Ramadan

I guess that is spelled right.  I assume it is just as it sounds.  Anyway, the month long Islamic fast just ended this month.  Why do I care?  Well, I didn't take too much notice during Ramadan.  A few of our students are Muslim so instead of forcing everyone into the dining hall on my lunch duty, I had to excuse the Muslims since it wouldn't be very nice to make them sit there while everyone else eats.  Other than that i didn't matter that much until we were invited to the house of some of our students to celebrate Eid.  It is the end of Ramadan when the fasting is over and everyone gets together for the express purpose of eating.  It is very similar to celebrating Easter at the end of Lent.  Now I expected to go to our student's house and enjoy a nice Malawian meal with family.  That wasn't a wrong expectation, but it also wasn't exactly right.  Instead of the small get together at a small house it was a huge get together at a big house.  We pulled in the gate and parked in the driveway.  Rita and Monica, the students that invited us, told us to go around back while they put their stuff away.  In the back a tent was set up with a bunch of tables, chairs, and stacks of plastic plates.  A group of people sitting on the back patio called us over as soon as they saw us coming.  They greeted us and immediately offered sodas.  In the mean time we sat and talked to another Bakhita student that was there.  There were four students total.  I don't know their exact relation but as far as I can tell they were some form of cousins.  She explained the family relationship of everyone as they arrived to the party.  Uncles, aunts, cousins, wives, grandmas, grandpas, grandpas' brothers, and so on.  If you've ever experienced a holiday with my family, that is a pretty good comparison to what I was unexpectedly thrown into.  The food finally started coming out of the house in tubs and we were invited to help ourselves and sit anywhere we like...so we did.  I think I ate four different types of rice, potato salad, rib-like meat, spicy mangoes, and even desert.  After the meal, we stuck around for awhile and talked to a few grandmas and maybe some great aunts and uncles.  We were even invited to stay at several people's houses if we should ever need a place to stay in Blantyre.  The whole thing was very unexpected and very surreal.  At least someone in the family had some money for the house and all the food so it might not have been very representative of Malawi as a whole, but it was fun to see an entire Malawian family in action.