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