The Inyama Party: September 10

Two weekends before the end of training, a fellow PCT threw an inyama party at his host family’s house in Machipe (the neighboring village to Bundu). At the beginning of training, Tom had convinced a group of fellow trainees to invest part of their weekly allowance in the purchase of a pig to be sacrificed at the conclusion of training. He had named the pig inyama which means ‘meat’ in Ndebele. We were all very excited at the opportunity to spend a relaxing afternoon together, complete with music and traditional foods. Each language group was responsible for a portion of the meal and our group had decided to make mashed sweet potatoes because we thought it would be relatively simple. On the morning of the party, our language group met ready to cook with a bag full of potatoes and one huge pot. Two hours later the huge pot of water on the wood stove had finally started to boil and by the third hour we finally had soft potatoes. The men in the group decided to keep the skins on in the interest of time, as we were already late to the party, not foreseeing the commotion that would cause later. It is pretty much a rule that you peel the skins off of every vegetable before you eat them, and many of the villagers were disgusted with our mashed potatoes a la peel. They tasted good to us! The highlight of the party was watching the pig get cut into pieces as it was hanging from a tree and grilled on the open flame, marinated in beer. Joe also got to try and unsuccessfully stir the humongous pot of umratha. We enjoyed sharing stories with our fellow trainees in one of the last times that we would all be together over the next two years.

pictures: Yummy!, That's some pig!, Watch out Harry Potter . . .