Jul 12 - I Will Never Forget

July 12

It is hard when you live in a country such as Malawi, possibly the poorest non-worn torn in the world, to not been somewhat jaded by the constant asking for money or other handouts from locals here. It is not altogether surprising, with them constantly seeing our relatively ridiculous wealth, but it remains difficult to deal with on a day to day basis nonetheless.

Yet with the time having come for us to organise moving – our sixth time in the last seven years, so something we are becoming somewhat proficient at – we were exposed to a very different level of appreciation with some of our parting gifts to Malawians. We gave Evance, our very trusty staff (something which many people here have interminable difficulties with in Blantyre), many of our belongings that we felt we wouldn’t need to take home with us. Many old clothes, chitenge material, bundles of small coins and various other odds and ends. His response to our parting gift was an overwhelming smile from a very grateful man. ‘Thank you. You are definitely looking after my wife and my family, thank you, thank you.’ He certainly likes saying ‘thank you.’

We gave our local banana boy – the kid who sells us bananas by lingering around outside our local shop – 200 kwacha yesterday. He offered us some bananas, but I refused, telling him that this was simply a tip for being such an honest and friendly kid, never even thinking to try and rip us off. His English isn’t that good (and our Chichewa is embarrassingly poor outside a hospital), but his friendly smile that we’ve come to know so well beamed broadly across his young face, ecstatic in the knowledge that our simple little offering (less than A$2) would be the equivalent of ten or twenty banana bunch sales.

Charles, our night guard on our property, who we share with the other residents in the adjoining houses, is amazing. You can’t blame these guys for sleeping through the hours of the early morning, when most of Blantyre lies in slumber and very few people come and go, but every time you arrive home, whatever the time of night, Charles is always quick to heave open our stupidly heavy iron gate and greet you with a friendly zikomo, ‘thank you.’ Through the year we have sometimes brought him left over food and asked him to leave the container outside our door in the morning. His parting gift from us was a sleeping bag to help shield him from the cold of the winter months in his tiny little concrete guard’s room beside the gate.
‘Zikomo kwambiri. Thank you very much.’ He beamed irresistibly. ‘I shall give you back the container, yes.’
‘No Charles,’replied Heth, ‘that’s the cover, you put the sleeping bag back in it each time you have finished using it. You should keep that container.’

Finally Peter, the staff boy who lives on our property. He is employed by the owner of the complex, our next door neighbour, and mostly works for her. Yet without us ever asking, he is always out there taking out our rubbish or cleaning our car if Evance isn’t around. He fixes cracks in roofing tiles, sweeps around our front door and whizzes around looking after so many little communal areas without complaint, and he’s always the first with a ‘good morning Sir, good morning Madam’ the moment we leave the house each day. His gift was a collection of clothes to add to the meagre 2 pairs of pants he currently owns, as well as a sleeping bag to help keep him warm at night in his small staff house.
‘Thank you madam, thank you,’ he bowed gratefully, ‘I will never forget.’ A huge smile split his face in half for the rest of the morning.