Day's Diary

June 28, 2007 ~ Simple But Hard

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Life in the village in Malawi is simple, but it is hard. It is simple in the sense that it is about the basics of life — food, clothing, shelter, family, community. It is about having enough food to eat, caring for your children and seeing that they have clothing, shelter and education, about living in a community and caring for your extended family and your neighbors. In the village, most are farmers and what they grow supports the family and the extra they are able to sell for clothing and the like. They make the bricks for their houses themselves. Roofs may be of grass, or if they are able to profit from sales of crops, maybe iron sheets. They walk were they need to go, or take a minibus for the long trips, but long trips are few. Much of what they need and want is available within walking distance.

But at the same time, life is hard because all these things are attended to by hand. The things we call necessities of life – cars, washing machines, dish washers – are available but only to a few. The vast majority of the population can’t afford them and so never consider them as part of life. They live by their hands. That is what makes life hard.

Gardening is a necessity of life. It is the primary way of providing food for the family. A garden may be half an acre but is more likely two or three acres, and it is prepared, planted, maintained and harvested by hand. In most cases, it is the woman who does this, although some men are partners in the work. The primary crop is maize (corn) and so the ground must be prepared, furrows dug and then the seed planted. All of this is done with the Malawian hoe and the Malawian hand. In addition to the maize, the garden may include casaba, sweet potatoes, beans, pumpkins, tomatoes, lettuce, cabbage and carrots. These are the staples. To this will be added the family’s favorites. Because of the milder climate, there are several planting times, depending on the crop. Many plant fruit trees and have the benefit of mangos, avocados, bananas and popo. The major crop, though, is maize and that is planted in the spring. Here that is November. It is harvested in April or May. Harvesting is a family affair, because, again, it is done by hand and the larger the garden, the more the work. Many times neighbors help one another to make the work load lighter. Then the cobs must be husked and the kernels dried. Drying the kernels involves spreading them on a grass mat in the sun and turning them for even drying. Then the hull is removed and the kernels are milled. This involves bagging the kernels into 50kg bags and hauling them to the local maize mill. The bags are carried on head or shoulder if there is no vehicle available. In some of the more remote areas where there is no mill available, it means pounding the maize by hand until it is a powder consistency. The prayer is always for a bountiful crop, but the larger the crop, the more the work. There is labor in blessing here.

Cooking is labor intensive, too. Only the most comfortable homes have refrigeration or electric cookers (stoves). The majority, village and city, use charcoal. We in the US delight at a barbeque in the summer. That is life everyday here and there are no fancy grills, just a simple charcoal burner. Because many homes have no refrigeration, marketing is done several times a week to insure freshness. There are no pre-packaged, pre-prepared foods. Everything is made from scratch. Rice is not instant; chips (French fries) are not precut and frozen; vegetables are not cleaned and cut and frozen. Everything needs to be prepared and then cooked on one burner of charcoal, rain or shine. Food preparation takes a great deal of time out of the day.

Cleaning is labor intensive as well. I have only seen two vacuum cleaners since I have been here. Most floors are concrete and are mopped. Mops wear out fast here, so mop production and sales is big business. Vendors come around with mops for sale. If there are area rugs in the house, they are taken outside and beaten to remove the dirt and dust that collects everywhere. This dust gets on shoes as well. In the midst of all this dust, there is an almost obsession with clean shoes. If one has shoes (there are some who do not), then those shoes must be clean. Some go so far as to carry a shoe brush in a pocket. Dirty shoes are not acceptable. (Mine are frequently an embarrassment to my friends because I have not caught this obsession yet.) Laundry is done by hand as well. In the village that means at a stream or it means hauling water to the house for cooking and washing dishes and then for washing clothes. Then the clothes are hand wrung and hung to dry. Around the college on Saturdays, most bushes and shrubs become drying racks for student’s laundry where clothes lines are not available.

All of this hand labor makes for strong hands. Ella, my house help, has the strongest hands I have ever seen on a woman. It is from all the work she does. Her hands are calloused and rough. They are typical of most Malawian women’s hands. They are somewhat reflective of their lives – hard and strong, and ever so capable of doing what it takes to make life possible.