Not That Far From Home

Sometimes riding down the road on the back of the bicycle, passing thatch roofs and naked children, I feel like I am on another planet, rather than only half-way around the world from my home. A twenty-dollar phone call to Delta to change my airplane flight only cements the feeling of isolation from my previous life. But when news of Sarah Palin’s resignation reaches me via an email from my mother only 12 hours after its announcement in Alaska, I am reminded that I’m not really that far from home. Certain news items do filter their way, with surprising speed, down to us Malawians living in our mud huts.

Before the event drifts too far into the misty and forgotten past, I must comment on the effect of the death of one pop culture icon on our rural secondary school here in Malawi. I wonder if the students here even knew that he wasn’t even really black any more. That didn’t seem to matter. My first inkling that something as amiss was a cut-out photo and painstakingly hand-written obituary posted on the notice board by a student. Held back by the crowd of students craning to read the newest announcement, I didn’t notice the subject of the obituary and thereafter forgot about the post until the next week during Assembly.

Every Monday morning we have an assembly in which student groups perform songs and plays and the week’s announcements and admonishments are read by the teacher on duty. Running late from and extra-long staff meeting prior to the assembly, there was only time for one student performance before getting on with business. That one performance though, was priceless. The Chronicles, a group consisting of three young men from form four, are known for their self-composed gospel/rap songs in English which, though full of catchy harmonies, are often performed without sufficient rehearsal, leaving the audience laughing and cheering. The administration isn’t too fond of the group since it is composed of three of the school’s trouble-makers, but I’m actually rather impressed with them and hope to get a couple recordings before I leave. On this particular Monday morning assembly, the group’s leader, Evison addressed the school saying that this was to be their final performance before the graduation ceremony to be held on September 19th and that the group’s fans would have to wait until then. At which point the deputy principal leaned over and informed Evison that The Chronicles would not be performing at graduation, an announcement which cause a good three minutes of uproar. When the student body was finally settled The Chronicles began their last performance, a tribute to Michael Jackson.

I’ll have to try to get Evison to give me a copy of the lyrics they sang that day, but I have to say it was probably the most heart-felt song that was sung for the infamous pop artist in all of Malawi. Of all the group’s previous assembly performances it was by far the most well-received with the student body cheering through the whole thing.

The Chronicles were not the only students to acknowledge Michael Jackson’s death. Upon walking into my first class that morning I spied one young man in the back row wearing one white glove and I’m sure it wasn’t just because the weather had turned cold, though I guess it is possible that he only had one glove. Later that day Evison came up to me during biology class with a question about America. He’s always asking random cultural questions and like most students has dreams of going to the US one day. He even asked me to find him a pen-pal. Anyone want to exchange letters with a 20-year-old Malawian song-writer who like rap? Anyways, on this particular day he wanted to ask me about funerals. He had watched Michael Jackson’s funeral on television the night before and was shocked to see that his brothers carried the coffin. “Is that really true?” He asked me, “do relatives really carry the coffin in funerals in America?” I told him that, yes that was our tradition. He was very incredulous and informed me that the tradition in Malawi is to hire outsiders to carry the coffin so that family members are able to grieve properly.

I’m always surprised by the ways that I gain insights into the culture here. I learned about marriage customs from conversations in the staff room, witchcraft from the newspaper, and now funerals from the death of Michael Jackson. I look forward to the next random source cultural revelation and I rest assured that if anything else important happens in the world, my students will keep me informed.