My Village Experience

    Well, greetings again from Malawi!  Things have continued to go very well here.  I have just finished a two-week intensive course in beginner’s Chichewa and am jumping right into – probably a little prematurely – another two-week intensive course, but for intermediates.  I have been keeping busy, though things are at a relaxed pace, and I think I’m getting more sleep than I have in years!  I’m slowly adapting to the Malawian way of being a morning person (to take advantage of the cooler temperatures in the morning and the fact that it’s light out before 5 am and dark just after 6 pm).  Most of my time is designated for language learning, but I’ve really enjoyed getting involved in the life of the college more – I even guest lectured a couple of classes in Church History (talking about Early Church Apology and Heresy), which was a true delight.  Anyway, I will talk about other stuff at another time, but for this posting I want to tell a little bit about my week-long village experience that I was heading out to when I posted last.

     I stayed in a village called Banga outside of the city of Salima in the central region of Malawi (close to the lake, but I still have not seen the lake).  When I arrived in Salima I stayed the first night (and the last night after my village experience) with an SIM missionary couple – Paul and Marilyn Barr.  I really enjoyed my brief time with them and hope I make it back up to visit some other time.  I also met a short-term SIM missionary couple from Switzerland – Reto and Anja Widmer – who, we found out, are actually friends with some good friends of mine from Regent – small world!  

The Makhutcha Family

     In the village I stayed with the Makhutcha family.  He actually graduated from EBCoM a couple of years ago and is now the pastor of 5 churches in the area.  You may think 5 churches is a lot for a pastor to manage.  Well it’s true – though I’ve heard of a pastor covering over 10 churches.  There are several factors to the problem: in the first place, there are simply not enough trained pastors to cover all of the churches.  This is not because there is a lack of people who want to be trained and become pastors, but because there isn’t enough money to have them all receive training (each person at EBCoM is generally sponsored by their denomination, meaning the denomination pays the tuition and living costs and the students pay a MK2000 registration fee each term).  The problem becomes more complex though in the fact that the village churches tend to be smaller, and one church would not be able to support a pastor financially.  As it is, 5 churches struggle to support one pastor.  So there’s no easy answer.

     Anyway, back to the village.  The Makhutcha family is wonderful and they were so warm and friendly and hospitable during my week-long stay with them.  They have four children and one more on the way: Hannah, Esther, Joshua, and Gile.  The father’s name is Augustine, which is an awesome name, and I would have loved to call him that, except that the norm here is to not use adults’ first names.  Generally people are called by their last name, or, for him, Abusa (pastor).  I never actually found out his wife’s first name, because it’s expected that I just call her Amayi (Mrs., woman, or mother).  Of the family, only Abusa Makhutcha could really speak English (but he, very well), and it was a little early in my Chichewa learning, so for practical as well as cultural reasons, most of my time and communication was spent with Abusa. 

The Makhutcha Family.  Left to Right: Joshua, abusa, Gile, Hannah, amayi, Esther

A Typical Day

     So what did I actually do in the village?  Well, it’s one of those things where there is so much to tell and I can’t possibly cover everything, and yet, I didn’t actually do much at all.  Village life is much more laid back than life in Blantyre (which, compared to North America is already very laid back).  To give an over-generalized day, I would get up by 6, sit for a bit until they told me water was ready for a “bath” (a bucket of water), have my “bath,” sit for some more, have breakfast with them (though the kids were usually gone by this point since school starts at 7), and return to sitting with Abusa.  Then somebody would come or we might go to someone’s house, and we would sit and chat, maybe have a few mangos.  If it was an eventful day we would walk about 1 km to the market and pick something up for lunch.  Eventually at 1 or so we would have lunch, followed by some lounging (in other words, sitting) with the family (the younger ones would be home from school by lunch time) and maybe listen to the radio a bit.  Then somebody might drop in or we might go to someone’s house and sit and chat and probably have some mangos.  If it was an eventful day we might have another errand – like recharging Abusa’s cell phone in the market (since the houses don’t have electricity), where there is a shop with either a generator or solar power or something.  Then eventually dinnertime would come around, and we would have dinner and then lounge around (usually outside in the moonlight) with the family until between 8 and 8:30, and then it’s pretty much bedtime. 

Inside the house, which consists of this room,
a couple of bedrooms, and the back yard
(where there's the "bath," outhouse, kitchen, and chicken coop).

An Explanation

     Okay, okay, so it’s slightly exaggerated, but you would be surprised how little.  You probably won’t feel sorry for me, but a lot of the sitting tended to be on rather uncomfortable chairs, and so after a few days my butt was really getting quite sore.  The wicker chairs seen here, for example, look comfortable enough, but they had posts awkwardly right under the seat so that I continually needed to reposition myself in them.  But anyway, I suppose that it is now my task to convince you that the whole culture is not just terribly lazy.  Well, in the first place, do remember that it is a relationship-oriented rather than task-oriented culture.  But probably the most important piece of information is recognizing that it is a very seasonal culture and I was there during the very tail-end of the dry season, which also means the very hottest time of the year.  With temperatures in the mid-to-high 30s and perhaps higher, and with no electricity for fans or A/C, and the mode of transportation being walking, one can begin to sympathize with the situation.  Plus, almost everyone in the village earns their living by farming, and at the end of the dry season it is mostly a matter of just waiting for the first rains.  People might work 2-4 hours in the morning (when the temperature is tolerable), preparing their fields, but planting doesn’t begin until the first rains.  My little glimpse of village life was also skewed in that I was staying with a pastor, whose work is largely relational – visiting people, sitting, and chatting – rather than working by cultivating land or selling produce, etc.  Also, up to this point I have really only given the man’s side of the picture.  There is a very strong division of gender roles in Malawian society, and part of that says, men do not get the water, do not do laundry, and do not go anywhere near the kitchen.  So, from my perspective at this particular time of year, the women were doing much more work than the men (especially considering they do often do a little bit of field work too).  Anyway, react to that information however you will. 

Amayi cooking up some nsima in the kitchen, which is outside in the back yard

     But as I said earlier, while we didn’t actually do a whole lot, there is so much that I experienced and so much that I simply don’t have the time to report nor do you have the time to read…after all, none of us are presently living in a Malawian village :).  So what I will do is touch on a few things, but leave most comments and anecdotes for as they come up in pictures, which are available here (http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2033392&id=180500047&l=ef14f33bc2).

Pastoral Affairs

     A key aspect of why I went to the village in the first place was to gain some insight into the kind of context that most of the students who graduate from EBCoM will be going into.  For this the trip was extremely helpful.  I not only got to see what a pastor serving in a village lives like and what he does, but I also had some really good conversations with Makhutcha about the challenges he faces, issues that have come up in his churches, and what sort of things he’s doing to address them.  In every account I found Makhutcha to be very wise and approaching matters with the right attitude and motivation, which was really good to see and gave me a lot of encouragement to witness some of the fruit of the work of EBCoM.  While recognizing that EBCoM can’t take all the credit, if this is the kind of person the school trains and sends out, I am proud to be a part of the ministry!  Without giving too many details, some of the issues he faces involve church elders not cooperating with each other and/or the pastor; people jumping from denomination to denomination; people not coming to church (for months!) because of unrelated things (e.g. land disputes); people backsliding from active, church-going Christianity; illness and death; preference of music (hymns vs. praise chorus); the association of Christianity with a moral code (legalism – especially not drinking or smoking) instead of the Gospel; and – especially in this particular area – the practice of witchcraft, tribal identity tied to traditional religion, and peoples’ fear of breaking away from these. 

     A couple of the afternoons I tagged along with Makhutcha and a few of the elders on house visits.  This was mostly for people who hadn’t come to church for a while or where there was a particular need for prayer – e.g. sickness.  There would be some reading Scripture, encouragement or exhortation depending on the situation, and then prayer.  I didn’t understand a whole lot as it was all in Chichewa, but it was really good to observe.  In the 2 days I would say we visited between 15 and 20 different houses.  At each place as we approached, one of the elders would call “Odi” (equivalent of knocking), to which, if someone was home (which they almost all were), responded “Ee” (“yes”).  The host would then bring out a mat and/or if they had any, some chairs.  As the azungu (white person), I was always given a chair if there was one, even if there was only one.  To refuse it would be disrespectful.  After we were all seated, the host would come and greet each person individually either with “mwaswera bwanji” (how has the day gone so far?) or with “Muli bwanji” (how are you)?  To which the respective responses are “ndaswera bwino, kaya inu” (it has gone well, and you?) or “ndili bwino, kaya inu” (I am well, and you)?  People were incredibly surprised that I could say the greetings, and impressed that I “could speak their language,” even though the greetings were close to the extent of my ability.

     You will see more about church on Sunday in the pictures, but just to say that as the azungu, it was expected that I would preach.  Thankfully I anticipated this and Makhutcha confirmed it earlier in the week, so I had some time to prepare something, and was able to address some of the above concerns relating to fear, power, and identity with Eph. 3:14-21.  I actually preached on this same passage at the wedding of my good friends Chris and Laura Madge, but as you can imagine, the sermon was very different.  Makhutcha encouraged me to take some pictures during the service, and so I also took some video.  Here is a clip of the youth choir singing.  In a church service there is a time for choirs to come up and sing some songs.  There is usually a women's choir, youth choir, and children's choir, and they rehearse during the week for each Sunday.  This service, though, there was only a youth choir.  Pretty well all the choir songs I've seen involve some movement - I think if they are working songs, travelling songs, etc.

I also took some quick video during some of the praise and worship chorus (notably different in enthusiasm from the hymns).  Here is a glimpse.  

Food

     I ate very well and never got sick when I was in the village.  Meat is not a regular meal, but they showed great hospitality in having meat three different days – pigeons, goat, and chicken.  The pigeons were contributed as a gift in light of my stay from their landlord, madala (a name of respect given to an elderly person).  Here is a picture of me with him:

Chicken is an assumed meal for a very welcome guest.  It doesn’t matter that some other meats are better.  If I was an honoured guest and only staying for one meal and was served pork, beef, or guinea fowl, I would get the hint that I was not very welcome.  I was very happy, then, to be served chicken.  Besides these dishes, other relishes that I had through the week were tomato and cabbage, pumpkin leaves, beans, and black-eyed peas.  They generally served two relishes, which was a real treat and not too common.  The relishes, of course, were generally accompanied by nsima, though they did serve rice a few times as well.  Breakfasts were tea and masikoni (an adaptation of the English word, scone – basically sweet buns).  Snacks either with the Makhutchas or when we visited other people included mangos, cassava root, mangos, freshly roasted peanuts (so freshly roasted, they burned my non-Malawian hand!), oh, and did I mention mangos?  It is mango season, and they ate mango after mango, as many as five in one sitting, one after the other, and we’re not talking the small mangos either.  Both because they’re difficult to eat and because I didn’t want digestive problems, I couldn’t keep up with them, and maybe had half the mangos they did.  They were delicious though!

Well, I think I’ll leave it at that for now, and let the pictures (here) do a lot more of the talking.  I plan to post again before Christmas since there’s been lots happening.

Greg