We’re back!

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We are all back from the home stays from the weekend, safe and sound. We all learned some new things, or got practice at things we don’t do often – like eating with our hands, using the latrine, and taking bucket baths. Many of us also learned new skills like pounding corn to remove the husk to make samp (a local favorite) or pounding peanuts to make peanut butter or peanut powder for cooking. We got to clean, to take care of the kids, visit neighbors (and be visited), attended the local churches, and were awakened by the roosters in the fields! We also spent most of the day outside in the warm African sun, and many of us are now quite tired from the fun times spent with new families!

Sarah with Tizzy and Akim (from next door)

What I really enjoyed about staying in the village is that it was totally different than our experience elsewhere, and yet very much the same as well. This was especially easy for me to see in the interactions with Tizzy, the 4 year old son of our host Conceptor. Tizzy is the prototypical 4 year old, he wants to be the center of everything, tries to do much more than he can actually manage, and trips over everything- and then shows his mom the tiny scratch on his arm.  We also spent a good amount of our time preparing food or cleaning up food, which - for women everywhere – is what you do most of the time if you have a large family. It will be interesting to hear stories from each of the groups coming back from their homestays, I am sure there are a lot of good stories to be told.

Sarah and Conceptor grinding corn for samp.

We had a great weekend in Mizinga Village