Bad week

I'm having a bad Africa week. We all are except Lev, who's too busy making an arsenal of paper weapons and hanging from mango trees to notice anything is amiss.

It's not due to the water situation. We've had running water only two of the last sixteen days, and we've gotten used to it. Even Matthew, who has generously gotten up twice at 3 AM to throw laundry in our machine when we heard water coming from the tap we leave open.

And it's not due to the heat. It may have been, if it had stayed 94 degrees like it was last weekend. But the heat broke when it started raining, it dropped to 64 overnight, and the comforters are back on our beds. It's exactly like the way I put my Minnesota winter clothes away in April, then do it again in May, then for the final time in June. Everyone says it will get beastly hot here again in a few days; but we'll take what we can get.

It's also not due to the rain. It started raining on Sunday and has barely stopped since. I love the way that tropical climates do rain. When it comes, it's excessive and blubbery and loud. All of a sudden, there's mud everywhere. The goats are smeared with it, like Philadephia Eagles fans. The patio looks like we sponge painted it, in back-to-the-'80s style, with muddy dog and chicken prints. My feet are always dirty & red. These are called the "first rains", apparently, which come for a week around this time, then don't return again till December. Fine by me - if I'm going to have a bad Africa week, it may as well be raining to match my mood.

Why then the bad week? Sickness has a lot to do with it. A few weekends ago, we had to cancel another overnight trek up the mountain with our Dutch neighbors (for the third time!) when, one by one, their five kids got picked off by fever, diarrhea, or vomiting. "Please no," we muttered, glancing at each other, when Thea reported that little Sifra had thrown up twice at school and she had accompanied her to the bathroom to wash up afterward. After an incubation period, both of our kids also fell ill and missed three days of school last week. They recovered, then Matthew started running to the bathroom. Right as he started to improve (?), I was hit with it and missed work. I have no appetite, an upset stomach, and occasional chills. We haven't been to Blantyre for supplies in two months and were planning to go this weekend. Last night I mused that maybe I would be well enough to go when Thea announced to no one in particular that she felt weird. Her temperature was 102. Today she's still curled up on the sofa, morosely watching cartoons. Actually, right now my stomach is gurgling again, my insides are twisting, and I may have to pause this to...

Well. Seems like fever and diarrhea are still very present in our family. It's been two long weeks.

The other reason was a conflict that surfaced between me and Matthew this week. We both feel raw from it. I spent Wednesday sick in bed, marinating in melancholy, and letting the heavy rain and my Spotify soundtrack deepen it. Which is another reality of this work: you are far from your usual supports. It plays a toll. I sometimes think about that when I see migrants or refugees walking around in daily life, folks with no option to fly home again after a year and a half. (Who may have been separated from spouses or partners for long periods, and to what effect?) In a few weeks we'll have been married for 15 years. Some weeks - some months, some years even - are hard; geography doesn't change that.  

Another reason for the bad week is demoralization. Internal work politics is a part of any job, but in one's own culture, it fades to a background static you mostly ignore, and when you can't, you know the rules to play by. In a foreign culture, that static gets turned up much higher and the rules of conduct are befuddling. The thing most in our favor is that we're shorter-term volunteers, with little real power; the bad thing is that our actions (however well intentioned) are as mysterious to Malawians as theirs are to us, sometimes. 

I've been exhausted by confusing work politics this week: bewildering, shifting, cross-cultural politics that I can little control, if at all. There is an amazing nurse here called Clemence (a social work major), who has taken to gently redirecting me when needed; I was so grateful for this (and the extra mile he went with a patient recently) that I baked some fudgy brownies to give to him and his family. This - the power of baking - sometimes feels like my only real currency. Average people here don't bake due to a lack of ovens; instead, they deep fry. (You can buy amber-looking used cooking oil in small plastic bags in the market.) Sugar, eggs, and cocoa powder are all expensive. At least a few times a month, I bake and share those goods around as a way to say: "I may have offended you by calling you, in a very American gaffe, George, rather than Mister So and So. But here! Is some coffee cake! I come in peace!"

The rest you just gotta let go. Yes, sometimes people act badly and you get lumped in with them because you have similar melanin. Let it go. Yes, the wardon at the prison tried to shake me down to misdirect some money - not a lot, just a bit - and I almost started to cry in his office because I felt so demoralized, at which he rapidly backpeddled, alarmed at the sight of this pale woman before him with tears swimming in her eyes. Just let it go. We used the classrooms at the prison for the first time last week and it was fantastic, everyone agreed on that. Much less TB swirling around our heads. Then yesterday I was told they had revoked the permission, and we were back in the airless closet. "But the nun said we could!" I sputtered, to no avail. Let it go. 

Hasta la vista, fresh air.

My environmental health contact, who had promised me they would administer the first dose of ivermectin to four hundred prisoners for our Mass Scabies Campaign at the prison, texted me this today:

Let it go, child. Things could change again by next week. Deep breaths. Patience. God and this sometimes very annoying country is growing this character trait in you. You know you need it. Go bake and binge-watch The Diplomat. A new week is around the bend.

I have bad America weeks all the time, so this Bad Africa Week doesn't really signify. As a visitor here, all you can hope for is to have done less harm than good when the plane finally lifts off to carry you home, as you peer down to the beautiful dry African landscape rapidly retreating from sight, your heart being squeezed, full of gratitude and regrets. Oh, to have simply done one small good thing, on balance. 

Maybe all they will remember, in the end, are the NY Times brownies you made that time - for no real reason other than to sweeten a hot, difficult week.