Back in Lilongwe, we had a chance to meet the translators for the camps. Since we’re in groups of two for the teaching, we’ll have one translator each. All the translators were under 25, one was 17! They were super nice, and ended up busting out some moves at the end before they went home. The one translator and I ended up in a conversation about religion here. Apparently he used to be Muslim and then converted to Christianity, which was quite a change for him. Now he’s studying devotion at college and wants to travel to the U.S. to see what other churches are like. As he was telling me about their religious habits, I started to feel embarrassed about our churches. Here, they have church from about 9am until 7 or 8pm. They don’t eat until they get home since they have to walk quite a ways to get there and can’t walk home for food in the middle, but they only go if they WANT to. They sing and dance and worship all Sunday because they simply want to. No one is being dragged or bribed or anything. I told him that services in the U.S. were very short and very to the point, where lots of people go because they feel they have to.

The religion also relates to the concept of time here. In Africa, they really don’t have a concept of time. Everything is very relaxed and much slower than in the U.S. We went to the grocery store the other day at 10, and it was supposed to be open at 9am. Apparently they didn’t open until almost 11, and still seemed to just kind of not care about what time it was. That just seems so weird to me. Like, how can a society function without the idea of a time schedule?

Tomorrow is our first camp, so John (our house manager) made us nsima, the traditional food that the kids eat. We can take our own peanut butter & jelly sandwiches or eat the nsima with the kids, so they wanted us to try it. It actually wasn’t too bad. It’s pounded maize that’s boiled, and put with a relish (pumpkin, meat, cabbage, etc.) with beans. Doesn’t taste like a whole lot, but it fills you up really quickly, so I can understand why they eat it so much. I think I’ll just make a sandwich for tomorrow!