All in the family

After a couple months of dirt scratching and mindless wandering, the chickens succumbed to Newcastle—not the beer unfortunately—and slowly croaked, but a new life form keeps the house interesting. The chores became overwhelming, so I began kicking around the ides of having a student board with me to cut down on housework and loneliness. I approached my most adult senior, Moses Banda, and since he’s take up the spare bedroom, having daily company has transformed my service. The best medication for occasional Peace Corps woes: someone to tell you good morning and to share meals with.

Living with a Malawian, especially on my own turf where I can dictate domestic order, also allows me to look even more closely into the cultural kaleidoscope. Any attempts to shift the colors, even with just Moses, haven’t been terribly successful, but we wind ourselves into ridiculous observations. One nigh after dinner, he timidly mentioned that I needed to buy some more sugar. “Well, Moses,” I joked, thinking of the heaps of sugar Malawians add to their tea and porridge, “I haven’t been eating any.” He then mentioned how strange it is that I don’t drink tea, a comment that baffled me. We drink tea at breakfast every morning. “But, sir, you do not add sugar to your water.” “But, Moses, I add tea to my water.” “But, sir, hot water is tea when you add sugar. Don’t we agree?” “Well, no, Moses. We do not agree on tea, it seems, but don’t you like the fish?”

His beverage philosophy became more perplexing when he worriedly mentioned that my two-ish liters of water per day might jeopardize my health. I assured him that, other than my peaceful night’s rest (my anti-malarial med decreases bladder capacity, so I’m up three times a night visiting the corn rows), nothing was put at risk. Eventually I wondered how much he thought was normal. “Sometimes I don’t drink anything for a day.” I try to force five-hundred ml down his throat at dinner each night, but he either takes one, maybe two sips or, to spite me, says he spilt it while I was out of the room. He is clearly irked by treat water, but believing that I’ll surely “not make at,” he at least blatantly refuses to eat uncooked greens.

(On a larger scale, his attitudes are distressing. Because it can cause diarrhea, untreated water is the largest killer of children under five here, and the kids that do make it often have orange hair for lack of proper nutrition found in greens and fruit.)

My efforts to endow the gift—or curse—of western time-consciousness in my surrogate younger brother has been more successful, perhaps too successful. We had agreed to have cassava, a starchy root vegetable that you peel and then boil, for breakfast the next morning. As I was heading back to bed from the corn rows, I noticed Moses awake peeling cassava by candlelight. “Moses, what time do you think it is?” I remembered croaking sleepily. “Around four o’clock.” I dragged my wrist watch toward my face and looked at the glowing hands. “It’s eleven thirty.” The next day, I asked him if I had dreamed the cassava episode or not, and he giggled no, saying that he wondered why he had “trouble with closing eyes.”

The minutia of daily home life here has shifted from a series of burdens to a string of unexpected treats. In some ways, I feel like a young father, constantly concerned about providing some spare money, good foods, happiness, and even water to my fledgling—who is actually just four years younger than I. It’s a nourishing thought, though, to wake up knowing you have someone else to care for.