Libre Manifesto

America seems like such a far and distant place, physically and ideologically. Those giant houses, prim lawns, oceans of cars, the clothes, the excess, such excess. Where does it end? When is it enough? Here people live on an iota of what we sustain ourselves on in the US. Yet they are incredibly happier than we are. We have so many things to a point where it’s a burden. It seems wealth equates proportionately to worry; each unit of wealth accumulated generates an equal unit of worry. The more things you have the more you worry about preserving them. One expends a lot of mental and emotional energy to worry so much! Of things, their preservation, to what avail? It’s an enormously tiring burden, these material things and their puppet strings.

The things I worried over, the many sleepless nights, the frustrations, all seem, in hindsight, asinine and self-inflicted. At that time and place they seemed so important, as life and death, even though the truth was far from it. I admired America for everything it espouses; I bought it hook and line. Anything was possible and still is if you are willing to make the sacrifices. Any door can be opened. And I too bought into the excess, holding firmly to the belief that money buys happiness, that the end justifies the mean.

Many factors contribute to the decisions we make; a long journey of forgotten childhoods, confused adolescence, and adult awareness. We are the sum of those parts, no matter our denial, each shaped and pushed us to our present state. Perhaps it was humble beginnings, a desire to make my parents proud; show my family their hard work and efforts to provide everything for their children were not wasted, or to be financially secure enough to care for those who took care of me unconditionally. Whichever the reason, somewhere along the way I glimpsed the world of finance with naïve eyes and saw the answer to my dilemma.

My first job during my freshman year was as an assistant to a stock broker at a small investment bank. For a timid, quiet kid, unsure of himself or this new world of college, it was surprising and rewarding to pass a job interview and be told I was a good salesman. Perplexed at how that was possibly true, I accepted and six months later I knew I wanted to be an investment banker. This is a highly coveted position, along with management consulting, for students coming out of undergrad and MBA programs, especially at ivy leagues. Mainly because there is no job that compares in first year pay, reputation, connections, and exponential rise in pay grade. I remember the thousands of strategies we employed to get hired. It was difficult coming from a small unknown school competing against ivy leagues, which are generally the picking grounds for banks. There was also nepotism. Looking back makes me laugh at some of the things we did for these jobs.

In the end, it all worked out well, after 3 years of hard work, I landed 4 offers in the worst economic downturn in decades: 3 from reputable, large firms and 1 from a small Canadian firm in Boston. It would have been financially and practically a wise decision to take any of the first 3. But I chose the one in Boston…for a girl. The heart wants what it wants, and surely I regretted this decision a year later when the firm fell apart and laid off 30% of its US workforce.

Through all this, I never lost touch with the roots my parents planted of community service: love all serve all, they taught us. I volunteered on weekends and remained active in community service organizations in my spare time. While my conscience pulled in the direction of doing good, my mind was caught up in the American dream of wealth and financial security. Nowhere else in the world do people worry about money like we do in the US, our society breeds this worry, perhaps due to our massive credit culture. Like the massive project loans the government (and subsequent financial institutions) use to leash developing nations, many are chained by credit to corporate America. The problem with borrowing from the devil is your soul’s the collateral. After all this, after the rat race, half-way across the world in a village in Northern Malawi, after a string of unexpected events and decisions, sitting here writing my thoughts by candle light, I wonder is it worth it?

Life is a journey and I am thankful, grateful, for the people, places, and series of events that led to this point. Here, now, in Malawi I am receiving an education greater, tangible, and more valuable than any before. Unexpected, but welcome. I have also been blessed with the gift of books, as the previous volunteer left behind a treasure trove of literature. I can’t help pore over them. Granted the house and yard are a mess and in need of much work and cleaning, I really do appreciate the books: my coping mechanism. And so far these books have been enlightening and soul-reigniting.

Far from what seems a poisonous culture, far from the clutches of the modern world, my mind seems to have found rest. My eyes are still adjusting, closed for so long that the world still appears upside down, priorities all out of order, jaded by a society passing through an era of unprecedented capitalism. I’m still scrubbing off those ideals, but the dirt has been accumulating for so long that it is only natural that some will remain, permanently stained. Only natural that I continue to harbor the idea of wealth like a child idolizes a hero. The world has been crying to deaf ears for so long, suffering to blind eyes, that I feel shame. Shame for the dirt that covers me, shame that no matter how much I scrub I will never truly be rid of it. Intelligence dictates: what could I have done? I was young. My life was drifting in the winds of fate, pushed by the hands of parents that had nothing but wanted everything for their children. Yet my conscience is in disarray. It is not enough. We inherit the sins of our fathers, no matter our denial, and those sins are insurmountable. Crimson stains our hands, all of ours, we all played a part, and we would notice if only we stepped in the light.

Abandoning the comfort sterile life, to allow the intoxicating sedated numbness to wear off enough to open our eyes is difficult. It is much more sensible and simpler to dwell in an artificial world of our own creation, with our own problems, shutting our senses to the suffering outside. Just look around: our sparkling streets, never ending aisles in grocery stores, our automobiles, and hunger for more. People say, and I increasingly believed, that poverty is in that other faraway world. What can one person do to change such a monumental problem? My insignificant actions will alleviate no suffering, so I will pray for the world and live my life with the blinds closed. But I wonder how we can do nothing?

Politicians plot their grand strategies on checkered maps; pawns move and flags are planted in a perpetual game with rules. We, unlike them, are not constrained to a board with rules, our hands are not tied, we have no carrot dangling from a stick. Yet, we are seemingly unaware of our greater freedom to do something, to do anything. Free to open our eyes, listen to the cries, let the voice of reality blow away the cobwebs in our souls. John Keats wrote “do you not see how necessary a world of pains and troubles is to school an intelligence and make it a soul?” If not for the sake of the world, then for the benefit of the soul.

I am sitting here with thoughts pouring out of my head on to this dimly-lit paper. I am no exception to my arguments, if anything this is a personal manifesto to my soul which seems to have been dormant for so long that I’m not sure if it still works. I find myself plagued by the same concern that troubled Andy Stitzer: “is it true that if you don’t use it, you lost it?”

"It's Ugly Season"

It’s unusually hot today, a muggy lazy Sunday afternoon. Sunday’s here are dedicated to church and drinking. Morning is for God: CCAP, Roman Catholic, Pentecostal, or whatever your particular brand of Christianity. The afternoons for men revolve around the local bottle store, getting drunk off Chibuku and Carlsberg (usually for bwanas). Meanwhile, the women continue to slave away gathering fire wood, caring for the children, cooking, washing clothes, fetching water, grading tobacco, and putting up with their drunk spouses. For a pagan Hindu heathen like me, it’s laundry day. I quip; the community has been genuinely curious about my religion and is interested in learning about it. After all, in Malawi witchcraft is taken as seriously, if not more, as Christianity. While I do sometimes frequent the CCAP, because I enjoy listening to the songs which are sung beautifully, today the pile of dust that covered my pants (underwear) and trousers demanded my attention. So I washed clothes and read The Poisonwood Bible while Lucy tried to find a comfortable position to nap in while fighting of persistent files. The heat is stifling, but the morning and nights are freezing, cold enough to see your own breath. But the sky is blue, the sun shines and we all wait for the life green hills to wither and coat the entire area in a dull dead brown. The dry season, or as Destroyer says “it’s ugly season.”

Yesterday, I rode my bike down the road to Kamphenda, about 1 hour south of Mwazisi, my first long excursion on the bike. I went to visit Destroyer and buy some vegetables at market day in Kamphenda. It was a nice ride in the morning, the air was cool, met some nice people along the way, but it got pretty hot by 9am. The dirt road was hilly and some parts sandy, but the ride was decent. I overshot Destroyer’s house by a couple of kilometers, then backtracked after 2 primary school kids pointed out his house. He has a beautiful site, tucked away from the road, nestled in the hills. He had just returned to site and found his kitchen roof had collapsed due to termites. It was in shambles, a pile of thatch on the floor and the kitchen exposed. After dropping of my bike and waking him up, we made our way to the market. We stopped at a stall to have a couple of sodas and wait while people continued setting up their goods. Then we walked around and he introduced me to his friends in the area. I ran into Junior as well as some of the builders from EPA.

Kamphenda’s market day is on Saturday and it is one of the closest markets to Mwazisi. Market days are practically the only place you can buy vegetables and other necessary items such as clothes, oil, meat, buckets, pots, etc. without having to make an expensive trip to the boma. Vegetables are scarce in the villages, as are most other goods. The few that are available are usually very expensive as the seller has to transport them from the boma. So everyone from the areas all around Kamphenda will come to market day to buy the week’s groceries. There used to be a market day in Mwazisi, but the chiefs put an end to it a few years ago due to an increase is HIV/AIDs occurrence from prostitution.

At the market, I bought 2 large winnowing baskets, 4 eggplants (kw 20), 8 tomatoes (kw 100), 8 onions (kw 100), a bunch of mustard greens (kw 20), and 1 kg of rice (kw 200). The availability of vegetables will vary with seasons as all them are grown in the area and carried in. The prices are cheapest on market days as various vendors compete for business. To provide comparison, 1 tomato in Mwazisi costs 40 kwacha. We looked around at other goods as well, such as usipa for Lucy, which I had to wait on for next week, and the various clothes vendors. Walking by one clothes vendor I spotted a pair of used Gucci loafers, pretty recent models, just sitting on brick. I pointed them out to Destroyer who asked if it was authentic, and it was. The vendor said kw 3,500 (roughly $25) and we laughed and put them back.

The clothes vendors generally buy large bails of used and donated clothes in Tanzania for about kw 15,000. There are different grades of bails, some with higher quality and better condition clothes. These bails are transported in and different vendors will sell the items from the bails in the local market. Trousers and shoes are generally the most expensive items, while t-shirts generally sell for around kw 300. It’s fun to go through some of the things in the piles of clothes, occasionally finding a hilarious gem; amusing to know it traversed all over the world from its creation in China to purchase in the US and now in a local market Malawi. Some PCVs love going through the piles at markets and finding treasures of quirky clothes.

The heat by late morning was getting stifling. We had another soda at the stall, greeted some more people, and headed back to the house. Along the way we passed a hill by the road, which we had passed earlier, only this time it was on fire. The whole hill was ablaze, thick smoke filling the valley and the wind pushing the fire further. People were walking nonchalantly along the road, to and from the market, as if nothing was happening. Some kids were even relaxing under the shade of tree on the other side of the road watching the hill burn. We spoke to one of Destroyer’s friends and he said some kids were probably playing with fire, but this common. He said soon all the hills and mountains here will be lit on fire; he said people believe it helps the soil. We were flabbergasted, but there was nothing we could do. We thought about how in the states even the smallest inkling of a fire would prompt 3 fire trucks, a police car, and an ambulance to arrive within 5 minutes. The hill burned.

I got back just in time to have lunch and head over to the football pitch for the much anticipated face off between Mwazisi’s own GAM United and the Bolero Strikers. To recap, the last match in Kawaza, GAM lost 4-0 to Bolero because 6 of its top players were out. Wellesley and her fellow Bolero citizens poked fun and teased our poor performance. It was time for payback.

I’m fortunate enough to have been placed in a village with one of the, if not the, best teams North of Mzuzu. I never enjoyed watching football, much less any sport. I tried watching football matches on TV, I get bored; it’s not entertaining for to me to watch a bunch of people play a sport. But here in Mwazisi I caught football fever. It’s the most fun I have ever had watching a game. The players here are amazing to watch, more acrobats than football players, they are more entertaining than those on TV. Also, they play an entire game having only had one sip of water. Powered only by gator-nsima and a sip of water, they play in the dry heat of the afternoon, running up and down the field. I can’t think of how that is humanly possible, but they do. And they play fiercely.

Aside from the players themselves, the crowd is even more fun to watch. Between the drunk old man getting down down down on the pitch, to the impromptu community cheer squad that runs laps around the field singing and dancing, to the swarm of fans that fill the field for each goal made, to the unfortunate little kid on the sideline that gets whacked in the face by the ball, Mwazisi football is a blast. GAM is an awesome team, currently they’ve only lost one game this entire season. I can’t wait for the World Cup to start, this town is going to be a riot.

Busy Day in Mzuzu

Woke up at 6am, grabbed my things and got ready. The Zoo didn’t open until around 7am, so I waited around and once Gerard was up, I paid my bill and went into town. First stop internet café to send out some emails, second I had to find John to give him my memory card in hopes of fixing it, and third I had to meet Truman at the bank to cash the checks to pay the workers, then meet with the DADO and the buildings manager for the ADD in Mzuzu to talk about cement to finish the EPA office, and lastly grocery shop and get on a mini-bus in time to get the honey containers at Mwathunka and catch the last matola to Mwaizsi. I was hoping to get something to eat at some point in there, but it just wasn’t in the cards.

While I was at the café, John texted that now was a good time to come. So I sent out only 3 emails and ran down the street to the other end of town to the Eva Demaya office. John wasn’t there but Catherine and Peter were. We chatted for a bit and they were great. I learned that John works out of home, which was back at the other end of the street, where I was. So I ran back, hoping to catch him before he left. Luckily, I found him just in time. I left my card, chatted for a bit, said happy birthday to Jacqueline, and went back to the main road.

Truman calls to say he was at almost in the city. Thinking I had a few minutes, I went back to the café and sent out a few more emails, tried to fix my iPod (no luck), and created a blog. I didn’t have time to post anything because Truman calls again to say he was in the depot. I told him to meet me at the National Bank, so I paid up and ran out of the café to the bank next door. Lo and behold, the National Bank next door was closed and moved to the other end of the city 3km away, where they were developing the new Mzuzu. Ah ahh! I bolted down the street, calling Truman who already knew where it was, and praying that the line wasn’t long. It was already half past 10.

I got there 10mins after Truman and we walked in, me panting with all my katundu, and waited in line. After about a half hour, we got the money, and walked out. I had never held so many notes in my hands, I felt quite worried carrying that much cash around in my bag. But no other way. I thanked Truman for coming out so quickly, left him back at the depot and walked to meet with the DADO and buildings manager before both of them disappeared.

Luckily, I caught the DADO on the road walking away from the office. He said he was going to drop some things off at his mother’s, who lives down the road, and will be back in a few minutes. I said I will wait for him at the office. Knowing by this point that a few minutes meant an hour, I went and bought groceries. I lugged all off it up to the office and waited. The buildings manager was nowhere to be found and he wasn’t answering his phone. So I waited. My stomach was grumbling from no food all day, but I couldn’t leave, worried I might just miss these guys. And if did, meeting them again would be difficult, especially both in the same place. So I drank the last of my water and debated eating the bag of brown sugar I just bought. Two hours pass by and I called the DADO. He said he is on the way (meaning he just left). I catch him again on the road and we go back to the office and try to track down the buildings manager. No one knows where he is.

Finally, we learn he is out in the field. Meaning no discussions were going to happen today, zimachitika. So I said goodbye, disappointed because no discussions means no cement, which means the work cannot continue on the EPA office, meaning the opening date keeps getting pushed farther and farther. I worry every day that the office will just end up as a half-finished relic, and I can’t let that happen.

Tired, hungry, and disappointed I hurried to the depot knowing the wait for a van to fill up could take an hour, or more. I passed the swarms of young, aggressive, and really annoying, conductors and luckily caught a semi-full minibus out of the depot, the wait was only about half an hour. I got the back row with only two other people. I had my bag on my lap along with the groceries and my chitenge bag full of cash. I was praying no one would rob me. The mini-bus pulled out of the depot and made its way to Rumphi, fortunately, the driver was a good one and he didn’t pack the van like a clown car and he wasn’t drinking.

We stopped at the Mzuzu police roadblock on M1, which was a common block that every car passes through and mini-buses are inspected. Two officers and one in military camouflage came and looked through the mini-bus, then one of the officers stopped at the back window and asked me where I was going. I didn’t think he was talking to me, until he asked again.

“Where are you going?”
“Ah. Rumphi. “
“Where are you coming from?”
“Mzuzu.”
“No, which country are you from?”
“America.”
“Show me your travel documents.”
“I don’t have any travel documents, I live in Mwazisi.”

At this point I was a little panicked as I was being interrogated at a roadblock. My hand was about to reach into my pocket and call Hector.

“Where are you staying?”
“Mwazisi.”

He seemed unsatisfied by the answer, then looked at all the stuff on my lap. All the passengers on the bus were staring at me at this point.

“What’s in the bag?”
“These are all my papers. I’m a volunteer.”

One can only imagine what he would have said had he opened the bag and found piles of 500 kwacha bills. I pulled out my wallet and gave him my PC ID. He looked at it skeptically.

“I’m with Peace Corps.”

After analyzing my ID, he hands it back to me.

“You are Peace Corps. Ok you can go.”

A breathed a heavy sigh of relief. If there was any problems, or delays at the block, I would have been late to Rumphi, and then would have missed the last matola out to Mwaizisi at 4pm. Stuck in Rumphi would not have helped the tight schedule.

They probably thought I was Somalian. In any case, the mini-bus was great, got to Rumphi in good time. I also met a student studying Form 4, very well spoken English, that was going back home for break before MSC exams. I told her I was working for Vwaza and she said she had never been there, which surprised me because it is very near to Rumphi. Schools and community would benefit greatly visiting the reserve and learning about wildlife and the importance of the local environment. But then again, where is the money going to come from. That’s always the problem.

After getting out at Rumphi I argued with the conductor over the fare. He took my 500 bill and said that’s the new rate. Boza! Utesi! Only the morning before I took the same ride for 400, bullshit its 500 today. I argued until he gave in and gave me a 100 change. I was not in the mood to be hoodwinked. As I left, a matola pulled up and asked me if I needed a ride to Mwazisi, they said they were leaving sono sono (right now). Perfect, but it had only 6 passengers, so I knew they would wait until it filled up. So I asked them to get me at Mwathunka, where I had to pick up Cuthbert’s honey containers and give my number to the bakers. So I walked.

Halfway to Mwathunka, the same matola pulls up and waits for me to get in. What! Impossible! A matola leaving the depot with only 6 passengers, especially on their last run? I was befuddled. But I got in, told them to stop at Mwathunka. While sitting in the metal bed, and learning new definitions of pain in the farthest reaches of my derrière, I noticed they had a sheet up with rates from one village to the next. Clearly defined rates! I must be in the twilight zone.

I pinched myself, although unnecessary as my derrière was in a world of pain no one could mistake for a dream, it was true. They waited patiently at the gates as I ran in, got the containers left my number, and got into the truck. Devin was still in Rumphi, probably waiting in the depot for a matola to fill up, so I decided to go on this fine matola, for clearly this was a rare sighting of such transport in Rumphi West. It didn’t make any stops except those labeled on the price sheet. Amazing.

At Bolero, I inched closer to the cab for a smoother ride and to alleviate the sharp line of pain shooting up my back. On record as the fastest matola ride I have ever been on from Rumphi to Mwazisi, got home around 5pm. Thank you operators of RU 21 29.

I hoped off with all my katundu, dirty with a cake of dust coating every inch of my being, hungry from not eating anything all day, and thirsty. I straggled down the path, with a last yewo chomene to the drivers, and found Sam walking back just in the nick of time. I threw my things in the house and he started a fire to begin dinner. I filled my bottle with water, threw in spoonfuls of protein powder and chugged, I was so hungry and tired it was comical. We made rice and eggs for dinner, it smelled amazing. There was fire left after cooking, and I was in need of a serious bath, so I went to fetch water from the bore hole and threw it on the fire while we ate.
After inhaling dinner to the lovely songs of Riahana (not sure why but it was in the player) I went to the bafa and bathed. Oh to feel clean again. I lit a candle, hoped into bed and began preparing the money for the morning. All the workers needed to be paid, but their debts had to be extracted along with certain amounts withheld for unfinished work. It was a lot of kwacha and took 2 hours to separate, tally and make the necessary paper work. Almost passing out after counting the last bill, I blew out the candle and fell asleep before my head even hit the pillow.

The Somalian Pirate

Me and Wellesley left the Zoo a little after breakfast. I was hoping to go to the Chapatti Lady, but it just wasn’t in the cards that morning as we were still full from dinner and it started to rain. Once it slowed, Mick and Max woke up and had their morning dose of Carlsberg with breakfast. Impressive. They encouraged us to partake but we could not drink anymore, especially so early in the morning. Two education volunteers also came by, on their way to site, and we chatted for a bit. So we said goodbye leaving enough time to go to an internet café, grocery shop, and catch a mini-bus back in time for the last matola out of Rumphi.

On the way to Mzuzu’s shops, Wellesley wasn’t sure where Chipiku was, so I walked her to the corner where it was and went on my way to Tutla’s. I found Max and Mick at Tutla’s too, they were buying groceries for their businesses. I was waiting outside, eating a cream filled donut from Tutla’s (delicious, fyi), when Wellesley walked up and told me what happen at Chipiku: after I left, two plain clothes police men approached her and questioned her about me. They asked her how long she has known me and what I have been telling her. She told them I was American and that I was a Peace Corps Volunteer. They didn’t believe her, thought I gave her a fabricated story. She didn’t believe them, so they showed their badges. They told her to be careful, because they thought I was a Somalian criminal and I was up to no good conversing with an azungu. She started laughing, telling them that I wasn’t even remotely Somalian and I was definitely not a criminal and that she was a volunteer too. They were still skeptical, said they would keep an eye on me and went on their way.

Since I got here, my exposed skin has been getting darker and darker, while my covered skin remains relatively lighter: a prominent farmers tan. I have been mistaken for Ethiopian, Somalian, Obama’s son, Obama’s brother, Dutch, have been called azungu, Black American, and yet no one has said Indian. The South Asian people I have met were, however, able to recognize that I was Indian, but otherwise I guess I am anything in between. Azungu’s get a certain stare walking down the street here: the surprised “look it’s a white person,” as if a rare animal was spotted, which is understandable. But I get a different stare, a combination of surprise and confusion, in need of a second assessment. You can see the progression in the stare, first they think I’m Malawian (or Ethiopian/Somalian), then in a flash they realize something is off and look again confused. They stare as if I’m a new creature, an alien hybrid, a centaur trotting through town, half Malawian, half azungu. Jaws drop when I open my mouth and English streams out in an American accent. Whenever kids yell “azungu!” I love replying “azungu yayi!” and they’re even more confused. I find the whole ordeal quite amusing, unless of course I get falsely arrested.

So, if you do not hear from me for some time, it’s probably because I’m in Malawian jail, falsely accused of being a Somalian pirate. If that’s the case, please come get me.