Why I DON'T Need a Dog

1) I am only here 18 more months

2) Harder to get away for a few days

3) Feeding them (I barely feed myself)

4) Flea and tick meds, long way to get them and $$

5) Housebreaking is never fun no matter what hemisphere you are in

6) Less time for you

7) I already have a cat (Squiggles and she is really really cute!!!)

And on….

And on……..

And on…………....

I have list at home that is a lot longer, I just didn’t bring it to the boma today.  And I stand by it.  Dogs are nice in the States.  I know breeds, I know what to expect of these breeds.  The village dogs are pretty feral and can be unpredictable. I know volunteers who, for the first time in their lives got a dog, I do not recommend that! You start out with a shelter dog or something that is already trained, preferably a Labrador.  Something easy, you don’t walk into the math department and say, “I want to take advanced differential calculus because I saw someone else do it and it looked like fun!”  (If you are doing that may I seriously suggest you have your head examined.)

But they did it anyway and I have become the Dog Whisperer via text messaging.  It’s fun though, you get to hear about what is going on, how the dogs are, you get a feel for what works and what doesn’t.  I will say this, the dogs here are highly food motivated.  People keep asking me why I don’t get a dog if I love them so much and I give them the list.  Sometimes though, despite our best efforts things slip though the cracks.

So I would like to introduce you all to my puppy.  She doesn’t have a name yet.  Benson (my neighbor) has a dog, Tiger and back in early August she had a litter of 5 puppies.  Everything was going really well, 2 boys are on hold for Erin, until they hit about 6 weeks old.  This little girl suddenly got sick, really sick.  At first I thought she was blind, she would stumble around, walk into things, walk off of things (like a porch), wasn’t eating well, was extremely dehydrated, the whole smash.  So I started giving her milk in a syringe, oral rehydration solution, antibiotics, and she did get a little better.  Then I went off to IST, got back and found her a mess.  Apparently she fell down a chim (pit toilet) for two days, eeeewwwwwww. So she got a bath, more fluids and more antibiotics.  She still walks funny but not as bad as before.  She holds her neck out straight, still wobbles and occasionally runs into things.  I think she had a bacterial infection that went to her brain or inner ears. 

And here is the kicker, she stopped growing.  At 9-10 weeks she is the same size she was at 7-6, her brothers are huge, maybe a foot at the shoulder and she is still a tiny 9”.  Maybe the infection took out her pituitary gland and she stopped growing? I don’t know, I’m out of guesses for this dog.  

So long term diagnosis; who knows. I now have a kitten who barely leaves the house and a puppy who can hardly sit straight with little bladder control (name to consider; Puddles).

Mary’s Home for Wayward Animals: Africa is now open, our newest branch office is located just outside Nkhotakota in rural Malawi, please no Mambas. 

IST and IV

Well IST (Inter Service Training) is done with.  We arrived on Sunday, two weeks ago and went to visit the Nordins at Never Ending Food, they are really nice people and have an amazing set up with perma culture gardening everywhere.  It was really nice to see.  Then for the next few days it was a lot of evaluations about previous trainings, things we would like to see improved for future groups, etc.

Counterparts arrived on Wednesday.  I brought Ponsiano from the Parks and Wildlife office in Nkhotakota.  He is an extension worker so since he is in multiple villages it seemed like a way to have the training benefit a lot of people beyond my reach. 

On Sunday the Health volunteers arrived.  IST is a total of 3 weeks long with the middle week being a combined training for both our sectors and the outlier weeks being individual sectors training.  I think it worked well, the combined training week had a lot to do with administrative stuff so this way they don't have to repeat themselves. 

While all this was going on people were dropping like flies.  I don't know what happened but some horrible bug was going around.  That first week, I ran out of stomach meds so many people were sick.  There are two kinds of people, those who came prepared and those who know someone else came prepared and thus didn't even bring pain killers.  So thats how I ran out of meds. 

I took my turn with the bug for almost the entire second week.  I was feeling pretty good by Wednesday morning when the medical office came out to do our final vaccinations, go figure.  Thursday I was off, I went back to bed at about 11am and some nice volunteers brought me lunch.  Friday I didn't even bother, it wasn't worth it to get up.  I talked to the medical office and they were going to send Amoxicillin the next day.  I kept feeling worse. 

Later that day we actually looked in my throat...eeeeewwwwww, tonsils covered in pus, for those of you eating, I'm sorry, but you shouldn't have food at a computer anyway, so it serves you right. After that I was on transport for Lilongwe so fast, I think it actually did make my head spin.  But considering how miserable I was, it is pretty amazing my head was still attached.

In Lilongewe I streched out on a table for a solid hour or so, and Dr. Max hooked me up to an IV drip;
Dr. Max- Pepani (sorry) Mary, this is gonna hurt
Me- uuuhhhhhh
Dr. Max- your gonna feel a pinch
Me- uuuhhhhhh
Long story short, I didn't feel much of that, thank goodness, I have a bad track record with needles.

So after that, Dr. Max drove me to Korea Garden Lodge where I have been staying.  This morning he came over to do more IV antibiotics.  I couldn't help but think about how it looked.  I mean think about it, in a devloping country, IV bag hanging from a coat rack, little vials spread out on the bed, usually these stories end with someone waking up in a bathtub of ice with a note saying "Call a Doctor".  But seriously, Dr. Max is awesome and is coming to check on me again tomorrow.   

Malawi is funny, I have been sick more here in the past 6 months than I have in the last year living in the States and I've been on 2 IV drips in as many days, I don't think I have ever been on one.  Africa is rough on you if you don't know what to expect. 

(BTW- Mom the IV ABX is Ceftriaxone and they gave me 2 g yesterday and today)

Bikes, enough leg power and they'll do anything!

I know, I know, it's been a while....again. I am not made for blogging. Well, mostly this country is not made for blogging. No electricity at my house and frequent power outtages mean that even if you do get to the boma to post an update there is always the chance you won't be able to do it anyway. But I digress, todays topic is; Bicycles a.k.a.- Jenga (in Chichewa)
When we get to site, Peace Corps gives us a bike on which to get around. For many volunteers it is the only method of getting to your nearest trading center, boma, or other volunteer. I am lucky, I have a short ride down a dirt path and then it is a quick, albeit hilly, 16 km to NKK boma on a paved road, the M 18. Some people are 16 km from the nearest paved road, I'm not complaining.
The bike provedes a means of transport not only for you but your kathundu (baggage), any mail you may have, groceries, fellow PCV's, and let me tell you, if I had a nickle for every time I saw a goat or pig or chicken lashed to the back of a bike, well I don't how many nickles it would exactly be but my guess is somewhere around $2.50. It is actually really funny to see and you would think the animals would put up a bigger fuss about it, but no. They seem quite resigned to their fate if for no other reason than, "Well as long as I'm on the bike, the kids don't throw rocks at me, humm, not bad."
I was biking to the boma one day and passed a man and a goat. The goat was tied insuch a fashion as to look like it was sitting side-saddle on the frame, with it's front legs tied and resting on the handle bars, a very dainty looking goat. Actually I thought it was dead, then as soon as I passed it the goat looked at me and went,
"MMMAAAAAHHHHHH!!!"
I think this loosely translates to,
"Look! They can't hit me with rocks! The kids don't know how to lead a target!" but I think it loses a little something in the translation, goat to Chichewa to English, you know, hard to keep up with it.
Actually, if someone would tell the livestock that if they would flop around a bit more they could very easily upset the bikes it may be a different story. And that is the amazing part, I bet getting them up is quite interesting (especially the pigs) but they just sit there! Weird. All my experience with American livestock suggests they would be adverse to such treatment. Humm, I think there is a selective breeding program for bike friendly animals, it's in the genes.

Every crazed, homeless, beggar has his day in court, when is mine?

A select few of you already know this, for those of you who don't, this will help you through today's blog post. So here is the short version;

I was grabbed in my boma, twice.

There is a crazy homeless guy who hangs out and harasses people, locals, tourists, kids, anyone. Last Wednesday he was following me around the boma ranting and raving and ended up grabbing my ass.  I got freaked out and left for Lilongwe for a few days, and he was arressted for a night.  A week later, (Wednesday) I get back to Nkhotakota I get grabbed again, the police had given him a haircut and shaved his beard, I practically walked right into him! This time my site mate is with me and she gets grabbed as well.

One of the interesting things about Malawian culture is the apathy.  Here are two people clearly in distress being harassed and visably grabbed and what do the tons of people around us do? Laugh. Because he is crazy it is funny. 

Anyway, we pick up bricks to throw at him and walked to the police station, file a report, and are told to come back to be in court on Friday.  So we get all the way here and are told that nothing is happening untill Tuesday, and even then it is just his day in court to state 'Guilty' or 'Innocent'.  They will call when we are needed. 

So what did we learn today? Walk around with bricks and the kids finally don't talk to you, and dealing with legal systems sucks globally. Wooh.

Weddings in Malawi

So, sorry I haven't been posting lately.  Every now and then blogging goes to the bottom of the To-Do list and doesn't resurface for a while. 

Anyway, currently I am at Kamuzu Academey in Kasungu district.  It is really quiet here, on account of the fact that school is out. Nice and quiet, and the internet isn't all bogged down so things are moving pretty quickly. 

I have been staying with a volunteer who lives nearby, Alysia, and yesterday we went into Kasungu to go see a wedding.  The man getting married lives in Alysia's village and she was invited to go.  From what I can gather, if you are invited, you invite other people too, so I went along. 

We were dropped off in the wrong spot to we wandered around for a while before we gave up and just went to Kasungu to get to the bank.  At 1pm we headed to the community center for the reception. 

The program said that it started off with "soft" music.  Let me tell you something, Malawians have amazing hearing but they can not play their music loud enough.  They love to have it at ear drum piercing levels, don't know why.  After the music the wedding party danced in followed by the bride and groom.  Any of you remember seeing that viral video taken of a wedding in America where everyone danced down the isle? It was kinds like that, but African.

Then we had about a million "pelekani pelekani".  A pelekani pelekani is basically where everyone gets up, dances around, and throws a ton of money in these buckets for the bride and groom.  In America you get a toaster and 5 crock pots, in Malawi you get buckets of money, literally, buckets.  But these families were a bit more bwana than most people here.  I suspect that a village wedding would not result in so much cash, but the effect is the same, loads of money being thrown at you.  

Alysia and I got up and participated,  I don't know how much kwacha I threw in but each time you get up you walk back to your seat about 20-50 kwacha lighter.

After a little bit you look at the piles of money being counted and a thought crossed my mind, "Is it bad that I want to walk over there and make change?"  Seriously though, we get paid with 500 kwacha bills and those are impossible to use in the village.  Part of me wanted to go over and offer to condense it down for them a bit, that way they have fewer buckets of money to put on their truck, thus lightening the load and saving fuel.  I was being economical.

Speaking of fuel, I know some of you (*cough cough* mom*cough cough*) have been reading about the riots that occured here a week or so ago.  Let me tell you how it played out in Nkhotakota boma.  They closed the People's grocery store.

No, that's all, just closed one store.  Jesi and I ran into the manager at a lodge while we were having a cheeseburger, he had a coke. 

When you hear that something is happening "nation wide" people usually envision mass panic, something absolutely every person is participating in.  When they say "nation wide" in Malawi, they mean it was happening in the three biggest cities, Blayntre, Lilongwe, and Mzuzu, which happen to be located in the South, central, and North parts of the country, and thus it is nation wide. 

So no worries.  There are more demonstrations planned for the 17-18th of August but probably more of the same. 

So to wrap up; weddings=lots of money, and things can get blown out of proportion here too.  I love you all and hope to talk to you soon!

Elephants: An Amazing African Conundrum

How do you hide a dozen elephants?

Simple, put them in a densely vegitated river bottom at 2 am, poof! No more elephants! But I'm getting ahead of myself.

After a few days of being informed that the elephants were out and about over the previous night, I informed Benson that, regardless of the time I wanted to know about it the next time it happened! I didn't really realize that what I had been said would be taken quite so literally until just a few nights ago. 

At about 1am on Saturday I was awakened by the neighbor's dog barking, insert ear plugs and continue sleeping.  The next thing I know there are muffled voices coming from outside my house, right next to the window.  Groggily, remove ear plugs;

"Mary! Are you hearing the drums? They are beating them to scare the elephants!"

"Uh...maybe...hang on..."

I look at my watch, 2:30!?!? I only recognize one 2:30 per day and this is not it. There had better be elephants singing and dancing somewhere. I get dressed, which really only consisted of grabbing pants and getting my camera, and head outside.  Benson is there and true to his word, he came to get me for the elephants, so off we go.  

Luckily there is a full moon so we can see pretty well and finally get to the paved road (the M18) and start walking towards the river that drains into Lake Chikukutu not too far away.  Once we get a little closer we realize the elephants are back further and reverse directions looking for a way to cut into the bush on various little paths winding in and out of fields of corn, cassava, rice, bananas, and just plain grass.

Fast forward to about 4am.  The group of elephants has split up, half are going back to the reserve with half still milling around in the river bottom and we have yet to see them.  We hear them quite well.  Out here the only time you hear a tree crashing down is if people are behind it, so knowing that some really massive animals are out there just knocking them over, and at night they look completely black, is more than a cure for any attention defficits one may posess at the moment due to lack of sleep.  You are wide awake!

We are now standing on the edge of a rice field in the river bottom, we have lost all height from the surrounding hills and are at the same level as the elephants.  They are about 200 yards, by my guessing, in the bush and we can hear them happily muching on anything they please.  Every now and then you hear an almost rubbery, squeaky sound, kinda like the sound two pickels make when you rub them together, that is the sound banana trees make when their stalks are ripped in two.  But the elephants move further back. 

We double back up the hill and cut down on to the sandy part of the river bank where we can cross over to the side the elephants are on.  Both us and the elephants are now moving East paralell to the river.  It is 5:30 and the sky is just barely starting to lighten, we come up the sandy bank and into a large open area.  There they are!  Just vaguly you can make out the shapes as your eyes try to focus.  There are about a dozen of them, a small group, 30-40 is more normal. 

Photo op! Kinda. The first picture didn't turn out, no flash and it was too dark.  Okay, I think, one flash photo won't scare them, right? Well......  The camera goes off, and one of the largest of the dark masses turns and faces us, you can make out the big ears fully extended trying to asses us from a distance of maybe 75-100 yards.

Benson: "Oh we should be turning back.  He doesn't like it."

Me: "What, he's coming this way???"

Benson: "We are turning back now!"

So we back off and the elephants melt into the forest.  It was amazing, you have been folowing elephants all night! Walking in their footprints, listening to them execute their complete and total mastery of their environment, as they cut a swath through the forest.  Then to glimpse them for so brief a moment almost isn't fair.

After this, the sun is up and of course we don't see the elephants any more so we turn to go home.  When we do, I realize what a highway we were in. There are tracks and dung everywhere, some tracks from a very young baby.  Also, you realize why exactly they are all over the place.

Down in the river bottem there are no houses due to seasonal flooding, only crops, lots of corn and rice which the elephants have decimated in the course of one night.  As we are walking out of the fields towards the settelments, we pass a farmer on his way to what used to be a corn field.  This field was planted later and well watered and would have acted as a cushion during the hungry season for his family.  It is gone.  As we pass he is speaking to me and Benson translates, "he wants you to, please, kill an elephant."

And what else is there to do.  All the people can do is bang drums to try and scare them off but we all know a full grown African elephant pretty much does what he wants.  So we come to the amazing reality we are faced with.  We are failed wildlife managers, we have failed here.  Everywhere else, every other species of game here is managed, albeit certain tecniques aren't that great, but they have plans. Hippo, crocodile, leopard, lion, all dangerous animals, have different policies.  But elephants, the true King of the Jungle, possibly the most unpredictable animal you can run into out in the bush, is untouched.

There is no mamagment technique, nothing. And not having a plan, or any sort of direction, equals failure in my book.

And there is nothing villagers can do but sit back, bang some drums and watch their livelihood disappear overnight.  It is easy to have an opinion on something, very easy, to throw out advice, condem those who's ideas clash with out own, we hold the noble stance, the high ground, "these people don't realize how important and wonderful the elephants are. How sad."

Believe me, they realize it, at 2:30 am we passed other women who were outside hoping to see the elephants, people were asking me if we really saw them. I was taken out in the African bush by someone who wanted to share these amazing animals with someone who had never seen them in their natural habitat before. They fully understand them and what they are capable of, never think they don't get it, they see it and they are frustrated by it. 

What they are lacking in is solutions, real solutions, to the largest attractive, nusiance of an animal on this planet.  And let me just say that someone had better come up with one fast.  Growing populations of elephants and people will result in only more conflict, and a peaceful resolution is, as far as I can see, nothing but a dream.

Dogs and rats, I still need a cat

All hail the power of puppies. Did you ever know a creature capable of infusing the life around them with so much drama as to rival daytime soap operas? On top of that, they are amazingly resiliant creatures, despite being small and easy to burn.  The puppy is doing beautifuly.  The day after my last blog post, she stopped drooling all the time, the first sign she was able to swallow again.  Then that evening she promptly, and with great enthusiasm, ate 4 coconut cookies, despite them being stale.  I am also happy to say she has put on weight really quickly and is almost back to where she was.

Most of the neighbors all knew what happened, I think, and have been watching her to see when she would start eating again, other people are feeding her too. And, Thursday morning she got an extra special treat....a dead rat! Wooh! And I can hear you thinking, "how did the puppy happen upon an already dead rat first thing in the morning without the other dogs eating it first." Well forge on gentle reader and learn of the consequences of living in Mouse Village.

The first consequence; Mbewa means 'Mouse' and it lives up to its name.  For the past week I have been trying everything in my power to kill a certain mouse (more like a small rat).  At first I was just setting the trap but after a couple unsucessful nights, I decided the trap wasn't sensitive enough and tried different ways of leaving it so it would snap easily.  Still nothing.  This was one smart rat, she even had some attitude.  One morning I woke up and saw her sitting on the chair next to my bed!  As is the case with rats and mice, they climb on things and leave little 'gifts' everywhere for you to find.  On the table, dishes, etc. ugh, lots of washing in lots of hot water.

Then, Thursday morning, we hit the final straw.  I was laying in bed at about 6:30 and I hear something making tons of noise with a plastic bag.  At first I thought it was a toad.  They live in here too and if there is a bag on the ground they will sit in it, I don't know why.  But the bag was, instead, being pulled under the cabnet! This cupboard/bureau/closet/cabnet, holds, probably, a good 80% of all things deemed valuable that I brought from the US.  I do not need a rat getting in it.

Needless to say, I was angry.  Not only was this the same animal who had given me so much grief over the past week, but she had the audacity to sleep in the same room as me! I was being mocked by this creature who had evaded capture for so long she was now daring to come out when the sun was up! That was the last straw.  I got up out of bed and went to the living/dining room and proceeded to get my Panga knife (read: Machette) and a 4 foot section of bamboo (read: Friggin' Big Stick or FBS).  I now believed myself ready to do battle. This was to be a no-holds-barred, winner takes all, steel cage judo death match.

I closed the door.  Only one of us was getting out alive and it wasn't going to be the rat. 

I jammed the  FBS under the cabnet and the rat came running out, towards me.  I dropped the knife and stick.  These guys are a lot bigger up close. Then, for a few minutes we proceeded to play a strange game of Whack a Rat.  I think there is a similar version of this played in video arcades and ChuckeCheese through out America.  This one is different. The rules are simple, winner gets the house, and is played something like this;

Stick is shoved under cabnet, rat runs toward you (and the door), realizes the door is closed, turns and runs back under the cabnet.  While the rat is engaged in all this moving about, and quick calculations in basic physics, I am busy swinging my panga knife at the spot exactly where she was 2 seconds ago.  The rat was winning. Which sucks beacuse I like my house.

After a few minutes of this, she decided to try running the opposite direction where the panga knife couldn't reach.  The panga couldn't, the FBS could.  She jumped on the top my backpack and the stick found its target.  A couple swift cracks and I was sans a roommate.  Do I feel bad about beating something to death, kinda, am I more glad to not have a rat, definitely!

So I took the carcass outside where Puppy was sitting, waiting for her morning coconut cookies.  Imagine her shock to see a nice fresh pile of meat! Forget the Wheaties, this is way to start your day! And that is how I killed my first thing like the Malawian's do. You want a really good story, go talk to Jay, he chopped the head off a Black Mamba he found in his house, but I'm still proud. Killed the rat and fed a starving puppy, good day.

Other things that puppies are good at is inspiring high tensity situations.  Henery's dog had 6 puppies about a week ago, and she is a good mother, very very protective.  She has to be, a monitor lizard would eat a puppy if it found them, kids are mean too, it isn't a very safe place here for a tiny little thing.  So the other day I was at Henery's and the goats came running in the yard.  As I have said before, goats are one of the most destructive natural forces on this planet and I didn't want them tearing up the garden we have been working on.  So I went around to get them back out.  The children followed and ended up watching from beside the den the mother dog was using, bad idea, as Henery says, "she is hot tempered".  I come walking around the house, pulling a goat, just in time to see the dog leap at one of the kids.  The little girl hits the ground screaming and the dog is tearing at her shirt.  I am now dragging the goat as fast as I can, get to the dog and the kid, thwack the dog on the side, with another FBS, and she runs off. 

The kid gets up, unhurt, just scared, and momma goes back to her babies a hour later.  Don't freak out, I have hit my brothers harder than I hit the dog.  They get chased and hit so much here that really all you have to do is tap them and they know the next one will be serious. 

You should have seen how the Malawians reacted! Margret, Henery's wife, told everyone who visited that I hit the dog and saved the kid.  Typically, the PCVs are telling people to stop hitting the dogs, not the other way around.  But you know what, I wouldn't have tolerated that from a dog in America either.  The line is biting, you go to attack someone and there will be consequences, it doesn't matter where the dog is from.    

So yeah, all that aside, things have been pretty quiet here. Maybe I need a cat, then I don't have to worry about puppies and all the drama they bring with them.