A trip to the market

With what can I compare the marketplace in Zomba? Perhaps a giant festival, but like no festival to which I have ever been. This festival had no central meeting area, but many hundreds of alleyways, corridors and crannies, all packed with people with something to celebrate. It was difficult to move between them as they chatted, laughed and sang. There was music, loud and crackly, screeching from scratched-up cassette players. A man in a red Liverpool football jersey danced knock-kneed and carefree in front of his stall of mobile phone chargers. 

Instead of balloons and streamers for decorations, the place was festooned with bundles of dangling onions, red, brown and white. There were heaps of crisp green vegetables lined up on concrete benches and a boy walked along the row with a bucket of water, dipping his hand in and flicking water over the vegetables as though it was confetti at a wedding. The water dripped onto the concrete floor below. I walked past piles upon piles of tomatoes, firm and juicy, then baskets full of potatoes. Over there, the fish, I could tell by the smell. On a wooden bench sat the tiny dried fish, scooped into piles for ten kwacha, twenty kwacha, fifty kwacha. On the next bench, the fresh chambo, with scales wet and slippery. 

Up above, from the branches of a tree, hung second hand trousers. In the next tree, perched like migratory birds, were discarded first world t-shirts of all the colours. A lime green Bob’s Plumbing, Ottowa, flapped next to a navy blue I love Adelaide, their slogans marks of their distant homelands. They ruffled their feathers in the breeze.

Up the back, in brick rooms the size of broom cupboards, sat the tailors with pins in mouth, hunched over their sewing machines, busily constructing the flamboyant coloured dresses seen all over town. Next door was the electrical repairman, buried to his neck in the skeletons of old televisions and video players, as though he was slowly turning into one of these mechanical devices. The clanging of metal led me past the pots, watering cans and hoes. Alongside these, within a cloud of flies, was where the meat was cut up and sold. Carcasses hung by a hook, limbs and organs scattered around, and live chickens clucked with rightful concern from inside tiny cages.

My first trip to the market was like arriving at a party where I knew nobody, and I was for some reason wearing only my underpants. People stared. Their eyes fixed on me as soon as I entered their vision, and they followed my path, not looking away until I was gone. Others responded with exuberant amazement, as though they had been waiting all day just to see me, and now finally I had arrived. “Aah, mzungu!” they called, waving me over, “Buy tomatoes? Nice price! Special-special!” Young men crouched in groups talking conspiratorially, old women sat on benchtops, their legs stretched elegantly before them, as they shelled peas and laughed with their neighbours.  It was noisy, but not the way traffic or machinery is noisy. Warm, happy noise.

The market's jumble of wooden stalls was surrounded by a two metre high metal fence, but during the day vendors spilled outside this barrier and filled the surrounding streets. This creature would not be contained. The streets became part of the market itself; like tentacles extending from the main body, they entangled passers by, dragging them against their will into the hungry mouth of the marketplace. 

With practice I learned that this is no 'quick duck out to the shops' shopping experience, but a social occasion requiring handshakes, laughter, banter, bargaining and promises of future visits. Compliments were exchanged, and customer/vendor loyalty was built. 

But what was it they were celebrating? Maybe it was the raw vitality of life itself; the colour and smell, the very feel of this moment in time. In a life stripped back to the basics, where there is no need to rush from here to there (for what is more important than being here, now?), a trip to the market was a fine way to spend some time.  


2004

I don't have many photos from the market because I found that by taking out my camera I immediately felt like an observer rather than a participant in the moment. 

The smaller Mpondabwino market nearby.

First day as a teacher

Monday morning, my first day as the lone white teacher at St Mary's Girls' Secondary School. I followed at the end of the line of teachers as we passed in the back door of the hall and towards the stage at the front. The students filled the hall, standing in tight rows and leaving an aisle down the centre, through which we teachers walked. The girls, in light green blouses and long, dark green skirts, were singing. And how they sang. Their heads were thrown back, unrestrained and full of vitality, as we teachers solemnly paraded by. The hall boomed and expanded with each note. The five hundred voices were each hurled into the air above our heads, where they instantly combined, binding and harmonising, creating a new and more flavoursome whole. The sound rained down, filling the bare hall with warmth, and resonating within me. That such feeling, so natural and vibrant, could be created only by the simple vibrating of vocal chords made me want to fall down in wonder. The words weren’t English, but the sound spoke clearly to me, so full and earnest. I looked around for someone to share the moment with, but the other teachers just looked bored.

As I passed along the rows of students, I could briefly make out distinct voices, one then another, as each girl had a moment in the spotlight before the chance passed on. It was like unravelling the twine of the song, to see the individual threads of which the fabric was composed. In a moment we had reached the stage and stood looking down on the carpet of black heads and green shirts, as the girls completed the song. A hush fell.

At the end of the regular announcements I stood grinning awkwardly as the headmistress, Sister Kapenda, said “Now girls, this is Mr Geerdo from Australia. He is here at St Mary’s to teach biology and he will be with us for two years. Please make him feel so welcome.”

Immediately the bare concrete hall burst to colourful life with a kaleidoscopic display of cheering, jumping, waving of arms and clapping of hands. I looked for any hint of sarcasm or irony in this, but seeing only joyous sincerity, I felt that some sort of response was called for. I raised my hand in a feeble wave, like the Queen in a passing motorcade, and this was met with a roar of happy laughter and whooping, plus more cheering, waving of arms and clapping of hands. Welcome indeed. 

Helping Is Easy, Part II

Day 2: Reality

I expected to see a happy rabble of kids playing soccer on the dirt field when I walked by in the morning; I was hoping to join them for a kick. But the field was deserted. A couple of kids were disconsolately kicking their old plastic-bag-ball between the houses. They looked up at me then turned their backs and walked off, leaving the ball where it lay in the dust.

Frankie, the organiser from yesterday, was coming towards me.
'Stevie... problems', he said. 'Some boys they took the ball and they came into town and they did sell it for moneys.'
'Oh no' I said.
'And also the girls, they are very mad. They are saying it's not fair the boys get given a football, and yet still they have no netball.'
'Oh no' I said.

My view of myself as the generous visitor suddenly crumbled and transformed instead into an interfering foreigner. The elation from yesterday was replaced with a sick, hollow feeling.

'What have I done? What should I do now, please tell me what you think is best'.
'Stevie, maybe if you can manage you can give a new football and also a netball, and I can keep them with me and make sure they do not get sold for moneys again.'
'Ok if you think that's the best.'

I got the balls and Frankie called a meeting of all the boys and girls to talk about how it would work. He was speaking Chichewa so I could only follow his body language and that of the group. This time there were few smiles, the mood was almost somber. He spoke in harsh tones, like an angry school principal and the kids looked at me from time to time with expressions I could not interpret - what was he saying, and what were they thinking of?

After it was over and the group quietly dispersed I said 'thank you so much Frankie, you helped me a lot.'
'It's ok Stevie. But you know I have no job and little moneys. I have my three kids and wife to look after.'
'That must be tough, maybe there is some way I can assist you. I'm volunteering here though, so I don't have much money either.'
'That's ok Stevie, anything you can do is some help.'

I stayed in the lodge another day or two before leaving for my school in Zomba, sixty kilometres away, and I was afraid to go out and walk past the field, afraid to see those kids giving me that look I could not understand. Two days in the country and I had already been the cause of disturbance in a community and had given a vague promise of help to a family I was in no position to assist. An early lesson (that I was to learn many times over) that sometimes helping isn't easy.