My 3 Week Hiatus from Village Life

Aloha!

As predicted, much time has passed since my last real entry. Mainly because I forgot to pack my internet usb stick, so I was unable to post anything during IST. Now there is lots of catching up to do, the only question is, where to begin?

How about Thanksgiving?

Ok good.

My grand adventure, that was the last three weeks, began on Thanksgiving. Thursday, November 25th, I left my site and headed to Lilongwe. We have a group here called Volunteers Supporting Volunteers (VSV), so for Thanksgiving each region’s VSV hosted a Thanksgiving dinner/orientation for us newbies. I live in the central region and Lilongwe is the main city in this region so that’s where they hosted dinner. They cooked very yummy Mexican food, including handmade tortillas and guacamole!

That following Saturday, Peace Corps held a Thanksgiving feast for ALL of us. The country director and a couple other staff paid for it out of their pockets. The dinner/lunch was held at the US Ambassador’s house (where our swear-in was) and there was lots of good food, beer and music. Among the excellent food was a whole-roasted pig! For serious. Check it out:

I admit it was a little freaky, but oh so delicious!

The next day, Sunday, Peace Corps provided us new health volunteers with transport from Lilongwe to Dedza for our In-Service Training (IST). The training was 2 weeks long and for one week our newly appointed counterparts joined us. The purpose of this training is to go over all of our community assessments and create a six-month action plan for when we return. We also learned about grant writing and funds available through Peace Corps, as well as project ideas and various IGAs like jam and soap making.

On the Saturday during IST, we went on a field trip to Mua Mission. A place in another area of Dedza district that has a cultural museum about Malawians.  The museum was incredible and very insightful and helpful for us, since much of the information is usually only privy to Malawians. Sadly, because of this, we were not allowed to take photos of the inside of the museum, but here I am standing outside it:

One room had this faux-tree built up in the center and hanging from all the braches were various Gule Wankulu (the traditional dance, where men dress up) masks and all their meanings were on little flip charts around the tree.

There were pictures and information regarding most of the rituals in the Chewa tribe, including weddings, funerals, rites of passage, chieftainship, and birth.  The Chewas are mostly located in the central and southern regions. The language they and I speak is Chichewa, which is language of the Chewas. Other tribes in the north are Timbuka, who speak Chitimbuka and Tonga, who speak Chitonga. Make sense?

To get to Mua Mission we had to drive through the large mountain range that passes through Dedza district. The road was a mess of steep hair-pin turns that made many passengers feel sick. I, however, was loving it and took a ton of pictures of our scenic view.

Here is one shot that includes the crazy road and some mountains:

Chloe was sitting next to me and passed out on my shoulder, so I took the liberty to take a photo, lol:

 

IST was held at the same location PST was, at the Dedza College of Forestry. The 15 of us bunked up in one of the dorms and the week the counterparts came, they stayed in the other dorm. We all had a blast and it was great to have it just be us and not the Education group too, like during PST. Not that I don’t love those guys too, but 35 people is a lot! Plus our group dynamic was completely different with just us. We had movie night almost every night using the PC projector and a blank wall in the lounge of our dorm and the nights we didn’t have movies going we had mini dance parties!

For our last night and dance party, Chloe, Chelsea and I decided to make real flower lei bracelets for everyone using the fallen plumeria flowers from a tree by the college. They turned out awesome and everyone loved them. We had some extra so I made a necklace too!

One afternoon Chloe, Brian, Os and I hiked up the mountain behind the college, and the boys and I thought it was a good James Bond photo op:

Because of the rains there were a BAJILLION bugs everywhere, including big green grasshoppers. Apparently Malawians eat these grasshoppers and a fellow PCV, Talia, decided she wanted to try them. She asked our cook Christopher if he would cook them for us and he agreed. So we all caught a bunch and Christopher fried ‘em up:

And we ate ‘em!

And they were GOOD!! I don’t know if I’d go as far as snacking on them regularly, but I was pleasantly surprised.

 

Towards the end of the second week, we had a couple days dedicated to learning about Income Generating Activities (IGAs) that we can help groups or CBOs in our communities with. We actually did a few of them, like making jam and soap.

Here I am with Chloe mashing bananas for banana jam:

We also made peanut oil, so we had to shell the nuts first using a groundnut sheller. Here I am shellin’ some nuts:

 

When IST was over last Friday, many of us decided we weren’t quite ready to return to the village and took the weekend as an opportunity to do some light traveling. We first had to go to Lilongwe though for a meeting, so we got PC transport Friday after lunch and on Saturday I went with Chloe, Brian, Talia and Chelsea down south to Blantyre. To travel we broke up our party a bit to make hitching a little easier, so I traveled with Chloe and Brian. We made the trip in 3 hitches, which is not ideal, but better than it could have been. The first one was a crazy Chinese lady who just got us out of Lilongwe and dropped us on the M1 going south. The second was this cute Australian guy who took us down to Dedza. Our last hitch from Dedza to Blantyre were a couple of Malawian men on their way to visit some family. During the trip they stopped around 5 different times to buy food to take with them. And by food I mean roasted mice, bugs and tiny birds… yeah.

People just stand along the side of the road waving the food as you pass, so we’d just pull over and get bombarded with adults and kids alike waving their goods at us through the window.

Here is one boy holding a pan piled high with mbewa (roasted mice):

Here is a girl with a bowl full of fried bugs, I think they might be flying termites:

Here’s a guy with a bunch of skewers with roasted tiny birds:

It was pretty amazing how much mbewa they bought. They explained it was rare during rainy season so they wanted to stock up. Ew..

Once we arrived in Blantyre, it was lunch time, so after checking in and dropping our stuff off at the lodge we stayed at, Chloe, Brian and I hit the market for some street food: chips, steak bits and a fanta. We wandered around the market a bit then took a mini bus to this shopping center where Game and the movie theater is. I had hoped Harry Potter 7 would be playing but it was not. I’m not giving up hope yet, though, cuz I heard the last couple did come out here so maybe in the next month or so it will be here.

The city was incredible. You can tell it’s much more developed than Lilongwe and the scenery around it was amazing too. I was happy to finally see it, even if for only a day.

Chloe and I had planned on meeting up with Chelsea and Talia who had been hanging out with these Greek guys Talia is friends with, so we got all dolled up and waited at the lodge for them to pick us up, but apparently there was a miscommunication and they thought we said we wanted to stay there, so they never came. We were bummed, but ended up having a pleasant evening anyway. We ate hamburgers at the restaurant in the lodge and met a bunch of cool people who were traveling around. One guy we met was this cute Swedish guy name Per, and he, Chloe and I all got burgers together. Chloe and I demolished ours before Per was even half done eating his and he was eating it with a fork and knife! Naturally we were both embarrassed, but he was thrilled to be eating such an iconic American dish with real Americans and another guy said, “Yeah and usually girls never eat a lot in front of guys, so it’s nice to see some girls who really eat!” Even though this was a compliment, I think we both were even more mortified than before, lol.

Sunday we got up and had breakfast at the lodge and kind of piddled around until we heard from Talia. Around lunch time one of the Greek boys came and picked me and Chloe up and took us to meet Talia, Chelsea, Chloe’s friend Julia and the rest of the Greeks for lunch. We all ate at this little Chinese restaurant and the boys paid the bill that was almost $200! It was freaking delicious though!

After lunch the girls and I went with one of the Greeks, Hari, to his house in Zomba. He has a really nice place, complete with flat screen TV and satellite, leather couches, PS3, and bathtubs!  We had a pretty low-key night, which was just fine with me after traveling and partying a lot. We watched Oprah and other reality TV shows, took baths and painted our toes. Hari’s cooks made pork chops and spaghetti for us for dinner and it was amazing. Over all it was a really nice weekend

Monday morning Hari dropped us off at the tarmac to get a ride into Zomba boma. We piled into a small pick up truck and went to the town. In town we wandered around a bit, but I needed to get going back up to Lilongwe so Chloe and I headed out to hitch back north. We got a hitch from Zomba to Liwonde, with this guy from South Africa who had an American car and ran a boat safari in Liwonde National Park. From Liwonde we got a ride with a British man from Nkhotakhota, who runs a pottery and lodge there. He dropped Chloe off at the turn off to her site and me in Balakha. From Balakha I got a ride with a nice Malawian family who took me to Dedza. From Dedza I got a lift on a big lorrie truck that took me all the way to Lilongwe.

Sadly I didn’t make it to Lilongwe until 4:30pm and the man that was going to take me back to my site had already left, so I had to stay another night in Lilongwe. On Tuesday I called Simon, who lives in Mitundu and gives me rides sometimes, to see if he was going to be in town. It turned out he was coming in to buy a few things and said he’d take me home. He picked me up around noon and bought me pizza on our way out of town.

Finally around 2pm he dropped me off at my house and I was home for the first time in almost 3 weeks! I got into my house and put everything inside and went to gather Nzelu from Helen’s house. I was shocked to find Nzelu had grown tremendously since I’d seen him last! It was weird and a little sad. He seemed to have behaved himself more or less, except that he apparently killed one of Helen’s chickens trying to play with it! Luckily she said it was a young chicken and she knew he didn’t meant to, so I didn’t have to pay for it.

Another shock was how much things around my house had changed since rainy season has started. I actually have a lawn!

I also had a sofa frame built while I was gone, so that I could stick one of my extra mattress on it, futon style, to make a sofa. I went and picked it up after getting Nzelu and set it all up in my house. I’m actually amazed at just how perfect it fit and looks! I’m so happy! It’s nice having a place other than a chair or the floor to sit. Plus since it’s a mattress it’s long enough to lay down on. I also didn’t have to cut it at all, so when people visit they can either sleep on it like that or just pull it off and lay it on the ground! Pretty dang awesome if you ask me!

Here it is:

I even made pillows! I cut an extra pillow in half and used one of my cheaper chitenjes to make covers.

 

Phew… That was long…

Now I’m back in my house in the village and I must admit it’s a little strange. I’ve been really spoiled with good food, running water and good electricity, as well as lots of American company, that now I’m here thinking, “oh…” lol It’s not that bad, but it is weird. I am happy though, it feels nice to be back and in my own bed, with Nzelu and not living out of a back pack.

However, next Thursday I’m off again! I know crazy huh? It’s Christmas next weekend so I’m going to the Lake with Chloe and some other PCVs for the holidays. I can’t believe it’s Christmas time! It’s so hot and tropical here and un-christmasy in the village that I don’t even think about it. I like it though because then I’m not as sad about missing it.

Well, I’ll end here. I hope everything back home is going well and you all are enjoying the holiday season for me!  

Till next time…
Tiwonana!