First Month at Site

My neighbors think I’m crazy. I don’t blame them – I give them plenty of good reasons to think it! Like earlier this week – it’s 5:30am, and I’m slowly walking down the road with a latex glove on one hand, a bucket in another, head sweeping slowly side to side. Every once in I while I bend over, pick something up to put in the bucket, and then keep going. When my neighbor asks me what’s in the bucket, I reply, “Manowa.” Yep. Manure. My garden soil is in desperate need of nutrients, and the cows and goats in the community leave these beautiful little gems of fertilizer right on the road! I figure, why let it go to waste? Of course, people here know about using manure to improve the soil, but they wouldn’t dream of picking it up off the road to use! In the States, you could just go to your local farmer and take all the manure you wanted, but here there are fewer animals, and they’re only confined at night, so there aren’t such large deposits of manure in animals pens. Plus, if I want to get manure from one of my farmer neighbors, I have to walk a long way over a hill to get it. So for now, I’ll do some small-scale gathering, early in the morning, when only a few people are out and about, so it doesn’t become a spectacle!

I’ve been at my site for just over a month now and am really enjoying it. There are some tough days when I feel lonely, but for the most part, it’s been fantastic and very busy. I’ve been spending a lot of time working in the garden. It’s a big garden and was neglected for about two months between the previous volunteer’s departure and my arrival, so the weeds have taken over. As I’ve pulled up the weeds, I’ve discovered wonderful surprises hiding underneath, such as pineapples, peanuts, and beans. My greatest discovery was the strawberries that I knew were there, but couldn’t find at first. Sadly, the berries are about the size of the end of my pinky finger, but they taste wonderful. I’m hoping with a little extra care and water, they’ll grow bigger and more plentiful. I have a ton of sweet potatoes that I’ll harvest in July, and tons of cassava, the traditional staple food plant of Malawi. I’m not too excited about the cassava, but look forward to making lots of sweet potato casseroles when the time comes! I think I’ll enjoy spending a lot of time in my garden in the next two years.

Here's a pic of my house, with part of the garden in the foreground.  Sorry for the poor picture quality - I've been neglecting to take pictures, so snapped this quickly before I came to Lilongwe yesterday.

Speaking of food, I’ve been so pleased with what I’ve been able to cook here. I made tacos one night, including making tortillas from scratch. They were amazing! I managed to make a wonderful chocolate cake, practicing for a friend’s birthday party in August. And, I’ve had stir-fries with fresh veggies from the garden and egg and potato scrambles for breakfast. It’s been a lot of fun trying out new creations with whatever food is available in the area. Right now, there are a lot of lemons and avocados, so I’ve been having a lot of guacamole and lemonade! I also learned that you can make an amazing version of chocolate pudding by mixing mashed-up avocado, cocoa powder, and sugar. Try it – you’ll like it! I’ve also found that I actually like nsima now. I eat lunch with my counterpart’s family about once a week, and it’s nice to have nsima on such an infrequent basis. Every day is too much, but once a week, it becomes a comfort food.

As I mentioned, the first month at site has been busy. Besides getting the house and garden in order, I’ve been having three to four meetings each week with community groups and residents of the different villages in the area. In Malawi, small villages each have a Village Headman, or Chief, and then a number of villages get grouped together under a Group Village Headman. Then, a number of village groups get lumped together under a T.A., or Traditional Authority. In my area, there are four village groups, with four to eight villages in each group. I’ve decided to start my work with four major projects – one with each village group. I held meetings with each group and they decided what type of projects they wanted to try, based on what they thought would be most beneficial to the villages and most likely to succeed. Three of the village groups chose projects to raise pigs, and one group chose a beekeeping project. Stay tuned for details of those big projects as we start working on them. The big challenge will be to find funding, so we’ll be applying for grants from NGOs and other sources. After that, the big challenge will be to make the projects successful! I’ve been advised that many projects fail, but I’m optimistic that these will succeed. I’ll also be doing a number of smaller secondary projects with different groups such as an HIV/AIDS support group, a beekeeping group that funds orphan and elder care, and a women’s enterprise group. Already, the area has a number of projects going, including an impressive irrigation scheme and plans to grow macadamia and coffee trees as cash crops, and I may be able to help with some of these programs as well. There are so many ways I can get involved with the community, and I think they’ll keep me super busy!

I’m still working on overcoming a few challenges. First, I’m hoping to buy a Blackberry or other Internet-enabled phone while I’m visiting Lilongwe this weekend. I’m also hoping to buy, or at least research, a large solar panel and battery that would allow me to charge my computer at site. There’s really no way to charge it without biking 18 kilometers down the hill and back to Ntchisi, the district capital. Fingers crossed that I’ll get the power and Internet situations figured out in the next month or so, so I can communicate with you more often! There’s also a problem with transportation to and from my site. I can bike to Ntchisi, but it takes about an hour to get there, and three to four hours to get back up the hill carrying the goods I buy there. The other option is taking a matola, the big flat-bed trucks that carry goods and people. Unfortunately, this time of year the matolas are incredibly crowded with bales of tobacco and bags of beans, soya, peanuts, and potatoes, all going to market. Plus, they’re crowded with people who have money at harvest time, so they’re going to the market to buy goods. This makes the matolas dangerously overloaded, and not a fun way to get around. I’ve tried to avoid them as much as possible, but the few times I’ve had to take one, like to get to Lilongwe this weekend, I’ve climbed up and hung on for dear life, hoping I don’t fall off or that the matola doesn’t go tumbling over an embankment because it’s too top-heavy. The overloaded matola is the one thing I’ve found in Malawi that I have to say is uncivilized. I really can’t adequately explain my frustration with the danger and discomfort people have to endure just to get to their nearest market.

One other challenge – no mail. I’ve heard that apparently there was an anthrax outbreak in South Africa, so all the mail that came through South Africa to get to me in Malawi had to be sent back to the States because it might be contaminated with anthrax. This makes no sense, I know, but welcome to my world. As a result, I’ve so far received only two packages and eight letters since arriving here more than three months ago. Alas! I’m hopeful that everything you’ve sent will arrive some fine day.

That’s all for now. I hope to update you again in July. Please add any questions or comments you have here. I love reading them, and will be happy to respond as best I can in my next post. Tiwonana (See you later)!

P.S. - Check out http://www.ntchisi.com/to see the website for the tourist lodge that's about one kilometer up the road from my house. It has some good information about the area, and pictures!  And, check out my new mailing address in the column to the right.

Also, here's a pic of me with my host family from training.  From left to right - Lias, Heatherwick, Me, Jennifer, Jackson.