Weddings in Malawi

So, sorry I haven't been posting lately.  Every now and then blogging goes to the bottom of the To-Do list and doesn't resurface for a while. 

Anyway, currently I am at Kamuzu Academey in Kasungu district.  It is really quiet here, on account of the fact that school is out. Nice and quiet, and the internet isn't all bogged down so things are moving pretty quickly. 

I have been staying with a volunteer who lives nearby, Alysia, and yesterday we went into Kasungu to go see a wedding.  The man getting married lives in Alysia's village and she was invited to go.  From what I can gather, if you are invited, you invite other people too, so I went along. 

We were dropped off in the wrong spot to we wandered around for a while before we gave up and just went to Kasungu to get to the bank.  At 1pm we headed to the community center for the reception. 

The program said that it started off with "soft" music.  Let me tell you something, Malawians have amazing hearing but they can not play their music loud enough.  They love to have it at ear drum piercing levels, don't know why.  After the music the wedding party danced in followed by the bride and groom.  Any of you remember seeing that viral video taken of a wedding in America where everyone danced down the isle? It was kinds like that, but African.

Then we had about a million "pelekani pelekani".  A pelekani pelekani is basically where everyone gets up, dances around, and throws a ton of money in these buckets for the bride and groom.  In America you get a toaster and 5 crock pots, in Malawi you get buckets of money, literally, buckets.  But these families were a bit more bwana than most people here.  I suspect that a village wedding would not result in so much cash, but the effect is the same, loads of money being thrown at you.  

Alysia and I got up and participated,  I don't know how much kwacha I threw in but each time you get up you walk back to your seat about 20-50 kwacha lighter.

After a little bit you look at the piles of money being counted and a thought crossed my mind, "Is it bad that I want to walk over there and make change?"  Seriously though, we get paid with 500 kwacha bills and those are impossible to use in the village.  Part of me wanted to go over and offer to condense it down for them a bit, that way they have fewer buckets of money to put on their truck, thus lightening the load and saving fuel.  I was being economical.

Speaking of fuel, I know some of you (*cough cough* mom*cough cough*) have been reading about the riots that occured here a week or so ago.  Let me tell you how it played out in Nkhotakota boma.  They closed the People's grocery store.

No, that's all, just closed one store.  Jesi and I ran into the manager at a lodge while we were having a cheeseburger, he had a coke. 

When you hear that something is happening "nation wide" people usually envision mass panic, something absolutely every person is participating in.  When they say "nation wide" in Malawi, they mean it was happening in the three biggest cities, Blayntre, Lilongwe, and Mzuzu, which happen to be located in the South, central, and North parts of the country, and thus it is nation wide. 

So no worries.  There are more demonstrations planned for the 17-18th of August but probably more of the same. 

So to wrap up; weddings=lots of money, and things can get blown out of proportion here too.  I love you all and hope to talk to you soon!