KASO; February 12, 2007

It’s an early, rainy start. The beginning of the workweek. Do the Malawians lament the end of the weekend too?

Before heading to the clinic, E & D give me a ride to Area 25; this is where the Kanengo AIDS Support Organization (KASO) day care/orphanage is located. After one wrong turn we find the place surrounded by corn fields. It’s an unassuming place – dirt/mud covers the area, two pairs of archaic swings and a slide, grassy playing area, a thatch roof hut for the kids, two shed-sized houses.

I see one guy sitting under the awning of one of the small buildings as E & D drive away. Jonathan, upper 20s, wiry, from the local area, Arsenal hat. We chat, in English, and more volunteers start rolling in. Most of them are women, some of them have kids wrapped on their backs in those now recognizable colorful shrouds. I meet Richard Yohane, the director of the organization. Maureen is one of the leaders of the effort too – she has a son, Konani. She gives me the tour:

Neither building has electricity or plumbing, one of which is utilized for the kids activities. The walls are pockmarked, dull and faded yellow, sickly almost, and have chalk graffiti scribbled on it in various places. There’s the ‘Imagination Room’, ‘Maths Room’, ‘Music Room’, ‘Rest Room’ (for sleep) and the ‘Art Room’. And into each of these rooms items are brought in by the volunteers – reed mats to cover the dark brown, dusty concrete floors, chalkboards, a two-string guitar, a bongo and two sleeping mats. We’re set up and not soon enough – 35 kids, ranging from 3-6 years old, appear from the cornfields within a 5-minute interval. And that’s when things get lively.


In one playground, add the following ingredients, and you’ve got yourself an amusingly explosive mix:

- Place one bongo and one semi-functioning, un-tuned guitar into a room
- Mix in 35 eager-to-play kids
- Sprinkle in a couple of dolls and two soccer balls
- Add 3 large muddy puddles and one muzungu

I fetch water and wood for the maize meal that will be cooked with water, hold a lot of hands and do my best impression of the new guy in town. I soon end up in the ‘Imagination Room’ with my group of around 8, and we manage to share different words in Chichewa and English with one another. They’ve all got mini-chairs too, so it’s a veritable round table discussion:

Tired of sitting in the building, most of the kids go outside. Different circles of children form and the happy kids hop into songs (I could not follow) that I try to keep up with – even 3-year olds find my attempts amusing and watch bewildered. Most kids here have an innate rhythm that I could only dream of having.

Lunchtime! The gaggle of kids storm back into the largest room in their building and sit down – the huge pot of bubbling maize is carried over to that building and colorful plastic plates and red spoons are divvied up to the kids.
Faces quickly become covered with porridge, as it seems not all manage to aim all of the food straight into their mouths – I have the same problem too, sometimes. Most of them, well-mannered and/or well-taught, take their plates to the back of the other building and place them into the pot for cleanup.

And then, just as quickly as they arrived, the procession departs around noontime. I follow the entourage to the street, walk with the group up to the turnoff at the cornfield, wave some 5 minutes to the kids and then watch them disappear along the narrow paths in the corn. It’s time for me to go too.

Jonathan leads me through the local neighborhood streets – dirt-paved roads, houses separated by single rows of corn, brick walls, reeds, dirt piles. These roads are bad, muddy and have considerably sized potholes. Small, makeshift ‘stores’ are visible from time to time, a tailor’s window is boarded up, closed for now, a faded painted Coca-Cola sign lines another wall as we turn a corner. Kids strolling home from school, people walk by and stare. I wonder how many muzungus they’ve seen today. We both see my trip out of Area 25 – a minibus - appear around the corner. My first adventure in one of those things.

The sliding door opens and the gaggle of people stare and smile and let me in. I'm in the second row in the back, knees in my chest, my legs are too long. We depart, driver honking the horn incessantly, 'asking' people on the street if they require transportation. There are no bus stops - the bus stops anywhere there are people, i.e. potential passengers.

We pass through a market, maneuver around and sometimes through the potholes, as the tide of passengers ebbs and flows within the cramped cabin. The attendant straddles the sliding side door, he's also the guy that takes the fee, 60 Kwacha, the currency of Malawi, for the ride.

At one 'stop' I'm asked to hop into the front - I think the driver wants to chat in English. I climb into the front. Radio is on, I hear a bit of international news, something is relayed about conditions in Iraq. The driver wants to visit my country, he says, between the honks.
The minibus gets more full, and another passenger jumps into the front next to me - I have to shift into the middle and staddle the manual gear lever and the makesift boom-box that has replaced the missing car radio.

The ritualistic dance between minibuses driving on the same route is a thing of beauty - the gentle waltzing around each other and past people as they each vie to acquire as many passengers as possible - as quickly as possible. Hand gestures are made, obscene gestures traded, and when their routes diverge there is still a wave good-bye until the next dance.