Butterfly

So. An update on what I’m actually doing here in Malawi.

I’m living at a place called Butterfly Space. It’s a backpacker’s lodge focused on volunteer work with the local community of Nkhata Bay. Butterfly has about fifteen different projects going on at any given time, ranging from women’s soap-making to beginner computer classes to permaculture gardening to school teaching. Volunteers must commit to staying for at least a month, and can then either help with existing projects or can initiate their own projects within the community.

I’ve been here now for a week and a half, and I’ll stay for a month, total.

So far I’ve helped out with various initiatives. I’ve worked at the nursery school, and with a group of HIV positive adults, and with an after-school youth club. Last Monday, I worked with the disabled group, a group of mentally and physically disabled individuals from around the area that meets weekly at Butterfly. *Apologies in advance if something I say here is not politically correct – I have no experience working with the people involved in our group, and, therefore, am unsure about the best terms to describe the project.* The group spends time eating a meal, caring for one another, doing life skills activities, and creating craft projects with students from the small primary school run on-site by Butterfly. I’ve learned that it is extremely difficult to have a disability in Malawi, especially a mental disability; in Tonga, the local language, there is no word for “disability,” rather the participants in our group are simply referred to as “crazy” or “unnatural.” These individuals are often treated very poorly, as there is very little cultural awareness or acceptance of disabilities. This weekly group at Butterfly is an opportunity to interact with other people and to be treated as humans. I don’t want to go into specific details and events, but it was both eye opening and difficult working with this group.

Starting up the truck.

On Wednesday, seven of us climbed into the back of a pick-up truck and drove off to pick up 150 baby trees. For the next hour, all seven of us rode amongst the 150 trees on our way to a public primary school. There we worked alongside students to plant the trees, which will prevent soil erosion while providing healthy snacks for the students. Then we climbed back into the truck and stopped at two more schools to plant trees. However, neither of those schools was ready for planting, so we simply dropped off the trees. It was an enjoyable day. The views were stunning; we passed rubber plantations, drove through rolling hills, and bounced down the uneven and colorful roads of Malawi. Despite layers of sunscreen, I turned very solidly pink. Oh, and the truck we were riding in was 28 years old, so it didn’t start on it’s own. After every stop, we all lined up along the back of the truck and began to run, pushing the truck until the engine caught.

The area, and Lake Malawi, is gorgeous. It’s the rainy season, so everything is crazy hot and humid, but so very green. There are geckos everywhere. And dogs everywhere, and y’all know how much I like pets. I’m not going to say that things look like the Caribbean, because they don’t, but still. Stunning sunsets every night. All of the local fishermen on the lake go out each day in wooden dugout canoes. The women in town wear bright, beautiful, African prints. It’s all quite picturesque.

My dorm.

Butterfly is nice, but it’s also definitely for a certain type of traveler. We don’t have internet right now (which means that the on-site public computer center isn’t currently operating.) Meals at our restaurant can take up to two hours to arrive, once ordered. I stay in a six-person dorm room, which, thankfully, has only been completely full one night that I’ve been here. The loos (I’ve been hanging out with so many Brits) are compost toilets and are open-air, as are the showers. There are ants absolutely everywhere. And mosquitoes – I’m trying to remember to take my malaria pills.

The other volunteers here are great. They’re mostly European, something I’ve found especially since coming to Africa. It’s cool not being around Americans. Like really refreshing.

We tried to make iced coffee this past week, by ordering a pot of coffee from the kitchen, asking them to put it into the freezer, and then mixing it with milk. Unfortunately, Butterfly does not have any ice. Or a refrigerator – just a freezer. This meant that our first cup of iced coffee was lukewarm coffee. The second cup was colder coffee. And by the next morning, the third cup was frozen solid. So it didn’t really work. And despite over an hour of intense brainstorming, we did not come up with a plausible way to make ourselves iced coffee.

A view of the town of Nkhata Bay.

Saturday, my English friend, Erin, and I went into Mzuzu, the city an hour from Nkhata Bay. In our shared taxi to Mzuzu, Erin and I were collectively proposed to by the man sitting next to us, very soon after he got into the taxi and realized he was sitting next to two white girls. We assured him that we were not yet ready to marry, would no longer be in Malawi to marry him later on, and also did not have any rich friends to set him up with. Once in Mzuzu, we headed straight to the western-style supermarket, where, I’m embarrassed to say, we spent almost two hours wandering up and down each and every aisle. We were so excited. Fifteen minutes were spent looking at the fruit juices.

Unfortunately, the rest of the day included lugging all of our supermarket purchases around Mzuzu.

After lunch, we headed off to find the “Swahili Market,” where we wanted to buy fabric. We asked several people on the street, all of which seemed to not really know what we were talking about, but gave us vague directions anyway. Finally we asked a young woman who immediately replied that she definitely knew where the Swahili Market was, and proceeded to lead us towards it, saying it wasn’t far away. As she led us through the middle of a slum and I noticed every Malawian around us staring at our pale skin, Erin and I looked at each other and began to wonder where we were actually heading. I whispered to her, “Are we about to get mugged . . . ?” On high-alert (in case we were about to get mugged, I wanted to be prepared and not be caught by surprise. Although I’m not sure quite what it would have meant to be prepared in that situation,) I decided that if we didn’t see the market in the next couple minutes, we’d thank the girl and quickly distance ourselves.

Well. Less than a minute later I glimpsed fabric in the distance. We spent the next few hours walking around the market, looking at thousands and thousands of fabrics. At one point I left our shopping bag of fruit juice (four different flavors!) at a stall without realizing it, but fortunately the vendor flagged us down half an hour later. That juice would have been a huge loss. Our eyes swimming with bright African prints, we settled on some fabrics as the market began to shut down. Upon leaving, a young man selling cassava said “Mzungu, mzungu, buy some cassava. Buy some cassava, not for you, it’s for me.” My favorite line of the day.

I’m having fun here. It’s much more like a vacation than the other volunteering I’ve done this year, which is an interesting change of pace. The stars over the lake at night are gorgeous, always complete with the Milky Way. I paddleboard and swim on the lake, and have just begun a scuba diving certification course. I’m getting both pinker and tanner. I’ll keep y’all posted on my volunteer work with the various projects in the next few weeks.