This, my friends, is a day in Malawi…

I wrote this in my journal 5 May 2010 and thought I could not do this day justice by paraphrasing my entry.  Therefore I will transcribe it for all of you to marvel in.  Any needed additions will be indicated by [ ] Enjoy :)

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To my fellow readers, you are about to embark on how ridiculously shi**y and awesome a day can be here in Malawi.  Writing by candle light in Bwanje, Malawi, Africa, I will amaze and shock some of you!  Ok, yes, this is some for effect, but it’s getting you excited, no?!  ...sorry for the brief interruption, I had to tuck in my mosquito net...yes, really.

Woke up this morning around 5.30am not yet ready to greet the day.  But, alas, nature calls and I had to crawl off my mattress that rests on a bamboo mat and out from under my mosquito net.  The chimbudzi [toilet, aka. hole in the ground] greeted me with a familiar...nothing.  Crawled back into bed to try and catch a few more minutes of sleep when the rooster thought it was time to be awake.  Okay, okay...I’ll cheat a little and watch two episodes of my current addiction, Battlestar Galactica.

The days’ plan was to head to Balaka to withdraw money in order 1) to live and bye food, 2) to pay the 6500 kwacha owed for my bed frame in order to no longer sleep with the ants and cockroaches.  Ahhh, such simple pleasures!  Figured a good breakfast was needed for the journey.  Eggs, onions, and tomatoes was the choice.  And up until this point in my life I thought it was impossible to mess up eggs: I stand corrected.  Note to self: add tomatoes last.  No biggie though. If I’ve learned anything about food and cooking thus far it is that no matter how bad it looks, tastes, or smells...I’m still eating it!

Tummy full of mush (with the help of a few bananas [they are small here], the good ones!, and a few spoonfuls of peanut butter) newly dubbed “hitching hat” (keeps the hair in place in the back of those pickups), and a chitenje wrapped around my waist, I head off to the tarmac.  “Hey everyone!  I’m not all up for smiles and greetings!”

Temporarily (read: completely) having forgotten about my Wednesday market day, I do my best to filter past people and literally hit the road with my feet.  I’m too stubborn to pay for a minibus so I decide hitching is the way today.  I walk away from Bwanje  some 20+ minutes and am able to pick up my first hitch of the day, a semi-truck.  Better than the back of a truck, I promise mom!  Some 3 men from Kenya try to convince me that my said “husband” will find another woman and that I should just go back with them and marry the one who sat behind me.  Thanks guys, I’m sure I can match myself just fine, thank you!  Alas, however, I am in the Warm Heart of Africa, so I should appreciate the help ;)

They continued on to Blantyre but dropped me off at the Balaka turn off.  Feeling pestered and annoyed by people selling things and minibus conductors trying to get me to join their van, I find a curb to sit on in hopes to find a hitch.  While contemplating my existence in Malawi [yes, seriously...was trying to figure out why I decided to come here], an old man comes up to me with a bucket of something on his head rambling in Chichewa.  Trying to be nice, I greet him despite feeling very annoyed and quite freaked out.  He walks a little more toward me and immediately I go into defense mode, ready to kick and punch if necessary.  I guess all those kung foo movies by the kids in Chikanda [my homestay village] stuck somewhere in my brain!

A pastor from a church in Ntcheu picks me up going Balaka direction.  He tells me something to the effect of “I see my sister on the side of the road and I had to help her out.”  Hey cool, thanks, really :)  But any reason to get me away from bucket man is good for me!

Conveniently I am dropped off next to the bank, my first stop.  Mission: to take out 20,000 kwacha and feel like a rich woman until I realize its only $130.  Gosh, thanks for stealing my thunder.  But I was accomplished, and now time for the long walk to shopping.  Mind you, I’m a white kid in Africa and today was hot!  I’ve heard it’s not hot at my site but when I have sweat running down my face I develop a new definition of “hot.”  Again, completely not in the mood for the “azungu” [= white person, foreigner, anyone not Malawian] and laughter when I cant respond to what they’ve said in Chichewa but there is no choice.  Feet are the mode of transport today.

First I try the internet area, hoping for a cheap price.  I’m told 90 kwacha for a minute...reminds me of Europe but I had more money then.  I laugh, heartbroken actually, and walk away.  If any day I wished to hear from home, anything not having to do with Malawi, today would be it.  Instead I make a b-line for the closest Metro and decide a pineapple Fanta (yeah, don’t ask...I just picked “yellow” because I hadn’t had it before) and a duo package of Mixed Berry cookies will drown my sorrows.  Wrong again...still felt crummy only with a tummy full of sugar.

I return my bottle since I didn’t pay a deposit and decide to give internet one more shot.  No luck in finding a shop...ugh, really?  Ok fine, I’m done with this trip.  Last stop is to get an mboula to cook on using charcoal/wood at home.  I speak with a woman in Chichewa and try my best to explain how I will use whatever I’m asking for and she points me in the right direction.  280 kwacha later I’m the proud owner of my first cook-y thing, ha! 

Still toasty [very understated] in the hot African sun, I make my way back to the road where I hopefully catch a hitch back home…-ish.  Kids receive “zabo!” as best I can and some adults my “zikomo.”  Park myself next to this church that looks extremely out of place [it looks like it was dropped out of the sky!] and crouch down to try and hide my feet from the sun.  I forgot to sunscreen them.  A good looking couple offer a ride to the Blantyre-Balaka split and I gratefully accept.  Mostly they keep to themselves and that pleases me...just not in the mood today.

Again I pass the conductors to my customary position just past the minibus parking lot.  A semi-truck pulls over at my hitch wave and it takes me a minute to convince them to give me a ride to the Salima turn-off.  Going well until a speed trap and we are pulled over.  5000 kwacha is the penalty and the driver didn’t have money to pay.  Yet I don’t find this out until ~45 minutes later along with a marriage proposal. Seriously, you never know here...it’s unreal.

Hop out with my new purchase in hand and start at my routine again.  Wow, you’d think I was a hooker!  Aaaand, I guess I’d lie to say it doesnt sometimes feel like it, now I think about it.  Two men from some NGO pick me up but can only take me as far as the Salima turn-off.  Fine fine, one step close to home.

By now I am way out of water and dehydrated.  Welcome to Africa.  I thank my snack pack friends and assume my position, again, past the minibus arena.  Only a handful of hitches in 20+ minutes [and no one stops].  Gosh, I’m already learning patience!  Anyways, I’m contemplating giving in and doing a minibus yet my pride of “first solo day hitching” would never forgive.  It paid off, as a lovely couple and a young daughter decide the left back seat needed to be warmed by none other than my rear, more substantial than the sun.

That drive is always longer than I ever recall, yet they had me genuinely laughing which, consider my day (read last pages, if you’ve skipped...nuthead) felt wonderful.  Around turns not yet familiar, we finally reach my town.  My town.  Bwanje.  Wow, I live here!

Stopped by Mr. Zulu’s house [former counterpart working with the PCV I replaced] to have him go with me to the carpenter.  As Malawian culture sits, a guest is invited to join in food eating no matter how unexpected.  Mposa, or custard apple, was a due pleasant treat.  Yes yes, this is where the day starts looking up [around 4pm!]!  On the road after the delicious snack, I met a man who has a groundnut [peanut] sheller.  Score!  Peanut butter is on the list [of projects I would like to do here] and you are my man!

I lay my eyes on my *new* bed frame and I’m so excited.  Just varnished and with a headboard.  It’s perfect!  Who would have thought I would ever be so excited for a bed frame?!  Paid in full, 6500 kwacha, and to be delivered by evening. 

Yes yes, market...forgot you again.  But, alas, so happy you’re around today!  Picked up some fabric for curtains to be sewn, can’t wait!  Every little touch to make my house my home.  Shortly following spools of fabric I lay my eyes on a beautiful chitenje; brown with leaves and dots.  Had to have it.  450 kwacha, a nice price for a smile.  Conveniently located just past the train tracks is a sewing shop; perfectly spent 30 kwacha to have the ends finished.  While I waited, my eyes were captured by dozens upon dozens of beautiful fabric cuts hanging from the ceiling and walls.

I felt proud and happy walking home.  It was dawning on me how quickly my day was turning around.  Oh, you, Africa!  I enter my compound and greet my amayi, who is always happy to see me.  She is excited I got my mboula for under 300 kwacha, definitely not the azungu [foreigner] price, and thinks my chitenje is very beautiful.

I open the door to my house via the new locks [by yours truly ;) ] installed on Day 0 with the “Envr10” [wood] key chain presented at Eds [our PCV celebration] exactly a week ago.  [The Switzerland key chain with sparkles looks out of place, but it was given by my brother with the intention to be on the key ring to my mud hut].  I decided some Michael Buble fits my mood at the time and push play on my iPod and tiny speakers.  Not long after I see a snake, yes mom, a snake, slither along the wall into my guest room.  I press pause as my mind goes blank.  Where’s my shovel?  I don’t have one.  What can I use?  Khasu [Malawian hoe]?  Yes, but the blade is, well, a very different angle than a shovel [it is directed toward you instead of away].  Brick?  Yes, good choice.

Now, I wish I could say this snake was anaconda size to beef up my story, but no luck.  Really, it was quite small.  But in Africa, take no chances.  Assume all snakes will kill you.  A brick with a few khasu swipes did the trick, though I don’t think it was fully dead.  But golly, did I feel proud of myself, honestly!  Mom would have screamed...ok, I did too but not in the screaming death way.  Once I felt it was good and dead...ish, I took it to amayi via khasu to show here.  A man worker came out and said it was a black mamba.  I’ll have to look up photos for myself, but I’m quite sure all snakes here are “black mamba’s” ;)  This could have ruined my day yet I was so proud of my handiwork that I was beaming!

Another attempt at eggs on my new “stove”!  Rice first, and I stand partially corrected: I knew it was possible to burn rice, yet was able to salvage most tonight.  It was a delicious meal, welcomed to wash down the 1 liter of electrolyte replacement I chugged upon arriving home. I felt like a million bucks.

A quick bafa [bucket bath] to try rinsing off the dirt and sweat cemented on from the day before the arrival of my bed frame.  New!  I’m the first to sleep in it!  Mine!!  Yeah, I know my excitement written down doesn’t translate, but trust me it was there.  It makes the biggest difference in my house feeling inches more like home.  Plus I don’t have to worry about snakes and cockroaches trying to to penetrate my mosquito net.  I share this evening with myself: journal and pen in hand, dogs barking off in the distance, bats, and falling cockroaches...along with other sounds I’d rather not try to decipher at this time. 

Life truly is great here, if one can push through the shi**y feelings and come out the other side.  More stories to come, I’m sure.  Tune in next time for dinosaur slayings!  Yes, Malawi is where they all ended up.  Big foot too ;)

Mboula, where I cook every day.  Flip up the metal pieces and rest your pot on top.

The snake!  I debated putting this up, but figured ya'll might be wondering :D