Away in Malawi

Second of three(?) parent posts

2009-04-13T10:31:00.000-07:00

Wasn't gonna bother to post this, but I guess someone is still reading. Here's what my mom thought about Malawi.

Billy asked Bill and me to write some notes of our thoughts about Malawi, as he was too busy when he first arrived to make blog entries about an outsider’s first impressions. So, here are my thoughts after a very few days in the country. A couple of days in Blantyre, one of Malawi’s largest cities, and two forays to clinic sites with the Project Peanut Butter staff. Obviously, that hardly makes me a Malawi expert, so you’ll have to take thse observations with a grain of salt …

It’s 6 a.m. as I write these words and Blantyre has come alive. I’ve been listening to the horns tootle and engines roar by on the road nearby. I’ve seen the scene for the past two days and I can envision what is happening outside in the city and countryside.
The streets are fairly teeming with people walking or cycling to work. Malawi is among the poorest countries in the world and few of its people own automobiles. Some people ride in crammed white mini buses, but most people do all their daily traveling on foot. No matter what the size, condition or location of the road, it is sure to have a constant stream of people walking along it. I have never seen so many people on foot. It’s not like the crowds you see at rush hour in the city. It is a steady stream of people who must walk miles in each direction, often in bare feet or worn flip flops, to attend to their daily business. Women have babies tied comfortably on their backs, cradled in colorful chitenjes. They balance amazing configurations of bundles on their heads. And they walk and walk without complaint.
Many vendors move their goods to their little stalls by bicycle. I’ve seen a vendor with four newly made side chairs strapped to his bike. Bundles of wood, charcoal, sugar cane – you see all kinds of things balancing on the back of bicycles, extending far to either side, like a tightrope walker’s pole.
Cars careen through the streets at speeds higher than seems advisable. As the driver approaches pedestrians or cyclists, or zooms past a slower moving car, they tootle their horn. As Billy says, car horns are used “conversationally” in Malawi. Not “get the hell out of my way” like we do in the States, but more “hey, I’m coming up on your right.” Everyone has nerves of steel, for the cars pass within inches of people on foot and bicycle and no one flinches a bit.
There are stores in Blantyre but there are also hundreds of vendors. Each has a minuscule stall – maybe four to six feet wide – from which they sell their wares. The more successful vendors have stalls made of cinderblock with a corrugated metal roof. Most of the stands are built of sticks. Not planks of wood but sticks about an inch in diameter, seemingly lashed together, often listing to one side, looking as if a wee bit too much pressure in any direction would send the whole thing toppling over. Row after row of these stands are set up on muddy clay fields to form the markets for the poor of Malawi.
While the business center of Blantyre is paved, its neighborhoods are likewise built upon rocky, clay streets. The road surface is riddled with deep crevices and boulder-like rocks. Driving on these streets is jarring to both vehicle and passenger. This is true in fairly affluent areas as well as in working class neighborhoods. In the mornings we drove to pick up one of the nurses near her home. She and Billy liked to joke that her street was the worst in Malawi – but one of its side streets looked far worse, more akin to a rock climbing route than anything that a wheeled vehicle should ever traverse. It was startling to see that a fair number of the pedestrians wore business attire – suits, nice dresses, shirt and tie – as they trudged down the muddy, rocky streets to go to work. It must take concerted effort to keep their appearance so crisp and clean when their daily commute is so messy.
Another ubiquitous feature of Blantyre neighborhoods is high walls. In richer neighborhoods, the walls are thick and topped with barbed wire, razor wire or jagged shards of glass. Labor is absurdly cheap in Malawi, so every walled home has a staff of “guards” who open and close the gate for cars of the owner or visitors. As you drive down the street in an affluent neighborhood, it’s as if you’re passing through a bumpy canal, as you are surrounded by high cement walls on both sides of the road.
Poor neighborhoods have their share of walls, too, albeit homemade ones of tall sticks that are lashed together. Coming from the open suburbs of Southern Maryland, where even open fences are rare, it felt like the whole city has a fortress mentality.
It’s easy to understand, though, the need for theft deterrence. The income gap between the haves and the have nots is enormous. By upper middle class American standards, the homes of the “haves” seemed fairly modest. No enormous kitchens with steel appliances and marble countertops. Furniture and walls looked a little worn. But the homes are of a size that would feel comfortable to most Americans. They have electricity, running water and fully functional bathrooms.
In contrast, the poorer neighborhoods are populated with houses that are tiny squares – ten or twelve feet on a side. Probably no running water or electricity in most of them. It’s hard to imagine how a family can survive, much less thrive, in such a confined space.
In the city, begging is fairly common, especially begging from the azungu (white man). In the city, as soon as you step out of your car, you are accosted by someone with his (in my limited experience, the beggars were usually male) hands cupped together at his chest. “Hungry, mama. Hungry.” The staff at Project Peanut Butter made a joint decision not to give alms to any beggars. They felt it warps the economy if able bodied adults – and children who should be in school – learn that the most profitable use of their time is to beg. It was difficult to say no, knowing that we are wealthy beyond the imaginings of these people; but we did abide by the rules that the PPB team have set for themselves.
In the countryside, you see Malawi’s peasant farms struggling against incredible obstacles. There is absolutely no farm equipment. When you see a farmer hoeing the fields, she (usually it is a woman) is doing it by hand, with a homemade hoe. I’m told that Kamuzu Banda, who was the dictator of Malawi for 30 years, in a misguided effort to protect small farmers outlawed heavy farm equipment.
Less than 5% of Malawi’s arable land is irrigated, so there is only one growing season – and that one is vulnerable to the weather. Either too much rain or too little will doom the single harvest for a whole year. Most rural communities lack both paved roads and any sort of motorized transport, so farmers cannot move their own crops to market for sale. They are beholden to the middle man, who can pay low prices to farmers who must unload their crops before they go bad.
So much is broken in Malawi that it’s hard to imagine how to fix it. The infrastructure that supports a robust economy is completely absent – paved roads, public transport, irrigation, a good public health system, a broad electrical grid, industry to provide employment … all lacking. Project Peanut Butter’s Malawian staff says the current president, Bingu wa Mutharika, and his administration have made strides in paving roads and fighting corruption. In the current election, there is much discussion about improving food security for the country. The old ruling party proposes giving fertilizer to every farmer. The current administration proposes investing in irrigation, a more far-sighted solution.
According to Wikipedia, Malawi has made measurable progress in reducing poverty in the last 10 or 15 years. It’s hard for me to imagine what conditions must have been like in the late 80’s if that is the case.I think Billy’s concerns about the dependency that comes from begging can also apply on a national level. This is part of the argument that Dambisa Moyo makes in Dead Aid. I haven’t read her book – only heard about it last night – but I did some research and found some reputable experts* who think she doesn’t really support her argument that foreign aid is what is holding Africa back and should be eliminated in a few years. However, I do think that it’s really important for individuals and countries to be given the tools to eventually stand on their own economically.
So next year I think I’d like to give my contributors a choice of two ways to assist Malawi. Project Peanut Butter or an organization that is dedicated to fostering long term economic growth in the country. I’m thinking of supporting a microlending organization, maybe like http://www.microloanfoundation.org/ which has been set up specifically to help small entrepreneurs in Malawi. They make small loans and require the borrower to take training in setting up and running a little business. They don’t just hand out money; they help to ensure the borrower will be successful. I haven’t really decided yet … just starting to research alternatives.
As Billy mentioned, when he asked us to write, the text just kept flowing … I’ve been about writing a book on my observations. I will send him my Project Peanut Butter notes later. I’ll just say I was really touched by this trip. I am so glad we had the opportunity to visit … to see Malawi and PPB and Billy in action.* Here are two critiques of Moyo’s arguments:http://blogs.cgdev.org/globaldevelopment/2009/03/dambisa-moyo-discovers-key-to-ending-poverty.phphttp://zambian-economist.blogspot.com/2009/03/dead-aid-by-dambisa-moyo-review.html

First of three(?) parent posts.

2009-04-05T11:02:00.000-07:00

Here's what my Dad thought of Malawi. Thought that giving you a first impression of Malawi I was never able to crank out, and an other perspective at how things are could be nice. Completely unedited by me, by the way. Mom is apparently writing an entire book on her five days in Malawi, but thats neither here nor there. Here I give the floor to my father...

Hello from the third world (well, a week late):

Billy asked me to record my impressions of the 5 days I spent in Blantyre Malawi. I am having a hard time writing a cohesive story line. There is too much detail to do this justice, plus I need time to sort out all I have seen. I will not be giving a traditional entry but a list of the different thoughts and impression I have formed. This may be a bit scattered.

Keep in mind I have been here for only 5 days and I am in no way any sort of expert. I don’t want to offend or misinform. I am sure I have confused a few facts or formed a few misconceptions about this place. So please treat this as a collection of random thoughts bouncing around in my scattered head.

A LITTLE BACKGROUND: Billy (our 18 year old son) is spending 9 months volunteering for Project Peanut Butter in Blantyre, Malawi, Africa. For those who don’t know, PPB is a research project run out of the Washington University/St. Louis Nutrition Project. I am not a hundred percent clear on all the players and organizational structure, but their overall goal is to develop better ways of treating malnutrition in the third world. So they are examining all aspects of malnutrition from the different contributions and causes to the different ways to treat. Malawi is one of the poorest countries in the world. Thus it is a perfect place to work on malnutrition problems.

Billy is technically a volunteer. He is one of 3 to 8 students/ researchers/ nurses/ doctors/ med students living and working for PPB in Blantyre. People come and go through out the year. From last September to this May, there were three long term members, Jay, Eleanor and Billy. Heidi, Amanda, Adam, Dr. and Ms. Manari (among others) would come and go through out the year. Billy started off helping out where he can, loading trucks, driving, passing out peanut butter, running errands and generally playing with the kids. In the last 6 months he has taken on more and more responsibility. Now he is part of the stool study team. They track a number of twins, examine kids, taking stool samples and preparing the sample for cryogenic storage. He also wrote (or help write) an ACCESS data base to assist in managing and analyzing the medical data.

ABOUT MALAWI: You have no idea how lucky you are. If you can read this, (have access to the internet) you are a very privileged person. We went to villages that don’t have running water, electricity or sewers. Places filled with grass roofs, goats, chickens, mud brick walls. For the most part everyone seems happy. If this is all they know, heaven can be an extra plastic trash bag.

HOUSING(middle class): Malawi has two somewhat large cities: Lilongwe (the capital) and Blantyre. Billy is staying in a city called Blantyre, population of several hundred thousand. He is staying in a compound with a fence, guards and dogs. The compound is owned by an Indian business man who lives there and rents out some of the extra apartments or houses. The PPB team has three of these houses/apartments. Each has a kitchen, bedrooms and a bath. There is a maid and cook who comes each day. This is not unusual for the middle class. Most live in a walled compound. Theft is a problem, guards are required. But I never felt unsafe or threatened. PPB was robbed this passed fall. The guards were over powered and they got away with some appliances and $1200 in cash. I am guessing, out of the half million of people in Blantyre, a few thousand can afford to live this way.

HOUSING(city folks): For two of the days of our visit, Ann and I helped out at one of the PPB clinics. Ann, Billy and I along with a driver (named Vegas) started out our day by driving to a nurse’s home (Jean) to pick her up. She lived in a less than glorious part of town. Homes were in varied conditions. Some were somewhat nice, some were very rundown. But what struck me, all were very small. I would guess less than 20x 20 ft and within 30 ft of each other. I saw electrical poles, but not all were wired. I saw water pumps here so I am guessing they don’t have running water. All the houses were right on top of each other, I don’t know what they do for sewage. I saw no evidence of public water/sewer. I suspect most in the city live this way.

HOUSING(the bush) In the country most live in a mud brick hut with grass roofs. I was not invited inside, but I am guessing they were about 20 x 20 ft single room homes with grass roofs. All were set within a corn fields. I expect every flat piece of ground is used to grow something. They are all subsistence farmers.

ROADS: On Monday, We woke at 4:30. Ate breakfast and were on the road by 5AM. We picked up the nurse (Jean) at her home. She lived down a dirt road so bad that a billy goat would have problems. After picking her up we drove about 1 hour down some pave highway. Turned off onto a dirt road and drove another hour. 4 wheel drive is a must in this country. There is no way to get to the villages unless you have 4 wheel drive. Billy slept most of the way. How, I don’t know.

Some of the major roads in the city are paved, some of the highways between the cities are paved. But the vast majority of all roads are dirt. Most of the dirt roads I saw haven’t been grated in years. Even the paved roads are laced with pot holes. No exaggeration, they make Pennsylvania roads look good.

ABOUT HIS ROOM MATES: Jay, Eleanor and Amanda, They are very nice people. While most med students are working hard to get their degree and start earning the big bucks, these three are willing to take time off, delay the education, to make this sacrifice. These are special people. Also they seemed to have taken a liking to Billy and helped him grow through this. Also he really looks up to Jay and Eleanor. I can see why. I look up to them too.

ABOUT THEIR DAY: Each day the team wakes sometime between 4:30 and 5. Eat Breakfast, leave about 5:00 to 5:30. Pick up a nurse and drive 2 hours to some remote village and set up a make shift clinic. Women and their babies walk for miles to get to the clinic. Once the mothers assembled they start by singing traditional Chichewa songs. The words are changed to convey some public health message or improved parenting skills. Then the kids are weighted, measured, poked and tested. They are given the Chiponde based on their weight and sent on there way. This lasts until 1 to 3 pm. They pack up, drive 2 hours back to Blantyre. Then clean out the trucks, repack for tomorrow, eat dinner, enter the day’s data, collapse in bed. Repeat the next day at a different village.

LABOR COSTS: For all you that have a garage, you most likely have a garage door opener. You know when you drive up to the house and need to open the garage door without getting out of the car? You press the button on the clicker hanging off the car’s visor, Yes? Well those in Malawi that have homes, they hire people to open and close the gate to the yard. For the compound where Billy is staying, the landlord hired a family to live in a small building by the gate to open and close the when cars come and go. I believe they also clean and maybe work within the house. The landlord also has guards walking around the compound at night along with gardeners and others working about the place. When I say guards, I am not talking of someone in uniform with a gun. I am talking about some guy in very dirty street clothes with a whistle. From what I am told he is not a rich man, no fancy cars, and the house could use a good coat of paint. It just that unskilled labor is so cheap.

TRANSPORTATION: In Malawi there is no public transportation (or at least none I saw). To get around they mostly walk. It is scary how far they walk, rain or shine. During rush hour, the streets are crowded with people. Even in the rural areas.

The other mode of public transportation is the privately owned mini-bus taxi. Take thousands of very broken down mini vans, place behind the wheels all the deranged mad men and nut cases you can find, fill them with twice the number of passengers design by the manufacturer; now you have a commuter bus transportation system. These mini buses start beeping their horns starting about 5 AM looking for customers. Sounds like Morse code being practiced. Each day they drive from villages to the city and back again. Malawi must not have any form of insane asylums. If you are nuts, crazy or a general menace to society, they make you a taxi driver.

BEGGING AND CLASS STRUCTURE: I saw this for my own eyes. There are three types of people in Malawi: Black Africans( the mass poor), Indians(business class), and Whites(rich). Just because you are white you have money. At the market, there are two sets of prices; white people prices and everyone prices. Every time a white person walks by the beggars come out of the wood work. Boy they know how to look pitiful. Should you give to the beggars? Every fiber of your body wants to empty your pockets to help these people. However, this quick fix and just encourages more begging. People will keep there kids out of school because they can make money begging. I don’t know what the right answer is. Watch “Slum dog Millionaire” some time.

The first time Billy and I were walking through Blantyre I was taken back by how pushy the beggars and vendors are. I was also surprise on how Billy responded to these people. He seemed rude on the verge of being mean. I was taken back. I didn’t think I raised my child to act this way. When Ann and I confronted him about this, he explained his actions this way… He and his two room mates had many discussions on this topic. To encourage kids to stay in school, be fair to all people and to discourage people from relying on begging; it was decided that they will not give outright to beggars. Only give them money if they provide some needed service and agree to the service (before hand). You pay them the going Malawi rate. This “Ed Koch” response is a hard standard to meet. Before you go out, you need to put on a “game face” to face the crowds. Do not look around, be clear on what you want and don’t want. Not rude, but forceful. And don’t give in to constant pestering. You want to encourage economic growth not dependency. Again, I don’t know what the right answer is.

MODESTY: In the city, fashion is pretty much similar to anywhere here. More men seem to wear suites to work more, even if they live in a slum. In the rural country side, things are very different. Men wear shirt and pants, no surprise. For women, it seems that the thighs are the sexy part of the female and should be covered up. All women wear a “Chitenje”. This is a 6x3 ft cloth that women wear as a skirt, wrap or carry a baby or two. Ann and the two female med students had to wear them while out in the rural villages, otherwise the woman would point, giggle and possibility be offended.

Now, if their baby cried or even fuss a little, the woman would instantly whip out a breast or two and feed the child, anywhere and at anytime, in front of me or anyone. I felt I was in a La Leche League convention.

BALANCE: I can juggle. I spent a summer in college learning how. I still juggle from time to time to relax. Over the years I have learned a few tricks and have seen some impressive juggling by professionals. They can’t hold a candle to the women in Malawi. I saw women balance a huge sacks of potatoes (25 lb at least) on their heads, kid strapped to her back, carrying things in both arms, walking down the road, for miles, turning to look at us as we drive by. I’m talking about balancing something on their heads without touching it! Walking miles! Carrying other stuff! Circuses will never be the same for me.

PARENTING: The mothers in the treat program get an allotment of PPB food/medicine at each visit to the clinic. Sometime the mother or father will sell the food or eat it themselves or share it with other children. How could you do this? What kind a parents are these people?

Then I hear that some of these women (Mothers, Grandmothers, Aunts and sometimes Fathers) would walk up to 10 to 15 km, one way, to get to the clinic. Each week. One mother walked from Mozambique crossing a major river by row boat. WOW

LIFE AND DEATH IN THE THIRD WORLD: Here I am very conflicted. Death is so pervasive; They fight this by having more babies. For the two days I helped giving out Chiponde, I estimate that at least half of the mothers with a sick child were months pregnant. Most were holding the hands of at least one other child. It seems mothers only gets only a few months between pregnancies. They don’t have enough food to eat, so they make more babies. When is the family too Big? I don’t get it.

Then I hear the Pope visited Angola and made statements about condom use. Ugh. Someone needs to rethink this life, death and reproduction stuff.

PICTURES: The rural villagers loved having their picture taken. Ann and I would take their picture and show them the image on the camera’s LCD screen. Adults and kids love seeing themselves.

A FEW PHRASES I CAME ACROSS:

Azungu – White people, Little boys would see us and call out this phrase in surprise and often wave. Like seeing a fire truck going by. I was a novelty.

Zikomo Kwambili - thank you very much, said with a little curtsy.

ADITUDE: These are very friendly people. While driving back to Blantyre, Ann and I asked the driver, Vegas, if he could stop to allow us to take a picture of a Mud brick hut. The nurse (Jean) told the driver to stop, Jean got out and walked into the yard of a two or three hut village. Jean called out and found the owner. After some discussion in a language I was clueless, the family sat with us and chatted for a few minutes while we took pictures. They were very nice.

We are just coming out of the “hungry season”. The peak of the Hungry Season (worst time) is right before the harvest. Everything is green and growing but you can’t eat it yet. Despite all the deprivations they endure, they can still be friendly and happy. How do they do this? I get so grumpy when I am hungry.

TRAVEL: Africa was never on our radar for potential travel places. Billy’s working for PPB was the only reason I went to Malawi. Originally I was not looking forward to this part of our trip. While I was there, I found it different than I expected. There were times I was so glad to be there and other times I wanted to run to any 1 to 2 star hotel, just to take a bath. But in the end I am glad I went.

SAYING GOODBY: Last summer I spent 6 weeks trying to talk Billy out of working in Malawi. I didn’t think this was a good idea and I didn’t think he was ready. Most of all I was afraid that he might fail somehow and it would really discourage him from taking on any future major endeavors. After seeming him work and operate I am no longer worry about his future. I was WRONG and Ann was RIGHT!

I am so proud of what Billy is doing this year and I look forward to his return.

Medium Bill

Need to mention this

2009-03-31T06:51:00.000-07:00

Nothing big, just heard an interesting story. One of the mom's coming to chiponde clinic has a problem.

Her husband is stealing all of her baby's chiponde....

(Oh well, regrettable but it's nothing all that unusual. But wait, there's more?)

Her husband bought her from her parents to be his wife, probably when she wasn't that old...

(That's the first time I've ever heard of that kinda practice, but I'm not all that suprised...)

He bought another woman as well...

(OK...Polygamy isn't uncommon here but he had to buy both his wives...what kind of a loser is he...?)

She is afraid to hide the chiponde, because her husband might find out, become enraged, and beat her, for trying to feed her kid...So he is a misogynistic polygamist wife beater who has no problem starving his kids...

([Apologies folks but this has been removed for the sake of the little kiddies due to extensive profanity and violent imagery])

Anyway, just figured I'd share that with you.

Oh and I'm doing fine. Also, my parents came to Malawi a couple weeks ago and I'm gonna post something they've written on what its like here. Assuming they ever finish it anyway...

See you in a month and a week.

Not feeling a big post today...

2009-03-15T12:25:00.000-07:00

Yeah I don't feel like writing a lot. I don't have a purpose to writing this, no reactions I'm trying to elicit or info to convey, just letting you know I'm alive.

George was replaced by one of the smartest drivers I've ever met. His English is better than mine. He is completely comfortable with his job. I felt like dead weight when I was teaching him, because he knew his job perfectly by the end of day two, and I had to observe for four days. Its too good to be true.

Stool study is running like it should. Nothing to say there.

A photographer came and left. His pictures were great and he took some really good videos. I'm looking forward to seeing what he produces.

I'm currently in a super posh South African casino. Quite the contrast. I feel so detached from all the people coming to spend massive amounts of money. But anyway first time in six months I'm getting some real vacation. Vacation where I don't even have to think about work. Quite relaxing.

Well, not much else to say. Seeya.

Mr Bill

P.S.

Remember those two terrible twins I talked about? The ones that elicited a stronger response than I had expected? Here's what happened. One twin lost 1.5 Kg's in the two weeks before we sent him to the hospital. He died twelve days later. The other twin, the one that lost 1 Kg survived, and is now recovering. Just figured I'd finish the story.

P.S.S.

In total I think 15 children have died in my study by now. Don't worry about me, I'm used to it. And hell, the main clinics treat so many children you can bet that they see a lot. One time I asked and Jay said he had news of three in one day. As ironic as it sounds, that's life.

Yet another death.

2009-02-12T10:17:00.000-08:00

The new driver, I think I named him Gerald, died yesterday. I'll revert to his real name now, George. He has been very sick for as long as I have known him. Last monday he came to work even though he was terribly sick. He couldn't even drive back home. He was told to go to the hospital, but for whatever reason, he did not go. And then he died.

Welcome to Africa.

A better blog.

2009-02-01T13:55:00.000-08:00

Ok this is Joy's blog, a much better, much more articulate, much more literary, and much more well researched blog. Everyone who reads my blog should read his as well, as there is some quality info on Malawi there. And please leave some feedback on his blog would ya?

www.blantyrewire.blogspot.com

Oh and I guess I can start calling him Jay now, as his name is clearly there in his blog.

A day in the life...

2009-01-26T07:54:00.000-08:00

I'm making a second rapid post because I don't think the vague references I've been making to how things are here is going to work without a real example.

I got to Makhwila today and found out that cholera is in the lower shire. There's only one case confirmed so far but considering that its a pandemic a relatively short distance away that isn't much comfort. For those of you that don't know, cholera is a particularly severe and lethal kind of diarrhea. It is caused by a bacteria, and causes all liquid in your body to be expelled from your butt in what is referred to as "rice water stool." Those who have it lose liters and liters of water each day, and if you don't get as much water as you lose, you will die. The possibility of getting this disease scares the crap out of me. Anyway, I didn't eat until we left and when we did I scrubbed my hands more than Lady Macbeth to make sure I got everything off them.

Today was a typical day, nothing extremely unusual happened. Keep that in mind.

To get away from the (possible) cholera patients nearby, we crowded into a cramped hot room. There were 12 of our 14 scheduled kids stooling, and one of the two healthy kids turned out to be malnourished, so make that 13. Plus we enrolled three new kids, so make that 16. Which is 32 stools to do. Not counting a couple others we needed so make that 36. Busy busy busy. Plus we had to buccal smear, which took more time. All in all, it ran well, busy, hot, tiring, and long. in most respects a manageable day. As always there was a few fat, very healthy babies from families that are probably fairly well off. (By Malawian standards at least)

The not-so-good things, but nonetheless not unusual things were as follows. We had one mom who didn't come for the umpteenth time, and we kicked her out of the program. We have had a lot of those. One person Victor went to fetch was found to be in mourning. One of the twins had died two days ago, and was just buried yesterday. The mom was in no condition to go. As soon as she is able, we will try to have her come for a few more visits, and then we will discharge her. This serves both to get some more data to wrap up the set, and to give the mom a little extra (in the way of incentives) to get through the mourning. We have had far too many of these kids. I'm not sure if I will recognize the remaining twin when she comes back, but the names sounded familiar. Also there were two twins on chiponde today who did terribly over the last two weeks. Both lost a quarter and a fifth of their weights, respectively, and one of them is not eating. Their heads resembled raisins in the way the skin was stretched across their heads and the veins were popping out. The worse of the two had a terrible diaper rash, and both looked like skeletons. We sent both to the Nutritional Rehabilitation Unit, or NRU, were they will be observed and made sure to eat properly. I have a fifty-fifty bet that I will never see one of them, and a twenty-five - seventy-five bet that I never see either. Its not that I don't want them to recover, but when you've seen so many you can kinda gauge how likely it is for the children to survive.

Not meant to depress or scare anybody, I just felt like I hadn't gotten it across well yet.

A day in the life of a volunteer in Malawi.

TTYL

---He who is tired of the cute babies dying.

Wow I can talk a lot...

2009-01-24T11:24:00.000-08:00

Hey, it has been a while hasn’t it? I haven’t had much time to spare in a while, and the little I did I didn’t want to spend conscious. Well, I’ll try to keep it semi – short, so as to not bore any of you…assuming my long hiatus hasn’t killed everyone’s interest. It’d kill mine. Anyway, in a token effort at getting things in chronological order even though I can’t remember most of the details anymore, I will start with my trip to Mozambique.

The trip there was half of the adventure. At expensive half at that. We – Victor, Joy (Male), and I – left on Friday, after clinic was finished, heading for Victor’s home town of Tete. We left the compound at five o’clock, thinking that if we made it to the border by six; we’d be able to cross. We got there at fifteen after. Wasn’t a big deal though, apparently the border closed at nine! Sweet! (Don’t worry; the six o’clock closing will bite us in the ass later) And this is where the bribes start. Victor wasn’t given a piece of necessary paperwork for the truck we rented; to he gave someone a bribe to acquire it for him. Necessary. The next one wasn’t. Joy and L ordered a student (twelve month) Visa more than six months ago. Even now, they still don’t have them. So when we tried to cross, there was this big, fat, corrupt Malawian (with a big scar on his nose) staring at us. For you’re reference, there are three main groups in Malawi. Blacks = natives. Indians = Businessmen. Whites/Wazungus = Humanitarian aid. AKA, people with money. So when he saw us, he immediately decided that he was gonna make us bribe him. Didn’t matter why, he was just looking for his justification. And when he saw that Joy didn’t have his passport updated (because he is still waiting for his student visa) he saw his chance. Didn’t matter that we had the receipt for the pending visa, he just wanted a cut. Victor’s reaction was simply, “This is Africa.” He didn’t put up with any baseless shit though. When the border officials tried to make him pay for some rice he had in the truck he raised hell till they backed off. Soo pissed off.

And this is where the six o’clock problem hit. Turns out, the Malawi border closes at nine, but the Mozambique border closes at six! The boss there raised hell about us making him work after hours, which is weird, because someone else did all the work; all he had to do was sign. Plus we payed fifty bucks…whatever we got across.

So then we had about an hour on the road where there were huge potholes (lakes) in the road, with many, many half-destroyed buildings which we couldn’t see. I’m estimating an hour, because I fell asleep. In a total of three hours or so we were in Tete. IT WAS SOO COOL!!! I mean, they had LAMPOSTS! And GOOD ROADS!!! And CULTURE! ART! GRAFFITI!! MUSIC! It was culture shock. Victor’s sister served us chambo (Fish) and intestines with liver in it. I am proud to say that while I was not the first to try it, I did eventually eat it. (It is VERY rude not to try everything put before you) Intestines are rubbery and I wouldn’t recommend them, but its perfect food if you’re feeling adventurous. I played some playstation with one of the kids there as well and then we slept. Or actually only I did; Victor (typically) got up too early for me to call what he did “sleeping,” and Joy was too hot to sleep. Oh I forgot to mention that didn’t I? Tete is hot as HELL. Like a sauna. Or a furnace.

The next day we drove around for something close to two hours meeting Victor’s many relations. Following which, in African tradition, we fit about 6 more people than we should be able to into our truck, and drove to another town, about six hours away. I fell asleep that way too. Then we saw the dam, which was amazing. This huge cement structure obstructing a river, with such power flowing through it that you can feel the cement vibrating! I have tons of pictures from that trip. We even got to go inside, and even though we weren’t supposed to take pics Victor’s cousin took a bunch under his arm. I felt justified anyway, because the tour guide was letting his personal friend take videos, and if they are going to flaunt the rules, why not us too? (As long as we don’t get caught of course)

After that we opted to not go to home yet, because no one wanted that long of a car ride yet, and because there was a disco to go to. After waiting about three eternities for the women to get ready, we headed off, to a terrible disco with no people. We didn’t leave there nearly fast enough. The second one was packed though, and was a lot of fun, though I still felt like I was merely attempting to “dance.”

Once we woke up the next day we spent all day driving back, with a short stop in Tete to eat. We got back home really late. I don’t think Victor or Joy slept at all the whole trip and I think I consumed more than my body mass in cokes. What fun.

Christmas was good in another way. I had received a couple gifts from the ones who spawned me, namely candy and books. My dad gets most of the credit for that, because I know my mom did not pick out Dune and the new Ender’s Game book. (Both of which were GREAT by the way) Some comics were also included, but those two were the big ones. So we spent the weekend doing nothing in a “resort.” (by Malawian standards) I indulged a few pleasures there, namely video games, books, and LOTS OF MUSIC. It was fantastic. I do not kid you when I say that I did nothing for four days or so. Which was amazingly refreshing.

After that we drove to Lilongwe to pick up Joy and his sister. She stayed for two weeks, and spent many of them on trips with Joy. Not much to say about her, she didn’t talk much, but in the rare occurrences it was nice to talk to someone my age. (It was also fun to see Joy dote on her a little. He is an older brother after all.) Oh and he brought me CD’s from home. (again from the parents) To summarize, Fuel, Hinder, Nickelback, Three Doors Down, and Shinedown all kick ass. Panic at the Disco is not good live, at all…I felt my memories of the songs I liked be slowly, horribly raped as I heard what they sounded like live. Trapt is good, but they changed their style in Only through the Pain, and the jury is still out on them. If you didn’t know already, I’m a music addict, and it plays a big part in keeping me sane, hence why it gets a part in the blog.

In the past weeks I’ve been working very hard. I’ve entered all the data that we used to have piled up, which took way longer than I would have liked. But it’s done. Finally. 1200 cards divided by 20 cards an hour = 60 hours, done mostly by me. You may applaud now. We also got new buccal smears (To determine if kids are identical by DNA) which has made clinic crazy…how many kids do you think sit quietly while you stick a foreign object in their mouth?...OK except for the newborns that will suck on anything. Oh and we have 235 sets of twins enrolled now, and a typical day involves 15-30 sets (30-60 twins) and as many as 15 may need to give us stool. (Actually next month they will all need to go…stupid three month visits…) I spend a lot of time working on the flowchart for Dr Manary, and repacking the truck, and keeping track of supplies.

We have lost 16 sets of twins. I think approximately eight kids have died. And eight sets have defaulted too much, and we kicked them out. So that’s like 1-2% mortality rate in our study over six months, where all the kids aren’t even malnourished. (FYI, under five mortality in Malawi is approxmately 1% for healthy babies, 4% for moderately malnourished children, and 16% for severe. 2/3 die with kwash if untreated. It isn't that we are doing badly but that children DIE here.)

Also it’s HUNGRY SEASON, when the land is green and no one has food. Our sites are exploding with kids coming to be treated. I think there are upwards of 200 kids coming to some of our sites now, and it is only going to increase, Which means that the amount of cards to enter is gonna go up too. One site enrolled 30 kids (1.5 hours) not counting the other site that day. Luckily, stool study will be mostly spared an increase on our already formidable workload, except that there will be many more sick, and consequently stooling babies. In other words, we wont get huge amounts of enrollments, but we will get huge amounts of stools. Yay for the pooper scooper! (ME!)

I’ve been rambling for a while, and I’m sure I’ve lost at least half of my initial readers, but here’s my last recap. We have three new people staying right now, Dr Manary, his wife Mardi, and a photographer, Jeff. Mardi is super nice, and calls me a dear boy all the time, without saying it patronizingly, so she is good company. Dr Manary came and he has been giving me some real praise, and I feel like I’m doing my job really well. And Jeff is very idealistic, to my cynicism, and he is trying to make some media to raise money for the project. All in all it’s nice to have such a crowd, but I think I will be thankful when it’s nice and quiet again.

So that’s generally how things’ve been going. I hope some of you back home will be patient with me, and keep in some form of contact even though it’s so hard for me to get back to you.

TTYL

He who is enjoying his first relaxed day in a long while, thanks to Leslie.

A post is in the works

2008-12-29T11:53:00.000-08:00

I haven't been had time to make any posts in a while. I'm working on an extensive post talking about my trip to Mozambique, the lake, and everything else interesting that has happened. Its still in the works, so it might be a week or so more.

Merry Christmas. Happy New Year.

Goodnight.

Bleh

2008-11-30T19:02:00.000-08:00

I'm sorry I haven't posted again. Not having a computer I can use is killing my ability to post when coupled with the fact that I am getting home late most days now. And its going to get more busy when I get the database sent to me, because then data entry will start up again . . . and the editing of the database . . . and making a new one for stool study . . . it's just going to be a lot of work. Which is good, because Hannah works so much its insane, and I'm feeling like I'm slacking or something, but I guess you get to work that hard when you're a doctor.

Anyway, what I'm getting at is that, though I don't think that any of you took it seriously, I sure haven't seen any signs that anyone did, but four posts a week is unsustainable. In fact, any amount of required posts is impossible at present. So the favor game I made up has to die. If you actually want to collect, all favors gained till now still stand, but I can't continue. Its not possible.

So anyway, there have been lots of stuff happening the last two weeks. We started enrolling newborn babies. I chased a chicken for forty minutes and it ended up stuck in a bush. Because I'm was having some trouble (very little, more like scraping by) buying enough food myself, my stipend was doubled. (I have NO FREAKING IDEA what I am going to do with that money.) Leslie left and came back from vacation. Random food buying and whatnot. The nurse for stool study who's "name" I forgot again's sister in law died, so we lost her for a day or two. I had massive abdominal pain at our overnight stay at Namandanje one week, and merely got a little sick the next week . . . Yeah I've decided that I'm in an abusive relationship with that place, I always end up sick or something when I go there, but anyway . . . I rode on top of the truck for half an hour, on Malawi roads. I met one of the people who runs the peace corps here. And lots of other random stuff that you could expect from me.

So you see, I'm alive. I'm fine. And the workload is only going to get bigger, so my posts will become less frequent. Actually this took to much time too, gotta go.

TTYL

---He who needs to pack the car for tomorrow now.

Sorry.

2008-11-24T12:10:00.000-08:00

Well, its been quite a twelve days since I last posted. I don't have time to fill you in on everything yet, but I'll tell you why I've been absent, if only to assure you that I'm still alive. This month is approximately three months since the stool study started. Healthy babies get stool collected every three months. So EVERYONE is pooping now. And it only takes one stubborn kid with powerful sphincter muscles to keep us at the site forever. I've been sick, I think I'm finally over all of it, but I thought that a month ago too, when this freaking cold first hit me. And for some reason no matter what I do, nothing ever seems to time right so I can get to Icon cyber cafe in time to post. I'm working on it. Oh, and last week makes the fourth time I haven't posted enough, so there will be loads of favors. Yeah I think four is biting off more than I can chew. So anyways, I'm alive. I'm (Hopefully) healthy.

TTYL

---He who now owes WAY too many people favors.

P.S. I'm desperate and this post delayed my sleep. So just this once I'm counting this little nothing of a post as one of my four this week.

Lazy day, Sick Sick Sick...

2008-11-12T10:35:00.000-08:00

Ok this mac is giving me trouble...I'm gonna fix this post tomorrow, but now whenever I try to copy-paste my post it just goes below the page. I mean, blog entry post, little blue line, all my text. And when I publish with it there, nothing gets posted. Anyway, if you see this, sorry , but I don't have the energy to retype the whole thing.

I really need to learn how to slash through stuff no longer pertinent, anyone got a clue?

Today had been quite a lazy day. Joy (Male) and I have been up for a while, me for about 6 more hours than he, and we haven’t really done much productive work all day. Granted I’ve been trying to learn Access for the last hour, but I don’t count no progress as ‘productive work.’ Access is just confusing, and the manual she brought on the CD was junk. I mean, it has lots of great details and whatnot, but it sucks terribly as a tutorial. Thanks SO MUCH Mom for telling Hannah to NOT bring an access manual. Urgh. Anyway, the reason jay and I are stuck here instead of being out in the field is because we’re both recovering from sickness.

I got sick two weeks ago. It progressed from runny nose to sneezing to coughing to wheezing and all the way back to runny nose over two or three days. Then it stayed at runny nose, with occasional recurrences of coughing. Then Joy caught my sickness, and he’s been getting worse and worse until yesterday he broke out in a high fever, shortly after I was sent home early for having a high fever. Also, I have been having a recurrence of the dehydration type lightheadedness. If you recall, in a post about a month ago I talked about how I got so dizzy I couldn’t even stand? Well it never really went away. I have had very small bouts of dizziness every time I stand up since. I mean very small. But last Monday it started coming back heavily. So I made sure to eat and drink lots and tried to stave it off, but on Tuesday it got so bad I had to lay down, and I broke out in a fever so high even I could feel I had one. Or maybe the fever was the cause of the dizziness as well? Who knows? Who cares? All I know is that I’m running a very small fever now (.2 degrees) and I’m feeling loads better. And YES dad, I’m drinking lots of water.

Now because I’ve been kinda out of it the last few days, I cant supply any more for a normal post, so here’s a little more about MARAWI!!!

Malawians have a very interesting language. In Chichewa, all words, ALL words, end in vowels. This has caused me to be named by Malawians who can’t speak any English, Bilo. Kinda funny, at the Adventist hospital I got written in as Bilo Sharp. Hah. Also, there are very, very standardized greetings here. (Note: There are no spaces between some words because no pause is pronounced.) When you meet someone you say, “Muli Bwanji?” (Mu = You, Li = are, Bwanji = How) To which one responds, and I have suspicions that this would be the response even if your mother died, “Ndiri Bwino, Kayainu?” (Ndi = I, ri = is, Bwino = Fine, Kaya = and, Inu = You) To which one responds, you guessed it, “Ndiri Bwino.” I actually like to add Kayainu to the end of the second one, just to see if I can get a volley going. Now at this point some of the more observant ones of you are going, wait, Li and Ri are the same word, WTF? This ties in to how you pronounce Chichewa, where most L’s and R’s are interchangeable. I can’t articulate what it sounds like over the blog, but if you can try to merge an L sound with an R, that’s how most of the words here are pronounced. Malawi is an exception, the L is distinct, but Leslie likes to call it MARAWI anyway. (Yes it is caps for a reason. I can’t articulate how she sounds when she says is but it’s pretty funny, and caps is the closest I can get.) Moving on, if its early morning instead of, “Muli Bwanji,” one says “Mwadzuka Bwanji?” (Mwa = You, dzuka = rise, bwino = h…oh wait I already told you that one didn’t I?) And the response is, “Ndadzuka Bwino, Kayainu?” (Nda = We) I won’t insult your intelligence by supplying you with the second response. Now I’m sure that was shell shockingly different than the last one right? But it gets better. If it’s in the evening you say, “Mwaswela Bwanji?” (Swela = play.) Replace Mwa with Nda and I’m sure you can figure the responses out on your own; you’re big boys and girls right? So that is the entirety of the Malawian greetings. How are you, how did you rise (I think this one means did you sleep well), and how did you play (I theorize, going out on a limb here, it means did you have an enjoyable day). But should you ask a Malawian to describe Mwadzuka, they would just say, it’s the morning greeting. The meaning isn’t even important anymore. Which is why many Malawians have dropped the Bwino and Bwanji in the morning and evening greetings. “Mwadzuka?” “Ndadzuka, Kayainu?” “Ndadzuka.” In case you were wondering this equates to “You rise?” “We rise, and you?” “We rise.” Doesn’t make much sense, but I do find it REALLY amusing that if one were to go to say, a Malwian party, and greet all the guests you would (probably) use the same one every time. Isn’t that something? Thats it. Three standardized greetings. Anyone who even casually knows me knows that is EXCRUTIATING for a smartass like myself. I can't say, ARGH I'm doing terribly! Or anything else. The Malawians would just stare at you! So. Frustrating.

I don’t know much more Chichewa…both the Chichewa books are in someone else’s possession at the moment, so for now…

TTYL

---He who is glad the world has decided which way is up…again…

We Got robbed!

2008-11-09T01:06:00.000-08:00

I woke up at 6 oclock today...three hours earlier than I should have...to the knocking of one of our guards on my window. After cursing him, his family, and all of the progeny he may ever procreate, or the progeny they may procreate, I rolled out of bed, put my pants on, and went outside. I then, half asleep, followed him to the Downhouse, our supply area, to find the bars bent.

I'll shorten the three hour ordeal into a paragraph or two for you guys. What was stolen: 200,000 kwatcha, (1250 dollars) some oil, and our printer. A guard was apparently ambushed ant tied up. The dog may or may not have been barking its head of at midnight, depending on whether you believe the landlord or his son. Right now though, we don't know exactly who stole the stuff, or where it is. Were the guards in on it? We don't know. It is strange that the robbers knew which house was empty, that the guards would not patrol, and where the servants quarters were, because they put the dog there. WHATEVER. I'll keep you posted if anything new comes up.

Oh, and because we ran out of some ingredients, we cant get the cmv for the ten percent chiponde, and we have to stop enrolling. Yay. That means all my frantic work over the last two weeks has been for NOTHING.

So anyway, heres my responces to your comments...

"Wonder if any of you noticed..."

Medium Bill - Its a pain getting UP with five hours of sleep. Not the dinner. Jeez.

Ulf - Actually the head cold refuses to leave. I still have a runny nose.

Rita - Glad you dont think I've lost my destructive touch. =)

Aggie - I would have loved to be in the states, as it was I felt really detached from it all.

"Classifying BABIEZ"

Kellye - Its ok, I knew you were slow for a long time. I'm real happy to hear that you had been reading it before though (Am I inferring that right?)

Ms Megonigal - COOL! You're reading this? AWESOME!!! You're the best btw, just so you know. Oh and Me and Billy? Do you think I'm Brian? Nonetheless, I'm not sure you're nerves would be able to take another year of "me and Billy."

Malawi Mom - Uhm...my mom taught me it was fun to decapitate small woodland creatures...is that terrible too?

Hannah is coming!"

Aunt Jo - I will never forget. In fact, I was very dissapointed when I realized it doesnt work o her anymore.

Kellye - Guess what Kellye, ITS OPPOSITE DAY! (My retort to "ay. To. Go.")

SO thats it for now, If I get more internet time I'll extend my responces.

TTYL

---He who is glad the computers WERE NOT in the downhouse.

Hannah is coming!

2008-11-08T00:29:00.000-08:00

Hannah, a new doctor person is coming today. It will be interesting, because as Leslie put it, "We have the same conversations over and over, and it will be nice to have her here instead of having to role-play her." Really though, I'm kinda excited, because I've heard so many people talking about her (Many of them contradicting each other) and this will be the day we get to meet the mystery person!

Thing on the bugs of last night, I was recently told people eat them here...which is why we only found the wings this morning...

So here comes a post I've been meaning to make for a long time...What is it actually like to live in a third world country?

Well we have everything here that you have in a first world country. There are cars, air conditioning, planes, roads, government, police, computers, Etc. However, only the very rich have them. And the condition of the luxuries here is a far degree lower than it is in the states. The cars break down all the time, the computers aren't half as good as back home, the police don't have cars, roads are shitty, planes only arrive twice a week, and the government mildly corrupt (better than in previous administrations) and to a certain degree, ineffectual. We have only been in air conditioning once. And EVERYONE is walking or riding a bike. Or riding in one of those minibus deathtraps, if they can afford it. And this is in the cities, where everyone is sort of well off, by malawian standards. In the villages, people live like the 18th century or earlier. Starvation isn't something to bemoan, its just a part of everyday life. Water is pulled from pumps, and there is no good education, unless you pay for it. Compare this to the states where people can squander everything they are given (on a silver platter no less) and still have their god given right to a car and a roof over their heads. Its amazing how lucky we are, my readership and me, to be born in a country where everything is provided for, and you barely have to work to get such luxuries as we take for granted. I say this because I have seen children aged three or less hoeing their "gardens" (Fields) with a hoe that is bigger than them. In comparison most in first world countries just amble their way through life without a care in the world. Seriously, thank whatever deity you pray to, or to fortune if you like me, that you were so damn lucky to be born where you were, for nothing you have ever accomplished, no matter how hard you worked, would be possible here.

TTLY

---He who hopes Hannah has a sense of humor.

Classifying BABIEZ

2008-11-07T08:09:00.001-08:00

Hey y’all. How have you been? You watched the election? Of course you did. Irrespective of your political affiliation, did the results surprise any of you? I’ll just let you in on a couple things from this end. Every one of the nurses exploded with joy when they heard, which is funny, considering that if they knew what he stood for; all the progressive things like gay rights and having government not regulate abortion, they would probably not have supported him. One of our med students, who I won’t name, actually cried when he/she heard the news. I didn’t really react, I was sure Obama was gonna win. Here’s another interesting tidbit. Kenya declared a national holiday when Barack won. They also started clearing the road to Obama’s grandma’s house, in anticipation of a visit by him. I’m not sure, but I don’t think it’s extremely likely (right now I’m stuck on 50-50) that Barack will pay a visit so someone (I think) he’s never seen before.

Anyway, lets shift the focus back onto a far bigger and more important issue, ME!

Note. It wasn’t the get together with the girls that was ‘a pain,’ it was only having 5 hours of sleep.

Let’s see let’s see. Tuesday night the azungus (Me Lelsie and Joy (Male) ) went to Maky’s to watch the election. We got to see the typical finishing speeches, including McCain’s pathetic, “The Mac is back!” I’m sorry but no one that old should try to refer to himself as ‘The Mac.’ We got kicked out around 11-ish, and we then went home and collapsed (Eleven is really late for us). We found out who won the election while driving to clinic. And Wednesday was a pretty typical day, except that I went back to the compound instead of going to Namandanje. Yaaaay! I got to enter LOTS of data. More on that later. So I got home and what do I do? Drive under the overhang that covers the cars. Which is unusual, considering my usual spot is more off to the side, but anyway…there was a chair on the top of the truck…and just so you know…chair legs VS net thing…net thing wins. After faceplanting the wheel in frustration, I pulled it off the car. I spent the next two hours trying to get in touch with Leslie, who had told me that I HAD to call her. I eventually did, turned out she left her phone in the car for a while. And lastly I went to Maky’s again, to get some nice ambiance while entering data, only to find that ambiance ruined by three grown women with spirits of pre-teen school girls ruining it by talking way too loud, way too much, way too fast, about way too little.

So that’s Wednesday…wonderful wasn’t it? Lesse, isn’t much to say about Thursday. I finished the pile of three hundred or so cards I’ve been working on for the last week…only to be depressed by the fact that the next pile of cards is just as big. BLEH. Victor and I picked up a car that just got finished in the shop…and shifted all the stuff out of the Land Rover (The usual stool study truck) into the newly fixed one. Then he drove the Rover to the shop. Yaaay. Oh, but things get interesting late at night. Now there had been TORRENTIAL downpours all day Thursday…a sign the hungry season is upon us…and when it rains the little bugs I mentioned crawl out of everywhere, and apparently they come out in proportion to how much it rains…so when it was dark outside and the lights were on we heard this smacking sound against our window…and it was a whole swarm of them smacking against our light outside, and some were hitting the window. Some found their way inside too…freaks…I don’t understand how these bugs survive…they basically emerge after a rain, exhaust themselves, and die after they have thoroughly exhausted themselves. Seriously, the ground underneath the lights looks like a battlefield with all the dying bugs or whatever you call pavement covered with dying bugs…(Personally I think it’s a joy!) One good thing though, any bugs that enter the house eventually exhaust themselves, and then the lizards (which I don’t mind) eat them! Woohoo! I don’t even have to clean up the bodies! Fan-freaking-tastic! So the war to keep our houses free from these pests has begun…I only hope I may take many of the bastards out in the process.

Quick note. The Net has been screwy since the torrential rains on Thursday. One thing I don't get. How is all the net out EXCEPT Google? WTF!?! Someone needs to explain how that works...

Moving on. Friday. Uhm…normal day? Not many kids…no defaulters…But I do have one question for you, my somewhat loyal viewership. Does it make me a bad person if I get my kicks off making kids cry? Let me give the context. Over the almost two months I’ve been here I have created five categories for kids I see at clinics. One: young kids, four to nine years of age. Pal around with them. Noogies go over well. Two: boring babies who give no reaction to anything you do. Ignore them. Three: Very, Very sick babies. Be very gentle, and pity them. Isn’t much else you can do, babies that are really malnourished have no energy to do anything. Four: FUN BABIES!!! Babies that are bright eyed, will play with you, smile, and actually have fun with an azungu! Wonderful, and play the hell out of them. It took me a while to realize that one of the pairs at today’s site were a type four, and I had loads of fun after I figured that out…but I digress…Type 5:…Crying babies. Babies that cry a lot, especially the ones that cry whenever I look at them. I’m talking I look: WAAAH! WAAAH! WAAAAH! I look away:...Silence…Antagonize these babies! Don’t do anything that is really mean, but look at them a lot, make faces, noises…anything to make them cry again! I guess it kinda annoys me that they just start crying whenever I look, so I’m trying to cure them of it…kinda a trial by fire…plus it kinda makes me laugh when they cry for no real reason…Does that make me a bad person?

TTYL

---He who is preparing for the battle tonight…it rained…

Wonder if any of you noticed...

2008-11-04T07:58:00.000-08:00

It’s been a long couple-a days.

To start off, I’ve been getting progressively sicker since Friday. Before I cause any other heart attacks, it’s just a head cold. But it started off as that annoying mucus in the back of my throat, and now I’m coughing all the time. Or at least I was. I think I got over most of it today.

So anyway, my pathetic total card entry over the weekend was eighty. Twenty behind. Isn’t that grand? I entered forty yesterday, so I think I compensated.

And in other weekend news, it rained. A fair amount. I hate the rain. Even though it causes the sky to darken and this freaking place to (finally!!!) get cool. Why? Because when it rains these ant-fly things swarm out of the ground and fly straight towards all bright lights (Our house). So irritating.

Also, last Saturday when Joy (Male) and I were walking to Maky’s, we encountered some of the volunteers working at the orphanage next door. I won’t bore you with the details, but they invited us to take a visit. Joy had time to make the visit, I didn’t (Card entry) but when he was there he got us invited to a birthday dinner. It was at a nice Italian restaurant, and we drove them because they don’t have cars. It was pretty nice, there were four girls, ages 25-27, three from the UK and one from the US. It was pretty fun, we talked about Chiponde, England, Politics, Accents, whatever came up. We got to bed late though. That was a pain.

Speaking of pains, Monday morning this terrible horn player kept me up for half an hour! He sucked, and if I had found him I would have shoved his horn through his EYE for playing at four in the freaking morning!

Monday. Monday. What a stressful day for Leslie. Stool study was OK, but we stayed late, and because of the way we had been doing things, we kept Leslie late as well. And she had already been irritated because of 10 defaulters, kids that weren’t being fed, and other annoying things. Did I mention it was freaking hot outside? When we drove with the windows down it felt like a furnace. And when we got to Icon, the net café, we found out that the car we had been driving didn’t have a parking break. Have I ever mentioned the parking at Icon is on a hill? I didn’t? It is. And Icon was packed. We had to wait twenty minutes. It is near impossible to stress me out, but I’m surprised Leslie didn’t EXPLODE at this point. Everything had gone wrong Monday.

Tuesday starts off funny, and then gets boring real fast. Well, because of the parking break issue, we wanted to switch cars. So I get up, run over in time to get Victor as he’s coming in, and we completely unload and reload the truck. Then we drive to pick up Jennifer, which is what I am naming the awesome stool study nurse. Partway there, we notice a light isn’t going off on the dashboard. Turns out, the fan belt broke. By the time we got back the car was smoking. And then unload and reload the cars. What fun! This put us an hour behind schedule, which makes a big difference when you have to wait for a tyke to poop. Victor made up for it though, by driving really hella fast. I should know, I was leaning on a bag of flour and still got bruises from all the bumps. Once we got there everything went normally. Only one funny thing to mention, we are weighing kinds who have already been fed now, and this one kid shit all over the scale. It was great in a way, I just grabbed it in bag and there’s his stool. I think this might become a kinda last resort. The kid won’t poop? Leave him on the scale for a while. And if any of you were wondering (and I might have already said this) people DO lose bowel control when they get scared. I can’t count the number of kids that have peed on the scale and height board, and this poop incident just further proves it.

And that’s it for me…now let me look at those comments…

"A day at the court..."

Kathleen - It went well, the fine ended up being the equivalent of 20 bucks.

Rita - I thought I blow things up/lose them?

Bernie - Tell Elicia I'm feeding little kids like her peanut butter!

Aggie - I STILL havent had the chance to read all you wrote, I guess when (If) I get a computer I'll let you know my reaction then.

Liz - Haha. I didn't lose them.

Aunt Jo - I actually have a clip and I have only lost one key. A long Time ago.

"Guess what, I drove to make this post!"

Dad - OF COURSE I'm trying to kill you. I thought we had already been over this.

Mom - Getting stuff out is gonna be hard...I don't have constant computer access and thinks are kinda hectic here...

"Cards...Cards...CARDS!!!"

Aggie - Just a predicion here. Obama.

Malawi Mom - Hasn't the world always been orange?

Medium Bill - It rained. No hike.

Uncle D and Aunt J - RAAAAH I dont have any more time to respond I have to go crap!!! I'm glad to hear you're finally wading into technology though. =)

TTYL

---He who wonders if anyone noticed there were only three posts last week?

Cards...Cards...CARDS!!!!

2008-11-01T04:01:00.000-07:00

As the title suggests, cards are filling up all my free time...actually I see orange wherever I look...maybe I'm starting to lose it...haha. But seriously, I've entered 50 so far and will probably enter 50-75 more before today ends. I've been to Macky's today, and we might go for a hike. Then more cards. Cards. Cardies. Hah...

Oh and I am still allowed to drive, as it is one of the things that every worker here needs to be able to do. Not that I'm jumping on it, I still hate driving. But when I have to I am able to.

This post isn't gonna be long, I couldn't prepare ahead of time, and there isn't much to say about today. So I can't fit in much of an about Malawi, but heres a little one.

You might think that africa is full of wildlife, but you'd be dead wrong. Other than little lizards, there is barely any wildlife here. Outside of preserves of course. Why is that? All of the natives eat all the animals. In fact there are only two animals that remain now. One, Monkeys. Why? They are too smart to get themselves eaten. (Made me laugh, Monkeys:1 People:0) The other animals are hippos. And that is just because...well hippos are big sunsaguns. You make one mad and you might be taken out of the gene pool. And that is todays quick posty.

TTLY

---He who is REALLY tired of cards

Guess what, I drove to make this post!

2008-10-31T10:50:00.000-07:00

Wednesday was typical. Go to Chamba, (Wednesday’s site) feed kids, collect their poop. Whup-tee-do. Not much to say about the site itself. Then we drove to Namandanje. Seemed normal so far, long drive. Etc. etc. Only difference was that because some more people were going to the mission, we had to leave half at a motel.

Now I will tell you this, simply because I have, probably inadvisedly, taken my entire readership into my confidence. Oh, and by the way, I’m not trying to make this blog particularly “deep” or anything; I’m just too ‘lazy’ to omit anything. Now here’s the bit. If you have been reading recently, you will have read two posts ago my super long reply to a one paragraph question. Now one of the things I mentioned was that I thought that when you die, probably, everything you are just disappears. Now, that has never been a particularly scary concept for me, after all, what do you have to fear about nothing? But here’s the thing, anyone with a reasonable amount of experience will know that there is a huge gap between thinking and understanding. And also, many of you know that there are some understandings that no matter how hard you ponder you will reach. Some can only be obtained by accidentally stumbling onto them. And this is what happened while my brain was meandering on the car ride. I accidentally fell upon what my view on death actually means. And let me tell you it was terrifying. I can’t even explain how the realization felt, but my chest clenched up and my heart rate went crazy. But the most surprising thing was that I was able to suppress the feeling in about ten seconds. I’m not sure how, whether by rationalization or what, but I forced it away. I spent the rest of the day thinking about it, not really sure whether I was trying to find that understanding again, or make sure I never stumbled onto it ever again.

So anyway that’s always in the background on Wednesday. Later, when we reached Namandanje, I tried to get some alone time watching the football game, but 15-20 kids flocked to me. I couldn’t lose them for an hour. After that hour, when it was getting dark, I went back to the church and lay on the steps for another hour. After that I got a phone call from Joy (Male) asking where I was because they were about ready to get a search party ready for me. I had been trying to hide, so I wouldn’t get crowded again, but I guess I hid too well.

Here comes the fun part. The ‘people’ coming to the mission were a couple from Italy (where the father comes from) and were going to have a traditional African wedding. Naturally Namandanje turned out to welcome them. There were four drummers, a truck with speakers in it, and about a hundred or so dancing Africans. We heard when the groom arrived (They were arriving separately) because there was this explosion of noise as all of the Africans roared and increased their partying. So naturally we went to go look. It was HILLARIOUS. There were so many people dancing, singing, many of them plastered, many of them (women included) shirtless. (Actually I would have never noticed that last part had Joy not pointed it out to me; I’ve seen more women breastfeeding than anyone should ever be subjected to, and I don’t really notice anymore.) In fact they actually went into the car and dragged out the family, or everyone they could, the grandpa was DECIDEDLY not coming out. Haha. The groom was just talking to the father, but the others actually started dancing. The best part was when this really, really, really, plastered guy who had uprooted a banana tree earlier to wave it around slammed it onto the back of their truck, on that little thing you hitch trailers to. And it STUCK. It was great.

Not much else to say, except we got a room at the outside of the compound this time, and actually had airflow. It was amazing; the first time I haven’t woken up drenched in sweat.

Thursday oh Thursday. I don’t feel like describing it. Except this. We left at six thirty, and we got back home at eight. URGH. Oh and apparently I have this ability to attract kids, because I couldn’t help but get a crowd every place we went to, whether I wanted one or not. Actually its kinda troublesome, because I can’t speak the language, and unlike Joy, I quickly run out of things to do. So I usually end up chasing them. Kinda tiring though. Oh and when we got home I accidentally killed a cockroach with my bare feet. I mention that because once I realized what I did, I just shrugged and walked on. I’m getting way too used to Africa.

Friday. Uhm, normal sized site. Three new kids. I still have magic hands, as I got 6 kids to poop in ten minutes, except this one brat who refused to poop for four hours. There were lots of cute babies actually, the bright eyed kind that doesn’t start crying just from looking at me. (And yes there are a lot of those.) Not much to say.

Here’s one thing though. I have been talking about entering cards for a while. Here’s a little piece, so you understand. We graduate about 15 kids every day, from every site. Two sites a day, thirty kids. I can enter 22 cards an hour. I haven’t had a chance to enter cards in the last three days. I counted. We got 100 cards in the last three days. So that’s five hours of work. Sounds terrible right? Five hours of work on the weekend when I should be relaxing? But it gets better. We didn’t enter cards for a while, so we have 500ish cards that need to be entered on top of that. So, to make progress, I need to enter 200 or so over the weekend. And if we don’t get them all entered, now, we never will, because hunger season is fast approaching. And guess what, kids are more likely to starve in hunger season! So even MORE cards every day. I think if I practically kill myself over the next two weeks I might be able to enter them all. Maybe. OR maybe I’ll go insane and jump off the roof. We will see wont we?

TTYL

---He who is tired of orange pieces of paper

A day at the court...

2008-10-28T01:01:00.000-07:00

Wow I'm sure surprised at the amount of comments on that last post...One? I know my parents were freaking, and immediately called/emailed me. But still, one comment? Were you guys just to dissapointed? Well, no matter, the blog shall continue as long as at least one person other than my parents read this.

So Monday Monday Monday...Pretty normal day, all things considered. One or two things of note at the site. I apparently have magic hands for applying suppositories. (The ones we use to make the stubborn ones poop) One kid pooped right as I put the suppository in, and the other pooped as I layed him on the towel. Maaaaaagic hands. So thats now my job. Yaaaaay. Hahaha.

I spent the rest of the day playing with little babies while we waitd for Leslie to get back and check Edema. (The swelling by water getting stuck in the body, a sign of Kwash.)

Tuesday is going better than I had hoped it would. I woke up as early as I usually do, and waited around, entering data cards. At 7:20 our manager picked me up, and she drove us to the police station. We got a good prosecutor, and left for the courthouse after about an hour. When we got there, since the judges were in a meeting, and she didn't want to make us wait, she let us go, we are going to skip the court case, as I am pleading guilty, and she will call us when our fine is ready. She said it will probably be 1-3 thousand kwatcha, but could be up to 5. I have 8 thousand on me, so I should be OK for the fine.

I'm just going to spend the rest of today entering cards. Not much else to say.

Also, I was told that my explanations of the studys was kinda spotty, so here's try number two.

Stool study is trying to determine what causes kids to get Kwashiorkor. Marasmus is caused by a lack of food in general, whereas Kwash is caused by an undiverse diet (Eating bread paste every day) But it is unclear what is the exact cause of Kwashiorkor. There may be some evidence the difference in those that develop Kwash and Marasmus in the bacteria in the bowels. SO...the study takes twins, and we monitor them until their third birthday, taking stool every three months, unless they become malnourished. If they become malnourished, they get put on chiponde, and we take stool at every visit. In this way, we hope to get many samples from kids with both Kwash and Marasmus, and be able to determine a difference in their "bowel flora" or the bacteria in the stomach and intestines. If it works, The Doctor may be able to determine the cause of Kwash.

The other study is trying to determine whether chiponde that is 10% milk and 10% soy can be used to treat children as well as chiponde that is 25% milk. Now, for some better background on it. Milk is very hard to come by here in Malawi, and very expensive. Soy milk, on the other hand, is not as hard. There are right now, three types of chiponde we use in the field. Soya Chiponde, 10% milk, and 25% milk (the original). Now some amino acids (might not be amino acids, but its SOMETHING) present in milk are needed for a baby to put on some serious weight. A few are present in soy milk, but not all. It has been shown that a baby that is only moderately malnourished can be treated on soya, but babies that are severley malnourished cannot. However, if we can treat severe children with a chiponde solution that has less milk in it, it would be possible to treat more children. So we, completely at random, treat children with either the 10 or 25 solution, and see if they recover. So far there hasn't been any major, visible differences with the two types, but once we have treated 2500 they will check to see exactly how much of a difference there is.

If that wasn't clear in any way, please let me know.

TTYL
---He whohopes people are still reading this.

I'm such a bastard...

2008-10-26T03:58:00.001-07:00

Ok I know that title will throw some of you, but once I explain, you'll understand. This post starts late Friday, after I left Icon from that last post, which got some nice responces btw. But anyway, I drove home and upon getting home realized I didn't have my keys. CRAP! So I quickly drove back to Icon to see if I left them there. (I REALLY don't want to lose my keys!) And on the way back I was doing a right hand turn, and pulled a typical Amarican driver mistake, you dont have to look on right turns. (Plus I was a little freaked about the keys.) So as I turn I see these headlights coming towards the front of the truck. Quickly. I think it says a lot about me, probably as much as the last post did, that the only thing that passed through my mind before the collision was, "Fuck." (This word can have lots of flavors, and the paticular flavor this time was "Are you serious?") It was kinda strange, because the roads always freak me out here, I take turns very slowly, so when the guy slammed into me, I was almost stationary. And the truck i was in hardly even shook. No air bag. Just a little, teeny jolt. I got out and the Hilux (Which I was driving) was hardly even dented. In fact the only thing even bent was the bumper. That truck is a TANK. Especially considering that the other car was totaled. Like, V shape indentation, dripping oil, sizzling. Crazyness. And the guy who walked out was like 6 foot. Black guy. If he was pissed he could have easily rearranged my face. But he didn't.

Side note here. Though the accident was completely my fault, I am almost sure the guy was speeding. The roads at night are very empty, and I am confident in my ability to recognize when a car is very close to me. I think that he was proably going very fast, and I didn't recognize how fast he was going. Plus, there's NO WAY to damage your car as bad as his was if you were going any reasonably speed.

Anyhow, he called the police, and I called Leslie and our manager (who I forgot how I named). I asked Leslie to bring my driver's license. The manager was just there because she's our manager. We drove the car off the side. (To the right, the bumper made it impossible to drive left.) And then we went to the police station. It was kinda funny, becuase the police officer was making this report on blank sheets of paper, drawing the lines using other pieces of paper. I would have laughed, if I wasn't using every ounce of energy to calm myself down. Anyway, there was a lot of. "You need to look before you turn." "Yes." "You didn't look correctly." "Indeed." Etc. Probably because I was so straightforward, they gave me the lowest offence, inconsiderate driving. The fine is probably, 2500, to 5000 Kwatcha (one dollar = 150 kwatcha) which is funny, since my weekly stipend is 7000. I go to court on tuesday to sort that out. (Everyone goes to court of every offence here, I'll probably just pay the fine and go, try to restart dad's heart please, mom.)

One thing was kinda awkward though, I was supposed to be able to make a statement, and I tried to make mine, "I agree with the charges, but the other driver was speeding as well, and the damage would be considerably less had he not been." But the Policeman was kinda like "You agree. Sign here." I was told when we got home that my civil rights were violated by that, but no one wanted to push it. Didn't really seem like the time or place for it, if you get my drift. Plus, if the fine is as small as everyone thinks, I wont even care.

Small note, this is a key example of how amazing my luck is. Though, yes, I am kinda unlucky (or stupid) for getting into an accident, my luck paces the road so everything works out. For example, when do I get into an accident? When we have two extra working cars. How badly is my car damaged? Barely, it took us about half an hour to bend the bumper back, and it doesn't even need to be taken to the shop. Where do I get into an accident? A country where (I think) it wont go on my record. Does the guy who could seriously hurt me try? No. How much will I (hopefully) have to pay? Less than I get every week. Seriously, Its not like I ever test my luck, but its always like this. Stupid stuff I do that works itself out.

So how does this make me a bastard? All I could think about for the last two days was this: I'm dictating from a hospital bed. I got into a terrible accident and lost my left arm. I wrecked one of the project vehicles. All this crap I could say to make both my parents instantly go into cardiac arrest. It was only because I thought they might be mad enough to kill me when I get home, if they let me back home after that, that kept me from saying something like that. See, what decent person would actually think that?

So enough on that. I'm fine, and I'll let you know what happens on Tuesday.

Saturday. Woke up at like 12-1ish. Entered like 50 data cards. Very normal day, just lazing around listening to my music. We went to a club at 10 though to listen to a Reggae band play. It was nice, we got Joy (male) me, Victor, Leslie, and L(Forget what is after the L, will fix later, but he runs the factory) and his wife. We just sat around listening and talking for two hours or so. OR they talked, I gave up at trying to talk over the band really soon. I just sat listening. And right as it was getting good the power died. BWAHAHAHAHA. Hows that for typical Malawian?

So today was more of the same. Ran around and did some shopping. Going to go to Macky's. And make sure there's nothing wrong with the cards I've already entered. (I checked the 150 I entered ove the last week, but I need to check the 100 we already had entered.) I'll probably do that at Macky's. So that's it for my weekend.

Q/A session 2

"Sundays quick post"

Kathleen - I want to check the site traffic asap, but those sights require me to download something, and unless I get a computer I wont be able to moniter it. Thanks though!

Ulf - Actually I think I might know a little more now. We started the computer yesterday, and it didn't recognize any airport hardware, which sucks, because that's what the computer is for. However, the computer works fine...could the airport cause the Kernel Panic?

Becca - I'm not sure if the brainstorming should worry me. xP And my arms are all better now.

Rita - Then you are in luck! Because I only use three. And you didn't get the favors because I only started the favor system recently.

"Normal-ish day 2"

Medium Bill - Cause you heart failure, and inherit your insurance, of course.

Becca - My friends want to leave so I'm gonna try to answer fast. There are tremendous amounts of subsistence farmers, which is about as dirt poor as you get. People that have bikes are kinda rich, if you consider that everyone is poor. Most whites are either tourists or volunteers. The indians are the rich upper class here. *eats cookie*

Aunt Jo - Aren't you happy to hear this update?

Chris - Following in your footsteps man!

"Never a dull moment..."

Rita - I can't spare the time to start the debate here, so I'll just wait till I get back then take you up on your offer.

Malawi Mom - Man, sounds like we are in the car on one of those hella long car rides again. Feel that way for you too?

Buhbuhboo- Welcome to the great world of unlimited speculation. if you ever want a long ramble about the meaning of life, the universe, and everything, give me a call, I'd be glad to oblige.

Medium Bill - You are in the car too? Cool. And by the way you know I consider it more philosophical than spiritual. And I love that quote, "Specialization is for insects"

Liz - I've never heard that before, "BS." Haha. When I stop questioning things that is gonna be the time for someone to smack me with a slegehammer. Glad to see that you think some similar things to me too! You're a lot better at articulating them though, whats your trick?

MalawiMom - Urgh. Look this week I posted 4 times. Here's why. "Sundays quick post" was posted on MONDAY. If you look closely there's a "Note:" and I follow with the nothing that happened on monday. I STARTED on Sunday, and posted on Monday. Then Tuesday rolled along, and I posted "Normal-ish day 2" Friday was "Never a dull moment..." And Sunday is "I'm such a bastard..." My week starts on Monday, becuase that's when my work weeks starts, then I relax on the weekend, and Monday starts it over again. Monday - Sunday. Mon, Tue, Fri, Sun. I owe you nothing. Hahaha.

TTYL
---He who really hopes he will prove useful enough to keep another three months.

Never a dull moment...

2008-10-24T09:08:00.000-07:00

Haha, the last few days have been jam packed, where shall I begin...?

Tuesday night I started reading Robert Heinlen's Stranger in a Strange Land. A fantastic book, truly a sci-fi classic, but don't read it if you're a prude, seriously. You'd find the second half terrible. Anyway, I spent the next two days fanatically reading it, trying to put it down, failing, and then fanatically reading it again. I finished it with this thought; there is a big difference between tru sci-fi and books that have aliens and spaceships.

Anyway, just keep in mind that that was always in the background on Wednesday and Thursday.

Wedesday was boring at the begining. Whatever I named the nurse on stool study was off being a witness in her court case, prosecuting a boy who stole from her. So me 'n him got to do the stool study. And the poop collection. Wasn't actually that bad, as very young baby poo doesn't stink THAT bad. But there were no new kids. Two poopers. Nothing to do. Since Leslie was doing defaulter runs I stayed behind and read. We didn't go get drinks as we left late. Eventually we got to Namandanje.

At Namadanje I read for a while but eventually Leslie interupted me and asked if I wanted to go for a walk. So I I did. Nice random talk. Bout an hour walk. We passed a huge gravesite though. It was another instance of a humble thing giving the same feel as a ornate one, as the gravesite, with its many wooden crosses, unnamed graves, and three stick gate gave as much, or even more of a somber feel than the ones we have back home.

Food was good. I didn't eat much though. My appetite is almost dead and I only eat because I need to. Not sure why my appetite is gone.

Then we have Thursday, like usual since stool study isn't present on Thursdays, I helped one of the Med students. Joy (male) this time. Long day, with me standing the whole time. Not much fun. But it really isn;t supposed to be. Depressing thing happened after clinic. There was this mom, with a kid who was not gaining weight, and looked skin and bones. I really can't express to you how bad these kids look, skin and bones isthe closest I can get. We wanted to take the kid to the hospital, but the gogo (grandma) of the mom would not allow it. Joy tried to convince her in the best Chichewa that he could muster that the baby needed to go to the hospital. The grandma would have none of it, and would keep making excuses no matter what Joy said. The mom had started sobbing during this. Eventually she said quietly, but loudly enough for everyone to hear "I'm going." At this Joy, despite misgivings that if he left (he told me afterwards) went to go get defaulters. He did get two, actually. One of which the entire village gathered round, and while watching the baby being fed agreed to keep the chiponde away from the father, who was eating it. However, while Joy was gone, and I was in the market as well, the Gogo asked/told the mom to get food from the market. While she was gone, the gogo said she needed to go to the bathroom, and while noone was looking ran off with the baby. Later, the HSA's told us, You know who's eating the chiponde? Gogo. If you can tell me, after hearing that, that some people aren't better off dead, I'm suprised at your idealism.

Anyway, we got back on Thursday and foud out one of our trucks got stolen from. Victor may or may not have left the door unlocked. I hope he did, because its a bigger problem if someone can pick locks. Anyway, the guards we have presently may or may not be all fired soon. Its unsure, and out of my hands. (The landlord runs things here.)

Friday. Normal stool study day. When I got home I put in 25 data cards. I hope to get 25 more in, though I may burn out. Also, we have a chiponde problem. We have run out of a material used to make the 10% milk formula. We have enough 10% to last two months at least, but we may have to pause enrollments until we get more. *shrugs* You roll with the punches.

Anyhow, heres your responce Aggie, I know its late but I couldn't bear to answer such a question quickly, that would be bastardizing all the time I spent thinking about it over the years.

So here is the question/comment.

Some say that the earth, the universe, everything physical and tangible is but a cosmic accident. So...following that logic...limes, lemons, herb plants, are an accident? Hmmmm. The last 10 times I have sliced a lime and enjoyed the fragrance of it... and used it to enhance the flavor of my food...well, I just can't bring myself to believe that that lime grew by a sheer accident of nature.

Well this is a complex question, and at the risk of being considered a "contemplator" as Liz put it, I'm going to answer it as completely as I am able. Note: This is a much larger, much more public insight into the way my mind works than I have ever expressed before. If you don't want to see that stop reading. Second, my dad has a phrase I love to quote, "No ones faith should be so weak you can't poke it with a stick." I adapt that to No ones faith should be so weak you can't light dynamite underneath it, but for the sake of a completely public audience, I'm toning it down to my dad's. So, if you feel insecure in your faith, or take offence when people question it, don't read what follows. Last thing, what I am going to write is the result of over eight years of constant questioning, pondering, and long philosophical talks in the car, not the result of me being in Africa.

Last Last thing. I am very bad at articulating my most important ideas, so this is not my complete philosophy, and I will probably forget, or leave out, a lot. If you want to debate with me when I get back, I'd be glad to, philosophical debating is one of my favorite pastimes, but few people like to indulge me.

So let me start with my issues with organized religion, as that is usually what people refer to when they try to refute "accidents of nature." To start off with...well damn I don't know where to start. Lets see...I guess anything is as good a starting point as any other. In my mind, religion is man made. In essence, it is very much the way Terry Pratchett describes gods in his novel Small Gods. Gods, and religion being created, and given shape by their constituency. What I mean is that people run around questioning, "Why am I here, How did I get here, "Where am I going?" and they come up with answers based off of their culture. This is supported by the fact that religions have a texture based off the area they were founded in. For example, Islam, Judaism, and Christianity, despite their differences, all support the "Same" god, and have many of the same precepts such as worship of said god. The eastern religions are of a completely different flavor however. Taoism and Confucianism, for example, have a much heavier basis on philosophy, and though each has a deity of sorts, I have not yet read in either the Analects or the Tao Te Ching a command to "worship." Native Americans tended to worship nature. Etc. There are cultural tendencies to religions, and if religion is something man-made, that kinda defeats the purpose.

But lets assume for a minute, for the sake of argument, that someone is right, for whatever reason, and there is a god, or gods. Each is mutually exclusive, and most have some way of condemning everyone who doesn't follow their exact set of precepts, and rewarding those that do. A hell if you will. A concept I find particularly repulsive, because it means that your reason for doing good things should be either a fear of punishment, or a desire to get something. Or both. Neither concept sits well with me personally, but I prefer everyone else have it that way, because my faith in the natural good (and evil) of man is nill. But I digress. So how should one choose the "one true" religion? By works of god? Tough nuts. All the miracles conveniently ended before each individual religion's scriptures were written. The faith most religions demand you have? Faith? It seems like an exceedingly ineffiecient system to run a universe on. What about the people who never heard of your religion, are they screwed? Couldn't the one true religion be one crushed over the ravages of time? To quote the book I just read. "Is there any basis for preffering one hypothesis over another? When you understand nothing? No!"

Note that I witheld all judgements on relgions themselves, all I did was question how one is to decide the "right" one.

So anyhow, I have some of my own theories. All of them as valid as any of yours. Couldn't the "big bang" have been god, an unimaginable mass of energy, exploding himself into the universe, so we all are god? What if all the gods were the same, and he was just putting on as many faces as a man may? (Father, son, brother, employee, boss, lover, friend, etc.) What if there are indeed many gods? What does it matter?

Anyway, to answer your intial question, Yes random chance could bring about such an accident of nature. For the simple reason that limes, lemons, herb plants, are good for us. So naturally they grew, and we grew to like them, becuase they were benificial. You might as well ask, "how could weeds grow as a sheer accident of nature, they are so damnable annoying, it couldn't be a coincidence." Or "Mosquitos always seem tobe just out to get me, that couldn't be an accident." It just so happens that lemons and limes nice, and mosquitos and weeds are indisputable irritating, because lemons and limes are good for us and weeds and mosquitos (mosquitos especcialy) are not. I have absolute faith (haha) in natural selection as a way to generate a world as complex as ours.

However, why is there matter anyway? Why are there natural laws such as gravity, magnetism, and physics? Why is any of this here? No matter where you look, you will eventually find a glaring question. "Why?" The answer: I don't know. It's almost inconceivable that anything could exist on its own, as a random chance, that it would randomly generate a world like this. However, should you answer with god, where did he come from? Etc. No matter where you look, or how far you think it out. So let it go, I'll never know. And I'll never have the answer. But here are my possible answers to Why, how, and where are we going.

Why are we here? This question is irrelevent to me. Why am I here? A huge accident? A gigantic complex plan? What does it matter? Do we really need to blow ourselves up by saying we are here for an ineffable purpose? I will live the best I can, doing everything as I think is best, and try to make the most of my life, and that's all I need.

How did we get to be here? Again, why does it matter? We are here now, do we really need to know how? The big bang makes scientific sense in many ways, but it doesn't explain what triggered it. Whup de freaking do. There are so many things you could do while trying to figure out how we got to be here. Like live your life for one.

Where do we go when we die? Ahahaha. I have a very depressing answer for this one. When we die, the collection of amino acids and proteins that make us up decompose, and we are gone. Forever. Poof. Thats it. Oblivion. Except oblivion implies you still have a conciousness. And that is to me, what seems the most likely. What do I hope? Well I hope there is a god, and he has a good sense of humor, and isn't as freaking anal about little details as most officials in every religion seem to think, and he would welcome me to some kind of afterlife. My personal favorite afterlife I've though up is one where everyone goes into categories based on who they are. Rapists, murderers in their ilk go into one, where the can indulge themselves on each other forever. Everyone else who is too uptight and knows whats right, and insists on shoving it down everyone else's throat can go into one place, and indulge themselves on each other. And everyone else can go into one place and be happy. Oversimplified but I find it amusing.

Truth is though that while it makes me laugh, I'll never know the truth, so why dwell on it too much? If god is kind and judges people on who they are, and how tyhey lived, maybe I'll be in luck? If not and hes an anal son of a gun, I'd never be able to stomach worshiping him anyway. If god doesn't exist, or this life is all we have, its a moot point anyway right? So just go out, live, and be happy is my response.

Quite a respose for a small comment right?

TTYL
---He who has been thinking about that for way too long

Normal-ish day 2

2008-10-21T09:19:00.000-07:00

Well today was pretty normal. Woke up early. Got to site. Kids were there. All of them. Seems to be going well. The car we rode home in yesterday (from Icon) had its breaks die, so we got home with the parking break. Whatever, there isn't that much to say...so without further ado...

About Malawi 2

I was going to give an explanation about what third world country really means, but I'll have to save that for later. Today I will answer Ulf's questions about the roads.

The roads here are craptastic. I'm not sure if I said this before, but rods range from paved to really crappy dirt roads. Every day we start off on the Tarmac or another major road, well paved, and in forty five minutes to an hour we are on the crappiest roads you can imagine. There may be street lights, but they are only followed if you want to, as there is no workable police force. (The police cant afford to have cars)

There are pedestrians EVERYHWERE. And TONS of cyclists, which is almost comforting as only the rich can afford them, (A lot of rich people?) but depressing becuase only the rich can afford them. (Bike = rich?) And none of them have the fear of god in them. They seem to treat cars with a kind of indifference, and do the STUPIDIST things. Like run right out in front of the car. Or swerve into the middle of the road. Really the pedestrians freak me the hell out. On the other hand, there isn't any stigma against cyclists here like there is in the states. (In this I refer to the fact that on my bike I have had cars honk at me as if they are trying to make me fall off, been sworn at, flicked off, had full soda cans thrown at me, and in one instance a motorcyclist tried to push me off my bike. Jackasses...) The horns are used liberally here, but it is considered polite here. Like "Excuse me, get off the road or you might get hit." And I have never seen any ill intentions towards cyclists or pedestrians.

Cars are reckless as hell as well. In many instances the car has gotten to heart-leaping-in-throat distance of a car in front of us because of some idiotic thing that driver has done. Add in the fact that with a car laden full of chiponde the momentum is much greater. And to actually get anywhere in Malawi It is very neccesary to be agressive, because there are no stoplights, and if you dont agressively take a spot, you will never move forward. However, there if you don't excercize caution you might get yourself killed. Hence why Malawian roads scare the shit out of me, and I walk as much as possible.

On the other hand, the drivers are nothing if not courteous. In one instance I saw an entire intersection come to a halt so a learner driver could pass. (Learner drivers have a big L on the top of the car.) So in driving, as in most things, Malawians are kind. Very complicated concept I know. But it's a very complicated place.

Oh and to answer your new question Ulf, I don't know what version, but after a long time thinking I think I'm going to leave it as it is so that I can't be said to have messed it up more.

Sunday's quick post

2008-10-19T11:11:00.000-07:00

The computer is acting funny, and I want to get out not only one post but a q/a session as well, so I'm gonna make this quick and sweet, and move on.

Saturday...what did I do on Saturday...woke up...read a book...drove to market and did some chores...fooled around on the internet a bit...oh yeah! And I tried my first attempt at cooking...It didn't go so well...the pan was a stick pan...so the chicken stuck...the soy sauce boiled instead of making a soup...the oil might have been wrong...the chicken was a little undercooked and had to be recooked...and because of all the above problems and me getting frantic I added way too much spices. I couldn't sleep all night because my bowels were doing many things they weren't supposed to...and I've been pooping fire all day...yeah...better luck next time.

Today was a lazy day. Because of the aforesaid sleeping problem I slept in till twelve, and didn't do all that much all day. The computer was on the fritz though. We're getting this kernel panic error message, and aren't sure how to fix it. I printed out 42 pages of stuff on kernel panic, and none of them are definitive as to what the problem is. We think that the problem was caused by a lack of RAM, because we had fifty-eleven things on the desktop, but it failed again when I was carrying it away from the Uphouse. Maybe kernel panic can be caused by the power cord somehow? Do you have any ideas mac-fan boss?

Note: Was supposed to end there but computer crapped out last night. Today I went back into the field, and it went pretty normal. Lots of kids though. And we got home a little late. Then I immidaetly walked to icon and started finishing this...And Worry not...now I'm taking water, sobo (concentrated sugarwater) and food in the mornings, so I wont relapse. Plus Leslie checks up on me a lot to make sure I'm doing fine.

Now for the first, and most masochistic q/a session ever...I.E. I will respond to all comments that deserve, or ask for responses...kids...this is why procrastination is bad...

Btw, note that I just respond, Unless you want to go check the comments as you read this just look for ones where I'm responding to you unless you really want to bore yourself.

"Testing Testing"

Great to see some people are going back to the beginning, despite how ridiculously long it will be to go from beginning to the present. And some even commented! I really should find a way to view traffic so I can either depress myself less or a whole lot more, depending on how many people are actually reading.

KK - The language in southern Malawi is called Chichewa, and no I don't need to speak it, as most people in the cities speak English as well, and at the sites the nurses translate the more difficult phrases. I am however trying to learn...as soon as I can locate that darn book I lost...

"Laff at me everyone!!!!!!"

Nice to see all the family relations putting in their two cents worth. I aprecciate it.

xoLBIxLieshxo - I have to ask, where'd you find that convoluted name? And at the risk of redundancy, how would I forget that you're my cousin Jules?

drkbowes - How would one capitolize on being here?

sunin - Again at the risk of redundancy, I'll be sure to stop by soon after I get back, mk?

kk - Of course I have bad kharma, just ask a Bevard...they will give you lots of examples...

"Terms of use"

Well, this page didn't work as well as I had hoped...either noone is reading it or noone is commenting...neither on is comforting but I'd prefer it if everyone was just to lazy to comment. (I can relate to lazy)

malawi mom - Cmon! You couldn't even make it out of the airport!? I expected better of you! Haha kidding. Nice to know I'm missed.

Rita - Why is no more than three names cheating? Is BobJames reading this really? Or did they just say they were going to? I can understand if they chose not to, seeing as I tend to ramble about nonsensical stuff like now. And I send off the info eventually, were you on the list?

beccablue - Here starts the amazing commenter! n.n That's great that your guard is doing well, I hope you make yourself proud. And be sure so save a video so I can see when I get back mk?

"Touchdown"

Just putting it out there, I know where both you smart assses live...watch yourselves...

Ulf - Yeah Internet is slow here and up until recently we didnt have even a half decent connection. And then the kernel panic...so there be difficulties with the pics...I'll get them up eventually...somehow...And a hot tub eh...thats gonna be just great for some little five year old to run over and drop books in...

"Awayinmalawi"

Wow a good number of posts this time..

Aggie - thats really cool! Its true that giving something that doesn't mean much to us could make a huge difference to someone here in Africa. Glad to see the involved post. =)

Aunt Jo - Thanks for the compliment about the wittyness, but its really just me running at the "mouth" like I always do.

Ulf - Yes I REALLY am in Africa. Oh and Im glad to hear about the TV. Sounds like the five year old can drop it in the bathtub and/or start a fire with it. =)

Janet - Yeah, I'm glad I got picked up too...I can imagine so many ways I could end up in an unfavorable condition...many involve bikes...oh wait that would be Calvert County wouldnt it? And let me tell you the bookstore wasn't the same without you either.

Dennis - I am completely at a loss as to how to respond to that much praise.

"Picture day...or not?"

Medium Bill - Thanks

Malawi Mom - The pictures beg to differ
1) Excuses.
2)Red sites are ones we go to, Blue sites are the ones that took over themselves.
3)There's ALWAYS Chichewa.
4)Dunno. And there are many cases like hers. Painwise. Agewise. = (
5)Giant thermos is for stool study.

I AM that far away.

Kathleen - Nice to hear from you.

Ulf - I havent used flikr, because the connection is too terrible to upload photos and oh wait I'm being redundant.

"First (work) day"

First off, the box was full of letters for every Saturday from now till January, and holidays. Filled with one candy each. And YES I'm greatful, but you must UNDERSTAND how much self control it takes not to eat them all NOW!!!

Malawi Mom - Eh. You share jerkdom.

Ulf - Weren't they?

Bill - Are you SURE that your icons class is reading this? Because I haven't seen any comments. Of course you could have spared them reading every individual novel of a post...I'd understand. =)

Cheyrl Easton - The entire marching band isn't reading this are they? That would kind of freak me out.

Adelle Conolly - Nice to hear from you, It's been a long time since freshman year hasn't it?

Tegethoffs - Pah! Safety is for noobs who want to live...oh wait...

And Michelle, you can, the hardest part is getting of your ass and doing it, I say from experience, as I almost didn't do this. (I was thinking about it for a while, and if I had pondered for too much longer it wouldn't have happened.)

Mrs Evartt - YAY MRS EVARTT!! Do you remember how many grey hairs I gave you in your class? Say hi to Mr Evartt for me, and thanks for the fun 1/2 year each of you.

Ciotti - If you want to do something like this prepare to do lots of research if you want to do an off the wall program like this one, and want your time to make a difference. OR you can volunteer into Americorps or the Peace Corps. Those are always good choices.

"One day late (O.M.G.)"

Malawi Mom - Sure you're the same person. Parents. See one noun.

Ulf - I'm taking your advice to heart, as I've had indigestion so many times here. Although maybe my stomach just can't handle mow much spice I'm shoving into it?

"Car Trouble"

Medium Bill - Jerk laugh it up. (And mom is a jerk too by association)

Aunt Jo - Haha. That made me laugh, true though.

Sunin - Actually I kept pulling down my net so I got about 37 bites in a week! X (

Becca Boo - The hitchikers guide is indescribable. Read it. NAO!

Jimmy - ...We call it stool here...thanks for your...help...though...xP

"Sorry for the wait, did you miss me?"

Kathleen - Wow someone beat my parents to the first post? Wow!

Rita - I've got lots! And you can't see them!

Ulf - You were kidding right?

Caitlyn - What hubbub?

"Lazy weekend"

Malawi Mom -
1)We have to live in the house.
2)Very steady.
3)No. We work our asses off to feed the kids. And none of us want to cook on the weekends.

Ulf - Roads range from dirt with many many many potholes, to pavement with many many potholes. I cant describe the amount of bicyles.

Becca - Are you always that excitable?

"Tired. This be quick. Maybe."

Nice to see noone wants me home any time soon... =)

Pam - Crap, you were the one who called him miss joy? Oops gave the wrong person credit. And we live in a nice completely not like Malawi compound.

Malawi Mom - Getting tired skipping replying to your too big comment.

Lynn - Have they been reading it? Any input on how what I'm describing is different from what they experienced?

"Somtimes its gonna be real hard to make a title..."

Wow I misspelled the title...Phail...

Malawi Mom - Oh come on, now that I'm gone you cant control your tear ducts anymore? Plus you KNOW me. This kind of broad thinking isn't unusal, I just had better food for thought than I usually do.

Peggy - WHY IS EVERYONE CRYING OVER THIS? Haha, thanks for the input though, and its cool that you got the same feeling as me.

Becca - Actually its primary focus is research, and because of that research it has actually been adopted as the preferred malnoutrition treatment worldwide...I think...not sure where I could site that from so don't quote me but I remember reading SOMETHING like that. I remember a UN somethingorother...Oh and your tight hugs are starting to make me arms ache.

Liz - It even made you misty? Dang, oh wait is contemplator a bad thing? (Crap!)

"Long Hiatus explained"

MediumBill - We just cut it out because its a useless piece of brainmatter and gave it to you, Mr falls-asleep-at-eight-oclock.

Aggie - Actually I do believe it is an accident of nature, although accident is probably not the word I'd use, I'll get back to this later, not gonna spend the twenty five minutes it'd take to explain it now.

Jo - Weather is hot as *insert vulgar heat refrence here.*

Pam - Read the Tao of pooh already. Guy comes off as kinda condescending. Should read the cave sometime.

Becca - Ouch. So many tight hugs...I think I'm getting a circular bruise.

John, Gaeli, Raleen, Barbrann - Thanks for saying hi.

"SORRy"

Eww terrible misscapitolization.

Just for the sake of putting this out there, I'm upping my own ante, I need to post four times to not owe favors...which means I owe some from this week...greaaaaaat. I'll make a tally at the bottom.

Thanks for the posts, can't think of a way to reply...plus I'm getting cramps.

"Catchup"

Malawi Mom - Yes it applies to you...I wish it didn't...but it does...

Chris - Oh gods I owe YOU a favor?!

Becca - I would love to reply to that...but wow I don't have the time tonight, I want to eat and sleep too. Thanks for the length though, I read the whole thing!

Elhibri - It would be impossible to crush my sense of humor! And plus without a sense of humor this would probably be really depressing...and even with a sense of humor it will occasionally get you anyway.

"Normal-ish day 1"

Yeah, Im gonna use this title for every "About Malawi," so keep an eye out for that.

Grand Pop - Then I shudder to think of the states of those countries...

Aunt Jo - Not sure if there is any Moto t-shirts...I didn't see any in the stands and thats not a good sign...And as you read it might be a better idea to ask MOM about the chicken.

Ulf - GO CYCLING!!! Kinda obscene that even though you can bike everywhere you still need to prove that you are capable of driving after your incident.

bbb0000000 - did I get enough b's and o's? not sure...And we could easily crunch some numbers once we get a couple hundred entered to see if the 25% and the 10% work similarly. The stool needs to be analyzed in the states though, and that will take a lot of time. But a "final" verdict is probably a long time coming.

Catlyn D - I wish I got a vacation back in the states...but that would just be too freaking expensive...and it kinda makes me nervous that your goig to show that to someone majoring in the subject...I can just imagine..."No...that wasn't how it went, actually..."

A.MJ - Great to hear from you, and what do you mean by a "real eduacation?"

"Near death experience"

BWAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAAAAAAAA! I'm glad this got the desired respose! Hehe...

Mediumbill - I know. Aren't you glad I told you?

Malawi Mom - I'm fine now. I pulled this stunt in high school remember? Not eating untill I got home? Just turns out the circumstances are (a little) different this time. Am I worrying you now? I wasn't aware you knew how. *Imagines mom kicking me out the door to Malawi, Figuratively* Kidding of course.

Kathleen - You have no Idea how happy that comment made me...or how long it took me to stop laughing. Just tell me, were the screams together or did they come at an interval?

Aggie - Don't waste your favor on that, becuase Leslie is going into mother mode trying to keep me alive, she's doing it for you.

Liz - I think they might have, except the part of their brain that processes hyperbole and sarcasm died when they saw near death.

booooo - I usually try not to off myself, and I'm still trying to get those pics up.

Adele Connoly - Juju cn use aything that they think has spiritual signifigance. Monkeys paws are most common. Wikipedia it. I wiki'd it right after the game and thats where I found my info.

Sunin - Yes I'm fine now, very fine in fact. So dont worry too much ok? And I'm glad to hear that she still likes me, I was afraid that she'd forget me with this long absence.

If I didn't respond to a comment its because I don't know you very well, and can't come up with a responce on the fly. However, from this point forward I will (try to) answer every comment with a responce on Sundays. Thank You all for your comments. They are all (mostly, you smartasses) aprecciated.

Favors owed:
Boooo - 4
Sunin - 1
Adele Connoly - 1
Liz - 1
Aggie - 1
Kathleen - 1
Mom - 1
Dad - 1
Grand pop - 1
Aunt Jo - 1
Ulf - 1
Caitlyn D - 1
A.MJ - 1
Chris - 1
Elhibri - 1
Grandma...I think - 1

Note you can only get one favor per week...BUT OH MY GOD...I need to get this blog unde control...If this happens too often...I'll be in such deep crap...I mean look...Chris...Mom...Dad...Ulf...who knows what they'd make me do!?!

Newayz. This post is so completely done.

TTYL
---He whose fingers are about to mutiny...oh wait...there they go...

Near death experience

2008-10-17T14:05:00.000-07:00

Hi guys, I almost died yesterday...BWAHAHAHAHA! Nah, just kidding, thats a blatant Sharpferbole, (A very blatant exaggeration that we Scharpfs are prone to making.) but I did really feel like shit yesterday. More on that later, when it falls into its correct chronological place.

So let me start with Wednesday, with a minor preface from Tuesday night. On tuesday I forgot to eat. I've pretty much been running on an "eat when you feel hungry" schedule, which worked because I was ravenous every time I got home. So Tuesday went like this. Morning:"CRAP I'M LATE!" (No time for food.) And we never have food at the sites, I'td be rude to eat in front of the moms. And when I got home my usual craving never hit in, so I just forgot.

So here we get to Wednesday. In the morning I again forgot to eat. No time. No biggie though right? I wasn't hungry or anything. And the day was pretty typical. Couple small bouts of light headedness though. A couple kids to stool, one new set. Nothing strenuous. I think my main job in the future will be double checking all the data entry on the cards before we send them off, because there are some minor and major discrepancies on some.

And then the long ride to Namandanje. Joy. It was fun when we arrived though. There was a soccer game going on for middle schoolers. I watched it for about an hour, making faces at the random people who kept feeling an urge to stare at the azungu. It was fun though, as I got to practice some weird faces I havent had cause to make in a while, such as making my eyes roll into the back of my head. (That one got the best reactions.)

Afterwards I got a crowd of little kids, so I showed of my psp's music a little, as I feel the urge to spread rock to this barren wasteland that lacks any, and I spun them around for like half an hour. To explain what I mean by spin around, Grab both hands. Pull in a circular motion around yourself untill their feet leave the ground. Keep spinning them in circles until you are gonna fall over. TRY to get them to the ground without hurting yourself. Try to not hurt yourself while the world can't decide where it wants to be. Repeat. Haha, it was fun though.

At the mission the food was good as usual, and the usual animals were there to. Just to name the animals this father has, there's three cats, a hedgehog and there used to be a monkey. In fact, I used to have aspirations to pick up said hedgehog, bug I'm re-evaluating. I saw the little dude catch a cockroach and eat it. I probably have more to fear than just his spines.

Now the next morning is where things get fun. I woke up with a splitting headache and stomach cramps at four in the morning. I couldn't sleep and didn't get out of bed until 6. After that it seemed to have subsided, but when I got to the site dizzy spells started to hammer me, until I couldn't even stand anymore. So I got a chair and worke sitting down for an hour and a half. After that it got so bad that the only relief I could get was from laying down on a wooden table. I ended up laying there for two hours.

A quick background on what this feels like, ever had a headache where every jolt, every quick movement was painful, and there is no relief unless you can become stationary, like laying down? Well this is exacly like that, except switch pain with exreme dizzyness.

Actually, I though I might be dehydrated, but I had drank a crapton of water at Namandanje, and wasn't sure. It was kind of pointless though, because the water we brought from the mission wasn't purified, and was unsafe. Despite that though, I snuck out to drink some of it partway through the day. Oh and in the mess I was feeling all day I forgot my cell in Namandanje, so no phone calls this week.

When I got back in the car, I wasn't sure how I was gonna make it. I mean, the only relief was to be had from laying horizontal, (not possible in a car) without any jostling. (not possible on Malawi roads) Eventually we stopped at a supermarket and I bought, and drank 1.5 liters of water. I felt a lot better after that, so I guessed I was probably dehydrated. However...

Once I got to he house I immediately went to sleep. And I slept fo about two more hours. When I woke up, BANG! Another dizzy spell. While struggling Leslie told me that dehydration is a misnomer, and means that your body is missing water, or salt, or some other vital nutrients. AKA, the water I had earlier was just a temporary solution. I had a bowl of ramen then, in hopes that it would help me. And it did. Kinda.

But it didn't go away completely. So here are my symptopms at this point. Dizzyness. Lots of Dizzyness. Joint pain. Stomach cramps. A very accelerated pulse. Headaches (When I woke up.) Very Lethargic. Pale. Flushed (In the cheeks.) Running a fever. (1 degree over) Many of these are symptoms of a long day at work coupled with a long day of work and dehydration, but considering that I had been bitten by about 40 mosquitos two weeks ago, (Kept pulling my bugnet down) we figured I should go get tested for malaria.

Quick disclaimer about Malaria. Yes it is deadly. Yes it can cause massive damage to oneself, for example, there is one subsect called cerebral Malaria that can cause brain damage. However, the most deadly aspect of Malaria (in my mind) is the way it operates. It causes your red blood cells, infected with the parisites ruptures generating more parisites, IN WAVES. Meaning you're fine for two weeks after the infection then Bam! You have a fever. Then it goes away. Then Bam! You have another. Its worse. Et cetera. This can continue for a while before anyone, especialy in the more rural areas, realizes that they have malaria, and by then it is often too late. If caught early, and supposing that you don't need to use it often, the medication will usually cover you. (Using it too often can cause alergic reactions)

So I got tested, and I'm negative. YAY! However just to be safe they prescribed LA (the medication) anyway. Woohoo. So anyways, I don't have Malaria, I just need to eat more often. =)

Anyway, I stayed home today though. Just to be sure I didn't overdo it again. So after sleeping way later than I should have, I got entering data. Lots of data. More data than I ever want to see again. BLEH. I need to enter more tomorrow though, I didn't get enough done because I slept in too late, and I REFUSE to be useless.

Also, today I was gonna make my chicken-brocolli-melt-your-face-off dish (ask me parents for details) but after the hour walk to the market they didnt have any. Meeeeeh... And I couldn't quite get the concept across to the new housekeeper here that we don't need food cooked, ("-I'm cooking tonight, we dont need you to. -What? -I'll cook don't cook. -What - Don't. Cook. Dinner. Tonight." I don't think she speaks english) because we got a meal. Which is kinda good, but I was supposed to make this LAST Friday, and I kinda really want to have it now. Meh.

Rest of the day was fine. Watched presidential debate. McCain in probably gonna lose. Despite your political alignment you have to be able to see that. Made complicated algorithm for excel. I HATE YOU PARENTHESI! HATE YOU ONE LINE TO PUT IT ALL ON! HATE! And uhm. I ate and drank and took my pills. Feeling better. Not much more to say. Tired. Bed. Night.

TTYL
---He who is glad the world has decided which way is up.

Normal-ish day 1

2008-10-14T12:14:00.000-07:00

To cap up a couple questions posted before my Sunday catchup, (THIS TIME I WILL) yes people over 40 can get favors too. Urrgh, Parents included. I mean, if you weren't eligible, what would I have to fear? Obviously no one other than boo in that age group cares enough about how I'm doing to check up once in a while. So if you weren't eligible what would I have to fear? Giving Boo a favor? Hardly scary in the least. Giving my PARENTS one? *shudders* And that's part of the point, to keep myself posting.

Add on: Chris gets mention because he posted too, didn't see that until after I posted though, so I'm adding it in now. Thanks Chris, just remember to sleep lightly, because I'm still after your Indian-face, and an ocean is not enough to deter me from getting it!

So today was HELL! We had eighteen kids in stool study. EIGHTEEN!!!! And NINE had too poop! And that was only the beginning! We got two new kids too! (new ones gotta poop too) So there was no relaxing of any kind for HOURS! HOURS I SAY!!! But seriously it was exhausting. We were working from eight to twelve pretty constantly, and even I had stuff to do because it was so packed. Things had relaxed by about one and I fell asleep on a stone slab. (All but three had left at that point, so its not like I was slacking, we were just waiting for them to poop) And we left by threeish. Got home by fourish. Some data entry. Tried playing the guitar for the third day in a row. I can't seem to keep my fingers from messing with the other strings I'm not trying to press. Guess I'll keep trying.

There isn't much more to say, pretty typical day. So...finally...FINALLY...I can begin the About Malawi posts, which will be a part of every normal-ish day! =)

About Malawi Part One
To start I'm going to give a little background about why Malawi is in the straights that it is in. Now I have heard a lot of people talk about countries like Malawi, releif organizations, and the poor in general like, "Why are you helping them, you should help them help themselves," or worse, "Why can't they work hard and pull themselves out of their situation?" (As if every oppourtunity we in the middle class have isn't based on the backs of those who have gone before us...) And yes, granted, no one would ever talk like that but I'm trying to get the general idea across.) Here are a couple reasons why that is a whole hell of a lot more difficult than people often think.

Keep in mind, there is probably a lot more than this, but I'm brain sucking off of Joy (male), who has read books on this and knows more about it than I do. In fact, he will probably do a post of his own on the subject, and when he does I'll link to that so you can get a much better idea, and maybe even delete the following as useless. (And redundant)

For one, Malawi got screwed when the imperialistic european countries drew up the maps, as many countries did. For one, Malawi has few marketable resources. The only things it exports, to my knowledge, is tea, sugar, tobbaco, and a little bit of rice. None of these are mass produced enough to make a substantial revenue to the Malawian economy. And with the borderlines drawn as arbitrarialy as they were, the international trade that might have otherwise taken place in a larger, better situated country is impossible. Plus, Malawi has no access to any rivers or waterways, so no easy trade via that route because of tarrifs. The border just pretty much screwed Malawi.

To further the subject of how the British did major harm, let me move on to the subject of agriculture. When the Brits came, they wanted to turn Malawi into a mercantile colony, as they did to pretty much everyone they conquered/got influence over. For one they dammed up all the rivers, something that provides power to the computer I'm writing on. However, before the dams, the malawians would vary their planting grounds based off of how the rainy season went. So if there was no rain, they would move very close to the river. If there was tons and the river flooded, they could simply back away to a better spot. With the rivers dammed that kind of flexibility is impossible. (Probably a better way to explain that last part, but he didn't expound on the subject, so I'm missing the details.) Also, the Brits wanted to have the Malawians grow cotton, big suprise. Thing is, with everyone growing cotton no one was growing food. So then the Malawians had to pay every thing they got from the well paying cotton yield to eat. Obviously when the Brits left they stopped growing cotton, as their main buyer had pulled out. (Assumption I'm making about why, but most did stop) However the Europeans left a legacy a lot more crippling, Maize.

Maize, another word for corn, is everywhere in Malawi, and many other African countries. Now Maize, when the rainy season goes...just...right...will yield fantastic results. However, Maize doesn't grow that well here in Malawi, and yes when the rain falls perfectly in the rainy season it will have impressive yields. But here in Malawi there is often drought and flooding (To clarify, it does often rain enough to cause flooding, but becuase of the dams the rivers specifically will not) and if there is one thing Maize is not, it is not resistant. Before the Europeans came, there were other foods being grown, ones that had some strength to them. So in a bad year, even though people went hungry, they didn't starve. Instead though, now bad years are crippling, with hardly any yield at all, no matter how hard you work the fields. (And let me tell you, they spend much of their time on those fields working them) This problem wasn't helped by the fact that the first president, who was by all accounts I have heard one of the most terrible leaders ever, strongly supported Maize. So by now Maize is the staple crop, and few farmers grow anything but it, or even know how.

Suffice it to say, though there is probably much one could say on the subject of the last pres here, he was useless, and did nothing to further Malawi's growth. Things were pretty chaotic, by all accounts I've heard. Maybe when I know more I'll expound upon the subject of the last Pres, but for now I dont care enough.

To finish up, all major companies here are outsourced. The "Malawian" beer is based of a company in germany. Coca Cola is everywhere. I'm sure other things such as Dulux paint is also based outside of Malawi. This is important, because that means that the profits from those major compainies are mostly leaving Malawi, and doing nothing to bolster its economy.

Pretty bleak eh? There really is no easy solution to those problems, and nor can one push the blame onto the people with excuses such as they dont work hard enough. But one can hope that with time they will be resolved. (Yeah, I know, not one of my more eloquent endings but I'm tired ok?)

TTYL
---He who is hoping they have his soup at the mission tomorrow

Catchup

2008-10-13T12:53:00.000-07:00

OK, first off, I'm going to call myself out on one thing, Ive been meaning to respond to ALL your questions and comments for two weeks, but I keep running out of time. I'll work so that by this Sunday I'll be able to answer them all.

Then, I need to clarify on the incentives. First off, Any BS posts like the ones yesterday do not count, so I cant just run up and shove a couple sentences and pass that off as a whole post. Secondly, I want to define what I mean by you get a "favor." It means that I will do you any favor in my power, (just giving crap doesn't count) provided that it is a one time thing. For example, you couldn't make me change my major over one of these favors, but you could, say, make me attend a class for a day. (Why you would want that is beyond me, but it illustrates the difference well, I think) But as long as it isn't a prolonged favor you can ask for ANYTHING. And Boo gets three favors off the bat for being the only person under forty to post frequently (and without me having to ask her to.) Sorry mom n dad, but your bonus is that this blog has kept you from lapsing into cardiac arrest.

I hope this provides some incentive for more commenting. (and more posting on my part)

So anyhow, on Wednesday, (oh so long ago) the day went pretty much as usual. Woke up at the ass-crack-of-dawn, got into the car, went to the site. Not many kids that day, and we may or may not have had to track down some defaulters. Then a long ride to the mission at Namandanje. As-per-usual. But I did something for the first time at the mission, I left my book in the room and wandered around. I eventually found Joy and Leslie, surrounded by little kids. No sooner had I approached than little kids started swarming over me. Many wanted to shake my hand, and when I saw some going for round too I started playing with it, making a game out of shaking their hand in random directions vigorously to see if they would let go. This, did not work. It excited them and everyone wanted to try. Eventually got to chasing some around who were playing tag, overal just a very funny situation. (Envision me being crawled over like the pillars were covered with goblins in the first Lord of the Rings. And if you haven't seen it, FOR SHAME!)

Food was ok, (NO SOUP!?!?!?) and everything went well. Almost overslept the next day though.

The next day I didn't actually have a job, as stool study doesn't go to Namandanje, So I helped Leslie out instead. My job was to take the crying baby's info and see if it was malnourished. If it was I wrote some info and blah blah blah. Basically I got so see first hand the screening process. And let me tell you it is depressing. I mean, OBVIOUSLY a lot of people feed their kids, and they get better, hurray. But I got to see all the bad ones up there too. Mom's where their kid is losting weight, (Chiponde WILL make them gain, if they aren't the baby is not being fed) lying to our faces about things we ask them to do. (for their health) What takes the cake though is where you tell a mom "your kid is healthy," and they grimace like, "oh, really?" I love what I'm doing, its the first worthwile thing I've ever done in my life, and I love seeing the healthy ones discharged, just seing healty babies in general, but seeing that once is enough to depress me for a good half an hour or so.

The rest of the day was uneventful.

Friday was very packed. Lots of kids. We got out in an orderly fashion though. Nothing too terrible. Cant really remember much about friday. Must not have been important eh?

Saturday. OH SATURDAY. The things you will hear. The things I will say. The heart attack dad will have. =)

Joy (male) and I went to Macky's in the morening and I entered data. And thats just about it...

KIDDING! Though we did go to Macky's.

Well there was a football game on Saturday. A big football game everyone was going to. Apparently Malawi's football hasn't been doing well recentlyand this was their first chance to make it to the African cup in a hell of a long time. (Well the world cup too, but that would've needed a 3 point lead, soo unlikely.) So our manager and her husband picked us up in a project vehicle (because it was red, and the Malawian team is the Malawi Motos, Moto being FIRE, and the theme was LET THEM SEE RED) and they drove us to the stands, with her husband screaming in a megaphone the entire time, "MALAWI MOTO, MALAWI MOTO!" Yeah, he was well on his way to being plastered, and luckily he wasn't driving. In fact, he spent most of the game getting himself more plastered, jumping down in front of the bleachers, and taking his shirt off. Yeaaaaah, he probably would be embarrased to see a video of what he looked like. So we get to the stadium an it was PACKED. I mean every seat was filled, and there was so many red shirts it was unbelievable.

The pre game show was in many ways more interesting than the game itself. For starters, the warm ups. The Congo team, (Forgot to mention, DRC vs Malawi) and the Malawian team were supposed to warm up on seperate sides of the field. But they didn't. First one Malawian player ran over the middle, got pushed back, and then the ENTIRE TEAM ran over in formation through their side. I was laughing so hard when I saw that. I think two or three fights broke out before the game even started, which was strange, because in the game, no matter how hard somebody got knocked down noone ever fought about it.

Anyway, the funny part comes next, the DRC team brough a JUJU DOCTOR on the fireld. He performed his juju rites all over one of the goalposts. It was causing quite a stir among the Malawians, many who were actually concerned a bout the juju, not just the idea that they were trying to tamper with the game. Eventually a consencus was reached and a few Malawians scattered water to nullify their juju, and then added juju of their own. At this point I was almost dying of laughter. It followed, after warmups were over and I had regained my breath, the first juju guy runs back up and adds MORE juju! He got hisself chased off the field, and then another Malawian ran up to nullify it. They were both escorted away by an army member.

Did I meantion that this game was really important? Like bringing Malawi together, providing lots of excitement? So important the Army was present? So important the Army was equipped with automatic rifles and Uzis? I didn't? Well it was.

So then we have the game. It went off to a very bad start, with DRC scoring early. Apparently (Joy used to play football so he filled me in as to what was going on) the Malawian team sucked it up big time the first half. They had 4 golden opportunities by his reckoning, and wasted them all. The second half was much more fun though. The Motos scored about ten minutes into the half, and let me tell you, those stands ERUPTED. EVERYONE had to hug EVERYONE! They were doing things you'd never see in the states, like an entire bleacher dancing left and right ALL TOGETHER for FIVE MINUTES. They could have scored a goal and it probably would have gone unnoticed in the celebration of the first one.

Suffice it to say though, that the team was sufficiently empowered by this outcry, and doubled their focus and just about tripled their energy. The adrenaline wore off a little when two players were injured really quickly after the first goal, but I guess it still held a little, becuase they eventually scored again. And thats how the game ended. 2-1, Malawi wins.

At this the crowed started rioting. Cryes of "KILL THE AZUNGU" could be heard, and we...we lost Joy...he was carried off by the mob and we havent seen him since...BAHAHAHAHA kidding! But seriously they were rioting! There was a mass move to try to get on the field and grab the players or what not, and they all got chased back off. (Remember the goblin refrence from earlier? Well imagine people acting like that going back over a fence fleeing from the police =P) There was at least one streaker, though there might have been more. A large rioting crowd left the stadium, and another one stayed in. The one that stayed in amused itself by rattling the metal doors partitioning the nice expencive section we were in, screaming, and climbing up the fences. Did I mention the screaming? If I ever get Alima's camera I will try to get some pics of them online. Oh, and the rioting lasted an hour. At least. Is the import of this game to these people coming across just a little?

And then, the rest of the day just isnt important. Ate at Ali Baba's? Nothing compares to rioting.

And to sum up sunday cuz I am hella tired. I put data in. I was gonna cook my tongue melting chicken brocolli but the chicken wasn't thawed, and the brocolli was gross. We did go to our manager's house though to watch Vantage point. (Can't remember what I named her) I liked the movie, Leslie didn't. Car chase scene was way too long. (On a funny note, I cracked the DVD open early before I gave it to her and tried to watch it. And because of that, I missed out on the first 50 minutes. Which ironically meant that I understood the whole movie, but missed lots of little pieces. Go look it up if you want to understand what I mean, and start from the presidents' point of view.)

Today. Normal work day. Really cute babies though. Got many pics and vids of them. Was gonna cook today, but didn't because we didn't get the veggies. I think (maybe, as I dont have a good track record so far) I'll cook it tomorrow.

So BLEH ITS DOME! IM CAUGFHT UP{!!! IM NOPT TIERD! NOIT SAT LALL!!!!!

Haha, I may end up delelting that last line later, xP.

TTYL

---He who hopes this catchup game doesnt end up being a habit.

SORRy

2008-10-12T13:50:00.000-07:00

Sorry, crap came up again and I couldn't get my posts off. I'll make it up to you tomorrow.

BOO, THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!!!!! YOU'RE JUST ABOUT THE FIRST PERSON UNDER 40 TO MAKE A POST CONSISTENTLY. TYTYTYTYTYTYTYTYTY. Have no fear, the first thing I did after seeing you posted a lot was to go and read them all. THANKS. PLEASE KEEP POSTING. =)))))

Now that that's out of my system, I'll let you guys in on a plan I have. Schedule be damned, my new goal is to post 3 times a week, whenever that may be. And here's an incentive for posting. If you post in a week (sun to sun) where I haven't posted at least three times, I'll owe you a favor. And it can be ANY favor. So if you comment every week I might end up seriously owing you. Hopefully this will both keep me posting and you commenting! (Like the FANTASTIC miss boo!)

TTYL

---He who isn't sure that that incentive was wise...

Long Hiatus explained

2008-10-07T08:06:00.000-07:00

Yeah I know its been a while...but I can explain...not excuse but explain...On...Friday was it...? I forgot to post. It was a freaking long ass day. We got home are 8ish. BLEEEEH!!! Then I didn't want to post on an off day. And then we went to Macky's on Saturday, and we ended up going to bed later than usual. And finally yesterday I spent too long on an excel spreadsheet. I wouldn't have been able to post today because there was no power, except it came back on. Woot!

So lets start the five day dissertation.

Friday was uneventful. To start with. We drove a long, long way to site ____. (Can't remember the name) And it was pretty boring for a while. Lots and Lots and LOTS of people, but pretty boring. Just the usual watching Gerald, but I stopped being super vigilant. I just watched for a couple things I thought he might mix up. But he did very good that day.

Until Leslie and a couple HSA's left on a huge defaulter run. Now they left around 4ish, which is the time we normally leave for home. While waiting I exhausted my conversation with the nurses who had been left behind with me. Listened to a bunch of music. Climbed a tree and tried to knock down all the dead branches. (Yeah I was THAT bored.)

Eventually I got so bored that I climbed the other tree I had been hesitant to climb before, the one that is ant infested. Granted I did check that they weren't fire ants, but still. I then listened to music for half an hour. Then a bunch of kids who had been staring at me all crowded around the base of the tree. I said hi and gave the biggest kid a handshake. And he proceeded to try to frag me out of the tree. Or so I initially thought. Actually he was just using me to get a boost into the tree. In less that 15 seconds in fact, all eight of the kids had clambered up into the tree and were all nicely situated. It was freaking crazy. So I amused myself by talking to them for half an hour, even though only one could speak English. Facts about them. There was one 17 year old, and the rest were 10-12. One of the twelve years was Majjed, (not sure how to spell) one other 10-12 was Akhmed, a really shy one I had to ask 4 times was named Rajjed (again, not sure) and the 17 year's name started with a "E." So yeah, eventually Leslie got back and we left for home at 6. Got back at 8. That, for your information, is a 15 hour day. LONG. ASS. DAY. As stated earlier. And I collapsed when I got home.

So then the next day. Saturday follows friday right? Weeeeeell. I forget. I know at some point we watched Palin's debate. (M! C! C! A! I! N! GOOOOOO MCCAIN! is my impression of her. Oh, and she talks down to americans too obviously, so we KNOW she's bsing us, wheras Biden was only obvious once. And she needs to learn to answer questions.) Aaaaand we went to Macky's. And I wrote a biggie excel file. Or most of it. N stuff. Its all very vague.

On sunday we picked up an old volunteer here name I forget every time...Katie for something (this time I really cant remember) and we said hi n stuff. We might have done somethign else. But I cant remember. We went to Macky's again though. And I got back late. Hence no post.

Monday was another normal day, except this time I was with stool study. Meaning we sat around for a while waiting for some babys to poop. I can't really say I do much though, since Victor and whatever I named the nurse which I am too lazy to look up now always do everything. I'm running around trying to find something to do! (And for your info, that one time I slept for two hours NOONE was working. We were all waiting for one...last...pooper...to go...) So we were waiting for 3 more poopers that day when Victor goaded me into climbing yet another tree. When I got up there, I wasnt exactly sure how I was gonna get down, so to stall for time, I asked for a stick and started knocking mangoes down. (I was told later "Bad Billy! Not our mangoes!) After I got down Victor went up and knocked some more down. We both were bad =P

And we went home, ate, and I spent to rest of the day finishing the spreadsheet so we could sent it to Dr Manary (its a "beta" sheet) and it was too late. Seriously, between sleep and a post there is no hard choice.

So. Today. Woke up early. Went to site. No defautlers to find. Lots of cute babiez, got some pics actually, hehe they so adorable.

We got home very early, and Leslie and I went to run some errands. And I really have no idea what Dr Manary thought of the spreadsheet. He responded in what Leslie called "word salad" and it took us a couple minutes to make head or tail of it. I think he means that the new person coming is gonna tell us. Whaaaaateveeeer! Just let me know what needs to go! (I did the shotgun method, putting everything I thought he could possibly want, so all he can tell me is to get rid of stuff.)

Oh and the power was out for most of today, so we had no food made for us. *boo hoo* I went for pizza with joy. (male) And here I am frantically trying to to to bed.

TTYL
---He who should have been in bed 2 hours ago

Somtimes its gonna be real hard to make a title...

2008-10-02T09:35:00.000-07:00

A couple quick things, taking some advice, I'll be devoting my Sunday posts to answering questions commented by you all. Also, Joy is a MAN. I've mentioned it a couple times but I probably shouldn't have been so discreet. NONE of the names in my blogs are real. I was told that's not kosher after someone saw their name in my blog. So "Joy," jokingly said that I could call him that, and if you know me, you'll know what my reaction to something like that will be. He liked being confused with a girl though, ("What!?") thanks Nin! Oh, and defaulters are moms who for whatever reason, stop coming to clinic. This can really mess up the baby if he doesn't get help, and will mess up our data gathering. (Something witch will not only mess up the baby, but will retard the effort to learn more about malnutrition)

So anywaaaaays, we left for the typical site...Gerald is learning fine...yadda yadda yadda...nothing much to say on that. However, at Wednesday's site we were literally swarmed with little girls watching us. I had a very good time messing with this little Muslim girl by dangling a little peice of string in her face, she was shy, and eventually pulled her head scarf thing off in an effort to hide her face. =) Then this old guy came up and was asking for us to give him Chiponde... "Brother! Brother! The hunger! Give me one!" Really trying to make you feel for the guy...too bad if we obliged Gerald would lose his job and I'd be shipped home. Seriously, its not as if I enjoyed turning him away, but we're here to feed starving children, not pitiful old men. (Who by the way was not starving, I've seen oodles of starving people recently, go figure, and he was neither bloated nor emaciated.) I'll explaain more about beggars at a later time, but suffice it to say we eventually got him to leave. Also, eventually their most of the gaggle left, and there were two girls hanging around, and we pretty much had a good time, despite the language barrier. At one point, I let them listen to some of my music, (If you don't know, I listen to alt. Rock, and everyone here listens to reggae) and one of them ended up listening for a good hour or so. It would have been perfect if right before we left she hadn't asked for money.

And then we rode to Namandanje...let me see if I can remember the points I wanted to talk about...I talked at length to one of the cooks, at least in broken Engrish. I apparently HAVE to go see his home village ans see the sights there. We also had another huge dinner, of which I had 5 bowls of soup. And I forget everything else.

Woke up real early today for a reason I will spare you. Wandered around for an hour. Eventually we left for church. Now in this church I had an epiphany, but not a religious one, a philosopical one. Be patient with my explanation please, and also with the clarifications so I don't offend anyone.

No matter how much we advance technology, no matter how much we fill our lives with recreation, no matter how much we fill our lives with what we want and need, life will never become more beautiful, and humanity will never become even one iota happier. How did this epiphany strike me, and how did I reason through it? Well it all needs to start with my description of the church.

The church had concrete on the floor, aged, whatever had been painted on it was cracked, and in some instances the concrete itself was gouged. The pews were made of small wooden benches, none of which are tacked to the floor, without any kneelers in sight. The concrete floor is where you kneel. The statue of Jesus is a little head heavy, disproportionite. The "stained glass" was simply colored glass, or maybe plastic, in the shape of stars. The stations of the cross were small pitcures in plain frames nailed into the wall. The paintings of Jesus and his disciples above the altar are simple, and not very well done, as if a very inexperienced painter had been hired, and could only muster the traditional garb and halos, and otherwise made everything look as if a middle schooler had painted it. Birds have taken up nest in the rafters. There are no missaletes. No choir. No fancy ornamentation of any kind...and yet...

Father holds mass every day, so obviously most come on Sunday, and few are to be found on the weekdays. I could tell though, from my vantage point at the back of the church, that this was a very holy and sacred place for those attending, despite all of its apparent design flaws. To these people this is a very important place they hold close to their hearts. And yet, if you take your average American, or anyone from a first world country, I can guarantee, regardless of how much they may protest, that something along the lines of, "this is so run down" will cross their minds.

How does this pertain to my epiphany? Well think of it this way, in the words of the great sage Lao-tsu:
When people see some things as beautiful,
other things become ugly.
When people see some things as good,
other things become bad.

Being and non-being create each other.
Difficult and easy support each other.
Long and short define each other.
High and low depend on each other.
Before and after follow each other.

So how we look at the world is dependent upon where we are coming from. Someone is "rich" in Malawi if they own a bike. Someone is "rich" in the states if they can get a new car every year. We define unbearable in the states as a 2 hour wait in traffic. In Malawi it isn't unbearable until you are starving. Here, in the compound actually, there is a little boy named Luca, who spent a good 20 minutes, maybe longer, (I left before he finished) entertaining himself and his sister by pulling her around in an empty cardboard box. In the states I hear kids whining about not getting this cell phone or this newest game or whatever else they want. Here in Malawi, where they define their year into the rainy season and the "hungry season," most people are friendly and welcoming. In the states there is an entire culture based on feeling bad about yourself causing yourself unnecessary pain. (Refer to post script for disclaimer)

I know I tend to ramble but is the picture I'm trying to paint becoming clear? No matter what, we humans will find things to enjoy, things to take pleasure in, and things to complain about. Its all in the perspective, and when something becomes [insert adjective here] it needs something else to make its counterpart, and to define it. It just turns out,no matter what state our lives are in, be it poverty or affluence, in one's mind you will create a spectrum of good to bad, with the worst thing that's ever happened to you on one end and the best on the other. So no matter what, people will find things to enjoy and things to bemoan.

I guess the main thing I'm trying to get at is that for a people to be truly happy, we need to move beyond possessions and other worldly things...oh god that came out wrong...I would be the last person to ever say that I would get rid of my computer, PSP, books, uhm...what I'm trying to say is that by defining your happiness by a dependence on something other than your own outlook on life, your own ability to look on the brighter side of everything is in the end going to be futile, because, to reiterate, to make something good, something else must become bad. And in fact, at the other end of the spectrum, labeling possessions and the like as always "evil" or "corrupting" you are again counterproductive, as then you can only be happy when they are absent. Plus, who wants to tell themselves that wanting to go buy something you like is wrong?

...

...

...

Did that make sense? Sorry, but I'm not so good at vocalizing my deeper thoughts. I usually restate my thoughts and beat the dead horse into ectoplasm before I finish rambling, and even then I usually don't they the point across.

So anyway...on a more normal note. It was a long day. Very long. I need to got to bed now.

Nite.

TTYL
---He who now knows the importance of fiber

P.S.

Note: This post script is included because casual statements from me have alienated too many people too many times, If nothing previously offended you, I would urge you not to read this, as it will be a veritable waste of your time.

Everything stated in this post is a generalization. There are plenty of people in the US with good outlooks on life, who moods aren't swayed easily into the more depressing side of things, many who don't care about money at all, and there are many kids who don't throw tantrums over little have-nots. Conversely there are plenty of Malawians who wallow in their own pity. I'm just speaking in a broad generalization.

Also, I have many friends, who have at some point in their lives done things that some would classify as "emo". In fact, I would challenge anyone to say that they have never dwelled on their own misery at some point in their life. I am merely referring to the sect of people who feel the urge, though they have more than they could ever need, to make a spectacle of themselves in an attempt to get attention or fit a fad. I have nothing but sympathy for those who may feel the need to cause themselves one kind of pain to block out another. To put myself a little (more) out here, at one of the low points in my life, though my life has been nothing but rosy compared to...anything, was compelled to hit something (punching bag) until I caused some damage to my hands. To clarify, I was doing this because the pain game me something to focus on, a distraction, if you will. There were probably better ways to cope, and I can tell you in retrospect that the "reason" I did such a thing was completely insignifigant. But it gave me perspective. And anyone who is too quick to judge should seriously try to understand where they (those with a real reason) are coming from.
End Disclaimer.
P.S.S.
I would much appreciate it if everyone who knows the "reason" would kindly keep it to themselves. I was pondering whether or not to put my example in this post for a while and left the cause out for a reason. Thank you. (And if you do insist on opening your trap, I know where everyone who knows the "reason" lives.)
End Threat
End Post.

Tired. This be quick. maybe.

2008-09-30T21:19:00.000-07:00

Yeah yeah I miss the first updaqte after I post a "schedule," what did you expect from me?

Ok, as the title suggests, its 9 oclock, and my sleep meds are kicking in hard. So this will either be short, or a little funky, we see what I decide as I write.

Went driving after my post two nights ago. Freaky this are as follows: Trucks are powerful, and have more kick than I'm used to. Circles, they creep up on you without warning. Figgering the distance on the left side of the car from the right is hard. But I'm in (mostly) one peice, so I did OK at least.

So anyway, I went home, we fixed the light, and got to bed at 11, (WAY TOO FREAKING LATE) but somehow I got up this morning.

Then, since we have a new driver, Gerald, we had 5 people in the car. Leslie and Gerald in front, and me crammed in the back. (Two big nurses cramming me against the wall) Somehow I managed to sleep, not sure how. Once we got there, I showed Gerald how to give the chiponde out. He is very meticulous. Overall he does everything right, he just has trouble with the cards from kids that became healthy. Way too lazy (tired) too explain.

So anyway, I slept in the Stool study car for two hours while Leslie and Gerald went too look for defaulters, and then Victor, and the nurse for stool study(can't remember what I named her) and I went to look for a defaulter of our own. To do so we went all over the mountains. One time this funny guy stopped our car and was like (in chichewa) "Follow me", and insisted on running inn front of us. So funny!

Then, eventually, omitting many details for times sake, we got to this clearing while we waited for the mom. While we were waiting this kid bounds up a tree at a height that would make a Bevard blanch and knocked down some mangoes for us. After we cleared up the defaulter we went to find, he brought a bowl full of the fruits he just risked life and limb to get and gives them to us, then he asks for 50 Kwatcha. (For anyone who doesn't get the extange rate, its 1 USD to 170 K, so 50 K is like 30 cents) Someone started to haggle but I was thinking "Bull, all he wants is 50? and handed it over.

After that we dropped off our hsa and headed home. One quick thing that should probably go to a day when I have nothing to say, but something struck me when we were on the way home, and I saw two sets of goals made by three sticks each. My dad and I used to have talks about why soccer was so pervasive everywhere in the world. (He would eventually get to what soccer would have to change to cater to American tastes, while my answer was that they didn't give a flying...well I should probably omit that...) I understand now. Soccer is so pervasive because anyone can play it anywhere. Think about it, what do you need to play "real" baseball? A baseball bat, gloves, and oodles of balls if you have a tendency to lose them. In a country where most don't have enough to afford enough food how are they going to afford that? For soccer all you need is a ball, doesn't even have to be a soccer ball, a field, and sticks to mark your goal. Football, there are so many rules, plays, and other things to memorize, how is a young boy going to remember them all? Soccer is as easy as this: Here ball. There goal. Make ball go in goal. Soccer is so pervasive because its so easy go get, and because its easy (or hard) enough for anyone to have fun playing it. And unless you have as many resources as we do in America, many sports simply aren't feasible.

So anyway, back to bizness. We drove home, this time in the stool study car (THANK GODs!!!!) and I was talking to them the whole way home. In fact one time I mentioned when I'm coming home...oh god I need to preface this too don't I? I am staying a minimum of three months and then I re-evaluate. Then I maybe stay another three. Repeat. To maybe as total of nine. Victor's reaction was I have to stay a minimum of nine. =) So I'm doing a random poll thing, when do you think I should come home, 3 months, 6, or 9? (Sorry Dad, today isn't one of the options.)

We got home late, and then I pretty much ate and hit the hay. Nothing much to comment on that.

Oh yeah, and our faster net is set up. FANTASTIC!!!

Woke up the next day (we got to leave at 7! WOOHOOO!!!!) Slept on the way to the site. Then I taught Gerald some more. He learns pretty quickly. And he puts up with me talking to fact. But anyway I spare you the boring details, but he'll be ready by Friday if we decide to hire him.

Today's site was at a school, and since there Azungu (White people!) there after clinic was over about 20-40 kids crowded around me. Its hard to talk to them, but I learned (and promptly forgot) hot to say "what's your name?" That went over real well with the kids. In fact there was a group of three little girls that would giggle whenever I looked at them, and one little girl who would follow me where ever I went. Cuute! But anyway, we had few defaulters, so all we had to do was take a mother and sick child to the hospital. But since we didn't have space, into the trunk I went! When we were driving away all of the little kids ran after the truck, waving at (I assume because I was the only one visible, and whenever I waved back they increased the waving motion) me. Real freaking bumpy, I was so glad when we got to the hospital, and I got out.

Then we switched up some cars to a random professor lady could go home more quickly, and we picked up some liquid nitrogen in one of our canisters, and then headed home. (what we were switching cars so she wouldn't have to waste her time waiting for)

Once we got home Joy and I dropped a car off at the mechanic. I was driving the car to go, and he was driving the car we would ride home in. I got kinda freaked out because after a really dense intersection there were 5 cars between me and Joy, who was showing me the way. But somehow we made it. Then we ransacked about 7 shops and eventually managed to find an adaptor for our fridge, which didn't have one, and a couple fuses. I think all the cheeze and meat went bad anyway though. Meh. I'll live without for a day.

By the way, I finally won over the Ceaser! She's the compound dog, a young puppy, and I think she gets hit a lot. By guys. So I was working uphill trying to get her to like me. Every sharp move would send her flying. But finally, finally, I got her, not only to wag when I petted her, but to show me her belly too! VICTORAAAAAAY!!!!!!! So yeah, Ive got a furry friend. Maybe I should buy a doggie toy so she doesn't gnaw on my hand so much. =)

Joy left, and Leslie and I watched the first 40 minutes of the debates to catch up with what Joy saw. I think we'll have all of them by Thursday. We ate. Good food, as usual. As I write this Joy is playing the guitar and singing. My only reaction. HOLY CRAP. HE'S VURRY VURRY GOOD. HE CAN SING AND PLAY. WELL. I could sit here all night typing and listening to him, but tomorrows a busy day.

TTYL
---The one who smacks his head into too many things =/

Lazy weekend

2008-09-28T06:16:00.001-07:00

Well its been a very lazy and quiet weekend...but before I get into what I did, I have a couple announcement thingies to make.

First, If any of you have an extraordinary good memory you will remember my little ran about how my mom is a jerk for getting me all those letters with the lumps in them. Well guess what, the lumps are skittles and starburst! This is AWESOME (and sucks) because I LOVE them! (and now have to resist eating them all at once) I had meant to mention this, but every blog I write is usually finished at 9:30 (half an hour after I should be sleeping) and all my carefully laid blog ideas get scattered in the rush to post SOMETHING and get to sleep. So I'm sorry mom, I really appreciate them, I've just forgotten to tell you.

Actually I had intended to answer most comments with comments and keep a running dialogue, but I (obviously) don't have time for that. But I do read all your comments, even if it doesn't seem like I'm noticing yours, trust me, I am.

Also, I think I've developed a tentative posting schedule. It will be every weekday that I have internet access, Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, and Sunday for good measure. In the future I may not have many interesting things to say for the weekdays, though I am sure I'll always have to say on Sunday, so if I have very little I'll include a fun fact or detail about Malawi, so even though there may not be much new on how I'm doing, by reading more and more you will get a better picture of Malawi as time goes on.

So anyway, Saturday was our (the guys) shopping day. First went to pick up Victor from his house so he could show us around and help us find some straw mats. Though it was a while before we got to see any good ones. We had lots of detours, like picking up the car from the mechanics. Actually while we were there Victor showed up this car he's gonna fix up in two weeks. It had NOTHING, and EVERYTHING. I mean, Nothing was where it was supposed to be and EVERYTHING was in one HUGE mess. Joy said if he gets it done in two weeks he'd buy Vic a coke. I said I'd buy him three.

But anyway, eventually we made it to Blantyre market, and we, (after much haggling) picked up two nice straw mats and a straw basket for my laundry bag. Then we proceeded to browbeat Vic untill he agreed to let us take him to luch (it was Ali Babas again, and I'm sorry Ulf, I couldn't resist the tandori chicken.)

After that it was off to the supermarket for our food items (I specifically had to by skim milk, thanks mom and dad, 2% is forever ruined for me...) and we went off to game (=walmart) to get a couple other odds and ends. I got some shower materials. J got a dangly light bulb socket so i can replace the broken one. (I think thats gonna be my lest electrical job)

Then we went home to struggle with downloading the presidential debates. I think we ended up being able to see 20 minutes of it. My summary. I think Barack's sound bites were far better thann Mccains. And he was much more specific. What I didn't like: Mccains shpeal about responsibility. Ive been there before, it solves nothing and only serves to take your mind off of whats wrong by finding someone to blame. I also didnt like Barack's back patting (Mccain did it too but Barack started it) on how he warned about wall street and the war. Thats all in the past, and dwelling on it solves nothing.

And then I tried to rewrite my "maze" program on one of the computers, and got so wrapped up in it that I didn't even notice that I was burning my food. Note for Mr. C If he ever reads this: Can you email me the Ready to Program specific classes, I want to try to incorporate them into Eclipse. (And I think I can)

Neway, then we went to bed.

Today has been even lazier. Joy went on a hike earlier today and came back around 1ish. Before that, Leslie and I were sitting in the Downhouse, doing random things, like me adding more songs to my garganutan (300 big) playlist, screwing a whiteboard into the concrete, and putting some algorithms into one of our databases, and putting about 15 cards worth of data in it. Speaking of which, mom, if you ever have any free time, could you mail me a bunch of pointers on excel coding? Functions,, how to merge...etc? I think having that knowledge would be helpful.
But seriously, only if you have time, I know you overwork yourself too much as it is.

And them when Joy got back we went to Maky's. Yum! And then I hurried back to write this.

Oh and one last thing, I tried uploading some pics at the cafe. No beans. I think that the pics will fit (says max 8 mb and they're 2) but the connection needs to be faster. Wait till october-ish when we get the faster internet set up mk?

TTYL.

Sorry for the wait (did you miss me?)

2008-09-26T08:59:00.000-07:00

Sorry about the wait, it never seemed like an oppourtune time to post the last couple days, but with four days to go this should be a decent (at least) sized post. (Actually I'll be trying to trim it down)

Well for starters, on Tuesday I left with Willie to see the Stool study. (Or as one of my friends to helpfully noted, "Scat" study) It really can be very time consuming, considering how many poopers you have and how many just regular checkups. This requires an explanation. (Oh my god ANOTHER ONE!?!) A little reiteration, with possible misspellings. There are two main types of malnutrition, (there may only be two, iunno) Kwashiorkor and Marasmus. Marasmus is those reallly, really thin babies they always show you on TV, the ones with the ribcages almost peircing through the skin. Kwash on the other hand, are the kinda fat puffy looking babies they don't show you pictures of because they kinda look...well...fat. Its not fat though, Kwash is caused by all the water in your bloodstream going out of your veins, where its supposed to be, and into everywhere else. Hence, they look bloated somewhat. I'm not exactly sure which is worse, but neither is good for a growing baby. (Or anyone else, for that matter) Marasmus (and Kwash) are caused by not getting enough food, but Kwash is more specifically caused by not getting enough variety in your diet. They used to think that because hemoglobin (a protein) is what keeps your blood where its supposed to be, obviously they need more meat. They were wrong though. (All of this explained in blah blah blah medical speak...OK its actually pretty interesting and I'm glad they spare no deatails but I'm sure you will.) So they think theHowever answer to this Kwash trigger may be in the "bowel flora." (bacteria in your stomach) And since malnourished twins often get differing malnutrition conditions, they started a study to try to determine if there is a corrolation between the bowel flora and Kwash/Marasmus.

So anyway, we get twins from age 6 months to 2 yearsish, and put them in the study. If they stay healthy, then they come once a month, and we weigh, measure their height, arm width, the usual stuff. Then, most of the time, we let them go, after giving them their incentive. (sugar, beans, soap, oil, etc.) Healthy babies only get stool collected from them four times a year. However, should they become malnourished we start taking stool from them every two weeks. (as they are the baby data we need, really) The incentives increase as well.

To make them poop we feed them lots of porrige and baby food as soon as they get there. (The porrige is supposed to be prepared ahead of time and never is, but that's a long story.) So anyway, we try to make them poop as fast as possible, so we (and they) can leave as soon as possible. Some babies just refuse to take a dump though! So in that case we (at around 10-11) insert a suppository. Usually that takes care of it. However, if there are enough kids, and it is hectic enough, they may not be given the suppository when they need to, or sometimes even fed. Hence stool study sometimes arrives home super-late.

Anyway, there weren't a terrible number of kids when we went, and everything went smoothly. I don't feel like getting into too much detail now, I'll save that for when I've run out of things to say.

So anyhow, we went back home, and slept. There may be more details, but I can't remember them.

The next day was our last day with Shandie and Willie, as they were leaving the following thursday morning, and Wednesday-Thursday is our overnight at Namandaje (The two sites there are too far to travel there and back two in one day.) And since there will be no more post concerning them (probably) I feel like a short description of them is needed. Willie was my roomate, and GOD did he smile a lot. And not just a normal smile, oh no. This was a super-pervasive, beaming, contagious smile. I still dont understand how a baby could ever cry when looking at that ear to ear smile, but they did. And he also acted taht happy too. For example, when we first met,(when he was sent back to meet me because everyone else was going to Namandaje) I was expecting a "Hey, how are you." But no. I got an "Awesome! Its great to meet you!" or something to that effect. I didn't talk to Shandie as much, because she wasn't my roomate, and she was kinda quiet. But nontheless, we talked some, and she was very nice and easygoing. She was the only other person who had and used her camera, and a lot better sense for it too, so I found myself taking duplicates of a lot of her shots.

But anyway, this day I went with Shandie, with Willie taking my place. Very, very uneventful. We had only three poopers. So...I read a lot of the Hitch Hikers Guide, Victor slept in the car...etc. We had a slow day. I did take a lot of pictures for Shandie though. Her mom wanted them apparently. Which reminds me, there was this real cute baby feeding tself Chiponde, and getting it everywhere. It was so cute we had to take a picture or two of it! In fact, the mom wants the pictures too, so we are going to bring her a copy the neext time we go.

After that, we waited for the other team to finish up and reach us, adn thenwe said our tearful goodbyes. (Not that I was crying of course.) After we parted ways, we left for another long haul to Namandaje. Namandaje, by the way, is a place with a mission in it. That is where we stay. We saw a bunch of kids and met some world travelers. (been traveling around africa for 11 months) After we packed our stuff away, we got to eat an AMAZING FEAST. THERE WAS GREAT SOUP AND TOAST AND GOOD TEA AND CHICKENANDOHMYGODIMSALIVATINGAGAIN...sorry...it was really good though. Me n Joy bunked together. Kinda funny, we got a huge bugnet, but no way to put it up...except for the light dangling waaay too high up to reach. He actually had to use me as a stool to reach it. =)

Oh I forgot to mention, we spent half an hour entering data.

Anyway, breakfast was as good as dinner, and we got to get up at 7:30!!! I worked the 10-25 at the site. (Stool study doesn't go to Namandaje) Uneventful. The trip home was an *insert curse word of your choice here*. 3-4 hours...god that was annoying. I spent a good tqo hours entering the data we didn't get on Wednesday...untill the power died. Anyway, we dropped by the gym, and let me tell you, Joy is so crazy at the gym. He's built, first of all, but its like he can't pick which workout to do. He just JUMPS from method to method. Crazyness. Also, Apparently I average 30 km per hour on the bike. So because we were ravenous after that we found a open food court at 9 p.m. Funny fact, there's lots of Muslims here. And its ramadan. No eating when the suns out. That food court - open late was PACKED with them. Joy even got hit on by one of them! So we got pizza there, headed home, and put half an hour more of data in. Ewwww. We got to bed at 11.

And I woke up at 5:30, to my phone calling for "where are you." We leave at 5:30. So I woke up put my shoes on, and hit the ground running. Forgot breakfast. Forgot deo. Forgot water. Ewww. I woulda died if it hadn't been for Leslie giving me a boiled egg. And today I was on chiponde hander outer duty. Hot as hell. Everyone wanted a spoon. (They are only supposed to get one, on their first day. And once someone looses a spoon and askss for one, and you give her one, EVERYONE wants one.) Other than that though, I met a nice HSA called Andrew. Gotta remember his name. He was really nice and super helpful. Probably wont be able to meet him again though, because after two interviews, (and a lot of uneccesary drama, which I will spare you) we got a new driver. And since stool study doesn't go to the site, I will probably never see him again. =( But anyway, I came back, and did nothing I was so tired. Except for write this. And eat. EAT. So anyway, probably lots of little details missed, but I don't give a crap.

Car trouble

2008-09-22T12:45:00.000-07:00

Thought this post would be late because the entire internet in Blantyre is out. Shot. Gone. Kaput. Turns out it came on five minutes ago. So I'm posting now

Today started out normal, kinda thought it would be a nondescript day, one where I might have to pull out one of the fun facts that I’ve been storing up. Little tidbits to fill in the blog for days where I can only say “normal day, few kids…etc…” But too bad, today turned out to be interesting after all. Tough nuts for you, you get an interesting story instead.

Because I was up till eleven last night writing, I was very, very brain-dead this morning. No matter though, I got up at five without too much trouble, and my mosquito net lasted the night this time! So I left with Leslie this time, to wherever we were going…I have no idea what it’s called actually, at this stage I don’t really need to know. So anyway, we picked up one of our nurses, Candace, and are going back for Lauren (another nurse) when we get a phone call. Turns out, the Land Rover (one of our many trucks) broke down, and they needed help. So we drove over, and tried many, many things to get it out of the middle of the road. We broke a piece of rope trying to tow it for one thing. Got a pic of that, before the rope broke. Eventually the Rover crawled its way over the top, and we decided to leave it by the nearby police station, and just send two people back to pick up another vehicle. Total time wasted: about one hour. After that, we continued our drive to today’s site. And man let me tell you, Victor (one of the two locals on the stool study) got skills! He was really booking it down those roads, a good 90-100 km/hr. And considering how many pedestrians there are, that takes real skill! Or at least, he was booking it until we hit such a heavy layer of fog that everything 10 feet in front of you was completely obscured. And after that iunno, ‘cause Willie and I fell asleep, which in retrospect is pretty amazing, because those roads are ALMOST as bad a Pennsylvania roads.

So anyway we got there and it was pretty much business as usual. Read card. Give Chiponde. Repeat. I got to talk to a couple of the HSA’s (Health Service Assistant) though. (They are our local hired help, helping us fill out forms with the locals, many of whom can’t read, and more importantly, they speak the local language AND English.) Not much other than that though. Then we drove home.

After dropping off the nurses, Leslie and I picked up all the empty Chiponde bottles we had been storing at the factory and took them to the cleaning facility. (We reuse cleaned bottles for various reasons.) Then went back to the factory to get more Chiponde. And after that we took a trip to the internet café. Where we found the internet dead. Yay!

After that we went home and I killed time with The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. (Will I ever finish a book?) When I got partway into that I stopped by the Downhouse and got to say hi to Amy, our manager, and the person who supplies our funds. She is the person that I lugged the care package (movies and perfume) in my luggage over for. I listened to Joy and Leslie talk to her about finance for twenty minutes simple because I had nothing better to do.

It was six to seven by the time the stool study group got back, which is obscene, considering that even with everything that we did after the 10-25 chiponde, we still got back at four. Stool study’s hours really need to be cut back. Something that will be hit up on later.

After that, we (FINALLY!!!) got our dinner. Sarah, in addition to the usual eggs and rice, included a new dish. Its peanut flour stuff with “potatoes and goodness” as Willie said. Following this new fantastical dish (an adjective that can describe everything Sarah cooks) we (they) talked about logistics of the stool study. I just kinda read Hitchhiker’s Guide because I haven’t been involved with stool study yet. But it seems that I will be! After they talked a couple details out, the topic turned to the problem of no one staying with stool study for any length of time, (Joy and Leslie are decidedly 10-25) and lookie! Here is a spare high school student that is here for three (to nine) months! So tomorrow I’m gonna trade with Shandie and I’ll learn the ropes of the stool. Everyone who is laughing at me now…I’m sure I know where most of you live…so watch yourselves…

One day late (O.M.G.)

2008-09-21T13:29:00.000-07:00

Well lookie here. I didn’t post for a day. Let. It. Go. (This is not intended to anyone except those who sent me comments or emails expressing a consternation that I might, *gasp* not be able to post every single day…Mom…Dad…) So anyway, I’ve had a busy but nice weekend. Woke up to a ramen breakfast on Saturday. Say what you will that non-nutritional crap is good! So anyway. Wandered around because I was bored. Read most of Forrest Gump. Seriously, good book. Everyone who is reading this should, in turn, read it. Bevard twin #1, you’re excused on account of being illiterate. (Or close enough, when was the last time you read a book?)

So anyway, eventually I ended up in the Downhouse. If I haven’t explained this yet, The Downhouse is our storage area, the Uphouse is the girl’s dorm, and where most of the food and books are. The Mouse is our newest acquisition, and where the guys bunk for the night. Because its so new, it is pretty stark, and Joy (a guy, believe it or not) and I will probably dedicate some time over the next couple weeks to making it “home.”

So anyway, off topic. In the Downhouse we spent a good 2 hours or so responding to one of the Doctor’s emails. He sends us this email, “I need the data from these cards...and then lists about 50-75 cards to find in an old project. So we spend about one hour finding the cards…because they are strewn throughout the files, and another hour entering them. Meeeeeh. About 5 cards were completely empty, and a bunch of the data he was asking for were very easy to find the errors. The data not there. Funfun. From now on I’m going to double check the cards before I give the chiponde so we don’t have that issue.

After that we spent a LONG time reorganizing the Downhouse. The desks got pushed together, we put the new shelves in (It’s actually ingenious, order a bunch of benches, and stack them! It makes very good, portable shelves!) and moved the binder shelves. I may show you a picture later. OH YEAH! On the picture subject, I don’t think the connection here is fast enough to upload pics, so it’ll have to wait till later. I spent a long time organizing our computer equipment too. Useless, Useful, wiring, packing…etc.

Then…we switched the fridges…me ‘n Joy grabbed the new fridge in the Downhouse and dragged it ALL the way up to the Mouse, and vice versa with the old one in the Mouse. PAIN. MUCH PAIN! And after that we tore the plug…pushed the fridge too far and *pop* it goes. And since I think (based of my “majoring in computer science”) I’m being trained to be a electrician of sorts here, me and Leslie (The other Med student staying for a year along with Joy, Willie and Shandie are leaving Thursday) spent a little while figgering how to put it back together. After that we doused a couple bugnets in mosquitoicide. Which reminds me, I’ve been pulling my bugnet down in my sleep. Putting it back up requires me to be conscious, so all in all between waking up and falling asleep it cuts half an hour into my sleep.

Following this, the last of our chores, we went and got our next week’s worth of chiponde. Don’t have enough of one kind though, we will probably have to go back to get more. Turns out though, that with the way we reorganized this place, we can stack more than we’d need for a week! And not having to go back to the factory is fantastic!

So anyway, after that, we went to this awesome place called Macky’s, which basically is a B&B, with the most amazing ambiance. (Jazz background, great scenery, and AWESOME FOOD. I had the Mongolian Beef.) We had dinner, and sat around and talked. For about two hours. It was fantastic. Bats flying above, great temperature, and near the end a Rastafarian guitarist came in and started playing some awesome music. (I have a pic of him. Again, later.) I think that Leslie’s toast sums it up best. “To a perfect night.

And afterwards we went right home and collapsed. SO THERE. Off my case you fools!

And today, we did more of the same chorewise. We woke up, more arranging of the Downhouse, though not even near as much as yesterday. Actually I finished two projects today. I took apart the gal’s broken water boiler, put it back together again (I lost a little plastic thingy…I don’t think it matters…) and changed the plug and VOILA! It works. I’m starting to feel a little more self confident about this whole electrician thing. Grandpa would be proud. (He fixed broken stuff all the time. At one point he had seven working TV’s! And I don’t think he even bought any of ‘em!) After that me n Leslie switched a broken wall socket. Last electrical job left is to replace a dangly light bulb socket thing.

Newayz, after that we drove to a “Reggae” concert. Explanation. Thirty minutes of waiting, followed by forty-five minutes of a seven piece boys band, with thirty more minutes of waiting, and finally, forty minutes of “Reggae”. Except it wasn’t. It was high speed Creole rap. With dancing. Whaaaaatever. He wasn’t that bad. And it was quite an experience.

Afterwards we met back up with Shandie and Willie, who had been to Mount Mulanje. We met up at a restaurant called Ali Baba’s. Again, food fantastic. I had the Chicken Tandori, and my nose started running halfway through my meal. Now that’s what I call Spicay!

And then we went home. End of story.

Oh yeah, I’m reading a fantastic novel called Dr Norrel and Mr. Strange. Pretty good book. Weird thing is, it’s the authors first book. And its good. And its 800 pages. How do you start with that?!

First (work) Day

2008-09-18T12:13:00.001-07:00

Well, wasn’t the picture debacle yesterday interesting? No, I haven’t gotten to fixing it yet, but I’m going to attempt fixing it after I finish writing this entry. Oh yeah, and I’ll also do my best to put the “, ”, ‘, and ! back where they belong.

The following, minus minor details, will probably be a good example of what my weekdays will be like for the foreseeable future.

So today was a busy day, up at four, out the door by 5. And for your information, you skeptics who know me too well, I was the FIRST one up. So after I ate some brekkist and did a couple sudoku, it was out to pack the truck for the day. We have to make sure it is full of the 10% and 25% chiponde, as well as the Soya. So when we left we stopped by the factory to get some more 25%, and also picked up two nurses…whose names are…wait…damnit…I tried so hard to remember them today…one starts with a C…whatever I'll figure them out later...After that it was a good hour or so until we got to…let me check…Mayaka. On the way my senior filled me in on many things. Like my job for today. And how Unqualified Palin is. And Lots of other things. You find things to talk about in a two hour car ride.

So anyway here’s my job. First things first, I need to make a clarification clear. Project Peanut Butter’s goal is not mainly to treat child malnutrition in Malawi. It’s simply not possible for a group as small as ours to make as large a difference as we would need to. Let me clarify. For example, today in Mayaka, population 57000, there are 14 Chiponde sites other than the ones we run. These are run by the CTC, a government run program. The blue sites I mentioned yesterday are sites that we now simply supply the Chiponde to, and they distribute it themselves. (The Chiponde designs were written up by a former volunteer here and sold to the government. The guy who sold them may or may not be profiting from that. Relations aren’t the best between him and PPB.) CTC makes its own Chiponde, and supplies it as well. Project Peanut Butter runs 14 sites altogether. In total. So we could not even run Mayaka completely on our own. Our main goals are determining whether the 10% is as effective as the 25%, which would allow production world-wide to be run more cheaply, and to see whether the Soya Chiponde is effective in treating moderate malnutrition. Dr Manary is attending a malnutrition council thing, group, get together, whatever it’s called, of malnutrition experts world wide to try to decide upon a treatment of moderate malnutrition.

So the 10% Vs 25% study is a double blind study, meaning that neither those receiving the peanut butter, nor those assigning who gets what know which version of the Chiponde they are getting. So basically, a nurse writes a random letter, A-F, drawn from a box, on every child’s “card.” (Cards record data such as height, target weight, weight, etc.) 3 of the letters correspond to the type 1, (25%) and 3 to type 2. (10%) So I read their cards, and depending on their weight, whether they are only moderately malnourished or seriously malnourished, (Moderates get Soya) and the letter, I give them a certain amount of the specified type of chiponde. Graduates (those who are now healthy) receive 3 bottles, a kilo of beans, and a gargantuan bar of soap.

We had a huge number of people today. Women and babies lined(nor really, more like clumped together) up as far as the eye could see. Ok so they only filled up the yard but there were still a helluva lot of them. You have never heard such a wailing and gnashing of gums.

Long day too. It was 7-1 just handing out the Chiponde, with a couple long (ten minutes to an hour) breaks in between mobs of people. I say mobs, because they never came alone. I always had either a line of 5-6 people or none. Wasn’t as hot as I feared though.

So anyway, afterwards we picked up some benches we had ordered from a local carpenter that we will soon make into bookshelves. And after that we went home. Oh and I really need to learn some Chichewa. All I know right now is Zikomo (Thank you) Madzi. (very much)

Oh and my parents are jerks. JERKS I SAY. They sent me letters. Tons of letters. Letters for every Saturday between now and January 31. YOU KNOW WHAT THIS MEANS!?!?!?! I have two options. Open all of the letters at once and feel guilty, and regretful for the rest of my stay. Or suffer, SUFFER as I wait to find out what is written in the next one. Actually I haven’t even opened the first one yet but there’s something in it I know because its fat and has a lump and it might not be so bad after I figure out what the lump is but the jerks didntevensendmealetterforwhenIgotherethefirstisforSaturday…JERKS…Thanks…jerks…

Picture day...or not?

2008-09-18T12:13:00.000-07:00

This looks funny because of a mac-windows transfer problem. Suffice it to say, ì = first ", Ö=!, î= ending ", í='. You'll live. I'll fix it up later. When I don't have to sleep 20 minutes ago. OK, I lied again. I can get pics to show up yet. Very spotty internet. Suffice it to say that I have the pics I claim to, and will put them in when I am able. Have fun imagining what the pics I have look like. Good night.

Fixed the typos, but I am loath to delete anything in the blog...I'd rather just put a line through the words...any internet gurus out there that wanna tell me how to do that? Oh and again too lazy to figure the picture thing out.

Well apparently the general chorus that I am hearing from your comments is a small “cool you arrived safe” and a big “where are the pictures you promised!” Thanks, I love you guys too. Well since I have trouble doing anything halfway, you will get your pictures, oh you will get them. More than you ever dreamed possible…OK well there’s only 20ish, but that’s a lot. You’re welcome. Jerks.

Let’s start with the basics; here are pics of my parents who funded this whole enterprise. I’m sorry, but they really aren’t very photogenic, and the best I could manage was the devil-eyed father and my mom puffing up. Seriously, you don’t want to see the other pics I had.

Here is a quick pic I took of the travel in in Joburg, (South Africa) not the nicest of places but it was very good considering all I was expecting was a bed. (It had 2 beds, some clean water you could heat up for coffee or tea, and a bathroom all to meself)

And here is what the different gates look like at Joburg. Pretty simple I thought. Oh, and by the way, there were only 3ish gate rooms in international departures, as big as the one in the pic and yet the airport was still as large as a normal one. How? Lots. And Lots. And Lots. (Yes the L is capitalized for a reason.) Of shops. It was turn here for gates A 7-50…then you walked past no less than 20 shops. Only one of which was food. And then you turn left, down an escalator, and bam! A 10-30, all in one room. No pic in Blantyre, too concerned with the whole one month thing. Which someone cleared up for me by the way. They want me to pay to stay longer. And I have two choices. Pay, Or go to out of country for a day, come back, and let them stamp me for free again.

Here’s a bunch of Blantyre from the compound, The first is one at night, with all the fires lighting up the mountain. The camera missed a bunch by the way. There is a whole hell of a lot more fires than just that. The next one is as close up as I could get to the soccer field. (Which is by the way, very, very uneven.) And a mountain pic, and a pic of Blantyre in the day.

Here are the two giant spiders that reside under one of our canopies. Me like. They big. Probably eat mosquitoes. And also, the walls with lights on them are crawling with geckos at night. Another think I found cool.

Here’s a cool Gazebo thing on the compound. I don’t think it gets used very much. Tis’ a shame eh?

And random pics of the compound. Also, the tree has some fruits on it. NO idea what kind. They can be whatever you want them to be.

Here is the down house. (Correction from bottom house) The computer I’m sending it on in down house. And the chair I dozed off in for about two hours while waiting for Gene and Vegas to get back. (More on that later.) Oh and the cool out of scale drawing of the sites we work at. The red ones we are going to, and the blue ones are old sites.

So. I woke up at 7ish (shut up mom and dad) and eat breakfast (cereal). Did some random crap (Reading, talking. And other stuff not important enough for me to remember.) We left early though to go see downtown Blantyre. (which by the way you will probably never see pics of. I will NOT go running around with an expensive camera. I also wont go running around like I'm some tourist.) We found the best exchange rate locally, (160ish Kwatcha per dollar) and hit up the market. Boy that was weird. I got accosted by EVERYONE. “Here, I give you good price.” “This small, you take with you, I give you good price.” Three in particular were the most aggressive. Chaps, Francis, and Kevin (I know their names because they told it to me 3-4 times in hope than when I come back I would remember them.) Chaps actually game me a bracelet as a gift. My roomie got a small figurine.

After that we went to the supermarket to pick up something for a little girl. She had been picked up at one of their chiponde (the peanut butter) clinics. Her dress had caught on fire, and she had burns all over her body. And in the hospitals they don’t give pain medication after the first couple days. And for burns, they have to rub, no, SCRUB the skin off. So we bought some fruit chews and some M&M’s. I hope she likes them. He mentioned that he remembered something about her “not having teeth.” Heavy.

After that, we had lunch, and waited for two of the local stool study workers to get back. Now, I need to give you a little back story here. Project peanut butter, in addition to feeding the malnourished children, is running two experiments right now. One is called the stool study, and the other is the Chiponde/Soya study. Milk is the most expensive and hard to get ingredient of the chiponde, (flown in from South Africa) so a study is being conducted to see if the milk content can be lowered from 25% to 10%, or just replaced with soy. The merely moderately malnourished children are given soy, and the severe cases are given either a 25% or 10%. If the study shows that soy or 10% is as effective, then they will switch to that kind, and will be able to produce more chiponde.

The stool study is attempting to figure out the causes of the two different kinds of malnutrition “cases.” As none of the med students are on hand, I cannot name them, but one causes severe emaciation, and the other causes swelling and the large gut protrusion. They use twins, as in many cases two twins under similar circumstances may develop the two differing conditions, and it is as close to the same person as you can get. Since the different conditions are supposed to be caused by different bacteria in the bowel, stool is collected from each child participating in the study. We get them to come by giving mothers “incentives” every time they come. The incentives consist of beans, sugar, oil, and other things that mothers would otherwise have to sell their crops to afford.

So we waited from one to four for them to return, with me falling asleep in the big, comfy, *yawn,* chair. Once they got here though, we spent a good hour or so restocking the materials for the next week. Most of which was spent taping lining into the diapers for the stool study. The three other med students on sabbatical arrived partway through that. So after we just ate, talked and chilled in the up house. Tomorrow I get up early, and out the door by 5. First day of work. Wish me luck!

AwayInMalawi

2008-09-17T09:51:00.000-07:00

Yes I know the title isn't very interesting. You'll live though. First things first, apparently this computer is german, because I got this error message from Gmail, proving that some people still have a sense of humor.

We can't provide service under the Gmail name in Germany; we're called Google Mail here instead.

If you're travelling in Germany, you can access your mail at http://mail.google.com.

Oh, and we'd like to link the URL above, but we're not allowed to do that either. Drat.

For general information about Google, please visit www.google.com or www.google.de.

Funny eh?

So I arrived today, had to wake myself up at 8, which was interesting...considering that it was 5 o'clock in my biological clock when I had to lay meself down to rest. Oh yeah, forgot to mention, I came to the doves nest dinner area around 9, and it was actually past the dinner time, but they still served me! Nice people. This morning I came too late for breakfast but the lady insisted on giving me some yogurt to go. Vurry nice people. So after I worked out how to get them to bill Dr Manary, (I sure as hell didn't have 400+ rand, about 60$, well I had the 60$ but it was USD) we left and I got on my plane to Blantyre. Uneventful plane ride.

First thing that happened in Blantyre was the official inspecting my passport, after I said that I was staying for 3 months, mumbled something about "one month!" Yup. I'm getting that sorted out ASAP. Afterwards my driver, who is actually the guy running the chiponde plant, picked me out of the crowd! He didn't have a sign or anything, but just asked me, "are you Billy?" Apparently he has done this oodles of time and with just an age group he can guess who I am based of of my looks and the fact that I look like I am looking for a sign. Impressive eh?

The second thing that strikes me is the massive poverty here. Along the main road are tons of houses that you would picture seeing a homeless residing in in the states. I mean, quite a few have the body made of brick or clay, but windows are few and far between and the roofs are quite shoddy. Also, people walk everywhere, and the streets are thronged with them. And horns are used ALL THE TIME. He explained it to me as, you are supposed to use the horn, to warn the people that you are coming. If you hit someone without using the horn, they'd say something like, "Is your horn broken?" But If you hit ("or kill") someone but use it,they'd say, "At least he used is horn." Weiiiird. But I guess I'll get used to it.

So noone was at the house today, they were all going overnight to...let me see...Namandaje. Too far away to do in a day. Actually, they only figured out I was arriving today yesterday, they thought I was coming on Thursday! Wouldn't that have been interesting...but its all good because I got picked up in the end. Also, they sent back someone who wasn't essential to what they were doing in Namandje. He's roommate actually! He's pretty cool, about 25, another med student. When he got here he showed me around the three houses, lower house, middle house (m'ouse) and upper house. The lower is storage, upper is where the girls and the food are, go figure, and the mouse is for the males. We ate the food prepared by out housekeeper and chef. Lentils, a salad, and some rice. All very good I might add. Even the lentils were tasty! She, by the way, showed me around a little too, and gave me my keys and my cell phone.

SO anyway, thats probably a little much for one day. See you soon.

Touchdown

2008-09-16T11:48:00.000-07:00

Before I begin, I need to state that the following message was written without firefox, and therefore not quite spellchecked. Maybe.

Well, I'm in Africa now. Very glad to be out of the airplane. No matter what anyone tells you, 16 hour airplane trips suck. Alot. When your butt starts hurting...yeah that is too much sitting. And trying to sleep there? Forget it! unless you are sleep deprived you'll never make it! There were perks though! Airplanes have been upgraded, so that theres a screen for every seat! And you can pick the movie you want to watch. I watched Made of Honor, the Fantastic 4, and What Happens in Vegas. There weren't any good hardcore movies btw. So it was romantic comedies or kids movies.

There was, at first, a nice african lady sitting next to me, and she gave me even more advice on how act in africa. Apparently, there's a great respect for your elders here, and in some cultures, it is rude to look at the elder's face, or make a move towards greeting him, until he makes the first move. Also, maze is apparently used in everything, and can range(based on how it prepared) from kus kus texture to a kinda riceball paste.

And then the nice lady I was talking to wanted me to switch seats with a friend of hers across the aisle, so I moved and started sitting next to a girl about my age who is going in a group. All I could find out was that they are, like me, going to be in africa for (hopefully) 9 months. Cause after the customary greetings and conversation were over, she (like anyone going wiht friends) spent the rest of the time talking with her friends.

Once I touched down, and got through the passport check, I was amazed at their strick, BRUTAL customs check. You walk to the left and they check you. You walk to the right and nothing. No forms. Just "I have nothing to declare" written on the wall and a "if you have something to declare you are committing a felony by walking here." WTH that is obnoxiously lax. Whatever, I don't mind.

After that I converted some money to rand (pronounced rend) I made a call to my guest house and waited outside for half an hour. It wasnt until I started chatting with another patient person waiting for a ridwe that I found out that they were waiting for me inside next to the information booth! Oh how embarrassing that was. But I'm here at the Doves Nest now, thankfully, and all that is left is to finish this post. Which I guess it is, go figure.

Oh one thing I forgot. Almost everyone here speaks english, but I have some trouble understanding their accent.

Terms of Use

2008-09-14T14:32:00.000-07:00

OK! Everyone! I have a couple "rules" for the blog.

First. Everyone who reads a post, please comment. I WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU! I'm "away in Malawi," and wont be able to be able to get into any real contact with anyone from home. In fact, I'd even like to hear from people I don't know! (Apparently Mr James' Icons class and SJV will be reading this) There will be nothing more depressing for me than going on to make a new post and seeing that the only people who have "looked"(commented) on my last one are my parents. So let me reiterate. PLEASE LET ME KNOW YOU CHECKED UP ON ME, COMMENT!

Second, please don't make me moderate. I don't want to have to delete any comments because they are vulgar or somesuch.

And as I type this It strikes me that some people may not have all of the info on what I'm doing. Well, I be called Billy, Bill, or some variant of the name William,(except Willy, call me Willy and you die) and I am leaving tomorrow to a small country in Africa called Malawi, which is...let me check...the 7th to 9th poorest country in the world (out of 180) based on how much money the average person makes a year. In fact...the average person in Malawi makes $44 a year. Take a minute to digest that. Now I'm going to this country to work in an organization called Project Peanut Butter, an organization dedicated to reducing child starvation by feeding starving young children an enriched peanut butter solution until they are healthy again, while also teaching the families how to keep then from relapsing. To put it into perspective for you. Before PPB started working, almost one in four died before their fifth birthday. (23%) Now that has been almost halved into a little over one in eight. (13%) You can find out more details here if you are so inclined.

Anyhow I'll be staying in the city of Blantyre with two medical students on sabbatical, Jay and Eleanor. I will probably be getting up around 4-5 every morning, and will be either driving to a village to help treat the children there, or help work in the peanut butter factory. Either way, I will probably be getting back to the apartment by early in the evening, and will probably collapse around 9. Repeat. Not sure what my weekends will be like.

So thats my overview as I understand it. If you have any more questions, post them as a comment and I will be oh-so-happy to answer them. =)

Laff at me everyone!!!!!!

2008-09-10T12:29:00.001-07:00

Hehe...hehehehehe....*audible snap* BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaowowow it hurts to laugh...

For anyone who is wondering what that was, that snap was me losing the last vestiges of my self control...It's been a very trying day...don't judge me because of my manic laugh...why are you still looking at me funny...? Well anyhoo, today took a turn downhill and I don't really know whe...OK that's a lie, I know exactly where. Let me begin my tale of woe...

I took a double dose of my sleep meds last night, so I got to bed at 11-ish, and woke up at 7! (about 4 hours earlier than I usually wake up) And I figured, why not take the bike route I mapped out yesterday? I had 10 hours to kill, so a good long bike ride should do me some good, right? Eventually I finished everything up in my house, and I left for my ride around 9-ish. Now my ride was SUPPOSED to take me to North Beach, then cross the county to the west side, and take the road near Kings Landing. I got to North Beach fine, had a sub and got some powerade. (I had forgotten to bring any water) I went up towards route 2 from North Beach (I have absolutely no idea what that road is called) and after much toil, reached Mt. Harmony road...the start of the complex road system I had never been on before. I got kinda confused when Mt. Harmony LN crossed Mt Harmony RD, but using my onstar-phone utility (calling my boss and asking for help) I was able to determine the correct route...and yadda yadda yadda, everything was cool until I hit Chaneyville RD...That my friends...and other random people my mom sent the blog link to...Is where the day took its fatal turn...

Now I could almost see the river from where I was, so I stopped looking at the road for a sec to try to get a look...and when I looked back ohwaitthestreetdroopsoffhere...*SLAM* I could immediately tell two things, my elbow now had a lot less skin than it did a couple seconds ago...and my PSP stopped making noise (Its very quiet for your information! I can hear the cars fine!) Under closer inspection my arm and PSP still worked fine...but the surfaces are scratched/cracked...OH JOY!!! I just bought the PSP!!! On the bright side, the PSP still works, and since I have all of the icons' locations memorized I can work it just fine...except for games. No thought was spent on my arm at this point, I've hurt meself much worse in the past, and what's more, I heal for free. Buuuuut...my PSP wasn't the only expensive thing broken, nono! The camera my parents bought for me that I had taken to get a picture of the river also had a cracked screen...yup...I may not be going to Africa...because when my parents read this they are going to KILL ME. Why oh why did I post this you might ask? Because I love to live on the "hairy edge" as my mom calls it.

So then I go further (still biking) and eventually take a wrong turn...not sure where...but instead of kings landing I end up in Richville...with no Idea how to get back to anything I know. Funny thing though, I can confirm that someone's richness is (usually) inversely proportional to their kindness! It was 20 minutes, and 20-30 cars before anyone would stop to give me directions, and I was right next to a stop sign too! But eventually I got pointed on the right direction, and got back on the 2-4 split. Then...I just suffered until I got to the bookstore I work at, barring a stop at 7-11 to get an energy drink or two. Once there, my bosses and I marveled at the unsolvable mysteries of life...like why I haven't killed myself yet...and why I'm still allowed to carry expensive electronics...and why my parents haven't killed me yet...and how long it will be before I get my nomination to the Darwin Awards.

I try to always look at the bright side of things, and well, this is all I could come up with. I must have used up all my bad karma for the next year and a half with this escapade, so I shouldn't have any left for my stay in Africa! =)

Testing, Testing.

2008-09-02T08:49:00.000-07:00

I figure before I leave I probably should test out this whole blog thing, make sure it works n whatnot. So I'll be posting a couple things to get used to it.