Friendliness and Running in the Warm Heart of Africa

Before I came to Malawi, I considered myself a friendly person. Sure, I’m inarguably an “I” on the Myers-Briggs test, and I plug in my earphones immediately upon finding my airplane seat, and I always get a little embarrassed and irritated when my mother chitchats with random people in the grocery line. But I do like people. As evidence of my friendliness I point to a sizable number of friends, two years of bartending (job requirement: friendliness), and a generally affable disposition in the company of strangers.

Malawians, however, are friendly to an incomparably higher degree. It is a country full of people like my mom in the grocery store. Or I could say a country full of chatty airplane seatmates who don’t seem to notice the earplugs. Everyone, everywhere, all the time, stops each other to ask: “Where are you going? What is your name? How are you? How did you wake up?” Strangers I pass on my bike, children 60 meters away, travelers heading the opposite direction, bike taxi drivers, women selling fruit: everyone shouts a greeting or a question. People can greet each other three or four times a day and it never gets old. Not just “hello”, mind you, but the entirety of a greeting like this: “How did you wake?/I woke fine, and you?/I also woke fine, thank you!” Some days, I love this aspect of the Warm Heart of Africa. A friend compared the greeting ritual to Belle’s morning walk down the country lane in Beauty and the Beast, as the butcher and the baker (and the rest of the town) pop their heads out to shout “Bonjour!”

But the friendliness can be exhausting too. I limited myself to early morning runs to cut down on the number of people, especially shouting children, I pass and greet; even so, I counted sixty such encounters one recent morning. “Where are you going? Why are you running? Do you want a ride? Where do you live?” they’ll ask as I jog by. Though the greetings can be tiresome, by the end of many runs I come home smiling and encouraged by the enthusiastic hellos of the early-rising passersby. I find myself shouting good-mornings to women in the fields, bicycle passengers, and the man setting up his market stand. Accustomed to, though sometimes weary of, all this friendliness, it’s been very hard to deal with occasional but very real unfriendliness in the community. This has come in the form of steel-faced stares, mimicry from groups of women and children, or just insensitive laughter at the ridiculous sight of the crazy azungu out running again. To be fair, I can see how jogging is absurd in a country where most people are in peak physical condition from going about their daily activities to live and provide for their families. Still, laughter stings. A few weeks ago, a group of older teenage boys waited for me after I passed and began running next to me on my return route, not greeting, not talking, and not being friendly. I refused to stop running, but had to fight back tears. Thankfully my former home-stay running buddy, Elisabeth, visited overnight the next week and helped me summon the will to get back on the trail again. Running with someone else, I forgot about the stress of greeters (and non-greeters) and had the chance to notice the purple beauty of the sun rising over Salima, the receding green along the dusty path, and white herons resting on bare branches. Running wasn’t a chore, it was a pleasure again.

Whenever my Dad visits Charlottesville, Virginia, where I’ve lived off and on for the past 12 years, he makes a crack about the ubiquity of joggers on every corner. “I can say I’ve been in Cville now,” he’ll always say. “There’s a jogger!” To run alone, unharassed, in the quiet beauty of the landscape. To run up Monticello Avenue or Carter’s Mountain, and to see the Blue Ridge tipped with red sun. It’s a luxury just like fresh produce and good health care and clean air, something I appreciate every day here in the friendly Warm Heart of Africa.


*All above references to my parents are made with affection (and apologies).