a typical drive

So much has been going on. But I realized I’ve never written about the typical things I see – only the extraordinary or unusual. So I decided to write down what I saw on our 45 minute bus ride to Mitundu FPS; everything normal and regular. And then I realized just how astonishing it all is.

A police truck that drops off policemen who will stand in the middle of the road waving cars to the shoulder. They don’t have squad cars to follow anyone driving, so they stay stationary. The newly emptied police trucks give locals rides around town, whether for free or a price I don’t know.

A woman with two feet of bananas carefully piled in a tub, perfectly balanced on her head.

Coffin street: hundreds of beautiful coffins and ribbon decorations in every color for funerals that haven’t been held yet – and I barely notice. Death is different here. John, who works in the World Camp house, told us that we fear death too much. It’s a natural part of life that is accepted and even embraced here. Ten minutes further down the road: stone tombstones. And you’d be hard-pressed to find one without a cross on it.

A mother who carries a boy, maybe nine or ten, on her back as she would an infant because he has casts on both legs.

Full goat carcasses hanging from stands on the side of the road fully exposed to car emissions, flies, and the sun.

A group of women pumping water for the day – enough for drinking, cooking, and washing.

I’m shocked to see a young girl, maybe 13, jumping on and clearly flirting with a boy about the same age.

Glad we didn’t get stopped by the police today, even though I know we have a licensed driver and a properly insured bus.

Men pushing their bikes with wood stacked eight feet high because it’s too heavy and unstable to ride.

Waiting at a red light next to a begging man with shoes on his hands because he cannot stand upright and walks on all fours.

Billboards in English next to billboards in Chichewa advertising safe driving, Carlsberg beer, female condoms, Bingu’s new agricultural policies, and paint brands.

Girls in pants remind me of a quote from yesterday’s Nyassa Times: “There is a growing tendency among girls in the country to wear miniskirts, exposing thighs, which force men to rape them.”

Signs advertising for plumbers, electricians, and key makers hand painted on large pieces of wood and nailed to trees: PLUMBER tel: 099725673

Barber shops, where I know kids fear they’ll contract HIV.

Two women, each with a child on her back and a bundle on her head carrying another huge bag between them.

All while I sit in a dirty bus that I’ve complained doesn’t have a tape deck that burns through diesel as if Malawi wasn’t experiencing a fuel shortage.

Telephone lines that run along dirt roads.

Children run beside our bus as long as they can, always chanting azungu.

Brick homes with tin roofs, brick homes with straw roofs, brick homes without roofs.

People chewing sugar cane and thinking it’s cleaning their teeth.

Beautiful cloth blowing on clotheslines.

The line of eight women with their faces hidden by the massive bunches of brush they carry on their heads; at least ten feet long and three feet in diameter.

The village drunk that stumbles along the road.

The flat bed truck with at least forty people crammed in for the ride.

A group of ten sitting in a dust brown field picking ground nuts.

Goats.

Chickens.

Cows.

Dogs.

Donkeys.

Pigs – for variety, and only if you’re lucky.

AVOID AIDS GUYS handwritten on the back of a road sign.

Barbed wire around Bingu’s farm with more than twenty workers picking maize.

Taking the same detour we took in January – will they ever finish the road?

Stopping in the middle of the road to wait for a herd of unattended goats.

A line of three men on bikes with woven baskets on the back.

Forty minutes outside Lilongwe and there’s still telephone wires next to the road. I don’t know where they’re going; no one has any use for them out here.

Kids that wave, although I’ve done nothing to win their admiration.

Traditional skirts. Western shirts. An AYSO jersey.

Trash.

Piles and piles of burning trash.

A graveyard.

And we’re here. A quick 45 minute drive and it’s time for Day 4 at Mitundu FPS.

2 happy stories and 1 sad

Story 1: Visiting William was incredible. He was so nice and informative. I know Blessings, his country manager, from working with World Camp in January. I arranged with Blessings for our group to come to a ceremony at Wimbe Full Primary School, where William went. I thought they were having a sort of “handing over the keys” ceremony for a new windmill that would power the school. Expecting a two hour drive, we were really antsy when we finally arrived after three. There also wasn’t a windmill in sight. Turns out the ceremony was to hand over the keys to a brand new (solar powered!) building built by an NGO and William’s organization, Moving Windmills. Also to our surprise, the people filming William’s documentary (also called Moving Windmills) were there to film. It was their final day of filming after five years. And a group of 18 azungus was definitely going to disrupt the natural chemistry of William’s small village. So they asked we not be present for the ceremony. We agreed, but asked that in return we could see the school, expecting to quickly poke around ourselves. Instead, William and Blessings gave us a full tour. We saw the new bathrooms (one for boys, one for girls, which actually does a huge amount for keeping female enrolment high), new buildings, solar panels, and even the library where William studied windmills after he was forced to drop out of secondary school. William answered all of our questions and was incredibly kind. He just graduated from secondary school in South Africa and will be attending Dartmouth this fall. He hopes to study mechanical engineering. I asked him quite a few questions about the windmills, but was also pretty star struck. (I also had him sign my copy of The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, which I just happened to bring with me.)

After the tour, we asked to see the actual windmills. Gilbert and Geoffrey, William’s two best childhood friends, walked with us to William’s home and gave us the full tour. We saw the very first windmill he built, which no longer works but is still standing. The second windmill generates power for his home. The third is the biggest; it pumps water to irrigate his father’s fields. The electrical windmill now powers every house owned by a member of William’s extended family.

We met William’s mother as well as his younger sister and brother. I didn’t get to but the rest of our group went into William’s house to see the switch pad that controls the electrical flow. It was incredible to look up and see such beautiful windmills that empowered so many people, all created by one young man.

Story 2: In January, I worked with teachers at the last school we went to, which happened to be really close to the school we were at this week. There were seven teachers total, two of which I became quite close to. One was about five months pregnant. Her name was Ellina. When I told her my sister’s name was Elena, she said we would be sisters as long as I was in Malawi. On Monday, Ellina recognized our Rovers and came to the school we were at. She saw Jaren, another coordinator, and asked for her sister, Karen. It was wonderful to see her again. I can’t describe how surreal it was to see her – and to meet her beautiful two month old son Vincent. I honestly never thought I’d get to see Ellina again, and there she was, standing right in front of me. We talked and caught up for a few minutes before she left. Wednesday, Ednah, another teacher from the same school, also stopped by. It was great to see her too – and find out how she’s been since January. Ednah remembered everyone’s names from the session and asked how we were all doing.

Story 3: My cell phone got stolen at camp yesterday.