Holiday update

So apparently I’m not going to be great at this whole, updating every couple of weeks thing on this blog… I’ll at least attempt the whole, I’ll update when I can even if it means every couple of months! A lot has happened since I last updated. A lot of highs, a lot of lows. Had my lowest low yet and almost booked that flight back home. Luckily I have an amazing support system both here and at home and I am still here in my little brick/mud house!

Updates about Malawi:

Hot Season: Holy cow they are not kidding! While I am very lucky to be placed within the mountains, it was still so very hot. I had many nights where I would lay in bed not wanting anything to touch me, dripping sweat. A trick Malawians (and PCV’s) use is to get a chitenje wet and use that as a sheet since the evaporating water will help to cool you down. While it helps for a bit, eventually the water is gone, or your sweat has just made it more wet and you are back to tossing and turning trying to find that one position where the sweat doesn’t drip into your eyes or tickle the back of your neck. I say all of these things knowing I didn’t even have the worst of it. My poor friends down south live literally in a swamp… I don’t think I could have survived. Malawians also do not do work when its this hot. Makes for an unproductive season (which turns out is most seasons)… unless you want to wake up at 4am.

Rainy Season: Again, no joke. Chitipa has been lucky according to my neighbors and friends in the village. Rains started sporadically in October allowing for farmers to begin working the soil in preparation for planting pretty early. Most of October was rainy, the equivalent of spring in Iowa with rainy days mixed in with nice sunny ones. Thinking this was the beginning of rainy season I was expecting the farmers to begin planting their corn, but it turns out there is always a preview of rainy season before it actually starts. November was pretty dry. Many farmers did plant corn early which made me nervous. There are so many horror stories of farmers planting too early or too late and having their entire crops washed away, or dried up in the sun. For a country that depends so much on this harvest, I wanted to yell at the farmers to be more careful and really think about what they are doing! I quickly realized though that this is their life. They know far more than I ever will about when and how to plant corn… I kept my mouth shut. Rains began to fall consistently at the end of December. Every single morning I wake up to foggy mountains and watch as giant thunder heads build across the border in Tanzania eventually making their way over late afternoon. The rains here are at least courteous enough to give you plenty of warning before their skies open up. The thunder rolls in hours before you feel a drop, the air gets heavy and you can smell the rain on the breeze that gradually picks up before the downpour begins.

Huge drops begin to fall all of a sudden. Most Malawians in my village live under tin roofs (less maintenance and has become a type of status symbol), including myself. The noise is deafening. If I have someone visiting in my house, I can’t hear them talk even though they are right in front of me. It’s the same feeling I would get being in a cave and not being able to see my hand that was 3 inches from the tip of my nose because it was so dark. I have been fortunate enough to only have one leak that occurs with only a specific type of rain (has to be gentle and the wind has to be going a certain direction) so it doesn’t bother me much. I generally enjoy the rains. I heat some water over my charcoal stove, drink tea and snuggle up with a book in my hammock. I can gather more rain water than I know what to do with (my clothes and self get cleaned more often now!), and its like a free mop for my floor! Plus the rains have turned everything green again. The trees have leaves, the corn and sunflowers are growing like weeds in front of my house, the cows are happy to be eating actual grass, even the birds are bumping.

There are definitely negatives to the rains though. For myself, its nearly impossible to dry clothes. I have about 2-3 hours of sunlight if I am lucky in a day which makes timing of laundry very important. No one wants to go outside when it is raining. This has delayed many of my projects and I’ve come to realize that not even teachers or students will go to school if it is even drizzling… Travel is becoming more and more difficult as the dirt roads to my village turn to mud and the creeks begin to fill up turning into river crossings (there are no bridges on my road). I had to get out of the mini bus the other day and walk across some running water to judge the depth since the minibus driver sat there for a good 5 minutes just looking at the water running across the road not sure what to do. Cooking has become an adventure as the rain has moved me into my actual outdoor kitchen (I used to just cook under my passion fruit trellis). My kitchen is dark, dusty and has windows the size of a mans wallet which does nothing to help ventilate the smoke when I’m trying to start a fire. Plus, now every time I forget something inside the house I have to run back and forth between the downpour to where I store my food and dishes. The kids next door get a kick out watching me as they sit on their back step playing in the mud. One day I was more forgetful than usual and began doing little dances between my kitchen and my house in the rain which had them on the (mud) floor laughing. It’s the little things.

The south has gotten the worst of rainy season so far. I’ve heard many things about the disaster that is going on down there currently including the fact that it didn’t stop raining for 10 days, they got 2 feet of water in just 2 days, flash flooding, mudslides and much more. They had to evacuate most of the southern volunteers to Blantyre. A couple volunteers’ houses collapsed, along with storage and bathing buildings. Here are the stats a week after Malawi declared the south a disaster zone: 121,000 people displaced, 54 people killed, 153 missing, 200,000 students not able to attend school due to flooding or use as a temporary shelter (415 schools), and 638,000 people affected by this disaster. Its been a frustrating situation for the volunteers who live in the affected areas for many reasons. First, they all recognize the fact that they are lucky enough to work for an organization that makes sure they are safe and takes care of them, but with that privilege comes a strange sense of guilt. When your entire village is being washed away, and people are suffering in a place where you are working to try and make things better its hard to not feel like you are abandoning them at their greatest time of need. Its also frustrating to be taken from your home, not knowing if when you return (if you are allowed to return) your house will even be standing anymore.

There's also the long term effects this disaster will have on Malawi. Farmers lost entire crops, herds of cattle/goats and pigs, not to mention their tools, fertilizer and the very basic things they need to make a living. Families lost homes, cars, and their possessions. Water filled up chims (bathrooms) and spread disease into all water sources and across the affected areas. Most of these things are catastrophic in developed countries, but are even worse in a country where people do not have access to the same resources. Most families cant afford to travel to their nearest relative, cant replace their possession's, will be struggling against famine, poverty and disease on an even higher level than usual for years to come because they lost their income and food source this year and are not able to buy clean water. It’s really hard to fully comprehend the impact these floods will have on the already 4^th poorest country in the world. I would say, thank goodness for the aid that is sure to come flooding in from other countries, but there lies the root of a lot of the dependence that Malawians have developed on foreign aid in the past, which in my opinion has really only hurt Malawi in the long run. I could go on for pages about this, but I’ll stop for now. Just be sure to count your lucky stars that we live in a country that has the resources and privilege that it does.

On the work front:

Things have come to a standstill since the rains came it seems. I still meet with the girls group at the local secondary school, but if it is raining there are only a handful that will show up. We are planning on doing the pad project in the coming weeks (THANK YOU THANK YOU to all who donated or have sent us supplies!!!! You are the best!!!). We are also looking into creating a drama to educate the community about Malaria for the upcoming Malaria month which will be very exciting. The girls love everything that has to do with dancing and acting so this should be fun!

I am working to create a bee keeping group. So far my meetings have been canceled every time due to rains, funeral or general forgetfulness. I am still working on a grant to get equipment that these villages can share to get their bee operation up and running. I am hoping that with the end of rainy season, I will get more people involved, but we’ll see. It seems that the only time people actually show up to meetings is August through October (hot season, rainy season and harvest seasons are all too time consuming).

I think a lot of my work in Malawi is going to take place outside of my actual village which I have come to terms with. I was accepted as a resource volunteer which means I will help create the training schedule for the new incoming health and environment group who arrive in March in addition to leading training for a week during their PST. I have also applied to be a counselor for Camp Sky which is an education camp geared towards helping form four (equivalent to seniors in high school) study for their exams which determine if they are able to attend university. That, being a coordinator for Camp TIECH (an environmental education camp) and serving on the diversity committee equals me being away from site a lot. I’m ok with this. I have always enjoyed working with students more than adults, and Malawi students actually get excited about the things that I have to teach which is very different from the adults who tend to get defensive or think the things I am talking about are crazy azungu ideas (foreign person).

The holidays:

Well, the holidays were rough in many ways. I don’t want to go into details about a lot of it, only because it does not reflect on what I believe is true Malawi, but basically everything that could have gone wrong did (mostly). Volunteers were assaulted and robbed, the place that 40 or so PCV’s were supposed to spend Christmas was robbed at gunpoint the night before we were to arrive, and people got sick. Everyone is ok now. But I was victim to a robbery the day after Christmas where I lost my entire pack, everything in it, my tent, sleeping bag and pad and then was pick pocketed the day after and lost most of my money. Because of this I ended up spending New Years at Joy’s place which has become like my second home in Mzuzu. It was my own little safe haven where I could lick my wounds. A couple of other volunteers came and we had a very low key holiday before I headed back to my village. If it were not for the constant support of my family here and back home, I don’t know that I would have come out of my slump. I second guessed my want and desire to live in this country where things like this are common place, but realized that the holidays are always a little more dangerous as people are a little more desperate for money. Same thing happens in the states. I am lucky though to have plenty of clothes and another bag in which I can lug my stuff around as I continue to travel this beautiful country. Plus, I have already arranged with a second year volunteer to buy his tent and camping gear when he leaves in April. Things always work out.

The worst part of the holidays was my site mate getting sick. She nicked her leg on her bike and the wound got infected. So much so that her entire leg swelled up twice the size and she was sent down to South Africa to receive treatment the day after Christmas. She is still there receiving treatment, so send healthy thoughts her way. I always knew that I was lucky to have a site mate living right down the road for me, but never really understood how much I depended on her positive and motivating personality to get things done in the village and get out of my house!

 So there's my little update for the past couple of months. I'm hoping to write some more interesting stories about things that have happened in my village soon. Miss you all as usual!

Updates!

When I started this blog I wanted to make sure to keep it interesting and really only tell stories about my life and experiences here in Peace Corps Malawi rather than a diary of my day to day life. However, I feel that I need to let you all know why I have been so absent in the past couple months.

At the end of August, I took a trip to Misuku Hills to welcome a new Education volunteer and to celebrate a site mates birthday!

 

He lives in a really unique area of Malawi surrounded by mountains, coffee/tea fields and wonderful people. It was cold at night, which is very unusual considering I'm at the point where I don't even want to sleep inside my house because its so hot...  It was great to hang out with the volunteers who live in my district for the first time as a group! I feel so lucky to be surrounded by such great people!

 

 

In the beginning of September we had our In-Service Training in Lilongwe. The first week of training is focused on the volunteer, addressing site issues, addressing cultural challenges, learning how to document and assess our projects and other boring things like that. The second week our village counterparts joined us to participate in technical trainings. The hope is that we can all learn skills to bring back to our respective villages to get some projects going. I chose to bring Mishek, since he has been so consistent in wanting to learn and initiate some very cool project ideas in Budonda. He had a great time I think.

 

Learning about conservation agriculture

 

Hanging a bee hive!

 

 

Meeting with a former peace corps couple who moved to Malawi 17 years ago. They had such cool things to teach us about permaculture and what its like to farm in Malawi. Definitely an inspiration!

Quick yoga break between sessions. Mishek is in the middle! :) He actually leads yoga in our village for the secondary school students.

After our training I traveled down south. We were all attending a music festival and had a week in between the end of training and the festival so I was able to spend a couple days in Monkey Bay. We took a boat tour and saw a huge group of Hippos! We got way too close, but survived :) It is so much fun to experience other people's site. We all have such different experiences even though we live in the same country. Most of us slept in tents (it's very hot by the lake), and fell asleep to the sound of hyenas and hippos under the most amazing African night sky.

 



Lake of Stars was a blast. I got to hear music from my favorite Malawian artists like Lawi and the Black Missionaries, drank from coconuts, and danced the night away. Peace Corps volunteers rented a house right on the lake not far from the festival so it was fun to get to know volunteers from other groups, and just lounge by the water.

My only photo from LOS.. This is the truck we took back and forth!

 

After lake of stars I headed even further south to Liwonde National Park to participate in the annual game count. We stayed at a youth hostel within the park surrounded by monkeys who liked to steal our food when we weren't looking. The first day we went to a "hide" (basically just a specific location where we sat) and observed any animals who passed by us. We heard a group of elephants near by and walked up a small hill to wait for them to pass by. They decided to take a different route than the two armed guards thought they would, and we ended up having to run away from a rogue bull elephant. It was such an awesome and scary experience. That day we counted somewhere around 40 elephants. We had to record the location, sex and age of the animals we saw. When I asked the guard how you can identify the sex of an elephant he looked at me like I was an idiot and said "you look for breasts..." Now I know! The second day we did a transect walk where the guard carried a gps and we took a specific walk across the park. We got to see a lot more variety of animals this day including zebras!

Elephants walking by our hide

Poaching is a problem in the park, especially with the challenges the parks face with lack of funding, education, and staffing. However, the number of elephants has been on the rise for the past couple of years despite this problem.

So many elephants :)

 

After Game Count I headed back up north to Nyika National Park. I was selected to be a member of the Camp TIECH which was probably the most amazing experience I have had in country so far. 30 Secondary students were selected by Peace Corps volunteers from across Malawi to participate in a camp that addressed environmental and health concerns that villagers face every day. I led sessions focused on food preservation, soil health and crop diversity, lead a nature hike and helped with morning exercise, and created a journal for daily reflection. They also learned about composting, malaria prevention, fuel efficient stoves, addressed issues of HIV/AIDS and learned about nutrition. They were so motivated to learn as much as they could and I had a blast working with them. The goal is for the students to take some of what they learned and then go and spread the knowledge to their villages. I am so excited to be one of the coordinators with my friend Andrew for next year! 

Leading a "trust walk" They walked blindfolded from a deciduous forest to an evergreen forest which many of them have never been in before (pretty uncommon for Malawi). It was so much fun to see their faces when they opened up their eyes to these tall pine trees.

 

 

Making some Mango Jam during my food preservation session!

 

Out on Safari during sunset :)

 

I finally finished out the month of October by celebrating Halloween at Kande Beach with an awesome group of people. The sand was so soft and white, water super clear, and people awesome as usual. We swam out to a small island off the shore and did some cliff jumping, discovered a crocodile skull and watched in wonder when all of a sudden the fish decided to put on a show of jumping out of the water (it was so cool because they flash their bellies so its like the water is glittering with thousands of fish jumping out of the water). We played beach volleyball, listened to some live music and dressed up like fools. Perfect location for a very memorable Halloween! (I took no pictures, sorry but some should be popping up on my facebook from other friends soon!)

 

After Halloween I made my way back to site for the first time in months... and promptly slept for a week (no joke). In between sleeping I had to walk around my village and convince everyone that no, I did not move back to America, I am still around and hoping to start projects! My counterpart is awesome though and our tree nursery now has hundreds of Moringa tree saplings! I'm excited to get more involved with my secondary school to establish an environmental club and have gotten the word out about a business class that I want to teach! All with time :)

 

After only a short stay at site, I had to travel back down to the capital, Lilongwe, to attend my first committee meeting! I was lucky enough to be selected to serve on the diversity committee. I will assist leading trainings to volunteers and staff on issues of diversity (race, national origin, color, religion, gender, age, veteran status, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status and/or ability status). I am very excited to be a part of this committee!

 

That sums up my life for the past couple of months. I am headed back to site tomorrow and am very excited in settling back into village life. Hopefully I'll do a better job blogging!

 

As usual, I miss friends and family a ton, but I am so happy here! I wish there was a way to fly you all here to be with me on this crazy adventure! Love you all.

 

 

 

 



Mouse Hunting

Life in Malawi seems to revolve around Maize (corn). I believe I have mentioned this before, but if you don’t have nsima with a meal, it becomes merely a snack. It doesn’t matter how much rice or pasta with veggies, meat or anything else you may consume, Malawian’s will still feel hungry if nsima was not served. Because of this, growing maize is number one on most villager’s priority list. In December as the rains begin, you plant the first round of maize, harvest in May-July, shell, store and grind the kernels into flour in August-October and prepare you fields until planting again in December. I was able to help with this process the other day. I met up with a friend named Foster who is a Malawian Red-Cross volunteer in my village and walked the 3km to his field. He had already cut his maize down and piled it in the middle of his field to dry.

We arrived around 7am, and we were late. There were already 5 kids standing around the pile working probably there since sunrise. Foster introduced me to the kids, and they laughed at me as I tried to introduce myself in chinyha (as usual). After that, we all took our spots around the pile of corn stalks and began to shuck the corn. Foster started to show and explain how to do this, but thankfully I am well educated on sucking corn thanks to my Iowan upbringing. After a bit the kids started chatting away with each other as I listened trying to figure out what the topic of conversation was. Mostly, I just enjoyed the repetitive movements of removing corn husks and throwing it into the large pile of dried corn while soaking in the surrounding mountains and warm rising sun.

As the pile got smaller, the children’s chatter became louder and more excited. I couldn’t contain my curiosity and finally asked Foster what they were talking about. It turns out that the little mouse nests that we had been discovering under the corn stalks meant money in the kids pockets. They were plotting about how they might find mice at the bottom of the pile, and if they did, they could catch them and sell them to the local secondary school’s headmaster. Mice are a popular protein source for much of Central Malawi which is where the headmaster is from. I have not seen mice being sold here in the north, but I have talked to many other volunteers who have had the unique experience of tasting Malawi’s delicacy of BBQ mice.

Once the mice are caught, Malawian’s take the whole body, sandwich it between two sticks and will roast it whole over the fire; hair, head, tail, innards, everything. To eat it, pop the whole thing in your mouth!

It was very entertaining as one by one, the poor mice tried to make their escape. When the kids saw something move, they would squeal out with delight and immediately begin stomping and lunging toward the ground until they caught the mouse. They would then grab it by its tail and fling it hard to the ground to make sure it was dead. They found a couple of baby mice and would also fling those hard on the ground and then lay them in a sunny spot to die. By the time we got to the bottom of the pile, there was a pile of 17 dead mice and 5 huge grinning faces. Only two escaped.

I think this whole experience is a small indicator of my integration here. If I had witnessed children brutally killing mice back in the states I would have been horrified. Here, it was actually really enjoyable. It reminded me of watching kids catch crawfish in the creek in Tennessee, granted we never killed or ate the crawfish, but the way the kids laughed and cried out with delight every time they found something moving was fun to watch. By the end of the day, they had an extra 170 kwatcha in their pockets, enough to buy msweeties for the whole week!

A Quick Thank you!

I just want to take a second to thank everyone who has sent me a care package in the past couple of weeks! I don’t think you truly understand what it means to a volunteer to receive a care package filled with comforts from home! I have not only been able to eat things that I miss like skittles, Oreo’s, beef jerky and dried fruit, but I have been able to share some of these things with the villagers! Today, I used some of the dried fruit you sent to make granola. I don’t really know if the Malawians I shared it with liked it, but I am happy! I also brought out bubbles for the first time… the intention was to cheer up my 2 year old neighbor girl since she was crying (she’s always crying), and all of a sudden there were 20 kids in front of my house. I spent an hour blowing bubbles for them as they ran around trying to pop them. I’ll post pictures as soon as I have good enough internet!

I knew I had great friends and family before moving here, but you guys continue to exceed any and all expectations of support during my time in the Peace Corps. I feel so incredibly lucky, THANK YOU, Ndagha!!!!

An Addicts Recipe

My name is Britney, and I have an addiction to peanut butter. Admitting it is the first step right?? Peanut butter has always been an issue for me. Back in high school I was interviewed by the local newspaper and one of the questions they asked me was “what is one thing you can’t go a day without?” I panicked and said brushing my hair or something else equally lame. When I got home and talked to my mom about it, she immediately said “you should have said peanut butter! You eat it by the spoonful!” In hindsight, it would have been the perfect answer. 

Worried about not having access to peanut butter when moving to Africa, I had it as the number one thing on my list of things to pack. Of course, being me, it was the one thing I forgot and I had to make my dad stop at the gas station by the airport at 4am before boarding my plane so I could have my last jar (or so I thought). Malawi has actually made it worse…during pre-service training we were provided a small jar of peanut butter every single week! The first week I brought it home with a proud grin on my face to my host family only to watch in horror as the jar was shared with every single member of the family and their friends. It was gone in a day… As a Peace Corps Volunteer, I wanted to come here and help those in need and learn to be selfless and all that, but apparently I’m just not that good of a person. That jar was the only one my family saw. I kept the weekly jars stashed in my bag or room throughout the rest of training. No, I’m not proud of it, but do you see the impact addictions can have on a person’s life!?

Since moving to site things have gotten a little better. I stress ‘little.’ Every time I am in the Chitipa Boma I say I’m not going to buy another jar, that I need a detox, but somehow that magic jar of happiness ends up in my bag again. I have decided to try to follow my site mate’s lead and limit the amount that I BUY. Instead I have been making it from scratch. The logic is that if I work for it, I deserve it (right?!). You can decide, here is the process of making peanut butter in my village:

1. Bike 35km to Chitipa Boma. It’s sandy, windy and usually hot (pity might work, right?)
2. Visit the local market to buy about a half pound of ground nuts (costs about 200 Kwacha, 50 cents)
3. After checking the mail, enjoying beers on the airstrip (closest thing to a park), eating some chips mayai and stopping by the bank, head back to Kameme. Don’t forget its 35km back too!!
4. Start a fire in my baula
5. Roast the peanuts until they start to pop
6. Toss them in the mortar and lightly pound them until they are broken up
7. Throw the nuts into the sefa (sifter) and toss them around a bit to get the skins off and out of the mix
8. Put them back in the mortar and pound until your hands are shaking and blistered, and your arms are numb
9. Hopefully this is the same amount of time it takes for the peanuts to have turned into ooey gooey goodness.
10. Add salt, or if you want to get crazy- experiment with adding cinnamon, sugar, vanilla, chili powder, honey, cocoa, Cajun seasoning, or anything you can find in your kitchen.
11. Enjoy and hope it will last until tomorrow…

An Ode to the Bucket

Every single day here in my small village, I find myself depending on buckets for just about everything. Here are a variety of ways buckets have become a vital part of my Peace Corps Life:

-My sink: I have one bucket that has a faucet on it that drains into another bucket located in my kitchen. I use this to wash my hands, my vegetables, and to rinse my dishes.

-My dish collector: This bucket is larger and is stored under my kitchen table. This holds all my dirty dishes until I work up enough motivation to clean them (which is usually once every single dish is dirty enough that I’m grossed out using it again… before you judge, you try fetching your own water and see how often you’ll want to do dishes).

-My Dishwasher: I put water in one bucket with soap and rinse the dishes off in another.

-My Washing Machine: I soak clothes in a bucket with soap for an hour, then wash/rinse them off in a different bucket with clean water.

-My Bath: Who needs running water when you have a bucket and a cup!?

-My Water Collector: I strap the big boy (50 Liters) onto the back of my bike and ride on down to the bore hole to pump my water! He’s all fixed from the fall a couple weeks ago thanks to some handy duct tape! 

-My Fermenter: Oh bucket wine, how delicious and horrible you are all at the same time! Isabel and I have been experimenting with making our own wine by putting water, local fruit and yeast in a bucket and waiting! The last one was delicious but left a mean hangover… 

-My Lizard/Spider/Bug Catcher: Without fail, every time I return home after being gone for more than 2 days I am surprised to find something has crawled in to a bucket and (usually) died… RIP Jim, the lizard King. 

-My Storage: Buckets help keep sneaky things like cockroaches and mice out of my beans and rice.

-My Watering Can: When I go water plants at either Isabel’s house or Lucius’s garden, buckets are the means to keep the plants growing (it hasn’t rained for 3 months).

-Plant Nursery: What do you do when you have a hole in your bucket? Well fill it with dirt dear Liza! This worked fairly well to get some plants going for Isabel’s garden.

-Solar Dryer: Have another broken bucket? Throw a dark chitenge in the bottom, use that extra screen and plastic you have lying around, and create your own little solar dryer for tomatoes, mangos and bananas!

-Compost Toilet: Some volunteers feel bad interrupting the nightly parties that cockroaches, bats, snakes, mice, frogs, scorpions, and spiders like to host in our chimbuzi’s (outhouse). Solution? Keep a bucket in your room for those late night emergencies! Luckily I have an iron bladder and have not had an issue just yet… but doubt I’ll make it through these two years without sacrificing one of my buckets for this purpose, it’s part of life in the Peace Corps after all.

*It seems like I have buckets everywhere in my house according to this post, when in reality I only own 4*

Tattoos

I was walking through my village today just to get out of the house and wandered down to the trading area. As always, when I am out and about the kids yell either “Sarah” or “mzungu” at me (Sarah was a previous volunteer in the village next to mine and automatically every white female that passes through is now named Sarah). The adults call out to me as well always wanting to chat. Today, I stopped and was talking to a man who is a teacher at a secondary school not too far away when a couple of women showed up, grabbed me, and tried cleaning the tattoo off my arm. He tried to translate for me, saying that the women wanted to know if I was born with this mark or if I had just drawn it on with a pen that morning. I tried to explain that no, it is a permanent mark that I chose to get put there. They did not understand why it was not washing off and it took some time before I could have my arm back. I tried my best to explain that in America, tattoos are common and a part of our culture but some things are just too difficult to translate… they walked away very confused.

One time, as Isabel and I were traveling into town in the back of a pick-up, we were talking to the other passengers about the World Cup and game that had happened the night before. An African team had lost against some European team, and one person mentioned it was because the other team used magic. This of course peaked our interest, and so we asked how he knew magic was being used? He said it was evident in all the charms the other team had on their skin. Basically, his thought was the other team had been given the upper hand because of the magical charms (tattoos) so many of the players had. (Side note: during this ride, we also learned about the fire breathing dragons that live in the Misuku Hills and discussed mermaids which most Malawians believe to be real).

Moral of the story is, Malawians don’t understand tattoos. I can only imagine how the thought of paying someone to permanently draw on your skin seems ludicrous and extremely frivolous to someone who struggles to have enough money for food. The cost of only one of my tattoos could have probably provided a family with enough money to by ufa (used to make nsima) for a whole year. Perspective is an interesting thing.