tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33977743203202621242024-03-04T23:15:40.330-08:00Bryan in MalawiA journal of a [former] Peace Corps Volunteer's time in the Warm Heart of Africa intended to inform friends, family, and lonely blog-readers.Bryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10694381426521582570noreply@blogger.comBlogger58125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3397774320320262124.post-49787230323742731452016-03-10T22:40:00.001-08:002016-03-10T22:40:02.783-08:00But My Boots Don't Have Any Straps <div class="MsoNormal">
I’ve been thinking more about the issue of classism lately.
Especially as a visiting Westerner, it’s easy to overlook this here in Malawi.
Anytime I go outside in a rural area, people stop what they’re doing so that
they can pay close attention to what I’m doing. If I enter a room where someone
is busy (cooking food, for example), they immediately stop what they’re doing,
and in what I think is a mixture of both nervousness and ingrained customs of
being overly-respectful towards guests of certain races, they make a big
gesture of giving me a wide berth and greeting me. When constantly dealing with
this hyper-attention, one has a tendency to be ignorant towards the happenings
in their absence.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Over time, the novelty of the mzungu’s presence wears off,
and the mzungu can observe the regular ebb and flow of things. One begins to
understand certain things that aren’t discussed in the Lonely Planet guide,
things that aren’t seen along the tarmac road on the way to a weekend at the
lake, and things that aren’t discussed at big NGO meetings in the cities.
Compared to most visitors to Malawi, I think it is safe to say that I have
relatively good insight into the good, the bad, and the ugly here. Over the
years I’ve discussed many of these insights (at times foolishly you’ll notice
if you read some of the early posts) but this new topic has been on my mind
more lately. I think it’s because during this two-month trip I’ve been spending
more time around people of higher socioeconomic status (SES) and observing how
they treat those of lower SES. While here as a Peace Corps Volunteer, I spent
the majority of my time living and working alongside the most populous social
class in Malawi, the rural poor. Analyzing something familiar from a new angle
often leads to new realizations. One of my favorite authors, Paul Theroux once
wrote: “In countries where all the crooked politicians wear pin-striped suits,
the best people are bare-assed.” I now agree more with this generalization than
I did four years ago. Let me explain why.<o:p></o:p></div>
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My point is not to say that classism composes the ugly part
of this society disproportionately more than any place else. While that may
actually be true (requiring a longer discussion then I have the energy for
today), my point is to say that this problem of classism is frequently overlooked
with respect to discussions on development, aid, social justice, and even in
everyday life. This holds true for both foreigners like me and for Malawians.
Unless you’re a dirty Peace Corps Volunteer, a bankrupt diamond trader, or a
Chinese criminal, most foreigners here immediately fall into the category of bourgeoisie.
Most of them (us) are either here for enjoyment, business, or some sort of
adventure to save the world. With the cost of travel and such, it’s not really
possible for foreigners of lower SES to end up here. Consequently, the
foreigners that Malawians interact with are disproportionately well off, and
Malawians then have a very skewed view the distribution of social classes in
developed countries (also think about how this works in the other direction,
eg. Americans’ misperceptions of Africans). Putting aside the fact that
foreigners here further deepen the valleys between the social classes of
Malawi, as I described a little in the beginning, most visitors to Malawi
simply don’t have the desire or time to think about classism within the local
population. The ladder allowing folks to climb to higher SES is much more
slippery here in Malawi than the ladder many complain about in the US. There is
no question that this is intentional. In a place where the supply for all
resources continues to fall behind a rapidly growing population, those at the
top keep a tight hold on their position. Read the Wikipedia article on
“Structural Violence” for an overview of how this is done. There are some that manage
to break free from these ridged social structures (see my post<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“A Feel Good Story” from 2011--the story has only gotten better over the past few years), but for a
long time here, the rich have been getting richer and the poor have been
getting poorer. With this happening over generations now, and with criticisms
to the situation either absent or silenced, I’ve seen that classism here is so
ubiquitous that it’s easy to overlook and even easier to ignore. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Although this entire issue can’t be traced back to the
legacy of colonialism, I think this has certainly been a big factor. Malawi is
a former British colony. From what I’ve been able to gather, the two sides—the
British and what are now called Malawians—had a fairly peaceful relationship.
The British utilized the cheap local labor to get filthy rich farming things
such as tea. Placated by small improvements in their quality of life (eg. from
wearing loin cloths to a proper pair of trousers), the Malawians took decades
to realize how thoroughly they were exploited. Nonetheless, during the time of
British rule, it was made very clear who were the “haves” and who were the
“have nots.” When Malawi gained its independence in the 1960s, there were
suddenly many new “haves” from the local population. They were quick to adopt
the power-concentrating and resource-hoarding practices of their former
leaders. Over the years, these tendencies have become more prominent and
acceptable in the society. As an American, I would be a big fat hypocrite to
criticize any of this. I’m just spelling it out for you. Again, the presence of
classism in a poor country like this is of no surprise. It’s the blatant ignoring
of it that amazes me. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Here are some experiences that I have had pertaining to all
this. I’m currently working on a sanitation project at a seminary school in
Malawi. The priests have been gracious enough to host me while I’m around for a
few days managing the purchases for the project and monitoring the progress.
They’ve provided me with good local food, a nice place to sleep, and transport
to and from the school, all free of charge. In this rural environment, compared
to most of the population in the area these priests live a very comfortable
lifestyle. Most religious leaders in the US, at least where I’m from in the
Midwest, have relatively modest lifestyles. Although the circumstances are much
different here in one of the top five poorest countries in the world, religious
leaders in Malawi hold much higher social status—both in terms of respect given
to them and relative lifestyle and comfort. All that being said, I’ve been
closely observing how the priests interact with the ground labors and helpers
at the school. There’s definitely a air of authority that the priests walk
around with. They routinely scold our cook about the food he cooks. He either picks
the wrong food to cook or he picks the right food but doesn’t cook it properly.
There’s always something wrong. The other night I tried to suggest that it was
silly for us to be so fussy about the food when our friends in the nearby
villages were barely getting one meal per day. I didn’t hear any response to
this.<o:p></o:p></div>
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At the hospital I was working for six weeks, there was an
interesting dynamic between the healthcare providers (eg. doctors, nurses, and
other mid-level providers) and the patients, who were mostly poor subsistence
farmers from the nearby area. There’s a huge gap in the SES of the providers
and patients at the hospital. This holds true at most healthcare facilities in
the country, but I think the difference is especially striking at this hospital
that is relatively well funded (and therefore able to hire better educated
staff—who, it almost goes without saying, are of higher SES) but also serves a
mostly rural population. Who am I to judge, but I did find the staff to be
regularly condescending to the patients and their caregivers. Seeing the staff
shouting at these people was not uncommon. When interviewing patients about the
history of their illness, they would often falsely shorten the timeframe. When
I enquired the reason behind this, I was told that it was because they’re
scolded by staff for delaying to seek care. The patients therefore lie about
how long they’ve been sick in order to avoid being yelled at. Someone even
informed me that women in labor were often slapped and ridiculed by staff when
they weren’t pushing hard enough. A visiting American doctor mentioned to me
briefly that he believes this issue of pervasive classism is a largely
overlooked issue in discussion about improving healthcare in developing
countries like Malawi. It was this little discussion that actually got me
thinking more and more about this topic and eventually writing all this. His
concern is that higher status providers simply don’t care enough about their
lower status patients. The unexpected death of a well to do nurse’s child is a
tragedy, but the death of a poor farmer’s child is very common and not much
cause for concern. The farmer should have done a better job raising the child
anyway.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Growing up in sort of suburban America, I never really
experienced having servants or workers. But here in Malawi, as a consequence of
some of the history here that I’ve already described and also a huge amount of
low-skilled labor, the “haves” often have multiple people working for them in
their homes: cooks, gardeners, maids, nannies, guards, etc. Often these people
are desperate and grateful for the work. The “haves” get by paying these people
very low wages (it’s the market price, after all), and as masters of their
domain, they can show their dominance over their staff by scolding, micromanaging,
and complaining about them. From what I can tell from reading books and
watching too much TV, I suppose this type of master-servant relationship is
nothing new in the context of world history. Maybe it’s just ignorant,
middle-class dudes from the Midwest like me who are surprised by it all.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I regularly listen to the BBC, and the other morning they
had a program about the death of the middle class in developed countries (not
to be confused with “developING" countries like Malawi). They mentioned that
the main reason for this is that more and more jobs are being taken over by
machines and computers. I don’t know how they measure this, but they also
stated that for the first time in the history of the United States, this year
less than half of the US population is in the “middle class.” To overgeneralize
and oversimplify (which my English teachers in college would never allow me to
do, but this is my blog and I don’t have to listen to them anymore), I think a
strong middle class is a major solution to this issue of classism. As we
continue to struggle with so many other “-ism’s” in the US, I wonder if the
issue of classism will continue to grow in the Land of the Free. <o:p></o:p></div>
Bryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10694381426521582570noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3397774320320262124.post-50044608018957323122016-02-25T10:24:00.003-08:002016-02-26T21:14:23.145-08:00The Beginning of CorpsAfrica in MalawiLast night I had the pleasure of attending the swearing in ceremony for the first cohort of CorpsAfrica Volunteers in Malawi.<br />
<br />
You can find many more details at the organization's website (http://www.corpsafrica.org), but my one sentence summary is that it is like the US Peace Corps but they recruit volunteers from within the country (eg. Malawians serving as volunteers in Malawi) instead of Americans going to developing countries like I did in 2008. It's a one year commitment for these inspired young adults. It was started by a former Peace Corps Volunteer that served in Morocco. She naturally started the program in Morocco, and they are just starting to train their third cohort of volunteers. This year they have expanded to two additional countries, Malawi and Senegal. I was amazed to hear today that all of this, including these new activities in Malawi, are being funded by a Moroccan mining company.<br />
<br />
I had a lump in my throat throughout most of the ceremony. I'm very excited to see how these guys do over the next year.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgab_jgewHTeNASxOheTYBQSb6HN0rqJm0glgMFMBwMbISSWw7aSPb6V4gfyy_nswBX_3QlTSUmfrQ6yYwiVKsQsUQIiVzrIMU2pKxPF-azzm9Kn2EqEsEDs-O4tz6VP3xp__JWSBz1CTGI/s1600/IMG_0935.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgab_jgewHTeNASxOheTYBQSb6HN0rqJm0glgMFMBwMbISSWw7aSPb6V4gfyy_nswBX_3QlTSUmfrQ6yYwiVKsQsUQIiVzrIMU2pKxPF-azzm9Kn2EqEsEDs-O4tz6VP3xp__JWSBz1CTGI/s400/IMG_0935.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Taking the oath</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<br /></div>
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<a href="https://youtu.be/g3uZC00SBaU" target="_blank">See the video of the new volunteers taking their oath</a></div>
<br />
I had the opportunity to visit their training a few weeks ago and talk with some of them. It's very inspiring to hear about their dreams, and some of their life stories will give you goosebumps. The current director of operations here in Malawi, Adam Gaskins, started his Peace Corps service while I was about half way through mine. It's great to see this old friend leading this group and hopefully taking things to the next level over the next few years. One of the new volunteers is a woman I worked with a lot on a variety of projects when I was here before, and I'm very excited that she has this opportunity to advance her skills and career.<br />
<br />
In my humble opinion, community-based, human-centered organizations like this are the antidote to inefficient, obese, authoritarian organizations like USAID and Save the Children (just to name a few).<br />
<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXEEbJVWeeuUZ3Jvi9U3oM4G6Hr2pmPBP5-tKM2pJohUfHzLUorlmwPMH81MeD5ENLA4K5JWm_dfbQZ67dyZkk0Mi6c0JlWq_ruwb1z10_bv9ml0OU9UHri-hBHkc9xJq8FzSIbfKv5axG/s1600/IMG_0937.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXEEbJVWeeuUZ3Jvi9U3oM4G6Hr2pmPBP5-tKM2pJohUfHzLUorlmwPMH81MeD5ENLA4K5JWm_dfbQZ67dyZkk0Mi6c0JlWq_ruwb1z10_bv9ml0OU9UHri-hBHkc9xJq8FzSIbfKv5axG/s400/IMG_0937.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">12 new volunteers cramming a years worth of luggage onto this little<br />
bus before they head to their new homes. </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />Bryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10694381426521582570noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3397774320320262124.post-69394139158357901152016-02-20T03:55:00.001-08:002016-02-21T20:46:36.839-08:00Updates1. When I lived here before, it took me at least a year, and
many bumps on my head, to habitually duck at every doorway. To generalize,
Malawians are much shorter than people from places like the USA. Add poverty to
that equation and you get tiny doors all over the place. I have the most
difficulty with those just shorter than me and above my eyes. I can deal with
the slowly progressing bald spot on the top of my head, but right now it’s got
a few scabs and bumps on it too. But I’m getting better—only bumped my head
once in the past few days. I’ll be ducking through doors for no reason when I
get back to the States in a few weeks.<br />
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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2. If you haven’t already, check out my GoFundMe project:
gofund.me/HolySpiritSchool. It’s easier for me to direct you there rather
writing about it twice. You could even donate money if you want!<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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3. [The section has been censored by someone with the new nickname Madame NoFun.]<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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4. Last week I climbed Nkhoma mountain, which looms over the
town and hospital I’m working at. I took a wrong turn and ended up taking a little
path the goats use to get to the top, but it was still awesome. This is sort of
the view from the top.<o:p></o:p></div>
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5. When I was here before, I went through more than a few
bottles of spirits. I’ve never seen AK-47 Vodka (below) until the other day.
It’s the cheapest vodka around for good reason.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjApV38-ZcrfAFqVPBMMqf0MPyWxZTwy2lHNZspCwstxt2SCYYtrCUTS5kaaE4ipAKKyt9h-LztmNdQiMTHlbsrsXauHr3MeTyPNipU0ScCl53iwfWZsD60IgV0ewNC5bVP1hyphenhyphenfHcAAE9pG/s1600/IMG_0877.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjApV38-ZcrfAFqVPBMMqf0MPyWxZTwy2lHNZspCwstxt2SCYYtrCUTS5kaaE4ipAKKyt9h-LztmNdQiMTHlbsrsXauHr3MeTyPNipU0ScCl53iwfWZsD60IgV0ewNC5bVP1hyphenhyphenfHcAAE9pG/s320/IMG_0877.JPG" width="240" /></a></div>
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<br /></div>
Bryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10694381426521582570noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3397774320320262124.post-25301883534213685752016-02-09T09:51:00.002-08:002016-02-09T09:51:49.716-08:00Tricky Parasites<div class="MsoNormal">
This is almost too crazy to be true so I’m going to explain
it as if it is a hypothetical situation. That way its just part of my imagination rather than reality pissing me off.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Imagine it is the height of malaria season in one of the
poorest countries in the world. Most adults who have lived in the area get over
this illness without much difficulty because they have built up good immunity
after dealing with multiple infections throughout their lives. However, young
children and pregnant women regularly die from this disease. These days there are
a limited variety of available drugs to treat malaria. Because the country is
so poor, with the average person completely unable to pay the market price for
these medicines and with the government not even close to being able to
generate enough revenue to supply the country’s health centers with an adequate
supply of these medicines, it relies upon places like the United States to
supply the malaria medications. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Over the past year and beyond, there have been more and more
reports about healthcare workers in the country stealing these donated drugs
from the hospitals they work at so that they can sell them on the black market
for 100% profit. Albeit slowly, the United States has caught on to this
nefarious behavior and has decided to crack down hard. All health centers must
now record the basic information of each and every individual receiving these
medications. This new record keeping is in addition to the typical records for individual
patients and pharmacy inventory—both of which are notoriously inaccurate. A new
list of those receiving the medicine and where each of them lives must be
available so that the cranky Americans can come at anytime and crosscheck this
list by going into the community and making sure those who reportedly received
the drugs indeed received the drugs. If there are any discrepancies, the supply
of these lifesaving medications will be cut off. It turns out that many health
centers aren’t organized (or motivated or aware or whatever) enough to even do
this new record keeping. There is an entire district that can’t produce these
records, and they just lost their entire donated supply of malaria medications.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Adjacent to this district, there is a large mission hospital
that has been able to relieve some of this devastation because it is relatively
well organized. Although their staff is completely overwhelmed this time of
year with spikes in admissions due to severe malaria, they have been keeping
good enough records that the Americans haven’t cut off their supply of malaria
medications (yet). The people in the district nearby without any medications
flock to the mission hospital in search of care. This hospital was already
overwhelmed to begin with, and this further influx of patients further stresses
its capacity. Furthermore, the patients coming from the district without any
medicine are traveling long distances to get there and often arrive after much
delay so that their illness is very severe by the time they get to the
hospital. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
To add to this, there is a parallel story that demonstrates
the mission hospital’s difficult predicament: for many years, they have had a
service level agreement (SLA) with country’s government. With the SLA in place,
they received enough funding to subsidize basically all patient costs at the
hospital. The SLA also allowed them to spray insecticides in houses throughout
their catchment area of 80,000 people on a yearly basis before each rainy (ie
malaria) season. This insecticide spraying is a powerful public health
intervention for preventing malaria in endemic areas. While the hospital was
doing this spraying over the past few years, they have seen a large decrease in
the number of admissions and deaths during the rainy season. (There is an interesting story of natural selection and how the mosquitoes have rapidly gaining resistance to these insecticide sprays, but we'll have to save that for another day.) Unfortunately, due
to a variety of reasons (including government officials stealing almost all the
money from the treasury while the former president was visiting the USA a few
years back) leading to depletion of funding for the program, the country’s
government had to break the SLA a few months ago. As a result, the impoverished
patients now encounter a fee for service billing structure. Word spread quickly
that everyone now has to pay when going to the hospital, and many (not just
those traveling from form the neighboring district) are now delaying to go to
the hospital until they become very sick. Hospital staff also think that more
people are seeking help from traditional healers rather than going to the
hospital. Not only do these traditional healers swindle the poor with hoax
therapies, but many of these therapies are dangerous. Only a small fraction of
the hospital’s catchment area was sprayed prior to the current rainy season,
and this is thought to be another big factor in the recent increase in overall
malaria cases, death rate, and total death count. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Last week, the medical director of the hospital went to the
Ministry of Health to discuss the possibility of reimplementing the SLA. He was
armed with lots of facts about how detrimental the dismantling of the SLA has
been over the previous months. The meeting never took place because there was
no one there to talk to. Just before this meeting was planned, over 60 officials
in the Ministry were fired because they mishandled funds from the CDC. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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<!--EndFragment--><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
At this point, healthcare in the country is in complete
disarray. But it has more or less always been this way so there’s not really
any general sense of urgency to improve things in a meaningful way.<o:p></o:p></div>
Bryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10694381426521582570noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3397774320320262124.post-21230922143135753652016-01-30T21:31:00.001-08:002016-01-30T21:31:29.009-08:00Don't Let Your Boy Grow Up to Be a Minibus Conductor<div class="MsoNormal">
Riding a minibus in Malawi is always an adventure. Crammed
in with people that haven’t bathed for a few days, goats and chickens at your
feet, baby’s peeing on your shoes, it’s a unique experience. Someday I’ll quit
being so stingy and move around more in taxis or rental cars or even my own
car. In the meantime, I continue to amuse myself with this immersive cultural
experience. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<o:p> <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieiSzuvt5hfRiNJfqYDuJhFtxvHiNRba55jgchBvIynLnSPEgPBb5oUhAqLtTd0iJH6PUjW7ptxfO9PEv-FqTDoFu4IoaY0uxB_oXycfhBpLQdzlOgedn1k08bNphrHgp3fD7jbvSaFfzd/s1600/malawi-078.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieiSzuvt5hfRiNJfqYDuJhFtxvHiNRba55jgchBvIynLnSPEgPBb5oUhAqLtTd0iJH6PUjW7ptxfO9PEv-FqTDoFu4IoaY0uxB_oXycfhBpLQdzlOgedn1k08bNphrHgp3fD7jbvSaFfzd/s320/malawi-078.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My foot falls asleep just looking at this picture</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</o:p></div>
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As in most businesses, the more customers you have, the more
money you make. More passengers in a minibus means more money. The four main
factors that limit the number of passengers in the bus are 1) tolerance of the
passengers, 2) road laws, 3) the need for a driver and conductor in the bus,
and to a lesser extent, space. Unfortunately, Malawians are generally used to,
and accepting of, poor customer service (at least compared to my high, pompous
standards). They’re used to getting crammed into a bus like sardines because
this is the way it always has been. I’ve heard people complain from time to
time, but these seeds of upheaval are quickly put down by a stern scolding from
the conductor and driver. Like most laws in Malawi, those regulating the number
of passengers in a vehicle are very loosely and erratically enforced. This is
due to police officers being underequipped, understaffed, under-motivated,
bribed, etc. Probably the most important reason for poor enforcement of road
laws is that certain roads rarely have police on them, and on those roads the
conductor and driver can pack people in excessively without any fear of consequences.
Until the Google car or whatever gets to Malawi, there’s no way around needing
a driver. However, the space the conductor takes up is very flexible. To make
more room for passengers, the conductor can stand up hunched over (the roof of
a minibus is about as high as that of a minivan). He can put his head, torso
and arms out the window (I’ve heard of more than one conductor being
decapitated here, it’s a dangerous job). I’ve been in buses full with one to
many people allowed by law, and while approaching a roadblock with police
officers, the driver told the conductor to get out, run up ahead, and we’d
simply pick him up beyond the roadblock. Very sly. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Maybe I’ve been in America for too long, but a couple days
ago something hilarious happened that I had never seen before. I was getting on
the bus to the hospital I’m working at. The bus was filling up quickly. The
driver and conductor were confident there wouldn’t be any police along the way
so they packed us in. We started off with what seemed to me to be a completely
full bus, with the conductor hanging out the window barely keeping his legs
inside. I was surprised when we stopped to pick up another passenger about a
kilometer down the road. Everyone in the bus groaned. Someone asked the
conductor where the hell this new passenger was going to sit. The conductor
told everyone not to worry. The passenger got in with the conductor pushing his
butt in from behind and quickly slammed the door shut. The conductor was
outside and I figured we would just leave him behind and the driver would pick
him up later or something. The conductor then jumped up so that one of his feet
got onto an open window and he pulled himself up on top of the bus! I started
laughing, and then everyone was more amused by me, the big white guy on the
bus, being amused by the situation then the situation itself. We all joked that
this would be a Malawian-style bus ride and that this would never happen in the
States. We then proceeded to Nkhoma with the conductor clinging onto the top of
the bus. The road to the hospital is curvy through some low mountains. We could
hear him struggling to brace himself up there around a few turns, but I had the
impression he’d done this many times before and probably had pretty good core
strength for this work requirement. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I’ve said it before: this place never stops amazing me. A
friend once said that living in Malawi is like one big acid trip, but I’m going
to refrain from confirming or denying that… <o:p></o:p></div>
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Bryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10694381426521582570noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3397774320320262124.post-16550474408097302752016-01-30T10:17:00.000-08:002016-01-30T10:17:03.556-08:00I'll Try to Limit the Sad Posts From Now On<div class="MsoNormal">
So I’ve been in Malawi for two weeks now. This past week was
my first of six weeks at Nkhoma Synod Hospital. One can find it on Google Maps.
It’s about 50 km northeast from the Chadabwa/Mitundu area I was working in as a
Peace Corps Volunteer. I have been and will be working mostly in the pediatric
ward at the hospital. We’ve had 80+ patients each day, with a turnover of about
20% each day due to new admissions, discharges, and deaths. This is an absurd
number of patients given that the staff is at most three nurses, two clinical
officers (somewhat similar to a physician’s assistant in the States), one
doctor for only half the day, and me and two other medical student who barely
know what the hell were doing. This is the maximum staff we have. Usually, most
of these people are either out in the parking lot talking with friends or
hiding somewhere thinking about how tired they are. But that’s a rant I’ll go
on a different day. Today, by briefly explaining three patients I worked with
this past week, I want to give you a picture of how bad the situation is here,
especially now as the rain<span style="font-family: Wingdings; mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-char-type: symbol; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-symbol-font-family: Wingdings;"><span style="mso-char-type: symbol; mso-symbol-font-family: Wingdings;">à</span></span>mosquitoes<span style="font-family: Wingdings; mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-char-type: symbol; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-symbol-font-family: Wingdings;"><span style="mso-char-type: symbol; mso-symbol-font-family: Wingdings;">à</span></span>malaria ramps up.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I didn’t really take care of this first child because there
was nothing to do by the time she got to the hospital. She was about one to two
years old and suddenly developed malaria at home. The story I heard was that
the family lives in a very rural area on the outskirts of the hospital
catchment area. There’s a very basic health center near to there home, and when
the parents took the child there, the staff quickly told them to go to our
hospital because her illness was so severe. This is a distance of about 30 km
over muddy, washed out, hilly roads. Unfortunately, the health center’s
ambulance was broken. Then were told to get the child here on their own. This
time of year, most families have miniscule cash reserves. The yearly cycle of
cash flow from selling portions of one’s harvest reaches its nadir around this
time, and basic things like arranging rapid transportation to the referral
hospital become very difficult. The parents managed to scrounge up enough cash
to hire a motorbike to bring them to the hospital. This was the only motorbike
in the area, and apparently it had some problem so that it could only get up to
a maximum speed of 10 km/hr. On the steeper hills it lost power, and the mother
with child in hand had to get off and walk. About two thirds of the way to the
hospital, the motorbike completely broke down, and the mother had to carry the
child the rest of the way. By then, the child was seizing. By the time they
reached the gates of the hospital, the child was dead.<o:p></o:p></div>
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There was another child, a cute cubby little 4-year-old boy,
who I hadn’t seen until after he had been in the hospital for a few days. He
also had malaria, and it was confirmed that the parasite had gotten into his
brain (called cerebral malaria) on the second day of admission. Before I saw
him, he was seizing on and off for a few days and combative at times when
awake. The nurse had asked me to see him because he was acting strange after he
seemed to have recovered the previous 24 hours. I went over to his bed and saw
him sitting in his mother’s lap with her barely able to hold on to him as he
was flailing around and biting her at times. He was laughing at the same time, and
at first glance he just looked like your typical problematic toddler. I told
the mother that he looked much better and full of energy! She gave an awkward
laugh but then shook her head and briefly stated that he was acting very
strange. I watched him for a bit and realized that his eyes were darting all
over the place. He was calling out the names of people that weren’t there. He
was swatting at flies that weren’t there. A couple of the other clinicians and
I brainstormed what was wrong: HSV brain infection? Rabies? Psychotic episode?
We couldn’t figure anything out that day and couldn’t really settle him down.
The next morning one of the doctors saw him, and she immediately proposed the
idea that he’d simply lost all his vision. I flashed my penlight over his eyes
and he didn’t react at all. We ended up having the ophthalmologist come up and
take a good look at the retina of each eye. He confirmed our suspicion. We
concluded that he lost his vision due to the malaria infection in his brain.
Given that he is young and his brain is still developing, there is a chance
some of his vision will return, but most likely he will remain blind the rest
of his life. I was choked up as I broke this news to the family.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The saddest story for last: The doctor and I were seeing a
new patient. Again, this one had severe malaria (pretty much every patient we
admitted in the last week had malaria +/- other stuff) and looked pretty bad.
We were asking the mother about what was going on with the child, and I asked
her weather anyone else in the family had been sick recently. She offhandedly
said her husband died the day before. I’m fairly decent at Chichewa, but I
often mishear things, especially when people use words/phrases with double
meanings. I was surprised but what she said and thought maybe I was mishearing
her so I called over the nurse to make sure we were all on the same page. We
were understanding each other, and we quizzed her a bit more about the husbands
death to see if might be related at all to the child’s illness (for example,
did he have TB that he might have given the child?). It didn’t seem like he had
any type of contagious disease so we moved on trying to figure out how we were
going to treat this very sick child. Without going through all the details,
I’ll skip ahead to the next morning. Most days, the majority of the medical
providers at the hospital meet up at 7am for Morning Report. This entails
discussion about what happened on each ward overnight and maybe a brief lecture
on a certain topic from time to time. The clinical officer that was on the peds
ward overnight described how this child had declined quickly and passed away a
few hours prior. I can’t imagine how that women felt first loosing her husband
and then loosing her last-born child the next day.<o:p></o:p></div>
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At least one baby/child has died in the ward every day I’ve
been here. After living in Malawi for over three years and knowing how
dysfunctional things can be here, this doesn’t surprise me at all. It only
makes my angry. <o:p></o:p></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjX8Ry2IN9zePgMRmb7-Mui-UjZOcxrYoDyQx_fUx9C83hIv9jQFWIoMDHdnaTqcsJ842DUFZx2LglMeAre2aKd7zvSFiW5bB4heJMH8HOvjCXWyhRiBHsVUu6DtEQjNRog2STkxvwFa0DB/s1600/IMG_0825.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjX8Ry2IN9zePgMRmb7-Mui-UjZOcxrYoDyQx_fUx9C83hIv9jQFWIoMDHdnaTqcsJ842DUFZx2LglMeAre2aKd7zvSFiW5bB4heJMH8HOvjCXWyhRiBHsVUu6DtEQjNRog2STkxvwFa0DB/s320/IMG_0825.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The guesthouse I'm staying at, just up the hill from the hospital. I don't have any evidence yet, but I still think it's haunted.</td></tr>
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<br /></div>
Bryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10694381426521582570noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3397774320320262124.post-68794867673740329662016-01-21T01:46:00.000-08:002016-01-23T06:15:41.487-08:00Globalization of ButterOn my flight to Addis Ababa, I had the pleasure of spreading Land O Lakes butter (from the great state of Minnesota) on my bun.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQlNIKm7IUGYSqYqE8QkFIxAeFjFyO8OZxZJ3gOXbuB8ZbgGsFZxF3ENgT0Kd7Wl0yV0MjAB0mg8g6Z4TKPc_Xg8p3Ido0oH15pHXsP3bO8pEuICAfuch6-WRuEMRMum94IMYZZfd7lyzs/s1600/IMG_0792.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQlNIKm7IUGYSqYqE8QkFIxAeFjFyO8OZxZJ3gOXbuB8ZbgGsFZxF3ENgT0Kd7Wl0yV0MjAB0mg8g6Z4TKPc_Xg8p3Ido0oH15pHXsP3bO8pEuICAfuch6-WRuEMRMum94IMYZZfd7lyzs/s320/IMG_0792.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3397774320320262124" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a><br /></div>
On a different note: as part of my grand plan to make this 13 hour flight bearable and begin adjusting to the 7 hour time zone change, at the beginning of the flight I had three glasses of wine, 10 mg of melatonin, and 75 mg of Benadryl. That seemed to do the trick. I was feeling nice and sleepy, put my jacket over my head, and fell into a deep sleep. Later on, I woke up to the hustle and bustle of another meal getting doled out of the noisy cart being pushed down the aisle. At the beginning of the flight, I remembered them announcing that we would get breakfast shortly before our arrival in Addis towards the end of this flight. I woke up, pleased with myself for being able to sleep for the entire flight and up just in time for another complimentary meal from Ethiopian Airlines. I looked at the map of where we were at on the screen on the back of the seat in front of me. I had only slept for two hours! We still had 9 hours to go! As the lady in the seat next to me shifted and knocked my arm off the armrest, my frustration with the situation only made going back to sleep more difficult. At that time we were just getting a snack. With two toddlers frequently running up and down the aisle, stuck in a middle seat with barely enough room for my legs, and wide awake, I had to wait many hours in my seat before our breakfast came and we soon arrived in Ethiopia.Bryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10694381426521582570noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3397774320320262124.post-16219124539020640162016-01-19T22:01:00.000-08:002016-01-19T22:01:50.363-08:00Back To the Warm Heart of Africa<div class="MsoNormal">
Yesterday, I arrived back in Malawi. I’ll be here for two
months so I thought I’d resurrect this blog. I expect to be pretty busy so I
can’t promise too much writing but I’ll do my best. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Some initial observations in the first 12 hours: Nothing’s
really changed. People are still very friendly and excited to talk to an
American whether they have ulterior motives or not. In a country of now over 16
million people (and rising quickly) everyone still seems to know everyone. The
driver in my cab ride from the airport grew up in Mitundu, the community I used
to work in. This was surprising because I ran into him in Blantyre (a couple
hundred kilometers away from Mitundu), and he knew all the people I worked
with. The same family is still running the country. When I left at the end of
2011, Bingu wa Mutharika was president. He passed a few months after that.
Depending on who you ask, this was going to be a fresh change for the country.
Well, glossing over a lot of the details, four years later his little brother is now in
power, and the new boss is the same as the old boss. On sunny days during the
rainy season, you can still see forever. Packs of skinny, dirty, adolescent
boys in ragged clothes still roam the city streets begging for money, getting
especially vocal towards foreigners. It’s still a big seen when I go jogging in
the morning. This time of year the weather is still much better than the Upper Midwest.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I’m off to Chikwawa today. A year ago, devastating floods
displaced many of the people living there and destroyed much of the local
infrastructure. I’m interested to talk to people about the situation one year
on. I don’t expect to hear much good news, but maybe I’ll be surprised. This
place is full of surprises.<o:p></o:p></div>
Bryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10694381426521582570noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3397774320320262124.post-38736229648863163792012-01-02T04:01:00.000-08:002012-01-02T04:06:05.183-08:00Final Thoughts<!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal">So I've kind of lost interest in this whole blogging thing, but I understand that a lot of you are still interested so here's one more for all of my fans out there:</p> <p class="MsoNormal">I'm leaving Malawi this Tuesday, closing a chapter this in my life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I have grown a lot as a person during my three plus years here.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I'm ready to move on to bigger and better things (hopefully), but I'm also sad to leave.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Many people have been asking me over the past few weeks "What will you miss most about Malawi?"<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The answer is simple: my friends.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I have built many strong relationships over the past few years, and I have to admit that saying "goodbye" to everyone hasn't been easy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>My time here has been well spent, but I am spent, and I want to go home for a little while.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I plan to come back someday, but I've got some business to take care of first.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">To end things, here are a few words of wisdom:</p> <p class="MsoNormal">In general, poor people are cooler than rich people.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">The best way to charm a Malawian woman is to bring her pumpkins from your garden.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">"Give me my money!" is not an effective begging strategy.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">It's important to have a balanced diet.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>If most of your calories come from maize and overcooked greens, your wounds will heal slowly and become easily infected, you'll find yourself tired all of the time, and (if you're a growing boy) you'll be more likely to end up six feet under rather than six feet tall by the time you're 18.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Be wary of over-polite strangers; they probably want something from you.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">When you teach a man to fish instead of giving him a fish, make sure that you teach his neighbors as well so they don't become jealous and jack his fishing pole.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Life is less complicated when you only have one brand of beer to choose from.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Life is more complicated when you had one too many beers and forgot to put on a condom.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Life is less complicated when you don't have to fill up your car with gas because you don't have a car.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Life is more complicated when you can't fill up your car with gas because of daily fuel shortages and mile long lines at the gas stations.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Life is less complicated when you fall off your bike and into the mud when you're almost home.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Life is more complicated when you fall off your bike and into the mud 20 kilometers from home while wearing your nice clothes.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Life is less complicated when you know that there isn't a chance in hell that a single drop of rain will fall between the months of May and October.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Life is more complicated when it pours rain for three days straight and there's mud everywhere.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Akon was cool the first 1000 times I heard him.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Michael Jackson will always be cool.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">It's not fashionable for a grown man to wear children's snow pants as shorts in the middle of summer (or any time of year for that matter).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Washing your hands with soap isn't easy when you can't afford soap.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">If you're too cheap to buy TP, then a suitable substitute is unclaimed exams from you're students. (I understand that this point is debatable)</p> <p class="MsoNormal">It is much easier to read a magazine while on a toilet instead of while squatting over a hole in the ground.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">It is much easier to squat over a hole in the ground rather than squating over a toilet with no seat.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">If you're walking through the bus depot looking lost with three half-opened bags in your hands while talking on your IPhone, then you deserve to be robbed.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">The best time for a misanthrope to go out in public is Sunday morning.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Having people's undivided attention is good when you have something to say but bad when you want to crawl into a hole.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">A kid can't learn to read and write if he has to heard cows all day.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">A kid can't learn to speak English if her teacher can't put a full sentence together.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">It is not any fun to live in a place where it's necessary to have three guards and a ten-foot fence around your house.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">If over half of your students are failing, then it's a lot easier to grade their exams if you have a good buzz going.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">If over half of your students are failing even though you work your butt off and can objectively be considered at least an average teacher, then your students probably just aren't very smart.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">If you don't understand what a democracy is, then you probably shouldn't try to institute one.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Finally, this place is really, really messed up...and that's why I like it so much.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i>Nkhuku yanjiru siiswa. Chewa Proverb </i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><i>[Translation: A jealous chicken will not hatch chicks.]</i></p> <!--EndFragment-->Bryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10694381426521582570noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3397774320320262124.post-8887807846529360272011-11-01T09:00:00.000-07:002011-11-01T09:14:45.538-07:00A Feel Good Story<!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal">As a United States Peace Corps Volunteer you hear a lot about "sustainable development," "capacity building," and other fluffy terms like that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The reality is that, in the grand scheme of things, we really don't do a whole lot to "save the world."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>In a world of 7 billion people (and counting) there are only a few thousand Peace Corps Volunteers, and the work that we do is a drop in the ocean.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>However, it's not healthy to think about this too much.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">It's better to focus on the little things, the small victories.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>For example: There's a young man named Moses that has been living with me for almost three years now.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>We've both benefited a lot from being around each other, and we have something like a big brother-little brother relationship.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Moses had a rough upbringing, an upbringing that is representative of many children in Malawi.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>His father ditched the family when he was a young boy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Life is hard enough here for a family living in a rural area, headed by both a mother and father.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>These problems are only magnified for a single mother.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Moses' mother struggled (and is still struggling) to raise a big family on her own.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">In Malawi primary school is free, but like most things in life, you get what you pay for (especially when you don't have very many taxpayers to take care of that "free" primary school system).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>This means that most children here, as did Moses, go to a primary school that functions more like circus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Limited resources, understaffing, lazy teachers, and general apathy...it's astonishing to see how dysfunctional these schools are.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Anyways, this is where Moses' education started.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Later in his primary school years, money became especially tight.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It was decided that he should go and live with his father.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>By now the father was a well off with lots of farmland, a few vehicles, and a decent house.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It looked like Moses would be able to finish his childhood happily ever after, reunited with his father.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>However, things didn't work out that way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Moses' stepmother didn't like him too much.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>At meals this stepchild of hers was given food last.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>When there was work to do around the house or in the field the biological children were allowed to play while the stepchild was breaking his back.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>This went on for a few months until the stepchild had enough and went back home to live with his mother where life was hard but at least he would be treated like a human being.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">But money was still a problem.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It was decided that Moses should find a job, even though he was still a few years away from finishing primary school, so he could support the family a little bit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>He was sent off to help a guy raise his cattle.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Moses' job basically entailed herding a bunch cows around all day under the hot sun while his friends went to school.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>He did this for about a year, and consequently missed a year of school.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">He eventually went back to school.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>In Malawi, at the end of primary school every student writes a national exam that is used to select the students to different tiers of secondary school.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The best of the best go to national schools.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The next tier of students go to government schools.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The lowest tier is selected to Community Day Secondary Schools.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>However, in reality at least half of the students that take the primary school national exam don't end up going to secondary school because they either can't afford it or they weren't selected.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>By the end of primary school, Moses was a promising student, and it was a surprise that he wasn't selected to any secondary school at all.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Somehow he slipped through one of the many metaphorical cracks in the Malawian education system.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">He wasn't going to give up that easily.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>A friend of a friend was able to find him a place at a nearby Community Day Secondary School, Chadabwa CDSS.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>These bottom tier schools don't have a lot regulation, and it is often possible to attend one of them even if you weren't selected there so long as you're able to pay school fees and fatten the administration's pockets.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But as I already said: you get what you pay for.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>These schools are relatively cheap and therefore provide relatively poor education and produce relatively poor results (I'm saying "relatively" here because every level of education in Malawi, from nursery school up to university, is pretty shameful, but these CDSSs are the bottom of the barrel).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Most "graduates" of these CDSSs have dreams of going to university, becoming a doctor or a nurse or an accountant, and never going back to the village again, but the reality is that most of them end up living the same life their parents have: doing backbreaking labor on a daily basis and struggling to get by.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>This is all very depressing when you think about it too much so let's fast forward so we can get to the good part of the story.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Moses had four years ahead of him at secondary school, and he quickly made it clear that he wasn't going to be just another village kid with no future.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>While his friends were out dicking around like typical teenagers, he was usually found with is nose in a book or asking thought provoking questions that were over the heads of his under qualified teachers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>He was consistently at the top of his class, head and shoulders above his peers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>These peers started to become jealous.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>They started spreading rumors that Moses was doing so well on exams because he was using witchcraft (yes, this sounds completely ridiculous to those of us that come from the developed world, but here in Malawi witchcraft is perceived to be very real, and accusations are thrown around all the time...but I won't go off on that rant right now).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Moses was advised by his head teacher to ignore the crap he was getting from his classmates and keep focusing on his studies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>That is exactly what he did, but it wasn't easy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Money was still a problem, and it looked like he already reached the glass ceiling created by the rural, dysfunctional secondary school he was attending.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Moses had dreams of attending the University of Malawi, but this seemed very unlikely.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>In a country of over 14 million people, the university system here only takes in about 2,500 first year students each year.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Even those students at top tier secondary schools have a difficult time gaining admission to university, and most students from the bottom tier CDSSs don't stand a chance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Nevertheless, he took the national exams after completing secondary school last year, and the results were off the charts (for a student from a CDSS).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It appeared that he would have no problem getting into university with these results.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">But there was one other important hoop to jump through.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The University of Malawi uses two main criteria when selecting first year students: first, there is the previously mentioned national exam which pretty much every student takes upon completing secondary school, and then students that do well enough on these national exams have the opportunity to take the university's entrance exams.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>He took the entrance exams back in April (around the same time I was taking the MCAT-as you can imagine, the house was full of nervous energy), and then he waited...for a long time.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">For those of you that don't know, the government has been screwing around with the university for most of this year.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Earlier in the year, there was a dispute between some of the lecturers and the police/government concerning academic freedom, government spies in the classrooms, etc.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I won't go into all of the details here (you should be able to find plenty of information about this on the internet), but the main result of this was that the various braches of the university haven't been doing much for most of this year.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>This also meant that selection for the first year students was delayed... but that all changed on Saturday night when the selection finally came out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Late in the evening, the two of us were sitting anxiously next to the radio, listening to the local radio station that always has breaking new like this: "<span style="mso-bidi-font-size:13.0pt;mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria;mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin;mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria;mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Lucida Grande"">Now the selection for Bunda College of Agriculture, Bachelor of Science in Agriculture Education...Moses Samalani, Chadabwa Community..."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>This was a moment that I'll never forget, and take it from me, this couldn't have happened to a better person.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Unfortunately, stories like this are few and far between, but let's not focus on the negative.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>What we have here is a young man who had an impossible dream.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>With the odds against him, he worked his ass off, and he will soon start living that dream. (all of this may sound cheesy, but it's true!--it gives me a warm, fuzzy feeling inside)</p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana, arial, helvetica;font-size:100%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 11px;">"Here's a message to the newborns, waitin' to breathe<br />If you believe then you can achieve<br />Just look at me<br />Against all odds, though life is hard we carry on<br />Livin' in the projects, broke with no lights on<br />To all the seeds that follow me<br />protect your essence<br />Born with less, but you still precious..." Tupac Shakur</span></span>Bryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10694381426521582570noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3397774320320262124.post-44167087301589141762011-10-08T22:55:00.001-07:002011-10-08T23:05:07.829-07:00Top Ten Most Commonly Asked Questions of Bryan in Malawi<!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal">One of the three goals of Peace Corps is "t<span style="mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt;mso-bidi-font-family:Times;color:black">o help promote a better understanding of the American people on the part of the peoples served" so although these questions make me laugh to myself, I can consider it work (volunteer work that is) when I am answering them.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><i> </i></o:p><i>10. Are there any poor people in your country?</i></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>This question, along with many of the following, is greatly influenced by the mass media from the US that many people here are exposed to.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Mass media from the States that makes it all the way to Malawi is typically outdated and tends to focus on the themes of presidential politics, celebrity gossip, and bad pop music.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>You may be saying to yourself, "That's not much different than the mass media Americans themselves are exposed to."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>While that may be true, keep in mind that that is almost the only exposure to American culture they have.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>This is especially true in rural areas where it seems as you go further off the beaten path Dolly Parton's popularity seems to increase exponentially.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Most Malawians (perhaps I should generalize here and say "most people from developing countries") don't know about American Indian reservations, homeless shelters, and urban poverty.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>However, with that being said, I must also admit that there is really no comparison between the poverty in the States and the day-to-day struggle most Malawians have to deal with.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i>9. Are you married?</i></p> <p class="MsoNormal">In Malawi if you're not married by your mid-twenties you're probably either a social outcast or someone that's well off enough not to have to worry about the backward, outdated social customs that we have here.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Most people, again especially those in rural areas, especially girls, are in a hurry to get married well before they turn 20.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I don't want to go off on a rant here about early marriage and all that, but let's just say that there is an ocean between the marriage customs in America and Malawi.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I'm in my mid-twenties, and some might say that I look a bit older because of my red goatee and mature demeanor (LOL).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It follows that many people here can't wrap their heads around the fact that I'm a (fairly) normal young man with no wife.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I typically receive advice that I need to marry here and buy lots of farmland.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>As tempting as that may seem, I think I need to move on with my life, outside of Malawi (January's right around the corner!).</p><p class="MsoNormal"><i>8. When you go back home to America will you take me with you?</i></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I usually answer yes (if I have the time and energy to bs), and then go on to tell them they're more than welcome to come along with me when I go home if they can find a passport and enough money for a plane ticket.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Someone once proposed that I could smuggle them in my suitcase, and this may also be a viable option.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i>7. Do you know (insert name of some obscure preacher from the West that "evangelizes" in Malawi)?</i></p> <p class="MsoNormal">My answer is usually just "no" followed by the silent treatment, but sometimes I want to go off on a rant about how out of whack with reality some of this stuff is.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>People here go crazy over religion!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I won't make any moral judgments and say whether or not this is good for this already ultra-superstitious and logic-lite society, but I must say that I have a hard time sharing everyone's enthusiasm for "Ambuye!!!"<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I don't want to beat this topic to death, but here are three quick points about why religion in Malawi, in particular the denominations which act like the super zealous cousins of the Southern Baptism we have in the States, don't jive with the way I see the world: 1) If the church doesn't have enough chairs/benches, then all the "Christian" men are provided with a decent place to sit before almost any women are.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>2) Night Prayers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>"I know what we can do for fun this weekend!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Let's spend all of our hard-earned (yet still sparse) cash on a huge stereo system so we can stay up all night yelling at Jesus with our gospel music blaring and the entire neighborhood unable to sleep!"<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Praise the Lord for giving me the wisdom to buy a decent set of earplugs a few months ago. 3) Speaking is Tongues.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I'd only seen glimpses of this on TV back in the States, but I encounter this all the time here.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I don't really see how regularly and frequently yelling nonsense fits into the values Jesus taught of compassion and thoughtfulness. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>In a place where witchcraft is so taboo and feared I find it ironic that this type of "prayer" is so popular.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i>6. Who taught you to speak Chichewa?</i></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I'm asked this as if I have had one teacher that I meet with every day, but that hasn't been the case.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>After three years here, I'm fairly competent with this language.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I've found that the best way (at least for me) to learn a new language is to constantly put myself out there, talking with people, making mistakes, and then learning from the mistakes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I'm laughed at on a daily basis (think about how foreigners trying to learn English are treated in the States by the general public-the same kind of thing happens here), and it would have been a lot easier to not put any effort towards learning this language that is of little use beyond Malawi's boarders and that I'll completely forget a few years from now.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i>5. How have you seen Malawi? (Translated to normal English: What do you think of Malawi?) </i></p> <p class="MsoNormal">This very open-ended question always seems to be asked to me when I have a lot to say, can't think of where to start, and have little patience to talk with anyone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I usually explain that "Malawi is a good place with good people, but there is lot's of poverty here."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>This very simple and obvious answer is usually replied by an agreeable sigh and contentment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>We can then move onto a more interesting topic of conversation like "When will the rains start this year?" Most people here (in general and relatively speaking), are very welcoming to outsiders.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>They're also very self conscious and curious people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>They want to know about the outside world, but they are also interested to hear about how the outside world views them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>This is something we don't really do in the States.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>We may be fairly up to speed with what's going on beyond our boarders, but we also kind of do our own thing and don't give a rip about how our actions affect peoples' perception (be it positive or negative) of our country.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i>4. What is the staple food in your country?</i></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Malawians take pride in the fact that their staple food is maize, and they seem to think that every county has one particular food that they depend on for most of their calories.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Obviously, this isn't the case in the States-which makes this question difficult to answer directly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I usually tell people that 1) The United States is a very big country with many different climates and therefore many different crops being cultivated and 2) We have many different cultures mixed together that have brought many different foods to the melting pot that is the United States.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I enjoy telling people about the fact that there are people from all over the world in the US.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>At least during the past century, this has been one of our biggest strengths: diversity and a certain amount of tolerance for it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i>3. What is your favorite food?</i></p> <p class="MsoNormal">It would be easy and honest to say that my favorite food is pizza (with a cold beer...Oh my God that sounds good...I can't wait until January), but most people here wouldn't really understand what I'm talking about.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>So instead I usually tell people that my favorite food is nsima with roasted fish and pumpkin leaves with groundnut flour.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But this is only halfway true because that meal is my favorite Malawian foods, but certainly it does not even come close to my favorite food which would most definitely be pizza, as I mentioned earlier.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>To be honest, Malawian food sucks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It's very plain and uninteresting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It must be the British influence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Did I mention that I can't wait to get home and eat good pizza?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Mmmmm, a cheeseburger will be good as well.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i>2. Is it true that in the United States students only learn one subject?</i></p> <p class="MsoNormal">People here tend to think (for whatever reason) that from high school onwards, American students specialize in one area only (eg. Mathematics).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I can see that some of the confusion might come from the idea of having a "major" in college, but I really have no idea where this huge misconception comes from.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>My answer is: "No, that is completely ridiculous."</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i>1. Can you give me some money?</i></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I've beat the topic of begging and how much it annoys me to death many other times on this blog.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Please refer to those previous posts for elaboration.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>All of these questions are asked in complete innocence (even #1 most of the time), and although I don't feel like I'm changing the world when I respond to them, it does give me a warm fuzzy feeling inside when I ghetto stomp ignorance and replace it with truth. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But some of these questions are really dumb, aren't they???<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I look forward to American and its sanity (or maybe its insanity that I can relate to).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Until then, wish me luck in keeping my own sanity in over the next three months.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><!--StartFragment--> </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:19.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align: none;text-autospace:none"><!--StartFragment--> </p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>"You can't connect the dots looking forward you can only connect them looking backwards.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>You have to trust in something: your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Because believing that the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow you heart, even when it leads you off the well-worn path."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Steve Jobs</p> <!--EndFragment--> <p></p> <!--EndFragment--> <p></p> <!--EndFragment-->Bryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10694381426521582570noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3397774320320262124.post-83108003156708454052011-09-02T04:52:00.000-07:002011-09-02T07:51:27.366-07:00Tiyeni Tigonjetse Edzi!<div style="text-align: left;">So as you may or may not know, HIV is a pretty big problem in Malawi.<span> </span>The national prevalence is around 12%, but it does appear to be declining or at least stable.<span> </span>In general, HIV is more common in urban areas and less common in rural areas (17.1% vs. 10.8%).<span> </span>In Mitundu, the semi-urban slum where I live and work, where hookers and beer have a firm grip on the local economy and in my year here I have seen multiple people pass away because "he/she was positive," the HIV/AIDS epidemic affects the entire population either directly or indirectly.<span></span>Obviously, this disease is difficult to manage at both the individual and population level, but the general consensus is that the first step to making any progress is having a clear picture of who is infected and who isn't.<span> </span>Once this is known (to a certain extent) a few different things happen (in theory):<span> </span>1) Those who are found to be negative are encouraged to stay that way by practicing the human virtues of monogamy, putting on a condom, using clean needles when shooting up, etc.<span> </span>2) Those who are found to be positive can start anti-retroviral treatment (if necessary) that usually improves both the length and quality of life of individuals with full-blown AIDS.<span> </span>3) Those who are found to be positive can be advised about how to prevent transmitting the virus to their sexual partners and newborns.</div><p class="MsoNormal"><span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal">Over the past year or so I've been learning a lot about what is being done to prevent mother to child transmission (PMTCT) of HIV during birth and through breastfeeding. <span></span>In short, the pregnant mother is mandatorily tested for HIV on her first visit to the clinic.<span> </span>If she is positive, then she is put on antiretroviral treatment during her pregnancy.<span> </span>The newborn infant may also go on ARVs for a few months.<span> </span>With this PMTCT strategy, HIV positive mothers are only transmitting the virus to their newborn infants about 1.5% of the time compared to around 25% of childbirths with mothers not receiving any of this treatment.<span> </span>There's some evidence that ARVs also prevent transmission via breastfeeding as well, but the party line at the hospital is still "if you're HIV positive you will have to give your infant formula rather than breastfeeding them."<span> </span>Without any treatment breastfeeding, HIV positive mothers transmit the virus to their infants about 20% of the time in the two months postpartum.<span> </span>With this, it seems like the best way for a positive mother to keep her baby safe is to avoid sharing any bodily fluids other than a kiss on the cheek every now and then.<span> </span>In a place like the United States, this plan of action is pretty straightforward: mom goes to store to buy formula which is affordable (or at least the government makes it relatively affordable), infant drinks formula mixed with nice clean tap water instead of breast milk, and mom doesn't really worry about what her infant is missing by not breastfeeding (such as passing on antibodies that strengthen the infant's immune system) because most of her friends don't do it so why should she.<span> </span>But in a place like Malawi, where most people sleep on the floor every night and a lot of people struggle to buy a few ounces of salt to spice up their typical dinner of maize porridge and boiled greens, things don't usually work straightforwardly.<span> </span>One, how's momma gonna buy formula for 3$ when she's only got 50 cents to feed a family of six and daddy's out having a good old time at the bar spending his monthly salary on hookers and beer?<span> </span>Two, do you expect an infant to do alright drinking well-water (the only option in most areas) mixed with formula when the adults that drink that same water are frequently infected with waterborne diseases like cholera?<span> </span>Three, momma's antibodies help the baby and momma a lot when a trip to the hospital is a 15-mile walk and momma's got no shoes.<span> </span>What's my point?<span> </span>I don't really know so let's get back to talking about the stopping the spread of HIV by knowing your status.</p><p class="MsoNormal">Last month my coworkers at Mitundu Youth Organization and I put on a two day football tournament (you're gonna have to remember that in most of the world "football" is what Americans call "soccer").<span> </span>This wasn't your garden variety football tournament with parents yelling at each other, coaches bribing referees, and teenage boys falling to their knees and crying on the pitch after missing a penalty kick (wait...actually that did happen).<span> </span>Instead this was the "MYO VCT Football Trophy."<span> </span>MYO stands for Mitundu Youth Organization (with yours truly as the "programs advisor"), VCT stands for voluntary testing and counseling for HIV, football stands for soccer (some just say "mpira," but that's an inside joke), and trophy stands for tournament (which is ironic because there was no trophy given out and nobody expected to receive one).<span> </span>We did this with help (mostly in the form of prizes and money for workers' allowances) from Peace Corps, UNICEF, and a certain NGO called Grassroots Soccer.<span> </span>The idea behind all of this was that the football games, which turned out to be exciting and competitive with the local teams that participated, would attract lot's of people, and those people would then be exposed to the various HIV-prevention activities that we had going on at the same time as the tournament.<span> </span>These activities included an essay competition, condom demonstrations, dramas, testimonies by HIV-positive individuals, and most importantly, VCT services.<span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal">VCT entails first going through pre-test counseling.<span> </span>This is usually about a ten-minute pep talk about preventing HIV infection and asking the client a bunch of times, "Are you suuuuuure you want to be tested?"<span> </span>Once these preliminaries are out of the way, there's a little finger prick, and the client's blood is put onto a test kit.<span> </span>The test kit qualitatively tests for antibodies to HIV that may be in the blood.<span> </span>They call it a "rapid" test, but I suppose they mean "rapid" from an African perspective because it still takes about 15 minutes.<span> </span>The client is asked to wait outside during this time, and they are given every opportunity to run away with their tail between their legs and not hear their results.<span> </span>Most people, however, stick around for the post-test counseling which involves first asking the client once more, "Are you suuuuuure you want to know your results?,"<span> </span>then the dramatic unveiling of the results, further counseling tailored to positive or negative individuals, a shoulder to cry on if necessary, and referral to the hospital for treatment if necessary.<span> </span>Knowing your status is important for the reasons that I stated above.<span> </span>I like to believe the counseling that is provided is also somewhat effective, but who really knows?<span> </span>It can't hurt.<span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal">At our local hospital here in Mitundu, people have a hard time accessing the VCT services because the counselors that run the show have a habit of showing up to work an hour or two late, then not doing a whole lot of work, then taking an extended lunch break, then maybe coming back in the afternoon to fart around for a little bit, and then going home an hour or two early.<span> </span>But who can blame these guys for being lazy when the government almost always gives them their paltry monthly salaries late and some months doesn't pay them for stretches lasting well over two months?<span> </span>I'd take a long lunch break too.<span> </span>So with this marvelous system in place they manage to provide VCT services to about 500 people per month at Mitundu Community Hospital.<span> </span>I am proud to say that we had 385 people test during our two-day event.<span> </span>It's amazing how much harder people work when you put a fair amount of money (straight cash homey!) in their hand at the end of a hard days work (the "fair amount" that our counselors were given was about 15$ for a full day of work--yes, labor is cheap in Malawi, but the Indians and Chinese are already all over that).<span> </span>Interestingly, only 8 of our clients (2%) tested positive.<span> </span>I talked to the counselors about this surprisingly low number (remember that the national prevalence is hovering around 12% and is probably at least a few points higher here in Mitundu where most people don't take the Seventh Commandment very seriously), and they told me that that is typical these days.<span> </span>It seems that the reason for this is twofold:<span> </span>First, a lot of people already know their status, and if they already know that they are positive, then they aren't going to go through the embarrassment of testing again even when there are prizes involved (There were actually a handful of people that did go through with the VCT even though they've had AIDS and they've been on ARVs for years.<span> </span>They just wanted one of the t-shirts that we were giving out to the first handful of people that tested.<span> </span>We quickly put an end to this-it's a waste of resources, especially when one test kit costs about 10$.).<span> </span>Second, there just aren't as many new infections these days (this is good news!).<span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal">Besides the constant begging for t-shirts (see previous posts for my description of the begging culture in Malawi and how it drives me up the wall), this whole event was a success and we had a good time.<span> </span>There weren't any big disagreements on the football pitch (except for one, but it only lasted 15 minutes so I won't count it).<span> </span>No accusations of bribing referees (I wasn't surprised to hear that this is common here.<span> </span>The referees routinely get their asses whopped at the end of matches for taking bribes, but apparently it's worth the 500 extra kwacha (~3$) because the same referees get into trouble regularly and take the beating over and over again.<span></span>I'm not sure how much money I would need to get beat to a pulp.).<span> </span>There were no streakers (I'd do probably do that for 100$-that's like two week's salary!).<span> </span>I'm just trying not to think about how much of the prize money that we handed out was spent on hookers and beer.<span> </span>That kind of behavior doesn't really jive with the whole philosophy of the event we put on.</p><p class="MsoNormal">The essay competition winners (I bet you can't find me!):</p><p class="MsoNormal"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRT7LyRV0x02e_Wa8mWXB1KPq9-fjNOjQ0j0kiRhvE1OY6e5ShVLpjxdZSLOFmDCw4rLPIZDqCL2LpMpRNYJniW6aoR4ef64HiEmB13MZAXuguKi74DNfCgsXFia3WaGisopAZ77qWnLDk/s320/DSC00305.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5647731858763142354" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px; " /></p><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#330033;">A drama about how HIV will ruin your life:</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqj0yEpxfEC-Nd7DgkoJUyF7ofxs6kCfbVZIR1HHYcIauum7o9byguxfzkRHI-uRH1ytGMLc9Exa9diNrqNaoCl4niO23MHRlKr8o-EZMHktC4eTBdoI_l94ecDcK_ATk4tcRr7w_WCRuG/s320/DSC00339.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5647734246555920402" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px; " /></span></div><div>And the Champs, Chimwala Football Club:</div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguHOYPrS0aNG0CowoJAxaYHaFd-i5Utow9np0Pi016reUhFjlqdGiHAnem8idA4Phb1lBJ5py0Z8VHn_Q4Uxj0HxvExbo-ZLk2FLrqs-4UNiC1GtVAEi3VVMLw_qYp4fAIu7oc_xYqVvfx/s320/DSC00335.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5647751610155087042" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px; " /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; ">
<br /></span></span></div><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(6, 16, 24); ">"So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said to them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her."<span> </span>John 8:7</span></p>Bryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10694381426521582570noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3397774320320262124.post-31191406469136937362011-08-15T02:52:00.000-07:002011-08-15T08:35:55.946-07:00Efficiency, or lack thereof.<div style="text-align: left;">You may have noticed that I've been trying to show off by using Chichewa in the titles of my more recent posts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>However, for this topic, that is not possible because there is no way (except in a round-about, indirect way) to translate the concept of "efficiency" from Chienglish to Chichewa.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>In the developed world, efficiency is a central idea that directs much of our motivations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Especially when we think about work, business, and nowadays even our free time, efficiency is something that most of us strive for, whether it be consciously or subconsciously.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>So why can't I translate this into Chichewa?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Because this idea doesn't really exist or at least isn't very important here.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>If a culture never thinks about something (or historically didn't think about it until modern times), then it's no surprise that a word or phrase can't be found in its language to vocalize the idea.</div> <p class="MsoNormal">After living here for over two years, I have come to realize that efficiency-which I will loosely define as quality complemented by speed-is definitely something that is lacking here.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Let's consider how our typical development organization works in Malawi.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>This generalized example applies to most private, faith-based, governmental, or non-governmental organizations that are at least superficially trying to help out "disadvantaged" people (this absolutely includes the United States Peace Corps-please see the disclaimer at the bottom if this reference makes you uneasy).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Our typical aid organization most likely is trying to assist people that are mostly living in rural areas.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>In spite of this, the organization decides that their office should be set up in one of the big cities.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Maybe, if the organization has enough resources, they can set up some smaller offices throughout the country to broaden their coverage and put them closer to the "beneficiaries."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The organization most likely has the aim of eliminating some generalized problem such as water sanitation or child abuse.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It's important to understand here that if they actually do fix or eliminate this problem that they have their sights set on, then they will no longer have anything to do.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>They will work themselves out of a job.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>To me, this set up seems to be a fundamental problem in all walks of development work.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Why should someone working for this development organization (particularly if they are a citizen of the developed country in which they are working and will have a very difficult time finding a new job once they work themselves out of this one) work hard and efficiently in pursuit of the organization’s objectives if this means they will just be more likely to be removed from the payroll once they are no longer needed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">The drivers don’t have to worry.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Neither do the ex-pats.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Once this organization finds a miracle cure, providing clean water to the entire country or whatever, and works themselves out of a job, the organization’s foreign workers will just go back to the relatively stable job market of their home country or find a new problem to work on by joining some other organization.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Drivers are so important to these aid organizations that I can’t imagine one of them having a hard time finding a new job, especially after having the experience of working with some well-known donor/aid organization.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I’m only estimating here and my estimates are only based off my limited experiences, but I would guess that at least a third of the staff of these development organizations is either drivers or guards.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>After spending some time working in a third-world country, it’s clear that these staff positions of drivers and guards are probably necessary, but their necessity only hinders efficiency.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Imagine an electrician in the States.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>If he has a job to do, he just gets in his truck and goes and does it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Here in Malawi, however, an electrician has to find his driver, make sure his driver is at least moderately sober, have the driver drive him to the worksite, and then he can get the job done while the driver is screwing around doing whatever. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">So here we’ve looked at one big example of how a development organization can beat efficiency into the ground and then never worry about the idea ever again.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Keep in mind that these development organizations, at least from what I’ve seen in Malawi, are some of the most functional operations around.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>If we think of the behemoths like USAID, UNICEF, Save the Children, and the Government of Malawi, its these organizations that seem to have excessive funding, attract the best talent within the country to work for them, and have the best vehicles on the road.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>For these reasons of having so many resources available to them, we shouldn’t be surprised that these guys seem to have their act together most of the time and actually do some work that improves the areas in which they are working.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But what about the rest of this society?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>What about the large other part of this society that makes up the rest of this third-world, underdeveloped, under resourced, uneducated, starving society that doesn’t live in the gated and guarded community north of the city and work in air-conditioned offices with high-speed internet?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>If the best organizations here are lacking efficiency as I have described, then what about everything else here?</p> <p class="MsoNormal">I think a goat rodeo is an appropriate analogy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Yes, the rest of Malawi functions like a goat rodeo.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>One of the craziest events at the goat rodeo is the minibus race.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The minibus race starts at the bus depot, but the buses can’t actually leave the starting line until they are packed full of people, animals, kitchen sinks (okay this isn’t that common, but I did see it once), and whatever other crap needs to be transported.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Each minibus in the race has a team consisting of an owner (who is never seen or heard from), driver, conductor (who collects the money from the passengers, makes a half-assed effort to make sure the driver stops when a particular passenger wants to get off, and hits on young girls ridding in the bus), and hailers (who are usually down and out middle aged men who’s responsibility is to convince people looking for a bus at the depot to board their team’s bus.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Once the hailers have filled up the bus so that the conductor can barely squeeze himself in and shut the door, the race starts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">At least every other month I get on a minibus that runs out of gas or breaks down before it even makes it through 25% of the race.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>After doing this for many decades, most minibus teams haven’t figured out a good strategy for refueling.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I’ve never seen a minibus driver actually fill up the gas tank, but instead they usually put in just enough gas that will get them through this race and back to this point on their return trip.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>This means that during most races, even if the route only uses up a tenth of a tank, the bus will have to make a pit stop to refuel.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>This can sometimes involve scrambling around to many different gas stations because fuel shortages have become more and more frequent in the country, and during these shortages, most people don’t have a good idea of which gas station actually has gas. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Often times “just enough” fuel doesn’t do the trick, and the disappointing sound of an engine suffocating without hydrocarbons to combust has become all too familiar to me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The minibus can usually coast for about 200 meters, and then it's stuck on the side of the road. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>At this point there are usually two options for the driver, conductor, and passengers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>If they’re not completely stranded in the middle of nowhere, the driver can send his obedient conductor off to find some black-market fuel at the closest trading center.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>This black-market fuel will no doubt be very expensive, which usually leads some kind of argument and name calling between the driver-conductor tag team and whatever swindlers are trying to sell the fuel.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>While all of these shenanigans are going on, if the passengers haven’t already paid, they’ll be trying to flag down any other transport that is passing by.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The driver-conductor tag team will be trying to prevent these passengers that haven’t yet paid from escaping while they are flooding the engine with the over-priced fuel they just bought.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">When a minibus stalls, it is more likely that it will be in the middle of nowhere.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>This means that the passengers need to find another means of transport, maybe another bus, private vehicle, truck, or even an oxcart if they think this will get them where they need to go on time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>If they have already paid, an argument usually ensues between the conductor-driver tag team and the passengers about how much money is going to be returned to the passengers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>(A few weeks ago a buddy of mine was in this situation, and he snatched the keys from the ignition and wouldn't give them back until he got his money-this effectively solved the dispute.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It is in the best interest of the driver-conductor pair to screw the passengers over because any money they give back will come out of their own and the owner’s pockets.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Plus, customer service (the business-minded cousin of efficiency) doesn’t really exist in Malawi so there’s no solid reason to treat these passengers fairly when you probably won’t ever see them again, and if the conductor does treat them like crap, he won't be held accountable for his actions because any other conductor probably would have ripped them off in the same way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I should say that when you get on a minibus you expect the worst, but you usually end up where you need to go in a reasonable amount of time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It’s just that your butt will be sore, your recently washed pants will now be dirty, and you’ll often get dropped off at another depot through which you have to lug all you luggage while struggling not to get your pockets picked or hit by a bus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The general disorganization of the minibus race epitomizes the inefficient, chaotic goat rodeo that is Malawi.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>If you're in a good mood and have people around with whom you laugh about all of this with, then this goat rodeo is absolutely hilarious.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>On the other hand, if you're having a bad day, something simple like an hour-long bus ride into town can easily turn into a horrific experience.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">I'll end things today with a snapshot of the leisure activities we have here.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>American kids spend a lot of their time playing XBox, making bombs out of toilet cleaner, or looking at porn on the Internet.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Well, here in Malawi, most kids don't have access to these things so they have to be a little more creative.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Below you can see the open-air billiard hall that was recently constructed near our office.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It's stuff like this that reminds me that I'm not in Minnesota anymore.</p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkNKQM-YtA4QzHl8RVzOC8sUGzyFc2V4a5P9mHvq1NJzydMJ5t63nksjUpVSdelFN0z-DFtoe_uEL7xzVeqPDBxFNj8iI132gdeL3WoGMyVx6SfwJwLLFdt5g2uzglrI98jfVMq9Tw6PR2/s320/DSC00218.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5641106320655310322" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px; " /></span><div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#0000EE;">
<br /></span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "></span> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(19, 19, 19); ">"As long as you have certain desires about how it ought to be you can't see how it is."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Ram Dass</span></p> <!--EndFragment--> </div>Bryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10694381426521582570noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3397774320320262124.post-86521892953649553632011-07-28T21:11:00.000-07:002011-07-28T21:21:44.678-07:00Tidzawona Red pa 17<!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal"><!--StartFragment--> </p><p class="MsoNormal">The other day I set the boy that lives with me, Moses, up with a gmail account.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>This is a guy that has lived his entire life in a village with no electricity, running water or even newspapers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Suffice it to say that computers, not to mention the Internet, baffle him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>He's real excited about this, and he's certainly at the steep end of the learning curve trying to figure out the basics of using a computer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Most five year-olds in the States are significantly more fluent in the world of computers and technology than he is at 18 years old.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>He just hasn't been exposed to this stuff, and in this way, he represents a surprising number of people here.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I hate to be so pessimistic all the time, but I don't see how places like this in the world, places where a majority of the population has little to no idea what the Internet is, will ever catch on with the current, rapid rate at which technology is evolving.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Anyways, send the kid an email at mosessamalani@gmail.com.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>He will be elated to write back and forth with you as he tries to figure out how to use a computer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I'm too lazy to actually sit down and teach him this stuff (how to right click, how to capitalize letters, how to open Word, etc.).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I also just don't have the patience.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Instead, I'm going to give him little tasks to do, like sending an email to so and so, where I'll just help him out if he has a question and he can more or less figure out how to work a MacBook on his own (I feel kind of bad that he's learning on a MacBook because they're almost non-existent here, and he'll probably never see one again; instead he'll just be confused again once he starts using another operating system.)</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Some of you may have heard about the demonstrations and riots we had here last week.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I'll downplay what happened (this is what most people here, especially the government and Peace Corps, have been doing).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Check out this article for a decent summary of what happened:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span><a href="http://http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Africa/2011/0721/Malawi-riots-spread-as-president-blames-Britain-IMF-for-economic-woes">DPP Woyeaaaa</a>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Everything's calm now.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>People are just talking a lot.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The general public, at least the general public that I'm exposed to here in Mitundu and wherever else I find myself these days, is openly upset with what is happening here politically.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The President and his crew feel threatened by this overwhelming displeasure with them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>There is tension in the air, but nothing should happen again until August 17th when another demonstration is planned.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I've been asking a lot of Malawians what they think will happen on this day, and I've been getting a variety of non-committal answers, but everyone talks about this with nervous energy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Don't worry about me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>If there are any problems and violence it won't be direct at people like me (e.g. American volunteers that have been around for a while).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>More importantly, our Peace Corps office here is keeping a close eye on things, and they're doing a good job of keeping us updated.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">I submitted my primary application for medical school today.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I applied to ten schools: U of M-Twin Cities, U of M-Duluth, U of W- Madison, U of Michigan, Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee, Loyola University in Chicago, Rosalind Franklin in Chicago, Rush Medical College in Chicago, Creighton University in Omaha, and University of Saint Louis.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Unfortunately, this doesn't mean I can now sit back and relax.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I'm not even half way through the application process yet.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Most of these schools will be sending me secondary application in the next few weeks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>These secondary applications can be a lot of work (essays and such) depending on the school.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Hopefully, I'll get a handful of interview invites after that, and then I'll be interviewing in January and February.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>This is my plan.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>As you can see it's a very general plan.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I've been making less detailed plans lately, giving myself more wiggle room.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Perhaps this is because I have been living where very few things go as planned for the last three years.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">"We come unbidden into this life, and if we are lucky we find a purpose beyond starvation, misery, and early death which, lest we forget, is the common lot."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Abraham Verghese</p> <!--EndFragment--> <p></p> <!--EndFragment-->Bryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10694381426521582570noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3397774320320262124.post-41035253772947667032011-07-06T02:03:00.002-07:002011-07-06T02:12:59.208-07:00Fumbi, Mayeso, ndi Nyumba Zopanda Azibambo<!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal">I was working my butt off on July 4th, but today-Malawi's Independence Day-I have no work to do and lot's of time on my hands.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Thus, here's a long awaited post with some ramblings: </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Life goes on in Malawi.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>This time of year there is a lot of dust.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I've been ridding my bike a lot here, and there are usually one of two different problems to deal with-mud or dust.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It seems like just yesterday that I was pushing my bike through the mud, unable to ride it because the mud was sticking everywhere to the tires.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Cursing and very upset, I dreamt of the dry season, when there is no mud and you don't have to ford rivers just to get to work.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Well, the dry season has come, and I completely forgot about the dust.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>You think I would have this figured out after three years, but apparently I don't.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It now happens on a daily basis where I'm ridding my bike down a dirt road (95% of them are dirt in Malawi) on my way to school or something, and I spot a big truck coming from the other direction.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>In this situation, the best thing to do is run for hell in a direction perpendicular to the road, away from where the truck has come and where the truck is going.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The reason for this is that it's bone dry this time of year.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>We haven't seen a single cloud for a few months, and trucks passing down a rural dirt road tend to create a huge dust clouds that people have been known to get lost in forever.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>At least we have mud and the rainy season to look forward to in November/December (by then I'll be on my way out of here!).</p> <p class="MsoNormal">A few days ago I got roped into invigilating (watching over the students while they take an exam) the much-anticipated national exams that the students take to pass secondary school.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>With my bachelor’s degree and air of authority, I am considered an expert on the physical sciences.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Therefore, the school that I work a little bit with thought it imperative for me to do much of the legwork for the practical part of their physical science exam (in which they attempt to do experiments with equipment and materials that they have never used before, such as ammeters, graduated cylinders, and stop watches).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Of course, I agreed to this.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>End result: I felt like a super busy waiter on a never-ending (12 hour) shift.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>We showed up at 7am to set up for the exam, and then we proceeded to run around for twelve hours answering questions like: "Sir, what am I supposed to do with this [he holds up a beaker full of bromine, but it sure doesn't look like beautiful, brown bromine after it expired two years ago and has been sitting in the African sun for at least three years]," "Sir, I don't have this," "Sir, I don't have that," "Sir, sir, sir..."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>We had a limited amount of equipment to use for the various electrical and chemical experiments that they had to use so we ended up having the students take the exam in shifts- many, many shifts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>We were having them do each experiment for 30 minutes, and while that group did their experiment we had to wait on them: refilling chemicals, washing equipment, fixing equipment, etc. Then we would bring another group in for 30 minutes, and then another, and then another... until I realized that it was late afternoon and we still had three groups to get through.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>We ended up finishing at 7:30 in the evening, and I was exhausted.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The last group was taking the exam after the sun had set, and this wasn't a problem until the power went out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>We had to scramble around looking for candles for a few minutes, but it all worked out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I remember invigilating last year at my old school, and I thought that was difficult when we got done early in the afternoon.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>This year, however, was exhausting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>After getting done, I went home, went straight to bed, and slept like a rock.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">I think I'm correct in saying that immigration is still a big issue these days back in the States.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>That's the impression I get from listening to the BBC sporadically. I find it interesting that we have similar problems with immigration here.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The following analogy is fitting: Malawi is to South Africa as Mexico is to the United States.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Even though (at least from an American perspective) South Africa has plenty of problems and it can't be considered a "developed" country (certainly parts of it are developed, but other parts are as bad as it gets on this planet), many young Malawian men dream of going to South Africa to work and live happily ever after.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Especially in the area where I am, many men get married, have a few kids, and decide that the best way for them to provide for their family is to run away to South Africa, find a job, and send money back to their family in Malawi from time to time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>This is basically what goes on between Mexico and the US as well.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I've spoke with many Malawians that have worked in South Africa, and a few experiences seem to be common there:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>1) They do work that South Africans refuse to do (e.g. hands-on agricultural labor, cleaning, gardening, etc.). 2) They have a hard time integrating into South African society and are generally disliked by South Africans (this is the xenophobia that we always hear about). 3) They are often there illegally, end up getting caught, and find themselves deported back to Malawi. 4) There main purpose for going to South Africa is to make money, more money than they think they can make by doing the same amount of work in their homeland.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>However, it takes many of them longer than expected to find regular work, and they usually face lots of trouble early on after immigrating.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Does all of this sound familiar?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It does seem like many of them actually end up making a decent amount of money that they send back home, but that money goes back to a home that hasn't had a father around in a while...but I won't go into all the problems that leads to.</p><p class="MsoNormal">That's all I got for today.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I'll try to post more frequently in the near future, but I can't promise anything.</p><p class="MsoNormal">"There is suffering in life, and there are defeats. No one can avoid them. But it's better to lose some of the battles in the struggles for your dreams than to be defeated without ever knowing what you're fighting for." Paulo Coelho</p> <!--EndFragment-->Bryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10694381426521582570noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3397774320320262124.post-72967389948065297472011-05-29T02:55:00.000-07:002011-05-29T03:46:00.359-07:00Tatsegula nyumba ya asungwana!Life moves on in Malawi. This time of year, people are harvesting their crops, reaping the benefits of the work they have done in the past year. As with the past few years, tobacco prices have been very low, and I wonder why people aren't catching on to this (I often ask people: "Every year you work your ass off, spend lot's of money on inputs, and end up with nothing after selling your tobacco harvest. Will you cultivate a different cash crop this year?" The common answer: "No sir, we always depend on tobacco."). At least half of the economy in Malawi is tobacco-based, and these low prices (not to mention a lack of innovation) will have negative long and short-term effects on this already deeply impoverished country. But the soya bean farmers are doing well. The prices of this easy to cultivate, legumous, soil-enriching crop are through the roof, and I can only hope that more people will grow this food-crop in the future instead of the low-grade, (child) labor-intensive, environment destroying, unprofitable crop we call fodya (tobacco). However, I have come to realize that it takes a long, long time for people to change their ways so I don't see any real changes coming any time soon. I guess it's most effective when we learn the hard way.<br /><br />The girl's hostel is finally being used. It isn't really finished, but we decided that it's close enough to start having residents. About half of the rooms don't have windows (apparently we ordered 40 instead of the 60 that we needed, oops!), the kitchens aren't roofed yet, and the contractor and his workers haven't been paid in a while. These first two problems aren't really a big deal (from a rural African village perspective) since we don't expect to see much rain until December. In spite of these deficiencies, 16 girls started living in the building last week. I live a safe enough distance (15 kilometers) away so that I don't have to hear everything about the hostel, but it sounds like things are going well. The girls haven't started killing each other yet, and they even did some much needed landscaping last weekend. We decided that since the school year is almost over, only the Form 4 (equivalent to 12th grade) girls will live in the hostel for the rest of this school year. In this manner, starting with fewer boarders will hopefully allow us to iron out some of the wrinkles before we fill it to full capacity at the beginning of next school year in September. This is all good news. I certainly have some concerns about how this hostel thing is going to progress, but I won't go into all that right now. Here are a few pictures of the almost finished but still being used building:<br /><br /><br /><div><br /><br /><div><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5612085526924573106" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 213px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglBRBXYQB9i4sWLTQVbKPX7aIearuUqesrrqDWHuXEf65gte3afbgBVLAca9UNt2ON1oGQnyI4CvBZscZkm_GAtXQgQhe1mE8iwIwB4Bqzq9prr-YjItITUJEZTNBs1KzGoG6XJ8DCLx0_/s320/DSC_1209.JPG" border="0" /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5612084017500908722" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSABHkfsHztp1L9JE6bgKU2cgcVlPV-vkAAPS4G3XMq7NS35fpKis9lwdKHI3DPGOdekbIftOOUHF3Oj3z8v5RZyUCaQHSypmuK8xKj8crQN7DUIhXuH-RwdPV8HnXFyf-18GW6UmQaZKT/s320/DSC00194.JPG" border="0" /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5612084807899274002" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 213px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-yGBm6mjtF1EspnL7u2ObYJc7IDTaWepT_3hlmpKF06V17KZVhpJy6FsWL-U7sUDPDiYas9p8PlNWF3_eVV6pNzqe1IRuRq30jh5ZNKD1VkhBs_-sImRkSLtxiXjVRMLOJzVeb1euKXVc/s320/DSC_1206.JPG" border="0" />I mentioned in my last post that I was eagerly awaiting my MCAT results. Perhaps my delay in writing about these results is an indication that they ended up sub-par, but that is not the case at all. Avoiding the urge to brag (J), I will just say that my MCAT results will not hinder my chances at getting into most schools. These results ended up being almost exactly what I expected, and I am satisfied with them. It's the rest of the medical school application that I have to worry about now. I'm still working on getting together and polishing up my personal statement, letters of recommendation, transcripts, and other odds and ends so I can send out my primary applications in the next few months (if any of you would like to edit my personal statement please let me know because I need all the help I can get). My tentative list of schools that I will send primary applications to includes: University of Minnesota-Twin Cities and Duluth, University of Saint Louis, Creighton, Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee, Rush, Rosalind Franklin, and Loyola (the last three are all in Chicago). Anyone!, Everyone!, please send me an email (bjvonasek@gmail.com) if you have any advice about what schools I should apply to or what schools I should add to this list. I certainly don't have the best idea of how to go about doing this, but my general strategy is to not waste my time applying to out of state public schools. I'm targeting public schools specifically in Minnesota and private schools in the upper mid-west. Because applying to medical schools is expensive and I have the budget of a Peace Corps Volunteer, I'm trying to limit the number of schools that I apply to while at the same time not hurting my chances of matriculating next August (I absolutely don't want to do all this application crap over again next year!). </div><br /><br /><div><br />Right now my first choices are UM-TC and Duluth (if I decide that I really want to work in an underserved rural area I think UMD will be my top pick (because they are one of the best in this area), but I haven't decided that yet). If I get accepted to either of those schools, then that is where I will end up going. All of the other schools are just back up plans. Perhaps I am misguided? I don't know. Let me know what you think (via email, I haven't heard from a lot of you in a while, and it's nice to get an email from someone other than Amazon.com or Wells Fargo from time to time). </div><br /><br /><div><br />Once the schools receive the primary applications they send out secondary applications to almost everyone that has adequately completed the primary application. The secondary applications include a handful of essay questions and other odds and ends, and this is also where the schools start profiting from the application fees. Ideally, these secondary applications are submitted late summer/early fall, and if you make the cut, you are invited for an interview. Interview season tends to last from September to March (it varies a lot depending on the school). Unfortunately, I may be at a slight disadvantage with the interviews because I probably won't be back to the States until around the Holidays, but I'm hoping that I'll land a few interviews and have a chance to get in somewhere by convincing some school that this brute from Africa might make a decent doctor someday. We'll see what happens. </div><br /><br /><div><br />I never thought that I would say this, but life is becoming somehow ordinary here. I believe how you wake up in the morning is a good indicator of how things are going. If you wake up without gumption and apathetic, not looking forward to the next 16 or so waking hours, then you probably need to make a few changes in your life and take things in a different direction. If you wake up eager to tackle the day (or even better if you can't sleep because you're so excited for the next day), then things are going well and you're on the right track. I think most of us wake up somewhere in the middle of this spectrum, not really excited by nor discouraged by the ordinary day ahead. This is where I'm at right now. I'm not saying that I'm having a hard time here but that the novelty of Malawi has worn off and there's not as much excitement as there used to be. Maybe I need a vacation or something. </div><br /><br /><div></div><br /><br /><div>"Whatever is subject to origination is all subject to cessation." Gautama Buddha</div></div>Bryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10694381426521582570noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3397774320320262124.post-90915498905322576852011-05-03T01:09:00.000-07:002011-05-05T02:41:05.996-07:00Ndabwerako ku John<div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;">Cape Town may be the most beautiful city I have ever seen with my own eyes.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;">This isn't saying a lot since it is coming from me (what am I comparing it to?</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;">Lilongwe? Saint Cloud? LOL), but my five days there were well spent.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;">I flew down there from Malawi on Thursday with the plan of staying there until the following Friday/Saturday.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;">However, once I realized that I don't like traveling by myself very much and Cape Town is an expensive place to move around (at least from my perspective with a sub-minimum wage Peace Corps "allowance"), I decided to cut the trip short a few days so that I could be back in Malawi by Wednesday to hang out with my friends over the long Easter weekend and save some kwacha.</span></span></div> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;">But back to Cape Town:</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;">wine, sun, and lots of white luxury compact cars.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;">My first few days there I laid low.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;">Like I said, I got there on a Thursday (the evening of 13 April to be exact).</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;">I settled into a nice backpackers' place (for you Americans that probably don't know what a "backpackers'" is (don't feel bad, I had never heard of this kind of establishment before I came to Africa), it's similar to a hostel, where you can sleep in a dorm-style room, self-cater if you want, meet other usually slightly strange travelers, and pay relatively low prices) called Atlantic Point Backpackers.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;">It was a good place for me to relax and get focused for the real reason I came to Cape Town:</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;">to take the infamous MCAT.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;">I was set up to take this test on Saturday morning so, upon arriving, I had about 36 hours before I went to war with the computer on the third floor of 80 Strand Street, Cape Town, South Africa.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;">On Friday, I thought it would be a good idea to go and check out 80 Strand Street and make sure things were ready to go for 8am Saturday morning.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;">In the afternoon, I showed up at the exam center. I presented myself at reception: "Hello, I just want to make sure that I'm at the right place for my MCAT exam tomorrow." "Ummmm, tomorrow is Saturday, and we're closed on Saturdays." This is the point where I almost fainted. I was further informed that I should have received a conformation number from the private company that runs the MCAT all over the world. "No, I never got an email like that." "Okay, let me call them. Please have some coffee and take a seat in the waiting room." The last thing I needed while having a nervous breakdown was coffee.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;">I waited for about half an hour, trying not to have a panic attack in front of everyone. The receptionist then asked me to give them a few hours to figure things out. "Please come back at around four. We should have things figured out by then." So I wandered around the city for a few hours, wondering if this was going to turn into a disaster.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;">I had been studying for over three months, spent lots of money on plane tickets and such, and the only other way I would be able to take this exam for the upcoming admissions cycle was to go back to the North American continent.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;">I went back at four. The receptionist was on the phone, and she gave me the most beautiful thumbs up I have ever seen. After finishing the phone call she told me that she would come in tomorrow morning (Saturday) to administer the exam and that she cleared everything up with the folks back in the States. What a relief. All that stress, and I hadn't even taken the exam.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;">The next morning everything went well.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;">I showed up early, went through the necessary procedures, and beat my brain to death for about four and a half hours.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;">I felt as confident/uncertain about my answers as when I was taking my practice tests, and since I was doing good enough on those practice tests to get into a medical school, I am hoping that I will also do good enough on this "real thing" (yes, I am knocking on the wood of my dining table as I type this, better safe than sorry, and I'm not ashamed to say that I have become slightly more superstitious after living in Africa for well over two years now).</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;">As the website says, I'll have the results back on May 17, 5pm Eastern Time.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;">I am waiting anxiously.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;">After getting the MCAT out of the way, it was time to start being a tourist.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;">There were only a few things that I really wanted to do while I was there, and I didn't want to (nor did I have the patience or money to) linger around for days on end drinking to much and getting sun burnt on the beaches of the far east Atlantic Ocean.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;">I trimmed the trip down, miraculously booked flights back to Malawi on Wednesday right before Easter weekend, and had some abbreviated fun seeing the stunning Cape Town area.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;">I went on an interesting historical tour of Robben Island.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;">This is where Nelson Mandela, amongst countless other political prisoners, was detained for 18 years during later years of the apartheid era in South Africa.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;">This is where the Nobel Peace Prize winner spent most of his time:</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"></span></span></p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUPdb3CyV1FcdOzu0VC-sU28JRRDHefdQYNjH6aI6HN9D59fkAsNJnNmfJ3I9O4llElgV66LvjSAVTc-2hTN1tr8Kr7W96LXl1mvuyEQxTLWyebLhOltIC0pJ3di19lPaWp7oY2cZSB1LH/s320/DSC00033.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5603156904716496546" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px; " /></span><div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#0000EE;"><br /></span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "></span> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;">In the wake of last year's World Cup, Cape Town has been jazzed up a lot.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;">They now have an open-top double-decker bus that you can ride for a cheap, two-hour tour of the city.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;">I did this one afternoon, getting lots of great pictures and a burnt red nose.</span></span></p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbIY2b9pIoJZ67_4gDX9gxUHx-r4VvSWbTRZT4YnmdUuo6uLwWWxht5FxWhNPZglt_aq_vDqmwfFOSqe_VAqM7jlQhfbxZuBnc7MCG_MfQZpRCL6E1xjIWc9HVPTMnRtF38kyPhzrnNolZ/s320/DSC00068.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5603160531281568130" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px; " /></span></div><div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#0000EE;"><br /></span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "></span> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;">South of the city stretches Cape Point, which arbitrarily distinguishes the boarder between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;">The southern portion of the point is a protected national park with great views, shrub land, and lots of little critters running around.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;">The park ends where the continent drops off into the ocean, where you think you can see Antarctica but that's crazy since it's hundreds of kilometers away.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;">I went on a day trip in the park with an operation that offers "alternative tours" of the point.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;">This included some hiking and biking, and there were a handful of interesting people to bum around with.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigyAoXuqN7y2p0unGPKGU9KZ9gV4NJ8dX-sAMW9SuOJ0KN_vaRPOzO6qMYBuUgN3edC8k3vKFn34OlJ-Fk0EBIUtpgEtW8iC9_-sCXU7_-dxquM60t8i7fwcyB66in-eIDY8ASt7qrRkTs/s320/DSC00180.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5603163004952518274" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px; " /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><br /></span></div></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "></span> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"> </span></span></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;">I also went on a wine tour.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;">Like I said before, I quickly realized on this trip that traveling alone isn't for me.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;">I thought the wine tour would be awkward with me guzzling reds and whites and ports by myself amongst other people separately having a good time.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;">It turned out that although the others on the tour were in little groups, they also had the intention of getting their money's worth of alcohol, and it was therefore easy to fit in and have a good time.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;">I don't plan on making a habit of downing a glass of champagne in the middle of the morning and then drinking through the afternoon (it makes for a drowsy evening and an early bedtime), but I thoroughly enjoyed touring the wine farms of the region, hopping from drink to drink.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"> </span></span></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;">That was about it.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;">Again, Cape Town is a beautiful, fully developed city.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;">It was like being back home in the States where things are expected to work properly (as opposed to a place like Malawi where it is a pleasant surprise when something works as it's supposed to).</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;">Besides the scare on Friday with the test, I had a great time.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;">It was nice being somewhere where diversity is the norm and people don't hoot and holler at you while you walk down the street just because you're a foreigner.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;">There is a lot of money in this city: sick cars, multi-million dollar (rand) beach houses, and even skyscrapers.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;">Here's a perhaps controversial message to all you taxpayers back in the States:</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;">"Maybe South Africans can (or should be able to) take care of themselves, and there is no need to have hundreds of Peace Corps volunteers farting around in the country."</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;">Certainly there are problems there, but at some point, with all the millionaires cruising around in their Ferraris; Audis; and BMWs, we should probably just let them take care of their own problems since they are clearly able to if they only had the compassion for the poor that us Americans have (I'm not sure if my sarcasm is coming through here).</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;">I'm not saying that Peace Corps Volunteers don't fart around in other countries (for example Malawi, you could argue that I'm farting around right now), but I feel that our farting around is more useful in places the don't have Apple computer stores and eight lane highways and World Cup Soccer stadiums.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;">Or maybe I just don't have a good enough perspective on things. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"> </span></span></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;">Anyways, it's good to be back in Malawi without that damn test hanging over my head.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;">I'm looking forward to the next eight months here before I come home (hopefully just before the holidays).</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;">We have a bunch of work stuff and fun activities in the pipeline so I should be staying busy.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;">However, after getting a taste of the developed world, I can't tell you how excited I am to get back to America.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;">In the meantime, I'll be chugging along here.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"> </span></span></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;">"Progress consists, not in the increase of truth, but in freeing it from its wrappings. The truth is obtained like gold, not by letting it grow bigger, but by washing off from it everything that isn't gold."</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;">Leo Tolstoy</span></span><span style="mso-bidi-mso-bidi-;font-family:Arial;font-size:13.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <!--EndFragment--> </div>Bryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10694381426521582570noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3397774320320262124.post-75348240530444094582011-04-07T22:00:00.000-07:002011-04-07T22:31:30.027-07:00Katangale Kuli Konse<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Tahoma, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 12px; "><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Tahoma, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 12px; "> <!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal">Over the past year or so I've been writing here and there about this girl's hostel that were trying to build.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>This project has been a source of both agony and joy for me, and we're not even done with it yet.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Allow me to explain were things are at.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Starting with a little bit of background:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>When I first came here at the end of 2008 and I arrived at Chadabwa CDSS (where I taught for two years), it quickly became clear to me that the quality of education at the school was far below even some of the worst schools in the States.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Mostly for cultural reasons, the girls at the school were having a particularly difficult time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>After observing things for over two years now, it seems like many of these female students, for a plethora of reasons, don't really gain anything at all from attending secondary school.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I really hate to make that statement, but I'm afraid it truly reflects the situation here.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">But my job is to try to do something about problems such as this.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Starting early on, I made it clear to the school that I would be interested in assisting them by sourcing funds to construct a hostel/dormitory for the female students that would be built on the school grounds.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>We would do this with the basic idea that the girls would perform much better at school (and consequently lead better lives in the future) if they lived in a communal place with easier and safer access to the school.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The school and the community showed interest in this idea, and although they (we) moved at a snail's pace, they made many sacrifices to move this project forward.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>They sourced locally available building materials such as sand, quarry stone, and bricks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>They contributed money to pay for odds and ends.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>They managed to convince the district government to donate a bunch of building materials.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It was my job to find funds to buy about two thirds of the building materials that couldn't be sourced locally.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>This took longer than I had expected.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>After getting screwed over and mislead by a few different people, I was helped out a lot by the Peace Corps Malawi Country Director.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>He pulled a few strings to make sure that this well-planned and worthy project was funded.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Finally, by the middle of last year, we received about 10,000 USD to buy the rest of the materials and start paying the contractor to get started on the job.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Now the hostel is finished.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It looks great, standing proudly amongst the deteriorating school blocks and decrepit houses of the nearby villages.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Its roof is very shiny and can be seen from many kilometers away in the afternoon sun.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I must say that it appears to have been constructed very well, and I conservatively estimate that it will stand at least two decades (although I'm not banking on it being maintained very well once I'm gone, but we'll hope for the best).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>This was one of the reasons that I decided to extend my time here in Malawi for a third year.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>If I had left last December (after finishing my two years of service, the typical Peace Corps commitment), I would have left when the project was just starting to get rolling, and I shutter to think what would have happen if that had been the case.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Instead, I've been around until the completion of the hostel.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>One might think that I am now content with how things have worked out.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">But there's a problem, or maybe I should say a few problems.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Apparently it's important for adolescent girls to bathe and eat.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>For this reason, one dormitory building for girls to sleep in isn't going to cut it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>We don't have elaborate ventilation systems and indoor plumbing here so the necessities of bathing and cooking have to be done in separate structures.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>From the start, I was worried about how these bathing facilities (we call them <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">bafas</i> here) and kitchens would actually be built.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>With the completion of the hostel, things have stalled.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The hostel can't be used until the kitchen and bafas are completed, and it looks like this might take a while.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">The original agreement was that I was going to find funding to buy the materials for the construction of the hostel and the payment of the contractor to build the hostel.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The construction of the kitchens and bafas was (is) the responsibility of the school/community/local government.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>As I have already mentioned, the District Assembly and our local Member of Parliament (analogous to the State Rep's we have in the States) donated a bunch of building materials.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>With these additional materials added to what was funded by me through Peace Corps, we have enough to build everything-the hostel, kitchens, and bafas.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The problem is that there is no money to pay the contractor to build the kitchens and bafas.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I'm not going to mention any names or titles, but some people assumed that the donation of the materials from government automatically meant that they were also going to pick up the tab of paying the contractor.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>As it turns out, all parties involved did not assume that assumption.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>We were supposed to have a meeting last weekend to clear up this confusion and set things straight, but I got a call the night before that the meeting had been canceled by one of the parties for unknown reasons.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">On top of this, the school doesn't have any money these days.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>In what appears to be a big scandal, the school (along with many, many others) hasn't received any money this year.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>In this country, students at all secondary schools pay school fees.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>In the past, the schools would collect the fees from their students, and then they would have a certain amount of freedom to use that money to buy chalk, print exams, construct a girl's hostel (purchase a new dirt bike for the head teacher, feed the teachers junk food, fund drinking binges by the administration, etc.).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Yes, this decentralized way of doing things allowed for lots of corruption and stealing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The Ministry of Education thought it would be a good idea to try something different this year.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>They required secondary schools to take all of the school fees collected from their students and deposit them into one big account, the infamous "Account One."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The idea was that the Ministry would then collect all the money from all the schools in Account One, count it up, and then redistribute it in a reasonable manner.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Well, to make a long story short, the redistribution has been anything but reasonable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>For example, this whole year Chadabwa CDSS hasn't received back any money at all.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I just heard that they have resorted to "borrowing" chalk (one of the basic necessities for teaching in rural Malawi) from one of the nearby primary schools because they can't buy any on their own.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>This new plan by the Ministry, at least from the perspective of a school like Chadabwa, has so far been a complete disaster.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The other day I heard (from a not entirely reliable source) that the school was told that they shouldn't expect to get any money this term, and they should just wait until the start of the next term in May.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I'm trying to be careful with what I say here because Malawi seems to be transitioning into a police state (that's another topic that I'll have to save for another post, maybe after I've left the country), but suffice it to say that the fees the school collected a few months ago and deposited into Account One have since vanished (or been absorbed into some government officials' pockets).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>We intended to use some of that money for the girl's hostel project so, expecting that the money would come from the Ministry any day, the school has been racking up lot's of debt for odd jobs related to the project such as transportation of bricks and payment of workers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Thankfully, that's not directly any of my business, but it does hinder any progress towards finishing the hostel's accessories.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">On top of this, I have become aware of another issue over the past few days.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>A few months back, we had a PTA meeting at the school.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Amongst other things, the girl's hostel project was discussed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>At that time we were anticipating that some additional money would be needed to complete the project so we asked the parents to help.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>They agreed to pay some money per student on top of the school fees that many of them were already struggling to pay.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Keep in mind that when this agreement was made, in December, most of these families were struggling just to put food on the table.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>In Malawi, December through February is know as the "hunger season" due to the fact that around this time the previous year's perennially insufficient harvest is starting to run out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>During this time, it's hard for a lot of people, especially the subsistence farmers (ie most of the families of the students at Chadabwa) in rural areas, to find food.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Money is hard to come buy as well.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The amount of money they agreed to pay would be considered insignificant to Americans, but to these people, I'm not exaggerating when I say that they probably had to skip a few meals in order to pay up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Perhaps ignorantly, I decided that the school could handle the collection and use of this money.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It turns out that I was wrong.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">It was clear to everyone that the money was supposed to go towards the hostel project, but this hasn't happened at all.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>In Malawi, at well-to-do establishments such as higher-up government offices and banks, it is tradition to have a tea break in the middle of the morning (this is a legacy of British colonialism. Wait, isn't the US a former British colony? I don't remember ever getting any tea breaks at Pizza Factory.).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>In an attempt to emulate these well-to-do establishments and our former British colonizers, many schools try to have tea in the mornings as well, but tea+sugar+milk+paraffin+scones can be expensive to buy daily.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Therefore, you find that many schools just illegally use the school's money to buy all of this since the teachers don't seem to have the initiative to feed themselves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>As I already mentioned, the school has had a hard time with money lately.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Consequently, tea was hard to come by, but I heard (from a reliable source) that once the students started paying the money for the hostel, the money that they were barely able to scrape together during difficult times, the tea started to flow again in the staff room.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>They were taking the poor students' money to buy junk food for themselves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I can't explain how upset this makes me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It isn't clear whether all of this money was used to buy tea, but it is clear that all of this money is gone, and consequently (in addition to the other reasons that I have mentioned), I don't see how we are going to continue with the construction of this project in the near future.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But maybe I'm just being pessimistic.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">I hate to end this on a sour note, but this is where things are at right now.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I'll try to get things turned around.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I'm confident that something good will come out of this.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It's just gonna take a lot more work and patience than I had anticipated.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">MCAT: April 16.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Wish me luck.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"></span>"As far as I can see I made it to the threshold<br />Lord knows I waited for this a lifetime<br />And I’m an icon when I let my light shine<br />Shine bright as an example of a champion<br />Takin the advantage never coppin out or cancelin<br />Burn like a chariot, learn how to carry it<br />Maverick, always above and beyond average<br />Fuel to the flame that I train with and travel with<br />Something in my eyes say I’m so close<br />To having a prize<br />I realize I’m supposed to reach for the sky<br />Never let somebody try to tell you otherwise" Black Though, The Roots</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span><br /></span></p></span></div></span>Bryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10694381426521582570noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3397774320320262124.post-3255170085918543852011-03-21T11:30:00.000-07:002011-03-21T11:58:54.034-07:00Bola Masiku AnoSo it looks like my last few posts have been pretty negative. This is because my attitude towards things was fairly negative at the time, reflecting the reality that I was dealing with. Thankfully, things have gotten better, especially since that last post. Here are a few highlights from the last few weeks.<br /><br />IMHO, this is the best time of year in Malawi (I wish I had some nice pics to insert here, but lucid writing will have to do the trick instead). The rains are starting to let up. Everything is lush and green. Glutony is rampant as malnourished villagers find that the pumpkins, potatoes, maize, and peanuts are starting to mature in their fields. With more food in everyone's stomachs, people are generally happier and there is less of a tendency to steal from each other and more of a tendency to share. All of these things are very good, and they greatly outweigh the negative aspects of this time of year, which include abundant mosquitoes and highly energetic children (they didn't heckle me as much in December when their stomachs were empty and they didn't have enough steam to yell at the white guy).<br /><br />In spite of many delays and minor problems, most of the projects that I have been working on are solidifying and appear to be at least somewhat successful. The girl's hostel is mostly finished except for the painting. They're now building the kitchen and bafas (place to bathe), and we won't actually be able to let people start living in the hostel until these facilities are completed within the next few months. Even though we have many debts to pay off for this project and I have no idea where that money will come from, it looks like this is going to work out after we have spent almost two and a half years farting around.<br /><br />With the food security project, I've discovered that it's imperative to find good people to work with. This project is assisting five different groups, and each of the five groups is having their own unique problems and successes. I told each of these groups from the beginning back in October that I would use this project to measure their respective competencies. I tried to make it clear to them that I would try to continue working with the good groups and abandon those that didn't seem to have their heads screwed on straight. I tried to take a passive role with this project in order to see which groups are mostly looking to rip off some donor money (unfortunately this happens to be most of the community organizations within Malawi, dare I say the entire developing world) and which groups are actually trying to fulfill their objective of assisting people living with HIV. As I expected, multiple groups have proven to be misguided and looking for an easy kwacha (buck). However, a few have stood out as honest and functional. Not surprisingly, the groups that I haven't had any problems with all have strong female leadership. <br /><br />Once we harvest everything and wrap up this food security thing, I look forward to starting another project with the groups that aren't trying to pull my chain. We have a few ideas in the pipeline including mushroom farming, winter farming, and home based care training (this is basically giving these local people the skills and supplies to treat their neighbors for simple medical problems so that they don't have to worry so much about walking multiple hours to the nearest health center). I'm most interested with the idea of home based care, but I have to look into it more to see if it is something that we can actually implement before I leave 9 months from now.<br /><br />You may recall that two of my students were living with me at my old site in Chadabwa. When I came to Mitundu last September I decided that it would be best to live on my own, with the benefits of more privacy and less mouths to feed (amongst other things). For security reasons, a handful of people suggested that I hire a guard or at least have someone to stay in the house while I was away. I consider this, but a guard was going to be expensive (plus there were men living in this house before me by themselves without a guard and they didn't have any problems) and it was difficult for me to find someone reliable and trustworthy to hold down the fort while I was gone, especially on short notice. Well, you could say that I was asking for trouble. I was warned, and I sort of ignored the warnings. Since I started living here in Mitundu, I've been worried about security, and perhaps I was getting lax with making sure to lock everything up tight and always be on my guard. I can also say that I expected a problem to eventually occur. Stories were prevalent of different people getting robbed all the time in Mitundu, and I had little reason to believe they were going to skip my house. I wasn't surprised when it actually happened (see the last post if you don't know what I'm talking about). However, I've learned my lesson the hard way and made a few changes that should prevent any more of my stuff from being stolen.<br /><br />I invited the two boys that were living with me in Chadabwa to join me in Mitundu. Moses started living with me a few weeks ago, and Fred should come in the next few weeks once he gets done harvesting and selling his potatoes. This arrangement will work out well for all three of us. I'll have extra hands around for chores and people with weapons (we have an ax, hoe, panga knife, and a cleaver. People have been recommending that I buy a gun, but as a Peace Corps Volunteer, I'm not really supposed to have one.) in the house while I'm away to dissuade any crooks from coming in and picking through my stuff. Moses will take his university entrance exam next month (which requires a fair amount of preparation, more so than the ACT/SAT we take in the States), and in my house with electricity he'll be in a much better environment to study. Fred should be able to find more things to keep him busy (I'm thinking this will mostly be work and soccer) here compared to his home village where he is mostly loafing around these days with nothing constructive to do. <br /><br />So I have roommates again. There are pros and cons to this, but it is the best way for me to keep things safe. It's become clear that the police aren't much help here; they're too busy getting wasted at the bottle store and blackmailing prostitutes (but that's a topic that I won't go into right now since it doesn't really belong on this positive post).<br /><br />I've been staying busy the last few months studying for the MCAT. Most of you probably know that this is the big exam to get into medical school. I'll go into much more detail about all of this on a future post, but for now suffice it to say that I've started jumping through the hoops that lead to medical school, and I have decided that I want to be a physician. As for this beast called the MCAT, at one time or another, I knew all of the material that it supposedly covers. I'm finding that some of that knowledge is coming back to me quickly while other topics (electromagnetism has always been difficult for me to wrap my head around) are proving to be more elusive and are ending up on flashcards that I flip through whenever I have down time. This is really a thinking exam so memorizing a bunch of equations and constants doesn't help much if you aren't able to actually understand concepts and work your way through convoluted information that is provided on the test to answer the questions. Studying for this hasn't been as easy as it would be back home where I would have easier access to information, high-speed internet, and a testing center, but I'm trying not to feel too sorry for myself. I've been able stock up on prep materials (i.e. books) that are functional in rural Malawi where electricity is unreliable and most people don't have a real good idea of what a computer is. So long as I don't run into any major problems, I'm expecting to do decent enough on this brain-frying test. I'll take it on April 16th in Cape Town, South Africa. I'm really looking forward to this trip. I plan to spend about a week in Cape Town, which is supposed to be one of the most amazing cities in the world, particularly this time of year. I'll take the exam early on, and then I'll have a few days to relax and have fun. I'll let ya'll know how everything works out.<br /><br />So as you can see, things are better now. Yes, life has its ups and downs, and I think its helpful to try to forget about the downs and remember the ups so that we at least have the illusion that things are good most of the time.<br /><br />Some food for thought: I have multiple smaller project ideas that only require a little bit of funding (20-100$). I want to know if any of you are interested in helping out with the funding of these projects. If so, please contact me via email (bjvonasek@gmail.com) so that I can give you more information and we can iron out the details.<br /><br />"The world is my expense,<br />The cost of my desire,<br />Jesus blessed me with its future,<br />And I protect it with fire." Rage Against the MachineBryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10694381426521582570noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3397774320320262124.post-8275840901864151162011-03-01T07:11:00.000-08:002011-03-01T09:39:15.339-08:00Ndabeledwa<!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal">It’s days like this when I really hate living in Malawi (before you continue reading I should make it clear that I have plenty of good days here as well, and hopefully there will be plenty more good days to come-but right now I’m not sure).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>After spending the night in the city I came home in the mid-morning.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>While approaching my house, I noticed from about 100ft away that my front door was wide open, and it immediately became clear to me that I’d been robbed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Strangely, my immediate reaction was curiosity (Are those @#$holes still in the house?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Did they actually take anything, or did someone just open my front door (yeah right)?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Is this really happening?).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Then I entered the house, reality struck, and it hurt like hell.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The first thing I realized was that they took two mountain bikes, mine and that of a fellow Peace Corps Volunteer whom is currently on vacation and was storing her bike at my house.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>“OK,” I thought, “Is that all they took?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>No, absolutely not.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Here’s the list that I’ve been able to compile the last six hours:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Shortwave radio, new pair of running shoes that I got while at home during the holidays, Ipod, mattress, blankets, all of my silverware, battery recharger, digital camera, and the two mountain bikes that I have already mentioned.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The funny thing is that a bunch of the items, such as the Ipod; battery recharger; and digital camera, will be completely useless to whatever idiot took them because they either forgot to take the charger or they don’t have the appropriate adapters and other junk to make those electronics work.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Another funny thing (I’m trying to look at the bright/funny side of all of this so that I don’t go off the deep end), is that a few days ago I was thinking about how lucky I’ve been that I haven’t had a single security problem in my 2+ years here.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I guess I forgot to knock on wood.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Many other Peace Corps Volunteers in Malawi have been robbed (actually most of them)-either at home while they are around or away, on the street, or even in the staff room while they are in class teaching.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Perhaps I started to feel that this couldn’t happen to me and I became a bit careless, but either way I have received the wake up call.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Going back to the bright side of things, if they try to rob my house again, they won’t find much because they took most of the valuable stuff the first time around.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>They can go ahead and take my beans, other mattress, charcoal, and stained shirts; that’s about all I got now.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The only things that I have left that are still valuable to me are my cell phone and computer, and I usually carry those two things on me so it will have to get ugly if they want that stuff.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">The main thing that I’m concerned about right now is that this crap will continue to happen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Based on the experiences of other volunteers, it seems that if your house gets broken into once, it will continue to get broken into.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It’s pretty obvious that whoever broke into the house was someone from nearby and they new that I was away last night.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>From now on, whenever I’m away for even one night, I’ll have to either expect the worst or look for another way to keep things secure.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It looks like the best thing to do is have someone stay in the house while I’m gone, but this is a hassle because it requires more planning and it’s hard to find people that you can trust (plus, who’s wants to sleep in a house by themselves when thieves are expected to come?).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>If this continues to happen (this isn’t the first time, the volunteer that lived in the house before me also had an “incident” less than a year ago), it may be best for me to just get the heck out of hear, but for now I don’t want to think about that option.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Before I continue I should make it clear that all of this just happened so I may be a little emotionally unstable right now.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Perhaps some of the stuff will be found and returned to me, and perhaps the people that did this will be caught.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>However, I doubt any of this will happen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>When I filed a report at the police station they didn’t seem all that enthusiastic to help me out: “If we here anything we will let you know, or it you hear any rumors you should let us know.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>(How about you getting off your butt and doing an investigation since your title is “Police Investigator.”)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I don’t need all that crap anyway.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Who needs a bike when you can walk?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Who needs an Ipod when you can sing like me?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Who needs silverware when you have two hands with all ten fingers?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Who needs a digital camera when you have sharp eyes and a brain to remember everything?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Unfortunately, without a camera I will be posting a lot less pictures on this blog.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Hopefully you will find my writing interesting enough.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It should be pretty interesting if exciting stuff like this continues to happen to me…</p><p class="MsoNormal"><!--StartFragment--> </p><p class="MsoNormal">“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Matthew 6:19-21</p> <!--EndFragment--> <p></p><p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <!--EndFragment-->Bryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10694381426521582570noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3397774320320262124.post-85835890588398145092011-02-26T08:20:00.000-08:002011-02-26T08:22:45.988-08:00Opempapempa A Malawi Samachita ManyaziIn the States, we sort of understand how begging works, and depending on where we live and spend most of our time, we do encounter it from time to time. Growing up in the outer suburbs of the Twin Cities, I didn’t have much exposure to this. I recall going into the Cities as a child, usually with my dad going to a Twins game or something, walking through the city and coming across some down and out folks asking for cash. I followed dad’s lead, completely ignoring them, and then once I thought we were a safe distance away, I would start asking a bunch of questions: “What is he doing?” “Why doesn’t he have his own money?” “Why didn’t you give him any money?” “Do you ever give them any money?” I soon figured out that it is best not to hand out money to people in public, and if someone asks you for money, you should give no reaction at all and walk away at a slightly faster pace than when you were approaching. In Minneapolis, this usually seems to work, but in Malawi this often just seems to attract more attention (“this white guy doesn’t seem to be noticing me, maybe if I yell louder and act more like an idiot he will…”).<br /><br />In Malawi, begging is completely acceptable. It is an acceptable form of employment, entertainment, social interaction, and way to start a conversation. Everyday I hear requests like:<br /> “Give me my money.”<br /> “Give me a pencil.” <br /> “Can you borrow me 100 kwacha.”<br /> “Boss, please help me.” <br /> “Give me 1 tambala.” (This one’s supposed to be funny, a joke to get your friends to laugh. 1 tambala is about 1/150 of a cent. It never gets old, especially if you’re 10 years old and live in Mitundu.)<br /> “Give me my Christmas card.” (This is my all-time favorite. A little girl yelled this to me, in English, as I rode my bike past her on some remote road in the middle of nowhere. I believe it was March)<br /><br />It seems to me that here in Malawi begging can be divided into three categories: 1) Genuine. A lot of people don’t have the basic needs to get by, and at that particular moment (from their limited perspective) their best option is to ask other people for help. The reasons for them not being able to procure their basic needs can range anywhere from laziness to severe physical disability, but my point here is that genuine beggars are really looking for help and they are not begging for either of the following two reasons. <br /><br />2) Comedic. If I’m having a bad day or not in a good mood, this kind of begging can really tick me off. Imagine a group of about five guys, most likely losers in their mid-twenties with nothing better to do, standing on the side of the road. They’re board out of their minds because they don’t have any initiative to find something constructive to do. They’re more than likely drunk (A common habit of many men in this area is to find a few hours of piecework (this is comparable to temp work, but its completely unregulated and usually disorganized) in the morning, earn 100 or 200 kwacha (about a dollar) by noon, spend all the money on enough local hooch to get sloppy drunk, and stumble home in the evening, only to realize that all of their children are crying and hungry, but they don’t have a single kwacha to buy dinner. But no lesson has been learned, and they just go and do it all over again the next day. With these two problems of food scarcity and alcoholism in this country, I would guess that we are one of the top ten countries in the world for percent of dietary calories coming from alcohol. However, I highly doubt this statistic actually exists. Please excuse me for going off on this tangent, but I think it gives an interesting snapshot of the situation here. Now, let’s get back to the stuff outside of the parenthesis.). So as they’re standing there, they realize something interesting is about to happen. A white guy is walking down the street, about to pass by them. One nudges to other, “Ask this dude to buy us some booze.” They all start giggling, and then the guy does just that. The white guy then get’s pissed off, tells them to go find a job, ridicules them for being morons, and says some other things that he probably shouldn’t. This happens here about once a month. Who’s the white guy? I’ll leave it up to your imagination to figure that our. Most begging from children falls under this category as well. I’m pretty sure that the first English phrase that Malawian children learn in school is “Give me money.” (I predict that their success rate would go up tenfold if they threw in a “please” at the beginning and a “sir/madam” at the end of the phrase. <br /><br />3) From left field. From time-to-time I’ll be having a good conversation with someone, talking about anything under the sun, and out of nowhere they’ll ask me for something. Often times I can see the request coming (that’s usually what they call it, a “request”: “Bryan, I have a request for you…”—then I give them the stone face), but every once in a while I’ll be thrown for a loop. This usually happens when I’m talking to a stranger while traveling. I’ll be talking with them for a while, and when they see that we are about to go our separate ways, they figure they might as well give it a shot with something like “Sooo, I have I nephew in secondary school, but we aren’t able to provide school fees for him. Do you think you can assist us?” It never hurts to ask, but it does annoy.<br /><br />Recently, we have started a project whereby we are distributing bed nets to women of children under the age of five. This is part of a larger effort with the lofty, but not impossible, goal of eliminating malaria. Most of the work (i.e. transportation of nets, distribution, and documentation) is done by Health Surveillance Assistants (HSAs) from Mitundu Community Hospital. HSAs are low-level medical staff that are being used to relieve some of the enormous strain on the healthcare system here caused by a dearth of nurses and doctors (amongst other things). These HSAs are assigned more rudimentary tasks such as organizing outreach clinics, vaccination campaigns, and basic healthcare education for rural communities. Anyways, the hospital administration and I decided that the bed net distribution should be done by these HSAs. This seemed like a good idea to me since the HSAs have the most direct contact with the people we are targeting with this project: children under five in rural areas. Also, these HSAs never seem to be that busy. A typical day for them entails some work in the field in the morning, maybe taking two to four hours, and then sitting in the shade at the hospital playing board games all afternoon. Therefore, I didn’t think that this additional responsibility, participating in the distribution, would overwhelm them with work, especially since there are about 50 of them, and this work is being divided up somewhat evenly so that each person is only doing about 90 minutes of extra work per MONTH. Not surprisingly they have been asking me to give them bed nets as well. Despite the facts that they are paid government employees, participating in a project to assist poor people in rural areas, and not doing a whole lot of extra work, they came right out and told me that they should have an extra benefit from helping with this project (I could go on about this-Malawian professionals and semi-professionals being addicted to allowance and extra benefits, but I’ll save it for a different post). To be honest, it’s been hard for me to deny them since I can’t really do this on my own. The begging has been even worse from non-hospital workers. After starting this project, I’ve been surprised by the number of people that now know my name. It seems like every time I step out the door I hear, “Bryani, kodi mutipatsa manet?” (“Bryan, are you going to give us a bed net?”). <br /><br />For the most part, people are usually thankful when you assist them here. However, this doesn’t usually stop them from asking for more and more. For example, in previous posts I have been writing about our food security project for people with HIV. In the upcoming months the groups we have been working with will finally start benefitting from this project with what looks like what will be an impressive harvest. In general, (knock on wood) most of our fields look good, and therefore the families of the people in these groups should have plenty of food this year after a good harvest. Nevertheless, a few of the groups have already started asking me how I will help them next, after this project is finished. They are asking me this in spite of my constant reminders, from the beginning, that the purpose of this project is to eliminate their chronic malnutrition and struggle to find food so that they will be healthy and able to invest their time and energy into activities (such as starting a business, increasing their agricultural productivity, or spending more time doing HIV awareness outreach activities that most of these groups already do) that will benefit their respective families and communities. As a result, the idea was that this project would sort of wean them off of external support, putting them on the first step on the latter out of poverty, and allow them to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps (ha-da-ya-like them metaphors?). Well, (sticking with the metaphors) weaning isn’t as simple it sounds, the first step on the latter may be relatively insignificant if you consider how tall the latter is, and if you’ve ever tried to pull yourself up by your own bootstraps (or if you don’t want to look like an fool, just imagine doing so), you know that this is completely impossible because the same force you use to pull your bootstraps up also pulls your upper torso down and you end up going nowhere. What I’m saying is that many of these groups expect, or would at least prefer, Bryan to keep helping them. (One more clichéd metaphor, this time with a twist:) It seems that a lot of times, I’m speaking about development in general, rather than giving a man a fish, or even rather than teaching a man to fish, we end up somewhere in the middle-just giving the man a fishing pole and saying, “good luck.” The man is excited to get the fishing pole, because its free and all his friends are getting it, but he soon loses interest once he realizes that he doesn’t know how to use the pole, and maybe he uses it for fire-starter or something. I’m a little bit worried that this is what is happening with the projects I’ve currently got myself into. But all we can do is try our best, evaluate, adjust, and try our best again.<br /><br />“Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery;<br />none but ourselves can free our minds.” Bob MarleyBryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10694381426521582570noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3397774320320262124.post-30415216245781046942011-02-14T02:09:00.000-08:002011-02-14T02:36:57.670-08:00Ndabwerera ku Malawi<div style="text-align: left;">Living in Malawi for two years has taught me to live by the phrase, “plan for the worst, hope for the best.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>This is exactly the approach I took when coming back here a few weeks ago.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>When I left Malawi for home in December, we had many different projects that we were in the middle of, and I flew back to the States concerned about how things would be going when I got back.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Coming back to Mitundu, I was prepared to encounter some disaster that had happened while I was gone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Locusts destroying all of the crops in the area, my house getting broken into, a close friend dying, or the theft of the supplies for the girl’s hostel construction-I wasn’t going to be surprised if any of these things happened.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It turns out that everything worked out fine while I was gone, not great but fine.</div> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">The hostel that we have been working on for almost two years now should be completed within the next month or so.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Hopefully, it will start housing students by April, when the third term of the school year starts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>In December, we were concerned about not having enough cement.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>We purchased enough cement, but the problem was that we purchased more than was available—in the whole country.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>One characteristic of a third would country: frequent shortages of basic commodities such as cement, fuel, electricity, and…food.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Until now will still don’t have the cement that we paid for, but it looks like we already have enough to finish the hostel, just not the kitchens or bathing area.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The girls will have to be creative until we get the later constructed.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Our food security project for PLHIV is going along about as good as I could have hoped for.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>We’ve spent the last few weeks since I’ve been back visiting the various groups that we are assisting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>There are no major problems, just little things like one group’s beans not growing at all (this raised suspicion that the expensive hybrid beans that we gave them were never planted at all, but redirected elsewhere (ie stolen)), two groups having squabbles about lazy members that don’t show up to the field to do work, and another group with a field infested with witch weed-a nasty plant that starves maize of nutrients in the soil.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQ6VxeoMrowSZ2Q_0QlomKgbTszWJ_KmmTduc6k2X_yAOrebFs-aQWQf6RJWd7E6sG-2YWt3WsxrsrUYFVFEoR6GVm8HSGpHFvQp4vfeQuiCzCsG4oMZh_U7xyNoZNWyx0RAjEz-ZGQDVH/s320/DSC00751.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5573489669395563714" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px; " /></span>As you may or may not know, malaria is a big problem in Malawi, especially this time of year during the rainy season.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>One effective way to prevent the transmission of this bug is to sleep under a bed net, which prevents the malaria vector-a specific species of mosquito that only feeds at night-from sucking your blood and at the same time spitting some plasmodium (malaria) into your bloodstream.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>We wrote up and submitted a proposal in November to get 2000 (as a start) nets that we wanted to distribute to children under the age of five in rural areas where access to nets and halfway decent healthcare is hard to come by. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>When I left in December, we hadn’t heard anything back about this, and I kind of lost hope and forgot about it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Therefore, it was a surprise when I opened up the door to my little house and found 1000 bed nets inside.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>We had originally planned to store the nets at the local hospital, but recently there’s been a large turnover in staff at the hospital, resulting in disorder and confusion, so someone though it would be best to just throw all of the nets in Bryan’s house.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It turns out this was the right decision to make, and the bright side to only receiving half as many nets as we requested is that I still have a little bit of room to walk around in my house.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>After some initial confusion and multiple changes of plans, we’ll start distributing the nets this week.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgukJFFd9Jm4glX-DT8m-vbARpp4mG95QOjXOAg5tqcxUEpERYGyCQtqKgue_FueB-KGyz5PVvmL9ekJCnLfCCTyqljSW_VozD4mmsgwUrAMGa2K7eNh5prdXtQZBcyIGIMnKw2Y2Fl_jI3/s320/DSC00753.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5573490913246765074" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px; " /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Another potential crisis that I had my eye on was the electricity in my house.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I was worried that it would be cut because I haven’t paid my bill for over two months now.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>However, I was pleasantly surprised to see that the lights turned on when I first got back to my house.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I was also surprised to see that I hadn’t received a bill for either December or January.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>To me, this was a cause for concern because ESCOM (the Malawi government’s halfway functioning company that has a monopoly over the country’s electricity) is know for causing bizarre fluctuations in one’s account balance, cutting one’s electricity out of nowhere, and doing other things to inconvenience their customers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>To avoid any misunderstandings that would blackout my house for an indefinite length of time, I made a trip to their office to figure out what the heck was going on.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It turns out that, from ESCOM’s perspective (which is the only perspective that really matters), I overpaid my November bill by about MK3500.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I’m pretty sure this didn’t happen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I guess poor customer service and poor accounting sometimes works in the customer’s favor.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Now I don’t have to pay my bill until around May!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">So things are moving along.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Obviously, they could always be moving along better, especially in this crazy place, but most of us are managing to live respectable lives.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><i>"If you are planning for a year, sow rice; if you are planning for a decade, plant trees; if you are planning for a lifetime, educate people."</i> Chinese proverb</p> <!--EndFragment-->Bryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10694381426521582570noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3397774320320262124.post-9835304327244271742011-01-20T05:41:00.001-08:002011-01-20T05:41:35.666-08:00Kwanu ndi Kumeme Kuli Mtima Wanu<!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal">It was nice being home, and I’m excited to get back to Malawi.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Most people don’t think of taking a vacation to Minnesota in the middle of winter, especially when they live near the equator.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>There’s good reason for that, but I enjoyed seeing my family and friends after being away for over two years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I had a lot of people tell me that they are reading this blog.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I was always looking at the dearth of comments (by the way, the user-unfriendliness of the comments posting feature has been fixed; please refer to the previous post) and assumed that my audience was small, but I was pleasantly surprised to hear that many of you find this interesting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I’ll try to post more frequently this year.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It should be easier now that I have a MacBook and daily Internet access.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It will just depend on how much time, wit, and energy I have. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Peace Corps often warns and informs us about “reverse culture shock,” meaning that it is difficult to readjust into your original society after being away for a while.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>However, I didn’t see this as a problem.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I definitely was awestruck by this place we call America at first, riding through Minneapolis on the interstate after leaving the airport when I first arrived was almost like a hallucination (ain’t no skyscrapers in Malawi), but I didn’t feel uncomfortable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>A few other things that surprised me:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>HDTV is everywhere now.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Driving was like playing a video game (especially with a few inches of snow on the ground).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Bruno Mars and Rihanna completely dominate the pop music airwaves (I don’t think I’m exaggerating if I estimate that at least 75% of the time when I turned on the radio it was one of these two singing some lame, cliché love song.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>They are both great singers, but I can’t believe there isn’t more variety on the radio here.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>In Malawi, there’s only like ten people that know how to record music, but they still find a way to mix it up more than we do here).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Last, I forgot that American women dress so provocatively, even in the middle of winter.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>If a woman in Malawi has a hemline above her knees it’s a good indication that she’s a prostitute.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Some things that haven’t changed and I’m happy to get away from:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"></span>1.Cookie-cutterness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Every freeway exit, town, house, park, etc. looks and feels the same.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I went to Applebee’s a few times, and every restaurant had exactly the same floor plan (this makes it a lot easier to find the restrooms).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>This was the world I grew up in, and I always used to hear yuppies complaining about this cookie-cutter world we live in (Am I a yuppie now?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Probably not, I bathe with cold water out of a bucket.), but it didn’t really bother me until I experienced it coming from another world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The other world being Malawi, where everything is different and a surprise, for better or worse (usually worse, but you can make it better with the right attitude-that’s just not very easy to do).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"></span>2.Ignorance laced with fear.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>One of the first things I heard when I set foot on American soil (concrete) was a guy in line with me waiting to go through customs security.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>He claimed that we should “just nuke the whole Middle East,” which would get us through customs a lot faster.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Obviously he was joking and his statement was a bit extreme compared to how most (but certainly not all) Americans feel.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It’s easy for me to preach and say this now, but we should be ashamed about how little we (collectively) know about the rest of the world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It is this ignorance that is pointing our country in the wrong direction, down a dark road where our politics are motivated by fear and our old friends no longer trust us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"></span>3.Winter.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Humans really shouldn’t live as far north as Minnesota, and I’ve decided that whenever I settle down it will be somewhere where the climate is hospitable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"></span>4.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Nevermind, three is enough.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Complaining is for losers.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">With all this off my chest, I can end by saying that this is really a great country.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>While talking with people about the last two years of my life, many eluded to the fact that we have it so easy here and we take a lot of things for granted.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>That’s true; we do have relatively safe and comfortable lives.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It’s inspiring to remember that we have this safety, comfort, excess, and extravagance because we work our butts off, make education a priority for all our children, embrace diversity (most of the time in most places), and our quote unquote forefathers made many sacrifices so that we can prosper like we do.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Down the road, we will be known as forefathers so let’s try not to screw things up too much.</p><p class="MsoNormal">Check it out, they put my ugly mug on the front page:</p><p class="MsoNormal">www.westshurburnetribune.com</p><p class="MsoNormal">"You drown not by falling into a river, but by staying submerged in it." Paulo Coelho</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <!--EndFragment-->Bryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10694381426521582570noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3397774320320262124.post-14371950185562936522011-01-12T11:25:00.000-08:002011-01-12T11:30:03.702-08:00Commenting is now easierI've been informed that commenting on this blog is kind of a pain because you have to make an account and jump through a bunch of hoops. Therefore, I've opened up the comments section for anyone. So feel free to comment if you have a comment. Just don't get too out of hand or we'll have to revert to the old ways.Bryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10694381426521582570noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3397774320320262124.post-81551293883452881502010-11-06T03:09:00.000-07:002010-11-06T03:58:50.919-07:00Ulendo wa kwathu<div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">I think I’ve already mentioned my trip home next month, and I now have a few more details.</span></span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">It looks as though I will fly out on 20 December and arrive in Minneapolis on the 22</span></span><sup><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">nd</span></span></sup><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">.</span></span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">I’ll then be in Minnesota until around 13/14 January.</span></span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">I don’t have any concrete plans at this time, but I’ll definitely be spending a lot of time with family and friends.</span></span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Things I’m looking forward to include (in no particular order):</span></span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">going to the movie theater at least two times, getting a deep dish Top of the Line from Pizza Factory, giving a short presentation about Peace Corps to anyone that is interested at Big Lake High School, watching Bowl Games and college basketball (In the past I would also be interested in watching the Vikings, but for obvious reasons, that’s not the case this year), visiting U of M Medical School (notice-I didn’t write graduate school), not being stared at all of the time, being able to walk around without everyone around me paying attention to everything that I’m doing, drinking good alcohol and coffee, avoiding one month of Malawi’s rainy season, being dumbfounded by the fact that everything is available all of the time, and more than all of these things-seeing family and old friends (it’s certainly been awhile).</span></span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">I suppose there are a few things that I’m not looking forward to:</span></span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">bitter cold, inevitable hassles at the airport during Christmas time, repetitive questions about Africa (but don’t be shy to ask them, I’ll still answer you thoroughly and politely), and not being the most popular person in every room that I walk into (strangely enough this is also something that I’m looking forward to-I guess it will depend on the setting).</span></span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Most likely, around 13/14 January I’ll be heading east (but not quite to Malawi yet) to New York City to visit some friends for a few days before I fly back to Malawi, leaving NYC on the 18</span></span><sup><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">th</span></span></sup><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> and getting back to this beautiful chaos we call Malawi on the 20</span></span><sup><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">th</span></span></sup><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">.</span></span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">I’m really excited about seeing New York.</span></span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">I’ll be meeting up with some good friends that I’ve made in Peace Corps and whomever else I might run into.</span></span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Actually, I’m really excited about this whole trip.</span></span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">It will be refreshing to get away from Malawi for a month, just enough time for me to binge on America; get sick of it; and run back to my simple life here.</span></span></div><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">On a different note, last month I went on a little adventure with a few buddies of mine.</span></span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></span></p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxPl1XWWCD4BBRX1IRgYt5emsHf0bQEW-RLgI3U33HKKOpcT1TtqjBzugu-4_qSjynYvit8LibjAOWwpI9NR0Wn96zK0oEl9qg4CTAtJi-z5RwKbFLy4aKuVJJ1XVuZLMF7tZIBidqwXyx/s320/DSC00655.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5536378179330605954" style="text-align: left;display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px; " /></span><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span></span>We climbed the highest peak in Malawi: Mount Mulanje.</span></span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">It was a lot of fun, with gorgeous views, good exercise, and interesting people along the way.</span></span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">However, it was a lot of work as well.</span></span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">It was about 14 hours climbing up.</span></span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">The first day was the hardest.</span></span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">What is commonly called Mount Mulanje is actually a massif, or giant plateau up in the sky.</span></span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">The first day mostly consisted of getting up onto the massif, climbing out of the hot plains and going up and up for about five hours, and then hiking for a few hours on rolling terrain to a nice chalet provided by the Mulanje Forestry Department.</span></span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">At this point, we were on the massif.</span></span></p><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3lowLzpTmgJuZBF1T5pwLey4fKZHnChBfmlpOLjXJaCuaZG3GqbM3RSCjnYlOXazSX0B3RPKBzYnoi6r1tC0961gorP3u1zOOmgw17pILR_2pXw0YATLABgD9qmFoSvIcYNHhLhaM_Nz9/s1600/DSC00661.JPG"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3lowLzpTmgJuZBF1T5pwLey4fKZHnChBfmlpOLjXJaCuaZG3GqbM3RSCjnYlOXazSX0B3RPKBzYnoi6r1tC0961gorP3u1zOOmgw17pILR_2pXw0YATLABgD9qmFoSvIcYNHhLhaM_Nz9/s320/DSC00661.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5536379142715934818" style="text-align: left;display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px; " /></a><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span></span>On the massif/plataue there are a handful of peaks, but we had our eyes set on one-Sapitwa.</span></span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">In Chichewa, sapitwa means something like “don’t go.”</span></span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">It’s cool to go up onto the plataue, but you’re asking for trouble if you climb Sapitwa since it is known by locals to be inhabited by unfriendly spirits.</span></span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Well, the next day, going up Sapitwa, we didn’t run into any spirits (maybe my bandana and polarized shades scared them all away).</span></span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">I’ll admit that I feared for my life a few times.</span></span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">I’m not used to scrambling up mountains, but I steadily built up confidence to the point where I was a bit reckless on the way down and no longer worried about making one small mistake and falling hundreds of feet.</span></span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">The top of Sapitwa, which is the top of Malawi (OK, I know that’s not saying a lot), had a breathtaking panoramic view.</span></span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></span></p><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-_dTVDRSsHt3vausG172z205cYel-aA4j6qF4_XN8eeLKCdlw9EgrDqDH_jLwrdDVGEyBQt2g8lgghJDEPzyBKiaz1Z-UlPPJfUqVDln7Zz5r_nitAU6SgN8IgHsVtEdhfWkZ2u7kRLTf/s1600/DSC00679.JPG"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-_dTVDRSsHt3vausG172z205cYel-aA4j6qF4_XN8eeLKCdlw9EgrDqDH_jLwrdDVGEyBQt2g8lgghJDEPzyBKiaz1Z-UlPPJfUqVDln7Zz5r_nitAU6SgN8IgHsVtEdhfWkZ2u7kRLTf/s320/DSC00679.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5536384272712573586" style="text-align: left;display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px; " /></a><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span></span>However, as I can imagine is the case climbing most mountains, the arrival on top was a bit anticlimactic.</span></span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">We took our time going down, and thanks to Newton’s invention of gravity, the descent was a lot easier (if my knees and quads had a conscience, they might not agree with this statement).</span></span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">There’s a nice pool/waterfall near the entrance to the park that we used, and we thought it would be wise for us to bathe our disgusting bodies in there before we returned to society.</span></span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">That was the end of the excitement.</span></span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">I then headed back north.</span></span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">I must say that I felt much more safe climbing the mountain than I did traveling back on Malawi’s killer highways with demonic minibus drivers, swindling bus conductors, drunken truck drivers, pot hole polka dotted pavement, and 120 mph BMWs.</span></span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Nevertheless, I got back to Mitundu, with its easy-to-dodge oxcarts and bikes, in one piece-happy to be safe at home.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">I don’t have much more to say right now.</span></span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Work’s coming along slowly, but things should pick up a lot this month as the funding for our girl’s hostel and food security projects comes in.</span></span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">I’m also getting started with teaching about fifteen secondary school graduates (such as health and agricultural workers, primary school teachers, and other younger adults looking to improve their lot in life) in the evenings.</span></span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">The idea is that I’ll help them with a few subjects, most likely Biology; Physical Science; and Math, so that they can retake the national exams next year, hopefully do better than the last time they took it, and then ideally move forward on their career path.</span></span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">It might be a little chaotic leaving all this behind for thirthy days when I come home next month, but what isn’t chaotic in Malawi? </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" line-height: 19px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">"It is unwise to be too sure of one's own wisdom. It is healthy to be reminded that the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err." Mahandas Gandhi</span></span></span></p> <!--EndFragment-->Bryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10694381426521582570noreply@blogger.com1