June 11,I'm not even sure where to start. I'm not gravely surprised but it startles me at my realization that I've known only three homes in my life. Raleigh, Chapel Hill/Carrboro, and Lilongwe. Having gone away from home and everything that has been my life for almost 2 weeks I arrived back from Mozambique stretched from an experience that will color the rest of my life. Sitting on fresh golden sands in paradise, watching stoic villagers watch me and twenty-odd white travelers gourge our exhausted bodies in front of their rural homes, pushing my aching limbs up seemingly endless mountains and flying down scarred pavement amidst a vibrant rolling countryside, having the constant unsettling experience of moving 100km every day for almost 2 weeks, continually being reminded that what I'm experiencing is wildly unique and will never be recaptured. Going into this adventure I had in my mind that this was a convenient vacation to a neighboring country that I would never have been able to see but it turned out to be a sometimes grueling but always interesting workload that included cooking 30-person meals at 5am and 8pm daily and always having my camera and shot ideas in mind.
Mozambique is a vast country that envelopes the eastern side of Lake Malawi in mountains but its particular village differences from Malawi are subtle despite the portugese sounds that curious people would bellow from the side of the road. Business in Malawi is an uncomfortable combination of Malawian unreliability and greedy managers that don't understand the basis of American 'customer-comes-first' service. Watching Finn argue in the waining light after an absolutely exhausting day with the stand-in manager of a lodge about being charged to use the two lightbulbs in their bare 'kitchen', or to use the electricity to cool the beer we went to buy after their bar ran out of beer in 10 minutes, or to use a dusty pot from their packed storeroom even though it would be returned cleaner than we found it and it didn't appear that they'd used it in weeks. All of this headache stemming from the manager residing in the hospital for the past month after agreeing to all of these simple accommodations when they booked the place. I got the feeling at each location that they forgot they booked a 30-person trek a month in advance and what followed was painfully redundant.
I biked one day with the group and an albino kid in Mozambique stood with his friends on the side of the road as we took a break. One pair of pink eyes shaded by a ballcap in between a hundred dark curious faces. As the moments passed I saw his friends steadily pick on him more as he watched what could very well be the first white people to walk around his village square. It was a strange feeling as I stood there catching my breath. What should I have done? An equally powerful counter to the local treatment was this crowd of English charity-giving individuals that noted the 'dirtiness' of children who play soccer with balls of plastic bags and complained about the incongruence of their experiences here with their home lives. It has got to be hard to leave successful lives in one of the most expensive areas of the world where comfort and preference rules your life and come to one of the most undeveloped and poor places with the knowledge of collectively raising over $100,000 for 'poor Africans' and cycling a trek that got harder and hotter every day. I watched spirits collapsing under the weight of unreliability and aching muscles. I however was reminded of what I have been away from for months. Not having to filter and constrict my language, unafraid of sarcasm and humor getting lost in translation. It hurt at times to be back in familiar cultural territory in the middle of my own journey.
In many ways I can't relate to this big group of comfortable Brits traveling on holiday around some of the most beautiful places in one of the poorest countries in the world, can't sympathize with having to spend a couple days without a shower when we're flocked and waved on by people that may get a full meal today, can't be irritated by spending a day boating down the beautiful lake when there's nothing to be rushed to when we hit land. This is a valid but retrospective feeling now that I've arrived back home and I'm pouring myself into my work now. However throughout this trip I lost myself. I'm losing myself every day. I don't know what will be left of me when I return to the US. Some mornings I wake up in my empty new house in a sleeping bag surrounded by piles of my things on the floor, slowly move about my faux-marble floor and crisp white crown molding and groggily dress myself for working in the US Embassy making a recruitment/educational video about Malawi, and the blinding glare of privelege doesn't hamper my ambitions. But inevitably I start thinking about why I'm here and what I can do to leave this place better than I found it or why I shouldn't feel ashamed to listen to my ipod. How can the people living in huge non-profit or embassy mansions with a hand-full of Malawian servants sleep at night? Some mornings I wake up with music in my head, stretch out and eat a full breakfast before talking for hours with intelligent, articulate, inspiring, and compelling people while trying to keep up with a culture I'm slowly deciphering. Like a sculpture I'm carving away misunderstandings and misconceptions, the reality of life in Malawi slowly coming to form. My camera as my blade is becoming easier to wield, I feel my hands anticipate things happening, my mind looking around for light and movement. Some times I catch myself moving through this beautiful dance. I'm starting to hear the music.
Being run through the rigorous security measures daily to enter the US Embassy gives me time to note the 3 frames hanging on the wall. One with beautiful photographs of bald eagles. One with cowboys strolling through New Mexico. And one with a stern but accessible President Obama. Is this my national identity? Is this what we want to tell Malawi it means to be American? Along the way I guess I'm redefining myself too. Maybe clarifying is more appropriate. I struggle constantly with seeing and hearing of a lack of motivation within many Malawians and then noting this same lacking within people I know. Maybe there's some truth behind some of it but to accept the blanket accusation perpetuates it. People do what they need to take care of themselves so there's a reason why some people don't give the 110% attitude I was told as a child. Maybe the first 60% rotted away when your dad raped your sister to get rid of his disease of infidelity... Maybe you had to leave it at the door with your school books to make room for raising your 12-year old brother when your mom left you for another life... Maybe just because you gave your body to someone for a meal that will eventually kill you doesn't mean you don't wish you were already dead? But it's easy to generalize Malawians to be lazy and unmotivated drivers of their own destiny when you hear of night-shift midwives in the hospitals who view their 6-hour workshift as an opportunity to sleep rather than deliver babies or save women's lives. It's simple to write-off musicians that play around for a nominal payout but think nothing of this idea of professionalism. Simple answers sometimes just show simple minds. Minds that don't feel like implicating themselves. I feel like a criminal when a man in a suit knocks on my locked and barb-wired gate to ask for a job. How many more gates will he have to knock on to get an opportunity to prove himself?
I feel like a phony basking in the warm amber rays on a luxury thatched-roof porch overlooking a fantastical spread of crocodiles bathing on river rocks and monkeys squirming in the trees. I'm here in the wildlife reserve to film a promotional video but I don't deserve this. I run off poachers two days in a row in the first splinters of sunrise as I'm lugging my camera around to capture that perfect shot of rippling water and light and bending branches and cloudbursts. They're younger than me and fearlessly scamper off through the infested waters reminding me of a fresh story of a poacher that wasn't so lucky in this same spot and never made it back from the river. I see the river begin to bleed red, but thankfully it was merely the sunrise this day. I confiscate burlap bags left behind with a brewing fire and have a tough time blaming people whose families were kicked off their prime land 50 years ago and told to make a new living somewhere else so Europeans and rich people can 'safari'. I'm told that in a month elephants will begin making treks across the river and onto the islands. I watch an eagle swoop down and catch a fish from the river teeming with crocodile. Families of Baboons sit on the river's edge and groom one another in the afternoon. But this is just as routine as cars lining up at the drive-thru. Except this reserve of nearly 1800 Square Kilometers is managed by mere dozens of people on foot while ministers of forestry and lands in Lilongwe get new SUVs to drive around the city. The park manager of Nika National Park flicks a match into flame and lights a few drags before shrugging wistfully out at the river. "This is Africa"... What does that mean?
Visiting one of the street kid projects that ActionAid is funding I'm confronted by Master Banda, a boy the Chisomo Project is supporting. He's quietly but ardently begging for shoes and money in the face of these people giving sporting equipment, bikes, shirts, and funds to the Chisomo Project. Of all the people present, I'm the youngest yet he confronted me most likely because I had the biggest camera. I restrained my inner screams, I felt violated, completely side-swiped to see that despite these minimal but incredible efforts, that kid is still going to beg from the richest looking people he can find. That's his job that he's trained for his whole life. It seems to work because he guilts someone else into giving him shoes. How many pairs of shoes does he have now? What do you do? Scold a kid that determines that the best way to survive is to rely on the guilt of others? One big shining example of what aid does. Give a man a fish and he eats today. Then tomorrow he asks you where his fish is. If you're not there to teach him how to catch his own fish, he'll go ask the next person that looks like you. If every person is unique and special and has something to teach you, I shudder to think about which lessons I'm missing on a daily basis. Or the fact that many days I learn more than I can remember. Too much truth and reality to digest.
Despite the hardship that I stare down every day in my luxury life of a fridge and electronic equipment, I am completely in love with this place. I'm becoming more and more enchanted by making a big portion of my life here in Malawi. Part of this is a selfish desire to be in this breathtaking country. Part of it is the refreshing welcome of the people here that don't care how many people know your name or how 'successful' you are but will gladly shake your hand for an opportunity to smile and say 'good day'. But increasingly it's the desire to help and matter. I want to help bring bikes, a vital and expensive work expense, into Lilongwe as part of the Africycle charity. I want to bring solar ovens into the surrounding villages and income-generation programs and curb the decimating crisis of deforestation. I want to facilitate the brewing of artistic talent that explodes in bursts of incredible live shows or amazing painting exhibitions that happen to fall into our laps. I want everyone here to realize that they can make Malawi into whatever they want it to be and not listen to their own criticisms. In order to envision the success that will rightfully come here, people need to see the examples of Malawi succeeding in something. I too doubt myself on a daily basis but I'm learning how to ignore my pride. How to make myself into an instrument I've spent my whole life tuning. This journey is my effort to hear other people make the music. You create your own happiness. This is Africa.
