Toys for tots, Anamed, and everything in between

This is my long over due mentally scattered blog post:

Lately I've been working with a local cbcc (community based child care) and trying to fund small things from them whenever I can. Peace corps gives us 1000mk a month for things like this (roughly 4 dollars) so I try to buy a book or flash cards here and there. This cbcc has 4 volunteer teachers and about 50 children under four years old that meet every morning in a five foot by five foot room. As you can imagine half the time is spent breaking screaming children apart from one another since they are basically on top of each other at all times. (granted when you think fifty 4 year olds picture about fifty 2 year olds- thats about how big they are). Anyway, the cbcc asked for toys for the children, I asked what kind and they said they didn't care. They currently have two teddy bears - if that's what you would call them, that must have came from the states some time in 1942. I'm setting up a fund to get donations so I can purchase more toys and books for the children. The children play with plastic bags that they make into soccer balls and cars they make out of scrap wires- but I've never actually seen a toy in my village. The toys will be kept at the school, to insure they are safe and also to encourage other children to attend- not that there is room.. But on brighter news we are working together to build them a new classroom!! I know the holidays are quickly approaching and will soon be over but in the spirit of giving consider a five dollar donation it will probably buy two used toys for a child who has never had a toy in his life. (I will post the link to the donation page ASAP- probably after Christmas! Don't worry the children will be ecstatic anytime the toys come!- they actually don't even know they are coming!)


Now lets journey onto A totally different side of my job-- Anamed!!! Action for natural medicine!! Recently I went to a training in Zomba (the most beautiful place ever; see below) and learned all about natural medicines in Africa. Most of the plants we learned about were used here in malawi to treat medical issues years and years ago but since the encouragement of western medicine most of these local remedies have been lost! We are working to bring back simple, sustainable medicines that this country can rely on. Foreign aid helps this country in so many ways including providing drugs to local hospitals. This comes with a lot of downfalls including dependence on foreign aid and lack of resources. The aid isn't ALWAYS available so the clinics run out of drugs frequently. Anamed hopes to change that by growing the medicines, especially the plants that are used in malaria cases. I'm excited to do this training and my plants are growing so big! My counterpart and I are going to train five local HIV support groups how to grow these plants in January. Some of the plants also have immune boosting properties so they are good for people living with HIV.


Pad project is going great!! I recently just helped a friend implement pad project in her community and it as extremely successful. She runs a girls group and they were all super interested and excited to learn about solutions to their periods! I love pad project it honestly brings me so much joy!


Camp glow (girls leading our worlds) is sometime around July this year and planning starts in January! I'm excited to get started planning this great camp although it will be hard to beat lasts years- Hillary Clinton went! Speaking of she was just on Barbara Walters most influential people of the year and the video clip they showed of her was from Malawi's camp glow 2012!! I'm looking forward to planning a great camp for local Malawian girls, I clearly am all for women's empowerment :)


It's mango season!! Also hunger season but that's a different story. Mangos are so abundant they literally fall off the trees and the goats eat them. You can buy a pile of mangos in my village for about 20 Kwacha- less than a nickel. And Sunday I am teaching a women's group how to make mango jam! I love jam so I'm sure Sunday I will also be teaching the women how to binge eat jam!

I've been feeling guilty about the amount of time I've been spending on the city- its a two hour bus trip from my house and it's nice to get out of the village life every once in awhile but lately it feels like every weekend and that's a habit i am trying to kick. However for Christmas I am spending 10 days at the lake with some other peace corps friends and that I am excited about! It will be my first Christmas ever away from home so in a little sad, a little worried, but I'm sure with enough wine it will be okay :).

Peace. Love. Pads.

12 hours later and I'm still riding a high. I've been struggling lately to find a purpose here and really feel like I'm making an impact and yesterday was the turning point for me.

I've been meeting with women's groups throughout my community and showing them this design for reusable sanitary pads. From the words of my friend Jimmy "gross but necessary". I know this concept seems so foreign to people living in the first world, we've gotten to a point where we don't even think about menstruation, but here in the village it's really a big deal. Pads can be bought at the local market for mk30 for one about one American penny. But when a young girl needs 4-5 a day, and mk30 can buy you a bunch of tomatoes or vegetables for lunch, what do you think they are choosing?

So the local "solution" is to tie a string around one's waist and tuck a chitenge (2meters of fabric) from the front to the back (through the legs). Now girls, ladies, women (boys I'm sure you can use your imagination) imagine walking around, going to class, to work, doing any daily activity on your period with a strip of cloth as your safety net so-to-speak. This "solution" isn't a solution, it's a pathway to disaster. Now add on the fact that you're 14, your culture doesn't talk about periods- not even your mothers, you're in middle school, no self confidence, and you have a period- why would you go to school? To feel ridiculed? Embarrassed? Ashamed? That's what these girls are dealing with EVERY month. Girls aren't empowered, they have no self worth, this is a problem and this is where I hope to find a solution.

So a few days ago I get contacted by a mothers group- their aim is to keep girls in school and they are interested in the pad project!! So yesterday I got to meet with 10 women who's aim is already to empower girls and teach them this simple design. We meet around two and start discussing problems and solutions and eventually we stop chatting and start sewing. The goal of this initial meeting was to show them how simple it is, let them try out the pads and brainstorm ideas of how to get these pads to the school girls. The women are super excited and want to meet again next month to start a Business plan, we are either going to sell them to raise money to make pads for the girls or write a grant to get supplies to make them for the girls at the school. This is the first step, introducing simple ideas and starting conversations. I'm obviously excited.

If you want to contribute to the pad project feel free to send: needles, string, old buttons, fabric scraps greater than or equal to one foot by one foot to:
Kristi Mathis, PCV
C/O Brooke Mancuso
P.O. Box 3
Bwanje health center
Bwanje, Ntcheu, Malawi
Africa

Never spent a better seven months

Seven months. Doesn't even seem possible. I can still remember crying at the airport and the anxiety I had on the plane wondering if this was the right choice. All though Malawi has brought many ups and many downs (sometimes all in the same day) I can honestly say that I'm happy I'm here.

Last night I got home from a two week training in Dedza and I came home to the best welcome. My neighbors had known I was coming and drew me water and as soon as I opened the door swept all the dust that had accumulated in two weeks from out of my house. They told me all about what I has missed in Kasinje, which didn't turn out to be too much and they were so excited. I really realized how blessed I am to have such a good support system here in my village, throughout Malawi with all the other pcvs and overseas with the best friends and family a girl could ask for

The last two weeks I learned a lot about technical skills and had the opportunity to bring along my Malawian counterpart. Also if you follow me on Facebook you probably noticed I had a good time with my American friends. We learned how to make jams, peanut butter, and healthy foods to implement good nutrition in our villages. We learned how to deal with borehole water spills, by adding community gardens where the water leaks out. We learned how to write grants, how to run businesses and my favorite we learned about pads. Yes pads. Most villagers in Malawi during their periods use a chitenge (a long price of fabric) and tie it around their waist like a giant diaper. This system as you can imagine has room for a lot of error. The chitenge can move or fall, causing leakage, messes and a wide array of smells.Not only does this discourage the girls from going to school while they are on their periods, they also are the sole responsibility of keeping the house running so periods cause great chaos throughout the village. These pads are made from old chitenges and only require a few simple stitches. I'm really excited to teach Malawian women about this simple trick and empower them to be confident while on their periods.

Other great women's empowerment news: I'm now the camper coordinator for camp GLOW (girls leading our world) I will be in charge of choosing the campers, helping run and plan the week and also counseling the girls throughout the week. I'm super excited to be part of this camp and work to make it the best camp ever. Last year Hillary Clinton came so there's big shoes to fill but I have faith in the team that was chosen to run camp glow this year!

This weekend I'm going to Lilondwe national park to count the animals. Yes mom I will finally see an elephant- it's about time. Haha. Until then, hope 'merica is awesome, miss and love you goons who follow me on here.

Hillary schmillary

I feel like this weekend is one worth writing about. But first a quick update:

July felt like a big scissor kick right in the face. I did nothing productive, in fact the month almost seemed counterproductive. I'm told this is just how peace corps is... Some months you're so busy you can breathe and some months you read a 153 thousand books. (or so it seems). Well guess what August- I'm bored and I'm trying to work here so get ready for persistence.

The problem is meetings get canceled everyday for the most random reasons, it's pay day, the chiefs brother died, a five foot snake is on the loose, the borehole was too busy, a dog ate my homework, you know the usual things... Anyway there is an upside to it all...

July has been filled with awesome adventures, not work related. I visited Lake Malawi, found out that a town 60km from my house makes cheese, my garden is starting to thrive and I met Hillary Clinton.

"Madam secretary Hillary Clinton" visited Malawi on her Africa tour sunday. She was the first secretary of state to ever visit Malawi and the people here were and still are super excited. The newspaper I bought Monday was filled (95% of the Articles) with Hillary. The united states government is giving Malawi 46 million dollars for the feed the future program and people here can't be happier.

Peace corps volunteers were invited to a function at the United States Ambassador's house, where Hillary eventually visited. She was only in Malawi for about 4 hours and had many things to do, she met with the Malawian president, my Joyce Banda, the ambassador, talked with feed the future and usaid and went to camp glow (girls leading our world) a program ran by peace corps! Hillary gave a short speech and shook hands with all the guest, including me, and then made her way to the next event. I feel blessed that during her 11 country visit, she chose Malawi, and made time to see and thank the people that are working here!

I guess that's all I have to say about that... Heres some pictures:

Terrorist attacks. Death by chicken.

So my last post was sort of melodramatic. Sort of. Ha. So I've realized I only write when I am full of emotion. Today's emotion(s): a mixture of fierce pissed-off-ness and humor.

So last night I'm I'm the middle of my nightly routine; forcing myself to eat before the electricity goes out (5:30-8pm daily) even though im not hungry, washing my face, stretching, ect when I realize I'm not alone. I have a huge fence that encloses my back yard so I usually leave my back door open to air out my house, plus I'm constantly outside now that I have this garden.

Before I go onto my unwanted visitor, let's talk about my garden/yard.

Malawians sweep their yards daily so the ground is basically cement consistency and they grow nothing except for during rainy season in which they only grow maize- another story for another day. My market sells tomatoes, onions, and cabbage daily and on Thursday if I'm lucky there is eggplant, or peas. Basically I'm bored with eating tomatoes, I have a lot of seeds, and I want a garden. This has thus far taken a lot of work, and a lot of money.

My yard use to be used for burning bricks, so the ground was not only hard, but full of bricks. I attempted to deal with this solo style and gave up after about seven minutes and pulled out my wallet. I paid someone to till my yard and break the bricks, in the process this man broke three hoes, all of which he expected me to replace- yeah right buddy. After about a month the yard was 'ready'- lets move onto my next problem. Irrigation.

Since bricks were made here I also have a water tank. Or a tank to hold water. Saying Water tank assumes that water magically appears there- it doesn't. I pay two girls to fill it and that's sporadic as they often 'forget'- they would be good friends with my brother. The tank has had its whole slew of issues- ie it's a piece of shit as my supervisor would say 'it's stupid'. (he thinks stupid is the best English word ever) the tank has been re-cemented twice and today I realized the water again has disappeared.

So the garden was at first a stress reliever- now it is a community garden. My yard is big and there's no way I could plant in all of the beds so I mistakenly offered a bed or two to my neighbor (supervisor) and a bed or two to my boss. Now it's like their garden and they're getting all controlling and opinionated and it's no longer a stress reliever- in fact it has become the source of my stress. apparently also offering them a bed meant I supplied them with seeds, so if you love me and my neighbors and boss you can send seeds to me anytime.

So it's been 6 days since I started planting. I have small growth, beans are sprouting, tomatoes are starting to peak out but the biggest 'accomplishment' carrots. Now I love carrots, but not as much as my neighbor. I come outside and see him moving all the mulch around the carrots and building this shade out of sticks and I ask him what the hell he's doing 1)in my yard and 2) with MY carrots. And he says he loves them so much he just wants them to grow- he's WORRIED they aren't growing fast enough. Listen buddy, it's been five days, they are fine. Choka- pitani Get out.

So this now leads me to my unexpected visitor. I'm washing my face in my makeshift sink and I go to dump out the bucket of water and what do I see, two motherfucking chickens. TWO! How did you get in? What are you doing? At first I treat this like any other time I have a chicken break in, I open the fence door try to shoo them out but after about five minutes of chasing them I realize they've had a thanksgiving freaking feast with my new seedlings. Now I'm pissed. I pick up some bricks and I start whipping them at the chickens, one escapes. Good thing. One decides a it wants to retreat to my house- stupid. I beat it with a brick, to be honest I'm sort of scared of chickens, those claws are vicious. The chicken now leaves my house and retreats to the bafa aka the cement building outside my house I bucket bath in. That's it- it's over now chicken. I slam the door and hold it hostage in my makeshift jail.

This is now the funny part- I storm over to my neighbors house and start YELLING about this stupid chicken. First let me tell you about my neighbor, although his English is good, you have to talk really slow and enunciate so he knows what you're saying, two he thinks all Americans have an anger issue and shoot people when they get mad, three, it's not even his chicken and I know that. So my neighbor doesn't have a clue what's happening this crazy white lady is screaming something about a chicken an he'a probably scared I smuggled in a gun from America. Nevertheless his only response 'how are my carrots'?! HOW ARE YOUR CARROTS? When did they become your carrots, and don't worry they are fine, but my beans and radishes? Oh they are gone, death by chicken.

So I finally return the chicken to its proper owner- and threaten that next time I'm eating him for dinner. Which would be quite a feat for me considering id have to kill it and defeather it myself, ect. But I'm serious. This is my yard, my fifty dollar fence, and I will not have chicken intruders without consequence.

Attached are some pictures of my garden/yard/fence. Ps the big plants started growing a few weeks ago because of left over food scraps that morphed into plants.. Enjoy.

Independence day 2x

Greetings from Malawi, and happy independence day USA and Malawi as well. It is an exciting week to be an American, especially one in a country where they are celebrating the same joy and happiness. Malawian independence day is July 6, and of course America's being July 4th not much work is getting done here. Malawians will be taking a long weekend to enjoy themselves and as volunteers from America, one would think we would be as well. Peace corps has three goals- 1) helping peoples of interested countries 2) helping Americans learn about other cultures 3) helping other cultures learn about American culture. In a week where it is traditional that all Americans celebrate, one would think this would be a good time to practice goals 2 and 3, however peace corps Malawi has a different perspective. For the last week volunteers have been getting threatening emails and texts about not leaving their sites to celebrate. Texts insinuating that volunteers will be sent back to America of caught out of site, and emails suggesting that volunteers take vacation days to celebrate the weekend. (even though we are expected to be working mon-fri). My plans for visiting the lake for the first time and celebrating WITH Americans on our American holiday have been severely dented. I am at a loss as to what my new travel plans will be, and extremely disappointed with peace corps Malawi's new policy. I hope all people celebrating in the US are having a wonderful time, celebrate extra hard for me, take in the fireworks, good friends, and have an extra beer for me.

Kristi laughs like a middler schooler

This post is dedicated to my dear friend Kait-ie :)

So recently I've been breaking out into hysterical bits of laughter that no one seems to understand and if I keep it up people might start referring to me as that 'crazy azungu'...oh wait.
The following are two examples of this:

So earlier this week I had a community meeting. This meeting consisted of 148 Malawians and four health workers leading a discussion on why I'm here, who I am, and what projects I want to help with, ect. A good time to be on my best behavior since I was the star of the show. The guy sitting next to me is talking and everyone is paying attention to him, he's speaking in Chichewa so I am getting bored and not really paying attention. (yes, this would be a good time to be alert and practicing language but that's not reality). The man proceeds to sit down and is rubbing his face, for some reason I'm still staring at him and someone else starts talking. All of a sudden I look more closely at this mans hand- and he has a crack nail. (an extremely long pinky fingernail) The Malawians are pretty diligent about keeping their fingernails short so this isn't an accident. I'm not implying this man does drugs at all- that actually would he absurd, however I immediately burst into laughter. Partly because of the fact that he has this nail and partially because i cant stop remembering the time kait bust into my house one winter morning telling me how she lost her crack nail sometime that night. (kait also is drug free just to clear that up haha)This laughter catches everyone off guard. By the time I gain control of myself everyone is staring and I have to wait another twenty minutes before I can ask this man about his nail. He tells me 'it's for decoration- people love it.' I ask him if I can take a picture of it and he responds 'in two months- ill grow it out really long for you'. Needless to say I laugh uncontrollably for another five minutes.

This second example is embarrassing given the nature of my job here. I am in a high school two days ago with my counterpart and we are taking turns talking about safe sex and stds/HIV. A student asks my counterpart a question about transmission of stds and my counterpart starts talking about sex. Then he gets this puzzled look on his face and starts almost yelling at these kids about how stds can be transferred during oral sex. I'm not sure why but I start giggling like a twelve year old that just heard the word penis. The student notice that this awkwardness is funny so they coyly ask him 'what's oral sex' this throws him in a tizzy, he's going on and on about oral sex and I literally have to step out of the room I'm laughing so hard. I'm not sure what went over me, why I thought this was so funny, maybe a combination of my counterparts theatrics and the amount of stress I've been feeling lately. I'm glad he didn't mention my behavior and I hope I can hold it together more.


Unrelated pictures:

Kasinje questions

So many people have been asking me questions like: 'what's your job like' 'how's your living situation' 'what are you eating' ect. So here's a run down on all the details.
1) work- interesting concept I must admit. Going into peace corp I thought that it was going to be cut and dry, here's your village, here's your project, you will work from 8-5 everyday. Yeah- that's not even close to reality. Peace corps has a great philosophy on projects and as much as I hate it, it makes total sense: you will move in to the community, research for 3 months, find out what the community is doing to improve their lives (health, sanitation, education, ect) what projects they want to start and how they want you to help. As much as I feel completely lost I understand that if I just jump into a project the community isn't going to be interested or involved unless it's something they too think is important. This motto is really testing my patience, but I'm following the 'rules' and not starting projects until I completely know my community. Sidenote: in order to fully integrate into my community I am living in the community, making the same amount of money as people here, living the same lifestyle in the same housing and I'm not 'allowed' to leave for the three month research period. Which brings me to my next point...
2)housing. My house is actually really nice, since I'm working for the health center I am living in health center housing. In order to attract doctors and nurses to live in the village the houses are nice. My house also got electricity about two months before I moved in, which you might say 'oh awesome, life is good and easy then' well in theory this would make sense except electricity here is NOT reliable. I have a blackout about every other day and it's always during dinner time- which means I either wait for the power to come back on or skip dinner- cooking over a fire seems like a lot of work and I lived like that for 5 weeks already. Also in order to buy units for electricity (its prepaid) you have to be super flexible and patient, not my strong suits. So when I went to the city to the electricity provider, they were conveniently having a blackout and apparently you can't even buy units there you have to go to every gas station in town and see if there are any left. Needless to say I havnt been buying them because it's too frustrating of a process. I'll have to beg my neighbor to buy me more. I also don't have running water, it comes from a borehole about 30m from my house and I pay my neighbor children to get it for me. (refer further back in my blog to find out why) I bucket bath, and my bathroom is a pit latreen or in basic terms- a hole in the ground. Yup- this is Africa.
3) food- yum. Well everyday my market has tomatoes, onions, and cabbage. People eat nsima everyday (carb patty made of corn flour) with these vegetable as side dishes. I however didn't grow corn so have no corn flour so I eat rice or potatoes as my carb patty replacement. I also have been buying pasta in the city which is nice but expensive. I eat tomatoes and onions and on Thursdays when it's market day there is a wide variety of veggies: tomatoes, onions, cabbage, beans, and sometimes a choice of one of the following: eggplant, peas, pumpkins. I'm always hungry, eggs are like 50 cents and when you're making 4 dollars a day that's a pretty big part of your budget. So it's usually an egg for breakfast, veg and carb for lunch, leftovers for dinner. My protein consumption is dwindling, I find myself craving meat hard core- which if you know me is very strange. I dream about beef and eating every animal I see, I even contemplate killing wild goats, it's that bad.


On a lighter note- I don't think I've bet been so healthy. Also here are some more unrelated pictures

Pictures

I'm uploading this just to show pictures that were totally unrelated to the last post so here they are:
A little background- gwaza village about 5k from my site put on a performance for me, it was lovely! They were talking and dancing about preventing aids!!

What doesn't kill you makes you stronger- or something like that.

Welcome to my second week in Kasinje! It started off a little rocky with the most frightening trip back from the city one could have. As you may or may not know, the transportation here is slightly below par (insert laughter here) due to the wretched economy and the fact that this country has no foreign exchange, thus, have no currency to buy fuel. Well anyway, to get back from the city I must take two busses, it's about two or three hours on each bus. Banking on the possibility that it may only take 4 hours, my pcv friend and I left at 2 (mind you it gets dark here at 6 and there isn't such a thing as street lights). All was going well until about thirty minutes into the trip I found myself with unbearable stomach pains and started breaking into a deep sweat. Thankfully the women sitting next to me noticed I was about to shit my pants and made the bus pull over. A little background info here: mini busses are suppose to hold about 12 people, but on average are holding more like 18-20. Of course I was sitting way in the back and hand no chance of getting out of the car on time, so like James bond or some other action star would do... I jumped out the window. On a straight run to the nearest village, I was then awkwardly trying to speak Chichewa to find the nearest chimbudzi (yea basically a hole in the ground surrounded by sticks for some privacy). I then had my first encounter with a full chim, I could see about a million and a half maggots having the time of their lives in a pit full of waste. Although I felt like a new women it became even more awkward when I had to climb back into the bus with everyone knowing what had just happened. The rest of that bus trip when smoothly but it was getting late and I was worried we weren't going to make it back before dark. The second mini bus was going smoothly and it did get dark, this wouldn't have been an issue if the bus didn't break down right outside of a forest fire (as the Malawians calmly say-'oh they are just burning brush'). So now it's dark- we have no bus, a fire, no street lights, an hardly any language skills. Not scary at all. Well much to our 'luck' a matola pulls up (picture a semi without the walls on the bed= a flat bed semi) and offers to take us back. At this point i start whipping out my Kwacha in attempts to ride in the front of this thing and not on the flat bed. That was quickly turned down. In day light I would refuse this ride, so adding total darkness plus a backpack full of stuff I was absolutely not getting on it...until I did. The ride wasn't totally frightening I was hanging on by a rope that was holding corn down and thinking about the wine I bought in the city and how it would be empty five minutes after I got off the truck, and a baby was drop kicking me every five seconds. but we made it, Eventually, in one way or another and here I am, still alive- week two. Sorry mom.

You can't cross the ocean unless you have the courage to lose sight of the shore.

It's been an amazing 6 months since I've last made a blog post.  Whoopss.  

I officially leave in 23 days. Although I am dreading the three days of travel it will take to get to Malawi, I am super excited.  

The question I get most often however is "are you nervous?"   I know I stumble over the answer to this question nearly every time I am asked, but to be honest I'm full of so many emotions that it's hard to express what I really feel.  

Let me break it down:   I was extremely nervous and excited let's say around August of last year (right before my last post) when I thought that I was leaving before 2012.  Since things changed so much and so suddenly and I've had all of this "free time" I guess I haven't really let reality sink in.  I'm so excited, I really am, and yes, I am nervous, but I'm more nervous about stupid things, like what am I going to wear, and am I going to be sleeping in a hammock for 27 months, than the bigger picture. (biggest run on sentence ever)  I guess when I face the real reality I will be nervous, or the day I get on that plane in Grand Rapids, or maybe even next week at my "going away party" when I'm crying the entire time.  

I am nervous to leave my cozy little home, and this super small town, binge eating for the last six months and the comfort of my parents (especially since I've gotten really used to being so spoiled), but I'm really ready to get going, to cross the ocean, to really try and make a difference.   Like everyone who has ever been a peace corps volunteer (PCV) suggests, I'm trying not to have expectations, and maybe that is the real root of this un-nervousness.   I guess we will find out in the weeks to come when I do a 180 on my emotions. 
My goal is to make 23 the best year of my life thus far (16 days away) and really embrace a new culture, a new way of life, and new expectations.   I feel really blessed, and I'm ready to try and give that feeling to someone else.   

On a side note, I am going to try to be more diligent about writing posts while I'm in Malawi, so stay tuned, don't lose faith in my blogging just yet.  

On an extra side note, If you want to send me packages, letters, love, ect, my address has been updated
--> and you can send them now, I'll probably beat them there since it takes a multiple weeks for them to arrive.