Because They're Burning Bricks

Posted By Sika on January 17, 2008

Not really thoughts inspired by Chilembwe Day, since my only thoughts about Chilembwe Day were, “w00t! Day off!” and “Is it really appropriate to say Happy Chilembwe Day about the first martyr for Malawian independence? It seems a little gauche.” So more like thoughts inspired on Chilembwe Day.

Whoever invented fitted sheets is a genius, and deserves a Nobel Prize of some sort, although I’m not sure exactly what category under which they should win: their genius so transcends the genius of mere mortals that a new “Innovations in Bedmaking” category may need to be invented. This is an ode to not having to spend 45 minutes making my bed with sloppy, upside down hospital corners at the end of a long day of doing all the chores that pile up when you have no labor saving devices to help you. Now if only someone would invent self cleaning water filters. . . .

I love being able to say that my shower drain was slow because a frog decided to move in to the outlet drain. Well, the frog and hair that had been liberated from my head. But really I don’t like to place blame, especially on myself, so we’ll forget about everything but the frog invasion as the reason for the slow drain.

In Chichewa, the letters ‘R’ and ‘L’ are pretty much interchangeable. So, for example, some people spelled the name of my homestay village Mterera and some spelled it Mtelera or Mtelela. And you get kids named Malia but it’s pronounced Maria. When we were in homestay, we visited a traditional birth attendant (TBA). She said that every mother coming to her for delivery had to bring her own lazerbraid. Most of us were looking around at each other, all kinds of confused, although I was also thinking that if I were going to a TBA and I had a lazerbraid I wouldn’t have to worry about forgetting to bring it: Anything called a lazerbraid must be so awesome that I’d want to take it wherever I went.

Bryce eventually figured out that the TBA was saying “razorblade,” which while vitally important to the whole uncontaminated cutting of the umbilical cord thing, is just not something I’m going to carry around with me at all times. A lazerbraid, though, man, I think I could rule the world if I had one of those.

Insects and the murder thereof: I have discovered that I have changed my behavior towards insects since I have come here. While I have an order directly from the primitive part of my brain to kill any mosquitoes and cockroaches on sight—the first because they are potentially deadly but mostly because they sometimes keep me up at night, the second simply because they squick me out (I mean, come on, you kill them, smush their little insect brains all over the place, but they keep on moving)—most other insects get a pass from me, at least the ones that don’t look like they may be related to mosquitoes some how. Which, I guess most of them did before, anyway, but now, with my new permission from myself to search and destroy mosquitoes and cockroaches I feel more magnanimous about letting the other insects live. Maybe I am drunk with power. That’s probably it.

Speaking of insects I didn’t kill, yesterday a one-legged (well, actually five-legged but the missing one was one of the obvious, big ones) grasshopper decided to try out Chez Sika & Derek to see if it was the kind of place in which it may want to dwell, even though Derek says this is a low-rent establishment as evidenced by the lack of meat for dinner last night. The grasshopper seemed unperturbed by the lack of mince and had to be (not very) forcibly convinced that we don’t serve his kind here. I didn’t eat him though, no matter what Derek says.

There is something different about eating food when you propagate seeds from the food you eat. It is similar to the slow food movement in a way: maybe it could be called the Even Slower Food Movement (somehow I doubt that would appeal to most people, though.) It begins in the market, when you select fruit and vegetables based on appearance, smell, general appeal. Here fruit and vegetables are usually sold in piles, so you don’t pick individual perfect fruits, but rather the piles that appear to have the most potential. Since there are multiple vendors selling the same fruits and vegetables, and there are also the contributing factors of price and prizies* to consider, it can be a complicated thing to pick out the best choice.

Another complicating factor is that often I remember that I am trying to propagate seeds only when I have already bitten into a fruit or vegetable whose flavor, when recollected later, will cause my mouth to water and initiate a retroactive envy for the me of an earlier time who was able to savor the pure cucumberness of that cucumber or the pure mangoness of that mango. At this point, all I can do is ask myself, “Have I already destroyed the seeds I would need to propagate this?” The answer is usually, “Dammit, yes I have.” (Mangos are different: in the process of eating one I rarely mangle the seed enough that I can’t plant a tree from it, but I wouldn’t see any fruit from the tree before I went home.)

I create, over time, a mental catalog or scrapbook of produce: how they look, how they smell, how they taste. I file away into long-term memory the different factors that make the best produce. I dream of the day that my garden produces miracles like the fruits and vegetables I like the best and imagine how I will prepare them, both for eating and for propagating. My awareness is heightened. My food is a part of my life. Now if only I could propagate oreos and skittles (did you know that those old commercials where people grew skittles were lying? I’m traumatized.)

Hey techie friends: I have a couple of requests for you: 1) is there a way to download the most relevant of these so I can start training the other tutors in powerpoint? 2)Do you know if any of the free learn to type programs are better than any others? and 3) Is there a program that would enable me to take photos and text and put them on the computer as reference material in a way that’s easy to use and navigate and will also allow me to easily convert it to book format (like, an actual paper, retro-type book) later? Danke

edited to add:  I was in a rush when I was posting this and realized after I got home that I wasn’t very clear. What I need is something that will allow me to have a column of pictures with 2 columns of text next to the photos, one to describe how to do the tasks photographed and another on why you do it the way I say. What I would prefer is something that is then accessible to the students in file format (they can see the photos and read the accompanying text) so that when we finally finish all the topics they can be printed into a book, but are still usable on the computer before then.

*Prizies are what you get when you are either a regular customer to a vendor, a vendor hopes you will become a regular customer, or you buy a bunch of stuff. For instance, today I bought 3 heaps of green beans and got another one as a prizie. Prizies can be problematic. For instance, once I wanted to buy one leaf of Chinese (bok choy) but they were only 2 kwacha and I felt bad only buying one, so I bought three instead. And then the vendor gave me three more leaves as a prizie. So I had six leaves of Chinese when, without refrigeration, I could only eat one or two before they went bad.

Categories: Critters, Malawi, Tech Advice
Tags: food, language geekery