O delicious night of butter sky to falling rainbow.
“I want to walk to watch the sunset, is that okay?” I asked Frackson our translator.
“Yes. But I will like to walk with you. We will go to the water.”
The reflection on the pool glittered in the evening disturbed only be fish jumping for the feast. The lily pads rock their flowers to sleep on the splashe’s ripples.
“A visitor!” she called to someone unseen, “A visitor is coming!”
Then I saw her, the one who shouted, as her fishing craft glowed in silhouette on her head. I tromped through the deep grasses by the marsh with Frackson, as my chitenge (or wrap skirt) caught on the reeds.
“Do you want to go see them?” He asked smiling knowing my answer.
“Yes! Yes, I really do.”
We rounded the marshy banks to discover dusk-tinted waters full of fishermen and women– whole fishing families. As soon as they saw me they all began to cheer.
“She,” Frackson pointed to the woman rushing up to greet us, “wants to show you what she has caught.”
The woman takes the lid off a kitchen pot and shows me how it’s full of fish. Ones smaller than sardines and some as long as 8 inches. She then begans pointing and telling me the names of each one and waiting while I recite them back to her. All the while the other 20-some people around are smiling and laughing as I attempt to pronounce the names in Chichewa.
As soon as the woman is done, another woman calls out from the water where she stands knee deep.
“She is telling you, ‘Watch how we fish. I will teach you.'” Frackson translates to me.
He is laughing all the while, sometimes I’m not sure if it’s with me or at my recitation of the Chichewa names!
They show me how they submerge their baskets into the water and someone else stomps on the grasses up from it to scare the fish into the basket where they are caught.
I feel like a proud parent as they all want me to see what they can do.
As the sun sets, the water is glowing golden red and we all are fading into deep silhouettes. All of the marsh mosquitoes are out in full form, but I honestly did not want to leave. The honesty of the work they are doing captivates me. And being called a visitor instead of muzungu (white person) really made my day. I can still see their faces, too, as their dark skin turns darker in the evening, their white teeth and eyes are framed with smiles. Of course I am smiling back.
Frackson later tells me that a white person has never before come to watch them fish. They were honored and excited cheering, laughing, dancing in the water, and singing.
We ended our visit by inviting them to come watch the Jesus Film that night. I saw many of them there.
What a blessing to get covered by mosquitoe bites for Jesus. And O the beauty of that place!
