Maize Observations

Just as Canadian farmers are heading out to their corn fields to check for seed germination and emerging weeds, here in Malawi bags and buckets of kernels are being carried to the maize mills dotted throughout this area. There it is ground into the maize flour which serves as the staple starch eaten every day for every meal in most families. Morning porridge is pala; for lunch and supper there is nsima eaten with veggies and meats.

I find myself constantly comparing the Malawi maize production industry to that of Canada. There are some similarities: working in the hot, full sunshine; worries about weeds and fertilization, theft and adequate rainfall. Two main differences are that here the acres of maize are hand-tended, and that it is pretty much all grown for human consumption. Along the roadsides, in small patchwork fields growing up the mountains, and beside every home, hut or village is a garden with cultivated maize.

Labour intensive tilling, planting, weeding, fertilizing and harvesting happen from November to May using sweat and muscle techniques. Daily sweat is contributed by all family members with the women most visible. The fields are dotted with bent-over bodies, bright in their chitenjes (wrap around skirts) and mostly barefoot. There are likely twice as many people working as we can see due to crop height (some plants are well over eight feet tall), and the shadows made by the unrelenting sun. Children not in school accompany their mothers and grandparents to the field.

This is a country where hand tools are the norm for tilling, for hilling the rows, and for planting, seed by seed, row by row, and field by field. The maize is under-seeded with crops of sweet potatoes, squash, pumpkin, cucumbers and sugar cane, more visible now that the maize is off and also being harvested. It is almost the winter season as is apparent by the heavy jackets and scarves worn in the cool mornings and evenings. There are trees growing in the fields too, and ant hills but I have yet to see a tractor. There was one beautiful, well-matched team of oxen pulling a ½ ton cart of produce out of a village, accompanied by two boys whom I thought looked so proud and happy to have such a cool task.

About the second week of March we noticed the harvest beginning; cobs of maize were hand picked, thrown toward the end of the row to be gathered later into bags or wheelbarrows and more hours and days and weeks of work followed in the effort of transporting the harvest by vehicle, minibus, on top of heads, in wheelbarrows, and by bicycle, from the garden to the home where the kernels are hand-picked from the cob. Some folks barbeque the corn and eat the kernels directly from the cob. (Interesting item: plastic bags are used as a fire starter for the coal barbeques and the spent cobs are also burned.) Along the road, in yards, on porches are squares of white now – corn laid out on mats, sheets, chitenjes – with someone sitting (always on the ground) at the edge of the harvest as it dries, to guard against rain, free range chickens, goats, cows, thieves, wind. Maize products are the family’s food for as long as it lasts. I have seen corn drying on the top of thatched roofs too.

Sweet potatoes have been replanted where the maize has been taken off, though with winter setting in now (Mid-May) there might be no rain until the spring in September or later.

After drying in the sun the maize is shaken in flat wicker baskets, to be cleaned of dust and chaff (fines), then bagged to be stored or carried (yes, carried by whatever means possible AGAIN) to the noisy maize mills which run steadily unless shut down by a power outage. At the mill, maize is ground into flour and weighed. Another option is to sell a portion of the crop in May and buy it back later as needed. This means not having to store the unwieldy large bags in a home often already lacking in sufficient living area, as well as providing immediate cash for school tuition, sugar, clothing and more.

The local shop is buying maize to store in a pesticide-treated area. A hen rests on the bags piled in the corner – a natural for this country where maize is the staple starch crop and chicken is the main meat. We see fowl everywhere. They peck about in the gardens and grass. They are in transit on bikes, in bags, in boxes or baskets carried atop heads. Chicken heads jut out the round holes; hens are tied by twos and threes to bicycle handlebars. The best meat to order in a restaurant is chicken (in my opinion). This is no reflection on the quality or taste of the local popular chambo fish found on most menus – just my personal particular choice. Back to the chicken; there is chicken snackie, chicken wings, chicken pieces, chicken pizza (pronounced like pisa as in leaning tower of …) roast chicken, quarter chicken, whole chicken, fried chicken, served with 4 different bottled peri peri sauces, all being sufficiently hot to satisfy those who crave heat. Correction: peri peri is excessively hot.

Maize is the staple crop here, brought into fashion by the colonials and it grows happily in the Malawi heat. Other crops grown in Malawi include ground nuts; potatoes; tomatoes; mustard spinach; and more. Sugar cane grows in miles of irrigated fields in the south of Malawi and tobacco also has a large place in the agricultural export economy here. Free range goats, chickens and cattle share the paths and roads with everyone else. There is an abundance of fruit trees: bananas, mangoes, avocado pear, paw paw (papaya) among others. With an employment rate of just 10% growing one’s own food is a necessity and the whole nation is involved.

more Liberation Pics

Celebrating in Batheim

Chester wants one of these for poolside

More coffee...Brent didn't make this.

Dad with a young Dutchman from Markelo

Folks with the Vice Mayor of Nijmegen

Dad's bridge

Lest we forget

A Russian grave

Danku vel Frank

A few Liberation Pics by Lloyd

Brent and Callie

Henrik and Markelo's Veteran - Frank

I have no doubt the Dutch will always remember their liberators

Chester, Jan and Mary

G-J Ooplat and 'his' veteran

Claire and Rick

Frank and Mary Graham

Claire and Diny

Da Boyz

Chester, Rick, Dad, Lloyd and Brent

Rick, Janice, Mary G. and a Canadian friend in Holten Cemetery

Dank u zeer - Friendship forever

Dank u zeer! Friendship Forever!


Here we are back in Malawi, at the campus, after an eventful ten days with our Dutch friends in the Netherlands as well as family. Running water, flush toilets, showers, washing machines, electricity all day … how quickly we adapted to previously accepted norms.

I must tell you that the 65th anniversary of the liberation of the Netherlands was wonderful. Our hosts cared for us in all possible ways: food, drink, bussing, host families, rental bikes … whatever our need was, they had thought it out and provided. We felt like we were at home with meals, beds and even a washing machine. Thank you so much, all you Dutch friends who hold Canadian veterans responsible for your freedom. Special thanks to Diny and Jan Templeman and Hendrick and Hanna Bowmans and Gert-Jan Ooplat. We appreciate all you do for us and we thank you for keeping alive the memory. You cause us to know the price of freedom, the cost of occupation, and the recovery of humanity after the fear is lessened. You teach us humility: you are the ones who suffered five years of occupation. You teach us gratitude: yet you are the ones who thank us our veterans year after year. You teach us to teach our young people the lessons of war. Thank you!

Ten days and nights of comradeship: cemeteries and cenotaphs in Holten, Markelo, Nijmegen, Arnhem, Apeldoorn; crazy farmers’ golf, bicycle riding, beautiful gardens, red chestnut trees in full bloom, a BBQ in an open air theatre catered by a wonderful Markelo restaurant (aka Branch One or DeHaverkamp), a party, a dance, (who ordered all those drinks is what I want to know??), the big chair in front of Happy Smit’s Restaurant and a wonderful dinner there with our hosts, the tour to the bridge where Frank Graham was wounded and the memories …. Old and new created by that walk … thank you Gert-Jan, and Diny and Jan and Daniella and … Branch 1 and Branch 2 of the Canadian Legion of Markelo … and Hendrick and Hannah and Burger Bert and Albert Ooplat and Henrietta and Femke and all the other members of the Welcome Again Veterans Committee … how to thank everyone? … we heard Scottish pipe bands and the Canadian British Columbia Volunteer Band who shared our bus, and we rode in the Keep ‘Em rolling vehicles of the 2nd world war … so many people took part in this huge celebration of freedom and hope and remembrance. I have forgotten some …. I know that … and yet … all are so important and all are remembered in the big picture of thankfulness and especially the knowledge that there is hope and ongoing friendship between Dutch and Canadian people.


Of course there will be pictures posted.


Now we are back at the flat at Cunima University for our last three weeks of the Malawi adventure. First order of business is to bring in the groceries and that entails a day trip to town, on the mini bus where we are, once again, the visible minority. Little kids point and stare at me amazed at the whiteness … and then they notice the even whiter, bigger man behind me. I sit ready to pop their eyes back into their sockets if need arises. It is a good conversation and smile starter with the kids’ parents too.

Walking to the market I say hello, Kodi muli bwanji to everyone and anyone and they all answer back, mostly with hello. One 14-year old walked behind me for a bit; I turned a few times as I thought I heard her speak. She shook her head when I asked, “Are you talking to me?” Finally, there was a tap on my shoulder and I had a walking companion. Aida. 14 years old, lives at the school for the deaf; she pointed to it using hand signals as we passed. “Oh, so you are deaf?” I asked in sign and words. She laughed. No. My father works at the school. Aahhh. Actually I said, “eeeeeeee” which seems to connote understanding and a few other things, like thinking, grief … more … a small welcome friendship offered and accepted.

Friendship is wonderful in every country. I’ve heard ‘azungu’ a few times as we’ve made our way along the streets, a word meaning ‘whites’ (more than one), usually said by children as a comment to their parent, but when an adult calls it out, with a sneer, mmmmmm, not so good. When in Nairobi, Kenya, on our way to the Netherlands, we saw T-shirts printed with Mzungu (that means one white person); guess who’s got new Tees.

Our friend, George, who delivers (by bike) our bottled water, boxed milk, and pop in cases (everything heavy) has new product in his store these days; now that the harvest is over and the locals have food in their cupboards to last for the next few months, they have disposable income. He is stocking lengths of fabric to fill changing seasonal needs. And the ubiquitous tailor is happily pedalling his sewing machine, crafting winter wear. In the spring, does George carry hoes I wonder? An investment opportunity?

It makes me so sad: the abject poverty. Why in this world of abundance are people starving? There are beautiful people here. There are lazy people, of course. It takes all kinds. And there are the azungu too (that’s us – the observers … )

Too much thinking for one evening; it is 11PM – 5 PM your time and the moths and mossies need to be controlled before the bug net is untied … TTFN

Do please keep in mind that we’ll have our new books coming out this summer: a book of poetry by Lloyd; Master Gardener, a novel by Claire. Also, while in Malawi, we have created a collaborative effort (with six other Canadian writers) called: The Raven Project. Stay tuned for details later this summer.