Jul 5 - 'Haves' & 'Have Nots'

July 5

You would not be altogether wrong for thinking that on first glance this country is completely devoid of any middle class. And even after living here for a year, it becomes plainly obvious that this small but growing proportion of the population is not readily seen. I have read somewhere that Malawi has the second greatest wealth disparity in the world. I’m not sure I completely believe this statistic, but what is starkly evident is that there is an unfathomable rift, which remains ever widening, in the wealth of this country. And never before has it been so evident to us than tonight at a going away party we attended for a couple of our friends.

The house it was being hosted at was a Malawian British-Indian’s who currently works as the Standing Consulate General to the British Embassy. A man who owns many businesses around town, and who’s two sons use it to entertain on a scale more lavish than anything I have ever seen. A house so large it has separate entertaining and living wings, an enormous mirrored jacuzzi and full size billiard table and a bar that wouldn’t be out of place in a night club. The gardens look like the set from a Jurassic Park movie by night, the vast expanses of manicured tress and garden beds stretching out into the floodlit darkness further than the eye can see. Staff waited on us with all manner of food being cooked up on the four level barbecue with the full bar keeping the thirstier going, and the dance floor with permanent mirror ball and smoke machine pumped out tunes. It was a completely surreal experience to be in a country like Malawi, with unimaginable poverty living literally on the other side of the gargantuan walls of this residence, to be having a party in luxury the likes of which even wealthy Australia would have trouble competing with.

Interestingly, driving home passed the ex-president, Muluzi’s house, apparently even bigger than the one we had just come from, we thought about it all. In Australia if we saw a property or wealth such as that we wouldn’t immediately feel that they were taking from others around them many so sorely needed dollars, but here its simply different. It is difficult not to think that these people, simply making a life by running their successful businesses in town (a little different to the politicians… but that’s a whole new kettle of fish), are somehow cheating this country, taking more than their share. Either way, Malawi is littered with the ‘Haves’ and the ‘Have Nots,’ and never before have they seemed so apparent.