This weekend (June 5-7th)

On Friday evening, I went over a member of WR staff’s house to help prepare dinner and then share it with the fellow WR staff. So at about 3:30 I left the office to join the women of the family in preparing dinner – nzima, rice, spaghetti, chicken, etc. to be cooked over a fire. I was in charge of the spaghetti...not too hard to handle. They didn’t think that I had ever seen anyone cook over a fire, but I explained camping, which is a bit different than cooking over a fire for every meal, but least I had seen it before... Hudson Kureunda (sp?), who works at WR, has eight children, I was cooking with I think his 3 eldest daughters, I know there were more children there than eight, so I am not quite sure who was who. Anyway, first thing I was handed a cucumber to eat. The cucumbers here are different than in the US, they are yellow and green striped and more round, with spikes. Inside they are more seeds then rind and a bit sour even, not bad, but I had a hard time eating a whole one by myself and made the biggest mess. During dinner, we had a quick dance lesson or show...aka time for embarrassing Maddie and proving the point that I CAN’T DANCE. Plus the women here move their hips or whatever muscle in a way I have never seen. But I think we all spent a good solid 15 minutes laughing at the fact I really cannot dance, all in good fun. Then we proceeded to the well and I was given a small bucket, half full, to carry on my head. : )

After dinner was ready and the rest of the WR staff arrived, all men, I came inside where we watched some Michael Bolton classic ‘80s music videos and then some classic Malawian dance music videos, which kind of resemble a music video that maybe you would record at home with some added effects on the computer. Then we sat down and had dinner, just the WR staff and the wife of Mr. Kureunda. What is different in Malawian family structure is that the men are always served first and the women and children often eat separately. In this case, Mrs. Kureunda ate with us, but his mother ate outside with his children, maybe because there weren’t enough seats at the table? I felt kind of odds eating the food that had been prepared by the women and that I had helped make (a little) with the men at the table, while the women were outside in the dark. Maybe that is what they are used to, but it was a bit hard for me to take, sitting inside while the women I had spent time with and made friends with were outside behind a closed door...definitely a cultural change. I almost felt like I should be serving and helping clean up with Mrs. Kureunda and then going outside to join the others... But I guess I am not really accustomed to be treated as such the guest, I am used to being active in helping, or being amidst a group where everyone eats together for the most part. It was a good evening, and the family is really nice and very kind, I enjoyed it very much. Of course, when I went to take pictures, my battery died at the very instant, so I will have to go back to get pics of the fam.

On Saturday, Owen was kind enough to take me to a gospel concert fundraiser that his friends were putting on. It was supposed to be at 1pm, but instead started maybe around 3:30pm, which is not too uncommon in Malawi, though usually delays are not that long I think. But it was fun, some sang along with popular recordings of gospel songs, or added their own words and dances, and every one danced along and had a good time, the best was seeing all of the kids. I pulled out a camera and its magical magnetic force made about 50 children come out of the woodwork, of course I had to take a picture of as many of them as I could possibly fit in a picture frame : )
Sunday, the group that I had been hanging around at the guest house with departed, and later in the evening a group arrived from Ireland : ) So now I am in the minority as an American and am surrounded by Irish accents and Malawians.