Jan/Feb 2010

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January was relatively slow...I spent the entire month at site, with the exception of the weekend of the 31st were I slipped away to see New Moon in Blanytre and attend a VSV function with my Peace Corps friends. It was nice to be at site, and with the new students I kept myself busy. Of course, Nsanje is HOT!

For a while there we were unsure if we would actually get students...the first week we only had a handful of students that could actually PAY the MK335,000 (about US$2,500), then the number hovered around 13 for a few days (which I said was bad luck but since I wasn't really sure how to describe why the number 13 is such an unlucky number I finally shrugged and said that it was bad azungu juju) before finally struggling up to 20 students. However, this number was not reached until 2 weeks into the block, so teaching was hairy those first couple of weeks with a constant turnover of students.

In February I managed to harass my friends enough to come all the way to my site to help me conduct a 3 day ANAMED (Action for Natural Medicine)/ Nutrition training for the local support group for People Living with HIV (PLHIV). My goal was to encourage awareness in the college, hospital and community for locally available plants, that were not being used, that could help people if they actually knew of them. I was asked to do it by the Hospital Administer, and I focused on the PLHIV group because I knew their was a need for proper nutrition for this group. They also ended up being the most interested in it, even though I had a few people from the hospital pop their head in from time to time. The training went as follows:

Wednesday February 10th:
Introduction to natural medicine and ANAMED
Health Prevention activities: Waterguard Demo
What is nutrition?
Important plants locally available

Thursday February 11th:
Important plants continued
How to make oil, tincture and ointments as treatment

Friday February 12th:
The importance of moringa
Oil press demonstration
Permaculture practices and composting
Conclusion, Action Plan, Review.

The training took place from 8am until noon, but the 30 participants were so interested that they often stayed after. Due to the excellent Chichewa skills of my friends, and help from my counterparts, the training was very interactive and the participants asked many questions. I got a $100 APCD Grant that funded the entire training - supplies and tea and snacks - and with Ross's donation of an oil press for IGA usage I really think they walked away from happy even without the allowances that so many expect at trainings.

My poor friends, however. They didn't stop sweating from the second they descended the escarpment just south of Blantyre. And, since we (Chikwawa and Nsanje) were in a draught, there was little hope of rain. They managed to persevere, and I hoped to treat them with a small excursion the Elephant Marsh. This failed, unfortunately, when the boat men at the River refused to take us for less than $40 in sinking, dugout canoes. My friends were fine with this - I think they just wanted to get out of the sun and the prospect of paying more that even 200 kwacha to board the canoes in crocodile and hippo ridden water didn't really appeal to them - but I was furious, of course.

But, luckily, my friends just enjoyed my amenities: semi-cold shower (no bucket baths here - usually), electricity SOMETIMES to utilize the FAN and hotplate (although we borrowed Hirams charcoal stove and ended up using it everyday), and the privacy of my house to just hang out in. That, and we demolished some of my care packages and gorged ourselves on the macaroni and cheese, cheese crackers and the smores kit my grandmother sent, so it was a overall a fun and productive time for everyone. Minus the heat. :)

Soon after my sister arrived in Malawi. I literally took my friends up to town (Blantyre), and Jillian, Cathy, Jen and I met up with Kory in Blantyre on Valentines Day and had a double movie night in town. We watched two sappy chic flicks, and ate restaurant food. It was nice. I went back to site the next day and stay long enough to teach a few hours of Anatomy and Physiology to the new students, handout a assignments on vital signs and diagnostic testing, and follow-up with the PLHIV group for an Action Plan for the donated oil press before getting to Lilongwe in order to pick-up my sister in the airport the 19th. This was actually crazy because I arrived at the airport not entirely sure she would be there since she way flying stand-by and I had not received any information whether she had made her connecting flight or not...

She did. And she packed well: one backpack for herself/clothes, and a suitcase of items for me! Yay! We stashed the suitcase at the Peace Corps office and spent the night at Mufasas in Lilongwe. We also booked our reservation through Kiboko for our trip to Zambia, and exchanged money. Saturday we traveled to Senga Bay to Carolinas (which I would not recommend to anyone, and I am a Peace Corps Volunteer - meaning my standards are pretty low) on the Lake. We met a lot of PCVs there who were 'just around' celebrating a birthday. It was chill.

Sunday we traveled to Cathy's site near Mua Mission. Our goal was to see Mua Mission (a cultural centre with lots of info about the tribes in Malawi, especially the Ngoni, Chewa and Yao) and get out but since it was the rainy season, transport was rediculous. We ended up spending nearly 3 days at Cathys site before heading down to Mulanje. There we hiked up to the waterfalls and got caught in another downpour. But we met even more PCVs on the way so it was awesome. We bunked at my friend Tenley's house as well. On attempting to escape Mulanje we got trapped in Blantyre for a long time waiting on transport from my hospital and just ended up making it to another friend of mines site in Chikwawa for the night. He lived in a sugarcane plantation so that was a change of pace.

We managed to get to my site Friday the 26th around midday after an obnoxious day of travel. Bike taxis out of Ross's house, hitches to Bangula, and then small rafts to cross the Shire River, before getting on another bike taxi to Fatima. I thought my sister was going to fall off her bike laughing when my bike taxi drove through a herd of cattle and smacked head-on into the LAST cow of the herd. Ugh.

My sister and I left the next day for Lilongwe, but only managed to get to Blantyre due to more transport issues. It had FINALLY rained THAT WEEK so the roads were awful...I mean, rainy season started in NOVEMBER and should have ended in FEB/MARCH and we literally had 2 weeks of rain in November and were in a drought, BUT, when my sister comes it rains ALL WEEK. And never again. Typical. We arrived in Lilongwe the next day and made it in time for the tour, which was great!

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