Sunday, August 30, 2009
Chad
Chad visited! He enjoyed our village wine and a ride on the back of a World Relief International truck. We were taken to the vegetable garden that Chiyembekezo HIV+ Support Group is growing for added nutrition. We also visited the fabric market in the area he was supposed to be dropped off by his midnight bus.
Prerequisite photo at the PC/Malawi Office
Chad and Baxter at our home in the village
At the beach for book club
links to pics
I just realized some of our friends posted pictures of the IGA camp. Check out these blogs if you are interested in pictures:
http://malawiadventurez.blogspot.com/
http://malawiwowi.blogspot.com/
http://malawiadventurez.blogspot.com/
http://malawiwowi.blogspot.com/
Saturday, August 22, 2009
Updates on our life!
I know we are much overdue for a blog update, but we have been so busy lately that we haven’t had a chance (or we have been in the village and away from computers).
First of all, I should start with the most important news and that is that we will be eating 2+ Thanksgiving dinners in the U.S. of A. !!! We don’t know exactly the day we will be back, but will be home to spend Thanksgiving with our families which makes us really happy. But let me back up and update you on all we have done since the last blog. In the picture on the previous entry we enjoyed a day at the beach with our site-mates in our district. We have been lucky enough to get a new site-mate, Brittany, a health volunteer, at the health center only 3km from our house and school. We are so excited to have her as we see a huge need for a health volunteer in our area. Plus she is going to take Baxter (or Baxy, or Baster, depending on which Malawian you ask.) when we leave! If I hadn’t wrote this earlier, Moto, our awesome cat, ran away when we were traveling with Katie and Nick and Kevin. We are assuming the best that he found a really nice family that could afford to feed him fish all the time.
The last week of July we had our IGA camp which went off without a hitch. All 20 young adults that were invited attended the camp as well as 7 Peace Corps Volunteers as facilitators. The students learned about different business types, marketing, book-keeping, customer service as well as some exposure to some IGAs such as oil pressing peanuts, fisheries, bee-keeping and peanut-butter making. Some of the students who attended already had some IGAs (barber shop, pineapple farmer, tuck shops, etc.) that they are planning to make improvements to. Many thanks go out to office supply donations sent by Carol R., Amy and Andy F. and Joe and Katie W. We were also able to give each participant a red “Summer Reading Program 2007” t-shirt donated by Friends of Malawi. Nobody seemed to care what the t-shirt said, they were just excited to have them. We even heard reports that 5 people wore them to church the next weekend after the camp.
After the IGA Camp, we headed off to Lilongwe to pick up Chad. His arrival was quite interesting compared to our other visitors. After waiting until midnight in a borrowed car in a sketchy part of town near the bus depot (we are talking people warming their hands over trash fires…just to give you an image) we were able to contact him on a phone he borrowed from someone else on his bus. We convinced them to drop him off at a safer part of town and quite literally we picked him up on the side of the road in the middle of the night. The next day we took him to our site, where we stayed for two nights. Everyone was really impressed with Chad’s ability to eat 3 nsima patties when we dined at a friend’s home. Then we spent three relaxing nights on the beach (in tents of course). After the lake we headed back to Lilongwe and he was able to meet a bunch of our Peace Corps friends before we headed off to our COS (Close of Service) conference.
The same day that Chad left we went to our COS conference at Nkhotakota Pottery on the lake. We discussed a lot of issues at the conference- medical, financial, pulling ourselves out of the village and readjustment to American life (Please be patient! We may act strange!). Also, it was nice to spend quality time with our training group with whom we have become close with over the last two years. Besides that we can never get enough of Lake Malawi. I expect it is something we will greatly miss.
Now we are back into our routine at school. We are in Salima town today, so I am sending this from an internet café. Sorry, no pictures until we get free internet time in Lilongwe.
Love to everyone! B&K
First of all, I should start with the most important news and that is that we will be eating 2+ Thanksgiving dinners in the U.S. of A. !!! We don’t know exactly the day we will be back, but will be home to spend Thanksgiving with our families which makes us really happy. But let me back up and update you on all we have done since the last blog. In the picture on the previous entry we enjoyed a day at the beach with our site-mates in our district. We have been lucky enough to get a new site-mate, Brittany, a health volunteer, at the health center only 3km from our house and school. We are so excited to have her as we see a huge need for a health volunteer in our area. Plus she is going to take Baxter (or Baxy, or Baster, depending on which Malawian you ask.) when we leave! If I hadn’t wrote this earlier, Moto, our awesome cat, ran away when we were traveling with Katie and Nick and Kevin. We are assuming the best that he found a really nice family that could afford to feed him fish all the time.
The last week of July we had our IGA camp which went off without a hitch. All 20 young adults that were invited attended the camp as well as 7 Peace Corps Volunteers as facilitators. The students learned about different business types, marketing, book-keeping, customer service as well as some exposure to some IGAs such as oil pressing peanuts, fisheries, bee-keeping and peanut-butter making. Some of the students who attended already had some IGAs (barber shop, pineapple farmer, tuck shops, etc.) that they are planning to make improvements to. Many thanks go out to office supply donations sent by Carol R., Amy and Andy F. and Joe and Katie W. We were also able to give each participant a red “Summer Reading Program 2007” t-shirt donated by Friends of Malawi. Nobody seemed to care what the t-shirt said, they were just excited to have them. We even heard reports that 5 people wore them to church the next weekend after the camp.
After the IGA Camp, we headed off to Lilongwe to pick up Chad. His arrival was quite interesting compared to our other visitors. After waiting until midnight in a borrowed car in a sketchy part of town near the bus depot (we are talking people warming their hands over trash fires…just to give you an image) we were able to contact him on a phone he borrowed from someone else on his bus. We convinced them to drop him off at a safer part of town and quite literally we picked him up on the side of the road in the middle of the night. The next day we took him to our site, where we stayed for two nights. Everyone was really impressed with Chad’s ability to eat 3 nsima patties when we dined at a friend’s home. Then we spent three relaxing nights on the beach (in tents of course). After the lake we headed back to Lilongwe and he was able to meet a bunch of our Peace Corps friends before we headed off to our COS (Close of Service) conference.
The same day that Chad left we went to our COS conference at Nkhotakota Pottery on the lake. We discussed a lot of issues at the conference- medical, financial, pulling ourselves out of the village and readjustment to American life (Please be patient! We may act strange!). Also, it was nice to spend quality time with our training group with whom we have become close with over the last two years. Besides that we can never get enough of Lake Malawi. I expect it is something we will greatly miss.
Now we are back into our routine at school. We are in Salima town today, so I am sending this from an internet café. Sorry, no pictures until we get free internet time in Lilongwe.
Love to everyone! B&K
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