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.

 

 

 

 



Mouse Hunting

Life in Malawi seems to revolve around Maize (corn). I believe I have mentioned this before, but if you don’t have nsima with a meal, it becomes merely a snack. It doesn’t matter how much rice or pasta with veggies, meat or anything else you may consume, Malawian’s will still feel hungry if nsima was not served. Because of this, growing maize is number one on most villager’s priority list. In December as the rains begin, you plant the first round of maize, harvest in May-July, shell, store and grind the kernels into flour in August-October and prepare you fields until planting again in December. I was able to help with this process the other day. I met up with a friend named Foster who is a Malawian Red-Cross volunteer in my village and walked the 3km to his field. He had already cut his maize down and piled it in the middle of his field to dry.

We arrived around 7am, and we were late. There were already 5 kids standing around the pile working probably there since sunrise. Foster introduced me to the kids, and they laughed at me as I tried to introduce myself in chinyha (as usual). After that, we all took our spots around the pile of corn stalks and began to shuck the corn. Foster started to show and explain how to do this, but thankfully I am well educated on sucking corn thanks to my Iowan upbringing. After a bit the kids started chatting away with each other as I listened trying to figure out what the topic of conversation was. Mostly, I just enjoyed the repetitive movements of removing corn husks and throwing it into the large pile of dried corn while soaking in the surrounding mountains and warm rising sun.

As the pile got smaller, the children’s chatter became louder and more excited. I couldn’t contain my curiosity and finally asked Foster what they were talking about. It turns out that the little mouse nests that we had been discovering under the corn stalks meant money in the kids pockets. They were plotting about how they might find mice at the bottom of the pile, and if they did, they could catch them and sell them to the local secondary school’s headmaster. Mice are a popular protein source for much of Central Malawi which is where the headmaster is from. I have not seen mice being sold here in the north, but I have talked to many other volunteers who have had the unique experience of tasting Malawi’s delicacy of BBQ mice.

Once the mice are caught, Malawian’s take the whole body, sandwich it between two sticks and will roast it whole over the fire; hair, head, tail, innards, everything. To eat it, pop the whole thing in your mouth!

It was very entertaining as one by one, the poor mice tried to make their escape. When the kids saw something move, they would squeal out with delight and immediately begin stomping and lunging toward the ground until they caught the mouse. They would then grab it by its tail and fling it hard to the ground to make sure it was dead. They found a couple of baby mice and would also fling those hard on the ground and then lay them in a sunny spot to die. By the time we got to the bottom of the pile, there was a pile of 17 dead mice and 5 huge grinning faces. Only two escaped.

I think this whole experience is a small indicator of my integration here. If I had witnessed children brutally killing mice back in the states I would have been horrified. Here, it was actually really enjoyable. It reminded me of watching kids catch crawfish in the creek in Tennessee, granted we never killed or ate the crawfish, but the way the kids laughed and cried out with delight every time they found something moving was fun to watch. By the end of the day, they had an extra 170 kwatcha in their pockets, enough to buy msweeties for the whole week!

A Quick Thank you!

I just want to take a second to thank everyone who has sent me a care package in the past couple of weeks! I don’t think you truly understand what it means to a volunteer to receive a care package filled with comforts from home! I have not only been able to eat things that I miss like skittles, Oreo’s, beef jerky and dried fruit, but I have been able to share some of these things with the villagers! Today, I used some of the dried fruit you sent to make granola. I don’t really know if the Malawians I shared it with liked it, but I am happy! I also brought out bubbles for the first time… the intention was to cheer up my 2 year old neighbor girl since she was crying (she’s always crying), and all of a sudden there were 20 kids in front of my house. I spent an hour blowing bubbles for them as they ran around trying to pop them. I’ll post pictures as soon as I have good enough internet!

I knew I had great friends and family before moving here, but you guys continue to exceed any and all expectations of support during my time in the Peace Corps. I feel so incredibly lucky, THANK YOU, Ndagha!!!!

An Addicts Recipe

My name is Britney, and I have an addiction to peanut butter. Admitting it is the first step right?? Peanut butter has always been an issue for me. Back in high school I was interviewed by the local newspaper and one of the questions they asked me was “what is one thing you can’t go a day without?” I panicked and said brushing my hair or something else equally lame. When I got home and talked to my mom about it, she immediately said “you should have said peanut butter! You eat it by the spoonful!” In hindsight, it would have been the perfect answer. 

Worried about not having access to peanut butter when moving to Africa, I had it as the number one thing on my list of things to pack. Of course, being me, it was the one thing I forgot and I had to make my dad stop at the gas station by the airport at 4am before boarding my plane so I could have my last jar (or so I thought). Malawi has actually made it worse…during pre-service training we were provided a small jar of peanut butter every single week! The first week I brought it home with a proud grin on my face to my host family only to watch in horror as the jar was shared with every single member of the family and their friends. It was gone in a day… As a Peace Corps Volunteer, I wanted to come here and help those in need and learn to be selfless and all that, but apparently I’m just not that good of a person. That jar was the only one my family saw. I kept the weekly jars stashed in my bag or room throughout the rest of training. No, I’m not proud of it, but do you see the impact addictions can have on a person’s life!?

Since moving to site things have gotten a little better. I stress ‘little.’ Every time I am in the Chitipa Boma I say I’m not going to buy another jar, that I need a detox, but somehow that magic jar of happiness ends up in my bag again. I have decided to try to follow my site mate’s lead and limit the amount that I BUY. Instead I have been making it from scratch. The logic is that if I work for it, I deserve it (right?!). You can decide, here is the process of making peanut butter in my village:

1. Bike 35km to Chitipa Boma. It’s sandy, windy and usually hot (pity might work, right?)
2. Visit the local market to buy about a half pound of ground nuts (costs about 200 Kwacha, 50 cents)
3. After checking the mail, enjoying beers on the airstrip (closest thing to a park), eating some chips mayai and stopping by the bank, head back to Kameme. Don’t forget its 35km back too!!
4. Start a fire in my baula
5. Roast the peanuts until they start to pop
6. Toss them in the mortar and lightly pound them until they are broken up
7. Throw the nuts into the sefa (sifter) and toss them around a bit to get the skins off and out of the mix
8. Put them back in the mortar and pound until your hands are shaking and blistered, and your arms are numb
9. Hopefully this is the same amount of time it takes for the peanuts to have turned into ooey gooey goodness.
10. Add salt, or if you want to get crazy- experiment with adding cinnamon, sugar, vanilla, chili powder, honey, cocoa, Cajun seasoning, or anything you can find in your kitchen.
11. Enjoy and hope it will last until tomorrow…

An Ode to the Bucket

Every single day here in my small village, I find myself depending on buckets for just about everything. Here are a variety of ways buckets have become a vital part of my Peace Corps Life:

-My sink: I have one bucket that has a faucet on it that drains into another bucket located in my kitchen. I use this to wash my hands, my vegetables, and to rinse my dishes.

-My dish collector: This bucket is larger and is stored under my kitchen table. This holds all my dirty dishes until I work up enough motivation to clean them (which is usually once every single dish is dirty enough that I’m grossed out using it again… before you judge, you try fetching your own water and see how often you’ll want to do dishes).

-My Dishwasher: I put water in one bucket with soap and rinse the dishes off in another.

-My Washing Machine: I soak clothes in a bucket with soap for an hour, then wash/rinse them off in a different bucket with clean water.

-My Bath: Who needs running water when you have a bucket and a cup!?

-My Water Collector: I strap the big boy (50 Liters) onto the back of my bike and ride on down to the bore hole to pump my water! He’s all fixed from the fall a couple weeks ago thanks to some handy duct tape! 

-My Fermenter: Oh bucket wine, how delicious and horrible you are all at the same time! Isabel and I have been experimenting with making our own wine by putting water, local fruit and yeast in a bucket and waiting! The last one was delicious but left a mean hangover… 

-My Lizard/Spider/Bug Catcher: Without fail, every time I return home after being gone for more than 2 days I am surprised to find something has crawled in to a bucket and (usually) died… RIP Jim, the lizard King. 

-My Storage: Buckets help keep sneaky things like cockroaches and mice out of my beans and rice.

-My Watering Can: When I go water plants at either Isabel’s house or Lucius’s garden, buckets are the means to keep the plants growing (it hasn’t rained for 3 months).

-Plant Nursery: What do you do when you have a hole in your bucket? Well fill it with dirt dear Liza! This worked fairly well to get some plants going for Isabel’s garden.

-Solar Dryer: Have another broken bucket? Throw a dark chitenge in the bottom, use that extra screen and plastic you have lying around, and create your own little solar dryer for tomatoes, mangos and bananas!

-Compost Toilet: Some volunteers feel bad interrupting the nightly parties that cockroaches, bats, snakes, mice, frogs, scorpions, and spiders like to host in our chimbuzi’s (outhouse). Solution? Keep a bucket in your room for those late night emergencies! Luckily I have an iron bladder and have not had an issue just yet… but doubt I’ll make it through these two years without sacrificing one of my buckets for this purpose, it’s part of life in the Peace Corps after all.

*It seems like I have buckets everywhere in my house according to this post, when in reality I only own 4*

Tattoos

I was walking through my village today just to get out of the house and wandered down to the trading area. As always, when I am out and about the kids yell either “Sarah” or “mzungu” at me (Sarah was a previous volunteer in the village next to mine and automatically every white female that passes through is now named Sarah). The adults call out to me as well always wanting to chat. Today, I stopped and was talking to a man who is a teacher at a secondary school not too far away when a couple of women showed up, grabbed me, and tried cleaning the tattoo off my arm. He tried to translate for me, saying that the women wanted to know if I was born with this mark or if I had just drawn it on with a pen that morning. I tried to explain that no, it is a permanent mark that I chose to get put there. They did not understand why it was not washing off and it took some time before I could have my arm back. I tried my best to explain that in America, tattoos are common and a part of our culture but some things are just too difficult to translate… they walked away very confused.

One time, as Isabel and I were traveling into town in the back of a pick-up, we were talking to the other passengers about the World Cup and game that had happened the night before. An African team had lost against some European team, and one person mentioned it was because the other team used magic. This of course peaked our interest, and so we asked how he knew magic was being used? He said it was evident in all the charms the other team had on their skin. Basically, his thought was the other team had been given the upper hand because of the magical charms (tattoos) so many of the players had. (Side note: during this ride, we also learned about the fire breathing dragons that live in the Misuku Hills and discussed mermaids which most Malawians believe to be real).

Moral of the story is, Malawians don’t understand tattoos. I can only imagine how the thought of paying someone to permanently draw on your skin seems ludicrous and extremely frivolous to someone who struggles to have enough money for food. The cost of only one of my tattoos could have probably provided a family with enough money to by ufa (used to make nsima) for a whole year. Perspective is an interesting thing.

Transportation

I am sitting my house very sore after a traveling around chitipa for the past couple of days. This is pretty typical. Malawi is hard on the body if you want to go anywhere… There are a several ways to get around this beautiful country:

• Bus. There are certain buses that travel to all the main cities around Malawi. This is my preferred method of traveling, mostly because 90% of the time you are guaranteed to have your own seat. It’s usually more reliable too. There are scheduled stops, and departure times and you can even book your ticket in advance! The only problem is that 50% of the time something is bound to go wrong. I have several stories from bus complications already, here are two examples: (1) The first time I hopped on one of these big boys was on the way home from site visit- the bus broke down about 10k away from Mzuzu, our destination. It was horrible because we were so close, yet so far! We ended up hitching a ride with a retired catholic priest who was nice enough to pick us up after waiting almost 2 hours. (2) We were headed towards Mzuzu again to meet up with volunteers after our first month at site and really excited to see everyone. About 30 minutes after hopping on the bus we got a flat (question: how many Malawians does it take to fix a flat? Answer: 10). It took over two hours to find all the parts necessary to change the tire. Dylan, Isabel and I sat across the street and watched while drinking cold Carlsberg’s (beer) and a pint of whiskey (none of us drink in our villages… we were excited to be out). After chatting with a couple of Malawians and getting tire back on we were on our way. Unfortunately, the bus driver decided he was going to try to make up for the lost time and put the pedal to the metal. Nothing was stopping this guy! Not even a herd of cows that filled the road… one poor cow didn’t see it coming (question: what do you do when you hit a cow in Malawi? Answer: slow down, let the farmer chase you for a little bit then go on your way). It was traumatizing.
   
• Minibus. The most common way to travel from point A to point B. It’s a small van that has seats for 16 people. This does not mean that when you fill it with 16 people that it is full. Oh no no no no. I have ridden in a bus that squished 27 people into it at one time. Let me tell you, there are places you want to sit, and other spots you should avoid at all costs. The front is the best place to be, as much as I hate to say it, sometimes it pays to be white in this country. If these seats are not taken they are usually offered to us. The second best place is the very back seat against the window. Typically the back seat will only seat four as it is intended, but you may have to put knees up by your face because of a bucket of fish they have slid under your seat (yes, it smells). The worst spot is by the door since this is where they will continue to fit people in spaces you didn’t know were there. I’ve had people sitting on my lap, people hugging me, babies plopped on my lap, drunken marriage proposals, great conversations, and chickens in my face. It’s not always pleasant, but it’s Malawi.
   
   
• Matola. This is usually some type of truck that is traveling to a certain place that will pick up people along the way. It’s really hit or miss with these. Sometimes the ride is great, you have plenty of room, the sky is blue, the air is sweet and you are ecstatic to be hitching a ride in Malawi. Other times you are sharing the back of a pick-up with 20 other people and all their earthly possessions, pressed up to the side of the truck so hard you are convinced you will have a huge purple bruise left on your ribs, you lose track of whose limbs are whose because you are so tightly packed, and you can barely breathe because the dust and wind is so heavy.
   
• Bike taxi. Pretty much anywhere you look in Malawi there are people on bikes. Some make their living by offering rides to anyone willing to pay to hop on the back of their bike. The bikes are almost always decorated with red and yellow ribbons, bells, and anything they think to stick on to them. Often the back seat will be padded, but sometimes this is not the case. ALWAYS look for the padded bike taxi! I made the mistake once and will never do that again. Sitting on metal rods while traveling over bumpy gravel is horribly painful.
   
   
• Bike. This is my favorite way to travel. I love my bike. Peace Corps provided us with Treck mountain bikes with nice big tires. It takes me about 2 hours to bike to my boma (city center), and I don’t think I could do it with any other bike. Of course I would prefer it if the two hour ride was tarmac vs. the sandy/gravel mix, but you can’t have everything.

Overall, I love traveling around Malawi. Yes, sometimes it’s painful, but I am in constant awe of the beauty I am surrounded by. Anytime I have to head south, I have to go through this huge mountain range where baboons sit on the side of the road watching the cars go by waiting for someone to throw out food. The feeling you get when you are on top of the mountain range, coming around a certain bend to see Lake Malawi shining through the trees in incredible. Even stopping in the small dusty villages only to be hassled by women and children trying to sell you food through the windows is fun (they hiss at you to get your attention… it’s odd). I’m sure at some point it will all become less magical, and more painful, but for now I can’t get enough.