Boxing Day

Today is Boxing Day and I intend to have a lazy day! The last two days have been busy and interesting but did not really feel like Christmas! I suppose that this is really because for all my 55 years I have always spent at least part of Christmas with family and I did feel a long way away from you all yesterday. I still do. It was lovely to speak to my children, brother, sister and sundry other relatives who were around at the time. I was on the phone for about an hour and a half all told, a very pleasant indulgence! I managed not to cry, even when Joe said he missed me, but despite enjoying the experience of living here being on the whole a good one it is at times like this that I wonder what possessed me to come all this way, away from the people that I love so much. I am getting very excited about Jack's visit in January. A month from yesterday he will be here. He says we will have Christmas on 25 January this year, so I am looking forward to that!

Christmas Eve was a busy day. Jan, Lindy and their visitors left about 9.30am for their 'Christmas Morning in a wild life park' experience and I got in Emma's car, which was utterly the reverse experience to that of driving the Land Rover, new, shiny, smooth, automatic, everything working! I went to the admin office to see how many people had picked up their results but the guard said there was no one there, so I drove round the corner to Maureen's. You may remember Maureen as the owner of a nursery I visited with Jane on about my third day here. She was very welcoming and very keen to do our course. Now she has done it, and got a reasonable mark too and is all set for the Intermediate course. You can see a photo of her on my facebook site in the album about teaching key concepts. Maureen is amazing. I am getting to be very fond of her. She was brought up by her grandmother in Zimbabwe and only discovered that Grandma wasn't her mother when at 14 she was sent back to Malawi to live with her mum. At 15 she opened a nursery school on next to nothing. She is a formidable character, loud, energetic, cheerful, of decided opinions. She was in town when I arrived, but her husband said he would tell her I had been round and I agreed to come back at about noon after I had done my shopping.

I have been putting together parcels for the children who play in the garden at Mitsidi, they are mostly the children of Charles our house keeper, and Stanley the gardener, but there are one or two others who are also always about the place, the children of people who work for our neighbours. Zoe left me a few books and she and Gemma each gave me a little money and I have gradually been collecting together things to make up a parcel for each child. Lindy and I popped in the K99 shop the other day and bought ten bouncy balls, small for Bridget, Charles' baby, and Esnut, who is four, and football sized for the older children up to Chicco who is 12. One exception was Emily who is 11. Jane left me a pile of bits and pieces when she left that she thought might be useful for the children, including a brightly coloured skipping rope with yellow plastic handles. I gave this to Emily as the oldest girl amongst the younger children. It was a lucky guess really. She seemed delighted with it and the smile on her face as she stood looking down at it in her hands was a joy to see. I spent a happy hour in Bee Books choosing two books for each child. I tried to match them to the ages of the children. It was hard without knowing them individually but I managed to find a simply written book about making things out of wood which I gave to Chicco. I hope his English is up to it. I bought a big pot of blackcurrant lollipops and a bag of balloons and Lindy donated a packet of sweets for each child. I have had a row of little piles of presents gradually increasing in size on the floor under the window in my sitting room for a week or so. There is also a group of teenage girls, including Gloria, of the snake bite incident. I gave them sweets and balloons the same as the littler ones and bought a huge bumper pack of hair bits and pieces in Shoprite and divided it between them. None of them were there when I went round to deliver the gifts so I don't know if I hit the spot with that idea or not.

I bought a big box of English biscuits to take to Mary and her family on Christmas Day. Lindy had given me a list of bits and pieces to buy to contribute to our feast on Boxing Day. We are going to cook a chicken. I asked Charles what most families eat on Christmas day and he said 'Chicken and rice'. I daresay we shall substitute the rice for roast potatoes! I bought a small pot of cream and some crisps and also the ingredients to make a Christmas cake. I couldn't get everything, no marzipan for instance, but managed to make tolerable substitutes.

After the shopping trip I went back to Maureen's. She was in the street waiting for me and welcomed me literally with open arms. She led me through the school buildings to her in-laws house where there were a number of children playing in the yard and her husband and a friend watching TV in the sitting room. The house was dark and cool, the usual concrete floors and dark sofas added to a rather gloomy air. I sat down and offered my gifts: tea, sugar and biscuits for the grown-ups and a couple of balls and lollipops for the children. In the bag there were also gifts for Annie, another of my students who lives across the road, and this was just as well because only a very few moments after we had sat down Annie arrived. She led me back to show me her house, which was also of the traditional style with two buildings, one for cooking, eating and sitting and the other for sleeping. Annie's house was brighter, she had a sort of dresser of light wood which housed all sorts of things including a television and her sofa was a light coloured fabric so everywhere seemed a lot lighter. I met all four of her children who shook my hand and sort of curtseyed to me and each told me their names. The children are taught to show respect to visitors by bending down while they shake hands: the lower the bend, the greater the respect. I am not entirely comfortable about being curtseyed to, but I am not about to undermine the teaching of good manners to children so I smiled and introduced myself to them. When I gave the Christmas presents to Charles' children his wife did the same, in fact she got so low, she was kneeling on the floor and I did tell her to get up, it just felt so wrong that she should be doing this to me. As an azungu I am by definition very rich in their eyes and indeed by Malawian standards this is true, but I still have difficulty getting my head around the idea of me as a rich woman and even more around the idea that rich people deserve any kind of special treatment. It seems feudal and unnecessary. I'm certainly not going to come back bowing to people in England who move in wealthier circles than I do!!

After we had seen Annie's house the two of them took me to see Maureen's. Currently she and her family live with the in-laws behind the nursery but as I suggested earlier Maureen turns out to be something of an entrepreneur and she was very keen to show me her empire! We passed three small houses on a plot to the left of the track, these belong to her and are rented out. I said to her, so you are a landlady as well as a teacher and she laughed and said 'Yes, I am a landlady!' as though the idea had never occurred to her before. We passed by her garden to the right of the track where she grows food for the family. There was quite a big area of newly planted maize which has grown really fast in the last few weeks of warm and rainy weather. It is now about 18 inches high. Amongst the maize were beans and something with leaves a bit like a courgette, maybe pumpkin leaves, I don't know. She grows other vegetables, cabbage, okra, onions. Behind a high wall to the left was another plot that Maureen owns. Here was another branch of the school that I knew nothing about. As well as pre-school children she has Standards 1-4 of primary school. If I understood her correctly this is where she started the school. She has built a new house in the grounds and is gradually fitting it out. She hopes to move in next year. At the moment she makes a little money by letting out space for top-up events. There were chairs set out in the garden for such an event to take place later in the day. Annie explained it like this: she said if you have a small business and you do not make enough money you need to top it up, so you have a top-up and invite all your friends and they help you out. For example, she said, you might have a kitchen top-up and your friends would bring you kitchen implements. It sounds like a good idea to me; I'd like to see it. We looked round Maureen's house and it is going to be lovely. The walls here are white and the windows bigger so it is lovely and light. The bedrooms have built in cupboards, just in rough wood, but giving lots of storage space. The kitchen is beautifully done with a tiled floor. There are two living rooms, one for the grown-ups, the other she described as 'a video room' for the children. There is a room for the guard, which is currently piled with building materials. She is enormously proud of what she has achieved and rightly so. I shall be very interested to know how what she learns about child care and education from our courses will impact upon how she runs her schools. From a very superficial look it appears that she has very few educational resources, but presumably any investment will have an impact upon her profits! Outside within the walls was an enclosed garden with many fruit trees, mango, papaya, apple, orange, lemon, pomegranate, and more rows of vegetables. She gave me a gift of a bag of rice which she said was of good quality and was grown in Nkota Kota by the lake.

Then we walked back towards her in laws house. When we got back to her gate she asked if I would like a drink and disappeared for a few moments carrying a pineapple Fanta each for Annie, for me and for herself. She proposed that we open the doors of Emma's car and sit and drink them in the car, so we did. We were soon joined by Neil, the youngest of her four children, who is three. It was his birthday. He climbed into the front seat and sat happily looking about him. Even when his next sister came to tell him it was time to eat nsima he wouldn't get out of the car and had to be carried away protesting, a little later by the older sister. Within five minutes he was back with smudges of nsima round his mouth and climbing into his seat. Maureen was fascinated by the car and asked me who I had borrowed it from and what they would do with it when they went back to England! Annie said 'She will buy it, she has plenty of money!' During the conversation Maureen asked me if I had the rice and I lifted the bag out of my handbag to show her that I did. My attention was caught by wriggling black specks in the rice and as I peered more closely Maureen said 'They are weevils!' I should have asked her how to separate them from the rice, but I did not. Now the bag is on my khonde as I am not keen on the idea of weevils in my kitchen, on the other hand it seems a shame to waste good quality rice from Nkota Kota! Perhaps I should ask Charles. Then I told them that my son is coming to visit me in a month's time and they made me promise to bring him to see them. I thanked them for making me so welcome and then drove back to Mitsidi. Neil was very reluctant to get out of the car and wailed as I turned it round. He wanted to know when I would come again, but I do not flatter myself that it is me he wants to see, it is undoubtedly the car. I told him it will not be the same one next time and it won't be so smart.

I spent the rest of the day after a quick swim, in wrapping presents and baking Christmas cake, a bit late, I know and spicy biscuits as presents for Charles and Mary and their families. I put on my swimming costume and the chitenge that was given to me by one of my students, she was shocked that I sat on the dirty floor to play a game in my good dress and she told me that I must wear a chitenges. I have been practicing a bit at home at Mitsidi but have not yet perfected the art of tying it tightly enough so that it does not fall off at the wrong moment. When I got to the pool Stella was there looking at the water. She commented on the chitenges, 'I like that you wear it' she said, so I confided in her about my little problem about losing it at inopportune moments, such as when I climb out of the back of the Land Rover! She laughed and gave me a lesson, but I am still not very good at it! Charles' wife walked by with baby Bridget on her back, and a couple of friends in tow; they all laughed to see what was going on as Stella and I stood with flapping chitenges and I struggled to twist and tuck in with sufficient force!

My Christmas cake was made with some of the whisky Zoe left for me to finish off instead of Brandy, golden syrup instead of treacle and white sugar instead of brown; I passed on the cherries too when I saw the price in Shoprite! So that I could give them as presents I baked mini cakes in muffin tins and they turned out pretty well, but were golden rather than dark brown. I could get neither marzipan nor the ingredients to make it so I had to be content with drizzling them with icing I made with orange juice and icing sugar, and sprinkling them with silver balls. They look very festive, if not exactly traditional!

I set the alarm for six on Christmas morning to give time to take the children's presents round to Charles' before setting off for my breakfast appointment at Mary's for eight o'clock. I found the whole experience rather strange. The children liked their things, especially the lollipops and balloons, and Charles' wife, I must find out her name, seemed very pleased with the packet of little cakes sent by Gemma and James. I also gave them a plate with a little Christmas cake in the middle, surrounded by iced spice biscuits, all sparkling with silver balls, but Charles was clearly a bit disappointed and asked when I was going to give him his chicken. I apologised and said that I hadn't got him a chicken, but I had brought gifts for the children and cake. He was nice about it, and said 'That's alright, I do have a chicken!' Clearly I made a bit of a faux pas! I did know that it is traditional to take a chicken if you visit a family, but this was only popping in for half an hour with gifts, not going for a long time. I guess I shall just have to chalk it up to experience!

When I got to Mary's she was not there! I was surprised to be greeted by Christina, she of fried chicken fame, who it turned out was also invited for breakfast along with Ireen who I had not met before. These three are good friends. Mary later described Christina and Ireen as friends who had been with her through good times and bad. Apparently Mary had gone to change, I never did find out why it was necessary to leave the house to do this. I was parked in front of the TV while Christina and Ireen went off to the kitchen and I took the opportunity to look about me. There was a young man fast asleep on the sofa with the newspaper drifting gradually off his knees. The TV was loud but he was completely oblivious. Later Ireen tried gently to wake him but he did not stir. The walls were hung with prayers and poems and religious pictures. There were several photographs of Mary and a huge poster of a Mother's day poem about how Mother is the heart of the home. The TV was the central, focus item on a huge lacquer and gilt dresser or whatnot which reminded me of the inside of a Traveller van, all painted golden bows, and shine!

Mary soon arrived resplendent in traditional African dress in turquoise broderie anglaise. I had been afraid that I might be overdressed in my posh frock, but I was completely outshone! We sat down to a generous breakfast, beginning with cornflakes with hot milk, and tea, and moving on to a cooked breakfast of garlicky spiced Malawian sausage, fried eggs, salad, and cheese and tomato sandwiches. Mary covered her splendor with a chitenge tied under her armpits, presumably to protect her finery from potential spillage. To my astonishment after breakfast all three ladies disappeared for a few minutes and returned in trousers and T shirts in which they remained for the rest of the day even though we were off for Christmas lunch in a lodge. We woke up the sleeper, Mary was more forceful than Ireen, and all piled in the car to drive to Limbe to fetch more of the family. The sleeper turned out to be a nephew who had delivered a car for Mary's son in law to drive the rest of the family to Mulange for lunch. We dropped the sleeper in Blantyre and then picked up two of Mary's daughters, a niece, two grandsons, one only two months old, and the maid who looks after the children, and proceeded along a beautiful road through tea plantations towards Mulange mountain. It was a bright sunny day and everywhere is vivid green following the recent rain. Maize is growing in all the patches that were bare earth when I arrived. As I drove along I suddenly became aware that many people were running along the side of the road in the direction in which we were travelling. It soon became apparent that there had been a nasty accident between two minibuses only moments before. It was already a heaving throng of people. Many hands were helping what seemed like an endless stream of people out of the minibuses. They both must have been absolutely full to overflowing. As I was driving I had to keep my attention on the road to avoid mowing down anyone else, but Mary said that the driver of one bus looked as though he was trapped in the wreckage and several people looked hurt although they all seemed to be able to get out of the buses. Fortunately it happened only about a mile from the hospital. I asked Mary about emergency services. She said that if the hospital has an ambulance the first people to reach there will tell the staff what has happened and then they will bring the ambulance to the site of the accident. We are so lucky in our country to have the NHS and for everything to be so organized. As there were so many willing helpers Mary told me not to stop and we negotiated the wreckage and pressed on towards Mulange, but we were all rather sobered by the experience.

We arrived at the Lodge where we were booked in for a barbeque lunch. There was a wedding party going on with a marquee with a band playing under huge trees by a turquoise swimming pool. Our table was on a khonde overlooking the pool. We settled comfortably into a group of cane armchairs and ordered a round of drinks. The children played around us on the floor and after a while we were joined by the rest of the family. How they all fitted into a single saloon car I can only imagine! I got out my camera to take a few photos of the children. Catherine took it out of my hands and proceeded to take photos of everyone with me, so I now have a collection of pictures of me with every female member of the Kamwendo clan, all smiling brightly. The baby and the two three year olds also appear in most of them, each girl passed the baby to the next as she left her palace on the sofa next to me! Catherine requested a photo of her with her two boys and supplied me with her email address and requested me to send the photos to her. I hope the internet speed will be fast enough to cope. The meal was a choice from the barbeque of goat, lamb or turkey, there was stewed chicken, stewed beef, rice, vegetables, salads, chapattis and plantain. I've never eaten plantain before, I liked it. It was good to be part of a family celebration on Christmas Day.

The journey home was uneventful, indeed half the occupants of the car were asleep by the time we reached Mary's daughter, Catherine's home. We were back in Blantyre as dusk was falling and I was glad to back in my own little house with plenty of time to make my calls to England before retiring for the night.