Lazy day, Sick Sick Sick...

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…