Blantyre Saturday

January 31, 2009
Tonight I write from Blantyre. We are enjoying the weekend at the lovely home of Mary, one of Ubwino Ma Amayi’s founders. After three weeks at rural Namitembo, it is both refreshing and surprising to be in a city complete with parking fees, shopping malls and a chemist! I have struggled with a plugged ear for several days. A few drops of a mixture from the chemist and a night’s sleep did the trick. Now I can hear on both sides again!

This morning we went with Mary’s driver on a business and shopping expedition. The first stop was the immigration office where we extended our visitor’s permits. The stamp at the airport is good for just 30 days, but now, 20,000 Kwatcha later, we are good for another two months. That project required waiting in several lines which gave us a chance to watch bureaucracy in action, or more accurately, in slow motion. The number of carbon copies and stamped papers reminded me of India, another country influenced by the British system. A Pakistani man was anxious to change US dollars for us. It was only at the counter that we understood why. He was applying for a visa and payment must be made in US dollars. We were able to help for part of his fee, but he didn’t have enough kwatcha to change more than one of our bills. Later we saw him in the next line, so he must have worked out something with the cashier!

Next stop, a fabric store. (Chet was very patient.) Today’s project was to find materials for a couple of Malawi dolls for the nursery school. The present dolls have white skin and blonde hair. I found brown fabric, and embroidery thread for features. We were directed to another shop for black wool (yarn), which I’ll use for doll hair. The second shop was stocked with an amazing variety of goods, from Chinese made treadle sewing machines and large pieces of corrugated sheet metal to car batteries, spools of cotton thread and yarn. On the sidewalk outside were a dozen men sitting at treadle sewing machines. Each had samples of the kind of garment he would make for customers, including trousers, dresses, shirts, suits.

Next we went to a fine little bookstore. Here I found a good reference on wildflowers of Malawi with color photographs and good botanical information. Finally, I’ll be able to identify some of these wonderful flowers. Mary’s garden is beautiful with a great number of flowering shrubs and trees. Most amazing to me are three weaver-bird nests in a tree near her balcony. Before this, I’d only seen them at Woodland Park Zoo.

In the afternoon, we visited the huge local market. Hundreds of vendors offered tomatoes, artfully stacked three high, baskets of different kinds of dried beans, garlic sold in whole heads and broken into individual cloves, and a variety of peppers, green beans, apples, cucumbers and salad greens. A whole section is devoted to Irish potatoes and another to bananas. Banana vendors have storage stalls behind their counters where they keep branches of bananas and the leaves until the fruit is ripe. We walked through the hardware section where there are worn disc brake rotors, tire wrenches and automobile coil springs. Nearby are wooden doors, hoes of different sizes and carved wooden nsima spoons. In another area we saw beef quarters hanging in small shops, many kinds of “fragrant” dried fish from Lake Malawi and all manner of plastic jewelry, cosmetics, used and new clothing, soap, school supplies and shoes.

We spent a few minutes watching a fast paced game of Bao. Two men moved marbles from space to space on a wooden game board consisting of four rows of indentations. This game is similar to Oware or Mancala. The players and the group watching agreed to let me take their picture.