Irish potatoes, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, beans, and onions are some common vegetables sold which we will encounter when passing the road in Malawi.
Usually, the seller will display and organize them in colorful buckets so that they attract people's attention. The vegetable prices may vary between one district and others. Often also, we will encounter many kids accompanying their parents to trade or even just enjoying the market atmosphere.
One thing for sure, although they look like a saturated market, all sellers seem happy and never have any competition behavior among them.
I know it is not easy to take a portraiture photo, especially with children.
It was a very cold day at Rumphi District in Malawi around noon on my way back to Lilongwe.
I had a pack of candies left in my car and I wanted to share it with some kids. So I stopped by at one small village where there were several cute children.
Eve is probably one of the nicest girls which I encountered that day. She looks very innocent and just wanted to have her candy from me. She does not care about anything except getting her candy and enjoy it.
If you look at her eyes in this photo, you will see a reflection of my white car.
The idea of this photo actually would like to depict that sometimes in children life they do not need any fancy or expensive stuff except just her candy that she's been longing for :)
Pestle and mortar is an analogy and symbol of intimacy that portray a harmonious relationship between male and female. The position of the pestle at the top and mortar at the bottom sometimes becomes a kind of allegory of the masculine dominative system in the society.
The rhythm and melody resulted from pounding activities become a unique music of its own, which is exhilarating. The pounders and their surrounding people talk, joke, and share stories with each other - bringing emotional closeness which makes the rural atmosphere warm.
Pestle and mortar are two inseparable things. They are part of an ethnocultural heritage which is almost totally extinct and replaced by today's machine.
Time has passed fiercely! It has been exactly 9 months since I left Jakarta for taking my first international role within the UN. Some of my friends have asked me what do I do actually in Malawi? Well, I know that every time I tell them my role as a U-Report Manager in UNICEF Malawi, they will frown their forehead and clueless about what I really do.
Okay, let me try to explain it succinctly here that U-Report is an opinion polling platform for young Malawians based on SMS. The main objective of this system is to give the opportunity for Youth in Malawi to voice out their aspirations through certain polling questions that sent through their mobile.
After the launch, I realized that the fastest way and furthest to reach more U-Reporters joining the platform is through SMS broadcast sent to people's mobile phone. And this will never happen without a solid partnership with mobile provider in Malawi.
So, I started to introduce U-Report Malawi to the public through one of the most well-known Football matches in Malawi called TNM Super League. At the opening launch of the match, U-Report gained its first brand awareness. A giant banner was paraded around the soccer field with more than 20,000 spectators. Players from both teams also wore U-Report Malawi t-shirts produced by TNM for the warm-up session. At the event, the MC also encouraged the stadium’s spectators to sign up to U-Report by texting the word JOIN to 1177. Four senior players also recorded video messages, encouraging fans to join U-Report.
It has been exactly 2 months 20 days since the platform was introduced to the public and I am glad that I just hit my yearly target getting 60,000 U-Reporters registered. The journey has just begun and I am enjoying what I am doing to nurture my baby's project. My biggest hope is that this platform can be sustainable and bring real impact for Malawian Youth.
