Day 1 - The Paradox of Poverty

Common house in Malawi with two baby goats cuddling

I stepped off the plane and laid my eyes on the tiny, worn out airport building. "This is it," I thought, "the Africa I’ve been waiting for", while trying to remember if I’d seen an airport smaller than this one. 

I got through security quick enough, my motives for being here only briefly questioned. My first impressions were that people weren’t as friendly as I’d initially hoped, given that Malawi is famous for its kind people, known as “the warm heart of Africa”. But I guess that vision I have in my mind of big, smiling mamas giving you a warm, squishy embrace is an exaggerated illusion. Also, airports don’t usually bring out the best in people, if we’re honest. 

I quietly cursed myself as I realised I’d forgotten to google how much a taxi from the airport should be. Rookie error. A friendly looking taxi driver quoted me 35,000 Malawian Kwacha which is $30 Australian dollars. I’m certain it’s a huge rip off but I had nothing to compare it to nor the confidence in that moment to protest. And if a rip off is only 30 bucks then it ain’t so bad. I go to an ATM and do 4 transactions in a row, the maximum being 80,000 MWK, each time taking out thick wads of cash that only amount to about $75AUD. 

The friendly driver, Aubrey, helps me pick up a few last bits and pieces like a sim card and bed sheets, which I bought second hand as the shops were closed. I’ll soon learn that almost everything available for purchase in Malawi is second hand. Aubrey helps me get onto the mini bus that will take me to Chikwawa, the area I’ll call home for the next 4 weeks. As I hop onto the bus, I am stunned. I’ve seen some shit in my life. Vietnam, Nepal, Nicaragua. I’ve seen poor. But this bus took the cake for the worst condition I’ve ever seen. Every chair was ripped up, every surface full of dings and scratches. It’s hard to describe, but it was bad.

As I wait for the bus to fill - they don’t leave until we’re nice and cosy with each other - I buy a bottle of water through the window. A necessary evil as I never invested in any kind of water purifier while on my travels (well, I did, but it turns out Guatemala doesn’t really have a postal service and my bottle never arrived, even after 3 months). The kid wants 1,000 kwacha. I’m still clueless about the currency but seeing as I just heard about a guy selling samosas for k100, I am sure that he’s asking far too much. I try to give him k500 but I’m not very convincing so he fleeces me for the full request. I’m still winning because I’m only down 80 cents, meanwhile, the entire bus is gasping and gossiping about the price I was charged. Yep, I guess I’m that girl right now.

I stare out the window, soaking in my first taste of life in Malawi. While the sun slowly descends, I am pretty quickly thrown into an existential crisis. I think about how much money exists in the world. How many Pimp My Rides and Welcome to my Cribs and Housewives of some expensive city I’ve seen on TV. How many private jets, luxury yachts, fashion catwalks and designer brands exist. How many flamboyant concerts, expensive dinners and plastic surgeries happen each day. How much excessive, pointless, wasteful wealth – pure shite, quite frankly - exists in the world, and it makes me feel sick.  

What sends me deeper into a spiral of despair is how I can forget so easily how rich I am. It’s so easy to think that I’m not because I am constantly comparing with all those around me who have so much more. I consider my life in Sydney, Australia, a highly developed country, to be fairly middle of the road. By no means meagre but not extravagant either. Just plain average. I do enjoy the finer things in life like dinner and cocktails but don’t feel as though I overspend on unnecessary things, preferring to save my money for travel and life experiences. 

But how dare I think I’m not rich? What audacity that this thought can even cross my mind when I have been gallivanting across the globe for 1.5 years without earning barely a cent and will still be going home with quite a few dimes in my pocket. I’ve had money in my bank account saved for this trip that people might'nt see in their entire lifetime. All money that I earned myself from hard work at my well-paying (but not excessively high-paying) jobs, but still, it’s privilege enough to just have access to any job at all in a country like Australia with high GDP and strong dollar value. It disgusts me how easy it is to remain inside a bubble. How blind we allow ourselves become, blocking out the plain truths and only choosing to see what comfortably fits our agenda. How does this happen without us even realising? 

What frightens me the most, as I stare through the window and watch a beautiful sunset over mountains and wetlands, the backdrop to little tin shacks, stray goats and piles of plastic, is that I’ve felt this way before. I have seen poverty, smack bang in my face, over and over. I have felt pity and anger while passing beggars on the street in Vietnam, their bodies severely mangled and deformed as a result of Agent Orange pesticide used during war. I have been serenaded by song by a group of students in Cambodia, feeling shock and guilt as I think about all the $25 brunches I’ve indulged in, after learning that it only take $20 to educate one of these children for a year. I have felt delight and relief as the hole in my bedroom wall was patched up with corn cobs and mud to stop rats entering while I lived in a rural village in Nepal, in a house that only installed running water and a squat toilet just in time for our visit.

As I said, I’ve seen some shit. Many times I have had this existential crisis and yet, soon enough, I return to my padded life, the amnesia sets in and I resume comparing myself to those I see around me and through screens. The sickening feelings of shock and guilt slowly fade and as Sunday rolls around, I find myself out to breakfast and this time brunch costs $30 but I pay no mind. That’s just how it is, it’s the world I live in. How easily we humans adjust. I like to think that I am different, because I donate and I care, but I don’t think that I am, and it leaves a weighty knot deep in the pit of my stomach. 

This piece is part of an ongoing series, ‘Musings in Malawi’, where I reflect on the effects of poverty, colonisation, climate change and more in one of Africa’s poorest regions, Chikwawa. I am here volunteering for an incredible non-profit, DIN Malawi, and raising funds to help empower HIV/AIDS effected groups. Please consider donating to provide food security and income generation for some of Malawi’s most stigmatised.