Making a House a Home

In the open air of the night, a cool breeze sets the ideal temperature, stars hang over the lake, and embers smolder casting only a faint glow on the profiles of those encircling a firepit. While the scene seems hushed, the voices indicate otherwise. With raucous laughter, hasty Timbuka, a playful handshake, the members of the circle joke and tease one another. They point to the small dog digging arbitrary holes nearby. The frantic movement of paws evokes chortles all around. The group is at ease with one another, the conversation and laughter are fluid.

For Ben Siegelman, this is his nightly routine. He sits with the Simeza family: a matron head, her daughters, and one granddaughter. Ben is the lone man in the ring, yet he is no outsider.

When Ben moved to Nyungwe in September 2010, he moved to a house far different place. It was just near the trading center, amidst the bustle of a health centre, a daily market, and schools. The diesel-powered milling from the nearby chigayo was hardly ignorable white noise. The house lacked a gate and thus his every movement was privy to all those milling about. And one gent in particular took to narrating his daily routine to anyone who cared to listen. Virtually no aspect of his life was his own.

For Ben creating a home was crucial - the key to community integration. Providence stepped in. Just one week into his stay a colleague suggested a new house. It was a bit of a walk from the health centre, in the heart of the village. Within a month, he was relocated to the Simeza compound, the family and the family atmosphere more than made up for the distance. Sure, there was plenty of work to be done on the house. To live there, a kitchen and bafa had to be constructed, furniture built, and bars installed in the windows, but the Simeza family was eager for Ben to move in. They built the necessary structures with such haste that Ben remarks he’s never seen a project in Malawi completed in so timely a fashion.

Early on, the air about the house was noticeably different to the one previous. It felt like home. Ben credits the ease of his move to his new family. “It was their graceful handling of a bizarre situation that has made the house the sanctuary it is,” Ben notes. For Ben, the Simeza family are more than landlords, here they are his family. They are a group of women who have taken in Ben as their own; their adopted son and man of the house. Ben fills a void for the women - a void left by the death of the matron’s only son a few years ago. Eerily, the son’s name was Ben.

Nearly every day, the family comes over to assist Ben in his garden, helping him plant pumpkin, tomatoes, and the American breeds of tomatillos and peppers. They show him the technique for preparing kondowole, cassava nsima. In his time spent away from site, they watch and feed his dogs. By great fortune did they find one another. To their credit, Ben enjoys his house, his home, and his community. They have eased his community integration and created a home from a mere house.