Life is not easy in Malawi, but it certainly is not easy for Katie. When we visited her house, a bit more than a month ago, we met her mum’s new husband. We were happy for her and hoped she could find a bit more stability. At that time however we forgot an important aspect of marriage within the Malawian community. Newly married women are expected to go live with their in-laws at least for a period of time.
This means unfortunately that Katie’s mum left her house. She moved to a village 1h drive from Mzuzu. She will be staying there for at least 1 or 2 years. Goes without saying that Katie won’t be able to see her mum during this time. She won’t go back to visit and keeping in touch will probably also not be a straightforward thing.
Katie has grown up a lot in these past years, but still she is in need of a motherly figure around her. Her mum leaving home didn’t come at a good time. Though she tries and focus on studying not to think about it, Katie is very sad, feels lonely and stressed. We are trying to do our best to support her, but replacing the presence of her mum is not something we can easily do.
