Saturday October3, 2009

The JRS staff took a road trip to Salima, Lake Malawi, today. Two parts of this long day trip stick out for me: watching grown adults step onto sand and see a large body of water for the first time in their life, and the car ride home with 9 of us in the vehicle being entertained by a grown colleague of ours pretending to be a DJ.

I took many photos of the ones who ran to the water almost upon seeing it, I wanted to capture their faces as they delighted in experiencing the waves crashing against their bodies. They splashed and played in the water like children; it was the purest scene of happiness I'd seen in a while. I want them to have these photos so that they can share it with their families and possibly return one day.

As for the drive home, we stopped about 5 different times to make purchases at the side of the road and at one stop we all got out. With the one speaker and ipod in hand, our male DJ colleague and a female co-worker placed themselves in the middle of the road (really, in the middle of nowhere) and start dancing together to this music that seems loud enough for the whole village to hear! It was the best scene I'd seen in a long time. To top it off, the "DJ" pretended to be broadcasting from Malawi for Nairobi and asked a woman selling mangos to tell everyone in Nairobi what she was doing today. She took the ipod and spoke into the end of it telling people in Chechewa what her name was and that she was selling mangos. Luckily, I captured this comedic moment on my video camera.

I think this whole production and the rest of the way home was equally hilarious and I definitely appreciate the laughs had today. It had been a while...