Sorry for the gap – nothing truly exciting has happened. Just a lot of work and hanging out with friends.

So I thought I’d take a different approach to today’s blog – not so much activities, but instead things that I’ve learned over the past couple of weeks (sorry for the cheesy undertones lol).

1. If I ignore the fear that I look like an idiot, I am in fact able to complete some tasks like a Malawian woman. We had a huge market day one weekend which culminated in my carrying a ridiculously heavy sack of maize (corn) on my head through the market. I always used to shy away from doing this because I just feel like a huge poser and a bozo to boot but it really is so much easier than carrying it in your arms. Especially because this bag was so heavy I never would have been able to lift it, much less walk across town. So Banda hefted it up onto my head and I tottered off, to the screams of “Ndalama mama!” Because that’s right, I was so caught up in balancing that I forgot to pay for the maize. Whoops. Sorted that out and then made my way to the truck, ignoring the cat calls and focusing on my sense of accomplishment when Banda told me I’d been “Malawianized.” Also washed some laundry by hand (we usually hire Madame Secretary to do this painful task) and I have been doing an inordinate amount of cooking lately. But it’s all fine since it makes me proud of my self-sufficiency. I may be slow and weak in comparison but I’m not nearly as inept as most Malawians assume. I get it done. I may have sore shoulders and bleeding knuckles but I do it. And that feeling of success definitely balances out the extra effort and hours of work that would have been done in minutes in America.

2. Sometimes it’s just nice to go out with fellow Westerners. Now I love my Malawian family, don’t get me wrong. I’d happily spend hours at a time with them. A lot of foreigners who I’ve met here have complained that the level of conversation with Malawians is generally lacking . But I don’t agree – I’ve had more gems pop up with them than I ever had with fellow foreigners here. Maybe I’m just weird and consider different things to be interesting. And sure, it doesn’t happen every time but when it does, oh how wonderful it is. But it was still lovely to share dinner with Jim and Robyn (our American and Australian uncle and auntie here – they’re great about looking out for us!) and their friend Duncan, who is a Canadian (our age) who is working as a water engineer here. They took us to Beach Chamber, my first time there since it’s very expensive. Had great chicken and rice – pretty sure I ate half a chicken – and enjoyed the beautiful view combined with interesting conversations about topics that took me back to America.

3. Building a house makes me tired… and we haven’t even started yet! Trying to figure out all of the land stuff and finding builders and making a budget and creating floor plans…. Oi. Hours of decision making. Makes me tired. But it’s coming together and I’m trying to tell myself “one step at a time.” And that if it goes a bit over budget, it’s not the end of the world, because way over budget here is a few hundred dollars which wouldn’t be catastrophic. To update though I’m going to buy the chief’s land. It did turn out to be more expensive than I wanted to spend, but since it’s right next to the school, it’s going to win out.

4. There’s nothing more beautiful than a child’s sheer joy. I was squeezed in the back of a pickup truck, folded up on the floor with Banda’s knees in my face, worrying that Muwona, the 4-year old perched on his lap, would either kick me in the mouth or shower me with the tray of eggs that she was clutching. Not the most pleasant of rides but somehow I was still enjoying myself. Especially when I turned to my left and saw Muche, Muwona’s twin. Now, I don’t think small children get to go into town very often. I imagine it’s kinda a big adventure. Especially when they come out of the deal with lollipops and a new haircut. On the drive home, I turned around and there was Muche sitting next to me, face flush to the wind, eyes barely squinted open from how fast the truck was going, with a huge goofy-looking grin on his face. True bliss. Especially as a giggle escaped every so often. He was loving it. And meanwhile I (and all of the other adults) had been ducking my head in an attempt to avoid the whipping wind. Made me belly laugh and then tear up from the beauty of it seeing such joy.

5. I’m pretty over living alone. Laura went to Nkhata Bay for a vacation but I couldn’t go because of work. Plus I spent way too much money there last time so I just can’t afford it. So I was staying here all alone for 5 days…. Something that I was actually excited for since I loved having my own place during college and have missed it since. But on Friday after work I realized that I just didn’t want to go home to an empty house. Maybe it was because I was angry (felt justifiably wronged at work) and knew that anger could quickly turn to being upset and crying… but I also kind of think I just wanted some interaction. So I traipsed around campus, failing to find the usual boys. So I perched out on the boys’ porch until they came home, talked to people for a few minutes and then was totally fine to go home alone. And I’ve been fine all of the other days – just always a touch bored and lonely. Especially when the power goes out so I can’t watch a movie or cook. So that will be interesting once Laura goes back to Texas – I think I’ll have to get into a routine of going to sit around at Chaminade for awhile to have some social time before heading home to my empty house.

6. I am indeed afraid of the dark. I always suspected this. A recent night proved it. The power went out for several hours so my computer eventually died too, leaving me with a candle in the middle of a huge empty house. Would’ve been fine with Laura there but alone, no ma’am. Even a dead-bolted door didn’t make me feel any better. Which is weird because I’ve never felt threatened here in Karonga. Ever. I feel safer here than in Texas. But the dark changes all of that. Too many creepy noises and possibilities.

7. How much it frustrates me that most Malawians are so passive. One of the most common phrases on hears here is “oh it’s part of life.” Basically, “it happens, move on.” Now sometimes this is comforting in its reminder that there’s no point in whining about the little stuff. But sometimes it’s just entirely unsettling. Case and point: Your newborn baby dies? It’s part of life. Someone steals your family’s land? She’ll accept it and hold no grudge. Your pay gets slashed without reason? It happens; you can’t challenge management. Yes, some things cannot be changed. Like the first instance. But the others – and most of the things here that get that blasé response – can and should be challenged. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve thought “Damn it, stand up for yourself. Stop letting people walk all over you. This passiveness is part of the problem!”

8. I do think the universe watches out for us. Water only comes to our house about once a week for roughly 3 hours, usually in the middle of the night. So this means that in the interim we survive on basins and buckets of water. We have a huge one in particular that we fill and use for everything from drinking to washing clothes to bathing to flushing the toilet. We’re pretty comfortable until that water gets to about 6 inches deep and there’s no sign of coming water. Start to get a little antsy and begin dreading the day when we have to lug buckets of water across campus, stop showering, and use the pit latrine. And yet it always seems like water comes just in time. I was thinking that at work yesterday because we were at the bottom of our barrel again, but I also said to myself “oh don’t be silly. It’s just a lucky coincidence.” And then I got home. And after a week-long absence, the water had started coming an hour before. Thank you, Universe.

9. How to make tortillas. And hot chocolate. I’ve been on a bit of a cooking spree lately. Becoming more experimental as we’re growing weary of the same meals all the time. Well kind of – I’m still willing to eat spaghetti every other day, just as Laura is willing to eat pottage (a kind of bean stew with potatoes) for breakfast, lunch and dinner. But anyways, I wanted to make quesadillas one night – and tacos and egg rolls and samosas eventually – so I needed to figure out how to make tortillas. Thank you Google. Found a recipe and it was a smashing success. They’re a bit firmer than grocery store tortillas but they taste good and look legit. So proud of myself. Also, figured out how to make hot chocolate starting from cocoa. Will probably go into diabetic shock one day from the amount of sugar I add to it, but such is life. It’s been cold here lately so it’s nice to curl up on the couch with a blanket and some hot chocolate – a dream to be remembered in a couple of months when it’s 120 degrees!

10. It really just sucks to be an outsider sometimes. I had a handful of sad moments last year when realizing that regardless of how long I stay here, I’ll always be an outsider looking in. But they were always just moments of “hmm that’s a shame” – never really enough to break me down because they were always in light of something beautiful about Malawi (like the women’s communities here). But this week I had a huge moment of “I will never belong here no matter how hard I try.” We had a meeting negotiating a salary change (important for me to know what’s going on!!) and despite my asking several times that they use English (which they are all fluent in and fully capable of using), they kept ignoring me and switching to vernacular. The only times they would use English is when they were telling me to do something for them. Or when deciding that I wasn’t part of the community as they created a schedule for the women on campus to go visit an injured teacher’s wife in the hospital. All along with a dismissive attitude of my being a huge inconvenience to them. Now this really hurt me. I’ve given up a whole heck of a lot to move myself here and try to make a life with them as my closest friends. So to be ignored and dismissed was pretty awful. And realizing that I can try to learn Chitumbuka all I want, but it’s so difficult I’ll likely never be fluent enough to really understand. Plus they’ve gotten mean in their vernacular usage lately. I’ve spent months at lunches, breaks, meetings, and casual chatting, not understanding. And I’m totally fine with that. I have no problem just sitting peacefully while they talk amongst themselves. It actually makes me smile. But lately they’ve taken to mocking us to our faces, refusing to tell us what’s going on, and then laughing hysterically at our incomprehension. I’m not okay with the meanness of it. So all of this was only fueling the problem of the meeting. It ended up with me leaving campus because there is nowhere private there to cry. The toilet – my usual hideout – was closed since we had no water. So I spent an hour sobbing in Banda’s room – his poor roommates must think I’m crazy. No resolution of course, but it helped to cry to someone who does actually understand my frustrations. I’ve since taken a more indifferent stance. I’ll do my best to learn all of the Chitumbuka that I can and that’s all I can do. They’ve had American people working here for 10 years – if they haven’t changed to be more inclusive by now, they’re not going to and there’s no point in my getting worked up about it.

11. Being sick really sucks when you’re away from home. Already knew this one of course. But I’ve been sick for 6 days, feeling alternately like an elephant is on my chest, feeling like my head is going to explode, having a nose that’s running all over the place, and a cough that is so violent it makes me retch.

12. So while it does suck to be an outsider, there are some undeniable perks to being a foreigner in Malawi. Near the top of that list is medical care. The hospital here is awful. It’s free which is great but there is also only one doctor and the nurses are horribly understaffed and overworked. Waiting times stretch into hours. And then you end up in a huge room with 30 of your closest friends, all of you sick with different things. I’d imagine it’s a miracle that you don’t catch something else while you’re there. But I have to say “imagine” because I don’t really know. My skin affords me better treatment. We’ve tried to refuse and push others in front of us who were waiting longer, but that rarely works. We see the doctor fairly quickly – within the hour tops – and for severe cases, we’ve all gotten private rooms. And if I don’t want to deal with the hospital, I don’t really have to. I can choose instead to go to the private clinic in town because I can afford the $5 fee for both doctor visit and medication… something that unfortunately most of my neighbors cannot. In fact, I experienced a combined advantage with this current bout of illness. Banda was going to take me to the hospital but at the last minute had to cover classes for an absent teacher. I didn’t want to go to the hospital alone. So Paul dropped me at the clinic, warning that if I wasn’t done in 30 minutes, I would have to bike taxi and walk home – roughly a 1 hour journey. Not really something that my sick self wanted to do. So when the receptionist walked me past all of the waiting women, I let it happen. I could say that it happened so fast, I didn’t really know what was happening. I could say that it’s okay to accept the one advantage per month when we are deluged by disadvantages at least 10 times per day. But let’s be honest. I simply didn’t want to walk home. I’m not proud to admit it. I hate when foreigners blindly reap all of the benefits while bitching loudly about the pitfalls. Or even worse, gallivanting through a foreign country without realizing that the only reason they’re living the good life is because of the elevated conditions their skin affords them. I like to think I don’t do that often. That I take the bad with the good and try to walk softly and in community. And yet, here I was passing up ladies with sick babies. I was out of that place in 20 minutes flat and home in bed in under an hour. But days later I still feel guilty.

13. They do celebrate Valentine’s Day here. Who said it was just a Hallmark holiday?! Lol Just kidding, it still makes me nauseous. The nice thing is that I got signed up for some promotion from the phone company where I got 100 free text messages in honor of Valentine’s Day…. not gonna lie, I’m probably most excited about that lol. It did actually end up being a nice day. Much more laid-back and simple than it is in America, so I appreciated that. I was going to make a special dessert that Banda loves but Vitu showed up at my door so that plan went out the window. Ended up sitting outside of the Open School chatting with students until the Vitu-Whisperer was done with class. Once Banda was done, we walked Vitu home but his parents weren’t there so we took him along to Gondwe’s where we had some minerals. Vitu got his very own bottle lol and finished it before the two adults! Dropped him off on the way home and then continued on to cook dinner – spaghetti with fried eggs. So weird. But apparently his mom used to make it all the time for him. He had to teach me how to do the eggs because they’re not our fried eggs. They heat up A LOT of oil and then pour the broken eggs into the oil. So it basically soaks up the oil and gets all puffy. Bizarre. And totally disgusting when you think about the oil. But they tasted ok. And to appease him, I tried it with the spaghetti and sauce. Not too bad. Watched “When Harry Met Sally” during dinner and then walked over to watch the Chelsea football game. Fell asleep in the staff room (of course) so that was pretty much my night. Loved that it involved hanging out with friends just as much as it did with each other. My kinda Valentine’s Day.