Marianna Beck from Hungary is back from Malawi. Now she will continue as Development Instructor teacher in China.

Here you can read about my unforgettable time and experiences in Malawi, in an amazing but one of the poorest country in South-East Africa where I spent 6 months as a volunteer!
You can contact me for more information at africavolunteer@hotmail.com

Muli bwanji? Ndili bwino! How are you? I am fine!

Here you can read about my unforgettable time and experiences in Malawi, in an amazing but one of the poorest country in South-East Africa where I spent 6 months as a volunteer!

There is a small country somewhere in South – East Africa called Malawi. It is not the best known African country. Also I myself did not know this country at all, never heard this name before, Malawi. But I red about some Lake Nyasa in Africa in my childhood and somehow it stacked in my mind.

After many, many years when I was seeking the possibilities to change my life I came across an internet ad offering volunteer work in Africa. It had raised my interest so I went further to get more details and it turned out that among the project destinations there was a country, Malawi and its biggest lake was Lake Malawi called formerly Lake Nyasa. I had many reasons to join this program but this was the last point when I decided: I want to go and there.

In a way it is a bit hard to me to talk or to write about my Malawian time because every time when I do this I have a big lump in my throat and feel a strange pressure in my chest. I hardly believe that I am already back and my 6 months in Malawi is already behind me!  Every single moment of time I am thinking of this amazing country, its amazing people, its impressive nature…and its sweetest children of the world!

It was 9th of August 2007 when my feet touched first the ground of Malawi at Lilongwe Airport. A college of mine, Ieva from Latvia was waiting for me to travel together to Blantyre where my project was based.  We took a pick up at the airport to get to Lilongwe bus station. I will never forget this first memory as I was sitting on the open platform of the pick up driving to the capital. It was the far coolest driving experience that I ever had in my life in spite of the fact that I was fairly surprised at the manner of the travel! As we were driving fast I could feel the hot but fresh air on my face, on my skin, I could see smiling people sitting, cycling or walking alongside the road, children running after us, waving  and shouting „azungu, azunguuuu” (white people). As we got to the bus station suddenly I found myself and Ieva in the middle of a crowd and people were offering us different goods and transport. I was shocked a bit but luckily Ieva living in Malawi already for 9 months was confident enough to handle the situation so finally we got in a minibus going to Balntyre. The next shock came to me when I realized how we would be travelling for 5 hours: sitting like sardines in a can, 18 people and different goods, animals in a place for 14!  But what I would have been able to do? Nothing. „OK, I am in Africa and here everything is much different, so the only thing I could do is to get used to everything that is still waiting for me.”  So, the 6 month-long adventure begun!

I must admit that during the first 4-6 weeks I was homesick, I missed my home, friends, family (maybe just because of knowing that I was so far away from them) and I missed a bit the European civilization I was used to. But everything changed pangono, pangono – as Malawians say (slowly, slowly).

I was living at Teacher Training College located in rural, about 25 km far from Blantyre which is the biggest “city” in Malawi. Mostly I was working with preschools and preschool committees: to improve the quality of preschool education and hygiene and to raise the number of the children to attend preschool education through supervising and advising preschool teachers, giving monthly training, supporting and encouraging the school committees and the entire village communities in order to be able to run the preschools by their own. But I participated in college life as well by giving courses about different topics in which I was interested, organizing and running weekly clubs or other activities for the student studying there in order to become primary school teacher. However the corner of my heart was the “Art Club” for the children coming from TTC neighbourhood. There were always many village children around TTC coming almost every day. But they were mainly hanging around doing nothing useful, so one day I gave them papers and pencils to draw. And from that day they kept on coming up to me every time to ask for drawing tools. If I had time I was sitting with them showing pictures or showing how to draw. I bought papers and colouring pencils to keep up the “club”. After a time I bought some picture books as well to read or just to look them.  

This memory is really deeply restored in my heart: once I was sitting and reading outside. I had a book and 3 magazines with me. Suddenly Paulo, one of the smartest boys of “Art Club” children came up to me asking for “buku”. I gave him 2 magazines and he sat on the ground next to me. He could not understand the papers because they were written in Hungarian but was turning the pages very eagerly and looking at the pictures. I pretended reading but meanwhile from the pole of my eye I was watching him. I was curious what arouses his attention from the magazines. There were some pictures showing children and these sides always made him stop turning pages for a while. And I really wanted to know what thoughts could have been in his mind. He is a 12 year-old boy and he is clever and old enough to begin to realize the existing of different “worlds”. He lives in rural Malawi, in a hut without everything, electricity, running water, asphalt road, transport, telephone, computer, television, playground, toys, chocolate…but due to us, white DIs he has a kind of connection to a completely different world that he maybe never will live just dream about it…

For me as a European people in Malawi are extremely friendly, open and curious (sometimes it was a bit too much). I guess is due to that I am “mzungu” but only partly. Wherever I went Malawians were always kindly to me. It happened only a few times when I did not feel comfortable because of being white. And children are simply cute and sweet. My best memories about them are when they were running after me as I was riding on my bike or running up to me in preschool when they saw me coming or sitting around me touching my skin and playing with my hair or just looking at me without saying a word as children did when I visited a new preschool first. Unforgettable moments! But I will never forget as well the look of that teenager girl I met visiting a preschool first. Maybe I was the first mzungu, the first white person and white woman she met in her short life. She could be about 13, a half child – half woman. I was about to leave the village with Vincent, the local supervisor and this girl was just following me silently for meters. When finally I got on my bike our looks met and there was something in her eyes: endless curiosity and astonishment caused by the discovery of the existence of a different female living, fate, predestination. I really do not know how this short meeting affected and will affect her but I still cannot get rid of her look.

During the 6 months I could not stop admiring the beautiful Malawian nature and landscape. I really cannot describe this feeling but I never got tired – wherever I went – of looking at the sky which is so high in Malawi, the impressive mountains close and far, the clouds sitting on them, the beautiful sunrise or sunset. I was lucky to climb the famous and fabulous Mulanji (Malawians really believe in the ghost of Mulanji) and I could visit the Lake Malawi several times. I felt this a kind of addiction so whenever I could I travelled to the Lake. I never got tired of doing this. Once I was canoeing in a real Malawian boat, a banana boat and I had to row hard because the wind was blowing making the boat moving strongly and also sitting in the boat was too comfortable. However I felt peace, freedom and happiness deep inside me as I was rowing and peering at the landscape around the lake. After November when the rain season started the nature became more beautiful, everything was unbelievably green and big. Especially in January when it was raining every single day for hours (even Malawians said that it was already too much) the landscape completely changed so much that sometimes I had the impression that I lost my way cycling to a preschool because everything was different from that what I had used to before. Also cycling alone somewhere in rural on the dirt roads was a kind of feeling of freedom and happiness for me. As I was riding fast I could feel the hot air on my skin and if the weather was not only hot but windy as well this experience became much stronger, the heat and the wind together was burning me – but this simple experience made me happy many times.  Rarely I was pissed off because of the road conditions and got tired of cycling – but this feeling just came and went because always happened something that changed this bad mood: a smiling face was coming towards me, somebody greeted me from the bush calling my name or children were running after my bike laughing loudly.

These 6 months gave me something what I had been looking for so many years: happiness, peace and freedom. As a Development Instructor I was supposed to make development there, to give people something different. I think, I did but I got much more than I gave. I learnt so much about myself and I got so much, especially a different point of view of life.

Never, never could forget what being in Malawi gave me!

Zikomo kwambiri!

Thank you!

Marianna Beck

Development Instructor

Hungary