Village Adventures
First off, I want to clarify something from my last post. When I was referring to boredom, complacency, laziness and the like, I was referring mainly to my life in Toronto, and how I realized that if I wasn’t careful, I could fall into similar traps here. I have by no means been bored here thus far. Actually, things have gone very well in the department of meeting people. I’ve got a couple people to play squash with, and met another one Wednesday night (a guy from Australia who is also willing to play some tennis on the clay courts, so I’m excited to try that.) Anyhow, just wanted to clarify that, since I got emails sympathizing with my boredom. As for complacency, actually my job has been pretty challenging, and I’m enjoying learning how an accounting system works, and finding and fixing problems. It’s been pretty interesting so far. I get strange pleasure out of reconciling accounts, finding errors and omissions, and making books balance.
Anyhow, we had our last adventure of orientation last weekend, as we spent 4 days in a village in rural Malawi. The main purpose of this visit was to give us an idea on how most Malawians live. At first I was worried about the length of time that we would be away, but in the end the time just flew by. I wrote quite a lot in my journal to help remember the experience, and I’ll share some of the highlights here.
We arrived on Friday morning and dropped our stuff off in a room about the size of a bathroom, and then went to help pump some water and carry it back for use in cooking, dishes, bathing, cleaning, drinking (with some water purification tablets for us), etc. I watched and learned as they prepared nsima, the most common food of Malawi, which consists of maize and water, boiled and mixed together to form a paste like substance. You pick up the nsima with your hand and use it to pick up the other meal items, which were beans and cabbage for this meal. After the first meal, I had eaten enough nsima to last me a while. Fortunately, they mixed some rice into the rotation, so I only had to have about 3 or 4 more nsima meals.
After lunch, we went out to one of the villages, where I got to meet with the chief, who explained (through a translator) how thankful they were for our help, and for my coming, and went through some of the problems the community was having (the lack of rain, the need for another water source, the need for another maize mill closer to the village since the one closest to them was too busy and overworked, and getting ground maize could sometimes take days) I listened and felt somewhat helpless, and didn’t quite know what to say, so I merely thanked him for letting me visit, thanked the rest of the village, and headed back home. Dinner was more nsima, and then we used some candlelight to set up our beds in a very small room. No electricity, food cooked by fire, small sleeping space, hot, dirty, sweaty. It felt like I was camping. We in Canada have the luxury of “getting away from it all.” Most Malawians don’t have anything to get away from.
After getting some hard fought sleep, we got up the next morning and headed out to another village, where they were working on redigging a well that had dried up. On the walk, I made note of the ubiquitous sunny and warm weather that appears here. I also marveled at the size of termite hills, which are absolutely huge. We did much walking on Saturday, probably about 20 km all told between two village visits, leaving lots of time for reflection. The highlight of the morning for me was watching Rees, the villager we were staying with, catch the chicken that we would have for lunch. I learned how to slaughter and pluck it as well. With apologies to vegetarians out there, this was quite a fascinating process for me.
After lunch, we went to another village where they had done much planting, and were also beekeeping in order to produce some honey to sell. Then, supper and bedtime. Sunday we went to church in the morning. The service started 2 hours late. But we got to relax in the afternoon, and learned a card game that the villagers play. Monday, we got to see some of the other projects and meet some more staff members that are helping to enable the villagers to sustain themselves.
All in all, it was an eye opening experience. There is so much more to this country that lies just below the surface. I hope to continue digging bit by bit while I am here. It will get harder and less adventurous now. Accounting isn’t exciting conversation anywhere in the world. So I may blog a fair bit less, but I will try to come up with something interesting to share.
Anyhow, we had our last adventure of orientation last weekend, as we spent 4 days in a village in rural Malawi. The main purpose of this visit was to give us an idea on how most Malawians live. At first I was worried about the length of time that we would be away, but in the end the time just flew by. I wrote quite a lot in my journal to help remember the experience, and I’ll share some of the highlights here.
We arrived on Friday morning and dropped our stuff off in a room about the size of a bathroom, and then went to help pump some water and carry it back for use in cooking, dishes, bathing, cleaning, drinking (with some water purification tablets for us), etc. I watched and learned as they prepared nsima, the most common food of Malawi, which consists of maize and water, boiled and mixed together to form a paste like substance. You pick up the nsima with your hand and use it to pick up the other meal items, which were beans and cabbage for this meal. After the first meal, I had eaten enough nsima to last me a while. Fortunately, they mixed some rice into the rotation, so I only had to have about 3 or 4 more nsima meals.
After lunch, we went out to one of the villages, where I got to meet with the chief, who explained (through a translator) how thankful they were for our help, and for my coming, and went through some of the problems the community was having (the lack of rain, the need for another water source, the need for another maize mill closer to the village since the one closest to them was too busy and overworked, and getting ground maize could sometimes take days) I listened and felt somewhat helpless, and didn’t quite know what to say, so I merely thanked him for letting me visit, thanked the rest of the village, and headed back home. Dinner was more nsima, and then we used some candlelight to set up our beds in a very small room. No electricity, food cooked by fire, small sleeping space, hot, dirty, sweaty. It felt like I was camping. We in Canada have the luxury of “getting away from it all.” Most Malawians don’t have anything to get away from.
After getting some hard fought sleep, we got up the next morning and headed out to another village, where they were working on redigging a well that had dried up. On the walk, I made note of the ubiquitous sunny and warm weather that appears here. I also marveled at the size of termite hills, which are absolutely huge. We did much walking on Saturday, probably about 20 km all told between two village visits, leaving lots of time for reflection. The highlight of the morning for me was watching Rees, the villager we were staying with, catch the chicken that we would have for lunch. I learned how to slaughter and pluck it as well. With apologies to vegetarians out there, this was quite a fascinating process for me.
After lunch, we went to another village where they had done much planting, and were also beekeeping in order to produce some honey to sell. Then, supper and bedtime. Sunday we went to church in the morning. The service started 2 hours late. But we got to relax in the afternoon, and learned a card game that the villagers play. Monday, we got to see some of the other projects and meet some more staff members that are helping to enable the villagers to sustain themselves.
All in all, it was an eye opening experience. There is so much more to this country that lies just below the surface. I hope to continue digging bit by bit while I am here. It will get harder and less adventurous now. Accounting isn’t exciting conversation anywhere in the world. So I may blog a fair bit less, but I will try to come up with something interesting to share.
posted by Chuck @ 10:33 PM
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