Top 11 pics of 2011 (post 4 of 9: roofless school)
In March of 2011, our team set out on a project that appeared to be pretty straight forward and would really help a nearby community provide more consistent education to the younger children.
In a village just a few kilometers up the road from my house sits a 2-room school house built by the Portuguese Catholic mission before independence. For the past few decades, it has had no roof. That really puts a damper on education during the rains, or during the hot sun for that matter. Usually in Africa a large shady tree substitutes for a school room and, personally, I don’t see a problem with that. But when you’ve got a school that has been built but just lacks a roof and a few tidying up issues, it seems like a simple thing to remedy that can go a long way towards providing a better level of education.
This image is from our initial visits to the school when we got a quick tour and saw what the work would entail for us: purchasing tin sheets, nails, a few bags of cement, encouraging the community to cut down some trees to act as supporting beams for the roof…
We got to work in short order, combinaring with the Department of Education so this could be a joint project with their official oversight. Within a few months, the roof was up and it was starting to look like a real working school again. But then the winds came and, on one particularly gusty day, the tin was completely ripped off once again.
Was this school cursed, the spirits engaged in a battle to keep education at a nearly non-existent level?
We chalked it up to the fact that the roof hadn’t been finished completely and just wasn’t as secure as it should have been. The second issue came from the indigenous trees which were so bent as to make the tin sheets difficult to nail down properly.
And so here we are early in 2012 and eager as a team to just get it done! This February, we hope to see a renovated school that can attract a live-in school teacher even (she currently walks from town each day).
Top 11 pics of 2011 (post 3 of 9: Cundaje)
During rainy season, a LOT of folks in our area relocate temporarily to a land where the soil is more fertile and the rains come just a bit earlier. It’s only a half-days walk away but, as it is on the other side of the small mountain chain, it can feel a bit like a world away.
It’s a place referred to in general as “Chigulu”. This sign indicates which way to head for two of the areas within the larger Chigulu region.
I got my first chance to visit the area while out biking on an exploratory trip with Shawn and Janet in March of ’11. It was the day (only one so far; exhausting but rewarding it was) when we successfully completed a 50+ KM visit to a number of villages and chiefs we had heard about but never came across as they are more than just a bit off the beaten path.
In this image, a teen boy of the Yawo tribe pauses on his way towards Cundaje to watch three white folks (azungu in Ajawa, brancos in Portuguese) bike by. Foreigners like us are a rare sight and people usually don’t know what to do with us other than simply stare. My favorite, though, is when family members grab the youngest child around and thrusts them toward us as the child screams in fright at our sheer horridness.
Cundaje, Mandimba, Mozambique
Top 11 pics of 2011 (post 2 of 9: Malawian Sheik)
In February of last year, I joined a friend of mine for a trip out to this village I had never visited before where a friendly Muslim Sheik was due to greet us. He had been warned we were on the way and he was prepared to allow us to photograph him and his family.
This Malawian Sheik, a Yawo by tribe, is an expert at making something called talismu, basically magical charms that people buy and wear to help to ward off evil. Within these charms (bracelets, necklaces) there is usually a common component: scriptures from the Qur’an written down on a piece of paper and folded up into a tiny bunch. You can see some of the tools of the trade lined up on the floor in the image background.
This photo was my favorite image from the series I took, our goal being to get a good shot for a soon-to-be-published book about Yawo worldview and culture.
Dr. Ian Dicks: head shot
A head shot is a useful type of photo to have handy for authors, speakers, musicians, actors and others who are planning to have their image posted in a professional manner. In this case here, my friend Ian, an anthropologist working in Malawi and soon to be publishing a new book about Yawo culture, asked me to create a head shot for his book cover. Yeah, published authors need head shots too.
It is my second attempt at doing a head shot for Ian. A few years back when he published a book about Yawo proverbs, what we came out with was an image too smiley and a bit unprofessional looking. Most locals couldn’t even recognize him when shown the book. We needed to try something different for this more erudite publication.
This go round, we wanted to go for a soft look (which helps to minimize aging) that conveys professionalism with an air of mystique (as can be felt from the darker side of the face). Our studio was simply a bedroom with good available sunlight pouring through a nearby window. I grabbed a yellow bedsheet and draped it over a door to give a nice background that doesn’t distract in any way. No flash was used.
Wikipedia mentions that “headshots are intended to show a person as they currently are (age, look, style, etc.) and reflect their best qualities.” I think we got it!
Dr. Ian Dicks, anthropologist
Fort Mangochi
Ulendo magazine is Air Malawi’s official in-flight publication. My article on Fort Mangochi was published in Issue 19 (2011). Text and photos to follow:
The grand days of African exploration may be long gone, but that doesn’t mean the weekend adventurer can’t have a bit of fun exploring the rarely visited Fort Mangochi, key for its role in stopping the lucrative slave trade.
Growing up in the eastern coast of the United States as the child of a military officer, I was afforded many opportunities to visit historic sites; famous places where the British established the first settlements in present-day Virginia and Rhode Island. Love it or hate it, places like Plymouth Rock and Jamestown take on theme-park-like lives of their own. Actors, complete in period costume, dominate the day as the paying visitor can wander around what appears to be an authentic, centuries-old village. Tour busses packed with retired adults mix with fresh-faced children excitedly disembarking their yellow school busses to see what things were like during the nation’s infancy.
But here in Malawi, where no government agency is flush with cash, Fort Mangochi appears dilapidated and forgotten. The closest carnival-like atmosphere would be found on the highway in Majuni during market day. The only visitors I’ve come across in my five visits by foot from my previous residence near the town of Namwera in Mangochi District are locals looking for firewood and trying to avoid the feared chitopotopo (a troll-like, magical creature rumored to be living in these mountains). Well-used trails snake through this lush valley seemingly placed inside a bowl of mountain heights. Not once did I see any sign marking the significance of this historic place, or a marker along the Bakili Muluzi Highway indicating a turnoff.
But that doesn’t mean the government hasn’t tried to protect this antiquity. Metal posts, cut down by locals to fashion into hoes for gardening no doubt, could be found buried in areas around the outside of the high brick walls. Perhaps it was a Banda-era scheme to keep the area free of damage.
But with no follow-through, the fort sits overgrown with indigenous trees and crumbling walls. I found myself dodging fresh elephant dung, amazed at the amount of work that went into creating this outpost of British colonialism that made a final, unobliging statement to the predominate Yao chieftancy of Jalasi (often referred to then as Zarafi).
To many Malawians today, “Mangochi” brings to mind lazy days along the lakeshore. But back in 1895, the boma itself was called Fort Johnston and remained so until the mid 20th century.
By looking at P.A. Cole-King’s booklet, “Mangochi: the Mountain, the People and the Fort” (available from the Society of Malawi at Mandala House, Blantyre and a must-have for anyone interested in Fort Mangochi’s history), we learn what we can about what was going on over a century ago as the British tried to subdue the opposition: slave traders working in conjunction with those of Arab origin who had been trading in this region of Africa for a few hundred years already. During Livingstone’s time along the southern lakeshore in 1861, artillery shots could be heard presumably issuing out of the Mangochi mountain region from the Yawo chief Livingstone calls Nkata. For the next several decades, armed skirmishes would go on as the Yawo jockeyed for position in the lucrative trade of goods to the coast, and worked at subduing other tribes. It wasn’t until 1891 that a British Protectorate was established, and Jalasi joined Mponda and Makanjila as the traditional authorities of the area.
Cole-King describes Chief Jalasi’s town as “on the plateau, which is some three miles long and three quarters wide, varying in heigh between 4,500 and 4,200 feet above sea level (3000 feet above the lake), well watered and with fertile soil, and situated just below and to the north of the main peak of Mangochi mountain, 5,713 feet.” (p.7) Jalasi was confident that he was secure and continued to resist the British, the first Commissioner being Harry Johnston. An ill-conceived British-led attack on Jalasi was repulsed in 1891, and an unsteady calm remained for four more years. But in 1895, poor relations came to a head and a three-sided attack was planned against Jalasi’s mountain stronghold.
With the help of enlisted soldiers of Indian Sikh, Makua, Atonga and Yao men, the Protectorate succeeded and the villagers eventually fled. On October 28th, 1895, the area was void of villagers. As allegedly the first white men to step into Jalasi’s village, Major Edwards and his officers estimated that 25,000 people called this place home. It was full of food and impressive in many ways. A temporary fort was commissioned immediately under Captain Cavendish’ supervision. In short order, Liutenant E. G. Alston arrived to build the permanent fortress.
Today, there is no easily visible indication of permanent residence by the Yawo though the fort walls are still in good shape. Built of stone several feet thick, 2-3 meters tall, the area could encompass several football pitches. Numerous buildings still dot the area, the most impressive of which was the Commanding Officer’s residence, and a large open area acted as the parade grounds. Outside of the fort walls, soldier’s quarters, completed under Lieutenant Brogden’s oversight, lie in ruins to one side while further off, on a site I haven’t been able to locate again with a guide, I came across old bullet casings littering the ground, presumably the site of target practice.
Chief Jalasi himself stayed on the Portuguese side of the border where he fled during the battle and died there in 1906, but many of his village headmen moved back to Fort Mangochi and built many large villages around the site of the fort as the area acted as the main route from Fort Johnston to Mozambique. From 1907-1910, the site was used as a prison and, during World War I the King’s African Rifles used the fort as a training camp. Perhaps these are the origin of the shell casings I found?
(Unpublished directions: To find Fort Mangochi, follow the tarmaced M3 highway from Mangochi town up the escarpment to Chowe. From the Chowe signpost, count 13.6KM, heading through the village of Idrusi, to Majuni. A sign opposite the turnoff will read Balakasi Woodlot (from the Namwera side you will travel 6KM to the west). The dirt road heading to Skull Rock Estate is very close to the residence of present-day T. A. Jalasi, the prominent feature being a mosque in front with a borehole well to it’s side. Immediately past this site, a road branches off to the right, before reaching the market, school, or several larger mosques in the trading center. Several KM down that dirt road, sometimes difficult to pass, visitors should make their way to Skull Rock Estate. If you want a guide, organize with someone there and begin to the ascent towards Skull Rock itself. You can’t miss it and won’t be confused as to why it has the name it does. Be sure to pack in your own water and snacks as you will be gone several hours and the going, while not exactly a walk in the park, is well worth the effort. Treat the Fort with respect: stay off of the walls and don’t take any keepsakes that will lead to destroying the site further.)
Head chopping
Yesterday was a Tuesday which, for me and some colleagues, means we are out and about on bike visiting friends in the village. We learned about a sadaka that had already started (basically a memorial service for someone who has died, usually celebrated 3 days and 40 days after death). I ran into a number of friends who are chiefs in nearby villages and one thanked me for the photo I had taken of him back in January. He commented, however, that his head was cut off above the eyes.
I remembered vividly the photo. It was one I really liked and it made me start to wonder: do they see photos the same way I do? My coworker mentioned after that comment that a friend of his in another village I gave a photo to also said the same thing. Something to the effect of “yeah, it’s a really nice photo… except for the fact that my head is cut off.”
This is an eye-opening insight into the minds of those I live amongst. I have already learned that, to give someone a black-and-white copy that I’m particularly fond of, doesn’t necessarily mean that the recipient will understand that it’s a “classic” look. They want color, hands down, every time. Heck, my own mom (an American with artsy tendencies, though more of a “country crafts” style) doesn’t understand the point of black-and-white.
I’ve become a celebrity of sorts in nearby villages, in part due to the whole photography thing. Kids run after my bike yelling “ajambule!” (take my picture). Grown men practically are begging me to take their photo because they know they’ll not be charged for a memorable keepsake they’ll be proud of for years.
Or will they… even if their head is chopped off?
From an impromptu photo session at the sadaka, as I succumbed to the pressure being put on me by numerous chiefs all wanting a “one-one” shot of themselves (as opposed to being in a group). Some non-chiefs snuck in, but what am I to do?
Unyago 2010
In the small village of Kwilasya, just up the road from Mandimba, my family and I were invited to share in the celebration surrounding the “coming out” of the unyago initiates: boys and girls trained for 2-4 weeks in matters dealing with culture, respect, manhood and womanhood.
The boys are taken to a grass-walled area outside of the village, where they undergo circumcision and learn all kinds of secret stuff. The girls usually remain in the village at an elder’s house where they too receive instruction on what it means to be an adult. For these children, most of which several years away from adolescence, it is the biggest day of their lives. Wedding days (the many that will come, in most cases) will pale in comparison.
friends and family come from far and wide to party and dance throughout the night, after the initiates are released, and long into the next day
as a sign of respect, initiates are instructed not to smile or laugh; they are to remain silent as visitors drop some coins in front of them, or maybe a coke… several children must hold up cloth or money in front of their mouths so as not to show their smiles hidden below
