A-duh

In the shower just now, I thought to myself, "I should have a dissertation blog. So I can write all those thoughts I've been having about papers and conference submissions and job hunting." Er, right.

So, a flurry of blog posts at some point, although I'm going to NJ tomorrow for like 10 days, so we'll see.

Coffins to Couches

My sister sent me this link to a BBC story on how the street called Coffin Row in Lilongwe has shifted in last few years as AIDS deaths decline. A lot of carpenters are now selling furniture. My advisor commented on this when he visited, because he was shocked at the shift. I have a feeling the furniture business might not be as profitable as coffins, since when you need a coffin you need a coffin but furniture can wait, but it's nice to see visible signs of death from AIDS abating somewhat. The one thing that didn't strike me as true in the clip was the last bit about people not referring to AIDS by its name; maybe it's just because we were doing research and using the word Edzi, or maybe it's just because I don't speak Chichewa and couldn't understand other references to it, but I heard people say HIV and Edzi a lot.

I really wanted to get photos of the chairs and couches because they are all these poofy things covered in garish jewel-toned velvety fabric. I'm sure there's something to be said there for what poor people perceive as wealthy-looking.

Hip replacements

Paul Krugman has been another kick of writing about universal health care, and he write something today (Times Select) that is totally obvious but which I've never heard mentioned. Every time opponents or skeptics talk about universal health care systems in other countries they bring up the long wait times for specialty services. Krugman makes the oft-made observation that even insured people don't exactly have short wait times for specialty services (or really any kind of service... I had to reschedule a primary care appointment I had tomorrow, and the earliest I could book was August 13, and that's after major improvements in the student health center's personnel). But then he goes one to note:

"It’s true that Americans get hip replacements faster than Canadians. But there’s a funny thing about that example, which is used constantly as an argument for the superiority of private health insurance over a government-run system: the large majority of hip replacements in the United States are paid for by, um, Medicare.

"That’s right: the hip-replacement gap is actually a comparison of two government health insurance systems. American Medicare has shorter waits than Canadian Medicare (yes, that’s what they call their system) because it has more lavish funding — end of story. The alleged virtues of private insurance have nothing to do with it."

I mean, yeah! Duh! I've never once thought to make this argument, and I did research on joint replacements. But Krugman is right! Is there a reason to believe the wait would increase if Medicare were extended to the entire population? That wouldn't necessarily be the case.

Plan B duh of the day

"Plan B Use Surges, And So Does Controversy" says the Washington Post today, noting that there has been a doubling in sales of the completely non-aborciafacent extra-strong hormone pill since the FDA allowed over the counter sales for women 18 years of age and over. Even though anyone with half a brain would think that making a pill, any pill, easier to get would probably lead to a big-ass rise in sales, conservatives are shocked, *shocked!* at the increase. That was the whole friggin point of making it over the counter, you idiots! There was this huge unmet demand that is now being met, what do you expect?

Some stupid ass from the FRC was saying the decision puts women's health at risk. Yeah, because we all know pregnancy is so health-neutral. *eye tendons limit desired extent of rolling*

Chocolate diversion

I had Cadbury bars (presumably of the British variety) in Malawi, and this NYT article explains how they're so much more delicious than American chocolate bars. Mmmmm, mint crisp and whole nut. I also had some Smarties and they kick M&Ms ass.

Plugging along

I actually bothered to go to the office today. I've added some more to the methods section and poked at the data slightly. It's not as fun as being at the shore, but I do have one of the better views around here at least.

My meeting was supposed to be in 15 minutes, but it got pushed back half an hour, so I guess I have to try to work some more. Even if I only work in ADD-esque spurts I still get a lot more done than if I don't poke at the document every few minutes.

Progress

I didn't get that much work done this week thanks to this stupid cold and the awful heat that made me lazy. But I did manage to make a list of all the changes and revisions to the household survey from beginning to end (organized into four rounds), type up all the notes my RAs took during group discussions, and hammer out a chunk of the methods section. I think I'm going to finish all I can do with that for now next week, and then I'll start working on some analysis. I think this dissertation won't irk me too much, which is more than I can say for my poor boyfriend, whose department seems hell bent on throwing stupid obstacles in his way.

Work starts tomorrow

Since I returned, I haven't been doing much work. Mostly I've been catching up on TV and hanging out with Joe. I did manage to visit my advisor at his new house to fill him in on the details of the actual study. He's going to try to put a panel together for ICA on how to do research in crazy settings, and I definitely have plenty to say on that!

I went in practically every day last week trying to get my expenses entered into HopkinsOne. It's the dumbest system on the planet. My travel request had been granted with my travel advnace on one trip number. Then, on a separate trip number, my flight had been reimbursed. This apparently allowed my flight to reimbursed in a timely fashion instead of when I returned from the trip. But it also had the effect of screwing things up with the travel advance, because we couldn't enter any receipts since it was like, you already got reimbursed for those dates. Basically, it allowed our office to enter in something that then totally screwed it up. It's all well and good for them to say, don't enter things that way, but it's preferable for the system to just not let you enter things that way if it's the wrong thing to do. Anyway, the higher ups had to tweak it so that we could enter receipts. We entered all the big ones, with minor hassles along the way trying to make the system not suck, and then shoved the rest into the giant per diem category. It all worked out.

So, tomorrow I start work on my dissertation and other projects. This includes a paper my advisor and I are writing using the old midterm data due July 30. And it also includes osme new potential papers for a Comm Theory call for papers on interpersonal communication and campaigns. Devepending on how much overlap there is between these manuscripts and my dissertation, I may switch to a 3-manuscript format, but I'm only inclined to do that if the pros really outweigh the cons because I can hammer out a traditional format very quickly.

Tomorrow I think I'll start putting some things into the methods section. Things like, "After the chief welcomed us to the village, someone gave a prayer."

I stil have no job, but I signed up for a bunch of federal loans in case the CDC thing doesn't happen!

The trip home

Monday morning (June 11), in my hotel room, I watched SportsCenter (as opposed to SpohtsCentah, the version with cricket and soccer instead of baseball and American football) and felt all nervsy about flying and about my car being impounded. Everything fit in my luggage just fine, including the buttload of pottery, so I felt happy about that. I went downstairs with my bags, paid for the last four days, and then talked to Freddie until the driver came. I gave him my SIM card, since I no longer need it; I haven’t tried calling it to see if it works.

At work I sent a couple of emails, taped up the box with my surveys, and said goodbye to folks who were around. I think the secretary was bummed to see me go; she started working there just before I arrived and she’s gotten used to going home together.

I arrived at the airport, for in line, and had no problems with my bags. I was worried that they might be over the weight restrictions, but apparently not. I went through passport control (which had no line, but was very crowded later). I blew my remaining 500 kwacha on a tiny lunch and a bottle of water, but I got to sit in the fancy lounge and read an old newspaper. I used up my 5 free minutes of SkyBand internet and read my sister’s blog. I then beat the crowd through security. They asked me how much kwacha I was leaving the country with, and I was pleased to say none.

I’ve never been so excited to leave a place in my life. I was so giddy I could feel it all the way up in my shoulders. I’ve flown out of worse places – Minneapolis/St. Paul, for example, after we had to sleep there – but that was more a feeling of weariness than actual happiness to leave. I’ve been excited to land places. But this was really about being thrilled to say adios Lilongwe!

As we flew out, I could see Mchenzi, which is where we did a lot of the field work, so that was neat. I also finally got a good look at the statehouse, which is on the edge of the city. Lunch on SAA was okay. I got the vegetarian, which was probably a mistake. It was some sort of lentil mush with weird vegetables. It was much improved with salt. I was sort of in weird missionary land on the flight… there were a lot of people who’d been in Malawi for like a week or two and it was all very Jesusy. No one asked me why I was there, so I didn’t have to reveal that I was with the heathen condom peddlers. There was a lot of dumb hick intermixed with all this as well. The woman behind me was particularly dumb. As we flew toward Jo’burg, she was describing what she saw out the window to someone, and she said she just saw “a bunch of dirt or concrete, I dunno.” Hello, of course it’s dirt! They’re farms! There are big irrigation circles and rows! You live in Hicksville, I know this can’t be unfamiliar territory. There was also a lot of confusion about converting Celsius to Fahrenheit, esp since she thought freezing was 35F. Yikes.

In Jo’burg I totally couldn’t figure out where to go. I finally located the ticket counters, but Delta wasn’t listed on the big list. I wandered around and eventually sighted it in the corner. There was no line, so I guess I was the only person crazy enough to fly Delta home. They called to get my luggage transferred and they gave me a boarding pass through to Atlanta. I got in the big ass security line and went through the completely ineffectual security. The Delta agent told me I couldn’t buy any liquids, so I didn’t get any cheap Amarula, but that turned out to be totally false because I could have put it in my checked luggage once I got to ATL since I had to recheck it anyway. They have it at Wine Source, but it’s twice as much (still delicious, though, and Joey’s new favorite beverage).

Dinner on the flight was tasty; there was only fish left, so I didn’t have to choose, which was good, and they fish was good. The wine was good too. I napped fitfully after dinner to Dakar, and the flight was incredibly bumpy. It was actually a little scary at times. I’m generally cool with turbulence during the day, but I’m not a huge fan at night or in clouds. In Dakar they didn’t rummage through the plane like they had before, so we all prepared for nothing. I wheedled a snack out of the new crew so I could take my malarone under my carefully planned regime to take them every 20 hours instead of every 24 hours until they were timed back to EDT. Something from dinner or from the weeks of crappy food made my stomach feel ooky and gassy; I’m sure the turbulence didn’t help. I slept some more after Dakar and just felt weary.

We finally entered the USA. USA! USA! I’d never been so happy to be an American at home. We landed in Atlanta, and I was one of the last people off the plane, being in the back. I hit the can and then went to the customs line, getting in the slowest one, of course. Finally I got up to the guy, feeling home free. But then the guy typed my number into the computer and picked up the radio. Aw crap. But this is easy, right? They’re just going to ask me why my passport is different from the one I left with and I’ll be on my merry way, right? A man came over and escorted me to a room full of people who were either brown and/or foreigners, which is when I knew I had landed in customs jail. There was a group of Afghani men at the desk dealing with one guy’s complicated visa issues, and there was a woman I think was Spanish who had been wandering in and out of the US for months at a time apparently on travel, with no employment. Must be nice. I sat there for about an hour getting increasingly upset about how the mugging never seems to stop hassling me and how I probably wouldn’t be able to get on the earlier flight I wanted. I was unsuccessfully holding back tears. Finally one of the immigration officers rifled through the orange folders sitting there, and I heard her say, “US Citizen,” so I knew that had to be me. She asked if I had lost my passport, I told her I got mugged, words of condolences all around, stamp stamp and I was out of there. They really need to have a line for people with easy problems. Or just take care of it at the desk. Seriously. It’s not like she did anything extra to verify my tale.

I got my bags, which were easy to find given there were only like five on the now-stopped conveyor. The Delta ticket counter was totally abandoned, leading me to recognize that I probably got lucky by waiting in customs jail because instead of waiting in huge lines I got to sit (and be upset, but still). I managed to get on the early flight for a cool $25 (really, if it were an all-domestic flight it would have been free, because the flight was way empty) charged to the grant. I rechecked my bags (everyone wanted to know what was in the box, the least interesting piece of luggage) and went through security. I called Joey to tell him I was on the earlier flight, and he was super asleep after not really sleeping well all night. He sounded cute and groggy and glad that I was getting in early. He also told me the great news that my car was not impounded, just moved down the street with $82 in tickets. How unbelievable is that? I never would have thought the city would just move my car! I could kiss whoever made that call. Apparently it’s easier to rebuy your car at auction than it is to retrieve from city impound. So I was just really excited to go home.

I had an exit row seat and dutifully read what I needed to do in case of emergency. We got to BWI, and I could hardly breathe walking out of the terminal I was so excited. It was really weird to see Joey at first – he’d just been this disembodied voice for two months – but I quickly adjusted. :) I was really glad to have my trip be over.

I'm back

When I get the chance I'll update on my return flight and the nightmare of getting my expenses into Hopkins One.

On the other side

I feel like I need a complete life detox after being here. The schedule I’ve been keeping certainly gives me more energy, but I don’t think I can keep it up at home. It’s easy to get up at 6:30 when you go to bed at 9:30 or 10 out of total boredom. It’s not so easy when there are fun things to do and people to see at night. But I’ll be very glad to get back to a place where I can actually exercise – between getting mugged and this town being full of annoying people trying to sell me crap, I haven’t been walking as much as I thought I would when I arrived. And my diet has just been awful. Breakfast is always chips, an egg of some kind (often fried), sausage, and bread. Occasionally fruit. And it’s hard to eat healthy foods without a refrigerator and an oven/stove and without consistent means of getting to the supermarket. I’ve been watching Chef at Home and thinking of all the fruits and vegetables and other healthy foods I desperately want to eat.

So, I’m determined to actually go to the Farmer’s Market this summer and to eat well and exercise. And I want to do lots of things outside this summer and get out of the house and not be cooped up with the television. I also want to get to the office and be productive, because I want to get this dissertation hammered out along with whatever I do for work and the eventual jobhunting and conference abstracts and suchlike.

I’ve been fussing a bit about work for the summer and money. I’m waiting to hear from a few people about small amounts of work, which would be fine. I really want to visit Boston and ABQ, but I need to make sure I have the cash for these things (and that any accompanying passengers do too). I will hear about the CDC grant in late summer, probably. I’m extremely ambivalent about the grant. I’ll be thrilled to have a stipend and to be able to say I got it on my resume. But I don’t really want to come back here in the fall; I might be able to deal with spring, but even that makes me feel a little queasy. I try to put on a good face for people who ask when I’m coming back. I wouldn’t mind a two-week trip, but another two-month trip sounds just awful. I’ve also lost some enthusiasm for the idea of doing in-depth interviews about the radio program. I’m not sure we’ll really get the depth of information we’re interested in. And if we don’t have good results from the experimental design there’s really less justification anyway for expending more energy in this direction.

My travels here have solidified my feelings that I’m not really interested in a straight-up communication position. Comm is okay and all, but I really want to stick with public health and be able to see comm. as one tool out of many to improve health. I’ve seen so many huge systemic problems at work here that I can’t possibly pretend developing some radio programs is going to satisfy me entirely.

Final days

As noted earlier, after a week away I had tons of email when I returned to work Friday. I had the whole day to get through it, so that was good. G took me out to lunch, which was nice of her.

Yesterday I went with Ben and the girls to Dedza Pottery. They’re bored with K out of town, and their plans for a school event were cancelled because the first lady’s funeral was yesterday. So we went down in the afternoon. Dedza is surrounded by wonderful granite mountains, making it vastly more scenic than Lilongwe. The pottery shop has lovely grounds, landscaped with grass, rosebushes and other plants and flowers. The restaurant there opens out onto a large patio with tiled tables featuring scenes from the beach. The food was tasty – I had moussaka and fresh lemonade. But we were too full for the famous cheesecake, sadly.

After lunch we hit the pottery shop, which was loaded with various pots and mugs and such in different styles. It wouldn’t be an easy place to pick up something specific – you can make orders for those – but it’s perfect for someone like me seeking to pick up an assortment of things. And it was crazy cheap. There was only one thing I got that may have been even remotely comparable to a US price and everything else was vastly cheaper. So I took care of gifts for a while and got rid of most of my kwacha. I was pleased too that I could avoid buying any wooden curios because there are already too few trees in Malawi due to overcutting, and the pottery shop has environmentally friendly practices according to their website. So I was pleased with Dedza and everything looks like it will fit securely in my bags.

Today I’m here at the Capital Hotel, uploading these posts before I take off, and getting another haircut so I will be super cute for my return. Tomorrow I’ll go to work briefly to get my box of papers and say goodbye to everyone. Then I go to the airport! I can’t believe this day has arrived!

Uh, it seems my car might be in impound. :( I sure hope I don't have to pay a million dollars to get it out.

Flying home will be more brutal than flying here was. I got to stop after each flight and shower and sleep on the way here, but this is just one plane after another. I also was fortunate not to have a seatmate on the long flight to Jo’burg, but I doubt I’ll be so lucky on the return. I still don’t know when exactly I will arrive in Baltimore; I’m scheduled for a late afternoon flight, but I’m hoping to get on one of the two earlier flights before that. I could be in as early as 12:30, which would be great. But it might be more like 4:30. Boo.

Zambia!

Monday morning I was the first to arrive at Kiboko. I had planned to go to the grocery store, but of course it wasn’t open, so I went off later while waiting around to get some breakfast and bug spray. I was surprised they actually had some bug spray there and that it was a decent price. I was joined by a mother and daughter from Iceland, a trio of medical students from Holland taking vacation time before going to work in Mangochi (I’d had this weird feeling the day before that I would be stuck in a car full of Dutch speakers), and a carload of Canadians. One of the Canadians re-enacted that SNL skit about the people with unpronounceable names with the woman from Iceland, whose name I think was something like Hroen, but with more funky things over the vowels identifying exactly what kind of sneezing sound to make. We had to wait for Kiboko to swap out one of the cars because it was leaking oil; we ended up with a smaller car with less nice seats. Holland and I were the only ones in there so we all had window seats, except when the moving seat that opened to the back wouldn’t go down properly and then one of the girls had to sit in the middle seat next to me for all the most horribly bumpy parts of the drive.

Best road sighting from Lilongwe to Mchinji: Chibuku Hangover Bar!

I had never gone in the Mchinji direction before; it’s flat but nice and gets hilly toward the border. At the gas station in Mchinji we were greeted by demanding street urchins who wanted alternately some of our cookies and money and who hadn’t really learned to say please or to be polite in any way. I eventually scolded them and told them to go to school and had to do the same on the return also.

We soon reached the border, which was stupid. Instead of having one building representing the border, there is a Malawi building and a Zambia building. You exit Malawi first, filling out an exit card and getting a passport stamp. Then you pile back into the car, drive 50 feet to the Zambia building, and enter Zambia, filling out an entry card and book with the exact same information and getting a visa stamp. On the way back we actually figured out that the people who finish first could just walk over to the other building to speed up the whole process. Anyway, all the passports and Visa waivers were easy and fine, but at the Zambia office, they said they didn’t have a record for whatever tax the vehicles require. The drivers had receipts showing the payments, but the officials seemed to want to delay us as much as possible to see if they might be able to get additional payment. Hilariously, on the exit side of the building we saw this great poster that was all, it’s a crime to give money to immigration officials! Don’t do it! It’s like, don’t bribe us, but occasionally, we might ask to test you and see if you’re a criminal. Whatever. Finally they let us go.

We had lunch at Chipata, and then we drove seemingly forever. Much of the road past Chipata is dirt, and the last leg toward Mfuwe is not so great. Once in Mfuwe it’s paved to the campground turnoff, and then it’s insanely bumpy due to last year’s floods.

We arrived at Track and Trails River Camp, which is right on the river. While hippos made crazy noises in the background, a very cute Dutch boy explained that Kiboko rents the campground space from them and has an agreement that we can use the facilities, which included a quite nice bathroom area (with occasional visitors like giant spiders and frogs in the toilet); a lovely pool with gorgeous wood steps up to it, a nice deck full of chairs and sunning pads, and a stunning view of the river; and a really nice bar and restaurant with attractive Dutch people serving up the drinks. The tents were awesome: huge walk-in tents with twin beds, a night stand, a canvas shelf thing and an electric lantern. They also gave us towels, although they were quite small. But quite nice accommodations for camping. The camp also has chalets, for those who like to stay in buildings who have more money.

We had dinner in the dark, as the power decided to go out for only the duration of our eating. We had tomato soup, spghetti with meat sauce (marinara for the vegetarians), salad, and bananas. The stars were lovely, and I saw the Big Dipper! I didn’t think it was visible from the southern hemisphere. After dinner most of us went straight to bed, given the 5 am wakeup call, and I slept okay until the hippos really started making a lot of motor-starting noises toward morning. I guess there was also an elephant in the camp sometime overnight. Later in the season I guess there are lots of animals, since the river gets so low and the animals all want to be closer to it.

Tuesday morning the wakeup call was a timid, “Hello?” waking only those of us who were already half awake. I took an unpleasantly cold shower which fortunately was not repeated as the hot water decided to work the other days. For “breakfast” we had tea/coffee with bread and butter/jam/peanut butter. At least they could have gotten the bread from Foodworth’s if that was all they planned to feed us that early in the morning. I had tea and coffee both, which was a huge mistake, as I had to pee all morning. During the break in the ride, I also opted for coffee, which meant that when we returned from the drive we had to stop at the main gate so I could pee. In the latrine. Which was an outhouse with a concrete floor featuring a hole. Yuck. But I had to pee that bad. I had to pee again after the short remaining drive to camp I was so full of pee. There was no way I could have made it over the crazy bumpy road with my bladder the way it was.

Uh, anyway, we went on our first game drive. It was awesome. The weather was lovely and it was only hot at the end. We saw a warthog, several herds of zebras, tons of yellow baboons, waterbacks, impalas and puku, plenty of elephants, a monitor lizard, a fish eagle and several other birds, a funky squirrel (I had thought about asking the driver earlier if there were squirrels, as a joke), a cape buffalo, crocodiles, hippos in the water and on the beach, and two giraffes! The giraffes were most awesome. The first was a female eating off a big ol tree, and the second was a male covered in tiny birds that ate ticks off of him. He wandered onto the road and we followed him for several minutes, like a giraffe parade. He just lumbered along very gracefully, completely unconcerned about us being behind him. He eventually got off the road and pooped. You’d think it’d be like horse poop, but it’s actually a lot more like rabbit poop.

The time between drives was mostly all about lunch, chilling in the pool, and relaxing at the bar. The managers of the camp were being filmed by a Dutch television crew for a show about people who leave Holland for random places like Zambia, so I’ll probably be on Dutch TV sometime next year in the background of some shot.

The night drive was okay. I had sat shotgun in the morning, which is lower and more stable than the actual safari seats. I felt like I was going to get bumped out of the car every time we hit bad road. It’s much harder on the ass, and a bit colder. The weather was mostly lovely, until the end, which was cold. We saw a leopard (after a bit of not-quite-kosher offroading), a hyena on the bridge coming back from town, a pregnant zebra, and two porcupines! Apparently porcupines are a rare sight, so that was cool. They are crazy looking. The night drive is light out for the first half but then it gets dark and a guy (in my shotgun seat) beams a huge spotlight to find animals that only come out at night. It’s not as good as the day drive because you don’t have a full field of vision and you can’t have the whole group looking for things. You have to hope the spotlight guy sees stuff. I also feel like many of these night animals might take a while to actually come out and be active.

For dinner we had tasty chicken with vegetables, rice, salad and pineapple. I went straight to bed after because I was beat. I slept straight through until the morning, “Hello?” For the morning drive Wednesday, we saw a giant horde of elephants (20+) eating their way through a lovely valley, two warthogs, and a male and female giraffe up close (the male peed for us, for, I kid you not, minutes). And we finally saw lions! First thing in the morning we saw a female lion sitting off in a field, and then later on we got word from another driver and found a spot where two male lions were just laying around in the shade. We were right near them, and they couldn’t have cared less.

The night drive was lousy and all we saw were mongoose-type things once it got dark. We didn’t even see the regular animals much. It started promising: we saw 14 giraffes on the way to the park gate, and then we saw a valley full of cape buffalo. The hour before dark was adventurous as we went off the beaten path trying to find lions. We drove on what might have been a road before the floods, but it was now a bumpy dried up pond bottom. There were so many tree branches grown over it that we had to jump down to the bottom of the car a few times to get through without being mangled. After all that there were no lions, so we zoomed insanely through the sandy beach (I thought we were so going to roll over) to a place I think was called a spar. It was a huge open space surrounded by trees. There were all these mangled trees and stumps on it. In the 1970s the elephants numbered 100,000, and they would just destroy whole tree areas by eating them. Poaching reduced their numbers to 9000, but now they’re back up to 17,000. Rhinos fared worse, however, and there are none left in the park.

We saw some giraffe bones that someone had gathered and placed in order. Then the lame night part began and we saw jack. Dinner was good and included some tasty nsima that was nice because it wasn’t so processed like a lot of them. Then I went with Iceland to the bar for some chocolate cake, which was great.

Thursday we had breakfast (real breakfast) and then loaded up and went to Tribal Textiles. They gave us a nice tour of the place. First there was a crafts table where some local artisans made things. I wanted to get one of these cool candle holders made of wire they re-appropriate from poaching snares to get them out of circulation. We moved on to the textiles. First they take the cotton fabric (cotton is a major crop in Zambia), put a design on there, and then outline it with a flour and water paste to make a line between paint areas. Then they paint it with color, dry them in the sun, and bake them in this giant oven to make the paint hold fast when you wash it. We got to see all these steps along with the paint mixer guy and the sewing room.

After the nice tour we had a shamefully short time to shop. Upon further review, this would have been a good activity for the eons of time between drives on one of the prior two days. I was about to give up once the driver of the other car was giving me a hard time that we had to go, but then I saw a really cool wall hanging right at the door, so I got that. Didn’t get to look at the crafts table, though. It’s got a nice design with African flair, without being too kitschy with cartoony animals or people.

We zipped to Chipata, mostly downhill so much faster than the way up. We had lunch, then breezed through the border, and quickly we were back. I said goodbye to everyone, hit the forex, got an ice cream, and grabbed some groceries at Shoprite. It was a lovely trip, and I’m really glad I went. The animals were amazing, and it was a nice little place. I’ll post a more formal review at some point for people who might google about the trip and the tour company, but I wanted to get my storytelling version out there.

End of study

We finished data collection the following Tuesday. It was weird to be done with it, after more than three weeks of going to the villages as a daily routine. It’s funny how easy it is to adjust to a new routine and have it feel normal. Joe asked me if I would feel weird when I get back, and I think it might be odd for a few days. I have established several routines here, and I have absolutely none there right now, with summer upon us. But I’ll work one out quickly, and I’ll be adjusted to home just as quickly.

The last day I had the car hire, I ran a bunch of errands. I switched to the South Luangwa NP trip, since I was still the only one signed up for the Malawi southern experience. It was a good move, much better than trying to set something up myself, and it was an awesome trip, and I will write about. I mailed postcards, hit the money bureau, and then went to Central Hospital to try to do something about a yellow fever certificate. The tour company said that sometimes at the border they require some kind of stamped note saying you don’t have yellow fever. Neither Zambia nor Malawi requires vaccination, since it’s not endemic this far south, but the guy at the tour company said any doctor could write me such a note. So I went over to Central Hospital, which looked like mostly what you’d expect: a decent but not pristine place with a ton of people waiting around all over the place. I was directed to OPD I, whatever that is, where a nurse got me a nice photocopy of the yellow card for recording immunizations. She nicely filled out both the yellow fever and cholera pages as if I’d been vaccinated for them two weeks before, stamping the whole lot with the official stamp and charging me MK600 for the trouble. Fraudulent yellow fever certificates! Brilliant! It had the vaccine lot number on there and everything! Turns out no one asked for it at the border (I guess really it’s supposed to be Malawi immigration wanting it when you’re coming from Zambia), so I didn’t have to defraud any immigration officials. :/

The last two days of May were spent entering data at N’s house. She has a computer, so I brought the work laptop over there so we could do two entries at once. I finished the entire first data entry on Wednesday, impressing everyone with my mad fast data entry skills. And it was more accurate then the second data entry too; most of my errors were actually caused by errors on the form, either skip patterns that weren’t skipped or items that were accidentally skipped. Basically, I rule at setting up awesome Access entry forms and then rocking through the data entry (just throwing that out there in case anyone wants to pay for these skills with money or beer). While at N’s both days we had a nice lunch, with nsima and beef the first day, and nsima and usipa the second day. I don’t think I’d make it a point to eat usipa much if I lived here; it’s basically the smallest fish in the lake, and it is generally dried and salted. Sardiney, I guess. I prefer a big fish like chambo.

We finished Thursday, so I let the crew loose. They were a fun group, and they did a good job with the study.

That Friday I was insanely productive. I compared the datasets and fixed all the data entry errors. Then I made a survey with frequencies. And a bunch of other crap too. It was good. I had the strangest feeling leaving work that day. I was almost – sad? It’s just strange to have my seemingly never-ending trip wind down.

The next day I went with G and her husband to a wedding. The church part wasn’t super different than most weddings I’ve seen; I guess in the villages there are most traditional elements, but this was mostly just a typical Christian kind of wedding with choirs and some nuances that I think any wedding would have. I guess the preacher was funny, but it was all in Chichewa, so I only got the jokes secondhand. It was really long. Lunch at G’s house was very tasty: nsima, beef, greens in a nice sauce, salad, other stuff I’ve forgotten. It was quite a spread. The reception was incredibly less interesting than I expected. Basically there was a processional of the bridal party through this tent to a stage all set up with nice chairs and couches. Then there was music, and people would go up to dance and drop and throw money around. I thought this would be a short thing at the beginning before moving on to more interesting things, but this money collection business seemed to be the entire purpose of the reception. Everyone who was not at the moment dancing and tossing small bills about just sat in row after row of chairs watching, looking totally bored (so it wasn’t just me!). Eventually sodas were passed around, but I really needed a good MGT. There may have been some things at the end after I left, but I was there for several hours without any change in festivities.

Sunday I packed up my stuff for my trip and for storage. Everything fit, giving me a good feeling about the final packing. I went over to the Capital Hotel to check my email and discovered that I got my insurance claim back and they gave me pretty much what I asked for, which is quite nice given the big fat deductible. I should at least be able to replace my camera and glasses, and maybe a few other small things. I might try to get my passport done with leftover grant money if I can.

Lake Malawi!

The lake was really fun. It’s a huge lake, and quite beautiful. It looks like a small ocean; actually K’s youngest daughter thinks all large bodies of water are lakes now. The fam picked me up and we met up with another family who was driving the front tractor part of a big shipping truck, because the husband runs a trucking company. It’s actually really cool inside, with bunk beds that all the kids rode on. K got to drive it to the lake, fulfilling her dream of being a long-distance trucker. I continued to ride in the normal car to the lake. As we drove on, the terrain got a bit more hilly and scenic.

Before Salima we stopped to buy some firewood at the side of the road. No one was standing next to it, but a man on a bike rode up and helped us find the owner of the wood and then helped us load it on top of the car. As I was getting back in the car, he began his sales pitch. I figured he had jewelry or curios or something. He opened his bag and had some kind of green herb inside in huge quantities. “What’s that?” I asked, expecting some delightful culinary insight. “Marijuana!” he replied, quite proud of his wares. Oh no, nooooo noo no, no thanks. Chamba is grown out by the lake, so I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised. It was pretty funny.

We drove through Salima, passing by lots of curios and baskets and big woven mats and wicker and wood furniture. And people selling the usual slabs of meat that have been hanging outside since god knows when, and mice on a stick! I haven’t seen it up close, so I don’t know if they’re cooked already or what, but mice on a stick is highly recognizable, as it involves a large wooden skewer with mice kabobbed on there, tails and heads and all. The purveyors of these goods generally make sure to line up the mice for the most aesthetically pleasing skewer possible.

We got to Steps Campground, next to a big hotel. It’s a wonderful beachy place with bathrooms and fire pits and giant rocks for climbing (but not swimming near… big ass undertow, apparently), next to a lovely rocky hill. There were also lots of yellow baboons around, hanging out behind the bathroom. It also has a lovely beach bar, which we immediately patroned for some greens. (Word apparently doesn’t like patron as a verb). Carlsberg isn’t bad as beers go, but I’ll be pleased to return to a greater variety of brews. Anyway, there was wave surfing and rock climbing and laughing at kids and building of giant fires. There were like 10 families there or something crazy like that. So it was a big party.

I slept like crap because I’d had one or two too many greens and was dehydrated, and the tent shook violently all night with the wind, which only got more fierce after sundown. It was nice because it meant we didn’t have to worry about mosquitos, but it was super annoying for trying to sleep in a tent. (Okay, Word, seriously, mosquitoes? That just looks stupid. Isn’t it a Spanish word?) I got up around 6, and it was kind of cold, which it stayed most of the day. Of course, I’m always colder when I’m sleep deprived. Anyway, we had kind of a roving breakfast, with different parts of the camp making different things, and we mostly just sat around and chatted. The kids did go play in the water, being crazy little monkeys. A couple of the guys went to climb the big rock with actual equipment. There was a small guitar concert later on. And then it was time to pack up and go!

The big truck got stuck in the sand, pretty much on the only sandy part near where we were camped, so not a real sharp maneuvering job there. A bunch of guys came over and helped put boards and shit underneath and got it out. We were actually trying to help tow it out with this gnarly old tow rope that kept breaking. But it got out on it’s own and they headed on their way. But there was still one woman with her kids who just finished packing up. We figured she was probably fine, but we decided to wait and make sure she started off okay. Thank goodness! She turned the key and the sad rrr rrr rrr of non-startage came out. We tried to jump her to no avail. So we got to do some towing anyway! We called the big truck, since the guy who owns it is a mechanic, and we started out toward Salima. We knew we’d have to leave the car there if it couldn’t be fixed, because it was too hilly to tow it all the way back to town. But we met up with the truck crew and the guy quickly figured out what was wrong and got it started, so we were on our way!

All in all, I was really glad to get to see the lake, since by that point I was pretty sure I was going to have to switch my trip to Zambia and wouldn’t get to see it otherwise. It made me want to go to the beach when I get back and play in the water some more.

I guess I should probably go get tested for bilharzia when I get back, since I swam in the lake. I totally didn’t intend to (didn’t even bring a swimsuit… K lent me one), but it was a just too lovely and wavy. It’s a pretty easy treatment, so it’s totally worth it even if I have parasites now. :)

A week away =

67 new Gmail threads, 35 new emails from my school account, 21 new yahoo emails, and 135 new Nose posts. Yikes!

The safari was awesome and I'm sad I don't have photos, but not having a camera meant I could just enjoy the animals without worrying about getting a good shot. I'll work on a huge epic update (probably split into parts for readability) Sunday and try to upload it before I leave.

Behind the times

I've been really busy with the study ending and data entry and suchlike, so I haven't so much had good internet time to update. Okay, mostly I've been lazy about typing up notes to dump online when I have the time.

The lake was fun, and I'm glad I got to see it. I'm going to Zambia's South Luangwa NP next week instead of southern Malawi because no one else ever signed up for the trip. I'm actually excited about it because apparently I will see a million animals, and it's the ultimate in not roughing it much at all. It should rule.

12 more days until I get back!

Camp Malawi

Apart from finding an awesome trip, I felt mostly annoyed this past week. The DHL didn’t arrive until Friday, meaning no mid-week callage with Joe. But it was nice once it did arrive. Wednesday was an insanely long day. We got out of the door a bit late, and then everything just took forever. The community-based org was really far away, and then we made a huge giant circle to two villages that were far apart. In fact, we noted that the second village was actually much closer to the nearer CBOs in that area… which meant we had to go all the way back far out to drop the CBO guy off at the end of the day. Super lame. Also we were doing the diaries + discussion arm for both groups, which is the longest condition. So we didn’t get back until almost 5, meaning I couldn’t check my email or do anything productive in the afternoon.

One hilarious thing that happened though was that on the way to the second village, we passed by all these kids who shouted in greeting, “How much?” The girls just cracked up and went on to repeat the phrase all week. Apparently, this was how the kids thought people said hello in English.

Wednesday may have also been the day I woke up and there was no water. I thought at first the toilet was busted, because the sink was working, but that was just temporary until the lines were emptied. Lame. I guess it adds variety from the usual routine of no power.

A major theme of the week was how to deal with the fact that the driver, who is a nice guy I have no interest in getting into trouble, was roughly doubling the mileage through some sort of driving shenanigans between when he left us one afternoon and picked me up the next morning. I suspect that perhaps he was running a little taxi service on afternoons when we returned early. Anyway, the girls said I should call the company. I had the office manager bug them, since she negotiated the contract with them. I suspect that this is common practice and that the company does not really discourage it, but will not charge for the extra if someone notices. On Friday, I just told the driver that the office wanted me to track miles each day and not by week. Of course, there’s still an issue with me paying for fuel and that being insanely expensive. But to a certain extent, I don’t care to fuss too much because it’s not even my money. Still, I don’t like the dishonesty. I was glad the girls agreed with me, so I didn’t feel like some sort of stingy foreign bitch.

It hasn’t rained in weeks, and the air has gotten a bit ooky. Between the dust, smoke from trash and maize husk fires, and car pollution, things have been a bit hazy.

One thing I noticed weeks ago but I think neglected to mention is that the sun is mostly north during the day and the stars look all wrong. Whoa, southern hemisphere.

I obtained a rod of sugarcane and a bag of groundnuts this past week, which I have been enjoying. I finished the sugarcane today. It was pretty thick, so the skin was hard to get off… I generally peeled it off with a knife because I didn’t want to break my poor teeth. Once you get the outside off, the rest is pretty easy. And tasty. It tastes a bit like watermelon, which is a testament to how much sugar is in watermelon. G, the office driver, told me that when he was in Blantyre with K earlier in the week, he saw a place that makes sugarcane juice so you can just drink it. It kind of takes the fun out of it (fun being doing something to stave off the mindnumbing boredom of living here), but I can see how it provides more immediate gratification. I still have lots of groundnuts. They’re nice and rooty and covered in soil. Not quite what you get at a baseball game.

I also ordered dinner Friday night, as I was really hungry. I got chambo, which is a type of tilapia from the lake, not to be confused with chamba, which also comes from the lake area, but which is pot. It was quite tasty and came with rice, vegetables, and a cole slaw that was actually really tasty.

Saturday was fucking annoying. I thought there might be fun happening, but K didn’t have her phone with her and never called me. Instead I went to the police station. Some cop came by on Friday while I was at work to say I should go over there because they had some guys. I thought perhaps they had recovered some of my stuff. But, no, they just had a bunch of guys they’d arrested for robbery in City Centre and wanted to see if any of them had robbed me. At first they tried to tell me that no one was around who was dealing with the case, so I should come back early Monday morning. I explained that I had no transport that early and I had taken a taxi over extra special for them. They found a CID officer, and so he got like 8 guys and lined them up in this weird outside hallway that reeked of urine. They sat up against the wall and I just stood in front of them and looked at them. There were two that maybe could be the guy, one of whom didn’t seem to want to look at me like the others. But he also appeared to be the youngest and was probably scared shitless about the whole thing. There was no way I was going to be able to positively identify any of them. Without any kind of evidence linking someone to me, I’m not just going to identify someone, because there’s just no way for me to remember accurately enough. The guy who robbed me was really just about as generic a young man as you can get. The CID officer said if they caught anyone else, they’d let me know, but I wanted to tell him not to bother… it’s a waste of time for me to try to identify someone without other evidence. So I left feel grumpy and depressed about the whole thing.

I got on a minibus and went to town. I had run into my jewelry-selling friends during the week, and they’d given me a couple of bracelets as “gifts” with the mutual acknowledgement that I’d probably be buying a few more items before I leave. I was hoping not to run into them because of my sour mood. I got off the bus further down than they usually hang out and planned to check out a street I hadn’t yet investigated. But I hadn’t gotten 50 feet before they came up to me. Ugh. I hoped if I humored them for a while they would eventually take the hint and leave (I kept mentioning things I intended to do that day), but they would not just go away. Eventually I just decided to chat with them and not fuss about it, but then eventually they broke out their wares. They wanted me to take some of it back to the US, and then once I sold it I could wire them the money. I had already suggested that there might be stores or websites that would open a larger market to them, but they didn’t seem to hear me. They also didn’t seem to hear me when I noted that they hemp bracelets and stuff they wanted me to take were not going to be easy for me to move, unlike the nicer beaded stuff they had. Finally, I was like, guys, I’m not a salesperson and I have my own crap to deal with this summer, I don’t have time to try to sell things you give me to take back. After a while they relented and then tried to sell me some things. I let this go on for a while as I felt like I probably did want a few more items, but the whole process of buying things here fucking annoys me. First the seller goes on about what a good price you’re getting because you’re friends and a nice person. Then a price gets quoted that isn’t that amazing at all. And then what? I’m supposed to bargain, apparently. But I was hot, tired, thirsty, uninterested, and there were ants crawling on me, not to mention I wasn’t really carrying a lot of money, so finally I was like, I’m leaving. The whole thing was just so annoying. I’m just so tired of being a means to an end for people I interact with here. It’s almost worse when people pretend they just want to hang out with you when really all they want is for you to do things for them. I don’t mind helping if it’s not incredibly burdensome, but there’s no way I’m going bring back a bunch of stuff to the US that no one I know has wanted since they were 12 and spend a lot of time trying to sell it. If they were willing to send me along with good stuff, I could easily help them; I don’t blame them for wanting to hang onto the better stuff, but come on. It was all just annoying.

So Sunday I just felt really annoyed. I hadn’t managed to do anything productive or fun in town, like get postcards or groceries or just sit in a nice restaurant and be fucking left alone. But I decided to venture back for groceries. I didn’t run into them, I got food and wine, and while I was waiting for the minibus, I ran into the office driver, G! G is really awesome. He’s the first person I met here when he got me from the airport, and he’s just always great. He manages to help me out without making me feel inept or awkward, which few here have been able to accomplish. He suggested we grab a minibus going the other way so I could get my bus at the main depot and be assured a seat; apparently full ones also sometimes bypass the shopping area. He had been at working cleaning out the car because he’s driving someone to Salima tomorrow morning ass early. It put me in a good mood to see someone I liked, and there was a cute little girl on the minibus who grinned at me the whole way home, and I actually managed to get the minibus to stop at my road, so it was a great trip and made me feel loads better.

I’ve been watching a lot of BBC Food. I think I find it way more fascinating since I have no kitchen. It makes me want to cook exciting things this summer. My diet here has just been lousy, and I want to totally detox once I get back. It’s funny, though, because there are shows devoted to desserts and fatty meat plates and these things, but then there’s this one show called “You Are What You Eat” on fatties who need to diet. I watched one with this mother and daughter who were both giant and drank a tank of alcohol a week and ate all kinds of hangover fried crap. The fascist nutritionist woman took samples of their “poos” and had this whole hilarious conversation with them about how she’d looked at their poos and they smelled awful and were the worst poos she’d ever come into contact with. So funny. Brits are great.

Monday after being in the field I went to the tour company place to pay for my trip. But, right now it appears I’m the only person signed up for it and there needs to be 4 people to go, so they guy suggested I wait. I will be super bummed if this doesn’t happen. I can go to Zambia for four days for the same price around the same dates and then maybe add a trip to the lake. But I really prefer to see more of Malawi while I’m here. But there’s still lots of time, so maybe people will sign up. I hope so. It’s like the one thing I really wanted to do that would make this trip fun.

I got a bunch of sound files from my friends at school, which was nice. The plan was to send something shortly after I got mugged, but it was right at the end of the school year so it took a few weeks. :) But it was nice to hear people’s voices. Only 3 more weeks until I return!

It looks like I’m going to go camping this weekend at the lake, which is good. Gives me something to do and then I’ll definitely get to see the lake if my trip doesn’t work out. I still have to look at some other options.

Safari!

Yesterday I started looking online to figure out my vacation plans. The places I looked had safaris that I felt were too expensive. I felt discouraged and began to wonder if maybe I could change my flight and come home earlier for less money. But then! I poked through Bradt Malawi and it mentioned a tour company that does budget tours. I just booked a tour with the exact places I wanted to go for just about the exact dates I wanted to go for the exact price I wanted to pay! So awesome! I'm so psyched! I'll be going to Blantyre, then to the Liwonde National Park, then to Cape Maclear at the lake. I'll be in a tent or whatever, but it's going to be awesome. I'll leave Monday, June 4 and return on Sunday 10, the day before I leave. This has totally put me in a much better mood about being here!

I also got a new phone number, although the DHL has not yet arrived so I have no phone to plunk the new SIM card into. You can reach me at 265-812-1170 until I leave!

One month to go!

Friday I went home and then got a cab to Foodworth’s, since all I had in my room to eat was one packet of oatmeal, some white raisins, and a chocolate bar. I completely mis-estimated how much money to bring home with me (most of it is locked in a drawer at work), so when I checked out at the store I was like 1900 MK short (almost $14!). I should have figured that since I had no food I would need a lot of money if I wanted to buy everything I desired, but I just didn’t think about it enough. I removed a few items, but the manager didn’t want me to leave with no wine, so he chipped in his own money and told me to pay him back whenever I was next in. It was kind of embarrassing, but I got my wine.

Which I drank while watching Sex in the City, which K had lent me. I didn’t think I would like it, but I actually found it entertaining, even though SJP’s character is super irritating. From what I can tell, Mr. Big is probably an asshole, but she’s such a freak all the time that he comes off as reasonable for not dealing with her crap in this very calm way. But really he’d probably ignore her no matter what. But she has to stop acting like a freak so we can all know for sure.

I also watched this show on BBC Prime called 3 Non-Blondes in which these three black women go around England doing crazy things and secretly recording the reactions of nearby people. It’s really funny. K recommended it last weekend, and I’m glad she did.

Saturday I volunteered to go to this workshop for the household survey, since I’d been to all the rest of the training and R wasn’t here for this one. The good thing is that we went to the office first so I could get more money. The bad thing was that it was totally boring and I had little to contribute. We did find some kinks still in the survey, however.

Sunday, I went to the Capital Hotel in the morning to try to send my mother an email for Mother’s Days, but it was too early for stuff to be open. I went back later and used the internet, got a haircut, and read my magazine while having a couple MGTs (Malawi Gin and tonics), all for under $14. That may be the only thing I miss about this place – how friggin’ cheap things are. The haircut isn’t bad, but I wish the back were shorter.

Today I just felt really depressed and homesick. The village was pretty lively, but once again people ask me for things, and I just feel overwhelmed and irritated. One young man noted that he wasn’t in school because he didn’t have money for the fees. He’s not going to get much support from people in the village given how many primary school-aged kids I saw wandering around today. The girls were shaking their heads at it – primary school is free, so there’s no excuse for that. He was enthusiastic about my Harvard Magazine, so I gave it to him. Gives him something to read in English for practice. I’m destined not to read them anyway, given my last one was stolen. He also noted that he wanted to get an HIV test, but there was no transport to the hospital to get one. This afternoon, I think the women thought I was the lady who normally brings fertilizer. Sadly, none of them had enough schooling to speak English, so none of them could talk to me. The whole place just makes me want to go home and not have to deal with endless problems.

Also, no one lets me do anything here, which makes me feel weak and useless. I hate this place sometimes. I want to go back to where I can do things for myself. I can also tell that people are always laughing at me and making jokes about me… I’m not entertainment, I’m a person, so fuck off. I don’t laugh at people here. I don’t gawk at them. I treat them like people. Is that too much to ask?

Donors wanted

Tuesday the most exciting thing that happened was that I figured out I could connect to the printer in my office using a USB cable, thereby bypassing the network, since I can’t seem to connect that way. It seems to confuse the printer a little bit and takes a while to switch back to accepting jobs from people on the network, but people seem to be able to deal with it so far.

Wednesday was the first official day of data collection. We got out the door in good time, but then things slowed us down. People’s didn’t have a bottle opener (“But you sell bottles!” I told one of the employees), so we had to stop at Likuni market and wander around until we found one. Then the CBO head was late because he’d gone to town to pay for an examination fee and was taking the minibus back. It’s too bad we didn’t know that, since we, like, came from town and could have picked him up there. But S and I talked to a woman from the CBO about how undereducated girls are, because as soon as a family is short on school fees they pull the girls out of school. Lame. It’s yet another big issue that makes me wonder why I’m exerting energies on a radio program; then again, this is an issue that can be partly addressed through a communication campaign, so I guess I shouldn’t rag on my project too much.

The CBO head arrived and then we drove for about a million years down a dirt road all the way to Kamuzu Dam and beyond. I have to say, though, both villages were up above this green valley and the view was gorgeous. I feel like I just relaxed in paradise all day. In the morning, we had men listening to the radio diaries. That was fine, and then it was time for interviews and I went to the truck to get drinks. When I returned, all the men who were not being interviewed were sitting around reading these HIV booklets we’d brought for folks. I thought, oh, how nice they have something to read while they wait, but then I thought, oh crap, HIV booklets! Hello, they haven’t been interviewed yet. I don’t think it matters terribly, but I was peeved about it for a while. I got myself unpeeved before mentioning it to S, and she totally got it right away and said that we should hand them out after. Yeah, no kidding.

The other thing that peeved me in the morning was that I’d only put 2 boxes of cookies in the carton instead of 4, so each group had to share one measly box of cookies. Like I don’t already feel enough like an asshole for not having real study incentives.

The afternoon village was women, listening to the program and then having a discussion. It seemed to go well, and the women interacted even though one was more talkative. She was particularly funny, making me sad that I can’t understand any of the jokes here because I only know like 15 words of Chichewa. All in all, the day seemed to go very well. We dropped off the CBO head and went downtown so I could hit the money bureau again. As if getting a ton of money in 500 kwacha stacks isn’t bad enough, they only had 200s. I really could roll around in the stuff. I ran into my pals George and Brian as I headed back to the car and told them about getting mugged. They keep saying I should go up to the lake and they’ll be my guides some weekend, but I just can’t convince myself that’s a good idea, even though a lot of perfectly nice folks do that kind of freelance guiding for tourists.

Back at the office I furiously checked email and printed surveys in my half hour before going home. If we ever get back too late to do that I’m either going to have to stay late and get a taxi home or come in really early the next day. I thought about trying to come in Saturday to work, but I think I volunteered myself to go to the one-day training for the household survey interviewers before they take off for the districts on Sunday, which is work that turns out not to help me at all. I feel like I should go, though, since I was at the rest of the training, and R isn’t around for this one. At some point I desperately need to go grocery shopping because I have no food at all.

Wednesday I had three new food experiences. One I actually didn’t quite experience yet, but I figured out a curiosity I’d had. I’ve seen people on the road doing something that looked like eating big sticks, which I thought seemed odd. Turns out that they are actually peeling the outside off with their teeth, because the inside is this fibrous material that gets waterlogged, and so people suck the water out of it. I figured that this was an easy way to get water on the go, like the water bottle of Malawi. Turns out? It's sugarcane! So now I really have to try some. Everyone thought my excitement about this was really funny, since people grow the stuff for personal use pretty much everywhere. The second thing was ground nuts. A guy came over with what looked like a big pile of weeds with peanuts dangling on the ends as roots. The nuts themselves were more rooty than nutty, and I think they’d be better roasted. The third thing was cooked pumpkin. The secretary took one of the pumpkins home and brought me some that she’d cooked. It was darn good. I just ate it, I didn’t put anything on it. It was a pleasing thing to scarf down as I was scurrying around at the end of the day.

Thursday we were mega fast and were back at the office by 2:30. It was awesome. I had time to print surveys for Friday and check my email a bit and then I told Joe to call me when he came online at 4. I hadn’t talked to him on the phone since I got mugged, so it was great to talk to him in better spirits. He’s sending me another phone he got from a friend, so I will be hooked up again next Tuesday or so.

I left work and there was no lift, so I took the minibus with the secretary. It took forever to get one that wasn’t jammed full, and it was getting dark when I arrived home, to my displeasure. I really had no food, but I had one package of ramen, and a migraine was brewing. I grabbed the water kettle to fill it, and the power went out. Fuck. I ate a candy bar, but it didn’t help, so I just laid around in bed until the lights returned and I could eat. I felt much better.

I’ve been feeling a little irked while being out with the research crew. I don’t expect them to speak English the entire time I’m around since I’m the only one who doesn’t speak Chichewa, but I wish they’d let me in on the conversation a little bit here and there. You know, like every hour or so give me a sentence or two summary of what’s going on. Sometimes based on the little I do understand I suspect that I’m being mocked, but maybe I’m just paranoid. Talking to Joe Thursday he said that he expected that around halfway through my trip as I am, I’d be really into being here, and maybe when I get back I’d miss it here. I don’t really think that’s going to be the case. I’m not really in love with this place. It’s okay for a visit, but I don’t think I’ll be eager to come back.

Today the CBO guy, M, that was our guide brought with him a list of things that the group would like to have to do more in the community, for my reference if I can help find donors. It reads as follows:

PROBLEMS MASUNA FACED AS A CHARITY ORGANIZATION

1) Lack of Child Based Community Care (CBCC): as a result, children/orphan learn(?) on the ground (I guess that means no school? I’m not sure. Anyway, every group that does orphan care lacks enough money to really do it well).

2) Lack of entertainment materials such as football, netball, basketball that can make our youth busy instead of indulging into bad behaviour.

3) We have resources in our community or catchment area such as land/dambo that we can cultivate and doing wintercropping but we are failed due to lack of agricultural inputs ie seeds, fertilizer, treadle pumps.

4) Lack of real income generating activity that can make our charity organization to be sustainable. (I was telling the guy that while some of these needs are easy to fill, I have no idea how you take a society where no one has money to buy things from anyone else and make the economy work… it seems like a lot of money has to be infused and jobs created all at once, and you need a stronger government or private sector for that).

5) We have a big catchment area; as a results, we failed to visit some areas due to inadequate transport, ie bicycles or motorcycles.

6) Difficult to transport our clients (people with HIV, from what I can tell) to the nearest hospitals due to lack of ambulance bicycles.

In addition to this list, M introduced me to an older man in the village whose legs are all screwed up from polio. He would like a bicycle; they have these ones here that work by hand crank for people in his situation. He currently repairs shoes but only gets like 2 MK per pair for that, which is way less than a penny. He wants to open a food shop. I think getting him the bicycle is easy enough, but I don’t know that it will help him make any more money. There are plenty of able-bodied people that can’t find work around. If people are only paying him 2 kwacha to repair their shoes, there is a bigger issue here than him not being able to get around as much as he’d like.

So, being here has made me see that there are lots of little things that people would like to make life easier. But there are major systemic problems that require smart solutions that can help whole communities get on their feet. It’s good to know about these things, even if currently I can only think of ways to address the small stuff. Maybe by putting these issues out there also, someone with more resources or ideas will come upon them.

Adventures

So I didn’t have internet all day Thursday… it really sucked. We were switching ISPs, and I couldn’t get my computer to connect until the very end of the day. Boo. Anyway, I went to bed really early on Wednesday night and slept forever. It was great. So I felt pretty good Thursday. I went to the main branch of the useless police station, where the woman told me to come back at three because the report wasn’t ready or she couldn’t get to it or some bullshit. I had noticed Wednesday at the mini-station that no one really seemed to be doing anything but hanging around. I asked the woman at the main station if the police would bother to look in the area where my bag was probably ditched to see if they could find it, and she was all, no. I guess they don’t do things like patrol the area to keep people from being mugged and/or actually investigate crimes. Then again, I’d probably be better off with a random citizen finding it, because I don’t really trust the police here to actually give me back my stuff if they found it. The constable at the mini-station was just sketchy… he seemed like a would-be criminal who decided being a police officer would give him enough power over others.

At the embassy I gave them my passport photos so they could get my limited passport together for today. I have two photos left which I kind of want to give to Joe, although the smart thing to do would be to hang on to them for when I get a real passport back in the states. My hair looks funny because the guy said I had to have my ears showing, but they’re otherwise rather cute.

We went shopping for office supplies and cookies, which was exciting. Other than that it was mad boring without the internet.

Friday my two new RAs came in, and we all met to talk about the study. Then the three RAs went through the questions with S in charge while I went off to deal with more passport madness. First stop, police station, where this woman basically filled out a really short form and then charged me a few bucks for it. Stupid. Then I went to the embassy, where they made me wait forever. I think all the people in the consular’s office were having a meeting. But eventually I got my freebie limited passport along with a letter telling me what I need to get a real one and some photocopies for me to carry around instead of the passport. Which is what I should have been doing in the first place. On the other hand, if I had to lose something, the passport wasn’t the worst thing by far – it was fairly easy to replace, at least temporarily, and the old one had an ugly photo.

After that we went to Immigration for a visa. But since there are no computer systems in this country, they sent me to the airport where I got the initial visa, because that is where the record is if you fly in. The driver, G, and I were talking about how there’s no way they could possibly know if you’ve overstayed your visa until you’re leaving, at which point why would they care because the whole point of a visa is to limit your stay. At any rate, they re-stamped my passport with the original date, as if we were going back in time to the day I arrived (I even had to fill out the card they give you on the plane), which means I have to go back to Immigration next week when the visa is up to get it extended.

Going to the airport was a little too tempting. :) It made me think about how happy I’ll be when the study is done and I’m headed home.

If my schedule goes to plan, I should be done with my study by June 1 or so, giving me at least a sold week to do some fun things around Malawi. Trouble is, I’m having a hard time wanting to do these things by myself, and after the whole mugging, I’m a little freaked out about doing anything anywhere, frankly. I don’t want to spend loads of money, but I also feel like I should minimize my risks as much as possible, which might mean things like car rental instead of buses to places. I could check out some of these tour operators – this might be the way to go, because they will have packages and maybe even companions. Part of me wants to say fuckit and just go home early, but it seems like a waste to come here and not take advantage of it a bit. I’m pondering a southern route down to Blantyre and then up through Liwonde National Park to Cape Maclear. That way I get other city, national park, lake.

Saturday I went with K to a village called Mabulabo near Mzimba for a 10th anniversary celebration of their HIV/AIDS group there. It took about two hours to get there, thanks to low traffic. The landscape didn’t change a ton, but there were some interesting rocky hills and trees. Once there, K asked someone at the office where we were supposed to go. This person turned out to be the Traditional Authority, who K didn’t recognize because he was new – the old one had died. The TA is like the big super important chief for the whole area, so it was kind of funny that she just was like, hey, we’re lost, help. We were met by a posse of Japanese people! Apparently Japan also has some development and HIV/AIDS projects in the area, so that was cool to meet those guys.

It appeared that although festivities were supposed to start at 9, they were waiting for us to even start getting things prepared. We didn’t arrive until nearly 10. Things didn’t actually get started until like noon, which is just crazy amounts of delay. We had to sit in a classroom the whole time trying to make conversation. Finally the events began. The TA and K (designated the guest of honor, despite the fact that she was hoping just to hang out and have fun) were surrounded by the impi, the traditional zulu warriors. They wore all kinds of crazy hats and animal skins and beads and jingly ankle bells and carried spears and shields. There were also women accompanying in blue dresses and beads. They all sang and the men stomped so the bells all rang. We proceeded to the field and sat under a tent.

It was kind of like Commencement: sitting under a tent, some musical entertainment and other fun intermixed with boring but ceremonial speeches. I noticed that the inside of the tent was decorated with bright blue toilet paper. I guess when you make bright blue toilet paper, you might as well use it for decoration. Ironic, though, that in the bathroom there were only actual pieces of paper instead of teepee. The day was only really fun when the entertaining stuff was happening, because I couldn’t understand any of the speeches. Although the plays were also lost on me, which was sad because it seemed as if they were pretty hilarious. But there was dancing and an acrobat show, so that was cool.

K had to be the one in her speech to note that condoms are useful and part of any good HIV prevention plan, because the frigging district AIDS coordinator basically neglected them in his desire to focus on abstinence only with maybe a dash of be faithful. She said there’s still this whole attitude that there are no real ways to prevent HIV, so you might as well do whatever you want once sex is involved. So annoying.

The drive back took about three hours thanks to a lot of big slow trucks on the road. The M1 is only two lanes, so you have to do a lot of that passing on the other side’s lane. It reminded me of driving around northern NM. With every small town on the road being like driving through Cuba, full of things you don’t really want to stop to visit.

Upon our return I went to K’s house for a Cinco de Mayo barbecue. The power was out when we got there, and B was running around, poor guy. Someone brought tequila, so there were margaritas, which was exciting. The food was good, as always, and there were many fun people there.

I had terrible dreams Saturday night. One involved the characters of Dexter; Doakes totally beat the crap out of Mazuka because he thought he was hitting on some girl he liked, but it was so horribly violent that I was screaming at the television. Yech. I also dreamed that Citizen’s bank charged me $300 for an address change I didn’t notify them about, and they were planning to charge me $300 a week the entire time I would be here. But fortunately in real life they’ve been totally awesome and a woman from there even called me at the office to help me get a new debit card issued and cancel the stolen checks since I couldn’t call them. They definitely win in my book. The rest of my dreams were normal and fine.

News on the TV about things diappearing that makes me feel better about my lost possessions: 1) Kid being abducted in Portugal – losing a camera pales in comparison to having your kid disappear. 2) KA flight disappearing in Cameroon. 3) Town in Kansas getting totally f’d by a tornado. I was wondering why this one was all over the national news on the radio yesterday, but now that I see the TV coverage, I can see why. It’s crazy. The trees don’t even have bark anymore! The whole town is rubble!

Sunday I watched movies because I didn’t have any money and couldn’t go anywhere. I started to watch Romeo + Juliet, but then the power went out halfway through. I watched Gandhi. I planned to watch Logan’s Run, but the power went out again, so I watched Little Miss Sunshine on my laptop instead.

Today we did our pilot test of the study... thank goodness. I'm moving from a pre/post design to a post-test only design, because our grand plans for everyone to fill out little forms full of numbers as we read questions for the post-test totally doesn't work here. Everyone is just confused, and then they confer with all their neighbors about what to do, meaning that none of their responses are private. For the pre-test we were doing one-on-one interviews, but the post-test is the actual important part, so we need to do one-on-one interviews for that and just forget a pretest. Anyway, we did that in the afternoon and it seemed to go well.

Adventures in bureaucracy

I went to the embassy and filled out some forms. But before I can get a passport, I need photos. Also, the police report of the theft so they can verify it was stolen. Also, I'm supposed to pay: at first it looked like almost $100, but they waived some fee to make it $67, but then when I mentioned that I'm low on cash given the robbery, they said they could do a freebie limited passport and I could get a real one when I return to the states. I'll probably just do the freebie, unless I decide to dip into my currently limited (but sufficient) funds.

So, we went to the police station to get a copy of the report. But what they have isn't considered the official report, just the statement that has to be filed with the main office so an official stamped report can be issued. We drove the constable over to the main branch, and there they told us that tomorrow they'd have it ready. So then we went to get the passport photo, which I took and will return to get when I go back to old town to pick up supplies for at least the meeting tomorrow. I had been planning to buy all the supplies, but now I don't know. I'm so tired, I could just fall asleep.

Mugged

So, yesterday for the holiday the plan was to get a haircut, maybe grab some wine at Foodworth’s, maybe have some lunch at Cloud’s, and hit the forex to stock up on cash before heading home. I thought about bringing my laptop along for the trip, since Cloud’s allegedly has a wifi hotspot, but I decided it was too heavy.

Thank goodness.

Right behind the friggin buildings with the hair salon and Foodworth’s, some guy jacked my purse. I was coming off a dirt road onto the street, and he was coming up the street. I was in front of him, and he just grabbed the bag from behind. I had a good grip on it and made a strong showing in tug of war, but he had a knife, so he wins. (As Am joked, if you were packing heat you’d be the winner!). He actually got me in the arm a tiny bit with the blade (the size of a big paper cut), and a have a belly bruise where he grazed me as a threat to get me to back off. Once he took off, I ran after him hollering; he made like he was coming back at me to get me to knock off, but people started coming out and he ran away. He actually dropped the knife at one point as he ran, and I thought maybe he was going to ditch the weapon, but he picked it up as he ran away. Or maybe he thought I’d grab it and come after him (not unlikely, I was pretty determined to do what I could to get my stuff back). A really impressive number of guys from the surrounding buildings took off after the guy in response to my shouts, but apparently he disappeared into the bushes. Damn bushes. The number of people responding certainly made me feel more assured that this was a really crazy broad daylight semi-busy area to mug someone. It’s just too bad no one caught him.

A man directed me to the police station, but I was intercepted by a café owner whose men were working on the wall and had been some of those giving chase. He got me some water and a cappuccino (just the thing for frazzled nerves!), and a woman from the embassy, EP, was there having lunch with her daughter. She called up the embassy and had a colleague come over with some paperwork for the passport (of which I have a photocopy, so new one will be easier to obtain), and then we went to the police station to file a report.

Filing the police report was actually sort of hilarious. The “station” was basically a tiny room with some chairs and a desk. The constable clearly took his role very seriously, and kept tapping his papers on the desk to line them up in a very official way. His papers consisted of blank paper on which he wrote my statement. When he saw the cut on my arm, he declared that I had to go to the hospital so that a medical report could be included. EP insisted that this was not going to happen and that someone at the embassy clinic would look at it Wednesday. So he had one of the other officers write up a sheet for the doctor, which reads, “The above named person has been unlawfully wounded by unknown criminals. Therefore I refer her to your good office for both treatment and examination. Thereafter furnish us with your findings.” Hilarious. I have to wonder what kind of kinky shit they’re allowing for in the “lawfully wounded” section.

After the police station, we headed to the embassy. EP’s daughter got a nosebleed, so we were in an extra hurry. Of course, once we got to the gate the incompetent security guards were in no such hurry to let us in, and wanted my paperwork. EP explained that I’d just been robbed and didn’t have a passport and that her daughter was bleeding and could he please just let us in. Then he said he’d have to ask his supervisor, but the supervisor was off under a tree somewhere and there was no reception officer in the little office, and EP totally flipped out on the guys until they let us in. Once we got in she was all, “Fucking morons!” It was so refreshing to hear someone yell and curse after three weeks in this passive aggressive country. Once inside we called K, who I figured would be at the office and she was, and she came to get me.

At the office I made various phone calls and checked my email and generally tried to take care of some basic details. On the whole, I lost: 1) My wallet with all my credit and ATM cards along with my drivers license and about $100 in kwachas and USD combined. Although the guy will have to dig for the USD, so if I happed to get the wallet back it might still be there. AND also my awesome photos from G that I’ve transferred to new wallets for ages. 2) My passport, which will be easily replaced. 3) My checkbook, which sucks for now because I can’t use the money bureau, but I can exchange US cash that K has locked away at her house plus the office can front me some funds for the research stuff. I also have some kwacha locked up at work from my money runs this week. Joe is going to retrieve the next book from my house and put it in the Friday DHL package from the Baltimore office, so I’ll be back in business soon enough. 4) The cell phone Kirsten was lending me, meaning no calls from Joe or anyone else at home until I find a replacement. 5) My camera, which at least didn’t have any photos on it, but it sucks a lot that it’s gone and I can’t upload any more photos while I’m here… I might be able to find some disposables to at least take some photos. 6) Last, but absolutely the worst, my glasses, since I was wearing my sunglasses and therefore had my glasses in my purse. Joe can send my backup pair from home, and there are apparently some Germans here who can make some more if I need. But, I haven’t even paid for those glasses yet! (Some crazy 6 month interest free card thing).

So, none of this is the end of the world, unlike if my laptop had been stolen. Although he probably wouldn’t have gotten away so fast because that bag is mega heavy. I also have been making sure to keep my hotel key in my pocket should something like this happen. Thank goodness also that I hadn’t decided to visit the money bureau first. And, of course, that nothing really bad happened to me. It just fucking sucks.

After the office, K took me to get some late lunch/early dinner at Mama Mia’s. I had penne with a really hot tomato sauce, which made me feel better. Then we went to her house and she checked the cut on my arm, peroxided and antiseptic creamed it (I got a black cat band-aid… yay kids’ band-aids!), and then gave me some bubble bath and movies to take home.

I felt a lot better after a few hours than right after it happened. If someone had offered me a plane ticket home and a ride to the airport right after it happened, I’d be on my way home right now. I was already feeling homesick, and this was just not what I needed. But, after a few hours I was feeling like I had a handle on replacing the stuff I really need to replace and managing without the rest. I’m leery of the travel to and from work with my laptop bag now, but those times of day are also much busier. Unfortunately, I think I was more vulnerable today because of the holiday making the streets a bit emptier than they normally would be; all the expats I talked to today were pretty surprised about where and when it happened. It’s also just completely unlucky that I’ve lived in a totally dangerous city for nearly three years with no incident (never mind Boston also), and I happen to get robbed here. Sadly, I think I know why expats don’t walk around the city, because white folks are really much more of target.

So, I probably won’t be doing much wandering on the weekends anymore, and will probably make use of a taxi or minibus if I’m feeling restless. I think I can learn to appreciate the simple pleasures of lounging around my room with magazines and books and movies.

Once I got home I wrote a few of these notes, which I think was helpful. I took a hot bath with some grapefruit scent in it. It made the bath kind of look like bright pee, but it smelled a lot better and was nice. Then I broke out iTunes and listened to lots of music that made me feel better in ways both cheerful and aggressive, such as that song from the Office Space soundtrack when they’re smashing the printer. I love that song. Anyway, I realized one thing I can do to occupy myself is to make playlists, since I have virtually none, and they’re necessary for road trip iPodding.

K’s husband said that it was important to compartmentalize the experience, not to deny it happened, but to not really let it into my life. He’s really right, in a way. It was just like a bad dream, and though it was scary and freaks me out, it’s not more affecting to my life than most other things. It’s mostly a hassle, but I’m no more or less safe because of it. It feels more personal due to the level of assault involved, but the robber had no interest in hurting me, just taking my stuff and threatening me enough to be successful at it.

It’s really a shame also that there are people like this who damage the reputation of places like this one, where the vast majority of people are dirt poor and yet strongly frown on this sort of behavior and do what they can to stop it when given the chance.

All right, off to wade through a few more emails and head off to the embassy.

Cats for sale

Friday night I bummed around, talked to Joe. Saturday morning I woke up and breakfast came at half seven. Except it was just bread, butter and jam with some sort of orange beverage (Fanta? SoBo orange squeeze?) because the power was out. I hadn’t noticed since it was light and I hadn’t tried to turn on the TV yet. Of course, once the power came back on and I did try to turn on the TV, nothing came out since they seem to have not paid the bill. I kept getting notices all week in my little message box, but I figured they’d pay it. Then again, Fred told me that he didn’t get paid yesterday along with several other lower tier employees, so I’m a little more concerned about that. I’ll have to chat with Fred on Monday before I pay my bill so I can have words if necessary.

More breakfast came, which was good. Then I bathed and went downtown. I had to stand in the giant ATM line again since I gave all my cash to S yesterday. I guess I should have brought my checkbook for the Money Bureau. After that I went to the Old Town Mall, which wasn’t all that. I went to Shoprite for really the first time, and it was amazing. It had a ton of stuff. I even found a cheap wine bottle opener so I can have cheap South African wine. The minibus back was annoying. First it was totally empty, and then these two guys got on and squeezed next to me, and everyone else who got on had to climb over them to get in back. Assholes. Then the bus didn’t leave forever, trying to fill up. But no one wanted to get on, so give up already. Then I couldn’t get the driver to just friggin’ pull over where I wanted. He kept saying, Capitol Hill? And I’m like, No! Here!

I vegged at home a bit and then went to see if Cloud was open. It doesn’t open until 5, so I said fuck that. I wandered through the area with the library and British Council and ended up on the road to Four Seasons Center, so I walked that way. The walk over seemed not so bad, but the walk back seemed long. Once home, I felt sticky and my feet were filthy, so I bathed them briefly. This somehow caused a flood in the hallway which is separated from the bathroom by entire closets… and the water came from the ceiling! The guy who came to mop the floor said something was wrong with the “geyser (?)” and if there was a kink in the shower hose, it backs up. What fucked up plumbing! He said there is another room like this one if it continues to be a problem. I took the opportunity to complain about the TV too.

The boss came to get me around 6, and we went to her house for a quick dinner. Then we were off to a music thing at the girls’ school. It was basically a bunch of faculty and local expats singing along with a pretty good local band. Some of it was pretty great, and some of it was just awful. Made me want to karaoke. I’m the oldest daughter’s BFF, so I spent a lot of the evening chatting with her when I wasn’t chatting with the adults. The younger daughter totally ignores my existence. Upon returning home to put the girls to bed, we noted the older one’s stuffed cheetah was missing, so K and I went back to look for it. We did find K’s sweatshirt she hadn’t realized she left, but no cheetah.

Sunday I was mostly a bum but went out for a walk in the afternoon. I walked through the Taipei Gardens, which was amusing to see in Malawi. I ended up over by the mausoleum for former President Banda, which was rather pretty. Then I went to City Centre from the back side and realized there is a whole courtyard and other stuff beyond the front. I wonder if it’s full of annoying people on Saturdays or if those folks are confined to the front.

Today I went to the Money Bureau, since K had told me that apparently they are threatening to close them unless they join up with banks, and the deadline is tomorrow. I guess there is no regulation currently. On the way, I saw a guy selling a cat on the side of the road… I had seen a guy with two cats a week or two ago, and when cars would go by he’d swing them out like they were bananas. Totally hilarious and awful.

TGIF

Apparently some girls drowned in the river, and that’s why there were a lot of people at the bridge the other day. I don’t know if there were rescue teams that attracted attention or what.

Wednesday night, I bummed around and decided to make a giant pot of tea. I made it in the French press, which meant that it just steeped and steeped. I think between the caffeine and the acidity, my stomach was ruined. I slept like crap the whole night and dreamed about work. Bleh. I woke up the next day with my stomach still miserable, so I skimped on breakfast (no greasy sausage or potatoes for me) and lurched out for the four CBO meetings I had to deal with. They all went pretty well, and only one involved singing and dancing, and that was because they were actually anticipating that CARE would be there a bit later with cameras to film them. Clarifying this did not keep them from doing their whole spiel for us, however.

So I lived through the meetings, still really friggin’ glad to have S around to help explain things in more detail to people. Afterwards, we dropped S off at her house and I had G drop me off at mine. I took a 2-hour nap and felt better enough to venture to People’s. Actually, I tried first to go to the Money Bureau so I could pay S today, but it closes at 4. And opens at 8:30, meaning I can never go before or after work. People’s such a useless supermarket. The only really useful thing I bought was bread. This is why I need a car to go somewhere else; if I had felt better I could have minibused, but that just wasn’t going to happen.

I watched TV and saw the intro to a really old cartoon called The Raccoons that I had completely forgotten about. I watched a thing on Jack Osbourne trying to get in shape to climb a mountain. Joey called later and we went through my mail and talked about some delicious lasagna he might make me when I get back. I really can’t wait to get back home. Yesterday, between the not feeling well and the closed money bureau and the useless supermarket and the irritating people who always bother me at City Centre, I just really hated Malawi. But that happens away from home.

Today we had the last three CBO meetings, none of which involved singing and dancing. Then I tried to go to the money bureau in old town, but it was closed. Being Friday (and probably also because it was the end of the month), all the banks had huge lines. I got in a giant line for the NB ATMs, which only let me take out a portion of what I really wanted… basically I had to pay S for 4 days instead of 5, promising the rest on Monday. To be fair, she was only here like an hour on Monday, and only part time every day, but whatever. She saves my ass. Anyway, I wish I had checks and a credit card that would be useful in Malawi.

Back at work, I discovered that there is a source of delicious beverages for MK40 in the microprojects office down the hall. I got a Cherry Plum SoBo, which is sooooo delicious. Malawians love their soda beverages.

I pondered going to Cloud tonight, now that Joe and I talked about Italian food, but maybe I’ll go to the mall tomorrow and hit Mama Mia’s instead. I just hate having to take a taxi home from so close to my house, but I probably shouldn’t walk either. So I’ll probably just bum around. Tomorrow I’m going to a concert thing with the boss’s fam, which should be fun.

Dimebag

I tried to post my vids to youtube, but they're not working... soon.

On the way back from the meetings, there were a buttload of people at the bridge... I don't know what they were looking at, and the few we tried to ask seemed to also have no idea, they just noticed the commotion and wanted to see too. So, I think it was a self-perpetuating mob.

I went for a walk near work before grabbing some lunch. I didn't see too much that was interesting. The place near work where I got lunch gave me a dimebag of salt to go with it.

Singing and dancing

This morning my RA and I went to see a couple of the community-based organizations to get some guidance on the project. The first one was a ways out, south on the M1 and then down the turnoff to Bunda for a ways. We got there and were met by a bunch of youth singing. A man took my bag, despite my insistence that I would really prefer to hang onto it, but he wanted to carry it for me into the meeting room. The meeting room had a desk with a chair behind it that was for me to sit in. The table was covered in health brochures, old and newish. At first it seemed that we'd be meeting with about 5 people, already more than expected, but then like 15 more adults filed in and sat on the benches along the wall, and about a million young people and children came in to sit on the floor. Instead of the audience of one or two I had expected going in, I now had a packed room. Or rather, my RA had a packed room because she had to do most of the explaining anyway. She totally could rebargain her pay after today, because she was my savior in that place.

The CBO leader gave this whole speech, translated by S to me, about the CBO and all the things it was trying to do, and all the things that were lacking like soccer balls and other things to occupy young people so they don't have sex, proper training for people at all levels of the organization, medical supplies, help to write good grants, etc. So they were glad to see me! I felt like, yeah, get ready to be disappointed because I just want to do a tiny study about radio. In all fairness, it's good to know about these things, even if I am not prepared to do anything now, because maybe in the future I will be in a place to say, hey, I know a bunch of people who could use some soccer balls or help writing a grant and get them the hookup.

S described the study and figured out the info we needed. She totally ruled today. After the meeting, we went outside and there was singing and dancing and a play. I recorded some of the singing and dancing with my camera. I'll try to post it, if I can, maybe on youtube. It was all cool, but definitely not what I had expected. The second meeting was much more what I planned for: a brief meeting with one person in an office. Either way, it seems that the groups will help us get folks to be in the study and help us find good places to do it, so rah.

We have three or four meetings tomorrow… I was exhausted after the two we had today, so I hope these are all lowkey.