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Kaya Mawa – A Short History
Likoma Island was first “discovered” by Andrew Came whilst travelling from Cape Town to Cairo in 1989. He was the first westerner to stay in Nkhwazi Village for 50 years. After a while he was adopted by Village Headman Mtaya and given a plot of land to construct a mud hut, which he began building . 10 weeks later, it was time to move on, and it was not until 1994 that Andrew returned with his business partner Will Sutton.
Their original plan had been to build on the north- west tip of Zanzibar, but were frustrated by corruption(3 different ministers tried to sell them the same beach), horror stories of small private investors being evicted without legal redress, and a looming election which looked like the fundamentalists might win. So they abandoned any development ideas and headed south to Likoma Island to visit the Chief and finish off Andrew’s mud hut, whilst thinking of a new plan.
They crossed the border into Malawi, and saw the last month of Dr. Hastings Banda’s dictatorship with their own eyes. Political opponents were vanishing at night or in exile, his private army the Young Pioneers intimidated the population and policed the road blocks, and the people survived as best as they could.
For two young westerners, 30 years of one party rule was more obvious. At the border, Andrew had his hair cut off by immigration,(men were banned from having long hair and flares), Will had his travel guide confiscated by customs for being editorially derogatory to the life president, and the girl they were traveling with had her legs beaten by the police for wearing a short skirt (shorts, flared trousers and skirts above the knee were illegal for women), …..even Simon and Garfunkel were banned for being subversive.
One month later, the mud hut on Likoma Island was almost finished, when they heard the news, Banda had lost the elections at the age of 94 after over 30 years in power, and the new government was liberal, tolerant, pro-democracy, and pro-western development. Village Headman Mtaya then spoke to the 13 landowners of the area that is now Kaya Mawa and invited the boys to build Likoma Island’s first hotel, a new development in the new Malawi. This gentle approach ,with locals and investors having time to learn each others quirks and foibles undoubtedly made for a cooperative venture, unlike many developments in the third world were the government and the multinationals steam roller the people these projects are supposed to benefit.
Building started in 1995, and after many, many headaches, Malawi’s first, most architecturally imaginative, environmentally friendly beach camp was finally opened in 2000.
Accomplishments
Apart from the satisfaction of seeing any project completed, a few points stand out.
1)Life on the ‘far-side’. We have built a truly unique lodge in the most isolated corner of the country, 70kms(Dover-Calais-Dover) by water from the nearest town, on an island which, at the time, had no shops, vehicles, electricity or running water, and was serviced by a 1920`s tramp steamer once a week, which when it broke down (fairly frequently) would be out of action for months at a time.
2) Island Pride. The Lodge was built entirely by hand, not one power tool, drill, planer or cement mixer was used .All the labour used on the project came from the island, and all the unskilled labour came from our village or the neighbouring village.
The timber was hand cut using pitsaws in the forest, every plank carried at least 7 kms on a workers head, every plank was hand planed, and every door frame, window frame, lintel, bed, chair, table, shelf, door and window was made on site, in a workshop under a mango tree by 3 carpenters, the youngest 50, the oldest, Mr. Chickotti, 67.
The stonemasons, all island born, were lead by Mr.Karonga, brother of the chief and a village elder, and thought nothing of clambering over homemade blue gum and bamboo scaffolding 20 metres above the ground, carrying a 30kg rock and placing it expertly in the wall. The quality of their work is an immense source of pride. Another achievement which is reflected in the teamwork and coordination of the workforce is that in 6 years of building, with a team of up to 100 employees, we had only 3 accidents which required hospital treatment, two of which were out the same day.
3)Power. From 19994-2003,we were the only renewable energy lodge in the whole of Malawi. A total of forty five solar panels and 3 windmills powered the whole lodge. Each room had lights and a 12v fan, the bar had music, we had freezers in our office, plus computer, printer, scanner, hf radio, sat phone and email, all topped up by solar power. Our water was pumped from the lake by an incredibly clever system of panel to pump, with a control box which alters the voltage depending on the sun strength, and we put a tap into the village so our closest 70 neighbours could benefit.
In 2002, out of the blue, the government installed mains electricity on the island as part of a ‘rural growth project’. We have succumbed to the temptations of ice, big fans, bright lights, reduced running costs and the ability to use products bought in Malawi and fixable in Malawi , and are now on ‘mains’. We do however continue to run a dual system. Power is never a certainty and cuts are frequent. Each room still has solar power and the office continues to be run with batteries and an inverter. Another big positive is that mains power meant that we could power a bigger water pump, and we now pump free water to the 3 villages which surround Kaya Mawa, over 2kms of pipe which benefits 150 households numbering almost 1,000 souls.
4)We are family. As a fully functioning top end hotel, we still employ exclusively from the island. Despite advice from the dept of tourism to import labour from mainland hotel training schools, we have kept all our staff local. The bar man is an ex builder, the kitchen girls are ex sand carriers. Room cleaners, gardeners, boatmen, all came out of the old building teams, maintaining a sense of continuity and genuine pride. We have fathers and sons, 3 husband and wife combos, 4 sets of sisters including 3 sisters from one family, mother/daughters, and in one household 3 generations all work for Kaya Mawa, with the 4th coming in on mum’s back occasionally. This combined with a policy of no fences (a row of trees marks the physical boundary), and not denying the community access to the lake, has created a genuine sense of group ownership. In all the time we have been open, with no locks on any of the rooms we have never had a client robbed. This speaks volumes….
Obstacles.
Our biggest problems initially were threefold:
1)Government and Logistics. Whilst we had complete support on a local level, it took over three years to get our land leases and business residents permits. We had fulfilled all the criteria for each stage of the process, but because of our refusal to “oil the hand of government” it took longer than expected. It was only after direct intervention of the island council and a plea to the Malawian ambassador in London, who we had met previously, that the various papers, leases and permits were forthcoming. … finally becoming legal after so much unrecognised development on a handshake was a great relief.
The logistics behind a project of this magnitude, with the closest hardware store a 4 day round trip away made it an organisational juggling act. Building in a new style, with energy technologies never used in the country before, and the sheer scale of the project was sometimes daunting as were local solutions to problems. Our roofing poles(between 12m and 22m long)came from a forest in mainland Malawi, dragged to the nearest track by a 70 person strong church choir, and then loaded in a truck and driven to the nearest port before coming over on the steamer. The first time, it took 18 months to get them from forest to beach, only to find we couldn’t use them because the crew of the steamer had cut them in half to make them easier to load.
2) The Land . The 12 acres(6 hectares) of land which we bought had been traditionally used by the entire village as common grazing land ,fuel wood harvesting, and taking the dried grass at the end of the rainy season for roof thatching. The first thing we did was buy 4000 seedlings from the forestry department, and employed 9 people full time to plant our entire land area and water them to get them established before the rainy season. In marginal sandy soil we planted fast growing fuel wood and roofing trees, on the rest of the land we planted a combination of various indigenous and exotics. We established a vegetable garden, fruit orchard and distributed a variety of fruit trees throughout the village as potential cash crop trees. We then, over about 8 months, encouraged the entire village to tether their goats where before they had run free, and as a result 7 years later, all goats in the village are still tied and the community as a whole has a lot more fruit, fuel and shade trees. We have reintroduced bamboos and other traditional building materials, and shown that if the land is burnt every 4 years instead of every year the grass grows thicker. In another 5 years, you will hopefully be able to pass by the lodge from the lake and not be able to see it for trees.
3)The Lake. It is the islander’s “garden” as the soil is so poor. Fishing is the main source of income for the villagers, and obviously the lake is the primary source of drinking, cooking, and washing water for the women. The quality of the water is exceptional, crystal clear and supports over 1000 species of tropical fish. Our efforts were centred around establishing better hygiene when washing in the lake to avoid the spread of Bilharzia ( shitsomaiasis),which is passed thru urine, following testing no Bilharzia was found on our beaches .We introduced a tap in the village and explained that the beach could no longer be used as a toilet as we were pumping water from the lake and during the rains ,faeces etc gets washed in. After 15 years of regular swimming in the lake, Andrew and Wil have yet to test positive for bilharzia.
Getting the men to restrict their fishing, or to have a breeding season for certain species has proved a lot harder, and whilst we have succeeded in getting an area around the main lodge reserved as a breeding base, this is more to do with fear of damaging our pumps with their nets than any desire for conservation! Like fishermen the world over, they have hungry mouths to feed, and are stubbornly proud that its their water…only the offer of financial compensation will lead to conservation of stocks , so we are working on a marine national park project policed by the locals, where they will keep revenue from divers and snorkellers..
Community
Unlike all of its neighbouring countries, Malawi is a very densely populated country, and over 4000 people live on Likoma. After the government, Kaya Mawa is the largest employer on the Island, with a permanent workforce of 70. We have tried to employ at least one person from each family in the village, so that in a subsistence farming community, money for basics goes to each household every month.
We have set up a charity, Island Child,(see attached) which means that friends and visitors to Kaya Mawa can sponsor children through primary and secondary school. This is ongoing, and we hope to help over 600 Aids orphans by the end of 2010.
On a personal level, Andrew and Wil have sponsored a football team, the Kaya Mawa Rangers, with boots, balls and gear, and provided assistance to the village Malipenga dancers( a local tradition) in the form of ostrich feathers for their uniforms, and transport to neighbouring islands or Mozambique for dancing competitions. In the event of food shortages on the island, which happens about twice a year, Andrew and Wil have travelled to the mainland, sourced food and organised the shipment of up to 5 tonnes of Maize to the village, for distribution by their Village Headman.
The village in return has been amazing in their response to crises at the lodge. In the early days, Wil collapsed into a coma and was medivacked, a team of villagers ran him, in relays, in his stretcher the 4 kms to the airstrip…he survived. When there was a kitchen fire ( a potential disaster with so many thatched roofs in the resort), within 10 minutes there were 70 women with buckets making a human chain to the lake and it was put out within an hour. All this happened at 2 O’clock in the morning.
Likewise, in a huge storm, one of our boats dragged its anchor, and without the assistance of 30 fishermen who waded into the surf and physically held it off the rocks for 3 hours until the storm abated, again at night, the boat would have been lost. There was no suggestion of payment for their help, and when the job was finished, after much laughter and back slapping, everyone went back to bed. That is the true meaning of community, and both boys have been adopted by the island and given the name Mtaya by their village headman, Bwana Mtaya who calls them his sons.
Visitor Impact and Future Projects
As the first developers on the island, the boys were well aware of the potential damage they could do to an island otherwise unaffected by the double edged sword of tourism. Both had seen first hand what “progress” had achieved in other island communities and were keen to prove that it was possible to run a profitable business without compromising the community. At the original discussions with the village, a number of promises were made, based on mutual trust. The key elements were:
As far as the impact to the island as a whole, geographically Kaya Mawa is in the south west corner of the island, the furthest point from the main “town”. With a full occupancy of 26, the numbers are not large enough to attract the usual beachboy rastas and hustlers on commission so prevalent in beach destinations in the region.The real pleasure of visiting this island is the fact that there is no tacky tourism, the islanders continue their lives with or without us, are genuinely welcoming to visitors but happy to get on with their traditional forms of income.
The lodge development phase is completed, a project remaining is to set up a Marine National Park on Masimbwe Island, 2km offshore, to be incorporated into the Lake Malawi National Park, which was the world’s first underwater world heritage site. Masimbwe Island, approximately 100m x 100m, contains many species of cichlids(endemic to the lake) which are found nowhere else in lake Malawi, a unique ecosystem. We have also found an etching on a rock face 25m below the water which is similar to an ancient Ethiopian hieroglyphic which was a warning to travelers that they were entering “bad lands”. It is one of the premier scuba dive sites on lake Malawi, and the plan is to develop a small cottage on the island, reintroduce indigenous plant and tree species, and protect the waters from fishing within a 100 m radius of the island. The park will charge a small fee to divers, snorkellers and guests staying overnight, which will go into a community fund for use by the fishermen who traditionally used this area..
More Recently
Kaya Mawa joined the Wilderness Safaris umbrella in 2004, and we have not looked back since. We pay them a marketing fee to promote Kaya Mawa, and we have centralised our bookings and reservations through their office in Lilongwe. Kaya Mawa remains privately owned and managed.
After 9 happy years on the island, Andrew and Will are exploring new ventures in Cape town, and have relinquished control of their baby to the safe and eminently more qualified hands of :
James and Suzie Lightfoot along with their dog Frankie. James took over as General Manager, initially trained a solicitor, he saw the light and moved to the Luangwa Valley in Zambia before joining us in January 2006. They married here on the island in 2007 and their latest edition, Jaspar, was born in November 2008.
Suzie runs her own business on the island, Katundu Textiles, and the ever increasing number of community projects that we support.
Press Release : January 2009.
Kaya Mawa has changed ownership.
The new owners are Nick Brown and James Lightfoot. Nick Brown was originally educated in Malawi and his heart never left the country. He returned as a guest to Kaya Mawa five times in the last three years, where he fell in love with the place. He met James Lightfoot, and together they have over this period forged a friendship and belief that they could take Kaya Mawa to new heights whilst retaining its integrity. In November 2008 Andrew and Will decided that it was time to move on to new pastures and a deal was subsequently made.
We are also very excited to have persuaded Ben Parker, the co-founder and MD of Tongabezi Lodge in Livingstone (also James’ brother-in-law!), to be a Director of Kaya Mawa.
James has been the General Manager of Kaya Mawa for the past three years and the lodge has gone from strength to strength. The team will remain as it is: James’ wife Suzie will continue to oversee the ever expanding number of community projects as well as running Katundu Textiles. James will continue as GM, also trying to spend as much time on the water as possible whilst hatching new plans for the business. We are also moving our Malawian staff into the limelight, Peter Kamwendo and Mvillela Khupe becoming our Front of House Managers and Patrick Matengeni as our Back of House Manager.
There are many ‘grand’ plans afoot but rather than make hollow promises we will update you as and when they become reality.
Kaya Mawa