Nsima

One of the staples of Malawian life is Nsima.

Pronounced See-ma, this local dish literally fuels the nation.

There is a Malawian saying that no meal is complete if it doesn’t include Nsima. It is made of maize (corn) flour and eaten with most, if not all, meals.

One of the reasons for it’s popularity is that it is packed with carbohydrates, making it an easy source of energy. This allows the masses that work in agriculture to have the energy necessary for long days in the field.

Another reason is that it expands in the stomach, keeping you feeling full for longer. In one of the world’s poorest countries, a full feeling belly is a valuable thing. 

Given that maize is one of Malawi's staple crops, Nsima is one of the most accessible foods. Malawians also claim that it is easy to make, although my clumsy cooking skills lead me to disagree with this sentiment.

There are a few different types of this dish, the most common being Nsima Yoyera (white Nsima made from refined white corn flour) and M’gaiwa (made unrefined ground maize flour).

Here is a look at the art of preparing and eating Nsima .

Preparing

It starts with the maize flour. Here they use the white variety.

 

First water is warmed and some of the flour is added to the mix.

 

As it heats up and comes to a boil, more flour is added.

 

It is stirred and heated until it is of a playdoh like consistency.

 

It is spooned into lumps and served.

 

Eating

Nsima is eaten with a ‘relish’, which usually consists of a leafy green vegetable called rape or beans. It is sometimes also eaten with a ‘soup’ (made from tomatoes) or meat (chicken, fish or beef), when available. Here it is being eaten with nyemba (beans).

To eat Nsima you pull a piece of the lump with your fingers (after washing your hands of course). 

You press it between your fingers and palm until it takes the form of a ball.

You then dip it in the relish.

And pop it in your mouth. (Smile!)

Some foreigners don’t like the consistency of Nsima or say that it is tasteless. I quite enjoy it if I put salt on it and eat it with eggs, rape and soup. It is warm and comforting and quite satisfying.

The only problem is that it is difficult to work after eating. I always find myself in a bit of a ‘food coma’ making it difficult to concentrate on work or anything other than the satisfaction of feeling full and warm . I much prefer the eating to the cooking!

We are all living with HIV

It is 4 a.m. and the compound next door has 2 new dogs. These horrible canines have snatched my slumber, forcing me awake as they bark their little doggy faces off. I lie under my mosquito net of questionable condition (I have somehow managed to get Malaria), eating stale chocolate and pondering.

Aside from selfishly wondering if Malawi might have an animal welfare organization, I’ve also been thinking about HIV and AIDS.

Last weekend was the International AIDS Candlelight Memorial.

Started in San Francisco in 1983, Candlelight has grown to become one of the world's largest and longest standing international advocacy events. The first Candlelight consisted of 4 men who wanted to put a face to a mysterious disease that was ravaging parts of Africa and the gay male community in the Western World. They stood behind a banner reading ‘Fighting for our Lives’. Each of them died that following year.

Since then, the 3^rd Sunday of May has marked a time to remember those who we have lost to AIDS related illness and to advocate collectively for a better future.

Candlelight 2012 Malawi

The Malawi Network of People Living with HIV (MANET+) coordinates the Candlelight Memorial in Malawi.  Being a MANET+ volunteer, I had the privilege of attending candlelight and getting the inside scoop on how huge an undertaking it is.

The event was held in a big field to accommodate upwards of 5,000 people. A radio jingle was commissioned (resulting in lots of in-office dancing), t-shirts and Chitenje cloth were manufactured. Posters were designed and printed. The president herself was invited and a 40 person taskforce was formed.

The day was a success: the venue was packed and the Vice-President of Malawi presided over the event! After starting with a ‘Solidarity Walk’, there were all kinds of performances – drama, dancing, speeches by various representatives from civil society, international organizations and politicians.

Solidarity Walk

Women Living with HIV Dance Group Watching Performances

Dance Performance

Candlelight Around the World

I’ve attended Candlelight in Ottawa before. Like so many memories of my home country, the image appears in my mind’s eye as an overexposed photo - slightly faded and with a dream-like quality. The memorial involved a small group of people gathering at dusk, a speech by a person living with HIV and taking a moment of silence to light candles in remembrance. 

The differences between the Ottawa and Lilongwe Candlelight memorials has got me thinking about the varied nature of the epidemic throughout the world. How do the organizers choose one single theme that applies globally? 

This year the theme was ‘Promoting Health and Dignity Together’.

We are all Living with HIV

In Chichewa, Malawi’s National Language, there is a proverb that reads ‘Zidze pano ndi zatonse’. Translating roughly as ‘What happens to one of us, befalls all of us’, this proverb speaks to the fact that we are all intricately interconnected. During his speech, the UNAIDS Country Director emphasized that this collective Malawian mentality must be extended to how we view HIV. In a country with one of the highest HIV prevalence rates in the world (estimated at 10.8% of the adult population), there is no doubt that we are all living with HIV.

For some of us, the virus is in our bodies. For others it is in our families, our workplaces and loved ones. It is without doubt in every community. It is in our decisions, our individual and collective consciousness, pain and hope.

Zidze pano ndi zatonse – we are all living with HIV here.

Believe, a fellow Canadian volunteer and I.
'Kulimbikitsa Umoyo ndi Umunthu Pamodzi' (Promoting Health and Dignity Together)

I would argue that even outside of HIV-endemic countries, we are all living with HIV. Although my home country of Canada has a low prevalence (estimated at .04%), HIV unmistakably highlights places in society where stigma and marginalization exist. For example, many of our prisons have prevalence rates comparable to Malawi. New immigrants from Africa and the Caribbean are at greatest risk of contracting the virus as well as injecting drug users, men who have sex with men and Aboriginal peoples.

It is not just in Canada where you find the most marginalized groups affected - the trend is the same in both developed and developing parts of the world. For example, HIV has an unmistakably female face in sub-Saharan Africa. Wherever you go, there is a correlation between disempowerment and HIV.

Why is it that the most disempowered people bear the burden of this virus?  

Let’s remember that from a purely physical angle, HIV is only a chronic, treatable condition. In many ways it is no different than hypertension or diabetes, in that you can live a long healthy life with HIV as long as you have access to treatment. So what is different about HIV that has spurred so much misunderstanding, stigma and fear?

I would argue a few things:

1) The memory of a time before the availability of anti-retroviral medication when HIV was a death sentence.

2) The fact that the virus is spread through the most intimate and silenced acts that we engage in as humans (sex, bringing life into the world, injecting drugs, violence).

3) HIV is so often a development issue because of stigma and socialized behaviours that put the most marginalized people at highest risk.  It is easiest to talk above a quiet voice.

HIV highlights the real illnesses that are plaguing our planet: systems of marginalization and exploitation that perpetuate inequality and poverty. HIV is how these illnesses often manifest in our bodies, our communities and our world.  

If we are all first and foremost human beings, we are all indeed living with HIV. Our children have been orphaned, our environment affected, our dignity compromised.

Choosing Change

Turning the tide on HIV isn’t just about telling people to use a condom or clean needle. It is about changing the very systems that perpetuate inequality - systems of which we are all a part.

I believe that the mentality of ‘otherness’ is a gash that is hurting our world and fueling the spread of HIV. I think that we each have the ability to heal this through consciously and lovingly deconstructing the systems that have caused so much pain to humanity.

Instead of allowing HIV to add to our sense of disconnectedness from one another, why can’t we use the virus as a challenge to remember that we are all interconnected?

Lets take this virus that affects us as a starting point for change by loving and honouring our bodies. In the same way our bodies are composed of individual cells, lets remember that we are each a part of a greater whole.

I have found comfort, purpose and a sense of solidarity by choosing to critically examine how my attitudes, behaviours and actions interact with systems of power and marginalization. It is an on-going challenge and I have barely scratched the surface on what it means to live consciously, but I keep trying because I believe that this is what is required to shift towards healing the causes of HIV. 

This year’s Candlelight theme of ‘Promoting Health and Dignity Together’ is a call to remember that which befalls one of us befalls all of us.

Nkosi Johnson also saw our commonality as human beings before HIV status. A South African boy born with HIV, he addressed the World AIDS Conference when he was 11 years old, the year before his death. He said: 

***

We are all the same.

We are not different from one another.

We all belong to one family.

We love and we laugh, we hurt and we cry, we live and we die.

Care for us and accept us. We are all human beings.

We are normal. We have hands. We have feet. We can walk, we can talk – and we have needs just like everyone else.

Don’t be afraid of us.

We are all the same.

***

Zidze pano ndi zatonse and goodnight.

'Her'

I have been trying to write this since International Women's Day in March.

I have abandoned this post many times for fear of saying the wrong thing or offending someone. I keep coming back to it and have decided just to go ahead and put it up.

Before I go any further, I must say that my reflections will carry the bias of a 20-something, white Canadian woman. I'm not an expert on Malawi or women's issues and have no authority to speak on either. My intention is to share my observations and learn through feedback. As always, corrections, dissenting opinions, comments and dialogue are welcomed.

As a woman and a feminist, I very much support activities that work to promote the empowerment of girls and women. I believe that there are horrific problems facing women and girls throughout the world and salute individuals and initiatives that work to chip away at this myriad of issues.

Living in Malawi, I am constantly confronted with the gross gendered disparities that exist here. For example, of the 38% of Malawians who are illiterate, 64% are women. Malawian women make up 52% of the population and 67% of them live below the poverty line. Sexual violence against women and girls is far too common, and HIV prevalence is much higher among women.

I have heard countless horror stories and resolved many times to write about the injustices faced by Malawian women. Every time I start to write, a funny thing happens. It feels inauthentic and exploitative and I abandon whatever I start.

I realized that the problems is that I've been trying to regurgitate the perception of 'the African woman' (as if there were only one) that I had somehow forged into my psyche when I was young.

Some long-ago, media endorsed Western perception of 'Her' wanted to perpetuate itself out of my pen. To take out dimensions of personality, circumstance and culture and put forth a simplified summary of who 'she' is. Tell a heart-wrenching sob-story of how marginalized she is and how hard she works.

It is true that many women here are marginalized and that many are very hardworking. While I have oftentimes found myself angered by the injustices that oftentimes come along with being a woman here, I realized that I don't see the Malawian women (only) in that way. There is so much more - heaps of beauty, intelligence, resilience, colour, personality, abundance...

Needless to say, I've been feeling a bit stuck - how can I talk about the 'bad stuff', without generalizing a huge demographic? How can I share my observations without dehumanizing and further marginalizing a group of people?

I don't have any answers, but from the ruins of my efforts to write about 'Her', this is what I came up with:

***

I've spent a long time trying to write about what happened to Her,
Thinking about why I can't find the words to tell you about Her
and I've come to this:

I am not the purple-blue shadows that were once forced onto my skin by the hands of a male partner who wanted to control me
or the self-imposed starvation that devoured my tweens as I tried to fit an imposed ideal of beauty
I don't define myself by the struggles I have faced in my experience as a woman

So why would I define her by hers?

I can't tell of a one-dimensional Woman
With all the tabloid-style sensationalism
That so many in the West too often hear

BECAUSE THAT IS NOT WHO SHE IS

and it is not my right to tell you about her
but a sacred privilege bestowed upon me
 
So I can no longer paint her picture as the
face on many a development agency website
try to stuff my words
into the false mold of the single-African story -
the plight of the poor Malawian woman
told by us without Her

If I told you she was raped
If I told you she is malnourished
If I told you that she wakes up at 4am to fetch water

I would be raping her of her humanness
Starving her of her dignity and
Drowning her with who the world thinks she is

If I didn't also tell you that her favourite subjects in school were math and science
and that her favourite chitenge is the one with the Manchester United logo on it
and that she could kick your ass any day at netball!

She wants to be a nurse
and adores the colour turquoise
and named her baby 'Chikondi' because of the love that she has for him

Indeed I would be doing us all a gross injustice
If I flattened her into one easily palatable dimension -
using certain parts of her story to selectively cast darkness
on all that she is

***

Malawian English

As is oftentimes the case when speaking a language that is not your mother tongue, Malawian English has some wonderful eccentricities.

Let me start by saying that the English spoken here is phenomenal. The vocabulary is varied and incredibly formal, oftentimes poetic. I am amazed at the ability of my friends and colleagues to express
themselves verbally and orally in their second, third or fourth language. I can't even seem to figure out how to express myself in French, let alone Chichewa.

Chichewa is the national language of Malawi, although there are many other languages from different ethnic groups. Chi-chewa is the language of the Chewa peoples', Chi-yao is 'the language of the Yao
peoples', you also have Chi-tonga, Chi-tambuka... you get the picture. English is called 'Chi-zungu' (azungu are foreigners).

A major feature of Chichewa is that a sound is not complete if it does not end in a vowel. This means that English words that have a hard consonant at the end oftentimes take an 'ee' sound in Chichewa tradition.

My friend Neev became Neev-y, a meeting is oftentimes a meeting-y, people don't think – rather they 'think-y', etc.

Another common pronunciation is interchanging Rs and Ls which I understand can be a hard distinction for many non native English speakers (in the same way I have trouble shoving 2 consonants together
to pronounce words like Nsima, Nkhota, Mzungu, etc).  My name frequently becomes ResRey, RasRai or RestRies, or some variation thereof. On one occasion I was buying a bus ticket and was asked for
my name for the ticket. When the ticket was issued to RAISRAI.

I rarely hear these linguistic nuances discussed by Malawians, but today was a very surprising exception.

I sat in on a very detail oriented 3 hour meeting this morning (on planning an HIV advocacy event, nothing to do with linguistics or English). By the end, all of the participants seemed tired and ready to be finished.

When asked for any final remarks, a man put up his hand and said: 'I do not claim to be an expert in the Queen's language. However, as a Malawian and a former English teacher, I must emphasize that the word is pronounced CONFIRM and not CONFILM. In the same way, it is a BIRD not a BILD. When I and R are together in a sentence, it makes anIIIRRRR sound, not ILL. In addition, it is called the Ministry of Health, not the Ministry of Health-y.'

The room erupted into laughter. To the right of me, my colleagues were practicing saying HEALTTTHHH without an 'EE' sound at the end. To the left, a colleague who jokingly mispronounces my name was saying 'Did you hear that Rastries?!'

The meeting chair then thanked the former English teacher for his addition, conFIRMED that there weren't any further comments, and closed the meeting.

Finding Hope

During my time in Malawi I’ve done a lot of questioning.

I’ve often wondered if I have imposed myself by coming here to work in development, a field that I know little about.

I’ve been questioning systems and structures of development and watching my optimism dissolve into a realization that they aren’t always all that they’re cracked up to be.

I’ve found out that the type of development that we imagine is happening is oftentimes broken and that we can’t expect that our best efforts will always translate into a full stomach or a sustainable solution.

I’ve discovered that we (myself and similar minded individuals) can’t possibly believe that the way that WE think development should work is absolutely right.  I’ve learned that the ‘dollars = higher moral ground’ equation deserves some serious questioning.

At times I have felt hopeless and helpless and have left the country twice during leave time to take a break.

One of these times I had the privilege of going to Ethiopia.

I will put details about my Ethiopia trip in another post, save for this.

I was sitting in a hostel in North Western Ethiopia when I met a man whose name I fail to remember but whose words are entrenched in my being.

He was Ethiopian, working as a professor in international affairs and development at a nearby University.

I asked him questions on certain aspects of development, curious to hear his thoughts and desperate to gain some perspective.

After answering my questions, he asked me what I thought.

I admitted to having little development knowledge or background.  

Admitted that I, like so many other well-wishers had hoped to ally and support my Malawian counterparts in their development work.

Admitted that I didn’t know anymore if I believed that international development can actually work

‘Why?’ he asked.

I found myself searching exasperated for an answer.

I finally sputtered ‘it is more difficult than I ever imagined…. the problems with development work are so BIG, the issues we are fighting are so BIG, the challenges are so BIG…’

We sat silently in the wake of my awkward admission. When I raised my eyes to meet his, he held my gaze and offered me one of the most profound gifts I have received in the form of a seven single syllabled words. 

‘That is why you need BIG hope’.

Software of the Mind - Part 5: Ideals of Beauty & Being Called FAT

I was recently out of town for work and sharing a room with a colleague. In addition to being a lovely woman, she is also a beautiful ‘big Malawian Mama’ (very round in stature).

Every evening when I put on my pajamas (a fitted t-shirt and yoga pants), she would tell me that I was getting fatter in Malawi. She would say something like ‘Malawi is making you soooooo FAT’ or ‘Every day you are looking FATTER and FATTTERR’….

So what does a 26 year old, weight sensitive, Canadian woman do when she is repeatedly called fat in Malawi?


Well, she does what many of my demographic do best - act passive aggressive. I would try to laugh it off and ask her ‘do you really think so?’ to confirm that she meant it. 


After confirmation I would then crawl into bed, choking back tears and feeling wounded. I would silently vow that tomorrow, I would eat less nsima, find time to do some exercise, stop myself from morphing further into the hideous, fat beast of a woman that I had become (sarcasm).

After the 3^rd day of hearing about my apparently exponential expansion, I couldn’t take it anymore.


I told her, in as much gentleness and restraint as I could muster, that in my culture, telling someone how fat they are is done to tell them they have a problem or in order to hurt their feelings.

She looked stunned and worried before explaining to me that she was paying me a compliment based on African ideals of beauty. 


I breathed deeply, let go of my stupid western fat-phobic conditioning, and thanked her for calling me fat.

Software of the Mind - Part 4: Verbal Expression

A few months ago, I was sent to a meeting on gender and HIV. The group was trying to decide upon the next steps required to launch their coalition.

I had (what I thought to be) a great idea, and decided to share it. I structured my argument in the same way I would in Canada:

I stated my point concisely (I think we need to do X first, followed by Y and then Z) and then provided the necessary rationale (because it would be more challenging to do Y before  X first for this reason, and it would be in our best interest to do Y before Z for this reason).

After what I thought to be a pointed intervention, everyone in the room looked at me perplexed, it was as if I had been speaking another language.

I listened as the conversation continued. It was clear that they had either completely disagreed with my recommendation, or I had failed to communicate it in a way that my colleagues would understand. 

I listened to how my colleagues formed their arguments. They didn’t actually directly say what they thought most of the time – rather they indirectly brought their colleagues to certain conclusions by asking questions and speaking around the answer.

After about half an hour, I decided to try again, as we were still on the same topic.

Instead of stating my point and then backing it with facts, I took my time.

I posed a question to my colleagues, then asked which task needed to come first, eluding to the reason why I thought one thing should come before the other.

My colleagues listened intently, and gave me the time I needed to finish. At the end, instead of the perplexed looks, tongues started wagging! ‘I agree with Chifundo’s (Chifundo is my Malawian name) point!’, ‘Let us proceed in this way!’…

I realized that it was the delivery, rather than the content of my message that was lacking.

Malawians communicate in a way that seems indirect to many Canadians.  Oftentimes the answer is not contained in an explicit statement of facts, but can be found within context, verbal and non-verbal cues and proverbs.  I find myself missing a lot and feeling very simple minded because of my difficultly in decoding proverbs (my mind feels lazy and seems to require explicitness and directness to understand things).

Proverbs roll of tongues here and are a great way of communicating and receiving consensus. I accidently dropped the old ‘Grass is always greener on the other side of the fence’ once and was surprised at the positive response and solidarity it rallied.

Another facet of Malawian communication is that although ‘no’ is technically in the vocabulary, it is rarely used.  As a direct Canadian, I have found this confusing when the actual answer to the question you are asking, if it were to be stated directly, is ‘no’.  If your ‘no’ detector goes off, you need to re-pose the question in a few ways to get to the root of the answer and determine if there is a ‘no’ at the bottom.

For example, if I ask my colleague if they are available to discuss something that day, they may say ‘yes, let’s discuss later today’. When I ask when they are available, they may indicate that they have a meeting that afternoon. If I then ask if they can meet that morning, they may tell me that yes, we can meet, but they have a report to write. It becomes clear that the meeting isn’t happening that day.

I may then ask if another time later this week would be better, and they will say yes and recommend a time when they are actually free to meet.