In “Dis-Connect” AKA PST…

Helloooooooooo everyone!!!
Has it been as weird for you as it has been for me? I practically fell off the face of the earth for a month and a half! I apologize to those of you who probably have been at home thinking, “Ashleigh just moved to Africa and said screw us…” That was not what I did at all! I miss everyone very very much and am disappointed in myself when I looked at some of the last things discussed via texts when I was still in the states: no proper good-byes, some just left hanging or never replied to. So, I’m sorry. I have been living in the middle of nowhere for the past month and even when trying to be sneaky about getting online the 1 time I did, I didn’t accomplish much. I am still currently in training, the date is 7/30/10 and I’ve been out of America for almost a full month. Since much has been going on I thought it only suitable that I take the opportunity to get a head start of a post so I can hopefully, soon, catch you all up on what has been happening in my world…
*Warning: This is going to be very long and many of you might know some of this from the few letters I’ve managed to mail out*
Malawi is AMAZING!!
During homestay (July 9 – Aug 12) I’m living in the Chikanda village with 6 other trainees. Chikanda is in the Dedza district which is about an hour and a half south east from the capital, Lilongwe. Dedza is very mountainous! And probably the coldest area of Malawi at over 5000 ft above sea level. It is winter now here so most days it’s around 60-65, unless the sun is out and then it’s pretty nice Chikanda is nestle in between two mountains, so let’s just say the view from where I sit is pretty spectacular. My host family is really nice! I have my own room in the main house and am pretty spoiled cuz I actually have a bed frame for my mattress. Most ppl just have their mattresses on the floor, so I lucked out. My host father (abambo) has a small store on the main road so I don’t see him much, cuz at night he works his own security for his store. My host mom (amayi) is an amazing woman, she cooks and cleans and does other chores all day long, most of the time with Esau, her 1 year old son tied to her back in a chitenje (A chitenje is a 2m long piece of fabric that has 101 uses, one of which is strapping a small child to your back!). There are 4 other children (5 total). Thandi (12 yr ld girl), Brighton (9 yr old boy), Chisangalalo (7 yr old boy), and Polina (5 yr old girl). They are all so dang cute! Thandi helps me learn new vocabulary in Chichewa, so we have fun sitting together by the fire after dinner doing homework and thinking of new words

(I will add pictures later. Hopefully…)

A typical day during homestay/training goes something like this: I wake up around 6am, climb out of my mosquito net, grab my t.p. and head for the chim. Normally I say the typical morning greetings on the way to my amayi, “Mwadzuka bwanji?” To which she replies, “Ndadzuka bwino, kaya inu?” And then I say, “Ndadzuka bwinoso, zikomo.” After the chim and brushing my teeth my amayi has my “bafa” ready. Bafa translate into “shower” but it’s just a hot bucket bath. After my bucket bath I get ready for the day and by the time I am dressed my amayi says, “Auntie Ash, tiyi?” (“auntie” is used if you respect a woman) Tiyi, is what my language trainer Agatha calls “chichenglish” so if you guessed “tea” then you are right, lol. We have tea every morning and breakfast is usually bread with PB or honey or rice porridge with sugar. After breakfast I usually gather up my things and head to Agatha’s house for language class. Class starts at 8am. We have language from 8-9:30ish, with a break, then at 10am we have technical training. Technical training is any type of training to help us do our job. Since I am a health volunteer I am learning about things like: water sanitation, communicable diseases, community health, family planning, nutrition and so on. It’s all very interesting actually, and I love that I basically have the freedom to do whatever I want as far as my projects are concerned. So we learned the basics of all the subjects now and during the first 3 months at site we can do community assessments to see what our community needs help with and then kind of find a balance btw that and our interests, so it’s pretty sweet.
Lunch is at noon and my amayi usually has it ready when I get home. Lunch can be rice or nsima (a very thick corn flower prridge that you eat with your hands and is rather tasteless, but filling, hence why Malawians like it), with some type of protien like chicken, eggs, or beans, and then a vegetable, usually mustard leaves that have been boiled, but I have had the pleasure of cabbage and okra a few times! And at every meal I usually get a fruit too, either a banana (ntochi) or a tangerine. After lunch, class starts back up at 1:30, usually with language again. At 3pm we have break and then technical at 3:30-5ish. I return home and try to help my amayi cook or my achemwali (sister) wash dishes. Dinner is at 6:30 and it’s the same variations at lunch, starch, protien, veggie and fruit. The sun sets here around 6pm so after dinner there’s not much to do. I find myself searching for things to do so I don’t go to bed too early, I had been going to bed at 7:30, but I think that’s too much, so lately I’ve been trying to stay up till 9, but it’s hard!! lol I’m getting a lot of reading done!
The night sky here is incredible. There are just SOOO many stars! I can just sit outside in our compound looking up at them forever, but my family probably already thinks I’m a crazy enough azungu (white person) hahaha. It’s crazy tho, because when the moon is out, even just a sliver it’s like the sun never really sets. You even have a shadow! The moon creates light pollution, blocking out a majority of the stars, but oh my can you SEE the moon here! It’s unbelievable and indescribable. When the moon is full people tend to stay out later and a week or so ago our neighbors across the road has an all-night brick burning party where they blasted the radio through a full-sized stereo speaker ALL night while they burned mud bricks in an oven. I was pretty irritated and had to sleep with earplugs in, but my abambo apologized the next day and said it wouldn’t happen again, and so far he’s been right.
I’m sure you’re all wondering about sicknesses and I’m pleased to report that after a month I have nothing serious to report! *knock on wood* Besides or a couple, very mild cases of the shits I’ve been perfectly healthy, perhaps even more so now than in the states, believe it or not. A few people in my training group have not been as lucky, but overall I think we’re all managing well.
The food is actually pretty delicious, but only after a month I think I’ve tasted all Malawi has to offer, lol. Ok I know that’s not true, but for the most part it is. Nsima is… well nsima. And Malawians LOVE it, it’s so silly, if you ask almost any Malawian what they like to eat the answer is always just, “Nsima!” lol I don’t think I love it that much but it’s not so bad. I can never eat it with a utensil, it’s just wrong, and of course I am not as graceful as my family when it comes to molding it with their hands and then managing to use it to clean every speck of sauce off their plates, but I’m getting the hang of it. Chipisi are amazing! Basically it’s Malawian french fries, sliced up potatoes and fried. And OH SO delicious! My amayi makes this killer tomato sauce with cooking oil, salt and tomatoes that I just can’t get enough of! Malawians also make these things call Mandazi, which are basically homemade donuts and mmmmmm, they are good! But I definitely miss many things from home already, the biggest thing is CHEESE! I am determined to learn how to make cheese while I am here, cuz no cheese sucks. I also miss ice cream and sushi and steaks and hamburgers and… ok moving on.. lol
I guess for the sake of time I will just make a quick list of 15 other neat experiences so far:
1. I saw some monkeys! They were white with black faces and long tails. They live in the forest just outside the Dedza College of Forestry.
2. I watched another trainee cut a chicken’s head off. She had to step on the lefs and wings, slice the head of and then stay there while the body convulsed around for 1 min. I helped pluck the feathers and deconstruct it.
3. I hitch-hiked! Twice! On our big market trip day to the Chimbiya Market, Peace Corps took us to the main road (known as the M-1) dropped us off and said “good luck!” lol Well we had our trainers there, who were apparently taking down license plate numbers of the private cars we were getting into, but we were completely left to figure out how to get to the market, including what direction to even start hitching. On the first trip another trainee, Ben, and I hitched with a wealthy banker from Lilongwe, he was really nice and let us ride for free. On the way back I hitched with Meg and we got another free ride with two gentlemen from Dedza. It was a lot of fun!
4. I’ve eaten goat meat! Only weird thing so far…
5. I met the president of Malawi, Professor Bingu.
6. I’ve climbed two mountains so far
7. I’ve had several dance parties with the local village kids, they sing songs and clap and stand in a circle and dance.
8. I visited the Dedza District Hospital and another local Health Center, as well as attended an Under 5 Clinic.
9. I carried a full bucket of water on my head! It was about 25 liters!
10. I attended a Malawi funeral already for a 3 year old who dies of malaria. It was pretty sad, but a very interesting experience. Malawian funerals can last up to 3 days. Men and women do not sit together. Donations made, not matter how small are announced to everyone (so always take money!). People pretend to cry and wail out of respect. Yeah… it was different. lol
11. I had a HUGE spider that hung out in my room for 6 days straight, I thought he was dead till he left one day. I named him Jorje.
12. I’ve taken shots out of small plastic bags, called “satchettes”. It was like drinking straight rubbing alcohol. blah.
13. There are constantly house geckos in my chim at night. I walk in when it’s dark with my head lamp on and see 2 or 3 justchillin on the wall. I’m not sure what attracts them to the chim, but they seem to enjoy it lol.
14. On the trip to the health center, a Peace Corps truck hit a goat running across the street being chased by a dog and killed it. They had to pay the owner 2,000 kwacha for it!
15. I cleaned cooking pots with dirt! I know, sounds counterproductive, but it’s amazing! They used the rough soil to remove the back, smoke residue from the side of pots and it seriously works. It’s hard tho and can make your hands raw!
I am very happy here, so far no regrets! The people are so friendly and the country is so beautiful. I am having a really good time with all the other trainees in my group too, they are all really neat people. I’ve met a lot of current PCVs too who are coming and spending time with us during training to help us along and answer any questions we have. The PC staff here are really awesome too! Malawi = best placement ever, I’m pretty sure
I miss you all very much! I hope everyone is doing well and enjoying summer in the states! Write me letters
I have a cell phone now! *happy dance* so feel free to call or text me, best way to do so is using Skype. I get free incoming EVERYTHING, so you can text me all you want, I just might not be able to reply cuz my phone is a pre-paid thing that I have to buy “units” for and if I use them up then I can’t do anything till I get some more, so be prepared for sporadic responses from me. So far Skype texts seem to be the only ones successfully going thru every time, so I suggest just doing that. Don’t forget I’m 7 hours ahead of Tulsa! The best times, it seems to call me, Tulsa time are: Weekdays 10am – 1 or 2 pm, Weekends 7am – 2 pm and Any day 11pm – 1am. I’m sure I’ll have more flexible times after swearing-in and I’m at my site, but for now if you wanna call me, call me during those times okie dokie?
Oh, I guess you want my number huh?
My number: (+265) 993719103
265 is the country code, and you may or may not need a 0 before the double 9. I’m not sure exactly.
Hope to hear from you!
8/8/10
We just had site announcements today and my site is in the Central Region. It’s a sub-district of Lilongwe. I do not want to disclose the specific name cuz I’m not sure how public we are allowed to be about specific location. But I’m directly south of Lilongwe in the kind of “butt” of Malawi. Honestly I was a little bummed at first, cuz I had my heart set on the Southern region, maybe near Blantyre up by Zomba, where there are tea plantations and lots of beautiful scenery, and so my first reaction was pretty extreme disappointment, in fact I was on the verge of tears. But I pulled it together and tried to think positive. What if I went to the South and hated it? Maybe I will absolutely love my site. Maybe there is a reason why I am going to this plus. The day is over and I am now pretty excited about my site Apparently it’s near mountains but still fairly flat so it’s easy to bike around pretty much anywhere. It’s one of the coolest (temp wise) of the sites *happy dance*. There’s a river near by where people fish. And Cornelius my APCD said that the volunteer that I am replacing specifically requested to be replaced by someone who was good a Chichewa and someone who could bring a totally new/different perspective to the community and Cornelius said, “And I just thought you seemed like the best person for that site.” Well, ooook. lol I guess now there’s more to look forward too and it’s nice to know he put that much thought into placing me there. I am a little nervous about my Chichewa skills and hope they live up to that expectation and need. I guess I will find out Tuesday where I stand now when we get the results of the Mock LPI* back. Cornelius also told me I will have a 2 bedroom house with solar electricity and no running water. (looks like I’ll be using the chim forever…) For how close to Lilongwe it is, I’m surprised at how rural it sounds! But it sounds rather perfect and I’m feeling much better about the whole thing and really looking forward to site visit week which is NEXT week! Whoa! I’m happy too that my site mates are another trainee named Dre who I REALLY like, she is apparently only 5K from me, and a current PCV Bryan who is extending a third year. I guess if Bryan lived in my area his whole time and loved it so much he’s extending, it can’t be that bad right? hehehe, let’s hope!
*Mock LPI: is a practice run thru of the Language Proficiency Interview, but it’s basically a test, sorta, that rates your language skills on a scale. Peace Corps requires volunteers to swear-in at Intermediate-High, we take the real LPI right before swear-in, so the Mock is a practice one where they will show us where we stand as of now.
8-10-10
I got my Mock LPI results today and guess what? I’m Intermediate High!! *happy dance* So basically unless I start to do worse with my language I’m golden for the real LPI. Yay! And honestly I think I would’ve done even better if the tester lady hadn’t given me such a difficult role-play scenario. It was “You are a Peace Corps Volunteer and I am the village Chief/elder. You want to do a project. Convince me that you should be able to do this project other than the other needs of the community.” Yeah. My technical vocab definitely needs some work and “convince”?! ugh.. So I trudged through it and said that I wanted to do a project on water sanitation and she said, “But people need to learn about HIV/AIDS.” Uhhh… lol, I just said, “Well yes, but if people with HIV/AIDS know about water sanitation they will not get sick.” hahahaha that was it. I didn’t even really get to talk about stuff i knew well, like my family or daily activities, but oh well, it’s still good.
We have two more nights left in the village and I just finished packing up. I just left out the necessities, like an outfit, undies, toothpaste, toothbrush and deodorant. So I’m ready to go! I can’t believe that I’ve already been gone for 6 weeks! and that this time next week I will be sitting in my house! So weird!
Well I guess that’s it for now. I miss you all!

Tiwonana! (see you later)