Sika | June 25, 2010
Malawi has made me . . .. indecisive. I mean, I had occasional (frequent) problems making a decision before, but in Malawi you can make as many decisions as you want, and they rarely have any effect on the end outcome. Which is not to say there’s no point to making decisions; but, if you’re [...]
Sika | June 9, 2010
In the afternoon, we visited my school. It was anticlimactic, as most everybody was on holiday. I felt sorry for the incoming class of first years, meant to be a class of 90 and, since they wouldn’t fit in any of the existing classrooms, they were meant to be taught in the burned out and [...]
Sika | June 8, 2010
At about this time, my journal writing became even more sporadic than usual. And, no, all these nine-month late posts did not come straight out of my pristine memory, but out of my journal, so you can see the problem. Or, the wonderful freedom of it all. Or, something. Nyika was beautiful. It was a [...]
Sika | June 8, 2010
In mom’s and my whirlwind tour of Malawi, I tried to balance seeing things that I hadn’t been able to see, and showing mom what my life was like in Malawi—well, at least as close as I could given that I my life in was functionally over. We went up to Nyika Plateau, which was [...]
Sika | June 7, 2010
Back in Zomba. Yay! The day was longer than expected. First of all, in Tete, Mercado de UAO was nowhere near Rua de UAO, which took me forever to figure out. And, when giving directions, multiple people in Tete did this annoyingly vague hand gesture—generally in a diagonal direction from where I was at any [...]
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 | September 14, 2009
After that was another, longer, hotter bike taxi ride up several hills, with a surprisingly wide lane considering the nearly complete dearth of motorized traffic. The lane was unsealed but in most places pretty smooth, and lined with trees, although the shade they gave was more theoretical than actual. The bike taxi dropped me at [...]
Sika | September 13, 2009
But first I had to clear Malawi immigration. The immigration guy called me in front of 4 or so other people, I think because I am white and looked confused and stupid white people are dangerous to leave wandering around all willy-nilly. He asked me why I couldn’t approximate how much I spent in Malawi. [...]
Sika | September 12, 2009
I called Debbie from the train back to Liwonde. She very graciously said I could stay and sent a co-worker just leaving work to come and pick me at the station. I was very happy that the return trip from Nayuchi was considerably shorter than the trip out—about 3 hours. So I even had time [...]
Sika | September 10, 2009
Wanangwa and Kate, two Zomba friends of mine, got married. It almost didn’t happen because their ankhoswe* was late and the law books say you can only get married between certain hours, and the only reason the guy marrying them took pity was that Kate’s mum was returning to Scotland the next day. Anyway, so [...]
Sika | September 7, 2009
If I said there aren’t some things I’ll be happy to leave, I’d be lying. Mostly things like stone babies and the way many men feel they own my body because I’m a woman, and being called azungu azungu all the time, and feeling like I live in a fishbowl—the only way to escape it [...]
Sika | August 17, 2009
I donºt have time for good updates right now, so just a couple quick things. Kris says to one of her coworkers, “She is going to Mozambique.” “Why?” Kris answered, “Kuwona [to see]. She wants to swim in the ocean.” “Sure?” “Yes.” “I hear it has salt,” he says, looking quite worried for me. “She [...]
Sika | June 16, 2009
In a country known for its interesting fashion sense, I saw what is perhaps the best outfit ever. Believe me when I say this guy has a lot of competition here. To start with, while gender roles are even more rigidly adhered to here, the whole concept of pink being a girl’s colour seems to [...]
Sika | May 21, 2009
At our COS conference, there was a Yao dancer with his locally-available-resources-band. Since it was too dark for movies, I took pictures and recorded some sound files instead. I’m not sure this post is going to work the way I want it to, so if it doesn’t, I’m sorry. Yao Dance Yao Dance2 Yao Dance3 [...]
Sika | May 5, 2009
Last week I had my COS (Close of Service) Conference, We went to Nkhotakota Pottery on Monday and came back to Lilongwe on Friday. The Close of Service conference is about learning what paperwork we have to do, and how to exit our communities gracefully. After all, it’s tough to adjust to a place where [...]
