Living with a Burundian-Italian Couple - another eye-opening experience 22/06/10

I think meeting Mr C and D opens up the door for me. I feel my life was flushed in with so many good people suddenly. I had no plans as to where to stay in Lilongwe (apart from a very expensive guest house which I didn’t wish to move into). Mrs F texted me one hour before I reached Lilongwe to ask if I was interested to look at their house. Well I send a group email to a group of potential landlords before I left Malawi a week ago but most of them replied me via emails (which I couldn’t access when I was in Zambia). Only F texted me. The price was much better than the ones from the guest house so I said yes right away. Again it was a risk – I didn’t know who they were, no idea where they live.. I just trusted my intuition which told me this was going to be alright.

My intuition didn’t fail me. It was indeed better than alright. Florisa and her husband T are very nice people. F is an Italian and T a Burundian. Interesting match isn’t it! I somehow felt this could be a romance started at refugee camps.. true enough – they actually met when he was living in the refugee camp in Malawi back in 2003. He is just 31 and had lived in refugee camps his whole life since birth up until he was 27! Can you imagine if you are put in refugee camps as long as 27 years! And it wasn’t just one refugee camp – he had to move from one to the other – not within one country – but a few countries, because when one becomes unstable you just have to run to the next one... gosh I don’t have words to describe how I feel toward this! T once told me at times he questioned where God was (he’s a Christian) – if He does exist, why there was so much suffering in his life..?!

Through him I change my perception toward what ‘refugee’ means. Previously I had little idea what it could mean – I only understand from the TV refugee camps seemed to be a place of hell where you put up temporary until things become stable then you go back to normal life. But NO, the reality is, one could live in refugee camps throughout his/her life! And life does go on within refugee camps – they do have schools, clinics, markets.. just like a neighbourhood – the difference is, they have no freedom like us. They have no passport to move freely. They can’t even do business outside of refugee camps because the government doesn’t allow them to – as a result of objection from local community that these refugees could possibly snatch business or job opportunities if they are allowed to. However when you think carefully, there’re many valuable sources of manpower from refugee camps – there’re doctors, nurses, educated people, businessmen.. who could possibly benefit the country because they’re also good brains to contribute to the country’s economy and development. When the local Malawians lament about not having enough job opportunities, having businessmen starting up any type of businesses actually provide jobs for the local people. And having doctors and nurses coming out of the camps to work in the hospitals surely benefit the health system.. what do we worry about..?!!? This world isn’t fair is it – just because you are born in Somalia, Burundi, Congo.. you’re robbed of basic human rights to move around and live like others do!

About F, I admire her kind heart and open mind – I admire how receptive she is to another completely different culture/world. She’s an Italian, and having grown up and lived in a modern (warless) world throughout her life. And how she is, pregnant with an ex-refugee’s baby (that’s how most people would interpret it!), learning Burundian language and practice the culture. I once asked her what they do for living. I was a bit puzzled at how they could actually plan for the baby’s future as there’s no income really for their current job. They’re merely getting expenses covered and no ‘savings’. Later I found out actually personal ‘savings’ is a very westernised concept. Florisa doesn’t really know how to explain to me (as I think she thought it would be very difficult to explain to me, which indeed she’s right because it took me a long time to understand this) and but she said stayed in my mind for a long time – ‘sometimes you wonder why you need more.. there’re many ways we get what we need’. I didn’t understand how she meant at that time but later when she received donated clothes from others I started to understand. In westernised world, we acquire things by accumulating personal wealth then we acquire necessities using the money we accumulate. So everybody has one ‘set’ of necessities. But in Africa, you don’t own one ‘set’ of necessities. You SHARE what you have. So I have this bit of extra baby clothes, I give them to F. If F have extra bedsheets, she will give them to me. Something like that. People don’t get secure their future based on money they get, they depend on the support of the whole social network they build. So it’s a socially constructed ‘socialist’ way of living, if you want to label it. You don’t need the government to impose the concept of socialism, people just naturally practice that.

They are so special. I’m so glad I met them. I always believe fate brings me to many friends I met along my way in Africa and this is just one of the best examples. If not because I didn’t have internet access in Zambia, I would most probably move into another house which is more convenient to me and I would miss the chance to meet such wonderful people.