Malawi—we learned from Alex, the head nurse—means the land of flames. Fitting for this land where the wind blows the red dirt to paint all things, where decrepit red brick shacks dot the landscape, where the kindness and generosity of its people burn for all to feel their warmth.
The people are just so friendly and welcoming. They have such beautiful smiles. Their faces crack along the laugh lines at our first greeting in Chichewa; it seems as if they become your friends with the first hello. Since very few villagers know English and as we know only the basic exchange of “how are you” and “I am fine”, we would walk away soon afterwards, hearing giggling and chatter behind us. Looking back, we would see them waving and laugh with them at their exuberance and at our own lack of understanding of their language. It was a spectacle when Elizabeth took me to explore the village of Namitondo for the first time. We would say hello to a woman drying her maize in a field and immediately, the surrounding women rushed toward us, bring and calling their kids, to shake our hands and exchange greetings. Walking away, we would leave a mass of Malawians in their tattered shirts and traditional wraps weaving madly at us. We were apparently quite the entertainment to them, but there was no feeling of isolation or mockery. Just friendly curiosity.
The people here may walk around with no shoes, live in one-room houses with patched roof and huddle outside around fires at night, but they are proud of their culture and their traditions. It is nice to feel included, welcomed, to their land. We find a willing teacher of their language and tradition in everyone. When Elizabeth, her brother Daniel and I were at the Lilongwe craft market, a vendor actually rescued me from the a swarm of sellers—the stall owners would literally surround you, shouting and negotiating prices over one another in you face. He pushed me into an old chair in front of his pile of works and taught me how to play a very popular stone board game of mathematics, attacking techniques and luck. We exchanged life stories and he even invited me to a Malawi Independence Day celebration where I could experience the traditional music and dances. Unfortunately, we did have time to linger in Lilongwe, which is quite far from Namitete. Our closest friends are the village kids who live in the nearby village of Namitondo. Even though they barely speak English, we are connected by our love of soccer and pictures. The kids would hang outside of St.Gabriel in the afternoon, waiting for us to play soccer with them at five. I have to admit that though I am an avid soccer fan, coming here is my first time playing soccer. Elizabeth and Daniel captain each team as they are college soccer athletes and I mainly cheer for everyone. Even to my eyes, the kids—ranging from 6 to 13 years old—are great runners and soccer players. They are unbelievablely fast and agile, sprinting with their bare feet hitting the barren ground. They are a goofy bunch; you can never get a nice picture with them. They always distort their faces at the last minute and then clamor to see themselves on camera. I am so happy to have met these kids. I can’t believe I can form these great friendships when we can barely exchange a few words.
The Carmelite nuns that run much of the hospital’s operations are wonderful. The Malawians nuns live in a separate convent from the original three Luxemburg nuns who have been here since the hospital’s beginning. We had been welcomed in both. Our visit to the Malawian nuns’ residency has been partially eye-opening. It was a nice complex with not elaborate, but comfortable and economical furnishings. We sat in the main dining room with the sisters and watched the televised special celebration of Malawian Independence. There, I had my first taste of a traditional Malawian meal, specially prepared by the nuns: nsema, fish and chicken. nsema, made from maize flour, is the main staple of Malawi. The maize flour is cooked into soft chunks—like bread—so that it can be eaten with hands, which I did for the most part of the meal. The nsema to me tasted bland with a slight bitter after-taste. However, it goes well with the fish and chicken. Z was impressed—as was I—that I ate the four-inch fish cooked whole with head, eyes and skin. It was not an unpleasant experience, just out of the ordinary for me. We took a tour around the covenant, including the sisters’ private chapel, their huge garden and livestock area. The sisters seem to farm everything they need: lettuce, papaya, potatoes, oranges, many native species we have never seen and a lot of corn for nsema. Everything was growing, healthy and huge. I admire the sisters’ productivity because farming is difficult because of the drastic change in seasons. I imagine the rainy season is the flooding type of rain because when we do have pretty heavy rain here—or what I would say heavy rain—the Malawians just call it showers. That and the prevalence of ditches spanning everywhere. Then when it is winter, there is no rain. For livestock, they breed rabbits for meat. White, fluffy, red-eye rabbits! Life here is so different. I can’t imagine a more unique place in the world.