Day 7. Wed 16th August
Bangula
As I stagger sleepily out of
my room and head for the Aska's delightful breakfast I am met in the
car park by a delegation. It turns out to be Bishop Mtonga and
entourage from Tisa village who have apparently been waiting over an
hour to talk to me about their church roof. As far as I can work it out
they have spent Gaynor's $100 on 13 iron sheets and need another 47 for
a complete roof. They seem to expect me to provide $400 on the spot. I
tell them that I will contact Gaynor and get back to them, and they
leave, somewhat downcast. This is unfortunately an example,
on a small scale, of
exactly what happens when people go into poor countries and simply give
money
away - the local people, who perceive all westerners as having
inexhaustible supplies of money anyway, simply come back and say
"right, we've spent that, can we have some more". "If I give a man a
fish . . . " etc.
Issac arrives after breakfast and we walk down to the primary school. I
have ten kids from Standard 7 first, who are 15 - 16 years old and very
sweet. I have another go with the digital camera, but something goes
awry and
although they appear to have taken some pictures I am unable to view
them on the laptop, so we go back to the paper and pens, and they do
some lovely drawings of animals, and we talk. I ask them what they
would like to be when they grow up, and the answers are very much what
one would expect to hear in England - policeman, soldier, doctor,
nurse, teacher. (Several of the boys apparently want to be pirates.
Eventually I realise that I have been fooled again by the
Chichewa-speaker's difficulty in distinguishing 'r' and 'l' - they
actually want to be pilots).
The headmaster, Mr. Lambiki, suggests that we move straight on to
Standard 8 when Standard 7 are finished. Standard 8 is 16-18-year-olds
and they are obviously more mature. I ask what they enjoy doing in
their leisure time and they say football, volleyball and watching
television (surprisingly even in Bangula about 25% of homes have a
television, although the reception is very poor).
By
lunchtime we are all done, and Isaac and I
walk back to the Aska, where we run into Tim Vandervoet, the American
Peace Corps volunteer who has replaced Anna.
Tim and I exchanged emails before I came out, and it is nice to meet
him at last. Isaac and I had planned to go and visit the ginnery, but
Tim says he has a meeting at 2 with a youth group who do community
theatre, which sounds too good to miss.
The group is called the Bangula Ntaymoyo Youth Organisation, and they
meet on Wednesdays and Saturdays at two o'clock at the primary school,
so Tim and I head back the way I have just come. Mr. Lambiki is there,
but there is no sign of any youth group. Eventually, at around half
past three, the leader of the group, Frank Mphoola, arrives,
and then one by one the others turn up too
- Malawi time!! However, it is worth the wait. It seems they have a
repertoire of short plays on various social topics such as AIDS and
teenage pregnancy. These they take around the villages performing for
the local people. They are very keen to contact a youth group in the
UK, so I take their contact details and promise to try and find a
similar group in England that they can communicate with. They would
very
much like us to see one of their plays performed properly in
full costume, and ask me if I can come again on Saturday, but I expect
to be in Blantyre then. However I promise to come again on the
following Wednesday if I can. They agree to do an impromptu performance
of one of their plays for us. It is a short piece, in Chichewa, about a
boy with several girlfriends who contracts AIDS and then has to contact
all the girls and tell them. It is a simple story, but told with great
enthusiasm by the young actors, and I am quite taken with the whole
group.
It turns out that Tim is
planning to head up to the Lengwe Wildlife Reserve tomorrow and then on
to Blantyre. There
is some sort of dinner arranged in a village near Lengwe for the
following night, and Tim suggests that I come along. He texts Max at
Lengwe (how did we manage without mobile phones - last year??). Max
says OK in principle but he's not sure about transport, but I need to
be heading for Blantyre for the weekend, so I decide to tag along
anyway. At least I will get to see Max, and deliver his book (remember?
"The Atkins Diet" that Gaynor gave me to deliver to him. Pay attention,
I'll be asking questions afterwards!).
I can't face an Aska supper, and the bakery in Bangula is actually
open, so I buy some bread, rescue my sausage from the Aska fridge, and
open a tin of beans. Gaynor calls, and we have a good chat. Then I
spend the evening drinking beer with Mr. Makina and Mr Kaliofasi*.
*Malawians
tend not to use given names as much as we do, nor, in normal
conversation, do they use an honorific such as Mr., although
an elder may be referred to as Bambo. Thus they tend to simply call
each other by the surname alone. They are however aware that westerners
use given names much more freely and will often introduce themselves to
me with their first name, which they would not do to another Malawian.
For this reason I know some people (particularly those I met on my
first visits, when I was less aware of what is polite) by first name,
such as Isaac, but others only by surname. To use the surname alone is
a
convention which is far too redolent of public school to sit
comfortably with me, so I address them as Mr. Such'n'such, and refer to
them here likewise.