CORPSAFRICA
  • Home
  • About
    • About us >
      • The Model
      • Human-Centered Design
      • Impact
      • Development Partners
      • Junior CorpsAfrica
    • Team >
      • Staff
      • Board of Directors
      • Advisory Council
    • Work With Us
    • Press
    • Videos
    • Testimonials
    • Contact us
  • Countries
    • Morocco
    • Senegal
    • Malawi
    • Rwanda
    • Ghana
    • Kenya
  • Volunteers
    • Meet the Volunteers >
      • Morocco Volunteers >
        • Group 1 Morocco
        • Group 2 Morocco
        • Group 3 Morocco
        • Group 4 Morocco
        • Group 5 Morocco
        • Group 6 Morocco
      • Malawi Volunteers >
        • Group 1 Malawi
        • Group 2 Malawi
        • Group 3 Malawi
        • Group 4 Malawi
        • Group 5 Malawi
        • Group 6 Malawi
      • Senegal Volunteers >
        • Group 1 Senegal
        • Group 2 Senegal
        • Group 3 Senegal
        • Group 4 Senegal
        • Group 5 Senegal
        • Group 6 Senegal
      • Rwanda Volunteers >
        • Group 1 Rwanda
        • Group 2 Rwanda
        • Group 3 Rwanda
    • Podcast - "My CorpsAfrica Story"
    • Featured Projects >
      • Dzaleka Basketball Court
      • Kitchen Gardens
      • Coronavirus Response
    • Featured Volunteers
    • Alumni Association
    • Apply
  • Events
    • Events >
      • PROJECTing Resilience
    • All Country Conference
  • Blog
  • Donate
    • Donate to CorpsAfrica
    • Pay It Forward Campaign
    • Holbrooke Campaign
    • Corporate Council for CorpsAfrica
    • Planned Giving
    • Amazon Smile

Our Love for "nsima"

9/30/2016

0 Comments

 
Written by Lucy Chihana, CorpsAfrica Volunteer in Malawi
Reposted from lucykondwani

I have always been slim and tiny. I don’t remember at any point in my life weighing much or being tall. Am just me.  I am not exactly picky when it comes to food. I can have 2 bananas and a bottle of water for lunch. I have my weird cycles and food alternatives that makes my neighbour uncomfortable as she emphasizes the importance of “nsima” but I never miss breakfast no matter how early I am suppose to leave home.  I make sure I take something “warm.” However, this not how most people live in Malawi, life is actually a lot harder. Breakfast is a luxury for the majority. It's usually 2 meals a day,lunch and dinner, for those with enough to eat.

I got here during the harvesting season. Almost everyone had food (i.e. “maize”).  It might have not been much but they had something and there was no hunger talk, no food distribution, no skipping meals due to lack of food.  Some women kept asking me why I take sweet potatoes, Irish potatoes, etc.... for lunch when there's plenty of cheap maize to make my “ufa”  for nsima.  My neighbour thought I don’t know how to do the whole “ufa” process hence offered to do it for me as long as I buy my maize. I tried my best to talk and explain to the women that its not all about nsima.  Well, that didn’t go well.  They told me nsima is life and nothing can substitute it. One important lesson I got from all this is that its actually very difficult to change peoples mindsets.  Just telling people how to do certain things when all their lives they have done things in a particular way and they survived, won't work. Things got to a point where my neighbour used to Ccok her food and bring it to my house so we can eat together just so that I shouldn’t starve because she never saw me cook nsima.  In her words she was scared I might be “malnutritioned” because am not eating nsima.  That’s just how deep some people value Nsima, “Malawis staple food.”

My neighbour always talked about how she was sure I didn't know how to cook nsima I never answered her claims, but she was in for a surprise.

I cooked nsima!!!!

One Saturday, I decided to go to her house and cook them Nsima just to prove a point. When she heard that I was planning on cooking for them she laughed it off and said if indeed I did and succeeded she was going to clean my house. Well, now she knows that I know how to cook Nsima.  It's just that am lazy about it or maybe I just prefer other alternatives when it comes to food rather than Nsima.

It is baffling how deeply rooted people are to eating nsima and its so hard to fight this status quo. The thing is you can’t tell people to change the way things are done because that’s how their parents did it and survived. But, I'm not saying its impossible.  The “nsima mindset" is one of the major things worsening the hunger crisis currently underway in Malawi. A country blessed with abundant water sources, rich fertile soil toiling with hunger year after year.
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Support
    Welcome
    ​to the CorpsAfrica Volunteer Blog! 
    Get an inside look at the experiences of CorpsAfrica Volunteers in the field.

    Archives

    December 2022
    November 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    December 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    August 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016

    RSS Feed

Picture