Since December 1st, I haven’t had a place to unpack my bags and settle, I haven’t had a place to call home. I’ve left my apartment in Vancouver on Dec 1st and I’ve been moving from places to places ever since. I spent some time between Vancouver and Quebec, crashing my parents’ and friends’ houses until February, then went to Toronto until March for the training. I arrived in Malawi at the beginning of March, almost two and a half months ago and since, I’ve been moving almost every other week, if not everyday. It’s great cause I got to meet a lot of people and discovered many places, but I’m exhausted and sick of living out of my bags. It’s now time to unpack and finally start making a life here.
I’m in Salima, working at the District Water Office. I moved last Thursday to a village about 3km (on dirt roads) from the office. My new house, well let’s be realistic, hut, is great. We have windows, a door and a real lock. The floors and walls are still made out of mud, but the floors have been polished, so it’s a bit cleaner and less dusty. It almost look like cement. We even have a table, some chairs and few couches. I got myself a mattress because I didn’t want to sleep on a carpet on the ground for the rest of the year. I was suppose to have my own room, which was quite exciting, but it turns out that I have to share a room with the owner, 35 years old lady. The room is big enough for both our mattresses, but this means I’ll have no privacy. I don’t have a lot of place, so until I have a small shelf build for me (when I find the time and money to do so), I’ll still be living out of my bags, which sucks. What happened is that the room I was suppose to have, is the storage room, so it means that if I take it, there will be no place to store the maize flour bags, water containers and dishes. They realized that when I moved in…ahhh, Malawians have big hearts, but they have a poor planning sense! haha. Anyway it’s ok and cheap for now, but I’ll keep an eye open on other options down the road. I don’t think I can stand sharing a room for the rest of the year. I live with Maggie, 35 years old, and her 20 years old nephew (Diew). She is a business woman, she sells soap at the market and also firewood during the rainy season. She’s not rich, but she lives well. She, as most women, doesn’t speak English, only Chichewa. I met a few 18-25 years old girls whose English is surprisingly good, well good enough to have a conversation. Maggie is taking care of Diew until he can get a scholarship to go to university in medicine, engineering or agriculture, depending which faculty accepts him. He is a brilliant kid, who speaks English fairly well and also a little bit of French. So our deal is that he helps me with Chichewa and I help him with French; sounds good to me! He has a lot of patience and he’s well articulate; he’d be a great teacher I think. He asks me interesting questions about life in Canada and the work I was doing. He also asked me what I was thinking about the environmental condition of Malawi, which is normally something that no ones even consider as being an issue. People throw their garbage everywhere, there are no sewer and garbage collection system, except for bigger cities like Lilongwe, Blantyre and Mzuzu. I was quite surprise and happy with his questions and thoughts.
My village is nice and really clean. Every house has a latrine, a hand washing station and a pit to dispose of the garbage (WOW, this is quite rare and impressive). People are proud, welcoming, helpful and friendly. Our house has a sitting/dinning room, plus three other rooms that are: me and Maggie’s bed room, Diew’s bedroom and the last one, as I mentioned, is a storage room. There is no kitchen, although, there is a small hut in the back yard where we can make a fire to cook when it’s too cold, too windy or raining; most of the time the cooking is done on the front porch. The bathroom and latrine are separate huts in the backyard, both really clean and well taking care of.
To answer Amber’s question from the last post, my village has about 350 households (a household has an average of 5 people). In general, there is a shallow well for every 125 people. There is also a borehole, about a kilometer and a half away from our hut, where they get their drinking water. Boreholes are generally deserving 250 people, but it’s often more people than that due to breakdowns (see previous posts about my research). I got my family a filter so that we can drink the water from the shallow well (which is located about 25km from the latrine), which will save Maggie the trouble of waking a long distance, caring water on her head (she has to do this a few times to get enough water for the day). She is quite excited and happy. I just need to get two plastic containers and a stand to make the set up, but all this is a bit expensive (850 kwatcha per container and K1500 for the stand-the ceramic/silver filter in itself was K1800 ($US1=K150)), so I’m working on it and I’m trying to find cheaper alternatives. I know it doesn’t sound expensive to you, but it is here in Malawi, when you think that a meal at the market is K200 or a new pair of trousers is K500. My daily salary is about K2800; it is the salary of my colleagues at the district. It needs to cover my cellphone and internet fees (expensive), my travelling, my rent and my food. I also had to buy a mattress and a bike, which were both expensive, as they are considered luxurious goods that most villagers don’t have.
My daily routine on weekdays is to get up when the sun rises (5:30), greet a lot of people, wash the dishes from the night before (as it was too dark then) while Maggie and Diew are sweeping and cleaning the floors of the house and the yard. After, I take a warm bucket bath, get dressed (with a patterned and colourful skirt and a nice shirt), have breakfast (sweet potato or pumpkin or white bread, always serve with sweet tea without milk). Then I hop on my old, purple, single-speed cruiser bike and head to work. At the office, so far, I’ve been doing a lot of reading, I assisted to a training last week and I also went to the field to do maintenance/repairs of boreholes. I go to the market for lunch once in a while. I think it’s nice to walk around, observe people and interact with them in Chichewa. I get whatever they have, which is normally goat or beef with rice or nsima. I bring my Chichewa book to learn and practice. Then I go back to work in the afternoon and I try to ride back home before the sun set, around 6pm. When I arrive home, there are a few chores to do. Right now is harvest time, so my family is drying out the maize in front of the house and getting it ready to send it to the mill, so everyday, we have to put it in bags to store in the house over night. After, I usually have a shower bath and help preparing food, which is nsima and some kind of relish (depends on the season and what they sell at the market, but lately it has been beans, or ocras, or osipa). After dinner on the porch, we chat for a bit with some neighbours, then go to bed around 8:30.
The weekends are a bit different, well at least for me, as I don’t go to work. I help a little more with the chores. I go fetch water, I wash my clothes, I go to church (I won’t go every Sunday, but I’ll try to make an effort as it is a big deal for people here), I go to the market and learn some Chichewa with the teenagers of the village, while Maggie goes to the market to sell soap and other stuff.
Here is my life… and even if it sounds simple, every day is a new challenge. Sometimes I’m struggling with the language, sometimes with the dust and sand, sometimes with the lack of privacy and alone time or the people invading my space, sometimes with work and the busy schedule of my coworkers, or their lack of commitment (you learn quickly that “yes” in Malawi often doesn’t mean yes, but rather acts as an acknowledgement that one said something!).
Ahh, I forgot, this morning, from my village, I was able to Skype via my iPhone, with Nina in Vancouver. The connection wasn’t too bad, we had a good conversation. So if anyone wants to call me via Skype, you are welcome to try, it’s definitely not perfect, but it’s still better than nothing. My user name is Gennparent, just add me in your contact and tell me when you are available. We are 6 hours ahead of Quebec time and 9 hours ahead of Vancouver time. My phone is often turned off as I don’t have electricity in the village and the town often has power shorage, making it hard to charge it.
Bye now
Ge
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