Two Years, All Seasons in Malawi

Having experienced two complete cycles of the seasons in Malawi, I'm ready to make a comparison between them.

Hot Season
Pros - laundry dries quickly, less bugs, house smells better (no musty smell), don't have to pee as much so less time in the chim, mangos at the end of the season, floor and dishes dry quickly, cleaner walk to school (no mud), vegetables are cheap and plentiful, bananas too, lots of daylight, easy to solar charge when the power goes out

Cons - it's ridiculously hot, I get very thirsty so I have to fill up my water filter a lot more, too hot to boil water or make porridge or drink tea, long sweaty nights so it is difficult to sleep, wind is very loud this time of year which is also difficult to sleep through, need to water garden everyday, so much sun

Rainy Season

Pros - very green and pretty everywhere, pineapples are cheap and plentiful, showers on tin roof sound nice, more frogs and toads and butterflies and flowers, can collect rainwater for cooking and bathing and drinking, thunder and lightning are pretty exciting, cool spiders (or is that a con?)

Cons - vegetables are expensive and mould quicker, water shortages (since mud blocks the pipes upstream), higher risk of cholera, hot and muggy when not raining so it can be difficult to sleep, mosquitos and biting bugs aplenty, cockroaches get up earlier and stay out later, risk of snakes in the grass, flood/storm damage, more power outages, house smells musty, everything takes forever to dry, muddy feet walking to school, mud everywhere, rain on tin roof at school makes it impossible to teach (or is that a pro?), rain on tin roof sounds incredibly loud and makes it impossible to do anything indoors, slipping in the mud as I go outside to use the chim, using chim with an umbrella, leaking roof, condensation with heat so roof drips on me while I sleep, pretty much impossible to solar charge when the power goes out

Cold Season
Pros - I get to wear layers and drink tea and eat porridge and the warmth is wonderful, I sleep really well all bundled up in my layers and blankets and sleeping bag, less wildlife and bug activity this time of year, cool season crops like onions and kale do well in my garden, sweet potatoes are in season, lots of time to read, the sky is often overcast and looks really pretty, nandolo (pigeon peas) are blooming and in season

Cons - it's dark about 12 hours every night, so I have less time to lesson plan and do chores, lots of colds and coughs this time of year, laundry and dishes take longer to dry, more difficult to solar charge when the power goes out, hard to get out of bed in the morning to go to school because it is so cold and dark

The Verdict
After two years, I can definitely say my favorite season is Cold Season. Except for early in the mornings, it is really more Cool than Cold, so it is the perfect weather. And I love wearing layers and drinking tea and having an excuse to go to bed early and read. As an Education Volunteer I get to experience three Cold Seasons during my service since we arrive in June, so I feel very blessed for that.

Hunger Season

This is a really difficult time of year in Malawi. It is known as Hunger Season because people are really hurting for food this time of year. The July maize harvest is long gone and any extra cash from selling crops is gone as well. Plus planting just started with the rains in December, so nothing is ready to harvest yet.

I don't know if it is worse this year, or if it is just that my Chichewa is better and I know more people now, but I clearly see the effects of Hunger Season around me.

At home, where I have a giant mango tree nearby and a papaya tree in the yard, I have people coming by almost daily to ask if they can collect green unripe mangos to eat. Mostly children, but my adult neighbors and even some strangers have come by too.  At first I tried to get people to leave a few green ones so that they can ripen (fresh ripe mangos in my yards are one of my favorite things about living here), but I gave up on that. For one thing, in the village there is no tomorrow, so a green mango in the hand is worth two in the tree. People need food today. The other reason is that it did no good anyhow. People just waited till I went to school and hopped my fence and took them. So I'd rather they go to the honest neighbors that ask me.

(This single ripe mango was so high up in the tree. It was torturing

In the market I notice more people asking for money. In fact my neighbor has asked for money to buy food a couple times this month. Just small stuff, like money to buy tomatoes and an egg. At school a teacher told me the students are not staying afterschool to study because they haven't eaten anything all day. Also I have noticed students sleeping in class recently, but who knows, maybe they are just bored.

I know I can't solve the problem, but I try to do little things, like sharing food with the kids that come over to read books and practice English. I always have extra and it feels good to share.

Mango Alipo

(Translation: mangos are available. In Chichewa "mango" is both singular and plural, and "alipo" means available or around or here.)

Even though I have been eating mangos for a couple months now, it hasn't felt like mango season because the giant mango tree in front of my house didn't have any ripe fruit yet.

All that has changed now. Throughout the day I hear ripe mangos falling into my yard. And I find this:

They lay in the grass like yellow Easter eggs, just waiting to be eaten. Which I am doing my best to comply with, but it's difficult. (What a great problem to have, right?) Today about eight mangos fell to the ground. I grabbed a couple for myself and gave the rest to the kids. They love them! I'm eating them Malawian-style now, mango skin and all except the pit. They are so good!

There aren't too many strangers climbing the tree to get ripe mangos now. The kids told me the men did that last week while I was away. Mostly the women come with long branches and bamboo stalks to knock out the ripe mangos, or the kids throw rocks and unripe mangos to knock out the ripe ones. It's a big old mango party here!

I was thinking about making something with them, like mango coffee cake, but we're having a bit of a heat wave now so the thought of standing over a fire for hours is not appealing. Anyways, I'm too busy marking exams and preparing final grades for school. Our new term starts on Monday, 4 January (that's how we write dates here). But there are still a fair amount of mangos to ripen, so maybe later this week.

And a Happy New Year

Hello, 2016! This year will start in Malawi for me and end in the good old US of A. It's kinda hard to believe.

New Years Eve in the village is like a big party. There was music late into the night, and people were out and about, laughing and talking into the wee hours.

When the kids came by this morning, we all wished each other a Happy New Year in English, and talked about our Christmases. Then we decorated a little  Christmas tree, since I didn't have time to do it before I left for the holiday. They got a little carried away with the stickers.

Then we collected fallen mangos, practiced some English vocabulary with the flash cards I made, and I gave then some biscuits. Cuz it's a holiday after all!

In the afternoon I went to my neighbor's house to chat. They were preparing their New Years meal of chicken and rice. These are both expensive foods for villagers so they are usually only served on special occasions. They gave me a small piece of chicken to eat since I said I was making beans and rice for dinner. It was boneless and soft, and I have no idea what part it was except it wasn't a wing or breast. They use the whole chicken here, feet and all. It was well-cooked and tasty. Then they gave me a mandazi (donut) to take home with me.

For dinner I made lentils and brown rice and veggies. It took a long time to cook on the hot plate, but it was worth it. And I made extra so I could share some with my neighbors too. They said it was "kucoma" (tastes good).

Oh, and this evening I saw the first toad of the year! It was two inches long. So cute-- look at it's little feet!

10 Best Things about Hot Season

We have had some pretty hot days here in southern Malawi the past couple weeks. Like today. And hot days mean long, sweltering, sleepless nights. Which makes me pretty cranky.

It's not all bad though, as I try to remind myself. So here are the 10 best things about Hot Season, which I will miss when the rains come.

1) My laundry dries really fast. I can start laundry at noon if I want to still manage to have a few loads all dry on my clothesline before dark. I can even (gasp) do laundry afterschool if I want to.

2) My dishes dry really fast too. I can wash a plastic plate and it will be dry 10 minutes later. I don't have many dishes so this is pretty nice.

3) I don't have to heat my bath water. This is double nice because it means less work, and a cold bath water on a hot day is pretty much the only way to cool off in the village.

4) Mangos! Mangos! Mangos! Hot Season means mangos are cheap and plentiful. I love the big green ones the best. When it's too hot to cook, a mango or two make a nice snack.

5) (Relatively) clean feet. Yes my feet are always dirty because everything is covered in dirt in the village and it's impossible to get truly clean. But compared to the mud of Rainy Season, my feet are pretty clean this time of year.

6) I can actually mop. During Rainy Season and Cold Season it takes so long for the floor to dry that I don't bother mopping. (Sssh, don't tell the amayis). But this time of year I can mop and the floor dries within 30 minutes. Which means my feet stay cleaner too.

7) Water is pretty reliable this time of year. It's nice to not have to worry about that.

8) So much daylight. I like having all this time to do things. It really helps with lesson planning too.

9) Lots of sun to charge my solar stuff with

10) Very few mosquitos. Hot Season is more wasp and bee and fly season. I still get the occasional mosquito bite at site, but they don't really get going till the rains come. So all this heat and dryness has it's upside.

What's in Season: September

The seasons, they go round and round. I've been in Malawi over a year now, so I've been seeing the seasons come and go. At this point Cold Season is transitioning to Hot Season. Maybe it's Warm Season? It basically feels like a typical Spring in California, with mostly hot days, but cool mornings and evenings. There is a little more daylight too which is nice.

This time of year is really windy in Mulanje. I'm listening to it blow outside right now. It kinda sounds like waves. The wind has really been drying out the ground, including my garden, which is unfortunate because we are going through a bit of a drought here and water is scarce. I had water today, but not the last two days. So my garden is suffering.

My papaya tree is doing just fine though. The kids pointed out the first ripe papaya the other day. It was a little underripe for my taste, but they were so excited that I let them pick it. The papayas are really big and plentiful this year.

Besides papaya, sweet potatoes are also in season, and can be bought along the highway in my trading post. I also saw the first green mangos for sale in the market. They're small still. The kids eat them with salt.

The Last Mango

Today my mango tree gave up its last mango. You can still find mangos at the market, but mango season is definitely coming to a close.

How do you get a ripe mango out of a tall mango tree? If you are me, you patiently wait for the wind and rain to knock it to the ground. But the neighbor kids are definitely not patient. So when they came over to my house today and spied the yellow mango in the tree, they had a plan. And this was it:

And guess what-- it worked!

In terms of seasonal produce, I see lots of pineapples and a few mangos for sale by the road in my village. Bananas are harder to find, and the price is going up. (K300 for a bunch-- that's over $0.50!) Tomatoes and onions are still available, but they are small and a lot more expensive too. I did find bell peppers the other day for K20 apiece. They were crisp and cheap and really made my dinner taste fantastic. They are definitely my favorite vegetable (even though they are actually fruits in botanical terms, but whatevs). Which is why I saved the seeds and plan to plant my own tomorrow. Yum!

What's In Season - December

Oh yeah, it's pineapple (nanazi) season! I bought this giant pineapple for K300, so less than $1. You know a pineapple is good when you can eat the core too.

I bought this pineapple on Black Friday at the Boma market, along with green mangos, avocados, tomatoes, green beans and bananas.

On Small Business Saturday I supported my local village market by buying onions, eggs and a few sheets of white copy paper. Doing my part, even all the way here in Malawi.

What's in Season - November

I love going to the bigger markets in the neighboring villages to check out the new produce.

This month I have found lychees, avocados(!), these stone fruits that look like green apricots, okra, bell pepper and green beans. And of course the always available tomatoes, onions and bananas.

The lychees taste very sweet and much less slimy than I remember them. I shared some with the neighbor kids and they immediately spit out the seeds and took them home to keep for planting, so I guess they don't grow around here.

The avocados are delicious. The peel is really thin and you can peel it with your hands. The seed is usually loose inside and rolls around. The flavor is a little bit sweet, so I can see why people might eat them with sugar here. But i'm all about the guacomole. Mmm...

Oh yeah, did I mention the mangos? There are two kinds of mangos available now. There are the small yellow/orange ones and then the large green ones. They are both delicious, but I like the green ones better. They are less stringy and have a milder sweetness.

Here is a photo for comparison:

Market Day

Today I went with a couple teachers from my school to the msika (trading post) in a different village for Market Day. In the larger trading posts they have "market days" on certain days each week when there are a lot more vendors and you can get a greater diversity of items.

Besides the usual onions, tomatoes, sweet potatoes and greens that I typically see at my local market, they also had carrots, okra, eggplant, green peppers and green beans. Plus, they had fruit! I saw ripe mangos and two kinds of bananas. I've been pretty low on fruit the past two weeks so I jumped at these.

Guess what else I got-- macadamia nuts!  I think these come from the Thyolo area which isn't too far away. It would be fun to visit that area and see how they are grown.

When I got home the first thing I did was go for the mango. And... it was delicious! Very sweet, lots of flesh, and only a little bit stringy. I'm sporting a "mango mouth" right now where the fruit touched my skin while I was eating it. (Mangos, particularly the peel, contain a chemical that can be a skin irritant in some people). Totally worth it though.

Masamba ndi Zipatso

There is a lot of locally available fresh food in Malawi. You can find tomatoes and onions year-round. I have also seen green peppers, small orange hot peppers, sweet potatoes, Irish potatoes, carrots, beans, peas, okra, cabbage and rape (Brassica napus) at the local village markets. As we are just going into the hot season, I expect to see even more as the year goes on. And those were just the vegetables! For fruits, there are oranges, apples (from South Africa), bananas, papayas, guavas and my favorite-- pineapples! Most of these are seasonal, but I should be able to get bananas year-round.

Check out the spoils of a recent shopping trip:

Oh yeah, and one more fruit-- mangos! Mango season starts around December. I have heard tales of the wondrous, large Malawian mangos, and I am very excited to try them.

There are small mangos here too. A teacher from my school brought me a few green mangos and suggested I try thinly slicing them and eating them with salt. I find the unripe mango to be pleasantly tangy, and I will definitely eat more of these. I did not care for it with the salt though.

(For the record, I did not use all that salt. It just poured out too fast from the giant bag.)

So while I am waiting for mango season, I can munch on a few of these mini-mangos, along with bananas and pineapples. Yum!

Chichewa Lesson

fruits - zipatso

banana - nthochi

pineapple - nanazi

mango - mango

apple - apozi

orange - lalanje

Vegetables - masamba

tomato - matimati

onion - anyezi

cabbage - kabichi

carrot - kaloti

okra - therere

peppers - tsabola

peas - nsawawa