In the circles of those who work in Africa from the west there are a number of funny little antidotes that begin with, “You’ve been in Africa too long when …” and you fill in the blank with some sort of situation that is unusual in the U.S. or Europe, but seems quite at home and normal in Africa.
A number of these situations have confronted various members of the Malawi Project teams that would have been extremely unusual in the U.S. but were commonplace in our eyes in Africa. Among those are the feats of strength that are visible when we saw the extremely heavy loads carried on the heads of Malawians because of the lack of adequate devices to get the items from one place to another. For them it is normal to pick something up and put it on their heads. For us it is impossible. This fact was seen one afternoon as I had made my way to a place near the road where I could shoot a particular person coming down the road after the workday. She had a walking disability and I had asked if I could firm her determination as she made her way to the bus stop each afternoon. I got to the scene ahead of her and waited. Several people passed me as I sat on a log and waited. Then it struck me. Great pictures of human strength and determination were passing me repeatedly, but they appeared so “normal” I was missing the picture.
I corrected the problem by quickly snapping pictures of the next couple of people who passed. I later took an excursion to gather some more pictures of people carrying loads on their heads. It is an amazing feat and one that should remind us of the struggle faced day after day deep in sub-Sahara Africa in a land that is so poor that possessions and goods can only be transported on people’s heads.