That impossible future date that kept moving out further and further finally arrived; I have moved into my house. It's adorable, and I'm slowly making it livable. I now have curtains on all 4 windows, makeshift 'Esther' shelves in the pantry, kitchen, and bedroom to store things. They're called 'Esther' shelves because I got the idea to combine planks of wood and bricks into shelves from her. My Malawian acquaintances all think I'm so brilliant, which I can't figure out if I should take as a compliment or not. I mean, it's just planks of wood and bricks. Any yahoo could do it. So do they think it's so novel because they expected me to be incompetent when it comes to these things, or is it because they're surprised that I, one of the teacher caste, would do something for myself, rather than paying someone else to do it (although I did buy the planks from a carpenter who I also commissioned to make me a simple bookcase, so the love is being spread).
So, at night my guard John (AKA practically the only Malawian I've met who's taller than me) hangs out. He protects me from hyenas, students who want to chat too late into the evening, and enterprising old ladies. I wanted to be Malawian so I bought some chimanga (maize or corn as we'd say in the States) from my old neighbor 'Yaya' (that's what they call her). According to John, who got all 'mamma bulldog' on poor little old Yaya, she was waaaaaay overcharging me ('and she shouldn't, because you're Malawian, you're my sister!' he said to me, in Chichewa, rough translation). Mind you we're talking about the difference of 1USD, but that goes a long way in these parts. She gave me the maize, John marched it back to her. The head teacher got involved, and a few days later I went back to Yaya (some students to act as interpreters in tow) to tell her I'd take however much maize she'd let go for the money I gave her. I guess I'm chalking it up to a 1USD loss. From this episode, the take-home lessons are: 1. never purchase anything for myself ever again (or at least make sure I've got a Malawian on my side there to help negotiate) and 2. that John's got my back, even to an embarrasing extent. My house is almost entirely outfitted to a comfortable level. I've got a big bucket to hold water, which Tisunge fills for me. My headteacher helped me negotiate with her and her mother--I'm paying her 200MK a week to carry 1-2 buckets of water per day for me (500 meters is a much different animal than 50 when it comes to carrying water on your head). Apparently she had cerebral malaria and that's why she is the way she is ("like a child" Mr. Dzonzi put it so diplomatically; "a little slow" I described her to Esther). Many of the items I've purchased for my house are 'China,' the Chichewa word for cheap. In a sentence: 'my spoon broke because it was China' or 'my locks are so China I broke the handle off my front door' or 'I'm surprised my 500MK paraffin stove I bought in a Chinese shop hasn't blown me up yet.' I've also got a cutting board, peanut butter, scissors, a soap dish...all the necessities. I've even got nails, which I remembered I needed as I was sitting in the minibus in Salima waiting to come back to Thavite so I handed some random guy 40MK and told him to run and get me some nails and he did! The other day I bought a big bag of charcoal from the charcoal guy who came by my house and all I had was a 500MK bill (2 months worth of charcoal is 250MK, or less than $2). He rode his bike with another heavy bag of charcoal on it to the trading centre, a 2km roundtrip, and brought me back my change! It's not that I expect Malawians to be dishonest, it's just that I know (in an academic sense) what desperation can drive a person to. I've been pleasantly surprised time and time again by their honesty, generosity, and friendliness. So my house is looking good...we've even planted some plants some neighbors brought over. So my roof leaks when it rains (and my hand-made goat-leather purse from Niger that I left in a certain spot on the floor got soaked...twice), and my cat (I have a cat!) pees and sometimes poops inside-as Malawians would say, 'it's part of life!'
My cat is wonderful. I got her from an amazing Spanish woman I met through one of my students who lives a few towns over from me. She (the Spanish woman, not the cat) is basically a freelance development worker, using her mad skillz and contacts to get money to make projects happen to improve the town she lives in. She had two kittens and only wanted one so I left her house with a flour sack full of cat. I named her Zona (which come to find out is spelled 'zoona') which means 'true' or 'indeed!' in Chichewa. I like it because it rhymes with the Chichewa word for cat ('chona') and is similar to Zo! which means 'Come!' in Hausa. Does she know how international her name is? I guess the more pertinent question is: does she recognize her name yet? (Answer: no) I still need a fence and furniture for the front room, but those will come. Last Friday market we were like a little family doing our shopping: me, John, my neighbor Make Bridget ('mother of Bridget'...I'll never learn married women's first names here) and Bridget, who was carried home by John. I bought a kilo of pork and we made pork tacos last night. I rocked their world with tortillas ('in Malawi we call tortillas 'samoosas' ' -John explaining the history of Indians in Malawi to me) and who knew that all you need for a decent salsa fresca is tomatoes, onions, garlic salt and cumin? God bless garlic salt, is all I have to say (and Alexis, for wisely advising me to purchase it). School right now is hell. Literally. Well, figuratively, but still, 'marking' (grading) exams is a level of Hell, I have no doubt. And not just any marking of any exams, but marking essays, following some ass-backwards Malawian rubric that basically ensures that even the best students will get low marks. The highest a student can get is 10/15. Maybe this is just weird to me, coming from America as I do, where we're almost too eager to see everybody win (there were 12 valedictorians at my high school, after all). Maybe we grade too leniently, and Malawians are more on par...no, on second thought, they're just crazy. And 'invigilating' isn't much better. Sounds dirty, right? Apparently it's just the British word for 'proctor' which means I sit on my butt in the teacher room while the students are taking their end of term exams (because they're going to cheat anyways, so why make a show of actually being in the classroom?) and put out fires, like writing crucial paragraphs on the board in 4 classrooms because they didn't get photocopied correctly. Joy! Let's just say the school break will be enjoyed immensely after all this. A bikeride or two, traveling to Esther's site and Mzuzu and some sort of Passover party up north...time away from school and (well-meaning but) nosy neighbors will be ever so sweet.
