17 January, 2005 - 14:01

We had a divine party on the weekend!

We hired a band to come in and play on our patio: one bass guitar, two guitars, one djembe drummer and another drum-set percussionist. Around 50-60 people came and danced, drank, talked, smoked up and danced some more. It was ass-shaking, African music all night and even some well-known African tunes by Paul Simon and Ladysmith Black Mambazzo. We bought six cases of drinks and hired four extra staff members for the night to help park and guard the cars and patrol the grounds. What was really wonderful is that Mustafa has been working on the gardens so much lately that it was also a showcase for his gardening work: the high-flower garden, the rock garden, the low-flower garden and the garden liners up and down the driveway. Ahhh, and it was the first time I have ever seen Mustafa genuinely smile, danced a bit on the driveway and he even stopped calling me "sir".

A woman named Rusty came to our party as well: beautiful, in her late 50s perhaps and has been living in Malawi for some twenty-odd years. She is quite eccentric and I had heard stories about her before. In fact, one of my roommates was aghast one night at a private dinner when Rusty suggested that Malawi should be annexed into Tanzania, Zambia and Mo�ambique in order to quell the growing complacency in this country. This sort of statement makes me smile because it seems so radically opposed to the dominant political paradigm of the development community.

(Incidentally, I feel the same kind of radicalism creeping into my thoughts � that, in fact, Malawians are lazy people who only expect handouts. This is radical talk befit for a pre-political, Eyewitness News at 7-watching � Unitedstatian.)

Furthermore, she has been working in development for a very long time and I think this is one of the times that it would be necessary to throw out any notion of what we believe, and to listen to someone who has been around in the world a lot longer than we have. Even if what she�s saying is complete crap � in another thirty years time you might figure out that it actually is crap or that she has actual insight through her experience.

Anyway, the point of me talking about her � upon arrival to our house she presented us with a beautiful bouquet of flowers and a rolled up piece of paper full of � grass. Weed.

Ganja.

�She is Mrs. Madrigal,� I thought, �who has jumped out of The Tales of the City and into Lilongwe.�

Factually, she is not Mrs. Madrigal but perhaps more of a patois of Madrigal and Maude from the infamous �Harold and Maude�. She embodies those elements of vague, random, generous whimsy. And it�s beautiful to see in someone, anyone � of any age. Anyway, apparently the word got around that I had thought she looked like Mrs. Madrigal because the next day R got a text that said: �Superb party, thank you very much. Mrs. Madrigal.�

So maybe she is.