China and some Nostalgia

Blog 7

I have a note to myself to mention the China question as it is played out on a personal level here in Malawi. The papers are full of it. Bingu snubs Taiwan as the Taipei Foreign Minister is already on the plane to come to Malawi. Apparently, the president is not available to meet him and the opposition and media have a field day. On the one hand is the line, “We can’t let our friends down. They stuck by us for years and now is not the time to change affiliation from Taiwan to the People’s Republic of China.” In addition Taiwan is dropping lots of money around to keep its name on the map and in the news. On the other hand, there has been no end of coverage about the PRC and its efforts to access African resources from north to south and the strong rumour going through the corridors here is that the Bingu government is about to change partners.
There are also a number of private Chinese here from both of the Chinas and also people from other parts of South East Asia. I stayed at Korean Garden Lodge in Lilongwe, which is a very comfortable medium end hotel. There are tales of a man from the PRC who came here with some money in the pocket and set up an ice cream factory. Now you see all sorts of coolers on wheels, not dissimilar to the ice cream bicycles that trundle around Montreal, except in Malawi they are pushed more like a wheelbarrow.
Private citizens from both countries have settled here but according to my Malawi friends they move in very separate circles and do not associate with each other. I saw a mixed couple with the Asian lady holding a brown baby while her Malawi husband spoke on his cell in Chichewa. He handed her the phone and she spoke in fluent Chichewa to the person at the other end and made me really jealous with her capacity. That appears to be unusual, because the comments from friends is that on the whole they do not mix and they do not speak English.
On the other hand, I have had fun running into the Japanese volunteers that are all over the country. They are the same sort of semi-serious, fun loving men and now many more women that I knew in 1971-72 when I lived in Blantyre and taught the new JOVC types English. In Nkata Bay, a young shy Japanese gal joined herself to our group of Doug, Sautso and Undeni as we drank Carlsberg, joked and laughed and danced to Malawi tunes until late in the night. She was extremely shy about dancing and claimed she couldn’t and we all laughed together as she was dragged shyly but happily onto the floor to be with us.

Nostalgia trips continued:
Last Sunday The Vanier students and staff went to church at the old CCAP mission across the highway. The night before, Prita practiced a couple of hymns with Kenny, Francis Jumbe and Palije and apparently they got a rousing ovation on Sunday. After church, a lady appeared on the verandah and introduced herself as a former student, Maria Bono, who was in the first class of students to pass through Mitundu Day Secondary School when Nellie and I taught there in 1968 and 1969. She had worked as a primary school teacher for many years in Mchinji and is now retired to a village near our own where she has been elected group village headman. The politically correct term “headperson” has not been introduced into the act governing chiefs and headman. It was a lot of fun to talk with her and to try to remember the names of some of those long ago classmates. The English I taught her in 1968 is almost gone so we had to converse in Chichewa with help from my nephews.
Monday that very same evening, at dusk, a minibus pulled up right at our driveway, which is quite unusual since the bus stop is about 300 metres up the road. A well dressed women came out and glad handed her way through the people who rushed to greet her. I am at a disadvantage, because I have not seen many of the family and older friends for many years. This was one member I had not seen since 1996. Esnati is a distant relative from grandmother anMumba or Makupo whose roots are down in Golomoti in the rift valley below Dedza or Ntcheu. In 1970 Nellie’s mother had gone to her mother’s village to help this orphan and she served as the elder mother’s caregiver until she died and then stayed with Nellie’s mom before eventually getting married and now setting herself up in Lilongwe as a small trader.
She was the Frida of her day. Frida came from the same historic home just before we arrived in 2003. She and her 2 brothers, Leonard and Moses are orphans (AIDS cannot be confirmed, but does it matter?). She now serves Nellie’s mother in her disability. Frida, like her predecessor Esnati are loved and treated like family, but since they have no parents they are placed in whichever house needs help. Leonard stays with Mr Chikapa, Sautso’s dad, as a helper since his wife died and he himself has been handicapped by stroke. The kids go to school and play with everyone else and are a full part of the village.
Their fate, as orphans, is far better than the town kids who hang out in the streets. It is reminiscent of Dickensian stories to see the number of young kids who claim they are orphans and are clearly not getting the love and support that our village orphans get. Another group that breaks my heart are the children of the bar girls. In the cheapest beer halls the women solicit the men and they live in a long row house of rooms out back. All afternoon, their children play amongst the drinkers and carousers while their mothers work. I do think there is room for another orphanage that uses the strengths of our Makupo women to help these types of children grow up in a wholesome atmosphere, go to school at the mission across the road with our Makupo children and are fed by the farmers we are trying to relocate to another piece of land. A project is taking shape.
For news of Makupo, I am half waiting to see what the Vanier crowd will come up with. I am hoping their study trip will paint a picture of Makupo life and all its strengths and weaknesses that can be shared on the web with others. Stay tuned.
We go to Nkata Bay on Friday and with any luck I may have another couple of hours of time to get another blog article in. I found this moment when the mini van needed the headlamps and taillights replaced so I am sitting at the trimmer’s sewing machine while the electrician fixes the car and the students are off doing interviews.
Yours in solidarity
Doug