New Roommates, New Crops, and New Food

I’ll start things off hear with some proof that I’m not the only one hear in Africa that eats insects:

At least I cook mine. These kids just eat them straight out of the ground. I can’t decided if this picture is absolutely hysterical or disturbing.

On a different note, this upcoming weekend I’ll have a pretty big change at home: two of my students will be moving in with me. Three factors influenced this decision. First, I’ve been spending a lot of time every day just doing chores-things like sweeping, washing clothes, starting a fire, fetching water, cooking, and cleaning. It’s not that I’m incapable of doing these things, or that I hate doing them, but rather they take up a lot of my time and energy. A lot of time and energy that would better be spent at the school or out in the community doing work. These guys should be able to help me out with these things, which will make my life a lot easier (especially starting a fire, something that I still haven’t been able to master during this rainy season).

Second, my house is built for a family. Since the first day I saw it in November, I knew that I wanted to try and have students live with me. Right now there are two empty rooms that I use for unnecessary storage space. I just doesn’t make sense for me to sprawl our in this huge house when these other guys would be so much better off living right next to the school with me.

Third, and most importantly, I think these two boys will benefit greatly from living with me. One of them is an orphan, and he is currently living with his grandparents, a situation that he doesn’t like at all. The other boy lives with his single mother (the father skipped out of town when he was a baby). They live in a village that is pretty far from the school so he had a long commute every day until he started boarding in the local trading center. Nevertheless, they should both be much better off with me. They won’t have to pay rent any longer (they’ll just have to do some chores they are more than willing to do). Also, I need to stress that these two are very respectful, hard working, and intelligent. They are the top students in forms 3 and 4, and they are always asking me questions in class that I never have time to answer. They are thirsty for knowledge. I should be able to help them out a lot more if we are all living under the same roof. Most of my students will probably end up with the same life as their parents, living in the village as low-income farmers (which is fine), but these two really stand out as having an opportunity to escape this cycle of poverty. Hopefully, I can be the little push that they need to get over the hump. I excited to see how this all goes. I have spoken with some of the veteran volunteers that have been living with students for about a year now, and they say that its been great for both them and there students. I’ll keep ya’ll updated on how all this goes.

My garden’s finally looking good enough that I can put up a picture of it:

I’m pleasantly surprised by how well most of the crops are growing. I’ve started harvesting some Chineese cabbage; basil; and beans, with a bunch more on the way. Within the next month I should have a ton of pumpkins, tomatoes, and cucumbers. As you can see, I planted the cucumbers a little to close together so that they are sort of taking over everything, but I try and persuade them to keep a respectful distance from the other crops. Once I find time, I want to make another bed or two, doubling the current size. This whole gardening thing is actually pretty fun. Mom-I regret that I never helped you out planting stuff in the past at home. Missed opportunities…

… But we can’t dwell on the past too long when there are so many mice to eat!!!

That’s right folks. It’s nearing the end of the rainy season here in Malawi, meaning that the mice (or perhaps they look more like rats-let’s just use the Chichewa name: mbewa) are out in full force. Therefore, we need to trap ‘em, dry ‘em, and fry ‘em up before they go underground for the rest of the year.

Yes indeed, I have now eaten rats on a stick (I don’t think they have those at the MN State Fair). This is another good source of village protein, although they don’t taste nearly as good as the fried ants. At first, my buddy insisted that I try them just dried and salted, which was okay, but I’m not a big fan of munching on all that fur. So then I insisted that we burn the hair off over the fire (a common practice of more “civilized” folk like myself). I can’t say that mbewa is my favorite food here in Africa. I can say that the head and tail have interesting texture.

It might be a while until my next post, as I want to be around at home for a few weeks while the boys are getting settled in, so don’t get worried if you don’t hear from me for a while. Don’t forget that you can send me a cheap text message, cheap letter, expensive care package, or expensive phone call as well.

"He who knows that enough is enough will always have enough."
-Lao Tzu

(I can't think of a good title today-just read below please)

Hello everyone, I’m back in town again. [Town is what we call Lilongwe, the capital of Malawi, which is about 60 km from my site (but between 90 min. to three hours travel time including a 45 min bike ride until I reach Mitundu where I can pick up a minibus that takes me to the bus depot in town, and from there it is a 10 min. walk to either the Peace Corps rest house (pictures of the outside and inside below)




or the Peace Corps office (where I am currently on the computer composing this fantastic blog)), and is a place where I can retreat from my site for a few days for both a mental break and some time to get work done at the office and on the internet.]

Please allow me to vent with my one complaint, and then we can get to the good stuff: There are seven teachers at my school. Three of us, the headmaster; deputy head; and myself, live immediately next to the school, while the other four live in Mitundu. As I have said in the past, Mitundu is the nearest major trading center, but it’s about a 45 min. bike ride away from the school. As far as I can tell, these other four have had the opportunity in the past to live closer to the school, making their lives easier with a shorter commute to work.

However, they prefer to live in Mitundu instead for a variety of reasons. First, most, if not all of them, have businesses there to supplement their teachers salary (which isn’t great, but relative to the respective national average, it’s a lot better than high school teacher’s salaries back in the states). Secondly, they thoroughly enjoy drinking, and there just aren’t any good bottle stores (bars) near Chadabwa. Finally, I heard that one of them actually did try living in Chadabwa a few years ago, but he had to leave because his family, which lives in this village, was always bugging him for money.

With that being said, they all feel that there long commute to work is a good excuse for them to show up late to school EVERY day. Take note that I said “EVERY” day. School begins at 7:30, and not a single one of them has showed up on time on any of these day during these first five weeks of school. It would make sense that if you were a half hour late for work every day you would simply depart home a half hour earlier. Unfortunately, in this case (and in an overwhelming amount of cases in this country), “sense” seems to be lacking. People are surprised to hear that where I come from, back in America, a worker is fired from their job if they show up late to work everyday. Well, that can’t be done here because there are enough teachers in the first place. If these lazy teachers are fired there simply won’t be anyone to replace them. Is a lazy teacher better than no teacher at all? What a great example these guys are for the students. How am I supposed to expect my students to show up on time if the teachers don’t????

With that out of the way, I should say that I am trying to focus my energy on working with the students and the community rather than the teachers (I must point out that I do get along very well with the Head and Dept. Head, who are good people-to the best of my knowledge). It has been difficult teaching Form 1 because their English skills are horrible. Therefore, much of my teaching in that class is done in Chichewa, but a lot of things, especially in the realm of science, don’t translate very well. Oh well, if anything they’re getting better at writing, hearing, and speaking English. I make them take a lot of notes (there aren’t many other options since we don’t have textbooks here for the students) and answer a lot of questions out loud.

It’s definitely easier for me to teach Form 3, although they’re not fluent speakers by any means. Last Thursday in Life Skills, we were having a discussion about gender roles in America versus Malawi. This somehow morphed into me leaving them all baffled when I ended class by telling them about homosexuality in the States (a concept that most of them were apparently completely unaware of). In sum, the actual teaching part (outside of the office) of being at school is going well, and I’ll see how much my students have learned this upcoming week, as they will be taking mid-term exams.

I’ve been excited to post this picture since I took it a few weeks ago. This is my new favorite food in Malawi:


The local name for it is ngumbi or inswa, but it can be simply explained to you all as fried ants! I prepared this batch myself by first boiling them, and then frying them in margarine and salt. Result: delicious. They are definitely better than the fried pig intestines I had a few months ago. They have a hard-to-describe nutty flavor and are a good source of protein in the village. But I must admit that the amayi (the women in the village) can prepare them a lot better them me. Andrew Zimmern would be so proud of me. Maybe I should invite him out to Chadabwa to do an episode of Bizarre Foods. There’s another exotic, African food that I should be trying in the near future. I won’t tell you what it is yet, leaving it up to your imagination…

My garden is looking good now that it isn’t being attacked by chickens. I should have some tomatoes; pumpkins; and cucumbers within the next month, with some different peppers; basil; cabbage; cilantro; beans; and peanuts on the way after that. Everyone around my place is addicted to fertilizer, and they are all trying to persuade me to use some. As a result, I have to constantly explain the concept of an “organic garden” that won’t destroy the land after a few years. In addition to caring for my vegetable garden, I recently planted a papaya tree seedling, and one of my students gave me a young banana tree from his grandparents large grove. The papaya was a heck of a deal-less than a dollar (although everyone in my village thought I got ripped off when I told them I paid 100MK for it). Both of these should start to give fruit during my two years here, assuming I can keep them alive.

I don’t really want to spent all morning on this silly computer so I should wrap things up here. Please send me an email, letter, or post a comment so I can get an idea of who is reading this. Also, let me know what you would like me to write about.

“The most moral activity of all is the creation of space for life to move around.”
-Robert M. Pirsig