Brought the room to tears.

There has been quite a bit of confusion at work lately. Mainly, myself and Jackie are confused. Jackie is a Canadian, long term, volunteer. One of her jobs is to consult/audit Community Based Childcare Centres (CBCCs) and to assist with early childhood development strategies. She came to check out AHOSO’s CBCC. Now in my time here, I have never seen or heard of the CBCC, but I am mostly kept in the office working on OVC policy, so I wasn’t surprised. Anyway, Jackie came and the AHOSO staff were unbelievably vague and we couldn’t get to the bottom of whether or not it actually exists. When Jackie left, she insisted that within the next two weeks, I had to be taken to the CBCC to see it.

Today was the day. Having tagged along with Jackie to another CBCC visit, I felt like I had an idea of what cursory things to look for and ask about.(This includes things like observing activities and finding out- Do they have a schedule? Do they keep a log of who comes? What educational materials are there? Do they have latrines? Do they cover them and spread ash around? Do the kids get fed? Are the dishes stacked or spread out to dry? How many care givers/child/age group? Etc)

When I showed up, all 36 of the kids began crying and screaming as my presence was terrifying to them. I instil fear in all apparently! I was only there for an hour or so before walking back with John, one of the AHOSO field officers. He let me know that most kids there had never seen an azungu before. I was a little suspect of the CBCC as all the kids looked the same age and several were in uniforms.  Also, it was in a store front, not a church like they told me, nor were there 70 kids like they told Jackie. I was able to dig a little on the walk back with John...turns out it was not AHOSO’s CBCC, it was an independent nursery school. Will they take me to the real one? I still don’t know if there is a real one.

Azungu Bo?

The novelty of my complexion has less than worn off...mostly because my complexion hasn’t changed, I guess! It’s ridiculous how easily I’m spotted. Elders will greet me, while kids make a fuss. It seems that all the English kids know has to be screamed with syllables merging together, and it always sounds like a demand. They will say, How are you?  Where are you going? What’s your name? Give your money. Say any of it back to them and you will often find they don’t know what it means. Or if you don’t answer in a certain way, you get blank stares. For instance, there is no other answer to “How are you” except for “Fine. And you?”

Asking where I’m going feels invasive. Everyone asks...everyone. Part of it is understandable, as I am quite noticeably a foreigner, and locals make it their business to keep track of me, but the frequency it's asked, and when people in town are asking, it gets annoying. I’ll often answer in Chichewa to try and validate my presence, but that doesn’t change anything. They also don’t accept an answer of just going for a walk...it lacks the acceptability of purpose, such as going to work, or Thondwe, or another village.

People, mainly kids, right in Kalino, won’t demand money when I pass. As you get closer to the trading post though, ‘give your money!’ Is one of the things you hear across the fields.  I got a laugh the other day when my bicycle taxi driver yelled back at them for me “iwe, I’m not money!”

Small Talk

For the men, it is a very indicative series of questions...

What is your church?
Do you drink?
Where is your boyfriend?

For the women, my answers to their standard questions are, without fail, met with laughter and disbelief.

Do you have children?
Do you do your own washing?
Why isn’t your husband here?

(and yes I do my own washing...they seem to think azungu women can’t)

My Name...

No matter how I introduce myself, they always morph my name into Maggie. Those who don’t know my name call me Madame, sister, auntie, or Azungu.

Just another day in Zomba town.

I went to town on Saturday for some much need essentials, including the usual couple of 5litre water jugs. When I left Metro, the Costco equivalent in that you have to buy bulk, I was stopped by a medical team. They were the clinic staff from the prison. Zomba Maximum Prison that is, which is located right next to army barracks. Passing the prison, and the inmates running on the street , don’t worry they’re with heavily armed guards , is how I know when I have arrived to town.

The staff were fundraising for their clinic by taking blood pressure and weight of Metro shoppers.

Hitchhiking(last Wednesday)

In need of working from Zomba, I walked to the Kalino market to grab a bicycle taxi. The market is just up my lane and consists of 4 stands, two of which only have fish-questionable as there is no lake nearby, just the man made irrigation pond for the estate.  It’s easy enough to find a taxi there within an hour. I found one pretty quickly, but he was struggling to fix his pedals so he had called a friend to try and send another taxi my way.

But luck was heading down the road in the form of an ambulance. You don’t see many cars where I am, and although I have seen several bike ambulances in the area, I hadn’t seen a motorized one. They pulled over, and the driver, leaning across two nuns to the passenger window was a familiar face. Square is quite the character, and is one of the few people here that my sarcasm is not lost on. I met him my first week in the hills and hadn’t seen him since. I’m not sure if ambulance driver is his job or if he was just borrowing it to take his cousin to the hospital. Anyway, he told me to hop in the back and they could take me in. Curiosity clearly said it was a great idea. (Note: I have just been reading Blood, Sweat & Tea, and catching up on CBC’s White Coat, Black Art via podcast)

The back of the truck had a mattress, like the kind you would find on a camp bunk and that’s it medical wise besides the patient. It wasn’t even fastened down...the mattress, not the patient who was just curled up at the top of end of the truck bed.   In I got, on top of a massive maize bag, and speeding out of the hills we went.

The patient’s mom, Square’s Aunt, was also in the back with me, and she just kept on asking, “But why is it you were so blessed to be born in Canada and not us?” That plus being semi kidnapped (well detoured) on the way home made, for quite the commute.

Questions from Elementary School Students back home.

Thanks for the questions...I hope I answered them all!

What are you eating?

Tomatoes are the easiest thing to buy near my house, so I put them in pasta or rice. I eat things like cereal, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, potatoes, and soup. I have become pretty good at making French fries and as a treat, I will make popcorn. So far, I have avoided eating roasted mice, which are sold on the side of the road. You can also get a lot of fruit depending on where you are. The most common are mangos, bananas, strawberries, coconut, and apples.

You can get lollipops and donut like breads while waiting on the bus. Pop is cheaper than water. It costs anywhere from 40MK-100MK or between 30-70cents a bottle. They call them softies here, and you can get coke, sometimes sprite and always fanta (in orange, pineapple and exotic).

How do you cook?

Pretty well everything I eat has to be cooked. I either boil or fry all my meals, and I use a hot plate to do so. The power goes out often so I sometimes have to wait for the outage to end before I can eat. I would have to buy coal to cook outside.

How do you like Africa?

Living in rural Malawi is a lot like how you would live on a camping trip. This is a good thing, as I love camping. In fact, the only downside so far, is that because I live alone, and mostly work alone, it can get pretty quiet after a couple months of not having people around to talk too.

Why do you have to stay home after 6?

6 is when the sun goes down. Since there are no streetlights, or buildings that give off a lot of light, after 6, you cannot see anything. So for safety reasons, mainly not being able to see people or animals that are out, I have to stay inside my house.
What do you do when you are not working?

I live in the coffee fields that surround several villages. After work, I usually spend a lot of time walking around exploring the fields. At home, cooking and doing work around the house takes quite a bit of time but I’ll read, do crosswords, yoga, listen to the radio, and I had a few movies to watch on my laptop if the power hadn’t gone out but I’m all out of those for now.

On weekends I tend to do a bit of travelling like up to Lake Malawi, Liwonde National Park(where the hippo was), and the Zomba Plateau. I am also planning to go to Mt. Mulanje soon.

Have you found a way to kill the spiders?I think I finally have the spider situation under control. I don’t see as many big ones anymore. My fly swatter broke, but I find that throwing my hiking boots can get rid of them. The best way to get rid of spiders, rat, roaches and the like though, has been to keep an impeccably clean house. Dishes never stay in the sink longer than it takes to eat the meal, and nothing gets left on the floor. I also have a spray called DOOM, that’s meant to get rid of some of the crawlers. Even though I spend the night under a net, I still get some pretty strange bug bites.

How close were you to the Hippo?

When we saw this baby hippo, we were about 4 or 5 metres away in our canoe. He was sleeping on the shore until we got a little too close so he submerged back into the Shire River.

I’ve always thought hippos were interesting animals. They walk in single file on land and can snap a croc in half.

Is it hot enough to fry an egg?

I haven’t tried yet! I bet if you get up to the tarmac roads you could probably fry an egg on the hottest days I have had here.

What other animals are there?

There are all kinds of animals here. I have a family of vervet monkeys who live in the tree that leans against my house. As far as big animals go, there are hyenas, leopards, elephants, and crocs. Malawi is known for its hundreds of species of birds.  I have also seen tonnes of lizards that have either neon orange or blue tails and even some chameleons (with greyish/green stripes at the time).

What do the kids like to play?

I see the kids playing netball and football. On the weekends, there are always football games at the field near my house.

What language do the people there speak?

The main groups of people living in Malawi are called the Sena, Lomwe, Tonga, Ngoni, Tumbuka, Yao, and Chewa. To know what language they speak, simply add Chi before the name of the people. So where I live, the language is Chichewa as I am around Chewa villages. Chichewa is the national language, while English is the official (business) language. Very few people where I live speak English.

How do you do your laundry?

 I do my laundry in a bucket while sitting on the floor in my hallway. It’s all done by hand with a bar of soap. Fill the bucket up the first time to scrub everything, and then a second time to rinse, and then I wring out as much water as I can before hanging it up. I have to do it a couple times a week, not because there is a lot of stuff but because the clothesline I made that runs down the hall between two doors, can only hold so many things. Also, since the water is tinged, all my clothes have turned slightly red.

Have you made any new friends?
I have been able to meet many new people. Some are other volunteers both from Canada and around the world. The people in Kalino (the village where I live) have been incredibly welcoming, and despite the language barriers I have become friends with lots of people I see every day.

learning to horseback ride on Zomba mt.