becca

So we finally have internet… kind of. We are at an internet cafe paying 5 Kwacha a minute. Lets begin with what Kwacha is.

Kwacha is the currency of Malawi…. Exchange rate about 170 MK - $1.
Things we can buy with K 170 …. a loaf of bread or 2 bottles of water or a lot of maize. The local staple food here is a porridge made out of maize flour and water called nsima. Maize is like an unsweet corn…. Mmmmm! We’re gonna make some next week with the help of Jon. Jon is the groundskeeper of the place we are staying- World Camp. World Camp is a volunteer program where students from the states come to Malawi and teach in rural classrooms about HIV, deforestation and other relevant problems. This house is very nice and safe and we are able to be with other people, but we may be moving out to another (cheaper) place next week. Currently our living situation consists of the four of us living in a room of bunk beds covered in mosquito nets. We have a relatively nice bathroom with friendly insects including a large grasshopper we have yet to name and numerous mosquitoes. We have had consistant water and electricity except for that one day…. Haha. No really, the house is nice and we are able to eat dinner with the other volunteers here in the house. Thus far we have had Pizza, Mexican food and French toast for dinner! Haha.

Currently we are in Lilongwe- the capital city… apparently also known as “the dullest city in Africa”. I don’t know that I’d call it “dull”… there are just limited things to do. We are located in the heart of Old Town so we have many options during our free daytime hours that include a trip to 7-11, Shoprite Supermarket, the vegetable or fabric market (where we as tourists will get ripped off), a Pakistani restaurant (that serves fried chicken and pizza called Sana’s, or the great McDouds... Yes, McDouds, complete with a giant golden arch, a slogan reading “Your loving it”, and pictures of hamburgers, pizza, and fried chicken in the window. We have yet to venture to McDouds because its closed or maybe not open yet. Regardless, such luxuries as fast food, otherwise known as take-away is not in our budget. We are cooking for ourselves for breakfast and lunch most of the time. So we stocked up yesterday at Shoprite on rice that was on sale for 359 MK, bread for 159 MK, peanut butter for 199 MK, and canned, corned meat for 360 MK. Hahaha. Yum yum yum!

Despite my neverending sarcasm, we are really enjoying ourselves in this slow-paced African lifestyle. I love the smell of the air- a mix of burning leaves and fresh baked bread, the trees, flowers, and weather are all beautiful as well (I’m still getting used to the insects though). Our day of traveling west to visit the places we will be volunteering was also beautiful, especially when we got to the mountains of the Zambian border where we will be staying at the Home of Hope Orphanage in a few weeks. Hours of driving down the highway past mountains in the background and in the foreground: children playing with tires men bicycling and walking down the road, beautifully dressed women carrying babies on their backs and goats running into oncoming traffic and the always present bright pink “zain” stores even in the smallest of villages. Zain is one of the African cell phone companies. I could not stop looking out the window for the entire drive, amazed and trying to familiarize myself with such images I have only seen on TV. Sitting in the car zooming past these people and their small brick houses and stores kept a great distance between us that was inevitably broken when we got out of the 4 X 4 at our destinations. The people all seem to be very friendly and all shook our hands. We may have made some feel uncomfortable, dressed in jeans, but they still attempted a “how are you” or “I’m doing fine” as we attempted our “Muli bwanji” and “Tidi bino”. We’re still working on key phrases and will be buying skirts or wraps to wear when we go to the villages.

I think we are all eternally grateful that we are here together because this would have been very scary otherwise. Arriving at the airport and not seeing a familiar face, no phone to call anyone, and not really sure who is picking you up was definitely a scary 20 minutes of my life that seemed to last for hours. When I saw the girls and the driver pull up to the airport I was instantly excited. They had been here for 20 hours and seemed to run the place and be friends with every hostel and restaurant owner in town.

It is 10 am on Saturday and the girls have been reading for the past hour or so and the volunteers are working. I think we are going to have breakfast now and later go to the market with Jon.

Inspirational thing I saw written in front of a school:
Welcome to (school’s name). If you can read this, thank a teacher.


(I apologize for the lack of sequence of this entry but we have been here what seems like a week and it is hard to recap it all.)