The team took off in a hired land cruiser headed for Zomba and on to Mulanje only two hours behind schedule this morning. Two and a half counting the half-hour of "last minute" scrambling once everyone finally got into the vehicle. Katie and I are staying on another night so that we can go with Idah to the US Embassy and pick up her passport and visa this afternoon. There is no keeping to schedule here. Schedules and timetables are simply quaint ideas from a make-believe magic land of luxury and leisure. They are reference points at best. The rest is burnt up in the African sun. Travel to almost anywhere must be factored as a day. As trying as these delays may be, and to be sure, they are something for the modernized mind to reel at, what I have found the most difficult is the people that come here expecting anything different than what it is. People that complain of food taking too long or being cold, orders coming out wrong, dirty utensils, long or confusing cues. I have heard all of these complaints and groaned every time. I haven't the foggiest notion where the nearest Chili's or Olive Garden may be, but I'm willing to wager it's far more than a day's travel. Being here is both an exercise in humility and self-advocation. You realize that it doesn't matter maybe that your food isn't hot, you are eating. You have a place to sleep. You are healthy and happy. An aversion to onions is an embarrassment here. Self-advocation because there are many people who will try and take advantage of you. American politeness is a poor deterrent. Everything rest squarely on the way you handle yourself. An ironic lesson in a place where no one's problem seems to be their own. Generally the government is blamed, or bad seed, poor economy, lack of resources, or opportunity. It is almost never the fault of the individual. It is not an exotic affliction.
Last night Ben had one of his friends from Peace Corps come out and speak to the group about the cultural quirks of living and working here, specifically as a woman. Afterwards I sat and chatted with her over some rich cups of Muzuzu coffee. The team had shifted to business and we were both unable to maintain an interest. She had been stationed in a small rural village in the Northernmost area of the Central District. She was upbeat and brimming with hope. I said that it was commendable to keep such high spirits in such a dispirited place. She nodded but said that the life you have out here is very raw, you'll experience the highest highs and the lowest lows. For a white girl born and raised in Kalamazoo Michigan it seems a miraculous transformation. People like her and Ben obliterate the simplicities of classification. Americans more at home in Africa than they probably ever again will be in America, but not Africans. Not half-lives but full-lives. Distinct, unique identities inhabiting specific places in time. Life is all.
When there is no more life, there is death. Is death the absence or the termination of life? Carrie told me that another Peace Corps volunteer, a close friend of hers in a neighbouring village had only recently been murdered; biking home one night was jumped by two desperate men wielding conga knives. Murdered for his bicycle. The entire village came out to the funeral to mourn the senseless end of someone kind, giving, and well-liked. Even with so much death, life is still valued here; the only chance we'll ever get to struggle.
PICASA PHOTOS
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