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.