I legitimately don't think people in the village sleep during the month of August when initiation ceremonies are happening. Usually by 8 PM in the village, it's completely silent. Maaaaybe you'll hear the footsteps of someone walking home. However, this past week, there's so much commotion outside at night! Either it's girls singing and dancing, large groups of boys or girls walking through the village and chanting, distance drums and yelling, or my neighbors up late chatting; it's been wild! Right now it sounds like there's a massive party happening in the middle of the village. It sounds so fun, and I wish I could go find it and see what's going on! I've already learned my lesson once tonight though. My neighbor kids were over when we heard a group of boys chanting and coming right by our houses. We ran out to see them but it was too dark, so we grabbed my headlamp and one of them shined it on them. The boys acted surprised, one or two of them calling my name before they realized it wasn't me with the light. Then we ran back inside, in fits of giggles! Soon after, one of their amayis, a woman a year older than me who lives next door, came over to scold them I think? I sat there trying to figure out if she was mad or amused as she flitted on in an endless stream of fast Chichewa. I asked her to explain but all I could make of what she was saying was that we shouldn't have done that because the boys were going into the church tonight and coming out tomorrow and people aren't supposed to see them tonight. Or something like that. But my best bet with initiation ceremonies is probably to just avoid doing anything that might be culturally wrong..aka I'm not going out to find the drums in the village!
Eating dinner on the bamboo mat in my house
Our SKILLZ girl training
Cooked bananas from my neighbor
This afternoon was our final SKILLZ girl day! My primary counterpart from the health center came to teach them about HIV testing and counseling (even showing them the tools that are used) so that they know what to expect if they ever want to come for testing, what ARVs do and how they work to treat HIV, and living positively and setting goals for the future. At the end, we played a game where we took questions from the anonymous question box we had all week and had them work in pairs to come up with an answer and then one of them would present it to the group using a paper microphone. The questions were things like 'at what age is it okay to start having sex?' and 'can a girl have sex when she's on her period?' and 'is it a certain blood type that transmits HIV and the others don't?' We also planned their graduation ceremony. I learned that a Malawian graduation is not complete without a meal!!! They immediately began discussing how much rice, beans, and cabbage we would need and added up the costs and made a "committee" like it was second nature to them. I was encouraging them to come up with dramas and songs to teach others about HIV prevention, but all they wanted to talk about was food. Zimachitika, it happens. Malawians are all about celebrating with food. So, what we have planned thus far includes: lunch, dancing and music, dramas, pad making, optional HIV testing, and handing out certificates; happening in 2 weeks. It should be fun.
This morning, the village was busy busy preparing for zoma, initiation celebrations, happening tomorrow. They were cooking massive amounts of thobwa (a classic Malawian drink made of pounded maize) and also an alcoholic version of thobwa. All morning long I heard people pounding and pounding in their mortar and pestles next door. I was in my house most of the morning working on putting together a cooking demonstrations manual. Before lunch, my Amayi came to return a container she'd borrowed, but in it she had put some cooked bananas! I asked her how she cooked them, and she said she put bananas, water, and salt on the fire, basi (that's it). They were surprisingly good too! My counterpart also stopped by with the quizzes that our SOLID trainees wrote yesterday, so we quickly graded those. While we were doing that, the women next door called to me to come over and help them cook. When I went over, I took my camera and got some nice pictures of the kids pounding and also a living room full of buckets filled to the brim with cooked thobwa. If I wasn't posting this from my phone, I would include some. Unfortunately, you'll just have to wait.
Tomorrow I'm preparing for my journey to Mozambique! We are driving to Pemba on the coast (apparently a 15 hour drive!) and spending a few days chillin' on the beach and hopefully exploring some islands as well! I can't wait to swim in the turquoise waters and eat all the delicious seafood and try my hand at speaking Mozambican Portuguese and just be on vacation! It's been a busy few weeks at site, and I'm ready for a break! I'll post as much as I can, but anticipate a nice long update when I'm back!