Currently Loving Malawi

Wawa!

Well, it sure has been an eventful week!

Monday I went to Lilongwe because another PCV, who works with the NGO Save the Children, needed some volunteers for their Every One campaign launch event that was Tuesday. I met up with her and the other people helping out and we all stayed the night at her house. The rest of them had been out at the venue all day Monday getting things ready so while I was in town I bought food and then once at Kelly’s (the  girl we were helping) house, I cooked dinner for everyone. I was surprised at how well it turned out! I made spaghetti with a meat sauce (which I made from scratch: tomatoes, onions, bell peppers, ground beef and oil), and sautéed green beans! It was yummy!

Tuesday morning we got up a little after 5am and were picked up by Kelly’s boss Jobee (I think that’s how you spell it), we first went to the Save the Children office to pick up a few things then drove out to the venue. The event was being held on the soccer field of a school in a village about an hour north of Lilongwe. The first lady was going to come and make a speech but that morning she called to cancel (lame) so there were a few logistically glitches to work out, but with all things considered the event went really well.  We helped to set out the thousand-some-odd chairs and pass out stickers and pledge cards. I helped to guard the water since all the villagers wanted to take it so I had to sit with all the bottles and hand it out to guests and workers.

Here are a few pictures from the event:

I just took these with my phone while I was sitting with the water. The left picture is of the booths they set up with information and I was on the end with the water. The middle picture is of the whole area with all the people in the back and some ladies in the center doing a dance. The one of the right is where are important guests were sitting along with the band all the way in the back on the left.

The fabric all the ladies are wearing was chitenje fabric they had made and to order a custom print like that they had to order a crap-ton so a lot of people had outfits made and they used it to decorate the tables and stage. A lot of us got just a chitenje too, which is pretty cool.

After the event was over we had to break everything down, including all the big tents we were sitting under. It was chaos! The villagers were like the living dead, ambushing us and cars that were leaving yelling at us to give them things. “Sister, give me tee shirt!” “Sister, give me cap!” “Sister, give me chitenje!” and so on. It was seriously insane. At one point Kelly wanted to give a group of children who performed these drinks call Maheu, but only to the kids who performed and we ended up having to have the security guards create a human blockade to keep the rest of the people away from us as we passed it out!

When we arrived back in Lilongwe, Jobee (Kelly’s boss) invited us to his house for pizza and beer! It was awesome! The pizza was delicious and he even bought us fried chicken! And he had a really sweet house, I felt like I was in America for a bit lol.

We stayed the night at Kelly’s again and on Wednesday we all went and had breakfast at a cafe in town called Bohemian Cafe. I had waffles with bacon and iced coffee! yum yum! The lady working there thought it was really silly that I wanted bacon with my waffles, she kept saying ,”But Madame, waffles are sweet…” hahaha

Then I just kind of hung around town all day. I ran a few errands with my friend Daniel who also lives near Lilongwe and was helping with Kelly’s thing too. His errands ended up being a much bigger pain than either of us expected so to make up for dragging me along he bought me lunch, which was pretty awesome. I had to hang around the whole day because the nice man who gave me a ride home the last time I went to town was going to pick me up but couldn’t until 6pm, so I had to just hang out. But I didn’t mind because it was a personal, free ride home. Plus I decided to buy real dog food for Nzelu and since I was getting a ride with him I went ahead a bought 2 bags lol. 

On Thursday I met with a couple HSAs to make last minute plans for my village meeting that was the next day. We figures out the agenda and made sure we were all on the same page. The two helping me were Felix (Salima’s, the volunteer before me, counterpart) and Samuel.

As I’ve mentioned before I have slim pickens for choices of counterparts here and even though my APCD said I could really pick anyone and even suggested a teacher, I hate the idea of meeting someone for the first time and in less than a week making a decision whether or not to have them be my counterpart. So after some deliberation I’ve decided to ask Samuel to be my counterpart. I still have a few issues with some thing he does (like he openly admits to being a drunkard) but he put a lot of effort into making my village meeting happen, going as far as hand writing invitations for all the people we asked to come. I figured if it doesn’t work out then ok, but at least I can give him a chance.

Friday, in the morning, I made all the last minute preparations for the meeting which was to start at 2pm. I went up to the health center around 1:30 and was pleasantly surprised that we were able to start by 2:30! Hey, for African time that’s amazing! There were about 30 people there and about equal men and women.

First we had a prayer and then I did an introduction (in Chichewa!) and our first activity was to make a Community Map. I split the group up into two groups, one for the men and one for the women.

 
Here are the ladies working on there map. Helen is the one drawing it and the bottom.

And here are the men working on there map. It was funny because the men had to use a ruler and wanted to make it perfect and precise.

 
When everyone was finished I asked one person from each group to present their map. Here is Helen presenting the ladies’ map. And yes, Mr. Nzelu was hanging out with us during the meeting!

After the community maps we did a Seasonal Calendar. Here I am explaining how the activity works.

Samuel is explaining something here (in the middle with blue pants) and Felix is to his right and the man on the far right in the chair is the local Village Headman who attended.

Here I am with all the people who attended my meeting! Samuel is to the left of me and Helen is behind me.

George took all the pictures for me. He took his job very seriously and was walking around getting different shots from different perspectives and took like 35 pictures! lol

All in all the meeting was quite a success! I was pleased with the turn out and everyone who came participated in all the activities. One man even asked when the next meeting was so he could be ready to come! It makes me really happy that the community was willing to come, play a part in it and seem eager to help out in the future. I’m now feeling much better about being here and working with this community.

From the exercises we did it evident water is the number one issue. I knew this beforehand but it came out again and again during the meeting. The number 2 issue is HIV/AIDS and then (get this..) teen pregnancy! Not that I’m surprised that it’s an issue, but that the group came up with it as an issue. I was very impressed.

Now I’m just kind of stuck because to take on water as a project is has to be a primary project, which I’d probably spend at least half my time here working on and even though I know it’s important I don’t really want to do a water project. I don’t really know much about water or communicable disease nor do I really have the passion to work on it. I would rather work with the youth here and do life skill building and HIV/AIDS education. Even though water is the number one issue, what I want to do is tied in with issues 2 and 3 so maybe it’ll work out for me to just do what I want to do. And who knows, maybe by the end of my first year I will feel more up to working on the water issue? We shall see!

 

Now it’s Sunday and in less than I week I will be going to Lilongwe for Thanksgiving dinner and then on to Dedza for In-Service Training (IST) which is a 2-week long training, part of which our counterparts come too, and we learn more specific information about projects we are interested in. I already told my APCD I want to work with the youth so he said he’s going to make sure to have a section regarding youth projects. I’m really excited about IST, because it will be 2 weeks back with the gang! It will be really nice to see everyone again and catch up on what they all have been up to the last 3 months.

Do you know? I have been a volunteer longer than I was a trainee! Crazy… December 3rd I will have been here for exactly 5 months! Time here is so surreal. Days I feel like I can’t believe how fast the time has gone and then other days I feel like I’ve been here forever. I remember hearing about this phenomenon from blogs before coming but it’s only something you can really understand once you’ve experienced it. It’s very strange.

Today is the 3rd day in a row in which it has rained, so I’m thinking rainy season really is starting which is making me happy because I’m not drowning in my own sweat anymore. The only thing that sucks is Sunday is my laundry day and now I have to wait till either it stops raining or tomorrow. Ugh. 

I’ve been busy lately doing a little feng shui in my house. EVERYTHING is different! It’s pretty crazy. Here’s what happened… First I thought about moving my bed to the other side of the room so that I could sleep next to the window I like to keep open at night and maybe it would be even cooler. Then I was talking with another PCV who was in my training group about furniture and I said that I have an extra mattress that I keep thinking maybe I could turn into a couch because the only place I have to sit are hard wooden chair or the floor and after an hour it’s very uncomfortable, and he said, “Well that’s what I did. I just had a carpenter make a sofa frame and then I made cushions with a spare mattress.” Genius! I don’t know why I didn’t think of just having a frame made before, lol. So I measured the mattress and made out a plan for a frame so that hopefully I don’t have to actually damage the mattress, but just fold it in half long ways and voila! sofa. So then I thought, where the heck would I even put a sofa?

Now let me say that for some reason I had this idea since I got here that my spare room was just that a “spare” room. That for some reason I needed to keep it that to store stuff or to have a place for guests to sleep. But in my brainstorming for ideas on how to get a sofa in my house I realized I could actually use the spare room! I know, duh right? So after a little more thought and a long day of moving things around I now have a kitchen/dining room instead of just a “spare” room! It’s great; I even have plans to procure a hotplate so I used the table I had to made a kitchen counter type space that I will put the hotplate on and all that is in one corner and then I brought in the big cabinet that holds all my food and dishes and then my hand washing station and water filter. I also got another table to use as a dining table from Helen, because she wasn’t using it and I can give it back when I leave and it saves me money from having one made!

My main room is now going to be just a living room space. I don’t have the sofa yet, but I have a place for it and am even going to use the table I had made for a desk (but really is too short to use as a desk) as a coffee table! It’s a little empty right now but when it’s all complete it’s going to be ah-mazing! That is why I don’t have pictures yet, I want to wait till it’s all finished okie dokie?

 

Well I suppose that’s all for this update. I wanted to show you all though the way people dry maize (corn) flour here:

This is right outside George’s house in a clearing. Gladys and Generous (my water girl) are on the left collecting it into big baskets to store over night. I helped too and we were all covered in flour at the end. It was actually a lot of fun

Now, let’s play, guess this strange African animal game!
 
I honestly am not sure what it is, I have my guesses, but I want to see what you think it is…

 

I hope everything back home is going well! I miss you all very much. I’m not sure if I’ll have another chance to update until after IST so if it’s a couple of weeks, don’t fret! I’ll update again asap.

Tiwonana!