My site is great. It's small (no electricity...we have solar panels at the school we use to charge our phones!), and beautiful. On a clear day, on a hill, I can see the lake! It's about a 10k bike-ride away...last weekend some of my little girlfriends and I rode to the lake, ate a picnic, bought fresh fish off a boat, and biked back and cooked them for dinner. Yum! Pigs wander around the school...pigs! They make me so happy, and people who didn't just spend the last 6 months in a Muslim country just think I'm weird.
Teaching is...interesting. I'm teaching Form 1 (AKA 9th grade) English and Form 3 Literature-yikes! We're starting with the basics, including obscure grammar rules that baffle me (indefinite articles with countable and uncountable nouns?). I'm lucky to be surrounded by a supportive staff (I'm the only lady!), and awesome kids (a 60-student classroom in America wouldn't be as well-behaved as these are, I'm sure). I'm still living with my head teacher and his wife and grandson, Chisomo, but it's actually been a nice transition. My meals are cooked for me and my Chichewa is slowly but surely coming along (favorite word: nyambi nyambi 'firefly'). Hopefully I'll be moving into my house next week or the next.
Today I went to the airport to welcome a new group of Environment and Health volunteers, including 3 girls from Niger (yeah Ellie, Shelly and Carolyn!!). Good to see familiar faces, and a reminder that life continues. I've been in Malawi for almost a month now. Weird!
I can't say thank you enough to all my supportive friends and family. If I didn't have such a solid homebase I wouldn't be able to do what I do. Yeah Malawi!
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