Yes We Can (We Shall, We Did)

From the journal:

Wow. I wrote that last on on election day. It's from a song we made up in 4th grade- I had it stuck in my head. A lot has changed since I wrote that. I have a black president for at least the next four years. Democrats increased majorities in both houses. It is again illegal for any two people who love each other to get married in my state. Construction will soon begin on a bullet train linking the major cities of my life: San Francisco and Los Angeles.
So, lots of change.
Election night. Huddled around Fornoffs shortwave radio after dinner, wondering how best to run an environment camp while hearing everything we want to hear. We decide to sleep early, and then wake up at 2:00 and meet down at the soccer pitch.
Picture it: Dan, Fornoff, Emily, Rob, and after a while Amalia and Gracie. We are laying on our backs in a line under the stars, switching back and forth between BBC and Voice of America. We've got one sleeping mat underneath us, an open sleeping bag laying across all of us, and shooting stars, many of them that evening, racing through the sky. Two of them were so bright that they left a visible trail for a few seconds. I spat on the ground after seeing the first one, a Tumbuka custom I just learned, to ward off hexes.
I had made a large map of the United States on some flipchart paper. I brought blue and red pencils and colored in each state as the numbers rolled in.
We would chat, point out constellations and freeze as soon as an important announcement came on. State by state we colored in the future- northeast states going blue by blue, with Kentucky the first aknowledged thorn in our side. Pennsylvania was an important moment, but I was banking on it anyways. Mom, Taylor, Katie all texting me, Sivan trying to call but not getting through.
The point where the reality of history dovetailed with my dreams was when Ohio rolled in. They announced the delegate count to that point. It was in the low 200s. With California's 50-something, plus Oregon, Washington and Hawaii- well, I felt a knot in my stomach leave forever. I had been holding that knot for a long, long time.
The sun was rising over the Kandoli mountains, gorgeous and orange and striped and crimson. What a perfect start to a new begining. I got choked up. We all hugged each other.
Waiting for breakfast I had nothing to do, so I started washing some clothes while listening to the radio. McCain's speech came on- I listened, rapt. It was really happening, outside my head.
Waiting just outside the kitchen door a little later, Barack Obama came on to give his acceptance speech.
My words will fail me in my attempt to convey my feelings as I listened to him. In his first speech as a national leader, he asserted the legitimacy of everyone in American society, very unneccesarily. I teared up, not for the last time.
When he talked about people huddled around shortwave radios in the forgotten places of the world, I got goosebumps. He was talking to us, and especially the dozen or so campers huddled around us. I wanted to point at them and tell them that the future President of the United States was adressing THEM, live at this very moment, on the other side of the planet in a big party in a park. But I didn't- I didn't want to miss the speech.
And then with the look back at history that somehow didn't sound cheesy, the 106 year old black woman who voted for him, the Yes We Can.
Oh, God. It was so beautiful. That moment, when I felt my pride sweep in from some unknown place.
There was a time when I thought that I would almost rather have McCain win. Then I could rest easily in my cynicism and comfortably reside in Californian provincialism.
But this feeling- oh my God- it is so much better than that.

LAMa

Also culled from my journal:

"It truly appeals as paradise."
(Rs and Ls are interchangeable in Malawi)
I was sitting next to Kamata Banda in his living room stuffed with knicknacs, ceramic dogs and more than one unopened bottle of salad dressing.
For display. You know.
Kamata Banda lives on the shores of Lake Malawi. And not in the way that I live on the shores of Lake Malawi. He lives on the beach. Sitting in this living room you look out onto the ultrafine sand beach littered with boulders sprinkled in aquamarine water, with verdant forest to the right and the great hulking body of Kuwirwi mountain descending straight into the water, like a giant Malawian diving into the lake.
Perfect. Ten.
"It truly appeals as paradise."
Kamata Banda was not talking about the view from his living room. He was talking about Los Angeles. I had just given him a photo book of my one-anda-half-removed hometown, since publishers don't seem to think there's a big enough market to publish glossy picture books about Arcadia.
Beautiful? Can be. Lively? Undoubtedly. Paradise?
Not the word I would have chosen.
"You know, many people in my country would look at this place and call it paradise."
But that's like him telling me LA is like heaven on Earth.
As Malawians say, we are both used.
We are both used to what we see every day, as is only natural among live human beings, whether we like it or not. It also helps that our communities are polar opposites in many, many ways.
Thus this place stopped being punch-to-the-gut exotic. That aquamarine lake strewn with boulders and ultrafine sand beaches? That's just my bathtub. Sometimes with snorkelling. For a long time now I haven't said to myself "I'm bathing in the lake!" I just strip down and lather up, and get really annoyed when there's too much sand on my bar of soap.
Concieted? Sure. So is complaining about traffic.
"It truly appeals as paradise."
It's funny, cause I don't even know what he is saying with that.

Wowowo

I was walking to the office in Lilongwe today, and it struck me that without a doubt the coolest hotel I've ever stayed at was Giraffe Manor, in Nairobi, Kenya. Breakfast every day was eggs and bacon and fresh fruit and giraffes sticking their heads into the room through the huge plate glass windows to nibble on treats, or give kisses. Giraffe tongues feel like sandpaper.
Dinner was semi-formal, and delicious. Drinks by the fireplace, with amarula. Scottish manor house with warthogs. Seeing my family for the first time in over a year and a half, and just sitting around with them.
Just really, really nice. Thanks, fam.

Backlog: Camp is ova

Synthesized from the journal: (undated, as I don't date my journal, but sometime in the first week of August)
Camp is over- I'm spending my first night at home in over a week.
Camp was successful. And wierd. It really was so much stress- I should have done it with someone else. The worst part of all was that the money wasn't coming through even though I was told it would be there by the time camp started, then it would be there by the end of camp, then it turns out they deposited the entire grant into the wrong account. Whose I don't know. [A huge loan from Meg (another volunteer), my parents and a complete wipeout of my living expenses account made it happen. I got an email from my country director that the funds should be in my bank account by the time I get back from vacation. I'm heading over there as soon as I'm done writing this.]
I brought William along to help out and cook. Tim and Emily were the Ministry of Fun, Yulie taught natural medicine. Karen and Jared took health. I did permaculture, otherwise known as a kind of sustainable agriculture. Poor William was so overwhelmed with work the first day, so Jared's cook Francis came over on day two.
And while I didn't get the name of Camp ACRONYM on the proposal, that actually was the name of the camp. Jared came up with the acronym: Aspiring, Creative, Revolutionary, Optomistic, Never-Say-Die Young Malawians. Also known as Enviro Health Camp. Or Camp Wiz.

And these gems:
(During riddle time at the bonfire)
Jared: What's black and white but read all over?
Camper, genuinely confident: Eleven!

Team mottos: (and I swear there was no counselor collaboration with any of these)
Hippos- Weapons of mass destruction
Snakes- The worst bitters
Lizards- We have short legs

Overall, I genuinely feel like it was a unique, helpful thing- especially how all of the classes were interrelated and that they all contribue to Wellness with a capital W. Caroline, who works with local schools teaching permaculture, was a great help. She gave us books on permaculture, lesson plans, seeds, ideas. She sent over one of her workers, Simone, to do a killer composting demonstration. (His secret ingredient is the inside of rotting banana stalks. Who knew?) Caroline also organized and led a field trip to Sandra's Orphanage, an awesome place to see what permaculture looks like in practice. Finally she came over with four other helpers to give a slideshow presentation on graduation day. It showed before/after sites, usefull plants, and examples of what we learned in class.
For graduation we had the students catwalkstrutdance up to recieve thier diplomas.

And now, home, I hung out with Jeannie Kathongomala and the Ng'omas, where I had dinner. Kondowole/woyera mix, with okra and mandolo (cowpeas) which I just learned about from Caroline. I also chatted with Charles, who sadly said that he will be transferred in about a week. Moving to Chintheche. It's nice to come home and relax and bathe in the lake at my usual beach and chat with my neighbors in Tonga. I've been meaning to hang out more with my neighbors lately- whenever I do they make me feel better.

Camp

I'm in Lilongwe trying to pick up money for the environmental camp I'm about to hold. I really really tried to call it Camp ACRONYM in deference to the acronymization of everything in Peace Corps. But since it's an environmental health camp and only some of the letters can be development jargon (Capacity, Youth) I now just call it Environmental Health Camp. Lame, I know.
There are three elements to it: permaculture, natural medicine and health/nutrition. It's going to be held at Vibitac Bible Institute, a local private secondary school conviniently situated on a beach that is even more gorgeous than mine. The teachers are all going to be my homepeople- Peace Corps Volunteers, plus a local Englishwoman who works for the German development agency here. Tim and Emily are are heading up the Ministry of Fun. Basically, it's going to be the best camp ever.
I was here for the new health group swear-in yesterday too. Fun to meet the new kids, party it up a bit, and see what we must have been like a year and a half ago.
I'm also getting ready for a big trip- bus up to the Tanzanian border, train to Dar es Salaam, then boat out to Zanzibar to meet up with some friends. Then back to Dar and up to Nairobi to meet up with the fam, that I may show them around my little corner of the planet for a while. I already got to play host to Mar and Kath, and it was splendid. It also helped that the generosity they showed me was stunning.
All for now, gimme a shout.

Pachanya pa phiri la Kuwirwi

Zomelani

Almost since I arrived in my village, I have been subtly searching for HIV positive people. The level of ignorance about HIV here is huge, despite the fact that it affects so many more people, directly and indirectly, than almost anywhere else you can think of. The level of shame associated with it is also much bigger than would have thought, even after I leard about it in Pre-Service Training. Still, after asking my close friends and neighbors, there hasn't been a single openly positive person I could identify.
So I started asking around at my local health clinics and I stumbled upon a group of HIV positive people, the Zomelani AIDS Club. It was started by the local chief, who was the first to come out about status. Today there are 12 members.
{One wife who goes to every meeting with her husband. They are both HIV+}
I didn't really get international development, grassroots work or even my role as a Peace Corps volunteer until I found this group. Everything just kinda clicked. Internal debates on the role of money, patronism and sustainability melted away; i'm not having existential issues any more, which is nice. Not a single project before this made me want to just give money to people.
{One man in his thirties. He walks with a cane.}
The first thing I did was find out what Zomelani wants and needs. (A bleakly humorous factoid: need and want are the same words in Tonga. [So are love and like, and pray and beg]) What it came down to was money. Anti-retroviral medications (ARVs) are a lifesaver- really, people who go on this can look like they come back from the dead. And ARVs are free in Malawi, thanks to various governments and NGO initiatives. BUT transportation to them is not. A person cannot pick up more than a month at a time, and no one can pick up your meds for you. Basically it is a HUGE financial drain on a household. People make is happen but only by scrimping, begging and family connections.
{One mother who brings her twelve year old daughter to meetings. They are both HIV+}
SO this is where my particular skill set comes into play: wine!
I learned how to make wine at site- I brewed a killer coconut/mango wine for my New Years Eve party. If there is one fool-proof, fail-safe income generating activity in the village, it's brewing liquor. So it's where I wanted to start.
One batch of wine per month yeilds slightly less than transport money to and from the clinic.
Work has never been so appreciated.
The first batch was banana.

My chief, my counterpart and I

Flisbee

I threw one frisbee out. This is not unusual, I often toss one out after my daily saunter in the lake. But this day there were a lot of kids in the area, so I hatched my brilliant plan. I ran inside and gathered up the rest of my frisbees and held them behind my back while I ran out. My kids were running around, screaming, falling down for no apparent reason. I hooted and then threw out the frisbees, one after another.
The universe coughed, contracted and collapsed in on itself; time froze and all reality was reset.

It fell silent for a second, eyes bulged. Then everyone went crazy.