Luisa Capasso and I stayed with the Chiuswa family in Chesa, a small-scale commercial farming family whose plot is located about 2 kilometers south of the Nyamahobogo Secondary School in Chesa. The Chiuswa family is relatively small. There are only six children in the family, two of which are already married and live in the same household area. Most of the other families that students stayed with were larger, including the ever-excited Chimanga family, with a whopping 20+ children in a household with four wives. All the families, however, were similar with respect to their enthusiasm for having American visitors.

We arrived in Chesa on Thursday, September 30 and stayed through the following Sunday. On Thursday afternoon I went to fetch water with the sons in the family while Luisa went back to school with Mary, the eldest daughter. The Chiuswa's typically draw water from the "dam" (a small lake, not necessarily one used to provide hydroelectric power) about 2K's away. After a bumpy ride in a scotchcart (cattle-drawn cart) we got to the lake, filled a rusty old oil drum with water, and turned around to bring the water back to the kitchen. Luisa and I had planned to make stir-fry for the family that night as a gift, and she and Mary were already working on dinner when Tichaona, Jeffrey, Maxwell and I returned home. When I sat down to cut vegetables and help with the meal, Amai (Shona for "Mother") Chiuswa burst out laughing and wondered at idea that males should be able to, even allowed to, cook. Though it was a little tricky to make stir-fry over an open-fire, we managed nonetheless and dinner came off as a success. After everyone had finally declared that they couldn't eat anymore, we decided to make our s'mores for dessert. Surprise, surprise... everyone in the family was not full after all! After toasting marshmallows late into the night, we finally went to sleep.

We slept in separate huts made from hand-molded adobe brick with straw-thatching for a roof. I slept on the floor on a somewhat out-of-place looking Therma-Rest, while the boys in the family slept on a bed in the same room. The temperature in the evening was cool and comfortable, and I slept soundly until 3am when one of the family's roosters began crowing. There was no dawn yet as far as I could tell... but the roosters kept kept wailing away nonetheless. All part of the rural experience I guess.

The following day all the Nyamahobogo School students and the Dartmouth students assembled at the school for the presentation of the books that we had brought with us as our gift to the school district. At the assembly, the Headmaster of the school district made every effort to thank Dartmouth for its donation and called upon the students to make use of the new books in the now-expanded Nyamahobogo School library. Following the assembly, most of us chatted with students and teachers or waited while our host brothers and sisters went to classes. A couple of us even ended up giving improptu lectures to classes at the behest of the teachers we had spoken to.

After classes had ended that day, Luisa and I split up again: I with the boys and she with the girls. The boys and I hiked to town and met many of Tichaona's friends. We played foosball, met That Guy who had built his own tractor, and ate Freezes (Zimbabwean-style popsicles). The hike back to the farm was fairly long and we arrived again around dusk. Friday also happened to be Baba (Father) Chiuswa's 86th birthday and we presented him with a Dartmouth T-shirt which he sported happily for the rest of the weekend. By this time, Luisa and I had exposed the fact that we were carrying cameras, and one of them digital such that the picture taken could be immediately viewed on the display at the back of the camera. Everyone in the family wanted their picture and Luisa and I both happily took pictures of all the members of the family in this pose, that pose, with this person, with that backdrop...

At the end of the day we had a sadza dinner with rape (a kind of vegetable served with sadza) and chicken. Sadza has the consistency of mashed potatoes, but is made from maize (corn). Rape is slightly sour, but apparently nutritious. After a full meal by firelight, we walked to a late-night party (memorial service) that was being held at another farm (the family of the deceased). In Shona tradition, the dead are honored with a funeral and a year of mourning. On the anniversary of the death, a party is held to welcome spirits back into the family. At the party we drummed, and danced, and drank a homemade susbstance they called beer that caused some unusual stomach sensations... and generally had a good time. We walked back "2K's" in the dark to the Chiuswa farm and slept again till morning.

The second time around the rooster didn't have quite the same effect, perhaps because we had been out late the night before or perhaps we were getting used to the sound. By 6am the sun was up and we went to water the tobacco plants on the family's farm. The Chiuswa's don't grow much during the dry season as the ground is not hospitable for large-area crops, but the family still maintains a tobacco bed in October that they sell for cash at the end of every year. After returning home, we spent the rest of the day researching our assignment for the weekend, an analysis of the particular farms to which we had been assigned. Exhausted at the end of the day, we were invited to yet another memorial service, but turned it down. Instead we talked with Amai and Baba Chiuswa late into the night, as we both began to realize how much we would miss Chesa when we were obliged to leave the following day.

On Sunday, the boys and I woke early to spread manure beside the roadbed for transfer onto their crops during planting season. We ate a late breakfast of hot porridge and groundnuts (peanuts) and packed up our gear to walk back to the school where the bus to Harare would pick us up. We exchanged hugs and as we left, Amai Chiuswa presented Luisa and I with touching gifts of homemade peanut butter and sacks of groundnuts for the bus ride home. We exchanged thank-you's and good-bye's and with the children of the family in tow, finally made our way back to the school. When we arrived, the Shepherds had brought cookies and sodas to host a farewell party for all the Nyamahobogo and Dartmouth students. When the bus finally rolled away from the school, we thought back to what had been not only an interesting academic study, but a fantastic cultural experience. -- Eric Bielke