Swearing in, again

by Dom on December 13th, 2007

So the new education volunteers swore in yesterday. That means that I am officially a 2nd Year Volunteer. Congratulations Dom.

CampSky

by Dom on December 9th, 2007

So far the camp has been a pretty great success. It started off kind of rough though. The school claimed that basically we weren’t paying them enough for them to actually be accomidating and we could just leave if we didn’t like that. And they just continued to be particular for a couple of days, saying things like we shouldn’t give out all of the newer covered mattresses to the students but also the ones that the cloth has ripped off and is just foam. It was really just one dude, who wasn’t even the headmaster, he was also complaining that too many different people were coming to him to ask things, that we should have one person that we use to liase with. The problem was, this guy wasn’t anyone real special so no one knew when they were talking to him. We also had some problems with keys, as in, there was only one per room and in the beginning we weren’t allowed to hold them for the most part. Which was ludicrous, how can we have a camp when we can’t get into the rooms.

So anyway we set up the staff room in these two skyboxes overlooking the hall and stage. Those were the two rooms that the school permitted us to be ours and didn’t really regulate how we were in them. I surmise the school never really used these rooms. They were pretty fantastic for what we were doing.

Originally I didn’t want to teach but I got conned into teaching Math and Bike repair. Math was kind of a last minute thing, but bike repair I had no excuse for not being too prepared. The camp was a two week thing and some electives, like bike repair, only are for a week. Some of the other electives are songwriting, pottery, sewing, ANAMED(natural medicine), journalism, sexual health, dance, accounting, art, permaculture, etc. What I ended up doing for bike repair was pretty much pure theory. I had two bikes, a Malawian single speed and a Peace Corps’ Trek 3700. So the first day I brought the PC bike and asked what they wanted to cover. They seemed a lot more interested in the Malawian bike. So we went over the difference in gears, hi versus low. They seemed to enjoy that. Then I brought the Malawian bike in and went over chainline. I also went over power-loss to flex and the fork, and a bit of wheel theory, truing, and tensioning, and the gyro effect of a spinning wheel. I enjoyed it. A few of them seemed to. In math I went over a few ways of solving/factorizing quadratics and then I started a form 4 topic, Vectors. That seems to be going well. The only problem I had was that I had to use a method I didn’t teach to prove the general solution for a quadratic and one kid really wanted to learn that method. Dem’s da breaks I guess.

We also had some really great events too. We had a game of capture the flag, and a goat disection, a talent show, and went to Liwonde game reserve and ticked off some elephants. That was amusing because afterwards the kids were so scared. They just kept saying “we should go sir.” “Can we go sir.” Still planned are a disco or dance party and and a career day where we will take groups of kids to different places like businesses and the hospital and prison to see other jobs they can do besides driver or nurse(or farmer). We also had a sports day where I played basketball. That was alot of fun. I played with all the girls, the boys sucked. Netball is a similar sport here and it’s a woman’s only sport, pretty much too, there’s no dribbling though, so they knew how to move the ball around. One girl was even diving out of bounds saving balls. It was pretty amazing. I packed the crap out of her twice and proceeded to circle the court screaming in victory. It’s fun playing small people who don’t know the rules. I think I jammed her thumb the second time. She kept playing; we gave her an ace bandage, but the next day she had it on the wrong hand…

It hasn’t really been tedious, but just long. Wake up around 5:30 and am fairly busy until the end of the evening meeting around 10-ish. It’s really working out well. We don’t have too many solidly assigned positions, but it’s worked out where whoever has a chance picks up the slack in whatever needed area. The food here is getting a bit tiresome. It’s good for what it is. I mean, it’s well made but basically it’s a combo of sima or rice, beans or soya and greens. And well I’m just tired of it. I don’t actually get full off it, I just start to get sick. Kind of like what happens with the beer, I don’t actually get drunk I just get ill. Or not ill, it just starts to taste disgusting, like the food.

Today we’re having field day and we have events like water balloon toss, sackrace, dodgeball, egg race. I’m watching the sackrace. Should be pretty straight forward.

Update:So the field day got a bit rained out so we brought them all into the hall and played a huge game of musical chairs. It was pretty fun. They liked to not move and just stand in front of a chair so I would go around pushing them. I didn’t play, more of a coordinator. After the rains stopped we went out for a huge balloon toss and egg relay. Overall it went well.

The next day was career day, I went with Yorgos and his group to the city planning place and the ESCOM the power company. They were a bit confusing saying things like they produce a total of 278megawatts of power and that on any given day Malawi uses about 240MW. But the highest he’s seen has been like 260MW. Then someone asked about the blackouts and he said the load can get up to 310MW…wait I thought the max was 260? The kids enjoyed the loud noise the 1100V breakers made in the faults room. Then we went to these Botanical Gardens for lunch and I headed back to the school. The rest went on to two colleges. I was tired but I didn’t get a nap, had to make a photo slide show for the disco. Everything, the graduation, the dinner and the disco went quite good that evening too. Glad to be done though. Hopefully the kids make it home…haha.

New site and all that shniz-noz

by Dom on May 25th, 2007

I don’t know what shniz-noz is. Anyway, I did get a new site. It’s a lot better so far. I like it a lot. It’s a tinier house but real cozy and a good bit cleaner. I’m real close to the road now, and pretty close to the luwawa forrest lodge. It’s reall cool to have somewhere like that to be able to get away easily. I have cell service at site too. Still no running water or electricity though, but whatever, who needs it. It’s over-rated…The school is cool. Headmaster’s real nice, real accomidating. Also, the house technically isn’t finished. So while it’s perfectly livable there are little things like how the gutters will go that I appreciate having a say in. So things are going good. Now I’m just trying to make my house more home-y and comfortable. I think I’m doing a good job. I have a guy at the curio’s making me a table with bao on one side and chess on the other.

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.

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.

In the midst

by Dom on March 1st, 2007

So things didn’t go well with the country director. I’m amazingly dissapointed. I still have one more meeting with the education APCD but I may be seeing you guys sooner than later.

Thanksgiving

by Dom on November 24th, 2006

So Thanksgiving was pretty awesome. Unfortunately I didn’t get any pictures so even when I do finally get some up, they won’t be from there.

It was a really good time. We all agreed rather quickly that the ambassadors (oooh at ambasa) house seemed like a level from Bond. With all the glass, dark wood and gardens. Gazebo’s, pools, grills, furniture, etc. It was a very nice place. It actually help set in the fact that I’m living here in southern Africa. I haven’t seen anything like it in America. Crazy nice. The pool measurements were in feet, which was novel.

The food was really good. They barbequed a whole pig. There were like 7 different mashed potato dishes, sweet potatoes, breads, stuffing, deserts, and it just goes on and on. I got so full after one plate I went and tried to take a nap under a tree in the shade. Very pleasant.

The ride home was a lot more lively than I expected considering the days activities. We had a fleetwood mac’s greatest hits tape cranked, and I was tapping out the beat on the 13 passenger minivan’s snorkel. Under the second most red sunset I’d seen here in Africa yet.

The absurdity level was astronomical considering that a little over a week ago I was in a mud hut with a thatch roof eating sima, and then I am in some palatial mansion of wood and glass gorging on pig and pumpkin pie. Speaking in English to everyone, no less.

All in all, it was a grand time, and I definitely apperciated the break from the status quo that seems to have been achieved.

*edit* I got a mohawk the night before.