Under the Milky Way

October 20 It has been one hell of a weekend.  I had to travel to Blantyre yesterday to go to the hospital here because I have conjunctivitis (pink eye) in both of my eyes. The past three mornings I’ve woken up with one or both of my eyes sealed shut with nasty discharge stuff that comes from this lovely infection. I just received eye cream from the doctor, so I’m hoping that it works fast because right now, I’m embarrassed to take off my sunglasses! In addition to this incident, I also stepped on a scorpion in my house about a week and half ago. My entire house had just been cleaned because the workers who installed my electricity wires and pipes had made a complete mess. So, I thought it would be fine to walk around my house barefoot. Wrong decision. I was walking to my bedroom at night when suddenly I felt a sharp pain my little toe. I thought maybe I’d stepped on a nail or a thumbtack. I jumped back, shining my headlamp and my flashlight on the ground, looking for ...

OCTOBER 14 When I tell people I’m a Peace Corps Volunteer here in Malawi, they always have the same questions, “So what’s a typical day like?” Well, I feel like I’ve been here long enough (it’s now over 7 months!!!!) to approach this question. There is no typical day. Basi. However, today was one of those busy, productive, unpredictable days where everything just seemed to slip easily from one to thing to another. I woke up at half five this morning to go for a run before it got too hot and humid because man , that african sun during hot season is not something to mess with. On my run, I think I probably saw every primary and secondary (high school) school student in my village and the village adjacent to ours on their journeys to school. Most primary students were dressed in blue or purple uniforms and the secondary students wear black on bottom and white on top. The kids typically have track shoe bags for backpacks slung around their shoulders and in their hands they sling a...

September 30 Hello friends!  I am fresh out of IST (in service training) and also from a free weekend spent at a music and arts festival on Lake Malawi.  The second week of our training went well with our counterparts. Although some of the information was repetitive for us, it was good for our counterparts to learn more about Peace Corps and the types of projects we can do. We talked mostly about project design and management and specific ideas for potential projects to do with the community or just at our own homes like nutrition education, permaculture/gardening, the Pad Project, etc. Those are the projects I’m most interested in at least! My counterpart and I are both feeling pretty motivated, and I know what I want to try to get accomplished this month.  The other exciting event of September for me was the Lake of Stars festival that just happened this past weekend. A lot of PCVs attended, and we all shared a beautiful lake house right on the shore of...

It’s been awhile since my last update! I am currently in Lilongwe for our 2 week IST (In Service Training) where we are reuniting with our March 2014 group of health and environment volunteers and learning about the next step for when we go back to site. In case you don't know (I’ve noticed that a lot of people don’t understand the set up of Peace Corps), here’s how it goes for Peace Corps Malawi. We arrive in country and spend 9 weeks in Pre-Service Training living with home stay families. Then we move to each of our sites all across the country and spend the next 3-4 months conducting needs assessments and working on integrating into our rural villages. After those first few months, we come to IST for two weeks to learn more specifics about program design and management, grant-writing, behavior change, emotional resiliency, etc. The first week is just PCVs, but all of our primary counterparts arrived at our venue today, and they’ll be going through the next week of training ...

July 31, 2014 This has probably been the busiest week in my service thus far. I returned to my village from Lilongwe on Saturday evening. Sunday, I spent the day washing clothes, organizing my house, and meeting up with my counterpart to discuss what I’d learned at my malaria training. After that, a man in my village came to get me to go for a run. He was wearing converses. We jogged to the main road and back (about 6 miles) climbing up and down the rock laden dirt roads while people sat outside their homes and yelled greetings to us as we passed by. I think it was the first time I’ve gone all the way down and back up my road without walking—and man was I tired after! Monday, as I was on my way to the health center to help with the family planning clinic, I noticed that it was deserted. I walked to my counterparts house but was redirected to the guardian shelter (where pregnant mothers stay when they are close to popping out a baby). I found him helping to fix a water pipe...

There's nothing like being gone from my site for a week (and being in the capital city) to make me love and appreciate my village even more!  The woman selling me produce in the boma automatically gave me a Malawian price instead of trying to up charge me. I was given the front seat in the mini bus because I had 3 bags. A form 2 boy carried one of my backpacks up the mountain as we chatted about malaria and he asked me questions and encouraged me to come to his school to help teach about malaria and HIV. My neighbor kids FREAKED OUT with excitement when they saw me walking up. My amayi friends had me come up to sit and catch up with them while they talked about how much they missed me and gifted me sweet potatoes before I left. A two yr old curled up in my arms. The gates to my fence were fixed. And most importantly--MY HEALTH CENTER NOW HAS ELECTRICITY!!!!  Aka a few houses also have electricity! This means I can hopefully  charge my phone and laptop at the health center...

Hi all!   So I just returned to Mulanje from a trip to Lilongwe for a (mini) STOMP Out Malaria boot camp. It was such a wonderful week! Kudos to Brooke Mancuso—our national malaria coordinator— for planning a successful camp! The STOMP Malaria team in Malawi has now more than doubled from 4 to 10 people. Last weekend, I traveled to Blantyre which is the nearest big city to me and a good stopping place between Bondo and Lilongwe. I met up with some PCVs there and was able to meet some of our new education volunteers along the way. We have a new education volunteer coming to Mulanje, so we’ll be a solid crew of five. I was able to explore the city some, even found some incense and a yarn store which was exciting!  When we reached Lilongwe, it was so nice to be reunited with volunteers from our H&E 2014 group—especially the ones who live far up north! We had a great time hanging out and being able to catch up all week.  Our training began with lear...

Moni onse! I don't really feel like typing up a whole long update, but here are some interesting, funny, or random things that have happened recently.... My lovely mulanje buddy, Adia, left to go home to America at the beginning of July. I was and still am very sad to see her go, but I know she's doing what's best for her. We had many hilarious memories together, as she was also my neighbor during PST, and bonding times. She was there for me through all of my struggles since arriving in Kasungu, and I'm so thankful for the time I had with her. It will definitely be different without being able to meet her in the boma to catch up and for lunch, but thank god for whatsapp! And all of the other wonderful volunteers who live in Mulanje!  This past weekend (July 12), I ran the Mount Mulanje Porters Race. I almost backed out of running it, but the guys I did the trial run with held me to it...and I'm so glad they did! We had a decent sized group of PCVs running, about 9, ...

It has been a ridiculously busy weekend. Early Saturday morning, I left to go to mbewa to meet up with some friends and run the porters race trail. When I reached the city, I took a “hitch” to Andy’s house. This entailed climbing into the back of a raggedy white truck loaded with people and bags. I had to stand up the entire ride (10km) and hold onto a bar behind the cab of the truck. I had no foot room to brace myself and felt like I was going to fall out the side about half of the ride. There were two men sitting on top of the cab right in front of me who insisted on speaking to me in Chichewa the entire ride once they found out that I was not an azungu . When I said I was a health volunteer, one began asking me all kinds of questions about HIV, condom use, contracting the disease, and if we have it in America. It was a long ride in, taking forever on the bumpy dusty roads. I was hoping that I wouldn’t have to pay since it was not a mini bus, but they still charged me 700 kwatcha ...

June 27, 2014  I woke up today with a plan. I was going to go to the secondary school’s graduation then head to the boma, use some wifi, go to the post office, meet friends for lunch, and crash at Andy’s house because we were all going to do a test-run of the porters race tomorrow morning. Well, that all changed when the graduation began three and half hours late. When I received my invitation, the deliverer said to arrive at 8:30AM and that the ceremony would begin at 9:30. I left my house at 8:15AM, expecting to be home in about 2-3 hours. I should never ever think this way while I’m here in Africa. I arrived at the school, and there was no one there except the group of students still setting up the “tent” for guests (throwing tarps over a basic skeleton of bamboo pieces). I settled myself onto one of the giant boulders in the open space by the school. A student ran over with a white, plastic lawn chair. I refused, but he sat and chatted with me while I waited. The sun w...