(Ok so a quick rant then the story. There is a story I promise)
There is a stubborn haughtiness to these people. There is a huge disdain for 'bush' food. They refuse to eat 'bush' food because it is for 'poor people.' Everyday, they are dying of starvation and malnutrition but refuse to reap the benefits of the plentiful variety of foods that grow around them. In fact, many cut down bush foods and refer tot hem as 'weeds' often telling me that I 'can't eat them,' because they are 'bush.' In fact, they refuse to eat any bush food during the rainy season because money and food are plentiful. But come dry season...they beg at my house for those same 'bush' foods they stuck their nose up at. They have spent all their money on expensive 'hybrid' or 'exotic' foods and now are right back where they started...with nothing.
So much money is wasted on buying 'imporved varieties', and 'hybrids'. Since this is an agriculture based society they put all their hope into their crop yeild, a scary fact considering that many familys monocrop and if prices are low, weavils get into stored food, bugs attack the crops, or drought comes, the family may starve to death. Especially since most farmers commerically grow Maize and Tobacco because "They've always done it." Yeah...for the past fifty years...since Britan told them to grow maize, in monocropped, celared feilds, in direct african sunlight...yeah, brilliant. Or the ridges, soil eroding, poor water absorbtion, space taking ridges. Like in Britan.
A ton of money is also spent of government subsidized fertilizer, that are 'guarenteed' to improve the growth of your crop. But there are several problems with this.
A. The fact that the government subsidizes the fertilizer and gives out coupons for people to collect it does not make it free. In fact, it is paid for with the peoples taxes. Worse yet, the money leaves Malawi and helps benefit another country which makes the fertilizer. Buying fertilizer with coupons is like stealing money from the education, road building, hospital improving funds.
B. The style of monocropping used was given to them by the british, so a combiation of british style and traditional practice has come together to destroy the soil. Monocropping with no tres and full exposure to the sun is great in the UK where its overcast all the time, but here it bakes the soil hard. Ridges are used which are rotated over each year, a walkway becomes a ridge and an old ridge a wal;kway, packing down the earth into a hard pan. Also, Ridges only use half the available growing space. They are steep angles so the nutrient rich topsoil, added fertilizer and water are all washed off the mound and pool in the walkways, breeding malaria. Through all this Malawians still burn everything after harvest, destroying the utrients and putting too much potash in the soil. They forgot somewhere along the way tat their ancestors burned feilds in a rotation pattern, not every year.
C. It costs alot of money to find transport to a fertilizer depot and to pay to transport it back.
D. Worse yet, most farmers dont compost, saving all their organic material and animal maure to freely fertilize crops. Instead they burn their feilds and destroy any nutrients the soil had.
E. 'Improved varieties, and hybrids' are more expenisve, more suseptible to insect attacks and plant disease.
Congratulations Malawi! You had a surplus of Maize last year! In fact, you sent out maize to other countries! WHile thousands of people here died of starvation. Sorry Tobacco farmers, last year we burned thousands of bales of tobacco and refused to reimburse farmers for their 'poor quality' product! But at least some people sold their tobacco, at a laughably (truly cry-ably) low price. But dont worry, NGO's are trying to encourage variety! They gave a villager of mine seed to plant peprike, which is a good export crop, and guarenteed to find buyers. My villager came to me, innocently puzzled, asking why the NGO had not collected yet and if I could get them too. What was he to do with thousands of peprika plants he dried and harvested? Oh, but he still had faith, they were only over a year and a half late. There is no local market for the spice, particularly not in quantity.
Its hard to believe im here trying to correct "Improved varieties' and western taught ideals. No wonder people look at me funny. It just pains me to know there is a culture lost here. Traditions and a life style are fading from the memory of the people, covered over with western ideal. Sadly this is not even a benefit to the people, the life expectancy went from 60-70 to 40. 40! Can you emagin being an elder? or preparing to leave this earth at 40?!
3 times a day, huge patties of nsima, bleached twice, and ground twice, tastless, nutritionless paste are the way of life here. The only thing it has is carbs for energy. Sure your stomach feels full, cause its packed with useless cement. I eat Nsima, but not their bleached to death prefered kind. I like more traditional Nsima, mgauwa (only ground once) or even millet nsima, a rich, red, textured nsima. It fills you up fast and actually has nutrients. I have not tried sorgum or cassava nsima but they are healthier too. Things like that are what nsima used to be made of, before maize. Now people complain of too much flavor and stomach pains when they eat them. Duh,
1. Flavor=nutirents/ white nsima=flavorless= Malawian happy.
2. Of course your stomach hurts, you can eat 4 patties of white nsima nothingness, but you cant eat 4 patties of nutrient rich nsima, without your stomach protesting, you dont need so much! Your stomach actually has to work, break down something!
3. Unless something is ridiculously sweet, (candy, tea with half a cup of sugar, ) then it has to have no taste, and no effort to eat. All dende are soaked in oil and cooked till all nutrients are gone, except salt, there is always a heart attacks worth of salt.
Just listen to this: My then unfinished garden of its own accord became a jungle. When my friend Griven came over to look he told me it was full of a bush dende. He said that
"It is much sought after in dry season, but now no one will want this. If it was dry season people would coem beg this from you. But now, nothing."
"Why?"
Because other 'hybrid' food is available during rainy season and people have money so everyone is spending it on expensive dende and will be poor again for dry season.
I offer some to johnathan and he at least is enthusiastic. He calls over his young wife Nakawonga. She brings a pot but huffs and refuses. She is saying that it is old and past the point of eating. I am confused, I ask for an explanation.
"Its past the time to harvest for food." (This coming from people who think green fruit is ready and fruit that fell off the tree for any reason is rotten.)
I ask what the problem is.
"Its too tough to chew now."
...wait...the leafy green plant right there, the leafy, green plant, is too tough to chew? That sounds like horse honkey to me. I tell him so. Johnathan ends up agreeing with me and his wife takes it to cook lunch. Me and him work on the garden.
A little later his elder wife brings us over lunch and me and Johnathan sit inside to eat. Our dende is village cow cheese and the greens. Can I tell you that those greens were some of the best I have had in country? They practially melted in my mouth.
"Yeah, you should try it when its not old," he says.
I told J his wife looked mad, she did not want to eat them. He said,
"Yeah, she was begging for money for usipa (Dry fish) or some other dende, but I have no money."
I shook my head, yet again someone wanted to pay money for food, when perfectly nutritious, free, bush dende was available, and taste GOOD! They wanted not bush, not 'old', 'easy to chew' food.
...Its no wonder and old woman was found dead on the side of the road in one of our training villages, died of starvation surrounded on both sides by feilds of potatoes.
There is a irony there. To starve surrounded by food. Its a way of life here. A chosen way of life.
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