Last Entry in Malawi

I now have exactly one week in Malawi. My plane leaves next Monday in the afternoon, so it is actually truthful when I say I have exactly one week left. The past 2 weeks were actually very action packed and maybe my most enjoyable in Malawi. I did some traveling, which cleared up a lot of self doubt that I could actually travel by myself. I know that your thinking, “Paul what are you talking about you are by yourself in Africa?”, but I kinda stayed in one place here and didn’t move around too much until this past week when I traveled up to Nahkata Bay and Mzuzu (google map Blantyre to Mzuzu and Nahkata Bay to see what I mean). I did meet some back packers from all around at Nahkata Bay that I am envious of. I met one from Australia, Canada, England, France, Germany, Norway, and 3 from Denmark. I am envious of them, because they are traveling overland all over Africa alone for the experience, alone that is a lonely and crazy trip to say the least. I will get back to all the people I met later, but you know how my recollections like to jump around. On December 19 we had the school Christmas party. Unfortunately Santa was not able to make it because we couldn’t find a Santa suit anywhere in Blantyre, I was co-assigned the task of finding the suit, but in all reality I had no idea where to look so a few of the Malawians looked for one and they came up empty-handed. I found it a little humorous, but on Christmas Eve in Blantyre I found suits they were selling at Shoprite. So we had the party without Santa. I gave a presentation on how people celebrate Christmas around the world and then had people from all the different countries represented stand up and tell about their Christmas traditions. Chihiro and Aumi dressed in traditional Japanese Kimonos (dresses, I think that’s the right word) and sang a few songs, Hanah also sang a song from South Korea which was awesome, she has a great voice. When it came time for Bingo, instead of Santa, Santa’s little brother Paul came in with presents and distributed presents to the winners. Yes, it was a little cheesy, but the Malawians loved it, they really really loved bingo. As we started to have lunch (chicken and rice), it started pouring outside. It even started hailing which a lot of the Malawians we were with had never seen before. It was only pea sized hail, but a lot of the people were afraid. I tried to explain about golf ball and baseball sized hail that happens every once in a while in the US, but most of the people just looked at me like what in the heck is this crazy white man talking about? I guess it didn’t help that I was excited by the storm while all of them were terrified. The party ended a little early because of the rain, so the second round of bingo was canceled. We also said goodbye to Forward on of the teachers from the school. He is leaving Malawi and returning home to Zimbabwe to go back to school. Forward leaving is a huge lose for the school. He was one of the most active and knowledgeable teachers at Amalika. A lot of people were sad about the news, several students and teachers were even crying, but I had a big smile on my face. I had gotten to know Forward pretty well over the past few months, and I think this was the best route for him. I had sensed that something was going on with him that week, but never guessed it would have been what it was. Forward was a great teacher, I can only hope that some of if not most of these students can end up being as good of a teacher as him. After the party there was a dance for the students. I went to the dance for a little bit, but had dinner with the DIs. The next day I went to Blantyre to spend a week with Lawrence and his family. The week was pretty slow, but it was nice because I needed a break. It was pretty nice to watch tv again, even if I did mainly watch music videos on mtv jamz and the urban African channel. On Tuesday I went with Grisham and lawrence’s kids Tintumbike, Limbani, and little Lawrence to Game Haven, the game reserve in Bvumbwe. We met Lawrence there for lunch which was heavenly; they had mashed potatoes which I devoured. After lunch we went on a tour of the reserve. Lawrence was supposed to join us, but he had to go back to work because they have been working him to the bone over the past few weeks. The tour of the reserve was way over priced for a 30 minute tour. We got to see a Giraffe, a few zebra, a sable, and a few other grazers. I really liked the zebras. The giraffe was great too, but it looked so sad. I guess giraffes are very sensitive creatures though, if they get stressed out or too nervous they will die so if I was like that life would be rough too. After we got back from the Game Heaven, life just sort of went on for a few days until Christmas. I wasn’t expecting much for Christmas, Lawrence’s brother Jonathon put up a few decorations and a small fake tree, there were also a few gifts under the tree for the little ones. I bought gift certificates to a clothing store for the three older girls that live with Lawrence and Prisca; his two nieces and the maid. They were very excited, but I really just wanted to thank them for treating me so nicely the past few months. I also bought Jonathon and Grisham some movies; it helps that you can buy like 30 movies on one disc. The quality suffers a little bit, but 30 full movies on one DVD is really not bad no matter what. I didn’t get anything for the immediate family because I plan on sending them a thank you/ gift package after I get back to the states (they know I am good for it). I went into town on Christmas morning to see if any stores were open, I was really hoping to use the internet. A few things were open, but not as many as I had expected. Christmas really just seemed like another day until I came back to lawrence’s house and Prisca and Jonathon had cooked up a big lunch. They made chicken and chips and had salad (Prisca even found Ranch for me) and sandwiches. They had been planning a big surprise lunch and dinner for some time, it was really special. The night before around 3 am I got to talk to my family which also helped me through the holidays. Sadly my uncle Doug’s father Doug Edward’s Sr had passed away early on Christmas Eve, so that was pretty sad news, but we all know that he is smiling down from heaven now. I know it is cold, snowing, and hard to see anything let alone the sky in KC, but in Malawi the sky looks so divine every day and you can tell that the people we have lost over the years are up there enjoying themselves in such spectacular beauty, waiting to greet all of us whenever our time comes. The day after Christmas the family minus Lawrence went to Chikwawa to go to the Nyala Game Reserve. We had heard it was the best one to go to that was in Chikwawa, which is accessible right now and only an hour drive from Blantyre. We went and saw a lot of the same animals as game haven, but a lot more quantity. We got to see a heard of Giraffe and some buffalo (African buffalo), and it was a lot more fun than game haven. They also advertised that they had a hippo pound which I was really excited about. They didn’t have elephants which was a bummer, any predators, or rhino, but I will see them sometime in my life, whenever come back to Africa (I promised myself this). We drove to the area where the hippo pound was advertised and when we got there it was a sports club. The people working at the sports club said that if you’re not a member then you need to pay 2000 kwacha per person to buy a one day pass. Before we paid I made Prisca ask about the Hippos because these people looked like they were trying to rip us off, coincidently even though there was a sign that said come see our hippos at the club house, they didn’t have any hippos. They said they were in the process of getting a few hippos, but currently didn’t have any. I was just a little ticked off. I mean they would have gladly accepted out money and then once we found out there were no hippos, we would have been SOL (shit out of Luck) on getting that money back. Prisca was also not very happy and told them what she thought of their little scam. They could care less and asked us to leave, which we gladly did. People come to their reserve to see these animals and they flat out lie about what they actually have, unreal, too unreal. They guy had a cross around his neck too, hypocrisy runs wild sometimes. Besides Chikwawa being the place to go to see animals, it is also the hottest place I have ever been to. The mini-bus we were in over heated simply because of how hot it was on our trip there and back. We were stuck on the side of the road for about an hour while the engine cooled. Standing in that sun during the 1-2 o’clock hours is not fun in the slightest. I later heard from a Peace Corps volunteer I met, that there is a Peace Corps guy that works in Chikwawa. He told the girl I met that it is so hot that they can really only work till mid day and after they have to go and sit in the shade just because it is so freakin hot. It doesn’t help that Chikwawa is in a major drought right now and that if it doesn’t rain like this week, all of the area’s crops will have to be replanted. We did make it back home and on our way back we met a small rain storm while driving through the mountains just a few kilo meters from Chikwawa, I know what you are thinking, but no that rain did not make it Chikwawa. It rains all around Chikwawa just not in that area. When we got back into Blantrye I was actually a little bummed out that I didn’t get to see any hippos. I really wanted to see those cranky creatures.
It’s funny how some things just happen. I got a message from my mom about a month ago, that she had met a Peace Corps Volunteer’s dad in a restaurant in KC. When I first heard about this after thinking what are the odds, I immediately made my mom track back down her dad and find out her information (by the way she is a volunteer in Malawi). I got in touch with Vanessa and we planned on meeting in Lilongwe on Tuesday afternoon and going to the Mizzou for Malawi school project on Wednesday. Vanessa had a college friend coming to Malawi to meet her and travel with her for a few weeks, so we thought it would all work out great. On my trip from Blantyre to Lilongwe I splurged just a little bit. I spent a little extra money on an “executive super coach” bus. It was well worth the money. It was 3100 kwacha which is somewhere around $19, but a lot for Malawians. The bus was great I still struggled with leg room, but the seats were comfortable, they had a set number of people on the bus (no body standing), we got a snack and drink, and best of all it was non-stop! Blantyre to Lilongwe is a good 4 hour drive. On this bus we made it in right under 4 hours, the other buses that stop more than the metro buses in KC, usually take anywhere from 7-9 hrs. I can’t tell you how amazing and unexpected this bus ride was. I had been dreading the traveling portion of traveling the entire time I have been in Malawi, but this bus gave me some hope. That hope was destroyed a day later, but I will get into that later. When I got to Lilongwe I met up with Grisham who was there visiting his parents. His father had contracted malaria and was very sick. We met up and walked around Lilongwe for most of the day until I checked into my hotel and then met up with Vanessa. Meeting Vanessa was definitely one of the overall highlights of my trip. She is a great all around person and made my one day in Salima a lot better. Vanessa is from KC, more specifically Independence, Mo. She went to mizzou and was also very excited to check out the mizzou for Malawi project outside Salima. It was great to talk with Vanessa and it is just funny how she is having all the same problems that I face in Malawi even though we are working in different parts of the country. As for the Mizzou for Malawi project, I would love to tell you all about it when I get home. I have found while writing this public blog that it is sometimes necessary to leave certain feelings and/or events out. Sometimes things are just better said in person, so I will tell you all about this trip the next time I see all of you in KC! I spent my night in Lilongwe at the Mabuya lodge. I decided to spend the extra money and get my own room. By extra money it was $18 for my own room, but would have been $6 for a bed in the dorm or less than that if I had brought a tent to camp. It is a great place for back packers. I met 5 Norwegian med students that had just gotten into Malawi. I will remember talking to them for a long time for the only reason that they were all smoking. One of them explained that they had never smoked before and thought why not give it a try while we are in Malawi? That thought still doesn’t make since to me, mostly b/c they came here to work in a hospital and they are MED STUDENTS. Doctors, who think yea lets light up for the fun of it even though we know exactly what effect every cigarette has on our bodies. They were all really nice guys and I enjoyed meeting them, but I will always remember them for the irony of that conversation. I can’t say enough great things about the Mabuya Lodge. The laid back atmosphere and great staff made it a really enjoyable experience. It was the first place that I had been that the Malawian staff didn’t treat me like a dumb mzungu, which was so nice. The next day after Vanessa and I checked out the Mizzou for Malawi project, we came back to Salima, had some ice cream, and went to the bus station. Vanessa helped me get on a bus to Nahkata Bay and then we parted ways. Vanessa had to wait in Lilongwe another day for a friend from KC. Her friend was coming to visit for a weeks, but the weather in the US had delayed her flight to Ethiopia where she missed her connecting flight and was forced to have one of those nightmare trips that people don’t even like to think about. Before I got on the bus I asked the guy selling tickets how long the trip would be? He said, “about 5 hours,” Vanessa heard that, smiled, and laughed, because she knew what I was about to, that I was in for a lot longer ride than that. I said goodbye to Vanessa and got on the bus, I was a little sad to leave her, because I can honestly say that she is the first American that I have meet in Malawi that I want to and will keep in touch with. When I got on the bus I realized I was lucky and unlucky to have picked this bus. I was lucky b/c it was the last bus of the day leaving Salima for my destination, I was unlucky b/c I was passenger 98/100 that they let on. The 100 passengers are broken down as 65 seated and 35 standing. I don’t know how anyone can think it is safe to certify carrying 35 standing passengers, especially the way they drive and the conditions of the roads in Malawi, but maybe that is why they can certify it? Anyways, I stood for the first 2 hours of the ride, when I did get a seat I was joined by Rachel a British backpacker. It was great to chat with an English speaker especially on the rest of this never ending bus ride. Just about 5 ½ hours after I met Rachel we got to Nahkota Bay. The bus ride can be summed up like this, basically the bus is packed full of people, luggage, and chickens, constantly stopping like a mini-bus to drop people off and pick new people up. The straight drive from Salima to Nahkota Bay is about 4 hrs, our trip took almost 8. When we finally got to the Nahkota Bay checkpoint the tree azungu on board (yes me included) were all hassled by the police. They wanted to see our passports and grilled us all with questions; the cops did not like the fact that I gave them a copy of my passport instead of the real thing. They probably make some good bribe money by taking white tourist’s passports and then selling them back, so I calmly explained I was a volunteer and after 10 minutes the cop finally let us go. Nahkota Bay is absolutely beautiful. I wish I had more time in Malawi so I could spend more time at Lake Malawi. I met up with Chihiro and a few other DIs pretty much immediately when I got to the bay. I found them at the greatest store in Malawi. It was a tourist shop that sold all the usual stuff, but this store had price tags. Even some of the market stores don’t have labeled price tags. I cannot even tell you how great it was not to have to argue and bargain with the store owner over prices. His prices were actually very reasonable too. New Year’s Eve was a very memorable night. We started off the night at Kaya Papaya and had a thai dinner. It was very good and was cooked by the English owner so at the time it seemed kind of original. For the actual year change we walked down to a little music festival on the beach. It was great having a new year on the beach. It was kind of funny the “count-down” came and went and we all said happy new years, and about 5+ minutes later the Malawians came on the mic and yelled happy New Years. I guess everything, even the new year is just on Malawian time. The best part of the night was staying up late with some new British and an Australian friend. We all stayed up to the early hours of the morning and decided that we were going to watch the sunrise on the lake, so we swam out to a raft that is about 250 m off shore and watched the sun break through the clouds and light up the lake. I was going to leave on New Year’s Day, but ended up sleeping in too late and missed the bus. That was ok though, because I had an extra night to hang out with the people I had just met a few days before. New Year’s Day was ok, but that New Year’s Eve is at the top of my new year’s list. It is right up there with my previous favorite new year’s eve at Anna Elliot’s house that was a great party. Saturday was a day of traveling. I said my goodbyes and took a mini-bus to Mzuzu. From Mzuzu I took the night bus to Blantyre, or as I like to call it, “The Bus From Hell”! First off all just let me tell you that this 12 hour night bus was the scariest traveling experience of my life. Maybe, just the scariest experience. I actually was preparing myself for this coach bus to flip over at any minute and roll down the side of a hill. For the first 5 hours of the trip the bus was going about 120 kmph (kilometers per hour). That was the highest speed the bus could go, or I am sure we would have been going faster. I sat in the back row of the bus because that row has extra leg room, and I desperately needed the extra space. I sat in the middle seat which just happened not to be connected to any of the other seats which made my ride like a carnival rollercoaster ride. Since it was nighttime and we were going way to fast we hit every crack and pothole in the road throwing me all over the place. If that wasn’t bad enough the road we were on has so many twists and turns, 80 % of the time someone was in my lap or I was in theirs. Even the Malawians around me were scared, and when they get nervous you should be freaking out. To make the trip worse the driver wanted to listen to Akon the entire trip. So I guess the buses speakers were in the back of the bus so they were turned up loud enough that the driver could hear them in the front. I thought I was going to go deaf for about 2 hours. I even asked him to turn it down at one of the 100 stops the bus made and he did, well at least till his favorite song came on then it was back to making me go deaf. After the first 5 hour leg we got to Salima. The guy next to me got off in Salima so I was able to move over a seat that was actually connected to another seat. There was a Malawian in the other seat that used me as a sleeping brace the rest of the trip. About 3 hours into this leg of the trip a woman sat in my old seat. About an hour later I noticed what she was trying to reach into my backpack that was on the floor in between us. She was unsuccessful the first 3 or 4 times always pulling her hand back when she thought I was “waking up”. The last time I was just waiting for her to touch my bag so I could confront her, she reached down and started unzipping my bag right in front of me. I sat up and she didn’t even attempt to stop, I reached down and grabbed my bag and asked her, “Can I help you?” She responded very flustered, “Oh I am just looking for my purse,” to which I replied, “Your purse is in your lap!” She didn’t say anything and quickly got off at the next stop, there were about 4 other people that tried to blatantly rob me on the rest of the trip. When we were about an hour from Blantyre a kid sat down in my old seat. He looked at me and immediately curled up into a ball on the seat pushing me off my seat. I asked him to stop and he said, “Boss I just want to sleep boss.” All the Malawians call white people boss or sister when they are trying to get money from you. Then he started pushing harder against me and actually touching me and all over my bag. Finally I had to get up and find a new seat. I was visibly and verbally pissed off at this point. I had been on this death trap with terribly rude people for a good 11 hours by that point and the woman and kid set me off. I found a half of a seat next to a rather large Malawian woman. I looked back at the kid saying not to pleasant things under my breath and he and the other guy were sitting there sprawled out on the 3 seats laughing at me. They kept pointing, laughing, and saying mzungu. If I would have felt a little safer on this bus I would have told both of them off, but the woman next to me apologized for their behavior saying that was the problem with Malawi. If all that wasn’t bad enough, when we finally got into Limbe, one of the passengers felt the need to argue with the conductor and driver about how much they had charged him for the ride. He was Malawian and they didn’t over charge him for anything, but he had to make a huge seen and eventually be removed from the bus which took an extra 45 minutes. I hate how Malawians feel the need to argue about everything all the time; I will not miss that at all. Finally when we got to a drop off that I knew I got out as quickly as possible. The driver stopped me before I got out and asked if I had someone to pick me up, because this area wasn’t safe for a white man at 4:40 am. I said yes, but really wanted to say well thanks to your crack head driving and the worst bus ride of my life, I would love to see someone mess with me right now, but of course I just got off the bus and went and sat on the curb. It was a terrible night. One of the worst of my life. I know I said this is my last post in Malawi, but I will add another post after I get back. I want to take some time to really think about my last week in Malawi before I write about it. It was a bittersweet last week and I do need to reflect on it. So I guess this actually is my last post in Malawi, but not my last post about Malawi. It is 8:52 am Monday morning and my first plane leaves at 1:15pm. I am heading to the airport in 40 minutes, see all of you soon. Goodbye Malawi.

Dec 17 Paul 1, Mulanje 100

The past few weeks have been pretty slow here in Malawi. I am getting so used to some things that when they occur, they just don’t seem so special so I don’t write about them. People keep asking me if I am ready to come home. I say yes and no. I do miss my friends and family, and there are certain things that drive me absolutely crazy about this country, but Malawi is starting to grow on me. I am starting to have long individual conversations with the students, and I know they are starting to feel more comfortable around me. Lawrence dropped me off a few weeks ago and a few of the girls asked him if I was single and if I liked Malawian women. I am excited to come home, but I will miss some of the people here. I didn’t think I would miss the whole Christmas season in the USA as much as I really do. Yesterday I popped into Shop Rite (the super market) to buy a few things I need to get me through the week; I was only planning on getting a few things and getting out quick, but they had Christmas music playing so I ended up spending almost and an hour and a half just enjoying the music. It was the first Christmas music I had heard in English the year. I am also starting to really like and enjoy the DIs that I am working with from around the world. They are truly special people and have made this experience a million times better. If I wouldn’t have gotten the opportunity to meet and work with them, I would still be counting down the days till my flight leaves. I almost forgot, on a very special side note, right before Thanksgiving the Mary Jean Perrini Inspire to Serve award was officially given to Mary Perrini by The American Humanics Student Association from Kansas State University. So for those of you that know Mary, send her an email or give her a call at Miege to congratulate her! This past weekend I went with Chihiro and three other DIs to mount Mulanje. Mount Mulanje is the tallest mountain in Malawi. I was under the impression that we were going to hike around for a few hours, go to the waterfalls, and spend the night in a little town about 10km away. BOY WAS I WRONG! Chihiro and I met up with Calou, Caesar, and Anna; three other DIs that work in the TCE (total control of the Epidemic…HIV/AIDS program) in Limbe on Saturday morning. Anna and Caesar are a couple from Brazil. They are both have degrees to be pharmacists, but they want to get out of Brazil to do their work. Calou(sp?) is from Japan and the only thing I really found out about her was that the school that she trained at was in Michigan, and she went to Royals/ Whitesox game in Chicago. When we met up, we went food shopping and Chihiro and I were informed that we would be staying on the mountain at a little camp. I just thought ok sounds fun. When we got to the mountain and met up with our guide, Caesar and Anna said that we wanted to make the 6 hour hike to the CCAP lodge. When I heard this my jaw dropped and I my mind went blank. I thought 6 hours; these people have to be kidding! Then I came to my own conclusion that this 6 hours was really like 4 or less if you kept a steady pace, so we stretched out bought some bananas and got ready for the hike. Our guide doubled as a porter and he carried one of our back packs the whole trip. We set off and after the first 45 minutes I knew I was in trouble. At this time came to the realization that 6 hours for our group was really going to mean 8. Plus I only had brought 1.5 liters of water and I had already sweated out at least a half liter in the first 45 minutes. By hour number two, I had sweated out at least 1.5 liters of water and was still trying to ration my water. We came across 2 streams in the first few hours and our guide Fred said that they were clean and we wouldn’t get sick if we drank from them, but I wasn’t buying that! None of us were, we all walked right by and over them as our guide got fresh water each time. After it had seemed like we had hiked forever, we finally reached the half way point, and I was officially out of water. At that point we stopped to take a break and sat on a flat rock that poked out of the forest and showed the entire mountain. The view was incredible, it was so exciting to see trees again. The best thing from this view was how far we could see. I could see land clearly for miles away. The sky was clear and the land looked so peaceful. While we were resting and having a snack I asked Fred (the guide) if there was any more stream crossings coming up. I was out of water and I knew if it didn’t refill as soon as possible there was a good chance I would get dehydrated and maybe worse. Luckily there was one, only another hours walk. By the time we got to that stream my legs felt like jello and it was around 5 pm, but we still had at least another 2 hours till we got to the hut. I refilled my water, snapped a few pictures, and got ready to go. Needless to say since we were going very slow, darkness came before we arrived at the Camp. As the sun set and black started swallowing the sky, my legs had had enough hiking. I started to get cramps in my thighs, followed by my calves, and then those nasty ones in my hamstrings that wake you up at night. During this little episode I was having, I realized that there was absolutely nothing anyone else could do for me. I was up on a mountain in the middle of Malawi, 10,000 miles away from help. I guess I could have stopped walking and asked to take a break, but every time we did stop the pain just got worse and the cramps came back so I just kept moving no matter what. I don’t know if I have ever pushed myself that hard. Whenever I have been completely exhausted, I have always been able to stop and rest or have a “state regulated” water break, but up here there was nothing but me and the mountain. It was one of those moments in life that you can be really proud of yourself. I feel like I accomplished something. I didn’t climb all the way to the top, but I set a goal and reached it. It was probably the most physically challenging thing I have done in the past 10 years. Yes there were other people and we were all in this together, but everyone was facing their own battle on our night hike. We hiked for about 45 minutes in the dark, there was no moon and so I used my phone flash light to guide me. Chihiro had one of those lights that you wind up the battery (I think dad gave me one of those for Christmas onetime, but I didn’t bring it), and the other people had their own lights. It was amazing that even in the pitch black our guide knew exactly where to go and every turn to take. Our 6 hour hike took just about 7 hours and 45 minutes by the time we finally arrived at the camp. We got some fresh water, made dinner (pasta), met a very nice Englishman named Anthony, and went to bed. In the morning I awoke to Anthony and another group of travelers from Holland making breakfast. There were three hikers from Holland, who had gone to bed right as we had gotten to the camp the night before. After they made and ate breakfast they said goodbye and started their descent down the mountain. About the time they were leaving my group was just waking up. We made a quick breakfast and left the camp a little past 8. It was already a beautiful day, but unlike the day before it was getting hot early and there was just that hint that we needed to get on the move before the rains came. Once we were out of the camp and had climbed out of the small gully the camp was in, you could really see the mystery and history of this mountain. There was an old dirt landing strip inside the gully that used to fly supplies in, but hadn’t been used in at least 20 years. It looked like all of a sudden whoever used it, just stopped and no one had touched it since. There was grass and weeds that had overgrown the entire thing, but a lot of things have that same dilapidated feeling in Malawi. On our way down the mountain I got the chance to have a few conversations with Anthony. He had quit his job in England and agreed to come over to Malawi for 6 months and supervise the building of a school. It was all set up through his church. He had come across a lot of the same problems that myself and the DIs had. The one thing that really bothered him was the rudeness of the people here, more specifically the lying. Lying is very common here. Lying is no big deal. I have had project leaders and teachers lie to my face about things as simple as being late or why they couldn’t do something. It seems like it doesn’t bother anyone to lie here. If you have ever known a pathological liar, who lies about everything from the weather outside to whether or not he/she was actually dying, that is the type of liar that you find in Malawi. When I got back to the college on Sunday, one of the students who I really like asked me why I didn’t go to Mulanje? When I replied that I had, she just said no you didn’t Paul you are a liar. You lie you lie you liar. I don’t know about you or anyone you know, but I don’t like to be called a liar, that’s just not part of normal conversation where I come from. Anthony brought up a good point, he said, “in your church isn’t lying a sin?” I said yes and that I was also raised not to lie. He then talked about how he just didn’t understand how these Malawians could argue against every wrong doing of anyone by saying Jesus taught us this and God wants us to do that, but then turn around and lie to your face if you asked them if they had gone to church that week. The other thing that bothers me besides the constant lying (which isn’t done by all Malawians, but enough to make it a point) is some of the people are just playing and flat out rude, they have no regard for other people’s personal space or belongings. Ok, well I found out that personal space like your “personal bubble” didn’t exist in the first week that I got here, so I am used to that, but what I mean is my room is my personal space, and if I forget to lock my door whether I am in my room or not people will just walk in. No knock or anything, the thing that set me off on Sunday was the fact that one of the teachers had hung up a clothes line right in front of my door. Now I understand you need to dry your clothes, but we all have a clothes line hung up in our rooms, if the two communal lines outside are taken. Well I guess this teacher didn’t want to use the space in his room for his clothes so he hung his clothes right in front of my door. It is more the inconsideration of it all, like if you are living with other people you don’t use all the water, but not here, or you clean up after yourself, well here you just throw your trash outside and expect that someone else will pick it up. No one cares about the little things, and that bothers me. Anyways, Anthony had also run into several problems with knowing who to trust. He was living with the pastor and church officials from a sister parish, but coincidently they were the ones trying to rip him off. The people he was supposed to trust were trying to get him to buy cheap materials for the school so they could pocket the rest of the money, it is sad, but this problem happens almost every time a school or any aid building is built. I also got a chance to just converse with another native English speaker. It was great, I really hadn’t had a full conversation with an English speaker since I had gotten here, besides Lawrence, but I mean a native English speaker. We mainly talked about movies which I really didn’t mind, we could have talked about British history and soccer for all I cared, just having a conversation was great. The way down the mountain was more frustrating for me than the climb up. There was a cover of dew on most of the trail on the way down and I fell down at least 10 times. Besides the dew, the ants were out in the morning and there were at least 3 separate times where I had ants in my pants. I think I pulled 24 ants off me on the way down, after they had let me know they were there (by biting me). Also on the way down I got to enjoy the scenery much more than on the way up. The paths were covered in every type of tree I had seen in Malawi. We would walk for what seemed like an eternity through thick dark luscious forest and all of a sudden pop out for a minute of spectacular outlooks all the way up and down the mountain. The view was not only over the puffy clouds as they smashed into the mountain, but you could wait for 2 minutes and as the clouds cleared you could just see Africa. Every time we popped out on to one of these ledges, it was like the view from the Lion King, looking down from the top of the lion’s den over a vast never-ending kingdom of life and land, with only very few tiny buildings, houses, and huts and fewer traceable roads, this view was picturesque of what I had grown up hoping Africa really looked like; purely beauty and wonder. Since we didn’t stop on the way up at the “mulanje waterfall”, we decided to do it on the way down. Right as we got to where we could actually hear the stream turn into the waterfall it started to rain. We asked Fred if it was really worth going to see, because it was very obvious that all of our group was tired and getting hungry. It was almost one at this point and Fred assured us that this was something that we had to see, so we followed him down a “short-cut” to the waterfall. One thing we thought was funny was how Fred would describe the trails we were taking, he kept saying this next climb is very gentle don’t worry it isn’t hard, so when he said please be careful and watch your step when we took the shortcut, I thought to myself what is this guy getting us into? The short-cut we took was more like a death-cut. The side trail was wet and very steep, every now and again we would have to slide down a flat slippery rock surface, but not too fast because you wouldn’t stop if your body got going. Then we came to the back part of the waterfall, and our good guide Fred just hopped down onto three big rocks and said come on. I knew it was going to be difficult for the group to get across when I went after Fred. There was about a three foot space in between the first and second rocks. The first one was also quite a bit taller than the second one, and I couldn’t reach from boulder to boulder and if I couldn’t reach how were 2 small Japanese girls going to do it. For me Fred made a ledge with his foot and I was able to shimmy across, Anthony lowered himself down on a vine like Tarzan, and somehow Fred got everyone else across. The waterfall was nice, but nothing that special, I would rather have stayed on the normal path and not gone to the waterfall than take the “short-cut” and go through all that. Also on the way out of the waterfall as we were crossing more boulders I lost my balance and almost bit it into the river. If I wouldn’t have caught myself on a nearby rock I would have also gotten to see how a medical response team works in the middle of Malawi, and that would have been so much fun!
After the waterfalls we were making our way back down when Caesar saw a guy he knew. The guy was an American who was working with Doctors without borders. I was again excited to meet another American. Caesar told me that he was from Chicago and his name was Matthew. I said hello an introduced myself to Matthew, I said so you’re from Chicago, I’m from Kansas City, I wanted to ask him a few questions about Doctors without borders, but before I could say anything he looked at me and said yea… you sound like an American and walked away. It was one of those moments where you just stop, and ask yourself did that really just happen? I was super excited to meet another American that works for a great organization that a lot of people dream of working for (me included), and guy just blows you off. At least if was to my face right? When he was leaving, I said it was nice to meet you and he responded with yea? Not an oh you too, likewise, or even some small remark that makes a person sound like they give a damn, but just yea. Rude people have always bothered me, but it is worse when you are abroad. There is absolutely no need for shit like that, it is unreal. Sometimes it is just easy to see why so many people hate Americans. Some people are just Jerks.
One of the mind boggling things we found out about this mountain is that every year there is a porter’s race. All of the guides and porters race up around and down the mountain. The course is up to the top on the steepest trail, around the summit to the hut where we stayed the night, and then back down the trail we came down on. Anthony told us that he had hiked all the paths on this mountain and if he did the course and hiked it as fast as he could it would take him at least 10 hours and Anthony is an experienced hiker. The winning time from this year’s race was 2:05, two hours and five minutes; incredible! Our guide’s time was 2:23 and he was in 25th place. The only thing I could think of was just how amazing that actually is. I mean people that can run full marathons running like 8 minute miles or less amaze me (yes I mean you Aunt Mary), but going up this mountain is crazy with the heat and altitude, mind boggling is the only way I can describe it.
As I said before our guide’s name was Fred. Fred had been referred to us by other DIs who had come to the mountain. There were a few times that I was ahead of the pack with him that I got a chance to talk to him 1 on 1. Fred is 18 years old and in secondary school, which is like our high school. He has 4 siblings and lives with them and his mom. His father died in 2000 and he works on the weekend as a guide to support his family and pay his school fees. The average Malawian that works in this region makes about 150 kwacha or a dollar a day. A guide for the mountain makes about 1300 kwacha a day plus an extra thousand if he doubles as a porter and carries a bag, so Fred was doing alright for himself and made about 3600 kwacha from two days work. I was considering breaking my own rule and giving him an extra tip, because he really was a good guide, until he got me alone on the second day and said, “you look like you could afford to help me, and if you can’t I bet your parents can or you know someone that can!” I was just shocked, I said why do you think this and he replied something about how I looked like I worked hard and I’m from the USA so that means I am rich. So basically he saw the white man from the USA and thought to himself, YES, an easy target! I almost bought into it all too, until at the end he tried to get more money out of us, for “extra” work had done and time that he had spent with us. Ahh, this officially marks the millionth time in Malawi that a person has found out where I live and asked me to pay them money for something. This time it was Fred and paying his college school fees, last time it was a teacher from the school asking me to find money for her daughter, the first time it was the cook, and plenty of other strangers that right when I say I’m from the USA , I become a target for long distance donations. I mean it is so frustrating to be looked at by everyone you meet not as who you are, but as an object that can give them financial gain. It is the same in the stores, hotels, and the street vendors are the worst. Even at the hotels they have a sign posted that says Malawian price and White Price. The vendors will openly tell you they charge Malawians a 1/3 or a ¼ of what they charge Azungu (whites). I mean I guess that this describes a lot of third world countries, but it is definitely one thing that I will not miss about Malawi.
On Monday my body ached so bad. I haven’t been this sore for years, so I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing? Walking around the school on Monday was a slow waddle, and the best part of my day was getting to stretch several times. My shoulders and neck also were a problem on Monday. My shoulders still had red indentations from my back pack and my neck was stiff. Tuesday my legs still hurt, but I went into town to get a few things from the store and meet Lawrence for lunch. Every time I started to get a good pace and my legs started to feel somewhat normal my groin felt like it would strain or something and I would slow back down. Not a good feeling either way. Wednesday was better, I actually had a little hop back in my step and today I am doing a-ok. I also have found Christmas presents for Dad and Mom, real traditional Malawian presents. On Saturday we are having a Christmas party here at Amalika. We will all sing songs and play bingo and I have been told Santa is making an appearance, coming all the way from the USA! Wow, I’m so excited to meet Santa I wonder which Mzungu is going to be Santa? After Saturday I will go into town and spend the next few days with Lawrence and celebrate Christmas with him and his family, although I do wish I was on a beach in Charleston with mine. The week in between Christmas and new years I plan on traveling. I hope I can meet with one or two Peace Corps volunteers and check out the Mizzou for Malawi project outside of Salima. Then after new years I will get back to Amalika for a week, pick up my primary school surveys, finish making clips for a Planet Aid video and say my goodbyes. See you all in a little over 3 weeks. Tio-na-na.

Big week part 2

I had had enough (part 2 big week)
On the way out of town we had to stop and get some gas. I had previously told you about the diesel crisis here, but just hitting the country was a new petrol crisis. Yep that’s right that means there just isn’t any gas left in Malawi. We went 9 gas stations before we found one that had petrol. By the time we found the one station that had petrol and got in line, my sun burn was kicking in. I was drained, I was tired, and I just wanted to go home. The thing that pushed me over the edge was that every time a car would pull forward, if the car in front of you was turned off then someone would pull around from the back and cut you and 5 other people in line. Oh it was so frustrating, just another way that Malawians show absolutely no respect and no regard for any type of rules(written or unwritten). Our driver, being the brilliant driver he was got into the wrong line, because our gas tank was on the opposite side of the car, so when it was our turn he had to pull out of line and reverse back to the pump. Let’s just say every other car in lot saw this and wanted our spot, including a giant mini-bus that want to pass through cutting us off. I would have none of that, I proceeded to get out of the car walk in front of that bus and stop until our driver had finally gotten the car to the pump. The bus kept honking in my face inching closer and closer and I just turned my back and acted like I was an oblivious mzungu, it worked out pretty well. I didn’t get run over and nobody thought I was intentionally blocking the bus, they thought I was just some stupid white person doing whatever I wanted. After we had waited almost an hour and finally got to the pump, three boys with jugs ran up to the pump and the lady just started filling them up, no wait, they just got gas. Our driver asked the lady why they got this privilege and se said they are her regular customers, that she sees them daily and we are a onetime customer who she will never see again, so they will never have to wait and that’s just how it is. Our driver felt the need to argue, because Malawians feel the need to argue about everything! It wasn’t going to change her mind, just piss her off. She probably gets a bribe from them he said when we were driving home, but the situation reminded me of a KEG PARTY. This gas crisis is like a college kegger at every station. There is a line out the back door to get to the keg. Everyone needs a refill and the line or resemblance of a line is a mess. If you know the guy pumping or pouring the cups, you can sneak up behind them and get a quick refill with no questions asked and if anyone says something to the pourer or pumper about it, then that person might as well just go to the back of the line, b/c that cup is not getting filled for a while. In Lilongwe, it was like being that random dude at a FRAT party. Yes you came with some girls you know or are a friend of someone in the frat, but you are still getting stared at by every dude there who is asking themselves who is that random dude with? It is an awkward situation and that is how I felt that day in this nation’s capital. On our drive home our bad luck didn’t stop. The roads were terrible, worse than the day before on our drive to Lilongwe. There was road construction going on for almost 150 km. Some of the road construction we had encountered the day before, like detours, but most of it was new. There were giant square cut-outs of the road just missing. No cone or marker around the hole, just holes. Each square was at least 3 feet by 3 feet and at least a meter deep. Needless to say if a small car drives over one of these going 80mph it could total the car and kill the driver. We found the road construction crew about 30 km from the first hole and they said they were going to go back and fix all the holes before they quit for the day, but it was already dusk, so the chances of that happening are as good as the chiefs winning out grabbing a wild card spot and making a run like the cardinals did last year. Two other things drivers need to be weary of in Malawi are animals in the road and other drivers. The drivers here take the phrase “aggressive” driver to a whole new level. There are only a few roads have more than one lane per side. On all the other roads it is like driving down to Springfield on 7(I think). It is just a scary experience with multiple cars weaving in and out of the lanes passing up to 4 cars at one time, and all this is going on in the middle of road side markets and cities where people are walking and biking on the shoulders all the time. Then you have huge trucks, bigger than semis that can one go like 5-10 miles an hour, and at any given time they will just break down in the middle of the road and sit there for days. Traveling by motor vehicle is one of the scariest things I have ever had to do. As I mentioned before besides the drivers, there are just animals all over the roads. Chickens, goats, sometimes cows, and a plethora of other interesting animals, and the drivers here will stop on a dime to avoid hitting any of the animals, because everyone knows that one chicken in the middle of the road could be a Malawians only source of income. You would think in this situation that that one person who owned the chicken or goat would take better care of it, but no, they just roam around freely until they are needed. On our way back from Lilongwe while trying to avoid the holes in the road, our driver was still doing around 100-120km/h when out of nowhere a goat pops out on the road. The driver hit the brakes and honked the horn, unfortunately for the goat he skipped out of our way and was demolished by the car behind us who hadn’t taken warning to our immediate stop and thought it was a good idea to swerve around us and pass us. Unfortunately for them, their stupidity stopped their journey from that moment on. One thing I do remember vividly about the car that hit the goat was it was a white, shiny, brand new land rover donated by the National Aids Commission in Malawi. Yes, the Malawians and mzungu that drive the white new land rovers are without a doubt the worst drivers on the road. They act like everyone should get out of their way and that the road and country belongs to them. Not a very big fan of those vehicles. In between all this commotion on the ride home I tried to get a nap in, because my stomach was acting up. I have no idea what it was, but Lawrence had the same problem so I’m guessing it was something we had eaten that morning. I got a call from Dad right as we were pulling off the road to get a drink and a snack. It was great to hear a familiar voice and talk for about a minute, but right at I glanced over and saw a toilet sign, my stomach felt like it was about to explode and so I had to quickly hang up the phone and waddle over to the paying toilets. 20MK per use. I was walked into the toilet, which was a hole in the ground no bigger than a roll of duck tape. There was no toilet, just the hole and the enclosed area was about the same size as the dugout holes on the road or 3 ft x 3 ft. There was no tp in the bathroom and at first glance I actually didn’t think that it was physically possible for me to pop a squat. I waddled back outside looking for another quick option, a lady popped out of a shack and said, “EWAY(you) 20 kwacha”, I handed her the money and said “toilet paper”. She looked at me and gave me a couple piece of tp and a quickly waddled back into the paying toilet and found a way to get the job done. It was my first paying roadside toilet and god almighty I hope it is my last. After what seemed like one of the longest days of my adult life, we finally made it back to Chilengoma. Stayed in the same room I had two nights before and loved it again. I used great internet that night and the next morning, and I went into town around 11:30. I met up with Lawrence and did a little shopping and eventually made it back to Amalika. By the way that was Thanksgiving Day, so that night I got to Skpye with dad and Cheryl. We talked on and off for a few hours which was really great, they had a webcam so I got to see familiar faces which was also a very bi g plus for me. Then early the next morning around 1:30 am I woke up and talked to my family for Thanksgiving. It was great to talk to everyone at my dad’s house and then talk to mom, Katie, and Adam who were in Augusta. I apologize if I have jumped around a little bit over these last few points. As I am sitting here writing there is such a crazy rain storm going on outside that the water has started flooding into my room. I never in a million years thought I would be barricading my door with any dirty clothes I could find to keep water out, in Africa! Surreal huh? The wind and rains are so strong that in 45 minutes it has flooded our entire hostel complex. We built a little walkway bridge out of wooden ladders going out of our hostel that was almost 6 inches off the ground and I can’t even see that right now, it has sunk! I hope that gives you a good idea of what TOTO really meant by the rains down in Africa. These rains are no joke. They come, they flood, and then they are gone just like that. When it wasn’t been raining it has gotten really hot. Last Sunday it was 40 degrees Celsius or 104 degrees Fahrenheit on my area. The hardest part about Malawi right now, is the heat. This is the hottest place I have even been, and it is supposed to be the coolest time of the year. Every time the sun hits you, you just feel a little bit weaker and start to move just a little bit slower. Hopefully this weather can even itself off in my last month here, but if not, now I know what to expect, and hey what am I complaining about at least it’s not 20 degrees and in stuck in a foot of snow. Happy Holidays everyone! There is talk of Santa coming to the school’s Christmas party, I wonder who is going to get stuck with that role?

Oh btw Obama bread is supposed to big and hard (tough) and osama bread is small and soft(weak). Just wanted to note that correction.

Big Week

BIG WEEK.
On Monday I found out that there was a cornerstone event at the new TTC In Dowa on Wednesday. I was also informed that I would be attending with Lawrence. We would be the Planet Aid representatives at the event. Upon hearing the news I was very excited, because if for no other reason, I would finally get to meet at least one American! That American, which I did meet and I was able to have a brief, but nice conversation with, was the US Ambassador to Malawi, Peter Bodde. Life is funny sometimes huh? I have been trying to meet an American for two months and coincidently the first one I do meet is the second most important American in Malawi. I say second, because if you asked any Malawian who the most famous/ important American is they would all tell you Madonna. Now I don’t have very good feelings towards Madonna and her NGO Raising Malawi, because she is essentially buying her love from the people, but that is the way things are done down here and even if you don’t like it you just have to except it. If you ask me, Peter Bodde is the most influential American in Malawi and I felt very blessed that I was able to meet him and hear how he felt about DAPP, Planet Aid, and Humana People to People. He was very impressed with the work DAPP is doing and has done in Malawi. He said that he likes working with DAPP, because they get the job done and are thinking about the future. It was really nice for me to hear what he thought on a personal level. It was also nice to hear the US Ambassador support organizations that are constantly criticized and called names in the USA. He basically said the same thing that I tell people when they ask me about it, he talked about how if the money being donated wasn’t going to the right places, then the US government wouldn’t be giving millions of dollars to these organizations.
So on Monday during the day we had the worst or best (depending on how you look at it) rain storms since I had gotten here. Because of these rains I left with Charlotte Monday night. We went to Chilengoma the other TTC in Chileka. We stayed the night at Chilengoma and left for Lilongwe early in the morning on Tuesday. Chilengoma is also where the HQ is for DAPP in Malawi. The room I stayed in was like a 5-star hotel. It was so much better than the hotel room I stayed in over the weekend of Lawrence’s wedding. I couldn’t believe it. The bed was great and the best thing of all…hot water! The shower had hot and cold water, I was so shocked I didn’t know what to do. I turned on the hot water and it shocked me, it shocked me so much I ended up taking a luke warm water shower because hot even warm was just too much. After my great Tuesday morning shower I got dressed and found Lawrence already at the school at 6 am. I checked facebook and a few emails before we had to go, it was great not only does the Chilengoma TTC have hot water and comfortable beds, but it has electricity all the time and GREAT internet. Now I know why Lawrence and Amanda told me that I should go to Chilengoma instead of Amalika. Ha Ha. We were a little delayed from the start of our trip, because we had some unexpected setbacks. One was that Charlotte was going to fly to Lilongwe in the early morning, so she could meet with the Minister of Education before the session of parlament began on Tuesday, but Air Malawi is just about as reliable as you would expect it to be. The told her at 6am when the plan was supposed to leave, that the flight hadn’t taken off yet from where ever it was coming from. Flying in Malawi is on a luck basis. Most of the time you have to wait between 2-4 hours for your flight, if they don’t cancel it all together. So Charlotte came with us, the other setback we had was one of our other passengers Innock had made an il-advised trip into Blantyre without speaking to Charlotte. We spent about an hour waiting and trying to find him. He kept saying I’m only a few minutes away, when eventually we came to find out his taxi has a blown tire and he was actually stuck on the side of the road (I thought it was kind of humorous when we found out where he really was, because he was NEVER going to get to us if we would have continued to wait for him instead of going to find him). After we got all our passengers in we took off an hour and a half late. The drive to Lilongwe takes about 4 hours. I will talk more about the condition later, but one of the really interesting things is that once you have driven for about an hour the road drives right along the Malawian border. On one side of the road is Malawi and on the other side is Mozambique. It is exactly like driving down state line road in Kansas City! I guess the one minor difference is that instead of different color street signs on opposite sides of the road, there are different colored houses. One the Mozambique side all of the houses are gray and painted, and on the Malawi side the houses aren’t painted and are just the mud/clay/brick color which coincidently is all the same color red. I slept for a little bit of the ride, but mostly just stared out my window into beautiful mountains and a never ending blazing sky. The views are constantly breath taking, if for no other reason people should take vacations to remote parts of the world to just enjoy the untouched earth’s beauty. If I never make it back to Malawi, I will miss the wonders of this mystic land. When we got into Lilongwe it was time to work. Charlotte got her meeting rescheduled, Lawrence and the driver went off to the site to meet representatives from the US Embassy, and Innock and I walked around Lilongwe busily running errands. We ate lunch at a place called McDauds. I think the people tried to build the restaurant like McDonalds, but failed miserably. The food was not good and overpriced, and the food wasn’t at all fried so yea it was nothing like McDonalds. After lunch Innock and I walked to an internet café that was on the other side of town. I we had 45 minutes to kill while we were waiting on some pictures to get laminated, but we walked across town when there was an internet café basically next door to where we were so I was little clueless about that decision. On the way back it started to rain, but Innock said “Do you see the people running for shelter? If you don’t then it’s not really raining!” I got what he was saying, but by the time we got back to the copy center I was still soaking wet. Oh well T.I.A (this is Africa) right? Later we met back up with Charlotte and ran some more errands before going back to the hotel. When we got to the hotel we had to order dinner at the front desk, I was famished so I ordered chicken and chips with an extra side of rice. Since I didn’t put in my order till after 5pm, it wasn’t ready until almost 8:15. Let’s just say by the time I got my food I was very visibly frustrated, I almost didn’t eat. I got up to leave and just go to bed when Lawrence said Paul your food is on the table. The lady at the desk said that there were several other orders in front of mine, and that mine was the last to be served for the night. I really didn’t want to hear excuses I just wanted to eat, but excuses or a certain reasons why always come out of someone’s mouth before you get what you’re looking for, and yes it is ten times worse here. People here start sentences with, “well the problem is”, constantly. Ahh, that is frustrating. [On a quick side note I just received my Bday care package from my mom! I was sitting in room reading Dark Star Safari and one of the new comers Hannah knocked on my door with a package for me. I was so happy/excited I wanted to just grab her and kiss her! I don’t know if that would have gone over so well seeing as she is a very nice/ respectful South Korean girl, so I calmly took the package and then gave her a big hug. I opened the package expecting there to be a note from some South African customs agent reading: Sorry my family needed the contents of this package more than you do, better luck next time. But in fact everything was still inside. Today is Monday November 30, so it only took 6 weeks for the package to get to me, but the important thing is that it got here! Thanks so much mom I feel like a little kiddy on Christmas, or like a young Paul Titterington on Halloween(b/c Halloween is my bday, so my neighbors would give me extra candy and other stuff). I am so excited to charge my new computer battery and that I will actually have more than 45 minutes of battery life. I usually hate Mondays, but this Monday has turned out to be a pretty darn good day. Thanks again mom, love you! Oh and as a note to everyone else, I would not suggest sending anything else since this is now my 8th week and now I only have a little over a month left, so I most likely wouldn’t receive anything. So if you have something for me I know I will enjoy it immensely when I get back to the states…now back to paulsadventuresinmalawi] So the day of the Cornerstone presentation finally came, and we got up around 6 and ate an interesting breakfast and set off. We had to stop by the airport and pick up the DAPP Malawi country director Lisbeth Thompson at the airport, but it was on the way so it didn’t set us back at all. After we picked her up we drove out to the building site for the third TTC. The site is in an area called Dowa, I actually really liked where they had chosen the site for this new school. The other two TTCs are far away from almost everything, but this new one was close to a new primary and secondary schools and from across the road towards the horizon you can see the Somalinian/Ethiopian/ Congolese(I think those are all right and there might be more) refugee camp. I like that the students and staff will have the opportunity to work with refugees. I guess you can say I was excited for the future prospects of this school. So once we had arrived we starting setting up the day. We put together as much as we could, while we waited and waited and waited on the contractor to bring out a small generator, a table, and display boards. The function was supposed to start at ten sharp and wouldn’t you know it the contractor and his crew didn’t show up until right at 9:30, I thought Charlotte was going to have a heart attack. I was nervous also, because I didn’t want the ceremony to look sloppy for all the people that were coming. There was supposed to be a DAPP choir to sing for all the guests, that didn’t show up until 10:45, let’s just say Charlotte and Lisbeth were not very happy with them, it was a little embarrassing for all of us. When the contractor’s workers finally got to the site they obnoxiously kept honking their horns, they dropped off the two display boards, one of which that was broken and left honking and laughing, thinking they were making some grand entrance and exit. Lawrence said that they are just boys and these kids have no respect for anything or anybody, which I agree with and have seen on several occasions. Once the guests started to arrive and the ceremony started it was quick and efficient. It was a nice one hour ceremony, because that was all the time the US Ambassador could spare. I got to chat with him a little about Thanksgiving and I also got to meet a representative from the Finnish (Finland) consulot (sp). I really enjoyed talking to this lady she was very nice and very curious about me. It was the first time that someone had shown genuine interest about who I was and what I was doing since I had gotten here, well besides Charlotte. At the end of the ceremony I helped the Ambassador plant a tree and then there were refreshments. At some point on this cloudy morning the sun had popped out for just about an hour. During that hour it roasted me like your Thanksgiving turkey. I haven’t had that bad of sun burn in a few years. The only good thing that comes out of this sun burn is that I should have a great tan when I get back to the states, well at least a great farmer’s tan, because it’s kind of disrespectful to take off your shirt to even out your tan lines down here.

Sunday Funday?

Sunday Funday?
So Sunday started off just as I had hoped. Hannah, Aumi, and I got the school car very early and it took us to Bvombwe market, where we had to take connecting mini-buses to Shoprite. We had breakfast and did a little shopping; I could tell that Hannah and Aumi were very happy to get a few necessities before the beginning of their first week. I talked to Lawrence, early in the week we had talked about going to a game reserve. He said that his family was planning on going, so there would be room in the car for me, but not my two new friends, so I said we will have to go another time, because I couldn’t leave Hannah and Aumi alone in Blantyre on their fourth day in Malawi. After we were done at Shoprite we took a mini-bus to limbe and then got in a mini-bus that looked like a nice bus, but boy was I wrong. On the outside it looked newish which is very rare here. We got in and I immediately knew I had picked the wrong bus, don’t judge a book by its cover was a popular moral in grade school, but it is a harsh reality in a third world country. Needless to say the bus broke down 3 times, before finally running out of gas less than half way to our expected destination. Two months ago this would have really frustrated me. I also would have probably freaked out a little, but at the time I just thought “oh well, this is Malawi”. We waited for another mini-bus to come by and pick us up for about 30 minutes. Since it was Sunday and there is a major fuel crisis there was only one bus in that 30 minutes that stopped, and since my two new friends didn’t know that you can’t just wait in line here, that if you want to be on that bus you have to take someone’s seat… we missed the bus. After that bus pulled away, I thought oh well lets hoof it. I would say it was about 100 degrees and the sun was beating down on us, and we walked a good 5K probably more to one of the teacher’s houses. That teacher Maiyse had invited me to come to his house at some point and now seemed as good a time as any. Right as we got to the turn off for his house, it started pouring. The rain was coming down like a hurricane. It was nuts, I took some great pictures and I quick camera video of it all from Maiyse’s house. We had to call the school car to come get us from Maiyse’s house. This was really the only option for us and it was good that the car or truck I should say was already in the area dropping off other teachers. When the truck came and got us the rain started to die down, which was a very good thing for the people that were outside. I guess it was even a very good thing for people that were inside, because it seems like just about everywhere you go, no roof that I have seen so far can hold up against this rain. Even the ceiling at the super market leaks when it is raining. When you look at it from an outsider’s perspective, when you put the rain up against something man made in Malawi, the rain always wins. Anyways, when the truck got of the high way and turned onto the dirt road that goes to the school, we had some problems. With the amount of rain that came down, even in only an hour or two the road had transformed into a mud slid. The driver quickly turned on four wheel drive and unlocked the front wheels, but it really didn’t matter. We were slipping and sliding all over the road. We were completely at the mercy of the road. It was like driving on solid ICE with absolutely no traction. The truck was just fish tailing back and forth. The driver and other passengers were a little nervous/ scared, but I was kind of excited. I don’t know why, but I actually thought the drive was fun. Yes, our car could have gone into a ditch at any time, or spun off the road doing one of a hundred things, but I still was like a little kid on a rollercoaster and I couldn’t hide it either. It was the most fun I have had on a drive since I have been in Malawi. Most of the time I’m just hoping the car or mini-bus I’m in doesn’t crash and kill everyone inside, but when it came to the mud, I felt alive. Once we got to the college, all the mud turned back into dirt, because even though less than 1 kilometer away there had been torrential down pours, Amalika hadn’t gotten a drop of rain. That’s just how life is out here in the bush. After I got back, I ran to my room and did some much needed laundry. I have started doing my laundry in the stream about 120 yards from my room. I still am skeptical about bathing with that water, but my uncle Frank(best doctor in the Midwest for those of you that were wondering about his qualifications) told me as long as I don’t get it in my eyes, ears, nose, or mouth that bathing shouldn’t be a problem, so I took that advice as saying it would be ok to do my laundry in; and so far it has worked out great.

Nov 21
Is it bad that I am happy that I will never have to teach my English class again? We had our final party yesterday (I had to promise them I would throw them a party if they actually came to class for the rest of the term, the joke was on me when the project leader shortened their term by two weeks). The class took their final exams on Thursday and can you believe it they all passed! They all passed because it was a pass/fail test with the fail line set at 50%. I was a little disappointed in the classes overall exam scores, but the ones who truly never came to class and just don’t care that much were the ones at the bottom and there was a clear separation between them and the students who actually tried. I passed back their exams right before the party and the ones who never came to class started to challenge me on some of the answers. In class we had covered certain material like figures of speech and parts of speech. Now you have to realize that I only introduced material that was very simple. A problem from the beginning with this class was that they would find other answers outside of the material that I was teaching and be like “well what about this? This book says this is a type of noun,” or “Paul we found these things when we researched on the internet, not the things you told us”. I tried to explain to the students several times that they could find a million different things on the internet or in different books, but the material that I was teaching them was what they needed to look up and study. I asked one of the students who was challenging me, “where did you learn this?” She replied, “in another class”. I am seriously worried about some of these students. On December 7, they start their student teaching term for 11 months, and some of them can’t understand why they got marked down for answers that weren’t covered in class, and WEREN’T ON THE EXAM STUDY GUIDE I MADE FOR THEM THAT HIGHLIGHTED WHAT MATERIAL WAS GOING TO BE ON THE EXAM. Ahhhhh!!!! I wanted to walk out of the classroom and scream after this brief exchange. At the end of the party they students thanked me for teaching and said that they would never forget my kindness and generosity, then they asked me to say a few words. All I could think of was a couple of things that I had wanted to say to the 5 of them that actually tried hard and came to class, the ones that will be great teachers and will help develop the educational system in Malawi. I said that I applauded them for what they are doing and the thanks should be given to them. Good teachers are so important to the growth of Malawi and the rest of the world, after telling them how I felt blessed to have the chance to work with them, I challenged them to always work hard and push themselves every day. Like I was saying before, I wanted to say these words to 5 maybe 6 of the 10 students. I really do believe they can help make a difference in so many children’s lives, and people’s lives in the surrounding villages for that matter. The other students, I wanted to give them an entirely different speech, that might have made them remember me in a slightly different light, but after I had some time to cool off, I realize now that if those students don’t change their act very soon then they won’t be teachers. The system will spit them out just as quick as it let them in. Malawi is looking for real teachers, not wannabes that are just looking for the next paycheck. Just when I was starting to think that all hope was lost for not just these few students, but the majority of the class…!!!BAM!!! A renewed since of hope popped up and hit me in the jaw! A since of hope and encouragement that came from 2 students later that night who I had a discussion with about 9/11 and GITMO. They were curious about GITMO and how the events of 9/11 affected GITMO. I went over some facts with them and then we had a great talk about the Middle East. I was shocked at how informed and intellectually challenging the students were about certain issues. The hour that we spent together renewed my faith that there are one a few bad apples in this bunch. Most of these students are going to be great teachers.

A few corrections from previous posts:
The Malawian gov’t had to borrow $50 million dollars to solve the gas problem
The play that I saw at BAF was called The Frogs, it was an adaptation of Aristophanes’ The Frogs and it was performed by NANZIKAMBE.
The two new DIs have arrived. They are Hannah from South Korea and Aumi (I know I spelled that wrong, but her name sounds like (I-U-ME)) from Japan. They got in last night, and wouldn’t you know it the water pump is broken again, so there has been no water for 3 days. I feel really bad for them that there is no water. I can imagine how I would have felt it there was no water when I got here.

Obama
The people here love that a black man is the president of the United States, but they don’t understand that I love that Obama is the president of the United States. They look at me like I just insulted their mothers when I say that I voted for Obama or when I say Obama is my president. One of the students that I discussed GITMO with asked me, how does it feel to be ruled by a black man? I kind of shook my head a little and said a president is not a ruler, my president, your president are our leaders. I tried to explain that a president in a democracy is not like a king or dictator, but a leader of the people. This is something I will have to further discuss with the students in a larger group discussion. Speaking of Obama, I ate my first piece of Obama bread today. It was really good, I joked with a few other teachers that Obama was giving me strength to be here at Amalika. So I should probably explain to you about this bread situation, there isn’t an actual bread that’s name is Obama bread. The people here have given nicknames to the two main types of bread here in Malawi. There is Obama bread which is big and soft and tastes very good, and there is Osama bread that is small and very hard. So the people say Obama bread is for everybody so it is better than Osama bread.

Rain
The rains have officially started. It rained a few times this past week, all of Friday night, and now we are have a huge storm as I write. I took Aumi and Hannah on a walk today and as we got to the first pre-school I wanted to show them I could see the sky starting to get gray and black, so we turned back towards Amalika. It was crazy, as we walked the storm just stalked us. Every step it felt like the storm was getting closer behind us, but when I would turn back to look at it, it looked like it was still a mile away. Then right as we got to the make shift bridge where we cross over a stream I turned around and the storm was right on top of us. The sky swelled with dark ominous clouds and it started pouring. I had a blast in the rain. I wasn’t actually in the rain, but I had a blast during the rain storm, I actually made very good use of my time. I filled up a bucket with water so I could flush my toilet, I filled up a five liter jug and 2 one liter jugs so I can shower for the next few days, and I used the time and extra water that the sky gave us to mop the crap out of my floor. I mopped my room floor like 5 times until it was immaculate. I was very proud of myself, I accomplished a lot… it was a very eventful day. Tomorrow I will go into town in the morning with Aumi and Hannah. Hopefully the money exchange place will be open on Sunday. I need to also pick up a few things at shop-rite since the party pretty much cleaned out my stash of snacks. I hope to meet up with Lawrence and Grisham tomorrow, but we will just have to see. Water is my main concern so it is great when I am able to get a ride home from them b/c then I can buy mass quantities of drinking water. I am just keeping my fingers crossed that the car will be on time and we can get into town in the morning, but only time can tell.

P.S. Dear Titterington Family, i love you all, but could you please take me off the list serv for messages like "thanksgiving menu an count". My Thanksgiving will consist of Nsima and maybe beans...if i'm lucky.

This and that

So over the past few weeks there has been a major fuel crisis in Malawi. It is more of a diesel crisis and it has affected everything. Outside every gas station that has diesel there is a line of cars/trucks and people that easily stretches ½ mile; but if you’re willing to pay that right price to bribe the gas attendant, you can leave you container and come back in a few hours to get it. The whole bribery system here is getting ridiculous. I mean you can’t go more than a few miles without seeing a policeman taking a bribe from a mini-bus driver or the gas attendant taking a bribe to let someone skip out on waiting in the 10 hour diesel line. Yep that’s right folks, on average the people in line are waiting ten hours to buy gas. Sometimes we get impatient when we have to wait for ten minutes in the McDonald’s drive thru, can you even imagine waiting in line for ten hours to buy gas? Well, don’t worry I couldn’t either. I see the people in line, but I really doubt I could do it. The gas attendants would probably try to charge me more too; they would say “no this is the myzungu price for gas”. Ahhhhh! Is it sad that I can visualize that scenario in my head? The problem is coming from the fact that the Malawian government doesn’t have the money to buy gas. This seems kind of funny to me, not b/c I’m an American and we don’t have to worry about this sort of thing, but because two weeks before there was a big article in the Blantyre papers about how the President just bought a private jet for himself. I mean the jet only cost 2 billion kwacha. This situation is funny because it’s like any person in the world that lives way above their income level, and at the same time has terrible credit and a mountain of debt. I mean I went to a music and arts festival in Blantyre last weekend and it was sponsored by the German Embassy! I mean come on, they have a sponsor for everything here, so when anyone gets a good some of money they go out and spend it on something luxurious. I guarantee you that the president could have kept that 12.5 million us dollars and saved it for something important (like gas for the country) and some first world country’s embassy or international aid organization would have donated a jet to the Malawian government in less than 6 months. So instead the Malawian government had to borrow like 15 million dollars to buy gas so the country can go back to normal. By the way, with a shortage of diesel that means there will be a shortage of water. I have been doing fine on personal water intake, but the villages around us have been really struggling to get water.
Last Thursday I got to see some of the country on a trip to visit two pedagogical workshops being built at primary schools in rural areas. I went with a couple people from the school and a woman from the DAPP office in Blantyre. On the way we passed mulangie(sorry my spelling is so wrong) and I got another great reminder about the little beautiful things Malawi has to offer. Mulangie Mountain is the highest peak in Malawi. I don’t know how tall it is, but I could see the top while driving, so I’m thinking not very high. Anyways, I was captivated by how beautiful the mountain and landscape were. There was a luscious flourishing green forest covering the entire mountain! I was so excited to see all the trees together, the view was mystical. The forest was untouched; I was actually in shock that the people hadn’t ravaged this land as well. Then I remembered that Malawians believe that part of the mountain is cursed so that is probably the reason none of the trees have been cut down. The sky was so clear while we were driving by the mountain. The clouds looked like they were right above the car, they looked so close, close enough for you to reach you arm out the window and grab a big, white, fluffy clump of them right out of the clear blue sky. A kind of weird way to describe the view is just to say it was pure and untouched. I can imagine being on that road 100 years ago and everything looking the exact same way. There isn’t much if anything I can say that about in the US, but this mountain looked like it had just been on its own for a very long time. I wrote some words in my notebook while I was looking at the mountain that might really help you visualize what I am trying to say. “The forests look like one of David’s (my cousin David) paintings. All the perfect blotches of different shades of green mixed together in such a crazy way, the combination of colors makes you want to just stare at it for hours and just see if maybe you can find a hidden Buddha in its amazing beauty.”
This past weekend I went into Blantyre again. It was more of a work oriented weekend for me. I went to the DAPP country office and worked on a study guide for the English students , their final English exam, and the rough draft of a primary school survey I am making for the primary schools around our college. I worked for most of the day on Friday and on Saturday from 8-1. All I wanted to do was join in on the festivities in Manhattan, but I was 10,000 miles away! Plus I never know what happens until Sunday night or Monday morning. I mean yes I could call home and find out, but my mom feels it is necessary to tell me about what the KU basketball team is doing when I talk to her. Needless to say I would rather wait an extra day or two until I could find out on my own. Like I said before I went to the a music and art festival called the Blantyre Arts Festival. I went with Chihiro and we met another DI there. The other DI was Valentina from Italy, and it was the first time we had the chance to meet. She works at the other TTC at Chilengoma. We were at the festival for a few hours and i got to see Lucious Banda, one of the more popular reggae singers in Malawi and a play put on by an acting troop called The Frogs. The play was put on to challenge the people of Malawi to stand up for themselves and do things together. I had heard that drama was a very popular way to get politically and community development messages across, but I didn’t think I would have the opportunity to actually see one of these plays. It was actually very good and I enjoyed it immensely. Both nights I stayed with Lawrence at his house and both nights were terribly hot. Friday night was so hot that I couldn’t get to sleep until 3 am. I stayed awake with Grisham and watched Transformers 2 and Inglorious Bastards, both of which were very good movies. Sleeping in Blantyre is like sweating out a fever. You wake up 5+ times a night sweating profusely, at least once needing to change your sweat soaked shirt and you can’t wait for the morning to come so maybe you can cool off a little bit. On Saturday I got to bed around 11, but still had trouble sleeping because of the heat. Although it is dreadfully hot when I sleep at Lawrence’s house, I don’t mind for a few reasons. The first being because I actually have people to talk to when I’m there. His family treats me like I’m a part of their family which is great and I can actually have conversations with Lawrence, Grisham, and Prisca. I think I could talk to Lawrence’s brother Jonathon too, but he is a very quiet guy, so we don’t talk much. The other great thing besides great people is ice cold water. Now I know what you’re thinking, and you’re right I am being selfish and probably spoiled, but being able to wake up to a glass of cold water is so refreshing. Their house has electricity, so they have a fridge and freezer that runs constantly and after a long hot week at Amalika with warm or hot water 90% of the time, a glass of frosty H2O might possibly be the best thing on the planet!
On a sad note, Young the DI from South Korea left today. Her 6 month tour of duty is over and she is headed back to her school and then home. I will miss her very much. This is my 6th week. I am almost half way there and it was great to have my first 6 weeks with someone that had been here for 4+ months. She taught me a lot about the students and the school itself. Young and Chihiro have acted like two older sisters for me since I have gotten here. They have showed me around and gotten me little things that I was in desperate need of. Things like a blanket and mattress slip cover, also a little hand held mirror for when I put my contacts in. I used the reflection of my camera and computer screen for over 2 weeks before they hooked me up. It was very sad to see young go, it was sad for several reasons a couple being that unless we meet while traveling odds are that we will never physically see each other again, and more importantly I felt like we were on the same page on so many things. Although she had been here for a lot longer than me, I felt like we shared common feelings on a lot of the different issues, topics, and concerns about the project and people here. I guess one isn’t more important than the other, but I am sad to see her go. I am also happy for her, because it was time for her to move on. Now with Alberto and Young gone, in the next few days there will be 2 new DIs coming. One from South Korea and one from Japan. Hopefully I will get to know them like I have gotten to know Chihiro and Young, but only time will tell. Good luck Young!