This is why I love Malawi

5 December

The story can’t begin at the beginning. What story does? Chronological order is overrated. Time travel is not. And what better way to travel through time than tell or read a story?

Today, I am still at the lodge in Lilongwe. I thought I’d be leaving this morning, but Mondays there is no direct bus from Lilongwe to Lusaka. And I’m on my way to Livingstone, Zambia to go to Victoria Falls, and in order to do that I need to first get to Lusaka. I leave the lodge around noon, heading on foot to Crossroads, a small shopping complex with a few banks, restaurants and clothing shops. It’s hot today, and I swear I can feel the skin at the part in my hair getting sunburned as I walk the ten minutes there. But I have a purpose. And that overrules the possible sunburn.

Yesterday, I realized several things: 1) After working everyday for weeks on end grading end-of-semester assignments of 300 students and then final exams of 300 students, I’m a bit off my game. 2) I don’t have enough cash to pay the lodge for two nights. 3) The ‘ticket’ I bought at the bus depot earlier in the day was not actually a ticket but just a reservation card, and I was worried I’d gotten scammed out of $40 (see #1 for reason/excuse for not checking when I bought it). 4) I realized my GRE math score is actually considerably lower than I had initially thought. As in “oh my god, I’m totally stupid” low. As in “if I weren’t the spitting image of my father, I’d kind of assume I couldn’t have come from my engineer father’s genes” kind of low. And if I could use #1 as an excuse again, I would. But, I’m just going to go with the fact that I don’t care about math anymore (shhh…I think I just heard the hearts of some of my nerdy math friends breaking).

For reasons 2 and 3, I needed to leave the lodge. I get to the shopping complex, get cash from an ATM, turn to think of my next move, and then immediately get distracted by a sign for a coffee shop. Mmmm…ice coffee. So. Easily. Distracted. By good-looking men and signs for coffee. I’m not sure which makes me more pathetic. Like a moth to a flame, I head to the coffee shop for coffee and then start talking to the cashier. I tell her my story about the bus ‘ticket’ and being worried that I won’t get an actual ticket today or that I’ll be forced to pay again. ‘So,’ I ask, ‘Do you know how I can get a mini bus to the bus depot, to Devil Street? I need to try to get my ticket today.’ (Seriously, no poetic license with the name of the street. That actually IS the name of the street.)

She gives me really detailed instructions, so detailed that I think I can’t possibly get lost along the way or back. And I easily find where to get on a minibus heading toward the depot. As I get off the minibus at the depot, a Malawian woman getting off the minibus looks at me, motions me to follow her, and says, ‘Let’s go.’ For some reason, I know she’s going to walk me to the depot where I need to go, so I follow her. It is complete chaos in the area surrounding the main bus depot. There are people everywhere, walking on the side of the road, in the road, carrying goods to sell or sacks of potatoes or grain to put onto a bus. Minibuses are everywhere, honking their way through the streets to clear the road enough not to nick someone as they pass. The road is bumpy and dusty and impromptu stalls line the side of the road, with people selling airtime for cell phones, mangoes, candy, soft drinks. We walk up the road for about five minutes, and she points for me to go right. She continues straight before I can get out much of a thank you.

Just as I knew she was going to show me where to go, I know that she has directed me to the wrong place. I was just here yesterday, so I remember that the place I need to be is nearby. I walk around for a while, trying to find the ticket counter that I need. I get a lot of looks and several men say ‘hi lady’ or ‘hi mama’ or ‘hi sistah’ as I pass. I weave around the stares and calls and minibuses and people and cars and finally find the ticket counter. The same guy from yesterday is there, cigarette dangling from his mouth. He remembers me, gives me my ticket, and tells me to be there at 5:30 the next morning.

A couple of weeks ago, I was teaching, winding up my classes, preparing my students for their intense final exam. The students had a 3-minute speech to prepare and give as well as two business letters to write, all within the final couple weeks of class. Even though I have 300 students, I know nearly all of them by name. I honestly don’t know how I’ve done this. Granted, sometimes it means looking at a student for a full 30 seconds before the name clicks in my head. But hey, that’s a lot of names to remember. And the names started out as foreign to me as Chikumbutso, Tiwonge, and Mphatso and as unusual to me as Novice, Precious, and Eden (the last three are men, by the way). So when, in Lilongwe amid the complete chaos that is the bus station, I hear “Hi Ms. Howland!” and turn to see one of my students, I know that it is Benjamin. He’s in a minibus that is about to leave, but we shake hands and say “hi,” all smiles. The whole country seems like a small town to me. And sometimes that annoys me. But most of the time I’m happy to run into people I know. It makes me feel like I’m back in Kent. Well, sort of.