Reflection

As my time in Malawi comes to a close (I have about 8 days left), I have no choice but to begin and reflect on the last four months as a whole.

Slowly but surely I began to love this place, to love everything about it. I began to love the people at church that shake my hand and greet me with smiles. I began to love the student, Chimwemwe who drops by the house unexpectedly just to chat (often for hours), and the students at my school who complain about Malawi, but clearly take pride in this country and the fact that they call it home. I began love the Jacaranda trees that bloom wildly around the city, the hot air, the stillness of a night with no electricity. When I stand up in front of a group to introduce myself, I start by saying, “I really love Malawi”, and it couldn’t be truer.

But at the same time, I’m startled at how routine things have become; my life in Africa has normalized. I never thought this experience would stop being an experience and start just being life. But, I think, that’s part of the experience.

When I’m gazing out the window at Ndirande Mountain during my geography lesson or I’m sitting around the dinner table with the Olivers. Maybe it’s late at night and I’m cross-legged on my bed in the dark or driving through the Malawian bush, mashed into the back seat. Or at the lake, sitting on the deck of a boat watching the sunset. It’s during these times that I become conscious of how lucky I am or how crazy I am, depending on the way you look at things. But day-to-day, its just life. Dangerously easy to get used to.

Dangerous because it would be so easy to stay. Strangely enough, I’ve fallen into a comfort zone here. Going home will be the difficult part. I think to go home and face all of the sacrifices I made; to face my friends and everything I have missed, and to face my future will be the tough part.  Plus the fact that I am really, really going to miss it here.

So for what reason am I going? Why do I feel compelled to leave a place if I love it so much? It’s very simple, actually. I need to go home. I need to see my family again. I miss them tremendously. It’s True, I have a family here but, I’m ready to be a Bryant again.

And I need to graduate high school.

My feet are cracked, and perpetually black on the bottoms, my hair is ratty, split and damaged from the dry air. Even Reverend Nkata tells me I need to brush it. My nails are not transparent as they should be and I miss my family and friends, but somehow I just can’t imagine leaving this place and these people that I have learned to love. How can I even begin to say goodbye?

 

Language

Being around all of these bilingual, trilingual, quad lingual and etc. people really makes one feel dumb. It’s what happens at an international school. The official language of the school is English, but if you listen, there is always someone jabbering into a cell phone in an unrecognizable tongue, or two kids shouting across the quad in Afrikaans. Gosh, that’s the beauty of the place.

In the past several years, as I’ve begun to think about my future, and what on earth I’m going to study and do with my life, the idea of French has been almost constant. I must learn this beautiful language. I will minor in French, then I will spend time in Francophone countries, and I will speak to my children in French and English. I really love the language and I think it’s extremely valuable to have the ability to speak to people who are different than you.

A thought has occurred. My friends who can speak several languages and understand even more have not necessarily learned them in a classroom. They know these languages because they have grown up in households and locations where it is a necessity. A friend of mine fled from Zimbabwe to Mozambique and became fluent in Portuguese in 4 months. As a single woman, she needed to support herself and the only way to do this was to learn the language. She had no choice and her desperation drove her to be hasty and precise. Her fluency in English, French, and Shona (native to Zim) weren’t going to help her in Mozambique.  And of course she takes for granted how incredibly impressive she is.

In most of Africa, if you want to make decent money, you must know English. Must. It’s a sign of education. Of course, I look at this in admiration but as my French teacher says to me weekly, “Don’t be discouraged, Marie Claire. Il n’est pas un chose facile apprendre un langue.”  It isn’t an easy thing to learn a language.

But I think the best way to learn a language is out of necessity. As English-speakers, a necessity to learn another language is becoming harder to come by. As the world learns English, we allow ourselves to get lazier, because the world makes it easier for us. I ought to feel relieved of this subject that is no longer necessary for me, but instead I’m disappointed. Strangely, I would love to be forced into a situation that pushes me to learn a new tongue.

So maybe, it would be a waste of time and money to study French in college. How much more can I really learn in a classroom?  I could use maybe one more year of schooling, but after that I think there is very little I can be taught. I have to speak it, hear it. I have to be immersed. This is a new thought for me.

African Rain

In Africa, rain is powerful. I don’t mean that necessarily in a physical sense, though it is, I mean its affect is powerful. It gets inside of you, into your bones. It’s beautiful because it’s so rare. I have never seen rain like I see it here. It sounds different, smells different, looks different, and it well may be exactly the same as it is in my hometown, but it’s different.

Before a big rain, clouds become big and mean. They turn dark, dark gray, bulging down from the sky, seeming touchable. The greening trees stand out boldly against the angry, floating, gray masses. You can sit outside and literally watch the storm roll in like a great big hovering bird.

Today, I had no desire to get out of the rain. Despite the fact that I was wearing a white, partially see-through oxford shirt, I couldn’t help myself but to stay and be doused by the downpour. Me, who has been sweating nonstop for 2 weeks needed to experience standing in the African rain with my new African friends.

Things continue in the event of rain. At school, if there is cricket practice and it begins to pour, so be it, you’ll get wet. Afterwards it’s ten times more satisfying to peel of your clothes and curl up with a cup of Chombe tea.

The whole city is transformed in the midst of rain. Everyone is thankful for a break from the seemingly relentless heat. People relax in the presence of rain. Perhaps it’s the cool air and the light, chilly breeze. Maybe it’s the lack of fervent sunlight, and the fact that you can open your eyes all the way when you walk outside. Or maybe it’s the reassurance that for this year, there will be no drought, and at least there will be water.

The stillness in the aftermath of a rain is also powerful, as well as the strong, musty smell of the stuff. Obviously, the city streets are wet, but they are strange to me who has never seen them in this state. It’s all just really exciting. It’s a variation in the usual manner of things, and it goes on and on.

Coconut Cookies

I have been asked to compose an ode to something that has become so important to us here in Malawi that it’s almost indispensable.

 

Ode to Coconut Cookies

 

For 75 Kwacha

They’re Indispensable,

To say the least.

$.40 has never bought

Such delicious eats.

 

A thin,

Buttery biscuit,

A snack for the old and young

Like a savory, saccharine cloud

Resting on my tongue

 

In Malawi we have no

Parmesan cheese

But scrumptiously, indeed

We have Coconut Cookies

 

In its lackluster box

One would never suppose

Such a light, mesmeric taste

Inspiring this bit of prose
Jeff Oliver

Can eat a sleeve in one sitting

For the rest of the family

This is a pity.

 

 

 

Africa Time

I don’t know if it’s Africa, in general where I feel so completely at home, or Malawi exclusively. I like to think I have a special connection with this continent. Or rather, sub-Saharan, because I’ve never been north. It must be the way that time moves slowly, and you can spend all afternoon just talking to someone. Several weeks ago I expressed astonishment at the time, realizing how early it was, and a friend of mine shook his head at me and said, “This is Africa time. We move slowly here, just relax, Marie Claire”. So I did because I loved the way he said that. Africa time. Time is often completely irrelevant here. In the US, it dictates our lives. We would be lost without time.

If you come here you‘ll recognize immediately the carefree nature, and lack of stress. Or even in the midst of stress, the ability that people have to laugh at themselves. People have even commented on the pace in which I walk! And I’ve come to terms with the fact that no matter where I’m going, I move extremely fast! Why is it that Americans are always in a hurry? We are constantly trying to get through life faster and faster. We have no patience!

I’m quite proud of my new ability to loose track of time, move slowly, and spend an extremely large amount of time doing absolutely nothing productive. In the US, we are scolded for spending time idly, but in Malawi, loosing track of time is part of their way of life. Its fantastic!

The Farewell

The Farewell

To dance like I did. Nobody can dance like me.

When I dance I run away

I know that

All anyone wants is to be free. And by the way

Lets all decide for ourselves then. Perhaps that’s what

our fathers did.  This year I shed my

 

skin. On a smoldering hot day in Tennessee

the breeze is icy in the city of farewell. After a hollow embrace, I flew

away.

She just stands there.

Tears stood on her eyes.  A thin, gray woman with a trace of a

smile. Watching for a final

 

glimpse of her little girl. Because they’re

 

Scarcely connected by a string of electricity.

A tone distant,

and eager on the

Stupid telephone line. Someone said to me one time

 

You’re speaking to a

plastic box

 

I can’t see or touch or smell

that old smell.

That old perfume. Sweet to me and strange to others.

And five short years later I will

catch a trace of it in a public restroom, but its

Gone.

It departs as suddenly as it comes.

Mocking me as I recall the last time

I spoke to them.

And how I

Ran away so early for a

good thing but

a painful situation.

-          31 October 2009