Reasons & Seasons

Top 10 Reasons Why You Don’t Show Up to Appointments in Dzaleka Refugee Camp:

10)  You are waiting at home for the camp police to show up to file a report about a break in or another crime committed against you

9)  You are suffering from Malaria

8)  It is food distribution day and you need to be present with your ration card in order to receive food  

7)  You must attend a funeral and spend all day mourning with the family

6)  It is Tuesday (market day) and you are going to buy and sell produce, second-hand clothing and various items to earn an income

5)  You are called by UNHCR to conduct an initial resettlement interview

4)  You have to travel to the big city in order to be seen by a specialist not available in the camp clinic

3)  You have to go to the clinic/hospital in camp (this could be a reason to miss consecutive days because the wait can be more than 24 hours)

2)  A friend or relative is sick and needs your assistance (watching their child, repairing a roof, fetching water or otherwise)  

1)  The idea of time and day is a business minded orientation to the world.  Crop cycles, sunsets and weather patterns are better indicators of time and day.  What are scheduled appointments anyway?  

Seasonal Crops of Malawi

January:  Mango and Pineapple

February:  Avocado, Irish Potato, Peas and Tomato

March: Onion, Maize, Okra, Termite and Tomato

April: Carrot, Ground Nut, Tangerine, Apple and Tomato

May: Sweet Potato, Pumpkin, Gourds and Mice

June: Papaya and Plum

*The rest I will find out soon enough…

DF’s:  A family in my neighborhood has a small shop in front of their house stocked with various household items and other food stuffs.  People go there on occasion to pick up bread, eggs or rice instead of having to go into town to the larger groceries.  The shop owner purchases bread from a local market called ‘Peoples Cash and Carry’ aka PCC and sells it to us at a slightly higher cost for convenience sake.  For the past three weeks we have picked up loaves of bread, as always pre sliced by a machine.  You may have all heard of the saying, “That is the best thing since sliced bread,” well the slices of bread from the PCC more resemble chunks or slabs of bread.  There will be uniform slices amongst double or triple wide slices in the loaf.  It seems that for weeks the blades in the slicing machine have been missing or broken and they continue to produce oblong pieces of bread.  Perhaps they can’t afford to replace the blades, maybe the parts are being imported from another country and have not arrived yet or quite possibly no one cares enough to fix it.  Either way the next time you go to use the saying, “That is the best thing since sliced bread,” think of Malawi and understand that sometimes sliced bread isn’t that great and it surely isn’t perfect.  Perhaps this is a blessing in disguise because oober fat hunks of bread require more peanut butter and more PB is always welcomed.