(An account of a short-term missionary’s adventures installing wells in Africa. Last of eight parts.)
Though the official language of Malawi is English, the number of Malawians who spoke it could, from my experience, fit in a phone booth. Either that, or my hearing, damaged irreparably by an early life spent listening to Lynyrd Skynyrd at high decibels, was unable to discern the consonants in the local patois. Herewith a primer:
“Gogo Mkazi”
The honor of pumping the first splash of water from new wells was always given to the oldest “Gogo Mkazi” (Grandmother), usually a slight woman wearing many hard years on her smiling face. She had lived through decades of dying children and adults who were sickened by fetid water from open creeks and mudholes, and now looked with anticipation at this impossible dream of cool, clean water. She scampered girl-like up on the wellhead and, flexing arms made of steel by a lifetime of carrying buckets from distant water sources, grabbed and plunged the pump, ululating with the purest of joy.
“Ntchito”
So how does one gather well-building material at each site? “Ntchito” (hard work). Each well required 4000 bricks and ten 110-pound bags of concrete. The bricks lined the well and the concrete made the well-head and apron. The bags were carried, often up and down hills to the new wellsite, by local villagers – men and women. As for the bricks, they were made onsite from mud and – get this – the dirt from abandoned giant ant hills which dotted every landscape. The soil within them was providentially made of material which helps make beautiful bricks after sun-drying, then curing, in carefully stacked ad hoc ‘kilns’. All this is done by local volunteers. Like I said, hard work.
“Mzungu!”
As I drove through the most remote parts of Malawi, one shouted word seemed clearly articulated from an otherwise indecipherable street cacophony, “Mzungu!” That means, if my Marion Medical Mission cheat sheet translated it correctly, “white person” and is never used pejoratively, but simply to inform others in the area that a white guy was gadding about. Some who uttered the word seem frightened by the ghost-like presence of people seen only in American movies or on billboards in large African cities. Others - indeed the great majority - smiled in wonder, as though the sub-Saharan equivalent of Santa Claus was flying by in a sleigh.
At the villages, children flocked gobsmacked around the apparition of an American Caucasian, some venturing forth to touch pale skin. Others, a small but loud minority, wailed in horror and clung to moms in fear of being snatched away. The adults looked on in puzzled amusement, far more interested in the freshwater gushing from a spanking new well than the race or ethnicity of its progenitor.
“Madzi”
My first question to the villagers at new wells was, “Where did you get your “madzi” (water) this morning?” Some scooped it straight from the closest mud-hole – often containing tadpoles; some walked far over mountains to a neighbor’s well. The walk back home with a 5-gallon bucket balanced on their heads was always difficult. If they stumbled it spilt. Men didn’t help: “That’s women’s work,” they said. The day was half-gone when the daily allotment of water was secured by these wonderful ladies. One imagined it was distributed to their families with the care given a sacrament.
“Zikomo”
I knew that villagers who had just received a new source of clean water would shout “Zikomo!” (Thank you) after a well installation and hand the work crew a small gift in gratitude. Anticipating a carved trinket or small basket of local fruit, imagine my surprise when with regularity we were given live chickens, 30-pound bags of peanuts, huge stalks of bananas, soft-drinks and even full pots of cooked rice. All from villagers who seemed hard-pressed to buy shoes for their families. At the end of the day, as the work crew split up the gifts – often vigorously arguing about which chicken was the fattest – these heartfelt expressions of deep gratitude from people who otherwise had almost nothing registered just how very important this fresh water was to them.
If you, gentle reader, want to experience the joy of providing clean water to a grateful village, visit the Marion Medical Mission website (https://www.mmmwater.org) to make that happen. For just $450 you can build a well for more than 100 people.
Jeff Weill is a senior status judge living in Jackson.
