Sika | June 7, 2010
I had to get more pages put in my passport. After over two years of traveling all over the freaking place, my passport only had a couple blank pages left. It was sort of frustrating: I liked the symmetry of filling my passport at the end of my service*, but I knew I was, at [...]
Sika | May 5, 2010
I didn’t find many people to talk to in my wandering. John, over and over again, as accidentally we ate together at least once a day, and some Peace Corps Volunteers at one point (also, the French couple that had upped the azungu quotient of our minibus too much on the way over, but with [...]
Sika | June 18, 2009
There was an article recently about the high cost of poverty in the US. While I thought the author for that article could have come up with better examples, it was interesting and reframed some random thoughts I’ve been having about Malawi. It’s really expensive to have anything here. For one thing, Malawi (the country [...]
Sika | May 13, 2009
The elections are happening next Tuesday. I tried to get pictures of a group of women in UDF zitenje, but they wanted money I didn’t want to give them. I thought it would be nice for them, considering 95% of all TV media coverage, and most of the radio coverage is positively skewed to the [...]
Sika | March 18, 2009
This post at Shakesville honestly made me cry. It made me think about adoption in a way I never have before. It’s political, but not in any kind of a shrill way. Mostly it’s just heart-felt and heart-rending. You don’t need to have strong opinions about the matter: just read it. Maybe, like me, you’ll [...]
Sika | March 12, 2009
Beyond the connection issues and the sporadic disappearing text messages, Zain is doing two things I think are particularly nasty: 1. They’ve added expiration dates to their units. Celtel never had expiration dates before it became Zain. As a matter of fact, you can still use Celtel units to top up. People sell units on [...]
Sika | March 11, 2009
There are these movie theatres in Cape Town called the Labia Theatres. They are named after an ambassador from somewhere or other. The name is pronounced Lah-bee-ah and they show more indy-type movies, although there is some overlap with the downstairs movie theatre at V&A Waterfront. The downstairs theatre at V&A is where we say [...]
Sika | March 11, 2009
In the evening after Bo-Kaap, we did a tour of Langa and Khayelitsha—two townships just outside Cape Town. Gareth’s sister had wondered why we felt the need to do a township tour, seeing as how we know what poor Africa looks like and all that. But in Malawi things are a bit more balanced—the whole [...]
Sika | March 11, 2009
In Franschhoek we stayed at the Franschhoek Group Accomodation. We were a bit nervous when we got there because the place looks like an institution. As in, the type of place to which one can be involuntarily committed. But the rooms are sweet and neat, with duvets and comfortable twin beds. The couple running the [...]
Sika | February 23, 2009
We were meant to go to Robben Island our second day in South Africa. We had also booked it by phone, since the website tells you how to make online bookings but then refuses to actually accept them. We were told that Robben Island is worth going to and books up early. So we did [...]
Sika | February 20, 2009
When I think of writing now, my thoughts seem so negative. As much as Derek may rejoice in me becoming a jaded old PCV, I am not happy with the way all the negativity makes me and Malawi sound. So, I think I’m going to do what I did for my students after their practical [...]
Sika | January 22, 2009
I’ve tried repeatedly to lj-cut this, but it isn’t taking and the code is just getting worse every time I try. Maybe I’ll go through the effort on Monday to fix it. So anyway, sorry about the lack of cuts. Inauguration day, I was working late—we got out of the practical room just shortly before [...]
Sika | January 19, 2009
President Bingu wa Mutharika came to Zomba two weeks ago, and all of his supporters were out on the streets, in their blue zitenje and their shirts and trousers and skirts and dresses and headdresses made from the blue zitenje. When David and I went to the airport to go to South Africa, ex-president Muluzi [...]
Sika | January 19, 2009
Because it’s taken me about 5 hours to get a screen up I can post from, I’m going to hijack my own post to give y’all a link to an article that I think makes a good case for why Bush officials need to be prosecuted for war crimes: www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/01/18/prosecutions/ . It basically says that [...]
Sika | June 26, 2008
Probably our right to privacy is unimportant. Probably it was an oversight that allowed it into the Bill of Rights. All those people who don’t want us to discover exactly how badly the Bush Administration broke the law and exactly what the telecom companies did to enable them in their power grab: Probably they’re right [...]
