Site

by Dom on December 27th, 2006

Here I am, back again, at a computer. I do feel a bit bad because I told my headmaster I would be back yesterday, but since I stayed I’ve gotten a lot of other stuff done. Like I bought a phone, even though supposedly my site has no cell coverage. We’ll see.

So site, yeah, site. It’s still pleasant. I moved into my house. Though on the day I arrived the teacher that was living there was at a funeral and all her stuff was still inside. So The cleaned out one room and put all my stuff and a bed in there. I slept in my tent that night inside, because I couldn’t hang my mosquito net. No nails or hammer, and the walls were too far away. The next day though they came and moved her stuff out to her new place and swept and mopped my floor, then I went and got my table and they brought my chairs and I moved my bed into another room and went out and bought nails and borrowed a hammer and hung my net. The best hanging job ever mind you, it’s like a little room.

The house is concrete. There is one main room with a small room behind the main room, off of the hall that flows from the main room to the back of the house. Then two similar quarter-house sized rooms on the other side of the house off that hall and main room. Both my exterior doors lock and are solid but I only have one door on the inside, but it locks too. So I keep my stuff in the lockable room and kind of live in the others. I bought some vitenje to make doors chapatali style for the remaining doorways. In the back there is a kitchen with small adjoining storage room, and the baffa where I wash myself, clothes and dishes. All those are connected in one building and connected to the house with a wall and a courtyard. Behind all that is a chim, where all the business takes place. The place sports some pretty sweet thumb sized roaches and silver dollar sized spiders. I haven’t really killed either of them yet. Partly due to the mess I think it will make and partly because I want to see those suckers battle it out atleast one time. I did wake up one morning to find one dumb roach just laying on it’s back kicking. I decided to leave it to see how long it would take to die, but I accidentally stepped on it later that day, so I swept it out.

Time wise, I have a plethora. I’ve never seen seconds move so slow. Way worse than detention. I got up one morning, though I can never figure out why, cooked breakfast, played guitar, wrote some letters, stretched, tried yoga, tried meditating, read 40pgs and then it was 9:30am. When I go back though I’m going to start working on school stuff more seriously. I’ve glanced over it a bit so far and reorganized some stuff, the typical procrastinating beginning, it’ll get done though. School starts the eighth of January. I’m teaching math and physical science, to what would be freshman and juniors in America. Math to both and physical science to the freshman only.

Right now though I’m in Mzuzu. There is a Peace Corps house here that we are allowed to stay at so I Came here for Christmas. I’m going to try to come here once-a-month-ish. So hopefully that will facilitate this whole blog/staying in touch thing.

Christmas here was pretty sweet. They killed a turkey and we had that and stuffing and mashed potatoes, it was good. I was the only one from my group that was here though, which was a bit weird at first but turned out to be better in the end I think. Especially because yesterday some people from my group showed up and that’s another reason I decided to stay another night.

So anyway, the plan is head back later today, maybe after lunch. Maybe before, we’ll see. I’m not really looking forward to the two hour minibus ride back, but what can you do.

Oh and Vitenje is the plural of chitenje which is basically a peice of bright colored fabric. They use them for everything here. So I hope life on the home front is going well.

Things

by Dom on December 12th, 2006

So I’m using the internet now in Lilongwe. Tomorrow we swear in and become real volunteers, and then it’s off to site. Thursday that is. The schedule is pretty slammed and the internet was down the entire last week at the training site. So I guess a brief recap is in order.

Site visit. Well I can honestly say I know what the craziest experience of my life is. So I hitched with Mary Cate, since her site was on the way, to my place. It was an on-and-off trip of great fun and a lot of walking. Well maybe 7km total. We ended up doing most of the time in the cab of a truck with a driver named Simian that’d been driving for 9yrs and hoped to go to America one day to drive tractor trailers. Or so he says. I guess only time will tell. One thing I found amusing, when people flash their lights at you it isn’t because a cop is right around the corner. It’s because they know you and are saying hi. That’s how many people drive trucks here.

The adjective I decided my site merited was pleasant. I can see Zambia on the horizon and the sunrise from the other side. There are tons of fruit trees, orange, lemons, mangos. Mmmm, mango’s. My school has less than 150 at any given time, and my class size is pretty much the total divided by 4. So quite reasonable compared to what was previously expected. My house is nice too, four rooms, with a courtyard, an outdoor kitchen, a baffa and a chim. The standard set up. So much so actually that Chris and I have the same layout and we’re in two different districts.

After site visit, I went to see the summer school put on by first year education volunteers, which we will be in a year or so. Then I decided to take the lakeshore road south because it seemed like the same distance, M1 or M5. I was warned that the M5 was slower and that there weren’t many cars. I figured I had all day and there should be some tourists. No tourists. I left Mzuzu at 8:30am and got into Lilongwe at 10:30pm. That includes the hour I spent in Salima, which is probably the worst hour of my life. Bar none(that I can think of right now). The ramen noodles Jessie let me have were thoroughly appreciated.

Then it was back to training to process our visit and have our headmasters come so they could find out what we are actually suppose to be doing at their schools. It was a good time.

Now I just got my passport, which is awesome because I live so close to Zambia. And I just bought a guitar, which is also awesome because I’ve been playing Chris’ so much recently. I paid about $140 US, or like K19.5 Malawian. It’s no sparkly red sub-fender awesomeness but it’ll do. Hopefully if someone comes to visit they will walk mine over as a carry on. It’s possible, that’s how Chris got his here.

Speaking of visiting. Come. Seriously, I can show you around, you can stay at my house, we can go see the sites. However, my site doesn’t have running water, power, or cell phone service, so make sure you send the letter or email way in advance if you want me to be waiting for you at the airport. However if you feel comfortable using Malawian transport, have at it. I do like surprises.

One last thing, I have some updated addresses for people. I’m going to send an email. If you don’t get the email, ask someone, they may have, if no one got it, still use the old one. It will always work.

Oh and if you want to send me stuff, besides the stuff already below, gray shirts, decent flip flops(that fit), and wash clothes would be awesome. I guess frisbee’s and a yoga mat, and other trivialities would be nice as well. Oh and cheese products of any kind. Really anything you send is greatly appreciated.

After this don’t expect to see much up here for a while. Thanks.