my basket guy!

Welcome to my tropical paradise! I attempted something new as every time I upload pictures they tend to disappear. Hope you enjoy Zanzibar!

The following morning instead of staying home I went to work and instead of working at the health center I went to a funeral that was nearly 2 hours away in the ambulance. We were on a very bumpy road which did not help my headache and then at the funeral I did what every Malawian woman does…started a fire, made nsima and got water. While I didn’t mind doing those things I believe I should have taken it easy and so by the time I got home around 6pm my head felt like it was going to explode! When it comes to pain I can be a little dramatic, but this time I’m being serious. I thought my head was going to explode! I figured since it was the weekend I would just take plenty of drugs and just rest. Eventually I was placed on med hold as every time I moved my left eye I got this sharp pain and on a few occasions at night it felt like I was floating and the room was spinning so the doc thought it would be a good idea to get things checked out. I had a ct scan and the results said, “brain is normal” so that’s two thumbs up! I’m not sure what was wrong but after a few weeks all went away and life is great!

Ok, now let’s talk about Zanzibar. This clearly will be a long entry J as I have to tell you how meeting in the middle came about. While in Chicago my friend Amanda and I were volunteers for this amazing organization called Rape Victim Advocates and unbeknownst to us we both volunteered to assist at Loyola’s presentation of the Vagina Monologues on Valentine’s Day as counselors if anyone needed someone to talk to. After the performance we decided to have a valentine’s dinner and during our conversation the Peace Corps came up. We both were extremely interested but naturally we had a few reasons as to why we couldn’t or shouldn’t apply. We eventually made a pact that evening that no matter what we would apply and tada here I am! Throughout the process we made another pact that once we got in no matter where we were in the world we would meet in the middle during our service and the middle just happened to be a tropical paradise on a lovely island off Tanzania. Oh, my friend Amanda is a volunteer in Uganda so Tanzania is in the middle of us!

My adventures to our tropical paradise began with me knowing I couldn’t use the bathroom for the next 24 hours therefore I had to pee every five minutes. Traveling within Africa is not as posh as traveling within the US…you can forget about toilets, air conditioning, stops at a restaurant and having your own personal space. Speaking of personal space I should inform you that the person I had to sit next to for nearly 27 hours was a very large woman who I am guessing weighed close to 400 lbs. I’m not joking! For the duration of this tortuous traveling experience half of her right body was on my leg and every time I tried to move she would shift a brief second then fall back to her greediness and take over my seat. She also had the audacity to tell me that I was the fat one and taking up too much space and because I was so young I should lose weight (just in case you didn’t know I have lost over 100 lbs)  Now, I do not consider myself a violent person by any means, but I wanted to punch her in the face (thanks Jaimie).

Continuing with our delightful bus trip we made a stop around midnight to take a guess…use the bathroom!! I was so excited I was bursting with joy until I realized that the men went one way into the bushes and the women went another way. Yep, I peed in the bushes with seven other women. A very liberating experience and you should try it sometime!

As the journey went one I thought about how I wished I paid the money for a plane ticket. The bus was so crowded people were standing and sleeping in the isle, it was extremely hot and for some reason Malawian’s play music at a decibel that is unnecessary at all hours of the night so I couldn’t sleep and having a person sleep on you doesn’t help at all either. As time progressed we finally arrived to Dar es Salaam and boy is that place chaotic. It was midnight when we got in and people were everywhere! It’s midnight people… GO TO BED! The city was far from what Lilongwe looks like and I was a little nervous as I didn’t know exactly where I was going.  Once off the bus it took a few minutes for the driver to find my luggage, some guy tried grabbing my bag as he claims he was trying to help me get to a taxi and I was informed that I was supposed to buy my bus ticket back to Lilongwe at the first stop. Ahh. Luckily, a Malawian who I chatted with at the border assisted me with the taxi guy and told me to forget about trying to get to the hotel I was planning on staying at and to follow him to the hotel around the corner…don’t worry mom it was just fine. My new friend was so helpful. He got rid of the crazy taxi guy, helped me get a room and told me how to get a ticket the following morning. Clearly I am capable of completing the above tasks, but it was nice having someone look out for you. Malawians are pretty rad!

By the time I showered and got settled in it was around 2 am! More than 24 hours of traveling and I was exhausted! A few hours of sleep and I began my next adventure…buying my ticket back to Malawi. Dar is definitely a little easier on the eye in day light. A lovely old man escorted me to the ticket booth and then found me a cab to take me to the ferry. I gave him a little tip and while he was missing a few teeth he gave me the biggest smile! I wanted to hug him he was so darn cute! Moving on… boarded the ferry and enjoyed the relaxing two hour trip to heaven. Do you honestly believe that?! Motion sickness hit me pretty good and the entire time I thought I was going to vomit and what made the short trip better was the fact that out of nearly 20 plus seats available some guy had to sit in the booth with me. We discussed homosexuality, marriage and the high rate of divorce in America, why women wait till they are older (such as myself) to have a family, why I chose to leave my amazing country where streets are paved in gold to come to Africa and of course why I wasn’t married. Oh goodie, such a grand trip!

FINALLY I made it to Zanzibar and I nearly ran through the tiny crowded streets trying to find my friend! The buildings are rustic and the streets are narrow and more or less a maze as they twist and turn in every direction which eventually led me to Amanda. I couldn’t have been happier to see her. It’s been nearly a year and a half since we last saw one another and the fact that we actually did what we planned on doing made this trip that much more sweeter! We hugged and chatted for hours before we realized we needed food! We ate, had some drinks, ate some more and drank some more! Life is grand!  The most amazing thing about Stone Town is that every evening there is a huge open market near the water where there is nothing but absolutely AMAZING food! Considering the staple food of Malawi is a white flavorless paddy of over processed maize I was about to enter food heaven! I was so overwhelmed with all the vendors I had to settle for tuna, lobster, sugar cane juice mixed with ginger and lime, chocolate ice cream, samosa’s , spicy fried potatoes, coconut bread, juicy pineapple and a pizza that was made with Hershey’s chocolate syrup, nutella and a banana and did I mention fresh tuna and lobster???  It was the worst meal of my life and I can’t wait to go back!!!

The following morning Jambo Guest Hotel provided us with a delightful breakfast and transport to Kendwa Rocks where we would spend three magical days in the Indian Ocean. When we first arrived our rooms were not quite ready so we wandered down to the Ocean and simply relaxed in a hammock for an hour. Oh, this was my first time in a hammock! I have always been afraid of them and until now had no desire to attempt getting in one to only fall out of it. I now want one as they are just so relaxing. Moving on… Once we got settled in our quaint rooms it was time for lunch! From our guidebooks and word of mouth we were informed that there were a few tuck shops of sort about a mile or so down the road where we could purchase food much cheaper than our hotel and being poor volunteers we decided this would be the way to go…until we saw the restaurant at our hotel. We have a view of the ocean, over sized patio furniture with comfy green cushions in the sand, a bar, and a gazebo with more oversized furniture  with a an amazing food menu that happened to be a two minute walk from our room so the decision was pretty easy…we would blow all our money on food J Now, I do not want to torture you with details of my boring tuna steak teriyaki, chapatti fish wrap, tandori chicken kebab, California crunch roll (who knew sushi could be so good), peanut butter fudge brownie, carrot cake, white Russians and a few margaritas as I of course took pictures of EVERYTHING I ate and will eventually post them for you to enjoy.

After our fabulous lunch date we wandered around and guess what we found…a little hut in the sand where we could get deep tissue massages! Our vacation just keeps getting better. We poked our heads behind the curtain and found two women who we would later become friends with in the middle of their massage. All we heard were their oh’s and ah’s and we were sold. We came back at 4:30pm and oh my word what a unique experience that was. Who knew a deep tissue massage was so up close and personal. I believe our massage lasted nearly an hour and it was by far one of the most relaxing hours of my life! Following our massage we got another henna tattoo! I’m slightly addicted to them now. Amanda and I got similar ones and we have decided once back in the states we are going to meet in Chicago (where it all began) and get them tattooed. Yea J

The following morning we had a decadent breakfast that included eggs, fresh squeezed juice, scones with pineapple and bananas. We needed a breakfast that was going to fill us up as the night before we booked a snorkeling excursion! We met Jen and Hannah (the girls who were getting massages) at their hotel and walked together to get our gear. I have decided that snorkeling gear is very tricky. Those flippers are so big and trying to find the right size was a little challenging especially when trying them on in the sand.

Once that was all settled we boarded a very rickety wooden boat that I’m certain would sink with a gust of wind. There were 8 people on this boat and as we headed to the drop off spot it started raining, the clouds turned black and it got really windy. We were all convinced that something bad was going to happen and Hannah kept asking our tour guide if we should turn around and of course he told us that it would stop by the time we got there. Oy vey. He was right. We got to the drop off spot and it cleared up.  However, once we got there we noticed a ton of jelly fish so we naturally refused to get in the water but again our guide Laki said it was ok because they don’t sting. We didn’t believe him and politely asked to go to another spot. Laki then put his hand in the water and grabbed one out of the water. We all looked at him as if was crazy, but of course he was right. A jellyfish that doesn’t sting. Who knew?

Once in the water we had the time of our lives. Snorkeling is very freeing. The fact that you can breathe and observe such natural beauty is just breathtaking. Another first for me! We swam with the fishies for over an hour and it was just incredible. There were a few times I swallowed salt water and nearly choked, but once I figured out the mask I was a ok. Sadly it started raining so we had to head back. I could have stayed there all day. It was such a fabulous morning. After we finished and made it back to land Amanda and I spent the rest of the day going between our hammocks, swimming and eating and of course planning what we were going to eat the following day.

After a marvelous day of snorkeling we decided to book another excursion so we could swim with dolphins!!! The following morning we left bright and early with the same French couple we went snorkeling with. We got more snorkeling gear and headed out into the great big blue ocean. We were very fortunate that our group was just the four of us. Any more than that and it would have been hectic.

I don’t believe we were in the boat for more than 20 minutes when our tour guide pointed to a group of dolphins to us and told us to jump in! Ah the excitement begins. I jumped out of the boat, put my mask on and swam with dolphins! What a rush I tell ya. The tour guide was pointing to us what direction the dolphins were going in and we just hung out with them. Man, it’s so cool.  While were swimming with these beautiful animals one looses track of what’s going on with the rest of the world. Following this dive I honestly thought we were done, but we were not! We got back in the boat and let me tell you trying to get in a boat with flippers on is not easy! Well, until you realize that you should take them off in the water and then climb the tiny ladder.

Our guide and boat driver were absolutely incredible. There were a few other tour boats out with us, but we had the best! He had everything timed perfectly so when the other groups were in the water we were in the boat waiting for the dolphins to swim another direction so that when we jumped in our group was the only one! How incredible is that.  I had no idea swimming with dolphins would be so demanding. Between chasing the dolphins and jumping in and out of that boat at least seven times I was exhausted. And let me tell you I have no upper body strength. My goodness gracious, if it wasn’t for our guide who could easily pulled me out of the water with his one hand I would have been shark food.

 There were two swims that were absolutely incredible. The first was when my entire group was swimming directly above the eight dolphins and one peed on us. And when you think of pee it’s more like a white stream of smoke. Very weird. The second and probably the best was when I was swimming above the dolphins and I noticed there were only 6 so I started looking around me and immediately to my left the other two dolphins were  right there. Swimming right next to me. Again…super cool!!!! It was as if we were in sync. It was an absolute unreal experience. I extended my arm to try and touch one but jerked it back after thinking that no matter how cute these animals are we are not in some fancy aquarium with trained professionals. We are in the middle of the ocean and this is their home. I decided I was content on swimming next to them and my hand wasn’t long enough. After our remarkable swim we got to go snorkeling for about 30 minutes or so before they fed us!!! More food J

Sadly the next day we had to leave and head back to Stone Town as my ferry was leaving at 3. L While there we visited the slave market which was pretty depressing. We toured an old building that held slave chambers that let me tell you were extremely tiny. I couldn’t stand completely straight they were so small. The rooms also had maybe three slits in them for windows and held 75 people while they waited to be sold. After this tour we did some shopping and I had my last meal in Zanzibar before I headed to the ferry.

Of course my adventure does not end there as I still had to get back to Lilongwe. So in short: remember the guy who was missing teeth? Well, he was outside my hotel and agreed to wake me up at 4:30 in the am so I wouldn’t miss my bus (a gem I tell you), got to the bus a little after 5 and was told it was the wrong spot and that I needed to be at the depot, had to argue with a cab driver to take me there for what little money I had left…it didn’t work, some guy tried ripping me off with my luggage, the bus company overbooked the bus so my seat was “sold” and I had to sit next to guess who…the same rude obnoxious person who told me “I was too fat to sit here” on the way to Dar but we both protested that and I got to sit next to someone else,  the bus left at 6:30 am and we got to the border at midnight and had to sleep on the bus with creepy men outside yelling, “azungu”, “mammy, I give you good rate” etc, what a nightmare, I had to go pee so bad but refused to get off the bus but eventually at 4am I peed behind some truck and then thankfully the sun came out, the border opened and I was back in Malawi. Still not home but oh so close. Ended up taking a minibus with some travelers from South Africa who actually were coming back from Zanzibar as well. Made it to Mzuzu where I bought a ticket headed to Lilongwe at 4, but of course that did not happen. We didn’t leave till after 6pm and I had some drunk guy sitting next to me who kept telling his friend, “stand down soldier” but around 1:00am I finally made it back to Lilongwe. This was nearly 48 hours of traveling…the worst traveling experience ever. Again, I will save my sanity and fly regardless of how much it cost.

Ok, so I think I have covered my Zanzibar trip! Wow, that was long. I apologize for that, but I hope you enjoyed it and one day I will post pictures so you can see my tropical paradise.

Till next time,

Hugs!

homestay: me and Jay

it looked worse than this I promise!

my favorite iwes: chausa and manuel playing with colby

                   last sitemate sunday with Jaimie

my host family running to greet us during a visit

just me headed to my sitemates house

                       host family looking at the photo album I made them

                             oh so pretty

a little bob marley

some cute iwes

my sitemate Miriam and I after hiking

a little bit of heaven

                                 i’m getting better at carrying water

I hope all is well stateside. Things here in Malawi are just peachy. I recently got back from IST (in service training) where my health group and environment group met for two weeks to discuss how inadequate we are. Seriously, it was a lot of fun seeing everyone, but it was a little unsettling as we had to do presentations on what we have accomplished so far and some have fixed boreholes, got computers for libraries, started womens group and a bunch of other wonderful things that made me just feel like poo! I have done absolutely nothing at site. Go me In time my friends things will get done and I will be a kick ass volunteer!

Some of you guys now that my little puppy was sick as a dog. I was visiting my friend Mary for the weekend and we attended a wedding, but I left Colby with my neighbor and she unfortunately did not make it home one of those nights so Colby was left on the porch all night. When I got back on Sunday he was just a little lifeless thing on the porch who didn’t respond to my whistle or his name. He wasn’t eating or drinking anything. I figured he was traumatized from being left outside all night. Eventually when he did drink some water he immediately threw it up and then when he went poo he squirted out blood. I started freaking out! I immediately texted my friends who are animal lovers and was told to give him some ors so I tried that and he threw it up.  Mary’s neighbor called me and told me had k9 parvo virus which attacks the digestive system, so I then got a vets number and she said the same thing. Apparently there is nothing you can do for a dog with this virus except put them on an iv, but she said most dogs don’t make it after 2-3 days so there was really nothing to do. I of course started crying thinking I was going to watch my dog die right before me. So for an entire week I just held him  and forced ors down his little body. It was the worst week ever! On the other hand I am happy to report that my little monster is 100% better and a true miracle happened.

A quick laugh: my sitemate Dana spent the night one weekend and while we were getting his mosquito net ready when all of a sudden a larger than life spider was spotted crawling on the wall. I jumped back and told Dana he had to take care of it! This thing was fast as lightning as one minute it was the on the wall then it jumped to the floor and started charging at us (ok maybe not charging but it was definitely coming towards us) so I then jumped on the mattress which is about 2 inches thick as I figure anything off the ground is better then having this mutant spider run on my foot. As it continued crawling towards us I started screaming, Dana is telling me to be quiet but I can’t help myself it’s so dang huge! I tried giving him my flip flop to kill it but he wouldn’t take it then he leaves the bedroom and tells me to watch it as if I was really going to take my eyes off it only to come back with a plastic cup! Dana traps the spider under the cup and gently escorts it outside. I was not very happy with him and his lets save the spider good karma crap because I just know at some point down the road that sucker will be back in my house when I am alone! Eventually we calmed down ok I calmed down from this horrifying experience and had a good nights sleep!

Ok I’m going to add pictures now

xoxo

cassie

The second time we were under civil arrest was a month after the first and sadly nothing happened. A protest was scheduled, but the president authorized another injunction. Now, I’m not advertising protests and civil disobedience, but at some point if you are unhappy with how things are being done one must take action and it’s really hard to imagine a Malawian doing something somewhat aggressive. Lately there has been no fuel, prices are increasing on practically everything and foreign exchange is nonexistent. Going into town has become a nightmare because we have to wait up to 30 mins for the minibus to fill up with passengers before we leave and oh my word the gas lines are ridiculous! Vehicles are literally stretched out for miles and near the Peace Corps office you can barely walk through as cars are blocked waiting in line to get fuel. But, supposedly things are changing….

Besides a little civil unrest I experienced a week of nothing but frustration and lows. I was physically not feeling 100% and of course that made me miss the comfort of being home and then the craziest thing happened…while at the health center I noticed a group of “azungus” and of course one must talk to them and I met this guy Randy who was from Urban Ministries and you will never guess where he was from! Did you guess, what did you say? If you guessed Alabama you get a maprizey…a hug when I see you in 2 years. The moment he said hello I immediately knew he was from the south and he just happened to be from Mobile, Alabama. I normally don’t get homesick, but after chatting with him for a few moments I just wanted to go home!! Since that is not possible he gave me the next best thing, a hug and he said it was from home!

After that small comfort of home things went downhill. That day I was working at the registration desk. More or less I write registration numbers, the village the patient is coming from, age, sex, medical diagnosis and what medicines were prescribed. Clearly nothing too difficult, but when I’m trying to ask certain questions in Chichewa it makes people do one of two things: laugh or stare at me as if I have two heads and four eyes. I find it extremely annoying when I’m trying to speak in the native language and get nowhere or just laughed at.

Continuing with my day, I normally have my cell phone out as I’m texting quite frequently to my sitemates/friends etc so my little fingers are always on my phone. However, for the briefest of all moments I set my phone down on the registration book so I could write a patients information and when I finished and reached for my phone surprisingly enough it was missing! I did not panic or freak out…yet, but I patted myself down as sometimes I tuck my phone in my bra, I checked my bag, I checked under the book, I checked under the desk and when those efforts produced nothing I then began to panic. Now, in America if I had my phone stolen (which has happened) or lost my phone ( I left it on the cta red line) it’s normally not a big deal as I pay the insurance fee and get a new one in a day and have access to more technology. No biggie, but in Malawi this is the ONLY contact I have with Peace Corps and my family back home. Keep in mind at this time we (peace corps volunteers) are on site lock down because of the civil unrest so if something tragic happened and we needed to be evacuated or anything I would not know. Ok, so that’s a bit extreme as PC would find me, but those moments were a little unsettling.

Fast forward and I have now literally freaked the amayis (women) out as all they see is this azungu frantically searching for something. The women are amazing as they have no idea what I’m looking for, but see I’m clearly looking for something and they start looking for this unknown object. It’s been about 15 minutes now and the sap that I am, I start crying. One thing I have learned about women and Malawians in general is that they do not cry. Seriously, I saw a woman give birth and she did not make a sound and afterwards she got up, cleaned the mattress and walked to the antenatal room. Are you kidding me, she just gave birth , a human being just came out of her body and she did not make a peep and here I am crying over a phone. Nonetheless, one my fellow colleagues takes me aside and tells me everything will be ok and I of course tell her it’s not because someone stole my phone. If you can picture this it’s quite a funny scene. Here I am this azungu crying over a silly materialistic item when we have children starving and dying of malnutrition, malaria, HIV and more. I mean my goodness, what was I thinking! The amayi’s have no idea what to do with me and my fellow colleagues are all popping their heads into the room to see the azungu crying as word already made it through the village. More or less it became quite the embarrassment, but my phone magically reappeared! Imagine that J Tears worked to my benefit!

What else happened? Oh yes, I was told I was lazy and incompetent because I decided to not make lunch or more frankly nsima (try explaining spam to someone who doesn’t understand processed food let alone something that was shipped to me from America) therefore, I didn’t eat lunch, and instead had chippies (French fries) from a local vendor. I have been living in my village for over 3 months and this was the first time I bought a snack and yet the handful of staff members from the health center who saw my purchase now consider me lazy and verbally express it quite often.

What happened next? The same week I got the creepy handshake not once, but twice from a guy at work. You are probably wondering what the creepy handshake is and it occurs when shaking someone’s hand  and the guy extends his middle finger and scratches the inside of your palm letting you know that he wants to have sex with you. Yep, it’s pretty disgusting and when I yelled at the guy everyone started laughing at me and proceeded to tell me that I needed to take a Malawian man as two years is way too long to be without someone. I have since created a “fake boyfriend” (and yes it has helped. The marriage proposals have stopped!!!) hoping that would help the situation and of course it did not. They proceeded to tell me that I can’t trust my “boyfriend” because one should never expect a man to be faithful to one person let alone for two years. Remember; here in Malawi it is perfectly ok to have more than one wife and several girlfriends…at the same time! I then proceeded to explain what a monogamous relationship means as it includes trust, faith, honesty and blah blah, but it all fell on deaf ears. There were a few however that were completely flabbergasted at the thought of one man and one woman being together for a long period of time (homosexuality is illegal here so we didn’t even go into two men and two women) This became the longest conversation I have ever had in Malawi and sadly got nowhere. More or less we agree to disagree.

The next unsettling thing that happened actually turned out to be relatively hilarious after I gave it some thought.  It was around noon and I was getting ready to leave work for lunch when I had the following conversation with a staff member:

Guy: what are you taking for lunch?

Me: an omelet

Guy: A what? (he honestly had no clue)

Me: Eggs, tomatoes, peppers and onions

Guy: You eat too many things. That’s why you are fat. You should eat nsima.

This was literally the best conversation I think I have had in Malawi!

Ok, I’m not done so continue reading. Feel free to take a pee break or get something to drink as I will be here when you get back, trust me I’m not going anywhere! As you can see this week just sucked! I wasn’t feeling well, got homesick, my phone was stolen, was called lazy, incompetent and fat and of course propositioned for sex. Nothing completely crazy but enough to really frustrate and annoy me especially when you are thousands of miles away from home. While typing this I have realized that I should never go nearly two months without updating this. I have so much more to tell you guys, but the rest will make you laugh at least I think and hope.

*As you all know I am terrified of spiders. I can spot them a mile away in the tiniest corner. Since being in Malawi I have had the unfortunate pleasure of coming across a spider that is as flat as a pancake but fast as lightning. I’m not joking. One minute this disgusting creature will be on the door and the next it’s on the other side of the room. Ok, so picture this spider and me in the chim (bathroom where I pee in a whole in the ground that’s the size of a shoebox).Do you have this image in your mind yet? Ok good! I was minding my own business when all of a sudden this demon of a creature ran by my foot (hey, I was wearing sandals and it nearly touched me) making me scream, loose my balance and nearly fell face forward out the door. Luckily, I was capable of saving myself from such a humiliating act by catching myself on the door. Needless to say I peed on myself and I avoided the chim for awhile. Trust me, you would too and as Jaimie says, “your chim is evil”

*Of course I cannot update this without telling ya’ll about Colby (my puppy). One afternoon as we were walking out of my compound Colby stretched his little body forward and started to tease a chicken. I know I should have pulled him away and scolded him or something, but I didn’t. I don’t like chickens and that’s why Dead Chickens Rule (DCR…I love MBS and MLS’S), however I have learned from this mistake. The chicken that Colby started chasing was a mamma chicken and she had her six little chicks with her and when Colby poked his little head at her the mamma chicken ruffled her feathers and started chasing him! I immediately dragged him into the air by his leash and started running! When was the last time you had an angry mama chicken try to attack you? You would run too! Of course this would happen while my neighbors were watching and let’s just say they got a kick out of me running while dragging poor Colby.

*One afternoon during my lunch break I was at home and started doing laundry. Since I do laundry inside I tie Colby up outside as he just tries to drink my soapy water. As I finished hand washing my clothes I noticed Colby was making this weird scruffy sound. I opened the door and to my surprise saw Colby with chicken feathers hanging from his mouth, a dead chicken with its kneck torn and blood on my front porch. I just stood there staring at him for a few moments before I closed the door and went back inside. I had no idea what to do! Just last week we were at Jaimie’s for sitemate Sunday and we talked about what happens when a dog kills a chicken, yeah you have to buy another chicken or get rid of the dog. After composing myself I opened the door and brought Colby inside. After cleaning him up a little I went outside and just stared at the mess on my front porch. I clearly was not going to touch this chicken and since I didn’t know who it belonged to I figured I would wait it out and figure everything out when the owner knocks on my door. I went back inside and frantically texted my neighbor Elizabeth. She said she would be home shortly and would help me sort everything out. It seemed hours went by before she came over. Apparently, there was some virus going around that was killing chickens and another neighbor said she not only lost three chickens earlier in the week but she saw this particular chicken earlier and said it looked drunk so she said Colby didn’t kill it. I was ok with this decision as I didn’t have to spend 800 kwacha on a chicken or give up my dog, but then I panicked thinking Colby just ate some of the chicken with a deadly virus in it. Let’s just say it was a long night as every 5 minutes I kept checking on him making sure he was still alive. Clearly he was fine from the beginning, but man this is why I can’t have kids. It’s just way too stressful! Keep in mind for those of you who are having babies I’m an amazing babysitter!!

*As mentioned earlier I am lazy and incompetent because I failed to cook lunch one afternoon. To some degree this statement is true. I hate cooking and will avoid it if I can. In America, I had my mom, Mrs. Jan, Judy, Danielle, and grubhub.com, unfortunately I do not have those luxuries and I actually have to cook if I want to eat. I decided to make curry one evening for dinner and oh my lord it was the second to worst meal I have made in country. The vegetables weren’t cooked completely, the rice turned into a pile of mushy goo, and the sauce tasted like weak flavored water. It was disgusting! I am happy to inform you that I gave it a second attempt just a few days ago and it turned out to be delish!! Let me tell you a can of coconut cream goes a long way!

*Speaking of cooking I am so excited to announce that I made a cake on my cute little hotplate! Yep, that’s right it is possible. The first time I attempted this was with the help of my sitemate Jaimie and we burned it. I blame the pots. However, this time I broke the handles on the medium size pot that the batter goes into which helped tremendously as the lid for the larger pot fit almost perfectly over the two. Baking a cake is quite the process without an oven, but with a little sand and a broken pot it is possible. The finished product turned out to be a crumbled mess, but it was amazing chocolate cake!

*One day at work I felt I gained some respect from the women staff members. On Wednesday’s we have our therapeutic feeding program where we administer peanut butter, flour and oil to families of malnourished children. The day before we had a large shipment of ufa (flour) come in. We had at least 50 bags of ufa that had to be carried into the storage room. Now these bags are 25kg which converts to about 55lbs. I definitely don’t mind helping out, but I was not willing to carry a bag on my head as I just had a bafa that morning and actually washed my hair. Shampoo and conditioner are very expensive here so I refused to have to wash my hair again because I got flour in it. After carrying about 5 bags to the storage room my arms were tired! I ended up carrying sacks of ufa on my head just like the Malawian women. By the end of this process I was covered in a blanket of white ufa and my hair needed to be washed…again. But, the women proudly talked about me doing this for a few days so props to Suave!

*Most of my time at work is spent staring at people who stare at me. It’s actually kind of fun. You should try it the next time someone stares at you. The best people to stare at are the children as sometimes they actually will start crying. It’s so mean, but it’s hilarious! One day there was an adorable little girl about 3 or 4 years old who just stared at me and would not break. Eventually she put her hands on top of her head and I then copied her movements and she was a little unsure of what to do with this so she put her hands on her hips and then I put my hands on my hips. Of course this would not be complete with playing peek a boo but I continued to copy her every movement for the next five minutes and we had a great time. Not only was the little girl laughing, but everyone waiting for their medicine was laughing at me or as I like to believe with me. At one point she twirled in the middle of the lobby and I got up from behind the registration desk and literally twirled in front of 50 plus people. The little girl just started laughing and ran behind her mom’s legs. I think I got some street credit with the amayis!

*One of the scarier moments that occurred at the health center happened around 8:00am and I just happened to be the only person there minus a few people waiting for the doctor to come in. I was planning on working at the registration desk that morning and in order to do that I needed the books from the vaccination room. I go and get the books and as I turn around I ran into a guy who had been attacked by a panga knife (I found that out later). He had a letter in his hand that he gave me which was from the police station asking the health center to clean his wounds and then he started speaking to me in Chichewa and I of course just stared at him as his left eye was slashed, his scalp was slashed and his face was covered in dry blood along with his shirt and hands. I have never seen anything like this before. This man was covered in blood and I swear half of his left face was sliced open. I immediately start searching for a doctor or anyone that can fix this poor guy and couldn’t find anyone. I had him sit down on the bench and wait for someone and about 15 minutes later blood starts pouring out of his eye or his head and drips everywhere. There was a puddle of blood on the floor that just kept getting larger by the second.  Some guy was with him and he brought over his jacket or shirt and started wiping the blood up and tried to stop the bleeding, but everyone just stared at him and I start panicking as I’m sure his eye was about to fall out at any moment and I couldn’t get anyone to do anything! I kept telling my hsa’s to go and find someone, but I got nowhere. Eventually someone came and got him, but my goodness I’m sure he lost his eye! The story behind this tragic incident is that he was drinking and perhaps got a little drunk and went to his sister’s house looking for food. This pissed off the husband therefore he felt that it was ok to attack him with a panga knife. Of course I don’t know if this is true, but that’s what I heard from my hsa. Once the guy left it took several moments before someone came and cleaned his blood up. People are walking barefoot around this, kids are nearly stepping in biohazard waste and then we can’t find gloves and oh my goodness I didn’t think it was ever getting done as clearly I was not doing this without gloves.   who are we kidding I wasn’t going to clean it up anyway!

*Over the past few weeks I have become the best peace corps volunteer in Malawi! This happens by introducing two new games to my hsa’s at work: go-fish and rummy! That’s right; I have taught my hsa’s how to play cards. At first it was a little tricky trying to explain the rules in English, but we eventually got it and since then every day they ask me if I brought the cards. They get so excited and one guy actually jumps up and down and claps his hands. It’s so great! Part of the reason this is so exciting is that not only is this a cross cultural experience, but it has been teaching them how to count and follow suits in numerical order. Ps. Can someone send me Uno cards? Thanks J

*Since I’m talking about how awesome I am and what I have been introducing to the adults let’s talk about the kids. The kids here for the most part are absolutely amazing.  There are those few annoying ones who constantly beg you for money and food, but once you get past those the rest are pretty great. Every morning when I leave my compound I walk past a couple homes that have kids and over the course of three months I have introduced the high five to them! I haven’t figured out how to solve world hunger, but every time I walk down the road the kids start screaming my name and run up to me and extend their little hand and expect a high five. It’s the little things in life that make the world go round!

I have also introduced the game of Frisbee to a few of my kids. Manuel who is 10 and Chausa who is 7 are probably my favorite (don’t tell anyone) came over to my house one day and noticed Colby chewing on a Frisbee. They looked at it with questioning eyes and so I of course had to show them how to play. This had to be the greatest moment ever. The kids had no idea what to do and when I threw it at them they let it hit the ground and stared at it. I again explained what to do and they smiled and politely agreed with me, but continued to let the Frisbee hit the ground. Fast forward a few minutes and I eventually got them to catch the Frisbee like a football. We have now mastered the game of Frisbee and every afternoon they come over and will flick their wrist indicating they want to play Frisbee. I mean who wants to work when you can play Frisbee with the iwes!

Speaking of my favorite kids one afternoon they came over and started playing Frisbee in the front yard when I noticed how dirty it was so I started sweeping my front porch and Manuel looked at me with horror in his eyes and asked me if I was sweeping and sarcastically I said yes and he immediately took the tsache (broom) from me and started sweeping. Chausa then ran to my neighbors’ house and borrowed a broom and I had both kids sweeping my yard. I personally hate sweeping my yard and think sweeping dirt is a waste of time, but the prior evening It was extremely windy and my yard looked pretty bad so it did need it. The iwes swept my entire yard into a variety of different piles and then asked for matches to set the leaves on fire. I obliged and then gave them my garbage to burn as well. I mean it had to be done so why not let them do it? Anyway, they started digging through my garbage and found pretty much everything exciting. I mean birth control dispenser, an old can of spam, tampon applicators, etc. Clearly this was garbage and I had to tell the boys to put everything down and start the fire.   For a moment I thought how sad it was that these kids have probably never experienced the joys of raking a yard full of leaves into a pile and them jumping into them a few hundred times just to rake the yard and jump into the pile again. I can imagine what my village would say if I did this! At this point I have three different piles of leaves/garbage being burned and the boys are not finished. Just the other day a man hoed my yard and finally got rid of the maize field but left everything in piles. Well the kids set that on fire and then left to go home. I literally had a yard on fire!!! The crackling sound and the smoke and the flames were enough to send me into a nervous breakdown! We are talking about dry season here folks, the grass is dry the field is dry everything is dry and I have a massive fire in my yard. At the end of my field my neighbor has a garden that is enclosed in mosquito nets (by the way a big no no…mosquito nets should be inside protecting you from Malaria not protecting your tomatoes…just saying!) but I was certain this enormous fire was going to reach her garden and set the mosquito nets (again as a health volunteer this is a BIG no no!!!!) on fire and then expand to her house or something. Obviously this was not going to happen, although I’m sure something freaky like that has happened somewhere. I now have a yard stained with black grass but no garbage in my house!

*Last week a coworker gave me a plastic bag filled with tomatoes. I thought I should be neighborly and give some to my neighbors but I decided against that as one asked for one of my care packages and another wants my shower curtain that is a map of the USA hanging on my wall. I figure I would have shared if they were not begging from me. So for an entire week I literally ate about 7-9 tomatoes a day. I mean every single dish I made had tomatoes in them. Talk about being healthy (by the way chocolate is always welcome) anyway as I was getting prepared to cook dinner I went to my tomato bag and was bombarded with 50 fruit flies and what looked like a can of tomato juice exploded. I mean I just took tomatoes out a few hrs ago so I’m not sure what happened in such a short time frame, but needless to say I was not going to eat them. I took the bag and dumped the entire contents in my field and took two tomatoes that were not squashed or rotten and proceeded to cook dinner. While cooking I thought that I should have probably dumped the tomatoes in my chim as my neighbors are now going to see this pile of tomatoes and start talking about me. Approximately 15 minutes later I hear my neighbors outside my house. I cracked open my door and there they were, all of my neighbors standing in my yard looking at my pile of tomatoes in disgust and then taking the dirty rotten tomatoes with them. Don’t worry, I thought it was pretty disgusting as well. When I went outside my neighbor Elizabeth proceeded to tell me as if I didn’t know that I had thrown tomatoes away and that I should have shared them with everyone. I’m telling you guys these tomatoes were rotten and if I were to eat them I would have gotten sick so why would I share them? I have been thinking about getting a fence around my yard for awhile and this has just increased the urgency to get one…I need privacy!

Alright folks it’s way past my bedtime. I hope you enjoyed catching up on my life here in Malawi. I promise next update will be shorter and I will try to include pictures! As always thank you a million times over for letters and care packages!!!! You guys rock!!

Peace….Cassie aka Nabanda (my village gave me a clan name. How cool is that!!!)

The 4th here in Malawi was spent hanging at the lake basking in the sun with great friends. The journey to monkey bay was quite interesting. Miriam  and I started with a wonderful breakfast that included mac and cheese, green beans and grilled bread. Breakfast of champions I tell ya! On the the way to Lilongwe we froze in the minibus and I saw a goat being beheaded. Once in Lilongwe we negotiated the minibus conductor from 2,000 kwacha to 1,5000 kwacha because some guy knew me from my site. Yay for saving money! After sitting in the bus for an hour and cramming 22 people in we finally left. The commute was about 3 hours and it went by pretty quickly as we ate starburst (thanks judy) and listened to malawian pop music. We got relatively close to monkey bay and got dropped off and had to take a motola the rest of the way. This portion of the trip was not as smooth as the first half. Our conductor from the mini bus told us that we didn’t have to pay on the motola which was a lie and then on the motola someone robbed me…it wasn’t that bad. My backpack has a small zipper section at the top which is size of my hand nothing bigger, but usually contains a small amt of money, my phone, gum, chapstick, etc. Anyway, there was a man in front of me who I noticed was moving his hands under his sweater. It looked suspicious so I looked at my bag to make sure it was ok and saw the larger compartments were ok, but the small one at the top was open. At first I thought I may have left it open, but then realized that miriam gave me the money for this motola so I then flipped out! I told the conductor that someone stole from me and explaining to the guy that chapstick (I just got it that day from Amanda Hawley….thanks my love), headbands, and 250 kwacha was of extreme importance! luckily, being an azungu (white person) has it’s advantages. The driver stopped and asked me what happened and 5 mins later he gave me a handful of everything I lost. Thankfully the guy tossed everything over the truck when he realized the conductor was telling the driver to pull over! After that we didn’t have any more problems!

Once we arrived to our destination it was clear sailing! We ate great food, had hot showers, swam in the lake (don’t worry I get tested for Schisto before I leave), saw a crocodile, did a small hike, drank some brandy (sorry mrs. jan), stayed up all night by the fire listening to the guys play drums and the guitar and swam some more! It was a great 4th of July!

Here is a quick recap:

*while we were in lilongwe some drunk guy said he loved miriam and myslef, but when miriam told him to get lost because he was drunk he said, “i hate white women…you eat dog

*I got robbed..nothing cray as you read from above

*I climbed a few rocks and at one point was certain I was going to plunge to my death. the guys were great and helped me crossed this massive rock that was at an angle that if you slipped you would go straight to the bottom!

*we were planning on going skinny dipping, but since there was a croc lurking in the water we decided it was probably not a good idea

*patrick said, ‘nipout’

*miriam and I got our first long distance hitch!!!

and here are pictures from monkey bay!

Sitemate Miriam, Mary R in the back and me headed to monkey bay!

just me hanging out in the motolawelcome to monkey bay and to jam rock (the top of the mt)gibran, elizabeth,me and patrick

pretty sure I was going to fall to my death, but the view is great!what a beautiful sunrise!

watch out for the croc!!!

the people who keep me sane

awesome 4th of july socks…thanks environment mary’s mom

me and mary r. at sunrise

cheese!

our truck broke down and then the rear tire caught on fire…oh joy but the pic above is of me and my sitemate after we walked for a few mins and got an amazing FREE hitch back home…they even bought us a bottle of water.

the end of our trip….

I hope you have enjoyed the trip. I had a great time and can’t wait to go back. When you guys come and visit I will take you here!!!

cheers,

cassie