Malawi

July 17 , 2006: Cindy

I recently spent three weeks visiting my sister, who lives in Malawi, Africa. I’ve been back in the U.S. for over a week now, and I can’t get Africa off of my mind. Every detail of my day is now framed in a new way, and I have a whole new reality to stand up next to mine for comparison.

A few things about Malawi:

• It’s the fourth poorest country in the world. Consider that America is the richest, then think of the approximately 194 countries that exist in the world. They are only richer than Sierra Leone, Somalia and a couple of others I can’t recall.
• 15% of Malawians are HIV positive. This is a HUGE percentage. Most of these people are between the ages of 18 and 24 and make up a large part of Malawi’s workforce. The workforce is dying out. AIDS in Africa tends to be a death sentence, as opposed to here, where someone can live with HIV for a long time. There, they can’t afford medicine, and having AIDS is such a taboo thing that no one wants to admit it. So it spreads. Also, if you live in the middle of nowhere, with no stores or money, where the hell do you expect people to get condoms, even if they’re willing to use them?
• 40% of Malawians don’t even have a hole in the ground to shit in. Would they use one if they had it? Maybe. Maybe not.
• There is a very small middle class. Then there are the rich expats and Brits and corrupt Malawian government officials and handful of well off Malawians. Then there are the rest of the 11 million, mostly farmers, living in poverty. Many live on less than a dollar a day. Makes you understand why so many people don’t have shoes.

Despite all of this, Malawians are amazingly friendly and welcoming. They smile all the time and EVERYONE waves to you and says hello as they pass on the street. Ironically, they seem happier and more content than most Americans.

When I arrived in Malawi, I quickly realized that everything I knew about reality and the way the world works was entirely irrelevant there. Nothing works the same. The concepts of order, process, protocol, planning for the future…if they exist, then they do so in a very different way from how they do here. Some things that my Americanized brain found difficult to process:

• The electricity in the city goes off in random places for about an hour most days. They just don’t have enough electricity, even for the relatively small portion of the country that uses it.
• People mop with muddy water. Still haven’t figured that one out.
• I had to go to the doctor while I was there, to get antibiotics for strep throat. You know those things they use to look in your ears and nose? They had one to share between, like, 5 doctors. And I was at a fancy private hospital.
• There’s no stuff. No stuff to buy. Stuff is a luxury not to be afforded.
• Sometimes the phone lines don’t work in the “Telecommunications Office.”
• The concept of creating work for oneself beyond what is required is a decidedly American concept. If Malawians finish the work they planned to do, they might take a nap. They definitely do not create new projects for themselves at work. I thought the need to be productive all the time was a universal concept. Nope. It’s ours.
• I saw women carrying more bundles of wood and charcoal on their heads than I think I could carry in my car.

So now I’m back in Austin, shopping at HEB, overwhelmed by the unnecessary yet luxurious choice of things to buy. I can’t stop looking at us all and thinking how expensive our clothes are. The forty dollars I just spent on a shirt would pay to feed lunch to 300 orphans in Malawi. I’m trying not to feel so guiltyfor what I have and what they don’t. It’s hard.

But I also think they’ve probably got a lot we don’t. Amazing smiles, for one thing. I’d like to think
I’m the kind of person who wants to go there and live and work for better, healthier lives for the people of Malawi. But my heart feels so broken by the stuckness, the difficulty of solving their complex problems.

They are full of hope. But I think I would collapse under the weight my own feelings of hopelessness. I would like if someday I were strong enough to try and help. I love the people of Malawi. And I miss them. And I cannot get them out of my head and am not even sure I want to. I am haunted by them, and I suspect I will take them with me everywhere I go for the rest of my life.