"It's the most wonderful time of the year!!! Ding dong ding dong"
This is the song Ryan and I keep finding ourselves singing when we realize it is almost Christmas... It in no way feels like Christmas here...
No gingerbread lattes, no Christmas lights or decorations (but I did get 2 stocking from a missionary couple which we plan to fill with silly homemade gifts), there is no panic to finish Christmas shopping (thank goodness!) and the closest to a Christmas tree we have is all the mango trees giving us an abundance of fruit!
We have decided to stay in the village for Christmas to see what it is like in the Malawian culture. We were told that everyone just kills a few chickens (which is a luxury food when you get it) and hangs out together... Because we live in a predominately Seventh Day Adventist area they will just go to church on Saturday as usual. We might do our own church service on top of the biggest mountain in northern Malawi called Hora Mt on Christmas day! We shall see how the weather is...
I just got back from another women's empowerment camp, but this time I was one of two coordinators. We basically were asked by World Vision in our district of Mzimba to facilitate the camp and they would pay for everything. Not a bad deal! It went very well and I think I learned a lot more about Malawian culture and how it affects young teenage girls. This camp differed than the first one I was a counselor at back in August this year because it was done much more village style and on a smaller scale. There were 40 girls all in secondary school (ages 13-19) that were chosen from the surrounding three schools. I was surprised to find out that some of them live very near our village, many of which were the Rock Stars at camp! The camp was held at the local World Vision sponsored boarding school, so we all slept in one large dorm with two bunk beds in each room. It is a very nice school that runs off solar power including water and lights. I found myself running around much more than expected being the logistitian and counselor coordinator, but I secretly enjoyed it "most" days... Of course I missed being a counselor because that is where my heart really truly gets fulfilled by loving on the girls each and every day. But I did still get to sit in on sessions when I could and host some of the games and sessions myself. One if these sessions was called "A Male's Perspective" where Ryan and the Malawian World Vision Field Officer answered questions from the girls and spoke openly about the many myths that men may tell women about sex and gender roles. It was a very powerful session to have two married men tell the girls things that most men would never dream of telling the girls like "Yes woman have a right and can enjoy sex with their husband; Yes men can cook and should help their wife with chores; The key to a successful marriage is good communication and respect for one another (most woman in the village do not get the opportunity for either of these in a marriage)."
We had the privilege of having my friend Kate come again as a Malawian counselor. She has a gift of teaching and can get any one's attention with her confident and humerus personality. I can honestly say that she is the closest I have to my American friends and I love hanging out with her. I see her friendship as an answer to prayer and hope we get to hang out more together in the new year.
When I came home from camp Ryan had a big surprise waiting for me! We have a functioning solar light in our house now!!! This solar panel is changing our lifestyle in the village for sure! Of course we still poop in a hole (now we use a bucket to make compost out of our 'you know what'), it still takes half a day to wash all our clothes from one week by hand, even during the rainy season we carrying at least 10 buckets of water on our head from the tap(river water) to our house, we still start 2 fires a day for cooking and a hot bucket bath at the end of our day, and of course I am ALWAYS sweeping the floor which Is impossible to keep dirt, dust, bug free!
The rainy season has officially begun with mangos everywhere but some Malawians would say that it is not the 'real' rains yet. Everyone that lives in the villages of Malawi are farmers because they must grow their own food for the year. This now includes us! I never new what it meant to wait for the rains until now! We, along with everyone else, have planted a bunch of vegetables, beans, grains, etc in the last few weeks hoping the rains would continue to come even heavier. But here we wait for the random sprinkles to turn into daily showers... No one seems to be panicking as I know I would if I knew there was a chance of true famine in the next year. We pray for the rains on a whole new way.
Merry Christmas and cheers to the new year 2012!!!
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