Recent Zomba Trip

Daniel’s first holiday was on Zomba Plateau last weekend (middle of October).

This blog post is mainly for the benefit of grandparents and uncles and aunts etc. I have not made much effort to write anything that I think might be interesting for people wanting to read about Malawi.

It was a last minute decision so we did not think it was even worth checking if the CCAP cottage had a vacancy. We camped near the Trout Farm on Zomba Plateau.

Ruth met some new friends and went fishing.

Someone rolls up her sleeves for nappies.

When you take a 2 month old up a mountain in Malawi you find yourself stopping by at the Ku Chawe Inn for a cup of tea more often than you find yourself climbing Chambe’s West Face.

October is a hot time of year. That is why we escape up a mountain at this time of year. Too high for mosquitos – and look – people are wearing jackets in October!

A walk on Zomba Plateau is easily doable with a 2 month old, a 21 month old and a four year old. Here is the path along the Mulunguzi Stream.

We stopped at some rocks that cross the stream.

Ruth crossed the stream and dived into the prickly bushes to pick some addictive berries.

they ate so many berries I wondered if lunch would be necessary.

Some of us headed purposefully back to the campsite but Amelia’s eyes were in the bushes, she was addicted.

no shortage

Amelia was so addicted that she dragged Daniel through jagged bushes.

Marching ants did not deter Amelia from taking this side path down towards the stream and an interesting bridge. Amelia vaguely warned Ruth about the ants (see Ruth looking down), but you could tell that Amelia had other thoughts on her mind.

Forest on Zomba Plateau

David took to chess at Ku Chawe Inn – Zomba Plateau’s answer to the revolving restaurants on the top of the Swiss Alps.

Ruth and David follow in the footsteps, or chess moves, of both their grandfathers.

Evening approaches, a view from Ku Chawe Inn

Next day we decided to go to the Zomba Plateau stables to see if Ruth likes horse riding.

Ready for her first horse ride

Daddy and David watch the little girl

We thought David should see if he likes the idea of going on a horse

A big sister looks proudly on as her little brother prepares for his first horse ride.

like Ruth, David took to this horse lark like a duck to water.

Big sister’s pride grows and grows

Horse riding on Zomba Plateau

look at me mummy

Ruth and Daniel relax with kindle after the horsing around

Ruth

After his horse ride David did some running around at the stables including down a slope. “Ook mummy! Oww!”

He scraped his nose as well. Looks good, nearly as handsome as daddy.

These last three pictures were in Ku Chawe Inn, just in case anyone is wondering what the Zomba Plateau connection is.

Back in Malawi

We are in Malawi and have been for a few months. Here are some photos.

The first photo is of Daniel John Taylor. Born on 7th August 2012 in Blantyre. He was actually born on the historic Blantyre Mission (in common with other Scottish babies going back to the very first Scots born in Malawi I think). The land is on a long lease to a private hospital….

Well, I have tried to upload some photos from my iPad. The problem is that the photos here are not well organised so I will try again from somewhere else.

Comments

I apologise for not approving and responding to all comments during this period when my blog is dormant. I will approve and reply, in particular to an important critical comment, when I find enough time to breathe.

News

Today I have been communicating my wife’s pregnancy in a haphazard way on email and facebook and am even thinking of sending a couple of text messages.

Sadly, I am not quite well enough organised to have a systematic way of reaching everyone I should – so I am announcing it on my Malawi blog… If anyone says that I did not tell them that my wife is pregnant I will pretend to be shocked and outraged and will say “Have you not been reading my blog!” The baby was conceived in Malawi.

On another point: my blog posts have been infrequent recently. This is because I am not in Malawi right now and am very busy with other matters. It is my intention to resume writing regularly and to get to ‘Part 2′ of various series that I have begun. I feel no guilt or pressure over delayed blog posts.

Aquariums & Lake Malawi

A few yards from where we are staying in St Andrews, Fife (Scotland) is a small aquarium.

To do something different and to entertain the kids we decided to go for a visit. The St Andrews Aquarium is really quite a small place. Strangely for an aquarium one of the main attractions are meerkats. I took a bit of interest in them as they are from Africa so I enquired about their exact range – The Kalahari Desert (Botswana). Others you will get elsewhere in Africa.

Once we got onto the tour of the fish tanks I decided to try to avert my eyes from the headings and attempt to identify the Lake Malawi fish tank based on the fish. I cannot remember the exact point when I realised that there were Lake Malawi fish here but sometimes I have the feeling that every aquarium has to have Lake Malawi cichlids.

Within a few seconds I was looking through the glass at some suspiciously varied and colourful fish. Sure enough, this was the Lake Malawi section.

The other aquarium that I know of in Fife (North Queensferry) also has Lake Malawi fish. Still, the thousands of different species of fish are certainly better seen with a snorkel or scuba diving gear. Nothing prepared me for the first time, as a child, that I went snorkelling around some rocks in Lake Malawi.

Waistlines & Malawi

I wrote recently about how being in Malawi affected my sleeping patterns (hint: the word ‘pattern’ became appropriate).

On returning to the wild west (the western world) somebody said something I had not been anticipating “you have lost weight”. Sure enough, my belly had retreated.

Confirmation came when I attended a wedding in Glasgow. The kilt belt test showed clear progress.

I should say that almost all of my life I have been lean mean machine. Only recently have female (and not only female) relatives started making comments.

I suspect that the change has something to do with fresh fruit and vegetables, climate and exercise. Whatever the exact reasons, I simply add this evidence to the case for living in Malawi being a good thing.

Globe Trekker – endangered places

One thing on the TV I usually like is Globe Trekker. It is the traveller & wanderer in me.

Well, there is a show on now with a theme of ‘endangered places’. Much of what they are talking about is overcrowded areas of natural beauty. I found myself saying “it’s not like that in Malawi”.

Malawi has fantastic places but even the ‘busiest’ places at the height of the tourism season are quiet.

Sleep in Malawi

One of the differences I noticed to my daily schedule when arriving in Malawi was the effect on my sleep. I think I may have written about this before on the blog but googling the appropriate words I don’t see any post about it. I am prompted to write about it now because here on our return to Scotland I notice the pattern being immediately reversed.

Malawi is a morning country. If it does not get done in the morning, there is a chance it will not get done. As soon as we arrived in Malawi I noticed an immediate change in pattern to my day. Now on the return to Scotland I see that pattern immediately reversed back again. There are certainly a few plausible and even convincing and simple explanations for this. Whether these explanations are the full story or just part of it I do not know. I suspect that they are not the full explanation because the change is so instant and clear. I also like the idea of mystery, I am attracted to the idea that there may be more to the full truth than that that I can understand. That coupled with the fact that the two words ‘pattern’ and ‘sleep’ have never been closely associated with each other in my life suggests to me something in addition to the simple explanations. However, I do notice that the effect I feel is reflected to a lesser extent in the wider daily pattern of others in the country (whether Scotland or Malawi).

In Malawi I would feel very tired and feel as though it was late evening even when it was early evening (6 or 7pm). At the same time the crack of dawn would usually or often give me a the desire and impetus to get up and get on (the need to fight the desire for a bit of extra sleep was normally absent).

Simple explanation number one is that being new in a very different country with a lot to do to settle in, combined with having two small children, one being a baby, is enough to make anyone tired. I am sure that this is part of the answer.

The follow up point from this is that we deliberately planned for the little ones to get to bed early because that is the best way of keeping them safe from malaria mosquitoes later in the evening or night. The sooner the youngest ones are safely under mosquito nets the better. In Scotland Ruth in particular would be up much later than most people her age. This was to the extent of attracting open disapproval from other adults and parents who showed their tut tuts by predicting that Ruth would be in a difficult mood the next day. I took some satisfaction from seeing these critics proved wrong in the morning.

The rationale for Ruth having a late schedule in Scotland was that she could have more time in the evening with both parents. She would get up late and have a long afternoon nap. We knew that this would be all change on arrival in Malawi. One of the good things about Ruth is that she likes her sleep and will send herself to bed even before the parents have to persuade her of the imminence of ‘bed time’.

In Malawi Ruth was often off to bed before her peers and friends to the extent that we were able to socialise with our neighbours less than we might have wanted in the evenings.

Malawi is of course a country where a high proportion of people live not by electric lightbulb but by the rise and fall of the sun. The sound of the cock crowing (cockerel / rooster) is nature’s alarm clock. All the time I have lived in Malawi I have had electricity but perhaps wider society affects us all.

Something I have little experience of in Malawi is the nightlife. This is because all the time I have lived in Malawi I was either a child or a parent of little children. [Of course the other reason is that I am a strict dour presbyterian who retreats to his attic library to read long journals in old dusty books by candle-light - not (except for the 'dour' bit]. On other visits to Malawi I was either there for a short time or with my family. Perhaps people who take part in more of Malawi’s nightlife than I ever did will know more about the desire for a long lie in the morning than I ever felt.

Back in Scotland the time that nightfall arrives varies much more between summer and winter than any of the change experience in Malawi. In Malawi it gets light at about 5 or 6am depending on the time of year and gets dark at about 6pm. Here in Scotland it gets dark at about 4pm or about 11pm depending on the time of year.

Perhaps the air in Malawi is fresher. I do know that fresh air can knock people out, especially those not used to it. When, in a previous life, I moved to live in the Western Isles (the Outer Hebrides), for a few months, I was immediately warned about this by locals. They had enough experience of ‘outsiders’ or ‘city folk’ or people from ‘continental Scotland’ visiting them to know all about this. I found it to be very true and could not resist sleep when on those outer islands on the north western boundary of Europe.

Perhaps it was sea air rather than ‘fresh air’ – I do not know.

In general I think I slept better in Malawi. I have a suspicion that there is some deep and meaningful reason for this beyond the simple explanations.

Review – Livingstone, Last Explorers

The BBC documentary on David Livingstone has just finished.

The only part of the only interview with someone I know was when Jack Thomson (rightly) described some of Livingstone’s flaws.

The description of Livingstone’s journeys was useful. Where the documentary was misleading was in the ‘what happened next’ section. There was one sentence stating that the UK government asked the top guy in Zanzibar to order a stop to the slave trade. The implication left was that it was a political / diplomatic agreement.

In reality the story of how slavery came to an end in what is now Malawi was complicated and fascinating. The people who went to Malawi, inspired by David Livingstone, were absolutely central to what happened. The proclamation by the Mufti of Zanzibar (against slavery) was treated as a kind of amusing joke by slave leaders on the shores of Lake Malawi.

When I met the BBC team I did ask what they had read of Robert Laws and the others who followed Livingstone. I thought they looked a bit blank. In fact, the conclusion of the programme was that Livingstone’s legacy was colonial injustice described as being just as bad as the slavery. Hmmmm. East Coast African slavery was the worst and beyond horrific.

Colonialism was hardly perfect, even in Nyasaland. It did play a part in ending slavery. In (what is now) Malawi there was a growing momentum brought about by a small number of missionaries following Livingstone and Scottish traders (in the tradition of David Livingstone’s ‘commerce’) and others including a heroic off duty British officer and finally British officialdom. Internal British politics, a private (trader v slaver) war that developed to an ‘official’ war, British-Portuguese diplomacy, divisions within and between Scots, missionaries, Portuguese, English & Scottish and tribes all played their part.

The ending of the genocidal wars between tribes around the same time was also a direct result of the work that Livingstone began.

The programme gave no hint of the reality of what happened next. Certainly, it is true that Livingstone himself was personally deeply flawed. Many who followed had their own share of contributions to mistakes and errors. At the same time extraordinary people helped to shape and change in deep and profound ways.

It is true that much of the good achieved in the early decades after Livingstone were lost – but not all, and not those which were most fundamental.

On the Trail (and legacy) of David Livingstone

David Livingstone statue at Victoria Falls: my father took this photo in 1967

While in Malawi we met a BBC crew including the presenter Neil Oliver who presents the Coast series.

They were there to film a documentary on David Livingstone. It is part of a series called ‘The Last Explorers’. I knew that the BBC were about because I know people they were interviewing. At the time that they were in Blantyre I happened to be looking for people travelling from Malawi to the UK to help to deliver some letters from pupils at HHI Primary School in Malawi to their ‘link’ school in Elie, Scotland.

Approaching a suspicious looking group of characters outside of St Michael and All Angel’s I asked if they were from the BBC. Very helpfully they very gladly agreed to take the letters from the Malawian pupils and drop them in the post the minute they landed at London Heathrow. We did however then have to rush and speed up the final stages of the gathering of the letters.

The documentary that they produced will be broadcast on BBC 1 Scotland tomorrow (Thursday) evening. I will be interested to see what they say. Over the last year or two I have been reading quite a bit of history on Malawi. This was partly motivated by my love of Malawi but also my personal history. It was also motivated by me being stung by a couple of different (and in my view ignorant) comments about Malawi. The problem was that I did not have enough history myself at the time to respond properly.

St Michael's where I bumped into the BBC crew in 2011. This photo was taken in the 60s or 70s. Sharp eyed readers looking at the HHI building will see that this photo is the wrong way around.

David Livingstone of course was the founder of the 150 year (so far) relationship between Scotland and Malawi. [Actually, I am sure that some would say that God founded the relationship]. The Church of Scotland mission in Blantyre was the direct heir of his work in the southern (and most populous) region of Malawi. That mission of course then handed over responsibility and Scottish mission became African church. The handover of administrative authority from Scottish missionaries to Malawian ministers was therefore a fundamental milestone and ‘bearing fruit’ of Livingstone’s original missionary work. The relationship between The Church of Scotland and the new Church of Central Africa Presbyterian (CCAP) church continued and Scottish missionaries continued to be sent to work under the authority of the CCAP. Now, the full-time missionary links are much smaller. Instead there are many more links between wider Scottish and Malawian groups and society. However, the Church of Scotland does have a doctor (not Scottish) working for the CCAP at Mulanje Mission Hospital (where one of my brothers was born). In general however, I find that Malawians in the CCAP ask ‘where have all the Scots gone’. Rightly, the CCAP has many other international links now.

My father, Rev Howard Taylor, preaching at Masalema Church in Chichewa in the 1970s. My father requested a congregation where no one spoke English - to force himself to learn Chichewa.

My father was one of the last Church of Scotland missionaries who worked full-time as a Chichewa speaking minister. Actually, in speaking to my dad now we think he was the last in that category.

Of course the Scottish mission and missionaries went through their ups and downs – to say the least. There is quite an extraordinary history with the full range of human interest and political sagas. At its best the Scottish missionaries were immersed in the language and culture of the people. They avoided imposing and had a clear vision of Malawi as a place that would take the bible and modern education and work out their own fully African and truly indigenous Christian civilisation. At their worst some Scottish missionaries were aloof and arrogant and somewhat ‘colonial’ in their style. [This is not an 'anti-colonial' comment by me - it is true that British protection played a key role in the defeat of the slave trade and the emergence of the nation].

At their best in the early days we had DC (David) Scott and Alexander Heatherwick. In the final years my father was, we think, the last Church of Scotland missionary working as a fluent and expert Chichewa speaking minister with congregations in the villages. If someone can correct me on that point I would be glad to hear about it and make the necessary correction. Until that point I will bask in the glory of being a child of that great legacy. Unfortunately this proud ‘achievement’ will be appreciated by no one really other than myself.

These are Rev Chinthali's children (and me in the wheelbarrow). They were our neighbours in Zomba. Their father taught my father Chichewa. Their house in the background is now occupied by Rev Kadawati's family. It was Rev Kadawati, while General Secretary, who welcomed us to return to Malawi.

Being serious again my father did say that his approach as a minister in the CCAP was to say that he was under the authority of the domestic church. Over the last eight months in Malawi I and my family have certainly benefitted from the continuing good will directed towards my father. Recently an older minister came up to me and told me that my father in the synod was just like his Malawian colleagues – as one of them rather than being a bit ‘other’ like most westerners in Malawi. He is remembered by many with great affection.

A final vintage photo for you. This one Mulanje Mountain in the 1960s. There is more to Malawi than history.

So, these are my roots in a way. There may not be a blood line running down the decades of the Scotland – Malawi relationship. However, the bond between the two countries is deep and lies at the heart and foundation (not to mention geographical shape) of the Malawian nation. The relations between the two countries is wide and shallow (that is not a criticism) in many ways, as anyone who looks at the number of projects going on will be able to tell.

In the future I would like to show people around Malawi and explore in person and on the spot, the trail of David Livingstone. The history is fascinating, the oral traditions and passed down memory are there in the villages and the scenery is beautiful and stunning.