Water Issues in Malawi

I wrote a post post for the SEED Workshop Blog. SEED stands for Sustainable Environmental Education for Development. SEED is a unique opportunity for young motivated Malawians from all over the country to attend a week long environmental education workshop in Liwonde National Park. To learn more about the SEED Workshop and the Environmental issues Malawians face head over to their blog. 

“When I was young there was enough water, but now the rain is not falling as it was in past years.” My friend and active community member Jameson is speaking about the water issues in our area. In this area of Northern Malawi the rains last year started late and ended early. The image below illustrates how the rain patterns have been changing; there isn't only just less rain falling every year. 

Jameson lives partway up a mountain, where boreholes cannot be drilled due to the bedrock or the extreme depth to water. Just a few months ago, the Red Cross was trying to place a borehole in Jameson's village. They drilled to 51m in several places before they decided that one could not be placed that far up the mountain side. He and his family have to walk about 1 km to draw water from a shallow well, which is often broken. When the well is broken they have to collect what little water seeps out of a spring adjacent to the well which is often cloudy and full of debris.

In past years there also used to be a perennial steam that flowed down the mountain and joined the river 1 km (0.6 miles) away. In the past Jameson's family used to farm along this stream growing vegetables long into the dry season. Today, this stream is just a trickle during dry season and in the past 20 years has carved a 2 m (6 ft) ravine that doesn't support any farming. Jameson knows that these changes have occurred due to the increased population in the area causing the forest and mountain side to be over-harvested and burned from year to year.

When Jameson was a boy this stream flowed all year providing a source of water closer to his home for agricultural purposes. 20 years later the heavy rains have eroded away 2 meters worth of soil from the stream bed.

Jameson, and many others from his village now have to travel 1 km to the main river to grow food during the dry season, but both this year and last that river is going dry in places. The crops are still growing since the water table is so high but there may become a time when even those will fail.

Jameson and his family. He is a small-scale farmer dependant on the rain to grow enough food for his family for a year.  With the changes in the area, he must travel about 1 kilometer to the flood plain in order to grow food in the dry season.

Jameson and his community have been active in trying to counteract these changes by encouraging people not to burn the forest undergrowth and by starting tree nurseries. In an effort to mitigate these changes even more Jameson was open to creating a permagarden at his house. A permagarden is a small heavily amended garden that stores water in the soil lessening the need of bringing in water specifically for the garden. Waste water from bathing, washing clothes, and washing dishes should provide enough water through the dry season.

At the SEED Workshop participants learn how to manage water in a sustainable way in order to grow more food year round closer to the home.

Finally Doing African Things

We recently took a vacation to Kuti Community Wildlife Park in Salima, Malawi.  Instead of being a government owned national park or game reserve, Kuti is a nonprofit trust that is working with the surrounding communities to protect the reserve.  The reserve also hosts a Peace Corps Volunteer who is assisting with outreach and education for the communities.  The park is focusing on deforestation since Malawi has the world's 5th highest deforestation rate.  In addition to planting trees, the park is teaching the community how to make fuel briquettes out of waste materials and how to make mbaulas (clay stoves) that require less fuel than an open fire.  These projects help the communities use less firewood and also provide them with some income.  For more information about Kuti go to www.kuti-malawi.org

Nothing is more adorable than a father and son outing.

Kuti differs from the National Parks and Game Reserves in the lack of large dangerous mammals.  There are no Lion, Rhinoceros, Hippopotamus, or Elephant.  This is actually a huge benefit.  We were free to hike around the park on our own without a guide or guard, getting as close to the animals as they would allow us.  We were able to see, but not get photographs of all, Giraffe, Zebra, Sable, Warthog, Impala, Nyala, Wildebeest, Baboon and Vervet Monkey.

This is his good side.

Along with all of these wonderful sights we spent 3 days in a beautiful cabin (equipped with hot showers!!) We started our days by waking up at 4 AM having some coffee and trying to see all the animals in the park.  Our days were then jam packed with activities such as cooking lunch and getting ready for our evening ‘safari’.   The highlights of the trip were being able to get within 10 m of the Giraffes and eating wonderful food for a few days.  

The best walks are the ones to the bar

Some extra photos can be found here: http://goo.gl/ynirLl

Almost immediately after returning to our site after our vacation, we (along with 38 other volunteers) had an opportunity to assist Liwonde National Park with a Large Mammal Count.  Over the course of two days we counted hundreds of animals mostly waterbuck but we did also see warthog, elephant and wildebeest.  All PCVs split into pairs, accompanied by a pair of guards to spend one morning in a hide, and the other morning walking a transect of the park.  During our hide day, we had to move position to get out of the path of the elephants. Seeing elephants march in real life is just like this:  http://goo.gl/0zGBwp While preforming our transect we got way to close to a group of elephants and startled a small herd of wildebeest.

We're going to need a bigger fence.

More photos here: http://goo.gl/YxpLlQ