Today is my last Saturday in the USA for a while as I’m returning to Malawi this coming week. As I was moving through my day, I thought about the differences between my life in the two countries. There are advantages and disadvantages to a typical Saturday in each place. I have yet to decide which I prefer.
In the USA, Saturday is cleaning day. For the last year we have rented a beautiful, spacious, 4 story townhouse. Though it is a pleasurable place to live here, its size makes keeping it clean challenging. I do all the housework: scrubbing the bathrooms and kitchen, dusting, cleaning the hardwood floors and vacuuming the carpets. When we moved in, we were especially impressed by the master bathroom and joked that the builders had emptied a marble quarry in its construction. Who knew that keeping such a large place clean was going to be a challenge? Not us. We’d never previously lived in such a huge place.
All this tidiness consumes 4-5 hours on Saturday morning. By the time I finish I’m usually in a foul mood, wondering why I don’t hire someone to do this for me. I don’t hire this activity out because I don’t feel others will clean as well as I do. In these times I am uncomfortable having someone I do not know in my home. After finishing cleaning it’s time for exercise, either running or bicycling along the Potomac River. Showered, shaved, watered, and fed, the afternoon is filled with grocery shopping, “cooking ahead” (making meals for the week), or, in normal times, exploring the Smithsonian or one of the other tourist sites in Washington DC.
The hours that remain of my US-based Saturday make up for the morning’s drudgery. We start Happy Hour at 5 or 6 p.m., depending on the day’s activities. This is hummus, baba ganouj, fancy olives, crunchy seeded crackers, and a nice bottle of wine, white in the summer or red in the winter. We enjoy it seated on our home’s fourth floor terrace. Sitting among the treetops we toast the day and each other, while watching airplanes land at nearby National Airport. After sunset it is time for dinner or perhaps a trip to the Kennedy Center to hear music, see dance, or attend the opera. We go at least once per month.
I can experience each in turn, appreciating both places for their strengths and how they each contribute to my happiness.
In Malawi my Saturday is slightly different. Usually I’m up at 5:30 or 6 a.m. I make coffee and drink it in the cool of the morning while sitting in the garden and listening to the birds. This year a family of mongooses has taken up residence in the front yard. If I sit quietly the invariably come by. No later than 6:30 a.m. I’m on my bicycle bound for the Michiru Conservation Area. It is a 45 minute downhill ride to the trailheads, a 3 hour round trip hike to the mountain’s peak, and finally a 75 minute uphill bicycle ride home. No matter how much water I bring with me I arrive home dehydrated, hungry, and happily exhausted. Walking in nature clears my brain.
In Malawi I don’t do the household chores, the grocery shopping or the cooking. Many homes for rent in Blantyre have a staff on site. A cook does the grocery shopping and prepares meals that, though tasty, aren’t quite as nice as what I can prepare myself in the USA. The cook may do the housekeeping, but many households have a separate housekeeper. If there are children it is customary to employ a nanny. Many people have a gardener to keep the lawn cut, the vegetable garden growing, and to collect avocados, mangoes, and papayas from the trees. Most houses have guards who open and shut the front gate, monitoring who goes in and out, and making sure everything is secure.
Foreigners, especially Americans, are sometimes uncomfortable with employing people to perform tasks they are accustomed to doing themselves. They may decide to do all of the shopping, cooking, and cleaning themselves, feeling that the employer- domestic employee relationship in Malawi is somehow demeaning. I don’t think Malawians see it that way. They see domestic employment as a job, money coming in to support their families. I myself once made the mistake of doing all of the staff’s tasks when renting a house. A few days after moving in, the cook politely let me know that my performing the employees’ jobs was kind but it was threatening their livelihoods. If I continued in this path, the landlord may see no use for their continued presence, lay them off, and stop paying them. From then on, I have let the staff do their jobs and take care of these matters. Of course, having someone make my bed, do my laundry, and cook and clean makes my life easier.
But clearly, I digress.
After eating a meal prepared by the cook to replenish myself after my long bike-hike-bike, I spend Saturday afternoons in Malawi relaxing, doing yoga, reading, and writing. On a good day friends will come over for “sundowners,” usually a tasty gin and tonic on the terrace to salute the end of the day. Though Happy Hour in the USA is always accompanied by good wine, finding this in Malawi has been very challenging. Recently things have slightly improved, but for many years the only wines available were poor quality and sold at inflated prices. After sunset we migrate inside to reheat what the cook prepared that day. Other than the pleasant conversation of friends, there is nothing especially to “do” in Blantyre on most evenings. The last movie theatre closed a decade ago. Once a week there is a live music performance that can be interesting. More likely, after dinner people migrate home. I stack the dishes up for the cook to take care of in the morning, crawl into bed, pull the mosquito net around me, and fall deeply asleep.
So, thinking about it, which is better, my Saturday in the USA or Malawi? My American Saturday begins with unpleasant domestic work. The cultural opportunities are wonderful, though, as we take advantage of them frequently. Excellent wines and a beautiful sunset, followed by a meal we have prepared together, round out the day. In Malawi I’m spared the domestic drudgery but the cultural opportunities are relatively few. Compared to what we enjoy in the USA, the food and wine in Malawi are not as good, but life is easier and freer. If each has its advantages, is it possible to combine these experiences, choosing the best of both? I can’t think how I could do that. In America, I could never afford the domestic staff I enjoy in Malawi. Malawi will never have the museums and other cultural opportunities I enjoy in Washington DC. I suppose one of the joys of my life is that I don’t have to choose one over the other. I can experience each in turn, appreciating both places for their strengths and how they each contribute to my happiness.
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