Chichewa Chit Chat

UPDATE: April-August

2009-09-04T02:53:00.000-07:00

ilSo I arrived back from Ireland just the day before Swearing-In Ceremony for the new group of Environment volunteers. All the women in my group had traditional wear made for the event—and if I do say so myself we look quite stylish by Malawian standards! As always it was nice to be at the Ambassador’s house because he always feeds us so well! It is really weird to be on the other side of the table watching the swearing in ceremony for someone else. It is hard to believe I have put a whole year behind me, and what a year it has been, and at the same time realizing I’ve got one more year to make this experience everything I hoped it would be, to complete projects, and to get ready to go back home.
Keeping with tradition, we threw a big party for everyone after the ceremony. Beer Olympics 2009 was a huge success, complete with Chibuku Challenge, dizzy-bat, and a new addition this year, wrestling! The best part was sitting around in the morning with my big cup of coffee watching the new kids strapping all their stuff to cars, pretending they don’t have hangovers, and aren’t scared out of their minds.
We stayed around Lilongwe for a few days waiting for our Mid-Service Training (MST) to start on Sunday. We traveled down to Dedza on Sunday afternoon and spent 3 days reflecting on our first year at site, and discussing what the next year will look like. We spent a lot of time discussing how to wrap up our projects in a responsible way and how to start preparing ourselves for the transition home. After MST I travelled back to site and stayed there for the next 8 weeks—a new record for me! Spending that much time at my site doesn’t really phase me anymore. I won’t give you the day by day, but I included pictures below of the activities that I did during that time. Since I haven’t written in a while (sorry, like to be at site, not in the city!), for this post I thought I would break it up into days of the week and I can give you the back story and details on things as they come up.

I have lots of Big Brothers here, this is Devin and I waiting for food at MST

All of us hanging out at Ed's Bar during MST

Joel and Matt give a new take on traditional wear with suits made out of chitenje

Emily, me, Sarah P., Audra, Sarah S. Jen, Bright, Kory, Tenely, and Jenny--all the ladies of Environment 09

You are so jealous of my headress!

Environment 2009

Just a reminder.....

MONDAY:

Khama AIDS Club: I meet with Khama AIDS Club every Monday morning at 9:00 AM. They are pretty much the only group I have that shows up on time. Well hell, they are the only group I have that actually meets on a weekly basis and wants to get something done. When I arrived in Sharpevale I asked them what they wanted to do and their first answer was to raise egg laying chickens. So, for the past few months we have been working on the grant writing project. They process was slow and painful as we widdled the budget down from 15,000,000 kwacha ($15,000 USD) to something reasonable say like, 30,000 kwacha ($200 USD). We applied for a grant through the Volunteer Advisory Committee. VAC is funded through the money volunteers pay to stay at the transit house. The committee is made up of 2 volunteers from each group and a few others. Every other month we get together and talk about volunteer issues as well as hear grant proposals from volunteers and then fund them if we like them (and if we have the cash). Khama AIDS was given the money in July and we started the project.
A club member, Matthews, went to Blantyre to buy 6 week old chickens. Unfortunately, upon arrival he learned that the incubator had broken last month and there were no chicks. Thankfully, someone took pity on the club since we live so far away and gave us the 6 week old chicks of someone who lived much closer and could travel easier. Also, he got to meet the President while he was there! Apparently, Dr. Bingu Mutharika (the President) was visiting the facility and Matthews got to meet him. How about that for luck!
After the chickens came back to Sharpevale the following happened in three days: I found out the coop had not actually been finished and had no fence. Five chicks were stolen the first night even while someone was sleeping in pen. Matthews didn’t buy the chickens from the factory he bought them from someone on the street. This person said he gave them the proper vaccines, but how am I supposed to trust ‘guy on the street’. Matthews used three times the amount of money allotted for transport to and from Blantyre. Matthews told three different people three different prices for the chicks—fishy, don’t ya think? Chicken feed was suppose to be bought in Blantyre, but wasn’t. Money was used to go to Balaka to buy feed, but we didn’t allot for it in our budget. The chickens were moved to my house because people think that’s the safest place. Oh, and we had to switch treasurers’ because after she started keeping the money, no one saw her for three weeks.
Thankfully, people are coming to take care of the chickens a few times a day everyday. I believe everything will work out and they will have enough money left to cover the cost of feed and medicine for the chicks until they start laying eggs and they can start making money. I really like working with Khama AIDS Club and I very much want this project to succeed. So much so that if these first few chickens work well and they learn how to save money, buy more feed, and re-invest—that I am willing to work out a partnership with the Montgomery County 4-H Poultry Club to expand the project. But, if it fails then not only does Khama AIDS Club lose out on a great opportunity, but I have to pay back VAC with the funds and be horribly embarrassed in front of my peers as I explain why the project failed. I have confidence that everything will work out because we have an excellent Chairman who will help to get things back on track. We shall see!
Another thing I like to do with AIDS Club is have workshops about every month. I learned through another Volunteer about ANAMED and Nelson Moyo. ANAMED I think was started by Germans but they only have one contact in Malawi and he will come out to the village and teach about natural medicine, but all you have to do is provide a place to stay and pay for his transport. I learned about him through another volunteer and called him up to plan a two day workshop with Khama AIDS. After a somewhat late start he started the workshop with a discussion about the differences between western and what he calls, mankwala wa Chikhalidwe, literally cultural medicine. The group discussed the benefits and drawbacks of each, and where they are each uniquely applicable and where they are not. It was great to see members of the group discussing and topic with such enthusiasm! It was also pleasantly surprising to see them recognize that their own cultural medicine had a place in their lives—that western answers are not always the right answers. Far too often Malawians will set aside the best and most beneficial parts of their own culture and defer to west simply because they have always been taught (or forced) to do so. In the afternoon of the first day we discussed the uses for all the medicinal plants that people had collected and brought to the meeting. Just on one mat we had 20 different plants: papaya, lemons, moringa, acacia, tamarind, amaranth, baobab, and artemesia. As Nelson would explain the uses for each plant the old people would speak up and say, “oh, I remember my grandmother using that when I was a child!” It so strongly reminded me of the interviews I did in Australia with Aboriginal People there—that we are just a generation away from losing all this knowledge.
On our second day the group actually agreed to start an hour early. I couldn’t believe it! So we had a full morning of discussing the signs and symptoms of different diseases and then all the different treatments you can use to treat it. It was difficult for many people to write all this information down, but they were fascinated and so tried to keep up as best they could. In the afternoon the group learned how to make herbal tea. This first of hibiscus flowers everyone liked because it has a natural sweetness and pretty pink color to boot. The second of artemesia, almost everyone hated. It looked like you are drinking dirty pond water from all the crushed leaves and the flavor is horribly bitter. Evolution taught us not to like bitter things. Bitter equals dead. But Nelson just said, “just keep drinking, it’s wonderful for you,” as he slugged back cup after cup while most of us struggled to take a few sips. I snuck back inside and dumped a ton of honey in mine and then lied (at least with a smile now) that I loved it. Have to set a good example, right?
Ok, back to the normal Monday. After AIDS Club I try to have and joint executive committee meeting with the irrigation clubs. There are four that were started by Bryan and Keah. They always forget to come to meetings so we actually only have one about every other week because I always have to send letters to remind them. Anyway, I’m trying to do two things: get them on a regular maintenance schedule and teach them how to dig a gravity-fed irrigation scheme (i.e. use the pumps in the right way and not like a garden hose). There are over 30 pumps between the four clubs alone and they are not of any use to anyone if they are broken. We are having meetings about paying annual fees to be in the club. This money would then be used to send one person to Lilongwe with a list from all four clubs to buy replacement parts every six months. Individual families would be responsible for covering the cost of the broken parts of their pump, thus encouraging proper use and personal responsibility. This way, transport cost is shared between all the clubs and no pump will go idle for more than 6 months. The other program I am working on with them is to dig a demonstration plot for a gravity-fed scheme at each of the four clubs. Right now most people are dragging the treadle pump pipes from one plant to the other. This is not only an in-efficient way to water crops, but also a good way to put lots of holes in the pipes. A few members from each club would also come to help dig (or at least observe) at the other three clubs. Each plot of land has to be assessed individually to see what the best design and most importantly placement will be. People must decide how many sets wide to make it in multiples of two because every set of beds shares one minor water channel. They must also determine what the major and minor slopes of the land are as the main channel must lie on the former and the feeder channels on the ladder. As of August we have still only visited one club, which means I have 3 more to go, but it is a work in progress. We have dug the proper irrigation scheme and Mr. Liwonde’s garden and he is already harvest lots of vegetables from it.

This was a nutrition workshop we had back in May. We had really great turnout.

A collection of medicinal plants at the ANAMED Workshop

Me and a baby. Malawian women always carry thier children around like this, now that I have actually done it I much more appreciative, because it is really not all that comfortable and you get peed on!

Nelson is showing people the aloe vera that is growing around my house.

When you have a big crowd to feed you need a big pot to cook all that nsima in--and two people to stir it. Construction on the main channel for a demonstration scheme for one of the irrigation clubs.

Me and Mr. Dickman. I visted his garden one day and he really wanted me to take a picture of him by the well.

TUESDAY:

Tuesdays are a really busy day for me. I have to be at school by 7:20 for the start of classes. I teach four 40-minute blocks to Forms 1 through 4 (Grade 9-12). Although the school administration is the most difficult part of working at the school and on many occasions they make me want to quit, I really enjoy working with the students so I keep going back. For the whole of Term 2 we focused solely on HIV and STIs—obviously they most important topic to teach them about. I try to keep things as lively as possible with games, group activities, dramas, role-playing, and all other sorts of things I thought were dorky when I was a student.
During this term I thought that it would be most appropriate to teach how to use a condom. I thought I would probably get in trouble, but knew it wasn’t actually illegal to teach condom usage in school…so I just went ahead and did it without really giving my head teacher or the PTA a heads-up. Figured they might let it slide, and if they didn’t then at least I got to teach the kids how to use condoms before I got shut down. I taught the Form 2 and 3 students and at the very end of my Form 3 there was a knock at my door from the Deputy head teacher telling me I had to “cease and desist” and “leave the premises immediately.” I told them there was no way in hell I was leaving and that I didn’t have time to chat because now I needed to go and prepare a new lesson for the remaining Form 1 and 4 students. In retrospect, I guess I didn’t give people enough credit. After I was hauled into a painfully long joint meeting with the PTA, the School Management Committee, the Head and Deputy teachers, I was given permission to teach condom usage only with one caveat. No anatomical models. They weren’t happy that the students were learning how to use condoms, but they knew it was important; their beef was with the fact that I had used an anatomically correct model. In the end I was happy to be able to continue with my lessons, but I was disappointed to see we are not giving our students the best information possible. Many people talk about their commitment to stopping the spread of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, but in this case I certainly didn’t see a full commitment. All talk, no action. Plus, it is really difficult to give a proper condom demonstration using just your hands—it does the students a huge disservice. Anyway, carrying on with the week…
Tuesdays I go to the market. Sharpevale market has people that come from all around with food, used-clothes, shoes, hardware, fruits, meat, bike parts, and even cassette tapes. I could really live out of my market but I’m too much of a snob and like things like lentils and olive oil. These days the real determining factor about whether I go into Lilongwe or not is when I run out of oatmeal! I realized I’m so very blessed to have such a big market with just about everything I need. Caitlan and I usually head down after school and do our shopping and then have a cup of tea in the market before heading home. Some days we even get lunch at one of the local restaurants.
Another recent project I have started is trying to form a Groundnut Cooperative (GC). Sharpevale has lots, loads, tons of groundnuts—but no one has a market. The local government agriculture distributors will buy for 65 or 90 kwacha per kilo, but most people don’t like that price so they just hold on to them. There is a company in Lilongwe called African Commodities Exchange (ACE) and they post commodity contracts on the web for buyers to choose from. Peace Corps (and especially Brian) has encouraged us to work with them for a few reasons. One, the sellers stipulate the points of the contract. Meaning community members choose the price, place of pick up, and whether they want replacement of cash for the feed sacks. The community chooses a target and a low price that they will be willing to sell at. If ACE sells the nuts above the target price, they keep the difference (its how they make their profits).
This whole process has been painfully frustrating and every single day I have to force myself not to give up on the project. I have tried so many times to have meetings with farmers in order to choose the price they like, but no one comes. No one wants to come unless they know the price. No one wants to bring their groundnuts into storage unless they know the price. But, I don’t decide the price—they do! That my friends, is a text book case of a Catch-22. So I keep office hours Tuesday to Thursday from 9 to 1 waiting for people to bring their groundnuts into storage. I wait and wait and no one comes. People tell me they have lots of nuts and that they will bring them, but they never do. Some people have suggested that we just bring them the day the buyer comes. But I know that could have all kinds of problems. We tell the buy we have 5 metric tones of groundnuts and then they show up and find of a ton, maybe two? I know I am fighting an uphill battle on this one because the local farmers have been screwed not one, but two times in commodity bulking projects. Two years ago an NGO called Africare said they would find a buyer. People bulked their nuts at the Agricultural Project (just like we are) and then Africare never found a buyer. And ten years ago ten metric tones of maize was stolen. Outright stolen. The buyer came to pick it up but didn’t bring any money. He said he would return with the cash but never did. I really try to take this project one day at a time, but my patience is wearing thin.
Another point of contention is the price. Trying to make people understand that the price of commodities change based on the world economy is difficult. How could something so big affect the small African farmer? They know the price of things change, but I think are unwilling to accept it. They will quote me prices from 2000. 2000. It’s 2009. They want the highest price they have ever gotten and sometimes more. I have explained so many times every which way I can how things work. If you go to the market and 3 people are selling tomatoes for 50 kwacha and one person is selling them for 100 kwacha, who will you buy tomatoes from? They said the 50 kwacha tomatoes, but then turn around and ask for 150 kwacha for a kilo of groundnuts when the market price right now is barely 100 kwacha. Like all of us, they inherently know basic economics, but it seems like they are just unwilling to accept them. And I have to be the bad guy and say, “no, you can’t ask for that price.” This project just makes me feel all warm and fuzzy.
On the bright side, my site mate Jen and I are going to work to bulk for the same contract. Hopefully with more groundnuts we can get a better price. Her counterpart at BERDO understands the history and the cultural differences that are keeping the project from moving forward so he has offered to help us by putting BERDOs name behind it and helping to organize people. We are planning to finish bulking by October 1. If it won’t work by then, it won’t work. Sometimes as a volunteer you MUST realize that as much as you want the project to work, as much benefit as you see coming from it—if you have to push that hard to make it go then maybe you shouldn’t push at all. It is a hard lesson to learn and for me I’m the one that feels guilty afterward. It’s my fault, what did I forget to do, what cultural element didn’t I factor in. I know that’s not totally rational (so please don’t send a slew of emails telling me so), but I always said I would make a damn good Catholic. Once again, we shall see!

One of the students got a bit too excited about beating up HIV....

This is a drama showing the interactions between ARVs, HIV, and secondary infections.

WEDNESDAY:
On Wednesday I wait again at the Agriculture office for people to bring their groundnuts from 9 to 1. But, we have been trying to have a weekly meeting at 2 PM with local groundnut farmers to answer any questions and listen to them complain about the price and how it is so much work to shell the groundnuts for selling.

THURSDAY:
More time at the Agricultural Office. Yay! At least during all this down time I get time to study for the GRE. Thankfully that nightmare will be over on October 24th, after which I will be promptly learning Lilongwe and going to the beach for the rest of the weekend!
On Thursday afternoons I have Tilimbike Women’s Club. We still are not on a regular schedule—the women are always busy. The club has dwindled in numbers, but I am starting to teach them how to sew by hand. If people have clothes to be made (national wear) they will take them to the tailor, but people could greatly benefit from learning how to repair clothes. Just fixing hems, seems, a torn shoulder, and putting on patches would extend the life (and look) of clothes here. Caitlan is helping by teaching the women how to knit, mostly because I can’t. Hopefully in the near future we can pick out a simple project with just a few stitches and each woman can work on that.
The oil pressing project isn’t going so well. The women think it is a lot of work to press oil so they really just use it for personal use and they also bent the threads on the screw cap when cleaning it so it had to go to Lilongwe to be repaired. Maybe I’ll buy them the first bag of groundnuts to start the business. Haven’t really decided how I’m going to revitalize the project. I have a student who went to a local IGA workshop run by PCVs and I’m thinking it would be great confidence booster to her to teach the women in a one day IGA workshop just focused on groundnut oil, just to get the project going again.

Friday, Saturday, Sunday:
I use these days to do all kinds of things: yoga, long runs (training for a half-marathon at Christmas!), laundry, clean my house, lots of reading (and now GRE studying). I also try to plan my lessons for school or AIDS Club and inevitably there is some extra meeting that I need to gave or someone’s garden to go and see. I get to spend time with my neighbors and often sit around and play with the kids. Their new favorite thing is bubbles and making bead necklaces. Caitlan might come over for the night or maybe I’ll go down to Balaka and visit with my friend Erin.
Other random projects/events in the past few months:
On May 19th we had the National Election. Funnily enough, it was extra quiet on Election Day! I went to the market and no one way there and somehow all the children had disappeared. Even the chickens seemed quieter. All in all the election went smoothly. It may sound a bit odd, but it was more important for Malawi to have a peaceful election as oppose to a fully democratic election. And that’s all I have to say about that via blog so I don’t get myself in trouble.
Something that has really taken off and that I’m really excited about is that Mrs. Liwonde is learning to sew on a sewing machine! She is my neighbor and really like my mom while I am here. She really takes care of me and now I want to take care of her. The women of Damascus United Methodist Church gave me a more than generous donation to help women in Malawi. I used the money to buy a sewing machine with the hopes of finding someone that would be interested. Mrs. Liwonde was very excited to learn how to sew and so we found here a tutor. They come to my house every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday and sew for a few hours on my front porch. It should take a few months for her to learn how to sew, take measurements, and make her own patterns. At the end she can start a business and will then pay back 25% of the cost of the sewing machine (standard procedure in the aid world). Hopefully we can use the money to set up a shop for her in town!
On July 4th we celebrated well, July 4th! Happy Independence Day, America! As always the Ambassador opened up his house to the American Mission in Malawi. The Ambassador has quite a sense of humor and he asked me to do him a favor—go insult some guy I’ve never met by telling him he had quote, “the ugliest shirt I have ever seen.” I recon when the Ambassador asks you to do something, you do it. The guy I had to insult told me to tell Ambassador Bodey that he would like to give him a special gesture, but that there were children present. It was funny and I got an extra beer out of the deal—not too shabby! After the 4th Celebration we decided to have a Peace Corps Prom at the Lilongwe house. I don’t have the best pictures, but you can tell the party was 80’s themed in all its glory. The markets of Malawi are a treasure trove of cast off 80’s wear and Halloween costumes just waiting to happen.

Happy 4th of July, would you like to buy a PC t-shirt?

Erin and I enjoying the grass at the Ambassador's house!

You would have to pay big money for a dress like that back in America, even if it was for Halloween. I think Cupcake, vamp, hershey kiss. The 80's were such a great decade, no?

July 9-12: Mulanje Mountain!

2009-08-19T00:33:00.000-07:00

Went to Mulanje Mountain. A.W.E.S.O.M.E. Will write and post lots of pictures later!

NEWS!: Welcoming Lucas Guy Taylor

2009-06-07T02:49:00.000-07:00

I wanted to let you all know that I have a new member in my family! Lucas Guy Taylor was born on June 6th at 3:49 PM. He is 7 lb 12 oz and 20 inches long. Mom, Dad, and baby are doing great! I'm so excited and happy to have a new addition to our family. I love you all so much and really miss you. It's days like this I want to get on a plane and run right home. Love you! Congratulations Erin and Eddie.

Random Picture Post

2009-06-07T02:31:00.000-07:00

thought I would do a post of all the other random stuff that fills up my day and entertains me as well! Hope you enjoy

My neighbor is moving into a new house so Charles (and me, some days) are helping to move bricks from the place where we burned them to the new house.

This is me at a wedding, can't you tell? You dance around a big plate and toss in your money. The bride and groom sit in chairs off to the side and try to look at unhappy as possible.

Clement and Charles playing on my front porch

Charles. Love the purple pants!

This is my agogo (grandfather) sitting on top of his grain stores. You can't tell, but he looks quite smug!

We found this guy walking around the Lilongwe market--in bright red ski boots! I just HAD to take a picture.

Clement (in red) and Charles learning how to play with yo-yos. This lasted all of two days because they weren't really that great at it and I got tired of rolling up yo-yo strings every two minutes.
Apparently people in Malawi love to pop bubble wrap too!

There are lots of people close by at my new site: Jen, Caitlan, Danny, Cathy, Joe, Tim, and our new site mate Danielle. So we get together every few weeks and have a party! It's a lot of fun and a great way to relax without actually leaving the village. This week we made mexican food complete with homemade tortillas (you get really good at making everything from scratch in Malawi).

Caitlan (my closest site mate) and I have tea in the tea house at least once a week. Thankfully it's a really cheap form of entertainment.

Sharpevale Crew (well at least when the Payne's were here). Don't we look smart (and clean in this picture if I do say so myself)

I decided you really need to see what cooking nsima looks like. This is me making porridge which you pour in about half the flour, cook 10 minutes, then pour in the other half and stir like crazy so you don't get any lumps. I eat dinner with my family next door every week on Tuesday nights--it makes me feel like I'm actually part of a family. I get to learn how to cook nsima and its lots of fun just to hang out.

Once it is cooked you have to spoon it out into patties. You dip the spoon in water so the nsima doesn't stick. This requires hands made of asbestos.

This is Clement, Charles, and Mordy eating dinner. We all eat together on the grass mat.

This is my favorite meal in Malawi! Whole-grain nsima, pumpkin leaves with groundnut (peanut) flour, and white beans with lots of tomatos.

Jen is taking her chickens back to her house via bicycle.

Jen's mom came to visit and we go to see the Guli WamKulu! I got to see some spirits that I had never seen before!

This guy was on stilts!

IRELAND

2009-06-07T02:30:00.000-07:00

So my parents really wanted to meet me for a vacation but not all the way in Malawi (a bit too much I think). They have always wanted to travel to Ireland, and I really needed a vacation…so we booked the tickets!
The flight from Johannesburg to London was incredibly long (as expected) and when I landed in London the first thing I did was immediately stop by the closest coffee shop I could find. I asked for the biggest cup of coffee she could find and proceeded to tell her I hadn’t had a good cup of coffee in 14 months. I certainly felt a bit out of place in Heathrow. Everyone was so trendy with their wool coats and hats, adeptly balancing a cup of coffee and their Blackberry at the same time, all while on a pair of stylish heels. And then there was me: dirty jeans, no make-up, not in a hurry. I caught my flight to Dublin just fine and arrived shortly before lunch (just in time for another cup of coffee:). I didn’t have much trouble finding my parents as the Dublin airport is a bit small. I think we were all so overwhelmed by the moment that we couldn’t even be bothered to cry. It was so great to finally see them after 14 long months! Unfortunately, I had to immediately look in my suitcase to make sure the ice hadn’t melted on the second series of my rabies post-exposure shot.
Sorry for the side-bar, but the story (in retrospect only) is hilarious. So a few days before I was scheduled to fly out I decided to give my dog a bath. Sako doesn’t really like getting a bath. About a week later I’m in the medical office getting clearance to leave the country and Dr. Max casually asks, “So, is there anything else I need to know?” And I respond, “Well, my dog scratched me about a week ago. Do you think that is a problem?” Dr. Max thought a 1-inch scratch was severe enough to give me the post-exposure shot—only problem was that I needed to give myself the second shot three days later, but was leaving for Ireland in 12 hours. So, Max and I spent the next 30 minutes scheming how to get it on the plane. Do we smuggle it in checked baggage, hoping they won’t look? Attach the prescription hoping they won’t read that it is for rabies. I could just imagine me spending my vacation in quarantine because Ireland has no rabies and they won’t let me enter the country. My favorite part of this whole story is when I decided to consult my boss, Brian, about what he thought was best. I go in his office and explain my predicament and all the illegal options that Max and I have come up with. Brian’s face becomes increasingly twisted and at the end of all this he turns around in his chair, bangs his head on the wall three times, and then turns back to me saying, “I should write a fucking book about the trouble you guys (i.e. Peace Corps Volunteers) get yourselves into.” In the end we packed it on ice and I got to play Dr. Alicia for about 30 seconds three days later.
Ok, back to Ireland. After some wrangling with the rental-car company and with the GPS (which dumped the maps about half-way through the vacation and became totally useless) we were headed out of Dublin. About halfway toward our destination for the night we stopped at the ruins of Casheel Castle. (Not a vacation in Europe without castles and monasteries!). It has beautiful views of the surrounding hills and valleys as well as one of the only remaining intact round towers in Ireland. We traveled a few more hours to Rathellen House. I think this was my favorite place that we stayed. Although a newly constructed B&B (surprisingly most of them in Ireland are) it had great views of the mountains below. We went out for dinner in town and I had some really amazing chicken with blood sausage and we also had the first good bottle of red I have had in well, 14 months!
Tired from flying, we woke up late the next day but still got the full Irish breakfast: white and blood pudding, sausage, tomato, toast, jam, fruit, and of course, more coffee. I will tell you right now I ate more meat in those two weeks in Ireland than I did the past 14 months in Peace Corps. Both my stomach and my waistline paid the price for that, but it was delicious! We traveled to Kilkenny town where I could have spent hours wandering around, but it was raining like crazy so we didn’t. We got to see Kilkenny Castle, which I think to its detriment, had be restored a bit too much. Continuing the meat tradition, I had a burger and a Guinness for lunch. And yes, the Guinness is better in Ireland.
We left Rathellen House on Good Friday and went out towards the Ring of Kerry in County Kerry and our B&B, Kathleen’s Country House. We arrived in early afternoon and went had enough time to go to Muckcross House just outside of town. The grounds were beautiful and the house was equally as impressive. Much of the renovations on the house had actually been done for a visit from Queen Elizabeth; renovations which in the end, bankrupted the family and caused the owner to have a nervous breakdown. They also had a weaving shop where real people weave real stuff—an art that is all but lost these days. In the afternoon we went to see Ross Castle—the most intact 14th Century castle in Ireland. The reason 14th century castles are cool is because they are the stuff that 5th grade history projects are made of. They are complete with pots of boiling oil, rocks falling from above onto unsuspecting victims, and closed rooms with holes for guards to shoots arrows on intruders below. We had dinner at Bricin in town where I took a break from meat but switched to dairy overload on full cream wild mushroom pasta and chocolate cake. And more Guinness.
The next day we took in one of the most common sights for tourists—the Ring of Kerry. And after seeing it I can see why. It is a long but beautiful drive around the Kerry peninsula with cliffs plunging down into the sea and lush green fields full of sheep. We drove through parts of Kilarney National Park and it was a fairy tale forest. Much of it reminded me of parks I had travelled to in New Zealand. It was a long drive for Dad, so I convinced him to stop for a break of coffee and carrot cake. I can’t really do the drive justice with words, so I’ll just include a lot pictures below.
On Easter Saturday we headed north toward the Dingle Peninsula. We stopped for a bit at Inch Beach and then kept heading west and north round the peninsula. The weather was the best day we had in Ireland. I wouldn’t call it warm, but we had blue skies almost the entire time. Speaking of weather…it was freezing! Ok, at least to me it was. In Malawi it never gets below 55, even at night. We arrived back late at our Inn and ate dinner at Foley’s Restaurant in town.
On Easter Sunday we went to a small church in town and then left Kilarney for the Cliffs of Moher. We arrived around lunchtime and got to stop and eat lunch overlooking the cliffs. Dad had his picture taken with someone one who was campaigning to make the Cliffs of Moher a World Heritage Site. We kept driving through County Clare and arrived at Dunratty House which overlooked the bay and behind us the Burren Mountains. I really enjoyed the Burren. The biological landscape is just so bizarre that the place is captivating. It is covered in heavy limestone deposits and where people can eke out some farmland, they have built the fences from the limestone rocks. For all its barren appearance, of the native wildlife in Ireland, 90% of its native species are found in the Burren. Dunratty House also had the best breakfast spread by far and all arranged in beautiful pottery by one of Ireland’s most famous potters. And as most of you know, I’m a sucker for pottery.
The next day we went to Bunratty Castle and Historical Village. The castle was cool, but I thought the historical park was better. We chatted with lots of the people who worked there, walked around the grounds, and had some really great food in a local pub. Dad had some of the best lamb sausage I have ever had and I got some amazing lasagna. The park included a working water fed grist mill, a small sheep farm, a beautiful walled garden (complete with 2 Irish wolfhounds), and thatched roof cottages that had been moved from their former location and reconstructed on site. The village reminded me of vacations we use to take as kids to historical Williamsburg.
We left Ballyvaughan (town that Dunratty House was in) and drove through the Burren and the Connemara on our way to Clifden. The Connemara was beautiful and so different from the Burren! The Connemara is full of rolling hills, including the famous Twelve Pins. We took a drive through vast peat bogs and into Connemara National Park where Dad and I took a short walk inside the park. The park visitor center had a great information section on both the biology and Irish culture behind the peat bogs in this area. Often Irish immigrants to America would bring a piece of the family peat with them to remind them of home. And, peat is considered a fossil fuel since it takes thousands of years to form and just the right ecological conditions!
The next day we traveled all the way east, back to Dublin. Halfway there we stopped at Kylemore Abbey which is one of the most photographed buildings in Ireland. It is indeed a gorgeous abbey built along the River -----. High in the hills above a statue of Jesus has been constructed as a place of prayer and pilgrimage for the nuns below. We arrived in Dublin in the late afternoon with just enough time to take a walk down Fleet Street. In the area of town that we stayed in all the doors are painted different colors. After Queen Elizabeth died, the Irish were asked to paint all the doors black as a sign of respect. So with a big Irish F* you, they painted all the doors the brightest colors they could find! We had dinner at a restaurant that served just kofte, which are pancakes made of potatoes and filled with some kind of delicious filling. I had a creamy mushroom filling in mine. Apparently, this is a very traditional Irish food. And, I also had a plate of oysters with a Guinness, which surprisingly is a much better combination than Tabasco sauce or lemon juice!
After only two days in Dublin it occurred to me that it is a very young, hip, party hard city. Everyone woman under the age of thirty, and I do mean everyone, was running around the city in brightly colored tights and flashy ballet flats complete with some kind of baggy dress cinched with a belt and a bag they could fit a small child in. It didn’t take long to figure out Dublin’s style. But, none the less, I loved it! On out first day for a bit of Irish history (and a fantastic history it is) we headed to Killmainham Jail on this big touristy double-decker bus. I felt like a big nerdy tourist, but at least it was convenient. The Killmainham jail is at the center of so much of Irish history. Throughout “The Troubles,” the jail was used to house and execute many famous Irish dissident of the crown. Our tour guide placed a special focus on the women and children that were jailed and executed there, which I greatly appreciated. It was a saddening experience, but I don’t think any trip to Ireland would be complete without an appreciation of its rich history.
On Saturday we also travelled to...the Guinness Factory! They charge a small fortune for the factory tour, but at least you get a pint of Guinness at the end. The tour was great! They have toasted barley for you to eat, pump in real hops smell around the fake vines, a tasting lab with instructions from a real Guinness taste tester (how would you like that job), and they have a huge exhibit about Guinness advertising and the Guinness Book of World Records. My favorite part of the tour was the exhibit about the Cooperage. The Guinness coopers were thought to be the first people to burn the inside of the barrels in order to burn away the tannins which will make the beer bitter. It took true skill, brute strength, and dedication to be a Guinness cooper. The apprenticeship alone took seven years and even after that each cooper was required to mark his own barrels, thus allowing the bosses to keep track of who’s leaked and who’s didn’t.
That night we ate dinner at a restaurant called Fire, where I had a delicious beet salad and thin-crust pizza. On our way out we happened to be eating right next to the place that was hosting the Irish Daytime Emmy’s! So, Mom and I stood around and gawked at all the pretty dresses for about 15 minutes.
On Sunday we went to church at St. Patrick’s Cathedral—which to my great surprise and disappointment was completely empty. This beautiful cathedral had halfway been turned into a tourist shop, there wasn’t a choir to be seen on the program list, and there was only 3 other people in church that morning. It is really quite a shame. We had our last Irish breakfast at a local café and then took the big red bus again to Trinity College and the Book of Kells. The Book of Kells is also another massive tourist attraction, and I was a bit skeptical about the whole thing at first. But, after seeing the books I can totally understand why people flock in droves to see them. The Book of Kells is one of the first copies of the Four Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Trinity College places on display two of the four books at time and also two other Coptic texts. The craftsmanship alone is enough to amaze most, but I think for the religious the books hold a special spiritual importance. The books are made of the skins of 150 calves, the inks made from various rocks and beetles, all painstakingly scribed by candlelight over many years. My trip to see the Book of Kells was actually one of my most favorite experiences in Ireland.
That night we under-estimated the availability of Irish restaurants on a Sunday night and ending up eating at a burger place! It was actually really good. Mom and I walked just around the block to see the Dublin Chamber Orchestra perform and the National Concert Hall. What a treat! After being in Malawi for so long it was wonderful to hear the music of my own culture: Handel, Mendelssohn, and even modern Irish classical composers. It was a great evening of music and a wonderful way to share my last night together with my mom for the next 8 months!
The next morning I rode with my parents to the airport even though my flight didn’t leave to a few hours after theirs. It was a wonderful trip and I really enjoyed spending time with my parents for a full two weeks. We made some great memories together and it is a trip I will look back to with great fondness. We said our sad goodbyes at the airport and parted ways for the next 8 months. But, I get to see them again at Christmas so I’m already looking forward to that!

Alicia's Update - April 6, 2009

2009-04-06T06:49:00.000-07:00

New Year, New House, New Outlook! Before I leave for Ireland (which is tomorrow!), I thought

I should catch all my faithful readers up on what has been happening at my new home in Ntcheu. Last time I left you all I had just arrived, so we will pick up from there. Bryan, Keah, Jen (one of my site mates), and Mr. Liwonde (my neighbor and counterpart) helped moved all my stuff into the extra bedroom. After being here for one year I am amazed at how much I have actually accumulated; boxes and bags were literally packed up to the ceiling in my room. For the next two weeks Bryan and Keah showed me the ins and outs of life in their village. We visited the three irrigation clubs that B&K started during their service, went to the market to meet their friends, worked in the garden, read a lot, and just got to know each other better. B&K were so hospitable and I really felt like we had a great transition and I hope I can do some good work at their old site. Thanks guys!

Sharpevale Gang: Jen, Keah, Caitlan, Me, and Mr. Liwonde and Brian in the back (this is the day that I arrived in Sharpevale, everyone came to welcome me!)

I guess I should tell you a bit about my house. I have a two bedrooms, a sitting/library/dining/exercise/office room, and one small narrow room I can use for storage all inside a brick house with a clay tile roof (even though the tile leak like crazy and my roof is actually covered with two tarps). I have an outdoor shower, a bricked patio, pit latrine (but I have a toilet seat as well!), outdoor kitchen which I just use as a shed, 5 raised planter beds, a chicken coop (complete with chickens which are currently not laying eggs and may become dinner if they don’t get on the ball), a dog pen with a dog (Sako, I ‘inherited’ him from B&K), a rabbit coop (soon to have rabbits), and a solar food dryer. My house has lots of old fruit trees which make for great shade (and eating). I live very close to the Liwonde family and they take really good care of me. Examples, if I didn’t absolutely insist on paying them they would bring water for me and my garden for free! Also, the other night, a fox killed one of my chickens that insisted on flying out of the coop and staying out for the night. Mr. Liwonde hears it and runs out of bed at 3 in the morning to try and kill the fox. (Of course my completely worthless dog, although very cute, does nothing). I live in the middle of a corn field, so my only neighbors are the Liwonde’s, her sisters, and the agogo’s (grandparents). The location is great because I have lots of privacy, just a few kids that I get to hang out with, but I still get to spend lots of time with a family. The agogo is always giving me food, and the kids like to come over and read books with me on the front porch. I only ever see Mr. Liwonde’s children (Mary, Mordy, Charles, and Clement (sadly, Jennifer died just a few weeks ago from rabies)) and a few of their friends. Compared to my old house where I had kids passing my house all the time and sometimes it could be a bit overwhelming. Sharpevale is about a 100 m lower than my old house, so it will be a bit hotter here—but I take it compared to all the other improvements!

Desk, door leads to my bedroom

Hallway leads out the back, first door is to the kitchen, second is the store room

Kitchen Prep area (I cook outside on my porch)...thanks for all the food packages.

Store room, my water filter on the left

Bookshelf, door to front porch on the right.

Back of the house. You can see my herb spiral (with lots of herbs this time! and it has a drip irrigation kit hooked up to it). All my firepit and veranda. Shed is off camera but to the left.

Veranda, bathhouse, and the chim (toilet) just to the left and behind of that.

I also have two site mates. Caitlan, is a first year education volunteer, and Jen, an environment volunteer in my group. It is great to have site mates because we can talk things before they become a big problem, meet up for tea, see each other at school, go to the beach on the weekend, and have each other over for great big dinner parties!

Jen coming over to pick up her chickens from my house.

Caitlan over for Mexican Night!

After B&K left I really started to get to work. The first week I tried to be busy because I knew I would be going to Senga Bay for two days (have to have a little fun with the ladies, right?) and then welcoming the NEW Environment group as their plane landed in country (W.I.E.R.D—more later). So the first thing I did was to re-start (it’s best not to re-event the wheel for everything you do) a women’s group with Mr. Liwonde’s wife and some of her friends in my village. They had already formed the group but weren’t meeting regularly. Out first meeting they outlined all the things they wanted to do and learn. Unfortunately it was a list that was 20 things long, so I had to get them to focus. They decided to start with learning how to make jam (Malawi has some amazing fruit, my new favorite being mposa, I think we call it custard apple). They have made jam a few times with some different fruits and each time re-invested the profits for the next batch. However, last week they learned a valuable lesson: they must sell the jam immediately because it only lasts a week or two without refrigeration in this hot weather! They managed to save enough money to pay a carpenter to make a stand for an oil press (Very cool, made by Mtiba, check it out, I’m totally getting one when I get home! You guys can make all kinds of cold press oils with all out local nuts at home). I inherited an oil press from B&K (I also inherited the debt too!). In an effort to foster personal responsibility, I told the women I would give them the press if they paid for the stand to mount it. Mr. Liwonde and I tried it out with some sunflowers and after we worked out all the kinks it worked great! The other thing they highlighted was that they want to learn how to knit. Unfortunately, I don’t know how. My Mom doesn’t know this but she will be teaching my how during all those car rides across the Irish countryside! In between we will also do other small classes on relevant topics. Example, last week we had a class on preventing childhood diarrhea. We covered hand washing with a cup tied to a string with holes punched in it (so the dirty water runs off, the two cup system of taking water out of its storage container to prevent contamination, and making your own oral rehydration salts (which are 35 kwacha in the market and people don’t always give them to their kids when they need them because they can’t afford them). We also spent one afternoon making mudstoves—which they totally love! It is such a simple, appropriate technology (there is a development buzz-word for you) in which they modify the traditional three-stone fire so it is more efficient by filling in the spaces with mud to direct the heat toward the pot. This ‘technology’ saves them as much as 30% on firewood! They want to have other classes on making cakes, cooking lessons for increased nutrient intake, and much to my surprise, they wanted to learn how to protect themselves from getting HIV/AIDS. Although I was really excited to see their interest, I was also a bit saddened. I thought to myself: I shouldn’t have to teach you this, you are all married, you should be safe. But all too commonly, this is not the case. For the vast majority of married women, it is not a choice. Their husbands are highly promiscuous and they can’t say no, they can’t force their husbands to wear a condom. On a happier note, I really love working with them on such a regular basis. They are a great group of women and I think they will do really well with a bit of help! (Apologies for the length of that last paragraph).

A "test press" with Mr. Liwonde, we made groundnut oil.

Making mudstoves (sorry the pic is so bad!)

Tilimbike Women's Club. We made gwava jam and they used to profit to pay the carpender to make the stand for the oil press.

Before I left for Senga Bay and Lilongwe I met with the headmaster to discuss the possibility of working at the secondary school. He was immediately excited and said yes. It is really common for Environment volunteers to teach life skills and have Wildlife/Environment clubs at the high schools. I began teaching life skills to Forms 3 and 4 (grade 11 and 12). Life skills in Malawi will cover topics from self-esteem, goal setting, public speaking, HIV/AIDS (BIG topic), healthy relationships, career planning, and job application skills. It is meant to help students in a very practical way beyond just basic reading, writing, and math skills (although important as well). In the first term we focused on self-esteem, peer-pressure, proper relationships, and goal setting.

My favorite lesson (so far) was one where I had the students draw a picture of their future. The students then put their ‘future island’ on the floor on the other side of the river (a big blue cloth). The river had hippos, crocodiles, and snakes in it which were meant to represent the barriers they face when trying to reach their island. Students said they represent things like HIV/AIDS, STIs, lack of parent support, peer-pressure and poverty. The students then got a “bridge” (a big stick) to help them cross the river. After crossing with just one bridge they got a second and found it easy to cross. The bridges represent things like parent support, friends, education, and a positive attitude. Once they crossed the bridge they all shouted, Nditha, which means, I can! It is very rare that students actually visualize their future outside the village life. It was great to see students wanting to be nurses, teachers, radio broadcasters, and lawyers. I left for Senga Bay at the end of the week (just so you know I didn’t do all that stuff in a week, but over the last two months, so don’t be too impressed). I met Audra, Jen, Kory, and Bright at Senga Bay on our way to Lilongwe. It is great to live so close to the beach! We spent the weekend swimming, relaxing, and reading. Senga Bay is a lot cleaner than Nkhata Bay and there are far fewer tourists!

Me, Audra, Kory, and Jen relaxing on the beach (which is funny because we are an inland country). I just love my new site, I can jet to the beach for the weekend. Promise, the green shirts were not all planned, but we are Environment volunteers!

Children fishing in Lake Malawi at sunset.

Senga Bay

Random: Remember that cover of time magazine a while back. Yeah, it was actually Tim Strong. (Hey Tim! How's America?)

We headed into Lilongwe to meet the new Environment group at the airport, just like everyone did for us when my group flew in last year. I cannot explain to you the depth of just how weird it is to be standing at the airport, waving to the new guys coming off the plane. The differences between then and now are so stark! This was my first time back to the airport and I thought to myself, wow this airport is kind of nice as opposed to when we landed a year ago and I thought, oh shit, this place is a total dump what did I get myself into! I remember getting off the plane and meeting the PCVs and thinking, ‘wow, they look so tan, dirty, wise, established, comfortable’. As soon as I saw the new guys I thought, ‘they are so pale, clean, and look totally overwhelmed by what is happening’. February 2008 seems so very far away, yet the year went by so fast. You don’t really recognize the differences until you meet someone who is now where you were. The new kids are completely unrealistic about what they can achieve here, clean, complain about being sick all the time, worry about things that won’t happen and don’t even ask questions about the things that will really bother them, they don’t know what their favorite foods and activities actually are. They are totally bizarre! That said, I really like the new group of Environment volunteers and think they are going to do a great job and fit in really well!

Jen, Sarah, Devin, Alinon. Waiting for the New Env group to land at the airport

We love America!!!!

Bright and Emily waiting at the airport

New and old volunteers (oh God, that's ME!) meeting each other in the airport parking lot.

New Environment Group in Dedza just begining their training. They look so clean!

Can't come into Lilongwe and not go out! Megan and I (we are going to Zambia on safari in August, I'm really excited!)

Another thing I have been working on is exploring the possibility of building a community center. I met with the GVH (group village headWOMAN). That’s right, she is a woman. Good story, so I’ll make a bit of detour here. So, she was next person in line to the GVH because there were no remaining blood relatives (i.e. not married into the family), but her brother-in-law went to the Traditional Authority ((TA) the one above the GVH) and said that he was the ‘only remaining male hier’. Now although that is technically true and he didn’t lie, she was the next in line. After he took over, people went to the TA and told him, that no, this other woman was actually next in line. So the TA removed the brother-in-law from his position and gave the title to her! Awesome! Okay back to the topic of the community center. I met with the GVH and the Village Development Committee, and they thought it was a great idea. So far we have formed a committee of 15 to oversee the project, including at my suggestion, Mr. Liwonde and my friend Annie (she lived in Denver for 5 years and speaks really great English, but now has a shop in town because her husband is stationed here as police chairman). We have met once and they are supposed to write a constitution for the center while I am away for the next three weeks. I am really skeptical that the project will actually work because to get the grant the community will have to contribute 25% of the cost of the project. Generally this cost is usually labor, thatching grass, locally burned bricks, or bamboo. Also because of the size of the project the committee will have to donate a lot of their time. This is where we run into a bit of cultural snafu. Malawians are very helpful and kind, but they don’t volunteer for things like this. Americans are known for volunteering for lots of community projects—almost everyone I know is doing something with some organization, we donate money to lots of causes, we run in races for charity and participate in silent auctions, etc. Now, I’m sure some of you are saying, “but we can donate the 25%”. That would be great, except then it is not a community center, if the community wants the center than the community will have to contribute towards it. That may seem a bit callus, and I hope you all understand, but if I find money to pay people to build the whole thing, then it will never be used: i.e. I will have wasted all your money. Often times with big projects like this volunteers become blind to the problems, they just want to get it finished no matter what problems they run into just to say they have accomplished something. Although it is early in the project and this may not in fact be a problem, I am keeping this issue in the back of my mind. I decided I’m not going to force the project to happen, I would rather do small, individual projects that have a higher probability of continuing once I am gone. I think it would be irresponsible of me to act otherwise (i.e. to act like almost every other well wishing NGO in this country). We shall see!

Last Friday I had an all day nutrition workshop with an HIV/AIDS club that I meet with on a weekly basis. We spent the morning covering food groups, making balanced meals, stressing local foods (which are often more nutritious), safe water practices, and the importance of eating whole grain nsima. We had a great activity were they made a list of foods they buy, find (in the forest), and plant. At first they had almost nothing in the ‘foods we find’ category, but after some prodding (I reminded them of the famine in 2001 and asked them what they ate then) they came up with a HUGE list. The young people learned about new foods they could eat from the old ones. I tried to stress to them that between foods they can plant and foods they can find that they need not spend money on bought foods and that they can eat very healthfully! The other topic that was quite controversial was the difference between eating whole grain and white (processed) corn flour to make nsima. Whole grain is taking straight from the cob to the maize mill while white flour is pounded, the chaff and kernel removed, taken to the mill, then fermented for a day, and finally dried in the sun. By the time they are done processing it is essentially starch. It’s glue, you could make a collage with the stuff. I tried to explain to them that they spend so much money on seeds and fertilizer, and time, but then they just throw away all the nutritious stuff! They told me if they have visitors come and they give them ufa woyera (white flour) that people will think they are lazy. I then replied that is ok to eat is some days, just not all days. I was a fun conversation, but Malawians do not like people messing with their nsima! At the very least I gave them the information and they had a good time. In the afternoon we had some cooking demonstrations: eating things with the skins, steaming instead of boiling, not overcooking vegetables. Much to my surprise they loved the chips (French fries) with the skins!

All day Nutrition Workshop for HIV/AIDS patients. We had a really great turnout of almost 40 people!

That about covers it! As you can see things are going well and I’m really happy in at my new site. In retrospect, I made the right decision. Ok, I’m going to wrap things up because I need to go pack for my vacation! Love and miss, Alicia.

This is a random picture, but I just thought this was so smart! Can you tell what the lamp is made of?

Alicia's Update - March 24, 2009

2009-03-24T05:25:00.000-07:00

So my New Years Resolution was to be better at blogging. As you can see I’m doing such a good job at keeping it! Actually I haven’t been avoiding blogging (ok, I have a bit), but SO many things have changed since my last post in mid-December.

When I posted my last post in early December, secret to just about everyone besides my family, I was in the process of talking with PC Malawi about moving sites. Although I have tried to remain positive on my blog, I guess it is time to come clean with all of you: the last year has been extraordinarily difficult. That said, I don’t regret the time that I spent in Mwanza. I do think it is funny that I had almost exactly the same conversation about changing sites with my APCD all the way back in MAY. Although a difficult decision, now in retrospect, it was the right one. After talking with family and friends they all encouraged me to move, sensing that I was incredibly unhappy. The decision was not an easy one because I just felt like I was giving up, that I was abandoning my community, that I couldn’t complete what I had set out to do. As many of you are well aware, I am really stubborn. Throwing my hands up and saying, “I can’t do this anymore” is not in my personality. After long discussions with family and friends, I had to accept that everyone has their limits, even me; and if mine are in a different place than other volunteers then that is OK. It took an additional 3 weeks after Thanksgiving to have to OK from the office, make sure the Department of Forestry would pay my living allowance, and to work out the logistics of the move. It was really a coincidence that I was able to move. Bryan and Keah, second year environment volunteers, are extending for a third year near Liwonde National Park, so I was able to move into their house. Peace Corps and I set a date to move of January 27th, which worked out really well because I could finish up my mushroom project in Mwanza and take an extra long Christmas vacation! So, I returned to my site with the knowledge that was only going to be there for another 1 ½ months. My last few weeks in Mwanza before Christmas was spent training my women’s group how to plant mushroom spawn, care for the mushroom house, harvest and sell mushrooms. We had a three day training covering substrate pasteurization, bag preparation, incubation, placement in the house, harvesting, and house maintenance. Although my Chichewa shills are sub-par, I was able to conduct the training all by myself without the help of any translator. We ate lunch together each day in between the morning and afternoon sessions. The ladies were really enthusiastic and willing to learn a new skill. Mushrooms are very popular in the villages and once they were ready to harvest they had no problem selling them to their friends and neighbors. The women in this group really made my time in Mwanza worth it. Even on days when we didn’t have meetings I would walk down to their village and hang out for the afternoon. We could just sit around and chat, without any pressure, they were interested in my life and my family and friends. They always gave me huge piles of mangoes and were the only people in my village that knew me well enough to know that I love popcorn—especially the crispy burnt half-popped village kind! I hope I was able to provide them with all the information they need for a successful project that will last for many years as well as the skills and confidence to start other projects.

Putting up the clear plastic on the walls

Preparing the pots to pastuerize the substrate

Covering the pots to hold in the steam

Pasteurizing the substrate

Placing the substrate to cool

Placing the substrate and mushroom spawn in the bags

Because I knew I was leaving I took an extra long Christmas vacation. Shortly before Christmas I left site and headed up north to Mzuzu where I met my friend Emily. We travelled to her site near Rhumpi for a village Christmas. On Christmas Day we visited Emily’s friends and brought them cookies and other Christmas gifts. Christmas in Malawi is often an excuse to get drunk (as I remind myself how many Americans drink to get through the holidays!) so walking around town was quite a lot of fun! People that Emily had never seen touch a drop of alcohol were totally demolished. As we made the rounds we drank several obligatory cups of tea, visited friends in the boma and ate lots of doughnuts and cold cokes. In the afternoon we biked to the Stains house. They run a paprika farm near Emily’s house and they invited us to dinner. I drank so many cold cokes I almost made myself sick! We spent the rest of the week eating more doughnuts, visiting friends we didn’t get to on Christmas day, finished off a few books, and made some pretty good village food. Emily and I were only 100 meters from each other during homestay, but now she is up north and I don’t get to see her that often, so it was really nice to spend some time together. (Sorry I only have three pictures from this whole time!).

Drinking Coke and eating donuts at Emily's site in Rhumpi

We travelled back to Mzuzu and then made our way to Nkata Bay for New Years. Nkata Bay is full of rocky shores surrounding a small bay and is a very popular tourist stop in Malawi. We spent our days swimming in the lake and reading under shady umbrellas. As Peace Corps volunteers, we spend our nights drinking when on vacation. It was great to see all my friends that I haven’t seen for a while and just relaxing after a really stressful fall in my village.

Eating at Chipati Lady. The. best. drunk.food.EVER.

Swimming in NkhataBay

Happy New Years 2009.

We are Peace Corps--we love America!

January 1. The drinking continues....

January 2...

View from our hostel over NkhataBay

After New Years, since I didn’t really want to spend too much time back in my village before the move I decided to travel to a remote lodge called Rurarwe. The easiest (or so we thought) way to get there was to take a boat from Nkata Bay to Rurarwe. Averill, Shar-dey, Bright, Jen, and I chartered a boat to leave Nkata Bay at 9 AM. After buying petrol, snacks, packing the boat, etc, we left at 11. The waters within Nkata Bay were pretty calm, but as soon as we got outside the protection of the bay things got a bit more rough. After 2 hours we actually had to pull into this bay in the middle of nowhere (so far out that I don’t even know how the people who live there got down into the ravine) and wait. The driver told us that he wanted to wait until night to travel because the waves would have been smaller. He might have been right, but we were thinking that if the waves stayed this big then we really didn’t want to be travelling at night, and we really wanted to get there! Averill negotiated with the driver to leave at 2 with the condition that he bail out the boat from the water coming over the top (Averill is still convinced that the boat was actually leaking). So, we set back out. Shar-dey was sea sick so she put on her iPod, covered her head with her jacket and ‘danced’ to the waves for the next 4 hours to fight the sea sickness. Bright was so excited to be traveling there that she was totally lost in her book and oblivious to the big waves. Averill put on his life jacket (and if you see pictures of him you will see why this freaked me out) and then kept turning around every 10 minutes to ask me if Shar-Dey (his GF visiting from America) still had life jacket on. Jen couldn’t even read a book because the wind kept blowing waves on her. I could read, but kept looking at the ever increasing size of the waves and the creeping darkness. By time we got there it was dark and we were all soaked to the bone, but Rurarwe was totally worth it. The lodge is tucked away that you can’t even see it from 50 meters away. The youth hostel had a balcony that looked out onto crystal clear lake water were we could see 20 meters to the rocks below. The group dinners of curry and crepes with chocolate sauce were amazing to us village bound PCVs. At night, when it was time to take showers, the staff would heat up a gravity fed tank and you would have to shout at him when you were finished so he could turn off the water! We spent all day in our bathing suits snorkeling, jumping off 26 foot platform into the lake, reading, and napping in the sun. It gave me some time to really think about putting my old site behind me, and moving on to a new site. It was a great way to start 2009. We travelled back down to Nkata Bay via the Illala- the ancient ferry boat that runs up and down the lake. Christmas vacation over I travelled all the way back down the Mwanza to spend my last few weeks in my village before the big move on the 27th.

Jen and I waiting for the waves to pass.

Those smiles are so fake! Averill and Jen

Rurarwe. Can't even tell there is a lodge there, can you!?!

Jumping off the platform--20 meters

The group the went to Rurarwe: Rob, Emily, Jen, Shar-Dee, Averill, Dave, and Bright

Rurarwe

On the Illala going back to NkhataBay. I look very scary in that hat, don't I?

As you all know, during this time Obama was sworn in as the 44th President of the United States, and on a totally less important note, I turned 25 on the same day. I like to think that I got Barak Obama as my birthday present. To celebrate the day I dressed all in red, white, and blue, and bought mushrooms from my womens group for a ‘fancy’ village birthday dinner. Although a memorable even, I was a bit sad to be spending this historical occasion alone in my village—until I was listening to President Obama’s Inaugural speech. As he was speaking about how America will renew our pledge to help all those in the “forgotten villages” around the world. That was my village, my friends, me, that he was talking to—I was a member in one of those forgotten corners of the world. I was so proud of the United States, my fellow citizens, and my new President. Do I think that Obama will actually affect much change in Africa? Absolutely not. But I do know that people here look up to him. They see a descendant of Africa become the leader of one the greatest nations in the world, an inspiration, and an example for leaders across Africa to follow (and God knows some of them need a good example!). My students tell me they want to be the President of the United States, just like little American children, and I just don’t have the heart to tell them you can’t be a naturalized U.S. citizen. If I slept at all on moving night, I got up even earlier to make sure things were in order before the Peace Corps car picked me up the morning. I had 3 or 4 times the amount of stuff that I actually moved to site with, but with my years of traveling experience I have become an excellent packer and it all fit into one car! I was rather impressed with myself. Three hours later I was giving an “Odi” (what you say when you approaching someone’s house in Malawi—it just means, “hey, I’m here!”) to Bryan and Keah. Keah responded with, “You don’t have to give an ‘odi’ at your own house!”. I was home, and couldn’t be happier about it. (You can take a tour of my house on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8j6RVTBWmP8&feature=related).

Glow bracelets for the kids!

Reading books and eating popcorn on my front porch.

Rose and I. Having a last party with Mtendere Mushroom Club.

Mtendere Mushroom Club

Harvesting mushrooms.

All my stuff packed and ready to go to my new site--all in one Land Rover!

Alicia's Update: December 17, 2008

2008-12-17T13:05:00.000-08:00

Sorry the photos don't line up at the end of the blog, I got really tired of dragging them down the page. I thought you all would appreciate photos even if they don't quite line up!.

Knack Attack!! The staff room at Camp Sky.

Brian and Keah in the staff room. Another Knack Attack--I think we might be addicted.

Me teaching graphing at Camp Sky

The students on their Business Field Trip to the Southern Bottling Company in Blantyre.

Field Trip to The Nation, the national newspaper.

Picking berries on the Zomba Plateau

Meleia and I getting ready to go riding on the Plateau

Some well needed R&R by the Zomba Reservoir

Thanksgiving at the Ambassador's House.

Emily and I hanging out outside the PTC.

All of us hanging out outside the PTC, drinking..too bad you can't do that. Opps.

Thanksgiving at the Ambassador's. Bryce being well, Bryce.

Dave, Jen, and Devin at 4th of July Party.

Brian came on a site visit and took a picture of me carrying my water from the borehole.

Mwaswera bwanji? How have you spent your day? I hope all of you are healthy and happy. The past few months have included an amazing diversity of experiences—and perhaps the reason why I have failed to write in so long. I would try to make some kind of excuse and say that months of being without technology makes it difficult to find any patience in dealing with it….but that’s lame so I’ll just start in with the update. I promise my New Year’s Resolution is to be better about communication with you all at home on my part.
I have been so very fortunate to find a good friend inside Majete, Jeanette. She was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Chikwawa with African Parks and without her good advice I probably would have quit PC at least three times. But, after each mental breakdown on her front porch she and her (now husband), Harvey feed me pasta, coffee, and lots of veggies. They are both amazing people and I will miss not only their company, but also their good counsel when they leave in June 2009.

They invited me to their wedding and the day before I travelled through the park and was able to do all the fun doing pre-wedding stuff. Two days before the wedding there was a surprise bachelorette party inside the park on B-line road—right down in the dry river bed with elephant dung and all. The scenery, company, and food were all amazing. As is traditional, the mother of the groom gave a chitenje to the bride and the married women offered their best piece of advice for a happy and healthy marriage. In between snacking on mini quiche, cupcakes, and champagne, I would look over every so often toward the scout that was guarding our little tea party from elephants with an M-16! The wedding was held in Blantyre at the church commissioned by David Livingston, Saint Michaels of Angels. The ceremony was a combination of traditional western and Malawian. As much as I love traditional and modern Malawian music, it is not the music of my childhood. Just as drums move the hearts of people all over Malawi, for me, there will always be something special about an organ in a big church with stained glass windows, vaulted ceilings, and tall roman columns.

Jeanette having a practice round. In the background is Amy, Sarah, and Caroline (on the right). All are people who work/volunteer inside the park.

In the river bed off of B-Line Road.

Jeanette (looking quite surprised), her mom, and sister walking towards the party in the river bed.

Amy, Sarah, and Caroline. And those Fairy Cakes look just as good as they tasted.

The Bridal Party, including Jeanette's sister and Harvey's niece.

The Bridal Party
Catherine and I at the Reception in Blantyre

Harvey, Jeanette, and I at the reception.

After the wedding we went to Chez Macky’s in Blantyre and I ate so much food I should really be ashamed of myself. Good thick whole grain nsima, pumpkin leaves with peanut flour, local red beans, and even grilled chicken (yes, Mom and Dad, I ate some!). If I could eat like that every day I wouldn’t complain about the food in Malawi so much. Not only is there a complete excess of food at Malawian weddings, but there is also a lot of dancing—and unlike American weddings you don’t have to drag the men onto the dance floor. In fact, they are the first ones out there! All throughout the night people dance around the bride and groom and throw money in a big basket until the ‘cashier’ decides that enough has been giving by those present. It was a great time and I am very thankful I was able to attend.

Just before our In-Service Training (IST) we had a Central Gender and Development fundraiser, Iron-Chef Malawi! This was an event I had been looking forward to for a long time and it didn’t disappoint. We received our secret ingredients, yogurt and chocolate, and 5,000 kwacha to buy all other stuff. Immediately my team members, Matt Jones and Alinon Arpin, decided we would do an Indian Style Chocolate Mole and a Chocolate Tortellini with a Strawberry Yogurt Sauce. After months of a lack of culinary inspiration, I was completely stumped on what to do for an appetizer. Thankfully my ingenious friend Matt thought of a Chocolate Lassi and the very last second! I have to say that I was not the heartbeat of the team as Matt’s Chocolate Mole was INCREDIBLE. Although we didn’t win, we had an awesome time and we raised over 60,000 mK ($400 USD) for Central Gender and Development and Scholarships. Totally want to do it again next year!

Taking a break before we all get cooking. I mean, we don't want to work too hard or anything.
Team Indian! Alinon, Me, and Matt

Environment '08 provided 2 of the 3 teams! Devin, Al, Jen, Brian, Me, Averill, Matt

Serving up food to all the guests.

Kristy Rolig with the MC for the night, Angela--in some smoking National Wear!
Ken is very happy that he won the Men in Chitenje Fashion Show

IST happens 3-4 months after volunteers first go to site and is held in Dedza. For the first week of our training we spent time catching up with everyone, going to the Nordin’s (also former Malawi PCVs) permaculture farm outside Lilongwe, went to Mua Mission in Salima, had a lot of impromptu dance parties, learned about food dryers, mud stoves, extension work, how to make soy milk, and groundnut shellers. I could write paragraphs and paragraphs about all the stuff we learned about, but the pictures are way more fun. But, I will talk about two really special experiences we had at Mua Mission and Nordin’s Permaculture Farm.

They are very excited because I made chocolate cake. We are easy to please.

Making a solar food dryer and then drying all kinds of good stuff to eat.

More solar food drying. That's Bright, btw.

Matt is making a mud stove. This simple "technology" saves 30% on firewood!

Mike is making soy milk.

Alinon found another groundnut sheller at his local market (so much for thinking the new stuff is better!)

We had a "Shell-Off" to see which one works better. Each have their own advantages and disadvantages.

View of our favorite mountian (ok, its a hill) behind the College.

Stacia and Christof Nordin were both Peace Corps Volunteers in Malawi during one of the worst famines in Malawi since recent memory in 2001. The experience had a lasting impact on them and they decided to return to Malawi and establish a Permaculture farm outside Lilongwe. Although the climate in Malawi in tropical, the soil is full of clay, and the rains only come 5 months out of the year—Malawians do not need to be malnourished or go hungry. They just need to change the way they farm and modify their diet. That may seem a bit arrogant and insensitive for me to make that assessment, but it is either that or Malawians continue to be malnourished and the famines more severe and more frequent. Take your pick. The trip to the Nordin’s Farm opened my eyes to farming system that produces more food, on less land, with less work. I could spend a lot of time covering all the points of permaculture, but I strongly encourage you to check it out and maybe even incorporate some things into your own backyard.

Christof explaining about Permaculture.

Checking out the collection of local foods.

The second place we visited during IST was Mua Mission in Salima. It was founded by Catholic Priest, Father Bouche, in the 1960’s. From the beginning, Father Bouche and his counterparts decided to run the Mission differently than almost every other NGO inside Malawi at the time. Their motto has always been, ‘nothing for nothing.’ Many NGOs give away all the services they provide, don’t require any kind of community contribution, and therefore villagers have no personal stake and therefore no motivation to dedicate any time or effort to the project. In many ways, Peace Corps operates out of the same model. Anecdotal at best, Peace Corps and Mua Mission have been operating in Malawi longer than most other NGOs and I believe they are one of the few that are actually working well. We had the chance to sit down with Father Bouche for a few hours and chat about the culture, where we fit in, when to push, and when not to. As someone who has been in Malawi for over 40 years, he knows a lot more than I do.

Statues of different legends in Malawi

A depiction of the Creation Story at Mua Mission.

Alinon, Devin, Matt, Averill at Mua Mission.

The second week out counterparts came and we did some additional training with them. We spent a great deal of time working on basic business planning. Topics like strength/weakness analysis, book keeping, marketing skills, and profit analysis took several days to cover. Coming from American it was practically common knowledge for the PCVs (something we all agreed we were very thankful for), but completely new and exciting concepts for out counterparts. The other highlight of the second week was training with the Hope Kit. The Hope Kit is a joint project between Bridge Malawi (funded by USAID) and Malawi National Aids Commission. Peace Corps uses the kit to teach the basic principles of HIV transmission, biology, pathology, and most importantly prevention. It uses simply games, skits, and activities to promote self-confidence and control—for both those who do not have HIV and those who do. The training experience was surreal. I was amazed and frankly, appalled, by the lack of knowledge among my counterparts, the lack of mutual respect for both genders, and the lack of a commitment to adopt practices that will stop the spread of HIV. I can say that even four months later I have still not fully processed the experience or accepted the outcomes that I see as a result of detrimental cultural practices. Although the Hope Kit is intended to inspire, and foster confidence and control—I was saddened by the whole experience.

Acting out how HIV interacts in the body, part of the Hope Kit.

Sarah working with her counterpart on a mock business plan.

My counterpart, Harare, and I receiving our certificates at the end of training!

The whole group with out counterparts at the end of IST.

September is a busy time in Malawi as people begin to get their fields ready for the rains (even though they don’t come for another 4 months…). I caught a ride to my site with my APCD, Brian, because he was coming for a site visit. Although he was really sick, we had a training with the Home Based Care Group with the groundnut sheller. Unfortunately, the sheller was not built well and Brian had to take it back to Lilongwe. In the long run this actually turned out to be a good thing, because the group was suppose to build a fence at my house in exchange for a bag of cement to help build the sheller. Peace Corps requires the community to give 2,500 mk or a bag of cement in exchange for a sheller. So, they didn’t do it, and I can’t just give them a sheller.

Groundnut sheller demo (but, that didn't actually work out). Check out FullBellyProject.org for more info.

In the second week of October I went to Liwonde National Park to participate in the annual large mammal census. It takes an hour to drive into the park by car. We were able to watch the sunset over the Shire River, and as I hope you will see soon, those are some of my favorite pictures thus far. We sent up our tents at the camp even though we were a bit concerned about the large piles of elephant dung very very close to the camp. Later that night we were all awakened by the sound of elephants no more than 15 feet from our tents. Needless to say, the next night we placed lanterns outside our tent to keep them away. Don’t ask me why, but apparently it works. The next morning we woke at 4 AM to go on our walking transect. Although we didn’t see any elephants on the walking transect (and frankly, that is a good thing) we saw a lot of elephants on the drive to our walk. They are so cool! I wasn’t able to talk any pictures, because although it would be nice, you don’t really stop the car to take pictures of elephants. Tenley and I were assigned to walk a 12 km section of the river. We saw crocodiles, hippos, waterbuck, bushbuck, impala, kudu, sable, buffalo, and some other stuff I can’t remember. We also called the main office from our cell phones to tell them we had seen poachers on the river just outside the park! The second day we had a 2 hour drive to get to the start of our transect and on the way there we saw kudu and buffalo. At one point we stopped suddenly and all the gaurds jumped out and started chasing a bunch of villagers. The Scouts knew they were poaching because when the poachers saw the truck they started running! Although they didn’t catch them, they did bring back the mangled back leg of a baby bushbuck. Our second transect was only 5 km, but we had to talk another 10 km to get back to the road. Oh, and we saw 1 animal the whole time! It was still really cool and I want to go again next year.

Sunset over the Shire River in Liwonde National Park.
Game Counts at Liwonde National Park. Don't worry there aren't any bullets in those guns.
My transect partner, Tenely and our scout checking out some habitate destruction by elephants.

October at my site was a great month. I didn’t “do” a whole lot because people are very busy plowing their fields and October is the hottest month in Mwanza. How hot you ask? Well, my candles would bend over because of the heat, I would drink 6-8 liters of water a day and still not go to the bathroom, you can’t work from 10 to 3 PM. On the upside, I don’t have to heat my bathwater, I get to eat lots of yummy mangoes (Mwanza district gets mangoes before anyone else and has them the longest) which is great because it is too hot to cook, and you get lots of extra time to read. I don’t feel too bad about sitting around so much in October because my neighbors do the exact same thing.

Borders on my garden beds. (Too bad they never got used!!)

Herb spiral

Beds on the back garden

Food dryer (without the plastic) and dish rack combo

Despite the heat I was able to do some things. Three wells in my area agreed to replant at the bottom of the wells and make better use of the waste water. We only planted at one well, but that’s a start! I plan to finish planting at each of the three wells that agreed sometime in December. One day I made corn husks dolls with my neighborhood kids and they loved it! It was really funny to see the little boys walking around with dolls tied to their backs with ziitenje. I guess those gender roles haven’t quite been so firmly established yet. I also built the framework for a solar food dryer which is big enough for myself and all my neighbors to use. Once I get the plastic I hope to have some meetings to introduce people to it. I also built some borders around my front garden beds, dug the back garden and laid out lots of bricks to make paths and beds, and built an herb spiral in my backyard. (The herb-spiral is something you can all do at home!). I also helped to build two raintanks. One is made with a sifted mud mortar and one is made with a cement mortar. The cement mortar tank is far outside the reach of people in my village, but there is a possibility that they mud tank could be used. People also liked the idea of using the tank as a grain silo—something I didn’t think of, but is a great idea! I also worked to get the Mtendere Mushroom Club ready for their mushroom training in December. All in all a great month!

Mud mortar rain tank at my house (it totally collapsed when the rains came, opps). Worth a try right?

Making cornhusk dolls with my neighborhood kids. They love when I take pictures. Tengani jambula (Take a picture)!!

My sisters, Miriam and Sungen

Planting banana trees at the end of wells to catch the waste water.

I left site on November 4th to watch the election in Blantyre. You didn’t think that just because I was in Malawi I would miss the election did you? We prearranged with one of the local backpacker lodges to let us stay and watch the election all night. We started watching at 6 PM (11 AM EST), but as you know things didn’t really start to get interesting until around 4 AM (9 PM EST). The next two hours we were all on the edge of our seats—waiting for the states that would clinch the election. Most of you, Ok all of you, know I am a huge Obama fan. I assure you that it was no accident one of first posts on this blog was the song by Black Eyed Peas to the now famous, “Yes, We Can” Obama speech. I can’t tell you how much the rest of the world was waiting for a change, a clean slate, a chance to believe in and see the America that they know and love. Obama offers that opportunity. It was an amazing experience to view the election from abroad—and I will remember it as such a contrast to being abroad in Australia shortly after the second Bush election in 2004. The tone is hopeful, optimistic, and passionate—a huge contrast to eight years of violence, fear, and reaction. Most Peace Corps Volunteers are in full support of Obama, not only because he has promised to double the PC budget (we haven’t had an increase in 10 years, programs are being cut worldwide, and even I, at the bottom of the food chain can feel the squeeze), a promise that John McCain would not make, but he believes in the ideals of development, exchange, and mutual cultural respect that are so common among volunteers. Thank you America for making an awesome choice! Go Obama!

After the election I ran around Blantyre for 3 days finding things for the mushroom house before traveling to Zomba to be a math teacher at Camp Sky. Camp Sky is a two week camp where the two best (from 3rd to 10th grade) students from the schools of Peace Corps Volunteers come for two weeks of extra help with core classes like math, English, physical science, and biology, and also cool things like ball-room dancing, pottery, composting, paper making, peanut butter making, and malaria prevention. The students were divided into 4 tracks: health, environment, business, and creative arts. I taught math for the business students and we covered things like order of operations, fractions, simultaneous equations, algebra, graphs, and slope. Although surprised by the lack of some really basic knowledge, the students were extremely motivated. Each track had a field trip and my group went to the National Paper and the Sobo Bottling Company in Blantyre. For many students it was their first time in the ‘big city’ and they were amazed! I was impressed by their insightful and direct questions and critical thinking skills. We also got free coke at the end of the tour which all the students were excited about. On a personal note, Camp Sky was great. I think in Peace Corps we might have a tendency to get stuck in our own sector. I really enjoyed spending an extended period of time not only with some people in my sector, but getting to know people in the 1st year education group really well too. I agreed to do Camp Sky way back in September when I wasn’t having the best time at site. October went so well at site that I considered staying, but I am really happy that I made the commitment to Camp Sky. It is definitely something I want to do again next November. There will be lots of pictures up soon by another volunteer, and I’ll let you know the site when it is ready. If you want to see more pictures of Camp Sky (and there are some great ones!) go to: http://campskyinzomba2008.shutterfly.com.

Also, the first weekend at Camp Sky we were able to go up the plateau and spend a relaxing day by the reservoir. Malia, Dave, Keah, and I spent the morning riding horses around the lake, which was great because we were all experienced riders so she let us do what we wanted. The afternoon included lots of berry picking with Keah on our walk to the waterfall, and of course a short cat nap by the water before heading back down the plateau. The next weekend after packing up all our stuff, cleaning the camp, and saying goodbye to the students, we loaded up the truck and drove up the mountain again but this time to the American Embassy cabin. Anyone at USAID or the Embassy can use it. So our Country Director, Dale, (who by the way is leaving in December to go to Peace Corps HQ and train all the new incoming country directors—a great thing for PC Malawi) invited us for a job well done lunch of chili, salad, and beer. The highlight of the afternoon was the company, the chili, and the fact that I could turn on a light switch to read copies of Country Living magazine and Martha Stewart. It was great.

I know some of you were worried that I might spend Thanksgiving alone at my home in Mwanza, fortunately Peace Corps realizes that is a bad thing. Thanksgiving was held in Lilongwe at the Ambassadors house! VAC (Volunteer Advisory Committee of which I am a member) bought all the food and organized the cooking parties the two days before Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving morning went off without a hitch, we had more than enough food—which is AMAZING considering how much we can eat. We had a pool to swim in and lots of good company. Although it was NOT a Feuillet Family Thanksgiving, and perhaps the first Thanksgiving I can ever remember where I haven’t had a glass of wine, it was a good time. The new Ambassador welcomed us with open arms and read a lovely poem about how the American Thanksgiving has become a day where all Americans of every background hold on to their old culture but embrace the new, especially through food. It made me think of the wine, cassis, carrot salad, and pate we have at our house. Even in here in Malawi, we didn’t have turkey—we had a big roasted pig!

So, now that I am all caught up I guess I should tell you my plans for December! When I get back I will have a few days where I will be training the Mushroom Group how to plant the mushrooms. The process isn’t difficult, but you just have to be meticulous and keep things clean. I also want to finish planting a permaculture water guild (guess you will have to do some research to figure out what all that means!) at the three wells that have agreed. I also want to work on getting a sewing machine to my site as money has been donated to buy it, have a one or two day training on building low cost hives, and look into an NGO that has moved into my area with what I believe are seriously predatory loan contracts. On a personal level, I would like to get the fence finished, build a roof over each raintank, cement line each rain tank, and plant the garden if the rains have come. In between all that I will be studying like crazy for the GRE which is in February. That should make the month fly by so I won’t have to think about home too much and I’ll be on vacation sitting in the shade in my bathing suit drinking a G&T and reading a good book on the beaches of Likomo Island before I know it! Phew! I think that just about covers it.

Love, Alicia.

UPDATE: June 13 - August 8

2008-08-08T05:54:00.000-07:00

I have been at my site for just over 3 months now, and looking back I’m am certainly glad to have what many volunteers say are the hardest three months of my service behind me.

I spent the last two months starting to focus in on potential project ideas. The goal is to get 3 or 4 times as many projects started as you can actually handle, because in all likelihood 75% of them will fail. I don’t say this to be negative, but to help myself keep my sanity. Every volunteer starts off with grand plans not to save the world, but at least try to “save the village.” I didn’t understand this three months ago, but if volunteers don’t lower their initial expectations about what can be reasonable accomplished with the framework of Malawian culture (not my own!), they are setting themselves up to be extraordinarily disappointed.

Being plopped down in the middle of a new culture leads me to think about it a great deal. One of the best quotes I continually refer back to—and has offered a great deal of support and new understanding—is one by one of my favorite political theorists, Reinhold Niebuhr. Serendipitously, I recently discovered that the Serenity Prayer (originally written: God, give us grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed, courage to change the things that should be changed, and the wisdom to distinguish the one from the other—a very useful prayer to remember during PC service.) was written by Niebuhr and first carried on cards in the pockets of soldiers during World War II. He wrote, “Civilization depends upon the rigorous pursuit of the highest values by people who are intelligent enough to know that their values are qualified by interests and corrupted by their prejudices.” Those 30 insightful words have saved me a world of frustration and buckets of tears when I choose to remember them.

When I get frustrated it is usually (ok, always) because I haven’t taken the time to ask why someone is acting/reacting in the way they are. Why didn’t the builder show up today? Why can’t we meet on Tuesday? Why can’t you plant these random seeds I gave you? Answers: Out of respect for the dead, you don’t work on days where someone is put to rest, you have to work in the fields or else you and your family won’t have anything to eat, and I have the luxury (and it is a luxury of the developed world) to take a risk—and fail. Hmm, when stated so plainly it makes my frustrations seem petty, childish, insensitive, and oblivious. Cultural context is everything. Ok, I’ll get off my soap box now, but I hope I have given you something to chew on for a few weeks. As you can see, PC service tends to raise more questions than it actually answers.

The other day I was able to talk to one of my friends who is a volunteer with another organization in Nicaragua. Complaining to him how I don’t think I’m not nearly busy enough/feel completely worthless/wasting Peace Corps time and money/don’t want to wait a whole year to get busy, he responded most reassuringly saying, “Don’t worry. I spend 10 hours a day picking my nose and 2 doing something productive.” Excellent! It’s nice to know that my experience as a volunteer is not special or unique in any way. I’ve never been so happy to hear I’m the same as everyone else! With that said, please DO NOT be impressed in anyway by the following list. Although seemingly long—it represents of fraction of my waking hours. I have time for yoga, reading, learning to play guitar, learning to knit, running, gardening, and making random things in the kitchen (see http://smellthebasil.blogspot.com). Sometimes all of this in the same day!

So to make up for all of this down time I have decided to do something constructive for days when I don’t have activities planned, things get cancelled, or during the rainy season when people just don’t have time to attend meetings. I’m going to paint a 6x6 foot world map and a 2x3 foot map of Malawi in each classroom in my village. This could potentially be as many as 12 classrooms. Perfect project to work on over the next 2 years (and it just might take me that long!). This project came about for two reasons. First, for my own personal satisfaction—at least I know one project will work and if it did fail it would be completely my fault and no one else. That is reassuring. Second, the education system in Malawi infuriates me. The other day I taught the kids in my neighborhood a song in Chichewa, English, and Swahili (the original text). Mind you, Swahili is spoken in northern Malawi. Tanzania shares a border, but these children had not a clue where Tanzania was. I showed them a map and they asked me what “all that blue” was—the ocean! Classrooms here are drastically different than the ones I remember from my childhood. There are no colorful bulletin boards, carpet squares for reading, books, computers, education toys. And far too frequently, there aren’t any teachers. The very least I can do is paint a map on the wall.

After knocking down the walls to half their size, I hired someone to build a new roof over the existing kitchen and extend it toward the fence an additional 6 feet and toward the right an additional 4 feet. On the right side I plan to build a mud oven, grill, and fuel-efficient mud stove. The hope is that groups can meet under the new shade cover, women’s groups can make jam, cooking clubs can meet to cook new kinds of vegetables growing in the demo garden, and I have a place to sit in the shade so my neighbors don’t think I am a hermit inside my house all the time.

The month of July was so sparsely occupied that I filled a good portion of the time double digging my entire front yard into demo garden beds. If digging ditches builds character, then I’m Mother Theresa. I just finished digging the last bed (which will promptly be planted with Black Eyed Susans to show some Maryland pride) on August 3rd. I would like to have a group of women that cooks out of the garden once or twice a week. Everyone would bring nsima flour and the ndiwo (side dish) would be a new vegetable from the garden. I can also use it to demonstrate things like live fencing, tied box ridges, raise beds, mulching, small scale drip irrigation, intercropping, plant-pest control, etc. All things that people know how to do already, but don’t for one reason or another. Maybe if they see that it works (I hope!) they will be more inclined to try it themselves. Ah, the luxury of risk and failure.

Double dug garden in my front yard.

I taught a group of my neighbors how to make jam as a potential IGA. They weren’t too impressed with the profit margin. I will probably have to scale back this project and just focus on one person.
The Orphan Care Group in my village has decided to plant 150 Moringa oleiferia trees this Tuesday! I’m also really proud of this because was my first meeting that I had all by myself without my counterpart there to help translate. Moringa is an awesome plant that provides all the amino acids, protein, vitamins A, B, C, and E, and a host of other essential nutrients that are so often missing in the monotonous Malawian diet. The Mwanza area does have a whole host of fruits that are available, but people can always use more protein. The leaves can be eaten fresh (my personal favorite is Moringa and honey sandwiches) or dried and added at the very end of cooking. If the project goes well, there is potential for the dried leaf flour to be sold as an IGA.

The Home Based Care Group is well in the process of fine tuning small clay pots to be sold inside the Heritage Center. I have recently suggested they have flat bottoms and a woven basket made for presentation. We are also looking at the possibility of making even smaller pots to place a poured beeswax candle in.

On a personal level, I will be working on an IGA Cookbook/Handbook for Peace Corps Malawi. Surveys should be going out this month to all volunteers to get an idea of what foods are available and what people would like recipes for. I hope to include things like jam, brittle, trail mix, food preservation, and even things like candle and paper recipes. I would also like to redo the current Peace Corps Malawi Cookbook to make it more “site friendly,” but it was just redone 2 years ago, so we shall see.

That’s it! I’m in the park working on a variety of things: demo garden, rain tanks, food drying, emailing. I came through the park to do some work before heading to Blantyre this weekend for a wedding of a friend in the park. We had a surprise bridal shower today in the middle of Majete. It was a wonderful afternoon of good friends, food, conversation, and scenery. It’s days like this I have to remind myself how truly blessed I am to be here. I love and miss you all!

Update: February 21-June 12

2008-06-23T05:34:00.000-07:00

Hello from the warm heart of Africa! After a very long flight (15 1/2 hours) we arrived safely in Johannesburg, South Africa on February 23 rd. We spent then night in the hotel and then back to the airport for the 3 hour flight to Lilongwe. We were greated upon arrival by many current volunteers waving banners and flags at us. It was great to have such a warm welcome. We then were wisked away to Dedza to begin our 8 week training. Frankly I can't believe I have been here for almost 4 months--I know it seems like a long time to you, but it has gone by so quickly! To spare you all the boring details this is a quick run down of what we did during training:

Current volunteers waiting to great us at the airport. What a welcome!

2/24-3/1: Training in Dedza:
This week is mostly getting used to time zone, food, new people, basic PC policy, blah, blah, blah...Peace Corps uses the Malawi college of Forestry as home base during pre-service training, in-service training (IST-for me in August), and mid-service training (next April). We stay here for a week before homestay, all the while not realizing how amazing it is that we still have hot showers and good food to eat.

3/2-4/4: Homestay:
For 5 weeks the small village of Chiphazi (literal translation: Big Foot) outside of the Dedza College of Forestry was my home. I stayed with a family of 5 and had my own little one room house in a family compound. In retrospect the training period went so quickly because we were so busy all day long. We had 4 hours of language training every morning and 4 hours of technical training each afternoon. Language training was tedious, frustrating, and fun all at the same time. Technical training included lessons on beekeeping, soap making, tree nurseries, charcoal making (from agricultural waste-very cool stuff), community integration strategies, and cultural education.

Ethan making charcoal from agricultural waste

Kirk and Dave making charcoalTalking with people in our homestay village to try and improve our language skills

Hanging out at Ed's bar on our weekly visit to the college

Training on something or another (that tall guy in our APCD, Brian)

What? You think we work all the time?

Learning how to open bee hives (don't be impressed I still don't know how!)
Making local bee-hives from bamboo and mud

Emily in her bee suit--we know high fashion in Malawi

Emily and I on the hill behind out homestay villageSure Jen, you are holding that bucket all on your own.

To blow off some steam we all climbed Dedza Mountain over the weekend. We could see all the way to Cape McLear and the Lake Malawi!
My bed/office during homestay
Gule Wamkulu (Big Dance). Traditional dancers at our Homestay Farewell Ceremony

Homestay family at the Homestay Farewell Ceremony

The best story that I have from training involves soap making. Jonathan, a current environmental volunteer, was teaching my group how to make soap. We had some extra palm oil from the last batch so Jon decided to pour it into the boiling palm oil of our current batch. Not able to defy the laws of chemistry, the cold oil rapidly expanded, causing the whole pot of oil to fill with bubbles, boil over, and explode as it fell over the sides and hit the open fire below. The fire ball went up 20 feet in the air, melted the plastic tent protecting the oil from the rain, and attracted a crowd of 200 people (once they all returned from running away from the exploding soap). Needless to say, I don’t think anyone in Chiphazi is going to attempt making soap anytime in the near future.
Matt after the incident--notice the crowd of children!

The night of site announcement. What do you do when you have so many bananas? Why, a banana eating contest of course! (Sadly, my team lost)

4/4-4/11: Site visit:
Site visit was my first experience in the “real” Malawi, until this point I was living in an isolated fantasy land. The first part of site visit was to meet up with a current PCV Environment volunteer that lives close to our site. “Close” in Malawi is totally relative. Your closest site mate could be 50 kilometers away, but if there is no road to connect you, he/she may as well be on the other side of the world. Peace Corps Malawi volunteers consistently highlight transport as one of the most frustrating issues to deal with. As of now, I would agree completely—it is a total nightmare. Suddenly, two days of traveling via walking, pick-up truck, mini-bus, and coach bus seems normal.

There are certain days that you don’t ever forget. My first matola ride (i.e. a pickup truck) on site visit is one of them. Ross (fellow trainee) and I were both placed in areas surrounding Majete Wildlife Reserve in Southern Malawi, west of Blantyre. You are sitting in the back of this truck hoping you put on enough sunblock to last for 3 hours in the sun, gripping to the side of the truck and praying to your dear God in heaven that you don’t fall out. You think to yourself, “what in the world has happened to my life,” as you try to put yourself in an impenetrable Zen-like happy place for the next 3 miserable hours. And then you look out to a sprawling African plain and remind yourself that you are so incredibly lucky to be sitting in a matola with 25 other people, 2 goats, 500 dinner rolls, 2 boxes of soap, and, 3 sick children-one of whom is drooling on your only remaining clean shirt. At points on our journey Ross and I just looked at each other and burst into laughter. You have to laugh at the sheer absurdity of it or you would go completely insane. Welcome to Malawi!

After spending time with Kevin on a PCV shadow site visit, we travel to the African Parks office and spent the night in the volunteer housing (which I can stay in anytime I visit the park:). The next morning I left the office, traveled through the park to my new home on the northern side of Majete. I would describe the scenery as I drove through the park-but it doesn’t really do it justice. For that matter neither do the pictures, but I hope you enjoy them all the same.

I am not going to pretend that site visit was easy. My language skills were horrible, I didn’t know anyone, my counterpart was away at a funeral, I didn’t have anywhere to sleep, a shower, or food to eat. But, through the generosity of my neighbors, they gave me a mat to sleep on, nails to hang my mosquito net, water for a bath, and fed me for 3 days. They were also very patient while I looked up every other word in my dictionary. I also discovered on site visit that there is very little, if any transport from my site. On my way out I rode a bicycle taxi (don’t get any fancy ideas, you site on a padded bike rack) for 24 kilometers to the Boma (District capital) where I caught a minibus to Blantyre to meet my friends at Home Needs (amazing Indian food-the best part about my site visit). Lets just say I promised myself I would never complain about a matola or mini-bus ride ever again. Volunteers that have the option should be thanking their lucky stars. I couldn’t talk about site visit for days; anytime someone would ask me how things went, I burst into tears. For weeks the remoteness and isolation of my site left me unsettled, nervous, and terrified to go back. I’m still have transportation issues from my site, but at least now I am beginning to deal with them and the reality that this is my new home for 2 years.

Because transportation is so difficult and it takes the Southern and Northern volunteers 2 days to safely reach Lilongwe, Peace Corps has 3 houses in Malawi: one in Mzuzu, Lilongwe, and Blantyre. Several other southern Environment volunteers from my group also returning from PCV shadow/site spent the night at the Blantyre Respite House. It will most certainly be a welcome home away from home in between long days of travel to and from Lilongwe and weekend trips away from site if needed. Blantyre is the “big city” of Malawi and you can get just about anything you want or need—pasta, cheese, pizza, non-stale chocolate, milk, good Indian food. Did I mention cheese?

4/12-4/19: Intensive Language Training:
I left the Blantyre house and traveled to Mchinji (west of Lilongwe, almost to the Zambia border) for a week of language at the Kayesa Inn. I was able to hang out with people that were not in my homestay group or the southern region. It was great to get to know different people in my group a little better. We also had the two best language trainers in Peace Corps, Matthews and Dyna, which made things fun and very beneficial. We had class outside and used the side of a broken conversion van as a chalkboard, made human sized maps out of flour, interviewed a traditional healer, and played games with the Iwes (little children).

More language, because the 132 in 5 weeks we have already had isn't quite enough.

4/20-4/24: Administrative Stuff and Swearing In!:
This week we met the staff at the Embassy, USAID, and the Peace Corps Office in Lilongwe. As in Peace Corps fashion the week involved lots of paper work, but it was totally worth it because on April 23, nineteen of my friends as I were sworn in as Peace Corps Volunteers. As a special part of the Executive Branch, we took the same oath as the President, “…to defend the constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic...” Now, I have no idea how to do that as a Peace Corps Volunteer, but none the less it is pretty darn cool to take the same oath as the President! I spent my last day in Lilongwe running around buying food, buckets, and ujeni (Chichewa for “stuff” or “whatchamacallit”).

Dale Mosier (Country Director), Me, Ambassador Eastham, Dept. of Forestry, Dept. of Parks
Emily and Averill

Elihue, Jai-Chi, Rob, and Amalia

Environment '08 group Swearing In Ceremony at the Ambassador's house on April 23rd.

And let the games behind! Beer Olympics 2008!

Beer Olympics party at the house!
The traditional Chibuku Challege!
Emily, Mike, and Alinon in costume.

4/25-Current: The first month at site:
If you ask any volunteer they say that the first three months at site is the hardest. It Peace Corps you just have to ride out the wave—things will always get better, you just have to wait a while. Like I said before, there are a few days that you don’t forget in Peace Corps. Me standing in front of my house surrounded by all my stuff with 20 of my closest neighbors staring at me, watching my friends drive away to be dropped off at their sites—yeah, I haven’t forgotten that day yet.

All my stuff after they dropped me off and drove away

My pink house

My house after being there for a few months (I didn't have any furniture for the first few months)
Home improvment projects--great way to kill time!More home improvement--no more cooking on the floor!

My personal favorite of all my home improvement projets, the shower caddy-neccessary even in Malawi.

Back of my house, kitchen on the left

After taking all my katundu (stuff) inside, I decided my first and most
immediate need was to get water. The 300 meters down the hill to the bore hole isn’t a problem at all—getting back up the hill with water on your head was a bit more difficult. I was carrying no more than 5 liters of water on my head, but after 100 meters I thought, “Oh man, I’m totally going to pay someone to do this tomorrow.” And then tomorrow arrives, and the next day, and the next. And with each day passing day I filled my bucket up a little more and got a little closer to my house without thinking that I wanted to pay someone to do it for me. After a month I can carry 15 liters on my head without too much trouble. One time, after a really horrible day, I was sitting with my neighbors and told them I need to go and get water, but that I wasn’t very good at it. The oldest amayi (mother) in my family compound looked at me and said, “Mumakwanza.” Literally, “You are always enough.” I don’t think she could have said anything else that would have made me feel as good as I did in that moment.

I assume that many of you probably want the rundown of what I have been doing in my first three months in the village. There are two CBOs (Community Bases Organizations) that are within a reasonable walking/biking distance from my home. N. CBO (Sorry I can’t post the full name for security reasons) is in my village, and M. CBO is 6 kilometers from my house. N. CBO has more than enough groups to keep my busy for 2 years. I met with several groups, but still have many others to meet in the next month or two. Under N. CBO there are 4 beekeeping clubs that collectively have 30 hives, 2 vegetable growing clubs, 2 baking clubs, a brand new mushroom IGA (Income Generating Activity), a Home Based Care Group, a Women’s Rabbit IGA, 2 Poultry IGAs, and probably a few others under N. CBO that I don’t even know about yet.

On a personal level, I am really excited to work with the Home Based Care Group because all their efforts go back into the community; HBC groups are needed because they help the community take care of itself—it’s a form of a social net that wouldn’t exist otherwise. The group currently cares for 2 elderly people, 2 HIV patients, and 36 orphans. They have a very large vegetable garden to help feed the people they take care of, and try to make money through making and selling clay pots and baskets. I am hoping to get them started on a Jam Making IGA which would help pay for the cost of a Peanut Sheller (www.fullbellyproject.com –check it out, awesome idea!) that could be rented out for a fee per kilogram of unshelled peanuts. The group really wants to start a Soap Making IGA. Soap could both sold for extra income and distributed to those that cannot afford it—health and hygiene is critical to maintaining wellness for HIV/AIDS patients. This group is really motivated despite the challenges they face.

As expected, I am looking forward to working with the Women’s Mushroom IGA and the Women’s Rabbitry IGA. All across the globe, women have consistently shown that they are the best group to manage funds, projects, and pay back depts. For purely selfish reasons I want the Mushroom IGA to take off because they are one of my favorite foods!

Meeting with all these groups it occurred to that everyone needs a way to generate income. It also occurred to me that my village has so much to offer! Papaya, mango, bananas can be dried or made into jam. My village is covered in tangerine trees that would make some amazing marmalade. There are groups that make beautiful baskets and pottery. The beekeeping clubs are already successful harvesting honey in 20 of the 30 hives. The Mushroom group could sell fresh or dried mushrooms. The Arts and Crafts Club could be expanded to include 10 or 15 different items—all made from local natural resources. In addition, I think that a Women’s Sewing Cooperative would be able to successfully make and sell bags, coin purses, dresses, and shirts. For all of these groups, the most obvious market would be the Heritage Center inside Majete. I am absolutely ecstatic about expanded the selection of items available in the Heritage Center. It would be great for the park and the community.

In addition to all of this, there are three Wildlife Clubs within a reasonable distance. Of course, all of them want to take a field trip to the park, which I think is a wonderful idea. One of them wants to establish a Wildlife Library and the teachers could definitely use some fresh ideas and lessons plans that would keep the children interested.

Getting stuck in the mud while going to visit a community that was very far from my home. I so told them we would get stuck.View from the village we were traveling to looking into Majete National Park.

A drama by the local club sensitizing villagers about the upcoming elephant translocation from Liwonde National Park to Majete (More on that later!).

I walked to the northern scout camp to say hello to all the scouts and their kids.
Zebra inside Majete--my first game siting, I think they are still my favorite.

View from the hill overlooking my village on the way back from walk to scout camp.

After 5 very long, but rewarding weeks at my site, I was ready to see my friends. So last week I travelled to Lilongwe for trainings with Peace Corps, restocking on food and ujeni, eating lots of dairy products, catching up with friends and hearing about their sites, and celebrating the 4th of July (a bit early) at the Ambassadors house. It was a great week, but much to my surprise I am really ready to get back to my house and my village. Every now and then you need those breaks to get you excited about going back to the village for a while.

4th of July at the Ambassador's House.

But, before I went back to my village I headed down to the African Parks office on the east side of the park to get to know the staff and the resources available to me at the park. Shamelessly, I also wanted to go because this month the park is translocation 70 elephants from Liwonde National Park to Majete Wildlife Reserve. Yesterday may have been the coolest day of my whole entire life to date.

The platfrom for offloading the elephants. The truck backs up to it and the the elephants walk down a ramp on the other side.

Waiting for the elephants to arrive, watching the sunset over Majete NP.

Jeanette and Caroline waiting for the elephants.

Catherine came for a site visit and took this picture of me on the way back from our walk to the site camp.

After receiving word from Liwonde that the truck would be arriving soon, we jumped in the game vehicles and drove to the offloading area on the south side of the park. Just as the sun was setting, a family herd of 9 elephants arrived. Before we could even see the truck we heard the elephants trumpeting. Once the truck backed up to of offloading gate, I climbed on top of the steel containers (because it is the best view point and the safest spot if anything goes wrong) with the parks staff and the guests to see the release. From inside you could hear them moving around, just audible bellows, and occasional snorts that made them sound a lot like really big pigs! After 30 minutes of poking and prodding, as the last bit of light was in the sky, the elephants marched out of the container in a neat little line down the ramp into the holding area. As they walked away you could hear them talking to each other and smashing branching as they went. It was a completely surreal experience. There wasn’t enough light to take pictures with my camera, but I am hoping that the parks staff will have some from another release that I can send home to you. These translocations will almost double the population of elephants in the park. We are also receiving nearly 800 other animals from Liwonde, including zebra, antelope, and springboks.

Typical and Atypical days:
A lot of people have written to ask what my typical day looks like. I wake up at 5 AM with the sun and wander around my house for a bit until I feel that I’m awake enough to practice yoga. It is the only time in my whole day where I don’t have to think. Think about how I’m dressed, what I’m saying, who I’m talking to, who I’m not talking to, where I’m going, what I need to do, or what I need to cook. If not for yoga each and every morning I might have gone absolutely insane my first month at site. I’m really enjoying having a daily yoga practice for the first time in my life—I can’t imagine starting my day any other way.

By 6:30 I start making breakfast. From then until 7:30-8ish, I drink tea, read a book, write in my journal, etc. Then I straighten up the house, sweep/mop the floor, and go get water from the well. After that’s all done I’ll do some work/research/get ready for meetings. The middle of the day is a bit more flexible, but if I have meetings they will be at 10 AM or 2 PM. If I am close enough to the house I will bike back for lunch, if not I’ll eat with my counterpart (Harare, extension agent for Majete) or at some random strangers house who has invited me to lunch. Meetings at 2 PM (but really 3 PM), then back home. I will get some work done while there is still light outside, then take a bath while my water is still hot from the sun, make dinner, chat with my neighbors for an hour or two until they all go to bed. I try not to go to sleep until 10 PM so I make myself a cup of tea and stay up writing in my journal, listening to music/BBC News, reading, or writing letters (which I have been very bad about lately and I do apologize). Sleeping through the night is a bit of problem, but I’m sure as I get more settled in and even more busy that I will be sleeping all the way through the night.

Now that I have told you what my typical day looks like, I’m going to tell you all the funny stories that make my day not typical. The second day at my site while drinking my cup of morning tea, I hear a band of screaming children. Although this isn’t terrible uncommon in Malawi, they sounded a bit more excited than usual. As I look out my window I see my landlord’s son carrying a stick with a 5 foot black mamba draped over it. I nearly spit my tea all over the floor. Everyone kept telling me that this never happens, they never see snakes in the village (mostly because they snakes are killed on the spot, even if they are harmless). Although it was a great consolation to hear that snakes are very rare—I could have done without seeing a dead snake my second day at site.

Things run really slowly in the village. I asked for a bed frame to be made while I was on site visit, but in true Malawian style it wasn’t done until a whole 3 weeks later. For the first week I slept on the floor of my spare room. I had a mosquito net that I tucked under my mattress, so I thought I was protected from the bugs and very large cockroaches that roam around my house. In the middle of the night I wake up and think that there is something in the bed with me. I thought it was just a cockroach stuck in between the sheet and the mattress. I finally get my hand on it and push it out toward the edge of the bed and I see lots of legs. Lots and lots of bright blue legs. I started smacking at my mattress, but it is really hard to kill something on a soft surface. So I carefully get out of my bed, only break my necklace after ripping a big cockroach off my neck. I tear apart my room to find this millipede while my watchman is tapping on my front door to ask if everything is ok. I can’t say njoka (snake), the closest thing I can think of to millipede at 3 in the morning, so I just say everything is fine while I light every candle I own to look for my new bedmate. Thankfully, the very next day my bed framed arrived and I didn’t have to sleep on the floor anymore. I don’t think I will ever forget the word for millipede (bongololo) so long as I live.

Also in the first week at site (I told you the first month is rough) I had an incident with my paraffin stove. After making my cup of tea and oatmeal (Thanks Mom!), like a totally idiot I stood over top of my stove to try and blow the flame out because it wasn’t going out even thought the wick was down. Obviously, it blew up in my face. I shortened my eyelashes by about half, got two blisters on my lips, lost bits of wispy hair up top (which are just starting to grow back), and one big chunk in the front. It still blows up on occasion if I don’t get the flame to go out quickly enough, but at least now I can predict when it is going to happen.
Many people are also interested in the disgusting things I have eaten or almost had to eat. Some mornings I would wonder why the air wafting from my neighbors yard smell like vomit. I only recently connected this to days when she gives me tobwa, or sweet corn beer. It is just ground up maize flour that is fermented, and added to water and lots of sugar. It is truly horrible stuff, but in Malawi is it very rude to turn away food, so you just try to drink it with a smile. Needless to say on days where my neighbor’s yard smells like throw-up I won’t be going to chitchat.
On days where I don’t have any meetings and I don’t feel like wandering around my village looking for something to do, I hang out in my family compound and chat with/listen to my neighbors chat. One day they said they were going to buy ndiwo (general name for side dish) and with nothing else to do I thought I would tag along. Big mistake. They went to go buy nkunguni, or bugs! BUGS! They wanted me to try one and I almost did just to be polite, but then I thought to myself, “how did those bugs end up dead?” I imagined them floating in a bucket of gasoline or something until their little legs stopped twitching. Risking being culturally offensive, I said thanks, but no thanks. I’d rather drink tobwa.

Food:
Malawians love nsima; if they haven’t eaten any today then they haven’t eaten. If you can’t talk about anything else you can always talk about three things: if you like nsima, if you know how to cook nsima, and if you don’t know how to cook nsima how will you ever find someone to marry you! I don’t really cook it for myself because I don’t know how and my neighbors and strangers feed it to me enough when I am outside my house. I eat a lot of oatmeal, rice, beans, leafy greens, potatoes, pumpkins. After a while you start to come up with interesting combinations with the 20 ingredients in your ‘kitchen’. My current fad food is leafy greens with curry powder and a bit of peanut butter. In fact, I pretty much put curry powder on everything except oatmeal.

Learning Chichewa:
Chichewa is quite an interesting language. In Chichewa, you put several parts of speech together to make essentially one word. At most it can look like this: Negative + subject + tense marker + object infix (markers for a handful of English phrases, i.e. must, should, going to, etc…)+ direct object + root verb + verb suffix. At the bare minimum it must have subject + tense marker + root verb. On the up side, all the tense markers are 100% regular—no exceptions to memorize like in Spanish or French.

The language it emphatic, but at the same time lacks words for certain things. Example, there are special verbs for cooking nsima, but the verb to sit and to stand are the same thing. The language would be relatively straight forward if not for noun classes. Noun classes infinitely complicate the language. A sentence can totally different based on the noun in reference. Noun classes have modifying prefixes for verbs, adjectives, numerical adjectives, adverbial adjectives, and possessive adjectives. Example: “My one small banana is on the table.” In Chichewa, Nthochi ya’modzi yanga ili pa thebulo. Now the same sentence but saying “My one small book is on the table,” looks like this: Buku li’modzi langa lili pa thebulo. Every noun is in one of 6 nouns classes and the prefixes are different for singular and plural. Eventually you get use to hearing the same prefixes in the sentence together and you don’t have to think about it as much.
My favorite words: bwana (boss): but we use it mostly out context and call both things a people “bwana”. Chipaliwali (lightning): it will be my future dogs’ name as soon as I get him. Makamaka (mostly/mainly): It’s just a fun word to say. Pang’ono pang’ono: can be used to tell people to talk slower, give you less food, drive slower, etc… Pepani (I’m sorry): always good to know how to apologize in Chichewa. Ujeni (whatchamacallit/thingamajiggy): this word replaces all the other words that I don’t know yet—my sentences are mostly a string of ujeni connected by some verbs.

Going back to site:
Tomorrow I am going to leave the Park and head back to my village for several weeks. Just a few short weeks ago the thought of going back to my village terrified me. I was consumed by an overwhelming sense of loneliness and isolation that literally made me sick to my stomach. While in Lilongwe last week, Peace Corps had a Food Security seminar in response to worries about an impending food shortage later this year. I was reminded once again by the reasons I came to Malawi—and despite any discomfort I may feel, it just doesn’t compare to the worries and fears that face my neighbors. It was best described to me in a letter from another volunteer in my group, and I can’t really say it any better so I’ll just quote him. “…I thought, ‘I am so blessed to be here.’ I don’t use the word too much because I hate it, but it’s the only one that fits. This—being here—is tremendously difficult, but I feel great about it. I hate so much about it, but deep down I can’t bring myself to leave.” Speaking with returned PCVs, they all say the same thing, the highs are really high, and the lows are really low. They couldn’t have been more right. Eventually, I will feel like I don’t ever want to leave my site. I just have to wait things out, get even more involved with my community and things will get better. I didn’t sign up for Peace Corps because I thought things would be easy. Even things that a month ago seemed impossible are now part of my daily schedule. In the mean time your love, support, prayers, letters, packages, emails, and phone calls mean the world to me. The letters always show up just when I need them, the conversations are meaningful and heartfelt, and the packages are full of useful things. I love and miss you all dearly and hope that many of you come to visit! I am allowed to host visitors for as long as 2 months at a time. There’s a lot to do in Southern Malawi—it is an incredibly beautiful country filled with friendly, hardworking people who are excited to meet all of you. Come visit, seriously!

*****************************
UPDATE: How the blog will work
I have had a load of time to think about the best way to communicate with everyone at home, and I think the blog is the best way to get a lot of information out to everyone. I want this blog to be an honest reflection of my time in Malawi. And for that reason I am not going to ‘sugar-coat’ much of my experience. Will there be things that I choose not to post on the blog for security or cultural sensitivity reasons, but only in letters home. In which case, my family and friends are free to talk about them honestly with others who may have not received my letters. I know I don’t really have to say this, but I will anyway. When you receive any letters from me please do not post them on the internet anywhere, send copies in emails, or give to any press publication. Cultural differences can easily be taken out of context and I don’t want any person (or Peace Corps) to get upset.

I also want this blog to be as much of a conversation with all of you at home as possible. So not only will I outline what I have been up to, but I will try to include as many other features as well. Right now I plan on having six different sections: Updates, Essays, Challenges, Projects, Pictures, and Food Blogging.

Updates: These posts will be a rundown of what I have been doing in my village, stories about amusing or frustrating moments, etc.

Essays: The third goal of Peace Corps is to help Americans at home understand and appreciate the culture of Malawi—and I want to follow through on it as much as I can. I decided the best way to do this was to write short essays that I will post on specific topics such as gender roles, food security, and politics in Malawi. So, if there is any topic that you would like to see me write about send me an email, let someone in my family know, or better yet give me a call! I will think on it for a couple of weeks and then write a post.

Projects: Many of you have been begging (via my Mom) to help with any projects that I have in the works. Please understand that it takes a while for me to figure out what the villagers want me to do and the most beneficial way for me to implement a project. Peace Corps has a specific way to implement development projects. Stately in the most direct way: we don’t just hand out stuff and money. So when I do figure out what I’m doing and how I’m going to do it, I will let you all know via blog the ways that you can help.

Pictures: I'm trying to post them with each post, but no promises!

Letters from Alicia

2008-03-31T18:52:00.000-07:00

Hi there, it's Erin, Alicia's sister. We got three letters from her this weekend. Sounds like she is doing really well. The letters are packed with information and written by hand, so if I tried to post a PDF of the letters you probably couldn't read them online. So, here's some excerpts with information you are probably wondering. For those of you who have left comments on the blog, I have been printing them off and mailing them to her.

Disclaimer: I think I have fixed all my initial spelling mistakes, except for the Chichewa words which I have attempt to decipher from Alicia's small handwriting. One day Alicia will have to log on from Malawi and fix those.

Enjoy the read!

Letter dated 2/25/08: Day of arrival in Malawi

I haven't quite made the time switch yet, so while I am awake I thought I should write my first letter! I will admit during staging, my anxiety was quite high. There were so many unknowns, but at least I am in country surrounded by people who can answer my questions - and so far with all favorable responses!

The flight from Dullas to Joburg was 15 long hours... The flight from Joburg to Lilongwe was 2 1/2 hours - flying in was very beautiful. The country is very green right now as it is the end of the rainy season... Dinner: I had white rice, nsima (say: see-ma), mustard greens, a black/redish bean, and a very excellent banana. There was also chicken and soya (basically like soy crumbles but better that what you find in the store.) I didn't eat the chicken and the soya looked like meat so I didn't eat it - now I know all the volunteers say being a vegetarian is quite easy - meat isn't all that common. Soya is readily available, plus I still eat fish, which there is a lot of. People do eat with their hands. I tried it and it was a bit messy. I will have to practice this week so I am not so surprised at my host home.

Tomorrow we get all our shots (typhoid, rabies, yellow fever, and I will get Hep A and start the Hep B.) We also get our med kits tomorrow. We had six or seven hours of health training right off the bat so we don't get sick. Peace Corps already has us sleeping under mosquito nets - they are actually quite nice. My bed is comfy too.

There are 21 people in my group. They are all wonderful people. No one complains, everyone is very positive, they love to travel, are motivated, environmentally active, and hilarious. Even after 3 days together we are already forming close friendships and know that we have to look out for each other. They are going to be wonderful to work and travel with.

This next week we stay at the college in a dorm like building. We start language on Wednesday. The rest is cultural, technical, and lots of health training. On Saturday we go to our host homes. We will be broken into 3 groups and each live in the same village for the next 8 weeks.

Other random things:
- We get a subscription to Newsweek! I am very excited about this.
- It is actually a bit chilly. The college is at 5500 feet. Not so cold, but a bit chilly. Around 60 degrees last night. The hat and fleece will definitely come in handy.
- Peace Corps gave us some presents when we got here. 1 blue chitenje (wrap skirt), box of cookies, bars of soap, 2 candles, 3 or 4 notebooks, postcards, and a canvas bag with the Peace Corps logo! I have to say I feel a bit spoiled!
- My lantern is already useful, I am using it right now.
- The guitar made it here safely, and there are 3 others that know how to play
- It takes a very long time to hand-write letters
- It rained when we got here - In Malawi that is a good omen, to be welcomed by the rains.
- Our host family has been trained how to cook safely for us so we can avoid getting sick and they use filtered water.

Love, Alicia

Letter Dated 2/29/08

Ndikuphinzira Chichewa! That means: I am learning Chichewa. We started our language classes 3 days ago which are survival Chichewa. But today we were broken up into out language groups for the next 8 weeks. 5 of us are learning Chithumbuka, the language spoken in the north, and the rest of us learn Chichewa, spoken in the south and central regions. My group has 4: me, Mike, Jennifer, and Kory. Our teacher is Agatha and she is great! Tomorrow we go to our homestay. There will be two groups in each village and we will see our teachers in the morning (7:30 am) and then in the afternoon we have technical sessions (beekeeping, soapmaking, tree/plant i.d's, grant writing).

The past few days have been great- everyday I am here I feel better and better. P.C. Malawi has been recognized as one of the best P.C. programs - not only in Africa, but internationally as well. The training is great - I think I am learning as much as they can teach me about living in Malawi, culture, language, technical, and medical. Oh - medical is crazy! We have had so many shots this week - it hurts to write this letter! Meningitis, rabies, Hep A, Hep B, typhoid, yellow fever. The rabies definitely hurts the most. We still have a few more in the series, but we get those on Thursdays when we all come back to the college from the villages.

Today we did a bunch of stuff related to homestay: how to wash clothes in a bucket, start a fire, how to take a bath out of a bucket, uses from the chitenje (piece of cloth), and how to use the chim (in english - the latrine). Malawians do not like to talk about anything related to the bathroom. In fact, you actually never see people go in the chim - they sneak in so no one sees. It is all very hilarious (although tomorrow when I have to use it it may not be!)

My favorite food is actually mendazi, which is a fried dough that we have with tea. Oh, tea twice a day at 10 and 2.

Well, I need to study now. I really don't want to get behind and learning the language is the #1 priority for the next 8 weeks. I will be very tired and busy, so I'll write as often as I can!

Tiwonana (see you later!)
Alicia

Letter dated 3/5/08

I am at my homestay now and we have been here for 5 days. My host family consists of my amayi (mom), abambo (dad), 3 host sisters: Janet, Violet and Meslinia. Janet and Violet both have two children each. Benja, Violet's son, is very funny. He dances all the time. I also can't learn any Chichewa from him because he just laughs all the time too. The name of my village is Chipazi (15km north of Dedza) and it's name means Bigfoot.

My day roughly goes at follows: wake up at 5:30 am from the chickens, get out of bed at 6:00 am. My amayi has hot water to wash my face. I get dressed and eat breakfast, sweep my room/straighten up and then go to school. It is only a 5 minutes walk to Agatha's house where we have language for 2 hours, then we go to technical training. Then back home for lunch. Afternoon is usually the same as the morning, but our trainers do try to keep things interesting.

Today, we had some great surprises! We all got to see each other as all three groups met in the same village for technical training. It was wonderful to see everyone, and it was also Devin's birthday. He got a birthday cigarette, a chocolate bar, a piece of string, and a mint (use what ya got!).

The village is actually a lot of fun. The first few days are tough. It takes 10 minutes to figure out how exactly you are going to brush your teeth or take a bath - the lack of routine can be very tiring. But now I'm an "old pro" and things are much easier. Actually, bathing is one of my favorite parts of the homestay! My amayi has a hot bucket bath waiting for me when I get home from school at 5:00 pm. After two days I finally had learned enough Chichewa to say that I only needed 1 bath per day (not 2) in the evening. It was my first language exchange beyond greetings that actually worked! Last night I had an actual conversation in Chichewa with my host family - I was quite proud of myself. Another thing about Chichewa (and Malawi) is that just a few words will get you very far. Malawians are very big on greetings. There are 4 different greeting for different times of day and they each follow a specific pattern. You have to greet everyone - even if you don't actually know them. This means I actually have to leave 20 minutes prior to class in order to be there on time. Thankfully we have found some "backroads" in the village that have far less people (if any) to greet. Second, "zikomo" or thank-you in english goes a long-way. They use if for everything and anything all day long!

The people in my village are actually quite happy looking despite their situation. Not too many people walk around with a frowny face. The children are required to go to school until 8th grade, and then it becomes difficult to continue for a variety of reasons. Most people live in compounds with a main house (about the size of my room at home), an outdoor kitchen (but it is actually covered so it gets a bit smokey), a chim (outdoor toilet), a storage house, and maybe another storage house or bedroom. The children run around in essentially rags. Women and mens cloths fair a bit better - most have 3-4 outfits and 1 pair of shoes. No one has glasses, or braces. There are no toys - except soccer balls made of plastic bags, stick and hoop games, old bottlecaps. I brought crayons with me to draw pictures to help me learn Chichewa and they were completely amazed. There are also a ton of children. The average family has 4-7 children, but some have as many as 9. There is one well for the whole village and my amayi and host sisters have at least a 1/2 mile walk to get water for cooking, washing, bathing, and drinking. There are no lights anywhere. In fact, the thing I miss the most is light. It makes it hard to study after 6 pm when I am already tired from a long day of class. On the plus side, the stars are incredible - well worth the trip to Malawi just to see the stars. You can see the whole Milky Way and stars way near the horizon. I think my host family thinks I might be crazy because I just stare up at them while I brush my teeth. Amazingly, the children find ways to entertain themselves, people make do with what they have, and manage to keep a strong faith all the while.

Letter dated 3/6/08

So, I thought I should share two funny stories thus far. On my second night in the village I stupidly thought I had enough Chichewa to say something. So, I accidentally told my family "Ndikakonda kudya nyumba" Or " I like to eat houses". What I was trying to say was I like to eat beans (nyemba).

Second, watching mizungu (white people) in Malawi is a spectator sport. You get very good at dealing with the fact that you are living in a fish bowl feeling. Children like to shout "Azungu" at you all the time. So, yesterday I turned around to a group of children and started jumping up and down and shouting "Azungu" back at them. They all stopped immediately, stared at me, and then ran away screaming. It worked like a charm! The other method is to stop and tell them your name.

Also, on the name thing - no on can say my name. We tried A-lee-sha. A-lee-c-a. They can only say Alice - and I'm not really a big fan. I may have to shorten it to Ali or something.

Language is tough. I don't feel like I am learning enough - that at the end of 5 weeks I will essentially have enough to be fluent. I have decided that the thing I miss the most is light. It is hard to study by just flashlight and a lantern. At the end of the day I am tired - I just want to go to bed even though I know I have homework, flashcards, and workbook exercises to do. The sun goes down around 6.

You are probably wondering what I am eating! Breakfast is usually "chippies" - which are fried potatoes, and an egg. Lunch and dinner is either rice/potatoes/nsima, greens (liked cooked spinach, but with tomatoes) are always there, beans, soya, eggs also make a frequent appearance. I eat with my hands, unless we have rice or mashed potatoes, then I use a spoon. The bananas are awesome and I eat several of those a day (they are much smaller). My favorite food is actually served as a snack with tea. Medazi, yum! It is fried dough you eat with or without sugar. Malawians love fried food, salt, and tons of sugar.

Weather: It rains at night in Dedza, but the rain is starting to taper off as we move into the dry season. It is cool during the evening and I sleep with two wool blankets at night. The sun is super intense and burns quickly. I learned that mistake early - now I put on sunblock before I even go out the door. I got a wicked sunburn on my face the first day - don't worry it looks much better now. Ok, got go study study study.

All my love, Alicia

Alicia Made It!

2008-03-07T17:22:00.000-08:00

Hi, this is Alicia sister, Erin. Alicia gave me the permission to get into her blog and post information about her trip since her access to the Internet is going to be limited. So, here is an update.

She made is safely to Malawi on February 25 and is in her homestay site of Dedza, Malawi. She will be here for 2-3 months for training and once she is sworn in as an official Peace Corps Volunteer she will move to her permanent site. Her trainers emailed the families some group shots and I have pasted them above. Looks like she is doing fine. And the scenery looks beautiful.

If anyone wants to send her messages, you can look towards the bottom of the page here and her mailing address is listed. Or, if you leave a comment on this site I will print them off and mail them with my weekly letter to her. I am sure she would love to hear from lots of her family and friends, so please don't hesitate to leave a message.

I will keep you all updated when we receive anymore information.

Erin

Contact Info

2008-02-21T05:24:00.000-08:00

All,

As I leave in just 3 days, I thought I should post all my contact info for all those letters that you will be sending!

Alicia Feuillet, PCV
Peace Corps/Malawi
Box 208
Lilongwe
Malawi

Packages should be kept small--padded envelopes as oppose to boxes are best. After the first two months I will be moved to my permanent site and will have a new address which you can use if you like, but mail can always be sent to this address and I can pick it up when in town. After the first several months I will also have a cell phone (oh, the wonders of technology :).

During the course of my service internet and email will be sporadic so I plan on this blog being my main source of communication with all of you. I will try to write as many letters as I can, but the blog will have the most up to date happenings.

Thank you for your thoughts, prayers, generosity, and outpourings of love and kindness--I am truly grateful. Wish me luck!

Love,
Alicia

Yes, We Can

2008-02-19T19:28:00.000-08:00

Barack Obama's, "Yes, We Can":

It was a creed written into the founding documents that declared the destiny of a nation.Yes we can.It was whispered by slaves and abolitionists as they blazed a trail toward freedom.Yes we can.It was sung by immigrants as they struck out from distant shores and pioneers who pushed westward against an unforgiving wilderness.Yes we can.It was the call of workers who organized; women who reached for the ballots; a President who chose the moon as our new frontier; and a King who took us to the mountaintop and pointed the way to the Promised Land.Yes we can to justice and equality. Yes we can to opportunity and prosperity. Yes we can heal this nation. Yes we can repair this world. Yes we can. We know the battle ahead will be long, but always remember that no matter what obstacles stand in our way, nothing can stand in the way of the power of millions of voices calling for change.We have been told we cannot do this by a chorus of cynics...they will only grow louder and more dissonant ........... We've been asked to pause for a reality check. We've been warned against offering the people of this nation false hope.But in the unlikely story that is America, there has never been anything false about hope.Now the hopes of the little girl who goes to a crumbling school in Dillon are the same as the dreams of the boy who learns on the streets of LA; we will remember that there is something happening in America; that we are not as divided as our politics suggests; that we are one people; we are one nation; and together, we will begin the next great chapter in the American story with three words that will ring from coast to coast; from sea to shining sea -- Yes. We. Can.

The REAL Application Process

2008-02-19T18:29:00.000-08:00

In my prior post I outlined the 11 step process to becoming a voluteer. Seems really straightforward, doesn't it? Now you get to see what the reality of those 11 "easy" steps actually looks like. Each entry involved some sort of phone call, paperwork, paperwork, and more paperwork. As always, remember to be patient (and organized)--it will be worth it!

6.07-7.07 Did LOTS of research and worked on my on-line application.
7.5.07 Submitted on-line application and Health Status Review form.
7.10.07 Had phone interview to follow up on intelligence activities by myself or family. Received Legal Clearance to proceed with application process.
7. 13.07 Last letter of recommendation submitted on-line. Recruited called and we scheduled the Interview
7.18.07 Interviewed at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Office in Arlington, VA. Interview/paperwork/fingerprints took three hours to complete. Recruiter requested two additional references from a close personal friend and a volunteer coordinator. Said he would call me shortly about a nomination spot once additional letters had been received.
7.19.07 Requested additional letters from friend and volunteer coordinator.
7.24.07 Additional recommendation letters were submitted on-line.
7.24.07 Recruiter called with my placement options and job assignment. I can choose between Sub-Saharan Africa and Eastern Europe, both working on Farm Management and Agribusiness. I told him I needed a day to think about it–I called back 3 hours later and said, “I want to go to Africa.”
7.24.07 I am officially a Peace Corp Nominee!
7.28.07 Received medical packet. Began filling out forms and scheduling appointments
8.8.07 Had dentist appointment (now I can flash an awesome smile through this long process)
8.10.07 Met with doctor to start filling out forms and get some shots (Tetanus, polio booster, TB). Need to schedule yet another appointment to complete paperwork
8.13.07 Blood work completed (I hope). Ouch!
8.14.07 Had ophthalmologist fill out eye glasses prescription form
8.15.07-8.20.07 More doctors appointments, lots of blood tests, waiting for lab results, more calls to doctors office. eh.
8.25.07 Hand delivered medical packet to the Peace Corp Headquarters in Washington, D.C.
9.05.07 Received dental clearance
9.06.07 Peace Corps “officially” receives my medical packet. Now, I wait.
10.25.07 I receive my medical clearance–huge relief!!!! Peace Corps needs yet another recommendation from a work supervisor. I call old employee and have recommendation letter sent.
10.29.07 Talked to someone in the Africa Placement Office. She told me I have been invited to serve in the U.S. Peace Corps!
11.5.07 Received my invitation to serve as an Environment volunteer in Malawi!
11.7.07 Call HQ to accept my placement
11.16.07 Mailed my passport to HQ and provided an updated resume and aspiration statement to the Malawi Country Desk
1.20.08 Received my staging packet
2.21.08 Go to Arlington, VA for staging
2.23.08 Fly to Johannesburg, South Africa for a overnight layover
2.25.08 Fly to Lilongwe, Malawi!

How to apply to the Peace Corps

2008-02-19T18:09:00.000-08:00

To all future volunteers--you are making a great decision! When I was applying I found the blogs of PCVs very helpful, so I thought I would outline the process for you. Two pieces of advice: be patient--think of it as practice for when you get in the Peace Corps. Second, stay on top of things. Call, harass, make appointments earlier. Do whatever you have to do short of camping out at headquarters to get things done.

1.) Do research: Gather as much information as you can about what you are getting yourself into. The more you know, the better you will feel and the more questions you can answer for your family and friends (to make them feel better).
2.) Application: Fill out the online Application, Health Status Review Form (only available once you submit the online application). Once you submit the online Application, you are officially an Applicant.
3.) Interview: You will meet with your recruiter (they will be very nice, I promise) and have a long conversation about your abilities, skills, questions, mental preparedness, coping mechanisms, cultural/dietary concerns, and regional preferences. No personal questions are off limits, so be prepared! You will turn in a form to authorize a background check and get your fingerprints taken.
4.) Nomination: After the interview, your volunteer will call to tell you if you can move to the next step, if so, congrats you are an official Peace Corp Nominee! You will get a job description and region of service. You will be a Nominee for the next few months, so get use to your wicked awesome title.
5.) Evaluation: This step is easy (for you at least). The government will do a background check, so long as you are not a criminal and haven’t participated in intelligence activities you don’t have to worry about this stage.
6.) Medical Review: The most dreaded and painfully tedious step by far. You will need a physical exam, dental exam, eye exam, GYN exam (for the ladies, obviously), and blood work. Each exam comes with its own set of specific forms. Remember, patience is a virtue. Your medical packet will only be complete when HQ in Washington, D.C. says that it is. They may request additional blood work, a visit to a specialist, or that those wisdom teeth have got to go. Don’t leave anything blank, it WILL delay the process.
7.) Invitation: Once you get your medical clearance you are an official Peace Corp Invitee! YAY! It is only at this stage that you get your country assignment and departure date. This comes in a letter in the mail (try not to check obsessively, for your own sanity).
8.) Preparation: Get ready to go. Pack your very light bags, close bank accounts, sell your car, have long lunches with family and friends.
9.) Staging: At this point you are a Peace Corp Trainee, and will be so for the next three months! You will fly to your staging city somewhere in the United States and meet the other Trainees going to the same country. The three days involves paperwork, training sessions, last minute vaccinations, and stuffing your face with food and drink that you won’t see for the next 27 months.
10.) Training: Once in country, you spend 3 months with your new super cool Trainee friends and split your days between intense language lessons and culture/safety training. As always (it wouldn’t be the Peace Corps without it) there is lots of paperwork. At the end of the 3 months, you are sworn in as an official Peace Corps Volunteer.
11.) Volunteering: Two years of the “toughest job you will ever love.”