Cliff Jump!

While we were on our two day kayaking trip in Nkhata Bay (northern Malawi), Khumbu showed us a place that we could cliff jump.

I said "No" right off the bat because I have this irrational fear that if I jump off a high object into water that I'll somehow forget how to swim. But after I watched Whitney jump (and proclaim its awesomeness), I started to feel embarrassed about being so afraid and I knew that I would regret not jumping. So I walked up to the edge, almost chickened out again, counted down Five, Four, Three, Two, One, and I jumped (and screamed).

I did it!

I didn't forget to swim, I didn't dash my head against any rocks, I didn't have any swimsuit malfunctions, and it was super fun.

It was the first time I'd ever done anything like that, and I was so proud of myself. Then I kayaked past the cliff the next day, and it looked so small compared to the monster cliff that I had envisioned jumping off of in my head. I thought "How was I afraid to jump off that tiny thing?"

Funny how that works.

#busslyfe

Four of us went to Zambia last week. John ended up opting out because he wasn't feeling well.

Kevin (the BFI driver, and now our friend) was a champ and offered to wake up super early to give us a ride to the bus station. We could have walked it (technically), but when we told Kevin that, he was kind of like "Ehhhhh not super safe--I'll take you." He got to Korea Garden Lodge at 4:30 in the morning to give us that lift. 

We boarded the bus at the station in Lilongwe at 4:45, and our bus took off shortly after 5:30. 

We stopped halfway there because the bus was smoking so much. After a period of waiting, everything cooled down and the smoke stopped, and we were back on our merry way (with my fingers crossed).

It got dark around 6:00, and I knew we weren't going to be able to catch the 7:00 bus to Livingstone. We pulled into Lusaka sometime between 8:00-9:00 (I think?). Fifteen solid hours of squeezing into the tiny seats, taking breaks to pee in the bush, or waiting for the bus to fix itself. It was hot and sweaty and slightly claustrophobic, but you know, all things considered, t'was marvelous. We all survived, and even better, none of us got blood clots or anything dramatic like that. 

We got off the bus to the clamour of countless taxi drivers vying for your attention.  I asked one for a lift to Kalulu Backpackers in Lusaka. He gave it to us for 30 ZMW. 

We got to Kalulu and thank god, there were four available beds, because I hadn't made reservations (I'd been banking on making the connection from Lusaka to Livingstone that night). Rookie mistake. The options are limited in Lusaka, and I was trying to think of what we could do if they were full. We could try Lusaka Backpackers...if they're full...welp, I remember sleeping in the bus terminal last year when we had to wait for a connection, oh. Ralph would kill me, so probably not an option. Perhaps a hotel. Gosh, that would be expensive.

The next morning, we woke up, and headed back to the bus terminal, where we endured another eight hot, miserable hours on a (slightly bigger, so much YES) bus. We happily pulled into Livingstone around 9:00, where we found out that Jolly Boys had given our beds away due to our late arrival. Thankfully, they had room at their other location, which is where we slept for the night. 

We had a lovely three days in Livingstone (I'll write about it more in the next post or two), before we headed back to Lilongwe. It was pretty much the same exact thing as the journey to Zambia. We did have to switch busses at Mchinji due to our bus breaking down, and we had a 2.5 hour delay at the border. So much waiting and sitting and more waiting, but I guess that's just how it goes. 

Four full days on busses for three days of fun in Zambia.

Worth it? For me, totally.

Rain

This morning I awoke to the sound of rain.

The sound was so unexpected that for a moment I lay in bed, puzzled, vaguely aware of the fact that something had woken me up. Light was starting to trickle through the curtains at the windows, but the sheets were white and clean, and I am pretty sure that nothing feel so good in the morning as stretching out in nice, non-threadbare sheets and then going back to sleep until sunshine gently pulls you to your feet, more awake and alive than you've ever been. But instead of sunshine, there was rain. 

I couldn't believe it.

When I got to Africa in the beginning of May, rainy season had barely ended, and everything in Malawi had been glisteningly vibrant, enchanted by the touch of a wand called "adventure" and attached to a wondrous tag that said "Made in Africa" in the most exotic small print possible. The leaves were still green, and in the evenings the grass would wave pink and gold in the dying sunlight.

Since then, the world has been slowly fading. The grass is now brown and withered, and the trees cling to their half-shriveled leaves like a forty-year-old rebel chasing his rock'n'roll dream. The red dirt has turned into sand which has somehow transformed itself into a fine rusty dust that manages to coat everything. Ugly remnants of shorn corn stalks dot forgotten fields. Every day the sun comes up to greet an ever-browner world, and every night the moon pushes it out of the sky to paint Malawi in a more forgiving, albeit dimmer, light.

But it is not the past three months; it is today, and today, it is raining.

The sound of the water smashing onto the corrugated metal roof increases to a roar, and I fling the door open to rain. The water drips down the roof and hits the ground with a soft splat, and I think that it is maybe the most glorious sound I have ever heard. It embraces the cobblestones and the bark of the trees surrounding us, and there's this white mist rising from the midst of Lake Malawi specifically to greet these most singular raindrops. The air is warm, but not hot, and the humidity, for once in my life, feels delightful and undeserved, like my skin is thanking me for a gift that I didn't pay for.

Rain on Lake Malawi, after it had passed us for a little bit.
Nkhata Bay.
Photo by Adam Ellsworth.

I pull a chair out of the chalet to the front porch and sit down in my tshirt and shorts, with my knees pulled up to my chest, and my hair in the messiest of sleep-tousled ponytails. 

I sit and I finish waking up, and I feel like the world is stretching out in some brand new sheets--that pretty soon the sun will come, take the world by its hand, and pull it back to its feet.

This morning, the rain came down down down 

down

and woke us all 

up.

Creation

“Give me a story that just makes me unreasonably vigilant. Keep me up till five because all your stars are out, and for no other reason…Oh dare to do it Buddy! Trust your heart. You’re a deserving craftsman. It would never betray you. Good night. I’m feeling very much over-excited now, and a little dramatic, but I think I’d give almost anything on earth to see you writing a something, an anything, a poem, a tree, that was really and truly after your own heart.” 

― J.D. Salinger, Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters & Seymour: An Introduction

Sometimes I want to create something beautiful so badly that I feel as though I could combust.

I used to be a voracious reader, and I used to write. I’m still a reader, but don't really claim to be a writer.

There was a time when I thought about being an editor for a living, an author on the side. So I majored in English. I changed my major to food science in a matter of months though for a number of reasons. One of them was because in order to be great as an author, you must be creative and original and vulnerable, and there is nothing scarier than having to be creative and original and vulnerable. Vulnerable in every way, because writing great research papers doesn’t get you anywhere after college. Vulnerable because you will always fear that you are not creative, not original, that you are merely mimicking, and thus mocking, the sacred act of creation. Vulnerable because authenticity can be sold, because true art always requires sacrifice of some sort, because it’s quite possible that your soul’s birthright, your heart’s child, your life’s work, may one day be stored in an attic or an empty barn, and that is that.

I couldn’t do it. I stopped writing (you know, besides the mandatory writing), save for the occasional half-hearted attempt that would quickly fizzle out.

I haven’t written anything that I’m truly proud of in a long time. In all actuality, I don’t know if I ever have. I have tried, but I can’t do it, or at least, I can’t do it yet. It all seems trivial, trite, sensationalized, contrived.

It’s sad because I love words like I love few other things, and I read them, and live them, and breathe them; I am moved by them, touched by them, caressed by them, and I still haven’t figured out how to put them together to say something that truly means something, anything. To say something that hasn’t been said before, to say something "really and truly after [my] own heart" and nobody else’s.

Sometimes, I just want to create something beautiful.

I want the stars to come out, and I want to see them for what they are. I want to be kept up till five, even if nobody else is. I want to paint them, read them, sculpt them, draw them, relish them, sing them, dance them, write them—

Just so long as I capture them. Just so long as they last. Just so long as they exist for one beautiful moment after dawn—and if they are consigned to the barns and attics of the world after that, so be it.

I should like to accomplish that at least once.

the first goodbyes

Yesterday, we said what felt like lots of goodbyes.

We said goodbye to our little branch in Lilongwe. It was harder than I thought it would be. Three of us, including myself, have given talks here, and it kind of feels like home in a way. The YSA class that we were a part of has been so wonderful as well, and I think that they were just as sad as we were that this was our last Sunday. It was really touching.

Then we drove back to Korea Garden Lodge, where Kevin, the driver, dropped us off. And that’s when we said goodbye to Nicolle and Camille, the two PEAT interns, who are going to continue doing work at SAFI this week as opposed to go gallivanting in Zambia. What diligent souls. Anyways, they’re wonderful, and saying goodbye was just a tiny bit surreal. Oh, parting is such sweet sorrow, especially when you’re all going back to BYU.

I don’t want to get all weirdly sentimental [please ignore the fact that sentimentality has been permanently etched all over many a past blogpost—it’s fine]. It’s just weird because this is the first time that the fact that this program is almost over has felt real. That’s all I’m saying.

Despite my growing excitement to return to the United States and see friends and family, I can honestly say that I have come to love Malawi and the people here.

And I’m glad that we’ve still got two and a half weeks to finish saying the rest of our goodbyes.

culture shock

What is culture shock? It is a thousand little unexpected experiences. Or maybe it is the shock when those experiences are no longer unexpected, but happenstance, and you think, Gosh, who am I?

Either way, ultimately, it's those experiences that make your time abroad so delightfully (or even not so delightfully) different and necessary, because without them, you might as well have never left America, darling.


1) It is hearing Ke$ha playing outside your window and slowly losing your faith in humanity as you bob your head to a mixture of conversational Chichewa and catchy little phrases about Mick Jagger and alcohol.

2) It is getting ridiculously excited about toast, because the toast comes with jam on it, and you have been eating nothing but plain hunks of bread for the longest time (because anything, anything is better than bread with peanut butter on it).

3) It is eating the fat and gristle and spitting out the bone chunks in the meat without batting an eyelash (even though it's still unpleasant).

4) It is looking at yourself in the mirror and thinking you look good, even though you haven't worn makeup in months and haven't showered for three days.

5) It is that slow realization that the only reason that you are still taking your doxy is because it keeps your skin clear. Not because it prevents malaria. Because heaven knows you'd have started to forget to take your doxy weeks ago if that was the case.

6) It is choosing to eat not one, but two fishes, with your nsima, even though their eyes are blatantly (and blankly) staring out at you. Miracle of miracles. Glory be, oh omega-3 fatty acids. Please get in my belly now before I come to my senses.

7) It is going to the market and bartering. It is actually getting a good deal. Repeatedly.

8) It is going to Malawian hospitals with an intern, where she was stabbed multiple times by doctors who couldn't find her veins. When they finally drew enough blood to do blood tests, she was diagnosed with a bacterial infection. She was fed antibiotics through an intravenous shunt and was given four different types of medication. It is realizing that all the drugs, plus the consultation and all the needle-stabbing, cost 2500K, or about $8.00

9) It is trying to do research when it is so frustrating you could tear your hair out by the fistful. It is doing yoga at the end of the day on a dirty cement floor and feeling your heart rate begin to slow. It is realizing that even though half of the things here are frustrating, it (it being everything? I'm still not sure what it is) is still worth it.

10) It is spending three months with the same exact group of people. It is not going crazy. It is becoming and making friends.

11) It is not being fazed by slight tardiness. Or even extreme lateness. Or the no-show.

12) It is laughing with the cleaning lady and throwing up your hands because you have no idea what she wants, but she still keeps talking at you. So you give her two pieces of bread, and somehow the problem is solved, because she nods and leaves the room. (?) Food. Food is always the answer. For everybody.

13) It is that inexpressible joy that only comes when the toilets will flush. 

14) It is seeing hundreds of children with vitameal, and just feeling really, really happy about it.

15) It is trying to do traditional Chichewan dances and failing miserably. How is it that I love to dance so much and am still so bad at it? It is deciding not to care. It is shaking your body to the a capella music anyways, like self-consciousness isn't a thing and embarrassment doesn't exist. At least not in this special little circle of happy people. 


Well, that's fifteen things out of the thousand or so things that have made this experience what it is. We're wrapping up this experience. This week is the last push to get all our research done. Next week, we're taking off to Zambia to see Victoria Falls. The week after that, we're going to Nkhata Bay in northern Malawi. And then we come back to SAFI to pack up all our things, and we go back to Lilongwe. One morning, we'll pack up for good and board a flight for NYC, and that is that. The summer will be over. 

And the craziness that will be next semester will ensue. But let's not think about that just yet.

Until next time! I'm off to buy bus tickets to Zambia!

timshel

“But the Hebrew word, the word timshel—‘Thou mayest’— that gives a choice. It might be the most important word in the world. That says the way is open. That throws it right back on a man. For if ‘Thou mayest’—it is also true that ‘Thou mayest not.'”

-John Steinbeck, East of Eden

Homemade bridges connecting Old Town in Lilongwe.

Choice is a beautiful, beautiful thing. In a way, uncertainty has kind of always been the ugly caterpillar in my life. But over the two months I have been in Africa, it has been morphing into a butterfly (forgive the kitsch).

I am beginning to feel myself embrace the moment of choice that comes with limbo, the “Thou mayest.” The “Thou mayest not.”

It is standing at the edge of a swaying platform with my eyes closed. It is stepping onto a bridge when I cannot see the other end. It is that moment in the air as I flip--that second before I hit the water.

I don’t know anything, and thus, it is in this moment that I must live.

Thou mayest do all things. Thou mayest not.

But, the most beautiful of all things beautiful: In all moments, but especially this moment, thou livest.

It is all one can really be cognizant of at times like these, and I have never been more aware of it, although I feel the countdown beginning to wind down.

For now, I choose to bask in the delicious uncertainty, this blessed permission to enjoy the idea of choice before it flies into the sunset--this brief interlude before the quivering timelessness transforms itself into decision.