Life
in Malawi has mostly leveled into a cozy plateau of normalcy, but there are
still little surprises – the best of which are the moments when all the joints
pop into place, all the hinges swing open, and I’m left internally chanting, “I
live here. I am doing this. I can handle anything.”
One
such moment: I’m waiting on the road for a lift to the post office. It’s a slow
day, I’ve been standing in the midday sun for nearly 45 minutes, and a minibus
finally appears.
“How
much to Chikangawa?” I ask in Chitumbuka, feeling sixteen pairs of Malawian
eyes swivel onto me (and up me, and down me, and back again).
“400
kwacha,” the conductor says, shamelessly giving me the mzungu price.
“Pssh.
Ah-ah. 200.” I scoff, sunburned and impatient, feeling crisp in more ways than
one.
The
conductor nods in assent. I step aboard.
The
entire minibus erupts in applause, accompanied by excited murmurs of “She knows
it! The girl understands! She is Malawian!”
I
get congratulatory high-fives from six people.
***
Experience
and common sense have carved out a special category of exceptions to my “chat
with anybody and everybody” rule: men yelling at me from bars. On one particular
Sunday afternoon, when a slurring gentleman beckoned me to come closer, I
pulled out all my signature moves. I avoided eye contact. I didn’t smile. I
kept walking. I said, in the vernacular, that I was busy and going home.
But
this one was persistent. He stumbled across the market and caught up to me. It
had all the characteristic signs of a confession of love and/or commentary on
my appearance and/or inquisition about my lack of a husband at the ripe old age
of 23. I slowed down anyway (a little huffily, I’ll admit).
But
this is why the benefit of the doubt is so great: people surprise you.
“Madam,
you are teaching one of my children,” he said. “And I just wanted to tell you…thank
you. You are doing a great job. Thank you so much.”
And
then he shook my hand graciously – chastely,
even – and staggered back to the bar.
***
During
a listening exercise with my Form 1s, I read a passage about Nelson Mandela to my
kids, asking them to write down the important details. They seemed confused.
“Madam,
who?”
“Nelson
Mandela,” I repeated, surprised that they hadn’t heard of him.
“Who?”
“Nelson
Mandela – he was the president of South Africa.”
A
wave of recognition passed. “Ooohhhhhh. Madam, you mean Nail-sohn
Mahn-day-luh.”
“Right,
Nell-sun Man-dell-uh.”
Uproarious
laughter. “Nooooo, Madam! Nail-sohn Mahn-day-luh!”
“Nail-sohn
Manh-day-luh,” I said in my best African accent.
And
the class burst into a sort of half-laugh, half-cheer, which is one of my
favorite Malawian idiosyncrasies, and which makes it impossible not to fall in
love with this place a little more every time I hear it:
“AHahahaha
[pause for breath] EEEEEEHHHHH!”
***
Near
the end of the first term, news broke that several kids had dropped out of
school to get married. A special assembly was held to address the issue, which
is actually quite a widespread problem in Malawi.
Picture
yours truly undermining that seriousness in front of the whole school. Tears
pooled in my eyes from holding in the laughter as my headmaster announced in
total earnestness, à la Mean Girls,
“If you get married at an early age, you will die.”
***
I’m
walking with purpose and a puppy, scanning a long mental to-do list. A man on
the road calls out to me with a common question: “What is the name of your
little dog?”
“Chalo,” I say.
“Madam,
I could sue you!” he shouts in mock outrage. “You have stolen my nephew’s
name!”
I pause
in the dust – here’s somebody with a set of jokes I’ve never heard before. “Oh,
please don’t! I don’t have a lawyer!” I plead.
“You
need to get one. How long has your dog had this name?”
“About
four weeks,” I reply.
“Ah,
my nephew has had his name for five years. You are sure to lose in court,
Madam.”
The
charade gains momentum and keeps rolling, building into several minutes of
rapid-fire smack-talk about an imaginary lawsuit. But then it occurs to me that
there has been a misunderstanding.
“Oh,
but sir – do you mean Charles? This
dog is a Tumbuka. His name is Chalo. You know…like chalo,” I explain, gesturing to the soil at our feet and the hills
on the horizon.
The
man nods in understanding.
“Ah,
I don’t have a case then,” he says dryly, tipping his hat to me and boarding a
passing minibus.
****
I
loaned a six-month-old copy of Scientific
American to one of my best Malawian friends, Blessings – a security guard
who also happens to be one of the most intellectually vibrant people I’ve met
in a long time.
When
he finished it he came to me breathless, in part from dashing to catch up with
me, but also from the sheer thrill of what he had read. “Madam. MADAM. That
book – I must tell you – I have loved it so very much.”
Between
gasps, he spouted a string of statistics from the article, and I was reminded
why we are friends. For twenty minutes, we nerded out over neurons, evolution,
and super-computers, talking about the scope of human potential, reveling in
shared amazement at how far we can go and how much we can know – but also at
how much we still don’t know – and
feeling quite big in light of that smallness.
When
Blessings turned back to his post at the main compound, I spent the rest of the
walk home in a misty-eyed haze for reasons that came from all directions:
-
partially
because mutual nerding-out in a completely noncompetitive, pure-hearted way is
my absolute favorite way of bonding with another person
-
partially
because it’s a pretty rare thing to find in general
-
partially because
I don’t get enough of it here and I miss it terribly
-
partially
because, in a country where books are scarce and reading for pleasure is
considered a bit odd, it’s truly extraordinary
-
but mostly
because of the sheer poignancy of finding such unassuming curiosity in a person
who, for reasons beyond his control, never finished high school.
Blessing’s
story is, unfortunately, all too common in this country. Orphaned as a
teenager, he moved in with grandparents; they could not afford to pay his
school fees (equivalent to about $15 USD per term), so his education was put on
hold for more than a decade. Just this year, at the age of 33, he took his
secondary-level exams, but he is now dangling in a crucial limbo, waiting to
hear about the national exam scores that will ultimately decide whether he can
start pursuing the dream he won’t stop talking about: enrolling in university
correspondence courses. In the meantime, he spends his days posted at the front
gate, devouring every book he can find.
He just
started reading A Brief History of Time.
I can’t wait to hear what he’ll say about it.
Update,
as of November 17, 2012:
The
national exam scores have been posted.
….Blessings
passed.
