Bailey Theado
Goods for good
Lilongwe, Malawi
It has now been over three weeks since I threw my duffle bag onto the conveyor belt, hugged my mom at JFK, and spent about 19 hours traveling first to Johannesburg, South Africa, and then to Lilongwe, Malawi. Before I was able to deboard the plane and touch my feet back on Malawian soil, the entire plane became suddenly confused as we were forced to wait on the stairs in front of a sprawling red carpet.
The carpet was lined with men in military garb that reminded me of revolutionary red coats. At the end of the red carpet was a black Mercedes and photographers swarming a man who had been in business class on our flight. Just the day before, Peter Mutharika was sworn in as the new prime minister of Malawi and after asking my colleagues at the goods for good office, they noted that many African dignitaries were flying in to congratulate him. Waiting on the stairs in my jetlagged state, ready to sleep horizontally, I was quickly challenging my perceptions of what my summer might hold.
I had come to Malawi five years ago with goods for good to do a summer English grammar tutorial for students in standard 8 (American eighth grade equivalent). I was living in a town called Chesi that was the center of more than 20 other villages and host to a large market each week. In the weeks leading up to this trip, I remembered what my village was like, riding in mattolas (pickup trucks), filtering all of my water, walking to watch local soccer matches in the afternoons, and getting used to being called “Ms. B” by my students. When packing I knew I would be staying in a village for some time and during my trip to REI to get some supplies, I was reminded of the perceptions of “Africa” as a country as the sales attendant loaded up my basket as if I were going to be on a new season of Survivor.
As I stood on the steps staring in my tired state at the Mercedes and the VIP procession, I thought about how this summer will not just be a rural experience, but a time to engage with impact of the fast economic and political developments in Malawi. Coming back after five years, I can say that Malawi, particularly Lilongwe the capital, has changed a lot – my first observation was that a huge shopping complex had been built where I remembered an empty dirt plot in the center of town. There is a new four star hotel, a massive parliamentary building, a new football stadium rising, and a sports bar that shows every World Cup game on over 25 TVs.
Thinking about some conversations I had before leaving, I wanted to go back in time and tell them that yes, I was traveling to the African continent, but not the skewed assumptions of what “Africa” is like.
I applied for the Gallatin Human Rights Fellowship to Malawi for many reasons, but the two biggest reasons were because of my previous experience as a tutorial teacher, watching my class attendance fluctuate and learning more about the lives of each of my students; I became invested and interested in learning more about the rights of the child, which in Chichewa is “ufulu wamwana.” In future blog posts, I can talk more about my specific research here in Malawi, but my interests in the rights of the child were coupled by my experience working with and visiting Community-Based Organizations (CBOs).
I distinctly remember visiting one CBO and as I was speaking with the director, I asked about a huge map behind his desk. He showed me how he had mapped out the entire community and what were each household’s needs; he even knew how many women were breastfeeding. The CBOs I had interacted with were formed in the early stages of the HIV/AIDs crisis. Communities became burdened with new dependents with no means to exercise their right to life or provide an adequate standard of living, housing, or food. In cooperation with the Malawian state, communities created certification of the “Community-Based Organization” (CBO) under the Ministry of Gender, Children and Community Development (MGCC) to manage orphan care and advocate for the children’s rights.
Coming back to Malawi, I am here to ask what role CBOs play daily in advocating and protecting the rights of children in their communities and how they conceptualize and understand the rights of the child. The organization I am working with, goods for good, works to promote and protect orphaned and vulnerable children by strengthening the capacities of CBOs and is looking to more fully understand how CBOs engage in child protection and with child rights in order for goods for good to better target their programs.
Prior to traveling, I was looking forward to applying the ethnographic research skills I had learned and engaging with real civil society organizations after studying them theoretically in an independent study. goods for good has an office in New York that I had previously interned with, and the team in New York and Lilongwe helped me with many things, from finding a place to stay to visa confusion to preparing for my research.
My initial weeks here were spent preparing for my interviews and research, from working with another intern here at the office, Watanja, to help with translation, to figuring out which CBOs would be interested and open to being interviewed. After my first full week and after speaking with the leader of Bright Vision, it was settled that I would be working with Bright Vision.
This CBO is located approximately 25km south of Lilongwe in an area called Ngala, which means “mouth” because there is a giant rock mountain with a cave that looks like a mouth. Beneath Ngala mountain are the Bright Vision center buildings, but the CBO has smaller branches in the area. In my next post, I’ll be able to share the process of getting approval for my research within the CBO from the local chiefs to the head of all chiefs for Chadza district. Currently, in addition to my weekly interviews I am preparing for my interview and meeting on July 11 with the head of the large Traditional Authority that Bright Vision is located within and a meeting with all of the CBOs that are located within the local district.
Today, I completed five interviews and I’ve realized that on the trip to Bright Vision, I am a bit nervous each time, realizing that I will probably always have more questions and hoping I can make my questions clear. Except when I am done at the end of the day, the energy of the CBO volunteers and our conversations breathe new energy into me and make me wish I could already extend my time here to talk to more people.
More to come! Zikomo! (“thank you” in Chichewa)