Snaps of a Lambala village

I’m realizing it’s difficult for me to blog in words about this trip just yet. It’s too much to put into words, I have to think about it a little while. But what I can and do want to share are the photos – or “snaps” as they call them here – of the people and the places. It’s kind of unreal. And even though I don’t know the people intimately, they are so warm and inviting. I am so intrigued by their beauty and authenticity. And I'm still trying to understand so many things about them.

Here are a few pictures that we took while visiting an organization called CARPED, which works on a variety of projects, some of which help the Lambala tribal people (these are not the tribes we talked about visiting earlier, but still very cool).  They have had a problem here where con doctors have convinced over 600 women to get hysterectomies unnecessarily by saying it was the cause of their various stomach cramps. It’s so tragic. This not only costs them so much money, but for many it debilitates them. The surgery is already a complicated one, and it is performed in totally unfit conditions, so many times women cannot function properly afterwards, and of course they cannot have children. This prevents women from doing their daily work, and often creates a situation where husbands feel their wives are a burden and sometimes leave them.

The woman above was one such woman that had an unnecessary hysterectomy. Luckily, she seems to be doing okay. She told us she wants to come to America. She was so gracious. And her special dress was so interesting and beautiful.

Unfortunately, I didn’t bring my camera to this village, so these are just taken on our point-and-shoot and not as good of quality, but I am still in love with them. These people!

Some pictures of the cultural lunch we had. Totally ate with our fingers off of a leaf plate. We love it.

(oh, and snaps is what they call taking photos here - "no snaps please," for example)