Sep 13, 2011

Malawi: Part 2

And here's part two! Where did I leave off? Oh yeah, staying in the village for three days.

The wife of the couple we were staying with (Lina is her name) planned a ladies' seminar out in one of the villages.  It was arranged that the ladies would come in on trucks and stay for about three days while the seminar went on.  A grass fence enclosed a large area where the ladies listened to lessons, ate and slept.  


There were about 750 women, so I couldn't even get a picture of them all! This is Sunday morning as we were all gathered after Church.  Those brown things hanging are fish from the lake.  They'd hang them up to dry.



Thankfully, Lina, my mom and I were able to sleep in this brick house that belonged to one of the church members.



This is the room we stayed in - this is the view with my back to the door.




This is looking towards the door.  People here usually don't have wooden doors, lots of times there will just be material or an old lace curtain.




No indoor toilets, so this was our toilet for the time we were there.  Alot nicer than most, actually!



Often times the little buildings that the toilets are in don't have doors, so they design them so that you can't see right in.  This is how it would look from above...
You have to ask to "enter" before you walk in, or else you could have an unpleasant surprise, heh.  Almost happened to Mom, but thankfully not me!   

Funny story: There are cockroaches in the choo (toilet), and, of course, they would come out at night.  One of the nights we went out there and I went in first.  I started stomping around, trying to scare the roaches away from the hole.
Mom: "Linz!! What are you doing?!"
Me: "There are tons of roaches in here and I'm trying to get them away from me!"

Later that night Mom had to use the restroom, so she got up and walked out to the choo.  What she didn't know was that the door automatically locked from the inside, so when she tried to get back in she was locked out!  Thankfully there was a window in our room she could knock on and and tell me to let her back in.


The ladies were nice and heated some water for us over the fire in the mornings so we could bathe - this was our shower.  Again, this had the same building design as the toilet, so there was no door.  




We were right at Lake Malawi, and it was beautiful.  You'd think it was the ocean!



This is the kitchen that the ladies cooked in



There would usually be ugali (similar a thick clump of cream of wheat), beans, cooked cabbage and goat.



One of our translators was due any day with her baby, and surprise! she went into labor on one of the days we were there.  Lina took her to the hospital in Lilongwe, and the baby was delivered that night.  So for quite a while Mom and I were in the village, with no car, and not able to speak the language.  The weekend went fairly well, except for not really knowing what we were supposed to do since we couldn't talk to anybody!


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What's a weird experience you've had?
I don't think this one really counted as weird, just interesting!

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Go check out Stefanie's blog where she's introducing me!




7 comments:

  1. holy crap Lindsey! that is such a humbling and amazing experience - thank you so much for sharing this, it is incredible to see how many people live across the globe.

    i thought you were going to tell us you had to help deliver the baby again - I was going say, you must be a seasoned pro!

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  2. This is so cool. It's an interesting and real look into a different culture to read your blog. love it!

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  3. I love reading about all this! Stomping the roaches! Not something I'll be doing here today! I love this! How cool!

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  4. That's funny, I thought you were going to say that you delivered the baby too :)

    When I was on a mission trip in the dominican republic, I remember a similar situation with the toilets-- lots of bugs coming out of them. That "nice" one that you showed was like a nice one down there and I actually remember being appreciative of something like that, even though it would never fly in my life at home. It's all about the perspective for me.

    What amazing trip, thanks for sharing all the photos and memories with us!

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  5. this seriously sounds like the MOST incredible experience. i enjoyed reading this post. you were a genius with those roaches...I would have just been freaking out like "what do i do!?!"haha! thanks for sharing all of your photos and your experience!

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  6. Wow, how interesting to read what you've been up to! Lake Malawi looks incredible, how beautiful!

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  7. What an amazing experience. You are quite the tough woman with toilet conditions like that! I'm impressed!

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