Catching Up - Oct 14

 

Wow, it has been a while. A big part of that is that I have been downright busy, another part of that is that it is harder to write about life when the little things no longer seem novel. My mother keeps hassling me to write another blog update, if only just to fill people in on what I have been up to. Here is the rundown on the past few months!

August
Got tree nursery built and ready to work on, Didn’t get supplies (tubes to plant, seeds, watering cans and hoes) until the very end of September. I had given the tree nursery committee some tubes and seeds and told them to start without the supplies, all they need is a bucket and small cup to start watering, but they insisted on waiting until the supplies were given to them… oh well.

I attended Camp GLOW (Girls Leading Our World) as a member of the ‘Manel’ a five person man panel consisting of 2 American men and 3 Malawian men. The intent was to give the young Malawian women attending the camp an honest and uninhibited opportunity to ask men any question they wanted – This would be very culturally taboo here and is something that we take for granted in even casual conversation in the US. Here in Malawi it would be incredibly culturally inappropriate for a women to ask most of the questions we were asked. Many were with regards to sex, behavior, and relationships – The intent is to give them answers that are based on reality and scientific explanation. This is to help combat many of the often dangerous local myths/beliefs regarding sex and sexual behavior. I found the experience incredibly rewarding and moving. It was fantastic to see the other activities going on during the camp. I think that it truly served as a starting point to empower the young women that attended and is one of the best things that Peace Corps Malawi has going. I hope to have the chance to be a part of it next year as well. Check out the video that one of the volunteers made regarding the camp and the status of women in Malawi.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbIjZ-Kwj9g

Near the end of the month I finished building and drying my improved cookstove (check out the photos below!) Unfortunately I didn’t get a chance to use it until over a month later. The last Saturday of August I did some work with the tree nursery – filling over 320 tubes, ready for planting! Unfortunately, I then had to leave a week early for In Service Training for a few different reasons.

September
IST lasted for 2 weeks starting with all the volunteers arriving on Saturday the 7^th. 

It was fantastic to spend the first week catching up with the other volunteers – Many of whom I had not seen in 4 months. We spent the day (8-5pm) in classes, furthering our PC training, and often stayed up late catching up with each other. Being so excited to see each other and to share our experiences we often stayed up quite late (much later than the typical post-sundown village bedtime) and we were all short on sleep for the entire two weeks.

During the second week of IST we were joined by our counterparts. Khunga came down for the whole week of training. We had a good time catching up – this had been the longest I have been away from site! When we greeted each other, we both said "I have been missing you!" as is common in the local vernacular.

Unfortunately for me, I found IST to be rather uninformative and unproductive from a professional standpoint – A significant portion of the training was detached from the skills that would be useful in a village setting, or were simply a direct repeat of PST when we arrived in country. I know I am not alone in this and I hope that the feedback many volunteers provided will improve future trainings. I do however think that the training was of great benefit to my counterpart. It was good for him to hear the things I have been saying come from other professional sources as reinforcement, and I think he was further motivated. I am very excited about this aspect of the training and look forward to collaborating with him on more of our work.

After IST I returned north to Mzuzu for a meeting on the camp TIECH. TIECH is a weeklong environment and health camp for secondary students (think high school, but due to the education system here ages can vary from 14 to 26 for these camps). It takes place next week (Oct 18-25) in Nyika National Park – Right in my Backyard! (Sort of) At the meeting, we discussed the lesson schedule and responsibilities leading up to the camp. I am pretty excited to be a part of this camp, and have hopes of being one of the coordinators for it next year. I am joined by fellow volunteers Ian, Brittany, Lea, Meg, Rachael, Matt, and coordinating volunteers Kay and Christy. We are even going to be visited by the new Country Director – I hope she is ready for the long and bouncy ride to Chelinda from Rumphi town. Overall this promises to be a rewarding experience. (Plus more time deep in the park will result in some fantastic photo ops for wildlife and landscape)

After TIECH meeting, midweek, I took some vacation time and headed back down south to the Mangochi lakeshore for The Lake Of Stars Music Festival (Way south for me – the furthest south I have been). I got lucky on transport both in and out of the fest – hitching resulted in some good rides with some cool people and saved some money + time over minibus travel. I stayed for 2 of the three nights before heading back up north. It was cool and very interesting to see an event like this unfold in the heart of Malawi. Many great artists from the southern Africa region played and there were about 3000(?) people there. It felt good to cut loose and swim in the lake again. I actually got in a little bit of bouldering with another volunteer. Mangochi was beautiful, even in the blistering heat of the season. There were giant Baobab trees everywhere, and I can imagine how nice it would look in the wet season with leaves on all of the plants. Thazima/Nyika NP still remains my favorite part of Malawi though!


October
Travel takes a bit here of course and even though I left Mangochi on a Sunday, I didn’t get back to site until the Wednesday 1st. Let me tell you –I missed home! I promptly got back into the swing of village life and reconnected with my friends and counterpart.

October highlights so far:

Fired up my cookstove for the first time and now I use it all the time, holy crap this thing is awesome and I often joke that compared to cooking on a 3 brick fire is like cooking with electricity (it isn’t, but is a helluva lot better).

I helped the tree nursery to plant their first seeds – we filled 300 tubes with Moringa and Senna spectabilis.

I noticed how nice my tiny house looks at night when it is all lit up with candles.

I adjusted to the realities of being in full swing of dry season – While away my nearest shallow well dried up and I have to walk over 1km for water now, carrying 22 liters on my head at least once a day (not as bad as you would think once you get used to it).

I have been fighting with the 2 carpenters I have contracted for work. One of them finally came through and supplied me with a set of shelves and planks for making an A frame. The other one skipped town without doing any work more than a month after I paid a hefty deposit. Turns out his references were not as solid as stated. This means I still have an unsecure house – Front door is basically plywood and back door is held shut with a bent nail. Things I wish Peace Corps had taken care of before I moved in! – I now have no idea when I will be able to find someone to do the work. ug. Luckily I have great neighbors just next to me and I do feel safe, and in 5 months at site, nothing has been stolen from me. This is not something that many volunteers here can claim.

I have finally gotten a back gate for my yard – this means that the goats are no longer eating the trees/plants in my nursery and yard! Finally my plants can start growing uninhibited. Unfortunately it may be too little too late for my nursery to give good sized seedlings for the rainy season coming in December. We will see.

I have started more home improvement! Using the extra bricks I bought for the cookstove I have started to outline and pre dig more of my yard. I plan on it being a permaculture haven by the time I leave. I will go crazy with planting and gardening during the rainy season.

I have also gotten to explore the nearby areas in the park a bit more including finding a new area to look for elephants and a hiking trip with Prince Mhone, one of my good friends and the chairperson of the community tree nursery.

I set a new PR descending the plateau to visit Ian on my bike, and finally made the ride/walk back up the mountains. Getting to Bembe where he lives (16km away) takes me ~40ish min (I think I can break into the upper 30s). Biking back up took over 2 hours including a 15 min rest and walking the longest, steepest sections. Ug, doing it in the heat of the day didn’t help, but I was downright exhausted by the time I got back. Not sure how motivated I am to try and improve on that time...

Lastly, the local HIV/AIDS Communnity Based Organization reformed and elected committee members! I hope to find some activities to do with them - mostly permaculture to improve the lives of those living with HIV/AIDS

That’s it for now! Khalani Makola! (Stay Well!)