by Shana Burg
“Don’t remind me,” I groan. Worse, the play is on Wednesday—only four days from now. When I think of it, I feel like an oxcart is trampling across my chest. Despite the fact that we’ve practiced every morning since I got back to school, the kids are still slamming into one another, and yesterday, when our headmaster stopped by, Felicity was so scared she refused to speak a word until he left.
But now, as we pull up at the Chomp and Chew Stop, I know how Felicity felt. I’m so nervous I can hardly breathe, let alone speak. Dad and I wash the sticky jackfruit juice off our faces and hands with a bottle of water and an old towel that’s lying in the backseat. Then we walk into the restaurant.
“Do you see him?” Dad asks.
I point to the mzungu who is playing cards with some locals. Everyone at the table is drinking out of coconuts with straws.
“Thought so,” Dad says. He puts his hand on my back and pushes me forward.
“Moni, Derek,” I mumble.
Derek turns around and stares. His sunburned face looks pockmarked and scary.
“It’s me,” I croak. But I don’t think he recognizes me, so I say, “You know, the thief.”
Suddenly, Derek stands and slaps my back. “Good to see you, my young friend. Your father’s note mentioned the poor little chap. Bloody shame.” He turns to his friends and says something about malaria in Chichewa. “Bloody shame,” he says again. He lumbers over to Dad and shakes his hand. “Nice to meet you, Doctor.” I think Derek’s wondering if we really have the mopeds, because as he shakes Dad’s hand, his eyes dart all around the restaurant.
“They’re outside,” Dad says. “But first, Clare would like to talk to you.”
I bug my eyes out. I never said I wanted to talk to Derek. In fact, I definitely don’t want to talk to him. I want to leave, the sooner the better.
“A seat fer ya,” Derek says. He pulls out a chair at an empty table. I sit down. Then he turns another chair backward and sits on it with his hands clasped over the back of the seat, his chin resting on them. Out of the corner of my eye, I watch Dad leave the restaurant. “Now, what’s on your mind?” Derek asks me.
“It’s just that …” I shove each word out of my mouth. “I’m really, really sorry you had to go without the mopeds for so long. I know you lost a lot of money.” What I don’t say is that I’m sorry I took them in the first place, because sometimes even a thief doesn’t like to lie.
“You know what, Clare?” Derek presses his thumbs into the corners of his watery eyes. “You kids knew best. I thought it was heat exhaustion. If I’d believed you on the malaria, I would’ve driven you straight to the hospital in Machinga. And who knows? Maybe that little chap would still be here now.”
Mr. Special Kingsley rings the last bell, and my classmates dash out of Mrs. Tomasi’s classroom. We meet up behind the standard five block. Together we lug the tin roof that blew off in the storm all the way over to the standard one class. We heave the roof on top of some clay bricks.
“Check out our new stage!” I tell Sickness.
She grins.
“We must build large soccer goal at front of stage,” Memory explains.
I check my watch. We’ve got about four hours before the villagers arrive. After Norman takes out a pocketknife and carves the wooden nails, we hammer the posts together with rocks. Silvester stands on Norman’s shoulders in order to get the entire goal built.
Then Memory, Agnes, and I thread a clothesline through the curtain I made out of the extra bedsheets from the Global Health Project house. Now we secure our curtain along the top of the goalpost. The way we’ve set things up, our little actors will be able to walk right out of their classroom and onto the stage.
Thankfully, the field is dry and soft grass has started to grow again. Mr. Special Kingsley is busy setting torches by the edges of the field in order to keep bongololos and black mambas out of our theater.
At dusk, Agnes, Patuma, Sickness, and I run around the standard one room fastening hundreds of animal tails, wings, and snouts onto our little actors—costumes we made from the fabric Dad and I bought at the market in Blantyre. There was so much to sew and glue in the past few days that the standard eight girls have hardly slept at all. And now it’s taking a lot longer to dress our actors than I had expected. Agnes and I need Memory’s help, but we don’t see her anywhere. At first we figure she’s gone to the ladies’, but when she still hasn’t returned after a half hour, I step outside to look around.
There she is, crouching against the mud-brick wall of the standard one classroom, her head resting on her knees, tears streaming down her cheeks. I take her hand in mine. “I miss Innocent too,” I say.
She nods.
“This is the story he wants to tell the world. We’re making it happen. You, me, and all his little friends.”
She smiles through her tears, and we pass a few minutes in silence until I ask if she can help with the hunters.
She nods again.
“All thirty-seven of them?” I hope it’s not too much to ask. “They each need a hat. And can you please make sure they know how to hold their bows and arrows?”
“I shall do it,” she says.
As dusk sets in, the villagers arrive in droves. Inside the classroom, I clap my hands and all the creatures turn silent. I don’t know if the children are excited or petrified, but for sure, I’m both. “Ten minutes till curtain!” I announce. Memory translates.
The bustle of villagers gathering in our theater makes thoughts scrape against one another in my mind until I can’t really think at all anymore. I swallow and try to sound brave. “Actors, take your places!” Memory repeats my direction in Chichewa, and with the help of Agnes, the children scurry to their spots. Memory plants herself stage right. She’s ready to translate the actors’ English lines into Chichewa for the audience.
“One minute till curtain!” I shout. The future’s in front of us. The script, the costumes, and the stage we’ve been dreaming of will soon become real. I glance at Memory, who smiles. I turn to Agnes, who gives me a thumbs-up. Then I peek out from behind the curtain.
Dad’s sitting up front with Mrs. Bwanali, Stallard, and Memory’s grandmother. Next to them are Mrs. Tomasi and Mr. Special Kingsley. Even though Saidi hasn’t returned to school for classes, he’s here too, just behind Dad. Alongside Saidi are Norman, Winnie, Stella, Silvester, Oscar, and Handlebar. And next to my classmates, I see the Kaliwo family. Most Miracle is strapped to his mother’s back.
I take a deep breath. “Break a leg,” I whisper to myself. I reach up for my pendant before I remember it’s not there. “Curtain!” I call.
Agnes yanks on the clothesline.
Seven-year-old Felicity stands center stage covered in real chicken feathers Agnes and I sewed onto a pillowcase.
In the play, a chicken named Fred tries to cross the road, but she gets into all kinds of trouble. First, there are hunters who attempt to catch her. Fred escapes by flying onto the head of one of the hunters, who cannot find her there. Next there are the hyenas. The hyenas drool and lick their lips. They prepare to eat poor Fred, but when they surround her, Fred gets away by flapping her wings beneath them and tickling their bellies. The hyenas laugh so hard they start to cry. Through their tears, they cannot see where Fred has gone.
Soon Fred arrives at a large dirt road. “At last!” she exclaims. “I have found the route to safety.” But when Fred attempts to cross the road, a horrible wind blows. Dirt swirls, puddles ripple, and leaves quiver. Then comes a gust of wind so strong it blows poor Fred all the way to Lake Malombe. Days later, a bunch of hippos discover our feathered heroine on an abandoned green rowboat.
“What are you doing here?” the hippos ask.
“For many months I have tried to cross the road,” Fred says.
“Why do you want to cross the road?” one of the hippos asks.
Fred looks out at the audience, shrugs, and says, “To get to the other side.”
Mrs. Bwanali throws her he
ad back. Her bright sparks of laughter set the field on fire.
Before I know it, Memory and Agnes are laughing.
My classmates in the audience are laughing.
Mr. and Mrs. Kaliwo are laughing.
The children on the stage are laughing. Mr. Special Kingsley, Mrs. Tomasi, and Stallard are laughing too.
Now Dad laughs.
My mother joins in. I stare at the moon. “Hi, Mom,” I whisper.
A giggle chimes in my ears. “Hello, Dimples!” I say.
A funny feeling spreads through me.
I’m laughing too.
And suddenly, I can’t separate the actors from the audience, the day from the night, or the earth from the moon.
Glossary of Chichewa Words
Here are some of the words and phrases Clare learned on her trip to Malawi:
azungu (a-zu-ngu): white people
bongololo (bon-goh-lo-lo): centipede
chabwino (cha-bwee-no): wonderful
chonde (choh-nday): please
chiyendayekha (chee-yeh-nda-yay-kah): big monkey
inde (i-nday): yes
mbandakucha (m’bah-nda-koo-cha): early morning before sunrise, between first and third rooster
mbatata (m’bah-ta-tah): sweet potato
moni (moh-nee): hello
Muli bwanji? (mu-lee bwan-jee): How are you?
mvuu (m’vo’o): hippopotamus
mzanga (m’zah-ngah): friend
mzungu (m’zu-ngu): white person
Ndimakukonda (n’dim-a-koo-kondah): I love you
nkhuku (n’koo-koo): chicken
sing’anga (sing-ang-ah): witch doctor
sukulu (soo-koo-loo): school
Tiye tonse (tee-yay toh-nsay): Let’s go
utawaleza (oo-tah-wah-lay-zah): rainbow
yaboo (ya-bo): awesome
Yendani bwino (yen-nda-nee bwee-no): Have a safe journey
zikomo (zee-ko-mo): thank you
Author’s Note
The government of Malawi used to charge parents about three U.S. dollars to send their children to elementary school for a year. In one of the poorest countries on earth, those three dollars were too much for many families to afford. Then, in 1991, the Malawian government began eliminating school fees. Over the next decade, thousands of new students enrolled in free primary schools. Some aid organizations wanted to find out if the students in the schools were getting a good education.
I was sent to Malawi to help investigate. I visited ten schools. Some were urban, but most of them were deep in the bush. I found that none of the students had the materials American students routinely find in their classrooms. They certainly didn’t have individual desks, overhead lights, air-conditioning, or maps. Lots of children didn’t have books, paper, pens, or pencils. Many didn’t even have the benefit of classrooms; they studied under the trees.
Kids on the side of a mud road laughing in the rain. Of all the pictures I took in Malawi, this is my absolute favorite!
There were some learning materials in warehouses, but the country didn’t have the resources to deliver them on a regular basis to schools in the bush. For one thing, not all of the schools were on the government-provided map, so how could the drivers find them? For another thing, the delivery trucks often lacked enough fuel to make the trips. And if they tried to go during the rainy season, often they got stuck in the mud on unpaved roads.
Despite the problems I saw in Malawi, I was incredibly impressed by how teachers and students improvised with what they did have. A few years later, when I began teaching sixth grade in Brookline, Massachusetts, I showed my students pictures of Malawian children making letters of the alphabet out of termite hill mud, and I told them how Malawian students learn fractions using pebbles.
My students had a million questions. I wanted to write a story that would allow me to share what I had discovered, but I needed help from natives of the country. Fortunately, Felicity Charity Mponda agreed to work as the first research assistant on this book. She lived in the capital city, Lilongwe, and had Internet access. She told me about her childhood: how she used to iron her dresses with hot rocks, how she yearned to be an air hostess, and how all the teenage girls wanted to be a little fat so they wouldn’t look diseased. But then, at the age of forty, Felicity died.
The amazing Lovemore Nkhata became my next research assistant. Lovemore translated words into Chichewa and answered hundreds of questions about Malawian traditions, food, and education. He told me that when he was growing up, he felt that there was one good thing about not having enough paper in school: there were no written report cards! Lovemore taught me that largely because of malnutrition, twenty percent of children in Malawi die before they turn five. That’s why he became a nutritionist and started a project to help prevent under-nutrition in Malawian preschool children.
I was also lucky enough to talk many times with Dr. Kevin Bergman. Kevin is a family doctor in California who frequently travels to Malawi. He has seen doctors there performing surgery by the light of their cell phones. He told me that every thirty seconds a child dies of malaria somewhere in the world. That’s why Kevin cofounded World Altering Medicine, a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing free life-saving medical care to patients in the developing world.
I learned a lot about Malawi from two other close friends—Stella Phiri and Norman Mbalazo—who died before their fortieth birthdays. They should have been building the future of their country. As I wrote this book, I heard their laughter in my ear and felt their spirits fill every page.
Mbatata (Sweet Potato) Biscuits
These biscuits are a common snack made by people in rural Malawi, who bake them over an open fire. My friend Lovemore says, “Eat and enjoy as we do. You will not regret it!” He is definitely right. Yum!
Ingredients
¾ cup mashed cooked sweet potato
¼ cup milk
4 tablespoons melted butter
1¼ cups sifted flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
6 tablespoons sugar, plus 2 tablespoons to sprinkle on top
½ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon cinnamon, plus additional ½ teaspoon to sprinkle on top
Directions
Preheat the oven to 375°F. Mix the sweet potatoes, milk, and melted butter and beat well. Sift together the flour, baking powder, 6 tablespoons of the sugar, the salt, and ¼ teaspoon of the cinnamon and add gradually to the sweet potato mixture. Drop by tablespoonfuls onto the greased baking sheet. Mix the additional cinnamon and sugar and sprinkle on top.
Bake for 15 minutes. OR …
Chill the dough for 30 minutes, then turn it onto a floured board. Knead the dough lightly, and roll it to one-half inch thick. Cut it with a greased heart-shaped cookie cutter. (Malawi is known as the Warm Heart of Africa because of the friendliness of its people.) Place the biscuits on a greased baking sheet. Mix the additional cinnamon and sugar and sprinkle it on top. Bake for 15 minutes.
Makes 20 biscuits.
Acknowledgments
People always say that writing is an isolating experience. In my case, that’s not true. It took a village to write this book. Now I’d like to thank the people of my village.
First and foremost, thanks to my Malawian friends, both those who specifically helped generate many of the details in Laugh with the Moon and those who became friends before there ever was a book. With the greatest appreciation to my primary research assistants, Lovemore Nkhata and the late Felicity Charity Mponda. To Innocent Masaka, Oscar Mponda, Bright, the late Stella Phiri, Mercy and Stallard Mpata, and my old pal, the late Norman Mbalazo. And also to the hundreds of Malawian students, teachers, headmasters, parents, truckers, and educational administrators I interviewed all those years ago.
With tremendous appreciation to the Americans and Canadians who work in Malawi and shared their experiences and research: Zikomo kwambiri to Dr. Kevin Bergman, cofounder of World Altering Medicine, who let me interview him multiple times and who read
the manuscript for accuracy. To Dr. Monica Grant, Dr. Paul Hewett, Dr. Catherine Jere, Erin Mwalanda, and Krista Patrick, who answered so many questions. And also to Christina Coppolillo, who lived for years in Tanzania and shared with me the unforgettable detail of what it’s like to cross paths with an elephant suffering from bad gas.
A big thank-you to the American Jewish World Service for funding my trip to Malawi and for their beautiful mission: to alleviate poverty, hunger, and disease around the world.
Next, thanks to my friends and neighbors, and to the amazing Austin writing community, especially those who critiqued the manuscript in its entirety: April Lurie, Lauren Maples and her son Bruno, and Margo Rabb. Also, Brian Anderson, Joseph Basnight, Donna Bratton, Anne Bustard, Cory Criswell, Tim Crow, Meredith Davis, Adam Duran, Chris Eboch, Lisa Eskow, Deb Gonzales, Bethany Hegedus, Varian Johnson, Dan Kraus, Cynthia and Greg Leitich-Smith, Kim McCrary, Lauren Meyers, Katie Moore, Geoff Murphy, Carmen Oliver, Andrew Perkel, Aliza Stark, Lynn Sygiel, Don Tate, Ann Walters, Rachel Webberman, Brian Yansky, and Jennifer Ziegler.
Thanks to the young readers in my life who let me bounce around ideas with them: Sarah Belin, Isaiah and Sydni Burg, and the students in the Mesquite, Texas, ISD.
Thanks to Hope Edelman for her book Motherless Daughters, which provided much insight into Clare Silver’s journey and compared the grieving process to the cycles of the moon. And to William Kamkwamba and Brian Mealer for the compelling memoir The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, which made me feel that I was right back in Malawi.
In this novel, Clare hears her mom say, “Great artists ask great questions.” My agent, Andrea Cascardi, and my editor, Michelle Poploff, are great artists, and they both asked me hundreds of extremely challenging questions in the process of writing this book. For that, I thank and treasure them. Also, thank you to Random House assistant editor Rebecca Short for her comments; to Vikki Sheatsley, who designed the book; and to Harvey Chan, who painted such an extraordinary cover! And a special thank-you to associate copy chief Colleen Fellingham and copy editor Ashley Mason for their remarkable attention to detail; and to the Random House staff who helped get this book into the hands of readers, especially Lisa Nadel, Tracy Lerner, and Adrienne Waintraub.