Everyday life begins

So in my last post I mentioned that probably my best accomplishment, emotionally, was learning to ride out the tough spots. I really can’t emphasize that enough, it’s not just learning to ride out the tough spots though, it’s really amazing how much simply understanding that time will pass here – good moments and bad alike – does to improve attitude.
During homestay we all were given monthly calendars, and we would cross the days off one by one. That’s because being in homestay was actually quite a lot like being in prison. As Tina, who was also living in my village, put it “just crossing off the days gives me a feeling of accomplishment.” Light at the end of the tunnel was how I initially thought of it. But then I realized that in depressing moments unfolding the calendar and seeing how many days I had crossed out actually made me feel a heck of a lot better than looking at how many I had left.
This is precisely why, when I moved into my house, one of the first things I did was place my Blueridge calendar right on my door so when things were dragging I could look back see how fast time really flies. And oh man does it ever. Just yesterday I was moving in, not yet teaching, wondering how I was ever going to get through the next two days not to mention the next two years and now suddenly it’s February and when did that happen?
Of course, if it’s February, that means Barack Obama is now our president! (And I know Barack Obama is a strange name, but it beats the pants off Bingu Mutharika). I actually got to see Obama sworn in. Meg’s (my sitemate) headmaster had us over so we could watch the innaguration on T.V. It still amazes me how much people in Malawi will bend over backwards to accommodate you. It doesn’t matter if they’re poor and barely have enough to live, they still have enough to share. Meg’s headmaster served us soda, tea cake, cookies, and a full meal with eggs (that’s a really big deal, they’re very expensive here, so serving guests eggs is a big statement in hospitality, second only to killing and serving a chicken which you do a) at Christmas b) when hosting visitors in celebration; for example, a wedding.) He even pulled out wine after Obama was sworn in.
It was really strange to watch because Obama and Biden’s oath was the same oath we had to take when we got sworn in as PCV’s. We kind of had a “yes we can” theme running through our group swearing in speech, so at the end of swearing us in Ambassador Bodie added “heck yes you can.” We really like him :) And he seems to really like us (PCVs as a whole) too, which is good, because he hosts the Thanksgiving and Fourth of July parties; and we’d really like it to stay that way.
I believe I’ve mentioned it before, but it is really quite incredible the degree to which food has become important to me here. It controls my attitude to an unbelievable extent. It’s not even a lack of chocolate or ice cream that gets to me the most (although that’s up there, believe me) but rather the lack of variety. My first two weeks at site with just rice and tomatoes, tomatoes and rice, I really felt like I just couldn’t do this. So I took a deep breath, and went grocery shopping in Mzuzu. I’m happy to report life has vastly improved. Oatmeal as well as peanut butter and jelly, some garam-marsala spices and cinnamon have completely revolutionized meals. The most exciting development on the food front by far though has been cheddar cheese. My family has a fridge, so I am actually able to have cheese at site. I cannot adequately explain the joy this brings me.
Other than day dreams of food, teaching is of course occupying most of my time. A lot of the problems I have here are problems I never anticipated back in the United States. For example, when it rains here (not uncommon) I actually have to stop talking, and teach just using sentences on the board because we have metal roofs and you can’t hear anything over the sound of pounding water.
While some things are vastly different though, some things are rapidly becoming universal. The other day I had to confiscate a cell phone because I caught a kid texting in class.
My biggest extracurricular concern right now is the library/lab. Made possible by a generous donation from the Zambian government of all things, our former hole in the ground is rapidly rising to great heights. Which is strange because our teacher’s house (needed a bit more urgently, seeing as how a new teacher, which we badly need, won’t come until it’s erected) has stalled about halfway up the door.
Right now I’m chiefly concerned with plotting how to get books, bookshelves, and lab supplies so that when the building is complete, there is actually something to put in it. Dad did some checking around at the American Libraries Association conference when he was there with mom, and it looks like there are a few organizations that donate books to Malawi, so he’s checking things out from that end, and pursuin a few leads from this end; hopefully something works out. I’ll keep updates coming. Bookshelves and lab supplies might also prove elusive. We have a carpenter in town, but strangely enough, he likes to be paid, and we’re not rolling in dough (cornflour, yes; dough, no.) Also, I’ve seen his bookshelves, they’re not exactly beauty-and-the-beast-library quality.
Even if we don’t get any books before the library is finished, it really is quite good we are getting a library in itself. Currently we are using the storeroom in back of the teachers’ office as a temporary library. When I started teaching it was laden with chairs and hardware. I stayed late one Friday to organize, and managed to clean it out pretty well. Midway through Mr. Kaperemera, who is probably the best teacher we have (and who also moved to Mzuzu at the end of Jan. reducing our number to five teachers for the whole school, augh!!!!!) came up to help out. I put him to work organizing the science books, and a few minutes in he turned to me and said, “Maybe you would like to organize the books in the closet too.” To which I naturally replied, “What closet?”
“The closet in the back of the form four classroom. The one full of books. You have never been told?”
As a matter of fact, I had not. Unfortunately, the closet was locked and we couldn’t find the keys.
“Maybe we could break in.” I joked.
“Do you have one of those all purpose knives?” he asked. Malawians have this problem of not being able to detect sarcasm.
“Not with me, no.” I said.
“We’ll use this.” He replied, and picked up a file from off the headmistresses’ desk because hey, what’s a school without a file?
After a few minutes of Mr. Kaperemera jiggling the file under the deadbolt, the door swung open. Inside were wall-to-wall books. There were some that were really cool and useful (like workbooks!) and some that were not (like the entire box of pocket sized psalms and proverbs.) Pocket-sized bibles would have been extraordinarily useful, considering bible knowledge is a standard class here, but having just the psalms and proverbs is like having a textbook with only chapters one and seven.
I didn’t do too much with the storeroom, because I was already pretty tired, but I plan to have it so that at least one copy of every textbook is in the library, with no more than fifteen on the shelves at any given time. My biggest goal right now is to introduce the concept of reading for fun. About ten kids checked out books on my first day on library duty, and I think all but one were textbooks so they could study over the weekend. Which is great… but there’s more to school than that. I actually stopped a form one (they barely speak English) from leaving with a book on constitutional law. He took out a collection of stories instead. I am so making these kids a reading list.
As for my Malawian family, life as a character in “Cheaper by the Dozen” is still working out pretty well. Occasionally I want to hit my little brothers over the head with a frying pan, but for the most part I love them, and love having them around. I have started reading to them regularly. My two-year old brother’s (I call him Trouble) favorite book is “The Song and Dance Man.”
A few days ago I was reading to my seven year old brother, Lusuwiro (Lusus), and he just started pointing to everything in the book while I would say its name in English. He learned “House” “chicken” “cat” and “dog.” The next day when I was playing “nose” with Trouble (you poke the other person’s nose and say nose) he poked my nose and said “chicken.” So I turned to Lusu and said, “Is this a chicken?” And pointed to my nose. “NO!” He yelled, and ran out of the house. He returned two minutes later holding a squacking chicken. “This is a chicken!” He said to me proudly.
So basically life=good. I really really really love this site. I still forget how beautiful it is and have to catch my breath sometimes when I see the mountains. It really reminds me of Maine here. This is a good thing, because it makes me feel really comfortable, but bad because occasionally I feel I should be able to just go downtown to the library, check out a few books, sit on the couch reading all day, and then take a dip in the lake. Also, I have a constant craving for blueberries. The other day Allysa asked me where I wanted to live when I got back to the States. I really couldn’t think of an answer and for the first time I realized that I can’t even conceive of living in America right now.
Mom keeps saving grad school information that looks interesting for me; which is nice. Right now I’m leaning towards some combined English/Spanish colonial comparative lit. thing (sort of an anthropological look at colonization through literature) but my current pipe dream is to retire somewhere in the northeast and open a bread and breakfast in an old New England farmhouse. I’m not sure about all the details, but I know I’ll serve all organic free-range food, have a huge library, a loom, and floorboards that creek. I haven’t yet decided whether I’ll use the hypothetical barn to raise goats (so that I can sell different goat cheeses to local markets of course) or convert it into a restaurant. I guess I have a bit of time to decide. And somewhere in the interim hopefully I’ll also figure out what I want to do before then. Meantime, I’m pretty content to be where I am right now.