IST & Senga Bay

Hey guys! I know I'm spoiling you with all the updates, be glad. I realized the other day that I've been in this country for almost five months now... woah, time goes by kinda fast, dosen't it?

Yesterday after school I headed down to my friend Jesi's house to the South of me to break up my trip to Dedza. I need to be in Dedza by Sunday, and if you know anything about traveling on public transport in Africa, you'll understand the need to break this trip up. I got in right before sunset, which was a disappointment because I didn't expect a trip from Chintheche to Nkhotakota to take FIVE FUCKING HOURS. Look them up on a map and marvel at how not far away from each other they are, and you'll understand my frustration.

Today, after a nice leasurly morning hanging out on the internet and eating cream buns, I am heading down to Senga Bay for a bit, then off to Lilongwe and Dedza for my IST (inter-service-training?). I am excited to eat protien at every meal on Peace Corps' dime- I plan on gaining 5 pounds- don't freak out mom.

On the subject of weight, I had a site visit the other day from our Peace Corps doctor, Dr. Max, who is a Malawian. When he got out of the car he was like "oh, you lost a lot of weight", so I said thank you, but then I realized that he was not really happy about it because it means I'm not really eating well, which is true- I could really use some protien... send protien packets please, and vitamins I'm going to get rickets.

That is about it! Have a nice weekend everyone, I love you all!

February in Paradise

in the words of my site mate Mel, who is a very wise woman, "we live in a tropical fucking paradise". And we do.

This past weekend, I went down the road to get to know some of the other volunteers in my area at the afore mentioned site mate's house- we had a blast. She lives really close to the beach and had an amazing time lazing around on the sand, lake Malawi is gorgeous and we had the whole beach to ourselves- how's that for a Peace Corps experience? I got a baby sunburn, but it is gone now.

I think that we all need to have a collective moment of silence for all of the Peace Corps volunteers in countries that are currently buried in snow.

Hector the puppy went too, and had a great time hanging out. I swear, she just keeps getting bigger- I can't wait until she stops peeing on everything, and I can start using my floor again. My mom asked why I didn't name her Bob like I originally said I was going to- well, I decided one Bob was enough, quite frankly.

Life isn't all fun and games I guess- this week was exams, so I had to moderate those, and I am proud to say that the library OFFICIALLY looks AMAZING and I can't wait to put pictures up of it so you can all see how great it looks.

That's pretty much it- though I want to give a shout out to my girl Alice, who I just learned is reading this! What up danger? The address I sent definitely works.

Hector the Puppy: Week one

This dog pees more than any animal in the history of animals. Yes, yes, I know that I also have been known to visit the girls room with frequency in my day, but seriously? Seriously dog. Wow.

Not much is new here, but every time I get time on the internet, I like to update. The letters and messages are great, they really make me feel loved.

At the end of the month my education group has our big conference where we learn about the various resources we have available to us here in Malawi to help our communities, so I will be sure to tell you all when I know more.

I have been reading a lot this week, probably because I had a head cold that knocked me out for a few days- I wanted to keep working in the library, but the only thing I could really manage to do was teach my classes and read. Oh well, its gone now, and I can get back to making the library look like a library. In the last two days I read four books. Send more books. I keep a running tally of the number of books I've read since I got here- I'm at 30 so far.

Alright, that's about it, thanks for the love!

Beeb

Hector the Puppy

...Yeah, that's right, I got a dog.

Yesterday morning I was boiling some water to French press some Mzuzu coffee (read: not very good coffee... send coffee) when I heard a knock on my door- it was a student holding a puppy, a puppy for me! I seriously freaked out in the way that Americans freak out when faced with puppies. My voice went all high, and I think I bounced a bit. Malawians don't really get the whole puppies-as-pets thing, so I tried to reign it in, but I was thrilled. I thanked my student, gave her some chocolate, and sent her to school so that I could talk to my dog in peace. BTW, if my students knew that I talked to my dog, they would know that I was crazy, right now they just suspect it.

Basically Hector the puppy is the cutest dog in Malawi, when I first got her she was all skinny, but I've been giving her powdered milk and bread, and she's been getting bigger in that cute puppy way they have where you can tell they've eaten because suddenly they have bellies. I left her at home yesterday when I was teaching, and when I came back to check in on her throughout the day, I noticed that she had claimed my Obama chitenge to sleep on- the image of my yellow dog and a democrat reminded me of my pappa, who always said he was a yellow dog democrat (meaning he didn't care if it was a yellow dog- he'd vote for it if it was a democrat. Those union guys sure did stick to their party)

As you can probably tell, I'm smitten.

The rest of my weekend was really fun, I had a lot of fun at the Mzoozoo, which is a hostel type place where Peace Corps is allowed to camp for free. I got to eat a hamburger and dance to Girl Talk, was I happy? Is the pope creepy?

The trip back from Mzuzu was fine, but I got these really bad blisters that got infected like none other, so I walked with a limp all week. My teachers kept asking 'what's wrong with you', and I had to hold back from saying something snappy like 'my momma didn't love me' (which we all know isn't true- love ya mom). The language barrier thing causes some strange moments, like when my women's group wanted to bake a cake the following day, and kept calling it 'the cake of tomorrow'- I expected the cake to be all space aged, and instead it was just cake.

The women's group is going well, they still want to sew school uniforms, but until we get some money to start with, we can't buy the fabric, which is frustrating. I told them that we would sew some bags next week out of chitenge (which I am donating) and hopefully sell them to get money for the fabric. We're just doing things slowly, but I mean, on the bright side, I have a women's group that keeps growing each week, which is a huge resource- once my group starts planning educational events and women's group meetings, my group will be good to go, its just strange because we have nothing to start with.

The library looks *awesome* (the stars are supposed to make the word look shiny, because that's how the library looks right now). My form 1 students have been using it all week creating posters for presentations that they are giving next week, and they can't keep their hands off the books in there. We don't have a ton of books, but I've tried to display them in a way that would interest the kids, and it seems to be working- I didn't notice how many nice books we had until they started pulling stuff down, and now I'm really excited to work with them, maybe starting book club groups. I loaned a book to one of my best students (shhhh... don't tell the grumpy teacher who is technically the librarian), and he seemed attracted to historical type books, like ones about Rome and stuff- he eventually chose one called 'Heroes and Saints', I hope he likes it. Books about plants, animals, history and historical figures are pretty popular, and the more pictures the better. Also, the English language primers were getting looked at a lot, but to be honest, so were the anatomy books with the pictures of STDs, so, well, you know, kids are kind of the same all over the world, genitals are funny no matter what language you speak I guess.

Also, in case you were wondering, things with Zach are great, I think that I'm probably sending him to the poor house with the amount of money he must be spending in long distance phone calls, but he doesn't complain. I'm the luckiest girl in Peace Corps because that kid sends the best packages.

All in all, things have been going well- I like my house, my puppy, my job and my friends (in and out of Peace Corps). It seems like this Peace Corps thing is going to work out after all (who knew?)

I can't wait until the new group gets here- you guys are going to love it.