Malawian of the Moment – Rhabson Mhone

 So on the day I went to visit Prince in his munda, I ran into the old man of the Mhone village while he was working his plot of land.

Rhabson Mhone

As I was walking down the back side of the mountain I live under, I came upon him sitting under a simple thatch roof that he takes shelter at during days he works the fields.



Taking care of his paprika.

 

I kid you not, he was rubbing two sticks together to make a fire. This guy.

Almost there.

 

 

Success!

 

You wanna know why he was starting a fire? To smoke a cigarette. Not just any cigarette, but one made from locally grown tobacco and hand rolled in a cornhusk. Naturally.

Hand Rolling a Cigarette

 

He calmly looks at me and says “I don’t buy matches”.

Enjoying the fruit of his labors.

 

I sat down to talk with Sekulu, and to watch. (Sekulu is the Chitombuka word for grandfather, and the way you greet any elderly man in order to show respect)

We ended up talking in ‘tombuka for over an hour. He talks so fast and so eagerly that I typically understand only about 10% of the conversation, but he never bats an eye. No matter how many times I sheepishly laugh and tell him “Nindapulikiska” (I didn’t understand) he just keeps rolling, saying whatever happens to be on his mind.

One of the things I love about him is that he is always laughing, always happy, always talking away.

While we chat he shows me what wood he uses to start a fire, and what dried leaves make the best kindling for the first embers.

The tools.

 

Prep work

 

 

Ready to get started.

 

I give it a shot and with considerably more effort succeed in making smoke but am promptly rewarded with two sizeable blisters. He did it without batting an eye.

What a bad ass.

I later find out that none of his sons or grandchildren have learned this skill from him – undoubtedly one skill of many that will fall by the wayside in coming years as old cultural traditions and knowhow fail to be passed to the next generation.

 

I enjoyed our time so much that I came back the next day to take photos, I was rewarded with an interview when one of his sons that speaks a little bit of English came by and joined us.

The answers are not verbatim, but based an aggregate of responses as a result of the tedious translation process.

- How old are you?

He thinks for a moment and then responds “I was born in 1939.” This is pretty common in Malawi, as there is little value placed on a person’s actual age and most people only keep track of the year they were born. I quickly do the math – He will turn 76 this year, and is easily one of the oldest members of the community.

Unprompted, he then follows up with comments about how few people lived here then, how ‘clothes’ weren’t around - the adults all were hunters and wore animal skins. The children too, if they wore anything at all.

He talks about training to throw a spear at game, and about how the road was already built but was much smaller then and how so rare it was to have visitors. He remembers walking to the nearest trading center 3 days away in Livingstonia.

- How different is the park now?

First he talks about how much game there was. “There used to be lions and more leopards and hyena. There used to be cheetahs, more elephants. So many zebra”.

Rhinos have been gone for so long that I need do draw a picture of one in order to get an answer. “Oh yes! They were here too, but many more in vwaza, they have been gone for a long time. Some people from Zambia were coming to hunt them with guns”

“The Eland herds were so big then. Sometimes three or four hundred at a time” (it is now exceptionally rare to see more than 5-10 at once, even though a group of over 100 was recently spotted on the high plateau.)

He mentions being kicked out of the park when the country established it and removed all of its inhabitants. He chuckles when I ask if people were angry about this.

“Of course they were angry, but it was with President Kamuzu Banda. We couldn’t say or do anything against the government then – it was a one party system you know.”

He talks about how the crop system was different then (few people grew maize and now few people grow anything else).

He talks about his family and marriages, and then he buttons up a bit. I can tell it is time for the questions to end.

He rolls another cigarette while we finish our conversation more casually - After an hour or so the English skills of our translator have been exhausted and we decide we will continue the chats another time.

 

I leave him and his son to get back to weeding his paprika crop. The more time I spend with this man, the more I like him.

Malawian of the Moment - What is it?

So for those of you following along at home, you may remember that I am working on a photo project of portraits of interesting people I meet in Malawi. The first photo that inspired this whole idea is this guy here.

I dig it.

It is my first time doing something like this, but having a whole year left in my service and an abundance of time at site, I thought it would be a great opportunity to take on something a little bit artistic and interesting to me.

All of the portraits are going to be in black and white, because I think that when you see a picture of someone’s face without color, you really focus on the content of the image and come up with your own idea of who the person is. I think that a lot of people tend to gloss over this in a color image.

With black and white your brain has to do extra work filling in the missing information, and maybe it adds some along the way. At least that is how it works for me - I feel more pulled in.

So while I am working on this, I thought I would tie it to interviews of some of the most significant of those humans I meet along the way. The questions from person to person will differ, and it doesn’t have to only be Malawian citizens – just people that are contributing to the social landscape of the country, Peace Corps volunteers and Expats included.

So let’s get started, shall we?

Line Dancing

As in it seems like I take 2 steps forward, and then one step back (or 2 or 3 Arrrgh…..)

At least that is how work feels for me at the moment. (pic not mine)

After GTOT in Lilongwe to prep for the new trainees arrival, I had a scant 11 days back at site before having to turn back around and head all the way back south. I am now in the office ready to greet them as they come off of the plan tomorrow. I’m only just a little bit excited.

 

Uh…….. more like….

I CAN’T FLIPPING WAIT!!

In the mean time I have been dealing with a variety of issues at site. Right now, things are ‘Just OK’ 

:/

Malawians use the phrase 'just ok' to reflect being very good or very happy, and it has become a running joke amongst volunteers as we use the phrase very differently stateside.

Before I left for GTOT my Village Headman told me he was going to get the village together to work on the contour ridges and tree planting for a new woodlot I had just finished training him on how to build.

I was OVERJOYED when I returned to find out that they had in fact gotten together and done the work of digging ridges, planting with vetiver grass to control erosion, and planting seedlings.

AWESOME!

Ok, so that is about the greatest thing ever to happen in a Peace Corps service right? (slight exaggeration here, but bear with me – It is the little things that get you excited) I was blown away that the work happened and was self-directed. I heard about it before I saw it, and overall they did a great job. There is a little bit of work left to round the woodlot out, but damn, good job team Thazima.

Unfortunately everyone I normally work with is pretty busy working the fields right now, especially the tobacco growers as now is the time they start pulling leaves for drying.

I was feeling prrrretty bored and had not checked out the tree nursery in well over a month – the last time I was there was when they were supposed to finish sharing out the last of the seedlings for the season.

I show up and find the fence collapsed, weeds overgrown, and about 100 seedlings that have rooted into the ground, never being shared out.

CMON GUYS! FFFFFFFffffffffffffffffffffuck…… sigh. okay.

 

This image pretty much sums up the two immediate emotions I may have experienced. (images borrowed from teh interwebz)

I wanted to scream and cuss out loud, but didn’t. Instead I sulked back to my house, had a few glasses of homemade bucket wine and proceeded to head up to the top of Thazima Mountain to sit on my favorite rock and think.

I don’t know about you, but sometimes I find that having a mild buzz can help me mull things over a bit better, and I wanted some time to myself.

I had not seen my main counterparts in almost a month (mostly my fault traveling so much and all) and both of them were pretty involved with the tree nursery. This may seem like a small thing to get bummed over, but when you spend so much time working towards something AND it is so central to all of the other work you want to do in the community, it is pretty easy to get frazzled when things aren’t going quite right.

It honestly feels like no one seems interested in working with me right now!

This is where I ended up:

This is the vista I seek out when I want some time to myself.

I had a lot running through my mind- personal stuff, work with the park and community, bigger work at the national level in the coming year (Camp TIECH, connecting the bee group with OVOP), and lastly the fact that I would be leaving site soon soon for yet another 3 weeks first as part of PST and then later as part of spending time with my parents. (Can't Wait!)

I came down the mountain a few hours later feeling better.

I made a point over the next week to talk with two of my counterparts about the next 14 months of my service: what they wanted to do in the community, what role I would be playing, and how they would be stepping up to take the lead in all of the activities.

Emmon (my neighbor and a local Health Services Assistant) and I sat in my house after dinner one night and talked for the better part of an hour.

It was a great conversation. We covered all the bases and he had a really great perspective on what was to come, including the immediate work needed on the tree nursery.

I even cried a little bit at one point as we talked about what my service was beginning to mean to me in this second home of mine.

I really am starting to truly and deeply love this community.

The next day after lunch I went looking for Prince in his tobacco fields so that we could have the same talk.

On my way there I ran into Sekulu Mhone. His real name is Rhabson, but Sekulu is the term for grandfather in Chitombuka, and at 76 he truly is that. That experience was unique in and of itself, so much so that I am doing a separate blog post on him and our talks.

You can find it HERE as he is the first person I will explore in my Malawian of the Moment

After conversing with Sekulu, I found Prince and family in his tobacco shed tying leaves for hanging. His 2 year old daughter calls me by name with a huge smile when she sees me.

Over the next few hours I sat with him and helped with the work while we chatted. A huge thunderstorm rolled in on top of us, and we spent the time huddled next to a small fire, shaking with each monstrous thunderclap. We had  much the same conversation as I did with Emmon.

As the rains dwindled and dusk set in, we walked back together. I felt at home walking up the muddy slopes with my friend and his family; I was emboldened by both of my friend’s words and my anxiety about work for the next year diminished with the fading sunlight.