Day 19 | Local Experience: Demonstration, Food, and Chitenje
We cancelled our original plan with the District Health Office (DHO) to verify COVID-19 immunization information because we got the news that there are planned demonstrations in the Center of Mzuzu. The demonstration was against the high cost of living in Malawi. The locals advised us to avoid the city centre because the demonstrations in Malawi can sometimes get violent. Most of the shops were closed around the city centre, and there were no cars on the main street. Armed soldiers and police officers were posted around the city to keep the situation under control. Some of us witnessed the demonstrators throwing rocks and the police had to respond with force. We chatted with the locals about the rising cost of living in Malawi over the past few years. They mentioned that the cost of sugar has doubled and bread has tripled in the past two years, but the salary stays the same.
Due to the cancellation of DHO activities, we also had a chance to chat with our guard, Kingston, and he made us some traditional food, cassava. In the afternoon, we decided to venture out of the dorm to just the outskirts of town. We went to our favourite lunch place ‘Low Budget’. We ate our favourite local foods, kondowole (another kind of nsima made from cassava, usually eaten by the northern Malawians), chambo (local fish from Lake Malawi) and local veggies (mustard, cabbage, and beans). Afterwards, we decided to go closer to town and try to buy some more patterned clothes called ‘chitenje’. We shopped for chitenje and groceries before heading home.
Highlights:
- Demonstration in the center of Mzuzu
- Trying local food, cassava, and kondowole
- Buying traditional fabrics, chitenje
All the photos were taken by SHANTU (Verbal consent was obtained before taking the pictures)
