Out Of School And Into Motherhood (Glimpse)

My feature story about Modester has gone up on Glimpse. Read it here.

14 Years

It's no death sentence (see proposed legislation in Uganda), but yesterday a magistrate in Malawi meted out the maximum punishment for a gay couple: 14 years in prison, with hard labor. The men were convicted on Tuesday of unnatural acts and gross indecency ("buggery," according to language held over from the colonial era), and they received their sentence Thursday. The couple have been held, without bail, since the end of December, when they threw a chinkhoswe, or traditional engagement ceremony.

The verdict didn't surprise me, but it was still disappointing. I had hoped, at least, that the judge might refrain from the maximum sentence. After a lifetime in liberal bubbles, I walked by the courthouse yesterday ­­feeling very separate from the scene. I observed the pre-trial hubbub, a strange blend of well-heeled reporters with voice recorders, passers-by with babies on their backs and baskets of groundnuts on their heads, and barefooted street children holding out grubby hands and weaving through the throng. I thought back to high school, when my county briefly allowed gay marriage (though the state later voted to revoke the licenses), and my daily commute passed a long queue of couples waiting to be wed. Yesterday I mostly avoided the crowd, having heard enough homophobic comments since this fiasco began. The standard lines accuse the couple of being "strange," "unnatural," and defying what it means to be a proper, God-fearing Malawian. But I heard my share of comments later that evening on the BBC, along with recordings of the celebratory cheers outside the courthouse. I'm not so disappointed I missed them.

Numerous news outlets, including the New York Times and the BBC, have published articles on the sentence. While reading coverage, though, I would keep in mind a comment I overheard outside the courthouse yesterday – in an interview, a British man praised the international condemnation of Malawi, but he also maligned the Western press for presenting the country as backwards. Indeed, articles about Malawi seem to recycle the same few lines: insular, landlocked, desperately poor, very conservative, deeply religious. These descriptors may be accurate, but they also convey a one-dimensional Malawi.

The couple's lawyer said they're likely to appeal. Perhaps there's hope yet.

SLIDESHOW: Images of Malawi (Glimpse)

Click here to view a Glimpse slideshow of my top Malawi shots.

HOW TO: Drink (and Brew) Beer Like a Malawian (Glimpse)

My how-to piece on Chibuku has gone up on the Glimpse website. Check it out here.

Pointing at Difference and Finding Inclusion (Glimpse)

The four young women and I hop from rock to rock, avoiding the sewage that carves dirty channels in the dusty ground. Our narrow path cuts under mango and banana trees and behind mud-and-brick houses, through those in-between spaces where young siblings bathe even younger ones and their mothers chop leafy greens for lunch. Overgrown, startlingly emerald bushes brush against my legs and make this neighborhood seem more lush jungle than urban township.

The women and I make mostly futile attempts at conversation. My Chichewa continues to muddle along, and the women all left school before attaining any kind of English proficiency. I settle for silence, happy to listen to their lively banter and imagine the subject of conversation. Their families? Price increases at the produce market? Local gossip?

We are five women walking together, but we actually number nine. Aside from me, each woman has a baby on her back, an infant swaddled in a strip of colorful fabric. Modesta and Debra, Patuma and Siffa, Mphatso and George, Delia and Fanny. I carry only a backpack. We are all close in age, even in height, yet I am conspicuously the non-mother, the township outsider, the white foreigner.



Our walk takes us to numerous doorsteps, where the women call out the name of a friend. “Laina!” they holler. “Laina! Laina!” Laina promises to meet us later. We can’t find Esther.

At one point I swivel around, checking that I haven’t walked too far ahead of the others. In the doorframe of a tin-roofed house leans a girl, a girl with pale skin and light hair. She gives me a surprised smile.

I turn to the women. “Ndinaona mzungu!” I screech. “I saw a white person!”

The women erupt. They laugh and slap my back and exchange high fives. They give me expressions of incredulity, as if I have somehow forgotten my own skin color. “I know, I know,” I explain in Chichewa. “I know I’m white, but I saw another white person!” I don’t know how to say “another” in Chichewa. Whatever. “Ndinaona another mzungu!” I cry.

The path has widened here, and we walk five abreast. I have somehow ended up in the middle of the chain, no longer several steps ahead of the other women. Their peals of laughter continue, and one of the women grips and shakes my hand. I laugh as well, feeling more included than I have all day, but well aware that this moment of inclusion has come at the hands of a frustratingly superficial but nevertheless unshakeable difference.

The Day I Followed Jimi Hendrix Across the Zambezi (Glimpse)

“Hey, bobo!”

Maryan and I pivoted. It had been weeks since we’d heard the Chichewa greeting (which bears no resemblance to the playground slur). To our left stood a slim dreadlocked man leaning against a wooden railing and fiddling with his beaded Rastafarian ring. We’d met him on the minibus that morning. He’d told us his name was Jimi Hendrix.

“Been to the lip of the Falls?” he asked. “Come on.”

Jimi led us along a paved path, indicating where the Zambezi’s current had grown stronger since the rains had begun. “Over there, do you see?” he asked, pointing to a marshy area hidden behind tall grasses. “That’s the lip of Victoria Falls. It’s not flooded yet, so we can cross the river.”

Maryan and I swapped glances. This was an adventure, right? “We need to make a chain,” Jimi said, grabbing Maryan’s left hand. I went to grab her right, but then a short, taciturn man appeared from behind the bushes (I swear) and nabbed the spot between Maryan and me.

We took our first exhilarating steps into the Zambezi. The warmth of the water distracted me from the force of the river. We shuffled along a manmade wall the width of a balance beam. The water hit at knee-level.

During college, I led backpacking trips in New Hampshire. Shelley, our program coordinator, loved river crossings. We discussed an endless array of techniques — rotating tripods and hand-over-hand chains and buttressed doubles — and tested these out in the carpeted dormitory lounge. None of these methods had ever proven necessary in the White Mountains. But as I faced upstream (to prevent my knees from buckling) and bent my legs (to brace against the current), I thought of Shelley. Who knew her advice would aid me in Zambia?

The water grew deeper. What had seemed a mere hop-and-a-skip from the bank was proving to be an unremittingly soggy schlep. We often paused to let giant, glowingly green, bulbous plants pass between our legs. The silent man from the bushes became increasingly shaky. Midway across the river, we had to straddle a boulder in order to continue. I remembered my earlier comment — “Maryan, you’d hardly believe such a calm current turns into those enormous falls!” I was ready to rescind the statement.





“Way better than whitewater rafting, isn’t it?” Jimi asked.

We grumbled.

“We’re nearly there,” he said. “That’s the office.” He pointed at a tree on the opposite bank. Discarded water bottles lay strewn at its base. Waterlogged clothing hung from the branches.

We arrived saturated with Zambezi and sweat. It had taken us 45 minutes to go a few dozen meters. I wondered if the river had parasites. Or crocodiles.

“Where’s the lip of the Falls?” Maryan asked.

“Over there,” Jimi said, waving his arm toward the horizon. “Not far.” Jimi loved understatements.

“No,” Maryan said. “I’m done.” She remained at the office with Shaky Bushman (who informed her, she later said, how small children cross the Zambezi all the time. “And I run across!” he’d boasted).

I’d made it this far, I reasoned, so I continued with Jimi. We were off the manmade wall and into the rocky, slippery rapids. “Step where I step,” Jimi said. Never mind that the water rushed too fast for me to make out Jimi’s feet. “I’ll keep you safe,” he assured.

I slipped. Jimi sneered. “You have short legs,” he said. Jimi was at least six feet tall.

I slipped again, this time soaking my entire right side.

I swore. “Enough,” I said.

“But we’re nearly there!” he insisted. Jimi said this frequently. He pointed across an interminable stretch of whitewater. “That’s the regular route, but there’s a shortcut along this way.”

I steeled myself. “Wait,” I said. “How deep is the water?”

“The regular way — ” he gripped my calf. “And the shortcut — ” he karate chopped my waist.

“No way,” I replied.

On our return slog, we passed a group of guys making the crossing.

“Was it worth it?” one asked.

“Chalk this up to stupid things I’ve done in Africa,” I said. “Have fun.”

I Never Knew I Wanted to Spend a Night at a Botswana Truck Stop (Until I Spent a Night at a Botswana Truck Stop) (Glimpse)

Serule, Botswana is a charmless truck stop in the country’s arid east. It consists of a filling station, a sad-looking bar, and a dingy guesthouse. Lonely Planet would never include Serule. Ever.

But as we wheeled down the A1, bucketing rain and a darkening sky gave us little choice. “I’m done driving,” Charles grumbled. I didn’t blame him. He’d been behind the wheel since sunrise and had just received his second speeding ticket of the day. He’d managed to haggle down both fines (raise your hand if you love corruption!), but the cop in Botswana had been more stubborn than her Zimbabwe counterpart. “We’re stopping here,” he said. Maryan and I, the permanent passengers, put up no resistance.

A cluster of round huts comprised Sunshine Guesthouse. A barefooted woman said ours was the last empty room. And what a room it was. The floor hadn’t been swept since the colonial era. The bathroom reeked of mildew. Neither the toilet nor shower functioned. I think a large carnivore had clawed at the sheets. The mosquitoes were enormous and abundant.

“I need a beer,” Charles grumbled. Once again, I didn’t blame him. We made the muddy trek to the bar and hunkered at a picnic table beneath a thatched roof. Chickens pecked at our ankles. A nearby car, its doors propped open, served as a de facto sound system. Skimpily dressed women tried to pick up passing truck drivers.

It was there that we met Rodney. A ruddy-faced South African engineer, Rodney bought us a round before even introducing himself. He told us he’d driven his pick-up all over Africa. He’d taught in Malawi. He was on his way to Namibia. He kept a cooler of ice in his truck and added cubes to each brandy and coke he ordered. He’d joined a South African gang as a teenager and had the tattoos to prove it. He’d lost his fiancée Melissa to a stray bullet in Johannesburg.

And he was determined to show us a good time in Serule. “You guys hungry?” Rodney asked. Maybe gnawing at our bottle caps had given us away. “I know a place nearby,” he continued. “Just a few minutes down the road — follow my truck.”

As our other dining options were limited to peanut butter and the bar’s gray-tinged chicken cutlets, we seized Rodney’s offer. “Just a few minutes down the road” turned out to be quite the distance along an unlit highway, but our destination did not disappoint. The bartender stood behind a barricade of iron rods, locals played pool, and “Ally McBeal” spooled on the television. But then the ultimate diversion arrived: several cardboard boxes filled with hot, grilled meat.



Let me interject here: some of my fondest memories abroad involve absurd quantities of meat. I celebrated my 19th birthday in a small Romanian village, where my surprise party featured neither cupcakes nor ice cream but endless rounds of mici (tiny sausages made from beef, mutton, and pork) and slow-cooked chicken (and I mean slow-cooked chicken — it didn’t come off the grill until after midnight, at which point I was still forced to consume half the bird). I developed quite a liking for ostrich meat in South Africa. I studied abroad in Germany.

But Serule put these other carnivorous feasts to shame. We devoured pork, beef, and sausage, along with mounds of maize porridge. After months of Malawian cuisine, where seasoning rarely ventures beyond salt, this spicy, zesty meat assailed our taste buds. With juices dripping down our chins and fingers, we told Rodney we loved him. He bought us another round.





We awoke the next morning with heartburn and meat still threaded in our teeth. Maybe Lonely Planet should reconsider.