June 24th: When in Rome... or is that Africa? :)

So last night after dinner we were all hanging out outside of our hotel and some locals were chatting with us getting to know where we come from and who we are. One of the boys in our group, Jeff has long red dread locks and one of the men, Johnnybanana puts dreads in hair for a living and offered to fix and tighten Jeff’s for him. They worked out a compromise that Johnnybanana would do his hair for a beer, a pair of socks, and a tee shirt. Banana-man offered to give me dreads and of course I said noooo way! However, after I thought about it, I will probably only be in Malawi one time and I definitely would never get dreads at home. So after half of a kuchikuchi (my first beer in Africa, and yes only one-half) I let Johnnybanana give me dread locks. I LOVE THEM!—Mom please don’t kill me!!
Okay, okay you all know me better than that. I wouldn’t let him do my whole head, but I did let him do one small dread in the back right side of my hair, and he even put a small wooden bead in it that he took out of his hair and put in mine. He said it wouldn’t come out, but the end is already starting to come out because my hair is so fine. It’s about the size of a hair-wrap, which also fall out, so I’m not too worried J! I have several great pictures from the night and if I don’t have strong enough internet connection here, be sure to find them when you look through my hundreds of pictures!!
Unfortunately when everyone was heading inside the local boys, Johnnybanana, Respect, and Fantastic (I think the boys make up names for Americans and tourists because their names are hard to pronounce correctly, but they swear they are their real names!) started to haggle us for money. Johnnybanana asked me to buy one of his bracelets for his sister’s education (probably a lie) and I felt like I needed to because he did do my hair. I ended up buying two bracelets and offered him 400K which was a very good deal. Pat Kelly (who has come 27 times) said I should not pay more than 100K. He tried to tell me I was ripping him off and guilted me a lot. Everyone in Malawi has something to sell because that is how they make their living, however the men in Lilongwe tend to be very pushy and overbearing. It kind of ended the evening poorly after we all had such a fun night, but even after that happened I think I will always remember my friend, Johnnybanana J.
We are now in Zomba after a 4 hour car ride from Lilongwe. I am in Annie’s Lodge and it is like PARADISE. I can not explain how beautiful it is in the dark, and cannot wait to see it in the light! Today we stopped several times on the way here: the villiage of Dedza where we stopped at Dedza pottery- where I bought beautiful pieces and then we watched a man make recycled paper out of elephant dung, a huge market in Lizulu but I did not buy anything, Mankoahwe villiage for a leg stretch a some awesome pictures of an overlook, and finally we are in Zomba. We will travel to the schools tomorrow and I am so excited. The children are so great here, in Dedza we played with them quite a while, and they chased our bus out as long as their little legs could run. Some of them know English, however almost all of them have been taught to ask for money which is sad.
Zikomo (thank-you!),
Beth