Our First Weekend at Chishawasha

It’s the weekend and we’re happy for it. We’re quickly realizing that our weekends here will be very valuable, not so much for adventures as we’d first thought, but for resting and spending time with the kids. Over the last five days we’ve been working around the site, enjoying lunches at the school – sometimes with the students, sometimes with the teachers, and dinners with the children. We’ve been to six of the seven ‘homes’ so far. We’re starting to get good at eating with our hands (as is customary here) and are very familiar with nshima (sp?) – the staple food served at all meals. Nshima is a maize (corn) based mash like corn-meal. It looks a lot like mashed potatoes and is used as the base with which every other part of the meal is eaten. All of the lunches and dinners so far have consist of a large helping of nshima, some cabbage-based slaw (very tasty) and a single portion of a meat or a helping of beans – all eaten with your hands – we’re still mastering the beans! People have been patient with us and understand that we’re in the “remedial class” – they sometimes provide a knife and fork for us, just in case, although no one else ever needs one.

This weekend was a nice break from the work we’ve been doing – especially Friday as we were working outside, and experienced the true effect of the sun. As our work partner Sam pointed out while watching us apply sunscreen, we're the wrong colour for this kind of weather!  Our weak, pasty Caucasian skin is no match for the African sun at noon, whereas the other workers think nothing of spending the entire day on a tin roof in a heavy work suit.  We were exhausted! 

Saturday morning Chishawasha was participating in a monthly market where they sell books. Philip offered to take us – more to experience the market than help with the book sale. We’d been dying to visit a craft market since we got to Africa, so we jumped at the chance. The market was fantastic and vibrant and everyone was nice enough to offer a ‘special price’ just for us! The crafts and works were amazing, and while Jenny is a bargaining expert, Jimi has a long way to go! There was a very diverse crowd – we have apparently discovered where all the tourists in Africa are.

Today, we embarked on yet another new adventure: Doing laundry by hand. Jimi has some (limited) experience in this area, so he was able to help Jenny (the extravagantly spoiled city girl) learn the process. As we were finishing up, a whole gang of the younger Chishawasha girls descended upon us, and when we told them it was our first time doing laundry by hand, they laughed at us and promptly informed us that we were doing it wrong. As they whispered and giggled at our ineptitude, we realized that it’s actually pretty embarrassing that these young children already have skills that we have never needed up until now.

Our embarrassment soon turned into one of the best times we’ve had since coming to Africa when the girls asked us if we could play them some music. They loved Jimi’s singing, and they really enjoyed taking turns on our mini djembe drum. Some of the girls really had some rhythm, and they are all great dancers! They offered to teach us some songs and games as well, so we spent the next few hours playing hand-clap games and singing and dancing games with them. Later, we had to get back to our laundry, and they sang their entire repertoire of gospel and school songs for us! This whole experience was somewhat of a departure from some of the experiences we’ve had so far as the kids tend to be a bit shy when we visit their homes in the evenings. It was so wonderful to have them come to visit us and want to get to know us. These girls were so happy, and so full of life, and quite obviously in their element while singing and dancing. It was really amazing to see their true personalities shining through – hopefully this is the first of many such experiences!

-Much love, Jimi and Jenny