Dead Man?

We were on our way to our Swearing In ceremony at the American Ambassador’s house, 21 fresh new Peace Corps volunteers chomping at the bit to get to our sites after over a month of homestay. Not that most of us did not enjoy our families; we were just bored and restless with all the restriction and structured life of being an international student living in a host family’s house. 

We were on our way to the ambassador’s house though the capital of Lilongwe when I saw him. I was still naïve and too shocked to really say anything to anyone else.  I had a window seat and was gazing out at the town. It was huge and dirty and busy, not at all like our rural village homestay.  We were passing a building with a high brick outer wall. There was a gutter separating two narrow strips of grass between the road and the wall.

What I remember most was thinking that I had never seen a Malawian lay out on their back in the mid-day sun. Then it flashed through my mind he might have been passed out drunk. But instinctively I knew better.  He was probably late 40s or 50s his hair, or what was left of it was greying. He was nearly skeletally gaunt. His pants were a torn, dirty, brown plaid and dirty plaid button up. He was on his back underneath the brick wall, his head tilted back so far that his mouth was opened wide. One of his legs was cocked out to the side funny. One arm rested over his chest.

He was gone in a flash as the bus load of cheery volunteers; all showered (a rare luxury at the College of Forestry) and dressed up in fancy clothes and even makeup headed towards the beginning of a new life.  A bit shaken and a bit confused I remember asking the volunteer just in front of me, “Um, did u see a dead man on the side of the road?”