Through the past four weeks, working nine hours a day and five days a week together, we seven Poly interns have gotten really close. In addition to the many practical benefits that this relationship has provided, it has also been the cause of a lot of laughs through discovering various cultural differences. Here are a few of the topics that we’ve found particularly entertaining:

• Dancing. The Malawian interns never get tired of making fun of our (as they claim) poor dancing abilities. In our defense, dancing seems to be a far more integral part of Malawian culture than it is American culture; in public spaces, it’s rare to not hear music playing and see someone dancing a bit (Tanya wrote a good blog recently about the songs of Blantyre, if you’re interested). At first I thought the interns were just giving us a hard time about our dancing skills, but their sentiment was recently reflected by an unbiased third party. We attended a wedding this past weekend—the nephew of a professor at the Poly was getting married, and the prof kindly invited us—which was a ton of fun. There were a few hundred attendees, all of whom sat in chairs facing the stage where the bride and groom sat. For about 2.5 hours, a tradition that we have dubbed “money dancing” ensued: various groups are called out (ex: family of the groom, friends of the bride, those from the groom’s village) to rise from their chairs and move forwards to dance around the bride and groom, while tossing small bills towards the couple. Generally, the groups were each a few dozen strong, and filled with the impressive Malawian dancers. Unfortunately, Tanya, Catherine, Emily, and I were the only four Americans in attendance. So, when the MC called out for all Americans to rise and dance about the bride and groom, the four of us alone had to put forth our best efforts and embrace the money dance tradition. I thought we were doing pretty well, until we were asked (with 100% sincerity and kindness), “Are you tired? Is that why you’re not dancing well? Do you need to sit back down?” It was then we realized the interns hadn’t just been giving us a hard time—Americans have a thing or two to learn from the Malawians about dance.
• Santa Claus. Prompted by some questions about American Christmas traditions that Francis had asked, I found myself attempting to explain the common story of Santa Claus. It was very difficult to find words to explain the reason for a collective, nation-wide lie that is annually passed down from parent to child. Making this even more difficult was the fact that this lie revolves around an unknown old man sneaking into homes at night through the chimney. However Christmas wasn’t voted “the weirdest” of all American holidays—that title was reserved for Halloween.
• Food. New foods—both from Malawi and from America—are always exciting to try. For the American interns, we’ve grown addicted to mendazi, which are delicious, fried, dough balls. For the Malawians, a favorite has been banana bread, which Emily, Catherine, and I cooked a few weeks ago. It was very well received—though was renamed “banana cake” by them—but unfortunately has also inspired a never ending craving for the treat. Whenever we are trying to convince the interns to do a favor for us, their answer is now perpetually the same: “You know the terms.” The terms are always banana cake.
• American TV. The Malawian interns often reference various American TV shows and ask, “is it really like that?” One show that provided some significant cause for distress was the Bachelorette.

Of course, the similarities and differences in our backgrounds—as well as what we are learning from one another—run deeper and are more significant than what I’ve listed above. But these are a few of the little things that make us laugh, allowing us to grow closer and learn more than we would be able to otherwise.