This is due to the fact that only 12% of the population in Malawi has access to electricity and of those 12% percent, many only get power a few days a week as they have to share the limited power supply between neighborhoods. So most people start winding down when the sun goes down at 6pm and are often in bed by 8 or 9pm, using candles for light if they can be afforded. This allows them to get 6-8 hours of sleep and still get up early in the morning.
Next: food and water. Many of my students, both at the school and at tennis, will only have 1 meal a day: supper. They will sometimes have a little porridge or tea for breakfast, but many families cannot even afford that. Imagine doing a 24 hr fast every single day! It makes everything else they do that much more impressive. It has been an unexpected challenge while coaching baseball and tennis after school, to get them motivated to work hard when they haven't eaten since the night before. Then when it comes to eating, they actually really eat the same meal every day and just change what they eat it with. The staple food here is maize, which is like corn but white and without flavor. They grind it up into flour and that is what they use for the morning porridge or for the main food called nsima: a doughy maize flour paste with no flavor. It is flour and water mixed together and made into a dough that hardens. They don't use gas stoves, rather they just make a wood or charcoal campfire and put the pot of water on top of it. After boiling the water they can add the flour until it is the right thickness for nsima.
I mean it when I say nsima is the only thing they eat. One day they might have nsima with anchovies.
