A Few Anecdotes

Allow me to set the scene, I'm sitting in the home of my dear friend, confidante, and adopted mother, Mama Chavula. As a family, we're sitting down to dinner. Once again, I've singed the prints off my fingers as I pried the top nsima patty from the pile. While this is a nightly affair, always I'm the first to peel off the top patty, the last one into the serving bowl and that final spoonful that came from the bottom of its cooking dish, steaming enough to cast a mirage in the air just above the serving dish. But this night was different. As we ate Erita, the sister-in-law to Mama Chavula, was cutting up a carcass of sorts. She sat with all of us while we ate, serrating bits of pork away. Well the rest of us were in the middle of eating, she's set slicing and dicing. It was a tad revolting, please note I'm still an avid vegetarian, even in Malawi. I queried her as to what part of the animal she was amputating, her response: “chamuganganga” meanwhile grabbing at her breast. Oh indeed, she was cutting away the teats. It was this response, the indicating of her breast, that led to my explosion. If nsima was a tad runnier it would have come streaming out of my nose. I burst out laughing along with the rest of the family.

There is a supreme difference in parenting techniques from Malawi to America. As per usual, I'm sitting over at Mama Chavula's watching Erita force feed Eugene, her firstborn son. She holds the phala, the cornmeal porridge, in her hand and holds it up to his mouth, making him swallow. He slowly gurgles it down, making funny sounds all the while. But clearly he in no way enjoys the phalli. At other times, Mama Chavula feeds him and it sounds as if he's being tortured. She forces the spoonfuls of porridge down his throat as he screams bloody murder. I have a hard time watching it or even listening to it. Not to mention this is generally while the rest of us are eating dinner; his screams are hardly ambient white noise. Compared to what I can only imagine is a western approach, we encourage babies to play with their food or coax them into eating with airplane personified baby spoons. Not here. As Mama Chavula says, he has to learn to take his phala, he can't stay on the teat forever. I suppose that's a fair point, but the tough love approach is so …. tough. How is he supposed to eat his porridge if he's force-fed it? We need to bring a little fun to phala time.

I just ate a vimpwete. It's a spiky fruit, green in color and covered in small spikes. It looks similar to a cucumber, simply covered in small "horns." And that's exactly what it tasted like, like a cucumber. I rather liked it. Now I just need to grow some dill and I could make a fabulous cucumber dill sauce.

Wow, I just had an amazing afternoon. One of those afternoons that make me smile and love life. I went for a run this afternoon, as I often do when the sun starts to set and the heat begins to dissipate. I head over to the football pitch and run a few laps in the last hour of daylight. And as I ran a few laps around the football pitch, I rounded the bend a group of five pregnant women came out and announced they were going to run with me. Off we went, me leading the pack, followed by a trail of five pregnant women. And I don't mean women in their first trimester either, these women could have their water break at any moment, bellies so round and bulging there is no way they could see the ground in front of them as we ran. But they kept on, we ran three laps, jogging at a slow pace, but they managed. I couldn't help but laugh and revel in the moment. I felt euphoric. It was really something. I laughed so hard that afternoon, never had I experienced anything like it.

I'm sitting on my front porch, watching a gaggle of birds walk by. It's amusing to watch for the birds aren't all chickens, in fact only two are chickens. The chickens are the momma hens, and their chicks, they are the be-speckled, blue-necked birds here call guinea fowl. It's such a funny concept. When the hens are roosting, atop their meagre amount of eggs, you swap the chicken eggs for the guinea fowl eggs and allow hatching and tending to run its course. The chickens don't seem to notice the switcharoo, they raise the fowl like their own. Off they go to roam the village, the guinea chicks, eight or so and the momma hen. Such a motley crew, but they never fail to amuse me.