Another week...

Hey all,

This week was pretty good. My form ones have been giving me some grief recently- they're almost to their terrible twos, so they've been pushing my buttons (coming to class late, stuff like that), but they've been overall pretty good; today I got them to edit their own writing, in this environment, I consider that a major win, apparently all it takes is colored pencils.

One bad thing happened this week. Hector followed me down to my Umoza meeting, she saw me on my bike and couldn't resist a good chase, she's done that before to other places, and has behaved, so I didn't think it would be a problem. That was, of course, before she killed someone's baby chicken- now, here in Malawi, baby chickens die all the time, from wild dogs, hawks and just from disease, but all the same, I offered the owner some money to pay for the loss, and found some rope to tie hector up with. A few minutes later, she came back to say that Hector had killed three babies, but when I asked her to show us the bodies so I could assess their worth to know how much to reimburse her for, she couldn't do it, she said she didn't know where they were. After living in Malawi for a while, I've gotten to know a bit about free-range dogs. When they kill something, they eat it- they don't leave it to go kill more things. They stay put and eat their dang meal- and in Hector's case, she brings the dead thing to a comfortable place and eats it there (usually my futon, stupid dog), so here's my question, why would Hector go around killing random chicks and not stick around to eat them? She was only lose for about fifteen minutes, and for most of that time, she was picking at the baby I saw her kill, taking her sweet time eating it way too close to the meeting, may I say. In short, ama was pulling a fast one.

Anyway, when she came back to complain, the ladies in my group rallied on my side, and told the woman to stop telling stories. I was actually impressed with how much of the conversation I understood, and I understood enough to feel offended at the way she was talking about me. The group decided that I should pay the woman back at the next group meeting so that there would be a fair price for the baby that Hector did kill, and the ones she may have. I don't like people who try to wheedle money, but all the same, I feel awful about the chick she killed, so I figure I'll bring the woman a gift of some sort so that she doesn't try to kill my dog. Also, Hector is getting a chain when I go to Lilongwe.

The party at the ambassador's house is next weekend, and that means that the new group comes soon! I'm excited to be a PCV of the week, and to stuff myself silly with food from the college. That's about it, love you all.

Beeb