Tyra, I'm Ready for My Close-Up (Glimpse)

Of all the entreaties my skin color provokes — mostly requests for marriage or money — I never thought my pallor might help me snag a modeling contract.

Not that I sought one out. (Then again, neither do I ask for the marriage proposals.) But when a white male friend, Maarten, was enlisted by a coworker for an ad campaign, a woman at the modeling agency asked if he could recruit a pal. The requirements: female (check), white (we’ve established this), tall (I’m barely 5’4”, but I still tower over many Malawians), beautiful (you be the judge).

For me, the main draw of the campaign, a series of ads for a countrywide hotel chain, was the free upmarket lodging. I would get to spend one night at a woodsy inn perched high on a plateau and another on the shores of Lake Malawi. I packed my entire (highly limited) closet — let them decide what I should wear, I figured — and embarked on this new career.



“America’s Next Top Model” it was not. On the first day, one of the models didn’t show, so the young women from the modeling agency scoured a nearby college campus for a replacement. Because they were off searching for our mystery model, the photographer’s assistant took over hair and makeup. “You don’t have any makeup?” she asked. “Not even lip gloss?” I shook my head. She slathered me with Vaseline.

Maarten and I posed together for the first photo. “Couple, smart casual, taking food from buffet,” the plan read. My “smart casual” comprised a 12-year-old dress, which I think I wore to a cousin’s Bat Mitzvah, and the $7 secondhand wedges I’d found at the market the day before. The buffet was a dessert spread, with distractingly labeled “raspberry fruits” and cheesecake with a Barbie pink glaze. Maarten and I took turns serving. “Rebecca, smile at the chocolate cake,” the photographer, Arjen, instructed. “Smile at the cake. Now smile at Maarten. No, close your mouth. No, I don’t want any teeth. Ah, ok. Now back to the cake. Smile at the cake. Smile at the cake. Smile at the cake. Beautiful.”

We were a difficult duo. Arjen kept imploring us to take it seriously, something I found difficult to do when he also instructed us to “Love the place, love the food, love each other, love everything.” To get into the scene, Maarten and I tried creating a narrative (we were a young married couple; this was our second wedding anniversary), but it quickly devolved (I was anxious about kids; I didn’t like his tie; each thought the other had grown tubby since the nuptials). I’m sure Arjen was relieved to release us once mystery model arrived.

We had another shot in the late afternoon, though: “Couple, casual clothes, looking in the distance.” It turns out looking into the distance is a real challenge. What do you do with your hands? Do you stand with legs akimbo? Or maybe one leg crossed over the other? How do you conjure up an expression of awe when the only sight around is a red “FIRE ASSEMBLY POINT” sign? “Don’t overplay,” Arjen repeated, wearier each time. “Especially you, Rebecca. Don’t overplay.”

I finally relaxed for my third and final shoot: “Two models having lunch on terrace.” We were on the lake by this time, and I had a whole fish on my plate (I poked its gluey eye with my fork; Arjen promptly reprimanded me). This was the first multiracial photo — I was paired with Aubrey, a radio journalist. We toasted glasses of wine (well, ginger ale) and held our silverware awkwardly. But conversation flowed (whenever you learn how to say “to bite” in a foreign language, you know banter has been lively) and Arjen said we looked glamorous. His assistant swore I had improved.





“So Rebecca, how did you get into modeling?” mystery model Chloe asked. I explained I’d never modeled before.“Oh, that’s always how it starts,” she responded, nodding knowingly.

Somehow, I don’t think so.

My Name is What? My Name is Who? (Glimpse)

I have never been one for nicknames. As a child, I hated the name Becky, and after meeting a whole string of Beccas I disliked (sorry), that option was out as well. My elementary school soccer coach called me Beckers and my eight grade math teacher dubbed me Jake (because of Jacobson), but neither handle survived. A high school friend mashed my first and last names to make Rebjac, and this one actually had some holding power. But I still prefer Rebecca.

In Malawi, however, I have found myself entertaining all variety of new labels and names. Mzungu/azungu (white person, less respectfully/more respectfully) tops the chart, but the name-calling doesn’t stop there. I’m also mama, mami, sister, baby, friend, girlfriend, customer, you, and all of these in Chichewa. Hardly noteworthy — every foreign young woman receives this kind of attention. But sometimes locals know my real name, and I’m always pleased with their variations. Malawians tend to spell my name “Rabecca” (my bank card even identifies me this way — every time I slide it into an ATM, the screen shouts “GOOD AFTERNOON RABECCA!”), and the confusion over L and R in Chichewa means I’m sometimes called “Labecca.” In Ndirande, the township where I’m doing my research, I often buy samosas from a young boy who calls me “Rabe” (no, not pronounced like the bitter broccoli leaf). And when I visit Mrs. Mkutu’s house, she places her two-month old grandson in my arms and announces the arrival of “Auntie Rebecca.”

But my two favorite soubriquets have nothing to do with my given name. The first is “azungu dala,” a name I’ve heard only twice but would continue to welcome. I was in Ndirande the first time, trudging up a dusty hill with a Malawian friend. She gently punched my shoulder, laughing and repeating the name to herself, “azungu dala, azungu dala.” I asked her to explain. “It’s like a white person, but a white person who —” she paused. “It’s like ‘mwana dala,’ someone who looks like a child but isn’t a child.” I considered this. “So I look like a white person, but I’m not one?” I asked. She wasn’t entirely sure how to answer. But I heard the same name later that week, this time while disembarking from a minibus. I’ve decided to take it as a compliment — I may look like a white person, sure, but I also take local transport and spend my time in gritty urban townships, and maybe that makes me something else.

The second moniker has even more curious origins, and may not even qualify as a nickname, but let’s run with it, ok? Several weeks ago, I tromped to the market to buy a table and chairs for my house. Lacking transport, I hired two men to carry the furniture home for me. We cut quite the spectacle — me in front, chomping on groundnuts, and the men behind, balancing heavy wooden furniture on their sweaty bald heads. As we made the last turn to my house, I greeted the cluster of women and children who gather there to sell sugarcane and fried balls of dough and cell phone credit. They looked at us with surprise and confusion. “Ndilibe galimoto!” I called — “I don’t have a car!” They hooted with laughter, and we continued on our way.



Several days later, I rounded that same corner, this time alone. I smiled and waved at an adolescent girl. “Ndilibe galimoto!” she called, then pointed at me and ran in the opposite direction. I shrugged. It’ll do.

Keeping Pace With the Porters (Glimpse)

The World Cup might be the globe’s most sensational sporting event (and how I mourned its completion yesterday, though not as much as I’d bewailed Germany’s semifinal exit at the hands of — ok, header of — Carlos “Giving a Bad Name to Curly Haired People Everywhere” Puyol), but the Mulanje Porters Race is undoubtedly Malawi’s prime athletic contest. Imagine, for a moment, 200 participants, ages 13 to 74 (though I swear some must have been preadolescent), tearing up a rocky crag, traversing a grassy plateau, and then bouncing back down the mountain, logging 25 kilometers and about 2,000 meters of elevation change. Now imagine many of these participants barefoot, or perhaps in plastic sandals or beat-up Converse All-Stars, some in boxers or cuffed golf shorts or bedraggled denim cutoffs, and several of the women (that’s right, this is not just a stag affair) dressed in skirts or even swimsuit tops. With the fastest runners clocking just over two hours, the whole occasion makes for quite the spectacle.





I attended the Porters Race this past Saturday, rolling out of Blantyre toward Mount Mulanje at 5 a.m. in a 37-year-old, sea green Mercedes. (We didn’t return with the same grace — the clutch spring broke somewhere en route, and we lurched, rather than glided, our way back to the city.) The race was scheduled to start at 6 a.m., but this being Malawi, the runners didn’t pound up the mountain until 7:45. No matter — this being Malawi, I knew half of the attendees (ok, not half) and we sized up the competitors. The event is open to foreigners (26 took part this year, though the fastest non-Malawian man and woman finished about an hour after their Malawian counterparts), and numerous people asked me if I was participating. No way, I said — I’ve tackled Mulanje my share of times, but it’s a steep beast of a mountain (and did I mention it was 6 a.m.?).

I didn’t see the action up on the plateau, but judging by the participants’ post-race injuries, the mountain didn’t spare any punches. A cadre of nurses tended to cuts and abrasions, as well as some truly gnarly wounds. Runners finished with mud-splattered legs, and many with muddy bums (I could sympathize – I tore the seat of my shorts on a Mulanje descent in March).





When the Porters Race began 15 years ago, it was exactly what the name suggests — a contest between the porters who lug hikers’ gear up the mountain. It quickly expanded, though, including women in its fifth year and drawing competitors from across the country. Now, porters rarely number among the top finishers. Saturday’s male winner is a soldier in Lilongwe and said he spent the last two months training for the race. The female winner belongs to a local athletic club. She displaced a woman who has dominated the podium, losing the race only once in the last seven years.







As impressive as the competitors proved, I had to ask what heights they could reach with proper athletic training. When I spoke with the winner of the men’s race, he said he intended to put his prize money (about $300) to better training equipment and access to facilities. He had the lean yet powerful build of a marathoner and a confident gait. I’m no fan of financially swollen sports programs (or of the swollen egos of overpaid and overhyped athletes), and goodness knows other sectors in Malawi need the attention more. But I had to wonder — what if this country had proper athletics infrastructure? Could there have been a Usain Bolt at Saturday’s race? Just askin’.

On the Passage of Time (Glimpse)

I am unsure how to mark the passage of time in Malawi. I’ve just been spit out of 17 years of academia, with its easy dividing lines, its semesters and exam schedules and holiday vacations. Now I’m in this landlocked country, somewhere between southern and central Africa (Malawi can’t seem to decide where to place itself), without a job title or a work schedule and only the occasional deadline. I make my own days and have little routine, which can be liberating and exciting, but it’s also exhausting.

And now about 270 of those routine-free days have passed. There have been, predictably, interminable hours and blink-of-an-eye weeks. But rather than marking the elapsed time with those old, familiar rulers, I have had to seek out other methods of measurement.

The seasons scarcely work as a guide. When I arrived in Malawi at the end of September, it was hot and dry. Somewhere around December it became hot and wet. Now the rains have slowed to a sputter and people say we’re moving into winter, but the mercury can still run high during the day. And even if the seasons do change, if winter does arrive and I find myself haggling for turtlenecks and wool socks at the market, my trained northern hemisphere mind does not understand why it has arrived in June, just when I should be riding my bike, eating ice cream, and gaping at wildflowers in the Columbia River Gorge.

Events seem to come at the wrong time. In January, stores flew banners advertising back-to-school book discounts and summer clothing sales. Now, in late June, I pass flyers for winter concerts and winter parties. Mother’s Day was in October. Thanksgiving Day was scorching. When I was in Germany for the Euro Cup, it was light out till 9 and we gathered to watch the games on giant screens, al fresco. Now the World Cup is underway, but it’s dark by 5:30 and too chilly to sit outside (I started writing this entry a month ago; in the time that’s passed, the temperatures indeed have dropped – I could see my breath last week).

With wonky seasons and holidays landing in the wrong months, I’ve paid greater attention to the trees and the plants. The jacarandas were out when I arrived, and as soon as they dropped their soft purple blossoms the flamboyants (an appropriately audacious name for the bright red flowers) bloomed. Then the rains began, and the whole landscape sprouted green.

The fruits and vegetables have become a marker as well. Though part of me misses the round-the-calendar accessibility of the supermarket, I’ve been able to mark the passage of time by the changes in my diet. I watched with sadness as the mango season puttered out, to be replaced by a flood of sugarcane and avocadoes. The tree outside my door hung heavy with loquats when I moved in; then the guavas and passionfruit arrived; now we have tangerines. The initial tomato crop was mind-blowing. There are staples, to be sure, potatoes and bananas and papaya, but I have come to enjoy eating at the whims of the harvest. Still, without the rituals and familiar associations of the shifting agricultural calendar — the apple picking of the fall, the watermelon seed spitting of the summer — I struggle to measure the months by the alien produce in my kitchen.

Every so often I will be jolted by the abrupt recognition that the earth is, indeed, orbiting. A young woman I know gave birth recently, and I watched her stomach grow to improbable fullness and then shrink back to her slim frame. I’ve watched her sister hit puberty, her posture growing straighter and prouder as she’s adjusted to her new figure. Many of the young women I work with have children, and I’ve seen them grow from infants to boys and girls, with evermore animated facial expressions and legs strong enough to stand on. I received an email from my mother when the United States switched to standard time, and then another when the country returned to daylight savings, reminding me of the shifting time difference between my home here and my home there.

I can’t figure it out. Of course the cadence of a place is unique — a New England college campus runs at a different pace than the state capital down the hill. It’s not as if I’ve gone back in time, the way I felt during my three-week stint in rural Romania, in a village that lacked indoor plumbing and landlines. Time simply seems to operate differently here. Its passage feels less real, somehow, seeming to occur in a strange sort of vacuum, in a warped space where the clock ticks without regard for the timepieces of the rest of the world. 

An Island Paradise (Glimpse)

Likoma Island is something of an impossible place. It's accessible only by private plane (I met a few South African men who'd flown in) or by the MV Ilala, a ferry that has run up and down Lake Malawi since 1957. This isolation lends the island a distinctive serenity, and renders it immune from many plagues of the mainland: honking minibuses, urban poverty and crime, choking pollution. By necessity, the pace of life on Likoma runs slow, but not sluggish. I spent one morning with two islanders discussing whether inhabitants are lazy. No, they concluded, as we lolled in hammocks and watched the waves lap at the sand, just good at taking it easy.





I spent a few days on Likoma in April (the ferry schedule requires travelers to stick around for several nights, contributing to the island's easy rhythm), and they go down as some of my most supremely enjoyable in Malawi. Lacking the funds to charter a plane, Riley and I boarded the Ilala in Nkhata Bay, a verdant lakeside town populated by rasta wannabes and drunken British backpackers. The Ilala is part cruise ship, part minibus. Locals use it to transport goods (sacks of maize, bananas, mattresses, furniture, chickens, goats) between the mainland and the islands, so a distinctive perfume and soundtrack suffuse the lower decks. A first-class ticket, though, buys you a spot on the open top deck. It's a red-eye from Nkhata Bay to Likoma — provided the ferry is on schedule (we departed only a couple hours late). The sky felt vaster and the stars brighter as I lay on my back, swaddled in my sleeping bag to shield against the breeze. The moon rose late in the evening, an unusually yellow orb in the black sky. A Carlsberg sets you back 150 Kwacha, about a dollar, and we brought a slab of chocolate. The bar played Celine Dion's greatest hits, and a few hours in, the inevitable tune rang out. I sang along. Riley groaned. "Number one rule of maritime travel," he said. "Don't mention the Titanic."

We were scheduled to arrive at Likoma around 3 a.m. but instead dropped anchor right after sunrise. I was grateful for the daytime disembarkment. Tiny Likoma has no pier where the Ilala can dock, so lifeboats shuttle passengers from the ferry to the shore. Maximum capacity 20 people, the lifeboats claim, but why would anyone heed the order? We held out aggressive elbows and jostled our way to a worn wooden ladder, lowering ourselves onto a pitching lifeboat overloaded with passengers and cargo. I squatted on a sack of cassava and gripped a waterlogged cardboard box.









The rest of our time on Likoma proved far less stressful. We split our time between the beach and Chipyela, the main town on the island. The beach was predictably blissful — hot sand, clear and temperate water, underwear-clad children hauling in impressive catches of fish (they used nsima, maize porridge, as bait). And the town, unlike many faded, depressed Malawian villages, was lively and welcoming. Our first day we met a 17-year-old boy named Alexander, who was studying Middle Eastern geography in school. He quizzed us on capitals. "Iran?" "Tehran." "Syria?" "Damascus." "Yemen?" "Yikes, tricky one," we replied. "Sanaa," he answered, without a beat.



Alexander led us to St. Peter's Cathedral, an improbable feat of architecture. The massive granite building, with its soapstone choir stalls and stained-glass windows, feels Malawian only in its corrugated tin roof, no doubt part of a more recent renovation. We met Richard, the church reader, who agreed to lead us up one of the towers. We met only a locked hatch door — and a crowd of bats. Richard asked to swap addresses and promised to write Riley in the U.S.



Our Likoma circuit took us next to a strip of stalls selling dried goods, soap, Vaseline, eggs, salt, sugar, cooking oil. In the first days after the Ilala's arrival, you can find tomatoes and avocadoes and bananas, but these stocks dwindle as the week passes. The fish, of course, are in constant supply, usipa and matemba and other tiny varieties drying in the thousands on lakeside racks.

Well, perhaps not constant supply. Riley and I ate several meals at the brilliantly-named Hunger Clinic, a thatched roof hut meters from the water. When we asked if they had fish, Nyamwezi (whose red t-shirt read "head doctor") laughed and shook his head. "No fish?!" we cried. "No fish!" he confirmed. "But the lake!" we pointed. "No no, lake for swimming!" We instead downed massive portions of beef, beans, and rice, cheap and simple and delicious. After lunch, the television suddenly switched on — Likoma is powered by three diesel generators, which take a siesta from noon to 2 p.m.





(For the record, Nyamwezi came through for us the next day, and we shared a flaky plate of butterfish for dinner.)

One of the most astonishing things about Likoma was the lack of begging. When islanders greeted us and engaged us in conversation, their questions were not followed with appeals for money. True, children did ply us with incessant requests for balloons (some long-gone backpacker must have brought a pack and started the craze), but they were mostly eager to tag after us, recruit us for games, wave at the camera, try on our sunglasses. One young girl death-gripped my hand and pronounced firmly to her friends: "Mzungu wanga!" "My white person!" Everyone was glad to provide us with directions, which invariably instructed us to turn at that big baobab tree. Too bad the entirety of Likoma is studded with big baobab trees — only they and the mango trees remain, all the others felled for firewood.



We arrived on Likoma at sunrise and departed at the same time, this time on a sailing dhow bound for a neighboring island. We found our way to the boat in pitch darkness and only made it on time thanks to several women who interrupted their early morning tasks to correct our false turns and lead us down the proper path. We stepped over fishermen sleeping on the sand, resting for another day in their dugout canoes. The dhow's dozen passengers boarded sleepily and we set off for Chizumulu. The sails caught the morning wind and the waves caught the pink morning light and the dhow pitched across the lake. Behind us, the sun rose over Likoma Island.

Pardon my cynicism

It would have been little surprise had my mother's SMS delivered the announcement (she often gets to the news first; I have to wait for a BBC briefing), but it was already coursing through the mostly expatriate crowd — the gay couple sentenced to 14 years in prison had received a presidential pardon.

My astonishment quickly gave way to happiness for the two men, but I didn't feel particularly cheerful about Malawi. Madonna last week condemned the sentence as a step backward for the country (Elton John joined the debate as well, penning an open letter to the president in The Guardian), but this pardon is only superficially progressive. Had it not been for international pressure, the couple would remain in prison. Only after meeting with U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon did Malawi's president, Bingu wa Mutharika, decide to release the men, and only with continued scorn for their actions. Earlier in the course of the trial, Bingu had called homosexuality "evil and very bad before the eyes of God." His views haven’t budged — while announcing his pardon, he added that "These boys committed a crime against our culture, our religion and our laws." He went on: "In all aspects of reasoning, in all aspects of human understanding, these two gay boys were wrong — totally wrong."

Never mind the pejorative use of "boys" (then again, the laws on homosexuality stem from the colonial era, so why not maintain the racist language of the white boss?) — this is not a country moving forward. Not long after Bingu made his announcement, the Minister of Gender and Children, Patricia Kaliati, told the BBC the couple risk rearrest if they continue their display of homosexuality. The Minister of Gender — gender! Kaliati is a firebrand, to be sure, the first to comment on any controversy, but her remarks underlined the lack of reasoned discussion about homosexuality in Malawi. (Meanwhile, Madonna declared it "a historic day for Malawi." Really, Madge?)

"Malawian gay couple got pardoned!" my mom wrote in her SMS. "Was there a big celebration?"

Hardly.

Out Of School And Into Motherhood (Glimpse)

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