Servant Class

In Malawian culture, there are several classes of people including ruling class (political leaders and government workers), merchant class, day laborers, and servant class. In case you tripped over “servant class,” I assure you that the lowest strata of Malawian society are looked upon as servants.

My earliest experience with this occurred when George and I were preparing to move into our house. We arranged to bring an interpreter with us to meet the realtor, Pearson, at the property. He showed us around, handed us the keys, and left.

Before we moved to Malawi, Pearson had informed us there was a groundskeeper whose job it was to cut the grass and keep the gate for us. We learned that this person “goes with the house,” but we didn’t quite understand what that meant. Pearson also said that the owner of the house was paying the groundskeeper while the house sat empty, but we should feel free to “send the garden boy away” if he did not please us. Pearson, of the merchant class, also a black African, had called a man in his 30’s a “garden boy.”

The groundskeeper would live in the tiny house just inside the security gate and across the driveway from us. We weren’t sure what our reaction would be when we met him, but we knew that a person who would be this close to us should be someone we trusted. George and I agreed that if either of us had any sense that he was not the man for the job, we would give him a severance pay that would provide for his family until he could get established in a new job. We most certainly would never just send him away. We prayed for wisdom.

We summonsed him, then stood on our lawn and waited for him to come and meet us. We learned that the groundskeeper’s name is Harry. He approached us with hands clasped parallel to his chest, lowered eyes, and stooping at the shoulders and waist. George reached out to shake his hand, and Harry extended his forearm rather than his hand because he had been working in the garden. He was wearing a tattered shirt, ragged shorts, and a worn out pair of women’s black patent leather shoes with a little white flower on the side of each one.

When we asked about his family, Harry ran to his tiny two room brick house and quietly led his wife and five children out in single file. They sat in a broad circle on the ground at our feet. Harry’s wife, Miriam, was holding their infant son. She smiled and diverted her eyes without saying a word.

The next oldest child was a six year old son who leaned on his mother’s shoulder. We learned that he had been in the hospital and was suffering from malaria. Harry pointed to each of his children and called them by name as they quietly studied our faces.

Around the circle, we reached out to shake each hand, smiled, and told them that we were happy to meet them. The typical handshake of the servant class also includes the left hand grasping the right arm, palm down, just below the elbow. George and I shook their hands in the same manner. Culturally, this handshake means, “I am unarmed and come in peace.”

Through our interpreter, we told Harry and his family about us, where we came from and why we moved to Malawi, to bring clean water, sanitation, hygiene, and nutrition training to the women in the rural villages. After all the introductions and greetings, George and I conferred briefly, then George assured Harry that as long as his work is satisfactory, he has a job with us. He was so grateful and thanked us profusely. Evidently he had been told that we may send him away.

Since that time, we have seen what a diligent, hard-working man he is. Although we have never asked him once to do so, every morning around 6 am he washes our car, and if we should leave the doors unlocked, he will also wipe down the dashboard and clean our mats. Every day. Then he mops our porches. He hedges our walkways with a long panga knife, then he cuts our grass, one section at a time, with a short handled curved bladed thrasher.  He crushed old bricks he found on the property and filled in the potholes in our driveway.

No matter where he is working on the property, when he hears our car doors close, her runs to the front gate to open it and is ready to open the gate when we return. We always smile and wave to him as we go by. Although he didn’t at first, he now returns the smile and lifts his hand in a little salute. We have come to greatly appreciate the work Harry does.

But the beauty of his work is the wonderful gardens in this compound, with blooming flowers, fruit trees, and shrubs in every direction from the house. Soon after we moved in, he began work on a rose garden a little distance from our bedroom window. These roses are now blooming a variety of colors. He came around the corner of the house a few days ago as I was taking pictures in the garden. “Wokongola, Harry!” I said. He smiled when he heard me say how beautiful the gardens are. If he lived in the United States, he would certainly be considered a master gardener.

It has astonished me at times how visitors to our property, even people half his age, think they can order Harry around. “Lift this, move that, Harry.” We settle that matter right away. From the very beginning of our relationship with Harry and his family, we have insisted that he be treated with the dignity and respect every man deserves.

We started his employment by giving him a raise, a substantial one by Malawian standards.  Because washing machines and dryers are not even available here in Zomba, we depend on Harry’s wife, Miriam to do laundry for us twice a week. She is happy to have the work, and this handsomely supplements the family income. A few days ago, we saw Miriam smiling and waving to us at the gate. She was wearing a brand new tailored dress made of beautiful African print. In recent days, Harry has a smile and wave as we drive through the gate. Things are looking up for Harry’s family, and that thought makes me smile.

When we first moved here, we learned that the landlord had been paying him 10,000 Kwacha –that’s $31.75 –per month, plus his little house and utilities. Back in the US, we had read about but never understood how a person could earn  under a dollar a day. Now that kind of poverty had a face and a name. Harry and his family are considered servant class.