Life, Death, Survival

Well, the honeymoon is over and I am still here. Living in Africa, teaching kids who are English as a Second Language learners and getting by mostly in Chichewa outside of my 14 periods per week. I've learned a lot after being around my site in Sharp Valle for a solid month now. While still being hard on myself, slowly but surely I'm letting Malawian help (wothandiza) into my life - the real village experience! And it's kind of fun, learning to give up control. People do so much - coworkers bringing to work flowers from their own gardens and my neighbor showing me how to dig the soil and plant the flowers -- even doing the digging for me. Form 1 girls came to my house and ended up making my cookfire for me so I could make dinner.. a form 4 girl who speas awesome English hauled an entire thorn tree to my house (she lives 3k up the hill, by school) when I mentioned my concern about goats eating all my garden seedlings up.

Cooking in general has been really difficult, so I've hired a lady to help with some other things around the house to relieve the burden of being as useless as a child in doing Malawian chores. Gladys, a strong agogo *(grandma) gets water for me (2 buckets 3x a week) and does my dishes for me and I provide her some money to get through the hungry season. Giving up control has been a real exercise in realizing my own limited competence despite all my weeks of training in homestay, but also in appreciating the difficulty -- and physical difference of life here. I'm now understanding my own innate stubbornness a lot better and how being sick (read: tired) a majority of the time because of my reduced immunity really affects those physical chores as well as my preparedness for school.

We're now in the sixth week of school already - that's half my potential classes done and gone! - and a lot has happenned: socially, the teacher development part of me, even extracurriculars. I'm bonding with my female coworkers quite nicely. We have our own little estrogen corner in the staff room and we each bring 3 portions of something to share to get us through from 7 until 1:50 without lunch. Most days it's bread and butter sandwiches or biscuits (cookies to y'all) but sometimes rolls, bananas, peanuts, etc. I especially enjoy the company of Sister C, one of three catholic nuns running the mission in town: there's a health center, a big catholic church (they even have altar boys with lil gowns!) with housing for inpatients, and a huge garden that they use to sustain themselves almost completely, down to growing seeds for their own sunflower cooking oil. At the sisters' house, I chatted and ended up staying for dinner after dark. The Sister has some great insights on the office politics that are emerging, but as wise as she is, she's also incredibly sweet and unjaded -- I was shocked to find out that she's 44! She's one of my best adult friends. My neighbor, a 19-year old living with her divorced bro basically to clean house for him, is my best friend my age but it's more of a girlish friendship. We joke a lot, but she helps my Chichewa listening skills so much.

As good as it's been, things have also been tough: coping with the fact that Peace Corps service has been cut short for one if not two of my friends from my training group is tough! An auto accident during Christmas holiday put them both in the hospital in Joburg, South Africa and they are now recovering in the US. It's hard to believe two of the sweetest and competent of us are so far from Malawi, and we send them our love.. but it could have been anyone. We all ride the same pothole-ridden roads, and it's amazing it was a busted tire that caused the accident, not a collision.

I acutely realized my own shortcomings with the death of a brand new puppy - I'd barely been an owner for two months, and the pup was only a little over 2 months old. It all happenned before I knew what the situation even meant - and before I had any idea what to do to help the dog. As I said, I've been having trouble cooking -- lighting a fire really, shameful for a former girl scout -- so I've been eating a mix of chopped/marinated produce and other items that Takoma, my pup, wouldn't sniff twice at much less consider to be food. So I'd been relying on my neighbor for some of his food - leftovers, etc. I also started buying cooked goat meat at the market for him at the advice of my Mom, who said he probably needed a lot more protein especially since his gums were pale. On Monday, I gave him half the meat in the morning and saved half of it for later. The next morning, my neighbor gave me a huge portion of leftover fish from Mon dinner so I left it for him while I was at school and didn't give him the goat until Tues night. He acted funny for about 12 hours, not wandering around in the fields behind the house as usual, and even threw up some of the goat and left puddles of diarrhea on my floor. That night he slept outside - weird for a dog that usually whines to get in - and acted really woozy when I tried to rouse him to drink some milk because he hadn't been eating, just drinking water. He wouldn't get up to eat but what could I do? I went to bed.

The next morning I found him in the outdoor kitchen, a warmer place, but he wouldn't even lift his head to see what I had for him (some bread soaked in milk). I went to work, rushing, late, hoping he'd gotten the bug out of his system and would use some energy stores and get up before I got home. But when I came back he was in the same place, now surrounded by flies..

So that's how it happens here. And the graves? In our backyards. Shock, shame, grief, disbelief. All the love I had and gave to that dog, and I'm still unfit to raise him. I hadn't taken him to the village or city vet yet. But I had mopped his messes, gave him food before I ate myself, chased chickens away from his bowl, held him on my lap while I worked or read.

Things are a lot quieter now. I bought myself a paraffin stove that lights almost immediately so it could have been rice instead of tainted fish or goat. But you can't change the past. Dogs here, and children too, have so little a chance for survival compared to what we expect in the US. I realize now I wouldn't want to raise a child here - I can provide him or her a greater chance at home: a chance to survive, a chance to be educated, a chance to be one of an influential body of people. It's easy to take for granted my own status as an American here in Malawi. But for a brand new person, whose life a parent can push in whatever direction they choose? My home, my way of life - infused with what I am learning here and in all experiences - is close enough to nature.

So don't worry, Mom - I think I'm coming home when my time is through.