Mua Mission

Here's some photos from a field trip our entire group took during a training week to Mua Mission. After sitting in sessions all week we needed to get out! We had a crazy drive up, over, and down around mountains. I laughed when I turned around in the car to see where we came from and when I looked out over the windshield to see where we were going. One of the vans was packed with at least 15 people and to think that our buses were able to make these ascends and descends was incredible to me! About Mua Mission: Mua Mission was established in 1976 by a Canadian Missionary. He dedicated his life to preserve the culture of the "Chewa People" through research and recordings. There is a museum that displays the history of the Mission as well as documents, through photos with blurbs under, the various traditional rites of passage of the "Chewa." It was incredible. There were two rooms in the museum where we could not take photos (unfortunately) that displayed 200 different tribal masks and replicas of various statues that are used to represent various concepts from the spirit world. The landscape was breath taking with so many different plants, flowers, and trees. There was a stream running down below the site that I tried to capture in photos. The mission is also a lodge with a beautiful restaurant overlooking a gorge-type swimming area. Hard to capture in photos but it is a place I would take visitors!

I speak "Chichewa" therefore, this museum was a great way for me to have more insight into the people that I live and work with. Although we learn about various cultural traditions and practices, the museum was very thorough and filled in some gaps I didn't know I had. They showed photos of what happens during adult initiation ceremonies where girls are taught how to take care of their husbands/families. There are many different activities that take place and different physical tasks to represent being "a woman." They had to put flour on their heads for something, shave their head for another reason, and lay on the ground to represent servitude. There is dancing and singing and when they emerge from the woods, where everything is done in private, they are now women. Oh yeah, they are made to have sex. Some of these practices are more traditional and may still happen in villages but in place like Lilongwe or other cities. Pretty intense none the less. The beauty of this place to me is that some people have dedicate their lives to preserving these small tribe of people and reassured them that their cultural practices do have meaning and that their history is important. Too often cultures are influenced by Western practices and as a result, lose pieces of their own traditions. It was great to see a place that was so beautiful aesthetically, but had a deeper, meaningful purpose. Anyway, enjoy the photos and if you want to read more about Mua Mission you can go to: http://www.kungoni.org.