A chitenje, or in the plural vitenje, is a tremendously useful, ubiquitous household item in Malawi. It’s roughly 2 meters of brightly colored fabric. Many wear it on the daily and in many different fashions. The likes of Barack Obama, Nelson Mandela, sports teams, or some sort of colorful design flatter the simple reams of fabric. It is the quintessential piece of Malawian dress. Walk into any tuck shop and you immediately brush your dome against the folded textiles from Malawi, Tanzania, Mozambique, and on. They are the single most colorful thing any Malawian owns. And oh, it’s so very useful, allow me to demonstrate its many uses:
• A wrap for respect
• Shawl for warmth
• Head scarf
• Sitting mat
• Backpack
• To carry children
• As a towel
• As an apron
• As a pot holder
• As curtains
• As a tablecloth
• Make a fruit hammock, yes a real life “banana hammock” actually holding the many bananas I buy daily
• Scrap fabric for sewing
• Handkerchief
• Sweat rag
• To wrap katundu for traveling, anything from maize, to bananas, to ground nuts get wrapped in the cloth and thrown up to balance on top of one’s head.
This is just a start. There seems to be endless uses for it.
Sunday, October 17, 2010
From the Journal
August 7, 2010 Chipazi
I just finished my mock language proficiency interview (LPI). It really wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be – it certainly gives me hope for what I can accomplish in several months at site. The hardest part was just coming up with the words fast enough – I didn’t have near the problems I thought I would in constructing sentences. I’m glad it’s over though, well in the short term since the real thing is about two weeks from now. However, there are many enjoyable things happening between now and then so I’ll put off thinking of the LPI for now.
Tomorrow we receive our site placements and cell phones. I should be just as psyched as everyone else about knowing my site, but I’m more excited to receive the phone. It’s a throwback to sophomore year of high school when getting your first phone was the highlight of the year, the mark of your adolescent debut. And that’s tomorrow, the dawn of my Malawian adolescence, chatting away on my Nokia brick phone and mastering Snake. They use prepaid wireless in Malawi, very similar to Virgin Mobile, you buy top up cards every so often. I can already tell I’m going to be the sort of person always out of units, I’m terrible at budgeting things like this. So, if I don’t text you back it’s because I don’t have units, nilije maunitsi.
I’m still pretty pumped about getting our site placements. Then I’ll have an idea of where I’ll be living for the next two years. We leave a week from today to do site visits. We’re just now on the cusp, the time between training and transitioning into actual service at site.
Before our site visits begin we drop in on the Camp GLOW being run by the health class a year ahead of us. It’s held near Salima in the Malawi Enterprise Development Institute. One of the few dormitory-style conference centers in Malawi capable of holding 100+ campers and counselors.
Camp GLOW is something I feel very strongly about. GLOW, Girls Leading Our World, is all about women’s empowerment. The camp has been a Peace Corps staple since its debut as a secondary project in Romania in 1994. It’s a week long camp targeted at secondary school age girls on the brink of adolescence and teeming with possibility. The camp has a topic designated for each day to broaden the girls’ understanding of self, their country, their education, their family, and their future. This year the camp officially partners with the Malawi Ministry of Health garnering the camp national recognition. So, the camp is certified to teach life skills courses and will be graced by a visit from the Malawi Vice President Joyce Banda, all in addition to the new funding scheme it provides. The Government of Malawi has undertaken a major campaign to mobilize and empower women across the country. That takes the form of more female appointees in government, federal positions that are female-only, and extensive funding for girls in secondary schools. All that, that’s why I want to be a part of it. My class of volunteers, those arriving as health volunteers in July 2010, will coordinate and govern the 2011 Camp GLOW. I’ll be the program coordinator, the camp’s overseeing director. I’m elated.
I’m in the final stretch of homestay now, only 5 nights and 4 days remaining. I have to say I’m looking forward to leaving. Mostly because then I will be away from any potential bed bug bites. I spent a huge chunk of yesterday afternoon washing my sheets, airing out my mattress plus the pillows, and spraying the hell out of it with Doom. So if all that doesn’t rid me of bed bugs then at least they’ll be radioactive, hopefully fluorescent, and I’ll resign myself to other measures to make peace with them.
I’m in the midst of sewing a dress for Fena, the youngest daughter of my homestay family. She is the most adorable one-year-old I’ve ever seen. That’s saying a lot, I’m generally not so fond of children. And the dress, it’s really coming along nicely even better than I thought it would. At first I was super gung-ho about it: I drew plans, measured and remeasured Fena, scouted out the perfect chitenje. Then, I felt overwhelmed that it was too big of a project; it’s quite tedious hand sewing by kerosene lamp for more than an hour. But now, I feel just right, goldilocks-esque. My hard hours by the lamp begot me a dress fit for the mwana wakondwa, the happy child.
August 16, 2010 Mzuzu
In the Malawian concept of time it’s been a hectic past couple days. We moved out of homestay last Thursday and back into the college (the Malawi College of Forestry), all 34 of us haphazardly thrown into the bunk bed dormitories. We spent a couple of nights there as a rambunctious group, freshly back to a sort of normalcy. If you consider normal to be a college-freshmen-ish booze night, drinking games and the like, complete with couples huddled under the blankets of extra-long twin beds in a two-person dorm. It was rather impressive, the organizing body blew a combined pot of MK12000 on liquor. One of the highlights of the evening was a Ninja Warrior competition. In which a lucky 6 of us competed in such events as the couch pillow climb and mattress jousting. My pseudonym for the competition was the “Kickin’ Bitchin’ Bo Jangles.” It seemed appropriate.
Friday was our village farewell. All the families, ourselves, the trainees, people from the Embassy, etc. We all assembled in Mpalale, one of the four villages hosting trainees. Molini, amayi, and Fena were all there. Fena was wearing the dress I hand sewn; I was so very proud. I parted with the Masina family bearing gifts, one being the dress, and the others, I gave a pin with the Kansas seal, a tupperware set, playing cards, a picture of me, and cookies (here known as biscuits) for the children. I received a saucepan and a tin cup in return. It was quite precious, the whole exchange of gifts. The family seemed so grateful ; it was so touching. Anyhow, at the village farewell, each family is presented with a certificate from Vic, the Country Director, and each trainee gets a picture snapped. These pictures are a real source of pride amongst the many families that host a volunteer. During my stay, my homestay mother got out the picture of her and Brian (the volunteer they hosted before me in February 2010) many times. And my amayi and I, we wore matching chitenje and got snapped doing out special handshake (which technically speaking is the Slater handshake from Dazed and Confused). After the presentations, and after the many villagers cleared the field, time came for the Guli Wan Kulu dance, a traditional Malawian dance to release the spirits. The dancers wear ornate masks set in different alarming countenances. Their costumes are varied assortments of rags and colorful shreds of chitenje. The drums beat rapidly, the bells hidden amidst the cloth shreds jingle furiously, and for lack of a better description the dancer shakes as if he’s having a heart attack. The finale of the Guli Wan Kulu is the big dance. The dancers all start to slow, skirting the edges of dance’s forum, and in enters a 9 ft dancing llama-like animal, swaying side to side and back and forth to the heavy pounds of the drum. There is no sort of ritual hunting dance associated either, it looks more like a worship of the large game, dancing around it, allowing the space, swaying with its own movements. It was truly amazing.
August 18, 2010 Mzimba
The Mzoozoo Zoo had quite the ambience. The Zoo as it is affectionately referred to amongst PCVs is a lodge that seems to cater almost exclusively to azungus, at any given point you find some sort of foreign national. While there I stumbled upon a British VSO, a white South African who was on a cross-continent bike ride, and a Dutch gentleman who ran a lodge on Lake Malawi. The lodge felt like a splendid mixture of the ECM and Henry’s Upstairs, ran by a trio of English ex-patriots. It was bohemian, rugged and untamed, and full of interesting characters.
Two nights later, out of Mzuzu and to Mzimba, I feel like I’m in the posh Corps. Meg and I spent an extra night in Mzuzu, the other volunteers left a day earlier to proceed to their site visits. But us, well this is Malawi and transport is finicky. Transport to our site was provided by the District Hospital in Mzimba, and the ambulances departing from the hospital only leaves early in the morning which means we needed to get an early start if we hoped to make it. Well we did get an early start on Tuesday morning, the first bus out of Mzuzu in fact. But as I’ve learned, TIA, this is Africa. Nothing really runs on time and things are hardly as efficient as I think they should/could be. So upon our arrival in Mzimba, after a short (by short I mean 2km or so) walk to the District Hospital, we found we missed transport. And I started to feel guilty again. I just kept thinking how I could have put more effort in, tried to work my circumstances a bit more. Well it would have been quite unfeasible, because like I said TIA. Anyhow, the District Hospital Officer (DHO) in Mzimba took pity on us. We, Meg and I, were put up in a guest house on the edge of town. We have queen sized beds, showers, electricity, satellite TV, and breakfast. If I didn’t know any better I would think I was in a motel somewhere in the states. The kicker, the DHO felt bad that we couldn’t get to site, so they paid for the lodge. Posh Corps, here we are.
August 19, 2010 Mhalaunda
I finally made my way to site after the Zoo and the posh corps experience. Mhalaunda Health Center, I’m so pumped about living here, I’m not sure I can properly express myself. The house is exquisite, it’s directly adjacent to the health center. It’s painted a brilliant turquoise color. The back patio is gated and completely connected to the house. I can even scale the fence and hop on the roof (the most prime spot for star-gazing). The former volunteer, Tessa, left a ton of things so I’m set as far as dishes, buckets, sheets, blankets, general house wares go. I really couldn’t be happier. I think I’m going to spend the next day or so cleaning the space, say scrubbing the walls and mopping the floor. Then it will be spick-and-span come time for me to move in. There is also room for a garden both across from the house and behind. Plus, Tessa was building a flower garden right in front. So many possibilities for me to nurse my own green thumb. I asked Lila yesterday to send me all sorts of seeds so I can build the kitchen garden of my dreams. I included that note in one of the letters I wrote to Dadjo as well. I hope to be bombarded with seeds for planting. I want a huge ginormous, efflorescent garden. Oh, there is also a mango tree right behind the house and bananas are so prevalent you don’t have to hazard a kwacha at them.
I really think I’m going to enjoy Mhalaunda. There always seems to be a light breeze blowing, dulling the intensity of the zua. It smells so pure. The sky, it’s cloudless. And even though the seasons are about to change and the hot season is upon Malawi, the flowers are still in bloom. Mama Chavula, my Malawian mother, even said this is nothing, wait until the rainy season. Everything blooms and you don’t need to water a thing.
Another wave of TIA, really more of a “this is me in Africa.” The more and more familiar my surroundings become the more I think of course I can do this. There’s no way I can’t do this. It’s also such a welcome relief to have so much less to do and feel at peace with it. I’m relishing this time; where I can devote attention to reading and writing and not feel as if I should be rushing through it just to accomplish the next task. I’m reading to read, reading books I want to read. I’m writing to write, writing my thoughts and general account of things just for me. This is such a paradox to my life as it was in May. I’m indulging in the change.
August 25, 2010 Ekwendeni
Today we visited a traditional healer, an African witch doctor. He spoke only a few spatterings of English, so it was nice to have Aaron and Robin (the language and technical trainers) around to translate the deep Timbuka. He displayed a few of the common herbs he uses, which he retrieves from Nyaka Plateau region on his many medicinal hikes subsidized by the government. He demonstrated his all mighty power by taking some black powder, a concoction of ashes made from the many herbs on display. The ashes lit without a spark and burned through the paper in his hand. I was pretty impressed. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was gun powder or something similar, but still amazing.
The witch doctor, oh he’s also a polygamist. A man with two wives who, coincidentally, are sisters. Known in the region as mbiligha, in which a man is given a second wife by the wife’s parents. It’s generally done because parents are happy with the son-in-law and feel a younger sister is a just reward. I would think this would be a major point of contention – I certainly could never share a husband with a sister. One of the trainers had an in depth conversation with the younger sister/wife, she believes she was been bewitched by the witch doctor. As he related the story to us, each time she thinks about going back to her parents or about how she came to be in her situation. Her thoughts are “stolen” from her and she’s back to thinking of cooking nsima and caring for the children.
So the witch doctor enlightened us on the nature of his gift as well. He told the story of it coming to him in a dream – he saw specific illnesses and the necessary herbs needed to remedy them. The traditional drums called him, each beat made the prognostication more complete. The night of dreams was instant endowment; he woke up fully conscious and capable as a traditional healer. He went from that day forward pursuing the art, san’ganga. In each healing session he makes use of a handmade cowhide drum, one made as a replica to the drums of his dreams to evoke the spirits into assisting with the diagnosis. He then dons himself in a long red and green flowing robe and begins his work.
The government of Malawi recognizes these traditional healers; they are licensed, registered, and only so many can work in a given area. With this recognition it allows them to forage in the protected woodlands for their many herbs they use for their concoctions, places like the Nyaka Plateau National Park and Nkhotankhota. Traditional healers also work very closely with the district and local hospitals in Malawi. For any disease or ailment deemed incurable by modern medicine the hospital will refer patients to the traditional healers, the local (registered) witch doctor. They’ve created this symbiotic relationship, merging the traditional and modern medicine, to form a healthcare system suitable for Malawians. In the event that your goiter, ailing back, persistent cough, etc. don't seem to be improving at the clinic, see a witch doctor for he has the prescription for you, no matter the ailment.
I just finished my mock language proficiency interview (LPI). It really wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be – it certainly gives me hope for what I can accomplish in several months at site. The hardest part was just coming up with the words fast enough – I didn’t have near the problems I thought I would in constructing sentences. I’m glad it’s over though, well in the short term since the real thing is about two weeks from now. However, there are many enjoyable things happening between now and then so I’ll put off thinking of the LPI for now.
Tomorrow we receive our site placements and cell phones. I should be just as psyched as everyone else about knowing my site, but I’m more excited to receive the phone. It’s a throwback to sophomore year of high school when getting your first phone was the highlight of the year, the mark of your adolescent debut. And that’s tomorrow, the dawn of my Malawian adolescence, chatting away on my Nokia brick phone and mastering Snake. They use prepaid wireless in Malawi, very similar to Virgin Mobile, you buy top up cards every so often. I can already tell I’m going to be the sort of person always out of units, I’m terrible at budgeting things like this. So, if I don’t text you back it’s because I don’t have units, nilije maunitsi.
I’m still pretty pumped about getting our site placements. Then I’ll have an idea of where I’ll be living for the next two years. We leave a week from today to do site visits. We’re just now on the cusp, the time between training and transitioning into actual service at site.
Before our site visits begin we drop in on the Camp GLOW being run by the health class a year ahead of us. It’s held near Salima in the Malawi Enterprise Development Institute. One of the few dormitory-style conference centers in Malawi capable of holding 100+ campers and counselors.
Camp GLOW is something I feel very strongly about. GLOW, Girls Leading Our World, is all about women’s empowerment. The camp has been a Peace Corps staple since its debut as a secondary project in Romania in 1994. It’s a week long camp targeted at secondary school age girls on the brink of adolescence and teeming with possibility. The camp has a topic designated for each day to broaden the girls’ understanding of self, their country, their education, their family, and their future. This year the camp officially partners with the Malawi Ministry of Health garnering the camp national recognition. So, the camp is certified to teach life skills courses and will be graced by a visit from the Malawi Vice President Joyce Banda, all in addition to the new funding scheme it provides. The Government of Malawi has undertaken a major campaign to mobilize and empower women across the country. That takes the form of more female appointees in government, federal positions that are female-only, and extensive funding for girls in secondary schools. All that, that’s why I want to be a part of it. My class of volunteers, those arriving as health volunteers in July 2010, will coordinate and govern the 2011 Camp GLOW. I’ll be the program coordinator, the camp’s overseeing director. I’m elated.
I’m in the final stretch of homestay now, only 5 nights and 4 days remaining. I have to say I’m looking forward to leaving. Mostly because then I will be away from any potential bed bug bites. I spent a huge chunk of yesterday afternoon washing my sheets, airing out my mattress plus the pillows, and spraying the hell out of it with Doom. So if all that doesn’t rid me of bed bugs then at least they’ll be radioactive, hopefully fluorescent, and I’ll resign myself to other measures to make peace with them.
I’m in the midst of sewing a dress for Fena, the youngest daughter of my homestay family. She is the most adorable one-year-old I’ve ever seen. That’s saying a lot, I’m generally not so fond of children. And the dress, it’s really coming along nicely even better than I thought it would. At first I was super gung-ho about it: I drew plans, measured and remeasured Fena, scouted out the perfect chitenje. Then, I felt overwhelmed that it was too big of a project; it’s quite tedious hand sewing by kerosene lamp for more than an hour. But now, I feel just right, goldilocks-esque. My hard hours by the lamp begot me a dress fit for the mwana wakondwa, the happy child.
August 16, 2010 Mzuzu
In the Malawian concept of time it’s been a hectic past couple days. We moved out of homestay last Thursday and back into the college (the Malawi College of Forestry), all 34 of us haphazardly thrown into the bunk bed dormitories. We spent a couple of nights there as a rambunctious group, freshly back to a sort of normalcy. If you consider normal to be a college-freshmen-ish booze night, drinking games and the like, complete with couples huddled under the blankets of extra-long twin beds in a two-person dorm. It was rather impressive, the organizing body blew a combined pot of MK12000 on liquor. One of the highlights of the evening was a Ninja Warrior competition. In which a lucky 6 of us competed in such events as the couch pillow climb and mattress jousting. My pseudonym for the competition was the “Kickin’ Bitchin’ Bo Jangles.” It seemed appropriate.
Friday was our village farewell. All the families, ourselves, the trainees, people from the Embassy, etc. We all assembled in Mpalale, one of the four villages hosting trainees. Molini, amayi, and Fena were all there. Fena was wearing the dress I hand sewn; I was so very proud. I parted with the Masina family bearing gifts, one being the dress, and the others, I gave a pin with the Kansas seal, a tupperware set, playing cards, a picture of me, and cookies (here known as biscuits) for the children. I received a saucepan and a tin cup in return. It was quite precious, the whole exchange of gifts. The family seemed so grateful ; it was so touching. Anyhow, at the village farewell, each family is presented with a certificate from Vic, the Country Director, and each trainee gets a picture snapped. These pictures are a real source of pride amongst the many families that host a volunteer. During my stay, my homestay mother got out the picture of her and Brian (the volunteer they hosted before me in February 2010) many times. And my amayi and I, we wore matching chitenje and got snapped doing out special handshake (which technically speaking is the Slater handshake from Dazed and Confused). After the presentations, and after the many villagers cleared the field, time came for the Guli Wan Kulu dance, a traditional Malawian dance to release the spirits. The dancers wear ornate masks set in different alarming countenances. Their costumes are varied assortments of rags and colorful shreds of chitenje. The drums beat rapidly, the bells hidden amidst the cloth shreds jingle furiously, and for lack of a better description the dancer shakes as if he’s having a heart attack. The finale of the Guli Wan Kulu is the big dance. The dancers all start to slow, skirting the edges of dance’s forum, and in enters a 9 ft dancing llama-like animal, swaying side to side and back and forth to the heavy pounds of the drum. There is no sort of ritual hunting dance associated either, it looks more like a worship of the large game, dancing around it, allowing the space, swaying with its own movements. It was truly amazing.
August 18, 2010 Mzimba
The Mzoozoo Zoo had quite the ambience. The Zoo as it is affectionately referred to amongst PCVs is a lodge that seems to cater almost exclusively to azungus, at any given point you find some sort of foreign national. While there I stumbled upon a British VSO, a white South African who was on a cross-continent bike ride, and a Dutch gentleman who ran a lodge on Lake Malawi. The lodge felt like a splendid mixture of the ECM and Henry’s Upstairs, ran by a trio of English ex-patriots. It was bohemian, rugged and untamed, and full of interesting characters.
Two nights later, out of Mzuzu and to Mzimba, I feel like I’m in the posh Corps. Meg and I spent an extra night in Mzuzu, the other volunteers left a day earlier to proceed to their site visits. But us, well this is Malawi and transport is finicky. Transport to our site was provided by the District Hospital in Mzimba, and the ambulances departing from the hospital only leaves early in the morning which means we needed to get an early start if we hoped to make it. Well we did get an early start on Tuesday morning, the first bus out of Mzuzu in fact. But as I’ve learned, TIA, this is Africa. Nothing really runs on time and things are hardly as efficient as I think they should/could be. So upon our arrival in Mzimba, after a short (by short I mean 2km or so) walk to the District Hospital, we found we missed transport. And I started to feel guilty again. I just kept thinking how I could have put more effort in, tried to work my circumstances a bit more. Well it would have been quite unfeasible, because like I said TIA. Anyhow, the District Hospital Officer (DHO) in Mzimba took pity on us. We, Meg and I, were put up in a guest house on the edge of town. We have queen sized beds, showers, electricity, satellite TV, and breakfast. If I didn’t know any better I would think I was in a motel somewhere in the states. The kicker, the DHO felt bad that we couldn’t get to site, so they paid for the lodge. Posh Corps, here we are.
August 19, 2010 Mhalaunda
I finally made my way to site after the Zoo and the posh corps experience. Mhalaunda Health Center, I’m so pumped about living here, I’m not sure I can properly express myself. The house is exquisite, it’s directly adjacent to the health center. It’s painted a brilliant turquoise color. The back patio is gated and completely connected to the house. I can even scale the fence and hop on the roof (the most prime spot for star-gazing). The former volunteer, Tessa, left a ton of things so I’m set as far as dishes, buckets, sheets, blankets, general house wares go. I really couldn’t be happier. I think I’m going to spend the next day or so cleaning the space, say scrubbing the walls and mopping the floor. Then it will be spick-and-span come time for me to move in. There is also room for a garden both across from the house and behind. Plus, Tessa was building a flower garden right in front. So many possibilities for me to nurse my own green thumb. I asked Lila yesterday to send me all sorts of seeds so I can build the kitchen garden of my dreams. I included that note in one of the letters I wrote to Dadjo as well. I hope to be bombarded with seeds for planting. I want a huge ginormous, efflorescent garden. Oh, there is also a mango tree right behind the house and bananas are so prevalent you don’t have to hazard a kwacha at them.
I really think I’m going to enjoy Mhalaunda. There always seems to be a light breeze blowing, dulling the intensity of the zua. It smells so pure. The sky, it’s cloudless. And even though the seasons are about to change and the hot season is upon Malawi, the flowers are still in bloom. Mama Chavula, my Malawian mother, even said this is nothing, wait until the rainy season. Everything blooms and you don’t need to water a thing.
Another wave of TIA, really more of a “this is me in Africa.” The more and more familiar my surroundings become the more I think of course I can do this. There’s no way I can’t do this. It’s also such a welcome relief to have so much less to do and feel at peace with it. I’m relishing this time; where I can devote attention to reading and writing and not feel as if I should be rushing through it just to accomplish the next task. I’m reading to read, reading books I want to read. I’m writing to write, writing my thoughts and general account of things just for me. This is such a paradox to my life as it was in May. I’m indulging in the change.
August 25, 2010 Ekwendeni
Today we visited a traditional healer, an African witch doctor. He spoke only a few spatterings of English, so it was nice to have Aaron and Robin (the language and technical trainers) around to translate the deep Timbuka. He displayed a few of the common herbs he uses, which he retrieves from Nyaka Plateau region on his many medicinal hikes subsidized by the government. He demonstrated his all mighty power by taking some black powder, a concoction of ashes made from the many herbs on display. The ashes lit without a spark and burned through the paper in his hand. I was pretty impressed. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was gun powder or something similar, but still amazing.
The witch doctor, oh he’s also a polygamist. A man with two wives who, coincidentally, are sisters. Known in the region as mbiligha, in which a man is given a second wife by the wife’s parents. It’s generally done because parents are happy with the son-in-law and feel a younger sister is a just reward. I would think this would be a major point of contention – I certainly could never share a husband with a sister. One of the trainers had an in depth conversation with the younger sister/wife, she believes she was been bewitched by the witch doctor. As he related the story to us, each time she thinks about going back to her parents or about how she came to be in her situation. Her thoughts are “stolen” from her and she’s back to thinking of cooking nsima and caring for the children.
So the witch doctor enlightened us on the nature of his gift as well. He told the story of it coming to him in a dream – he saw specific illnesses and the necessary herbs needed to remedy them. The traditional drums called him, each beat made the prognostication more complete. The night of dreams was instant endowment; he woke up fully conscious and capable as a traditional healer. He went from that day forward pursuing the art, san’ganga. In each healing session he makes use of a handmade cowhide drum, one made as a replica to the drums of his dreams to evoke the spirits into assisting with the diagnosis. He then dons himself in a long red and green flowing robe and begins his work.
The government of Malawi recognizes these traditional healers; they are licensed, registered, and only so many can work in a given area. With this recognition it allows them to forage in the protected woodlands for their many herbs they use for their concoctions, places like the Nyaka Plateau National Park and Nkhotankhota. Traditional healers also work very closely with the district and local hospitals in Malawi. For any disease or ailment deemed incurable by modern medicine the hospital will refer patients to the traditional healers, the local (registered) witch doctor. They’ve created this symbiotic relationship, merging the traditional and modern medicine, to form a healthcare system suitable for Malawians. In the event that your goiter, ailing back, persistent cough, etc. don't seem to be improving at the clinic, see a witch doctor for he has the prescription for you, no matter the ailment.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)