Friday, November 25, 2011
Friday, November 18, 2011
It's rainy season again, and I forgot my umbrella
We're at the St. Francis Outreach clinic, the whole hospital staff, in the village known as Kayeleka. We're just waiting, or more simply as we say here, we're just staying until the food is prepared and the car returns.
We left for the clinic in a downpour. We ran the clinic in a downpour. And now we wait, it only makes sense that the rain would stop now. My shoes, a new pair of loafers are soaked through. My toes and heels feel clammy and cold. My linen pants, carefully concealed under my chitenje, damply cling to my calves.
At times like this I despise the rain. I despise the clammy morbid touch of my face, pliant and moist. I hate the squish of my shoes. A squishy sandwich as my heel digs in to the sponged leather and then further digging into the mollified sandy dirt. I hate how my cardigan dampens and becomes a stringy cloth sutured to my arms. Hate how my umbrella must become a permanent appendage. I hate that I have hardly any task today. In anticipating of the car being late on account of the rain, the volunteers went ahead and did my part of the clinic. Now, I'm walking aimlessly through the clinic, outdoors of course. With a few of the various parts housed in school blocks, dozens and dozens of people shoved in open air rooms. I wander form block to block looking for a task to entertain me and keep me from pondering my soaked galoshes and overall wet-dog appearance. Finally, Bright asks me to help with the feeding program for the underweight children. I entered the weights, jotted down their village and traditional authority, and measured the MUAC (mid upper arm circumference). I breezed through the recording, as I always tend to do with data entry. The numbers jump from my hand, pulsing through the pen, onto the paper in a motion so fluid you would think my arm was mechanized. As quickly as I entered the date, I was again through, just to sit again. To sit again in this rain, wet clothes plastered to me, only to wait until lunch is prepared and I can climb back into the ambulance to go back to Mhalaunda.
We left for the clinic in a downpour. We ran the clinic in a downpour. And now we wait, it only makes sense that the rain would stop now. My shoes, a new pair of loafers are soaked through. My toes and heels feel clammy and cold. My linen pants, carefully concealed under my chitenje, damply cling to my calves.
At times like this I despise the rain. I despise the clammy morbid touch of my face, pliant and moist. I hate the squish of my shoes. A squishy sandwich as my heel digs in to the sponged leather and then further digging into the mollified sandy dirt. I hate how my cardigan dampens and becomes a stringy cloth sutured to my arms. Hate how my umbrella must become a permanent appendage. I hate that I have hardly any task today. In anticipating of the car being late on account of the rain, the volunteers went ahead and did my part of the clinic. Now, I'm walking aimlessly through the clinic, outdoors of course. With a few of the various parts housed in school blocks, dozens and dozens of people shoved in open air rooms. I wander form block to block looking for a task to entertain me and keep me from pondering my soaked galoshes and overall wet-dog appearance. Finally, Bright asks me to help with the feeding program for the underweight children. I entered the weights, jotted down their village and traditional authority, and measured the MUAC (mid upper arm circumference). I breezed through the recording, as I always tend to do with data entry. The numbers jump from my hand, pulsing through the pen, onto the paper in a motion so fluid you would think my arm was mechanized. As quickly as I entered the date, I was again through, just to sit again. To sit again in this rain, wet clothes plastered to me, only to wait until lunch is prepared and I can climb back into the ambulance to go back to Mhalaunda.
To the Very North
A journey to Chitipa
In my more recent journeys, I traveled to Chitipa, the northernmost district in Malawi. A place so remote that it's jokingly referred to as the Wild West of Malawi, ironic right, considering the dearth of paved roads and the dismal rates of rural electrification. Chitipa is the one district that has yet to receive paved roads of any kind (but they are on the way, courtesy of the Chinese who are paving the way, literally). In this remote corner of the country, nestled between Zambia and Tanzania, lays the district so unlike any other place I've been in Malawi. There's such a confluence of tongues here, 27 are said to be spoken in the area, many of them found nowhere else in Malawi. It's a place set aside from the rest of the country, demarcated by forests, the escarpment, and the nature reserve. It folds in upon itself, perpetuating a unique, innate culture known for their dances, Red Gold (hot sauce of the gods!) and their chips mayeye.
I went there on Wednesday, October 26, traveling up with a fellow volunteer, Brian. We came up to visit another mutual friend and volunteer, to see her site and be around for Halloween. Chitipa Halloween is a volunteer party staple on the social calendar. Well, we traveled up, north from Mzuzu, and oh my it was miserable. Hot season is upon Malawi and traveling north means traveling along the lake shore, through the thick of it. The air is stagnant, and heavy with latent heat and smells of fish, drying on racks stretching for miles and miles all along the shore. Sitting in the bus, my cotton, cargo pants were drenched and trying to re-situate myself called for a peeling away of flesh from pliant plastic. It was disgusting. The sun is so strong here that within a half hour, my skin reddens, even with SPF60 sunscreen. Yuck.
The drive from Karonga, the district along the lake shore rampant with scorching temperatures and odorous fish, goes up and over the escarpment into Chitipa. The escarpment is really just the mountainous region that limns the lake shore area, setting it aside from inland. It runs the length of Malawi and it's a constant vision from anywhere along the shore. The road winds its way, switch-backing to and fro, through scrubby, indigenous forests. The matola, a lorry truck with dozens and dozens of people seated in the back, moved along at a good clip. It was attempting to cover the 100km distance in the short amount of time before dusk descended on Malawi, which happens at around 6pm. Between Karonga and Chitipa there are few diversions, few roads that branch off, and there is hardly a trading centre (small town), let alone a filling station anywhere along the dirt road stretch. At one point, we come across a particularly sparsely populated stretch, and pull off. The driver's helpers dismount and start to root through the grass, pushing aside the bush, obviously looking for something. I was a bit bewildered, wondering what could they possibly be in search for in the grass, a rock? Someone's katundu (a Chitimbuka catchall word meaning luggage, or more generally stuff)? No sooner than I tease out these possibilities, then one of the men pulls a jerry can of fuel out of the ditch. And behind, five other guys pull out identical jerry cans of fuel, all in a line in this particular ditch, in the middle of nowhere. I can barely contain myself; I find it hysterical that they've managed to hide fuel in the wild ditches along this road. Malawi is in the midst of an ongoing and nearly crippling fuel crisis. It's not that it's overpriced as so often happens in America when there's hitch in the supply, there's just no fuel to be had. People park outside fuel stations, lining up for days and days because a rumor circulates that a fuel truck will be arriving. There is never a guarantee that you'll find fuel, it's always a gamble, and I've been on my fair share of vehicles that run out of gas. And in the absence of a filling station, the middle of nowhere seems like a perfect place for fuel cans. Of course, as we always say here in times like this: TIA, this is Africa. I found it hilarious and wildly clever to boot.
So even with all the urging Brian and I did, to persuade the driver to move along faster, we still did not arrive in Chitipa until 7:30pm. And as we're speeding along the wash-boarded gravel, the headlights cast a dark glare on the rugged curves of dirt just ahead. We bend around one curve, moving along hastily, when the headlights take an oxcart into their line of sight. Directly in our path, it's only a split second that the driver has to react. He pulls hard left, the wheels begin to skid, and the back fishtails. I let out a scream, a brief burst of fear; my front seat companions are stone cold silent, and only merely acknowledge my reaction. We skid to a halt, barely missing the oxcart; I'm sure the shepherd was relieved, even if covered in dust particulate. The helpers dismount again, casing the car and noting any damage. We line up alongside, it's already fully nighttime, the moon overhead our only source of light. The helpers poke and prod the underbelly of the lorry, their source of light a camping headlamp kindly donated by Brian to the cause. It seems we've busted a spring, or more accurately a strut, but they call it a spring nonetheless, lost in translation. They continue to hoist and fumble with the undercarriage until they settle on a way to jimmy-rig it, using rope and leverage to hold it in place until a mechanic can be found. It's impressive the ingenuity with which Malawians problem solve. Especially in these sorts of situations, in the real world, with something tangible, where they know if they don't fix it they'll be stranded. They will find a solution. I like to call their ingenuity MacGyver ability, the ability to jimmy-rig or solve any sticky situation with little more that what's in your pockets.
The next day, after a good sleep to melt away all the built up tension, we went for a walk. Our friend Kara speaks endlessly of the river near her, for swimming, for swinging off vines into the water, and crossing a true monkey bridge. Her counterpart, Watchi, wants to take us to the Songwe River, the river that limns the border between Tanzania and Malawi. We began, striking out from Ifumbo (Kara's village), ambling along and greeting everyone in our path: Maona / Maona mwemwe / Ena / Panandi / Ndagadaga. The ubiquitous greeting in this area, simply banter on how your day is going. We hike on, reaching the river in less than 20 minutes. We first come upon the rope bridge Kara goes on about. And it is the veritable monkey bridge that reminds me of such cheesy, adventure flicks as Romancing the Stone or Indiana Jones: The Temple of Doom. The bottom of the bridge is but one incredibly thick vine, the sides, many many vines wrapped and stretched along the breadth of the river. We hiked across, treading lightly on the wrapped vines and looking over only occasionally to see the distance down to the water's lapping, frothy surface. That was my you-know-you're-in-Africa moment. Life wouldn't be as enjoyable if I didn't have at least one of those a week.
As we descended the bridge and attempted to scout a good sand bar from which we could swim, a friend of Watchi approached us. After the customary introductions, he told us about a nearby celebration, a malipenga. As soon as he mentioned it, my ears perked at the sounds of drums floating over to us from the nearby Misuku hills, the pounding still several kilometers off. I was intrigued. We followed the echoes of the drumbeats, coming upon a large throng of people, encircling dancers. They moved in tandem, thrusting one way, arms outstretched above them, doubling back into a crouch, and then swinging their arms around. Their movements matched both the intensity and force of the drumbeats. Accompanying the drums were what I can only describe as kazoos. They produced a high-pitched, duck call of sorts. A trio of kazooists played the instrument, looking similar to a nose trumpet, but made of rawhide. The nasally cadence gave a certain alacrity to the dance. At the forefront of dancers, of the 30 or so, one's attention was drawn to three. These lead dancers wore white shirts, with bright cerulean-hued pants. Around their necks hung a necklace, made of many various colors of yarn, tied together by a leather strap, each side looking like a shaving cream lather brush. A similar yarn head band rested on their forehead and their faces had many smears of white paint. They thrusted and parried to the beat, telling a story with their mock spears and shields. I was transfixed by one dancer in particular, he looked no older than 12. He speared his way thought the crowd. At a particularly past-paced meter, he doubled over backwards, popping his shoulders to and fro, dipping into a low limbo and hopping forward. And they went on like that, dancing for nigh on an hour, before taking a break to allow for a skit.
As we arrived, we were escorted to the front, being the only white people, the azungus, we were honored guests. We sat next to the chief, crouching to greet him. He invited us to sit, to surrender to the drum beats and enjoy.
In my more recent journeys, I traveled to Chitipa, the northernmost district in Malawi. A place so remote that it's jokingly referred to as the Wild West of Malawi, ironic right, considering the dearth of paved roads and the dismal rates of rural electrification. Chitipa is the one district that has yet to receive paved roads of any kind (but they are on the way, courtesy of the Chinese who are paving the way, literally). In this remote corner of the country, nestled between Zambia and Tanzania, lays the district so unlike any other place I've been in Malawi. There's such a confluence of tongues here, 27 are said to be spoken in the area, many of them found nowhere else in Malawi. It's a place set aside from the rest of the country, demarcated by forests, the escarpment, and the nature reserve. It folds in upon itself, perpetuating a unique, innate culture known for their dances, Red Gold (hot sauce of the gods!) and their chips mayeye.
I went there on Wednesday, October 26, traveling up with a fellow volunteer, Brian. We came up to visit another mutual friend and volunteer, to see her site and be around for Halloween. Chitipa Halloween is a volunteer party staple on the social calendar. Well, we traveled up, north from Mzuzu, and oh my it was miserable. Hot season is upon Malawi and traveling north means traveling along the lake shore, through the thick of it. The air is stagnant, and heavy with latent heat and smells of fish, drying on racks stretching for miles and miles all along the shore. Sitting in the bus, my cotton, cargo pants were drenched and trying to re-situate myself called for a peeling away of flesh from pliant plastic. It was disgusting. The sun is so strong here that within a half hour, my skin reddens, even with SPF60 sunscreen. Yuck.
The drive from Karonga, the district along the lake shore rampant with scorching temperatures and odorous fish, goes up and over the escarpment into Chitipa. The escarpment is really just the mountainous region that limns the lake shore area, setting it aside from inland. It runs the length of Malawi and it's a constant vision from anywhere along the shore. The road winds its way, switch-backing to and fro, through scrubby, indigenous forests. The matola, a lorry truck with dozens and dozens of people seated in the back, moved along at a good clip. It was attempting to cover the 100km distance in the short amount of time before dusk descended on Malawi, which happens at around 6pm. Between Karonga and Chitipa there are few diversions, few roads that branch off, and there is hardly a trading centre (small town), let alone a filling station anywhere along the dirt road stretch. At one point, we come across a particularly sparsely populated stretch, and pull off. The driver's helpers dismount and start to root through the grass, pushing aside the bush, obviously looking for something. I was a bit bewildered, wondering what could they possibly be in search for in the grass, a rock? Someone's katundu (a Chitimbuka catchall word meaning luggage, or more generally stuff)? No sooner than I tease out these possibilities, then one of the men pulls a jerry can of fuel out of the ditch. And behind, five other guys pull out identical jerry cans of fuel, all in a line in this particular ditch, in the middle of nowhere. I can barely contain myself; I find it hysterical that they've managed to hide fuel in the wild ditches along this road. Malawi is in the midst of an ongoing and nearly crippling fuel crisis. It's not that it's overpriced as so often happens in America when there's hitch in the supply, there's just no fuel to be had. People park outside fuel stations, lining up for days and days because a rumor circulates that a fuel truck will be arriving. There is never a guarantee that you'll find fuel, it's always a gamble, and I've been on my fair share of vehicles that run out of gas. And in the absence of a filling station, the middle of nowhere seems like a perfect place for fuel cans. Of course, as we always say here in times like this: TIA, this is Africa. I found it hilarious and wildly clever to boot.
So even with all the urging Brian and I did, to persuade the driver to move along faster, we still did not arrive in Chitipa until 7:30pm. And as we're speeding along the wash-boarded gravel, the headlights cast a dark glare on the rugged curves of dirt just ahead. We bend around one curve, moving along hastily, when the headlights take an oxcart into their line of sight. Directly in our path, it's only a split second that the driver has to react. He pulls hard left, the wheels begin to skid, and the back fishtails. I let out a scream, a brief burst of fear; my front seat companions are stone cold silent, and only merely acknowledge my reaction. We skid to a halt, barely missing the oxcart; I'm sure the shepherd was relieved, even if covered in dust particulate. The helpers dismount again, casing the car and noting any damage. We line up alongside, it's already fully nighttime, the moon overhead our only source of light. The helpers poke and prod the underbelly of the lorry, their source of light a camping headlamp kindly donated by Brian to the cause. It seems we've busted a spring, or more accurately a strut, but they call it a spring nonetheless, lost in translation. They continue to hoist and fumble with the undercarriage until they settle on a way to jimmy-rig it, using rope and leverage to hold it in place until a mechanic can be found. It's impressive the ingenuity with which Malawians problem solve. Especially in these sorts of situations, in the real world, with something tangible, where they know if they don't fix it they'll be stranded. They will find a solution. I like to call their ingenuity MacGyver ability, the ability to jimmy-rig or solve any sticky situation with little more that what's in your pockets.
The next day, after a good sleep to melt away all the built up tension, we went for a walk. Our friend Kara speaks endlessly of the river near her, for swimming, for swinging off vines into the water, and crossing a true monkey bridge. Her counterpart, Watchi, wants to take us to the Songwe River, the river that limns the border between Tanzania and Malawi. We began, striking out from Ifumbo (Kara's village), ambling along and greeting everyone in our path: Maona / Maona mwemwe / Ena / Panandi / Ndagadaga. The ubiquitous greeting in this area, simply banter on how your day is going. We hike on, reaching the river in less than 20 minutes. We first come upon the rope bridge Kara goes on about. And it is the veritable monkey bridge that reminds me of such cheesy, adventure flicks as Romancing the Stone or Indiana Jones: The Temple of Doom. The bottom of the bridge is but one incredibly thick vine, the sides, many many vines wrapped and stretched along the breadth of the river. We hiked across, treading lightly on the wrapped vines and looking over only occasionally to see the distance down to the water's lapping, frothy surface. That was my you-know-you're-in-Africa moment. Life wouldn't be as enjoyable if I didn't have at least one of those a week.
As we descended the bridge and attempted to scout a good sand bar from which we could swim, a friend of Watchi approached us. After the customary introductions, he told us about a nearby celebration, a malipenga. As soon as he mentioned it, my ears perked at the sounds of drums floating over to us from the nearby Misuku hills, the pounding still several kilometers off. I was intrigued. We followed the echoes of the drumbeats, coming upon a large throng of people, encircling dancers. They moved in tandem, thrusting one way, arms outstretched above them, doubling back into a crouch, and then swinging their arms around. Their movements matched both the intensity and force of the drumbeats. Accompanying the drums were what I can only describe as kazoos. They produced a high-pitched, duck call of sorts. A trio of kazooists played the instrument, looking similar to a nose trumpet, but made of rawhide. The nasally cadence gave a certain alacrity to the dance. At the forefront of dancers, of the 30 or so, one's attention was drawn to three. These lead dancers wore white shirts, with bright cerulean-hued pants. Around their necks hung a necklace, made of many various colors of yarn, tied together by a leather strap, each side looking like a shaving cream lather brush. A similar yarn head band rested on their forehead and their faces had many smears of white paint. They thrusted and parried to the beat, telling a story with their mock spears and shields. I was transfixed by one dancer in particular, he looked no older than 12. He speared his way thought the crowd. At a particularly past-paced meter, he doubled over backwards, popping his shoulders to and fro, dipping into a low limbo and hopping forward. And they went on like that, dancing for nigh on an hour, before taking a break to allow for a skit.
As we arrived, we were escorted to the front, being the only white people, the azungus, we were honored guests. We sat next to the chief, crouching to greet him. He invited us to sit, to surrender to the drum beats and enjoy.
Saturday, October 15, 2011
A Few Anecdotes
Allow me to set the scene, I'm sitting in the home of my dear friend, confidante, and adopted mother, Mama Chavula. As a family, we're sitting down to dinner. Once again, I've singed the prints off my fingers as I pried the top nsima patty from the pile. While this is a nightly affair, always I'm the first to peel off the top patty, the last one into the serving bowl and that final spoonful that came from the bottom of its cooking dish, steaming enough to cast a mirage in the air just above the serving dish. But this night was different. As we ate Erita, the sister-in-law to Mama Chavula, was cutting up a carcass of sorts. She sat with all of us while we ate, serrating bits of pork away. Well the rest of us were in the middle of eating, she's set slicing and dicing. It was a tad revolting, please note I'm still an avid vegetarian, even in Malawi. I queried her as to what part of the animal she was amputating, her response: “chamuganganga” meanwhile grabbing at her breast. Oh indeed, she was cutting away the teats. It was this response, the indicating of her breast, that led to my explosion. If nsima was a tad runnier it would have come streaming out of my nose. I burst out laughing along with the rest of the family.
There is a supreme difference in parenting techniques from Malawi to America. As per usual, I'm sitting over at Mama Chavula's watching Erita force feed Eugene, her firstborn son. She holds the phala, the cornmeal porridge, in her hand and holds it up to his mouth, making him swallow. He slowly gurgles it down, making funny sounds all the while. But clearly he in no way enjoys the phalli. At other times, Mama Chavula feeds him and it sounds as if he's being tortured. She forces the spoonfuls of porridge down his throat as he screams bloody murder. I have a hard time watching it or even listening to it. Not to mention this is generally while the rest of us are eating dinner; his screams are hardly ambient white noise. Compared to what I can only imagine is a western approach, we encourage babies to play with their food or coax them into eating with airplane personified baby spoons. Not here. As Mama Chavula says, he has to learn to take his phala, he can't stay on the teat forever. I suppose that's a fair point, but the tough love approach is so …. tough. How is he supposed to eat his porridge if he's force-fed it? We need to bring a little fun to phala time.
I just ate a vimpwete. It's a spiky fruit, green in color and covered in small spikes. It looks similar to a cucumber, simply covered in small "horns." And that's exactly what it tasted like, like a cucumber. I rather liked it. Now I just need to grow some dill and I could make a fabulous cucumber dill sauce.
Wow, I just had an amazing afternoon. One of those afternoons that make me smile and love life. I went for a run this afternoon, as I often do when the sun starts to set and the heat begins to dissipate. I head over to the football pitch and run a few laps in the last hour of daylight. And as I ran a few laps around the football pitch, I rounded the bend a group of five pregnant women came out and announced they were going to run with me. Off we went, me leading the pack, followed by a trail of five pregnant women. And I don't mean women in their first trimester either, these women could have their water break at any moment, bellies so round and bulging there is no way they could see the ground in front of them as we ran. But they kept on, we ran three laps, jogging at a slow pace, but they managed. I couldn't help but laugh and revel in the moment. I felt euphoric. It was really something. I laughed so hard that afternoon, never had I experienced anything like it.
I'm sitting on my front porch, watching a gaggle of birds walk by. It's amusing to watch for the birds aren't all chickens, in fact only two are chickens. The chickens are the momma hens, and their chicks, they are the be-speckled, blue-necked birds here call guinea fowl. It's such a funny concept. When the hens are roosting, atop their meagre amount of eggs, you swap the chicken eggs for the guinea fowl eggs and allow hatching and tending to run its course. The chickens don't seem to notice the switcharoo, they raise the fowl like their own. Off they go to roam the village, the guinea chicks, eight or so and the momma hen. Such a motley crew, but they never fail to amuse me.
There is a supreme difference in parenting techniques from Malawi to America. As per usual, I'm sitting over at Mama Chavula's watching Erita force feed Eugene, her firstborn son. She holds the phala, the cornmeal porridge, in her hand and holds it up to his mouth, making him swallow. He slowly gurgles it down, making funny sounds all the while. But clearly he in no way enjoys the phalli. At other times, Mama Chavula feeds him and it sounds as if he's being tortured. She forces the spoonfuls of porridge down his throat as he screams bloody murder. I have a hard time watching it or even listening to it. Not to mention this is generally while the rest of us are eating dinner; his screams are hardly ambient white noise. Compared to what I can only imagine is a western approach, we encourage babies to play with their food or coax them into eating with airplane personified baby spoons. Not here. As Mama Chavula says, he has to learn to take his phala, he can't stay on the teat forever. I suppose that's a fair point, but the tough love approach is so …. tough. How is he supposed to eat his porridge if he's force-fed it? We need to bring a little fun to phala time.
I just ate a vimpwete. It's a spiky fruit, green in color and covered in small spikes. It looks similar to a cucumber, simply covered in small "horns." And that's exactly what it tasted like, like a cucumber. I rather liked it. Now I just need to grow some dill and I could make a fabulous cucumber dill sauce.
Wow, I just had an amazing afternoon. One of those afternoons that make me smile and love life. I went for a run this afternoon, as I often do when the sun starts to set and the heat begins to dissipate. I head over to the football pitch and run a few laps in the last hour of daylight. And as I ran a few laps around the football pitch, I rounded the bend a group of five pregnant women came out and announced they were going to run with me. Off we went, me leading the pack, followed by a trail of five pregnant women. And I don't mean women in their first trimester either, these women could have their water break at any moment, bellies so round and bulging there is no way they could see the ground in front of them as we ran. But they kept on, we ran three laps, jogging at a slow pace, but they managed. I couldn't help but laugh and revel in the moment. I felt euphoric. It was really something. I laughed so hard that afternoon, never had I experienced anything like it.
I'm sitting on my front porch, watching a gaggle of birds walk by. It's amusing to watch for the birds aren't all chickens, in fact only two are chickens. The chickens are the momma hens, and their chicks, they are the be-speckled, blue-necked birds here call guinea fowl. It's such a funny concept. When the hens are roosting, atop their meagre amount of eggs, you swap the chicken eggs for the guinea fowl eggs and allow hatching and tending to run its course. The chickens don't seem to notice the switcharoo, they raise the fowl like their own. Off they go to roam the village, the guinea chicks, eight or so and the momma hen. Such a motley crew, but they never fail to amuse me.
Simplicity
It's interesting how sufficient, how surprisingly content I feel doing simple tasks. I can only call it a sort of soul sufficiency. Such days I spend sitting out on my porch, shelling peanuts and beans. If I may add, the beans, homegrown from the garden and fresh off the stalk. I spent one fine morning harvesting my whole crop. I let my hands takeover and allowed my mind to wander. My thumbs developed small blisters as the routine of the cracking and splitting traced itself onto my hands. As I sat and shelled with Mphatso and Mama Chavula, people dropped by for a brief hello, marvelling that I could indeed shell my own peanuts. And as I described my intentions for the peanuts, to make ground nut flour, which is quite the involved process requiring me to pound the nuts to a fine powder, my visitors were a little more impressed.
And my day continued, I hand washed my laundry, sewed a curtain, cooked a little dende on the fire. It was a productive day yet utterly simple. It was beautiful sitting there, shelling peanuts, the cool post-rain wind nipping at me, a little sunshine peeking through the rain-tinged clouds. I felt at peace. Here was where I was meant to be.
I just read though the Four Great Vows of Buddhism, and the last: However incomparable the Buddha truth is, I vow to attain it. I deliberated on it. Perhaps that is the Buddha truth of sorts, the seeking of the space in time in which you feel at peace. The serenity contained in such moments is overwhelming in its truth. Its trueness to thought, to action, to speech. The efficacy of the moment reinforces my sense of self, of why I am where I am, reinforcing that I am where I'm supposed to be. My path, my current position it's just so exactly right, in as few words. Is that what the Buddha truth could be? Is that what finding “the way” could be alluding to?
It seems it could be so, in the simple pleasures, the simple actions, perhaps that is a source of oneness. The motion and action of the body unites with the fluidity and mental wavelengths of mind. Hm, something to ponder on.
What I know is that I treasure the moments I feel so clear sighted and attuned to my being, when the observation of my presence overcomes my acting self and I can appreciate and enjoy just being. Those are the times I strive for.
And my day continued, I hand washed my laundry, sewed a curtain, cooked a little dende on the fire. It was a productive day yet utterly simple. It was beautiful sitting there, shelling peanuts, the cool post-rain wind nipping at me, a little sunshine peeking through the rain-tinged clouds. I felt at peace. Here was where I was meant to be.
I just read though the Four Great Vows of Buddhism, and the last: However incomparable the Buddha truth is, I vow to attain it. I deliberated on it. Perhaps that is the Buddha truth of sorts, the seeking of the space in time in which you feel at peace. The serenity contained in such moments is overwhelming in its truth. Its trueness to thought, to action, to speech. The efficacy of the moment reinforces my sense of self, of why I am where I am, reinforcing that I am where I'm supposed to be. My path, my current position it's just so exactly right, in as few words. Is that what the Buddha truth could be? Is that what finding “the way” could be alluding to?
It seems it could be so, in the simple pleasures, the simple actions, perhaps that is a source of oneness. The motion and action of the body unites with the fluidity and mental wavelengths of mind. Hm, something to ponder on.
What I know is that I treasure the moments I feel so clear sighted and attuned to my being, when the observation of my presence overcomes my acting self and I can appreciate and enjoy just being. Those are the times I strive for.
Saturday, October 8, 2011
Updated Please Send Me List
Well hello, so I've received a number of packages from friends and families back home. To all of you, many thanks. You've made my humble existence easier to bear. But since I posted the initial list I've received many of the items on it multiple times. Thus, I'm updating this list with items that I'll never have too much of. So feel free to send anything from this list it will also be greatly appreciated and cherished.
Candy, hard candies (butterscotch disks are my favorites)
Chocolate, Reese's, Snickers, Ritter Sport
Incense
Clif Bars and/or other protein bars
Tea, green tea and herbal are my favorite!
Cat treats
Vitamins
Quinoa, whole grain pasta
Lotion
Face wash
Soup packets
Anything where the instructions are just add water
Please send any (or all!) items to the following post office box shared with my new roommate, Paul Utterback.
Chelsea Mertz, PCV
c/o Paul Utterback, PCV
PO Box 68
Mzimba, Malawi
Southeast Africa
Candy, hard candies (butterscotch disks are my favorites)
Chocolate, Reese's, Snickers, Ritter Sport
Incense
Clif Bars and/or other protein bars
Tea, green tea and herbal are my favorite!
Cat treats
Vitamins
Quinoa, whole grain pasta
Lotion
Face wash
Soup packets
Anything where the instructions are just add water
Please send any (or all!) items to the following post office box shared with my new roommate, Paul Utterback.
Chelsea Mertz, PCV
c/o Paul Utterback, PCV
PO Box 68
Mzimba, Malawi
Southeast Africa
Monday, September 26, 2011
Looking for a way to help Mhalaunda ... ?
I recently submitted a grant to build more houses for my health centre. We are so short-staffed at my health centre and that is a result of poor housing in the area. I hope to fix that problem and thus turned in a grant. The executive summary:
Mhalaunda Health Centre is a rural health centre which opened in 2003 and currently serves a population of approximately 14,250 people. It is located in the southern part of Mzimba district and is one of several health centers under the management of Embangweni Mission Hospital. The initiation of the project was undertaken by the health center staff as the problem directly affects them. They have assumed the responsibility of organizing the community at large in the collection of sand, provision of bricks, and all other aspects of community involvement as well as the overall organization and implementation of the project in its entirety. They have researched the cost of materials and created a budget and timeline for the implementation and completion of the project. The community recognizes the need for healthcare professionals to reside near the health center, but they do not have access to enough monetary resources to solve the problem on their own. They have proposed to collect sand, mould and burn bricks, and provide transportation of materials to build another house on the health center campus and therefore ease the situation significantly. Their hope is that the remaining materials can be covered with a successful Peace Corps Partnership Program grant. The completion of a house would greatly improve the availability of healthcare and services in this community.
If you're interested in contributing, I encourage you to visit the link below, check it out and give a little. The community will all benefit.
https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=donate.contribute.projDetail&
projdesc=614-231
Mhalaunda Health Centre is a rural health centre which opened in 2003 and currently serves a population of approximately 14,250 people. It is located in the southern part of Mzimba district and is one of several health centers under the management of Embangweni Mission Hospital. The initiation of the project was undertaken by the health center staff as the problem directly affects them. They have assumed the responsibility of organizing the community at large in the collection of sand, provision of bricks, and all other aspects of community involvement as well as the overall organization and implementation of the project in its entirety. They have researched the cost of materials and created a budget and timeline for the implementation and completion of the project. The community recognizes the need for healthcare professionals to reside near the health center, but they do not have access to enough monetary resources to solve the problem on their own. They have proposed to collect sand, mould and burn bricks, and provide transportation of materials to build another house on the health center campus and therefore ease the situation significantly. Their hope is that the remaining materials can be covered with a successful Peace Corps Partnership Program grant. The completion of a house would greatly improve the availability of healthcare and services in this community.
If you're interested in contributing, I encourage you to visit the link below, check it out and give a little. The community will all benefit.
https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=donate.contribute.projDetail&
projdesc=614-231
Monday, September 12, 2011
Friday, September 9, 2011
Camp G.L.O.W.
Camp GLOW, Girls Leading Our World recognizes the tremendous potential of women worldwide. Camp GLOW was first established as an initiative of Peace Corps Romania in 1995 and was implemented in Malawi in 2003. Since then, over 400 young Malawian women have participated in Camp GLOW and taken what they've learned back into their communities. Camp GLOW seeks to help young women do away with the challenges and barriers they face today, replacing them with knowledge and skills which will propel them into active citizenship, shaping Malawi's tomorrow. That's a bit from the executive summary, to give you an idea of what GLOW is.
This year the camp was held from July 31st to August 7th, a week to be remembered surely. The camp brings together girls from across Malawi, from Nsanje district in the very south all the way to Chitipa, on the border of Tanzania. The girls converged on the campsite starting July 31st, piling into minibuses, big buses, and all manners of transportation to make it to Mponela, the site of the camp. They arrived an excited bunch, queuing for dorm keys and room assignments, and all the while giggling and making nervous introductions. We started off the week riding on this wave of excitement.
GLOW GLOW
GLOW Team GLOW
Shine Shine
Shine Girls Shine
GLOW Team GLOW
Shine Girls Shine
Let's Take Charge
So this chant was the chant for Camp GLOW. As we started sessions, as I quieted the girls to give directions during dinner, and even to greet the First Lady, the chant was ubiquitous. Let’s Take Charge was the theme for this year’s Camp Glow, encouraging girls to be assertive with their decisions, their goals, their body, and in whole, take charge of their life. To us, the coordinators and counselors, this theme evoked the feeling that strong, confident girls should have when pursuing their dreams. Take Charge indicates that we are active citizens, decision makers, and role models. We take charge not only of ourselves but for one another; we, as a united front of young women, are a family. Throughout the week we shared stories, moments, and an education to give us strength and endow us with courage to be the leaders of the future.
Each day of camp gave a new focus to our theme Take Charge:
- Monday began with Take Charge of My Self, a day centered on giving these young women the tools necessary to reach their full potential, to build self-esteem, self-confidence, and the ability to communicate well.
- Take Charge of My Heritage day featured influential women in Malawi and discussed the role of women in development, knowing that women have always been, and must continue to be an integral part of the development of our nations.
-Take Charge of My Future day, gave direction on how to achieve goals, including a panel by career professionals and a session on career counseling and guidance, as well as how to pursue higher education.
-Take Charge of My Body day, explored women's specific health issues, gender-based violence and the catastrophic impact of HIV and AIDS on women.
-Take Charge of My Choices day emphasized active citizenship, civic engagement, and public speaking.
-The final day, Take Charge of Our Future, we learned to take charge of our future by making a pledge to use the knowledge and skills learned at Camp GLOW to make decisions in our lives. We learned that planning for our futures is just as important as dreaming them up.
The week was packed with various activities, sessions, lectures, guest speakers, games, arts and crafts, and on that evoke our theme as well made the camp interactive and fun. We ended the first full day of camp by having an “I Can't” funeral. We built a magnificent bonfire (thanks go out to the “Bonfire Coordinators” for making it possible, i.e. Chloe and Ben) and gave each of the girls scraps of paper. They were instructed to write something on it that someone, or maybe even themselves, said they couldn't do, for example “I can't finish secondary school” or “I can't become a nurse.” And then one by one the girls threw the pieces of paper into the fire, symbolizing the end of that negative thought. It was touching to watch the girls dance around the fire and then when it came to be their turn they threw it into the fire with so much gusto, it almost felt like a pagan ceremony.
The final activity we did was a candle lighting ceremony, the closing ceremony for the camp. Each girl was given a candle and again we formed a circle around another magnificent bonfire. One by one, each girl lit her candle and as she did so she talked about her way forward from here, how the knowledge she learned at camp would guide her through the proverbial darkness. As the circle went from just a few lit candles to each and every girl holding a candle and lambent light flickering on every face, you could feel the power bursting forth. It was beautiful. At the end, everyone raised their candle and I made a speech to all of them. This may be the end of camp, but this was not the end of their journey. Times may be hard and you may feel as though you are engulfed in darkness and struggle, but this is why we have a candle. This is the way forward, a light for when times are dark, a light to symbolize a new beginning, and together we are a strong source of light. Everyone with their arms outstretched to the moon, holding a candle, it was a moment burned into my memory. I will never forget that moment and that feeling, feeling as one.
The week was both powerful, beautiful, and exhausting. I teared up numerous times throughout the week. We did one activity where the girls identified their role models, and wrote out their name on a card and posted it to their role model inspiration wall. One of the counselors came and got me after the session to point out one card in particular, a card that had my name on it: My role model is Chelsea Mertz. It made my heart ache, and I went to go give a big hug to Chance, the girl from my village who posted that card.
I can honestly say that doing this camp, having this experience has been the most profound and rewarding thing I've done while I've been in Malawi. It was trying, I got little sleep, felt stressed trying to direct and coordinate the camp, but in the end it was more than worth it. To watch those girls board the buses on the way back home, you could see the difference in them, they carried themselves with a newly endowed purpose. And I know for certain that Camp GLOW is one thing we all share and we shall never forget.
If you'd like to explore Camp GLOW more please visit our website, newly redesigned by the wonderful and talented volunteers Briana Scroggins and Ashley Stafford, at www.campglowmalawi.com
This year the camp was held from July 31st to August 7th, a week to be remembered surely. The camp brings together girls from across Malawi, from Nsanje district in the very south all the way to Chitipa, on the border of Tanzania. The girls converged on the campsite starting July 31st, piling into minibuses, big buses, and all manners of transportation to make it to Mponela, the site of the camp. They arrived an excited bunch, queuing for dorm keys and room assignments, and all the while giggling and making nervous introductions. We started off the week riding on this wave of excitement.
GLOW GLOW
GLOW Team GLOW
Shine Shine
Shine Girls Shine
GLOW Team GLOW
Shine Girls Shine
Let's Take Charge
So this chant was the chant for Camp GLOW. As we started sessions, as I quieted the girls to give directions during dinner, and even to greet the First Lady, the chant was ubiquitous. Let’s Take Charge was the theme for this year’s Camp Glow, encouraging girls to be assertive with their decisions, their goals, their body, and in whole, take charge of their life. To us, the coordinators and counselors, this theme evoked the feeling that strong, confident girls should have when pursuing their dreams. Take Charge indicates that we are active citizens, decision makers, and role models. We take charge not only of ourselves but for one another; we, as a united front of young women, are a family. Throughout the week we shared stories, moments, and an education to give us strength and endow us with courage to be the leaders of the future.
Each day of camp gave a new focus to our theme Take Charge:
- Monday began with Take Charge of My Self, a day centered on giving these young women the tools necessary to reach their full potential, to build self-esteem, self-confidence, and the ability to communicate well.
- Take Charge of My Heritage day featured influential women in Malawi and discussed the role of women in development, knowing that women have always been, and must continue to be an integral part of the development of our nations.
-Take Charge of My Future day, gave direction on how to achieve goals, including a panel by career professionals and a session on career counseling and guidance, as well as how to pursue higher education.
-Take Charge of My Body day, explored women's specific health issues, gender-based violence and the catastrophic impact of HIV and AIDS on women.
-Take Charge of My Choices day emphasized active citizenship, civic engagement, and public speaking.
-The final day, Take Charge of Our Future, we learned to take charge of our future by making a pledge to use the knowledge and skills learned at Camp GLOW to make decisions in our lives. We learned that planning for our futures is just as important as dreaming them up.
The week was packed with various activities, sessions, lectures, guest speakers, games, arts and crafts, and on that evoke our theme as well made the camp interactive and fun. We ended the first full day of camp by having an “I Can't” funeral. We built a magnificent bonfire (thanks go out to the “Bonfire Coordinators” for making it possible, i.e. Chloe and Ben) and gave each of the girls scraps of paper. They were instructed to write something on it that someone, or maybe even themselves, said they couldn't do, for example “I can't finish secondary school” or “I can't become a nurse.” And then one by one the girls threw the pieces of paper into the fire, symbolizing the end of that negative thought. It was touching to watch the girls dance around the fire and then when it came to be their turn they threw it into the fire with so much gusto, it almost felt like a pagan ceremony.
The final activity we did was a candle lighting ceremony, the closing ceremony for the camp. Each girl was given a candle and again we formed a circle around another magnificent bonfire. One by one, each girl lit her candle and as she did so she talked about her way forward from here, how the knowledge she learned at camp would guide her through the proverbial darkness. As the circle went from just a few lit candles to each and every girl holding a candle and lambent light flickering on every face, you could feel the power bursting forth. It was beautiful. At the end, everyone raised their candle and I made a speech to all of them. This may be the end of camp, but this was not the end of their journey. Times may be hard and you may feel as though you are engulfed in darkness and struggle, but this is why we have a candle. This is the way forward, a light for when times are dark, a light to symbolize a new beginning, and together we are a strong source of light. Everyone with their arms outstretched to the moon, holding a candle, it was a moment burned into my memory. I will never forget that moment and that feeling, feeling as one.
The week was both powerful, beautiful, and exhausting. I teared up numerous times throughout the week. We did one activity where the girls identified their role models, and wrote out their name on a card and posted it to their role model inspiration wall. One of the counselors came and got me after the session to point out one card in particular, a card that had my name on it: My role model is Chelsea Mertz. It made my heart ache, and I went to go give a big hug to Chance, the girl from my village who posted that card.
I can honestly say that doing this camp, having this experience has been the most profound and rewarding thing I've done while I've been in Malawi. It was trying, I got little sleep, felt stressed trying to direct and coordinate the camp, but in the end it was more than worth it. To watch those girls board the buses on the way back home, you could see the difference in them, they carried themselves with a newly endowed purpose. And I know for certain that Camp GLOW is one thing we all share and we shall never forget.
If you'd like to explore Camp GLOW more please visit our website, newly redesigned by the wonderful and talented volunteers Briana Scroggins and Ashley Stafford, at www.campglowmalawi.com
Back with a Vengeance
I feel I should start off by apologizing. It's been a long time since I've posted anything. The only excuses I can offer is that I've been busy (which accounts for only have of the onus), the other is that I've now been here for 15 months and I've reached that cardinal point where so few things seem novel. It's all part and parcel of my daily activities, seldom do I feel the inspiration to write any longer. Well I vow to change that, I owe it to my loyal readers, my parents.
I do have a renewed motivation to write thanks to a package I received just this week from Jessie Garrett. Jessie sent me a package, full of New Yorkers (yay!), and with a letter introducing herself. She ran across my blog through facebook and started reading. I guess she appreciated and enjoyed what I had to write. I hope she sees this shout out! Her letter really made my week and made me remember that friends and family might not call as often anymore, but I'm not forgotten. But due to a mail system that could rival the Pony Express, I didn't receive it until Tuesday this week (September 6th) when it was mailed in April. So yeah. I'm working on a response letter as well. Because of her package I've made myself sit down and put my fingers to the keyboard to get back to writing. Allow me to give an update on my life:
So I spent July planning for Camp GLOW, which I wrote about in the post right after this one. We'd been prepping for the camp pretty actively since March. We being me and the other 4 coordinators. I served as the Programming Coordinator, so I was responsible for booking guest speakers, putting together the camp curriculum, finding people to lead sessions, and being the director of the camp while there. Oh yes, I was the one standing in front of a group of 80 adolescent girls and counselors leading camp songs and shhing them for speakers, and what not. I now understand why camp directors are a little kooky and have an ego. It's necessary in order to both keep people in line and to keep them interested. I'd say I did a pretty good job, but then again I was the one standing in front leading the group in “Make new friends, but keep the old, one is silver and the other gold.”
In August my two brothers came for a visit. If you know either of my brothers you know that we never really have a holiday or vacation, there is always some kind of agenda to it. Same goes for their visit to Malawi. We spent about half of their time here installing and working at the mission tenets of the Malawi Wifi Project, a non-profit established by my older brother G. Jason Schnellbacher. The Malawi Wifi Project holds as its mission to bring new, emerging technology to Malawi to extend internet capabilities to rural and hard to reach areas of Malawi. There visit was to establish the pilot project. That project is now underway in an area outside of Blantyre, located in the southern region of Malawi.
Giving the teachers the first go at how to use the computers.
In addition, my brothers brought computers donated to the project from Olathe Medical Center, located in Olathe, Kansas, and we distributed computers for use in my village. Several were given to my health centre, and several to youth leaders associated with the youth conference held at Mhalaunda and sponsored by the Church of Central African Presbyterian (CCAP), and several to my local secondary school where we also did a solar installation, a panel fixed to the roof, wiring, and the outlets, so that now the school has access to electricity.
Gabriel installing a solar panel at the secondary school.
My brothers visited my village to see where I live and work as well as to do the computer distribution and installation. But it wasn't all work, we shared several meals with my neighbors, forced them to eat nsima, the local “delicacy.” We took a hike around my village to see the local bush. And because there is no running water here, they were forced to use my chimbudzi, my outhouse. That was by far the most amusing as my little brother, Andrew, didn't adjust too well to the sticky, carb-y mass of nsima and was constipated for nearly a week. And then he was forced to squat over my glorified hole in the ground to squeeze it out. I suppose I didn't help matters by sneaking up on him and sticking a camera through the air vent to snap a picture. But then again what are sisters for? It was just too amusing to pass up. I promised him I wouldn't post it, but years down the road, if and when he gets married, that picture is making it into the slideshow.
For more information on the Malawi Wifi Project, please look us up on Facebook.
Well I have a new cat, the sister to Panda Banda, my other cat, in fact. Her name is Gizmo and she formally belonged to another volunteer that just COS-ed (Peace Corps is very keen on their acronyms, COS stands for close of service, the date our contract ends), Meg Watkins. I adopted the cat upon her departure to make my house feel a little less lonely. And I got a little more than I bargained for, besides Gizmo, I got her and her brood, 4 small kittens that upon delivery were only a week old. Right now, they're roaming my house. Well I suppose roaming isn't the right word, more like padding lightly in a 10ft radius of their bed. They are getting more active though, they don't sway like a drunkard when they walk any longer. And they're getting a little more playful and looking less like furry aliens. Which for me means they're both cute and starting to verge on obnoxious. I'm raising a household of kittens and a mother that's a tad crazy (her preferred meal is a piece of bread smeared with butter and sliced tomatoes). It's amusing as I go about my day, of course my whole village knows I have this new set of kittens, despite my attempts at privacy everyone knows about everything all the time. I have the same daily dialogue with people:
Me: Mwawuka uli? (How did you wake up?)
Villager: Tawuka makola, kwali imwe? (We woke well, and you?)
Me: Ah, nawuka makola. Ku nyumba wali makola? (Ah, I woke well also. And how is your house?)
Villager: Ah, wali makola. Na ku nyumba? (Ah, they are well. And your house? A play at the fact that I live alone)
Me: Ka chona wali makola chomene. (Oh my cats are doing very well)
Villager: laughs
And that's the end of the exchange, and I have it about 10 times a day, everyday, in its various forms, the morning, the afternoon, the evening, etc. But whatever evokes laughs and chortles from others is always good with me. Malawians are very genial, good-natured people and they love to laugh. So I make it my mission to crack them up whenever possible.
Ok, I'll end there. I think that's a decent return to writing. I plan to do more anecdotal posts in my coming entries, so that's something to look forward to! Any comments feel free to respond here or email me at chelsjaye@gmail.com. I have an iPhone in the village, so I do check my email everyday. With that, we're done.
Khalani makola, please stay well.
I do have a renewed motivation to write thanks to a package I received just this week from Jessie Garrett. Jessie sent me a package, full of New Yorkers (yay!), and with a letter introducing herself. She ran across my blog through facebook and started reading. I guess she appreciated and enjoyed what I had to write. I hope she sees this shout out! Her letter really made my week and made me remember that friends and family might not call as often anymore, but I'm not forgotten. But due to a mail system that could rival the Pony Express, I didn't receive it until Tuesday this week (September 6th) when it was mailed in April. So yeah. I'm working on a response letter as well. Because of her package I've made myself sit down and put my fingers to the keyboard to get back to writing. Allow me to give an update on my life:
So I spent July planning for Camp GLOW, which I wrote about in the post right after this one. We'd been prepping for the camp pretty actively since March. We being me and the other 4 coordinators. I served as the Programming Coordinator, so I was responsible for booking guest speakers, putting together the camp curriculum, finding people to lead sessions, and being the director of the camp while there. Oh yes, I was the one standing in front of a group of 80 adolescent girls and counselors leading camp songs and shhing them for speakers, and what not. I now understand why camp directors are a little kooky and have an ego. It's necessary in order to both keep people in line and to keep them interested. I'd say I did a pretty good job, but then again I was the one standing in front leading the group in “Make new friends, but keep the old, one is silver and the other gold.”
In August my two brothers came for a visit. If you know either of my brothers you know that we never really have a holiday or vacation, there is always some kind of agenda to it. Same goes for their visit to Malawi. We spent about half of their time here installing and working at the mission tenets of the Malawi Wifi Project, a non-profit established by my older brother G. Jason Schnellbacher. The Malawi Wifi Project holds as its mission to bring new, emerging technology to Malawi to extend internet capabilities to rural and hard to reach areas of Malawi. There visit was to establish the pilot project. That project is now underway in an area outside of Blantyre, located in the southern region of Malawi.
Giving the teachers the first go at how to use the computers. In addition, my brothers brought computers donated to the project from Olathe Medical Center, located in Olathe, Kansas, and we distributed computers for use in my village. Several were given to my health centre, and several to youth leaders associated with the youth conference held at Mhalaunda and sponsored by the Church of Central African Presbyterian (CCAP), and several to my local secondary school where we also did a solar installation, a panel fixed to the roof, wiring, and the outlets, so that now the school has access to electricity.
Gabriel installing a solar panel at the secondary school. My brothers visited my village to see where I live and work as well as to do the computer distribution and installation. But it wasn't all work, we shared several meals with my neighbors, forced them to eat nsima, the local “delicacy.” We took a hike around my village to see the local bush. And because there is no running water here, they were forced to use my chimbudzi, my outhouse. That was by far the most amusing as my little brother, Andrew, didn't adjust too well to the sticky, carb-y mass of nsima and was constipated for nearly a week. And then he was forced to squat over my glorified hole in the ground to squeeze it out. I suppose I didn't help matters by sneaking up on him and sticking a camera through the air vent to snap a picture. But then again what are sisters for? It was just too amusing to pass up. I promised him I wouldn't post it, but years down the road, if and when he gets married, that picture is making it into the slideshow.
For more information on the Malawi Wifi Project, please look us up on Facebook.
Well I have a new cat, the sister to Panda Banda, my other cat, in fact. Her name is Gizmo and she formally belonged to another volunteer that just COS-ed (Peace Corps is very keen on their acronyms, COS stands for close of service, the date our contract ends), Meg Watkins. I adopted the cat upon her departure to make my house feel a little less lonely. And I got a little more than I bargained for, besides Gizmo, I got her and her brood, 4 small kittens that upon delivery were only a week old. Right now, they're roaming my house. Well I suppose roaming isn't the right word, more like padding lightly in a 10ft radius of their bed. They are getting more active though, they don't sway like a drunkard when they walk any longer. And they're getting a little more playful and looking less like furry aliens. Which for me means they're both cute and starting to verge on obnoxious. I'm raising a household of kittens and a mother that's a tad crazy (her preferred meal is a piece of bread smeared with butter and sliced tomatoes). It's amusing as I go about my day, of course my whole village knows I have this new set of kittens, despite my attempts at privacy everyone knows about everything all the time. I have the same daily dialogue with people:
Me: Mwawuka uli? (How did you wake up?)
Villager: Tawuka makola, kwali imwe? (We woke well, and you?)
Me: Ah, nawuka makola. Ku nyumba wali makola? (Ah, I woke well also. And how is your house?)
Villager: Ah, wali makola. Na ku nyumba? (Ah, they are well. And your house? A play at the fact that I live alone)
Me: Ka chona wali makola chomene. (Oh my cats are doing very well)
Villager: laughs
And that's the end of the exchange, and I have it about 10 times a day, everyday, in its various forms, the morning, the afternoon, the evening, etc. But whatever evokes laughs and chortles from others is always good with me. Malawians are very genial, good-natured people and they love to laugh. So I make it my mission to crack them up whenever possible.
Ok, I'll end there. I think that's a decent return to writing. I plan to do more anecdotal posts in my coming entries, so that's something to look forward to! Any comments feel free to respond here or email me at chelsjaye@gmail.com. I have an iPhone in the village, so I do check my email everyday. With that, we're done.
Khalani makola, please stay well.
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
Sabata Chitukuko - Mhalaunda Community Development Week
http://static.ak.fbcdn.net/rsrc.php/v1/yW/r/reIZTdNTHIS.swf
We held events over a week and a half in and around my site. These events/projects included a positive living training for the PLWA, a soap making demonstration for the local women's group, digging rubbish pits and pit latrines for the local school and the health centre, renovating the kitchen at the health centre guardian shelter, a jam making demonstration, etc. We did a large variety of projects and incorporated members from all the surrounding villages, students and teachers at both the primary school and the CDSS, people from the health center, the local women's group, the local HIV/AIDS support group, and many individuals.
The week was a big success. People from the community were very excited to be a part of the week and to engage in the projects.
Sunday, May 8, 2011
Luso la Manja - The Crafts of Our Hands
Luso la manja. The crafts of our hands. A group of ten women who saw in themselves the ability to progress their community. Some are widows and nearly all support orphaned children in addition to their own families. It is through their hands that they chose to make a difference: to craft, create, and share a vision.
Luso la manja began in 2003 with the vision of one lady, Beatrice Zindondo. She found that caring for a household of nine, her own children, her parents, and three orphaned children, constrained the meager wage her husband provided. As Beatrice says, “it was such a big responsibility to care for these children. Sometimes months would pass without any support. Life was hard for me and my family to survive.” She decided to act. With the help of Katie Reichert, Peace Corps Volunteer at Chifira Community Day Secondary School, she started a sewing group to make bags from zitenge, and found the assistance she needed. Beatrice recruited a bevy of other women, ten in total, who sought a solution to their financial problems.
The women have a remarkable social harmony that has facilitated the business’ success. The women share the three sewing machines, communal style, and together they sew the bags each Tuesday afternoon. It’s an occasion to spend time together, chatting about their day, their extended family, and their interrelated lives. The sense of community and motivation that keeps the group in sync has helped recruit other members as well, and in the years since 2003, the group has grown. Group member Loyce Mtanwangwe says, “I gladly joined the group because I was struggling so much financially. Due to our group’s wish to boost our business I can continue to support my family and others in the community. I hope Malawi and her people will be on the map because of my and the group’s skills.”
Their sewing group became a business. Beginning with the help of Katie Reichert and continuing down the volunteer generations to the current volunteers Melanie Terrell and Russell Conroy. The role of the nearby volunteer has been to find markets for the women to sell their goods. The group has outfitted nearly every Peace Corps volunteer in Malawi with a bag to call their own. Markets go beyond the Peace Corps circle, but bear the mark of volunteer contact. Lodges along the lakeshore sell their wares and a shop located in Kande continues the brand legacy.
Profits are distributed based on who sewed the bags, but a portion of these funds go to support an early childhood development program located near Kande in Nkhotakhota District. Elestina Mwase is proud of the group’s work, “I am happy to be assisting the preschool, which is the foundation for bright futures. Personally, I believe education is a gateway to success. To be successful in life one must value education. I will be happy to have an educated house, a well developed village, and to make Malawi a poverty-free country and best nation to stay in.”
Luso la manja began in 2003 with the vision of one lady, Beatrice Zindondo. She found that caring for a household of nine, her own children, her parents, and three orphaned children, constrained the meager wage her husband provided. As Beatrice says, “it was such a big responsibility to care for these children. Sometimes months would pass without any support. Life was hard for me and my family to survive.” She decided to act. With the help of Katie Reichert, Peace Corps Volunteer at Chifira Community Day Secondary School, she started a sewing group to make bags from zitenge, and found the assistance she needed. Beatrice recruited a bevy of other women, ten in total, who sought a solution to their financial problems.
The women have a remarkable social harmony that has facilitated the business’ success. The women share the three sewing machines, communal style, and together they sew the bags each Tuesday afternoon. It’s an occasion to spend time together, chatting about their day, their extended family, and their interrelated lives. The sense of community and motivation that keeps the group in sync has helped recruit other members as well, and in the years since 2003, the group has grown. Group member Loyce Mtanwangwe says, “I gladly joined the group because I was struggling so much financially. Due to our group’s wish to boost our business I can continue to support my family and others in the community. I hope Malawi and her people will be on the map because of my and the group’s skills.”
Their sewing group became a business. Beginning with the help of Katie Reichert and continuing down the volunteer generations to the current volunteers Melanie Terrell and Russell Conroy. The role of the nearby volunteer has been to find markets for the women to sell their goods. The group has outfitted nearly every Peace Corps volunteer in Malawi with a bag to call their own. Markets go beyond the Peace Corps circle, but bear the mark of volunteer contact. Lodges along the lakeshore sell their wares and a shop located in Kande continues the brand legacy.
Profits are distributed based on who sewed the bags, but a portion of these funds go to support an early childhood development program located near Kande in Nkhotakhota District. Elestina Mwase is proud of the group’s work, “I am happy to be assisting the preschool, which is the foundation for bright futures. Personally, I believe education is a gateway to success. To be successful in life one must value education. I will be happy to have an educated house, a well developed village, and to make Malawi a poverty-free country and best nation to stay in.”
Making a House a Home
In the open air of the night, a cool breeze sets the ideal temperature, stars hang over the lake, and embers smolder casting only a faint glow on the profiles of those encircling a firepit. While the scene seems hushed, the voices indicate otherwise. With raucous laughter, hasty Timbuka, a playful handshake, the members of the circle joke and tease one another. They point to the small dog digging arbitrary holes nearby. The frantic movement of paws evokes chortles all around. The group is at ease with one another, the conversation and laughter are fluid.
For Ben Siegelman, this is his nightly routine. He sits with the Simeza family: a matron head, her daughters, and one granddaughter. Ben is the lone man in the ring, yet he is no outsider.
When Ben moved to Nyungwe in September 2010, he moved to a house far different place. It was just near the trading center, amidst the bustle of a health centre, a daily market, and schools. The diesel-powered milling from the nearby chigayo was hardly ignorable white noise. The house lacked a gate and thus his every movement was privy to all those milling about. And one gent in particular took to narrating his daily routine to anyone who cared to listen. Virtually no aspect of his life was his own.
For Ben creating a home was crucial - the key to community integration. Providence stepped in. Just one week into his stay a colleague suggested a new house. It was a bit of a walk from the health centre, in the heart of the village. Within a month, he was relocated to the Simeza compound, the family and the family atmosphere more than made up for the distance. Sure, there was plenty of work to be done on the house. To live there, a kitchen and bafa had to be constructed, furniture built, and bars installed in the windows, but the Simeza family was eager for Ben to move in. They built the necessary structures with such haste that Ben remarks he’s never seen a project in Malawi completed in so timely a fashion.
Early on, the air about the house was noticeably different to the one previous. It felt like home. Ben credits the ease of his move to his new family. “It was their graceful handling of a bizarre situation that has made the house the sanctuary it is,” Ben notes. For Ben, the Simeza family are more than landlords, here they are his family. They are a group of women who have taken in Ben as their own; their adopted son and man of the house. Ben fills a void for the women - a void left by the death of the matron’s only son a few years ago. Eerily, the son’s name was Ben.
Nearly every day, the family comes over to assist Ben in his garden, helping him plant pumpkin, tomatoes, and the American breeds of tomatillos and peppers. They show him the technique for preparing kondowole, cassava nsima. In his time spent away from site, they watch and feed his dogs. By great fortune did they find one another. To their credit, Ben enjoys his house, his home, and his community. They have eased his community integration and created a home from a mere house.
For Ben Siegelman, this is his nightly routine. He sits with the Simeza family: a matron head, her daughters, and one granddaughter. Ben is the lone man in the ring, yet he is no outsider.
When Ben moved to Nyungwe in September 2010, he moved to a house far different place. It was just near the trading center, amidst the bustle of a health centre, a daily market, and schools. The diesel-powered milling from the nearby chigayo was hardly ignorable white noise. The house lacked a gate and thus his every movement was privy to all those milling about. And one gent in particular took to narrating his daily routine to anyone who cared to listen. Virtually no aspect of his life was his own.
For Ben creating a home was crucial - the key to community integration. Providence stepped in. Just one week into his stay a colleague suggested a new house. It was a bit of a walk from the health centre, in the heart of the village. Within a month, he was relocated to the Simeza compound, the family and the family atmosphere more than made up for the distance. Sure, there was plenty of work to be done on the house. To live there, a kitchen and bafa had to be constructed, furniture built, and bars installed in the windows, but the Simeza family was eager for Ben to move in. They built the necessary structures with such haste that Ben remarks he’s never seen a project in Malawi completed in so timely a fashion.
Early on, the air about the house was noticeably different to the one previous. It felt like home. Ben credits the ease of his move to his new family. “It was their graceful handling of a bizarre situation that has made the house the sanctuary it is,” Ben notes. For Ben, the Simeza family are more than landlords, here they are his family. They are a group of women who have taken in Ben as their own; their adopted son and man of the house. Ben fills a void for the women - a void left by the death of the matron’s only son a few years ago. Eerily, the son’s name was Ben.
Nearly every day, the family comes over to assist Ben in his garden, helping him plant pumpkin, tomatoes, and the American breeds of tomatillos and peppers. They show him the technique for preparing kondowole, cassava nsima. In his time spent away from site, they watch and feed his dogs. By great fortune did they find one another. To their credit, Ben enjoys his house, his home, and his community. They have eased his community integration and created a home from a mere house.
Peace Corps 50th Anniversary
So this year, 2011, marks the 50th anniversary of Peace Corps. JFK signed the order on March 1, 1961 and six months later the first batch, carrying 51 Americans, traveled to Ghana to begin their service as Peace Corps Volunteers. In the more than 50 years since, more than 200,000 Americans have served in 139 countries.
In Malawi, volunteers first arrived in 1963. The initial group contained only 20 volunteers. Today, over 2,100 volunteers have served in Malawi in all districts from Chitipa to Nsanje. And as we celebrate the 50th anniversary, we want to celebrate the experience - the joys, adventures, successes and legacies. We are tackling this task, in part, with a coffee table book to show through both photos and stories all that Peace Corps experience brings.
I worked on writing a couple of the stories. I'm posting two of them here. The first is about another volunteer from my training group, Ben Siegelman. He lives in a community that is absolutely wonderful; they've made his stay as comfortable as possible. The second story is about a women's group that is famous throughout Peace Corps, Luso la Manja. They sew bags seen on the back of nearly every volunteer in Malawi. They started with the help of a Peace Corps Volunteer and now they are a thriving business. Their products are available throughout Malawi and now available online.
I hope you enjoy the stories and when the book is complete I'll be sending a couple copies home. Happy reading.
In Malawi, volunteers first arrived in 1963. The initial group contained only 20 volunteers. Today, over 2,100 volunteers have served in Malawi in all districts from Chitipa to Nsanje. And as we celebrate the 50th anniversary, we want to celebrate the experience - the joys, adventures, successes and legacies. We are tackling this task, in part, with a coffee table book to show through both photos and stories all that Peace Corps experience brings.
I worked on writing a couple of the stories. I'm posting two of them here. The first is about another volunteer from my training group, Ben Siegelman. He lives in a community that is absolutely wonderful; they've made his stay as comfortable as possible. The second story is about a women's group that is famous throughout Peace Corps, Luso la Manja. They sew bags seen on the back of nearly every volunteer in Malawi. They started with the help of a Peace Corps Volunteer and now they are a thriving business. Their products are available throughout Malawi and now available online.
I hope you enjoy the stories and when the book is complete I'll be sending a couple copies home. Happy reading.
Saturday, March 26, 2011
My Malawian Family
Banja ya Malawi, My Big Fat Malawian Family
As per a request from my good friend Krista, I would like to describe some of my Malawian family members. The individuals with whom I interact most on a daily basis:
Mama Chavula
She’s quite a character. She’s a towering woman, roughly 6’3”, definitely the tallest Malawian I know. She has a slow gait about her, walking upon flat feet. She’s the head matron at the Mhalaunda Health Center, the health center at which I work. And, in the absence of a medical assistant, she does everything from birthing babies to sewing up lacerations. Not only is she the head matron at Mhalaunda, but she’s the community’s matronly authority. She is known throughout all the villages as Mama Chavula. At home, she’s my greatest confidant. When fire fails me I come to her for hot coals. When a new fruit is in season she’s there with a knife to show me how to eat it, say masuku or paw paw. When I sprained my ankle she brought be everything I needed including ice packs to nsima patties. When I decided to starting eating eggs again she walked me to all the places in the village where I could buy them. When I needed my field hoed she summoned a local boy by the name of Monday to hoe it for me. She’s such a blessing; she has the answer to my every question and problem.
Godfrey Makwakwa
Mr. Makwakwa is my counterpart. He is the energy on which the health center runs. He’s always out to some village for a sanitation meeting, over to Manyamula for the Area Development Committee meeting, with World Vision in Mzimba. He’s just moving up and down on a daily basis. He moves about so much and so often that the moment you sit him down to be still for more than a few minutes he’ll fall asleep on you. But don’t let that deter you. When he’s active, he’s more than energetic, a real take charge kind of guy. Basically, he is the health center. On a personal level, his greatest charm is his laugh and his wonderful sense of humor. He’s someone I try to provoke laughter out of on a daily basis. Every time he emits one of his open-mouthed guffaws he slaps your hand. This has become a goal of mine in most any conversation we have, try to get the hand slap. Another of his charms is his refreshingly modern, or maybe more appropriate, a pragmatic take on gender relations. When I was over to his house he cooked for me, a sweet potato casserole sort of thing, quite delicious. He is one of only two men I’ve met in the village that cook either for themselves or for others. Yet, he and his wife cook together frequently. He’s a wonderfully active father also, joking and playing with his kids whenever he’s home. He has an amazing garden as well, a true tropical bounty. He grows the Malawian staples like maize, ground nuts and pumpkins, but he also has lemon, guava trees, and avocado trees. Plus he has a bee hive from which he brings me honey. All in all, Mr. Makwakwa is a light-hearted fellow with a good heart. I’ve never met a more genuine person.
Gabriel Chavula
Gabriel, or Gabe as I call him, is Mama’s brother-in-law. He is the tech savvy person around. He likes to ask many questions about computers, cords, programs, systems, etc. I’m not exactly a tech inept individual, but I’m no expert so most of my answers tend to be a general shrug of the shoulders. Gabe is also the motivation behind my garden. A few weeks into the rainy season he knocked upon my door holding a hoe and a bag of seeds, it was planting time. Together we hoed out the tall soil ridges, characteristic of Malawian dimba, planting maize, beans, potatoes, sweet potatoes, all the staples here. I’m not reaping the benefit of that day in the dirt, fresh beans and potatoes straight from the garden. Quite the linguist as well, Gabriel on a daily basis urges me to learn more words and to develop my vocabulary. For this reason I’ve made him my Timbuka trainer. He sits with me in my garden, giving me the words for each of the plants, mapuno = tomato, vingoma = maize, etc. We go on a bike ride and he suggests the words for path (nthowa), for riding (kuchova), for remembering a shortcut (kukombuka nthowa yafupi). Gabriel is the go-to person for any manual labor assistance I might need. He helps to cut the grass around my house, weeding my garden, cleaning my bike, planting Moringa trees. Getting caked in dirt and working until the blisters surface, that’s his prerogative, he gets me going and makes me active. He also loves to throw around a Frisbee, that’s our favorite pastime together. He has quite a toss.
Erita Chavula
Gabriel’s wife. She’s 22, freshly married and with her first born son. She is just beautiful. Her hair is always beautifully braided, done so by her sister; I frequently compliment her “Erita wachena!” Her son Eugene, 7 months old, is with her nearly all the time; he may be the most adorable baby ever. I’ve nicknamed him Eugie the Wise because he hardly ever cries, a wonderful trait in babies. Erita finished secondary school in 2008 and her family is from ya Banda village, a short walk from Mhalaunda. She invites me to go visit her home village every few weeks, to greet her mother and father. We go and sit with them, eat nsima together, and on one special occasion they tried to convince me to eat fried flying ants (I declined). Erita is a fabulous baker as well. She has a brick oven in her kitchen in which she bakes sikonos, baked rolls. She rolls out all the dough by hand, forming each roll in her hand, and then builds a fire in the oven to build up the heat. The sikonos come out piping hot and delicious, fresh baked bread on a daily basis. Erita also tends to drop in on me from time to time with Eugie and she bops him on me and goes off to do some chores. By bopping I mean she ties him on me with a chitenje and I go around with the baby on my back, baboon style (see picture attached). All in all, Erita is my closest “gal pal” in the village.
As per a request from my good friend Krista, I would like to describe some of my Malawian family members. The individuals with whom I interact most on a daily basis:
Mama Chavula
She’s quite a character. She’s a towering woman, roughly 6’3”, definitely the tallest Malawian I know. She has a slow gait about her, walking upon flat feet. She’s the head matron at the Mhalaunda Health Center, the health center at which I work. And, in the absence of a medical assistant, she does everything from birthing babies to sewing up lacerations. Not only is she the head matron at Mhalaunda, but she’s the community’s matronly authority. She is known throughout all the villages as Mama Chavula. At home, she’s my greatest confidant. When fire fails me I come to her for hot coals. When a new fruit is in season she’s there with a knife to show me how to eat it, say masuku or paw paw. When I sprained my ankle she brought be everything I needed including ice packs to nsima patties. When I decided to starting eating eggs again she walked me to all the places in the village where I could buy them. When I needed my field hoed she summoned a local boy by the name of Monday to hoe it for me. She’s such a blessing; she has the answer to my every question and problem.
Godfrey Makwakwa
Mr. Makwakwa is my counterpart. He is the energy on which the health center runs. He’s always out to some village for a sanitation meeting, over to Manyamula for the Area Development Committee meeting, with World Vision in Mzimba. He’s just moving up and down on a daily basis. He moves about so much and so often that the moment you sit him down to be still for more than a few minutes he’ll fall asleep on you. But don’t let that deter you. When he’s active, he’s more than energetic, a real take charge kind of guy. Basically, he is the health center. On a personal level, his greatest charm is his laugh and his wonderful sense of humor. He’s someone I try to provoke laughter out of on a daily basis. Every time he emits one of his open-mouthed guffaws he slaps your hand. This has become a goal of mine in most any conversation we have, try to get the hand slap. Another of his charms is his refreshingly modern, or maybe more appropriate, a pragmatic take on gender relations. When I was over to his house he cooked for me, a sweet potato casserole sort of thing, quite delicious. He is one of only two men I’ve met in the village that cook either for themselves or for others. Yet, he and his wife cook together frequently. He’s a wonderfully active father also, joking and playing with his kids whenever he’s home. He has an amazing garden as well, a true tropical bounty. He grows the Malawian staples like maize, ground nuts and pumpkins, but he also has lemon, guava trees, and avocado trees. Plus he has a bee hive from which he brings me honey. All in all, Mr. Makwakwa is a light-hearted fellow with a good heart. I’ve never met a more genuine person.
Gabriel Chavula
Gabriel, or Gabe as I call him, is Mama’s brother-in-law. He is the tech savvy person around. He likes to ask many questions about computers, cords, programs, systems, etc. I’m not exactly a tech inept individual, but I’m no expert so most of my answers tend to be a general shrug of the shoulders. Gabe is also the motivation behind my garden. A few weeks into the rainy season he knocked upon my door holding a hoe and a bag of seeds, it was planting time. Together we hoed out the tall soil ridges, characteristic of Malawian dimba, planting maize, beans, potatoes, sweet potatoes, all the staples here. I’m not reaping the benefit of that day in the dirt, fresh beans and potatoes straight from the garden. Quite the linguist as well, Gabriel on a daily basis urges me to learn more words and to develop my vocabulary. For this reason I’ve made him my Timbuka trainer. He sits with me in my garden, giving me the words for each of the plants, mapuno = tomato, vingoma = maize, etc. We go on a bike ride and he suggests the words for path (nthowa), for riding (kuchova), for remembering a shortcut (kukombuka nthowa yafupi). Gabriel is the go-to person for any manual labor assistance I might need. He helps to cut the grass around my house, weeding my garden, cleaning my bike, planting Moringa trees. Getting caked in dirt and working until the blisters surface, that’s his prerogative, he gets me going and makes me active. He also loves to throw around a Frisbee, that’s our favorite pastime together. He has quite a toss.
Erita Chavula
Gabriel’s wife. She’s 22, freshly married and with her first born son. She is just beautiful. Her hair is always beautifully braided, done so by her sister; I frequently compliment her “Erita wachena!” Her son Eugene, 7 months old, is with her nearly all the time; he may be the most adorable baby ever. I’ve nicknamed him Eugie the Wise because he hardly ever cries, a wonderful trait in babies. Erita finished secondary school in 2008 and her family is from ya Banda village, a short walk from Mhalaunda. She invites me to go visit her home village every few weeks, to greet her mother and father. We go and sit with them, eat nsima together, and on one special occasion they tried to convince me to eat fried flying ants (I declined). Erita is a fabulous baker as well. She has a brick oven in her kitchen in which she bakes sikonos, baked rolls. She rolls out all the dough by hand, forming each roll in her hand, and then builds a fire in the oven to build up the heat. The sikonos come out piping hot and delicious, fresh baked bread on a daily basis. Erita also tends to drop in on me from time to time with Eugie and she bops him on me and goes off to do some chores. By bopping I mean she ties him on me with a chitenje and I go around with the baby on my back, baboon style (see picture attached). All in all, Erita is my closest “gal pal” in the village.
Friday, March 25, 2011
This That and the Other around Mzimba
Kuche Kuche, the beer of choice in Malawi
Baking bread in a brick oven
A beetle, enough said
Mhalaunda River with my site mates Haakon and Jerrod
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Rainy Season in Malawi
Rainy Season in Malawi
It’s March in Malawi, the height of rainy season. A solid couple hours a day is devoted to steady rain and the occasional stretches of absolute downpour. You can’t leave the house without an umbrella and you better have some sort of waterproof shoes or be ready to splash around in flip flops.
Just imagine a downpour so thick that the smell of rain invades every room of the house. The patter on the roof has climaxed to a uniform roar. Nothing you can do drowns the sound. You can simply bath in it. And if you stand in the right spot in the living room you can actually bath in it too. I guess they didn’t exactly design corrugated metal to be leak proof. Anyhow, what I’m trying to get at is that the sound of a torrential downpour is the most mind deafening sound I’ve ever encountered. I’ve yet to find anything that mutes the sound in any way. Even with my iPod on full blast, earbuds pushed into my ear canal as far as possible; even then the music can’t compete. This is my cry for help, send me ear plugs! When it isn’t a mind-numbing downpour, the soft patter of drops on the corrugated tin is quite soothing. It’s the sort of white noise that babies would easily fall asleep to. And for me, it’s the perfect background noise to cozy up to. The white noise patter is the best, the ideal decibel level.
One can plant a garden by haphazardly tossing seeds on the ground. They nearly sprout on site. The key is to keep the chickens away; they’re as pernicious as a plague of locusts. They’ll walk through a newly planted garden, a hen with a dozen chicks in tow, and henpeck the hell out of anything loose on the ground. I blame the death of my pansies on these ridiculous creatures. If it isn’t already clear, chickens roam free here. The only sort of confines they know is at night when they’re saddled inside the kitchen, from dusk till dawn. But once the sun is up out they are, ready to peck the hell out of anything in sight. Being here gives a whole new meaning to “free range chickens”. Quite frankly, they’re irritating as all hell. The one high note, my neighbor’s chicken has taken to roosting in my outside kitchen. This past week I’ve come up with an egg a day. Guess the mama hen likes my bag of charcoal enough to nest on it. Voila! Farm fresh eggs.
If you haven’t already inferred, mud is a huge problem during this season as well. I spent a large chunk of last Saturday watching a tractor trailer attempt to navigate its way through a former road turned muddy bathtub. So few roads here are paved. Just beyond the reach of the highway, the M1 which curves its way through Malawi, the country’s interstate backbone, all roads are made of various combinations of dirt, sand, and small rocks. And dirt in rainy season becomes mud. A few days of steady downpours and half the roads become soupy messes. Much more fun to hike through barefoot, squishing mud between your toes, than taking a crowded pickup truck leaden with katundu and people. Because then it will only be a matter of just how deep the wheels will sink into the goupy mess and who they nominate to help push the car out. Always a treat to watch though. There’s something fascinating about watching a large group of individuals rocking a car back and forth through deep, muddy gulleys. The sound too. So sloshy, sloupy, slushy, and on. And watch out for the spray, the tire gets one good spin and you’ve been splattered like a Jackson Pollock. The good news is the cars all eventually get out. At least I haven’t seen the mud claim any car as its own, swallowing it into some muddy orifice. But hey, I still have another month or so to go.
All in all, I like rainy season. It’s a nice break from the sweltering heat of chihanya. It’s nice to have a break from the sun. I was starting to believe that clouds were only a wispy figment of my imagination. Now I know they do indeed exist and in great quantity with raindrops big enough to put my eye out. Oh well, inside I go to a good book and a cup of tea. Because now it’s cool enough to want tea. That’s a relief. Let’s hope I get a good white noise patter that will really make my day.
It’s March in Malawi, the height of rainy season. A solid couple hours a day is devoted to steady rain and the occasional stretches of absolute downpour. You can’t leave the house without an umbrella and you better have some sort of waterproof shoes or be ready to splash around in flip flops.
Just imagine a downpour so thick that the smell of rain invades every room of the house. The patter on the roof has climaxed to a uniform roar. Nothing you can do drowns the sound. You can simply bath in it. And if you stand in the right spot in the living room you can actually bath in it too. I guess they didn’t exactly design corrugated metal to be leak proof. Anyhow, what I’m trying to get at is that the sound of a torrential downpour is the most mind deafening sound I’ve ever encountered. I’ve yet to find anything that mutes the sound in any way. Even with my iPod on full blast, earbuds pushed into my ear canal as far as possible; even then the music can’t compete. This is my cry for help, send me ear plugs! When it isn’t a mind-numbing downpour, the soft patter of drops on the corrugated tin is quite soothing. It’s the sort of white noise that babies would easily fall asleep to. And for me, it’s the perfect background noise to cozy up to. The white noise patter is the best, the ideal decibel level.
One can plant a garden by haphazardly tossing seeds on the ground. They nearly sprout on site. The key is to keep the chickens away; they’re as pernicious as a plague of locusts. They’ll walk through a newly planted garden, a hen with a dozen chicks in tow, and henpeck the hell out of anything loose on the ground. I blame the death of my pansies on these ridiculous creatures. If it isn’t already clear, chickens roam free here. The only sort of confines they know is at night when they’re saddled inside the kitchen, from dusk till dawn. But once the sun is up out they are, ready to peck the hell out of anything in sight. Being here gives a whole new meaning to “free range chickens”. Quite frankly, they’re irritating as all hell. The one high note, my neighbor’s chicken has taken to roosting in my outside kitchen. This past week I’ve come up with an egg a day. Guess the mama hen likes my bag of charcoal enough to nest on it. Voila! Farm fresh eggs.
If you haven’t already inferred, mud is a huge problem during this season as well. I spent a large chunk of last Saturday watching a tractor trailer attempt to navigate its way through a former road turned muddy bathtub. So few roads here are paved. Just beyond the reach of the highway, the M1 which curves its way through Malawi, the country’s interstate backbone, all roads are made of various combinations of dirt, sand, and small rocks. And dirt in rainy season becomes mud. A few days of steady downpours and half the roads become soupy messes. Much more fun to hike through barefoot, squishing mud between your toes, than taking a crowded pickup truck leaden with katundu and people. Because then it will only be a matter of just how deep the wheels will sink into the goupy mess and who they nominate to help push the car out. Always a treat to watch though. There’s something fascinating about watching a large group of individuals rocking a car back and forth through deep, muddy gulleys. The sound too. So sloshy, sloupy, slushy, and on. And watch out for the spray, the tire gets one good spin and you’ve been splattered like a Jackson Pollock. The good news is the cars all eventually get out. At least I haven’t seen the mud claim any car as its own, swallowing it into some muddy orifice. But hey, I still have another month or so to go.
All in all, I like rainy season. It’s a nice break from the sweltering heat of chihanya. It’s nice to have a break from the sun. I was starting to believe that clouds were only a wispy figment of my imagination. Now I know they do indeed exist and in great quantity with raindrops big enough to put my eye out. Oh well, inside I go to a good book and a cup of tea. Because now it’s cool enough to want tea. That’s a relief. Let’s hope I get a good white noise patter that will really make my day.
Journal Entries - January 2011
January 21, 2011 Mhalaunda
I learned to bake scones today. I followed the recipe that Mr. Zalimbe uses, the ones he sells to sponsor the People Living with HIV and AIDS (PLWHA) group. He taught both Gabriel and me. They go through a rather tedious process – a very specific way of rolling the dough so it makes a perfect ball for equal expansion. I haven’t made too many rolls in my lifetime, but I’ve never seen anyone be so particular with the rolling process. Folding each flap of dough around and squeezing it between your thumb and forefinger, so a perfect ball emerges. We made 115 scones in just this manner. In the absence of an oven, you preheat a large brick oven, plastered in cement. You build a big fire in the structure, until the bricks trap so much energy they radiate heat. You then remove the wood and charcoal once it’s thoroughly heated. Then you pop in the scones for exactly 7 minutes. Then voila, fresh baked rolls. Pretty nifty. It was an affair that took the whole afternoon though. But the end product, the fresh rolls are absolutely delicious, light and fluffy with just the right amount of sweetness, with a pat of butter they’re to die for.
While we were “preheating” the oven, I noticed a wild fig tree just close by. In Timbuka it’s known as a kachele, a tree whose identity is uniquely tied to the independence of Malawi. It was under a kachele tree that Kamuzu Banda, Malawi’s first president dreamed of education and an independent future for Malawi. On the banks of the Shire River his kachele grew and on that spot he built the Kamuzu Academy, the premier school in Malawi.
So I picked the small figs, a huge bowl full. They’re roughly the size of a cranberry. I had the brilliant idea of making a crisp out of them. It turned out great! I made it just like an apple crisp with a crumb topping; luckily I have cinnamon and nutmeg. So delicious.
January 18, 2011 Mhalaunda
Well I’ve been had. I blame my naiveté on my lack of knowledge of eggs. It’s a new experience for me, eggs that is, not being had. It’s been almost 3 years since I’ve eaten eggs and I just started eating them again. I’m trying to expand my protein input, it’s rather limited in the village to soya pieces and beans, so eggs really extends my food options. And well Mwazi, my next door neighbor’s daughter came by around lunch with a bowl of four eggs. She told me her mother send her over to sell me eggs. I’d just been with her mother at the clinic the day before and I was looking to buy eggs then, but couldn’t find any at a decent price. So, it seemed only natural that she should assist me in my time of need. I bought all 4 at 20 kwacha per egg, roughly 75 cents.
When I sat down to cook them for dinner I couldn’t crack them, I only made a small dent in it. And the one I could crack started to ooze blood. I was quite alarmed, not knowing what the hell was happening. I had just started cooking eggs again and finding bloody eggs was just not in my repertoire. I mean this just wouldn’t happen with store bought eggs in the states. So, I walked out to Mphatso, the girl staying with my other neighbor, and asked her what the problem was. And as I expected they were bad and not just bad, but ready to hatch. New chicks were to hatch in another couple days. Mr. Qoto rode by just as I was explaining the problem. Oh how he laughed at me, “but Chelsea you bought bad eggs, you must know these are bad.” He thought it a good joke until I mentioned it was his daughter who sold me the eggs. Then he perked up, clearly a bit ashamed that his daughter would be the one to cheat me.
We went to confront the girl. She stood in the doorway like an insolent child. She refused to make eye contact with me, standing just enough inside the door so she wouldn’t have to look directly at me. Mr. Qoto asked what she’d done, where she’d taken the eggs from, what she did with the money she got for them. She provided no answers. As it turns out, she’d taken the eggs from Mama Chavula’s roosting hen, when she was supposed to be in school no less. And then over to me she came trying to peddle hot eggs (both literally hot, straight from the chicken’s breast and figuratively hot, stolen eggs).
I swear if that was my child I would have slapped her something good. And I don’t even believe in hitting children, oh but I was beyond pissed. Since she’s not my child I suppose it’s inappropriate for me to hit her. In defense of my urge to strike, the girl has a history of stealing and being dishonest. I was just coming around to her again after the incident where she was caught stealing money from Mama Chavula’s house. On a frequent basis she skips school and is just around the village. That one is not on a good path and now she’s on my shit list for sure. I guess I’ll just have to give her the silent treatment and hope that suffices. And if she ever tries to sell me eggs again I won’t think twice about slapping her.
January 15, 2011 Mhalaunda
So I sprained my ankle. I have a swollen, protruding, bruised mound where my ankle should be. I thought it would be a stellar idea to go on a run this afternoon. And as I started off toward the football ground, the one place I feel comfortable enough to wear running shorts and leggings, I ran across a troop of neighborhood kids. They were just starting a pickup soccer match. Oh hey, I play football and I’m just itching for a chance to prove myself with the area youth. Voila. I’m in and made a team captain. I choose my players, going for the smaller, runtier looking players; they generally tend to be the scrappier ones. We have enough to play full scale, 11-v-11. Off we start, my team can really push the ball up field and I’m part of the push, playing a forward. I get off a shot on goal a few minutes in, SCORE! We’re up 1-0. I make several other good moves around defenders, several great passes. Then, a particularly hard ball comes from a defender aiming to get the ball out of his territory and to the other side of the field. I stick out my left foot, determined to stop its powerful velocity. And snap! The ball drops to a halt directly in front of me and my foot explodes in excruciating pain. I pass the ball off and try to hobble after it, trying to resume my position. I do my best to shake it off, just like my dad would advise. The pain grows worse though, any sort of turn makes a new pain twinge. I finally hobble off the field, trying my best to call in a sub with a few mutterings of jumbled Timbuka.
I hobble my way back home. Now, I’m a loss for what to do. I don’t have ice, so I can’t exactly ice it. Mama Chavula though, she came to the rescue. She brings me one of those ice packs that you bust the inner core and shake it about. She lays me down in bed, propping up my foot. She makes sure I have enough food, nsima patties, a carafe of tea, all the dende (side dishes) I need. She made convalescing that much more enjoyable.
January 14, 2011 Mhalaunda
One thing I’m investing the most time with is helping the People Living with HIV and AIDS group to undertake and continue several projects. I wrote up an action plan to help some of their activities and before I could even deliver the speech I prepared (prepared in Chitimbuka with the help of Gabriel, a friendly neighbor and my language trainer), Mr. Zalimbe approached me with an action plan that the group decided on and drafted. I was so impressed. They brought me the action plan and asked for my help. It’s sort of a role reversal; I’m supposed to bring the plan of action to them. But no matter. Their objectives are obtaining a loan to help with their income-generating activities, namely sewing, knitting, and baking bread, holding trainings for their members on how to live positively, operating a community garden to assist their nutritional needs, etc. It was truly moving. And it was just as powerful even with the few misspellings, say “legislation” for “registration” (Malawians have a funny way of interchanging Ls and Rs). It made me respect them that much more. I’m really looking forward to working with them.
January 13, 2011 Mhalaunda
I was asked to do a new task at the clinic this week. At the St. Francis clinic I sat in on the voluntary counseling and testing sessions with my counterpart, Mr. Makwakwa. I watched and helped him operate the rapid test kit. The clinic is one held monthly for all pregnant women and for children under 5 years. The women attend the clinic monthly throughout their pregnancy. As part of the process, all pregnant women have to be tested for HIV in order to get those women testing positive on the proper medication to prevent mother to child transmission.
At the clinic, we tested 14 women and one came back positive. It was hard to watch as Mr. Makwakwa counseled her. Just looking in on the session, you could tell that she had no idea about her status, no recollection of where she might have been exposed. She is on her third marriage and has never slept with a man outside of marriage. And she looked so healthy and virile, I know that’s a misnomer for a woman’s strength but you get what I mean. By the look of her, you would never guess her HIV status.
As she progressed through the other stages of the antenatal clinic, I snuck glances at her demeanor. She maintained a strong sense of self the whole way through. It filled me with such strength to watch her take on this burden; she developed a sort of stone cold strength. She went through the rest of the clinic just like that, focused on making it through, not giving away a thing. She went through her nursing consultation, through her immunization regime, etc. with inner power and control. I admire her for her strength.
January 11, 2011 Mhalaunda
I’m amazed at the sort of things I’ve become accustomed to, that no longer seem out of the ordinary. I just watched a 13-year-old boy ride by on his bicycle with a large tea kettle strapped to the back, nothing else. The question I want to ask him is where are you going with that tea kettle? Is there anything in the tea kettle? Is it hot? Is the distance you’re traveling far enough to necessitate you carrying it on a bicycle? So many questions, alas I did not ask any of them. I just accepted the sight as part of my daily occurrences. Boy on a ride with a tea kettle. No big deal.
January 9, 2011 Mhalaunda
It’s interesting the things you miss at random when you’ve been out of your natural setting at length. What I miss after six months in Malawi. SMELLS! I wish I have more fine smelling things. Malawi has just a drab, uninviting scent to it. I hate to generalize, I mean there are some nice smelling things, like the groves of citrus fruit or the flowers in my flower bed. But overall, smelling is such an underrated sensuous experience here. The most ubiquitous scent, after traveling up and down the country, is the smell of burning trash. People sweep the streets, collecting all the dust and debris into small piles and then they set it afire. It’s really not so pleasant.
I relish the simple olfactory treasures, like incense, which I burn just about every other day for my “offerings.” I’m also quite thankful that I brought my Miss Dior Cherie perfume with me. On occasion I give it a generous pump, dusting my bed sheets. Inhaling, it’s a beautiful escape. I adore snuggling into my bed after that.
I learned to bake scones today. I followed the recipe that Mr. Zalimbe uses, the ones he sells to sponsor the People Living with HIV and AIDS (PLWHA) group. He taught both Gabriel and me. They go through a rather tedious process – a very specific way of rolling the dough so it makes a perfect ball for equal expansion. I haven’t made too many rolls in my lifetime, but I’ve never seen anyone be so particular with the rolling process. Folding each flap of dough around and squeezing it between your thumb and forefinger, so a perfect ball emerges. We made 115 scones in just this manner. In the absence of an oven, you preheat a large brick oven, plastered in cement. You build a big fire in the structure, until the bricks trap so much energy they radiate heat. You then remove the wood and charcoal once it’s thoroughly heated. Then you pop in the scones for exactly 7 minutes. Then voila, fresh baked rolls. Pretty nifty. It was an affair that took the whole afternoon though. But the end product, the fresh rolls are absolutely delicious, light and fluffy with just the right amount of sweetness, with a pat of butter they’re to die for.
While we were “preheating” the oven, I noticed a wild fig tree just close by. In Timbuka it’s known as a kachele, a tree whose identity is uniquely tied to the independence of Malawi. It was under a kachele tree that Kamuzu Banda, Malawi’s first president dreamed of education and an independent future for Malawi. On the banks of the Shire River his kachele grew and on that spot he built the Kamuzu Academy, the premier school in Malawi.
So I picked the small figs, a huge bowl full. They’re roughly the size of a cranberry. I had the brilliant idea of making a crisp out of them. It turned out great! I made it just like an apple crisp with a crumb topping; luckily I have cinnamon and nutmeg. So delicious.
January 18, 2011 Mhalaunda
Well I’ve been had. I blame my naiveté on my lack of knowledge of eggs. It’s a new experience for me, eggs that is, not being had. It’s been almost 3 years since I’ve eaten eggs and I just started eating them again. I’m trying to expand my protein input, it’s rather limited in the village to soya pieces and beans, so eggs really extends my food options. And well Mwazi, my next door neighbor’s daughter came by around lunch with a bowl of four eggs. She told me her mother send her over to sell me eggs. I’d just been with her mother at the clinic the day before and I was looking to buy eggs then, but couldn’t find any at a decent price. So, it seemed only natural that she should assist me in my time of need. I bought all 4 at 20 kwacha per egg, roughly 75 cents.
When I sat down to cook them for dinner I couldn’t crack them, I only made a small dent in it. And the one I could crack started to ooze blood. I was quite alarmed, not knowing what the hell was happening. I had just started cooking eggs again and finding bloody eggs was just not in my repertoire. I mean this just wouldn’t happen with store bought eggs in the states. So, I walked out to Mphatso, the girl staying with my other neighbor, and asked her what the problem was. And as I expected they were bad and not just bad, but ready to hatch. New chicks were to hatch in another couple days. Mr. Qoto rode by just as I was explaining the problem. Oh how he laughed at me, “but Chelsea you bought bad eggs, you must know these are bad.” He thought it a good joke until I mentioned it was his daughter who sold me the eggs. Then he perked up, clearly a bit ashamed that his daughter would be the one to cheat me.
We went to confront the girl. She stood in the doorway like an insolent child. She refused to make eye contact with me, standing just enough inside the door so she wouldn’t have to look directly at me. Mr. Qoto asked what she’d done, where she’d taken the eggs from, what she did with the money she got for them. She provided no answers. As it turns out, she’d taken the eggs from Mama Chavula’s roosting hen, when she was supposed to be in school no less. And then over to me she came trying to peddle hot eggs (both literally hot, straight from the chicken’s breast and figuratively hot, stolen eggs).
I swear if that was my child I would have slapped her something good. And I don’t even believe in hitting children, oh but I was beyond pissed. Since she’s not my child I suppose it’s inappropriate for me to hit her. In defense of my urge to strike, the girl has a history of stealing and being dishonest. I was just coming around to her again after the incident where she was caught stealing money from Mama Chavula’s house. On a frequent basis she skips school and is just around the village. That one is not on a good path and now she’s on my shit list for sure. I guess I’ll just have to give her the silent treatment and hope that suffices. And if she ever tries to sell me eggs again I won’t think twice about slapping her.
January 15, 2011 Mhalaunda
So I sprained my ankle. I have a swollen, protruding, bruised mound where my ankle should be. I thought it would be a stellar idea to go on a run this afternoon. And as I started off toward the football ground, the one place I feel comfortable enough to wear running shorts and leggings, I ran across a troop of neighborhood kids. They were just starting a pickup soccer match. Oh hey, I play football and I’m just itching for a chance to prove myself with the area youth. Voila. I’m in and made a team captain. I choose my players, going for the smaller, runtier looking players; they generally tend to be the scrappier ones. We have enough to play full scale, 11-v-11. Off we start, my team can really push the ball up field and I’m part of the push, playing a forward. I get off a shot on goal a few minutes in, SCORE! We’re up 1-0. I make several other good moves around defenders, several great passes. Then, a particularly hard ball comes from a defender aiming to get the ball out of his territory and to the other side of the field. I stick out my left foot, determined to stop its powerful velocity. And snap! The ball drops to a halt directly in front of me and my foot explodes in excruciating pain. I pass the ball off and try to hobble after it, trying to resume my position. I do my best to shake it off, just like my dad would advise. The pain grows worse though, any sort of turn makes a new pain twinge. I finally hobble off the field, trying my best to call in a sub with a few mutterings of jumbled Timbuka.
I hobble my way back home. Now, I’m a loss for what to do. I don’t have ice, so I can’t exactly ice it. Mama Chavula though, she came to the rescue. She brings me one of those ice packs that you bust the inner core and shake it about. She lays me down in bed, propping up my foot. She makes sure I have enough food, nsima patties, a carafe of tea, all the dende (side dishes) I need. She made convalescing that much more enjoyable.
January 14, 2011 Mhalaunda
One thing I’m investing the most time with is helping the People Living with HIV and AIDS group to undertake and continue several projects. I wrote up an action plan to help some of their activities and before I could even deliver the speech I prepared (prepared in Chitimbuka with the help of Gabriel, a friendly neighbor and my language trainer), Mr. Zalimbe approached me with an action plan that the group decided on and drafted. I was so impressed. They brought me the action plan and asked for my help. It’s sort of a role reversal; I’m supposed to bring the plan of action to them. But no matter. Their objectives are obtaining a loan to help with their income-generating activities, namely sewing, knitting, and baking bread, holding trainings for their members on how to live positively, operating a community garden to assist their nutritional needs, etc. It was truly moving. And it was just as powerful even with the few misspellings, say “legislation” for “registration” (Malawians have a funny way of interchanging Ls and Rs). It made me respect them that much more. I’m really looking forward to working with them.
January 13, 2011 Mhalaunda
I was asked to do a new task at the clinic this week. At the St. Francis clinic I sat in on the voluntary counseling and testing sessions with my counterpart, Mr. Makwakwa. I watched and helped him operate the rapid test kit. The clinic is one held monthly for all pregnant women and for children under 5 years. The women attend the clinic monthly throughout their pregnancy. As part of the process, all pregnant women have to be tested for HIV in order to get those women testing positive on the proper medication to prevent mother to child transmission.
At the clinic, we tested 14 women and one came back positive. It was hard to watch as Mr. Makwakwa counseled her. Just looking in on the session, you could tell that she had no idea about her status, no recollection of where she might have been exposed. She is on her third marriage and has never slept with a man outside of marriage. And she looked so healthy and virile, I know that’s a misnomer for a woman’s strength but you get what I mean. By the look of her, you would never guess her HIV status.
As she progressed through the other stages of the antenatal clinic, I snuck glances at her demeanor. She maintained a strong sense of self the whole way through. It filled me with such strength to watch her take on this burden; she developed a sort of stone cold strength. She went through the rest of the clinic just like that, focused on making it through, not giving away a thing. She went through her nursing consultation, through her immunization regime, etc. with inner power and control. I admire her for her strength.
January 11, 2011 Mhalaunda
I’m amazed at the sort of things I’ve become accustomed to, that no longer seem out of the ordinary. I just watched a 13-year-old boy ride by on his bicycle with a large tea kettle strapped to the back, nothing else. The question I want to ask him is where are you going with that tea kettle? Is there anything in the tea kettle? Is it hot? Is the distance you’re traveling far enough to necessitate you carrying it on a bicycle? So many questions, alas I did not ask any of them. I just accepted the sight as part of my daily occurrences. Boy on a ride with a tea kettle. No big deal.
January 9, 2011 Mhalaunda
It’s interesting the things you miss at random when you’ve been out of your natural setting at length. What I miss after six months in Malawi. SMELLS! I wish I have more fine smelling things. Malawi has just a drab, uninviting scent to it. I hate to generalize, I mean there are some nice smelling things, like the groves of citrus fruit or the flowers in my flower bed. But overall, smelling is such an underrated sensuous experience here. The most ubiquitous scent, after traveling up and down the country, is the smell of burning trash. People sweep the streets, collecting all the dust and debris into small piles and then they set it afire. It’s really not so pleasant.
I relish the simple olfactory treasures, like incense, which I burn just about every other day for my “offerings.” I’m also quite thankful that I brought my Miss Dior Cherie perfume with me. On occasion I give it a generous pump, dusting my bed sheets. Inhaling, it’s a beautiful escape. I adore snuggling into my bed after that.
Sunday, February 27, 2011
My Adopted Daughter, Emily Mhango
Emily is my adopted daughter, my stepdaughter if you will. Or that’s the way I’m supposed to think of her. She’s moved in with me, I prepare her meals and make sure she has all the notebooks, pens, and pencils she possibly needs. Mr. Makwakwa, my counter part and her neighbor, introduced me to her family. We’d been discussing the possibility of helping her for the past couple months now. Before then I knew her only as one of nearly 80 students in my Form 1 class, the freshmen at Mhalaunda Community Secondary School. But Mr. Makwakwa introduced us. She’s a bright young girl. Her favorite subjects are mathematics and agriculture. I adopted her on one account because her family does not have the money available to pay her school fees. She was chased out of the school at the start of second term because she’d failed to pay. Secondly, I adopted her because of the extreme distance she travels just to make it to school. It’s an hour and a half walk straight, with few stops, roughly 7km. She makes this journey on a daily basis from her home to Mhalaunda. During rainy season this walk is more than a mere inconvenience; in some areas the road is nearly washed out and just below one bridge a large pack of feral dogs prowl. She braves these to make her way to school. She’s moving in with me to avoid some of these larger problems and to be a safe distance, roughly 200m, to the school now.
Mr. Makwakwa and I went to visit the family and present the plan for my assisting with school fees in early January. We walked the 7km to her house just to feel the extreme distance of the walk rather than abate it with a bicycle, which she does not have. We arrived mid-afternoon and were greeted in customary Malawian fashion. We were invited inside to sit down, then greeted by the mother, the grandparents, and her sisters. They entered the small sitting room (reed mats on a well brushed dirt floor), kneel before you, shake your hand, then they begin with the formalities and introduction. The formal greetings: “Monile bamama.” “Yewo.” “Muli uli?” “Nili makola, kwali imwe.”
And there we sat, after all the greetings, the hosts and others just leave you in their sitting area while they prepare a meal. In came the food, roughly 45 minutes later, tea, boiled cassava pieces, bread, and stock (margarine). The custon is to present the food, wash your hands (a cup of water poured over a basin), and pour your tea. After serving us the hostess excuses herself and leaves us to eat in peace.
After we finished and the food cleared away, the hostess and the grandparents once again entered. I noticed that the mother sat a distance from her father, sitting in the doorway to the room. A traditional Malawian custom to show respect to male elders, as Mr. Makwakwa explained. I started by conveying to the best of my abilities in Chitimbuka that I wanted to sponsor their daughter through school. Where I failed to communicate Mr. Makwakwa interjected. I stated the arrangement: school fees in exchange for a dishwasher. They seemed grateful for the assistance.
They discussed amongst themselves and then agreed to the terms. The next day I walked over to the school, sat down with Mr. Ngwenya, the headmaster, and explained. Fees paid in full.
And now enters my step-daughter.
Friday, February 11, 2011
Top 25 Must Have Items if you’re a Peace Corps Volunteer in Malawi ...
... aka the top 25 things I would most like to receive in packages ;)
1. Lollipops, they’re a real treat for me and for the iwe
2. Skittles, now vegan friendly!
3. Dark chocolate anything
4. Good headphones, I mean durable, good sound, something to drown out rain on a tin roof.
5. Toothbrushes, they’re just no good here
6. Head lamp, believe me this is an absolute must
7. A good knife, to dice, chop, what have you.
8. Taco Bell sauce packets, oh how I wish I had any sort of Mexican food!
9. Ziploc bags or any and all shapes and sizes
10. iHome speakers, something to plug into the iPod and listen to music.
11. Black socks, turns out the red-colored dust permanently died my white socks
12. Nail files, I don’t think I’ve ever seen one here
13. Hand sanitizer
14. Pecans, almonds, cashews, mixed nuts (just not peanuts)
15. Cotton balls
16. Good pens, they’re crap here
17. Good chapstick
18. Good deodorant, this needs no explanation
19. Crystal Light packets and other flavored drink sachets
20. Magazines, (The Economist, New Yorker, Harper’s, Vanity Fair are my faves)
21. Razors, I may be in the bush but I don’t need a bush (on the legs or the pits) I use a Venus Divine
22. Bobby pins and headbands
23. Vitamins and Emergen-C, Guarana supplements, definitely can’t find these is at the village tuck shop
24. Nail polish, sometimes painting your toenails is just what you need
25. Yoga pose book, now I’m getting a little greedy, but hey it would be nice
Now please feel free to ship any combination of the above to make my stay in the village that much more enjoyable.
Please ship to:
Chelsea Mertz, PCV
c/o Mhalaunda Health Center
Box 7
Embangweni, Mzimba
Malawi
Southeast Africa
1. Lollipops, they’re a real treat for me and for the iwe
2. Skittles, now vegan friendly!
3. Dark chocolate anything
4. Good headphones, I mean durable, good sound, something to drown out rain on a tin roof.
5. Toothbrushes, they’re just no good here
6. Head lamp, believe me this is an absolute must
7. A good knife, to dice, chop, what have you.
8. Taco Bell sauce packets, oh how I wish I had any sort of Mexican food!
9. Ziploc bags or any and all shapes and sizes
10. iHome speakers, something to plug into the iPod and listen to music.
11. Black socks, turns out the red-colored dust permanently died my white socks
12. Nail files, I don’t think I’ve ever seen one here
13. Hand sanitizer
14. Pecans, almonds, cashews, mixed nuts (just not peanuts)
15. Cotton balls
16. Good pens, they’re crap here
17. Good chapstick
18. Good deodorant, this needs no explanation
19. Crystal Light packets and other flavored drink sachets
20. Magazines, (The Economist, New Yorker, Harper’s, Vanity Fair are my faves)
21. Razors, I may be in the bush but I don’t need a bush (on the legs or the pits) I use a Venus Divine
22. Bobby pins and headbands
23. Vitamins and Emergen-C, Guarana supplements, definitely can’t find these is at the village tuck shop
24. Nail polish, sometimes painting your toenails is just what you need
25. Yoga pose book, now I’m getting a little greedy, but hey it would be nice
Now please feel free to ship any combination of the above to make my stay in the village that much more enjoyable.
Please ship to:
Chelsea Mertz, PCV
c/o Mhalaunda Health Center
Box 7
Embangweni, Mzimba
Malawi
Southeast Africa
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Journal Entries - Nov 16 to Dec 20
November 16, 2010 Mhalaunda
I went to visit my counterpart’s home today. Nyumba ya Makwakwa. His family is very sweet and so welcoming, just in tune with Malawian character. I ate with all the men and later in the afternoon Mr. M even cooked something for me, sweet potatoes with onions in a sweet-style sauce. It was pretty good. I was even more impressed that he took the initiative to cook for me, so rare amongst Malawian men. At times I wonder if they even can cook. In the afternoon we sat under the big mango tree and drank nthobwa, Malawian sweet beer brewed from millet. It was so peaceful sitting under that tree, I felt so at ease with my surroundings. Just beautiful. It was a moment to sigh and drink it all in.
November 17, 2010 Mhalaunda
As cheesy as it sounds yesterday was one of my days where I feel like the day was perfect. Rabecca, Mama Chavula’s only daughter and I made chocolate icing together. We then smeared it all over mandasis, make the Malawian donuts even sweeter. Then the neighbor’s kids came over and sat with me while I did my washing. Danny is the cutest 3-year-old I’ve ever seen.
In the afternoon, I went to sit with Mr. Zalimbe as he did some sewing. He is the chair of the People Living with AIDS support group. His co-chair in the organization just passed on from tuberculosis (coupled with his HIV status, made for a mitigated life). Well Mr. Zalimbe has been a bit down due to the death and funeral. He finally got back to some of his work just yesterday. I went to sit with him and keep him company, give him a little solace. He showed me what he was sewing, laying out several of the clothes he’d sewn. He’s working on selling them at the clinics and the market. He’s such a sweet old man. I really enjoy spending with him.
Today I had my first session for the Boys and Girls Club. The day’s topic for discussion was Gender Equality. The icebreaker activity was to play Red Rover. The game was pretty entertaining. It never gets old to watch kids get clotheslined in the name of fun. Oh sweet little Chimwemwe, no matter the culture kids learn pretty quickly to call on the smallest kid to run over. He hit the dirt pretty hard and I laughed so hard I had to crouch to hold in the pee. Pepani.
November 23, 2010 Mhalaunda
Rainy season is upon Malawi. Every afternoon a burst of water. Sometimes loud enough to put cotton in your ears or turn the volume as high as possible on the iPod just to muffle it. Other times it’s just a light patter, a small metal tinkle – it’s rather comforting, a sort of white noise.
And the birds outside, they swoop to and fro across the sky, hundreds of them, in diving glides. No doubt this is a buffet – all the solid dirt mollifies, moistening the earth and breeding a microcosm of insect life. A feast. I even saw my first scorpion. About 3in long and 3in across with large pincers. He was fortunately dead, smashed to a pancake, but still terrifying in his moribund state.
On a side note, I just found out my bestowed village surname, Mtika, means moisture. How relevant right now.
November 27, 2010 Mhalaunda
Thanksgiving in Malawi. The cooking committee roasted a 50kg pig on an open fire and then served it with all the traditional Turkey Day fixins: stuffing, mashed potatoes with gravy, green beans, mango pie (an excellent twist on a classic), etc. It was a pretty impressive spread. The dinner itself was at the Ambassador’s house. A swanky residence with 5 acres of gardens, a pool, a huge outdoor patio and seating area (fit to seat 40, seriously), tennis courts. It was marvelous.
I spent my week leading up to the event finding and repairing a dress from the bend-over-boutique, e.g. the clothes market. It takes this cutesy name from the the piles of secondhand clothes set on tarps in heaping piles. I had great luck finding a dress. I stumbled on a Sak’s Fifth Avenue dress, a 70s paisly yellow color with the appropriate pattern. It was a long dress with long sleeves; it looked like something straight out of 1976. I decided to adjust it a little. I removed the sleeves and turned the back into a racer back. I call it “Thanksgiving in the Tropics” – I got many compliments on it at Thanksgiving.
December 2, 2010 Dedza
You know you’ve been in Malawi too long when you yell “Iwe!” in your sleep.
Briana related this to me yesterday. She said she woke with a start thinking I was yelling at her. I’m sharing a room with Briana during our in-service training (IST). IST has just started back at the site of our pre-service training in Dedza. The whole health 2010 sector is in, trading information about our first three months at site.
We have sessions on community integration, grant writing, project proposals, action plans, etc. It’s a training on how to get our projects implemented. Plus, we are well fed, well watered (both alcoholic and non), and with a chance to re-Americanize ourselves with a large group of Americans.
December 3, 2010 Dedza
A response to beggars: uyo akuti nipako nipako ni munkhungu, m’sambazgi akumanya yekha.
“A donor/teacher knows when to give, all else is robbing.
A Chitimbuka idiom.
December 19, 2010 Manyamula
Transport in Malawi can be so tedious at times. Coming home Saturday, we left Mzimba so early. I’m on way back after my month long furlough with Thanksgiving, training, and site visits. And now I’m coming home, back to Mhalaunda. I was so thrilled to get an early exit from Mzimba, hopefully get home around 3pm. Much to my dismay and utter frustration, I arrived at 6pm. After a prolonged stop at the crossroads near Emazwini. Where I so desperately wanted ntochi, bananas, that I payed 20 kwacha for 3 (I was pissed). This stop is generally so the matola helpers, the fee taker, the baggage person, etc. are given there beer break. A man with a big steel drum full of home brew, he dips out a cup for each.
Then, we proceeded from Emazwini to Manyamula for what should have been a 5 minute stop for Rabson (the matola driver) to buy meat, but became a two hour affair. Turns out Rabson’s insurance papers aren’t properly in order and one of which is missing. We got wind that the police were coming through so they pulled the car behind the secondary school to wait. So I waited it out in the car reading Gone With the Wind. I mean I understand the necessity of moving the car, but still a huge pain in the ass. Well kuno ku Malawi nyengo yitali. Here in Malawi time is long.
December 20, 2010 Mhalaunda
First day back to the clinics after the training furlough. I felt a little out of my element today. I’m a bit emotional today, well angry-emotional to qualify that. I’ve just been off to a bad start today. I went running this morning with Mr. Jere, which for all intensive purposes should have cheered me up. But no. I don’t know what it is. I went to draw water afterward for my bafa and well beforehand I had stripped down to my skivvies to cool off a bit. I then wrapped my chitenje as tightly as possible atop them and went out with my big blue bucket to draw water. I filled the bucket just fine, the water felt tepid and superb, a good compliment to my sticky, humid mathupi. I hoisted the bucket atop my hair and I started back to the house. Pakatikati, halfway, my chitenje began to droop and snag on my sweaty calves. My chitenje started to fall and all that went through my head is “do you really want the village to see you in pink panties with flowers on them?” The answer was a resounding NO! And then the bucket came crashing down, splitting and expelling water like it was a geyser. Wholly embarrassed, I kicked and cursed all the way back about why I hadn’t just put on a skirt. My bafa just wasn’t as good. Then a problem with cell service. The day was just turning out all wrong.
Anyhow, so my morning put me in a big funk. So at the clinic, I was still reeling from my morning. I just felt one step back from everything, as if I was watching myself participating. I gave out the Vitamin A supplements a little devoid of emotion, putting on a fake smile when I remembered. But it was when I was doing the recording for the Supplementary Feeding Program for the malnourished children that I stepped back into my bodily experience. I noticed the child just across from me, a 4-year-old child that hasn’t quite hit 35lbs. He’s a suffered of cerebral malaria. The kind that can transform a child from a perfectly healthy child into one suffering from severe retardation within a week. The child was sickly, emaciated, a stultified shell of a kid of what was her former normal. Witnessing such a gruesome change is horrible to think about. And, as I hold the childcare passport in my hands I can trace the change, the transformation, on the growth chart. Normal, rapid growth flatlines at 18 months and this child before me is the result of seeig a child that is physically 22 months, but in years is nearly 50 months. I can’t imagine caring for such a kid, how heartbreaking. Now she needs supplementary foods, rationed once a month at these clinics. She’s just wasting away.
I went to visit my counterpart’s home today. Nyumba ya Makwakwa. His family is very sweet and so welcoming, just in tune with Malawian character. I ate with all the men and later in the afternoon Mr. M even cooked something for me, sweet potatoes with onions in a sweet-style sauce. It was pretty good. I was even more impressed that he took the initiative to cook for me, so rare amongst Malawian men. At times I wonder if they even can cook. In the afternoon we sat under the big mango tree and drank nthobwa, Malawian sweet beer brewed from millet. It was so peaceful sitting under that tree, I felt so at ease with my surroundings. Just beautiful. It was a moment to sigh and drink it all in.
November 17, 2010 Mhalaunda
As cheesy as it sounds yesterday was one of my days where I feel like the day was perfect. Rabecca, Mama Chavula’s only daughter and I made chocolate icing together. We then smeared it all over mandasis, make the Malawian donuts even sweeter. Then the neighbor’s kids came over and sat with me while I did my washing. Danny is the cutest 3-year-old I’ve ever seen.
In the afternoon, I went to sit with Mr. Zalimbe as he did some sewing. He is the chair of the People Living with AIDS support group. His co-chair in the organization just passed on from tuberculosis (coupled with his HIV status, made for a mitigated life). Well Mr. Zalimbe has been a bit down due to the death and funeral. He finally got back to some of his work just yesterday. I went to sit with him and keep him company, give him a little solace. He showed me what he was sewing, laying out several of the clothes he’d sewn. He’s working on selling them at the clinics and the market. He’s such a sweet old man. I really enjoy spending with him.
Today I had my first session for the Boys and Girls Club. The day’s topic for discussion was Gender Equality. The icebreaker activity was to play Red Rover. The game was pretty entertaining. It never gets old to watch kids get clotheslined in the name of fun. Oh sweet little Chimwemwe, no matter the culture kids learn pretty quickly to call on the smallest kid to run over. He hit the dirt pretty hard and I laughed so hard I had to crouch to hold in the pee. Pepani.
November 23, 2010 Mhalaunda
Rainy season is upon Malawi. Every afternoon a burst of water. Sometimes loud enough to put cotton in your ears or turn the volume as high as possible on the iPod just to muffle it. Other times it’s just a light patter, a small metal tinkle – it’s rather comforting, a sort of white noise.
And the birds outside, they swoop to and fro across the sky, hundreds of them, in diving glides. No doubt this is a buffet – all the solid dirt mollifies, moistening the earth and breeding a microcosm of insect life. A feast. I even saw my first scorpion. About 3in long and 3in across with large pincers. He was fortunately dead, smashed to a pancake, but still terrifying in his moribund state.
On a side note, I just found out my bestowed village surname, Mtika, means moisture. How relevant right now.
November 27, 2010 Mhalaunda
Thanksgiving in Malawi. The cooking committee roasted a 50kg pig on an open fire and then served it with all the traditional Turkey Day fixins: stuffing, mashed potatoes with gravy, green beans, mango pie (an excellent twist on a classic), etc. It was a pretty impressive spread. The dinner itself was at the Ambassador’s house. A swanky residence with 5 acres of gardens, a pool, a huge outdoor patio and seating area (fit to seat 40, seriously), tennis courts. It was marvelous.
I spent my week leading up to the event finding and repairing a dress from the bend-over-boutique, e.g. the clothes market. It takes this cutesy name from the the piles of secondhand clothes set on tarps in heaping piles. I had great luck finding a dress. I stumbled on a Sak’s Fifth Avenue dress, a 70s paisly yellow color with the appropriate pattern. It was a long dress with long sleeves; it looked like something straight out of 1976. I decided to adjust it a little. I removed the sleeves and turned the back into a racer back. I call it “Thanksgiving in the Tropics” – I got many compliments on it at Thanksgiving.
December 2, 2010 Dedza
You know you’ve been in Malawi too long when you yell “Iwe!” in your sleep.
Briana related this to me yesterday. She said she woke with a start thinking I was yelling at her. I’m sharing a room with Briana during our in-service training (IST). IST has just started back at the site of our pre-service training in Dedza. The whole health 2010 sector is in, trading information about our first three months at site.
We have sessions on community integration, grant writing, project proposals, action plans, etc. It’s a training on how to get our projects implemented. Plus, we are well fed, well watered (both alcoholic and non), and with a chance to re-Americanize ourselves with a large group of Americans.
December 3, 2010 Dedza
A response to beggars: uyo akuti nipako nipako ni munkhungu, m’sambazgi akumanya yekha.
“A donor/teacher knows when to give, all else is robbing.
A Chitimbuka idiom.
December 19, 2010 Manyamula
Transport in Malawi can be so tedious at times. Coming home Saturday, we left Mzimba so early. I’m on way back after my month long furlough with Thanksgiving, training, and site visits. And now I’m coming home, back to Mhalaunda. I was so thrilled to get an early exit from Mzimba, hopefully get home around 3pm. Much to my dismay and utter frustration, I arrived at 6pm. After a prolonged stop at the crossroads near Emazwini. Where I so desperately wanted ntochi, bananas, that I payed 20 kwacha for 3 (I was pissed). This stop is generally so the matola helpers, the fee taker, the baggage person, etc. are given there beer break. A man with a big steel drum full of home brew, he dips out a cup for each.
Then, we proceeded from Emazwini to Manyamula for what should have been a 5 minute stop for Rabson (the matola driver) to buy meat, but became a two hour affair. Turns out Rabson’s insurance papers aren’t properly in order and one of which is missing. We got wind that the police were coming through so they pulled the car behind the secondary school to wait. So I waited it out in the car reading Gone With the Wind. I mean I understand the necessity of moving the car, but still a huge pain in the ass. Well kuno ku Malawi nyengo yitali. Here in Malawi time is long.
December 20, 2010 Mhalaunda
First day back to the clinics after the training furlough. I felt a little out of my element today. I’m a bit emotional today, well angry-emotional to qualify that. I’ve just been off to a bad start today. I went running this morning with Mr. Jere, which for all intensive purposes should have cheered me up. But no. I don’t know what it is. I went to draw water afterward for my bafa and well beforehand I had stripped down to my skivvies to cool off a bit. I then wrapped my chitenje as tightly as possible atop them and went out with my big blue bucket to draw water. I filled the bucket just fine, the water felt tepid and superb, a good compliment to my sticky, humid mathupi. I hoisted the bucket atop my hair and I started back to the house. Pakatikati, halfway, my chitenje began to droop and snag on my sweaty calves. My chitenje started to fall and all that went through my head is “do you really want the village to see you in pink panties with flowers on them?” The answer was a resounding NO! And then the bucket came crashing down, splitting and expelling water like it was a geyser. Wholly embarrassed, I kicked and cursed all the way back about why I hadn’t just put on a skirt. My bafa just wasn’t as good. Then a problem with cell service. The day was just turning out all wrong.
Anyhow, so my morning put me in a big funk. So at the clinic, I was still reeling from my morning. I just felt one step back from everything, as if I was watching myself participating. I gave out the Vitamin A supplements a little devoid of emotion, putting on a fake smile when I remembered. But it was when I was doing the recording for the Supplementary Feeding Program for the malnourished children that I stepped back into my bodily experience. I noticed the child just across from me, a 4-year-old child that hasn’t quite hit 35lbs. He’s a suffered of cerebral malaria. The kind that can transform a child from a perfectly healthy child into one suffering from severe retardation within a week. The child was sickly, emaciated, a stultified shell of a kid of what was her former normal. Witnessing such a gruesome change is horrible to think about. And, as I hold the childcare passport in my hands I can trace the change, the transformation, on the growth chart. Normal, rapid growth flatlines at 18 months and this child before me is the result of seeig a child that is physically 22 months, but in years is nearly 50 months. I can’t imagine caring for such a kid, how heartbreaking. Now she needs supplementary foods, rationed once a month at these clinics. She’s just wasting away.
Journal Entries - Oct 4 to Nov 15
October 4, 2010 Mzuzu
I just returned from a day at the beach, on the beach of Lake Malawi. It certainly was a good day. My first visit to the lake at Nkhata Bay. The bay is beyond beautiful, it’s at the fringes of tourism, so it’s still unspoiled by many azungus. The beach I visited, Chikale Beach shows only a few signs of tourist interaction: a few bungalows and a bar. The beach itself is enclosed by a gorgeous yet humble cove with small, coarse-grained sand. A few rocky peninsulas jetted out into the cerulean waters, a mango tree sprouted from the jettison.
Nkhata Bay is a mere 45 minutes or about 50 km from Mzuzu, the northern urban hub. I visited the Bay with Dumi and another PCV, Russell who stays in Nkhotakota. We took a boat trip out in the bay, motoring around to get a different perspective of both the lake and the bay. As you depart from the land and gaze back you can see just how the lake was formed. The land angles down often with great slopes, diving into the lake. This is the African Rift Valley after all. So much of the lake’s perimeter is made of slate-like rock, long, wide, and quite thin, like it was broken right off of the earth’s mantle. When you slide into the water in any area apart from the beaches you have to perch and hop between these large rocks and then slide off one into the water. It makes me wonder just how deep the lake is, how deep it must dive between the two spreading plates.
October 5, 2010 Mhalaunda
It’s Monday and I finally returned to site after the long weekend. Transportation back to my site just isn’t possible on Sundays. The matola drivers take the day off and the closest I can get via other transportation would leave me with about 6 km to walk on my own. Unfortunately, I had to take one of these other means of transportation. One thing to be conscious of and flexible with are the many transportation difficulties you’ll occur when traveling in Malawi. Transportation is in no way reliable here. And today, well the day started off well enough. I completed all my errands in Mzuzu, no problem but I left for Mzimba a little late; it was after 12:30pm by the time I got out of the city. I took my first hitch from the National Bank in Mzuzu to the road block several kilometers outside of Mzuzu. Hitching is the preferred from of transportation among Peace Corps Volunteers. It’s generally more comfortable and the fastest mode of transport as they have fewer stops than minibuses. Anyhow, so the first hitch took but a few minutes to find. At the road block, there I sat in hopes that the police guards would ask any passing cars to take my lonely azungu ass. I sat for roughly 40 minutes at the post or so, watching cars pass where they seemed eager enough, casting me semi-anxious glances, and then off they would drive and the guards would just shrug at me. Finally, I took some initiative and wagged my hand, the Malawian equivalent of sticking out your thumb at a car just departing the road black. He pulled right over and I slipped in. We rode for a ways sporadically stopping to pick or drop other passengers. (Picking up hitchhikers is a fairly lucrative way to travel the highways here). We moved along quite well until we got a flat tire. The tire looking quite flaccid, all the air escaped some time ago, we were nearly driving on the rim. We sat at Chikangawa, which is a forest here, for an hour or so, waiting on someone at the post to go find a jack. Eventually someone found one, but not before I received a string of calls on my phone alerting me that the matola I take was leaving Mzimba. And me, well I was still 40 minutes away from Mzimba. Once the tire was replaced and we were on our way again did I start to grow nervous. What was I to do if I missed the matola? There were no other cars to take, or I could be dropped by another car the 6 km away and walk, or I could stay in Mzimba at a lodge that would be sure to overcharge me. My options seemed dim and I bit my lip, chewing anxiously. But, if there’s anything that Malawi, the Peace Corps, or the wonderful Mary Klayder has taught me it’s that it will always be fine. In this I found some comfort.
I arrived in Mzimba to find the matola gone, but with instructions from Mama Chavula to take Lizeni’s matola, one that heads to Embangweni. I found home, no problem. Malawians are quite helpful, you emerge from the bus depot and you’re immediately greeted with, “Hello Madame! Where are you going?” I relate that I’m looking for Lizeni’s matola. The four that greeted me direct me to his vehicle and carry all my bags (this is free of charge, tipping is unheard of here). I hopped into the flatbed mini-semi truck only to wait for two hours for no other reason then to see if they could fill the car. The truck tries to attract more passengers by honking, revving the engine, and circling the depot, it’s like the mating call of an oversized and noxious fumed bird. I grew more irritable with each rev and honk. Once we were on our way, in the early darkness that befalls evening here, around 6pm. Lizeni drove with a superb mastery of the washboarded dirt roads. This was my only source of comfort as he drives with a Carlsberg Special in one hand and an Ascot cigarette in the other. We continued in this manner until we reached Chimutu, there Gabriel met me around 7:30pm. I was so glad to see him, I was under the impression that I would have to walk from there. He was there with another bicycle taxi, to carry both me and my large pack. And that’s how I traveled the final 6km, on the back of a bike taxi, gripping my market purchases and gazing mouth agape at the superb brilliance of the Malawi mdima, the awe-inspiring night sky.
October 7, 2010 Mhalaunda
This week has been tremendous, one which makes me thankful for choosing to do Peace Corps and that I’ve been so fortunate to come to Malawi. I think I’ve finally found that groove I’ve searching for in earnest. I’d say the largest, most crucial element to my happiness has been having tasks, actual work to do. I taught my first two classes of Life Skills this week to both From 1 and Form 3 (the freshmen and junior year equivalents). I teach both forms two periods a week, so 4 classes. The first lesson is on self-awareness and self-esteem. The kids, though a bit shy, seem so eager to learn. Or, perhaps the novelty of being taught by an azungu is still dazzling them. Either way, the students were so respectful, I was so pleased. They’re so well behaved and the general morale of the class is quite high. Any freshmen equivalent at Topeka High would just fail in comparison. The lessons went so well; I walked out with a little jaunt in my step.
I also met with the People Living with HIV/AIDS group. They’re such an organized and lively bunch, not to sound dreadful, but this was pleasantly surprising. They have support group meetings once a week. They run several IGA activities including sewing and knitting clothes for children. I sat in on a lesson for the knitting machine (World Vision an NGO from the States donated the sewing and knitting machines). They also run a garden to supply produce for the additional nutritional needs for their members.
Cooking is going quite well. I experimented with gyoza (potstickers) this week. I made the gyoza from cabbage, onions, tomatoes, garlic and ginger. I boiled them, you know cut back on the fried foods since I get enough of that here with the fried chips. They turned out quite delicious, kunowa chomene. I even made an accompanying dipping sauce, a sort of spicy ginger sauce. And for dessert, no bake cookies. I almost ate the whole batch, which makes me feel a tad guilty. But hey, who’s watching my weight here? Oh just me, because my neighbors keep telling me that I’ll look good fat, and fat is in here for women. The fatter the better. In case you’re wondering I’ve put on 12 pounds. And no, I don’t want to talk about it. It’s a good thing that full length mirrors are nowhere to be found here.
October 12, 2010 Mhalaunda
I’m not sure just how descript I’ve been to the utter remoteness of my site. Just three cars (trucks really) pass through here on a daily basis. All three are part of the matola system, the rural public transport system, i.e. about 15 people in the bed of a pickup. Each time a vehicle of any sort is heard pounding its way along the washboarded road into Mhalaunda every turns to look, peering out of windows and between the ears of maize to check the identity of the bwana driver (more often than not it’s a car for the hospital or an NGO). As for the transport, well it’s an hour and fifteen minute ride to the BOMA (British Overseeing Management Authority a term for the district capital, a holdover from colonial days). And to the my nearby trading center, Embangweni, it’s an hour and fifteen minute bicycle ride. I made this fateful journey just yesterday. Mayilo ulendo uheni. Yesterday made for a very difficult journey. I thought I understood the intricacies of the dusty footpaths that mark the road to town. The route most traveled is marked by a “left” at the mango tree at the fork, travel through the complex of Karungulu primary school, take the path through the Eucaplyptus grove, etc. This will be the last trip I make after my morning breakfast plan. I really need to know the EXACT route to my destination. I found my way to the primary school at Karungulu just fine, but that’s when I worried that I had taken a wrong turn at one too many of the mango trees. I decided to ask at the school, asking if this was the right way to Embangweni, kasi ulendo uwemi uko kuluta ku Embangweni? According to the gentlemen I stopped it was in fact the wrong way (turns out I was right but I was taking the main path not the shortcut path). He directed me towards the shortest way. I continued on in this way, on a dusty path utterly foreign to me. Parts of it I had to carry my bike over small streams, stepping heel-to-toe in baby steps across the timber logs stuck into the mud to make a foot bridge.
I continued on for another hour, not finding Embangweni , but assuming I was close on so many instances. According to my logic, I could follow the power lines and surely they would head towards town. I mean there isn’t much electricity here so where else could the lines be headed. Turns out they go to Zambia along the road I was on. I found that out after I stopped to ask again and I phone my counterpart, Mr. Makwakwa. He had me stand to the nearest random person and ask them exactly where I was so he could come find me. I then had a seat along the road and chatted with the workers at the ADMARC (where they buy and store maize). They were kind enough to buy me a soda and chat with me as I waited in the hot afternoon sun for Mr. Makwakwa. He finally found me and assisted me pedal-by-pedal to Embangweni. One sore ass, sunburned forearms, and an oddly misshapen backpack stuffed with produce later I was back in my nyumba.
October 14, 2010 Mhalaunda
It’s reaching the hot season here, chahanya. Yesterday it was just over 100˚F, probably around 105˚ in the sun. There was so little wind if felt just awful. My only source of solace was spreading out on the concrete floor, limbs flayed out, and sparsely clothed. And still, I couldn’t nap, it’s just too hot.
October 16, 2010 Mzuzu
Well I’m back in Mzuzu for another weekend, it’s becoming my second home. I arrived early evening from Luviri. I went to visit Haakon’s site with Jerrod Dolenz (another Kansan!) and Meg. We had a good time. We made some excellent food, played Carcasonne, and drank cheap Malawian brandy. In the grand scheme of things it seems so nerdy and simpleminded, but it was a much needed mental diversion. One thing I didn’t really consider was the social interactions with other volunteers. Of course there are other volunteers and you can be friends and see each other pretty much whenever you want. I just never thought about it before arriving. I guess I just thought I would be off in the bush by myself for two years or something of the like.
October 17, 2010 Mhalaunda
I really need to learn to relax a bit more. I have this tendency to tense up. And that coupled with this this overshadowing sense of guilt, a certain level of guilt that I feel on a daily basis. It’s this feeling that I’m not making as big of an effort or impact as I should be. At times, I take this guilt emotion to be a sort of motivation and I will get a lot done in a day to counteract the guilt shadow. But other times it can be so debilitating. I hate feeling guilty. I really enjoy lazy Sundays, laying around and watching movies and eating junk food (vegan-friendly junk food of course). But here, if I stay inside to watch movies on my computer I feel so guilty, like I should be out greeting and chatting with people. I suppose this is the feeling politicians feel when they take a day off from the campaign trail. It’s just so difficult to combat because the feeling I most enjoy is when I’m making a valuable contribution. That is why I’m here, in Africa, in Malawi after all. I know I should relax and go with the flow a little more, but I just can’t help it. Other volunteers even admonish against such feelings that it’s pointless, the community will accept you either way. This is my attempt to work out some of these more complex, mixed emotions. I want to feel like my being here is meaningful and I’m sure with time I will. It’s just right now my task is to integrate into the community. It’s such an abstract objective, you can take it to mean whatever, from playing bao (a game similar to mancala) with men at the grocery to chatting with women at the water spigot to taking a walk around the village. I see the other workers at the health center doing their everyday duties, prescribing medicine, delivering babies, giving HIV tests, and here I am wandering around aimlessly trying to “integrate” myself. I basically try to keep myself busy with menial household chores. My floors are spotless, I don’t think I’ve ever mopped so thoroughly in my life.
October 28, 2010 Mhalaunda
Yesterday was the Malawian nationwide National Education Day. All the schools represented by the Mhalaunda TDC, chimodzimodzi (means same as) an American school district, assembled just near the primary school in the village. They held dances, recited poems, each school was presented with gifts for the classrooms. Hundreds and hundreds of school children, packs of them in various uniforms of bright hued blues, greens, and purples, surround the small reed hut serving as the event’s stage. I was an invited and honored guest, so I sat in a plastic lawn chair between the Member of Parliament present and the PA system (my special task was then to hand the microphone to whoever happened to be speaking). Rabecca, my sister here, even recited a poem, in English even. I felt like a proud parent, taking the proverbial squat in front of the podium to snap the mid-action photo. The event lasted the entire length of the day. It was supposed to start at 9:00am but to the dynamic concept of time held by most Malawians the event didn’t begin until almost noon. The theme: Quality Education, a Hub for Social Economic Development (sic). Ambitious and admirable, the speeches and the performances seemed well suited to such a theme, but the effort given seemed to speak more of young students co-opted to read the printed words on the page, or I should say the hand-copied poems. People just reciting from memory the pretentious English with little inflection and the cursory Malawian custom of avoiding eye contact. One girl, so agitated by the size of the crowd, recited her poem with her eyes glued to the tree branch hanging directly over her head; she almost looked cross eyed.
November 1, 2010 Mzimba
Well I’m growing a little nervous that my nearest neighbors might think I’m a witch. I’m unknowingly building a case against myself. And, in a country like Malawi witchcraft, known colloquially as ufiti, is taken very seriously. People will storm houses if there’s been a death they think to be a result of ufiti. The newspaper runs stories on a daily basis about it. And now, I think I might be under suspicion from the community. Ok, so I’m exaggerating this a bit, but still. It stated with my sewing project, I had my pins and needles spread about including the use of my pin cushion. The pin cushion, known here as a small pillow, is seen as a tool of witchcraft. This was unbeknowst to me until my language instructor pointed out that I should conceal that before people see. The whole sticking and holding needles part, similar to the idea of a voodoo doll. Next, my bracelets, the ones I wear at all times, are also frequently worn by sing’angas. So strike two. Then, this past week I was caught on my roof, having one of my many meditations under the stars that I’ve come to cherish so much. They seemed quite perturbed that I would climb on my roof at night and gaze up at the stars. It’s common knowledge here that that is how witches catch witchcraft planes aka winnowing baskets. So, I was one step away from being on my roof to catch a winnowing basket. That one step, I just wasn’t naked. Being clothed saved them from accusing me of being a witch on the spot.
November 6, 2010 Kande Beach
TIA (this is Africa), you know you’re in Africa when you sit on the beach and two men walk by carrying between them a bound pig suspended from a tree limb. If they were on their way to a bonfire and it was some sort Malawian style luau it would be a bit more understandeable. But it’s 5:30am, a tad odd. Where could they possible be going at this hour?
November 8, 2010 Mzuzu
The birthday weekend was a success. Kande Beach was b.e.a.u.tiful. It felt like a return to civilization. Large umbrellas dotted the beach. Carlsberg Green were in limitless supply and always chilled, boys even delivered them to you on the beach. A morning breakfast plan to the sunrise each morning. Hammocks hanging from the boughs of the Acacia trees. The beach so beautifully clear, the water an ideal temperature. The sand was the perfect texture, small and willing to crumble between your toes; perfect for sand volleyball. Watching the sun rise over the lake, glittering on each wave as they rolled into the silent, abandoned beach, it was the sort of weekend to remind me that beauty is no whore.
The cafe even had veggie burgers, can you believe that? It was amazing.
The birthday ceremony was at midnight on the beach. Meg Watkins, another volunteer, her birthday is November 6 so we shared the weekend. The crew of us volunteers, strewn out on the beach, under the stars, and out comes the cake decorated with enough candles to light up the sand.
It was interesting interacting with the other resort goers. Several caravans of overlanders came through. They ride in a hybrid truck/bus thing that looks capable of taking a mortar shell. They sit high, about 8 to 10ft off the ground in the air-conditioned cab. They travel from port to port, resort to resort, unloading their identically packaged tents, eating food prepared on their own cooking utensils. It’s like an overland cruise where you can see the poverty and beauty of Sub-Saharan Africa from an air-conditioned cab. It was pretty outrageous.
November 11, 2010 Mhalaunda
Well I’m scared shitless. I found the dead bodies of 6 gigantic spiders this morning. They were littered across my floor, all over the bedroom and living room. I was too scared to even graze my big toe on the floor. I hid under my net until about 9am (considering I wake up around 5:30am this was a long time). I just wanted to make sure they were actually dead and not just playing dead.
Evidently they start to swarm right as the rains come. Great .... I seriously hate spiders. I had to call Dadjo (my darling father) to take me off my proverbial ledge. I hate spiders more than anything and those fuckers are big, aggressive, and they bite. They have huge pincers, I saw the wound from a girl who was bitten, to big prong holes, it looked like a baby vampire bite.
Well I solved my spider problem. I’ve taken to stuffing a bit of sheet under both my front and back door at dark. And, I haven’t seen one since. Oh my was I jumpy all day. The smallest little leaf brushing against my arm sent shivers down my spine. I couldn’t relax for the life of me. Oh well, problem solved for now. Let’s hope they don’t unionize and agree to storm my door overnight.
November 15, 2010 Chizimba
I’m having a bit of a lull in my clinic duties today. I’ve recorded all the weights, distributed all the Vitamin A supplements to the kids, and checked the vaccination cards for all the mothers. Now, it’s time to sit and enjoy the nice breeze, wonderfully alipo (means around or about), while they prepare the communal meal for the clinic staff.
So I broke a mirror last week and I fear I might be having the stint of bad luck that allegedly follows such a mishap. It started with the largest pimple I’ve ever had on my cheek; one so large and bulbous it fucking hurt. If you thought things were “bigger” in Texas, you haven’t seen what a tropical, humid climate can do, for either vegetables or acne.
I’m my way back from a trip to the trading center, Embangweni, on my bicycle I managed to pop a tire. I sat at Karungulu Primary School for a solid hour while some guys fixed it for me. Now that is one thing I definitely appreciate about Malawians; they will always lend a helping hand. Three guys helped me fix it. I’m glad I had the forethought to attach my bicycle repair kit yesterday since I ended up needing it, prescient indeed.
I just returned from a day at the beach, on the beach of Lake Malawi. It certainly was a good day. My first visit to the lake at Nkhata Bay. The bay is beyond beautiful, it’s at the fringes of tourism, so it’s still unspoiled by many azungus. The beach I visited, Chikale Beach shows only a few signs of tourist interaction: a few bungalows and a bar. The beach itself is enclosed by a gorgeous yet humble cove with small, coarse-grained sand. A few rocky peninsulas jetted out into the cerulean waters, a mango tree sprouted from the jettison.
Nkhata Bay is a mere 45 minutes or about 50 km from Mzuzu, the northern urban hub. I visited the Bay with Dumi and another PCV, Russell who stays in Nkhotakota. We took a boat trip out in the bay, motoring around to get a different perspective of both the lake and the bay. As you depart from the land and gaze back you can see just how the lake was formed. The land angles down often with great slopes, diving into the lake. This is the African Rift Valley after all. So much of the lake’s perimeter is made of slate-like rock, long, wide, and quite thin, like it was broken right off of the earth’s mantle. When you slide into the water in any area apart from the beaches you have to perch and hop between these large rocks and then slide off one into the water. It makes me wonder just how deep the lake is, how deep it must dive between the two spreading plates.
October 5, 2010 Mhalaunda
It’s Monday and I finally returned to site after the long weekend. Transportation back to my site just isn’t possible on Sundays. The matola drivers take the day off and the closest I can get via other transportation would leave me with about 6 km to walk on my own. Unfortunately, I had to take one of these other means of transportation. One thing to be conscious of and flexible with are the many transportation difficulties you’ll occur when traveling in Malawi. Transportation is in no way reliable here. And today, well the day started off well enough. I completed all my errands in Mzuzu, no problem but I left for Mzimba a little late; it was after 12:30pm by the time I got out of the city. I took my first hitch from the National Bank in Mzuzu to the road block several kilometers outside of Mzuzu. Hitching is the preferred from of transportation among Peace Corps Volunteers. It’s generally more comfortable and the fastest mode of transport as they have fewer stops than minibuses. Anyhow, so the first hitch took but a few minutes to find. At the road block, there I sat in hopes that the police guards would ask any passing cars to take my lonely azungu ass. I sat for roughly 40 minutes at the post or so, watching cars pass where they seemed eager enough, casting me semi-anxious glances, and then off they would drive and the guards would just shrug at me. Finally, I took some initiative and wagged my hand, the Malawian equivalent of sticking out your thumb at a car just departing the road black. He pulled right over and I slipped in. We rode for a ways sporadically stopping to pick or drop other passengers. (Picking up hitchhikers is a fairly lucrative way to travel the highways here). We moved along quite well until we got a flat tire. The tire looking quite flaccid, all the air escaped some time ago, we were nearly driving on the rim. We sat at Chikangawa, which is a forest here, for an hour or so, waiting on someone at the post to go find a jack. Eventually someone found one, but not before I received a string of calls on my phone alerting me that the matola I take was leaving Mzimba. And me, well I was still 40 minutes away from Mzimba. Once the tire was replaced and we were on our way again did I start to grow nervous. What was I to do if I missed the matola? There were no other cars to take, or I could be dropped by another car the 6 km away and walk, or I could stay in Mzimba at a lodge that would be sure to overcharge me. My options seemed dim and I bit my lip, chewing anxiously. But, if there’s anything that Malawi, the Peace Corps, or the wonderful Mary Klayder has taught me it’s that it will always be fine. In this I found some comfort.
I arrived in Mzimba to find the matola gone, but with instructions from Mama Chavula to take Lizeni’s matola, one that heads to Embangweni. I found home, no problem. Malawians are quite helpful, you emerge from the bus depot and you’re immediately greeted with, “Hello Madame! Where are you going?” I relate that I’m looking for Lizeni’s matola. The four that greeted me direct me to his vehicle and carry all my bags (this is free of charge, tipping is unheard of here). I hopped into the flatbed mini-semi truck only to wait for two hours for no other reason then to see if they could fill the car. The truck tries to attract more passengers by honking, revving the engine, and circling the depot, it’s like the mating call of an oversized and noxious fumed bird. I grew more irritable with each rev and honk. Once we were on our way, in the early darkness that befalls evening here, around 6pm. Lizeni drove with a superb mastery of the washboarded dirt roads. This was my only source of comfort as he drives with a Carlsberg Special in one hand and an Ascot cigarette in the other. We continued in this manner until we reached Chimutu, there Gabriel met me around 7:30pm. I was so glad to see him, I was under the impression that I would have to walk from there. He was there with another bicycle taxi, to carry both me and my large pack. And that’s how I traveled the final 6km, on the back of a bike taxi, gripping my market purchases and gazing mouth agape at the superb brilliance of the Malawi mdima, the awe-inspiring night sky.
October 7, 2010 Mhalaunda
This week has been tremendous, one which makes me thankful for choosing to do Peace Corps and that I’ve been so fortunate to come to Malawi. I think I’ve finally found that groove I’ve searching for in earnest. I’d say the largest, most crucial element to my happiness has been having tasks, actual work to do. I taught my first two classes of Life Skills this week to both From 1 and Form 3 (the freshmen and junior year equivalents). I teach both forms two periods a week, so 4 classes. The first lesson is on self-awareness and self-esteem. The kids, though a bit shy, seem so eager to learn. Or, perhaps the novelty of being taught by an azungu is still dazzling them. Either way, the students were so respectful, I was so pleased. They’re so well behaved and the general morale of the class is quite high. Any freshmen equivalent at Topeka High would just fail in comparison. The lessons went so well; I walked out with a little jaunt in my step.
I also met with the People Living with HIV/AIDS group. They’re such an organized and lively bunch, not to sound dreadful, but this was pleasantly surprising. They have support group meetings once a week. They run several IGA activities including sewing and knitting clothes for children. I sat in on a lesson for the knitting machine (World Vision an NGO from the States donated the sewing and knitting machines). They also run a garden to supply produce for the additional nutritional needs for their members.
Cooking is going quite well. I experimented with gyoza (potstickers) this week. I made the gyoza from cabbage, onions, tomatoes, garlic and ginger. I boiled them, you know cut back on the fried foods since I get enough of that here with the fried chips. They turned out quite delicious, kunowa chomene. I even made an accompanying dipping sauce, a sort of spicy ginger sauce. And for dessert, no bake cookies. I almost ate the whole batch, which makes me feel a tad guilty. But hey, who’s watching my weight here? Oh just me, because my neighbors keep telling me that I’ll look good fat, and fat is in here for women. The fatter the better. In case you’re wondering I’ve put on 12 pounds. And no, I don’t want to talk about it. It’s a good thing that full length mirrors are nowhere to be found here.
October 12, 2010 Mhalaunda
I’m not sure just how descript I’ve been to the utter remoteness of my site. Just three cars (trucks really) pass through here on a daily basis. All three are part of the matola system, the rural public transport system, i.e. about 15 people in the bed of a pickup. Each time a vehicle of any sort is heard pounding its way along the washboarded road into Mhalaunda every turns to look, peering out of windows and between the ears of maize to check the identity of the bwana driver (more often than not it’s a car for the hospital or an NGO). As for the transport, well it’s an hour and fifteen minute ride to the BOMA (British Overseeing Management Authority a term for the district capital, a holdover from colonial days). And to the my nearby trading center, Embangweni, it’s an hour and fifteen minute bicycle ride. I made this fateful journey just yesterday. Mayilo ulendo uheni. Yesterday made for a very difficult journey. I thought I understood the intricacies of the dusty footpaths that mark the road to town. The route most traveled is marked by a “left” at the mango tree at the fork, travel through the complex of Karungulu primary school, take the path through the Eucaplyptus grove, etc. This will be the last trip I make after my morning breakfast plan. I really need to know the EXACT route to my destination. I found my way to the primary school at Karungulu just fine, but that’s when I worried that I had taken a wrong turn at one too many of the mango trees. I decided to ask at the school, asking if this was the right way to Embangweni, kasi ulendo uwemi uko kuluta ku Embangweni? According to the gentlemen I stopped it was in fact the wrong way (turns out I was right but I was taking the main path not the shortcut path). He directed me towards the shortest way. I continued on in this way, on a dusty path utterly foreign to me. Parts of it I had to carry my bike over small streams, stepping heel-to-toe in baby steps across the timber logs stuck into the mud to make a foot bridge.
I continued on for another hour, not finding Embangweni , but assuming I was close on so many instances. According to my logic, I could follow the power lines and surely they would head towards town. I mean there isn’t much electricity here so where else could the lines be headed. Turns out they go to Zambia along the road I was on. I found that out after I stopped to ask again and I phone my counterpart, Mr. Makwakwa. He had me stand to the nearest random person and ask them exactly where I was so he could come find me. I then had a seat along the road and chatted with the workers at the ADMARC (where they buy and store maize). They were kind enough to buy me a soda and chat with me as I waited in the hot afternoon sun for Mr. Makwakwa. He finally found me and assisted me pedal-by-pedal to Embangweni. One sore ass, sunburned forearms, and an oddly misshapen backpack stuffed with produce later I was back in my nyumba.
October 14, 2010 Mhalaunda
It’s reaching the hot season here, chahanya. Yesterday it was just over 100˚F, probably around 105˚ in the sun. There was so little wind if felt just awful. My only source of solace was spreading out on the concrete floor, limbs flayed out, and sparsely clothed. And still, I couldn’t nap, it’s just too hot.
October 16, 2010 Mzuzu
Well I’m back in Mzuzu for another weekend, it’s becoming my second home. I arrived early evening from Luviri. I went to visit Haakon’s site with Jerrod Dolenz (another Kansan!) and Meg. We had a good time. We made some excellent food, played Carcasonne, and drank cheap Malawian brandy. In the grand scheme of things it seems so nerdy and simpleminded, but it was a much needed mental diversion. One thing I didn’t really consider was the social interactions with other volunteers. Of course there are other volunteers and you can be friends and see each other pretty much whenever you want. I just never thought about it before arriving. I guess I just thought I would be off in the bush by myself for two years or something of the like.
October 17, 2010 Mhalaunda
I really need to learn to relax a bit more. I have this tendency to tense up. And that coupled with this this overshadowing sense of guilt, a certain level of guilt that I feel on a daily basis. It’s this feeling that I’m not making as big of an effort or impact as I should be. At times, I take this guilt emotion to be a sort of motivation and I will get a lot done in a day to counteract the guilt shadow. But other times it can be so debilitating. I hate feeling guilty. I really enjoy lazy Sundays, laying around and watching movies and eating junk food (vegan-friendly junk food of course). But here, if I stay inside to watch movies on my computer I feel so guilty, like I should be out greeting and chatting with people. I suppose this is the feeling politicians feel when they take a day off from the campaign trail. It’s just so difficult to combat because the feeling I most enjoy is when I’m making a valuable contribution. That is why I’m here, in Africa, in Malawi after all. I know I should relax and go with the flow a little more, but I just can’t help it. Other volunteers even admonish against such feelings that it’s pointless, the community will accept you either way. This is my attempt to work out some of these more complex, mixed emotions. I want to feel like my being here is meaningful and I’m sure with time I will. It’s just right now my task is to integrate into the community. It’s such an abstract objective, you can take it to mean whatever, from playing bao (a game similar to mancala) with men at the grocery to chatting with women at the water spigot to taking a walk around the village. I see the other workers at the health center doing their everyday duties, prescribing medicine, delivering babies, giving HIV tests, and here I am wandering around aimlessly trying to “integrate” myself. I basically try to keep myself busy with menial household chores. My floors are spotless, I don’t think I’ve ever mopped so thoroughly in my life.
October 28, 2010 Mhalaunda
Yesterday was the Malawian nationwide National Education Day. All the schools represented by the Mhalaunda TDC, chimodzimodzi (means same as) an American school district, assembled just near the primary school in the village. They held dances, recited poems, each school was presented with gifts for the classrooms. Hundreds and hundreds of school children, packs of them in various uniforms of bright hued blues, greens, and purples, surround the small reed hut serving as the event’s stage. I was an invited and honored guest, so I sat in a plastic lawn chair between the Member of Parliament present and the PA system (my special task was then to hand the microphone to whoever happened to be speaking). Rabecca, my sister here, even recited a poem, in English even. I felt like a proud parent, taking the proverbial squat in front of the podium to snap the mid-action photo. The event lasted the entire length of the day. It was supposed to start at 9:00am but to the dynamic concept of time held by most Malawians the event didn’t begin until almost noon. The theme: Quality Education, a Hub for Social Economic Development (sic). Ambitious and admirable, the speeches and the performances seemed well suited to such a theme, but the effort given seemed to speak more of young students co-opted to read the printed words on the page, or I should say the hand-copied poems. People just reciting from memory the pretentious English with little inflection and the cursory Malawian custom of avoiding eye contact. One girl, so agitated by the size of the crowd, recited her poem with her eyes glued to the tree branch hanging directly over her head; she almost looked cross eyed.
November 1, 2010 Mzimba
Well I’m growing a little nervous that my nearest neighbors might think I’m a witch. I’m unknowingly building a case against myself. And, in a country like Malawi witchcraft, known colloquially as ufiti, is taken very seriously. People will storm houses if there’s been a death they think to be a result of ufiti. The newspaper runs stories on a daily basis about it. And now, I think I might be under suspicion from the community. Ok, so I’m exaggerating this a bit, but still. It stated with my sewing project, I had my pins and needles spread about including the use of my pin cushion. The pin cushion, known here as a small pillow, is seen as a tool of witchcraft. This was unbeknowst to me until my language instructor pointed out that I should conceal that before people see. The whole sticking and holding needles part, similar to the idea of a voodoo doll. Next, my bracelets, the ones I wear at all times, are also frequently worn by sing’angas. So strike two. Then, this past week I was caught on my roof, having one of my many meditations under the stars that I’ve come to cherish so much. They seemed quite perturbed that I would climb on my roof at night and gaze up at the stars. It’s common knowledge here that that is how witches catch witchcraft planes aka winnowing baskets. So, I was one step away from being on my roof to catch a winnowing basket. That one step, I just wasn’t naked. Being clothed saved them from accusing me of being a witch on the spot.
November 6, 2010 Kande Beach
TIA (this is Africa), you know you’re in Africa when you sit on the beach and two men walk by carrying between them a bound pig suspended from a tree limb. If they were on their way to a bonfire and it was some sort Malawian style luau it would be a bit more understandeable. But it’s 5:30am, a tad odd. Where could they possible be going at this hour?
November 8, 2010 Mzuzu
The birthday weekend was a success. Kande Beach was b.e.a.u.tiful. It felt like a return to civilization. Large umbrellas dotted the beach. Carlsberg Green were in limitless supply and always chilled, boys even delivered them to you on the beach. A morning breakfast plan to the sunrise each morning. Hammocks hanging from the boughs of the Acacia trees. The beach so beautifully clear, the water an ideal temperature. The sand was the perfect texture, small and willing to crumble between your toes; perfect for sand volleyball. Watching the sun rise over the lake, glittering on each wave as they rolled into the silent, abandoned beach, it was the sort of weekend to remind me that beauty is no whore.
The cafe even had veggie burgers, can you believe that? It was amazing.
The birthday ceremony was at midnight on the beach. Meg Watkins, another volunteer, her birthday is November 6 so we shared the weekend. The crew of us volunteers, strewn out on the beach, under the stars, and out comes the cake decorated with enough candles to light up the sand.
It was interesting interacting with the other resort goers. Several caravans of overlanders came through. They ride in a hybrid truck/bus thing that looks capable of taking a mortar shell. They sit high, about 8 to 10ft off the ground in the air-conditioned cab. They travel from port to port, resort to resort, unloading their identically packaged tents, eating food prepared on their own cooking utensils. It’s like an overland cruise where you can see the poverty and beauty of Sub-Saharan Africa from an air-conditioned cab. It was pretty outrageous.
November 11, 2010 Mhalaunda
Well I’m scared shitless. I found the dead bodies of 6 gigantic spiders this morning. They were littered across my floor, all over the bedroom and living room. I was too scared to even graze my big toe on the floor. I hid under my net until about 9am (considering I wake up around 5:30am this was a long time). I just wanted to make sure they were actually dead and not just playing dead.
Evidently they start to swarm right as the rains come. Great .... I seriously hate spiders. I had to call Dadjo (my darling father) to take me off my proverbial ledge. I hate spiders more than anything and those fuckers are big, aggressive, and they bite. They have huge pincers, I saw the wound from a girl who was bitten, to big prong holes, it looked like a baby vampire bite.
Well I solved my spider problem. I’ve taken to stuffing a bit of sheet under both my front and back door at dark. And, I haven’t seen one since. Oh my was I jumpy all day. The smallest little leaf brushing against my arm sent shivers down my spine. I couldn’t relax for the life of me. Oh well, problem solved for now. Let’s hope they don’t unionize and agree to storm my door overnight.
November 15, 2010 Chizimba
I’m having a bit of a lull in my clinic duties today. I’ve recorded all the weights, distributed all the Vitamin A supplements to the kids, and checked the vaccination cards for all the mothers. Now, it’s time to sit and enjoy the nice breeze, wonderfully alipo (means around or about), while they prepare the communal meal for the clinic staff.
So I broke a mirror last week and I fear I might be having the stint of bad luck that allegedly follows such a mishap. It started with the largest pimple I’ve ever had on my cheek; one so large and bulbous it fucking hurt. If you thought things were “bigger” in Texas, you haven’t seen what a tropical, humid climate can do, for either vegetables or acne.
I’m my way back from a trip to the trading center, Embangweni, on my bicycle I managed to pop a tire. I sat at Karungulu Primary School for a solid hour while some guys fixed it for me. Now that is one thing I definitely appreciate about Malawians; they will always lend a helping hand. Three guys helped me fix it. I’m glad I had the forethought to attach my bicycle repair kit yesterday since I ended up needing it, prescient indeed.
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