Disclaimer: The contents of this blog are my own and do not represent the views or opinions of the Peace Corps or the United States Government.

First, a word on language. For such a small country, Malawi has a pretty diverse amount of languages. There are about 10 or 11 total if we don’t count Chitipa, Malawi’s northernmost district. Due to a variety of geographical and other factors, Chitipa alone has upwards of twenty languages. The main language used in Malawi is Chichewa, which is native to the Central Region (Malawi has 3 regions: Northern, Central, and Southern).

(Side note: The Chi- at the beginning of most words in Chichewa is a prefix meant to denote something big. Thus most languages in Malawi are denoted by placing a chi- in front of the name of that tribe. Thus Chichewa is the language of the Chewa people and Chitumbuka is the language of the Tumbuka people and so on).

Disclaimer: The contents of this blog are my own and do not represent the views or opinions of the Peace Corps or the United States Government.

I recommend reading the quotes, then what I’ve written, and then reading the quotes again.

“The history of Africa, like the history of mankind as a whole, is really the story of an awakening. The history of Africa needs rewriting, for up till now it has often been masked, faked, distorted, mutilated, by ‘force of circumstance’ – i.e. through ignorance or self-interest. Crushed by centuries of oppression, Africa has seen generations of travellers, slave traders, explorers, missionaries, governors, and scholars of all kinds give out its image as one of nothing but poverty, barbarism, irresponsibility and chaos. And this image has been projected and extrapolated indefinitely in time, as a justification of both the present and the future.”
—J. Ki-Zerbo, Unesco General History of Africa, Vol. I: Methodology & Pre-History, p. 1.

“Money, it’s a crime”
—Pink Floyd

Disclaimer: The contents of this blog are my own and do not represent the views or opinions of the Peace Corps or the United States Government.

There’s a book about Malawi—Well, more about Rhodesia than anything else, but Malawi makes an appearance. The memoir of Alexandra Fuller, Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight, tells the story of her childhood during the Rhodesian war of the 1970s as the child of white farmers in Rhodesia. After the war, the family eventually moved to Malawi, settling in eastern Zomba district, not a great distance from where I currently am. I’m sharing an excerpt of the book about something that happened to her here when she was a teenager, because I think it, especially the ending, is pretty representative of a lot of the experiences of Westerners who happen to live here (Also, I recommend reading the whole book. Fuller’s style is really interesting and engaging and fun).

The wind-down of PST was more like a whirlwind. After model school, we had one awkward week before the last week of preparing to go to site. It felt odd to be going to normal sessions again after spending two weeks doing what we were preparing to do for the next two years. But perhaps Peace Corps knew this, because the week had a few surprises we weren’t prepared for.

The first was that, early in the week, after our final session on PACA (the story of PACA is a post for another time), we were suddenly given cold ice cream. Malawi has ice cream, but nowhere near the place where we actually were. Apparently they had brought it in from Lilongwe especially for us earlier that morning. It was only just beginning to melt. I had had ice cream once on site visit (Blantyre is pretty big with restaurants), but I was still overjoyed at seeing this and tasting it, even though having to go eat nsima immediately afterwards sort of killed the enjoyment and excitement.

Each sector of Peace Corps must have a practicum during training. For education, this means two weeks in model school (health and environment do practicums in which they give a 30-minute presentation in whichever language they’re learning. On one hand, this is harder because all of our education work is done in English. On the other hand, they only have to do this for 30 minutes once whereas we spend two weeks presenting daily and being observed).

Disclaimer: the views expressed in this blog are my own and do not represent the views of the Peace Corps or the United States Government

I recently finished ‘Infinite Jest’ by David Foster Wallace. So for fun I’m going to write this post in the style of his writing.

f you ever happen to find yourself as a stranded American expatriate development worker in the Republic of Malawi, formerly known as Nyasaland, and then known as the Federation of Northern and Southern Rhodesia and Nyasaland, and before that also Nyasaland, you will acquire many new exotic and interesting facts.

Disclaimer: the views expressed in this blog are my own and do not represent the views of the Peace Corps or the United States Government

Last week I went on “site visit.” This is essentially where we go to our community for several days just to scope things out and get a feel for the place before we actually go for real in late August.

I also got my first taste of more extensive travel in Malawi. On the way down we traveled with our supervisors, who we had just met. Our minibus got a flat tire so we switched and there wasn’t enough room so we had to split up into different buses. The driver of my bus told us he would take us to the bus depot in Zomba but when we got to the edge of the city he told us he wasn’t going to the depot. Our supervisors argued with him for a while before giving up and finding another bus to take us to the depot. On the way back (I traveled alone), I found a bus quickly which said he was going straight to Lilongwe, when he was actually going just a few districts over and I had to wait in a different bus for two hours. Buses in Malawi don’t leave until they’re full, so it’s wise to get on buses that are already somewhat full. So people don’t usually get on empty buses. My driver had made an arrangement with another driver that he’d give him his passengers to Lilongwe. Even though I didn’t have to pay again (I was also overcharged), the wait time was still frustrating. Then buses stop and drop off and pick up more people, chickens, maize and bags than you’d think humanly possible. Plus the condition of the roads are not great. And then, at markets, buses stop and often the driver gets out and waits so that the people selling snacks can come to the windows to sell things. All in all, a journey that takes 2 hours in the states might take anywhere from 3-7 hours in Malawi.

Disclaimer: the views expressed in this blog are my own and do not represent the views of the Peace Corps or the United States Government

I-N-D-E-P-E-N-D-E-N-T.

You know the rap.

One interesting thing about the Malawi-USA relationship is that we both violently attained independence from the British in the same month (although about 200 years apart, admittedly). In fact, it was within two days of each other. Our independence is 4 July, 1776 and Malawian independence is 6 July, 1964.

Disclaimer: The views of this blog are solely my own and do not represent the Peace Corps or the United States Government.

Just to clarify, I write all of these on my phone as they happen but have to wait until I have better service to post them, and I can’t edit them so sorry for what I’m sure are numerous typos and mistakes, but also keep in mind that I may discuss the past as if it were the present.

Today is 5 July. I left home one month ago. Since I’ve been here nearly a month and have gotten used to life, I can give you a day in my life during PST. This will change in September when I go to site, but for now this is what I do each day or most days.

Note: The views expressed in this blog do not represent the United States Peace Corps or the US government in any way.

Not long after arriving at the homestay village, one of our sessions was on the history of Malawi. I really like history and I think knowing the history of a place really contributes to understanding its current issues and culture. Malawian history is hard to find, especially history told by Malawians themselves rather than Westerners. I thought for this post, I would just copy my notes directly from that session, so that you all can learn a brief lesson on Malawian history alongside me, in order to understand the context of all the things that you might read about me doing later on a bit better. The first paragraph is a lot of delineations of tribes so feel free to skip it if it gets boring or confusing for you.