The Holiday Effect

Love Potion (yes this is for real, yes it exists in Malawi, yes it was one of my birthday presents; no I’m not commenting on whether or not I’ve used it/efficacy)
Ingrediants:
Top secret. See local witch doctor for information/purchases.
Instructions for use: Either put on center of forehead (where the third eye is in yoga, if you know about that) or make a cut on forearm (really) and pour into vein (really really!). Then either think of individual you wish to love you, OR attributes of a person you wish to love you. (Note the high quality love potion here, not only can you make someone love you, BUT you have a create-your-own-significant-other option. How cool is that?)
WARNING: If you do not think of an individual or specific attributes EVERYONE of the opposite sex will love you and that’s just plain dangerous.

So I’ve mentioned before that Christmas here isn’t really Christmas. This is actually the case with most holidays. It’s not that we don’t celebrate them, we do, but invariably it’s “Peace Corps Malawi” style, and while that’s always really fun, it never carries quite the right spirit. Christmas at the lake for example; wonderful, beautiful, but not exactly Christmassy. Even with carols blasting full tilt from the nearest bar. Killing a boar and roasting it? Great fun! But still not quite Halloweeny. Even thanksgiving, complete with a trip to the ambassador’s house and incredible amounts of food, still doesn’t feel quite right. After all, as much fun as chicken fighting in the ambassador’s swimming pool is (a lot, by the way) - it just doesn’t bring with it the same semi-somber sense of family togetherness and gratefulness that I tend to associate with killing a turkey.
The one exception to the holiday rule is birthdays. Almost everyone I know has had some of the most memorable birthdays of their life here. I think it’s because birthdays don’t have pre-requisites for how they are supposed to be. Whereas Christmas is supposed to be cold, pine trees, model trains, ornaments, and singing Silent Night a cappella at 11:59; and Thanksgiving is supposed to be family and Turkey and cranberry sauce and in general a lot of foods I don’t really like actually, birthdays are completely maleable. And Malawi is a country that lends itself well to such occasions.
So. My birthday. As a quick refresher, last year’s birthday was spent in village. Chickens were killed, cakes were baked, piñatas were made, a pretty fantastic time was had by all, and I ended up thinking “this is going to be really hard to top.”
It was. But we managed.
You know how there are the twelve days of Christmas? Well, this year I celebrated the twelve days of birthday. I should start by saying there are a lot of birthdays in February. So the weekend before my birthday almost my whole group went into Mzuzu to celebrate another guy in my group’s birthday. It was held at the Malawian equivalent of a truck stop. As we all agreed later, you wouldn’t want to go there in small numbers, but en masse it was actually quite fun. A cultural experience if you will. A different side of Malawi. A side maybe one doesn’t ever want to see again per say, but was good to see once. Just to know it’s there and such.
After this rather interesting celebration I hitched down to Lilongwe to pick up a suitcase full of presents. Digression/explanation: For a while it seemed like Dad would actually be in Malawi for my birthday. Which would have been cool chiefly because I was going to make him play softball with all the ex-pats. However, that fell through and while I was disappointed the whole thing was mitigated by the fact that a) both parents are coming in the beginning of April and b) dad still found someone willing to lug a suitcase full of presents to Malawi for me.
I recognize that I might, later in life, have birthdays that rival the birthdays I have had here. However I will never, ever, ever, get presents that rival the ones I get here. That’s because I will never want anything as bad as I want it here. There are a lot of things you simply cannot get a hold of in Malawi, and some things that while they are available, are not available to me, or anyone else living on a Peace Corps salary. And some of these things are absolutely life-changing. It’s been two weeks since I received said American parafanalia, and I still, still, look at my cabinets and think “oh right, dark chocolate, grits, instant meals, oh heck YES!” My new solar shower actually has water pressure. I’m no longer bundling up old shirts to handle my pots because I actually got - miracle of all miracles - pot holders. The list goes on, but I won’t.
Instead, here’s the best way I can convey this phenomenon: Imagine that you’ve been drinking water, and only water, for the past year and a half. Oh sure, every now and again you buy a coke, or drink some tea, but that’s just every now and again. Other than that, it’s been water. Just water. Every day for a year and a half. Then you get drink mix packets. Suddenly your water doesn’t taste like water, it tastes like fruit punch, or cranberry apple juice, or gatoraid. Okay, now un-imagine that and instead imagine that everything is totally normal and for some reason you drove out to the supermarket and bought a packet of coolaid mix. See the difference?
So, suitcase full of stuff. Pretty cool. Even cooler? Getting to eat dinner at the Sunbird with a few of Dad’s co-workers (and competition actually; one thing being here is teaching me, the international development community is small) who -extreme perk- all happened to speak Spanish. Sunbird=five star hotel in Malawi. Roughly same price range as the Hampton Inn. I think.
One word on dinner: buffet. Okay, two more words: Birthday cake. Well, just a few more: piece of birthday cake with a candle in it. With real icing. The cake, not the candle - a candle with icing would have been weird. So, birthday party number two? Pretty darn cool.
Then the next day a guy from my group and I are sitting around Lilongwe bored (that happens a lot in Lilongwe) when I turn to him and say, “What are your views on swimming?” It turns out he is pro swimming. As am I. So, off to the Sunbird again, this time to pay a visit to their pool. Swimming in a pool is kind of like swimming in the lake. Except in the lake they don’t put fluffy towels on your chair. Of course you miss out on the awesome views of the mountains of Tanzania, but then again, you also miss out on the giant clouds of bugs that tend to obscure said view. So, tradeoff. Plus, the nearest beach is about three hours away from Lilongwe, whereas the Sunbird is... ten minutes. There ya go.
After swimming we were invited to join everyone for dinner “if you don’t have plans”. (Actually, we were going to catch a movie, then hit the ice cream parlor and maybe some mini-gol... no we don’t have plans!)
Having this friend along for dinner was nice not only because he lives in the south of the country so I see him approximately once every six months, but also because it was nice to have someone else freaking out in exactly the same way I was. So at dinner, while everyone else at the table was probably thinking “You know, I’m not sure grilled chicken was ever this momentous” the other Peace Corps volunteer is sending me looks that say, “Are we seriously eating in a courtyard?” and I’m sending, “I know! Can you believe it?!!” Right back.
Unfortunately, after two days in Lilongwe I had to leave the comforts of the Sunbird to head up north. Not so unfortunately my destination was Nkhata bay, where a bunch of friends and I had rented a cottage. It was right on the lake, had a shower, a kitchen, a television, a porch, and a tree full of monkeys. Life really does not get much better than that.
First night in the cottage Alyssa, Tina and I invented a mixed drink called “Twizz-tastic” (mix of a grenadilla knock-off soda called “Twizza” and Vodka. It’s Twizz-tacular. And other such adjectives.) Our party was “crashed” (I’m not sure it counts as crashing if you pre-plan, text, and call people to tell them you are coming, but whatever) by a few guys from my group and from the health group who were out celebrating yet another birthday. Mostly we sat around and chatted, swam, watched movies, watched monkeys, and switched lights on and off for the sheer thrill of it.
We went out to dinner twice. First time, since we were in Nkhata bay (huge tourist area, much more leniant than the rest of the country) the girls all decided to dress up and actually show some knee. It was a little strange truthfully. I kept glancing down and then shifting my dress to try to cover up.
We ate at a restaurant where the food apparently takes forever, so after ordering I popped into the supermarket next door to buy some appetizer chips. In the middle of my errand one of my friends from my group came over to me and said, very subtly, “You need to put those down and come outside, okay?” So I walked outside expecting something. First on the list of things I was not expecting? A birthday cake. In the shape of a star. With the words “Happy Birthday Margaret” written on it. And a giant candle stuck next to it for me to blow out. Which I did.
Second (and last) night in Nkhata bay we traveled over to a nearby beach resort to eat pizza cooked in a mud stove and listen to local singer Michael Mountain (Phiri, meaning mountain, is one of the most common surnames in Malawi, so hearing “Michael Mountain” always makes me laugh) perform. Alyssa, bless her dear little heart, decided to have him compose a birthday song for me. Which he did. I don’t remember much of it, but the chorus is “happy birthday Ma-a-gret, it’s a day you’ll never forget.” Well yes, that seems a pretty safe bet.