Malawi north
Livingstonia – Mushroom Farm – Ntchisi (Forest)
In Malawi, interpersonal relationships matter because people simply don’t have money. Capitalism hides our relationships with one another. Those who have money can just buy whatever they want and never see how the product was made – or under what kind of exploitation, perhaps. The buyer is in no relationship or connection to the producer. The two are separated. In a non-relationship. In this way, money makes relationships invisible. Since most people in Malawi have little or no money, the only thing that can sustain them through life’s hardships is their relationship with other people: with their families, their immediate village community, their tribe, and perhaps, at the far end, their nation. But direct relationships are the most important.
Many people in Malawi can survive only by exchanging their harvests with others, by having family who provide them with resources or give them money. Neighbors also support one another. You rarely see people in Malawi lying around neglected. No one seems to be alone. People are always—or mostly—part of something: a web of relationships in which they are deeply and nourishingly embedded.
Even as small children, they are always carried on their mother’s back in a cloth, and thus part of all social interactions. Later, as soon as they can walk and talk, children help with household tasks or work. In this way, they develop a secure sense of attachment as infants and later experience themselves as a meaningful part of the group. They interact playfully with other children—since the warm weather and limited indoor space mean they spend most of their time outside—together. Religiosity, ancestor worship, and tribal rituals further reinforce a cosmology in which the group stands at the center. The foundation of many cultures in southern and eastern Africa is shaped by the Ubuntu / Umunthu / Ujamaa philosophy: “I am because we are.”
Life together is collectivist, not individualist as in the West. Good relationships, peace, and harmony are essential in a world where there is little claim to rights, police protection, or state security. There is no notion of right and wrong as abstract values—only the relationship itself matters.
In our capitalist world, we live alienated and isolated from relationships that have been estranged by money transactions. We can meet life’s problems with money—but most of the time, this leaves us without relationships. We are not part of a web of connections based on genuine bonds and perceptible belonging. They are very open to contact and have a lot of joy, interaction, and communication with one another.
How vital this sense of belonging and attachment seems to be for human beings becomes clear when one sees how content and happy people in Malawi appear to be. Despite having so little, they do not look like they are suffering.
