Tuesday 24 August: Mbayani and maize mill

On this day we visited Mbayani, an urban village (which is defined as not having land and agriculture; it's like a small city, though this one in particular is an impoverished slum).



We received a warm welcome. I wondered throughout the coming days, who taught children in villages to pose for cameras?



There was a large program full of singing, dancing and dramas before we toured the village. These two women below were sitting very close to me. I thought they were really beautiful.



Touring Mbayani was difficult. I think I was better prepared to see the poverty and struggles than most of my team-- I've been studying and reading about the region for quite a few years now. It's not that I was unaffected. I was definitely moved by the hardships these people face, I just knew roughly what I was going to see before I saw it.



Above is a household we visited and gave some groceries (cooking oil, rice, tea, soap, candles and matches, etc.). Amazingly minor staples in my kitchen at home, but a very moving gift for this family. The girl on the left is the head of the household. She's 17. She has AIDS. Where will her younger siblings go when her time comes? We visited two other homes, one which was also child headed, and one which was headed by an older woman who is also ill. We delivered some groceries to them as well. All three families were chosen by their neighbors to receive our visits. That's one of the things I really love about Villages in Partnership-- they enable development and aid projects to occur, but leave a lot of the decisions about priorities in the villagers' hands. I love how even though the neighbors may have so, so little, they still knew they had more than these kids.

I learned most of my Chichewa on this day. A boy named Patrick, age 14, walked throughout Mbayani with the team, helping carrying things. He would say a phrase and expect me to get it the first time, forcing me to practice greetings and introductions and instructions with everyone we passed by. In theory, Chichewa is not very hard for an English speaker to learn. Since it was British colonists who first wrote the language down, it makes phonetic sense. There are a few tricks though that made it difficult to pick up instantly. I wasn't used to listening for the different between the "r" and "l" sounds... there really isn't much of one. It's very subtle and I miss it almost every time. I think I'm decent at pronouncing all of the unfamiliar consonant combinations though, lots of "nd" and "mb" and so on. Patrick wrote many phrases down for me, but there was just so much to take in as we walked around Mbayani that I found myself stressed out when he would walk me up to an older woman and demand I ask her, in Chichewa, for her name (Zinalako ndani?), or having me ask a group of children if I may take their picture (Ndikujambure?). However, I was fortunate that this was my most challenging experience in my visit to Malawi so far. The lessons did pay off when I was able to say to everyone as I left, "Ndapita. Ndizabweranso!" (I am going. I will come back again!)

Later, we visited one of the Machinjili's maize mills.

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This was amazing to me. Maize is an important staple in Malawi, used to make nsima, porridge and thobwa (this warm beverage made from water, corn flour and millet. It's often used as a meal substitute, to give energy until dinner. It was grainy and not the most pleasant thing that I would try during my trip). Serah grew up in the village and could describe the labor involved in grinding corn into flour. They would start at dawn and finish around lunch time. Half the day spent just preparing the food-- it still needed cooking! Then we watched some people run their maize through the mill. It took only a few minutes.

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One of the projects Villages in Partnership is getting going is bringing a maize mill and the electricity infrastructure it requires to the village. Can you imagine how life changing it will be? The women will have so many more hours free in a day, to go to school, to cultivate other/more foods, to pursue other business ventures, to take care of themselves. It's incredible.

We finished the day by going out for Chinese food with the Machinjili family. It seemed a bit odd, but it was very good. And everyone was very amused when I followed through on Liz's dare to speak Chinese to the workers. Thank goodness for my semester and a half of Mandarin!

Monday 23 August: Chinupule and Health and Development Commission

In the morning, we visited a slum called Chinupule to spend some time with a women's prayer group there.

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This is the most joyful group of women I have probably ever met. They are by no means wealthy. Some are single, some are widowed. Some are raising their grandchildren because their own children have died. They do not have much, but the fact that they have each other seems to suit them just fine. Despite their struggles, they welcomed us with such joy and excitement. We sang and we danced. We spent some time looking in the school, a one room concrete building where the children all crowd in together to sit on the floor and learn. These women promised to take minibusses down to the airport to see us off. We know they made good on this!

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a picture on the wall in the classroom-- interesting, because I didn't see any ducks except on safari later in the trip

one of the school teachers walking around Chinupule

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The rest of the day was spent at the Blantyre Synod Health and Development Commission. This is when we met Wellings Mwalabu, the director of programs at BSHDC, pictured above on the left. He is a well educated man working with the Livelihoods Program, focused on environmental and agricultural issues like climate change and conservation. Our first meeting was a bit awkward for me-- he asked one of the women on our team if I was a girl (meaning a child-- I look young everywhere in the world!). He was not expecting a graduate student who would ask him tons of questions about climate change, tree species, agricultural methods and conservation efforts in the following days. Thankfully we got to spend a lot of time with him in the coming days, because I really did have a lot of questions. Also, our first meeting with him was somewhat overshadowed by a doctor involved with the health aspect of the BSHDC. It was a very useful discussion, but we definitely spent more time focused on health issues in Malawi than Livelihood issues as the meeting was originally intended.



The BSHDC only recently gained "health" into its name. Really though, health and development are closely tied together. We discussed some of these issues with Dr. Roland, who is from Holland. Malawi has no cardiologists, no oncologists, and no ventilators. The country received its first CT scan machine in 2008. There are only 4 or 5 Malawian OB/GYNs, maybe a few more including expats but still less than a dozen for the 14.5 million people in the country. The top killer is malaria, but number two is rather predictable: HIV/AIDS (number 3 is tuberculosis and other respiratory problems). I was surprised to learn that most of those with the disease have completed a secondary education and are married. I would assume the opposite, but the tendency for the educated to move away from their families in order to work and support them, and the instability of such a lifestyle, are apparently where the problem lies. The government and various NGO's have brought the rate of HIV/AIDS down to 12% nationally, most notably through the testing of pregnant women for the virus and providing appropriate medications to prevent transmitting it to the baby. There is also a huge emphasis on public health, which is where this all ties into development. Clean water. Sanitation. Basic hygiene. Family planning.

This is what I wrote at the end of that day: "The meeting ran later than expected? Planned? Hard to say since schedules seem loose here, which is fine." This would become the ongoing theme, but I didn't mind for the most part since I was a very happy sponge, soaking up all sorts of information and stories and songs.

Sunday 22 August: CCAP and Synod visit

We started the day by attending the St. Columba CCAP (Church of Central Africa Presbyterian-- I don't understand why they phrased it that way either) in Blantyre, a very large church with both Chichewa and English services. We went to an English service, and all of all the Sundays to visit, worship happened to be lead by the children that day. It was very interesting to watch the children sing and dance and recite verses, but it was also interesting to see the different degrees of "Sunday best", particularly with the girls. Boys wore shorts and some sort of t-shirt or dress shirt. Girls though, quite a variety in dress. Some wore skirts with t-shirts (including one girl who had on a Hooters t-shirt, inside out), some with dress shirts. Some wore dresses-- one little girl sticks out in my mind, who was wearing a sea-green colored satin dress with a totally busted zipper, so her back was totally exposed. One little girl who had on a dress with a broken strap. Few wore shoes, but most wore socks. Some were barefoot. It was just amazing to me how they all came together in this one place with the best they had to offer, and how varied "best" can be.

The rest of the day was relatively low-key. We actually spent a bit of time around the Blantyre Synod grounds (for those of you not Presbyterian savvy, a group of Presbyterian churches in some geographic region forms a Presbytery, a group of Presbyteries in some geographic region forms a Synod-- in Malawi, there are three Synods; in the US there are sixteen). The grounds were really lovely.


amazing tree on the Synod grounds that I still need identified... clearly tree of the day

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St. Michael and All Angels church, constructed in the late 1800s by Scottish Presbyterians, one of many beautiful buildings on the Synod grounds

As the sunk sank behind the mountains, we walked around the cemetery on the Synod grounds. It sounds kind of creepy, but it was actually rather serene. I noticed many things as I walked down row after row of graves. It seems people either live to be very old (80s and 90s) or die pretty young (30s, or infancy). I'm sure HIV/AIDS explains some of that away. There's a whole generation missing. A lot of the given names were English and Biblical, or at least related to Christianity-- Blessings, Mercy, Innocent, as well as countless Michaels, Davids, Marys, Sarahs, etc. I saw a Janet (a name that runs heavily in my family), a Deron (I went to college with one of those). We walked by many graves that were well settled before walking into a section full of fresh plots. Months fresh, weeks fresh... and days fresh. Previous to this experience, I had only ever spent time in cemeteries while attending funerals, or walking around Civil War cemeteries with my dad during college. This was definitely different from both of those experiences. It's hard to explain exactly what I was thinking and feeling there.

I wandered to the back of the cemetery on my own and watched the sun set.



We all left together very soon after that.

August 20-21: arriving!

I figured the best way to share my adventure is from the beginning. But what can one really say about a 15 hour flight followed almost immediately by a 2 hour flight, followed by many hours of trying to stay awake till a reasonable time in the evening to stave off some of the inevitable jet lag?

The flights themselves... I'm usually decent at sleeping while in transit, but you can only sleep so much of 17 hours away, especially when you're excited beyond belief. Maybe I slept for 5 or 6 of those hours, but that still leaves more than 11 to... contemplate the deeper meaning of my excitement? Think about sleeping? Stare out the window and try to guess which major city we were flying past in the middle of the night along the western coastline of the African continent (true story, I did that, and was actually pretty good-- I was wrong about Nouakchott, shame on me)? I generally pass the time on long flights by watching movies that I'd be embarrassed to watch with anyone at home-- stupid chick flicks that don't require much brain function to watch and that I won't regret falling asleep in the middle of. However, two that I will admit to: The Princess and the Frog, which was awesome, and Marley and Me, which was a terrible choice given my own somewhat recent loss. I also killed time dozing on and off to two great albums: Kind of Blue and Time Out. That was a good choice.

So, I passed the time. It was chilly when we exited on the tarmac at O.R. Tambo International Airport and hurried off to our next flight to Blantyre, Malawi. The landing in Blantyre was extremely memorable-- it's a shorter than average runway, so the flight descends at a steeper angle, resulting in two landings with a large bounce in between. But, we arrived safely around lunchtime, and were soon met by our leader, Liz, and our hostess for our time in the city, Serah Machinjili.

We didn't do much for the rest of the day besides fight to stay awake until a reasonable bedtime. We had tea (which would happen many times each day, a small sign of the British heritage) and snacks upon our arrival at the Machinjili family's home in Blantyre-- various fruits and nuts that were grown fairly locally.



Dinner was a mix of traditional foods (nsima) as well as some that any of you would recognize (salad, green beans, steak, which I clearly skipped). The power went out about as soon as dinner ended, which happens every second or third night for a few hours. I didn't make it much longer before absolutely crashing with some encouragement from the cool weather and the lack of light pollution...

This is the story of how we begin to remember.

The subject is a line from Paul Simon's "Under African Skies" which was admittedly stuck in my head as I was leaving on August 20th, at which point I used the lyric about walking the length of the days under African skies as my facebook status. Nerdy, I know, but appropriate. Over the next few weeks I'm planning on sharing some of my stories and journal entries on here, but in the meantime, here's what I accomplished in my visit to Virginia over the weekend:

• Still not on Eastern time, woke up and drove down to Paul's in Alexandria early Saturday. Stopped in to say hello and then met Taylor and Scott for lunch on King Street. Good to see them!
• Took a nap back at Paul's because I wasn't functioning. Woke up after a little over an hour and was functioning at a lower level than before, just in time to meet a few of his friends who were over for the football games. I bet I made an awesome impression. Sorry guys!
• Ended up heading into D.C. to meet a group of internationals I worked with over the summer and wandered around with them for a bit. There was an awesome sunset as we crossed the mall. Great to see everyone (Julia, Gyöngyi, Timi, David and Dave) before they continued traveling and heading home!
• Went back to Paul's and caught the end of the game. Stepped away to brush my teeth and continued my good impression on his friends by not saying goodbye, since the games all ended and they left before I returned. My bad.

Sunday was Jeremy and Adrienne's wedding in Fredericksburg!

• I went down several hours early to veg/ pretend to make lesson plans for Tuesday at Hyperion. I love love love that place. If there is one thing I really feel that Rutgers is missing, it's a good, local coffee shop like that. I actually ran into Ross and Matt as they were heading off to do groomsmen stuff, which was fun like old times. Actually, one of my favorite random memories of the end of senior year was running into the two of them there on a gorgeous day and just sitting for an hour since I had little else to do anyway. Oh, Hyperion. So lovely.
• I walked around town for a little while, seeing what's new and what's old, before heading over to the Presbyterian Church (which is definitely old). The wedding ceremony itself was hands down the shortest I've ever been at, but the pastor got all of the important things in there. It was downright impressive. And also beautiful. I just totally adore Jeremy and Adrienne together.
• The reception was at the Alumni Center and was a totally classy affair. It was great to catch up with music department friends despite the fact that my travels have left me a bit under the weather*.
  
• After, some of us went to the Kenmore Inn. How didn't I know where this was?! Pathetic. But there are a lot of major historic sites in Fredericksburg, so I guess it's fair to not know every single one of them. We hung out in the basement, which seems like a pretty cool place to go with people. I was still feeling the jetlag though so I went back to Alexandria for the night.

Monday was a really nice day.

• I met up with my dear college roommate Brittany and walked all over Old Town Alexandria. For all the times I've visited Paul, I haven't really walked around that part of the city. Brittany and I walked from Braddock Road down to King Street and to the waterfront, where we happened upon the Torpedo Factory. This is a place I actually learned about in a geography class once! We checked out some of the art inside and continued along the waterfront. I love seeing this woman. I'm so glad we were able to coordinate!
  
• Then back to Fredericksburg for a quick run-in with my friend Noah and a few of his people. He had gotten back from England the night before after spending the summer there. He might have been the only person I saw over the weekend who looked more exhausted and crazy than I did. Sorry Noah...
  
• I spent the afternoon with my cousin Laura, who just started at Mary Washington. She grew up somewhat near Fredericksburg but hasn't really walked around town and figured it out for herself yet. However, she seems to be doing great at school and we had a lot of fun getting ice cream and checking out other shops and houses downtown. I am loving this excuse to get to know her better, and also to stop in Fredericksburg even though my friends have all graduated and moved on!
• In the evening, the plan was to meet Taylor, Alison and Scott for dinner, but the latter two were at a wedding, so really Taylor and I just people watched from benches on campus walk for a while before deciding we weren't hungry and traffic wasn't going to be that bad. I made the drive home in decent time despite some initial congestion (people returning from holiday weekend?) so that I could be well rested for my first day back in the classroom today.

Total mileage: 627. Good weekend. I really need to spend some time relaxing though. I realized going into the weekend that I haven't slept in the same place for more than six consecutive nights since... at least January, quite possibly actually last year. The new quote in my blogger profile is from my friend Becky, who is working on settling down a little bit after serving in Peace Corps with her husband and then traveling the world a bit. It's kind of true. My toothbrush is in the same place each night though-- my travel toiletries bag...

flying into the future

I'm safely back in New Jersey!... for a couple of days.

Like I said, I have no idea where to begin with telling you about my awesome time in Malawi. I suppose the best way to start is with the end, since that was the most recent part. In the coming weeks, I'll post some snippets from the journal I kept. You can look through some of my photos here in the meantime.

Yesterday morning, the team had a nice breakfast together with our hosts in Blantyre, the Machinjili family. The power was out, which is actually unusual-- there are planned power outages several times a week, but those happen at night when everyone is using the most electricity. Even so, Serah provided us with plenty of cereals, fruits and bread as well as our morning tea.

Breakfast felt relaxed. We spent a few minutes celebrating Crystal's 17th birthday, too. Once we got in the cars though, we ran all over Blantyre trying to accomplish last minute errands, deposits, purchases, goodbyes. We arrived at Chileka Airport a little bit later than anticipated, but as we learned over the past two weeks, very little runs on time. It was a small airport, and it took us a while to get through security, but our plane didn't even arrive until it was time for us to depart... so... yeah.

The amazing part about leaving was that a women's prayer group that we met early in the trip took minibuses from their village all the way to the airport just to send us off. They stood at the edge of the parking lot singing and dancing and hugging. It was really joyful and amazing. Then, even after we parted ways there, they remained and took over the end of this balcony overlooking the runway, so they could wave to us as we got on the plane and took off-- that wasn't for about another hour! That was the warmest farewell I may ever have received.

Chinupule women

Then things got a bit sticky. During the two hour flight from Blantyre to Johannesburg, I learned that I wasn't booked as a vegetarian and there weren't any extra veggie meals. Two hour flight? Not a big deal. Enjoyed the bread and salad that comes with the meal. They suggested that when I checked in at Johannesburg, I let them know that they needed to get an extra emergency vegetarian option on board, because an 18 hour flight is a whole different story.

No such luck. I understand these things need to be planned ahead of time, but in a travel/ hospitality/ service industry, I expected some sort of flexibility or contingency plan to accommodate crazy people like me. Nope. There was no chance of me getting a proper meal unless some vegetarian didn't show up. And of course, it seems that I am currently out of good travel karma... I obviously lived on bread and salad and crackers but it was a bit frustrating. At least the team was able to relax and share beers in O.R. Tambo Airport before flying to Dakar and New York City... the organization's president bought us all Castle, a South African brew, which were probably nothing exciting by any means, but was absolutely perfect in the moment.

Today's sunrise caught up with us as we passed between Bermuda and Nova Scotia. The colors were really amazing. I found myself thinking about the next few days-- I head to Virginia to celebrate a friend's wedding this weekend, and then back to school on Tuesday (to teach. I'm done with courses!). I've been trying really hard all day to stay awake, hoping that if I went to bed at a reasonable hour and was super exhausted, I might sleep off some of the six hour time difference. I don't really have time to recover from the travel part of my trip (the homecoming took over 26 hours, start to finish), but my life keeps moving forward and I'm happy to keep up as best I can!

sending my love from the warm heart of Africa

My time in Malawi is almost done, and it has been a really amazing adventure. I am worried that when talking about this trip, I won't really know where to begin.

I have seen many smart, hardworking people who would be very successful had they been born somewhere else in the world.

I have witnessed several wells in various stages of completion-- freshly dug, nearly completed, being dedicated.

I have tried many different traditional foods. I love cabbage so so much.

I have learned a bit of Chichewa.

I have carried a bucket of water on my head (of which there is no photographic evidence).

I have sang and danced (of which there is also no photographic evidence, intentionally).

I have made bricks from mud that will be used to build a primary school.

I have been presented with a rooster (so I wouldn't be hungry on my long journey home).

I have negotiated prices at the market.

I have learned about many different tree species.

I have discussed agriculture and climate change and conservation efforts.

I have been a part of something really wonderful here in Malawi.



PS: I can't wait to show you all the pictures of the elephant I was ten feet away from on my safari trip!

en route to the airport in 6 hours!

I think I've always been decent at packing for travel, but I think I just brought this to new heights. I managed to put all of my clothes (ALL! for TWO WEEKS!) into one standard sized carry on suitcase. My toiletries and over 40 pounds of donated supplies made it into the infamous black duffel bag. I have a backpack that has various important objects (passport, wallet, journal, etc.) but also enough space to carry a few things for the others I'm travelling with.

Tomorrow morning I'll meet the team at check-in, where we will each check at least one 50 pound bag of just supplies, plus our second 50 pound bag mixed with our own things and supplies, plus we're each carrying two carry ons that are a mix of our things and supplies. Probably 500 or more pounds of things to give away. This is so amazing.

I'm not entirely sure that I'll be able to update while I'm over there, but there is a chance I might be able to post a little something once or twice. Regardless, I can't wait to share my awesome experience with you when I get back! Thanks so so much for all of the well wishes and support.

I'll hop to it... later...

This little exchange happened on facebook around 2 this afternoon:

It made me giggle a little bit. It seems that my cousin's girlfriend does not know of my history of last minute packing (see here, here). I'll get started sometime after dinner. My friends Jamie and Bailey will be joining me as somewhat per tradition-- Jamie and I always seem to be over each other's houses as the other packs at the last minute for some major travels, but I think this is Bailey's first experience aiding in the procrastination/fun of that. My parents are taking me to the airport, leaving home about 6.30 AM for my 11.15 flight from JFK. I don't foresee a stellar night's sleep tonight anyway, since 1. I am already starting to fall victim to Christmas Eve syndrome with the excitement and all, and 2. I have over 15 hours to catch up on sleep as I fly from JFK to Johannesburg (and then a couple more from Joburg to Blantyre, Malawi). Something tells me this will all work out just fine!

Jersey fresh

Oh, how I love New Jersey. Well, except for the traffic that seems to meet me whenever I try to go somewhere more than 15 minutes away-- that's getting old. But I suppose it's to be expected when your state is this awesome. Everyone wants to check it out.

Anyway. I love food, and am particularly enthusiastic about local food. New Jersey produces a lot of really awesome foodstuffs. I needed to share my last two snacks because they were both awesomely delicious and both grown literally within a stone's throw of where I ate them. I'm sharing them with you so you can be jealous, but also so I have it in writing and can remember how good this was forever.

My last food at camp: wheat toast with elderberry jam, as made by my friends Andrew Walker and Drew Lovering. The elderberries were growing in Lower Meadow, which is about thirty seconds from Lakeside, the cabin I was living in until a few hours. So good.

My first food at home: tomato with fresh basil. The tomato is a Rutgers tomato, bought at Agricultural Field Day this past spring, and planted on the side of my parents' house. The basil has been growing in a little pot on the back porch of the aforementioned Lakeside all summer (also purchased at the aforementioned Ag Field Day). It's kind of a pathetic couple of sweet basil plants, not a ton of leaves, but what was there was delicious. The pot fell over while I was driving home and one of the plants broke, so I ate it with a tomato. So good.

A few weeks ago, a group of staff members got together in the evening and had a lengthy discussion about how we produce and consume food. It was a really great conversation, mainly focused on the local food movement but also covered other ideas about GMOs and other food issues. I really think food is interesting; everyone needs it, so we might as well actually think about what we're doing with it. But beyond my love of cooking and eating and talking about food, Jersey fresh foods are just one of the many reasons why I love my home state.

my black duffel bag

I've had my black duffel bag for quite a while, at least eight years. This bag has been to Seattle, the United Kingdom, Johnsonburg (I think I first got the bag to take when I did the Leadership Training Program in 2002, actually, and then it's come with me every summer I've worked here), college, western Pennsylvania and the Eastern Shore, among other adventures. One of the zippers has been broken almost the entire time I have owned the bag. There's a collection of miscellaneous airline luggage and other identifying tags.


You can see the black duffel bag under my left leg. This is in Seattle-Tacoma Airport, shortly after I graduated from high school in 2004.

One week from today, that bag will be accompanying me to Malawi! This is an adventure I've wanted to go on for a long time, maybe not always specifically to Malawi, but somewhere in Sub-Saharan Africa to do some sort of positive work. Actually, I've probably been hoping for an adventure like this for about as long as I've owned this black duffel bag. My interest first came from learning songs from southern Africa in choir at church. In college, I focused most of my research projects on different issues affecting Africa. And now, I'm finally going to see what it's like for myself.

But today, that black duffel bag will be filled with the things I've had with me at camp this summer. I don't have much here with me-- mostly books, in fact. Johnsonburg is a pretty awesome place and it's always sad to leave. I'm glad I worked here again this summer after a few years away. If nothing else, spending time in the woods has been extremely calming. Working in the kitchen, the hardest question of my day was something like, which vegetables do I need to cut for the next meal? Has the trash been taken out? Do I need to brew another pot of coffee? which frees me to contemplate the more convoluted questions of my thesis. Have I finished that paper yet? No. And it's unlikely that it will be completely done before I leave next week. However, this summer has given me time to figure out the next few steps, which include teaching part time at Rutgers for another semester while finishing up the Masters and looking for more permanent work. And I have been able to get a lot of work done toward the thing in between hiking and swimming in the lake. Oh, and working in the kitchen. In about 24 hours, I'll be done here for the summer and I'll be loading that duffel bag into my car, to head home, do laundry, and start getting organized for Malawi and whatever follows.