My first impressions of Christina’s village were framed by the trip there. As I rode through hills of tea estates dotted with citrus orchards and heard more and more people shout greetings, I felt my heart getting bigger. The area is pretty densely populated. I asked Christina why so many people are living packed together in a little space, and she gave me an awkward smile and laughed, a little embarrassed to have to explain something obvious to a grown man, “Because it’s our culture.”
Christina’s family was very kind. They are like to cook boiled pumpkin for snacks and gave me armfuls of grapefruit after I met them the very first time. Christina’s parents have both passed away. She lives with her grandparents, aunt, and some children. She has a special relationship with a six-year-old relative named Doreen. Doreen’s mother died during childbirth and for whatever reason—death, divorce, or abandonment—Doreen’s father is no longer around. Christina’s grandmother is a distant relative and decided to care for Doreen. This is extremely common in Malawi where family is a vital support network. Two of Christina’s uncles also live close by in separate houses. One, Henry, is just a few weeks old than Christina.
Doreen follows us around and constantly seeks Christina’s attention. Christina attempts be stern with Doreen and tells her to go play and leave us alone for a little while, but she turns from the child with a smile on her face. At one point, she gestures towards the crowd of children gathered around the house and tells me and Marco, “All of these, they’re here for you. But this one [pointing to Doreen] is here for me.” When I asked Christina why she thinks she is so close to Doreen even with so many other little cousins running around, she answered, “Doreen, that one, I love her because before my mother died she told me I should always care for her.” Good answer.
Christina’s uncle Henry also follows us around. He’s obviously excited to have Marco and me visiting and really excited about Marco’s camera and the camera Marco has lent to Christina. We’ve had interesting conversations about gender in Malawi and what it means for young men. He’s able to articulate many things that should change so that women can be treated more equally—men should be going to the borehole to fetch water as well as helping out around the house more, girls’ education needs to be given the same weight as boys’ education, etc. As he rattled off these opinions I felt a flash of excitement that faded into a sort of melancholy as I recognized that Henry probably falls into a group of young men I’ve met in Malawi who have assimilated the words that they hear from various government and non-government organizations but have yet to translate that into practical actions that support girls and women in their lives. I didn’t have to wait long to find out I was right.
As Marco and I were traveling to Makupiza, we got in a slight bicycle accident. No one was hurt, but the eggs we’d carried didn’t make it, so we had to go find some more. As we were walking, Henry took the new batch of eggs from me, saying ‘Ah, Benja, let me carry these.’ I’m not even sure if he’d finished the sentence before he turned and gave the bag of eggs to Christina. When I tried to take them back from Christina, he stopped me and Christina laughed a little and said ‘But it’s my responsibility.’ When I asked why she gave me that laugh again, embarrassed to have to explain the obvious twice in one day and said ‘Because… I’m a girl.’ That knocked the wind out of me a bit. I mean, I know gender attitudes get internalized by girls here . . . but to hear it so explicitly stated as if it were an unchangeable truth . . .
Later Christina and I had a chance to talk more about it. First off, I let her know what’d happen to me if I ever told a friend or relative it was her responsibility as a girl or woman to carry all of my things so I could carry nothing. I don’t remember exactly what I told her would be done to me, but it was pretty graphic and painful. She laughed, A LOT.
Then we started talking about what role gender plays in her relationship with Henry. She told me that Henry does help out with household chores, but generally only when Christina’s grandmother (Henry’s mother) is away, which isn’t often. She says she’s positive he knows that he should be helping. The only reason she offers why he’s not is that he’s afraid of being made fun of by his friends. It seems that Henry is basically a good guy, and he is miles ahead of many of his peers by recognizing that there is a problem with the way girls and women are currently treated in Malawi. But it’s tough to see how far he falls short as well. There is a gap here between the attitudes and knowledge folks have about a social problem and the action they initiate and sustain to actually begin fixing the problem. This applies to issues ranging from anti-corruption to responding to the HIV/AIDS crisis.
Marco and I shared a meal with Christina’s family as we had with Idah’s. They didn’t give me the eggs this time, so no chance to redeem myself from the salt less-egg incident at Idah’s Instead I was on chopping duty with the job of making sinjiro, which is ground nut flour often added to greens to give them a slightly creamy texture and peanut taste. Making sinjiro is an incredibly complicated process of putting ground nuts into a mortar and pounding the crap out of them until they’re powder. Christina’s grandmother would stop me every so often to winnow what I’d done. In the interest of full disclosure, it should be noted this job would generally be entrusted to a group of eight year olds.
As Christina, her grandparents, and I cooked, Marco took pictures. At one point Henry rushed over, sat next Christina, and informed everyone loudly that he wants to learn how to cook. Christina looked at him like he’d just said he was going to lead an expedition to the moon. Then she turned to me and said ‘akunama.’ Which means ‘he’s telling a huge lie.’ I laughed and whispered back to her ‘mwina akufuna kuphunzira ngati pali kamara kuwona’ which means ‘maybe Henry only wants to cook when there’s a camera around to watch him do it.’ She laughed so hard she fell over.
In the afternoon, Christina showed us her photo album. As she flipped through it, Marco and I were trying to figure out how she decided which things she should take a picture of. Over several minutes of trying to explain, she told us that she took pictures of things she wanted to make special. In other words, photography, for her, wasn’t about catching something special or beautiful or good or somehow ‘worthy’ of being photographed. Rather, she chose things that were everyday things, places or people in her life and made them special by taking photographs of them. That is a very different perspective from what many people hold, and something about it rings deeply true. I thought about it for the rest of the day. As Marco stopped to take pictures of the sunset, I decided that whether that sunset was beautiful or just what we’re looking for anyways, I couldn’t be more content than I am to find it.
Ben (AGE Africa Program Director)
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