Jon and Emily

by Dom on June 27th, 2008

So Jon and Emily came and went. It was a great time. We spent a few days at my house where they saw me teach and helped me get water. We spent some time in Lilongwe doing fourth of July stuff and we went to the lake for a few days as well. I was impressed with how they handled all the situations. Like they were old pro’s or something. They were so easy it was great. They even cleaned my house and filled up all my water buckets while I was teaching the last day we were there.

It was nice for others to see the kind of things I get to face day in and day out. Like sweet random hitches and food that almost tastes American. We all actually thought it did taste American until Jon corrected us. Out of a room of 10 I think half did a double take when he said nik naks tasted nothing like cheetoh’s. Amusing. I got him hooked on bao. I just hope he finds people to play with besides Emily, cause I know she’ll get tired of it. If he doesn’t I just keep whooping him when I get back, well he did beat me two consecutive times and deemed himself the bao champion and started talking smack to Malawians saying he was the best. I don’t think he ever let them challenge his title though. He also was kind enough to bring a soccer ball for my school which was in desperate need of one. Though now, two weeks later, it’s almost unrecognizable from the bunch. It’s amazing how they treat things.

I think they had a good time. It was stressed by some of my previous engagements but they were good sports about it and seemed to make the best of it all. We made it to the lake and thats all I really wanted to do. Now they’re home safe. Back reliable transportation and food, and traffic jams, mcdonalds and headaches. Although I think traffic fume headaches are worse than sun/boredom ones. I’m extremely glad they came and I think everyone enjoyed meeting friends of mine.

Bike Training

by Dom on June 1st, 2008

I was approached over a month ago by another volunteer asking if I would lead a training or workshop on bicycle maintenance. He had some questions, thought it would be great if I could get some of the tools from lilongwe to show him how to fix his bike, and maybe invite some others. I said sure no problem, I’d love to, sounds great. So some time goes by and we figure a date, this friday, would be best for us. It was the earliest I wasn’t busy. So this week I’m down in lilongwe for my term break and I’m thinking “Great, I can get the tools myself and bring them up so I know we’ll have them.” My plan then is to leave wednesday for mzuzu so I’ll have thursday to relax, friday for the training and travel again saturday and sunday. Well I decided to take teusday morning off from school research and internet to try to think what I want out of a school. However the transit house manager then approached me to help them maintain bikes because it’s my holiday and I’ve helped before. That wasn’t the plan so I’m not really pleased, but I go. We make a plan on how to handle the returned bikes, which to maintain and keep and which to get rid of. And we begin some maintenance.

Right, so this makes me see, yet again, how large this problem repeatedly is. So I go to talk to the GSO, the person in charge of the whole bike program. We discuss the current situation but he’s also curious about my training. I tell him it’s nothing big I just need to borrow some tools. He’s like ok, could you just talk to your APCD(kind of boss) about it. Sure why not. And he asks if I’ll do it again next week when there are a lot more volunteers around in lilongwe. I tell him probably, though I have reservations since Jon will be here. We schedule but I’m still not sure if I’ll keep the appointment or not. We’ll see. I digress. I am then called in by my APCD to the GSO’s office to talk with them. See we emailed the CD to clear the second training and they had questions about the whole affair. So I’m called in and told that they’ve decided to cancel my training in mzuzu…

I sit and think…how to respond.*

So I go on to explain the utility of the training and they understand that. Which was great. We’ve worked out a plan for the future based on this idea; which is a partial answer to the bigger bike problem. Fantastic. However, I’m still going north, and people will probably still be there, so now they’ve just not let me have tools. Which means problems go unfixed until this better solution can be enacted and performed, which in all it’s bureaucratic honestly probably won’t be until long after I’m gone. Unless I decide to care about the office’s problems and push it myself.

See, this is an example of how a seemingly innocuous request can become a huge ordeal and then even get nixed. Truly inspiration is what it is. Just not in a good way. Ah, policy.

*What they fail to see is they are completely irrelevant. They knew nothing about it two hours earlier for a reason. We saw no need to explain it to them. We need nothing from them except tools. So their “veto” is effectively meaningless. But how to put that tactfully was the problem.

Funny Stories

by Dom on June 1st, 2008

I remembered a funny story, and funny enough at the same time another funny story happened, to a lesser degree at least. First as I walked from a gas station there was a minibus filling up with fuel. It was empty of people but it was shaking. I didn’t know why. As I passed by the rear of the bus I saw the attendant with the nozzle in the bus and two guys beside him standing there heaving the bus back and forth. I didn’t even ask why, it’s almost normal. In a hitch once they used a piece of bamboo to hold open the little door so they could put gas in, I don’t know why. Alright so I can’t remember the story I started the post intending to tell. Sorry. I’ll try to think of some others then for compensation. Tonight was kind of a funny story I guess. I went to dinner with Danni and Ali and they ended up getting hit on. As we were leaving apparently they were talking about Danni so she said hello then they got to chatting. This super drunk British dude was like you look fantastic, staring right at Danni, then realized how awkward a statement he made and tacked on, all of you, you all look really great…I said thanks. I was flattered, haha. How preposterous. The drunk guy was explaining how his son has a phd in mech engineering but got a job as an electrical engineer. He thought that was funny. He bought us a round and had his driver bring us home, so it wasn’t all awkwardness. Though they’re trying to get us to go to Nkhata Bay tomorrow.

I traveled up to Mzuzu today. I got a ride with peace corps. It was nice. We stopped at a PTC grocery store on the way up and I bought some boiled eggs, three, from this kid outside. K30 a piece I gave him a hundred. He tried to tell me he didn’t have change. I was like no son, took his eggs, and made him find me change. That fool thought I didn’t care about K10. That’s a banana in Lilongwe, or a tomato at my site, or like 10 guava, or two small packs of biscuits, etc. Then I got in the care and the staff person I was riding with gave me an egg sandwich.

I was taken in a hitch once to his fiance’s house. Or at least his fiance-to-be’s house. He proposed while we were there and then took her with us. It involved a lot of discussion with the parents outside while we sat inside watching some Easter special mass on TV from Nigeria. That was ridiculous. There were these white people, missionaries maybe, doing interpretive dance with wands and stuff. The mom was the head nurse at the clinic at my old site too. I thought I recognized her. Fortunately the recognition wasn’t reciprocated.

Alright so another funny story, the story I started this post for actually. So I was riding back from Nkhata bay with Jessie in a minibus. We were sitting across from this Malawian with this piece of luggage clutched in his arms. It was this molded foam piece with a zipper and a plastic handle. Fairly standard, except that this man had put a lovely purple plastic padlock on his to keep his zippers together. The kind of lock that’s about the size of your thumb that you might buy at a dollar store and whose key’s you normally lose within 5 minutes. I asked Jessie what she thought about that lock, or more what she thought he thought about that lock. I wasn’t satisfied though so I asked what she thought he’d do if I seized it and acted like I was going to rip it off. She said she didn’t know but wanted me to. I was like yeah right…and then I did. I grabbed hold of it and just shook it with a wild look in my eye. That man was frozen in his place eyes wide, stunned, for a solid second or two before he started to move. Then I released it and laughed. Everyone laughed, Jessie almost died. From laughing. The man said something about a false sense of security or how it was just for looks. I concurred. He was wary the rest of the trip. Needless to say, I was amused.