Inspired for Life and Africa

There are not many books or movies that come along that stop me in my tracks to make me feel truly inspired.  The last time that happened was when I watched Into the Wild where I followed Christopher McCandless selfishly, (to some) and bravely (to others) venture out to experience what his soul desired.  As a result I wrote a transcript that was shortly later into a song that expressed my understanding of the souls burning desire for adventure.

I remember watching the movie The Power of One in Mrs. Muller’s Social Justice class in my second to last year of high school.  It was the first time I remember being taken aback by the sites of the South African landscape along with soul moving African music.  It was then I had decided I would travel to Africa someday.  

I became wrapped up in the movie.  It was all I could think about.  Africa was all I could think about.  I made a bracelet like the one Peekay receives from his mother in the movie.  I eventually located the soundtrack as well as the DVD for the movie, unable to pull myself from wanting to experience this world I viewed as being magical.  I even named a parakeet my mother gave me Peekay after my beloved character in the movie.  Okay, fine, maybe I was a bit consumed.

I’d never read the book in high school, although my mother had it at one point where I countered and exclaimed “The movie is awesome!!”  As per one of my brothers, it was always easier to watch the movie instead of reading the book ;)  It wasn’t until coming to Malawi that I found the book at the Peace Corps office and I was immediately ecstatic. 

I sometimes find that a combination of the book and the movie creates close to a masterpiece: precisely said in this case.  The movie brought to life the African music so well illustrated in the book.  The book went in to great detail of Peekay’s emotion and the corresponding events that shaped him into becoming a man.  It described his process, his way of thinking, the hardships he had to endure to get there.

Had I realized the book held so much inspiration for me I surely would have read it years ago.  Although it may not have meant as much as it does to me now, as I feel most things come when the time is right.  As Peekay travels through life he discovers to power of one in all that he does and finds ways to beat the odds in almost every circumstance.  Instead of finding the strength in others, he looks in to himself to find the power to go on.  And even some things that occur by as something small shortly turns into a great accomplishment

Instead of recalling the entire movie and book, my suggestion is to simply read it for yourself.  If you’re not inspired to change at least one part of your life or even your outlook on life then my suggestion is to read it again ;)

I listened to the soundtrack for weeks on end, and secretly admired the bracelet I had made.  I sensed Africa, even though I’d never reveled in her beauty.  I hadn’t read the book at that point: I didn’t need to.  All that I needed at that time was what I had already seen: a boy grows up with the odds against him which in turn give him the fuel he needs to become a strong, self confident individual.  Such stories are those in which drive us all to step beyond our comforts and make a positive impact on our communities and those around us.

Beloved nsima

As of today I have been at my site, Bwanje, for exactly 3 months.  5 months ago yesterday I arrived in Malawi.  Before coming I did as much reading as I could about what sorts of things Malawians eat.  Not that food was a selling or breaking point into coming to Malawi, but curiosity got the best of me.  “Nsima” was something I could not grasp a concept of, let alone figure out how to pronounce.  But the first week I was in country I had my first taste of it.  Simply put, it doesn’t have much taste and fills you up pretty darn quick.  Do you remember your mom ever making Cream of Wheat?  Well, that’s what it looks like, but it doesn’t taste quite as delicious sprinkled (read: dumped) with sugar on Sunday mornings with everyone still in their pajamas.

I’ll give some background of nsima  It is the #1 staple food in Malawi (and many neighboring countries from what I understand) made from corn.  The process is extremely extraneous, consisting of pulling dried corn kernels off the cob (you should have seen Justine’s blisters after a half an hour!  That’s some tough stuff!), pounded, sifted, washed, pounded again, sifted again, taken to the maize mill, until it is an acceptable ufa (flour).  No machines for most of this process!  As if the preparation isn’t hard enough, Amayi’s, as well as children, have perfected the art of making nsima from the ufa.  It truly is a challenge to make a good, smooth nsima considering once you put the flour in the boiling pot of water all it wants to do is clump together...at least that’s what happens to me.  

I am asked all the time if I make nsima...and then I’m asked if I eat it.  Well, I’ve made it a few times, yes, and it was acceptable to eat by my standards.  However my neighbor said I had some work to do…  I make Peter an usipa (fish) and nsima porridge to eat...does that count as making nsima?  If one can make a good pot of nsima then Malawians say that she will make a good wife.  Hum...

Something many people will say is “If you haven’t eaten nsima then you haven’t eaten!”  Well, according to Malawians, it looks like there have been days that have gone by where I haven’t eaten in that case.  When invited to meals I can only eat about one patty of nsima (average is about the size of your hand extended), and if I’m really hungry I might get 1.5 or 2.  Simply put, nsima fills up your belly so, truly, you feel like you’ve just eaten a feast!  I can’t handle that much!

All this came to light when I went to one of my counterparts houses before a meeting with the mushroom club that the PCV before me established.  I arrived at his home and was welcomed and offered a chair to sit on while I waited.  Shortly I was told “bwerani” (“you should come”) by one of his sons.  I’m always cautious when following men into or through a house, as it is assumed that if a man and woman are in the same room even for a very brief time then some hanky panky must have occurred.  But all was well, as I was led to the back veranda to join for nsima.

I accompanied two older men and my counterpart which at first felt awkward.  Men and women in Malawi eat separately, even if they are in same room.  I don’t usually notice it until it clicks in my brain that the genders aren’t interacting.  Anyways, I felt a little uncomfortable at first, but then realized I was only felt that way because of how the Malawian culture expects it to be.  So I thought maybe I’d get closer to the table to make them uncomfortable...hehe.  It’s fun sometimes to see if you can push someone out of their comfort zone :)

I was asked, “Mumadya nyama nya umbudzi?” (literally: You habitually continuously eat skin of goat?”).  “Inde!” (“yes!”).  Bodza (“false/lie”)!!  I don’t really care for goat to be honest.  However, having been taught proper manners by my parents, I will not refuse food when it is offered by a host.  Most definitely didn’t want to offend anyone.  And really, goat is pretty good if it’s cooked well, which has only happened for me twice since I’ve been here.  Er, as of today 3 times.

Of course nsima was on the menu along with the meat and ndiwo (side dish/relish) of greens with groundnut (peanut) flour.  We all wash up with water being poured from a battered teapot over our hands and collecting in a crisp metal bowl.  Then the containers are opened with our goodies inside and passed around.  To my surprise, knowing Malawian culture, I was served first.  Woohoo, best pick of the meat :p

I wait until the other men start, remembering my American manners that are not easily forgotten.  Not knowing enough Chichewa for conversation, I do my best to sort of stare off into the back yard which is filled with piles upon piles of wood, a humongous palm tree, 3 dogs tied up, an old beat up truck and one that still sparkles (hardly anyone in the village has a vehicle, let alone a bike).  

Do you remember when you were a child and you would try to sneak peeks at things without trying to look obvious, since mom always said it was rude to stare?  Yeah, that was me...trying to observe how these men were rolling their nsima.  Yet kids here in Malawi stare at me all the time...does that mean I’ve earned it to stare back?

May sound funny, but I swear there is an art to it.  You dish up a patty the size of your hand or bigger, pull pieces of it off (which often times is straight from the pot and feels as if I am handling molten lava), and roll it in your palm to create some sort of thing that looks like a sushi roll before it is sliced.  To that, you are supposed to “stick” things to it, like a chunk of ndiwo and maybe some meat.  That whole “sticking” thing is where I’m lost.  I end up sort of piling it on the end of my deformed nsima-sushi-hand-roll-thing and trying my best to make it in my mouth in one felled swoop.  The meat I’ve given up on trying to “cut” with my fingers so depending on the company I’m in I’ll put the whole piece in my mouth and chew until it’s broken down.  You always know which plate is mine, as it will have little pieces of nsima in the sauce since I just cant seem to grasp the rolling technique.

No matter how much I try to roll it like a Malawian, it never ever turns out the same.  But I really do enjoy nsima.  Even though it doesn’t have much flavor, I will never pass up a good plate of nsima and nyemba (beans, my favorite!) or other delicious ndiwo my neighbor cooks (cabbage with tomato, tomato with groundnut flour, eggplant, and more).  Also, it’s a bonus because when I eat nsima it fills me for the entire day so I don’t have to cook!  Win win :)

I managed to get through lunch just fine and come out the other end with a full tummy.  I didn’t seem to offend any of the men with my ill-practiced nsima rolling techniques either, which is a bonus.  Instead of doing sudoku puzzles (my latest addiction) maybe I should be practicing my nsima techniques so I don’t embarrass myself at my next big event.  Fortunately, for this reason, there was no nsima at the State House when I met the President of Malawi, but that’s a story for another day.

Today was the first time that I realized I was subconsciously mixing my American cultural etiquette with that of Malawian culture.  However, a large part of this experience is learning and understanding another way of life.  But there are times there is no room for American ways of doing things, even though it has all become second nature and it’s nearly impossible to to weed it out.  For example, food here is eaten with your hands (ha, mom!!).  Growing up I was taught to put down my silverware after I had taken a bite.  Well...what are you supposed to do with your hand (i.e. utensil) sticky with nsima, when you’re chewing a big hunk of meat?  Yeah, Peace Corps never briefed us on that one.  Neither did mom ;)

My home cooked nsima with scrambled mzira (eggs) 

and ndiwo (tomatoes, onions, and spices)

Scorpions, lizards, and rats, oh my! Oh, and spiders too.

In my two months prior to departing for Malawi, I read every Peace Corps blog I could get my hands on.  Living in Germany at this time, I woud often read snippets to my mom as we listened to CNN on the TV at her apartment, or enjoyed warming up our toes in a hotel in Brugges, Belgium.  Regardless of the environment, they always made for good stories and insight into what I would soon be experiencing myself.

The one I remember the most concerned a gal and the creatures in her house.  She seemed to boast about the 12 bugs she had killed in the last week, while standing on top of a chair using a stick she strictly designated for killing unwanted visitors.  It left both of us laughing, close to being unable to read it in continuous breaths.  I have remembered her story the entire time I’ve been in Malawi and I wondered When would be my time to be standing on a chair taking numerous swipes at a scorpion?

I’ll let you all know that I used to be horrified of spiders.  Remember the movie “Arachnophobia”?  Yep, that was my nightmare.  It’s only been since I’ve been forced to live in the same house as them that I’ve learned to coexist on neutral grounds.  Maybe it’s because I can’t see them all the time, unless they proudly spin a web right in the middle of my water filtering system.  Maybe it’s because I have 3 cans of DOOM (yes, it really is the end of them) ready and willing to spray when the time comes.  Or maybe it’s because I have lizards living on my walls and I know they are on my side.  But such things are during the day, so what happens when the lights go out?

There are too many to tell you stories of them all, but I’ll give an overview: I have found one scorpion, a three legged lizard, heard numerous mice, as well as countless cockroaches.  

The scorpion was horrifying but simultaneously quite awesome.  I will say, though, things through the narrow light of a headlamp makes everything to seem like it’s come out of a horror film.  Anyways, I’d never seen one before in real life!  To make it more interesting I had never seen one like it.  It wasn’t your typical huge bubble tail swathing at whatever enemy it detected.  It was a black one, flat body, with huge front pinchers.  I had a quick flashback to someone saying “The ones with the big pinchers are the worst.”  Of course horror strikes me and I think of what is closest to grab to kill it.  

I discovered quite quickly that that flip-flops are one of the best bug smashing machines.  #1 reason to always have them on!  Chacos, I will tell you, are not the best killing machine.  They have a type of waffle pattern on the bottom, thus when you think you’ve conquered your bug he may be slipping away through the cracks!  I’ll tell you, I had a mess to clean up in the morning after that one…but at least I didn’t have to worry about him becoming my new bed buddy.

Next one was the three legged lizard.  Initially I was freaked out of this guy.  Some sort of mutation?  It wasn’t as if his leg had been bitten off, it was as if it decided it didn’t want to be an arm anymore and was shriveling up, fingers and all.  It was another creature that, once I got past my freak out, I couldn't help but sit and stare in fascination.  It looked like he’d gone blind in his right eye, the same side as the I-don’t-want-to-do-it-anymore leg, indicated by it being completely black.  Yes yes, ladies and gentlemen, I’m a veterinarian now!

In the coming days I kept an eye on him and he didn’t move very far.  That’s just the destiny for some creatures out here.  You don’t eat, you die.  Eventually I think he gave in as I found ants beginning to chew their way through his tough skin.  Having a heart and putting him out of his misery, I became fascinated in the following days watching the ants take over his body.  Yes, this obsession lasted through my first month at site, where I would sit and watch ants go to town, returning a dead bug or creature to the earth once again.  I never had a chance to see the “finished product.”  I think the rooster got him.

Ahhh, the mice.  Now when you all think of mice I’m sure you think of little fuzzy creatures in a lab spinning on wheels while men in white coats stare on.  Well, the ones here are not as small.  In fact, they look like they’ve been given steroid shots, easily being able to fill the size of your palm.  I’ve never been freaked out of mice or rats, so the shock factor never hit me.  Rather, this was a time I wish I had a stick, shovel, or anything designated for killing mice.  If only I could catch them.

For weeks I would hear them at night, bustling through papers, plastics, and eating my precious bananas and tomatoes.  Little buggers…  Honestly, I wouldn’t mind them much in my house if they just hung out and, say, had a beer.  But they like to do their business at night, with little regard to who actually lives in the house.  I bought traps (those were a joke for the size of the mice here!), set out poison (sorry!), all in hopes of getting rid of these irritating creatures.  My patience had run out, I’ll tell you that much.

The first mouse I found actually “caught” himself.  I have these large red buckets in my guest room that are intended to be used for hand washing, with a spout on the bottom.  Anyways, for nights I could hear one of them in plastic bags, I just didn’t know where exactly.  As I did some detective work I found him at the bottom of the bucket.  I pulled out my belongings (I would have killed him right then and there if he’d chewed through my beloved hiking boots...but he was off the hook...for now).  He jumped wildly, trying to get out, scared of his wits I’m sure.  Then he thought he could squeeze his way through the tiny hole at the bottom, and that's when I lost it!  All I could do was take the bucket out front on the porch and continue to laugh.  “Serves you right!” I told him, has he tried frantically to squeeze his head through the tiny hole at the bottom where a spout would eventually go.  

After I’d had my laugh, I transfered him to a smaller bucket and stuck a lid on it.  I strapped it to my bike and rode up the road a ways and let him go in a field.  I’m still too much of an animal lover to kill a mouse right infront of me.  #1 down.  #2 ate the poison (I’m sorry!) and fortunately crawled its way out from under the frankenstein red couch (when I still had it).  #3 (by this time I had Peter, and didn't want to use poison) I found in the guest room room and in desperation threw a brick at it, finding it two days later dead in my back room behind my laundry buckets.  #4 I saw sneak out under a gap in the back door.  Done.  The next day I nailed plastic stripping near the gap and I think it’s done the trick.  Those buggers are too fast for a large stick, anyways.

Cockroaches are, well, cocky, I’d say.  They could care less who lives where they want to roam, they’re still going to do their thing.  I imagine cartoons of them looking at me with one eye, a cigar hanging from their mouth and saying to me “Whaaat’s ya praaablem?!” Lets just say I’ve shown them who’s boss and they don’t come around much anymore.  But I can still hear them hitting the floor at night when they fall from the rafters, knowing I’ll have at least one to sweep up in the morning.

A special note to everyone out there:  Dont go spider hunting at night with a headlamp.  I tell you, they look bigger, scarier, and look to have multiplied by the hundreds.  I learned my lesson pretty quick, and resorted to crawling under my mosquito net, hoping it would do its work protecting me from the spiders I was sure were coming my way.

So, at any rate, I don’t have a stick designated for killing creatures in my house, and have yet to stand on a chair practicing my aim. Instead I resort to whatever pair of shoes I’m wearing, except for Chacos of course.  I’ve been known to take a flip flop off and go spider hunting, successful most of the time.  DOOM will pick up where I left off at times as well.  I suppose after a while all my live-in buddies are not so bad...when I can’t see them.  I’m hoping to find another snake in my house so I can freak my mother out again. :) Maybe Peter will be the savior in the story.

Scorpion #1.  Waiting and ready for #2...

Poor guy...

Trust me, you wouldn't have been able to contain yourself either!

The view from inside of the bucket :)

Seeing beyond the village

I have grown to appreciate the village life for its simplicity.  It is not concerned with what kind of car you own or what name brand clothes you wear.  The village takes pleasure in person to person relationships, cooking nsima, in simply existing and living every day.  I value this simplicity in a way that I did not while living in the midwest during college, which now is seemingly floating somewhere in the middle between city and village life.

My fondness for the village has grown over these past four and a half months since I arrived.  However, I cannot hide the fact that I take great pleasure in trips to the capital city.  Yes, I am excited to taste cheese again, to wear trousers, to take a warm shower and feel sparkling clean, to chat fluently in English with my fellow volunteers, to enjoy a cold beer and watch TV.  Simple pleasures of where I’ve come from have now have turned into delightful luxuries.

I have my bags packed as lightly as possible, foretelling that I will bring it back full of goodies received in packages along with rice, lentils, peanut butter, and any other food stuffs I see fit to last me through the month.  When a driver - not looking for money but rather the simple company of 2-hour friend - pulls over at my hitching wave, I gladly oblige and thank him  profusely and settle in for the drive.  We ask about each other: he usually explains the work he is doing and where he lives, whereas I explain my volunteer service and what I hope to achieve in my two years.  I genuinely enjoy this conversation, knowing I will learn at least one thing new from each person I meet on my road of life.

But I have a secret.  My favorite part of going to the city is the drive.  It’s mystifying watching the landscape of Malawi change so rapidly.  It begins with trees lining the road, large hills to the east, baobab trees dotting the landscape like the sprinkle of a spring rain.  I stare awestruck as I recall one of the many legends I have heard about the origins of the baobab.  When God planted the tree it kept getting up and walking about.  Thus, God pulled up the tree and thrust it back to the earth upside down to keep it from walking away.  Stories like these make me feel welcomingly like a child.

We drive further, chatting away about miscellaneous world events, politics, or personal stories.  The car is guided down curving roads with ease.  People line the neighboring paths pushing bicycles stacked high with large bags of charcoal or other goods, women with bundles of brightly colored fabric with mysterious goods wrapped thoughtfully while having a patient  baby strapped to their back.  For this short drive I feel a barrier between myself and the village I’ve left behind.  This is the time in which I truly look out in awe of the new country I call home.  It hits me, I cannot believe I live here.

My eyes are glued outside, watching large clusters of trees, including papaya and bluegum, slowly melt behind us and more people come in view to replace the ones miles behind.  An hour into the journey we are in my favorite part of the drive.  The close hills and trees have dropped away and in what seems like one sudden swoop, I can see for miles upon miles.  I sense the earth, the landscape, has no boundaries and will keep going and never end.  Mozambique is just beyond the vehicle window and the only words I can manage to mutter in my brain are wow.  A sorry way to describe such beauty, such elegance, but sometimes there aren’t any words to illustrate the magic that appears.

I see grass roofed huts scattered along like a patches of fireworks.  The richness of the blue sky is bewildering, especially when contrasted against the green and brown of the landscape.  I take in the colors of the clouds, not pure white but a mixture of blues, purples, and grays.  Bushes unfamiliar to me sprout up wherever they has chosen to see fit, and goats and chickens roam freely as animals were meant to exist.  I feel at peace, as if I have arrived home.  In those moments I am content.  Conversation may be continuing with the gracious driver, but my mind is outside.

I have tried numerous times to take photographs of the site I see.  However, I have found through my love of photography that there are times you simply cannot catch the beauty.  I write from memory, as I have burned it in my brain as detailed as possible.  Yet the night before my travel to the city, I lay in bed excited to refresh the allure in my head once again.  Each time I add something to the photograph, and I wonder what it will be this time...

This photo hardly does it justice, but you get the idea :)