"introductions"

Girl killing time before "back to school" mass. Taken inside the Chapel at the Providence Girls' Secondary School. Chisitu, Malawi.

Today was the first day that i could walk around the school, camera in hand, and if i asked someone if i could take their picture they would say yes and then go back to doing whatever it was they were doing, instead of either running away (which still happens a lot) or assuming some crazy pose (which also happens a lot).

Things I've learned talking to Malawian high-school students.

1. In order to feel that they know who I am they don't ask too many questions about me personally. They'll want to know my name of course, and they'll want to know what chuck I go to. Then they'll want to know where I'm from, and here I have to always to stop and explain that where someone lives, where someone was born, and where someone calls home, may not always be one and the same. No matter how many students I talk to I'm 100% certain that when I leave many of them will still think I'm German because I live in Berlin. Next they'll want to know about my family, how many brothers and sisters, how old are they and what their names are. I find it odd that they've yet to ask what profession any of them do nor have they asked anything about my parents. Shortly after they find out how old I am they'll ask, rhetorically, whether I'm married or not. I'll tell them I'm not and they'll immediately ask, with a mix of disbelief and honest concern, why not. I'll tell them that it simply hasn't happened yet. It's an awkward moment and while some of them accept this answer most of them hold back only out of politeness and some of them think I'm just trying to hid some darker truth.

2. The vast majority of them have never seen a tattoo before. Since I'm wearing shorts almost all the time (something I hardly ever do normally), the tattoo on my calf is almost always visible and is one thing the students here will stare at. These girls are older than the small children I run into at the market, or on the street, and they are well beyond the "stare at the azungu (foreigner) 'till your eyes bleed" stage, but they'll still stare at the snake on my leg. At first I assumed that while they may not see many tattoos they would at least know what one was. I discovered otherwise when a girl asked me how long it lasted: I told her it was permanent. It took her a few minutes to realize that she had in fact understood me perfectly and I would in fact have these drawings for the rest of my life. It was at this point that I realized I should probably slow down and explain the whole tattoo process to them. While I really wasn't planning on being the one to introduce them to this tradition, it is a great way to break out of the normal set of questions and get into slightly more personal topics.

3. They really want me to like the food. I do. nsima tastes a lot better than you'd think, and whatever sauce they serve the fish in is delicious. I wouldn't mind a little more variety though.

4. They really want me to like Malawi. I can tell them that I think the weather is wonderful (especially compared to Berlin's long and dark winters) and the people are really nice. I try not to make a point of it, but if I want to be truthful I have to say that, while I'm having a wonderful time, Malawi isn't such a great place to live. On one level they're completely aware of the situation in Malawi, and it doesn't surprise them that, having seen other countries around the world, I'd rather spend my days elsewhere. At the same time it's hard, for anyone, to know that the place you grew up, the place you love, is a land where foreigners go for "tours". They'll come, work on development projects or factories, and then, when the clock runs out, they'll leave (or they'll take pictures and try to become rich and famous thanks to the world's, and their own, morbid fascination with people who's lives suck). I don't know how many nationalized Malawians there are, but I'd bet they're few and far between.

(NB: One noteworthy exception to this is what Ben Chambers has chosen to do, I'll write about him soon enough. For now let me just say that while I still have to decide if I agree with his means, and I do wonder how sane he is, what he's doing is honorable, and he has my deepest respect.

5. Movies, music and disco. Apparently there are some great Nigerian romantic movies I haven't seen yet. The girls here call any room with music and people dancing, no matter what the hour, a disco. I tried to explain what a club is like, not sure how well they understood me. While they certainly knew what a concert was, I don't think any of them had ever actually been to one. Finally there were a bunch of questions about beer, wine and drink in general, no questions about drugs though, and I didn't bring it up.

It's strange, the questions they had for me were almost the same I had for them, though I did want to ask them what they wanted to do when they grew up. Here's a, grossly incomplete, list of what they said: doctor, nurse, lawyer, accountant, economist, virologist, business woman, politician.

A brief observation on the informative nature of questions.

As we're going back and forth asking each other questions I've been able to see just how much a particular question reveals about the person asking it, often more than any answer could. For example, one of the things they find most surprising about me, almost worrying, is that I'm not married and have no children, while I keep asking them about the places they've traveled to, and my eyes always widen when they tell me they've never left Malawi, most of them have never even been up to Lake Malawi. It just goes to show how heavily we're conditioned by the environment we live in. Even the things we expect to be unexpected are nothing more than variations on things we already know.

this picture was published on thursday, april 30 2009. there is a full size version available. this picture was taken with a 24-70mm f/2.8 on a nikon d700. the settings when this was taken were: focal length: 60.0 mm; shutter speed: 1/60; iso: 400. this image has the following tags: malawi.