We are having a living nightmare here in Thyolo, Malawi.
During my primary days, my friends and I used to enjoy life in so many interesting and cheap ways. Water wasn’t a problem and our river at my village was generous, giver and predictable. We would swim at it, drink from it, and nourishing ourselves and our fields from it. I remember that we used to swim in it, and from there we could come home with fruits like Guavas, Mango, Peaches and wild fruits like Matowo just to mention a few. Life was simple like that and water was not a problem, and it was the dream life. Gradually things started to change, population increased and people had to burn bushes and cut down trees for settlement. Little did we know how harmful this would end up into. Things started becoming scarce, talk of mere firewood which we used to collect from our nearby bush was no where to be found, talk of water, the River became polluted and it was not safe for drinking nor even swimming anymore.
A few years down the line, came heavily floods in 2015, which destroyed homes, talk of water quality it was unbearable, this was a new experience and it shocked everyone in our village. The next year something more strange happened, the River dried up as in there was completely no water and people had to walk on sand when crossing to the next village. More like a nightmare, this brought a very big problem of water as in we had to dig in the sand to get water and there were queues of more people waiting for the same water. Until date, during hot seasons people have to walk longer distances to get quality water and also wake up at 1 or 2am to boreholes to get water which is a big threat to lives of women and a girl child. Life in village is not interesting anymore as it used to be, what I’m trying to say is, climate change generally is influenced by human acts and worse still people in villages have no knowledge about the bad acts they just see it as a bad omen or some witchcraft happening.
We used to have normal rainfalls, but as of last year there were dry spells which led to declining of agricultural yields. Health impacts in cities due to heat and flooding and erosion in coastal areas are additional concerns. Talk of Corona Virus, this pandemic has destroyed the patterns of everything especially Education calendar. I was supposed to be graduating this year but the coming of the fourth wave have resulted into the postponement of my graduation. The long alteration of temperature and typical weather patterns in a place is known as Climate Change. The planet is warming, from North Pole to South Pole. Ice is melting each passing day, much of this melting ice is contributing to sea level rise hence more floods. And the impacts of rising temperature aren’t waiting for some far-flung future- the effects of global warming are appearing right now.
We can therefore come together, join hands and bring to an end of all human acts that are resulting into Climate Change. We can bring initiatives of tree planting like some are already doing, bringing in more awareness campaigns amongst youths and also bringing forth fines to industries that are much contributing to Climate Change. Our minds can be renewed, if we can discard negative sentiments, even the kinds of books we read determine whether we’re are feeble or robust in mind, we can come up with a lot of climate change booklets as well as magazines to help youngsters to be more active in the activities of bringing to an end the bad acts that results into Climate Change. Therefore everyone has to be on watch on one another because five years coming we can make this world a better place to be.
Article By Miriam Naphazi
Miriam Naphazi is a determined young girl who studied Agro Food Processing at the University of Lilongwe, Malawi. She is a proud member of MCCN and Green Girls Platform. She carries a strong interest in subjects related to Agriculture and the Environment.
