To The New Group

You are arriving in a little under a month. If you’re anything like me you will be really excited and then the night before you fly out you’ll be the equivalent of roughly one valium away from a nervous breakdown.  Please don’t be like me, that was completely uncalled for. This is not a conmplete packing list just a few things that I came across while getting ready. So my hints for reducing you stress are as follows:

Clothes

You only have limited space and weight limits, and you are probably worried about what to bring as far as clothes go. Ladies bring a few t-shirts, some lightweight travel pants, some long skirts, swimsuit and underwear.  Boys, same thing but you can skip the skirts.  You can and will buy clothes here I promise! If it comes down to leaving something out so you can bring a pressure cooker or whatever, leave out the clothes. A hat is nice to have and I do advise bringing a brand new package of underwear and just holding on to it. You’ll thank me in about a year.
Med kit
Don’t even bother with this one unless you have some sort of medication or batman band-aid (which is really cool) then that you should bring. The Peace Corps medical office is amazing. Dr. Max and Dr. John and Nurse Evelyn have absolutely everything you need. I brought medical stuff when I came and I haven’t touched it.  All I can suggest is maybe some ibuprofen and a handful of band aids to get you through home stay.  

Shoes

You hear all kinds of things on this one.  Bring tennis shoes, bring sandals, bring a hiking boot that stamps out waffle patterns in the mud, you know stuff like that.  I brought tennis shoes, hiking boots, and a pair of Tevas.  I live in my Tevas, ask anyone. I actually wore a pair out and had to get a new one.  If you hate wearing sandals in the States you probably will here too.  I think I can count on one hand the number of times I have worn my tennis shoes and I haven’t touched the hiking boots (sorry mom). Don’t worry about flip flops, Peace Corps gives you a pair, they’re not super nice or anything but they are great for the shower. So if you have a pair you can’t live without, bring it.
Games/Time killers

These you will want. I brought a deck of cards and a book of word search puzzles to country and I love them both. Other things we recommend are Uno, Apples to Apples and Bananagrams. Any kind of small puzzle game that can travel well is good to have.  You will have some down time in home stay and these are good to have.
Electronics

I brought a net book to country and an external hard drive and my ipod. Insure things before you leave!!!! I cannot stress this enough, Malawi is hard on electronics. I have had to replace each of these, thankfully they were covered so that helped a lot. If it mattered to you in the states it will matter to you here even more.  Having a computer is not a necessity but it is really nice and does help get stuff done. The external hard drive is good to have if you plan on keep yourself entertained. There are a ton of movies and tv shows floating around here but get a really good travel case. Bouncing around on a mini bus does nothing good for these things
US Dollars
I think the maximum you can put in the safe in Lilongwe is about 700 or 800. Do it if you can afford to.  Sometimes things come up and you need some extra cash.  Or if you are planning a trip somewhere it helps to be able to start off with USD, the Malawian Kwacha is worth nothing.

Lights/Batteries

Bring a good head lamp, odds are good it’ll be your main source of light for a very long time. With that in mind get rechargeable batteries for it. It does you no good to run out of batteries and have to wait for them to come from America. Get a headlamp that takes rechargables and get extra batteries so you are never stuck. 

Solar

I have a solar panel that hooks up to a motorcycles battery and I can charge stuff off of that, in theory. It worked for a while but I think something is wrong with the battery since it is cheap junk but it worked for a while.  A lot of people have a little solar charger that they stick in the sun all day and can charge their ipod or phone for a bit at night. That is a nice thing to have so bring one of those. I also have a small flashlight made by Coleman that has a solar panel and hand crank charger on it and I like it a lot.  If it has been a cloudy rainy day you can still charge it and read at night.
At the moment that is all I can think of. If you happen to come up with any questions just ask and I’ll do what I can to answer them.  Please remember, you’ll be ok! I had never been out of the States before coming here and I made it so you will too! Keep calm and keep breathing!

Also, don’t do all your packing the night before you leave. That won’t help you either.  Otherwise, I look forward to seeing you all for your week two of training!

Dam! But Zambia won the Cup of Nations!

Not too far from my house is Lake Chilingali (aka Lake Chikukutu), it is a manmade lake and is pretty old, it was done back in the 1960’s from what I understand. It is one of the few large lakes in Malawi (aside from Lake Malawi) so a lot of the economy in the area is based on the lake.  Irrigation agriculture, fishing and ecotourism hippo watching are all dependent on the lake.

From what the villagers have told me, about 5 years ago the dam broke.  Now when I say dam don’t picture anything like a dam you would see in America. It was a concrete barrier with a spill way but not very big at all. The concrete has long since been blown out and all that is holding the lake back was a mud barrier. Until recently.

Riddle me this, if you have a business ferrying people across the river below the dam and the water flow slacks off how can you drum up more business……..

The answer is so simple it may shock you! Grab your khasu (hoe) and rip the mud wall apart! Problem solved!

Oh Malawi.                                                                 

That is exactly what happened. Over two days, what is left of the lake has plummeted about 10 feet.  The hippos have long since left but the crocodiles are supposed to still be there. The dropping water level only serves to concentrate them. So I expect to hear about more and more people having conflicts with the wildlife.

Today I stopped in at the Department of Irrigation and told them about it, because let’s face it; there is no way they knew this soon. They all looked pretty shocked, which was good. Apparently they had been out a week ago to do survey planning.   They are starting on planning to put in a new dam. From what they told me the European Union is involved in some capacity so that might help.

All the people I have talked to are really upset about it they all say, “Ah he is a very foolish man”. Yup. The police came out to arrest him and before they took him away his punishment was to ferry people across for free. Kinda poetic justice that way.

Also, the African Cup of Nations was played on Sunday night. The contenders were Cote d’Ivory and Zambia. All the Malawians were cheering for Zambia because we are neighbors and it is right to do that. I watched the game, the first soccer game I ever watched all the way through. They tell me it was a really good game. I still don’t see it. No one scored the whole game so it went into overtime or whatever they call it. So basically they took shots at the goal until someone got one in and someone missed. That part was kinda exciting but otherwise it was a little over an hour of my life I want to get back.

It’s funny though that the logic behind cheering for Zambia was that we are neighbors. That doesn’t work in the States. Take the AFC West for instance. If the Oakland Raiders are playing the Steelers we don’t cheer for the Raiders because we are in the same division, you pray the Steelers beat them into the ground. That sort of thing only works here. But Zambia won so in the end everyone was happy.

The Traditional Authority (think like a few steps up from chief) of the goalie from Zambia gave him two cows and 250 hectares for doing such a good job.  Superbowl victors get a ring and a parade.  Both completely applicable in their own ways.

February and Finances

Welcome to the second month of 2012. Who would have guessed it huh? This time last year I was on the verge of going nuts because the plane left in 27 days and as far as I could tell I was about as prepared for Africa as Hannibal was crossing the Alps.  But unlike Hannibal, I have succeeded and haven’t had to deal with dead elephants, only live ones, which I promise are more interesting to watch.

Lately though things have been a little slow in the village.  The school project keeps going, pang’ono pang’ono, little by little. The biggest obstacle we have hit is the lack of cement .  We need 26 bags to finish, the porch, waterways (they channel the rain water away), and plaster on the top of the exterior walls.  But you’re thinking, “So what, it’s just a little cement. It’s like what, three bucks a bag?” Well, no. The currency here, the Malawian kwacha, is pretty much worthless. Currently, the bank’s exchange rate is 1 USD=174 MK and one bag of cement is roughly 4100 MK, so you do the math. 4100/174= 23.56, yup, that’s how many dollars one bag of cement here is. Whoopie. And at 26 bags of cement that comes out to a little over $600 just for cement. So I have been working on a SPA (Small Projects Assistance) grant, not fun, lots of paper work. Hopefully I’ll have it done at the end of the month and can turn it in then.

If it wasn’t for the lack of foreign currency and the fuel shortage, Malawi would be fantastic. And don’t get me wrong, I love Malawi, the people are nice, the weather isn’t bad, the lake is fantastic and there is a bunch of cool stuff to see but living is getting too expensive.  When I first got to country it cost me about 800MK to get from Nkhotakota to Lilongwe, and the same to go back. Now, only one year later, I will pay over 1000MK.  I know it doesn’t sound like a lot but consider this; we don’t get paid in USD, we get paid in MK and prices for everything else keep going up too. Bread, eggs, everything. We got a 10% increase a few months ago but right afterwards the devalued the kwacha and priced jumped again.  Hopefully we are getting another raise soon but they are talking about devaluing the kwacha again. Yay.

It’s just a vicious loop. We can’t buy fuel because no one wants the Kwacha, we have to buy it with foreign currency, but there is no for-ex to buy fuel because no one wants to invest in a country with a fuel problem. 

It’s a real problem for us PCVs, prices shoot up way faster than our living allowance surveys can get our 10% raise.  I know very few volunteers who haven’t had to dip into money back in the states.  It kinda sucks, trying to eat, knowing you have to get to Lilongwe or somewhere else and pay for all kinds of things, before the end of the month.  And if you are trying to get somewhere then good luck. Hitching out of my site to Nkhotakota boma has gone from rough to pretty much impossible.  From there you might get a ride going south but there is very little that goes north along the lake shore. Mini buses still run but they’ll really give you a bad price now. But we do it, what else can you do. 

A lot of people have talked about how transport really takes it out of you now. We like being in Lilongwe (or where ever) and we like being at site but that in between bit is rough. There is a lot of mental preparation that goes into a transport day. It has always been like that but lately I think it is worse.

If there are any trainees from the new group coming in March who are reading this, don’t freak out! I’m not trying to scare you, I know this post would not have helped me feel better but you’ll be ok.  You need to realize something coming into this. It’s still just life, life in a new place and you will have a lot to learn but you’ll get the hang of it, I promise! Look forward to seeing you all next month! Now stop reading every blog you can find and go get some sleep.