Bad for Your Health but Good for Malawi
on Me Talk Pretty One Day (Malawi), 22/Oct/2009 13:01, 34 days ago
Take the main road north from Lilongwe and you will pass the indomitable township of Kanengo. Traditional, unrefined, industrial, this place is a hive of activity during the hot, dry African winter.Botswana has diamonds, Zambia has copper and South Africa has the World Cup. Malawi is the poor neighbour in this part of the world for the small country can boast only of its tobacco. Still, Malawi does produce an awful lot of tobacco. Around 270 million kilos of the weed is expected to be exported this year alone, that’s one quarter of all global production.The main road leading north from Lilongwe is lined with the offices of multinational tobacco corporations while the road itself is often congested between the months of May and October with huge over-laden trucks on their way to the auction floors of Kanengo, arguably the tobacco capital of the world. The dried leaves account for 60% of Malawi’s export earnings and Kanengo is where the sellers and buyers meet. On my visit to the auctions in early September, a small blackboard at the back of a huge warehouse stated that today, 12,578 bales were on offer. Though you rarely see anyone smoking in Malawi, make no mistake about it, tobacco is big business here.The auction floors are dark, dusty, dangerous places. The smell of tobacco, somewhat different to the smell of cigarettes, hangs thick in the warm air. Like worker ants in a busy colony, small men spend their days pushing large bales around with sturdy metal trolleys. Get in the way and you’ll surely be run down. Men in blue overalls walk amongst the bales which are arranged in long, immaculate rows, opening them ready for inspection. Smartly-dressed gentlemen with clipboards follow, examining the leaves for quality, texture, signs of mould. Another group of men follow them writingup their comments on little cards and attaching them to the bales as they pass. More men in blue overalls follow to re-sew the huge burlap sacks. Finally, another group of workers arrive with their trolleys to move the bales to another part of the warehouse.In the general melee of things there are stock-checkers too, labourers, cleaners, drivers, police offers and security guards. Given the high population density in this country, it is common to see so many people in such a small place. What is more unusual, however, is to see so many people busy. Every once in a while, a stray tourist like myself finds their way to the auction floors. We are easy to spot, unsure of where to go or what to do, we just try not to get in the way; the activity is intense, dramatic and confusing.But it is September now—after a few more weeks or so all of the over-laden trucks parked sporadically along the local roads will have disappeared. The men with their trolleys, clipboards and sewing needles will have gone too. The farmers will have collected their modest earnings and will have returned to their villages.The Government officials who set the minimum prices and the buyers who ignored them will have moved on, leaving the arguments and acrimony behind them. Across the globe, people will continue sucking on cigarettes either filled or flavoured with Malawian tobacco. But here in the north of Lilongwe, another tobacco season will be over and the old township of Kanengo will become quiet and still once more.