Microfinance, minibuses, and blackouts.

I now have three days (two really because today was a national holiday!) of work at ASAP behind me. I have really been enjoying it; though I already understand how difficult it will be to get much work done. The work atmosphere and general way of life here is much more relaxed and slow going. In addition, the logistics of transport and safety can be quite time-consuming and also constrictive. It takes us about an hour or so to get into work on the minibus taxis, the local form of transport, so we don’t actually arrive until almost 10. Then lunch is 12-1:30 or so. We leave around 3 in the afternoon to give ourselves time to return home before dark. In general I find that the after lunch slump is strong here and even less is accomplished in the afternoons. In addition, we don’t have Internet and no electricity at times.

It is near impossible to explain just how crazy the minibus taxi transport system is here. The average Malawian (or African for that matter) uses a bus system to get around if they can afford it. The buses are about the size of a small minivan in the States, the ones without the large trunk space – the short ones! These minibuses would not be legal vehicles elsewhere but here they are the essential transport. They squeeze 16-19 people into these minibuses and on top of that many people travel with large baskets of produce, babies on the backs, etc. So as you can probably picture, it is quite crowded! We walk about 10 minutes from our compound/house to the major road where we stand there and wait for a minibus going in the right direction to stop and pick us up. We take the first minibus from our town of Chicumula to a town called Limbe where we then get on a second bus to Blantyre. There is really no telling exactly how long it will take because the buses may not even leave until the entire bus is full. It will also stop all along route to let people out and pick up new passengers. If the passenger getting off is in the back of the minibus all the other passengers must get out to let him off before reloading and continuing on our way. There is also a lot of traffic because there are few roads, and even fewer decent ones, lacking stoplights and proper intersections.

Another issue we are faced with here are power cuts, or blackouts. There is not enough electricity to go around so we had heard that this was common. We just did not know how common! We have had a blackout each evening just as we go to start cooking dinner and also two of the four mornings we have been here. They seem to last a few hours and while inconvenient I think we have already gotten used to it. We did have quite a scare this morning however. When I woke up this morning the power was out so I went around unlocking all the doors and gates as usual, but was unable to disarm the alarm since it does not work when there is no electricity.  When the electricity can back on the alarm apparently came back on as well and it was set off since we were awake and moving within the house. We had a little visit from the security company to make sure everything was all right – I guess it was like a practice run!

A little bit of background information - I am living and working with three other students from The University of Edinburgh - Laura from Scotland, Lena from Germany, and Terry from Tanzania. We are working at a local organization in Blantyre, Malawi called ASAP, standing for A Self-help Assistance Program. ASAP works in villages to establish groups of around fifteen people that together save small amounts of money that they then lend out to each member in turns. The money is then supposed to be invested in a small business of sorts to increase income. They are called savings groups or rotating savings and credit associations and are a branch of the overarching microfinance concept. We will mostly be doing our own individual research in conjunction with our dissertation for the university. I plan to look at the gender dimension of the savings groups to see the difference between male and female motivations for joining, as well as their spending. There is evidence that women tend to spend increased income on the household well-being, especially their children’s nutrition, health, and education, opposed to men who use any increased income for personal use. If indeed this is the case, focusing on women could have a greater impact on wider developmental outcomes, as well as increased sustainability since the children (the next generation) will be better off.