Letter From Bryan

Dear Family and Friends, 03-11-07

Hello, again from Africa. I pray this letter finds you all well. I am writing you while sitting at our table in a mud hut with a thatched grass roof. This letter is written on the second day that Keah and I are at our homestay. This is at the four week part of our training where we live in a village with a Malawian family near the College we are being trained at.
Keah and I are very blessed to have a house of our own for homestay. It is a small house about the size of our back room at my parent’s house. There is a sleeping room and a sitting room, and a little room we keep our clothes in . The walls are white washed with white clay the family got from the other side of the village.
Our family here is Presbyterian. There are 9 kids in the family, but most have moved out. Our Abamo (host father) is a retired government official, and all government business is done in English when possible. This means his English is pretty good. Also, one of his son’s, Kingsley, who will be 21, like Anthony, very soon speaks a little English. No one else in our family speaks English, but that’s ok. We’ll learn Chichewa! Then we’ll speak with them more! Other than Kingsley, there is also another son, Nelson, who I don’t recall meeting yet, and the youngest is the only girl out of 7 is Chimwemwe. Chimwemwe means “happiness” in Chichewa. Along with the family there are two foster children. The mother’s sister passed away along with her husband so their daughter, Chisomo, also lives with them. Chisomo means” Grace”! Also a friend of the family who’s parents passed away lives with us. His name is Vistone, Chisomo, Chimwemwe & Vistone are younger. Maybe Vistone is in the 4th grade. Chisomo is in the 6th and Chimwemwe is in the 7th. As you can see, many people in Malawi have to take in foster children. This is due to HIV/AIDS, plus people drive crazy and they have a lower life expectancy.
It amazes me how happy everyone her is! They are very welcoming! I see why they call it the “warm heart of Africa”! For the people that know no English, they will know “English speaking people are most welcome here!”
The Malawians are amazed that we want to come to Malawi and live for two years. They are so happy we are trying to learn to speak Chichewa. I really enjoy Chichewa. It is a spoken language that the British put in writing. Because of this it is a phonetically spoken language. Words are spelled like they sound and spoken how they look. Anyone who knows Keah and I will know this is wonderful for us. For example, butterfly is Gulugufy but I’m sure in the states they’d try and spell it Gulugoophey. All women are called Amay, which is “mother” or “mama” and men are called Aambo which is “father”. Also in some places they call women Mana and men Baba.
Now for a funny story; since we don’t know the language very well, we get a lot of stares. Keah and I went with another PCT, Peace Corps Trainee, to a football (soccer) match this afternoon. Kingsley coaches Tristone’s team and they were to play the team from another village which was next to ours. Since Kingsley couldn’t find a ball the kids kicked a ball around made of sugar and salt bags. The game was to start at 7:00 but didn’t because of the need for a ball. Kingsley went in search of a ball. The children kept kicking the ball around until they got tired of that. Keah, Aurora, Kevin and I were watching and all of a sudden we had 29 little boys standing, sitting and laying in front of us. They were just staring at us. We were like, “ ok, ummm, what now? We can’t talk to them and they can’t talk to us. Here we are talking in English and they are talking about us in Chichewa. I know they were talking about us because every once in a while you cold here “Azungu” which means “white person” or “foreigner”.
So I did what any former Camp Counselor would do we began playing soccer. Kicking the ball around and then here comes 29 little kids wanting to play with us. It was awesome! Then here comes some more boys. It was like they were waiting to see if we were aliens or something. When they saw we played soccer they decided they could come play with us. We played in a giant circle for about 45 minutes. Many got tired and went over and sat in front of Keah and Aurora again. Kevin and I were not “Azungin” for a while. We were just two guys who could kick a ball.
Soooo…..After that Keah and I came back after the game, which was a tie, 1 to 1. we took our Bafas which means “cup baths”, which is a funny story for another day!
We had Tea then ate dinner. We were walking back from giving our dirty dishes to our Amayi and Keah told me to look up. When I did, I thought the sky had been moved down to where we could touch it. You can see every star as if they are right in front of your hands. Without the huge amount of light we put out in the States the stars are crystal clear! We also observed the sky is amazing during the day. African skies are unlike anything we have ever seen.
Ok..on to something else. We have a PCVL (PCV Leader) working with us, well she’s done for now, but she was working with us. She is a third year volunteer who helps in many ways. Her name is Hidey and her parents have recently moved to Altus, Oklahoma. I gave them both my parents and Keah’s parents address. I hope you will hear from them. Hidey is the one that gave us the idea about sending the tea bags in the letters. The tea here is not so good. Just plain old tea.
Thanks for the letters you have written. It means a lot to hear from you. It is exciting to get mail. I hope you will all write as often as you can.
I pray God keeps you all safe and healthy. You all are in our prayers constantly! I hope this letter has put some of you at ease about Malawi. It is great hear. We look forward hearing from you.
We love you all, Bryan and Keah