Really

by Dom on August 29th, 2008

I got a pretty sweet ride up, part way, yesterday. It was in this truck bed, tiny little truck bed, that was completely full with onions and a few baskets of tomatoes. It was awesome cause it was just such a nice day. Such a nice day to be lying on a pile of produce with my barefeet kicking in the breeze. Reminded me of why I came; for days just like that. Of course, then I sat for two hours and saw only eight cars before getting picked up. That includes a couple of busses. I just sat there waiting. Sitting on the pavement to keep warm in the cool breeze. Playing guitar on a gaurd rail pylon. Swinging at weeds with peices from a broken basket. Waiting. I did eventually get picked up it was an okay ride, nothing special. But I’m here now…

At site these past couple of weeks was nice. The weather was interesting because it only got better. When I first got back it was cold and overcast and by the time I left it was clear and warm. One of those in between days I was sitting on my ever-so-awesome porch enjoying the weather when this lady approached me. (First, let me prelude this little story with a comment. This lady did not seem to my crazy in the clinical sense at all. A bit distraut and emotional, but very sane.) She asked me if I was such-and-such, someone I have no idea of. I tell her no. I ask who this person is. I think she says her spouse. That’s not a word locals use often so I doubted it even then. I forget how she segued to the intersting part but it was something to the affect of, she was in South Africa when she found at that all this persons belongings became her. This included the Mzuzu Hotel, the nicest hotel in Mzuzu if not the north. So then she tells me that theres a man there, a worker. He does like working with whites(the kind of people), I believe are the words she used. So she says he beats and kills them. Now unfortunately I don’t remember the details, I was a bit busy refraining from laughing at the time. However she goes on to tell me that this person is Osama Bin Laden, or his friend or something. Like I said about the details…He had plastic surgery to make him look like a black man somewhere, wherever he was before he was here, but it was definitley finalized here, or so she said. Keep in mind I wasn’t ready for this conversation, I was in the middle of reading a book. I was still holding my page with my finger while she was talking. She continues, she informs me that if such-and-such(a different such-and-such) comes here, my house, to talk to me that I should protect myself. It’s not actually that person but actually Bin Laden(or his friend, I can’t remember) and he’s lying. He’s had plastic surgery don’t forget. I asked if I should contact the police. She said that would be futile, not her words, since this person was brought to the country on the presidents helicopter he would obviuosly be able to get around the police. I think she said he works hand in hand with the president. Her words. She then asked if I would help look for this first such-and-such; the one I was mistook for. He was taken to America, or the UK(she just swapped between them at random it seemed). She said he was supposedly working for the New York Fire Dept. and asked if I could therefore just check the listing of Firemen. I declined telling her that I doubted that was accessible. Before she left she told me one more anecdote. She went to the hotel; possible to confront this bad person. She then had the police called on her and was escorted off the premises and the hotel worker she was dealing with told her never to return. She speculated to me about the absurdity of the owner not being allowed on their own property, and scoffed. Then she left.

Now some peripheral comments. She asked if there were any other guys like me(white) in the area. I told her of the VSO that lived nere. She said she already talked to him, that’s how she found out about me, he’s not the one. That means she’s told this whole story to someone else. It’s been refined. Also, she almost started crying a few times. I also had to refrain from laughter the whole time, but it was especially hard a few times. And these bouts of tears and laughter on our respective parts seemed to coincide. Hers following from mine I suspected. So I felt bad. Also, I suspect she felt herself very well grounded in the physical realm of possibilties. However she neglected to still see the absurdity of it. My speculation is she probably felt this was very legit in compared with shrinking people and flying winnowing baskets. I’ll give that to her. Atleast all of what she said is theoretically possible. But really? Anyway, as an update, no mysterious persons came knocking at my door after that.

On to less dubious affairs. I have my form ones doing a project. I gave them a list of topics under two categories, community and physical science(that’s the class I teach). The former included such topics as HIV/AIDS, Teacher housing and community development, Deforestaion and Good farming practices. The latter included things like, Force, Work, Energy, Molecules, Chemicals and Acids/Bases. I put them in groups two weeks ago and make them choose a topic from each category. Now when I return on Monday I am going to start picking groups and making them give there presentations so hopefully they’ve been researching this whole time like I instructed. I told them they could present however they wanted, a lecture, song, drama, etc. I’m real real curious to see how it turns out. In the other classes I’ve just been reviewing all there material.

I’m suppose to write a fake test, a mock exam they call them specifically here. It’s suppose to be as close to the the real thing as possible. That means a lot of grading later, a bit annoying. The thing I found amusing though was that my headmaster showed me a test he’d given my form fours while I was at COS conference. He said he did this to prepare them for their mock exams. So it was a preparitory exam for a preparitory exam for a real exam. These people could design a plane, what redundancy!

In terms of COS. The conference was a good time. We played a lot of charades. I love that game. We’ve become quite good at it too. We had to choose dates. I know a lot of people have been asking. The date I am trying for is October 17. Keep your fingers crossed for me. The country director has to ask DC if it’s permissable. It’s espeically early that’s why. That’s really not much time left here. I’m gonna be busy busy busy, as bokonon might say under different circumstances.

A bit stressed

by Dom on July 22nd, 2008

Term three was over days ago now. I’ve come to Mzuzu to do some work. See Jenn left and I started thinking, I’ll see her soon, I don’t have much time left here. Only then I took it to the next level and started worrying about grad schools and moving out and TJ coming and my peace corps paperwork. I think I worried so much it caused my face to break out in hives. I think. It might not be hives. It might not be stress related. Could be an allergic reaction, though I didn’t think I was allergic to anything. Plan on seeing the doctors next week before I pick up TJ. We’ll see what they say. It’s starting to go away.

Another teacher was transfered from my school. I’m not sure if I’ve posted this already. It was the only woman we had. She was pretty awesome. Real nice, laughed at everything. So now we’re down to four plus me. I went to the division education manager with a letter from my headmaster to request more teachers. that was only a day or two ago though so no action has been taken. Atleast none that I know of. I hope I get replaced. They need it.

Jenn’s still in thailand. She went to Cambodia, said she loved it but super corrupt. Now I think she’s gone to visit Vietnam. From all her emails it really sounds like the place to be. Like the place to be. I’m a good bit jealous.

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.

Mid-term Break and then some.

by Dom on May 24th, 2008

So all of a sudden my school informs me that next week is our mid-term break. We missed the usual times because of holiday swapping. They negated the republic day holiday I think, either that or freedom day, and reinstated Kamuzu day… So here I am. It’s gonna be a busy break, because I feel like I should be using this time to research schools, but I have a bike training in Mzuzu later this week and then I’m picking Jon and Emily up at the airport! I’m real excited for them arriving, but real nervous about applying to schools. Just sitting at site with the days coming and going only being marked by new math topics makes me feel like I’m going to inevitably be late for all my deadlines. If you’re curious, I’m interested in a Masters in Industrial Design.

Last weekend though, I went down to Yulanda’s site and helped her run a workshop on how to teach math and science. It was pretty interesting but I didn’t realize it was going to be all me. I thought there was more going on, or I was just an assistant, but no, it was all me. I didn’t have much, but it was nice because it made me make it more interactive. We just discussed common problems and how to overcome them. I showed them some fun science experiments. The ones I used for my science weekend. I finished up teaching how to change from one base to another. It was a good time though a bit disconcerting initially.

Also, I don’t think I talked about this but I had a student come find me after classes because he wanted to show me a snake he found. He said he found it on the way to school in the morning. He pulled it out of a log. He said it was hit by a car. I asked how big it was and he pointed to a small tree. I was curious. It was like a 40min walk down and across the river along the road. It was obvious where he left it, there was a small crowd. It was reassuring to see the people because he was worried someone would have taken it “some people eat them” he said; alluding to the unscrupulousness of the people who engage in that. It turned out to be about a 6′-7′ python about as thick as my forearm. It was definitely dead. An interesting site nonetheless.

So I raced some form twos. I won. We ran the width of the soccer field. Twice. I beat them both times. HA. They asked me to come to sports later to teach them how to run fast. They actually said you should come to sports to teach them how to run. Except that whole L and R thing made me think he was saying learn. I didn’t understand him for like 5 minutes. It was amusing. I showed him how to do lunges.

One last thing, have you guys seen this madonna video on Malawi? It’s, uh, a bit intense. The mushroom cloud is a bit much. There aren’t any child soldiers here that I know of. There are little kids working in the fields and carrying bricks. That’s pretty standard. And of course AIDS is pretty bad, I can’t say I have much first hand experience though since I’m not in the health field. But geez, dramatic.

new head and other parts

by Dom on February 16th, 2008

so the shift key doesn’t work here. it’s obnoxious. i got a new headmaster. my old one was awesome but got transfered to a school that has just started. so i got some new guy. doesn’t really seem to know whats going on. i gotta say it’s really decreased my dedication to the school but it’s harder just not having someone that’s easy to ask questions to about culture or just the best carpenter. the deputy headmaster left to, so we’re a teacher shorter than we were. i think we’re at 6 with me. not too many. oh well.

did the science experiment thing at my school. had over 100 students and a few teachers there. it was pretty awesome. gonna try it again next week at yorgos’ site. he’s got a lot bigger school so things will be a bit different. i’m happy with how it’s turned out though.

i think some other things have gone down but i just don’t really remember them right now. my students are kind of pissing me off with how little effort they seem to give compounded with how little they seem to be paying attention in class too. i’ll go through a whole problem explaining it. one that i gave for homework - that no one did. a kid will say ‘i don’t understand any of it, can you just repeat it?’ wastes a whole class cause they can’t put effort forward. this of course also decreases my dedication. whatever.

just got back from a night at the lake though. it was needed. a nice relaxing party and swim. great weather too; we’re in a drought right now. the rains have stopped for a couple of weeks. might try to see this ex-pat today too who has a shop and keeps a lot of potentially useful trash. she said we could rummage through it to see if we needed any of it for the experiments.

Stop-over

by Dom on December 21st, 2007

So I went back to site finally. It was nice to be back but it wasn’t nice getting back. I should say travel was ok but my house was a bit distressed, to use a parlance of our times. There was mouse crap all over my bed. Like all over. I tied it and tucked it in before I left(which I did this time too) but they ate a hole through my net right behind my pillow. Talk about gross I couldn’t handle it. All I could think of was how MC told me she came home to find a mouse nest under her pillow once. Disgusting. I got my headmaster to come help me hunt out the mice. There weren’t any I’m happy to say. We then got some students over to sweet and mop and all was well. The funny thing was the only thing I found that was eaten by the mice was my bedside candle. Oh well. That was the idea initially leave no food for them and they won’t come. Only they came, just didn’t stay, which I guess is almost as good.

I spend the remainder of the week debating whether it would rain too much any given day to do laundry on that day(I got those sheets washed) and marking papers. Now I’ve come up to Mzuzu so I could email this school in England my school has the “educational link” with, and hang out until Christmas-ish time to head to Paiges, on the lake. She’s having a shin-dig.

Days go bye

by Dom on September 21st, 2007

So I have a bit of a plan for everything for the next good while, however this month I was a bit unsure…That is until people kept showing up at my house and begging me to go to Nkhata Bay. What could I say, but “Of course!” I had kind of hoped to stay at site a bit this month, but I am at site enough I figure. I get my teaching done and those kids learn. Everyone wins.

In Mzuzu right now to meet with some others to discuss this Summer School. We are trying to work out some logistics like where these village kids will stay when they travel down to Zomba and who we can get to supervise these village kids as they come into the “BIG CITY!” You know towns like Millen…small. Anyway, it would be fun to see their reactions to things like paved roads, robots(stop lights), and the market.

Otherwise just same old same old. Finally got my hoe so I can hoe my rows. Been playing guitar and writing songs still. I think they’re getting better. We’ll see. Also, been gettin’ ready for the hot season. By that I mean stocking up on cut-off’s. Found this sweet GNR Appetite for Destruction shirt I’m rockin’ right now. I don’t usually like that verb in that context but it seemed too appropriate.

Oh and just got here from the market where I played some bao. I beat the first guy but lost to the second. Last time I played I beat two before losing. You guys get ready I think that’s the only curio I’m bringin’ home. I hope you’ll enjoy it.

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.

Site

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.