Chakudya Cha M'mawa ku Malawi

Here are photos of some of my breakfasts from homestay in Malawi:

Ngaiwa (whole-grain maize) porridge mixed with sinjiro (peanut flour) and sugar, tea

Rice, tea

Potatoes

Chigumu, also known as African cake. It is made with maize flour. Amayi usually makes this in the evening and then serves it for breakfast the next morning. Despite it's name, it is less like a cake and more like cornbread. There is very little sugar in it. Sometimes mashed nthochi (banana) is added, which makes the cake a little more sweet and moist.

Chipisi (French fries):

Other typical breakfasts (not pictured):

- roasted peanuts and tea

- white bread and tea

Care Packages

Last week I received two care packages, and it made my day! See how happy I am? That's because getting mail from home is wonderful!

So far I have had three packages mailed to me, and everything has arrived safely. I know Coalee has received several packages sent to her also. We have both received letters too (including from each other). So it seems like the mail systems in both Malawi and Moldova are pretty reliable after all, which is great.

If you want to send us a care package, please do! It is so nice to get something from home when we are so far away. If you need ideas, here are a few suggestions:

Coalee in Moldova

Granola bars (Lara bars & kashi bars)

Markers

Polaroid camera & film

Mini portable speaker for iPhone

An adult wooden rocking chair kit that I can build myself

Sticky tack, to hang pictures on the wall

Stacy in Malawi

Photos of you!

Duct tape, in cool colors/designs

Clif Bars, Lara Bars

Trail mix

Dried fruit

Sugar-free gum

0.7 mm pencil lead

Sticky tack, to hang pictures on the wall

Chocolate that doesn't melt, like plain M&Ms or Nutella or cocoa powder

Anything you feel like sending!

Munabadwa Liti?

In Chichewa, that means "When were you born?" You answer, "Ndinabadwa pa 9 October 1940", for example. (That is the birthday of my favorite Beatle. Guess which one...)

When we learned this in Chichewa class back in June, I went home and asked my amayi (host mother) when everyone's birthdays were. She knew everyone's birthday except my middle brother Roddy. She knew he was born in August, but couldn't remember the day. That might sound strange to an American, but here in the village they do not celebrate birthdays. However, this seemed like a fun opportunity to share a little about my culture, so I made plans to do a little birthday celebration for Roddy.

On August 3rd I asked my abambo when Roddy's birthday was. He told me it was August 4th, the very next day! That meant I had only one day to prepare.

The next day I made Roddy a birthday card and grabbed a few strawberry candies I had brought from America. After dinner I presented him with the card and sang the Happy Birthday song to him. My amayi joined in at the end. Then I gave him the candies.

He gave one of the candies to abambo, one to amayi, and one to his older brother. My amayi split hers up, saving a piece for my little sister who had fallen asleep. A few minutes later a couple neighbor boys came over, and she gave them part of her candy to have as well.

It is amazing how communal this culture is. Sharing is not even a thought. It's almost automatic. Could you imagine sharing a small piece of hard candy with three other people?

After she finished the candy, my amayi mentioned that her birthday was the next day. I knew it wasn't though, as she had told me her actual birthday when I first asked, so I called "bodza" * on her. She laughed, and said sort of apologetically, "I like sweeties." **

*Bodza - translates to "lie", but it has a more playful connotation depending on the tone, so here it is more like "fib" or "I know you are joking"

**Sweeties - sort of a generic term for candy

Food or Pet?

Here at homestay, there are quite a few creatures sharing my living space (the outside part). Try to guess which of these animals are considered food and which are a pet here in my rural village in Malawi.

A) Mbudzi (goat)

B) Chivala (grasshopper)

C) Mkhuku (chicken)

D) Mbira (Rat)

The answer is, they are all for food, sort of. My family eats goat, chicken, beef (not pictured), mice (not pictured) and grasshoppers. However, they haven't eaten these goats or chickens during my stay. The goats are kept in an elevated pen near the house, and the chickens sleep in a coop adjacent to the kitchen. My host brothers are raising the rats in an underground pen to sell, and they said some people eat them, but my family does not.

And the grasshopper? My host brother said he was planning to cook them and eat them today. Yum.

Bread Day

In Malawi PST we love Mondays. Why? Because it is the day PC gives us trainees bread, peanut butter and fruit. It probably doesn't sound too exciting, but when you eat nsima everyday, it is pretty amazing. Bread and peanut butter fills us up when we need a snack or can be a meal when we have been feeling sick and can't eat our regular meals (which has not happened to me in a while, luckily). 

The peanut butter provides a little extra protein in our diets. Peace Corps provides meat to our families three days a week plus eggs and soya pieces, but my family still has some days where we will eat all three meals without any protein. Plus, the protein portions of our meals are very small. So a little protein boost is nice.

The fruit is also especially welcome. Fruit is pretty scarce in the diets of our host families this time of year. They eat small, green oranges that grow on the trees here, which were pretty sour in July, but are finally getting sweeter. Small tangerines just finished ripening last week. (My host brother got stung by a bee while harvesting a bunch of tangerines.) You can find small bananas and apples at the outdoor market in the city, but we do not go there very often. Plus, the apples are from South Africa so they are pretty expensive. Of course, this is the "cold season" in Malawi, so the real fruit is on the way. Papayas, mangoes and pineapple--oh my!

Today we each received two apples with our bread and peanut butter, and they are my favorite fruits right now. So happy bread day to you!

Spaghetti Night

A few of the us trainees decided to cook American meals for our host families a couple weeks ago. We bought spaghetti in the store in the Boma over the weekend (695K) and picked up tomatoes and onions at the local trading post.

The day I decided to cook, I went home and found my amayi already cooking the chicken for dinner. I could see all the chicken pieces in the pot, including the feet. I told her I wanted to make spaghetti, and she got excited and said yes! And then she said we would eat it after nsima. Well, of course we would. After all, it's not really a meal without nsima.

I set a large pot to boil over the fire while I chopped the tomatoes and onions. There is no cutting board so I had to just hold them in my hands  as I cut, but the knife is pretty dull so it is relatively safe. Kind of difficult to cut evenly though. My amayi came by and tried to get me to break the noodles in half before cooking, but I told her they were supposed to be kept long and she let me be.

Roddy and Vinny, my host brothers, were very excited about the spaghetti and decided to help out with the cooking. Which is sort of unusual in this culture, as females do all the housework, but since my host sister is only three, my brothers do a little of the household chores, like sweeping and clearing the dinner plates, and sometimes helping out with cooking.

As it was dark by this time, my host brothers held the flashlight for me so I could see what I was doing. I cooked the noodles, and then it was time to remove it from the fire. Mavuto (problem). There are no oven mitts here. I tried to use my skirt to grab the scalding pot, but the flames were  going up the sides of the pot a little, and I was afraid it might catch fire. Just then, amayi swooped in and grabbed the hot pot with her bare hands and set it aside. Amayis have super hands that can withstand intensely hot temperatures. 

Time to cook the sauce. I sautéed the onions in oil, then added the tomatoes and a generous bit of salt. (In Malawi, salt is the primary seasoning and is used in generous quantities when cooking. And then again when eating). I let that cook, and assigned my brother Roddy the task of stirring it.

Meanwhile, I had to strain the noodles. I still couldn't lift the pot, so Vinny dumped the water out for me. By this time the tomatoes had cooked down and the "sauce" was ready. I mixed the two in the large pot and brought it into the house for dinner. A little light on sauce, but it would do.

Everyone ate their nsima and chicken first, except me. I just took a bit of chicken, and then I tried the spaghetti. Then everyone dug in. We served it with the big flat nsima spoon, so it was funny watching the big portions of slippery noodles slide right off the spoon and back into the pot as people tried to serve themselves. We don't have any forks, so we all ate with our hands, which was pretty fun too. My amayi sent a bowl over to the neighbor's house, and then two neighbor boys came over and tried some spaghetti too. I found out later that one of the boys, Leonard, had just tried the spaghetti at Mary Beth's house across the way, so he was turning into a spaghetti-eating expert.

Here is a photo of my plate of spaghetti and chicken, lit by lantern light.

Results:

- Everyone seemed to enjoy the spaghetti, and had second helpings.

- I had a nsima-free meal, which is always a nice change

- I had fun cooking with my brothers

Cultural cooking exchange -- success!

Cell phones in Malawi

Even here in a rural village in central Malawi, I can use my cell phone. Some of the people in the village have them, including my abambo. They are the older phones like you saw in the U.S. ten years ago though, not Smartphones. Interestingly, you do not see land lines here. That technology with all of its expensive infrastructure never took hold here, and now that there are cell phones it never will.

The main cell phone service providers in Malawi are Airtel and TNM. I think TNM works better in some remote areas of the North and South, but Airtel works well most places, including here in the Kasungu district.

Setting up a cell phone with either provider is easy. You buy a SIM card for K200 (about US $0.50) from a TNM or Airtel vendor. Once you set up the phone, you buy data and minutes with little scratch-off cards from Airtel and TNM distributor stands in the Boma or your nearest trading post. They come in denominations of K50, K100, K500 and K1000. The data expires after one month while the talk/text minutes never expire. No contract needed.

I had a problem this week where I used up my data very quickly, and I was not able to get to the Boma to buy more. So I am behind in my blog posting, which I plan to remedy this weekend.

In terms of service, you can get 3G in the Bomas and cities. Here in our village, I get the "E" service. (I can't remember what it stands for.) Basically, I can text, check email and post to the blog, but everything else takes a LONG time. To the point where browsing the web is nearly impossible because it usually times out. So I can't visit websites or load emails with lots of photos, at least not until I get to the city. I have a lot of photos I want to post to the blog, so I will do that when I am in a 3G zone.

Tsalani bwino (stay well).