The Travelling Teacher: Malawi A-Z: part 1 (A-F)

Hello everyone!

Back in January 2016, as Hannah and I were hot-footing it back to Prague from a weekend job fair in London, I sent my parents a text. “We’ve gone for the adventure,” it read. A two-year contract in Malawi, a country we would both struggle to locate on a map.

Six years later, we are saying our goodbyes to the ‘Warm Heart of Africa’. It has been quite the adventure.

Supporting Malawi (with their old flag) at a football match in Lilongwe

One of innumerable beautiful sunsets

It’s become a tradition, borrowed from a family we knew in Kazakhstan, to create an A-Z list of things we’ll associate with the country we are leaving. Here’s part one of the Malawian A-Z. Please know that there are personal views and that it is a light-hearted list: you are only allowed to be offended by the quality of the writing!

How beds are often transported

Hopefully the list won't make your jaw drop in horror!

Part 1: A-F

A is for…azungu

Alternatives: Area 47

It translates as ‘white person’. If you are white and in Malawi, you’ll hear it a lot…as it’s shouted at you from across the street. Imagine the reverse for a second. Imagine being in the UK and shouting ‘black person’. Quite rightly, you wouldn’t make it to the end of your street.

Playing with a ball made out of plastic bags

Gule wamkulu ceremony - a video is below

In Malawi, it doesn’t possess connotations like that. If there is one, it’s along the lines of, “you are white, therefore you have money”. Mostly, however, it’s said out of sheer curiosity. Particularly outside the main towns, azungus are a rare sight. Most kids seem to be over the old story of the azungus coming to eat them; they’re the ones who chant and sprint over with innocent delirium.

Village kids have often never seen what they look like,
so enjoy seeing themselves on camera

Being followed on a walk in Lizulu

It surprised me that there are quite a few white Malawians, a legacy of colonisation and immigration. Yet it’s a society where all races and religions generally get on well. There were a couple of riots attached to racism whilst we lived in Lilongwe but those grievances seem to be economic as much as racist.

This was actually political, related to the 2019 election

Kids were less keen to strut their stuff
when we had our dogs in tow

It can be weird to have factual statements shouted at you (this isn’t the only one - ‘you are running’ is another). But the fascination, particularly from little kids, makes it quite an endearing trait.

We played frisbee with these kids for a while -
that road you can see is one of Malawi's major roads

Showing kids the phone on the southern lakeshore

B is for…bongololo

Alternatives: braii, baobab, BMIS, Blue Zebra

You read this phonetically. Bon-go-lo-lo. A lovely word to describe a delightfully weird creature.

It looks like it's floating when it moves

A cousin of the bongololo we found in Luwawa

It’s essentially a large millipede which looks like it’s wearing body armour and has the bristles of cleaning products as its legs. It has slightly different names in the region (chongololo, shongololo) and is a completely harmless creature. Admittedly, it is strange to see one seemingly hovering across your classroom floor for the first time.

Bongololo in classroom alert!

Occasionally you'll find them fully curled up

We called our internet bongololo. When asked why in the shop, I replied, “Well…it’s a really funny word.” A funny word for a funny creature. Well, there had to be something funny about our internet, which seemed to run at the same speed as a bongololo…

Slooooooooooooooooow...

...but better than this!

C is for…chitenge

Alternatives: Covid-19, Casinomas, Cape Maclear, cichlids, Colour Run

In various leaving speeches, people have been referencing my clothing. Particularly this number…

The chitenge suit - the other teachers in my year level
team had dresses using the same pattern

The chitenge market in Area 2, where
many women would sell fabric

The type of fabric which gets converted into suits and shirts I wouldn’t have dreamt of wearing a few years ago is called chitenge. It’s common across sub-Saharan Africa and has many uses.

From cushions...

...to waistcoats!

The waxy material needs frequent washing in order to loosen it for wearing, otherwise you feel like you are wearing cardboard. I’ve had mixed results with my fabrics. At least it’s one way we know we’ve contributed to the local economy!

Doctors and patients both sporting chitenge

My dad has a nice chitenge shirt now as well!

There was a time, when the first president, Kamuzu, was in charge, that women had to wear chitenge to do anything. Even participating in running races. Can’t imagine it’s conducive to getting a PB. I can’t imagine what Kamuzu would have thought of my wardrobe…

Dresses for my niece

My favourite shirt

D is for…dogs

Alternatives: driving, dinosaurs, Dzalanyama

Probably the biggest change during our Malawian adventure came in 2018 when we adopted a baby Jack Russell. Connections were key: it came from the family of a girl I was teaching at the time. 6 puppies were born and we took the last one, calling her Mini. This turned into having two dogs when we adopted her sister, Maxi, from our friends who had to leave for Australia in 2020.

Mini: occasionally willing to play ball

Happy puppies

It helped open up a new world of understanding; specifically, that many Malawians are terrified of dogs. Understandable, given the chance of one being rabid. Understandable, given how our two dogs like to say hello by running full pelt at people whilst growling. Once you get over the initial meet and greet, they are lovely.

Jack Russells are supposed to be very acive. Ours spend
most of their day in positions such as this...

...or down here when the vet comes to visit!

They’ve been rumoured to have bitten a police officer and multiple gardeners. They’ve destroyed a sofa, two dog beds and a puff through anxiety (the reason for which is a longer story and connected to who they would initially stay with when we were all away). They’ve had various ailments ranging from worms to puffy necks. They are also the best thing that happened for us.

They often show their anxiety like this...

...and other times with resting sad face.

Mini and Maxi will be coming with us on our next adventure. Part of the family. You wouldn’t leave your kids behind, would you? Cheaper to travel with kids, actually…

Most people found this method of transportation hilarious. Myself included.

I'm sure they're happy to be coming. Less looking forward to their flights, though...

E is for…ear infections

Alternatives: ESCOM, elephants, elections

Six years is a long time and means that many things can be forgotten. If it wasn’t for creating this list, I wouldn’t have remembered spending a lot of my spare time in the city’s ear clinic for much of the first 18 months.

One of the special chambers in the ear clinic at ABC

Nice logo!

I’m not quite sure how and why I got quite so many ear infections (I’m blaming the school’s swimming pool). The practice’s common treatment of shoving toilet paper in my ears had mixed results. With my sister being an audiologist, I was able to get second opinions on their work. She…didn’t seem impressed.

The toys weren't used with me

That black stuff? That was in my ear...

Medical facilities are a bit desperate in Lilongwe. I’m glad I didn’t have any major issues aside from my one bout of malaria in 2019. I ended up getting a medical procedure for my ears done in Dubai when on a teacher training course - thank you medical insurance!

The hospital in Dubai where I had microsuction on my ears

F is for…Flora

Alternatives: flame trees, fish eagle, football

One of the many things we were told when arriving is that we would likely end up hiring a cleaner. At the time, I thought this was a ridiculous idea and an unnecessary privilege. Whilst that’s still probably true, we couldn’t have lived without Flora.

Look how clean it is!

We had another cleaner at the beginning, a lady called Linus whom we shared with another family. She somehow lasted a year. I was always a bit suspicious of her (‘bloody Linus’ was a regular expression), particularly when the plates to our George Foreman went missing. They were returned a few months later, complete with scorch marks on the bottom as if placed on a fire, when she was fired after being caught stealing from the other family. She actually took us to court. Her case was literally laughed out by the judge who said that she had been earning more than they did.

What could happen without a cleaner...

Flora was a trooper, working slowly and carefully. She was incredibly trustworthy and, more importantly for us, got on well with the dogs. When I say ‘got on well’, in reality she would just ignore them. However, the dogs needed a familiar face in order to not become even more anxious than normal.

Mini missing Flora...possibly...

Has having hired help made us lazy? To an extent, yes. I can't remember the last time I ironed clothes. The Tetris stack of dishes piled on the side as we left for school each Monday morning gave me a slight sense of guilt. The fact that we were paying her way above average to essentially be a dog-sitter assuaged that slightly. Flora has done very well out of us and will still work for our neighbours. A gem in what is often an awkward situation.