'Hug'

Yesterday:

Renee and I were walking to our hostel when a bunch of boys came over yelling 'azungu!' at us as always. I said hi and gave them high fives and then continued walking. Renee got held up and then tried to continue on with them holding her hands. They started asking her for her shoes, but she said, "No, my shoes." They thought that she meant that her name was 'Myshoes'. It was pretty hilarious.

We were both going back to hand wash our clothes. I stayed back at the hostel a little bit longer and then as I was walking back to check on everyone and the sweet potatoes, I ran into some of the little nursery kids. They are my favorite. Their big eyes gazing up at me with big smiles on their faces just melt my heart! They always kindly reach for a high five and then look at your hand after you touch theirs as if you rubbed off some magic on them. They are so sweet. Then they tenderly reach to hold your hand. This time, as I walked by they shouted 'azungu!' like always so that their friends knew too, and then as I came closer and said hi to them, one of the little boys said, "Hug" with his arms wide open. I was so surprised! I asked him 'hug?' to confirm and he did it again! I leaned over and gave him a hug. Then some of the other little kids asked for hugs too, so I happily obliged them all. It was such a happy moment for me and I hope I will be able to give out more hugs in the future!

Later in the day, Renee and I had put our clothes on the line outside and were watching a movie in her room on her computer. Suddenly the cleaning lady comes into Renee's room. She doesn't speak any English, but somehow I have been able to understand what she means, and she doesn't even give me any hand motions. I think there are only so many things that I do during the day that she sees that she would talk to me about, so I narrow them down to one thing and probably just get lucky and guess. That's my only possible explanation, but it's pretty cool! One time she was telling me that I should scrub my clothes while I wash them as I was washing them. And I had told her that I had already done that, and she nodded yes and said okay. Anyway, back to Renee's room. So she came into the room and started speaking in Chichewa. Renee and I were pretty lost and thought that she just wanted to visit us, but she started speaking to us some more. All of the sudden it was like I knew what she was saying, it just sort of popped into my brain, so I asked with hand motions, "Did our clothes fall off the clothes line?" She gave me an, mhmmm and sort of laughed with it. Yup, I was right. I told her 'zikomo' (thank you) and hurried outside to find the clothes line had broken and my clothes were lying in the dirt. Aw man! It's okay though. She sort of started laughing and then helped us fix the line so that our clothes could still hang to dry. It was pretty exciting.

Also, on Tuesday, which was Camille's Birthday, we wanted to make her a special treat. She has been craving no bake cookies, so that was the plan! We gathered the ingredients before we left Lilongwe and then made the no bake cookies in the kitchen at SAFI. The women had to unlock the door to let us in to make them. Then they just started watching us. It was pretty funny. Renee and I just estimated our measurements and it turned out great! Sara, Betha, Joyce, Ayda, and Bernadet were just watching us make it. Then we let them have the other ingredients because we wouldn't be using them for anything anymore and they enthusiastically accepted! They even wanted to keep the recipe and they hadn't even tried them yet! It was great, we made sure there was some left for them after we Camille had some for her happy day! Apparently they liked it. I wonder if it was too sugary for them because candy here is not as sugary as the candy in America. Who knows!