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18 months in Malawi

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 way up to my village, bringing sharp wire-cutting scissors, a staple gun, and a tape measure, to help me get my house ready for the approaching rainy season aka the dreaded mosquito/malaria season. I'm so lucky to have such a caring family nearby who I enjoy spending time with and who are so thoughtful and understanding of my situation that they always ask if I want a ride into town whenever they're going and who love to help me decorate and organize my house with random unused items from their own home. I'm very lucky indeed. 


Two-
View of the CBO
My counterpart and I met with the CBO (community based organization) this afternoon and discussed working together in the future. The primary goal of this CBO is to educate and teach skills to youth in the area (especially orphans and vulnerable children affected by HIV), but their major issue is a lack of sustainability in their projects and also a lack of funding. We discussed a few options of ways I can assist them (the SOLID curriculum aka a crash course in sustainable community development and a small-scale business training) within Peace Corps' framework of development: transferring skills and knowledge. Much like the saying, "Give a (wo)man a fish, and (s)he'll eat for a day. Teach a (wo)man to fish, and (s)he'll eat for a year." And I would like to add to that with something like "Teach a community leader/teacher how to fish sustainably, and the whole community eats...." until climate change makes the water too hot and the river dries up and everything is destroyed. Ha. Sorry, couldn't resist...I've been reading too much Nat Geo tonight.



Too much? Never....

Third-
This evening, as I was going through my normal routine of washing my face, brushing my teeth, and trying to clean off my brown feet, I noticed the sky behind the far-off trees was tinted orange. I went to my front porch and was absolutely shocked to see the hill behind my house ablaze with flames. Being dry season, people are setting fires all over the mountain. However, I've not seen a bush fire this close to my house before. I could hear the crackling and popping as the fire turned the bush, trees, and fields into black ash. There's nothing I can do about these pointless fires, but it's depressing to think that people are knowingly destroying their environment (I don't know all the technical information about bush fires and how they ruin the soil and bio diversity and all that since I'm not an environment volunteer, but I know bush fires are bad)! Laying in bed, I can hear the continuous crackling as more of the hillside burns, sounding like what I can imagine deforestation in a rainforest might be like. Every time I get up to check the proximity (since it's super windy currently and I'm nervous that the fire might come this way!), the fire is still burning-forming diagonal lines of flickering orange along the hill and forcing thick smoke into the air. The mood in Bondo village is awfully somber tonight. 



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