It is often difficult to recognize a chief from the rest of his or her village. They live in the same village among the people they serve, and in dress and possessions, there is often little or no difference between them.. It is quite different than with many, if not most, politicians around the world who are immediately recognized in their stand out appearance from those they are commissioned to serve.

As the ceremony begins the dignitaries are introduced. At one point tribal authority is recognized and the chiefs step to the front to be recognized. All of them are wearing tennis shoes. TENNIS SHOES. Tribal chiefs in tennis shoes! It is a gesture that is not missed by the members of the American team as the tennis shoes are part of one of the incentive programs put in place by the Dzidalire Agency and the Malawi Project at the new site for the hospital and school. Tennis shoes were given to those who helped plant 17,000 trees over the two sites; the school and hospital locations. It was their way of recognizing, and expressing their appreciation for the assistance being given to their communities.

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Gordon is referring to the theme for the Dzidalire group that focuses on helping people learn to care for themselves independent of long term outside aid. The mission statement for Dzidalire, a not-for-profit, non governmental agency, states, “To empower and help people and their communities to become self reliant by teaching and enhancing skills that can be owned by the people and have their lives changed to maximize self potential and reliance.”

“Almost immediately after its establishment this group obtained land and set out to create programs to help people in this impoverished area of the country,” reports Richard Stephens, a co-founder of the Malawi Project. “In developing the land they encouraged the local villagers to plant thousands of tree seedlings as part of a Malawi Project sponsored “Shoes for Trees” incentive program. The group also persuaded the local chiefs to set aside over 200 acres of land, next to the Dzidalire land, for development of a training facility for church and community leaders, agricultural development, food processing, pre-school and secondary schools, fish farms, and other programs that will compliment the Dzidalire programs,” Stephens summarized.

Both Gordon and Stephens agree the Dzidalire-Malawi Project relationship promises to be an excellent match for the goals of both organizations to help people learn to fish, and not simply to give them the fish. Self-reliance is a keyword with both groups and both are working to bring villages and communities in Malawi into successful programs that achieve these goals.

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In a good year, the harvesting season for maize starts in April, and it moves slowly north where planting season started later in the year. It is a happy time as it marks the transition from a time of major food shortage to a time of plenty. Malnutrition levels drop drastically. It is, however,  a time when many farmers face difficulty in transporting their produce from the fields to their homes. Farms are normally far from the village. Few farmers own ox-carts, or bicycles, and they must carry the grain on their heads.

In recent weeks the harvest has started. Namikango Mission is in the process of bringing in its harvest of maize. Unlike previous years, when the transportation of grain was a challenge, this year thanks to the Malawi Project and its timely and valuable donation of the Basic Utility Vehicle, the grain is being easily moved from field to warehouse.

The BUV is a multipurpose vehicle that can be used, not only for grain transportation, but also for expectant mothers to be transported to the nearby maternity clinic. In a country where much of the population lives on less that a dollar a day, acquisition of an ox-cart or bicycle is unachievable. This leads to countless challenges in transportation. When one visits Malawi for the first time one is likely to see thousands of people walking on foot, both in rural and urban areas.

The BUV has proven to work exceptionally well where road conditions are not good, and it can also play a role in bridging the communication gap in rural areas. It is a country where 80% of the population lives in extremely remote areas, and in adverse poverty. The major mode of transportation is walking for long distances. The availability of basic utility vehicles can transform people’s lives for the better.

The BUV, one of three units delivered by the Malawi Project, and the manufacturer, is drastically reducing total expenditures for the mission in terms of time, and provision of service that would be delayed with its absence. Maternal related deaths that arise due to delays in getting medical attention from the clinic are likely to be reduced in villages around the medical facility because of the availability of this vehicle.

- Wilson Isaac Tembo

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Imagine…

…cutting wood for the fire to prepare breakfast, then having to carry it for 1/2 to 3/4 of a mile on your head back to your home.

…walking far up the mountain to cultivate your family farm plot, while carrying a baby on your back and a heavy hoe over your shoulder.

…walking to the market, four miles away, then having to carry all of your purchases all the way home on your head.

…working in the field to cultivate, weed, and raise a bushel of tomatoes, then traveling 40 miles to the nearest market to sell your produce.

…walking deep into a ravine to obtain water, then having to carry it in a leaking bucket on your head all the way back home.

…having a bumper crop from your small family farm plot for the first time in ten years, only to find you can’t get it to market.

…being ready to deliver your first baby, only to find you have to walk 8 miles to get down from your mountain village because no car or ambulance can reach you.

These are just a few of the daily chores that must be sustained by Malawi men and women in order to survive another day. These are also some of the reasons the Malawi Project is focusing on getting basic utility vehicles into the country.

The BUV is built in Indianapolis, Indiana, and is the creation of Will Austin. It is part of his mission to help people in third world countries be able to transport people and commodities over long, hard, dangerous, and exhausting distances. The organization is the Institute for Affordable Transportation. The Malawi Project has purchased and shipped three of these vehicles. Two are in the central region of the county, and a third arrived in November at the Namikango Maternity Hospital in the southern part of the nation. More of these units are needed if life is to improve.

Pictured are the three units, one transporting people, another employed to move food, and the third is engaged in moving heavy logs. Pictures thanks to Richard Stephens, Mark Thiesen and Wilson Tembo. To learn more about the BUV go to: www.drivebuv.org

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Tribal Chief Mdelakwanda, the traditional authority over a number of fishing villages in Senga Bay, Malawi, looks on in amazement at a unique tractor design that exists no place else on earth except Malawi. Not only is he surprised and puzzled by this exclusive farm tractor, the same surprise and excitement is soon seen on the face of the Right Honorable Joyce Banda, the Vice President of Malawi.

With five years in design and development, the V-Tractor is the creation of Tom Rich of Lebanon, Indiana. It currently promises to make a major agricultural impact, not only in Malawi, but also in a number of third world nations.

In 2009 the Malawi Project helped Rich spawn Agricultural Aid International (AAI), a 501(c) 3 not-for-profit, humanitarian aid organization based in Lebanon, Indiana USA.  AAI has a focus on supplying V-Tractors and various other successful farm practices to their world countries.

Just prior to the monsoon rains, the third V-Tractor arrived near Senga Bay and was immediately put into service preparing fields made available by the tribal chief. Rich made his second trip to Malawi in as many years in order to train the Malawians to use the tractors. Both the Vice President of Malawi, and Tribal Chief Mdelakwanda were impressed with the performance and potential of the tractor. Vice President Banda extended an immediate request for some of the units to be used to assist a number of orphan care programs she sponsors in southern Malawi.

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Thondwe, Malawi … There is nothing unusual with seeing a field of ripened corn this time of year, since October and November are the harvest time in the mid-western part of the United States. The fact that makes it so unusual is this scene is not in the United States, it is in sub-Sahara Africa and most farmers here are just getting ready to plant their maize (corn), not harvest it. In fact it has not rained here in 5 months and the seasons in this part of Africa are exactly opposite those of the U.S. The U.S. in the northern hemisphere plants in April and May and harvests in October and November. Here in southern Malawi, farmers plant in December and harvest in April and May. The only rains in this part of Africa come in this time frame. The rest of the year there is no rain at all.

Now the scene of ripened corn is a strange one at this time of year. How can it be? How can one farm have ripe maize at one end of the field and at the other end have the field fully cultivated and ready to plant when the rains start in a couple of weeks? One thing makes it possible. That one thing is the V-Tractor and the large tanks of water that rest underneath the frame in order to pick up water at the nearby river and spray it across the fields to create the needed moisture for a second crop on the same land, a crop that grows where there is no rain. It can change the landscape of farming in sub-Sahara Africa and beyond. It is the V-Tractor and it is as strange looking as a field of maize in the middle of the dry season.

This scene is at the Namikango Mission and Clinic in Thondwe, Malawi, and is made possible by the V-tractor, and by contributions from L.T. Rich Manufacturing and the Agricultural Aid International of Lebanon, Indiana and the Malawi Project.

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Like many parts of Malawi, the area around Thondwe (in the southern part of the nation) is extremely rich with natural resources. Trees, hills, animals, water, and much more are all naturally a part of daily life for the people around Thondwe and the Namikango Mission and Maternity Hospital. The possession of the V-Tractor has added another water resource use.  Bordering the Mission to the north is the Naiwale River. It serves as the line of demarcation between the Mission and the villages to the north. The river meanderers inside the Mission’s forests and has a long life due to the shady cover over it. Out in the open areas it losses much of its water through evaporation. Here in the shade of the forests it provides the precious commodity to surrounding community for domestic purposes.

In addition to providing water for domestic purposes the river is also a source of water for Mission’s irrigation plot. With its large water tank attached, the V-tractor is able to pump enough water into its tank and irrigate the land in far less time than people could manually do on the same distance and time. Lying approximately one kilometer from the river, the irrigation plot serves as a demonstration plot for high yield maize varieties to the community around the Mission.

The V-tractor, a brain child of Americans Tom Rich and Richard Stephens, is proving its full effectiveness in cost and time reduction, while at the same time increasing the results of its labor in the fields. So far, it has proved effective in tilling and irrigating the field with great ease.  In line with the Malawi government’s top most priority area of focus, which is increasing Agricultural production, the tractor is expected to improve yield production directly or indirectly. Indirectly because, with the winter cropping conducted at the Mission, many people will learn how to cultivate, and to plant high yield maize varieties that will go a long way in adding food production to the country.

The pictures are not for show. It is a V-tractor at hard at work on a sunny Wednesday morning with the machine going about its normal duty. Pedestrians, cyclists, and motorists all paid a great deal of attention because, to many of them, this was the first time to see such a tractor. A farmer at a nearby garden from where water for irrigation was being pumped asked where could access such a tractor. He was totally surprised with such a machine, when he learned it could be used for both tilling and irrigating the field.

- Wilson Isaac Tembo

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In these economically troubling times in the western nations it seems no job is certain.  As we watch the unemployment rate sneak up to 5%, 6%, and higher and we rightfully fret over our friends and family whose jobs may be threatened.

Imagine 80% Unemployment
Imagine a country where the unemployment rate reaches above 80%, where almost no jobs were available and where there was no welfare system or any other safety net.  How would people survive?  The African nation of Malawi where I live is one such place.  How do people survive there, you might ask.  My first answer would be, “I’m not quite sure, but somehow they do.”  My second thought would add, “Not too well.”  The little country is terribly overpopulated with around 13 million people trying to live on a small piece of land that could comfortably accommodate about only about one-third that number.  With so few jobs, most people have to live off the shrinking amount of available land, which is being divided into smaller and smaller parcels as Malawians continue to have more kids, who are forced to divide their parents’ plots in order to survive.  On those little plots Malawians continue to use the age-old backbreaking method of cultivation with simple hoes.  Stooping over for months of the year, they first clear their gardens, then cultivate, then plant, and continue weeding until the harvest finally comes.  Using this method, if the rains have been good–not too little and not too much–and if they somehow found the funds to buy fertilizer for the overused soil, they might harvest enough to eat for another year; and if they’re fortunate enough, they possibly will have a little left over to sell so that they can have money for soap, salt, clothing, and even send their kids to school.

No wonder Malawi is listed as one of the poorest nations of the world with one of the highest mortality rates, lowest literacy levels, and so on year after year, decade after decade.

Tractor Offers Hope in Agriculture Development
Enter the V-Tractor.  Tom Rich, owner of the L. T. Rich Manufacturing Company of Lebanon, Indiana has provided us, through the Malawi Project, a tool that offers hope for people to escape the grim realities described above.  The V-Tractor (“V” is for Village, hence “Village Tractor’) is the most versatile instrument I have ever seen.  Equipped to work with a plow, water tank, and a growing list of other applications, the tractor makes it easy to switch from one job to another in a matter of five minutes or so.  The operator simply loosens some simple fasteners like bolts and cotter pins, pushes the current application aside, and just as quickly attaches the new one.  Operation is even easier, a critical feature in a country where most people have never operated any kind of driven machinery.  The hydraulic pedal covers every movement, including forward and backward motion, and braking.  There is no need to change gears.  At the demonstration that I attended, a group of Malawians who had never driven a tractor or a car or anything else for that matter, got behind the wheel and flawlessly maneuvered the tractor on the flat and with a little practice were cultivating acres of land.

An Eyewitness Marveled
The tractor moved at a good speed, it’s plow cutting through the rock-hard soil that had had several months of dry weather to harden.  It made its way back and forth, softening the soil for the next planting.  As it crisscrossed the field, it became obvious that this tractor could outdo the work of dozens of men working together using the old hoeing technique.  A Malawian eyewitness marveled that just one man could cultivate a larger area in a single day then a company of men could do in a whole week.  The possibilities for improving the quality of people’s lives here using a tool like the V-Tractor are myriad.  Because of its adaptability the machine offers tremendous improvements in the whole farming process including in the current available applications like cultivation and irrigation, but possibly for future applications like planting, applying fertilizer, and weeding.  It also offers opportunities to assist in other parts of rural Malawian life such as transporting water with its tank and other commodities by attaching it to a trailer.

We are thankful to the Malawi Project for directing this marvelous tool our way.

Mark Thiesen
Director
Naminkango Maternity Hospital and Mission
Thondwe, Malawi

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“Failing to prepare is preparing to fail,” it is said. So many people know this, but only a few know and practice what it tells us. Among the few who manage to prepare for better results is the American Tom Rich. He is the man behind the V-tractors, whose first trip to Malawi in August 2008, was not just to feel the warmth of Africa’s heart, no, it was a trip with a mission. Best preparations for best results. Tom came to Malawi to teach the local communities how to best use his brainchild, the all-new innovative tractors, on Malawian soil. Besides teaching the local community in Dedza how to use this type of tractors, Tom, Dick, Wilson, Randy Judd had time to till the field on which this maize was later planted.

While in Malawi, Dick and Suzi Stephens, of the Malawi Project, accompanied Tom on the trip to the Dedza District in this centrally positioned small country in Africa.

“Now, when we go there who will we call upon to translate to the local people, what Tom is teaching? They will not all know English.” This was the question Dick asked. Then he decided to call upon a slim young man named Wilson Isaac Tembo.

It Was Not a Worthless Trip
Now, any work without results is as good as doing no work at all! I thought to myself. With this in mind, I set off for this 4-hour hectic trip from the southern Malawi to the Central region of Malawi, only to uncover and appreciate the fruits of Tom’s V-tractor and Malawi Project’s work. When I was there, it’s when I realized it was not a worthless trip.

An Anticipated Harvest Double Last Year
”This tractor has really helped us. It has drastically reduced the workload, while at the same time improving the crop produce. As you can see the maize, it is very promising. We anticipate harvesting double what we used to harvest at this same field when we used a traditional hoe” Mr. McKnight Nsadzu the field manager told me when I visited the field on Sunday

REPORT COMPILED BY
WILSON ISAAC TEMBO
March 2nd, 2009

Maize, Cultivated by V-Tractor Grows High

Wilson Tembo stands by high maize field	Hard work of Mr. McKnight Nsadzu-Field Manager helped to make this happen.

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Media Covers the Arrival
A reporter and photographer from the Malawi News Service, the assistant district health officer, all of the top officials from the Kachere Orthopedic Hospital, the Chief Medical Director from Queen Elizabeth Hospital and two of the board members from the Malawi Project gathered early behind the orthopedic hospital where the 40-foot shipping container had been parked. When the container doors were opened a cheer went up from a crowd that had swelled to 40 people.

Estimated at $400,000.00
Estimated at somewhere around $400,000 by Project officials, the shipment included medical supplies for the Kachere Orthopedic and Queen Elizabeth Hospitals in Blantyre, Dzidalire Community Development Agency in Dedza, the Namikango Maternity Clinic in Thondwe, and the Sacred Promise Clinic in Lilongwe.

Arrival of the Village Tractors
Topping off of the shipment were two V-tractors to be used for agricultural programs in the southern and central districts. The reporter, photographer and many in the crowd were amazed to see the two prototype farm tractors that had never been seen before.

The shipment was made possible through a joint program including the L. T. Rich Manufacturing Company in Lebanon, Indiana, Universal Aide Society of British Columbia, Canada, and the Malawi Project.

Pictured is the District Health Officer as she observes thousands of dollars in medical supplies being offloaded.

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