Hello From...

Zambia! On Friday morning we left Malawi to go to Zambia for two weeks with Zach's parents. Blogging will probably be pretty light until then but we'll let you all know how it went when we get home if we can't update regularly while there.

Dogblogging: Treats From America

Zach's parents have arrived! And with them they have brought treats from America for all of us. Sadly the luggage with my treats is still somewhere in Ethiopia but I sure hope it comes tomorrow. Bay's treats made it though! His friend Bola in America (companion of Nathan) sent these specially for him. His wide eyes don't do enough to express in the tense anticipation he experienced when he caught his first whiff of these treats. Boy was he excited. Thanks Bola!

Chicken Feeties...Yum

While out in the field last week my coworkers stopped at a small restaurant to have lunch. I declined to join them in their meal and I was sure glad I did since they all had diarrhea the next day. I did, however, taste one thing - these chicken feet. I've always meant to try them since they're so popular in African countries I've gone to. So how were they? Terrible. Absolutely horrendous. They tasted like a toenail fried in fish oil which I think is actually pretty much what they are. Maybe I just got a particularly bad pair.

Farmer Zach

When in Malawi, do as the Malawians do. Thus, as the rainy season bears down upon us, I'm diving into the small-scale farming gig. Near our house is an open area where Bay and I do our daily walking. When we arrived it was completely covered in scrub, dead bushes and grass, and dried corn stalks. In the last few weeks it has undergone a massive transformation.

                                   

You can see what it once looked like and, on the left, what it looks like after locals have cleared the brush, burned it, and cultivated the soil. The entire walking area is about a square mile and every passing day it becomes more and more prepared ground. Now, a little personal touch:

                                    

This is my own personal plot of six rows, each about 20 feet across. Rather than the local field corn I will be planting a sweet corn variety, though, I've been told I will be lucky if I actually get any of it. Apparently theft is common. I've heard locals don't like sweet corn. Too mushy.

I have been waiting for a big rain to plant and, sure enough, this morning we were absolutely dumped upon. Mid-February in Corvallis kind of rain. So, it's off to the field to plant. Just this morning I noticed all the land in the background was being prepared, so it's not quite the quaint little rectangle, rather one in what will soon be a big field of corn.

Road Blocks

Per Kristen's question about what is actually done at police road blocks. As near as I can tell and from conversations with Malawians in the know, two things are done. I've added one more:

1) Tariff enforcement. Trucks will sometimes take back roads in and out of the country in order to avoid taxes on the goods they are transporting. The government, in response, set up road blocks that check for paperwork that affirms taxes have been paid. This, actually, makes sense.

2) Fugitive finding: This seems like a stretch, but I was told the roadblocks are also used to catch fugitives running from the law. Unlikely. They stop busses and mini-busses and "search" for people and things.

3) My own theory: Nothing. Road blocks are set up to assert power. In the end, they simply hinder the flow of transport and create more stops for traffic. When gas is $7-$11 dollars a gallon that's just one (err, many) more unnecessary stops.

Creepy Things

I surreptitiously snapped this photo of this gorgeous manikin in front of his owners in Blantyre so that you could all enjoy his beauty. Next time I cut Zach's hair I'm going to model it on this guy and add the smoky eyeshadow too.

Honestly we should just start another regular blog entry for Creepy Things because there are weird, vaguely creepy things like this all over this country. Also weird mottos and badly photoshopped advertisements.

A Day in the Field

While Zach is at home in Lilongwe preparing for his parents' visit I'm still up here sweating it out, fighting mosquitoes and doing field work in Mzimba.

This morning as we were pulling out of the district hospital parking lot to go out to a health center I heard screams and saw a large crowd forming around something. As we pulled next to the crowd I could see a woman sitting on the ground in the middle. My driver had a short conversation with the security guard in the crowd. I asked why they were all staring and screaming at the woman. His answer was "Witchcraft. She was flying." Oh. I watched two people drag the witch away in my side view mirror.

This afternoon we returned to the district hospital to drop off a girl with a broken leg who we collected from the site of a car accident on our way home from our day of work. My team made her a splint out of branches and a scarf and she suffered it out for 45 minutes on a bumpy dirt road before we dropped her, her shin bones floating in her leg the whole way. My driver took pictures of the nurses loading her on her stretcher with his cell phone.

It is such a relief to wash off the red dirt in an ice cold shower and hide under my mosquito net for the evening.

Oil Change!

Today Jared (a friend who, like me, isn't working) and I changed the oil in my car as preparations continue for the big arrival of my folks and our subsequent adventures. I've changed the oil in a car once before: with my Pops, in our La Grande driveway, likely with plenty of cursing. This may be wrong, but I have it placed as having occurred when I was skipping kindergarden for the year, making it one of my earliest memories.

Anyhow, aside for having a hard time finding and removing the oil filter (come on Honda, that design wasn't as sharp as your hidden table), it went swimmingly. At least, the car hasn't exploded yet. Now, it's back to the drawing board, trying to locate some gas. How about dumping in the old oil?

Dogblogging: Lollipops

Something I noticed about Bay when we got him is that he likes to hold his bones in his hands while he chomps on them. I thought "Hey, it looks like he's eating a lollipop." Then I thought "Hey, I should give him one and see how he eats it!"

The other night the electricity went out and we were really bored so I dug out a lollipop and handed it to him. It turns out he eats it like this. Like a human. I find it very endearing. Zach thinks I'm going to ruin his teeth but I think two lollipops a year won't kill the poor guy and I wouldn't want Zach to be my dad.

It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like...?

Here in Malawi it's beginning to look like a lot of things. Dirt patches are turning into grassy lawns. Rains are coming more frequently. White people are turning more red as the sun's strength grows. But one thing it most definitely is not starting to look like is Christmas. Christmas in the southern hemisphere is nothing like Christmas in Oregon. As many of you know for yourselves, being abroad for a year can feel like a time warp or a trip through a wormhole. Is my family really sledding while I sweat my butt off? Are they all together eating a meal while I eat this crappy candy bar imported from South Africa? It's hard to imagine we're even on the same planet. Sometimes it feels like you're missing a year of your life.

I've been abroad for periods of more than a year before so this isn't my first rodeo. But Zach hasn't and he's a big fan of Thanksgiving and Christmas. This year we'll be struggling to keep things a little Christmasy while we travel in Zambia. His parents being here should help some. One other thing we'll do is listen to Christmas carols. We thought that's what we'd signed up for when we went to this little Christmas Carol shindig at Four Seasons but we ended up feeling like we were in church on Christmas Eve, singing hymns (well, I felt that way, Zach doesn't know what that feels like). At least we got to hang out with this cool wooden nativity scene and this tree made out of recycled water bottles. Also we got to watch little Malawian girls singing and the adorable children are one of the best things about every African country I've ever been to. While it was fun, it was also a reminder of just how far away from snow (rain), Christmas trees, and our families.

Hello From...

Dedza Mzimba. My itinerary for this week's travel was switched up yesterday. Instead of making a one hour drive south I'd be making a five hour drive north to Mzuzu with only two hours of daylight left in the day. But wait, you're in Mzimba, not Mzuzu? Yes. Because we never made it to Mzuzu last night. Sometimes in Africa you get the worst case scenario and that's very nearly what happened to me and my driver last night.

First, we left Lilongwe too late to make it north before dark. Second, I left the city with only one bar of cell phone battery. And third, I was with a Ministry of Health driver and car that I've never used before. When dusk started falling we realized that our headlights were essentially useless. I told the driver we'd just make it to the next town and sleep there and continue on in the morning. Ten kilometers later our car died for the first time. Dusk was rapidly turning into night. Keep in mind that night time here means total and complete darkness, without a pinpoint of electricity to be seen anywhere. Last night happened to be moonless as well.

We got the car going again and I sat hanging out the passenger window over the hood of the truck, using the flashlight on my cell phone to illuminate the white line in the road. Every time a car passed I ducked back inside because being white in a crippled car is like pouring blood in the water for sharks and I didn't want anyone to see my face. I knew this wasn't a sustainable solution since I had only one bar of battery but the closer to Mzimba we could get, the better. It didn't work for long. We lost power again about five kilometers later.

We hopped out of the car to look under the hood one more time. The narrow road was lined by trees on both sides. It was DARK. I had the equivalent of five years' salary for a typical Malawian in cash in my backpack. I could feel in my bones that we weren't safe. The driver must have felt so too because this time he demanded that I stay in the car with the doors locked. He banged on the battery with a rock for a minutes (seriously) before hightailing it back into the car.

"What's wrong?"
"I hear the voices of hyenas."

Ohh. We're both starting to get nervous because the car is clearly done for the night. We start calling our colleagues to see how far they are and can they maybe come tow us? They're an hour out. I stare out the window. I am completely unsurprised but utterly dismayed when I see the flash of a cellphone in the woods next to us. I tell Thoko, the driver, that there are lights in the woods. He says "noooo." I say "Well maybe it was just a reflection," though I'm 98% sure it wasn't.

When I see it again one minute later I reach over and touch his arm. We both watch the moving lights for a second before Thoko quietly breathes "God will protect us."

This is when I realize we are utterly screwed. There are people in the woods who have seen us break down and are waiting until the traffic on the road disappears completely before robbing us. I don't care about the cash, the camera, the ipod, but I do care about the work on my computer so I hide it under my seat and begin saying a mental goodbye to my other belongings. I send a text to Jonathan and to Zach so they'll at least know where I was/am if something happens because my phone is about to die. Thoko and I are both mentally resigned to the fact that we've been found vulnerable and are going to be victims.

Still, Thoko suggests maybe they're hunting? Yes, they ARE hunting. Hunting for mzungus with five years' salary in a crappy old backpack and tonight they've gotten lucky!

"Hunting for what?"
"Bees."
"In the dark?"
"Yes because it's cooler than hunting in the day."
"Yeah, you also can't see anything, so maybe hunting in the dark isn't what they're doing."
"True."

I highly doubt they're hunting for bees. I repeatedly call my colleagues in the other car, demand that they not stop in town to get the spare part we need (but they do anyway) and that they step on it until my cell phone finally dies. In the meanwhile Thoko and I sit in the car silently, searching the trees when trucks come by with headlights. We're both trying to breathe normally and speak in normal tones while counting down the seconds and praying for cars to keep zooming by. We get a car passing us about once every three or four minutes.

We know none of them will stop to help us because it isn't safe for them to do so. We might be clever criminals who stole this UNICEF car and planted it on the side of the road to wait for people nice enough to try to help someone. One does stop one hundred yards down the road, waiting for Thoko to come out to them to ask for help, but he says he can't get out of the car because we don't know the intentions of the people in the woods. I tell him there is zero chance of me allowing him to get out of the car and we watch the tail lights finally pull away without anyone getting out to check on us.

An hour later we were rescued. Why didn't they rob us? I don't know, but I'm sure glad they didn't. Thoko and I were thoroughly creeped out and exhausted from trying to keep the adrenaline under control and keep a straight mind out in the dark in the middle of nowhere Africa. We limped into Mzimba with no headlights but with all our stuff and our lives.

You know what never once occured to me out there? "Maybe we should call the police." In America they'd have been there in five minutes with a smile and a friendly greeting. In Malawi they'd have taken two days and then robbed us themselves. In Malawi if you get broken down in the pitch black in the middle of a forest 30km from anywhere, you're on your own.

Scary.

So now I'm hanging out in a hotel room (if you could call it that) in Mzimba, waiting out the five hours it will take to fix our car.

Well, that's bloggable

Often we find ourselves witnessing things here that prompt a "Well, that's bloggable." Unfortunately we usually don't have the trigger finger ready for a photo and, unless it's written down, the occurance is filed away and forgotten. Well, here's one of those things:

On our drive home from Blantyre yesterday we stopped at a gas station. The purchasing limit? Five liters. For those of you ignorant American yahoos, that's just over a gallon. If that were America, on Civil War weekend between Oregon and Oregon State, Duck fans on empty could have made it up to Corvallis, but would have been stuck in town after the victory, cheering up despondent Beaver fans.

Mmmm...mangos.

One great thing about living in Africa is cheap mangos (and in the winter, avocados, though I don't eat those). They make a great breakfast! On the way back from Blantyre we passed through Mango Central so we pulled over. Buying mangos out here is way cheaper than in Lilongwe. If I were Zach I would make you guess how much a bucket of mangos from the middle row cost but I'm not Zach so I'm just going to tell you that we paid about 70 cents for the whole bucket (about 25 mangos).

Beginning tomorrow I'm off to Dedza for the work week. That was the site of the previous hiking photos, though I expect I'll be too busy visiting health centers to be doing much hiking.

Hello from Blantyre

 As Zach mentioned, last week I was in Blantyre for most of the week for work. That's me eating breakfast at our hotel, enjoying the view.

Blantyre is the commercial center of Malawi and is very different from Lilongwe's sprawl and open spaces. Blantyre feels like a proper small town and has a much longer history than Lilongwe - in fact, it's the oldest urban area in southern Africa, if you believe Lonely Planet.

Colonialists have been building houses and farms and governing Malawians in this area for almost 150 years. We took an afternoon to stop by Mandala House, the oldest building in Malawi, which was once a home for the managers of some tea business or something. It's now a restaurant and shop, with meeting space and a library on the top floor.

We had a lemonade on the verandah and poked around in the library a bit before heading off to do something a little more modern - see a movie. Blantyre is home to the only movie theater in Malawi. The movie we saw was terrible (Hit and Run) but sitting in a dark theater eating popcorn felt a little bit like home.