Because They're Burning Bricks

Posted By Sika on July 2, 2009

First, I must explain what took me so long (yes, before I explain what the “it” is.) You see, I never had one until Honi moved in. I’ve said before that rather than stress about power outs at dinner time, I kept food I could eat cold. But, a combination of Escom’s escalating stupidity in power outs*, impending cold season making hot food more desirable, and Honi’s pitiful look at the concept of salad, again, made me break down and buy a mbaula.

(This, by the way, is a picture of burning trash, not an mbaula, but fire is fire and I like fire and . . . .)

Then, I let Honi light the mbaula for a few weeks. Usually, I’d continue with my same ol’ eat salad plan from before. I let Honi cook the dogs’ nsima and matemba, too, since I’d rather just give them the fish and bread than cook when the power’s out. But, did I mention cold season? Yeah, cold season. The thing about cold season is, it’s cold. And when it’s cold, I really want to make some ginger tisane with honey. And when the power goes out just when the water has barely started to simmer, causing the tea to both be bitter and to not be warm enough, that’s a slap in the face that cannot be tolerated.

So, I tried to light the mbaula one day. I almost laughed at my sheer ineptity**. You would have laughed–probably enough to keep warm: so we can consider this a public service.

What do I know how to light? Barbecues (when provided with lighter fluid), trash, and campfires. So I build charcoal in the mbaula like a campfire–using paper and plastic bags.

It fails. A lot. I hide the evidence, pretending I never wanted to light the mbaula in the first place, and wait for Honi to come home. I try to catch how she starts it and fail at that too.

Somehow, I always miss the first steps. And the part where you let it burn until most of the charcoal is lit–even I could figure that part out, so it’s not really helping me too much.

I give up on subtlety and ask Honi to teach me. She laughs a lot, but says ok. I now understand that I was never going to light the mbaula the way I was trying before, and would like to become independent in this skill, but every time I try, Honi fixes what I do before I even realize there’s a problem.

So I decide, the next time the power is out and Honi has afternoon classes, I’m going to have the mbaula ready to go before she gets home. Given that Escom is ridiculously bad at its job, this opportunity comes almost immediately.

However, we are out of charcoal, and the Tadala tuck shop skeleton, where you used to be able get charcoal, was ripped down sometime in the last two months. I went and asked the tuck shop across the street where I could get charcoal, and they said they didn’t know where. I asked my night guard, and he said Chinamwali, which I knew was wrong, and I knew he wasn’t understanding me but couldn’t figure out why. When Honi got home, she went to get the charcoal and told me probably they didn’t understand. I asked how to say charcoal in Chichewa. Honi looked at me like I was a cute, somewhat endearing idiot.

No, really, I insisted, what is it? Honi told me.

Oh my god, I really am an idiot. Cute and endearing, yes, but the idiot part is undoubtedly also true. You have to understand, nearly every morning for the last 25 months I have been woken by people chanting “MA-kala MA-kala MA-kala” with big maize sacks full of, you guessed it, charcoal. Makala was one of the first words of Chichewa I ever learned. Geez peez.

But that’s ok, because apparently Escom is as committed to me learning the mbaula as I am, because the next night (yesterday) Escom gave us another blackout, just as I got my ginger tea and soya piece/rice mishmash (recipe forthcoming) simmering, just so I could practice. Isn’t that sweet? And it worked, too. Honi came home to me putting dinner on the mbaula.

Here are the steps I followed:

1. Fail to find the mbaula. Look all over by the light of the phone screen. Fail to find the mbaula. Then upgrade to the lantern. Fail to find the mbaula. Then upgrade to the headlamp. Discover the mbaula to be outside where you’re sure you looked before and to be suspiciously warm with a few glints of still-live embers.
2. Start by putting one or two small pieces of charcoal in the center bottom of the mbaula. Line the edges of the mbaula with bigger pieces.
3. Remember what Honi said about the pieces not being too big. Try to break one of the bigger pieces with your hands. Fail. Bash it on the porch a bit. Fail. Get a brilliant idea and bash it on the corner of the porch. Succeed at getting char everywhere, but fail at breaking the piece.
4. Try step 3 with several more pieces of charcoal until it finally works. Feel a major sense of accomplishment and call it good enough.
5. Line the big pieces of charcoal on the edge of the mbaula again. Stuff the biggest too-big piece back in the jumbo with the rest of the charcoal so someone else has to deal with it later.
6. Remember to place some of the smaller pieces on top to be easily maneuverable when the fire’s going. Feel really proud.
7. Dig through the trash to find some plastic bags. Make sure they’re dry this time, as they don’t really work when wet.
8. Rip the bag and twist it into a rope. Light a match. Have the match go out. Light another match, almost get the bag lit, and then accidentally smother the match with the bag. Light another match, light the bag.
9. Drip burning hot plastic on the little coal in the middle. Be rather entranced with the fire and the melting, but remember to let go of the plastic before the flames get all the way to the fingers. Feel proud about not having sustained any burns. Melt a jelly bean wrapper because burning things is fun. And pretty (see above photo).
10. Place the smaller pieces of coal over the center to create a bridge for the flames to travel to the outside pieces. Be really proud you remembered that step and get overenthusiastic in the adjusting, almost putting out the fire.
11. Blow really hard. No, harder. Try to fan the remaining flames with the dogs’ water bowl and then realize that may not be the best idea ever. Use a food bowl (empty this time) instead. Avoid the sparks.
12. Eventually leave the damn thing alone, because it’s doing fine and every time you screw with it you run just as good a chance of putting it out as making it burn better.
13. Come back some minutes later and realize no one can tell you didn’t know what you were doing. Make Honi congratulate you on a skill any Malawian girl over the age of 3 can do in her sleep. Throw a party and/or cook dinner.

*Seriously: 14 hours out on Monday, and every morning when I want to heat water for my shower and every evening when I want to cook dinner. All week. Probably more than that, but I was in Dedza last week, so I can’t be sure.
**Yes, I know that’s not a word. But shouldn’t it be?

Categories: Malawi
Tags: escom, skills