Hey Guys,

As you can see I have been sparse on posts lately, so this is going to be a catch up post.

In the interest of market research in Village settings, I went out to the Eastern Province starting from the 23rd to the 28th of July. I took my friend Lukali with me as a translator. I paid for her travel and in return, I got free translating, free accomodations, and free meals. I think I probably got the better of that deal, but she got to see her mother for the first time in 2 years. Funny enough, I got to see "my mother" for the first time as I am now Sarah Riley Chiwama, the second born to Mrs Chiwama. but on to the meat of the story.

So our first stop was in Sinda, where we stayed with Mrs Chiwama. Here I went to the market and interviewed all the relevant businesses. After that I went for a leisurely walk with Lukali, and her brother Isaac to his school. On the way back we went by the dam which was gorgeous.

Sunday we got up, cleaned the house (a must on Sundays apparently) and then went to church. Pentacostal of course. In a country of 90% catholic religioun, I can't seem to get myself invited to anything but a pentacostal service. Anyways, it was nice, with some really fun songs complete with hopping and turning around numerous times. Sinda is a village and as in many villages, seeing a white person is a rare event. As such most of the children spent the majority of the service turned around looking at me.

After church we went to visit a friend of Lukali's and were given lunch. I sat listening to Lukali and her friends talking in Nsenga with interludes of translated conversation with me. They were very fascinated by me but most of them couldn't speak english. As we were walking away, Lukali told me that they had said they liked me because I was the first Muzungu who had sat and ate with them and not been "skittish" about their children and the yard and house.

Next we went back to the house where we were given a second lunch. this lunch consisted of nshima of course, Kapenta, which I detest, Impwa which I can't even keep down, and Deleley which is okra floating in liquid pretty much like phlegm. I ate the nshima.

We got onto a bus to go to Chipata, the capital of the eastern province. Once there we met up with Bnyam and ate supper at Lukali's aunt Anne Temba's house. Bnyam and I decided that we could go together to a village Mgubudu on Tuesday, leaving Monday for touring Chipata.

Monday was spent mostly touring Chipata and interviewing Chipatan businesses. Went well but after all the walking, Lukali and I went to sleep early, early for me being before 9 oclock. Next morning we got up and attempted to search out a bus to Mgubudu. we thought we could catch a bus at 8:30 or 9:00 but as alway happens in Zambia, we set off in a bus by 11:00. We finally got there after a hour long bus ride of me and Bnyam singing, embarassing Lukali, and making the whole bus think we were totally crazy.

Now we start on our trek to speak to villagers. We first walk to the house of Mr Phiri who has helped Bnyam before. I walk in and am in instant heaven as he has 6 kittens. I cuddle with them while Bnyam discusses the plan for the day. We set off to meet villagers. Now by this time our plan of meeting with 15 or 20 villagers is a bit overzealous as it is about 13:00, but we meet 3. Overall it was a good day, and a good village experience for me. Then we head back to Chipata, where I think I managed to eat some Nshima before going to bed.

The next day we bussed to Sinda, and stayed the night with Mrs Chiwama again. I spent the afternoon, having my hair pulled, rather harshly really, into braids that I am told are just the height of fashion. They came out 2 days later, after I went crazy from my head itching.

So the trip home on Thursday should have been unexciting if not boring. first, I saw three monkeys!!! pretty awesome. and then the luggage compartment flew open on the bus while we were driving. It took us about an hour and a half to get the stuff back because some kids (bad ones) saw the luggage fly out and hiked it into the bush. All the luggage was recovered, but some had been torn open. Now obviously these kids were not the nicest, but what is of note is that there were some other kids who stood and waited for us to come so they could point out the direction that the luggage had been taken. Pretty fantastic really, and I can honestly say I doubt whether that would happen in Canada.

Well that is the end of my trip to Eastern Province. Sadly I have to start working now, so The trade show post will have to come later. Hope everyone had a good long weekend.

SJ

Hey Guys,

As you can see, I am getting worse and worse at this. In my defense I was outside of Lusaka for a week and I couldn’t get on the Internet. I will try to go through and brief everyone on what I have been doing.

First I promised I would describe the Kitchen party. When a couple gets engaged, the girl has to then start something like marriage classes from respected women in her family, usually aunts. These aunts spend at least 2 months showing her how to cook, how to clean, how to keep the house for her husband, and yes how to please him in bed. I am told there is a special dance that must be done before, which I would like to see but obviously not in context. At the end of these two months, the couple throws a kitchen party for the women who know them.

A kitchen party is like a mix of the Canadian wedding shower and Female stag party. The kitchen party is scheduled to start at 1 PM. However as with everything else in Zambia, the only thing you can rely on is that nothing goes to plan. The kitchen party I went to started at about 14:30. All the guests sit around waiting for the girls group to arrive. This group is composed of the girl and her teachers under a cloth, surrounded by all the females in her family. The master of ceremonies leads them. The MC is a woman who has no hip bones and is instead held together by elastic bands. I say this because she can shake her booty like nobodies business. And she does it all with a whistle making all kinds of noise. So the MC leads the girls group onto the stage where they all sit down, the girl and her teachers still covered by a cloth.

A prelude ensues where more elastic hip shaking takes place to drumming and singing. Here I would like to say that by this time some of the ladies (loose term possibly in some cases) are getting quite sloshed. Some of them randomly jump on the stage and start dancing. Some of them just make lots of noise in their seats. At the kitchen party I was at 90% of the crowd was quite well behaved but I definitely got some booty shakin in my face with someone yelling “Mozungu, watch me dance”.

Next after much delay, the man’s group comes. There are 2 men surrounded by his family members bringing a big basket of fruit to symbolize that the family will be fruitful. For me this part was confusing because the main man is walking and then there is this other guy who is not really explained. After some clarification I found that the main man is the best friend to the groom and the groom is supposed to walk behind quietly unnoticed. This is done from what I can understand so that the eligible ladies in the crowd don’t get interested in the groom but are sort of distracted by the friend. The groom then gets on the stage where he takes the sheet off the bride and her teachers. I couldn’t see the entire process because his whole family was helping but something happened. Then he sits down across the stage. The bride is taken by the MC and kneels in front of her husband to be and sort of flops to one side. She sits back up straight and promptly flops to the other side. She gets up and the groom kisses her on the cheek. The MC who is jiggling profusely and whistling away gets them both up and leads them down a walkway. At the end the groom keeps going and the bride turns around and heads back to her spot. Now the whole time the girl is with her head lowered and humble. This is because her future mother in law is present and she has to look like a humble and quiet woman.

The MC starts opening presents now and at every present the giver has to come up and dance while the present is being shown. Thankfully, I was never called up because my hipbones are still intact and my booty shaking is not up to par. This goes on for a long time with random interludes of eating and a mother and mother in law thanking ceremony similar to the husband part. After all this, the party starts to liven up in some areas as the women drink more, and disperse in others where the women choose not to be associated with such nonsense. By nonsense I mean, there are stories of women who start dancing without clothes and similar cultural taboo occurrences.

While I thought I would put other things in this email, I apparently have written too much already. Therefore everything else will have to come later.

SJ