August 2024 – Tufts Engineers Without Borders

August 30, 2024Paul Wang No Comments

Day 3

Malawi Culture and Gule Wamkulu

Malawi has a rich culture that unites more than 10 different ethnic groups, languages, and customs. Most of the arts and crafts produced by Malawian artists are either sold to tourists or used for other needs. Indigenous groups in Malawi have a rich tradition of mask carving and basketry which are often used in traditional ceremonies. Most of the tribes have their unique styles of music and dance. The most common one is the ones performed by the Gule Wamkulu.

Gule Wamkulu: This is the most common dance in the country. It is also known as “a cosmic celebration of life and death”. The individuals a part of the gule wamkulu community are initiated every August in a coming of age ceremony. This calling is a way of life, and many people know neighbors or friends who are a part of this community, however their identities are often kept secret. This dance is performed at weddings, funerals, and the installation or death of a chief and is also performed in the season after July harvest.

August 30, 2024Paul Wang No Comments

Day 6

Arts in the Village

While in the Chikumukure Secondary School, our group painted a periodic table mural, planned and designed by Young. It was painted in the local elementary school, in order to engage students with chemistry and science. Young was discovered by JOCC, the NGO sponsoring us. In order to get to the community, he caught a motorcycle, as he didn’t have his own transportation. He was happy with little pay – he primarily requested food and transportation. He used no measuring devices – his precision is all natural. He mixed his own paints. In Malawian schools, murals can often be used as an educational tool.

Fun fact: Our sponsoring NGO, Joshua Orphan and Community Care supports communities in Malawi in education, early childhood care, sustainable development, and emergency relief. They aided in our community by finding workers able to construct our water town, as well as connecting us with Young. Both these projects supported the local school, helping grow their youth into contributing community members. {https://www.joshuainmalawi.org.uk/}

In the community, we also met Hamban, a vibrant, local artist. He paints colorful, abstract images of animals and people. His paintings are primarily geared towards tourists, in order to support himself and share Malawian culture. He sells in markets and near the airport. Many of these animals survive off the water from lake Malawi, or within the lake itself. Lake Malawi is one of the world’s largest lakes, containing 7% of Earth’s surface water and housing over 1000 species of fish. Many of these fish are native to Lake Malawi, and only found there, such as many cichlids. Outside of supporting immense biodiversity, Lake Malawi acts as a water source for many local communities.

Interactive Activity!

This activity is pretty simple!

Download and print the drawing.

Just use a marker or pencil to connect the dots and design the elephant to your hearts content!

August 30, 2024Paul Wang No Comments

Day 2

Connection Between Art, Life, and Water

A large amount of Malawian culture revolves around water, more specifically water collection. When you collect water in Malawi you don’t just do it as a way to stay alive, you also do it as a way to socialize. Water collection cites are places where everyone in a town weeds to go often and such they are places where the community can congregate and people can socialize. This importance leads to the reason why the water tower we built didn’t connect to everybody’s homes in the village. If people were able to get water in their homes it would change the way of life drastically and would take away an important part of their culture and social lives.

Now, you may be asking what does this have to do with art? Well a large portion of art in Malawi depicts women collecting water. In Malawian culture water collection is generally a job for women and children and this is represented in the art. The women in the art are generally holding water jugs on their heads in fun poses with bright colors in the background. Some are more anatomical, but many have stick figures like legs and arms. This kind of art is what you will be drawing in the next section.

August 30, 2024Paul Wang No Comments

Day 5

Malawian Food!

Word of the day: Chakudya = Food

Fun Facts:

Small farmers constitute 80% of Malawi’s population.
38% of Malawians live below the poverty line.
Some of Malawi’s main crops are sweet potato, rice, cassava, and maize.
Nsima, a thick porridge made from ground maize, is popular dish often served with meat, rice, and vegetables.

During our stay, the people in Malawi shared their culture with us through their food. Our group had cooks to prepare our meals, incorporating their traditional foods (with some American flares and adaptations). Our meals typically consisted of proteins, vegetables, and a starch.

outtake: beans, some sort of vegetable (green beans, carrots, or cabbage), with a starch like rice, sweet or normal potatoes, and sometimes pasta (although we think that was because we are American). Occasionally, we would eat a protein that is more expensive, like eggs or, for really special occasions, chicken.

Our staple meals included very similar meals each day.

For breakfast we normally would have rice porridge with brown sugar or peanut butter with Malawian tea.

For lunch and dinner, we enjoyed beans, rice, green beans, carrots, potatoes/sweet potatoes, and nsima. Other foods we got to try included chippies, similar to a wedge fry, and pasta and cabbage.

Call out: Nsima is like mashed potatoes made of cornmeal that you can eat with your hands. (see the video of Naomi showing us how to eat Nsima).

We were also frequently fed chicken and eggs, which is more of a delicacy in Malawi because it is more expensive. This required buying a live chicken and having our chef prepare it.

The Mawali people like to eat foods high in fats and carbs in their diet, like peanut butter, because it helps keep them fuller for longer. To spice things up, Mawali has a famous hot sauce called “Nali.”

While they eat many of the same foods, their diet is based on nutritious staple foods that help fuel them. Furthermore, we were often gifted various food items that were uncooked fruits or vegetables that we were not allowed to eat but were very thankful for! One gift were cucumbers, a vegetable that was a common snack with some salt.

Meals We Had in Malawi!

A classic beans, rice, and veggies

Chicken! With beans and carrots with some nsima and potatoes

Sweet potatoes, cabbage with carrots and tomatoes, and beans!

Stir fried cabbage and tomatoes with a boiled egg and some nsima

Beans, rice and stir fried veggies with a roasted potato

Salt cup, really fried egg, and “chippies”

August 30, 2024Paul Wang No Comments

Day 4

Word of the day:

Bambo = Man/Father

Mayi = Woman/Mother

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While access to water is something that we often take for granted, for many, it is a privilege. For many rural communities across Africa, water access is a daily challenge for them. Often with many clean sources of water, being miles away from their village, families often have to dedicate hours everyday to retrieving water.

This valuable time spent getting clean water can often inhibit many children in rural communities from receiving education and schooling. Thus, our project aims at alleviating this structural issue.

This valuable time spent getting clean water can often inhibit many children in rural communities from receiving education and schooling. Thus, our project aims at alleviating this structural issue.

Let’s take a look at Lydia Kacheri, whose family has benefited from the newly built water distribution system.

Lydia Kacheri is a single mother of 4 children in the Solomoni community. Lydia is the mother to two older sons, aged 18 and 19, and two younger daughters, aged 12 and 8. In order to supply the household, Lydia and the daughters will often have to take multiple trips to a borehole, taking approximately 8 trips and a total of 120 gallons of water a day. By building a pump and running water at the schools, it eliminates some of the households’ need for water, and allows Lydia’s daughters to spend more time on their schoolwork and education.

There were many more people who were both living in the community and working in the community. Here’s a slideshow of some major community members who made our journey in Malawi super welcoming and smooth: People Profiles