A Long Overdue Update

A weather report: the sun does in fact still shine occasionally here in Switzerland. Though only for a few hours this morning...it felt wonderful. But weather aside, life here in this neutral, hyper efficient and overly insured nation is lovely right now. I feel like I finally have a healthy rhythm between work, eating, exercise, friends, family and stress. I don't know why I'm always so surprised when everything works out exactly the way it should. Usually, I suppose, because I'm a perfect mess as I stress through everything and then ultimately find the simplest solution and marvel at how I thought it would be so complicated. (though to be fair to myself, the Swiss do make everything INCREDIBLY complex and indecipherable)

But in 2 weeks Mike will be here and we can finally start a life together in the same place...not only the same country...the same BUILDING! Imagine :D And the fact that we have a house is a miracle of sorts. We'll be spending the next year living in a large old house, as house sitters in a way. The woman who owns the house is in the end stages of suffering from a brain tumor yet her children don't want to take over the house quite yet and thus need someone to live there...a lived-in house is much healthier than one that stands empty...and this one has a HUGE garden that is going to take a lot of work. We're both excited to see if any of our Malawi garden skills will carry over and just as excited to learn about all the trees and plants already in the garden.

At work, things have also gotten better so that though there are still occasional periods of too little work there are always secretaries on vacation who's places I can fill or reports that I can translate or excel spreadsheets I can create. My contract will expire in November and I'm already on the hunt for a new job...something that will hopefully turn into something more permanent. I had an epiphany of sorts while writing my cover letter, trying to explain my goals. I realized I've been incredibly naive in thinking that some amazing NGO would hire me as an engineer that doesn't know anything, and send me to some far off country to train me and help people that don't have clean drinking water. There is no such NGO. They don't have time or resources to train rooky engineers. They want someone that already knows what they're doing (to the tune of 5-7 years experience). And so that has become my goal. To become that engineer that has that experience so that I can actually help. As of right now, I'd just be a burden.

This has become my mantra:

"We can never let the chaos and injustice make us so blind with anger that we become part of the problem. Understanding, kindness, compassion and love are the only true revolutionary ideas. When we compromise those, we become what we despise and we lose our humanity."

The end draws near...and Kalumbu is someone elses home...

It’s been surreal moving out of Kalumbu. Yet in a way it’s a relief….it’s all people have been talking about for the last two weeks, so I’m glad that’s finally done. At the same time I ache for the home I’m leaving behind here…the sense of myself I have here. For the last two years I’ve been Madam, Jeanini, who gets water and teachers, and chats with her neighbors and does this silly running thing and makes funny fish faces when kids are struck dumb by her whiteness. And soon I’ll no longer be that same Jeannine. At first I’ll LOVE it…I won’t have to stress about lesson planning or marking or alawys conversing in a 3rd language or deal with annoying people as I run or bike…and I’ll be on a high from being with my family and Mike for twenty four hours a day! But then, shortly, I’ll miss my independence, the thrill of baking something exquisite on fire, the maternalness of my neighbors, the gleeful giggling when the kids come to ask for the soccer ball, the tomato lady stopping by my house and the banana man giving a bunch of bananas even when I wasn’t going to buy any. I finally feel understood here…even though they don't understand WHY they understan – but they do! And they make allowances for [and I’m sure get amusement from] my bizarre azungu-isms.

And now they will have make those allowances for [and get amusement from] someone else! It felt strange giving over my community to someone I hardly knew...even though I knew it was coming - I still wasn't quite ready for it. But she'll be fine and the village will be fine...it will all be fine. That's what I keep telling myself :)

Today was a whirlly wind of getting stuff done in town before I head up to Mike's site for some quiet and NO STRESS...getting Chimz all situated with money, school, bank, phone has been ridiculous...I feel like it would be quite the responsibility in the states [to suddenly be a functional parent to a 20 year old] but Malawi just makes everything twice as hard. Like the bank -- apparently his school ID isn't acceptable...so he has to go get to passport photos...then go to this tiny obscure office to request a letter and have them stamp his photos...then take that stuff back to the bank where we can actually open his account. Really? Couldnt they make a bit more difficult? I mean surely they forgot that we also need to track down his birth certificate and his great-great-great-grandfathers original name. But apparently they're letting us off easy :l I was not happy. But for a few days I won't let myself think about it. I can't do anything about any of it -- about Chimz and his future, about my reports, about the electricity at Kalumbu, whether or not our cedar chests will be done and actually get on the plane -- when I'm in Mkuzi...so I won't worry about it. Or I will at least try not to.

And November looms...

Sunday breakfast...

Peach sponge cake :)

Plastic shoes galore...

Clothes anyone?

Tomatoes at the wednesday market...

The mango lady at my market...

Millet, sorghum, dried greens, corn, groundnuts...

Tangerines...they call them manatchesi here

Fabric, fabric, fabric

The secret chitenje market

Animal Transport :)

I apologize for not writing for so long. I guess it’s because it feels like nothing has happened, life is winding down and I have nothing to do. I went from 5 regular classes a day plus 4 hours of external classes a week – to only teaching 2 classes a day. My busy spirit is freaking out! But I’m getting better at being, just being.
As much as I will miss my village, my neighbors, my students – I will not miss the drama of PeaceCorps. Things are changing, administratively and not for the better, and I’m glad to be checking out before there are serious repercussions.

A few weeks ago my girl’s club made their own paper. It was hilarious to watch their competetiveness come out as they tried to beat eachother in ‘paper perfection’.
Running is funny – if I run a different route, the women on the normal route will stop me later in the day and ask ‘Muli bwino? Sindinakuwone ma’mawa – musadathamanga?’ [are you okay? We didn’t see you running this morning!]. I also enjoy hearing ancient women explain to their visiting friends who I am, why I’m wearing trousers and why I’m running around at 5:15 in the morning…as all others are heading out to their fields.
I’m no longer stressing about school…just about everything else: will I leave Kalumbu well, will I say goodbye to everyone that I should, will we be able to get cedar chests, how on earth will we pack everything, will I get fat in America, what do I get everyone for Christmas, will the electricity ever be connected, will Chimwemwe pass his entrance exams…so my mind is not lacking things to worry about.
Random Stuff:
• My previous neighbor’s daughter [6 years old] was kidnapped a few nights ago by witch doctors and taught witchcraft. A few days later they were at the market and the mother was buying herself a skirt when her little girl said “Mum, why are you buying that? You won’t have a chance to wear it.” When her mother asked why, the little girl said “Because I’m going to kill you with a hammer!” Last I heard, they had sent her to stay with her grandmother.
• My house looks emptier and emptier with each trip into town.
• I think I have a worm infection. This is what happens when you teach biology – as you teach all the various diseases and their respective symptoms you become a hypochondriac.
I used to have, in the states, this self-concsiousness about running..that I’d be embarassed, that people would see me. Yup…think I’ve gotten over that. And for the most people are fine about it…just the occassional asshole that ruins everything – oddly most often said assholes are men. Mmmmm. I really don’t mean to always write about my running – it’s just that that’s when all the interesting stuff happens. The other day it looked like I was a chasing a chicken just because the darn organism could figure out that it should veer right or left and so it just ran in front of me screeching for a half mile. Or there’s the random man in the woods that does karate, or the man that wears a hard hat as he’s farming his field by hand.

The Glory of Scientifics

8 August 2009

Warning: Do not arrive in your village in the dark when there is a chieftainship going on. Mike and I endured 2 very tired kabazas [bike taxis] as we were trying to reach my house before nightfall. But between their tired legs, a broken bicycle fork and an anslaught of Gule Wambkulu...we didn’t make it. The kabazas were nice enough to walk us past the graveyard near my village so that we would be past any Gule nonsense…but that sill left a good 4k to be walked before we got home. I was incredibly grateful that Mike was there! Half dressed men wielding machetes that think they are the reincarnation of wild animals was not my idea of a safe jaunt home in the moonlight. But we made it, all of our limbs machete wound free and neither of us have any need to see any more of this particular part of Malawian culture.

For Erste Auguscht Mike made me Swiss cows and lampions :)

I am back in Lilongwe before heading off to my groups COS [Close of Service] conference at the lake for the next few days. The past week at site was a strange as Mike was there until early Thursday morning and then Ali arrived Thursday afternoon and we came in together this morning. It was a full week of teaching and the like but I am in love with full hour periods for math and biology as I can get through all of the material AND the students have a chance to practice IN CLASS! It was glorious! I also, finally, brought the calculators to class to use for the trigonometry units in Form3 and Form4. The students were flabbergasted to say the least…they were amazed at how easy they were to use. The best part was showing them how the calculator [they call them ‘Scientifics’] can remember the answer they found and they just have to press the “Ans” button in the next operation they do…Ishmael’s face in particular was fabulous. He even came to the office later to congratulate me on my calculators…as though I had invented them. Mmmm.

It’s so strange to think that we only have about 4 months left here in Malawi. We will be the next group of volunteers to go home. We’re all getting a little bit antsy I feel – mostly ready to be finished with teaching and the drama in our villages. I wish I could just sort of sneak out after we close school in November but that wouldn’t fly. Not by a long shot…my neighbors would kill me and hate my replacement if I just left without say goodbye – formally. So, a farewell ceremony has to be planned relatively soon and the proper people invited so that no one is offended or snubbed. That I am NOT looking forward to…as I enjoy nothing more that being pleasantly inconspicuous.

Chilly Chilly Days....

30 June 2009
The last day of June has my fingers and toes numb form cold. I forgot to check the thermometer this morning but I need to buy some closed toed shoes. All day as I wrote notes on the board my fingers would cramp up from cold and my voice would crack from all the dust being whipped up by a cruelly cold wind. It is winter here. I may be less drowsy without the heat and therefore more productive, but I find myself thinking of bed more often…as that is the only place I actually feel warm.
I think I should extend. Not really, but I find myself brimming with ideas now and rapidly running out of time and not wanting to have too many projects happening at the same time. The electricity [thank you to Friends of Malawi] should be installed soon; I am waiting on another proposal for new student toilets and I’m currently helping an organization in Nathenje to get funding for orphan care projects they want to start. Then yesterday I got to thinking about how simple it would be to convert our spare classroom into a library. At present all o our books are shoved into a 3x8ft space, filled with termite gnawed shelves and when the students borrow them they take them home, get them dirty, tear pages or lose them. With an actual room, students would read books THERE and there would be far less damage. Simple simple. But I will wait until after we’ve got working light bulbs in all the classrooms. Then we can start the library.

2 July 2009
The entry into July has been no warmer than the departure from June. As I teach I am reminded of my senior biology class in high school. Dow High’s heating system was ancient, resulting in sauna-like English classes and iceboxes for math and science. I remember the classroom being so cold that we would wear our hats, coats and gloves to class…I even brought a blanket some days to keep my feet and legs warm. It always takes me a minute to figure out why I’m so cold here…even inside. Because across the vast ocean we actually have window panes to prevent wind, insulated walls, carpet and furnaces to blast around warm air.
That reminds me of the Midland house. We had floor vents and early on winter mornings, after showering and getting dressed, I’d erect a blanket tent over the vent in the kitchen and warm myself back up. It’d piss my dad off as he claimed I was hoarding all the heat intended for the entire room. At the Koinonia house in Grand Rapids I’d just perch on the various radiators in the house. Not so much an option here unfortunately.

7 July 2009
We’ve survived two independence days in one weekend – 4th of July for America and 6th July for Malawi, which celebrated 45 years of independence this year. We spent the Saturday [which was chaos at the Lilongwe house] secluded in Blantyre…cooking, watching movies and marking tests…in the quiet. We found an amazing Indian place and made bean burgers for dinner one night [but they weren’t as good as your “Jeannine’s and American Dinner” burgers Hope…how did you make them?]. Then we came back up yesterday…to a slightly less quiet Lilongwe house…without towels, sheets or clean bathrooms with tubs that drain. But there was hot water and that covers any multitude of other amenities in my mind! Today is finishing up proposals, checking in with the office staff, checking mail and email and saying goodbye to Alex who goes back to Kalamazoo today…after his two years in Malawi he heads home this afternoon – to Michigan. And it all seems so much nearer for me…the departure in December. But first I need to survive the end of the second school term. Have I mentioned before how much I loath the end of term?

Shimmying into June...

The true sign of a teacher...flip charts...chalk even all over the feet!!! :)

Early morning rays filter through my 'heating bath water' fire's smoke

Weird fruit thing that I found...thought it looked pretty cool though. Something IKEA designers would use as inspiration for a lampshade!

The garden in various stages of revamping...

17 May 2009
For all those who have ever wondered how this Peace Corps volunteer spends her Sunday mornings, here you go:
I slept in [until 6:30], got the charcoal fire started to heat up water, made crepes with dried cherry syrup [thanks Kari!!!!] and then settled down to some BBC World Have Your Say and painting my fingers and toes.

Stella is forcing me to go to church as I haven’t gone in nearly 3 months. Then Chimwemwe and I are having lunch before our belated Chichewa lesson. Hope he likes pitas!
It’s chilly these days…and dry. We have entered winter season. Thankfully the sun is bright and warm during the day.
For all that were worried, I am out of my funk. A chat with my mother helped…but so did finally getting home. I realized that my students, neighbors didn’t care that I didn’t have the money for the electricity…they were more concerned that I was home. And really, my primary duty here is to teach and be present in my village…and so that’s what I’m doing.
A few days ago, I taught my neighbors, Fanny, Eli and Edinesi how to make paper using only things they already had around their house: basins, bits of fabric, bricks, flour sieves, grassmats. We had a blast and they thought it was extraordinary! I also had to clarify that I didn’t come up with it myself. They thought I was a genius!

18 May 2009
Day before elections here in Malawi, finds me feeling purposeless and frustrated. I was expecting an almost full week of teaching. But yesterday I got a call from the deputy headmaster, that we’d have a holiday till Friday. And I couldn’t even hold holiday classes because students, in anticipation of a break, have gone back to their original homes. Uhg. Thus the purposelessness. And I can’t go anywhere….to town, to Mikes because we are in security hold. Due to the unknown reaction to elections we volunteers are confined to our villages. And so, therein lies the frustration. I’m trying to contact my site mate to see if he is around this week. Though site mate is a loose term…he’s a three hour bike ride away. Either way, I’m taking care of all out of house chores today, so I can just hole up in my house. The last place I want to walk past tomorrow would be the primary school where voting is happening. Part of me wants to see it, but the rational part of me, the part where I understand that I would be an azungu spectacle, that part tells me to stay home!
I took a long walk this afternoon along which I was given ground nuts [well, forced to take them was more like it] by a lovely woman and asked for money by a punkass little kid. But in spite of these distractions I managed to convince myself that sometimes you just have down time – and you just have to deal with it. And it’s no good filing it up with new activities because when life comes back in full force you won’t be able to follow through on those new ventures.
The new cool think to do in my neighborhood if you’re under the age of 5 is to jump up and down, in a rather wild fashion while shouting “Jeanini, Jeanini, Jeanini!” They don’t seem to expect any kind of response, purely for their own amusement.
Oh, and I think I might be out of sunscreen. That might be a problem. Finding some is definitely on the program for tomorrow.

19 May 2009
Good news, found a whole new bottle of sunscreen amidst all the bug spray stuff my family brought with them last year!
Today’s been great – made cake and tea just as Stella arrived, so we had tea together. Very Malawian. Then there was the neighborhood trip to the well – with election banter all along the way. Getting back after my second trip, my pizza dough was ready, so I started baking and then made cheese. And so I am having tomato ricotta pizza for lunch.

And I also made use of my eaten pumpkin shells by spray painting them and using them as storage containers.

21 May 2009
I am bike home after what Mike has coined my ‘Tour de Kalumbu’. I went to visit my site mates, and though I am no gauge of distance, it took me three hours with only one short pause to chat with one of my student’s parents. And no rubbery legs!!!! I was able to meet new students, especially the two that live with Brian, my nearest azungu neighbor. His two boys are great, funny and full of questions. With his student housemates and ‘maleness’ we decided it would be less scandalous if I spent the night at Salima’s house – about 3 minutes further along the road and she has electricity and even get VOA on her radio. So we prepped dinner as we listened to Larry London taking requests from around the world.

25 May 2009
Today there was another mysterious chair disappearance at school, leaving me and another teacher to flip a desk over on its side and share a perch as we marked papers. It was an interesting study in balance as when either of us shifted or got up the desk tipped precariously.
I’m averaging 3 books every week right now. I just finished JapanLand. It was a good culture study; as a foreigner trying to understand another. Though, I kiss the ground that my host family was NOTHING like this woman’s in Japan! Now I’m reading a book about a Peace Corps murder; one volunteer stabbed another to death in Tongo in the mid 1970’s called American Taboo. I’ve just started but it’s making me think about Peace Corps policy and institutional structure.

A random list for you:
Things I Oddly Like Here
Lots of salt on my food [it’s a craving many of us have developed here]
Cooked pumpkin
Beans [brown, white, yellow, red…]
Greens
Overly ripe, brown spotted bananas
Guavas, seeds and all

Oh, and I found a German Shortwave radio station. It’s only on in the evening…and only scratchily at that…but it’s a nice escape. Only I can understand it…the only one in my village. It’s a nice invisible feeling

Our staging director in Philly almost two years ago, casually mentioned that many volunteers miss all the attention when they come home. I will not be one of them. However, I feel that we will seem rather egotistical for a while; for this reason: here, when there’s a sudden outburst, discussion or explosion of laughter, I assume it’s because of me or because of something I have done…usually the assumption is right. However, back stateside, the assumption will most likely be wrong and we will look self-absorbed. Unless, of course, I’m carrying my groceries home on my head.

26 May 2009
A week since elections and the previous president, Bingu wa Mutharika, will get another 5 years. Everyone is happy, except the one opposition leader who is trying to prove rigging. Though, no one is paying him much attention…including his own Press Secretary, who was then fired. Whoops.
A not about jealousy: I don’t know the situation in other African countries, but Malawians cultivate an amazing degree of jealousy. People are openly jealous when things go well for someone else, they will go to the witch doctor to cures them, they will sabotage their own family members that excel in school. One of the teachers at school has singled out my three students, waiting for them to trip up and then unfairly punishes them. He doesn’t even have a child of an age to be in their place and get my ‘favour’. On what grounds is he jealous? I will never understand.

4 June 2009
I am now the proud owner of a flashy new Nalgene bottle [thank you to a lovely set of parents in Wyoming…and see, Mami…not everyone is freaking out about this plastics thing!]

This is what I love about being at site for extended periods of time – the days all begin to bleed together a bit. Did I see the crazy old man while I was running yesterday…or last week? Did I really run 4km this morning because I accidentally left Form1’s biology tests at my house and so had to run back to get them? Feels like yesterday!
Though some days do not bleed. Saturday, 30 May 2009 will not bleed into the mass of days that I have spent in Malawi. It will remain apart. My first Malawian friend, my age mate, my connection into the community when I first got here…died that day. It felt bizarre – even now – as though it didn’t really happen; especially as the funeral didn’t take place here but at the family’s original home. For the first part of this week I was beginning to think that a curse had been put on Kalumbu – a neighbor dies, the staffroom at school collapses, the headmaster’s son went missing, crazy old men freaking me out, massive construction vehicles permanently saturating the air with red dust. That last bit has been a source of amusement [at least for me]. Either because of my being an engineer or because in the states there’s always some construction going on…I would consider myself relatively used to dump trucks and diggers and rollers and then like. Yet my village is constantly pointing them out to me as though I’d respond ‘Oh, gee…that MASSIVE dump truck over there? Nope, I hadn’t even noticed that one!” Seriously?! But joking aside, so we will have a flat, though still dirt, road, free of rocks and 2ft ravines from rain flow. Biking will be much more pleasant. As soon as all the dust settles again.

5 June 2009
Finally Friday! I desperately need a weekend: external classes, weird Form1 girls that follow me home, stoned students that mouth off in class! So I decided NOT to have Girl’s Study Group and instead went home and shelled ground nuts as I listened to BBC. Then it was reading time, run, plan dinner and chat with Stella. The Swiss plan may be on the fritz for the moment; I’ve made some discoveries about insurance policies and general cost of living [plates of pasta equivalent to $20!!]. Thinking about the ‘real world’ is stressful! Thinking about finding an apartment [my house here was found for me and my landlord is my neighbor], medical insurance [though I am many many kilometers away from the nearest clinic, I can call either of our wonderful PC doctors anytime…with any strange symptoms] and just thinking about driving freaks me out! For 2 years now, the largest vehicle I’ve been in charge of has been my bicycle.

20 June 2009
And back in town and thus ends this marathon of a blog entry. Leaving work for Thursday and Friday’s classes I headed out on Wednesday after class to visit Mike and then back into Lilongwe to finish up work before going home [note: home = Kalumbu village, ja]. It was ridiculously COLD at his site…and windy and cloudy! Brrrrr! Sweaters, hats and mittens were involved on my part if that gives you an impression. And I am now intimately acquainted with the construction techniques and operation of Groundnut Shellers!

And for you, Mamili ...