A Walk Home

This is one slice of life in Nkhamenya. It was a particularly good one.

On Tuesday January 6th, I knocked off from work at about 6 ‘o’ clock. The sky was already starting to darken to dusk, owing to the large thunderhead building on the Western horizon and to the fact that the sun sets before 7 here.

Some of the field staff offer to give me a ride home on their motorcycle, but I decline. The skirt I’m wearing is inappropriate for motorcycle travel and anyway, I kind of want to walk.

The air was cool and smelled of rain – Malawian rain-smell is fresh and cool, like at home, but it doesn’t have the sharp, clear edge that it does at home. The view is breathtaking. Plan’s office in Nkhamenya is on the southern edge of town on the top of a hill. Heading north (towards my house) is a valley where the Nkhamenya trading center is, then another, gentler hill where the town unfolds. From the paved road in front of the office, you can see mountains in the distance to the northeast that mark the boundary between Malawi and Zambia, the town in the valley and sprawled up the next hill, and farmland and more town and villages to the east.

On this night, the eastern sky is clear and blue, while the mountains are gently greyed by falling rain, and a breathtakingly impressive thunderstorm is (as I’ve already mentioned) billowing in from the West.

I set off at a brisk pace, wanting to beat the rain home, and am promptly interrupted by running into Macfarlane, one of the men who lives near the maize market on the southeast edge of town. We exchange greetings in Chitumbuka (“Matandala? Tatandala makola. Kwali imwe? Natandala makola.”) and then I get lectured for not coming to see his house on the weekend. I promise to do it later in the week, and we part ways.

A little farther up the road, I’m flagged down by one of the local women who wants to chat. I decline the invitation in broken Chichewa (“Ndifuna kupita ku nymba… mvula zibwera”) and she laughs and wishes me well in Chitumbuka (“Muyendi makola”). A gaggle of children spot me from across the road (“Azungu!” Hello!”) and I pause to wave and laughingly reply like I do every day (“Hello! Good-bye!”). Then I continue on my way across the bridge just before the trading center.

Neli Ngoma and her family live in a compound just across the bridge – they’ve sort of taken me under their friendly and generous wings since I’ve moved to Nkhamenya. Frank, the father, is just pulling into the driveway with his bicycle. We stop to chat (exchanging greetings in Chichewa and then chatting in English). He’s just come from the field, and is looking forward to the rain. I’m planning on stopping at the restaurant his wife works at for supper. Which works out well – Nkhamenya has a resident madman who likes to throw stones at people and speak to you in unintelligible rhyme and Frank spots him headed our way. Frank escorts me to the restaurant – the rain seems to be due at any minute, but hasn’t started yet.

We sit and chat for a bit while we wait for Neli, Frank’s wife, to come from the kitchen of the diner. They’re busy tonight so it takes her some time. After she’s spoken to Frank and I, Frank leaves and I sit and visit with Fatsani, one of the other women who works at the diner. We chat about school, our families and about Canada, and she translates the choruses of the music videos playing on the restaurant’s TV.

After chatting for about half an hour, I remember that I wanted to order dinner. But Fatsani and Neli already have me covered. I have nsima with beef relish and am told that it is a gift – they flat out refuse to take my money (it’s a fight to pay for the bottle of pineapple Fanta I had while I was visiting with Fatsani). By now it’s about 7:15 and night has completely taken over – but no rain yet.

I say “night has taken over” and not “it’s completely dark” because it’s nowhere near dark outside. The thunderhead has blown into the east without loosing the storm, and the sky is alight with a waxing quarter moon and stars like I’ve never seen. Winter stars in Canada are bright, but rainy season stars in Malawi seem so close. And even at half-mast, the moonlight is bright enough to cast shadows; you can even still see the dark outline of the mountains in the distance.

I walk the rest of the way home without running into anyone I know. Once the blaring music from the local Chibuku bar fades, the quieter sounds of town at night set in – crickets, bats, and the metallic creaking and running water sound that means someone is drawing water from the borehole near the second bridge (a Chibuku bar is hangout that mostly sells locally brewed Malawian “beer” that comes in cartons and that I haven’t been brave enough to try yet). Just past the second bridge, I turn west off the paved road onto the lane that leads to my home. I can hear children laughing, women doing dishes or the sounds of people visiting by candlelight as I pass by the many, many houses crammed into my neighborhood (you’re never alone in Nkhamenya).

The maize garden in front of my house is beautiful in the moonlight. I stop to admire it a bit before dropping my things in my house and then stopping in next door to visit my neighbor. After a brief chat, I head back into my house, stopping on my porch to again admire the view before retiring for the night.