It’s pretty amazing, if a little nerve-racking, flying into the next place you’re going to live without ever even having been there before. It’s funny but this is something I’m getting quite used to, starting with our move to a beautiful-sounding town picked out of Frommer’s France ‘91 back in 7th grade. I had heard rumors about the flight from Chiang Mai to Mae Hong Son, and although it didn’t quite compare to the Rwandair Express flight from Arusha to Kigali—on a turboprop so old it had been sold to the airline by a now defunct Ethiopi [View Full Entry]

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So after a tough debate with myself over whether to take a human rights officer post with the UN peacekeeping mission in Cote d’Ivoire (which, after Senegal, I knew I would love), or an associate resettlement officer job in northern Thailand with UNHCR…you all know where I ended up. Having worked previously in Africa, I was eager to gain experience in a new cultural context like Asia. Also my background has been primarily in refugee status determination, and I knew it would round out my resume to branch out into resettlement work. And there is no better place to work on [View Full Entry]

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Last weeks in Malawi Soon after my return from Zimbabwe something many of us mzungus had been looking forward to for months was finally happening: 'Indecision 2008' to use Jon Stewart’s terminology . Chameleon’s, a mzungu-owned bar in Lilongwe, had promised to stay open all night and broadcast the U.S. presidential election live on CNN for us. After sleeping for a few hours, Maki, Avik, and I, as well as most Americans and a great many foreigners, all congregated there around 1am and plopped down on couches or on the floor to watch John King get frazz [View Full Entry]

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ZIMBABWE TRIP - October 17-26 The next Friday I boarded a big bus to head out on my big Zimbabwean adventure. I know most of you think it was positively insane to go to Zimbabwe at this time, but before departing I had spoken to plenty of Zimbabweans, including a colleague of mine at UNHCR, Ennie, who assured me that I would be perfectly fine. Zimbabwe was not dangerous, especially not for foreigners, although most people were living under very difficult conditions. Ennie even put me in touch with her family, who live in Harare, and let me borrow a Zimbabwean [View Full Entry]

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LAKE OF STARS FESTIVAL, SENGA BAY, MALAWI One of the only things Malawi is known for in the West—besides Madonna’s adoption there which is usually the first thing people think of—is the Lake of Stars Festival, an annual music event which is held on the beach of Lake Malawi and features musicians and famous DJs from the United Kingdom primarily but also other places, including Malawi. The festival draws a huge number of tourists as well and I didn’t know anyone who wasn’t planning to go. I hitched a ride up with my roommate Dalia and her friend Sistah [View Full Entry]

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Forgot about me didn't ya... As you know I just arrived in northern Thailand for my new post with UNHCR, but I want to quickly wrap up the last few months in Malawi because there was so much going on! I will get these out quickly so I can start posting pictures of my new digs. I think I may have mentioned in an earlier blog that I had been trying for months to organize some kind of traditional dance lessons in Lilongwe. These finally got off the ground in the first week of September, after I managed to find a [View Full Entry]

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For some reason, in mid-August most of my closest friends were all abandoning me here in Malawi to move on for better pastures: Caroline was returning home to work on a public health degree, Sebastien was going to work for UNHCR in Djibouti (which would turn out to be a disaster), Olivier was going back to Quebec where people could actually understand him, and John Paul was moving to Ontario for university. This made for a very bittersweet but fun two weeks for me, but luckily it coincided with the arrival of several people who would also become very close friends. [View Full Entry]

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I awoke in the middle of the night one Sunday to the sound of rain. Yet it was only July, in the middle of the dry winter...I hadn't seen or thought of rain in months. Then I noticed it sounded more like my shower running...only I'd been asleep for well over three hours. Strangely, the sound seemed to be coming from the other side of the flat than my bathroom... I ran to the bedroom door and sure enough, there was a rainstorm, right in the middle of my living room! Water was pouring in sheets right out of the ceiling; [View Full Entry]

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The week we returned from Kande Beach, we all went out to get Ethiopian food to celebrate (or mourn) Mike and Lesley’s departure from Malawi—the first in a series of abandonments by my best friends here (alas, thus is expat life). The restaurant is basically run in the home of an Ethiopian family; the mom is the chef, and her kids moonlight as servers when they have customers. It's a very cozy place and despite the difficulty of obtaining the real ingredients to make injera—the delicious, sour Ethiopian sponge bread that is the basis of every meal—her food tast [View Full Entry]

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PART II (continued from Part I) After breakfast we set out to Mzuzu, Malawi's third city, for the nation's big Independence Day celebration, which this year was being held in Mzuzu's soccer stadium. We had no idea what we were in for, whether we would get in, and whether it would be worth it...but we were going! It was a pleasant hour-long drive through a rubber-tree forest. Amazingly, you can actually smell rubber as you're driving through it! And local kids sell rubber balls all along the drive. Mzuzu is a very small but pretty town; all the streets President Bingu [View Full Entry]

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