Not too much goin' on over here, just chuggin' along. I promise the next post will include photos and descriptions of adventures of late, but in the meantime, in continuation of my "life's too short" ponderings from last time, I give you...

An Incomplete an Unordered List of Things for Which I Am Thankful

* Chocolate

* Wine

* The breeze that comes with rainy season

* Wheat bread

* The sun’s rays poking through after a rainstorm

* My faith

* Hilarious cultural and linguistic misunderstandings

* The people who take real human emotions and put them to music (aka. Good

musicians)

* The people who write lyrics that are so terrible, but in earnest, that

you have no choice but to laugh (aka. Bad musicians, or everyone on

the Awesomely Bad Rap playlist we love so much over here)

* Lizards (I never would have said THAT before Peace Corps, but they eat a lot

of the bugs that I am NOT so thankful for. I could do without the piles of

poop they leave everywhere, though. Particularly in my shoes.)

* The postal system, which allows things like Zone Bars and Junior Mints to find

their way to me from across the world

* Everyone behind those packages of goodness (thank you)

* My puppy dog and all of his loyal kind

* Sunblock

* Jordan’s laugh

* Will’s advice

* WAJ in general

* Impromptu dance parties

* Cross-country dance parties (Jojo’s and my tradition of picking a song and a

time and breaking it down together from 100’s of kilometres away)

* 24-hour convenience stores (oh how I miss you)

* (And a note on the previous) Having ANYWHERE to even CONCEIVABLY go after dark

* Coffee

* My family

* The handful of people you meet on your journey who become like family (hold on

for dear life)

* Financial aid

* U-pick fruit orchards

* Cooling systems of all kinds (air conditioners, fans, misters, you name it,

I’m thankful for it)

* Mosquito nets

* Baby wipes

* Full gas tanks

* Photographs

* Whatever it is inside of me that (sometimes) lets me embrace getting caught in

a rainstorm and makes me dance it out

* My love for singing (though often badly)

* Angry chick rock (gotta indulge in it now and then)

* Will’s verb tense usage (I swear the kid doesn’t even know if he’s currently

living in the present)

* Books that are so good I want to read them again and again

* Books on my shelf that I’ve yet to read (some will likely disappoint, but

others will hopefully fall into the former category, and that possibility is

something I’m thankful for)

* Showers

* Nicknames

* The ability to wear trousers without being seen as a prostitute (aka. NOT in

my village)

* Ice water at the end of my 15k walk into town

* Laughing until I cry

* Crying until I laugh

* Solar power

* Text messaging

* Surprises (well, maybe not all of em, but you know, the good ones)

* Extra-strength Tylenol (so versatile! so effective!)

* Amazon.com

* Those instances in the village when I take the time to do something that makes

me feel like a girl (Jordan recently reassured me that I’m allowed to be one –

sometimes)

* The fact that each day brings with it a new opportunity to be better

* Water-resistant materials

* Honesty

* Half Dome

* Fireflies

* Christmas lights

* Icicles

* Snow Days (or in Malawi, Rain Days)

* Unconditional love

* My legs and feet and their ability to take me places

* My son, who will never know how much it means to me that he drops by just to

chat or help me with things

* The ocean, and other sights that remind you just how small you are

* Rain runoff from my roof that obviates my need for a boarhole trip

* Back massages

* Common experiences

* The comfort that some things never change

* Any and all of the places I’d call home

* Eccentricities

* Gifts that show someone really knows you

* The smell of cookies baking

* Silver dollars

* Star charts

* Sailboats

* Sharpies

* Alliteration, apparently

* Small victories

* Road trips

* Cosmic timing

* Motivation

* Happy mistakes

* The way you can talk with the people who know you best

I could go on and on, but I think that's a pretty good group. Dare you to make your own - it feels pretty good =)

In my last few entries, I’ve made reference to the fact that I went home for Christmas, but I haven’t really been able to wrap my mind around my trip enough to write about it. I’m still not sure I’ve processed what it meant to me to stop down briefly in America in the middle of my service, but I’m going to attempt to say a thing or two about what it was like. I’m pretty sure anyone reading this knows what the so-called “First World” is like so I’ll keep my descriptions brief. The thing that blew my mind about the states wasn’t what it is – it’s been my home for 25 years, and I knew exactly what to expect – but how I experienced it after my time here in Malawi. I’ve always heard about “reverse culture shock,” but in all the traveling I’ve been blessed to do in the past few years, I’ve never really experienced it. This time was different.

First of all, I don’t think I ever really processed how FAR AWAY Malawi is. From the time I stepped into a cab in Lilongwe to the time I set foot on non-airport American soil, I think I ate 8 or 9 airplane/airport meals (definitely more than I needed, but hey, when you’re awake for that long straight and airlines are putting pizza in front of your face, especially after 15 months of rice and beans, who’s to say no?). I think I was in transit for a grand total of.. 41 hours? The funny part is that going back was worse, HA! I left my house at 4 pm on Sunday evening and arrived in Malawi at 10 am on WEDNESDAY. But that was due to the forward time change and a couple of well-worthy layovers (9 hours in NYC, and 13 hours in Accra, where I got to go out into the city and hang out with Jason!). Anyway, backing up.. flying home was Lilongwe, Malawi – Nampala, Mozambique – Nairobi, Kenya – Amsterdam, Netherlands – Minneapolis, Minnesota – Las Vegas, Nevada. Yep. I stepped off of a field in Malawi and into a silver bullet that (many bullets and airports later) spit me out into possibly the most obscene spectacle America has to offer. From my village, where there is ONE light bulb illuminated at night within any discernable distance, straight to the strip. It was a trip. Like a true Californian, I went straight to In-N-Out (oh my GOSH, it’s SO GOOD) and then dumped my stuff in our hotel before going to a Cirque du Soleil show with my mom. What does that mean I wore to the show? My ratty travel outfit (see Mozam photos, or think ripped-up, cut-off sweatpants, a fleece pullover, and flip flops). What was the woman wearing who went into the theater in front of me? Full-length fur coat. I mean, maybe I was underdressed.. but STILL. Why do those things even EXIST?! Anyway.. the show was amazing (Elvis), but I could barely keep my eyes open, so we went back to the hotel afterward and I crashed HARD (in a bed that felt like a CLOUD, WOW. My mattress here is a 5 inch thick piece of foam.). The next couple of days mommy and I went outlet shopping, ate amazing food, and took in the sights. And by “sights” I mean everything from the incredible Christmas display at the Bellagio to the (less exciting, but equally mind-boggling for me) ROWS AND ROWS OF INCREDIBLE PACKAGED THINGS AT WHOLE FOODS. Or the NUMBER of LANES on Las Vegas Boulevard – I can only think of two places in ALL of Malawi where you can find more than one lane in either direction! Or the SHELVES of books at Borders. My GOODNESS. I knew it was all there but it still felt so unbelievable to be standing in front of it after experiencing this life for over a year. My “supermarket” has.. 4 aisles? And 2 of those 4 are filled with insecticides, cleaning supplies, toilet paper, and buckets. The other 2 have: peanut butter, honey, chips, cookies, salt, sugar, a handful of other spices, corn flour, cooking oil, vinegar, hot sauce, margarine (sort of..), rice, sodas, instant coffee, tea, milk powder, tomato paste, and on good days, spaghetti noodles, corn flakes, oats, and maybe even yogurt or cheese (that has usually melted on the way and doesn’t even LOOK appetizing). My mom just dropped me at Whole Foods and left because she knew she wouldn’t be able to handle it. The funny part is that things like supermarkets, Targets, or department stores were in equal parts exciting and overwhelming/upsetting for me. Toward the end of my trip I was standing in the shampoo aisle, completely lost, looking at all of these colored bottles, different but the same, immobilized by confusion, and finally just put my basket down and called Kathleen to have a mental breakdown. Honestly! I also made the mistake of going to Macy’s After Christmas Sale with my mom to buy a new pair of jeans to bring back to Malawi and nearly cried. I think there were more pairs of jeans in the juniors department alone than PEOPLE I KNOW IN MY LIFE. I combed thru them for awhile and tried on a few and finally had to leave because it was just too much for me. We have SO MUCH.. WHY do we NEED that much? I was talking to a friend of mine here who also went home for Christmas and she said that what she was happy about seeing in America was how hard people work to have that much, which I can also appreciate. But being at home I couldn’t help feel that.. I don’t know.. in some truly idealistic, or socialistic, way, the distribution just does NOT make sense. WHY do we have all of these things? It just feels like we took the global community and arbitrarily put down some divider lines and said, “Okay, MINE!” Obviously some of these lines are more effective and harder to overcome (ie. OCEANS), and I like to think I’m intelligent enough to understand it’s more complicated than that, and that resources, and how we UTILIZE and CAPITALIZE on these resources plays a role, as do many other factors. I mean, at one point America was an undeveloped plot of dirt like everywhere else, right? But at this point it just feels like our development involves making every exit from the freeway look EXACTLY like the others. Where’s the nearest Wal-Mart? 3 EXITS DOWN?! Oh no, we definitely need a closer option. And much as I love Starbucks.. how RIDICULOUS. And the extent to which people are tied to their cell phones.. I mean, it’s like face-to-face time is becoming obsolete. Pretty soon we’ll all just live in the 5-mile radius that surrounds our freeway exit and do all personal and professional business via electronic gadgets and gizmos. We’ll look AMAZING while we do it, though. I swear, the girl in the FACEWASH aisle with me at Target looked like she was going straight from buying Clean & Clear to the GRAMMIES. Did I miss the memo? WHY ARE YOU WEARING HIGH HEELS AT TARGET?! And with access to so many things, and so many comforts, the things people find to complain about.. MAN. Thank God for my cousin, who just got home from Afghanistan, because he was the only one who was as baffled as I was. He nearly murdered a woman at In-N-Out who was going into conniptions over the lack of TOILET SEAT COVERS. Wait.. you mean there’s a REAL FLUSHING TOILET IN THIS JOINT?! IS IT MY BIRTHDAY?! I don’t know.. I could go on and on, but the gist is this: while life here is really tough sometimes, relatively, it makes so much more sense to me. It’s simpler, and extended families are closer, and people help each other more, and are way less concerned with.. well, a lot of junk. I could definitely do with a cheeseburger and a shower every once in awhile, but I only want them because it’s what I’m used to. If I didn’t know they existed, I wouldn’t crave them, and then.. well then, this life has everything that I need. I should, however, put an asterisk next to that statement and a footnote that reads “minus adequate transportation and medical care.” And maybe “access to protein,” haha. No place is perfect =)

I’ve gone off-topic about what my trip entailed and onto a tangential rant how my experience has affected me, but ultimately, I think that’s the interesting part anyway. I ate a lot of good food (a LOT of it), saw friends and family, played with my puppy, drove, and enjoyed many of the things about my American life that I miss while I’m here. If you’ll forgive one further digression before I post a few photos of fun stuff-and-things, I think the most challenging, but important, thing for me to realize being home was how inexplicable many elements of my life here are.. and always will be. Tello stopped me mid-story once to ask this: “..you do realize that everything you’re describing to me is so foreign you might as well be telling me about Mars?” I guess, no – I hadn’t realized that. And I definitely hadn’t realized how hard it would be to have everyone I know (minus the kids who are over here with me) be in that same boat. I’m not totally sure how to deal with that one yet, but I do think it was incredibly important for me to have to face that now so I know to expect it when I go home. Or I need to start bribing my friends to come visit ;-)

As promised, some fun things!

My first sit-down meal, California Pizza Kitchen (it’s hard to even look at these now that I’m back in Malawi):

The beautiful Christmas display at the Bellagio:

A true testament to how much Jordan has affected my life – I walked past this shirt and momentarily thought of buying it for myself:

WHY WOULD I DO THAT?! If it makes it any better, though, I wanted to buy this one for him:

I opted instead for a “Things you need to know about Chuck Norris” shirt. It was his birthday, after all (Jordan’s. Not Chuck’s.).

After Vegas came.. MY REUNION WITH SPIKERZ!

The only time I cried while home was leaving him once again =(

Mommy, Spike and I baked cookies for Santa on Christmas Eve:

And we spent some time with my second family, the Gustafsons, for the holidays. Here are brothers, Seth and Jared:

And us harassing sleeping sister, Taylor:

And all of us:

Here’s my cousin and life-saver, Brandon:

And the beer on tap that we SO APPRECIATED AND ENJOYED:

There’s one beer company in Malawi – Carlsberg. Comes in 5 varieties. That’s all, folks.

I hung out with the Tarantello sisters at Downtown Disney:

And we partied it up on New Year’s Eve:

And I even got to see the SNOW before coming back to what is surely one of the hottest places on Earth. Here’s my home in winter wonderland:

And the drive to the airport:

Crazy dichotomy.

So many other things didn’t/couldn’t make it into photo documentation, like lunch with Les, or long talks with Kath and Deech, or a surprise Cali visit from Jeff, or an epic Ghanaian day with Jas. Or the most amazing Christmas present ever, ie. A MASSAGE, during which I was asked “wow, got some boulders in there, do we?” Yeah, well.. life’s been stressful. And for those of you I touched base with via email, or facebook, or text, and didn’t get to see or talk to (Teenie, Noah, Kyle, JD, Cait, Steve-O, Jemusi…) – I’m so sorry, and SO SAD. Minus my Vegas trip, Christmas Eve and day, and visits to family, I had.. 6 days at home? I felt like a chicken running around with my head cut off. I wish I could explain to all my friends and family how often I think of you, but you’ll just have to take my word for it – you are epically missed. But my time here is now on the downward slope! Which I have.. very mixed emotions about, inevitably. Regardless, I’ll see you before you know it =)

Before I sign off on this entry, I want to touch on one other thing. I’ve also made vague reference recently to lots of emotional stuff going on, which involves both internal and interpersonal struggles of my own and of many people I love. I’m not going to elaborate on what this all entails, but after a few really tough weeks (excited as I was to come back, and still am to be back, life here can drop on you pretty hard and fast), I had a moment of clarity today. I came to a realization, and while it’s in no way novel, it feels particularly poignant at this moment: life’s too short. There are so many things that require our attention and concern on a daily basis, but it feels like so much energy ends up being spent on stress that could so easily be avoided if people would just.. be good to each other. Sometimes I feel like we all must just be really bored to create these kinds of taxing and traumatic circumstances for each other. Honestly. In so many situations recently, I’ve just wanted to ask, “Did you make the CONSCIOUS CHOICE to treat someone else like garbage when it would have been so easy for you to just.. NOT?” Anyway, I’m not big on New Year’s Resolutions, but I’m just going to do my best to cause/participate in as FEW of these kinds of situations as possible. I like to think treating others well is a top priority of mine at any and all times of the year, but it never hurts to do a spot check, right? Anyway, like many of my life-altering moments, this one was inspired by a song, the lyrics of which I’m posting below. It’s by a guy named Peter Bradley Adams, and I highly recommend you download it (words are awesome, but when you put them to music, THERE’S the magic).

Lastly, because I like to end on a not-so-weighty note, do you think they used my GIANT MARSHMALLOWS when making this?

TALK ABOUT THINGS WE DON’T NEED. (I’d be lying if I said I didn’t consider buying it. I mean, it’s a 2 pound Rice Crispies Treat, after all.)

Family Name, by Peter Bradley Adams

I look around to find the way it all began

The years, they’ve turned like the heart of a man

But I say that I am grateful for the time that has passed

And I'll stay right where I am

Well I raise my glass with the unfortunate ones

Were broken and tired from the miles we have run

But our hearts they are open and the healings begun

And now our chance has come

Win or lose, it’s a hell of a game

The roads we choose, they all end up the same

So rest your hearts on the family name

And we’ll find our way back home

I look around at the ones I adore

Forgive me the chances I’ve wasted before

And I pray for the courage not to miss them anymore

That’s all I’m asking for

Win or lose, it’s a hell of a game

The roads we choose, they all end up the same

So rest your hearts on the family name

And we’ll find our way back home

For about two weeks in early December, Jordan, Will, Ryba and I took a little Malawi hiatus and traveled around Mozambique. We called ourselves Team Mozam, though looking back on the experience and seeing the photo documentation, I think Team Mess is an equally if not more appropriate epithet. In the best way possible, don’t get me wrong. But wow.

We started out at Jordan’s house in Mwanza, which is just a few kilometers away from the western border of Mozambique. We chilled out, played ping pong, swatted june bugs, learned to juggle mangoes, and were way too amused by the amazing mister system that Jordan’s dad brought him (I’m talking like, the mist that gets sprayed at you in amusement park lines on hot summer days. It’s revolutionary.). Sadly, many of the photos from this part of the trip were lost on Will’s corrupted memory card, but here are a few pong shots:

Also Papa Conquistador cooking up a storm:

Think it’s time to retire those trousers, Jojo:

After sitting at the Malawi/Mozambique border for many hours (no electricity = no way to print visa forms, totally ideal) we finally crossed into Zobwe and caught a minibus to Tete. Showing up in Tete and seeing the amount of development that exists in cities (and not even the capital city) in Mozam was mind-boggling. It’s amazing how far behind Malawi is at this point in time. Still, as much as there is in Tete, they certainly don’t have everything figured out – as of now, they have this huge, impressive bridge over the Zambezi… that can only allow traffic to travel in one direction. So, every half hour or so, a traffic guard switches the direction. As you can imagine, it’s a DISASTER. Our minibus ended up boarding a BARGE to take us across. From there, we caught a hitch on a semi and sat on a disgusting mattress behind the driver’s seat for the next 7 hours or so traveling to Chimoio. It’s still unclear if this was the source of the condition that gave Ben the nickname Benjamin “The Rash” Ryba for the rest of the trip. Tragically hilarious. He spent the majority of the trip covering himself in Gold Band and other creamy and/or powdery substances.

From Chimoio, we caught a minibus and then a handful of hitches down to Vilanculos, beach stop #1. We had heard from some Mozam volunteers that there was this awesome alcohol we had to try, and all Jordan could remember was that it started with an “m.” Note: Mozambican Tente Çau (sp?) Gin is NOT the same as Tipo Tento Rum. Here we are drinking the former in the back of a pick-up truck… and the awesomely bad ideas begin.

We also broke out an iPod, speakers, and awesomely bad rap playlist. We put our hands up fo’ sho. We tried to get our Mozambican hitch buddies to do the same but they were less than amused. It was pretty amazing, though. One of many moments when Ban and I turned to each other, sun on our faces, music in our ears, and shook our heads about how these are the moments in life that we’ll never forget.

But before I got too sappy, there’s WAY more ridiculousness to outline.

Ryba, for example, has some SERIOUS stunna shades. He can’t really see out of them but hey, who needs to see?

Anyway, after two solid days of travel, we finally arrived at PCV Megan’s house in Vil (which is stupidly amazing and fully-stocked) and went out for our first real meal in Mozam. Here’s Meg and her puppy, Pumba, followed by the first Team Mozam group shot. Don’t we look so cute and innocent?

Yeah, that dinner was followed by an in-home dance party that I’m pretty sure traumatized Megan for life:

The worst part is, the photos I selected are the least incriminating of the bunch. I think I’ll leave that without further comment.

The next day, we hit the BEACH! So gorgeous…

Ban and Ryba went into the water first, and were subsequently attacked by a wild sea animal…

…yep, classic Jordan.

Ban and I recreated our thug photo for the 37th time:

And we took some quality Team Mozam photos:

Any guesses as to who was deemed the “wild card” of the bunch?

Apparently this is a better idea than sunblock:

After a couple days in Vil, we were back on the road hitching again:

We made our way down the coast and then took a boat across to Tofo, where we spent the next many days swimming, chilling on the beach, and buying/cooking fresh seafood from local fishermen. It was everything a vacation should be. We spent a couple of days at a popular backpackers lodge and had some fun, then decided we were old and wanted our peace and quiet and moved down the beach to our own chalet with kitchen, haha. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Here’s us on the boat ride over:

Here’s Jordan eating mangoes as quickly as possible in our first room so Will wouldn’t find him and yell at him for attracting ants:

Here's market seafood purchasing:

And here’s probably the most incredible thing to happen during our time at the backpacker’s lodge: NIPPLE HAIR COMPETITION. Jordan “Koala Eyes” Harris challenged new friend Cole to a battle of nipple hair length. Here they are prepping to reveal the goods:

Aaaaand SHIRTS OFF! They size each other up:

Here’s Jordan disputing the conclusion (while he has a great deal of nipple hair – more than any man should have – Cole still beat him in length):

Here’s Cole showing off his almost-Guinness-worthy (literally) nipple hair:

Wow.

Cole’s buddy Jake tried to get in on the action, but he just didn’t have what it takes:

And soon after that, Jordan declared himself “Game Over”:

We dragged him to bed and may or may not have drawn all over his face, but I don’t think those photos are internet-world-appropriate. Here’s one with the remnants, though, as Jordan enjoyed his adult-sized juice box the next morning:

Soon after that quality event, we moved down the beach where this was our front yard:

Yeah, we balled out there for a good few days:

And peeled prawns by the ocean:

I’m not sure how/why we ever left.

At one point we bought lobsters (for approximately $4 USD/each) and clearly these series were necessary precursors to the amazing feast. Lobster attack v.1:

And v.2:

And finally, we ate those bad boys:

So. Freaking. Good.

We did a lot of cooking while we were there actually. Well, by “we” I mean…

Cooking:

Not cooking:

Cooking:

Aaaand not cooking:

Shrimp, lobster, calamari.. Also we all electrocuted ourselves, but it was totally worth it.

After Tofo, we made our way further south to Quissico and the Funky Coconut Lodge. This was supposed to be our final destination, but it ended up being one of the epically awesome failures I’ve ever experienced. This place is WAY far off the beaten path, hence why we wanted to go there, but as such it was impossible to get in touch with anyone there. We called and called, and finally hired a pick-up to take us down a long dirt road, through villages and bogs, to this amazing lodge on a private deserted beach. Only problem: the lodge was also deserted:

Yeah, “In Town” turned out to mean “In South Africa.” The buildings were open so the situation could have been salvaged.. except for the fact that there was no food. Or water. Or electricity. It was intense. Jordan, Jake, and Cole caught crabs on the beach for us to eat for dinner.. but we couldn’t boil them. So we threw them directly on charcoal. This attempt was short-lived, and eventually we just pitched tents and went to sleep hungry and thirsty.

The next morning, we got a look at the epic-ness of our situation:

WOW.

We even found someone to turn on the water, so we knew we weren’t going to die. But with no food, sticking around wasn’t really a plausible choice. Biggest problem now: how to get back out. We walked a ways:

Then Ben and I split off to search out help while Jordan, Ban, Jake and Cole went to find the little car that Jake and Cole had abandoned in the bushes the night before (it didn’t quite make it to Funky Coconut). They waited for us…

And eventually, we came to the rescue…

Tractor say WHAT? So we hitched back out to the road on that:

Yeah, Peace Corps life is really hard sometimes:

SO, with many more vaca days and no plan, we went back north a bit and hung out with a couple of PCVs in Inharrime. Anne’s house was AWESOME:

And from there, we headed to Zavora beach… where the lodge was way too expense, and so instead, we pitched our tents in a villager’s yard! This is where Jordan attracted the iwes with his antics:

But on the beach, it was still pretty much just us. Can I make these into postcards for a Mozam vacation?

Maybe even this one, though Will’s androgyny makes it questionable:

Aww, look at this love:

Followed, of course, by a flex-off:

Team Mozam: The Album Cover:

Sadly, sleeping in lovely villager Eric’s yard was not the most comfortable. But then we met these girls…

…who’s parents owned a lodge down the way. And they (accidentally) hooked us up!

The boys spent a lot of time cooling themselves in front of the fan.

And I laughed/judged.

I kid, I kid. Anyway, we pulled our weight by cooking dinner one night. Don’t we dress up well? (Facial hair aside.)

Too Normal.

Better.

Jordan and Will made a Korean feast, and Ryba and I finished it off with an awesome peanut butter-chocolate cake.

With our vacation winding down, we hitched back up to Vil to spend a few more days hanging with PCVs and ordering delivery pizza (yeah, did I mention they can do that? Talk about things that would revolutionize my service.). And inevitably, we did a little more Tipo (aka. bad idea, as Jordan and I can clearly agree):

And a little more dancing…

Can you see why I’ve nicknamed us Team MESS?

Also, Jordan transformed himself into Ben:

And we discovered Will has the stubbiest fingers EVER (pictured here in comparison to J-Train):

Quality. After traumatizing new PCVs Drew and Camilla, we started our epic two-day journey back to Malawi. At this point, South African holiday had started, so while there were more cars, there were definitely less people who wanted to pick up our shabby foursome. We switched off hitching. Here are Will and I, off-duty:

While Jordan “does his job”:

After awhile, it started to rain. And it was my turn. And I went into my dark place:

The boys documented this so that whenever I’m feeling low again, they can remind me what rock bottom looks like:

Meanwhile, Jordan v. Rooster was taking place:

Also, that hitch was unnecessarily long and miserable (on a second-story mattress in the cab of a semi):

Oh man.. alright, I’m running out of steam, so I’m going to finish off by dumping a bunch of leftover Team Mozam/MESS photos of love at the end here for your viewing pleasure. More hitching (did I mention we once hitched a ride on a stationary bus on the back on a semi?!), more hugging/thuggin’ it out, more goofing around.. let’s just say it was a trip to remember. After the roughest stretch at site to date, I can’t think of anything more perfect to restore my love for Peace Corps. Can we go back?

Alright, gotta play a little catch up here since I haven’t had my computer and haven’t been able to post, so I’m gonna start by outlining my mom’s visit. Mostly I’m just going to dump a bunch of photos because talking about wild animals and waterfalls is way less effective than showing them to you.

Camp SKY ended on August 27th, and after a couple days of chillin’ in Lilongwe with my group, my mom flew in. We didn’t hang out in the city for long – just long enough, in fact, for a quick market trip, stop by the Peace Corps office, and official WAJ-ing – before leaving for Zambia on safari! We spent about 3 days in South Luangwa National Park and other than rhinos, which aren’t indigenous in that particular area, we saw pretty much everything we could see. Lions and hippos and zebras, oh my! As well as tons of elephants, giraffes, baboons, warthogs, water buffalo, etc. Some of the coolest stuff we saw, though, was the unexpected – a cheetah stalking a duiker at night, a spitting black cobra (which our guide almost ran over with the jeep), even a pack of vultures (and a hyena!) feeding on a zebra carcass. It was honestly incredible. Our guide, Moses, was amazing – hilarious and engaging but also unbelievably knowledgeable. We couldn’t have asked for a better safari. Except I could have done without the elephants storming into our camp, ripping a hole in the side of my mom’s and my tent, and stealing the awesome, soft loaf of bread he brought me from the states. Tragedy, but a small price to pay, I guess. Also, some amazing sunrises and sunsets, as usual. Check it out!

After leaving the park, Kiboko (our safari company) took us to a textile factory where we got to watch all sorts of beautiful crafts being made. And did some shopping, of course. Maybe a little too much of the latter.

After that, our group split in half, with some returning to Malawi, and some going on to the far western side of Zambia and Victoria Falls. My mom and I were in the latter group, and spent the better part of the next two days in a car. But man was it worth it. Vic Falls was unbelievable – it definitely earns its place as one of the seven natural wonders of the world. Nowadays it has become a huge tourist attraction, with all sorts of extreme activities offered to visitors (bungee jumping, white water rafting, parasailing, helicopter rides – it’s ridiculous). My mom and I opted to spend most of our time just walking around and appreciating it. There are beautiful paths all around, and some of the more off-beaten ones are lush and green and (gasp!) unpaved! We did, however, decide on one activity which I would absolutely do again – a dinner cruise down the Zambezi. Once again, enough blabber, see for yourself =)

Post-Vic Falls, my mom and I “enjoyed” a very loooong drive back to Malawi and then spent another week or so traveling around to see things in my new home country. We spent a little time in Lilongwe, then left for Blantyre, the bigger, better city in the south. I’m sure this part was way more fun for me than it was for my mom, haha (I got to go to GAME – the African equivalent of Target – and see a movie in a THEATER – there is only one in Malawi). After Blantyre, we drove up into Zomba Plateau. Since my mom came in late August/early September, most of the countryside was dead and brown because it’s the cold/dry season. But Zomba, which rises high above much of the Malawian landscape, was still lush and gorgeous.

Not to mention, we had an awesome lunch at the Sunbird on top (a SALAD?! With OLIVES and FETA?! No way…).

After Zomba, we continued further north to Dedza, which is where I spent my first 10 weeks in Malawi during training. Very little shocks me about this country anymore, but it was funny to see the things my mom reacted to. Goats running straight in front of the car, for instance. And trucks packed like this:

In Dedza, I got to show my mom the village where I stayed (oh the good days of Mzengeresza) and the school where I taught, and then we spent a lovely evening at the Dedza Pottery and Lodge (it really is a pottery first and foremost, and the craftwork is beautiful). The food at the lodge is pretty awesome, too.

From Dedza, we proceeded north on the highly potholed, but highly scenic, lakeshore road, and stopped for the night in Nkhotakota. And for the first time, my mom got to stick her feet in Lake Malawi!

The next day, we traveled the rest of the way up to my site (yeah, I live FAR) stopping in Ngala on the way for coffee (and a bathroom!) and more beautiful lake time.

And finally, my mommy got to see my home! This was definitely not the most comfortable part of the visit, but for me, it was by far the most significant. My headmaster killed a chicken in my mom’s honour and cooked it for us with (upon my request) nsima for my mom’s enjoyment (her thoughts on the latter food: “It tastes like nothing.” Just as I predicted.). My son, Peter, invited us into his home to chat and eat, as did Mr. Nyasulu and his wife (that’s when my mom discovered my headmaster’s new litter of puppies), and my mom got to meet many of my favorite students and friends (she now loves Mavis almost as much as I do). We even met up with Meg for lunch on the beach in Chitimba. My mom got to experience life as I live it now, and helped me do things like fetch water and do laundry (she didn’t believe I pumped my own water and carried it on my head, and insisted on following me to the boarhole. My community got a huge kick out of this, of course.). My community got a kick out of her visit in general, though – I’m pretty sure many people believe I somehow just replicated. So there you have it – Ann Day does Fulirwa.

It was wonderful to have my mom here, but especially after my recent visit home to the states, I appreciate even more having someone who has seen what my life is now and really gets it. To a certain extent, I think it’s impossible to explain in pictures and words, and while I know her visit was trying at points, I think it was so, so important – both for her, and for me. If anyone else wants to follow in her footsteps, as they say in the north, “tamupokererani” (you are most welcome)!

Wow, so much has happened since I last wrote.. I’m going to break it down and focus on Camp SKY for this entry and then do a separate one for mom’s visit. Each one is too epic to share a space with the other.

Camp SKY has come and gone which is totally insane considering it was a year-long project-in-planning. It was so jam-packed I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to do it justice in words or photos, but here’s my best shot. Madam Elisa (Elisabeth), our wonderful camp director, showed up at the Kasungu Teacher’s Training College on August 11th to start setting up followed by PCVs who started trickling in day-by-day to lay the groundwork. I arrived on August 15th but immediately left again for Lilongwe to withdraw an absurd amount of kwacha from the bank (one of our biggest grants was deposited directly into my personal account so according to my bank statement, I was a BWANA for a couple of weeks). On Tuesday, August 17th, kids from the far reaches of the country left their villages to make their way to camp, and by the late-night hours, we were 68 campers and 8 junior counselors strong. Everyone woke up bright and early Wednesday morning (and by woke I mean it’s unclear if the campers, at least the girls in my dorm, slept AT ALL, which was a trend for the ENTIRETY of camp..) to start our daily weekday schedule: breakfast at 6:30, academic classes from 7:30-1:00, lunch, extracurricular activities/sports/AIDS education from 2:30-5:30, dinner, evening activities, lights out (HA, right). The kids had access to all sorts of stuff they don’t see too much at Community Day Secondary Schools: laboratories, computers, and classes in study skills, starting small businesses, sewing, cooking, solar engineering, sustainable agriculture, and so on. Also, my group is awesomely energetic, so the campers also got to witness/be a part of many a DANCE PARTY throughout our 10-day camp. We rocked that intense schedule Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, then took a break for the weekend. Saturday we took a hike up Kasungu mountain (er, “nature walk” – Malawians don’t really do exercise for the sake of exercise, or fun, so we thought our campers would respond better to “nature walk” than “let’s hike up this big hill!”). The best part about the distinction I just explained is that right now it’s dry season, and everything is dead, and Malawians are burning off the brush in preparation for planting, so the night before we hiked Kasungu.. they burned EVERYTHING on it. Seriously. Ryba and I had to go into Lilongwe on Friday to pick up Camp SKY t-shirts and do some other errands, and when we got back to Kasungu that night, the whole mountain was on fire. Ideal. Anyway, much as the kids complained going up, I think they really enjoyed it, and it was a huge accomplishment for all of them to make it to the top. That afternoon we went back to the college and the kids alternated between two activities: beehive construction and goat dissection. Awesome pictures of the latter to follow. Finally, we had Nditha (“I can!”) Sports, which are a part of the Hope Kit HIV/AIDS training portion of our program, and which eventually devolved into soccer (er, football) and ultimate frisbee, haha. Sunday was a bit of a down day, with time for church, cleaning, studying, etc., and Monday we jumped right back in to our busy weekday schedule! Tuesday we took the campers on a field trip to Lilongwe where we visited the new Parliament building and Kamuzu International Airport. Parliament is beautiful, though disconcertingly out of place on the Malawian landscape. Construction costs exceeded 20 million USD which is.. kind of an inconceivable amount of money over here. The kids had really intelligent, relevant questions to ask, and it was so clear why these cream-of-the-crop students had been chosen for this experience. Plus, many of them got to use flush toilets and urinals for the first time ever, which is equally epic in my opinion. We also had a session planned at the World Bank, but sadly, our contact was sick that day and so we had to nix it from the schedule. I think the kids enjoyed watching the airplanes more than they would have appreciated another info session, though. Wednesday and Thursday we returned to the normal program with a couple of fun additions: visits from a radio DJ and the Attorney General (and the first FEMALE Attorney General at that!). Wednesday night the campers put on a carnival where each group was responsible for running a booth, and Thursday we finished it all off with the annual Camp SKY DISCO! Friday morning (I was running on 32 minutes of sleep from the night before..), we loaded the kids in trucks and minibuses and sent them home to their villages where, hopefully, they will use and share all of the experiences that they had and enrich their communities via ripple effect. It was pretty amazing to see how camp – something that is such a normal part of an American childhood – was totally revolutionary for these secondary school students. It was overwhelming and exhausting, but incredibly fun, and honestly, one of the things that I feel the best about doing during my year here. I think it’s really rewarding for all of the first-year (now second-year, AH) volunteers to have that experience under our collective belt as we head into year two.

Phew! There are a lot of words up there, but so far, no pictures! So now I’ll rectify that.. Pictures do so much to illustrate the fun and ridiculous side of life =) But I’ll start with some “business.” Here we are, Camp Sky 2010!

And these are my students, Madalitso (“Blessings” in Chichewa) and Alex:

Who’s excited for camp?!

Aaand who doesn’t know what’s going on?!

Aaand… who’s scared of that big monster to our left?!

Not Ryba, apparently.

Apparently, at some point in the last year, all of my friends became teachers..

And so did I:

How did THAT happen?! Sadly, as you can see, I haven’t grown, though.

Also, even though we are all ostensibly teachers, that doesn’t keep us from doing things like writing THE GAME on the board and leaving it for the teacher to follow to lose the game. Well played, Russ. Well played. My favorite part is that he didn’t even attempt to explain it to our kids, haha! Just wrote it up there for me and moved on to math..

The English teachers decided to work on root words during SKY. The MSCE asks students to define words in a very SAT-like style but with the added twist that, oh yeah, this is these kids’ SECOND LANGUAGE. Roots, prefixes, and suffixes can go a long way in helping students guess at words they may not recognize, but the concept is of a higher-level than most students can grasp at our schools. SKY was a great place to disseminate this information to the kids that can really use it as each volunteer selected their top boy and girl to attend. Toward the end of camp, though, I decided to do a fun activity recommended by Madam Watkins: concrete poems, or poems that are written in the shape of the thing they are describing. Below is one of my favorites:

Jordan does a good job of linking the business with the ridiculous:

As promised, here are the awesomely disgusting goat dissection photos.

Wow.

WOW.

PCVs take their job so seriously:

I believe Will’s response to this photo was “Oh my gosh, Peace Corps Volunteers have no souls”:

Bit by bit, the goat was broken down into pieces. Here we have Mr. Harris with the lungs:

Madam Kelly with the heart:

Madam Jenn with the digestive system (and a whole lot of flies, poor girl):

Madam Esther with the leg (muscles, tendons, etc.):

And Mr. Ryba with the head/brain:

Here are some environment volunteers who came to teach the kids about mud oven construction:

An awesome staged Nditha Sports shot by Bearded Ben:

And the Attorney General doing a little Q & A with our kids:

To get the students to Kasungu Mountain, we hired a truck and piled them all in the back in true Malawian style. It was an awesomely bad idea. And the kids loved it:

Publicity shot!

Here are the campers starting their nature walk with a trek through the fields:

Publicity shot v.2!

The ants go marching two-by-two hurrah:

See, they look like they’re having fun, right?

Ben.. maybe not so much. But who has fun hiking in FLIP FLOPS?!

WE MADE IT!

Jenn’s legs were shaking so bad on the way down, you would’ve thought she was dancing. I did my best to brace her =) Still she was pretty pissed at me for being short enough to reach down and grab rocks to help me on the way down. Shortness has to have SOME advantages, sheesh.

Jordan is coming for you. Always.

But we out-gangsta him with our huge glasses:

Speaking of beating J-Train, I think it’s pretty clear who was winning in this problem-solving dance party:

Oh yeah, teachers getting down in the staff room:

But I’m straying from the business.. Here we are on our way to Lilongwe!

Parliament on field trip day:

Can you believe this exists in Malawi?!

..and now I must go back to ridiculous again. The window on the bus next to Ban and Harris was missing on our trip to Lilongwe. Also, as I’ve mentioned before, the two of them are embroiled in a non-hair-cutting battle. Witness the windswept glory:

Jordan K. Harris: Embodiment of the proverb “the sun never sets on cool”:

Speaking of bus rides, Ryba and I had an epic time trying to get back from Lilongwe after picking up SKY shirts. I don’t even remember how many times we were transferred between vehicles at this point, but eventually we ended up standing in the aisle of this coaster of darkness:

We shared an iPod and pretended it wasn’t happening. And Ryba got to laugh at me and the fact that when I held onto the bar running across the ceiling.. my feet didn’t touch the floor.

And speaking of darkness.. here is Will bludgeoning a bat to death with the handle of a Malawian hoe! Yep.

Moving on.. during activity block, Jordan decided to offer slack lining as an option. I was prepared to witness some epic face-planting on this day. Luckily, no one got seriously hurt, but there were some pretty amazing falls. And the campers LOVED it. Here are a few shots:

Part of the problem: Jordan decided to turn the activity into a competition, and reward the kid who got the farthest on the line. As a result, even as kids were falling, they’d leave their feet on the line and NOSE-DIVE in a last ditch attempt to stay on.

Oh man.. let’s see, what else.. As always, there were some pretty epic sunsets:

Jordan claims he’s going to hire me to follow him around and take pictures of him with the sunset behind him. I’ll take that job.

Will and I tried to take our recurring gansta photo, but I kept thinking about how ridiculous his hair is and I just couldn’t hold it together for the shot:

There was some ridiculous man-love happening between Jordan and Will (again, as always). Here they are, fighting like a pair of 2nd grade girls:

So beautiful. SKY was the birth of an official name for the long-existing Will-Ash-Jordan Trio. Henceforth, our clan shall be known as WAJ. Now a series of WAJ love, starting with the shot that I believe all three of us have as our current facebook photo:

After this picture, we decided we needed to have a WAJ photoshoot. Of course, one of the goals of this event was to make me look as ridiculous as possible, so Jordan decided the inaugural picture needed to be us hanging from a goal post. A goal post that, of course, I couldn’t reach.. as you can see:

The aftermath smack talk:

..ahem. Eventually, Jordan got on all fours, and I crawled up. The end result is this beauty:

Aaaaaand.. the dismount:

We took a few more jumping shots, and I was CONVINCED that I was going to get my feet off the ground. The result?...

I may or may not have fallen as a consequence of this..exploit.., but you can’t deny that I got AIR.

This one is also pretty epic:

Sound as photo was being taken? :::CRACK::: Also, if you zoom in, there’s an iwe jumping in the background! HAHAH.

Post-SKY, WAJ was wiped.. so we had a nice little WAJ nap:

I big-spooned Jordan, and he insisted I get my knees all the way in. And thus.. I reach mid-back:

I did my best.

Backing up, carnival night, a requirement of which was ridiculous garb. PCVs definitely succeeded. I’m not sure who is most incriminated by this photo, but it’s not me, so I’m posting it:

Amazing. Quail men at the puzzle booth:

Mr. D and face painting:

“Hey Kris, can you take a picture of us?”

Thanks.

Better?

Will’s kid pulled out all the stops, too, with this terrifying mask:

I’m traumatized. Though equally as much by Will’s belly shirt, so you know, I guess that’s how they rock out in Khwawa (Will’s village).

Finally, the disco. Safe to say Jordan leveled the dance-off playing field:

Wait, is that what I think it is? Oh yes, here it comes..

..the WORM.

Ban got his groove on with the kids:

My kid, Alex, got DOWN. Look at him! (Laker’s jersey – kid knows where his PCV comes from, say WHAT?!)

YEAH, BOY! Brush those shoulders off! AND he was getting the LADIES!

HAHAH incredible.

Phew, anyway.. like I said, after that, we packed up the kids, then packed up our stuff, and bounced. During the packing we found a Twister board which afforded us some delirious fun as we waited for a minibus:

And then we went to Lilongwe, napped, showered, ate a delicious family-style dinner prepared by Esther, and either rocked out on the town or crashed hard. Jesi didn’t quite make it to Lilongwe before passing out:

And I, apparently, fell asleep like this:

Until, that is, Jordan woke me up to go dancing, and you better believe I rallied!

So there you have it, CAMPACAMPACAMP SKY (the campers sang the whole “Everywhere we go, people want to know, who we are, so we tell them, we are the campers” ditty, but when they got to the next line, it sounded like “CAMPACAMPACAMP SKY” even though we later realized it was actually “campers of the Camp SKY”). Honestly.. I miss it. I love it when my group is together, we have such a freaking good time. Not to mention, SKY was such an amazing experience and accomplishment. But alas, now were all scattered to the winds and year two is underway. And thus far… let’s just say it’s been less than stellar. But to end on a good note, something to look forward to for my next blog – here is the first picture of my mom’s visit:

Oh yes.. my mom.. got WAJed.

Oh! And because I don’t want to get too far behind on current life as I write about the big things from weeks past, as of September 27th, my group, education 2009, has been living in Malawi for ONE YEAR! The far north four (Yeager, Will, Meg, and myself) got together at my site to celebrate. Mr. Nyasulu came out with us, and witnessed a beer-chugging competition FAILURE on my part. I don’t know why I thought I could beat Ban, a former varsity swimmer. This was like part of his every day routine throughout school. But anyway, I leave you with a shot of the northerners, all smiles as we pass this milestone. Congrats to all my ed09 buddies =)

Sadly, this is just a blog entry to say I wrote an awesome blog entry.. that is on my now dead computer. I think I managed to get it off before my system went kaput, but I have to transfer the format before I can post it, so this is just to say HI and I'm alive. I hate not blogging - so much has happened, I feel so behind! Anyway, I'm currently in Mzuzu with Mr. Nyasulu. We're on our way to visit the EDM (Education Divisional Manager) to explain the severe need for teachers at our school (if we don't get some new blood soon.. Fulirwa might just cease to exist, seriously). So keep your fingers crossed. If nothing else, we'll get cheeseburgers and ice cream.

Miss you all. Write me, I could use some encouragement!

Always,

Nyadazi

Remember all of those not-so-welcome house guests I wrote about awhile back? Well.. I would like to use this space to formally invite them all in for a tea party. Why, you ask? Because this past week.. I met the ultimate.. and suddenly, all those lizard, toads, spiders, even rats, didn’t seem quite so bad. Yep. Walking to my kitchen to make some lunch, I wondered what that stick was that was under the door. Then I realized the stick was watching me:

OOOOOOOkay. TOO FAR, MALAWI. Too far. Anyway, I walked outside, and when the snake saw me, he back-peddled (er, back-slithered?) right back into my kitchen. I was still kind of in shock at this point, so I sat in my hallway and watched the kitchen door unsure what to do. A few minutes later, little bugger starts slithering right out again.. So I move, and in he goes. Then I’m still, and out he comes. At this point, one thing is abundantly clear to me: the last thing I can do is leave to get help, because that gives him the go-ahead to slide straight into my home. BUT WHAT THE HECK, THEN, DO I DO?! Answer: panga knife. After some practice swings and chopping sweet potatoes and sticks in half, I carefully position myself directly beside the kitchen door so once he slithers out, he won’t see me move until my PANGA KNIFE IS CHOPPING OFF HIS UGLY HEAD. So I wait... and wait… and wait… Finally, he slithers out.. sloooowly.. bit.. by.. bit.. and I don’t want to swing prematurely and not have enough snake in sight to chop in half.. but by the time I decide he’s far enough out, I’m freaking shaking so bad I’m afraid I might chop my own foot off instead! Finally, I work up my nerve, and SWING.. a few centimeters too short. AHHHH! In he goes, and now.. dude knows I’m after him. We continue this cat and mouse game for quite some time, and meanwhile, I’m peering out my side door wondering why this is the ONE DAY WHEN NO ONE IS WALKING BY, and my dreams of being “the girl who was once afraid of tiny spiders and grew up to DECAPITATE AN AFRICAN SNAKE WITH A PANGA KNIFE”.. are slowly dying. By 4 o’clock, I’ve brought a CHAIR outside so I can SIT while I wait for him. I realized even then how ridiculous this was, BUT WHAT WAS I SUPPOSED TO DO?! One’s legs get tired when they are standing as still as humanly possible for FOUR HOURS trying to lure and kill a snake. Finally, a group of kids walks by. “Iwe! Lutani ku nyumba ya Nyasulu! Nkhukhumba wovwiro chifukwa nili na njoka mu nyumba yane! (You! Go to Mr. Nyasulu’s house! I need help because I have a snake in my house!)” A few minutes later, my knight in shining armor arrives. I offer him my panga knife, he laughs at me, and instead opts for.. a freaking huge stick?! He told me to go inside, but I had to watch this thing die, so I climbed up on my oven to watch. Nyasulu opens the door, starts poking around in the bags of trash (ie. fire-starter) I have in my kitchen, and before you know it, he is BLUDGEONING the njoka to death.

He pulled the snake’s mangled body out of my kitchen so I could see, and then the kids put it down the chimbuzi (not mine – that would haunt me). Four hours of my life and fail. Mr. Nyasulu: job done in 3 minutes, tops. For what it’s worth, though, taking that snake on isn’t something I would have even considered many months ago, so I’m doing my best to feel good about that.

Backing up a bit, when I last wrote, I was down here for the 4th of July celebration. We had a great time, though I kind of failed at photographing that weekend. I took ONE picture during the whole Ambassador’s celebration! But I think that one shot pretty much sums it up:

The food wasn’t as epic as the Thanksgiving feast, but there was a pretty epic desert table. Basically, it was like 50 people had each brought a different homemade goodie – two long tables full when they were all put together. SCORE. Sadly, there was also a huge sign on said table limiting each guest to two pieces – WHAAAT?! Haha, some pretty awesomely shameless volunteers walked down the line eating things as they went and then walked away with only two pieces on their plate. Technically fair; breathtakingly bold. Luckily Jesi did better than I did on the picture front, so here are a few more shots of the soiree:

Notice anything wrong with Alexis’s flag? HAHAHA.

Mostly it was just great to see everyone again – we’re almost never all in the same place anymore. We went out to dinner…

And had jam sessions…

And tried to get others to join the photo ops when really it looks like we’re pushing them away…

HAHA. We fixed it, though we had to sacrifice Russell’s face:

We did some formal-wear shopping for the upcoming president’s luncheon (see below) and some of us couldn’t wait to wear our new garb out on the town:

And we all spooned at night because there just aren’t enough beds for us in Lilongwe (Jordan and I had some epic pillow talk that I won’t repeat in this forum). Altogether great time.

After the 4th, I went back to site for about a week and had my Form 4’s come to my house to do some literature work each day since technically were not allowed to hold school while the national exams are in session (at this point, the Form 2’s were taking their JCEs’s). It was nice and relaxing. Not to much to report from this week, though I did witness this all-too-literal portrait of “the grass is always greener”:

I thought that goat might rip his own leg off to get to the grass on the other side of the path. I also washed all my chitenjis, which isn’t particularly exciting, but they look so pretty hanging out to dry:

Moving on, the next week I traveled south again to work with the new education volunteers in Dedza. Jesi and I moved back into Mzengeresza, which was amazing. It was really wonderful to be back there and reflect on how I felt when I was there almost a year ago and how much has changed – you don’t realize you’ve really built a life for yourself until you’re forced back into that place where you were afraid you’d never be able to do it. I got to see my amayi again (though my sisters were away at school), and the new trainees are AWESOME. I’m so glad to have them here in country – they are motivated, and smart, and hilarious, and I can’t wait to get to know them better. Here are some photos from the week starting with the TEENIEST, TINIEST PUPPIES I HAVE EVER SEEN:

I can’t even process the cuteness. Also, check out these kids who were dying to be photographed as I took pictures of the puppies:

LOOK AT THE CRAZY-EYED KID IN THE FOREGROUND! AMAZING!

Here is homestay v.2:

And here are some of the trainees! Brett serenading us and the iwes:

Alan enjoying it:

And the Rachels, Isaac, and Maria in the sunset:

Here’s something great: a handout some of the trainees received from the Ministry of Education. Peace Corps Malawi: working to change the perception of THESE gender roles:

In the middle of the week, we got to do something pretty exciting: have lunch at the state house with the president of Malawi! President Bingu wa Mutharika (pronounced Metallica, I swear) had us all over on July 21st where we feasted, chatted, shook hands.. and then shook our booties on the dance floor! The best part: the whole thing was televised – HA! PCVs can’t go anywhere now without someone saying “Hey! I saw you on TV – DANCING WITH THE PRESIDENT!” Sadly, the cameras were off by the time Jordan and I had our epic dance-off. The world is a sadder place because of it. But look at this – volunteers! All dressed up! Looking CLEAN and like, like.. NORMAL PEOPLE!

Real men.. comb each other’s beards?

Here are the bwanas (on the left, Vic, the Peace Corps Malawi Country Director, and far right, Carla, his wife; in the middle, the Honorable President and First Lady):

And here are some various shots of the hand- and booty-shaking and other jollity:

And of course, the ultimate photo opportunity:

After my week in Dedza, I went allllll the way north again and spent some more time with my Form 4’s before their big test. This past weekend I had some of them over to watch the Leo & Claire Danes version of Romeo + Juliet, it was great. We made popcorn, they laughed hysterically at Mercutio dancing in drag, and they made all sorts of anxiety sounds watching Leo die as Claire Danes was slowly waking up, haha! At the end they agreed the death scene is better as written (where Romeo dies before Juliet wakes) because it was just too agonizing watching them just miss each other. GOSH I love these kids, what am I going to do without them?

From left to right, Austin (one of my best Form 2’s), Keshoni, Peter, Monica, and Charity.

I tease Charity because she is always smiling, but when she sees a camera pointed at her, insta-frown. So I tortured her with my camera throughout the film:

Also, three totally unrelated things. One, look at these awesome lines of clouds:

Two, are these tan-lines.. or dirt-lines?

I scrubbed them after taking the photo. Answer to above question: some combination of the two.

And three, a shout-out and thank you to all of you who have contributed to the growth of my inspiration and card walls:

You keep me goin’.

Anyway, after a week at home, I am back in Lilongwe YET AGAIN! You’d think I love that 14-hour journey. I’m here finalizing Camp SKY fundraising stuff and starting the shopping and logistical errands that have to be done in preparation for August 17th (SO SOON). Luckily, I’m not alone. The Health PCVs are here prepping for their camp (GLOW – Girls Leading Our World), Jordan is here with his pop, the 2nd year education volunteers are around after finishing their COS conference (completion of service), and Will is here picking up his mom and sister who are visiting. Will’s been gone for awhile, hiking Kili and such, so his hair (Jordan, Haak, and Will are all in a who-can-wait-the-longest-before-cutting-their-hair bet) was a bit.. shocking:

Doesn’t he look like a Japanese heartthrob?

I went with the GLOW kids to do one of many bulk shopping trips, and Duncan insisted on trying to ride his shopping cart back to the office. This almost ended in tragedy. More than once.

I teased him for being 5 years old.. and then agreed to get on a see-saw when we went to lunch? For some reason, I didn’t have enough forethought to predict what was going to happen when little me got on one end of a see-saw:

NOT FAIR. After awhile, Jeremy came over and helped me strand Duncan in the air instead.

Anywho.. I wanted to post a little update, but I must run. Things to look forward to in the coming weeks: Camp SKY aaaaaaaaaand *drumroll* MY MOMMY’S VISIT! My mom lands in Malawi on August 29th, and especially after having dinner with JoJo’s pops and meeting Will’s mom, I cannot WAIT for my favorite 4 foot 11 ball of energy and happiness to meet my new life =) Maybe I’ll have her as a guest writer on my next blog: Ann Day’s thoughts on the flavorlessness of nsima. IT’S GOING TO BE AMAZING.

To end things, I leave you with one other awesome group photo, a more proper version of which was given to Mr. President himself:

Since the last time I wrote, I’ve passed two big milestones in the category of “quarter” – first, I passed the 6-month mark of living at my site (aka. one quarter of the two years I’ll spend in Fulirwa), and second, I turned a quarter-century old! I also just recently passed the NINE month mark of living in Malawi, meaning technically my time here is more like a third over, which is very strange. And considering the Ministry of Education changed the academic calendar, some people in my group will likely leave earlier than expected, meaning I could be MORE than a third of the way in. But I’m not ready to think about that, so, moving on..

My birthday was nice and low-key. I wanted to spend my actually birthday in the village, but I also wanted to hang out with some of my PCV buddies, so Friday night six of us northerners got together for a delicious dinner on the beach in Chitimba (amazing pizza.. really, unexpectedly good). We all crashed at Meg’s, and then like the true baller she is, Meg rocked my birthday morning-world with French toast with Nutella and an amazing peanut butter & chocolate birthday cake. Yeager, Ray, and Johnny made some pretty rockin’ birthday cards, and Will brought me some delicious freeze-dried ice cream that he’d gotten in a care package (apparently he got it weeks before and had to literally hide it from himself so that he didn’t eat it before he could give it to me, haha!). I really have to use this space, though, to give a genuine, from-the-bottom-of-my-heart, shout out and thank you to the M-C of MAC for MAKING my birthday for me. Caitlin Kieran, I can’t believe you overnighted a present and a card to Meg to bring back from the states. And Meg, all that stuff you brought back for me.. Opening those gifts from you guys, and seeing how well the two of you know me.. Let’s just say I love you both more than words can say and that I am more thankful than you can imagine that I have you two in my life. Stuff has continued to be really rough lately, and feeling your love and support on my birthday.. It was just more than I have words for. Thank you. SO, so much.

Saturday, my birthday, I came back through Uliwa, spent some time with my girl Mavis, and then arrived at home where Mr. Nyasulu COMMANDED me to go to the ESCOM clubhouse with him =) We had some cold beverages with friends, watched the world cup, and then came home to watch more Lost (we’re so addicted, and one of Meg’s many awesome gifts was all of the current season, ie. THE END. I’m going to have such a gaping hole in my life when Lost is over. It’s pathetic.). But anyway, all-in-all, a great birthday. Here’s a little photo documentation (I mean, how could I not post pictures?).

Here is Meg’s delicious cake. It even says (if you look veeeery closely) “Happy Birthday Ash” in mini m&m's!

And here are my presents (and the remnants of our lovely breakfast)!

Mavis & me in her shop:

The card from Mr. Nyasulu that was waiting for me on my desk when I got home =)

Hanging out with friends at the clubhouse:

Backing up to some non-quarter related items, after leaving Lilongwe last break, I went to Livingstonia Beach in Senga Bay to camp out for a few nights with friends. It was gorgeous, and so relaxing, and exactly what I needed. A lot of the time we had the beach all to ourselves, and we swam, read on the sand, and cooked some really delicious food. In fact, the creatures we saw most often on this trip were the monkeys that woke us up each morning to watch the sunrise!

Here are some shots of the beach, and those breath-taking African sunrises:

Jerrod is an awesome cook, particularly for the Food Network-style lessons he gives while preparing our meals:

I was definitely not ready to leave and go back to reality, but luckily, after 3 days of traveling home, I got to come home to my son’s birthday! And I managed to make a carrot cake!

Here is Peter with all of his moms and little bro (and I found a birthday banner and balloons in Lilongwe!):

And here he is blowing out his candles:

The mandatory shots of Mr. Nyasulu’s heart-breakingly adorable children. Izy loves to dance with daddy:

And Patience recently decided that he wanted a tie so he could be just like his pops:

I can’t even handle how cute they are. We even had a third birthday in the last six weeks – my headmaster’s, two days before mine! I told him I was turning 25 and he broke out paper and pencil to calculate how old he is, haha. Calculations prove him to be a young 41 =) I made a banana chocolate cake for his birthday, and we had the party during the day so that the teachers who don’t live nearby could come. Here’s the cake, mMmmm:

The birthday boy, Mr. Ngwira, and Mr. Mkandawire:

Mr. Simwaka and Mr. Nyasulu (and Izy, of course):

Mr. Nyasulu was in a particularly festive mood. He decorated the balloons:

And even better, himself:

I don’t even have words. He brings so much joy to this world. What would I do without him?

Aaand finally, here are all of us – the teachers of Fulirwa CDSS! From left to right, Mr. Mkandawire, Mr. Nyasulu, Mr. Simwaka, Mr. Ngwira, Madam Dazi, and Mr. Nthakomwa:

FUNNY ONE!

Hahaha, I love it..

Before I forget, some leftover shots of Elisabeth’s birthday at Kande:

Russell only has three faces, so I guess this one is at least better than the crooked half-bite:

Yeah, you’d be sad, too, if you sat down in a big chief’s chair and your feet didn’t touch the ground:

Haha, anyway.. other than that, life has just been a lot of work lately. My kids have their big national exams starting NEXT WEEK – AH! I’m so nervous for them. I will be so sad to see my Form 4s go. I was just telling Mr. Nyasulu today that as badly as I want for them to rock their tests, I wouldn’t be sad to have them in class again next year. I really love those guys. And a handful of my Form 2s – they could make an amazing Form 3 class next year if they kill their exams. I’ve been working through the required literature with my Form 4s lately which has been a fun change from all of the grammar they have to know. Right now we’re doing Romeo & Juliet, which wouldn’t have been my first choice for students who are learning English as a second language, but the Ministry has dictated it so. I showed them a film version earlier this week which seemed to really help them nail down the plot; now we’re just struggling through the language as we read/act it aloud. I’m not technically supposed to teach them once the Forms 2s start their exams next week, but since my Form 4s still have a couple weeks, I think I’m going to have them come over and do some work at my house. I may even show them the Leo & Claire Danes version of Romeo + Juliet – they couldn’t stop giggling at the mushy parts of a filmed stage production; can’t you just imagine them, sitting on my couch, eating popcorn and watching the Baz Luhrman version? I’m smiling just thinking about it. Here is a picture of my Form 4 class:

They are way too cool to be taking a picture =) Hahaha can't you just feel the teen angst? I LOVE IT.

In contrast, my Form 2s all jumped out of their seats cheering when I asked them to come outside for a snap:

Man, these kids.. they just break my heart with joy sometimes.

Outside of school life, Will and I have been knocking down doors trying to get funding for Camp SKY. The road has definitely not been an easy one, but it looks like one or two things are turning our way. The Gender and Development committee is working on some different fundraising avenues as well, trying to put together a job shadowing camp for later this year. We just recently printed t-shirts that I’m totally stoked about, take a look:

Thanks to Melissa’s friend, Carrie, for the awesome design, and Mr. Russell Conroy for pulling an awesome logo out of his hat at the eleventh hour. Hopefully we’ll sell a bunch of shirts this weekend and start to lay the foundation for our project.

Speaking of this weekend, that brings me to the reason for this jaunt out of site and visit to the internet: the 4th of July celebration at the U.S. Ambassador’s house! I’ve been at site for a solid 5 weeks now and have only been further than the nearest market for my birthday celebration, so it will be nice to get out, get some ice cream, and see some friendly faces. It should definitely be an interesting weekend. PCV gatherings turn ridiculous when there are just a handful of us who need to blow off some steam, so this little shindig.. should be quite the event. JTrain texted me a few days ago to inform me that our first order of business is a market trip to find him an outlandish holiday suit. Should be the perfect kickoff to an absurd weekend =) Happy 4th of July, everyone! Wishing you the most delicious of barbeques and incredible fireworks. Bedtime for me – I’ll be dreaming of hamburgers and red-and-white checkered tablecloths!

As you may or may not have guessed from the title of this post, things have been.. rough lately. Major struggles alipo (they are here). But because a lot of the stress I’ve been under involves things that might incriminate others and/or personal emotional turmoil that’s just not blog-fitting, I’m going to jump right over this chasm of darkness and fill you in on the silver-lining stuff instead. Yeah, I hear that collective sigh of relief… =)

First of all, a little back business: here are the pictures I promised from the top of Mt. Mulanje. Not exactly the epic view we’d hoped for atop the third highest peak in Africa, but I think being inside of this ominous cloud with all the ridiculousness it came to represent is equally as grand. Reminds me of the amazing day Nick, Amira and I spent wandering the Great Wall in the Beijing mist (I miss you guys – come explore with me!). Whatever the case, this is what we got, and I’m happy with it:

And of course, the mandatory “be how you feel” shot:

Also, remember how I said PCV’s enjoy making slap-bets? Yeah, here’s proof. If you can tear yourself away from watching the actual action, watch Russell’s face as he BEAMS with pride on the follow-through.

For what it’s worth, I got him back big-time, but videographer Meg McCracken failed HARD and missed getting it on film. But trust me, it was quality.

As always, here’s a small section on ridiculous signage and other sights of late. To start things off, an..inspirational?..calendar:

I don’t know how to feel about that.

Second, an advertisement for a hardware store with some pretty awesome merchandise. The first item is amazing, but don’t stop there..

I can’t help but wonder: WHAT did they MEAN?!

Third, it’s really unfortunate when the interchangeable r’s and l’s don’t even make it to the right place in the word..

Lastly, remember all of those commercials about “such-and-such is my anti drug”? Well, this goat is my anti-meat:

And while I know rain is really necessary for all of the crop-growing that goes on here, this one is my anti-rainy season:

SUCKS.

Moving on to happier things, here are a couple of shots of the northern lakeshore (aka. Paradise) as you come down off of the escarpment:

I always stare out the minibus in awe on my way home and wonder if it’s even possible to take a picture that captures how gorgeous it is. My 3-hour, back-of-a-pick-up-truck hitch to Mzuzu helped the cause, but you know how it is, everything is so much more breath-taking in real life. Speaking of that hitch…

…here we are, on our way to Elisabeth’s birthday at Kande! Open-air hitching does wonders for any hair-do, but Will’s hair is particularly awesome in this respect:

Amazing. Look how, uh.. windswept and gorgeous we look once we’ve arrived:

HAHA, right. Also, this is a great example of how we amuse ourselves in Malawi:

Sad, but true. Yeager and I once spent waaaay too long watching a rooster crow, over..and over..and over again. Elisabeth watches the bugs go kamikaze in her burning candles. Johnny claims that during the hot season, he goes to school and then sleeps under a mango tree until dinner. Every day. It’s a simpler life =)

Moving on, Kande beach!

And happy, relaxin’ PCV’s:

Here’s a shot of the brifday girl and me:

And some other lovely ladies I adore:

And a nice crew of us anxiously awaiting midnight so we can sing to Elis and devour the delicious cake that Meg baked:

Here’s one of Will, late into the evening and in tip-top shape, as you can see:

Peace Corps: the hardest job you’ll learn to love:

During IST, Will and I were elected as Fundraising Co-Chairs for Camp SKY, a 10-day camp that the education volunteers put on once a year for top Malawian students from Community Day Secondary Schools nationwide. We spent a week this past term doing lots of grant work in Lilongwe, and as I put up this post, we’re back at headquarters to do some more. There aren’t many interesting pictures from this trip as the majority of it was spent staring at a computer monitor, but we did find this guy at the hostel:

WHO SLEEPS LIKE THAT?! Will definitely didn’t harass him:

Nor did we go totally insane and listen to Akon and Jay Sean interchangeably for hours while “working” with Malaria-infected-Duncan and Rabies-infected-Yeager:

Ahem.. ANYWAY. Here’s something I wouldn’t so much call silver-lining, but it’s an interesting series, nonetheless: creatures I’ve recently found in my house! A few weeks ago, I found some sort of roach-cocoon in the lining of one of my shirts (even better, I was wearing said shirt at the time of discovery). I texted Jordan and said that while I felt I was doing pretty well in dealing with the many lizards, spiders, wasps, and other fun animals/insects/organisms that accost me on a daily basis, THIS ROACH HAD CROSSED THE LINE. Unfortunately, I totally jinxed myself with that text and my claim of coping, and I went home that evening to find this guy:

In case the scale is skewed, he was about the size of my outstretched hand. I went and got a shoe to kill him but couldn’t even do it – he was big enough to be a freaking mammal, man! And I was NOT about to piss him off.

This finding was also less than exciting:

God definitely had my back on this one, though – I stepped on this scorpion barefoot and somehow killed him before he stung me.

This guy I’m more okay with, though just generally baffled – he’s not exactly discreet, but I find him in my house ALL the TIME at night and NEVER during the day. WHERE DOES HE HIDE?!

Mr. Nyasulu says he’s got a toad in his house that evades him also. His toad will be heard and not seen – he lets out one long cccrrroooaaakkk at night and then lets you look for him for the next many hours. I like to imagine the toads get a total kick out of this. Like, mine must just come out and night and wait for me to stare at it in total amazement so it can silently laugh in victory. I accidentally stepped on him a few nights ago, though. Don’t think he was laughing then.

Moving on, right now is harvesting time in the beautiful rice paddies of the north, so Mr. Nyasulu took me out to his fields in the nearby village of Mphinga so I could learn the process. We biked out there because it’s 7 or 8 kilometres away and that alone was a pretty awesome adventure. Here are pictures of the locally-constructed bridges you cross to get there. On this first one, the planks lay on top of each other and are nailed together.. kind of:

This second one is just like a fallen tree over the river. We ditched our bikes and Mr. N carried our boots across first and then came back for me.

Also, there was this:

Dear Very Large Cow, You're kind of in our path. Thanks, Mr. N and Ash.

Out in the fields, it was MY turn to be the acrobat:

Got Mud?

We found some of my favorite students out at work, too. Mr. N rented a plot of land next to his own to let Jackson, a former-Fulirwa student who went to stay and study up at Kaporo, grow his own rice. Here are Jackson and me:

And here are some of my Form 4’s. Keshonie:

And Monica:

And one of my Form 1’s, Frank (or with the Malawian r/l interchange, Flank):

Here is Mr. N, dancing as always:

And here I am slashing away:

I was obviously an instant pro… YEAH RIGHT. I mean, I can wield a sickle if I need to, but these guys are SO FAST. It’s amazing! I was slowly but surely cutting down rice and nicely placing it in piles as I was taught when I caught a glimpse of Keshonie – it was like a freaking cartoon, I swear! His arm blurring as he slashed with fury, grass and rice flying everywhere as he decimated everything in his path – I felt like I was on Loony Toons! Look at ‘em go!

And here are the sisters, doin’ it for themselves =)

Before we left, I encouraged a little kuvina-ing (dancing). Oh yeah, baby. Denyani (basically, “get DOWN!”):

Later that day, Mr. N and I decided to take advantage of a wonderful new environmental condition that has arrived with the onset of the cooler season: WIND. I’m telling you, the movement of air has revolutionized my life. Anyway, since we’ve had wind, we’ve also had the opportunity to do something that I think Duncan correctly identified as “better than most things”: fly a kite!

Mr. N attempted first:

And then we taught my son (he had never flown a kite before!):

Peter totally rocked it, he was the kite katswiri (champion).

Look! Up in the sky! It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it's..

..a totally creepy-faced kite!

Once Peter got the kite waaay up there, the village kids spotted it, and started coming..

..and coming..

..and coming..

..aaaaand coming..

So we let them try to fly the kite. They kind of failed, but I think they enjoyed it.

I also got to play hide-and-seek with little Izy: As long as she’s in daddy’s arms, she feels safe and so she’s okay with me.

But if she’s not..

..she’s not so sure.

In other exciting Izy news, she celebrated her FIRST birthday on May 12th! So we had a little party for her =) Here she is with my son (I made her a hat out of paper and dental floss. She wasn’t feelin’ it. I think it was on her head for a grand total of three minutes.):

And her mommy:

And the whole Nyasulu family:

Here I am testing whether Izy is getting more used to me:

And here are all of us (mostly the Nyasulu’s and Ngwira’s) who came out to celebrate the occasion:

Malawians LOVE dancing, it’s awesome:

I tried to teach everyone the happy birthday song and, considering how terrible it usually sounds even in the states where everyone knows it, I think it turned out pretty well:

Izy enjoying her FIRST birthday cake!

And her brother, Patience, enjoying some Sobo (it’s like.. Tang):

This is mbwezi bane (my friend), Chimango. When I first came to Fulirwa, she announced to her daddy (my headmaster) that this is what I was, so we’ve stuck with that ever since. Her name means “peace” in Tumbuka.

And last but not least, one of my son and me at school:

His 18th birthday is next week! I think I’m going to try making carrot cake this time…

So there you have it, the exciting parts of my recent life in pictures. As for the rough stuff.. I had an awesome heart-to-heart with Mr. Nyasulu last week when everything sort of came to a pinnacle and I thought I might explode, and he said he always gets excited when challenges arise because he sees these times as opportunities to prove himself, his strength, his character. I’m doing my best to look at all of my obstacles this way. Whatever the case, I do have faith that it’s all happening for a reason, and that God will lead me in the right direction if I listen. But before that, I’m taking a little R&R this week and refueling – it feels pretty necessary at this point. On that note, I think it’s time for some ice cream with BanMan and J-Train. Stay well, everybody, and throw up a little prayer for me and Fulirwa (and while you’re at it, one for my cousin who was recently deployed to Afghanistan, please)! Miss you and love you!

Always, Nyadazi

Since I haven't posted any pictures since Pre-Service Training, here's a melange of stuff from my life since then.

First, my home! Here's my house, as well as some "before" pictures from the first visit to my site and my house:

Living room:

Bedroom, with the stuff Jemusi left for me:

Kitchen/storeroom:

And the back patio area (on the right is the main house, on the left is the kitchen and the bafa, and that wall in the middle is where Yamikani was climbing over to steal my katundu):

And here's how I made my place home! Living room:

Little inspirational wall, including Jordan's epic Half Dome artwork on top, entitled "Pastels Are Crayons For Big Kids":

Looking down the hallway toward the back patio:

Bedroom on the left, closet/storeroom/room-in-progress on the right:

My makeshift closet (you should have seen me trying to hang this up):

My bedroom (if you've written to me, your card hangs on this wall so I can think of you! Along with all of your shining faces all over the place, of course):

Fully-stocked kitchen/storeroom (thanks mom, Mike, Grandma, Aunt Chris, and Aunt Debi!:

Actual kitchen, with cooking in progress:

Here's my school's library, outside and inside:

Here's my school with a beauuutiful rainbow (I discovered this when I stepped outside early one Saturday morning):

And then a few days later, as I walked home from school, I found the rainbow over my house:

Here are the girls' netball and boys' football teams and an inter-village match:

A few weeks ago I took the science teachers from Fulirwa up to Yeager's bwana (boss/rich) school to do experiments in the laboratory. We video-taped everything, and now the kids at Fulirwa get to have some idea of how to do the practicals that they'll be tested on!

Here is Mr. Nyasulu acting as a tightrope walker in order to lay fertilizer on his rice fields:

The day we went to the chicken farm:

And the day I made cookies with the two Mr. N's:

Here's My Malawian family =) From left to right, me, my son Peter, Mr. Nyasulu and his baby girl Isabel, the Gondwe's (Peter's real mom and dad), and Mr. Nyasulu's wife:

Izy LOVES Peter:

Oh, and just for my mom, a shot of the most adorable kitten I have ever seen (he is about the size, and the Ngwira's laugh at me relentlessly when I fawn over this cat):

This is my girl, Mavis. She owns the shop where I wait for the vehicle into my village. I spend a loooot of time chatting with her, waiting to go home. She's an intelligent, strong woman and I'm so thankful to know her.

In less exciting pictorial news, here is Yamikani's trial. Poor kid got 8 years with hard labor.

Back to happier things! Here is some ridiculousness from IST. Mattress jumping!

It was because of this bed-pile conquering that I got slapped. Hard.

Here's a list of some of the best students' names from our secondary schools:

I think "McVicious" is my favorite. Meg also recently discovered that she has a kid named Hitler. There are no words to adequately follow-up this statement.

Here is Ryba looking slumpishly sad as we stare out at the washed-our road in Senga Bay:

And on that note, here are Ryba, Meg, and I standing in the "street" after our tragic rainy walk through Blantyre:

Definitely had feces on my feet. No joke.

Here is my very sad farmer's tan (WHO KNEW I COULD TAN?!). It looks like I'm wearing a t-shirt even if I'm not.

Here are some funny sightings of late. First:

Annual Coffin? I hope not.

Butcher:

Halaal? Really? I kinda doubt that.

This one we had a long discussion about. Did this man see something that scared him so badly he jumped right out of his shoes (there on the wall)? Or was he just, invisible, and in fact still standing there?

Here are some shots from the.. "energetic" welcoming of the new environment volunteers at the airport:

Aaand in the same vein, and a shockingly similar photo, our trip to the Carlsberg factory:

Just another night at Mufasa's (where volunteers stay when we visit Lilongwe):

Get DOWN, Jerrod.

Here was Meg's attempt at a rain hood (unfortunately within 30 seconds of stepping outside a car drove through a puddle near us and drenched us anyway):

Here are some examples of how PCVs travel:

I felt very strongly that I should have been allowed to pay half price in that minibus considering I paid for a seat and technically that man in my lap was also sitting in my seat.

Here is one of the many baboons that often chase after vehicles hoping for food:

Oh, and here is an old (from New Year's) but gorgeous shot of Nhkata Bay at night:

And last but definitely not least, the Mulanje adventure!

Here's the epic mountain, though you can't even see the peak we conquered from here:

And here we are, Team Mulanje 2010:

"You're about to hike the third highest peak in Africa! Be how you feel!"

Excitement! Yeah! Aaand then we started up...

And Jerrod started falling, a lot.

But it was unbelievably beautiful, and we were stoked.

Oh, and in case you didn't believe me about the barefoot Malawian men carrying trees down the mountain:

Yep.

At the end of day one, we relaxed at the Chambe hut, made s'mores, and prepared for what turned out to be the day you could never adequately prepare for:

Day 2 we were pumped and ready to go:

We could see a storm below:

But we were lookin' upwards:

And didn't realize that soon, we would be in it:

Unfortunately, the only ridiculous, cloudy picture of the ponchoed-pcvs on the peak is on Jerrod's camera, so I can't post it here. But I can post a bit of the aftermath:

Bye bye, Meg's pants.

All-in-all, it was amazing, and once my scrapes and bruises heal, I hope to do it again someday. Who's in?

Phew! That's all for now. I hope you've enjoyed this glance into my life, and I hope you're all having epic adventures of your own. Please know that you're welcome to join in on mine anytime =) Khalani makola mose! Nikumusobani! (Stay well everyone! I miss you!)

In many ways, it feels like every day in Malawi holds a new adventure – some better than others, and some bigger than others – but adventures nonetheless. As I think I mentioned before, every time I board any form of Malawian transportation, there’s surely an adventure in store. Easter break, for example: on my way south, I sat next to a very nice man who INSISTED that I eat a cob of corn with him (I think he brought it from home?). Legit would NOT take no for an answer. And coming home, what should have been a 9ish hour journey turned out to be about 30 once all breakdowns, fuel stops, times of driving in the wrong direction, instances of locking the passengers in the car with no door handle, and mandatory overnight stops were accounted for. I think the best moment of the latter journey was when Mr. Nyasulu and I, both playing snake on our phones, turned to our left to see a 6-year old doing the same. Maturity level identified. We both lowered our heads in shame and stopped immediately. But even if I’m not traveling, so many day-to-day occurrences are shocking, hilarious, amazing, and/or just generally unexpected. Recently, I discovered that my headmaster has a favorite adjective to attribute to those who are frustrating him: “blood-f*cking”. WHAT?! Where in the WORLD did he LEARN that?! And is he trying to say “blood-sucking,” or does he really mean to say.. well, what he’s saying?! Also, you need to know that this guy is a 5-foot tall, round, jolly little man who generally laughs to diffuse any and all confrontation, so this newly-coined phrase came WAY out of left field. Another recent adventure: our school’s computer has a virus, and a BAD one at that. I spent hours talking through solutions with those more knowledgeable than I, but as of yet, nothing has worked. Finally, I spoke with the PCV who was here before me and who acquired the computer to find out if there is a Windows disc to wipe the computer clear and re-install. He (James) laughed. I knew something good (or bad) was coming, but this, I could not have predicted: “Well, I was showing Mr. Nyasulu a game we play at home shooting things we throw off of the roof, and we were spearing objects, and well…” NO. But yes. They clay-pigeoned the Windows disc. They threw the CD off the roof of the library and SPEARED it. James, if you are reading this, you will surely be the victim of some witchcraft.

In terms of less hilarious and exciting adventures, yesterday, one of the grade-A harassment cops showed up at my front door. First of all, you need to understand that for a man to visit a single woman at her home is SERIOUSLY not okay in Malawian culture, which is why I told him and all of the others who gave me a hard time at the station that they were welcome to visit me AT SCHOOL, but NOT at my home. Clearly that message went through. So this officer, Joe, shows up yesterday, tells me in a very self-congratulatory manner that he didn’t even bother stopping at the school first because he knows exactly where my home is, and then proceeds to ask questions to see “how his sister is doing,” all while inching closer and closer to me as I stand blockading him from entering the premises. Finally, he is peering around the doorframe, asking about all of the snaps (photos) on my walls and trying to gain access to my living room, so I abruptly excused myself and shut the door on him. Too bad Mr. Mwafulirwa, with his panga knife and bush-crouching, can’t be my 24-hour body guard.

But on to happier things and the biggest adventure of late: Mt. Mulanje! This past break, Elisabeth, Meg, Alexis, Jerrod, Yeager, and I conquered the third highest peak in Africa! The summit, Sapetwa, stands at 3,002 m, or 9,846 ft, above sea-level, and many Malawians will tell you never to go there because witchcraft surrounds it. I can’t say that we made it up and back without trials – EXTREME trials, in fact – but we did it! There are many things that Malawians do that I think are genius in a country of limited resources. For example, in a place that lacks many options for food-on-the-go, whoever started hard-boiling eggs to sell to travelers by the side of the road deserves a serious pat on the back. One thing they have NOT figured out yet, however, is switchbacks. When hiking in Malawi, if you’re going up, you’re going UP. STRAIGHT up. They were NOT messing around when they carved out a trail for Mulanje hikers. It’s like hiking at the slant of the Half Dome cables the majority of the time. And we, as poor Peace Corps Volunteers and perhaps overly-confident outdoor enthusiasts, decided that we could certainly do this venture without porters. I believe that we were the only group I saw during our three days on the mountain that did not have at least one guy helping to drag stuff up the hill. But aside from the HARDCORE nature of the hike in general, our trek to the summit on day two was particularly.. outrageous. The last 2-3 hours before you reach the peak is essentially bouldering up a huge mound of rocks, and while this would have been fun and only slightly scary in normal conditions, about 40 minutes from the top, it started to rain. Four of us decided (bad idea) to go up anyway, and after we reached the summit and took a picture to celebrate, we turned around and started down. I wouldn’t say that what were doing was “hiking” at this point, though – in this storm, it was more like crawling, sliding, slipping, and gripping onto anything in our path to keep us from doing these things right off the edge of a cliff. It took us a loooong time to scramble down like this, and so to add insult to injury, we also watched the sun disappear and had to hike our last slippery hour in darkness. I almost died, more than once, as did many of the others, but in the end, each and every one of us made it in one piece (scrapes and bruises, sure, but all limbs intact). I can’t say the same for our clothing, though. I believe 2/3rds of us ripped our pants coming down (in the battle of butt versus granite, the stone wins every time). Meg and Alexis ripped their pants so badly that you couldn’t even call them pants any more, and other articles of clothing (particularly Jerrod’s) were lost while trying to dry them by the fire (Dear Jerrod, When you put your underwear on a grill plate over an open flame, they’re doing to burn. Love, Common Sense, P.S. Hiking boots can burn, too). But honestly, all ridiculousness considered, I had an amazing time and, if it were guaranteed that my comrades and I would live, I would do it all again in a heartbeat. Mulanje is incredibly beautiful, and unlike many trails in the states that become ant-trails to daily hordes of people, we ran into only a few groups of hikers during our three days on the mountain. Most of the people we saw, actually, were Malawian men, cutting trees up top and then carrying HUGE wooden planks down the hill on their shoulders. While barefoot. This made our struggles seem all the more pathetic, haha. Also, while Malawi hasn’t figured out the switchback thing yet, they are seriously on top of it when it comes to hiker accommodations. Adorable little log cabins have been constructed at various strategic locations on the path, each complete with mattresses and a night watchmen who lights a fire immediately upon your arrival (both for warmth and cooking purposes). The cabins are positioned perfectly for astounding views and chilly baths in streams of mountain runoff, and are fully equipped with soda and beer that you can purchase (and cool in aforementioned streams) and cooking materials (as long as you have the hook-up with the secret, special key). It was nice to hear the environment volunteer who works at Mulanje say we did it the “right way” when we told him about our adventure (namely the abundance of food we dragged up with us – we had delicious stir-fries with veggies and soya at night, and toast, fried eggs, and coffee in the morning). All in all, we had a totally ridiculous, totally hardcore, and totally amazing time.

There are so many adventures I’d love to tell you about – visiting a chicken farm with Mr. Nyasulu in preparation for a small business venture we’re attempting to get going with a group of women in my village (I saw more chickens in one instant that I had in my whole life cumulatively up to that point); christening my newly-constructed brick oven by baking chocolate chip cookies with Mr. N and my headmaster, Mr. Ngwira; getting paid 50 kwacha by a Malawian taxi driver for letting him give me a hug (he wanted to give me 50MWK to marry him, but settled for the embrace); trying desperately to read and understand a star chart while sitting on the lakeshore with my buddy Duncan (looking up at the sky in a country where light pollution isn’t an issue is absolutely mind-blowing). I wonder what incredible exploits tomorrow will bring..

The computers at Peace Corps are way overloaded and slow right now, so I'm going to work on posting pictures tomorrow =)

Hello everyone! This was supposed to go up last week when I was passing through Lilongwe on Easter break, but alas, I loaded everything on my flash drive.. and left it at home. So, a bit late, but here it is!

My house is now a fortress, complete with laser beams and an alligator moat. Okay, not really, but they did lay broken glass on top of all the low-sitting walls and fill in all of the ventilation gaps, effectively sealing me off from the world, haha. My guard, Mr. Mwafulirwa, seems like a great guy, and he speaks Chitumbuka slower than most so I can get in some good practice using the local language. In true guard form, Mr. Mwafulirwa likes to crouch and hide in the bushes, which is fantastic until he jumps out with a panga knife as I’m making my groggy morning trip to the chim. Not the first thing I want to see in the morning, but to be fair, he probably wasn’t so happy to run into the grumpy mzungu either (mzungu = white man/foreigner, a name PCVs hear quite a lot). The one who was breaking into my house is a young man by the name of Yamikani (ironically, the name means “give respect”), and as of now, he is still being held in a small cell in the Chilumba police station (wearing the same clothes as he was arrested in 5 weeks ago, and smelling more like urine than urine itself). My headmaster, deputy, and I spent waaay too many days at the station or the court, but as ridiculous and painful as some of those experiences were, they were also interesting, and of course, worth it. I was first introduced to Yamikani at the station when an officer brought a man into a 6x6 room with me, sat him down next to me, and told me to greet him. So in my best Chitumbuka and my most polite voice, I did, and the officer followed with “this is the man who threatened to kill you.” Tactful. Totally made me lose all of my street cred, sheesh. If I had been WARNED, I could have put on my best GANGSTA face, man! Unfortunately, this was only the beginning of my first, and hopefully only, ludicrous and amazing experience with the Malawian law. A few days later, I was requested to return. “Okay, to the station, or the court?” (They are in totally different towns, maybe 20 minutes drive apart.) “Ummm, I’m not sure… but come tomorrow.” Right, course, I’ll get right on that. So, after consulting the teachers here, I decided to go to the station (the closer of the two) because surely if I needed to go to the court with them, they’d take me, right? Well, the short answer is yes. The long answer is in the back of a truck, shoved in with six handcuffed criminals, including the man who threatened my life. This after three hours of sitting at the station, playing snake on my phone. And when I refused to ride this way, they made fun of me (really?!) and put me in between two officers in the front of the truck who relentlessly harassed me the whole way there (nope, sorry, you are not welcome to come and sleep in my house with me). Things didn’t get better at the courthouse, though by this point, at least I was laughing at the ridiculousness of it all. I’ll spare you all many of the details, but let’s just say the highlight was when I had to take the witness stand and be cross-examined by Yamikani himself (nope, no lawyers for criminals). Regardless, he admitted to almost everything, and the reason he is still being held is because his sentence is going to be long enough that it has to be issued by the high court. So, that’s the story of Yamikani. He did tell the whole court that my cake was very tasty, so you know, small victories. I also love that the quality of my cake was a detail that the prosecutor demanded be part of the discussion – it was obviously a crucial element in all of this.

Aside from all that business, things at site are going very well. I don’t think teaching is my life calling, but I adore my Form 2s and 4s (on most days, haha) and I am genuinely happy here, which is very exciting and very relieving. My “office” is the library as I am one of the two school librarians, and Mr. Nyasulu, the deputy headmaster and other librarian, is both my best friend and my rock here in Fulirwa. When we’re not teaching, you can find us watching Lost, rocking out to a mélange of American and African music, dancing ridiculously (think chicken dance), or talking about this, that, and everything in our office/second home. Oh, and laughing. All day, every day. He is intelligent and motivated and is already proving to be my co-conspirator on many brain child projects we have in the works, and when I come home many years and months from now, I will be bringing him, his wife, and his two adorable children with me. For real. The fact that we’re working on getting him into an American university makes this statement all the more true, but even if that weren’t in the works, I think I would have to pack them in my carry-ons and hope that Malawi doesn’t have x-ray machines at security. In the meantime, we’ll be here – he’ll be laughing at me for crying over the onions and the smoke as he tries to teach me to cook, and I’ll be introducing him to such amazing cultural tidbits as mac ‘n cheese and Yahtzee. It’s everything you could ask for in a home.

Speaking of homes and families, I have a son! Not ACTUALLY – don’t panic – but one of my best Form 4s, Peter, asked if I could take him as such (ie. I help him with school fees and he helps me with various things in labor-intensive everyday life). He’s very interested in agriculture, so I decided to have him start a garden for me, and now I have some beautiful tomato plants sprouting right outside my door! He also draws water for me a few times a week, which is a HUGE help. Many months ago Peter had me over at his home for a meal with his seemingly-happy family, but I came back this term to learn that his father was not feeding him or his brothers and was forcing them to sleep outside in a shed. When I ate with Peter, I couldn’t believe how much food he consumed. I actually joked with the teachers here about it. His mother came in with two ENORMOUS patties of nsima for us – each maybe 9 inches in diameter and 3 inches thick – and after I cut off a small, palm-sized piece for myself, Peter TOOK DOWN the rest of the plate. It was INSANE. I kept asking him where he was putting it all – he is a tiny boy, 17 years old though maybe the size of a skinny 13-year old. But now it makes sense, as that may have been the only meal he had eaten in days. So as of now, I’m supporting his school, and he is living (and eating) at Mr. Nyasulu’s. He is very dedicated, hard-working, and sweet, and I love having him around. How lucky am I – my Malawian family lives right next door!

Alright, as always, there is so much more to be said, but I’ll leave it for another day. There are many things in the works over here, but I want to let things develop as they will a bit more before I write them up. In the meantime, just keep prayin’! I miss you all and love you, as always. I'll be popping through the headquarters next week for some meetings so I'll try to post some pictures then - I know they are infinitely more interesting than words =)

P.S. Shout out to Margaret Watkins the first - please always comment on my blog, I LOVE it. I'm so jealous Meg gets to go home and see her mom soon! I'm sure you don't need me to tell you this, but make sure you're house is fully stocked with CHEESE and CHOCOLATE (along with all the love that is already there)!

I'm in Lilongwe again, passing through on my way back to site, so I wanted to drop a little update on here before disappearing into the internet-less abyss for awhile.

I've been away from site for two and a half weeks now, which is craaazy. Luckily, my evacuation was timed pretty nicely (thanks, thieves?) as I had In-Service Training the week after and then another week off from school (midterm break) to travel with friends. IST was a great time - it was so nice to see everyone again, and to be back at the college where we don't have to cook for ourselves, or worry about wearing trousers. I think we all needed it, a time to sort of "turn off", relax. Let's just say one night involved piling mattress upon mattress and then running and jumping on them, again, and again, and again. This activity also evolved into chicken fighting, dog-piling and other ridiculousness (*Ahem* apparently PCVs like to beat each other up. Someday I will post some slap-bet videos). It was amazing. We also learned some really valuable things about grant writing, funding sources we can tap into, permaculture, etc. etc. All in all, good stuff. After IST, I came up to Lilongwe for a night where 60 or so volunteers were hanging out waiting to greet the new environment volunteers that came in on Sunday (Yay! We're not the newbies anymore!). Let's just say we gave them quite a welcome. Sunday, Meg and I went to stay at Jen and Kris's site near Emponella with some other volunteers from our group. Esther made some EPIC pizza, we drank wine (boxed, of course, and highly classy), watched the Office, and played with the ADORABLE new puppy that J & K have adopted. His name is Charlie, and yes, many "Charlie bit my finger" jokes were made, no worries. Monday morning, Meg, Ryba, and I started hitching south on the heels of Jordan and Yeager. Seven ridiculous vehicles later, we made it to Jordan's home in Mwanza (my favorite hitch was the Indian Jones guy, who shoved us in the back on top of 10,000 potatoes, got a 5,000 kwacha ticket for speeding, and asked a friend on the phone to hold onto the spitting python he had found until he got home). We spent the night at Jtrain's, Meg made some awesome French toast in the AM, and then we literally forded a river to get back to the main road (it was up to Jordan's knees, so naturally, he offered me a snorkel. haha. ha. -_-). Tuesday we went into Blantyre, which is sort of the commercial/industrial center if Malawi, and has amazing city things like I mentioned in the title (Ice Cream! Movies! Indian food! Air conditioning! Laundry machines!). We arrived in a torential downpour and proceeded to walk, many kilometers, to our hostel. Bad idea. Let's just say that today, Thursday, I still don't have an article of dry clothing. That afternoon, we went on the Carlsberg factory tour. At the end of the tour, they give you unlimited beer (all of their label-screw ups, basically), and.. I'm going to leave the rest of the evening to the imagination =) Wednesday, we did many of the other amazing city-things, like eat, a lot, watch Sherlock Holmes in a REAL MOVIE THEATER (the only one in Malawi), and visit GAME, the Malawian version of Target. I was, of course, giddy. I'm not sure who buys the items they sell in Game (a hair salon-style free-standing dryer? camping equipment? printers? golf clubs?), but I found things like protein powder and Ferrero Rocher chocolates, so I was pretty much set. Today we parted ways with Ryba and Jordan (so sad! when are we all going to see each other again?), took a nice (sarcastic) loooong bus ride back to Lilongwe, and tomorrow, many of us will board another bus for an even longer and more painful ride to Mzuzu. We'll eat some cheeseburgers, have a Gender and Development meeting, and then board yet another bus (mini this time) to head to the far north. Saturday, I'll be back in Fulirwa, which I'm very happy, but slightly nervous about, given the circumstances surrounding my departure two and a half weeks ago. Some GREAT news, though - they caught the thieves! I don't know all of the details yet - just the brief outlines from the deputy, Mr. Nyasulu, my headmaster, Mr. Ngwira, and another teacher, Mr. Mkandawire - who all called to give me the good news (pretty good turn-out considering there are only 5 teachers at my school other then me!). The thieves are going on trial tomorrow, and while I'm bummed I can't get up to the courthouse to see it, it might be for the best. Whatever the case, it does put my mind more at ease!

So there you have it. As I said today when our bus sideswiped a truck and lost a mirror, and I got a text from Ryba saying he had almost been removed from his bus by Malawian immigration officers: never a dull moment. This next term is going to be a lot of work - in addition to teaching, my education group is starting to prepare for a ten-day educational camp to be held in August for top students nationwide (Ban and I have taken on the epic job of fundraising), and I really want to get going on some secondary projects. First, though, I really need to do some laundry...

It hasn't been very long since I posted my latest training blog, but seeing as how I've been out of training and working at site for almost 3 months now, I wanted to also say a little bit about life now that I've achieved the "PCV" status in my mailing address =)

As I think I mentioned, I'm living in a village in the northern lakeshore region of the country, about 10-12 hours north of the capital city of Lilongwe. Keep driving past my site for another 2 or 3 hours north, and you're in Tanzania. I'm waaay far up there, haha. The name of my village is Fulirwa, and thus, my school is the Fulirwa Community Day Secondary School (CDSS). Fulirwa is a beauuutiful place. It is about 14 kilometers off the main road, inland toward the mountains of Nyika Plateau, meaning that if I miss the handful of vehicles that travel in and out of my site on a given day, I'm biking 28k roundtrip to buy tomatoes and onions. Sometimes, though, I prefer it - it's a pretty nice bike ride, and given the infrequency of the vehicles, and the concept of Malawian time (ie. anytime +/-24 hours of the said time is game), it usually takes me less total time if I force my own legs to take me there. I'm teaching English to Form 2 and Form 4 students (Sophomores and Seniors), and Life Skills (everything from communication skills to HIV/AIDS awareness) to Forms 1 and 3. Forms 1 and 2 have about 50 kids each; 3 and 4 have 8-10. In Malawi, students have to pass the Junior Certificate Examination (JCE) to move from Form 2 to Form 3, and the Malawi School Certificate Examination (MSCE) to pass secondary school and go to college. These tests are ridiculously difficult for students to pass for many reasons. First of all, they have to take every subject test (usually between 8 and 10) in English. They struggle with English just in English class, but for abstract Physical Science concepts? Just wow. Also, most schools don't have the resources to prepare their kids - many have few books, and most have no labs or lab materials, and yet students are expected to do practicals on their science exams. Students who are accepted into government funded schools have a HUGE advantage, and scores on the MSCE determine university placement, so kids at CDSS's have to work extra hard just to make the cut. And even then, there are no guarantees. The northern region is better educated, but less populated, and so the government has enacted a quasi-unspoken affirmative action type of program to ensure that the southern and central regions are adequately represented. This often means, though, that northern students with amazing scores are passed over in favor of southern students with decent (or even not-so-decent) scores. Each and every day I find new things that I'm thankful to have in my life because of the blessed chance that I was born in America. A Bachelor's degree definitely does on this list. And on that note, things like social security and financial aid. But, to lighten the mood, so do cappuccinos. Also, gross as it may sound, bread with preservatives. I swear my bread is basically moldy by the time I get it home from the market. It's just not even worth it.

So, in keeping with my good, bad, and ugly title, I'm going to put some of my experiences in each of these categories.

Good: As I said, Fulirwa is gorgeous. Right now we're in the middle of rainy season, so everything is overgrown and green, and when I bike up to the ESCOM power station in the mountains, there are waterfalls just pouring down the hills (and being converted into electricty to go to the city nearest me, which is pretty amazing). Also, I really, truly love my school. I feel so blessed in my placement - I love hanging out in the library with my teachers (there are six of us altogether), and I'm so enjoying getting to know my kids. I've gotten the deputy headmaster at Fulirwa, Mr. Nyasulu, hooked on American television, so we anxiously await new episode shipments in the mail. I think this is an amazing instance of cultural exchange =) We recently had a "California Party" with some foods the previous volunteer left behind, so I got to introduce them to tuna fish sandwiches and packaged chicken, both of which they loved. They were totally befuddled by them, though - Mr. Nyasulu's baby girl Isabel cried at the site of the packaged chicken chunks. They also couldn't believe boxed mashed potatoes. America is pretty ridiculous when you get an outside look. Anyway, a couple of weeks ago, two of my favorite students invited me into their homes, so on Saturday, I biked to a nearby village to meet Peter's family, and on Sunday, up to ESCOM to see Madalitso. Peter took me to a football (soccer) match at the local primary school, where a ton of my students saw us and came over to chat. One of them, Hastings, walked me almost 5k home! Like I said, I just feel so blessed. I'm so excited to build on these relationships in the coming months and years.

Bad: I guess under bad, I would just put the challenges. Many of the educational challenges I outlined above. Then there are other school- and community-related challenges, like the inability for kids to pay school fees (2500-2750 kwacha per term, or about $20 US dollars every three months), and a general feeling that kids need to be home helping with the farming instead of wasting their time on an education. Plenty of families don't generate any income, and just farm to feed their families, so acquiring school fees means selling some of said food or finding other odd jobs, both of which are easier said than done. Also, no matter how aware you think you are about the ways HIV/AIDS and other diseases affect people around the world, I don't think there is anything that can prepare you for coming face-to-face with the reality of it. One of my best Form 2's, Tizgowere, is living HIV positive, acquired at birth, and at this point, she is the only surviving member of her family. The disease is clearly taking a toll on her - she has scabs all over her body, and her eyesight is so bad she literally cannot read the text in her books, much less the chalkboard. It breaks my heart. Thankfully, she is on anti-retrovirals, and although she has often spoken with my headmaster about feeling fatalistic about her education and her life, she pushes on. I am so in awe of her strength. The other bads that I can think of involve the challenges of everyday life that just seriously fade in comparison when placed next to issues like these, but nonetheless, gathering firewood just to heat water for coffee in the morning, not a fun or easy task. My mom says I'm never going to want to camp again after Peace Corps, haha, but I'm pretty sure she's wrong. I will, however, appreciate electric stoves, refridgerators that keep vegetables and eggs fresh for more than 2 days, and faucets that don't require me to carry all of my drinking, bathing, and washing water on my head from a boarhole many, many meters away, more than I can express.

Ugly: This section.. is unfortunate. In the last 6 weeks, I've had three break-ins at my home. Many Malawian homes are set up like mine, with an enclosed house with bedroom(s), living room, and storeroom attached to an open-air, but aften enclosed, back patio area with bathroom and kitchen on the other side of the patio (by bathroom I mean bathing room - the toilet, or chimbuzi, is a room built around a hole in the ground that is placed away from the main compound). The lock on my front door is broken, but I am able to bolt it shut from inside, so I just use the back door that opens onto the patio. There is yet another door to this patio area which, for my first month at site, also had a broken lock, so during the first break-in, the thief (or thieves) let themselves onto the patio through this door, broke a window into my storeroom, and stole about $100 worth of food that I had just received in Christmas care packages from America. I was sad to lose the food, of course (I mean, York Peppermint Patties and Luna Bars are like GOLD these days), but much more upset about feeling unsafe in my own home. Also, I have a key sitting outside on the patio that opens my chimbuzi and the key had clearly been moved, so I can only assume the thief tried to use it to gain access to my house, which is terrifying. So, after this incident, we got a new lock and fixed that patio door, fixed my windows with sharp chicken wire and new frames to make them safer and stronger, and added a few more deadbolts to the back door of my home. But six days later, he returned. One of the walls to my back patio has many bricks that were left out to create ventilation holes for cooking, so apparently the thief used this as a step ladder to gain access to my patio again, and basically stole everything that was outside in my kitchen and bafa (bathroom) - a bucket, a tea kettle, all of my toiletries, 5 liters of paraffin, dish soap, etc. etc. None of these things are terribly tragic, but considering my living allowance is about $150 dollars a month, still difficult. Not to mention, it was super upsetting that he came back. I talked with my school and the Peace Corps about what to do, but I basically just vowed to leave NOTHING outside EVER, and for many weeks, that seemed to do the trick. Until two weeks ago.. This one, is scary. On Thursday the 11th, I was outside later than usual (meaning like, 7 pm instead of 6:30), because I trying to bake a cake for Mr. Nyasulu's birthday. At 7:00, I was inside reading with my back door propped open and the cake baking on my patio when I heard my screen door creeking open. I walked out of my room to see if I was imagining it, and I saw someone drop the door and run and jump over the wall. I was, of course, very shaken and scared, but I wasn't going to let this guy make me a victim in my own home, so I went out and checked on my cake. It wasn't done, so I decided I would come back in 30 minutes, and I went back in my house and locked my door. A half hour later, I walked to my back door, and stood there totally freaked out trying to convince myself that he wasn't there. After a solid 90 seconds of talking myself into opening my back door, I did, and I found a man standing about 2 feet in front of me. At this point, he threated to kill me, and I screamed and slammed my door closed and locked it again. Unfortunately, I have no phone reception in my house, so I had no way to alert anyone, and I had to wait until morning to tell anyone what had happened. After a sleepless night, Mr. Nyasulu came to my house in the morning to check on me because the thief had also broken into my school (he always hits us on the same nights), and my shock finally released itself in tears. A couple of days later, the safety and security director and country director or Peace Corps Malawi came up to evacuate me, and now I am in the capital while my home is being repaired. I begged them to let me stay because, crazy as it may sound that I WANT to stay, I love my community, and I know that I am needed there. So, as we speak, those holes in my patio wall are being filled in, cement and broken glass are being laid down on top of the wall, and my school is hiring me a personal guard. I hate that these things are necessary, but if the alternative is moving away from the people I've grown to love and starting all over again, I'll do whatever it takes to avoid that. But, whoever is reading this, please say a little prayer. From the moment I set foot in Fulirwa, I felt that God had hand-picked it just for me. I don't know what I'm going to do if one or two people manage to mess that up.

So there it is, a little bit about a lot that has happened. Today marks 5 whole months of my life in Malawi, which is really crazy, and I'm so excited for all that is to come. A few weeks ago, I became the president of the Peace Corps' Gender and Development committee of the northern region of the country (and, for all of the SE- and Whim-ers who might be reading this, the VP is none other than Miss Meg Watkins - yep, taking women's empowerment to the far reaches of the world), and I really hope that we are able to do great things with that in the coming years. Goodness knows Malawi needs some restructuring of gender roles. Sometimes I feel like I'm walking a tightrope - trying to empower girls and promote equality while dressing like a pilgrim to fit into the community of which I'm now a part. There is certainly plenty to learn, to do, and to experience, and while you'll often hear me complain about missing pizza and hot showers, I'm truly happy to be here and can't wait for all the hard work and good times that I trust are ahead. Speaking of pizza, though, Lilongwe = good food, and it is calling my name! Until next time..

For this part, I’m going to rely heavily on pictures and videos because often words just cannot do justice to these things. To start things off, here is my Malawian host family!

After that photo was taken, the photographer, Will, said, “Okay, FUNNY ONE!” And out came this…

…clearly something got lost in translation.

Here is my amayi carving what is surely the largest papaya in existence:

And here is my family carrying my life on their heads as I leave homestay. I was carrying my purse. And the bottom part of a kerosene lamp. After I dropped the glass part. Yeah.

Here is Will and I, being our true gangster selves:

Will’s commentary: “I love it when we try to be gangsta, because you’re the whitest white girl ever and I look like a monk.” Touché.

Here is Meg, shocked into muppetness at the sight of cheese (a rare commodity in these parts):

Here is Yeager, TAKING OUT a Malawian girl-child during a game of netball:

(Note: in Malawi, all girls shall be referred to as girl-children. Especially when speaking of the illicit love between a teacher and a girl-child.)

Here is the day we learned how to prepare our own malarial blood smears:

Mm. Yeah. Traumatized.

Here is the amazing outfit that Elizabeth’s host family gave her as a parting gift, paired with what Will received when he asked the tailor to make a vest:

And on that note, here is what Vanessa received from her host family, sported here by Big Pimpin’ Ben Ryba:

Here is the great public service announcement on the label for delicious Mzuzu coffee:

“Take is as a necessity STOP! Consuming it for pleasure.” No promises.

Here is the turkey in Shop Rite checked baggage (we later found out it was a PCV who had checked it):

Here is the last truck you want to see sliding off the side of the road:

(In case you can't read it, it is, of course, a sewage truck.)

One night, I was sitting outside taking photos of the sunset as it changed and these goats just could not figure out what I was about. Every time I would turn to the sky, they crept closer, but as soon as I turned back around, they’d freeze. It was ridiculous. Here are a few sequence shots:

And since I mentioned it, here are a few shots of amazing African sunsets:

Aaand moon rising:

*WARNING* The next four shots are graphic. Skip down four photos if you don’t want to see the day we learned to slaughter a chicken. Here we have a live bird:

And then, not so much:

The boys dug right in. I chose to stand back and document the gory details.

On to happier things! Next we have Jerrod giving a condom demonstration on a banana, in Chitumbuka, to an audience of the chiefs, old women, and small children: “Ichi ni vichi? Ntochi yayi! Vibalo banalume! (What is this? Not a banana! A man part!)”

This is the final day of our epic post-site visit trip back to Dedza. This part of the journey occurred after waiting for transport for 6 hours in the Peace Corps office. It also occurred with all of our luggage piled on top of us because it “was going to rain” and they had no tarp to protect our bags on the roof. Notice the sun outside. Yeah, it didn’t rain. Also Meg and Russell’s seat broke off of the wall.

Next we have Will and his counterpart, the latter sporting and epic cowboy hat, on our first trip north. Aww, they’re tired:

Aaand now Will is a pillow:

Here are Russell and Jordan thoroughly enjoying some freshly-chopped sugarcane:

And with that, I introduce the character known as Jordan “J-Train” Harris. Jordan is one of those hilarious, fun-loving people that is always smiling and can let pretty much anything roll off his back. Which makes it so much easier to laugh when he is smiling through giardia, dysentery, a middle of the night killer ant infestation, a sprained ankle, and an eye infection that made his eye swell shut, all during the course of training. In fact, as I write, we are all at our sites and he is in the capital hooked up to an IV for the treatment of this most recent ailment. Tragedy! But I know when he reads this, he’ll be laughing. So here is a section in honor of him. First, Jordan enjoying every last bit of his cheesecake:

Can’t really blame him. Next, Jordan learning to tie a double-windsor. Err, trying..

Third, Jordan and Meg in a head-butting competition (yeah, you read that correctly).

Fourth, Jordan’s swollen eye:

And finally, two clips of Jordan getting DOWN at the Camp SKY disco.

Just wow. But don’t you worry, when Jordan gets off that IV, he’ll be coming for you, Malawi.

In closing, just a few more amazing things I have witnessed and/or been a part of. First, here is a baby goat trying and failing to play with a mother hen:

You gotta give him points for persistence. Next, my two part battle with the largest beetle that I had seen to date (yes, I have since seen bigger):

Third, here is Will attempting to tie me onto his back in a chitenji like a Malawian baby:

And finally, a couple of videos on cultural exchange. During language intensive, we gave presentations at a local village, and we asked the villagers to show us the customary dance of the region. They obliged, but only if we gave them some American dancing in return. Shamefully, this is what we came up with:

There is so much more I want to say/show, but I’ll stop here for now. So to finish it off, here are a few pictures of my education class. First, a handful of us hiking at sunrise. Second, the photo that would surely be our album cover if we were to start a band. Third, a shot of us being sworn in by the U.S. Ambassador. And lastly, just us! Yewo chomene, mose! Khalani makola! Tiwonanenge! (Thank you so much, everyone! Stay well! See you later!)

Wow, it’s hard to believe 10 weeks has come and gone and I have graduated from trainee to volunteer. Sadly, because I wasn’t able to access the internet and blog during training, there are many amazing, ridiculous, and hilarious things that I’m sure will now be excluded from my writing – I did keep a pretty detailed journal, but if I wrote all those niceties on here, you all would close the page just upon seeing the length of this entry (I mean, chances are I’ll look back on this sentence in 12 pages anyway and wonder if I should delete it). So instead I will do my best to touch upon the highlights. So here we go: training – the good, the bad, and the insane. For those of you who don’t want to read the whole thing, I’m going to break this down into two sections: first, today, the actual day-to-day goings on of the past 10 weeks, and then, in my next blog, the ridiculous behind-the-scenes occurrences. After 30-some hours of traveling, we arrived in Dedza, Malawi on Sunday the 27th, 21 trainees strong. We had a week of introductory sessions at the Dedza College of Forestry – everything from technical & teaching to language & culture to basic survival – and then we left for our 6-week homestay experience. Unfortunately our 21 became 20 before the week’s end, but I’m happy to report that that 20 is still solid today! We were split into three villages for homestay – Mpalale, Mzengeresza, and Katsekaminga – all Chichewa-speaking villages in the Dedza region. This was somewhat challenging given that almost half of us were learning Chitumbuka or Chitonga, the languages of the north and of the lakeshore, but nonetheless, I really loved my village stay. I was assigned to Mzengeresza where I lived with the Chiwaula family – mother (amayi) Priscilla, sisters Eliza, 14, and Thoko, 9, and brother, Madalitso, 17 (Madalitso means “blessings” in Chichewa, which is pretty cool). I stayed in a mud hut of my own that had a thatched roof that was home to many earwigs, daddy longlegs, and rats, but luckily the critters were more interested in eating my conditioner than playing with me and we were able to cohabitate peacefully enough. Every night, we would put a mat down on the floor, create a “running water” supply with a pitcher and bowl to wash our hands, say a prayer (sometimes in English, sometimes in Chichewa), and eat with our hands (which was only a struggle when amayi made rice). Most nights we ate nsima, which is basically flour and water boiled into a soft, malleable consistency, and various “ndowo”, or relishes, of meat, vegetables, and/or beans. During these six weeks, I became a teacher! I taught English to about 55 Form 1 students (the American equivalent of high school freshmen), which was definitely intimidating at first, but I grew to really like them. I’m looking forward, though, to really being able to establish relationships with the students at my final site – it’s hard coming in as a sort of long-term substitute. Anyway, most days, we would teach all morning and then go to language class all afternoon. I learned/am learning Chitumbuka (chi = “the language of”, tumbuka = tribal name), which is the common language in the northern region of the country. My language trainer, Fanny, is wonderful and warm and, as much as I love my Malawian amayi, Fanny is definitely like my in-country mom. She’s the one who gives me hugs when my eye goes into spaz-mode and I’m forced to wear a make-shift patch like a second-rate pirate. Oops, maybe I should have saved that story for Part II.. Anyway! Six weeks of homestay came and went, and with three weeks of training left, we all moved back to the college for a crazy series of packing and repacking to travel here, there, and everywhere – to our sites for a visit (mine is about 12 hours north of the training center), to the capital for Thanksgiving at the Ambassadors (10 hours south again), to our various regions for a language intensive training period (12 hours north again), back to the capital for Camp SKY – the education camp put on by the first year ed volunteers (aaand 10 hours south), back to Dedza for wrap-up this-and-that, one last trip to the capital for final sessions and shopping for our new homes, and finally, to our sites! I was really sad to leave my buddies from training, but it will definitely be nice to be in one place for awhile! And luckily I’m really close to Meg (yeah, Peace Corps really does think we’re married) and my favorite gangsta-monk, Will, and there are a handful of others within a few hours in any direction. I don’t think I’m supposed to put any details about my site in a public forum for safety purposes (PC regulation), but I can say that I LOVE it. It’s hotter than HOT where I am because I’m near the lakeshore, but I’m also pressed up against the mountains of the biggest national park in Malawi – I mean, I texted the PC education director, Dora, as soon as I got here to say THANK YOU. From the few days that I’ve spent here, I have really no doubt that God hand-picked this place for me. My school (and home!) was built by World Vision (my favorite!), and not only am I the only English teacher on staff (and by staff I mean 6, including me), I’m the only female teacher on staff – and not just now, but in the history of my school. There is definitely a lot of pressure, but also just so much opportunity to do good work during my time here. I hope and pray that I can do it! But before things get too heavy, I'll leave it at that. And next time, the funnier side of Peace Corps Malawi…

The countdown begins - this time tomorrow, I'll be boarding a plane to fly to staging! This should mean that I am bit by bit packing the last odds and ends away and checking those last minute things off of my list. What it means instead, though, is that I am stress-eating an entire box of Special K Red Berries. AHH! TOMORROW! I need to get over this incapacitation stat, or else I'm going to show up missing something huge. Like all of my underwear. And that will suck.

Before I go, a short list of things I'm going to miss (note: the first thing on this list is of course each and every person who has access to this blog. But that's just so much more weighty to read about than my replacement number one, which is..):

FROZEN YOGURT! How will I live without thee?

Iced Coffee! (Iced anything, to be fair)

Air conditioning

Showers (of the non-solar bag variety)

The ability to drink tap water

The existence of a tap from which to drink water

All of the Jerry Bruckheimer murder mystery shows

The proximity of Borders

Driving my car

Walking my doggy

Not worrying about Malaria medication

Salads

Soy milk

Starbucks

Wearing shorts

Blow-dryers

Understanding the native language

Living on a coast

Okay, there are many, MANY more, but I'm going to go now, and immediately put my underwear in my suitcase.

In February of 2009, I finally received my long-awaited Peace Corps invitation and accepted my placement - come June, my new home would be in Mauritania. If I'm being honest, I wasn't immediately excited about this assignment, but over the next few months, I wrapped my mind around it and started to get pumped for what this new life would bring. May arrived, and I ran around knocking things off of the enormous packing list I'd received and then I did what, for me, was the unthinkable - PACKED EARLY. A week before I was scheduled to leave, I was almost entirely ready, an unprecedented situation in the life of Ashley Day. And then a Washington DC number showed up on the caller ID...

Long story short, my group was delayed, kind of indefinitely. In August of 2008, a coup took place in Mauritania (a very peaceful one, supposedly - another volunteer in country joked that it is simply too hot there to riot). But as a result of the overturned government, the Peace Corps had been unsuccessful in their attempt to secure our visas (we we're not denied visas, there was apparently just no response to the request). So my group of hopeful-soon-to-be volunteers was placed in what I came to know as "limbo." The Peace Corps informed us that elections would be taking place in Mauritania later in the summer, and that hopefully the newly-elected government would be more responsive.

Sadly, though, the situation in-country began to decline, and my group was split up and reassigned before those elections even came to pass. On June 23rd, an American aid worker who had been living in Mauritania with his family for six years, was shot dead in the streets of Nouakchott. Later that week, Al Qaeda claimed responsibility for the shooting. Apparently the man had been speaking to two locals about Christianity. My group was informed that we would not be going to Mauritania two days after the shooting, and by the end of the month, most of us had new assignments in hand. At first, I was anxious and upset about having to change my placement after having adjusted to my original assignment. And receiving news that Malawi was my new Mauritania, I didn't know how to feel about just how different this new path would be - originally a Health volunteer in a French-speaking country, I had taken certification classes in HIV/AIDS education and poured over Rosetta stone, only to be reassigned as a Secondary English Educator in a country with no French ties (and sadly, there is no Rosetta Stone in Chichewa). But after a summer of readjusting my expectations, I'm happy to say that I could not be more excited for Malawi. I'm hoping that my position as a teacher will give me a platform to effect change in many different ways, and I can't wait to start exploring what is so fondly referred to as "the warm heart of Africa."

Tragically, the situation in Mauritania has continued to unravel. In early August, the first suicide bombing in the country's history prompted the Peace Corps' removal of all Mauritania volunteers. From what I gather, most of the volunteers who had their service interrupted felt safe and comfortable in their communities, and were devastated that the actions of extremists had such consequences for so many. The Peace Corps has maintained positive relations with Mauritania for almost 40 years now. Hopefully the program can be reinstated soon. In the meantime, I'm just thankful that God kept us all safe, and I'm moving full-steam ahead with my new African "M" country (fingers crossed that I receive no DC phone calls in the next two days). I'm sure my job and my life there will come with their fair share of challenges, but I can't help but feel like this is exactly where I'm supposed to be.