Try can recall the last time you were really hungry, a time when your stomach grumbled and you used the phrase ‘I’m starving’... I remember when I was a kid we were on a road trip and got stuck in traffic for hours- My family was so hungry that we searched the back seat for a Twinkie which one of us recalled seeing the day before. Eventually, the traffic cleared and we found one of those low-scale buffet places which allowed us ‘all you can eat’ relief. Yes, we have been ‘hungry’ but could we ever really understand ‘hunger’? We can kind of picture it, or rather what we think it looks like. We’ve seen the commercials with skinny children and an ungodly amount of flies, or the National Geographic images of people raiding trucks with bags of maize and flour on top of it ... but this is not the actual picture of daily hunger. In fact, you cannot actually see hunger, at least not on the surface. The people of Malawi do eat food. They eat pounded corn flour which is cooked into a playdough like paste- which they eat so that they can know the feeling of being full. In fact, it belongs in the ‘Chakulya Chakutukhira’ the ‘Food Group the Fills You’ category. There is no nutritional value, no taste, and they eat it for every meal. If they are lucky there are some cooked greens or sardines- flavoured with salt- which can allow for some flavour. The people are not stick thin and they do not fight for scraps. The corn flour keeps them at a size which would look normal to our eyes. Here, famine is not the complete absence of food – it is the constant daily struggle to feel full So, what does it look like? In Usisya it is the mother who has to give her children medicine which says ‘take with food’, only giving it without food because they’ve already had their daily ration. It is the Form 4 student who has to sit in classes all day without having eaten any food since lunch the previous day- because he lives with 15 other people and there is only enough for all of them to have 1 meal a day. It is the women who sacrifices seeing her children grow up- so that they may live with a family member who has the means to feed them and put them through school. People living in hunger spend most of their day working to get food. They have stories and lives which are horrific and heart breaking. Their daily reality is challenging and an uphill battle every single day. But there is also happiness and light in their lives. I once read somewhere – ‘does accepting happiness negate the sadness which one is supposed to feel? ’ The reality is that people living in hunger are also just like you. They celebrate births and weddings. The teenagers are moody, the children are goofy, the elders complain about the weather. The biggest thing I have learned is that hunger is not the absence of life- it is life which, unfortunately, is more challenging. Do not pity the people of Malawi, but rather acknowledge them and respect the fact they work every day to simply achieve that which life has given you with little effort – clean water, a full stomach, and security in the future.
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The life of an expat in developing worlds is a constant check on one’s privilege. I come from meagre means, both my parents worked full time to provide us with a comfortable middle class lifestyle. When I was 10 I got a pony, 16 I got a car, and at 18 the chance to go to college. I do not deny that I have been given a life with every opportunity a young American woman could ask for. However, being middle class meant no government support for college and a growing debt which many my age carry. I am coming out of my 20’s having spent six years accruing thousands in college debt, another three years working on a volunteer stipend, and now here I am again.. making very little money, with a massive debt waiting for me back home... and yet everyone I pass here sees me instantly as rich. This is something I have not been able to navigate. No matter how much I try I am still frugal with money. Because at one time I literally did not have enough to buy matches (just after returning from Peace Corps and using my resettlement allowance on help pay for the expenses acquired with the loss of my father). So, even here, where the Malawi Kwacha buys so much- I cannot make myself buy the extra soda with lunch. I will never be homeless, I will never go hungry, I will never really know poverty. I have a massive family and circle of friends who love me. I have a partner who knows how to budget and put money away in savings accounts which make more money than I do in a month. So, how do I navigate the pressure I feel in my chest when I spend 8,800 kwacha on a meal (only 12 USD)? I have known the worry of not having money...but that worry does not compare to the watchman who asked for 3,000 MK to help him until the next pay check, or the house staff who ask for 15,000 MK to pay for their child to go to school. So, how does one come to terms with all of this? How can we navigate the privilege given to us, where the country we are born in determines how high the glass ceiling is placed? And how do we weigh our own insecurities with money against those who use a completely different scale? Of course here is where any good anthropologist would site Boas's cultural relativism - an individuals beliefs and actions should be understood from within their own culture. A Malawian may never truly grasp the weight of poverty in America - obesity, debt, homelessness... just as I will never be able to feel the weight of perpetual- life long- hunger. However, I can attempt to step inside their shoes- to stay here long enough and tell their stories with as much objectivity as possible, while helping where I can. – pay the school fees, loan the money, buy the curio from the artist not the gift shop, share tea and sugar with the watchmen who only have hot water to get them through the night. Don’t spend beyond your means and help others when their means is less than your own. Since I spent the last entry explaining the weekdays – it is only proper to follow that up with the weekend. The weekends here are dedicated to church and chatting. Many of my co workers stay alone and when asked what they do on weekends, they all just seem to stay around their houses. Personally, I can only sit around the house so long before I feel like I wasted the day. So, after wasting as much time in the morning as I can stand on breakfast and reading the newspaper- I head to town.
Mzuzu is a sprawling city with approximately 200,000 people (there has not been a census since 2008). People do not build up here- they build out... so the town is all one story buildings servicing the niche clientele which each shop owner has chosen. Most shops are made for one product only – there’s the place you go to buy bread, another which sells buckets, one which sells seeds, and another for lubricants (oil for cars). In the market the women follow the same trend of having their speciality produce which is always sold with a ‘maprize’ – an extra tomato or handful of beans to encourage your return visit. The stalls of food are in the exact same places as 2011, so I find navigating them easy and comfortably familiar. I meander around town purchasing food for the next week and greeting people in Tumbuka to downplay my skin color as best I can. However, no matter how much I chat with the women in the market or go out with Malawian friends from work- I will always be the ‘mzunugu’ - the white outsider – the elephant in the room. This is something which I think expats just get used to, and I am slowly accepting , once again- that everyone will stare at me and assume my privilege not matter how little I make here. In addition to my market visits, there are occasional meet ups with friends from work. Last week I went to Abrigado (a little outdoor bar) with two co-workers and answered questions like ‘why do so many Americans like Trump?’ and ‘you mean you don’t go to church?’ This week I met up with Benson (who worked with Temwa when I was last in Malawi ) and we shared a bottle of wine in the store where it was purchased. At first I thought it was odd, but that was the norm as people came in, shared a drink from the store shelf, and then went on to other business. Even a soldier, dressed in full fatigues, came in and quickly poured a beer into a water bottle and left. I turned a blind eye... who am I to question the only people in the country aloud to carry loaded weapons? And, occasionally, I get invited to the homes of co-workers to meet their families. Today I went to Miguel’s house (he is the cook and house cleaner for the office), I have been helping him with school fees and I think he felt it necessary that I meet his children. His house is situated next to a golf course (which in itself is a very odd juxtaposition) and on a hill side which is very precarious to climb down. Of course children gathered to see the mzungu as I sat in the plush red chair on the front porch. His house was no bigger than an American playhouse and had a porch ceiling held up by detached metal poles. Their shower was directly in front the porch and consisted of plastic and reeds in a small square above the cliff. Awkwardly each family member took turns going in and having a bucket bath while I sat and chatted with Miguel and his oldest daughter. His family was very kind and happy to chat with me in chitumbuka. A sister even stopped by to chat, and to see if I was in need of hiring anyone to cook or clean for me (again can’t get away from the mzunugu status). When she realised I could not help and Miguel seemed to get concerned with her pressuring for a job, she changed to chat about what I liked to do. ‘you like to do what? Go to church, drink beer, men, dancing?’ I explained that my boyfriend was coming in less than a week and her response was, ‘ah, you will enjoy then’. Girls will be girls Then, after exploring and chatting as best I can in broken languages- I return the house. Evenings are spent reading, making dinner, texting with George, a hot bath, and early bedtimes. Here time runs slow, but compared to working two jobs and finishing grad school (how I spent the last few years) I am happy to have time to just sit and read and take in the pleasantries of chatting and experiencing new cultures. I have been back in Malawi for a full week now, and I am finally getting back into the rhythms of life in Africa. Here we wake up with the sun, and the noises of animals alerting us it’s time to start the day (crows are the most annoying alarm clock). The Temwa staff then slowly trickles into the office around 8 and take turns boiling water for tea and stepping into my front office to greet me good morning. ‘mawuka uli’ (how did you wake). Then we all get into the project of the day. Beatrice is busy typing in the data her extension workers collected regarding the level of famine occurring in our catchment area. The questions add up to show communities of people seeing their food access decline and asking for new ways to plant in a world without consistent rain. One of our projects distributed seeds a few months ago, but the seeds arrived too late and the people were so hungry that instead of waiting to plant - they ate the seeds. Fishani is trying to get his health projects scheduled out- AIDS support groups, AIDS education clubs, Peer Educators ... He is helping the communities understand what spreads HIV and that those with the virus should not be discriminated against. People in the villages continue to think that it can be cured with witchcraft and herbs, they think that you can get HIV from sharing food with someone who is positive, and yet continue to carry traditions like ‘hyenas’ where young girls are told to sleep with a selected village elder who will ‘bring her into adulthood’. Around noon we all share in a communal meal- usually nsmia and greens. For days when we want to add protein to the menu we all put in about 1 USD for goat or chicken. In this time we sit outside in the sun, chat about the world outside of work, and get energy for the second half of the day. This is the first time I have worked full-time in Malawi... and it is almost exactly like I was in an office in the states. True, the lunch is a bit different and I keep by brain busy translating conversations from chewa to English but for the most part it is a normal life. Then, on some days staff go into the field- remote villages including the one I used to call home (Usisya). Even in the rain, on precarious roads – they take turns using the motorbikes to do work– education sessions, HIV testing, seed distributions... I am amazed by the people who I get to work with in the next year. I am also excited to help them grow. While budgeting last week they began to learn new ways to tabulate numbers in excel. I am helping by laying-out evaluation tools they can apply to their projects so that they can record change and impact. I hope that through my time here I can build Tenwa’s capacity to create lasting impacts on Nkhata Bay. I was just looking at my last travel blog- June 27, 2011- and thinking how so much has changed since then...Two days after I wrote those words I lost my father, Three months later I moved to Philadelphia to spend a year living with my college room mate and serving as an AmeriCorps Volunteer, A year later I moved to Portland Oregon (partially following fellow RPCVS partially needing a complete change of scenery to maintain sanity) and began pursuing a Masters in Applied Anthropology, Three years later I moved back to the Farm in WV to complete my thesis. I have changed so much from all of these things, I have learned the weight of grief - I have driven across the US twice and seen more of my country than ever before - and I achieved a masters degree which has opened my understanding of good community development. Five years in total have elapsed since I left Malawi, I have changed a lot, and yet it feels like I never left. Once again I am here, alone on a weekend, with little to do besides roaming around and evaluating the number of hobbies I have which can be applied to the down time. This time around will be different, however, I am working in the third largest city in Malawi (small on a US standard, but there is a grocery store and small ex-pat community). My office has WiFi internet which allows me to stay in touch with the States on a regular basis (no streaming videos, but email and messaging are easily used). I have a clear goal - I will be working with a small non-profit and supporting their staff in data collection, program evaluation, creating project systems which allows for strong reports and case studies, leadership and group dynamics support ... Also, this time I am not completely alone. George will be joining in a couple of weeks- a thought which makes this temporary solo adventure more bearable. I've spent most of life proving my independence, showing myself that I could travel alone. I am done with that and am counting the days till my travel companion joins me. I will work on reviving this new blog over the next year, allowing friends and family back home to keep up with my life here. For now, I am off to the market to sort out a local cell phone and to see how much has changed since I was last here. Stay tuned... |
Bonnie HarveyCurrently working in northern Malawi as Programs and Evaluations Coordinator for Temwa Archives
June 2019
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