I spent the weekend with Mary in the village where she was brought up. Krizevac has recently changed its induction package for volunteers to include a weekend in a rural village location. Some of us old stagers expressed an interest in doing something similar and Peter is happy to oblige us all, however he will not allow my trip with Mary to count as he says it is too luxurious for a true village experience! Mary is the first born in a family of fourteen children. In Malawi to be the first born is a huge responsibility. Mary was the first in her family to go to Secondary School and she did very well, but unfortunately she was sick during the time of the final exams and was not able to take them all. Her teachers recommended that she return the following year and retake the exams. As it turned out, that year both her parents were sick and it was necessary for her to get a job so that her next three siblings could stay at school. She ended up with a good job in a bank where she stayed for 25 years supporting her brothers and sisters and later her own three children through school and in some cases university education as well. Mary fills a very important position in her family. Her brothers and sisters are aware of and grateful for the sacrifices that she made and she is respected for this.
Mary had arranged with me to be ready at 9.00am to be picked up from Mitsidi, but the best laid plans have a way of going wrong and this is Malawi where time does not have quite the same meaning as it has in the UK, so it was half past ten before the little Beehive pick-up arrived to take me to Mary's home in Chilomoni. Here we paused just long enough to load a mountain of food, beer, coolboxes, boxes of crockery, bags of goodness knows what, the biggest suitcase I have ever seen, my modest rucksack, Mary's younger sister and her small son, me and Mary before we set off for the village. I drove, Caleb sat on Mary's knee in the passenger seat and her sister settled on the sofa cushions wedged in the back between the suitcase, a huge blue bucket and a purple tub which later became my bath tub but during the journey provided a haven for a couple of dozen eggs. There appeared to be enough food to withstand a moderate siege but we stopped on the way for tomatoes and when we arrived we discovered 2 chickens and a pound of pork sausages had been left in the fridge in Chilomoni! We drove along the Zomba road with which I have become quite familiar during the 18 months I have been here, as far as Namadzi and then turned off up a narrow dirt road through a tobacco estate that is apparently owned by Greeks. The road was surprisingly well-maintained, presumably by the estate and I was interested in the crops we passed on the four or five kilometer drive to the village. I saw my first coffee plantation, there was the usual maize and vegetables, the tobacco of course, sweet potatoes and several fields of what looked like rosemary. I asked Mary what it was, but she didn't know, only that her relatives said that it smelled nice. We took several turns and the road got narrower and narrower until the plants we touching either side of the car and the grass in the middle of the road was scraping the underneath. We just hoped that there were no significant rocks hiding in the long grass. Eventually when I was beginning to think that we would soon have to get out and walk we turned sharply to the right and within a hundred yards we had arrived. Four or five houses were grouped in an approximate circle in an area with mature mango and avocado trees. All these houses were owned by members of Mary's family although one was rented to a local health surveillance worker and his family and a couple of them were empty. Mary's half brother, his wife and baby son live in Mary's father's old home and this is where we stayed. Across the way is a house where Mary's grandparents lived when she was a child but it is now occupied by her mother's younger sister who is only a few years older than Mary herself. We climbed out of, or down from, the vehicle and everyone came out to welcome us. I was very grateful to sit down in the shade as the day was very hot and for a bottle of water. We shook every one's hand and were welcomed in traditional fashion. Everyone seemed very interested to meet me and wanted to know how Mary and I had come to know each other. Throughout the whole of the two days people kept coming to the house and popping in just for a few moments to greet Mary and have a look at me. During the whole weekend I did not see another azungu until we got right back into Blantyre.
After a bit of a rest and a lunch of rice, vegetables and beef that Mary had cooked at home and brought with her we set off on a walk to see the primary school where Mary had started her education. She said she wanted me to see it because it was here that she began to learn English and if she had not she would not be able to talk to me today! It was not far, maybe half a kilometer, down a grassy path and over a bridge with a bit of a hole in it. Mary said that she used to drive into the village this way but some time last year the tyre of the car had got stuck in the hole in the bridge and so she now thought it prudent to come the long way round through the tobacco estate to avoid the bridge. I am sure she is right! One of Mary's sisters is the local MP and she apparently is looking in to the possibility of getting the bridge repaired. Just the other side of the bridge the track joins a reasonable looking dirt road and there are a few stalls which Mary described as 'Our local market'. There was a small shop selling a few items and doubling as a cinema, where people were watching a video. I didn't see any cars at all while we were there but there were many bicycles and a lot of people on foot. We turned right and wandered up the hill, past a modern convent and an older church, to the primary school. It is now a secondary a well as a primary and they were in the process of building more class rooms. Mary pointed out the graveyard where her parents are buried and explained to me how important it is that people are returned to the place where they belong to be buried. She expects to be buried there herself when the time comes. On the way back we dropped in to the convent to meet he Carmelite sisters. There are only two sisters and two postulants at the moment, as the convent is very new. We were offered fizzy drinks and lemon biscuits which we ate in a sitting room in which every piece of furniture was covered with a cloth or an antimacassar decorated with an embroidered zebra. The sisters were very welcoming and wanted to know how long I had been in Malawi and what I was doing here. Mary chatted about the church and the altar linen, and no doubt lots of other things I did not understand as most of the conversation was in Chichewa.
When we reached the house again my bath water was heated so I repaired to the concrete cubicle out the back and made my ablutions under the sky. Pumpkin plants were climbing all over the walls of the bathroom and there were many beautiful yellow flowers and a few long pumpkins dangling from the adjacent trees which were also covered by the trailing pumpkins. I negotiated the long drop toilet without mishap! I played with the children for a little while with a few balloons I discovered at the bottom of my hand bag, and then we got out felt pens and paper and drew pictures. I made Caleb a little paper boat just like the ones that my mum used to make for me, and a string of paper dolls for the little daughter of the HSA. Mary's aunt runs a little nursery school and she was fascinated and had a go herself so we made snapping monsters together, but it was too dark to see properly so they were not the greatest success! However she seemed happy and told Mary she had learned a lot!
We were indoors and eating supper by seven o'clock and in bed by eight.
Next morning we got up to find more bath water heated, so we washed and then set off for church. A two-hour Mass before breakfast is outside my usual experience! The church was packed by the end of the service but when we arrived, only a few minutes late, the service was under way. Mary had warned me, 'This priest' she said 'is a little crazy, he starts the service on time even if there are only two people there!' There were a lot more than two, but the church was only about half full. Men sat to the left and women to the right. The children were all sent down to the front apart from the babies who stayed with their mums. People were very orderly about filling up the pews from the front. Everyone was obviously in their best clothes. There were traditional African outfits in bold patterns and in broderie anglaise, there were bright dresses and skirts and blouses from the second hand markets and bridesmaid's dresses in abundance. I was glad I had taken a dress with me! At the end of the service I had to go to the front and be welcomed formally, giving the usual short address about who I was , what I had come to do, how long I had been here and what I thought of Malawi! Because the priest had to go on to do another service in one of the satellite parishes the offertory was postponed to the end of the service to save him some time. I was fascinated. About twenty members of the congregation went to the front with labeled wooden boxes which were firmly padlocked. Mary nudged me, 'When we go to the front stay with me and watch where I throw' she said, so I dutifully put my contribution in the same box that she did. Apparently it is intensely competitive, the individual amount from each box being read out in the service the next week. I never did find out if the boxes represented different areas of the parish, or different families, or what?
We wandered home for breakfast, harvested lots of avocados and then had lunch! After that we had to pack our things and set off for home. I felt delighted and privileged to have been invited to Mary's home. We were certainly welcomed and spoiled, and I was sent home with pumpkins, avocados and maize. The family were very generous. I had a lovely time!
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