Flooding

I have never really experienced what a rainy season means. When it rains in Sweden it can rain for days but it is rare that you get floods. But here the rain is pour down heavely and just after a few minutes you have small floods everywhere. So after few hours of heavy rain it will cause a lot of flooding.

In the past two weeks almost 180 people have died because of the floods and around 175 000 people have been displaced from their homes. It is especially the southern part of Malawi that is heavily affected. A problem is that Malawi doesn’t have enough rescue boars and helicopters to evacuate people. The government has appealed for help and have declared one third of the country to be a disaster zone.

The country's infrastructure is heavily affected with some roads and bridges washed away. This is also affecting the access to power and water. Almost the whole country is without power and water. The power is coming mainly from the rivers but with the floods a lot of branches and stuff is getting stuck in the machineries. 

Hopefully the heady rains will stop soon but unfortunately it doesn't look very promising at the moment...

Mangochi

Chilembwe day

Reverend John Chilembwe died 100 years ago. He was one of the most educated black African leaders at his time. He is known as a brave African nationalist who challenged Europeans when many viewed the whites as gods who could not be challenged. In 1897 he went to the United States with the missionary he was working for at that time. When coming back to Africa two years later he was ordained as a Baptist minister.

He preached the values of hard-work, self-respect ad self-help to his congregation. In 1912 he became more politically militant and openly voiced criticism over the state of African land rights in the Shire Highlands and of the conditions of labour tenants.