Kwathu ndi ku Malawi

Right now Ebola is a media sensation and for a good reason. People are dying and there's not really a cure. One good thing is that Ebola is a relatively hard disease to get as it requires direct contact with bodily fluids. But I don't want to write about Ebola. I want to write about Malawi and what I work on here that's maybe not such a media sensation but its a huge part of my life and the lives of those around me.  In Malawi we don't have Ebola yet. But we have other things. Here my life goes like this: every night as I lay down to go to sleep, I also tuck in an insecticide treated bed net called a LLIN around my bed and under the mattress. Every hotel I visit also has these hanging from the ceiling. Everywhere you go they are there. The "why" is this: in Malawi many people die from malaria (malungo in Chichewa) each year and WHO estimates "around 1 million" die around the globe every year. Children under 5 years are especially vulnerable and ...

So here's an honest assessment. I get a living allowance of $185 dollars every month from Peace Corps to live here. I use that to travel, for rent, to buy food and clothes, to buy cooking materials and household goods, etc. And at the end of every month the stipend is always running pretty low even though I live alone and my responsibility is just for me.  In Malawi, what I make is an average, common salary for hard working teachers, clinicians, forestry officers, etc and sometimes much more than those engaged in only subsistance farming. But these people many times do not live alone. They have spouses and children to care for and extended family to help. They have expenses such as high school which is not free but instead another fee. My stipend is far more than many here make and yet my neighbors and friends are always very generous. Many times much more so than I.   The privileges I've always had are becomi...

Mountains. Lakes. Rivers. Animals. Programs. Camps. Kids. School. Minibuses. Food. Painting.  School let out for the summer in July and I was done teaching my Life Skills class until September. We finished on a semi high note with every girl in the school having completed and sewn their own reusable sanitary napkins and undergoing Sex Ed. Several girls from surrounding Primary and Secondary schools also got a chance to make these pads as I did guest sessions at their schools as well. Also our AIDS TOTO club wrote poems and sang a song in the school assembly. I prepared everyone for their exams while also teaching them some other topics concerning malaria, nutrition, water safety, and sanitation.   Summertime began but here in Malawi summertime is cold as its our winter season- such a relief from all the heat. I finally could wear jeans and a sweater in the house! To start the break I headed to the capital city of Lilongwe to attend a 1 week Behavior Cha...