Читайте также:
|
Philip is a cook for a doctor in Blantyre, the largest city in Malawi. During the week he lives in his ‘quarters’ at the side of the doctor’s house, but every weekend he returns to his village to see his wife, Grace, and children, Elizabeth and Jennifer. He took me with him to visit his family.
To reach Philip’s village we took two buses and then walked
1 km. The village is very spread out, but each extended family lives close together. Philip’s house is one of the best in his village and he is very proud of it. He has a corrugated iron roof, walls of clay bricks, windows, curtains (hung so the pattern can be seen from the outside) a cooking hut, an area for washing, a pit latrine, and furniture.
Philip has worked as a cook for many years and has been able to use his income to improve his house. He was given some furniture by a former employer, so he has a bed, table and chairs, which is very unusual. The house has no electricity or water supply. Water is fetched by bucket from a pump about 20 minutes’ walk away. This job is always done by women and children.
I was taken to see Philip’s family in the surrounding houses, which all had mud walls and straw roofs. There were many women and children but no men. Everyone was very welcoming. They went to fetch a chair for me, or a straw mat if there was no chair available. Then one by one each person was presented to me, with a kind of bow, a handshake and a greeting: ‘moni, muli, bwanji’.
Philip has three fields – one next to the house, one near a river and one down the track. He inherited these, and because they are so small they are difficult to farm efficiently. Time is also wasted going from one plot to another.
Philip and Grace grow two crops – maize and groundnuts. They plant the crops in October at the beginning of the rainy season and harvest them in March at the beginning of the dry season. For about 6 months it doesn’t rain at all in Malawi. The maize and groundnuts have to last the family all year. They are stored in huts until they are needed. Often by the next rainy season there is very little food left and everyone gets hungry.
The family also has a few tomato plants. When the tomatoes are ripe some are sold at the local market. They have some chickens that live on the land around the house and eat what they can find. All the farming is done by hand, mostly by women and children, and there is no machinery. When I visited in July it was the dry season, so the fields looked abandoned. It seemed such a waste of precious land.
When it got dark I was served nsima, the staple food. Grace, Philip’s wife, brought the food, bowing down first with the bowl of water and then the food. Nsima consists of maize dried and ground into flour, then mixed with water and cooked over a wood fire. It tastes a bit like wallpaper paste. It is not very nutritious but it is filling. Meat, beans or nuts need to be added to provide protein, but these are only eaten on special occasions. I had never realized before exactly what subsistence farming means. You can only eatwhat you grow. Compared to going to a shop to buy food the effort that Grace had gone to to cook the nsima was amazing. But despite all the work involved, the diet is boring and unreliable. Philip is better off than most of his family as he has an income and is often given food by his employers.
What happens in the evening?
Because Malawi is near the equator it gets dark between 5.30 and 6.30 p.m. all year round. It was winter in July so it was dark by 5.30 p.m. There is no electricity in the village so I sat with Philip, Grace and the children by paraffin light. At 7 p.m. I went to the pit latrine by torchlight. Soon I was safe in my sleeping bag with a mosquito net to protect me from insects. I got up at 6 a.m. and after a cup of tea (no breakfast) Philip and I walked back to the nearest town, where I got a minibus back to Limbe and then to Blantyre.
It is easy to understand why so many people decide to leave the villages and move into the towns in the hope that life there will be easier.
Ruth Totterdell
(Ruth Totterdell is a geography teacher who visited Malawi for 2 weeks in July 1999. This is the first of four articles about life in Malawi).
staple – основной, главный, ключевой, ведущий
grind (ground) – молоть, растирать (в порошок), толочь
nutritious - питательный
subsistence – средства к существованию, пропитание
a) Match each definition with one of the following words or phrases. Guess your answers, then check with a dictionary:
extended family spread out fetch mud inherit
be better off last store abandon plot
1) to cover a large area of land that you can see
2) a family group that includes grandparents, cousins, aunts, etc.
3) a piece of land used for building a house or growing plants
4) to continue to be available or enough for what people need
5) to be in a better situation; having more money
6) very soft wet earth; earth used as a building material
7) to keep something in a particular place; to save something
8) to receive property or money from someone who has died
9) to go and get something; to go and bring something
10) to leave something in a place
b) Find the details to complete these sentences:
1. The people of the village grow two crops______ which are_____ until they are______
2. To reach Philip’s house we took______
3. The house has a _____roof, walls made of______, there are _______ on the windows.
4. There is some furniture in the house______, which is quite_______.
5. Water is fetched________about 20 minutes’_______.
6. All farming is done_______, mostly by_______ and there is no__________
7. The staple food is______ which consists of _______ground into______, mixed with______, cooked over______.
8. Subsistence farming means_________.
9. There is no_______, so I sat with Philip by_____.
10 I was safe in my______with a_______to protect me from_______.
C) Pick out the information from the text about the houses the people of the village live in; the food they eat; machinery and modern conveniences they have; the way they spend their time in the evening. Compare it with any Belarussian or Russian village.
d) Answer the following questions:
1. How long did take Philip and Ruth to get to Philip’s village?
2. What kind of house has Philip?
3. What furniture is there in the house?
4. Do people have any conveniences in the village? How do they fetch water?
5. What crops do Philip and Grace grow? Why is there very little food so that everyone gets hungry? What is the usual meal in the village? How is it cooked?
6. What does subsistence farming mean?
7. What do people do in the evening?
8. Is life in the village of Malawi difficult, romantic, boring? Is there any excitement in the village?
9. Why do many people move to the towns? Is it the same with other countries?
10. What are the differences between life in the village of Malawi and in the village of Belarus? What are the problems of life in the village? How can it be improved?
Seven paragraphs have been removed from this article. Choose the most suitable paragraph from the A-H for each gap (1-7) in the article. There is one extra paragraph which you don’t need to use.
Дата добавления: 2015-01-30; просмотров: 118 | Поможем написать вашу работу | Нарушение авторских прав |