Village Living: Malawi — Ayla Anderson

During my two-month pre-service training, I stayed in a rural village to get acquainted with the lifestyle of the average Malawian, learn the local customs, and graduate from being wee baby American to an almost functioning Malawian adult. All 65 of us trainees lived without electricity or running water with host families. Everyone’s situation was different, obviously, but here is mine.

My compound, or the fenced-in living area, was large compared to most in the village. We had this lovely big tree in the middle of the yard with the roots sadly exposed due to the local habit of sweeping the dirt every morning. I was fortunate enough to have my very own little thatched hut within the compound. It had two rooms: a sitting room and a bedroom. Bedrooms here in Malawi are considered very private and the doorway should always be covered with cloth or chitenje (a type of fabric that is used like a Swiss army knife by women here). People here sleep on the floor, usually on a bamboo mat. However, Peace Corps graciously provided the trainees with a foam mattress that we put on top of the bamboo mats, along with two wool blankets and sheets. We also slept with mosquito nets surrounding our beds to prevent the malaria-carrying mosquitos from getting to us. The roofs of all the buildings in the compound were thatched reeds and grasses on top of some plastic to prevent water during the rainy season.

My host amayi and me, standing on my stoop.

There was another house similar to mine about three feet from my stoop, where the eldest brother lived with his wife and new baby. Then there was the main family house, this is where we had all our meals. I believe it had three rooms? Like I said, bedrooms are very private here so I actually never saw that room or any within it. Meals were served in the main room on a bamboo mat on the floor; not many families have any furniture, let alone chairs for a big family like ours.

Meals here in Malawi really aren’t considered meals unless there is nsima served. Nsima is basically a huge dollop of maize that has been ground and boiled to a mashed potato consistency. It’s very hard to describe because we have nothing like it in the States. A typical Malawian breakfast is tea and a few slices of bread. That’s usually what I had every morning, but occasionally we would get to have a dish called African cake and sometimes even pumpkin! (This may seem like a silly thing to get so excited about, but trust me, any kind of meal variation is a celebratory moment) I also really enjoyed it when we had sweet potato, it would be served plain after being boiled and paired with hot sweet milk. Sugar is a rather rare commodity to the average Malawian, and when they do get some, they go HARD. A single cup of hot milk would have 1/4 cup of sugar in it. Now, I have a serious sweet tooth, but it pales in comparison!

You know when you are out camping, and you have this amazing campfire meal? It’s so delicious and you even decide to make it at home. Then when you make it, it somehow tastes completely different and the magic is gone? That’s how the sweet potatoes were for me. I made them when I left the host village at my site and it was incredibly anticlimactic. It just didn’t taste the same, maybe it needed a sprinkle of Njombwa dust for flavor.

Got to see it to believe it. Yes, those are mice for dinner

The kitchen was a separate building that just had a cook stove crafted into the floor and a few windows to let out the smoke. There was a garbage pit outside where you dump everything and once it was filled, you just cover it with dirt and dig another one. Let me tell you, you really realize how much plastic and waste you produce when it’s right there in your yard, greeting you every morning rather than being whisked away by a man in a jumpsuit.

My host father progressively cooking our dinner in the kitchen house

Then there is the bafa, which is the showering building. It’s just a small single-room building for when you take a bucket bath (or take a shower in American lingo).

Here is how it works

1. get your bucket of hot water and your bucket of cold water.

2. Mix both in a large bucket to your desired temperature.

4. Squat on the stone in the bafa. Use the large scoop or your hands to splash the water on yourself.

5. Lather.

6. Rinse.

7. Ignore any spiders on the walls or the ceiling.

The water just drained outside and that is that. Now this may sound simple and straight forward, but it took me the better part of a month to realize I was doing it completely wrong. And no, I will not go into detail on that…

My family also had a typical goat house, which is like a mini shack to keep them safe at night when the hyenas come. And yes, the hyenas come. And they are so loud! They have this strange call and they venture into the village at least twice a week looking for free-roaming farm animals. But never fear, they don’t attack humans. If you ask a Malawian why, they say the hyenas are too smart for that.

Finally, there was the chimbuzi, or chim for short. This is not to be confused with chimbwezi, which is boyfriend/girlfriend. (It is way too easy for me to mix up these two words, and I was rightly laughed at more than once!) This toilet building had just a simple hole in the floor and usually a cover for the hole once you’ve done your “business”. I’m used to squatting from peeing outdoors for work, it’s just what you do. But my legs were unprepared for this kind of squatting and aiming procedure. The holes are usually very small, only about 4 inches in diameter. And…getting used to new water and new food…and less sanitary food prep conditions…let’s just say…it’s a rough mess. Then add squatting for extended periods of time while aiming? Oh, the chim. But these rock-hard thighs now though…

Our chim with a hand washing station outside

Village life for women starts very early. For my family, my host mother and sister were away by 4:30 and starting chores. My host sister would start by sweeping the yard, which to be honest never made much sense to me. They have long since swept away any and all topsoil, and the daily sweeping removes soil all the way down to the earth’s core. Plus, it makes everything so dusty and you can hear their lungs rattling around viciously as they cough up the dirt. There isn’t even any grass or plants, just dirt! But, it is what is expected of the people, to maintain a nice swept yard. And so they do.

After sweeping, my host sister she does all the dishes from the night before while my amayi (host mother) starts cooking breakfast and heating the water for tea. I was expected to sweep my little house every morning and then sprinkle water on the floor to help keep the dust down. Once a week I was to pick up my mattress and bamboo mat and sweep underneath to check for bugs. I did get a pretty bad termite infestation that ate half my mat so we had to fumigate to get rid of them. Fun to know I was sleeping on top of thousands of crawlers…fun fact though: termites taste like sagebrush, in my opinion. Don’t ask.

After morning chores and breakfast, I would head off to training, but really it was like being back in high school. I had class all day with a break for lunch. But that isn’t typical village life, I’ll save that for another post.

During the day, the women and children typically do chores and work until early afternoon. This includes doing laundry, pounding peanuts, collecting water, preparing and cooking lunch, dishes after lunch, going to the market to buy some groceries, collecting firewood, and any other household tasks. All the while carrying children on their backs. These women are basically she-hulks.

During the rainy season, the men usually get up very early in the morning to tend to the fields and livestock. It can very really backbreaking labor, so they try to do as much as they can while it is still cool.

The livestock in many places in Malawi is free-range. Everyone has chickens and they just roam free all day long scavenging and get cooped up for safety at night. Many people also have goats and it’s the same. Goats here are called “rude animals” and that sounds funny until you live with them. They actually are rude! They eat everything and just have no manners. A few families also have pigs, donkeys, cows, ducks, or rabbits. An interesting difference in economics between Malawi and the U.S. Money here is not saved in banks. Instead, the farm animals are considered investments. So, instead of a couple of hundred dollars in a bank account that may disappear or is in a bank that is days away, village folks have goats or cows they don’t eat. If times get really tough, they will sell them. Thus, the farm animals are their savings.

With all of these farm animals and close quarters, needless to say, village life is SO LOUD!

The donkeys braying at night nearly drove me insane. Everyone also has dogs for safety and protection of livestock from the hyenas. Boy, do they love to howl and fight all night long. Then if the animals aren’t enough, it’s the people! It’s so strange, there is no such thing as quiet hours… it just doesn’t exist here. People shout from their yards to have full conversations with neighbors or men in the fields. Music is played loudly from homes at any and all hours of the day and night. People will come to visit in the middle of the night and have shouting conversations through the walls. It is just constant noise. They of course are all used to this and can amazingly sleep through anything. We, as Peace Corps Volunteers, NEVER SLEPT.

Photo credit: Danny HerresCheck out his blog here: www.roadtohappydestiny.blog — Photo credit: Danny Herres
Check out his blog here: www.roadtohappydestiny.blog

The wardrobe here, especially for women, is nothing if not colorful. The typical clothing for women is any type of shoulder-covering shirt and a chitenje. Chitenje is basically a large rectangle of fabric that is wrapped as a skirt, used as a baby carrier on their backs, a hair net to keep out dust, and practically everything else. They are a really versatile piece of clothing and Every-Single -Malawian-Woman has at least five. Again: the Swiss Army knife of clothing. Particularly in more rural villages, women are not allowed to wear pants. They must wear dresses, skirts, or chitenje.

Also a fun note on pants: the word “pants” here means underwear while “trousers” mean pants. It’s a little confusing.

The skirts must be past your knees in length and the shoulders must be covered, no spaghetti straps or tank tops. Going from wearing trousers and a tank top every day to covering all my skin in restrictive clothing was a challenge! Of course, some villages and towns are more progressive and the women can wear clothing that shows more skin, and even trousers in some areas. Njombwa was not one of these areas.

The men really wear whatever they have available, but there were more suit jackets than you would imagine. Some go barefoot but many have some kind of shoe. It’s really fun because their concepts of style are so vastly different from ours, and our gender-assigned color schemes mean nothing. I have seen men wearing fuzzy pink flats and faux rainbow snakeskin sandals.

Defying gender roles in my own little way, whipping off the chitenje to reveal my trousers underneath in the safety of our Peace Corps only school building

PDA here in Malawi is also very different than in the states. Physical contact between opposite sexes is only appropriate in the privacy of bedrooms. Kissing or even holding hands is never seen. However, affection between same-sex individuals is very prevalent. Hand-holding here is common, especially in men. Many schoolchildren hold hands, but I did not expect to see grown men walking the streets together doing the same. The intimacy with which they do this is also very confusing as homosexuality is illegal here. However, sometimes when reaching for a friend’s hand, it’s like a caress. Hugging is also very common, but again only between the same sexes.

Alright, so let’s talk about the hardest aspect for me. The staring.

To give you an idea: I had a dream my first week in the village. In my dream, I was in my bed surrounded by complete darkness and these faces kept coming in from the depths and staring at me. They were surrounding me, just a sea of floating Malawian faces that never blinked and never took their eyes off me. This is honestly how it feels walking around every day. We are an extreme novelty here, most of us having white skin and the fact that we were from America is astounding to them. They all stare. Unabashedly, they stare. Kids would poke heads through fences and adults would just stop in their tracks and watch you for minutes, not moving. It is the most unnerving experience and you never get used to it, and it never stops. Ever.

Some aspects of the village life were great, some not so much. It is difficult for me to appropriately talk about the “bad stuff” because I don’t want to describe the negatives of a developing country; that tends to be the sensationalist pieces that people remember. A fellow volunteer asked me a really good question: they asked me to describe my village in each sensory category. I think that’s a great way to end this post, to share in a simplistic way a summary of my experience here in this rural Malawian village.

Njombwa Through the Senses

Smell: Dust

Sight: Smokey mornings on the horizon

Sound: Yelping dogs

Touch: The daily goodnight hug from my host mother (which got longer every day)

Taste: Nsima