Stupidest Pre-PCV Action

by Dom on September 8th, 2008

So a bit irrelavent comment. Selling my free-ride bike before coming here was probably the stupidest thing I did. I keep wanting to ride that thing.

Blackle

by Dom on July 6th, 2008

So there’s this flyer here in the computer lab someone posted describing this site, Blackle.com. Apparently the premise is a Google with a black background instead of white. The idea being that white uses more energy to produce to by changing it to black your saving energy. Hence the “Watt hours saved” counter. I think it’s a great idea. Baby steps.

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.

Peace Corps

by Dom on February 16th, 2008

So I was sitting at site the other day and I came up with what I thought was a pretty good analogy for what peace corps service has been like so far.

1. Find a spice bottle
2. Take the lid off the spice bottle
3. Find a chair in a corner
4. Sit in said chair for an hour with the spice lid
5. Get up and tell people you made the world better

Now I don’t think it’s 100% accurate, as in if you do the peace corps you probably actually do help the world. Sitting in a chair won’t, unless your homicidal. However the whole feeling of boredom, what am I doing, why am I doing this is probably pretty similar. It’s a very unsatisfying feeling that is hard to overcome. And then once you do overcome it, you almost wonder if you’re even better off now? Is it better that you don’t mind boredom, or that you’ve become satisfied with being unsatisfied? I guess that doesn’t necessarily have to be the case, you could get motivated and start projects and stuff but I think for a lot of us, maybe most of us, that just isn’t how we work. I personally hate boredom. It seems like the anti-life to me. Not death, boredom. Living death. But maybe you don’t get used to the boredom maybe you don’t get used to being unsatisfied but start to really notice all the little things that seemed inconsequential. Maybe even start to appreciate them, so much so that they alone can satisfy you.

I wrote a short essay, at dillon’s half suggestion, about the most reliable positive thing I see us doing here, which is living with locals treating them as equals. That and how I think all aid should pull out for a while. It just seems like the people here believe me to be inherently better than them because I’m American. Which is absurd.It can be fun to tell them how wrong they are sometimes, but othertimes, most times, it’s just tiresome. But it’s life. I meant to bring the essay but I forgot, maybe next time. Everythings life. It’s alwayslife, just life. If you’re here or there, the excitement is likeacceleration. It’s only in the beginning and then wears off. (that’s afantastic analogy).

as an ammendment, after some discussion with yorgos it was decided maybe a full pull out wouldn’t be the best, but still necessary to a certain degree. More later.

Poor Technology

by Dom on January 12th, 2008

So those one laptop people emailed me back. I guess I shoudl be happy about that. The reply though, kept saying they wouldn’t just give me a laptop and that they may have some extras from their first production run but those will be given to

“a few of the poorest countries on earth: Haiti, Rwanda, Afghanistan, Cambodia and Mongolia.”

Hmm last I checked Malawi was like THE poorest country, whats up whats up!? So apparently it’s only 164, out of 177 in the Human Development Index Or this Wikipedia Version Lets see though Haiti: 146, Rwanda: 161, Afghanistan: data unavailable(I wonder why), Cambodia: 131, and Mongolia: 114. I think we got’m beat. Geez…some people!

World Bike

by Dom on December 15th, 2007

So while washing clothes at CampSky Pace said what he thought this country needed was a better bike. He suggested I try to design a bike for $100 like the computer thing. I agreed thought it was a great idea. David Wu caught me online and sent me the link to WorldBike, apparently it’s not a new idea. I liked their design for the most part. I emailed them some suggestions but I also explained my position and I hoped that we could open up communications so that maybe I could be of some service to them, since I’m here an all. We’ll see what they say. If I was home I’d definitely offer my services for that website, that thing is difficult to navigate.

Also, it seems like they’ve had different iterations of their idea starting with this augmentation system that seems neat and is available for sale. Otherwise I only saw one other thing for sale was the mundo utility bike which was a bit too much.

$100 Computers

by Dom on December 15th, 2007

So I’m trying to get one of these “$100 computers“(that aren’t $100, who knows…). The idea is that we have this “educational link” between our school and this school in England, where we communicate about differences in culture and curriculum and all that other business. Except the mail and phone systems are crap and so email is the only semi-reliable thing there is.

The problem with email is that it’s a 2hour bus ride away and costs money per minute for usage. I’ve gone once with my headmaster, now about a month ago, and that’s where I saw how he’d never dealt with a computer before, let alone the internet. So the costs he would incur by trying to learn or be taught how to use a computer and the internet would be quite a large chunk of his pay or the schools income. Yeah, I can travel for free and use the computer a lot faster and thus save a lot of money but in a year when I’m gone that won’t help anyone, and thus it isn’t “sustainable”(this international aid buzz word). I need someone else to know how to do what I’m doing.

So my idea is get one of these super sweet and cheap laptops to try to teach him atleast how to use a computer and maybe some theory behind the internet and then when he goes to town to email he won’t have to ask how to erase, or backspace I should say.

The problem is I can’t afford the $400 for two, and honestly I would like both to come to me if I was going to pay that much, but that’s not how it works. So I’ve sent them an email explaining my circumstance and asking if they can just assist me, to be Malawian about it, and let me purchase a single computer to be sent here. Keep your fingers crossed for me though, because they claim to not be able to answer all emails. We’ll see.

Trees and Email

by Dom on October 28th, 2007

So I’ve come up to Mzuzu in search of both. Trees and email. I went to Nkhata Bay yesterday, cause that’s where every person I talk to tells me I need to go. To find plantain trees that is. The trouble is it’s really difficult to explain what I want to a Malawian because there’s no difference in banana and plantain in chewa, tumbuka or tonga. I’ve got a few words actually but they mean other things and I think people would be more confused if I used words that sometimes mean things like wisdom for a plantain. So the search continues.

Also, apparently my school has created a “link” between us and a school in the UK. And for this “link” we need correspondence. Since the phone system sucks, as some of you have discovered, they haven’t been able to call. And so sent a message via a man at the consulate. So what we’ve decided is to try email. Only no one at my school quite understands the omnipresent capabilities of the internet or email and so I’m meeting my headmaster here to again be a teacher. Wish me luck.

The reason I say link in quotes is because I don’t know what this link means or is or what. Just that we need to be able to correspond. Also I’m glad you guys are liking the pictures.

Now and Later(those were good)

by Dom on June 20th, 2007

Ramble on…So Dom’s bored. Yes this post didn’t begin with “so” but it almost did. I’m hanging out one more day before going back to site just to make sure. Today is my eat-normal-day-and-see-how-bad-it-messes-with-me day. Sounds like a good day doesn’t. I’m hoping so. I don’t know what’s for lunch yet but breakfast was pretty fantastic. I was given some ham, so I fried it with two eggs and I bought bagels from a resteraunt yesterday so I put all that on a bagel and did that twice to make two sandwiches. The first two eggs I got scared and decided I was too inept to fry them good so I omlettized them…bad choice. The second sandwich I regained my courage and went for it. They turned out fantastic, that nice popping white around the runny yellow middles. Mmmmm. Actually found a bit of cheese for the last part of the last sandwich, which of course escalated these from excellent, to legendary. Yes I said it. I’ll say it again. Legendary.

Anyway enough of that drivel. My house is coming along. I need to find some good plants. I really really want to plant some Vidalia onions. I also need some vines for the porch and I think I’m going to grow some loofa in this big back pot I have my spout bucket draining into to pose as a sink. I think I might also use my “sink” as a seed bed to transplant stuff out. Either that or toss in some herbs and do it up herb-garden-style. We’ll see. I can always buy another huge clay pot for 150MK(~$1) and do that in it. I also might get a rocking chair built still. I haven’t heard back from the people at Luwawa. I need to go down there and talk to them, I just don’t know when I’ll make it.

So school wise, I’m thinking of trying to do like a monthly big science experiment one weekend. Purely voluntary, keep it fun and maybe even applicable. I might try to get Yorgos involved to help me explain the science and then we could do it twice, once at my place and then at his. A bit too busy right now to really get that started though, so it might have to wait until next year. I don’t really know what experiments I’d do either. I can picture 3L coke bottles flying into the air, but I don’t know how I’d make them do that or where I’d get these bottles from. So who knows.

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.