Written January 15th.
Greetings from Zambia! So far our first month on the race has been great! We survived one of the most miserable bus rides ever from Malawi to Zambia (Im not going to go into details, but lets just say Im getting used to cramming as many people as possible into vehicles that are not meant to carry that amount of passengers. This bus rides still haunts my dreams.) Team Zoa, Team Fierce, and Team No Name are together this month in Chipata. We learned we would be rotating between different villages in the area. My team is assigned to the Village of, Mtenguleni, which is about 25Km from the city of Chipata. This village has no electricity, running water, and apparently there are holes in the ground for toilets. (This should be an interesting week. But more on that later!) We were told by Johan, our contact, that we would be meeting the Chief of the village, and we would have to bring him gifts from each of us in order to receive his blessing and stay in the village. I was pretty excited that we would be able to get the chance to meet the Chief, but at the same time I was a little intimidated. I don’t know about you, but I have never met the Chief of an African village before. What if he didn’t like us and banished us from his chiefdom? That evening Will and I went to the local grocery store to get our gifts for the Chief. We were told to get practical things, like flour, sugar, oil, salt, things he would be able to use. Shopping for a Chief is much harder than you think, and after much aisle wandering we finally decided upon the gifts. We hoped he would like them!
When we got to the village, we were greeted by the pastor, John , and he told us we were not allowed to do anything in the village until we met with Chief Madzi Mawi. Just a little back ground on Chief Madzi Mawi. He has been Chief for over 15 years and rules over 260 villages in the area. He is the head of all the Chiefs in Zambia, and reports directly to the President of Zambia.So he is kind of a big deal, and making a good impression with him is very important. Our entire team couldn’t fit in the small taxi we were talking to the Chief’s palace, so Will, Jeff, & I volunteered to go. As we were driving to the palace, I was just blown away by the beauty of Zambia. Its so untouched and green, truly amazing. Along the way we stopped at a smaller village to pick up the Chief’s right hand man, Kasamba Mulopa. He was a very friendly old man who was all smiles and only one tooth right in front and spoke absolutely no English. After about 20 minutes on unpaved, muddy and bumpy African dirt road, we finally arrived at the Chief’s “palace” which to an American’s standards, was really just an average house, nothing special. We were escorted to the palace porch with the pastor and right hand man, and were informed to sit on a little wooden bench and wait for the Chief. The suspense was killing me, I didn’t really even know how to address a village Chief, let alone how to get him to like me! After a few minutes, which seemed like eternity, an average looking, middle aged, pot bellied man in jeans, a dirty t-shirt, and flip flops came out and sat down in a leather chair on the opposite side of the porch, looked at us and smiled. At first I was confused, this surely cant be the Chief. I was expecting a man in royal garb with a chiefly scowl on his face. The pastor and right hand man stood and greeted the man, who indeed was Chief Madzi Mawi. The pastor and the right hand man did most of the talking in their native language so we had no idea what they were saying, which makes things even more nerve wracking, but we did get introduce ourselves and present him with our gifts. Which he seemed to like. Before we left the Chief began to speak directly to us and told us he was very happy to have us and we were more than welcome to stay, and he hoped we would do great things in his village. As we left he shook our hands and told us if we needed anything to just let him know. I couldn’t help but breathe a sigh of relief. He liked us! On the way home we dropped off Mr. Mulopa, and the pastor told us the Chief liked us so much, he told Mr. Mulopa to give us a chicken! Overall I would say my first meeting an African Chief was a great success! Which I am so thankful for because this is such an amazing village and Im so glad we get to stay here and spend time with such friendly, hospitable people!
UPDATE: We were all sitting around after lunch, and the Chiefs right hand man, Kasamba Mulopa, walked in with his wife and our chicken! The chicken is now living in our little room, and will more than likely we our dinner tonight!
Peace,
Caroline
I had some great pics to post with this blog but couldn’t upload them due to the African Internet connection.. Check out my FB for Zambia pictures!
