What’s on my mind:

Right now, I’m supposed to be interviewing a coffin maker, Zughar, but when Arichie and I arrived at his shop, there was a funeral going on across the street. As we pulled up, we saw branches laid out on the side of the road, people sitting in the grass singing. Zughar came over to greet us and to reschedule the interview. He explained that a child of 2 or 3 had died. A pot of boiling water had been sitting on a charcoal burner, and when she got close to warm herself, it fell on her.

Some other things:

Last night, we passed through about 5 areas of the city that were without power. Candles and bonfires everywhere. It is common here for one area or another to be without power for an hour or two – in fact, so common that it’s called “load sharing” because there isn’t enough electricity for the city and areas take turns at going without.

When Arichie, Zughar and I were having a drink together at a bar the other night I noticed that people kept coming up to him, giving him money, or pulling him aside to speak with him in private. I learned that he makes coffins after I commented to Arichie that Zughar was quite the businessman, it being evening and all. On the way to his house, you pass a street of coffin shops. I tried to count them today, and think there’s at least 15 – they are lined up, one after another, on either side of the road. We’re going to interview Zughar tomorrow morning.

Yesterday we went back to the community based organization Mchenga. While there, we interviewed a grandmother who, with the help of one of the volunteers, cares for her grandchildren. She has trouble moving around and sleeping due to pain in her joints. After I took some pictures, she showed us the white hair under her headscarf. She was laughing, so I thought she was joking about old age, but Arichie translated what she said. Our generation won’t have white hair like hers because all the young people are dying. She said this with a smile, a laugh, and in the presence of about 10 kids, some of them orphans.

We also had a good second meeting with Fane (I wrote it Fani before, but that was wrong), the young woman who had one of the disposable cameras. Her day: she gets up at 5am, sweeps the area round her house, and either eats porridge or goes without. Durng the day, sells mandasi (donuts) or buys maize from local farmers and resells it at the market. For lunch she has nsima with a sauce made from what vegetables she can buy, and dinner is the same. When I got home that night, I was famished and couldn’t stop thinking about her as I sat in a comfortable dining room eating fish, vegetables and rice.

I should say that what I’m seeing and experiencing here is a true mixture of tragedy and joy, and so I can’t offer any kind of transition to the following.
On Friday night, a group of us (Arichie and his friends) went to a reggae concert by the Black Missionaries, a famous Malawian band whose tape we listened to nonstop the first week I was here, until we decided that we needed a change (American hip hop).
Then on Saturday Arichie’s cousin Takundwa invited me to a wedding. The church ceremony was that morning, so we went to the reception. It was unlike anything I’ve ever seen. Imagine a huge hall with people sitting, standing, nursing babies, passing Fanta drinks and cokes around. Music is blaring from a sound system of questionable quality, and various groups of people – the bridal party, friends, coworkers – take turns dancing and throwing money at the newlyweds. Meanwhile, an MC is urging people to come up, give money, 500 kwacha, 1000 kwacha, come, everyone, come.

The next day, I went to a Pentecostal church in the morning (singing, dancing, speaking in tongues, falling to the floor) and then onto a “kitchen top up” in the afternoon. This is where a group of women holds a party once a month to raise money for each person’s kitchen. This is a women-only event, and the only men allowed where three young djs. In fact, when a man tried to come in – insisting that he worked for the house and just wanted water – the women laughed at him, yelled, and shooed him away. We sat in rows of chairs, eating from little bags of fried bread and chicken, drinking – yes – Fanta and coke, and facing the “stage” where the woman of the month sat, and took turns dancing up to her and dancing around her throwing money into a bucket or on the ground near her. I went up twice only, once to introduce myself, the second time with Takundwa and her friend. Completely embarrassed and awkward each time since I didn’t know how to dance like they did, but in the end happy that I experienced it all.

This morning we met the community outreach workers at UNC’s project at Bwaila Hospital. From what I understand, this project focuses on reducing rates of mother to child transmission and encouraging men to participate with their wives in care. They seem to have had a lot of success in both of these areas, and today we went out with one of the workers, Alice, as she visited a woman who’s baby had been hospitalized last week due to severe anemia. Once again, I was amazed at how welcoming and kind the workers were. They gave us tea, chatted with us, and made us feel so welcome. Later this week we’ll go out with another UNC community worker, this time from Central Hospital.