What is a day in Malawi like for me? Well, let's just start with today, and you will see the adventures that abound, even when I barely leave my house.
7:30 a.m: Having a little lie in. Why get up early when it's a holiday?
8:35 a.m: Get out of bed after receiving a text from my Malawian sister. My sisters have just moved into a new apartment and have been without water for the past two days. Welcome to the water cuts of Malawi. (There are electricity cuts as well, in case you were curious.) My sisters are wondering if they can come shower at my place, since I always have water.
8:45 a.m: Coffee made. Take one sip before trying the lock on my door again, hoping that it magically fixed itself overnight. (Yes, I also believe in unicorns.) Thankfully, I have a back door which I can use until this padlock is either sawed off or fixed (I'm hoping one of my kind engineer neighbors can work the magic).
9:30 a.m: Write a blog post that disappears when my internet cuts out. Had been trying to save it throughout the writing, but posting an 'error occurred' message was apparently all that my internet could handle at the moment.
10:45 a.m: Three sisters arrive. Showers, coffee, cookies, lots of talking and laughing as is the norm.
3:00 p.m: Decide to head with sisters to town, to buy some veggies at the large farmer's market. On the walk, sisters and I contemplate whether we'd wear skinny jeans everyday if we were offered a lot of money in return. I'm all in. One of the sisters declines the hypothetical offer of riches, stating the inability to compromise her fashion sense for money. That's admirable.
3:20 p.m: Lots of fashion around town. As we are walking over a small bridge that goes over a polluted stream strewn with trash, we pass a woman in a full-length ivory (or was it light grey?) satin cocktail dress. Aside from the incongruity, I am shocked that someone would wear such a color out and about anywhere in Malawi. There's reddish dust everywhere here that seems to coat everything you wear.
4:00 p.m: In the grocery store, a man attempts to speak to me in English (we think) and hit on us (we think).
4:10 p.m: A minibus guy tells one of the sisters in Chewa to tell me in English where the bus is going. Um, #1. I can read the sign in the window of the bus and #2. I am walking in the complete opposite direction. But, aside from that, YES OF COURSE I want to get on your minibus!!
4:20 p.m: At the market. Here, I should never look at or touch anything unless I want to be inundated with offers. After looking at some nice spinach, the guy selling it must have said spinach about 20 times, trying to get us to turn back around and buy it.
4:30 p.m: As the sisters are haggling for a better deal on 5 kg of rice, a baby starts smiling at me, and I start smiling at her until...she cries. Scary white woman alert! Hide your babies!
4:45 p.m: One of the sisters makes the brave decision to try what may be a short cut to my apartment. The trek from town to my home is only about 20 minutes, but it's mostly uphill and then downhill. The possible shortcut looks like it bypasses the hill and cuts straight across to my house. And, after ten minutes or so, we realize that it does. Success!
5:00 p.m: Success, that is, until we arrive to my apartment, go to the back door, and try the padlocks, one of which will not open. The same problem as the padlock on the front door. What are the odds? And now we are officially locked out of my apartment. Panic ensues.
5:05 p.m: Ask engineers to come try to open the lock. I tell them that one of the padlocks on the front door did the same thing. One of them responds, "Both front and back in the same day. Magic!"
5:10 p.m: Engineers fail at attempt. Call landlord who sends the gate guard with a saw that is smaller than a ruler. The engineers laugh at it and go get a huge metal hammer.
5:15 p.m: Failed attempts to break my padlock at least ensure that I'm safe inside at night. I think happy safety thoughts.
5:20 p.m: The three men come up with a plan: saw at the padlock for a bit, then hit it with the hammer. Saw, then hit. Saw, then hit.
5:30 p.m: And finally...success! Walking into my apartment never felt so good, thanks to the three men who were kind enough to do the work to break me into my own home.
Need I write more?
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