Malawi 2004 - 2007 |
||
Village Life
|
||
Sleeping In Khande Some time back, when I visited Tsabango , Gracious had taken me to see the pigs he was rearing as part of a project to establish some income generating activities. I told him that I would like to stay in a village. "I would like it if you would stay at my house" he had said. We agreed that one day I would come. The training workshop was the first opportunity to spend more than a day in the area and it provided the chance to take up Gracious' offer. At the end of the first day I sidled up to him and asked if it would be problem for me to stay at his house. He said it would not, but there was little enthusiasm in his reply. Now Gracious is a taciturn character at the best of times. His delivery is deadpan and he smiles little, but this did not feel right. I decided that I would ask Richard our driver to talk to him. Richard was only too pleased to be engaged in a cloak and dagger operation and set about exchanging secret notes with Gracious in the workshop. After about half an hour he arrived triumphant. " He likes you to stay, but he is worried about where you will sleep and what you like to eat. He doesn't have a bed" Of course, you stupid mzungo , he is worried that he cannot meet your high western expectations. We agreed that I would come the following night after the workshop had finished. Well the next night was difficult and Gracious was disappointed that I could not come, but was not upset. In Africa people are used to capricious gods who squash the best laid plans as casually as swatting a dozing fly. There is always an illness, a death, an opportunity that must take precedence. It means that European ideas of professional standards must be set aside. It is understood that people will be late or simply not arrive. Life is like that. No it did not matter and I could come tomorrow. But tomorrow was also difficult, and so it was set back for the following day. Gracious was beginning to think that the mzungo was getting cold feet. Wednesday At last, problems sorted, we could go to Khandi. Gracious even managed the merest hint of a grin that I thought had a touch of smugness in it. We waved farewell to the car as it bumped along the rutted earth road back to the metropolis and set off through Kang'oma . As we left the village on a small track we were joined by Sampson, a rangy youth, with a generous smile and easy manner. He spoke little and his cantilever jaw and slightly bulging eyes gave him a vaguely comic aspect. He couldn't speak English, but he was an easy companion with a dopey smile always in repose upon his lips. As we walked in gently undulating hills, along paths through plots of vigorous maize plants we were met by a series of incredulous chums. "Where is he going to sleep?" "In my house" "What under a grass roof?" "Yes ". This usually resulted in hoots of laughter at the thought that a mzungo would choose to stay in these rough surroundings when he could be living in luxury. I suspect that there was more than a hint of disbelief that I knew what was awaiting me. Gracious answered each enquiry with his usual undemonstrative courtesy, but as we walked he revealed that no-one had believed that the mzungo would really arrive. We were caught up by Harrison, a diminutive man in his early twenties, who looked as though his head had been superimposed onto a child's body. There is often a perception that Africans are a tall people. Harrison was living proof of the power of poverty to stunt a child's growth. In general Malawians are small. It is not uncommon to see men and women under or around five feet tall. Harrison was always the one who came to meetings as the stereotype of the village man - torn, worn-out clothes, and no shoes. But this time he had transformed himself. He had turned up to the training in a clean shirt and presentable trousers of a reasonable fit, rounded off with shoes. Now, it seemed, he also owned several fields around us and had two children. He proudly led us through his crops of maize, sugar cane, tomatoes and greens. We left Harrison to follow another path to the plot tended by Gracious.more than a kilometre further on. He became animated as he showed me around, asking me if I knew what each plant was, proudly explaining his plans for each crop and stopping with Sampson to pick some chinese cabbage leaves and rape for dinner. As we reached the edge of the plot he pointed at a large green plant and said "Do you know what this is?" " Yes its chamba (Marijuana)" He laughed disbelievingly, "How do you know that? ". It seemed that some wayward young men were growing this single plant risking everything lest a policeman should become lost and find himself in this backwater. By now it was turning to dusk and we still had a way to go. We also had to greet Chief Khandi (village headmen assume the name of their village, similar to our Lords of the manor) who had to be consulted and kept informed of all visitors and activities. We walked through another village. People were a little wary but greetings were exchanged. Two of Gracious' relatives were introduced. As we progressed our small group developed a train of laughing children of all ages and sizes, keen to see what this exotic creature would do. We played some mime games along the path until as we started to leave the village behind I thought it time to send them home. I turned sharply and became a monster. To the children the mzungo had transformed into an evil spirit. Two steps forward were enough to send them shrieking into rabbit flight, their short thin legs pumped by adrenaline. They stopped twenty metres away, giggling. This game had to be repeated twice more. As we entered Khandi the children were playing tag in the last rays of the setting sun. They stopped and stared. Chief Khandi was pleased that I was visiting the village and I was grateful for his hospitality and hoped I would see him again. Sampson's Burden. Gracious asked me if I would like to see Sampson's house in the next village five minutes away. I had gradually heard Sampson's tale as we walked. His father had died in 1994 and his mother toiled on with the spirit-sapping task of feeding and rearing four children on her own. Eventually, seven years later, her life sucked dry, she faded away. At the age of fourteen Sampson became the head of the household and became a man too early. We reached his house, a small hut with a grass roof held together by holes that had no hope of keeping the rains out. Outside a few tattered clothes were drying. The brother and two sisters were called. One was a tiny waif with hardly any clothing. The boy was about nine years old and carried the cares of the family on his unsmiling face. Another little girl had a cheery presence but the most affecting was the diminutive sister/mother. She was thirteen years old. We all know thirteen year olds who are strapping women. She was not one of them. This was a little girl who should have been playing mothers and fathers and fantasising about fun and romance. Instead she was playing the mother for real. Her days were an endless round of collecting wood, cooking, washing and working for others in the fields. Some weeks later Desmond had gone to conduct some more training. Word was that Sampson had gone mad. He was preaching all of the time and the young people did not know what to do. He had escaped for a short time from his adult burden. Now God was the father for a while and totally responsible for his family and his empty belly. After a dozen or so days he started to come back and now seems ready to take over from God again. It seemed that his village isolated the family. Ill fortune is not bad luck it is bad magic. He had been trained as a carpenter but people stole his tools and jealousy robbed him of his will to go on. Chez Gracious. Gracious lived with his smaller brother in a tiny two-roomed house. Mother lived in another house but was away. This was my home for the next two days. It was time for cooking. A fire was started in a small room ten metres away. Smoke billowed from the door and wafted through the grass roof. I asked Gracious if he knew that cooking over an indoor fire was not great for your health? He was mildly surprised. I told him it was one of the big causes of ill health according to the World Health Organisation. He chewed it over, but in the end was not impressed. He had not known anyone who had got ill through smoke and anyway this is the way you cook. As the Nsima (maize dough) and relish (tomato and greens) was brought Sampson loomed out of the black darkness into the soft edged pool of yellow light spilling from the tiny home made paraffin lamp. Of course he would eat with us. Permission was neither asked nor given. We washed our hands and used them as cutlery. As we ate and chatted two tiny figures took shape as they emerged into the light circle. They were carrying a small plastic container. They opened the lid and ladled paraffin with a spoon into Gracious' lamp. He handed over MK10 (5p). The lid was put back and the two tinies dived into the nothingness to find the next customer. We finished the nsima , slurped our way through the mangos I had bought in the market and settled down for a cup of tea. Gracious struggled to find enough cups. I had bought some sugar - what a treat. "You don't want sugar? ". Gracious couldn't hide his disbelief. The boys did not bother with spoons and by the time sugar had been poured nearly half the bag was in the cups. Africans and sugar have a symbiotic relationship. Sampson finished his homework by the dim glow of the single lamp and then bid us goodbye. The three of us laid down grass mats and covers on the earth floor. Gracious talked with his brother and looked perturbed. He had a stomachache . Gracious had to go to his uncle who was a traditional medicine man . He launched himself into the bush, to return a few minutes later with an infusion and a tablet. We went to bed rather than to sleep. I was not prepared for the crackling battery powered radio that Gracious always kept on all night. At three thirty a moaning brother forced Gracious from his bed. The 'doctor' had given him the wrong medicine. Once again he sprinted to the uncle and came back with a superior pill. Gran . Next morning the bleeding sun nudged the ever-present cockerels into action. They, in turn ensured that we would not turn over and go to sleep. People were already in the fields. Young women were planting maize seed from shallow, round bottomed baskets. African women bend double from the waist to reach the ground. You rarely see them stooping. Some were walking along the paths to other fields. A trail of older women with hoes on their heads and their shoulders came by to greet me. Gracious located each in the family tree and explained that old women stayed alive by ganu - casual labour for others. I thought I ought to try to join in and helped Gracious with some weeding in his rows of beans. The soil seemed loose and friable. The passers-by seemed bemused and amused in turn. The one concession to the tender sensibilities of the visiting mzungo was in the bath house. Gracious emerged proudly from the smoking room with a bucket of tepid water. I took it into the tiny mud bathroom hut and enjoyed the luxury. After a cuppa we decided it was time to walk to the Kang'oma course. But first I should greet Grandmother. She was a portly woman whose eyes had succumbed to age and were now permanently asleep. She was now only able to get around slowly by feeling her way. She was totally dependent on the family and Gracious told me that she no longer left the environs of the house. You get used to seeing old people, often blind, begging in the towns, and usually casually brush their appeals aside. Seeing Gran so dependent on her family drummed home just how hard life is for an old person without a family. We spent another night in the village. I was already beginning to feel at home and romanticised how easy it would be to sink into this relaxed way of life. I had already forgotten the cheery greetings of the drunks on the doorsteps of their house at six o'clock in the morning; the withdrawn nature of Gracious' brother who rarely strayed far from the house; the daily struggle of Sampson's beleaguered family; the pain of being old and alone; and the poverty that was already setting a life path for many of the children. Sometime soon, though, I plan to return. Postscript After I left Malawi I heard that Sampson had died from an undefined blood condition leaving his 13 year old sister to raise the family. . ***************************
|
||