It's frickin' MAY already?!?!?

School Break

A few weeks ago we had a 2 week spring break between the terms at school. The first week I kept busy around my house, including going for a bike ride with my Deputy Head Teacher. The second week I traveled up north to visit Deborah for a night, one of my nearest neighbors, in Mwansambo, then continue on up to Mzuzu to see Esther! I also attended a Passover party which was fabulous. My first Passover, and it may be one of my favorite holidays yet. We ate a ton of good food, drank some delicious lemongrass-cinnamon and pineapple hooch, and learned a little bit about the history of the Jews in Egypt. There were about 20 volunteers and a bunch of Malawians hanging about. We sat on sleeping bags and mattresses, there were candles and songs...it felt like a cozy family affair. Parts of this country look like Hawaii. I saw baboons on the escarpment. I ate rice and beans at a rasta restaurant. I wondered where the hell I was every 5 seconds. Then Esther and I headed back to Mzuzu (and the Mzoozoozoo, a crazy hostel run by crusty old expats from Britain who remind me of my dad), and her site, which is beautiful. We're going to climb the big hill next to her site one day and camp on top. She had made banana hooch which was delicious. I need to get brewing! And then I headed home. It was a restful holiday, but that didn't mean I was ready for school to start again! And my school is getting all shaken up: my Deputy was promoted, so he's going to leave and be the Head teacher somewhere else. It's good for him, but I'm losing my bike ride buddy, my running partner (his son), and a handful of great girlfriends (his daughters). I'm a little bummed. We've gotten one new teacher and supposedly two more are on their way.

Neighbors!

I have two new 'site mates' (in Niger we just said 'closest neighbor'): Ellie and Erin. Ellie's 6 miles south of me and Erin's about 20k north. Ellie was in Niger, in the group that had just sworn in, so even though I didn't know her at all then, it's nice to have someone so close with whom to reminisce about Niger (and Morocco). Erin's awesome too, and they're both health volunteers so I'm looking forward to collaborating with them on projects in the future. AIDS activities? Murals? Girls Club activities? Bring it on!

AIDS!

A few weekends ago I biked 14k to Makioni (sounds like: macaroni) to see my friend Dave at work. He works for a faith-based HIV/AIDS consortium which does education outreach as well as helping HIV positive people (reminding them to take their meds, in-home care, teaching them skills and helping them get employment, etc. etc.). He and his youth were going to do an outreach at Makioni, but then it turned out nobody there had been told, and it hadn't been advertised, so they decided to bike back to Thavite and an impromptu program at my school. Dave had me get up in front of many of my students and 'say something about AIDS.' Put on the spot, I mumbled something about peer pressure and making your own decisions, and that it's good that we talk about this stuff. I was completely out of my element. Not very much was actually said about AIDS, but Dave did get a lot of hands raised when he asked who would get tested if he had a blood-testing event at the school. It got me really excited to collaborate with him somehow in the future, and serendipitously 2 days later I found myself at an HIV/AIDS training at Senga Bay (or 'Sengambe' as one of my students spelled it). The training turned out to be more of a feedback session for volunteers to voice what HIV/AIDS training and support we would like. The whole week was very inspiring to me: I want to start some sort of Girls Club at my school and start having conversations with my students and doing educational activities about HIV/AIDS, making good decisions, etc. etc. I even dreamed last night that I was educating my students about HIV/AIDS (the four fluids). Crazy.

Senga Bay is unbelievable. Gazing out at the lake, (because one doesn't just look at these things, one gazes), drink in hand, friends at my side, and nothing but beach and water in sight (and other lodges, Indians and bwana Malawians on vacation), I thought: 'Where the hell am I?' and 'Niger was nowhere near as beautiful as this.' It's unbelievable how close such luxury is to my site (less than 2 hours), where I'm volunteering to make the world a better place. In Niger we were so far from anything superfluous that it seems strange to me that beachside lodges and near-starving rural people can exist in such proximity. A lot of things seem strange. Like Africans farming tobacco and cotton. I keep thinking of American slaves as I drive by men stuffing cotton into bags, but at least these guys are free, whatever that means. Most of my students, no matter how intelligent they are (and really I can count those on one hand), are never going to go anywhere. They'll probably stay in the same district, and hopefully be able to eke out a living for themselves and their children, probably farming, and hopefully not die of AIDS. I found out that John (my watchman) absorbed two nieces and a nephew into his family when both their parents died of AIDS. That's tragically pretty common here. And hearing about Malawi's funding problems for ARVs, (they're going to stop getting them in 2 years because they weren't giving them out correctly), it makes me give thanks that I'm an American, even with our shitty health care system. (Forgive me, I've been out of the country for awhile...is it getting any better?)

I text my friends in Niger probably more than I should. I texted them the day we found out Osama Bin Laden had been killed, because I was curious what their reaction would be, and what the general sentiment would be in a Muslim nation. "Those who kill should be killed" my friend Sani said in a text. "Like all Americans the death of Bin Laden is a good thing for me because he killed a lot of people" said my friend Issa. I called Sani later, a few beers in, (3 minutes cost me 700 kwacha, but it was worth it), and maybe I shouldn't be clinging to these threads, texting and calling them, but the bonds I made, however brief, were special, and I'm going to go back to Matameye somehow, someday. Maybe I'll make up my own NGO, or just freelance develop, like Miriam does. I'll figure something out. Niger is just so wildly different from America, and Malawi...isn't. In Niger everyone was poor, everyone was in the same boat. Here there's a definite disconnect between the haves (still probably only 1% of the population) and the have-nots. I got a hitch from two bwana Malawians (air conditioning!?!), and I thought: 'you're as different from my villagers as I am.' People may have shirts now (before Malawi gained its independence they didn't, apparently), but they're not going to get much more than that any time soon, especially when British High Commissioners get kicked out.

Kalulu

Thursday I bought a rabbit from my neighbor for 500 kwacha (<$4). I let it hop around my house all night (well, it just stayed under my bed, but I did give it some bean leaves), and gave it to John (my watchman) the next morning to take home. The next day, Saturday, I went to his house to visit and we killed and ate the poor little thing! Its skin was shockingly white. Once the fur was ripped off, its tail wasn't fat, like I'd expected, but long and skinny, like a dogs. Its meat and organs were delicious. It's amazing how removed we can be from our food in America, and how the people here don't have that luxury. Getting the rabbit from cute living being to relish was no easy task. They killed it, ripped its fur off (after boiling it, so it would come off easier, but it still took awhile), cut it up, cleaned out its organs, cooked it...it took all morning. I knew that rabbit, and then I ate it. "Zikomo kalulu" (thank you rabbit), I said, and it made sense to me. The Native Americans had it right: take only what you need, when you need it, and give thanks to the animal and the Creator for providing you with a few bites of protein.

Disco

Two nights ago my school had a 'disco' (a dance). It was horrifying, which was to be expected. The boys were drinking sachets, which are shots of spirits in ketchup packets, basically. No joke. I heard they hit the states, and are being banned everywhere they turn up, of course. Can you imagine? Prom, college sporting events, concerts, political rallies, the nature of these events would change forever. These have the revolutionary potential of jello shots, or, or...bitch beer! Anyways, as you can imagine, the boys were out of control (and the ratio was about 4:1, by my hazy estimation, guys to girls). The generator wasn't working for a bit, but when it was I came to the conclusion (again) that Malawian music is shitty. Not as shitty as Hausa music, but shitty. Which is to say, there's a time and place for it (in a mini-bus, while you're waiting for a mini-bus at a trading centre, etc.), but it's never going to be my first choice when I want to get my groove on. Music is one of the clearest illustrations of cultural differences, in my experience. Play me some Chris Brown, Justin Bieber, Rihanna, Lil Wayne, Beyonce, Usher and I can't help myself: I have to dance. Play some Lucious Banda or Don Lu and I'm like huh? But they just went nuts. At first the little kids were kind of annoying (how scandalous could I get with them around?), but I soon saw their advantage. I kept Alan, my 5-year-old neighbor, close the whole night, and any time a creeper started creeping up on me, (the price was 50 kwacha for students and 60 kwacha for 'intruders' as they put it) I'd maneuver so Alan was between us. Shameless, I know, but at least Alan avoided being trampled out of the deal. Finally, I was tired, so Alan and I walked home in the moonlight, and thus ended my first and last Malawian disco.

Teaching

Teaching is...hard. To all the teachers out there, ntchito wabwino! Sannu da kokari! Good fucking work! Every so often I'll have a moment, or if I'm lucky, an entire 40-minute period where things just click and I feel inspired by what I'm teaching and somehow get the feeling that it's connecting to the students. Those moments are all too rare, however. Most of the time I'm frustrated: trying to think up ways other than straight lecturing to teach grammar, trying to get the students interested in the literature we're reading, whether it's decent (Looking for a Rain God) or so irrelevant, outdated and beyond their comprehension that it hardly seems worth it. In Form 1 we're reading An Introduction to English Literature, published in the '60's, with poems and excerpts from the likes of Dickens, Keats, Austen, Wordsworth...arguably great stuff, but come on! We're in Malawi here! I try not to get too discouraged by their writing and spelling. I started teaching them Hausa. This term I'm also teaching a period of PE. They kind of sucked at Capture the Flag (the concept of prison was lost on them). (Speaking of, any ideas for big group field games? I'm open). Education is where it's at, but if there aren't many universities, or the exams are arbitrary and inapplicable to real life, and the teachers are overworked and sometimes not even paid, then what chance do these kids really have?

The Princess of Thavite

Last weekend I felt like the princess of Thavite. Our MP (Member of Parliament) is putting on a sports tournament for all the schools in the area, so of course it had to be officially launched. I show up at my trading centre at 10:00am, the advertised start time, my first mistake. We're on Africa time here, Annette, duh! Loitering around with nothing to do is harder than it looks. I was antsy and aimless, but forced myself to stick around. I ended up chatting with some of my students, confirming that the tailor had my measurements, chatting with my landlord, and buying some rape (Chinese rape? What is it called in English?). Just when I was giving up and heading home to fix myself lunch, the MP pulled up. It was noon. So I stuck around. I watched a mini game of netball (cousin to basketball, that only girls play) and a game of football (until the ball popped). I sat next to the MP and chatted about oxcarts ("You haven't had those in America for awhile, have you?" he said. "No," I replied) and other things. He told me that Malawi has too many MPs (190-odd), and should cut back. If so much of the government's budget comes from foreign aid, Malawi could save Britain and the US money, or at least put it to better use, by reducing the number of MPs. Interesting, coming from him. Then Sally said the MPs just gave themselves raises. Huh. At one point during the football game the TA (Traditional Authority) rolled up. TAs are chiefs, who have some responsibilities and powers (ruling on local disputes) but are completely separate from the government. Come to find out, the TA for my area is a woman! For a moment I was sitting between her and the MP while they chatted about who knows what. Between the MP and the TA! What does that make me? I felt like royalty, and compared myself to British royals sitting around watching polo or cricket or tennis or some such nonsense, drinking mint juleps, socializing and maybe even squeezing in some official state business. Minus the mint juleps in my case. The MP said he wants to bring some of my students to the Parliament in Lilongwe and that I could come too. That would be so awesome! ...But if I've learned anything in Africa, it's not to hold my breath.

From here

Ellie and I started finishing (paradox) a mural begun by Brittany, the volunteer Ellie replaced. We're painting the Periodic Table of Elements at a secondary school near her town. It's got me excited to paint a mural or two at my school ("We want you to paint something here to remember you by" the Headteacher said). If I can figure out funding, I'm hoping to work on that over the summer. I also want to help with the camps Peace Corps Malawi has been putting on for awhile, Glow and Sky. And get a Girls Club going. I'm also reading like a fiend and trying to run and yoga as much as I can. I also just heard about some hot springs that are apparently just a bikeride away from my site, so I'm hoping to check those out soon! Life is good. It's weird how normal bush living is for me.