Well it’s been a good week.
Last weekend I visited Karonga got to hang out with Donald, Megan, and
Sarah, all from my training group.
Monday was Mother’s Day (Happy Mother’s Day, Mom!) in Malawi, so no
school. Then there was a meeting Tuesday
for teachers’ union members and school was closed. Also,
with Ilana’s help, I’ve made great progress on a secondary project I’m super
excited about. Finally, for those of you
that know what it means, I’ve now switched off of Mefloquin and am on
Doxycycline, so already my outlook on life has improved and my dreams have
gotten a lot less weird. Only better
things to come, seeing as Mef has a half-life of 3 weeks and I took my last
dose on Tuesday, so hopefully in a few weeks I’ll be all healthy and happy. To top it all off, my first bucket of wine, Papaya
Wine, is beyond delicious! I haven’t
tried the Watermelon Wine yet.
In November I’m now signed up for Grass Roots Soccer
training down in Salima, so it’s exciting to get outta site for a while. I’m also hoping to go up to Chitipa over the
weekend after Thanksgiving for a mental health holiday and to see what the
district of Wildlings is like. With IST
(in-service training) the 2nd week of December, I got my weekends
pretty packed up.
This weekend I’m just chilling, but next week is super
exciting! First, Helen, our PC program
assistant is supposed to visit me sometime this week, and hopefully she brings
me a Peace Corps Cook Book and medical kit refill. Then, Friday Melissa is making her VSV
(volunteers supporting volunteers) visit on Friday. And the big event is Saturday night at Maji
Zuwa, where the Halloween party is going down!
Woot woot! And since Maji Zuwa, a
local resort that also has multiple NGOs operated out of it, is within my
catchment area and it’s one of my secondary projects, I’m not even out-of-site
going!
Ok, I gotta throw you guys a fun story or else I might lose
my one registered follower and the countless unregistered ones. Let me think…
So I’ve somehow become a member of the ESCOM Club in Uliwa,
which is a private bar located at the power plant and mostly for workers of the
power plant, but also for some prominent community members that are interested
in membership and can hold their own in a game of darts (me being both white
and a teacher, I qualify apparently).
Well, I have been going to the club every weekend and made friends with
some important people, basically integrating with a Carlsburg in my hand, which
in my book is probably the 2nd best type of integration, but sadly
Kuche Kuche has not been available in the north lately (that’s a type of beer,
not an innuendo). Moving on, I was there
a couple weeks ago, having traveled with my Deputy Head Master. We ended up catching a hitch about 9km of the
10km to the club, and walked the rest.
We were concerned when we got there, because while ESCOM normally is
running vehicles, they weren’t, so we were going to have to walk all the way
home. I just remembered something that
was once said about my luck in these situations: “He could walk through shit
and come out smelling like roses.” So
after a couple beers on a nice empty stomach, I was feeling good and assured my
Dep. HM that we could get a ride. I had
no basis for this claim, seeing as very few vehicles run on this road. I mean like other than the ESCOM vehicles
running every few hours, there is normally about 4-5 vehicles all day, and they
usually aren’t interested in taking a hitch.
Well, playing darts and people keep buying us beers, at a rate that was
quite difficult to keep up with. I was
feeling somewhere beyond just ok, at least from what I can remember I was. I’m sitting there outside with the other
patrons because the power had gone out and someone comes up and offers us a
ride. My Dep. HM was floored. He couldn’t believe that we actually got a
ride, and I’m just sitting there going “told you so.” So I don’t know if I’m actually that lucky,
or if this is just a case of confirmation bias, but it was pretty impressive
either way.
Finally, a quick shout out of the Trofis for stumbling upon
one of the greatest care package items, ever.
Koolaid packets! They super
small, sugar is readily available, and using half a packet in my 1L Nalgene, it
is an amazing little dessert. So, if
anyone is interested, easy item to include in those wonderful letters (along
with pictures.
P.S. Here’s an
adorable picture of Fletcher and Tako playing and I put up a better picture of
Fletcher in the original article.
PUPPY AND KITTY
ReplyDelete...So wait a sec, are you making your own wine? Because if so, that's AWESOME. And if you aren't, it's still awesome because you're already doing a crapload of other awesome things.
What are the meds for? Malaria and whatnot? Are you okay??
Thinking about you a lot this Halloween season, and I hope you are partying hard, taking loads of pictures, and having the TIME OF YOUR LIFE, my friend. :)
They're anti-malaria pills, nothing too bad on the health front to report. Actually pretty much healthy right now.
ReplyDelete