Site

Posted in Site, Mzuzu 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.