Though I didn’t spend thanksgiving with family, I did spend it with friends and spent it cooking insane amounts of food at the ambassador’s house in his industrial sized kitchen. It was very satisfying to be reminded that though I have a hard time, making cassava leaves tasty, I do know how to cream butter and sugar and use a kitchen aide to make an applesauce cake.
We cooked such ridiculous amounts of food we were contemplating the serious options of mashing the potatoes in a washbasin with our feet and all this while the US ambassador tried to get his breakfast out of the toaster amid the chaos. We didn’t have turkey but we did have two roasted pigs complete with the token apple in the mouth. And though the boys were inwardly disappointed that there was no big screen football, the mail worn cans of cranberry sauce, in my mind, more than made up for it.
The ambassador’s house it full of beautiful treasures, each accompanied by a wonderful story; attained from his various placements. (They have priceless antiques from all over the world but I laughed when I saw a small cross stitch that read “home is where the state department posts you.”) Not to mention 4 couch sets that after dinner were filled with sleeping food induced comma volunteers. The rest of us were swimming in the pool. I didn’t know what to expect when I meet my first ambassador but I want you to know that your US ambassador for Malawi is Peter Bodde and he the most down to earth, generous, chill person and does much to renew my respect for those in political positions. He is a gracious host that exudes nothing but the genuine and an up most respect as he seems to be able to spare a piece of his individual attention for all. He was last stationed in Islamabad so Malawi is a seeming vacation for him.
My latest adventure, other than being an unsuspecting foreigner that almost bought tree leaves from some young kids that were just playing at selling real greens; is getting all my stuff stolen and then returned in a week. This may be the fastest thing that has ever happened to me in Malawi, but even so it is a long story.
I left to meet with one of my groups and to run some errands around 11am. I came back about 3pm to find my bedroom window open. This window had been a problem for sometime not shutting well and as I investigated I found that anything with a cord or that was shiny was gone. Ipod, camera, 10,000mk, my glasses, chargers, phones and the list goes on. I spent the rest of that afternoon sitting on my porch waiting for local chiefs to show up and calling Peace Corps security officers; though even now I’m not sure what I expected them to do. All my neighbors were super supportive saying they couldn’t believe anyone could have such shame and they more or less sat with me all afternoon just so I didn’t have to be alone. Defiantly a cultural difference but I really appreciated it.
Mphezi (recently learned this means thunder in chewa) even accompanied me the next day to the local police which reminded me a bit of group therapy because as you waited outside people would ask why you were there and upon telling your story they would sympathize shaking their heads. A good community forum to discuss common problems perhaps? It was also here that someone suggested that I go to a very powerful witchdoctor (a women) that lived in a village not 4km away. It was explained by my Presbyterian church attending mphezi, in all sincerity, that if I told her my story to her by the time I returned home the person who had stole my things would be dead. I than admitted that I didn’t want this individual dead as much as I just wanted my things back and killing this person would less likely result in the return of my things and more likely result in the making of orphans and a widow. Though I have to admit I can understand the function/usefulness of this belief/tradition in that it really did appeal to my ego. I would never see those things or this thief again and to think that he had received punished for his crimes and would not be benefiting from my stuff was very tempting. I was even just curious in seeing the processes but the last thing I want to do in get caught up in rumors of witchcraft as it is not taken lightly here.
At any rate I hadn’t been sleeping very well at night, feeling discouraged and questioning as to why I was even here. Disgruntled over losing over a $1,000 worth of stuff (I can only imagine how a farmer feels upon getting his life savings stolen from the shoe under his bed from the men who broke in with panga knifes. It doesn’t happen often, but it happens.), worrying it had been one of my neighbors and then I was waking at every bug that walked over a plastic bag. It was 8am two days after all the stuff got stolen and I was laying in bed still rolling over and napping in the soft light of the suns early morning and I heard a noise. Upon looking I see a pair of legs coming up and over my bedroom wall, passing through that foot gap between my wall and roof. All I could think to myself is “You have got…to be shitting me!” I decided I was going to catch this guy. I had actually spent a lot of time thinking of how this would go down and now was my chance. But he heard me and started to scramble down and I took off after him. This is when I need you to start using your imagination. It is awful hot at night so here I am in a red pair of underwear and a scandalous tank top with no bra chasing this kid through my compound laying on my peace corps issued bullhorn screaming profanities such as “GET BACK HERE YOU FUCKER!!!!!!”
As you could imagine there was no way I was going to catch him with no shoes. I let him go kicking myself for missing my chance. I didn’t even get so far as to see his face. I ran, got dressed and found mphezi’s wife frantic in explaining. At her call the hired hands came running. I gave a brief description and a directional indication and they were off. I didn’t follow, I’m not sure why, supposed I didn’t think I would be of much help. Not a minute had gone by and I heard shouts of “PANI, PANI, PANI” meaning “HERE, HERE, HERE!!!!” He was in the tall grass putting his shoes back on and the chase ensued! I could here their voices getting futher away. My surrogate mother yelled "Thief!" as she ran and the people they passed in the fields would drop their hoe and take up chase even if they had a baby on their backs. This guy had a trail of some 15 people after him.
And you know what…they caught him. I still can’t believe it. It turned out to be a 16 year old kid that had worked for Mphezi herding cattle a couple months before and instead of going home he moved a little ways away and with no family around. He had also at night been stealing milk from the cows and selling it at a market not to far away. When they caught him he was wearing my watch, had my camera in hand and far too much money in his pockets. It was a bit hard to watch as they brought him into the compound. Mphezi’s wife was having to pulling mphezi off the boy yelling at him to stop hitting him. They tied him up and all the men came one by one and hit him either once good or a couple of times and chewed him out. He eventually ended up on the ground but I think it was mostly becuase he had lost his will to stand out of depression. The women were gathered to one the side jeering saying things like ‘he is just a little boy or he’d be married by now’, ‘he’ll never be able to get a job after this’ It almost seemed the men were the bringers of ‘justice’ (It’s not the right word but it is the first that comes to mind.) for the women. I’m sure they were surprised at my calm reaction of just looking at him.
The police came and walked the boy to his house where they recovered most of my stuff; camera, ipod, ect. The stuff they couldn’t find; glasses, money, ect, will be replaced by peace corps. The police had to take all the evidence to there office and it was a bit heart braking to get it all back only to have to turn it back over for an undetermined amount of time.
Next the boy pleaded not guilty so I had to go to court. ~Melissa rolls her eyes~ Of course the first time I ever have to testify in court it had to be in a foreign country. It was pretty wild, the court room was a crazy run down hole. Huge cracks in the walls, bare lights and wires, water stains, caving in roof; very much a closet like feel. There was a judge, translator, police officer, witness, the accused and myself. At one point the boy and I were left in the room by ourselves…awkward, uncomfortable, creepy, pick an adjective. The judge let me sign the register and take my stuff and the boy will either be sent to a juvenile detention center or sent home on a heavy probation.
While this was all happening I called my mom and talked to her for some 2 hours and, even before we'd caught the boy, I came to terms with all that I was feeling. As such I’m actually really glad that I had to go through this whole processes as I learned a lot and have to say I am pretty proud of my resolve and rather happy that I got all my shit back.
Friday, December 4, 2009
Monday, November 16, 2009
Nov. 15th
Time passes in an odd way in a place that lacks the advent of watches or calendars and you learn to tell time in other ways. According to the one and a quarter tubes of toothpaste, 3 packages of pre-malaria meds, and 4 bars of bath soap (yes only 4) that I’ve gone through since arriving here, it is time for yet another update from this pair of rambling pants.
The most notable event is that the rains have finally arrived. It was just as exciting and wonderful of an event as you would imagine this opening of the heavens first time in 5 months to be. It had a contagious festivity that was complete with impromptu singing, dancing and mad scrambling to get stuff under cover. I motivated people to rethatch my roof the day before this affair began, which rather remind me of a cow peeing on a flat rock. The debris and dust this process deposited in my house was nothing short of a pain in my taco.
The best part about the rains, other than finally all my plants (you know how I love my plants) are starting to not look so sad, are the mangos. Mango season is just starting to set in here and they are .08$ a piece. I daily have been eating enough to make my face feel a little puffy. But the day before the rains came was a rather surreal day for me. I was sitting on the step of one of the groceries on market day, which in my village is a big deal though it is still nonsensically small. It was the first day I can remember having been let alone. I don’t mean this in a negative way...ok maybe a little….but I sat down and other than a few waves, I was allowed to just sit and not engage in social interaction, funny how not being talked to is evidence confirming that everybody knows you. I watched these people as they function in what is their reality and recognized that for the time being it is mine too. Before I had the tendency to think of my time here as more like a video game I could turn off and walk away from any time if it got too hard.
It was also this day that I decided that though I am enjoying myself here I never want to be this far from my family, friends (who are as good as family) and overall a world in which I understand how everything works, for this long ever again. A reaffirming discovery as to why my underlying priorities been always been what they are. Though I’m told at point when I return to the world that little bit of Africa rolling around inside of me will even make the world I know unfamiliar. The day before the rains was also the day I saw my first African rainbow, they look a lot like the ones in Utah.
I am in the processes of weaving a chicken coop so I can get some egg chickens, got three avocado trees to plant and I’ve been continuing to volunteer a lot of time with the International Award at Kamuzu Academe. The latest was a trip to the dam that supplies water. A rather small save haven for diversity. Compete with turtles, chameleons, stag lilies and a variety of the rare in this overly cultivated landscape. In the evening the flocks of sparrows rode in the windy sky, skewing the scale of the place to make them seem like swarming mosquitoes. The students were a pleasure to work with as I helped teach ecology and expedition skills. I don’t do this just so I can take advantage of the Academe’s hot showers and up the number of bars of soap I’ve used since arriving here to 5 because if I hadn’t joined Peace Corps I would have opted for an environment education position so it appears I have gotten my pineapple upside-down cake and eaten it too. I’ve also spent a couple of days laying on the late-afternoon warmed beach listening to the waves call to the stars, which would the next day carry sunshine to the shore, with my sitemate Audra from Wisconsin and all we could think of to say to each other is how we missed the snow. We giggled at what sick puppies we are.
I have also been make really good friends with the British teachers here and when interacting I can’t help but get the feeling I’m getting to know some long lost relative. In some slanted way this is true seeing as I am of Irish, Welch, Scottish, and German decent but I can’t stop imagining them in little red hats and wonder how the hell a bunch of farmers with guns beat them? At first blush you think; English, America how different can they be? But a lot of the British people here (they call them Expats) do nothing to deter any stereotypes I may have had of the English. That said they are some of the most genuine people I have ever meet. They are also teaching me all kinds of great English slang like; “Good on ya, minga, sod off, tickity boo, glassier, and quid.” And I am proud to say I sat through my first full football (soccer) game, or for matter sporting event period, from start to finish.
I’m having to start to put more and more thought into what to write as I’ve covered most day to day activities and believe it or not most things are losing their surprising novelty. A cultural tid-bit a lot of the older women have what I would describe as 3 short tick marks to the sides of their eyes and sometimes 3 low on their forehead. It is very subtle and not much done any more but done to beautify. Young girls who dance at the weddings will draw dots and their cheeks for similar reasons. Then both men and women will sometimes sport a rectangular scar on over their breast bones, said to keep poisons from passing into the body. I am unsure as to when, where or how these are actually received.
Working on starting a small library in the local primary school. But I’m hard time convincing they should actually let people use them or the paperback textbooks they already have many of which are still in plastic. I do understand their dilemma for once a long time ago I had Barbie, my only one as I was more draw to ninja turtles (I will never let my mother live down the fact that she threw them out, they will be worth a fortune someday) but it had hair gel which I never used because if I had I wouldn’t of had it anymore. It is frustrating beyond reason how the people here sell themselves short in the same way someone passing would say ‘how are you’. They are always saying please ‘help us, you must help us for we are a very poor.’ People in the states would take three jobs, and live out of a storage shed before admitting or begging such and thing. The people here are so smart and capable and they need to believe that. Perhaps some exercises in positive visualization but at any rate free shoes for Africa is over.
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Oct. 15th
I had no idea today was a malawian holiday so all offices are closed and I have some spare time at the computer. I just this week got back from accompanying a group of high school age students from Kamuzu Academe on a 4 day backpack trip to Mulanje mountain. We rode 12 hours on a bus that could have been driving around that partridge family (get happy) just yesterrday. It went at between 40 and 80 km the whole way and 30 km from the mountain, just when it’s dark shadow was materializing from the distance dusky light there was a pop and hiss and that was the end of it. After pouring 3 gallons in the radiator, inspecting the oil splattered on the inside of the engine compartment, and nearly dislocating my arm trying to kick start it we gave up and sat into the night until other transport arrive.
The mountain itself was spectacular!!! Not only are you constantly surround by the layers and shades of greys and greens caused by the various distances of huge mountains on top of the plateau but there are really nice huts where you either tent of book a bed. You can sit inside by the fire and cook or get the porters/guides to boil bath water. No big animals other than some spectacular birds, but there tons of unique vegetation. It also rained. So light at first you couldn't tell it from the sweat already literally dripping off of your face, but the mist turned to sprinkles, which made way for thick, fatty, cold, stinging drops of rain that dazed me rather than spurred my pace. I can only say it was as dramatic as you would imagine the first rains after 5 months of dry to be.
There is defiantly alot to be done there by way of management and my mind was going nuts the whole time with ideas proving to me I hadn’t forgotten everything I went to school for. Their biggest problems are encroachment of the village on the park boundary and super eye sore fire breaks mostly constructed to try and deal with poaching. In addition Mexican pine was originally planted in plantations on top of the mountain for sale and is now being removed but revegetation of the plantation and burned areas is non-existent. They also are encouraging the purchase of Mulanje cedar products as a type sustainable harvest but they really don’t have the management or outplanting program to support it. I’m also pretty suspicious of the miles of homogonous fern covered hilltops. I could stand being hired as their conservation restoration ecologist for a couple of years.
My sitemate gave me a pair of pants that were too big for her but they were too small for me. The people in my village will tell you this is because I am very fat. It is meant as a sincere compliment, as I am rich enough to buy food that would make me fat or to eat enough to put on weight, but never fails to give me a bit of a complex every time. Over dinner that night I asked Manasi if she had ever even tried on a pair of pants. She said that she hadn’t so I offered to let her try on this small pair. She was in my house giggling the whole time and after I finally convinced her to come and let me see in the candle light and she was slightly bend at the knees and waist as she crossed her arms over her crotch with a hand on either thigh. You could tell that she was terribly embarrassed to show off the space between her legs even though she was fully dressed. I then convinced her to got show her parents and as we walked to the house I wondered if I shouldn’t have asked if she could put them on first, but it all ended well with lots of laughing. I let her keep them. Could have been the most important thing i did all week.
The mountain itself was spectacular!!! Not only are you constantly surround by the layers and shades of greys and greens caused by the various distances of huge mountains on top of the plateau but there are really nice huts where you either tent of book a bed. You can sit inside by the fire and cook or get the porters/guides to boil bath water. No big animals other than some spectacular birds, but there tons of unique vegetation. It also rained. So light at first you couldn't tell it from the sweat already literally dripping off of your face, but the mist turned to sprinkles, which made way for thick, fatty, cold, stinging drops of rain that dazed me rather than spurred my pace. I can only say it was as dramatic as you would imagine the first rains after 5 months of dry to be.
There is defiantly alot to be done there by way of management and my mind was going nuts the whole time with ideas proving to me I hadn’t forgotten everything I went to school for. Their biggest problems are encroachment of the village on the park boundary and super eye sore fire breaks mostly constructed to try and deal with poaching. In addition Mexican pine was originally planted in plantations on top of the mountain for sale and is now being removed but revegetation of the plantation and burned areas is non-existent. They also are encouraging the purchase of Mulanje cedar products as a type sustainable harvest but they really don’t have the management or outplanting program to support it. I’m also pretty suspicious of the miles of homogonous fern covered hilltops. I could stand being hired as their conservation restoration ecologist for a couple of years.
My sitemate gave me a pair of pants that were too big for her but they were too small for me. The people in my village will tell you this is because I am very fat. It is meant as a sincere compliment, as I am rich enough to buy food that would make me fat or to eat enough to put on weight, but never fails to give me a bit of a complex every time. Over dinner that night I asked Manasi if she had ever even tried on a pair of pants. She said that she hadn’t so I offered to let her try on this small pair. She was in my house giggling the whole time and after I finally convinced her to come and let me see in the candle light and she was slightly bend at the knees and waist as she crossed her arms over her crotch with a hand on either thigh. You could tell that she was terribly embarrassed to show off the space between her legs even though she was fully dressed. I then convinced her to got show her parents and as we walked to the house I wondered if I shouldn’t have asked if she could put them on first, but it all ended well with lots of laughing. I let her keep them. Could have been the most important thing i did all week.
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Sept 23rd 2009
Malawi has a rainy season a dry season but right now it is the wedding season. Families come days early to help prepare. I went one of day to help with food prep which is done all done by hand in the traditional style. There were some 150 women there from all over the village and there were stations for each of the process for turning corn into flour. Taking the corn of the cob, pounding, winnowing the hauls off, soaking, pounding again, spreading flour on mats to dry. The most interesting step was the pounding of the corn with mortar and pestle to get the haul off. There were some 15 mortars and the popcorn effect of the pestles had the same popcorn effect as that kids fishing game where the mouths of the fish would open and snap shut. With some of the bigger mortars (3 gallons perhaps) people went at it double like the pistons in a V-shaped engine. If they had filled it too full they would wrap a piece of bright cloth (I don’t think you could fine dull color cloth here if you tried) around the top to keep it from spilling. I tried and I just couldn’t get enough power behind my stroke and when came close corn flew everywhere. I can’t accurately convey how physically strong these women are, they can dead lift a 10 gallon basin of water onto their heads and not slosh it a bit.
(Myself, I got tired long ago of paying for rice that I had to haul by bike and hour so I asked my chief to give me some corn. I was not allowed to buy corn because people would think that mphezi’s family is going hungry and there is no greater insult, due to the laziness or selfishness this implies. So now I take my corn to the maize mill just like everybody else. It is such a basic part of lives people here that doing this simple act has on some underlying level given me great insight or at least I feel more real to them.)
The whole day we drank something called Tobwa, it’s one step away from beer and is made from corn, I’m still not clear on the whole of the process, but it is thick like Metamucil and a bit sour and if made well you can obligingly drink a cup or so. At the end of the day the women circled up and started to dance and sing. There were three circles and of course they put my in the middle one. Everyone was delighted the same I’m I would be if they came to America and tried contra dancing. The singing was a kind of call and answer and because this was the older women’s circle the steps were small, simple and conservative. After a bit I went over to the dance circle where all the young mothers (these are the people my age) were. The circle was packed so tight and the dust being thrown up was so thick you couldn’t see the people in the center. You know how much I love African dance, I was flipping my shit. As soon as I went over they parted the crowd and put me in the center. I did my best, busting out every dance move I had and shaking my money for all I was worth. By the time I had gotten around to the ‘running in place butt shake’ we were laughing so hard that we couldn’t dance let alone sing. This may have been my best day in Africa yet.
I was able to track down a Mormon church here in Malawi. Turns out there are actually two, one in Lilongwe that has been there for two years and one in Blantyre which has been there for 5 years. I was deathly curious so I worked some magic and got a ride with some members, actually the only members with a car. They are working here as NGO doctors and are from Bountiful. The branch consists of some 15-30 people given the day; 6 are missionaries who are always there and then there are some 5 people from America the rest are Malawian. It’s an absolutely, endearingly, shocking contrast to the mormon epicenter, which everyone one was excited to hear that I am from.
They literally are building everything from the ground up; from the baptismal-font being a fenced frame lined with a trap so it will hold water to eliminating the awkwardness in coordinating the hand positions when ordaining because they have only done it a handful of times. As you can imagine new members are given what I traditionally consider to be really big callings, but in a smaller setting they seem more manageable. For example Dawn of the Relief Society Mafia seems less threatening when you only have 4 sisters that stay for after sacrament meeting. They are fervent for any insight or help they can get.
I have to admit that was really good to be there and I have made a point to go whenever I am in town on Sundays. It is something familiar when most everything else around me is not. To know how and when things happen, being able to put the brain on a form of auto-pilot, is a rare treat. I miss the sense of community, but more than anything I miss the songs. There is a keyboard but are you kidding me nobody here know how to play that thing, so songs are sung without it with varying levels of success as few know the songs.
For the fall equinox I went to The Lake (meaning Lake Malawi, said in the same way that people from New York say The City and mean New York City). A girl in our group has her site there along the lakeshore and the minute you stepped off the bus you could even smell that this place was nothing short of a tropical freaking paradise. A 2 minute walk from her bungalow is a beach with clean white sand accented by black wave lines. She has a pair of snorkels left there by the previous volunteer and you can only imagine the sunburn my back sustained when I discovered that at the climbing boulders a little ways off shore there were endemic ciclydes to be found. Swimming in that water gave you the sensation of being in an aquarium the same way that standing next to castle, if it had a plug coming out of it, or and giant cigarette would make you feel as though you had shrunk. Piles of smooth amber and white stones amongst the occasional half buried slick black boulder where overflowed with glacier blue water that glittered with eroded fleck stone and granite. I couldn’t help but giggling for the joy of it and like my grandma fill my pockets to budging with stones that caught my eye; though I have no idea what I’ll do with them or how long it will take for those rocks to grow back.
In the evening I would swim to where the lake filled my vision and the liquid mercury and the cotton sky could only be told apart by a thin line. It was campfires, good folk, and undiluted stars. It was evening breezes of perfect temperatures and a sudo-far shore consisting of the lamp that swung from the bows and sterns of the dug out canoes of local fishermen. In the morning the intense orange red, but still heatless sun, would turned the so many unrealized pastel shades of blue, that the water the water and sky were, to so many unrealized pastel shades of pink and purple. I discovered that Malawi means flames in Chichewa and with the rising sun’s reflection pointing at me along the waters surface, the same way the eyes of some portraits do, always following, I would have to say the name is well chosen.
I came and went to ‘In Service Training’ at the end of August. I learned to make soap, jam, oil, peanut butter, graft fruit trees, ect. On arriving back home I was literally welcomed with open arms. These were first hugs I have received while being here though I think it is more because they see people do it in movies or me with my friends than meaning anything to them, but it meant a lot to me. And ever since I got back from that I have hit the ground running. In fact there is so much going on now I’m really only around my village about 4 days out of the week. This is partially due to the fact that things have to be done the long way around, but has none the less resulted in the sliding of other parts of my life such as warm bucket baths have turned into refreshingly cold ones and the way clothes smell rather than look are what qualifies them for laundry. I’ve been holding village meets to better explain what I’m there to do, now that I feel I can explain it well, and I’ve been really pleased with there effect. I’m working on the logistical and material details of teaching to make soap, putting a peanut sheller in the local mill, getting some textbook for the local school, and I have also been to a number of meeting with the Land ‘O Lakes people about the possibility of doing some kind of milk goat project in the village. There is a lot of framework that would need to be set up for this. So myself and another girl, who is stationed on the west side of Kasungu and received her masters degree in goats, would be undertaking this pilot as we are the closest environment volunteers to Lilongwe. I have to wear nice clothes to these meetings and I tell you nylons make my leg hair look funny.
Other last tibits include that I finally asked my chief for some land to farm. He gave me a half acre and I’ve made a point to go dig in it for at least 1.5 hours every morning. I wouldn’t call what I’m doing making ridges so much education appreciation or taking a bit ol’ bite of pride pie as I realize that something as basic as honestly growing your own food is something that I have no idea how to do and am physically too soft to do. My hands are really blistered and because I’ve not seen a pair of gloves to be bought anywhere I’ve taken to wrapping my hands in handkerchiefs. I’ve plateaued with my language so am taking lessons from a family whose company I really enjoy. Had to half my Malaria meds, the dose was messing with my head. I put my neighbors month old on my back for the first time and she peed on me. I've started playing netball (which is actually a professional sport) with the women every saturday. I paid my neighbor girl to water my garden while I was away and I asked her what she was going to do with the 100K or .75$ I gave her. I’m thinking candy, but no she wanted to buy pens for school…I’m so freaking rich. I made myself a hammock which has exponentially improved lounging in Africa pleasure. I’ve found that early morning cook fires remind me of campfires back home, perhaps some day campfire with remind me of Africa.
(Myself, I got tired long ago of paying for rice that I had to haul by bike and hour so I asked my chief to give me some corn. I was not allowed to buy corn because people would think that mphezi’s family is going hungry and there is no greater insult, due to the laziness or selfishness this implies. So now I take my corn to the maize mill just like everybody else. It is such a basic part of lives people here that doing this simple act has on some underlying level given me great insight or at least I feel more real to them.)
The whole day we drank something called Tobwa, it’s one step away from beer and is made from corn, I’m still not clear on the whole of the process, but it is thick like Metamucil and a bit sour and if made well you can obligingly drink a cup or so. At the end of the day the women circled up and started to dance and sing. There were three circles and of course they put my in the middle one. Everyone was delighted the same I’m I would be if they came to America and tried contra dancing. The singing was a kind of call and answer and because this was the older women’s circle the steps were small, simple and conservative. After a bit I went over to the dance circle where all the young mothers (these are the people my age) were. The circle was packed so tight and the dust being thrown up was so thick you couldn’t see the people in the center. You know how much I love African dance, I was flipping my shit. As soon as I went over they parted the crowd and put me in the center. I did my best, busting out every dance move I had and shaking my money for all I was worth. By the time I had gotten around to the ‘running in place butt shake’ we were laughing so hard that we couldn’t dance let alone sing. This may have been my best day in Africa yet.
I was able to track down a Mormon church here in Malawi. Turns out there are actually two, one in Lilongwe that has been there for two years and one in Blantyre which has been there for 5 years. I was deathly curious so I worked some magic and got a ride with some members, actually the only members with a car. They are working here as NGO doctors and are from Bountiful. The branch consists of some 15-30 people given the day; 6 are missionaries who are always there and then there are some 5 people from America the rest are Malawian. It’s an absolutely, endearingly, shocking contrast to the mormon epicenter, which everyone one was excited to hear that I am from.
They literally are building everything from the ground up; from the baptismal-font being a fenced frame lined with a trap so it will hold water to eliminating the awkwardness in coordinating the hand positions when ordaining because they have only done it a handful of times. As you can imagine new members are given what I traditionally consider to be really big callings, but in a smaller setting they seem more manageable. For example Dawn of the Relief Society Mafia seems less threatening when you only have 4 sisters that stay for after sacrament meeting. They are fervent for any insight or help they can get.
I have to admit that was really good to be there and I have made a point to go whenever I am in town on Sundays. It is something familiar when most everything else around me is not. To know how and when things happen, being able to put the brain on a form of auto-pilot, is a rare treat. I miss the sense of community, but more than anything I miss the songs. There is a keyboard but are you kidding me nobody here know how to play that thing, so songs are sung without it with varying levels of success as few know the songs.
For the fall equinox I went to The Lake (meaning Lake Malawi, said in the same way that people from New York say The City and mean New York City). A girl in our group has her site there along the lakeshore and the minute you stepped off the bus you could even smell that this place was nothing short of a tropical freaking paradise. A 2 minute walk from her bungalow is a beach with clean white sand accented by black wave lines. She has a pair of snorkels left there by the previous volunteer and you can only imagine the sunburn my back sustained when I discovered that at the climbing boulders a little ways off shore there were endemic ciclydes to be found. Swimming in that water gave you the sensation of being in an aquarium the same way that standing next to castle, if it had a plug coming out of it, or and giant cigarette would make you feel as though you had shrunk. Piles of smooth amber and white stones amongst the occasional half buried slick black boulder where overflowed with glacier blue water that glittered with eroded fleck stone and granite. I couldn’t help but giggling for the joy of it and like my grandma fill my pockets to budging with stones that caught my eye; though I have no idea what I’ll do with them or how long it will take for those rocks to grow back.
In the evening I would swim to where the lake filled my vision and the liquid mercury and the cotton sky could only be told apart by a thin line. It was campfires, good folk, and undiluted stars. It was evening breezes of perfect temperatures and a sudo-far shore consisting of the lamp that swung from the bows and sterns of the dug out canoes of local fishermen. In the morning the intense orange red, but still heatless sun, would turned the so many unrealized pastel shades of blue, that the water the water and sky were, to so many unrealized pastel shades of pink and purple. I discovered that Malawi means flames in Chichewa and with the rising sun’s reflection pointing at me along the waters surface, the same way the eyes of some portraits do, always following, I would have to say the name is well chosen.
I came and went to ‘In Service Training’ at the end of August. I learned to make soap, jam, oil, peanut butter, graft fruit trees, ect. On arriving back home I was literally welcomed with open arms. These were first hugs I have received while being here though I think it is more because they see people do it in movies or me with my friends than meaning anything to them, but it meant a lot to me. And ever since I got back from that I have hit the ground running. In fact there is so much going on now I’m really only around my village about 4 days out of the week. This is partially due to the fact that things have to be done the long way around, but has none the less resulted in the sliding of other parts of my life such as warm bucket baths have turned into refreshingly cold ones and the way clothes smell rather than look are what qualifies them for laundry. I’ve been holding village meets to better explain what I’m there to do, now that I feel I can explain it well, and I’ve been really pleased with there effect. I’m working on the logistical and material details of teaching to make soap, putting a peanut sheller in the local mill, getting some textbook for the local school, and I have also been to a number of meeting with the Land ‘O Lakes people about the possibility of doing some kind of milk goat project in the village. There is a lot of framework that would need to be set up for this. So myself and another girl, who is stationed on the west side of Kasungu and received her masters degree in goats, would be undertaking this pilot as we are the closest environment volunteers to Lilongwe. I have to wear nice clothes to these meetings and I tell you nylons make my leg hair look funny.
Other last tibits include that I finally asked my chief for some land to farm. He gave me a half acre and I’ve made a point to go dig in it for at least 1.5 hours every morning. I wouldn’t call what I’m doing making ridges so much education appreciation or taking a bit ol’ bite of pride pie as I realize that something as basic as honestly growing your own food is something that I have no idea how to do and am physically too soft to do. My hands are really blistered and because I’ve not seen a pair of gloves to be bought anywhere I’ve taken to wrapping my hands in handkerchiefs. I’ve plateaued with my language so am taking lessons from a family whose company I really enjoy. Had to half my Malaria meds, the dose was messing with my head. I put my neighbors month old on my back for the first time and she peed on me. I've started playing netball (which is actually a professional sport) with the women every saturday. I paid my neighbor girl to water my garden while I was away and I asked her what she was going to do with the 100K or .75$ I gave her. I’m thinking candy, but no she wanted to buy pens for school…I’m so freaking rich. I made myself a hammock which has exponentially improved lounging in Africa pleasure. I’ve found that early morning cook fires remind me of campfires back home, perhaps some day campfire with remind me of Africa.
Monday, June 22, 2009
June 22nd
I am relieved and glad to be able to say that I finally won’t day after day wake up with a sinking dread in my chest as I have at long last crested that invisible but no less tangible obstruction that is omni present at first exposure to something new. Things are getting better here everyday and I can identify the exact moment when things started looking up. I had started out the day with a particularly Cinderella moment as I sat by myself, in my empty house, scouring my cold, newly finished cement floor (yet another example of how ‘stuff don’t bring happiness’) to remove construction debris. You can imagine the path my thoughts wandered as my faster than it was emptying from my scrubbing. But in only the time in took to cook some breakfast to bring over, three of my neighbors flooded in with chigumu (African cake) and strong elbow grease, which turned kneeling pain into songs and laughter. Though this wasn’t even the turning point, it happened later that day, but first I must give a little back-story to explain.
I was stressing over how much I had paid the man who laid my cement floor, 3000K ($20) total at 500K ($3.50) a day. When I told him this he shook in head slightly and said his wife would pray for me, after which I more carefully calculated and realized that I had paid him almost double what an educated Malawian in the city would make. Many people had been helping with the floor as well as with other small things and I was worried that this would make them feel as though I had taken advantage of their kindness. I am well aware at how good I am at blowing things out of proportion with assumption, but this was one of the times I couldn’t help myself and all I wanted to do was throw money at people, because it was easier than excepting that in order to repay people here it meant I was going to have to succeed at my job.
That night chief Mphezi, a close neighbor, and the one who as been the primary one to oversee my care since coming here, called me into his house and as I walked towards the door I crossed myself; I’m not even catholic. This, I was sure, was the moment he was going to call me out. A short, confused, frantic exchanged in chewa ensued. I finally gave up in saying “I’m sorry, I don’t understand” to which Mphezi said in english, “I just wanted to know how your day was?” I walked out of the house dazed only to be called over by Chisomu, once again fearful and reluctant, because her husband had spent an entire day hauling sand with an ox draw cart, but she only wanted to offer me a sit by the fire on that somewhat chilly night, roasted nuts and the most genuine conversation I’ve had since I’ve gotten here. It was in those moments that things changed.
It took me a while to figure out exactly what happened, but that evening I finally relinquished all the inhibitions I had been holding up to keep the people here out of my heart. I had already been told by Mphezi that I am one of his daughters the same as Chisomu and Manasi and he would not accept money from me, but I couldn’t believe him or others that they weren’t actually without a hidden agenda. But once I gave up the reluctance and believed in the sincerity of their kindness, I realized I have friends and family here and in knowing that I could then begin to differentiate between work and home. I can go to work and it can be a good day or bad one, but afterwards I can always come ‘home’.
That and my neighbors got a puppy! Heaven help me! I promised myself I wouldn’t get a dog here. Damn if I can’t keep those pesky surrogate dogs out of my life. I even got to name it, though this too requires a back-story. When a women has a child here she is then called Muckha (insert firstborn child’s name here), so my mom would be Muckha Melissa, which is short for ‘Amayi Muckha Melissa’ or ‘mother specifically of Melissa’. So I had earlier called the puppy mwana wanga (my child), so when I said we should call it Mwiyo (mweeyo), Chisomu said if that was the case then they would have to start calling me Muckha Mwiyo. You can imagine how all of us sitting on the bambo mat nearly choked on our zimbe (sugar cane). Then even more impressive then getting to name the dog, Chisomu asked me to name her twin girls which she gave birth to early in the morning a few days ago. The night before she brought me some firewood, and the next day I hear babies crying. Midwifery is well and alive here as the hospitals (if you can call them that) provide little or no benefit over bearing your children at home.
People here typically have an English name and a Malawian name and to say I felt honored to be offered the opportunity to present an English name would be an understatement; so I poured over names. I considered every female name in the family; Diane or Labretta lose their ring when spoken in the Bantu language. Some Chewa names were just similar to English ones for example Tammy and Tandy or Sara and Sella. Other just have too many consonants or an R and an L which are pronounce no differently here, so names like Janiel, Hanna, Carol or Charlene are difficult for people to pronounce. Ultimately I decided on Amy and Erica (they pronounce as El-Leak-kha). Chisomu graced me with her huge, beautiful smile at the choices. Amy has already been accidentally changed to Emily and Erica has been shorted to Ella. I’m sure this will not be the first time I will be asked to do this so I’m just putting it out their that bribes can be delivered to my mother. But in all honesty I choose theses names firstly because they are two of my very good friends (sorry Melissa couldn’t give them my own name) and secondly bestowing a complicated or uncommon English name would defeat the purpose of people here having to give their children an english name in addition to traditional ones in the first place.
It seems I could spend the rest of my time here going from house to house smoozing and getting to know people. I have identified a few households I think will be receptive to trying some agroforestry practices. I’ve been collecting seeds of local hardwoods to hopefully redistribute. I’m working with a local NGO that builds wells and I have been put in charge of the implementation and the follow-through of one in a nearby village as well as identifying new sites as funding is limited. (Reminds me of Utah in that there’s a lot of farming, but not a lot of water.) I am also in the processes of trying to get in touch with an organization that helps farmers with small loans as well as finding markets for their produce. I’m delving deeper into figuring out the mushroom and bee farming. Just the other day I went and hung out with a man who was working on building a hive. I’m glad he was doing it but can’t claim a hand in the accomplishment of motivating him. Just a good reminder that it’s a mental game more than it’s a physical one.
I also tried my hand and teaching a few days at the local school and that lasted a week before I realized I could stay way to busy without it. Though I promised the kids I would teach them to play baseball, which will actually be modified as kickball. (The kids here are so damned athletic! I taught a girl to pitch underhand (my papa would be soooo proud) and after a few hours she was already frighteningly good.) A quick note about the schools. Poverty is not overly obvious in all aspects of life here. “Where do I buy that?” I’ll ask only to be told “You don’t buy it you just have it.” At which point they will show me were to find it or how to make it, but poverty is blaring present in the public school system. With one book for 40 students, with curriculum that jumps from states of matter and forms of pollution to how to rig up an ox-cart or wash laundry. Seriously I you want to, you next time you are in a library, to have a very good look around you.
As far as new animals go, birds are the primary fauna entertainment. Orange yellow birds with black wings, herons, new birds of prey, crows with white breasts, song birds with grey heads and blue wings or ones with black and white pinstripes. Early in the dambo one morning I caught sight of a skittish bushbuck of some sort that would remind you more of a goat with it’s short horns close on the top of its head and small size. I’ve also seen mice; not in my house but rather on a plate. I shit you not. With hair and rigamortis you realize you can’t imagine a fried mouse looking any other way. I made them eat the head and I tried the neck as I figured it had the least number of organs in it. Tasty but…
This last week I’ve taken to teaching myself yoga with a book my mom sent. I also got the idea that I wanted to start trying to bake as the people here don’t do much of it past loaves of white bread. I’m sure cinnamon rolls would blow their minds and as such I worked on building a stove. I took a bucket and khasu (shovel/hoe) to the dambo (closest comparison would be a wetland) to dig up clay which I then carried back on my head to my thatched roof house. I’m waiting right now for it to dry, we’ll see how well it works. Other adventures include fireballs as I let a pot of oil get too hot over the fire, at which amama (the chief’s wife) called me a dangerous child. Funny, but not untrue as I could have set my roof on fire. Another memorable story which happened a while back before I broke out my fancy bike, but as it goes I started back from the market late and realized I was going to be walking part way in the dark only to be offered a ride on the back of a man’s bike, who rode a ways past his house to drop me off. The random, senseless, kindness of people is enough to break your heart sometimes.
The last story I’ll leave you with takes place as I impatiently waited at a chief’s house for his wife to cook me nsima so I can go about my day, not that I had anything particularly pressing given, but walls become very interesting when you lack vocabulary. He had a TV but I had already tuned out the preacher, then suddenly on this black an white 12-inch screen with the static as loud as the volume, ran off a car battery they bike half hour away to charge. In a tin roofed house with food from our meal swept to the floor; calendars, family photos and scare, cheap, dusty garland flowers covering the walls, with a functional breast flying on my left and sitting on a couch whose springs where digging into my thighs there came Barack Obama. I can say with a surety I have never felt patriotism until this moment in my life. I have no idea how old the broadcast was but I was glued as he talked of nuclear disarmament and women’s education, interrupting only to try to explain that the building in some of the background shots was the president’s house (they gawked at it’s shape) and to smile at how the chief was herding his entire household, hire hands to neighbors to come see America’s president. I’ve decided a leader is great partially because they get others to lead themselves.
Love you, miss you and until next time your mission is to stuff yourselves silly over the 4th with whatever good ol’ American food item you think I would have enjoyed best!
PS. oooowwwWWWOOOOOoooooo (A big ol' loon (or was it Dupa) call to you Toolik folks starting to migrate out there!!! I have to admit after three summers, it feels a little funny not joining you as suggested i'll slap a mustache on one of these days as a tribute! Tight Wizzy Wizzy Wizards, LAB 1 rock that Core-sauraus)
I was stressing over how much I had paid the man who laid my cement floor, 3000K ($20) total at 500K ($3.50) a day. When I told him this he shook in head slightly and said his wife would pray for me, after which I more carefully calculated and realized that I had paid him almost double what an educated Malawian in the city would make. Many people had been helping with the floor as well as with other small things and I was worried that this would make them feel as though I had taken advantage of their kindness. I am well aware at how good I am at blowing things out of proportion with assumption, but this was one of the times I couldn’t help myself and all I wanted to do was throw money at people, because it was easier than excepting that in order to repay people here it meant I was going to have to succeed at my job.
That night chief Mphezi, a close neighbor, and the one who as been the primary one to oversee my care since coming here, called me into his house and as I walked towards the door I crossed myself; I’m not even catholic. This, I was sure, was the moment he was going to call me out. A short, confused, frantic exchanged in chewa ensued. I finally gave up in saying “I’m sorry, I don’t understand” to which Mphezi said in english, “I just wanted to know how your day was?” I walked out of the house dazed only to be called over by Chisomu, once again fearful and reluctant, because her husband had spent an entire day hauling sand with an ox draw cart, but she only wanted to offer me a sit by the fire on that somewhat chilly night, roasted nuts and the most genuine conversation I’ve had since I’ve gotten here. It was in those moments that things changed.
It took me a while to figure out exactly what happened, but that evening I finally relinquished all the inhibitions I had been holding up to keep the people here out of my heart. I had already been told by Mphezi that I am one of his daughters the same as Chisomu and Manasi and he would not accept money from me, but I couldn’t believe him or others that they weren’t actually without a hidden agenda. But once I gave up the reluctance and believed in the sincerity of their kindness, I realized I have friends and family here and in knowing that I could then begin to differentiate between work and home. I can go to work and it can be a good day or bad one, but afterwards I can always come ‘home’.
That and my neighbors got a puppy! Heaven help me! I promised myself I wouldn’t get a dog here. Damn if I can’t keep those pesky surrogate dogs out of my life. I even got to name it, though this too requires a back-story. When a women has a child here she is then called Muckha (insert firstborn child’s name here), so my mom would be Muckha Melissa, which is short for ‘Amayi Muckha Melissa’ or ‘mother specifically of Melissa’. So I had earlier called the puppy mwana wanga (my child), so when I said we should call it Mwiyo (mweeyo), Chisomu said if that was the case then they would have to start calling me Muckha Mwiyo. You can imagine how all of us sitting on the bambo mat nearly choked on our zimbe (sugar cane). Then even more impressive then getting to name the dog, Chisomu asked me to name her twin girls which she gave birth to early in the morning a few days ago. The night before she brought me some firewood, and the next day I hear babies crying. Midwifery is well and alive here as the hospitals (if you can call them that) provide little or no benefit over bearing your children at home.
People here typically have an English name and a Malawian name and to say I felt honored to be offered the opportunity to present an English name would be an understatement; so I poured over names. I considered every female name in the family; Diane or Labretta lose their ring when spoken in the Bantu language. Some Chewa names were just similar to English ones for example Tammy and Tandy or Sara and Sella. Other just have too many consonants or an R and an L which are pronounce no differently here, so names like Janiel, Hanna, Carol or Charlene are difficult for people to pronounce. Ultimately I decided on Amy and Erica (they pronounce as El-Leak-kha). Chisomu graced me with her huge, beautiful smile at the choices. Amy has already been accidentally changed to Emily and Erica has been shorted to Ella. I’m sure this will not be the first time I will be asked to do this so I’m just putting it out their that bribes can be delivered to my mother. But in all honesty I choose theses names firstly because they are two of my very good friends (sorry Melissa couldn’t give them my own name) and secondly bestowing a complicated or uncommon English name would defeat the purpose of people here having to give their children an english name in addition to traditional ones in the first place.
It seems I could spend the rest of my time here going from house to house smoozing and getting to know people. I have identified a few households I think will be receptive to trying some agroforestry practices. I’ve been collecting seeds of local hardwoods to hopefully redistribute. I’m working with a local NGO that builds wells and I have been put in charge of the implementation and the follow-through of one in a nearby village as well as identifying new sites as funding is limited. (Reminds me of Utah in that there’s a lot of farming, but not a lot of water.) I am also in the processes of trying to get in touch with an organization that helps farmers with small loans as well as finding markets for their produce. I’m delving deeper into figuring out the mushroom and bee farming. Just the other day I went and hung out with a man who was working on building a hive. I’m glad he was doing it but can’t claim a hand in the accomplishment of motivating him. Just a good reminder that it’s a mental game more than it’s a physical one.
I also tried my hand and teaching a few days at the local school and that lasted a week before I realized I could stay way to busy without it. Though I promised the kids I would teach them to play baseball, which will actually be modified as kickball. (The kids here are so damned athletic! I taught a girl to pitch underhand (my papa would be soooo proud) and after a few hours she was already frighteningly good.) A quick note about the schools. Poverty is not overly obvious in all aspects of life here. “Where do I buy that?” I’ll ask only to be told “You don’t buy it you just have it.” At which point they will show me were to find it or how to make it, but poverty is blaring present in the public school system. With one book for 40 students, with curriculum that jumps from states of matter and forms of pollution to how to rig up an ox-cart or wash laundry. Seriously I you want to, you next time you are in a library, to have a very good look around you.
As far as new animals go, birds are the primary fauna entertainment. Orange yellow birds with black wings, herons, new birds of prey, crows with white breasts, song birds with grey heads and blue wings or ones with black and white pinstripes. Early in the dambo one morning I caught sight of a skittish bushbuck of some sort that would remind you more of a goat with it’s short horns close on the top of its head and small size. I’ve also seen mice; not in my house but rather on a plate. I shit you not. With hair and rigamortis you realize you can’t imagine a fried mouse looking any other way. I made them eat the head and I tried the neck as I figured it had the least number of organs in it. Tasty but…
This last week I’ve taken to teaching myself yoga with a book my mom sent. I also got the idea that I wanted to start trying to bake as the people here don’t do much of it past loaves of white bread. I’m sure cinnamon rolls would blow their minds and as such I worked on building a stove. I took a bucket and khasu (shovel/hoe) to the dambo (closest comparison would be a wetland) to dig up clay which I then carried back on my head to my thatched roof house. I’m waiting right now for it to dry, we’ll see how well it works. Other adventures include fireballs as I let a pot of oil get too hot over the fire, at which amama (the chief’s wife) called me a dangerous child. Funny, but not untrue as I could have set my roof on fire. Another memorable story which happened a while back before I broke out my fancy bike, but as it goes I started back from the market late and realized I was going to be walking part way in the dark only to be offered a ride on the back of a man’s bike, who rode a ways past his house to drop me off. The random, senseless, kindness of people is enough to break your heart sometimes.
The last story I’ll leave you with takes place as I impatiently waited at a chief’s house for his wife to cook me nsima so I can go about my day, not that I had anything particularly pressing given, but walls become very interesting when you lack vocabulary. He had a TV but I had already tuned out the preacher, then suddenly on this black an white 12-inch screen with the static as loud as the volume, ran off a car battery they bike half hour away to charge. In a tin roofed house with food from our meal swept to the floor; calendars, family photos and scare, cheap, dusty garland flowers covering the walls, with a functional breast flying on my left and sitting on a couch whose springs where digging into my thighs there came Barack Obama. I can say with a surety I have never felt patriotism until this moment in my life. I have no idea how old the broadcast was but I was glued as he talked of nuclear disarmament and women’s education, interrupting only to try to explain that the building in some of the background shots was the president’s house (they gawked at it’s shape) and to smile at how the chief was herding his entire household, hire hands to neighbors to come see America’s president. I’ve decided a leader is great partially because they get others to lead themselves.
Love you, miss you and until next time your mission is to stuff yourselves silly over the 4th with whatever good ol’ American food item you think I would have enjoyed best!
PS. oooowwwWWWOOOOOoooooo (A big ol' loon (or was it Dupa) call to you Toolik folks starting to migrate out there!!! I have to admit after three summers, it feels a little funny not joining you as suggested i'll slap a mustache on one of these days as a tribute! Tight Wizzy Wizzy Wizards, LAB 1 rock that Core-sauraus)
Monday, May 25, 2009
May 25th 2009
I’ve been at my site now for a month and it’s amazing how one can feel so busy and yet not at the same time. Simple tasks that I used to take advantage of knowing how to do are now novel and the process must be relearned. For example, I had to learn that I could charge my phone at the maize mill in the village closest to me, which is a 15 minute bike ride away. I have no set schedule, but I seem to wake at around 5:30, which is not hard when you turn in at 7:30. There isn’t much to do once it gets dark. I spend my mornings doing dishes, hauling water from the borehole, sweeping with my clump of spindly sticks (I have to constantly remind myself that the floor is dirt and I could sweep forever and still get dust to come up. I’m working on getting a cement floor put in and furniture made so the stuff I’m borrowing from my chief I can return.), reading or studying, watering the plants I have carved into the rock solid, nutrient poor patch of ground, made-so from years of incessant Malawian sweeping, that is my backyard. After that I will usually go out and chat with people. Sometimes it’s groups like those in charge of the local woodlot or people who keep bees, but more often than not it is just aimless wandering trying to learn the surrounding area and where people live on the veining dirt paths. It has provided incredible useful as I always seem to meet someone that proves to be a useful connection. They know someone who uses a triddle pump to irrigate their field in the dry season or are part of a local aid group that meets at the church every week. Sometimes I simply just sit with the women of a household on a bamboo mat, eating boiled sweet potatoes, practicing chewa, learning names, eventually playing games with the kids and always leaving with food of some form or another. For as many people as they say are in the country I’m not sure where they all hide. You can walk away from a compound of houses and go without seeing a soul for hours.
People seem to be genuinely interested in projects and have been pretty proactive about helping me find groups to work with. It appears that I will primarily be working with the establishment of wells, bee keeping, mushroom farming, and techniques of irrigating and dry farming in the dry season and hopefully starting a tree nursery or two. Some of this takes a bit of capital to start and I don’t just want to be handing out money and supplies left and right so I’m trying figure out how to introduce some of these ideas. I don’t feel comfortable enough with the technical aspects of some of these projects to ask people to invest what little money they do have in these ideas of mine. I guess that’s why I’m here though, to help them take risks and be a safety net where they wouldn’t otherwise have one. Maybe I could work out some kind of loaning system so it’s not giving and they will be more likely to take care of it, but if it doesn’t work they won’t starve either.
The most frustrating thing I have encountered so far is what people refer to as Malawian time, which makes mormon time seem punctual. If you say you have a meeting at 9am just expect the meeting to occur at some point within that photo-period. People don’t have clocks and I’m still not used to their daily schedules so it seems to be taking an unnaturally long time to do simple things. For example the carpenter said he would come in the morning to put a lock on my door, so I wait around until 10:30 and I can’t stand it any longer because I seem to suffocate if I stay in my house too long, only to have him show up at 11:00. Or on three separate occasions a packed up my house to have them lay the cement floor only to be stood up, where today and 6am 5 guys show up and whisk all my stuff outside as I looked on in my PJs.
Anyway, at the end of the day I then return home and play Frisbee or cards (they know how to play Uno) with the chief’s kids. After which I cook my dinner over a wood fire, the novelty of which recently worn off with a particularly smoky and retardant batch that I got. My chief gave me a huge stack to begin with, but I’m almost out so I have to figure out where to get more or even better I hope to invest in a paraffin stove here soon. I think I have finally identified the constellation that is the southern cross and scorpio, I can see Hercules and even the big dipper though they are upside and I still can’t seem to figure out the pattern they travel in the night sky.
I marvel at the food here. I have been living off of the scones from a local teahouse with PB & J, and honey that I bought in the larger city, when I was there. I go to market every Friday, a half hour bike ride away, and right now my food choices are bannans, guava (occasionally), eggs, peanuts, cassava, irish potatoes, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, flour, salt, sugar and onions. I live off of beans and rice, but they also sell dried fish and a kind of mustard green, which I can’t seem to be able to stomach. I’ve actually gone to picking stuff they say is edible out of the field to try and see if I can find anything that tastes any better. They eat a lot of pumpkin leaves here.
Kamuzu academy is a half hour bike ride from my village and I’m in the processes of getting permission from the headmaster to use the campus and their internet! Cross your fingers folks, communications may become more regular soon. They have a road along which all the teachers that work here live and it looks so much like a suburban neighborhood that it brought a tear to my eye. They say the first three months at site are the hardest and I’m definitely feeling it. I’ve taken to developing favorite memories of you folks from home and it’s funny how even here where so many things are different things will remind me of you. I even saw a Napoleon Dynamite shirt and found a US penny on the ground. Glad to see some things are the same everywhere. Mom has taken to calling me every Monday and I can’t say how good it is to hear of happenings on the other side. Well I have to start riding my bike home. Until next time take care of yourselves.
People seem to be genuinely interested in projects and have been pretty proactive about helping me find groups to work with. It appears that I will primarily be working with the establishment of wells, bee keeping, mushroom farming, and techniques of irrigating and dry farming in the dry season and hopefully starting a tree nursery or two. Some of this takes a bit of capital to start and I don’t just want to be handing out money and supplies left and right so I’m trying figure out how to introduce some of these ideas. I don’t feel comfortable enough with the technical aspects of some of these projects to ask people to invest what little money they do have in these ideas of mine. I guess that’s why I’m here though, to help them take risks and be a safety net where they wouldn’t otherwise have one. Maybe I could work out some kind of loaning system so it’s not giving and they will be more likely to take care of it, but if it doesn’t work they won’t starve either.
The most frustrating thing I have encountered so far is what people refer to as Malawian time, which makes mormon time seem punctual. If you say you have a meeting at 9am just expect the meeting to occur at some point within that photo-period. People don’t have clocks and I’m still not used to their daily schedules so it seems to be taking an unnaturally long time to do simple things. For example the carpenter said he would come in the morning to put a lock on my door, so I wait around until 10:30 and I can’t stand it any longer because I seem to suffocate if I stay in my house too long, only to have him show up at 11:00. Or on three separate occasions a packed up my house to have them lay the cement floor only to be stood up, where today and 6am 5 guys show up and whisk all my stuff outside as I looked on in my PJs.
Anyway, at the end of the day I then return home and play Frisbee or cards (they know how to play Uno) with the chief’s kids. After which I cook my dinner over a wood fire, the novelty of which recently worn off with a particularly smoky and retardant batch that I got. My chief gave me a huge stack to begin with, but I’m almost out so I have to figure out where to get more or even better I hope to invest in a paraffin stove here soon. I think I have finally identified the constellation that is the southern cross and scorpio, I can see Hercules and even the big dipper though they are upside and I still can’t seem to figure out the pattern they travel in the night sky.
I marvel at the food here. I have been living off of the scones from a local teahouse with PB & J, and honey that I bought in the larger city, when I was there. I go to market every Friday, a half hour bike ride away, and right now my food choices are bannans, guava (occasionally), eggs, peanuts, cassava, irish potatoes, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, flour, salt, sugar and onions. I live off of beans and rice, but they also sell dried fish and a kind of mustard green, which I can’t seem to be able to stomach. I’ve actually gone to picking stuff they say is edible out of the field to try and see if I can find anything that tastes any better. They eat a lot of pumpkin leaves here.
Kamuzu academy is a half hour bike ride from my village and I’m in the processes of getting permission from the headmaster to use the campus and their internet! Cross your fingers folks, communications may become more regular soon. They have a road along which all the teachers that work here live and it looks so much like a suburban neighborhood that it brought a tear to my eye. They say the first three months at site are the hardest and I’m definitely feeling it. I’ve taken to developing favorite memories of you folks from home and it’s funny how even here where so many things are different things will remind me of you. I even saw a Napoleon Dynamite shirt and found a US penny on the ground. Glad to see some things are the same everywhere. Mom has taken to calling me every Monday and I can’t say how good it is to hear of happenings on the other side. Well I have to start riding my bike home. Until next time take care of yourselves.
Monday, April 20, 2009
April 18th 2009
HEY EVERYBODY!!!!! It’s been two months and I don’t even know where to start…My first impressions of Malawi are that even though it is small, its geography is diverse, beautiful and it is inhabited by some of the biggest smiles I’ve ever been graced to see. You’ll be walking past people with weathered looks and as soon as you wave and say hello their faces explode into smiles that would make you think that you had been mistaken for family. I take baths outside with the morning sun on my skin and frogs at my feet. I only recognize two plants that I’ve seen so far and none of the birds or insects; even the ladybugs look different. There always seems to be a cool breeze blowing and the sky and earth fill your vision in equal parts. As you move along the dirt roads in the company of bright busy patterned dresses that have a way of challenging the your awe of butterflies, small thatched roofed homes peak, like mushrooms from leafy debris, out of cultivated fields which run to meet the stacked shades of grey that the rows of forested mountains make in the background. I can’t get over how inadequate pictures really are.
As you turned my care over to the strangers of this country and its communities, know that they have exceeded your expectations of gracious kindness. I feel as though I already have family and friends to which I can turn to for support. I have already been gifted with huge sacs of potatoes, squash and peanuts all on separate occasions. My landlord is asking for no rent and because of the genuine interest and patience of people I am happy to say that i am speaking my first second language. I still can’t get over I can say something like ‘Mukufuna mbale kuti?’ (where do you want this plate) and get a answer.
My first breath off the plane was deep and with it I said, ‘I’m here, Africa’. It took me a full week to get over the jetlag and reset the internal clock. Since arriving it has been technical/medical/safety/language training everyday all day except Sundays. I fell as though today is the first real full down day I have had since arriving here in Feb. I’ve done a little hiking, which always produces astounding views and mirco scale discovery but primarily I’ve been wasting away under a pencil. The first week we spent at the college of wildlife and forestry in Dedza, which is startlingly small as it is where all the forest managers for the whole country are trained. The second week we were separated into language groups and put into communities were we spent a month learning language and technical skills.
The word culture shock comes to mind as I think of that day we were driven into Mzengereza to be given over to our host families. We stopped in front of the chief’s house were all our ‘families’ were gathered, singing to our arrival and as I hopped out of the vehicle we were riding in, safari style, I almost tripped for the shaking of my legs and hands. After a short few words of introduction they called my name, I dizzily stood and my Amayi/surrogate mother for the next month put her arm around me, took my bag and with not a word to be spoken between us, off we walked to a little compound at the base of Banda Mt. I instantly loved my new home. People here use their yards as an honest extension to their living space and they share it with the animals they raise, so chicken, doves and goats will be wandering around your feet as you do dishes. Because of this they sweep their yards, no grass (so my yard needs a lot of work). It’s striking how buildings here aren’t really sealed up like they are in the states. Churches will not have doors or glass on the windows and the roof doesn’t meet the walls. The weather permits everything to be really open. The best way to describe it is to say that the US feels sterile in comparison.
That first half hours was spent meeting the family, which tapped out the language skills I had at the time, followed by us looking at eachother from across the small table in the house that they had given to me sleep in. I can’t help but laugh now at how awkward it was. It didn’t last long though as my 3 new sisters Bena 16, Florence and Pempera (twins) 21 soon took me and taught me games. Pempera spoke a little English, but with much pointing and laughing we played something similar to ‘keep-away’ for the rest of the afternoon.
Over the following weeks I was taught how to wash my clothes by hand (I will never again take for granted a washing machine), cook nsima over a three stone fire (a crowning accomplishment) and how to sit in a guava tree eating fruit and enjoy the view. They also taught me how to wear a chitenge properly, which is harder than it sounds. It only became legal for women to wear pants some 15 yrs ago, so a lot of women wear dresses or 3 ft of cloth around their waists known as chitenges, especially in places outside the cities. In order for me to integrate better it means I wear one most of the time as well. They are pretty fun and aren’t a big problem except when your trying to ride a bike, board a bus or do anything that requires you to actually do anything other than walk.
I learned tons of games and really enjoyed the time I spent with playing with the kids. The dances here are also awesome though I have only been a part of impromptu too dance parties where the girls stand in a circle and start it sing and they one by one go in the middle to dance. I like to be believe I can hold my own though. I can only imagine what a legitimate full moon celebration will be like. We loved our little village set in the mounts with its rains (it’s the end of the rainy season now and things are already starting to dry out and remind me of home) and morning mist. I have already met some truly amazing people.
The main food staple here is nsmina, which is corn flour boiled to the consistency of mash potatoes. Breakfast is a plate of pumpkin, bread (still haven’t gotten used to being offered a half loaf of white bread of breakfast) or potatoes. Lunch and dinner are pretty much the same consisting of nsima, greens be it pumpkin, rape or cassava leaves and then depending on what people can afford beans, meat or no third dish. I am proud to say that I have had fried parabungu (yes, caterpillars and they have a metallic taste) and live termites with wings, which don’t taste much like anything.
Shopping at the markets take a bit of getting used to are a bit of shock. They are what we in the US would consider super sketchy, but here is just the way things are here. Just kind of run down and nothings packaged and well…it’s a market. Grocery stores that are more what I’m used to do exist in the bigger bomas (city centers), but I am starting to get used to the market environment and don’t perceive it as intimidating anymore. I kind actually find a lot more things here than I thought at least in the big cities, the difference is that it is not available in anywhere near the quality. In a lot of cases walmart products look classy in comparison. Or novelty items are just really expensive, for example a bar of heresy’s chocolate is 500K and I will receive around 150.00$ a month, which equals 21,000 k. 6 tomatoes cost 30K. I am rather excited to get to my site and start cooking for my self to get some variety in there.
I guess I can finally tell you about the site were I’ll actually be living. I visited it for a few days when shadowing other volunteers in my area. I’ve been placed in a little village East of Kasungu along the M18 called Msulira. If you want to be even more specific I technically live in an even smaller village/compound called Mpezi after the family that occupies the area. People have a tendency not to settle very far from where they were born so villages are really just collections of families. Each village has a chief or headmen/women which is then over saw by a group village headmen then a Senior group village headman then a traditional authority ect. Authority tends to follow family lines and it is very common for the people in the village to be related to their chief.
I am in the biggest tobacco (they call it Fodya, which translates to not food) growing region, lots of rolling hills and mountains off in the distance. Amphuma (chief) Mphezi, who is my neighbor, has got a huge tobacco farm and reminds me a lot of my grandfather, in that he’s a kind, older gentlemen who oversees the running of his farm and family. I will have an extreme wet season and extreme dry season which is coming up, but thankfully there is a swell covered in sedge and grass sprinkled with trees near my house that will keep water through that time. Though the central and southern regions are rather forested, (this is not the case for the northern region) there are a cluster of trees around my village and there are also tons of MANGO, avocado, guava and papaya trees everywhere!!!!
There is a bore hole about 50 m from my house where I will go to draw my water from. My actual house is in a row of small houses, it has two rooms, a thatched roof, mud floor and plastered walls. The kitchen, bafa (bath) and chim (outhouse) are buildings of their own outside. They were also kind enough to build me a privacy fence even though it’s a really bizarre concept to them and no one ever builds them. My main mode of transport will be bike, bus or hitching, which is really common due to the low availability of transport here. Needless to say getting around is actually bit tedious. I’ve already discovered it can take up to two hours for a bus to fill and it won’t leave until it’s full.
I will be ‘swearing-in’ in two days, which means that I will go form being a trainee to an actual volunteer. This also means that I will finally be dropped off for good at my site where I will be required to stay for the next three months. That time will be for settling in and deciding on what projects I will want to work on in my community. In coming to a country that is filled with life-line farmers I was shocked to find that a lot of the farming practices are less than sustainable (hell who am I kidding, US farming isn’t sustainable) and don’t take full advantage of the lands production capability. I’ll not be working with people from square one but square negative one, though I have to say that this is not necessarily the case for every farm I’ve seen. From what I’ve been trained in and what I’ve seen so far I anticipate teaching/working with small groups or with individuals in improving health though varying the diet, improve farming practices, teaching composting, doing bee keeping, fish ponds, irrigation projects, tree planting, HIV awareness and in general just whatever people feel they want to do to better their community. The community is excited and motivated, my bosses are innovated and inspiring and the whole program sets you up to succeed.
What I miss most about the states…dairy products, fridgeration in general, being able to wear shorts, sidewalks, a good cup of coffee. I love you and miss you!!!!
PS. If you want to send me stuff, it sounds like a flat rate box is going to be the way to go. Here are some ideas:
Novel spices: nutritional yeast, seasoning packets, curry, garlic
Pictures of you
Tea…good tea
Things to keep me entertained
Anything in the candy aisle
Locks of your hair
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Market St N' 5th
Philly freakin' Rocks!!!! The people here are so nice. My plane got in an hour late due to bad weather, but a guy at the baggage claimed shared the heart shape cookies his mom made for him with me. I also had to take a cab to the hotel. The ride was something out of the movies as my driver was somewhat reckless and had a Italian/city accent and though i shorted him 3 buck (it's 20% gratuity for cabs, i felt soooo bad) he was sweet and forgave this country bumpkin.
Today i navigated the subway, which was also very movie like as no sooner had I descended the stairs that a train pulled up. And as i was paying and asking if it went to 5th street people were putting there arms out to keep me from toppling into them as the dimly lit trolley lurched forward. I visited the liberty bell, Franklin's printing shop, Independence hall, and chinatown. Not to mention wandered through all the streets admiring the amazingly old architechture.
As far as orientation goes, it should have happened weeks ago. I feel so much better about this whole trip and my cohort is the shit. As we sat tonight eating dinner and drinking at a local pub, I already feel as though we are the best of friends "You bring tupperware? Yah, that three packs of underwear and a plastic troll." I didn't realize it but they all have been experiencing the exact same anxiety as me, which isn't good, but in a way heartening.
Today i navigated the subway, which was also very movie like as no sooner had I descended the stairs that a train pulled up. And as i was paying and asking if it went to 5th street people were putting there arms out to keep me from toppling into them as the dimly lit trolley lurched forward. I visited the liberty bell, Franklin's printing shop, Independence hall, and chinatown. Not to mention wandered through all the streets admiring the amazingly old architechture.
As far as orientation goes, it should have happened weeks ago. I feel so much better about this whole trip and my cohort is the shit. As we sat tonight eating dinner and drinking at a local pub, I already feel as though we are the best of friends "You bring tupperware? Yah, that three packs of underwear and a plastic troll." I didn't realize it but they all have been experiencing the exact same anxiety as me, which isn't good, but in a way heartening.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
See you Later
Well it has finally come down to it. I leave for Philadelphia on Wednesday at 5pm where i will see a few historical sites the next morning and attend a peace corps meeting in the afternoon. The day after that I will go to JFK International where i will board a plane bound for johannesburg and then Malawi. I will stay for a bit it Lilongwe and then be moved to dedza and the college of wildlife and forestry there were we will continue with training for several more weeks.
As such i have to wonder here what to say to you...you that have given me some bit of yourself. That gift of the time we shared together. Know that those memories will serve as my touch stone, my happiness and have and will give me the strength to be some 10,000 miles from you. I will keep you with me and remember you often. Know that you have made me realize that relationships are the most important in life and anytime that i have spent building those is time i would never wish i had spent another way.
The hardest part of leaving seems to be this last bit of time right before I leave where 'see you laters' feel like goodbyes and uncertainty is most present in my mind. On the other hand the best part is as Terry Tempest Williams said, "The gift of travel, where everything is infused with meaning, compressed, so you begin to see the golden strand that weaves life together. You are in a constant state of awe." Not to mention the wave of support unbidden that you have sent me in my phase of what seems like constant transition; it has indescribably helped to fortify my inner-self. Thank you, thank you, thank you and know that i love you all.
As such i have to wonder here what to say to you...you that have given me some bit of yourself. That gift of the time we shared together. Know that those memories will serve as my touch stone, my happiness and have and will give me the strength to be some 10,000 miles from you. I will keep you with me and remember you often. Know that you have made me realize that relationships are the most important in life and anytime that i have spent building those is time i would never wish i had spent another way.
The hardest part of leaving seems to be this last bit of time right before I leave where 'see you laters' feel like goodbyes and uncertainty is most present in my mind. On the other hand the best part is as Terry Tempest Williams said, "The gift of travel, where everything is infused with meaning, compressed, so you begin to see the golden strand that weaves life together. You are in a constant state of awe." Not to mention the wave of support unbidden that you have sent me in my phase of what seems like constant transition; it has indescribably helped to fortify my inner-self. Thank you, thank you, thank you and know that i love you all.
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