The Three Syllables Over and Over

My friend in Malawi wanted us to see a local school.  So we set out to do so. A local school in a village that she described as having become much more Muslim over the last few years.  Now the village is seventy percent Muslim.  I tried to imagine some of the local drama around such a phenomenon. 

Pulling in we went passed hundreds of children.  I recognized the word for “whitey” or “lao wai” or “gringo” that we’d been taught in local language:  “A zun gu.”  The kids were yelling out the three syllables over and over:  “A-zun-gu, a-zun-gu.”  My friend noted correctly that it would be a great name for a band. 

First, we were told we’d head to a piece of land friend’s had by the lake.  We walked down and there were man cutting up a tree.  My friend, who owned the land was not happy.  “Hey, she asked fearlessly, to the three men wielding the axes.  “Who said you could cut that tree?  That’s on our land?”  “The chief.”  “Did he?  OK.  I’ll call him now.”  She called the chief.  It didn’t look good for the woodsman. 

Down by the lake men had used mosquito nets to pull in one hundred small fish the size of silver dollars.  I looked them over in hopes of finding the cobalt blue cichlids of my youth, but these were all fairly plain little discs.  My friend explained that the mosquito nets were unfair.  The pulled in all the smallest fish so that they never got to grow big.  One by one they picked the small fish from within the netting.  I considered the paltry nature of their catch that probably couldn’t manage to feed more then a few people. 

Back in the village, by the school, we were surrounded by two hundred school kids.  They wanted to check us out, to talk, to laugh, to see.  The teacher took us back to her class room.  It was dark and full of eager children.  On the daub and wattle walls hung a poster for math and irrigation and protection against H.I.V.  On one wall was a series of local words in roman script.  I assumed that one was local dialect and one was Chichewa, the national language.  I read out one side, purposefully, and then the other.  They all laughed and corrected me.  One of the students confirmed that they were in fact opposites of one another in the same language. 

I wondered about the kids who studied here.  Who is it that excels if anyone does, in a daub and wattle class room without much light and with so many other students.  Most kids were smiling.  But certainly many kids were shoving.  Many kids snapped at one another.  Most kids could never succeed here.  How much it is, that is needed.

Wednesday, 06/28/17