“Your judgment day is here,” sneered the guard. He was quite proud of his position as sole gatekeeper. Thazima gate obstructed the only road into Nyika and the only way back out of the wilderness into civilization. He retained the power of permission and though a fool, he was a prideful and well-ranked fool. The gate was always closed and though he rarely inspected passing vehicles, he had made a particular habit of stopping foreigners. Falsified park entrance fees can be embezzled from even the most well-read travelers. You can’t blame a man for trying. It was Saturday and he was out of uniform on duty, which was unfortunate today, of all days. For today, a poacher in a vehicle full of foreigners had been brought to his gate. What to do? Aggressively jabbing the poacher’s shoulder through the window, questioning him, had not satisfied the appetite. No, he craved a more drastic gesture, worthy of his rank. In skinny blue jeans and a checkered blue short-sleeve shirt, he sauntered to the back door and hopped in. Squatting on the spare Landcruiser tire, the continued interrogation of the poacher provided mere meek responses. Still not enough. The hunger for power turned his insides until he back handed the poacher in the face. The man cowered into the back of the seat, protecting his head under his hand-cuffed arms, writhing in fear of being hit again. Enough. Adrenaline and euphoria coursed through his veins and satisfaction warmed the muscles under his face.

Why did I say nothing?

We hadn’t seen any animals for miles; the plains seemed void of life. Someone had been through there earlier. Controlled burns and invasive grass species left patterned markings on the hills. It seemed like the drive would never end; hill after hill, the tall pines of Chilenda eventually disappeared into the horizon. We stood in the back, clinging to the cab, as the Landcruiser shuddered over the dirt road. Maxon sat behind us, on the back wheel, in his new blue work suit. Another man contained the unfastened, clanking shovels with his feet. Brino scrutinized the landscape, perched on the edge of the bed, clutching the M16 against his calf. The safety was on. It wasn’t until we had reached the Juniper forests that the men jumped up behind us, hollering into the distance, pointing and yelling at two obscure dots scurrying over the hills about kilometer away. Poachers. The vehicle jerked to a halt and the dust trail amassed a cloud in the rear. The men behind us hopped out in a frenzy, pointing into the distance and commenting to each other. Geoff scurried out of the passenger seat and pulled out his camera from the satchel. The three of us scanned the distance in confusion trying to discern what all the commotion was about. For a moment, everything was quiet as we watched, broken only by Patsy’s inquisition from the driver’s seat.

Brino fired three rounds into the air. Unsilenced, coupled with the side-effects of an old weapon, the shot rung in our ears. The sound echoed throughout the plains for a long moment. One of the dots vanished into a patch of forest and the other ran over the side of the hill. Geoff had missed the thrill of the action and asked Brino to fire again, this time on camera. Two more shots pierced an invisible enemy in the sky. In a flash of fire the moment passed, blood coursed back to a constant pace. The dots had escaped out of sight and everyone boarded the vehicle. Brino unclipped the magazine and mechanically removed the bullet in the chamber, pushing it firmly into the clip. Maxon was smiling as the others commented excitedly about the sighting. Once we reached the edge of the Juniper forest, Brino led a party into the hills to search for any remaining poachers or any meat they may have left behind in frightened haste. They walked over the hill and disappeared only to return an hour later valiantly escorting a man with a feeble demeanor, his hands tied with shoe laces and trailed by a flour sack full or orchid roots. They sat together on the rocks by the creek recounting the catch to an eager audience, followed by a photo shoot. The photos reminded me of those taken after a successful animal kill.

We are often delighted by learning what we don’t know. One of our most human faults is believing what we’re told, information we ingest for lack of interest in the truth or a fear of further complicating life. Every story has three sides: his, hers, and the truth. And in no place on earth is that more accurate than here: a story is more than just a tale of a sequence of events; it is someone’s truth, someone’s belief. It is easy to believe poachers are bad people that hunt and deplete the abundant natural life in the plateau. It is easy to believe rangers are knights of nature, protecting defenseless creatures and plants. It is easy to side with what the village perceives as good in the fight against what the village perceives as evil. After all, “thou shalt not steal,” right? Officers and villagers believe you have God on your side, ammunition powered by the great Unknown, expelling enemies with the aim of the angels themselves. But where does God reside in the villages bordering the protected areas? In the CCAP church? The Catholic? The Seventh Day Adventist? One would hope that the faith of the congregations in Phoka is equally as good and innocent as the faith of the congregations in Chilenda. This isn’t a battle between good and evil. In truth, it is much simpler than the complex and contorted reasoning people construe to actions driven by desperation.

It is a war, like any other war: fought for purposes unclear and problems inevitably unsolvable by violence or taking prisoners. Rangers, backed by the Malawi government and various western wildlife NGOs, on one side and the elusive, poverty-stricken, poachers on the other. The rangers seem out of place against the vast grandeur of the plains in their vehicles and weaponry. Though, any human presence seems out of place in these lands. The rangers are technically armies, military trained and armed with the aim of catching or eliminating poachers. Originally a program piloted in Kenyan parks, armed rangers have become a norm in parks throughout sub-Saharan Africa, though much seems to have been lost in translation. A poacher catch has numerous benefits to park officers: expensed trip to Rumphi to submit all necessary paper work and registering the criminal into jail, free meals expensed at the most expensive Rumphi restaurant, perhaps a night stay (should the paperwork take longer than anticipated), perhaps some allowances, and an opportunity for shopping with free transport home. Officers and rangers are taught that poachers are scum, sub-human enemies worthy of mistreatment and abuse. With an expensed kicker, this isn’t a fight for the wildlife; it’s a fight for their livelihoods, protecting a way of life rising up to the highest ranks of government.

About fifty kilometers oriental of Chilenda is Phoka. Phoka, like many other villages along the northern border in Chitipa, is home to many poachers. Skilled hunters and laborers that design and produce some of the most intricate and beautiful weaponry in Malawi. Some of the confiscated guns, bows and arrows, made entirely of locally scavenged materials, rival fine occidental arms. The poachers journey into the heart of the plateau by foot, tracking to kill reedbucks, bushbucks, perhaps roan and elon, or to harvest orchid roots and flowers, which they carry back. The meat is then sold and consumed locally, while the orchids are sold in a linked trade route smuggling them through Chitipa into Tanzania. Each journey is not an aimless hunt; it is a calculated risk of one’s life and the livelihood of one’s family. In one of the toughest years for tobacco and a country ranked among worst poverty-stricken nations, poaching isn’t a hobby or a spare source of income, it is a necessity. Some poachers are shot, killed, and injured, along with many rangers, in gun-fire battles or ambushes. Many more are caught and imprisoned in Rumphi. They pay hefty fines or bribes and return to their villages, their families, make new weapons and try again. More carefully next time. People aren’t inherently bad; it’s the world that makes them that way. Somehow, we forget that because it is much easier to assume otherwise. It makes our lives simpler.

But who am I write about good and evil? When a man was being mistreated, even though a criminal by law, I did nothing. I said nothing. Am I not equally as guilty and malicious as the officers that abuse their powers or poachers that destroy wildlife? I sat there with a dumbfounded look of indecisive bewilderment on my face, akin to that of a fool, as a man cowered into the back of my seat. I glanced to the rear, never turning around. I looked to Zebra to my left and Bear to my right, as if asking: what should we do? What should I do? It was dark and cold by the time we returned to Chilenda with the poacher. He was to be transported to Rumphi in the morning. For the night he was placed in the care of Brino, a humble, quiet ranger. Brino escorted him to his house, shared a meal of rice and relish with him at the dining table with his family, and provided him a warm place to sleep. In the morning, while transport was being arranged with the necessary paper work, officers came to offer their astute advice. Jarvis, the head of Peace Parks, an NGO solely dedicated to the eradication of poaching, had come to check on the prisoner and to his astonishment found Brino and the poacher eating breakfast together at the family table. Furious, he lectured Brino on his imprudence and shoved the poacher to the floor. Once he recovered, crawling to a corner of the room, Jarvis harangued him: “You are a poacher; you don’t eat at the table, like humans. You eat on the floor, like an animal.”

The solution is not perpetuating an expensive war between poachers and rangers. Obvious, yet it’s the only program in place. Also well-known is that the solution is providing sustainable livelihoods for citizens in communities bordering the national park. If they had a way to support and feed their families without taking on the risk of poaching, they would do so. In addition, implementing wildlife protection programs that include border communities, providing them compensatory benefits for increased tourism in the park, instead of banning them, would render costly government efforts needless.

My yard in the dry season is decrepit, exactly as it was this time last year. The grass fence I had built during the rains has fallen apart, except for the sections near the front of the house. Pigs, goats, chickens, guinea foul, dogs, cats, pigeons, winds and children each played their part in the inevitable demise of the little semblance of privacy. Gaps turned to passageways, turned to missing sections, turned to fire kindling. It doesn’t matter anymore really. Things from the earth here have a tendency to ultimately return to the earth. There are about five pigs and piglets scurrying about my back door at the moment, oinking, snorting, whining in search of food. The Zyambo’s livestock seem to grow in number exponentially with each passing month, most endearingly evidenced by the increasing number of guinea foul banging and squawking on my tin roof at five in the morning and the farm animal accopela in the yard. It’s humoring to waste hours watching the animals scuttle about the yard, interacting with each other without a care in the world. Especially the mother hen and her line of chicks in close pursuit. Equally humoring are the spastic, alien geckos watching vigilantly from the rafters, as if in a constant state of panic and anxiety.

There is a banana tree in my yard, between the kitchen and a decrepit piece of fence adjacent to the Zyambo’s bafa. Its leaves hang over the trash pit and it’s managed to grow abundantly during my service. A testament of resilience, having survived dry seasons, flocks of farm animals, my general lack of knowledge and interest in gardening, and a burning trash pit. It’s still the only green growing in an otherwise dry, barren environment. A channel of water leads from the drain of the Zyambo’s bafa to the base of the banana tree, keeping it constantly watered. About two months ago two large flowers of bananas appeared and the burgundy purple flowers at their ends fell shortly after. Benedicto informed me that they should start ripening within a week or so, as all the water was now feeding just the fruit. Weeks passed into months and the unripe green bananas clung stubbornly to their stems. They did not even slightly shade yellow, instead remaining a lush green. We can’t figure out why. It’s as if after expending months of effort in fruiting they just gave up, so near the end. It’s as if they thought: what’s the point in ripening, in completing a cycle, when we can just cling verdantly to this tree, ever fed by water and still face a similar fate? Perhaps they are tired, or perhaps they need to have their faith restored; that by ripening they will feed a mouth, improve a life even if only for a moment. So near the end they simply have to turn and while they may be eaten by an unscrupulous goat or never appreciated, they will have finished what they started. More than what most can say for a lifetime.

Bear (Wellesley) recommended putting them in a sealed plastic bag, so I picked four of them and tied them up in a People’s jumbo. Last Saturday, we threw a month-belated birthday party for Bear. Belated because we were both at Kamp Kwacha and Zebra’s mom and sister were visiting. It was a celebration of surprisingly good success; she seemed happy and liked the food. We made burgers, luckily procuring ground beef at Rumphi Metro, and fries, with plenty of Greens – one of several of Bear’s favorite meals. And Zebra and I baked successfully on our own, on a mud fire stove, for the first time. We made yellow cake, from scratch, filled it with custard and topped with a chocolate icing improvised from a Hershey’s chocolate bar from a parcel and milk, icing sugar, and Blue Band. Zebra carved a birthday candle out of a large Moonlight and I topped the whole thing of with crushed macadamia nuts. We were trying to replicate a Boston crème cake with what we had and quite proud of it. A slice of home for Bear, one of the best people I know, probably my closest friend who knows everything about me, who cares unconditionally, loves almost limitlessly, and melts even the most hardened of moods with her mischievous big blue eyes and a laugh as infectious and delightful as her smile.

With one camp successfully over, planning begins for the next camp. The inaugural Kamp Kwacha was a success. Hobbit handled all the logistics and I handled all the curriculum and classes. Together, the camp was near perfect; not a single hitch that wasn’t easily solved. Zebra, Bear and I are hosting an all new, revamped, restructured, and renamed environmental camp, now called Camp RENEW (Revitalize, Enlighten, and Nurture Environmental Wellness). It will be hosted at Chilenda Camp, as before, but the camp will be molded on the Kamp Kwacha model: few students, more interactive sessions, more difficult material, and better food. We want to provide a greater variety of knowledge, at a faster pace, to a more selective group of top students. With about eight staff members for twenty students, we provide greater attention for each student. We will teach topics ranging from environmental protection to business to building local windmills. And as essential to any good camp and happy students, the quality and variety of food will be better (especially if we can secure a particular local chef who previously served as chef to the French embassy). All of these qualities are the opposite of the current Peace Corps camp models, which prefer many students (upwards of 80), leading to less learning, attention, course offerings and general enjoyment.

Due to recent political events, a long string of occurrences in the government, police have set up two to three times more road blocks. Also, fines and bribes have nearly doubled. There is a particular police squad in Bolero that stops every matola heading to and from Rumphi boma. These matolas are used only by villagers and each stop takes up to two hours because the fine is MK 7,000, as matolas are illegal, though the only mode of transport in rural Malawi. No matola can ever pay; they do not even have enough customers to cover fuel costs. The poor eat the poor and those that are given even a little power will abuse it to harm their neighbors and friends to feel more powerful. The selfish nature of mankind.

I have grown to hate these police, their obnoxious mannerisms, the way they require drivers and citizens to cower before them and pay whatever money they have.

What’s truly infuriating is that the same police ride matolas to get home, or on their days off to get to town. I physically shudder with anger when I see them or think of them. Last week, I was on an afternoon matola travelling to Bolero from Rumphi. We stopped in Chikwawa and three corpulent Bolero traffic policemen stumbled out of a bottle store, drunk at half past noon, and boarded the matola to go home. They were done for the day having spent all the matola bribe money collected since the morning. The matola dropped one at home, another at a bottle store in bolero and the third at the station.

One morning, they stopped a Mwazisi matola and held it up for two hours. I had thoughts, horrifying thoughts, anger, rage that I did not know I was capable of. There was a woman in the matola, very ill and in pain. Her family was taking her to the hospital in Rumphi on the only transport available to villagers. The ambulance is flaky at best and would not pass through till much later. We waited in the morning sun that grew hotter with each passing minute. We waited as the driver cowered and begged the officer to let him pass for a lower fee. I felt such sympathy for the woman while at the same time feeling such violent hatred for the police.

The system is corrupt and in the end it is people, ordinary citizens, poor villagers that suffer. It’s maddening but unfortunately that’s the case all over the world. The rich, the political, the powerful rarely understand or care for the plight of the citizens or poor they swear to protect. Power corrupts all and harms the people. Just like I am capable of the duality so are other volunteers who have shared their horror at the violent thoughts they conjure here. So are the policemen that take bribes, let their fellow farmers, their physical neighbors, suffer and still go home to their families. It’s sickening but it is our nature: a duality of love and hate, and while we try to embrace the former, our natural instincts pull us back into balance.

“I am in a world of shit, yes, but I am alive and I am not afraid.”

There is something frightening I fear in myself. A force equally as potent as the capacity for love: the capacity for hate. A dark face that lurks unnervingly below the surface: powerful, exciting, and alluring in its shroud. I’m thinking of all violence happening this very moment and that has happen in every moment before it, stretching back to the very beginning.

I remember growing up on violent video games, despite the stern protest of my parents. As a child, and more so as a young man, I craved and was addicted to the feeling of power, even false power: to have God-like control over the fate of animated armies or selecting the most pleasurable weapon with which to bludgeon an alien foe (a brut hammer).

I vividly recall the first time I played video games. It was in Perth, at a friend’s house. He was blasting through monsters in Duke Nukem’s pixilated palace of pain, scoffing at squares of blood that would spray everywhere. “The best is the rocket launcher,” he said eagerly as he keyed a weapon swap. He burst into a boisterous fit of laughter when the missile round expelled the monster into a fountain of red. Fortunately, he was too preoccupied with his own victory, and perhaps too young and insecure himself, to notice the horrified expression on my face.

We are trained for violence from a young age and it appears in a multitude of forms. As boys we battle aliens, protecting our planet, our families. As young men, we’re educated in the history of war and of the valiant soldiers. As men we are expected to fight for our country or cause as the highest order of honor. Men are to be quiet fortresses: strong, brave, and inclined to violence in the fight for good.

But what war is good? Give me a cause worth its weight in blood and I will gladly, and fearfully, march into battle. Since the existence of mankind we have stabbed, shot, chopped, raped, pillaged each other to what end? It is the same violence repeated in the name of religion, land, culture, vengeance or whatever reason in vogue during the century. We are wired with such potential for both good and evil: our minds powerful enough to skew reality, to forget and rewrite the same history.

It’s disconcerting because I have genetically inherited that ability. Here, frustrated by politics, corruption, and a tightening police force, thoughts are finding solace in the euphoria of violence. Violent revenge in the name of citizens that needlessly suffer under the rule of a growingly stubborn tyrant. The need to revolt, to spark a revolution is strong, but what will it achieve? More violence, killing and the fate of every other unstable African state.

Why do I feel strongly for innocent villagers? Are they so innocent? Aren’t they just like the Germans, the Croats, the Serbs, the Muslim Americans: innocent citizens? The people that simply let violence and corruption happen, buying into the national rhetoric? Why don’t they say stop? Why do the masses allow themselves to be fooled by higher powers and then brood vengeance against an enemy they manifested?

Perhaps people are no more than children witnessing a violent game: instinctively want to turn away and say this is wrong, yet cannot form the words. They fear being ridiculed, abandoned, and ultimately alone. Either you are with us or against us. You aren’t a real man if you oppose violence. I’ve seen enough commercials for the Marines. Enough movies like Rambo glorifying war. Enough talk of the allure of uniform. These are forces that ultimately form boys into the men that shape this planet.

A few months ago I couldn’t sleep. We were in Monkey Bay to celebrate Dirty’s birthday and we went big the previous night, pig roast and all. Shingles slept in until late into the morning, but I lay watching the sunrise over the lake through the straw covered windows. When she stirred awake she saw me lying, staring at the space in front of my eyes. She put a concerned hand on my chest and asked “what’re you thinking about?” I told her my mind was wandering, disconcertedly drifting through the past from one thought to the next memory. I always rein it in, but this morning I let it wander. “Do you like thinking about the past?” “No,” I lied. I do like the past, it is in a way comforting and soothing to see your life pieced together from today. The future is frightening in its unpredictability, which only provokes my need to plan and plan. The warmth of memories keeps me sane and I find solace in them during gray days. I only restrain them because I’m afraid. Some memories still have a singe of pain and a mere flash image, a millisecond of thought, can trigger the degradation of all thought and I fear my naïve memory may slip in to such an abyss. What I did not tell her was that that morning I wasn’t afraid, because she was there and the safety of arms were only a glance away.

Wind

The Killers came on, All These Things That I’ve Done, from the Hot Fuss album, if I remember correctly. KISS 108 promised all the latest hits commercial free and was the most popular station in New England. I can’t remember what month it was, but it was cold out. We sprinted out of the movie theatre and took shelter in her car, blasted the heating and huddled until the dry air warmed the interior. What movie was it? The memory has holes. It was sophomore year, must’ve been near winter. She was using her family’s car, a big Toyota SUV that took some time to warm up. She made me laugh and I enjoyed her company. We pulled out on to Rt. 9E to drop me off at Bentley first and then she would head back to Wellesley. I remember the roar of the engine as she accelerated down the highway. It was late and the lights from the dashboard illuminated our faces and she was dancing while driving. When the song came on she turned up the volume dial and began singing along. She looked at me smiling the words and I laughed. We never really spoke after that and had awkward interactions. We both needed something that night, the companionship of someone outside of our worlds, yet someone not entirely unfamiliar. She never called and I never bothered to write. I will always remember her singing in that car:

“Help me out. You know you gotta help me out. Don’t you put me on the backburner.”

Almost three years later she was working in San Francisco and I foolishly stayed in Boston. We began emailing each other from work; casually discussing life after school, building what I realize now was a kind of relationship that stems from loneliness. New graduates living and working in a city; on our own for the first time. But I’ll never understand why we took comfort in each other, why not someone else? We were both close to our families and had plenty of friends nearby. Why reach out across a continent? Perhaps we were trying to prove we could handle this growing up business and wanted to show our family and friends we were independent. Emails became letters. Letters often became phone calls, a little after midnight when I got out of work and she was still up. I used to look forward to those phone calls exhausted from work, having no personal interactions for weeks, walking out into a dark empty city, walking into an empty apartment. Her cheeriness and humor were lined with sadness, but it was enough, we didn’t feel alone and fell asleep happy with our phones by the pillow. Then it just stopped. I don’t remember how or when, but I guess we both got what we needed and didn’t need it anymore.

We haven’t talked since. I think she’s married now.

Water

I dubbed her the Little Navigator. She sat in the passenger seat fumbling with a giant map unfolding New Jersey, New York, Connecticut and fringes of the surrounding states. We were somewhere in Edison searching for parking so we could eat. We were on the hunt for a particularly large and delicious masala dosa, along with an order of chaat masala and two glasses of falooda. Having received a speeding ticket weeks earlier, I was quite content idling in the back lot of a strip mall. She was getting hungry. We did this a lot that summer, driving around together for food, picnics, IKEA, movies, malls, more food. By some chance of fate we ended up at the same firm and later that summer another turn of fate prematurely ended the lease on my sublet in Trumbull. I had no place to live and another month and a half remained on my internship. She happen to start her job that week and so I moved to Stamford. I remember how nervous I was asking.

“Hey, so my sublet for the summer ended, they finished rotations early so they’re leaving.”

“Did she ever give you back the money?”

“No, won’t return calls or emails, I think she’s gone. But I was wondering if…if it’s alright if I stay with you for a little while? I have no…”

“Dooks! Of course you can stay. I was hoping you would stay.”

“Thanks, it’ll just be till the end of the summer.”

“So...I was going to ask you anyway. Didn’t know how you’d feel.”

Her parents didn’t approve of my early graduation gift. I immediately handed the keys back to my parents when I opened the box. However, they would not have it. This was a gift to their son, the first in the family to graduate from college in America, the result of more opportunities than they ever had. We drove around in it all summer, at least until her father made a snarky comment about how parents shouldn’t give expensive gifts to children. She defended my family arguing that they gave it out of love and a want to provide all the best things for their children. I was furious. My parents had nothing growing up and now, in America, they still have little, but provide the world to us. Even if we refuse. And we always refuse. Who was this shmuck to criticize my family? I eventually convinced my parents to take the car, claiming high fuel costs shuttling back and forth from Randolph to Stamford to Shrewsbury. I took the old Corolla and we still took road trips. Scenic drives down CT-15, connecting I-84 to I-90, and coming home to Stamford. Coming home. A home we made together for a brief moment of existence.

It’s was a strange realization the other night. To think that some of my fondest memories, some of my happiest moments, took place in cars, buses, vans, trains, planes with girls. Transient places where thoughts fall in order, where, according to Alain de Botton, thought is clearest and truly free. Though my friends ridicule me, these modes of transport are where I feel safe, comfortable and at home. That is why I sleep so deeply and so instantly in vehicles. Perhaps it’s the result of growing up always moving and now home is movement. And beyond the mere purr of the engine or the rhythm of the tracks, it’s also a false sense of stopping time. The world moves past you, yet you remain stationary in a capsule, safe and carefree. She makes it all the more precious, for not only have you stopped time, but you aren’t alone, vanquishing both time and solitude: our two greatest foes. Free of obligations of place or time, you are in movement not belonging to any singular place or falling victim to the effects and sense of time. A keen awareness of physical movement but unaware of direction or minutes expended. Like chasing the sun in a plane without a clock. Isn’t that what we all want? To find the love of our lives and once found to stop time for eternity? And if not eternity, at least for the length of a bus ride.

There is no sensation that compares to opening a fresh batch of homemade awakayi (well, a close second is opening a fresh bottle of Sriracha after two years). Awakayi has so much more attached to it than mere deliciousness, nostril-pleasing aroma of spices and pickled mango, and saliva-inducing red chutney drowning in marinating oils.

Beyond the sensual symptoms are the memories of clay pots of pickle, my grandmother preparing large vats of spices for the family, and eating it with everyone on banana leaves. For most, awakayi is just another exotic chutney from Patek’s or a mild achaar. But to my family it’s in our blood, from infant to adult there is not a single meal without a jar of grandmother’s awakayi. When a pot of pickle is finished cooking all of us: cousins, nieces, brothers, sisters, crowd the stove to get first dibs. Once the pickle is transferred to jars, cooked rice is thrown into pot and mixed with the remnants along the walls and bottom. This is the best serving of pickle as it is fresh and mixed with hot rice and the flavor that only comes from eating out of a pot. Our grandmother would hand feed each of us, one by one, and we would fight over who got seconds.

These are the memories that came to mind as I opened my last and only bag of awakayi. Sealed in three air tight containers to ensure freshness and prevent leakage, I surgically removed each bag. I didn’t want even a drop of oil wasted. I patiently poured it into a Blue Band container and put hot rice in the bag. It was no clay pot, but this is Africa, close enough. My mouth watered as the smell filled the kitchen and the white basmati slowly turned a vibrant, deep red. Memories were overrun by a grumbling stomach, but I could not rush. No, this had to be savored. Such treats are few and far between. I scrapped every last bit of pickle and every grain of rice out of the bag and onto a plate and washed my hands at the basin. There it was, my favorite dish, served the only way I like it.

My grandmother always scolded my taste in food, claiming I liked poor people food too much. She accused my mother of the same tastes when she was growing up. What do the impoverished eat in a small Indian village? Rice mixed with raw chili powder, salt and oil. Rice with pickle. On a good day, rice with a curry gravy. Little vegetables and rarely any protein. My second favorite is rice with chili powder, oil and salt. In fact, just writing it is making my mouth water. So what if the poor enjoy these dishes? Doesn’t make them bad. It’s simple, delicious, and as I would realize later, perfect for the bachelor diet. Who needs nutrients? Better an addiction to absurdly spicy, yet simple, food than some other vice.

When my parents came to visit they brought, literally, three giant cardboard boxes of food. Every prized American treat was now in a cardboard cube in my house. Of course, these were non-perishable treats sealed air-tight and bursting with traditional American high-fructose corn syrup. Rows of Cheetohs galore, bags of Snickers, cans of Pringles, boxes of Indian food mixes, enough Maggie to put a desi college sophomore to shame and sachets of instant curries. And the best part: triple-sealed containers of pickles and spiced lentil powder mixes. It was like Christmas morning during the best market year in five decades. Every imaginable treat was at my finger tips.

So, I did what I’m best at: eat. Eat, get dizzy from the spice, rapidly suck air to cool my tongue, pass out, and do it again. My happiest memories in college were picking up a tub of Ben & Jerry’s at Harry’s, going back to her dorm and making the spiciest curry imaginable (usually chana), then eat, suffer in pain, cry, laugh, swear like a sailor, lose sanity, and wash it down with mint-Oreo goodness. You would think we would have learned our lesson, but addiction is an ardent ailment. While almost all other students were experimenting the limits of BALs and any smokable foliage, we sat on a couch and ate food that would induce pain and joy at the same time. It was a high unlike any other.

After eating and sharing it with other volunteers I have managed to level inventories to half of one box, plus a smaller box full of candy and snacks. An impressive feat.

“You are too mobile,” scolded Mrs. Gondwe. For three weeks the primary school had no headmistress, and though she had returned only yesterday, she was already about the yard twisting laundry. Her left leg was still swollen and she limped when she walked. For three weeks she was bedridden at St. John’s, a new hospital built across from the airfield. It was a beautiful addition to the dirt strip off the M1, but not uncommon as Mzuzu was a growing city bustling with new constructions. Afumu was sitting under the vines when he proudly introduced me to their son, my brother, a student at the Malawi College of Accountancy, currently visiting on holiday. Strange we had not met till today. It was Sunday and the dry season heat was rising with the morning sun.

She reluctantly dropped the pair of trousers in the basin and walked slowly to a chair under the vine shade. The severe pneumonia left her but the high blood pressure had to be constantly monitored. She struggled to settle in the blue plastic chair. Afumu Gondwe put the leather chief chair out instructing me to sit on the chieftainship. I sat and inquired on her condition. She said that it had been a terrible three weeks and she was in a lot of pain. “I saw heaven, but God returned me back here,” she said with a sting of despair. Sadness was draped over her face, a sadness that rose from an inability to understand God, to come to terms with his judgment. She didn’t want to be here anymore, life had taken its tolls and she spoke of her return dripping with such disdain.

Mwana Wane. This is our child. That is how Mr. and Mrs. Gondwe always introduce me to others. What can a child do for such sadness? Our time on earth is short, though perhaps for many it’s too long. “No more salt and sugar, take lots of walks,” I prescribed hopelessly. Things have taken a turn for the worse in Malawi. People are desperate for money and hope is being sucked out though a national straw to the very top. The village has changed, despair blows violently in the dry winds leaving a thick air of tension in its wake. Tobacco sales have plummeted after a large buyer moved its operations to Zimbabwe citing lack of cooperation from the government. The UK, Germany and Norway have all pulled aid from the country citing human rights violations and governance issues.

The Global Fund has ceased funding to Malawi. ARVs will soon be cut as the country will not meet testing requirements. A ripple effect of the flight of NGOs and businesses has been triggered. Many Indian businessmen are closing shop, moving back home or to the US to start new businesses. NGOs are following suit or slashing their budgets. There are fuel lines stretching kilometers down roads in Lilongwe. Diesel and petrol are scarce and the national highways are empty. New roadblocks were built to collect more fines and bribes while the new budget, to accommodate for missing aid, has placed new taxes on basic necessities. A loaf of bread jumped from MK 100 to MK 140 overnight.

Mrs. Gondwe was right. I have been too mobile the past two months. Though my community is still somehow managing to get by, I have been away with a heavy dose of guilt. I miss home, but camp preparations and VAC duties have kept me in Lilongwe. To supplement it are a long list of little things that just need to be done. I’m afraid I will be away again until September for camp and my sister and Henry are visiting. My futile efforts will not change Malawi, nor will they alleviate the burdens of a tightening government in the grand theatre of global economic turmoil. But I keep telling myself: I’m doing what I can with what I have. It’s not enough, but it’s something. As long as I stay away from uninformed psycho Canadian women, I cannot give up.

It seems that throughout history the multitudes always suffer at the hands of few.

Centaurus has returned to the night sky, for some time now. He humbly guards over the Southern Cross, his sword ever ready to strike the glowing heart Antares should Scorpio lay siege. The scorpion waits patiently, his tail wound around the center of the galaxy, drifting across the celestial sphere, with his red heart exposed to the universe. To lose the Cross is to lose our bearing, our sense of time and place, and the heavens will fall to the Earth. Without a South, there is no North. Is he aware of the utter chaos that would ensue from his folly? His heart glows red, a star so far away that burns with such intensity, does it overpower his mind? Perhaps he has no mind. Perhaps he only attacks because the centaur defends.

On the Earth, among mortals, the Specter has returned. You cannot see her except for in times of darkness, when sadness engulfs the world. Until then she drifts under the opera of the heavens. She seems to be endeared by this season of death, though it only comes once a year, for she leaves her world far across the seas to merely pass through our world. She likes to watch the green life wither from grass and the fields burn to charred remains. One can never understand her fascination with Death, though it was Death that untimely took her without reason. Some say she is love with Death and comes once a year to secretly witness his life. But I disagree; I think she comes to watch the world die.

The next two months will be incredibly hectic. Getting things ready for Kamp Kwacha in July, then a VAC meeting, my sister and Henry are visiting in August, and camp begins as soon as they leave. September is the island in the distance and the seas are growing rough. I am ready to come home and reclaim the semblance of a life I have left. There are many things that have changed in me. I have learned to be realistic and not a daydreaming fool. I have learned that one can’t evade Death, he comes when he desires at on one’s convenience. And with Death around any corner, I think every day of what’s important.

My family. My friends back home. My memories.

I have also discovered that we never really fall from innocence, it simply secludes itself into protection. People never really grow up. In better words, there is no growing up; there is a layering of defenses to protect that child inside. The mischievous one that can love and hurt unconditionally. That needs attention, caring and love yet yearns to be free and explore a world of senses. I get satisfaction from thinking of myself as mature and grown up, but I too am only protecting a jealous child who is afraid of being alone and the dark. That sometimes wants to destroy life without thought but loves intensely because he knows of no other love. Impulsive and desires to explore the world without straying too far from home. This is the child I fear, love and protect.

I miss her more than ever, I don’t know why. It seems that in times of sadness my mind drifts to a happier time in a happier place. I don’t think of what happen anymore; no longer try to decipher a female mind. It does not matter and even if I do try I cannot remember anymore. But the happy memories are enough. They are a shining light in the darkest of my days and without them I would be lost. So no matter the pain, the tears, the utter hopelessness that ensued, it was the gift of these memories I am grateful for. Wherever I am, whoever I am, I can love, I have loved and even a small memory of that can radiate a relentless hope. Thank you for these memories, especially in these months.

This is a piece written for the 50th Anniversary commemorative book for Peace Corps Malawi.

Family is the bedrock from which we grow, no matter its size or form. For most of my life I only knew of family bound by blood, exploring and coming of age nourished by genetically unconditional love. And that love was more than enough. Years later, a world away, I was welcomed into a new family. Not a family I was born into or a family in the American sense of the word, but a village, a community, that cares for each other.

It was early November and the winds in the valley were restless in anticipation of the rains. A Wednesday, I had been in Mwazisi for seven months. I was caught with a burning fever, accompanied by aching muscles and waves of nausea. The relentless fever soared by the second morning and I could not reach the PCMO as the cell network was down due to fuel shortages and a faulty tower. Unable to reach anyone I waited patiently, taking Ibuprofen and tylenol.

News of my illness spread instantly throughout the village and in minutes I was surrounded by movement. Fathers fetched water to keep me hydrated. Mothers cooked soft foods because I was too weak and nauseous to eat. Brothers and sisters kept vigil by the school waiting for a cell signal. Many came regularly to check on my condition, worried it was malaria, and urging me to see the medical assistant.

By Saturday network was up, the PCMO prescribed antibiotics and I was in recovery. Chief Chimbata and Reverend Kumwenda visited as representatives of the community. My first intervention. The community expressed concern that I was not eating enough and thus got sick. They said I live a lonely life and I shouldn’t be afraid to ask for help. Then Reverend Kumwenda explained that he and Chief Chimbata would keep me company while I recovered. He told stories of his travels in South Africa, Gandhi and how the world has changed.

America is a land of many fenced families and Malawi is a country of one family. I am a stranger, yet my community cares for me like their own child. They worry when I don’t eat or get sick or return late from travelling. They love for no other reason than I am here and part of the village, living, surviving life together. Towards the end of the visit Reverend Kumwenda said “we don’t want you to die Mr. Prashanth.” They departed with a prayer and I remained in a quiet emptiness.

Hectic couple of months. Seasons changed overnight, Malawi changed overnight, suddenly everything was harsh and sparse. The fields burned and emptied like tanks of fuel and everything stopped.

Work has been endless and I have been traveling for Kamp Kwacha and dealing with administrative works. The EPA is practically completed and remains to be opened. All my closest friends are gone and suddenly the whole country seems empty. My sister is flying to Kigali and then coming to Malawi in August.

I miss home and a little part is eager to experience something new. Looking forward to enjoying the remainder of year, closing projects, finishing camp, seeing my sister and seeing Malawi. Will post more.

With the help of several staff members (thank you Betty and Elaton) and five grueling, miserable days of fighting, Henry's package is finally in my hands. The incident is so corrupted and convoluted that I care not to bring it up anymore. However, I am so very thankful for Betty and Elaton, for many reasons, especially getting the package. For all future packages that may be sent from the bright place known as America, please, please, mark the value of the box as equal to or less than $100.

And thank you to Henry, Erin and my family for the awesome package. Mostly Henry. I could not ask for a more wonderful set of gifts.

Wellesley's PCPP grant is up online, it is for an awesome project building a women's center in her village Kawaza. The center will strive for both women's empowerment and protection of the local forests. Anyone that can help, please see the following Peace Corps page and donate. Thanks.

https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=donate.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=614-227

Strange dreams woke me at 4 am this morning. I found myself recovering from another world in the corner bed of Dorm 1. It was still dark out, the streets were quiet and the halls of Mufasas breathed a silent breeze after another late night. A Japanese tourist and Wellesley were snoring lightly. I got up discreetly, grabbing my toothbrush, toothpaste and iPod, trying not to wake anyone else. The hallways were pitch black, faint rays of light filtered from the bathrooms. A large rat scurried from the kitchen cross the hallway into the bathroom, returning to its cardboard shelter in the middle stall. I took my time brushing my teeth and spent over a half hour just standing under the warm waterfall shower. My muscles melted in the hot water, my bones were warming and a sense of morning peace grew over me. Pulling on a shirt and a pair of jeans, I grabbed my bag, plugged my ears to Vampire Weekend and walked into the dawn lit street.

It was chilly outside, the sort of chill that in Malawi translates into a scorching afternoon. A couple of mini-buses drove by on their morning routes, but the streets were empty. There was not a sound otherwise. Not a spray of dust, clouds of exhaust nor aggressive street vendors. You spend so much time looking down in Lilongwe, or in any city for that matter, that you forget all else. This seems translate into all aspects of city life, a stressful faith in the microscopic in front of you, everyone under a lens. Surviving this bustle, battling traffic and life with the same aggression and coming out the other end appearing unscathed is a cause for admiration. In that same sense, time also becomes microscopic and hours become minutes, minutes become seconds. But while the cosmopolitan citizens slumber a recovery from another long night of fulfilling social obligations in pursuit of once innocent dreams, the city breathes. Its roads cool, the trees gently shed a day’s pollution into the winds and the birds reclaim their branches.

Turning the corner, passing under the trees rooted in cement circles, light filtered over the streets. The skies brightened as I made my way up the steps and a formation of birds flying overhead caught my eye. I looked up and was instead caught by a beautiful sunrise. The clouds were drawn on to the grand sky with a colored charcoal, glowing a light gold and some still pink. There was a wide diversity of clouds all drawn with the granular strokes of charcoal on paper with smudges of grays and blues. Signs of an artist’s hand were evident everywhere. The sun was hidden behind a large blue PTC and Standard Bank, but once passed the entire sky opened up. By the time I reached the barren tree in the parking lot of the new mall, the view was mesmerizing. I slowed my pace, a taboo in any city, and let the morning Lilongwe soak into my skin. My general loathing for this city seemed to have temporarily vanished and I felt transported to another time when Lilongwe was a much different place. A time before large shopping centers, before roads, going back, back in time to fields of villages and animals. Forests of trees covered the land and the names of chiefs were reserved for villages and not two-story buildings. A quiet time.

It was such a brief moment, as if in a flash of dawn light everything vanished. A brief, microscopic moment in this city, which could be lifetime anywhere else.

Transient places in a transient place, I leave for Dedza tomorrow. The new group arrived last month and their PST is underway. I am assigned to Week 3 and will be teaching village economics and small-business development to the trainees. I’m looking forward to returning to Dedza and enjoying the comforts of home stay for a week. Having a host family, three square meals a day (and a packed snack for class), hot water baths and the beautiful serenity of a Dedza village. I will return on Thursday for a VAC meeting and hopefully return to the Mwazisi by the end of the month.

To begin commemorating the 50th Anniversary of Peace Corps, the U.S. Embassy requested that I put together a video for each month of this year of various volunteers in Malawi. So here is my first of a series of videos produced: Wellesley's Reforestation Remix.

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=195969923761290&oid=160841183603&comments

Kamp Kwacha

Frodo, Sparkly Eyes and I are planning to conduct a business training camp for 25 Form 3 and Form 4 students in August. For the past two months we have been planning the curriculum, designing the schedule, and securing financing for the camp. Though we originally planned to fund from PCPP, we decided to fund instead from VAST. Our camp, which we have endearingly named Kamp Kwacha, does have a major focus on HIV/AIDS prevention and targets a very crucial age group. Income generation and self-sufficiency are important areas to develop among these students, especially girls. I have just finished writing the grant and putting together the budget for George. The camp will be five days hosted at the Jonah Mission in Senga Bay. I haven’t seen the location myself, but Frodo said it’s a beautiful lakeshore location and has all the facilities we need to host classes and guest speakers. He also said the staff is wonderful and very friendly. We have a preliminary list of ten volunteers with business backgrounds to serve as counselors. The students will be invited from all over Malawi and they will face a screening process that tests competency in English as well as entrepreneurial spirit. We chose to target this age group because they are in process of preparing for life post-secondary school. Very few will go on to university and most will end up with some menial job or farming. Small-business can be the key to living a better life and all they need are the skills to run a business. Many organizations do superficial business skills training in Malawi, including Peace Corps. However, our goal with this camp is to take it a step further and teach more advanced concepts. Over the course of five days we hope to instill a solid business understanding and inject some national pride and creativity in the students. Tall order but we are confident. First and foremost, cross our fingers and pray the funding gets approved.

50th Anniversary

Peace Corps turns 50 this year, in September to be exact. The Malawi office, along with the U.S. Embassy is planning a list of celebratory activities for this year. A committee was formed tasked with undertaking this mammoth project which includes things from a party, to t-shirts, pins, documentaries, and a coffee table book. I am on this committee and was charged with the video portion of the project. Starting with March 1st, the first video deadline and when JFK spoke at Michigan, I have to complete short videos about PCVs in Malawi and their work. The collection email was sent out last week and we wait for submissions of video, music, and pictures. Of course, the problem is I’m in my village, the content is in Lilongwe and I have no means to edit. Luckily, Lois brought her Mac loaded with all the necessary software, so I will have to journey to Lilongwe each month to edit videos and have them ready for the Embassy. This could be a fun project, I haven’t edited in so long, but I worry of the travel and time constraint away from site. I hope it does not affect other project work.

VAC - Freasurer

Last September I was elected to VAC. Last month VAC made the move to combine the Treasurer and Fundraiser positions on the Executive Committee. This was mainly because the transit houses were closed and the VAC lost its funding source along with the ability to control its own funding account. With a heavily reduced income source, now primarily t-shirt sales, there was no need for two positions. Both the current Treasurer and Fundraiser were due to COS in the next few months and elections were held for the combined position. I was elected to this position that we have jokingly titled Freasurer. The position’s responsibilities include managing VAC funds, bookkeeping and maintaining records, and overseeing t-shirt production and sales. T-shirt sales were a default fundraising scheme once the transit houses closed. The interesting part of the position will be overhauling fundraising activities and devising clever alternatives to raise money. Fortunately it is the 50th Anniversary and this provides an ample source of merchandise and much bigger market that extends to the U.S. The main purpose of VAC funds is to sponsor volunteer projects in Malawi and pay for PCV events.

Women’s Group

The Women’s Group has lost some momentum over the last two months. The main reasons being that I was away and all the women are busy tending to tobacco. They made over Mk. 3,000 from jam sales last year, a great figure for a business they just started. Also, the women planted the CG-7 groundnuts this year so that we would not have to buy more when we begin oil pressing again. Fortunately, TLC has promised us two more presses which will increase our production. With the EPA office almost completed we will be able to move all our supplies and have a central location for meetings. Over the next month I hope to make the stamps and labels for the jam bottles to begin expanding the market for selling. Wellesley designed a lovely logo that will serve as the group logo and be part of a large mural on the EPA’s northern wall. Otherwise, there are some other ideas we are floating about for businesses. The group has been successful but the lack of self-sufficiency worries me. They have funds, members and resources to continue but the problem is they are not generating enough money yet. We will keep pushing until the businesses are more established and perhaps we will reach a point where they are generating enough profit to make it worthwhile to operate these businesses full-time.

M24

The road from Rumphi boma all the way up to Chitipa is horrendous to say the least. It is the infamous back road to Chitipa and is the shortest distance between the two bomas. The only problem is that it is the worst road in Malawi and gets progressively worse the further you travel, the worst of which begins after Chilenda camp. Currently, the only way to get to Chitipa safely and timely is to travel around Nyika, through Karonga and then west to the boma. This is a longer distance but really the only option. The entire stretch of the back road measures about 224km. The portion closest to Chitipa is nearly impassible with gaping cracks and dangerous cliffs. The portion from Rumphi boma to the Mwazisi turnoff (basically Chitanga) is labeled M24 on the road network map. This is the portion that Wellesley and I hope to get paved. The entire road is currently under analysis by the Arab Development Bank, they hope to pave all 224km of the back road. The initial and economic reports have been completed but there has been an issue with completing the feasibility study. Due to internal disagreements the project has been put on hold for an unknown period of time and it could be years before any progress is made. Thus, we have undertaken the task of finding funding for the unpaved 40km segment of M24. This segment faces the heaviest traffic and is economically a vital area. All the main villages run along this road and these villages have access to electricity. While in Lilongwe, we met with the Roads Authority’s chief engineer and collected all the current reports on this road. He was an incredibly helpful and well-spoken man that showed us designs for a cheaper road that is just as strong. We were able to reduce the cost estimate from $600,000 per km to $200,000. This puts the total cost at roughly $8 million to pave the M24. Now the hard part: funding. Once we complete further research we hope to begin shopping a small proposal to various donors, corporations, and embassies in hopes of slowly selling each portion of the road. $8 million is a large sum, but when broken up it amounts to a minute portion of donor budgets. We are fully aware we will not pave this road before our time ends, but we can at least put the wheels in motion.

MBA & TLC

Where to begin on the beekeepers? The FOM grant money has been well spent and over 100 hives have already been completed. The carpenters are hard at work while the remaining 80 planks are on the way. There was quite a bit of drama surrounding the transport of the planks. We paid the head of Parks & Wildlife at Nyika (Mr. Zamini) Mk. 14,000 for fuel to transport 200 planks from Chilenda to Mwazisi. The whole event was a disaster but 120 planks plus free discards made it to Mwazisi, meanwhile I lost my sanity. It took three days in the cold, rainy plateau and most of it spent arguing to the get the planks here. Once they made it, as I expected, Zamini cancelled the deal on the remaining planks and demanded another Mk. 14,000 to bring the rest. The man is a swindler, I knew the day I met him, silver-tongued he oozes of distrust and reeks of the criminal. However, we literally had no choice. I’ve called him numerous times since the first shipment and each time he has a new excuse on why he cannot bring the planks. The Parks department makes trips at least once a month to take the staff to a nearby boma to buy supplies and food. Chilenda is isolated and more trips are made, it’s just that this man wants some more money in his pocket and we don’t have any left. Private trucks transport large shipments of wood almost once a week to various selling points along the main road and to the boma. One of the selling points is Chitanga, the village next to Mwazisi. These trucks are owned by local merchants and definitely carry a little on top for friends and chiefs. That’s when I had the idea to try these trucks and even if they only carry 10-20 extra planks each trip they would eventually bring our remainder. Fortunately, the lead carpenter for the hive project is friends with a chief in Chitanga, whose son is a driver for the lumber trucks. He agreed to bring some planks each trip and the best part is it would only cost us Mk.500 per set transported. The plan is in motion, let’s hope it works. In the meantime, the Executive Committee is scouting an ideal location to hang the hives. Due to transport logistics in the rains the site maybe moved from Vwaza to Nyika.

Running parallel to up starting the Mwazisi Beekeepers is a greater project from Total Land Care. TLC’s Kulera Biodiversity Project has two years left on the clock and one of major segments is the amalgamation of all beekeeping groups in Nyika. Once combined, the new enterprise will explore opportunities in bottling and marketing honey under its own brand, perhaps even internationally. Currently, Mzuzu Coffee Growers bulk buys the honey from beekeepers around Nyika at an astonishingly low price. The farmers make virtually nothing and the company bottles and sells the honey at a significant premium. Cutting out this middle man is next logical step for these beekeepers that already produce quality honey in large quantities. Combining all the groups will enable a stable and constant supply of honey, which is crucial for any successful business. Also, the quantity will be in the hundreds of tones, enough to satisfy both residential and commercial customers. And most importantly, the new enterprise will redistribute profits back to the farmer and generate new income sources for many rural families. TLC has already sent consultants to analyze the prospects of this project. There is an office in Hayway filled with honey processing equipment that is unused. It was from an old grant provided by an NGO many years ago. The office is still there and I suggested that the new group use the facility for commencing processing. Mwazisi’s group will be merged into the larger group. Hopefully next week I and Mr. Mkandawire (TLC’s Northern chief) will travel to Thazima and meet with Duncan, the chairman of the Thazima Beekeepers Association. TBA is the largest honey producing group in Nyika and has been in existence since the 1980s. They are the biggest suppliers to Mzuzu Coffee and will serve as the central group once all the groups are combined. As with any large undertaking, we will see how this plays out.

EPA

The main office building is practically completed, only some minor finishing touches remain. We are also waiting on the DADO to wire the building for electricity. I have decided to assign one of the open offices for NGOs that operate in Mwazisi, a list which currently includes: Peace Corps, TLC and DAMRA. This will make it easier for the extension workers to store materials, keep books, and track the progress of running projects. Hopefully, this will also encourage a greater presence by the NGO and greater participation by the community. The next phase of the project is the construction of toilets. We hope to finance this portion with community contributions, which are supposed to amount to 25% of total funding under the LDF/World Bank rules. To meet and exceed that threshold we have asked all area chiefs (40 of them) to provide monetary and labor aid to the construction of these toilets. Our funds are running short, we barely have enough to cover the toilets and we need assistance. We discussed so many different design plans, my head is spinning. The community wants strong, expensive construction materials and practices for the toilet construction. As funny as this argument seems, we can’t afford it. So Mr. Mponda, Benedicto, and myself redesigned the structure to use a marginal increase in cement while eliminating the need for 20,000 bricks (Mk. 40,000). We hope this idea works and according to our design it should be just as strong, if not stronger, than the standard design. It is now almost mid-February and the construction of the main building should be entirely completed by the end of the month. Meanwhile, various community members are beginning to get jealous. Accusations are floating around that EPA committee is stealing funds and using it for themselves and thus we are doing a poor job with the construction. The biggest of these accusations was from the committee Chairman himself, who has never attend any meetings or helped with the project. Fortunately, there are enough good people in the community to defend the project and the tireless efforts of the committee. I am never doing a construction project here again.

Secondary School Business Club

Due to the success of the Women’s Group, I began a business club at the Secondary School. The main goal was to attract students in the later forms and teach them business skills. Several students had already come to me independently and indicated interest in learning about business. Granted I hate dealing with teenagers and had no interest in teaching class, the club was a nice compromise. The students in the club are wonderful and eager to learn. I have good mix of boys and girls and it’s already clear that the girls are much smarter and well-spoken. We had our first meeting last week and discussed several ideas for businesses. I tasked the members with doing some market research for the next meeting and we will see if our first business, a cinema house, will come to fruition. During the course of starting this business I will teach them basic skills and together we will write a business plan. This project is still in its infancy so will we see if sustains member interest over the next few months.

Safe Water Project

Using the buckets and Waterguard provided by PSI at IST, my counterpart and I have created a safe water club at both the Secondary and Primary schools. These clubs consist of several students tasked with fetching and treating borehole water for school consumption. In the case of the Primary School, where there are over 900 students, this is a major task but the students are enthusiastic and diligent. They have already consumed the initial supplies of Waterguard and are in need of more. In many schools in Malawi children are often dehydrated and the borehole water or river water they do consume leads to waterborne illnesses and diarrhea. Especially during the rainy season, ground water gets contaminated and is often murky. Thus, we provided the equipment for students to treat their water and conducted demonstrations on proper treatment. We also stress the importance of the clean drinking water for health and safety. After that, it’s all up to the students and the schools to continue the water program and we just have to regularly check-in on the status. Fortunately, the students have been active and we hope it continues.

Cooking with my mom. Eating home cooked meals, filling up to the brim with paneer, naan, kufta, kobhar anam, sambar, dosa, kobhar chutney, pachadis, gulab jamun, soampapadi, kodi goodu kura, payasum, ice cream. Washing it all down with a nap on the couch. With the TV on. Playing some quiet filling movie. Talking tech, books, movies with my dad. Having everything taken care off. Cleaners. Ice cold milk and warm chocolate chip cookies. Molten chocolate lava cake. And the white one too. Cheesecake. Chinese food. Delivered. Showering in the morning. Eating above and beyond physical limits with my sister. Baan Thai. Laughing hysterically at nothing for no reason. My sister teasing and annoying my mom because she’s bored. Annoying my dad because she’s bored. Annoying me because she’s bored. Impulsiveness. Dad eating something fatty, oily, or sweet and my mom scolding him. Coming home after being away, opening the door to the aroma of spices, music playing, voices chattering and being filled with the comfort of knowing you’re home. Endless hours to do whatever you want. Weekends. Shopping. Eating out. IM’ing while doing work, while talking on the phone, watching TV and eating…all at the same time. AC. Bathrooms. Hot morning showers. Absence of dust. Sinks. Giant mirrors. Walking around barefoot. My bed. Laundry machines. Wing nights with Fang. Blue Moon and orange slices. Disoriented Rock Band. Making fun of some new ridiculously skinny jeans that Jeff bought. Harvard Gardens. Red Hat. Sushi. Fang moaning after the first bite of sushi. Doon asking if his shirt made him look jacked. Acapulco’s with Raj, Kush and Dan. Cheese. Pizza. Viva Burrito. Anna’s. Felcarro’s. My apartment. Parties at my apartment. Dim sum Sundays with Henry. Eating way too much again. Then bakeries in Chinatown for moon cake, peanut butter buns and egg custard pastries. The commuter rail home. Red line. Green line. Orange line. Movie theatres. Watching movies with my family and the delicious snacks that usually accompanied. Netflix. My sister’s ability to make us laugh no matter how serious of a mood we are in. Buscalung. Teasing Prachi. Making fun of some ridiculous winter jacket designed for moon landings (or something) that Anil bought…with matching goggles. Being coerced into becoming a Huskies fan. Adventures with Nina. Trader Joe’s. Whole Foods. Hummus. Fast internet. Dressing nice. Not getting dirty the second you step outside. Talking about life with my sister. Fang making pot stickers. Our big TV. Sarcone and Arman and all the adventures, foods, beverages and comments about women that usually follow. My friends prescribed cheer up sessions when I’m depressed. Dunkin Donuts. Eating gross Chinese buffet food with my sister and paying $40 for it. Going back to the same place. Knowing everything in the lives of my family. Diya. Playing with the kids at my mom’s daycare. Springsteen and Floyd blasting through the apartment. Lengthy discussions about useless TV shows with roommates. Boston. Family, friends and everyone in between.

There’s no place like home.

There’s no place like home.

There’s no place like home.

Cooking with my mom. Eating home cooked meals, filling up to the brim with paneer, naan, kufta, kobhar anam, sambar, dosa, kobhar chutney, pachadis, gulab jamun, soampapadi, kodi goodu kura, payasum, ice cream. Washing it all down with a nap on the couch. With the TV on. Playing some quiet filling movie. Talking tech, books, movies with my dad. Having everything taken care off. Cleaners. Ice cold milk and warm chocolate chip cookies. Molten chocolate lava cake. And the white one too. Cheesecake. Chinese food. Delivered. Showering in the morning. Eating above and beyond physical limits with my sister. Baan Thai. Laughing hysterically at nothing for no reason. My sister teasing and annoying my mom because she’s bored. Annoying my dad because she’s bored. Annoying me because she’s bored. Impulsiveness. Dad eating something fatty, oily, or sweet and my mom scolding him. Coming home after being away, opening the door to the aroma of spices, music playing, voices chattering and being filled with the comfort of knowing you’re home. Endless hours to do whatever you want. Weekends. Shopping. Eating out. IM’ing while doing work, while talking on the phone, watching TV and eating…all at the same time. AC. Bathrooms. Hot morning showers. Absence of dust. Sinks. Giant mirrors. Walking around barefoot. My bed. Laundry machines. Wing nights with Fang. Blue Moon and orange slices. Disoriented Rock Band. Making fun of some new ridiculously skinny jeans that Jeff bought. Harvard Gardens. Red Hat. Sushi. Fang moaning after the first bite of sushi. Doon asking if his shirt made him look jacked. Acapulco’s with Raj, Kush and Dan. Cheese. Pizza. Viva Burrito. Anna’s. Felcarro’s. My apartment. Parties at my apartment. Dim sum Sundays with Henry. Eating way too much again. Then bakeries in Chinatown for moon cake, peanut butter buns and egg custard pastries. The commuter rail home. Red line. Green line. Orange line. Movie theatres. Watching movies with my family and the delicious snacks that usually accompanied. Netflix. My sister’s ability to make us laugh no matter how serious of a mood we are in. Buscalung. Teasing Prachi. Making fun of some ridiculous winter jacket designed for moon landings (or something) that Anil bought…with matching goggles. Being coerced into becoming a Huskies fan. Adventures with Nina. Trader Joe’s. Whole Foods. Hummus. Fast internet. Dressing nice. Not getting dirty the second you step outside. Talking about life with my sister. Fang making pot stickers. Our big TV. Sarcone and Arman and all the adventures, foods, beverages and comments about women that usually follow. My friends prescribed cheer up sessions when I’m depressed. Dunkin Donuts. Eating gross Chinese buffet food with my sister and paying $40 for it. Going back to the same place. Knowing everything in the lives of my family. Diya. Playing with the kids at my mom’s daycare. Springsteen and Floyd blasting through the apartment. Lengthy discussions about useless TV shows with roommates. Boston. Family, friends and everyone in between.

There’s no place like home.

There’s no place like home.

There’s no place like home.

The cool wind atop the hill estate blew through the smoldering rubble of the manor. Overcast skies softened the light on her skin and the surrounding grass fields radiated a lush green. Russet wisps of her hair wandered over her cheeks which grew pale in the chilly morning air. Not a tear; as with everything in life she accepted loss to complications. She held his hand as they tread cautiously through the remains. The blackened indiscriminant shards of wood and glass crunched under their steps. Smoke was rising from embers still burning the night’s memory with a vengeance. A grand structure once stood tall in this very place, a home filled with memories passing on the legacy of a family. Reduced to ashes it is more than a mere memory now.

He had changed in the time of his absence. The guilt of his parents’ deaths had pushed him away from those closest to him, but now he was a man wholly reconstructed by an ideal. His guilt and his need for revenge transformed into a fight for justice. The mask he bore was no longer that of a nocturnal vigilante but that of a man he once was. He loved her. He always has, but his pursuit of an ideal was greater than her. It was greater than him. He accepted his solitude as a necessity much like his secrecy. It was difficult to abandon love for something so unknown and infinite. There is the fight and nothing else, no one else. In the outer realms of legend, he was no longer merely a man.

At a point in my life where they seem to have run rampant, I’m exhausted. What is it I’m so afraid of? What am I running from, clinging to their distraction? Looking at my life in hindsight I notice a common pattern and I question the very roots of reasoning for leaving home. I do not consider myself a weak person, though there are several ex-companions that would argue otherwise. At the core I have few fears, most of which are trivial, superficial, and can be overcome with knowledge and understanding. But drowning in thought, a quiet so loud I can hear its resonance, I’ve learned what it is I fear more than anything in the world. Being alone. Anyone that has read anything I’ve written would notice the undertones of solitude leaking, perhaps gushing, from words. I scramble to cram thoughts and distractions into my mind in fear that any small void unfilled will be filled with fear itself.

It’s an unfortunate fear to have, very un-masculine of me. Consider our iconic man; the brawny, broad-shouldered hero of myth and legend. Whether he wears a cape and red underpants, or orders a vodka martini (shaken, not stirred), or is a titan of 1960s Madison Avenue, he is the man we epitomize. Ordinary young men furiously emulate bulging biceps while acting devil may care. Women swoon at the mere thought of these legendary men they want but cannot have. This is society’s ideal man, evolutionary perfection we chiseled from stone earth from the time of Odysseus to Indiana. These men fear nothing, not beast, nor man, nor solitude. In fact, solitude is the string that ties these legends together. Every iconic hero embraces solitude as the ideal partner, never held down by a tangible companion.

Instead they are weighed down by an ideal. Perhaps it was distrust, or a death, or guilt that led them to this path of enlightenment. Once they elevate mortal feelings to true sense of purpose, the ideal becomes beneficiary of body, mind and soul. There is nothing left for anything or anyone else. An ideal. Is love an ideal? I used to believe in love, as a naïve man does. Why do our heroes never fight for love? Is it a quality we reserve for women? What dangers are the keepers of our ancestry warning us of with tales of solitary heroes? What do I believe in enough to abandon all? Nothing. Perhaps I am still too young. An ideal worth sacrificing everything for, that is what I need to shed this fear of solitude. Until then I must rely on my ability to act and hope that one day I can’t tell the difference between reality and character I’m playing. The world my theatre, friends and family my audience, a Kaufman-esque tribute: the story of my life.

I returned to Mwazisi seven days into the New Year. After recovering from my parents leaving and drudging going back to work. When I left I had a memory of my village: green, people planting tobacco and maize, and power lines zigzagging through the trading center. However, returning I see a whole new village. It’s as if Santa Claus ho-ho’d through this place and everyone’s been good boys and girls.

Almost every wired house now has at least two satellite dishes and of course a TV. I walked into my landlord’s shop to pay my rent and saw a brand new TV hooked up to a new DVD player. My neighbors had their whole house wired for electricity. Keep in mind their son didn’t have any money to buy books and stationary for the new term. There is now a barber shop in town and a cinema house. A new sheltered market was constructed at the fork, rendering the old informal market useless.

All this development is astounding and makes me thankful for those wonderful folks at the World Bank. But my concern is with the money. Unfortunately, Santa Claus doesn’t exist, meaning all these wonderful gadgets were paid for out of pocket. At a time of year when everyone, everyone, is complaining of insufficient funds to pay for fertilizer, what is left? People are taking loans out to pay for their fields, yet buying satellite dishes and TVs?

To top it all off, the future for tobacco in Malawi is looking more dismal with passing week. Demand for this year was already reduced and in five years most farmers will not be able to sell anything unless the ban is lifted. I understand improvements such as a cinema house and barbershop are investments, but with such an uncertain and frightening future, buying a TV is the least of concerns.

Then again who am I to question the quest for impulsive, frivolous, material acquisition? I come from a country rife with financial turmoil because of this very same ailment. Fortunately, credit cards have yet to infect Malawi and the country is not crucially tied to the world economy. The West is on top of the world, culturally and for a time financially. Whether we wanted the prestige or not we accepted it enthusiastically.

With great power comes great responsibility. We are the model for the rest of the world, especially the developing world. Here, young adults embrace every rap star (keenly Sean Paul) and Chuck Norris as the people they want to be. They also know every minute detail, though mostly false, of President Obama. The more urban youth prefer a wider range of musicians and even politicians, but it is still fascinating that this is what we broadcast. This is the way the world views Americans and America.

While Rick Ross is rhyming in front of tricked out DB9s, Snookie works on looking like a fat cheetoh and the Black Eyed Peas get ready for another “good night,” the real America ain’t no picnic. Americans are not partying every night from boredom and driving around in BMWs. Some are but not the majority and there is no question that the middle class got carried away. We watch shows like Jersey Shore, Real Housewives, Real World and we feel better about ourselves that we are not so shallow. The developing world watches these shows and feels inadequate that it has none of those luxuries.

It is no one’s fault. For every negative aspect of western media there is a positive impact. As Flamboyant said “you can’t pick and choose, you have to accept it all.” Mwazisi will be alright. Besides the World Bank, Total Land Care has initiated a three year biodiversity project in the area, one of two areas chosen in all of Malawi. The future is not dim, but I wish people were just smarter about their spending. They listen to American news radio and update me on President Obama. I wish they instead listened to and understood the economic crisis and its causes. Video killed the radio star. Even if I tell them, they wouldn’t believe me.

A new year, perhaps a new self? Isn’t that what we all wish for? Who can claim they are truly happy with themselves? Not in a superficial or trivial manner, but content with principles, love, and being good in a world that drifts in ever greyer skies.

The world is flat and my family has returned to the other side. I’m sad now for a lot of reasons. It seems the year in hindsight was only a handful of days and world continues to falter. My earnest hope for restoring my faith in humanity has vanished wholly, perhaps with only crumbs remaining at the bottom of my heart.

Work and family pilfering all of my energies and efforts; I forgot the world around me. In a way, it was more peaceful. To pause and breathe your surroundings means the foul stench of the world fills your being. A suffocating darkness consumes you, yet you regain the ability to interact.

I have been out of Mwazisi for quite sometime now. My mind shut down, I’m stalling. My phone rings at least 15 times a day from site calling on project status, logistics, and a laundry list of work left. It is not work I fear, but the solitude. The quiet of my days I accepted as a reality, but for the past month my home was filled with sound.

Music, voices, laughter, chatter, the opening of gifts, the clatter of pots in the kitchen. I will fall back to my way of life again. Pachoko pachoko. Rebuild the walls. The past year gifted me many new lessons, friends and adventures. Hang my hopes. Little by little.

Happy New Year.

I began reading Gandhi’s biography by his grandson about three weeks ago. Gandhi, by Rajmohan Gandhi. Since the first business training I conducted at Camp Sky two months ago, I have been preaching the importance of small business. Looking around Malawi one sees vast stretches of beautiful, fertile land where practically anything can grow bountifully. Yet perusing shop shelves one sees only import goods. Malawi is crowded with products from predominantly South Africa, India and China. In addition, all major businesses in Malawi are owned by Indians, and increasingly the Chinese.

The first part of my lectures always highlight this fact: when you buy something, look at the label and understand that money is leaving Malawi. Each time you buy a t-shirt or even a soda, that money goes to make a foreign country richer instead of Malawi.

Malawians have two misconceptions. First that goods made elsewhere are of higher quality than anything made in Malawi. Secondly, they have grown to believe that the Indians and Chinese are inherently smarter or better at business. Both tragic falsehoods that I pursue to eradicate in the course of lecture by example. The most straight forward example being the community income scenario by tracking a loaf of bread and having students explain the flow of money.

Beyond the simple issue of misconceptions, it goes beyond to a matter of national pride, and personal pride. This beautiful, bountiful country; virtually anything can be produced here. Yet the major outputs are maize, tobacco, and minor staples like cassava, sugar, and cotton. The maize is eaten, but produced using harmful fertilizers and hybrid seeds, all from Monsanto and other foreign corporations. Tobacco is bought at an astonishingly low price by major foreign tobacco companies, robbing the rural farmers, exported, processed into cigarettes, imported back and sold in Malawi. There is no reason these products can’t be manufactured in Malawi and no reason all businesses can’t be run by Malawians. The Indians and Chinese spotted opportunities that Malawians weren’t taking advantage of and profited. Unattended treasure will be taken.

Perhaps it was decades of colonial submission, generations of stifled growth with a British boot at the throat, and being told you are inferior, dumber because of what you believe and the color of your skin. Between the missionaries, traders and government officials Malawi didn’t stand a chance.

The nail in the coffin is the geographic placement of Malawi as a land locked country, with virtually no port access to goods. Today it still struggles under the duties and demands of Tanzania, Mozambique and Zambia. Plagued by constant fuel shortages and expensive goods, coupled with inflation, donor funding, and the snowball effect of the aforementioned matters, it’s akin to digging your own grave. A slow, torturous, fatal labor.

So how to unravel this situation? First fold is trying to inject national pride, and cultural pride, into students. Stop being passive, accepting what people say, stop accepting circumstances and believe in your own abilities. Reading Gandhi I was elated by the parallels between the Malawian struggle and Gandhi’s. Be it his fight in South Africa or India, the ideas of non-cooperation, Quit India, and especially the ideas of rejecting foreign cloth, strikes at the heart of the problem.

What the British Empire had accomplished almost a century ago has been emulated by a more subtle and silver-tongued capitalistic empire, under the auspices of globalization. British Reds replaced by the pinstriped uniforms of capital troops. Corporations are the new Empire and the fight for Malawi’s freedom, for personal freedom, is rooted in the ideals of non-cooperation. Quit India is in many ways the ideal template for a Quit Malawi movement. Between Monsanto, Coca Cola and Unilever, these three corporations control virtually every good in Malawi, from maize to water. A David versus Goliath battle, Malawi would have to non-violently cast a stone to be released from the clutches of these giants.

Gandhi adhered passionately with his life to the principle of the chakra. Many ridiculed such a simple idea. How can one fight the Empire with the simple task of spinning their own cloth? And later, how can one fight the Empire with salt? Yet he did. Gandhi was ahead of his time, he developed the art of non-violent warfare, developed the foundations of fighting empires, be it the British or Monsanto. Gandhi understood that the heart of the beast was fueled by money. Without money empires and corporations alike would shrivel and fade away. Ceasing cloth imports not only made Indian citizens more independent, but also reinvigorated an ancient part of the culture and economically withheld the wealth of the nation, at least parts pertaining to cloth, in India.

This is the same principle I try to instill in students, kids and adults alike. Malawi has grown accustomed and dependent on foreign goods, coupled with the effects of foreign aid. There is absolutely no reason these goods cannot be made in Malawi. Malawians are the most resourceful people I have met in my life, able to make the most out of the little they have. In my short time here, I too am learning this art form from the masters. Malawians are also smart, hard-working and incredibly skilled at not only agriculture but also understanding what is available locally and finding practical applications. Nothing goes to waste.

However, change is slow. It took Gandhi an entire lifetime to free the Indian mind, which still hasn’t been wholly achieved. Africa has had a much worse colonial experience than India, and the psyche in Malawi could take decades more to change, but it is happening. While the adults are too old to entertain new ideas, one sees it in students. Ideas of national pride, of taking back their country, experimenting new ideas, making goods locally, making their nation wealthier. Youthful exuberance is in their eyes, with a twinkling of fiery rebellion and fighting for a cause. Students understand these principles and, like the chakra, there is a basic solution to Malawi’s dilemma. One that not only liberates its economy, but also empowers the people and reignites a beautiful culture that is rapidly deteriorating under Western and corporate influence.

Clay pots were an essential part of life in Malawi. The process of making earthen pots was taught by parents to children and the craft was then passed down through generations. Some pots that remain are still beautiful and functioning. These pots when filled with water act as a sort of refrigerator. Today, you no longer find these pots with rare exceptions in the market. Upon further investigation you learn that very few people still know how to make them anymore. In the course of a few generations the craft practically vanished in my region and new generations opted to fully invest in tobacco and learn the ways of Western culture rather than learn “useless” pot making. Most of the earthen pots now in Malawi often come from Tanzania. An unfortunate shift in culture considering these pots sell for a premium in souvenir shops and even home decoration chains in the U.S. An art form lost to foreign tobacco, which has by now almost robbed the farmers barren. Most people finally understand this and regret not learning the skills of their forefathers, the knowledge of eras of survival, like earthen pots.

In light of this, there is hope on many fronts. I have poured all of my hopes not in students but the women’s group we formed with ten women in the community. I taught them basic business concepts and then discussed their ideas for small industries. We settled on two initial projects: oil pressing and jam making. Both were slow to gain momentum, but during the past two weeks were in full swing. I loaned the group money to purchase six tins of ground nuts, with the condition that they pay for two additional tins, and also purchased sugar, 200 ml bottles and fruit for jam. Concurrently, I taught basic accounting concepts to track their cash flow. So far I have been impressed with the initiative of the group, considering that women do so much here that for them to sacrifice time and money for these experimental projects is a major contribution. While I was away, the women shelled and prepped the nuts, which we so far only pressed a liter. This will be divided in to 30 ml sachets after processing and sold at Mkw. 20 each.

More interesting than oil is the jam project. The first day we made tomato jam for taste trials it was enormously popular among all tasters. The second jam day we sold out all seven bottles of tomato jam within the hour. The third jam day we made mango jam, our most delicious product yet, which sold at a premium to tomato, was again very successful. The women were excited and I am ecstatic for them. Jam, unlike oil, sells at a much higher margin because it is marketable in the boma, thus reaching a much larger audience of demand. Simple acts of adding value have produced numerous positive outcomes. Next week I will carry a few bottles to sell in Lilongwe and Mzuzu to get word out, as well as print labels and seek out facilities to refine the taste and increase the jam’s shelf-life. The important result of this, however, is that the women are happy and confident at the promising prospect of this new venture and I pray that is its growth is constant and sustainable. I don’t think I could bear to see the collapse of their hopes.

The community has been catching on to the women’s activities. With the sale and success of jam, suddenly everyone wants to jump on the band wagon. Crowd mentality is common, but hopefully the ideas and principles of the group come across: building confidence and national pride. Ideas can spread like bush fires if lit in the right places. Like a line of dominoes, only the first need be pushed and the rest left to forces out of your control. I steadfastly believe there is nothing Malawians can’t produce in Malawi that they currently massively consume from other countries. I also believe it can be done economically at a lower cost, unburdened by transport and tariffs. And most importantly I believe that small industry, like the chakra, is the key to Malawi gaining its financial independence and reigniting its national pride.

Making the arduous bicycle journey back from Kawaza, after a lovely brunch at Wellesley’s, I noticed water drop marks all over the road. The sky was overcast as it had been for the past two days due to rains in the plateau. Lo and behold, four hours after I descended into the valley to melodious voices of church choirs, the first rains of my service pattered on this barren, parched landscape.

I am unsure as to why I’m so elated by the first rains. I’m no farmer, nor do I gain in any way from the rains. If anything, it makes my transport out of Mwazisi all the more difficult. Perhaps, I too have grown weary of the heat, the dryness that plagues both the body and soul, infected my psyche. One is constantly tired in the heat, unable and unwilling to undertake daily functions, taking up permanent residence on the bed.

No matter the reason, first rains have quenched my body, hydrated my soul, and in this moment I am happy. The sweet smell of rained earth, the overcast skies, the gentle breeze cooled by water, and the varying patter of raindrops on the tin roof.

Once the rains fall there is a sense of calm that blankets the village. In my joy I slipped on my wellies, grabbed an umbrella and explored my backyard. Stepping up on an old beehive to peek into the makeshift water tank, watching water course through the gutters into the tank. Observing the animals; some scurrying for shelter while others remaining indifferent, unmoved.

It’s amusing to sit here in my house and meditate on how drastically my daily habits and circumstances have changed in Malawi. And how rapidly. From the routine of brushing my teeth, daily upkeep and getting around, it has all changed. For example, I can’t simply turn on a faucet and brush, I need to fetch water from the borehole, pour in a cup and brush. It’s as if some invisible hand tore down the curtains and moved all the set pieces off stage, leaving just me; the actor in my own life, to mime the remaining acts.

To be blunt, PCVs live like, for lack of a better phrase, hobos. Dirty, grungy, welcoming free food and a free place to stay, and hitching the only mode of transport. No wonder most of these volunteers dutifully own a copy of Jack Keurovac. While we don’t come close to Gandhinian sacrifices, and a caveat that we can leave anytime, we do live quite menially. Little income, about $200 a month (which would not suffice if we had families), no transport, lack of proper telecommunication, etc. It’s the life we signed for, took our oath for as volunteers. I was chatting with an Indian shop owner in Mzuzu and mentioned my monthly salary and he threw a fit, and then offered me a cold beverage and some food.

Contrasted to this my life back home was the polar opposite. Trading a penthouse overlooking Boston for a humble brick house currently level with a dry, dead landscape. A shiny Audi for hitching and usually boarding an unreliable, unsafe, dirty bed of a 2-ton truck for transport. A giant television with all the trimmings for a book by candlelight. Those things at home I never really took for granted, though I was fearfully beginning to. I do miss comforts afforded by America; the conveniences for the most part.

While the case for missing is valid in a material sense, perhaps wrongly reinforcing that money buys happiness, the missing is nonexistent in a human sense. And I would trade a material world for a more humane world any day. The people here are more wonderful and unconditionally caring towards strangers than anyone back home. A visitor is a blessing, for example when a friend visits from afar, a huge celebration takes place with music and dancing all day.

The give and take of relationships; be it favors, a cup of sugar, or a meal when you’re sick, is unconditional here. Wellesley and I were discussing how American relationships are a very zero-sum affair: debits credited, credits debited. If I give you a cup of sugar, culturally you feel obligated to someday return the favor with one of equal magnitude. Let’s call this the Godfather Principle. This principle is so ingrained in us that Wellesley and I can’t seem to shed its effects. When people in our villages do something for us, help us, we get restless and anxious, worrying about how we can pay them back or return the favor. Forever self-burdened unless we find a solution.

In Malawi, people do favors with no expectations for it to be returned in any way. They believe that if the circumstances were reversed, you would do the same in the situation. In many ways it’s like you are family by simply being in the community, where everyone cares for everyone.

Reading through this I should clarify that I’m not implying one culture is better or that one nation is better, which is never the case. Nor am I aggrandizing myself for leaving a life of comfort for the village, for that means nothing if I still long for material comforts and if large families in my village live on less than I make here a month. I’m simply pointing out the stark differences on the other side of pond, entertaining my thoughts because it’s dark and there’s nothing else to do. This provokes a greater question: how did so many starkly different, intricate, beautiful cultures come in being?

Pardon, I have a candle-lit rendezvous with Jared Diamond…where is that book?

Happy birthday to my sister. Twenty years old; discarding the old skin of adolescence for that of a shiny new decade. She will always be more mature, smarter, and wonderful than I ever was (or will be). I should be careful, I'm starting to sound like my parents' greeting cards. Miss you, hope you have an awesome and fun birthday. Wish I was there to celebrate it with feats of gluttony.

I was on a matola today, the only one out of Mwazisi at the time, filled to the brim, along with a pile of poorly packed logs in the back. I managed to find a spot hanging over the edge of the truck bed, squeezed in between the logs and three amayis breast feeding their babies. Any matola ride is dangerous, each journey a matter of life and death. However, this time I was extra-aware of this fact because one of the large logs knocked loose, inching closer to me and to the edge with each new bump and turn in the road. People hollered warnings to the driver, but he paid no attention and matola kept on going. Luckily, just as the log was on its last straw and I was hanging on for dear life, the shocks on the back tire busted. We pulled into Bolero and waited for repairs. Growing impatient and uncomfortable I hitched another matola to Rumphi.

Africa has a way of toying with your mind. Stretching it, pounding it, testing its limits and its aptitude under duress. It's a strange land, unsparing, harsh, yet beautiful and forgiving in it's own way. Memories I thought I had long forgotten, secrets I had tucked away in some far corner, have blown back into my consciousness like a gale. These dead memories I thought were long buried under heaps of time seem to rise from the grave. Their ghosts drift through my house, haunting my days and sleepless nights with the pangs of missing. They taunt me with their wonderful apparitions of people, places, and emotions, beckoning me home. Even my dreams have been infiltrated, falling victim to these relentless spirits of memory.

Life and death take on a new meaning here. Death is prevalent on every corner. Yet unlike our death, which hides around the corner eagerly awaiting to ambush us uninvited and unwelcome, death here is welcomed, it is expected and, to a certain extent, embraced. Death is not feared as an unexpected guest but as a part of existence that will spirit us away to an afterlife without a moment's notice. I understand I could die on this matola, crushed under a pile of logs, or I could die of some other fate, but it would not surprise me. Death isn't hiding around the corner, it is simply watching passively, reminding us that we all have an expiry date, whenever that maybe.

When I'm on matolas, when I face the possibility of my ultimate demise peering over the edge of the truck bed, I think of her. She has been the most persistent of specters, haunting both reality and dreams. Pain courses through my veins emanating from my core and in my being. I don't understand why she still has this profound effect on me, why her memory can still haunt me across the world, across a sea of time. In bouts of sadness I wonder if she knows. I wonder if she is aware of her doppelganger that traverses through the fields of Africa. Probably not. The sea of time and space that separates is a door way to another world. I am in the land of dreams, the land of spirits, where death, life, and afterlife all coexist in a place that defies logic and reasoning. She resides on the other side, in the land of logic, where the mind rules all, where only present life is acknowledged and starkly segregated from other existence.

Beyond the sea, through the doorway, is that world I can only recall through the looking glass of my mind. Three of my friends are getting married, perhaps even found the meaning of their lives reflecting in the sea of love. I wish them all the best and I wish I could be there for this momentous occasion. I miss everyone back home. My family, friends, and even those I considered my foes (though few in number). As 2 Kwacha put it best: “Home: it's better than you imagined.”

This was a reply I sent to Ms. Hanna, the teacher who I correspond with for the World Wise Schools program. Under the program volunteers have the option to correspond with a class of students in the U.S. and share their cultural and life experiences abroad. The questions she asked were things I never thought to write about, so here is the response:

Hope all is well. I also regrettably admit that before I was assigned I didn't even know Malawi existed. Once I did arrive I fell in love with the country and people. Malawi is really quite distinct from the surrounding countries. While it lacks in popularity, it’s an immensely beautiful landscape, the culture is colorful and the people are wonderful. I firmly believe that because it isn't popular, well-known,and lacks the precious resources of surrounding nations, that it is such a peaceful, unadulterated place. Like a hidden jewel in massively touristed sub-Saharan Africa.

While the country has its share of political and civil issues, it is overall a calm and quite rural culture. Most of the country's population consists of farmers, the biggest crops being maize,tobacco, cassava, sugar cane, and cotton. Maize, though introduced by foreigners, is the staple of a Malawian diet. The ground flour is cooked with water to produce thick, dough-like, patties called nsima (kind of like grits). Nsima is usually accompanied with dende, which are side dishes such as beans, greens, or meat.

Part of our assignment as volunteers is to diversify this diet as it is a leading cause of malnutrition in the country. Nsima is cheap and very very filling, thus in an impoverished country it’s an essential part of life. It provides an abundant amount of energy and you feel full for the whole day. I can eat one paddy for lunch and not be hungry for the rest of the day and the women in my village are always concerned that I don't eat enough nsima (average Malawian diet consists of three patties per meal).

Dende is usually greens, such as Chinese cabbage/pumpkin leaves cooked down in water with salt and baking soda. There is usually a protein such as soy meal or beans, meat being a luxury reserved for special occasions. With meat, goat is considered the cheapest; one notch up is beef and pork; and then chicken, eggs, and fresh fish being the most expensive. There are also a variety of local protein fare that consist of mice/rats, flying termites, large worms, and small birds.

Greetings are a big part of interactions in Malawi. Culturally, everyone greets everyone whenever they see them, even if its multiple times a day. Generally greetings are: How did you wake/sleep? How have you spent the day? and How are you? This is very different custom especially for someone coming from Boston where no one greets each other. It’s been a hard adjustment, but you get used to it. I could see my neighbor in the morning, say “Mwawuka uli?” (How did you wake?) and then run into five minutes later and have to say “Mwatandala uli?” (How have you spend the day?). Mwatandala is used throughout the day and is the most used greeting. “Muli uli?” (How are you?) is usually reserved for once a day or if you see someone once in a while. The response is usually “Nili makora” (I am good).

For clothing, men generally wear pants and t-shirt/shirts. There is a local traditional wear, but like many developing countries, it has fallen victim to westernization. Women in the cities general dress in pants and shirts, but in the village there is more diversity. Culturally, women wear skirts or chitenges (large pieces of decorated cloth) wrapped around their waist. Much like sari, but only for the lower part of the body. There is a traditional top, but many women wear t-shirts. Lastly, women also wear a head wrap, which is usually a chitenge also. Traditional wear is also a special cut shirt and pants/skirt that is made from chitenges.

The homes in southern Malawi are generally made of mud with thatched roofs. In the north, my region, you see a lot more brick houses with tin roofs. This is mainly due to a relatively wealthier population in the north as a result of tobacco crops. Most homes in Malawi are family compounds, with multiple houses and different family members occupying each house. Thus, grand parents, parents, cousins all will be in the same compound. The houses are modest, some usually just a room or two, with some wooden furniture. The kitchen, bafa (bathing room), and chimbutzi (toilet) are separate structures usually built away from the house. Bafa is generally a small enclosed space to bathe, the kitchen is one room with a fire pit in the middle, and the chim is a pit latrine (a hole in the ground with a pit about 10-15m deep).

School for 10 year olds is variable depending where you are. In my village, most of the kids go to school. Classes consist of science, math, English, Chichewa (national language), Chitumbuka (language of the Northern tribe), social studies, life skills, and Bible studies. Primary education is free, but kids have no real incentive to attend school. Most students end up becoming farmers, like their parents and grand parents. They aspire to be doctors, lawyers, and accountants, but do not have the proper opportunity to pursue these dreams. Consider that once they complete primary school, secondary school (high school) is not free. A lot of families can't afford to send their kids to secondary school, so they help farm. The kids that make it through secondary school have limited options for college and again most can't afford the tuition.

There are about three universities in Malawi, and a handful of one building colleges for accounting or nursing. No where near enough to provide a college education to all the students in the country. In addition, part of the political issue between the Chewas (Southern/Central tribe) and the Tumbukas (Northern tribe) is the quota system for the universities. This system dictates that an equal number of students must be enrolled from every district in Malawi, despite their exam scores. The North has a lower population and better educated students (due to the early missions influence) and the highest test scores in Malawi. The South has higher population and the lowest scores. But under the quota system a student with a low score in the South will get into university over a Northern student with a higher score. So there are a lot of things working against you as a student in Malawi and you lose hope quite quickly and accept your fate.

In terms of sports there is nothing that compares to football (soccer). Granted World Cup fever is slowly dying, football is the one and only major sport in Malawi. Everyone is a fanatic and every male, from little kids to grown adults, can tactfully handle a football. Females generally do not play football, though that is slowly changing. However, they do play netball, which is a little like basketball. Malawi is still a very male dominated society, rife with problems of sexual assault, discrimination, harassment, and this comes across in many other aspects of life here. Change is slow, but it is happening.

My last update was in August, after Camp Sky. Unfortunately, I have been travelling extensively since then, coupled with some other distractions, and then In-Service Training (IST). But IST just wrapped up yesterday and I will be spending the next few days in Lilongwe to meet with people at main offices of some NGOs in Malawi. Hopefully during this time I can upload some new posts. For now here are some updates:

Women 2 Women workshop went well, pictures are on FacebookThe final sum for completion of the EPA building project is readyMy Friends of Malawi grant for the beekeeping group has been approved and the funds are readyJo is back, sorry I mean Dr. Josephine SmithIST went well, though a major portion of it was pretty boringI got elected in to the Volunteer Advisory Council (VAC)

I woke up this morning thinking about an email from someone a couple of months ago and in their typical fashion I won’t hear from them for another six months. But its contents led me down a string of thought pertaining to how I’ve changed. Everything in America is built on selling the idea that we will all live until we’re a 100 years old, that everything will be ok. From the food we eat, to insurance, to retirement investments. We live each day like we have a million more of them. We even treat others like they will be around for a hundred more years. We take things for granted, we abuse our most basic human connections because we believe there is a tomorrow and everything will be alright. I too fall under this group. I took a lot of things and a lot of people for granted. I had this false sense of immortality, which is disturbing.

Being here, the world outside, the third world, your ideas change quickly. In the past there have been almost two funerals a week. See enough people die and you start living like there is no tomorrow because there isn’t one. You strip away everything to its bare bones and you see life in its raw form; you see people in their natural state. I’m forming my own philosophy because I realized that the current state is much too complex to be sensible.

Wind the clock back in time, remove the husks of civilization and what do we have? We are animals at our core, granted more intelligent, but animals nonetheless. We are driven by incentives and self-interest, it is our very nature. However, we also have moments of selflessness, as Adam Smith wrote, “How selfish so ever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature which interest him in the fortune of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it, except the pleasure of seeing it.” Even optimistically I think that split is 90-10. This is what we are, how we are, yet we are ashamed of it, forced to embarrassment by centuries of moral correction. We are Adam and Eve, after all, forever deviating from Eden because original sin is the natural state. Religion, like a metal brace, has “corrected” the growth of civilization, “saved” it from utter deformity.

To a certain extent, religion has prevented the world from falling into absolute chaos. It has lead to our great civilizations of today; consider what we have achieved from our humble ancestry. Do I believe in God? No, I do believe in a greater power, an invisible hand, be it a being with wisdom and foresight, or simply a massive source of energy or even the force of nature itself, there is something greater. There are too many patterns and coincidences in life for it to be random. Look at us, every cell in our body, the intricate system of the universe, and most still beyond our understanding. The smallest electrons revolve around a nucleus, planets revolve around the Sun. Perhaps it’s our nature to detect patterns, to find meaning where it doesn’t exist; another mechanism to promote civility. It’s stifling and frightening.

Strip it all away, and despite our words and actions, we live and die by an order of two priorities:YourselfEveryone elseIt’s bare, but consider everything we do and it falls in this order. It sounds terrible to say, to admit, but why is that? Because of a lifetime of lessons in morality? Social constraints and obligations? Fear of being outcast from the herd, outcast from this complicated world we have created for ourselves?

There are nuances to this order, details created by the complexity of human behavior caused by our own intelligence, our ability to think forward and plan. There is an interesting scene in the Dark Knight; two boats, one filled with prisoners, the other ordinary citizens, each rigged to blow the other boat should the passengers turn the key and save themselves. By midnight both boats would blow if neither turned the key. The film argues that people at their core are good, that they do the right things and not turn the key, even when faced with death. Even lowly prisoners, the scum of the city, would not turn the key; they too are good and simply misunderstood victims of circumstance.

However, this is only the tip of the iceberg. What does it mean to be good? Who defined good? What if good meant something entirely different? I’m not saying we should turn the key but at least admit and accept why we truly don’t turn it. One of the curses of our extraordinary intelligence is we strive for purpose, a meaning to our existence. We have children, strive for greatness, and yearn to be remembered because in a way it immortalizes us. If we die being remembered, then our entire existence is justified. Hence the presence of martyrs; the ability of one person to sacrifice life for a cause, but in reality it is for themselves, to be remembered, to become immortal.

Man’s greatest fear is loneliness. Even the most heartless criminal and the bravest hero all fear being alone. The Joker, the Stranger. This is why we have God, why we yearn to be in groups (work, family, clubs) and even why we marry, so that we may never be alone, even in death. It must stem from an evolutionary instinct of survival. Perhaps long ago we could only survive in packs, death falling on anyone who was alone. So consider the boat scenario again bearing this in mind and the fact that we are driven by incentives and self-interest. The decision with greater personal benefit is the one we will make. If we turn the key, kill an entire boat of people, we will forever be remembered as immoral killers. We will be outcast from society, alone, and left to fend for ourselves, like Cain. Secondly, we will continue to live, suffer the continuation of an existence in solitude, in rejection, and shame. If we don’t turn the key, we die, but we die as heroes, as the beacons of morality. People will remember us foever as good, as the valiant beings that did not fear death in the face of the absurd.

In light of this point of view, which of us would turn the key? It’s in our self interest not to turn it, to die, as logically it has the most positive outcomes. This order has many other such nuances, for example when you consider family and the idea of love. But in essence, I believe it can all be applied to the simple order of yourself first and everyone else second. Selfish, yes, but there is no denying its weight. We choose the most profitable route and thus we help others only when:

Benefit to self from helping someone else > Benefit to self from helping yourself

Many people would be outraged by this hypothesis. I am not arguing that we abandon our way of life but just be aware of this driver, consider life from this perspective. To what extent do we fear loneliness? Do we fear it enough to cause us to help others, to be accepted and welcomed into society? Things to ponder, things we are privileged to ponder. Life is short, our existence in essence is meaningless, solitude is the natural state and death is the only guarantee in life. A morbid list of realities that we drown in living, ignore, run away from. Even I don’t want to believe these pursuing specters exist, to my very core, but I know they do.

I feel liberated, even if it’s false, I wake up every morning and work because I want to work, eat what I want to eat, do what I want to do. If I choose to eat healthy, it’s because at that moment I simply want to and for no other reason than that. There is no tomorrow and what I can do to enjoy my life today, I will. I don’t want to go to bed with regret because if I don’t wake up it will be with regret. I will maintain order, fall in line, pray, eat, greet in the manners dictated by society because it prevents chaos. I am not going to cast a stone in the machinery of the system because I see no self benefit in it. We are animals, clever ones, but animals nonetheless. Anytime we claim we don’t know why we did something it’s simply because of this fact.

This falls into my philosophy about my work here. Development doesn’t work in the aid form. Non-profit is a silly idea because selflessness is a silly idea. For any kind of development to work, for poverty to be eradicated, all parties need the right incentives. In this case, these incentives are monetary. Profit is the single most powerful driver as it is the key to many other doors. In all the business classes I have been teaching here, people are responsive to the idea of doing what makes them the most money. All these practices of saving the environment, planting trees, don’t work unless people see the direct monetary benefit which is, in short, my job here. Linking the environment to profit; turn tree hugging into a scalable business and convince the community that it is in their best monetary interest.

For now I feel love, or at least I feel something I have been taught my whole life is supposed to be love. Did Meursault feel love? Was his logic so far from the realm of comprehension? What if the whole world was filled with Meursaults? It would be chaos. So is it a stretch to claim that to be good is to conduct ourselves in a manner that best prevents chaos?

I am currently at Camp Sky in Kusungu at the Teachers Training College. The camp was started by Peace Corps Malawi’s Education group and it invites the top students from all over the country. These students are taught a variety of subjects at the camp, from biology to cooking. It’s a great camp, running from the August 18th to the 26th, and requires a immense amount of logistical planning (especially in Malawi). Kudos to the Camp Director. I’m here to teach business for the entire 6 days of the camp.

We had our first classes yesterday and it was great. Although only about 3 kids seem to be keen on business and are very sharp, the class is still going well. The students have been assigned a project of creating a business plan for their mock businesses, which they will present to the class at the end of camp. The most difficult part of the whole lesson was trying to push students to think outside the box. When we asked them to come up with a creative business idea, for a product that is not made in Malawi, they all wanted to grow and sell vegetables.

The problem is that every person in Malawi grows and sells vegetables, it’s the most available product. This is what you find in every market in every village in Malawi and for these students, most from agricultural areas, this is all the business they know. So its understandable that this is the idea they embrace. A majority of other goods all come into Malawi from other countries, and thus the wealth that’s generated in Malawi often leaves Malawi, leaving the country poor and citizens scratching their heads on why that is.

The answer is simple: make the goods locally, make them in the country. Instead of buying cheese and other “exotic” products from South Africa, make it in Malawi. Malawi has wide diversity of land and they can produce virtually any product they want right here. Malawians have this perception that because a product is from America or China it is better than what they make here. For example clothes, bulk come from Tanzania, but also China and America. These clothes can easily be produced in country. After all, Zambia is major cotton producer and it’s right next door.

Hopefully, by the end of camp we can coax these students to think outside the box, think of creative business ideas. Anyone that understands some basic business tools and has a good idea will make a lot of money in Malawi. The country is ripe with opporunity and there is major development happening concurrently. We will see how the first part of the assignment goes later today when we review homework.

The camp otherwise has been awesome. I met a lot of great education volunteers that I had never met before. And those that I had only briefly met before, I saw a whole new side too (Yay!ger). Everyone is nice, fun, and they are all great teachers. They have a patience with students I could never fathom. Last night it was Anasol’s birthday and we had cake and sang happy birthday. Cake! Such a rarity, it was tasty. Also, Ben taught salsa dancing to all the students. The power went out just before dinner, so we lit the hall with candles and everyone danced to music played from small battery-operated iPod speakers.

The new education group also came to the camp as part of their training. All them are really cool and me and Peaches were dicussing the interesting mix of people in Peace Corps. In Malawi I have more diverse mix of friends (personalities and geographically) than I have ever had in my life and its wonderful. Not to discount my friends back home, but Boston breeds a certain of person as does New York. But here the volunteers are from everywhere and they all have the same itch. Some have a streak of adventure, others are quiet, and others fiercely independent, but they are all good-hearted, have geniune desire to help, and are compassionate. Though each is incredibly different we get along well and became very close very fast.

Camp Sky has been a good reminder of why I joined Peace Corps. The experience is unlike anything else I have done before with the most interesting, quirky, unique, and simply awesome people I have ever met. After Sky we head up to Karonga for Karonga’s Women 2 Women Workshop to teach another business class. Last week Karonga II went back to America due to medical reasons. I hope she will be alright, she will be missed.

Honey, honey, honey. Where to begin with this one; so much has happen in the past few months. Honey business occupies a majority of my time, energy, and money. The beekeepers in the Mwazisi area were loosely associated for a long time. Most producing honey independently and eating it. My predecessor pushed an association to form but it seems to have collapsed by the time I arrived. It was said to have about 60 members. But the problem was that so much of his energies were devoted to the massive EPA construction that there was little time for the Association. So I took the liberty of wiping the board clean and starting over. I called a meeting of all interested citizens, held elections for an executive committee, penned a constitution (based on the Livingstonia constitution). We enacted a registration fee, rules for club membership, contracts, and formally founded the Mwazisi Beekeepers Association (MBA).

We currently boast a membership of over 100 people, each club with 10 members. The first training will be held on August 16th, spanning over 3 days covering everything from hive building to apiary management. In the meantime, I ordered plastic jars from Polypack in Blantyre and designed a label for the MBA brand. We will hopefully secure a loan with Total Land Care (TLC) that we can pay back over the next three years. This loan will cover hives, suits, and smokers for every member. I’m also in the process of securing permits and licences to hang hives in Vwaza Marsh and Nyika, as they have an abundance of flora. Once hives are up, I can begin business training for all the members, covering topics from SWOT analysis to bookkeeping. If all goes well and production commences within 12 months, we can begin the process of marketing, perhaps even with the aid of OVOP.

I’ve never written a formal constitution or drafted a loan contract, so it has been quite an educational experience. I used everything I learned from banking, especially everything Rudy taught me by explaining legal documents. Who would have thought confidentiality agreements and CIMs would help me draft contracts for beekeepers in Northern Malawi?

I’m pretty proud of these documents I made, more surprised really that I have the ability to write them. The surprise extends to managing 110 people, creating a brand, and marketing the honey. So, a big thank you to Rudy for the invaluable business lessons. I’m learning on my own that things are much more efficient and faster when less people are involved. The less people the more productivity at least so I’ve observed when it comes to managing beekeepers.

Structuring the organization has been the most difficult task, mainly because I don’t know. Changes will have to be made as we go, but after extended thought and discussions I determined the following structure: each club will manage itself independently, with its own Chairman, Secretary, and Treasurer. Each club will provide honey and manage its own finances. The Association will be the umbrella over each club, providing valuable services such as loans, equipment, processing facilities, bottling, labels, other support, and most importantly brand and marketing of bee products. There are a lot more intricacies to this relationship detailed in the constitution and contracts, like the sales fee, etc. This is quite serious for a group that is not even fully producing honey yet, but it’s necessary. The loan contract could be, if all goes well, for about Mk. 5 million, which is no joke in a rural village. One club falters and that loan falls on the Association. The contracts I drafted incorporate some of the principles used by the Grameen Bank, that extracted from reading Banker to the Poor. The concept of using groups for loans, in this case clubs, and using social/community pressures as incentives for repayment. Will the system work in Malawi? I don’t know, but I really hope it does, even though I’m concerned club size is double that used by Grameen and the loan amount is much larger than a microloan.

My goal, as I told the MBA members at the first meeting, is to walk into a store in the boma and find a bottle of Mwazisi Honey. 2 years. Bwenu. Whatever it takes, I want that goal achieved. Honey is in short supply in Malawi, far below demand. Thus, prices keep going up, currently about Mk. 500 to Mk. 700 per 500 g bottle. Which is absurd if you consider that 1 kg of peanut butter is about Mk. 500 and 500 g of jam is about Mk. 450. There are a couple of major producers in the North, mainly Mzuzu Coffee Growers , that bulk buy honey from local farmers at Mk. 200 to Mk. 300 per kg, then bottle and sell at more than double the price. This excludes profits realized on by-products, such as candles. Honey is a viable business in Malawi, especially in the light of tobacco regulations.

The only problem (and it’s a big worry that keeps me up at night) is that it all hangs on everything working simultaneously. I’m throwing all the pieces up in the air, with a hope and prayer, that they all fall in place and that the puzzle fits together. There is a Plan B, but even that maybe is a crapshoot. If the loan with TLC doesn’t go through, then grant money is my last hope (and I really don’t want to use grant money during my two years here, if I can help it, it just seems like a ridiculous concept). There are too many variables at play: the loan, active membership, paying back the loan, getting equipment, using it properly, producing honey, producing good honey, demand for honey, licences, taxes, approvals, permissions, the list goes on. Sometimes I wonder if it all fails I will just take over and make the honey myself if I have to. Another issue is that MBA is tied closely to the EPA construction project, as one whole room is dedicated for honey production. That needs to be completed before any significant advances are made with the honey group. The stress of the whole project is immense and ever growing. As I detailed in a previous post, stress seems to be positively correlated with an increase in membership. Everyone has hung their hopes on me handling it all. We have about 10 clubs in the Mwazisi catchment area, and now that Destroyer has gone, Kampenda has sent an 11th club to join. About 110 people. I need pieces to start hitting the ground so I can make changes accordingly. As of now, all the pieces are still in the air. And even once they fall, and if by some celestial miracle they fall in the right places, then the whole thing is wrapped in a bow of sustainability. Once I leave the group has continue on its own.

G20, I heard through the village wire, has demanded a reduction in tobacco production and exports from several countries, including Malawi. Tobacco is life in Mwazisi and most of Northern Malawi. It is the single income source for not only the community but also the crowds of tenant farmers that travel to the North every year to help harvest tobacco. Without tobacco they have no means to live. This decision has been in talks, on and off, for several years, but has acquired a new shade of seriousness and finality. Fortunately, this global decision on tobacco will be slowly phased in over a few years, providing time for farmers to change their crops.

Tobacco itself is a terrible crop. It destroys the soil, requires immense amounts of expensive fertilizer, and requires a large labour force. Also, drying tobacco requires drying sheds, which locals build from trees cut from the area: the largest cause of deforestation in Mwazisi. The Chewa tenant farmers that come up are in constant feuds with the Tumbuka farmers. And lastly, the price in the auction floors in Mzuzu fluctuate so much, hitting such lows, that it is not profitable at all. Once the fertilizer, tenant costs, transport, tax, and licences are factored in, most people realize a loss. But it is, and has been for a long time, part of life here.

This is where the jatropha tree comes in. There has been a big push to plant jatropha all over Malawi, but people seldom like change, especially in rural communities . They are sceptical and truly can’t take the risk of new ventures. Jatropha is a tree that grows best in the worst soils and conditions. The fruit it produces are little black shelled seeds about the size of a marble. Inside the shell is a white seed, that when processed, produces a poisonous liquid. This liquid can be used as an alternative fuel to diesel. Any diesel vehicle, with a little modification, can run on jatropha oil. It’s an amazing tree and could be a wonderful, sustainable, source of fuel. Simultaneously, it could lead to increased tree planting and the reversal of deforestation in the area.The new pressure of tobacco reduction has made my goal of converting Mwazisi into a jatropha producer that much easier. Jatropha fruits in about 18 months, less than the time frame allotted by G20 to halt tobacco exports. With fossil fuel prices trending up; alternative and renewable fuels are a necessity for the future. I’m pushing the community to plant a few acres at a time, slowly phasing in the new crop, testing the waters.

The big push for jatropha in Malawi is lead by a company called Bio Energy Resources Ltd. (BERL) based just outside of Lilongwe. This company is the only major jatropha fuel producer in Malawi (that I have heard of so far) and it provides seed to any farmer that wants to grow the tree. I was a little disappointed when BERL told me that most of their operations are focused in the southern regions and are not ready to expand to the North. But this Malawi, where people can finagle anything and I will try to finagle BERL. BERL’s offer in Malawi is enticing as it provides sufficient incentives to farmers while maintaining the company’s profitability. BERL provides seed to farmers, who sign a contract agreeing to sell the fruit to BERL for 10 years. BERL buys the fruit from the farmers at about $1 per kg. From seed to fruit BERL periodically checks on the contracted crops, ensuring proper growth and providing support as need arises.

At $1 per kg it’s better than tobacco auction prices: about $1.80 per kg (and as low as $1.45), which are very little once all the costs are factored in. Jatropha has almost no costs, other than opportunity, as it doesn’t need fertilizer or licences and there is no tobacco tax. Currently diesel, which has run out in Rumphi and Mzuzu, is at Mk. 231.20 per litre. Jatropha, once processed, could be sold at a comparable or much lower price.

I’m meeting with BERL next week, hopefully, to discuss the prospect of jatropha in Mwazisi. Working with BERL would provide easy access and conversion to jatropha. Plus, there is already a buyer and demand for the crop, thus, lower risk in the venture than tobacco. The only thing holding us back is what if jatropha is not as profitable as they expected, what if the company folds? Then we could hopefully process the oil ourselves, else the farmers would be stuck with loads of useless jatropha. The process for producing jatropha oil is similar to groundnut oil. In fact the same equipment can be used interchangeably (just don’t do both as jatropha is poisonous). We might even plant a little jatropha independently and the process the fruit into paraffin substitutes. We will have to wait and see how everything pans out and more importantly if the community welcomes the change.

Women’s empowerment is a major part of the Peace Corps agenda in Malawi. It is a part of every program, an umbrella covering over each project, much like HIV/AIDS. In Mwazisi one of my projects is to create a formal women’s group that will focus on entrepreneurship. There was a loosely formed group before, but it was not very active and practically the leader of the group was the only participant. The leader of the group, Mrs. Nyabota, is an amazing lady that accomplished so much on her own. Together we hope to reinvigorate the group and start over. Our first business will be pressing oil from groundnuts.

Groundnut oil pressing can be fickle. Many people were unable to turn a profit while simultaneously competing with big store brands like Kazinga (Unilever) and Kukoma. So we ran a brief feasibility test. The problem, we discovered, was with the groundnuts. Local groundnuts are quite dry and produce very little oil, thus rendering the enterprise a waste of time. However, we tested the press with CG-7 groundnuts, which were issued by the government, and they produce a lot of oil, enough to make the product profitable.

The big manufacturers, with economies of scale, produce it so cheaply that it still eats our profit significantly. But I devised a solution to our problem (though we’ll have to see how well it works in practice). When the nuts are processed into oil the output is oil and a remainder of crushed groundnuts. This leftover material was considered waste, usually fed to livestock. It’s still very nutritious and tastes like raw groundnuts. I took the crushed groundnuts, roasted them in a pan with a little of their oil, and spooned in an equal proportion of brown sugar with a dash of water. Once the mixture melts, I poured it into a plate to cool, then cut it into squares. This is a simple Indian sweet my grandmother used to make, but with more of a peanut bar twist. We took the pieces and did a market test selling them at Mk. 5 a piece. The community loved them. Very little sugar was used and the waste material added a second revenue stream to the oil press. We generated a profit of about Mk. 90 on the remainder of 1 kg of pressed CG-7 groundnuts.

A third revenue stream that we are still testing is fire briquettes. When we buy the groundnuts they are shelled and we run them through a manual sheller to remove them. We collect the waste shells and keep them in a bucket. These are great materials for fires/fire starters. The shells are basically combined with some cassava flour and pressed into little square blocks. These blocks, once dried, can be sold to people in the community to use in their cooking fires. While we still need to see the actual profitability of this product, if it works, it would boost our total revenue. Also, by using the shells we basically made full use of the whole groundnut, wasting nothing.

The last test we ran was on quantity sold. We could not compete on price with 250 ml and greater against the big brands (maybe someday in the future, but not starting out). Currently, the only way people have cooking oil is that the local shops buy from supermarkets in the boma, put it on a matola, transport it to the village, and sell it. The oil supermarket price has then a transport cost and shop profit tacked on. But if we make the oil locally in the village and sold it in 25 ml sachets, starting out, we would profit. Each sachet would only be Mk. 20. These sachets, if enough are made, can be taken by bicycle to surrounding villages, reaching all the way from Kampenda to Bembe. The press itself cost Mk. 18,000 and at breakeven that’s about 90L of oil (if considering only the oil profit), it will be up to the group whether they want to undertake this business.

If this business doesn’t meet expectations, or succeeds enough to expand to other businesses, we want the group to begin exploring new ventures. Ideas in the works are the production of juice, jam, fruit drying, soap making, and pending some operational issues, baking. I hope the women’s group is successful and sustainable. The women I have met in Mwazisi are amazing, truly super women, work more than anyone I have ever seen. They are keen to start their own businesses and generate their own income. The only problem is they need the business tools (bookkeeping, business plans, etc.) and some reassurance that their businesses will succeed. After all, they are sacrificing the little time they have, which could be spent farming or the million other things they do everyday.

Mrs. Nyabota is the best example of an active successful woman in the community. Long before Peace Corps showed up in Mwazisi, since she was a young girl, she was running her own businesses from here to Bolero. She was producing dry fruit, jam in Bolero, a bakery in Mwazisi (that she built out of an oil drum, fuelled by wood fire), an egg farm, a tailoring shop, and a grocery shop. All this while also maintaining and caring for her household. She is a sharp business lady and Mwazisi is lucky to have her here.

I thought that now out of banking my work schedule would be liberal and much more relaxed. I could not have been more wrong in that assumption. I have dilly dallied on this blog for quite sometime, nothing really pertaining to my project work. People don’t talk about what they do at work, because its work, and I fall under the same reasoning. My thoughts, which provide me with ample amusement, are not very pertaining to family and friends reading this blog. Thoughts, scribbles really, are all I usually write down. So I present the project series, a mini-blog-series dedicated to each project I’m working on. What exactly am I doing so far away in Malawi?

I’ve been in Malawi for about 5 months. Since I arrived I have not received a single letter or package in country, with the exception of one Fedex box which was sent express. It’s a little depressing but not enough to be a significant bother. It is, however, quite upsetting when every other person in my class is getting letters and packages almost every week. For example, Wellesley gets loads of packages filled with candy, chocolates, and bits of America that we miss enormously. I feel like the one kid in school who nobody likes.

People have sent mail, or at least they claim to have, and maybe it’s just my awful luck in life. I heard rumors through the PCV wire, which sometimes works as well as a game of telephone, that a volcano erupted in Iceland, causing a major disruption in mail heading to Lilongwe. Why? No idea, but apparently many flight routes were disrupted. So, now that things are settled, mail has resumed and the Lilongwe Post Office is backed up with an overload of letters and packages, causing further delays in delivery. My mail could be crammed in a dark corner of the Lilongwe Post Office, hopefully, or it could be in Malaysia, Timbuktu, a black hole, the Bermuda Triangle, or even the Lost island, who knows. At this point I have abandoned all hope and look forward to no mail or tasting an American chocolate bar for 2 years. Hope for the best, plan for the worst.

While I was stateside I had my words to say about America. I guess it’s always easy to complain about the place you live in when you are living there, and free to complain. This maybe a case of green grass or home sickness, but being in Malawi has made me realize how much I love America. Yes, it still has its problems, as any country does, but overall it’s a great place to live. The excess culture and media are bothersome, but you are free to pursue any life you wish and have the opportunity for that pursuit. All you need is hard work.

Malawi is wonderful, but the culture of obligation is stifling. My sister recently returned from volunteering in Haiti and was explaining how the people there are much nicer and helpful than in the US, which is generally true, because from my observations it seems the less you have the more giving you are.

In Malawi, and many other developing countries, people who have almost nothing are the most generous, and kind people, always offering what they have to visitors, complete strangers. Find me one person in the US that would do that for anyone. Different countries, different cultures, and I appreciate both for their positive attributes, now more than ever, there are good people in every country, and bad ones just the same.

The winds of change are blowing, have been blowing for some time, through these mountains east of Vwaza Marsh. Mwazisi is on the cusp, the verge of apparently becoming an actual trading center. The World Bank has earmarked Mwazisi as an important area and plans to roll out a four phase infrastructure project to develop the village. Not sure exactly why Mwazisi, of all the villages in Rumphi West, was selected. Anyone who’s been here will tell you it’s a ghost town; a village once that began to grow but was abruptly abandoned with maybe 4 or 5 small shops making up the trading center.

My guess is it’s an important location for tourism, central to both Vwaza Marsh and Nyika and literally next to the border to Zambia. Considering also that after Mwazisi, the next village that will potentially be targeted is Hayway which is a border town and the last large community before Chilenda gate to Nyika and up to Chitipa. The DEB was also placed on a priority list for completion, probably because of the attention Mwazisi was getting from politicians. This is great news for me, makes my life easier if the funding gets here faster and they electrify the building (for free).

The four phase project, touted by the TA and MP as part of their “promises to the community,” is electrification, roads, water pipes, and telecom and internet. All financed fully under a World Bank ISP mandate, which also stipulates that all government buildings will be wired for free, so schools, health centers, and the DEB, which is technically also a government building. The electrification phase is poised to be completed by end of August, 2 years in the making. Between political, funding, and logistical hurdles, Mwazisi can finally see the light at the end of the development tunnel…and it’s fluorescent. They promised that once the electricity is in the other projects will just roll in easily and quickly.

Is this model sustainable, these large infrastructure projects? Who knows, but the community is pretty excited, as anyone would be. Sustainable is an interesting thing. Consider this: the last major infrastructure project, undertaken by the Malawian government, were telephone landlines to Mwazisi, by MTL. There was a service disruption, which as expected of MTL, they took quite some time to get to fixing. Eventually, people started cutting the wires down and using it as clothes lines or to hang bee hives. And by now all the lines from Mwazisi to Bolero have been cut down, all that remains are poles. Will ESCOM, the only Malawian electric company and contractor for this project, make the same mistake? We will see.

There are donors flinging money left and right in Mwazisi, it’s a crowded market. Thus, it's only inevitable that they cross swords and since I arrived in Mwazisi 2 months ago I’ve already crossed swords with several NGOs: DAMRA, Total Land Care (TLC), World Bank, NASFARM, etc. Most of these acronymed organizations, perhaps with the exception of TLC, seem to be in the business of giving, which is generally not sustainable in the long run. Every organization has different models, some based on funding, some on educating. Peace Corps focuses on the later; to educate and tries to stay clear of the funding business. Of course in a crowded market like Malawi, if you have one man offering to teach you to fish and one offering you free fish, which would you choose? Most consumers, as do Malawians, would choose the latter, which makes our jobs that much harder. Ah, the trials and tribulations of a PCV.

So what would you do? I could break out a SWOT analysis of Peace Corps versus competitor NGOs, but at the end of the day it’s a price war, and you hope that the other guy can’t last very long in the ring. Look around and you’ll see many abandoned buildings constructed by donor funds, like orphanages and schools that were never even used. I've seen some that have remained locked since their completion. I’m not saying funding is useless, if anything it the most important aspect, nor that the other model doesn’t work, but most of the time you notice it never sustains.

Technically, I’m an employee of the Malawi Government, like a consultant, in a way. I work for the Vwaza Marsh Game Reserve, under the Department of Parks and Wildlife. The one caveat to this assignment is that Peace Corps policy dictates volunteers are not allowed to enter certain parks in Malawi because of tse tse flies carrying African trypanosomiasis. Vwaza is one those parks. However, I have to enter the park because that’s where my boss is. Oddly, I was recently reading in Guns, Germs, and Steel and that the tse tse fly is one of the major reasons that necessary livestock, such as cows and horses, were never successfully domesticated in sub-Saharan Africa: they all kept dying after being stung.

Locals say that the best indicator of trypanosomiasis in an area are dead cows. If you see herds of dead cattle then you should probably leave area ASAP. Not all tse tse flies carry the disease, so being stung doesn’t necessarily mean you will get sick. Vwaza Marsh put up fly traps all over the park, especially at Kazuni gate and surrounding villages. The traps consist of a large piece of cloth colored with two blue vertical bands sandwiching a black vertical band. These are apparently colors that attract the flies, which will sting the trap and die. Unfortunately, the new bikes Peace Corps issued us are the same blue and black colors.

That said, Harry was hosting a beekeeping training at Vwaza, and I had been putting off making a trip Kazuni gate for some time. So, me and Bwana Changa threw caution to the wind and rode down to Kazuni, making the longest bike ride I’ve ever been on. The total was about 70km (44 miles) round trip, on a hilly, rocky, some parts deep sand, dirt path that hugged the border of Vwaza. It may not be much for a serious biker, but for someone who never bikes, my legs feel like jelly, my back in pain. We made it though. People said it takes about 3 hours one way, but we hustled and cleared it in about an hour and a half. To be honest, I was quite surprised we made it there in one piece, considering the flies, the ravenous dirt path, lack of biking experience, and we even came across a snake on the way. There were miles of path that stretched without a soul or house in sight.

Deep down we harbored a secret motive, a hope that we could finally see elephants, Kazuni gate is the entrance to Vwaza and gets its name from Lake Kazuni, which is also where the safari camp is located. The lake is the only large water source in the entire park, so all the animals come to Kazuni to drink water. In the dry season, the lake is the only water source, so the African elephants from deep in the park come to the lake. It’s often hard to sight theses elephants, but they are abundant in Vwaza and in this season, easy to sight out the lake. However, they are very aggressive, and a scout is recommended company.

Mwazisi borders the Northern half of Vwaza, separated by valley of hills. The villagers in Mwazisi have been passing news of elephants in the area, lots of them. They say they come at night in search of food and eat the remnants of maize in the fields. While we didn’t get to see any elephants, as they were elsewhere searching for food, we saw plenty of hippos, which were out of the water, lazying about in the sun. There were also impalas, Egyptian geese, and a crocodile today, along with lots of elephant poop…literally everywhere. The water buffalo and baboons were also elsewhere today.

We greeted Harry, and Mr. Kataya, but missed Mrs. Kataya (my boss). George, one of the scouts, walked us around the lake pointing out various feces and animals. He gave us an update on the park’s current management situation. Vwaza used to be run by the government, after there were serious problems with the previous concession. The government, as expected, did a poor job managing the park and it faced a rough few seasons. George told us that a new company has taken over the management of Vwaza, named Ecolodges. Interestingly, he pointed out that the new owner is Indian. As we walked back from the lake we noticed a few azungus at the lodge by chalets. We all remarked how glad we were to finally see some tourists at the park.

The ride back was harder than the way there, mostly because we were tired, and more up hills. But we escaped unscathed by tse tse flies and disappointed about not catching a glimpse of some elephants. I will have to ask one of scouts to take us one of these days to find elephants. Tomorrow we decided to bike to Rumphi, which is about 80 km there and back. In the mean time I need to find my rooster; haven’t seen it since I got back from the lake, wonder where it could’ve gotten off too…

Me and Wellesley left the Zoo a little after breakfast. I was hoping to go to the Chapatti Lady, but it just wasn’t in the cards that morning as we were still full from dinner and it started to rain. Once it slowed, Mick and Max woke up and had their morning dose of Carlsberg with breakfast. Impressive. They encouraged us to partake but we could not drink anymore, especially so early in the morning. Two education volunteers also came by, on their way to site, and we chatted for a bit. So we said goodbye leaving enough time to go to an internet café, grocery shop, and catch a mini-bus back in time for the last matola out of Rumphi.

On the way to Mzuzu’s shops, Wellesley wasn’t sure where Chipiku was, so I walked her to the corner where it was and went on my way to Tutla’s. I found Max and Mick at Tutla’s too, they were buying groceries for their businesses. I was waiting outside, eating a cream filled donut from Tutla’s (delicious, fyi), when Wellesley walked up and told me what happen at Chipiku: after I left, two plain clothes police men approached her and questioned her about me. They asked her how long she has known me and what I have been telling her. She told them I was American and that I was a Peace Corps Volunteer. They didn’t believe her, thought I gave her a fabricated story. She didn’t believe them, so they showed their badges. They told her to be careful, because they thought I was a Somalian criminal and I was up to no good conversing with an azungu. She started laughing, telling them that I wasn’t even remotely Somalian and I was definitely not a criminal and that she was a volunteer too. They were still skeptical, said they would keep an eye on me and went on their way.

Since I got here, my exposed skin has been getting darker and darker, while my covered skin remains relatively lighter: a prominent farmers tan. I have been mistaken for Ethiopian, Somalian, Obama’s son, Obama’s brother, Dutch, have been called azungu, Black American, and yet no one has said Indian. The South Asian people I have met were, however, able to recognize that I was Indian, but otherwise I guess I am anything in between. Azungu’s get a certain stare walking down the street here: the surprised “look it’s a white person,” as if a rare animal was spotted, which is understandable. But I get a different stare, a combination of surprise and confusion, in need of a second assessment. You can see the progression in the stare, first they think I’m Malawian (or Ethiopian/Somalian), then in a flash they realize something is off and look again confused. They stare as if I’m a new creature, an alien hybrid, a centaur trotting through town, half Malawian, half azungu. Jaws drop when I open my mouth and English streams out in an American accent. Whenever kids yell “azungu!” I love replying “azungu yayi!” and they’re even more confused. I find the whole ordeal quite amusing, unless of course I get falsely arrested.

So, if you do not hear from me for some time, it’s probably because I’m in Malawian jail, falsely accused of being a Somalian pirate. If that’s the case, please come get me.

Last night, I should say early morning, I had a sudden and dire need to urinate. I often went in a plastic bottle I kept at bedside, but I didn’t want to continue the habit. So when the bladder pain became unbearable, I gathered the courage to venture out of the mosquito net (aka “the safe zone”) for the first time at night. Until then, once I entered the safety of the net, I did not leave until dawn. And so I cautiously made my way out, waving my headlamp in every direction, and opened my door and stepped out. The hyenas I was not too worried about, but the black mamba is a cause for concern.

The moon was bright, so bright that I turned off my light, and sky was crystal clear. The only clouds were clouds of stars. The nights here are beautiful, so beautiful; it’s like being in a different world, another planet. The few clouds in the distance, past the maize fields, looked like they were painted gently into the sky; light blue, purple, silver. The moon light covered the whole landscape with silver. It reminded of Aladdin, the depiction of an Arabian night.

After emptying my bladder, and a sigh of relief from the pain, I watched the starts for a bit. There were millions in the sky, the sky covered with shiny tinkling dots. The nights are quite cool in Dedza and there was a breeze flowing through the compound. I could have stayed out there all night, just watching the stars slowly vanish and the moon dim. However, if anyone from my family had seen me, they would have been quite concerned, so I went back in. Their concern is mainly because the area is full of fisi (hyenas); they come from the mountains at night and prowl about the village in search of stray goats, chickens, and even drunkards. More than fisi the biggest fear of most Malawians is the njoka (snake /black mamba). You should never say “snake!” as a joke, it’s a very serious matter because a mamba bite means death.

During the day, again a strange experience of a new world at dawn, the sun rises over the hills, clouds sweep in. Invisible stage hands change the scene. The cloud formations during the day are majestic, so grandiose. They are large formations, some rising far in to the sky, others just wisps. Because of the elevation, and the mountains that surround us, the clouds appear sometimes below the horizon, or meshed into the mountains. You look around in a field and huge, beautiful clouds surround you at eye level. It appears as if Mzengereza is a city in the clouds, just floating among them.

It’s a trippy experience, witnessing such natural beauty, unlike any place I have lived before. Not the coast of Kakinada or the beaches of Perth or the deserts of Riyadh, it’s a truly new experience. So much green, a chilly breeze, I felt like unfolding a madatha mancham and just lying there.

Last night, another interesting point, my host family told me they loved me too much, and that I was the best volunteer they have ever had stay with them. They made me give my word to write, call, and visit, even if I end up in Chitipa. I wasn’t sure how to respond at first, because it sort of just came out during dinner. I’m not used to hearing such direct emotion, but I warmed up to the situation. It was a genuine gesture and I was moved by this family that just took in a complete stranger and looked after him like one of their own children. While such generosity may not be surprising in Malawi, it’s certainly a rarity in so many parts of the world.

Today was our first transport day. We were tasked, in pairs, to get to Chimbiya market from our homes and back by lunch time. We each got kw 500 and market was about 10km away. I was paired with Flamboyant and we had a blast. On the way there we got a minibus pretty fast. The conductor said kw 150, but on the way Flamboyant talked to an Amayi next to him and she paid only kw 100. So when we got to the market (Flamboyant told him earlier that we would pay once we arrived, as mini-buses have a tendency to break down) we accused him of charging mtengo azungu (white man price). The conductor laughed and accepted kw 100 each.

We walked quite a bit through the dirty market, picked up some great deals on veggies. Flamboyant bought delele (okra) and eggplant for his Amayi and I bought onions and sabola (mild habanera) so I could make potato-egg fry for my host family. Once we were done, we left the market and didn’t want to wait for a mini-bus to fill up, so we started walking back down M1 to Mzengereza, and planned to catch a ride on the way. Lo and behold, no one would give us a ride. Tons of EU, Medicines Sans Frontieres, and other NGO cars drove by, none stopped. All the matolas and mini-buses were full from the market, so we just walked and talked, and laughed…a lot. In fact, part of the reason, probably, that no one would pick us up is because we were laughing hysterically and people must’ve thought we were drunk.

An azungu and an Ethiopian just walking down the road. The strangest part was seeing Chinese people drive by, they didn’t even look our direction. Luckily, after 3 or 4 km of walking, an empty mini-bus picked us up for kw 100 back to Mzengereza. We made it back safely and alive, although there was a guy with a big tank of gasoline on his lap, sitting next to Flamboyant, which worried us a little.

Got home, bafa-ed, ate lunch and off to class. After class I went to SoCo’s, bought 4 eggs from his host brother, then to Sunshine’s to get some spices, and walked back to my house. My Amayi was at a church meeting so I started on the fry: peeled potatoes with a piece of sharp metal, chopped onions, sabola (really hot), and Sunshine was good company to consult on the science of spice. Once it was finished, almost dying from the wood smoke in the small outdoor kitchen, I served it to my family for dinner. My Abambo didn’t eat it after one bite because sabola caused him heart burn. I was disappointed, but my Amayi loved it, in fact, that she ate all of it. She said the sabola was hot, but ate the whole thing. I asked her if she was lying, no boza, and she said she really like it.

I was glad for this, especially considering my botched grilled peanut butter. The best part was that the spicy food led to conversation about maji (water) to heal the heat. I told my family that they need to drink at least 4 liters of water a day and that water will keep them healthy, energetic, and sharp. They were all shocked, but they said they will now drink more water, and considering that they drink about 1 glass a day, anything more would be better.

Tamandani is sick and I told them to give him lots of water, his body needs it, and to keep giving him oranges instead of giving them to me. I hope they all drink more water, especially Amayi, as she is walking to the college tomorrow to get firewood, she needs to stay hydrated. I should get some water bottles for them to carry water.

This has been a journey of firsts: first hike, first time in Africa, first time planting something, and first garden. We are studying permaculture this week and we dug and planted our first garden today. A lot of digging, almost 3 hours between the 10 of us, plus instructors and other helpers. We planted onions, bok choy, soya, millet, tomatoes, and groundnuts.

We first dug 2 deep wells to collect rainwater and prevent soil erosion. The water collects in the holes and slowly absorbs into the soil, like a gutter, it protects the bed in the middle from being eroded away by the rains.

The actual bed, a one bed garden, was quite difficult to make and usually we are supposed to make at least 3 beds. The beds need to be double dug, which is to dig about 25cm down, remove the nutrient rich top soil in to a pile, then dig another 25cm down and remove the packed dirt into a separate pile. Then we mix the two piles, along with layers of manure/compost and ash, layering each component back into the hole, like lasagna. This creates a rich, fertile, soil for plant growth, with deep rooting.

We also created a berm at the bottom of the garden to stop rainwater as it fell on the bed and streamed down the slope. This way the bed is protected on all sides, allowing optimum plant growth, channeling water where it is needed. This whole concept of permaculture is to try to imitate nature, so this little bed is a recreation of nature’s complex and cyclical functions.

We use only resources we have locally available, no fancy equipment or materials, just a hoe (jembe) and digging. All of this is new to me. Manual labor is far concept from sitting behind a desk, it makes laugh every time I think about the shift. I don’t understand germination, or why certain plants have to be planted with certain others, or organized in a certain manner, or how water is absorbed into the soil and then into the plants. You should have seen the way Lu looked at me when I high-fived Flamboyant on my first ever garden. Her look basically said: “Oh God, what are you doing in the environment sector?” Too funny.

I really enjoyed learning about it though and I still have so much left to learn. Permaculture is fascinating, especially considering the long-term benefits and increased plant production. And lord knows we finance folk get giddy at the mere thought of efficiency. All the other trainees seem to be experts already in plant and soil science, especially SoCo, IT, and Flamboyant. I do like being so connected to the planting process.

As we were shaping our bed, dark clouds swept into the sky. Sunshine stated 20mins until rain falls. It took an hour, fortunately, just in time to water our finished bed and test our wells and berm. Tomorrow, we are at the college, but Friday we will plant the berm with agave or lemon grass. In the bottom corner of the bed, we planted a banana tree, because they absorb a lot of water, thus serving as more protection. We also planted soya next to it to put nitrogen back in to the soil. Quite proud of our little garden.

When I got home today, only Lea, Tamadani, and Amidu were around. All the females of the house (except Lea) were out harvesting beans, which we later shelled and had for dinner that night (crazy to think of fresh food). While I waited for them to return from the fields, I sat on the main house verandah and wrote, and gave the three of them pens and paper. We had a blast. I feel like I’m finally connecting to my host family and it’s with drawing! The art form that surpasses language in human communication. Amidu is hilarious, he just scribbled all over the page saying his name constantly.

After the ladies of the house returned, we burned the old bean shells in a big bonfire on the large rock next to the house. All the kids gathered around, Lea was dancing, Amidu was just standing in the smoke, and Tamadani was eating sugar cane, it was a fun evening.

Dinner was quiet, as Abambo was in Dedza for a painting job, but after dinner Amayi saw the kids’ drawings from earlier and just laughed for the next hour. Joyce grabbed a pencil and drew a picture of me, which was funny because it had lots of hair. After showing me the masterpiece, she hid her face embarrassed. Then they all asked me to draw Sunshine and Flamboyant, both characters they were familiar with. I did and they all got a huge laugh, especially from my depiction of Sunshine with a cigarette and scruffy beard.

A great night, I finally felt a small connection to my host family, even though it reminded me of my own family back home.

There are days I wake up and wonder what I’m doing here? I know nothing about the environment, nothing about nature. I traded my wonderfully numb life in Boston to live in a mud hut in Malawi. Those are the days I wake up thinking I’m in my apartment in Boston; the voices outside are those of Diana and Fang, or Jeff (who would usually never be up that early). But once my eyes adjust to the dim light that filters through the window, I realize how far I am. It’s a perturbing feeling, its realism shakes me a bit, that a mind can play such powerful tricks. Mostly, I worry if I will last the 2 years here.

They told us we would have many good days and many bad days. The peaks and troughs have decreased since I left Boston, but they have increased in frequency. Peace Corps seems like a great program, the ideal program for development, especially in the Environment sector, which provides a lot of freedom in projects.

It’s nice to be away from everything for a while, from the drama of friends, always managing expectations, competing in the rat race – all things that were swept out of my mind as I landed in Lilongwe. Things I would worry about, things I should worry about, like my finances, bills, staying in touch with people, networking, I no longer think about. I guess, partially, this security is due to the fact that PC is taking full responsibility of us. I hope my family is safe and healthy, that I talk to them soon, and that’s pretty much all. Oh and that I get letters. I do enjoy getting letters.

In fact, getting this journal was such a great joy, it smells of encouragement (and really good leather). Whenever I am down, it reminds me of why I’m here, and of friends back in the states. It’s been awfully busy here between adapting and learning the language, I haven’t had the time or energy to miss people from home. Just going with the flow…

We were assigned to our host villages and our languages the other day. I was one of six assigned to learn Chitumbuka. Not sure if that’s a blessing or a curse, or even how that decision was made, but it’s done. Tumbuka means my site will be in Northern Malawi, where the Tumbuka tribe is prominent. I was somewhat disappointed about the selection because I had already invested so much into learning Chichewa. Also, the national language of Malawi is Chichewa, it is taught in all the schools, so we technically will have to know 2 languages, while the others can become expert in Chewa. The two are somewhat similar but still quite different. We have about 8 weeks until our LPI examination in each language, it’s a time a crunch with all the other trainings. Crossing my fingers.

As for the host villages, we were separated into two groups, one sent to Chikanda and the other to Mzengereza. We will live in these villages for about seven weeks with a local host family. I was sent to Mzengereza, which literally translates to “dily daly,” and my host family’s name is Chongo. Today was our last day at the college, the first day we are sent sailing out of the bubble of comfort. After breakfast we packed our things and went to Dedza boma to buy necessities, like toiletries and cookies (or as we like to refer to them: “coping mechanism”).

The ride into our villages was one of the most nerve racking experiences of my life. As we loaded the cruisers with bags and cases and took our seats, a cloud of fear and anxiety settled over us. And it only got heavier. On the way to Mzengereza, we got to see more of Malawi and it was beautiful, indescribable. Initially, I was feeling fine, perhaps a few butterflies fluttering in my stomach. I was cracking immature jokes with Flamboyant and making fun of IT, who was crying and on the verge of puking out everything in her stomach (nerves and bumpy road). The ride was shaky, as there are no paved roads, and Franklin was grabbing onto whatever she could. Slowly, as the mud path got worse, as we got farther away from people and closer to miles of empty fields and forests, as we got closer to Mzengereza, it hit me – like a brick wall.

The butterflies turned into dragons, my face grew numb (literally could not feel anything touching my face) and my mind began to panic. It screamed: what the hell are you doing? What did you sign up for? You left a comfortable life to live in the middle of nowhere Africa, to live with a family you don’t know, with no way to communicate with the outside world! To top it all off, so far from family and friends. Franklin had to calm me down and worrying about IT puking provided a good distraction.

Luckily, we arrived vomit-free, driving into an open field full of villagers clapping and cheering and a line of empty chairs for us. Beatrice, Helen, Lovemore, and Charity were also there waiting. The cruisers stopped, we were overwhelmed, and as I was getting out I banged my head on the top of the car frame. Once we all sat down to a crowd of stares, the Afumu (Village Chief) spoke, followed by the Agroupo (Senior Group Chief), both welcoming us to the village, told us to treat this as our home. Then, the host families were called out, followed by the assigned volunteer, one pair at a time.

Everyone was called up except me and Flamboyant. We were just sitting there awkwardly. Our families didn’t show up. Well Flamboyant’s did, very late, but mine never came. Great start. Not that I’m nervous enough already. Another woman in the village had to walk me to the family compound. All in all an interesting experience, and I look forward to more such interesting experiences in homestay. Mmm chimanga, mpatatas, nkuku, mandazis and other new foods…

Went on my first hike today and it was a lot of fun. A bad cocktail of lack of exercise and high altitude caused early exhaustion and I was sweating profusely by the time we were half way up. Almost at the top of the mountain (the one behind the college) the rock path went vertical and vertigo kicked in. So I stayed back, waiting on a rock, while the others went to the top. We were about 5,800ft up. As I was sitting and waiting, lo and behold, Sunshine appears below, slowly making his way up. He came up and we sat on the rocks, enjoying the view. After a few minutes we saw people walking down in the distance. Sunshine, thinking it was the others, yells “moni!” They stop, turn, and walk towards us, at which point we realized it was students from the college. They were climatology students that were conducting some studies at the top of the mountain. Nice guys: Gift, a Tumbuka; Alex, a Chewa; and the third I can’t remember. We chatted for a bit and they showed us an easier way to the top, without verticals, and a faster way down. The new route was much easier and much more scenic. On the way we ran into another student, Felix, who guided us to the top. The view was beautiful, no photo could ever capture the panorama of rolling hills, valleys, mountains, with little villages blooming in the midst. It gave me a whole new perspective of the world. It was almost evening, the light was perfect. We could see Mozambique on both sides. On the way down we found some caves and great rocks to camp under. Hopefully, we get a chance to camp before training ends. It’s been almost a week now with no internet, phones, tv, or computers, and it’s been really nice. Like a weight lifted off my shoulders, we’ll see how long it lasts.

It has been raining everyday since we landed, wet, muddy. Glad I made the decision to bring the 10lb willies. The one time the sun came out it was beautiful, the fog cleared and we could see the mountain behind the college. One of the few troubling adjustments is the bugs in Malawi. There are a lot of bugs, big ones, and I’m just not curiously fascinated by bugs. I will just have to get used to them. More than bugs, I’m mostly worried about falling into the chimbutzi (pit latrine), as it happen to another volunteer last year. That is a concern that has been on all our minds since we heard the story. Tread cautiously. Being stuck in a pile of s@#$ is one thing, but being stuck in a pile of s@#$ 5 meters deep in a hole is pretty scary. After our medical sessions, we are told, we will get quite familiar with our fecal matter.

I have so much to learn here, not only from teachers/locals/PCVs, but also from other trainees. Agriculture and environmental science is unfamiliar territory, so far from finance and corporations. It’s overwhelming to be plunged in the deep end of an ocean of knowledge, almost drowning, it’s intimidating. In finance, I was amongst the top of my class, and people in the industry pride themselves on knowing more than everyone else. Knowledge is money and we have an insatiable thirst for both. We read not to learn, or to help the world, but to store in fact banks. The other trainees are so different, all brilliant in their own subjects, some on birds, others water, farming, etc. They are all incredibly resourceful, a fact I’m reminded of each day, and knowledgeable about nature and development because they actually care about these things. This knowledge is not simply a conversation point to them, it’s their passion, caring for a world that sustains us, yet most people ignore or forget in their daily lives. Especially people like SoCo, IT, and Hobbit, they emanate passion and enthusiasm. I know so little compared to these other volunteers, a new feeling of inferiority, against the grain of everything I learned.

One “rockstar” PCV just finished his third year here, he showed us a slide show of his site and projects, it was immense. The other PCVs applauded his achievements and M said jokingly (with a dash of fear we were all feeling in the audience) “Well, I feel sorry of the poor soul that has to replace Dan.” The important thing I noticed in the slideshow was that he saw a direct result of his labor. He built fish farms with his community and the villagers were able to sell the fish and turn a profit, improving their livelihoods. Back home I made countless powerpoints, documents, models, completed research projects, and it all resulted in what? Perhaps, in a distant time and place a few companies maybe improved their bottom line. Who did I personally help? No one. At least no one that really needed help. More importantly I never saw the direct result of my work. Did I build a school? A farm? No, but I got a shiny plastic trophy. This is a massive shift in values, in a good way. I just hope I physically survive long enough to do some good here (a fear stemming from our ever more interesting medical sessions).

On a different note, today was definitely at the top of my list of laughter days: I have never laughed so much in my life. My jaws, cheeks, face were all in pain, my eyes constantly watering. It started at lunchtime and carried on until 11pm, me, Jazz, Flamboyant, Sunshine, SoCo, and Hobbit (on and off). I can’t even remember what it was about. Maybe it’s the Meflaquin. At dinner we were laughing so hard that everyone was staring at us: the students, trainers, other trainees, everyone. So tired now.

We are in Dedza, at the foot of a fairly high mountain, an hour South of Lilongwe. The flight over the Atlantic was long but bearable. The climate here is cool and damp, luckily not hot and humid (as it was at the airport). I’m still getting used to the altitude, currently about 5,500ft , with occasionally dizzy spells and shortness of breath. My first observations of Malawi were similarities it is to India: the food, clothes, family politics, understanding of time, and traditions. An entire ocean and millennia of history separate two continents, yet we are fundamentally similar, a small world, large only in our perceptions. I haven’t stopped laughing since I landed and hope it continues in the coming months of training. The other trainees are great, such a diversity of backgrounds and personalities, so far from the people I had departed only days earlier. All of them are independent and adventurous spirits, resourceful and smart, with a great sense of humor. We are all about the same age, a few people older, but we all get along well so far.

The real magnitude of this journey, this massive leap of faith, didn’t strike me until we were half way across the Atlantic. When we landed, the idea, the feeling that this was home now was strange, alien. However, the flight over Malawi was a breath taking distraction, miles of rolling green hills stretching in every direction, some mountains scattered the landscape, mesmerizing. We landed in Lilongwe Airport to a big drunken welcome by all the current PCVs. The welcome was quite overwhelming, especially after travelling for over 30 hours, but it was fun. There were screams from the balcony, draped with the Peace Corps flag, and we were greetedwith hugs from the training staff before we entered the arrivals area. More screams awaited, along with high-fives and porcupine needles, as we gathered our luggage and passed through customs.

We all gathered outside in a big circle and introduced ourselves. Within five minutes of standing on Malawian soil Karonga hands me a Nalgene bottle filled with Malawian beer, which wasn’t bad. We were given fruits and a big, warm welcome from Vic the director. The whole event was a wonderful gesture and put us all at ease. After photos we all got in the bus and headed out to Dedza. It was a long ride to the Malawi College of Forestry, the closer we got the colder it was, passing miles of green, with occasional villages appearing in the fog. The dark tall pine trees were a beautiful contrast against the damp mist. The four PCVs that would join us for training were describing the area, but I was too tired to listen.

All the Malawians I have met so far have been wonderful, very friendly and warm people. Our trainers are all amazing, so are the PCVs that are joining us for the first few weeks. The food is delicious, especially mandazis (fired dough), although I’m still getting used to the blandness of nsima. There is quite a variety of curry-style dishes (dende) that go with nsima, which reminds me of home. Like the soya pieces dende. On the drive from Lilongwe I noticed a few Indian people, along with an Indian restaurant, two shops, a temple, and a country club (strange). It doesn’t mean much, nor does it change anything, but it is a comforting sight. A little piece of home so far away. On a side note, the word for enough in Chichewa is “bas,” a word we use often when getting food in the cafeteria. We have about five meals a day: breakfast, tea, lunch, snack, and dinner. The honey here is delicious, especially over some bread, it actually tastes like honey, untainted, unprocessed. The avocadoes are massive, roughly the size of two grapefruits, and very flavorful.