The Gule Wamkulu, Baboons, and Homestay
Trip Start
Jan 01, 2007
1
2
7
Trip End
Ongoing
Senga Bay, Malawi
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
We spent the first few days in Malawi enjoying Cool Runnings, a lakeside "resort" at Senga Bay on Lake Malawi. Instead of beautiful beach weather, we experienced unseasonal torrential downpours. The sound of the rain on the tin roofs was deafening, yet the extreme calm that follows such a downpour was beyond amazing. While the rain was at bay, hundreds of fishermen would head out in their dugout canoes. At night, we could see their lights shining far out across the lake. We even got to witness a handful of fishermen pulling in their nets in the afternoon. It took about two hours of constant labor to get just one net back on shore. The fish they caught were miniature and seemed ironic in relation to their long hours of hard work. "Beach boys" walked the beach, trying to sell the "azungus" (meaning "foreigners" in Chichewa, the local language) their batiks and jewelry.
We spent our days there at the Lake becoming familiar with the World Camp curriculum of HIV prevention and environmental issues prevalent in Malawi, such as deforestation and soil erosion. The curriculum is very interactive and hands-on which makes it a blast for both us, the teachers, and the students, who are used to a much more formal classroom setting.
From the Lake, we jumped right in to our first three-day camp at a refugee camp about 1.5 hours outside Lilongwe. Working at a refugee camp was a first for World Camp and was both a challenge and an incredible experience. The camp had been run by the UN for several years, but the UN just pulled out about a year ago because they were at maximum capacity (5000) and it had been open for 10 years. We met refugees from the DRC, Burundi, Rwanda, Somalia, and Sudan. Languages spoken at the camp ranged from English to Chichewa to Swahili to French. The "classrooms" were tiny rooms scattered throughout the maze of a camp. It took us the entire first morning just to separate the students into classes and actually find rooms that were big enough. Janie taught at the first camp and Price led the teacher workshop. It was scary to see how little the community really knew about HIV/AIDS - such as the correct way to use a condom and the three modes of transmission (blood-to-blood, unprotected sex, and mother-to-child). Though the camp was chaotic at times due to the physical circumstances of the camp and the multitude of languages spoken (making it especially challenging for our Chichewa translators), we felt very successful at the end of the three days. One "student" who claimed he was 18 years old epitomized the chaos/randomness of this camp - he called himself Ja Rule - we found out later that he was really 25 (we actually think he was closer to 40).
Our first "real" camp after the refugee camp went so smoothly. The student presentations on the third day drew a large crowd from the community - one of World Camp's main goals is to have the students become educators in their own communities, so this big showing was awesome. At the end of the student presentations, the community members presented a series of four cultural dances for us. The fourth dance, the finale, was a sacred Malawian dance that only happens about once or twice a year. It is known as the "Gule Wamkulu" and stems from the animistic religion common among the Chewa tribe in central Malawi. The Gule dancers believe they are able to summon the spirits. The dancers are considered to be overcome by the spirits and are not considered human. They cover their faces completely so as not to be recognized. There were a couple dancers on stilts, three men whose bodies were painted completely black with oil, a young boy dancer with just a loincloth on (and just huge ball of fabric on the front), and a few dancers dressed as women. The dance was more like a skit, and we have to admit that we were all completely lost during it. The villagers are supposed to pay the Gule Wamkulu throughout its dance, and as no villagers (or us, the azungus) did this, the three painted black men (with whips, we might add) said they were kidnapping children because there was no money. Obviously, we didn't understand what was said, and suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, the children sprinted from the circle (trampling a few of us). Fear was plastered on their faces. It was quite an experience, and a World Camp director said it was one of the best Gule Wamkulu presentations he has seen in his six years in Malawi.
After two successful camps and a very exhausting week, we had a much-needed day of rest on Sunday. A handful of volunteers joined Guise, one of our amazing translators, for his church's two-hour service. A volunteer who is in the conservatory at Oberlin played his clarinet for the service. The preacher yelled at the top of his lungs into a woman's ear for about 10 minutes...we think he was trying to call a demon out of her. It was quite an experience. A group of volunteers went to the local putt-putt course (very hard, supposedly) and out to pizza and ice cream. We took a drive through Lilongwe to get more familiar with the "city" - we saw the hospital, the UNC project there (a very well-funded program that focuses on HIV/AIDs research and ARV distribution to HIV+ patients), the presidential house(s), the US embassy, and the government buildings (all the ministries). We also had quite an experience at the Lilongwe Wildlife Sanctuary - a type of "zoo" presented by the Ministry of Tourism. We all paid our 30 kwacha (equivalent to about 15 cents) and headed in to see the baboons, hyenas, etc. However, right when we walked in, a crowd of young Malawians was running towards us. Again, fear plastered on their faces. We saw a few baboons loose, but naively, we thought it was supposed to be like that. So, like naive azungus, we start to walk on down the path. Perhaps more stupidly, the workers there let us go. Suddenly, we were surrounded by three ferocious baboons, fangs out. The workers started throwing rocks at them. One of them nibbled a volunteer's butt (not breaking any skin, thankfully) and one of our directors was milliseconds away from being attacked by four of them. Thankfully, we all sprinted away in time and no one was hurt. We were all laughing uncomfortably, shocked out of belief, and so thankful nothing serious had happened. A worker came out to talk to us and said because they have no money, the cages are old and the baboons escaped from them. We're like "gee thanks for taking our kwacha and letting us walk right into the park, buddy." Safari will (hopefully) seem tame after that close encounter...
Monday was supposed to be the start of our third camp. However, we drove an hour out into the bush, and upon arrival at the school, no students were to be found. The combination of it being a public holiday and also the very recent transfer of the school's headmaster did not help the situation. So instead of waste the day, we headed to Yossa, an orphange in Lilongwe, to play games with the children and serve them the lunch of nsima and relish. Yossa is not an overnight facility. It serves as a feeding and educational center for orphans and street children. In other words, it offers food as an incentive to get them there to learn. Cool place and offered yet another perspective on childhood in Malawi.
Tuesday was a long day at camp, as we had to teach our curriculum in one day, instead of the typical three. In place of returning home to our palatial house in Lilongwe, we ate an early dinner together at the school and then walked about 20 minutes to a local village to do homestays for the night. The village is near Mt. Nhkoma, a great hiking spot nearby. We walked through lush fields, with the mountain in the distance, to find our homes for that night. Thirty or so kids joined us in our march to the village, and we kept picking up more villagers along the way. Eight homes, very close by to each other, adopted us for the night. We had a few hours of what Price termed "Channel 3: Whitey Television" - basically meaning that we provide constant/awkward entertainment for the entire sea of staring villagers. We danced (even did a fertility dance, which the village women found hilarious) until the sun went down (aka bed time). Janie joined her roommates - chickens and peeing goats - for a restless night. The "alarm clock" (aka roosters) rang circa 4:45 am and the village began stirring at once. We said our goodbyes and headed out. Price wanted to kidnap her 6-year-old adorable brother, Edward (who appeared to be about 3 years old due to malnutrition).
So we're headed out early tomorrow morning on a seven hour drive to South Luangwa Park in Zambia for safari. As we've remained unscathed in our close encounters with baboons, pushy craft vendors, peeing goats, and a hole in the ground as a toilet, the hippos, hyenas, and the Zambian border control should be a breeze...
