So sorry! I’ve been literally non-stop for the last month. So, since my last post we finished our homestays, thank god, and moved back to the college for Spring Break 2011. It was a jolly good time. We then spent a week test-running our sites. My site is in Chikwina, a little town thing center of a bunch of little villages. I live across the "street" from the health center, which I initially wasn’t so keen on because I woke up the first morning to an under 5 [years-old] clinic happening in my front yard and was like "no thanks." And two of my neighbors have electricity and want all of Malawi to know it, so they keep their lights on ALL THE TIME and play their stereos as loud as possible ALL THE TIME. Literally, Justin Beiber at 2 am. My house is really nice. Its so nice its like I'm not even really in the Peace Corps. One of my friends just visited and said I live in america, just in africa. I'm wired for electricity (but dont have it b/c the company hasn't come in the last 2 yrs to hook it up) and I have running water (but not right now b/c the pipe is broken) and my brick house is super big with cement floors and too many guest rooms (two guest rooms, i dont know what to do with them, I really only need my bedroom and a place to store my food), I have a flushing toilet (when the water is on) and a shower[head] and the walls are painted. It was just built two years ago. Its super nice, but rereading what I just wrote it sounds like Africa, just in Africa. but regardless, I dont know what to do with it. So, I got a puppy on Monday. Doug. We're best friends already. He's about [______________________] this big. When the Malawians say his name it sounds like "dog." It’s extra funny because when they see me with him they immediately switch to English and say “dog,” which sounds like Doug, and he comes running, tail wagging a million beats per minute. Malawians don’t really like dogs. So, they turn and run as fast as they can to get away. Naturally, Doug thinks its playtime and has great fun chasing them at top speed, all the while my would-be Malawian friend is booking it, screaming the whole time. Really, its fun for all parties involved.
We're in Nkhata Bay right now so I can take him to the vet to get his shots. Traveling in Africa with a puppy was mostly hilarious. They don't think very highly of dogs here so having a white person cuddling up to a dog, picking him up and carrying him around and talking to him is the pinnacle of comedy for them. He’s travel size though, so it surprisingly easy to transport him. On the matola (flat-bed truck used as a shuttle) yesterday, which is the most squished I think I’ve ever been in my entire life, he just burrowed into the crook of my arm and slept the whole way.
ANYWAY, I met the guy I’m replacing, Jeremy, in Mzuzu so he could take me to site for my test-run visit. My site is BEAUTIFUL!!! Its kind of a pain in the ass to get to, its waaayyy in the Bush. And by wayyy i mean only like 20km from the tarmac, but transport is a pain in the ass. But its up in the mountains, which are too unbelievable to even try to describe, I don’t have the language for it. The neighborhood looks straight out of Mr. Rogers, the chief of one of the surrounding villages gave me Doug fo’ free and also a chicken, a pumpkin, and more avocados than I can eat. I have a great group of friends that the guy I'm replacing already made for me. There’s a core group of 5 of us, all single in their 20s and highly educated and westernized...so I AM kind of like living in America except just in Africa. Two are school teachers, one works at the health center with me, and one is an accountant for the coffee plantation co-op up the "street" from me. everything about my living situation is like, awesome. So it seems that I'm not having a very traditional peace corps experience, but on the other hand it'll be NO PROBLEM to keep this up for five, I mean, two years. I don’t think I could be better. Except I probably won’t get much better at the language. Everyone speaks English and the area is half Chitonga and half Chitimbuka speakers.... and everyone laughs at me anyways when I greet them in their language. OH! And a few days ago I walked into my exceedingly spacious living room to see a man in my front yard yelling at my house. I stood there thinking “sorry, I don’t speak that language” until I heard that he was saying in Enligsh “shut your front door! There is a large snake on your porch!” My front and back doors are always open, creates a tunnel of wind in my house. SO, I slammed the door and peered out the window to see how near death I was. Turns out a HUGE black cobra was in the process of slithering into my house. As some of the men chased it off into my backyard with rocks it reared its ugly black head and waved his scary big neck thing as if to say “see you soon, Stacey! Good luck clearing your yard to start your garden without me KILLING you!”
Then after our trial-run site visit we went to language intensive week, where me and 5 of some of my favorite people in the program who also happen to be learning Chitonga went to this little cottage on the lakeshore for a week and attempted to focus for more than five seconds on learning the language. We didn’t learn anything, but we had a LOT of fun drinking on the beach. Somehow I still managed to score Advanced Low on my LPI test (we needed to score at least Intermediate High, one step below my score, in order to swear in and move to site). And my birthday was epic. Every day that week felt like my birthday.
Ok, so after language intensive week, which was really just hanging out on the beach intensely for a week, we swore into the Peace Corps as full-fledged volunteers. That was surprisingly intense. After a bunch of important people spoke to us about the gravity of our commitment to our country they had us stand and swear a bunch of stuff about taking the oath voluntarily and without hesitation blahblahblah "so help me god." WHOA! oooook, that was overwhelming. Half the girls (myself included) were crying by the end of swearing our lives away. It was cool though, made it all feel a bit more real. Now we're "at site" as volunteers. But for the first three months (starting 6 days ago) we're not supposed to do anything but "integrate"...meh, i'll integrate next week. This week I'm in Nkhata Bay with my friends and my dog having a grand ol’ time! Today we go to Mzuzu to get paid and buy buckets. This is my life!!! Doug’s so cute!!!
K, you're officially caught up on the major bullet points. Come visit me. I’m having an extra bed made for one of my two extra bedrooms.
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