2+ Weeks at Site

So, I've been living at site for over two weeks now.  A lot has happened in those two weeks, but not all of those events are worthy of being shared on this public forum (ask me sometime, a few are pretty funny).

Well, we all swore in as promised on the 29th.  Did some more shopping in Lilongwe then we made our way back to Dedza and the next morning we all departed the college for our sites.  Those of us that are lucky enough to live north of Mzuzu have a two day trip to get to site, even leaving in the morning, so Donald and I spent the night at Mzoozoozoo, which is great cause I got to stay there and see Mzuzu during site visit but Donald didn't go on site visit due to a medical hold, so now he got to see it.  I think we both thoroughly enjoyed the little bit of R&R.

Then, we got to site.  Donald told me about that some PCVs, after being dropped off at site, run after the Peace Corps vehicle as it drives away.  I can proudly say that was not me.  I think I was in a little bit of shock about being alone.  Well, I spent that day unpacking a little, hanging my mosquito net, and just generally in a daze.  For dinner (and breakfast the next morning), I ate apple pie thanks to Caitlin.  The next day I spent painting my living room blue!  Well, the bottom half of the walls at least, covering up the boring and damaged yellow.  That took a lot longer than expected using only a 2” brush.  Well,  I made it about 3/5 through the room and through half my paint and called it a day.  J was in town, and wanted to hang out, so I spent the afternoon chilling with him (and discovering all the things I needed to fix on my bike).

The next day, I did not paint.  The thought of more painting made me a little sick after the huge undertaking the day before, so I just unpacked, cooked a wonderful and complex meal of pasta with soy sauce (the first meal in months that I actually got to pick), and just chilled.  The next day school started, but thanks to the wonderful Ministry of Education and my teaching only Forms 1 and 3 (9^th and 11^th grade), I had no students.  See, to pass 8^th or 10^th grade, they must pass a national exam, and even though they took these exams in July, and this being September, the Ministry of Education still had not finished grading them.  So, the students can’t start school till they know if they are actually in that grade or not.  Yay!  I got to spend the day finishing painting, the next day shopping in Uliwa, and then the teachers “felt bad for me” and “didn’t want me to get bored” so they so kindly let me guest teach the Form 4 students Nuclear Physics and Ecology.  Yes, those are actual topics on the curriculum, as well as organic chemistry and others.

Onto the weekend!  Weekends are the best, if you didn’t already know that.  All that free time to do fun things like laundry.  Well, that weekend I just chilled.  Took a swim in Lake Malawi, well, actually a bath (soap & shampoo), which is like the greatest way to bathe ever!

The next week, Form 1 started.  Yay, teaching (sarcasm).  So basically, I had a ordinary week, but I am getting a lot better at starting a fire and cooking over it.  I also got two 20L buckets for fetcher water, and one of them has a red lid so it will be used to make my fire water (aka bucket wine).  Ilana also was in Uliwa and brought me an orange tree sapling for me to plant, which is awesome.  I hope it makes it!  Saturday I did laundry, which took forever seeing as I had a ton of dirty clothes, some still built up from Dedza (I only did half of it last week, then it kept building up for some strange reason).  I had 4 buckets full of clothes being washed, but now they’re all clean!  Even the extra sheets that are going to be turned into curtains.

Finally, the fun part!  We have a meeting in Mzuzu and shucks, it’s in the morning.  That means going to Mzuzu the day before, shopping, and spending a night at the zoo.  A bunch of PCVs staying the night at the same place that serves cold beer?  Sounds like torture.  Well, I’ll try to make the best of it.

So ya, that’s my life.  For the first time in my life that I can remember, I have felt legitimately homesick, and for the first time I have actually questioned why I’m in Peace Corps, but I also am very well aware that I wouldn’t trade this for the world.  During training, they showed us this funny graph that was the emotions of a PCV, and the first few months after moving to site was the lowest of the lows, and I think I’ve been pretty ok.  I’d say the lowest blog-appropriate moment was when a mouse ran across my foot while my new cat, Tako, laid hiding under a low table.  The cat was delivered to me in a sack tied shut, so basically it’s no surprise she was scared for a while.  After the mouse incident though, I found it only appropriate to name her after a Chitumbuka curse word meaning butt.  Now, the cat could not be any clingier (Microsoft Word just corrected me; apparently more clingy isn’t correct grammar).  It doesn’t like to go outside, so I guess I have an indoor cat.  It’s ok, because one night I was laying in my room being kept awake by the shenanigans of the mouse, like every night, and all the sudden Tako comes tearing into my room, running around like a bat out of hell, across the foot of my bed, then out the bedroom door.  Next thing I hear is the distinct sound of a cat eating into a fleshy critter.  Ever since then, I have not been kept awake or woken up by the mouse (instead, Tako wakes me up in new and creative ways). 

I met my future puppy (name to be revealed after I know the thing is going to live to 6-weeks when I’ll take it, but I got a glorious name picked out).  Funny story about the puppy.  I went to this house of a random guy in my village that had two litters of puppies.  He said I could have whichever one I wanted.  One puppy, the smallest one, immediately came up to me and I knew this must be the one.  I checked it over and it was a boy, which I was hoping for (cheaper to get neutered).  So I said “I like this one, and it’s a boy which I was hoping for.”  They guy goes, “oh, you can’t have that one, we need a male dog to make puppies with its mother since we don’t have one.”  First of all, you said any puppy I wanted!  Second, have you ever heard of incest?  Well, I saw another puppy that was clearly the misfit of the group and had the most random color pattern, and took a liking to me, so I told him to put that one aside if it was actually available.  I’ll pick her up at the end of the month when she’s old enough.

Well, that’s all for now.  I would say stuff is going pretty well though.  Remember to keep writing those letters and feel free to stuff printed pictures in them.  I want to decorate my living room with pictures, but so far I only got about 4 feet of the wall covered.  It is nice to look over there and see all those happy Americans.  Just don’t include pictures of cheese or draught beer in the pictures, cause that is a little more teasing than I want to deal with.