Cobras, Lizards, and Crabs....Oh My!

Many who know me know that I am not an outdoorsy type of gal. I’m not a big fan of bugs or critters and I would be a happy camper if I never had to see a spider again. (Side note: I probably wouldn’t be afraid of spiders if I had not been subjected to the horrors of the movie Arachnophobia as a small child. Thanks, dad. I can still to this day only watch that movie in daylight.) A fact I’m thankful to know is that there are not poisonous spiders in Malawi….just really huge ones. I think I can get over that. The animals that are poisonous though are the snakes. Great. Awesome. Wonderful. Are you catching my sarcasm here? (Brenda Gisewite may want to stop reading at this point. Skip directly to the next paragraph.) One night as Sami and I were headed back to our rooms for bed, we met our night watchman, Nathan, on the bridge. He told us in a very matter of fact tone that he had just killed a cobra by our chalet and that he had put it in the ditch under the bridge. He was so calm that I didn’t even understand what he said. I think I had to scrape my jaw off the ground once I finally comprehended that a 60 year old man killed a massive cobra with a stick. A STICK. This is not a drill, this is not a ride at King’s Island in the 90’s, this is a real f@%#ing cobra that is usually only seen in zoos or Indiana Jones movies in America. Needless to say, I didn’t sleep very soundly that night. 

Let’s move on, shall we? The lizards are actually pretty awesome. They’re the same little guys you might see on a vacation to the Caribbean and I remember them from when I was in Honduras. These critters are on my side of the matter when it comes to spiders except I think they take it a little far. They EAT the spiders. Praise baby J! It’s almost as if they are my army in a war against the arachnids. ALL the lizards are welcome in my house and one of my favorite things to do is sit under the Mango tree and try to count how many are on the branches. 

Crabs. Did you know that there are crabs in Lake Malawi? Because I didn’t. I was in the kitchen cooking and had asked Sami to go to the boys’ laundry bin for an egg when I heard her shout from the other room. (let me explain why there are eggs in the laundry bin: The bin itself is a large wicker basket with a lid. The hen likes to go in there and lay her eggs. I don’t know why. It just does.) When she went over to the bin, she only saw the legs sticking out from behind and had thought it was a rather large spider, hence the shouting. When I came out to see what the ruckus was all about, I saw Fumbane (foom-bon-e) holding up the mop with a crab dangling from the end. It was something that both of us never expected to see but it was definitely a highlight from the past two weeks. 

I have made it to Malawi safe and sound. I’ve been spending my first weeks in country at Maji Zuwa, which is the place where I stayed when I visited two years ago. Matt was nice enough to let us stay here to become acclimated to the culture and to learn a few skills before we moved to the house at Khwawa Secondary School where Sami and I will be living and working; me for the next year, her for the next five months.

While at Maji Zuwa we have been learning a few key phrases in Tumbuka from the boys who work and live here. We’ve also been learning how to cook Malawian dishes over a fire from the women who work in the kitchen as well as from a few girls that live in the village.

The first Sunday we were here, Matt asked two of the girls who live in Sangilo Village to take us on a tour to meet their families, see their homes, the primary school, and the hospital. The walk around the village was also an opportunity for us to get out of Maji Zuwa for a while. Although this place is gorgeous and amazing, we were going a little stir crazy. We walked for an hour and a half and had a great time. While we were walking with Alice and Patricia (the two girls) asked for our surnames. After I told them mine Alice started smiling and I asked why. She replied that that was the name of her sponsor. This was huge news. My mom and dad are her sponsors! As her sponsors, they pay for her education in Secondary School including school fees, uniform and shoes, books, and a bicycle among other things. How often is it that you are able to meet the person that is benefiting directly from a donation or sponsorship? Another cool thing is that Alice will be one of my students at Khwawa CDSS (Community Day Secondary School). School fees for a CDSS come to about $15 and it’s more than most families can even think about saving for the children and in most to all cases, if there is a choice between education a son or a daughter, the son will be chosen as top priority.

Meeting Alice and learning that my parents sponsor her education was a great start to my journey in Malawi. A lot has happened since then but I plan to break up my posts into a few shorter stories instead of having one large one. Internet will be sparse so posting and checking emails will happen infrequently. I did get a cell phone and I am able to text a few times a week but calling out is really expensive.