Is people

After work Friday I hung out with my advisor at his hotel, sitting out by the pool. Pools are awesome. It was kind of weird hanging out with my advisor… a lot of faculty in the department seem to have very social relationships with their advisees (mostly the women, I guess), but that’s not really been my case. Which I’ve liked in a way. But when you’re a million miles from home and there’s nothing else to do on Friday, might as well hang out. We talked about lots of random stuff, and some grant ideas (can’t leave behind work entirely).

I talked to Joey when I got home. He continues to be a rock star. And we continue to be able to crack each other up.

Today I left the house late-ish. I went by City Centre, but it was so intolerable that I jumped on the nearest minibus and went downtown. The purveyors of goods at City Centre need to realize that no one comes around there because they pounce on every mazungu that gets within 100 feet of them and hound them until they have to get rude. Seriously, I don’t want your stuff. It’s not my fault it’s Saturday and no one is around and you’re broke and you can’t figure out that everyone is in old town. I’ll buy things when I want to buy things, and my only obligation is to treat you with respect. Please do the same and take the hint when I tell you for the fifth time that I’m not interested.

I mean, something I’ve noticed is that white people really don’t walk around Lilongwe. They get in cars and go where they want to go and don’t walk amongst the people. So mazungu who are walking around stick out like a sore thumb and attract all sorts of attention. Which makes them want to figure out how to not walk around also, because it’s honestly sort of embarrassing. I took the minibus to the markets. I walked around and didn’t face the same entreaties to buy things (it’s just so damn crowded, there’s no time to waste wooing one potential customer), but I got a million weird looks. I decided this was because I was wearing shorts, which women don’t really do here. So I got a chitenje (a big piece of fabric women wear for skirts/wraps), which I had wanted to do anyway cuz they’re purdy, and put that on. Well that didn’t help me blend in at all! Everyone seemed totally amused! Several men said I was dressed very well, and I couldn’t tell if they were being sincere or just polite, because they were clearly entertained. So, I just stuck out like a sore thumb all day, and at first I didn’t care, but it was extremely tiring after a while.

As I headed toward Shoprite for some air conditioning, a couple of young men, level 4 students, came up to walk with me. They were cool; they’re from the lake area and like to give tours. They’ve also learned the art of the soft sell. They showed me where an outdoor food market was, and led me to a courtyard where there is sometimes traditional dancing (we missed it). Then we chilled in the courtyard and had some drinks, which the talkative one, Brian, bought, and we chatted about all things Malawi. Eventually the sell came – they made jewelry! It helped them that they make cool jewelry and this was actually something I am interested in buying for myself and for gifts. They were a pretty good price too. So, I still ended up getting a sales pitch, but a much better one than City Centre! These guys could easily go into business anywhere, because they have clearly figured out how to connect with a client.

So that was actually pretty fun, and it was cool to hang out with people who know things and are willing to share them with me. Part of the conversation was really interesting from a work perspective. Brian talked about all the kids people have when they are too poor to take care of them. And then he talked about how people in the villages drink this beer, and it’s very bad because it brings HIV into the community. Filling in the mediators, he noted that older men drink the beer and feed it to girls, and pay the girls, and this is all child abuse really, but it fuels HIV. It’s always interesting to hear the “epidemiologist on the street” point of view, particularly when it contains so much truth.

On the note of babies, there is a huge difference in how many pregnant women and babies I’ve seen around here compared to the States. Which any population indicator would also tell you, but it’s a different thing to actually see it in person. Bumps and babies all over!

After old town I met up with my advisor in City Centre, because he wanted to buy curios and inexplicably likes to buy them there instead of in old town. It was just as intolerable as before. My friend, Erics, who sold me postcards before, was just as relentless this time in insisting my advisor buy some cards. He finally did just to get rid of the guy.

I came home and chilled and there was another power outage, which caused me to miss the end of the Red Sox/Yankees game they were replaying. It came back on just before I went to dinner with the BRIDGE crew. We went to this place called Baba’s in old town across the river; who knew you could find such delicious Indian food in Malawi! It was awesome.

Sunday I went to meet up with my advisor and a woman who came up from Blantyre to meet with us. She graduated from the MPH program at Hopkins and is doing stuff with big clinical trials down there. I took the minibus downtown and intended to take another one up to Cresta, but I ended up just walking. We sat outside, and I didn’t think I was really in the sun, but one arm and my entire neck was sunburned afterwards. I stopped by the Foodzone that is there to grab some things and took two minibuses home. My strawberry yogurt busted open while being squished in the minibus, and it got all over. Boo. At least there was most of it left for eating; it’s local, and much better than the other weird stuff I had before in that it actually tasted like strawberries.

Upon my return home, I bummed around and couldn’t get motivated to do much of anything. I eventually watched Soylent Green, which I had never seen. This, however, is better than Joe, who had never even heard of Soylent Green, meaning I could not shout the punchline like Charlston Heston does at the end. Booo.