Updates!

When I started this blog I wanted to make sure to keep it interesting and really only tell stories about my life and experiences here in Peace Corps Malawi rather than a diary of my day to day life. However, I feel that I need to let you all know why I have been so absent in the past couple months.

At the end of August, I took a trip to Misuku Hills to welcome a new Education volunteer and to celebrate a site mates birthday!

 

He lives in a really unique area of Malawi surrounded by mountains, coffee/tea fields and wonderful people. It was cold at night, which is very unusual considering I'm at the point where I don't even want to sleep inside my house because its so hot...  It was great to hang out with the volunteers who live in my district for the first time as a group! I feel so lucky to be surrounded by such great people!

 

 

In the beginning of September we had our In-Service Training in Lilongwe. The first week of training is focused on the volunteer, addressing site issues, addressing cultural challenges, learning how to document and assess our projects and other boring things like that. The second week our village counterparts joined us to participate in technical trainings. The hope is that we can all learn skills to bring back to our respective villages to get some projects going. I chose to bring Mishek, since he has been so consistent in wanting to learn and initiate some very cool project ideas in Budonda. He had a great time I think.

 

Learning about conservation agriculture

 

Hanging a bee hive!

 

 

Meeting with a former peace corps couple who moved to Malawi 17 years ago. They had such cool things to teach us about permaculture and what its like to farm in Malawi. Definitely an inspiration!

Quick yoga break between sessions. Mishek is in the middle! :) He actually leads yoga in our village for the secondary school students.

After our training I traveled down south. We were all attending a music festival and had a week in between the end of training and the festival so I was able to spend a couple days in Monkey Bay. We took a boat tour and saw a huge group of Hippos! We got way too close, but survived :) It is so much fun to experience other people's site. We all have such different experiences even though we live in the same country. Most of us slept in tents (it's very hot by the lake), and fell asleep to the sound of hyenas and hippos under the most amazing African night sky.

 



Lake of Stars was a blast. I got to hear music from my favorite Malawian artists like Lawi and the Black Missionaries, drank from coconuts, and danced the night away. Peace Corps volunteers rented a house right on the lake not far from the festival so it was fun to get to know volunteers from other groups, and just lounge by the water.

My only photo from LOS.. This is the truck we took back and forth!

 

After lake of stars I headed even further south to Liwonde National Park to participate in the annual game count. We stayed at a youth hostel within the park surrounded by monkeys who liked to steal our food when we weren't looking. The first day we went to a "hide" (basically just a specific location where we sat) and observed any animals who passed by us. We heard a group of elephants near by and walked up a small hill to wait for them to pass by. They decided to take a different route than the two armed guards thought they would, and we ended up having to run away from a rogue bull elephant. It was such an awesome and scary experience. That day we counted somewhere around 40 elephants. We had to record the location, sex and age of the animals we saw. When I asked the guard how you can identify the sex of an elephant he looked at me like I was an idiot and said "you look for breasts..." Now I know! The second day we did a transect walk where the guard carried a gps and we took a specific walk across the park. We got to see a lot more variety of animals this day including zebras!

Elephants walking by our hide

Poaching is a problem in the park, especially with the challenges the parks face with lack of funding, education, and staffing. However, the number of elephants has been on the rise for the past couple of years despite this problem.

So many elephants :)

 

After Game Count I headed back up north to Nyika National Park. I was selected to be a member of the Camp TIECH which was probably the most amazing experience I have had in country so far. 30 Secondary students were selected by Peace Corps volunteers from across Malawi to participate in a camp that addressed environmental and health concerns that villagers face every day. I led sessions focused on food preservation, soil health and crop diversity, lead a nature hike and helped with morning exercise, and created a journal for daily reflection. They also learned about composting, malaria prevention, fuel efficient stoves, addressed issues of HIV/AIDS and learned about nutrition. They were so motivated to learn as much as they could and I had a blast working with them. The goal is for the students to take some of what they learned and then go and spread the knowledge to their villages. I am so excited to be one of the coordinators with my friend Andrew for next year! 

Leading a "trust walk" They walked blindfolded from a deciduous forest to an evergreen forest which many of them have never been in before (pretty uncommon for Malawi). It was so much fun to see their faces when they opened up their eyes to these tall pine trees.

 

 

Making some Mango Jam during my food preservation session!

 

Out on Safari during sunset :)

 

I finally finished out the month of October by celebrating Halloween at Kande Beach with an awesome group of people. The sand was so soft and white, water super clear, and people awesome as usual. We swam out to a small island off the shore and did some cliff jumping, discovered a crocodile skull and watched in wonder when all of a sudden the fish decided to put on a show of jumping out of the water (it was so cool because they flash their bellies so its like the water is glittering with thousands of fish jumping out of the water). We played beach volleyball, listened to some live music and dressed up like fools. Perfect location for a very memorable Halloween! (I took no pictures, sorry but some should be popping up on my facebook from other friends soon!)

 

After Halloween I made my way back to site for the first time in months... and promptly slept for a week (no joke). In between sleeping I had to walk around my village and convince everyone that no, I did not move back to America, I am still around and hoping to start projects! My counterpart is awesome though and our tree nursery now has hundreds of Moringa tree saplings! I'm excited to get more involved with my secondary school to establish an environmental club and have gotten the word out about a business class that I want to teach! All with time :)

 

After only a short stay at site, I had to travel back down to the capital, Lilongwe, to attend my first committee meeting! I was lucky enough to be selected to serve on the diversity committee. I will assist leading trainings to volunteers and staff on issues of diversity (race, national origin, color, religion, gender, age, veteran status, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status and/or ability status). I am very excited to be a part of this committee!

 

That sums up my life for the past couple of months. I am headed back to site tomorrow and am very excited in settling back into village life. Hopefully I'll do a better job blogging!

 

As usual, I miss friends and family a ton, but I am so happy here! I wish there was a way to fly you all here to be with me on this crazy adventure! Love you all.