IST Presentations

Nothing like two hours of presentations by my fellow health volunteers about what they are doing at site to make you feel inadequate. Kate is working with the CDC testing Malaria medication and resistance trends to advise the Malawian Health Administration on which medication is best. Katie Shae is designing and implementing a training program for nurses selected to work in the new and only fully-equipped ICU in Malawi. Elizabeth spent a month running 100 twenty-minute in-home interviews with Malawian families in her catchment area, compiling 40 pages of relevant hard data. Matt has already built a science lab for his secondary school and is sending out grants for computers. Kudos to all those guys, but just WAIT till you see my 50kg bags of manure! Yeah! Cow poop! No but really, a lot of people are already doing exceptional work and I’m really impressed. I also got a lot of positive feedback and some oo’s and ah’s for my presentation. And even though I was talking WAY too fast for any of the Malawians to understand, they loved my hilario pictures of Doug. Had ‘um rolling on the floor.

The Arrival of the Counterparts

Text messages between me and an environment friend
Him: “Bet y’all are bored over there now that we’ve left”
Me: “ Bored? Hardly. Now we have our counterparts here to entertain us with endless awkwardness.”

Here’s my favorite so far:
We were asked to pair up with someone we didn’t know and introduce each other to the group including one interesting fact. The guy introducing my friend decided that of all the interesting facts she told him about herself, the one he chose to include would go something like this, “…and as big as she is, she is not yet married.” Oh, god.

Anna Gomani, an HSA at my health center, is here as my counterpart. She is one of six women among 14 men. I can foresee us being legitimate friends in the future, but I’m still providing a lot of the awkwardness in our particular relationship. But she is wonderful, answering questions in class and getting friendly with the other counterparts. I think she is really psyched about being here, hopefully this week’s sessions won’t be crossword-worthy.

“In Service Training” or “Incredible Stomach Torture" (Sept 18)

So they’ve thrown us all together again for our IST. Oh, the joys of having 40 Azungus in one place. IST is two weeks long and usually comes after our 3 month probation period. But because the new Education group came in at a weird time, our IST was pushed back a month. And because of all these budget cuts and what not they overlapped a week of the Health and the Environment sectors’ ISTs, which is a good thing. So the Environment guys had been here a week before we showed up and walked in on their little Frat party. Last week was definitely like coming back to college – class, cafeteria, doodling during class, hippies in hammocks, skipping class entirely, dorm rooms, communal bathrooms, scandals, bar hopping at night. Haha, bar hopping. I mean climbing a hill in a forest to get to the only bar in the area, which we are blessed to have. We even watched a little football! Patriots vs. Some Other Team. How are the Chargers doing??

But putting us all together again in close proximity and drinking also means rampant sharing of bugs. A bunch of the Environment group were knocked flat with some stomach slash fever deal. Almost everyone has had stomach issues and the dreaded die-die (that’s Peace Corps lingo for “diarrhea”). I think it’s the food, really. Not that the food is bad, it’s quite good. But now that we are denied the ability cook for ourselves all the time, we are at the mercy of the cooking staff. That means nsima, rice, and mostly oil. And meat everyday, which put my body in shock after 4 months of next to nada. Once I cut out the meat and the oil the die-die cleared up a bit, but I was in a rough spot for a few days. Being sick abroad sucks the most. All you want is to be home with a bowl of soup (maybe a couch, complete with a cat, but let’s not get depressing). This time all I wanted was Won Ton soup, and it happened to be the most unattainable thing in the world. Damn you, Won Ton soup!!!

On the training-front, IST is ok. I was hoping for a much more in-depth session on grant writing, as I will be doing a lot of it. Sorely disappointed, but I’m sure I can figure it out. Learned a lot about how to broach the HIV/AIDS topic in the village. Peace Corps gave us some really good tools for AIDS education. In all of the other sessions I got really good at crossword puzzles…

This weekend they shuttled us all back to our homestay villages to visit our families again. Soforeti immediately reattached herself to my hip. Marayu ran away from me and cried when the other kids tried to force him into my presence. Oh, well. Guess it wasn’t meant to last. Adaif kept her usual respectable distance from me but followed me everywhere, skipping with the rest of the village kids. I really love those tiny tykes! Mkomeko looks like it has had a serious economic boom since we left, maybe they had a really good harvest. There were a bunch of new houses and metal roofs. That constitutes an economic boom.

Now the Environment folks are gone and we are spending this week with our counterparts. The general consensus among us remaining PCVs is “awkwarrrrrddd!” We’re not psyched on this week. Now that our American friends are gone all we have to look forward to is a bunch of Malawians coming to pull the fire alarm on our Frat party. Mingling will be forced, interactions guarded, general awkwardness will ensue. Of course, it’ll be fun in its own way, I guess, and it’ll be nice to just be with the sector, but I’m not gonna lie, I’m expecting a letdown.

Wadenya Update Again (Sept 3)

Yet another meeting with the Wadenya group and they have changed their mind about the garden, which is great, actually. They decided they want to put their loan towards starting a maize mill, which is actually brilliant. It’s much more sustainable, profitable, and would actually help their area. I brought in a microloan guy who said their business loan policy can’t really help them though because they’d have to start paying it off within two weeks, which is unrealistic. So he’s still going to help them get a loan, but they’ll have to start a different business and work up to getting a maize mill. We’ll see how that goes.