Men Working

A little wooden board with hand painted lettering, "Men Working," was propped along the roadside betweem Zomba to Songani, near the Matewele market.  Just there along the roadside, many traditionally dressed Malawian women, some with infants on their backs, were digging a ditch for new water lines.  They pulled and pushed together, combining their strength to remove large rocks in their way. 

For weeks, this has been a huge ongoing project in the Zomba district. I understand that the old water pipes are being replaced because they contain asbestos. 

Then a bit further down the road, other groups of women with long bladed curved thrashers were clearing the tall grasses along the roadside. 

This is the way grass is cut. Even the grass in the huge Zomba Botanical Garden is cut the same way. We have only seen one  push lawnmower in the six months we have been living here, and that was in the city of Blantyre.