Hunger Season

January 10, 2012

Zen just brought a bird inside, teased it mercilessly for 30 minutes until its little heart gave out, scattered feathers everywhere, then ate it whole. Yes, beak, bones, and all. I think of my family’s lazy American cats slowly gutting their prey before growing bored and abandoning the furred or feathered corpses to the kitchen floor.

It’s the same concept with the humans I’ve encountered in both America and Malawi. I politely reject the chicken lungs and cartilage on my plate, then my leftovers are handed to the children, who crunch into the bones, suck the marrow, and slowly but surely consume entire skeletal pieces. Same with fish and beef parts and most anything else you can imagine. My American cats have Friskies; I have banana pancakes and peanut butter. Malawians, animal and human alike, are not so fortunate.

It’s Hunger Season here in Malawi, the period of time when the new shoots of maize are just peeking out of the clay, but the last harvest has begun to run low. The rains have arrived, albeit nearly two months late, and here in the north that means the cassava cannot be dried in the sun, pounded into flour, and cooked into nsima kondaoli. The tomatoes are small, abused, overpriced. Nothing is in season though the world around us glows chlorophyll green, thriving in the rain. People now subside on pumpkin leaves, carefully rationing their ufa (maize flour), frying the last of their cassava, and biding their time until the rains make fruit.

In general, today in Malawi, inflation continues to take its toll. Riots broke out in the capitol last week but were quickly subdued; Malawi is an inherently peaceful nation but the patience of the people is being tested. The other day a friend and I were in a hitch that stopped to purchase black market fuel. We did the math, and the price was the equivalent of $24 (USD!) per gallon. A representative from a nearby co-op had to wait 4 days and 3 this week in a line at a petrol station in the capitol to purchase fuel…even on the regular market, it’s nearly $10 per gallon. This fuel shortage is trickling down through society, affected every facet of daily life. The mobile network cannot function during power outages because of lack of diesel for the generators; transportation is a struggle, prices have skyrocketed, and many public vehicles have ceased operation; even the cost of eggs has gone from MK30 each to MK50 in just 3 months. People are worried. Tensions are high. With political ties failing and international aide being revoked, everyone is watching, waiting for what comes next.

But the best thing about Malawi is and always will be its people. Its reputation as the Warm Heart of Africa doesn’t come from its jungle fever temperatures but rather from its smiling, laughing, happy, welcoming people. This is one of the world’s top ten most impoverished countries. Under 2% of the population enjoys the luxuries of electricity and running water. People reside in mud huts; ten children might share a single grass-roofed room; women walk kilometers on rough paths and haul back all their water with their babies on their backs. Families break the earth of their fields by hand, harvest their crops by hand, and build burn callouses on their fingers as they cook over wood fires fueled by trees they chopped by hand. There are monthly bouts of Malaria to battle and families bear witness to the sad toll of HIV/AIDS…there is death all around.

And yet, I have never seen happier people. Malawians are friendly, hospitable, and grateful, against all odds. I don’t understand it, to be honest, but I embrace it and try to mimic it. I watch my neighbors praise God for his blessings, I accept the precious food that is served to me, I laugh with the children as they play with balls made of plastic bags and string. I worry about my friends and the path this nation is travelling down, the path we are being led down. But I know no matter what happens, Malawi will endure. Its spirit, its people, will not be broken.

Its birds, rats, roaches, spiders, centipedes, lizards, scorpions, flying ants, and locusts, however, are at the mercy of my tiny hungry pet cat, a growling-bellied, clawed killing machine always on the prowl for her next crunchy meal.