Spent the morning walking from the forest lodge to Ndoninga village – a total of 12 km. We were mostly walking downhill so it was easy all the way and there were loads of views and villages to look at.
The village has a population of 146. We were to meet the chief and the locals and 8 of us from the group had opted to stay in the village overnight. On arrival they gave us a tour of the village – the main centre was much cleaner than expected – no rubbish, no open sewers. The community is probably able to maintain relatively high standards with the additional money coming in from the tourism projects they run – every group that visits the village gives a donation and they have a couple of groups a week.
I was initially a bit sceptical and thought that maybe this wasn’t an authentic village at all, but just some tourist thing – I was wrong – we wandered across a couple of fields and were shown a couple of other smaller settlements on the periphery of the main village – essentially part of the same village but were parts of the main group have split off. Whereas in the main village all the kids were clean and well dressed, unfortunately the same was not true here. The kids were filthy, wearing ripped clothes – some of them looked really ill with bloated stomachs. They have plenty of food here so it can’t have been through starvation – must have been other illnesses because they really struggle to get medicine out here.
Malawi is the poorest country in Africa and although it can look quite salubrious in the tourist areas, the main towns or on the main roads, once you’re off the beaten track you can really see what the issues are. We felt quite shocked by the condition of some of the children – it seemed unfair that they had so little but their cousins in the clean village a few hundred yards away looked the picture of health – I guess that’s the way of the world.
We met the village ‘chief’ or ‘head man’ called Vincent. The role is hereditary, but the village gets to choose which son of a head man becomes the new one when the old one dies – so it’s not necessarily the oldest son, it’s whomever is kindest, most considerate and fair. The headman we spoke to told us about the village and how they allocate land (one acre to each newly wed couple) and told us some of the traditions they hold.
I was lucky to have a private conversation with him afterwards and asked him about his personal life and family. He really has had a bad time – he went completely blind 25 years ago, but has managed to learn Braille so he can still read and correspond. Out of 6 children, 4 have died. First a son of cancer in his ear, then a daughter got a cough which got worse and worse. They sent for medicine but none arrived and three months later she died. Then another son, in his grief at losing his sister committed suicide. The 4th died in a traffic accident on his way to school. The poor man had all of that tragedy and couldn’t see, but still seemed very gracious and noble, and thankful for what he did have – and he was so respected in the village – when he spoke everyone listened. An amazing character.
Our lunch was cooked by Martha, a very sweet lady who was visiting from another village to help with the tourism projects. She made us the local staple called ugali, (called Sima in the local language, is basically maize and water combined to form a thick consistency – a cross between sticky rice and mashed potato) chicken, pumpkin leaves and beans, the villagers danced for us in their traditional costumes - the music and chanting was mesmorising and actually quite tuneful and rhythmical – we really enjoyed it.
Later in the afternoon the rest of our group went back to the campsite, the 8 that had chosen to stay over for the night got out a football and the bats and balls we’d bought for the Tanzanian orphanage and presented them to the kids – they went mental! They just loved playing with them. We’d also brought some balloons which they LOVED. There were some comical moments such as when a girl of about 11, with a baby stuck to her back started running in all directions trying to keep the ball in the air, with the baby swinging around behind her but loving every second!
After playing for an hour or so, some of us went with one of the ladies to pick potatoes from the field for dinner – we picked some sugar cane too. Then we helped her prepare the dinner by peeling the potatoes and shelling/crushing pea nuts to be mixed with more pumpkin leaves. The cooking hut was really small with a roaring fire in there. Our eyes started streaming as soon as we went in - it really was quite grim. But these ladies stayed in there for hours cooking – and they do it every night – I don’t know how they don’t get ill with all of the smoke choking them up – but they didn’t complain or cough or wipe their eyes once. After dinner (like lunch, it was eaten by hand, without any cutlery) it was dark and we sat around a fire with the Vincent. The kids carried on kicking around balls – we couldn’t fathom out how as it was pitch black, but they seem to have x-ray vision. There was no moon in the sky which was odd – but the stars were really bright and you could clearly see the milky way up above.
After a while the villagers gathered together again and started on the bongo drums and danced and sang for at least a couple of hours. This time all of the kids joined in and they were loving it. It didn’t feel like they were putting on a performance for us – they were just entertaining themselves and having a ball! Some of us joined in the dancing. Martin, one of our group from Scotland, and I joined a group of boys on the periphery of the main dancing group – they were hysterical – jumping around and high kicking and throwing funky shapes. We were knackered after a few minutes – I’ve never star-jumped so much!
After dancing, about 10pm we went to bed. We were staying in the chief’s house – he’d given up his bedroom for 6 of us to sleep in and another couple of us slept in a side room – he moved his bed to a different part of the hut. The room was big and very basic – there was no furniture at all. The roof was thatched and there was one window. The laid down bamboo matts and on top of those we put matts that had been brought over from the forest lodge – then we slept in our sleeping bags. Just before getting into bed the head man came to the room and said that if we heard noises, not to worry “it will be the rats, they come in sometimes but not all the time. If you don’t have rats you might get bats. Don’t worry, they’re not after you, just the insects” Ugg! A simple ”sleep well” would have sufficed – we were all completely freaked! Turned out we didn’t see anything in our room, although Esra, sleeping next door had a mouse fall on his face- thank God we didn’t choose that room!
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