From Lusaka with Love

This week my good friend from Seattle (now living in Lusaka) came over to check out village life. Laura is a nurse like me but since she is not in the Peace Corps, she has no restrictions on doing hands-on care. She hit it off with the midwives and was helping to catch babies in no time!

Laura got on a bus in Lusaka at 10:30 which sat, and sat, and sat in the bus depot until almost 6pm! Meanwhile I had travelled to the Zambian border town of Chipata, to meet her and spend the night before we continued to my village. She finally arrived at 2am. We got a few hours sleep and then rode about eight more taxis, minibuses, and trucks to arrive in Balang'ombe just before sunset.

Laura took to village life like a real trooper- bucket baths, candlelight, the constant flow of visitors (and people curious to see the new azungu)- no prob! And thank God Laura is a dog person. She had a mesmerizing ability to calm Innocent, whereas I have no idea what to do with this newly fat, happy and HYPERACTIVE dog.

By the way- Innocent is a little Wakuba- thief. She can't figure out where her own tail is it seems but she is excellent at noticing when my neighbors are cooking nsima so she can sneak a patty back out to my yard. We took Inno to the market and she started gnawing on some corn fritters that were for sale (don't worry, we bought them). For the rest of the market, Laura held Inno to keep her from stealing stuff, and people found this VERY interesting. Not only is this a brand new azungu, but she's holding a dog! Crazy. We were looking in the famous 20 kwatcha pile and I held up a weird looking pastel ski mask. Ohmygod! Laura said- it's a doggie sweater! So now everyone was staring at the new azungu holding a dog that was wearing a sweater. I had already assumed that most of the people in my village think I am crazy. Is there a level above crazy?

In the evenings, we would sit outside, drink our tea, and watch as Inno and Rocky (my neighbor's dog) played and growled and rolled around in the dirt. The gaggle of local girls who like to hang out at my house came over almost every night, and sometimes, when things got slow, I would blow them some bubbles (which they love more than candy). We were sitting out there, and Laura was like, 'I love this. I could totally live in a village and be happy.' Yup. So can I. :-)



My Little Visitors



Starting on Monday, Laura headed over to the Labor and Delivery wing of the Health Centre and started helping out. In fact, when we first arrived, a baby was already crowning. The birth was totally normal, but the mom (17 y/o) was really having a rough time and her Agogos were screaming at her to push harder and at one point even hit her. Laura just started cooing and holding the Mother's hand and the baby slid right out.

For baby number two, I was teaching my English class while Laura spent the entire day with the mother in labor. It was another normal pregnancy, and then THAT baby slid out, Laura caught it, with the midwife looking on. The mom named the baby girl "Rola" (Malawians can't pronounce 'Laura').

The third baby was breech, butt first. The poor midwife had been calling for an ambulance all night but because of the fuel shortage nothing came. The midwife warned the Agogos that the birth was very risky and the baby might not make it. When it was finally out, it was blue and not breathing. There was no suction, so they just hand- bagged it for a few minutes and rubbed it and prayed. Then there was the best sound of all- the baby cried and I got to be the first to tell the Agogos that the baby lived and that it was a girl. Timasangalala Kwambiri!!

Needless to say, Laura had a great time with the baby-mommas and midwives.



Laura and Nurse/Midwife Margaret.

So now I have a calmer dog, a better understanding of what happens here when a woman is giving birth (I never worked as a Labor and Delivery RN, so I had been kind of avoiding the L&D wing for awhile), and a renewed sense of awe for my village and lifestyle. You know how sometimes you never really appreciate somthing until you see it through another person's eyes??

Thanks Laura- Balang'ombe misses you!

Grace and Peace

Eliza



Still here!

Happy Rainy Season!
Things are going well here in Chiwamba/ Balang'ombe, and my household is ever expanding. Everything is green and lush and muddy. The river valley to the secondary school is impassable, which is a pain because now I am teaching Life Skills twice a week. I think I had envisioned sparking deep debates about the philosophy of wellness and long brainstorm sessions about paradigm-changing health ideas. Instead this week we talked about the importance of washing one's feet after one walks through mud. Practical I know. There WILL be a test.
Seriously though, this is a village school, which is the lowest tier of education for thoese students in malawi who pass grade 8. Most are barely passable at speaking English, which is the language I am required to teach in. So we are starting with the basics.. Self-esteem, hygiene, gender-equality, basics of HIV. If we can get everyone consistently washing their hands I think I will shed a happy tear.
The Youth Centre grant went through, and ground was broken in December. We are now well into construction, and everyone is super excited. I spent the ground-breaking day helping to tear down a small existing building on the site, so that we can reuse the bricks. A bunch of Amayis started a bucket line for the debris and started pumping me with questions about how many kids I have, how long ago I got married, etc. When I told them that I live along with my cat and chicken, they assumed they were misunderstanding my Chichewa, and called over another English speaker. When she confirmed that I was single, the Amayis put down the bricks and started the much harder task of convincing me that I should marry their nephews/grandsons/etc...
Baby, my hen, started sitting on her five eggs on Christmas Day, and sure to Wilfred's calculations, they hatched 21 days later. Only three of the five hatched, two black ones and a yellow one. I call them Baby 2.0 (I can't tell the two black ones apart, so they both have the same name) and azungu. They are growing daily, following their mama from food source to food source, and then parading back into their roost at night. Once I can tell what gender they are, I will keep the hens for eggs and give away the roosters.

So last week I got a puppy. I have never owned a dog before, so it was a bit of a surprise. I was away, in Sajiwa, about 10k from Balang'ombe. I was supposed to be in a church., but my hip was bothering me so I got up to walk around and started talking to an old woman in a tiny mud hut. The whole time we spoke, this little, itsy bitsy, runt of a puppy was wandering around in front, looking in vain for somethng to eat. I asked about it's mother (missing) and then took a deep breath and offered 100 kwatcha for it (about 50 cents). The old lady grinned, picked up the puppy and threw it toward me. I wrapped it up in my chitenge. It was covered in fleas and ticks and was so malnourished its hair was falling out in chunks. A downpour started, and we had to walk in the mud for the last 5k to my house, which took an hour and a half. I tied my Chitenge so that the puppy, now named Innocent, (after a particularly fetching young Rasta I met...) was up against my chest staying warm. First step when we got home was a hot bath. She vomited her first few meals but is now flea-free, eating ravenously, and her hair is starting to get every so slightly glossy. Of course both Kitty and Baby hate her, but they'll come around.

Going to try to load pics, but the internet is ssslllllooooowwww today.
Grace and Peace.

Pictures!

I know, I know, I haven't posted any pictures yet. This post will try to remedy that. This is me with my Malawian Host sister (for training) Jessie. Doesn't the grandma in the back sort of look like a vampire though?? :-)



Three of the four quadruplets from my host family. We called them the Children of the Chimanga (corn) because when the other PCVs and I went for walks, they would follow us from different paths, so we would see one, then turn around and see another identical one, and on and on. Creepy but cute.



Learning borehole maintenance at IST.

Itty Bitty Kitty Committee

So I have a cat, which is news because in America I was really allergic to cats. But after several months (and tentative feline encounters) in Malawi, I have come to the conclusion that I am somehow NOT allergic to the cats here. Don’t ask me how that works, I don’t know. But there is just no reaction here.

 Palibe vuto. Pepani.

So after being in Chiwamba for awhile, I started asking around, theoretically of course, about how one might obtain a kitten if one so wished…..you know, in case I develop a rat problem. Not because I’m lonely, no…..not at all J Several weeks went by and I forgot all about it. Then one Sunday coming back from church, I was flagged down by my neighbor, Wilfred.

“Alfred came by your house with a package, but I told him you were gone so he just left it with me.”

This ‘package’ was a 50 kilo grain sack which had been recently used to carry charcoal and was covered inside and out with soot. It appeared empty, but was tied at the top.

Oh yeah, I thought, this is my new baby.

Only it wouldn’t come out of the sack.

After a while I ended up dumping the bag upside down, releasing a plume of soot and one tiny gray, ashy furball, which immediately ran under my bed.

Alfred came over to check on it.

“It’s an azungu cat,” he said. Once it licked itself clean I could see what he meant. Most of the cats here are all black, but this one was mostly white with black spots.

“I picked it out just for you,” he grinned.

After a few hours, the furball let me hold it and it lapped up warm water and bits of dried fish (usipa). It cried when I put it down and slept tucked under my arm that night. I started calling it “she”, because in my mind, all cats are female, and also because it was so small, I honestly couldn’t tell what it was. And I didn’t want one of our first bonding moments to be a thorough anatomical search.

Wilfred came over and dubbed her “the luckiest cat in Malawi” after watching her eat nsima and usipa. I tried to think of a name, but I couldn’t settle on one. I just called her Kitty. This was of course short for her full name of ‘Itty Bitty Kitty Committee’.

For awhile I kept Kitty just inside, but after a month of staggeringly fast growth (she wasn’t Itty Bitty anymore), I grudgingly decided that she should get to know the outdoors. Her first venture outside was thwarted by one of Wilfred’s hens, wandering through my garden. Kitty saw the hen and darted back in under my bed, hyperventilating. It took a couple weeks before she realized that the hens were in fact supposed to be afraid of her, not the other way around.

One thing she always remained afraid of, though, was strangers. Wilfred found it hilarious that she could be rolling around contentedly in the dust one second, but as soon as he appeared, she dashed away.

“Your cat doesn’t like Malawians,” he said.

“That’s impossible, she’s a Malawian cat.”

“I mean she doesn’t like black people,” Wilfred laughed.

Oh goodness, I’m a terrible parent, I thought, I’ve raised a racist cat.

A racist, gender confused cat. Because of course kitty turned out to be male. But I still call it ‘she’. Force of habit.

Itty Bitty Kitty got bigger and bigger until my friends were all making jokes about how for sure I must be fattening her up to eat her. Now instead of bits of usipa, she can eat a whole handful in one sitting. I still cook her nsima, if only so I can truthfully tell people that I DO cook nsima. Wilfred gave me a bag of ufa wa chimanga- homegrown maize flour- to feed her. When that ran out I tried to buy more ufa in the market. As soon as she heard it was for Kitty, the seller just laughed and handed me a bag, no charge.

“That must be the luckiest cat in Malawi,” she said.

Today, after a marathon session of clothes washing, I was relaxing in the house knitting and listening to the BBC. Just like with a toddler, once I realized I hadn’t heard Kitty in a while, I started to worry. I headed outside to find her having cornered a toad by my latrine, thoroughly entertained by the fact that she could make this thing jump just by tapping it with her paw. She wasn’t hurting it, just tap-tap-tapping as it jumped around.

“Good job kitty! You discovered you can hunt! (Sort of).”

I scooped up the toad and moved it out of my yard, releasing it into some bushes. Last week, I had heard people yelling outside my fence, and turned around to see a three foot long orange snake winding toward me from the garden. The people were trying to warn me that it had entered my yard. Kitty was unfazed, and trotted behind it like a sheepdog herding it’s charges. She herded the snake right though out the other side of my yard, though I have a feeling that’s where it was headed anyway. Kitty got extra usipa that night.

Kitty was righteously angry with me for taking away her toy toad, until she saw the dirt beckoning and forgot all about me to take a nice dirt bath. Every night she licks herself clean and snuggles back under my arm. That’s my sweet Kitty.

Bats Bicycles and Bruises

Two weeks ago I decided to start the final assault on my house’s bat population. One of the four rooms has been locked for three months because even after the application of dubious nameless pesticides by my friends, the bats were refusing to leave. I put my bike in that room too, figuring it was the safest place in my house since the door was always locked. (I haven’t exactly been a cycling enthusiast here).

            Every once in a while I would unlock the door just long enough to say, yup, there’s an ever growing pile of bat manure, and it still stinks of bat. Bats have a very pungent smell. I didn’t realize it at the time, but when I moved in, my whole house stank of bat. It smelled bad, but I couldn’t put my finger on why. After lots of cleaning and cooking and living, the house finally just smells like me. But when I open that fourth room, the memory of my empty house floods back. Even the Peace Corps doctor, when I had pneumonia a few months ago, commented on it. After he came out for a site visit, he remembered the smell.

            “Are you airing out your house?” he had asked, when he was starting my IV, “I remember your house had this weird, musty smell…”

            So last week I got a new idea- to fight smell with smell. If the bats liked their acrid, musty smell in that room, then I would change it. First I sprayed some Doom in there. It wouldn’t kill the bats, but it stunk like hell. Then I sprayed a healthy dose of perfume, which made it sticky sweet. I forced open the creaky windows in the afternoons to try to waft in human smell. It started to work! I swept out the droppings every few days so that I could gauge if the amount was decreasing. The first sweep was dreadful. There were two dead bats on the floor, plus one that appeared in the last throes of death, convulsing whenever my (very long) broom touched it. The worst part? My bats have TAILS. Little spiky, inch-long black tails. Yuck.

            This past Saturday I found another stinky weapon. I had bought Cobra floor polish when I moved in, because I had heard that well polished cement floors are easier to keep clean. I polished once or twice that first month, but now I barely even bother to sweep (terribly unsanitary by Malawian standards, I know). Cobra, ostensibly, “Lavender scented”, smells like commercial grade floor wax with a big cheap bottle of perfume mixed in. I smeared it liberally on the bat room floor. It did make the cement shine. And ever since, the bat droppings have decreased from handfuls per day to only a few pellets. Only the room still smells bad. Just Cobra-polish bad rather than bat-bad.

Stay away, you flying rats with radar, stay away.

            Of course I had to take out my bike from the bat room before smearing the floor. And there was something about a brand new bike just sitting there, a little dusty but still shiny, that made me think, maybe I like riding bikes after all? Maybe I have gotten so much more in shape since I moved here that I won’t tucker out ten minutes from home? Oh yes, the bike was beautiful and Malawians ride bikes all the time. In fact, I was probably hindering my integration by NOT riding one.

            I dug through my clothes until I found my tight black capris, and folded my chitenge in half so that all the last vestiges of forbidden thigh were covered. I threw on my helmet and sunglasses and wheeled out the door. The neighbor kids were playing outside, and they squealed in delight to see my bike. I hopped on and wobbled out to the dirt road. My neighbor, Nelly, was out there, chatting on Martha’s stoop. She looked really worried.

            “Mukupita kuti??”- Where are you going?

            “Sindikudziwa!” –I don’t know!

            I rode past the Primary School in the direction out of town that I rarely took. In fact I had never been far this way except by car. I was surprised to see how quickly the landscape changed back to ‘rural village’. The trading centre where I had been doing most of my work really was a tiny oasis of development. I started huffing and puffing pretty hard. I was messing around with the gears but no matter what I did, pedaling seemed to get harder and harder. I had to stop several times, to the utter delight of the dozens of kids who had started running along side me. One of the times I stopped, I took off my sunglasses and tucked them into my chitenge. Of course as soon I started riding again, I heard a crunch, and looked back to see my sunglasses, which had managed to survive five months in Malawi, in three pieces. The lenses were ok though. I looked out at the kids and saw a girl, about five, who had a lazy eye. It was really profound- one eye looking straight ahead and the other gazing out sideways into the bush. I called her to come towards me but she freaked out and hid behind another girl. It took several minutes to get her to trust me, and I handed her the glasses. An older kid grabbed them out of her hand and I grabbed them back. I pointed at her.

            “Basi,” -only her.

            I got back on my bike and huffed and puffed for another 100 meters. The kids were keeping up now just by walking. Other bikes whizzed past. 

            That’s when I noticed that my tires were flat.

            Because of course they were.

            I turned around and tried to coast on the slight incline back into the trading centre. The bike wouldn’t even coast. The kids trotted along side me, lazy eye girl holding the glasses to her face, as I huffed and puffed to go downhill. Ten minutes later I was headed past my neighbor again. She stared at me, looking more worried than before. In the middle of the trading center is the bicycle repair district. There are two main shops equipped with pumps, scrap metal bits, homemade (literally) welders, and LOTS of men just standing around. Fortunately I was still going downhill, so I did my best to roll off the dirt road over onto the dusty space in front of one of the shops. These guys had never seen me on a bike before, and I was definitely the center of attention. There was a wide ditch between the road and the repair booth, and I barely made it up the far side when I put my feet down to dismount. But I was still on a slope, and my right foot didn’t make contact with the ground. I tipped over to the right, and rolled back down the ditch, bike over body.

            Lovely, I thought, as my indecently-covered legs splayed out in an involuntary cartwheel.

            I hopped up again as quickly as I could, and wanted to say something like TAA DAA! But I didn’t know the Chichewa words for that. So I just smiled like a dope, covered from head to toe in dust, in front of the completely silent mass of men. I picked up my bike and wheeled it over to the guy with the pump, pointing to my flat tires. He pointed at my elbow, which had gotten scraped up and was bleeding. I shrugged.

            “Palibe vuto. Zoona.”- it’s no problem. Really.

            He looked at my tire and said he didn’t have the right pump. Check the shop next door. So with all the eyes silently following me, I wheeled over ten feet to the other shop and presented my tires. A three-man team, including a young bike repair apprentice, was soon fixing my tires. The head guy asked, in skeptical, halting English,

            “Who was it that taught you how to ride a bike?”

            “Oh,” my mind was blank, “um, I think I learned in school.”

            “Oh. Ok.”

            My tires were full again and I asked what I owed him. He laughed and said no charge. So I hopped back on and thoroughly enjoyed the 50 meter ride back to my house, passing my neighbor for the third time, this time dusty, sweaty and bloody. Riding suddenly took a lot less effort. I thought about heading back out on the open trail, but the prospect of hot tea at home suddenly seemed a lot more inviting.

            I decided to lock the door again to the bat room, to concentrate the smell of the floor wax. And for good measure I locked my bike away again too.  

Manure Hunting

It’s starting to feel like the logo for Peace Corps Malawi should be something like: ‘Homesteading on a Shoestring’, or ‘Little House on the Savannah- the Next Generation’. Although the work of community health assessment continues, my attempts to turn my dusty, scorched-earth yard into an African Eden (or at least more green than brown) are intensifying.

            When I arrived in Chiwamba, it wasn’t yet the season for harvesting the grass reeds used for fences, so the health center staff used cardboard to create a little courtyard for my privacy. But then it became grass season, and I was ready to do some full on landscaping.

            I got out my khasu (like a short hoe) and started hacking at the ground, not really accomplishing anything. I built a rickety hand-washing station and a dish drying rack that had to lean against my house (and still fell over sometimes).

            “What am I missing?” I asked Chancy, my counterpart.

            “You have to wet the ground first, it’s too dry.”

            I tried to dig a rubbish pit, pouring my used dishwater in the hole each night to soften the earth. And it worked, to an extent. But not well enough to dig garden beds.

I was in Lilongwe that week and asked a veteran PCV there.

“Get a pick-axe,” he said, “the heavier the better.”

I found a nice huge pick-axe in town and had a lot of fun getting it back to my village. Hitchhiking was a no go- I looked like the grim reaper in a Chitenge. But even the axe couldn’t break the earth without first soaking it.

I needed a TON of water, and I couldn’t carry it all myself.

            After mapping out where I wanted my garden to be, I headed to the health center and talked to the guardians. These are women who travel with pregnant relatives who live far away. They come to the health center three weeks before the due date and sort of camp in an outbuilding, waiting to go into labor. The guardians take care of them before and after the birth.

            I hired two women to carry water from the borehole and soak the area that I wanted to plant. They were a little perplexed as to why I was planting during the dry season, but they were glad for the job. Then I took my pick-axe and khasu and hacked away at the earth until I got blisters. My night watchman, Botoman, found me covered in sweat and dirt. The beds were still only a few inches deep and my hands were bleeding.

            “What are you doing?” He asked in his baritone voice.

            “I want a dimba,” I said ”I want to grow my own tomatoes and onions.”

            He shook his head and made a tsk tsk sound, then took my axe and hoe. We made a deal that he would dig that night for some extra money. His wife is pregnant, so odd jobs are welcome. I heard the whack, whack of the pick-axe all night, but in the morning, there were my three garden beds, each a meter deep.

            “Great job, Botoman- they look like empty graves!” He smiled.

            That week the fence was also expanded, with the cardboard taken down and replaced by tall, dry grass. It enclosed my empty garden perfectly, shading it on three sides. Following one of the books on tropical vegetable gardening provided by the Peace Corps, I started filling the beds with organic rubbish, one at a time. Lots of leaves, paper, fruit peels and eggshells went into the pit. THEN the fun started. Once the rubbish was a few inches deep in the pit, I started going manure hunting.

            I began in the maize field between my house and the borehole. It belongs to the headmaster of the local primary school. I had him and his wife over for dinner and when I told them about my plans, they gave me permission to gather cow manure from the empty field. So every afternoon, when I ran out of other things to do, I took a bucket and trowel and went out gathering cow dung. It was pretty slow work, but after a few days, a woman on her way to the borehole took me to her house, where there were eight cows. I met the family and they said to take as much manure as I wanted. I carried six buckets back on my head that night, until the hole was filled with several inches of dung, and the rubbish was no longer visible. Then I mixed the soil that had been removed, and replaced it in the pit, topping it off with several inches of mulch. Every evening I wet the mulch, and now after a week and a half, the bottom layer has begun to rot. Soon it will be ready for planting.

            Now my rubbish is going into bed number two. And after all the careful observation of how the fencemakers plied the ground to make sturdy fenceposts, I tore down my rickety hand-washing station and dish drying rack and made new, firmly planted ones. I started a nursery beneath my hand-washing station, germinating cucumber and tomato seeds. Every time I wash my hands, the water drips on the nursery, conserving every drop.

            As much as I appreciate my neighbor with the cows, I don’t want to wear out my welcome. Plus I really enjoy the afternoon walks, exploring new trails, searching for dried poo. I discovered a really nice field behind the primary school where cattle had obviously been grazing recently. I can’t go near the school during classes, because seeing an Azungu stirs the kids into a frenzy, but there was still a teacher’s meeting going on. One of them leaned out the window.

            “Eliza, what is it that you are looking for?”

            “Ndikufuna manure! Ndidzkhala dimba!” I yelled back.

            “Oh.”

            A few seconds later I heard the room full of teachers roaring with laughter.

During training an experienced PVC told us that we will inevitably do so many culturally strange things during the first few months at site, that the people who are going to think we are nuts will probably come to that conclusion no matter what.

I take that as consolation when I am surprised by someone overhearing me talking to the manure, saying things like, “oh, you’re a nice big plop, yes you are! Hold on maggots, this is MY cow pie now!”

After a few days of this “wild” hunting, another neighbor saw me and led me to his pig farm, and said I could have two bucketfuls of pig poop. I was so excited that my Malawian pastor overheard me from the nearby trail. He helped me carry the manure home and looked intently at the garden beds.

“This is totally different,” he said “I think I may have to try this.”

I lent him a book on permaculture in Chichewa and went back out hunting.

Today the manure in bed two is basi- enough. I will go out and fill in the bed with soil, cover it with mulch, and start tossing rubbish in bed three. When all the beds are filled, I will make a proper compost pit and start planning the magnificent herb garden I have envisioned for the other side of my house. In the meantime, word is spreading about my garden. Nearly every day I get a shy visitor who wants to look at my different way of preparing the soil. I guess the proof will be in the vegetables, though.

Today, as I look out at my no longer scorched-earth yard, I am thinking- “How hard could it be to raise chickens???"

Elizabeth goes on Med Hold

So in the two and a half weeks since I arrived at my site in Chiwamba, I have been sick all but about five days. It started as a cold, which morphed into a coughy- tight- chest thing. Being sick is no fun when you have to draw your own water and cook over fire- no spending the whole day in bed! Plus it was frustrating to finally be somewhere where I could actually do something and instead feel too weak :-(
After starting on some antibiotics last week, I felt better for long enough to walk out to some of the nearby villages where the HSA's were doing child nutrition campaigns. I helped measure children to screen for malnutrition while the HSA's gave out vitamin A and mebendazole for worms. We were able to identify several malnourished children who were then referred back to the Health Centre for supplemental feeding. After about three days of this, though, I started feeling crummy again. Two nights ago I had a fever and called the doc bac, who had me come into Lilongwe first thing yesterday morning.
I hitched out from my village to the main road with some missionaries (thank you!!!) and rode in the back of a truck into town (not fun- we were stopped at a police checkpoint for almost an hour...). The doc found me lying on the steps outside the clinic, out of breath. Some new meds and a bit of IV fluids later, I felt a little better. I told the doc that I hadn't eaten in two days and he took me out for a milkshake!!
So I will be in Lilongwe for a few days until I am fully recovered.
And then....hopefully....starting actual work in Chiwamba...