Solved: Mystery of the Hemp Plantation in China

I thought I had some substance. I even wanted to tip some international media or Chinese police. I am sure they have some sort of DEA and that DEA needed to listen to my intel: I had discovered a huge marijuana plantation hidden in plain sight in one of the most dangerous places to deal drugs.

Location: Taishan. Shandong Taian, one of the holiest sites in China, actually THE holiest.

Let’s start from 2014, a year earlier. I went to Taian on a Kungfu training retreat, me and a bunch of other excited foreign students from the city of Jinan, the capital of Shandong Province. We were supposed to learn Qigong from a real Taoist master who actually lives in the mountains. We were to meet him on the foot of Mount Tai, or Taishan, in Mandarin.

All over the place, mon

We watched the guy do his thing, which ended up just being an ad for the kungfu school that engaged us.

As we streamed downhill, I noticed that lined along the path were rows and rows of marijuana plants. In my journalism days back in Africa, I once went to interview a marijuana planter in his own garden, a story which I must add was spiked by my superiors for legal reasons.

But you guess right, I know my weed. I can spot it from a far. I told the guys I was with that they were in the middle of a weed field and it was followed by a frenzy with everyone uprooting some samples, some seeing it for the first time. People wondered how I spotted the plant, and accused me of dabbling in this Jamaican pastime. I could not convince them, but verily and honestly, I do not engage in this faculty of Rasta business.

I was psyched

That passed…and so did the year. In June of 2015, I took my date for a hike, joining the thousands that go up the mountain to view the famous sunrise at the peak. We went up the mountain at night, I never had the chance to survey the flora of the mountain.

After the excitement of the rising sun died and people started streaming down together with the light from the now strong sun, I saw the weed ghost again. There was hemp growing everywhere one Iooked. Huge healthy plants, newly germinated and those in between.

I was so excited that my date got irritated of me focusing too much on the international herb and not her amazing beauty, but really who would blame me? I posed in the weed, smelled it, plucked some and yes, I did not pack or sample any.

This was high at the peak. As we went down, I kept seeing seas of weed on the mountainside. I was convinced that some clever ganja farmer used the holy mountain for his weedy business.

The Ganja leaf on holy land

I admired this unknown guy, he was clever, with land scarce in China the mountain is free unused land and also the weed blend in with the vegetation and does not seem planted. This guy also knows that a majority of Chinese people cannot recognize a hemp plant so growing it in plain sight is not an issue.

I was wrong. 

I went to hike another mountain to see the older Great Wall and we also found weed there. I went to another Province – Shanxi, and saw huge weed plants growing along the road. It is likely to be just a natural plant here, after all they say weed came from India, which is really just across the border…same climate, therefore same vegetation.

I man

It was a sad day for me. I really felt like Sherlock Holmes at some point. I was just bad a geography, it seems.

But still, it could be possible that all the three sites I saw weed growing are actually weed farms and that is just how the weed planters of China roll. Possible, I said.

On Bus Preachers - Noise or Essential?

At Wenela Bus Terminal, and there are buses to every other part of

Malawi, some going to Nsanje, some to Thyolo but they all do not enjoy

one thing that the Lilongwe and Mzuzu bound buses enjoy: Prayer time.

Ethical or not - a travengelist barks a prayer

The practice of travengelism is getting more common and looks like it is spreading to other parts of Malawi and some people are worried that the practitioners of travengelism should get ethical.

The buses take a long time to load, hours even and when it finally does and pulls out of the depot, a man who usually looks like any other passenger booms out and calls the bus to order for some prayer time.  The preacher synchronizes his message so that by the time the bus gets to Lunzu or Kameza round about, he should get off the bus.

One such concerned person is George Thindwa who heads the Association

of Secular Humanists. Thindwa is a confessed atheist too and just

recently he was in the news after he was booted off one such bus for

protesting against a travengelist.

In an Email interview, Thindwa said the practice of preaching in a bus

is one that Malawians should not accept and he described it as

“foolishness of the highest order.”

“These bus evangelists are achieving nothing and are just mere noise

makers. Their practice main objective is to prey on the Malawian weak

minds. As usual Malawians are so feeble to be subjected to such

stupidity with raising objections,” said Thindwa.

Tindwa- the man- says its madness

Sheik Dinala Chabulika who is the National Coordinator of the Islamic Information Bureau also spoke strongly against the practice and appealed for ethics in religion.

Chabulika said started by acknowledging the importance of prayer one travels, but he said how that prayer is conducted is what these bus preachers should carefully consider.

“Prayer should never be an inconvenience, its should happen in designated spaces or open spaces where people should choose to listen, some people are sick, some are tired and some do not believe in God in the public buses.

“Prayer is good but don’t make it a burden to others,” said the Sheik. But the Bible (Mark 16:15) said go ye and preach to all nations, are these travengelists not just obeying God by doing so?

“You cannot preach to a mad man or a drunkard, what if they curse God? These actions of forcing prayer on people can cause some to curse God and that sin would be shared by the preachers,” said Chabulika.

How about the Mosques that use loud speakers to call the faithful to prayer? Is it not the same case scenario? 

No, said Chabulika, he said where he stays in Namiyango churches can do overnight prayers but as long as it is happening in designated places, there is no issue.

To Thindwa, time is now for the “madness” to end. “Bus owners or passengers should one day stand up and stop this madness. And indeed it should be stopped. It is easy to see that it is

fraud at best- the so called evangelists demanding money when they disembark from the bus!” said Thindwa.

Some people suspect the preachers of killing an easy living because they always ask for alms at the end of their message. 

Some loathe the fact that the preachers always like to remind travelers that the bus is fallible and can overturn; they also love to remind travelers of Satan who they say send his agents to travel with innocent people so as to cause accidents.

For some it is the fact that they only preach on the intercity buses that irks them, they claim the preachers are only targeting the affluent because if their aim was to preach the universal gospel, even those buses going to Nsanje or Thyolo could be blessed with their presence.

In The Caribbean Island of Jamaica, so many people complained against the practice that the public bus company decided to ban the preachers and the head of the company Admiral Hardley Lewin actually argued that the practice constitutes a breach of peace offense.

The preachers protested and said it infringes on their right to religion and expression and they complained against what they called an attempt to secularise the Island.

"They are trying to shut up the gospel and if they do, the devil will take over Jamaica. What kind of message are we sending to young people?" Atchrine Taffe, a bus preacher told The Gleaner

The issue caused a heated debate on an internet forum called nairaland.com with some trashing the practice and some hailing it.

 “Our people are very gullible. They just need miracles by whatever means. The Bus preachers usually pray for accident free journey and prophecy prosperity on the passengers and at the end they collect offering. They hardly ever preach a good sermon on repentance all they

do is to manipulate the passengers to give good offerings. Because "God loves a cheerful giver”,” said one arguer. 

For some, the preachers are actually a god reminder of God’s word and being, and to the preachers, some cannot deny that it is a source of living; after all if you live by the Bible, you eat by it. The important thing is that the message goes out to all nations, secular or otherwise as commanded by the Prince of Peace.

Beautiful Malawi

scuba diving is available at Nkhatabay

beautiful unpoluted beaches at Chintheche and Chikale in Nkhatabay

graet time... come enjoy. picture taken at Club Mayoka(Nkhatabay)

Good roads

happy people...captured at a soccer match



great culture and comradeship among the locals



Adoption should end in Malawi - Chiefs



Some chiefs in the Northern Region recently called for the abolition of practice of adoption and expressed anger with the practice particularly the provision in the adoption law that hands adopting parents complete ownership of the adoptees.



Mwamlowe: Assistance is enough



The chiefs expressed the anger in Mzuzu at a function organised by The Law Commission aimed at getting views from civil society on what should be included in the reviewed and Adoption Law which is being tailored ‘to reflect modern issues.’

“Adoption should end; it’s like selling a thing that does not speak. Orphans always have relatives and whatever law we implement, it will always bring us problems in the future,” said Inkosi Mtwalo of Mzimba.



T/A Mwakaboko of Karonga said he understood the idea of adoption but did not like the permanent ownership of by others rather than natural parents.

“Just look at Jumani [Johansson]. We are having problems now because his name was changed and his natural parents cut off,” said Mwakaboko.



He, however, said whoever puts his child for adoption should not demand tokens because assistance rendered to the child is enough for the parent to be thankful.

T/A Marlowe of Rumphi said he was against the permanent ownership phrase in the law and said those wishing to adopt should only assist in providing for the child. T/A Mkumpha 3 of Likoma and Chizumulu Islands shared the view.



Mwakaboko: didnt like the permanence phrase



However, Alan Chinula, a commissioner in the exercise, said the chiefs’ fears are baseless since the child can choose to go back to their parents after reaching maturity age.

He added that the new adoption law would make it tougher for foreigners to adopt in Malawi saying child shopping would end and that the matching process would be emphasised.



He asked government to adopt the Hague Convention which he said would be an additional tool in the adoption exercise as it centralises adoption and reinforces the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC).



Social workers who attended the function accused chiefs of hypocrisy saying they were just defensive adding that they were not looking after the children in the villages.



The current Adoption of Children Act was enacted in 1929; a law which, chairperson of the Special Law Commission on the Adoption Act, Justice Esme Chombo, said is too old and doesn’t reflect issues like HIV, poverty and modernity.



  



 



The Seventh Bend

It is usually a trend

That the seventh bend

Be presumed the journey’s end

On it

Sit not long

Your muscles may clamp

Your calves swell

On the rocks there dwell

Cold water from the well

Admire the shrubbery

But there might be snakes

As the locals tell

There still is a long way

Don’t sit and say

“With the journey I have done away”

It’s only the seventh bend

The tea-room is miles away

The remainder might dent your ego

But adopt the motto:

“I will try”

It’s the seventh bend

Rocky and steep

Fancy cars will boil over

The road suits a good Land Rover

Once past the seventh bend

Look for a place for your night

You have landed

The journey has ended

check where i have come from, the road in the background!