33 A visit to Tamara’s family

This morning I was feeling a bit miserable and alone, there are so few of us left at Mitsidi and the others are busy with their visitors from home, so I was rather sorry for myself. However I pulled myself together and decided to make nice things happen, and they did! The first nice thing was simple, I telephoned Margaret and we spoke for nearly an hour. It was worth every penny! I am so fortunate to have good friends at home. I was pitying myself for having left you all behind but I must never forget that you are all still there and we can be brought together by technology. The post may be dreadful, Margaret has sent me three letters and I have received none of them. What did travellers do before telephones and the internet? Margaret and I have spent many hours at her kitchen table over the last few years. We have drunk endless cups of green tea and supported each other over the ups and downs of our lives, both big and small. She has joked that we are sending the kitchen table with its teapot back and forth with the emails, but it is so much more satisfying to actually talk. I felt do much more cheerful after the phone call.

The second nice thing was that I plucked up the courage to ring Tamara, one of my students who once suggested that I might like to visit her mother when I said that I was finding it difficult to meet Malawian women of my own age. I asked her if today would be a convenient day, and it was. Tamara met me at the bridge at Sigregge, at the bottom of the drive to Mitsidi and led me through narrow paths and muddy tracks from Sigregge to the next village, the name of which I forget, where is her family home. We had to delay our meeting for half an hour or so due to heavy rain, so everything was dripping and there was a lot of mud about, but I donned waterproof and welly-shoes and managed fine although it was a bit slippery under foot. After about twenty minutes walk we turned down a narrow path between gardens planted with vegetables and maize to three small houses close together which are all occupied by the extended family. She took me into the house where she lives with her parents. Tamara is the youngest of seven children, five girls and two boys. The others are all married, just, her next sister was married on Christmas day. We went into a fair-sized room with sofas and comfy chairs to seat nine people. Two children were watching TV and a third soon joined them. They got up to greet me and shook hands and told me their names. Fortunately I had three lollipops left in my bag, so I gave them one each and they stripped off the paper and sat sucking and watching TV for a while. Tamara went off to fetch her mum who was dressed in a traditional three piece costume (skirt, top and headdress) made from turquoise patterned cloth with a big circular logo on it that said 'Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year'. Her mum speaks pretty good English considering she had no education after the end of Primary School. She told me the names and ages of all her children and I told her about mine. She was married at 19 and had her first son at 20 in 1970. Although I am only five years younger, by the time I had Rose at 29 she had 6 children and Tamara her youngest fits in between Jack and Joe in age. She told me how she was born in Ntcheue and moved here when she married at 19 and has been in the village ever since. Tamara said that the house is old, it was built in 1980. I told her my house in England was built in 1928 and she was astonished that a house had stood for so long. I had brought tea and sugar and biscuits as a gift for Tamara's mother as well as some Lux soap. I didn't really know what to take but I figured that if tea and sugar were good enough for the chief they would probably be acceptable anywhere and her mother seemed very pleased with them and thanked me. Tamara went off to the kitchen to make tea and she told me all about the family coming to the wedding and asked me who the children belong to when a couple get married in England. Is it to the bride's family or to the bridegroom's? I said that they belong to both families. When Tamara came back she explained that in some tribes if the mother should die the children belong to the father's family and even if the mother's family is much more able to care for them they will not be able to have them. Tamara's mother was clearly not very happy about this arrangement and I wonder whether her daughter had just married into such a family, but it was not very clear. I said that in England if that situation happened and there was a dispute it would probably go to court and the decision would be made in the best interests of the children. She seemed to think that this was a good idea.

The house had whitewashed walls and a corrugated iron roof. There were curtains in a green and cream traditional patterned fabric in the doorways. Through the curtain in the kitchen area I could see a big pile of sacks of maize flour. The family farms, and grows all its own food. Tamara told me her mother works very hard and keeps pigs as well as growing maize and vegetables. I told the mother that Tamara had done very well in the child care exam. She was the top of the class that she was in, and one of only seven out of 110 to get a distinction. Her mum was pleased and proud and so was a married sister who popped in for a few minutes to meet me.

After we had been talking for half an hour or so the Minister for the Church they attend came round and was pleased and surprised to see me. He looks after nine churches and lives about 30Km away, but he told Tamara to bring me to see him. I said I would try to borrow a car so that we could do that one day. He said that the Mother Church of his church was in Birmingham. Apparently he lives in a tea-growing area, it would be interesting to take up his offer.

There was a little kitten playing around our feet, Tamara said it was four months old and it seemed very small. I haven't seen many cats in Malawi, although quite a few people seem to have dogs. I said I liked cats and used to have one myself. Tamara said that even though it is so small it tries to catch rats, but they are too big for it at the moment, so I guess it will be a working cat eventually even if it is not so at the moment. It was a sweet little tortoiseshell with a kink in its tail. I picked it up and it was soon curled up in my lap and purring. I had to lift it up to get up and say goodbye to Tamara's mum. She thanked me for coming to see her and said that the visit was a blessing. She thanked me for the gifts and said she was very happy with them and they would think of me when they drank tea and washed with the soap! She also thanked me for visiting the home of underprivileged people, which seemed to me a bit of an odd thing to say, particularly as the family seems rather well to do by Malawian standards, but I guess many azungu do not get to visit the homes of people who farm in the traditional way, getting to know more people who have jobs and live in a way that is more similar to our way of life.