Yogurt

So, I bought a yogurt machine for $12 a long time ago, and then I never never used it. I finally decided it was about time to try it out. It worked great! This morning I had some delicious yogurt with NJ blueberries (which were plump and juicy). I ended up using Fage as a starter, and I processed the batch for about 5 hours, which was enough to make it solid, but not too tart (not as tart as the Fage at least). I think I'm going to look for a powder starter for future batches, because it does seem a little pointless to have to buy a yogurt to make more yogurt. Anyway, I love it when I make stuff and it's easy and turns out well.

Gnocchi

In the past, Joe and I have purchased frozen or dried potato gnocchi from Italian food stores, and they've been tasty enough (they cook very fast too once the water is boiling).  Joe ordered some at Roman Hall over break, however, and it was clear they were in a completely different league -- soft, and not gummy or tough like the packaged kinds.

I procured Lidia Bastianich's big cookbook (we've been making her vodka sauce recipe from the web forever), and we decided that since we had all the ingredients, we'd make gnocchi.  I did the majority of it, grating the potatoes, mixing the dough, rolling and cutting and shaping.  And they turned out.  So. Damn.  Good.  Very similar to Roman Hall's.  It was kind of time consuming, but there's no way we're eating packaged gnocchi ever again.

Joe made a tomato sauce to go with it (the classic gravy), but as per Lidia'a suggestion, he added some cabernet, and it made the gravy ever so much richer.  I just had the leftovers, and they were delicious.

We also made stuffed mushrooms from the book last night... we could have made double, they were so tasty.

Going out to dinner is fun, but cooking together is romantic and hot.

Saturday already?

Thursday was pretty much the usual family craziness. A lot of eating and drinking! We were all at Joe's parents' house for Thanksgiving, and for Christmas we'll go to the shore.

Yesterday Joe and I went out around 2:30, and it was still pretty nuts at the centers of shopping. I feel like when we went out last year to the outlets, it was dead because everyone went super early. I got some presents for the boy (which he pretty much saw/brought to my attention in the first place), but the deals weren't good enough yet for personal shopping. We came home and then went out to dinner at Villa Mannino, where we ordered our usual vodka rigatoni and eggplant parm. So delicious.

I don't know what we're up to yet today, but I'm sad we have to leave so early tomorrow morning. I checked the trains last night to see if we could switch to other options, but the entire middle of the day is booked, and everything is much more expensive than what I paid for the tickets. It's okay, I have to finish up a lecture for the proposal/project class for Monday, and it'll be easier to do it at home than on vacay.

I can't work when it feels like vacation, whereas the boy can poke at his dissertation whenever he has five minutes (which he usually stretches to ten or more, as I wait around). That's either healthy or tenure-killing.

In da Jerz for turkey day

The train was pretty awful last night... we took the last one out, and it was 2 hours late into the station, but they switched engines fast so we were only ("only") an hour late out, so we got to Trenton by 2 am. We pretty much instantly collapsed upon reaching home.

Today we went to Mastoris and then did very little. I even took a nap.

This stuff in India is very bad.

I think tomato pie is on the roster for tonight.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Iron stomach

I had a salad last week for lunch (more like cole slaw without mayo... I added Nali, and it was okay), so my advisor asked me today if it was okay. I'd forgotten salad is one of those things to be wary of in developing countries, I guess because you can't do much to get bad things off of salad parts. I was like, nah, salad was fine. And then I told him I'd been drinking the tap water here too. He said my name in a scolding way. I told him it's totally chlorinated and it's *fine*. It's treated water; in the village I'd be way more careful. Maybe I just have low perceived risk because nothing bad has happened, but I think I'm not that sensitive to changes in water.

I made the rest of those phone calls and managed to schedule all but one group. Rock star!

Is people

After work Friday I hung out with my advisor at his hotel, sitting out by the pool. Pools are awesome. It was kind of weird hanging out with my advisor… a lot of faculty in the department seem to have very social relationships with their advisees (mostly the women, I guess), but that’s not really been my case. Which I’ve liked in a way. But when you’re a million miles from home and there’s nothing else to do on Friday, might as well hang out. We talked about lots of random stuff, and some grant ideas (can’t leave behind work entirely).

I talked to Joey when I got home. He continues to be a rock star. And we continue to be able to crack each other up.

Today I left the house late-ish. I went by City Centre, but it was so intolerable that I jumped on the nearest minibus and went downtown. The purveyors of goods at City Centre need to realize that no one comes around there because they pounce on every mazungu that gets within 100 feet of them and hound them until they have to get rude. Seriously, I don’t want your stuff. It’s not my fault it’s Saturday and no one is around and you’re broke and you can’t figure out that everyone is in old town. I’ll buy things when I want to buy things, and my only obligation is to treat you with respect. Please do the same and take the hint when I tell you for the fifth time that I’m not interested.

I mean, something I’ve noticed is that white people really don’t walk around Lilongwe. They get in cars and go where they want to go and don’t walk amongst the people. So mazungu who are walking around stick out like a sore thumb and attract all sorts of attention. Which makes them want to figure out how to not walk around also, because it’s honestly sort of embarrassing. I took the minibus to the markets. I walked around and didn’t face the same entreaties to buy things (it’s just so damn crowded, there’s no time to waste wooing one potential customer), but I got a million weird looks. I decided this was because I was wearing shorts, which women don’t really do here. So I got a chitenje (a big piece of fabric women wear for skirts/wraps), which I had wanted to do anyway cuz they’re purdy, and put that on. Well that didn’t help me blend in at all! Everyone seemed totally amused! Several men said I was dressed very well, and I couldn’t tell if they were being sincere or just polite, because they were clearly entertained. So, I just stuck out like a sore thumb all day, and at first I didn’t care, but it was extremely tiring after a while.

As I headed toward Shoprite for some air conditioning, a couple of young men, level 4 students, came up to walk with me. They were cool; they’re from the lake area and like to give tours. They’ve also learned the art of the soft sell. They showed me where an outdoor food market was, and led me to a courtyard where there is sometimes traditional dancing (we missed it). Then we chilled in the courtyard and had some drinks, which the talkative one, Brian, bought, and we chatted about all things Malawi. Eventually the sell came – they made jewelry! It helped them that they make cool jewelry and this was actually something I am interested in buying for myself and for gifts. They were a pretty good price too. So, I still ended up getting a sales pitch, but a much better one than City Centre! These guys could easily go into business anywhere, because they have clearly figured out how to connect with a client.

So that was actually pretty fun, and it was cool to hang out with people who know things and are willing to share them with me. Part of the conversation was really interesting from a work perspective. Brian talked about all the kids people have when they are too poor to take care of them. And then he talked about how people in the villages drink this beer, and it’s very bad because it brings HIV into the community. Filling in the mediators, he noted that older men drink the beer and feed it to girls, and pay the girls, and this is all child abuse really, but it fuels HIV. It’s always interesting to hear the “epidemiologist on the street” point of view, particularly when it contains so much truth.

On the note of babies, there is a huge difference in how many pregnant women and babies I’ve seen around here compared to the States. Which any population indicator would also tell you, but it’s a different thing to actually see it in person. Bumps and babies all over!

After old town I met up with my advisor in City Centre, because he wanted to buy curios and inexplicably likes to buy them there instead of in old town. It was just as intolerable as before. My friend, Erics, who sold me postcards before, was just as relentless this time in insisting my advisor buy some cards. He finally did just to get rid of the guy.

I came home and chilled and there was another power outage, which caused me to miss the end of the Red Sox/Yankees game they were replaying. It came back on just before I went to dinner with the BRIDGE crew. We went to this place called Baba’s in old town across the river; who knew you could find such delicious Indian food in Malawi! It was awesome.

Sunday I went to meet up with my advisor and a woman who came up from Blantyre to meet with us. She graduated from the MPH program at Hopkins and is doing stuff with big clinical trials down there. I took the minibus downtown and intended to take another one up to Cresta, but I ended up just walking. We sat outside, and I didn’t think I was really in the sun, but one arm and my entire neck was sunburned afterwards. I stopped by the Foodzone that is there to grab some things and took two minibuses home. My strawberry yogurt busted open while being squished in the minibus, and it got all over. Boo. At least there was most of it left for eating; it’s local, and much better than the other weird stuff I had before in that it actually tasted like strawberries.

Upon my return home, I bummed around and couldn’t get motivated to do much of anything. I eventually watched Soylent Green, which I had never seen. This, however, is better than Joe, who had never even heard of Soylent Green, meaning I could not shout the punchline like Charlston Heston does at the end. Booo.

Week 2: Faster than the first

First off, thanks to another benefactor, Jenn, for adding to my sister’s contribution of a Flickr pro account. I’m good for two years now!

Monday was quite busy! I went to my meeting, where we made lots of changes to the survey, which I then had to actually make in the document. Then I went to lunch with my advisor and one of the women in charge of the project at this place that was totally the Malawi version of every fast food place in the US that makes wraps and that kind of thing. Heavy on the chicken, because that’s the most popular meat here. It was the ultimate in non culture shock, but they did make it pleasantly spicy, and there was a bottle of peri-peri (hot spicy herb sauce that is way better than Tabasco) for dipping the French fries (chips) in.

We then trekked out to the workshop to start going over the survey with the interviewers. The place was in the southern part of town, and we drove down this road that had tons of furniture along it! Like, tons of booths with bed frames and poofy couches and chairs. Some of the booths sold coffins; apparently not too long ago pretty much all the places along there sold coffins. Apparently there is less demand for coffins, or some people decided to move their skills to furniture. The poofy couches are all kinds of wonderful garish colors like deep fuchsia velvet. I’ll try to take a photo of the lobby furniture at the hotel, which is more of a gold color.

The workshop was interesting. We had both the Chichewa version of the survey (which was unfortunately at least 2 iterations old in terms of numbering and coding, and also we had new questions) and the English version, and we were going through the instructions in both languages. People would pipe up with questions and issues with the translation, and it was lively, considering how boring it actually was. We didn’t even get through the first section of the survey, but it’ll go faster tomorrow.

I used the minibus to go home for the first time Monday. The new secretary lives up the street from me, so she showed me the ropes. We stood on the side of the road until an Area 12 bus pulled up (that’s the area just past 11). Some people got out, but there were still many people in there. Tinkhani and I crammed into a seat that normally would fit one. Another couple of people crammed into the seat in front of us. All of these seats were rickety, which served to be able to move them a bit to cram more people in more efficiently, but made sitting kind of precarious until everyone got in to balance them. Once all the seats were full, like three more guys, including the money collector, just kind of crouched inside by the sliding door. We stopped at the gas station to fuel up, all crammed in. A few people got off south of City Centre. Then we got off right at my street. Tinkhani told me that when we got off, they said that one munthu and one mazungu were getting off. She said that munthu means person, and mazungu means white, like white folks aren’t people. I thought that was kind of funny, even though I guess it’s probably totally offensive.

So, the minibuses aren’t so difficult, even if they are insane. They’re a very efficient way to move people around the city!

I got home Monday to hear the news that one person had been killed in two shootings at VA Tech. After about an hour, the press conference happened and the numbers shot to 20+ only to go above 30. It was definitely one of those freaky news-watching experiences, esp with the time difference and all this happening during the evening news here.

The international news coverage of this incident has been really interesting. In addition to CNN, which was mostly US feed for the first couple of days, I watched BBC and Sky. These guys are really the liberal media! BBC had a guy on that was basically like, yeah, the US has lots of crime and we’re sadly kind of getting used to these kinds of shootings. Both networks have been talking about gun control in the US in this mystified kind of way about the culture of gun rights, with a tone that this should *obviously* lead to some kind of serious discussion about guns with a realization that it probably won’t. The CNN feed, on the other hand, has mostly focused on the need to improve security on campuses, with discussions even of things like random bag searches and metal detectors. Yeesh.

And then of course there was the whole news of like 200 people being blown up in Iraq, but somehow that seems less worthy of attention because it’s become so common. I think the shock over the VA tech incident has been about right; it’s our lack of shock over these other deaths that is a problem.

Joe called late Monday night to say he was getting calls from the media to comment on the story. He taught during winter term and will teach during summer term a course on school and youth violence, which includes a class on rampage school shootings. So he’s something of an expert. He wrote a column in the Sun for Thursday, and Baltimore folks can see him on WBAL Saturday morning. I’ve had the strange mix of feeling proud that Joe gets to talk about something he knows about and sadness that this expertise is useful at such a terrible time!

Tuesday, I took the minibus to the office. It picked me up right near the Villa, and it wasn’t even full! But soon it was, as they pretty much make stops until it’s crammed beyond belief. I was sitting in a seat shoulder to shoulder, and we still fit another person (a girl who appeared to be at the workshop, oddly… I should have just followed her all the way in). The driver came to pick me up from the officce and told me he’d gone to my house first… oops. People keep telling the poor drivers different things, and they end up with the wrong directions. He took me to the workshop, where it seems they had barely started.

Listening to people speak about half the time in Chichewa was interesting. I didn’t really pick much up, but it’s funny how the patterns of speech are similar and different from us. There’s much more coordination of responses like yes and no (yes being a sort of affirmative sounding grunt, no being “ayi”) than there would be in a similar group in the US. But when there is discussion or joking around the cadences are similar. Actually, Chichewa reminds me of Spanish or Italian a little because the ways vowels and consonants alternate. But there are a lot more m, n, k and z sounds.

We went to lunch at this delicious Indian place that has several branches throughout Lilongwe. It’s good, but we ate there like every day this week, so I think I’m good for a while.

After more workshopping, Rajiv wanted to grab a beer after work. I’m not one to say no to beer, so I went with him and the driver to his hotel, which is much nicer than mine. We had a beer, but we weren’t exactly chillaxing because first we went through the survey to make cuts (it’s hugely long in English, which is even longer in Chichewa since there aren’t simple words for things like “never” and “feelings”). I grabbed a cab home; I expected to pay about $10, but it was more like $6, which I thought was a bargain. There are no meters in the cabs here, just negotiation. But the guy offered 1000 kwacha, and my hotel was kind of far, so I just didn’t even bother to bargain.

Wednesday morning, the driver came to get me to take me to the workshop. We finished going through the survey in the morning, and then in the afternoon we went out to a village called Maenje or Mnchezi, not sure, in the Traditional Authority (kind of like a county) of Chitukula. It was just past these giant maize silos that are near the airport. The juxtaposition of the giant shiny metal silos with the short scrubby mud color of the town was quite something. I took a few photos of the place. I was the most popular visitor; my advisor, being Nepali, has somewhat darker skin and was less obviously out-of-place than I was. I’m pretty dang white. So all the little kids stared and followed me around like I was from another planet. They were fascinated. I helped G through an interview, taking notes along the way about things we needed to change or reword. I thought the village was kind of awesome, but maybe that’s because most of the buildings were tiny like me. They were close together and laid out very differently from modern towns.

Last night I watched the news and when it got boring, I tried to get inspired to do something. But instead I fell asleep at around 7:30, with all the lights on, for about two hours. Then I got up and went to bed. Seriously lazy. But when you get up at 6:30 every day, there are limited ways to get in 11 hours of sleep. Thursday was more workshop, to see how interviews went and to make final changes. Today I’m back in the office and trying to catch up on all my email, blogging, and photo postage.

Now that the survey is going forth, I will turn to working on my study. In the course of visiting the village, I realized that you don’t have to go very far from Lilongwe to be in a really different place, and maybe I can do my study in the outskirts. This has a major advantage budgetwise, in that we can leave and come back every day, so there will be no accommodations to worry about. We have contacts in the surrounding areas, so I can get in touch with them to help me find rooms and help recruit. One disadvantage is that people are close enough to the city to get, like, every radio station, making it possible for them to have listened to the program, but I think that there’s probably so much competition that this is not a problem.

Speaking of the radio, I learned several useful Chichewa words while going through the survey this week. Wailesi is radio… it’s basically wireless pronounced the way they pronounce things here. Same with EZDI, which is AIDS. The ‘i' on the end is pretty silent… just a lift from the ‘s’ sound. Pologalamuyi is program; a lot of the time ‘l’ sounds like ‘r’, and they add vowels, so this crazy-looking word sounds pretty much like program. I have also learned that first person verbs start with ndi and second person is mu. I also learned that the way I say twenty is really twenny, which our translator mocked me for, as people in Malawi actually bother to pronounce t’s. Stop being a British colony already!

Okay, time to do some work before I knock off for the day.

Maheu? Ew.

I got home from work, put my stuff away and changed real quick so I could run to the supermarket and get some coffee and anything else I found. Which wasn’t much. People’s is no Shoprite. Or Foodworth’s for that matter… at least that place had soup. I got a can of instant coffee, a bag of Malawi tea, some more weird yogurt, white raisins, and a beer! Carlsberg (of Denmark, same as you see there) is like the official Malawi beer after Chibuku Shake Shake (which I didn’t see, but I wasn’t really looking). I neglected to bring both my mini wine bottle opener and my beer bottle opener that I had removed from my keychain for some reason at some point. But, beer can be opened with pliers and various other tools, whereas wine cannot.

On my way in, a man had walked next to me and said he wanted to show me some postcards on the way out. I figured I could lose him. But when I emerged from the store, he found me. And then this other kid came up, and then there was a third guy talking to them, and it was chaos. I said I had to get home before dark, figuring this would get rid of them, but they tagged along, almost all the way home! They were all right, just crazy persistent, and very willing to let me know how broke they were but how they weren’t beggars because they were selling stuff and working. We were to my street, so I figured if they were willing to walk all that way, I might as well buy a postcard from each. It was like $5 for two, but they’re actually kind of neat, in a touristy way.

I knocked my jar of peanut butter on the floor and it major cracked. I put lots of ziplock bags around it, so maybe it will be okay until I can procure some other container. I like my peanut butter. It occurred to me after that I have all these cabinets, one of which could easily be used as a pantry… better than using the TV as a shelf.

I worked on TASS reports and went to bed around 10:30 (after playing around with the Composer function on the Nokia I’m borrowing). At 5 I woke up to pee and couldn’t go back to sleep. So I got up, had some food and coffee, and worked on the TASS reports more. Around 7 I was about to shower when there was a knock at my door. It was one of the Villa guys letting me know it was time for breakfast. I didn’t know there was a time! I promised to be down in 10 after showering. Breakfast was even more elaborate today and involved not just toast but also eggs, home fries, and a little sausage that tasted like chorizo. It was tasty, but it’s funny how everything is just a little bit off of what it tastes like at home. I seemed to be the only person at breakfast, and I’m not actually sure there is any other guest there right now. At any rate, it’s really strange because I feel like I get this royal treatment… I’ve felt that a lot here. I guess it’s partly the nature of tourism that guests get treated well. But it also feels like there’s a little bit of it that’s about me being a white foreigner.

I just wanna be normal peeps!

Despite eating basically two breakfasts, I am already hungry at 11. I think I’m actually just tired.

Breakfast made me sad because it reminded me of how Joe makes me breakfast. This morning we type-chatted on Skype, and he stayed up way late. It’s hard going into the weekend because I won’t have internet, although I am going to explore the nearby Capital Hotel and check out the internet café at City Centre tomorrow. Things close early tomorrow, though, and Sunday is apparently dead (thanks, missionaries!), so I have to find ways to entertain myself this weekend. Joe might try to find a calling card, if he can get through. My advisor has not been successful so far. I called my phone from the office just now, though, and it worked okay, so it just seems to be a problem of outsiders connecting to the cell network, which Kirsten says is a common problem.

One of the guys here brought me something he wrote to edit this morning. It’s like I’m internationally known as someone who edits things. I finished the TASS reports and decided to get some lunch. I got this drink called Super Maheu from Zambia called Chocolate ‘n Milk. The ingredients, however, include neither of these things. Maize meal, sugar, sweetener, preservative, enzyme, flavourant. It tastes like corn with Smarties crushed up in it, and it has a thick and slightly gritty consistency. Every time I take a sip I’m like, ew weird! Huh. Hmmm. Mmmm? And then the taste goes away and I take another sip. They gave me a straw to go with it, so I decided to make it all the more ridiculous and drink with it. I tried to drink it for a while, but I just couldn't. It kind of reminded me of that barium stuff I had to drink when I had appendicitis. I got some water out of the fridge instead.

The samosees I got with it I have much clearer feelings about: delicious! They’re filled with ground beef and onions. Can’t go wrong with that.

In research news, we decided to go with the original four districts that we surveyed for the last midterm. My advisor had also realized that it was weird to do the unsurveyed four but thought it was necessary for programmatic reasons. When in actuality no one had thought much about it. I’m sure this will lead to a flurry of activity this afternoon when Kirsten returns from her morning meetings. In the meantime I have to get this survey tidied up because the numbering and coding is a mess.

Nsima and beef

First of all, I'd just like to say that I'm glad most of you are asleep when I post, so I have time to remove notes to my boyfriend that I accidentally pasted into my post. Maybe I shouldn't keep those notes in the same document...

Second, I went and got some nsima and beef for lunch today. The meal was $1.71, and the place I got it was this little restaurant where the women served things from lots of crockpots. It smelled kind of like a barn, but the food was tasty (I brought it back to the office, though). Nsima is a corn mash that looks a lot like really thick mashed potatoes. But it's a lot denser and stickier. And it's pretty bland. But, it's tasty enough with the "relish," which is the stuff that comes with it. Today this was beef (some of which was extremely chewy, but most of which was tasty), beans and some kind of green vegetable all chopped up in a delightful sauce. The sauce made the nsima taste lots better. I felt bad that I couldn't eat all the nsima, but it was a ton... kind of like all the rice they give you when you get takeout some places.