Wedding Parade and Wedding Crashers (Malawi Day 2)

Pizza and Coffee.... YUM!

Day two of our adventure started with us waking up and taking advantage of the hot showers.   Let’s just say that when a peace corps volunteer has the option of a warm shower, we are going to take as many long showers as we can.  We got ready and then headed out to explore Blantyre.  We found a place to get breakfast but when we looked at the menu, we saw pizza so we ordered two to split and figured by the time they were ready it would be 11 and an appropriate time to have pizza. 

Malawian President and his new bride

While we were eating, Roy called to see what our plans were and we told him we were eating and then we wanted to go see a movie at the theatre we had heard about and that we had decided to take him up on his tour of Malanje.  He told us to call him in the afternoon after we saw the movie and he would come get us.  We finished eating then decided to walk around a little and try to figure out where the mall/theatre were.  Everyone was just standing along the road waiting and we noticed a lot of police lining the road.  We stopped and asked someone what was happening.  Turns out the new President of Malawi and just gotten married and he and his new wife were driving around the city and were on their way by.  Added bonus of the trip, seeing the Malawian President and all his wedding guests and new wife parading down the street in their vehicles with their security.   We continued to walk around for a little bit and then decided it was getting late and we would call Roy to see if he still wanted to come get us.  He said he was on his way and would be at our hostel in about 45 minutes, so we decided to go back and take a short nap. 

Roy, Tania and I at the haunted bar

                When we woke up, he still wasn’t there, so we asked the people at the Hostel where the mall was and they informed us that the theatre was closed and then gave us directions.  We started to walk there and Roy drove by and picked us up.  We said we never made it to the mall and didn’t see a movie, so he insisted that he take us there, and he dropped us off to shop for about an hour while he went to visit his mother who lives in Blantyre.  We went to a bookstore, Shoprite (a large grocery store) and a Game (Think Walmart type store).  Hello culture shock… I was very overwhelmed with everything around me.  After that, we got some coffee and a quick snack while we waited for Roy to return for us.  When he did, we decided it was too late to go to Malonje and see the mountains because it would be dark by the time we got there, so the four of us decided to go out and get a drink and see more of Blantyre. 

Wedding reception

                He ended up taking us to a residential area where there is an old house that no one lives in now because people say it is haunted.  So instead of tearing it down or having a continuous flow of people living there and moving out, they turned it into a bar.  It was a beautiful old house and an even cooler bar.  We had a few beers, watched some football (soccer), and made a few plans for tomorrow for him to drive us to Malonje, to see his plot of land and the mountains.  He informed us that they were making bricks (out of mud) for the wall around his land and it had been raining a lot.  His guard didn’t cover them in time so he lost about 800 bricks, we decided that we would offer to help him make some more since he had been driving us around and showing us Malawi.  We promised to make 100 bricks each for 300 bricks total… let’s just say he didn’t believe us.  While we were sitting there, he mentioned that his mother was at a wedding reception of some family friends and when we asked why he wasn’t there he said because he was with us.  He then asked if we would want to go and of course we said, YES!!  So he called a few friends to make sure it’d be ok if we came, especially considering we weren’t dressed for a fancy wedding and when we got the ok, off we went to crash a Malawian-Greek Orthodox wedding reception.   This reception was in the middle of a park with several beautiful white tents set up to create a great reception area.  We got there, met some of Roy’s friends and family, and then all of a sudden Tania and I see some of the Greek guys from the night before. 

Note my clothes and note the other guests... hello underdressed :)

Both groups of people look at each other and are like, “What are you doing here?”, granted they were dressed up like they were supposed to be there and we, well we were in jeans and t-shirts, so I think it was a little stranger for us to be there.  We spent the night dancing and making many new friends, what a random and small world it is.  I guess now I can cross crash a wedding off my things to do in life.