Malawi miscentry

there are certain things to which i have become accustomed, which will no doubt be of interest to those who have not visited Malawi (or Africa in general):

the women of Africa do indeed carry everything on their heads. the most curious items i’ve seen balanced on a woman’s head to date are:
- an unopened umbrella (balanced horizontally, that is)
- a tea pot (the song comes to mind: “i’m a little tea pot short and stout ...”)
- a purse strap, the purse hanging behind the head (it's the new fashion, ladies!)
more usual items include buckets of water or fruit, bunches of firewood, and sacks of grain.

speaking of women, it quickly becomes apparent to any visitor that they do most of the work here. women are in charge of taking care of the children (in fact, it’s seldom that you’ll see a fertile-aged woman without a child strapped to her back), fetching the water, collecting the firewood, washing (and making) the clothes, cleaning the hut, and on and on. their busyness is so marked that you almost never see a woman sitting still unless she is behind a food stand. the men on the other hand? well, they ... hmmm .... stand around with other men, sit around with other men, drink beer, eat sugar cane ... what else .... annoy tourists with their pleas for money?! in all fairness, being a man here is no doubt frustrating; they are in charge of ‘providing for the household’, and with unemployment so high it seems they are pathetically reduced to the above activities.

the worst job in Malawi: making gravel. driving in to town you see dozens of men sitting on the side of the road beside a pile of rocks. they sit there all day banging larger rocks together to make smaller rocks. their payment: 35 cents per bucket of gravel! one hopes that they manage to produce multiple buckets in a day.

the main form of transportation here is the ‘mini-bus’. these are mini-van-sized vehicles astoundedly packed with four or five rows of seats. a mini-bus never leaves for it’s destination until it is completely full ... ‘completely full’ means at least four people stuffed into each row, with the conductor either sitting on someone’s lap or precariously hanging out the window. my record for ‘most crammed mini-bus’: 27 people, with their belongings! typical belongings include live chickens (“excuse me ma’am, but your chicken is pecking at my foot”), boxes of day-old chicks (cute, until you realize that they are a delicacy), and sacks of grain.

have you noticed the references to ‘sacks of grain’? the main food staple here is called nsima. it’s made of corn flour and water, has the consistency of five-day-old instant mashed potatoes, and tastes like ... paper? the locals eat it almost exclusively, sometimes with ‘relish’ (fried, chopped plant leaves) for vitamins and beans for protein. fish is for rich people (tiny, dried fish which smell terrible), chicken is for very rich people, and beef is for foreigners (there is no pork here, likely due to the considerable muslim and seventh-day adventist populations.) another delicacy: mice, roasted over an open fire (most of the hair is singed off ... and everything except the tail is consumed!)

having told Jesman (my cook) that i’m not a fan of nsima or tiny-smelly-fish, my typical meal consists of rice, beans, and ‘relish’ ... as a result, i’ve taken to carrying a bottle of spicy sauce with me everywhere! still, i can’t complain; Jesman makes me special treats every now and again including pasta, pizza, and chips. if there’s a visitor he will even make muffins or cake. these are such a rarity here, however, that they have not yet invented different flavours of cake! as such, i quietly joke with my friends when we see that we have ‘muffin-flavoured muffins’ or ‘cake-flavoured cake’ for dessert.

and lastly: names! i am terrible at remembering peoples’ last names here as they all sound the same to me. for example, i work with misters Kuyenda, Chiwanda, and Katumbi. some have African first names, but many have taken on highly proper British names such as Evans, Wales, and Pius ... speaking broken English with a guy named Wales is almost as funny as hearing a French guy rap! hehe. some others have taken on rather humorous English names like Friday and Happy (more about Happy, later)

oh, and one more thing: i remarked to Andréa last month that “Malawi is like [my cousin] Chris. time does not work here!” at present i am waiting for a friend who agreed to come by my place at 10am ... it’s already past 11:30. i’ve also learned that “tomorrow” actually just means “not today”, and one of the doctors mused that she was once called in for an “emergency” only to have the patient saunter in four hours later!

my Malawian friend just arrived and i tried to explain to him that for Westerners, 10am means 10am, not 12pm, or “whenever you get around to it.” .... i did not mention Chris. ;)