45 km from Tanzania

I’ve now been leaving in a small village a few meters from the lake and a couple kilometers from de town of Karonga. When I say town, it really means the size and convenience of a village in North America. The village does not have electricity, but it is connected to the water system, which means that they have a tap available, with water running only in the morning, to get their water from. At 5:30 am every morning, the women gather and chat around the tap while waiting in line to fill their buckets. They bring the buckets on their head, back to their yard. Then they wash the dishes left from the evening before as it was too dark. They start boiling hot water to make some tea. Breakfast is normally a few slices of white bread (with nothing on it), tea and sugar. On the weekends, they have maize porridge with salt and sugar around 9am. After breakfast, they clean up the house, swipe the sandy backyard and porch, wash the clothes by hand and themselves using a bucket or directly in the lake (awesome option, but you need to keep a shirt and a skirt on to bathe!). The rest of the day is relax, they work at drying osipa  (small local fish, not so good and cooked with the head, too small to take the bones out, so you have to eat the whole thing. It tastes really salty, just like everything else, and it is bitter, but it is the main source of proteins for most family. People here love osipa). They also farm maize, cassava and other stuff. Lunch and dinner are the same thing: nsima (a super super thich porridge made of water and maize flour), white boiled greens (leafs from anything, taste a bit like spinach, I love it) and a some kind of relish made out of beans, boiled eggs, boiled meat or boiled fish with some tomato and something that seems like onions (normally not bad). Basically, there is almost no diversity in the food, everyday is pretty much the same thing here, but it’s cheap and filling, so why bother, they love it this way. I came to understand that people in Malawi are extremely simple, they don’t have much, they do with it and they don’t seem to need more. In a way, having no options and not much makes them more satisfied with what they have than we are and probably will ever be. At night, the kids play while the men and women hang out, generally in separate spaces, but not necessary. They listen to the radio (working with batteries) and tell stories until someone yawns and decides to go to bed, normally around 9-10pm. The men’s job here is mainly fishing during the night or farming and some of them work in the town. I haven’t seen many of them in the village as they normally hang out on the beach or in town during the day. Most of them are more educated and speak English, so they come and talk to me.

Most houses don’t have any furniture. The house is made out of mud bricks and weak cement. The roof is made out of a plastic sheets and branches, unless you have a bit more money and can afford a metal roof (way noisier when it’s raining, but at least it’s not leaking and it’s not eaten by termites). People sleep on a hay mat, directly on the ground, surrounded by a mosquito net. I can’t say that it is confortable, but people are use to it and prefer this to stinky (rain, humidity, pi) mattresses which attract bugs (like bed bugs an other). Most people don’t have tables, couches, chairs or dressers. The house is a few rooms made for sleep. There is one storage area to put the dishes at night. There is only a few open windows, so it’s cold and dark. The yard is playing many roles: kitchen, living room, dinning room, laundry room, playground. It’s a cool place to hang out.
Once in a while people gather in a communal open space and the women dance and sing while the men drink, watch, chat or play drums. I had the chance to see that on Saturday. It was awesome, man can these women dance.

On Sunday morning, they go to church. African church. Not sure what religion it is part of, but I went to see and make them happy. It’s definitely more fun than ours, as they dance and sing a lot. The women are seating on the ground on one side with the kids while the boys and men are sitting on benches the other side. The part where they talk is normally done by men, and they are yelling, like a preacher would do. I’m not going to lie to you, it’s still church, it’s two hours and it’s not that fun. But people are really religious and they feel like it’s required, so I might make an effort to go, even if it’s painful and in Tumbuka, so I don’t understand much of what is being said.
That’s about it for the life in a village. Hope you enjoyed the story. So far I'm feeling lost a bit, tired from all the learning and the heat. Life here is definitely different than my normal life use to be. Everything is more complicated for me even though they live a really simple life. I wake up with a smile every morning so it's not that bad.
Friends please email me stories of your life or ask questions. I miss you guys, tons.
Ge