If you haven't checked it out yet, we have pictures posted!! I've got an album at http://picasaweb.google.com/tinawaterbury/MalawiPics
and Zeb has some different pics at
http://picasaweb.google.com/zwaterbury/MalawiPhotosAttempt1#
and
http://picasaweb.google.com/zwaterbury/MoreFromMalawi#
I hope everyone has had a great Christmas. Ours didn't go quite as expected, but it was still pretty nice. We had planned to be back at our site for Christmas after our quick trip into the city. Zeb was having a rash checked out by the doctor that has been getting worse for the past month. But by Wednesday morning it had spread further, including to his face, which looked like he'd been punched in the eye. The Dr. said it was an allergic reaction, although we can't figure out what to, and put Zeb on "med hold" (meaning he has to stay in Lilongwe) until Monday, dec 29. The good thing about that is that because this is now a medical trip he'll get reimbursed for travel costs, and since it is Christmas they're going to cover mine too.
So, we spent our Christmas at the Peace Corps transit house in Lilongwe. At first we thought that we'd be the only ones there for Christmas, then two others from our training group, Erika and Meagan, showed up. However, they're reason for being stuck at the house was far more interesting than ours. They were at the beach and saw a cute little monkey sitting on a bench smelling a flower. Erika decided that it was too cute to pass up and took a picture. The monkey kindly stayed put until she got the perfect picture, and then proceded to drop the flower and jump onto her leg biting and scratching. Not such a cute monkey after all. Luckily the monkey was pretty small and only left a bruise and a few scratches, but since it drew blood she had to come in for rabies shots, and Meagan was a good friend and came with her.
So the four of us had a nice Christmas Eve dinner of steak kabobs on the grill with garlic mashed potatoes and homemade toffee for dessert. Then Christmas Morning we made french toast, zucchini bread, and christmas cookies. It was amazing. Aside from the food, it was still a nice, relaxing day. I even took a nice long bath. (Of course, I had to spend a good hour bleaching and scrubbing the bathtub first since this house is about as clean as a frat house, but it was worth it.) And then on Saturday I even went clothes shopping-- Malawian style. Here in LL there is a giant used clothes market, where there are probably hundreds of vendors with piles and piles of used clothing (most sent here from Britain or the States). If you dig hard and long enough you can find some sweet deals on some nice clothes. Its kinda like Goodwill on steroids. So even though our plans were completely turned around, it worked out alright. Christmas was still tough though, just because it would be so nice to be able to be with our families. This has probably been the most homesick since we've been in country, but it has been really nice to at least be in the city with email access so can have more communication than we'd have had at site.
So the plan for now is to finish up what we need to do here tomorrow morning and then head back to site, although it may not be until Tuesday that we actually make it there. The worst part about this whole week is that we are supposed to have a staff meeting at school Tuesday morning and turn in our Schemes and Records (rough weekly outline of lessons) for the first term of school then too. We left without bringing all of the books we need to finish them since we thought we'd be back Wed or Thurs, so now we don't know if we'll get them in on time (or at least have the time to a decent job) and we might not even get back in time for the meeting. I know there wasn't much we could do about it and our headmaster understands that, but I still feel bad about it. Plus, that's just that much less time to get things around before school starts next monday. It will be a busy week for us coming up anyway, and probably even busier the week after that. I am looking forward to starting classes, getting to know the students, starting up the library, and just finally settling into a routine. We've been moving around so much since we got in country that it will be a welcome (I think) change to be staying in the same place doing the same thing for a while.
Well, I will wrap up here. Thank you to everyone for your emails! It is so nice to hear from home. I expect that it will probably be April before I update again. We have a term break and have another week of training. But then, plans change often here so we will see. I hope everyone is doing well and having a great holiday, and I wish everyone a happy New Year!!
Tina
Sunday, December 28, 2008
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
My first blog as a PCV!!
The Last Two Weeks
First I must apologize. My last post got cut a little short and I did not post pictures as promised (although I maintain that this is the fault of of the computer for failing me and for the crazy whirlwind pre-swearing in schedule--I tried). Anyway, as I type this I am uploading pics on Picassa, so hopefully it will work.
Well, we've had almost 2 weeks at site now. I was also wrong in my last blog when I said that we would be moving to site and then getting started with what we came here to do. As it turned out we arrived at our site Wed afternoon, moved our stuff into the house, had a nice tea time with the other teachers, and then got sick. Wed night Zeb got hit hard with some bacterial dysentery ( I think), and lets just say that the chim (if I haven't yet explained, chim is short for "chimbuzi," meaning toilet--or hole in the ground) was broken in rather well very quickly. So Zeb had a very rough night. I won't talk too much about the gross details, but you can probably read about them on his blog if you want. Then the next morning it hit me too. Not quite as bad, but my bowels were still pretty unhappy. By Thursday afternoon we had fevers of 102'F. We called the Dr and got on meds that evening (Peace Corps takes care of us well-- in our med kits we have a bunch of 'just in case' medications should we need them at site). So it was Sunday before we even started unpacking, Monday before we left the house, and probably wednesday before we were really back to being productive.
But once we got back on our feet we got to planting our garden, which was exciting and fun because it was nice to play inthe dirt and actually feel self sufficient and productive. If all goes well, we will have an AWESOME garden (thanks to our parents for the seeds!!). We planted like 24 different things, and we hope once it gets going we won't have to buy produce. We also want to expand the selection from what is available in the market (right now all the produce we have is tomatoes, onions, greens, and sometimes potatoes at our market). We also hope that the garden works out well because we're also hoping to use it as a demonstration garden to encourage our students and other community members to try different, more sustainable farming techniques. Our neighbors thought we were crazy for planting in guilds and not planting only maize in neat little rows, and I think they expect that it won't really work. We also want to really encourage people to diversify crops. The diet is very monotonous, and more kinds of fruits and veggies means more nutrients, as well as security from plant specific diseases and the benefits of filling a new niche at the market (there's a lot more profit in being the one person that sells carrots than in being one of 50 who sell tomatoes). So, those are our hopes for our garden. When we left yesterday we had radishes beans and watermelon popping up. We are also trying our own special fertilizer; we got a 'night time pee pail', which we then dilute and apply inthe mornings. We'll see.
So once the guarded was planted, we moved on to some work on the house and started to prepare for school. Things are slow right now, so I think it will be a shock once classes start up and things get moving again, but I'm looking forward to it. I am also going to be the librarian (and zeb is the sports master) which I am very excited about. Right now the library is a big, pretty nice room, but with only one shelf of books. It is meager, to say the least, but it is loaded with potential. Classes start Jan 5th.
Christmas Plans
With school on the way, we were thinking of spending Christmas at our new home, and having a nice quiet holiday to ourselves. But, as you may have put together, it is now Christmas eve and here I am in Lilongwe on the computer. About a month ago Zeb got a rash under his fake wedding ring, so he stopped wearing it. It didn't go away, and in the last couple weeks it spread and a few days ago it spread to his face and he looked like he'd been punched in the eye. So we came to Lilongwe yesterday so Zeb could see the Dr. It was an allergy (although we don't know to what) and now he has meds to take again. It worked out though because we had some things to pick up in town, including mail (sidenote: we will have new addresses for mail, although the current one will still work, but we will only pick up mail when we get to Lilongwe-- next week our parents will have the new addresses), and getting online. As for our plans now, we will try to get back to Mzuzu tonight and stay the night at the PC transit house, maybe with some other volunteers, and then return home either Christmas afternoon or the next day. I may be temped to stay at the transit house and bake Christmas cookies...we'll see. But who knows. One thing I have learned here is be flexible-- never expect anything with too much certainty.
The Hardest Job You'll Ever Love
So, that is the update of our lives since swearing in. I can say that so far Peace Corps has lived up to its claim of being "the hardest job you'll ever love," and I think that it will continue to be true. Training was very frustrating, and even difficult, but nothing like our limited experiences this far at site. Being sick just flat out sucked, and even after getting over that communication is a challenge, and I feel like really integrating into the village will take far more time and effort than i anticipated. Now that we have the freedom to hole up in our house and read all day it takes a lot of motivation to get my butt out the door and make the effort to meet people. A favorite pasttime of Malawians is kuchezga-- chatting--and you all know how much of a chatter I am (and for those who don't, I'm not). You cannot travel anywhere without stopping to talk to each person who is out working the fields, or getting water, or walking somewhere. Here in Malawi, walking is a social activity. This is frustrating because sometimes I just like to walk to explore, or just want to get somewhere, or just want to go becuase I like to go hiking and running and walking and be left to my own thoughts. And stopping every minute along a 30 minute walk is very inefficient (I'll write more on efficiency later... I've thought a lot about that lately). However, it is good because it just shows how open Malawians are to building relationships--even if at first that relationship consists of me stumbling through a jumble of incorrect Chitumbuka words and English and the other person just laughing at me. The thing is that is what I came here to do, to cross cultures through building relationships. And even if the progress is incredible slow and there are many (very many) times when I really don't feel like "building relationships," there is enough there to provide some fulfilment and keep me going and make it worth being here.
Appreciating My Culture
I came to Malawi wanting to really become Malawian, to immerge myself in a different cultures and come to appreciate the benefits of a non-American culture. However I have found this expectation shifting since I've been here. I still think that Malawian culture has a lot to offer and I look forward to learning from that over the next two years. For example, friendliness and the value of relationships and community are things that we sometimes overlook in the US. But I am also learning to appreciate some of the things that my own culture has to offer. One example, as I mentioned earlier, is efficiency. Efficiency is an American value, but not necessarily Malawian. There times here when I just want to pull my hair out because of the time (and thus productivity and thus progress) that is wasted because of time spent chatting or because of poor planning or any number of other reasons. I had looked forward to living in a culture that was so laid back and not so time oriented and scheduled, but now I am shocked at how frustrating that culture really is to me. I still think there is value there. Time may be money, but even here in malawi money is not everything. To touch on Zebs theme, even with all of the money and progress in America (relatively speaking), life there is still hard in a real way. We do still need to take time to appreciate each other and the things that we do have. I think that if I can come out of this experience with a healthy appreciation of what is important, what values from any cultures are worth holding onto, then I will be happy.
First I must apologize. My last post got cut a little short and I did not post pictures as promised (although I maintain that this is the fault of of the computer for failing me and for the crazy whirlwind pre-swearing in schedule--I tried). Anyway, as I type this I am uploading pics on Picassa, so hopefully it will work.
Well, we've had almost 2 weeks at site now. I was also wrong in my last blog when I said that we would be moving to site and then getting started with what we came here to do. As it turned out we arrived at our site Wed afternoon, moved our stuff into the house, had a nice tea time with the other teachers, and then got sick. Wed night Zeb got hit hard with some bacterial dysentery ( I think), and lets just say that the chim (if I haven't yet explained, chim is short for "chimbuzi," meaning toilet--or hole in the ground) was broken in rather well very quickly. So Zeb had a very rough night. I won't talk too much about the gross details, but you can probably read about them on his blog if you want. Then the next morning it hit me too. Not quite as bad, but my bowels were still pretty unhappy. By Thursday afternoon we had fevers of 102'F. We called the Dr and got on meds that evening (Peace Corps takes care of us well-- in our med kits we have a bunch of 'just in case' medications should we need them at site). So it was Sunday before we even started unpacking, Monday before we left the house, and probably wednesday before we were really back to being productive.
But once we got back on our feet we got to planting our garden, which was exciting and fun because it was nice to play inthe dirt and actually feel self sufficient and productive. If all goes well, we will have an AWESOME garden (thanks to our parents for the seeds!!). We planted like 24 different things, and we hope once it gets going we won't have to buy produce. We also want to expand the selection from what is available in the market (right now all the produce we have is tomatoes, onions, greens, and sometimes potatoes at our market). We also hope that the garden works out well because we're also hoping to use it as a demonstration garden to encourage our students and other community members to try different, more sustainable farming techniques. Our neighbors thought we were crazy for planting in guilds and not planting only maize in neat little rows, and I think they expect that it won't really work. We also want to really encourage people to diversify crops. The diet is very monotonous, and more kinds of fruits and veggies means more nutrients, as well as security from plant specific diseases and the benefits of filling a new niche at the market (there's a lot more profit in being the one person that sells carrots than in being one of 50 who sell tomatoes). So, those are our hopes for our garden. When we left yesterday we had radishes beans and watermelon popping up. We are also trying our own special fertilizer; we got a 'night time pee pail', which we then dilute and apply inthe mornings. We'll see.
So once the guarded was planted, we moved on to some work on the house and started to prepare for school. Things are slow right now, so I think it will be a shock once classes start up and things get moving again, but I'm looking forward to it. I am also going to be the librarian (and zeb is the sports master) which I am very excited about. Right now the library is a big, pretty nice room, but with only one shelf of books. It is meager, to say the least, but it is loaded with potential. Classes start Jan 5th.
Christmas Plans
With school on the way, we were thinking of spending Christmas at our new home, and having a nice quiet holiday to ourselves. But, as you may have put together, it is now Christmas eve and here I am in Lilongwe on the computer. About a month ago Zeb got a rash under his fake wedding ring, so he stopped wearing it. It didn't go away, and in the last couple weeks it spread and a few days ago it spread to his face and he looked like he'd been punched in the eye. So we came to Lilongwe yesterday so Zeb could see the Dr. It was an allergy (although we don't know to what) and now he has meds to take again. It worked out though because we had some things to pick up in town, including mail (sidenote: we will have new addresses for mail, although the current one will still work, but we will only pick up mail when we get to Lilongwe-- next week our parents will have the new addresses), and getting online. As for our plans now, we will try to get back to Mzuzu tonight and stay the night at the PC transit house, maybe with some other volunteers, and then return home either Christmas afternoon or the next day. I may be temped to stay at the transit house and bake Christmas cookies...we'll see. But who knows. One thing I have learned here is be flexible-- never expect anything with too much certainty.
The Hardest Job You'll Ever Love
So, that is the update of our lives since swearing in. I can say that so far Peace Corps has lived up to its claim of being "the hardest job you'll ever love," and I think that it will continue to be true. Training was very frustrating, and even difficult, but nothing like our limited experiences this far at site. Being sick just flat out sucked, and even after getting over that communication is a challenge, and I feel like really integrating into the village will take far more time and effort than i anticipated. Now that we have the freedom to hole up in our house and read all day it takes a lot of motivation to get my butt out the door and make the effort to meet people. A favorite pasttime of Malawians is kuchezga-- chatting--and you all know how much of a chatter I am (and for those who don't, I'm not). You cannot travel anywhere without stopping to talk to each person who is out working the fields, or getting water, or walking somewhere. Here in Malawi, walking is a social activity. This is frustrating because sometimes I just like to walk to explore, or just want to get somewhere, or just want to go becuase I like to go hiking and running and walking and be left to my own thoughts. And stopping every minute along a 30 minute walk is very inefficient (I'll write more on efficiency later... I've thought a lot about that lately). However, it is good because it just shows how open Malawians are to building relationships--even if at first that relationship consists of me stumbling through a jumble of incorrect Chitumbuka words and English and the other person just laughing at me. The thing is that is what I came here to do, to cross cultures through building relationships. And even if the progress is incredible slow and there are many (very many) times when I really don't feel like "building relationships," there is enough there to provide some fulfilment and keep me going and make it worth being here.
Appreciating My Culture
I came to Malawi wanting to really become Malawian, to immerge myself in a different cultures and come to appreciate the benefits of a non-American culture. However I have found this expectation shifting since I've been here. I still think that Malawian culture has a lot to offer and I look forward to learning from that over the next two years. For example, friendliness and the value of relationships and community are things that we sometimes overlook in the US. But I am also learning to appreciate some of the things that my own culture has to offer. One example, as I mentioned earlier, is efficiency. Efficiency is an American value, but not necessarily Malawian. There times here when I just want to pull my hair out because of the time (and thus productivity and thus progress) that is wasted because of time spent chatting or because of poor planning or any number of other reasons. I had looked forward to living in a culture that was so laid back and not so time oriented and scheduled, but now I am shocked at how frustrating that culture really is to me. I still think there is value there. Time may be money, but even here in malawi money is not everything. To touch on Zebs theme, even with all of the money and progress in America (relatively speaking), life there is still hard in a real way. We do still need to take time to appreciate each other and the things that we do have. I think that if I can come out of this experience with a healthy appreciation of what is important, what values from any cultures are worth holding onto, then I will be happy.
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
Swearing In!!!!!
Well, today is the day we finally become Peace Corps volunteers. I am very happy for that. It seems as though we have been in training for so long. In a couple of hours we will go to the ambassedor's house for our swearing in ceremony. We will sit through the ceremony, take the official oath (the same one that Obama will be taking in January!), sign some papers, and then first thing tomorrow morning we leave for site to finally start doing what we came here to do.
It will be a huge adjustment, but I am excited about it. Training here is such a controlled environment. Lots of rules, lots of structure, lots of scheduled classes and sessions, and not even the freedom to choose what I want to eat. I am so excited to actually cook a meal for myself for once!!! Don't get me wrong, training has been an important and (mostly) necessary thing, but we are just ready to move on.
It will be a huge adjustment, but I am excited about it. Training here is such a controlled environment. Lots of rules, lots of structure, lots of scheduled classes and sessions, and not even the freedom to choose what I want to eat. I am so excited to actually cook a meal for myself for once!!! Don't get me wrong, training has been an important and (mostly) necessary thing, but we are just ready to move on.
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