Red carpet…a sea of tuxedos and dazzling, figure-hugging evening gowns…a phalanx of paparazzi looking for someone important or something offbeat to shoot.

But this black-tie event took place, not in Los Angeles but in a giant marquee on the lawns of Malawi President Bingu wa Mutharika’s State House in Lilongwe, the capital.

The event in question was an awards dinner hosted by the state-owned and government-controlled Malawi Broadcasting Corporation (MBC), dubbed “Our People, Our Pride.” It is an annual ceremony to honor Malawians whose deeds have touched the lives of many—ordinary people

When it comes to crazy things, nothing beats what Pilirani Lazaro, a 22-year-old peasant farmer from Kalaza Village in central Malawi, did recently.

It may sound stranger than fiction, but on November 21, he took a knife, went into the bush, cut off his testicles and immediately put them up for sale.

Malawi President Bingu wa Mutharika had just returned home from New York where he had been attending a UN heads of state summit to review the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), making a detour through Havana—a city known more for its cigars than for its pies.

As is customary, he held a press conference when he touched down at Chileka International Airport and used the occasion to flay his critics for complaining that his numerous foreign trips were draining the national treasury.

Editors Note: Knight Fellow Edem Djokotoe investigates the fishing industry in Malawi

The future of Malawi’s agriculture could lie in the hands of people like Heinrich Sitima, a 14-year-old school boy I met during a farm visit in Chiradzulu, a rural district some 30 minutes’ drive from Blantyre. He lives with his parents on Wambeu Farm, a 10-hectare sprawl with pigs, goats, cows, fish, bananas, cabbages, tomatoes, onions and a animal feed enterprise.
   Heinrich Sitima at Wambeu Farm in Chiradzulu Heinrich wants to be a farmer when he grows up.

Chapananga is a remote chiefdom on Malawi’s southern border with Mozambique. It is four and a half hours of meandering mountainous road and hard driving from Blantyre, the commercial capital of the country, where Nation Publications Limited, my host organization, is headquartered.

In a month and a half’s time when the rains start, the area will be inaccessible by road transport, including their sturdiest and most reliable of 4x4’s.

Since the beginning of the year, several communities in Accra have been experiencing major power outages as well as water shortages. What it means is that the power will go out for hours, crippling some businesses, like Public Agenda. When the power's out we sit around and talk politics and journalism; some people use it as a time to take a walk or go get the standard lunch -- rice and some sort of meat or fish in a sauce made with plenty of palm oil or, if it's Wednesday, fufu with meat or fish (it's heavier food and it keeps the reporters full on production nights).

Early into our partnership with Public Agenda, which bills itself as "Ghana's only advocacy and development newspaper," the publication received an award from the Ghana National Honorary Awards Hall of Fame for being "the best print media" in the promotion of peace during and after the 2008 presidential elections.  CACG said the newspaper won because of its "independent news presentation and analysis, effective monitoring and supervision of electoral activities before, during and after the 2008 elections towards ensuring free, fair, and transparent elections."

A little over a month after Ghana inaugurated it's new president, John Evans Atta Mills, newspapers are gearing up to write about the new administration's proposed budget and are being aggressive at writing about the vetting of the ministers (Minister of Finance, for example) being recommended by the Mills' administration.

Ghanaians, and indeed neighboring countries, are still praising the success of the country's election process.

Ghana's reporters were diligent in reporting on the candidates -- their personalities, rallies and alliances -- but did a less stellar job in