There's a phenomenon in Malawi called "flashing", which means you call someone, let it ring once, and then hang up. The expectation is that the person you are trying to reach will call you back, using their minutes to finance the call. I don't know if this is common around the world, but purchasing minutes here means you buy these barcode-sized plastic cards that contain a scratch-off. Under the metallic silver is a 12-digit number that you plug into your cell phone to reload. There are no long term service plans, no monthly bundles: Minutes, by both tourists and locals, are bought as needed.
If you had told me in advanced where you were going, I would have bought gas in Mzuzu and it would have been cheaper, Febias, our taxi driver, told us this morning. It is Tuesday, June 24th, and at around a quarter to nine we were on our way to conduct our third focus group. Minutes into our trip we were already pulling off the Tarmac onto a parallel dirt road; we stopped in front of a man sitting on a short stool next to a cardboard box. 5 liters, Febias told him, at which the stool-sitter reached his hands into the box and revealed two large plastic containers of deep yellow liquid. The local gas station.
We had spoken to Febias yesterday to arrange the transport, but being the organized yet still not most organized girls in the world* had been unsure at the time of the phone call which of the three villages scrawled in Emily's notebook was our actual destination. Ultimately, we confirmed we were heading to Embombeni, and 5,700 kwacha of gasoline later, we were off.
Look, they run on empty, Emily had told me when we first arrived in Malawi. She had gestured towards the gas meter on the taxi's dashboard, and sure enough the needle was hovering in line with the 'E'. Since then, reflexively, my eyes always hone in on the dial when I enter a car. And since then, reliably, the needle is always in the same general location: at or below the 'E'.
It's like food; you but what you're going to eat and that's it, Febias explained, fueled and back on the road. With gas, we buy what we need because usually you are borrowing someone's car, so you only buy what you will use. Again, as needed.
It's been a common theme, here, in Malawi. The running-on-empty way of life. Emily and I discuss it frequently, and she had observed it the first time she was in Africa, four years ago, as well. When we make plans with people --to sit for tea, to meet children and wives, to visit health centers-- calendars are always wide open. Tomorrows are always empty and free. Life is lived in the day, in the moment. And I don't know, yet, if this is a sign of a desperate, developing society-- one in which you focus, solely, on the day in front of you, because in terms of what's for sure -and for the sake of survival- that's all there is. Or if it's a sign of a society wise beyond its years. A society that on some level realizes that tomorrow doesn't necessarily matter, that the point is to be in the moment, the day, the conversation.
I couldn't help but notice today, at our focus group, the postures with which the men sat. On blue plastic chairs in a circle, on the porch of an abandoned brick home, shaded from the sun by a tin overhang. Calm, still, like slouched statues almost, the men were so intent on the moment. They so clearly had nowhere else they wanted to be (or if they did, in their body language it was not advertised). It still gives me pause when we say goodbye and the villagers thank us.
So to conclude I don't know. I think the truth is that when you're just getting by, as a lot of Northern Malawians are whether it's seen that way or not, the focus is on the present because it has to be. I think that's at least part of it. I'll think about it more.
Here's to the now,
Rebecca
Yikes, that's poignant.
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