While googling “porters race” I found this:
Rogue Training Systems, a health and fitness company in Austin, Texas, is giving Malawian runners the chance to run Austin’s AT&T Marathon in February 2008.
Category: Malawi-related
somehow related to Blantyre or Malawi
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Malawi runners at Austin Marathon
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Floods in Mocambique and Malawi
Heavy rains are causing the Zambezi and the Shire to flood.
Here’s a BBC report:
The Malawian government is warning people to relocate from flood-prone areas, but many have been reluctant to leave their farms.
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Malawi blogger
Another Malawi blog I’d like to share with you:
Dr Khumbo Kalua writes about his studies and work as a Senior Eye Specialist in Blantyre.
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Light, misty drizzle
Google Book Search on chiperoni:
The climate is tropical and monsoonal with a wet season (November to May) and a dry season (May to November). The dry season is mostly cool but hot and humid prior to the first rain. Maritime influences ameliorate the dry season in the Shire Highlands with periods of light, misty drizzle, locally known as chiperoni.
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IHT: The 53 places to go in 2008
The International Herald Tribune writes:
29. MALAWI
Blame Madonna. Safarigoers tended to overlook Malawi, but that has changed since she began her effort to adopt a 1-year-old boy from this tiny African country that lies within the Great Rift Valley. Next July, the luxury lodge Pumulani (www.pumulani.com) is set to open 10 villas on spectacular Lake Malawi, home to rare cichlids and pied kingfishers.
All listed in the NYT
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The van der Post trail
Found this interesting read at Times Online:
A voyage round my fatherA daughter follows her father’s footsteps to Mount Mulanje.
Page three of the article includes travel tips.
Malawi is Africa as it once was, so there are no vast luxurious holiday compounds and few sumptuous lodges to insulate you from the masses.
Here are a couple of links on the book “Venture to the Interior” by Laurens van der Post: 1 2
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Embedded video
my friend Benno:
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Ant hill phone booth
Remember I wrote about the villagers in northern Malawi that climb an ant hill to get GSM reception?
Looks like Soyapi saved the newspaper article and passed it on to Mike:
(Insert comment on power of blogging, impossible is nothing, etc.)
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120 registered nurses leave Malawi per year
Article on the continuing brain drain in the health sector of Malawi.
Some excerpts:
Official figures show around 120 registered nurses have migrated to Britain and the United States alone every year in the last decade with the health ministry unable to even begin to match the wages on offer abroad.
Malawi currently has only 56.4 nurses and two doctors for every 100,000 potential patients.
“We have only 3,000 nurses on register for a population of 12 million (…)”
A junior doctor now earns 450 dollars, while a senior nurse goes home with 300 dollars.
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Bush League
Interesting read:
Cy on his Malawi experiences
The contrast between rural and urban areas in Malawi is huge. I remember an article I read (probably The Nation or The Daily Times) during my last stay, on how people in a remote village in the northern region near Rumphi can get reception for their mobile phones if they climb a certain ant hill. There was a photo of a group of people with a solar panel. And somebody was quoted as saying how this is improving communication with family members all over the world.
(BTW, if anybody in Malawi remembers this article and has access to the archives, I’d appreciate a digital copy. Should be an issue in Feb or March 2007… i’m asking for the impossible)
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Chinese Business in Africa
Howard French, senior writer at the New York Times on:
New Power in Africa: Entrepreneurs From China Flourish in Africa
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Business operating costs in Malawi
The Malawi Investment Private Agency (MIPA) lists various costs associated with setting up a business.
Unfortunately I don’t see a date so it’s hard to say if these figures are up-to-date or not.
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Most People Are Multilingual
Here’s my comment I submitted a couple of minutes ago at Climb to the Stars on Most People Are Multilingual (cos I’m not sure if my comment wasn’t gobbled):
In southern Africa (Zambia, Zimbabwe, Malawi, SA) most people are multi-lingual with varying levels of language competency in at least 3 languages.
For example in Malawi, children learn English and Chichewa from the first class onwards. Their mother tongue being Chitumbuka or Chisena or Chilomwe. At secondary school level, nearly all subjects are taught in English.
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Radio show on the web: Daybreak Malawi
Capital FM is uploading its daily morning show to the web:
The only early morning radio show in Malawi with a complete range of the latest news, views and interviews from across the country. You can now listen to daily recordings of Daybreak Malawi Online and keep abreast with what is going on in Malawi. -
Exploring economies
I found this site via Development Gateway. It compares economies and offers rankings to quantify how easy it is to set up or shut down a business:
Doing Business in Malawi -
Malawi GNU/Linux T-Shirt
cool:
Anthu Ozindikira amagwirisa ntchito GNU/Linux Software -
Windmill builder
Lunch over IP on young Malawi windmill inventor:
See also Soyapi’s blog, another Malawian TED attendee.
(update)
And William’s own blog at: http://williamkamkwamba.typepad.com/ -
in the summertime
I tried to capture today’s awesomely red fireball of a sunset in Basel. My cameraphone snapshot doesn’t quite do it justice. But heh, that’s one moment in time captured and stored and uploaded and tagged and online.
Stumbled across this blog entry:
We googled you!And it definitely raises an important discussion point… what will recruiting employers do with all the data they find on a job applicant.
Easier.com has published some interesting travel tips on Malawi. For example, spending vacation on a tea estate in Thyolo:
More visitors to southern Malawi are discovering the delights of staying in one of the colonial ‘managers’ bungalows on the Satemwa Tea Estate with its views of Mount Mulanje in one direction and the Lower Shire Valley in the other. Now, the UK national newspaper, The Independent has ranked Satemwa among the world’s top five ‘tea hotels’. And there’s more good news. Satemwa is now a certified Fair Trade producer – the only one in Southern Africa.
It’s possible for guests to sample a selection of black, green and white (yes, white) teas as they look across the neat tea gardens and try to identify the birds from the hundreds of species that are resident or passing through the area. You prefer coffee? No problem, coffee is also grown here.
The Satemwa Tea Estate is a wonderful place to stay if exploring in the Thyolo and Mount Mulanje area. They have a new and very informative website: Satemwa.com
A family favorite is Lujeri Tea Estate at the foot of Mount Mulanje.
Which reminds me that I wanted to write a blog entry on Club Makokola. I’ve uploaded a short film I took on the beach, but for some reason the Flash movie only shows 4 secs. The corresponding Quicktime movie is fine. I tried re-exporting with a shareware tool I found, but it’s too lossy.
Any tips on open source video editing tools are greatly appreciated…
Regarding audio, I found that Audacity is useful. -
Situation Report
United Nations Regional Inter-Agency Coordination and Support Office (RIACSO) on Malawi:
Malawi will produce bumper crops of maize and other food crops this year. Some of this surplus will be exported to neighbouring Zimbabwe and other countries to address expected wide-spread food shortages.
via ReliefWeb
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Bringing technology to Africa
Here’s a cross-reference to Mike McKay’s blog post on TED and Africa:
Hacktivate » TED gives Africans free laptops -
Malawi cycle challenge accident
Here’s a blog entry on an accident that occurred in a Malawi biking event for charity.
Stories on Malawi: Sarah injured in Malawi cycle challenge
Source
Get well soon, Sarah.
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Catherine Chikwakwa
Wikipedia page on Malawi long distance runner Catherine Chikwakwa.
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Malawi music
More crosslinking to Cy’s Film. Or have a look at the video:
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Malawi photos
Today’s recommended link: Cy Kuckenbaker’s photos from Malawi:
http://cysfilm.com/The corresponding Flickr album is at:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/cykuck/
