Banalities and Tragedies.

Limited came last night to say that one of the men from the staff quarters had been killed in a car accident so he and Andrew will be late today.

I could leave it all for them but I like tidy and so have done dishes, tidied bed, put on washing - none of which I mind. We were up early, at six, because we went to bed at 9.30 and I think I will be due for an early coffee. It is nice in a way to have the house to myself and to wander around sorting washing, doing dishes, tidying and cleaning. It reminds me of how much I like my life in Australia where when someone comes to clean, it is once a week or once a fortnight for a few hours as opposed to every day, most of the day.

Perhaps it is because I value my privacy, or because, growing up in a society which does not have servants, I do not find it as easy to share space. But, as we realised in India, the most valuable thing you can do in the Third World is give someone a job. Of course there are pluses and having the house kept clean and the washing and ironing done are big pluses - but there are also minuses. As with all things no doubt.


Life is so much harder for people here. You cannot help but be conscious of the fact that it is not just the death of the young man but the family will lose their home and his wife and children will be dependent on their family. The quarters here are provided by employers and so if you lose the job then you lose the house. They are really, by local standards, very well off because our guys get more than double the minimum wage plus the house and we pay for electricity and water so it must be a shock when that kind of life is lost. But perhaps they are used to it in ways we might not be.

But you cannot help but feel for them all the same. Our house is in a block of four, fenced and there are about ten, maybe twelve, of them in this street but three or four of them are not completed and have been sitting in that state for thirty years. The houses were built by the president who took over at independence,  Hastings Kamuzu Banda, and are actually well constructed - shades of the hangover from the Brits. They belong to the family estate and they have begun finishing the vacant ones.

Like all presidents and those who hold power in Africa, Banda was quick to take advantage of his position and to branch out into profitable areas for personal gain. Hence the row of houses which still provide income for his family.

In the middle of the group are the staff quarters and these are really nice houses - palaces by local standards - the area also fenced, with accommodation for the staff who work in the houses - I guess at present that means about thirty families.

Photo: Copper in cables is too tempting to resist in Malawi.
 
And when Limited did come back, in mid-afternoon, once the family had been set on their way to Blantyre,  I heard that the young man who died was not married. That in itself is a blessing for more lives could have been ruined by his death if he had a wife and children. He was in his early twenties and studying - another huge loss for the family because he would have earned a better wage than many can, should he have qualified. His sister is in intensive care and he had taken her breakfast, in that way of the Third World where facilities are poor and family need to ensure that family members are fed while in hospital. He was on his way back when he collided head-on with a truck. Or the truck collided with him. 'Bang,' said Limited, bringing his hands together.

They drive too fast and trucks are often overloaded in Africa so such accidents are common. It is yet another tragedy for his family because his sister is unwell and pregnant and she lost her husband last month through the disease which rages through the subcontinent and no doubt through her. Such litanies of woe are not unusual in Africa and perhaps people are more pragmatic about tragedy in general, but the grief remains enormous all the same.


Our problems pale into insignificance by comparison. It is a salutary reminder. It seems facile to say it, but, beyond that the weekend disappeared as it does with no power cuts which was truly spooky but the server went down because someone had cut the cable (to steal copper wire) in two places between here and Blantyre.

 Photo: Mango trees in blossom.

However, they got it back up within two hours which is pretty impressive by local standards. But copper theft remains a plague in Africa with nowhere safe from those who are looking to make easy money. The South Africans are thinking of designating copper as a precious metal which will make it illegal and therefore harder to sell. But I suspect ways will be found around even that. It is the tragic irony of life here that any attempt to improve the way things work is sabotaged by the demands of poverty and corruption.


But where you have poverty and no faith in government you will have theft and corruption. That is one 'law of the jungle' which is always at work.

There is a depressing note to Africa in that it always feels like three steps forward and four backward. We are out on leave in a few days and much in need of it. Down the 'wormhole' into Oz, which truly is a 'magical place' by comparison. Deprivation never breeds appreciation more than in the less developed world. One can only wish it were other. But, wishing does not make things work better and neither does it bring young, broken bodies back to life.

On a brighter note, the mango trees are in blossom and the bushes and trees in general are also in fertile hands. Because of it the birds are abundant and Malawi has some of the most beautiful birds in the world. And it is strawberry season and the young men walk with boxes piled high around the streets in the old part of town. I have already made a few jars of strawberry jam and have frozen some for when we get back. The strawberries, like the tomatoes, are unexpectedly good here. They line up with the other positives in this country like the local gin, tea, coffee, peanuts and locally baked bread. There are always positives it is just that on some days more than others, it is helpful to count them.

Photo: Malachite Kingfisher, Malawi.

In many ways it has been a productive week with the genset serviced; the jerrycans and the genset full of diesel and the batteries for our inverter ordered and due for delivery by the time we get back. And there have been no power cuts for two days. On the local scale it makes for a pretty good week - well, it does for some of us.

Photo: The blue starling which keeps banging on our window - trying to connect with what it believes is another bird but which is really itself.

Synchronicities abound in life and more so when we become aware of them. There is a little bird, gloriously, shimmeringly blue, which bangs on our lounge-room window at various times of the day.

Peeking through another window we can see it fly from a bush and bang into the window. There is a shade film on the window and so it has a mirror effect and clearly the bird believes that there is another bird, a mate perhaps, when there is only a reflection. The bird is of course in 'love' with itself, or 'attracted' to itself, and does not know it!

That may be more common than we know. It is said that we are attracted to people who look 'similar' to us and that the marriages between couples who look 'alike' are more likely to be successful. I have no fixed opinion on it but in general, have observed, that there is some truth to this although it is not an absolute given.

So what did the little bird, banging into the window and possibly hurting itself, because it was fooled into thinking the image it saw was of another, possibly mean? It has been a time of pondering relationships with others and with Self and also a time when illusion, or perception, from others, has created 'false images' and deceptions.

The bird was not hurt and it has been doing this for some weeks and will no doubt continue to do it for some time more, so perhaps it symbolises no more than the fact that we can find 'mirroring' in the strangest of places and it can lead us astray more than we know. Is the bird, a symbol of spirit and spirituality, 'banging its head against something of a brick wall,' or is it simply responding to an inner rhythm and need, which, while it appears foolish to those human beings looking on, serves a valuable purpose we do not and cannot know?

Perhaps all that mattered was the fact that it gave us the opportunity, to observe, up close, a truly beautiful little bird in ways which would not normally be possible. It is a reminder of how often we fail to 'see' that which is around us; we fail to truly observe, skimming in essence, through and on our world. Like Slow Food there is a place for and a practice in Slow Life which is less easy to find in the busy rush of the modern world.

And in Malawi, things tend to be slower than elsewhere because the general lack of efficiency means things happen slowly, if they happen at all. Power cuts slow things down. Incompetence slows things down. Inefficiency and disinterest slow things down. It is a wonder sometimes that anything much happens at all. But it does, and perhaps like the bird, banging away at the window, it happens as it should, in its own time, for reasons that we do not know. I like to think so anyway.

There is a saying that 'beggars can't be choosing' and I suspect that applies to life in metaphorical as well as literal sense. There are a few more beggars on the streets of Malawi these days although not as many as there might be. The maize harvest has been good and there are signs of improvement, which, if they continue, will make Malawi better than it has been for a long time.

While some things have improved in Malawi, there are ominous signs that not as much has changed as one might have hoped. The power cuts have begun again and are worse. Every day, pretty much, for from four to eight hours which is an increase on the old way of being of probably four hours each time. Sigh. Still, diesel, for the moment is not in short supply and that is good because our batteries are nearly dead and must be replaced and the inverter cannot function for much more than an hour when we lose power and so we have to turn on the generator to keep things operating.

Perhaps we knew that things might get worse because we bought a barbecue a few weeks ago and it is a godsend. We also found small gas cans for our portable camping gas hob so between the barbecue which uses briquettes and the hob, we can at least cook if we are low on diesel. The camping hob came up with our goods from Perth and I honestly cannot remember why we bought it in the first place but it is invaluable here. As we so often say:'we have everything we need, somewhere.' Luckily in this case the 'somewhere' is where we are.

It is the dry season at present although we have had grey skies and the occasional rainfull which is unusual. Then again, they had light snow in Johannesburg today which is even more unusual. Well, unusual when assessed in light of the brevity of human history. It may not be the least bit unusual in terms of earth history.

We are Out of Africa in about a week and needing it as one does. Life muddles along pleasantly enough and you only realise you need to get out when some small thing happens and you want to scream, smash something, kick the door in reactions far beyond anything the incident could trigger. It's cumulative. The small frustrations, disappointments, tediums, annoyances, inefficiencies and trials of living in the Third World.

I wonder why it is this way. I feel okay - I am happy with my life - I find it fascinating, interesting, stimulating and yet clearly at subliminal levels it is still frustrating. Perhaps it is more frustrating because one knows there are other ways; other options and that the world does not have to be a place of injustice, incompetence, fear, cruelty and greed. You can get along with it and get by with it, but knowing that there are other places in the world which are not like this, must, by necessity create greater frustration if not anger with the way things work here.

'Cabin fever' is part and parcel for the course living in Africa! And the 'need' to get out only seems to manifest when you know that you are. I used to say that people visiting India had a ticket in their pocket which meant they would never react or relate to it in the way that those who lived there did. Africa is the same. Visiting is not living! It's the difference between dipping a toe into a pool as opposed to diving in and swimming a few lengths. A taste, not a meal. A sip, not a gulp. A tinkering, not a 'taking it apart' to really find out how it works.

But then life brings us what we need and clearly the Third World meal is something I need more than others. I have no doubt it nourishes and supports and serves purpose in ways I do not perhaps know. Just as the blue bird banging its head against the window seems without purpose, if not 'painful,' so too can my experience here, except on both counts it does serve purpose and the task is not necessarily to know what that purpose is, but simply to appreciate that it exists and to appreciate the experience for itself.

N.B. I think the word is out. We now have another little bird doing the same thing. A yellow-bellied sunbird - a tiny bird with fluorescent feathers.