Being a Guest in a Malawian Home, By: Miranda Buck

Malawian hospitality is truly an amazing thing. As you live in Malawi, you will undoubtedly have the experience of being a guest in someone’s home. Even though Peace Corps volunteers are living in Malawi and integrating into the communities we are still foreigners and are still seen as special. This is easily seen when you find yourself seated in the home of a Malawian as a guest.

There is a Malawian proverb that says “A visitor is like dew”, the implication is that a visitor will soon go and therefore, time spent together is at a premium. There is an American saying that “Visitors are like fruit, in a couple of days, they start to go bad.” This difference truly reflects the way Malawians treat a guest. A Malawian will go out of his or her way to make sure that the guest is comfortable, happy and stays as long as possible, if not longer.

	Visiting a Malawian will amost certainly result in a meal as well. Consider it their "thank you" for taking the time to visit.

For the volunteer, being a guest in a Malawians home most often means going for a visit and a meal. It is worth noting that Malawians will welcome you into their home no matter what and whether the visitor has been invited or not. If the time you “pop-in” happens to be the time when a meal is being served, you can bet that you will be seated at the table. I remember ignorantly thinking I could “drop-in” on a fellow teacher one afternoon. I left hours later, having eaten more than I could ever imagine. This isn’t a joke either. If you are eating as a guest in a Malawian’s home, you are expected to eat and eat. On my particular “drop-in” example I was given tea with bread and butter, followed by a full meal of nsima, chicken, beans and vegetables and after that, another serving of tea with cookies!

In general, the host will usually try to have some form of meat as the “relish” since meat is the best thing to serve to a guest. If you are a vegetarian, there are ways to work around this. You can be honest and explain that you don’t eat meat but that you are very honored that they have prepared something so special for you. I usually joke and say that “As the guest, I want the cook to have my portion of meat” or “You should be happy that I’m not eating the meat, because that means more for you.” Either way, the host wants the guest to be happy and they are probably thinking that you are being modest by refusing meat, as this is what a Malawian would normally do in order to be polite.

For the most part, Malawian table manners are relaxed. No elbows and “will you please pass the…” are not required. On the other hand, the one thing you should not do is hold food up to your nose to have a sniff. According to Malawian custom, this implies that you are inspecting the food to see if it is rotten. Also, proper leave taking requires a certain amount of patience and perception. Usually there is time after the meal for tea and “chatting”. The best compliment you can give as a guest is to not appear rushed or anxious to leave.

Attending a funeral, By: Miranda Buck

I was 20 months into my service before I attended a funeral. A rather embarrassing record considering the frequency of maliro (funeral) in Malawi. Nearly every week, I will find a teacher or even students who are out of school because they have gone to a funeral. Unfortunately, Malawi faces a lot of death and as a result, death and respect for the deceased and bereaved has a strong presence in everyday life. Going to a funeral means following a tight and ordered series of events and I was nervous that I was going to do something terribly inappropriate. Nevertheless, I arrived at the home of the bereaved; my friend Davis had lost his son Hobson.

Immediately, I was thrown into the amazingly systematic funeral process. As usual, men and women sat separately. I ushered myself into the sitting room where the woman were gathered around what I assumed to be the coffin though I couldn’t see it in the hut’s dim lighting. At my feet a random chicken squawked and left the hut, but the women kept on singing. With my head down, I sat with the body and the singing women. In my occasional, brief glances around the room I saw only fixed and expressionless faces. Solid, singing faces.

Then it was time to pay respect personally to Davis. Trying to pretend I was not the only azungu (foreigner/white person) on the scene, I exited the sitting room. Around back, I met Davis who was similarly blank and fixed in expression. I expressed my condolences and made idle conversation. Many subdued minutes passed awaiting the procession to the graveyard. Then, unmistakably, miserable howls came from the sitting room and I knew it meant that it was time to go.

The guests cluttered respectfully around the entrance of the house as several men came with a stretcher of green limbs. I felt a lump in my throat when I saw the coffin: tiny and yet freshly stained with red oxide like most Malawian furniture. The wailing that had abruptly commenced and signaled the convergence of events had not stopped. Like song, the mother repeatedly wailed “Amai Ine! Amai Ine! Mwana Wanga!” (I’m a mother! My child!) This wailing is a very common way to express grief at the loss of a loved one. There were plenty of other women relatives to console the mother but no one was surprised or disconcerted by her expressions of grief.

Then somehow everyone knew where to sit…men on side, women on the other, all except for me, the white lady on a chair with dozens of men at my feet. A string of prayers and zikomo kwambiris (a universal and frequently used Chichewa expression of thanks) indicated a ceremony, which ended with an earnest reading of the amounts, down to the tambala , contributed to the bereaved. Thank goodness my 100 kwacha somehow missed the list of chief so and so: 10 kwacha. At the drop of a song, the mourners and guests set off for the cemetery.

I arrived a few minutes before the mourning procession and was relieved to have a moment’s break from the wailing. Birds sang overhead in the clusters of limbs belonging to the trees left standing only to provide a canopy of respect for the dead. I noticed among them a large and elaborate marker. It belonged to Brite Nkhata, a successful musician and brother of Davis who died only last year.

Soon the distant wailing grew closer and I stood to respect the entering procession. As they filed past me the mourners gathered around the fresh mound of earth, massive compared to the little body in the little box below. That mound would soon be covered with five massive flower wreaths. I couldn’t imagine how these had been found in the village, much less within a mere day, but nevertheless they were placed, each one of them, carefully on the mound. I was chosen to place a wreath. I felt foolishly honored to do so among the other bearers, all relatives, two of them the parents.

Following this, came a sermon which my limited Chichewa grasped little of and suddenly everyone got up to leave. I wondered how long Davis would think woefully of his lost son. Would he miss a day of work? Would he cry together with his wife? I was amazed at how freely the mourners expressed their emotions and I wondered if this was cleansing compared to the controlled and bottled up way we, Americans, often process death.
I remember feeling a strange pride the next day when my casual conversation led to the fact that I had attended a funeral the day before. To say this made me a part of the community that nearly every week moves through a funeral meticulously timed and awesomely respectful to both life and death.