Muli bwanji?

The whole last week, I was in Salima (Sanga Bay more precisely) attending a cultural and language training, which was organized by my country office of the sending NGO.

We learned about the geography, history, some political issues and culture. What interested me the most was about different tribes in Malawi and their customs. Particularly, their marriage systems and some of traditions have significant impact on the gender relations, which is relevant in my work. Refreshed my memories from Anthropology classes.

The language (Chichewa) training was interesting. I love learning languages, but I felt my brain was totally melting down especially on the first day. It is not an easy language to learn, not to mention just having three days of training. However, it is always interesting to see some similarities of grammars, rules as well as its own uniqueness of the language. I adapted a new Chichewa name, Mwayi. It means fortunate, and I am hoping that this name will bring me some good luck. ;)

I feel now that I learned a bit of Chichewa, my little Spanish was completely wiped out… After all, I have only so much capacity in my brain.

The hotel where we stayed was along a beach (of Lake Malawi.) I went for a walk or short jog in a morning, and I swam a couple of times. It was nice to get away from Lilongwe for a while.