, and could end that year at 7 percent, he added.

Rising food and fuel prices pushed inflation up to 8.5 percent year-on-year in June, from 7.9 percent previously, the National Statistical Office said last month.

The southern African nation relies on agriculture, primarily tobacco, for its foreign earnings and is dependent on imported oil and gas.

Malawi govt. to deploy army at parliament

The Malawi government has said it will live up to threats made by the country's President Bingu Wa Mutharika to deploy armed Malawi Army soldiers to close down the National Assembly on Friday 15 August 2008, if the 2008-2009 National Budget will not be passed by that time.

After adjourning the August House for six weeks, Mutharika ordered deliberations on the National Budget to resume last week and asked the legislators to pass the budget within ten days, or brace themselves for undisclosed consequences.

Last Friday, during a political rally in the Southern part of the country, Mutharika said in his capacity as commander in Chief of the Armed forces in Malawi would deploy soldiers to close down the National Assembly on Friday this week.

Addressing the press on Wednesday, his Chief Political Advisor, Hetherwick Ntaba warned the opposition against taking the President's threats as mere jokes.

The National Assembly is housed at the official residence of the President. He has all the powers to chase away anybody from his premises. He has also powers to mobilize the army to chase even legislators from his land. He meant what he said, said Ntaba.

Ntaba said, there is nothing like dictatorship in the President's threats.

It would be ridiculous to describe the threats as dictatorial. This is what you would expect from any landlord. The legislators are now a bore to anybody. The president's patience is now completely worn out. He can no longer withstand it said, the ruling Democratic Party (DPP) Secretary General.

He then appealed to the National Assembly to save themselves from the embarrassment of being chased away from the August House by force.

The situation would be quite embarrassing. Our legislators should save themselves from this situation, by passing the budget by Friday, he said.

Meanwhile, leader of the country's opposition in the National Assembly, John Tembo, has described the threats as undemocratic, maintaining that they will not cow the opposition legislators.
We will pass the budget on our own without anybody threatening us. We have a responsibility to the Nation,” said Tembo.

President Mutharika's government is in the minority, with the opposition joint forces of former ruling party, United Democratic Front (UDF) and Malawi Congress Party (MCP) calling the shots in the House.

After President Mutharika ditched the UDF, a party, which sponsored his candidature in the 2004 General Elections and formed his own DPP, relationship between government and the opposition in Malawi, has been chaotic, throwing the country into a total political impasse that has reduced Malawians into mere spectators.

Through his party, the President has been shopping legislators from the opposition parties by rewarding them with ministerial positions in his government. The opposition has been insisting on implementing Section 65 of the country's constitution, which empowers Speaker of the National Assembly to declare vacant all seats of parliamentarians who defected to the DPP.

Mutharika on the other hand has always maintained the legislators who follow him to the DPP, were simply excising their freedom of association.

Madonna's charity windfall

MadonnaQueen of Pop Madonna has reportedly asked for a $1 million (£532,000) donation to her charity from baseball player Alex Rodriguez.

Her organisation Raising Malawi was established to help the orphans of the African country access education, food and medicines.

Speaking to the New York Daily News, a source claimed the charity had requested $1 million dollars and that he had agreed to contribute at least $500,000.

Philippe van den Bossche, Director of Raising Malawi, said the charity did not comment on information about any donor.

He added that a school being built in the country will be based on the British educational system.

According to Raising Malawi, there are more than a million orphans living in the country and many more at risk from other problems such as illness, abuse, poverty and hunger.

In February Gucci and Madonna hosted a fundraising event for Unicef and Raising Malawi in a 42,000 square foot tent on the North Lawn of the United Nations.

Malawi approves biotechnology law

Malawi has finally opened its doors to genetically modified crops (GMOs) despite fears still lingering among consumer rights groups.

"Yes, cabinet has approved the National Bio-technology and Bio-safety bill," said Alec Manda, the acting Director of the National Research Council of Malawi.

Manda said with the policy now in place Malawi can now start using products that are genetically modified. He said what remains now was for scientists to start field trial of genetically modified crops developed outside the country.

"What that means is that we have completed the regulatory process which started with the Bio-safety Act, the enactment of the Bio-Safety Act in the year 2002; the formulation of regulations in the year 2007; and just today cabinet has approved the National Bio-technology Policy," he said.

But the Consumers Association of Malawi (CAMA) has since warned government to tread carefully when introducing the GMOs into the market.CAMA's acting Executive Director Andrew Ussi said the consumer rights watchdog would closely monitor events as the country prepares to introduce genetically modified crops.

"Our current position is that before any food is being introduced on the market the consumer has to be informed as to the benefits of that GMO food to his body, to the environment and, for posterity's sake, as well as the other plants that will be grown surrounding that crop," he said.

Ussi said the consumer rights group would ensure that there was proper trial bef ore the GMOs are introduced. "Our mission is to promote and protect consumer rights in Malawi," he said, adding that such rights included the right to information.

"The consumer has to be informed on each and every product that comes onto the market in terms of the manufacturer, ingredients and everything," Ussi added.

But Manda of the National research council of Malawi said there was no cause for worry, adding that a special Bio-technology and Bio-Safety Committee, comprising scientists and other experts, had been set up to oversee the trial.

"We have to test these GMOs or GMO crops which have been developed outside the country; to test them under Malawian conditions; how do they perform," he said. "We are not going to start by developing our own GMOs."

Manda said the research and evaluation could take as long as three years.

"We have to see how they peform under Malawian conditions; It is only after the researchers have established that those perform well will there be another process to see if they can be commercialised," he said.

The issue of genetically modified foods became a sensitive issue between the years 2002 and 2003 when Malawi was hit with a severe food crisis which forced the government of former President Bakili Muluzi to accept genetically modified food from the West, especially the US.