Monday, April 14, 2008

Thako Village


Today we went to a village for church. When we arrived, there was a funeral in Thako village, which is the neighboring village, so everyone was gone. We decided to walk there to give our regards, which ended up being about 2 kilometers, maybe a little bit longer. After walking through 2 streams in flip-flops, up some shady rocks, (and no that does not me we went under a tree, these rocks were slippery and steep) and many maize fields, we arrived. The funeral is usually all day, so when we got there, the procession had already started. Everyone walks by and sings and then sits down and waits. Since we were not formally invited, we didn’t have to stay the whole day. We met many of the deacons, and the chief of the village. We sang a few songs, and then started walking back. It was really hot and with the altitude, we were all having a little bit of a hard time except for Chifundo. He thought it was quite entertaining that the white people were out of breath. This is the path that we took. If you look at the top of the hill that is the road we were heading for, when you reached the top of the hill, you were then about half way back to the village. It was a really neat experience because many women were carrying food or water on their heads and traveling on this path. I met some very sweet ladies.
Here is the entertainment, or what I thought was stinking hilarious. In Chichewa, would you like to know what Thako is?? Our supervisors shared with us that you don’t ever want to invite someone over for tacos because… taco or thako means your buttocks, or dairy ere, or you know whatever you want to call it. Also a volunteer team had done really well with not saying anything wrong in Chichewa, but at the very end of their week they were riding in the back of a truck and started saying taco bueno (which most of us would just be thinking you were talking about a restaurant), but that means nice butt in Chichewa. They got some really weird stares when they said it to other men in the streets. =) So when someone asked us where we had been yesterday, I was able to say we went to Buttville. I bet you can’t say that everyday. Hopefully none of you took offense to that…if you did, my apologies. I couldn’t resist, found it quite amusing.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Kymmie, that is AWESOME! I love reading your posts my mom sent me your blog and i check it every once and a while to see how you are doing. It seems like you are haveing a great time! God Bless!
Becky Epperson

Jeff Johnson said...

Kym, it sounds like y´all are havig a great time there in Africa. Keep up the awesome work and I look foward to some more of that Kym sarcasm in your blog :)

Kristen said...

Kym!
Update! This is how I keep up with what you're doing!