"disco night"

form 3 student waiting to get into to the school's saturday night party (held in the same building pictured in the entry study hall).

Saturday night (I'd call it early evening) the girls have some form of organized entertainment. It's usually either movies or, like last night, music. The school hires a DJ, which the girls then pay 30 kwacha a head for, and from 7 to 11 they can dance and shout and laugh and act like the teenage girls they are. The music was almost exclusively r&b or hip-hop, mainly American and British with a few Nigerian bands as well. Most of the students were at this party, and the ones that weren't were back in their rooms, or out somewhere on the grounds, talking and just hanging out. They seemed happy enough to have some space to themselves; like in the rest of Malawi privacy is almost unheard of here. I only feel a little sorry for the form 1 students. Since they are the youngest they're required to clean the hall before the dance, but, also because they're so young, they don't have much spending money and many of them can't afford to go to the party they've cleaned up for.

The school has a mandatory dress code which consists of a white long sleeve shirt, an ankle length blue skirt, black low heeled shoes and shaved head. The girls are required to dress in this manor all day every day, with the only big exception being Saturday afternoon and evening. The reason the dress code is enforced even during non school hours is to make the difference between the rich kids and the poor kids less apparent. On a Saturday night you can see why this is such a big deal. Some of these girls had the right glasses, the right shoes, the right clothes and it was obvious they knew how to wear it, if I'd seen them in line in front of Magnet at 2am on a Saturday I'd think nothing of it. The other ones, well some of them didn't even have 30 kwacha (0.15 &euro) to spend.

I had a number of pictures to chose from today. This afternoon I ate with the students and have a few pictures of them sitting around, outside, eating their nsima and beans, they'll eat nsima and beans at least 6 times a week, and I didn't really want to make a point of it. Earlier in the day the president, his Excellency Dr. Bingu, came and made a campaign stop. I have a couple of pictures of students at the side of the road singing and dancing before his arrival. If I'd used this picture I'd also have to go into the story about how some cops wanted 500 kwacha to let me take pictures, 2000 if i wanted to be escorted around, but then their boss came and dissuaded them from helping me at all, so they kicked me out. Since I don't want to discuss, yet, the epidemic of corruption here (though I've been told things are rapidly improving), I won't use that picture. Finally, just before the day ended, I got a shot of a few form 2 students, who didn't want to pay to get into the party, standing on benches, alone and in the dark, looking in through the windows and trying to dance along with the music. However, since it was a happy night and that's how I'd like to remember it, I'll use the picture of the girl, all dressed up and wearing her favorite hat, anxiously waiting in line to get in. I saw her a little while later in the middle of the dance floor, she was happiness incarnate. I didn't want to interrupt her or distract her, so I didn't get in close and take a picture, you'll just have to trust me.

this picture was published on sunday, may 03 2009. there is a full size version available. this picture was taken with a 24mm f/1.8 on a nikon d700. the settings when this was taken were: focal length: 24.0 mm; shutter speed: 1/8; iso: 1600. this image has the following tags: malawi.