Yet another chat

You probably read the extracts from semi structured chats. Well. I don't like having volumes, but I had another chat I would like to share.

This one was with my good friend, Mikoyan. Well. Mikoyan is not his real name but I gave him that one for our love of Russian military aircraft. We were talking about how wonderful the Sukhoi SU-35 is an awesome plane (too much detail, ain't it?) and rather unnaturally our chat escalated into having Malawi manufacture jets. Or the possibility thereof. Now that was a turn that we were not supposed to take because it brought memories of how we don't even have a presidential jet and the moment we got there we started talking about our poverty. Sad ending to a cool thing, right? That is the moment in which you don't like being a a Malawian, but some of us are different. While others ruin the country we are busy thinking of how to rehabilitate it. And we talk about it.

There we were. Talking about the country and the issues. I can't remember how the story escalated but we ended up talking about food security. Two important points came up on that.

The first one was of course why we are still in this dependence on rain in our agriculture when we in fact we have an axis of all year rainwater in the country. Before I had my vision tunnelled to medicine I read some geography books (not sure as to why they call it human Geography. Doesn't make sense). They said in Israel they get water from the dead sea and desalinate it for agriculture. Someone also once told me that they import some soil from Egypt. Know what? Israel makes over $2 billion in exports of food. 2 billion.

Come to Malawi. Good soil and fresh water and people still complain about poor rains leading to poor yields. Zero pa ten. Shows you that something is not right around here. Looming hunger around and no one mentions winter cropping as a solution.

The other point was that of our farming being too manual. Still using a hoe is just too inefficient but somehow more than 2000 or more than that years after Prophet Elisha used a plough we are stuck with the hoe. I won't go into the fact that people have donated tractors which have ended up rotting in some warehouse. I mean, the tractors are meant to be in EPAs (Extension Planning Areas) or district offices. Interestingly enough some of them do not have cars and the ones that do hardly have fuel. Just not sure if a tractor would be operational when people are not going for meetings (here in Malawi we love meetings).

Anyway. That was out of the love for complaining. We might think of what the government is doing to address my worries and those that you have. Well. I am sure that on paper someone drafted a nice policy on irrigation; but this is Malawi, so policies end up in the same books they are written and on desks at the lake. Nothing materializes.

Again someone is thinking I am talking about those in offices. Well, not this time. We Malawians are just resistant to change and in as much as some things are not brought to beneficiaries, I have my doubts that they would make a difference in the grassroots. The reason, according to my good friend who has worked with people in the villages, is that these programs are meant for farmers and sadly we don't have any. Whatever he meant I can't explain, but he was right.

Conclusion from the whole thing? If you want to make some changes don't draft a national policy. Instead make a policy that impacts your life and that of your spouse and children. If it is working draft another one that encompasses your friends and then you can extend it to friends of your friends. If that works again, gather friends of your friends' friends and include them in your game changer; but make them pay for it (I need to emphasize on this one. This one should not be free). Main point is that you should have results and work with a limited group of people where you are.

Mikoyan told me there is one issue with that strategy. He says the old stars will end up bewitching you. Well. They could, but this is a challenge worth taking.

That was humor (you were supposed to laugh at that) but on a serious note, here is what I have to say. Henry Kachaje once said this country is poor because poor people live in it. If some of us could take the overlooked resources to full use; and few more emulated and more emulated from the emulators, this country could change for the better.

Another proposed to our man made problems; again from a semistructured chat.