8 June 2010

Culture Matters:

1. I was speaking with my neighbor's husband, who has just recently returned to the village from work in Nkhata Bay. A group of women came up the path and he jumped in my house asking to be hidden from them. I was confused, but as he cowered behind my wall he explained the culture behind it. A man is not allowed to be seen by his mother in-law (or her sisters as aunt's are actually mothers as well). The same goes for his wife as she would have to hide if her father in-law were to be walking up the path. If they are ever to meet then it must be from about 5 meters away and he must bow to show respect. It is explained that this way of doing things came about because there was a fear that the new husband would then proceed to steal the mother of his wife to take for himself. I can't say how common this practice would ever have been, but regardless it is still followed without question.
2. I was chatting at the secondary school with some of my students and saw some children nearby holding a long white string. Suddenly a bird took off only to be pulled back at it had unfortunately found itself tied to the end of said string. They seemed to be walking the poor creature like a dog (although I don't believe any dog in Malawi has ever known a leash) which was in my eyes cruel behavior to do to a wild animal. So, I made the children hand me the string and I proceeded to untie it from the leg of the bird. I still have no idea how they managed to catch it, but it must have been some work as they got very upset when they saw me let it go. It flew away to a nearby acacia tree, and the children slumbered off to find something else to occupy their time with. A teacher then said I should not have taken away their toy, and I explained that they could be just as entertained by some sticks and that it was not kind to do such things with God's creatures. Don't think any of the Malawians understood a bit of my reasoning.
3. Lunch with a friend is expected to be just that, time spent chatting and cooking together. Here, however, it is more of a respectful welcoming for the guest to have nothing to do with the process of food preparation, or even to be bothered with chatting with the cook during it. A staff member of the Health Center, and one of my only close girl friends in the village, asked me to lunch one Sunday afternoon. I accepted but had no idea what I was getting myself into. For the first two hours I chatted with her brothers and drank tea. Then, I decided to try and have conversation with her, but the smoke in the kitchen kept me from getting too close, and she refused to let me help with any of the vegetable chopping. She merely gave me ground nuts and welcomed me back into the sitting room to listen to the radio. Finally when lunch was ready she brought me in my food, I waited and she never returned, so I went outside to find her and her family eating outside. I questioned if she would join me, she agreed but never did. So I ate alone and left having had little to no conversation in the four hours that I was there with the person I came to see. This wasn't rude, but rather her showing me respect, all the while I thought we were on equal ground.
4. If you want something here, ask for it. Anything that someone sees and believes that they have a right to have, they simply ask the owner to give it to them. I have been asked for just about everything, or at least I thought. The other day I had a women look over my fence while I was gardening and ask me to give her my tomato plants. This would require uprooting them and usually as they are at an advanced age they would not survive the transplant to her garden. I apologized saying that I could not give them to her, but if she saved seeds from her own tomatoes (as I had) then she could easily plant her own. People want to be handed the fruits of my labor, when there is nothing stopping them from doing just as I have.
5. Before I left Lilongwe last week I was invited to a Women's Entrepreneurs Banquet with the Honorable's wife (aKhazi). I, the only 'mzungu', spent my evening eating and dancing with the women of high society (including the first lady of Malawi- Mrs. Bingu Muthalika). Here I was not the local celebrity but just another person, and it was great to be an equal again. They had sirloin, soup, steamed vegetables, and coffee cake for dessert. It was like a banquet at Ramada, where I was employed for a brief time in high school, only the guests wore second hand ball gowns and traditional attire. This is how women in the west get to spend their evenings, and apparently is also how the women of upper class in Malawi are also passing theirs.

14 June 2010- fun with Dan and Mark

I spent the last week traveling with two visitors to Temwa (Mark and Dan). They came to see what was happening on the ground here, and to collect interviews/ data to take back to the UK. It was not only great to have some northern culture to talk to, but we also got to see a lot of projects and areas which I have not seen yet. We traveled by road, foot, and boat which was exhausting; but eye opening. I can't believe how far people have to travel… and I thought I lived in the middle of nowhere.

Anyhow, a highlight and surreal experience was our mobile video show. We took a television, generator, and sound system to a beach in Ruarwe for the local people to see an AIDS educational video (which Temwa recently made in partnership with another organization in Southern Malawi). In a place with no road, we showed about 400 people a movie under a million stars. It was impossible to grasp the situation or to even completely believe that it was happening, and it was empowering to hear them discuss the film as it progressed. Technology can be destructive, but here it was showing girls how to keep themselves safe and fight AIDS in the village.

I know that Mark will go home changed by the experience, as he has never been here before, and Dan will continue to keep up the fight from Bristol. These are the kind of people that the world needs more of, and their tour is one that everyone should go on. We never really understand the world until we see it with out own eyes. I regret that for most of you, my blog is the only look you'll ever have into the world of people here. You will never fully understand it all, heck I don't even know if I do. So, keep an open mind, step into a culture unlike the one you know, and give back where you can.

PS. Our last night we watched the World Cup in a small bar in the village. England versus America… we cheered for our countries and I got thrown out of my bench at one point as standing fans tipped the scale, but it ended with 1-1 and no one able to leave the victor. Even in the middle of an African village people from different places can gather and cheer for sports making the world a bit smaller (but in the village you miss part of the second half when the generator goes out).

15 June 2010

I was engulfed in one of my malarial dreams where I relocate my body to somewhere else in the world. Not that that I don't like where I am, but most anywhere else is more interesting than my current location. In a haze I answered my phone, "why are you sleeping?" It is a funny question to ask a person who is living in a place where an absence of electricity leaves few options after dark. So, I gave a reasonable answer and was then told to promptly wake up. It seemed that my entertainment was wanted outside my little brick house.

My neighbor and a fellow employee at the local NGO were outside 'three sheets to the wind'. It seems that they had just drove in from the city and to pass the two hours of s***ty roads they decided to drink. The exact number is still up for debate, but regardless, it was more than I have seen either of them taking. At that moment I really missed college and the guys who used to wake us to bandage battle wounds or provide a late night snack. In the name of those guys (the Danielley crew) I welcomed them in for music and water.

They finished the brandy, searched my computer for acceptable tunes, and started to finally show signs of getting tired around 11 pm. I agreed to help escort one home, while fighting with the other about the ludicrous idea of traveling back to the city to pick his wife. In the end I lost the battle, but everyone made it home safely and I chalked the event up as one more weird moment in Malawi.

June 18, 2010 Walk the Walk

The life of an African is consumed mostly by walking. When they're children they walk to school, 10 maybe 15 km daily. As adults they carry goods to market, they pace to the health center, to collect water, to bathe in the lake, to collect wood from the hills, to take care of their gardens… Most of this walking is done barefoot, or in re-warn out shoes from the states of Europe. Everything is used until the last thread goes, and even then it can be stitched up to last just a bit longer.

A couple of days ago I accompanied a couple of health center staff to an under five outreach clinic in a little village called Banda. We started off from my place at 6am and did not reach Banda till 10:30. The last bit was all uphill and even for my conditioned friends it was a struggle at times. One woman, Juliet, had to stop a couple of times just to sew her shoe back together with pieces of twine which we'd collect from huts we passed. It was exhausting, and while I was just a guest I kept thinking the whole time how this was a trip required once a month; and to be one of the residents from this area meant the same journey only while sick or pregnant.

At the Community Based Child Care center where the women were gathered we sang songs about family planning and vaccinated so many mothers and babies that we actually ran out of everything we carried. 20 women received TTV, while well over 100 babies were weighed and got BCG, DPT, Vitamin A, and Polio vaccines. It was great to see health care reaching so far, but the cost to get out there was absolute exhaustion.

I returned home that night around 6pm as coming down the hill was a bit faster. Along the way we bought oranges and groundnuts from women in the villages we passed. Some children showed us a lemon tree so we stopped to throw rocks and knock some down to be had in tea the following day. People greeted us who we had passed in the morning and questioned us on how the journey went. We even stopped a couple of times just to chat with family members or friends of my traveling partners. 4.5 hours later my legs were sore and my head throbbing from dehydration, but I am glad to have had the experience. This is the life of the Malawian people, villages without roads are the norm and ones own legs are usually the only transport. I don't know how they do it?!?!