First few days in Malawi

---

Ok so just in case you are kinda wondering why I'm posting this stuff it's cause we had VERY slow connection in Malawi so I decided to wait before posting the stuff I wrote... which I am doing now in Dubai. More pics to come!!!!


Oct.24 - Wow. Where to begin. Since I left Montreal my life has been quite a sleepless adventurous daze. I was hoping to be able to post up pictures and thoughts every day during this trip, but that seems to be more and more unlikely…. I haven’t been able to connect my laptop to the Internet and I haven’t had the time to make it to an Internet café. Actually, I haven’t even been able to call anyone since I left Montreal. It’s quite frustrating; I feel like I have to let at least someone know that I’m alive! I even tried calling Dubai… still couldn’t get through…

Today was our first day in the field. We met with the National Statistic Office (NSO) enumerators, with whom each of us was teamed up. Richard put me with Simeon and supposedly he wants to get the most credit for the least work possible. Fun, sounds like a GREAT team partner.... Anyway, he’s nice enough, kinda full of shit, but we got quite a bit of work done so it worked out ok. And he’s not macho as are some of the other guys we’re working with, who seem to look down on Melanie and I because we are fairly young, and of course women. It’s quite frustrating.

Anyway I’m too tired to write anymore… I hope I will finally have a full nights sleep.

Oct. 25 - I did! I did!! I finally had a full 8hours of sleep (I haven’t slept more than 3 hours since Thursday night). I would have slept more if it wasn’t for the phone call from my boss! (actually thank god he called… we had to be ready for 8am…) So Melanie and I rushed off to have breakfast (which consists first of a bowl of fresh fruit for me (papaya, pineapple, orange, and strawberries) with a little yogurt and granola), then comes coffee (mmm I’m starting to believe that the only places in the world that serve shitty coffee are Canada and the US…) and brown toasts (the bread here isn’t so spectacular though) with honey and a few macadamia nuts… and a little peanut butter for some extra protein. Mmmm and bananas. Not too shabby I guess.

Unfortunately I left Montreal with a pretty nasty cold, and this morning I woke up to sharp ear pain in my right ear, leading me to worry that I might have an infection. I’m still coughing a lot, and coughing very deeply too (which might also be the cause of my ear problem). I don’t have any fever, but Richard told me to stay at the hotel and to rest today. If my ear gets worse, he’ll come with me to the hospital (even though he has 1000 things to do, plus managing everything and everyone….) This is exactly what I was fearing: being in Africa sick, unproductive, and a burden to everyone else… Hopefully this day off will do me lots of good and I’ll be back 110% from tomorrow onwards!

---