Asake Faith

A Sake (Mother of) Faith is my neighbour, about my age with one son called Faith. She is one of the people that I will miss the most – but she doesn’t know it. Her English is minimal and my Chichewa is nill but I like being with her every night. We don’t talk, we don’t even sit that close – we’re both outside sitting in front our own charcoal stove, cooking our own nsima under the stars.
The relationship started soon after I moved in because of my inability to cook or even start the fire for that matter. Every night she’d watch me struggle, from her side of the court yard, as I try to light my charcoal (which she makes herself and sells) – by the third match she’d be over with some of her already glowing charcoal or a piece of a plastic from a broken bucket (stinky, but fantastic and garbage is burned anyways~). I’d eventually get my water boiling and start adding maize flour – still not really knowing the amounts or time for boiling, Asake Faith would come back over. She would stir and try to explain to what needed to happen next. This process involved me pointing at things and using the following vocabulary: eh (yes), eyi, (no), more, base (stop) and zikomo (thank you).
Now I can light my own charcoal fire (paraffin is my saviour) and know how to cook nsima. But we still hang out: peeling peas or ground nuts (peanuts), cooking a fish together, doing laundry or just sitting while I work on a report.

I miss her already…

*Sorry I don’t have a picture of her yet – she’s a little shy…This has Usta on the right: my landlord’s daughter and Susana on the left: Asake Faith’s little sister who lives here too (they are from Lilongwe district and are here because of the husbands work). Every night all the kids are outside singing and dancing with each other and playing school, so cute

Jossum

“Janah!”
That’s Jossum greeting me. Everyday after work I stop by Sofie’s shop to see my friend – every time he greets me with the same enthusiasm and his wide smile. We chat a little about the day, but then I continue on my journey home to prepare dinner. I return when it is dark – after my dinner and my washing ~ 7 pm.

“Janah!”
My few Chichewa versus are spattered out and Jossum tries to teach me a new word.
“Do you want to play shop?” Jossum asks
“Yes!”
Jossum crawls out of the shop through the half door and I enter the same way. Now I am shop keeper – keeper of the soap, salt, eggs, packages of dried fish, salt, sugar, matches, candles, tea and few other random items – supper glue. The radio plays quietly in the back round and it’s so dark outside that I can only make out Jossum’s silhouette eating the banana I brought him. He starts talking – talking in his broken, but now more confident English – he shares his vision, his wishes: to go to college, to get a degree, to get a job, to not live like this anymore and how this job will not get him there.

“Fanta"

"40 Kwacha," I reply
It's Moose Man, he wants a Fanta – I call him Moose Man because he always wears the same shirt with a moose on it and I don’t know know his name – yesterday he asked me to buy him a Fanta. Today he is asking me to sleep with him. He is drunk. He leaves.

Jossum starts talking again.
“People see you – ‘ah I want to talk to that girl – but how? How? I do not speak good English.’
So they do not know what to say and they are too shy. What comes out is ‘give me money’ or like what ‘Moose Man’ said. But they are just joking, they just want to talk, they just want to be your friend.”

8 pm comes and it’s time to close the shop. I return home to write in my journal, read and sleep. Jossum returns to Sophie’s house – he is a house boy and his days work is not finished:

- He washes the dished from their dinner (if the water is on) and washes their shoes
- He eats dinner, maybe watches a little TV with the family, but then retires to him room to study
- He wakes up early, ~ 5:30 am, to start mopping and preparing food
- Leaves for Secondary school, Form 3 (grade 11) ~ 7:15 am
- Returns at 2 – eats lunch
- Goes to the market to pick up things for Sophie’s Shop
- Crawls through the half door in the shop and turns on the radio – Sophie has gone to a different market to sell her bail of clothes from Village Des Valleurs

“Janah!”
I’m walking home from work.

Little Bibliography:

Jossum is from a small village in Ntchisi district and is living here so he can attend school. His father past away when he was very young, leaving his mother to raise 5 children. He is third born and the only one to have gone this far with education. Primary school is free (Standard 1 through 8), but Secondary is not (Form 1 through 4). So Jossum had to work very hard to get himself through the first two years. Moulding bricks, building toilets – every time he got paid, he’d walk to the school to put the money towards his tuition. He was recognised for his efforts and Red Cross Malawi now pays for his school fees. The work he is doing at Sophie’s is for room and board – he is not paid.
During his break between Form 3 and 4, he will find another job in hopes of saving money for college. But he is worried, college is very expensive: 100 000 MK (~ 750 $) per semester – with few scholarships and no chance of a bank loan. He will find a job but it will pay between 2 000 – 6 000 MK a month. Minus his living expenses = a long time before he can go to college. He has asked me for help...

Wrap up, Mop up…

Emotions are running high as my two week mark has hit me.
Two weeks remain to finish up my Data Base, Final Report and present it to both offices. Two weeks remain to say good bye to all my friendships I have made and accept their uncertain future – will I ever see you again? I cried. I miss home, but I know I will see YOU again. I’m going to confess – I’m crying now just typing about leaving. The friendships that I have started here – they are not ready to end…
One challenge I’m having: how do I show my friends how much I care about them and how much they mean to me when I don’t speak Chichewa and they don’t speak English – how do I “stay in touch”? If I return, will I ever find them again? Read my blog called Asake Faith – she’s who I’m talking about.

We had a Farewell Party for the Mzungu (me) last Friday. It was a little early but amazing, all my co-workers and friends from other organizations (my Malawian doctor~), all the dancing, all the laughing… It was held at the Ntchisi Lodge – the nice bar of the area, way more than what I was expecting. There was a power failure all day and into the early evening, making the start a little slow, but once the power returned, some drinks came out and Luciano started busting out the Malawian tunes – the crazyness began. Oh the dancing – never seen men dance quite like that – don’t worry I got it all on film~ There were only 4 women, compared to about 20 men. Reason – (1) working force is dominated by men (of the 4 women, one was me and one was my co-worker – the others were wives of men) and (2) everyone had to pay to enter (many of a women friends don’t have money to spend like that). Learned something funny – if someone says they do not drink alcohol, it probably means they don’t drink beer or hard alcohol, but they still drink wine because wine is not alcohol. Hehe I don’t know if this was just people making excuses to me or if this is standard… The co-workers who told me that they don’t drink – they had wine mixed with coco cola (yes, wine mixed with coco cola).

Second Challenge: Many people understand that I am leaving shortly and are getting excited about all my things – pots, plates, mattress, stove – they want them. Which is causing some frustration as I am bad at saying no and already have ideas of who/where I want my things to go. Another dilemma: I don’t want to just give it all away and feed their western stereotype but at the same time that 200 MK is a coffee for me but three meals for them…

I’m going to miss a lot of people – but there are two people who have touched in special ways, Jossum and Asake Faith. I’m finding it hard to use words to describe a friend ship that uses no words (Asake Faith), but I have written a blog about each to try to express why I’m so sad to leave Ntchisi, Malawi.