Yeah, hon.

the only connection to the outside world anymore is if BBC world is on at breakfast. Botswana TV also replays Oprah just before dinner, but I don't really consider that connecting to the world (it's too hard to get past Oprah's eye makeup and her slew of post-Dr Phil psychologist friend who she brings in to do the show while she sits there...okay, so i've caught it enough times to think about it a little...). Anyway, BBC keeps having ads for Wimbledon and I forget what a funny association I have with summer and watching early morning Wimbledon. A similar thing happens with the US Open and back to school time. I think it goes back to being kids where my brother would watch Wimbeldon before we'd go to day camp. It's certainly not because I'm an avid tennis player. in fact, the fact that I probably haven't even picked up a racked since I was about 15 should be an indication of how nonsensical this how affection for Wimbeldon is. In any even, I think I'm going to try to work from the inn a few days to catch it.

Just Now: I'm at the hospital in the main entrance area and a three legged dog just walked (jumped?) past me. He didn't just poke his head in--no, he was coming from inside the hospital. He had to have traveled through a significant portion of the hospital to get here. Furthermore, he did not appear to be following anyone, nor is there a veterinary clinic here.

Yesterday: I was walking home and passed a group of about 10 or so kids around 8-10 years old. One of them, a girl, looked me straight in the eye and says, "fuck you!" and smiled. I was expecting her to say "hello," so I was totally taken aback. I think my jaw actually dropped. I quickly stuffed my initial desire to say it back, reasoning that not only did she probably not understand what she was saying, she was just a kid. I really didn't need to be the white guy who's yelling "no, fuck you!" to a little kid on the side of the road (it's a pretty funny image though...and if yesterday's any indication, quite possible). Instead, I stopped, turned around and said, "that's not very nice. you shouldn't say that to people." She goes, "I know," and smiled again. So did she really know what she was saying or not? She and her posse followed me for the next 15 minutes during which time she asked for money twice, a bottle once, and water once. I reminded myself that I am an adult and kept on walking.

At least I got a good laugh out of both.

Labels: malawi

i've heard from a number of people that my usual yahoo account isn't working, is bouncing back, or just not coming through. if you want to email me, you can click on the tab at the top, which will automatically start an email to my gmail account, which is my first and last name as all one word (I'm not typing it to avoid spam, not because I'm trying to be shady).

There are a number of vegetarians here, all with different rules about what they do when they travel. One weaned from vegan to eating meat to prepare; one is still pretty staunch egg/dairy vegetarian; another will break only if it's a home made meal, where you can pretty much assume they killed what you’re eating for you and it would be terribly impolite. One person also doesn’t eat beef, just chicken and fish.

It's funny, reflecting on my own time as a vegetarian and then vegan, to think that I pretty thoughtlessly eat meat these days. In some ways meat here is better, or at least more "natural" in that it’s not factory farmed, plumped up on hormones, etc. Not to say that it's actually good quality meat, but that it's not artificial. And yet, it's also weird being so close to what you're eating. I'm seeing now more than ever how much I take for granted to the entire process of going from coop to package.

Yesterday in the market, there was this goat who got tied up near the row of the main meat vendors, and as he was being put down he made this weird sound that none of us had heard before. But it was clear as day: this goat was making the universal 'oh shit, I know what’s coming next' noise. One had just been slaughtered and skinned as we walked past; it’s head was sitting the chopping block with fresh blood all around. People are often walking around with live chickens, often with that same docile, having already submitted to what’s happening look.

In some ways, being here really makes me want to be vegetarian again. I don't want that goat to have to die so I can eat it. And yet, not eating meat here would be an exceptionally boring and poorly nutritious diet; at home, I may just make better decisions about how much and often I eat it. In the meantime, off to dinner. The chicken is usually delicious. [note: there was no chicken. Only fish, that looked like the dried fish from the market. Subnote: will remember to take a picture of the fish section and post soon. If I could make it scratch and sniff, I totally would.]

Labels: culture, food, malawi

I got a good night's sleep Sunday night, had a quick breakfast on Monday, hopped a bike taxi to the boma just in time for an 8:30 meeting that didn’t start until 9:30 (I forget that things run slow here…), hung out with the data entry team in the meantime as they finished up entering the last of the surveys, had a day long meeting of which I understood little (it was all in Chichewa, and did teach me the word for elderly, and that the words for blind, skin, and epilepsy are very similar) but met a few key people (including a police officer…always good to be friendly with someone in the police department in a foreign country), talked a bit with the study manager and then walked home. It was a good day.

During the meeting, one of the people translated bits and pieces, and we chatted intermittently. At one point she said, "Did I see you and your friends on bikes yesterday?" (A group of us went to the boma for internet and to get some things for dinner in the market and took bike taxis back). I laughed and responded, "Do we really stick out that much?"

Along the walk back today, I also ran into a few people that I recognized from town or people who work here at the inn, and exchanged greetings in passing, and kept going. It helped that I learned a useful response to "Azungu! Give me money!" which is to say back "give me mbuzi (a goat)." - kids either laugh or are speechless. But with most others, there was not much to it unto itself - we just said hello - but there was something nice about the symbolic gesture. Then it occurred to me: it's small town living, and I kinda like it. Sure, people are up in your jam a bit (and I *do* stick out here), but it's not half bad. At least for a few months. Then I'll be ready to be back on the T, headphones in ears, reading a book, and with that classic Northeasterner leave-me-alone face. But for now, I'm pretty happy here.

Labels: mchinji

Two findings from the field:
1. Apparently someone in the field thought C was Madonna. I read that in a supervisor's diary and started laughing hysterically. I can imagine that most petite white women would get that at some point or another, especially in Mchinji where her son is from. Then I finished reading the sentence--she brought her baby for C to adopt. Still a little funny, but mostly just sad.

2. Yesterday I went out with another team to the field. We were having some trouble finding one house and stopped for directions. The guy who asked for directions came back with a guide, which isn’t uncommon. So the guide hops in the back of the truck with the rest of us, he's probably 16 years old or so. I look at him as he gets in, but notice that no one else even acknowledges his presence (this is common when guides come along, although I don't understand why), so neither do I. He says something, someone says something back. Then he gets a little fidgety, starts shifting around a bit, then lunges for the door yelling, "Ma dula! Ma dula!" He pushes down and pulls up the lock, and keeps yelling. Finally one of the people opens the door for him and he takes off running. This all goes down in probably 10-15 seconds. At this point I have no clue what happened, but am assuming that the kid is a bit crazy. Then I hear what he’s shouting as he's running and I hear that word I know well--azungu--and know I have something to do with it. Turns out that when he saw me, he thought we were abducting him. So he yells "Dad! Dad!" and tries to get out (he doesn't know that he's locking himself in, but I doubt he’s been in too many cars in his life to know what the handle is). His first statement was trying to make an excuse that he had no shoes and that’s why he couldn’t come along; then he just couldn't deal and needed out. I felt kinda bad, but it was so bizarre and unexpected that it was actually pretty funny at the time. Apparently, he'd only seen one white person before, and never that close up. The team leader said that many people in the villages think that white people want to abduct and eat black people. I replied that I was glad I didn't say hello…I probably would have made it worse. In the end, the father came over while we were pulling away and laughed about it, we waved and smiled at each other, he gave us directions and we took off. It gave the team a laugh the whole way home.

Labels: azungu, culture, mchinji

internet has been down here since last week. the hospital's connection is off (apparently it's a billing issue), so now I'm on the front porch of an office of an NGO that some of the UPenn folks' started using wireless from this other NGO's office about 10m away. I tried yesterday to get on and could for about 5 minutes, so it’s definitely not a very strong alternative. It apparently tends to crash by 9 am, so we’re heading down early to try to catch it.

For backlogged updates:

Field: I went to field last saturday. I sat in on three interviews which consisted of getting dropped off in the middle of a field and walking varying distances to someone’s house. Often we walked through a number of villages, which are essentially very small clusters of houses (like any more than 4 will count). Other times it was literally walking along this little worn path through grasses taller than I. It is another world, and probably a truer representation of Malawi than anything I’m getting here in town. Down to cell phone coverage in the middle of the bush. Poor by our standards doesn't even describe it.

And yet, again, people are just people. The first interview was of a 21 year old woman who had two small kids and a 23 year old husband. The last one was of a 32 year old man and his 27 year old wife who had three kids. I tend to think very abstractly about this work and forget that many of the people are about my age. Families by that description are totally universal; it’s no different here. But they were clearly just barely getting by. The first interviewee and her mother and sister-in-law were husking and pulling corn from the cob while the husband was in the field working. The third interviewee had to be called from the field since his wife didn’t want to talk to us alone. Their clothes are clearly western cast-offs (the sister-in-law was wearing this yellow business suit from the 1980s) or old chitenje (a piece of cloth that is a wrap skirt, a head wrap, a baby carrier on ones back, and myriad other things) and it seemed clear these were probably their only change of clothes. The little girls at the third house were wearing these little dresses that were torn; their father’s shirt was tattered and his pants had clearly been mended multiple times. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that people were happy, but kids are playing and most peoples' spirits are okay. The middle interview was totally fine - there was a big family in what seemed like a nice house (it was concrete with a tin roof, slatted windows and a door with a lock v. clay/mud houses with thatched grass roof).

I still can’t get over the animals: at the first one three guinea fowls came up to me; at the third there were goats and pigs roaming around. They’re just everywhere. Half way through the interview I noticed that one of the pigs had gotten muddy, by the end of the interview all of them were covered in mud. Awesome. Chickens and roosters are ubiquitous. (I also saw a couple of donkeys eating from a pile of trash, and some cows munching on tree leaves in a front lawn on the way to town this morning.)

Speaking of animals, I didn’t take any pictures because it felt too much like treating peoples’ homes like a zoo. But there was plenty that was picture worthy, like the well in the last village that was literally a board covering a hole and a pail with a rope on it (note: I am grateful for running water). I’m going again Friday and Saturday, and Monday if they team isn’t finished by Saturday, so perhaps some more pictures then. I’m not going to be sitting in on many interviews – my presence skews things quite a bit – but I’m going more to hear what people are hearing once they’re back in the truck to get a sense of where I should head, who I should talk to, and what questions I should be asking in the next bit of work.

C and the other intern both left Tuesday. The study team is here until Saturday (or Monday) and then it's just me. It was a little weird when they left; I was surprisingly sad. Their presence was a great transition and way of easing into things here, and now I have to hit the ground running. I think this next phase will really be where I get going and learn a lot. It helps that I have a better sense of what I need to work on in the next 6-7 weeks; I was able to get some one-on-one time with C before she left and have a good handle on things. I’m basically going to be going all over the district doing formative work for the qualitative component of the evaluation. I’ll draw up the sampling scheme, listing out people they should talk to, and interview guides and protocols. (Basically it’s Theresa’s class for real. For real?) Naturally, it involves a lot of the stuff that I need to practice (networking, asking for help and favors, etc.). It’s still a little scary and uncertain, but I came to have my world rocked, and so it is/will be. In the meantime, I’m in good shape. I’m just taking action as much as I can each day and using the different networks already here (our study manager, some people at the district office I’ve met, some of the Penn folks’ colleagues here). I’ve had to get better at reigning it in when I get too ahead of myself and into the big picture; the mental energy for worrying is a luxury that I really don’t have here.

One of the people from the district building is this guy Z who helped us out last week. Part of our current questionnaire is about food and non-food expenditures and C had me and the other intern price all of the things in our market so that we know how much things cost. We found this guy, Z, to come translate, explain what we doing, and make sure that we were getting the non-azungu price. It was a great way to see the market and the town. We went in almost every store along the road and throughout most of the market. One of the stores I still can’t get over: it’s a plastics store. Seriously, EVERYTHING here is plastic. Chairs in the conference room are all like the white stackable plastic chairs for your backyard. Trash cans, cups, drums and pails for water, and on and on…all plastic. Benjamin, the future really is in plastics. Anyway. We even went back to the maize mill and watched people processing their maize (you have to pay a fee and we needed to know how much the fee was). There are some things in the market that I just don’t quite understand, like the huge section in the back dedicated to dried fish (you can imagine how it smells) or the bike that had four live chickens tied together and to the handlebars. But otherwise it’s pretty straightforward stuff: food, clothes, household goods. And interestingly, most everything is priced universally. Some things might be inflated for me, but because it’s so not a tourist destination, it’s not really an issue. Not bargaining at the market was a little counterintuitive at first, but now sort of makes sense. Z’s a good guide, about my age, and will probably be a good ally while I’m here. He’s introduced me to most of the people around the district office building, which will likely be key people to talk to in the next phase of things.

Sunday night, I cooked dinner with the other intern which was really nice. Beans out on the fire outside; the rest (rice and greens) inside on the stove. It was good to feel productive again and like i’m at home. C came out to see how we were making out and we all had a long talk about food while we were eating with the owner of the inn at the fire. She mentioned all of the foods she wanted to cook but couldn’t because she was still in a year of mourning after her husband died. The way she spoke of him and how hard it’s been was heart breaking. That’s another story altogether. But the conversation must have put the thought in her head because the past few days have been full of western food (goatburgers with cheese, which were delicious; some weird sausage-in-a-pastry thing that I called a Malawian Hot Pocket; mashed potatoes; pancakes). I'm still digging the greens (rabe), but not so much the nsima (basically cooked flour in the size of a brick). I’m pretty happy with a totally Malawian diet, but a little variety can’t hurt.

Two other staple of the Malawian diet are sugar cane and peanuts. We came back from the field with 6 stalks of sugar cane under one seat and this 3 foot tall bag of ground nuts strapped to the top of the truck. I mentioned that I’d never eaten sugar cane and a stalk was quickly peeled and put in my hand. It’s really hard to bite through (it was suggested I take smaller bites), and was hard to eat in a confined space. I kept having to spit out the residue cane into my hand and throw it out the window. I also couldn’t get much leverage on the cane to get good sized bites, so it took me about 30 minutes to eat one segment. By the end I had sugar juice all over my face, hands, shirt and pants. It wasn’t so much my thing, and it showed – one of the interviewers told me that it wasn’t punishment, that I didn’t have to finish. But everyone here’s eating it, mostly because you can grab a stalk from just about everywhere. The roads and things are covered in the leftover stalks to prove it.

In other firsts, I took a bike taxi into town this morning. It’s only MK50 (like, $.35) to center of the boma, so it’s not like it’s going to break the bank to do it more regularly. I’ve been getting rides in most mornings, so I haven’t needed to bike taxi. Plus I’m a bit bigger than the average Malawian, so the idea of me on the back of someone’s bike making them do all the work seemed a little cruel. The others here who take them more regularly say that goes away, so I’ll believe them. It was actually a nice ride; cool, morning breeze as we went down the first hill, going too fast to hear “Azungu! Give Me Money!” even if it was shouted. People look at me like I’m crazy when I say I actually like walking to and from town. Walking is the only exercise I get here, so I try to take advantage of it when I can. I do wish I’d been able to find room in my suitcase for running shoes, but oh well. We figure it’s probably about 2 or 2.5 miles to town, which isn’t bad.

The team will be here and working this weekend. Last weekend we had a party in one of the huts on the far side of the inn’s property, which was a lot of fun. The manager of the inn got apparently got a kick out of watching me and the other intern dance. Everyone on the team wanted to know if I could dance. I tried to explain the white-boy-shuffle, but it didn’t quite translate without demonstration. It was such a classically Malawian thing: first the power was off for a few hours so we figured we’d have to postpone; once it came back on, people went looking for someone to play DJ, and got two random dudes, their CDs of Zambian and Malawian reggae and a stereo that consisted of two boomboxes, a receiver, a few cords and three un-matching speakers. But it all worked and we danced until well past 1am, which is like 4am for Malawians. The owner of the inn’s son and his girlfriend are Rastafarian and from what of their practicing I hear quite good reggae musicians. (also, Rasta = Dreds, for those who know what I’m saying). Anyway, they’re going to walk across Africa or something, so this is supposedly a benefit for their cause. They played in Lilongwe last weekend and I missed it by staying here for our party, so I’m looking forward to seeing them.

For the rest of the weekends, I'm going to try to get out of here and see other things. There's a town in the northern part of the central region, Nkhotakota, that's along the lake; there's another place just south of Lilongwe that’s in the mountains that’s supposed to be nice. Both should be easy day trips. A bunch of the Penn folks are going to be working in Salima, also along the lake, and there will probably be a trip to go see them. There was talk of a Zambian game park trip, but the visa alone is $100 (apparently Zambia charges Americans what we charge them), and I don’t really need to go on safari again, so I'll probably just chill in Malawi and see what’s here with my free time. In the meantime, I'll probably go into lilongwe in the next week or so just to get out of here for a bit. need to see some people in there as well.

still dreaming of starbucks and miss home.

Labels: culture, food, malawi, mchinji

Okay, it's about 10:00pm [note: this was last night, Wed], I'm working in my room. It seems clearer today that I really should run hard while C is here, for impressions and also just because there's a lot to do and the more slack I can pull, the better for the whole team. So I'm doing that as much as I can. Plus, there's just not a lot to do at night otherwise. There's definitely some hanging out with the Penn crew, but they’re often working as well.

That's not the point, however. As I'm sitting here, with Justin Timberlake playing, I keep hearing these noises. It's been really cold here today, so I’ve been surprised to hear voices outside at all this evening, but have nonetheless. In any event, I keep hearing these noises and am wondering what the hell Ben is doing. (Yes, oddly enough, there’s another Ben here. He’s this Brit who is has been riding his bike from London to Cape Town; he's been riding for just over two years now and will probably get into Cape Town in about two months. He’s been here about as long as I have been.) It sounds like he's vehemently agreeing…like, "uh hhhuuuuuhhhh." Oh no. Not Ben agreeing. Definitely the cow.

If it were two people screaming at each other outside of the bar on Washington St., I'd probably tell it instantaneously. But I'm still not used to all of these animals around.

Having my computer here just exacerbates any cultural dichotomies going on. I just finished reading this report on a similar program's evaluation talking about a food crisis and different spending patterns when given a small amount of money and food. And then Loverboy comes on my iTunes. One of these things is not like the other.

Speaking of computers, we're going to be cleaning data for the forseeable future, it seems. [Note: and we did. it's all we did today] I'd like to get into the field, but for a number of reasons, I can't go yet. One is that the interviewers themselves need some time to get used to the new surveys. Then there's the big issue, which is that sending a white person out throws everything off (people start expecting money from the interviewers, they give skewed data, etc.). Plus there's a space issue: 12 people fit in a vehicle that would probably seat only 8 Americans from a comfort, not size, perspective. So instead, we're in the office to clean data. I’m happy enough doing that for a while until the other pieces get sorted out a bit more.

Another intern came yesterday who is working with the funder for 6 months as they roll out a similar project in another part of the country. So she's with us to get some background on how things work, since this was the first district to do this program. Not to mention that C was the one who connected her with the funder and her supervisor there is on leave for two weeks and needed to occupy her for a while, so it's a natural fit. We talked at some length this morning, comparing schools and what not, and have been together mostly since. It's kind of nice to have a pal for a while. It's just interesting context, a good reminder that I'm lucky to be I am to be where I am and that I'm doing this all at the right time in life for me. I'm also trying to give some explanations on things where I didn’t get any, like bathrooms are all BYOB, get this much water, etc. The essentials.

Labels: malawi, mchinji

On the way back from Lilongwe we got stopped for speeding. It was quite hilarious--they actually had this laser speed gun and waved us over (we were probably doing 130 in a 50, since we'd just entered a town…that’s actually not unusual speeds around here). The whole thing would have been a total non-issue had C not forgotten her license. That made things interesting. You could tell she was working every angle (oh, we were just in giving a presentation to ministers of all the different ministries of government; it's a translation issue…I can’t tell how fast I’m going; etc.). No budging. Some guy sort of told her to give him some money, so when she got pulled back into the police car to write up what ended up being this really extensive report (it was all handwritten, including the form itself), she pulled out money. This was now a new cop who was like, "are you trying to bribe me? Who told you that?" She’s all, "oh no, in my country, you can pay on the spot. I wasn’t trying to bribe you at all!" So she got stuck having to go to court next week and probably getting this other cop in trouble. But as the sign on the doors at the municipal building in town say, this is a no corruption zone (see flickr). It was pretty funny to watch the guys play with this laser gun while C was getting her ticket, though—it was like watching kids on christmas morning with a new toy.

Thursday is a national holiday: Freedom Day. I’ve been asking around if anything happens, and apparently there’s no celebration. I’m totally confused by it--everything is still open, everyone works, there are no events or anything. The guy at Joe's Motel was laughing at me and my confusion about it. I asked him what one does to celebrate on the day and he responded, "You wake up and remember you’re free. Then you go to work." It was pretty funny at first in how matter of fact it was. Then I realized how sad it sort of is. I think it's more an issue of needing to work: unemployment is so bad that you can’t not work. I suppose it could just as well be that these holidays just aren’t big deals everywhere. This girl who’s with us for a few days (another grad student; she’s Tanzanian, from Kenya, studying here) said that people often work on Independence Day in Kenya. Ben was mentioning that on Liberation Day (or some equivalent) in Zambia, all that happened was that he was going through town and got heckeled by a group of drunk guys at 5pm. I noted that it's actually pretty telling that they were free enough to heckle the white dude on the bike—any shit they gave him was actually a pretty good celebration of their liberties, as far as I can see. Maybe I'm just conditioned by Americans' full enjoyment of days off on national holidays, especially when they fall on Mondays which they so often do.

I had an interesting conversation on the drive into town with our study manager about the power rationing. It's becoming like second nature already. It's certainly not worth getting worked up about. You just have to have anything you want fully charged all the time and go with it. It’s supposed to be around the same time everyday, but it definitely isn't. So anywhere between 9 and 1, the power is bound to go out for at least an hour, probably 2 without warning. We were talking about how much of an impediment the power situation is, and I forget how central electricity is at the macro level as well. I'm usually too annoyed by not having it for me that I forget that in the big picture, no one is going to invest here if they can't get the electricity they need. And there's apparently no move toward privatization of the system itself, which is strange. Someone could make a ton of money by building up this system. This country is just too damn poor to do anything about it themselves.

Labels: malawi, mchinji

What a difference a day makes.

I'm back in Lilongwe for the night, somewhat unexpectedly. Today was the day of The Big Meeting which went quite well. There were all sorts of people there--people from almost every ministry of government, all the major UN and national aid programs. Going into the government compound was really kind of odd—it’s on Capital Hill (and no, not Capitol, which I don’t quite get…), which is literally a walled off area with armed guards (sounds much worse than it actually is) where each of the ministries have their main building. It's very nice, quiet, there’s covered parking, etc. We were at the ministry of poverty in the big conference room. Ths ministry's building is tucked way in the back of the compound (no big surprise) and had sort of falling down curtains (also not a surprise, although a little ironic).

I forget how deferential things are here—the chair of the meeting called it to order and passed it over to C; he then selected the order in which people could ask questions, and when they did, they all said, "Thank You Mr. Chairman," before going on. I’ve watched enough C-SPAN to know that’s not totally rare in government, but again, my irreverence makes me find it all pretty funny. He even had a higher chair than the others. And I am sure he well should, it is just funny to notice how infused that sort of thing is into everything, from big to small.

But nothing about this project isn't political—we were printing out the presentations at the funder's office and she said that she shouldn’t be seen stapling them. I thought that it was something about division of labor within their office or something, but no, it was because it needed to be clear that this was an entirely independent evaluation. She shouldn't be seen touching them. I collated and stapled all of the copies no problem, and again, just sort of chuckled at the extent to which things are the way they are.

I knew that we were coming in for the presentation, but I figured that we'd go back tonight. Halfway in, C tells me that she's staying the night. Oh. I put it together later that the meeting was going to be long enough that we wouldn’t be able to drive back in the light, but all of it was news to me. So I could get a room in Lilongwe or go back if the other guy from the project showed up. I called the guy I know in Lilongwe (through Bill) and am actually crashing here tonight instead. He told me to save the money on the room, and I happily obliged. Plus he and some of his friends were getting together tonight at their club, so I went along with him and his wife there. But man, after 5 days, being in a house with other Americans is really nice. I'm not so much homesick (although starbucks may suggest otherwise) as I am just not really used to being the foreigner. I should say, it's similarly weird to be in a house with an iron gate, two all-night guards and a panic button next to my bed, but that's another story. That's the expat story.

And having meat to eat (we pasta and meat sauce for dinner). Speaking of, we were having our second day of training yesterday (including my stats presentation), and about half way through we hear this loud noise from the other room (our room adjoined the kitchen). It goes again. C stops and says, "Is that chicken about to be slaughtered?" and everyone nods and says, "yes." She says okay and we move on. I wake up most mornings to the rooster, shortly followed by the cow mooing. I know I'm eating eggs that were laid by the chickens at the inn, which is fine. But people are ridding with dead goats on the back of their bikes. Then we were talking about eating mice in our food expenditure questionnaire. I guess its coming full circle from the CDC/NYC trip…

So back to Mchinji in the morning, a day in the office, and then out to the field for a while (like every day for the next two weeks). I may wander around town and take pictures tomorrow, so be on the lookout for them.

Labels: culture, food, lilongwe, malawi, mchinji

I woke up this morning to an alarm clock for the first time. Generally it's just bright and noisy enough to wake me fine before 6. Just in case I set an alarm. I think the association of an alarm was what made my first thought "I totally need to hit starbucks on the way to work." Ain't no starbucks here. Only instant coffee. I need to pick up some real stuff in lilongwe tomorrow and some filters. There's not even tea always out. But there were actually bananas at breakfast this morning, which is usually otherwise bread, sweet potatoes, and hard boiled eggs. I also had this cream of wheat sort of thing yesterday that was basically boiled maize. It got all congealed and gummy after sitting for a minute. I think I'm all set with that for a while.

Day one of trainings went fine yesterday. Our car wouldn't start in the am; the battery was dead. So one of the guys at the inn drove us into town and went back to work on the car. No one has jumper cables, obviously, so he started his car, switched the batteries, and then started ours and switched them back. I still don't understand how it all worked; I just have this image of this guy playing Operation with the car battery. Then the guy from the rental place came out to check on it later on. And we're back in business.

I'm going to stay where I am the rest of the time I'm here, I've decided. There's another place in town, which is where the trainings are, and it's just kind of gross. I'll have to take a picture of what slightly resembles (and strongly smells like) a urinal...I learned from the CDC/NY Dept of Health people to gauge a place's cleanliness on its bathroom. So, I'm not staying there. Plus it's crazy expensive--like $20/night for a room! Mine's about $9 and a good hour walk away, but it's immaculately clean with great people and quiet. Well, sometimes...

I should also mention that the baseline data suggest that only 1% of respondents bought toilet paper and 3% bought soap in the last month. Granted, these are extremely poor people, but still. I don't think handwashing is a cornerstone of public health here.

At the same time, during the training yesterday on the new survey, it was really interesting to hear all the anecdotes from the team about people who are cheating the system to get more money (I'm working on what is essentially a welfare program for poverty reduction). I couldn't help but laugh and think of how universal it is--you hear stuff like the able-bodied guy collecting welfare and washing his car all day back home. People are still people.

It's actually good to be busy again. I like having purpose, at least while I'm getting acclimated. I was working until 11 last night, which will probably only be the case while C is in town--I'd rather not go crazy here. But it's good to have things to do. It's just like being new at any job and sort of twiddling your thumbs...you jump at the chance just to do filing so that you feel useful.

I also talked to the people I know in Lilongwe last night and once C leaves and things die down a bit, I'm going to head in there for some R&R. They offered a couch, tv, and internet access, which sounds totally dreamy right now, and will more so by then. They're also having two nursing students staying with them who want to rent a car and go to the lake, so I may go in on that with them. Some of the Penn people are going to the game park in Zambia, but I don't really need to go on safari again. I would love to go to Zambia, though. I'll have to go to the border to renew my visa later this month and may use it as an opportunity to go to Chipata, which is the Zambian border town (like 40kms from here).

Okay, off to day two. More soon.

Labels: malawi, mchinji

I'm now at the district hospital where there is free wireless. I haven't been as happy as I was when I saw the network bars pop up on my mac in quite a while. Sad but true. The great thing is that this is just across the road from our office (more or less), so internet access shouldn't be too hard to get with regularity. This building is open all the time, too. Rock.

It took about 45 minutes to walk here. I turned down one ride offer cause I'm not quite at the hop-in-the-back-of-the-pickup comfortable here yet. And all the minibuses (I keep wanting to call them mutatus) that passed were packed. There are plenty of other people out walking, riding past, etc. I know two words of Chichewa so far: moni (hello) and azungu (white person). I used the former, and many others used the latter. It just cracks me up when kids will call to friends to see the azungu. I think that it's probably even more unusual to see many white people walking than to see them in town.

These three kids came up the hill to the road when they saw me, all of them probably under 4 years old. One yelled Azungu! and the others came running. Most say hello, if anything. These three all said, "give me some money," in the sweetest tone you could ever imagine. I couldn't help but laugh, a. since they may not even know what they're saying, and b. because it was desperately sad.

The other thing that I noticed on this walk is how beautiful the hills are here. We're sort of at the foot of a number of them, and every now and again there was a clearing to the left and this breathtaking view of the hills in the distance. In the foreground there are homes and neighborhoods, mostly brick, some with grass roofs others with solid ones. I was wondering what this small, worn clearing in the grass and a faint trail on the ground was shortly after I started walking and it occurred to me, duh, people live back there. Right. I'm having a lot of these duh/a-ha moments that are so much about re-contextualizing what's around. It's not so much that it's unique, it's just very different, and the patterns, visual cues, etc. don't really translate.

Also, I uploaded a bunch of pictures (more from London than yet of here...I feel a little weird pulling out my camera here). Click the photos tab at the top and you should get there.

Labels: culture, malawi, mchinji, walking

I woke up this morning to four part chorus and drumming in the courtyard. I had a weird night’s sleep, mostly due to jet-lag and being completely unaware of what was going on time-wise. I went to bed around 7 or 8pm because my eyes just couldn’t stay open anymore and I couldn’t deal with going into the restaurant for dinner*. I woke up at 3:00 for no apparent reason and couldn’t fall back asleep for a while; finally I did and was mid-dream about something happening at home when I heard this chorus of singing. My first thought was: what the hell is that? Then, where the hell am I? Oh right, I’m in Africa.

More on that later. To backtrack…

We got picked up at the airport by these two guys who I thought at first was a hired driver and his friend. It took me a little while to put it together that one was the guy from the car rental place and his colleague. So they drove us into Lilongwe and we ran a few errands. We got to City Center to find that there was no power--apparently they’re rationing electricity, so it was out for a few hours that afternoon. I bought my cellphone by candlelight, which was pretty amusing. But I also needed to go to an ATM because I didn’t bring a ton of US$, thinking I’d just get it here. I don’t think it ever would have crossed my mind to think that I wouldn’t have been able to go to an ATM because the power was out. Then we went over to the funder’s office which is close to the main offices of the national banks. This part of town was back up so I went to the bank while C met with people at the funder’s office. Then we dropped the guys back at the car place (which is right by MSH, if Emily’s reading this), went to two different supermarkets (one’s 7-Eleven, which is not at all like the slurpee place), got gallons upon gallons of water, and left for Mchinji.

At the store, C clearly knew what she was looking for (like, to buy a bunch of toilet paper, and how much water she wanted); I was totally clueless and just sort of doing whatever she was doing. So she was clearly taking the lead, throwing these water jugs (5 liters each) into the cart, and all the men were looking at us like we were crazy. Why wasn’t I doing this while she stood and waited? Why was she pushing the cart and not me? I picked up on it first at the car place: why was she driving and I was the passenger? Apparently she’d had at least one place not rent a car to her because they didn’t like the idea of a woman driving alone; another gave her a free driver because they didn’t want her driving.

[Begin tangent: I can totally understand why it would seem weird, but it hadn’t occurred to me to expect it. The same thing could just as easily have happened in the US, but I’m never outside New England enough to see it. Anyway, it’s one of those funny things to see in practice—we can have all sorts of symposia on gender this and that, how to engage men, how to improve gender equality in our nice building of white liberals (what is Paul Farmer’s term for this?), but from those few looks alone, I’m reminded of how abstract and heady all of it is. Which isn’t to say that they’re not important conversations—I’m still doing the women, gender and health concentration. I just forget how far they are from day-to-day reality. I’m still unclear how to close that gap, but that’s another conversation. End tangent]

We have a nice drive out, chatting along the way. We pass a few towns, one where it was market day and seeing the throngs of people that gathers. We also got stuck behind a slew of slow trucks (fortunately you can pass), had to honk at a few goats to get them to move, and avoided one already run-over chicken. After a while, I can see the hills in the distance, a sign we’re getting close. In fact, driving on the two lane road and seeing the hills actually reminded me a little of Hawaii. Except no Mustang. We finally get out to Mchinji—it’s a solid hour drive even at like 120 km/h (~75-85mph)—and it’s much more built up than I was expecting, it certainly has more than the other towns we passed. There’s a decent grocery store (one of a national chain) and a bank with an ATM, and a lot more people than in the other towns.

We pulled off and drove up to the building with the study office. The office is a little smaller than my living room with one main desk and two table with four computers total for data entry. The study manager was there and we talked for about an hour about where things stood, what’s next, etc. We’re going to do trainings Sunday and Monday to recap the last phase and start up the next one; the team will start on Tuesday while we’re at a meeting in Lilongwe, and I’ll probably go out with them later this week.

It turned dark just before we left the office and we headed back to the inn. I realized the minute we got out of the car that I forgot a flashlight, which was a silly move, but I can get one here. C asked for a big room, of which there weren’t any, but people in them were leaving in the morning and we could switch then. She was pleased that we were both able to get rooms with hot (read: lukewarm) water. I guess not all rooms have it. You literally turn it on with a switch before you get in, and there’s a cord running into this device in the shower head. Anyway, we got to our rooms, I unpacked a bit, killed a few bugs with the bible, took a shower, and went to bed.

I woke up to the singing and remembered reading somewhere that this happens when people leave here. It's like a serenade and send off. But seriously, it was like a ho-down at like 6:45am. I stayed in my room for a while and finally ventured out once they moved into the dining room. There were probably 20 or so people, including the most adorable baby in a yellow onesie. At a couple of points, the guy who seems to be the manager told me whether they were singing a spiritual song, a song of joy, etc. It was basically a celebration for the sake of it. I can get down with that for sure. Lots of hand shaking, too. Also down with that.

There were a number of Americans there, mostly from Upenn, who are here for most of the summer as well. One did an MPH at BU and one lives in JP by Green St. Small world indeed. The guy from JP has been here a number of times and seems to be quite in the know, so I was happy to hear him talk for a while. Their office is in the hospital, which has recently installed wireless internet. Dreamy. He mentioned that they have training space and are eager for trainings in Epi or Stats; I offered to do a basic stats presentation that I put together for our study team. It’s hilarious to me that I’d be qualified to do such a thing, but I forget that at least at this point and setting, I kind of am. It’s refreshing to watch my Harvard bubble burst a bit.

There was also long discussion about setting up a business keeping hens and selling eggs, as their security guard apparently is interested in doing so. They keep hens here at the inn, so he asked around; apparently you need 50 to start, and eggs go for 10 Kwacha each, so you can easily make 500 Kwacha a day (like $3). When minimum wage is $25/mo, that’s definitely a lucrative venture. I would have no idea what to do with 50 hens, but would be happy to help build the coop or whatever.

I also got the skinny from them on getting around, since I’ll probably stay here once C (and her vehicle) leave. Basically, you can get a bike taxi or minibus into town for like 20-30 Kwacha (like $.02) or just walk it (it's about a 5km, 45 minute walk). Motorbikes are popular here, which would be awesome, but way too expensive and unnecessary for the length of time I’m here. C suggested that I could buy a bicycle for cheap and get in that way. Walking seems fine by me, so long as my schedule gets me back by dark, which I will probably be once the study team is done their stuff. We’ll see.

It’s somewhere between 26-30 degrees Celsius, which is pretty warm as far as I’m concerned. I’m too used to Boston weather to imagine what their summers are like. Apparently in the south it’s much cooler. So I may not be a total sweat monster, but Jo’burg was making me think that it was going to be cooler. Oh well.

I guess the abstract of it all is that I’m here, acclimating, surprised by some things, not by others. It’s definitely not what I’m used to, but there’s a lot that’s the same.

* Side-note: I have the feeling that peanut butter will be my good friend here—I bought some rolls, peanut butter and honey at the store in Lilongwe and had that for dinner. It’s something easy to munch on, and will save the day a few times I’m sure. I had a good laugh at the irony of how I rolled my eyes at a story I heard before leaving about Americans in Sudan who ate peanut butter the entire time they were there while I was shoving a roll into a peanut butter jar…I shouldn’t balk so quickly, I guess.

Labels: culture, food, malawi, mchinji, professional ramblings

I’m writing this from the flight to Lilongwe, where there are a surprising number of Americans on board. A group of like 15 young women (probably about 23 or so) from the south somewhere; some dude who just graduated from college in front of me. In some ways it’s oddly comforting to know that I’m not alone; in others, I came in part to be away from America for a while and would just as soon it stayed behind.

I’m on this flight with the director of my project (hereafter “C”); it was definitely good to see her. From London until now, I’ve been running for flights (and unnecessarily, it seems), so it was a bit of a chance to exhale to get on this last flight and finally go where I’m going to be. And I’m ready to tag along for a while and just show up where I’m told to go, not really making a lot of decisions. I really want a shower, clean clothes, and, after two night flights, a bed to sleep in.

We’ll get into Lilongwe, pick up the car, and then she has to have a meeting at the funder’s office. Apparently The Big Meeting is Tuesday where we’re presenting the baseline findings to the funder, the government, and a host of other “stakeholders”. Note to self: good idea to bring a suit. Because as a friend reminded me, people dress for stuff here. In London as well, most men were in suits. Obviously not everyone is done to the nines, but it does sort of remind me how casual our culture can be, Granted, I may be the casual one, thinking it is okay to wear flip-flops … well, anywhere, really. I’m also much more conscious of being a guest in someone’s country, which keeps me on my best behavior. In any event, the suit was a smart move.

I’ll pick up a phone at some point while they’re meeting. Vanessa told me about Seat Guru and I used it to find what should have been a seat with an outlet from NY to London, but no dice. I must have read the plane map wrong or chosen the wrong plane/airline or something. Oh well. I’ll charge it back up at the hotel, although it’s $3.49/min to call from Malawi from Cingular, so I don’t anticipate using it at all. I also turned off my data plan so that I wasn’t getting charged for each email (it would have been abour $0.15-20/email, which adds up quickly. I should still be able to text from it, though.

It was *a lot* cooler here in Jo’burg I thought. I would have wanted a jacket had I been outside for too long. But it is pretty funny seeing people in full on winter gear when it’s like 55 degrees.

Getting out of Boston was a breeze: a quick shuttle flight to New York and then an uneventful flight to London. I didn’t sleep much, but oh well. I get in, breeze through customs, walk for what seems like an eternity through the airport to get to the trains. I got a ticket for Heathrow Connect, since that was much less expensive (round trip was less than one single fare on Heathrow Express) and I wasn’t in a huge rush. My phone was dying, so I called Becca (a friend and former roommate from college) and said that I’d be at the station in London in about half an hour.

I got there just before she did and was a little worried my phone would die before we connected, but no problems there. It was really good to see her; it’s probably been a few years at this point. In fact, I think it was when the Red Sox won the world series and she and a friend came up for the parade.

We basically walked around for a few hours. First to get some food from the foodhall at Marks & Spencer, and then to Hyde Park to sit and eat. It pretty cloudy out, but nice enough to sit on the grass and hang out for a bit. From there, we walked over to Buckingham Palace about which my comment was, “Dude, that shit is crazy opulent!” It was such a weird building: very grand but stoic stone building, with all of this ornate gold stuff on the fence and gate. Seemed pretty British like that, I guess.

By that point it was like 3:20 and my flight was at 7, so I needed to start heading back. We meandered back, got a little lost a few times, and then finally got back to the train station around 4:40. I had just missed a Connect train and after thinking about it a bit, I opted to pay for an Express ticket rather than be getting to the airport at 5:30, even if it was another $30. I got on the train, and got off to check the board with the terminal information on it to double check that I was going to the right place, and got back on. It’s only a 15 minute ride, but I couldn’t stay awake for it all I was so tired at this point. I got to Terminal 4 at about 5:10 and didn’t see my flight listed. A British Air person told me that I needed to be in Terminal 1 instead and that if I ran I might make it. Run? I still had almost two hours until takeoff! Anyway, I took the advice and ran. Literally.

I had to wait 15 minutes or so for the connecting train back to the original terminal and once there, I then ran some more. This time with someone else in the same predicament, although his flight was even 40 minutes before mine. We chatted as we ran; I found out he was from Frankfurt and thought Boston was a lovely place. I didn’t have much to say back, being already tired and running, so I just sort of smiled back at him and wished him a good flight. Anyway, I guess I forget that not everyplace has insane security lines like the US (thanks TSA!); I breezed right through the line and got to the departures board, panting, only to find my flight not even having a gate assigned yet. Awesome. I use my last £2 to buy a bottle of water for the flight, freshen up as best I could, and hear my flight called the minute I sat down to charge my phone. I headed down to the gate, waited for a while there and boarded no problem.

Labels: london, malawi, travel

I'll likely be heading toward the airport this time tomorrow. I'm more or less ready--all the necessaries are packed, I just have to go to the bank, CVS and get a haircut tomorrow. I'm actually sort of glad that I have a couple of things to do tomorrow, otherwise I'd go stir crazy.

I had a bit of a panic last weekend when I realized that I booked my ticket from Jo'burg into Malawi a day too early. I misread my itinerary and didn't account for the overnight flight from London; I was only paying attention to the date, which was the departure date. I called the airline and got no help at all. I called again on Monday when their ticket office opened and it all ended fine--I changed my ticket by upgrading to a different fare class for about $100. Better than buying a new ticket altogether, which was the weekend person's advice.

Somewhere in the process and thanks to good suggestions, I realized that I'm actually pretty nervous to go, which was prompting the panic more than anything related to the ticket. I just hadn't been able to verbalize what was going on enough to know that I was nervous. I have no doubt it's going to be fine, I just know that all the buttons that need to get pushed for me to grow are going to be. Which tends to make me uncomfortable. Which then manifests, in this case, as being a little terse with a South African Airways call center rep.

In the meantime, I'm leaving school where I have been printing stuff, pulling things from my server folder, and updating a few things. I'll probably not be back here again until fall. Hallelujah.