Hello again!

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In some ways its hard to believe Alyssa and I have been in Africa for 3 weeks already. Our days seem long but the weeks fly by. When we first arrived at our lovely home here at Mwaya Beach the volunteers told us the first few weeks would be the hardest, and they were right! It's hard to explain life in Malawi, its so different yet so wonderful. The concept of time does not seem to exist here for the most part and we have almost adapted to using morning or afternoon time as opposed to a specific hour. Trips to nearby towns must be planned for a whole day or weekend as transportation is so unrealiable. Our minibus stories are endless and just when we dont think anything else could surprise us a door falls off or we see one being pushed down the road. I do know one thing though and that is I will never critize Alyssa's driving again!

I don't know if we were misinformed or just naive to assume that because we were in Africa it was going to be hot. Don't get me wrong the days can be very intensely hot and our noses have become a brilliant shade of red, but after sunset is another story. Alyssa and I have both found comfort finally under our sleeping bags with 2 quilts on top each. Comfort in bed is of most importance as a good 50% of our time is spent there. It is odd how the bodies internal clock adjust to the rhythm of the sun, the only well kept time in Africa it seems. We rise with the sun around 5:30am and are eating dinner at 6:00pm as the sunsets and bedtime shortly follows no matter how hard we try to stay awake. A ten hour sleep is common and I have definitely had a few 12 hour plus nights.

Another misconception I'd like to clear up is food. Before we came our joke had been "the African diet" and we had often joked that we would come home skinnier. Wow were we wrong! Although the food here is limited and cravings can be very hard to satisfy, we have never had to worry about going hungry. Our staple food here is bread, with fresh baked rolls being sold to us every morning. We often eat these a few times a day. Three weeks in and 3 jars of peanut butter and 2 jars of jam later we probably don't want to know the actually number of rolls we have consumed. Our weekend trips to towns with small grocery stores have become quite interesting. We're like kids in a candy store, especially when it comes to chocolate. We've since joked with the other volunteers about how we eat pounds of chocolate and stock up for our whole time here because it is so hard to find and we don't know when we might be back to town or be able to have it again. Somehow, we seem to always be eating it and not saving it at all while at the same time buying more every single weekend.

Africa definitely isn't a place you can just come for a week and go home. It seems like almost a month in now we are finally finding our places here. It takes so much getting used to the culture and the way everything works. Being white makes you stand out and if you don't know how things work or prices people will try to rip you off. Waiting for a bus yesterday we needed to use the toilets at the bus station. Alyssa was quick to notice that the African lady infront of her was charged 2 kwatcha to use the "toilet" (actually just a hole in the ground) and we were charged 20 kwatcha. Minimal to us as this works out to be approximately 13 cents, but funny none the less. When Alyssa questioned the man at the desk on this he just responded "NO! You 20 Kwatcha!" Before a bus will depart for a destination it often sits around until it has filled every last available space. Yesterday we were fortunate enough to wait over 2 hours before finally being moved to a smaller bus that would be filled with the amount of people waiting aboard. It was during this time that one of the many vendors pushing their goods through our windows in hopes that we would buy their colonge, toothpaste or other various goods commented to us that he would even give us local prices and not mzungu prices. Just enforcing the markup theory we knew all along.

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Comments

[julie Young]

brave young ladies
Hi Tiff, I enjoy reading your blog when it comes my way, Your mom is great at sharing your ongoing story. I am glad you are safe and happy.Its funnny we too take peanut butter and jam when we travel to cuba or mexico ,seems when your starving its the best carb and starch out there and the best energy /comfort food around! and we too are amazed at how hot a country can be by day and then chill you to the bone in the evening .Watch out for the jiggers and men!