An array of things

Roberta Sparrow

I am Roberta Sparrow. That’s right, I’m grandma death of Malawi. For those of you that are already lost, Roberta Sparrow (AKA Grandma Death) is a character from the film Donnie Darko. Throughout the whole film all she does is walk from her house across the street to her mailbox. The sad part comes when she opens the box and hunches over to look in only to find it empty. Everyday I mirror this situation exactly. It turns out that I just so happen to live across the street from the post office. So everyday after school I cross the street to check the mail. My box, or the box for my school rather, is located conveniently at my belly button, so I too have to hunch over in order to see inside. Thus far, the school and myself have gotten mail 3 times in the last 5 weeks. So every time I open the box and find it empty I am taken back to the scene when Donnie and his friends are narrating Grandma Death going to her mailbox only to find that she still didn’t have mail. I laugh to myself every time.


Burning Down the House

I didn’t burn down my house literally (I think that would be impossible being that my house is made of bricks that have already been burned), but almost. I decided to boil some eggs for breakfast the next morning while I was washing dishes. After finishing the dishes I thought I would lie down and watch “scrubs” on my computer. Six episodes later I could smell burning eggs, but yet, it didn’t dawn on me that those burning eggs were in fact mine. I thought nothing of it and decided to watch a seventh episode. It wasn’t until half way through the seventh episode when I remembered that I was STILL cooking eggs. Too late. My pan was charred to high hell and there were eggs splattered everywhere in my kitchen. Not my finest moment.


The Rooster and the Goats

So my current house is situated on a compound with a family that I’m renting from. They have all the necessary livestock to fill a modern day arch if need be (chickens, goats, a cat, a dog, and a rooster) and they all live on the compound. I’m cool with the cat and dog, but they are really malnourished with me sad, so I give them a lil’ somethin-somethin on the side. The chickens I love because they are so dumb. I’ve learned that if you approach a chicken on a fence it will fly, nah, dive-bomb off the fence and crash land on the ground. I know it sounds mean, but you have to remember that this is Africa and humor is hard to find, so you have to take it when you can get it. I choose to laugh. Now, I can’t really decide if I dislike the goats or the rooster the most. The goats have no concept of a personal bubble or privacy (or thievery). If I’m not on my A-game when eating mangoes the goats will try to steal the mangoes from my mouth (invasion of my personal bubble). Many a time I’ll hear my pots and pans crashing around in my kitchen only to find that the goats have knocked them from their proper places, while stealing mangoes from atop my water container (thievery). Or I’ll be reading in my room and look up to find the baby goat (covered in mud mind you) just walking around my house and getting everything dirty (invasion of privacy). This brings me to the rooster. I understand that when the sun is rising roosters usually do the whole “cock-a-doodle-doo” number for whatever reason. But the rooster at my house definitely over does it EVERY morning. He starts at 5 a.m. and “cock-a-doodle-doos” on average every 8 seconds for at least 10 minutes. I say “on average” because I’ve lain awake after that first holler at 5 in the morning and counted the interval between eruptions. My calculations (which I have been accumulating over several different mornings) have lead me to the magic number: 8 seconds. It’s awful. I’ve just decided that I dislike the rooster the most. At least with the goats I can turn it into a game. But there is nothing funny when it comes to sleep deprivation.


The “Smell”

So I now have this very distinct “smell” after arriving in one of the hottest districts in Malawi. I’ve been trying to pin-point exactly what it is and where it is coming form, but I can never really find the words or seem to locate its origin. But here is the best way I can describe it. The “smell” resembles something that has been dampened with water but never allowed to dry properly. Also, replace the water with sweat. So I have is thick, moist, lingering damp sweat “smell” that has no origin but is always “around”. It’s in my clothes, in my chair at work, on my body, but when I investigate back aggressively sniffing the smell disappears. This smell is usually laced with burnt charcoal, skin, or plastic…so who wants to come and visit me now?


My Life

I’ve been in Malawi for over four months now and I’ve been at site in Mwanza for about a month and a half. I was expecting to teach eight periods per week (each period is 40 minutes long) for the first term in order to get used to living and working in Malawi. When I arrived I discovered the headmaster that had accompanied me at Peace Corps Training for three days (and whom I’d arranged my work schedule with) had been transferred to a different school. So everything that I had arranged went out the window. The new schedule had me teaching 22ish periods per week (Biology, Physical Science, PE, and Life Skills). That wasn’t going to work for me so I rearranged my classes several times and I’m now teaching 20 periods per week consisting of Biology and Physical Science basi (that’s all). I teach form 1 (high school freshman learning with English as a second language) physical science and form 3 (high school juniors) biology. Both forms are split into two different classes: X and Y. There are 50 students in each of the form 1 classes, but we just split the form 3 class about two weeks ago (01/25/10). Before the split I was teaching 118 kids in one room. The students were packed in like sardines. There were no isle ways between desks and some students where literally 3 feet away from the chalkboard. On several occasions I actually tripped over students’ feet while writing on the board because I had no room. The room was also very hot. If you could take me after teaching a double period in that room and stand me next to Chris Farely after he did and SNL show I would win hands down. One of my fellow teachers asked me if I had just “gone swimming with my clothes on” after coming out of that class. It’s all better now that the form 3 is split. I have about 65ish students in one class and 45ish in the other.

I wake at 5:30 every morning (thanks to that pesky rooster) and make breakfast. At first, breakfast was just bread with peanut butter, jam, and nutella. Then I ran out of nutella and jam is super expensive. I’m now eating pala (porridge) made from either rice or oats in the morning. Then I wash all my dishes from dinner the night before and make PB and Js for lunch. At around 7 a.m. I walk the 1 or 2 kilometers to the school, which involves a log crossing over some sketchy water that will soon be washed out by the rains. School begins at 7:30 and knocks off at 2:20. I’m usually home around 3:00 p.m. if I don’t stop by the market to chat with my tomato lady, who is greatest Malawian lady I’ve met. We have the same conversation every time she sees me, but she never seems to loss enthusiasm. Then I have about a hour and a half to get done what ever I need to before I cook dinner and go to bed around 7:30 p.m. The first 3 weeks I cooked rice and beans everyday mixed with matimati (tomatoes) and oninsi (onions) with the occasional curry powder. After about 3 weeks of that my stomach told me (in multiple “special” ways) that something in my diet wasn’t working out. I figured I wasn’t getting any fiber at all and was lacking multiple vitamins. So I learned how to cook the cultural/staple dish of Malawi: Nsima. I think in an earlier blog entry I dogged on nsima for it’s bland taste, but now I put it down like it was cheesecake. My stomach has leveled out some with this change in my diet and it spices (not literally) up my menu a little bit.

Many people here have asked me what I do in my spare time. My response is that I don’t really have any spare time. I’ve thought about it a lot and I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m extremely inefficient here. For example, sometimes after school I’ll come home and sit on my back step and eat mangoes. That’s all. Then it gets dark and I cook dinner and go to bed. Side note: the mangoes here are so good. I can get like 5 kilograms (11 lbs) of mangoes for less than a dollar and that’s if I buy them. I can always just go pick them for free. It’s safe to say that I’ve eaten more mangoes in the last month that I ever have in my entire life.

My days go by a little slow but the weeks seem to fly by. I only have about a week left of teaching for the first term and then it’s off to In-Service Training in Dedza where I get to reconnect with my group. Currently, I am getting ready to move out of my house and into a house on the campus of my school. There are three teacher’s houses on campus and one just opened up, so I’m getting on the first train out of the boma and into the maize fields and mango trees. The house is pretty isolated and has a great view looking into Mozambique. I have many plans for my new home. I’m going to start a kitchen garden with local crops, build a mud oven for baking, build a fence around my property. It’s very exciting. The only downside to my house is that I’ll be an easier target for thieves. Little do they know that I don’t have anything of real value and I grew up watching “walker texas ranger”. So breaking into my house is a lose-lose situation. But I’m waiting to move in until I have burglar bars put on the windows and doors and I replace the front door. After that it should be safe and secure.

I’m health has been so-so recently. It seems to me that my stomach will never really adjust to whatever it is here in Malawi, but that’s something that I’ll just have to deal with. Also, two days ago I woke up with a skin infection on my face, so that has been fun. It looks like an infected burn wound at the moment, but it’ll heal up in no time at all (hopefully).


Missing the Rains

Currently, there are 3 districts in Malawi (I think there are like 17 ish districts in all) that are in a drought and Mwanza District is one of them. On my way to school I have to cross these logs over a little river and I was told that the rains wash the logs out at the beginning of every December, so I’d have to ride my bike to school until the rainy season ended. However, this is not the case. We are heading into February and the logs are still in place because the rains haven’t come. Also, on my walk to school I pass through maize fields and every week the maize looks worse. I would say that all the maize that is less than a meter tall is now officially dead, and the maize that is about 2 meters tall is well on it’s way. They will probably die within the next week or so if we don’t get some heavy rains. The last weekend I went to the city of Blantyre which is about 100 km East of my site. The greater Blantyre area isn’t in a drought, but the rains there have been weaker than past rainy seasons. Anyhow, the maize in this area looked amazing when compared to the maize in the fields in my area. The Blantyre maize was over 2.5 meters tall and cobs were already being produced. Plus, it rained all weekend I was visiting. In Mwanza it’s been raining a little here and there over the last couple of days, which should help, but we are in desperate need of heavy rains. Basically everyone here has a hectare or so of land they farm to feed their families. Nisma is made from ground maize flour and is the staple foodstuff in Malawi, so 90% of the people plant only maize. If their crops fail then: (a) they won’t have any food to feed their families for the next year, (b) if they have extra money, which few people actually do, then they could replant when the rains do come or (c): wait for the government to help out the poor by handing out maize flour when the time comes to it. So basically, everyone in my district is screwed come July and onwards. My school had a staff meeting a couple weeks ago where everyone was urged to buy as much rice/flour/beans as he/she could afford because come the middle of the year there won’t be any available or it will be very expensive. I’ve heard from quite a people how hard life gets when a drought hits that leads to a famine. This drought could lead to people being hungry/malnourished until the next rainy season a full year from now. When people get hungry they will do anything in there power to get food. Who can blame them? I wouldn’t want to starve either. Crime in my area is slightly higher than in other areas, but it’s been very safe since I arrived. However, thieves broke into my neighbor (a coworkers) house while his family was asleep and stole his television and DVD player. Maybe this was just an isolated incident because there are thieves everywhere in the world and not a direct result of drought. But who knows? So as of today, I have 20 kgs of rice (44 lbs) and 20 kgs of maize flour for making nsima. I wonder how long it will take me to eat 88 lbs of starch. I guess I will find out soon enough.

Chichewa

My Chichewa language seems to have plateaued, while my chigerezi (English) has plummeted. Since the English is an offical language in Malawi most people in the towns and cities can speak it. Plus, secondary school is all taught in English as well, so I only need to use the language when I’m in the market trying to bargain for a good price (people make everything expensive for “azungu” [white people], but by speaking the local language I can usually get a decent price) or talking to kids or really old folks. I think my favorite thing in Malawi thus far is how everyone “mean mugs” (looks at you with a grimace on their face) you as you pass, but as soon as you greet them with “muli bwanji?” (“how are you?”) their faces change as if they’ve just walked into their own surprise party. I especially like greeting the older women when we pass on the paths. There is a HUGE gender gap in Malawi and the older generation suffered the worst of it and it still shows. So I always greet older women with a “muli bwa?”, a smile and a little “hand cup” with a slight bow. They never fail to respond with a little bended knee dip (cultural sign of respect that women do when they greet men) and a smile. It makes me so happy every time. I always think about what they are thinking about when I greet them because none of them ever expect it. It’s the little things that make me smile and keep me going.


Keys and the Chim

“If you ever drop your keys into a river of molten lava, let ‘em go, because, man, they’re gone.”
-Jack Handy

It’s kinda funny to think that a couple weeks ago a friend sent one of my favorite Deep Thoughts from Jack Handy (above) to me in an email only to have the quote come true in my life...well all of it excluding the “molten lava” part.

My story begins on a beautiful Saturday morning in Mwanza, Malawi. My schedule for the day was packed with cleaning the house, washing my clothes, preparing for some Mozambique PCVs to visit, speaking with my headmaster about “the move”, and going to the market all before dark, so I decided to get an early start on the day. I got up at 7:00 a.m. (that was a good “sleep-in” day for me) and did the first thing that I do every morning: use the chimbudzi. A chimbudzi (aka chim) is a pit-latrine used as a bathroom. They are normally small brick buildings (3 ft x 3 ft) with a hole in the floor that drops into a pit that is about 15ish feet deep. I would compare these to public restrooms used in isolated campgrounds or national parks in the States, except you have a “toilet” to sit on. The chim at my house is a “double wide” that consists of one small brick building that is divided into two different rooms. The abambo (father) of the compound and myself use one of the rooms, while the other 12,000 women on the compound use the other (and by 12,000 I mean 6, but it seems life 12,000 sometimes). Since we have two chims dropping into one pit it’s super deep (I’d guess around 25 feet deep) compared to a single chim. Also, there are so many people on the compound that the abambo put a lock on the outside of our chim, so every time I need to go to the chim I have to bring my key to unlock it. The key to the chim was put on a key ring with ALL the other keys I use for my house: front door, back door, room door, padlock on back door, padlock on kitchen door, and padlock on the gate. There were probably 12 different keys on the ring, most of which I had no idea what they were for. Another thing to make note of is that inside the chim there is a nail where I hook the keys on when I’m using the restroom. So I wake up and head to the chim just like ever other morning. I unlock the padlock and walk inside, while turning around to hang up the keys, but as I turn the keys slip out of my hand. Everything from this point on happens in slow motion (no juevenile you can’t get me side tracked from my story just because I mentioned “slow motion”…uuunnnnggggg). The keys fall out of my hands, as my heart jumps into my throat, and hit the ground. Next, before I can even react, they slide into the hole in the floor and disappear into the abyss. At this point, while I was standing in the small dark chim, I finally registered the severity of what had just happened. ALL my keys were gone. GONE and they weren’t coming back. I then walked outside to tell the amayi (mother/woman) of the compound what happened. I didn’t know the verb for “to drop” in Chichewa, so I just used what little chewa I know, “Amayi, makey MU chimbudzi. Ndilible makey” (“mother, the keys are IN the chimbudzi. I don’t have keys”). Her response, “Mu chim?”, followed by gut bursting laughter. She then told everyone in ear shoot what I had done, so everyone got in on the laughter at my expense. Being as how dropping my keys into a pit of faeces was literally the first thing that happened that day, all my doors were still locked, most notably my kitchen door. At this point I went next door and got my neighbor (who is also a teacher at my school) and explained the situation to him. Together we fashioned a hook out of wire and a long bamboo pole to try and “fish” my keys out. I spend the next 30 minutes with my face over the hole in the chim (which was surprisingly “steamy”) trying to get my keys back, but it was a fruitless endeavor. Now that my keys were really gone I had to come up with a plan B. Plan B turned into buying new locks in the market and having some dude brake all my padlocks with a hammer and put the new ones on. By the time everything was said and done it was about noon, and I had accomplished nothing on my “to do” list for the day.

So to you Mr. Handy, I’d like to modify one of your Deep Thoughts to something that is a little more realistic: “If you ever drop your keys into a pit of decomposing feaces, let ‘em go, because, man, they’re gone.”


My Demotion

It’s been five days since my little key fiasco last Saturday. Yesterday, I received a new key to a new lock on the chim. Apparently Mr. Gowa (the abambo) doesn’t feel I’m capable of having a “regular” lock and key, so he go some high-tech lock and key. Now, when I unlock the padlock the key cannot be removed from the lock until the lock is properly closed. It’s physically impossible to get the key out of the lock until the lock is re-closed, which would only happen if you wanted to lock it. I think this is a great idea because there is no way for my to drop the keys into the chim again. But I kind of feel like a little kid that rushed into regular underwear too quickly and had to revert back to diapers after the first accident.


Printing at Mphande

Mphande is the Community Day Secondary School where I am working. We are very lucky to have a computer lab, which has eight working computers to teach over 420 kids (that’s not going to happen). Anyhow, we have just finished registering the Form 2 and 4 students for the national exams. Some of teachers felt that we had to print the spreadsheets as soon as possible, but it just so happened that there was a blackout at the school. How would you overcome a problem like this? Personally, I would wait it out and print the documents when the power came back, but lets just say that I don’t run the show in these parts. A few minutes later I see two teachers disassembling our best DESKTOP computer (huge monitor, hard drive, keyboard, cords, printer, and cords) and loading it into a taxi. I went to investigate what was going on. I was told that we HAD to print these documents and that we were taking them to the district hospital to use their power. Somehow, I got wrangled into going to the hospital with 3 other teachers to print these documents. So if you can image five dudes in a taxi all carrying at least one huge electronic item (I had the 3-in-1 printer/scanner/copier on my lap) arriving/unloading at the hospital to print 6 pages worth of spreadsheets. We set up and tore down our operation within 20 minutes and headed back to the school. It seemed most unnecessary in every way and I still laugh to myself when I think about how it actually happened.