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kristen hosey
"The contents of this website are mine personally and do not reflect any position of the U.S. government or the Peace Corps." krstnhsy
Travel Blog Posts
April 6th 2010
Tuesday March 30th I met Tenley in Mzuzu and we stayed at the CCAP Resthouse. It is a relatively inexpensive dorm-like place to stay near the bus depot. We thought it would be easy to get to Nchenachena and start our hike after that the following day - this was a mistake. We should have stayed in Nchenachena and started our hike early in the morning since the first hike is without passing any water AND is about 8 hours. We got to Nchenachena via a bus and a matola and didn't actually start our hike until sometime between 10 and 11. Dan was our guide - he works for Wildlife and Forestry in Malawi. He was awesome. We carried our own packs for the hike, filled with food and cooking materials. I've never done anything ... read more
March 30th 2010
Immediately following my sister's departure back to the states, I followed my friends to Senga Bay. We stayed at Carolinas - but WARNING: my friends had over $100 stolen out of their bags in the locked hotel room...the owners of the place were out of town, so that might have had something to do with it, but I personally will not go there again. It was a cheaper place for PCVs to stay, but not if someone is going to go rummaging around in my stuff!!! The sneaky thing was that they stole only a little out of each girls wallet's so they didn't realize they were missing money until they did the math later! My friends and I were not happy, and we didn't ever get the money back. Following this one night stay, we ... read more
March 10th 2010
So we did a 9 day tour with Kiboko based out of Lilongwe, Malawi. It was great! My sister and I left Lilongwe March 1st with another PCV and her dad, a doctor from the UK, a guy from Holland, a driver and one of the managers of Kiboko (which is the name of the tour company we used based in Lilongwe) and we traveled to Luangwa Valley. We stayed at a campsite in South Luangwa National Park for 2 full days and IT WAS AWESOME. Our tents actually had BEDS in them - and ELECTRICITY! It was right on this huge river, and you had to constantly watch out for your food because of the baboons (and the bar owners pet squirrel). I at first thought it was funny that at night we had to ... read more
February 15th 2010
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 ... read more
January 4th 2010
Project holiday denial - this was my goal all through the holidays. It is WAY too HOT to be Christmas time! Instead, I decided to pretend I was just on summer vacation. Here is what I did: Well, first I had to show up in Lilongwe a few days early because I was sent a message that there were some problems with my proposal - mainly the location of the PLHIV Resource Centre. So, Melanie and I paid MK400 for a bike taxi to the river, crossed, and were picked up by some of her VSO peers and taken to Blantyre. Because we had private transport I managed to finally get a picture on the bridge over the Shire River. Then, because Mel was talking about taking the Executive Axa, I decided to shell out a ... read more
Kande, Mulanje and Elephant Marsh
Published: January 4th 2010Africa » Malawi » Lake Malawi » Kandi Beach
December 20th 2009
SOOOOOOOOOO....I know I failed this time. I have not been on this page in months!! Sorry! I don't have much to say about December. My birthday on the 6th was nice and quiet, and Thanksgiving was it's usual brand of PC-Crazy. BUT, after Halloween I did a few interesting things. (My Christmas adventure is on the next blog) For instance, just after Chitipa I had a few days to kill before going to Laura's Girls Camp in Mulanje. Jen's birthday fit in perfectly, so I handled some VAST grant issues in Lilongwe and followed her up to Kande Beach for 2 nights. It was nice to hang out with the peeps in my group. Kande is nice - but there were a lot of those overlander buses there (for tourists that do long overland bus rides ... read more
November 3rd 2009
Okay, it has been a while! (I feel like I start with that sentence a lot) First of all: I HAVE FROGS LIVING IN MY TOILET. Well, maybe they live in the plumbing? I thought this was an appropriate way to start my blog off for the last 2 months because for me it is a very big dilemma....To flush or not to flush - that is the question. I wont tell you what I usually end up doing...I am just worried one morning I am going to look into my toilet and find a black mamba. THAT would be a definite FLUSH. So, anyway, to start off the month of September we lost our principal to a neighboring college. We really are having a hard time keeping our staff at the hospital and college! Same ... read more
August 18th 2009
I barely got home from Camp GLOW before I had to come right back out of site for a "Strategic Planning" Conference in Blantyre. From Monday, August 17th through Friday August 21st we stayed at the Kabula Hill Lodge. I really loved the Lodge and all of the people running it. They were really sweet and very helpful. The Lodge is nice and well located in my opinion (not too far from the Peace Corps house either) and more affordable than the high-end hotels, but better than a hostel...Okay, so that was my small travel advice. NOW, I gained plenty of experience during our week of "Strategic Planning". I think I had a general, broad idea about what a strategic plan was, but I had no idea how detailed something like that can be. We basically ... read more
August 10th 2009
So, for the last week my health group and I have been holding our annual Camp GLOW. This is a camp for secondary school girls implemented by Peace Corps Volunteers worldwide. But before that I kept myself busy. I came back from holiday to the college and spent about 2 weeks teaching Medical-Surgical Nursing and budgeting with the college staff for some sort of Strategic Plan that will be conducted next week. I also road my bike about 20 kilometers with broken gears, taught my first tae kwon do classes in Malawi, and learned how to play netball. Aside from being bummed about my broken gears it wasn't a bad time. I left site on a Sunday. I managed to get a bike taxi to take me about 12 kilometers to a Janeemo Festival down the ... read more
July 9th 2009
NAMIBIA! Namibia was wonderful. VERY different from Malawi. Even though our plane was delayed in Cape Town, it was no problem to get to our hotel in Windhoek. There are plenty of taxis, and a shuttle, eager to take you to Windhoek. HOWEVER, it would be good to ask someone who works at the airport what the real price for taxis are before negotiating with the taxi’s… We stayed at the Cardboard Box Backpackers in Windhoek on Saturday the fourth of July. However, we poorly planned when to come to Namibia as far as tours go… NOTE to the Traveler, make sure you know when the tours leave before you book your trip. I think that organized tours leave something like Saturdays and Mondays (don't quote me on that). Basically we got to Namibia right in ... read more
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