Going to the village

Nearly every Saturday and Sunday we go to the village. People in the village are farmers, but not the kind of farmers we have in Canada. They work with a hoe and put the seeds in the ground with their hands. Malawians grow maize(corn), beans, yams and cabbage. Some people are lucky, and are able to raise a few animals such as a goat or some chickens, but most Malawians only have meat once a year (for Christmas). In the village people live in houses made out of mud, and the roof is made of grass. They don't have any furniture, the women cook over a fire and the whole house is about as big as your bedroom. Going to the village is fun but also tiring, with lots of dirty children crowding around you and asking: "Whatey isae yoa name(what is your name)?", which is often the only English sentence they know, so they say it over and over.

Sometimes I just climb up in a mango tree to read. It's the only place where 50 kids can't surround me.