"It May Be Your Country, But"

In the four major cities of Malawi, and even in many of the larger and mid-sized towns throughout this nation, there is the merchant class. These are people who, although many of them were born and grew up here, consider their countries of heritage, rather than Malawi, their true home. They own, and run the hardware stores, the poultry shops, the plastics stores, and the pharmacies, as well as many manufacturing, and service businesses. Their countries of origin are sprinkled for the most part across the regions of southern Asia  Many will make regular pilgrimages to their homelands, but will return here to both live and conduct business.

Their homes are in upscale neighborhoods, or on mountain roads above the cities, with walled in properties, twenty four hour security, and plenty of local domestic help. Their children, who are already being groomed as the next generation of merchants, will attend pricey private schools where the entire curriculum is taught in English, the official language of both government and commerce. They’ll have late model automobiles, laptops, and the latest electronics. They are a community unto themselves.

Most of their shops will be closed mid-day on Fridays so they can attend prayer at the mosque; the more religious will board up every day at noon for a couple hours. A few rare ones will stay open throughout the day, even on Friday.  Each, depending on the size of the business, and the weight and bulk of the goods sold, will employ one, two, or more locals, whose job it will be to bundle and pack these items into customers’ trucks and cars.

These laborers are extremely hard working and efficient, and will rely heavily on tipping, as even a small tip will add greatly to their very meager daily wages. Many merchants quite condescendingly refer to these men as their “boys.” ”I’ll have my boy do that”, or “My boy will go down to Blantyre to pick that up for me.” As the unemployment rate among poorly educated native Malawians is extremely high, they at least pretend to accept their lot. I’ve heard our fine groundskeeper Harry, a humble man of fine character, referred to as my “garden boy” on several occasions. “No” will be my reply, “he’s our groundskeeper, and an excellent one at that, thank you.”

So, several days ago, although a bit taken aback, I was not all that surprised upon learning of a common saying among these merchants regarding their Malawian hosts, “It may be your country, but it’s our money.” In fact, beyond being saddened and grieved by the outright callousness of this phrase, I was also able to gain a bit more insight and understanding of the great cultural divides I’ve witnessed since arriving here almost a half a year ago.

The once great respect I originally had for their apparently keen business acumen has all but evaporated, as I now fully realize that, apart from doing alms out of a sense of duty and appeasement to their deity, there is no investment in the development of the nation which is their home apart from what can be steadily extracted, which is “their” money. This was brought home to me in an alarmingly tangible way recently when Phyllis and I brought Harry’s two teenage daughters, Rose and Margaret  into a fabric shop to have new school uniforms made for them.

We previously had curtains, chair cushions, and other items made for us there, and had always been pleased with both the price and quality of the workmanship. Upon examining the shoddy work done on both uniforms when we arrived home, we were almost embarrassed to hand them over to the girls, but we assured them and their parents that they could wear them to school the following day, Monday and we would return them to be corrected as soon as they returned home at the end of the school day.

When Phyllis and I arrived at the shop, uniforms in hand, we showed the owner that the seams were held together with little more than basting stitches. He was in the middle of serving a number of Western tourists, and although we had assumed we had a fairly good working relationship with him, he seemed quite annoyed at our presence, but we insisted he was obligated to give these girls the same quality of workmanship he had given us. Quite to our shock, he boldly declared that there were two standards of expertise, one for ordinary Malawians, and a much higher one for everyone else.

Although he then proceeded to charge us an additional sum, we insisted these girls were deserving of the same quality of work he had previously given us, and that like it or not, we would be returning in a couple hours to pick up the corrected uniforms so that they would be able to wear them to school the very next morning.  They were indeed ready for us on time before closing.

This brings me to the greater point of how to more clearly define our role here as that of not only helping to lift the women with whom we work out of extreme poverty, but also to help them develop a mindset which aids them in thoroughly understanding that they have choices. They have latent skills, good work ethics, keen intellects;  in short, they have, by God’s grace, the tools needed to better their lives, and those of their children.  They certainly need never feel themselves inferior or subservient to those who see their own role as that of controlling, and owning the resources of this beautiful nation.