Death to Mbuzi

Coming down from our excitement of arriving in Malawi, July 5th, we were introduced into the daily life of the villages.  Beginning our 'cultural immersion day', we were dropped off in a town market with a list of ten items needed to make a traditional Malawian meal.  With $3,000 kwatcha(~$10 USD), and a translator, we had to navigate the market, finding our items (in Chechewa) and get back to our van first ( Amazing Race COTN style).  Our final grocery item, mbuzi, (goat) was lead over to our van (live!) and literally thrown into the back of the van on top of the firewood.  We set off to visit our sponsor children's village, Chirombo.  Upon arrival, our team leader, Jason 'the butcher' Mak, slit the goat's throat (video to come) and it was then hung from a tree, skinned and butchered right there in front of the school!  The goat meat was divided and we brought that with our market groceries to our sponsor children families.  After meeting the family, we did some daily chores; we fetched water from the hand pump, washed dishes, mudded the front porch and prepared the traditional meal of nsima with veggies.  The  nsima (pronounced see-mah) is a combination of cornflour and hot water stirred into a sticky mashed potato consistency.  The meal is prepared indoors; starting  the fire and boiling water with a simple pot placed on bricks.  There are no pot holders to hold the scalding pot and they test the water temperature by flicking the hot water on their bare arms!  These women have such  hard lives, but they do it all with huge smiles on their faces and singing beautiful songs.  Even though my (Callie) sponsor child lives and goes to school at the COTN compound where we are staying, it was good to meet his family and see how far he has come.  His mother is a widow, with 5 children and often cares for other children in the village.  Once Yusufu finishes high school, he hopefully will continue onto college.  His mother and brothers and sisters are counting on him to get a job and provide for the family.    Spending time in the village, we also played soccer with the children and danced and sang.
Tionana,
Callie