Slowing Down

7 August 2014
Apart from big events, I am finding it harder and harder to find things to write about. Life here is…. mellow. We finally made the tree nursery fence and I am certain we will receive seeds and tubes to start planting the nursery before the end of the August. I have also finally located the bricks I need to make an improved cook stove at my house. I want 100 of them – they are bigger than the ones you will find stateside and locally made. The stove only calls for at most 60, but I want to use the extras for other projects. To make the bricks they find a termite mound, dig it up and make the bricks from the clay the termites build with. They painstakingly form each one, dry it in the sun, and then build a large shaped pile that they fire with a huge amount of firewood. Unfortunately the process of making them contributes readily to deforestation, but the intent of the cookstove is to offset that with a more efficient mode of cooking. I have to haul the bricks over a kilometer to my house – I already moved half with a borrowed wheelbarrow two days ago (exhausted) and hope to finish today.

Remember when I said patience is a virtue here? Well, my limits of patience are expanding all the time. It took nearly 3 months to get the bricks and has been more than that since I ordered some shelves to be built - My house is tiny and it would be nice to move some things up off of the floor in the name of saving space. You get used to things taking a while here. Transport can take hours longer than expected. 'Programs' (as they call any activities and events here) are always late, postponed, or cancelled. I always have a book on hand to fill dead time, that is unless I have read them all....

All being said, I am becoming more and more comfortable w/ the community and my daily routine. I am also finding more that I will want to work on in the next two years. It will be frustrating - habits are hard to change and I can already see so many cultural issues that will come into play.

It is tough, you try to take it to heart when they tell you during training that even small things will take time. Even though I remind myself of this regularly, you can't help but get frustrated with just how slow the process can be. But then, sometimes seemingly out of nowhere something will click; Someone will just 'get it', or the tree nursery committee comes together and makes an excellent fence with their own time and resources, or someone comes to you with an idea for the community that you know they are serious about and want to follow through with it. When this happens I get all smiles and excitement. (well, maybe just more than I usually am)

I am still trying to decide just how much is too much to take on, what the right balance of my time and skills will be, and exactly what I am wanting to get out of my time here - but I feel it coming. In Service Training is next month and my big community meeting to discuss possible projects is at the end of August. Both of these events, I expect, will help me get a better idea of what the area both wants and needs.

Camp GLOW is this month and I will be traveling to Lilongwe for the Man Panel that takes place on the 16th. Will definitely fill you in on that experience as I expect it to be a good one.

Quite a hike

26 July 2014

For the last month my bike has been stranded at Ian’s house. I kept getting lucky with transport and had no need/means to get to his house to collect it. This morning I sucked it up and walked the 16k down through the mountains to his house with the plans of riding back up. I left bright and early with nothing but my mp3 player and camelback. It took 3 hrs and 6 minutes door to door. So I guess now I know that. The walk was very relaxing and just what I needed. I got lucky again and by chance caught another ride up the beat up mountain road with my bike in the back of a park vehicle that was passing by.

I expect that this hike, both up or down, will happen often in my time here - apart from park trucks and the odd tourist, there is no regular public transport that comes to my site. And while it isn't too terribly hard to get in and out of site most of the time, I hope this gives you a feel for how out of the way Thazima is.