Tilipo....

The thing I hate about Lilongwe is that its ridiculously stressful to get here, and when I do arrive, I feel like all I do is run around getting even more stressed out and yet not actually getting anything done.  At all.  Arrived Wednesday night after getting a ridiculously wonderful hitch a little north of Blantyre.  I'm staying at Mufasa's and the last few days have been training for Volunteers Supporting Volunteers.  Its been pretty interesting for the most part and people in VSV have some cool ideas for things the group can do here to welcome new volunteers to their regions and stuff. I'm really excited anyways to be a part of the group.

Even more fun is I have a skin infection on my foot!  Its pretty awesome... And by that I mean gross...  :)  Apparently it was infected so now I'm on med hold until Monday in case it takes a turn for the worse!  Right now it seems to be getting less infected, but the rashy part seems to be spreading... And its ITCHY.  Ridiculously so.  And those of you who know me realize that itchy is a huge problem... Not scratching is a constant struggle.

Work is busy now.  I should be doing stuff for VSV, like edits for the volunteer directory thing, or getting stuff written up for the food security task force thingy I'm on (did actually do some of that), but the lure of free internet is so much easier to accept.  So instead, I've been spending my afternoon on facebook, looking up graduate programs (hey... only 14 months left), and random other things.  Oh well.. I'll be back to business soon enough.  Like tomorrow.

Damn you Mark Risso... you were right... Kurt Vonnegat is a genius!

So a long time ago... in a land called Nittany Valley... a girl named Brianna got ridiculously pissed off at her former roommate (Mark Risso) for insulting her favorite genre of book.  I believe he said something along the lines of:  "If they can't tell the story in less than 300 pages, they just can't write" and used Kurt Vonnegut as a prime example.  (Ok... it was actually a much more heated discussion... much more heated...  in which Kurt Vonnegut was held up as the epitome of writers while all fantasy and science fiction writers, with the notable exception of Tolkien, were tramped upon... )  Thus, the girl... who in her defense was very young at the time, held a huge grudge against said author.  Fast forward to the future.  In the land of Mulanje, Malawi, where free time seems to be abundant and the sources of books scarce, this girl decided to give it a try since Vonnegut seems to just pop up everywhere (thank you peace corps library!).  After reading... said girl is forced to say, although she still holds fantasy and sci fi in high esteem, Kurt Vonnegut is FREAKING amazing.  For sure...  Read him if you haven't... I suggest starting with Bluebeard

In other news... xmas and new years were spent lounging on the beach.  A much needed (although didn't realize it at the time) vacation.  Lake Malawi is beautiful!  While I definitely missed the presence of snow (its amazing how much we associate that time of year with snow... it really didn't feel like xmas/new years without it and with temperatures above 80F), it was nice.  Also, not having family around was a super bummer.  I didn't realize how much time I spent with my family this time of year... putting up the tree, cooking food... getting yelled at by dad for not cleaning the house :) cranberry sauce... cookies... xmas eve at dad's... driving to NJ to see mom's family... and one more year of that :(  but I know that when I get home, I'll really appreciate the holiday season even more.

In Water project news... After a slight miscommunication, in which the village chief at namwera wanted to change the project to a different, more expensive one at last minute (he understood we have a limited budget and we went back to the original program), we are rolling!  The community found volunteers to dig trenches and finished Wednesday.  Yesterday, myself, the local plumber Mr. Gologoda, and about 7 volunteers, including the Village Headman Namwera, went to the trading center by me to buy all the supplies and transport them back.  Hopefully they'll have everything done in the next few days!  Otherwise, waiting to hear about some funding for a school library, trying to get some more funding for a few more water projects, and helping with some training for village savings and loans groups I work with now.  So... busy busy busy.  :)

I love the phrase "You've been approved!!"

That's right!  Approved!  My first project, extending the water pipeline from my village to Maliera has been approved!  I was a little worried.  The cut-off for funding is US$500 and I was at $492... But all is good!  I was getting a little nervous because the village chief had said they'd already started digging for the pipes they already had despite my adamant "I'm not promising this is getting funded... but I'm trying" statements over and over... But now the work can begin in earnest!!!!  WAHOO!  In addition to this being my first "real" project I've planned here, its super important that the people living in Namwera have access to clean water asap.  Most women go to the river for drinking water now b/c the borehole is too far away... and they're at risk for a lot of waterborne illnesses here... like cholera... not a fun time I've heard.  Anyways... if anyone is looking for a cause to donate to during the holiday season, please check out my project at:  http://appropriateprojects.com/node/466

On other news... don't think I've mentioned that actually did get a cat.  Her name is Toco... which is the informal version of grateful or thankful... Its a commonish name here and my counterpart's wife (and good friend here) Lucy picked it so its extra special.  She really pretty... orangish... born in august.  Really like her, but she's much more high maintenance than anticipated.  She's really whiny... like all the time.  Which is good bc the mice hear her and flee in terror (Yippie!), but really annoying, at say 3am.  Its gotten a little better since she started sleeping on the bed with me... Except her favorite place to sleep is on my chest...

Sort of annoying for me is that for whatever reason... maybe the honeymoon is over at site... but I've had a ton of people, mostly women I work with in the mushroom group, ask me to give them or their kids food (or occasionally money) when I'm walking around and wanting to just chat with people.  Which puts me into a pickle: if I want to continue working with them, I can't be too bitchy, but I really just want to flip out on them. One or two is not a huge deal... I usually calmly explain to them a few times that I'm a volunteer... I don't have enough food/money to give them, or if I did I'd have everyone in the village coming up to me for the same thing (word travels fast here... gossip is spread like fire), plus I came to Malawi to help with development and environmental projects, not to hand out shit.  But 4-5 people in a matter of 2 days, especially when I just got back from travelling and was looking forward to just hanging out with my friends in the village and working on projects is frustrating.  What's also frustrating with the mushroom group is that I've also already given them ~$30 to get them started on their mushroom growing (which is going well fyi!), plus every suggestion I give them to increase business they say "oh ok..." then don't do it.  So, Wednesday's meeting is going to be interesting...

Anyways... looking forward to getting the water project started... and for christmas.  Going to the lake to camp with a bunch of friends... Should be fun and relaxing!

Turkey Day & Water Projects Galore!

So HAPPY LATE TURKEY DAY!!!  I hope everyone was ridiculously stuffed with turkey and mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce and apple/pumpkin pie!!!  I was definitely missing everyone in the US the last few days... especially family.  (Love you guys!).  My Thanksgiving here was pretty fabulous... Spent this past Thursday in Blantyre.  VSV in the south had a welcome/orientation for the new education and health volunteers that arrived in July.  Technically they've been stuck at site for the last 3 months and are "officially" able to travel, so it was supposed to be the first time we all got together.  Definitely a fun time... we all stayed at Doogle's, the backpacker's lodge there.  We pretty much just hung out and chatted... and drank... probably a little too much, but that's ok.  And ate really yummy food.  Amy and I also had a good time shopping and hanging out with Mary, a girl from University of South Carolina (I think...) who's doing research for her Ph.D in Mulanje district...

Friday was an exciting travel day.  And by that I mean we got on a bus at 630 am, and didn't move from our seats until 11.  Got some stuff done at the Peace Corps office in Lilongwe... and by that I mean I played with my new computer for about 4 hours!  Its absolutely beautiful!  Its a burgundy & black on the outside and has a pretty largish keyboard for a net book, and has an amazing battery life (very important when you don't have electric... :), and there's a digital camera thing that might mean if I can get a high speed internet connection I can try skype!  Super excited because I've already used it a ton to write these two grants that I will explain soon...

Saturday was the official Peace Corps Thanksgiving dinner!  It was delicious!  The needed a few additional volunteers to help cook, so went to that...  It was insane and awesome!  Feeding 100 people is a ton of work but we all had fun.  Main course was a roast pig (turkey is way too impractical...).  Also had mashed potatoes, mac & cheese, mango pie (almost like apple!), green bean cassarole, salad... you get the idea... yumminess...  And there was lots of dancing!  Vic, our country directer provided music and has a really good collection of random stuff... Afterward... we just all hung out... then went to Chez Ntemba, a night club... I'm constantly amazed at night clubs here... and how much more comfortable I am dancing... Until a dance-off went down, followed by a techno rendition of Jingle Bells that I was just not feeling.  So a bunch of us went home...

So... grants... A village right by me called Namwera is currently having a major water problem.  They have 2 boreholes (think giant hand pump) for getting water, but one has no parts... a problem you can imagine, and the other is in need of replacement parts, so right now its operational, but takes about 2x as long to fill up a bucket as one that's in good condition and the hand pump part sounds like its going to fall apart at any moment.  In addition to this, the "working" one is at the bottom of a hill, while the majority of the village is at the top... And this is a steep hill.  For those of you who know my Dad's house, imagine walking up the hill my driveway is off of (Grapevine Rd), to the top, with a 20L bucket of water on your head.  Not a fun time.  Which means either more work for the women and girls here, or they drink untreated stream water.  So, I'm writing 2 grants.  One is to fix these 2 boreholes, plus one in my village that hasn't been working for awhile... Also, when I went to go talk to the village chief about the boreholes, he asked for help with another project.  There's a pipeline system running from my village... an intake pipe takes water from a nearby stream, treats it with chlorine (when available), and then pipes take the water to parts of my village and a few others south of Maliera... Namwera's Village Development committee managed to raise ~US$200 to get some pipes to extend the system, but were struggling with the rest (~US$500).  So, that's the second grant.  Anyways... keep your fingers crossed that they get approved!  The grants are through a really cool organization called appropriate projects that is all about water projects under US$500.  They fund projects upfront so it gets finished asap, and then they ask people to sponsor the projects and donate the money for it.   So... if anyone is interested in helping out... check out appropriateprojects.com

The Stolen Camera Saga...

So... thought I'd take a moment to describe the joys of the legal system here in Malawi.  For those of you who don't know, my camera was stolen from my backpack Oct 31st... I was getting off a bus, realized people could see my camera sticking out of my bag, so closed it.  Started walking away from the bus stop to a different place to board a different minibus, and as usual, was crowded by bus conducters, drunks, and random people who "just want to be friends."  When I boarded the 2nd minibus, realized that my camera was gone, and that one of the people crowding me had probably taken it.  Amy, who was with me at the time, and I went back and started asking people for help, and finally some guy took us to the police station to make a report.  At the time, was seriously unimpressed with the police service, but to my great surprise, got a call the following week that my camera had been found!!  Ecstatic, I went back to Limbe, thinking I'd only be there a few hours, identified my camera (minus 1 memory card and flashdrive and transfer cable thing... plus all pics on the 2nd card were deleted...), and was told I should stick around till the next day... so I did... and the guy who stole my camera plead not guilty (claimed he found it on the street).  So, was then informed I'd have to talk in court the next day. 

After getting prepped on court procedure by Hector, Peace Corps' amazing safety and security officer, who also was super patient in answering my questions and getting the police to speed up the process so I wasn't hanging out in Blantyre/Limbe forever, I met the prosecuter for my case.  At the courtroom, sat on a very uncomfortable bench for a very long time... Malawian court is really interesting.  The defendent doesn't have a lawyer (at least in the cases I saw) and the court doesn't provide one when they can't afford one.  So, the prosecuter asks questions of witnesses they call, and then afterwards the defendant can cross examine.  There's a clerk that interprets English (which most of the proceedings are in) into Chichewa (but not the other way around).  Also, the magistrate (referred to as "your worship") records all the dialouge himself and then asks more questions to clarify.  Was super nervous at first, but then I watched a ton of cases before mine was heard, so had the whole process down. 

Anyways... then had to wait 2 more days to get my camera... went all the way to Limbe (its expensive!) found out that I couldn't take it yet... then arranged through some awesome people who live in Blantyre to get my camera through a friend of theirs and they'd bring it with them the following week to my village.  Worked out pretty well... EXCEPT... the friend had to wait 4-5 hours because she refused to pay a bribe (after I called the prosecuter to ask if the arrangement was ok AND wrote a letter giving her permission) and sometime between the trial and getting it last week, it was dropped... and while it still works, its annoying. 

Either way... I'm incredibly thankful that it was found!  Overall, minus the last bit, the Limbe police were absolutely amazing.  I have a working camera... and that means I can continue to take pictures instead of not being able to at all!  Anyways... more on some projects I have later...

AND HAPPY TURKEY DAY TOMORROW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Goodbye altered moods and increased anxiety... Hello sunburns and antibiotic resistance...

So... Peace Corps policy requires all volunteers to take medications that keep us from getting malaria.  Good policy for sure.  Malaria, as I've observed from people in my village, just sucks.  And has the potential to kill you or put you on dialysis for the rest of your life.  So definitely not complaining.  Since arriving in Malawi, I've been on Mephlaquine, the cheapest and easiest medication available.  Once a week you take it, and then no worries.  However... side effects are numerous, generally fall into the mental health altering category, and sometimes sneak up on you without warning See:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mefloquine  for more info.  For example, you think everything is fine and dandy... and then your bike tire won't separate from the tube and suddenly its the end of the world and your trying to hold back tears while explaining to your counterpart that, yes, everything is in fact ok when you actually want to curl up in the fetal position or tear out grass from the ground while contemplating calling your boss to say you're leaving.  True story.  Anyways... after that little episode, it was suggested by my amazing and very patient site mate that I should call and get my medicine switched.  Turns out, its ridiculously easy to do, and starting next week, I'll be joining the crowd of volunteers in my group switching to Doxycycline.  Doxy has much fewer scary side effects.  My main concern now is that sun sensistivity increases.  Not a good thing for someone who consistently forgets to apply sunscreen on a daily basis, is currently living in a sub tropical country in the middle of its "summer", and has no hat.  Also a concern... doxy is an antibiotic.  And increases frequency of yeast infections... So... while definitly more manageable, is still just the lesser of two evils.  But at least I won't get malaria (for which I'm super thankful!  Thank you PC!)

On happier notes... things are moving along at site.  The mushrooms my women's group "planted" are coming along slowly, but doing well!  And the PB group, which is also the natural resource management committee, are taking a break from peanut butter to build a tree nursery.  The structure was completed last week and this past week, they've been filling pots and started getting seeds planted.  Also, had a really good meeting with the chair of my village's Development Committee, and have some really cool ideas that I want to start working on.  For instance, a large scale irrigation system for the community so they can still farm during the dry season (which is right now... and let me tell you... in addition to being dry... its HOT!! Days usually in the upper 90s but still humid, and nights, I'm lucky if it fall to the low 80s... and I have a iron sheet roof... and my water is never cool... its grossly warm... and I sweat... a lot... and while its certainly not chickwawa (district aka devil's asshole b/c so freaking hot)... it still sucks...).  The village directly north of me has one already... and its the most BEAUTIFUL thing ever.  Lush, healthy green maize EVERYWHERE... near the system that is... so super excited to start finding out about that...

Today, I am older than dirt. Well... not really :)

So lots of excitement the last few weeks!  First of all, saw ELEPHANTS at Liwonde!!!  It was spectacular.  Its completely different than being at the zoo.  The game count consisted of 2 days at Liwonde.  One day was a transect walk.  Quite simply, walking about 13k across the park, which is basically the bush... Of course we went with some protection.  2 scouts with the park accompanied us (Amy and I) brandishing some very impressive semi-automatic rifles.  And they were ridiculously casual with where they were pointing them at times... But thankfully, no accidents.  On the transect walk we saw a rather impressive elephant skeleton torn apart by hyenas.  The skull was HUGE!  As for live animals, we saw impala, sable, bushbuck, waterbuck, bushpig, hartbeast, and warthogs (just like Pumba!).  Plus a ton of monkeys and baboons were hanging outside the youth hostel we stayed at.  The other day of the game count was a hide/blind... Literally parked it on a 10 ft termite mound on the Shire River flood plain with a little shelter built over it for shade and sat there for 4 hours.  The last 2 hours we watched elephants going for water!  It was awesome!  There was nothing between us and them but grass and space.  It was cool b/c they had a "scout" who kept going ahead and checking things out.  Then she'd wait for the rest to catch up and off she went again.  There were two groups we watch, one with 10ish members and the other with 13-14.  All different ages.  Also saw some water buffalo too. 

In other news, Sara Lane from Ntchisi came to Amy's so I crashed there for a few days.  It was a really nice visit, just hanging out and chatting.  Best of all, Sara made Amy and I a birthday cake!!!  Not a small thing when you only have a kerosene stove at your disposal!  And it was absolutely delicious!! 

Also, my women's mushroom group started mushroom farming Thursday!  I'm really excited, but also a little nervous.  It's really time consuming and also a little tricky to get a good harvest since there are so many ways to contaminate or loose the mushrooms.  but... keeping my fingers tied.

Last but not least... its my birthday!  27 today!  Traditional midnight birthday call from Caitlin and Jan was amazing.  Also hanging out with Amy is great.  Best site mate EVER!  She shared ranch packets and candy in honor of the day.  Well... times up.  Miss you all...