Drive Back to Mangochi

August 15, 2009



Today, we left our super sweet hotel in Lilongwe and headed back to Mangochi. It was a bittersweet day- I am going to miss my bathtub, hot water and wireless internet so much but it is also nice to be back in a familiar town and have a reality check that all of those things are unnecessary. I went to the tourist area in an attempt to get a Barack Obama chitenje (cloth that is tied and used as a skirt). I wanted four meters so that I could make a skirt and shirt out of it. In Mangochi, this would cost between 800 and 1000 kwacha. The asking price at this place, however, was 8,000. Haha unfortunately for them, I am not a fool that would spend about 60 bucks on 4 meters of cloth. Instead I offered 1400 kwacha and we settled on 1500. However, the man selling it didn’t want to let it go that cheaply and someone went off to the market with 500 kwacha of my money to pick up another one. He told me it would take five minutes as I had explained that I had to leave within the hour and still needed to finish packing. Thirty-five minutes later, he was nowhere to be found. I sucked it up and paid another 1500 kwacha and got the one there. It was so annoying to be taken when I knew what things should cost…

I got into the car in kind of a bad mood. The morning had been stressful and I was just tired of a lot of things. We drove back to Mangochi in silence and when we got there, we went to get a bit of food and something to drink. We also have to move out of the hostel temporarily and looked at a place that we could stay. When we got back, I went to see Jamira since she had been sick (and hospitalized) with malaria. I brought a candy bar that Amy had given me for the family to share. It was enormous so it was a pretty good little gift. Then, Jamira explained that her girls were going to the village that she is from and did I want to go with her and Maxwell to drop them off? Heck yes I did. We got there and found a gathering of women standing around a young girl with a basket in front of her. The older women on the fringe had drums and baskets in front of them as well. Then there was another old woman with a whistle. Soon, someone put money into one of the baskets and the dancing began. The drummers drummed and the lady with the whistle blew it in time. Then she blew twice while pointing at me and blew twice while pointing to the circle. I didn’t wait for another invitation. I was in there before you knew it shaking my white ass for all that it was worth. I took all of the small money that I had and put it into the baskets. Everyone was yelling and laughing and I didn’t want it to end. Before too long, it was over and we were on our way back to town and to the hostel. Jamira promised that we would go back the next day (even though she was just recently out of the hospital!) I can’t wait to go. That fifteen minutes of dancing was the most free and happy that I have felt since I was in Ghana dancing with Africana. I wish that I could just stop this research business and move in with Jamira and her family and do this every day.

I am still yet to completely understand the initiation ceremony and what it entails. As far as I understand, both boys and girls get initiated in Yao culture. Boys, I believe, are circumcised but I am not entirely sure what happens to girls. Jamira indicated that girls are initiated between the ages of 8 and 10. This is to prepare them for lives as mothers and wives and the older women in the village come together and show them how to fulfill these roles and shake their hips. I am not entirely sure if it is completely innocent or if there is any kind of sexual initiation that occurs. The girls seem pretty young for any of this. Hopefully tomorrow, I can be a good participant-observer and figure some of this out. In any event, it is so exciting to have an “in” into the culture and the community.

More tomorrow…

PS- Today marks three weeks in Malawi. Eighteen left. For the first time, I think about my departure and feel like I may be sad to go.

PPS- I was on the phone tonight and couldn’t see a thing and stepped into the sewage hole. There was nothing to do but laugh…But seriously- I was like the kid in Slumdog Millionaire. So SO nasty.