Canada makes Conservative descisions...

So is it just me or have things back home turned wonky? I'm gone for a few months and suddenly the country is more Conservative than it is liberal?? And Martin who dethrowned Chretien and burried Shelia Copps out in the liberal side yard....resigns as leader! Its soo ridiculous. Really 30% to 36.2% is not a huge loss and if Martin and his campaign people werent too busy creating a slur campaign maybe the liberals would still be in rule...ahh but anyway.
Well here are the results:

CONSERVATIVE SEATS WON / AHEAD :124 PERCENTAGE VOTE :36.2

LIBERALS SEATS WON / AHEAD: 103 PERCENTAGE VOTE: 30.2

BLOC QUEBECOIS SEATS WON / AHEAD: 51 PERCENTAGE VOTE: 10.5

NEW DEMOCRATS SEATS WON / AHEAD: 29 PERCENTAGE VOTE: 17.5

GREEN SEATS WON / AHEAD 0 PERCENTAGE VOTE 4.5

OTHERS SEATS WON / AHEAD: 1 PERCENTAGE VOTE: 0.6

On the up side, though they didnt win a seat there was nearly 5% support for the green party!

Sri Lanka's ethnic Clashes Continue

Many of you may know that historically there has been a civil war in Sri Lanka. There are two major ethincities in Sri Lanka, Tamil and Singhalese. The Singhalese, when british rule ended took power as they were more open to westernization and adoption of british systems. They held major positions in governement etc. However, there started to be a distinct clash between the two groups soon after independance and the Singhalese majority started to opress the Tamil people. This lead to insurgency by various Tamil liberation groups. One of these groups was the Tamil Tigers, they were the ones that out lasted all others and at present haved formed a de facto governing system in the north of Sri Lanka.

In the media the Tamil Tigers are often referred to as a terrorist organization. However, it is important to note that thier presence and purpose historically was to stop the acts of inhumanity on Tamil people, and to liberate them as a people and a state. Thier methods have been extreme and war-like, but argualbly that is the reason they still exist and havent been wiped out by the Sri Lankan army.

In recent history there have been efforts to stop the civil war and peace has been estabilished in the north. The Sri Lankan governement had made many statements of bringing equity to the nation and Tamil people. However, the natural disasters and political turnover that caused a pause in the progress and the current government seems to be making few strides to make peace.

Whats more is that there seems to be violence breaking in the north again. There seem to be students being attacked and allegedly killed at gun point by Sri Lankan army officals. These acts may be a warning to the Tigers or just acts to re-start the civil war.
I've been sent a press release detailing the murder of Tamil university students. The murders seem to be acts of malice and have no real connection to the individual or personal issues. (For more information, please contact us at 416-841-1013. )

I am unsure of how credible this information is, but I have no doubt that there is truth in the article. These types of violations to human rights are a common-stay in Sri Lanka and a big reason I was hoping for peace.

The sad thing is that during the recent elections in Sri Lanka there was a chance for a candidate of neutral views and progressive attitude to be elected. His name was Ranil Wickremasinghe and he had promised to make the North and the East (Tamil populated areas) federal states. This would have been best but he lost the election, and the Tamil Tigers are partially to blame as they ordered a boycott on the election disabling thousands of Tamils from voting.

In the end I think both the LTTE (Tamil Tigers) and the Sri Lankan governement are too tied up in the game of politics and are too prideful to see the need or the way to peace. The LTTE, apparently wouldnt allow Tamils to vote as they did not want to see the Sri Lankan governement as a body that rules over Tamils, ergo no need for Tamils to vote. But this was a rather insipid act I think and will definately cause a step-back for the peace process. The Sri Lankan governement now, without the influence of Mr. Wickremasinghe will do little to apease the Tamils.

For more information visit:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sri_Lanka

Quicky re: World Vision

So as I was speaking about World Vision, I thought that I would quickly note that here in Malawi World Vision is large and in charge!

Really I have had my doubts about thier organization in the past (and probably will in the future) but overall here in the southern region of Malawi, world vision is doing a good job with the communities they work with. Also there doesnt seem to be any evidence of "mandatory conversion" to catholicism. In fact they work within muslim areas.

Sure there are probably (as some have critizised) too many fund lines allocated to administrative and publicity purposes but with an organization operating on such a grand scale . . .maybe its expectable? (I also saw signs of world vision all over Kenya- nice big white signs- and some in Sri Lanka).

I'll write a better post later about Malawian social service dynamics.

Picturing Africa...

So when you picture africa what do you see? Perhaps arid dry sands, a leaf-less shrub and a mud-hut? Maybe a kid with an inflated belly standing half naked? Or maybe wildlife of some sort...giraffes?

All I can say is if any of those rang true its because World Vision, National Geographic and all the other media giants that rule our impressionable north-american minds have done a good job!

The real truth is that Africa is like any other place....visually speaking that is. Right now its rainy season so I see fields of green, red roses too...oh ahh sorry (Ray Charles..ahh I am such a media affected kid). Seriously, some vistas look just like scotland as in the grass is really green the trees are lush with leaves and there are white lillys and other wildflowers scattered around. Z-boma is starting to look amazing, all the flowers are springing out and walking around is both aromatically and visually fantastic.

During dry season things are a lot more barren, leafless shrubs, bright red dry clay sands, and cracked mud huts can be seen. But (other than the mud huts) that is pretty much like Nevada I would imagine.

As for the wildlife, here in Malawi if you see them in the park you will be lucky! Most wild animals have ither run away (due to human inhabitation of thier territory) or have been hunted and eaten. There aren't any "big game" to be seen about; its not like I walk to the bank and slap a zebra a high-five. Its quite sad actually. They have to import some of thier park animals from other areas because they have brutally mismanaged thier native populations. Actually, I remember there was more wild life to be seen in Kenya...perhaps they have better laws about hunting and conservation (most probably for the purpose of tourism).

I did read in the paper today that there was a Lion Attack in the north, but that lion had escaped from a park and is old or wounded or something. Usually (said my co-worker) lions would prefer to stay away from humans but if they are incapable of hunting other wild animals they will prey on domestics...goats slow moving humans etc. BUT please dont get too änti-lions. Despite my co-workers theory I maintain that if there were more ungulates (zebra, gazelles etc) around then there would be less "ättacks" on domestics.

Okay thats my thougth of the day.

When the Pickins are Slim...

CALLING ALL CANADIANS TO VOTE:

Listen you fellow canadians, I know the pickins for this election are quite shabby but I beseach you to please vote Liberal. Okay, so yes they have made some BIG mistakes lately but thier public mistakes are every parties private ones.

Harper is not the Devil some make him out to be, but the truth is he is not being straight forward with his " common-man" campaign. He and the party are DO not hold level or common ideals. They definately have conservative ...ahem, this is implied in thier name....and the last time I checked we canadians were more "liberal."

Okay, I dont agree with everything that the Liberal party does, and for a while I thought of NDP as an alternative (but then Jack Layton sort of proved to be too naive a candidate to trust as a PM) and I thought Martin would surely screw things up! But I do have to say (despite all the fighting I did to keep him out of power in the liberal party) he isnt doing a half bad job and has taken public opinion seriously in all accounts.

Taking public opinion seriously is a huge plus. I really dont see this from Harper. In fact I know he will just be another self apointed leader with little regard for the common opinion as long as the corperate opinion is heard.

Think Carefully folks...and VOTE!

Christmas in the Sun

So it is christmas and we have dicided to go to Tanzania. Really its a rash descision as we have plenty of opportunity for fun right here in Malawi and chances to SCUBA dive off the shores of Mozambique, but what the heck...Ellen is excited!

First we have a going away party for christmas. Dinner parties are the norm in Zoma boma (boma= bigger than village not exactly a town). With limited venues to "go out" to, (officially there are 3 that exist that I know of..but they are pricey) eating at a friends house is as exciting as it gets. Well now with most of us younger z-bomaites we generally do this ...well really we just cook and eat together to avoid not eating at all, or eating crappily. But the twist to this party was that we would make it a pot-luck (there fore more food...and glorious desserts) and have wine (such a commodity!). The party was great, we didnt have as much food as we thought but had enough for everybody to have something, and there was enough wine for me to have two glasses, so I was happy! The picture below shows some of us that turned the party into a kitchen party! Humm...most of these people seem to be Canadian! Wow us Canucks really stick together.

The next day we wake up fairly early and head to Lilongwe. Then we take off on a 30 hour (turned 36 hour) bus ride from Lilongwe to Dar es Salaam. This ride nearly killed my patience as we kept stopping for bus repair! In fact we (Ellen and I) spent Christmas eve on the side of a road, in the dark, waiting for the bus to start back up. (Due to many breakdowns, we were off schedule and had to wait until the light came out to proceed through a "bush" area where hijackers were known to hang out). We waited from 11pm untill 4am, and listened to the banter of business type Malawians and Tanzanias as they sipped thier Konyagi (locally produced alocholic substance sorta like gin) and toasted in Christmas.

Then when we finally arrived in Zanzibar, which I think is by far one of the nicestest vacation destinations ever, it was Christmas day! Seeing the white sands and blue water cheered me up! In fact although intially I thought it was a hideous idea to spend Christmas on the beach, I have to say it was quite nice. We had our offical christmas dinner at an itialian restaurant watching the sun set and contemplating life. It was great actually.

The next few days were spent wandering around stone town (major town area of Zanz) and found it to be quite a unique blend of arabic and european cultures. There was very little "africa feel" to this town...unless you count the art and the Masaai sales men walking around. Stonetown has a maze of streets with white stone buildings with beautiful wooden or brass doors. It reminded me somewhat of a aribic version of antigua (from Guatemala). Just a random oasis of a town. The best part of stone town was the Forazani (spelling?) or outdoor food market where you could get sea food freshly roasted for you at night. This was a place I really enjoyed. It wasnt quite as good as Jem al Fina in Merrakesh, Morrocco but it was nice just the same.

Lastly we found the best place in Zanz to DIVE, and we took an all day boat trip out to an island where we did an off baot dive into some of the nicest coral atolls I have seen thus far. We saw 3 giant sea turtles and an octapus!

Retrospectively, in Zanzibar we had a tonne of good Karma and are able to make it to all the sites and beaches that we wanted to see using rather nice vehicles....one belonged to the MP of stone town who offered us his car for the day because we were kind to him....and we were able to make a plethora of fun friends.

It was a nice vacation and Ellen was finally able to gain back the weight she lost to Malaria!

Last Year's News

So I have to quickly apologize to all those of you who regularly check this site. I have been out of contact, but only because I have been so busy.

Firstly I think I should tell you that I have moved out of my sweet little house on the mountain and moved closer to the market into a nice little red-brick house. The move was based on the fact that a) the rend rate I thought I was to pay was a lot less than the actual amount and b) I met a nice couple of Indian decent that needed a house sitter. So yeah now I live in a house that is walking distance from everything and I have access to the Joshua’s car (bless them). House sitting is a good gig I tell you. Well the down side is that Ramses had to be given away, Mr. Joshua is allergic. But Ramses didn’t go far he is at Isa (my Japanese friends house) and I visit him nearly every lunch hour.

Other than that my life has been about work! I wake up at 5am nearly ever morning and head out to the field at about 7am. The day there after usually looks like setting up cloth mating cages, finding fish in farmer ponds, weighing them, stripping them of their eggs to ensure maturity of fish, and placing them gently into their cloth motel like mating cages hoping they will be in the “mood” for love. :) The good news is that we have had success….the bad news is that methodology has wavered from original proposed plan and it has not been documented…..AHH! (scientists nightmare). These glitches are surely because I took Christmas vacation. For all the other workers there was no real Christmas break….other than the mandatory weekends. In the picture to the left I have a female catfish....shes "ready ready" as her eggs revealed.

This month with my field research I was also able to go to Thyolo, which is the tea estate region of Malawi and it was beautiful! Almost as nice as Sri Lanka’s area. I also got to climb Mulanje the tallest mountain in Malawi. The thigh-burning climb up was worth the cold air that I found on the mountain. It was just such a treat to be able to have a sweater on, drink hot chocolate and sit by a fire! (December here is the hottest month so usually such luxuries of our Christmas season, normally would be un-thinkable.)
The best thing about working in the field is the little dive restaurants we get to visit near villages. There is this one really small one with only room for two tables and they have gotten use to me coming in. As I am veg (well sort-of...as I do eat fish....maybe I should say I am a piscatarian) they always put an egg on for me! Its probably some of the best Nsima and relish I have ever eaten!

Thats it for now. . .