Photo Update

What to do when the rain knocks down a tree?  Use your panga knife (machete) to chop some branches, amayi style!

A particularly plentiful day in my home: mangoes, cucumber, carrots, green beans, beans, popcorn, peanut butter, coffee, milk, bread, and hot water.  What else could I possibly need?  (Possibly that water filter in the background)

My favorite iwes (kids) - William and Limbani - practicing drawing with markers.

Celebrating the 8th night of Hanukkah at the end of MST!

One of the typical modes of transportation in Malawi: riding on the back of a pickup.

I'm currently relaxing in a house on the beach of Lake Malawi, the 9th biggest freshwater lake in the world.  Look out for more picture updates in the next few days!

Milestones

Approximately one year ago, I received my invitation to serve in Peace Corps Malawi.  Somehow, shockingly, I have made it through 6 months in Malawi.  A few weeks ago I administered my first set of exams, which was a truly stressful experience.  Here’s to an improvement next term!  May our exams be typed, edited, and printed on time, and no Muslim students will be late for Friday prayers because exams started 3 hours late. 

Side note/Malawi fun fact: proctoring an exam is called “invigilating” here, which was really confusing for awhile, but became really fun to say.  As in, “I am the invigilator for the Form 4 mathematics exam today,” or, “I am not invigilating any exams today, so I will go home and cook my nsima.”

Directly after the two weeks of exams, I scooted off to Lilongwe (the capital of Malawi, for those of you still working on your Central and Eastern African geography) for my In-Service Training, or IST, the landmark of any PCV who has completed 3 months of service!  I know most of my family and friends at home are still in the mindset of “Twenty-one more months?  That’s forever,” but I’m already shifting into the mindset of “Twenty-one more months?!  That’s no time at all to get things accomplished!”  I still feel like I’m learning about my community, and need to improve both my Chichewa and Chiyao, but I’m looking forward to working with local community members on projects around Ntaja, and seeing what I can get involved in.  In large part, that was the focus of our IST – discussing best practices in teaching, as well as learning about different grant processes we can utilize when working on secondary projects, and learning about different ways we can get involved in the greater PC Malawi community.

I was really excited for a few decisions my group made at IST – first, I was selected as one of two PCM Education 2012 representatives to the Volunteer Action Committee (VAC)!  VAC is made up of representatives of each of the training classes, as well as PC Malawi staff, and acts as a liaison between PCM and the volunteers.  It’s used as an outlet for both volunteer and staff concerns, messages, and policy discussions.  I’m really looking forward to meeting volunteers from other sectors and regions, as well as getting a chance to travel to Lilongwe on a relatively regular basis, since until a few weeks ago I’d only been traveling around the south of Malawi.  At IST we also nominated representatives to other country-wide volunteer organizations VSV (Volunteers Serving Volunteers, a peer-support organization), and the Diversity Committee.

Finally, and perhaps most excitingly, we made a few important decisions involving Camp Sky, a PCM Education-run MSCE-preparation camp that occurs for one week every year.  Each education training group is given the opportunity to decide if they would like to put on Camp Sky, and if so, if there are any changes to the organization and running of the camp that they would like to make.  Upon recommendations from second-year volunteers who worked on the camp last year, we have decided to postpone the camp until next April so that Form 4s can attend the camp only a few months before taking the MSCE, the all-important secondary school exit exam that qualifies Malawians to have better jobs, earn more money, and perhaps even attend college or a university.  Through last year the camp was occurring during summer break, with students who had just completed Form 3.  We’re hoping that the delay until next April will be effective both for the students in terms of preparing for the MSCE as well as for us PCVs in making the camp more stable and sustainable.  I am particularly invested in this decision, as I was chosen as co-program coordinator of Camp Sky!  So far we haven’t begun really working on Camp Sky other than choosing our team of coordinators, but look out for updates as the months pass!  It sounds like a potentially very stressful, yet very rewarding, job.

After IST, I hung around Lilongwe for a few days with some other PCVs, exploring the city a little bit, attempting to see a Malawian band in concert, and eating lots of kimchi (staying with a Korean at the Korean Garden Lodge definitely has its perks).  Currently, I’m taking advantage of the winter break by visiting a fellow volunteer in Mzimba district, in the northern region of Malawi.  She lives in a town up in the mountains, dominated by a large timber company, with her house in the middle of company housing.  It sort of feels like I’m in the middle of a coal-mining town, and I keep expecting to hear/see either some students trying to build rockets, or someone writing a song about being a timber-cutter’s daughter.  Clearly pop culture has limited my ideas on what it’s like to live in a company town.  It’s wonderful to be somewhere a solid 20 degrees (Fahrenheit) cooler than my home, with lots of trees, and electricity that works regularly.  Additionally, I can occupy my time playing with my friend’s puppy, two kittens, or two chickens!  It’s a menagerie over here.

Tomorrow morning, we’ll be off to celebrate Christmas with several other volunteers in Nkhotakhota district, aka my first visit to Lake Malawi!!!  I’m so excited to see and swim in this lake, eat fresh fish, and just relax.  Soon enough, it’ll be back to the realities of village living. 

So for now, Happy (belated) Hanukkah, and Merry Christmas!  On all your travels, yendani bwino!

Nkhuku Ndembo

Happy Thanksgiving y’all! I just got back (to my Liwonde, my second home) from a delicious and amazing Thanksgiving in Domasi, with a smattering of Southern PCVs.  We had chicken (unfortunately no turkey, known in Chichewa as a “crazy chicken”), mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, mac and cheese, biscuits, apple pie . . .Lots of delicious food cooked by people with electricity.  I brought margarine and a box of wine.

Recently, I’ve been out of site a lot recently for a couple different trainings.  First was a week-long PC-sponsored Life Skills training in Blantyre.  It was tons of fun to catch up with my friends, several of whom I hadn’t seen since we moved to site, and meet volunteers from other sectors.  Unfortunately, the training wasn’t incredibly useful, since mostly we learned about resources and kits we don’t have access to.  Additionally, about half of the volunteers at the training, including myself, got a really vicious stomach bug from drinking water (I thought Blantyre water was safe. . . Apparently not.  I am all about the bottled water these days when I haven’t filtered water myself), and I spent a few days lolling around my super bwana hotel room under a ceiling fan (while the electricity was on), running to the bathroom every 20 minutes and popping pills.  Anyhow, I’m feeling better.

So I was gone for a week for this training, came back to my site for a few days, and Wednesday morning my head teacher calls me into his office and says, “Camfed is having a training in Blantyre for 2 or 3 days starting today, you should go.”  To which my questions, “What is Camfed?” (Campaign for Female Education, a British NGO), “why do I need to go?” (because I’m the female teacher), “shouldn’t I teach the last week of class before Term 1 exams?” (apparently not as important) took a while to be answered.  Until the second day of the training I wasn’t even sure if it was ending on Friday or Saturday.  But, even though I didn’t understand most of the Chichewa training, I was really excited to be attending this training with my head teacher and two PTA members, discussing the importance of community involvement in ensuring that girls have access to school fees and materials necessary to complete their education.  I’m really hopeful that my community buys into what this organization was pushing for, and I’m excited to help out with any sort of projects they may decide to start working on.  Sure, we were staying at a shady Malawian rest home (my room was alarmingly close to a bottle shop, aka bar, so it was a noisy few nights), and it was certainly a different experience from PC training in a nice hotel the week before, but I think it was definitely a valuable experience to see how Malawians work on implementing projects supported by international NGOs.

Other points of note:  Rainy season is struggling to begin.  Every once in a while there’s a crazy flash flood/thunderstorm, occasionally resulting in a flood in my house.  I think there’s a scorpion living in my house, in addition to the many lizards and giant, hairy spider I saw a few days ago (probably 6 inches long; I was proud of myself for not screaming at it).  My school starts Term 1 exams next week, and if my students get more than 50% on them, I will be ecstatic.  I may or may not be getting electricity in the near future (we were supposed to get a transformer last week, so who knows).  And I finally got my dresser last week, so I am officially no longer living out of my suitcases!  Hallelujah!

The week after exams, I go my in-service training (IST), the big 3-month milestone for PCVs.  I can’t believe I’ve already gotten to this point!  It’s going to be so great to see my friends living around the country and hear about their sites and experiences, and brainstorm for things I should be working on in Ntaja.

Why Is It Taking So Long? And Other Notes on African Time

About a month ago, I paid a visit to the carpenter my Head Teacher had recommended when I first moved in and requested that he build me a dresser.  I explained what I wanted – six drawers, such and such a height, etc – and he told me, “No problem, I will come in three or four days.”  Since then, I have gone back to see him every few days, and we always have the same conversation: “Just a few days, no problem, I will bring it to your house.”

I am still waiting.

I knew, of course, that his initial estimate was not likely accurate.  On the other hand, I was hoping the job would get done in less than a month. 

Yesterday, while catching up with my parents on the happenings in Ntaja, my father asked, “Well, what’s taking him so long?”  I didn’t really have a response.  Time is different here in Malawi.  No one comes on time to meetings or school.  Suggested times are basically just indications that something will be happening in the relatively near future, barring unforeseen complication.  There are many possible reasons why the carpenter probably hasn’t started my dresser yet – maybe someone in his family had a more pressing need, or he’s been busy going to weddings (it’s wedding season right now) or funerals (it’s always funeral season) lately, or he hasn’t been able to go into town to buy supplies.  Also, apparently the price I bartered him down to wasn’t enough to pay for the expensive supplies I need and labor, and apparently I should have given him some money up front to purchase supplies.  Yet he never has asked for money for supplies, or told me it will take an extra few days.  Malawians don’t like to give you bad news; they’ll just tell you what you want to hear and go about business as usual.

I guess it’s all part of the chikhalidwe (culture).  Nothing happens on deadline.  This is probably very entertaining for those of you who remember me as the girl who got irritated when sorority meetings would start two minutes late, or the person who drives to movies twenty minutes early, just to make sure there’s no traffic and I can get a good parking spot.  It is kind of killing me that my dresser is currently three weeks late and counting, students mosey into class several minutes after the bell rings, and the post office opens a half hour after lunch hour is supposed to end. 

But you know what?  I’m sort of adjusting to it.  I’m trying to change my strategies.  I go to the post office later in the day, I follow the students into class and take up five minutes of their break time, and on Monday, I’m going to get back up from my head teacher and threaten my carpenter that I’m going to find someone else to build my dresser if he doesn’t get his act together by the end of the week.  For now, I’m going to fax in my absentee ballot, continue to attempt to explain to my students about baseball and the World Series (Form 3 knows about the San Francisco Giants now!), and continue going to the woman who can find both carrots and okra at the market. 

Palibe vuto – no worries.

By the way – if anyone has an internationally-compatible smartphone that has a spot for a sim card (aka I don’t think Verizon would work) that you don’t want anymore, contact my parents?  I’ve decided it would be nice to look at my email more than once every few weeks, when all I can manage to do is open and scan them.

Have you missed me?

Hello all!  For those of you who religiously check in on this blog, sorry it’s been awhile since I updated.  I can only update when I go into town, since I don’t have electricity, and often when I do that, I’m so excited to be hanging out with my friends and eating food I didn’t cook for myself that I don’t take the time to write a blog post.  But luckily, this is a 3 day weekend!  Monday is Mother’s Day, an official holiday in Malawi, so no one has work or school, so I have a little extra time with electricity on this weekend trip. 

So what’s new with me?  Well, hot season has definitely started, and it’ll be interesting to see how I survive.  Every day for the past several weeks I’ve been sweating by 9 am or so.  It’s funny – it’s not that the temperature is so much higher than it gets at home in the summer, but due to the lack of electricity, there is just no relief from it.  I’m definitely ready for the generator to arrive at my home so I can start using a fan (and cooking on a hot plate, because it’s time consuming and difficult to cook one dish at a time on a charcoal stove!).  Supposedly the generator is coming at the beginning of November, and we’re next on the list for a transformer (to hook up regular electricity), so perhaps we’ll get that sometime in the next few months. 

For the past few weeks, I’ve mostly been just adjusting to living at my site and teaching everyday.  Even though I still have the struggles I mentioned in my last post, dealing with the radically different teaching and working philosophies that the education system is built on here (why wouldn’t we stop classes 2 hours early to have a PTA meeting?), I’ve decided to just accept the quirks of my school, observe how the other teachers are working, and do my best to teach how I think I should.  I know I need to build the trust of the other teachers before I start recommending that they change their practices and school policies.  So everyday I go to work with lesson plans in hand, show up to my class on time, try to involve the students in the lesson as much as I can, and see where that takes me.  It’s always interesting to see what clicks with my students, and what doesn’t. 

My current goal that I’ve been working on for the past couple weeks is getting some furniture in my house.  I have a dining room table, two chairs, and a bed (which host sites are required to provide by the PC), but so far that’s it.  My clothes are still in suitcases, and my food is all in bags on the floor of my dining room.  Not very home-y yet, so two weeks ago I finally made it to the carpenter to ask him to make me a dresser.  I have been assured for about a week and a half that the dresser will be ready in just one or two day’s time, so . . . maybe soon I’ll get it?  I’m not positive how much furniture costs, but I figure I’ll go one piece at a time, and hopefully soon my house will have more storage space and be more neat.  I have, fortunately, been able to decorate it with a few pictures, maps, postcards, and cards that people have sent me (so keep sending me letters and pictures!  I miss you all, and really appreciate every piece of mail).  That, at least, is helping my house feel like a home.

I’m trying to work on integrating into my site more, and build a community for myself.  It’s happening pang’ono pang’ono (little by little).  I have lots of kids who come to chat with me everyday, which is alternately awesome and annoying (like when I want to take a bafa or just have some quiet alone time).  Overall, though, the kids make me practice my Chichewa, aren’t too shy about asking questions about America, and it’s nice to have people excited to talk to me.  I have gone to a couple choir practices at the church by my house, too, even though I am pretty confident I’m not going to be attending church, and I have no idea what I’m singing.  But the women’s choir that I first sang with was so enthusiastic when I showed up and attempted to sing that I think I’ll have to go back occasionally.  I’m also figuring out, pang’ono pang’ono, which market vendors have the fruits and vegetables I want (one has had carrots a couple times!  And my new favorite fruit that’s in season is called a Mexican pear), where I like to buy airtime for my phone, and who sells sliced wheat bread.  There’s a lot more variety at the markets and stores in Liwonde, but gas prices have been going up here, and I now pay about 700 kwacha to get to town instead of 500. 

Here are some of the girls who like to come hang out with me:

This weekend, though, I’m on a trip.  A smattering of us Southern Malawi volunteers decided to use the three day weekend to head to Zomba, a relatively big city in the south.  One of Zomba’s many charms is its elevation – we’re up on a plateau, and so today is the first day in several weeks that I have felt cool, which is amaaaaaazing!  Zomba has a really great market, full of lots of veggies (eggplant!  Cucumber!  Avocado!), and we had a delicious barbeque yesterday with meat from a Halaal butcher in town.  Today I’m just relaxing, seeing people that I miss hanging out with every day during training, and inundating myself with as much media as possible.  Tomorrow, I’ll be back to reality.

Before I go, here are some pictures from a ridiculously awesome boat ride I took in Liwonde, when I saw all sorts of animals (warthogs, yellow baboons, elephants, hippos, crocodiles, bush babies) – I really am fortunate that I live so close to such an amazing park!  I’m going to need to go on a safari soon.