April 25, 2004

Greetings to all of you from Malawi!

It is Sunday morning in Mulanje and I am not going to the English church service at 7:30, because I am sick with “mulanjitis” as Dr. Hans Rode, the medical director here, calls it. He is suffering with the same symptoms—that of a “mega-cold.” Thus, I am learning the art of using a handkerchief properly. There is no kleenex here, or for that matter, Scott towels or Saran wrap or Ziplock. There are no paper towels in the hospital. Thank goodness there is toilet paper available, and I understand the nursing students here get an allowance to buy it. Anyway, I am not very good at using handkerchiefs, which I purchased at Walmart before I left the United States. I have been watching Sue using hers and still haven’t perfected this. I mean: Do you start at one corner and work your way around?

There are many little things one learns to adapt to, or live without. I did not have a TV for the last three years in the United States so I don’t miss that, although I wish my neighbor, Mr. Machimba, the headmaster of the nursing school, would turn his down at night since we never close our windows. Sometimes I wish I could take a walk in the tea, incognito, without villagers staring at my whiteness or children sending out the alert—“mzungu!” (white person). I have learned to live with spiders in my house, great flat ones, which, when first encountering one, I found myself thinking, “Why does Sue have a plastic spider on her wall?” The power tends to go off at night right when you have just turned on the stove and Sue and I are standing in the pitch blackness, groping for matches. I have gotten into the daily routine of heating water up for our various watchmen and giving them the thermos, a teabag, and three tablespoons of sugar in a jar. I wish they would not greet others at 4:30 a.m. while standing next to my window or send every vendor who knows azungu (white people) live here to our front door.

I have learned to greet everyone in Chichewa and find it is a way to disarm the staring, although my Chichewa has not progressed much more than that. I can say, “Go around the bed and sit. Lie on your back. How old are you? How many children do you have?” as well as other less palatable questions. I understand some of their replies, which then are further translated. They seem American sometimes, speaking of “pweteka kwambiri” (lots of pain) and motioning up and down their chest. But they are rarely like the American patients I remember, who came to me with chronic complaints of snotty noses or backaches. Often, Malawian patients have distended bellies and such wasted bodies you can count their ribs from across the room. They still respond, “Ndili bwino” (I am good) when you greet them. Then if you admit them to the hospital, you may hear at morning report, “Despite the above management, the patient died at _____. Rest in peace.”

One adapts to dirt—the red clay that covers the floors, settles on the walls, on the top of the fridge, on your shoes, and which you scrub off your feet. The concrete floors are mopped continuously but are never clean. People may afford soap to wash clothes, but not themselves, so one learns to forget odors. One pays no attention to the roosters that walk out of the female ward or the dogs that sleep in the hallways of the hospital. You recognize the patients who might speak English because they look better fed and they wear shoes, so they probably finished secondary school and have a job. The women wear colorful cloths that they tie around their waist, and Sue and I are amused at the designs—razor blades, cell phones, Coca-Cola (her personal favorite), irons, American dollar signs—topped with an “Ohio State” tee-shirt. Having attempted to balance something on my head as the Malawian women do, I confess—although they could do it while walking a balance beam with a baby on their back—I can’t do it for more than three seconds.

Sue and I eat a lot of rice and beans and whatever vegetables and fruits are in season. Fortunately, I was made for this, having always preferred vegetables to the typical high-fat American diet. Not that Sue and I don’t joke about running by McDonalds on the way to somewhere. We also eat chicken and marvel at how petite they are. One day we sent our housekeeper into a giggling fit describing the largesse of chicken breasts in America. However, the food on our plate takes on a special significance as we drive down the road watching children with pale hair and thin limbs chewing on sugarcane. I have learned to be very careful about what I throw away, because everything is used and recycled here until it falls apart.

There are some things I hope never to accept. I believe the Bible is above culture. What we learn from it transcends all cultures, all longitudes and latitudes, all manmade borders that separate us from each other. Christ came to give us abundant life—all of us—and as disciples of His, we are meant to share this abundant life with each other. We are called to not accept poverty, disease, starvation, and despair as cultural. We may feel that the problem is too great for us to chip away at, but nothing is impossible with God. If you came to Mulanje, you would see these smiling faces, hear their powerful voices lifted in praise, and feel the strong presence of God here. Like me, you would recognize these as your precious brothers and sisters in Christ.

It is now past the English service and, living across from the church, I can sit in the comfort of my bedroom and listen to the singing voices from the Chichewa service. I went to the Chichewa service—once—but after four hours, my rear end was going numb and I slipped out. Today a Presbyterian minister from Ireland, who I met on Friday, is preaching, and I am sorry I will miss this opportunity to share in the fellowship of such diverse voices and the communion of a shared faith. But it is best I stay here, sequestered with one of our cats to keep me company and my pile of handkerchiefs.

Peace and grace to you on this, la Mulungu (meaning Sunday or literally, “the Lord’s day”).

Charlotte