Under the Milky Way

In an effort to share the stories of the wonderful people I work with as well to showcase the great work being done voluntarily by my counterparts here in Bondo Village, each week (or every 2 weeks maybe) I am going to feature someone here on my blog. I hope you enjoy getting to learn a little more about my friends and community! Meet My Village #1: Amayi Damson When I first met Ms. Damson at our SOLID training “She can read the bible now,” the doctor told me in the crowded room as I quizzed my counterpart on how her new reading glasses were working. She smiled at me and nodded. He handed her a box to put her new glasses in, and I handed him 6,000 kwacha. This may not have been a sustainable transaction, but seeing Ms. Damson smile made it all worth it. But let me rewind here…. One of the first people I began to work with in my village is this one, super sweet, super hardworking lady. She lives right next to my primary counterpart and also right next ...

It's become a fad these days with social media to make your life seem picture-perfect and to only share the advancements of your career, the news of your engagement to the "love of your life," the house you just bought, or the gorgeous selfie that you just took. People have called me cynical, but I like to think of myself as a realist. I try to share the good  and  the bad. No life is perfect nor should it be! If your life is always wonderful, you'll get so used to it that you won't appreciate that greatness anymore. We all need some low times in order to really ride out the highs.  This post is my effort to un-glorify (that's not a word, but let's pretend it is) my life here and also to inform people that volunteering abroad comes with its own set of work challenges (like you didn't already know that). What I'd like to share here is the ugly side of my job. The frustrating, infuriating, and hair-splitting obnoxiousness that comes from working in a...

Today was the first day back to school! This morning when I woke up, I went to the center of the village where a few women sell donuts, greens, biscuits, and  thobwa  to sit with them and watch all the kids walk by in their royal purple school uniforms. It was great fun to just sit and watch (and not be watched by others)!! You know you're integrated (or as integrated as a mzungu can possibly be) into the community when you can sit in public without people staring at you too much. Watching the day unfold in this way is so fun to me as we saw kids sprinting and laughing on their way to school, plenty of bicycles loaded with bananas and pineapples going to far away markets, and women with this toddlers coming from the health center to buy them donuts.  Later in the morning, my landlady and one of my favorite SOLID trainees came over, and we enjoyed tea together in my house as they, of course, pointed out the variety and absurd amount of random things in my house. I don't ha...

As of today, I've been in Malawi for 18 months...a year and a half. It's wild to think that it's been that long and also to reflect on how much I've changed and learned in that time. Next big milestone is 2 years, and then I'll be preparing to finish my service and move on to the next thing!  Three major happenings of today: One-  Screens on my windows! I finally put screens on my windows. Well, okay, I didn't really do it. Long story short: there is a wonderful family, originally from Zimbabwe but who have lived in Malawi for about 12 years now, living fairly close to me here in Mulanje. They have basically adopted me as their child as I spend a decent amount of time with them (maybe around 2-3 visits a month), staying at their house for a night or two for hot showers, electricity, and good company. The father is a self-declared lover of fixing things, so when I said I needed to put screens on my windows, he was up for the task! He drove all the ...

Back to blogging! I've been meaning to write all week, but have been going to sleep instead. After a two week break from the village and the idea in my head that I only have 7.5 ish months left here, I've been rearing to go with work.  I need to do a little rewinding I realize, since I haven't written anything about the past week. Last weekend, we had our SKILLZ girl graduation which was super fun! The girls performed some skits and a song about HIV, we made reusable sanitary pads, and certificates were passed out to those who earned them. My favorite part was making the pads as it's something that I've long anticipated doing and also, the girls enjoyed it too! Thanks to all of you who donated to the GoFundMe campaign that my family created. Know that your contributions are being used for a variety of projects around the village-including for the materials to make those pads! I'll try to keep yall updated on what you helped to support.  ...

Written on August 23 Sheesh, so yesterday's travel after the boat began as the worst I've ever had, and then later in the day, among some of the best. When we got off the boat at the mainland port, there were three trucks/buses. The guy we were traveling with spoke like perfect Portuguese, so we just let him do the talking. Apparently none of the chapas were taking the road we wanted to go on, so we decided to take a different one that would bring us to the same main road. Well, this was when we made our worst decision of the day. At first the ride wasn't too bad because we had plenty of space-just the road was horrible. There were so many potholes, so we had to go so painfully slow (yes, PAINFULLY was meant to be ironic). Then we began picking people up. At peak capacity (which lasted for about 3.5 hours), we had 20 people, 2 goats, a basket of chickens, 3 babies, and about 8 maize sacks of cassava in the truck. Kelly and I were in so much pain- there was no room to mo...