Drama in the Neighborhood

There is little privacy living in a small town in Africa. Given the dearth of entertainment, gossiping is a major pastime. Our lives here are pretty tame, but even our most mundane events circulate continuously from neighbor to neighbor. Even though with our busy schedules we are less available for idle chatter, Romão usually keeps us informed on the most salacious occurrences. For example, last week our recently widowed neighbor, Marcelina, traveled to the city to visit a sick relative, leaving her eldest son, Fademo, and daughter, Cheila, in charge of the house. Cheila is prone to making poor life decisions, so entrusting her with this degree of freedom was a miscalculation on Marcelina’s part. Cheila did not sleep at home, but snuck out after dark and spent the night with her sketchy older boyfriend who sells Malawian corn beer in the market. Since she failed to close the house properly upon her furtive departure, the late night open door drew our other neighbors’ attention, who upon investigating discovered Cheila’s absence. They later revealed her now not-so-secret tryst to Marcelina upon her return. Considering the high prevalence of HIV in our community, a casual sexual encounter here can have fatal implications, so Marcelina was rightfully furious with her daughter. Now she swears next time she’s out of town, she’s leaving at least two older cousins in the house. As if that wasn’t enough neighborhood drama, the next day, while the shouting and crying from the aftermath of Cheila’s ill-executed night time rendezvous was still resolving, Romão’s mom from Nkondezi, one of the nearby villages, showed up unexpectedly with all his little siblings. Apparently Romão’s stepdad had recently married a new women, his third simultaneous wife, and the new in-laws sent some thuggy cousins to rough up Romão’s mom to get her out of the picture and eliminate some of the competition. Having been kicked out of the home where she lived and with injuries to her face and eyes, she had to flee with several children still unable to walk strapped to her back. We went over to Romão’s house to help him communicate with his uncle who was out of town, and saw his little brothers and sisters lying together on a grass mat trying to retain whatever heat possible from the chilly night. There was no space in his small one room hut for them to sleep. They looked so vulnerable exposed as they were with nothing between them and the heavens above. Luckily it didn’t rain that night. Once Romão’s mother recovers, she’ll have to look for a new place to live. In such a male dominated society, women’s life situations are too precarious. Janet’s recent illness was a less dramatic example of just how immediate everyone’s lives are to each other. Janet had been in bed for half a week with low energy and aches. Within a day of Janet not leaving the house, the entire town knew she was sick; this makes sense considering Romão already assumes Janet is sick if he doesn’t see her before 6am. Upon hearing her vague symptoms, locals nodded knowingly, assuring us of their favorite diagnosis: malaria, the catch-all explanation for every ailment. Janet did not have malaria, likely just a virus. After Janet’s 8th grade biology class found out their lesson was canceled, some of the students showed up at the house asking if they could haul water or do chores Janet was unable to perform while in her enfeebled state. Several other students and neighbors wanted to come by and visit with Janet, since that is the custom if someone is sick here, but Luc turned them away, since Janet is more accustomed to resting when sick, not hosting visitors.