There’re two social groups basically in Malawi: those with expatriates and those with the local Malawians. Can’t find anything in between. I’ve decided to do both, but prioritise the latter whenever possible. So Monday I would go for hash, Thursday circuit training, and intermittent activities if I’m invited – these for the expatriate groups. For the Malawian circle I’ve found a precious gatekeeper – ahh who else could be better than Cecilia! I went for the bridal shower two days ago and today I went for the fund raising event organised by the Catholic church attended by Cecilia. Many came to her house to do the cooking to sell food to raise fund for needy people in the church. We did nsima, chicken, pork, beef, chips, pumpkin leaves, salad and drinks – today I guess I fully understand the diet of local Malawians. Nsima is a must in their diet – even if they eat rice they have to top it up with nsima to call it a complete meal. Otherwise they would say ‘I haven’t eaten’.. haha.. just like we rice eater in Asia – you can’t really say you have eaten if you ‘just’ eat bread.. I learn the way to cook nsima. It needs skill really otherwise undone nsima could give problem to your stomach! Overnight nsima is called ndiku (hope I spell it correctly!) – I hope I interpreted that correctly: hungry children, when parents aren’t home to feed them, feed themselves a lot of nsima and nothing else – ‘that’s why they get BIG stomach!’.. ‘but after you grow up, the big stomach will go off because you know how to eat a balanced diet!’ – perhaps this explains high prevalence of kwashiorkor in children..?
Apart from nsima, the other must is soft drinks. I’ve read about how Coca-cola is so efficient in their distribution chain that it’s used as a supply chain for ORS (oral rehydration salt). And now I’ve witnessed how good it really is. There’re two things you can find at EVERY corner of the street: first, phone credits (because they run out so quickly!!! You can only send 50 text messages with credit of 1600kc, equivalent to about £6..!!!); and secondly, coca-cola or fanta (different types of fanta: fanta orange, sobo, fanta ‘exotic’!). Cecilia herself is doing business selling soft drinks at the school. You hardly find any mineral water on sale – when people are thirsty, they would ask for a bottle of soft drink (and of course, leave the glass bottles!)
So I was sitting beside a few large containers of soft drinks and Calsberg (yes even for beer people mostly drink imported ones.. I sometimes wonder perhaps only the expatriates get excited about trying local beer called kuchai kuchai). I was too bad in the kitchen Cecilia asked me ‘don’t mess things up Zoe!’ hahaha.. so actually instead of ‘helping’ (as I had intended.. well at least I had INTENTION to do so..) I was merely in-charge of snapping photos and chatting to people hahaha..
My marital status of ‘unmarried at the age of 29’ was very much controversial, and perhaps unacceptable.. hahaha.. anyhow I was wrong in assuming people must be very conservative in marriage – I met a girl who gave birth to her first born 2 years before she got married. She even told me that was ‘an accident’..! she’s now 28 and studying for accountancy. She missed university as she was taking care of her baby – hmm that’s just another way of doing it isn’t it! Here in Malawi many ‘over-aged’ (as of the definition by British standard) students enrol university via ‘mature students’ status and there’s nothing so special about it. Even in primary school, you find older children or teenagers who miss school previously. People have greater responsibilities for the family so they defer schooling I think they’re actually more mature and know for what they need university education – and in fact could be a better way when you think about problems of drunken teenage undergraduates who have no ideas why they are in the universities!
Another thing I discovered from the conversations is Malawian government’s ‘four-child policy’ – it’s a bill that once passed by the parliament, whoever gets fifth child in the family will be fined by the government. I have a feeling this may be a policy taken after the Chinese government’s. Chinese government is getting really influential in Malawian politics –from what I gathered from the locals, it sounds like the President needs to ‘kowtow’ to Chinese government. I can understand why as they are the most important donor now. The newly built Parliament building is actually a ‘gift’ from the Chinese government! Well back to the four-child policy, it has created quite a concern among the locals I guess. They joke about how you will need to kill and eat the 5th child and how government people would ‘inject’ you without consent to make you infertile. Hmm is there actually depot contraceptive injection..?? Don’t think so but the it seems the fear is quite real..
Anyhow I went home at 4pm, as usual –because I should be a good girl who comes home before the darkness eats me up... ahhhh this’s perhaps the thing that most annoys me here..
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