Sweet Little Sixteen
on Me Talk Pretty One Day (Malawi), 10/Nov/2008 11:15, 34 days ago
“When I was a schoolgirl,” my colleague Doreen tells me, “there were only sixteen children in our class.” Her eyes take on a vacant look as her memory no doubt transports her back to those halcyon days. In the window behind her I can see children; some sitting, resting in the shade of a small tree; some skipping, others waiting their turn; yet more simply wandering from one place to another. It is still early in the school morning, not yet playtime. “Sixteen wasn’t unusual,” she adds, and I can detect a slight hint of sadness in her voice.A class of sixteen would be unusual today. Very much so. In my numerous visits to schools in and aroundLilongweI have yet to witness a class less than eighty children strong. They do exist, the statistics assure me, but I have yet to see one for myself.Malawiis one of the most densely populated countries in all ofAfricaand its population is young. Nearly half of all Malawians are aged fifteen or below, a fact that places the schools here under an impossible burden… a fact that makes observing a class of sixteen a highly unlikely prospect.When Doreen was young she shared this small country of hers with 3 million people. Over the course of her lifetime she has seen that population swell to an official estimate of 12 million, though few believe the number to really be that low. The funny thing is Doreen doesn’t seem at all old to me—there could not possibly be more than a single generation between her and the children outside the window—but in a city where the average person is married and reproducing while still a teenager, and dead at 37, old she truly is.Last week my VSO colleagues and I were taken to visit a faith healer, part of a training schedule that aimed to improve our understanding of the Malawian people, their culture, beliefs and way of life. This was no tourist trip; we were to be exposed to the real-life practise of the faith healer, or the‘witch doctor’ as he is known in some circles.After removing our shoes and anything metal, just like at the airport, we were allowed to enter the anonymous building that stood in the middle of the village. The locals huddled together on bamboo mats to one side of the little mud shack; we entered cautiously and sat on the bamboo mats to the other side. Between us stood the faith healer in his sparkling white robe, bedecked in crosses made from carelessly cut strips of red and yellow fabric. In his hands he held a Bible so worn and tattered it looked like it might be a first edition. He wasn’t reading it—his eyes were closed and would remain so as long as we were in attendance. His whole body was shaking. All about him was quiet. Before him stood a young couple; frightened, isolated, alone. The faith healer began to chant in a language unknown even to the locals. His words were translated first into Chichewa, and then for our benefit into English. We learned that the couple were there because they wanted a child. They were only kids themselves—fifteen or sixteen maybe—but they wanted a child. That’s how it is inMalawi: you marry young, you have a child as soon as you’re married, you have more, you raise and support your children if you can, and then you die.For two hours we sat and watched couple after couple stand before the faith healer and express publicly their desire to procreate. There were other patients of course—other treatments prescribed and exorcisms scheduled—but the majority were there simply because they wanted children. The faith healer would tell us all why the couple had so far been unable to conceive (impotence, a damaged uterus, no energy, a curse) and then recommend a selection of herbs that would assuredly solve the problem. One young girl stood alone before the healer. She wanted a child but her husband was not present. For her to become pregnant, her husband was needed, both now and later. One of the translators asked for a substitute husband and from the side of the locals came the call: “Wazungo!” Someone had suggested one of us foreign men step in and temporarily fill the void. The young girl turned to face the white side of the room, smiled, and pointed a nervous finger in my direction. “Do you mind?” asked the translator. “No, not at all,” I replied. My legswere numb and I was glad of the opportunity to move from my uncomfortable seat on the floor.So there I was, standing beside a young Malawian girl asking a faith healer to bless us with a child. The healer chanted and shook, rubbed himself provocatively and chanted some more. Through his two interpreters he asked if I wanted a son or a daughter.“A son,” I said, and several people laughed. All the men ask for sons it seems. “Do you want twins?” continued the healer in his strange dialect. It really wasn’t my decision to make, but given the difficulty of providing for just one child in ruralMalawi, I thought it best to answer in the negative. Again, a few laughs. With his head tilted toward the sky, the healer forced a chest-full of air through his closed lips. He shook some more, held out his trembling Bible, and announced that we would have a daughter, not a son.“And she will be called Ziwone,” said the interpreter. “You can sit down now.” I sat.“I have eight children,” Doreen tells me, her voice ripe with guilt at her own contribution to the dramatic increase inMalawi’s population. She expresses her hope that her own children will not be so prolific in their procreation, though this woman who does not look old to me is already a grandmother several times over. I tell her about life back home, about how people are marrying later and later, about how women are making the decision to put their career ahead of a family, about how schools are closing because there are not enough children. Doreen at last smiles, and describes her dream that one dayMalawiwill be just like theUKwith a falling birth rate and an ageing population. Children will not spend their school mornings playing outside; they will have a teacher, a classroom, a chair and a desk. There will be enough books to go around and enough food to eat. Children will learn like Doreen learnt, in a small class amongst friends.But it is just a dream. So long as the people of this once small nation continue to marry young and raise large families, and so long as the faith healers play their part by shaking and chanting with their Bibles, it is a dream that is unlikely ever to come true, just like I am unlikely ever to see that class of sixteen.