31 January, 2005 - 14:13

The average Malawian spends more time attending funerals in his or her lifetime than I might in several lifetimes.

But I find myself crying like I had lost something eternal when it�s just my two roommates who have left back to a country where I will be most likely to see them again. So why this show of emotions? Why the crying? Why the feeling of utter sadness? Why the seventeen year old drama?

In Malawi there are no distractions and yet there are hundreds. We had no television, but yet we all know that most of population lives in abject poverty. We never once went to the cinema and all around us in urban areas twenty five percent of the population has HIV and no access to anti-retrovirals.

Our guards live on a luxurious salary of 50 US dollars per month - much higher than the average guard�s salary of 20 US dollars.

This gives us a lot of conversational fodder and so we made hay with it and talked.

And talked.

We talked through so much of it, becasometimes because you have to in order to get over the sadness and the injustice of how some people live in the world. The art of conversation becomes the most important implement to combat the ridiculousness of working in organisations that are meant to stop poverty, hunger, HIV/Aids and still no tangible changes come of it all.

And I guess when we talked, we got very close, so close that now I feel pain to see these people go who gave me such form, shape and breadth to my perspective and life here in Malawi. And pain because the future is always so uncertain. And pain because, foolishly, I want the present to continue infinitely. And pain because for some reason, once again, I�ve realised it just now.