Comments from the Ntedza Gallery: In the Field

This week I'm participating in a very unusual activity for a Peace Corps Volunteer and living the life of your average international development/aid worker. A PCV who lives in Lilongwe (the capital of Malawi) is partnering with USAID on an institutional mapping project in a few districts in Malawi, and this week they're working in Machinga, my home district. The goal of the project is to find out what organizations are in the area - who they are, who they're funded by, how many people are involved, etc - including everyone from international NGOs like Save the Children who have offices here to local CBOs (Community Based Organizations) that meet on a reed mat in front of churches. The end goal of the project is to compile all the information we collect into a database that will be left at the District Commissioner's office for all to have access to, with the idea that organizations can see who else is doing similar work and learn from each other, hopefully reducing redundancies in projects in the area. Additionally, we're using GPS to create a map of exactly where these organizations are, since probably half our day is spent driving around in the bush trying to find the right location.

Anyhow, thanks to USAID I and and a few other lucky Machinga-based PCVs are currently living like bwanas, staying atop the Zomba plateau (Zomba is the district which borders Machinga, and its main city is much larger and nicer than anywhere in Machinga) in the nicest hotel I've stayed in while in country. It's funny to be one of those people I see all the time while hitching; when aid workers go out into "the field", what PCVs call home, it's this big production of getting the village-appropriate clothes, packing water and snacks, and piling into a big SUV. I'm definitely seeing how the other half lives this week.

For your perusal, here are a few highlights of today: