The black shoelaces tied his hand together making an odd composition of Malawian man in blue fleece, hands tied with fairly weak black string. Seeming more upset than sulky and more sulky than angry, he sat on a rock just outside the juniper forest looking down at his roped hands. We sat looking at him as the scouts of Nyika National Park plunked him down and placed his bag of poached orchid bulbs at the side of the truck.
My friends and I had traveled up North to Nyika Park to check on accommodations and logistics for the camp we’re running, Camp R.E.N.E.W. (Revitalizing, Energizing, Nurturing, Environmental Wellness). Two New Zealanders who are helping to run a trust at the park volunteered to take us out to the park and then assist them in a forestation project involving juniper trees. We grabbed scarves and sweatshirts and clung onto the back of the truck filled with shovels and spades to dig up and replant juniper trees, spreading the forest and the native species of juniper. Scarves blown back and hats clutched as we went over rocks and dirt and roadside trees that threatened to take both hats and heads from the three volunteers standing, grabbing on to the cab of the truck. Soon the truck pulled over and scouts jumped out to shoot their guns into the air scaring three poachers off running through burnt hill and cloud shadowed brush. The guns were only meant to scare and we climbed back in the truck to head to the forest.
After a photo shoot with Spanish moss hair pieces, we headed into the forest to dig out juniper trees to replant in a tree nursery. Lately, I have been feeling that I seem to fit pretty well into the ‘stereotypical girl mold.’ In my work in the village and outside I feel weak and incapable of many tasks. I feel like every physical task I undertake there is some man standing nearby ready to help and usually has an opportunity as I continue to drop things, can’t lift others, and stand tired by the edge of my garden feeling that I should be able to do physical labor after more than a year and a half in Malawi.
Right before I came to Malawi I took a self-defense course. Of course part of the course was learning specific moves and discussing certain situations in which you should be able to get out of. The other part was nurturing automatic reactions so that when put in certain situations you won’t have to think, you’ll just automatically fight for yourself in a productive way with ingrained instincts, ingrained in you in this particular course. The course was emotional in many ways, as part of it entailed a man dressed up in foam pads ready for you to attack him, but also ready with words and scenarios so that he would throw you to the floor and act like he was going to rape you. And then there were the stories of the women there, the women who had already been raped, violated, and attacked. But on top of it all was this intense personal aspect. I remember driving home from one session and all of a sudden completely losing it and sobbing as I drove over the ZaKim bridge. I sobbed and gripped the steering wheel unable to change the radio station from blasting “I can make your bed rock.” Feeling stuck in some surreal juxtaposed universe of raps, sex, bridges, Nikki Minaj, boston, and men disguised in foam, I faltered when I tried to think of why I was crying. I ended up crossing the bridge again letting the song change and not ready to pull into my driveway or even pull onto the Masspike.
I realized at some point on the Masspike that of course there could be tears for the women who were raped, the women who will be raped, and all the violence in between, but I was crying for a different reason. In order to defend yourself, unconsciously, you have to believe your worth fighting for. And I had fought for myself, maybe not in a real situation, but regardless, when the helmeted head banged into mine, I fought, there was no one to fight for but me, but I still fought for her.
Even though I fought for her then, I feel like I haven’t always fought for her and don’t always and this combined with that sinking feeling when a Malawian men laughs at you and comes to help you out is enough sometimes for me to want to give up and not bother demonstrating all the other kinds of strengths or pointing to all the other women that can do the physical stuff.
Digging up the trees I had two Malawian men hovering over me and laughing when I said “I can do it, myself.” It didn’t help that after I said that I felt like an indignant five year-old and suddenly developed the strength of a five-year-old. But they did go away and I continued to dig up trees and transport them to their buckets covering them with soil. I was standing with one of the New Zealanders towards the end of the tree digging and he asked if I saw anymore trees. I pointed to a beautiful teenage juniper who even had seeds sprouting at her top. He said she looked perfect and I questioned if she was too tall, but he said “go for it.” I dug her up, put her in the bucket, and we carried her back to the group. Before we had even reached the pile of water bottles and sweatshirts, the tree was announced as the ‘tall tree Jo had found and dug out.’ I smiled proudly and we all walked out of the forest.
And then I saw him sitting on his rock. The Orchid Poacher. I probably wouldn’t have felt as I did if he had been poaching the animals, if he had been shooting with a gun or spear, catching animals that weigh 10 times his weight, but because he had been poaching flower bulbs, because he was sitting unmoving with roped together hands, ready to go to jail over FLOWERS, I couldn’t help but smirk, leave my a few of my insecurities behind, glance at the tree, and think in my head “sucker.”
And I wish I could end this post here, even though the ending is sort of snarky and a little cruel, but I can’t. The next day a vehicle was taking the poacher to the nearest court, so we snagged a ride down to our sites. We sat in seats the back of a range rover while the poacher now in real handcuffs sat in the back. We pulled into one of the park stations and one of the people that worked there came into the back of the vehicle. He said a bunch of stuff to the poacher and then hit him, and hit him again. Not very hard, but the fact that he felt he had the right to, bothered me and I wished I had said something. I went back to feeling weak and helpless as a woman while this man, not a police officer or anyone with any real authority, climbed right into a vehicle to hit a man that did not even kill an animal, he stole flower bulbs, probably because he has no money and hoped to sell them for a lot. We all were angry and again I felt helpless and thought about how being here is hard. This is a hard place to be, even if you’re not always caught up in whirlpools of orchid poachers, self-esteem issues, baby juniper trees, and their parents. It’s just hard.
http://mwazisihoney.blogspot.com/2011/09/orchid-poacher.html
