Little House in the Woods

The past 24 hours have featured some of the most significant, joyous, and simply heartwarmingly domestic moments in Malawi so far.  Friday marked the 3-month anniversary of my arrival in this country, the 3-week anniversary of my move to my permanent village, the finale of my first week teaching a full schedule of classes, and the first real, shining, honest-to-goodness moments of feeling my house becoming a home. 
This has been my first weekend with a fence around my yard, pictures on the wall, vegetables resting on a real table, and not just one but two kittens perpetually resting in my lap or perched on my shoulder. All these little things together have built up a lazy, consummate sort of contentment that is exactly what I’ve been needing – the soft mental hum of a slow Saturday spent in my own space, with the autonomy to do whatever I want.

But before I get too caught up in the present, let’s retreat back to the land of last month’s news: when it comes to permanent sites, I lucked out.

            My village is a mysterious land that goes by many names: a place in Mzimba district that is locally known as Mtangatanga, sometimes conflated with the nearby village of Chikangawa, but most often just known as Raiply (pronounced “rye-ply,” not “rapely,” as I originally thought), the name of the timber company that employs most of the area’s residents. In fact, Raiply built most of the local houses and the school where I teach, resulting in something that feels less like a remote village and more like a piece of Malawian-flavored suburbia.

Topping my list of favorite things about my village:

- The fact that it is the last major outpost on a windswept plateau at the edge of the largest artificial forest in Africa, and yet…

- it’s still on the main highway and only a one-hour minibus ride from Mzuzu, the northern region’s largest city.

- I have fantastic Malawian neighbors, all sweethearts, who drop by several times a day to chat in Chitumbuka and make me feel loved and supported in every possible way

- …along with equally fantastic Indian neighbors who give me delicious food and free rides

- …and a community of vervet monkeys that come just close enough to be entertaining and a little thrilling, but not close enough to be scary or annoying

I'm staying in a little brick house with (usually, but sometimes just theoretically) electricity and running water, two freshly painted rooms, an open porch, and a bathroom with a shower and sit-down toilet (in the former there’s only cold water, and in the latter the seat is actually missing…but still). The company has generously donated the space, the fence, and the furniture, while footing all my utilities-related expenses, and any worries about my safety while living alone can be assuaged by the fact that I’m located within a guarded compound that is itself within another guarded compound, located within the grounds where the senior staff stay.

And this iiiiiiis...Annie and Elsa! They like stealing my oatmeal and jumping on my shoulders from high places when I'm not expecting it. And they have snobby taste in books. We were meant for each other.

Decorating is a work in progress, but I’m shooting for a kind of colorful sub-Saharan whimsy, like if Karen Blixen’s house was furnished from an Anthropologie catalog. Stay tuned for bookshelves, chairs, chickens, and a PUPPY.

Pardon My Chi...tumbuka

The two- to three-month period known as “pre-service training” in the Peace Corps is often likened to boot camp (an analogy that would probably offend anyone who has actually experienced boot camp), but I’ve heard it repeated so often that it must bear some kernel of truth, and there’s no doubt that the challenges were legion: often physically uncomfortable, sometimes emotionally exhausting, always mentally taxing.

We faced the wider community’s constant scrutiny, along with a host of new bacteria ready to invade any and every orifice. Under the glut of weekly vaccinations, copious handouts, strenuous language sessions, restricted movement, tightly reined schedules, and the looming threat of giardia and schistosomiasis in every body of water, those first two months were basically about learning how to live in a place that wanted to hurt us. (But with daily tea breaks. And sometimes doughnuts.)

The sudden loss of independence was the bane of our collective existence, but it also happened to be the greatest gift we could have gotten. We floundered and stumbled and babbled in an unfamiliar world while there were still hands all around to guide us, and to me that was by far the best (and most interesting) thing about those first two months. Stripped of self-autonomy, I had the experience of a second infancy – but with all the self-awareness of an adult.

Everyday felt like an episode of Sesame Street, filled with elementary greetings and songs to help us remember things. My host mom packed me a lunch to take to school, protected my baby hands from scalding pots, and worried that my ten hours of sleep just wasn’t enough. I slowly gathered the basic tools of survival, such as cooking banana fritters and knowing (at least theoretically) how to start a fire. But most of all I was aware of another channel in my brain being opened – of the sights, sounds, and smells around me packing new labels and layers. I looked at a chair and the word “mphando” flashed above it. I was offered peas, honey, peanut butter, or eggs and each one seemed to be tagged with invisible ink: sawawa, uchi, chiponde, masumbi. And there was such meta-cognitive magic in all of this – in learning a language and being able to reflect on the learning that was happening.

There is an obvious downside to learning a geographically isolated Bantu language spoken by a minority ethnic group in an already tiny African country: it’s likely that these two years will be the only time I ever use it. But for everything it lacks in long-term practicality, Chitumbuka makes up for it in sheer musicality. You can’t help but fall in love with a language whose word for “difficult” is nonono, or whose word for “car” (galimoto) literally means “shining fire,” or that calls the morning “mulenji” and the early morning “mulenjilenji.” Chitumbuka’s lexicon is limited, so it blends a lot of the same sounds into different combinations to achieve a kind of semantic gymnastics. The result is charming: if chomene means “very much,” then “especially,” obviously, is chomenechomene. It has bouncy mouthfuls like Ichi ni chivichi? (What is this?), 14-letter monsters like tamupokererani (You are welcome), and bright little phrases like chimodzimodzi (the only English word that comes close to capturing its spirit: “samesies.”) It’s a tongue of multi-syllabic mazes, framed within a series of coos. During homestay, to say where I was living and with whom, I had to spew a ratatat sequence of k’s: “Nkukhala ku Katsekaminga kwa Nkomba.”

And though my rhythms are still a bit halting and staccato, stringing words together all feels like play (or at least a very rudimentary form of it, like punching out the tune of “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” on a xylophone). By having new sounds to describe familiar things, I get to hear the world strike new chords – and my oh my, Chitumbuka is full of them.

            Trainers and current volunteers have been repeating the same words of wisdom again and again: “Everyone has different strengths, so everyone’s legacy in his or her village is going to be different, and that’s okay.” Some volunteers are always out-of-site (and therefore out of sight), but their contributions arc toward the concrete, such as leaving behind a well or a library; others become a visible, integrated member of their communities, sticking to collective memory in more abstract, personal, but no less important ways (e.g., “She came to every wedding and every funeral, and she always greeted everyone.”) It’s way too early to tell what my impact will be – in fact, I’m supposed to just focus on my own survival for the next three months or so – but I can already tell where people think my forte lies.

            On one of my good days, I pointed to a burning pile of trash outside the teacher’s lounge, muttered the slang word “viswaswa,” and was met with a veritable firework-show of praise. It was declared that I am “now officially a Tumbuka.” (If I’d known that was the code word, I would have said it a lot sooner.)

At this point in my service, the idea of leading teacher workshops or starting an income-generating project or applying for grants still kind of overwhelms me, but I study Chitumbuka and think, “Okay, this. This I can do.” And while I build up the confidence to shoot for more tangible things, it’s wonderful to know that I can walk into my village, point to some viswaswa, and feel like a success. 

Amayi Nkomba, cooking sawawa

Aisha and Patrick, my favorite host siblings. (Don't tell Precious.)

Clearly I was their favorite as well.

Ratface, the most devoted member of Katsekaminga's canine fan club.  Name self-explanatory.

The greatest picture imaginable of Sarah and Agatha

Highlight of this day: listening to Herbie Hancock on top of a mountain.

For the Love of Maggie

All of the Peace Corps language instructors are fantastic, but our Chitumbuka teacher, Maggie, was inarguably and incomparably wonderful. With her vaguely Whitney Houston-esque appearance, her bookish air ruffled by an undercurrent of mischief, and her generally soft-spoken manner counter-balanced by an adorable tendency to screech when excited, she was immediately easy to love. Her particular brand of humor was less about what she said and more about how she said it – in a way that was so distinctively her, so thoroughly Maggie. And these Maggie-isms were exactly what made our language classes so fun and so often full of giggles. (Many of them were stress-induced and Meflaquin-prompted, I’m sure, but they were giggles all the same).

Around week three, I finally started writing a few of these Maggie-isms down, and now I’m letting them make their internet debut with a couple of disclaimers: a) that they’re presented with absolute love, and b) that they’re probably only funny to a handful of people in the world.

Cam, Donald, Nick, and my fellow Katsekamingans – this is for you.

While introducing the word kumwa, meaning “to drink”:

“If you use this word alone, they will simply conclude you are a DRUNKARD.”

Nick: “All these goats and cows, there’s got to be some cheese in this country.”

Maggie: [a long pause, followed by absolute bemusement]

 “…My god.”

Briefing us for a market visit:

“There will be a lot of things being sold like the mandazi, the tomatoes, the WHAT AND WHAT.”

In response to a buzzing bee: “Ah, HEY, where is it from? What is this boozing?”

“Aw. Boza.” – in an absolutely sweet, indulgent tone, in response to Cam’s announcement that he would be having cheese for dinner. Meaning: liar.

Discussing the subjunctive tense and the verb kufwa, meaning “to die”:

Student: “So can you say ‘mufwe’? ‘You should die?’”

Maggie: “Ah. No.”

Students: [disappointed silence]

Maggie: “But you can say ‘mukafwe.’ ‘You should go and die.’”

After writing the example sentence “Maggie steals”:

Student: “Maggie, how could you?!”

Maggie: “THIEVES STEAL.”

During a conversation about the Malawian fondness for food that is super-sweet and super-salty:

Student: “But you don’t have to add salt.”

Maggie: [thoughtful pause]

 “…You do here.”

No context needed:

“That was ah-wu-sohm.”

And no context desired, probably:

“So you can say ‘kujulika mnthumbo’ to say ‘I have opened my bowels.’”

Some of us had a hard time staying awake near the end of training:

“Not everyone likes sleeping. It depends on what someone WANTS. Some will even take their blankets, cover their heads…[slipping into giggles, looking at Donald]”

Because we’re all mature adults, the lesson on Chitumbuka curse words was particularly fruitful in the way of giggles.

-       Introducing the word thako: “Those are butticles.”

-       In an ultra-conservative country, the schematic for cursing is really very simple: “You can use any private part.”

-       And one insult is the worst of them all: pathako pako, meaning “on your butt.”

o   Maggie’s take on this phrase: “If you hear them use this, that is now the time to get MORE ANGRY THAN EVER.”

o   Alternatively, there’s the insult pa munthu wako, meaning “on your head”: “If you say this, it is now less tense.”

-       And then, of course: “Kugonana. This is now sex.”

In a conversation about dogs:

Student: “Those are man’s best friend.”

Maggie. “Yes.

               ….

            And then we beat them.”

The collective favorite:

“I usually don’t speak Chichewa. I HATE IT.”

And my personal favorite. One day I miraculously remembered the word kugomezga, meaning “to hope.”

Nick: “How’d you remember that?”

Maggie: “She’s a dreamer.”

[A poignant pause offered just enough time for me to think, “Oh, I’ll remember this forever.” And then the next statement made certain that I would.]

“…She’s a witch.”

Oh Maggie.