7 quick frustrations

I sit in front of the house and stare over the lake. The girls are drawing and singing as loud as they can.  I hear the waves crash against the rock, birds are singing and the waterfall roars loud as ever. In the distance is a lady pounding her cassava. I can't see it but the rhythmic dull bangs give it away. There are also sharper, shorter knocks coming from Hartmut's hammer. He is working on Sophie's birthday present.

It all feels so normal and I can hardly believe that we have only been her for three months. But on the other hand, is it already three months ago that we saw Table Mountain every day? That we could have ice cream and chocolate whenever we wanted? Our probation time is officially over and it is time to sit down and reflect. The decision to move here was a good one. We have already learned, grown, been shaped and benefited more through and from life in our tiny village than we ever imagined. The bond between the four of us is stronger than ever, being together 24/7 is much easier than I expected it to be. We enjoy working with guests and volunteers and learn something from every guest that we get to host. All this makes that we are here to stay. We don't know yet for how long as many factors influence this but time will tell and we will soak up every moment that we get here until the next chapter starts.

But all that does not mean that life here is without frustrations, difficulties and challenges. I have rarely felt as frustrated as I have felt here and I can't recall situations where I felt as helpless as how I have felt on this remote coast. So today I will write about 7 quick frustrations and annoyances from life in Malawi.

1. Giving the girls a good night kiss on their delicious cheeks has become a disgusting experience. Malaria is a real danger here and we need to protect ourselves. It's fortunate that the mosquito population around the lodge is rather low but we still have to make sure that we are always protected once the sun sets. It often means dropping what we are doing to put on long sleeves and pants, getting entangled in your mosquito net when you are getting out of the bed in the middle of the night and always wearing repellant. Repellant smells strong, as it should to chase the mosquitos away. But it also tastes strong. Not that I want to eat it but it's impossible to kiss the girls without tasting it. Yuk.

2. Personal space and privacy are meaningless concepts. People, and especially kids, like to be close to each other and us. Very close. Often I sit on top of the signal hill with about 20 children next to me, behind me and on top of me, watching what I am doing. It has even happened that kids have turned the screen of my phone a little while I was working on it so that they could better see what's going on. Hurray for privacy. Everybody always knows everybody's business and when we are going somewhere we don't need to tell where or for how long because the people in the village seem to know this before we do. Add to that the fact that there are only a few 'mzungus' (white people) so we stand out enormously and everybody is super interested in everything we do, how we do it and why we do it and people use any chance they get to stop us to have a  little conversation. It's all friendly and well meaning but sometimes it would be so nice to not be called out all the time and to not have 20 kids running to us the moment we walk into the village. I would clearly be a terrible celebrity.

3. Sometimes I really crave some nice dark chocolate or a soft ripe camenbert (just to name a few things) but satisfying that craving takes a lot of planning and time. If I really want my chocolate it will take at least a few days before I can have it because it needs to come with the boat and for my cheese I need to travel the whole day to buy it in the big city. It's needless to say that feeding those cravings is a costly business and not something we can afford to do easily, both in time and money.  

4. Lately my underwear falls of my buttocks and my dresses hang around my body as tents. One of the reasons is that the active outdoor life and lack of cheese and chocolate made the post-baby kilos melt away (and no, I am NOT annoyed about that.) But the main reason is that the strong sun seems to eat laundry and especially elastic bands. It also makes all the colours disappear. In a few months we won't own a brightly coloured piece of clothing anymore but we will walk around in faded pieces of fabric without elasticity to give it shape. Please don't judge us 😉

5. Our house is surrounded by monkeys, tropical birds, geckos and a lot of colourful lizards and I love it. Unfortunately it is also surrounded by gnats that give itchy bites, cockroaches that eat any food that you leave out and mice that don't only eat food but also any cable, wrapping and even our blankets, clothes and toys. Where's the poison?

6. Cultural differences, especially when it comes to work ethics are probably my biggest cause of frustration. Trying to help manage a company with people who have completely different ideas about what planning (why would I plan? It always works out eventually and if it doesn't it doesn't.) , timekeeping (Why the rush? We can do it tomorrow.) and customer service (He asked for chips and salad but we don't have salad so we just give more chips, that's fine right?) means drives me nuts and sometimes to tears. I have learned a lot about myself, culture and mainly about letting go in the past months but I still have a long way to go. Finding the balance between respecting a culture and it's people  and delivering a good service at our lodge is a real challenge.

7. The lack of vegetables. People here love Nsima, a stiff porridge made from cassave or maize flour. Anything else they may or may not eat with it is secondary and because of that, the only vegetable I can buy in the vilage is tomato (which technically isn't even a vegetable). Everything else needs to come with the boat and because we don't have a fridge or freezer it's sometimes a real logistical nightmare to ensure that we have veggies everyday. You can understand that I am beyond excited that the first courgettes are growing in our garden.

But otherwise we are fine. We are learning to find creative solutions for the things we miss and learn that you can live with a lot less than we thought we could. No place is perfect and the biggest learning is that you can go anywhere in the world to find a better place but you will always take yourself along. It turns out that I like structure and planning a lot more than I thought I do and I get frustrated when it does not happen. The question is whether how much I must try to change the world around me to my liking or how much I must let the world around me change me.