My First Day

After all this time I am finally driving to the airport. I look out of the car seeing the big tall buildings of Amsterdam passing me by on the way to the airport, and I feel absurd. My girlfriend is next to me. We don’t talk much. I won’t get to see her, nor the tall buildings, (nor the fancy shower of my girlfriend’s mom’s place) for a long time.

6.00 am: Stop over in Addis Ababa, capitol of Ethiopia. I get out of the plane and follow the signs to the trans flights. Thinking that I won’t have to go through security again because it is connecting flight, I lie down, setting my alarm 40 min prior of departure. I wake up and a huge line has formed in front of me. I guess I do have to through security again, and I better start getting in line. Fortunately I have still 2 hours left. First lesson: leave a bit more time for things like that when you are traveling in Africa.

In the plane there are a lot of whites, and Indians, some Chinese. I knew there were many Chinese in Africa, but was surprised about the Indians (later I ask Martin and he says that there are many shop keepers and so on from India living in Malawi. Chinese as well, but you don’t really see them because they just work in the factories). I am seated next to a very nice Malawian lady called Eleanor. She writes down some good phrases to know in Chichewa with their translation. She is surprised and amused about what I already know about Malawi and the few things I know in Chichewa. Much of this knowledge comes from the book I read called The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind by William Kamkwamba (later more on this). She has never heard of it, but takes down the name for her and her Irish friends in Dublin to read (which is where she lives with her husband since many more than a decade). She can tell me many more interesting things about Malawi. When I say that Malawians usually marry very young she laughs and agrees. She says that she has had her son when she was very very young too, but refuses to tell me how young exactly, fearing that I might write a book someday about how I met a woman on the plane who got her son so young. It’s just a blog, I hope that’s ok, Eleanor, haha.

I am being picked up by Martin, Tobias, and his wife Dora. Tobias is also doing his civil service for another 7 weeks. He, his wife, and I live in the same building. We drive from Lilongwe to Salima, past many little towns and villages along the road. It is mainly just very small buildings where families and relatives live together.

We drive over to Henry’s house, he is the director of the school. The four of us drive on to the Livingstonia at lake Malawi for a evening stroll and dinner. We drive on Henry’s pick up, which in my preparatory security course we were told was very dangerous and we should never do. However, they also said riding bike was very dangerous and we should never do that. And guess what public transport is: It is also pickups with people sitting on the back, just about 5 times more. So I guess we are meant to stay indoors all the time ;)

Henry and Martin have a drink together, while Doris, Tobias, and I walk over to the other part of the lakeshore, where Malawians are washing some things and are bathing. A couple of kids come over and ask us to take a picture of them. After a couple of pictures they ask for money. We say we don’t have any and leave, the kids run behind us and scream something, until we realize that we forgot our shoes, which we set down when taking the pictures. I think to myself, that that was really nice and I want to give the guy something who brought me my shoes. Maybe it was a beginners mistake, but I take out my wallet – all the kids start screaming and I have about 15 around me with their hands towards me. I try to find an appropriate bill and try to find the guy who gave me my shoes, who was now at the back of this big group. I give him 500 kwacha and make a run for it, the 15 kids are after me. I make to the rich people part of the beach, and the kids stop at the boarder. Over here it is all quiet again. I am left with a bad feeling that is hard to describe. I have never been treated as such a rich person before in my life and I don’t like it. The silence on the other side is also really weird. Why are all the kids stopping? There must be some kind of punishment for them if they don’t. At the same time I appreciate this safety and calmness. I wouldn’t have given anything, but because he brought me my shoes which he also could have kept for himself or sold, I wanted to reward him. I am obviously still in my learning phase here. We decide that we should rather have a bag of sweets with us to give to the kids, instead of money.

We have a drink, and then head over to the restaurant to order food. Suddenly a man comes running up to as, saying that they need a doctor. We run over, and a child is lying on the ground, two people are doing CPR. It is very hectic, people are shouting, the German doing CPR turns around and screams that we should get a doctor. Feeling useless at the site, I walk away trying to find a doctor. The girl is getting rushed to a nearby hospital, we gather again at the table. We later hear that she has died. We hear the cries of the parents receiving the message. It was horrible. We just sit there staring to the table asking ourselves if there was anything we could have done. CPR was already in progress.

My first day in Malawi and somebody dies.

This set the tone for the evening. We do make some conversation but it remains at the back of our heads. Henry tells us, that in Malawi they say “it was written”. If we would have gone somewhere else to eat, this girl also would have died, but we certainly would have spend a very different kind of night. The proximity and knowledge of the event and our own uselessness and helplessness leave us with an awful feeling.

We ride on the pick up to the school campus now. It is very dark, but there are still many people on their way, by foot, bike or car. Except for the cars, none of these people have a light and are sometimes very hard to see. Sometimes, even the cars only have one working light. The have some tricks though: To show the wideness of their vehicle they blink to the side where they don’t have a light. The African night sky is really beautiful.

Finally we are at our teacher’s house. It is very big and we have everything that we need: electricity, a bed and mattress, and even a toilet with flushing water. A luxury home for Malawian standards. We do hear bats, however, and in my room, I can’t close the window completely. The biggest spider that I have ever seen makes its way into my room and I scream like a little girl. I think it was more afraid by that than me, because it turned around and went outside again. Tomorrow I will have to go to the shop and buy some mosquito net to put there. Since quite some time I am also hearing this noise of a mosquito outside my mosquito net (at least I hope it’s outside). I hope there aren’t any loopholes in my net, especially since I am not taking preventive medication against Malaria. My bed is a double, sleeping diagonally in it gives me just enough space for my length. Usually it is no problem is my feet are sticking out, but here with the necessity of a mosquito net it is a big problem. Any skin touching the net will be attacked by mosquitos.