It takes a village (ceremony)...

By Peace Corps standards, and by most standards, Jon and I live like kings. To share the wealth a little, we’ve adopted a Peace Corps volunteer! We feed her, share our pantry items (like Mac n’ Cheese and chocolate chips), and let (make) her take hot showers when she comes to town. In exchange, we heard her stories of “real” Malawian life and had hopeful expectations of visiting her during a village ceremony. This would give us a taste of village life while still coming home to our cushy home and spring mattress.

This week, our adoption paid off, and we got an invitation to a village goodbye party for snother Peace Corps Volunteer complete with feast, dancing, and drumming. On Sunday, we packed our car full of goodies like sugar and corn flour for the community, tasty treats for the Volunteer, and the shopping bags from our guide/friend (win-win -- he gets a ride, we don't get lost).

We arrived in Nambuma and were greeted warmly by the village chief -- a fantastic woman who also runs the secondary school in town. She immediately ushered us into her home for tasty bowls of rice with chicken heads and corn flour (nsima) with goat stomach wound in goat intestine. I had beans. We washed it all down with some locally made banana wine and Orange Fanta -- a delicious combination! After stuffing ourselves full of carbs, we got to watch the drummers and dancers warm up and were pulled into the crowd -- a highlight of the afternoon. I am not sure who was having more fun -- me taking photos or the kids having their photos taken. I'll call it a tie.

With everyone warmed up, the show began. The guests of honor (us) sat in a row of chairs in front, under a tarp. The village chiefs all sat in a line of chairs behind us (guilt) and on the ground next to us (double guilt). Speeches by the local elders and chiefs instructed the kids to behave themselves around the white people and around the dancers. Second round speeches begged us not to forget them and to help them get boreholes for clean water -- requiring about $7000 US. Small costs for some, unfathomable for them. After a last round of instruction to keep the money flowing or the dancers would get angry and eat you, the festivities began!

Our pockets were cleared out of 20 and 50 kwatcha notes (180 Kwatcha = 1$) as we watched the dancers and drummers entrance the crowd. The first round were the Guliwankulu, a secret Chewa society of medicine men or witches, depending on you listen to. No one is to know their identity -- as observed in the costumes. Their feathers and tattered clothes were pretty incredible, the man in the plastic wolf mask not withstanding. I guess these same rules do not apply to the female dancers who joined them. Between the drummers and the dancers, they likely won 5000 kwatcha! Round two involved a bunch of secondary school girls who took turns dancing in pairs. They won both money and a soccer ball! The third, spontaneous round, involved a bunch of drunk men in sticks. They received nothing. The final round was a group of women who danced a conga line and sang. They still likely made 1000.

By the end, we were tapped out of change, covered in dust, and happy as clams to have seen a taste of the "real" Malawi. Strangely, coming back into Lilongwe really did feel like coming back to the big city! A little perspective is nice.