As we exit the house of the old woman, we see a boy standing guard near his grandmother’s house. He is not playing a child’s game. What he is doing is serious business. He is watching over the maize the girls spread on the bamboo mat to dry. It is a standoff. The goats stand in the distance waiting to move in for a meal. The lone boy with a rock stands in the way. If the goats succeed the family will not have the food they so desperately need.
It is hard to explain the seriousness of the standoff between the boy and the goats. In developed nations if a goat gets in the food supply most people will simply purchase more food. It is no big deal, just an aggravation, and the loss of some extra spending money. But in sub-Saharan Africa it is survival to keep the goats at bay. As hard as it is to explain the seriousness of the goat vs. boy standoff, it is just as impossible to process and explain what we have observed in this African hut. In ways impossible to explain we felt shame over our houses in the states. Malawians are very gracious. When they see pictures of American homes they are extremely complimentary. “You deserve it, you have worked hard to own it,” they will say. But the reality is few people in the west work nearly as hard as the people of Africa. And the difference between their houses and ours is not simply a modest, few thousand dollar difference. It is huge, impossible to describe in words. And, it’s not that we have such a big house. It is middle class in our state and city, and over 40 years old. It sits in a modest neighborhood, in an average mid-west city. The houses are not near the top of the housing market value for the nation, actually somewhat below the average, so we are not saying we are ashamed because we are in the top tier when it comes to value. It is just if I compare my possessions with that of a person in Malawi there is such an extreme difference it cannot be measured. Imagine earning $2.00 or $3.00 a day and expecting to survive in America, without any additional income from anyone, anywhere. You can’t. “But prices are so much different,” you say. Not really. Quite the opposite is true. In Malawi fuel for the car costs around $10.00 a gallon. A used car costs $8,000.00, $12,000.00 or $15,000.00. If you want to build something the cost of concrete is four or five times as much as it is in the U.S. A $1.98 tube of caulking in the U.S. will cost you $4.00 to $5.00 in Malawi. “How then can they survive on $2.00 a day,” you ask? They do it by having nothing; no car, no phone, no electricity, no bicycle, no big house, no television, no Posturpedic mattress (in fact, in so many cases they have no mattress at all) no public services like fire, police, or emergency response. That’s is correct, in an emergency there is no one to come to your aid except your neighbors. People survive because they live in a hut like the one we have just visited, eat only the ground maize (corn) twice a day, and never take a vacation or travel beyond 20 kilometers from where they were born. They survive by having nothing, not because the prices for things are cheaper than in the U.S.
I watch the boy as some of the goats inch forward toward the maize. A well-aimed rock heads them in the other direction. The meal for tonight, tomorrow and the next day is secure. I glance over at the garden, and wish the small boy could toss a rock in the air and insure the rains will be just right for the crops, the fruit will be abundant on the tree and ripen perfectly, and the neighbors will harvest a good crop so everyone will have enough. If these all fail there is no reserve. Malawi has no welfare program, no crop insurance, and no guaranteed government program that can bail out those who fail to plant a successful garden. They will simply starve.
As we bid farewell to the old woman, and begin our departure, we see the boy out of the corner of our eye expertly expediting another rock in the direction of the goats. It seems the future is in the hands of a small boy with a rock, the weather patterns that offer no promise of guarantees, and a God who has not revealed His plans for this widow and her grandchildren. Without any reserve, without any resources, and without a community, a church or a government “safety net” it is sure that tomorrow will be another day of insecurity in the sub-Sahara.
