2nd and 3rd Week of November

            Last week a few of my friends met up here at Africa House on their way to Lilongwe. It was the 50^th anniversary of Peace Corps and we were invited to the ambassador’s residence for a to-do. They stayed the night and then in the morning we embarked on our journey south. After only an hour of walking we secured rides in the back of a pick-up that was already carrying volunteers. Though it was not going the full distance it was fast, travelling maybe 100kph, the bed was fairly roomy, the wind, loud as it was, was a relief from the heat, and we had been assured the driver was not taking part in his friend’s gin flask.

            We stopped in a small town and each of us bought a cold Coke, a special treat as few of our villages have electricity. We set off again feeling something like a Peace Corps poster as we leaned our our giant packs and drank our Cokes from glass bottles with the sweeping plains of Africa as our backdrop. No sooner had we toasted our good fortune then we heard a loud pop and watched as the back tire ripped away from the rim.

They must have been telling the truth about the driver because he manages to keep the truck relatively straight despite the bucking created by the lost tire. We sailed to a stop just as the last piece of rubber jumped ship leaving the completely naked rim perched precariously yet undamaged on the tarmac.

           

            The last couple weeks I have been loving life, loving Africa, loving Peace Corps. I realized with surprise and delight that despite the many challenges I face here I am the happiest I have ever been. Teaching, which I had been so dreading is lowly getting better. Though the Form Ones talk incessantly and the Form Threes recently stopped me in my lesson to say, “We don’t get you. The way you teach, we don’t get it. Just give us notes like in Chichewa Literature, the words are too hard,” I am plodding along pochoko, pochoko. The Form Threes are now learning to find the subject and verb in difficult and wordy sentences. The Form Ones are beginning to understand the I mean business, and meaning business, does not, as the Form Threes guessed, mean prostitution. My debate club is really taking off. They have improved wildly since our first preposterous attempt. Although that one was proclaimed “much better then the last try!” Over the last few weeks the chair members themselves have suggested nearly every improvement I had in mind. They want logic to prevail and have asked me to help make that happen. They want more relevant topics, preferably, “from the books to encourage students to read and study.” They want enforced participation from each student. I have never been so impressed and proud—I hardly even had to hint at these improvements. My spinach, carrots, and cantaloupe are all growing splendidly and have exceeded all of my expectations, most importantly of all not boring me to death after a week as I feared they would. My house is clean and quaint; nestled on the edge of my plateau village which affords me some semblance of privacy as well as a view that stretches for miles across the rolling plains and just so happens to hold the sunset in dead center. My language is improving slowly, my charcoal skills are sharp.

            I spent a week or two basking in the approval of my community, the affection of my Peace Corps friends, the love of my family and friends back home. “Ah,” I thought, “this is just what I wanted.” But then Mother Malawi, as the national anthem calls her, got wind of my unchecked self-satisfaction and decided to show me what’s up Africa style.

            One of my neighbors stole 23 of my 30 cantaloupe plants, transplanting them to het side of the garden. A man I have been looking forward to working with to find work for the disabled attempted to corner me into helping with an extravagant church building project, and then spoke to me for an hour about how they should get foreign aid even if they are able to do the work themselves. No mention was made of the disabled who are sorely in need of help. One of my best friends in the village fell horribly ill, in danger of death, and no one told me until he was well.  I returned from Lilongwe to find the Form Threes laughing, shouting, and running around the classroom. Half of them walked out when they saw me. The remaining few admitted they had done none of the work I left and they had all failed to bring their notebooks to school that day. Friday, in true Malawian fashion, abandoned me for a family that cooks nsima. I broke my computer charger. Half my spinach died. Finally, last night as I was reduced to tears over my charcoal which refuses to light now that the rains have come I admitted defeat, “Ok Mother Malawi, I get it. I don’t know anything.”

           

            When the tire blew on the truck we all hopped out immediately, trying to keep weight off the rim. I pulled out my pack and started strapping it back on wondering how far we would have to walk before another vehicle stopped.

            “What are you doing?” one of my friends asked.

            “Yea, where are you going?” another seconded.

            “Don’t we need to try hitching again?” I asked blankly.

            “Girl! You don’t travel in Africa without a spare tire!” an older volunteer exclaimed.

            I looked around. No one else had even touched their bag. The not-drunk driver was pulling out tools and began lowering a tire that was suspended beneath the bed of the truck.

            Africa has a certain charming way of knocking you on your ass when things seem to be going great—that delicious meal you spent four hours preparing keeps you up vomiting all night, your good luck in finding a ride right away turns out to be bad lack as you realize the driver is drunk as are the other passengers who are all insisting you need an African boyfriend, the student you think is doing well labels an adjective a verb and writes “no idea” on the test section that instructs her to write a sentence using a vocabulary word. Moments like these are frustrating indeed but you take a moment to assess the situation and do what you can—whether that is telling a drunk driver to let you out, helping a seventeen-year old write a sentence, or just curling up on your bed until your body stops hating you.

            Here in the land of fire the problems are numerous and the struggle constant but most of us volunteers are fairly happy. I’m not a hundred percent sure why that is but in these moments of distress we remind ourselves why we came, think of how we have improved or just trust that we will be back on the road again soon.

Snapshots:

            --My head teacher asking me what my village in America is. When I explain I come from a big city called Seattle he asks if we have a chief.

            --One night as I am preparing my dinner I hear a knock on my door. I open it to find my deputy head’s wife with a bowl of flour on her head, “I came to learn pancakes,” she said.

            --Coming home from school the next day I find the frying pan, spatula, fork, and baking powder I loaned her on my dish rack. They are accompanied by cornbreadesque pancakes.

            --Feeling brave, I don trousers in my village where women do not wear trousers. Along with many shocked expressions, head shakes, and giggles, the trousers also bring Form One girls to my house to stare at them. “You look very nice and very beautiful,” one girls says, “I smired because of trousers.”

            *smired = smiled

First Week of October

Well friends, Luviri Community Day Secondary School put me in charge of the Debate Club and today we had our first debate. We met on Tuesday briefly to discuss formalities. We elected a chairman and treasurer, etc. I thought it best to leave strategy and general how-to’s until after we had our first debate, so I could see what they already knew about building an argument. For our first topic I wanted to stay light and easy so I told them to start brainstorming for a debate over whether boys or girls were better. As what I thought was a creative twist I told them boys would have to defend girls and vice versa. We were scheduled to meet after classes but today three of our seven teachers could not make it to school so in an attempt to alleviate the short-staffing issue I suggested we reserve the end of the day for a school-wide debate. The other teachers were enthusiastic so for the last two periods we called together the whole school. To discuss which gender was better.

            “In respect to teachers and fellow students,” the first volunteer, a male, began, “it is better to be a girl because girls can move about freely and keep company with boys.” I laughed with everyone else but looked to the other English teacher who was there hoping he would assist me in explaining the need for logic and facts in a debate. He laughed and clapped his hands, “Very good!” he called, “Girls? Who will crush the point?” Aha.

Next a boy argued that it is better to be a girl because they have the option to wear either trousers or skirts and boys could only wear trousers. I was happy to hear this point not only because I thought it would be easy for the girls to counter, but also because I have been trying to build up the nerve to wear trousers in my village. A girl quickly raised her hand, “I crush the point because women that wear trousers are prostitutes.” Oh.

            Soon we had the inevitable boy suggesting that it is better to be a girl because they look nice with breasts and boys do not. I looked to the other teacher to see if he would step in at this somewhat inappropriate comment. But instead of telling the students to remain professional he was laughing as hard as they. I laughed as well and attempted to curb the lewdness of the comment by repeating his argument as girls being more attractive; I suppose that’s at least relevant.

When shortly thereafter another boy suggested that it was better to be a girl because they had wide hips which they could swing and then began to demonstrate I marched over to the other teacher to discuss with him how to keep the dialogue modest but he thought I needed a translation and so before I could say a word he repeated the point and then imitated the demonstration to a lesser degree. I didn’t know how to address the students’ level of appropriateness after that so I merely suggested that the point of attraction had already been covered. He agreed and we moved on to the next point. I had high hopes now that attractiveness was off the table-- now we could have more comments about inheritance, employment, dowry, expectations, gender roles.

            But my hopes were crushed more sufficiently than the points when a boy stood up and said it is better to be a girl because they have monthly periods. The other teacher who was trying to keep his interference to a minimum stood up. ‘Finally,’ I thought, ‘at least there are some boundaries.’ This is, after all, a culture that does not even allude to bathrooms (in training the bathroom was marked as Room 27—Malawians value discretion). “And what,” he said, “is one benefit of that?” Ok, yea, let’s ask for more details. I waited for the boys to defend their argument but a girl had already stood, prepared to fight. ‘Good,’ I thought, ‘she will certainly put him in his place!’

“I crush the point,” she started, “because boys have wet dreams.”

“Point crushed!” exclaimed the other teacher, “Well done.”

Huh, well I don’t really know where you go from there, except to the debate’s riotous conclusion which ended in a tie when a student made the last minute point that it was better to be a girl because, “girls wear blas.” And no one could dispute that.

            I know I often try to make some sort of connection about what I am learning or whatever, and I could say something about how I’ll get the debate club to argue efficiently, “pochoko, pochoko,” but really, some things, like this debate, don’t need a point.

Snapshots:

--A man in a tee-shirt reading “Party Like a Porn Star” in sparkly letters

--A man in business slacks, collared shirt, and tie, wearing a white lab coat as his jacket    

--A male youth, late teens or early twenties, wearing a pink plush princess hat. Not a crown but that tall kind similar to a witch’s hat with a long streaming ribbon coming from the top

--Friday, wanting more milk, somehow finding her way to the school and trotting into the staffroom

--My first African thunderstorm—it combined the attributes of the first good post-summer rain in Washington where the air takes on the tinny smell of dirt, with the Southern summer storm where you can see the clouds roll in, the thunder is deafening, and the rain is a fantastic downpour

--I constantly struggle to understand my students’ accents. This week I asked for an example sentence using a proper noun. I asked the volunteer to repeat himself twice and finally repeated back to him, “Columbians are here?” Everyone laughed; he was saying his own name, “Tobias is here.”

--The biggest spider I have ever seen that did not live in a cage crept under the roof onto my bedroom wall this week. It literally took half a can of bug spray to kill.

Fourth Week of September

The thing about Luviri is that although it can frustrate me to no end, it can also always cheer me up. Like someone that knows how to push your buttons but is impossible to stay mad at. Some days I’ll get myself all worked up because while breaking up reeds to start my morning fire I break into a nest of earwigs. Then maybe I’ll go to school and find myself unable to explain prepositions to the Form Ones; whether because of the language barrier or my ineptitude or both is impossible to say. I’ll be on my way to teach Literature to Form Three and realize there are only two books remaining of the original seven because students have “picked them” so I’ll have to teach over thirty students with two books. Coming home I might be exasperated, wanting nothing more than to hide in my room and read a book, just me and Friday. Then out of nowhere a swarm of children will descend upon my house, “Rebak! Raba! Labek! Odi? Odi!” When I go to the door they will shout for my bao board, or a ball, or paper, or Friday, or sweeties. If I give them Friday or bao they will start out nicely but will shortly be yelling, fighting over bao, or running screaming from Friday only to come back to do it again. The children who are not occupied with bao or the cat will stand in my doorway and at the window peering in, pointing at things, watching me read or write, asking for paper and sweets. Just then perhaps a student will arrive carrying a phone that someone has sent them to have me charge with my battery. At this point it would not be uncommon for a three or four inch spider to dart out from behind the door.

            But then maybe my friend Edward will come over and ask me to go to the garden. There my spinach has sprouted and Edward has spread manure over my small plot. I’ll spend an hour or two barefoot in the dirt helping Edward carry water, first to my plants, and then to his cabbages. As we walk back I might see a fellow teacher who will greet me and say I must be becoming an expert at gardening. If the children see me walking home they will return to my porch, noisier even than before. But another teacher will see them, and break from teaching open school (an afternoon school for adults that never finished high school) to come to my house and lecture them for ten minutes on being respectful to “the madam.” The penitent children will then quietly gather around me as I read them a story, occasionally supplying the words in Chitumbuka and correcting my pronunciation. Then they might invite me to play ball with them. Possibly I need water and as I am walking home with it hear a student laughingly call my name so she can take the bucket from my head and carry it the rest of the way for me.

            Sometimes I get frustrated or annoyed with the circumstances. But more often than not I am just in a state of increasing frazzlement. Though my nerves may be frayed there is rarely a reason to be truly angry or upset with anyone. The kids are annoying, but I think it’s a rule that children have to be irritating. Everything else is just a cultural difference and being as I came to experience another culture it seems a little counter-productive to get mad at my neighbors for coming to visit me, even if I am napping.

Third Week of September

It is almost mean how big the spiders are here. How big and how numerous. I am living in one of the most notoriously spider-infested homes of Peace Corps Malawi. Though Haakon’s sister and I convinced him to kill some of the more obvious spiders. And when I moved in I swept the many exoskeletons off the walls, and removed almost every item in the living room and kitchen to clean behind and under everything, they just keep showing up. Just when I think I’ve seen the biggest of them an even bigger one runs across the wall. Or pokes its legs out of my favorite box of tea. Like just now as I was sitting in my bed propped up on some pillows I glimpsed a tell-tale scurry out of the corner of my eye. A spider considerably larger than my palm had crept out from BEHIND MY PILLOWS. Though I was able to get in a few good sprays of Doom the poisoned scoundrel escaped under the shelves next to my bed and I have resigned myself to yet another night of spider plagued dreams. Three months of living in Malawi telling myself it is ridiculous to be scared of spiders and I still stop breathing every time I see one, sometimes frightened even to the point of nausea or dizziness. 

            My arachnophobia is so great it ranked with ‘missing family and friends’ in reasons not to join the Peace Corps. I once slept on a couch for a week to avoid a spider in my room. In Kindergarten a spider crawled out of my tennis shoe onto my hand, so I checked my shoes every single day until high school and still do sometimes. One of my earliest memories is a nightmare where I was Goldilocks and had to choose between staying in the Three Bears’ house with a spider and going outside where the forest was on fire. Occasionally some shoddy arachnophobe attempts to compete with me, swapping anecdotes as evidence of our fear. These challenges inevitable end in the other party suggesting a change of subject because I have obviously started to sweat and red blotches are cropping up on my neck. What I’m saying here is, I’m pretty scared of spiders.

            Yet here I am, just living away in this African spider den. And though writing the above paragraphs has given me cottonmouth, I can now sleep peacefully in a house I know is filled with spiders (Well as peacefully as you can sleep with leaves and fruits falling on your tin roof and birds nesting above your head). I know there is one

living behind the map in my sitting room, one is behind the picture next to my table. I know they come in the windows at night and under the roof during the day. I still believe arachnids are the physical manifestation of evil on earth, but I also believe in balance. Some spiders are good of course—they do at least eat other bugs. And killing every spider in Africa is a slowly failing strategy so it stands to reason that I will somehow have to learn to adopt the fiends into my perception of reality instead of trying to make reality fit my perception. Living in harmony with spiders I don’t think I could have ever achieved. I think mainly because absolute necessity is the only force strong enough to face this fear. It turns out that absolute necessity can make you do almost anything you don’t want to do. So, pochoko, pochoko, pochoko, pochoko, pochoko. You know what they say—Grant me the serenity to accept the spiders I cannot kill, the courage to kill the ones I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

September 14th

Today is Wednesday, market day. The market travels up and down the road stopping in a different village each day of the week. Farmers and other vendors know the schedule and they bring their wares to those markets that are closest or otherwise convenient for them. They whole village comes out for the weekly kabwandire. The women who are not there selling their tomatoes and onions come to stock up on rice, beans or soap, the young girls browse the chitenjes and piles of clothes in what Peace Corps has coined the “Bend-Over Boutiques” (well I assume it was Peace Corps, maybe not), and everyone else just comes for the excitement and maybe some hot chips. Not every village has a kabwandire, there is generally one for a certain distance so people from other villages walk to the nearest one, so it is also a reunion of sorts. You spend as much time greeting neighbors as you do shopping. I like market day because of the bustle of people when I visit in the morning and then the quiet afternoons away from the crowd.

But today just as I was preparing to enjoy my calm midday hours I heard a voice outside my house. It was not the usual “Odi?” of a student or neighbor stopping by to greet me, but a mumble. I went outside and found a man wearing dirty and ragged clothes leaning against the short walls that enclose my porch. He had a piece of rope he was twisting in his hands and stared at the ground. I greeted him in Chitumbuka and he responded and then was silent. We stood for a moment in silence until he said something else in Chitumbuka. I didn’t recognize any of the words so I explained to him that I knew very little Tumbuka. He smiled and laughed slightly then didn’t say anything else. It is common that someone will want to talk to me but we lack the words.  I usually just wait for them to give up and leave. However as the minutes dragged on with neither of us saying anything except for him occasionally muttering something I could not understand I began to feel awkward. I started to make the small noises you make when you are uncomfortable and have nothing to say—a small “um,” a quiet “eh.” I noticed that he copied these sounds which I found strange and was relieved when he said “tiwonenenge” (see you later). I said the same and went inside.

I had barely walked to the end of the room before I realized that he had followed me in and was now standing against the wall just inside the door. I was alarmed. Malawians do not enter houses without an invitation, especially a man in a woman’s home. In Tumbuka I said “I’m sorry, but please leave now.” He smiled but did not answer. I said it again and this time he laughed and repeated the words back to me “I’m sorry but please leave now.” Now I was a little frightened and said more firmly, “Leave. Now.” He started to look around the room. I continued to tell him to leave, now raising my voice slightly, pointing at the door, and glaring at him. He ignored me completely. He saw a glass of water on the table, picked it up, and drank it. I kept telling him to leave while he looked around the room, occasionally making eye contact with me and then laughing. I was trying to decide if I should leave him in the house and go to the neighbor for help, if I should threaten him with something, or just wait to see what he would do next. I picked up my phone to call my deputy head teacher, who was at school, only fifty yards from me. The man picked up Friday’s water bowl and drank the water filled with ants and dirt. I reached a recording telling me the phone I was trying to reach was out of service. I called the math teacher—out of service. The man looked at a picture of my younger sister and me and laughed. He was still twisting the rope in his hands.

Finally, just as I was deciding I should risk leaving him in the house and go to the neighbor’s, he turned and walked out. I grabbed my keys, locked the house and went to the school. I told the first teacher I saw what had happened and he got up from his desk immediately. We went outside and found my deputy head among some students. The first teacher told him what had happened and he started to walk toward my house without hesitation. Even the students were staring and moving toward my house. Before we had walked even five yards my deputy head pointed at a man sitting on my neighbor’s porch and said “Is that the man?” He looked relieved. It was the man and they explained to me without delay that “He is not ok, in his mind.”

            They explained that everyone knew him. He is insane and lives with his family in a nearby village. They probably came for the market and he wandered. They told me a story of how he once ambled into my head teacher’s house and laid down on the bed. When they asked him what he was doing he answered that is was his house.

Now he was just sitting on my head teacher and neighbor’s front bench. The teacher forced him up and onto the path. Male students came from the school with large sticks. “They are trying to scare him,” the teacher said as the stick-brandishing students chased him away. “They are saying they will whip him. But they will not whip him, do not worry.”

I was never in danger. The teachers assured me that he is never violent, just gets away and into trouble sometimes. If anything, I should feel reassured of my safety because of the lightening fast response and the evidence of how close the community is—able to identify even the unhinged wanderers from other villages. Yet despite this encouraging end to a somewhat frightening encounter, I felt unsettled. In the minutes facing the man I did not know his intentions, his strength, or his past. Though he never approached me or threatened me, and I was actually taller than he, during the minutes in my house I felt I faced a very distinct possibility of a dramatic life change. Such a sensation, I’m sure is common enough; a moment when we realize that we have no control over events that are already in motion. Like you have auditioned for a play and are waiting for the results—which role will I play.

It was the same in the moments before my big car accident. I remember as I was hydroplaning and after several seconds I lost all control of the car and was hurtling toward the oncoming traffic, I thought ‘You are going to be in a bad accident,’ and then I just closed my eyes and waited. The same once in high school when I still lived in Washington. I used to walk to school and my sophomore year I took chemistry as a ‘0’ period, meaning a class before school, so in the mornings when I walked it was still dark. There had been reportings of a man kidnapping or attempting to kidnap high school girls on the news so every morning I walked with a fear of coming across this man. One morning a man jogging came up behind me and I did not see him until he was beside me, running. I was so frightened I stopped completely in my tracks and when I saw Taylor at school she could not understand why I was almost crying at a jogger coming up behind me. But in each of these instances there was a moment when I thought something terrible was about to happen.

Logically, in these times, when I realize I am safe, the event should end. You are not cast in the role you desire and keep wondering, “what if?” But I think it is not the possibility of sinister events that keeps a jogger from eight years ago sharp in my mind. It is the reminder that our lives as they are can change drastically at any given time—vulnerability we are all aware of but forget, like the sensory whatsit that allows to stop feeling the socks on our feet.

Lately I have been thinking about the way we constantly change and grow as people. There are, occasionally, milestones that change us dramatically and almost instantly, but even in the absence of such happenings we are constantly moving away from one identity and growing into another. It is easy to leave an identity behind and assume another without even noticing. From time to time I like to sit down I recall where I was, what I was doing, and how I perceived myself a year before. Then a year before that. And a year before that, etc. I’m always so surprised at how differently I see myself now, in what a different place I am than I had anticipated, and at the means through which I have changed. Moments like the strange man following me into my house remind me to evaluate myself, not only to take stock of what I appreciate in my life and what I should change, but also because I don’t want to miss anything. When I was in early high school I started taking note of times when I was very happy. Usually it was something simple—all of my friends gathered together on a Friday night at Christine’s house, some of us gossiping about who was interested in whom while others played pool, the girls over for a slumber party, the boys going home to rest up before the Saturday afternoon football game. After I moved to Tennessee I was so grateful that I had thought to appreciate and archive such times that I made it a habit, collecting distinct memories of each apartment I have lived in, snow days, mornings spent with coffee and piles of books.

It is cliché, I know, to say that we should appreciate each day or tell the people we love that we love them because you might get hit by a bus. And that, like most clichés, is fairly true, but what I mean is something more constant. Don’t appreciate your days because they might end, but savor them because they will, and are, changing already. Even if it is just “pochoko, pochoko.”

Snapshots:

            --While still in homestay: my Host Mother, who I suspect was an insomniac, would occasionally listen to ringtones on her phone late into the night. Sharing a wall, I had to turn off my headphones as they were drowned out by the constant repetition of various melodical beepings.

            --Pets in Malawi are not friends, they are lower class citizens allowed in our presence. As such, the children have very little interaction with them except to shoo them away. Inspired by my friendliness toward Friday the children view her with curiosity. When the kitten approaches the children they run away, screaming.

            --One evening, cutting vegetables in my kitchen, I am surprised by loud noises coming from the next room. I walk into the living room to find two three year-old girls, the daughters of my head and deputy head teacher, on their hands and knees in my doorway growling, roaring, and barking at Friday. I laugh so hard the children are frightened and go home.

            --Hitching to town this morning I get a ride in a very old, battered car. I have to pull on some metal wires to open the door, beer bottles roll around at my feet. Police stop the car two kilometers from my destination. The driver gets out, they open my door for me to get out. Before I even have time to panic the officers greet and then pile into the vehicle--they were hitching too. 

1st Week of September

Back when I was just a wee young thing I had very specific ideas for my future. I wanted to grow up to be something of a mix between Audrey Hepburn in Sabrina and Mrs. Cosby of The Cosby Show. First, I would attend a prestigious law school and pass the bar. Then I would sweep off to Paris to study in a high caliber cooking school. I would return head-to-toe fabulous, ready to take on any man, lawsuit, or soufflé. After a brief spell of being envied and admired for my flattering haircut, stylish clothes, and Harvard degree, I would marry a Bill Cosby (he was much funnier than Humphrey Bogart) and cook him gourmet meals when I wasn’t busy winning impossibly difficult cases.

            Instead, I’m living in Africa, and today I played netball (it’s like basketball but with a smaller hoop, no backboard, no net and a ball that doesn’t bounce—we had to use a soccer ball) barefoot in the dirt with my bosses wives and their children. Then I came home, soaked my feet, read some Dickens, and ate gummy bears dipped in Nutella while I listened to classic country. I’m not sure where that puts me on the Sabrina-Huxtable Spectrum but I’m sure not bothered by it. I don’t think it’s so much that I didn’t achieve my goals as I adjusted them. Adjusting what I want is one of the greatest things I’m learning here in Malawi. Like everything it is “pochoko, pochoko” but it is a worthy lesson. For example, no, I am not learning to cook? bake? torch? the perfect crème brulee during my time abroad as Sabrina did, but I can make a mean bean burger from scratch now, and if you want some fireside banana pancakes, I’m your girl. And though Rusty would be horrified to see what has become of the layered bob he gave me, the ladies here think I have movie star hair. And though I’m not learning to defend cases in court, I am learning Chitumbuka, which, no, is not a widely spoken language like Mandarin that I can use in the business world. But it is precisely because of its rarity that the Northern Malawians are so delighted when they hear me speak it. All it takes is a “Muli uli?” and they at least know I’m trying. Also, I think they feel honored to hear their language spoken by a Westerner, it validates the vernacular. Like saying, I understand and appreciate that you are learning English, but your language is also legit.

            Well, that was a tangent. What I mean is, rarely, if ever, do I set out for something specific and get it. But if I work backward from a specific goal and find its root, that is usually achievable. For instance, at the root of this desire for a law degree is simply a desire for education. Behind the compulsion to be admired is a need for self-confidence. Hiding in my longing for lattes is my craving for sweets, caffeine, and a slight pampered feeling— the cure for that one is tea, mundazi, and reading time. People are a little more difficult to substitute; I can’t just use brown sugar instead of molasses when I want to talk to Jenn, but there is always company to be had and I don’t like my peeps replaceable anyway. 

Some more snapshots:

--A billboard reading: “Vasectomy—For Men Who Love Their Spouses”

            -that one is going right up there with my favorite billboard, it’s somewhere near Crossville, TN and advertises a vasectomy reversal. Really? On a billboard? How bad a job did the original doctor do that you are willing to call up a doctor that advertises for vasectomy reversals on a billboard? It must be a code for drugs.

--After finally admitting to myself that I’m afraid to go in my indoor kitchen after dark I decide to clean it. I arm myself with a broom, bug spray, and a stick. Before I even begin the cleaning I remove two enormous mortar and pestles, two hoes, two machetes, and an axe.

-- Playing netball with the Luviri women and children includes, but is not limited to:

-two women with toddlers tied to their backs with chitenjes (one toddler gets hit on the head with the soccer ball, the game is not paused)

-a small boy farting at the moment he shoots a basket (the game is paused)

-a boy who is simultaneously playing netball and herding goats (he disappears occasionally when they wander too far)

--Wanting a cat, I go to a house in the village to buy a kitten. After I have paid and received the kitten I am invited to eat some nsima. While eating a child brings in a small feed sack. An old man wearing a messenger cap featuring Ché Guavera’s face and name puts my cat, Friday (as in “my man Friday” from Robinson Crueso), in the bag and says “Leave it in there all night. This is an African black cat. It’s different from the English.”

--All the women of Luviri doing impressions of me because I am a crazy person that pets animals.

--While at homestay I play Michael Jackson for my family. The boys, aged seventeen to six, bounce and dance to “Smooth Criminal,” the little one even brushing off his shoulders. All, of course, to candlelight.

--I am now acquainted with a McFrancis, McFrance for short, a Scholastica, and a Fexter.

End of August

Good morning again! It’s ten thirty and a particularly chilly morning for Malawi. It’s windy and drizzly. Rain is rare outside of the rainy season but it reminds me of home so I am relishing it by putting off the painting I was intending to do in favor of some jazz and a cup of the India tea Gelby sent and the Rum & Raisin chocolate Haakon forgot when he moved out (thanks, and thanks).  I’ve been thinking a lot about my first day of school at good ole Beech. It’s a story I know I have told a disgusting number of times but I think it’s a good one so I think I will tell it now and then try to relate it to Malawi. Ok? ok.

My beautiful sisters and I grew up in that charming region of Washington state just north of Seattle where the population is both infused with an affinity for hiking mountains, swimming rivers, and scouring garage sales as well as the culture of a city preoccupied by books, coffee, and brunch. Seattlites called us redneck and although we did have some less sophisticated tendencies like rehabilitating injured turtles in the bathtub or caroling in trailer parks for the elderly, we were also close enough to the city to enjoy the occasional symphony or play and once we were old enough to take the bus Saturdays in the city were frequent. Also, thanks to a trust fund left by my great-grandmother the Dixon girls were also spared those lowly public schools and I spent ten years in well-respected Catholic schools. So, when during the summer following my sophomore year Papa Dixon announced that we would be moving to Goodlettsville, Tennessee and attending a local public school my shocked friends attempted to prepare me for the worst. Some of my friends had especial expertise having experienced public school –shudder-

“Oh gosh Becca, you’ll have to stop praying before you eat.”

“Oh yea, or at least stop crossing yourself, I can’t believe you actually still do that anyway.”

“Definitely, and you’ll also have to start swearing.”

“Hmm, you might want to start practicing now, it sounds really weird when you say swear words.”

“Yea, and you’re going to have to change the way you dress, no more of these tee-shirts with the cartoon characters on them.”

“Oh Becca, they’re going to eat you alive.”

With these encouraging words buzzing in my ears I set off for Tennessee and began my career at Beech High School expecting a special breed of cowboy hoodlums. I was shocked the first day by the sheer size of the school (around 300 per grade) and its extreme level of filth (people actually smoked in the bathrooms). I found myself jostled around in the crowd as I looked for the first class on my schedule. Due to an administrational mistake my schedule had teachers’ names but no classroom numbers so my map of the school was useless. Fortunately an older student noticed my disorientation and asked if she could help. Bowled over by the friendliness and evidence of “southern hospitality” I explained my predicament. She whisked the schedule out of my hand,

“Mrs. Word first. Oh she’s great, you’ll love her. She is so nice. Come on I’ll show you. My name’s Stacy. What did you say your name was? Oh, Rebecca? I have a friend named Rebecca. She’s the best, you’d love her, she’s so nice. Where do you go to church?”

I had noticed that she was carrying a bible with her, stacked neatly on top of her binder. I had assumed it was for some sort of summer reading. While I doubted Beech  offered Theology as Archbishop Murphy High School had, I thought perhaps it was for a literature class, or maybe sociology.

“Um, well, you see I just moved here on Thursday so I haven’t been to Church yet,” I was still very religious and embarrassed that I had missed mass the day before, but also afraid of giving the wrong impression that I was too religious as my friends had warned me against. Religion at my other school had been considered very private so I thought maybe she was asking because she wanted to know where exactly I lived. In the Catholic school systems of Seattle proper you might ask where someone goes to church because unlike the school, which you chose, churches were divided by district so you went to the nearest one.

“Oh. Well I go to Long Hollow Baptist. It’s just right down the road and I love it. You should come see it sometime, I’m sure you’d love it too. It’s really a great church, the people are all so nice and everyone would love to see you there.”

Presently we arrived at Mrs. Word’s room for Anatomy and Physiology.

“Rebecca!” Stacy greeted another girl who was already in the classroom. “I was just talking about you, this is Rebecca too! She just moved here. How are you, girl?”

“I’m great,” Rebecca answered. “And guess what.”

“What?”

“This morning, I witnessed to,” dramatic pause, “thaareee people!”

“Oh. My. Gosh. That is incredible. Way to go Rebecca.”

And then there was a high five.

“Thanks girl. It was amazing, I wasn’t nervous at all. I just went right up to them and I said, ‘Have you heard about our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ?’”

“Wow, you are so brave. Way to go.”

Thankfully they were excited enough they had stopped paying attention to me because if they had looked they would have seen me gaping at them in astonishment, waiting for the cowboy thugs to jump out from behind desks and bookshelves and say ‘Gotcha!’ But that never happened. Not then, not when a teacher invited me to bible study, not when friends expressed their concern that I would find myself eternally damned, not ever. And the thing was that although I was overwhelmed, confused, and often offended they were unfailingly sincere. They just wanted to share what, in their minds, was the best they had to offer.

It took me a long time, too long to accept Tennessee. I still cringe when I reflect on my poor attitude. I viewed Seattle as a golden wonderland and Tennessee as a miserable exile I had done nothing to deserve. It’s a gleaming reflection, really, on the many people that were still willing to be friends with me despite my ungracious demeanor. In a way I was doing the exact same thing I complained they were doing to me—insisting that my point of view was correct, instead of accepting that it was just my point of view—but I was doing so without any of the generosity that was behind the many attempts to “show me the way.”

By the end of my years in Tennessee I felt almost as at home there as in Seattle. When, without knowing my circumstances, Lindsey Smith called me a little Southern lady, my surrounding friends smiled into their beers knowing I would give her a snappy response, and indeed I forced a smile and answered that, “I was not from the South.” Unphased, she shrugged, said “Well you are now,” and took another sip of her beer. Everyone laughed, and I did too because by then I was, and I finally realized that’s it was not an insult, but actually an honor to be claimed.

Once again I am faced with a culture that it would be easy to dismiss as somehow inferior to my own. Yes, it is labor-intensive to start a fire and grind beans with a mortar and pestle if I want coffee, and sadly vegetables do not stay fresh as long without refrigeration, and true it can be frustrating to have little to no idea when you will be able to get transport, and maddening that vendors will always try to charge you more because they assume white people are rich. But that just makes it all the more moving when a woman with five kids cooks for you, when children wait with you at the bus stage for the two hours it takes to get a bus, when a neighbor searches the village for competitive prices on your behalf because they are just as bothered as you that you would be overcharged.

Like in Tennessee, I know I will reach a certain level of exasperation living in a new culture. It is certainly difficult to affix a sunny disposition when the neighborhood children start calling your name outside your window at six am (my name which they pronounce Lebek) but they are just children and want to welcome me to the neighborhood. And use my bao board. And when my new friend Judith comes over and says, “Let’s go to the garden,” then drags me off to weed and till her onions for three hours it’s ok to think wistfully of afternoons in Seattle where Taylor would say “Let’s go to the movies,” but it’s crucial I remember an invitation to the garden is just as friendly as an invite to the movies and though not as…obviously fun, it is certainly a worthwhile cultural experience, and also horticulturally educational.

4th Week of August

At nine ten this morning, having finished my breakfast, I sat down to write a small ‘to-do’ list. Somewhere between “draw water” and “chat” it struck me yet again how odd it is to be here. When I first arrived in country I was amazed and delighted how Africa looked just as it was portrayed on TV—the mud huts with their thatch roofs looked just as I had imagined and the barefoot children running after the Peace Corps vehicles seemed almost kitsch. It was like when you read a highly descriptive book and are apprehensive about seeing the film version but find yourself pleasantly surprised at its accuracy.

            “Well now that was much better than I expected. To tell you the truth I was afraid it would ruin the book.”

            “I know just what you mean, when you asked me to come along I must admit I almost said no. But did you see how elaborate the costumes were? All those brightly colored chitenjes the women wore as skirts? Beautifully done.”

            “Oh yes, I agree. And the variety of items they carried on their heads? I was so impressed by their expansion beyond the stereotypical. I mean, they could have just had them carry water like it was the ‘Jungle Book’ or something, but to add firewood and folded blankets and even those women that just put something small up there like a book, as if it were habit, really creative.

           From there I continued to follow the Peace Corps outlined emotion-waves as I slowly adjusted to the culture. After what our text book described as Initial Enthusiasm (The Honeymoon) I experienced Initial Country & Culture Shock. One day I found myself crouched on a small wooden stool beside the fire in my host family’s outdoor kitchen. Thanks very much to the smoke billowing in my face, my burning eyes were streaming tears and my nose was running uncontrollably. As I fumbled to find the tissue I have grown accustomed to carrying on my person at all times I realized that I was furious with myself. Just weeks before I was spending my mornings lounging in a soft and warm bed, my afternoons were filled with hand-crafted lattes, lush yet manicured parks, and a world of beautifully penned novels. My great tragedy was the evening hours which I spent serving martinis, wine, and steak to the too-wealthy. Fortunately even in that hardship I was surrounded by intelligent, interesting English speakers and I was well compensated. I don’t know what kind of profound stupidity I must have been suffering from to think it was a good idea to leave such comfort and opportunity to go live off in the bush without running water or electricity, enormous spiders everywhere I looked, and a harsh lack of bookstores.

I struggled for a time with the frustration that I had brought these trying circumstances on myself because I was foolish enough to think I wouldn’t mind any sort of physical deprivation for the sake of loftier goals like self-improvement and foreign aid. I couldn’t stop thinking about all that I had left behind in the U.S. and the frequently stated “but you are giving up so much” kept drifting back to me with disheartening clarity. I had dismissed such proclamations while I was still home enjoying my friends, family, and top-shelf cocktails, but during Initial Country & Culture Shock they haunted me. After all, your early twenties only come around once and I had decided to spend two invaluable years of mine in a country where I cannot even expose my knees with any decency. I had wanted to eat local organic foods, to bike, walk, and hike everywhere. I wanted to help people that needed and wanted me to help. I wanted to gain patience and perspective, to apply all the skills of human understanding I had acquired in my English major to concrete situations. Instead I was eating margarine and white bread for breakfast, and nsima (a sun-bleached, twice-milled, nutrition-less corn flour cooked with water into something similar in consistency to Gak or silly putty) and boiled greens for every other meal. I was learning that women often gain a whole lot of carb-weight here, that with the language barrier intellectual conversations are nearly impossible, that most of my students won’t graduate high school anyway, and that there is more than a slight possibility you will have enough alone time to make you a little cray-cray.  

Now from such a murky depth you might ask, but how, Rebecca, did you climb back out? And the answer is the same as my constant response to my neighbors when their Chitumbuka careens out of my supposed Intermediate High level—“Nkhusambira pochoko, pochoko.” I am learning little by little. I am so fortunate to have been apart of what must be the best training class Peace Corps has ever seen; sixteen people who from day one let down their defenses and made the conscious decision to be a support group for each other. Our trainers constantly amazed us not only with their diligence but their investment in our well-being, two of them even going so far as to play Sardines (a reversed version of hide-and-seek) with us Chitumbuka speakers during our language intensive week. And the Malawians themselves have surpassed their reputation as the “warm heart of Africa.” I have never seen a community so willing to embrace an outsider and so immediately helpful. If I want a paintbrush, I mention it and the next day someone will show up with one to loan me. If I can’t find cell phone units at the trading center, I mention it and someone will show up to inform me when some have arrived. If my deputy head’s wife comes over and my fire is not started yet she will start it and also sweep my courtyard and cook me breakfast.

There may not be the variety of foods here I am accustomed to, but at least my cabbage is fresh and my chicken almost too free range. Maybe there is no running water, but the children are more then happy to carry it for me when I don’t want to if I give them a piece of candy. And yes, my conversations are less complex but learning a new language and allowing myself to look ridiculous in attempts to communicate have value of their own. So little by little I am learning to live here. I realize I was a bit idyllic in my motives for coming, and probably also inspired by vanity but I think I will achieve at least a version of all my goals while I am here. If I remember correctly, one of my goals was to change my perspective and priorities and that has been the hardest one but it’s coming along. I’m learning that I am not here for a special African diet or workout plan and maybe the point is not so much to look a certain way as it is to be as healthy as you can manage. Maybe the point is not to be the benevolent educated white person with all the answers but just to be the white person that’s trying. And maybe the point is not to understand everyone’s perspective but to see that it is different and that, as they say here, is “just ok.” I’m not going to change the world and I’m not going to be transformed into Super Woman just because I lived in Africa for two years. But little by little Malawi will change me and I, in turn, will change small things. I already taught my deputy head teacher (vice principal) that one doesn’t have to beat a kitten repeatedly on the head when it annoys you but that a little water on the face is an even stronger deterrent and a little more humane (that one was for you Juniper). And I have already learned that although spiders can and will cause nightmares, I have now met a poisonous one and learned that a phobia is a kind of indulgence and there is no room for it when there are practical things to be feared. But this concept, like everything else, I am learning pochoko, pochoko (I still bug spray the hell out of the big ones).  

In addition to my own silly reflections I would like to include some snapshots into my life here as I know that some of you are curious about the differences between life in America and life in Malawi.

--Sitting around a fire with a woman named Judith and her many children. She has asked me to pound peanuts into flour so I can “learn.” As I sweat over the hefty mortar and pestle I wonder when it will be acceptable for me to take a break. Just then Judith motions for me to stop. Then she holds up a barbequed mouse, fur, head, and tail still intact, breaks off a piece and hands it to me. Yum.

--Having decided to paint myself an accent wall I borrow a paintbrush from a neighbor. The bristles are less than an inch long and the wall is probably 12ft at its height. I stand on the table and paint while the little girls of the village lay on the floor coloring pictures for me. We listen to the “Sound of Music” soundtrack.

--While still in training and living with my host family they decide I can come to the “garden”: walking back from the fields at dusk, a basket of maize on my head, a truck with a bed full of people passes slowly. Every passenger giving me a wide-eyed double take as they realize it is a white girl under the basket.
            --First day at my new home my head teacher approaches me with a chicken in each hand and I am asks, “Which shall we kill?”

--Me killing the chicken in my backyard with a kitchen knife

--Hitchhiking to town for supplies I secure a ride in the back of an armored car

An Introduction

Pochoko, pochoko

Well hello you all. I know that some of you asked that I would write while I’m here so I will suppose I’ll try that out and see how it goes. If nothing else, at least you can check up on me if you so desire. Because my nearest internet connection is an hour bus or hitchhike away updates will probably be sporadic at best so I ask for your patience. Also, I’ll probably post multiple entries at one time as I’ll just write them as I bumble along and then post them all when I have internet. Anyway, I miss you all more than I can say and I think about you all the time.

XOXO,

                                                                          Becca