So the fact that I haven’t been writing so frequently should be taken as an indication that I’ve been keeping very busy at work! I go through phases… on days where my back hurts too bad, I don’t work on books so I have plenty of time to write blog updates and emails. But then I take advantage of days where I’m feeling good – and luckily that’s been the case for the last couple of weeks! So I’ve been on a book spree of late. Cataloging and labeling books for hours on end, stopping only for lunch and the end of the day. I love it although days do usually end up being pretty quiet. Again, fine with me! And it’s great to see more and more rows of numbered books. I’m so ready to finish them so that I can paint the book shelves and reorganize them all. It’ll be a beautiful thing once it’s done!

There was a pretty sizable scandal on Chaminade’s campus a couple of weeks ago that has of course dominated much of the gossip since then. I found it to be very interesting in that while the man followed the norm here…. the woman certainly did not! Go her! Anyways, one of the teachers – married, old, and with children spanning the age of 4 to 16 (aka damn lucky that he found a young woman to manage his household) – has apparently been sleeping around with one of the female support staff members as well as one of his students (high school aged). Again, this unfortunately is not such a surprise here. From talking to Banda, it seems that he’s heard stories about 90% of the teachers having affairs with students and community members. And those are just the ones he’s heard about! Sad but true. Well the teacher’s madame (wife) found out and whoa geez look out. She followed him to campus and started hitting him and screaming accusations at him in front of his coworkers and students. Now I’m not a supporter of violence or public scenes, but I am proud of her for standing up to him. They tried to force her into counseling with him, with the end goal being their reunion. She went for 2 days and then packed up her things and left him. I was very impressed that she did not just roll over and take it, like so many of the other women here either choose or are forced to do because of economic dependence. The crappy thing is that she had to leave her children behind. Which is even worse considering that he isn’t even the one to take care of them. In general, fathers here aren’t particularly involved. But at least the kids usually adore them still – there are a few on campus where anytime their father is around, the kid is practically superglued to his legs. The children of this teacher basically ignore him. So hmmm. Anyways, that’s depressing that she had to leave them behind. And my anger at this injustice increased as I was passing his house a week later and saw an old lady outside sweeping. So basically, he’s still not taking care of the kids but instead had an old relative come to do all of the work.

I got a WONDERFUL phone call from Molly, Kat, and Ily a couple of weekends ago! So good to hear their voices and hear all of their updates! I was a little jealous that they were all together and going to the zoo :) But it was so sweet of them to think to call me and definitely the highlight of my weekend!

One of the teachers – Glory (Hotel & Catering instructor) – had a baby a couple of weeks ago! I didn’t even know she was pregnant lol. I guess I’m still on the outside of the gossip loop because no one ever talked about it around me. Or at least not in English. But anyways, I kept meaning to go visit her, but I never had a chance to go to town to buy her a baby present, so I kept delaying. Finally Glory brought her to MIRACLE so I got to see the baby who is just too cute! Priscilla. Had a fun time holding and playing with her while Glory did some work. We’re gonna be buds.

House update: The concrete floors are finished. The only thing left to do in the actual house is attach the window shutters and doors and install the toilet and sink. However, we also need to do the pit latrine and the septic tank, which is what is slowing everything down. And getting the water and electrical hooked up. Signed up for water but they said they don’t have the equipment so we should check back in a couple of weeks. Went yesterday to do electrical and they didn’t have the paperwork… and they said to come back in 1 week. Lord only knows why it takes a full week to photocopy some forms. So you can get an idea of how slow everything is going…. Also, I finally fired Cosmas, our crap builder who was stealing cement and lying every chance he got. I told him 4 weeks ago to come get the money for the cement so we could finish the pit latrine. It took him 3 weeks to come – despite frequent calls on my part – because he’d gone and gotten another job. I can guarantee you that if he hadn’t already been paid in full, my job would have been done within the first 4 days. But he finally came to get the cement money so I thought we were good to go. But then he told me that it’d be another week because he could start because he had to go to a funeral. Lie. Others had told me they’d seen him working at another job that very morning. Really I was just so sick of his lies, so I decided my sanity is worth far more than the $30 it would take to hire someone else to finish the job. I also got to give him a piece of my mind, although of course that meant nothing to him as he just kept insisting that I was wrong. Whatevs. Despite being rationally justified for laying out all of my problems with him, I still felt terrible afterwards for speaking to another human being like that. Ended up crying for a while but Banda was great, telling me over and over again that I had no reason to feel guilty as everything I said was true and that Cosmas needed to hear it and understand that impact he’d had on my life. Didn’t feel better though until Banda randomly picked out a movie for us to watch. And chose… The Rocky Horror Picture Show. I cannot think of anything better for my mood to watch at that point. Had a wonderful time singing along and laughing at Banda’s reactions to the scandal!

Banda was on a roll for picking out movies because the next night, he turns to me and says “What’s Grease about?” His favorite part? When Danny tries to find a sport to join. He rewound it to watch again and laughed hysterically throughout. He also enjoyed the dance scenes since the popular style of dancing here in Malawi is so different!

I had a very interesting hour-long talk with Mr. Singuini about the political and economic situation in Malawi. For those who do not regularly read Malawian news :) for the first time in 47 years of independence, Malawi is attempting to exist without foreign aid. This is huge, since 40% of their budget last year was in fact made up of such foreign aid. 40%!!! The reason for this change is not some patriotic, “let’s do it on our own” mentality. But instead, the president has pissed off the western world with his recent actions that are not so democratic. So they’ve frozen their support. And he (dilusionally?) thinks that Malawi can just say “F you” and do it on their own. Now, I’d LOVE to see a truly independent Malawi. One that can support itself and thrive and foster a population that is self-sufficient rather than one which is constantly expecting a handout. But realistically, I just don’t see that happening. Because the last 47 years of aid have been wasted and has just “disappeared” into the pockets of the government. So there is hardly anything to show for it. If there had been advances in infrastructure and resource garnering and education and higher education and economic initiatives, then sure, I’d be all with the President in his attempt to make it alone. But there’s not. So where are they going to get the necessary money? Instead, they’re raising the income tax to 46%. Read that again – 46%!!! So basically everything that anyone makes, they’ll lose half of it. And this is a flat rate. So as much as it bothers me as someone who makes a decent wage, it will absolutely cripple the poor, who need every tambala (cent) they earn to pay for the basic necessities. Also, I have a sneaking suspicion that those individuals who do actually make enough to in turn invest those earnings in building up this country, will leave. Why would they want to give up half of their earnings? It’d be different if they’d be getting a lot back, like in the European countries where taxes are high but so are expectations of services. But here it will be the same services (if we’re lucky) but more likely much worse as the government scrounges for money. So there goes any other chance of building the country from within. PLUS they’re raising the taxes that foreign business owners have to pay. Goodbye foreign investors. Oh and the prices of food stuffs will also increase with that same tax. Soooo I really don’t know what’s going to happen to Malawi within the next few years. According to scientific reports, there have been advances in food supplies and supposed standard of living (although that’s hard to see on a local level) made in the last few years… but my worry is that that’s going to come to a screeching halt and then slowly begin to backslide. What happens when the government runs short of money? There’s no one to borrow from. Which civil servants are going to be the first to not receive their pay checks? Teachers. And then it’s only a matter of time before they go on strike and you have thousands of high school students just wandering around. T-R-O-U-B-L-E. And then there’s no money for medicine in the hospitals (even with the aid, there was never enough – people would have to go buy it from the private clinics). And then what if there’s not enough to pay the army and police? Oi. So anyways, I know this sounds all doom and gloom, but it’s not unrealistic to wonder about such a progression of events. I’m hoping against all hope that Malawi somehow manages to pull through and that this is a wonderful success. But my realistic side is skeptical. We’ll see.

I started my “English lessons” with Ms. Kim last week. I was VERY nervous since I’ve never taught English before (my class is more of a communications class). But it turned out to be AWESOME! She basically just wants me to chat with her and correct her when she makes mistakes. Because she says Malawians are too nice and won’t correct her so she’ll never learn proper English. So we went on a walk the first day and I got to hear even more stories about her life, which I love because she’s just fabulous! The next lesson we spent writing an email for her. I could see my value then since she was having a difficult time with getting all of the grammar down. I don’t blame her – there were a couple of times where I even had to think about it! Oh English. But yes, those 2 days a week are clearly going to be bright spots in my already lovely life.

Sad news. Brother Beams is leaving Malawi. He’s getting transferred to Nairobi at the end of the month. I’m so devastated about it that I can’t even think on it. Every time it pops into my head I have to push it away because my throat starts choaking up. Like right now. I love and respect that man so much, I can’t imagine not having him around.

On Saturday, instead of doing our grocery shopping, we spent 1 hour at the post office. That’s right, 1 hour. Sigh. Not even waiting in line. We were being “helped” the whole time. I wanted to send some letters to Molly and also had a small package of stuff for Chris. Well it took about 30 minutes for the lady to figure out how to duct tape the package closed. She had to call over her co-worker to help her. It was all I could do not to rip it out of her hand and do it myself. But I stayed calm and just enjoyed chatting with Banda and Peter Daino who also happened to be there. But then came the real doozy. I asked the lady to check if there were any packages for myself or for Laura. We only said “Laura” because I’ve said “Aldrich” before and that is just too much for them to handle. And I even had Banda say it so that the accent wouldn’t be an additional confusion. So she goes back there and says there’s nothing, only a box for Kat! I’m excited by this and explain to her that we stayed together so I can take it. She makes me show her my passport. Who knows why? But I have noticed that she stopped halfway down the shelf, so she didn’t read all of the names. And I can clearly see 2 boxes from the US postal service sitting on that shelf. How many other Americans are in Karonga?!? Peter had already picked up his box and I doubt there are too many others. It was worth a shot. PLUS the box from Kat had arrived at the post office in JULY of 2010!! 10 months ago! So yes, I think I have a right to be skeptical about their checking of names. Well she was all pissy so she carried an armful out and started waving them one by one in my face saying “See? Not for you!” I wanted to pop her in the face for being a smartass because I asked her to actually do her job for once. But sweet vindication. On the fourth package, well what do ya know?! A package for Laura! She tried to backpedal and say that she needed the last name. Don’t even try lady, that package had been sitting there for months throughout multiple checks where I did tell you the last name and you still failed to find it. So after this she was ready to be done. But she still hadn’t cleared the shelf so I asked her again to finish. Would you believe that she still copped an attitude even after being proven wrong about Laura’s package?! Well she did. And I was justified again as she pulled out a box from my mom that had been there for a month. So despite all of the fighting that had to go into it, I was content as I staggered away from the post office with 3 boxes full of goodies! Banda was proud of me. He refers to it as “Alyson vs. the Post Office Lady.” It was like a replay of “Laura vs. the Nurses.”

We had a holiday on Monday so we had to go back to town to finish the shopping that we never got to do thanks to the Post Office fiasco. Spent the rest of the day sleeping and watching Nigerian movies. Although made some awesome homemade Macaroni and Cheese courtesy of the Velveeta sent in one of the care packages :)

While in town, Banda and I picked out rings because we’re going to get our marriage certificate sometime this month. I want Beams to be the witness since he won’t be here for the actual church ceremony, plus it’ll be good to have it already done when Banda goes to get his visa for the US. And if Banda gets a work transfer order, he might be able to swing a “follow the wife” so that he can stay at Chaminade and I can stay at MIRACLE. Anyways, it just makes practical sense and since we already see ourselves as married, there’s no reason not to get that slip of paper. So we picked out rings. Let’s just say there’s not a large supply here. My ring? 50 kwacha. Which is about 33 cents. And I’ll tell you what. I look at it just as often as I would a huge diamond ring. Because it’s about what it means. I think of Banda and our relationship when I see it. Diamond or no diamond. It means just as much to me. Who needs something that costs 3 months salary? Banda is still trying to get used to wearing a ring since he’s never worn any jewelry before. It’s kind of adorable to look over and see him fiddling with it trying to get comfortable. :) Plus he has really big knuckles and small fingers, so it’s loose once on but he has to struggle to get it off. I told him that one day, he’ll gain weight and it’ll get stuck permanently, so we’ll have to cut his finger off to remove it. Priceless look of fear flooding his face. :)

End note: In rereading this and other blogs I’ve realized that they often seem fairly irritated and that life here is a struggle. It’s really not. I just write about those things because they are vastly different from life in the States and I feel like those differences are more interesting to read about then daily happenings. But rest assured, life here is still wonderful. I love work as I make my way through the library. I still love that life moves slowly here. I am feeling great healthwise (minus the ever-present back which I’ve learned to manage). I love living with Banda. The students still make me grin as do the kiddos that hang around. Life is good. Some days I really do want to go home to the US. So much that it hurts. I hate that I'm missing out on weddings and vacations and big things in people's lives. And the small things too. I miss having a comfortable life where I can relax for hours rather than having to do dishes and cooking and such. But I came to realize that I only feel sick about it when I focus on that desire. When I just let it go and just live in the moment of Malawi, I'm completely fine and I love my life. So I'm going to work on maintaining that positivism as much as possible. Because yes someday I will end up back in the US and then you know what? I'll be missing Malawi. It's just how it goes. So I'm going to enjoy it while I have the opportunity to be here!