Early days in Blantyre

3 years ago, when I left Blantyre after 3 weeks at CURE hospital to go back to London, I was overwhelmed by the great sense of human coldness and general sterility I experienced upon arrival. I was longing for more of that great human warmth and colourfulness characteristic of the Malawians I’d met in Blantyre. This, by all accounts, is mostly the same to date. But to get an idea of how much more so it must have been in Ntcheu, consider the fact that upon landing in Blantyre for the first time as one of its residents, as opposed to a mere passer-by, I felt almost as I did when I left Blantyre for London. I suddenly felt immersed in a big cold city full of superiority-complexed people, dodgy dealers, excessive security and smoke. Of course, all that is relative, since when compared to your Mayfair and Brixton quarters of London, Blantyre, despite all its superciliousness relative to Ntcheu, would still represent a saintly opposite! And of course, the initial feeling of antipathy towards it gradually softens as I start to discover that the city is nevertheless diverse and that I still have the choice to make my lifestyle not so different from what it was in Ntcheu. Every big city has this corruptive potential, some more than others, but ultimately, it only corrupts you as much as you are willing to let yourself be corrupted.

Blantyre cradles many extremes at once. On the one hand, you get a sea of anonymous Malawians, flocking to the city in search of any work they can find to get themselves out of poverty and be able to support their relatives back where they came from. These people walk everywhere, eat only the cheapest available food, sleep in the most basic settings, usually some distance outside the city itself and are essentially indistinguishable from the rural inhabitants. Interestingly, the phenomenon of urban drift does not appear to be anywhere near its counterparts of Asia, where there is a real congestion as a result. Townships around here are relatively small.

On the other hand, you find another group of people who are only ever known to walk when it involves moving from a 4x4 into a building, or back! They are made up of Malawi’s emerging upper middle/ upper class, the asian community of wealthy tradespeople and muzungus. At first I was surprised to find so many rich Malawians, but the more I thought about it the less surprised I became. If so much money is actually said to be injected into this country’s economy and the poverty level, essential services and infrastructure remain so stagnant (based on many old timers’ accounts I’ve heard and my own comparison between 2008 and now), the money must be going somewhere! This is not a generalisation, just a reflection of the surprisingly high number. These people live in exclusive areas in and around the city, guarded by electric fences and armed security. They frequent the numerous posh establishments around and shop in your high end supermarkets. They establish that stark contrast for which the city is famous.

In this dangerous juxtaposition of extremes, one finds another trait for which Blantyre is famous- crime, namely break-ins! Whether an extreme in scaremongering among the wealthy, desperate to safeguard that wealth, or a real extreme in the crime rate, I haven’t had a chance to establish yet and hope not to establish it by personal experience either. But its influence is ubiquitous. Enhanced security is everywhere ranging from broken glass embedded in the walls to electric barbed wire! Another peculiar manifestation of it that no one can fail to notice is the daily parade of armoured guards with angry barking dogs, which one security company likes to exhibit.

There is a middle ground though and it’s made up people who are neither rich nor poor, but are generally trying to get by. It is also fairly substantial which is reassuring. It includes salaried Malawians, students, and many lowly paid NGO workers (like VSO!) as well as members of the above –mentioned wealthy groups who decide not to behave like venerable super-humans. The middle ground, of course, sits uncomfortably between the rich, eager to lure them closer, and the poor, eager to humble them. Those who are in it by choice, probably abide to the latter category, whereas those who fought to get into it in the first place probably want to ascend further to get into the former category. Janet and I for one (two!), will probably try as much as possible to live the low impact life we’ve got accustomed to in Ntcheu, but still won’t alienate ourselves from a good bunch of people who might have opted for the more comfortable cosinesses of expat life. The factors determining lifestyle here are complex and there are plenty of good intentioned people living quite a plush existence.

Janet and my arrival in the big city has been accompanied by 2 crises incidentally, which are linked to the lifestyle choices referred to above. Firstly, one on a national scale, is the fuel crisis (Petrol/Diesel Palibe) which reached its dizzy heights just before we arrived. This had the strange ability, for once, of uniting the rich and less rich (and also poor, when you add in thirsty minibuses) under the same roof with the same desperation for a commodity. One might point out that the rich end of the spectrum were the more desperate, having grown so much more dependent on the stuff to ‘fuel’ their fancy lifestyle. Minibus passengers, if forced to, would probably be able to leg a few miles home if no transport was available. This crisis, apart from blurring the contrast between rich and poor, also throws some important questions about the state of this country. The effects of oil dependency can really be observed at close range and it certainly is worrying. As any ‘disaster’ it hits the poor first and hardest but knowing how the rest of the world is also so addicted to that liquid, one wonders what it might look like if suddenly in Europe or North America, people and industry and public services and trade suddenly got made to scrounge around for the last remaining drop of fuel in town for three weeks on end. This is what is happening at the moment here, and no one is spared. The queues outside fuel pumps are endless, the chaos bewildering- with everyone squeezing in best they can, straddling central reservations and even the opposite lane-, and the traffic unbearable. Janet and I, seeing this, are so glad we resisted the temptation to buy a car here. Beyond this relatively minor inconvenience, all services are also suffering. Supplies in the hospitals are at an all time low. Staff are being forced to adapt their timetables around fuel availability. Patient referrals from district to central hospitals for higher levels of care, are being paralysed, resulting in deaths at times. Meanwhile the 10-20 gas guzzler motorcades of certain individuals don’t seem to be suffering in the least!


We're actually in the wrong lane here and the 4x4 below is straddling back to the correct one. The line of cars is the fuel queue, not parked vehicles.

"FUEL PALIBE"- No Fuel!

The second crisis, one on a more personal level, is our pains with housing. This again has revealed some insights which forcefully tempered our precipitous attitude towards moving into a space of our own. Of course we wouldn’t have had the luxury to do that, were it not for the amazing hospitality of Hanna, fellow VSO volunteer, who literally welcomed us in like old friends. All this time, we believed that we would be moving in houses similar to some of our fellow expats, thinking without actually questioning it, that this was the norm. It’s only once we were told that we would receive a limited budget towards our accommodation, that we realised how exclusive these areas were. Yet there are many alternative options around, which are much less expensive. Sadly we don’t get many expats wanting to live there, opting for the posher areas where other expats live. It results in a strange segregation almost where expats have little chance of interacting with ordinary Malawians other than at work or their house employees. Our situation is unique in that we are the ones doing our house hunting instead of VSO placing us in a house (since my transfer to Blantyre halfway through my placement was a situation quite unfamiliar to them). Of course, I’ve wondered why the VSO houses have tended to be in the posher parts of town and the reason for it seems to be down to the fact the houses are actually provided by the college of medicine, which is a well-paying partner of VSO. So their employees (VSOs) are placed in their houses and VSO ends up paying, although ideally they should. In light of the difficulties in finding suitable accommodation for volunteers, and the constant pressure from the latter’s concern about security being inadequate elsewhere, the simplest (and sometimes cheaper) option for VSO has been to go with the posh houses. They try and cut the costs by encouraging people to share. Couples are given a special status (which is likely to change soon, with necessary budgetary tightening) whereby they are entitled to a house by themselves. Sadly none of those are available for us at the moment, not least helped by the fact that the ‘partner’ in my case is no rich college of medicine, but rather a poor relation called Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital! All this tedious delay however (2 weeks in a spare room with half opened boxes) has had a positive effect nonetheless. It has enabled us to understand the system better and make our quest for more suitable accommodation- within our means and in line with our desire to keep it simple and around ordinary Malawians. The light is finally starting to appear at the end of that tunnel we feel...

Of course it’s still very early days here and I will probably come back over my first impressions of this city. It feels so complex in its dynamics. Yet at times, things are also deceivingly so downright simple. Things will change and numerous new discoveries will be made for sure. After a year in Ntcheu, I don’t think I even scratched the surface. Blantyre is potentially more intricate. So I’ll keep my senses and observations acutely tuned to take in the most that one year can aspire to. But at face value, for now, to a new-comer this is what it has felt like. More to come.