9-29-09
And movie nights continue………
Indiana Jones a smash hit, we watched it last week and by ‘it’ I mean a three evening power marathon of all three movies from the Indiana Jones Saga. There was some deep and profound sadness when the Indie trilogy came to a close. It’s been a week since Indie and people are still talking about it.
Where do you go from Doctor Jones? I chose to move onto the Sound of Music, which was to my great surprise and delight an instant success and is perhaps Dwambazi’s new favorite movie. I wasn’t sure if we were ready for musicals but oh we were. I am pretty sure that Ama Chipalasa laughed until she cried tears of joy, her laughter was such that at moments I feared she might wet her pants. My fear may have had more to do with my own hang ups about continence rather than actual risk but the point is there was some powerful laughter.
I scored big with Indiana Jones but I do believe that The Sound of Music or as its been dubbed here “Maria” took it to the next level. In fact I believe we will have an encore viewing of Maria tomorrow night.
10-11-09
And now we have watched the Sound of Music at least 3 times. The love Dwambazi has for Maria has only grown and if I have done nothing else in my time here I have shared one of the greatest films of all time with the good people of Malawi. Children as young as 18 months have been heard saying “Maria” and that brings me joy.
Perhaps some of you noted that I haven’t been myself of recently. There have been some touch and go moments these past couple of months and I decided something had to give. So I stopped taking mephaquin, the evil malaria prophylaxis that’s side effects include depression, irritability and or rage, disturbing dreams, diarrhea….I could go on but I think that should give you an idea of the joys of mephaquin and my mental state. I had no idea my masochism ran so deep that I would continue on with the meph for 16 long months. In all fairness I don’t think it was the mephaquin alone that was giving me such a hard time. I think that I’ve been in a tough spot for awhile and the mephaquin was just exacerbating my already precarious state of being.
As the mephaquin is fading fast from my system I’m feeling oh so much better. Sorry for all of you who had to deal with some angsty letters and emails, you’re good people to stick with my through such unpleasant times. Now that I have my mind back I’m just trying to get back into a routine of being a semi productive Peace Corps volunteer, we’ll see how it goes.
10-14-10
Busy busy beaver here in Dwambazi . Lots of outreaches, chatting, time at the hospital, project planning, thus today I am taking a personal day. I do my best productivity in short spurts. I thought I’d take this opportunity to update you all to some of the more noteworthy events that have happened in the past month or so.
1) The Water Bearer-Water was out for awhile and my garden was in a very fragile state so water hauling a necessity. In one day I carried 7 or 8, twenty liter buckets of water on my head from the borehole to my house (about a 1/16 of a mile). I can’t impress upon you what a feat of strength and tenacity that was. So impressive that a month later I am still talking about it. But seriously I carried somewhere around 150 L of water on my head in one day. I have no qualms putting that on my list of major life accomplishments.
2) The Voice of an Angel-After thinking I should do it but never working up the courage I finally just did it. I burst into song at an under five clinic. Everyone was clapping their hands waiting for someone to start singing so I just jumped on in. There was some stunned silence quickly followed by joy and the realization on my part that my quiet singing to myself around the house sounds very different than my public singing.
3) Hot Hot Heat-It’s that time of the year again. Having rode out one hot season I find I am prepared for the fiery inferno that has descended and I have developed news ways of experiencing the feeling of having set myself on fire. For example I now stretch my arms up towards my roof throughout the day to measure the level of heat radiating off the tin (this experiment may have begun one quiet day while I was doing some yoga to pass the time). At high noon you can feel it pulsating in waves of fiery goodness and it only builds as the day goes on. I have also taken to touching the walls to see how long the bricks will retain heat, they really are quite excellent at holding in heat, nine at night and they’re still very warm to the touch. If only my own personal bread oven of a house actually manifested something delicious like fresh bread or pizza
4) The Second Goal-My Tonga language skills surprise me sometimes, other times they leave me at very inopportune moments but in this case they were with me. Yes Ama Chimbuto that wonderful crazy women who brought such joyous words as bumbu (vagina) into my life raised the bar to new heights when she announced the other day with no provocation that I had a large and powerful vagina. That would be bumbu lakulu ndi lathanzi. The laughter and crassness that ensued was really a beautiful cross cultural exchange. Such that as my friend Mel put it, my vagina is so powerful that it is fulfilling the second goal of Peace Corps.
10-16-10
I’m headed into Lilongwe on Tuesday to submit a grant that I have been talking about submitting for about a year now, we’ll see how it goes. I also need to wrap up some of the final reporting on GLOW.
I’ve been a bit mum on the subject, given my mephaquin induced state of crisis, it didn’t feel like the best time to try to unpack GLOW but I’m sure you’re all eager for a synopsis as I talked of little else for at least six months.
GLOW was simultaneously everything I hoped it would be and more, it was undoubtedly one of the best things I have done in my time here, it was stressful, it went by so fast it was hard to take it all in. There were moments of disappointment where I felt like I had built GLOW up in my mind into something that it could never be and of course I had moments of feeling like I was in way over my head, that I took on a job that I was in no way qualified for. In the fluctuations between the extremes, there was a lot of running around, laughter, tinges of hysteria, exhaustion, sense of accomplishment, and fun.
And hunger, it was damned impossible to find the time to sit down and eat a meal. Two out of every three meals was “eaten” while in motion. I recall on the last day of the camp serving myself delicious rice and beef and greens and thinking how delightful it looked and smelled, how it appealed to every one of my senses. How I longed to take my sweet sweet time with that rice and beef and savory every delicious moment. I remember taking my seat, adding just a touch of salt, and raising the fork to my watering mouth. I’m not sure if the rice and succulent beef made contact before someone came to call on me for something. Perhaps one bite made it in or maybe it didn’t even get that far but I do remember the feeling of profound loss as I shoveled in as much as I could in 45 seconds and then carried on nobly saving the world.
The girls were amazing. There were a crap ton of them. When looking at everything on paper I don’t think we really thought about what 80 girls were going to be like in the flesh. It’s a lot girls and it presented some interesting logistical situations. There were moments where I think we were all tempted to start banging our heads against the nearest available hard surface. The flip side is that a lot of girls got to have an amazing week. Looking back I may have over scheduled them a bit but there’s so much you want to get into a curriculum that it’s hard to tease out what should stay and what should go and it’s all such valuable info. There was lots of fun time, bonfires, a class on body movement and drama and lots of dance magic
Thanks to our fundraising prowess and to all of you awesome folks who donated we were able to provide the girls with some awesome stuffs. Dictionaries, math kits, folders, tee-shirts and bags.
In prepping for the big hand over to next years group and getting the last of the final reporting done, I’ve been going through all our GLOW pictures and videos. Looking back over everything was actually really nice. Like I said GLOW happened so fast it was hard to make heads or tails of things but taking the time to sit and look over the pictures of a pleasant and healthy reminder that GLOW was incredible and I actually did a pretty decent job.
10-20-10
I’ve arrived in Lilongwe. It’s about 2AM now and for some unknown reason sleep is eluding me. Perhaps this is a sign that this is going to be a most productive few days. I’ve already written several emails today, blog will be posted shortly, and then I can move onto big grant writing. Or I may pass out come 6AM as I have been up all night for no good reason.
The night before I left to come here, we watched the sound of music again and the joy just continues to grow. I love hearing Mrs. Chipalasa narrate what’s happening in the film, it cracks my shit up. Bless you Roger and Hammerstein and you too Julie Andrews.
I miss you all and hope that the last few months of your lives have been relatively angst free and that the summer treated you well.
In the next couple months I’ve got some big decisions to make about when I’m coming home and in what capacity (eg student, roust about, employed person) so there should be some exciting news in the future.
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Clever Titling Stresses me Out
For those of you who are either loyal enough or masochistic enough to follow my blog I’m sure you noted the eerie silence over the last several months. The reasons are multifaceted and probably not as complex as I make them out to be. In short: GLOW, post GLOW identity crisis, laziness, witch craft trial, mephaquin further inducing post GLOW identity crisis. But fear not beloved friends and family. I believe that my little mini-melt down is under control so the blogging can begin again.
Thursday, July 8, 2010
On those rare days I'm at site......
6-11-10
As I expected the moment I took the time and considerable effort to get my computer out the rain would stop. Rainy season has come and gone but this morning we are being treated to an unanticipated out of season rain. It actually reminds me a bit of Portland in the spring, it’s cold and drizzly. Mind you by cold I mean it’s probably 65 degrees perhaps even 68 at worst I would put it at 60 but no doubt it’s much warmer. As one acclimates to the scorching temperatures here in Dwambazi, they lose their capacity to be any sort of judge of temperature. All I know is whatever the temperature may or may not be it feels damned cold to me.
The rain has resumed, I suspect it’s going to be an on and off again sort of a rain but however light the rain may be it will ensure that no one comes to the hospital, thus affording me the opportunity to collect my thoughts and try to get some back log blogging done. I am sure you all noticed my lack of blog postings and perhaps you have wondered why.
For the last couple of months my schedule has been, Charity comes over after dinner, we practice a little Tonga or just chat, or we have a movie night. Oh the movie nights, we have exhausted my limited supply of movies which is a shame as I enjoy movie nights. Actually that’s a lie; we are still on our way through the BBC special Planet Earth, which Alex left behind and has been a lot of fun to watch together.
Most films that come into Malawi are of the action variety, charming little numbers that uphold heinous gender norms and are chocked full of violence, so it’s nice to be able to offer entertainment that has some educational value and say in the case of the Never Ending Story is full of just pure joy. The Never Ending Story was a big hit, we’ve watched it a couple of times. A surprise hit was none other than Robin Hood Men in Tights. I wasn’t sure if it would go over well but indeed it was much enjoyed.
Bringing this all back to my absence of blogs, I haven’t really had the time alone required to spew out the stream of consciousness that you all know and love. To bring you all up to speed, I just got back from Lilongwe. I had gone in for Mid Service Training (uneventful) and then stayed for a week or so to do GLOW work, which is coming along well. There are ups and downs for sure (major up the 1.6 million Kwacha ($10,666) Vanessa and I squeezed out of Ministry of Education, downs attempting to organize 20 volunteers with very different personality types). Of course things are going to explode into a frenzy of final prep and logistics snafus but it’s going to be well worth it.
6-12-10
Untimely interruption. I cut off there as the electricity went out and I had to shut down my lap top ASAP. Perhaps you’re thinking that the whole purpose of the lap top is that it can run on battery power, and yes that is true, but after a year of faithful service my computer battery has copped it. I’m no electrician but there’s something different about the electrical current here and by different I mean when my hot plate is turned on it often shocks me like hot wire, not excruciating but jolting and annoying. Same thing happens with my I-Pod stereo, oh the trials and tribulations. I think the powerful Malawian electrical current is particularly draining on things like computer batteries but really it’s no matter as I am fortunate enough to have electricity I can still use my computer when the electricity is cooperating.
Of recently the electricity has been out a lot. Freddy attributes this to the World Cup, I can’t think of any logical reason the world cup would affect Malawian power but I am still inclined to blame the world cup for the inconvenience.
So updates on my life. Charity and Ama Bai are in Lilongwe, they’ve been there for I think two weeks now. Ama Bai went in for physical therapy, she had a mild stroke not long after I arrived here and as you can imagine it’s caused a whole host of health problems. At the top of the list would be her lack of mobility thus she’s doing physical therapy in Lilongwe. I went to go visit her in the hospital as we were both in Lilongwe at the same time. I have gotten pretty used to the state of disrepair that health facilities are in but it was disheartening to see where she was at given it was supposed to be a major improvement in the health care she’s receiving. As Charity is gone I have had a lot more down time since returning to Dwambazi. I miss Charity, I hope they make it back soon, they were supposed to be back yesterday but alas no.
I’ve kind of hit a wall with work at site, frankly I’ve been feeling discombobulated of recently, but I’m sure it will pass, I’ll get some traction and things will get moving again. Part of the challenge is that I am out so much for GLOW, it makes it difficult to get things going here. I can’t really commit to anything until after GLOW but GLOW is going to be amazing so it will be well worth it. Challenge number two which is probably the biggest challenge EVER is the disconnect between the district and local level, sweet god it’s a pain in the ass. Nkhotakota district assembly is an absolute shit show which creates a real break down in the service delivery chain and they are the institution that is supposed to support community based organizations (CBOs) and as they don’t have it together it makes it real difficult to get things together at the community level.
Wow that sounded negative, I’m just a little frustrated. But it will be okay, my plan of attack after GLOW is to work to improve the linkages between the district and Dwambazi and do capacity building with the CBOs. I’ve identified various well placed individuals who I think will be on board with getting things together.
My girls group, Women 2 Women is still amazing. In fact I am expecting Mevis and Enella anytime now, we are going to go collect various seeds that we are going to use to make necklaces. They’re really beautiful and I think a great way for the group to raise funds as they require almost no monetary input. Fear not you will be hearing more about this in the future because if the girls start making necklaces my plan is to ship some home, say to Bend or Hood River, and see if you can sell them.
The gay rights battle wages on, I’ll elaborate more at another time. As you can imagine I have a lot to say on the subject.
Peter is well, he had a very Sam moment the other day. As he was watering my plants while I was gone I gave him a little money to buy some new clothes at the market (by new clothes I mean goodwill clothes that get shipped over) which he was most excited about. So anyway off he went to pick out a shirt and some pants and he returned with the greatest outfit ever. A lovely pink long sleeved shirt and shorts, oh they are magical, those shorts. Think golf shorts, they are a soft purple plaid with some very nice gold inlay. I’ll be sure to take a picture soon. When it was just me and him, he looked at me with his big Peter smile and said, “Ndachena” meaning, “I’m looking nice”.
Uchi is also well, as per usual she’s right here with me taking a little dog nap. I can’t get over how big she is. I weighed her at scale yesterday and she is a whopping 16.5kg, roughly 32 pounds. One of these days soon I need someone to take a picture while I weigh her, as it involves wrapping her in a chitenge and then hanging her from the scale. Its pretty damn funny and it never fails to crack people up when she’s dangling there, like a baby. I don’t know if I mentioned the scale is the very sort of scale you would weigh meat with, if that helps give you a better picture of what this weighing process looks like.
I’ve been here a year, I don’t know if that sounds as surreal to you as it does to me? July 31st will make one year in Dwambazi. I guess my general feeling is that it’s gone incredibly fast but then again that would depend on what day you asked me. I have been away for a year, I’m still not sure what it make of it. Now begins the soul searching about what now. Do I extend my service for a third year? I’m certainly giving it a lot of thought. Do I look for work here or do I come home and look at grad programs?
I miss home, I miss you all, there are things missing in my life, things I left behind the absence of which I feel acutely but I’m still not sure I can leave my life here behind either. Mariel pointed out I’m a bit of a transient person and that much of my life those dearest to me were far away, so I suppose I am well suited to being able to be far from those I love.
I don’t know, it’s still too early to call it one way or the other. At this time my feeling is if I can find work that allows me to do something beneficial and productive, I’ll stay. Cause as much as I enjoy my life here, the jury’s still out on whether I am doing anything that is substantially improving people’s lives and that has got to change. I need something resembling an unequivocal yes.
I can’t believe I am actually going to write this but here goes. Another consideration to throw into the mix…..Sometimes I think I am really going to regret not having children, that perhaps it’s a decision that would say haunt me. Of course, as with all things I’m completely conflicted. Yes I think I will regret it if I miss out on raising children but I can’t say I think it’s a good idea for me to have kids, I fear the kind of parent I would be and why isn’t it enough to help children who desperately need it?
But assuming I do want to have children, this raises questions and concerns about extending my stay in Malawi. One I am fast approaching 30 with no job prospects in the immediate future and I need some sort of fiscal security if I am going to be responsible for small people. But that I actually think is the easiest hump to get over. I’m pretty confident I could parent successfully on a modest income and I am not uncomfortable with the idea of raising children abroad but I think it would be most unwise to parent without a strong support network, say like a partner. And the likelihood that I am going to stumble upon such a person here is highly unlikely. Of course my feeling is that one has little control over whether they find a partner or not regardless of where they are. I’ve seen too many folks tie themselves in knots trying to “find” the person to spend the rest of their lives with but that having been said being here just reduces the probability say one hundred fold. I suppose it will all come out in the wash, I’ll either find myself in a future that makes children possible or I won’t. It hurts my head to try to sort it out much more than that but I figured I’d throw it out there as it’s been on my mind.
I have completed ONE YEAR of Peace Corps service! Go me! It has been a year that despite my best attempts eludes description. I appreciate all of you beautiful people who have bravely followed my attempts to narrate my life, you’re amazing. And just think we have a whole another year of blogging joy.
6-17-10
Magical Moments…..About a month ago this happened…..
I was hanging out with Sauda, I had her with me for quite some time, so I figured I’d better take her back to Ama Chimbuto as she was probably due for a little breast feeding. I arrived at the Chimbuto’s house where I found Ama and a small gathering of women. The following exchange took place in Tonga and it went a little something like this.
Me, “I brought Sauda because she wants to nurse”
Ama, (laughs) “Why didn’t you just nurse her”
Me, (laughing), “I’m without milk” said while patting my breast
Everyone laughing
Ama (stands up), “Lets see”
I saw it coming. I figured it was only a matter of time before Ama publicly disrobed me, it’s just her style. I love Ama Chimbuto she cracks my shit up, she’s funny and pretty crass, in a good way.
Anyway she walks over to me, (remember there is an audience for this event) pulls down my shirt, then pulls down my bra thus leaving my right breast flying free and pronounces my breasts to be “m’be yampha”, “nice boobs”. She then thrusts Sauda at my exposed milkless boob. Thankfully Sauda is too old to be attempt to nurse off of just anyone, so it was all for show. I, like all those present, found it to be exceptionally amusing, hope you do as well.
6-22-10
Been doing a little light reading these days, I’m simultaneously going through The Fate of Africa: A History of Fifty Years of Independence and Dead Aid: Why Aid is Not Working and How there is a Better Way for Africa. The Fate of Africa is a light hearted 700 page read chronicling colonial Africa to present day. It’s actually been quite informative and seems to be reasonably objective, I have yet to sniff out any hidden agendas or glaring biases. It sometimes teeters on the edge of the all too common practice of portraying Africa as a continent full of nothing but misery, suffering, corruption, and greed but it generally comes back from the precipice and as compared to most of what is written about the continent it does a decent job. It has heightened my distaste for international politics and left me with an indescribable level of disgust with foreign policy; how the decisions of individual men and sadly sometimes women (thanks Mrs. Thatcher), often blinded by lust for power or dogmatic worldviews, put in place policies, the consequences of which they are so far removed from that they perpetuate suffering, violence, and general violation of human rights on a massive scale. The ramifications although costing millions of lives, will never be felt by those inept morons who made the call in the first place.
I decided to undertake reading it while I was reading Dead Aid as Ms. Moyo in making her case for why aid is fundamentally flawed and thus explores the history of aid across the continent so I wanted a better context to put her argument in. Frankly I think Ms. Moyo has been drinking the kool aid at Goldman Sachs for too long. Granted I’m only just now getting to her “better way for Africa” and she employs a lot of economics jargon which can make for some tough going. Her whole discussion of “Dutch Disease” left me with a throbbing headache and little understanding of how or why it’s a problem and how aid exacerbates it.
That having been said some of her critic of aid is certainly valid as well as timely and needed. There should be a massive rethinking of how aid is delivered and programs are implemented. I just feel that Ms. Moyo takes her argument well beyond sense and reason and takes her reader on a tour of crazy land. I believe she is of the Chicago School of Economics which generally spells trouble and a burning love a market based solutions pursued with the single mindedness of a religious zealot . When you find yourself using Sudan as an example of the magic of free markets, I think your vision of the way forward has some fundamental flaws. Pretty sure when I dream of a better world it doesn’t look like West Darfur.
6-27-10
Back from my shortest stay in Lilongwe ever. I will be returning in two days time but I needed to come back to check up on my girls group and pick up the necklaces they are making so I can attempt to sell them in Lilongwe and there is a meeting or two that I should go to. Really from now until GLOW is over I am going to be out of site more often than not so I thought I should come back even if only for a few days. The only inconvenience is that traveling between my site and Lilongwe is a day long procedure that really takes it out of you. Which brings me to the following:
Advice to Travelers…….If you find yourself traveling in a developing country, say like Malawi, that has horrendous public transport and you are so fortunate to have a car at your disposal then for the sake of all things holy and sacred, pick people up. It’s not that hard, really I swear.
As for safety, sure you might want to avoid the visibly drunk guy, but the two girls on their way to school, or say a slightly grubby wind swept Peace Corps volunteer, I think you’ll be okay. In a county like Malawi nearly all forms of transport are glorified forms of hitch hiking so someone standing by the side of the road looking for a ride is not a deviation from the norm, it isn’t a red flag that perhaps something is wrong with that person, it is how people get around. Whatever decision you make just be sure never to be party to the following scenario.
A couple weeks ago I was going to my friend Melanie’s site, some 30 km north of my house. As it is such a short distance I am more than comfortable hopping in a matola as waiting for a hitch isn’t cost effective or time efficient but while waiting for a matola I will always attempt to flag down private vehicles that are passing.
This is exactly what I did when I saw a flashy pick up with a completely empty bed barreling in my direction. Even from a distance it was clear that this was a vehicle manned by tourists but sometimes tourists remember to pack their souls and sense of decency when traveling so I figured I had a fighting chance.
What then happened filled me with such a sense of rage that it defies description. Had I been able to summon the power of super speed I would have chased that truck down and kicked their asses. Truthfully I considered it even without any extraordinary abilities. Whenever some tourist flys past me in their fancy rental vehicle without so much as a apologetic shake of the head I generally am left with a feeling of great displeasure. When that tourist flys past me, sans any sort of eye contact but has the audacity to take my picture, I discovered that I am filled with a homicidal rage.
Really you spoiled little piece of shit, that’s how it’s going to be. Let me tell you something you little worm, I do not want to be on your face book page. “Here are all my pictures of when I was traveling around Africa, look at all those poor people”, “see how worldly I am”, “Oh heres a picture of that person we left standing by the side of the road”. I swear to you, you smarmy little bastard if I ever find you I will give you an earful about why you are a sub standard human being and a kick in the balls just for good measure.
Had to get that out of my system. I could keep going but I think I would be better advised to channel and transform the hot ball of anger at the core of my being caused by inane and discourteous tourists into fiery passionate language about the need for women’s empowerment and work on the final phase of the GLOW curriculum. The curriculum is finished I am just doing some revision and expansion to get it as solid as possible. We are trying to get the curriculum certified by the Ministry of Education. What that means is if the Ministry of Education’s Life Skills Curriculum programmers sign off on our curriculum it will be considered an official government approved curriculum. To have our program be recognized in such a way is a huge accomplishment which goes beyond just this year’s GLOW. If our program is approved by Ministry of Education it would mean a secure source of funding. Not a crazy rush for funds from year to year but a consistent known partner. Furthermore it means that Camp GLOW will survive beyond Peace Corps. At this time Peace Corps volunteers make the program happen, if we were gone the program would be no more. If we get our very awesome program certified then that curriculum is part of the government’s bag of tricks then even if Peace Corps is gone they can still use it. Way to go team!
6-29-10
I feel like a horrible person. I thought coming back to site for a few days and then returning to Lilongwe might be a good thing. You know show people I can go to Lilongwe without staying for weeks and I had to pick up the necklaces my girls group is making but damn I think coming and then going again so quickly backfired. I got the necklaces, although my girls weren’t as on top of it as I would have hoped, we’ll have to chat when I get back. And people were pleased that I returned swiftly and efficiently but they seemed equally dismayed when I revealed that I would be leaving so soon and now on the eve of my departure I feel shitty.
Also it’s Sauda’s birthday and I don’t feel like I gave it proper acknowledgement. I’ve been running around all day trying to get things together and I think Ama Chimbuto was disappointed that I didn’t make a bigger fuss over Sauda, which is totally fair, Sauda deserves all the attention in the world for her first birthday. And Ama has been kind enough to let me pack Sauda around to my hearts content and refers to me as her baba mother so I’m pretty sure I failed. I’ll make up for it when I return.
I know that once I get through GLOW I’ll be able to put all of my time and energy into site and that surely this will all work out. GLOW is going to be amazing and I know I am doing something decent by participating in it. I’ll have a whole year in Dwambazi, I just have to get through August.
I believe I’m having an angsty freak out because part of me worries that this has been a common theme ye’ this past year and perhaps come August I won’t deliver or that it will be too late, that people will have written me off as all talk no show. Take a deep breath Megan, stop the anxiety hemorrhage, you’re gonna make it.
Like how I talked myself down there, charming I know. I’m trying to think of a humorous or light hearted tale to share with you. Particularly to make up for the fact that I just vomited my angst all over those of you who are so kind as to keep up on the comings and goings in my life. Alas I’m coming up short, perhaps it’s best to call it a night, continue on with The Fate of Africa, and wake up bright and early tomorrow and prepare for a big day of travel.
As I expected the moment I took the time and considerable effort to get my computer out the rain would stop. Rainy season has come and gone but this morning we are being treated to an unanticipated out of season rain. It actually reminds me a bit of Portland in the spring, it’s cold and drizzly. Mind you by cold I mean it’s probably 65 degrees perhaps even 68 at worst I would put it at 60 but no doubt it’s much warmer. As one acclimates to the scorching temperatures here in Dwambazi, they lose their capacity to be any sort of judge of temperature. All I know is whatever the temperature may or may not be it feels damned cold to me.
The rain has resumed, I suspect it’s going to be an on and off again sort of a rain but however light the rain may be it will ensure that no one comes to the hospital, thus affording me the opportunity to collect my thoughts and try to get some back log blogging done. I am sure you all noticed my lack of blog postings and perhaps you have wondered why.
For the last couple of months my schedule has been, Charity comes over after dinner, we practice a little Tonga or just chat, or we have a movie night. Oh the movie nights, we have exhausted my limited supply of movies which is a shame as I enjoy movie nights. Actually that’s a lie; we are still on our way through the BBC special Planet Earth, which Alex left behind and has been a lot of fun to watch together.
Most films that come into Malawi are of the action variety, charming little numbers that uphold heinous gender norms and are chocked full of violence, so it’s nice to be able to offer entertainment that has some educational value and say in the case of the Never Ending Story is full of just pure joy. The Never Ending Story was a big hit, we’ve watched it a couple of times. A surprise hit was none other than Robin Hood Men in Tights. I wasn’t sure if it would go over well but indeed it was much enjoyed.
Bringing this all back to my absence of blogs, I haven’t really had the time alone required to spew out the stream of consciousness that you all know and love. To bring you all up to speed, I just got back from Lilongwe. I had gone in for Mid Service Training (uneventful) and then stayed for a week or so to do GLOW work, which is coming along well. There are ups and downs for sure (major up the 1.6 million Kwacha ($10,666) Vanessa and I squeezed out of Ministry of Education, downs attempting to organize 20 volunteers with very different personality types). Of course things are going to explode into a frenzy of final prep and logistics snafus but it’s going to be well worth it.
6-12-10
Untimely interruption. I cut off there as the electricity went out and I had to shut down my lap top ASAP. Perhaps you’re thinking that the whole purpose of the lap top is that it can run on battery power, and yes that is true, but after a year of faithful service my computer battery has copped it. I’m no electrician but there’s something different about the electrical current here and by different I mean when my hot plate is turned on it often shocks me like hot wire, not excruciating but jolting and annoying. Same thing happens with my I-Pod stereo, oh the trials and tribulations. I think the powerful Malawian electrical current is particularly draining on things like computer batteries but really it’s no matter as I am fortunate enough to have electricity I can still use my computer when the electricity is cooperating.
Of recently the electricity has been out a lot. Freddy attributes this to the World Cup, I can’t think of any logical reason the world cup would affect Malawian power but I am still inclined to blame the world cup for the inconvenience.
So updates on my life. Charity and Ama Bai are in Lilongwe, they’ve been there for I think two weeks now. Ama Bai went in for physical therapy, she had a mild stroke not long after I arrived here and as you can imagine it’s caused a whole host of health problems. At the top of the list would be her lack of mobility thus she’s doing physical therapy in Lilongwe. I went to go visit her in the hospital as we were both in Lilongwe at the same time. I have gotten pretty used to the state of disrepair that health facilities are in but it was disheartening to see where she was at given it was supposed to be a major improvement in the health care she’s receiving. As Charity is gone I have had a lot more down time since returning to Dwambazi. I miss Charity, I hope they make it back soon, they were supposed to be back yesterday but alas no.
I’ve kind of hit a wall with work at site, frankly I’ve been feeling discombobulated of recently, but I’m sure it will pass, I’ll get some traction and things will get moving again. Part of the challenge is that I am out so much for GLOW, it makes it difficult to get things going here. I can’t really commit to anything until after GLOW but GLOW is going to be amazing so it will be well worth it. Challenge number two which is probably the biggest challenge EVER is the disconnect between the district and local level, sweet god it’s a pain in the ass. Nkhotakota district assembly is an absolute shit show which creates a real break down in the service delivery chain and they are the institution that is supposed to support community based organizations (CBOs) and as they don’t have it together it makes it real difficult to get things together at the community level.
Wow that sounded negative, I’m just a little frustrated. But it will be okay, my plan of attack after GLOW is to work to improve the linkages between the district and Dwambazi and do capacity building with the CBOs. I’ve identified various well placed individuals who I think will be on board with getting things together.
My girls group, Women 2 Women is still amazing. In fact I am expecting Mevis and Enella anytime now, we are going to go collect various seeds that we are going to use to make necklaces. They’re really beautiful and I think a great way for the group to raise funds as they require almost no monetary input. Fear not you will be hearing more about this in the future because if the girls start making necklaces my plan is to ship some home, say to Bend or Hood River, and see if you can sell them.
The gay rights battle wages on, I’ll elaborate more at another time. As you can imagine I have a lot to say on the subject.
Peter is well, he had a very Sam moment the other day. As he was watering my plants while I was gone I gave him a little money to buy some new clothes at the market (by new clothes I mean goodwill clothes that get shipped over) which he was most excited about. So anyway off he went to pick out a shirt and some pants and he returned with the greatest outfit ever. A lovely pink long sleeved shirt and shorts, oh they are magical, those shorts. Think golf shorts, they are a soft purple plaid with some very nice gold inlay. I’ll be sure to take a picture soon. When it was just me and him, he looked at me with his big Peter smile and said, “Ndachena” meaning, “I’m looking nice”.
Uchi is also well, as per usual she’s right here with me taking a little dog nap. I can’t get over how big she is. I weighed her at scale yesterday and she is a whopping 16.5kg, roughly 32 pounds. One of these days soon I need someone to take a picture while I weigh her, as it involves wrapping her in a chitenge and then hanging her from the scale. Its pretty damn funny and it never fails to crack people up when she’s dangling there, like a baby. I don’t know if I mentioned the scale is the very sort of scale you would weigh meat with, if that helps give you a better picture of what this weighing process looks like.
I’ve been here a year, I don’t know if that sounds as surreal to you as it does to me? July 31st will make one year in Dwambazi. I guess my general feeling is that it’s gone incredibly fast but then again that would depend on what day you asked me. I have been away for a year, I’m still not sure what it make of it. Now begins the soul searching about what now. Do I extend my service for a third year? I’m certainly giving it a lot of thought. Do I look for work here or do I come home and look at grad programs?
I miss home, I miss you all, there are things missing in my life, things I left behind the absence of which I feel acutely but I’m still not sure I can leave my life here behind either. Mariel pointed out I’m a bit of a transient person and that much of my life those dearest to me were far away, so I suppose I am well suited to being able to be far from those I love.
I don’t know, it’s still too early to call it one way or the other. At this time my feeling is if I can find work that allows me to do something beneficial and productive, I’ll stay. Cause as much as I enjoy my life here, the jury’s still out on whether I am doing anything that is substantially improving people’s lives and that has got to change. I need something resembling an unequivocal yes.
I can’t believe I am actually going to write this but here goes. Another consideration to throw into the mix…..Sometimes I think I am really going to regret not having children, that perhaps it’s a decision that would say haunt me. Of course, as with all things I’m completely conflicted. Yes I think I will regret it if I miss out on raising children but I can’t say I think it’s a good idea for me to have kids, I fear the kind of parent I would be and why isn’t it enough to help children who desperately need it?
But assuming I do want to have children, this raises questions and concerns about extending my stay in Malawi. One I am fast approaching 30 with no job prospects in the immediate future and I need some sort of fiscal security if I am going to be responsible for small people. But that I actually think is the easiest hump to get over. I’m pretty confident I could parent successfully on a modest income and I am not uncomfortable with the idea of raising children abroad but I think it would be most unwise to parent without a strong support network, say like a partner. And the likelihood that I am going to stumble upon such a person here is highly unlikely. Of course my feeling is that one has little control over whether they find a partner or not regardless of where they are. I’ve seen too many folks tie themselves in knots trying to “find” the person to spend the rest of their lives with but that having been said being here just reduces the probability say one hundred fold. I suppose it will all come out in the wash, I’ll either find myself in a future that makes children possible or I won’t. It hurts my head to try to sort it out much more than that but I figured I’d throw it out there as it’s been on my mind.
I have completed ONE YEAR of Peace Corps service! Go me! It has been a year that despite my best attempts eludes description. I appreciate all of you beautiful people who have bravely followed my attempts to narrate my life, you’re amazing. And just think we have a whole another year of blogging joy.
6-17-10
Magical Moments…..About a month ago this happened…..
I was hanging out with Sauda, I had her with me for quite some time, so I figured I’d better take her back to Ama Chimbuto as she was probably due for a little breast feeding. I arrived at the Chimbuto’s house where I found Ama and a small gathering of women. The following exchange took place in Tonga and it went a little something like this.
Me, “I brought Sauda because she wants to nurse”
Ama, (laughs) “Why didn’t you just nurse her”
Me, (laughing), “I’m without milk” said while patting my breast
Everyone laughing
Ama (stands up), “Lets see”
I saw it coming. I figured it was only a matter of time before Ama publicly disrobed me, it’s just her style. I love Ama Chimbuto she cracks my shit up, she’s funny and pretty crass, in a good way.
Anyway she walks over to me, (remember there is an audience for this event) pulls down my shirt, then pulls down my bra thus leaving my right breast flying free and pronounces my breasts to be “m’be yampha”, “nice boobs”. She then thrusts Sauda at my exposed milkless boob. Thankfully Sauda is too old to be attempt to nurse off of just anyone, so it was all for show. I, like all those present, found it to be exceptionally amusing, hope you do as well.
6-22-10
Been doing a little light reading these days, I’m simultaneously going through The Fate of Africa: A History of Fifty Years of Independence and Dead Aid: Why Aid is Not Working and How there is a Better Way for Africa. The Fate of Africa is a light hearted 700 page read chronicling colonial Africa to present day. It’s actually been quite informative and seems to be reasonably objective, I have yet to sniff out any hidden agendas or glaring biases. It sometimes teeters on the edge of the all too common practice of portraying Africa as a continent full of nothing but misery, suffering, corruption, and greed but it generally comes back from the precipice and as compared to most of what is written about the continent it does a decent job. It has heightened my distaste for international politics and left me with an indescribable level of disgust with foreign policy; how the decisions of individual men and sadly sometimes women (thanks Mrs. Thatcher), often blinded by lust for power or dogmatic worldviews, put in place policies, the consequences of which they are so far removed from that they perpetuate suffering, violence, and general violation of human rights on a massive scale. The ramifications although costing millions of lives, will never be felt by those inept morons who made the call in the first place.
I decided to undertake reading it while I was reading Dead Aid as Ms. Moyo in making her case for why aid is fundamentally flawed and thus explores the history of aid across the continent so I wanted a better context to put her argument in. Frankly I think Ms. Moyo has been drinking the kool aid at Goldman Sachs for too long. Granted I’m only just now getting to her “better way for Africa” and she employs a lot of economics jargon which can make for some tough going. Her whole discussion of “Dutch Disease” left me with a throbbing headache and little understanding of how or why it’s a problem and how aid exacerbates it.
That having been said some of her critic of aid is certainly valid as well as timely and needed. There should be a massive rethinking of how aid is delivered and programs are implemented. I just feel that Ms. Moyo takes her argument well beyond sense and reason and takes her reader on a tour of crazy land. I believe she is of the Chicago School of Economics which generally spells trouble and a burning love a market based solutions pursued with the single mindedness of a religious zealot . When you find yourself using Sudan as an example of the magic of free markets, I think your vision of the way forward has some fundamental flaws. Pretty sure when I dream of a better world it doesn’t look like West Darfur.
6-27-10
Back from my shortest stay in Lilongwe ever. I will be returning in two days time but I needed to come back to check up on my girls group and pick up the necklaces they are making so I can attempt to sell them in Lilongwe and there is a meeting or two that I should go to. Really from now until GLOW is over I am going to be out of site more often than not so I thought I should come back even if only for a few days. The only inconvenience is that traveling between my site and Lilongwe is a day long procedure that really takes it out of you. Which brings me to the following:
Advice to Travelers…….If you find yourself traveling in a developing country, say like Malawi, that has horrendous public transport and you are so fortunate to have a car at your disposal then for the sake of all things holy and sacred, pick people up. It’s not that hard, really I swear.
As for safety, sure you might want to avoid the visibly drunk guy, but the two girls on their way to school, or say a slightly grubby wind swept Peace Corps volunteer, I think you’ll be okay. In a county like Malawi nearly all forms of transport are glorified forms of hitch hiking so someone standing by the side of the road looking for a ride is not a deviation from the norm, it isn’t a red flag that perhaps something is wrong with that person, it is how people get around. Whatever decision you make just be sure never to be party to the following scenario.
A couple weeks ago I was going to my friend Melanie’s site, some 30 km north of my house. As it is such a short distance I am more than comfortable hopping in a matola as waiting for a hitch isn’t cost effective or time efficient but while waiting for a matola I will always attempt to flag down private vehicles that are passing.
This is exactly what I did when I saw a flashy pick up with a completely empty bed barreling in my direction. Even from a distance it was clear that this was a vehicle manned by tourists but sometimes tourists remember to pack their souls and sense of decency when traveling so I figured I had a fighting chance.
What then happened filled me with such a sense of rage that it defies description. Had I been able to summon the power of super speed I would have chased that truck down and kicked their asses. Truthfully I considered it even without any extraordinary abilities. Whenever some tourist flys past me in their fancy rental vehicle without so much as a apologetic shake of the head I generally am left with a feeling of great displeasure. When that tourist flys past me, sans any sort of eye contact but has the audacity to take my picture, I discovered that I am filled with a homicidal rage.
Really you spoiled little piece of shit, that’s how it’s going to be. Let me tell you something you little worm, I do not want to be on your face book page. “Here are all my pictures of when I was traveling around Africa, look at all those poor people”, “see how worldly I am”, “Oh heres a picture of that person we left standing by the side of the road”. I swear to you, you smarmy little bastard if I ever find you I will give you an earful about why you are a sub standard human being and a kick in the balls just for good measure.
Had to get that out of my system. I could keep going but I think I would be better advised to channel and transform the hot ball of anger at the core of my being caused by inane and discourteous tourists into fiery passionate language about the need for women’s empowerment and work on the final phase of the GLOW curriculum. The curriculum is finished I am just doing some revision and expansion to get it as solid as possible. We are trying to get the curriculum certified by the Ministry of Education. What that means is if the Ministry of Education’s Life Skills Curriculum programmers sign off on our curriculum it will be considered an official government approved curriculum. To have our program be recognized in such a way is a huge accomplishment which goes beyond just this year’s GLOW. If our program is approved by Ministry of Education it would mean a secure source of funding. Not a crazy rush for funds from year to year but a consistent known partner. Furthermore it means that Camp GLOW will survive beyond Peace Corps. At this time Peace Corps volunteers make the program happen, if we were gone the program would be no more. If we get our very awesome program certified then that curriculum is part of the government’s bag of tricks then even if Peace Corps is gone they can still use it. Way to go team!
6-29-10
I feel like a horrible person. I thought coming back to site for a few days and then returning to Lilongwe might be a good thing. You know show people I can go to Lilongwe without staying for weeks and I had to pick up the necklaces my girls group is making but damn I think coming and then going again so quickly backfired. I got the necklaces, although my girls weren’t as on top of it as I would have hoped, we’ll have to chat when I get back. And people were pleased that I returned swiftly and efficiently but they seemed equally dismayed when I revealed that I would be leaving so soon and now on the eve of my departure I feel shitty.
Also it’s Sauda’s birthday and I don’t feel like I gave it proper acknowledgement. I’ve been running around all day trying to get things together and I think Ama Chimbuto was disappointed that I didn’t make a bigger fuss over Sauda, which is totally fair, Sauda deserves all the attention in the world for her first birthday. And Ama has been kind enough to let me pack Sauda around to my hearts content and refers to me as her baba mother so I’m pretty sure I failed. I’ll make up for it when I return.
I know that once I get through GLOW I’ll be able to put all of my time and energy into site and that surely this will all work out. GLOW is going to be amazing and I know I am doing something decent by participating in it. I’ll have a whole year in Dwambazi, I just have to get through August.
I believe I’m having an angsty freak out because part of me worries that this has been a common theme ye’ this past year and perhaps come August I won’t deliver or that it will be too late, that people will have written me off as all talk no show. Take a deep breath Megan, stop the anxiety hemorrhage, you’re gonna make it.
Like how I talked myself down there, charming I know. I’m trying to think of a humorous or light hearted tale to share with you. Particularly to make up for the fact that I just vomited my angst all over those of you who are so kind as to keep up on the comings and goings in my life. Alas I’m coming up short, perhaps it’s best to call it a night, continue on with The Fate of Africa, and wake up bright and early tomorrow and prepare for a big day of travel.
Friday, April 16, 2010
Yet another wish list update
Some items I could use refreshers on:
Coffee, we are down to the last of the good stuff, send reienforcements soon.
Nutragrain bars and sweet and salties, mmmmm delicious
Jolly ranchers, lots of volunteers get them in packages and I must say its a wise choice.
Lotion
chocolate chip cookies
Batteries AA
M&Ms and Reeces
professional clothing, help!!!! I can't for the life of me dress myself for formal meetings
the last wish list still applies these are just things that have come to me during this long sojurn in Lilongwe. Thanks
Oh and any fun small things you want to slip in for arts and crafts stuff for GLOW would be amazing. beads, feathers, glitter glue, lip gloss, stickers, really a raid on the dollar store would be the way to go
Coffee, we are down to the last of the good stuff, send reienforcements soon.
Nutragrain bars and sweet and salties, mmmmm delicious
Jolly ranchers, lots of volunteers get them in packages and I must say its a wise choice.
Lotion
chocolate chip cookies
Batteries AA
M&Ms and Reeces
professional clothing, help!!!! I can't for the life of me dress myself for formal meetings
the last wish list still applies these are just things that have come to me during this long sojurn in Lilongwe. Thanks
Oh and any fun small things you want to slip in for arts and crafts stuff for GLOW would be amazing. beads, feathers, glitter glue, lip gloss, stickers, really a raid on the dollar store would be the way to go
Saturday, April 3, 2010
My most rambly work ever
2-21-10
Home, again. Peter said the funniest thing today, or at least I found it deeply amusing. He asked me Ndingaluta ku nyumba yikulu- Can I go to the big house? As I’m standing there trying to figure out which house he’s talking about and why he wants to go there, Peter notes my puzzled expression and clarify’s adding chimbudzi, or as we say in English toilet. I’m not sure if big house is another word for toilet and I was just woefully ignorant of this fact or if it’s just Peter, either way I found it humorous.
I’ve been back at site for a bit now and alas the bulk of my time thus far has been taken up by the fingerfuck of attempting to track down my lost phone and then once that failed acquiring a new one. It was an endeavor (I will spare you the details) but it’s my own damn fault for being so sloppy with my last phone. The only TNM phone that was available in all of Dwangwa may be the ugliest little phone ever, it looks exactly like a small calculator and at first I hated it for that, but now I must say I think I actually like that my phone is absolutely horrendous. I can only imagine how ridiculous I look talking into my mini calculator and that mental image pleases me.
In short this past week hasn’t been particularly note worthy but still it’s good to be back. I believe I have worked out all the logistical snafus, aside from losing my phone I took the wrong hope kit home which means my stock of wine which was safely stowed away in said hope kit amongst other essential items like my rain jacket, is now in Chisala with Vanessa and I need to go collect it in a week or so and then of course the ongoing battle with my electricity. Not sure if I have mentioned the issue with lights in my house but it’s a pain in the ass. For some unknown reason the lights in both the front room and the kitchen no longer work, which although annoying was fine as I had light in my bedroom and my hot plate worked just fine (I am intimately aware of the fact that I am incredibly privileged to have electricity at all) but then the bulb in my bedroom blew and when I went to take the bulb out I found it was stuck in there something fierce so now I’m down to one functional light which is outside. I’ve been trying to tap into my electrical skills and at this point have had no luck but I’m hoping to at least salvage the light in my bedroom today. So yeah lots of technical issues but now that most of them are resolved I can move onto to bigger and better things, like the crap ton of work I should be doing pretty much all the time until my next trip to Lilongwe. We’ve been making good progress with GLOW but there’s still plenty I need to get done this month and I have two grants that I need to write as well which I have reason to believe is going to be a bit of a time consumer.
If you were wondering, as I’m sure you were, Uchi is doing excellent. I took her to scale (under five clinic) on Friday and weighed her to the amusement of all the women there, she’s getting a bit big for wrapping up in a chitenge. She is currently a strapping 14.3 kg and beautiful as ever. At present she is, as per usual, napping beside me, we’re having a lounging around the house sort of a day. Speaking of being completely unproductive I have spent so much time playing around with the videos I took with my flip, it may be the most amazing thing ever. Not sure if you all know what a Flip is, I didn’t until Kim and Mike (the greatest people ever) sent me one. It’s a really cool little (fits in the palm of my hand) camcorder with a built in USB so you can plug it right into your computer and do all sorts of fun things with the footage. The other night I was up until 2 AM making a little movie magic (oh you stellar development worker). At this point the bulk of the stuff I have recorded is just us screwing around in Lilongwe and Mponela but I can foresee great things happening when I start filming around Dwambazi, I just have to get over my shyness regarding walking around filming. I just recently got over feeling completely ridiculous taking my camera around so it might take another week or so to work my way up to the Flip.
2-22-10
There is a lot of kindness in people. My neighbor Charity is a testament to this statement. This is a young woman who has a workload that most of us from the developed world can never really understand. She’s the live in caretaker for her Aunt, Ama Bai, she is often caring for one of our neighbor’s infants or young children and as she has no children of her own and is unmarried she’s the go to person in our community if you need a hand. In addition to the multitude of responsibilities that come with running a household here she also farms maize. Aside from the money she’ll make when she sells her maize she has no income and yet I’m always welcome at their home for a meal.
Today she invited me over for lunch; not only did she feed me but after we all ate she proceeded to give Uchi a large plate of nsima. I returned to her house this evening as I wanted to learn how to cook pumpkin leaves and she had volunteered to teach me and for the second time today she told me I should eat with her and Ama Bai. As we sat down to eat I apologized for eating yet another meal at their house and Ama Bai said “we have nsima so you are most welcome”. I lack the words to express how humbling it is to be the recipient of such goodness. Here I am, this incredibly privileged person, who by Malawian standards has never worked a day in their life, bumbling around the community, speaking jumbled Tonga, completely insulated from most the challenges and health risks people here face and yet people invite me in and offer me what food they have. I spend a lot of time at Ama Bai and Charity’s house but they are not alone in their openness and generosity.
I don’t want to romanticize life here or the people, not everything is cast in a rosy glow. There are certainly people who embody some lesser character attributes but by in large most of what I see in people is goodness and I’m left with this profound sense of being completely undeserving; not only of the kindness I receive daily from my neighbors but for the lifetime of privilege that I did nothing to earn.
I don’t often write about the poverty here, I think for fear of being some sort of voyeur of suffering or exploiting people. How do you write about the child who came to under five clinic so terribly wasted that I was afraid to touch him? I referred him to the nutritional rehabilitation unit, I remember feeling pleased that I was able to communicate efficiently with his mother in Tonga and get him registered in the program, he died three days later. AIDS is a monstrous thing in children. Children with swollen bellies, skin infections and big eyes; the eyes of malnourished children always seem too big for their little faces. Most everyone who dies at this hospital dies of treatable diseases, and more often than not it’s not the disease itself that kills them. People die of anemia because the nearest hospital where they can receive a transfusion is a two hour car ride away. My old medical assistant, Ada Luwe’s daughter died, a week after her first birthday. You could say complicated malaria killed her or perhaps it was the lack of medication to stop her seizures and the prolonged wait for the ambulance, in short the misfortune of being born into one of the poorest countries in the world.
This hospital serves a population of ten thousand and we have no doctor and no electricity. Our primary school has around eight hundred students and nine teachers; the secondary school is perhaps in even worse shape with two small buildings, five teachers, and no electricity. The health surveillance assistants who work at the hospital make about one dollars a day (one dollars would buy a kg of rice or a small jar of peanut butter) and they are more fortunate than most. People wear the clothing that Goodwill and Value Village couldn’t sell; shipped over in bulk and sold in the markets the cost of the clothing is such that a child maybe has a shirt or two, a skirt or a pair of pants in varying states of disrepair and generally severally sizes too big.
The average person in my community lives on less than a dollar a day and has no electricity or running water. It’s easy to say a person has no running water but much more difficult to comprehend what that actually means. For every dish you want to wash, every meal you must prepare, or child you bathe imagine the weight of the twenty liter bucket on your head and the kilometer or so walk to carry it back home. Never in my life have I seen women work so hard and I have been fortunate enough to have some incredibly strong women in my life. It makes me wonder what kind of person I am, that I can see these things and still spend time lazing around my house drinking a beer and writing in my journal completely absorbed in my own thoughts. How is it that we put these things away? It seems to me it’s the double edged sword of our existence; if we really carried these things with us we’d crumble under the weight but the fact that we can put them away, that we can compartmentalize and rationalize perpetuates the misery that no one wants to see. Maybe that’s a very privileged person’s take on the situation, a cop out of sorts. Maybe I just don’t have it in me to care as much as I should, I suppose time will tell.
This is an incredibly poor country where the vast majority of the population is being denied their most basic of human rights but I don’t want to reduce this country or my community down to a place of poor people. I think that far too often countries like Malawi and Africa as a whole are portrayed as places of misery that perhaps deserve our compassion but are too far gone and are beyond our capacity to help. I don’t want in anyway to contribute to that sort of narrative as it is terribly damaging and frankly insulting but I do want you to understand the challenges people face. I see horrible injustices here on a daily basis but also beauty and goodness that I can’t begin to properly describe.
2-25-10
It’s been raining most of today; cool, pleasant, and quiet. I had a meeting scheduled for two this afternoon but alas we’ll have to reschedule. Meetings are more often than not held outdoors so the rain becomes an issue in a big way, I’ve had two meetings canceled this week due to rain but such is rainy season. But glory be now I have time to pursue the noble course of blogging.
I’m having a hell of a time writing today, which is too bad as I’m in the mood to write I’m just not getting anywhere. I’m actually kind of sleepy; I keep toying with the idea of taking a nap even though I know it’s not going to happen as I’m constitutionally incapable of napping and god knows it would mess with my limited ability to sleep through the night. I’m actually desperately craving sweets, mmmm something chocolatey would change my life right about now, that and some popcorn, sweet delicious popcorn; add a movie to that…. oh stop, its too beautiful a thought.
2-26-09
Note worthy events:
Perhaps the most disgusting thing ever- So Uchi had what I thought was a small abscess on her ear. No biggie I planned on cleaning it up and perhaps draining it. So as I’m applying gentle pressure to her ear I see something white emerging from the swollen area, something that was too solid to be pus. I continued to apply pressure and what should come out of my dogs body but a MAGGOT. Yeah that’s right a nasty, vile, very much alive maggot. Some evil fly, the type that lay their evil eggs in the bodies of the living, had planted its seed in my sweet dogs ear. I extracted four creepy crawlies from Uchi’s ear, it was traumatic but I managed to make it through. Uchi’s ear is fully recovered, hopefully that was the only maggot extraction I will ever have to deal with in my entire life. I suppose the silver lining is that I wasn’t squeezing maggots out of my body which has no doubt happened to volunteers.
Bat Attack- As I calmly lay facedown on the cool concrete floor of my bedroom looking over my shoulder at my wee bat friend franticly zipping around I was surprised by just how little I was concerned that there was a bat flying around my bedroom just above me. I had been sitting on the floor typing away when Mr. Bat made a detour into my room and though his appearance startled me a bit I figured I’d just stay out of his way and he’d leave eventually. I have nightly bat visitors, normally they just come into my back area to eat the bugs that flock to the outdoor light and every now and then I’ll see one fly into the house real quick like but normally I’m outside smoking when this happens so I haven’t actually spent quality time indoors with my friends. I say friends but I like to think of it as just one bat, the same one coming to say hi, checking in on things night after night. I actually like bats, they’re incredibly cool creatures, but as much as I think they are fascinating with their funny muppet like little faces and they way they walk on their wings, nobody enjoys it when they fly right at you and I was impressed with how bold I have become in the face of dive bombing bats.
Sima explosion- I normally look forward to dropping a little bit of weight when I’m at site. Its not that I give up food or something ridiculous like that, I just don’t gorge at site and I tend to be reasonably active. Its also extraordinarily hot here which puts you off cooking, there’s no deterrent to over eating like a fiery hot kitchen in 100 degree weather. But alas I think dropping a pound or two is a thing of the past as Charity seems deeply concerned with my lack of twice daily sima cooking and has taken it upon herself to make sure I am getting my daily dose of sima. It’s not unusual for me to eat a meal with friends or neighbors but we have moved into uncharted territory. For the past week Charity finds me everyday at lunch and tells me I should come over and eat sima and then she seeks me out again at dinner. Charity and Ama Bai went to Nkhotakota for a few days and I have reason to suspect that she asked Ama Dambo to bring me sima in the evenings or perhaps Ama Dambo is in on the get Megan sima fat conspiracy because without fail she sent her granddaughter by every night with a heaping plate of sima. Don’t get me wrong I do like me some sima but I think I have found my sima threshold but I like spending time with Charity and it may be the most thoughtful thing that someone has done for me in awhile.
2-28-10
I’ve finally done it; it only took me six months or so but no matter. I have learned health songs, the very songs that make magic happen at under five clinics. I knew the jist of several of the songs but I didn’t know them well enough to sing them in their entirety, solo. I kept saying I was going to ask someone and then write them down but as per usual I would not get around to it but today in a rare show of initiative I went to Ama Chipalasa’s house and we pounded out some singing magic. The idea came to me last night while I was having dinner with Charity and Ama Bai and Ama Chipalasa walked by singing a song I recognized from under five clinic so in a moment of inspiration I asked her “mungawovyia ine” can you help me and then proceed to ask her if she could teach me songs about health and so this afternoon I found myself at her home singing away much to the amusement of the many children who gathered the moment they caught wind of a song. It was nice in a way I can’t describe, something about singing together produces this feeling of communion that’s surprisingly uplifting, its comforting to know that something so small can make you, at least in that moment, feel incredibly good. I won’t lie I’ve been singing to myself ever since my lesson this afternoon and I love it.
Singing aside I’ve been reasonably productive but probably not productive enough. I met with my girls group today they were teaching about small business planning and as they have all the tools to start a small business (the exception probably being start up capital) I suggested that those who wanted to start a small business should write up a business plan and we’ll go over it together and go forward from there. I have meetings scheduled most of next week, hopefully the rains won’t interfere too much, as I can’t proceed to the next step with my grant writing until I get some more info from the committees I’m scheduled to meet with. I’ve been meeting with a couple of HSA’s who are heading the projects we hope to get off the ground soon and I have been busily working away on my GLOW stuff. I plan to go up to Mzuzu next weekend so I can check my email and see if I can’t get some meetings scheduled with prospective guest speakers and donors. I’m going to attempt a trip to the district hospital and the district assembly in Nkhotakota tomorrow, this means catching the four AM bus out. I don’t want to toy around with hitching because it can take a small eternity to get the simplest of activities done at either the district hospital or the district assembly and as I have a fairish few things I want to accomplish it seemed best to get there bright and early.
I would like to take a moment to mention the burgeoning mosquito population and why it is a terrible thing. When I stand outside or perhaps sit quietly in my house I can hear the incessant hum of swarms of mosquitoes that are waiting to descend upon my house. That high pitch whine is the background noise to my evenings. Nights like tonight are particularly unpleasant, it rained earlier today but rather than one of the rains that brings a bit of cool weather and if you’re lucky a breeze this is one of the muggy and still post rain evenings, ideal conditions for my nemesis the mosquito. Yes right now at this very moment in sounds as if there are mosquitoes in my ear. I have yet to figure out how it is that no matter where a mosquito is, it sounds as if they are in your ears. Truly the best explanation I have heard was from Duncan, his theory being that mosquitoes can throw their voices, an evil and clever distraction, which allows them to feast while you bat away at your face like an idiot.
3-2-10
Yesterday was a busy day which begin at 3AM and although trying was reasonably successful. It began with an early morning Axa ride which as per usual was a pleasure. The four AM bus wasn’t there that morning so I was early, the first person there in fact, the driver wasn’t there so it was just me and the conductor and bless him he wanted to chat. It was four in the morning and we all know how I feel about the wee morning hours, all I wanted to do was attempt to go back to sleep but I dug down deep and reminded myself that I say I’m a good person so I needed to buck up and be a decent person and talk with this guy a bit. He was a nice guy, Paul from Blayntyre, and like most folks he just wanted to practice his English and hear about America, nothing unreasonable, really the same sort of things I want from people on a daily basis. I need people to be patient with my horrible Tonga and answer what to them are probably unusual questions about their lives so as much as I was not up for a 4AM chat I pulled it together and we had a nice discussion for about twenty minutes or so and then other passengers started showing up so I was able to prep myself for sweet sweet Axa sleep. I was actually able to sleep a good portion of the trip which I found impressive and the bus wasn’t as crowded as usual so that was a plus and furthermore it was reasonably cool morning which makes Axa a completely different experience.
It rained most of the way to Nkhotakota which caused some stress on my part as I forgot my umbrella, a dumb ass move if there ever was one, and I wasn’t looking forward to arriving for a meeting with the District Health Officer looking like a drowned rat and of course theres always a bit of magic in being on a bus that is of questionable structural integrity, flying down a narrow road, full of pot holes, goats, people, and now lots of water, at high speeds. But like I said I was able to sleep about half of the way so all in all success. I brought my Ipod along this time which turned out to be the best decision ever as a young woman across the aisle from me vomited pretty much all the way from Dwangwa to Nkhotakota, that’s over an hour of vomiting. I felt horrible for her as she retched over and over again into her chitenge but hearing someone throw up has always made me a bit queasy and it was particularly unsettling that morning. It was a damned good thing I was able to put on music and pretend there wasn’t someone vomiting in closed close quarters. Of course its somewhat reassuring that no one was particularly troubled by her being sick on the bus as that’s the sort of thing that could happen to anyone here, in fact my friend Ray, the poor soul, spent an early morning on the Axa vomiting out the window, so at least you can take comfort that if it happens to you people will be understanding of your predicament.
I managed to get just about everything I wanted to get done at the district hospital done. There’s a lot of waiting involved and tracking people down only to find they don’t have the information you need, so you have to begin the mighty hunt for yet another elusive person No doubt better volunteers than myself succumb to frustration but this go round I drew upon my patience and perseverance and managed to dodge the super awkward and uncomfortable bullet. Fear not there was certainly some awkward as it is me we’re talking about here but it was certainly an improvement from my last attempt at the district hospital. I felt like I had my shit together this time, more sense of direction and purpose and by in large I believe I was professional and I was able to check several things off my to do list such as; pick up leprosy medication, get electronic copies of reporting forms, request materials for organizing and upgrading under five clinic, I wanted to meet with the district health officer, he’s the man in charge at the district hospital but as has happened every time I have been there (3 times I believe, maybe 4) he was out but I was able to meet with the deputy DHO so that was a success. I want to be sure that people at the district level know who I am and what I’m up to in Dwambazi, I believe its called networking, its not my strong suit but I can see how its important to forge as many connections as possible when trying to get work done so hopefully this was another step in the right direction.
It’s evening and I’m currently dirty, sticky, and slightly smelly, sitting on my bedroom floor with a beer and a bowl of fake ramen wrapping up the day. Uchi’s eating her ba and usipa, it’s muggy but not unbearable and soon I’ll take my mefloquin and a multi vitamin and call it a night, its been busy times.
3-3-10
Its around 7 PM and again, I’m sitting on my bedroom floor dirty, sticky, and no doubt smellier than yesterday as I haven’t bathed in some days and I biked about 16 kilometers today. Although 16k isn’t that impressive we all know I’m no athlete and it was pretty much all up hill one way. As much as it took it out of me and there were moments where I thought I might die, it was incredibly beautiful. This is the first night I have been alone at my house in sometime, Peter went home earlier than usual today and thus far no visitors. I desperately want to take this opportunity to do some power writing as I feel like there are some many things I could tell you about and yet it feels daunting at the moment. Since getting back from Hope Kit training I have been quite the social butterfly which I feel good about. I’m sure you all remember my angst about my community’s reaction to my being out so much, so its reassuring to know that all is well and that people haven’t lost faith in me. I use the facetious term social butterfly but it means more to me than I can properly convey that people come by just to chat in the same way they would drop by any neighbors house and that at the end of the day more often than not you’ll find me at someone’s house, sitting comfortably and quietly, partially trying to keep up with the Tonga or Chewa that’s being tossed around at lightening speeds but more than anything just enjoying the sound of people voices.
3-4-10
Tomorrow I leave for Chisala to visit my dear friend and Tonga sister Vanessa. We’re going to make a trip up to Mzuzu together to check email, do some GLOW work, and just hang out. It seemed imperative that I stop being a lazy ass and do some writing before I go as I continue to fail night after night. I just need to start writing about what I have been up to, so here goes…..
Sauda is no longer afraid of me, I’ve been biking all over hill and dale, I’ve been able to share food that I cooked with friends, I finally bathed, I’ve eaten more fish (and fish bones) than I ever thought possible, I’ve felt incredibly busy but I know I’m not nearly busy enough. I’ve walked in the pouring rain under the safety of my umbrella through the hills over narrow muddy paths and looked down onto the vast expanse of the lake. I’ve felt full of joy and gratitude, I’ve felt overwhelmed by the magnitude of need here and so unsure of where and how to begin, I’ve been caught out in torrential downpours and laughed as I got instantly soaked. I have moments of complete contentment and in the next breath extreme frustration, days full of purpose and direction and times where I feel lost and have no idea what I’m doing. I’ve seen things that break my heart and I hate myself for not doing more, for wasting time worrying about not doing enough rather than just doing something. I’ve spent countless hours with Peter, sometimes at my wits end but more often than not laughing at his comic high jinks. I’ve been an incredibly kind and thoughtful and I see the person I would like to be all the time; the patient, helpful person who puts others before herself. I also have had less redeeming moments of irritability and moodiness or just general laziness and self indulgence; not so much the person I want to be but someone who can spend hours listening to music, chain smoking and get lost in their own thoughts rather than doing something productive. I rode home from Nkhotakota with a baby, Lucy, on my lap and when she rested her head on my chest I, not for the first time, foolishly wished I had a child, I had lunch with a family that had a little girl named Megan, named after a previous Peace Corps volunteer. Between the awkwardness and self doubt I have had moments of surprising dignity and grace.
The morning I went to Nkhotakota there was a full moon, it was beautiful and it absolutely lit up the sky. It was bright enough that I was able to walk down to the market without any sort of light and see just fine. I had noted the full moon with relief that night when I went to bed and hoped that the clouds wouldn’t roll in overnight as my head lamp after much faithful service has finally expired. And indeed it was a clear and cloudless when I set out. The nights here are amazing. I so clearly remember being in Dedza not long after we first arrived, standing outside looking up at the sky and being amazed at how clear and bright the stars were and how close they felt. I remember thinking we must be closer to the sky and trying to come up with a logical explanation as to how that could be. There isn’t one as we aren’t any closer to the sky, its undoubtedly the lack of electricity across the country that allows one to see the stars so clearly. But I still feel like I’m closer to the sky here, I wish you could see it.
Being back in Sauda’s good graces brings me joy. We spent some quality time together just the two of us at my house yesterday, which meant I had her as a captive victim and no audience so I could practice my baby wrapping to my hearts content. I got her wrapped on my second attempt and then packed her around singing songs and tidying my house. I had given her a spoon to play with and she very happily rode around on my back swinging her spoon and chatting away (she’s very vocal these days lots of na na na and ma ma ma). When I went to take her back over to Ama Chimbuto’s, the entire family was on the porch finishing up lunch and everyone laughed as I walked up with Sauda on my back and like a proud child I said I put her on my back all by myself and we all laughed. Now that I’m back in Sauda’s good graces I look forward to lots of Sauda time. I miss caring for the small people.
Cold season is approaching; it sometimes gets cool enough at night that I need to sleep under a sheet and some days where a tee shirt is more comfortable than the standard tank top. But despite the brief respites from the heat and the now incessant rains it can still be intolerably muggy and hot, like today. But now it is cool, I can feel a slight breeze through my window and hear the distant rumble of thunder. I think a storms coming in, perhaps I’ll have a rainy trip north tomorrow
3-9-10
And once again I find myself festering in my own stink. I may officially be the dirtiest I have been to date in country. I got home yesterday, late afternoon. I did not bathe once on my trip north and I have yet to bathe today, this is day five sans washing, which I suppose isn’t so bad when compared to other volunteers, but it’s pushing my personal limits of good taste. My goal is to remedy this situation but I’m holding off on going to the borehole with the hope that perhaps the water may come back on at some point today. Not bathing aside, (there was no hot water at the lodge and no matter how filthy I am I can’t bear to shower in icy water, especially considering it’s a little chilly in Mzuzu and the shower is outside), I got a crap ton done. I was feeling reasonably proud of myself, Vanessa and I spent all of Sunday doing GLOW work, there was a lot of email correspondence with potential guest speakers and donors and other volunteers who are actively participating in this year’s camp, all in all pretty damn productive. When you make it into the cities it is all too easy to fall into a state of complete lassitude, gorging yourself on any and all food items within arms reach, drinking beer, watching movies, fucking around with your friends, the general decadence that one doesn’t necessarily have available at site. So I always feel pleased when I exhibit some form of will power and resist temptation and stay focused.
That having been said as I did get a fairish bit of work done in Mzuzu I am taking a personal day today. I have yet to leave the house yet, for that matter I still haven’t put on clothes. I slept in, had some quality cuddle time with the Uch, made tea and ba, made Uchi some breakfast and that’s about it. But I’m okay with it as I was such a busy beaver up north and in all fairness travel does take it out of you and this particular trip was a travel spectacular indeed which I will get to shortly. I do intend on leaving the house at some point today, I’m thinking after lunch I’ll head out and about and maybe press on with some of my work as well and bathe, it’s definitely time.
So travel adventures….. It was tough going getting north, not entirely sure why, I suppose it just wasn’t my day for travel. In all fairness I was in a bit of an irritable mood for one unknown reason or another, so I don’t think I had the patience to wait it out for that potential good ride. By tough I mean I failed at hitching so I went by various matolas and the odd mini bus, which just means a much longer, more crowded and more expensive trip.
One of the rides I caught, I believe merits a mention. So it wasn’t a matola per say, it was someone’s private truck but they were picking up a few people here and there to make a bit of extra money. At first it seemed ideal, in the back of a pickup truck, clipping along, not particularly crowded. I was feeling especially content right about the time things went south. Mind you I have been in a lot of matolas in various states of over crowding and reckless driving but I haven’t ever really felt scared. Concerned, yes, but honest to god fear no, this time I was afraid. We were heading up the lake shore road towards Nkhata Bay, under normal circumstances it’s a beautiful drive and I love driving up that part of the M-5. You drive right along the lake for awhile and then start heading up into the hills a bit and there’s this amazing rubber tree plantation, the road twists and turns through the shade of the forest, its really very nice, unless of course you are driving at lightening speeds that would make a seasoned professional driver shit their pants. Like I said I have been on some fast moving transport but this was another beast altogether, I can’t even begin to describe the experience.
The people in the matola with me, one very nice lady and about four well on their way to being drunks guys were all commenting on how fast the driver was going, with unusual looks of concern. At a certain point, rounding a corner in the rubber tree plantation I’m pretty sure I saw my life flash before my eyes and after a harrowing twenty minutes or so of white knuckling it I did what I have never done on any sort of transport before, I rapped on the window, and the driver stopped thinking someone wanted to get off, so I leaned around to the window and said you have got to slow down you are going to kill us all. You know you were going way too fast when the drunk guys thank you for slowing the driver down. After that we drove at the usual too fast speeds, not the life threatening high speeds. I can’t tell you how good it felt to hop out of that truck but on the bright side I made it to Nhkata Bay really quick like.
At that point I was over half way to Vanessa’s house but the journey was not over yet, oh no, not by a long shot. I forget just how lucky I am to live in close proximity to a main road. In all honesty I really don’t think about that much as the two sites I tend to go to the most are just as close to the road as I am and I really haven’t done all that much site visiting. I tend to see people in town or people stop by my house as I am situated so near the main road. But let me tell you I thought about it at length on my way to Vanessa’s. Her house is about 8km off the main road and transport in and out is sporadic at best. Once again I was weighted down with way too much katundu (it wasn’t my fault this time I swear it) but I figured I’d just starting walking to her house and hope for the best. The best was sweaty, tired, a clavicle that was killing me and no transport. And then blessed be I hear the sound of an approaching vehicle. It was an ambulance headed to the health center which I thought was excellent as it would be going directly to Vanessa’s what made it less excellent was the fact that they were transporting a dead body. I did not know this when I flagged them down and I felt like a real disrespectful asshole and apologized profusely and told them to keep going but they insisted I get in. Let me be clear it wasn’t out of fear of a dead body that I didn’t want to get it, it was out of respect. The family of the person who had died was in the back with the body and it felt intrusive and wrong to hop on in there with them which is what I ended up doing. I would write more about it but it feels wrong to expand on the situation much further. Just know it was really uncomfortable, I offered what lame condolences I could and tried to not fall onto the body as we bounced up the mud logged road.
I spent that day at Vanessa’s sight, we attended a birthday party, I had some proud language moments, got to see her site in all it’s glory all in all it was a good day. We left for Mzuzu early the next morning. It was raining and we took a matola out of her site and the remainder of the way north. I counted approximately twenty seven people in the back of this very small pick up. We were crammed in with all manner of luggage under a tarp that kind of kept the rain out and that was held up by way of resting on our heads. Poor Vanessa, bless her heart, she sat on the tailgate of the truck with the bulk of the katundu and was not covered by the tarp. By the time we arrived in Mzuzu she was soaked and I was damp (but my ass was soaked as it missed out on the limited protection of the tarp). As we were traveling I looked over at Vanessa, thought about how I looked and had to laugh. We lamented over the fact that I didn’t bring the Flip as that was one of those moments that we could never properly describe to people back in the states.
Oh sweet joy the water is on…….
And I have bathed and it feels good. I realize it was actually only four full days no bathing but there was lots of travel involved so it still was probably the nastiest I have ever been but certainly not the longest I have gone. As much as I am enjoying my personal day and managing not to destroy it by getting all guilty and angsty, I think I’m going to head out for a bit. I, like an absolute idiot, left my phone charger in Mzuzu so I need to go down to the market and see who charges phones and if they have a charger that is compatible with my piece of shit phone.
I was at peace with my new phone in fact I was developing a fondness for it but now it’s fired. My other phone charger fits this phone but for one reason or another it won’t charge, I have a universal charger from the states with an USB that should allow it to charge from my computer but no, no, it fails. So yeah that’s my goal for the day, find a way to charge my phone, mbwenu.
I’ll be going into Lilongwe at the end of the month for GLOW stuff, to submit a grant (if all goes according to plan which it better), and I believe there is a training being put on by another volunteer that I am going to attend with a counterpart. The moral of the story is I have a bit of stuff that I need to get done before this trip to Lilongwe. I feel I’ve been reasonably productive at site of late but I think for the next two weeks, if I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing, I should be straight busy at nearly all times. So I am going to take this day of nothingness and milk it for all it’s worth. I may even open a bottle of wine as a reward if I find someone to charge my phone, hell I’ll open it either way.
3-12-10
At this point in the evening I’m not sure if I can summon the strength to describe the shit show that was my house today. Sweet mary mother of god it was powerful stuff. It was a good day for sure, but damn it was intense. I’m a social person in the community, I’m used to having people drop by but this was unlike anything I have experienced at site to date. It began at six AM and lasted the entire day. This wasn’t just the usual Peter and Freddy time, neighbors coming by to chat, or a meeting with one of my counterparts at the hospital….actually it was and then some. This was all the usual suspects and more. It was one after another, Ama Chimbuto and Sauda, Ada Jodi, Ada Jembe, someone I only know in passing who had a project proposal, Ada Kenneth, Peter was pretty much present throughout the shit storm of people, Freddy came and went, and the usual group of children had amassed and were raucously playing cards and listening to the radio. Ama Chimbuto was scheduled to return at 6:00 for a nsima cooking date. By 5 I had concluded my business with Ada Jodi, Ada Jembe, the newcomer, and was wrapping up with Ada Kenneth while trying to cook beans. I still needed to go to the market to buy tomatoes and collect my phone from the barber shop where it was being charged and make a run to the borehole as I had run out of drinking/cooking water.
It was one work related visit after another. I’m working with Jembe on the outreach clinic in Mbiwi, Jodi is another HSA at the hospital and his community, Chimgonda, wants to build an under five outreach clinic as well, Kenneth is the agricultural extension worker in Dwambazi and he contacted me about starting nutritional gardens throughout the area. It was all sorts of busyness.
My day had begun routinely enough a slight deviation from the norm was that Peter was my wake up call this morning and we had our most serious discussion yet about early morning visits. He’s normally really good about not coming by early but in the past week he has relapsed into routinely dropping by before school, i.e. 6 or half six in the morning. I’ve been ignoring him and going back to sleep but this morning it was clear an intervention was necessary otherwise this would become my life, not unbearable but annoying. I actually felt kind of bad; I didn’t yell or anything but my serious discussion consisted of the following. Me opening the door looking frazzled, fumbling with my chitenge, saying “awa awa awa” (no no no), At this point he most likely sensed danger and thus tried to interject with a friendly morning greeting but I just wasn’t having it so I soldiered on….”ndingukambiya iwe kuti mutuzacha kuno mulenji lenji, pepani kweni sonu mulata, mbwenu” and then firmly shut the door. Translation (mind you I’m sure this is mutilated Chitonga but it got the point across), "I told you that you cannot come here early in the morning, sorry but now you must go, enough”. Later in the day while we were sitting down and I was looking over what he did at school he said completely unprompted with the utmost sincerity, “sorry about this morning” and I said “sorry I was angry” so I’m pretty sure all is well in Peter land and the early morning visits should cease and desist at least for a few weeks or a month, then who knows we may have to do this all over again.
After Peter I had one other surprise early morning visitor, this was someone I only know in passing therefore they were not aware of my strange msungu ways of sleeping past half five. When I opened the door looking I’m sure flustered and frustrated and said I had been sleeping he asked if I was sick, bless them. At this point I figured I might as well just get up and get going. I spent my morning at the hospital, weighing babies and making plans with Ada Kweve for a community development meeting we are trying to schedule. I left the hospital a little early with the intention of coming home and spending the rest of the day working on my Mbiwi grant. And so it began…
My day ended with Sauda sleeping in my bed while Ama Chimbuto and I sat on the kitchen floor eating nsima, greens, a little somba and beans. I cooked the beans, Ama Chimbuto cooked somba and gave me nsima and greens which I cooked under her careful supervision. Tonight was an auspicious night, I believe I understood a whopping 90-95% of what Ama Chimbuto said to me. Normally I get maybe 75%, on a bad day 50% or less. Ama Chimbuto’s technique for chatting with me has remained constant throughout my stay here. Her technique, speak to me as if I actually understand Chitonga, just have a conversation and assume I’ll catch on eventually. This has no doubt improved my Tonga immensely but the downside is I miss I lot of what is being said, but tonight, victory. I think some of my success comes from the fact that in the last month I have realized that Ama Chimbuto mixes a lot of Chewa into her Tonga. I’m guessing I actually understand a lot more Chewa than I think I do as it’s fairly common for people to mix their languages here. Now that I’ve realized that there’s a fairish bit of Chewa mixed into what Ama Chimbuto is saying I’m on the look out for it and I get what she’s saying much better.
Normally before I go to bed I make sure that all dishes are washed and everything is in its right place but I think tonight I’m all in, I’ll just have to let go of a little OCD and clean and tidy tomorrow.
Home, again. Peter said the funniest thing today, or at least I found it deeply amusing. He asked me Ndingaluta ku nyumba yikulu- Can I go to the big house? As I’m standing there trying to figure out which house he’s talking about and why he wants to go there, Peter notes my puzzled expression and clarify’s adding chimbudzi, or as we say in English toilet. I’m not sure if big house is another word for toilet and I was just woefully ignorant of this fact or if it’s just Peter, either way I found it humorous.
I’ve been back at site for a bit now and alas the bulk of my time thus far has been taken up by the fingerfuck of attempting to track down my lost phone and then once that failed acquiring a new one. It was an endeavor (I will spare you the details) but it’s my own damn fault for being so sloppy with my last phone. The only TNM phone that was available in all of Dwangwa may be the ugliest little phone ever, it looks exactly like a small calculator and at first I hated it for that, but now I must say I think I actually like that my phone is absolutely horrendous. I can only imagine how ridiculous I look talking into my mini calculator and that mental image pleases me.
In short this past week hasn’t been particularly note worthy but still it’s good to be back. I believe I have worked out all the logistical snafus, aside from losing my phone I took the wrong hope kit home which means my stock of wine which was safely stowed away in said hope kit amongst other essential items like my rain jacket, is now in Chisala with Vanessa and I need to go collect it in a week or so and then of course the ongoing battle with my electricity. Not sure if I have mentioned the issue with lights in my house but it’s a pain in the ass. For some unknown reason the lights in both the front room and the kitchen no longer work, which although annoying was fine as I had light in my bedroom and my hot plate worked just fine (I am intimately aware of the fact that I am incredibly privileged to have electricity at all) but then the bulb in my bedroom blew and when I went to take the bulb out I found it was stuck in there something fierce so now I’m down to one functional light which is outside. I’ve been trying to tap into my electrical skills and at this point have had no luck but I’m hoping to at least salvage the light in my bedroom today. So yeah lots of technical issues but now that most of them are resolved I can move onto to bigger and better things, like the crap ton of work I should be doing pretty much all the time until my next trip to Lilongwe. We’ve been making good progress with GLOW but there’s still plenty I need to get done this month and I have two grants that I need to write as well which I have reason to believe is going to be a bit of a time consumer.
If you were wondering, as I’m sure you were, Uchi is doing excellent. I took her to scale (under five clinic) on Friday and weighed her to the amusement of all the women there, she’s getting a bit big for wrapping up in a chitenge. She is currently a strapping 14.3 kg and beautiful as ever. At present she is, as per usual, napping beside me, we’re having a lounging around the house sort of a day. Speaking of being completely unproductive I have spent so much time playing around with the videos I took with my flip, it may be the most amazing thing ever. Not sure if you all know what a Flip is, I didn’t until Kim and Mike (the greatest people ever) sent me one. It’s a really cool little (fits in the palm of my hand) camcorder with a built in USB so you can plug it right into your computer and do all sorts of fun things with the footage. The other night I was up until 2 AM making a little movie magic (oh you stellar development worker). At this point the bulk of the stuff I have recorded is just us screwing around in Lilongwe and Mponela but I can foresee great things happening when I start filming around Dwambazi, I just have to get over my shyness regarding walking around filming. I just recently got over feeling completely ridiculous taking my camera around so it might take another week or so to work my way up to the Flip.
2-22-10
There is a lot of kindness in people. My neighbor Charity is a testament to this statement. This is a young woman who has a workload that most of us from the developed world can never really understand. She’s the live in caretaker for her Aunt, Ama Bai, she is often caring for one of our neighbor’s infants or young children and as she has no children of her own and is unmarried she’s the go to person in our community if you need a hand. In addition to the multitude of responsibilities that come with running a household here she also farms maize. Aside from the money she’ll make when she sells her maize she has no income and yet I’m always welcome at their home for a meal.
Today she invited me over for lunch; not only did she feed me but after we all ate she proceeded to give Uchi a large plate of nsima. I returned to her house this evening as I wanted to learn how to cook pumpkin leaves and she had volunteered to teach me and for the second time today she told me I should eat with her and Ama Bai. As we sat down to eat I apologized for eating yet another meal at their house and Ama Bai said “we have nsima so you are most welcome”. I lack the words to express how humbling it is to be the recipient of such goodness. Here I am, this incredibly privileged person, who by Malawian standards has never worked a day in their life, bumbling around the community, speaking jumbled Tonga, completely insulated from most the challenges and health risks people here face and yet people invite me in and offer me what food they have. I spend a lot of time at Ama Bai and Charity’s house but they are not alone in their openness and generosity.
I don’t want to romanticize life here or the people, not everything is cast in a rosy glow. There are certainly people who embody some lesser character attributes but by in large most of what I see in people is goodness and I’m left with this profound sense of being completely undeserving; not only of the kindness I receive daily from my neighbors but for the lifetime of privilege that I did nothing to earn.
I don’t often write about the poverty here, I think for fear of being some sort of voyeur of suffering or exploiting people. How do you write about the child who came to under five clinic so terribly wasted that I was afraid to touch him? I referred him to the nutritional rehabilitation unit, I remember feeling pleased that I was able to communicate efficiently with his mother in Tonga and get him registered in the program, he died three days later. AIDS is a monstrous thing in children. Children with swollen bellies, skin infections and big eyes; the eyes of malnourished children always seem too big for their little faces. Most everyone who dies at this hospital dies of treatable diseases, and more often than not it’s not the disease itself that kills them. People die of anemia because the nearest hospital where they can receive a transfusion is a two hour car ride away. My old medical assistant, Ada Luwe’s daughter died, a week after her first birthday. You could say complicated malaria killed her or perhaps it was the lack of medication to stop her seizures and the prolonged wait for the ambulance, in short the misfortune of being born into one of the poorest countries in the world.
This hospital serves a population of ten thousand and we have no doctor and no electricity. Our primary school has around eight hundred students and nine teachers; the secondary school is perhaps in even worse shape with two small buildings, five teachers, and no electricity. The health surveillance assistants who work at the hospital make about one dollars a day (one dollars would buy a kg of rice or a small jar of peanut butter) and they are more fortunate than most. People wear the clothing that Goodwill and Value Village couldn’t sell; shipped over in bulk and sold in the markets the cost of the clothing is such that a child maybe has a shirt or two, a skirt or a pair of pants in varying states of disrepair and generally severally sizes too big.
The average person in my community lives on less than a dollar a day and has no electricity or running water. It’s easy to say a person has no running water but much more difficult to comprehend what that actually means. For every dish you want to wash, every meal you must prepare, or child you bathe imagine the weight of the twenty liter bucket on your head and the kilometer or so walk to carry it back home. Never in my life have I seen women work so hard and I have been fortunate enough to have some incredibly strong women in my life. It makes me wonder what kind of person I am, that I can see these things and still spend time lazing around my house drinking a beer and writing in my journal completely absorbed in my own thoughts. How is it that we put these things away? It seems to me it’s the double edged sword of our existence; if we really carried these things with us we’d crumble under the weight but the fact that we can put them away, that we can compartmentalize and rationalize perpetuates the misery that no one wants to see. Maybe that’s a very privileged person’s take on the situation, a cop out of sorts. Maybe I just don’t have it in me to care as much as I should, I suppose time will tell.
This is an incredibly poor country where the vast majority of the population is being denied their most basic of human rights but I don’t want to reduce this country or my community down to a place of poor people. I think that far too often countries like Malawi and Africa as a whole are portrayed as places of misery that perhaps deserve our compassion but are too far gone and are beyond our capacity to help. I don’t want in anyway to contribute to that sort of narrative as it is terribly damaging and frankly insulting but I do want you to understand the challenges people face. I see horrible injustices here on a daily basis but also beauty and goodness that I can’t begin to properly describe.
2-25-10
It’s been raining most of today; cool, pleasant, and quiet. I had a meeting scheduled for two this afternoon but alas we’ll have to reschedule. Meetings are more often than not held outdoors so the rain becomes an issue in a big way, I’ve had two meetings canceled this week due to rain but such is rainy season. But glory be now I have time to pursue the noble course of blogging.
I’m having a hell of a time writing today, which is too bad as I’m in the mood to write I’m just not getting anywhere. I’m actually kind of sleepy; I keep toying with the idea of taking a nap even though I know it’s not going to happen as I’m constitutionally incapable of napping and god knows it would mess with my limited ability to sleep through the night. I’m actually desperately craving sweets, mmmm something chocolatey would change my life right about now, that and some popcorn, sweet delicious popcorn; add a movie to that…. oh stop, its too beautiful a thought.
2-26-09
Note worthy events:
Perhaps the most disgusting thing ever- So Uchi had what I thought was a small abscess on her ear. No biggie I planned on cleaning it up and perhaps draining it. So as I’m applying gentle pressure to her ear I see something white emerging from the swollen area, something that was too solid to be pus. I continued to apply pressure and what should come out of my dogs body but a MAGGOT. Yeah that’s right a nasty, vile, very much alive maggot. Some evil fly, the type that lay their evil eggs in the bodies of the living, had planted its seed in my sweet dogs ear. I extracted four creepy crawlies from Uchi’s ear, it was traumatic but I managed to make it through. Uchi’s ear is fully recovered, hopefully that was the only maggot extraction I will ever have to deal with in my entire life. I suppose the silver lining is that I wasn’t squeezing maggots out of my body which has no doubt happened to volunteers.
Bat Attack- As I calmly lay facedown on the cool concrete floor of my bedroom looking over my shoulder at my wee bat friend franticly zipping around I was surprised by just how little I was concerned that there was a bat flying around my bedroom just above me. I had been sitting on the floor typing away when Mr. Bat made a detour into my room and though his appearance startled me a bit I figured I’d just stay out of his way and he’d leave eventually. I have nightly bat visitors, normally they just come into my back area to eat the bugs that flock to the outdoor light and every now and then I’ll see one fly into the house real quick like but normally I’m outside smoking when this happens so I haven’t actually spent quality time indoors with my friends. I say friends but I like to think of it as just one bat, the same one coming to say hi, checking in on things night after night. I actually like bats, they’re incredibly cool creatures, but as much as I think they are fascinating with their funny muppet like little faces and they way they walk on their wings, nobody enjoys it when they fly right at you and I was impressed with how bold I have become in the face of dive bombing bats.
Sima explosion- I normally look forward to dropping a little bit of weight when I’m at site. Its not that I give up food or something ridiculous like that, I just don’t gorge at site and I tend to be reasonably active. Its also extraordinarily hot here which puts you off cooking, there’s no deterrent to over eating like a fiery hot kitchen in 100 degree weather. But alas I think dropping a pound or two is a thing of the past as Charity seems deeply concerned with my lack of twice daily sima cooking and has taken it upon herself to make sure I am getting my daily dose of sima. It’s not unusual for me to eat a meal with friends or neighbors but we have moved into uncharted territory. For the past week Charity finds me everyday at lunch and tells me I should come over and eat sima and then she seeks me out again at dinner. Charity and Ama Bai went to Nkhotakota for a few days and I have reason to suspect that she asked Ama Dambo to bring me sima in the evenings or perhaps Ama Dambo is in on the get Megan sima fat conspiracy because without fail she sent her granddaughter by every night with a heaping plate of sima. Don’t get me wrong I do like me some sima but I think I have found my sima threshold but I like spending time with Charity and it may be the most thoughtful thing that someone has done for me in awhile.
2-28-10
I’ve finally done it; it only took me six months or so but no matter. I have learned health songs, the very songs that make magic happen at under five clinics. I knew the jist of several of the songs but I didn’t know them well enough to sing them in their entirety, solo. I kept saying I was going to ask someone and then write them down but as per usual I would not get around to it but today in a rare show of initiative I went to Ama Chipalasa’s house and we pounded out some singing magic. The idea came to me last night while I was having dinner with Charity and Ama Bai and Ama Chipalasa walked by singing a song I recognized from under five clinic so in a moment of inspiration I asked her “mungawovyia ine” can you help me and then proceed to ask her if she could teach me songs about health and so this afternoon I found myself at her home singing away much to the amusement of the many children who gathered the moment they caught wind of a song. It was nice in a way I can’t describe, something about singing together produces this feeling of communion that’s surprisingly uplifting, its comforting to know that something so small can make you, at least in that moment, feel incredibly good. I won’t lie I’ve been singing to myself ever since my lesson this afternoon and I love it.
Singing aside I’ve been reasonably productive but probably not productive enough. I met with my girls group today they were teaching about small business planning and as they have all the tools to start a small business (the exception probably being start up capital) I suggested that those who wanted to start a small business should write up a business plan and we’ll go over it together and go forward from there. I have meetings scheduled most of next week, hopefully the rains won’t interfere too much, as I can’t proceed to the next step with my grant writing until I get some more info from the committees I’m scheduled to meet with. I’ve been meeting with a couple of HSA’s who are heading the projects we hope to get off the ground soon and I have been busily working away on my GLOW stuff. I plan to go up to Mzuzu next weekend so I can check my email and see if I can’t get some meetings scheduled with prospective guest speakers and donors. I’m going to attempt a trip to the district hospital and the district assembly in Nkhotakota tomorrow, this means catching the four AM bus out. I don’t want to toy around with hitching because it can take a small eternity to get the simplest of activities done at either the district hospital or the district assembly and as I have a fairish few things I want to accomplish it seemed best to get there bright and early.
I would like to take a moment to mention the burgeoning mosquito population and why it is a terrible thing. When I stand outside or perhaps sit quietly in my house I can hear the incessant hum of swarms of mosquitoes that are waiting to descend upon my house. That high pitch whine is the background noise to my evenings. Nights like tonight are particularly unpleasant, it rained earlier today but rather than one of the rains that brings a bit of cool weather and if you’re lucky a breeze this is one of the muggy and still post rain evenings, ideal conditions for my nemesis the mosquito. Yes right now at this very moment in sounds as if there are mosquitoes in my ear. I have yet to figure out how it is that no matter where a mosquito is, it sounds as if they are in your ears. Truly the best explanation I have heard was from Duncan, his theory being that mosquitoes can throw their voices, an evil and clever distraction, which allows them to feast while you bat away at your face like an idiot.
3-2-10
Yesterday was a busy day which begin at 3AM and although trying was reasonably successful. It began with an early morning Axa ride which as per usual was a pleasure. The four AM bus wasn’t there that morning so I was early, the first person there in fact, the driver wasn’t there so it was just me and the conductor and bless him he wanted to chat. It was four in the morning and we all know how I feel about the wee morning hours, all I wanted to do was attempt to go back to sleep but I dug down deep and reminded myself that I say I’m a good person so I needed to buck up and be a decent person and talk with this guy a bit. He was a nice guy, Paul from Blayntyre, and like most folks he just wanted to practice his English and hear about America, nothing unreasonable, really the same sort of things I want from people on a daily basis. I need people to be patient with my horrible Tonga and answer what to them are probably unusual questions about their lives so as much as I was not up for a 4AM chat I pulled it together and we had a nice discussion for about twenty minutes or so and then other passengers started showing up so I was able to prep myself for sweet sweet Axa sleep. I was actually able to sleep a good portion of the trip which I found impressive and the bus wasn’t as crowded as usual so that was a plus and furthermore it was reasonably cool morning which makes Axa a completely different experience.
It rained most of the way to Nkhotakota which caused some stress on my part as I forgot my umbrella, a dumb ass move if there ever was one, and I wasn’t looking forward to arriving for a meeting with the District Health Officer looking like a drowned rat and of course theres always a bit of magic in being on a bus that is of questionable structural integrity, flying down a narrow road, full of pot holes, goats, people, and now lots of water, at high speeds. But like I said I was able to sleep about half of the way so all in all success. I brought my Ipod along this time which turned out to be the best decision ever as a young woman across the aisle from me vomited pretty much all the way from Dwangwa to Nkhotakota, that’s over an hour of vomiting. I felt horrible for her as she retched over and over again into her chitenge but hearing someone throw up has always made me a bit queasy and it was particularly unsettling that morning. It was a damned good thing I was able to put on music and pretend there wasn’t someone vomiting in closed close quarters. Of course its somewhat reassuring that no one was particularly troubled by her being sick on the bus as that’s the sort of thing that could happen to anyone here, in fact my friend Ray, the poor soul, spent an early morning on the Axa vomiting out the window, so at least you can take comfort that if it happens to you people will be understanding of your predicament.
I managed to get just about everything I wanted to get done at the district hospital done. There’s a lot of waiting involved and tracking people down only to find they don’t have the information you need, so you have to begin the mighty hunt for yet another elusive person No doubt better volunteers than myself succumb to frustration but this go round I drew upon my patience and perseverance and managed to dodge the super awkward and uncomfortable bullet. Fear not there was certainly some awkward as it is me we’re talking about here but it was certainly an improvement from my last attempt at the district hospital. I felt like I had my shit together this time, more sense of direction and purpose and by in large I believe I was professional and I was able to check several things off my to do list such as; pick up leprosy medication, get electronic copies of reporting forms, request materials for organizing and upgrading under five clinic, I wanted to meet with the district health officer, he’s the man in charge at the district hospital but as has happened every time I have been there (3 times I believe, maybe 4) he was out but I was able to meet with the deputy DHO so that was a success. I want to be sure that people at the district level know who I am and what I’m up to in Dwambazi, I believe its called networking, its not my strong suit but I can see how its important to forge as many connections as possible when trying to get work done so hopefully this was another step in the right direction.
It’s evening and I’m currently dirty, sticky, and slightly smelly, sitting on my bedroom floor with a beer and a bowl of fake ramen wrapping up the day. Uchi’s eating her ba and usipa, it’s muggy but not unbearable and soon I’ll take my mefloquin and a multi vitamin and call it a night, its been busy times.
3-3-10
Its around 7 PM and again, I’m sitting on my bedroom floor dirty, sticky, and no doubt smellier than yesterday as I haven’t bathed in some days and I biked about 16 kilometers today. Although 16k isn’t that impressive we all know I’m no athlete and it was pretty much all up hill one way. As much as it took it out of me and there were moments where I thought I might die, it was incredibly beautiful. This is the first night I have been alone at my house in sometime, Peter went home earlier than usual today and thus far no visitors. I desperately want to take this opportunity to do some power writing as I feel like there are some many things I could tell you about and yet it feels daunting at the moment. Since getting back from Hope Kit training I have been quite the social butterfly which I feel good about. I’m sure you all remember my angst about my community’s reaction to my being out so much, so its reassuring to know that all is well and that people haven’t lost faith in me. I use the facetious term social butterfly but it means more to me than I can properly convey that people come by just to chat in the same way they would drop by any neighbors house and that at the end of the day more often than not you’ll find me at someone’s house, sitting comfortably and quietly, partially trying to keep up with the Tonga or Chewa that’s being tossed around at lightening speeds but more than anything just enjoying the sound of people voices.
3-4-10
Tomorrow I leave for Chisala to visit my dear friend and Tonga sister Vanessa. We’re going to make a trip up to Mzuzu together to check email, do some GLOW work, and just hang out. It seemed imperative that I stop being a lazy ass and do some writing before I go as I continue to fail night after night. I just need to start writing about what I have been up to, so here goes…..
Sauda is no longer afraid of me, I’ve been biking all over hill and dale, I’ve been able to share food that I cooked with friends, I finally bathed, I’ve eaten more fish (and fish bones) than I ever thought possible, I’ve felt incredibly busy but I know I’m not nearly busy enough. I’ve walked in the pouring rain under the safety of my umbrella through the hills over narrow muddy paths and looked down onto the vast expanse of the lake. I’ve felt full of joy and gratitude, I’ve felt overwhelmed by the magnitude of need here and so unsure of where and how to begin, I’ve been caught out in torrential downpours and laughed as I got instantly soaked. I have moments of complete contentment and in the next breath extreme frustration, days full of purpose and direction and times where I feel lost and have no idea what I’m doing. I’ve seen things that break my heart and I hate myself for not doing more, for wasting time worrying about not doing enough rather than just doing something. I’ve spent countless hours with Peter, sometimes at my wits end but more often than not laughing at his comic high jinks. I’ve been an incredibly kind and thoughtful and I see the person I would like to be all the time; the patient, helpful person who puts others before herself. I also have had less redeeming moments of irritability and moodiness or just general laziness and self indulgence; not so much the person I want to be but someone who can spend hours listening to music, chain smoking and get lost in their own thoughts rather than doing something productive. I rode home from Nkhotakota with a baby, Lucy, on my lap and when she rested her head on my chest I, not for the first time, foolishly wished I had a child, I had lunch with a family that had a little girl named Megan, named after a previous Peace Corps volunteer. Between the awkwardness and self doubt I have had moments of surprising dignity and grace.
The morning I went to Nkhotakota there was a full moon, it was beautiful and it absolutely lit up the sky. It was bright enough that I was able to walk down to the market without any sort of light and see just fine. I had noted the full moon with relief that night when I went to bed and hoped that the clouds wouldn’t roll in overnight as my head lamp after much faithful service has finally expired. And indeed it was a clear and cloudless when I set out. The nights here are amazing. I so clearly remember being in Dedza not long after we first arrived, standing outside looking up at the sky and being amazed at how clear and bright the stars were and how close they felt. I remember thinking we must be closer to the sky and trying to come up with a logical explanation as to how that could be. There isn’t one as we aren’t any closer to the sky, its undoubtedly the lack of electricity across the country that allows one to see the stars so clearly. But I still feel like I’m closer to the sky here, I wish you could see it.
Being back in Sauda’s good graces brings me joy. We spent some quality time together just the two of us at my house yesterday, which meant I had her as a captive victim and no audience so I could practice my baby wrapping to my hearts content. I got her wrapped on my second attempt and then packed her around singing songs and tidying my house. I had given her a spoon to play with and she very happily rode around on my back swinging her spoon and chatting away (she’s very vocal these days lots of na na na and ma ma ma). When I went to take her back over to Ama Chimbuto’s, the entire family was on the porch finishing up lunch and everyone laughed as I walked up with Sauda on my back and like a proud child I said I put her on my back all by myself and we all laughed. Now that I’m back in Sauda’s good graces I look forward to lots of Sauda time. I miss caring for the small people.
Cold season is approaching; it sometimes gets cool enough at night that I need to sleep under a sheet and some days where a tee shirt is more comfortable than the standard tank top. But despite the brief respites from the heat and the now incessant rains it can still be intolerably muggy and hot, like today. But now it is cool, I can feel a slight breeze through my window and hear the distant rumble of thunder. I think a storms coming in, perhaps I’ll have a rainy trip north tomorrow
3-9-10
And once again I find myself festering in my own stink. I may officially be the dirtiest I have been to date in country. I got home yesterday, late afternoon. I did not bathe once on my trip north and I have yet to bathe today, this is day five sans washing, which I suppose isn’t so bad when compared to other volunteers, but it’s pushing my personal limits of good taste. My goal is to remedy this situation but I’m holding off on going to the borehole with the hope that perhaps the water may come back on at some point today. Not bathing aside, (there was no hot water at the lodge and no matter how filthy I am I can’t bear to shower in icy water, especially considering it’s a little chilly in Mzuzu and the shower is outside), I got a crap ton done. I was feeling reasonably proud of myself, Vanessa and I spent all of Sunday doing GLOW work, there was a lot of email correspondence with potential guest speakers and donors and other volunteers who are actively participating in this year’s camp, all in all pretty damn productive. When you make it into the cities it is all too easy to fall into a state of complete lassitude, gorging yourself on any and all food items within arms reach, drinking beer, watching movies, fucking around with your friends, the general decadence that one doesn’t necessarily have available at site. So I always feel pleased when I exhibit some form of will power and resist temptation and stay focused.
That having been said as I did get a fairish bit of work done in Mzuzu I am taking a personal day today. I have yet to leave the house yet, for that matter I still haven’t put on clothes. I slept in, had some quality cuddle time with the Uch, made tea and ba, made Uchi some breakfast and that’s about it. But I’m okay with it as I was such a busy beaver up north and in all fairness travel does take it out of you and this particular trip was a travel spectacular indeed which I will get to shortly. I do intend on leaving the house at some point today, I’m thinking after lunch I’ll head out and about and maybe press on with some of my work as well and bathe, it’s definitely time.
So travel adventures….. It was tough going getting north, not entirely sure why, I suppose it just wasn’t my day for travel. In all fairness I was in a bit of an irritable mood for one unknown reason or another, so I don’t think I had the patience to wait it out for that potential good ride. By tough I mean I failed at hitching so I went by various matolas and the odd mini bus, which just means a much longer, more crowded and more expensive trip.
One of the rides I caught, I believe merits a mention. So it wasn’t a matola per say, it was someone’s private truck but they were picking up a few people here and there to make a bit of extra money. At first it seemed ideal, in the back of a pickup truck, clipping along, not particularly crowded. I was feeling especially content right about the time things went south. Mind you I have been in a lot of matolas in various states of over crowding and reckless driving but I haven’t ever really felt scared. Concerned, yes, but honest to god fear no, this time I was afraid. We were heading up the lake shore road towards Nkhata Bay, under normal circumstances it’s a beautiful drive and I love driving up that part of the M-5. You drive right along the lake for awhile and then start heading up into the hills a bit and there’s this amazing rubber tree plantation, the road twists and turns through the shade of the forest, its really very nice, unless of course you are driving at lightening speeds that would make a seasoned professional driver shit their pants. Like I said I have been on some fast moving transport but this was another beast altogether, I can’t even begin to describe the experience.
The people in the matola with me, one very nice lady and about four well on their way to being drunks guys were all commenting on how fast the driver was going, with unusual looks of concern. At a certain point, rounding a corner in the rubber tree plantation I’m pretty sure I saw my life flash before my eyes and after a harrowing twenty minutes or so of white knuckling it I did what I have never done on any sort of transport before, I rapped on the window, and the driver stopped thinking someone wanted to get off, so I leaned around to the window and said you have got to slow down you are going to kill us all. You know you were going way too fast when the drunk guys thank you for slowing the driver down. After that we drove at the usual too fast speeds, not the life threatening high speeds. I can’t tell you how good it felt to hop out of that truck but on the bright side I made it to Nhkata Bay really quick like.
At that point I was over half way to Vanessa’s house but the journey was not over yet, oh no, not by a long shot. I forget just how lucky I am to live in close proximity to a main road. In all honesty I really don’t think about that much as the two sites I tend to go to the most are just as close to the road as I am and I really haven’t done all that much site visiting. I tend to see people in town or people stop by my house as I am situated so near the main road. But let me tell you I thought about it at length on my way to Vanessa’s. Her house is about 8km off the main road and transport in and out is sporadic at best. Once again I was weighted down with way too much katundu (it wasn’t my fault this time I swear it) but I figured I’d just starting walking to her house and hope for the best. The best was sweaty, tired, a clavicle that was killing me and no transport. And then blessed be I hear the sound of an approaching vehicle. It was an ambulance headed to the health center which I thought was excellent as it would be going directly to Vanessa’s what made it less excellent was the fact that they were transporting a dead body. I did not know this when I flagged them down and I felt like a real disrespectful asshole and apologized profusely and told them to keep going but they insisted I get in. Let me be clear it wasn’t out of fear of a dead body that I didn’t want to get it, it was out of respect. The family of the person who had died was in the back with the body and it felt intrusive and wrong to hop on in there with them which is what I ended up doing. I would write more about it but it feels wrong to expand on the situation much further. Just know it was really uncomfortable, I offered what lame condolences I could and tried to not fall onto the body as we bounced up the mud logged road.
I spent that day at Vanessa’s sight, we attended a birthday party, I had some proud language moments, got to see her site in all it’s glory all in all it was a good day. We left for Mzuzu early the next morning. It was raining and we took a matola out of her site and the remainder of the way north. I counted approximately twenty seven people in the back of this very small pick up. We were crammed in with all manner of luggage under a tarp that kind of kept the rain out and that was held up by way of resting on our heads. Poor Vanessa, bless her heart, she sat on the tailgate of the truck with the bulk of the katundu and was not covered by the tarp. By the time we arrived in Mzuzu she was soaked and I was damp (but my ass was soaked as it missed out on the limited protection of the tarp). As we were traveling I looked over at Vanessa, thought about how I looked and had to laugh. We lamented over the fact that I didn’t bring the Flip as that was one of those moments that we could never properly describe to people back in the states.
Oh sweet joy the water is on…….
And I have bathed and it feels good. I realize it was actually only four full days no bathing but there was lots of travel involved so it still was probably the nastiest I have ever been but certainly not the longest I have gone. As much as I am enjoying my personal day and managing not to destroy it by getting all guilty and angsty, I think I’m going to head out for a bit. I, like an absolute idiot, left my phone charger in Mzuzu so I need to go down to the market and see who charges phones and if they have a charger that is compatible with my piece of shit phone.
I was at peace with my new phone in fact I was developing a fondness for it but now it’s fired. My other phone charger fits this phone but for one reason or another it won’t charge, I have a universal charger from the states with an USB that should allow it to charge from my computer but no, no, it fails. So yeah that’s my goal for the day, find a way to charge my phone, mbwenu.
I’ll be going into Lilongwe at the end of the month for GLOW stuff, to submit a grant (if all goes according to plan which it better), and I believe there is a training being put on by another volunteer that I am going to attend with a counterpart. The moral of the story is I have a bit of stuff that I need to get done before this trip to Lilongwe. I feel I’ve been reasonably productive at site of late but I think for the next two weeks, if I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing, I should be straight busy at nearly all times. So I am going to take this day of nothingness and milk it for all it’s worth. I may even open a bottle of wine as a reward if I find someone to charge my phone, hell I’ll open it either way.
3-12-10
At this point in the evening I’m not sure if I can summon the strength to describe the shit show that was my house today. Sweet mary mother of god it was powerful stuff. It was a good day for sure, but damn it was intense. I’m a social person in the community, I’m used to having people drop by but this was unlike anything I have experienced at site to date. It began at six AM and lasted the entire day. This wasn’t just the usual Peter and Freddy time, neighbors coming by to chat, or a meeting with one of my counterparts at the hospital….actually it was and then some. This was all the usual suspects and more. It was one after another, Ama Chimbuto and Sauda, Ada Jodi, Ada Jembe, someone I only know in passing who had a project proposal, Ada Kenneth, Peter was pretty much present throughout the shit storm of people, Freddy came and went, and the usual group of children had amassed and were raucously playing cards and listening to the radio. Ama Chimbuto was scheduled to return at 6:00 for a nsima cooking date. By 5 I had concluded my business with Ada Jodi, Ada Jembe, the newcomer, and was wrapping up with Ada Kenneth while trying to cook beans. I still needed to go to the market to buy tomatoes and collect my phone from the barber shop where it was being charged and make a run to the borehole as I had run out of drinking/cooking water.
It was one work related visit after another. I’m working with Jembe on the outreach clinic in Mbiwi, Jodi is another HSA at the hospital and his community, Chimgonda, wants to build an under five outreach clinic as well, Kenneth is the agricultural extension worker in Dwambazi and he contacted me about starting nutritional gardens throughout the area. It was all sorts of busyness.
My day had begun routinely enough a slight deviation from the norm was that Peter was my wake up call this morning and we had our most serious discussion yet about early morning visits. He’s normally really good about not coming by early but in the past week he has relapsed into routinely dropping by before school, i.e. 6 or half six in the morning. I’ve been ignoring him and going back to sleep but this morning it was clear an intervention was necessary otherwise this would become my life, not unbearable but annoying. I actually felt kind of bad; I didn’t yell or anything but my serious discussion consisted of the following. Me opening the door looking frazzled, fumbling with my chitenge, saying “awa awa awa” (no no no), At this point he most likely sensed danger and thus tried to interject with a friendly morning greeting but I just wasn’t having it so I soldiered on….”ndingukambiya iwe kuti mutuzacha kuno mulenji lenji, pepani kweni sonu mulata, mbwenu” and then firmly shut the door. Translation (mind you I’m sure this is mutilated Chitonga but it got the point across), "I told you that you cannot come here early in the morning, sorry but now you must go, enough”. Later in the day while we were sitting down and I was looking over what he did at school he said completely unprompted with the utmost sincerity, “sorry about this morning” and I said “sorry I was angry” so I’m pretty sure all is well in Peter land and the early morning visits should cease and desist at least for a few weeks or a month, then who knows we may have to do this all over again.
After Peter I had one other surprise early morning visitor, this was someone I only know in passing therefore they were not aware of my strange msungu ways of sleeping past half five. When I opened the door looking I’m sure flustered and frustrated and said I had been sleeping he asked if I was sick, bless them. At this point I figured I might as well just get up and get going. I spent my morning at the hospital, weighing babies and making plans with Ada Kweve for a community development meeting we are trying to schedule. I left the hospital a little early with the intention of coming home and spending the rest of the day working on my Mbiwi grant. And so it began…
My day ended with Sauda sleeping in my bed while Ama Chimbuto and I sat on the kitchen floor eating nsima, greens, a little somba and beans. I cooked the beans, Ama Chimbuto cooked somba and gave me nsima and greens which I cooked under her careful supervision. Tonight was an auspicious night, I believe I understood a whopping 90-95% of what Ama Chimbuto said to me. Normally I get maybe 75%, on a bad day 50% or less. Ama Chimbuto’s technique for chatting with me has remained constant throughout my stay here. Her technique, speak to me as if I actually understand Chitonga, just have a conversation and assume I’ll catch on eventually. This has no doubt improved my Tonga immensely but the downside is I miss I lot of what is being said, but tonight, victory. I think some of my success comes from the fact that in the last month I have realized that Ama Chimbuto mixes a lot of Chewa into her Tonga. I’m guessing I actually understand a lot more Chewa than I think I do as it’s fairly common for people to mix their languages here. Now that I’ve realized that there’s a fairish bit of Chewa mixed into what Ama Chimbuto is saying I’m on the look out for it and I get what she’s saying much better.
Normally before I go to bed I make sure that all dishes are washed and everything is in its right place but I think tonight I’m all in, I’ll just have to let go of a little OCD and clean and tidy tomorrow.
On the Money Trail
4-3-10
Hope you all survived that last lengthy blog post....At present I am in the IRC posting the 10,000 pictures I have accumulated to facebook. In short being highly unproductive. What I should be doing is more GLOW work but how could I deprive you all of the beauty that is me in picutres.
Really I am itching to get back to site. My plan was to be back there today but the hunt for GLOW money is on in full force. Its really like following a trail of cookie crumbs, you meet with a lot of people who then refer you to other people and each time you hope you're a little bit closer. I think it's going pretty well and by in large I am enjoying it. I just didn't realize what a time intensive process it would be.
I miss you all and hope all is well state side. Perhaps I will use my time in Lilongwe to send you breif readable updates on my life as opposed to the monstrocities I have been posting. I want to wrap up here no later than thursday of next week. Wish me luck and lets hope I can continue to hold the awkward at bay.
....And two weeks later......
Still here, its time to go home. I thought for a minute I was going to have to stay through Monday, something came up with USAID that looks quite promising but today I realized I just can't do it anymore, I need to be at site, GLOW will have to hold for a minute, and by a minute I mean until the end of May when we're all coming back in for another big surge.
I'm not a big believer in signs but yesterday when the mini bus I was riding for my 500th trip into city center caught fire I figured maybe I deserved a break. As much as there are trials and tribulations with this whole fundraising song and dance I do like it (sometimes) and I believe in GLOW and I'm not going to let it be anything less than excellent. That having been said my devotion doesn't run so deep as to go down in a blazing inferno, (it was a substantial fire, about wet my pants to be quite honest, don't think I have ever moved that fast in my life, thankfully everyone got out, no one was hurt)
Its had its moments, maybe when I get back to site I'll reflect on them more of them for your reading pleasure. Firery mini bus, Ministry commitment to fund 1.6 million kwacha of our program, powerful discussions about the gays, moments of complete hilarity and delirium with Vanessa- after what we have been through together I believe we are legally married in 47 countires, yeah in short its been a time.
You all are in my thoughts. Kim I just saw the comments you made to my blog, you're breaking my heart, thank you it means more than I can ever tell you.
Sweet Valerie I miss talking to you about all matter of philisohpical inquiry (i.e. fancy bullshitting). When we sit down together someday, at some point in the future over a beer its going to be magical. Becca I miss your direct fucking humor, you don't mince words and many a day here I could use that refreshment. Lydia I miss your laugh, you have a great laugh mama. I'm lucky to have such wonderful people in my life, I haven't even touched how I carry you all with me.
Lets hope I have an uneventful trip home. Love and miss you all
Hope you all survived that last lengthy blog post....At present I am in the IRC posting the 10,000 pictures I have accumulated to facebook. In short being highly unproductive. What I should be doing is more GLOW work but how could I deprive you all of the beauty that is me in picutres.
Really I am itching to get back to site. My plan was to be back there today but the hunt for GLOW money is on in full force. Its really like following a trail of cookie crumbs, you meet with a lot of people who then refer you to other people and each time you hope you're a little bit closer. I think it's going pretty well and by in large I am enjoying it. I just didn't realize what a time intensive process it would be.
I miss you all and hope all is well state side. Perhaps I will use my time in Lilongwe to send you breif readable updates on my life as opposed to the monstrocities I have been posting. I want to wrap up here no later than thursday of next week. Wish me luck and lets hope I can continue to hold the awkward at bay.
....And two weeks later......
Still here, its time to go home. I thought for a minute I was going to have to stay through Monday, something came up with USAID that looks quite promising but today I realized I just can't do it anymore, I need to be at site, GLOW will have to hold for a minute, and by a minute I mean until the end of May when we're all coming back in for another big surge.
I'm not a big believer in signs but yesterday when the mini bus I was riding for my 500th trip into city center caught fire I figured maybe I deserved a break. As much as there are trials and tribulations with this whole fundraising song and dance I do like it (sometimes) and I believe in GLOW and I'm not going to let it be anything less than excellent. That having been said my devotion doesn't run so deep as to go down in a blazing inferno, (it was a substantial fire, about wet my pants to be quite honest, don't think I have ever moved that fast in my life, thankfully everyone got out, no one was hurt)
Its had its moments, maybe when I get back to site I'll reflect on them more of them for your reading pleasure. Firery mini bus, Ministry commitment to fund 1.6 million kwacha of our program, powerful discussions about the gays, moments of complete hilarity and delirium with Vanessa- after what we have been through together I believe we are legally married in 47 countires, yeah in short its been a time.
You all are in my thoughts. Kim I just saw the comments you made to my blog, you're breaking my heart, thank you it means more than I can ever tell you.
Sweet Valerie I miss talking to you about all matter of philisohpical inquiry (i.e. fancy bullshitting). When we sit down together someday, at some point in the future over a beer its going to be magical. Becca I miss your direct fucking humor, you don't mince words and many a day here I could use that refreshment. Lydia I miss your laugh, you have a great laugh mama. I'm lucky to have such wonderful people in my life, I haven't even touched how I carry you all with me.
Lets hope I have an uneventful trip home. Love and miss you all
Sunday, February 14, 2010
Disclaimer....Read this First
Vanessa was kind enough to point out to me that the purpose of blogging is to write short, easily readable entries. She mentioned this as she saw the tome I was working on and perhaps she nearly peed her pants laughing at me. So yes I know its long and for that I apologize but what can I say, I don't really get blogging, its not my medium. I'll try to break them up a bit more next time. So yeah enjoy 10,000 pages about ME.
Another Wish List
•Parmesan Cheese (really cheese of any sort)-This is may be one of the things I desire most at this point in my life!!!!
•Krystal Lite on the go drink mixes-The Cherry Pomegranate one is especially delicious. As icky as these may sound they’re really nice to have in country, delightfully flavorful.
•Coffee
•Coloring books and playing cards
•A backup headlamp and swiss army knife would be worth their weight in gold, the ones I have are invaluable so a back up seems like an excellent idea
•Candy-The Jelly Bellys were amazing!!! Now and Laters, Recesses, M&Ms, gum, any sweetness is most excellent.
•Pictures-I’ve been feeling especially nesty of late and have wanted to make my bedroom even homier and cozier thus pictures of those I love from home would be most excellent. And as we all know I am a bit of a narcist, thus it wouldn’t hurt if I am in some of those pictures.
•2010 Calendar-Not only practical but satisfies my beautifying my home desires
•More of that delicious green food protein powder, it made me feel so healthy drinking a glass of super nutritious green stuffs daily (I am such a northwesterner)
•A few cute clothing items, perhaps a few cute shirts and skirts. As much as I am loath to wear anything with sleeves in this climate, a nice shirt or two with sleeves would be good for meetings and the like.
•Any food stuffs is amazing and always most appreciated.
•These two items are shooting pretty high but my birthday isn't that far off. So an external hard drive would be absolutely amazing and bring much joy to my life. I've been told western digital is the external drive of choice. As of now my I-Pod is still with us but I am beginning to fear that it may not have another 18 months in it and something with more storage capacity would be fabulous (at minimum 16GB but more is better).
•Seeds for my garden
•Anything and everything that smells good
I love and miss you all you are amazing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
•Krystal Lite on the go drink mixes-The Cherry Pomegranate one is especially delicious. As icky as these may sound they’re really nice to have in country, delightfully flavorful.
•Coffee
•Coloring books and playing cards
•A backup headlamp and swiss army knife would be worth their weight in gold, the ones I have are invaluable so a back up seems like an excellent idea
•Candy-The Jelly Bellys were amazing!!! Now and Laters, Recesses, M&Ms, gum, any sweetness is most excellent.
•Pictures-I’ve been feeling especially nesty of late and have wanted to make my bedroom even homier and cozier thus pictures of those I love from home would be most excellent. And as we all know I am a bit of a narcist, thus it wouldn’t hurt if I am in some of those pictures.
•2010 Calendar-Not only practical but satisfies my beautifying my home desires
•More of that delicious green food protein powder, it made me feel so healthy drinking a glass of super nutritious green stuffs daily (I am such a northwesterner)
•A few cute clothing items, perhaps a few cute shirts and skirts. As much as I am loath to wear anything with sleeves in this climate, a nice shirt or two with sleeves would be good for meetings and the like.
•Any food stuffs is amazing and always most appreciated.
•These two items are shooting pretty high but my birthday isn't that far off. So an external hard drive would be absolutely amazing and bring much joy to my life. I've been told western digital is the external drive of choice. As of now my I-Pod is still with us but I am beginning to fear that it may not have another 18 months in it and something with more storage capacity would be fabulous (at minimum 16GB but more is better).
•Seeds for my garden
•Anything and everything that smells good
I love and miss you all you are amazing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
The Dark Days of Med Hold and Life Thereafter
1-13-10
There is so much that I have to say to all of you beautiful people, but as per usual I get all clammy when I try to write but lets just push through this.... Today has been yet another producitve day, I'm curently in the IRC (where the Peace Corps computers are) listening to music and enjoying how few volunteers are in here, its really quite pleasant. I'm doing a bunch of organzing for GLOW and I must say I feel pretty good about myself (it takes so little....one powerpoint and some emails and I'm on top of my own little pedestal...). But whatever it feels great to be doing something. I've been on med hold in Lilongwe for about two weeks now and I can't say thats the best scenario for ones mental health and general well being. I mean its good for my clav but one starts to get a little stir crazy after about three, four days, so when you start talking weeks, you're dealing with a powerful level of angst. Really its not that bad, its just I didn't join Peace Corps to hang out, watch movies, and drink beer which is a lot of what happens when you hang around the house. Not that I don't enjoy those activities but you know what I'm saying. I need to be in my community, doing work, sorting out how to take what it is a believe in and turn it into something tangible that can actually impact peoples lives as well as keep me employed. I should be going back on Friday, I think I'm going to try to hitch up to site which isn't anything out of the norm. In fact I am actually quite a good hitcher but this time I am going to try to hitch with Uchi. Not sure how thats going to pan out, I'll meditate on my travel plans, its always an adventure getting around so I'm sure this will be no different.
So yeah the last two months or so have been unusual to say the least. From talking to others volunteers in my group I get the general sense that the six month mark is kind of a time of re-evaluation. I know quite a few of the kids in my group are having a tough time now defining their roles in their communities and where they want to go with their work, this leads me to believe some of the angst I have been having of recently is just part of the process. I suppose I could expand on and attempt to describe this angst of mine or as I’m sure we’ve all had enough of such things, I could just talk about Lilongwe. I keep meaning to better describe Lilongwe and then putting it off for one reason or another (ie laziness) but as I’m pretty much living here now, it seems like the right time. It’s a crowded place Lilongwe and I take pride in my ability to navigate the city with ease and grace. The first couple times I came to Lilongwe simple acts like crossing the road took a lot out of me. There’s a whole other set of rules of the road here, the most important being, cars do not yield to pedestrians. Initially when I wanted to cross the street I would look for the nearest Malawian who was crossing and shadow them but now I boldly throw myself into the road with a confidence I didn’t know I could muster. I should mention that oft one walks out into the middle of the road and waits there admist traffic to make it to the other side. Sidewalks are scarce in many parts of the city and in most places they are in a state of disrepair which means one just walks in the road. Really the concept that roads are only for cars and bikes doesn’t apply here, it used to surprise me to see so much foot traffic in the roads and highways but that’s just how you get around. I doubt I am in anyway describing this well. I wish I had that capacity because I really do take pride in my maneuvering around the city but you have to have a feel or a sense of the city to really appreciate my accomplishment.
I’ll move onto a favorite topic of mine, food. Lilongwe is food time as one has greater access to a wider selection of food stuffs and if you’re tired of cooking, as you probably are by the time you get into town, then you can eat out. For example during this lengthy stay in Lilongwe I partook of Chinese food (crispy friend eggplant, really very delicious), pizza on multiple occasions, (I order the vegetarian as it has all sorts of delicious veggies but then I ask them to put chicken on it), and Amenia’s which has tasty steak. I did a surprising amount of baking, chocolate chip cookies which turned into what may have been the best chocolate chip cookie muffins ever and two different cakes, one with a peanut butter frosting and the other with a coffee glaze sprinkled with coconut. I also discovered what may be my new favorite quick, easy, tasty city treat and that is the yoggie. Yoggie’s are as you may have deduced, yogurt. But rather than coming in little plastic cups yoggies come in plastic bags that one tears a small hole in with their teeth and then sucks yogurt out. Yoggies are a volunteer favorite, for sure. My dearest friend Duncan and fellow health 09er Jake returned from the store with 53 yoggies to enjoy over the course of their stay in town. Many volunteers also have a penchant for freezing yoggies to make an even more delicious treat. The point is I have known about yoggies for sometime but normally the yoggies I have encountered are strawberry and blessed be I (and by I, I actually mean Jake) came upon vanilla yoggies which may very well be the greatest thing ever, so damn delicious I can’t even tell you. So yeah Lilongwe is eating time.
Food brings us to another fun filled Lilongwe tidbit which is the soon to be closed transit house. Its actually much nicer than I thought it would be. I heard it described as a bit of a frat house and therefore had some serious reservations but in and of itself the house is a nice place. Where it losses its niceness and takes on some frat like qualities is when it becomes packed with volunteers. The last night I stayed there (I am actually back in Dwambazi as we speak but I wanted to finish up with my thoughts on Lilongwe before moving on to the present, I’m nearly always writing a few days behind the times)……the house was full in a way I had never seen it full before. There are four rooms in the house, each with around three or maybe four sets of bunk beds, two porches, and around four couches. All of these spaces were filled. I myself had moved a mattress into a comfortable corner, which actually was quite conducive to good sleep. I stole the cozy cubby idea from another volunteer, who upon his return to Lilongwe moved in his own mattress to share the best sleeping corner ever (this should give you a sense of how full of people this house can get, when a corner in a room is prime sleeping property) and when I awoke that final morning in the house, not only were all rooms, couches, porches, and secret corners filled but there was honest to god someone sleeping on the dining room table. It was time to go for sure.
But how food got my thinking about the house is the refrigerator crisis. The fridge at the transit house has been non-functional for two maybe three months. It’s no longer a refrigerator but as Duncan calls it an incubator. Why incubator? Because when a fridge no longer keeps things cool it becomes a box with a door and when perishables are placed in said box, incubation of some of the funkiest bacteria ever ensues. Aside from the periodic influxes of volunteers and the ripeness of what was once a refrigerator (the freezer was still working, theres always a silver lining) the stay at the house was pleasant enough, albeit too long. Uchi had a great time, I got to eat vanilla yoggies and pizza and drink cold beer, had it been a shorter trip I would have had limited complaints, its just one can only do so long in Lilongwe before stir crazy sets in and we all know how well I do with too much time on my hands. Believe it or not there is so much goodness about Lilongwe and my exploits there that I am leaving out but its late and tomorrow will be my first day back at work, (fourth day back at site) and I want to make sure I have my game face on and as much as I want to paint a clear picture of Lilongwe and what went on there, I am tired of writing retrospectively, it’s a stretch of my creative writing prowess as is and I actually spent about an hour or more gournaling today (this is not a typo I have purposefully written gournaling, it’s a word I stole from Mariel and it continues to amuse me after all these years so just go with it), so really I’ve already pushed my talent to its limit.
1-19-10
Oh to be back home…..it’s been a long time coming…. Where to begin? It feels good to be back. South Africa had its charms, like sushi, lots and lots of sushi. And Lilongwe had its pleasant moments, for sure. But being out of site for almost three months (if you include IST) produced feelings of stir craziness and restlessness that I am much relieved to be rid of….. So I have been trying to write for probably an hour or so and its not going well. I made some soup and an egg, paired with an avocado it was a most excellent dinner, smoked several cigarettes, fed Uchi, thought about showering, and wandered around the house thinking about things I could write. There’s a whole shit ton I’d like to say about being back at site (the gist of it is it’s going well) but alas my blogging powers appear to be failing me. I thought aimlessly rambling might get me over the hump but not sure it’s going to happen.
1-21-10
Sick day!!! I think my body’s powers of warding off the old fecal to oral have been diminished and so it was last night at 2:20 AM I found myself overcoming fears of creepy crawlies and darkness and hauling ass to the chim (it turns out fear of crapping ones pants is greater than fear of the dark). On perhaps my fourth emergency trip outside I found myself thinking of those Pepto commercials, you know the ones I’m talking about, “gotta go gotta go gotta go right now……” and how inadequate they are to describe a true crisis of the bowel. But really all is well, aside from the fact that I am down to the end of my last roll of toilet paper and I’m not sure if its an item sold at the market. I’ve never tried to buy it in the market, I always buy tp in town but we’ll find out soon enough if its available here.
Relatively busy times here in Dwambazi, which is a good thing in a big way. Although my Chitonga prowess has faded some, my baby weighing skills and patient registering seem to be as strong as ever. I’ve been going into work in the mornings and then just sort of floating around in the afternoons, making sure people know I’m back and that they see me around. Other volunteers have suggested that perhaps my reentry into the community is a bit like starting over and it’s a reasonable assumption to make but not quite accurate. There are some elements of starting over but this time round I actually have some sort of competency which makes me feel pretty good, granted we are talking about weighing children which is not that difficult a task but still it felt good. It was immensely rewarding on that first day back at work to be able to just go in and get shit going. It’s nice now that I know (for the most part) how service delivery functions at the hospital. I don’t feel like such the bumbling fool anymore. Something else that happened that I thought was probably indicative of progress in terms of my work, is the following; as much as I love baby weighing (that’s not sarcasm I really do love working under five) and I intend to continue to work under five clinics both at the hospital and on outreach, I was kind of itching for something more to do. Not that I haven’t been wanting to get projects going before now but previously just being able to manage running under five felt like an accomplishment and at the time it was. As where now there’s this sense of, okay I enjoy doing under five, I like the work, it’s huge to be out in the community, but there are lots of HSAs here to weigh babies, your job is to develop and implement some projects that improve the general health and well being of the babies you’re weighing. This may be the most inarticulate thing that I have written to date but it seemed important to mention. I’m not sure how to better describe this feeling that I had, it was kind of like seeing my way forward, the inklings of direction and purpose, and really it felt damned good. Perhaps I’m grappling with how to describe my feelings as the feeling I was having bordered on confidence in my work and we all know confidence is not an emotion I am intimately in touch with. In keeping with this confidence boost of mine here are some upcoming events in my life…
Sunday- Meeting with group of girls from Women 2 Women, YESSS!!!!. Bless these girls they kick ass in a huge way. After the girls camp they wanted to form a group so that they could teach other girls in the community what they learned at camp and indeed they have been meeting and teaching classes. They are meeting again this Sunday and I am going to sit in and see the magic unfold. I hope to be doing a lot of work with these girls in the future and as much as I have all sorts of ideas for projects we could do, I know first and foremost I need to step back and let them tell me where they want to go from here. I will suggest this Sunday that we look into getting them registered as a community based organization (CBO), thus opening the door for potential sources of funding and then based on wherever they are at, we will move forward.
Wednesday- My counterpart, Ada Kweve, and I are meeting with group of people living with HIV/AIDS to present on IGAs. Ada and I were thinking of peanut butter making but we’ll see what the group thinks will best suit their needs.
Date unknown, but in the near future: Meeting with Mbiwi health committee about the construction of an under five shelter. This is a project Alex started but left before completing. There is some frustration on my part as Alex did all the paper work for a PCPP grant. A PCPP grant is a Peace Corps Partnership grant which in short means that you the volunteer, partner with someone from home who will fund your project. In this case it was Alex’s parents who were putting up the money but now that he has left his grant no longer stands. So I need to make contact with Alex and see if that money is still available and if it is, excellent, all I need to do is rewrite the grant under my name and we’re done, easiest project ever….If not I need to reapply under a different funding source which shouldn’t be all that complicated, it’s a relatively small project, but we’ll see. I think some of my frustration over taking on this project is that it wasn’t something near and dear to me, so I didn’t want to divert funding from projects I was really invested in and then I thought about that logic and was like, “Wow Megan you are an ass”. You didn’t come here to do things that “make you feel good” you came to help the community meet their goals and Mbiwi’s goal is an under five shelter, they have burnt the bricks, so it’s the least you could do to get them some tin. Now that I have my mind right on the issue I’m ready to take it on.
There’s been a request for me to teach the staff at the hospital to use the computer we received from the district hospital. The plan is to put up a list of dates and times I am available and just let people sign up. Not sure if I’m the best person to be teaching computer skills but I suppose you’ve got to start somewhere.
And of course GLOW. Big GLOW meeting around the 7th of February. We are supposedly having a training in Dedza at that time, if in fact the training takes place it would be the perfect time to have full group participation in GLOW. Before the coordinating team (Vanessa, Duncan, Brittany and Me!!) can really move forward, we need to pick a date as a group (by group I mean all twenty people from health 09’) and a theme, as well as discuss some other general issues. As I have prepared the greatest PowerPoint presentation ever I am so ready.
Oh Peter…..Just when I think he may drive me insane, he does something so fucking cute. I’m sure he senses my permissive nature and sometimes I know he exploits it but by in large we have healthy, not normal, but healthy boundaries. Just now for instance, I told him earlier today that I was sick so I wasn’t up for chatting but nevertheless he reappears and just as I’m about to send him home, he looks at me with those big ass eyes and says, Can I just sit outside and work on my writing so when I start school on Monday I can write really well (mind you this was all said in Tonga), then he sings the ABC song while doing the classic Peter dance. How can you say no to that and really I like having Peter around, he cracks me up as he’s a funny little guy, and he’s left to his own devices as is so he might as well hang out here and play cards, listen to the radio, or draw pictures. As it would seem that Peter has become my responsibility my goal for Monday is to go to school with him and talk to his teachers to make sure he’s going daily as he really needs to be in school not hanging around the local msungu’s house. Currently he has been outside quietly writing for close to half an hour now, we’ll see how long he lasts, bless him. I know he just likes being over here and as long as he’s being respectful, which he is 90% of the time, its fine with me. The other day when I came home he was sleeping on my porch; I had to sneak over his prostrate little body to silently enter the house. I suddenly realize I want to be very careful with the manner in which I am writing about Peter and I want to be clear on the point that I in no way think bad of Peter’s family or that I’m some sort of saint for spending time with him. His mother faces challenges I can’t even begin to imagine and I enjoy Peters company, I owe the bulk of my Tonga competency to the little bugger so really it’s good for me. I just write about Peter a lot as he’s around a lot so he’s an easy subject and I am fond of the little guy in a big way.
In non Peter related events, I went on outreach yesterday. There’s been an outbreak of whooping cough in one of the villages in Dwambazi’s catchement so we were doing mass inoculations. It was a good day, I had woken up kind of lethargic and woebegone but under five outreach lifted my spirits. At the beginning of every under five clinic or health talk that is given the women sing health songs. It is my personal goal to learn all the health songs in the coming months. I will put it on my to do list, I’m back into to do lists, clearly trying to keep motivated and structured. No matter what kind of mood I am in, give me one health song and a group of women and I am full of joy, I’m pretty sure a well done health song could raise me from the dead, its that powerful. The day continued to be solid, after much singing and many injections I got a sweet ride back home. Our hospital has a motorbike that they use for conducting outreaches and the like. It is Peace Corps policy that volunteers are strictly prohibited from riding motorbikes of any sorts, in fact it’s an administrative separation offense, meaning, they will send your ass home if they catch you on a motorbike. Initially I very much towed the line with policy but given time and my personality…..As its against policy to get on a motor bike (or as called in tonga, jinga ya mutu….bike of fire, which gets me every time) I would “never” do such a thing. But if I had gotten a ride home on the back of said motorbike, I can “imagine” it would have been amazing and indescribably fun. The village I was in Chimgondo is up in the hills a bit, so you come down through these lush hills and get this amazing view of the area. “Had” I done such a thing I would have loved it.....
It’s incredibly hot now and muggy beyond reasonable imagination, I hope it rains soon…..
A couple hours later…..
It hasn’t rained. So muggy, I just hope it rains before this evening, as muggy nights don’t make for the best sleep. I need to stop eating mangoes, delicious though they may be; they aren’t the food of choice when you can’t stray far from a chim. That having been said I think that particular issue is on the wane and by tomorrow whatever O to F (I know it should be F to O but for one reason or another, dyslexia??? I always think of it as O to F) bacterium I picked up should be cleared from the body. But mangoes, I can’t resist. I missed the best of mango season while in South Africa and they are soon to be gone for sometime so I have to get them while I can, even if it’s not in my best interest. Clearly I haven’t done a whole lot today but I think I’ve adult pooped my pants enough for this lifetime so it seemed best to just hang around the house with Uchi and not take any chances.
Uchi reminds me of our epic journey home, which I feel deserves a mention. But before I begin that compelling story, can I just say what an awesome dog Uchi is. I’m looking at her right now, she’s taking a little dog nap, damn she’s cute. As a fellow volunteer pointed out she looks just like Santa’s Little Helper, except in my opinion cuter, but its an apt description. And so big now who would have thought that such a stunted little creature could get so sleek and shiny. Really she’s not a big dog but based on her starting point she’s grown exponentially. I should weigh her at under five tomorrow so I can give you a better idea of how big she is. Its hard not to love Uyu, she’s like a dog goodwill ambassador, everyone loves her, as they should. She’s taking to sleeping on the bed with me, something that I normally don’t encourage but she picked up the habit in Lilongwe as I was either sleeping on the floor or near to the ground making me easily accessible and I won’t lie, there were some tough moments in Lilongwe and I needed a little dog cuddle and now the damage is done. I don’t mind her on the bed with me but damn her little body radiates a lot of heat, and mosquito netting makes it a bit of a tight squeeze. This reminds me that this morning after I had successfully fallen asleep post chim trauma, I was woken preemptively due to the fact that Uchi fell off the bed and was trapped in the mosquito netting. Annoying though it was to be woken up after successfully combating my rogue lower GI, she was pretty cute.
So back to the journey home. Now that Uchi isn’t a tiny puppy anymore travel with her isn’t quite as easy as it used to be. Although chickens and goats are most welcome on the Axa, dogs are not. I could have potentially thwarted the issue by putting Uyu in a box but that would have meant so many tiresome steps. Finding the box, carrying it to the bus station, the list goes on and on. So I figured I would just put her on my back and use my powers of persuasion. I wanted to catch the first Axa up the lakeshore road which leaves around 7AM and I heard that it had been filling up real fast so it was best to get there early. That having been said I woke up at around half four, as I needed to swing by the office and do some last minute things via email and I figured by the time I got my shit together, got to the office, and then hiked to the bus station it would be anywhere between six and half six. Let me say that every time I travel I swear I’m going to pack lighter but this time I mean it. Really I didn’t think I had that much stuff with me, I left a bunch of things I had collected over the last two months at the Peace Corps office to come up via Peace Corps transport that was coming the following week. I was down to my little chitenge bag and one small duffel and Uchi, all of which I thought would be manageable. And perhaps it would have been had I not been sitting on my ass for a month and not using my right arm all that much. I’m not sure how far the bus station is from the Peace Corps office, but I feel comfortable using the word, pilgrimage. Uchi walked on a lead down to the office but after I finished my work there it was wrapping time. Granted I could have wrapped her at the bus station but my wrapping skills aren’t super solid and an audience would not have helped. In fact there was a moment there at the office, all alone at 5:45 AM, running a little behind schedule, where I thought I might fail in getting her wrapped. But praise be I pressed on and succeeded, which is no small task, wrapping Uchi at this point is far more difficult than a child. So we set off and let me tell you by the time I got to the bus station I was pretty sure I might die. It was hot and humid, I had this dog on my back and duffle bag in hand. The duffle bag proceeded to rub a big raw spot on the back of my right leg and left a nasty bruise. So I get there bruised, bleeding, and sweating like a pig with a dog on my back and boldly walk to board the bus, where of course I am told, I can’t get on with the dog. I can imagine that better volunteers than myself may have given up or at least cried at that point but I found strength I didn’t know I had. To be fair a huge part of that “strength” came from the fact that I didn’t think I could make the walk back to the office which is where I would have gone, as my back up plan was to hitch with another volunteer coming up this way, it just wasn’t an option at that point, there was only one way forward and that was on that bus. I pulled powers of persuasion out of the hat that had never before manifested to that degree and after half an hour of using all forms of reason and logic, flattery, and ultimately begging and pleading, we got on the bus. It is notable that while doing all this cajoling a small (and by small I mean around twenty people strong) crowd had assembled to watch the asungu with the dog try to get on the bus, this was another source of my determination, there was no way I was going to walk through this massive crowd of people with the shame of rejection weighing me down along with the dog and katundu. I even used this as one of my bargaining chips with the Axa manager, “please abambo if you make me get off the bus all these people will laugh at me and I’ll be so embarrassed”. It was standing room only but I was at least able to put down the evil duffel bag which was sweetest of sweet relief. And then came the second challenge. This had never happened in my presence but Vanessa gave me the heads up as she was the last one to travel with Uchi; apparently Uchi gets car sick now. And really I can’t blame her, its not a smooth or pleasant ride by public transport. So I have this dog tied to my body, who is salivating as though all the fluids in her body are making a mass exodus via her mouth, on a very crowded bus that I was only able to board by insisting that my dog was exceptionally healthy. I knew she could vomit at anytime and that it was only a matter of time until said embarrassing episode ensued. Thankfully after an hour or so of standing and thinking nothing but, don’t throw up, don’t throw up, this kind gentleman named George offered me his seat at the way back of the bus. George’s act although heroic in my opinion was not altogether altruistic as he wanted to make me his girlfriend but that’s not unusual and he wasn’t a creep about it. He was a decent guy for sure, when Uchi finally did vomit, he didn’t seem particularly troubled and he even let her rest half of her body on his lap in the latter part of our journey, so really I applaud his tenacity, that’s a lot of trouble to go to for a phone number. So, many thanks to the kind manager at Axa who finally let me on the bus and to George who made my bus ride much more comfortable; and a nod to my and Uchi’s strength and tenacity as well, it was a long trip but we were triumphant and never had home looked so good.
Can I also mention how excited I was to see my blankie. Even though it’s only back up blankie, it’s the only blankie I have now. I thought about blankie a fairish few times while out of site and regretted not having him with me but it was a joyous reunion. I am not sure what will happen when I am reunited with the one and only blankie, my truest of true loves, who is currently safely stowed away at the Aziz’s, it may be too much for me to handle. I am thinking about how blankie smells right now, it’s a calming and pleasing thought. I am such a freak but you couldn’t get me to change anything about my unhealthy relationship with blankie, as you all well know, its one of the most sacred relationships I have, you couldn’t pry blankie from my cold dead hands I pity the fool who would try.
Same day, late evening…..
And still no rain. Oh sweet humidity, its going to be a long night. I should invest in fan. I’m a fool for not having done so while in Lilongwe when there was plenty of opportunity but I figured I made it through hot season so the worst was over and I would just get a fan next hot season, oh the foolishness. Although hot season is technically over and we have moved onto rainy season and soon enough will make the transition to cold season I should have remembered that rainy season is a muggy son of a bitch and cold season is a misnomer. But the sweltering weather is providing the impetus for this super blogging that is taking place as I otherwise would be enjoying the sweet sanctuary of sleep, so we can all be thankful for small favors. I hope I wake up feeling rested as tomorrow is a busy day at the hospital. It’s the supplementary feeding program (SFP) day as well as antiretroviral therapy program day, meaning lots of people, lots of paper work and the like. I like Fridays, Fridays and Mondays are perhaps my favorite days at the hospital……
1-27-10
Friday was not a busy day, it rained. Not a downpour which I actually really like but more of what I would describe as a steady rain. But it was enough to shut down all operations at the hospital. Hardly anybody came; clients and employees. So what did I do with myself, all dressed up with nowhere to go, prepared for a busy day and suddenly nothing to do. While a more productive person might have made work at the hospital, I came home and proceeded to “write” what you might call the beginnings of a short story. Yeah that’s right I’ve been doing some writing in my quiet moments, not just this scintillating blog you’re reading, but a touch of the journaling and now onto creative writing. Oh its drivel, I don’t have any illusions of having talent but I like the idea of being able to write and in all fairness I never really try, so I figured if I was going to say I couldn’t write because I’m not talented I should at least give it the old college try. Val you can rest assured that I did not use the word soul at any point in my fumbling attempts at writing, so I suppose that in and of itself is some small victory. I’ve been enjoying my own personal creative writing seminar that I’ve had going for the past week or so. I had some guilt (and by some I mean a substantial amount ) about taking time to sit around and write nonsense when I should say be doing something a bit more productive and meaningful to my community but when am I not feeling slightly guilty about something. I should take this opportunity to point out that some of my creative outpourings having manifested themselves by way of mix CD, and a lucky few of you (I think you know who you are) will be receiving said CD (there are actually two, yeah that’s how artistic I’ve been feeling) some months from now. I’m actually listening to it now, just to test it out, and I must say I’m pleased, I think it really speaks to my time here. I might need to do a little fine tuning but yeah its good stuff. It’s in the same style as the future doctors mix, so enjoy my message of love to you.
So Friday not busy. I did indeed run out of toilet paper which was an adventure unto itself, thankfully I went to visit Courtney not long after and swiped a role from her house, so crisis averted. I need to go to town and go shopping next week, aside from toilet paper I’ve been craving peanut butter, damn I would power through a PB and J right now….. This week has actually been pretty busy and the good sort of busy where you feel like you just might be accomplishing something. I had my first community meeting where I didn’t feel like a complete bumbling fool. It was for the group that wants to build the under five shelter and really they want it to be more of a community health resource center. It might be a bit of an under taking but I’m excited, the HSA whose in charge of that area has most certainly got his shit together and for christ sake the community has been trying to get this thing done for two years now and they’re still up for it. I guess what happened was that Alex’s parents were going to put up the money but then pulled out because of the economic downturn. So now I just need to figure out which grant to apply for and then master grant writing.
In other exciting and productive news, I met with my girls group on Sunday and it rocked my world. There were around thirty girls who came and damn, the girls who got this thing started are awe inspiring. Maudalitso was teaching this week, the topic, violence against women. All of the girls at the heart of this are exceptional but Maudalitso is in a class of her own. That girl has a charisma that blows me away, when she’s up there speaking, you have to listen to her, she’s impassioned and convicted and you can feel it in everything that she says, she’s a born orator for sure. This Sunday we’ll be discussing HIV/AIDS. I’ll be doing a small presentation and some hope kit activities with them, lets hope for the best. One I haven’t had my week long hope kit training yet so who knows if I’ll be able to handle it and two I am not a born orator but that aside I’m looking forward to it. I’m also in the process of investigating getting them registered as a CBO, apparently there have been some changes with the process but it should be an easy enough procedure. I’m hoping that Dwambazi’s community extension agent, who should be in Nkhotakota tomorrow, can pick up the forms for me at the District Assembly, saving me a trip and getting the forms here before our next meeting.
In fact aside from tomorrow, I have something scheduled outside of work at the hospital for just about everyday before I go for my hope kit training. We are indeed having the training, I called Cornelius, (the second in command for health sector) today and confirmed. I’m not in love with heading out for a long week but actually the timing is good in some sense. Based on the meetings I’m having in the community I need to be a busy grant writing beaver here ASAP which is something I need to be in Lilongwe to do, so that works out well. And of course GLOW, we need to make sure we don’t drop the ball on this one and in fact its time to start soliciting funds for GLOW. Vanessa (my tonga sister) is the finance coordinator so I thought we could put in some serious GLOW grant writing time while in Lilongwe. My immediate task as program coordinator is to contact all potential speakers after hope kit and see who’s still on board from last year and confirm new additions for this year’s program, wish me luck.
Presently I am glistening with sweat. Its eight PM, I’m sitting on my bed typing, all windows open, back door open, and I am damp all over. It’s been unreasonably hot and not a whole lot of rain, which doesn’t bode well, although I’ve heard that most people have a maize surplus from last year, so even if we do experience a prolonged drought there shouldn’t be mass hunger but holding off starvation isn’t really the best case scenario. It just isn’t raining, Friday was the last day it rained (today’s Wednesday) and again it wasn’t the typical wet season downpour and it only rained in the morning. There should be torrential downpours daily, hopefully we’ll get to it sooner rather than later. Even though people have maize saved it still would be horrendous to have an entire crop go to shit and it would mean that if next years crop was bad there would be a crisis situation.
I should be sleeping now, I’m tired as the sweet sweet heat has been making sleep a challenge and as sleeping in just isn’t an option here. That having been said Lilongwe got me off my half five wake up schedule, I still wake up around then but I’ve been able to go back to sleep for an hour or so after, and to my surprise I’ve actually slept till past six on multiple occasions. I write about the most exciting things…..
Vicotry!!! Peter started school I finally managed to get him to go into school with me so we could talk with his teacher. It’s been a lengthy endeavor but I think we’re on the path to success. The teachers I’ve met so far both at the primary and secondary schools have been pretty rad people and Peter’s teacher was no exception and he said he’d keep me abreast of Peter’s progress so that makes me feel good. But fear not there is still plenty of Peter in my life, as Peter’s only in standard two his school day ends around noon which leaves plenty of time to be here.
This is something I would normally leave for ye old journaling but as I’m sleep deprived and writing in a spectacularly disjointed fashion anyway, why not? I picked up a little girl of about three yesterday and put her on my hip and as I stood there with her I could feel Sam. It was beyond remembering, I could feel the weight of his body against my own. I think of remembering as something the mind does, but the body has a memory of its own and I was struck by that. I know nothing of being a mother but I had this absolute certainty that a mother’s body never forgets the feel of its children. There was a tightness in my chest and an ache that caught me off guard. I think of Sam and Ben, Kim and Mike all the time, they are part of my memory and part of my life, I’m accustomed to missing them or taking comfort in my reflections on the times we shared but this was something beyond that, it left me at a loss. I shifted the little girl to my back in the fashion that Malawian mothers carry their babies and ran back and forth in front of my house shouting “Synabo, wana wangu” (Synabo my baby), and spinning around in circles to the great amusement of the usual suspects of children clustered on my porch and to Synabo. All I could hear was laughter.
1-28-10
It started raining early this morning, a steady rain that ebbs and flows from drizzle to heavy. It makes for a lazy day, hospital empty and no one out and about. That’s something I noticed immediately about the rain, the silence it brings with it. Normally my house is filled with sounds of people chatting or just greeting one another in passing but when the rains come all I hear is the sound of the rain on my tin roof. It’s a comfortable quiet producing a soothing feeling that washes over you. I’m basking in it at the moment.
I did have a few visitors this morning. Peter dropped by around sixish to tell me he was going to school, I normally don’t do early morning visitors but in this case I’m more than willing to make an exception. I watched him walk off to school in the rain and was pleased. I got back into bed and finished The Unaccustomed Earth giving into the languor of this quiet morning. After making a little breakfast for myself and Uchi, my second cup of coffee and cigarette, Ama Chimbuto dropped by. I tell you, she always catches me at the most inopportune times, meaning various states of disrobement. I was in my nighty shirt, my old tattered wife beater that used to belong to the boyfriend of Pesa, a girl I knew from treatment and a pair of Hanes boxers, that more closely resemble loose fitting briefs, listening to music and putting the final touches on mix CD number two. Ama Chimbuto knocks but it’s not done as a request so much as a heads up, I’m coming in, its just Ama Chimbuto’s way.
Of recently Sauda has become frightened of me which breaks my heart as she was my little friend prior to my departure but she’s at that object permanence stage so being left with anyone is not her greatest joy right now least of all the strange pale one. Since my return, nearly every time Sauda has seen me, her wee face just falls and the crying ensues, so Ama Chimbuto brings her by at least once a day to help her readjust to me. Hence in they came this morning while I struggled to throw a chitinge on. This is why I love Ama Chimbuto she just laughs, asks if I’m wearing shorts, removes my chitenge looks my bear legs up and down, gives me the old hand slap and starts chatting away. Its interesting in some sense it’s an exceptionally modest culture; trousers can be scandalous and shorts on women or anything exposing the sensual knee unheard of but I get the feeling amongst women there is a certain comfort and freedom.
As much as legs are indecent and enticing the breast is out and about at all times. If you are holding a baby or have a toddler within a long arms reach you can have your breast out all day long. You can have entire conversations with women where one breast is
is just swinging free.
Same day later in the evening…
Freddy came by and as I had to get up to chat I figured I might as well get my shit together and get on with my day. I had to go to Tikumbo, to my friend Mel’s site, to pick up her hope kit for my meeting on Sunday. I had been thinking I needed to get going for sometime as the rain had stopped making it an opportune time to take transport but I was enjoying my special blogging time and we all know I’m a bit lazy so I kept putting off the arduous task of getting up, putting on clothes, and walking out the door.
I had a pleasant trip to Tikumbo, I just started walking down the road and figured I’d either catch a hitch or just get on a matola depending on what came first, the weather, and my mood. Humidity aside, it’s really a very beautiful time of the year and today was exceptionally nice. There was a coolness and freshness to the air that has been sorely lacking and was much appreciated. It was invigorating walking along the road, not a car in sight, the shockingly lush hills that still surprise me with their greenness made even more beautiful today by the low hanging rain clouds that drifted over. I ended up taking a matola, riding on top of crates of beer stacked one on top of the other. For one reason or another it was only men on this particular matola, my guess would be as the matola was full of supplies for stocking a larger grocery/bottle shop, that it was a business owner and his friends. But they were cool guys who after greetings and a little getting to know you chit chat we rode in comfortable silence and the conductor remembered me, I won’t lie its nice when people remember you fondly. It was a fast matola and as I sat perched above the bed of the truck on my beer crates watching the lake, houses, and people fly past, the rush of cool air got my thinking about riding roller costers as a kid and my mind wandered and I felt incredibly lucky and very much alive.
I was a little later getting back then I would have liked. It was the sort of situation that Peace Corps safety and security director Hector gives dire warning against, heading out for home not long before dark but I knew I’d find a ride and indeed I did. This time I sat up front and chatted with the driver, a really nice guy named Martin. When I got back Peter and his little cousin Wadi (Wellington but everyone calls him Wadi) came running down the path to greet me. They ran past an old woman who yelled at them where did they think they were running to and it pleased me that I understood her scolding. I asked Peter if he was worried that I wasn’t coming back, he just smiled, asked if he could take my bag, and we walked back home.
2/1/10
Val this ones for you….We could fuck all night….And maybe go to waffle house!!!!!! I’m actually singing along to this little ditty right now, and by right now I mean I just was belting it out, we all know that I couldn’t sing and type at the same time. It never fails to put a smile on my face when I hear this magical number. I so clearly remember being in the lesi-ru, driving down 33rd on the way to school, listening to the mix you made me and being overcome by the sheer magic of your genius. And then calling to leave you a rambly message about how amazing you are, hard to believe that was years ago, huh?
If you couldn’t gather, I’m sitting around listening to music, taking a little trip down memory lane. I’m also eating some delicious ba (porridge) pondering why I don’t eat all day and then shove anything and everything in my face come the end of the day, it’s a problem. First thing I am going to do in Lilongwe is get some chicken and nsima and then steak and rice at Amenia’s and lots of mphangwe, I miss the shit out greens right now, I can’t even tell you. Although greens may be absent from the market, it is avocado season and that is pretty magical.
I’ll be leaving for Lilongwe at the end of the week and as much angst as I had over leaving so soon after coming back, I’ve made my piece with it. I have work I need to get done in Lilongwe anyway, with this health resource center, GLOW, and my girls group and my counterpart is coming to the training with us, so he can verify to the community that I was on official Peace Corps business. I think it might be good for credibility as well to have to leave but then to come back when I am supposed to. I am having some stress about leaving my Uyu. I know Ama Bai and Charity will look after her fine and she is liked in the community but ten days is along time for her to be alone, I worry she’ll go feral without my love and support. I know she’ll be okay, I’m just being a freak. I wish I could bring her but alas I think her major traveling days are behind her. I’ll try to take her on some small trips, just so she doesn’t lose her good traveling skills but with the house being closed in Lilongwe its become much more difficult for me to bring her with me. I suppose if I’m feeling too soft about Uchi I could reflect back on the nightmarish episode from a few nights ago, when the little bastard vomited on the bed.
It was the first cool night in awhile and I was all geared up to sleep through the night undisturbed by sweltering heat. And at first it seemed I would succeed until I awoke to that god forsaken sound dogs make before they puke, it’s not the most pleasant way to wake up, simultaneously nauseated by the horrific sound and filled with an unwanted jolt of adrenaline. I tossed her on the floor where she proceeded to be sick, I was forced out of bed to attend to the mess, I fell back asleep, she puked again. Upon returning to bed for what I thought was the final time I realized that there was an uncomfortable dampness by my feet, as I got out of bed to change my sheets I could have killed her. Bless her I know it wasn’t her fault and I didn’t get angry at her or anything but as I scrubbed the vomit out of my sheets the next day, I pondered what is this thing called love?
I went over to the hospital tonight to return a phone I was charging and to see Ada Oswald as he’s sick with malaria, (its kicking his ass for sure, but he’s on the road to recovery). I realized I’d never really been to the hospital after dark. I suddenly remembered the night I arrived at site for site visit, probably the last time I was at the hospital under the cover of darkness. I got a ride from someone at the district hospital but we were late in leaving Nkhotakota so we got here after dark. The driver didn’t know which house was mine, so we drove up to the hospital to find someone who could claim me. I just remember the light of one candle in this incredibly unknown place. Tonight it was pleasant and familiar, I walked back to my house thinking how much I like being out at night here. There are these omnipresent light bugs, I remember when Vanessa, Jeremy and I first discovered them on Kande Beach during language intensive. We were so enthralled, and really I still am. Often as I’m lying in bed trying to fall asleep I’ll see the on and off again light of one of my little friends blinking at me from my mosquito netting, it always makes me happy.
Clearly I am in a reflective sort of a mood this evening. Maybe I’m just basking in the glow of having been here long enough to have perspective. It will be interesting to see where I’m at in another six months. I can’t imagine where I’ll be at the end of my two years of service and there’s freedom and openness in that, that’s at once terrifying and beautiful. I think it speaks to certain failings that there’s so little clarity in my life at this point in the game but also to having maybe done something right. Maybe I’ll be here working, maybe I’ll be in grad school, perhaps I’ll be doing the traveling I’ve always wanted to or maybe I’ll just be home, stowed away in Kim and Mike’s basement. Maybe I’ll be unimaginably happy, satisfied in my work and purpose, or perhaps I’ll be discontent chewing over the same unanswered questions. I get the feeling that this may be the last point in my life where I can look into my future and see such ambiguity. Very deep and dramatic isn’t, I’m a strange one, aren’t I. But I’m amused by myself and my musings, I’m smiling right now, and at the end of the day, isn’t that what’s important?
2-3-10
Sometimes I almost believe in divine providence. As you know I have been spending a lot of time thinking about greens; how delicious they are, how they nourish as well as bring joy, and how much I miss the happiness they bring me. Yesterday I was thinking about greens more than ever. I woke up to a lack of power, which is no big deal, power comes and goes. Sundays are normally no power days and any other day power is out in the morning you can expect it back on by the afternoon. But yesterday the power did not come back on in the afternoon and hunger was setting in. I had gone to the grumpy hungry place so eating at someone else’s house seemed like a bad idea, so I settled for just waiting it out. And who should appear at my door but L’Sungu one of Ama Chimbuto’s daughters bearing a container full of nsima and a bowl full of greens. I could have wept with joy, in that moment I felt I understood the phrase my cup runth over, that was the happiness I felt. I suspect Ama Chimbuto saw Peter and I attempting to cook over fire and felt an intervention was necessary and she couldn’t have been more right.
And those delicious greens of Ama Chimbuto’s weren’t the only greens in my life, no no, it gets better. That very same morning coming back from the hospital I ran into Tsokalawo who had a large bunch of greens in her hand. She asked if I knew what they were, (turned out it was okra), and that I should come by the next day and cook them with her. Thus today I found myself eating yet another exquisite meal of greens and nsima plus somba (fish). I can’t tell you how much nsima I ate with Tsokalawo, it took me back to my homestay days when I was the nsima eating queen… Its been an eating couple of days, not sure why but I have been ravenous of late. I just devoured a giant bowl of ba, my second one today, and am now having what I consider a very Malawian moment. As per usual its hot and extremely muggy, I’ve just eaten a bowl of hot porridge and am now washing it down with some hot chocolate, all the while sweating like a pig. The eating and drinking of scalding hot foods and beverages in intense heat is a way of life. The other day I was having tea with Ama Chipalasa and Charity. It was around nine in the morning and probably close to 90 degrees, 120% humidity and were seating there drinking this scorching hot tea, fanning ourselves as we’re sweating profusely and saying kufunda ukongwa masanwale, (its very hot today) as if the fiery hot tea had no impact on our steadily rising body temperature, I had to laugh.
I should continue writing as there’s ever so much more I want to get down before I leave and as I leave for Lilongwe Friday and tomorrow is a busy day between work and prepping for leaving, (we all know I couldn’t live with myself if I left without the house meticulously in order) tonight in theory should be the night to tidy up the blog. Alas I don’t think I am going to get much further this evening…..
2-4-10
I believe I am prepped and ready for travel. I looked over my pre-departure to do list today and damned if I don’t have about 95% of things completed, look at me go I am so productive. It’s a tough time to leave, yesterday I was thinking about how comfortable I was and how my routine felt right. I hate to mess with a good thing but I’ve got big plans for Lilongwe so it should all work out.
I feel like most of what I have written this past three weeks borders on inane. There’s a lot about my life here that I feel at a loss to explain but I wish I could. I worry that what I write is more fluff than substance and for that I apologize. I’m not sure how someone reading this would picture my life here or how they would envision Malawi. I hope I am doing justice to my community and really the country in general but I fear that perhaps I am not. Just know that it’s so much more than what I manage to get out.
There is so much that I have to say to all of you beautiful people, but as per usual I get all clammy when I try to write but lets just push through this.... Today has been yet another producitve day, I'm curently in the IRC (where the Peace Corps computers are) listening to music and enjoying how few volunteers are in here, its really quite pleasant. I'm doing a bunch of organzing for GLOW and I must say I feel pretty good about myself (it takes so little....one powerpoint and some emails and I'm on top of my own little pedestal...). But whatever it feels great to be doing something. I've been on med hold in Lilongwe for about two weeks now and I can't say thats the best scenario for ones mental health and general well being. I mean its good for my clav but one starts to get a little stir crazy after about three, four days, so when you start talking weeks, you're dealing with a powerful level of angst. Really its not that bad, its just I didn't join Peace Corps to hang out, watch movies, and drink beer which is a lot of what happens when you hang around the house. Not that I don't enjoy those activities but you know what I'm saying. I need to be in my community, doing work, sorting out how to take what it is a believe in and turn it into something tangible that can actually impact peoples lives as well as keep me employed. I should be going back on Friday, I think I'm going to try to hitch up to site which isn't anything out of the norm. In fact I am actually quite a good hitcher but this time I am going to try to hitch with Uchi. Not sure how thats going to pan out, I'll meditate on my travel plans, its always an adventure getting around so I'm sure this will be no different.
So yeah the last two months or so have been unusual to say the least. From talking to others volunteers in my group I get the general sense that the six month mark is kind of a time of re-evaluation. I know quite a few of the kids in my group are having a tough time now defining their roles in their communities and where they want to go with their work, this leads me to believe some of the angst I have been having of recently is just part of the process. I suppose I could expand on and attempt to describe this angst of mine or as I’m sure we’ve all had enough of such things, I could just talk about Lilongwe. I keep meaning to better describe Lilongwe and then putting it off for one reason or another (ie laziness) but as I’m pretty much living here now, it seems like the right time. It’s a crowded place Lilongwe and I take pride in my ability to navigate the city with ease and grace. The first couple times I came to Lilongwe simple acts like crossing the road took a lot out of me. There’s a whole other set of rules of the road here, the most important being, cars do not yield to pedestrians. Initially when I wanted to cross the street I would look for the nearest Malawian who was crossing and shadow them but now I boldly throw myself into the road with a confidence I didn’t know I could muster. I should mention that oft one walks out into the middle of the road and waits there admist traffic to make it to the other side. Sidewalks are scarce in many parts of the city and in most places they are in a state of disrepair which means one just walks in the road. Really the concept that roads are only for cars and bikes doesn’t apply here, it used to surprise me to see so much foot traffic in the roads and highways but that’s just how you get around. I doubt I am in anyway describing this well. I wish I had that capacity because I really do take pride in my maneuvering around the city but you have to have a feel or a sense of the city to really appreciate my accomplishment.
I’ll move onto a favorite topic of mine, food. Lilongwe is food time as one has greater access to a wider selection of food stuffs and if you’re tired of cooking, as you probably are by the time you get into town, then you can eat out. For example during this lengthy stay in Lilongwe I partook of Chinese food (crispy friend eggplant, really very delicious), pizza on multiple occasions, (I order the vegetarian as it has all sorts of delicious veggies but then I ask them to put chicken on it), and Amenia’s which has tasty steak. I did a surprising amount of baking, chocolate chip cookies which turned into what may have been the best chocolate chip cookie muffins ever and two different cakes, one with a peanut butter frosting and the other with a coffee glaze sprinkled with coconut. I also discovered what may be my new favorite quick, easy, tasty city treat and that is the yoggie. Yoggie’s are as you may have deduced, yogurt. But rather than coming in little plastic cups yoggies come in plastic bags that one tears a small hole in with their teeth and then sucks yogurt out. Yoggies are a volunteer favorite, for sure. My dearest friend Duncan and fellow health 09er Jake returned from the store with 53 yoggies to enjoy over the course of their stay in town. Many volunteers also have a penchant for freezing yoggies to make an even more delicious treat. The point is I have known about yoggies for sometime but normally the yoggies I have encountered are strawberry and blessed be I (and by I, I actually mean Jake) came upon vanilla yoggies which may very well be the greatest thing ever, so damn delicious I can’t even tell you. So yeah Lilongwe is eating time.
Food brings us to another fun filled Lilongwe tidbit which is the soon to be closed transit house. Its actually much nicer than I thought it would be. I heard it described as a bit of a frat house and therefore had some serious reservations but in and of itself the house is a nice place. Where it losses its niceness and takes on some frat like qualities is when it becomes packed with volunteers. The last night I stayed there (I am actually back in Dwambazi as we speak but I wanted to finish up with my thoughts on Lilongwe before moving on to the present, I’m nearly always writing a few days behind the times)……the house was full in a way I had never seen it full before. There are four rooms in the house, each with around three or maybe four sets of bunk beds, two porches, and around four couches. All of these spaces were filled. I myself had moved a mattress into a comfortable corner, which actually was quite conducive to good sleep. I stole the cozy cubby idea from another volunteer, who upon his return to Lilongwe moved in his own mattress to share the best sleeping corner ever (this should give you a sense of how full of people this house can get, when a corner in a room is prime sleeping property) and when I awoke that final morning in the house, not only were all rooms, couches, porches, and secret corners filled but there was honest to god someone sleeping on the dining room table. It was time to go for sure.
But how food got my thinking about the house is the refrigerator crisis. The fridge at the transit house has been non-functional for two maybe three months. It’s no longer a refrigerator but as Duncan calls it an incubator. Why incubator? Because when a fridge no longer keeps things cool it becomes a box with a door and when perishables are placed in said box, incubation of some of the funkiest bacteria ever ensues. Aside from the periodic influxes of volunteers and the ripeness of what was once a refrigerator (the freezer was still working, theres always a silver lining) the stay at the house was pleasant enough, albeit too long. Uchi had a great time, I got to eat vanilla yoggies and pizza and drink cold beer, had it been a shorter trip I would have had limited complaints, its just one can only do so long in Lilongwe before stir crazy sets in and we all know how well I do with too much time on my hands. Believe it or not there is so much goodness about Lilongwe and my exploits there that I am leaving out but its late and tomorrow will be my first day back at work, (fourth day back at site) and I want to make sure I have my game face on and as much as I want to paint a clear picture of Lilongwe and what went on there, I am tired of writing retrospectively, it’s a stretch of my creative writing prowess as is and I actually spent about an hour or more gournaling today (this is not a typo I have purposefully written gournaling, it’s a word I stole from Mariel and it continues to amuse me after all these years so just go with it), so really I’ve already pushed my talent to its limit.
1-19-10
Oh to be back home…..it’s been a long time coming…. Where to begin? It feels good to be back. South Africa had its charms, like sushi, lots and lots of sushi. And Lilongwe had its pleasant moments, for sure. But being out of site for almost three months (if you include IST) produced feelings of stir craziness and restlessness that I am much relieved to be rid of….. So I have been trying to write for probably an hour or so and its not going well. I made some soup and an egg, paired with an avocado it was a most excellent dinner, smoked several cigarettes, fed Uchi, thought about showering, and wandered around the house thinking about things I could write. There’s a whole shit ton I’d like to say about being back at site (the gist of it is it’s going well) but alas my blogging powers appear to be failing me. I thought aimlessly rambling might get me over the hump but not sure it’s going to happen.
1-21-10
Sick day!!! I think my body’s powers of warding off the old fecal to oral have been diminished and so it was last night at 2:20 AM I found myself overcoming fears of creepy crawlies and darkness and hauling ass to the chim (it turns out fear of crapping ones pants is greater than fear of the dark). On perhaps my fourth emergency trip outside I found myself thinking of those Pepto commercials, you know the ones I’m talking about, “gotta go gotta go gotta go right now……” and how inadequate they are to describe a true crisis of the bowel. But really all is well, aside from the fact that I am down to the end of my last roll of toilet paper and I’m not sure if its an item sold at the market. I’ve never tried to buy it in the market, I always buy tp in town but we’ll find out soon enough if its available here.
Relatively busy times here in Dwambazi, which is a good thing in a big way. Although my Chitonga prowess has faded some, my baby weighing skills and patient registering seem to be as strong as ever. I’ve been going into work in the mornings and then just sort of floating around in the afternoons, making sure people know I’m back and that they see me around. Other volunteers have suggested that perhaps my reentry into the community is a bit like starting over and it’s a reasonable assumption to make but not quite accurate. There are some elements of starting over but this time round I actually have some sort of competency which makes me feel pretty good, granted we are talking about weighing children which is not that difficult a task but still it felt good. It was immensely rewarding on that first day back at work to be able to just go in and get shit going. It’s nice now that I know (for the most part) how service delivery functions at the hospital. I don’t feel like such the bumbling fool anymore. Something else that happened that I thought was probably indicative of progress in terms of my work, is the following; as much as I love baby weighing (that’s not sarcasm I really do love working under five) and I intend to continue to work under five clinics both at the hospital and on outreach, I was kind of itching for something more to do. Not that I haven’t been wanting to get projects going before now but previously just being able to manage running under five felt like an accomplishment and at the time it was. As where now there’s this sense of, okay I enjoy doing under five, I like the work, it’s huge to be out in the community, but there are lots of HSAs here to weigh babies, your job is to develop and implement some projects that improve the general health and well being of the babies you’re weighing. This may be the most inarticulate thing that I have written to date but it seemed important to mention. I’m not sure how to better describe this feeling that I had, it was kind of like seeing my way forward, the inklings of direction and purpose, and really it felt damned good. Perhaps I’m grappling with how to describe my feelings as the feeling I was having bordered on confidence in my work and we all know confidence is not an emotion I am intimately in touch with. In keeping with this confidence boost of mine here are some upcoming events in my life…
Sunday- Meeting with group of girls from Women 2 Women, YESSS!!!!. Bless these girls they kick ass in a huge way. After the girls camp they wanted to form a group so that they could teach other girls in the community what they learned at camp and indeed they have been meeting and teaching classes. They are meeting again this Sunday and I am going to sit in and see the magic unfold. I hope to be doing a lot of work with these girls in the future and as much as I have all sorts of ideas for projects we could do, I know first and foremost I need to step back and let them tell me where they want to go from here. I will suggest this Sunday that we look into getting them registered as a community based organization (CBO), thus opening the door for potential sources of funding and then based on wherever they are at, we will move forward.
Wednesday- My counterpart, Ada Kweve, and I are meeting with group of people living with HIV/AIDS to present on IGAs. Ada and I were thinking of peanut butter making but we’ll see what the group thinks will best suit their needs.
Date unknown, but in the near future: Meeting with Mbiwi health committee about the construction of an under five shelter. This is a project Alex started but left before completing. There is some frustration on my part as Alex did all the paper work for a PCPP grant. A PCPP grant is a Peace Corps Partnership grant which in short means that you the volunteer, partner with someone from home who will fund your project. In this case it was Alex’s parents who were putting up the money but now that he has left his grant no longer stands. So I need to make contact with Alex and see if that money is still available and if it is, excellent, all I need to do is rewrite the grant under my name and we’re done, easiest project ever….If not I need to reapply under a different funding source which shouldn’t be all that complicated, it’s a relatively small project, but we’ll see. I think some of my frustration over taking on this project is that it wasn’t something near and dear to me, so I didn’t want to divert funding from projects I was really invested in and then I thought about that logic and was like, “Wow Megan you are an ass”. You didn’t come here to do things that “make you feel good” you came to help the community meet their goals and Mbiwi’s goal is an under five shelter, they have burnt the bricks, so it’s the least you could do to get them some tin. Now that I have my mind right on the issue I’m ready to take it on.
There’s been a request for me to teach the staff at the hospital to use the computer we received from the district hospital. The plan is to put up a list of dates and times I am available and just let people sign up. Not sure if I’m the best person to be teaching computer skills but I suppose you’ve got to start somewhere.
And of course GLOW. Big GLOW meeting around the 7th of February. We are supposedly having a training in Dedza at that time, if in fact the training takes place it would be the perfect time to have full group participation in GLOW. Before the coordinating team (Vanessa, Duncan, Brittany and Me!!) can really move forward, we need to pick a date as a group (by group I mean all twenty people from health 09’) and a theme, as well as discuss some other general issues. As I have prepared the greatest PowerPoint presentation ever I am so ready.
Oh Peter…..Just when I think he may drive me insane, he does something so fucking cute. I’m sure he senses my permissive nature and sometimes I know he exploits it but by in large we have healthy, not normal, but healthy boundaries. Just now for instance, I told him earlier today that I was sick so I wasn’t up for chatting but nevertheless he reappears and just as I’m about to send him home, he looks at me with those big ass eyes and says, Can I just sit outside and work on my writing so when I start school on Monday I can write really well (mind you this was all said in Tonga), then he sings the ABC song while doing the classic Peter dance. How can you say no to that and really I like having Peter around, he cracks me up as he’s a funny little guy, and he’s left to his own devices as is so he might as well hang out here and play cards, listen to the radio, or draw pictures. As it would seem that Peter has become my responsibility my goal for Monday is to go to school with him and talk to his teachers to make sure he’s going daily as he really needs to be in school not hanging around the local msungu’s house. Currently he has been outside quietly writing for close to half an hour now, we’ll see how long he lasts, bless him. I know he just likes being over here and as long as he’s being respectful, which he is 90% of the time, its fine with me. The other day when I came home he was sleeping on my porch; I had to sneak over his prostrate little body to silently enter the house. I suddenly realize I want to be very careful with the manner in which I am writing about Peter and I want to be clear on the point that I in no way think bad of Peter’s family or that I’m some sort of saint for spending time with him. His mother faces challenges I can’t even begin to imagine and I enjoy Peters company, I owe the bulk of my Tonga competency to the little bugger so really it’s good for me. I just write about Peter a lot as he’s around a lot so he’s an easy subject and I am fond of the little guy in a big way.
In non Peter related events, I went on outreach yesterday. There’s been an outbreak of whooping cough in one of the villages in Dwambazi’s catchement so we were doing mass inoculations. It was a good day, I had woken up kind of lethargic and woebegone but under five outreach lifted my spirits. At the beginning of every under five clinic or health talk that is given the women sing health songs. It is my personal goal to learn all the health songs in the coming months. I will put it on my to do list, I’m back into to do lists, clearly trying to keep motivated and structured. No matter what kind of mood I am in, give me one health song and a group of women and I am full of joy, I’m pretty sure a well done health song could raise me from the dead, its that powerful. The day continued to be solid, after much singing and many injections I got a sweet ride back home. Our hospital has a motorbike that they use for conducting outreaches and the like. It is Peace Corps policy that volunteers are strictly prohibited from riding motorbikes of any sorts, in fact it’s an administrative separation offense, meaning, they will send your ass home if they catch you on a motorbike. Initially I very much towed the line with policy but given time and my personality…..As its against policy to get on a motor bike (or as called in tonga, jinga ya mutu….bike of fire, which gets me every time) I would “never” do such a thing. But if I had gotten a ride home on the back of said motorbike, I can “imagine” it would have been amazing and indescribably fun. The village I was in Chimgondo is up in the hills a bit, so you come down through these lush hills and get this amazing view of the area. “Had” I done such a thing I would have loved it.....
It’s incredibly hot now and muggy beyond reasonable imagination, I hope it rains soon…..
A couple hours later…..
It hasn’t rained. So muggy, I just hope it rains before this evening, as muggy nights don’t make for the best sleep. I need to stop eating mangoes, delicious though they may be; they aren’t the food of choice when you can’t stray far from a chim. That having been said I think that particular issue is on the wane and by tomorrow whatever O to F (I know it should be F to O but for one reason or another, dyslexia??? I always think of it as O to F) bacterium I picked up should be cleared from the body. But mangoes, I can’t resist. I missed the best of mango season while in South Africa and they are soon to be gone for sometime so I have to get them while I can, even if it’s not in my best interest. Clearly I haven’t done a whole lot today but I think I’ve adult pooped my pants enough for this lifetime so it seemed best to just hang around the house with Uchi and not take any chances.
Uchi reminds me of our epic journey home, which I feel deserves a mention. But before I begin that compelling story, can I just say what an awesome dog Uchi is. I’m looking at her right now, she’s taking a little dog nap, damn she’s cute. As a fellow volunteer pointed out she looks just like Santa’s Little Helper, except in my opinion cuter, but its an apt description. And so big now who would have thought that such a stunted little creature could get so sleek and shiny. Really she’s not a big dog but based on her starting point she’s grown exponentially. I should weigh her at under five tomorrow so I can give you a better idea of how big she is. Its hard not to love Uyu, she’s like a dog goodwill ambassador, everyone loves her, as they should. She’s taking to sleeping on the bed with me, something that I normally don’t encourage but she picked up the habit in Lilongwe as I was either sleeping on the floor or near to the ground making me easily accessible and I won’t lie, there were some tough moments in Lilongwe and I needed a little dog cuddle and now the damage is done. I don’t mind her on the bed with me but damn her little body radiates a lot of heat, and mosquito netting makes it a bit of a tight squeeze. This reminds me that this morning after I had successfully fallen asleep post chim trauma, I was woken preemptively due to the fact that Uchi fell off the bed and was trapped in the mosquito netting. Annoying though it was to be woken up after successfully combating my rogue lower GI, she was pretty cute.
So back to the journey home. Now that Uchi isn’t a tiny puppy anymore travel with her isn’t quite as easy as it used to be. Although chickens and goats are most welcome on the Axa, dogs are not. I could have potentially thwarted the issue by putting Uyu in a box but that would have meant so many tiresome steps. Finding the box, carrying it to the bus station, the list goes on and on. So I figured I would just put her on my back and use my powers of persuasion. I wanted to catch the first Axa up the lakeshore road which leaves around 7AM and I heard that it had been filling up real fast so it was best to get there early. That having been said I woke up at around half four, as I needed to swing by the office and do some last minute things via email and I figured by the time I got my shit together, got to the office, and then hiked to the bus station it would be anywhere between six and half six. Let me say that every time I travel I swear I’m going to pack lighter but this time I mean it. Really I didn’t think I had that much stuff with me, I left a bunch of things I had collected over the last two months at the Peace Corps office to come up via Peace Corps transport that was coming the following week. I was down to my little chitenge bag and one small duffel and Uchi, all of which I thought would be manageable. And perhaps it would have been had I not been sitting on my ass for a month and not using my right arm all that much. I’m not sure how far the bus station is from the Peace Corps office, but I feel comfortable using the word, pilgrimage. Uchi walked on a lead down to the office but after I finished my work there it was wrapping time. Granted I could have wrapped her at the bus station but my wrapping skills aren’t super solid and an audience would not have helped. In fact there was a moment there at the office, all alone at 5:45 AM, running a little behind schedule, where I thought I might fail in getting her wrapped. But praise be I pressed on and succeeded, which is no small task, wrapping Uchi at this point is far more difficult than a child. So we set off and let me tell you by the time I got to the bus station I was pretty sure I might die. It was hot and humid, I had this dog on my back and duffle bag in hand. The duffle bag proceeded to rub a big raw spot on the back of my right leg and left a nasty bruise. So I get there bruised, bleeding, and sweating like a pig with a dog on my back and boldly walk to board the bus, where of course I am told, I can’t get on with the dog. I can imagine that better volunteers than myself may have given up or at least cried at that point but I found strength I didn’t know I had. To be fair a huge part of that “strength” came from the fact that I didn’t think I could make the walk back to the office which is where I would have gone, as my back up plan was to hitch with another volunteer coming up this way, it just wasn’t an option at that point, there was only one way forward and that was on that bus. I pulled powers of persuasion out of the hat that had never before manifested to that degree and after half an hour of using all forms of reason and logic, flattery, and ultimately begging and pleading, we got on the bus. It is notable that while doing all this cajoling a small (and by small I mean around twenty people strong) crowd had assembled to watch the asungu with the dog try to get on the bus, this was another source of my determination, there was no way I was going to walk through this massive crowd of people with the shame of rejection weighing me down along with the dog and katundu. I even used this as one of my bargaining chips with the Axa manager, “please abambo if you make me get off the bus all these people will laugh at me and I’ll be so embarrassed”. It was standing room only but I was at least able to put down the evil duffel bag which was sweetest of sweet relief. And then came the second challenge. This had never happened in my presence but Vanessa gave me the heads up as she was the last one to travel with Uchi; apparently Uchi gets car sick now. And really I can’t blame her, its not a smooth or pleasant ride by public transport. So I have this dog tied to my body, who is salivating as though all the fluids in her body are making a mass exodus via her mouth, on a very crowded bus that I was only able to board by insisting that my dog was exceptionally healthy. I knew she could vomit at anytime and that it was only a matter of time until said embarrassing episode ensued. Thankfully after an hour or so of standing and thinking nothing but, don’t throw up, don’t throw up, this kind gentleman named George offered me his seat at the way back of the bus. George’s act although heroic in my opinion was not altogether altruistic as he wanted to make me his girlfriend but that’s not unusual and he wasn’t a creep about it. He was a decent guy for sure, when Uchi finally did vomit, he didn’t seem particularly troubled and he even let her rest half of her body on his lap in the latter part of our journey, so really I applaud his tenacity, that’s a lot of trouble to go to for a phone number. So, many thanks to the kind manager at Axa who finally let me on the bus and to George who made my bus ride much more comfortable; and a nod to my and Uchi’s strength and tenacity as well, it was a long trip but we were triumphant and never had home looked so good.
Can I also mention how excited I was to see my blankie. Even though it’s only back up blankie, it’s the only blankie I have now. I thought about blankie a fairish few times while out of site and regretted not having him with me but it was a joyous reunion. I am not sure what will happen when I am reunited with the one and only blankie, my truest of true loves, who is currently safely stowed away at the Aziz’s, it may be too much for me to handle. I am thinking about how blankie smells right now, it’s a calming and pleasing thought. I am such a freak but you couldn’t get me to change anything about my unhealthy relationship with blankie, as you all well know, its one of the most sacred relationships I have, you couldn’t pry blankie from my cold dead hands I pity the fool who would try.
Same day, late evening…..
And still no rain. Oh sweet humidity, its going to be a long night. I should invest in fan. I’m a fool for not having done so while in Lilongwe when there was plenty of opportunity but I figured I made it through hot season so the worst was over and I would just get a fan next hot season, oh the foolishness. Although hot season is technically over and we have moved onto rainy season and soon enough will make the transition to cold season I should have remembered that rainy season is a muggy son of a bitch and cold season is a misnomer. But the sweltering weather is providing the impetus for this super blogging that is taking place as I otherwise would be enjoying the sweet sanctuary of sleep, so we can all be thankful for small favors. I hope I wake up feeling rested as tomorrow is a busy day at the hospital. It’s the supplementary feeding program (SFP) day as well as antiretroviral therapy program day, meaning lots of people, lots of paper work and the like. I like Fridays, Fridays and Mondays are perhaps my favorite days at the hospital……
1-27-10
Friday was not a busy day, it rained. Not a downpour which I actually really like but more of what I would describe as a steady rain. But it was enough to shut down all operations at the hospital. Hardly anybody came; clients and employees. So what did I do with myself, all dressed up with nowhere to go, prepared for a busy day and suddenly nothing to do. While a more productive person might have made work at the hospital, I came home and proceeded to “write” what you might call the beginnings of a short story. Yeah that’s right I’ve been doing some writing in my quiet moments, not just this scintillating blog you’re reading, but a touch of the journaling and now onto creative writing. Oh its drivel, I don’t have any illusions of having talent but I like the idea of being able to write and in all fairness I never really try, so I figured if I was going to say I couldn’t write because I’m not talented I should at least give it the old college try. Val you can rest assured that I did not use the word soul at any point in my fumbling attempts at writing, so I suppose that in and of itself is some small victory. I’ve been enjoying my own personal creative writing seminar that I’ve had going for the past week or so. I had some guilt (and by some I mean a substantial amount ) about taking time to sit around and write nonsense when I should say be doing something a bit more productive and meaningful to my community but when am I not feeling slightly guilty about something. I should take this opportunity to point out that some of my creative outpourings having manifested themselves by way of mix CD, and a lucky few of you (I think you know who you are) will be receiving said CD (there are actually two, yeah that’s how artistic I’ve been feeling) some months from now. I’m actually listening to it now, just to test it out, and I must say I’m pleased, I think it really speaks to my time here. I might need to do a little fine tuning but yeah its good stuff. It’s in the same style as the future doctors mix, so enjoy my message of love to you.
So Friday not busy. I did indeed run out of toilet paper which was an adventure unto itself, thankfully I went to visit Courtney not long after and swiped a role from her house, so crisis averted. I need to go to town and go shopping next week, aside from toilet paper I’ve been craving peanut butter, damn I would power through a PB and J right now….. This week has actually been pretty busy and the good sort of busy where you feel like you just might be accomplishing something. I had my first community meeting where I didn’t feel like a complete bumbling fool. It was for the group that wants to build the under five shelter and really they want it to be more of a community health resource center. It might be a bit of an under taking but I’m excited, the HSA whose in charge of that area has most certainly got his shit together and for christ sake the community has been trying to get this thing done for two years now and they’re still up for it. I guess what happened was that Alex’s parents were going to put up the money but then pulled out because of the economic downturn. So now I just need to figure out which grant to apply for and then master grant writing.
In other exciting and productive news, I met with my girls group on Sunday and it rocked my world. There were around thirty girls who came and damn, the girls who got this thing started are awe inspiring. Maudalitso was teaching this week, the topic, violence against women. All of the girls at the heart of this are exceptional but Maudalitso is in a class of her own. That girl has a charisma that blows me away, when she’s up there speaking, you have to listen to her, she’s impassioned and convicted and you can feel it in everything that she says, she’s a born orator for sure. This Sunday we’ll be discussing HIV/AIDS. I’ll be doing a small presentation and some hope kit activities with them, lets hope for the best. One I haven’t had my week long hope kit training yet so who knows if I’ll be able to handle it and two I am not a born orator but that aside I’m looking forward to it. I’m also in the process of investigating getting them registered as a CBO, apparently there have been some changes with the process but it should be an easy enough procedure. I’m hoping that Dwambazi’s community extension agent, who should be in Nkhotakota tomorrow, can pick up the forms for me at the District Assembly, saving me a trip and getting the forms here before our next meeting.
In fact aside from tomorrow, I have something scheduled outside of work at the hospital for just about everyday before I go for my hope kit training. We are indeed having the training, I called Cornelius, (the second in command for health sector) today and confirmed. I’m not in love with heading out for a long week but actually the timing is good in some sense. Based on the meetings I’m having in the community I need to be a busy grant writing beaver here ASAP which is something I need to be in Lilongwe to do, so that works out well. And of course GLOW, we need to make sure we don’t drop the ball on this one and in fact its time to start soliciting funds for GLOW. Vanessa (my tonga sister) is the finance coordinator so I thought we could put in some serious GLOW grant writing time while in Lilongwe. My immediate task as program coordinator is to contact all potential speakers after hope kit and see who’s still on board from last year and confirm new additions for this year’s program, wish me luck.
Presently I am glistening with sweat. Its eight PM, I’m sitting on my bed typing, all windows open, back door open, and I am damp all over. It’s been unreasonably hot and not a whole lot of rain, which doesn’t bode well, although I’ve heard that most people have a maize surplus from last year, so even if we do experience a prolonged drought there shouldn’t be mass hunger but holding off starvation isn’t really the best case scenario. It just isn’t raining, Friday was the last day it rained (today’s Wednesday) and again it wasn’t the typical wet season downpour and it only rained in the morning. There should be torrential downpours daily, hopefully we’ll get to it sooner rather than later. Even though people have maize saved it still would be horrendous to have an entire crop go to shit and it would mean that if next years crop was bad there would be a crisis situation.
I should be sleeping now, I’m tired as the sweet sweet heat has been making sleep a challenge and as sleeping in just isn’t an option here. That having been said Lilongwe got me off my half five wake up schedule, I still wake up around then but I’ve been able to go back to sleep for an hour or so after, and to my surprise I’ve actually slept till past six on multiple occasions. I write about the most exciting things…..
Vicotry!!! Peter started school I finally managed to get him to go into school with me so we could talk with his teacher. It’s been a lengthy endeavor but I think we’re on the path to success. The teachers I’ve met so far both at the primary and secondary schools have been pretty rad people and Peter’s teacher was no exception and he said he’d keep me abreast of Peter’s progress so that makes me feel good. But fear not there is still plenty of Peter in my life, as Peter’s only in standard two his school day ends around noon which leaves plenty of time to be here.
This is something I would normally leave for ye old journaling but as I’m sleep deprived and writing in a spectacularly disjointed fashion anyway, why not? I picked up a little girl of about three yesterday and put her on my hip and as I stood there with her I could feel Sam. It was beyond remembering, I could feel the weight of his body against my own. I think of remembering as something the mind does, but the body has a memory of its own and I was struck by that. I know nothing of being a mother but I had this absolute certainty that a mother’s body never forgets the feel of its children. There was a tightness in my chest and an ache that caught me off guard. I think of Sam and Ben, Kim and Mike all the time, they are part of my memory and part of my life, I’m accustomed to missing them or taking comfort in my reflections on the times we shared but this was something beyond that, it left me at a loss. I shifted the little girl to my back in the fashion that Malawian mothers carry their babies and ran back and forth in front of my house shouting “Synabo, wana wangu” (Synabo my baby), and spinning around in circles to the great amusement of the usual suspects of children clustered on my porch and to Synabo. All I could hear was laughter.
1-28-10
It started raining early this morning, a steady rain that ebbs and flows from drizzle to heavy. It makes for a lazy day, hospital empty and no one out and about. That’s something I noticed immediately about the rain, the silence it brings with it. Normally my house is filled with sounds of people chatting or just greeting one another in passing but when the rains come all I hear is the sound of the rain on my tin roof. It’s a comfortable quiet producing a soothing feeling that washes over you. I’m basking in it at the moment.
I did have a few visitors this morning. Peter dropped by around sixish to tell me he was going to school, I normally don’t do early morning visitors but in this case I’m more than willing to make an exception. I watched him walk off to school in the rain and was pleased. I got back into bed and finished The Unaccustomed Earth giving into the languor of this quiet morning. After making a little breakfast for myself and Uchi, my second cup of coffee and cigarette, Ama Chimbuto dropped by. I tell you, she always catches me at the most inopportune times, meaning various states of disrobement. I was in my nighty shirt, my old tattered wife beater that used to belong to the boyfriend of Pesa, a girl I knew from treatment and a pair of Hanes boxers, that more closely resemble loose fitting briefs, listening to music and putting the final touches on mix CD number two. Ama Chimbuto knocks but it’s not done as a request so much as a heads up, I’m coming in, its just Ama Chimbuto’s way.
Of recently Sauda has become frightened of me which breaks my heart as she was my little friend prior to my departure but she’s at that object permanence stage so being left with anyone is not her greatest joy right now least of all the strange pale one. Since my return, nearly every time Sauda has seen me, her wee face just falls and the crying ensues, so Ama Chimbuto brings her by at least once a day to help her readjust to me. Hence in they came this morning while I struggled to throw a chitinge on. This is why I love Ama Chimbuto she just laughs, asks if I’m wearing shorts, removes my chitenge looks my bear legs up and down, gives me the old hand slap and starts chatting away. Its interesting in some sense it’s an exceptionally modest culture; trousers can be scandalous and shorts on women or anything exposing the sensual knee unheard of but I get the feeling amongst women there is a certain comfort and freedom.
As much as legs are indecent and enticing the breast is out and about at all times. If you are holding a baby or have a toddler within a long arms reach you can have your breast out all day long. You can have entire conversations with women where one breast is
is just swinging free.
Same day later in the evening…
Freddy came by and as I had to get up to chat I figured I might as well get my shit together and get on with my day. I had to go to Tikumbo, to my friend Mel’s site, to pick up her hope kit for my meeting on Sunday. I had been thinking I needed to get going for sometime as the rain had stopped making it an opportune time to take transport but I was enjoying my special blogging time and we all know I’m a bit lazy so I kept putting off the arduous task of getting up, putting on clothes, and walking out the door.
I had a pleasant trip to Tikumbo, I just started walking down the road and figured I’d either catch a hitch or just get on a matola depending on what came first, the weather, and my mood. Humidity aside, it’s really a very beautiful time of the year and today was exceptionally nice. There was a coolness and freshness to the air that has been sorely lacking and was much appreciated. It was invigorating walking along the road, not a car in sight, the shockingly lush hills that still surprise me with their greenness made even more beautiful today by the low hanging rain clouds that drifted over. I ended up taking a matola, riding on top of crates of beer stacked one on top of the other. For one reason or another it was only men on this particular matola, my guess would be as the matola was full of supplies for stocking a larger grocery/bottle shop, that it was a business owner and his friends. But they were cool guys who after greetings and a little getting to know you chit chat we rode in comfortable silence and the conductor remembered me, I won’t lie its nice when people remember you fondly. It was a fast matola and as I sat perched above the bed of the truck on my beer crates watching the lake, houses, and people fly past, the rush of cool air got my thinking about riding roller costers as a kid and my mind wandered and I felt incredibly lucky and very much alive.
I was a little later getting back then I would have liked. It was the sort of situation that Peace Corps safety and security director Hector gives dire warning against, heading out for home not long before dark but I knew I’d find a ride and indeed I did. This time I sat up front and chatted with the driver, a really nice guy named Martin. When I got back Peter and his little cousin Wadi (Wellington but everyone calls him Wadi) came running down the path to greet me. They ran past an old woman who yelled at them where did they think they were running to and it pleased me that I understood her scolding. I asked Peter if he was worried that I wasn’t coming back, he just smiled, asked if he could take my bag, and we walked back home.
2/1/10
Val this ones for you….We could fuck all night….And maybe go to waffle house!!!!!! I’m actually singing along to this little ditty right now, and by right now I mean I just was belting it out, we all know that I couldn’t sing and type at the same time. It never fails to put a smile on my face when I hear this magical number. I so clearly remember being in the lesi-ru, driving down 33rd on the way to school, listening to the mix you made me and being overcome by the sheer magic of your genius. And then calling to leave you a rambly message about how amazing you are, hard to believe that was years ago, huh?
If you couldn’t gather, I’m sitting around listening to music, taking a little trip down memory lane. I’m also eating some delicious ba (porridge) pondering why I don’t eat all day and then shove anything and everything in my face come the end of the day, it’s a problem. First thing I am going to do in Lilongwe is get some chicken and nsima and then steak and rice at Amenia’s and lots of mphangwe, I miss the shit out greens right now, I can’t even tell you. Although greens may be absent from the market, it is avocado season and that is pretty magical.
I’ll be leaving for Lilongwe at the end of the week and as much angst as I had over leaving so soon after coming back, I’ve made my piece with it. I have work I need to get done in Lilongwe anyway, with this health resource center, GLOW, and my girls group and my counterpart is coming to the training with us, so he can verify to the community that I was on official Peace Corps business. I think it might be good for credibility as well to have to leave but then to come back when I am supposed to. I am having some stress about leaving my Uyu. I know Ama Bai and Charity will look after her fine and she is liked in the community but ten days is along time for her to be alone, I worry she’ll go feral without my love and support. I know she’ll be okay, I’m just being a freak. I wish I could bring her but alas I think her major traveling days are behind her. I’ll try to take her on some small trips, just so she doesn’t lose her good traveling skills but with the house being closed in Lilongwe its become much more difficult for me to bring her with me. I suppose if I’m feeling too soft about Uchi I could reflect back on the nightmarish episode from a few nights ago, when the little bastard vomited on the bed.
It was the first cool night in awhile and I was all geared up to sleep through the night undisturbed by sweltering heat. And at first it seemed I would succeed until I awoke to that god forsaken sound dogs make before they puke, it’s not the most pleasant way to wake up, simultaneously nauseated by the horrific sound and filled with an unwanted jolt of adrenaline. I tossed her on the floor where she proceeded to be sick, I was forced out of bed to attend to the mess, I fell back asleep, she puked again. Upon returning to bed for what I thought was the final time I realized that there was an uncomfortable dampness by my feet, as I got out of bed to change my sheets I could have killed her. Bless her I know it wasn’t her fault and I didn’t get angry at her or anything but as I scrubbed the vomit out of my sheets the next day, I pondered what is this thing called love?
I went over to the hospital tonight to return a phone I was charging and to see Ada Oswald as he’s sick with malaria, (its kicking his ass for sure, but he’s on the road to recovery). I realized I’d never really been to the hospital after dark. I suddenly remembered the night I arrived at site for site visit, probably the last time I was at the hospital under the cover of darkness. I got a ride from someone at the district hospital but we were late in leaving Nkhotakota so we got here after dark. The driver didn’t know which house was mine, so we drove up to the hospital to find someone who could claim me. I just remember the light of one candle in this incredibly unknown place. Tonight it was pleasant and familiar, I walked back to my house thinking how much I like being out at night here. There are these omnipresent light bugs, I remember when Vanessa, Jeremy and I first discovered them on Kande Beach during language intensive. We were so enthralled, and really I still am. Often as I’m lying in bed trying to fall asleep I’ll see the on and off again light of one of my little friends blinking at me from my mosquito netting, it always makes me happy.
Clearly I am in a reflective sort of a mood this evening. Maybe I’m just basking in the glow of having been here long enough to have perspective. It will be interesting to see where I’m at in another six months. I can’t imagine where I’ll be at the end of my two years of service and there’s freedom and openness in that, that’s at once terrifying and beautiful. I think it speaks to certain failings that there’s so little clarity in my life at this point in the game but also to having maybe done something right. Maybe I’ll be here working, maybe I’ll be in grad school, perhaps I’ll be doing the traveling I’ve always wanted to or maybe I’ll just be home, stowed away in Kim and Mike’s basement. Maybe I’ll be unimaginably happy, satisfied in my work and purpose, or perhaps I’ll be discontent chewing over the same unanswered questions. I get the feeling that this may be the last point in my life where I can look into my future and see such ambiguity. Very deep and dramatic isn’t, I’m a strange one, aren’t I. But I’m amused by myself and my musings, I’m smiling right now, and at the end of the day, isn’t that what’s important?
2-3-10
Sometimes I almost believe in divine providence. As you know I have been spending a lot of time thinking about greens; how delicious they are, how they nourish as well as bring joy, and how much I miss the happiness they bring me. Yesterday I was thinking about greens more than ever. I woke up to a lack of power, which is no big deal, power comes and goes. Sundays are normally no power days and any other day power is out in the morning you can expect it back on by the afternoon. But yesterday the power did not come back on in the afternoon and hunger was setting in. I had gone to the grumpy hungry place so eating at someone else’s house seemed like a bad idea, so I settled for just waiting it out. And who should appear at my door but L’Sungu one of Ama Chimbuto’s daughters bearing a container full of nsima and a bowl full of greens. I could have wept with joy, in that moment I felt I understood the phrase my cup runth over, that was the happiness I felt. I suspect Ama Chimbuto saw Peter and I attempting to cook over fire and felt an intervention was necessary and she couldn’t have been more right.
And those delicious greens of Ama Chimbuto’s weren’t the only greens in my life, no no, it gets better. That very same morning coming back from the hospital I ran into Tsokalawo who had a large bunch of greens in her hand. She asked if I knew what they were, (turned out it was okra), and that I should come by the next day and cook them with her. Thus today I found myself eating yet another exquisite meal of greens and nsima plus somba (fish). I can’t tell you how much nsima I ate with Tsokalawo, it took me back to my homestay days when I was the nsima eating queen… Its been an eating couple of days, not sure why but I have been ravenous of late. I just devoured a giant bowl of ba, my second one today, and am now having what I consider a very Malawian moment. As per usual its hot and extremely muggy, I’ve just eaten a bowl of hot porridge and am now washing it down with some hot chocolate, all the while sweating like a pig. The eating and drinking of scalding hot foods and beverages in intense heat is a way of life. The other day I was having tea with Ama Chipalasa and Charity. It was around nine in the morning and probably close to 90 degrees, 120% humidity and were seating there drinking this scorching hot tea, fanning ourselves as we’re sweating profusely and saying kufunda ukongwa masanwale, (its very hot today) as if the fiery hot tea had no impact on our steadily rising body temperature, I had to laugh.
I should continue writing as there’s ever so much more I want to get down before I leave and as I leave for Lilongwe Friday and tomorrow is a busy day between work and prepping for leaving, (we all know I couldn’t live with myself if I left without the house meticulously in order) tonight in theory should be the night to tidy up the blog. Alas I don’t think I am going to get much further this evening…..
2-4-10
I believe I am prepped and ready for travel. I looked over my pre-departure to do list today and damned if I don’t have about 95% of things completed, look at me go I am so productive. It’s a tough time to leave, yesterday I was thinking about how comfortable I was and how my routine felt right. I hate to mess with a good thing but I’ve got big plans for Lilongwe so it should all work out.
I feel like most of what I have written this past three weeks borders on inane. There’s a lot about my life here that I feel at a loss to explain but I wish I could. I worry that what I write is more fluff than substance and for that I apologize. I’m not sure how someone reading this would picture my life here or how they would envision Malawi. I hope I am doing justice to my community and really the country in general but I fear that perhaps I am not. Just know that it’s so much more than what I manage to get out.
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