Bizarre Foods: Malawi

Ladies and Gentlemen! Welcome to this edition of Bizarre Foods, brought to you straight from Malawi, Africa. This episode is hosted by a new current Peace Corps Volunteer, Ashleigh Stafford.

Ashleigh: Welcome! Malawi is a beautiful country, full of rich culture, people and of course food. Malawi’s staple food is an odd concoction called nsima, pronounced “see-ma”. Nsima is made from white corn flour and is a porridge-like substance that is very thick and eaten with your hands. You eat nsima with ndiwo (“dee-wo”) aka “relish”. Ndiwo can be meat, eggs, or vegetables.

In general I would claim that food in Malawi is fairly simple. Malawians also LOVE tea! In my small village alone their are over 8 separate tea shops that serve hot tea with milk and these giant rolls called “scones”. They take breaks during the day just to enjoy a nice cup of tea. It’s kind of silly, but I can’t complain because I too love tea.

So far the strangest things I have discovered Malawians to eat include: all the innards of animals including intestines and other organs that probably should not be consumes (i.e. pancreas), mice (mbewa), flying termites, bones of chicken and fish, and raw sweet potatoes (at least I think that seems strange, lol). They also have this drink called tobwa (“toe-bwa”) or also refered to as “sweet beer” which is a fermented maize flour drink that is very very slightly alcoholic. There’s a long process to make it which includes letting the mixture sit for a week to ferment and then it’s ready for consumption. I have actually tried tobwa and to my surprise rather enjoyed it. The drink is thick like eggnog but grainy like watery grits, with a distinct corn after-taste. It sounds gross but with a few extra spoonfuls of sugar it was rather delightful. However, as vile as tobwa may sound it is by far not the strangest thing in Malawi nor that I’ve eaten…

Folks, I would like to announce that it has happened. I have eaten something truly bizarre and ate it not knowing exactly what it was. Here’s what happened:

Gladys: (holding a small bowl filled with a dark black/brown substance that looked meat-esque) “Ashley, come and taste.”
Me: (Peering at the chunky substance with caution) “What is it??”
Gladys: (stuffing her mouth with a full finger pinch full of the chunks) “Luwinde.”
Me: “Loo-in-day?? Ok, but what is it?”
Gladys: “Just eat. S’good!”
Me: (I glare slightly at her, questioning still what exactly the substance is. I decided it must be liver or some other innards of an animal and take a small piece. I bite an even smaller piece off and chew… oook, not bad, does taste meaty, so I finish the piece I took and nod at Gladys.)
Gladys: “Good?”
Me: “Yeah, actually, it is good.”
Cornex (Gladys’ cousin): (Walks up after I’ve tried luwinde, looks at Gladys and the luwinde, then looks at me) “Madame did you just try the luwinde?”
Me: “Yes I did and it was good.” (Gladys is laughing at this point)
Cornex: Madame, I’m sorry, but you just ate the blood of a goat.

Whhhhhhhhhaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaattttttttttttttttttttttttttt???

I attempted to not acted surprised and my first reaction was to want to be mad at Gladys, but in all fairness she did tell me what it was, I just didn’t know what luwinde was. So there ya go. I ate blood. It was cooked blood mind you, but blood none the less. I suppose it could’ve been worse, it could have been fresh coagulated chunks straight from a cows neck (like I saw Andrew Zimmern eat in Tanzania). Ew. I also must admit that it really wasn’t that bad. I doubt I will eat it again, but for arguments sake, blood is good. hahaha

Thanks for tuning in folks, hope you enjoyed this episode of Bizarre Foods in Malawi!

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Ahh, life in Malawi… I’ve nearly been in this country for three whole months now, can you believe it? It feels like I’ve been gone forever, but at the same time I feel like yesterday we were just arriving in Dedza. Now I’m an official volunteer and have been at my new home for over 3 weeks. Craziness!

Things are going well! I’m still keeping busy and taking things day-by-day. I wish I could say that my ups and downs have leveled out but they have not. I continue to have pretty extreme highs and lows, even all in one day. However, after a much needed talk with a fellow PCV named Jamie, yesterday while I was in Lilongwe for the day taking care of a few matters, I’ve learned that this is not only completely normal but never really goes away. She has been here for over a year and still has days where she wakes up thinking, “Holy crap I’m in Africa! What am I doing here???” She said she still has days when she thinks about going home, when she misses her family more than she thinks she can stand, but in the end she is still here and still finds reasons to stay. It was so helpful to talk to her and in fact we both started to cry when I was telling her about missing my sister, Maddi, and my mom and when I started to choke up and get teary she did too. She apologized but I said, “No I needed this very much.”

She really helped put a lot of things into perspective about being here. She assured me that yes the first 3 months suck and the one year mark sucks, but it will pass and soon I’ll be going home. I told her I’m trying to set little goals for myself, like making it past the first 3 months to IST, then after that I want to see Gladys’ baby be born and actually name it and be a part of that experience, then hopefully my family will be coming out next summer so then I can look forward to that. Jamie said that what I was doing was perfect and agreed that I shouldn’t think of two years, because then it becomes too overwhelming. She also explained that in the end we are all here for different reasons, and if at any point you’ve realized either this isn’t for you or that reason has been fulfilled then it’s totally ok to leave, as long as it’s the right decision for you. She then said she thought I would be fine and be an excellent volunteer and that no matter what I am successful just by being here.

Having this talk with Jamie really put a spring in my step and I’ve returned back to site from Lilongwe with a new sense of purpose and strength to be here. I do miss home, more than I think home misses me sometimes, but I can’t forget why I’m here and what I’m doing for this country and mine. I know I will miss out on things at home and I knew that coming here, but I also know that things will probably not have changed much when I return and my time spent here will be a blip in my whole life but carry the greatest weight. And I do miss America, but America will be there when I come home and all of you wanted to send me things and send America to me (See my Contact page for care package iseas *wink wink*).

Now, moving on from my emotional experience and on to my crazy Malawian experiences!

Last weekend I went with Cornex and George’s nephew Aubrey to see the Diamphwi River (“dee-yahm-pwee”) which is 5km from here and the border between Lilongwe and Dedza district. We rode our bikes and stopped at a few different spots to see the river.

Me and the Diamphwi!

Me and Aubrey (14).

It was a fun trip and the river was beautiful. I did learn though that the river is full of crocodiles! I didn’t see any, which I admit was disappointing, but I hear during rainy season they’re really bad because the water level rises like 10 feet! Last year, apparently, a kid was killed by one. You know you’re living in Africa when…

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The rest of this week really flew and in fact can’t recall anything too specific that was eventful that happened. I apologize in advanced if the rest of this blog seems to jump around or blabber on.

I continue to eat dinner with Gladys, George, Cornex and Aubrey on most evenings and a couple times have eaten with my friend Helen and her husband. I enjoy eating with other people, except my hopes for losing any more weight are slowly being crushed by my increased nsima in take, lol.

The other day I went to visit Helen while she was selling mandasi (small donut like pastries) and sat with her, which of course drew lots of attention and then everyone wanted to buy mandasi from the azungu. She sold so many mandasi she had to go home and make more! She was so thankful and said she had to feed me lol.

Earlier this week Gladys’ chicken laid eggs in my banana tree:

10 eggs! I wondered what this one crazy chicken was doing outside my window making the most god-awful noises at the same time every day. Sadly she took them all and left none for me, but it’s all good.

I also took a picture of the moon tonight, it’s waning and was just over the horizon and looking awesome:

It’s not that great of a picture, but maybe you will have an idea. The moon here is so bright! I know I’ve said this before, but seriously, it’s amazing. When ever the moon is out almost every night until it is full the children dance and celebrate it being there. The dance is called the Chitelele (“chi-te-lay-lay”) dance. They sing and play drums and make all kinds of racket outside until almost half past 9! I took a video, or more so a “sound byte” because it’s so dark you can’t see anything, but you can hear the children singing and playing drums, so hopefully I can post it sometime for you.

Everyday here is a new experience and I learn something about Malawi, about people and about me.

I wish I had more to talk about, but I don’t really. Things are crazy, wonderful, sad, amazing, happy, lonely, frustrating and all around fantastic. Everyday I cannot believe I am in Malawi.

More to come later. I miss you all!
Tiwonana!