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.