Comfort

Matthew is experiencing some culture-shock. I find it curious that I am not yet, because I last lived in rural Africa a long seventeen years ago. But I think this delay can also be chalked up to personality differences between us. Matthew is exact and a perfectionist, and rural Malawi is inexact and imperfect. A "good enough" mindset prevails here that - in certain contexts - I find refreshing. Or at least understandable given the widespread poverty. It eats at him. He's a thoughtful person. He measures twice, then cuts. So when the plumber put in a kitchen sink and it was slightly uneven so the water never completely drained - and then it still didn't, even after he came back to "fix" it - that stressed Matthew out. I felt that a mostly drained sink was... good enough. He disagreed. 

The truth is, our home has been transformed in the past ten days. We borrowed a car and spent a day in Blantyre (a big city an hour and a half away), racing from store to store to find what we needed. I was driving and intensely focused on staying on the left-hand side of the road and not hitting anyone; Matthew was navigating and intensely focused on getting us to all the places we needed to hit up before it got dark out. (You can't drive here at night because there are no street lights. I've done it before and compared it to driving through a mall in a dark cave.)

We bought a lot of things. We had to: setting up a house in another country is a big endeavor. We all try to avoid being materialistic (theoretically), but materials play a key role in feeling safe and at home. I breathed a sigh of relief to finally plug in a small $5 lamp in our living room; the bare bulb that hangs overhead is glaring and gives me a headache every night. We use our new plastic tupperware daily. The whole family cheered when Matthew finally installed a toilet seat.

Well said, marketing department.

You can't help but compare yourself to the majority of the population around you and, consequently, feel guilty. It's one of those imperfect things you have to make your peace with and just hope that - on balance - the contributions you will make and the relationships you will form outweigh the moral ambivalence of living so inequally while trying to serve. This dissonance exists everywhere, but it's more obvious here. 

Our hospital colleagues - our literal neighbors - live at roughly the same level as us, in terms of what is in our houses. We went for a walk last night and realized that some of them are living far beyond us, with manicured gardens and televisions and two nice cars parked outside, while we still have no car (though this may need to change soon). But those are hospital professionals who are highly educated and have worked here for many years, with free housing provided - not your typical rural Malawians. 

By contrast, our other neighbors are the temporary residents of the "Guardian Shelter", which is about 100 yards from our door. These are the family members of patients (mostly older women). They can stay in the shelter while their loved one is inpatient at the hospital. In fact, they have to do so, because the hospital can't afford to provide food for patients, so if these caregivers didn't stay and make meals for them, the patient wouldn't eat. 

I walk past this building several times a day and there is always a steady stream of women going in and out. Often they're barefoot. They're always wearing traditional chitenje skirts. They are unfailingly polite, giving me little curtsy bobs as we greet each other. They stay busy hauling water from the borehole, cooking over fires, or just chatting with each other about... I'm not sure what. What people at hospitals talk about the world over. Will he recover? How long will it take? Say, where did you buy that sweet potato?

The Guardian Shelter.

In the communal kitchen. (Taken with permission.)

When I had my tour of the hospital, the matron (head of all nurses) explained to me that the builders put in elevated concrete platforms for the caregivers to sleep on, thinking they'd prefer to be off the ground; but the size and shape of these reminded the women of caskets - yep, kinda freaky - so they sleep on the floor anyway and keep their belongings on the platforms. I did HIV work in an area of Mozambique with a 30% infection rate (in 2007-2009), and poor sick people often have very little in terms of comfort. But I suppose I'd forgotten how jolting it is to witness that. On the tour, I stuck my head in a room for the caregivers, and it made me wince. At least in that particular room, I couldn't see any woven grass mats being used, no blankets. These barefooted ladies presumably just lay themselves down on the concrete floor, in the dark, without mosquito nets, maybe adjust their thin cotton chitenjes, and go to sleep; then they wake up and head out to cook in the communal kitchen for their loved one in the hospital. They apparently are able to function without "the materials that make you feel safe and at home". Why the heck are they curtseying me? I just bought a toaster!

But I think having a toaster is actually okay. Is it? My heart tells me it is, though my brain accuses me of justification. Of course it's not okay that I get to buy mood lighting while they must sleep on concrete. The world should not be this way. But I know that if I also had to sleep without a blanket or pillow, amongst the malarial mosquitoes, I wouldn't come to Malawi. I'd stay home. It is at least somewhat transactional for me.

Shock is a natural response to the state of this broken world and to being uncomfortable. I have compassion for Matthew - Africa is a lot to take in. There's been so much for us to figure out*. It's fatiguing physically, mentally, and emotionally, and requires more wisdom and insight than we have at our ready disposal. That's what Matthew is feeling. First thing this morning, as we made our oatmeal and toast, a gentle teen boy came to our door asking for vasoline, and a notebook for school, maybe a pencil? Where are your parents, I asked in Chichewa. "Passed away," he explained. After him, a man with a child in the hospital for malnutrition came and asked for some maize flour. "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth."

For someone with Matthew's careful personality, new to this all, it's easy to get bogged down. Our family benefits from his intentionality; it usually makes me and our kids more comfortable. For example, him Google-Mapping out all the Blantyre shops beforehand, so we took the most efficient routes and found nearly everything on our list. (Our house is quite cozy now. We'd still like to buy a sofa, but we got some dressers ordered from the local carpenter. In the meantime, my underwear is now being held in a plastic colander... but hey, we have a colander!)

I know from experience that the acute culture shock will eventually abate for Matthew, even if it never fades completely. I'll get hit by a wave of it, too, probably. The kids are doing swimmingly (Lev seems the happiest he has ever been) - but let's assume they will also be affected in time. Culture shock is survivable. It requires tenderness toward oneself and others. Matthew and I have been treating it with a daily episode of Ted Lasso in bed. I am praying for him as we ease into our normal work schedules, to see the importance of his contributions, as a buffer to both cultural annoyances and difficult realities: to make living with them worthwhile, in short. 

I think if he can find the head and heart-space to make tentative peace with this life's imperfect - often immoral - incongruities, he will be alright. I hope I can too. We'll see.

* This is a huge understatement, life is SO different here. Almost nothing is initially easy - from banking to cooking to choosing clothes to internet to turning on the tap and expecting water to come out - and some things may never get easier. 

But just look at that rainbow!