Eating Chambo

Chambo is any one of four species of cichlids which inhabits Lake Malawi - and it is growing rare, due to over-fishing and water population.

Not knowing any of this, I had guilt-free chambo for lunch, last Tuesday, en route to Lake Malawi:

Admittedly, it looks a little horrific - but man, was it good! Well, the slim slices of fish I was able to dig away from the fish bones were delicious - tasted like freshly caught lake fish - perhaps a very young pickerel?Linda, who doesn't like her lunch to ogle her, opted for the sanitized chambo fillet. Larry and Miriam settled on chicken - perhaps seeing a fishing string line of slick, glassy-eyed chambo dangling from the driver-side mirror for an unspecified time, put them off. Now that my stomach has settled into a generally peaceful rapport with the African cuisine, the sight merely piqued my appetite.

And for dessert - ice-cream which was, according to a wall sign "The best ice-cream in Africa."

Guess what - it was!

Most Shocking Thing I Have Read in Malawi

From a free tourist publication, citInfo – The Essential Guide to Cities and Regions of Malawi, which was placed in my hotel room.  In the Getting Around – Travel & Transport section:

The fastest and most flexible form of transport remains the minibus, both within the cities and on inter-city routes. However, visitors from countries where life is considered to be of greater value should be warned that the safety record of minibuses, especially on the longer (therefore faster) routes, is not good. The newspapers are full of details of horrific accidents caused by overspeeding or careless driving of these ‘mdula moya’ (life shortners). However most minibus journeys are concluded safely.

Well, at least they are honest. But what does this say about the Malawian appreciation for life – I guess considering that life expectancy here is still about 48 years for men, death is no stranger, no surprise.

Thankfully, I haven’t had to resort to mini-buses as Nancy and the McCauley family have been hauling me around, when it’s too far to walk.

Although frankly, even walking around here is a bit of a nail-biter as cars whiz by, trucks, jammed with people sitting atop bundles of fertilizer, threaten to spill their loads – and mini-buses race from stop to stop.

Generous Greed

My last purchase at the lake was a wooden bowl for 2000 kwatchas. I didn’t really want the bowl, but one of those itinerant door-to-compound-fence salesman settled himself near our cabin, spreading a cloth in the sand, and depositing the usual assortment of beads, carvings and paintings, minutes before our departure. Compelled by a sense of curiosity and last chance shopping greed, I went down to him.

This man was a bit older than the two salesmen I had run into at the end of the beach, and his display, more meagre. But he earnestly showed off his carvings and beads, and assured me the prices were all “negotiable.”

“Only 3800 kwatchas” he told me, gesturing to the largest wooden bowl, the one he could see me looking at.

“I don’t really need to buy anything.” I said, really meaning it.

“How about 2000 for the smaller one? Sure, sure?” I sense he felt the sale slipping away.

“I need money for food.” He told me, going for the sympathy purchase. I looked at him – he did look sort of lean and hungry.

The seller picked up the larger bowl, and handed it towards me, “Two thousand for this one?” he asked hopefully.

“Well, OK…” I said, peeling off four 500 kwatcha bills from the wad I had secreted in my pocket.

The thing is – did I get a really good deal, or did I rip the poor guy off? What kind of a person am I, what kind of a Christian am I, that I would capitalize on someone’s desperation – I certainly could have afforded to pay more – even $2500 would have made my conscience feel better.

Bartering is an expected part of commerce here in Malawi – and azungus like me, known to be people of means, are expected, by the moral code of Africa, to pay more. I mean who are we kidding here – everyone knows a Caucasian from the West has more disposable income to spend in a two week vacation, than many Malawians will make in a lifetime.

I have read that Africans consider North Americans greedy because we don’t share our money with them – we walk by beggars, when we have money in our pockets. We turn down direct pleas for assistance, from the crippled, from the indigent, from the destitute – from mothers with malaria-riddled babies. From children with outstretched hands. We haggle down prices even though we can afford to pay more.

And our response – how do we know these people are really needed and just putting on a show to part us from our hard-earned money? In David Maranz’s book African Friends and Money Matters, Maranz explains that Westerners want accountability and responsible spending, so they prefer their donations to channel through some kind of accredited organization – rather than peeling off bills from their pocketbooks. It’s generosity, but very different from the form in Africa – where friends and families rely deeply on generosity – on a person-to-person basis – whomever has money, shares money. When an African friend develops a friendship with a Westerner, he or she expects the Westerner, known to be financially opulent, to become part of the African system of giving – from those with money, to those without.

It’s complicated – when cultures collide, and the misunderstandings, on both parts, leave people feeling at best unhappy, at worst, used or betrayed.

And this is just one of the differences that separate us.

Stupid Things I Have Done While in Malawi (So far)

1.       Lost my Passport – This is #1 on my list – and led to a very uncomfortable two day ordeal. I had been carrying my British golden ticket around in the L.L. Bean travel wallet Karen had given me – taking it out every so often to admire the glittery one page Mozambique VISA I had to buy. When I checked into the Korea Gardens Lodge, I was asked to provide a passport number. I went to retrieve my passport from its accustomed slot – and it wasn’t there. Hmm – I thought – had I decided to return it to its previous resting place – my blue Gap waist bag? Settled into my new room, I checked the waist bag – nothing. I felt a sense of rising panic. I tore apart my suitcase and backpack, going through each item with care and terror. Nothing. I shared the news with the McCauleys, who were similarly shocked. Had it been stolen? I was certain it couldn’t have slipped out of the wallet, as it had been wedged in tightly. As the same wallet also held my Union Gas iPhone, I never let it out of my sight. And there had been money in the wallet – none of that had been taken. So we pretty much ruled out a crime. I wanted to blame my own carelessness and historical record of similar losses (such as keys) – but could I really have been that thoughtless with such a critical thing as my passport? Larry and Harrison went through the office, in case I had accidentally left it there. Still nothing. The following day, the day before Christmas Eve, I did another thorough search through all my belongings – and came up empty. My stomach was in turmoil – I recalled Tom Hanks, stranded in an airport because he had no passport – and imagined a future as a defacto Malawian resident. Fortunately, I am British and there is a British Embassy in Lilongwe – and I had a photocopy of my passport in my suitcase – but at the very least, I would miss my two week teaching stint in Mozambique. Around ten that morning, Linda came by the hotel and we compared notes – neither of us had found it, nor had Nancy, who I had been staying with. Options were limited – fears were rising. Linda and I were looking forward to a trip to the police station, to report a theft, followed by a trip to the Embassy, all as Lilongwe was winding down for the holidays. Linda looked at me and said, “Do you mind if I check your through your stuff?” “Not at all – please do. But I can assure you that I have checked everywhere and it is nowhere to be seen.” Linda started with the passport’s LKL (Last Known Location) – my L.L.Bean wallet.

I estimate it took her between 15 and 30 seconds to locate it – it had slipped into the second half of the pocket it was in – which turned out to be about 14 inches in length, not seven.Boy, did I feel stupid! Larry tells me she pulls off miraculous search and rescue efforts like this regularly. I still felt stupid.

2.       Gave 500 Kwatchas to a Boy – As I was walking across the Game parking lot, a raggedy boy approached – maybe eight years old – dressed in ripped and scruffy shorts and T-shirt, with scars all along his arms. Pitifully, he held out his hands and begged, “Mama – help me Mama – hungry.” Without thinking, I dug out 500 kwatchas from my L.L. Bean wallet – worth about $3.50 back in Canada. Worth a lot more to the poor of Malawi. Before I knew it, two more street urchins had shown up, hands out, begging for money. “No. No money! Not today, maybe later.” I said sternly, walking briskly away, clutching my wallet and avoiding eye contact. The two boys trailed me for quite some time, hoping I would relent. Handing money over to kids here just reinforces begging – and most of the time, they simply hand it over to some out of sight adult anyway. For all I knew, my raggedy beneficiary ended up in a scrap over the money, beaten up because of my thoughtless largess.

3.       Forgotten to Dress Modestly – This has happened a couple of times – the dress code, especially when away from the city, is for women to wear dresses or skirts, which fall below the knee – way below the knee. In Malawi, it’s all about the thighs – so women keep them covered. The worst instance occurred when I went for my first walk along the beach of Lake Malawi. I totally forgot, and trekked my way along the shore wearing my bathing suit and a T-shirt. Along the way, I encountered a teenaged boy on a bike, who took one look at me, and then dropped his eyes to my chunky white thighs, apparently riveted. I felt like a shameless, aging Godiva, corrupting an innocent young Malawian.

4.       Ate a 200 gram bar of Cadbury Chocolate in One Sitting  - OK, this one could just as easily have happened while at home in Canada.

5.       Forgotten My Malaria Medication – This occurred when we were headed out to Lake Malawi on Monday. Now, you would think, given my obsession with mosquitoes and my malaria meds that I would have double-checked that I had packed the pills. Wrong. It didn’t occur to me that I didn’t have them until after the McCauleys had loaded up their jalopy, driven 20 minutes from home, and stopped at a local Seven-Eleven store (related to the North American version in name only – and likely only one tourist informant away from a brand lawsuit.) As we were driving along, I started to get that niggling feeling – of things essential, forgotten – had I packed my once-a-week-Wednesday dose? That old familiar lost-passport sense of panic began to settle back into my gut as I searched my memory for any visual recall of the malaria medication in my backpack. I came up short – in no way did I recall noticing the pills in my pink travel bag. When the family disembarked at the Seven-Eleven to purchase some baked products and fireworks, I debated whether to swallow my pride and confess that I might have forgotten my pills, or suck up the loss, douse myself in repellent, and hope for the best.

I opted for the former – “Larry,” I began tentatively, “I know this is a terrible “girl thing”*** to do – but I think I may have forgotten to pack my malaria medication.” With that look of pained chivalry which married men seem to excel at, Larry handed over the keys so I could unpack his magnificent packing job, in order to root through my backpack – only to come up, as I had suspected – empty. Twenty minutes later, back at their place, I retrieved my pills in shameful triumph, and slunk back to the automobile, so the McCauley’s could restart their vacation. [***The use of the term “girl thing” was sheer manipulation on my part – to hopefully engender something akin to aggrieved pity in a man who was shortly going to have to beat his way back through the Lilongwe traffic jam he thought he had left behind. Is that wrong?]

This is just a random sampling – I’m sure there are other instances – fortunately my ability to do stupid things is rivalled only by my poor recall of the stupid things I have done.

*** Actually, the McCauley’s have been on the receiving end of several stupid things – most recently – at the lakeside cottage we were sharing, I, for some unaccountable reason, left the bathroom with a roll of toilet paper almost entirely empty – perhaps four or five sheets left – without searching out where Linda was keeping her stash. I came pretty close to mentioning it, then didn’t, and have felt guilty ever since. Am I turning back into the teenager who would leave a ¼ teaspoon of juice in the jug in the refrigerator – is sustained exposure to a nuclear family causing me to revert? Yesterday, I threw another wrinkle into their plans by failing to mention I had sent an email to Cluny Lodge, to see if they had a budget room available for two nights – so I could give the family a break from me, after our trip to the lake together. As I hadn’t heard back from the lodge before we left, I assumed there wasn’t a room, and agreed to just bunk in with the McCauleys again – an arrangement that actually simplified things for all of us. Well, let’s just say poor beleaguered Larry once again ended up driving around Lilongwe when I messed up the directions to Cluny Lodge, after getting a belated email from them confirming my reservation.

Wandering Livestock

Lots of chickens roaming around the streets of Malawi – sometimes you see two or three of them in wooden cages, headed to market no doubt. Sometimes, as we are driving down a street, we`ll pass a man who is standing at the side of the road, waving a chicken around, wings flapping, trying to attract a buyer.

Today, as I was walking back to my hotel, from a three hour walk about town, I ended up trailing a man who was carrying a package of some sort, in one hand, and what I assumed to be a dead brown chicken, dangling beak down, in his left hand. As I drew closer, I noticed the chicken darting its head around, eyes bright and inquisitive. The man had a tight hold on its scrawny sharp feet, and the bird swayed as he walked along, paying it no mind.

In the city, you may encounter the odd chicken wandering around, but goats seem restricted to the countryside. I have noticed that often goats, unless travelling in herds with a boy or two to keep watch, seem to be tied up with ropes – to keep them from grazing on the crops which are just beginning to green, now that rainy season is here. Rainy season is a bit of an exaggeration, as aside from an initial downpour when I first got here, it`s been relatively dry. This is not good news for a country with limited irrigation methods.

I`ve also seen live goats strapped to the back of bikes – two on one bike, tied down with rope, uncomplaining as they are whisked down the road to what I suppose to be their doom. I once saw a massive boar tied down on a bike – like I said, you never know what you will encounter.

Because there isn`t much in the way of refrigeration outside Lilongwe, the butcher stalls which crop up in the countryside, are showcases for freshly slaughtered animals – you can see whole goats, skinned, dangling, as well as various slabs of dark red flesh, mottled with yellow fat, and assorted body parts – a hind here, and a leg perhaps. It`s a bit gruesome – apparently you just buy chunks of meat. It seems a bit unappealing to me, as I would wonder how long the typical cut has been hanging in the sun, fly fodder.

Of course, unlike 90% or so of the population in Malawi, I can afford to buy my meat packaged at Shoprite – money can`t buy happiness but it can reduce your risk of salmonella and e coli poisoning.

Speaking of herds, we saw a large herd of cattle yesterday, while driving back from Lake Malawi. This struck me as unusual – a visiting veterinarian, part of Vets Without Borders, who actually lives near the outskirts of London, Ontario, was telling me that most farmers own only one cow, and they milk it daily – the milk is poured into containers and then biked to a central facility, where the containers are dumped into a holding tank. I’ll admit that after talking to him, I began regarding the local milk with some suspicion, although it is pasteurized and preserved using ultraviolet rays.

View of a large herd of cattle - rather unexpected to see so many together!

African Sales

One of the surprising aspects of life in Africa, has been the selling. Everyone sells, it seems – and more or less the same products. I’ve seen hundreds of stores during my month here, some as large as a department store back home, others little more than a table or a thatched roofed stall. And there’s also a whole flotilla of “door-to-door” salesmen, who, like my friend HappyGeorge, wander around with their stores in backpacks, ready to lay them out at the earliest sign of a prospective customer.

During my hour long walk down the beach on Thursday, however, I wasn’t expecting to run into any selling.

 Wrong.

As I was coming to the natural end of my beach walk, a place where the sandy beach turned into a large mass of rock and water, two men, who had appeared to be sitting idle, suddenly turned into salesmen. Out came the backpacks, and before I knew it, an entire beachfront store had appeared – with the usual array of paintings, wooden figures, beads, bowls and wooden keychains.

“I didn’t bring any money with me.” I told them.

That was OK – they would still like to show me their wares, and I could arrange to pay – they needed money for food.

I’ve learned that it pays to look, as you never know when you might encounter someone with talent, or at least someone with cheap prices, if not talent.

I “Mmm” and “Hmm” and “Very nice” –d my way through their demonstrations, nodding approval at the wooden objects I liked, but didn’t intend to buy, along with my new usual comment, “Not buying today, maybe tomorrow.” Which is, according to one of the books I have read while here, a nice polite way to reject an African salesperson.

There was one wooden bowl I liked, and bargained the guy down from 3800 kwatchas to 2500 – and told him that I would come back in the morning with money to buy it.

Next morning, who should show up but the two salesman, camped out in front of the house, on the beach. Somehow, they had tracked me down….ninety minutes away from where they had started out!

Anything for a sale…

Grounded

On Tuesday,  I headed out to the lake with the McCauleys – Larry, Linda and their daughter Miriam, who is visiting from Dordt College in the States. The Church of Central Africa - Presbyterian - CCAP owns several small rustic cabins, which are located along the south-eastern side of Lake Malawi, about 30 minutes from Salimo - which is two hours from Lilongwe. The cabins were originally built by some Dutch people, likely in the 50’s – based on the reading material which was collecting dust on some of the shelves!

We had a restful few days – eating, walking and reading. The McCauley’s swam – I abstained based on my reluctance to invite liver parasites into my life. However, I did take one long walk down the beach front, with my bare feet in the water, so I can only hope the general condition of my aromatic feet would scare off both friend and foe bacteria.

When we arrived, the groundskeeper, who lives in a small cottage on the compound, warned us that we would need to keep our shoes on, in order to keep grounded whenever we were using any of the water faucets. Those of you who know me well, may also know that my extensive list of fears includes death by electrocution – or really any kind of electrical shock.  I was traumatized early in life after seeing a picture of two bald men and one bald woman, in my father’s copy of The London News – the trio was going to be electrocuted for some crimes. I was mesmerized, horrified, terrified. I remember the photo to this day.

Shortly afterwards, I had a run-in with the metal plug on the iron I wasn’t supposed to be touching – and made the mistake of telling my sister, Karen, that I had received a shock. Since she was sworn to secrecy due to the illicit nature of my misdeed, she tormented me for years after, by telling me that I was sure to get cancer, due to the electrical shock.

Needless to say, the idea that every faucet in the cabin was capable of delivering an electric shock, was not welcome news. I also incorrectly believed that I was safe in the shower, as long as I was wearing my sandals. Unfortunately, in conjunction to the apparent short somewhere in the plumbing system, the drains didn’t work well either, so I ended up standing in about an inch or so of water, showering away contentedly, until the time came to adjust the cold water.

I finished the shower poised over the sink with a facecloth, terrified to touch any more faucets.

Luckily, Larry was able to explain the mechanics behind what had gone wrong, and for the rest of the trip, I would stand outside the shower wearing my dry shoes, lean in to adjust the water flow and temperature, kick off my shoes, shower off, avoiding contacting with anything metal, towel off on the shower rim, so as not to cause puddles to form near the shower entrance, re-shoe, and turn the water off.

I wore shoes for the whole time I was inside the cabin!