Tire swing

by Dom on April 30th, 2007

So Dora called, but I was asleep and when I woke to answer the phone she said I sounded bad and let me go back to sleep. I’m a little nervous about what she has to say, because I want to just stay here until friday because there’s a shin-dig for heidi, the pcvl of the mpoto, and I don’t want to be running all around between sites and happy and sad people right now.
In other news I decided the house up here needed a tire swing and hooked it up. It’s pretty awesome. The place I got the tire from gave me one for free, it’s something that would go on some blinging benz with like 24’s so it has a huge hole for me to fit in, is light and really stiff. Then the rope I got is this sweet neon green. priceless. So there’s some good in this whole peace corps thing, hehe.

Site and the like

by Dom on April 28th, 2007

So I’m still here hanging out in Mzuzu. I’m trying for a site change and the wheels of peace corps, like normal government agencies, are slow. Then tack on the third-world communications slow ness and well, again, here I am.
I went and checked a school out yesterday, it had some flaws but it also had all the other stuff I was looking for in a school. But since it was a friday and all that, they can’t do official stuff until monday, and teusday’s a holiday. So who really knows what will happen, or when.
If I go to the new place, it will be closer to the road, have cellular service, be a little more central, and a little smaller, quieter school. The house is tiny, but cleaner and with a better porch, and I think everyone knows how I love my porches. So hopefully all will go well and it will work out.

The good times

by Dom on April 24th, 2007

Things these past weeks have been pretty cool. Probably the best time I’ve had in this country. It began with the wardrobe malfunction during the bike training in dedza. Stupid crappy abercrombie and fitch jeans. Then, on into IST, down to blantyre and mulanje, back up through lilongwe and on to nkhata bay to stay at mayoka village on the lake. That place was awesome, right on the water, awesome atmosphere, good food, cool people, and just all around real laid back. Sergio came with me and we met some others volunteers there. Ended up meeting a lot of real cool people too, some gap year british folk, some irish folk, two sweedish girls, a peruvian and another dude from LA. All of them, save the brit’s, got a minibus with sergio and are headed north (to alaska, goin’ north the rush is on). He should have a good time, I’m sure it’s the trip of a life time. It was pretty crazy to meet people with zero affiliation with the US. It was great though, it really gives a new perspective on everything.

Also, in the midst of a site-change process. I just don’t like my site and it makes me feel ill when I realize it’s time to go back. The same feeling I used to have when I realized I had to do dynamics homework. Not good. Also, I’m going to try a toned down version of “the book” the one for teaching reference, not “the book” for language reference, gunda icho. The latter has actually come along quite nicely. The former however has a long way to go. I think it will be good though. I’m suppose to get a call tomorrow from Dora and we can talk some more, she called me today and we had some discussions but it was more about how my expectations weren’t going to be met, as usual. So hopefully these talks will be relatively fruitful tomorrow.

It’s sad to have chris gone and sergio re-gone, but when I think about the site change and the book, I get a little excited and that’s something that hasn’t happened in, oh say, 7 months. And I know sergio’s going to have a good time, and chris has to be loving it, literally.

Lastly, I’m over 6 months out of date on the music scene, but the eagles of death metal, ok go, incubus, gnarls barkley, and hellogoodbye are still rockin’. Do it.

P.S. Elin, that paper you wrote the email address of that icelandic slaughterhouse on got all smeared in my wet pocket and now it’s un-readable, I’m retarded I know. Anyway, could you leave me that email address again if you have it? tak(?)

New pictures!

by Dom on April 18th, 2007

Yeah, got some pictures up. Not totally the best, but you get the idea. That’s Yorgos cooking too, not me. Be satiated

Happy Easter

by Dom on April 9th, 2007

So yesterday my goal was to not leave the house. It didn’t happen, but oh well. I ended up going to a vigil mass that was about three hours the day before. The bishop was there, it was solid. Then we decided to have a communal dinner on Easter and it turned into a bbq. We had Steaks(small ones), sausage, Pasta salad, awesome sweet potato pie/cassarole, rolls and rice. I didn’t eat any rice, it seemed pointless. Anyway, that was really cool and then about 10 pcv’s from Zambia showed up and it kind of turned into a party. It was really fun and odd. A good time none the less; we moved all the couches and such outside too so there were probably like 30+ people in all. It was a (very)good Easter.

I corrected the clock.

Yesterday

by Dom on April 6th, 2007

So the bike training was…interesting. It was in my homestay village and the language trainer’s were at my house. It was crazy. I said hi to “the a-team” and he gave me some beans.
The training was kind of shoot-from-the-hip. They gave me the “bike manual” and I basically sat and read all the policy to them with some peace corp admin standing right behind me. Kind of awkward and boring. Then I got to the actual, work on bikes part. Which was cool. It was kind of all over the place though. I think we got through everything from stuffing your tire with grass, to never touching your limit screws. Then there were snacks in my old courtyard. But I didn’t get to enjoy them. They were yelling at me to get back in the car so we could drive back. I think I spent a total of 15min of there-but-not-teaching time. And that was with them waiting in the car with it running. Let ‘em wait.

It was cool, as I was finally leaving “the a-team” was on the porch and one of the new trainee’s said “Anyone ever tell you we call that guy ‘Burt Reynolds’?” I informed him that we called him “the a-team.” It was a lovely cross-group-bonding moment.

No Camo

by Dom on April 5th, 2007

I’m told that it’s peace corps policy that we aren’t allowed to wear camouflage. So I’m not allowed to wear my cut-off shorts. That sucks. They have so many useful pockets and they hide dirt so well and they are so comfortable. Now I have to go put on some clean shorts or jeans which again sucks because I haven’t bathed in like 2 days. The plan was do it tonight because I am going to get nasty today, but now I’ll have to get nasty in clean clothes and thus have more to wash and less to wear. Stupid policy.

Guitars and bikes

by Dom on April 4th, 2007

So my clock seems to be about 45 minutes fast. I doubt I’ll get the the time and motivate to fix it but who knows. We’ll see.
Right now I’m waiting (as usual) to talk to admin to find out when I go south for the training. Hopefully it will be soon. Well relatively soon. I would like to get breakfast. Yesterday I adjusted 25 bikes. It was pretty amazing the poor condition of assemblage they were in before. It took the better part of 5 hours and I got it down to about 12 minutes a bike, with test ride. Yeah. Fortunately all the pointless crap was done, like packaging removed, etc. It was pretty great too, I only had a travel tool kit and one wrench that luckily fit the pedals to do it all. Obnoxious. Unfortunately there was no 8mm allen to be found so I couldn’t check the crank bolts. I guess we’ll just have to trust Trek on that one. We’ll see.

I also put some new strings on my guitar, a tansen of some nature. Now it sings beautifully, if only I could play that well. Anyway, it’s time for breakfast.

I’m still around, I’m still around

by Dom on April 3rd, 2007

Baby, I’m still around… - Second shift I think? So yeah, here I am in Malawi. Still here, for a little longer atleast. I’ve had to come to grips with the fact that we aren’t here to try to come up with creative solutions to problems we see. We’re here to teach. And teaching is what doesn’t really interest me. So that is the dilema. I was told to think of this more as “study abroad for adults” and that seems to sum things up nicely. However having this greater understanding doesn’t make it satisfy me more. So yeah, we’ll see come what may.

Anyway, I’m here now using the free internet(sweet) and I’m off to do the bike training for the new environment group tomorrow. So that should be cool. Then we have our in-service training, then it’s off for a little touristy trip of the country. So I’ll be on here more often in the coming weeks.

Getting here was a pain. I went to Yorgos’ to try to cut the trip in half, but from there I only made it to Gretchen’s before it got to late to continue, so I had to call here up and stop there. Thankfully all went smoothly with that or I really would have been screwed.

So that’s all for now. I just got in and I’m a little tired and 2 days of traveling has caused me to need a bath and maybe a beer or two.