Jake's Work in Malawi

Last fall, I met Debbie Clark at a COTN info night in San Diego, which is where I learned about an ongoing fish farming project at one of the children's homes in Malawi. After speaking with several folks at COTN and learning more about the project, I decided to join a team and go with the intent to determine the current status of the fish farm and figure out ways to rejuvenate the project in going forward. Thus, for the past 4-6 months in the US, I have spoken with and even made some direct contacts with folks in Malawi doing rural aquaculture. In the past 2 weeks prior to going to Malawi, a lot of things including meetings and so forth were still up and the air which I've learned is the natural progression of things in Malawi : ). The Lord however came through as always and provided settings to meet with folks in country who have really good experience in this venture. For three days I traveled with the Malawi in country liaison, Jeremy Macias, and the Malawi farm manager, Foderick. We embarked on our journey on Wednesday a few hours late because the truck Foderick took from Chechere broke down on the way. On the way to Blantyre, we stopped for 'Bewa', which is field mice boiled in salt water for an hour and then sold generally in pairs of 3 for around 100 kwacha each. In this case we got all 3 mice for 200 kwacha which comes out to less than 1 USD. Jeremy slurped his mouse down in no time while Foderick choose the littlest and possibly sweetest one and finished his as well. After taking a bite into the head and realizing I was chewing bones and teeth and washing them down with salty stinky fur, I was only able to take 2 more bites and had to throw out half the mouse in fear of getting car sick. It didn't help I didn't have any water either. In Blantyre we met with Abudala, a native from Zimbabwe who has spent the past 5 years in Uganda doing fish farming. We also met with his 2 other project managers and got to then visit an ongoing community fish farm near Blantyre. We learned about some of the predators farmers must deal with and got to watch a 10ft + African snake slither across one of the ponds while one of the farmers quickly broke off a large limb to try and capture it. We spent the night at a lodge in Blantyre which was interesting, the water in the shower didn't work and the TV stations could only be changed if we called the receptionist and although we purchased the executive suite which holds 3 people, we were only given 2 continental free breakfasts :(. All in all it was comfy and the people were nice and it ended up not costing all that much. We then traveled to Zomba to meet Hastings, a PhD who heads a research group at the Malawi national aquaculture center. After asking approximately 500 questions and touring his facility and getting to see the fish they were raising there, he took us to his private farm about 8 km away. We viewed several ponds under construction along with about 8 ponds he was currently raising fish in. We also met the families of the workers he was employing to manage the farms. From Zomba we traveled back home to Njewa and spent the night at COTN again. In the morning we traveled to meet Lucy who is a private farmer in the Dowa district who raises baby fish, also known as fingerlings, which he sells to several nearby farmers in Malawi. From there we went to the marketplace in downtown Lilongwe, the capital of Malawi, and navigated the busy alleyways to finally find the fresh fish corner where iced catfish and chambo (tilapia) could be bought. From there we traveled to Chitipi farm to take more pictures and do a soil analysis of the ground there to determine if the clay content was sufficient to have a fish pond. Some of the hired laborers quickly dug down about 3 feet and low and behold, the soil was distinctly clay which is what we needed to see. This concluded our travels and from here I will put together a final summary of all we saw with recommendations in going forward. I am hopeful that I can return to Malawi to help get this started and get some of the men or women at ICA interested and involved in the project. The most interesting part of the whole thing was seeing the names of businesses around the country. After the first 4 hours of driving, I decided to start writing some down which I've listed below. God first enterprise House of miracles and intercession Blantyre manadazi shop 'king of kings' reform enterprises Praise shop (music store) Acts shop Peace welding shop God is able phone charger Genesis shopping center Go bless investments God bless rest house Jesus is the answer butchery shop todos de depende de Deus video ( in Mozambique) God knows shop God can do anything shop God is good mini shop Jesus is the answer clinic favour investments Advent music store blessed venture Jesus is coming soon wholesale shop Lords best collection Trinity autoparts Jesus is definitely alive and His name is being glorified in this country. jake minich