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 $.02) or just walk it (it's about a 5km, 45 minute walk). Motorbikes are popular here, which would be awesome, but way too expensive and unnecessary for the length of time I’m here. C suggested that I could buy a bicycle for cheap and get in that way. Walking seems fine by me, so long as my schedule gets me back by dark, which I will probably be once the study team is done their stuff. We’ll see.
It’s somewhere between 26-30 degrees Celsius, which is pretty warm as far as I’m concerned. I’m too used to Boston weather to imagine what their summers are like. Apparently in the south it’s much cooler. So I may not be a total sweat monster, but Jo’burg was making me think that it was going to be cooler. Oh well.
I guess the abstract of it all is that I’m here, acclimating, surprised by some things, not by others. It’s definitely not what I’m used to, but there’s a lot that’s the same.
* Side-note: I have the feeling that peanut butter will be my good friend here—I bought some rolls, peanut butter and honey at the store in Lilongwe and had that for dinner. It’s something easy to munch on, and will save the day a few times I’m sure. I had a good laugh at the irony of how I rolled my eyes at a story I heard before leaving about Americans in Sudan who ate peanut butter the entire time they were there while I was shoving a roll into a peanut butter jar…I shouldn’t balk so quickly, I guess.
More on that later. To backtrack…
We got picked up at the airport by these two guys who I thought at first was a hired driver and his friend. It took me a little while to put it together that one was the guy from the car rental place and his colleague. So they drove us into Lilongwe and we ran a few errands. We got to City Center to find that there was no power--apparently they’re rationing electricity, so it was out for a few hours that afternoon. I bought my cellphone by candlelight, which was pretty amusing. But I also needed to go to an ATM because I didn’t bring a ton of US$, 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
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