November 16, 2010 Mhalaunda
I went to visit my counterpart’s home today. Nyumba ya Makwakwa. His family is very sweet and so welcoming, just in tune with Malawian character. I ate with all the men and later in the afternoon Mr. M even cooked something for me, sweet potatoes with onions in a sweet-style sauce. It was pretty good. I was even more impressed that he took the initiative to cook for me, so rare amongst Malawian men. At times I wonder if they even can cook. In the afternoon we sat under the big mango tree and drank nthobwa, Malawian sweet beer brewed from millet. It was so peaceful sitting under that tree, I felt so at ease with my surroundings. Just beautiful. It was a moment to sigh and drink it all in.
November 17, 2010 Mhalaunda
As cheesy as it sounds yesterday was one of my days where I feel like the day was perfect. Rabecca, Mama Chavula’s only daughter and I made chocolate icing together. We then smeared it all over mandasis, make the Malawian donuts even sweeter. Then the neighbor’s kids came over and sat with me while I did my washing. Danny is the cutest 3-year-old I’ve ever seen.
In the afternoon, I went to sit with Mr. Zalimbe as he did some sewing. He is the chair of the People Living with AIDS support group. His co-chair in the organization just passed on from tuberculosis (coupled with his HIV status, made for a mitigated life). Well Mr. Zalimbe has been a bit down due to the death and funeral. He finally got back to some of his work just yesterday. I went to sit with him and keep him company, give him a little solace. He showed me what he was sewing, laying out several of the clothes he’d sewn. He’s working on selling them at the clinics and the market. He’s such a sweet old man. I really enjoy spending with him.
Today I had my first session for the Boys and Girls Club. The day’s topic for discussion was Gender Equality. The icebreaker activity was to play Red Rover. The game was pretty entertaining. It never gets old to watch kids get clotheslined in the name of fun. Oh sweet little Chimwemwe, no matter the culture kids learn pretty quickly to call on the smallest kid to run over. He hit the dirt pretty hard and I laughed so hard I had to crouch to hold in the pee. Pepani.
November 23, 2010 Mhalaunda
Rainy season is upon Malawi. Every afternoon a burst of water. Sometimes loud enough to put cotton in your ears or turn the volume as high as possible on the iPod just to muffle it. Other times it’s just a light patter, a small metal tinkle – it’s rather comforting, a sort of white noise.
And the birds outside, they swoop to and fro across the sky, hundreds of them, in diving glides. No doubt this is a buffet – all the solid dirt mollifies, moistening the earth and breeding a microcosm of insect life. A feast. I even saw my first scorpion. About 3in long and 3in across with large pincers. He was fortunately dead, smashed to a pancake, but still terrifying in his moribund state.
On a side note, I just found out my bestowed village surname, Mtika, means moisture. How relevant right now.
November 27, 2010 Mhalaunda
Thanksgiving in Malawi. The cooking committee roasted a 50kg pig on an open fire and then served it with all the traditional Turkey Day fixins: stuffing, mashed potatoes with gravy, green beans, mango pie (an excellent twist on a classic), etc. It was a pretty impressive spread. The dinner itself was at the Ambassador’s house. A swanky residence with 5 acres of gardens, a pool, a huge outdoor patio and seating area (fit to seat 40, seriously), tennis courts. It was marvelous.
I spent my week leading up to the event finding and repairing a dress from the bend-over-boutique, e.g. the clothes market. It takes this cutesy name from the the piles of secondhand clothes set on tarps in heaping piles. I had great luck finding a dress. I stumbled on a Sak’s Fifth Avenue dress, a 70s paisly yellow color with the appropriate pattern. It was a long dress with long sleeves; it looked like something straight out of 1976. I decided to adjust it a little. I removed the sleeves and turned the back into a racer back. I call it “Thanksgiving in the Tropics” – I got many compliments on it at Thanksgiving.
December 2, 2010 Dedza
You know you’ve been in Malawi too long when you yell “Iwe!” in your sleep.
Briana related this to me yesterday. She said she woke with a start thinking I was yelling at her. I’m sharing a room with Briana during our in-service training (IST). IST has just started back at the site of our pre-service training in Dedza. The whole health 2010 sector is in, trading information about our first three months at site.
We have sessions on community integration, grant writing, project proposals, action plans, etc. It’s a training on how to get our projects implemented. Plus, we are well fed, well watered (both alcoholic and non), and with a chance to re-Americanize ourselves with a large group of Americans.
December 3, 2010 Dedza
A response to beggars: uyo akuti nipako nipako ni munkhungu, m’sambazgi akumanya yekha.
“A donor/teacher knows when to give, all else is robbing.
A Chitimbuka idiom.
December 19, 2010 Manyamula
Transport in Malawi can be so tedious at times. Coming home Saturday, we left Mzimba so early. I’m on way back after my month long furlough with Thanksgiving, training, and site visits. And now I’m coming home, back to Mhalaunda. I was so thrilled to get an early exit from Mzimba, hopefully get home around 3pm. Much to my dismay and utter frustration, I arrived at 6pm. After a prolonged stop at the crossroads near Emazwini. Where I so desperately wanted ntochi, bananas, that I payed 20 kwacha for 3 (I was pissed). This stop is generally so the matola helpers, the fee taker, the baggage person, etc. are given there beer break. A man with a big steel drum full of home brew, he dips out a cup for each.
Then, we proceeded from Emazwini to Manyamula for what should have been a 5 minute stop for Rabson (the matola driver) to buy meat, but became a two hour affair. Turns out Rabson’s insurance papers aren’t properly in order and one of which is missing. We got wind that the police were coming through so they pulled the car behind the secondary school to wait. So I waited it out in the car reading Gone With the Wind. I mean I understand the necessity of moving the car, but still a huge pain in the ass. Well kuno ku Malawi nyengo yitali. Here in Malawi time is long.
December 20, 2010 Mhalaunda
First day back to the clinics after the training furlough. I felt a little out of my element today. I’m a bit emotional today, well angry-emotional to qualify that. I’ve just been off to a bad start today. I went running this morning with Mr. Jere, which for all intensive purposes should have cheered me up. But no. I don’t know what it is. I went to draw water afterward for my bafa and well beforehand I had stripped down to my skivvies to cool off a bit. I then wrapped my chitenje as tightly as possible atop them and went out with my big blue bucket to draw water. I filled the bucket just fine, the water felt tepid and superb, a good compliment to my sticky, humid mathupi. I hoisted the bucket atop my hair and I started back to the house. Pakatikati, halfway, my chitenje began to droop and snag on my sweaty calves. My chitenje started to fall and all that went through my head is “do you really want the village to see you in pink panties with flowers on them?” The answer was a resounding NO! And then the bucket came crashing down, splitting and expelling water like it was a geyser. Wholly embarrassed, I kicked and cursed all the way back about why I hadn’t just put on a skirt. My bafa just wasn’t as good. Then a problem with cell service. The day was just turning out all wrong.
Anyhow, so my morning put me in a big funk. So at the clinic, I was still reeling from my morning. I just felt one step back from everything, as if I was watching myself participating. I gave out the Vitamin A supplements a little devoid of emotion, putting on a fake smile when I remembered. But it was when I was doing the recording for the Supplementary Feeding Program for the malnourished children that I stepped back into my bodily experience. I noticed the child just across from me, a 4-year-old child that hasn’t quite hit 35lbs. He’s a suffered of cerebral malaria. The kind that can transform a child from a perfectly healthy child into one suffering from severe retardation within a week. The child was sickly, emaciated, a stultified shell of a kid of what was her former normal. Witnessing such a gruesome change is horrible to think about. And, as I hold the childcare passport in my hands I can trace the change, the transformation, on the growth chart. Normal, rapid growth flatlines at 18 months and this child before me is the result of seeig a child that is physically 22 months, but in years is nearly 50 months. I can’t imagine caring for such a kid, how heartbreaking. Now she needs supplementary foods, rationed once a month at these clinics. She’s just wasting away.
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