24

SORRY IT'S BEEN SO LONG.

Man, some months you just don't know what to say. I've felt a whole lot of things but none of it is new - you know? I keep telling myself that these are all things that people have felt before. Lately I've been more drawn to the real conversations and the actual exchanges, rather than the words I may/may not put out there for anyone on the internet to see. Writing for an audience feels strange and wrong. What does this little voice have to say that hasn't been said a million times before? I only want to say it if I can say it better, and then we're right back at how I don't even know what to say.

Anyway. Let's not try to figure out everything at once.

I finished my year in Malawi 3 weeks ago! Absolutely mad feelings - all sorts of relief and joy at being able to shower every day again, go out in the dark, use the internet etc. But the last few months there were filled with so much goodness. Here's a little something I wrote twenty-four days before my departure (yes the countdown was well and truly on)

"Here I am, burnt and tanned from the African sun. We're driving beside the lake which feels like driving beside the sea. Listening to Lorde 400 Lux. Dry river beds. AirTel red shops. Bottles of CoolDrop water. Mud brick houses, thatched roofs. Mango trees. Little kids carrying live chickens around by the feet. Will I remember this? What it's like to be this girl in this moment, because I'll be different again soon. Soon I won't be in Malawi, won't be wearing this t-shirt, won't feel like I do right now. Elated, relieved, content. Anticipating and fist-pumping because I did THIS. One day at a time, I did this. One day at a time, maybe I'll make sense of it."

Then, some words written from Doha airport in Qatar...

"Leaving Malawi is strange because I'm wild with happiness in a "HELL YES I did this, catch ya on the flip side boiiiiii" kind of a way, but I look out the little square window from the aisle seat and it's the last time I'll see those familiar mountains and dusty roads, that dry brown landscape beside the tarmac, and I'll crave it one day soon.
That's all of life: the things you have to leave behind always existing, in some form. But you can't have all of them, even if you know they're there.
I look at fat diamond rings in duty free, glinting under bright lights. I just think of little brown faces, eyes glinting in the Malawi sun. Who needs diamond rings."

It's weird to think about now. It was a different life out there and I know I'm different from the living it. But it goes so quickly. Three weeks since I was there and it feels like a lifetime ago. It doesn't even feel like me who did that. I was so, so ready to leave, but on the train the other day I was so homesick for my little house across the carpark from the hospital. My little oven bedroom with it's creaky bed and walls covered in footprints from smashing cockroaches with shoes. The kitchen with the cupboard under the sink that would never stay closed, and the cast iron frying pan that I cooked everything in, and the walk to Chipiku and the tomato lady down the road. Dirty feet from the dust, eating every meal outside on the little concrete porch. Suffering through wearing jeans when it was so bloody hot, and putting shorts on the second I was home, all year round. Waking up at 5am and going to sleep at 9pm. All those little kids who knew my name and loved to giggle with me. Running up and down hills as the sun was going down, I'll never forget that light and how it made me feel.

These are some of the objects that featured in my life in Malawi

(descriptions read from top left - bottom right)

1/ tnm sim card, brought it from one of the tnm guys who set up camp on the side of the road with a plastic table and beach umbrella. they sit there all day long selling little scratchie cards which have codes that you punch into your phone to add credit. sim card cost 500 kwacha but then I had to go to a little shop that sells clothing to have it punched smaller to fit inside my phone. for no apparent reason none of the phone companies have the punch themselves, just this random clothing store.

2 / bedroom key. the lock on my room was real dodgy, so I'd lock my door but you could still open it if you pushed hard enough. so most mornings were spent locking my door ten times and body slamming it to see if it opened. tenth time lucky, usually.

3 / doxycycline pills. apparently stop malaria, but also make your skin as smooth as a child's. I'll take that. although I forgot to take them 80% of the time.

4 / the daily hunk calendar. a gift from a friend which was a real treat to look forward to each day :P

5 / disinfectant wipes. crucial. one time my friend's car broke down and we had to push it off the road. of course I fell down a ditch (mountain goat). scraped my knee up bad and was worried I'd get osteomylitis, so I scrubbed that wound up with many a disinfectant wipe. suddenly appreciated all that the kids in that hospital go through and how brave they are. I was such a rookie with the pain levels of that scraped up knee and scrubbing it with a disinfectant wipe.

6 / classic filthy 50 kwacha note, usually given to me as change from my tomato lady down the road.

7 / well used gym membership card (aka piece of paper with my name written on it)

8 / DOOM. full of toxins but does a great job of killing cockroaches that scuttle across your floor in the middle of the night. but then you can't sleep afterwards because it smells like poison and I'm scared I'll die in my sleep.

9 / jungle insect repellant, kindly left behind by one of the many housemates and prevented many an unsightly insect bite, as well as protecting me from malaria for the 80% of the time I forgot to take my doxycycline and didn't sleep under my mosquito net.

10 / 10 kwacha coin = 0.03NZD

The end, for a minute.

Home

6 months silence, sorry about that! I'm sitting out on the concrete step that bridges the hospital carpark and my little brick house, the burning sun setting is hidden by a tree. But that cool thing is happening where although you can't see the sun, you can see all the effects of it.

I can hardly believe I've lived in Malawi for almost a year! All the cliches are about to come out. I've got itunes on shuffle and Buble (Home) just came on. Of course.
It's almost too hard to begin to think about it retrospectively. It just feels like life right now. It feels like I'm backing away slowly. Won't realise it's gone until I'm gone.

I wanted to go home a thousand times, but I remember at the 6 month mark, realising that if I’d gone home all the times that I’d wanted to go home I wouldn’t be experiencing these moments. I guess that’s what it’s been. A true lesson in being here now. Which admittedly I’ve been pretty terrible at sometimes. But you learn, you learn.

It's incredible how flexible we are. How transient our idea of "normal" is. Every time I felt outrageously out of my depth I reminded myself that this country was millions of people's home. Millions of people's idea of normal. Funny, because now the giant ants and cockroaches seem normal to me. Being this hot all the time feels normal (take that sentence how you will suckazzz :P). These people and this language and the way the mini buses honk all the time, the way the mosquitoes come out at night, the way little children run the streets in little gangs, chase me when I'm running, the way vegetables are stacked for sale in little pyramids on the ground, the way you have to get your receipt stamped on your way out of the grocery store, and soldiers with guns sit on crates outside. All feels like a little bit of home to me.

I knew I'd made it when a few weeks ago we had some visitors stay in my house who weren't so complimentary about the decor or the state of the fridge, and I found myself getting defensive about this little place that's come to be home. They didn't know how lucky they were that the hot water worked the entire time they were here, that they got the most comfortable bed in the house, that they didn't have to dodge thunderstorms during the rainy season.

Home is wherever you can find it, however you can make it. I'm glad I got to figure that one out.

Ambiguity

How do you make words bend to fill the empty spaces? 

It’s a Friday night, I’m lying on my double bed with the mattress that is too big for the bed frame. Listening to Numinous which is the closest thing to some kind of “ritual” that I have for these creative endeavours. Thinking about how I’ve been on the other side of the world for 6 months now. Thinking about how I wanted to tell you so much more than I have.

I lived by myself for two months, almost went insane from all that quiet. I’d go to bed at 7pm because when you finish work at 4.30pm there’s only so long you can stretch out making and eating dinner, and I’d read all the books that I brought with me twice over already. On New Years Eve I tried to make it a happy occasion by making sangria and dressing up fancy and dancing my little heart out in my little apartment. But my sangria was undrinkable because I didn’t use any of the right ingredients, and I fell asleep at 9pm because everyone who meant a lot to me had already texted to say “happy new year!” at lunchtime. 

I surprised myself with how well I did in those two months though. There have been dark days by myself before, but I refused to let myself slip back to that.

In January I moved to a shared house and since then I’ve lived with 25 different people. German, Belgian, Danish, English, American, Irish, Italian, Nigerian, Malawian, and a few who flitted in and out without me even learning their names. Sometimes that’s exhausting and sometimes it’s invigorating. Sometimes it makes me feel less alone and sometimes it makes me feel more alone. 

I’m growing used to meeting someone and then going places with them. Almost strangers, navigating these experiences together. I went up to the lake a month or so ago, on the way home we caught a ride on the back of a ute along with 23 other people and a bicycle, I spent the entire three hours thinking about how I’d protect my hands if we crashed. But also loving the wind in my face and the sun on my back and how it didn’t smell of sweat. What a way to see the world. When the ute stopped we were supposed to get onto another minibus but we were accosted by these two bus drivers who both wanted us on their bus. They pulled us in either direction and if we made a move to either bus they would scream and pull us to their own. I screamed back and pushed them away, they were drunk anyway. We jumped back on the back of the ute and it sped off, with this mob of drunk mini bus drivers chasing us down the road and yelling. We found another mini bus that wasn’t driven by a mad man and got on that instead.

The almost strangers are my friends now.

Sometimes, in the evening golden light, I walk down the middle of the road in absolute awe of all this. That I’m here, living this life. There are beautiful faces all around me and no one is afraid to say hello. Delightful chatter that I don’t understand. Women sitting behind mountains of fruit and vegetables, all delicately stacked into mini pyramids. Children running down the road in little gangs. So much I don’t understand. But I can see how beautiful it is, I don’t have to understand everything. I smile at everyone and feel it all. Really feel it all.

I didn’t want to come and ‘save’ Africa, because I don’t believe that’s how it works. But sometimes I feel like that’s all anyone expects of me when they see my white skin. I feel like a bitch when I look into the street kid’s eyes and say “no, I’m sorry” as he begs me for money. As he follows me almost all the way home, begging me for money. 

Sometimes, I just go home with my head down and then lock myself in my bedroom and watch Mad Men. Escapism. I’m well aware that I’m fooling around with coping mechanisms. I’m not sure how to face all of this head on though, all of the time, all by myself.

When I signed up for this, I expected to learn about compassion and poverty, different beliefs and cultural customs. I wasn’t prepared for all I’d have to learn about myself as well. In a weird little way (and it feels a bit narcissistic to say it, but..) some of the most profound lessons have been almost outside of the “Africa” experience. But it all connects, doesn’t it. 

Something I’ve had a hard time with is my relationships with the people that mean the most to me back home. I have a tendency to fill all the silences (which of course are bound to happen) with meaning and hidden messages. Usually lies. At home, all of the interactions with people are enough to keep those monsters at bay, but on the other side of the world it’s much easier to let the lies win. I’ve been aware of this pattern in the past, but it’s something that still jumps out at me any chance it gets. Last week it really dug it’s teeth in and I spent the week in a constant state of anxiety. I was always going to be alone. No one would stay. And maybe, on a certain level, those thoughts have some truth in them. 

But there is One who stays. In the chaos of my mind, sometimes that doesn’t feel like enough, but when I let those thoughts settle into my heart, the other loneliness I feel fades to the background. And then I’m free to love people without needing them to love me back.

A few months ago I decided that since I was uncomfortable anyway I might as well go all out and try to get good at running while I’m here. The logistics of this can be challenging (i.e. I don’t feel very safe running the streets, 3 of the five treadmills at the gym are broken, people love to spend 30 minutes walking on them at a snails pace (srsly why????), and there is an hour window of time between when I finish work and when I have to be home because it’s dark, and it’s like 100 degrees celsius) but I haven’t stopped running and it feels damn good now. Uncomfortable, and damn good. On the hard days, every pound of my feet and beat of my heart and drop of my sweat reminds me that hard things don’t last forever, that I can do more than I think I can, that the sacrificing of my comfort now will make me stronger.

When we were kids Mum used to pin up all these motivational quotes on the back of our toilet door. Probably to discourage us from taking our books in there to read, which looking back on it is gross but it was basically the only place in our house where there was an element of peace and quiet so fair enough I say. Anyway, I basically memorised every single thing that was ever on the back of the toilet door. I kid you not. Even the address of some couple who owned a business is Levin, whose calendar was also a staple on the back of the toilet door. I still know it. Not very useful to my life, but here’s one from Elton Trueblood that is: “We have not advanced very far in our spiritual lives if we have not encountered the basic paradox of freedom, to the effect that we are most free when we are bound. But not just any way of being bound will suffice; what matters is the character of our binding. The one who would like to be an athlete, but who is unwilling to discipline his body by regular exercise and by abstinence, is not free to excel on the field or the track. His failure to train rigorously and to live abstemiously denies him the freedom to go over the bar at the desired height, or to run with the desired speed and endurance. With one concerted voice the giants of the devotional life apply the same principle to the whole of life with the dictum: Discipline is the price of freedom.”

There is no real conclusion to this, but maybe that is a metaphor for something else I’ve been figuring out, which can be summed up in these excellent words from Gilda Radner: “I wanted a perfect ending. Now I've learned, the hard way, that some poems don't rhyme, and some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what's going to happen next. Delicious ambiguity.”

LOVING X 5

This one is good for the heart. This is what I feel every time I sit at the ocean, in audio form. How perfect. I've been missing the ocean so much.

I'm reading like no tomorrow, and this book is hitting home in a few places.

The first 'daily' meditation thing that I've actually done daily for more than 2 days in a row. Solid.

On repeat.

I read this the other day, and now I'm appreciating hip-hop in a big way, and the way hard work and passion make history. There's so much potential in all of us.

AN ECLECTIC GROUP OF STORIES

Last week at work I met a little girl, her name was Jinny, she was three. I smiled at her and she smiled back. The next day sees me down the hall of the hospital, and comes running at me full force. Arms outstretched, massive grin. She leaped into my arms and my heart exploded. 

On New Years Eve I had these grand plans of making my solitude a rad time instead of a lame one. I would make sangria and stay up pondering the year that has been and the one that is to come. And then at midnight I would count down by myself and then party like it’s 1999 because how lucky are we to be alive?! But all my plans were put to ruin when my makeshift sangria (cider, “pineapple juice” which was actually only 30% pineapple and 70% sugar, mint leaves, apple and grapefruit slices) was undrinkable. Still quite tired from hardly sleeping for two weeks in New Zealand and the birds waking me up at 3am daily, I fell asleep at 9pm.

I got a taxi home from the airport when I arrived back, it was pouring with rain and Eliot my taxi driver insisted I stay in the car until it stopped. Twenty minutes. No extra charge. Golden.

The other day I saw a centipede that was as long as my foot and as fat as my big toe and I was devastated I didn’t have my iPhone on me for a photo. Promise it’s real though.

It’s the rainy season now and there are huge thunder storms. My bed shakes like the earth is going to fall apart, and fork lightning is better than fireworks. Although apparently my toaster was struck by lightning a few weeks ago so thank goodness I was in bed and not making toast.

I’ve been thinking a lot about how we could really do with Kim dot com and his Internet Party over here. Fast, reliable, and affordable internet for all! Malawi needs it more than you guys ok. Send him over if you see him.

The other day I was walking back from the grocery store in the pouring rain. Dirt road is now mud/river road. I am soaking wet and covered in mud and at home the power is off and there is no water and I had to eat potato chips for dinner, and it struck me how terribly out of my comfort zone this is. I lay on my bed in the dark pondering this and all I can figure out is how to laugh at how ridiculous it is that I ended up here. And how rad it is to learn that you can be stoked about life even when it’s uncomfortable.

I’ve moved in with some germans (they drove here all the way from Germany!), a belgian, and an american and it beats being by myself by a long shot. Even if there is no water and the power cuts out a lot. If I ever commit a really horrendous crime I think I would rather the electric chair than solitary confinement. FYI.

Today I was carrying a 5L bottle of water home, wishing that I was Malawian and could carry it on my head. A guy laughed at me and asked me why I bought water. I explained that I get sick from tap water and he seemed to think that was a good enough reason, then he told me he was going to the sports club to play basketball. He used to play basketball when he was young, and now he’s old and slow but he still likes it. We’re passing the sports club now, we part ways and he says “I will come and visit you! What is your name again?”

At the markets there are all sorts of crazy fruit and vegetables. Today I saw this giant spiky thing and I tried to ask what it was. Various sign language and attempts to use words we both might understand resulted in me finding out that this was in fact, “food”. Good!

I’ve made friends with this family from the UK and their 3 year old boy has really taken a liking to me, and he’s so cute and sweet that I even dig mud in the garden with him and pretend to be Bob the Builder. He is Wendy, obviously. Lucky I used to be really into Bob the Builder so I know all the names of the other characters. 

Since I've been here I go from loving this place to hating it in two seconds, and back again just as quick. 50% love (the people, the way of life, the fruit and vegetables, the light, the beauty, the kids, the love) 50% hate (the lack of internet/water/power, the constant stares and calls and questions, everything I don't understand, how long it takes to do basic life things, the loneliness). 

But I think I'm starting to love it a bit more than I hate it. Time is a beautiful thing, as is the mind.