Thanksgiving #2!

I can't believe I've been in Malawi long enough to have had two Thanksgivings here, but there you are!

On the actual day of Thanksgiving, I was in Mzuzu, aka, the greatest place in Malawi (or maybe second only to Nkhata Bay), we killed a turkey- Gerard from the zoo wanted to do it by an injection of vodka. That is exactly something he would do.

The next day, Friday, I headed down to Lilongwe, beer, dancing, food, a good time was had by all- then of course, the actual celebration at the Ambassador's house was even more fun- and then that night when we went dancing was a fun EXPLOSION! Ugh, seriously, friends in 'Merica, you'll have to show me an extra good time if you want to try to compete.

So yup, that's that, I'm super excited to go home and see everyone, but I do have a good life here too.

Love love

beeb

Oh beautiful...

Hey guys!

So yes, I'm excited to go to narnia, I mean America, but I can't help but be a little nervous about traveling alone- I'm sure things will be fine, as one of my friends pointed out, I've been living in Africa for more than a year. Still.

I'm also a little sad that I won't be able to show any pictures of Malawi, since my camera charger and computer were both stolen- my camera is about 5 years old, but hopefully I can get a new camera charger when I'm home (or maybe a new camera...?)

That's about it, I'm getting excited to see you all, and the Umoza group is currently at work sewing napkins and place mats for me to sell when I get home- the fabrics here are really something, so hopefully we'll have buyers. I also hope to bring some carvings and stuff home, fingers crossed.

See you in a few weeks!

!!!

Today is going to be a good day.

I am currently in Chintheche on the hunt for a catfish. There are catfish in Malawi, and I am going to fry one with some friends tonight. I cooked a ton of food too to surprise them with once they get here so it should be a good time- you can't go wrong with cookies.

Also!! I just got 3 huge packages in the mail today- one from cousin Gracie and 2 from the Rothwells. I haven't opened them yet because I'm worried about carting them home, but I'm sure they're amazing, I can't wait!.

So that's about it, all in all, a promising day as it is only 10:00.

Home!

Today in the library there was a huge pile of books on the floor when I walked in- Mr. Simkonda and Mr. Msumba were on the floor, spider crouched, sorting through them. When I asked them 'what's all this then', they told me that the books had been donated from a school in Livingstonia that recently upgraded from being a secondary school to a University. I didn't know schools could do that.

Anyway, I started to help them sort, and I came across a book from the early 1950's called 'America in 1,000 pictures', which was just a bunch of pictures sorted by state (all 48 of 'em). I stood for about 20 minutes just looking at the cheezy 1950's pictures.

I'm going home for a visit in December though :)

Two things that are a little sad about my visit though- I won't have any pictures to show since my computer was stolen, and Chris won't be there. The pictures, well, you guys can just deal with that (and I can't put them on the internet from here, so there was no way to back them up, so please, no guilt)- but Chris' being in China- that's rough. I was planning on just doing everything with him when I got back, and soaking up his absurdity and wisdom. Plus, I don't know how I'll react to being in a country where I can wear anything and eat actual food- a place where internet and phone calls are free? Where do I go? What do I do? I wanted Chris to be there, because he would probably go with me to Meijer at 2am and not judge- and afterward, he'd fully support my desire to go into a McDonalds and ask them to make me a flurry with a pie (a plan I've been thinking of for a while). Because of this lack of little brother, I'll need other people to rally and visit, yes yes? Please come see me in Grand Rapids, I miss you all- I have made no travel plans yet, just come see me.

Take care! I'll see you all in a month!

To begin, a shout out to Christi and Kitty who both sent awesome packages around early September- thanks guys! I am going to enjoy my coffee and beef jerky, maybe at the same time, who knows, I'm crazy.

Also, to all my friends living in DC, I am seriously jealous that you get to got to the Rally to Restore Sanity. Wish I could go- even though when people try to explain the current American political scene to me over the phone, I get confused and get a headache.

Finally, congratulations to Chris, who is leaving for China soon. For those of you who don't know, my older brother Matt now lives in China with his new wife (yay!), and my little brother Chris is also going to go there to teach, and maybe also to find a wife- that remains to be seen. So, for anyone who was born between the years 1984-1988, get ready for my mom to empty-nest all over you, because she isn't going to have any kids in America soon. Just kidding mom, don't get mad.

My week has been ok, it's getting really hot, but the library seems to always be a good 10-20 degrees cooler than the outside, so I've been in there a lot, as usual. The acting ambassador is slated to visit my school this upcoming week on Thursday, which should be cool- I'm a little nervous about it actually, my head teacher wanted to have a big party for her, which wouldn't be good, because she just wants to see a normal school day, and I've also had some conversations with people who seem to think that maybe she'll come and build us a laboratory, which she isn't going to do, since the woman isn't Oprah, and that isn't the point of the visit. Plus, I've been working for the past year to try to get the idea across that nobody is going to just build us anything, and that we have to use the resources we have. We had a library that was being eaten by termites, and a bunch of computers in boxes under a thick layer of dust when I came here- and if you'd asked anyone back then what we most needed, they'd have said computers or more books- come to find out we actually had some nice books and passable computers, we just needed to use them. Now we're working on renovating one of our old classrooms to use as a laboratory, so we're cleaning old lab equipment and using locally available resources to build storage and work places. I think that this is actually better than just having someone give us a lab, personally, but it is like pulling teeth to get anything done. Have you ever read that book 'if you give a mouse a cookie'?, I'm pretty sure the guy who wrote that worked in a developing school somewhere.

I guess that's the problem, isn't it? What the community wants isn't what the donor wants to give, and both could be completely different from what the community really needs. I think it is all very sticky- people have the best of intentions when they come out here, but who knows if their projects are going to work? I think that I want to study education and international development in grad school- maybe I'll end up at American University like the rest of Peace Corps. That would be nice, maybe then I could make it to the next Stewart/Colbert rally- September 2012? Anyone?

Malaria Free! Way 'ta Be!

Hey all!

So yesterday I felt head-achey and sleepy, so I stayed around Mufasas and rested- then today, I went to the medical unit for my check up and was declared cured! Whoot! No more parasites attacking my red blood cells!

Welcome to America

So, as you may know, I have been preparing to take the GRE. I got a few test books and went to town on them for about two months, and then this week I went to Lilongwe to take the test. I had some things to get done at the Peace Corps office, so I went down two days before the test to get my work done and get into a GRE state of mind.

The night before I left I felt kind of sick, I puked up the banana I ate for lunch, skipped dinner, and spent the night in an uncomfortable sweaty-sleepy-shaky state. That morning I felt better, if a little sluggish from lack of sleep, so I threw myself on a bus for the 7 hour trip to Lilongwe. The bus trip sucked, of course, and someone next to me ralphed into her chitenge, which was uncomfortable since you can't exactly get off of a bus here in Malawi once you are on it- this is also the reason why I don't drink water when I travel here. By the time I got to the Peace Corps office, I was tired, thirsty and generally ratty looking, but I had a doctor's appointment for my mid term physical, so I went in to see the medical staff.

It took them about two seconds to diagnose me with Malaria.

Now, I'm a good little volunteer, I take my anti-malarials, but sometimes I forget, especially on the weekends, so I must have forgotten to take my meds last Saturday and Sunday, which is when the filthy little vampire bug must have gotten me. I guess though that when you take your meds that the symptoms aren't as bad, so it makes sense that I just thought I had food poisioning.

The worst day was yesterday, when I couldn't keep anything down, and they hooked me up to an IV drip all day, and my temperture spiked to something around 110. That sucked. The doctor let me use his computer to see if I could cancel or re-schedule my test if I had a doctor's note. Nope. All cancelations must be made at least three days in advance, well, three days ago I felt ducky. He was shocked- 'So what, you aren't allowed to get sick? welcome to America'

So what about the test? Well, I took it this morning at the testing center at the embassy, it was a paper based test, and the examiner had some serious time keeping issues (he cut us off early on the first verbal section, dick), but I did it. Now I need to go sleep.