work life

I haven't mentioned much about the 'what' of what I'm doing, and I heard some complaints to that regard whilst in Canada. My apologies. I think we both struggle with the dynamics of writing a travel blog while not really travelling, and the balance between a light anecdotal take on life versus falling into the trap of lengthy verbose prose that no one wants to read.

sunset from our house

Since October I've been working on a CIDA (Canadian International Development Agency) grant with the local agriculture college near Lilongwe, Bunda College, part of the University of Lilongwe, but formerly part of the University of Malawi, a change which led to a months-long protest by students last year and the closing of the university for half a semester. Consequently, the school year is all thrown off now, and students went back to their fall term in late November, only to turn around and get Christmas holidays three weeks later. Hmmm... One wonders how long this schedule will persist before getting back on track. 

At this college, I'm involved with a fisheries research lab that focuses on sustainable aquaculture development for smallholder farmers in rural Malawi. A central theme of their research is 'action research', where rather than applying academia-based hypotheses and pre-conceived notions to working with people, they aim to work with those involved to come up with hypotheses, experiments, or treatments. To learn from those who are already doing it on the ground, rather than arrive fresh off the press with an idea that won't actually work in the real world. It's interesting to see a much more social side of fisheries research, and the related highlights as well as challenges. Fish don't talk back...

One of the big projects we're working on right now is developing an 'anchor firm', where we can connect smallholder fish producers with processing, packaging, and eventually the market. Value addition is something rarely seen in Malawi's resource sectors; it's not too different then Canada in that way. Interestingly we developed this idea when I came on board as a way of introducing sustainability into the existing farmer support system; when the current grant runs out and farmers in the areas we work in (and elsewhere) have less support to produce and sell their fish, a structured business should be there to support their efforts and connect them with viable, high value markets. To state the obvious, it's quite the process to develop a business model, research the various aspects (standard bureaus, export markets etc etc etc), and pitch it to the community. And it takes awhile. Luckily the existing research group had a lot of this information and connections at their fingertips, but there's still a huge laundry list of things to do yet before it's off the ground. Unfortunately I'll be gone before it comes to fruition (the curse of the short contract), but the progress thus far is encouraging. 

There's a youtube video of the work here... I haven't had enough bandwidth to watch it yet, but it might interest some of you who do. 

For some reason the little challenges of working in academia here never cease to amaze me. Losing power may be an inconvenience to most, but imagine losing a morning, or longer, when you're trying to submit that paper or finish some stats? Ha. And while I'm on the topic, not being able to access peer reviewed journals...At all...Except for open access, or old out of date pubs. A first hand view of why we should all push for open access as much as possible. 

The bigger challenges are, well, more challenging. The dynamics of donor-driven, rather than grant-driven, research are rather different. The push to publish is vastly diminished, and hoping is greatly increased. Things may happen slowly, or all at once due to some money coming through, but planning seems rather less of a priority. There's also a complete (it seems) lack of accountability on the behalf of professors at the university, and there's no reward for teaching quality. For instance, this week I gave a lecture on proposal writing to a group of third year students who will be enrolled in a undergrad thesis for their fourth year. Their current course on research methods is in its 7th week, yet today was their first lecture (note - led by me, not their actual professor). The look in their eyes was so downtrodden when I said that this was to be my only guest lecture that myself and Laura (my fellow Canadian in the program) have decided to offer a weekly seminar on research methods and help them out. It's us or nothing - it seems. Literally. 

and on that note....Here's today's random Lilongwe bumper sticker. It's quite the departure from the usual God-fearing statements. "If Jesus says Yes, who can say no?" is my running favorite. I don't know what this one means, exactly.