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Thursday, July 19, 2012

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.


Tuesday, July 3, 2012

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.

Listen to Kristi goes to africa


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