Disclaimer: the views expressed in this blog are my own and do not represent the views of the Peace Corps or the United States Government
I-N-D-E-P-E-N-D-E-N-T.
You know the rap.
One interesting thing about the Malawi-USA relationship is that we both violently attained independence from the British in the same month (although about 200 years apart, admittedly). In fact, it was within two days of each other. Our independence is 4 July, 1776 and Malawian independence is 6 July, 1964.
Independence is an interesting concept for us at the moment since we don’t have much of it. Living in the training village felt sort of like going back to kindergarten at first. Our amayi (mothers) pack a snack for us everyday, we can’t go anywhere without telling anyone, we have to be home before dark, we’re in school all day, and sometimes people here guide us through everything as if we were children.
But next week is site visit and we will be thrust (somewhat) back into the world of independence for several days. As much as we might find it annoying to be so reliant on others here, the truth is that it’s comforting and I’ve gotten used to it. The prospect of starting my own fires and cooking for myself is now daunting. Yet also exciting.
With independence has come celebrations. We are in Kasungu District, which is the home of the Gule Wamkulu (The Big Dance), a ceremony of the secret society of the Nyau. It’s recognized by UNESCO and I encourage you to read about it there because every Malawian I asked about it said only “we do it for fun, we don’t know how it started.”
Children are afraid of the masked Gule Wamkulu dancers who come out of the graveyard dancing with sticks and staffs appearing to be warriors. They have body paint and some are totally covered in costume. Last Saturday we were able to observe a full Gule Wamkulu dance. Beforehand we had to show the Malawians present an American dance and we attempted to do the electric slide to a Maroon 5 song which it turned out was too slow.
I have been forced to dance more times than I’m comfortable with here (One time is too many, really), and I have fun every time, but I am the worst representative of American dancing. The other night a circle of children gathered outside my neighbor’s house and my sister and I went to see what was happening and they were shouting songs and people were entering into the circle and dancing. Me and two other Americans who live nearby were enjoying watching but we were made to go in and “dance” (if you can call what I did dancing; the other two were actually good). I always have fun with this, even if it’s bad. But I’d much prefer to hide behind my guitar so other people can dance and not me.
On 7 July we had a staff-trainee soccer game (I loaned someone my shoes who wanted to play, so I just watched). We lost 3-1, but the Malawian spectators standing nearby were much more excited about our goal than all of theirs. There was also a netball (or as Malawians sometimes say “nettyball”) game happening at the same time. Netball is basically like if basketball were played with ultimate frisbee rules. You don’t dribble but when you catch the ball you can’t move, you can only pivot. I gathered from my host parents that netball is typically played by girls and soccer is typically played by boys. Although we mixed it up more than that. My host sister is apparently very good at netball; she’s taller than I am (I’m 6’1″ for reference), and she even tried out for the national team.
It’s 8 July now. This morning we will find out our sites. I’ll write an ending to this after that happens so you should know within a few seconds even though I’ll have to wait a few hours to know. The way they reveal this is interesting. I would imagine they’ll put pictures of this on the Peace Corps Malawi Facebook page (which you should follow if you haven’t already). They put pictures last year. They take us to the soccer field where they’ve made a gigantic map of Malawi. They blindfold us and lead us onto our place on the map and then we’re all supposed to remove our blindfolds at once and see where we are and who we’re near. I’ve heard often it doesn’t happen all at once, just logistically.
People are excited and anxious and nervous. Most of us have been waiting to know this information since we got our invitation to come here. And everyone at home has constantly asked “where will you be?” To which we’ve answered “I don’t know,” repeatedly. Possibly even more tiresome has been the fact that for much of PST these first four weeks, many questions we ask are responded to with the preface “Well, a lot of that is going to depend on your site.” Almost everything we have prepared for is for the majority of sites or “just in case” but we were told over and over that every site is different and some things may not even apply. Now we’re anxious to know.
On Monday we will meet our counterparts. For education, our counterpart is actually our supervisor (the head teacher, or principal in American terms), so they’re trying to move away a bit from the word “counterpart.” (I actually think Health may be this way too but perhaps that’s just a rumor). We’re expected to find our own counterparts once we get to site. Anyway, on Monday we will meet both our head teacher and the chair of the PTA at our school. Every Malawian school is required to have a PTA but sometimes they’re inactive.
Then on Thursday we’ll head off on our own, using public transport to travel to wherever our site is for about 5 days. We have a checklist of things that we’re supposed to do during site visit that they will be giving us this morning before site announcements.
So, sites. There are probably pictures on the Peace Corps Malawi Facebook page (or will be at some point. They told us all to get in vans and blindfold ourselves and not speak. It was totally not sketchy. (Sarcasm). But it was an interesting experience. We arrived at the soccer field and were led around with our blindfolds on. First they made us do a weird dance in a sort of conga line. Let me tell you, dancing is much harder when you’re blindfolded. Then our language teachers came and led all of us to where we were supposed to be. We had to wait for what seemed like forever. Finally we were told to remove our blindfolds and I saw several people I really admire who will be living close to me and this sign: Blantyre!