40 K from the Capital = Boondocks

I am back in Lilongwe after my week of Site Visit. I’m leaving for the town Mchinji today for language intensive, but for now we’re hanging out at the office.

I stayed at my new house this week and I think it’s safe to say, I love it! From my previous post you may know that I was a little skeptical about my proximity to Lilongwe, but let me tell you, 40 K (25mi) it’s pretty much as rural as it gets in Malawi. I barely have phone reception and no running water, but I do have solar electricity. It’s dusty, dirt roads all the way to my site and only one person in my village owns a car. Yup. My trip to site was nice because I managed to get a ride on the ambulance from Lilongwe District Hospital down to my site. (And by “ambulance” I mean SUV-truck think with “Ambulance” painted on the side and lights on top, lol). On my way back to Lilongwe, though, I took a bike taxi for and hour and a half to Mitundu, which means sitting on the back of a bicycle. Then I rode on a minibus from Mitundu to Lilongwe, which is a half our drive, but I was on the minibus for 1 hour. Then walked from the bus depot to the Peace Corps office. I was tired! Especially since the hour and half I was on the bike taxi we were in direct sunlight on a dusty road the entire way, so I got sunburt and covered in dirt. I REALLY enjoyed taking a hot shower last night at the lodge. I thought my tan lines were getting really bad, but then it turned out to just be dirt, lol.

Regardless of the rural, “boondock” status of my site, the people of my village seem wonderful! I had dinner every night with my neighbor, the medical assistant (MA), and his family. I ate “usipa” which is these tiny little fish, and I ate them successfully by closing my eyes and chewing, lol. The MA’s wife took me to the market on tuesday and on a walking tour of neighboring villages two days ago. The MA took me on a walking tour of our village to show me where shops were and where to buy bread, where the police station and school are, and where to find a bike taxi. He also showed me around the Health Center and wheere each service is provided at.

We had a meeting one day for me to meet at the Health Center staff and for them to meet me. Most of the staff knows english pretty well, but the majority of the community doesn’t know any. The kids are a lot of fun and pretty much every day there was a group of them in my courtyard all hours of the day. We cant really communicate, but I learned how to play this card game called Knock, so we all sit outside and play knock.

My house seems pretty nice. I’m the 3rd volunteer to live there so there was already some furniture and stuff in the house. I spent most of the week cleaning and cleaning. The house has been vacant for 3 months so there were cobwebbs everywhere and dirt and dust. I went through and organized all of the stuff left from the previous volunteer and tried to start making the place feel more like home. I did some feng shui and moved the bed and furniture around and it made a big difference on feel more like “mine” and not like I just moved into someone’s house.

My house has two buildings. In the main building is a main room with two bedrooms off that. The second building has three doors, one to the kitchen, one to the bafa and one to a storage room. My chimbudzi is back in the corner on my compound. I have a fence around my compound that needs to be replaced but my head HSA (health serveillance assistant) said he’s going to start collected new grass for that. I also told him I wanted a gate that way I can garden with out chickens and goats coming into my yard and eating my fruits and veggies. Cuz pretty much every day there were goats and chickens in my yard and even one day a pig! lol

I also now have a Malawian/Chichewa name! hehehhe, Ashley is pretty hard for Malawians to pronounce, so a few of them were like, “Ah, you need a Malawian name! Ah-sha-ee-lee is too hard!” So they asked me what Ashley meant, I told them it meant “peace”. Turns out there is a Chichewa word for peace, which is mtendere. So now my name is Mtendere! lol People are actually calling me that already in the village, it’s pretty cool actually

So I’m happy I think my life in my village will be good. I can’t wait to get more settled and have my bike to travel around more easily. I will also try to post pictures of my house too later.

Today I’m leaving for the week to Mchinji, and then we’ll be back in Dedza for a couple days then to Lilongwe for Swear-In on September 1st. I can’t believe that in less that 2 weeks I will be an official volunteer! *happy dance* time is really flying by, so hopefully it will stay that way.

Hopefully I will have more to update later, just thought I’d keep from posting a novel every time I get a chance to post a new update lol.

Hope all is well! I’m going to update my Care Package Wish List on the “Contact” page, so if you’re interested, check it out. I miss you all!

Tiwonana!