Because They're Burning Bricks

Posted By Sika on August 27, 2007

Chichewa word of the day (week, month, or year): Zikomo. Zikomo is a word that means almost everything. It means “excuse me,” “thank you,” “you’re welcome.” I’m pretty sure it means other things too, but I don’t really remember at the moment.

Peace Corps jargon of the day (week, month, or year): APCD – Assistant Peace Corps Director. In Malawi we have one for each sector. We have 3 sectors in Malawi: Health, Education, and Environment. My APCD is a Malawian (the Environment APCD, Brian, is the only American APCD here). Her name is Edith Mkawa and she got her Master’s in Nursing in the U.S.

I was talking to Renu tonight and as I told her various things about my life here I realized that I haven’t been writing anywhere for the last month because it seems to me that nothing has been happening, but my everyday life here is vastly different than in the states. I’ve just both gotten used to the routine here and also have been too bored to write. Y’know how it can be that you’re so bored that you can’t really motivate yourself to do anything? I’ve been baking a ton, although I have warned everybody here in the transit house that once I am no longer doing baking therapy I will make people pay for their cookies. Right now I really really want to do something productive and baking gives visible results. I don’t really share my bread (because of its sheer awesomeness), but I much prefer to get rid of the bulk of the cookies, because I will eat them if I hold on to them but I don’t miss them when they’re gone.  Well, not much anyway. But going back into my diary and catching up on the last month? That is not fun work, unlike taking my frustrations out on bread dough. Even though one might argue that the long time benefits of writing down everything are somewhat more substantial than those of a loaf of bread.

So anyway, I’m going to mention a few things, loosely related at best. Rosy said that the transit house here in Lilongwe reminds her of a frat house—only people get up early here. There’s drinking and partying and people playing guitar at all hours out on the back patio. We have people who sort of clean up after us and therefore that same kind of mess you’d expect always around, waiting for someone else to clean it up. The communal items get run down quick; the enamel is chipped on all the dishes; the towels have holes in them; the couches somehow have three end cushions but no middle. Everything, although clean, is just a little (or more) run down. Anyway, we started discussing the differences when I was complaining about the environment volunteers who were in my dorm room and the next one over hollering to each other and talking right next to my head while they got ready to go to their reconnect (reconnect, or IST, for in-service training, is when new PCV classes get together a few months after swearing-in and do more training, and that’s bonus jargon for you right there.). It was sometime around 6 or 6:30am. “I wouldn’t have minded,” I griped, “if I had been sleeping in late. Y’know, if it had been really late, like 8am, I would’ve understood.” (Now, I want all y’all who know me and my normal sleep schedule to think about what it means that I am counting 8am as late enough that you can justifiably be woken without any consideration at all. I think I may have been taken over by a pod person.)

Anyway, it’s late and luckily there are no environment volunteers here to keep me from sleeping in, and the mosquitoes are out and eating me up as no one else is awake right now (there are mosquito nets on all our bunks, so in bed I am safe). It’s between dusk and dawn, and these evil bloodsuckers are silent, so I’d be better off avoiding them (funny thing about the parasite that makes mosquitoes a vector for malaria—it changes the behavior of the infected mosquitoes. So, if you get bitten during the day, the bite will be itchy but won’t give you Malaria. Ditto if the mosquito is loud about biting you. Why did the mosquito buzz in your ear? To let you know that it wasn’t going to give you malaria, so you might as well allow it to have its tasty little meal.  At any rate, I will theoretically finish updating tomorrow.

Categories: Malawi, Peace Corps
Tags: mosquitoes, transit houses