Jonnex’s perspective: Malawian Team Leader
I was very nervous to hear that I was staying in a host family. I had not met them before and it was a daunting thing to do. When we arrived at our host home our new family introduced themselves as Mr and Mrs Billy. They are working at the Chikhwawa District Hospital as nurses and both are graduates from the Kamuzu College of Nursing. Within our host family there is five of us; Mr and Mrs Billy, Wayisanga, our host sister and Odhran, my new brother and roommate. We stay in one of the hospital houses, which has a beautiful view of the Shire River. Being here during the rainy season, we have seen how different the view can be when flooded.
On our first day of arriving in Chikhwawa, there was no electricity due to the flooding in the surrounding areas. This made our first few days difficult and also meant there was a lot of mosquitos! The staple food for most of the families in Malawi is nsima, so on the first day they had prepared nsima for us to eat. We had to use our hands to eat and it was hard for my brother trying to use his hands!
We have now been living with our host family for nearly seven weeks and it has been a very interesting experience with all of my fears gone. We now know a lot about each other in the family and are able to share stories with each other. With my brother, we are able to share stories about living in Malawi and what it’s like living in Ireland.
Our host father is really into football and spends a lot of time playing it, especially on weekends, which means sometimes we have joined him on the ground. Most Sunday mornings we have gone to church as a family. The church they attend is in Mitole CCAP and the service we have attended is in English, which is good so my brother can understand.
Odhran’s perspective: UK volunteer
When I was first going to meet my new family I was very nervous. All my worries were gone within the first week as football was something me, Jonnex and our new host dad all love, which helped us get to know each other quicker. On our very first morning we joined him to go play football with his team; we’ve played every weekend since. We also attended church with our family, in English, and this was enjoyable as it was quite different to my experience at home.
Me and Jonnex share a room, which has meant hours of laughing every evening before bed. We wake up, have breakfast and wash with a bucket and cup before heading to work followed by three enthusiastic dogs each day. We return home for lunch and then after work in the evening, usually too exhausted to stay up much after our dinner. One of the best parts of living in a host family with a national volunteer is how much it has helped me to learn Chichewa. We practice my Chichewa, much to my family’s amusement, every morning and night as well as every day on the way to the office with Jonnex, who is becoming more and more proud as I eat more and more nsima at meals as the weeks go by.
Surprisingly, Jonnex is terrified of almost every animal we see, although he says they are all his friends. A lot of them are our friends. We have Tom the little goat who followed us for a while, we see him every now and again. We have three dogs that live next door who follow us to the office or anywhere we go really, every day. We have Dekko, the gecko, as well who appears in our room most days, as well as in our shoes. We’ve even have Paul the python.
Some of our best moments are having the dogs follow us endlessly, me having to walk Jonnex out to the drop toilet because he’s afraid of what’s outside at night, and dinner going from light from a bulb to darkness to candlelight because of the electricity cutting out and, lastly, Jonnex laughing at me for horrendous attempts at speaking Chichewa at times. I absolutely love living in my host family and living with Jonnex is the most fun. We’ve had countless laughs with each other and at each other, and I’m going to miss my mesho (roommate) and my family a lot when I leave. I wish I could do it all again!
Written by ICS volunteers Jonnex and Odhran
