The rivers running dry

The CRED Malawi trip is now over, and the team is flying home. For me, it is flying on to Uganda, to visit some projects and people there who are incredibly dear to my heart.

But before Uganda takes over my thinking space – one particular reflection on Malawi, based in large part on the journey we took towards the end of the trip. We spent most of our time at Butterfly Space, a CRED partner project on the shores of Lake Malawi at Nkhata Bay. Stunningly beautiful, and given its close proximity to the lake, very green.

But when we had finished there, we journeyed south to Liwonde National park so the team could experience a game drive and see some of the wild animals. The journey was a 7.5 (ish) hour drive on the main north-south road. No motorways in Malawi, so just a standard single carriageway in both directions road, that took in lots of little villages and towns. As a result those who weren’t asleep saw a lot of Malawian everyday life going on as we travelled from 6.30am until 2pm or so.

For me, the lasting impression was one of dry riverbeds. Given that this is supposed to be the rainy season, it was shocking to see how many of the riverbeds ran dry, or with just a trickle of water in them, and a stark reminder of just how much climate change is impacting all corners of the world.

If the rivers are this dry now, what will it be like in the dry season? Where will the water come from to grow their crops on which the majority of rural Malawians depend? How will the animals get watered? How will the families do their washing, or draw water to drink and cook with? How long before drought conditions take over and cause problems as Ethiopia is already experiencing?

My thoughts turned to Amos 5: 24

But let justice roll on like a river,

    righteousness like a never-failing stream!

When the rivers don’t flow, it is a justice issue – climate justice, or actually climate injustice. The injustice that those who live lightly on this earth and aren’t causing the climate change, even so they are the ones suffering most as a result of it.

I mentioned the dry riverbeds at the debrief that evening, as we were all reflecting on the day, and I tied it in with our responsibility to do what we can to reduce our impact. From conversations that followed it became clear just how many of the team still hadn’t really made the connection between the term climate change, what it is as a theoretical global phenomenon, and what it means in reality for the lives of people such as those we have spent the week with here in Malawi.

I’m sure you won’t be surprised to know that the team all have a much better understanding of it all now! We have discussed it a lot, from car use, to electricity usage, to wasting water, to vegetarianism and cowspiracy, and so on. The team is certainly better informed now than they were before.

Obviously it is up to each person to decide what they do with that knowledge, but my hope and prayer is that each of them will go home and make some positive change in their lifestyle. That each of them will go home and talk about it, and encourage others to make a difference as well.

And as the team members chat with their families and friends about the amazing week they’ve had, and the wonderful Malawian people they’ve met, that they will each use the memories of those people, who struggle against the odds and yet still smile and welcomed us into their homes, to inspire alterations to our western lives, so that we might walk more lightly on this earth, so that others may walk at all.

May the rains come to Malawi once more, may the rivers flow, may the thirst be quenched, and may we each do our bit to help make that happen.

PS photo courtesy of traveladventures.org - we were going too fast in the bus for me to take any photos of the riverbeds myself!