The past few days we have been making our rounds visiting the African women. Sense most of the African women don’t know a whole lot of Spanish (and even if they did, I don’t so it wouldn’t be much help anyways) we spend a lot of our time visiting watching Telenovelas (Spanish soap operas) with the woman. If anything, by the end of the summer Amanda and I will be quite up to date on all Spanish drama. & these telenovelas are ridiculous, it seems that on every show everyone is some how related, but all sleeping with each other and trying to kill each other. They can be quite exhausting, as you can imagine, especially since they are in Spanish. I never knew how exhausting it could be to just sit on someones couch until encountered Telenovelas. But its nice to visit with the women and just show them that we care about them. Just taking time to spend with them means everything to them. Today after women’s class we were supposed to makes some more visits but something came up that changed all the plans of the day. One of the women who has attended womens class in the past lost her husband on Wednesday. So womens class was cut short and we made our way to the new widows house to pay her a visit.
The visit at the widow’s house of course turned into a 5 hour visit but no pasa nada (no big deal). Although the reason for being there was quite sad, it was really cool to experience an African gathering for a funeral. The women spent all day preparing the meal that we finally ate at 4pm. It was really cool to watch the women cook their African feast. It was also cool to experience the sort mood that was felt in the home. While funerals are sad Africans like to celebrate the life that was had instead of dwelling on the death. While the mood was somber at moments, these people were really at peace with what had happened.
Some African ladies preparing the food.
It was also very interesting because this woman was a pretty strong Muslim and so were many of her friends and family. It was interesting to experience this strong cultural and religious difference. There was a lot of praying to Mecca. There was also a strong divide between the men and the women, they were almost never in the same room. Tiffany said that this is very typical African (and Muslim) culture for the women to keep away from the men. This I found strange, and it sort of made me mad considering the men did nothing but sit around all day while all the women labored outside cooking but Tiffany said again this is very typical African culture. The women typically work all day and the men do not do a whole lot. It was interesting to witness this first hand. Once the food was finally ready, the men all ate first and then the women could eat, even though they are the ones that spent the whole day cooking it. What was also interesting is that Africans eat with their right hands (only use their hands, no forks or spoons) they have a really cool trick of how to eat with their hands. Fortunately they had some spoons, which I chose in an effort to keep myself from making a complete mess. This food was amazing as usual and it was just really cool to sit and talk with so many different women. Its amazing when you think you have your whole day planned out and the something happens and it all changes. I think it is a reminder from God that he is in control and knows what best for me, and no matter how hard I try to plan around that he always prevails. & im thankful for that because this day was such a unique and amazing experience.
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