What an adventure the last 24 hours have been!

Yesterday was day two at Namitete. The second day is when we split up the boys and girls to do empowerment discussions. Monica and I were assigned to 40 girls, which is a HUGE number for empowerment. Considering the numbers, everything went well. As far as the regular curriculum with Steph, the kids became increasingly worse as the day went on. It had gotten so bad that we were being ignored, so Jackie (our translator) would pick up a stick and start waving it around at everyone. We were happy when the day was over. World Camp brought us pasta salad last night for dinner, so we ate at the school before we left.

Everyone piled in the Land Rovers and headed to a village nearby. We were paired up as Jess and I, Stephanie and Lauren, Sara and Monica, Chris, John, Andrew, and Jay together, Scott, Jesse, and Josh together, and Catherine and Brett stayed with the village chief. The village was like in a movie. They make their huts out of mud bricks and put wood beams on the roof with trash bags, and tin. It’s incredible. There were pigs, chickens, goats, dogs, cats, and others running around the village (some chased by kids) and crops all over the place. Walking through the village, you could see tobacco absolutely everywhere (this is their main selling crop). The rest of the crops were okra (talele), maize, pumpkins, and some sorts of nuts. They mostly use the maize, okra, and pumpkin leaves for the nsima.

Jess and I were introduced to our host family (Mr. and Mrs. Benjamin) and then asked to dance with the kids for entertainment as we introduced ourselves. Of course we got laughed at a LOT, but it was a ton of fun. Those kids are so little, but man can they dance! They also pull out the freakiest moves you’ve seen on a kid so small! We learned it’s really important in the culture as a girl grows in to a woman that she is able to dance well. After some dancing, we were taken over to the crop fields to pick talele leaves for dinner. The women laughed at us because we had absolutely NO idea what we were doing, and it was hard for them to explain it to us since we did’t speak very good Chichewa, so they would just point and giggle. We found it so amazing that these women carry their babies on their backs while they work in the fields all day long.

After picking the talele, we were seated to cook the nsima for them. Of course, they showed us what to do, but it was an amazing experience. In order to make the talele relish, you rip up the talele leaves and put them in a bowl. Then, you take a bowl of ash, put some holes in the bottom, and pour water through it to make “soda”, which you then pour over the talele. The talele is then heated on the stove until cooked.

To make the nsima, you heat up a pot until it boils, then add severely mashed maize flour to the pot while stirring. After it starts to solidify, you stop stirring for a bit, add more maize, stir some more, stop stirring, add some more maize, and then stir a LOT until it’s like stirring mud. Then you take the pot off the heat and scoop cups of it on to a plate. The women would grab the pot and shake it, and told Jess to do the same. So, she went to touch the pot and yelped as soon as she touched it. They’re so tough!

Note: Malawians will NOT eat nsima without relish, so if you plan to make them some, don’t forget that!

After cooking, Mr. Benjamin had Jess clean the stirring spoon, which he tried to teach us in Chichewa: “This is called, cleaning the stick”. Jess and I smelled a lot like campfire after it was all over, and we had to work in the pitch black dark with about ten people leaning over us, but it was very neat!

After finishing up, we went inside the room where Jess and I would be sleeping. Apparently Mr. Benjamin and his wife had four children and the rest were in-laws. Mrs. Benjamin’s mother was also there (she was a bit aged!!). Everyone made a circle in a very small room and the kids ate their nsima with talele relish and little fish (heads and bones and all!). After dinner, they sat in the room and tried to talk with us about America and HIV and all sorts of different things! Mr. Benjamin spoke pretty good English, so he translated for the rest of the family. It’s very hard having a huge language barrier like that because you have to think about what they say since a lot of the times it seems very offensive.

At about 9pm, Mr. Benjamin asked us if we were tired and when we replied “kind of” and asked if he was tired he said “of course, Africans are always tired!” but then they stayed up trying to entertain us for another hour. Some times were really awkward, but it was such an eye-opener to their culture. They really have nothing but they function fine.

When they left the room, Jess and I pulled out sleeping bags and pillows to “camp” in the room. I pulled out my flashlight and there was a HUGE chicken in the room! So of course, Jess moved her sleeping bag to the other side of me thinking she’d be free of the chicken if it decided to move across the room. So I barricaded myself from the chicken with my backpack and a chair, and then we started hearing little clucks, so I shined my flashlight on her side of the room and there was another huge chicken with baby chicks all around it!! Neither of us were safe. She barricaded herself from them and things were good. Unfortunately, as soon as the chickens started roosting we realized being stepped on was not the problem. The HUGE chicken by me SNORED! And not like breathing problems. It was like large man snoring problems. So after about ten minutes of cracking up, we tried to fall asleep on the wicker mat over mud cement floor. Of course, we didn’t have any mosquito nets, so we got eaten alive (rather, I got eaten alive) all night long. Between the snoring chicken, the baby crying in the room next to us, dogs barking outside, and the mosquitoes buzzing in my ear, I probably got a total of two hours of sleep. Not to mention I woke up at about 2am having to use the bathroom SO bad, but the hosts had locked our door and there was no way to go unless we woke them up. So, I dealt with it until the roosters woke everyone up at 4:30am. Nice.

When the roosters started crowing, we didn’t actually get out of bed. Mrs. Benjamin got up and walked through our room and must have noticed the barricades to the chickens, because we could hear the chicken screaming as she grabbed it and threw it outside. All the little chicks followed. Then we got up.

She had us help her pump and carry the water back to the hut. We tried to carry it on our heads, but the women would get worried we were going to break something and make us stop. Mr. Benjamin heated up the water and had us clean the dishes from their dinner the night before. Then, he gave us warm water to wash our faces and “take a bath” though we somehow convinced him we would take one when we got home (since we’d be so dirty from teaching all day!). Said our goodbyes and headed back to meet up with the others. Everyone had some good things to talk about, but no one had quite the story we did!!

Day three of camp today was just bad. Only a few kids showed up since it was Saturday, and those that did were not in to learning. At lunch time, it started pouring rain, so we decided not to do afternoon presentations. I think everyone was pretty happy about it, because we were all absolutely exhausted! When Steph and I packed up our teaching supplies, the boys decided they wanted hugs, which turned in to teenage boy hugs, which turned in to something raunchy that we had to escape from. Boys will be boys I suppose!

Made it home and am finally almost finished with my book, “Jungle Lovers”, which is actually starting to make a lot more sense now. There are some scenes in the book which are so similar to what I see driving down the road (the book is based in Malawi) and I’ve seen places I could imagine a scene taking place at.

Anyway, tomorrow we leave for safari in Zambia (yay! another stamp in my passport!!), and I’ve bought about two pounds of dried fruit (which is AMAZING here!) for the 4-9 hour trip (depends on the roads). We’ll be staying in chalets in the middle of South Luangwe Park, so I won’t have internet and won’t be able to update for a few days (we’ll be back on Wednesday). Hopefully I’ll have some amazing pictures to put up when I get back!!