The Black Hole Known as Lilongwe

BAH! this is kind of a rant.

Can I just say, I very much dislike Lilongwe. Even more so when I’ve been stuck here for over an entire week…

 

It all started last Wednesday. I waited for 2 and a half hours for NO truck to pass by my village and was then forced to take a bike taxi the hour and half muddy, bumpy road to Mitundu then a minibus to Lilongwe. It was not a good travel day. But while I was waiting in my village I got to watch these guys prepping tobacco for whole sale and thought it was pretty neat, here are some photos:

First they make this giant pile of the dried tobacco and wrap it in this large cloth.

Then they weigh it.

Then they drag it over to this pressing contraption thing

They lay the pile on this square thing, place another piece of fabric on top, then set of 4 walls around it. They lay a flat log on top and line it up with this drill looking thing. Then 4-5 guys move the drill round and round till it’s compacted the tobacco into a tight cube.

They sew up the sides to keep it together and voila! Whole sale tobacco.

Pretty neat huh?

 

The reason I came to Lilongwe was for a two day training for VSV (Volunteers Supporting Volunteers). Which I am now the Coordinator for, by the way. I was definitely committed till Saturday, but the new group of volunteers were arriving on Sunday, so I decided to stay to see them arrive.

Thursday night we had dinner at our staff liaison’s house, where I and a couple others made lasagna from scratch. And lemme just say, it was da domb:

Then Friday night we had a Gods & Goddess themed birthday party for another volunteer. I was Gaia, goddess of the earth! It was a lot of fun, and here are a few pics:

Chloe, me and Briana

Me and Briana, some sexy looked goddesses!  

Briana and Jake. Jake and my other friend Brian were Cupids, they had bows and arrows and all!

Sunday was actually a lot of fun because we all went to the air port and there is a balcony area that over looks the landing strip so we all crowded the balcony and yelled, screams and clapped ad the new trainees landed and exited the airplane. Then we got to have a short meet-n-greet with them before they headed to Dedza to begin their training.

Here’s the new group:

They all looked exhausted but were obviously still pumped to be here  

 

So after all that craziness, I was going to go home on Monday. My friend Daniel was going to come site visit me since he has the week off school and wanted to see the Youth Center in my area to get ideas to start a youth club. We set out to find a ride back around 2:30 and discover that because of the rains there were NO trucks that day. Lame. So we headed back to the lodge and stayed for anther night. I decided the next day (yesterday) that we should go around 12:30 or 1 to make sure we find a ride. We lug are stuff all the way to the truck area again, to first find out trucks going my way wont be around till 3. So we waited and waited. THEN we find out the one truck going my way isn’t taking the road by my village, and once again I was SOL. I managed to sweet talk the VSV staff liaison into letting me and Daniel stay and her house last night so at least we didn’t have to pay which was really nice of her.

I thought that maybe since I have to be back here this Saturday to go to Dedza for the new training to be a Resource Volunteer that maybe they’d let me come down early, but no matter what I said they weren’t having it. It looked like I was either having to try again for a ride or just cough up the dough to stay here. I decided before I left though I needed to ask the PC doc about this cough I’ve had ever since having bronchitis in January. The doc said my lungs sounded clear but I needed a chest x-ray just to be safe. So that meant putting me on med hold for the night so I could get the x-ray this afternoon.

Thankfully it’s all clear. But the doc still isn’t sure about the cough, so he gave me a cough expectorant syrup and said if in a week it’s not any better he wants to give me an inhaler.

*sigh*

Now I’m definitely stuck here, because at this point going home tomorrow would be stay in the village 2 nights just to turn around and come back. No thanks! Plus if transport’s been this bad going there this week that means it’s not been going coming from there and NO way am I riding a bike taxi again! Nope. No way, no how. No sir-ee bob!

It looks like I’m gonna be gone from the village and my poor puppy for a whole 2 1/2 weeks! Blah..

Oh well, c’est la vie right? And at least I have hot showers and good food while I’m here. Too bad it’s just so much dang money to stay here so long!

Well thanks for listening to my kind of rant. Hopefully it was mildly entertaining

Tiwonana!