Written by Adnane Sounni - CorpsAfrica Volunteer in Senegal 

The celebration days are great events that any person living in a new culture should be curious to discover. In fact I may say that there are some similarities in the way humanity expresses its happiest moments as well as its bad experiences, but each community differs in the details and that’s what is important.
For example, we (almost) celebrate in Senegal in same way we do in Morocco. We invite people, prepare food, dance around music, and so on. However, there is a difference because neither the Senegal food nor the music and the dance are like the Moroccan ones.

The last week we had a special ceremony in our village. Our family size is augmented because the son of the village chief had a new baby girl named Aminatu. After 40 days of her birth it was the time to celebrate the arrival of the new baby.
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During that day the villagers got up early to prepare for this day, and it’s usually the young men and women that take care of everything.  They start by slaughtering a calf and a goat. The calf had been bought one week before that day, and to slaughter it we needed five powerful men. The children were very motivated to assist that and they brought the big bowl to convey the meat.

Written by Ndeye Awa Gueye - CorpsAfrica Volunteer in Senegal 

Hello everyone, I apologize for my long absence in blogging, it was beyond my control.
Now I come back with one that could be interesting. Happy reading!!
 
Of the population of 13 million people that make up Senegal, 800,000 people with disabilities were identified. This is clear from the reports available to the General Directorate of Social Action (DGAS).
According to the reports, 262,080 people live with a motor impairment (32.76%), 132 000 people are visually impaired (16.60%). Deaf, albinos, the mentally ill, lepers, and victims of mines constitute 50.64% of the disabled population- about 405,000 people.
The reports also indicated that "these people with disabilities are particularly affected by poverty, which further accentuates the difficulties in their economic integration, access to basic social services, the violation of their rights and lack of access to a decent life."

These difficulties, among others, are "characterized by chronic hunger, disease, inadequate financial resources, poor access to clean water, health care, education, essential medicines, electricity, sanitation, communication and transportation "(Ndar infos.com)
This is what ends up happening in Senegal, the majority of disabled people are forced to extend their hands to feed themselves, a practice that exposes them often to huge risks, especially women.

Version orginiale en français 

Bonjour tout le monde, excusez-moi de mon long absence dans les blogs, c’était indépendant de ma volonté.
Maintenant je vous reviens avec un qui pourrait être intéressant. Bonne lecture !!!

Mon handicap, ma force

Sur la population de 13 millions d'habitants que compte le Sénégal, 800 000 personnes en situation de handicap ont été recensées. C'est ce qui ressort des rapports disponibles à la Direction générale de l’action sociale (Dgas).
Selon lesdits rapports, 262 080 personnes vivent avec une déficience motrice (soit 32,76%), 132 000 personnes ont une déficience visuelle (16,60%). Les sourds, les albinos, les malades mentaux, les lépreux, les victimes de mines, constituent 50,64% de cette population handicapée soit environ 405 000 personnes.
Ces rapports ont aussi indiqué que «ces personnes handicapées sont particulièrement touchées par la pauvreté qui accentue davantage les difficultés dans leur intégration économique, l'accès aux services sociaux de base, la violation de leurs droits et l’inaccessibilité à une vie décente».
Ces difficultés sont entre autres "caractérisés par la faim chronique, la maladie, la faiblesse des ressources financières, le faible accès à l'eau potable, aux soins de santé, à l'éducation, aux médicaments essentiels, à l'électricité, à l'assainissement, à la communication et au transport" (Ndar infos.com)
C’est d’ailleurs ce qui fait qu’au Sénégal, la majeure partie des personnes handicapés se voient obligées de tendre la main pour avoir de quoi mettre sous la dent ; une pratique qui les exposent souvent à d’énormes risques surtout les femmes.

A Baba-Garage, c’est une atmosphère tout autre. Je suis étonnée de voir que c’est un des rares localités où tu ne vois pas des personnes handicapés ou d’enfants talibés sillonnent les rues pour mendier.
Dans ce village, les personnes handicapés ont réussi à s’organiser dans une association bien structurée et font différentes activités telles que la couture, la teinture, la broderie à la main, le petit commerce etc. avec bien sûr l’appui de certaines personnes valides. Ainsi, de par leurs efforts, ces handicapés ont pu obtenir un don de la part de l’Association Terre d’Afrique pour la construction d’un centre de formation composé de :

• Un atelier de couture
• Une mercerie
• Un magasin pour la teinture

Toutefois, malgré leurs efforts et leur choix de travailler au lieu de tendre la main les handicapés de Baba-garage  sont confrontés à beaucoup de difficultés. En effet, selon Mme Thimbane SARR, présidente de l’association, les principales difficultés de ces handicapés restent :

• Le déplacement : pour venir au centre ou participer à des rencontres, c’est le calvaire total. Ils sont obligés de prendre des charrettes parce qu’ils n’ont pas de charriots motorisés ou qui pourront résister au sable et faciles à déplacer. Cela comporte des risques dans la mesure où les personnes qui les aident à monter sur les charrettes peuvent les faire mal car ne maitrisant pas certains handicaps.
• Manques d’appareils : pour les Sourds-muets qui sont majoritaires dans l’association, les appareils auditifs qu’on monte dans les oreilles les aideraient à distinguer les bruits pour éviter certains dangers.
• Entretien et suivi : comme on peut le voir sur les photos, le centre manque gravement d’entretien et de matériels ainsi que des moniteurs qualifiés  pour le coaching.
• Ecoulement et diversification : ils sont confrontés à des problèmes pour écouler leurs produits à cause du déplacement ce qui fait que le petit commerce de la mercerie même ne marche plus car les produits n’étaient plus diversifiés.

En somme, les handicapés de Baba-Garage sont de braves gens déterminés qui sont contre la mendicité et qui encouragent l’idée qu’il ne faut jamais tendre la main.
Et en tant que volontaire de CorpsAfrica dans la zone, je vois que cette initiative est à encourager, donc chapeau bas à vous les handicapés de mon village.

Les handicapés sont des nôtres, aidons les à se sentir mieux !!!

Written by Sarah Kazira, CorpsAfrica Volunteer in Malawi
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Village banks are everywhere in my community, and everybody is in one or two of them. I have been hearing so much about these village banks so I took it upon myself to investigate further about them. In order to understand more, I visited a couple of village bank meetings and I was able to observe and ask questions about how they work. I tried to join one but they said I was too late. Finally, I set up to interview two women whom I thought could explain more to me about the banks. I know I wasn't fully able to understand everything about them but this is so far what I have learnt.

As I learned from these two women, there are basically two types of Village Banks. One is specifically for loans (the most notable one being the Microloan by FINCA). This is usually by an outside NGO which comes and lends the people money to be paid back by a specific time. The good thing about this type (or at least the one I was told about) is that it does not accumulate interest. You pay back exactly how much you borrowed. But before you can be allowed to take a loan, you have to pay an entrance fee and bring somebody to vouch for you. You also go through lessons on how to properly manage the money before they let you in.

The second one is more properly known as village savings banks. The village savings bank is where a group of people (Maximum of 30) meet every week and each member of the group deposits any amount of money they have to the account and it is recorded. Every member of the group is required to at least take a loan so that the money can generate a lot of income as there is an interest rate (Usually 20-30%). At the end of a specified time, (usually 6 months or 1 year) the group members meet to divide the shares plus interests. To add to that, there are some other small fees that they pay. For example late coming to meetings and being absent is fined. And every time you meet, you contribute a small fee known as "Chadzidzidzi" ( for emergencies). At the end of the specified time, this is the money they use to get each member a present, might be buckets, plates, or matching zitenjes (fabric).

The two kinds of village savings and loans have their differences, but their effects on the community are somewhat the same. People have testified that these loans have helped them in starting a business or reviving an old one. One woman told me how she was able to build herself a house with iron sheets using this money. People are now more business minded as they have a source of capital. The savings also help a lot For most, it feels like a big payday when they are given their share of the money (money they would have otherwise wasted if they hadn't saved it). Furthermore if you are in a village bank, you are at least assured if getting something at the end of the year.

In spite of its benefits, these village savings and loans do not go well for everybody. Many people have fallen deep into debt because of this. Some do not know how to properly invest the money and so they just spend it without means of paying back. This leaves the other group members with no choice but to confiscate household items and sell them to recover their money. It has even seen some people sell their land to pay back loans. And some families have been broken because of this.

All in all, Village savings and loans are really helping people develop themselves in my community and I hope to be able to join a village bank before my service ends.

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Written by Hameth Ndoye - CorpsAfrica Volunteer in Senegal 

​On 6/16/2016 at 1:30 PM we took advantage of the visit of the CorpsAfrica/Senegal office in our site Cabrousse to deliver a donation that was made to the preschool in our village.

In fact, the school  Facoly 1 of Cabrousse, attended by 171 children from pre-kindergarten to kindergarten was created in order to help parents enroll their children to kindergarten.
Having worked with children on different activities like the collection of plastic waste as well as on activities of reforestation, we have realized that we needed to perform our duties as citizen for these children.
Upon receiving solicitations from the school wishing to improve the everyday lives of children in their working conditions, we decided to fundraise to support the children.
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Our call for support was responded to and we received materials such mats, chairs and brooms for the school. Thus taking advantage of the office visit, we organized the distribution of these materials.
During the distribution, the children were extremely happy and we thanked CorpsAfrica/Senegal for its support.
Our sense of citizen duty is to address the needs of our community and to participate in the development of our site. Let’s impact!

Written by Emas Potolani, CorpsAfrica Volunteer in Malawi
Reposted from eMas'Korner

​Besides working with primary school kids at Chitete Primary school, over the past three months and some weeks, I have spent my time interacting and working with Chitete women. I must confess that my stay in this community has been quite amazing so far, and indeed this is my other home. My early days in the community saw me encountering various remarkable works by these women in this community, from a young mother who is taking advantage of the Out of School Initiative (OOSC) to reshape her future through free education provided by our development partner, buildOn to an old woman who caught my attention by cultivating a quite big piece of land that probably is above her strength all by herself. All in all I must say, these women are focused, hard-working, humble, energetic and development-hungry. I have been involved in a series of few meetings with these women on various topics like that of Agriculture, entrepreneurship, house-keeping, sanitation and education. 

Day to day life for these women is easy for them as it seems to be normal while for someone who might just be visiting might find it hard and perhaps complicated.  The day for most of them starts with waking up in the morning to do some house chores and prepare other things around the house so that when the husband and or kids wake up will find most if not all of the chores around the house already done. Fetching water in the morning for the house is inevitable. Most of the women walk a distance of about 1 km or more to fetch water from a borehole (Water Pump) or the well. After that most of them spend time keeping the home while their children are gone to school and their husband gone to run some usual errands ranging from bicycle taxi business to some small piece works elsewhere.

Let me give you a vivid picture of some of the things that women in my community do. Let us begin with education, as we all know, education is a greater treasure in life and as Nelson Mandela said, “education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world”. There is an adult literacy school which I help in coordinating in my community; this school is open to all parents and adults in our community and those around us. The Adult Literacy class at Chitete Primary school is dominated by women. This is why I refer to these women as hard-workers and visionaries. These women are eager to learn. They are eager to learn how to read, how to write, how to calculate, how to go about as successful entrepreneurs and how to care for their homes and children. They are the kind of women who are ready to be taught, ready to gain knowledge and ready to work for the development of their community, their families and their lives. This enthusiasm has not stopped here. The OOSC initiative has also seen women showing interest in the class. Even though the target for the program is for dropout kids (ages 7 to 17), some women have found it an advantage to show up in the class and learn to gain some knowledge they can’t probably gain from the adult literacy class. Wow! This moves me a lot, incredibly amazing!

Currently, there’s a group of women who have secured land near the Shire River that has passed through our community. I am currently working with these women to put all necessary structures in order so that we commence an irrigation project. I am very happy to work with these women in this project because not only will it benefit these women and the community socio-economically but it will also be of benefit to their families in terms of food and nutrition. When we visited the secured piece of land we found that the land has suitable soils and is perfectly located near the Shire River such that it gives us hope of a successful project. 

​I found one woman who owns a very small retail shop deep inside the village but she wasn’t comfortable to take a picture with me or me at her canteen. This woman walks everyday to Zalewa to buy her business merchandise to sell in the village, isn’t this amazing?


When it comes to development activities, you will never stop to notice these women coming in large numbers. They dominate the community meetings and although most of these women do not contribute much during development meetings, you will surely see them in large numbers coming to participate in the development endeavors

​In my subsequent posts, I will write about another amazing project that I am working with a group of about 10 to 15 women that is aimed at ensuring socio-economic independence, health households, caring for our environment among the many objects. In this initiative, the women will be well trained  and then commence producing some products which they will be selling as a group and then use the proceeds to further their own small businesses or even start one if they do not have.  Like I mentioned, I will write in detail about this initiative in the subsequent posts, just continue to follow this blog for more.

Chitete women are women who deserve a hand on their already made various efforts to sustain their lives, families and community. They deserve to be empowered and supported as much as possible, surely one will never regret working with and providing support to these women. I am very proud that I am involved in empowering these women, this is surely development redefined.

Written by Tusayiwe Sikwese, CorpsAfrica Volunteer in Malawi

Malawi Secondary School Examinations (MSCE's) are well under way across Malawi. Students graduated at colourful ceremonies, danced their four years of hard work off at discos and received gifts of all sorts from their parents, guardians, relatives and friends. Well, at least that was the case at the secondary school in my community (Chisugulu Community Day Secondary school, simply known as Chisugulu or Deck).
After all the graduation buzz, the exams finally started.

I have these two friends that are writing their MSCE's. They came to visit me after their first exam and we had quite an interesting chat that day. It was all about their career choices after they write their MSCE's.
I wasn't shocked when they told me they both wanted to study nursing because that's what most girls here aspire to study, aside from teaching. So I asked them why they wanted to be nurses and they said "because we want to help people." I then asked them what would happen if that didn't work out for them for whatever reasons and they said they didn't know what they would do because that's all they really wanted.
So I shared with them my career choice story to teach them a lesson or two.  And here it is:

When I was a kid , I always asked that very common question every kid gets asked..."what do you want to be when you grow up?"  I want to be a doctor I would answer. 

The question "why?" would follow and I would say because I want to help people. That dream died down quietly. And then I wanted to study law for the same reason "to help people."  Today, I am not a lawyer nor am I doctor.  Honestly... if were you to ask me if I'm happy with what I am currently doing... I would tell you YES!!
Why? "Because I am helping people" just like I've always wanted.

The one thing I wanted them to learn from this was that not everyone gets to be what they aspire to be. Some get their aspired careers. Some get careers that fulfill the reasons why they wanted a certain career that  they didn't get and some get careers that they wanted but the reasons for wanting it are not there. It might seem like common knowledge to most but these girls and their peers in my community are not informed/educated on this. They have no one to open their eyes on things like these, they believe their community is doomed not to have successful people. 

The girls pointed that it was hard to get out of their community as they have no one to guide them and no one to look up to. They said that no one has ever gone out of their community to make something big out of themselves so they can inspire the younger generations. And so because of this, the community believes that once students sit for their MSCE's, they must get married and forget about going further with their education as it's pointless . This isn't just for the girls, it applies to the boys too.  And this is the most probable reason why they (both girls and boys)  drop out of school in my community. 

It seemed that these girls and other students lost hope in having brighter futures because of the unconscious ignorance of their communities, which results in ridicule of those trying to make out of the community. Some parents have raised concerns about other parents in the community mocking them and discouraging them from sending their children to school. They are unaware that it is these very young people that could help with the development of their community and country as a whole.

This mindset that these young people have might continue to be shared to the generations to come in their community.

How then can the hope of these young people having brighter futures be instilled in them? What are the possible ways of changing the older generations mindsets as well as the mindsets of these young people, for a hopeful community?

They say "the best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago, the second best time is now."  You believe in yourselves and you are hopeful about your future endeavors . Help me, to help them believe in themselves and to be hopeful about their future.

Your ideas will go a long way. :-)

Written by Boubacar Diallo - CorpsAfrica Volunteer in Senegal 

With the students from Ndieulbert primary school, we did lots of exciting activities this month.
Like the international community, we celebrated the International Day of the Environment on June 5th. With students from Ndieulbert, we held a reforestation session in the primary school courtyard. We replanted some “Jatropha curcas” or “tabanani” in Wolof. This plant can be used for "bio-diesel".
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In the village, the children are at the heart of our activities. They are our first partners. The majority of them are students in the village primary school.

Version originale en français  

« La clôture de l’école un besoin principal pour le village »
 
Avec les élèves de l’école primaire de Ndieulbert on a fait beaucoup d’activités passionnantes ce mois.
A l’instar de la communauté internationale, nous avons célébré la journée internationale de l’environnement le 05juin. Avec les élèves de Ndieulbert nous avons fait une séance de reboisement dans la cours de l’école primaire. Nous avons reboisé quelques Jatropha curcas ou tabanani en wolof. Cette plante peut être utilisé pour du biocarburant « le bio-diésel ».
         
 Au village, les enfants sont au cœur de nos activités. Ils sont nos premiers partenaires. La majorité d’entre eux sont des élèves à l’école primaire du village.
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L’histoire de l’école de Ndieulbert
L’école primaire de Ndieulbert est créée en octobre 1996 avec une seule classe en paille (abris provisoire) par la population. Le premier enseignant du village s’appelle M. BA il a fait 5ans dans le village de 1996 à 2001. C’est en l’an 2000 que la coopération canadienne est venue pour assister le village en construisant deux salles de classe et deux blocs sanitaires. En 2001, une troisième salle est construite par « World Vision » qui l’a aussi clôturé en grillage (1000m²) en 2008. En 2009, la communauté rurale de Baba Garage a construit deux nouvelles salles ce qui fait que l’école dispose actuellement de cinq salles de classe et se situe à l’entrée du village. Elle est composée de quatre enseignants en ce moment : Le directeur de l’école M. DIAW  enseigne (CM2), M. DIEYE (CM1), M. FALL (CP et CE1) et M. BADIANE (CE2 et CI).
  
L’école primaire de Ndieulbert n’est pas clôturée en ce moment car le grillage fait par world Vision en 2008 ne tient plus. De ce fait, les animaux entrent partout. Les élèves ne sont pas en sécurité et les arbres plantés dans la cours sont menacés.
Une bonne clôture pour l’école est le besoin fondamental exprimé par la communauté. Je ferais un projet dans ce sens le mois prochain incha-Allah.
 
Boubacar Biro DIALLO
Volontaire CorpsAfrica Sénégal
Ndieulbert (Baba Garage)
2016/2017 

Written by Limbani Kamanga, CorpsAfrica Volunteer in Malawi
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"A country that does not know how to read and write is easy to deceive."
- Che Guevara

Written by Assiatu Pongolani, CorpsAfrica Volunteer in Malawi
Reposted from assiepongolani
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Being a CorpsAfrica Volunteer is one of the most interesting things. I get to know and learn all sorts of things in life, community and developing/ exploring new skills and knowledge while at the same time sharing what I have. Responding to fortnightly questions, monthly project tracker in time, attending a community meeting and a village bank/ loan group meeting and being visited by the CorpsAfrica Country Director are some of the activities that I will tell you about that took place in the last month here in Kadewere village.
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Responding to fortnightly questions is part of the mandatory area of being a CorpsAfrica Volunteer.  This tracks every volunteer on how she/he is doing in the community in terms of integrating into the community and personal changes, how many partners one is working with and if any progress of project implementation is being made and if any community, CorpsAfrica, other influential people or organization support is needed for any project. Not so far from the fortnightly questions, monthly project tracker helps to map the way forward of the project implementation because above all, a volunteer has to implement any project being either funded or not but as far as it is making an impact on community members lives, that is a project and it could be services, infrastructures, trainings and anything one can think of.

Attending community meetings is an ongoing activities as a CorpsAfrica Volunteer. It could be both organised by others and I get invited, or I can organize a community meeting as a volunteer. Last month, I attended a community meeting organised by the Group Village Headman Kadewere. She called for a meeting with all four villages  Makoloma, Chilungulo, Kathebwe and Kadewere that are under her rulling but only Village Development Committees (VDC) and Health Committees in every village were in attendance. The chief wanted to share the information that she took from the Area Development Committee. But among all, the VDC and health committees were given a task of visiting each and every household in their respective villages to find out if their toilet is covered with a lid and if there is soap and water outside the toilet to hand wash kupewa kudyerana manyi ( to avoid eating each others feces) hence preventing diarrhea. She continued to say, that information should be reported to the chief in a time limit given and if the village will follow that, in conjunction of the three organizations ADRA Malawi, Plan Malawi and Mulanje Mission Hospital will provide that village with a borehole as their gift and at the end an action plan was given to the committees to do the work.

Written by Mama Diop - CorpsAfrica Volunteer in Senegal 

I had a dream last night, a message I had to pass on to you.
Last night in my dreams, I was going for a walk into a gloomy and dark forest.
All of a sudden, I could perceive a skeleton running toward me.
I wanted to run away from it, but he told me “My grandson, please, don’t run away from the truth”.
I was frightened to death and I could not say a word.
She added “Perhaps you do not recognize me, but I’m your grandmother. I am Africa”.
I was very astonished and I asked her how it could be my beautiful Africa.
She answered “oh my grandson please believe me. I’m your grand mum and let me tell you my story.”

“My son, in the old days, I was a beautiful woman who gave birth to many children. My children were as beautiful as me, they had many resources. They were living happily together, having their own language and their own ways of living.”
Then, she stopped talking for a while and shook her head. I asked her what was wrong before I hearten her to go on.
She added: “Now grandson, as you can see I’m a skeleton because my flesh was stolen by other people from another world. What they did is turn me into a spider web, to implement their own culture and to steal all my resources.”
“What I can say my grandson is that it is me who has fed others continents and my sons have fed some other continents.”
“Also my grandsons don’t work hard to help me get my flesh back, they abandoned me, they don’t believe in themselves many of them do not love me, they only look for their own interest”
I could not hold back my tears when I confessed to her that her story was very tragic.
Indeed, I asked her what the solutions for her situation were.
And replied: “Grandson I have a message for the world and it is your duty to pass it on.”
She shouted “Grandson tell African people that they should be optimistic and that they should definitely stop listening to people who keep on telling them that I will never get my flesh back. Of course, I can get it back. But only if they just believe in it.”
“Tell them that I have hidden a part of my flesh and only those who work hard can find it”
“Tell them that I’m very mad at people who staged coup d’état by killing the brave ones who sacrificed their life in order to free my sons from colonial yoke”.
“Tell them that, I’m very irritated by the comprador bourgeoisie who keep on plotting with my enemies to rob my resources”.
“Tell them that I’m feeling very upset because of my grandsons who die because they have to take canoes to go abroad”.
“I fall out with people who are dividing my communities, by putting them in bad terms before giving them arms to kill each other”.
“Tell them that, I blow my top to see rulers misleading their people, stealing their money that they hide in overseas banks”.
“I don’t like seeing people killing my innocent grandsons in the name of religion. Tell them that all religions recommend peace and love whatever their differences are”.
“I cannot stand seeing my grandsons losing their values and education that constitute the base of my development”.

After saying this, she nodded her head, smiled, and I wanted to know why.
She revealed to me “Grandson, because of something, I can still keep hope that one day some of my grandsons will get my flesh back.”
Being curious, I asked her what it was.
And she answered “because now, I can see three people from different mothers, but the same grandmother, working together to rise me upward”.
I asked her whose people they were.
And she told me: “these people are from Morocco, Senegal and Malawi and they all know, despite their differences of language and culture that they must work together to bring back the CORPS of Africa”.
“They are young people who understand that my development is sleeping in rural areas with local communities who are helping”.
“Tell them that I’m very happy for what they are doing”.
“Tell them that I’m very indebted to CorpsAfrica Volunteers from each country”.
“Tell to LIZ FANNING that I’m very grateful to her, her assistants and her partners”.
After this, I promised her that I would pass on her message and that I would come back again and again to pay her a visit.

Written by Lusekelo Simwela - CorpsAfrica Volunteer in Malawi

​One of the things we are supposed to do when we go to a community is to analyse its major economic activities. I was happy to see that my community has a lot of economic activities happening.  The place is blessed with a climate and soil that allows different fruits to grow in abundance. Tangerines, avocado pears, oranges, lemons, guavas, mangoes, litchi and many others that I believe don’t have English names. (Well, I am sure they do but Father Google hasn’t helped me in finding them so, if Google doesn’t know then it doesn’t exist. That’s my story and I am sticking to it.) Above all this, there is one business that lies above them all. That is the brewing of Kachasu (moonshine). Every few houses I would see men surrounding a bottle of liquor, from foreign brands like famous Grey Goose, to local ones like premier brandy. The surprising thing was the liquid inside was always clear, like water. My curiosity and my need to research and fully integrate (again, that’s my story and I am sticking to it) made me sit down in one of these “meetings” and I took a shot of the clear liquid. I felt it burn as it passed from my mouth, to my esophagus, and finally reached my stomach which strangely felt . . . warm. It was a bittersweet experience, literally. It tasted like all liquor - bitter, but there was a subtle sweet sugary substance that gave the liquor an interesting taste. I stood up as I had to meet one of the villagers for a one to one interview, but I knew this was something that I needed to find out more. That is why I spoke to Melina Maliko and her two daughters, Agnes and Alefa.

This is how the interview went:
Me: When did you start brewing Kachasu?
Melina: I do not remember. I think it was before Alefa was born.
Alefa: I was born in 1978
Me: How did you start this particular business?
Agnes: I started in 2010, when I quit school.
Melina: I used to sell things like soap and sugar from Mozambique. My brewing was not as good, but when I got better, I switched to it.
Me: What are some of the things you have done from the money you get from brewing?
Melina: I built a house with iron sheets. I buy groceries and clothes from the same, too.
​Agnes: It fully supports my family. It saves me from abject poverty
Me: There are a lot of people addicted to Kachasu. They do not contribute to the villages’ development or help their families. Do you, as a family of brewers, feel that you are responsible for this addiction?
Melina: Well, like my mother before me and my two daughters after me, I make this drink. It's all I know. I used to drink to excess myself but I realized that anything done beyond its limits is bad for me, so I stopped. Those that are unable to stop have only themselves to blame.
Alefa: This business is not all good. We sometimes have people knocking on our doors before 5 a.m. They curse at us, sometimes even beat us up. But it’s the only way we know to make money. What can we do?
Agnes: I feel sorry for some people, they spend thousands at my house buying Kachasu. I try to stop them but there is nothing we can do. If we don’t sell to them they will simply buy from others?
Me: Well, how exactly do you make this drink? What do you use?
Melina: We use either sugarcane, sugar, mangoes or "Masuku achizungu."
Agnes: We mostly use sugarcane because it is the one that people enjoy the most.
Alefa: The process goes like this; we soak maize husks(gaga) in water for four days, then we crush sugarcane using motar and pestle. We then mix the sugarcane with water that we get from sieving the gaga. We mix the two with the water from a previous batch. We put this mixture in a pot and let it ferment for three to four days. After that we distill it - the distillate is kachasu.
Me: How much do you sell the kachasu for? 
Melina: 200 Kwacha for a 300 ml bottle, 600 kwacha for a 750 ml bottle. We also sell in bulk, 10000 kwacha for a 20 litre jerry can.
Me: Happy to have talked to you. Is there anything you would like to add?
​Agnes: Making this drink is hard work and the drunkards treat us bad for it, but one has to do what they can to survive.