"Exterminate all the Brutes"

* Madonnas new kid
In the Weekend Newspaper “Nation Malawi” there was an amusing comic about Madonnas orphan:

Mwana amweneyo abwerako kuno mwamwa? (Chichewa)

This kid has to come back soon, understand?
Thandize = Help me

As some of you might know: I’m a cycle nerd. When I saw some cyclists, I had to take a picture of them 🙂

After the lessons in IT Department, the students understud to profit of the time that Alex stays at Poly.
So they come to visit him in the office at the library to solve and clear their questions and problems.
On the picture you can see 2 students from the IT Department, who will reach their degree in mid november. They are actually woring on their Free Software diploma project.

During my last stay in Malawi in 2004 when I’ve set up the GNU/Linux System at the Polytechnic Library and I was given an office in the very same building. Now 2 years later when I arrived with the thin-clients the Librarian Martin Thawani decided to give me the same office. We needed more than a day to tidy up the mess, because the room has been used meanwhile as a storage place to put the old computers, monitors and other malfunctioning hardware. It was somehow sad to see, that the computers at the Library were not maintained nor upgraded meanwhile. But the good news was, that they are still running nicely. And aperantly that was the reason, they were not updated.

Many students and lecturers were very happy, that I decided to upgrade them and extend the Library Network with the thin-clients. The computers at the Poly Library are scarce and many students use the internet access for research on their projects.

Therefore the Librarian Mr. Thawani has officially introduced me to the Principal of the Polytechnic Dr. Charles Mataya. After a short technical explanation on the thin-client system and talk about Nathalies and my background he was very happy to see what is going on. Therefore he asked Mr. Thawani to organise the official handover of that thin-client system between me an the Vice Chancellor of the University of Malawi. And also de media shall be invited to this handover. Further the Principal of the Polytechnic asked me to probe for a possible relationship between the Polytechnic an the University of applied sciences and arts in Zurich (HGKZ).

Just to inform you about how to contact us:

E-Mail: aantener@poly.ac.mw
Cell: +265 8 721 670
Tel: +265 1 870 411 (ext. 104)

Before visiting Chancellor College in Zomba, we drive up Zombamountain, that is 2800m heigh, to look down to the city of Zomba, that is the fourth biggest city in Malawi. Driving upwards, the air gets cooler and fresh, the environment green. The smell of ceder and pine wood is in the air. For our understanding somehow shocking is to see men and women carrying big amounts of wood on top of their heads. Down in the City they will spilt the wood to sell it as firewood.

The “University of Malawi” consists 5 Colleges in the Cities of Zomba (Chancellor College), Blantyre (Polytechnic, College of Medicine, Kamuzu College of Nursing), Lilongwe (Bunda College of agriculture, Kamuzu College of Nusing). The chair of the “University of Malawi” is found in Zomba next to the buildings of the Chancellor College.

The lodge is inside the Nationalpark up on a bank. Our Friends Andrew and David join are joining us.
Otherwise a lot of white germans and very white english and dutch people. This place is quiet, the dorms are hidden inconspicuous between the bushes. As inconspicuous, that the gekos, the saurians and spiders and also the monkays and hippos agree to share their place with us. We descide to go for a nightsafari. The term safari comes out of the arabic word of traval. Erlier it ment a travel who mainly had the aim to bag the big fives. Today it mostly meens a travel into wildrich areas, on wich is shot at the most with the camera.

The guide combs with a very bright ligh the flor and the trees, to find some animals. His eyes are sharp, as sharp as he is even able to find a chameleon hidden into the bush. Nightsafari has something from a ride trough a dream. For our two natives friends indeed, is the question about the possibility of preparation and taste of the different animals in the foreground.

Very enthusiastic from this safari thing, we descide also to go for a morning safari by walking. After a early the, we go to walk long distances over the steppe and aproches us slowly the herds of watterbags, hippos, krokodiles and elafants. We go as far, as we can look with the binoculars into the eyes of his animals. Anyways, we are still alive, and also the animals, exept the cockroach who wanted to be confortable in our car.

The past 4 days I introduced some of the IT classes of the Polytechnic into the upcoming server hardware, that will be installed at the Library of the Polytechnic. I hope to find people who are interested in maintaining the thinclient system later on. That’s why I’m thinking of dividing the system in two parts: one for training at the IT dept. and the other part as a running environment in the Library. David Chigama a GNU/linux lecturer from Zimbabwe would love to study and maintain such a System.

Frank, our cook, finds a “chamaeleo dilepis petersi”, that he kept in a box for us until we got home. I don’t believe my eyes, when I see it.
Later I try to tell David the sensation and feeling it causes. I explain, that it might be about the same sensation for a malawian to see snow, for the first time in his life.
That animal is moving forward so incredibly slow and quiet. After holding it in our hands for about half an hour it still behaves as if it was still not beeing seen. In fact it still isn’t there at all.

Monday afternoon, the 9th of october 2006, 16:41h CAT sharp, we’re lucky to meet some karatekidz from Blantyre on their secret mission.
The kids hide in the bushes near our home. After some negotiation with the “head” of the gang, they’re posing for some pictures.