TELI’S BRIQUETTE AND PEANUT PROJECT BEGINS AT CHEMBE VILLAGE WITH THE HELP OF
WWF BRIQUETTE MAKING PROJECT AT LAKE MALAWI
Wednesday 6th August
Dear Friends,
Last week was a slight compensation for the fact that I have missed two summers in Puumala, the lake paradise of Finland. For a Finn it is an essential part of life to be able to plunge into crystal clear waters in Summertime. Lake Malawi gave me this opportunity as I stayed in Chembe village for 6 days and was able to run into the lake before going to ‘Fish Heaven’, WWF headquarters in Cape Maclear. I even managed to plunge in at lunch time as well as having a sunset swim. One night I almost had it with a hippo who came quite close to the shore.
I have made it sound as if the whole stay in Chembe was a one big holiday and in one sense it was: I enjoyed it enormously. Chembe village is the biggest fishing village in Malawi, having a population of nearly 14,000 and spreading all the way along the sandy beach of Cape Maclear. It is a very traditional looking village, only a few brick houses have been constructed in Chembe and here and there some ancient baobab trees are scattered in the landscape. Scenery in and around Chembe is very beautiful - wooded hills rising steeply at the back of the village and rolling down all 20 kilometres to Monkey Bay. No wonder it has been a World Heritage Site since 1980., covering 9400 hectares all together and rising up to 1140 metres.
This beautiful site, Lake Malawi National Park was one of the reasons WWF started a briquette making project here in order to conserve the trees in the park. A fantastic woman called Alison Wiklund is the co-ordinator of the WWF projects and I had many lively chats with her. WWF has also hand made paper project there and as I have been interested in paper making for about 40 years, you can imagine how excited I was to see their work. I am even wondering whether I could fulfil that long lasted desire back at home. We could maybe start a project here sometime later, but I would like to dip my fingers in a vegetable/wastepaper mass sooner. Priority here is the briquette making, which I have described in more detail in another script.
Apart from meeting many fascinating people in Chembe, it seems to be a centre for many interesting projects. Briquettes were my main concern, but I also learned how to make peanut butter, where to buy a solar stove (only 150kw = £1 from the Wildlife Centre. Fantastic), how to make a ‘manual video’ for kids, found a possible reason why carrots apparently don't grow well here (seeds need a cold spell for germination), paper making of course and I even learned to recognise placadon fish which eats Biomphlaria bulinus snail, the intermediate host of bilharzia.
I also learned, although that didn’t need much research from my part, that only half an hour was long enough for ants to find my well hidden breadroll and crawl inside it.
They also invaded my water filter, blocking the valve and some even getting through it. They were amazingly resilient, surviving and clinging together for hours even in water. I am sure they believed nothing can stop them, so I felt quite pleased to see that arrogance crushed and happily picked out dead bodies, trapped by the filter cartridge of my beloved ‘Water Works'. But I have to give them thanks for making it slightly easier to leave Chembe and return to home in Manja.