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