Sunday August 2nd

Today was Sunday, so the original plan was to have the day off. Since we had a very low turnout for our community meetings at Malimbe, however, we decided to go back for a second try today. Unfortunately when we arrived only the ECD coordinator was around. Four village chiefs and several women eventually arrived, but in the meantime they told us to wander around the village and take pictures of interesting things. Such interesting things included a couple of child driven ox-drawn carts, a huge potbelly pig, some little girls who wanted to hold our hands and some ladies carrying things on their heads who wanted their pictures taken.

When we came back, enough people had congregated that we could have the meeting. This was the 6th meeting and pretty much ran exactly the same way as the others. The only question asked was “when will the consent forms be given.”

As Charles put it, one of the chiefs finally admitted that the reason there were still very few attendees was that there was another funeral, complete with Gule Wamkulu. One of the running jokes in our group is that I am dying to see some Gule Wamkulu. It’s true, I’m fascinated. So, when they said that our audience was all at this funeral, I jokingly suggested that we take the meeting there instead. No problem, they said, we would just ride by on our way home.

Halfway toward the funeral village, Alton made a couple of phone calls. Before we knew it we had a full chief escort. At the village, the headman for 22 villages greeted us and introduced us to a lot of other chiefs. He also told us that we were welcome to take any photos or videos that we wanted (apparently that was really special!!!). The chiefs were all very thankful for the research project, as was a hopeful candidate for Malawian parliament. They insisted that we wait for the cemetery procession inside a house (where a distressed chicken was squealing under Tiane’s chair). We joined a group of hundreds of people in parading around two graves, one for the mother of the one we were grieving, and one for the one the ceremony was for. Interestingly, they were buried in 2007 and 2006. The ladies were all crying hysterically (as were their babies). So, it was not really a funeral, but a memorial service. Next it was time for lunch. We bought some chips (potato wedges) and fanta. The chiefs wanted to feed us nsima, but decided it was too cold to serve to visitors and brought us more chips and fanta.

By the time the big dance started, we had been at the funeral for a few hours. The big dance finally started with a few drummers and ladies dancing. Charles suggested that we go up and put 50 kwacha in the plates in front of the ladies and dance with them for a bit. So, we decided what the heck, so what if we look ridiculous? And we danced….. the crowd roared with laughter. They were cracking up. We made 25 kwacha each from amused onlookers. Later the volunteers told us that the crowd consensus was that Tiane was a much better dancer than me, but that by the end I was getting better. They said the laughter was not because we were terrible, but because the people had never seen azungu dance (I’m pretty sure it was both).
The most exciting part was the bike ride home. I am very happy I lived through it. We left at 4:45, just as the sun was beginning to set and were trying to get back to KASO before dark. So…..we biked as fast as we could through a mass crowd of people leaving the ceremony and over some really treacherous trails. I wish I had a picture, but it was all I could do to maintain control of my bike. I screamed a lot. It felt like driving a car on a video game when you’re trying to avoid all kinds of impossible obstacles, sand traps, people, hills, bumps, rocks, boulders, mud, holes…. but end up hitting most of them. My heart is still racing.

Made it to KASO exactly at dusk and back to the lodge at 6:00, just when the Japanese man next door said he would take us to Don Brioni’s for Italian.