Before I left Canada for Malawi, I was warned again and again that it would take some time for me to get used to the Malawian diet. I took my Dukoral vaccination against traveller’s diarrhoea and cholera and was convinced that I’d be safe from any food impertinent enough to try to upset my stomach. I like pretty much all foods and I’m not picky about what I eat. I was even looking forward to trying boiled mouse – a delicacy in some parts of Malawi. My mum went out and bought Immodium tablets for me as well (I was a bit embarrassed about to have them at the start of the journey, but I can now carry them around a bit less self-consciously), so at that point I thought ‘I can handle anything.’

A few weeks into my stay, however, I was forced to concede that ‘Yes, perhaps all those people knew what they were talking about.’ In my first two weeks I went through a honeymoon period in which I revelled in the new food and had no problems digesting the new dishes. During the second two weeks I continued to enjoy my new cuisine, but I started to have tummy trouble practically everyday (and more than that on some days!). The sixth and seventh week were torturous as I began to reject traditional Malawian staples; coming home from work, I dreaded the limited foodstuffs that awaited me there. From about the ninth week, I had gotten over these high and low phases and made the complete adjustment to the Malawian diet. This was clear as I no longer jumped at every chance to eat at restaurants catering for Western tastes..

Despite this tumultuous period for my digestive system, I never once considered that my body would have trouble readapting to the Western food on which I was raised.

Upon arrival in Wales, I saw no reason not to indulge in all the delectable food that I hadn’t tasted for so long – including fresh crab. My family had just bought some lobster pots and had been sending them to the bottom of the sea with cut-offs from the local butcher’s in the hopes of enticing unsuspecting crustaceans to swim inside. Having caught a large crab last weekend, it felt totally and utterly indefensible to turn down a fresh crabmeat sandwich. For what was surely an opportunity not to be missed, I was surprised to see that, in a house of nine people, only my cousin Felix was vaguely interested, so I heartily accepted one for our picnic on the coast.

It turns out that crab was perhaps not the best choice for the early days of my return. When we got home, I felt as if I was going to be sick and turned down an invitation to go out so that I could recover. Shellfish had not formed part of my diet for over three months and it was a bit of a shock to my system. It seems I may have been wrong in thinking ‘I’m young, invincible and certainly could never be slowed down in life or hindered in any way by physical processes to do with my body!’

A few days in now, I think my digestive system has completely readjusted. I ate the last remaining crab sandwich the day after this episode and was just fine – fit enough to try waterskiing in fact!

Emotionally and psychologically I think the transition has gone surprisingly fast too. In the first few days, Malawi was all that I could talk about – as it was my only frame of reference – but now I am only reminded of it when I see unusual things, like the waste disposal facility Felix and I stopped at on our way back to England.

Until later,
Emi x

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