Sunday, November 25, 2007

Waterfalls

I rode my bike to my sitemate Alex's house, about 45 minutes away. He and Paige were waiting for me when I got there, just as it was getting dark. We ate homemade bread (Alex = for reals cook) killed a tarantula and then lay down on the floor and went to bed.
Early next morning (my sitemates have not been able to perfect the art of sleeping in in the village)(or maybe anywhere, I don't really know) up and out and hiking along the banks of the river, up and up into beautiful dry hills, up and up past villages until it was just us and river and forest.
You could hear the waterfall a long ways away. I would rate it as the second best waterfall I've ever seen. We took off our shoes and scampered down it, partially in the water and partially on the rocks, so big and wide that there were big pools halfway down the face of it that we could lounge around in and not be afraid of crocodiles.
So we lounged and lounged and ate beef jerkey and it was a LOVELY day.

Since then I've been in Lilongwe for Thanksgiving. I've consumed:
1. Tacos
2. Pizza
3. Nachos
3. BBQ Pork
4. Orange Rolls
5. Gin and Tonic
6. Calzone
7. Charles Shaw Merlot
8. Spaghetti
9. Thai Garlic Noodles
10. Quiche

My life is decadent beyond my wildest dreams- hope yours is too.

Tuesday, September 25, 2007

Hey buddy, have you got a dime?

Back from training, back from travel, I missed my village. I was gone for almost 3 weeks all told (the 2 hour SUV ride takes all day [really] on a minibus). I am working with four tree nurseries, one bee keeping club and fourish school clubs right now. Some of them worked while I was gone, some of them didn't. Which was actually a good thing- it lets me know who is interested in the project, and which projects will continue to function after I leave.
Anyways, I just wanted to write about the beekeeping club, becuase I like working with them the best.
I am so proud of this club. They get things done. Working with groups, funding is always a problem. We need money for hives, suits, wire, wax, buckets, smokers... the list goes on and on. Most groups I work with don't even consider funding themselves- and with good reason, for the most part. Money really IS tight here.
Thats what makes this beekeeping club so awesome. At our first meeting we agreed that everyone would bring 20 kwacha per week, every week. (20 kwacha is about 14 cents) I was stoked that they thought this idea up, really stoked that they followed up with it, and really really stoked when they did it in my absence. At my first meeting back, I wanted to hug them.
Now they are over halfway to their goal and chugging along. I don't know how they get the money, and not everyone brings it every time. But now I give them a round of applause after we announce the savings each week. It makes me so happy. I'm so proud of them.

And the beat goes on.

Sunday, August 19, 2007

AZUNGU FIESTA!!!

There were 42 azungus from America and Australia in my village for the last week. It was a VERY nice break from the monotony of village life. And a lot of 'em are from the Bay Area! It was so awesome seeing them see Malawi with their brand new Africa-eyeballs. For me there isn't much novelty anymore (other than the occasional witch doctor or crazy hitch) so I liked to watch them look at my house, ask about Tukombo, ask about what I do (I felt so smart! I knew the answers to their questions!)
It was just very very nice.

Saturday, August 18, 2007

T.I.A. (hahaha)

SO Im back in Lilongwe for Reconnect/In Service Training. Four months at site...ahhhh.

There's a lotta fun stories that have happened, but alas, only my journal shall know them all. Or if you make me tell you later. I'll give you a couple right now.

From my journal:
(First of all, to truly understand the magnitude of the following story, you must understand the Herculean rivalry between other Volunteers, most notably Jim, and myself, concerning high scores on the cell phone game Snake. When I am around other volunteers, and I have a low score, it rules my life.)

Mmmmm, today was delicious. A delicious curry, I finally cooked the perfect amount. But the real yes! yes! yes! came later today when I went to the market. There was a big square marked in white lines in the sand. Inside were gourds covered with beads and heair and horns, a box, a clump of clothing and roots. The witch doctor had come to town.
There were two, actually, both very young. I would guess, 18 and 22. Luckily John Howard was with me, translating. They spoke only Chichewa and Portuguese, so I really couldn't even catch bits and pieces. First they made everyone back up even past the square while they began to sing and shake their metal shakers. They began to dance around the white box, smearing black paste on their hands and arms and talking to the gourds and roots. The main doctor talked in depth with the mother, the biggest pile of gourds, beads, horns and skin, asking for her protection. "Theres a snake!" John Howard said. The doctors kept singing, shaking their shakers, and one of them opened the box, poked a stick in it and slammed it shut. He kept this up for a few minutes, until he finally pulled out a medium sized brown snake, about two feet long. It's the same kind of snake I see most often, the kind I call Alfred, the kind I stepped on on my way to the beach one day. Anyways, the snake is slow. The doctors sing and dance around it, placing charms on its box while it slithers slowly. The younger doctor takes a needle from off the top of the box and presses it into his skin. I cant watch this part (Doctor Matt, Doctor Matt) but when I look back the needle has pierced the bottom of his forearm and pooped back out again, like he was interrupted while stitching. He looks around and says to us (there are maybe 100 of us crowding around the square) that there are two magicians among us, a wizard and a witch. He picks up the snake and wraps it around his neck, goes around and pats people on their heads, searching for the witch and wizard. They don't find them, so the younger doctor taked the snake and holds it up so that it frames his face and then looks "through" it to try to see the magicians. Still no luck. (yes! yes! This is Africa, I recognize this even if it's only in my generalizations and stereotypes and preconceptions, this is not boring, that's it more than anything, this is not boring village life)(and I felt Berkeley guilt at even feeling THAT way, but in the end its what I saw, and it was so exciting!) The older doctor takes the snake and unzips his fly. He shoves the whole thing down there, pulls his waiststrap out and looks down and talks to it. He pulls it out and calls on someone from the audience. The participant stands on an X in one of the corners. The young witch then collects the charms from off the box while the older one starts to smudge the particpants arms and hands. He puts all the charms into a piece of paper and then folds it up and hands it to the participant, who is shaking just a little.
Malawians are terrified of snakes. I love to tell people it was what I used to do for a living in America- work with snakes.
The younger witch, needle still there under his skin, gives him the snake, and its all he can to stay put. They try to put it around his neck, but that's just too much. SO the duo takes it back. They ask the participant to open the paper- there's a 500 kwacha note in it now. Children run away, a woman screams.
Then witch #1 tells everyone who he tapped on the head to follow him to an abandoned building. John Howard and I were the last ones to get there, but thanks to my bent celebrity status we were the second ones up. We walk behind the building, where they are waiting. I kneel and put my hand on a gourd. The doctor tells me of my illnesses(Stomach pains) and asks if I want a cure. I say no, but I ask for a good luck charm/spell/medicine. He says he can, for 850 kwacha. I offer 50, he takes it. He puts smudge, bark and porcupine flesh into a newspaper sachet and tells me to bathe with it.
Is that all? he asks.
Can I hold the snake? I ask.
The way he looks at me makes me seriously doubt if anyone has asked this before. He laughs and smudges my the palms of my hands, "so it won't bite." So now I've got two black marks in the palms of my hands, a snake sitting in them, a bath bubble sachet-cum-charm in my pocket, sitting no kneeling behind an old abandoned building in Africa with a witch doctor who is looking into a hole in a gourd to see what ails me.
I get home and pick up my cell phone and start to play, guess, Snake. The first thing I do and the first game I play and I set a new personal high score and as far as I can tell a tie for high score in PC Malawi. 2795.
I'm still laughing.

Wednesday, June 27, 2007

New Stats

Future correspondence can be sent to:

Me
District Forestry Office
P.O. Box 38
Chinteche, Malawi
Southern Africa

Letters are good for your soul. Write one- you'll see.

Panic Attack...?

I'm in Lilongwe. It's my first time in Lilongwe, or any real city, since swearing in. I was treated to dinner last night by a friend/professor from Cal who is here for an AIDS/HIV conference. Sitting in the lobby of her hotel I had a bit of a panic attack. I didn't think I would be so wierd coming back to a Western, developed setting. But I was. It didn't help that it was probably the nicest hotel in Lilongwe. I saw myself in a mirror larger than my hand. I look different.

My projects in the village are coming along. The biggest hat I wear right now is (I didn't think I'd be saying this, but I like it a lot) that of labor organizer. A type of union, kinda. All the resorts in my district, and there are a lot of resorts in my district, buy their produce from Lilongwe, which is ridiculous for everyone involved. So I'm working with an agriculture extension worker to organize the villagers to be able to grow and sell to the resorts. It's a real no-brainer. Other than that, I work with one Village Natural Resource Management Committee (or VNRMC for "short") at a tree nursery, and they want to expand into beekeeping. Beekeeping is a great way to generate an income in the forest without cutting down trees, and in fact works to conserve trees. There's a huge market for it too. Then after school clubs: Wildlife, AIDS and Human Rights. That and cooking, and that's a day at the lake. My Tonga is improving. Life is wonderful.

Hope you're all doing well and well enough say hello.

Wednesday, April 25, 2007

It's Official.

Hello all! I've got a lot of big news, obviously, but the coolest is that I am officially a Peace Corps Volunteer as of today. I took the oath at the Ambassador's house this morning after finishing up with training yesterday. I also got my site placement. Since I'm not supposed to be saying my exact placement on the internets, I'll provide a more subjective description:
I'm in the Northern Region. This is a good thing. I have a beautiful, huge 4 room mud house with thatched roof. I've got two patios, one that faces my Forest Reserve and one that faces the worlds largest mango tree. There are monkeys everywhere. My counterpart is a rockstar, and everyone in my village is so so so welcoming. That's about it. Oh. And my bathtub. My bathtub is amazing.
My bathtub is Lake Malawi. I'm close enough to hear the waves from my bed, see it from my front patio, and go to the tropical, lush beach EVERY SINGLE DAY. I find it somewhat ironic that the closest I've ever lived to a beach is in a landlocked county in Africa, but the toilets flush counterclockwise down here (or would if i ever used a flush toilet), so nothing is what you would expect.
Alright, I think my internets access will be a little better from here on out, write me or send me stuff, I'm having a *great* time.

*checks pulse*

Umm, yup, looks like I'm still alive.

Friday, February 23, 2007

Onward and Upward, etc. etc.

Hello all! This is my beautiful Peace Corps blog, where I'll be posting journal entries/ phun photos/ interesting links and the like for the next few years. I have no idea how often I will be able to update this doohickey, but I will try to keep you informed as much as possible. I should have started this a long time ago cause I've got a lot of infomation to expunge, so I'll just start with the basics.

MY ASSIGNMENT
Country: Malawi
Program: Environment
Job Title: Community Based Natural Resource Management/ Forestry Extension
Dates of Service: April 27, 2007-April 26, 2009 (ish)
Pre-service training (in Malawi): March 1-April 27, 2007
Orientation (in D.C.): February 25- 27, 2007. Yesh, that is the day after tomorrow.

The first two months will be training near the capital, Lilongwe. There are two official languages in Malawi: English and Chichewa. English is not widely spoken outside of the capital, so I'm hoping to check off one of my life's major goals and become fluent in an extremely obscure language. I can already count to nine and say "white man" and "toilet." The Chichewan world is my oyster.

If you should feel so moved as to send me a care package, you may send them for at least the first two months to:

Matt Wisniewski, PCV
Peace Corps/Malawi
Box 208
Lilongwe
Malawi

Finally I would like to say thank you to all of my amazing friends and family members who have shown the most frikkin huge amount of generosity and love over the past 22 years, but especially the last couple months, and especially ESPECIALLY the last couple weeks. I can honestly say that I have been shocked with the amount of support coming my way. I love you all more than you know, and I will miss you.