I made it to home stay…

So I made it through the first night and full day of home stay! The cultural differences are exactly what you may expect. The family that I am staying with speaks no English, and currently I know about 6 words in Chichewa (the 2nd national language after English in Malawi). This makes communicating with language quite difficult, but smiling and laughter are universal. There has been a lot of that the last 24 hours. Another cultural difference includes how often I shower. Today I took 3 bucket baths. Yes, it is what it sounds like, I used a bucket and some warm water to try and take a shower. Now normally I take like one shower every 3 days-ish, so you can see how this would be much different. My next words in Chichewa that I need to learn are “I don’t want to shower 3 times a day.”

Because I know so very little language there have been times where we have just sat in silence. Now in the United States this may be seen as an “awkward silence.” However, in Malawi this is completely normal, even if all parties speak the same language. Also, I am never alone unless I go into my bedroom and close the door. There have been multiple times when I have gone to sit outside to journal, read, or write a letter and immediately there is another person beside me. Sometimes they just watch what I am doing and other times they just sit there. They do this because they don’t believe that I should be alone, even though that is definitely not the case. Alone time is pretty much non-existent unless you go into your bedrooms (which is considered a private place of the house).

Food is another big cultural difference that I’ve experienced so far. Both days that I have been here I have been served chicken, and when I turn it down they keep offering. Being a vegetarian by choice is not something that is common here because if a family can afford to eat meat it is seen as a delicacy. A lot of Malawians eat a vegetarian diet, but not because they choose too. This is merely just a lack of miscommunication and is something the Peace Corps trainee home-stay coordinators need to make clear, even though they tried telling my family that I don’t eat meat yesterday. I think it mostly deals with the fact that my family doesn’t understand why I wouldn’t want to.

Also dealing with eating, people only eat with their right hand and not their left. Because I am right handed this isn’t an issue, but I know it has been for the other volunteers.

The portion size we are served here is bound to make us all fat. One of the 6 words I know in Chichewa is “ndakhuta.” This means I am full, and when I say it to my amayi (woman of the house) she just laughs and shakes her head. Telling her my stomach is not big enough to eat that amount of food is next on the list of things to learn how to say.

My meals have consisted of deep fried bread, mandazi, and sugar water when I got here. For dinner we ate rice, a little bit of veggies, and chicken (I pulled out the hot sauce immediately). For breakfast I was served plane bread and French fry looking things that are called chipies here. I was packed a snack for PST and it was a huge thing of rice and more chipies. And lunch was nsima and some sort of green veggie that looks kind of like cooked spinach. Who knows what is for dinner, but all I know is that I am stuffed to the max still from the amount of food I’ve already eaten here.

#peacecorps