What now?

The afternoon of Saturday, March 14, I received a text message from our programme manager in Ethiopia saying all Cuso International volunteers globally were being asked to return to Canada as soon as possible. My flight left Lilongwe early on Thursday, March 19. Thirty-nine hours later, I arrived at the Toronto Pearson International Airport, was greeted from a distance by my sister-in-law and her husband, and brought to their home to self-quarantine.

During this time when all of us are experiencing high levels of disruption, I've been wondering what to do. This coming week, I'll begin hosting groups online to practice The Work that Reconnects. You can learn more by clicking here.

I also want to recommend my friend Katie Talbott's site, Present Sense. I find her short, reflective pieces to be accessible, restorative, and wise. Read Present Sense

If you have the attention span and emotional capacity for a longer read, you'll find the lead in to my next blog post below.

Painfully learning to share

The greatest and most persistent challenge I experienced in Malawi is encapsulated in the word, "Karibu". Read more.

Copyright © 2020 Lynn Thorsell, All rights reserved.

Plantain chips, freshly made in Ghana, and
given to me by a fellow passenger on our flight to Toronto

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View Google Photos album Oh, Canada!

Mukhale bwino

In March 2019, two weeks after I arrive, CARE Malawi holds a day-long celebration of International Women’s Day. Each member of staff and volunteer is given a colourful piece of cloth, a chitenje, for the occasion.

Canadian volunteers with our stylin' driver Jeromy (in cap)

With the guidance of Clement, our Southern African Nutrition Initiative (SANI) programme manager, we volunteers are driven to tailor Mireille Yama’s, where our zitenje are transformed into skirts, a dress, a men’s shirt, and a cap. On the day of the event, all of the CARE Malawi community congregate on a grassy area just off a main street. At least an hour is spent admiring each other’s outfits, all made from the same material, taking many photos with smartphones.

Finally, the police arrive to escort us, and we begin our parade. Clement leads the procession from the back of a pickup truck, calling through an electronic bullhorn chants that we echo in unison.

The day is typically sunny and 28°C (82°F). After 15 or 20 minutes of marching, I feel my energy flag. I don’t appear to be the only one. We pause on the corner of two busy streets, many of us wandering onto the lawn alongside. Suddenly, music is coming from the truck’s loudspeakers. Everyone starts dancing, and spirits revive. During the chorus, some of the dancers fall to the grass while others drop their heads to the side like zombies. “My love is like a tropical disease,” one of my new colleagues translates. “I’m dying for you.”

Marching and dancing with assistant country director Catherine

After the march, we’re all driven to a huge, lush, private park, rented for this occasion, where we’re seated at tables under a large, white tent awning. Even in the shade, it’s still hot. Through the speeches and presentations of the afternoon, I notice many of my neighbours seem as sweaty and lethargic as I feel. Just when I think that the only thing I want to do is lie on the grass and sleep, the dance music starts again and we’re all summoned to our feet. And it works! I’m surprised how quickly my energy revives, and how joyful I feel after these breaks.

When the SANI team is called to present, I feel shy. I’ve only been here a few days. I don’t even know the names of most of the team members, and it’s a large group. So I stay seated, and I notice the other Canadian volunteers do, too.

Cuso International programme manager Fana, fellow volunteers, and CARE Malawi staff

Mark, the monitoring and evaluation lead for the project, announces the SANI team will perform a dance for everyone. Thank goodness I'm sitting down! Drum music starts and the team in front of us begins a rhythmic line dance, lightly stamping their feet in unison and swaying in first one direction, then the other. Mark grabs the microphone again. “We’re missing our international colleagues!” he shouts, and waves to us.

Reluctantly, the five of us get to our feet and join them, sidling into the back row. Our Malawian colleagues are smiling, welcoming us, encouraging us, laughing, showing us how to move. In the midst of our work with extreme poverty, food insecurity, malnutrition, and gross gender inequities, there’s a great deal of joy here.

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Before I left Canada, some people commented that the people they had met in African countries seem to be happier than North Americans are. I've wondered about that. According to the UN Happiness Report, Malawi falls 150th of 156 countries, just below Syria. While many other African countries rank higher, for optimal happiness, Scandinavia, Canada, Australia, and Great Britain seem like the places to be.

That's not surprising when you think of the things that people here have to worry about. Over a million people in this country experience hunger and under-nutrition at least annually. About 20% of the population is unemployed. The vast majority of the remainder are subsistence farmers, or working for extremely low wages, with little to no buffer when times are hard. People are much more likely to die at a much younger age, partly because of the hazards they're exposed to, and partly because of the very poor quality of health care that's available to them.

One of many coffin workshops

But if it's not happiness, there's still something that feels very different here. After I return from a road trip, my roommate and I have a long chat about our experiences of the week. She comments how people here and in other areas of Africa frequently ask, “Tilitonse?” (Are we together?) or affirm “Tili limodzi.” (We’re one.) Airtel advertisements proclaim “This is how we do it.” and “Tilikhonko” (We're here with you.) There is a friendliness, a welcoming, and often a remarkable energy and vibrancy that I have rarely experienced before.

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On the other hand, the problems I see here are so big, systemic, and seemingly intransigent. Sometimes I’ve gotten so focused on the bigger picture that I lost perspective on what I’m realistically able to do. I’ve gotten overwhelmed, and stepped back to find myself planning some huge intervention that is way, way beyond the scope of my authority, role, or capabilities – trying to move a mountain.

In February 2020, as I get closer to the end of my time here, I find myself focusing more on, “What can I do that will be most helpful?” It’s usually not glamorous: applying the new CSONA brand to old PowerPoint files; translating stakeholder interview quotes into a presentation or newsletter story; updating people’s personnel files. But I’m also getting to see the tangible results of the work I’ve been doing so very slowly. The more I let go of my ego and just go with what’s needed, the more appreciation my Malawian colleagues express.

After a stormy monsoon one night, I’m sitting on the doorstep on a still beautifully rainy morning with my laptop on my knees, watching drops fall on the big, beautiful mango trees in front of me.

To my left are 40 1-litre milk and juice cartons, each with a mango seedling sprouting in it. In a couple weeks, they’ll be gifts for village children when I have a sponsor's visit with Plan International. I’m thinking of how daunting it seems to go from being that tiny seedling, really just a little stick with four or five leaves, to one of these giant mango trees in front of me – the time, energy, nutrients, and rain required to make that transformation. Yet many of these little seedlings will, I hope, make that journey, moment by moment, day by day, year by year.

Mango seedlings beginning to sprout

Thinking of that, I feel calmer about my journey over the coming year and years; that I can keep letting it unfold and adjust course as I go along. It makes me think how each of our journeys is uniquely our own, and at the same time a very small contribution to something much bigger; how we are held and nourished by our environments, within a place of care.

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I thought I would be able to end on that note, but the past few days brought rapid change. This year's March4Women, CARE's signature event, is first postponed, and then cancelled. On Saturday, March 14 I host a farewell luncheon at my flat. As I'm visiting with my last guest late in the afternoon, I receive a text message from Fana, our Cuso International programme manager in Ethiopia, asking me to check in with Charlene, the Ottawa-based travel advisor.

I had emailed Charlene the day before confirming that I had made my own travel plans, and would be leaving Malawi on March 28. When I call her now, though, she says Cuso is bringing all Canadian volunteers home as soon as possible. I can either change my tickets myself, or cancel them, return the cash-in-lieu, and she will book something for me.

Monday morning at 7:30, I am at the Ethiopian Airlines office to re-book my tickets. The agent tells me the only seats they have before the weekend will cost an additional US$3,000. Even if I wait until the following Monday, I would still have to pay another US$900. Ouch!

I cancel my tickets and call Fana, feeling much less certain about being able to handle this situation myself. Tuesday evening, Charlene lets me and my remaining fellow volunteer know we will be departing Lilongwe Thursday morning, and arriving in Toronto Friday evening with long stop-overs in Nairobi and Paris (but of course there's no possibility of leaving either airport). That's still 12 hours shorter than the three-night, three-day journey I took getting here.

The mosque in Old Town

My last few days in Malawi are precious to me. Each morning seems particularly beautiful: the birdsong, the trees in full foliage, the early morning light on the Old Town mosque as I have my last cycle to the CARE office Monday morning. That same Monday, after lunch and one last stop at the post office, I cycle to the CSONA office where I leave my bicycle for my colleague Joseph, who has bought it. Joseph is in the field this week, and Bessie is in Blantyre for her graduate studies. I won't get to see them before I leave.

But the rest of the team are working on a grant proposal together in the conference room. I break the news that I am leaving Malawi in only a day or two. They're shocked, and Jimmy even cries. I collect some hugs, and then we start taking photos. After a few minutes, they're teasing each other and we're laughing again. I go to clear my desk, repack my things now that I don't have the bicycle with which to transport them. Then I join them in the conference room, tying up lose ends as they continue working on the proposal.

At the end of the day, we're all reluctant to say good-bye. Danstan asks the guard to take more photos of us outside together. Kettie turns on her car radio, and our photo shoot transforms into a dance party.

Faith, Kettie, Mike, Jimmy, Emmanuel, me, Blessings, and Danstan

Although we've known each other a short time, my few Malawian friends make a point to come see me at least once more: my hiking buddy, Lulu, a lab technician at Kumuzu General Hospital with a master's degree in medical biotechnology; retired archaeologist Matthias and his wife Sinnia, who is a talented tailor; my Chichewa teacher and dear friend Shupe (the hardest good-bye); and Vafa, a vibrant spark and fellow cyclist, who comes by twice to pick up donations for the UN refugee camp where she used to work.

With Lulu

Saying farewell to Matthias and Sinnia

Since we don't leave until Thursday, I'm able to follow through with the arrangement I had made with Plan International to meet the girl I'm sponsoring here. As with many things, this turns into an adventure in itself. Sponsor liaison Constance (who has worked for Plan Malawi "her whole life" she tells me), photographer Chawanangwa, and driver Nelson pick me up at 7:30. We drive 90 minutes to the Plan International office in Kasungu, where I'm welcomed and oriented by Christopher, the district manager. Then we, along with what seems like all of the Kasungu office staff, pile into two SUVs and travel narrow dirt roads for another half an hour ("Is this even a road?!" Constance exclaims at one point) to reach a remote village. Along the way, we stop so Christopher can show me a village health clinic, school, and teacher's housing that Plan has built for the community.

With Plan Malawi staff visiting a village health centre built by Plan
(Christopher on the far left, Constance on the far right in blue)

When we reach our destination, about twenty villagers greet and welcome us to their meeting place. The men sit in a semicircle of very simple wooden benches under three trees. The women and children sit across from them on the ground, also shaded by a separate small grove. Half a dozen wooden chairs with padded cloth seats form part of the men's semicircle. I'm introduced to a woman and her son, and invited to sit on one of these chairs, the two of them on either side of me.

Being introduced to Grace and her son 

But where's Mwaiwawo? I'm confused. I notice the Plan staff have stepped aside to confer with their volunteer in this community, a lean, middle-aged man wearing a black golf shirt. Christopher calls me over.

Recently, he tells me, most of the sponsors they expected have been canceling their visits. I'm the only one who's been able to come. Unfortunately, the volunteer mistakenly cancelled my visit, and kept the arrangements for the person sponsoring this child.

Photo with villagers (Notice that the men all stand in the front row,
and the women, save Mwaiwawo and her grandmother, stand behind them.)

After explaining this to me, Christopher and the volunteer announce the error to the villagers. Christopher uses this opportunity to talk with them about the coronavirus, warning them not to be too eager to get gifts from their relatives returning from working in South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Tanzania, and to wait two weeks before seeing them. The villages have already heard of this virus. "It's worse than HIV," one elderly woman declares. "At least with HIV, one gets four or five years. With coronavirus, one only has days."

After they've made their apologies, we climb back into the SUVs and drive the half hour back to the tarmack road, and then out to Mwaiwawo's village. The volunteer has preceded us on his motorcycle to warn them of our coming.

Mwaiwawo presenting me with the highly valued gift of a chicken

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COVID-19 adds another layer of vulnerability for people who are already incredibly vulnerable. Over 9% of the adult population has been infected with HIV/AIDS. That's one million people whose immune systems are already compromised, and at higher risk from this new disease. Wealthy people have good, private health care, but the other 97% of the population rely on health care provided by government, which is already strained, inadequate, and propped up by international volunteers and contractors. Many of those same volunteers and contractors are now being repatriated during this global crisis.

The evening before we depart, we receive a security alert from the CARE Malawi operations manager. There's been violence in the Mzimba district. A rumour is circulating there that people from Zambia were coming there, sucking blood and "gassing". In panic, people in Mzimba attacked the police station, believing that police officers had arrested the vampires and were harbouring them.

To someone in North America, this situation probably seems incomprehensible. I've come to understand the extremely poor quality of the public education system here, and that old stories, told around the evening fires, capture people's imaginations. At a time like this when rumours are circulating of a virus that's not yet here, but has afflicted every other country in the world, killing people within days, anxiety and fear make people susceptible to other rumours and stories, too, and give people something tangible against which to "defend" themselves.

We outside of Malawi are not that different; some of us have been lashing out in fear recently, too. The only difference is that these Malawians have never had the even the most basic education and privileges that you and I take for granted.

The day before our departure, I go next door to Korea Garden Lodge to leave a key for someone to pick up. The reception staff are wearing face masks and latex gloves, with bottles of hand sanitizer on the counter. At the airport the next morning, the newly built international wing is now open. There are now real check-in counters with luggage conveyors, and a set of official immigration kiosks. Cleaning staff are masked, gloved, and meticulously disinfecting the washrooms. There are still no paper towel or hand driers, but full bottles of dark purple liquid hand soap sit beside each sink.

Mukhale bwino, Malawi. Please stay well.

Youth at a nutrition advocacy training in Nyunge village, Karonga district

Copyright © 2020 Lynn Thorsell, All rights reserved.

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Reference

World Happiness Report, Wikipedia

Malawi album #5 on Google Photos

Please note that the views expressed here are mine alone, and do not necessarily reflect those of Cuso International.

Safari!

Around mid-June (three months of being here), I notice a significant shift in feeling MUCH more comfortable, and that I am finally being genuinely productive at work. One week shortly after that, I have a fabulous road trip with my colleague Mike and our driver for the week, Steve.

Sunset on the Shire River, Liwonde

When they pick me up Monday afternoon, Mike moves into the back seat of the SUV he’d rented for the trip saying that we needed to stop to fill up the car. I'm not sure why he, and not Steve, would need to get out to fill up, but I get into the front passenger seat without inquiring further.

As we approach the edge of town, we pull over to the side of the road beside a gas station. I look over and notice that the gas tank was full. Now I'm really puzzled.

Mike jumps out of the back seat, and five people who had been waiting on the roadside climb in. All of them, I realize, are getting a lift with us to Liwonde or points in between. So THAT’S what filling up the car means! This is one of many examples of how even though we're all speaking English, the meaning of what people are saying sometimes eludes and confuses me.

The radio plays gospel music as we drive, passing beautiful scenery and many village vignettes. We speed past villagers walking, cycling, herding cattle, and sometimes driving ox carts.

On Monday and Tuesday nights, we stay in Liwonde for a meeting on Tuesday morning. On Wednesday, we will drive five hours to Nsanje in the far south of Malawi. Since Liwonde National Wildlife Preserve is only a few kilometres outside of town, and we have some time, I arrange for us to go on a boat tour into the park on Wednesday morning.

Steve has never been to a wildlife preserve, and Mike has only been once during high school. Neither has ever been on a boat tour. It's just us, the guide (a former wildlife officer who has been working as a guide since he retired 17 years ago), and the two crew on an open flatbed metal boat with an awning.

Mike on the left, Steve in front, our guide in back, and the boat crew

The Shire (pronounced shee-ray) flows out of the south end of Lake Malombe, which is itself just south of and connected with Lake Malawi. The northernmost section of Shire River is within Liwonde National Park.

Almost as soon as our boat first sets out, I can see what looked like giant frogs peering up from the water: Hippos! One doesn't have to be in the park to see them. We pass pod after pod, only their ears, eyes, and very tops of their slate black snouts breaching the surface. Finding them so abundant, I'm surprised to later learn that hippos' range in other parts of Africa has become extremely limited. Malawi, in stark contrast, is a haven for them.

Hippos swimming

There are also many beautiful egrets -- one the size of a blue heron -- fish eagles, snake eagles, small black and white cormorants, and other birds.

Once inside the park, the crew pull the boat up to a marshy area beside the shore. The park ranger points into the forest. “Do you see them?” he asks me. See what, I wonder, looking intently. “Elephants.” And I realize that the things that I thought were thick grey tree trunks are not tree trunks at all.

As we watch, the elephants emerge from the forest and stroll over to a tree to congregate to our left. The guide points to our far right, and there we see another herd of elephants approaching, babies and all. These elephants gradually stroll toward us, and slowly another herd comes to join them. In all, there are over 50 elephants, many no further away than if we had been across a small highway from each other, eating, lifting their trunks to smell the wind, mingling with each other.

After perhaps half an hour, our guide asks whether we can move on. I plead for just fifteen more minutes here. Eventually, though, the time comes. The boatmen push us off, and we silently glide away from the shore, savouring our connection with these magnificent animals. When we've drifted far enough away, the pilot starts the motor, and we continue our journey upstream.

We motor further up into the park, and come across a crocodile sunning on a rock in a secluded area. It's startled by us, and dramatically rises up from its resting place, opens its jaws, arches its back, and dives into the water.

Further along the river shore, we find a pod of hippos on the shoreline, knee deep in mud, white egrets perched on their backs and intermingling with them. As we watch, we notice mud mounds along the shoreline start moving, and realize that these mounds are more hippos snuggled close together in muddy allegiance, slowly pulling themselves up and swimming one by one deeper into the river away from us. It's amazing to be able to share this experience with Steve and Mike – remarkable for all of us.

Observing them, they seem like such gentle creatures. Their round ears, round snouts, round, sturdy bodies, and slow, deliberate movements; the physical closeness they maintain with each other; their interrelationship with the egrets and other birds all bespeak peace, kinship, and community. How unlike they are from the sharp, long, muscular, and well-armoured crocodile who lies in solitary wait to lash out and attack its prey.

"No one swims in the Shire River," the boatman tells me a few days later after we cross in his dugout canoe from Nsanje to Mozambique. "Too many hippos. Too many crocodile." He points downstream to a small islet, not far, and a crocodile lying still and quiet just off its shore. Just seeing it sends a chill up my spine, and evokes the memory from our boat safari of its cousin gnashing its enormous jaws toward the sky, and lashing its tail as it dove into the water — a true monster!

Yet each year many, many more people are attacked, injured, and killed by the peaceful hippo.

Copyright © 2020 Lynn Thorsell, All rights reserved.

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Malawi album #5 on Google Photos

Please note that the views expressed here are mine alone, and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cuso International.

Parallel worlds

Savanna Courtyard is in Area 3, a neighbourhood predominantly occupied by the upper-middle class and moderately wealthy. The Lilongwe Golf Course is less than a kilometre away. The nearby shopping mall is not that different from an older street-facing mall back home: grocery store, hardware and appliances store, mobile phone outlet, meat market, optometrist, etc.

A tailor shop up the street from Savanna Courtyard

Just past the shopping mall, though, is something very unlike anything I've experienced in North America — a roadside maze of ramshackle wooden stalls where people sell a vast array of produce, chickens, home-made mops, hardware, and second-hand clothing. One Saturday early in my stay here, I wandered into it in search of produce, took a wrong turn and found myself in a residential area which until then I didn’t even know existed – tiny, weather-worn one-room concrete or brick homes with corrugated metal roofs, no water or sanitation services, tightly packed together and only accessible by footpaths.

While wealthy people like me spend most of our days in offices, homes, cars, and gated gardens and restaurants, poorer people spend most of their days outside working as guards, gardeners, farmers, or vendors. Business is conducted along the roadside at wooden stalls and tables, or from a mat on the ground; people cook outside over small charcoal stoves, ziwaya, barbecues, or open fires; and women do their laundry at the river, or in a big plastic bucket outside their homes.

Breakout meeting during a community scorecard exercise

There are no public parks in Lilongwe, although there are many private ones, rented for weddings and other social functions. I’m fortunate enough to have Havalah Park (searchable on Google Maps) right across from the CSONA office where, at the invitation of the couple who own it, I take my lunch break each day. It’s rare to have this luxury, and I don’t take it for granted.

My lunch spot in Havalah Garden

Although there are seasons here – a rainy season (December to April), a cold season (June to August), and a hot, dry season (September to November) – overall, the weather is incredibly consistent, and rarely a topic of conversation. Sometimes I think about saying to someone, “Isn’t it a lovely evening?” or morning or whatever, but then I remember that pretty much every evening, morning, day, and night is just as lovely.

Nights and mornings are cold in the cold season, but daytime temperatures are in the low 20s (Celcius). The hot season is very hot and dry; trees lose their leaves, and the landscape becomes bleaker and more barren. Daytime temperatures rise in the mid to high 30s. This is the best time of year to see wildlife, as there is so little foliage, and animals come to the larger water sources to drink. With the rain’s arrival, everything becomes lush and green again; newly planted crops sprout and flourish.

"Hunger"

Ironically, this is also the season in which there is the most hunger, as food supplies from the last harvest diminish, and people wait for the maize to mature. This is the cost of having become so reliant – as are most other sub-Saharan African countries – on a single crop.

Not that it’s difficult to grow things – that is, with enough water, the biggest challenge for farmers here. Early in my stay, I bought arugula and kale seeds and made a garden in the grassy plot outside my door, where an earlier resident had established two clumps of parsley. A few weeks after I added compost from the large pit tucked behind our flats, numerous tomatoes spontaneously sprouted – so many that I dug up most of the seedlings and gave them to the gardener, maintenance man, and the guards. Greens are only MK100-200 a bunch, depending on the variety ($0.18-0.36), and a bucket of tomatoes -- probably 3 or 4 dozen – only costs MK1,500-2,000 ($2.70-3.60). That doesn't provide much motivation to grow them myself, but I get a lot of pleasure from my tiny plot.

Dirt for sale on the street beside Savanna Courtyard

My tiny garden also gives me a small sense of connection with my colleagues, who almost all have farms or large gardens. One young guide at a wilderness reserve asked me whether most people in Canada were farmers, as they are here. When I told him very few of them were, he asked how people got their food. “Do companies just bring it to them?” My immediate impulse was to say, “No,” but on reflection, I realize that’s pretty much how it works.

Cattle being herded to the slaughterhouse, as seen en route to work one morning

Just as I find things strange and interesting that are very normal for people here, so much about how we North Americans do things seems strange or even bizarre to a Malawian. During the lunch break of a CSONA workshop, the executive director of one of CSONA's member organizations asked me where my parents were buried. I think he found my description of cremation and having their ashes in different locations slightly disturbing. He told me that here people know where their family land is by where their grandparents are buried. The implicit questions that raised about how or whether I know where my family is rooted remained unanswered.

Zitenje drying in the backyard of a well-to-do village home

I read an article recently in which the author was refuting “information processing” theories of human cognition. One of the author’s arguments is that our brains don’t store memories literally, as computer systems do. Not only do we not have literal and exact memories of events and things, but different cells and areas of our brains are activated even when we try to recall the same experiences. He argues that “a snapshot of the brain’s current state might be meaningless unless we knew the entire life history of that brain’s owner – perhaps even about the social context in which he or she was raised.”

Reading that took me aback. As much as I’ve known that my perspective is different from someone who has always lived in Malawi, reading that really made me consider HOW different, and appreciate once more that there are very few similarities in our experiences that I can take for granted.

Newspaper cartoons posted at the library

Copyright © 2020 Lynn Thorsell, All rights reserved.

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See more: Malawi album #5 on Google Photos

Please note that the views expressed here are mine alone, and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cuso International.

How language shapes a mind

Cuso volunteers with Shupe, our Chichewa teacher (wearing red)

For eight months, three of the other volunteers and I took Chichewa classes with a wonderful woman named Shupe (shoo'-pay). It’s the first time I’ve studied a non-European language, and for a long time, I felt very frustrated by how different it is, and struggled to grasp the basic grammatical rules.

In Chichewa, as in other Bantu languages, the formation of almost every word in a sentence is dependent on what the subject and object of the sentence are. There are all kinds of suffixes, prefixes, and infixes that have to be combined to say anything. It’s not even possible to count without knowing what it is that you’re counting, because there’s a prefix that’s related to the class of the noun being counted that goes before the number suffix.

For example, the word for “three” referring to people, (atatu) is different from most of the ways to say “three” to refer to different types of things (zitatu, itatu, or titatu), and it could be highly disrespectful to confuse those (although I've found Malawians to be exceptionally forgiving). Also, the prefixes used for only one person or one thing are different than those used for more than one, so the words for one are m’modzi, chimodzi, limodzi, or kamodzi. Those same prefixes, or variations of them, are used for any adjective.

Plurals are also formed by either adding a prefix or changing the first syllable of a word: Tamati (tomato) becomes matimati (tomatoes), mwana (child) becomes ana (children), and chipewa (hat) become zipewa (hats).

A typical mural on the wall of a meeting room: "Commitment to the development of the project"

Conjugating verbs is also very different. An infix is added to indicate when the action took place (past, recent past, present, habitual, near future, or future), but in addition to that there are also prefixes, infixes, and suffixes to indicate who is performing the action, and to whom or what that action is being done.

At the simpler end of the spectrum, “Tionana” means “we will see each other”, and is a common parting remark. “Ti-” = we, “-ona-“ = see, “-na” = each other, and the absence of a specific tense infix indicates that the speaker is referring to the near future.

At the more complex end of the spectrum,“Munandithandiza” means “You helped me.” “Mu-” = you, “-na-” = past tense, “-ndi-“ = me, “-thandiza” = help.

"Ndidzakuthandizani" means "I will help you." "Ndi-" = "I", "-dza- is the future tense, "ku-" = "you", "thandiza" is "help", and the "-ni" at the end makes this a polite "you", rather than an intimate or very informal "you".

Playing "This little piggy" with some village children

Although gender roles are very clearly demarcated in Chewa culture, all pronouns in Chichewa are gender-neutral. Consequently, when many native Malawians speak or write in English, they often use the wrong gender pronoun, referring to a daughter as "him", or writing "John and her wife Esther." I realize how salient gender is to me when that happens and I feel momentarily disoriented. I had assumed every language would make the same clear distinctions between male and female that English does.

In fact, not only the gender but the number of people being referred to is often ambiguous, because to speak about someone respectfully in Chichewa, one always uses the plural. People only use the singular version of a pronoun or person-word to refer to children, intimate friends, or people unworthy of respect. People even use the more formal terms of address for their spouses. I felt very proud of myself one day when I unintentionally slighted a vendor on the street, and was able to understand from the singular pronoun he shouted after me that I was receiving an insult.

I had also assumed that how we define family relationships would be the same — but of course it's not. Depending on whether one's culture is matrilineal or patrilineal, the children of either one's mother's sisters or father's brothers are also one's brothers (achemwene) and sisters (achimwale). A maternal aunt or stepmother (in some cultures, a man may have multiple wives) is called younger mother (amai a'angono) or older mother (amai a'akulu). Similarly, a paternal uncle is younger father (abambo a'angono) or older father (abambo a'akulu). Other aunts and uncles are azakali and amalune respectively. Aunts and uncles by marriage are all apongozi, the same term used for mothers-, fathers-, daughters-, or sons-in-law. Sisters- and brothers-in-law are alumu, and grandparents are agogo.

An interesting insight into language and division of labour

Another interesting difference is that except for black, white, and red, colours are not single words, but the phrase, “to be seen like” (kuoneka ngati) followed by something of that colour: the sky, leaves, ash, the sun (kumyamba, masamba, pulusa, dzuwa). As efficient as it is to have one word for a colour, metaphor and association do create much more meaning and emotion.

When counting in Chichewa, numbers greater than five are composites. seven is expressed as "five with two" (zisanu ndi ziwiri, and variations of that); seventeen is "ten with five with two" or khumi ndi zisanu ndi ziwiri. Needing so many words to express larger numbers suggests that people here may not have needed to use those often. Do you really need more that five cows? And if you have a lot more of them, is it enough to just know that?

Gule Wankulu ("Big Dance"), an integral part of traditional Chewa village life

Once Chichewa started to make more sense to me, I became able to recognize some ways in which it’s clearer and easier than English, and also how differences in language reflect the differences in culture. These longer phrases for colours and numbers to me reflect the slower pace at which people communicate with each other, taking their time to have a conversation rather than just a transaction. Learning these words, I recognize how thoroughly I’ve been trained to be efficient and time-oriented to the detriment of creativity, poetry, and relationship.

Efficiency and time-orientation do have their value, of course. These days, the English words for colours and numbers have been adopted into the Chichewa language, and even people who know no other English use these. This makes communicating in the marketplace much easier.

With one of the other volunteers and Shupe in front of a colourful building in the nearby market

Another way in which I see language reflect culture is how the verb and sentence structures speak to the interrelationships between things. Culturally, everything is about what family, village, tribe, etc. someone comes from, what religion they belong to, how they fit into the mosaic of things. The first questions people ask when meeting me are, "Where do you come from?" and "Where is your family?" People's relationship with land and environment is also more intimate. Almost everyone here is a farmer; even middle-class professionals in Lilongwe have plots of land on which they grow at least some food.

The relational perspective in Chichewa seems much more accurate, since we are indeed all part of our environments, cultures, families, etc. – but it’s a huge leap for my brain. Nothing and no one is separate or individual, as I’ve grown up thinking about things.

"Kalibu?" The guards inviting me to eat nsima, greens, and stewed soy and tomatoes with them as I enter our courtyard

Copyright © 2020 Lynn Thorsell, All rights reserved.

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See more: Malawi album #5 on Google Photos

Please note that the views expressed here are mine alone, and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cuso International.

Atypical days

“Bullous impetigo!

“So that’s what those blisters on my side are. Thank goodness I’m not allergic to mangos.”

I’ll leave it to you to search for pictures of this lovely malady (although I’m sure whatever you find online will be worse than what I experienced). Impetigo is very old disease, a highly contagious bacterial infection, most common in hot, humid climates and among very young children who have hot, humid places on their bodies. Where did I contract it? I can’t be certain, but an afternoon three days ago comes to mind.

Motel Paradise

My CARE Malawi colleague and driver Geoffrey and I are inspecting a MK12,000 (CA$20) room at Motel Paradise in Blantyre. We left Lilongwe early this morning to drive five hours south to Blantyre so that the people in the immigration office here can collect my biometrics and (I hope) finally issue me the temporary residence permit I applied for almost seven months ago. We arrived at the office shortly before noon to be told that today is a half-day for them, and we would have to return in the morning. So now we’re looking for a place to stay within the range of our per diems.

The bar at Motel Paradise: Geoffrey and the bartender were the only people I saw here.

The other lodges and hotels we’ve seen so far have been well out of that range and priced in American dollars. I was cautiously optimistic when we found Motel Paradise. To me, it looks to be in the upper end of Malawian business trip accommodations I’ve stayed at in the past, and much roomier. But Geoffrey is eying the worn and faded bedspreads with concern. “Could you change those?” he asks the man showing us the rooms. From the man’s response, it’s apparent that they don’t have anything better. The motel looks to have been built in the late 1970s, and nothing about it seems to have been updated since then. Including the bedding.

The Bed (which was pretty comfortable)

That night, I slept on top of the bedspread and under a mosquito net with a fan blowing, too hot and tired to strip off the unnecessary blankets and sleep between the sheets. Today, I’m imagining a hot, tired mother setting her crying, sweaty-bottomed baby down on that same bed at some point in the past, and wondering whether that bedspread was my downfall.

But if I have bullous impetigo, that means this has nothing to do with the quantity of mangos I’ve been eating (some of them collected at Motel Paradise itself from beneath their many Indian mango trees). What a relief! And, fortuitously, because of an out-of-control skin infection 18 months ago resulting from sand flea bites while on a three-week sailing trip, I happen to have a tube of the exact antibacterial cream a doctor would be likely to prescribe. It’s a remediable ailment, and another new experience of life here.

Indian mango trees outside my room -- so big you can see one hanging!

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Now that I’ve lived in Malawi for nine months, I feel much more able to handle the day-to-day challenges that arise. Things that seemed strange, new, and mysterious when I first arrived have become more ordinary, if still exotic. One evening, I came into the kitchen to find a small, eight-centimeter-wide tarantula sitting in the gap between the stove and the cupboard. It was calm, and so was I, as I found a glass to put over it, took a couple photos, and then put it outside.

That doesn’t mean that things don’t still catch me off guard and surprise me: It just means the things that do are even more remarkable than those to which I’ve become accustomed.

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In October, I felt comfortable enough to volunteer to make a business trip by myself to interview some of CSONA’s members about their experiences of the benefits and challenges of being part of a district-level nutrition alliance. I got a ticket for a coach bus that travels between Lilongwe and Blantyre, and figured out where I needed to disembark partway to get a mini-bus to Liwonde. I looked forward to staying at a lodge beside the Shire River that I’d seen on previous business trips, and eating beans and stewed pumpkin leaves at The Baobab where we’d eaten before.

The Baobab Restaurant in Liwonde

I’ve come to like the feeling of being snugly tucked between fellow mini-bus passengers – people with children, babies, large bundles of goods to sell at the market, on their way to and from work or visiting family members. Most of us don’t know each other, but we help each other get in and out, hold each other’s young children, move our feet to accommodate a giant bag of maize or bundle of motor parts shoved under the seats. We have a shared interest in getting wherever it is we’re going, and that simple common goal along with an ethic of kindness creates a quick comradery. My fellow passengers have made sure I got off at the right place; handed out my lunch bag, WorkSafeBC laptop case, groceries, and backpack; helped me find popcorn and groundnuts to sustain myself during a long trip; and scolded a vendor into giving me two extra cabbages when they saw that I’d paid too much for one sold to me through the window during a brief stop.

A clothing market as seen from the mini-bus window

But as we approach Liwonde on this trip, it’s suddenly apparent that all is not well. Charred wood, some still partially aflame, flanked by three large stones barricade the road. A few hours earlier, this would have been more impenetrable. Fire has consumed most of the logs, but the young men at the barricade are still intent on stopping us. They shout at the driver, and try to wave us down.

The driver, though, is having none of this. He barrels through the charred wood as if driving over a large speed bump, not even slowing. As he does, the men at the barricade move to the side and begin to throw rocks at us. One hefts a particularly large rock with two hands and takes aim. We scream and duck as he launches his missile. I imagine the bus window being shattered, people being hurt.

The mini-bus is rocked by the impact, but keeps moving. The rocks have only hit the side of the bus, already so battered that the damage would be unnoticeable.

We raise our heads, and look back at the men still shouting at us. The bus driver gives voice in Chichewa to his opinion about the highwaymen. I don’t understand most of the words, but I do understand the tone and sentiment. He says the men are trying to extort money from people, impose their own road toll. It was scary, but thankfully their intention was to intimidate, and not physically harm.

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Azungu Restaurant in Balaka (azungu means "foreigners")

Around noon the next day, I’m in Balaka, a hot, dusty market town, population 36,500, about half an hour from where I stayed the night before. I'm sitting by myself in a large meeting room on a green plastic lawn chair at a heavy wooden table waiting for my next interviewee, who is 30 minutes late. I’ve tried calling and texting him, but no answer. He may have run out of phone time and data, and forgotten our meeting.

To pass the time, I check my WhatsApp messages, and text a woman I recently met in Lilongwe to ask about a nutrition program she’d mentioned.

When she learns I’m in Balaka, she texts, “I hope you have found oasis at The Art House, Malawi’s best kept secret.” “No, I have not,” I reply. “Please say more!” Her response intrigues me.

Fortuitously, The Art House is located very close to my next meeting site. My interview no-show proves to be a gift. After calling to confirm they’re open, I pack my things, walk out to the road, and find a bicycle taxi.

Cycling by bike taxi through the residential roads of Balaka

Eighteen years ago, Tamara, a young fabric artist from Oregon, joined the Peace Corps, and came to Balaka for a two-year placement. Before those two years ended, a fellow volunteer and Italian chef, Andreas, convinced her they should get married and make Balaka their permanent home. The Art House is their creation.

And what a complete contrast it is to the rest of Balaka, and to everything I’ve experienced so far in Malawi! I enter the gate to find a small garden courtyard with lemon trees. To the left is a large, two-story stucco house; to the right, a matching one-story three-walled stucco building with an open-air restaurant. Tile work paves the steps and floors; beautiful, large paintings adorn the walls. I could be in France or Italy.

The Art House Restaurant

As I admire the artwork and architecture, a server comes out from the kitchen to greet me. There’s no question about what I will order: One of their specials today is ravioli verdi ricotta e spinici.

I seat myself – I have my choice of tables – and the server, a lovely Malawian woman, brings me a glass jug of cold water. You have no idea what an amazing treat this is. I boil water every day to have drinking water. The alternative, which I avoid as much as possible, is to buy bottled water. To be given this quantity of clean, potable water in a restaurant… I make a point to drink as much as I can of it, and fill my water bottle.

Soon after, in true Italian style, she brings a wooden board of antipasto: a homemade pickled vegetable that I don’t recognize, but that tastes delicious; toasty hot, crusty little buns; beans, freshly sliced tomato, and cheese – yum!

It's good that I'm hungry, because the main course is still to come -- a plate of giant green ravioli topped with a rich, dark tomato sauce. I cut into the first one, revealing the delicious ricotta filling. Scrumptious.

Ravioli verdi ricotta e spinici

After this feast, well saturated with water, I visit the washroom. With the exception of the lodges where I stay, once I’m out of Lilongwe, almost all the facilities are pit latrines. But this is a real washroom: clean, tiled, and like everything else here, beautiful – probably the most beautiful washroom I will see in Malawi.

The washroom at The Art House

Clean and sated, I poke my head into a little studio workshop that opens off the restaurant. Here, I discover an array of elegant handmade cards and cotton textiles for sale. All are made locally by village women, obviously under the direction of the artist who lives here.

And here is the artist now. Tamara, who I spoke to earlier on the phone, walks into the studio and greets me. We chat about how she’s employing the village women in her enterprise, and she tells me about the reforestation projects she and her husband are also leading in this area. Planting trees is one half of the equation, but can't compensate for the rate at which wood is being removed. Collection of firewood for cooking is a daily activity for most women and children. By building more fuel-efficient brick cooking stoves, villagers can cut their firewood need by two-thirds.

Meeting North Americans and Europeans like Tamara and Andreas who've decided to settle here makes me reflect on the different ways of being in a place. Tamara's and Andreas's education, wealth, and privilege set them well apart from the local population. There are many in that position who retain that distance. They, instead, have invested in their relationships with villagers, and use what they have to provide some benefit to the people so deeply rooted here.

My room in Balaka

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The next afternoon, I'm back in the same meeting room sitting on green plastic lawn chairs with Elizabeth, Hannah, and Ellen from the Coalition for Women Living with HIV and AIDS (COWLHA), and with Robert, the program manager for Positive Steps, where we’re meeting. I'm interviewing Elizabeth about her experience of being a member of the nutrition alliance for this district. Although much better than my Chichewa, the women's English is rudimentary. Robert has saved the day by translating for us. Since the electricity is off this afternoon, it was easier for him to put aside his work to help us.

With Elizabeth, Robert, Hannah, and Ellen

After gathering some basic information, I ask Elizabeth what brought her to do the work she does now. She tells me it’s because she herself was found HIV+, and she wanted to work and help other women in the same situation. She’s been doing this work for fourteen years.

She tells me that until three years ago, she and her colleagues didn’t understand the importance of nutrition. “COWLHA was only teaching us to have a balanced diet,” she tells me, “without going deep. Nutrition wasn’t a serious thing for us. Then CSONA began working in the Balaka district. I attended their four-day nutrition advocacy training, and brought what I learned back to my colleagues.”

Before the training, no one was talking about nutrition in the villages where they worked. Elizabeth and her colleagues got enough money to make some laminated cards with pictures of Malawi’s six food groups. “We formed a district committee,” Elizabeth says, “and began facilitating the education of people living with HIV and AIDS on importance of getting nutritious food. We travel long distances to these villages to provide civic education about nutrition.

“The joining of CSONA has brought a very big and positive difference,” she continues. “Now the people in those villages make gardens, and have more nutritious foods. HIV+ people have been tremendously helped to live healthier and longer.”

I’m surprised and impressed that Elizabeth used what she received during a four-day training to make such a profound difference in people’s lives. She and her colleagues are probably some of the most vulnerable of the vulnerable. Before they acquired HIV, they may have turned to sex-trade work or had unprotected sex due to poverty and misogyny. Yet they’ve taken their tragedies and dedicated their lives to the wellbeing of other women in similar situations. Ironically, as a result of their diagnoses, they have perhaps found employment, gained an income, and established a social support network that wouldn’t have been available to them before.

Thinking of the many difficulties that have likely been part of these women’s day-to-day lives, I’m curious what they consider the biggest challenge in their work.

“The biggest challenge is the funding,” Elizabeth tells me. “Since our last project ended, we don’t have money to pay for transportation. Even communication is difficult, because we don’t have money for airtime or WhatsApp.” She says that COWLHA was renting a house under a gender-based violence prevention project, but when that project phased out, the owner took over the building again.

“How do you cope with these difficulties?” I ask.

“Now we meet at Ellen’s house, and store our books and resources at Hannah’s,” she replies. “We walk where we can, and work with the people there. Maybe there will be funding sooner or later, but the need is always here. Funding comes and goes. Whether there is funding or no funding, we still keep on working.”

Seeing what Elizabeth and her colleagues manage to do with a few days of training and some homemade flashcards, I feel humbled. How many of us who have more could say we’ve made this big a difference?

With Clement Chiwala, executive director of Positive Steps,
another remarkable local HIV/AIDS organization doing much with very little

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Every day here, I see people doing their best to survive and make a living. Some of these people are driven to threats, violence, prostitution, and even to injuring, marrying off, or prostituting their own children. Sadly, of course, survival isn't the only motivation for greed and cruelty. There are many examples of people at all levels of the socioeconomic spectrum engaging in corruption and self-serving activities.

And here also, maybe more than many places, there are many examples of those with the heart and the means, no matter how little, who use what they have to benefit the lives of others. These stories are less dramatic, but just as deeply woven into the fabric of this country. Being in Malawi is experiencing all of this, side by side.

Copyright © 2020 Lynn Thorsell, All rights reserved.

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See more: Malawi album #4 on Google Photos

Please note that the views expressed here are mine alone, and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cuso International.