Successful launch!

After two months of work and two weeks of frantic last-minute preparations, the launch of "MY VOICE as a person with a disability" was a success. Notable highlights include:

• Turn-out of over 60, including the Deputy High Commissioner of the United Kingdom to Zambia.
  
• 11 great-looking vinyl prints of the "MY VOICE" posters, and thousands more A4-size photocopies. We provided every attendee with an envelope of all 20 posters. The printing and photocopying was funded by the Canadian High Commission, Action on Disability and Development, and the Zambia Mine Action Centre.
• Three outstanding vocal performances by participants in the project: a three-woman harmonization, a solo rap, and two moving songs by celebrity singer John Chiti. In Chiti's second song, he repeated the last verse over and over until half the room broke out into perfect harmonization. Apparently, this is not unusual in Zambia.
  
• Great speeches by various participants.
  
• The successful installation and unveiling of a ramp at the front entrance of the British Council, making the Council accessible for the first time. I had approached Disacare, a wheelchair manufacturer, and asked them to give the British Council an invoice for such a ramp; the British Council agreed to pay for it.
• Interpretation for the deaf, free of charge, by the sister of a deaf woman I met during my interviews.
• Excellent snacks provided by one of the participants, who happens to be starting up her own catering business.
  

John Chiti singing, Isabel Banda interpreting, me and Dr. Bob against the wall with my posters.

Peter Chibesa Bwale, who is blind, rapping about disability in English.

A poetic drama performed by Zambian soap star Phenny Walubita and her fellow actor James Chishala.

One section of the audience.

Elijah Ngwale, past director of the now-defunct Zambia Agency for the Handicapped, stole the show with his comically large vocabulary: "I refuse to be fooled, duped, hoodwinked, beguiled!" and so on. As someone standing next to me pointed out, Elijah, though blind, has probably never been duped in his life.

Me and John after the show.

More photos, along with all of the finished posters, can be found here.

Launch preparations

Kulima Towers bus station during rainy season, today.

As my departure from Zambia nears, I am working long hours preparing for the launch of my disability awareness campaign, "MY VOICE," to take place this Friday. I persuaded the British Council of Zambia to provide the venue free of charge; British NGO Action on Disability and Development (ADD) agreed to pay for some of the printing; and superstar singer John Chiti, the project's most high-profile participant, will sing at the launch. Having issued press releases and invited key ministers, I'm optimistic for a successful launch.

Still, it'll be a hectic week. Trying to track down all 20 participants to get their written consent to use the posters – on African time, no less – is one thing. Organizing the event to meet ministerial and accessibility standards – wheelchair ramps and interpreters for the deaf – with next to no budget, is another. Doing all of this using public transport at bus stations that could just as easily be swimming pools (above) with sudden tropical thunderstorms most afternoons (below), is the icing on the cake.

I may not sleep much until the launch is over, but so far, things seem to be falling into place.

Malawi take ten

My journey started with a few days in Lilongwe, capital of Malawi since 1974, a hot and dusty city with a bustling marketplace, heaps of NGOs and government buildings, and a muddy river running through the middle. I stayed with Undule Mwakasunguru, director of the Centre for Human Rights and Rehabilitation and a colleague of Dr. Bob's.

The bus trip to Lilongwe, like the dozens of trips that would follow it, involved periodic stops where a handful of local merchants, each selling the same product, jostle for window space and the prospect of making a sale. For an entire day on Mozambican buses, for instance, I survived quite comfortably on freshly roasted cashew nuts and pineapples – purchased from my bus seat.

I managed to squeeze in one day on the shores of Lake Malawi, a vast and beautiful lake spanning much of Malawi's eastern border. Its abundant fish supplies provide most Malawians with their protein of choice. Some of these fish also happen to be colourful and exotic, drawing large crowds of Western scuba divers and snorkellers. I enjoyed an afternoon of solo kayaking along the coast.

You can't drive five minutes in Malawi without passing a field of maize – a less sweet, tougher variation of North American corn. This type of maize can be found throughout Africa, but in Malawi it's rare to find anything else. I met an American researcher looking into agricultural policy and ways to diversify Malawian farming. To date, the entire agricultural sector revolves around maize, which is used to make nsima, the country's staple starch.

The town at the base of Mt. Mulanje, the glorious mountain range where I spent Christmas. For four days, I hiked between quaint colonial mountain huts, some more than a hundred years old, with Nathan – a MAC intern working in Inhambane, Mozambique (his blog is full of great photos) – and Maureen, an Australian volunteer.

This waterfall is one of the dozens – hundreds – we encountered during our hike. Swimming in mountain streams and drinking ice-cold mountain water were two highlights. This stream happens to be where we spent Christmas Eve – if you look closely, you can see our hut poking above the trees.

A dramatic (and shamelessly staged) picture of me looking into the sunset on Christmas Eve, deep in contemplation and natural-world awe.

This is the best I could do to capture the steepness of our Christmas morning ascent up Sapitwa, the range's highest peak at 3,000 metres. It was an arduous and entirely rewarding climb, although the descent was decidedly less enjoyable. After dense, dark grey rain clouds ambushed us seemingly from nowhere – the weather formations were spectacular – the ensuing rain made the rocks slippery and we resorted to sitting down on our backsides, edging inch by inch down the mountain.

Again, the weather formations. The clouds rolling through this valley, as dusk approached on Christmas day, created a continuous stream of National Geographic scenes. This is the silhouette of a solitary cedar, one of the few cedars to have been spared by rampant legal, then illegal, deforestation on the mountain.

Logging continues unabated, with these superhuman transporters hustling up and down the mountain with pounds of pine and other wood on their heads. Watching them negotiate the steeper inclines is something else. (Thanks to Nathan for this photo.)

Christmas on the mountain! With Nathan, Maureen, and two lovely couples who happened also to arrive at Chembe Hut, Mt. Mulanje, in the afternoon of December 25th. A Christmas I won't forget. After leaving the mountain, I spent another couple days in southern Malawi, visited the colonial capital Zomba, then took off for the Mozambique border. Tomorrow, ten (or eleven) pictures from Mozambique...

Airline implosion marks end of my trip

Yesterday, after nearly four weeks on the road in four different African countries, I arrived home. Lusaka, Zambia. A city that meant very little to me as recently as six months ago now evokes wonderful feelings of friendship and familiarity. Returning here felt something like returning home, even though I'll be leaving for good in a few weeks with no concrete plans to return.

I spent the last few days of my trip with two Canadian friends in Johannesburg. Meg, Kate and I caught up over delicious and affordable cappuccinos and thin-crust pizzas in Melville, one of Joburg's trendy and relatively mixed-race post-apartheid neighbourhoods. It's a far cry from the crime and violence that's reputed to plague Joburg, and a nice place to reacquaint with old friends.

On Sunday morning, with a few hours until my planned flight back to Lusaka, I woke up intending to visit Soweto – once notorious for apartheid abuses and consequent struggles, now increasingly known for its fast-growing middle classes – until I checked my email and plans changed. Zambian Airways had "suspended operations until further notice" the day before, with all signs pointing toward bankruptcy.

The company, Zambia's largest airline, cited "high fuel costs over the last year-and-a-half and the need to restructure its operations"; its debt is said to surpass $25 million. All airplanes were grounded in Lusaka. My housemate Aaron, stuck in the same situation, overheard a Zambian Airways staff telling his spouse over the phone to prepare to move within the month because he'd lost his job. Another seemingly informed staff member claimed that Air Zambezi, a much smaller carrier than Zambian Airways, had purchased newer and larger jets as if anticipating the events now taking place.

I lost a one hundred dollar plane ticket and scrambled to find another way home. Thankfully, I found an affordable South African Airways ticket for the same day – although the flight was overbooked and I was put up in a hotel for the night. In any case, I resigned myself to the situation, accepting that there's nothing I could ever have done to anticipate it, and I should just move on.

That is, until I learned more about the reason for the airline's collapse. It so happens that Fred Mmembe, infamous as the editor of The Post newspaper, which lambasted President Rupiah Banda daily throughout election campaigns and remains the president's nemesis, is a board member of Zambian Airways. Apparently, the airline has been feuding with President Banda and his MMD party for some time now, and the MMD coldly refused to respond to a desperate plea for help in late 2008.

If Zambian Airways collapsed because of troublesome economic times, the decline in copper prices and the related struggles of the Zambian Kwacha, so be it. If, on the other hand, the airline's demise is the result of high-level, back-door political quarreling, I want my money back!


View Larger Map
This map roughly documents my route from Lusaka to Johannesburg, totalling approximately 3,000 km traversed in over 20 separate public and private buses, minibuses, shared taxis, pickup trucks and one ferry for good measure. I'll post pictures tomorrow.

King of Maputo

Yesterday, exploring Mozambique's lively and entertaining capital city, Maputo, I and a German traveler named Philip found our way to the top of the city's highest building, to the 33rd of 33 floors. It wasn't a usual tourist site, and it involved inquiring down empty hallways and ascending any stairway so long as it went upwards, and the views were utterly worthwhile. We saw the relatively small city of majestic Portuguese architecture and decaying 1970s concrete and bustling marketplaces and an active ocean port and expansive parks in one continuous landscape. Later on, passing through the large buildings and sites that appeared ant-size from above, we enjoyed a unique added perspective on our surroundings.

Poco monde

I realize that "poco monde" may well mean "a little bit of world," or nothing at all, instead of "small world," which I was going for. In my few days of self-taught, book-free, French-influenced Portuguese, however, I say what it means, and small world it is.

I say this because in Mozambique, as elsewhere, I have found the world closing in on me; the further afield I travel, the more familiar things become, the more people and things I recognize, run into.

My latest small world episode came yesterday evening when, from the window of a public bus taking me back to beachfront Tofo from Inhambane, I spotted Elias, a Greek humanitarian worker I took a course with in Toronto last June. For 3 months in Toronto, I ran into no one from the course; a few days in Tofo, Mozambique, however, and there he is!

Such is the curious, interconnected world of humanitarian work in Africa (and I presume many other disciplines too), where you're as likely to meet an old friend or acquaintance in a randomly chosen African capital or holiday destination as in your own home city.

Last week in Malawi, I went hiking with a Mines Action Canada colleage named Nathan who is working in Mozambique - we met up at our mid-point, a "convenient" two-day bus journey each. Nathan brought along Maureen, a friend of his working in Malawi who (surprise?) knows one of my current Lusaka housemates and (surprise?) had planned to meet up with her after our hike. We combined our plans and all got together for a lovely, unplanned evening in Malawi.

In a few days, I will meet another Lusaka housemate in Maputo (where I am now); soon after, I'll meet two old Halifax friends for a couple days in Johannesburg; and, time permitting, I'll dip into Pretoria to catch up with another friend from the course in Toronto.

I don't think I'll ever match my all-time unlikeliest small world episode - traveling in Dharamsala, India in 2006, a Montreal friend (who didn't know I was in India, and vice versa) noticed my name (could there be another Louis Century?) on the sign-up sheet for a cooking course that evening, and promptly signed herself up too. I won't match this coincidence, partly because coincidences themselves are feeling less unlikely, less coincidental. As they occur with increasing regularity, they lose their surprise. Instead, they offer a kind, comforting sense of place: traveling, I am not lost.

I'll be writing again soon, because after a week or more of no connectivity - even the phone lines were unreliable - I'm now staying down the street from a super-fast Internet cafe. Located on a broad old Portuguese-style boulevard (aptly titled Avenido Mao Tse Tung), this cafe has Internet, and also excellent Italian espresso, baked goods and ice cream; I'll be back soon!