One more day until term break!!

Hello everyone!

I am getting excited for Piotr to arrive next week, he is going to be here for a while, so it will be like having a roommate! I have even cleared out a room in my house for him to use while he is here, I figured I would put up my tent in there so he could be protected from mosquitoes and Hector, though Hector has stopped peeing on everything and wrecking everything. Still, it will disguise the fact that I don’t have a bed for him. I ordered a futon from my local carpenter, and he told me it would be done weeks ago, so I’ve all but given up on that. I couldn’t find a plan to give him, but we drew plenty of pictures, and he assured me he knew what to do, so I don’t know what the deal is with that.

I found out where Hector has been going to get food- my neighbors the Chonombos and Benulas have been giving her food while I’m at school. I asked if they minded, and they say of course not, so I guess it isn’t a problem. The children from those families have started to come over to my house to play with some of the toys people sent, so I suppose it is a fair trade- free babysitting for a ball of Nsima, not that people here ever really worry about their kids getting watched after they turn four- the bigger kids keep the little ones out of trouble. Anyway, having those little girls over has helped me practice my Chitonga, because even though they all speak English, it helps that they won’t laugh if I try to talk to them in their language. They like to spell words with the bananagrams my mom sent, and can read all of the flash cards Zach’s mom sent- dominoes are a bit trickier, so they use them to build houses. It is cute when they visit, but Hector still scares them- they push her away, which just makes her try to play with them more- it is strange to see little kids not know how to play with a puppy, I tell them to pet her when she jumps, to calm her down, but without my coaching them, they just run, which makes her chase them, and they cry… oh well. She doesn’t mean them any harm but they are terrified.

Last weekend I went to Mzuzu for a meeting with other volunteers about our Gender and Development group, or GAD- the GAD group is getting along well, and we are all very excited for Carrie’s design to go on the shirts we are going to order. We have also thought about having people sell the Peace Corps Malawi cook book for us back home- like maybe a brilliant and caring mom could print the PDF at kinkos and sell it at church or any other group… I thought you lovelies might be interested, because everyone seems so supportive. The cook book is quite funny, and the recipes are interesting, it would give you a feel for how we live here. Buying one book for about ten dollars would be enough to send a girl or boy to camp. We are also thinking of a way to set up an online account for people to donate straight to our fund. I’ll let you know more when I have more to say.

The GAD project is separate from my women’s group, which is also going well. We talked about creating a logo on a rubber stamp so that we could label our stuff, which is a little touch that could make a big difference if we try to sell things to tourists. It occurs to me that I can take orders from people now and the ladies can start making custom things for me to bring home at Christmas- clothes would be difficult to get completely right, unless you like really baggy shirts, so I was thinking maybe bags or baby clothes, which the women are used to making as most are mothers and grandmothers themselves. The baby clothes I see in the market are made of these awesome prints and are super cute, plus, they would be small, so I could bring a lot with me. I thought maybe I could also take some orders on quilts too, though really, they would be more like duvets, since the would make it them hard to bring on the plane- the fabric here is amazing, so a handmade quilt could be really special, and the women could get more practice on the machines before moving on to uniforms. I don’t know how much to sell them for though, maybe I’ll choose a number, and leave it open for donations