December 2013

1 - Walking into the new Mzuzu Shoprite
2 - Watching Rambo
3 - My new solar light in my living room
4 - Pounding coffee beans
5 - Lighting my mbaula (yay fire starters)
6 - Frying Spam
7 - Baking cake
8 - Cleaning dishes
9 - Writing letters
10 - Riding home from Uliwa
11 - Chilling at Ngara Resort
12 - Skype with Duffy
13 - Grading university exams
14 - Riding down with students from UniLia
15 - Hitch through Ngara trading center
16 - Rain at night
17 - Burning incense
18 - Reading
19 - Collecting rain
20 - Walking through Thunduti
21 - Uploading Tako's obituary
22 - Rain at Maji Zuwa
23 - Arranging a care package for the photo
24 - Christmas Eve at Mushroom Farm
25 - The view from Livingstonia
26 - Riding a bike down from Livingstonia
27 - Zen burrowing towards Fletcher
28 - My Christmas present, a blow gun
29 - Reading
30 - Walking Fletch
31 - New Year Countdown

Library Update (before vacation)

I wanted to post one more library update before I left on vacation.  The contractor thinks the library will be finished by the time I get back at the end of February.

Library Walls

We have the starts of a building. The walls are going up, there are door and window frames, and the workers are showing no signs of slowing down.

Chopping Money

So I didn't chop my money, but I chopped a lot of y'all's money today. 

I spend most of that giant block of cash today as we bought all the construction materials for the library.  That block is mk1,300,000 and just under mk300,000 is left. If your curious on the costs breakdown, I've updated the budget on the Thunduti CDSS Library Project page with actual costs. 

Basically, I got to spend over mk1,000,000, or 1,000 mk1,000 bills. 

"Ox-Cart Wheel"

It's about time I finally posted this. I rewrote the lyrics to "Wagon Wheel" by OCMB to fit my life in Malawi. This song debuted at A Very Mushroom Christmas this year, and the crowd enjoyed it, however I am not a singer. If anyone with a great voice wants to record this and send it to me, feel free. 

"Ox-cart Wheel"

Headed up north to the land of the lake

Trying to flee the south for God's sake. 

Starin' at the road 

Pray to God I see headlamps

I made it to Jenda in seven long hours 

Enjoyin' a lunch of mangos and Powers

I'm a hopin' for Uluwa

I can see my puppy tonight 

So I'm rockin' myself like an ox-cart wheel 

Rockin' back and forth is how transport makes me feel

Crying and rocking

This day is worse than the hot season heat

This day is worst than the infection on my feet

Oh, Malawi

Runnin' from my life, back in The states

I thought that moving here was part of my fate

I used to have a real job

I oopsie poopsie now

Oh, the Mzuzu city winters keep a gettin' me down

Spent my money at Shoprite so I had to leave town

But I ain't a turnin' back 

To livin' that bwana life no more 

So I'm rockin' myself like an ox-cart wheel 

Rockin' back and forth is how transport makes me feel

Crying and rocking

This day is worse than the hot season heat

This day is worst than the infection on my feet

Oh, Malawi

Goin' down the escarpment with no option but to walk

Finally stopped a laurie out of Limbe

Had a awkward talk

He's a headed north for the Songwe boarder

To Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania

Oh, I gotta get a move on before the night

I hear a drunkard shout "azungu"

He's chasing my bike

And if I pass the iwes

They will beg for money. 

So I'm rockin' myself like an ox-cart wheel 

Rockin' back and forth is how transport makes me feel

Crying and rocking

This day is worse than the hot season heat

This day is worst than the infection on my feet

Oh, Malawi

"Dark Star Safari" by Paul Theroux

The following are quotes about Malawi from Paul Theroux's "Dark Star Safari." While many of his opinions in the book are very negative, and at times unfair or just untrue, these were some good quotes that I can relate with. 

"You know you're in Malawi when...

an old man on the road is wearing a fur-trimmed woman's pink housecoat from the 1950's;

the rear rack if a bike is stacked with ten uncured cow hides;

a roadblock is a bamboo pole across two barrels and the official manning it is wearing a T-shirt lettered Winnipeg Blue Bombers;

the lovely smooth tarred road becomes a rutted muddy track that is barely passable;

people start sentences with, 'But we are suffering, sir;'

on the day the Minister of Finance announces his National Austerity Plan, it is revealed that thirty-eight Mercedes-Benzes have just been ordered from Germany."

"...the strong human reek on African buses was a smell of mortality that seemed to me like a whiff of death."

"The lake was beautiful, there were golden mountains on the [Tanzanian] side, and on ours the escarpment leading to Nyika Plateau, glittering water and great heights and the natural beauty of Africa."

"School teaching was perfect for understanding how people lived and what they wanted for themselves. And my work justified my existence in Africa. I had never wanted to be a tourist. I wished to be far away, as remote as possible, among people I could talk to. I achieved that in Malawi."

Ground Broken

The ground has been broken and the footer has been started!

Happy New Year's Day 2014

Wow!  It's already 2014.

I spent the entirety of 2013 living in Malawi.  It was an amazing time, full of countless experiences, some of which my loyal readers have had the chance to share with me.

This year will be a bit different.  Over the course of this year, I will continue my Peace Corps service, I will close our my Peace Corps service, I will travel around Africa and the world on my way home, then I will close this blog/this chapter of my life as I embark on the newest story, whatever that will be.

As most of you know, I have been doing a cultural exchange project where I compile a few seconds of video from every day of a month, but it together, and share it with the world.  Well, my overly ambitious goal for this year is to take a clip every day, every month, and put together a year long clips video.  I'm sure there will be a lot of cheating and reenactments, but I also feel it will be a valuable tool for people closing their Peace Corps service to see the transition from PCV to RPCV.  Plus, in 20 years it will be fun for me to watch.