For this post, I’ll talk a little about some of the interesting things that happened to me this last week and some of the cultural things I have learned about Africa in my time here.
This week is my third week volunteering and for the most part I spent it in the treatment room and helping triage patients. This week also brought a Canadian couple who are going to volunteer at the clinic for two months (she is a nurse and he is a second year medical student) and a Malawian national whose family is from India who is studying nursing in Boston. She is also volunteering at the clinic but in a more limited manner because she has just started her nursing education. The one interesting thing I did do was go with Dr. Ivey to the Maula prison in Lilongwe for a clinic.
Maula prison is the big prison in Lilongwe and from what I heard the high security one. Before anyone gets all worried, we were only allowed in the medical buildings on the prison campus (which were provided by Irish Aid) and these were separated by tall wire walls with razor wire on top. We were not allowed to take pictures (because of an armed group who entered the prison and facilitated the escape of 5-6 prisoners last year) but because the prison is essentially open air with wire walls to separate the different section, you could see the other buildings.
The prison officials choose 70 men and about 30 women to be seen and many had scabies, wounds, and coughs which were probably the result of the overcrowding (there are 200 men sleeping in a building made for 60) and malnutrition (if your family doesn’t bring you food, then you get a serving of nsima (essentially polenta) once a day with a serving of beans at least once per week). The prisoners were there for murder, theft, illegal border crossers coming into Malawi, and any other crime you can think of. After visiting a prison during my time in Peru, it was a good experience to see another one in a foreign country.
My other interesting adventure this week was taking the minibus to the center of town. I waited about 30 minutes, got on, and then was let off about a half-mile away. Thankfully, one of the nurses at the clinic I know was also let off and she told me that there is a police stop up the road. This means that the minibuses going that way must not be overcrowded but ours was. We caught another one where I opened and closed the door for people got on and off and got let off myself about a half-mile from where I wanted to go. Essentially, a quick 10 minute car trip took over an hour and didn’t even get me to where I wanted to go.
In the center of town, I bought some gifts at the local craft markets (they call these curio shops) and kept telling the shop owner that he isn’t giving me a discount when were are bargaining. He never acknowledged my comment but his friends nearby laughed.
So far, Africa has been so different than what I expected. I came here figuring it would be similar to South America because they are both developing part so the world, use mainly cash, barter for everything, and because I look so different from the locals. What I have found is that I underestimated what I would encounter. First, being a mzungu (what they say for a white person or foreigner ;similar to gringo in South America) gets prices marked ridiculously up. This means that you never know what a fair price is. Unless you are a master bargainer, what to pay the mzungu markup, or actually know what the price should be, it is cheaper and easier to do most of the shopping at the supermarkets or fixed price gift shops. It makes it less interesting but sometimes makes it easier.
Another big difference is the lack of the sense of time. I was told soon after arriving to never trust an African who says to wait five minutes because that means nothing. You could wait 10 or 20 minutes or what you want may never come or happen. This is why public transport can be frustrating. The minibuses in Lilongwe and actual buses that run between the cities stop more or less anytime someone wants to get off or on. This means when you get on a long-distance bus, you never know when you will arrive.
The other interesting thing is the food. The general Malawian diet is nsima with relish, veggies, and occasionally meat. This is not eaten by people who can afford better. In Lilongwe, you can find find good food from India (because both India and Malawi were under British rule at some point), samosas galore, fried doughnuts, pizza, hamburgers, a drive-through KFC, and other western style food but there are not “Malawian” restaurants. From what I have been told, it is because there isn’t much more to Malawian cuisine except for nsima.
This next week will be another week of volunteering and in about two weeks, my sister will join me in Lilongwe for a month of traveling in Malawi.
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