Trees no more

Trees in Malawi are disappearing at rate of knots, faster than most anywhere else in Africa. Sometimes it is for firewood (or charcoal), sometimes illegal logging/poaching organised on an industrial scale by Chinese or Mozambicans (on trial this week, verdict due tomorrow), and sometimes small scale timber. This is on my route to work and is absolutely typical; there were three good-looking trees which were brought down by a bunch of men and sawn into planks. (Click to enlarge picture)
I am impressed by their skill and ingenuity but the environmental impact, both locally and nationally, is horrendous and affects soil quality, water availability, air quality and even electricity supply.
 

How to rig a survey

While I was at the bank on Wednesday, one of the bank staff was at my office, delivering their "Christmas Card" with the bottle as shown. There was also a calendar and, wrapped in with them,  a survey sheet asking my opinion of the bank and its service!
Now, given that I don't drink whisky, which way will the survey be biased?

Flamboyant or what!

I recently sent a general letter that missd out a couple of these botanic pictures, so here they are.
The wonderful Flamboyant tree, the Jacaranda, and a bush in the Botanic Garden described as "just a flower" when I asked the gardener!
  

Sensitive sandwiches

Glad to see some of them are holding it together.
 

Cheap vaccines

Wandering casually through the street market, looking at hardware stalls, I spotted a load of vaccines for sale, of several types. Astonished, I looked more closely and found they appeared to have been used and the contents were quite glutinous, though all well in date! And why on a hardware stall?

Actually, they are vials of Bostik glue, cost 8p each (though I suspect that was the foreigner rate).
Another sticky problem solved.

Bohm's Bee-eaters

 

  A nice diversion when animals are in short supply on  a Game count.

  Mind you this one should check that his diet matches his name.

Happiness is...

...an inverter! This wonderful device with the happy smile charges the two truck batteries when the power is on and then supplies power to the mains circuits when the supply goes off. So far I have had it for nearly a week and it has kept the lights and fridge working most of the time, and enabled me to recharge my phone and laptop freely. It should cope with a small freezer too, maybe I'll get one now.
  

Did I leave the window open?

The mechanic came today to replace the wheel bearings. This afternoon it started to rain, as predicted, very heavily for quite a while, not as predicted. I can't remember at what point I recalled that I had not closed the car windows.
Of course, we all know that tropical rain comes down vertically so won't get into a car with open windows.
Pity Malawi is not tropical.
  

A dramatic warning?

A firing range warning with bullet holes to make the point?
Maybe, but a lot of notices here have holes in. One theory is that it reduces wind resistance and makes it less likely that the notice will be blown down but I favour the idea that it stops anyone stealing the notice to roof their house/toilet/annexe. I am always asked for any card or plastic packaging material for such purposes.
  

The bed that George made...and carried

George made this bed for £35 in just a few days. He said that would include delivery because he had a friend with a pickup. In fact, he and a friend carried it on their heads for about 2 hours, a distance of some 3 miles I think. He has a list of other jobs to do for me, but I wonder if I should mention repairing the bridge...
  

A bridge too far gone?

I can walk to work in about 20 minutes, avoiding roads for most of the time and crossing informal fields. This bridge has to be crossed; tall folk can walk down the centre and hold on to the side, I can't quite manage it and have to use the side bar.

It's worth doing for several reasons, including Malachite kingfishers, Hammerkop and weavers.
   

Names and roses

Malawians have a very personal approach to naming children. Apart from local language names, and English names that are similar to western ones, so far I have met:
Happy, Precious, Blessings, Gift, Comfort,
Secret, Donewell, Loveness, Fraction,
 Brighton, Lawyer and King.
  

Armchair gardening

The main highway has a central reservation with lots of shrubs; nothing unusual in that, but someone has put a lot of effort into topiary: all either armchairs or satellite dishes. Is there  a message in that?
  

Will someone posh kindly tell me how to use this?

Yes, it's a tea-strainer with a swinging filter, but does one angle it at 45' to flow off the tray, pour it one tray-full at a time and tip it into the cup, or hold the tray at right-angles to the flow so that it doesn't get involved? Life is full of these dilemmas. See the whole table below at Satemwa tea farm.

Why is this garden bird like the River Thames?

When the Thames rises in the Cotswolds, it is called the Thames, and when it gets to the home counties, it is called the Thames, but when in Oxford it is called the Isis. (At least by some people).

Birding can be complicated. I knew this bird in Kenya and Tanzania (or some of its relatives anyway) as the White-browed Robin-Chat. My Southern African bird books (two, lots of nice pictures, cover several countries but not Malawi) call it the same. My Malawian bird books (no pictures but a lot of distribution maps) call it a Heuglin's Robin. They do something similar for other Robin-Chats too. Wikipedia can't tell me why there is a difference so I guess no-one knows,   probably including the bird.

PS for the geeks: Heuglin was a 19th century explorer/administrator in NE Africa best known for his ornithology. Several birds are named after him. The Latin name is C. heuglini and the Afrikaans name is janfrederiks.

Oops - 2 (costly)

Internet is a bit expensive and intermittent here. I accidentally deleted my email files (letters and addresses) and when I checked my back-ups I found the system hadn't backed up since I arrived, because of the intermittent connections. It took me 2 days to retrieve most things from other files.

It got me thinking; even if it worked properly, backing up just my email file to the cloud (which I do at home without thinking about it) would cost about £5 in internet charges. That's bad enough for me, but this is a poor country and about 70% of the population have less than that to survive on for 6 days.

Oops -1

This is what I saw at about 12.30 when I drove down my road. How it even got there is a mystery to me, let alone how it overturned. It hadn't been there at 11am but then it wasn't there when I returned at 5pm. I guess they got a lot of blokes to clear the soil and then push it back on its wheels.

Pharmacy department

I don't have a picture of the pharmacy department, but the library looks great!

I will post more stuff when I arrive but the department web page is at http://www.medcol.mw/?s=pharmacy

I will have a month to agree my teaching subjects and prepare for the new term. I have several hundred pounds worth of textbooks in my suitcase and hope I bought the right ones!

Malawi

On 27th July I fly to Malawi, via Johannesburg, to teach pharmacy in the University of Malawi's College of Medicine in the southern city of Blantyre. The post is sponsored by the German Government's development agency and lasts for 2 years.

Malawi is a small country with an enormous lake in which there are many species of fish that end up in tropical fish tanks in UK (including my own).

Do consider a visit and follow in the footsteps of David Livingstone!