News

Mr. Nkhosi, a contracted employee in the World Relief Office died Friday-before-last of AIDS. He was a regular presence in the office and a friend. My first day on the job was also his and I've known him for as long as I've been here.

I was in Monkey Bay when I got the call that he had died. By the time it came through I was already missing the funeral for which I was really depressed. It's so typical that the white guy would miss a friend's funeral because he was swimming at Cape Maclear. I know there was nothing I could do at that point, but I still feel awful about it.

The whole episode has helped me to comprehend how incomprehensible the problem of AIDS is. It can kill quickly and slowly (due to whatever it is that is taking advantage of a lack of immunities) and doesn't leave you much time for anything, sometimes not even grief. Sometimes Malawi can feel like a warzone. There are multiple funerals every weekend and at least one is someone who is connected to your family in some way. Grief here is a controlled emotion. There's a time for it, and there's a time to get on with life and there's a hard line in-between. I've heard Malawians accuse Americans of being too sentimental and emotional. They're right, grief is different for us just like the rest of life. I can't really help it though.

Mr. Nkhosi was a good friend and a good man. He left behind a wife and three children. Since meeting and praying with her I can report that she's going through a lot of grief at the moment. We have supported her financially for the expenses of the funeral and then some but she has a hard life ahead of her. She needs prayer and financial support.

As for me, this was an all-too-personal contact with the AIDS crisis. Numbers don't do it justice. The pandemic is very personal for me now. Sometimes it's hard to understand why it exists at all but I know God knows because God knows Nkhosi and Nkhosi knew him. God is with every one of the victims and we should be too.

Latter Days

I'm back. It's been a while, I know...but, I'm back.

My parents and sister came for a visit a couple of weeks ago. It was great. We took a trip to the south see game and then moved up to Salima to visit my projects. I think they got a great cross-section of life here and it was a wonderful way to introduce them to the development world.

My internship is nearing its close. I've only got about 5 1/2 weeks left which feels like a really short amount of time. My project isn't going so well and I actually don't expect it to finish very well either. Maybe miracles still happen though. The youth I'm with aren't very motivated and the leadership of the church has gotten in the way of things more than they know. It's an interesting balance to strike, authority vs. domination. I believe in authority but when it stifles actual growth then it needs to be changed up a little. Basically, I'm not very hopeful about the project but I'm thankful to God for my time here. It's been a real blessing.

Gerald Phiri, the new youth coordinator is here! He's a really intelligent, thoughtful and pro active guy and I'm happy that he'll be my replacement. I'm now kind of like a temp who has overstayed his welcome. My presence is more of a novelty. Karissa Hernden is the office's new intern from America. She'll be working in 'permaculture' which sounds a bit like a special hair treatment shampoo but is actually a way of encouraging small farming to supply the basic nutritional needs that the populace can't get from maize. The new villages that World Relief is targeting has actually already started such projects, an encouraging sign, so Karissa and Gerald (who has also worked for a permaculture project) will be encouraging these developments. I hope things will turn out better for them than my own attempt at making life better here. Nowadays I feel like I'm just existing.

In other news, I've been reading heavy amounts of Walker Percy and Dietrich Bonhoeffer. The first wrote uncompromising treatises on the fall of man, the second, uncompromising treatises on what to do about it. A dangerous combination. HNGR has brought me into contact with a great deal of suffering, but it has also exposed me to the naked drear of everyday life. There's just not a lot going on here in Salima and days pass with a sluggish uneventfulness I have never before experienced, or rather, have had the money to avoid for most of my life. Percy highlights the human desire to escape the humming dreariness of present time through science and art.

"Both art and science are ways of knowing and as such are the greatest pleasures of which man is capable (Aristotle, Aquinas). So great, in fact, that the ordinary pursuits of life are spoiled by contrast and so the artist must go to heroic lengths to render life intolerable outside his art. What Einstein said of science might be said of art: I went into science to escape the intolerable dreariness of everyday life."

If science and art are the ways in which we abstract ourselves and 'orbit' the earth, then what are the methods in which we numb the inevitable reentry? What goes up must come down and anyone who has ever felt the odd inexplicable depression of everyday existence in America knows this. Everyone's method is different. We escape the present hour through art, science, technology, work, sex, romance, drugs, travel, philosophy, theology, political action, political apathy, money, food and drink, music, film, television, the internet, exercise, playing sports, watching sports etc. (and the interesting thing about science is that the scientist has the option of staying orbital for longer periods of time since our society understands the world scientifically rather than artistically/mythically. Still, at some point the scientist, even the concrete, 'applied' social scientist must come home to his wife or mother who doesn't give a care about, 'cultural norms' or 'social stuctures' but just wants him to fix the @&#% sink). How many times do I turn on my iPod or open a book or watch a film to escape the present? Far too much. HNGR has confronted me with what it really is to live 'in the fullness of time'. Malawians do it, or at least have a better concept of it. They seem to content themselves with things that drive me up the wall; like having the same conversation 100 times a day. "Hi, how are you? Where are you going? How do you compare Malawi with America?" Same string of questions every time. It's so maddeningly ordinary. But what is it about this present life that drives me to feel that I must exit it? Why do I feel so good reading and writing papers about, say the semiotic nature of man's existence and so bad when I have to clean my room, do laundry or slog through more broken Chichewa with my host-family?

Percy nails me to the wall when he says: "The problem...How do you go about living in the world when you are not working at your art, yet still find yourself having to get through a Wednesday afternoon?" It's such a relevant question for HNGR. Living with the poor involves spending a lot of uneventful time. This is HNGR's greatest torture and, I think, it's greatest formative experience. One is left so alone with oneself, and as a result I found myself subject to all kinds of odd behavior, e.g. I developed the special ability to consume an entire season of LOST in roughly half a week, just keeping it constantly playing in the upper-right-hand corner of the screen as I 'worked' on assignments. I also did it by doing my assignments. I have had all of my readings completed since September. There are more and less productive kinds of 'reentry', more or less socially acceptable methods, but they all accomplish the same end: removing oneself from the clear and present reality of one's own trudging existence.

The poor, by contrast, have fewer options for achieving an abstract orbit and thus find little trouble in reentering the world (though TV is quickly gaining popularity here, people don't lose themselves in it so much even though it is constantly turned on. It is more like a background for ordinary existence and the programs on it are not constructed fantasy worlds, but rather raw footage of just talk shows. Even when watching films, they just fast-forward to the action scenes). But orbit is not just distraction, it's abstraction, something we rational westerners are never safe from no matter how concrete or practical we may be. Language learning, anthropology, sociology etc. even in the interest of practical application increase our orbits of rational exaltation and thus, increase the pain of reentry into the simplicity of humming present time which has no use for such intellectual god-men. The poor miss out on the fruits of a good life, (entertainment, education), and for the first time I really think they may be the better for it. I haven't met a single depressed Malawian. There is no suicide here. Why? Certainly life is more difficult and, thus one would think that people would have more incentive to exit it. What if the difference is that they know who they are so fully that they don't even have to ask the question? Perhaps this is why there has been such an explosion of Christianity here in Africa. Perhaps a person who doesn't feel the need to ask existential questions like "Who am I? What am I doing here? What is life? What does it mean to exist?" may be more receptive to the actual answer. I don't think you have to be poor to be able to live like this, but I think I know what Jesus meant when he mentioned how difficult it was for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God. Percy acknowledges one of the only writers that he believes to have accomplished full life before God: Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Bonhoeffer's treatise on existence was in Newsletter 5 and it had a very profound effect on me. Being a disciple in our day and age involves the individual re-structuring his reality to make him nothing more than a creature before God, a reality that overrides even one's intellectual capabilities. Basically, we do not look for evidence Christ in the world, for that would be to start with the observable scientific/semiotic world as a more basic reality, but we are too look through Christ at the world. It's so painful to live like this, constantly under that self-destructing reality, but I feel that I must if I am to be a true Christian. It's not an easy call. I don't think it's a coincidence that Bonhoeffer lived this out and didn't get past 39 before he was killed by the powers and principalities of the world. I'm frightened by the prospect of being a disciple, but I know that it is the only meaningful road.

*Theological post script which can be skipped without getting behind on any news of real value:

My thoughts have lately been on the meaning of discipleship and how hard it is. I feel like God has been showing me the seriousness of his call to discipleship. David Cotten's recent death has made me think more and more about suffering and death and how I always somehow count myself as exempt from those inevitable realities. That kid was a soldier to the end and I hope I can be like him on the day that my trials come. The problem is that I'm pretty bad at overcoming my trials here which inevitably come in small ways: not feeling irritated when someone calls to me from across the street to give them money, keeping my head when I'm engaged in yet another conversation that I don't understand, staying present when I miss home so very much. I doubt the strength of my faith at this juncture, to endure the things that the disciples endured and to keep my eyes completely on Jesus as Bonhoeffer did. In truth I feel rather feckless, always floating off into my own world and forgetting God. Hopelessness might be a good way of describing my feelings right now. I never expected to do anything of real value here, just that I might be a bit more capable of facing life. Now I feel less capable and unsure of where my heart is. Do I love Jesus? Or do I love some vague idea of 'Jesusness' having to do with cathedrals and candles and warm feelings? Do I love him enough to follow his commands and take comfort only in his coming? To be honest I feel like Lot's wife, constantly looking back to 'that city' which can be anything, whatever floats my existential boat at the moment: home, nostalgia, movies, music, even religious enthusiasm whatever causes me to float away from the present moment. I can't stay here, I can't stay in the present, I'm always looking away to the future, the past, or whatever unattainable horizon feels like it's worth longing for. Percy says that he's seen men live and die in this longing. I don't want to be like that (or more, I wouldn't mind being like that since it numbs the pain of the present moment, but I know that this is not what Jesus calls me to be). I just need Jesus more than ever to lead me along like a little kid because even in the midst of prayer and Bible reading, I feel so terribly prodigal. Percy continues to describe me better than I can myself:

Comes again the longing, the desire that has no name. Is it for Miss Prouty? For a drink? For both? For a party? For youth? For the good times? For dear good drinking and fighting comrades? For football game girls in the fall with faces like flowers? Comes again the longing and it has to do with being fifteen and fifty and the winter sun striking down into a brickyard and on clapboard walls rounded off at the edges by blistered paint...Desire has a smell. Of cold linoleum and gas heat and the sour piebald bark of crepe myrtle.

-from Love in the Ruins

Does God's mercy extend to the ghostly Western man, of dual mind and yearning heart whose home is everywhere and nowhere? Who dwells not in the embodied world (as Christ did!), but in the odd mist of consciousness who constantly ventures out on temporary escapades to find solace in food, alcohol, methamphetamines, airports, nostalgia for the past, hope for the future, Picasso cubism, therapy, Yoga, behavioral science, reality shows, indie music, classical music...etc. etc. Does Jesus enter into that strange liminal space in order to save us too? Is anything that I feel genuine, or just a sedative for the true horror, that I am a negative space, a self-sucking nought whose longings are only a-chasing after the wind, never to be fulfilled? Is this the barrier to true discipleship that I need to break down? Can a disciple live in longing? I've been reading a lot of theology that basically says 'no, Jesus came so that you'd get off your can and do something in the world instead of all this self-fulfillment garbage.' Lord knows I need that, but I don't think I can shake the longing so easily. Neither did Dietrich Bonhoeffer, apparently even in the physical immediacy of his cell in Tegel.

Am I then really that which other men tell of?
Or am I only what I myself know of myself?
Restless and longing and sick, like a bird in a cage,
struggling for breath, as though hands were compressing my throat,
yearning for colours, for flowers, for the voices of birds,
thirsting for words of kindness, for neighbourliness,
tossing in expectation of great events,
powerlessly trembling for friends at an infinite distance,
weary and empty at praying, at thinking, at making
faint, and ready to say farewell to it all.

Who am I?
This or the Other?
Am I one person to-day and to-morrow another?
Am I both at once? A hypocrite before others,
and before myself a contemptible woebegone weakling?
Or is something within me still like a beaten army
fleeing in disorder from victory already achieved?

Who am I? They mock me these lonely questions of mine.
Whoever I am, Thou knowest, O God, I am thine!

Frannie's Pictures

My parents are here! Here are some pics Frannie wanted to send back to CJHS.

Chitipa pictures

Here are some pictures from my trip to Chitipa this past week. Enjoy bearded Alex while you can. He will be shaved soon.

Apology

If that last entry sounded self-righteous (primarily around the first half), it may be because it was. I'm still sorting things out here and I'm in a pretty vulnerable, impressionistic state. I'm still a naive white. Two months in Africa with some readings on the shortcomings of western missions doesn't change that. As for missionaries: I'm still coming to grips with what has been a tainted history, but in the midst of it all I must never ever criticize those who have given their lives to do the Lord's work. Times change and with it comes new light shed on the missionary project, but can't we look at it as being perfected rather than torn down? Oh Lord, why do my own misgivings continue to manifest themselves as criticism of others? As if tearing down other people will make me feel better about me, soothe my own fears and hide my own faults. Forgive me.

Mission Trip

We just got through with a big missions week. A team came from Switzerland to help build a church building for an Anglican parish in the nearby village of Chipoka. I was able to participate for a few days, but missed out on most of it because I had to help facilitate a youth training. The team was a mish-mash of people, young and old from different parts of Switzerland and Germany. I quickly discovered that Swiss short-term missions are pretty much the same as American ones, just with a different language. There were the little devotional times, squeamish diets, a tight a schedule to keep and lots of bonding throughout. It was really interesting to see the disconnect between short-term missions and long-term development. When the bus left after the closing ceremonies, I’m sure it was a cathartic moment for the team, but for me it was just kind of like “well, back to the office.” What surprised me most was how good the time was for me and the staff. As a long-term intern I am quickly becoming callous to the more everyday evidences of poverty and suffering. It was good for me to see people exclaim at how beautiful the children are and express outward sorrow at their swollen bellies. It helped me refocus on the truth of things here. Just because suffering is commonplace here doesn’t lessen how horrible it is. This was able to shine through all of the fakeness and typically western structure. Though missions trips tend to insulate their participants, to the third-party (myself) I was actually able to see it all, the reality of their experience as well as the insulation and pick out the good bits and bad bits. For many of the participants this was their first vision of Africa. One girl was a high-schooler and it was her first time outside Europe. She was giddily in love with Africa. “First timer” I remember thinking. At first I wanted to tell her the truth of the matter, to play the righteous kill joy and tell her that if she only knew how fake her experience was as related to the real one, she wouldn’t want anything to do with Africa, but then I realized how similar I was when I first came to Africa, all starry eyed, looking through the rosy lenses provided by the sheltered missionary community. I believe that God gave me those rosy lenses at a time when I was immature and impressionistic, feeding me with soft food. Even after realizing that I hadn’t gotten the full picture, I was still helplessly drawn to Africa after such an overwhelming experience. I realized as I watched her that this mission trip reality is not false, just heavily filtered. I am pleased to report that the things that I remember enjoying when I first came, the warmth of the people, the simplicity of the lifestyle and the charismatic attitude do remain parts of my experience here. Now that I’m experiencing the realities that temper those experiences, (communication barriers, constant dirtiness, hunger, illness, want), I can now see that these are not the whole of the situation, but still they remain. Sometimes the bad stuff can overshadow the good, and that’s when it’s nice to hang out with some naïve, sheltered whites and remember what drew me here in the first place. Now, though it all comes with a pang of sorrow having seen both sides of the issue.

I don’t think the Swiss could see it, but I could sense a peculiar aura surrounding the big travel bus that World Relief had rented for them. The metal juggernaut would sit parked at the building site all day, and whenever one of the team members felt overwhelmed or tired they could retreat to the bus and relax in relative glass-filtered quiet. I first sensed the strangeness of it when I was walking to the bus to get a water bottle and Raja, a retarded youth who had all but glued himself to me for the entire week followed me as he usually did talking pleasant nonsense. I continued as I always did, smiling and nodding, shaking his hand when he offered it every other minute until we reached the bus. I walked up the steps and then turned back and noticed that Raja had stopped just outside the door, staring up at me blankly. I could see that even his hazy mind had a sense that this was a different space from the rest of the site. He stood there working out whether or not to board behind me. He eventually caught the cold stare of one of the World Relief employees and made the right call. It didn’t stop him from standing outside, staring through at the window glass, trying to talk to me. Up until that point bus was comfortable for me, a space away from the chaos of the building site where, even if the people weren’t from my country, they understood my position here and wouldn’t ask me for money or to take me back to America with them. Raja turned it all around for me, though. After that point I couldn’t stay on the bus for more than a few minutes without going back outside to sit down and chat with the workers and smile and nod with Raja. It even affected Maria, the German high-schooler, and she started spending more of her free time off the bus and even learned a few words of Chichewa. When we would board the bus to drive back to Salima, I could feel the eyes of the people staring at us as we rolled away and I couldn’t help but think, “why can’t they come?” By now, I’ve been approached by a few pastors asking if we need any mission work in the U.S. “Absolutely” I always say, adamantly. Then, in typically direct Malawian fashion, they ask me how and when they can come. “Um...you can’t” I never say, but know that it is the truth of the matter. I see now that what too often makes a missionary is not faith, but money. Many Malawians can’t afford to take a trip to their own capitol city, much less go on a mission trip, but they have the same desire to. Do we honestly think that all Africans want is to be ministered to all the time? They sure appreciate it, probably more than we do, but they also desire to go out into the world, see strange places and talk to strange people coming back and saying things like “The people were so welcoming…so thankful y’know? We really learned a lot.” Maybe heaven will just be one big mission trip with a really huge bus that everyone can come on. A place where we can all be together without any economic divisions or empty stomachs to distract us from enjoying one another. More importantly, Jesus, the Mediator will be there, and I have a feeling he’ll pull that cool trick he did on Pentecost with the fire and the different languages, bringing us together using our God-given diversity. Can’t wait.

Don't wear white to a wedding

Last weekend I attended a wedding for Gift Manase, our day watchman at World Relief. He was married at Katerera, a village about 4K away from Salima Boma. Transport was again an issue as our fuel was down to our last few ounces (pictured above), so a couple of people from the village came with bicycles to taxi myself and Mr. Nyamulani all the way there. Unfortunately my driver was a bit old and a tad more frail than Nyamulani’s and as I hopped on the back of the bike with my heavy backpack he told me very frankly “I don’t think I’ll manage”.
“Um. Okay.” I said, then offered to cycle instead. So began another unbelievably interesting spectacle for everyone we passed to gawk at: White man on bicycle. For about 4 Kilometers I pumped us to Katerera. It was a tough workout having someone on the back, and I have newfound respect for the ‘Dampa’ bicycle taxi drivers here in Salima that do this every day. It was a bit of a chore to keep the balance, too with the added weight coupled with the fact that the bikes here have those curved handlebars that amplify every little jerk of the arms. As I tried to maintain balance my passenger let out little controlled utterances of fear. “Oh, oh my.” I could hear softly behind me as I tried to maintain control of the swerving bike. You know how when you’re working out with friends in a gym or something, they will spur you on, like: “Push it, man. Yeah, dude work it. Don’t stop.” Well, here it’s the opposite, at least for mzungus. Every few minutes the guy on the back would say “I think you are tired now, yes?” and every few minutes the bicycle behind us would pull up alongside us and just kind of watch me, laughing and saying “I think you are tired now, yes?” About 2K into the ride, sweating and tired I decided to ask, “How far is it?” “Another 5 Kilometers” they lied. “Good, ‘cause I won’t get tired for another 10” I lied back. Many of the jokes leveled at me involve location or distance. For instance, when walking to the grocery store they will tell me it’s farther than it really is then laugh when it’s not in the place they originally said. “Full of tricks” as Louis would say.

Anyway, after walking a few of the hills we finally arrived and I was given some water and gallons of Tobwa, a very popular traditional drink made from the excess cornmeal left over from making nsima. If you want to know what it tastes like, the next time you make cornbread, just pour some water in the excess cornmeal and let it sit for a day. Then drink it. A lot of it. Then force the white kid to drink it every five minutes. Although I professed to like Tobwa (which is half true, you get used to the grit after a few cups), I’m pretty sure no one believes me, precisely because I’m offered it to me so much. It’s kind of like “Oh yeah, white guy? Prove it.” Maybe they can sense that half of my enjoyment of Tobwa comes from the fact that I really really want to like something that is known to be unpalatable for whites. I had this idea that If I can stomach it I’m ‘in’. Instead I just get more Tobwa. This is a trend around the entire food spectrum. Every time I serve myself a fairly large portion of food by my standards I am stared down very pointedly and asked “Why have you taken only this?” It’s a tough question, since I usually don’t link the amount of food I give myself to any causal chain of stimuli. It’s just intuition, based I suppose on how hungry I am tempered. At first I would just say “Um…what?” and then give into their insistence that I take more. I’ve since learned that seconds are a requirement, often served to me against my will, so I have fallen into a pattern of resisting to take a lot on the first go-round so I can finish the seconds when they inevitably come. This is done usually by saying that my stomach feels bad, or just flatly saying “I cannot” which never works. It has been explained to me that Malawians tend to eat a lot in their meals because they don’t eat anything in between, and sometimes three meals a day are not promised. It makes sense. Take up now because the future is uncertain. I have also explained that my American stomach is not accustomed to eating so much in one sitting. “Oh, okay thank you very much” they say as they shovel nsima onto my plate. Meals are a funny game akin to bartering for prices. The cleverer the excuses I can make, the more likely they are to laugh and give in.

The wedding went similarly to the engagement ceremony I attended last month. After eating and talking for hours a huge throng of women and children follow the bride and groom as they and the other members of the wedding procession dance to a central place in the village where they sit stoically while people dance and give money. The money is counted. Then it’s over. It’s a good time all around. Needless to say I stuck out like a sore thumb (my mistake wearing white to a wedding, I’m white enough already). I danced a bit, talked, helped count the money and just enjoyed the atmosphere. I’ve included some pictures, but you just kinda’ have to be there.