I’m practically chugging my Malawian beer. Tasting it warm might kill me. Unceremoniously named Kuche Kuche (koochie koochie), it tastes like corn boiled in formaldehyde. I’ve just discovered my hotel’s rooftop bar, which I should have visited hours ago, having accomplished next to nothing in my day of toiling in scorching sun and drenching rain – in turns, for a constant soggy effect – seeking out nonprofit organizations and government ministries.

The ministry of Mines divorced itself from the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources (irreconcilable? differences?). But folks at Natural Resources aren’t sure where the new Ministry is located. Neither are taxis. Likewise, no one can locate the Citizens for Justice (which has no working phone number), or the Center for Human Rights (which is only recognized as being astoundingly far from any ‘center’ of anything).

Abandoning Lilongwe and its impossible organization structure. I’m going North to Mzuzu (‘ndiri bitu guta Mzuzu!) tomorrow, where I will meet with the mining company’s Community Relations director, Neville, who, I fear, will tell me that the project area is off limits to visitors and that all I need to see can be viewed from the window of a Land Rover. I’m hardening my nose and practicing pleas, in anticipation.

I had lunch with a fellow named Coconut whose family is from Karonga district (where the mine is located) and who is confident that, because woman was made from man’s rib, her job is to respect him. That’s why it’s okay for him to slap his “step mother” (his father’s second wife) when she is “bad.” I wonder if the mine is going to do anything promoting gender equality up north. On the one hand, they have gender-neutral hiring policies, and a policy is nothing without implementation. On the other, how do you implement an equality policy when a vulnerable group has so little education, skill and experience? The government is working hard to reduce gender-based violence, to some positive effect, but as we continue to see in the U.S., sexism is not swiftly or easily overcome.

Nsima (made of maize) tastes like extra pasty Cream of Wheat. Okra, when made into a sauce, is “stretchy like a telephone cord” (the market stall owner described) and gloms to everything it touches.