BONDING!

(disclaimer i have not checked for spelling or grammar errors. i felt that as an english major it is my duty to warn you)

Hello lovely friends and family

In this installment I will be reporting to you on my BONDING experience and also the happenings of this past week!

So…

Last Friday morning, after our language class, we prepared to be dropped off at various locations, with various church families for a weekend affectionately called: Bonding. Bonding is a 3 to 4 day experience where you as a white American individual spend time working with and getting to know an African family.

4 interns in Chad’s car. 4 interns in Allen’s car. I was in Allen’s car and I was the first to be dropped off. I stayed “in town” about a 5 minute drive from the missionaries homes. I stayed with Delphenia and Belarmindo, a precious mom and pop coupled who are members of the church in town.

I arrived at the house. Allen, KP, Ted, Zack, and I all got out of the car so Belarmindo could introduce me to the “chief” of the village. What you are picturing when I say chief is probably inaccurate (ha ha). He did not have on traditional African garb or even live in an extra cool house; he was just a dude, in a very colorful shirt, who lived down the street a bit. He has no real authority but for traditions sake the government has allowed for these chief to remain.

After our short introduction we went back to my “home” and with a few final goodbyes I began my bonding.

Delphenia put me right to work. She got a piece of fabric to cover my hair and I helped “hit” rice from the stalks. (I know I’m going to sound ignorant but who knew rice grew on stalks…not me). They giggled at me a bit, as I was hitting these rice clusters with a wooden stick, but I would say I did pretty well.

After hitting the rice we tossed it in these baskets to get all of the lighter, unwanted pieces out. I was horrible at this…I tried a few times but I just ended up causing all of the good rice to go flying.

Soon after it was time for lunch: ixma (sheema) and matapa. Sheema is this corn meal mush stuff that is like really really thick mash potatoes; and matapa is a mixture of greens and other vegetables. After lunch Delphenia told me to take a nap…I’ been there for 2 hours and she told me to take a nap. Oh my. I slept in my own little “house.” It was a small mud and grass hut next to Delphenia and Belarmindo’s. It was nice to have a little space to my self to unwind and process what was going on.

After my nap Delphenia and I sang together and read the Bible together. So precious. She had me read to her in Makua and she read to me in Portuguese. After our worship time we moved back to the rice…this time we were pounding it…yes in one of those basin looking things that you use a huge stick with! Yeah that thing. I tried it…it is hard. Delphenia is in her late 50s and she was throwing the stick up in the air and clapping! She’s basically a hoss. She called in a few of the neighborhood kids to help…and once they say that a white girl was there they must have spread the word because about 15 kids showed up.

I watched Delphenia and the kids hitting/crushing/whatever the rice for a while THEN Delphenia told me to go play with the kids….she was totally like my mom the whole weekend ☺

So went out front and there were dozens of kids! I was so excited! They taught me some fun game, but let me win…courtesy to the guest I guess. BUT it was a tad frustrating; especially when we were playing this one game that is a cross between monkey in the middle and dodge ball. There are three players and the one in the middle is trying to fill up an old coke bottle with sand (the dirt here is like sand) while the other two throw a ball back and forth and try to hit the bottle person.

I filled the bottle 3 times in a row…the kids would not hit me! ha ha ha I also sat down and taught them how to play tic.tac.toe.

Soon I was fetched by my African momma to get washed up for dinner; in the latrine set up there is the latrine for the bathroom then next to is an area for washing. There is a huge bucket filled with water and a rock to stand on while you’re washing. I think she wanted me to take a full-fledged bath because after I came out and the only thing wet was my hands and face she almost told me to go back and wash more…but thankfully that did not happen.

We ate dinner. It got dark fast (around 5.30) then I was in bed by 6.30. ☺ good day.

SATURDAY

Woke up early around 5…had breakfast with mom and pop around 6---egg sandwiches (I know right!) and hot water with sugar (their version of tea).

After breakfast Delphenia and I headed to their farm, which was only about a 10-minute walk outside of town. We cut mela off of stalks, which were already on the ground—it was hard work! I got several blisters on my hands, a lot of ants bites on my feet, and a pretty decent sun burn BUT it was a good feeling when the job was done. We were at the farm for about 2 hours…we finished around 10 am!

We headed back to the house and Delphenia had me carry some supplies wrapped up in a piece of cloth on my head. Yes my head. She tried to get me not to use my hands and just balance it…that did not happen. (ha ha) as we were walking back some of the villages members saw me and just started laughing. Not an uplifting experience, but people generally laugh whenever one of us does anything so it was somewhat expected.

Got back to the house put down our loads then off to get water! She also made me carry water on my head…oh my gosh it was so heavy; I got water all over myself. Good thing the water pumped was only 2 minutes from the house or I would have died or spilt all of the water!

Got back. Sat down. And the kids came.

We play tic.tac.toe or as they started to call it ticky.tacky.toe. They also taught me some of their games they played in the sand. One was a mixed between tic.tack.toe and chess; the other was like a guessing board game.

Around 11.30 it was time to start lunch so Delphenia brought me into her “cooking hut” to help her; she let me cut veggies and eventually I got to stir the imxa (sheema). Now understand this stuff is thick! After it cools it has the consistency of play dough but not that gross…ha ha. The crazy thing about being in the kitchen with Delphenia (besides the smoke) was she picked up coals, hot pans, and hot lids WITH HER BARE HANDS!!!! It was not for terribly long but she picked them up all the same…African ladies hands are apparently fireproof.

After lunch it was naptime! Ha ha So I went into my little hut and lied down. I was going to journal but I was so tired that I fell asleep almost immediately.

Woke up around 2.30 and had some more worship time with Delphenia. If you are wondering where her husband Belarmindo was this whole time I will tell you that he WAS there…he was just under the weather so he stayed in bed or sat outside most of the time).

After worship time, more playing with the kids; but in the middle of playing Delphenia kind of stopped them and said; “ok now stop playing and teach her some Makua.” So we stopped playing in the dirt and had school. ☺ One little boy kind of took responsibility as my teacher—he was about 10-years-old so cute and so helpful. The kids would point to things and tell me what the Makua word was…my teacher even brought me a piece of paper to write some words down.

After the lesson we went across the way to play and yes take pictures! Oh my gosh you bring that camera out and those kids go crazy! (P.S. the kids had not even seen my camera…but for some reason they knew I had one and kept doing a picture taking motion until I got it out of my bag!)

I was called in from playing for dinner. I helped get stuff ready. It was very very dark before we ate so I got out my flashlight and Delphenia apparently had one so she got hers out as well.

We had rice and chicken. Which is very special—since they have to kill one of their own chickens (which are not pumped full of hormones so they do not have as much meat on them as chickens in the states). We ate and a visitor came, a young woman with her little baby. They stayed and talked with Delphenia for a while; the young woman tried to talk with me but I was so mentally drained that I just smiled. They laughed of course, but language learning is so hard; and I hadn’t spoken any English out loud in almost 48 hours. (crazy)

Went to bed. Woke up early. God ready for church. Ate breakfast—Delphenia was running around like crazy getting stuff ready quickly so we could leave for church.

It was about a 10-minute walk from her home to the church. We got there shook hands with everyone (as is custom); then we went to visit one of the church ladies who comes to the weekly Bible class the girl interns have been attending. She was not feeling well so we went to help her get ready for church.

Service was great. A young guy who spoke a little bit of English asked for my pen…here’s the story: Delphenia would not let me wait outside for church to start because she did not want me to burn….yes she was my mother, so I went inside and journalled a little bit. One of the visiting church members came up to me and started talking to me in English. He saw my pen and remarked, “That is nice pen. I do not have one.” And I was like “Oh yeah it is nice…would you like it?” and without hesitation he replied, “Ok.” (ha ha no shame ladies and gentlemen no shame)

Church was about 3 hours long—several of the members got up front sang and did a sort of dance/sway thing. It was great to see their energy and passion for the Lord. Also one of the church members who speaks a little bit of English stood in front and translated for me (very broken English but I got the gist of what he was saying)

Church got over around 11.30 and I headed back to the house with Delphenia. Allen was “scheduled” (a loose term in Africa) to pick me up around noon.

We got back to the house and the kids came. They sat down and started to review and teach me more Makua. Allen showed up close to 1…and it was so so so good to see him! His two precious daughters, Abby and Ellie, came with him and getting big hugs from them was the best feeling in the world!

We got my stuff and said our goodbyes. And yes: my host mother kissed me on the lips. I tried to avoid it. But she pulled me back in for a big wet one….

It’s strange writing down what I did on bonding because it does not seem like I did that much…it is an experience that I cannot fully tell you about because you were not there. It was stretching, it was strange, it was enlightening, it was freeing, it was good, it was hard—but the over all feeling I have about it…I’m so glad I did it, but it will be sometime before I will want to do it again.

Thank you for reading. Thank you for participating with me in this adventure. It means so much to me that you are interested in what I’m doing and I feel very loved knowing you’re in some way here with me because you’re reading this.
Look forward to a next installment that I’m going to write right after this one…