Written by CorpsAfrica/Malawi Volunteer Mr. Chifundo Chibaka
A week after arriving at my site I started preparing my own meals. The most prominent economic activity here is agriculture and almost all the community members are involved in both crop production and rearing livestock. This makes it easy for people to have access to cheap foodstuffs.
Days after I started cooking, I began noticing something unusual in my house. After cooking, food and leftovers would disappear without a trace. This happened three nights in a row and I was getting very concerned. I could not find an explanation for it. I tried not to think about it and a couple of times I tried to convince myself that I had eaten all of the food even though deep down I knew this was not so.
I remember one particular night when leftover pieces of meat disappeared from a plate right next to my bed. I woke up the morning of the next day just to realize that the meat was gone. I tried not to pay attention to it and I kept off any thoughts of the possibility of a ghost. I do not believe in ghosts and ghosts do not eat, do they? I went about my day, made tremendous strides in making new friends and connections within my site.
After the day’s work, I returned home and as usual, I proceeded to make my dinner. After visiting some reliable online news sources for the latest political and social headlines, I retired to bed. About midnight I heard a loud bang coming from the kitchen. I rushed to the scene only to find a pot lid lying on the floor with nothing else in site. I was puzzled. I did not know what to make of this and I started getting really scared. I was convinced something sinister was happening and I was ready to report this to my host father and to my supervisor first thing in the morning. I decided to go back to sleep and I placed a heavy pot on top of the metal lid covering the pot containing the food. Sleep eluded me that night. My mind was racing, trying to comprehend the unexplainable things I was experiencing.
Few hours after the first bang, another banging sound came from the kitchen again. This time it was louder than the first. I dashed towards the kitchen but before I got there, I saw my host father’s black cat sneaking out of my house through the window.
Low and behold the mystery was solved and I peacefully went back to sleep.
