The Highway Maintenance Crew

It’s the rainy season here in Malawi, and we’re getting much heavier downpours than in the past few years. The potholes on the paved roads are getting larger by the day.  As I drive along, feeling as though I’m the main character in some arcade game, I’ll find myself constantly veering left, then right, then left again in an effort to avoid as many as possible, mainly for the sake of the car’s tires and suspension system.  On top of that, we often encounter oncoming vehicles the drivers of which insist on playing chicken by riding down the middle of the narrow two lane road until the very last second.

There are several mammoth potholes between Zomba where we live and Blantyre, about 65 kilometers south that are more notable than the average one. Two in particular are too wide to straddle, and much too deep to simply drive right over, so I was particularly grateful to observe two young men several days ago busily crushing brick, and backfilling one of these canyons. Also out of the corner of my eye I also saw another young man standing in the middle of the road as I approached the worksite with a large brimmed hat turned up and out as though begging. What an odd place for such activity, I thought to myself.

It wasn’t until after we had completely passed through the work area that my friend Daniel, who had been sitting quietly in the back seat explained to Phyllis and me that these men had taken it upon themselves to make a road repair which the government workers wouldn’t be by for until after the rainy season ends sometime in April or May. The man with the hat was there receiving donations from appreciative drivers whose cars and trucks daily risk being damaged by such gaping holes on the roadways.

There’s a somewhat invisible side to this story, in that the average rural Malawian earns less than fifty cents a day and the unemployment rate hovers somewhere around 40%.  Very possibly, as a result of their industriousness, a family will have a third, or perhaps only a second meal that day.  I’ve spoken with people who during really difficult times have had only one meal every other day. These are the types of struggles faced by many Malawians. Yet most seem to always press on cheerfully.

On our return trip from Blantyre that same afternoon, I had been hoping to make good on my ignorance, and see these men, and give them a nice big tip, but all I got to see was a near perfect repair made of brick pieces and fine brick powder compacted tightly into what had been this alignment wrecker up until a few hours earlier. I felt badly, but got to redeem myself a couple days later on our way out to a sanitation workshop, and some children’s ministry in the village of Pahuwa.

It had rained very heavily the night before, and the red clay Lake Chilwa Road had many more deep rain filled holes than usual. There is a constant flow of cars, trucks, and bicycles hauling fish from the lake, and 50 kilogram sacks of rice from the always busy rice mills. As we came upon a strip that was primarily layers of loose mud, and truck tire ruts, there were several men hard at work overlaying the area with dried dirt and small tree branches so as to prevent drivers from getting stuck. As a young man with a broad smile extended a large winnowing basket toward my open window, I knew exactly what to do, and why. My highway taxes hard at work!