Our man in Malawi ponders the significance of property ownership.

Further to my last letter on my trip to the village of Enyezini, I thought it would be worth noting another point of interest that emerged from the visit: property rights. I had always read that with correct titles to property, development would inevitably follow. The argument stands to reason, a business or homeowner can use the property to borrow against gaining much needed capital to grow his business or buy good associated with development.

Armed with this knowledge I dutifully asked everyone if they owned their property, could they prove it, and why therefore they weren't realising their ambitions with loans from banks. The people I spoke to didn't see the link between property ownership and borrowing and it wasn't until I had the honour of having a cup of tea and a bowl of rice in the house of the chief of the village that I understood why my questions were misguided. Posing him the same question, he took me outside. 'How much do you think my house is worth?' he asked.
 
It was a big house by Malawian standards with a large sitting room and at least five or six other rooms. Equating this to my experience of houses in Mzuzu and reducing the urban premium I supposed was placed on these dwellings, I suggested the figure of around K250,000 (£1,200).

'Ok,' he said. 'Now tell me who you think would have the money and the want to buy it. And why would someone not just build another house anywhere here,' he said gesturing the across the stunning view of undeveloped land in the many miles around.

It made sense: what good is proof of property ownership if there's no one to buy it? According to the City Assembly of Mzuzu there isn't a single outstanding mortgage on any property in the city of 160,000 inhabitants.

One of my employees told me he bought the plot of land for his house in the city for K25,000 (£120) and built his house with almost no cost. When I asked him how much he thought it was worth now, he look baffled, it was not something he considered. To him, it wasn't an investment to sell.

The reality is that without buyers, the houses are worth nothing and perhaps property ownership is not as relevant in rural Malawi as I originally thought. In the city the odd buyer may come along and properties do appear to change hands but in rural Malawi, that isn't the case - and with a strong urban pull, it's difficult to see that changing any time soon.

In which Will gets a taste for the more daring side of enterprise.

Rural Malawians are among the poorest people in the world in terms of financial income. The lion’s share of these villages, which host 85% of the population of Malawi, have no electricity, paved roads or running water.

Living in a city, albeit a small town by UK standards, it's not often I get to see rural Malawi. But the other day I was invited to visit the village of Enyezini, about 20km west of Mzuzu to write an article for my magazine on the rural economy.

It was absolutely fascinating to see how business operates under such conditions and the huge difference small changes could make to the economy of a village. Take the case of Mr Chikoza, a resident of Mzuzu, who two years ago decided to start running a taxi service linking Enyezini with Mzuzu.

The economy of the village was instantly transformed. Local traders told me that before, they had to bring goods in by bicycle from Ekwendeni, a small trading town 12km to the north, and as a result the volume of goods was limited to just a few bags per visit, which meant products had to be small and portable. With the taxi service, they can now bring in a huge array and volume of goods, and shops have sprung up all over the village selling everything from paraffin to clothes.

Chugging along in Mr Chikoza’s battered old Land Rover (that not only looks like it was manufactured during the Second World War, but also appears to have had considerable front-line service), it's hard to see how he makes any money from the service. He charges just K200 (about 70p) for the one-hour, 20km journey; chugging along, chatting amiably with his passengers as he peers through the cracks in the windscreen with a jerry can of petrol between his legs connected directly to the engine via a small pipe. You're basically traveling in a very jolly bomb.

But with the aid of the service, the village has big plans. It wants to establish itself as a trading post for the smaller villages in its surrounding area and is building a mobile market for that purpose. Shops are springing up everywhere and it's easy to agree with the traders' optimistic views on the economic growth of the village.

These small steps are vital to the growth of the economy of rural Malawi, and it struck me how we view development as multi-billion dollar aid donations when in fact so much can be achieved with a small initiative such as Mr Chikoza’s taxi service.

That's not to say that the village isn't crying out for infrastructure development. When I asked the chief of the village what three things he would ask for from the president, he replied: 'electricity, roads and water'.

In which Will introduces British cuisine to the streets of Malawi.
 
There are many things that one cannot buy in Mzuzu, the northern capital city that we live in. Take out a dictionary, open at a random page, find the first noun you see and the chances are you cannot get it in Mzuzu.

Most of the stuff we don’t miss: it's funny how quickly you accept reality. I have not so far craved a skinny latte, neither have I longed to see the latest Hollywood hit. However, the fact that you cannot buy a sandwich in Mzuzu fills my life with an emptiness that only a decent BLT could fill. I'm not a man of many principles, but I do believe that access to a decent sandwich is a fundamental human right, a human right that has so far been deprived to the 160,000 citizens of Mzuzu. I have decided to take affirmative action.

A friend of mine runs a local bakery and after hours of my selling him the benefits of sandwiches, he's agreed to take the plunge and convert part of his bakery into a sandwich shop. I'm part-funding the venture from the profits of the magazine.

It's an interesting challenge. The staple diet in Malawi is nsima, a maize-based stodge that people have for lunch and dinner, garnished with some relish or dende, which is usually a variety of beans. Lunch is an institution, and the leisurely lunches that people have over here are on such a scale that even a London–based journalist in the 1980s would have found the time taken impressive.

From 12-2, you won’t find anyone doing anything but cooking or eating nsima, in addition to the obligatory sitting around for a couple of hours that inevitably accompanies the meal. Trying to introduce the concept of the sandwich to this crowd is a tough sell. In addition, it's odd to have to introduce the concept of something that's so commonplace in our culture.

For advice, I turned to my friend and advertising genius Dan Hauck, who came up with a number of concepts and campaigns. The tagline we settled on to promote the new venture was: 'the sandwich: for people who don’t stop'.

Now, herein lies a key challenge: there aren't many people who don’t stop in Mzuzu. On the contrary, most of the population of the town are in fact very much stopped most of the time. But I believe that the sandwich is best launched as an aspirational product, targeting the few offices and ever-increasing number of successful businesspeople, and the contingent of educated and highly ambitious young professionals.

We launch next week and I will be sure to update you on the progress. I am motivated by the fact that if I can achieve one thing, while I am out here, indeed, achieve one thing in my entire life, successfully bringing to sandwich to Mzuzu will ensure an eventual retirement free from regret.

In which Will finally gets his driving license, after 14 years of trying...

One of my many failings has always been my inability to drive. Having failed my theory so many times that I didn't even get round to taking a proper test, I had resigned myself to the reality that some people are born to be chauffeured, and I am perhaps fortunate enough to be among them.

However, fearless after the many challenges I've faced doing business out here, and persuaded by my wife, who I think was getting a little tired of driving 700km to Blantyre with me relaxing in the passenger seat, I decided that the time had come to take the plunge and learn to drive.

'Why don’t you just buy a license?' a friend asked me. 'You only have to give the examiner K20,000 to get a license and the lessons are going to cost you around that anyway.'

He had a good point, but I was adamant that if I was going to drive, I was going to do it honourably. Not least because I accept that if the Malawi Roads Authority deemed me unfit to drive, perhaps I really shouldn’t be behind the wheel of a car.

It soon emerged that my stoicism would be rewarded. I'm not one to criticise my teachers, but I’m sure that if I'm to drive on some of the most dangerous roads in the world, at some point it's going to be necessary to go above 30km/h and indeed to do something other than going round a roundabout twice and reversing round a corner.

Apparently such fancies are deemed entirely ancillary to the basics of driving - which, of course, are roundabouts and reversing round corners. The test used to entail hill starts, driving on the open road, parallel parking and other more complex manoeuvres, but these were dropped because too many people were failing.
Or rather, according to my instructor, when people failed they just drove anyway and never came back to retake the test. And the authorities deemed it better to have a test that anyone can pass than one that no-one bothers to take. So in order to ensure success, one just practices the set test route again and again. Roundabout, reverse, roundabout, reverse, roundabout, reverse.

After the triumph of finally passing my theory test, which I have to admit was a little less thorough than the ones I have failed previously ('What does it mean when the robot says green?' 'What does this sign mean?' [pointing to a sign that says “stop”]), I was ready for my practical test.

Regardless of its apparent simplicity, for those seven minutes, the pressure was immense. Knowing that if I hit someone there was a small chance of failing, my concentration was total. However, it paid off and I am delighted to report that I passed. So after 14 years of trying, I finally have my driving license. Now all I have to do is learn to drive.

Despite his best efforts, 70% of Will's invoices are still unpaid four weeks after their due date...

It has been a hugely frustrating, unproductive couple of weeks. My invoices were due on the 31 May. No one had paid on that date, but my terms were only 21 days so I was not too surprised. As I write this, four weeks later, I have still only been paid by three of my ten creditors. This despite repeated assurances that the money was being paid today/had been paid/will be paid tomorrow. To be fair to the three that did pay, it only took one or two follow up calls. The others have taken more than 10 each. It is mind-numbingly frustrating.

Each day, I wake up tired and annoyed, having mentally tortured a roster of people during my agonised sleep. I then come to work at 7:30 and start calling the companies who owe me money. Without fail, I will be assured that my invoice is to be paid that day/ was paid yesterday. I then go to the bank and queue up for an hour, only to find that yesterday's assurances were false. (Amazingly, and to add to the frustration, my bank says there is no way of telling who has paid a cheque in – that is going to cause problems down the line considering all my invoices are for the same amount!). I go back to my office and redial.

There are many great things about doing business in Malawi. At this stage, few make up for the frustration of the repeated false assurances. The phrase, "I will call you back in ten minutes", means "I will not call you back". The phrase, "The invoice has been paid", means "The invoice has not been paid". The phrase “We have sold ten adverts”, means (on deadline day) “we have sold no adverts” (cue: mad panic, more sleepless nights, contract cancellation). It is a deep irony that doing business in one of the least stressed-out countries in the world is the most stressful thing that one can do.

And so, each day, I rewrite my cashflow forecasts and watch my reserves dwindle to nothing. The cheque for the printing went out this week, leaving me with just K3,400 in my account. I am owed K670,000. These are not small traders that owe the money, who might be delaying due to cashflow issues - these are banks, insurance companies and large motor companies. It is a nightmare. This is pagono, pagono on a monumental scale and it is making life doing business here almost impossible.

It has been a bad couple of weeks. But you have to put things in perspective. We live right on the outskirts of Mzuzu, and at the end of a trying day my wife and I walk out into the villages surrounding the city. The cacophony of laughing children and their shouts of “Hey azungu, I am fine, how are you?” (literally: hey “white man” – although the racial connotations are not comparable with our views in the UK) combined with the smiles and greetings from everyone we pass never fails to lift our spirits. The happiness and warmth of local people here, many of whom live without running water or electricity and facing threats to their health and families that I cannot even begin to contemplate, puts it all in perspective - and makes you realise there is more to life than unpaid invoices!