motorcycle training and village ceremonies

Today was a very long day. As we were sitting on the mini bus that magically appeared on the side of the road with magically enough room for 8 people (I am assured that this never happens), I was thinking back to how it had started. Pilling into a luxurious mini bus at 6:15, we started off on our journey to a second day of motorcycle training. Yesterday, I was quite frankly terrible at motorbiking. I managed to smoke Trevor in the head with my helmet as he was trying to help me. Today was therefore a resounding success. Finally able to start on my own, ride around the road, and only managed to knock out a few piles of a farmers (unplanted) field, which I did fix as best as possible. Riding down the road, changing gears up and down (please note that I only learned to drive standard recently) red dirt roads waving to passers by was a thrilling sensation.

before hitting Trevor over the head

But the memory that sticks out in my mind as we bumped along the road was the village visit, the making and eating of nsima, or the funeral ceremony that we witnessed. It was most unplanned event of the day. After riding around on the bike for a while, I got off and grabbed a book to relax in the shade. Only there was no shade left near the little hut that we were relaxing against. There was also a cluster of children that had come to watch the strange people ride around in circles. As I moved over to the shade of a nearby tree with my book, there was a murmur among the group of girls. I gestured for them to come over. There was a quick huddle, lots of chatter, then a mass rush for the tree. They clustered around me, giggling and laughing. Their English was too limited to make sentences and my Chichewa is still next to non-existant beyond the greetings and thank yous. So we progressed to words. It started by me touching the tree and asking “what is this?” “Mitengo.” Not knowing how to spell it, I passed off my notebook and pen to the crowd, and dozens of little hands grabbed at it, eager to teach. It became a challenge to find new things to point at, say it in Chichewa, say it in English and then exchange writing it down. Tree, leaf, head, teeth, nose, ears, shirt, etc. This whole process was accompanied by many giggles at my bad pronunciation. But the best part was when I asked for their names, and they took the sheet, passed it around and wrote down all their names.

Leah, Annie, Mary, Etala, Ivy, Karina, Blenda, Doidfe, Moreen and me

The rest of the day was filled with a village stay. We picked up ingredients for lunch, hiked through the bush for a while, passed a ton of festivity preparations in a nearby village and arrived in Graham’s village. We saw his house, greeted the family then went out to make a delicious meal of nsima on wood and charcoal fires. The experience was thrilling, but nsima lunches have a tendancy to make you sleepy.

making nsima

There was no sleeping in the schedule though. We hiked back to the village resplendent with festivities and witnessed the most intense and fascinating ceremony I have ever seen. There was a massive circle of people around a giant tree, under which men and a few women dressed in add-hock clothes and representing the spirits of the ancestors danced around. If the crowd liked the dancer, they would run forward and give the dancer money. There were different dancing and spirit troupes who fought for the time and space to display their techniques. There were old men who ran around the circle getting angry and shooing children who got too close back into form. There were village disputes that broke out and women who sang along to the dancing and drummers. We were pushed to the front and sat on the ground, however, as azungus and guests, we quickly were told to rise and a grass mat was put down. A group of young men decided to act as our protectors and guards from all the shoving a spirits. Receiving that level of priviledge simply by being a guest and white was a strange experience, and one I don’t think I will ever get used to. I walked away overwhelmed by sound, colours and movement, thrilled by the amazing opportunity and experience at such a different yet vibrant culture and completely exhausted.