No, I am not a tourist. I speak ChiTumbucka b@#$H !

The last blog, as long and painful as it was was cut short due to time constraints and my dwindling funds in the high speed internet cafe. Having a blog is so hipster it makes me want to cry  but wow are they handy! I get to offload my thoughts, complaints, observations and realisations while keeping friends and family in the loop, sure isn’t it fab! Despite these essays, I still manage to have so much to say when I get one of those rare phonecalls from home. Mom mostly reminds me to ‘look after yourself’ to not ‘put your safety at risk’ and ‘for god’s sake would you remember to take your malarone!!’ (for the record I always remember...eventually). All you sound mots who’ve thrown me a skype call (gone to my house and called me from there – you know who you are :D) have given me so much to be happy about: I have an abundance of support, my friends are proud of me and want to hear all about this adventure, always reminding me that I need to appreciate and use every minute of the precious time I have here because it’s such an exciting adventure that I won’t ever forget. Homesickness now is for those little things that you can’t help but pine for...drinking tea and watching Adventure Time with Derek, eating cereal and soya milk whenever I want (found soya in Mzuzu a while back but due to lack of refrigeration I’m saving it for a really tough couple of days!). Just being able to give my mom a hug or walking up to Lidl (I just can’t get over that I live so close to this magical place where you can get just about Anything – not only oil, soya pieces, biscuits and lollipops). Never again will I go to the fridge and say ‘there’s no food in the house’ because by God from now on I will find Something to eat Somehow. I can see the beautiful, glorious fridge now, the heart of the kitchen and that wonderful, magnificent ice machine. Wait, WHY do we have an ice machine?!? We live in IRELAND. (side note: Ask mom to send ice machine and solar charger for said machine). Never again will I moan at Dad to buy fruit (“if there’s no fruit in the house I’ll eat chocolate and get fat – do you want that to happen Dad!??) because as long as there are apples; red, green, yellow, brown; I will be happy! Oh apples, I miss you so. To be fair, I’ve found apples in Mzuzu but the flat fee is 150 kwacha (about 30c) – expensive for Malawi when bananas cost less than a cent each.    Continuing this food rant...(Emma and I have concluded that food and weather determine everything, EVERYTHING) the Malawian Cuisine has really grown on me! I’m pretty lucky that meat doesn’t play a huge part in the diet here, it’s too expensive to eat everyday and is saved for guests and special occasions. Unforch it can get a bit awkward at formal dinners too. Before the soccer match a few weeks ago we had a cute lil lunch with the teacher from our school and the opposition’s. When it came for the time for the meat to be served the regular teacher of Standard Six, Bishop (such a legend) offered me chicken. I politely declined several times when he had pushed it to the point of me saying “please Bishop I’m a vegetarian – no meat!” He left confused and amused, giving the chicken’s heart (huge sign of respect but the most disgusting part) to Emma, oh lol her face, pays to be veggie sometimes! I can’t get over how much we take food for granted. The fact that we can walk across the street and buy everything we could ever want baffles me after 18 years of life like that and only three months in Africa. It’s just amazing the accessibility we have.

     We have found some real perks about living and working in the community. Our new bestie Joshua provides us with pumpkin leaves, tomatoes and the occasional bunch of bananas which Emma doesn’t eat so mwahaha more for me! He also washes our clothes (except undies for decency sake) as we are so flippin’ busy now! He manages to make them smell better than they would at home, by hand-washing. He’s a genius. So educated and inventive too. I’ve had countless debates with him over the role of women in society, the impact of the Western World on the Third World and whether I should become a farmer or not. We’re so happy to have met him. He’ll question and quiz you until you have an explanation for everything you say. I love it, he is so keen to learn and share. He doesn’t just accept the poverty like so many others. At a young age he took a chance in business with bricks and kept failing until he found an opening and succeeded.  There are a lot of those people around here, some get lucky I guess.

   Returning back to the placement after a week’s holiday on a beautiful island was difficult but a relief. No surprise we got stranded at the bottom of the mountain again and had to fork out to stay the night. Emma and I, determined to make it up on Monday in time to teach, decided we’d take the leap and walk up the Gorodi road (Toby and Will chickened out). Waking at 4am we began our journey as the sun slowly rose over the lake. Biscuits to keep us motivated and water to keep us alive, we ascended the mountain by foot. The first km or two was a bit tough but as we got higher the real problem was adjusting to the altitude. Your pack would suddenly weigh you down and you’d find it hard to breathe. We had chosen a good time for the four hour hike. The sun was nowhere near its hottest and we had time to stop for a peanut butter sandwich breakfast. Reaching Lukwe was such an achievement , we had ‘survived the Gorodi’ on foot. Booyah. That same week we started Permaculture club, I got my first care package (Malteasers ohhhmmyyyglooob), met Ben and Rachael, realised the value of pens and thought about home a lot. Permaculture club is super cute , it’s held at the school and on our first day there we got our hands dirty with forty of the kids digging swails, cutting Vetteva grass and using A frames. Ben and Rachael have a big involvement as well seeing as they now live on the school grounds. They’re a couple from the UK working in Malawi on environment and community – they’re lovely!        

   I also started ‘part-time’ (extra time) with my students that day. They’ve been asking for a while and I figured they could do with some extra English. It’s going brilliantly. I prepare sentences in English on the board with blanks for their own details. I want them to get really good at speaking and reading so I’ve been doing the generic ‘Myself’, ‘My Family’ and ‘My School’ – it’s going surprisingly well! The kids who want to learn come, so it’s less shushing and more talking, yis. Their answers get me every time... Most have about ten brothers and sisters, they all want to be doctors, teachers, police officers  and their  favourite foods range from bread to rice. Can you imagine hearing that at home? I know, I know, everything is relative but wow, it is just so different. The fact that here bread is even rare, whereas at home it’s pizza and chocolate, no one wants boring ole bread. Shows how much we take for granted... Teaching has opened my eyes to so many new things. I never realised before how much effort  and patience it takes. You really feel the weight of all those eyes, staring at you in the hope of soaking up a bright future. It’s draining and it’s so tough when the majority of the kids can’t understand a word of what you’re saying but you learn to teach just from that alone. I’ve had to completely re-invent lessons through pictures, actions, sounds, anything just so they become enthusiastic about conjunctions and ratio. Anytime I attempt Tumbucka they laugh their heads off so I tend to stick to English. I have a few favourites not for academic reasons but really for their comedic value. Golden always meets us outside Mtende and carries my bag all the way to school (he makes sure it’s him), Mphatso constantly mocks my voice when he speaks in English and Tionge gives me cheeky grins when I catch her talking in class. Her and I are totes Permaculture buddies, always taking turns digging with each other. Sometimes the kids fight over carrying my books  to class, grabbing whatever extra thing they can...I can’t help but think that it originates from me giving a lollipop to Chawanangwa when he finished his exercise first. They do frustrate me, especially when ; for the fifteenth time; I’ve asked “Now, does everyone understand?’ and I get back “yes, Madame” but when it comes to marking tests they just hadn’t had a clue. And the fact that most of them have been passed through Primary school without knowing the alphabet is so unfair. It’s not their fault that they can’t spell or say certain words, they really do try. Teachers that don’t want to put up with them or teach them properly have just pushed them through. Most teachers here seem to think that the only way to teach is to stand at the top of a class,  speak at the information at the students and write it on the board for them to copy but I suppose most teachers think that. And you know, it’s rarely their fault either. They didn’t have the money to finish or even begin teaching college and they’ve been thought to lecture the kids, not teach them: not engage and inspire their minds. Mr.Gondwe sat in my class last week and was amazed that I could teach through games, that I made class fun for the kids. We were playing a spelling game and about twenty of them were crowded around the board fighting for the chalk, I sat there laughing my head off while Gondwe stared in disbelief at the whole situation. Afterwards he said to me “your teaching methods, they are amazing. The learners are all getting involved, they are not shy with you. I hope you can teach me how you do this”. I was dumbstruck to say the least. He could not believe that teaching could be fun for both the students and the teacher but he wanted to understand, to adopt these methods. That was cool.

   Two weeks ago, Emma and I were desperate to get on the internet , so bad. Having nowhere to charge phones during the week we were going a little crazy without the ability to text and call.  Also I get to get to a doctor and find out what was wrong with me. There were plans to go to Cape McClear for the long weekend (Martyr’s Day on the Sunday) but our desire to get contact with the outside world was so great that we decided to get up at 4am on Friday and get a lift to Mzuzu with Mike, who gives lifts down the mountain three times a week at 5am. So we waited, and we waited and we waited but no sign of Will & Toby waving happily from the back of Mike’s truck. The sun rose and the moon disappeared while Emma sat in the middle of the road and I lay under the primary school sign listening to Laura Marling. Three trucks passed, none stopped. We were so confused until Will & Toby rocked up looking pissed, Mike had overbooked and we would have to walk. At least we got to enjoy crazy Chitimba lady trying to steal my mango while we waited for a minibus to Mzuzu. A malaria test proved negative but the doctor was convinced I had sepsis (blood poisoning), I got some antibiotics which sorted me out pretty well. We found an incredible shop that sold spices in buckets, rice krispies, chickpeas and cakes WITH ICING, ahhhhh!!! I was in heaven. We discovered the beauty of bicycle taxis but also how fast they make you lazy. We stayed in the infamous Mzuzoozoo for the night and the only accommodation for Emma and I was the caravan....our own lil caravan of love :P We had been hearing about an Indian restaurant called A1 for too long and wowza, they had paneer! I never thought I’d miss Govinda’s after four months of eating the food everyday but I really would do anything for that food now. Eating Indian: naan bread, cumin rice and all. We drank red wine on our cute lil foursome date and scoffed up one of the most delicious meals in Malawi yet. AND the food came out in under a half hour, it was bliss. The Cape was a 12 hour night bus away and we were keen to have a decent amount of time there so we skipped out and decided we might as well follow Joyce Banda (president of Malawi) to Nkhata Bay for the weekend. Seeing Banda was certainly an unforgettable experience. Thousands of people lined the streets in orange chitenjes celebrating the people’s party and the coming of the president. It was a bit ridiculous to be honest. A country where the majority of people could hardly put food on the table and here was their president being driven in a procession of black land cruisers with hundreds of armed guards. We didn’t know what to think, we felt more alien than ever as we watched from a restaurant across from where people from near and far gathered to see the president of their country. They didn't seem to want us near the crowd and when we retreated to the restaurant we were followed by three armed guards and four fierce looking men in black suits. We were strictly forbidden to take photos and as we strained over the balcony for a good view the men stared us down in suspiscion. To our surprise after about 15 mins of this they turned into the funniest, friendliest guys all keen to hear about our adventures and wanting to find themselves a mzungu wife (of course!). As I was getting married to Peter in two weeks time, I managed to avoid their advances. They kept moving from one of us girls to the other and one of them, very keen on Tegan offered to let us meet Joycey herself if Tegan came to Lilongwe with him...not gonna lie, we considered it. Another asked me for Emma's number and was so set on it that I had to change her number in my contacts so he'd believe the fake one I gave him for her. Luckily her phone had no battery so he couldn't test it xD Another one of them moaned at me for a good hour saying 'get me mine' referring to a mzungu wife. Tried to hitch him with Elvie but she wasn't too keen... We ended up getting a glimpse of Joycey herself despite the crowds and heard a few speeches in Chichewa but we were left baffled. All of this crazy preparation for the president. Never would we put that much effort into a visit from the president at  home.  Correct me if I’m wrong!

    Just to quickly mention a Joyce who we rather love and respect is the dean of academics in the University of Livingstonia: one of three powerful women in the community. Visited Toby and Will in Livingstonia to chill out with some movies and write our exams for the end of term (Emma and I had to handwrite seventy each due to the lack of printing facilities in Primary school) and Joyce asked us to dinner! Man was it a spread! We ate like kings and dinner was followed by coffee and cake: it was just like home! Her husband Moses is the Dean of the University and the two of them really are the power couple of Livingstonia. They help many poor people in the area and are so well educated. We learned a lot that night. The next day we went to the English church service and Emma and I ended up on the male side of the church (even that is segregated!) and we all had to stand in front of the three hundred people and introduce ourselves...Classic Malawi.

   Oh, a few things of mine got robbed from my bedside table while I slept a while back. It was a bad time, it felt like everything was going wrong. The police were drunk and unhelpful, I couldn't get in contact with my insurance, I had no phone to contact my parents...things looked up though. The community were very supportive, even though their main suggestion was the witch doctor who would catch the witch who stole from me. Oh Africa!

   Emma’s parent’s visited us the next week and we enjoyed the luxury of their rental car and showed them around Livingstonia, Manchewe Falls and our various programmes in the village. The kids were so excited to see more mzungus and our classes got extra help during class tests! They got to stay for the wedding and Emma’s mom, being a professional baker, helped us whip up one beautiful wedding cake! So the wedding has come and gone by now and I don’t know whether any of you have seen the photos on Facebook or not but it was one ridiculous event! For weeks we went through dance rehearsals with the youth nearly every evening and planned the buying of rings, formal attire, food, speakers..everything! We put a budget of about $60 together for it all. The community was so excited, asking us questions everyday and wondering what it was for. It was a big deal: a mzungu (white) and a mfhipa (black) getting married...no one in the community had ever heard of such a thing before! The day before I actually put my hair in rollers (yes, my mother packed rollers! Never thought they would come in handy in Africa! xD) and we sat up making paper chains to decorate the hall. My dress had been rented from Mzuzu and honestly, I figured I could have put gypsy weddings to shame. Peter and I had to wait until all of the guests had eaten until we could reveal ourselves. We danced our way up the aisle outside Mtende, flowers thrown at us and cheers coming from every angle. The wedding was spent sitting under a makeshift tenty thing with Emma as my best lady and Toby as Peter's best man on our sides. We collected money by dancing with a bucket, charging people 20/50/100 kwacha per step around the ground, having money thrown at us, selling the cake and through selling food and drinks. We made a good 90'000 kwacha, the equilalent of maybe $270 ! A lot for a small communtiy. We were so proud :D The money will go towards feeding orphans in the area, running our HIV/AIDS awareness and Civic Education projects in the surrounding communities and also to buying medicine for the many sick people in the area. No, Peter and I did NOT kiss! We hugged and he carried me around the crowd and then, of course, I had to carry him! Well, Emma helped me. :P We raced down to the lake that evening for at least soemthing of a Paddy's day experience. A load of Peace Corps were there and they had a crazy amount of Irish get-up and I taught a lot of Irish dancing that night. I missed home quite a bit that night, the only Irish gal in a sea of 'twelfths, eights and quarters' Irish, hearing about all of the plans going down at home. Hopefully I was there in spirit. (:

   Right now we're on holiday, eeeep! Plans to rent a car went swimmingly until a few things messed up :/ We had such a cute group going on. Emma, Toby, Will and I, Grace and Michael (two extra kiwis: the horror!!). We drove successfully from Mzuzu to Lilongwe with ten of us stuffed in the back, only a few potholes along the way! The reunion in Lilongwe was awesome, we hadn't seen eachother in months and all of us were set on heading for Vic falls in Zambia asap. The mechanic at Mabuya lodge in Lilongwe fixed up our breaks and shockies so packing up at 12am rather than 5am like the other suckers without a car we set off for the Zambian boarder. 100 metres down the road Toby was frantically pumping the breaks when we realised that we'd have to return to our Mr.Mechanic. He told us we would have to stay another nigth and head to Zambia the next day while he sorted the leaking break fluid: not worrying at all! Now, just to inform you all....we rented this car off one of the Mtende board members who was giving it to us for $150 for a whole month. We had our police clearance, vehicle registration, accident triangles...everything! Shit just didn't work out. That evening while we were out at a restaurant, one of the volunteers, Walt, who was waiting for his passport to be delivered to Lilongwe called us and let us know that Mr.Mechanic would have to fix the car using a part that wasn't even available in Malawi and he wouldn't get it for a week if it was to be ordered. We there and then made the decision to abandon the car and bus it like the rest. We had some pretty rough transport over about 35 hours to Livingstone, Zambia, home of Vic falls. From being shoved in the back of a boiling minibus to sleeping on a couch in a bus station overnight and breaking down on the side of the road for a few hours. ( a good thing to come from it all was the fact that Irish people don't pay to get into Zambia YEAHLADS!). We eventually reached the modern town of Livingstone which thrives off the natural wonder of Victoria Falls. Without even realising what had happened we were signed up for a safari to Botswana the next day and wow, we were not gonna regret it! It was like being a little kid again... On the boat safari we saw hippos, elephants, crocodiles, fish eagles and then we moved onto a game drive to see Mphala, Tigers, Leopards, more elephants (they were fecking everywhere!), giraffes, buffalo and warthogs. It felt like we were in the Lion King! It was so crazy to see this side of Africa, the side you imagine what it's always like! It was an absolute dream. On the drive back two wild elephants blocked our bus: it was the craziest, coolest experience, I don't think I've ever taken so many photos in my life! The next day was bungee jumping day but after a night on the Livingstone club scene it was gonna be a tough one. I was so terrified but knowing that I'd regret it if I didn't, I had a long chat with Dad who convinced me to just go for it! Surprisingly enough I woke up super hyper and ready to face it head on...literally. The zip line was first but that was more of a scenicbeginning, nothing could have prepared me for that bungee. You're held on by your legs, with a mass of towels between your feet to reduce the painful impact. The rainbow stretched across the water of the Zambezi river below as I tried to concentrate on the beautiful horizon ahead of me. 5-4-3-standing ont hat edge I thought I was going to wet myself-2-oh shit how am I going to dive I CAN'T DIVE -1- bungee! I just went for it, I threw myself off that thing and never in my life have I done something so reckless, so careless and incredible. It was so terrifying free falling 111 metres, the third highest bungee in the world, but man was it amazing. I didn't want it to end. The feeling was indescribable. Emma and I did the 140m drop swing togetehr like cute placement partners do and that was just a tad more scary considering I was less hyped for it but we sang as we swung into the rainbow over the Zambezi and laughed about how freakin' lucky we were to be doing something so awesome. We tented it through our time in Zambia which wasn't always so cosy and we woke up boiling and squished with six of us ina five man but it was full of hilarious nights 'for the boys' (blame kiwi Michael he is insane and likes dancing in the street!). We had some crazy nights on the town, frequenting plenty of local Zambian clubs but with the lads to protect us girls fromt he overly keen local men. We're in Namibia now, the capital of Windhoek is full of white people, fast food chains and landrovers. It's like Miami, or what I imagine Miami to look like... Having internet is freakin' sweet and all of these luxories make it difficult to think that we'll be returning to mud hut living without electricity and water but so is the special nature of holiday aye? Heading on a three day safari tomorrow to the sand dunes for sand boarding, to the secong biggest canyon in the world and some other wonderful spectacles. Who knows where the adventure will go next... It's crazy how cheap it is once you get here, all of the work pays off in the end despite various hardships! (just to add on....If I was to give advice to any volunteer coming to a Third World country it’s to find out exactly what you’ll be doing and what kind of access you will have to certain facilities. Here was naive ole me thinking I’d have Skype and phone reception 24/7 and a fully stocked market close by! At the same time, the surprise can be exciting...sometimes. Bring a ridiculous amount of plastic bags and containers for travel at the weekends and for when things spill and believe me, they will! Bring photos from home and something to comfort you when homesickness chokes you up! Have photocopies of absolutely every necessary document! Copious amounts ofhand sanitizer, baby wipes, underwear, tonnes of pen and paper. Pretty much you will have to spend money replacing shit that gets stolen, wrecked or wet: it happens! A potato peeler, a masher, a sieve and a good set of knives would also be quite nice... xD Also a good camera because you will get fed up with a shit one!)

   A little pievvce from a lovely peace corp I met along the way - Hello. This is Mark Gestwicki, I’m currently Peace Corps Volunteer in Malawi. I just met Jenny this evening and asked her if I could contribute something to her blog. I’ve been here for a little over a year now. Malawi is a beautiful country. The lake is fantastic, amazing, and wonderful. Malawians are enthusiastically generous and kind. I am grateful to be living happy and healthy in Malawi.

    And so concludes another ridiculously long blog. Sorry for my overuse of ridiculous, amazing and other annoying words....my vocabulary has turned pretty poor. I've probably left out a few things and put in a few too many but jeez, blogs take time and I gotta go soak up happy hour! I really miss my mom, mom I hope you're reading this (maybe not the soaking up happy hour bit). My family in general. And all of the beautiful people I call my friends at home. The people I have met here are all so brilliant but sometimes I really miss those who just get me, those who are into the same stupid jokes and silly moments that I am. It's the little things. I am safe, I am healthy, I am having the time of my life. Stay cool peeps (: