Canadian Identity

Before departing Canada I was given a test at Newfoundland’s Marine Institute. It’s not a test in the sense that you pass or fail, it’s suppose to gauge your cultural perspective and predict how you might adapt to working in a different culture. The test is called the Intercultural Development Inventory, that’s for anyone interested, however I warn you that it isn’t free. The questions were mostly centred on feelings of personal cultural identity, tolerance of different cultures, and experiences interacting with cultures other than your own.

The selection committee for the International Youth Internship Program did a great job picking open-minded candidates that were eager to gain international experience. As a group we ranked fairly well, we’re likely to find common similarities between our culture and foreign cultures. We’re all human after all and we all share similar emotions, values and needs. The hope is that we go a step or two further on the IDI scale. Learning to accept cultural differences, understanding them and bridging them together are the next levels. When I return to Canada I’ll take the IDI test to see how my personal development has progressed since the start of my internship.

For one thing, answering questions about my cultural identity was very difficult for me before leaving. Strangely, I didn’t feel like I had a strong cultural identity compared to people that belonged to a distinct group like the proud Metis in Manitoba or the strong French culture in Quebec. No, for me I was just a regular Canadian guy that enjoyed nature, socializing with friends, watching movies, playing video games and other general things, nothing too special I thought.

Being away has made me realize how strong my Canadian Identity truly is, It’s the old expression “you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone”, or in this case until you fly half way across the world. For example as soon as I wake up I instantly check the NHL hockey scores and Canadian news stories. During my spare time I enjoy listening to Canadian radio shows or country music stations. For fashion I love to wear my plaid shirt that feels particularly Canadian to me. It was fun when I had a chance to talk with another Canadian, in Malawi, about curling and our adventures back home. When I had an oven to cook with I made pancakes and other favourite “Canadian” foods.

I pretty much fit in now, no distinctions. 

Those are some of the more apparent aspects of my Canadian identity but it goes much deeper than then the things I wear, watch and eat. It’s more difficult to describe behavioural differences, and their underlying reasons. Trying to view a situation from another person's perspective goes a long way towards understanding. In any case, I like to think that my Identity will also broaden with this experience. Who know, maybe when I'm back in Canada I'll be listening to Malawian radio stations and looking up their news stories.

Pond Design: Tips and Trick

A good pond design is one of the first factors to becoming a successful tilapia farmer in a tropical country. At first glance a well-designed pond might appear like any old hole in the ground, in reality there’s much more to proper pond design than meets the eye.

To prove this point I’ll go over why the ponds I built in Canada, as golf course water hazards, would be absolutely terrible designs for raising tilapia in Sub Saharan Africa, and combined that with recommendations for a better design.

Size Matters

As it happens, size does matter. My golf course ponds are miniscule. They occupy a couple square meters at best, with a depth of about a foot. A pond of a couple square meters just isn’t going to cut it for tilapia aquaculture. They should occupy at least four hundred square meters and be a meter or two in depth. A spacious three fish per square meter is the recommended stocking density for low intensity systems. That means by the end of a six-month production cycle I’d be lucky to harvest six fish from the golf course. I'll need to reconsider my priorities as a fish farmer when I return to Canada.

Shape: Rectangles

My ponds are stylistic; they’re shaped like a teardrop and horseshoe. They also feature aesthetically pleasing jagged, rocky banks. These features would make harvesting a pond difficult, nets would be damaged and the fish would easily evade capture. It’s best to simply forget about the aesthetics for this project and go with a rectangular pond with shallow sloping banks. Fish won’t be able to evade the net by swimming underneath, only leaving one option for escape, a flying leap to temporary freedom.

Notice the banks of this pond; they're still pretty steep,

which makes it difficult to land a seine net

Water Source: Streams and Springs

Now that we have a general idea of the size and shape of the pond we need to think about our water source. This thought can be surprisingly overlooked. My golf course ponds are filled with water from a hose. Economically, the cost of running an electric pump in a low stocked pond, would destroy any hopes to make a profit. It’s great if there’s a reliable free source of water nearby coming from a stream or natural spring. Even more importantly these sources of water should be available year round to avoid the disastrous implications of evaporation.

This was supposed to be a pond but access to available water was overlooked.

Water Flow: Let Gravity do the Work

Planning for water inlets and outlets is essential for providing fish with optimal growth conditions and to make pond maintenance easy. An inlet can be a simple PVC pipe that connects a water source to the pond. The outlet should be a PVC pipe located at the base of the pond, with a standpipe joined to an elbow connector, making the water level easily adjustable.

Wild fish can enter ponds if inlets aren't securely covered with a fine net material. 

The inlet and outlet features are great for controlling water coming in and leaving the ponds. Restricting water that leaves a pond can help retain nutrients in water column whereas allowing water to flow through the system can improve water quality, it's a balancing game. Partially draining the pond also makes harvesting the fish an easier task. Lastly, to ensure wild fish do not enter your pond, it's best to install a fine mesh screen on the PVC inlet. Wild fish can have a tendency to impact productivity in a negative way by competing for feed, increasing the waste production in the pond and possibly eating your farmed fish.

Outlet standpipe allow farmers to control the water level in their ponds.

The concept of farming tilapia in a low intensity pond system can seem be pretty simple but by keeping these pieces of advice in mind before striking soil with a shovel could save huge amounts of time related to pond maintenance in the future.

Water Works

My siblings and I use to play a game on the beach that we called “Water Works”. All you need for this game is a hose with running water, a bucket and a sandy beach. You turn on the hose and it begins to fill the bucket. The game starts when the water overflows from the container and starts. 

The goal of this game is stop the water from reaching a helpless little sand village from the incoming flood. We built dykes and reservoirs to divert the water from the path of the village. Water would continually rise in our reservoirs and we would struggle to build our walls taller and thick enough to withstand the added erosion and pressure in the system. 

The grassy remains of a ponds that was washed out last year. 

 Two other ponds were also washed out that were downstream from the breach. 

Inevitably there would be a break and the wall would collapse causing water to enter the next set of frantically built reservoirs. The real fun begins when we decided to pour out the bucket and a surge of water enters the system. “A Breach!” We tried our best but the sand village couldn’t be saved. It was always a blast playing this game but I never realized that I was learning something that might be useful in the future.

In drought years and the dry season, ponds and streams will dry up completely. 

One of the main forms of tilapia aquaculture here is to dig a small pond that has access to a year round source of water. Sometimes there can be a series of reservoirs where water from a stream passes through a consecutive chain of ponds. It’s a setup that closely resembles the series of reservoirs from our water works game. A stream is the consistent source of running water and fishponds are the reservoirs, but there’s still one more factor in the system, a sudden surge of water, the rain. 

Even a small stream like this can swell up in
the wet season and cause flooding issues.

Malawi is a country that’s already experiencing the impacts of climate change. Weather events are getting more extreme, some years drought will dry out ponds that had access to year round water and in other year’s severe rains will flood the same area. Both events cause issues for aquaculture but it’s the rain that can cause the most destruction. One breach upstream and the rushing water will break every wall it encounter as it rushes downstream. 

It’s from playing the water works game that I’ve been able to think of possible design modifications, that would reduce the damage done to downstream ponds in the increasingly likely situation where a breach occurs upstream. It's not a project that I'm working on directly but it's interesting to reflect on how experiences will shape your thoughts and ideas, not only work experiences but also experiences from playing games and as far back as childhood. 

Peanut butter and Jam Sandwiches

 Living in a hotel room isn’t all that grand. It’s rather dull but at least my work in Blantyre is going well. It’s great to meet farmers in rural areas, interview market vendors or just hang out and look over data in the office, but once I’m “home” there isn’t much to do.

My fabulously tacky hotel room with a bed to spare. This spider guards me from malaria.

Also the anti malarial drugs and mosquito nets help for that too.

I really can’t complain too much but I will say that doing laundry in a sink or only being able to make peanut butter and jam sandwiches to eat loses its appeal pretty quickly. There are, of course, other options. For one I could just pay someone to do my laundry. Last week one of the hotel maids noticed that my clothes were looking pretty grubby so she took matters into her own hands and washed my shorts while I was away. I never knew my shorts were that white. Washed, pressed and folded they looked like they were brand new. Throwing clothing into a sink, sprinkling soap on top and letting them soak just isn’t cutting it. I smell fine, which is always important, but the clothing still looks dirty. Maybe it should be left to the professionals. Trouble is, they charge hotel prices, dollar for almost every article of clothing. That adds up quickly. 

On the trouble of only eating peanut butter and jam sandwiches. It’s not really a huge issue. They’re still enjoyable but making them a meal replacement might cause some nutritional deficiencies in a couple weeks. Compared to eating at a restaurant in Canada a decent meal here isn’t very expensive. It costs two dollars for my lunch and three to five dollars for my supper. It’s not the cost that’s the issue it’s the time. It gets dark here fast and early; 5:30 to 6:00 pm and hello darkness.

Lamp posts are everywhere, but where are the lights? 

Planning for the future, or relic of the past?

 It’s not advisable to walk around after dark so my supper takes place at a nearby recreational centre that I go to immediately after work. It costs me three dollar to take the taxi home at night. Besides the obvious increased risk of crime after dark, tripping hazards might be one of the biggest dangers of walking out late. There’s holes everywhere, pot holes, man holes, sink holes, without street lights they’re just there waiting for unsuspecting prey, a naive foreigner that takes a wrong step perhaps.

He fell through the hole in the middle of the sidewalk and was never

heard from again. Drainage ditches are pretty hazardous for pedestrians too.

There’s also a gym at the Blantyre Medical University sport centre. It’s a crowded little gym and it only has one squat rack that doubles as a bench-pressing station. Everybody LOVES to bench press which leaves little opportunity for squats. In fact I haven’t seen anyone perform a squat yet. Bunch of guys with huge upper bodies and little chicken legs.

got to do squats today!

All is fine in Blantyre. We have another five weeks together before I return to Bunda College at which point there will only be one month left in the internship. Time is really passing quickly but six months is still a long time to be away from family and old friends. Will be looking forward to Winnipeg at the begining of August. There couldn't be a better time to return home. 

Majete National Park

Enough was enough; Three month had passed and no encounters with any large game animals. It was time to visit a national park.

Majete National Park is about an hour drive from Blantyre. I decided to visit the nearby park for my birthday weekend. I called up the first phone number on google search, booked a night at Tawale lodge along with two game drives, and then off I went the very next day.

My expression when I found this inconspicuous tree frog. 

Like most trips in a minibus the journey to Majete was eventful. I was sitting in the back seat when our trunk flew open and all our stuff crashed out onto the highway. Bystanders rushed over, shoved the luggage back into the trunk and we drove off without another incident.

Once I entered the park it didn’t take long before spotting my first impala, then another, and another, and you get the point. It’s the mating season for impala, meaning the males become territorial, stand their ground and wait around for a herd of females to visit them.

Tawale lodge has a main bar and restaurant area that overlooks a watering hole. I spotted some warthogs and more impala at the as they played around in the watering hole. After a while a large herd of at least 50 buffalo arrived for a cool down dip. There were also zebras and waterbuck too. The one in the picture is drinking from a birdbath just a couple feet away from my room. 

Finally it came time to start the night drive. They start at dusk with about an hour to spot animals in the diminishing sunlight; there were many different species of antelope. After an hour of driving around you stop for some sundowners by the Shire River, a couple Carlsberg greens for me. Once you’re a little bit buzzed you carry on searching for animals, this time in the night and with a big spotlight.

We didn’t see a large variety of nocturnal animals but we did see a large hippo out of the water and some large elephants! Still would have loved to see some nocturnal wildcat species or a bush baby.

The people I joined for the night drive were from America. It was nice to talk with people close to home but they were a large group that wasn’t entirely interested in making a solo friend. How they knew it was my birthday was beyond me, they even got me a cake for dessert. Just kidding, coincidently one of the American girls was turning the same age as me on the exact same date. I enjoyed their cake and retired for the night. That’s until the buffalo were back and surrounding my tent, making all sorts of deep noises during the early hours of the morning.

My birthday Cake! This elephant just wanting us to go away already.

Woke up for the six o’clock game drive. We were really hoping to see a lion or rhino during this trip but we didn’t have any luck. We did find their tracks and some rhino dung.

Campsite tent.

I decided to stay for an extra night but had to switch over to the campsite. The campsite was very satisfactory they do all the difficult parts for you like cooking and tent construction. They even provide a mattress with clean sheets. The only thing you miss out on is the view of a watering hole.

Felt safe walking with the armed parked ranger. 

I did two nature hikes while I was in the park. The first one was alone with a park ranger. It was nice seeing little details you wouldn’t normally see in a car. Interestingly the animals are more afraid of people when they’re on foot than in cars. The animals would dart away at the first sign of us. Also still no chameleon.

The entire reservoir was drained in less than thirty minutes.

it left some crocodiles stranded on the muddy banks.

A lovely Belgium couple invited me to join them on a second nature hike. We went along with another park ranger. Originally we were supposed to do a river tour but a hydroelectric dam was being service the day we planned the trip. Even though we didn’t get out on the water we still got to see the reservoir being emptied at an astonishingly fast rate. That was cool to see and it only happens once every three months.

After the hike it was time to go home. Frederic and Nida kindly offered to drive me back to Blantyre and I graciously accepted. Thank you kindly, I hope we meet again.

Malawi Haircuts Plural

It’s probably always a bad idea to get your hair cut in a foreign country, especially if you want a style that only your regular hair stylist has perfected for you. It’s a lesson I should have learned after the Mohawk incident in the Dominican Republic. Forgetting all about this past experience, I had high hopes for a stylish haircut as I walk into the half barbershop, half curtain store.

Brothers, can you tell by the similarities? Must be the hair.

I could tell that the barber was up for a challenge so I pulled out my phone and showed him a picture of me looking fantastically dapper after a previous haircut (Thank you sailor bubs, Halifax). “Please, Mr. barber, I want to look like this again.” I said to him. He didn’t speak English but got the idea and went to work. To his credit, and given the magnitude of what I was asking from him, he did a decent job. To me it just felt off, uneven and rigid. A couple weeks later and it needed to be removed.

What hair I wanted and the hair I got  

For my second haircut in Malawi I was in the city of Blantyre searching for a new barber. This time I selected a style that could be replicated easily, not quite a buzz cut but a short cut with a middle peak. The new barber just wasn’t up to the challenge that the hair presented and I could sense his apprehension as he agreed to cut it.  

My poor hair had never encountered some of the strange techniques he used throughout the procedure. For example instead of going from front to back, using the electric razor, he went in any and every direction he felt was going finish the job. My personal favourite technique was one that he used to clean the edges of my hairline. Sloooooowly bring the razorblade to the skull for accurate hairline trimming, and then with lightning fast action, flick the razorblade away from the skull to maximize precision. At the end of the ordeal I was basically left with a buzz cut.

Missing friends and Sailor Bup's back at home.

But it wasn’t the end. I just wanted to pay the guy and leave but there was more. I was brought into a back room where there were chairs that looked like virtual reality simulators and some other reclining chairs. I sat down in the reclined chairs. The haircut included a hair wash and head massage! I admit it was nice walking out the barbershop without any stray pieces of hair everywhere.

The head massage gave me time to think about my appreciation for the barbers back at home. They do such a great job cutting hair. And mom, thank you, you did considerably well for the many years you were cutting my hair.

Most recent transformation, luckily hair does grow back.  

The final station in this multi tiered experience was a combing station. They sat me down in a chair that faced a small mirror and a lady began to comb what little hair I had remaining. This went on for a couple minutes until at last the experience was finished, and that’s the end of my haircut story in Malawi.