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.