Foodworths, finches and figs.

I know it is pathetic but it has been an exciting weekend and our ‘carpet-bagger’ days are over. We have found a supermarket which takes credit cards.

More importantly it has meat which does not smell and a more than reasonable range of good quality produce. They even have cream! The wine selection is also good and so is the bread. Nirvana!

Foodworths is a Canadian company and all I can say is thank God for the Canadians. If only for the fact, that we don’t have to stagger in with wads of Kwacha. Most of the food seems to be sourced in South Africa and I have no idea why a Canadian company would set up in Malawi but if I had to guess I would say there was some kind of ‘church’ connection.  God is big business in Africa.

After the shop we went to Buchanan’s which is a restaurant where we had dinner last time I was in Lilongwe. It is also a small shopping complex with some gift shops and a nursery. I have some pots I need to plant up. The nursery is quite extensive and has a wonderful selection of beautiful plants. The most expensive were bougainvillea which seems odd given that they seem to grow like ‘weeds’ around here.

And of course they only take cash so I had to check on prices so I know how much Kwacha I need to carry. A carpet-bagger for a while longer it seems.

We sat on the terrace, by the side of a large fish pond and drank cappuccino and ate lemon and strawberry cheesecake. The coffee wasn’t bad actually; probably Malawi and a little bitter but with good flavour. The froth wasn’t - as in it didn't exist - but I blame the use of UHT milk for that.

ABOVE: The locally made wooden platter.

The cheesecake was clearly home-made which is a good thing; but odd looking, thin, a bit crumbly and topped with strawberry jam as opposed to the strawberries we expected. I have to say their strawberry jam, full of whole strawberries, was almost as good as mine.

One of the gift shops sold wooden bowls and platters made locally; not at all expensive and so we walked away with two or three – a late birthday present for me. I can now take back my two china bowls for more practical purposes and stop serving salad in saucepans. There are plenty of bowls and serving dishes coming in our container but that is weeks away.

ABOVE: Bowl made in Malawi from local wood.

Things are falling into place on many fronts. We have changed tactics on the mozzies. I am calling an end to the nightly fumigation. The night before last, despite Limited bombing the bedroom with insecticide, there we were at four in the morning with a small torch, trying to find our tormentors. Yes, inside the net. Three of them. Finally dispatched  with a slap.... and a prayer for their souls ....we went back to sleep but the pointlessness of the entire exercise was made clear. All those chemicals and not only were they not dead but they had the energy to find their way inside our net.

Note to Self: No more spraying, keep windows closed in bedroom and check net carefully before going to bed. Most importantly, check net is properly closed. This we did last night and had a perfectly peaceful sleep; no buzzing at all. I am beginning to wonder if the insecticide merely entices them or makes them so angry they decide to attack. Whatever the cause, there will be no more spraying.

There is a guy weaving baskets on our corner. The work looks excellent. I am thinking it might be a solution to the lack of storage in the bathrooms. The house is awash with storage space everywhere but the bathrooms. The area underneath the counter and sinks is huge and absolutely wasted.

But if I get the basket-weaver to make me some large square boxes with lids, they can be used for toilet rolls, soaps, shampoo and the like. Some smaller ones can sit on top of the bench and be used for everyday toiletries. It’s win-win; storage for me and money for him.

ABOVE: Another platter with the last of the papayas.

The birds are becoming more adventurous. I have seen a medium-sized brown bird and some tiny, finch-like birds flitting through the trees. Clearly they have decided we are not a threat or perhaps I just have more time to sit and watch.

The garden (see pic at top)  is a haven for them and a delight for us. I am not yet sure just which birds they are but pulling up images on the net is as good as anything in terms of guesswork.

There are three large trees in the garden and I am struck by the fact that one of them is the same tree we had in our first African garden in Luanda. With less access and information on the net in 1997 I never found out the name of the tree. I knew it as the ‘figu’ tree because that is what the local, Portugese speaking kids called it when they came to trample all over my garden to collect the fruit.

I figured it was a fig tree but now know that it is a Ficus Sycamorus. It is native to the Middle East as well as parts of Africa. The name, sycomorus comes from the Greek syca-morus which means mulberry fig. The leaves look a lot like the mulberry and the fruit, while fig-looking, is much smaller than the more common green or black fig.

The fruit grows on clusters (see pic below) attached to the bark and have a very sweet smell. They don’t taste, apparently, like the common fig because of the greater sweetness and perfume.

The fruit is not grown commercially because it is hard labour. Only the poor it seems, cultivated the Sycamore Fig.
The tree has an ancient history, is mentioned in the Bible and has been well known in Egypt for millennia. A statue of the Greco-Egyptian god, Serapis, made of wood from the tree is in Alexandria’s museum.

Hathor,  the Egyptian goddess was known as the Lady of the Sycamore Tree. Her name means House of Horus and she was a goddess of many things from the celestial to the alcoholic. She was also known as the Mother of Mothers and the celestial nurse who presided over women, fertility, children and childbirth.

ABOVE: The ripe fruit of the Sycamore Fig.

But, like all of the goddesses she was also known as the Vengeful Eye of Ra, the Lady of Drunkeness and a Goddess of the dead. The sycamore tree was symbolic of her friendship with the dead.

Hathor is the goddess of love, beauty and music... no doubt the Egyptian equivalent of Venus. I like to think that energy is at work here.  Well, perhaps not the lady of Drunkeness! It is Venus in fact which rules my astrological chart so, as always, I find myself where I am meant to be in ways beyond the literal and the rational.

Apparently the fruit set for the Sycamore Fig requires pollination from Fig Wasps and flowering and fruiting occurs all year round with the biggest harvests from July to December. I suspect the general bird chatter in the garden may well be a discussion on when fig munching time is near.

From one fruit to another: Limited came to show me four papayas that a woman was selling at the gate. He said 500K was too much so I asked what he thought was fair and we settled on 350K which she accepted.

Papayas grow like weeds here as they did in India. I have planted some of the seeds in the garden to see if they will grow as easily as they did in Bombay. Then again, we didn’t get much of a harvest in Bombay because the beggars got to them first. And one could hardly begrudge them.

But now we have fresh papaya for breakfast and I have papaya chutney on the boil. I will need to buy more jars for preserves. The mulberry and strawberry jams turned out so well I am inspired. I have always made most of my own jams and a lot of chutney because of the orchard harvests at the farm but here in Lilongwe, with the warmer and more humid temperatures, fruits and vegetables ripen quickly. They are usually sold in large amounts so beyond giving some to Mbwe and Limited and the guards there is always more than enough left over to preserve.

ABOVE:  The Malawi bee-eater, another visitor to the garden.

Double-dinners, dust and jacarandas.

Lilongwe is a windy place. No doubt it blows down off the distant mountains. There always seems to be a breeze; often determined and sometimes a sudden, violent gust will slam doors and rattle windows.

I am sitting on the terrace drinking coffee and freshly-baked gingernuts; large yellow leaves lie on the green, shadowed lawn; weaving in and out of the wind is the chattering of the guard and cacophony of birds.

 To date I have seen only one bird, the shrike, but I hear the calls of at least half a dozen.  There is a nest on the porch and Limited has put down newspaper, held in place with a rock, to catch the droppings. It doesn’t work because the constant wind folds the paper over. There really is no choice but to wash the polished bricks each day.

But birdshit is the least of the challenges. We need some curtains for some of the windows in the new house and from trawling the Malawi blogs I have a sense that in the main, expats make their own. I probably could, having sewn in a past life, but have no sewing machine and at this point, no source of fabric.

ABOVE: The African pygmy king.                                       

The wind is gaining strength; it is almost irritable today. The fallen bougainvillea flowers swirl in pink confusion and scatter in through the door and across the polished bricks.  And with it no doubt comes dust. Our feet are black after walking without shoes.

In the 'burning time' the dust is mixed with ash and spreads its charcoal film with abandon. But Perth was a pretty dusty place so I am used to it.

This is a world of double dinners; the dinner you hope you are going to have and the dinner you get because there is no power. The magic moment seems to be 6p.m. although this morning the power went at ten and it is nearly midday and it is still not on. At this time of day it is less crucial although I would not have said that yesterday with biscuits in the oven.

Last night it mattered more but with a bit of strategic thinking we still got chicken for dinner – just warm, not hot – because I made sure it went in early on the basis that I could have it pretty much done and just re-heat if necessary. The cabbage with prosciutto and onion was ready; the creamed pumpkin; the brussells sprouts, gravy and the roast potatoes. But, despite waiting until eight there was no power to re-heat anything so I took out the potatoes I had boiled earlier and added chopped capsicum, chopped cucumber and a mix of sour cream and mayonnaise to make a potato salad. A quick slice of some fresh tomatoes... they do taste wonderful here... to dress with oil, balsamic and feta and dinner was ready.

I am thinking that the generator is a must. Although I found this morning, about three hours late, that the inverter allows me to boil a kettle. I had been hanging out for a coffee and thought I would make it early ... just before ten ... and just before the power went. I’m not sure why I thought to try the electric jug, or why I didn’t think to try it earlier, but eventually I gave it a flick and bugger me, it worked. I suppose there is no reason why it would not when the inverter keeps lights on but can’t muster enough gumption to run the stove.  

But, it now occurs to me that the sensible purchase might be an electric wok... at least until the generator is installed. I looked at single and double gas burners but I am not sure about the availability or reliability of gas bottles in Africa. One unit had the gas burner sitting on top of the bottle! There is apparently some green liquid which can be used to run a gas burner but I suspect it would be a smelly exercise. So I had decided not to bother about gas burners and make do until we had the generator. The Wok is however looming as an unexpected option.

We have a couple of guys here tomorrow from Perth so I shall have to sort out a double-dinner.  I am thinking chicken again because it is fine hot or cold - although having been at the mine in Karonga, where chicken is the backbone of the menu, they might be sick of the sight of it. Then again, beggars can’t be choosers. I will see what there is at the supermarket.

LEFT: Transporting chickens in Malawi.

The days are getting warmer, or perhaps it was unseasonably mild when we arrived. The jacarandas are in blossom; dropping listless purple skirts along the red dust edges of the road. Jacarandas are native to South America but they grow beautifully in most parts of Africa; as they do in Australia.

In some places they grow too well; both South Africa and Queensland consider them to be an ‘invasive species.’ But what a gorgeous invasion.  Sometimes I think the move to rid the bush of introduced plants is excessive. The Australian bush, while lovely in its own right is a messy kind of vegetation; caught forever in an irritable mingling of life and death.

More to the point eucalyptus trees are totally unsuited to urban environments, prone as they are to dropping massive branches without warning. They are in fact extremely dangerous and belong in open spaces where a crashing branch is unlikely to maim or kill anyone. There is a place for what our brief view of history allows us to call ‘native bush’ and there is a place for non-native plants and trees.

LEFT: Jacarandas grow well in Malawi.

And we have short historical memories. The Australian ‘landscape’ was created by Aboriginal burning which, over thousands of years, destroyed the native rain-forest. Areas still exist in some parts of the country; surviving pockets of what is called ‘fire-stick farming.’ Now that has to be one of the most euphemistic terms human beings have ever invented for what amounts to whole-scale arson.

Fire has been used by nomadic and primitive peoples for millennia; as much as anything to scare out game and reduce vegetation. It hardly ever amounted to ‘farming’ and was not environmentally sound but, here is where we are at and there was where they were at and it created an environment which did not previously exist because acacia and eucalyptus ‘adore’ fire. They thrived, creating our quintessential Australian bush, while other vegetation died. It’s hard to see a difference, apart from all those flames, between that form of ‘gardening’ and the planting of ‘non-natives.’

And logic suggests that ‘native species’ are no more than the end result of birds shitting all over the planet and dropping seeds in the process. The ‘native species’ came from a seed dropping somewhere it liked as opposed to dropping somewhere it did not like. Or nomadic tribes carrying food and leaving scraps behind as they walked. 

Although, even as I write, I am struck by the fact that 'fire as an agricultural tool' is common in primitive cultures in both Australia and Africa.  No doubt there are reasons which, from our distant perspective we do not understand. Or perhaps, just like the 'cutting off the end of the lamb leg' story ... where family tradition had continued a habit down through generations without knowing why, only to ultimately discover that it had first started because the roasting pan was too small to take the leg of lamb ... the use of fire has its origins in long-forgotten circumstances.

But I have ranted and digressed long enough. On to the more demanding aspects of life like buying what I need for tomorrow night’s dinner.

Whether I am acclimatising or it was a ‘good smell day’, the meat being freshly delivered, the pong at the Shoprite meat counter was absent this afternoon. I still did not like the look of a lot of the beef but I found a piece of roasting beef which doesn’t look too bad; quite good in fact, as in not looking half black.

 So, dinner will be cold beef and chicken with salad, or hot roast beef and chicken with vegetables and gravy, depending upon our power supply.  I also stocked up on candles. The asparagus is in season so I will cook that as a starter and since we still have strawberries ‘for Africa’, that will be dessert; with some soft cheeses and apple.

The strawberry sellers stopped me at the gate to Mama Mia’s again but smiled broadly and wandered off when I said we had not had time to eat Saturday’s mighty ‘harvest.’

‘Next time,’ they said in unison. ‘Next time,’ I agreed. I wonder what they will be selling when the strawberry season is over!

                                                 

Hmmm. I might need to increase the insect-spray supplies. Limited sprays the bedroom before he leaves at night and I just went upstairs to get something and was nearly asphyxiated. When he sprays he means business. But, I am sure it is worth it.

He didn’t do it last night and I also forgot and sometime during the night we woke to the sound of hysterical mozzies. A quick scan with a small torch and we spotted them hovering and complaining – outside the net. Outside the net is good but even then they are noisy little buggers. I think they grizzle more when they are ‘locked out’ but I guess mosquitoes have their own frustration levels; so near and yet so far because of the bloody net. It was probably more a grrrrrrrr than a buzzzzzz!

And yes, I am aware that all this talk about food and mosquitoes is a worry. Is it because I don’t have enough to do?  No, there is no shortage of things to do between getting set up in Lilongwe and keeping up with my writing and editing ... and reading for that matter. It is just that some things, like food and mosquitoes, are more major factors in an expat’s life in Africa. No doubt, like many things, once the system is set up and working.... a big ask for Africa but I live in hope ... the topics will slip from consciousness.

Meanwhile, what is that buzzing behind me? Probably the mozzies taking refuge from the fumes upstairs. Sigh. Still, better here than in the bedroom. What was that I said about being the ‘chemical-free queen?’ The gods do play sport with us! Or do they give us what we need? Here is the perfect opportunity for me to ‘live what I preach.’ If what we believe creates the reality then that applies to everything, including chemicals!

As my father often said, from habit I suspect, more than perspective: ‘Mind over matter: If you don’t mind it doesn’t matter.’

BELOW: The Orange breasted bush-shrike. Is that a mosquito in its beak? Probably not but I live in hope.

Beef, biscuits, belief and weevils.

Who would have thought you could wash Anzac biscuits; who would have thought you would have to? 

In that way of things in new places I made my first batch of Anzac biscuits and lined the tray with baking paper, which, I discovered, is not the baking paper one finds in Oz. This baking paper, more of the old-style greased paper, stuck to the bottom of the biscuits. I tried scraping with a knife, with some success; pondered eating the biscuits and not worrying about consuming a bit of paper at the same time and then decided to wash and scrape them with a knife.

Luckily this batch of AB’s turned out well; hard and crunchy so in the main it was a success. I lost one which crumbled like a tea-dunker but returned the others to the oven to dry out and think I can claim success. Needless to say the second batch went onto the tray sans paper!

We had a quiet weekend with yet another foray to Shoprite, where, prayers being answered perhaps or more focus and less confusion (I opt for prayers answered) there, in the middle of the fruit and veg. section was a rack FULL of nuts and dried fruit. Nirvana. So much for being a nut-free zone; if it ever was it is no longer. Almonds, pine-nuts, cashews, walnuts, pecans, pistachios .... a veritable nut frenzy. Not only that I found sesame seeds, pumpkin seeds and poppy seeds along with dried apricots (to make jam) and a good selection of South African dried fruit.

So what is not here? Well, good baking paper for one thing although perhaps that also exists and is yet to be found. Otherwise all is good and the pantry is well stocked. My recipe repertoire is limited without a mixer or food processor but a one-mix chocolate cake turned out fine yesterday and Anzacs are an easy mix. So too are gingernuts which are next on the list.

LEFT: Anzac biscuits minus the greaseproof paper.

We took another turn around the Italian deli in the Mamma Mia compound and bought gelato, fetta in olive oil and freshly baked crusty bread.  The vendor gaggle was at the gate again.  A young man with a deformed leg was selling what looked like hand-painted postcards; I had to buy a couple and think I will have them framed next time I am in Oz. They are quite prettily done.  

And the strawberry sellers were back with a vengeance but this time three not four. I tried to get away with only taking two trays but the pleas grew more insistent and I finally relented only to be showered with wishes for God’s grace and good luck. All of which never goes astray and may well be of more use than the strawberries.

A tray of mulberries and a hand of bananas were next but I said no to the bunch of freshly picked asparagus, delicious as it is, because there was simply no room left in the fridge. So it is strawberries and mulberries for breakfast and I have enough mulberries put aside to make a couple of pots of jam.

We had another power cut last night but I had made rice and bean salad and a green salad and decided to cook the South African coiled beef sausage early. This time the cooking was pretty much done by the time the power went out so lights out, candles lit and hopes that the inverter might let us watch the television programme we had on through to the end. We had the power back within two hours which was something of a surprise.

I suspect the food obsession amongst expats is sourced in the desire for familiarity and comfort. The thing about familiarity is that it doesn’t necessarily breed contempt but it does breed familiarity and that which is familiar is comforting; it creates a sense of the known, of belonging and the illusion of certainty. It is why, I am sure, that while immigrants give up much to make a new life, they rarely, if ever, give up the foods of their homeland.

The latest news on our goods is that the cargo ship is at Port Elizabeth and should be in Beria in Mozambique within a week. From there it is two weeks to Lilongwe and three days to clear customs. Which means, with any luck, probably a lot of luck actually, we are looking at the first week of October for setting up the house.

LEFT: Port Beria in Mozambique.

The bad news is that the House Mosquito failed miserably last night and two colleagues made their way into our bedroom and under the net. We both woke in the night to a buzzing but did not find the culprits until the morning. Note to Self: spray room at night before lowering net.

There’s a little bird outside which makes the sweetest sound; ’whiiiiiip, whiiiiip, whiiiip!’  and there is another one  which seems to say: ‘what are you doing, what are you doing.’  I wonder if it is the brown-grey bird with the brilliant rust coloured breast which I see hopping through the garden beds?  I just hope the local bird diet is high in mosquito!

God I love the net. A short search and it's a good bet my warbling friend is an Orange Breasted Bush Shrike!

I gave Limited – always have the temptation to write Ltd., but he signs himself as Limited so I feel honour-bound to hold the line – some cold meat and the rest of the rice and bean salad this morning. He must have thought the piece of steak was a bit suspicious because he told me that he and Mbwe do not eat pork. I asked him if it was religious and he said no.  Perhaps it is a belief, also taken up by Jews and Moslems as a given, that pork is not safe; that it is ‘unclean.’ This was a very sensible view thousands and even hundreds of years ago given the propensity of pigs to disease but not so much in the modern age.

Although I still would not eat pork in India for that very reason and perhaps it is not a good idea to eat it here either.  Much of Africa is not in the modern age. Not that I have seen any pork; nor lamb for that matter. And the beef which is on sale has a very strong smell. It is not ‘off’ but it is gamey. One American expat holds that the gamey smell is because the beef is free-range and grass-fed (as opposed to the American grain-fed and crammed into pens approach) but most of Australia’s beef is grass-fed and free-range and it does not have a gamey smell. There has to be another reason. It could be the variety of grass eaten I suppose.  Or it could just be very, very, very well aged!  The smell at the supermarket is on the verge of overwhelming. Whatever it is I don’t particularly like it. But it tastes okay once cooked. I tell myself that the smell means it is rich in minerals and extremely good for me.

 The chicken is fine and the fact that the de-feathering process seems to be a tad cavalier suggests they are local and possibly not factory-produced. That is a huge assumption however. The chicken we ate in Angola came in frozen from Brazil; no doubt from the worst of factory farming. But beggars can’t be choosers and sometimes you can have too much information.

Then again, historically Malawians have not eaten a lot of meat. The Nyasaland missionaries at the end of the 19^th century recorded that bananas were the staple food and that villages would be surrounded by acres of banana plants; that is until Arab slavers decimated the countryside and wreaked havoc upon normal life.

ABOVE: Malawi cattle grazing in the wild.

Millet, peanuts and maize were cultivated and while cattle were plentiful the meat was rarely eaten. Maybe it was ‘smelly’ meat even then? The people also kept goats, pigs and chickens but there were so many superstitions regarding meat that it came a long way down on the menu list. Chicken for instance was said to make women infertile. And while wild game abounded there were restrictions upon who could eat which animal. It all sounds like a lot of hard work.

But Lake Malawi, offered a wealth of fish which probably made it easy to avoid meat and this formed a huge part of the diet along with peas, beans, rice, pumpkins and sugar-cane.  Fish stocks these days are sadly depleted although the government has plans to re-stock the lake and monitor over-fishing.  Catching fish is less dangerous than catching wild animals. Cattle of course have long been the ‘currency’ in Africa and would be killed only for a very special event.

Still talking food – lasagne for tea. I found the odd weevil embedded in the pasta. By the look of it they chewed their way in and died of exhaustion. Unless they were in the Italian flour in the first place which I doubt.  Do I bother to excavate them or regard them as a protein bonus?  I’m opting for protein bonus at this stage of the game; after all they just look like specks of pepper and won’t be identifiable at the stage of eating. I ate more than my fair share of weevils in India so they are the least of my worries. To echo Russell Crowe's character in The Far Side of the World: 'it's the lesser of two 'weevils.'

LEFT: Weevils, one of the food groups. They taste better than they look.

There’s a story about weevils which always amused me although that is probably not a sensitive response. I read some years ago that a study in the UK found Indian emigrants frequently suffering from malnutrition.

They could not understand why this was so when they ate the same things in England that they had eaten in their homeland.

All was revealed however when it was found that English ingredients, not surprisingly, were lacking in one crucial thing; weevils.

Vegetarian Indians were able to survive on their diet because it was laced with protein in the form of weevils! The Gods do play sport with us!

All that paranoia about being good Hindus and Jains and not killing living, moving things and millions had died in the name of dinner! Some Hindus and Jains will not eat food which grows in the ground, like potatoes and onions for instance, because of the carnage which results from digging them up; countless billions of tiny creatures die in the process of harvesting.  Although I would have thought there was a pretty high death rate picking fruit or gathering foods grown on top of the ground. But let's not allow reason into the realm of belief; particularly religious belief.

The truly orthodox do not drive in cars or fly in planes because of the trillions of living creatures squashed or  sucked to their deaths; the truly, truly orthodox do not wear clothes for the same reason.

I was always struck by the fact that such rigid adherence to belief ignored the fact that every time we rub our eyes, or run our hands through our hair, or wipe our bums for that matter, we are mowing down  zillions of microscopic but still living, breathing and moving creatures.

But human beings have the unique capacity of holding two utterly conflicting beliefs at one and the same time. There's a lot to be said for moderation in all things. I did count the number of weevil carcases in my pasta and can state quite categorically, the presence is moderate. It might be better though if Greg reads this after he has eaten and not before. He does check in on the blog from time to time but I am probably safe since he has been busy getting the car filled with diesel. We have had a shortage the past week and the queues trail all over Lilongwe.

Appreciate what you have when you have it and take nothing for granted is the lesson around here.

Mosquitos, malaria and muzungus.

It was a question of mosquitoes last night. Well, one actually. I am sure it is the same one.   My little friend came buzzing out of the corner where I sit to read in the early evening. He (or she) had done the same thing the day before.

ABOVE: Our lounge room. Mosquito corner is on the far right , behind the lamp.

I reached for the spray, which I generally avoid using because of the chemical cocktail it confers, but thought I should try because Greg seemed to be developing mosquito phobia.

I had tried it the night before with the same effect and he had complained about the companion buzzing! I told him the mozzie was either very good at hiding or it was completely resistant to the spray. He wasn't convinced.

I might add, the house has come equipped with mosquito repellent attachements which plug into power points. There was one right by my side. Clearly utterly ineffective despite the ominous name of Doom!

Doors closed, room sprayed, me nearly suffocating from the ghastly stuff so I stepped outside ... where probably there were more mosquitoes.... until the deed had been done.

Back to my spot on the couch. Back to my book on German missionary settlement in Nayasaland in the late 18^th and early 19^th century.  A glass of wine at my side with a bowl of the deliciously aromatic roasted Malawi peanuts.

Bzzzzzzzz! Out came my little friend. I could almost see his or her beady eyes and the broad grin saying: ‘Sucks, boo to your spray. Sucks, boo to your Doom! Sigh, the Mozzie had won. We have a House Mozzie and I have put in a request that s/he remains sole resident.

But then they usually do win. When we lived in the mining compound, Gamek, in Luanda the fogging trucks would come around about five every evening, belching clouds of poisonous (to mosquitoes) gas into the streets and where windows were open, into the homes.

To me it was chemical central but the local kids thought it was huge fun to play in the great plumes of fog spewed out by the truck. You would think they would be felled by choking coughs but the only thing which had them doubled up was laughter!

When the fog cleared and I returned to the now ‘purified’ verandah the mosquitoes would begin dribbling out from under tables, chairs, leaves and gutters with the same nonchalant air of: ‘Sucks, boo to your poisonous gas.’

If living in the Third World does anything it makes one more pragmatic; less paranoid (and I certainly had a long way to go) and more conscious of the incredible resilience of the human condition. We seem to have forgotten about that resilience in the developed world; bombarded as we are with dire warnings about danger to health and the message that body is enemy not friend!

I do believe that diet is important in terms of health. Luckily I like to cook and the kitchen here at the house is great. Well,  it is when the power is on and the stove is a bit basic but there is heaps of counter space and cupboards for Africa! More importantly, the local produce, particularly the fruit, seems to be of very high quality.

ABOVE: The kitchen at the house is a great place to cook. Well, when the power is on it is.

Ironically, those in the less developed world, who really do face the dangers of war, crime and disease seem to live with less fear than the relatively safe citizens of the West. Maybe we have too much spare time to worry about things or maybe there are too many vested interests intent upon stoking our fears in order to stoke their profits.

As with so many things, it does not take long to develop some resistance. Humans develop some resistance to malaria when exposed to it and mosquitoes develop resistance to chemicals and drugs. So much so that many of the old anti-malarial drugs simply do not work because the mozzies are now resistant. As no doubt, in time they will be to the new ones.

This muzungu surrendered! Muzungu, pronounced Mmm-zoo-ngooo, means ‘person of European descent,’ or ‘white person’ in Swahili.  The etymology  of the word is ‘aimless wanderer’ which certainly fits me and may well have seemed profoundly apt for the earliest explorers and settlers of Africa. Except of course, while the locals may have thought the wandering was ‘aimless’ it most definitely was not.

So, mosquito, ONE and muzungu, NIL.  It was a reminder not to get paranoid. It’s like living in a war zone where the ‘stories’ are often worse than the reality because people like to ‘parade’ their courage or to talk up the fear to make themselves feel braver than they are.

The real ‘M’ word in Malawi is not Madonna, but malaria, just as it is in most of Africa. It’s a common topic of conversation – mainly revolving around who has had it, who has not and what to do about it.  Someone once said the easiest way to control malaria in Africa is to give everyone a mosquito net. But that would be too easy in a drug-driven world.

There’s a bit of paranoia about malaria, understandably because it is a nasty disease but getting hysterical about every last mosquito is going to make life miserable. Precautions are sensible but it is important to remember that not all mosquitoes carry the disease; not all bites from a mosquito which does will give you the disease and often there is not a lot you can do about it.

ABOVE: Our bedroom complete with mosquito net. It's pretty swish as mosquito nets go.

When we first went to Luanda to ‘have a look at the place’ before deciding to take the job we followed rigorous guidelines to prevent being bitten by mosquitoes. It certainly worked. Until we got to the airport, that is,  where the mozzies had the last laugh. After a week in Luanda without a bite I became ‘morning tea’ for a horde of mozzies who had taken up residence in the airport lounge. So much for good intentions and the best laid plans.

As with all things the key is common sense. In truth, as I discovered, malaria is uncommon in Lilongwe and in Blantyre for that matter. In addition, having lived in India for four years and Angola for four years, the latter, one of the worst malarial zones in the world, there’s a good chance we have developed some immunity.

We did wonder if our immunity in Angola had been enhanced by the 12 months that we lived at the Oberoi Hotel in Bombay. It was our ‘home’ when we first moved to India in 1988. There was a certain irony to the fact that me, being the ‘organic and chemical-free queen’ should find herself living in a hotel where, every month, without fail, there would be a malodorous smell coming from the wall vents for an entire day. Subsequent enquiries revealed that once a month, on a particular day, the air vents in the hotel (connected to the air conditioning system) would be pumped full of DDT! 

We used to joke we had absorbed so much DDT we could hire ourselves out at barbecues as mosquito repellents. There may be some truth in that!

We did not take drugs in either India or Angola because the advice was that the long-term effect on the body was more dangerous than the drugs. These days, so they say, the drugs are more sophisticated and long-term effects are minor. However, having done a quick trawl of the ‘net’ there are two sides to that argument. What to do?

The other reason not to take the drugs was the advice that often they ‘masked’ the first signs of malaria and quick action is crucial with this disease... particularly the cerebral form. The latest ‘advice’ is that this is not the case although some of the new anti-malarial drugs are so new that one wonders if they really know.

The South Africans take the pragmatic view that malaria, while nasty, is just a disease and one which can be cured relatively easily ... which it can, particularly if you act quickly in the first place. The argument is that if you do take anti-malarial drugs and get malaria, which of course you still can because the drugs do not protect you from the disease, they merely lessen the chances of getting it, you will need massively higher doses of the same drug, with all that entails,  to rid yourself of the disease.... and the process will take longer.

The general common sense advice is to not sit outside in early morning or the evening; wear clothes which cover as much skin as possible and use insect repellents. I did this both in India and Africa although omitted the insect repellent unless it was organic. And someone once told me that Vegemite deters mosquitoes. Needless to say we have Vegemite on hand and it's a part of the daily diet.

ABOVE: Our dining room. Vegemite is on the table every day although in this case it is bougainvillea which might also be a mosquito deterrent.

From what I saw in Angola, where malaria was common, but where neither Greg nor I succumbed, was that those expats who got malaria generally shared some common characteristics; either all or some. They were outside in early morning and evening, either drinking or exercising; they drank a lot; they smoked a lot; they did not have a nourishing diet or they were lonely and/or unhappy.

Greg did come down with malaria, some three years after we left Angola, when he was working in the Congo in challenging circumstances and was definitely unhappy and alone... I could not go with him on that one... and while he neither smoked nor drank much, nor sat outside or exercised at dawn or dusk for that matter ... his nutrition level may have been compromised.

We were living in Johannesburg at the time and at the first sign of a headache it was off to the clinic. The test showed negative. Two days later, feeling worse and shaking like a jelly we went back to the clinic. This time the doctor said even if the test was negative, which it can be, he would start him on malaria treatment. The final diagnosis was yes to malaria and yes to the one that kills more often than not. The good news about the ‘worst’ malaria is that it is not recurring. That is if you live.

As with all disease, the better our immune system functions then the more protected we are. Our emotional state can lift or suppress our immune function. As can the level of nutrition in our diet and the level of toxins.

Despite all the musings, at the end of the day, the impetus behind making a decision about ‘what to do’ was discovering that Lilongwe is an area where malaria is rare.  It seems the canny Scots established both Blantyre and Lilongwe, because they knew that they were ‘non-fever’ areas. They had discovered this through observation with the help of the ‘fever tree.’ Apparently there is a tree which grows in areas where malaria is rife, so, wherever they were first found, a ‘fever line’ was established and settlements were built below the ‘fever line.’ Karonga, where the mine is situated is above the ‘fever line.’

LEFT: The 'fever tree' indicated where the malaria area began in Nyasaland/Malawi.

The ‘fever tree,’ or Acacia xanthophloea Benth as it is impressively called, belongs to the Fabaceae Mimosoideae family and it grows in swampy areas. 

Areas of standing water will always provide prime breeding conditions for mosquitoes and areas where water collects and stagnates are even worse. 

The 'water loving tree' merely indicated the conditions for mosquito breeding and upped the ante for malaria. 

One story has it that the early settlers thought the tree caused the fever but I doubt that. Common sense suggests that people knew that wet or swampy areas were breeding grounds for malarial mosquitoes because efforts had been made for thousands of years to ‘dry out’ land  which was being settled, to rid the area of malaria. London, in Roman times and New York in the 17^th century, being two prime examples.  

The tree also grows in Australia but minus the thorns and minus the fever. Many African trees have developed thorns over millennia to afford them some protection from voracious animals.  

Some of the thorns are quite vicious and would tear us apart but, in that  way of things, animals have also adapted and the giraffe in particular has a tongue and mouth so leather-like that it can chomp away on as many ‘delicious’ deadly thorns as it so wishes.  

ABOVE: Giraffes have developed leathery tongues and mouths which enable them to eat even the most vicious thorns.

Australian fauna posed no such threat; hence no thorns on most trees or bushes. Nature is truly wonderful! There is a capacity in this world for everything to adapt and nothing which cannot be overcome. 

Containers, clingwrap and the cry of conscience.

Who would have thought anyone could get so excited about storage containers, cling-wrap and freezer bags?  Then again, I have long known that deprivation breeds appreciation.

Order is restored; we found the aptly named Shoprite yesterday and after a mammoth ‘stock-up’ have pretty much what we need. Except for nuts. The delicious locally prepared peanuts aside, and some South African beer nuts, this seems to be a nut-free zone. There must be a reason but I don’t know what it is. I can only assume that the climate turns oil rancid quickly and nuts, unless refrigerated, do not last long. On the ‘bring in from Oz or South Africa’ list goes: pine-nuts, almonds, walnuts, pecan nuts .... any nuts really.

But it wasn’t the lack of nuts which made me ‘go a little nuts’ yesterday, but the counting of money. To all those who have not counted 113,000 Kwacha in 500K notes, let me tell you it is time-consuming and challenging. I’m surprised I didn’t dream about 500K notes after counting my way through so many. Greg counted first; I counted second and finally the teller counted third.

We counted into lots of twenty and then folded one note around and I put them into a compartment of my bag. Heavier that bag got. I am just glad they were pretty much new notes. I wonder where all the old ones are? And then we handed over wad, after wad, after wad to the teller who counted slowly but surely all over again. The mountain of notes at her side grew and grew. It must have been one of Shoprite’s ‘better’ days.

I could only think of the enormous bags, crates, cartons or whatever they are – required to haul Kwachas through Malawi. Bucketloads of money must be carried around this country every day.

We had to make two extra trips to the bank next door to get more Kwacha as midway through the supermarket, and again, at the till, we realised we would be tens of thousands short. In Oz terms it was an $850 shop but we were stocking a completely empty larder; buying storage jars, plastic containers, some extra china bowls , kitchen equipment and alcohol.

By African supermarket standards Shoprite is very good. Clean, ordered and well stocked with, nuts aside, pretty much anything we could want. We came home with all sorts of unexpected treats: candles for the dining table; a potato masher; a measuring jug (although I had survived my cake, jam and pastry-making by guesswork but better not to push it); some rubber spatulas (invaluable); two strainers, one large and one medium (much better than the colander for draining rice et al) and glass jars for the rest of my strawberry jam, which, is damn fine actually and I do not understand why I did not make it before given that I have always made my own apricot jam and marmalade. Home-made strawberry jam is divine! About a kilo of strawberries with equal amount of sugar, juice of a lemon and half an hour’s cooking gave me four jars of fabulous jam.

A deliquescent (yes, it is not as firm as commercial jam but chunky with strawberries) drop onto my toast this morning and I was in heaven. So was Greg. It reminded me yet again that much if not most commercial jam is bulked with apple puree which is why it simply does not have the flavour of true jam made with the fruit of choice and sugar.

The fresh produce at the supermarket was not bad but is probably better on the streets. The tomatoes I bought the other day tasted wonderful and I have seen good bananas and papaya and of course strawberries.  Potatoes seem to be a bit ‘withered’ here but I suspect that is the humidity. For that matter they were not very good in Perth; always a bit mushy when cooked.   

 ABOVE: A Malawi village - life is still simple for most Malawians.

I thought Limited would help me sort and pack away but it was not to be. The funeral, as I should have realised, was clearly an all day event. But I did not really mind. It was easier to slowly sort and pack away on my own. Mbwe turned up about five, apologised for the ‘funeral’ taking so long ... as if it was his fault ... and then helped wash up the new storage jars and containers. The bowls I had bought were very dirty ... but they were plain white, a lovely shape and on sale.... 150K each! $1 a bowl. Perfect for nuts and olives, although one now stands on the coffee table holding my first pot-pourri.

It’s a process of ‘learning’ on both sides with household staff... I hate the word servants. Each employer, or ‘madam’ and ‘sir’ has their own way of doing things and varying levels of discipline and order. My first experience of this was in India and I was always conscious of the fact that in time we would leave and they would stay and the job was their lifeline and it was so important to work with them in a way which made them readily employable for anyone at anytime in the future.

In our world when you lose your job you don’t end up in the gutter. Well, you might in America but the rest of the developed world has pretty secure safety nets and these simply do not exist in the Third World.

When I first arrived in Bombay, I heard the story of the German woman who treated her two young maids like daughters. She took them out shopping , bought them pretty clothes and took them to tea at the Taj Hotel .... spoiled them rotten as they say. It was all well and good for her and I am sure she got lots of ‘warm fuzzies’ out of it,  but when she left, some two years later, the two young women were not only desolate they were unemployable.  It wasn’t kind to do what she did; it was cruel.

One could argue that the ‘experience’ may have inspired them to strive for more and so set them on the road to a ‘better’ life but that would be rare and unlikely; India, like so many places in the undeveloped world, is generally unforgiving and, for that matter, unchanging.

I was guided very much by the people who had lived in the house before us, Sam and Marianne, who were Turkish/Swedish and who had initially employed Rita and found her to be an excellent worker ... when given a disciplined and ordered environment.  I found it hard to do; to keep the distance and the formality but I followed their advice and probably ranked as a rarity, as they did, in never having any problem with theft, breakages; punctuality or sloppy work.

It was my first time as a ‘madam’ and I was probably a bit strict. I was not unkind, nor lacking in generosity but I was strict and probably severe. Sigh. But I did my best and found I had none of the problems that other expats had.

Rita, our maid, was delighted I know when I left Bombay after four years. I will never forget her broad smile as she said goodbye to me at the door. I actually felt a bit tearful but one look at her face and I realised, with more shock than surprise perhaps, that she was absolutely thrilled to see the back of me. I felt awful but I knew I hadn’t been hard; just firm and disciplined. I still felt awful.

She stayed on in the house and was inherited by the new residents who also worked for the company. I left copious notes.... shouldn’t have bothered ... about the way things were done, more for Rita’s sake than theirs. It was pretty much ignored.  They were really nice, good, kind, christian people who didn’t have the ‘heart’ to enforce discipline.  From the stories I heard Rita was running riot and it could only end in tears .... hers, not theirs.

The boundaries were severely pushed and discipline was minimal and sadly, I heard a couple of years later, after they had left and Rita had been employed by some other expats, that she had transgressed so badly she had been sacked.  The liberties she had been allowed to take by her former employees were generally unacceptable to all expats and totally unacceptable to all Indians and led to her inevitable downfall.  It wasn’t so much by our standards but it was by the standards of the culture and the place; she was found by her employer entertaining her family to tea in the house. Sacked on the spot!

The real tragedy of this was that Rita was the sole provider. Her husband was an alcoholic and she had three young daughters to feed, raise and, if they were lucky, to educate.

I have often wondered what became of her and her children. The youngest was born while she worked for us and she named her after our daughter Morgan. That child would now be twenty. I can only hope that her mother found more work, learned a lesson and that she and her daughters did not end up in the gutter.

A lot of expats don’t establish reasonable and firm guidelines or ‘rules’, often because they feel uncomfortable or guilty and it doesn’t take long for ‘boundaries to be pushed.’ It is so different to Australia where people can come and clean your house or work in your garden and they can become your friends; even close friends. It is not like that here. There are boundaries and borders and traditional courtesies and social systems which have to be respected for the sake of everyone.

Fair but disciplined; kind but firm; ordered but flexible are what makes it all work from what I can see.  My preference is to have no-one, but people here need work. It is as simple as that.  Of course there are positives in terms of not having to clean but then I didn’t do that in Australia anyway. Well, not beyond daily tidying. And we don’t have a dishwasher here so having someone to wash dishes, particularly when I cook, is great.

ABOVE: Lake Malawi is a huge inland sea.

But I am still getting used to having someone moving around the house; the sound of bare feet on the brick floor; a rattle, rustle and sweep of the broom. We are so used to being alone in the developed world; to having our privacy. Communal living has pretty much gone. I am sure that those who still live communally, like Africans and Indians, would be unnerved to find themselves alone. I am unnerved for the opposite reason.  

At this stage Limited and Mbwe have been coming at seven in the morning, leaving for lunch between 12-2 and then coming back until 4-5 and then returning again around 6. From what I gather this last ‘task’ is to turn on lights and close curtains and I can’t see much point in that. There may have been another system at work which made more sense but I have taken on lights and curtains in the evening and am happy for them to finish around 5.  They have also been coming in at weekends but we prefer our own space and place and will not bother with it unless we are entertaining.

Limited and Mbwe live nearby.... just down the road. They are in a complex  of houses specially built for the household workers. As part of our rent we pay for their accommodation, electricity and water so it is, including their salary, by local standards, quite a good package. Mbwe gets 22,000K  ($A146) a month and Limited 20,000K ($A133).  I also provide them with bread, butter, tea, jam, peanut butter and fruit. Plus plenty of ‘left-overs’ because I have never learned to cook for anything less than about eight people.... no doubt a legacy of my life as a child when I cooked for the family because my mother was often sick.

All in all, they are amongst the lucky ones given poverty in Africa. Although I saw the first beggars yesterday in downtown Lilongwe; one a small boy and the other a woman with a baby strapped to her back. They seemed half-hearted about the process though and both appeared well fed and cleanly dressed so I suspect the ‘begging’ was opportunistic and triggered by the sight of foreigners.

India was and is, wall to wall beggars and given the wealth of the country, should not be. Angola was pretty bad but there was a war on and  a lot of them were 'mutilados' ; those who had lost arms or legs. Fom what I have heard things are better. Zambia was relatively ‘light’ on beggars and in South Africa the street corners were awash with people selling all and sundry to make a few Rand.

It’s a relief not to have to process ‘guilt’ on every street corner in Lilongwe. In India we gave food because money would immediately be taken by the pimps who control the begging; in Zambia we did the same although whether the begging was as organised I am not sure. It was mostly small boys hanging around the gates outside the supermarket. We would buy them some food along with our groceries and hand it out as we left.

Begging is like tipping; it is a symptom not a cause. It is a symptom of unemployment or low wages and lack of worker’s rights. The double-edged sword is that when begging works an industry is created and when tipping works the same thing happens and there is no impetus to push for decent wages.  Begging and Tipping are both patronising and humiliating; no matter the ‘spin’ that Americans in particular and people in general like to put on tipping. Tipping, like giving to a beggar, gives the benefactor a ‘warm glow’ of ‘superiority’; both are a hangover from a time when the world was divided into ‘superior’ and ‘inferior’ and when class ruled.

It still does in the Third World in the main and the First to some degree in some places, but both begging and tipping are symptoms of injustice. Not that any one of us can save or change the world. End of monologue and pontificating. It is just that living in the Third World makes one think so much more about such things; well, it does me.

The cry of conscience is louder here. The trick is to decide just how much can sensibly be done and to do it. Nor forgetting perhaps, but being prepared, to relinquish the rest.