October 8, 2009
Today when I woke up, the reality that my bag was not here set in. I have I extra set of socks and underwear in my carry-on, but not much else. The only mosquito repellent I have is 2: 36hr mosquito patches given to me by Sean Berger during our secret Santa gift exchange last Christmas. I ate all three meals at the college today and found out that all 3 meals are the same meals every day. I think I can get pretty used to the rice porridge in the morning; when I figure out what the right amount of sugar to put on it is, I will be set! Lunch and dinner and a different subject, they both consist of Nsimba and beans. Nsimba is some kind of corn based thing. It is very bland, its looks like mashed potatoes, but is thicker and with no taste. The beans are great and at dinner there was some kind of red sauce out on the Nsimba which made it very good. I’m excited to get into the routine here; my time table is still very off. Two of the DI’s are from India and they invited me to dinner tomorrow. They cook for themselves every meal, so if I’m around I will accept.
We also had a meeting where I was introduced to the teaching staff. They were all nice and very welcoming. It’s going to take me a while to learn everyone’s name, but I’m optimistic that I can. I mean there are only 20 staff and 128 students. At the meeting they did mention an outbreak of diaherra within the students. This outbreak could be because breakfast is the only meal the people eat with utensils. Lunch and dinner are eaten by hand. I’m going to stick with my spoon though. Another reason could be that each class room has a water cooler (bucket with a spout) and a bowl underneath that. When someone drinks a cup of water the rinse it out in the bowl underneath and the put the cup back. There are only 3 cups per room. Although, I have been drinking borehole water for the past day and a half which my project leader said was clean, I will start boiling everything on advisement from two other DI’s from Japan and South Korea. Although, I have not been sick yet, I don’t want to keep risking it, I do have my pepto tablets handy if I do have any strong sensations soon.
Im headed to bed in an hour or so, really whenever the power goes off. We have power from:
8am-11am, 2pm-3pm, 6pm-8pm. The other DI’s from more developed areas really dislike the power situation, b/c they say the power is on Malawi time. Lawrence showed up today out of nowhere and is going to pick me up tomorrow morning and take me to get my bag, go shopping, and go back to the country office. I was very relieved when he showed up. Its going to be a long/ hard three months. One day down 95 to go.