Malawi

Malawi!!

I had an amazing trip to Malawi last week! I went with three other volunteers, one of which is dating a rather wealthy Portuguese/Mozambican who has a car. The first night there we went to the lake and stayed at a really nice resort, which the wealthy boyfriend had arranged, but turned out to be more expensive than he had thought, so we were planning on leaving the next day. Coincidently, there was a video/camera crew coming the day after to make some videos/brochures promoting tourism in Malawi, and the owners of the resort needed some people to model and be interviewed. So they gave us a great deal: 75% off lodging and food, and FREE water activities, as long as they could take pictures/video us. We accepted!

First water activity: snorkeling. Lake Malawi is full of an endemic fish called the Cichlid, and other types of fish. Snorkeling tip: take a piece of bread with you, and tons of fish will come super close to eat out of your hand. Second water activity: sunset yacht cruise. They have a yacht called Mufasa, and the first night we were there was cloud-free, so we went out on the lake the see the sun set from the water. It was so beautiful, and free champagne was included! Mufasa has two bathrooms, a full kitchen with a fully stocked bar, and sleeps 10 people. Third water activity: kayaking. There’s an island not too far off the shore, so we kayaked our way there and back. Fourth water activity: water skiing. They have a “training bar” to teach people how to water ski. It stick off the side of the boat so you can practice first before going out on the rope. I successfully learned, and realized that water skiing is a lot more tiring than difficult. Fifth water activity: sailing acrobatics. I didn’t know really what I was getting myself into when they asked me to do this, but it was awesome! First, I got all suited up in a wet suit with these water-shoe boots. Then they gave me a giant diaper-looking harness to put on around my waist/legs, and we were off to the sailboat. There I attached a hook on the boat to my harness, which meant that I could lean out over the water as we sailed along. What with the wet suit and flying over the water, I kind of felt like a super hero off on a mission. We later decided that my super hero name would be “Flying Bass,” and that my mission, for example, could be that there’s another sailboat that was having problems, and I had to fly out there to give them supplies/help, and then we elaborated even more that there could be a baby on the other sailboat that I had to go save. We presented this idea to the owners, to make this movie and have it be part of the video, but for unstated reasons they opted not to take advantage of our brilliant creativity.

In addition to water activities, they also had various games, including Scrabble, a pool table, and a trampoline! I’m happy to report that I still know how to do flips. The room had hot showers, fluffy pillows, warm comforters (it was winter there, and it got cold at night), hair dryers, full-length mirrors, and were so clean. And the food! Beautifully arranged fruit plates, bacon, pancakes, yogurt, jasmine tea, burritos, chicken, avocado, chick peas, pasta, three-course dinners with chocolate cake, lemon pie, fish cakes, yum yum yum!! And we got along really well with the owners and the other staff there, they all gave us hugs goodbye when we left. I’m now considering the idea of working at a resort in Brasil next year, or in Argentina or Chile.

After we left the lake, we wanted to go to an animal reserve, but, as often happens in Africa, there was an unforeseen complication: Malawi ran out of gas. About a month or two ago, the Malawian president kicked out the British ambassador, who promptly withdrew all funding from Britain to Malawi (which was about 20% of the national budget) and cancelled Malawi’s foreign exchange, thus Malawi ran out of money (all public workers haven’t been paid since), and couldn’t buy gas. We waited in line for almost 5 hours trying to get gas the day we wanted to leave, but could manage to. The next day the boyfriend was able to get just enough gas for us to make it to the border, but I think he ended up paying the equivalent of about $15/gallon. (Just to give you an idea how much that actually is in Africa, my Peace Corps stipend comes down to about $7.50/day.) The five hours spent waiting in line for gas was supposed to be spent going in to Blantyre, the largest city in the south, to get some souvenirs, which we were unfortunately not able to do. But, despite not seeing the reserve and not getting souvenirs, we had a great trip!

I must say though, that hearing the Malawians speak English makes me very worried about the quality of my Portuguese. It was very difficult to understand many of them, and I seriously hope that Mozambican Portuguese is much more similar to Portugal’s than Malawian English is to Britain’s. We did find out that apparently in Malawi, much schooling is done in the national Bantu language, and not so much in English, so hopefully that’s why.

And about the video/pictures, I’m not sure if they’re online for general viewing or what, but if I find out I’ll post the site.

Anecdotes

The unit I’m currently on with my students is about drugs and alcohol. I wrote a text about the effects of drinking, and I mentioned that many countries prohibit selling alcohol to people under a certain age. In Mozambique, the drinking age is technically 18, but that is not enforced at all, and parents often send 10-year-olds to go buy them alcohol. The students thought it was hilarious that in the US you have to show your ID to buy alcoholic beverages. But what if you forget it? But what if you don’t have an ID? But what if you’re already really drunk and you can’t go to the store yourself, what do you mean you can’t send your kids? They thought I was lying when I said that a store will deny selling you alcohol if you don’t have an ID.

In a past unit at school, the topic was literature. I decided to teach the students about limericks and similes. It was a big hit! I gave them the assignment to write similes, and here are some of the best ones I got:
I’m black like charcoal. I’m black like the blackboard. He is bad like Bin Laden. Sambo is strong like David Beckham. (suck up!) Eduardo is smart like a computer. (written by Eduardo, a slightly egotistical student) He was as short as a chicken. This boy is as polite as Jesus.

Sambo has a really adorable neighbor who is about 2 years old. The other day his mom bought him his first pair of shoes, and it was hilarious to watch this kid try to walk in shoes for the first time in his life. Barefoot he walks normally, but with shoes he would pick his left foot up really high, and then drag the right foot. And he looked at his feet the entire time. I think he was having trouble balancing because of the toes being enclosed or something. It made me think of the servant in the movie “The Birdcage.”

In the US we often hear of the terrible working conditions and low wages in Malaysia and elsewhere. I’m sorry to report that I participate in the exploitation of poverty to get cheap labor. I have a guy here that I pay to wash clothes, wash dishes, cart water, and do various other tasks. On average, he probably spends about 1-1.5 hours working for me per day, so let’s say 40 hours per month. Each month I pay him 400 meticals, which means that he makes 10 meticals per hour, which is about 30cents per hour, and $13 per month. He has a wife and 4 kids.