Club Wow

Last night every single one of us made it out to Club Wow. And despite the name, it actually was pretty impressive. We pretty much dominated the club until about eleven when the locals started to arrive. But I loved how integrated everyone was, within the group, I mean.

There were twenty-two of us, but everyone danced with each other, talked to each other, and made sure everyone else was having a good time. I’m pretty sure we combined every dance style possible into one evening, but that definitely made it easier for me to dance with someone else. I’ve always found it difficult to be lead, but when it’s crazy to start with, it’s not so bad. We have a couple of Latin guys in our group, so I got some lessons, too!

This morning, the four of us in one part of town met to execute a project we’ve been given. We needed to assemble a group of kids and divide them up by sex, having each group draw a map of their community. We started out with two boys and one girl.

We asked them if they had friends who might want to participate and ended up with maybe ten kids. Everyone had their own idea of what a map was to look like, so we ended up having at least ten, but I think the exercise was successful in that the kids know us now and we’ve seen what places are important to them.

Afterwards, a swarm of them followed me home. Everyone wanted to go to the river or show me their houses. A bunch of them followed me back to my house but eventually lost interest after I had shown them the photos from that morning. One girl stayed and insisted that I see her house. So I went with her across the street. Her house consists of two rooms: one that serves as a sitting area and kitchen and another with two beds where her mother, her grandfather, and herself sleep. It was by far the sparsest accommodations I had seen since I’ve been here, but she was so proud to have me come and visit, to share her house with me. From what I can see, the residents of the community have very different standards of living, though they live in the same neighborhood. There’s no judgment or discrimination within the community, it’s just a place where you live. Most of the time, it’s difficult to discern who lives where anyway, since everyone is constantly at each other’s houses. But I was honored to be a part of it.

After lunch, some of us did end up going to the river. Amber and I, the girl who shared her house with me, a few boys, and of course, my host brother as a guide. It was a different river than yesterday and definitely an exercise in immunity building, but it was close by and we had no trouble walking there. Little Nancy held my hand the whole way.

Most of the river was shallow enough to stand, so we waded up stream to where there was shade somewhat cleaner water. The boys would climb up a mango tree and shake down the ripe ones, which we would then eat. After I got over the fear of contamination, the experience really was quite delightful.

And to end a beautiful day was wonderfully (relatively) cool evening, complete with full moon and barking dogs.