I Found the Heater. I Just Couldn't Buy It.

Written by Joni Roberts

Traveler, storyteller, and public health advocate

"Sometimes the hardest thing about living in another country isn't finding what you need. It's discovering that what makes perfect sense to you doesn't make sense to anyone else."

One thing about Malawi.

When it's winter, it's cold.

Not snowing cold.

Not scraping ice off your windshield cold.

But definitely, "Why didn't I pack another sweater?" cold.

The mornings are crisp, the evenings are chilly, and the concrete houses seem to hold onto every bit of that cool air. After a few weeks of layering hoodies and wrapping myself in blankets, I decided I'd had enough.

I needed a heater.

Now, finding exactly what you need in Malawi isn't always guaranteed, so I wasn't particularly optimistic. Still, I headed to one of the larger stores, hoping I'd get lucky.

And I did.

There it was.

A small portable heater sitting on the shelf waiting for me.

I picked it up, noticed there wasn't a price on it, and thought, No problem. They'll scan it at the register.

I stood in line.

Waited my turn.

Handed it to the cashier.

She scanned it.

Nothing.

She tried again.

Still nothing.

Then she looked up and said, in Chichewa, that it wasn't in the system.

I asked her to repeat herself because I was sure I'd misunderstood.

"It isn't in the system."

I waited for the next sentence.

There wasn't one.

I looked at her.

She looked at me.

Finally, she apologized.

"Sorry."

That was it.

No one called a supervisor.

No one picked up the phone.

No one said, "Give us a few minutes."

No one even seemed particularly surprised.

The heater wasn't in the computer, so it couldn't be sold.

End of story.

Except...it wasn't the end of the story.

At least not for me.

As I walked out of the store empty-handed, my mind was racing.

If it's on the shelf, why isn't it in the system?

Who stocked it?

Didn't anyone notice?

Could someone enter it while I'm standing here?

Why put merchandise on display if customers can't actually buy it?

I realized I wasn't just asking questions.

I was carrying expectations.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized this wasn't really about a heater.

It was about how I expected a problem to be handled.

My instinct was simple.

There's a problem.

Let's solve it.

Find the manager.

Call someone.

Update the system.

Write the price on a piece of paper if you have to.

Do something.

Instead, everyone seemed comfortable accepting the situation exactly as it was.

The heater wasn't in the system.

Therefore, I couldn't buy it.

Life moved on.

What made me laugh was imagining the heater still sitting on that same shelf weeks later.

By the time someone enters it into the inventory system, winter might be over.

Then again, maybe someone else will come along, try to buy it, hear the same explanation, and walk away just like I did.

I've experienced enough moments like this to know this wasn't unusual.

I've also learned to pause before deciding that something "doesn't make sense."

Because usually it makes perfect sense to someone.

It just doesn't make sense to me.

Living in Malawi has forced me to notice how deeply my own expectations have been shaped by life in the United States.

There, customer service is often measured by how quickly a problem gets solved.

Businesses compete for your money.

Employees are often encouraged to find solutions.

When something goes wrong, the expectation is that someone will try to make it right.

That expectation followed me to Malawi.

But expectations travel more easily than understanding.

Over the past several months, I've had to ask myself a different question.

Not, "Why don't they fix this?"

But, "Why does this interaction feel so strange to me?"

Sometimes the answer is infrastructure.

Sometimes it's resources.

Sometimes it's organizational culture.

Sometimes it's simply that people have learned to work within systems they didn't create.

As a public health researcher, I spend a lot of time thinking about systems.

Health systems.

Education systems.

Community systems.

So perhaps it's no surprise that I found myself analyzing a heater that I couldn't buy.

Because systems aren't just policies and procedures.

They're reflected in everyday interactions.

Even at the checkout counter.

Do I still wish someone had found a way to sell me that heater?

Absolutely.

I was cold.

But I also walked away with something more valuable than a portable heater.

I walked away with another reminder that culture isn't only expressed through food, language, or holidays.

Sometimes it's revealed in how people respond when something doesn't go according to plan.

What I'm Learning

This week's invisible rule is that not every culture responds to problems with the same sense of urgency or the same expectation of finding a workaround.

That doesn't automatically make one approach better than the other.

It simply reminds me that what feels like common sense is often just culture wearing a familiar face.