The Orchid Poacher

“Your judgment day is here,” sneered the guard. He was quite proud of his position as sole gatekeeper. Thazima gate obstructed the only road into Nyika and the only way back out of the wilderness into civilization. He retained the power of permission and though a fool, he was a prideful and well-ranked fool. The gate was always closed and though he rarely inspected passing vehicles, he had made a particular habit of stopping foreigners. Falsified park entrance fees can be embezzled from even the most well-read travelers. You can’t blame a man for trying. It was Saturday and he was out of uniform on duty, which was unfortunate today, of all days. For today, a poacher in a vehicle full of foreigners had been brought to his gate. What to do? Aggressively jabbing the poacher’s shoulder through the window, questioning him, had not satisfied the appetite. No, he craved a more drastic gesture, worthy of his rank. In skinny blue jeans and a checkered blue short-sleeve shirt, he sauntered to the back door and hopped in. Squatting on the spare Landcruiser tire, the continued interrogation of the poacher provided mere meek responses. Still not enough. The hunger for power turned his insides until he back handed the poacher in the face. The man cowered into the back of the seat, protecting his head under his hand-cuffed arms, writhing in fear of being hit again. Enough. Adrenaline and euphoria coursed through his veins and satisfaction warmed the muscles under his face.

Why did I say nothing?

We hadn’t seen any animals for miles; the plains seemed void of life. Someone had been through there earlier. Controlled burns and invasive grass species left patterned markings on the hills. It seemed like the drive would never end; hill after hill, the tall pines of Chelinda eventually disappeared into the horizon. We stood in the back, clinging to the cab, as the Landcruiser shuddered over the dirt road. Maxon sat behind us, on the back wheel, in his new blue work suit. Another man contained the unfastened, clanking shovels with his feet. Brino scrutinized the landscape, perched on the edge of the bed, clutching the M16 against his calf. The safety was on. It wasn’t until we had reached the Juniper forests that the men jumped up behind us, hollering into the distance, pointing and yelling at two obscure dots scurrying over the hills about a kilometer away. Poachers. The vehicle jerked to a halt and the dust trail amassed a cloud in the rear. The men behind us hopped out in a frenzy, pointing into the distance and commenting to each other. Geoff scurried out of the passenger seat and pulled out his camera from the satchel. The three of us scanned the distance in confusion trying to discern what all the commotion was about. For a moment, everything was quiet as we watched, broken only by Patsy’s inquisition from the driver’s seat.

Brino fired three rounds into the air. Unsilenced, coupled with the side-effects of an old weapon, the shot rung in our ears. The sound echoed throughout the plains for a long moment. One of the dots vanished into a patch of forest and the other ran over the side of the hill. Geoff had missed the thrill of the action and asked Brino to fire again, this time on camera. Two more shots pierced an invisible enemy in the sky. In a flash of fire the moment passed, blood coursed back to a constant pace. The dots had escaped out of sight and everyone boarded the vehicle. Brino unclipped the magazine and mechanically removed the bullet in the chamber, pushing it firmly back into the clip. Maxon was smiling as the others commented excitedly about the sighting. Once we reached the edge of the Juniper forest, Brino led a party into the hills to search for any remaining poachers or any meat they may have left behind in frightened haste. They walked over the hill and disappeared only to return an hour later valiantly escorting a man with a feeble demeanor, his hands tied with shoe laces and trailed by a flour sack full or orchid roots. They sat together on the rocks by the creek recounting the catch to an eager audience, followed by a photo shoot. The photos reminded me of those taken after a successful animal kill.

We are often delighted by learning what we don’t know. One of our most human faults is believing what we’re told, information we ingest for lack of interest in the truth or a fear of further complicating life. Every story has three sides: his, hers, and the truth. And in no place on earth is that more accurate than here: a story is more than just a tale of a sequence of events; it is someone’s truth, someone’s belief. It is easy to believe poachers are bad people that hunt and deplete the abundant natural life in the plateau. It is easy to believe rangers are knights of nature, protecting defenseless creatures and plants. It is easy to side with what the village perceives as good in the fight against what the village perceives as evil. As many officers like to preach: “thou shall not steal,” right? Officers and villagers believe you have God on your side, ammunition powered by the great Unknown, expelling enemies with the aim of the angels themselves, in that eccentric Malawian religious fervor. But where does God reside in the villages bordering the protected areas? In the CCAP church? The Catholic? The Seventh Day Adventist? One would hope that the faith of the congregations in Phoka is equally as good and innocent as the faith of the congregations in Chelinda. This isn’t a battle between good and evil. In truth, it is much simpler than the complex and contorted reasoning people construe to actions driven by desperation.

It is a war, like any other war: fought for purposes unclear and problems inevitably unsolvable by violence or taking prisoners. Rangers, backed by the Malawi government and various western wildlife NGOs, on one side and the elusive, poverty-stricken, poachers on the other. The rangers seem out of place against the vast grandeur of the plains in their vehicles and weaponry. Though, any human presence seems out of place in these lands. The rangers are technically armies, military trained and armed with the aim of catching or eliminating poachers. Originally a program piloted in Kenyan parks, armed rangers have become a norm in parks throughout sub-Saharan Africa, though much seems to have been lost in translation. A poacher catch has numerous benefits to park officers: expensed trip to Rumphi to submit all necessary paper work and registering the criminal into jail, free meals expensed at the most expensive Rumphi restaurant, perhaps a night stay (should the paperwork take longer than anticipated), perhaps some allowances, and an opportunity for shopping with free transport home. Officers and rangers are taught that poachers are scum, sub-human enemies worthy of mistreatment and abuse. With an expensed kicker, this isn’t a fight for the wildlife; it’s a fight for their livelihoods, protecting a way of life rising up to the highest ranks of government.

About fifty kilometers oriental of Chelinda is Phoka. Phoka, like many other villages along the northern border in Chitipa, is home to many poachers. Skilled hunters and laborers that design and produce some of the most intricate and beautiful weaponry in Malawi. Some of the confiscated guns, bows and arrows, made entirely of locally scavenged materials, rival fine occidental arms. The poachers journey into the heart of the plateau by foot, tracking to kill reedbucks, bushbucks, perhaps roan and elon, or to harvest orchid roots and flowers, which they carry back. The meat is then sold and consumed locally, while the orchids are sold in a linked trade route smuggling them through Chitipa into Tanzania. Each journey is not an aimless hunt; it is a calculated risk of one’s life and the livelihood of one’s family. In one of the toughest years for tobacco and a country ranked among worst poverty-stricken nations, poaching isn’t a hobby or a spare source of income, it is a necessity. Some poachers are shot, killed, and injured, along with many rangers, in gun-fire battles or ambushes. Many more are caught and imprisoned in Rumphi. They pay hefty fines or bribes and return to their villages, their families, make new weapons and try again. More carefully next time. People aren’t inherently bad; it’s the world that makes them that way. Somehow, we forget that because it is much easier to assume otherwise. It makes our lives simpler.

But who am I write about good and evil? When a man was being mistreated, even though a criminal by law, I did nothing. I said nothing. Am I not equally as guilty and malicious as the officers that abuse their powers or poachers that destroy wildlife? I sat there with a dumbfounded look of indecisive bewilderment on my face, akin to that of a fool, as a man cowered into the back of my seat. I glanced to the rear, never turning around. I looked to Zebra to my left and Bear to my right, as if asking: what should we do? What should I do? It was dark and cold by the time we returned to Chelinda with the poacher. He was to be transported to Rumphi in the morning. For the night he was placed in the care of Brino, a humble, quiet ranger. Brino escorted him to his house, shared a meal of rice and relish with him at the dining table with his family, and provided him a warm place to sleep. In the morning, while transport was being arranged with the necessary paper work, officers came to offer their astute advice. Jarvis, the head of Peace Parks, an NGO solely dedicated to the eradication of poaching, had come to check on the prisoner and to his astonishment found Brino and the poacher eating breakfast together at the family table. Furious, he lectured Brino on his imprudence and shoved the poacher to the floor. Once he recovered, crawling to a corner of the room, Jarvis harangued him: “You are a poacher; you don’t eat at the table, like humans. You eat on the floor, like an animal.”

Bear: http://murphyinmalawi.wordpress.com/2011/09/22/the-orchid-poacher/

Unripe Bananas

My yard in the dry season is decrepit, exactly as it was this time last year. The grass fence I had built during the rains has fallen apart, except for the sections near the front of the house. Pigs, goats, chickens, guinea foul, dogs, cats, pigeons, winds and children each played their part in the inevitable demise of the little semblance of privacy. Gaps turned to passageways, turned to missing sections, turned to fire kindling. It doesn’t matter anymore really. Things from the earth here have a tendency to ultimately return to the earth. There are about five pigs and piglets scurrying about my back door at the moment, oinking, snorting, whining in search of food. The Zyambo’s livestock seem to grow in number exponentially with each passing month, most endearingly evidenced by the increasing number of guinea foul banging and squawking on my tin roof at five in the morning and the farm animal a cappella in the yard. It’s humoring to waste hours watching the animals scuttle about the yard, interacting with each other without a care in the world. Especially the mother hen and her line of chicks in close pursuit. Equally humoring are the spastic, alien geckos watching vigilantly from the rafters, as if in a constant state of panic and anxiety.

There is a banana tree in my yard, between the kitchen and a decrepit piece of fence adjacent to the Zyambo’s bafa. Its leaves hang over the trash pit and it’s managed to grow abundantly during my service. A testament of resilience, having survived dry seasons, flocks of farm animals, my general lack of knowledge and interest in gardening, and a burning trash pit. It’s still the only green growing in an otherwise dry, barren environment. A channel of water leads from the drain of the Zyambo’s bafa to the base of the banana tree, keeping it constantly watered. About two months ago two large flowers of bananas appeared and the burgundy purple flowers at their ends fell shortly after. Benedicto informed me that they should start ripening within a week or so, as all the water was now feeding just the fruit. Weeks passed into months and the unripe green bananas clung stubbornly to their stems. They did not even slightly shade yellow, instead remaining a lush green. We can’t figure out why. It’s as if after expending months of effort in fruiting they just gave up, so near the end. It’s as if they thought: what’s the point in ripening, in completing a cycle, when we can just cling verdantly to this tree, ever fed by water and still face a similar fate? Perhaps they are tired, or perhaps they need to have their faith restored; that by ripening they will feed a mouth, improve a life even if only for a moment. So near the end they simply have to turn and while they may be eaten by an unscrupulous goat or never appreciated, they will have finished what they started. More than what most can say for a lifetime.

Bear (Wellesley) recommended putting them in a sealed plastic bag, so I picked four of them and tied them up in a People’s jumbo. Last Saturday, we threw a month-belated birthday party for Bear. Belated because we were both at Kamp Kwacha and Zebra’s mom and sister were visiting. It was a celebration of surprisingly good success; she seemed happy and liked the food. We made burgers, luckily procuring ground beef at Rumphi Metro, and fries, with plenty of Greens – one of several of Bear’s favorite meals. And Zebra and I baked successfully on our own, on a mud fire stove, for the first time. We made yellow cake, from scratch, filled it with custard and topped with a chocolate icing improvised from a Hershey’s chocolate bar from a parcel and milk, icing sugar, and Blue Band. Zebra carved a birthday candle out of a large Moonlight and I topped the whole thing of with crushed macadamia nuts. We were trying to replicate a Boston crème cake with what we had and quite proud of it. A slice of home for Bear, one of the best people I know, probably my closest friend who knows everything about me, who cares unconditionally, loves almost limitlessly, and melts even the most hardened of moods with her mischievous big blue eyes and a laugh as infectious and delightful as her smile.

With one camp successfully over, planning begins for the next camp. The inaugural Kamp Kwacha was a success. Hobbit handled all the logistics and I handled all the curriculum and classes. Together, the camp was near perfect; not a single hitch that wasn’t easily solved. Zebra, Bear and I are hosting an all new, revamped, restructured, and renamed environmental camp, now called Camp RENEW (Revitalize, Enlighten, and Nurture Environmental Wellness). It will be hosted at Chilenda Camp, as before, but the camp will be molded on the Kamp Kwacha model: few students, more interactive sessions, more difficult material, and better food. We want to provide a greater variety of knowledge, at a faster pace, to a more selective group of top students. With about eight staff members for twenty students, we provide greater attention for each student. We will teach topics ranging from environmental protection to business to building local windmills. And as essential to any good camp and happy students, the quality and variety of food will be better (especially if we can secure a particular local chef who previously served as chef to the French embassy). All of these qualities are the opposite of the current Peace Corps camp models, which prefer many students (upwards of 80), leading to less learning, attention, course offerings and general enjoyment.

Malawi Vice

Due to recent political events, a long string of occurrences in the government, police have set up two to three times more road blocks. Also, fines and bribes have nearly doubled. There is a particular police squad in Bolero that stops every matola heading to and from Rumphi boma. These matolas are used only by villagers and each stop takes up to two hours because the fine is MK 7,000, as matolas are illegal, though the only mode of transport in rural Malawi. No matola can ever pay; they do not even have enough customers to cover fuel costs. The poor eat the poor and those that are given even a little power will abuse it to harm their neighbors and friends to feel more powerful. The selfish nature of mankind.

I have grown to hate these police, their obnoxious mannerisms, the way they require drivers and citizens to cower before them and pay whatever money they have.

What’s truly infuriating is that the same police ride matolas to get home, or on their days off to get to town. I physically shudder with anger when I see them or think of them. Last week, I was on an afternoon matola travelling to Bolero from Rumphi. We stopped in Chikwawa and three corpulent Bolero traffic policemen stumbled out of a bottle store, drunk at half past noon, and boarded the matola to go home. They were done for the day having spent all the matola bribe money collected since the morning. The matola dropped one at home, another at a bottle store in bolero and the third at the station.

One morning, they stopped a Mwazisi matola and held it up for two hours. I had thoughts, horrifying thoughts, anger, rage that I did not know I was capable of. There was a woman in the matola, very ill and in pain. Her family was taking her to the hospital in Rumphi on the only transport available to villagers. The ambulance is flaky at best and would not pass through till much later. We waited in the morning sun that grew hotter with each passing minute. We waited as the driver cowered and begged the officer to let him pass for a lower fee. I felt such sympathy for the woman while at the same time feeling such violent hatred for the police.

The system is corrupt and in the end it is people, ordinary citizens, poor villagers that suffer. It’s maddening but unfortunately that’s the case all over the world. The rich, the political, the powerful rarely understand or care for the plight of the citizens or poor they swear to protect. Power corrupts all and harms the people. Just like I am capable of the duality so are other volunteers who have shared their horror at the violent thoughts they conjure here. So are the policemen that take bribes, let their fellow farmers, their physical neighbors, suffer and still go home to their families. It’s sickening but it is our nature: a duality of love and hate, and while we try to embrace the former, our natural instincts pull us back into balance.

A History of Violence

“I am in a world of shit, yes, but I am alive and I am not afraid.”

There is something frightening I fear in myself. A force equally as potent as the capacity for love: the capacity for hate. A dark face that lurks unnervingly below the surface: powerful, exciting, and alluring in its shroud. I’m thinking of all violence happening this very moment and that has happen in every moment before it, stretching back to the very beginning.

I remember growing up on violent video games, despite the stern protest of my parents. As a child, and more so as a young man, I craved and was addicted to the feeling of power, even false power: to have God-like control over the fate of animated armies or selecting the most pleasurable weapon with which to bludgeon an alien foe (a brut hammer).

I vividly recall the first time I played video games. It was in Perth, at a friend’s house. He was blasting through monsters in Duke Nukem’s pixilated palace of pain, scoffing at squares of blood that would spray everywhere. “The best is the rocket launcher,” he said eagerly as he keyed a weapon swap. He burst into a boisterous fit of laughter when the missile round expelled the monster into a fountain of red. Fortunately, he was too preoccupied with his own victory, and perhaps too young and insecure himself, to notice the horrified expression on my face.

We are trained for violence from a young age and it appears in a multitude of forms. As boys we battle aliens, protecting our planet, our families. As young men, we’re educated in the history of war and of the valiant soldiers. As men we are expected to fight for our country or cause as the highest order of honor. Men are to be quiet fortresses: strong, brave, and inclined to violence in the fight for good.

But what war is good? Give me a cause worth its weight in blood and I will gladly, and fearfully, march into battle. Since the existence of mankind we have stabbed, shot, chopped, raped, pillaged each other to what end? It is the same violence repeated in the name of religion, land, culture, vengeance or whatever reason in vogue during the century. We are wired with such potential for both good and evil: our minds powerful enough to skew reality, to forget and rewrite the same history.

It’s disconcerting because I have genetically inherited that ability. Here, frustrated by politics, corruption, and a tightening police force, thoughts are finding solace in the euphoria of violence. Violent revenge in the name of citizens that needlessly suffer under the rule of a growingly stubborn tyrant. The need to revolt, to spark a revolution is strong, but what will it achieve? More violence, killing and the fate of every other unstable African state.

Why do I feel strongly for innocent villagers? Are they so innocent? Aren’t they just like the Germans, the Croats, the Serbs, the Muslim Americans: innocent citizens? The people that simply let violence and corruption happen, buying into the national rhetoric? Why don’t they say stop? Why do the masses allow themselves to be fooled by higher powers and then brood vengeance against an enemy they manifested?

Perhaps people are no more than children witnessing a violent game: instinctively want to turn away and say this is wrong, yet cannot form the words. They fear being ridiculed, abandoned, and ultimately alone. Either you are with us or against us. You aren’t a real man if you oppose violence. I’ve seen enough commercials for the Marines. Enough movies like Rambo glorifying war. Enough talk of the allure of uniform. These are forces that ultimately form boys into the men that shape this planet.

Riding in Cars with Girls

A few months ago I couldn’t sleep. We were in Monkey Bay to celebrate Dirty’s birthday and we went big the previous night, pig roast and all. Shingles slept in until late into the morning, but I lay watching the sunrise over the lake through the straw covered windows. When she stirred awake she saw me lying, staring at the space in front of my eyes. She put a concerned hand on my chest and asked “what’re you thinking about?” I told her my mind was wandering, disconcertedly drifting through the past from one thought to the next memory. I always rein it in, but this morning I let it wander. “Do you like thinking about the past?” “No,” I lied. I do like the past, it is in a way comforting and soothing to see your life pieced together from today. The future is frightening in its unpredictability, which only provokes my need to plan and plan. The warmth of memories keeps me sane and I find solace in them during gray days. I only restrain them because I’m afraid. Some memories still have a singe of pain and a mere flash image, a millisecond of thought, can trigger the degradation of all thought and I fear my naïve memory may slip in to such an abyss. What I did not tell her was that that morning I wasn’t afraid, because she was there and the safety of arms were only a glance away.

Wind
The Killers came on, All These Things That I’ve Done, from the Hot Fuss album, if I remember correctly. KISS 108 promised all the latest hits commercial free and was the most popular station in New England. I can’t remember what month it was, but it was cold out. We sprinted out of the movie theatre and took shelter in her car, blasted the heating and huddled until the dry air warmed the interior. What movie was it? The memory has holes. It was sophomore year, must’ve been near winter. She was using her family’s car, a big Toyota SUV that took some time to warm up. She made me laugh and I enjoyed her company. We pulled out on to Rt. 9E to drop me off at Bentley first and then she would head back to Wellesley. I remember the roar of the engine as she accelerated down the highway. It was late and the lights from the dashboard illuminated our faces and she was dancing while driving. When the song came on she turned up the volume dial and began singing along. She looked at me smiling the words and I laughed. We never really spoke after that and had awkward interactions. We both needed something that night, the companionship of someone outside of our worlds, yet someone not entirely unfamiliar. She never called and I never bothered to write. I will always remember her singing in that car:

“Help me out. You know you gotta help me out. Don’t you put me on the backburner.”

Almost three years later she was working in San Francisco and I foolishly stayed in Boston. We began emailing each other from work; casually discussing life after school, building what I realize now was a kind of relationship that stems from loneliness. New graduates living and working in a city; on our own for the first time. But I’ll never understand why we took comfort in each other, why not someone else? We were both close to our families and had plenty of friends nearby. Why reach out across a continent? Perhaps we were trying to prove we could handle this growing up business and wanted to show our family and friends we were independent. Emails became letters. Letters often became phone calls, a little after midnight when I got out of work and she was still up. I used to look forward to those phone calls exhausted from work, having no personal interactions for weeks, walking out into a dark empty city, walking into an empty apartment. Her cheeriness and humor were lined with sadness, but it was enough, we didn’t feel alone and fell asleep happy with our phones by the pillow. Then it just stopped. I don’t remember how or when, but I guess we both got what we needed and didn’t need it anymore.

We haven’t talked since. I think she’s married now.

Water
I dubbed her the Little Navigator. She sat in the passenger seat fumbling with a giant map unfolding New Jersey, New York, Connecticut and fringes of the surrounding states. We were somewhere in Edison searching for parking so we could eat. We were on the hunt for a particularly large and delicious masala dosa, along with an order of chaat masala and two glasses of falooda. Having received a speeding ticket weeks earlier, I was quite content idling in the back lot of a strip mall. She was getting hungry. We did this a lot that summer, driving around together for food, picnics, IKEA, movies, malls, more food. By some chance of fate we ended up at the same firm and later that summer another turn of fate prematurely ended the lease on my sublet in Trumbull. I had no place to live and another month and a half remained on my internship. She happen to start her job that week and so I moved to Stamford. I remember how nervous I was asking.

“Hey, so my sublet for the summer ended, they finished rotations early so they’re leaving.”
“Did she ever give you back the money?”
“No, won’t return calls or emails, I think she’s gone. But I was wondering if…if it’s alright if I stay with you for a little while? I have no…”
“Dooks! Of course you can stay. I was hoping you would stay.”
“Thanks, it’ll just be till the end of the summer.”
“So...I was going to ask you anyway. Didn’t know how you’d feel.”

I immediately handed the keys back to my parents when I opened the box. However, they would not have it. This was a gift to their son, the first in the family to graduate from college in America, the result of more opportunities than they ever had. We drove around in it all summer, at least until her father made a snarky comment about how parents shouldn’t give expensive gifts to children. She defended my family arguing that they gave it out of love and a want to provide all the best things for their children. I was furious. My parents had nothing growing up and now, in America, they still have little, but provide the world to us. Even if we refuse. And we always refuse. Who was this shmuck to criticize my family? I eventually convinced my parents to take the car, claiming high fuel costs shuttling back and forth from Randolph to Stamford to Shrewsbury. I took the old Corolla and we still took road trips. Scenic drives down CT-15, connecting I-84 to I-90, and coming home to Stamford. Coming home. A home we made together for a brief moment of existence.

It’s was a strange realization the other night. To think that some of my fondest memories, some of my happiest moments, took place in cars, buses, vans, trains, planes with girls. Transient places where thoughts fall in order, where, according to Alain de Botton, thought is clearest and truly free. Though my friends ridicule me, these modes of transport are where I feel safe, comfortable and at home. That is why I sleep so deeply and so instantly in vehicles. Perhaps it’s the result of growing up always moving and now home is movement. And beyond the mere purr of the engine or the rhythm of the tracks, it’s also a false sense of stopping time. The world moves past you, yet you remain stationary in a capsule, safe and carefree. She makes it all the more precious, for not only have you stopped time, but you aren’t alone, vanquishing both time and solitude: our two greatest foes. Free of obligations of place or time, you are in movement not belonging to any singular place or falling victim to the effects and sense of time. A keen awareness of physical movement but unaware of direction or minutes expended. Like chasing the sun in a plane without a clock. Isn’t that what we all want? To find the love of our lives and once found to stop time for eternity? And if not eternity, at least for the length of a bus ride.

Awakayi

There is no sensation that compares to opening a fresh batch of homemade awakayi (well, a close second is opening a fresh bottle of Sriracha after two years). Awakayi has so much more attached to it than mere deliciousness, nostril-pleasing aroma of spices and pickled mango, and saliva-inducing red chutney drowning in marinating oils.

Beyond the sensual symptoms are the memories of clay pots of pickle, my grandmother preparing large vats of spices for the family, and eating it with everyone on banana leaves. For most, awakayi is just another exotic chutney from Patek’s or a mild achaar. But to my family it’s in our blood, from infant to adult there is not a single meal without a jar of grandmother’s awakayi. When a pot of pickle is finished cooking all of us: cousins, nieces, brothers, sisters, crowd the stove to get first dibs. Once the pickle is transferred to jars, cooked rice is thrown into pot and mixed with the remnants along the walls and bottom. This is the best serving of pickle as it is fresh and mixed with hot rice and the flavor that only comes from eating out of a pot. Our grandmother would hand feed each of us, one by one, and we would fight over who got seconds.

These are the memories that came to mind as I opened my last and only bag of awakayi. Sealed in three air tight containers to ensure freshness and prevent leakage, I surgically removed each bag. I didn’t want even a drop of oil wasted. I patiently poured it into a Blue Band container and put hot rice in the bag. It was no clay pot, but this is Africa, close enough. My mouth watered as the smell filled the kitchen and the white basmati slowly turned a vibrant, deep red. Memories were overrun by a grumbling stomach, but I could not rush. No, this had to be savored. Such treats are few and far between. I scrapped every last bit of pickle and every grain of rice out of the bag and onto a plate and washed my hands at the basin. There it was, my favorite dish, served the only way I like it.

My grandmother always scolded my taste in food, claiming I liked poor people food too much. She accused my mother of the same tastes when she was growing up. What do the impoverished eat in a small Indian village? Rice mixed with raw chili powder, salt and oil. Rice with pickle. On a good day, rice with a curry gravy. Little vegetables and rarely any protein. My second favorite is rice with chili powder, oil and salt. In fact, just writing it is making my mouth water. So what if the poor enjoy these dishes? Doesn’t make them bad. It’s simple, delicious, and as I would realize later, perfect for the bachelor diet. Who needs nutrients? Better an addiction to absurdly spicy, yet simple, food than some other vice.

When my parents came to visit they brought, literally, three giant cardboard boxes of food. Every prized American treat was now in a cardboard cube in my house. Of course, these were non-perishable treats sealed air-tight and bursting with traditional American high-fructose corn syrup. Rows of Cheetohs galore, bags of Snickers, cans of Pringles, boxes of Indian food mixes, enough Maggie to put a desi college sophomore to shame and sachets of instant curries. And the best part: triple-sealed containers of pickles and spiced lentil powder mixes. It was like Christmas morning during the best market year in five decades. Every imaginable treat was at my finger tips.

So, I did what I’m best at: eat. Eat, get dizzy from the spice, rapidly suck air to cool my tongue, pass out, and do it again. My happiest memories in college were picking up a tub of Ben & Jerry’s at Harry’s, going back to her dorm and making the spiciest curry imaginable (usually chana), then eat, suffer in pain, cry, laugh, swear like a sailor, lose sanity, and wash it down with mint-Oreo goodness. You would think we would have learned our lesson, but addiction is an ardent ailment. While almost all other students were experimenting the limits of BALs and any smokable foliage, we sat on a couch and ate food that would induce pain and joy at the same time. It was a high unlike any other.

After eating and sharing it with other volunteers I have managed to level inventories to half of one box, plus a smaller box full of candy and snacks. An impressive feat.

Earth-movers

I woke up this morning to the sound of a large truck pacing forward then backwards with a loud beeping. Today was marked for civilian demonstrations throughout the major cities of Mzuzu, Blantyre and Lilongwe. Demonstrations supposedly organized by a Minister against the government regarding fuel shortages, tobacco and issues of governance. DFID recently pulled out of Malawi. The village was abuzz with excitement; people had been talking about it for days and radio voices echoed throughout the day. We were issued a no-travel notice from the office from the 19th-21st.

This was no ordinary truck. After I got ready, I walked out to the sandy path leading to the EPA for a beekeeping meeting. In the distance there was a crowd gathered in front of the EPA (strange because there is never anyone there). As I got closer the giant yellow Caterpillar earth-mover came into view. It was plowing a large square area in front of the EPA, shifting dirt to the outer rims, flattening a space. I spotted Mr. Singini – the secondary school night watchman – in the crowd and greeted him.

It seems the machine was sent by the government to clear land for temporary housing. The housing will be for the road builders, expected to begin work shortly. I guess all the gravel workers, other workers, and machines need a place to stay for the duration of the construction. Though it is a short road, Mwazisi is very remote and shuttling workers back and forth is not feasible. That somewhat solves that mystery. It’s strange how these developments kind of just show up. I don’t think anyone knew, perhaps I just didn’t know.

It seems you wake up one morning and there’s a giant earth-mover in your back yard. Just fell out of the sky. While a series of large construction machines may seem normal to most, it is certainly not normal here. To put it in perspective: seeing these machines in Mwazisi is like seeing a herd of elephants roaming about Post Office Square.

Despite the suddenness, I’m excited, as is the community. All these giant machines appearing, new people passing through. Though it is still isolated, the village is developing and changing in many ways: construction of the EPA, initiation of the Kulera Project, installation of electricity, commencement of the tarmac road, and soon the arrival of a second Peace Corps volunteer. The village is moving forward or at least poised to move forward, in many positive directions. Confirmation of my belief that development is best on a small-local scale, provided the presence of large infrastructure projects to support and encourage growth.

The kids are on holiday and crowds mounted the dunes piled up by the yellow giant. Everyone sat and stared, transfixed, as if in a trance, watching the giant move forward-backward- forward-backward. I sat in a trance too; it was calming in its repetition and in a way majestic. It was like a yellow elephant moving dirt about. It had a meditative rhythm that made it hypnotic. And like a child, you wondered what will it do next? Ah! Forward again.

These new developments are a pleasant distraction from the current tobacco problems, which continue to worsen. This is one of the few large-scale demonstrations I have ever heard of Malawi. We’ll have to wait and see how successful its actual execution is, but if it is then I think things will change even more in Malawi.
I remember the second-years when I arrived in country: “welcome to the most politically stable, safe, and boring country in Africa. Nothing ever happens here,” they said, “it’s nice but life can get very boring and monotonous.”

Well, life just got interesting.