It’s not what I expected. But Malawi has a reputation for being The Warm Heart of Africa, and in my experience, that reputation is very well deserved. I’ve learned a great deal about kindness and togetherness since being here.
Because of this election, I get to go on my first road trip outside Lilongwe. The Civil Society Organization Nutrition Alliance (CSONA) is sponsoring debates on nutrition across Malawi among the aspiring members of parliament. My new colleagues Joseph and Mike, our driver Synod, and I travel five hours north to Mzuzu, where we stay overnight, and then drive another hour east to a lakeside resort for the first debate.
I’m surprised, and unprepared, to see that the debate will be held outdoors. A table is on the lawn under a large tree with chairs for the candidates and several bouquets of flowers. Chairs have also been set up on the other side of the lawn, but there aren’t enough for everyone. Most of the villagers who arrive sit on the grass, and once my chair starts feeling uncomfortable enough, I join them.
The moderator for the debate introduces the questions in English, but the majority of the debate is in Tumbuka, the dominant language of this region. Although I understand very little of what’s being said, my interest never flags. I’m sitting beside people who have no shoes, or whose shoes are so worn that they’re falling off their feet. It’s obvious from their presence and their attentiveness that this matters to them. The candidates’ debate is lively, and the villagers’ interest is contagious.
As the debate comes to a close, the moderator has one last request for the parliamentary candidates. “On election day,” he says, “these people will elect one of you to represent them. Once that is decided, it’s our responsibility to support the chosen candidate in performing their duties and delivering on their promises. I invite all of you to now stand and hold hands, demonstrating your support for one another.”
The candidates stand, reach out to each other, and raise their hands, smiling at the crowd and at each other. “We hold our elections in peace,” the moderator says. “Tili timodzi! We are one Malawi!”
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| Member of parliament candidates close their debate with a declaration of mutual support |
Driving to Mzuzu for the debates, I keep seeing the names of international aid organizations prominently displayed along the highway on concrete place markers, street signs, and banners: Plan International, World Vision, United Nations, US AID, European Union, Islamic Relief, Pennsylvania Methodist Church. Each of the signs and banners advertise projects underway or recently completed, or point to a local school or medical clinic that organization has built.
I imagine the experience of a child growing up in that village: what an event it would be to have an organization like that came into your tiny community; what a difference that kind of a project would make. I can easily imagine the kind of loyalty and admiration that child would have for that organization, country, or institution; that she or he might aspire to grow up and work for them and make a similar difference in other communities, would feel an affinity for that nation, would want to become a member of that faith.
As I meet and talk with more Malawians, I am impressed by how many of them have dedicated their careers to either working for a non-governmental organization, or founding their own smaller civil society organization to serve others.
A few weekends ago, one of my fellow volunteers invited me to take her place on a team-building trip being organized by Passion for Women and Children, one of the Southern African Nutrition Initiative (SANI) grassroots partners. One Saturday morning in the parking lot of a nearby mall, I board an already-full mini-bus and find myself seated between a large rusty metal barbecue grill and a lean, friendly man in his mid-twenties.
I am impressed to learn that Mackson is the acting executive director for this organization, and am curious about someone so young having this much responsibility. Passion for Women and Children provides services to people living with HIV and AIDS. An important aspect of their work, sponsored through SANI, is helping those people improve their nutrition.
Through the two-hour drive to the lake, Mackson and I dive into a rich conversation. He tells me he grew up very poor in a small village, often having very little to eat as a boy; sometimes pumpkin leaves would be his only meal of the day. He was fortunate enough to have an uncle who paid for his secondary education. (Only primary school is free here.) Eventually, his family’s socioeconomic status improved.
Mackson began working in non-profit social services organizations after graduating from secondary school. When I ask him about his proudest achievement, he talks about the work he did with young prostitutes who wanted to leave the sex trade. He tells me that sometimes he runs into one of those women, and how excited she is to see him and tell him how her life has changed. Now that Mackson has enough income, he sponsors the education of a few children from his village. He tells me his aspiration is to pay for 100 of them to complete school.
Other colleagues have similar stories to tell. They, too, grew up poor in villages. Because an older sibling or a donor through an international NGO sponsored their education, they were able to eventually go to college or university, find work, and escape poverty. They, too, aspire to help other Malawians transform their lives in kind.
It’s Thursday afternoon, and I’m walking through the streets of Nsanje, the southern-most town in Malawi. Nsanje was the area of Malawi most devastated by Cyclone Idai in March. I still see homes being reconstructed, an occasional tent still in use. This morning, across the street from the lodge where I stayed, women were lined up with colourful plastic buckets to draw water from one of the boreholes that Laurent, a volunteer who lives next door to me, would have inspected and repaired.
Nsanje has an atmosphere that makes me imagine a North American wild west community in the late 1800s. Although there are cars and motorcycles instead of horses, goats and donkeys graze along the side of the roads, a pair of donkeys loiter on one of the main streets, and a herd of cattle occasionally pass through town. As I cut a corner to turn right, I startle a family of pigs rooting among the bushes.
The two paved main streets, which converge into a Y at the south end of town, are also joined by a lively market area that crowds a dirt road. Driving through this road the previous night in our rented Ford Ranger with my colleague Mike and our driver Steve, looking for a place to stay, I felt anxious and tired. Steve slowly and nimbly navigated the vehicle through the crowd, dodging vendors’ goods spread along the roadside. We were surrounded by music, people, voices, lights. I felt more different and out of place than I’ve ever felt here.
Now that I’m out walking on my own, I feel safest sticking to the two quieter, wide, main roads. White people are obviously a novelty here. Almost everyone I pass greets me with a word or phrase of English. Young children run out from homes or schools waving and calling, “Mazungu! Mazungu!” and then sometimes run back squealing in wide-eyed shyness. I feel something brush the back of my head, turn around, and see two girls of about fourteen giggling, one of them having just touched my hair.
A young man is selling tangerines on a corner, and I stop to buy some. “Ndalama zingati?” I ask, and hear his reply as “150 kwacha.” That price is a little high, but still reasonable. I hand him MK300 and take two. “No, six,” he says. MK600! That’s expensive for tangerines. But then he starts handing me more of them, and I realize that they are only MK50 each – and rather than just taking my money, he’s making sure I get what I paid for. I’m touched.
From there, I walk down to the riverside to sit in the shade. A few men are also hanging out there, and I sit a few yards away from them, watching a young man in a dugout canoe ferry people across the water to the beautiful vegetable and maize gardens on the Mozambique side. One of the men comes over to sit beside me. We exchange greetings and introductions in his few words of English and my few words of Chichewa.
Then I think, “Why not take a trip to Mozambique?” “Do you think they would take me across in the canoe?” I ask him. He calls to the ferryman and another man in a red shirt, and very quickly everything is arranged.
The men excitedly help me board the bow of the canoe from the muddy riverside. The man in the red shirt is my guide, and the river is deep and dark. “We are very safe,” he reassures me. “We make this crossing many times. There’s no danger.”
When we reach the other side, we’re greeted by a very lean, older man who appears to be the father of both the ferryman and my guide. The men proudly show me the crops they’re growing, and are delighted when I take their photos. They show me the nsima cooking for their lunch under a small shelter. “No one swims in the Shire River,” they tell me, pointing out the crocodile lying on a little islet about a hundred yards away.
The men are all very lean. Women and children come from working in the fields. Everyone’s clothes are well worn, sometimes tattered. None of them have shoes. They’re subsistence farmers growing crops on land in a neighbouring country, land they don’t even own. I pay about $1 for my ferry ride, which I’m sure is a small fortune.
Some of the women and children join me for the passage back. The gunwale of the canoe is much closer to the water, the boat seems a little less stable, and I can’t stop thinking about the crocodile as we cross.
Later in the day, I eat dinner in a little restaurant on the main street closest to the river. Well after the sun sets, I walk back to my lodge, along the dirt road through the busy, noisy market. I’ve rarely felt this safe in a crowd, or this much community and connection as a stranger.
Many of us have the belief, conscious or not, that only some of us can live the good life, and that we have to protect what we have from other people who are trying to take it away; that it’s poor people who are the threat and the problem.
I’ve experienced something very different here. The opportunities I have to talk with, empathize with, and collaborate with people of a much lower socioeconomic status have been at least as much benefit to me as they seem to be to them. They seem proud to connect with me and tell me who they are; proud to be seen. I feel my anxiety dissipate, my body relax. I’m better able to open my heart not only to them, but also to me and to the whole of my experience — the wonderful and amazing parts of it, as well as the painful and lonely ones. We are both humanized in the process.
I’ve come to believe that fear is only necessary when we are trying to defend ourselves and our wealth from the people around us. It’s the wealthiest people here who top their walls with glass and barbwire, guard their premises with German shepherds, speed through rural communities in Mercedes and Land Rovers with windows rolled up, arm their security with guns. It's when I'm in those vehicles or behind those gates that I feel the most distrust of those outside; the most righteous and defensive of my many privileges.
Having a viable future for our planet requires something different. It requires us to see each other as resourceful, capable human beings. It requires us to reach beyond ourselves — beyond our religious, political, ethnic, and socioeconomic differences, beyond borders, even beyond our species.
I’m sitting beside my colleague Mike at a large wooden table in a very small concrete building. We’re in Mponela, a one-hour drive north of Lilongwe, and Mike is orienting this group of 15 civil society organization representatives to their new role as members of the national nutrition alliance. As he walks through his presentation, he periodically pauses and turns to them.
“Tili timodzi?” he asks. “Are we together?”
Copyright © 2019 Lynn Thorsell, All rights reserved.
Related resources
Maintaining relationship through difference and conflict
Three lessons of revolutionary love in a time of rage. Valerie Kaur, TED Talk, 2017
Red brain, blue brain. Shankar Vedantam, The Hidden Brain. National Public Radio, October 8, 2018.
Want collaboration? Accept – and actively manage – conflict. Jeff Weiss and Jonathan Hughes, Harvard Business Review.
The power of social (dis)connection
All the world's a stage – including the doctor's office. Shankar Vedantam, The Hidden Brain. National Public Radio, April 30, 2019.
The brain makes no distinction between a broken bone and an aching heart. That’s why social exclusion needs a health warning. Elitsa Dermendzhiyska, Aeon. April 30, 2019.
Ways we genuinely can buy health and happiness
The Soul of Money. Lynne Twist, W.W. Norton & Company, 2006.
We froze the salaries of 20 executives – and it improved the lives of 500 employees. John Driscoll, The Guardian. May 15, 2019.
Costa Rica is one of the world's happiest countries. Here's what it does differently. Josephine Moulds, World Economic Forum, January 31, 2019.
How economic inequality harms societies. Richard Wilkinson, TEDGlobal 2011. October 2011.
‘It’s a miracle’: Helsinki’s radical solution to homelessness. Jon Henley, The Guardian. June 3, 2019
“A higher degree of acceptance towards migrants increases happiness both among newcomers and the locally born.” The Happiest Countries in the World 2019. Luca Ventura, Global Finance, March 25, 2019.
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Please note that the views expressed here are mine alone, and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cuso International.
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