fat joe and mangos

I’ve said before that when you walk anywhere you are automatically singled out as the azungu-foreigner-soemone to ask for things…most common questions are how are you?, where are you going?, where are you coming from?, and what is your name? this is most often followed by “give me ______” (money, sweets, pen, ball, etc). and so often I try to ignore lots of what is yelled at me…but the other day I had 2 surprising encounters within 5 minutes of each other. I was leaving my house and crossing NKhoma to make some visits and came upon a group of boys…the average azungu walks much faster (even a slow one) than most malawians…so two of them ran up and walked next to me… “what’s your name?” jessi. “what?” jessi. “ok. I’m Kenneth. And this is Fat Joe.” He says with a big smile. I doubt that, I answer. Fat Joe is bigger than the skinny one but not fat as you would imagine. “do you have a pen?” fat joe asks. Yes, but I use it. “can you give it to me?” no. I use it. “oh ok.” Then Kenneth says “don’t give him anything. He is always asking people like you for things. At this point our paths split and we say goodbye. As we are getting further apart Kenneth announces to me that “this boy he is a foolish one”…obviously proud of himself to be using the word foolish. And you are the straight, normal one? I ask. “yes” lots of laughter.
About 2 minutes later I pass a girl eating something…after she passes me she asks “do you eat this?” I couldn’t tell what it was—some sort of whitish fruit? What is it? “mango”…oh yes, I eat mango… and she holds it out to offer it to me. Thanks, but I like it a bit riper…they eat them still very crunchy here. “ok” and she continued on her way.