Children – Week 37

Children.

2012-11-30

There are a lot of kids in Malawi. There are so many kids here that it weirds me out sometimes. The need to cope with the high number of children has no doubt contributed to Malawians becoming the master parents that they are. I have come to the conclusion that Malawians are much better parents than Canadians based on two observations:  (1) Malawian parents don’t hate their children and (2) Malawian children rarely cry. I have determined that the foundation of Malawian parenting success is that they ignore their children.

There are two important consequences to ignoring their children. (1) Malawian parents don’t get worked up about all the stupid things kids do (and subsequently don’t resent their children for controlling their lives) and (2) Malawian children learn to deal with their own issues (and subsequently realize that crying accomplishes nothing).

Here are two observed examples of Malawian parenting:

• I’m bored
• I’m shucking beans. Would you like to help me shuck beans?
• No.
• Then I can’t help you.

•  <crying> A boy hit me and kicked me and smeared mango peel on my face.
• I’m shucking beans. Would you like to help me shuck beans?
• No.
• Then I can’t help you.

Inspiring.

This last account is a good segue into the tendency for Malawian children to pummel one another. They kick and punch and push and shove and sit on one another’s heads and no parent or passerby does anything about it. It was a bit jarring at first but I’ve come to appreciate some of the nuance in how this takes places. If I was to write a book on the subject I would call it The Culture of Malawian Children: survival of the fittest but don’t be an asshole. There are some basic unspoken rules of behaviour that everyone seems to follow. Kick, punch and push all you like – just don’t bite, throw elbows, steal or wreck anything owned by anyone else. And most importantly, once someone wins, they win. You can win one of two ways (1) the other kid runs away (DON’T CHASE THEM) or (2) you gain full control over whatever you were fighting over (DON’T GLOAT).  If a mzungu for instance throws a plastic bottle from a bus window towards a group of four 8-year-old boys walking home from school, a full melee will erupt. The boys will beat and tackle one another until one of them has full grip of the bottle. Once that boy has the bottle the others back off without question and conversation picks up where it left off – no hard feelings.

My favourite thing about this system is that it is self regulating.

• Why did you smear mango on his face?
• He was standing where I wanted to stand.
• Yea, I get that, you’re bigger than him giving you full right to kick and punch him for standing where you want to stand but smearing mango on his face was an asshole move.
• So what?
• So me and the boy with the lazy eye are going to go sit in the mango tree that the mzungu watching us is hiding behind instead of this one and you can’t come.
• What if I follow you?
• Then we’ll go somewhere else because you were an asshole and we don’t want to play with you today.

In Canada you would see the mom of the kid who was beat drag her son over to the boys and scold the aggressor, demanding he apologize to her son. With the apology given she would leave the group to ‘play nice’.  As a result the bully gets to remain in the company of the kid he just beat and the kid who was beaten is marked as a victim indefinitely, continues to be bullied, begins starting fires in the boy’s bathroom and becomes addicted to methamphetamine. The West is broken.  To sum up – ignore your children and let other kids beat them up; you’ll both be better for it.

I have a similar relationship with the children who live around here as I do my houseplants; I like having them around but I don’t interact with them very often. I decided to rectify this by buying some chalk. Chelsea (housemate) did her best to take photos but trying to snap candid photos of Malawian children is next to impossible. Enjoy.

*Disclaimer: I don’t speak Chichewa, all recounted conversations are what I think they were saying based on body language. I’m a good body language reader though.

Wall before children

Children.

Children.

Smallest participant

Fighting children

Andrew. I will write a whole post about Andrew in due time.

What you think is happening here is not happening here.

Chelsea brought her dog. Kids didn’t know what to make of someone cradling a dog and talking to it.

“My boyfriend loves you.” I’m not sure what to make of this.

Something about people being upset about current events in Gaza.

Love.

Blood Child graced us with his presence and drew a truck.

My favourite contribution.

“give me chalk” written in chalk.

This kid showed up at dusk with a potato sack tied around his face and started punching and kicking everyone (Typical Yankees fan). It was a fitting end to the day.

I’m fundraising for EWB: https://imagine.ewb.ca/michaelkennedy