The Shopping Trip of A Lifetime

Tom mentioned we take the ladies to town for the curtain material.  Six of the wives and a female teacher were taken to Zomba with four of us and Agnes, the secretary at EI who comes out to cook our lunches.  These ladies had showered, arranged their hair, put on their best clothes and arranged for the husbands to babysit.  And the close by market had nothing for us.  So we returned to the school to “explain” to the five remaining men that we couldn’t try another day, we had to go now, they would have to wait three hours for their ride home but we were going NOW.

Picture this – a store floor space 2m by 4m, all twelve of us in there, bargaining over prices, needing 65 metres!  Each house needed a different length and they all had the sheets we had prepared with their needs.  While the person was cutting we knew they wouldn’t have enough so the next two stores were checked out and we moved on, all of us into another 2m by 4 m store. I’m sure the other shoppers thought we were crazy.  But 65 minutes after starting we had seven of the happiest women, laughing, and chatting to each other.  The driver dropped the four of us at Annie’s but he said the women sang the whole way home.  When they got out of the truck, laughing, singing, dancing as only Malawians can, I think we were forgiven for the long wait by the men. (Submitted by Maureen Bird)