WAWAWAWA!

I'm back in Lilongwe for a 2-week training.

So...

let's see...

You know how I usually love kids? I hate them here... or at least just the primary students (the ones 6-14). Why? Because they're punks. I don't know how to explain it... but they frustrate me here. Just try to imagine 50 kids swarming around you every single freaking day, staring at you, calling you "azungu" (which is more of my first name than my second name now), laughing at you... every single freaking day. And their parents don't teach them how to do right, because they don't listen to their parents, so they especially won't listen to anything I say... like "stop asking for money" or "stop calling me 'azungu'", which is pretty much equivalent to calling a black person "nigger" or a Chinese "chink" or a Latino "sic". I know it's vulgar, but that's exactly the kind of feeling it provokes in me every single day. I could start a whole essay on that alone but I won't.

I've concluded that I only like babies. Just babies. The wee ones that don't speak. Because they never ask anything from me. The adults always ask me for money. The kids always ask me for sweets. The babies just smile (or cry haha)! :D

O.K., I know I gotta do a better job at describing my African life here. Umm... I don't even know how to begin... I just sat here for a minute not knowing what to type...

I greet about 50 people a day with "Mwadzuka/Mwaswera bwanji?" (I hate greeting. I'm so anti-social. haha)

Uhh... o.k., I'll start with my health center. It's this tiny little place - not really a hospital - with a maternity ward, a female sick ward, a male sick ward, and a consultation room. It's actually kinda nice because it's like being an outdoor center, so I'm not in some enclosed building. Then, there's the Under-5 Clinic room (about 10 feet x 10 feet) where all the government health workers work (which is where I'm supposed to be too). Every morning, the mothers would come to the clinic, line up to weigh their babies, and get the immunization shots (DPT, Polio, BCG, measles, TTV). As for the babies, they just wrap them with a chitenje (a piece of cloth) and hang them off a weighing scale... meaning you can drop them if they're not tied appropriately. (I haven't dropped one yet... knock on wood.) Then, they go into this tiny little room to get their shots (I'm not allowed to give the shots for liability reasons). And they'd just record the data in a book (record-keeping is really poor here and incredibly inaccurate). I've also been going into the villages for the first 2 months to evaluate and assess their problems and needs, as well as developing an action plan before submitting them to OxFam. Just this past week, I went to the villages for a home-based care training (groups of people who take care of the sick in their villages) on soya beans. (I was drooling sooo much when they made soya mince and fresh soy milk from the soya beans but I was too weak to ask to try it!!!)

(I miss fruits sooo much. :( But I heard there are watermelons in April! And I'm starting to see peaches!!)

Yeah, sounds fascinating, right? That's why I don't really bother trying to type up what I do. haha

Well, here's an interesting fact I learned awhile ago regarding natural medicine. Sesame is known to help treat sterility. SO... every time you consume sesame (seeds, oil, etc.), just think, you become more fertile! HAHAHAHA And I found out that turmeric treats flatulence, so you know exactly what you need when you get a case of gas! (You know who you are! :P)

Umm... let's see... I still don't really know what I wanna do yet. I've been focusing a lot on this newly developed youth club that involves 18 villages in my area, so that has been pretty awesome. The most difficult part is not being able to speak the language, but I'm trying everything I can to learn their language so I don't have to rely on the few youths that speak English or even just on my co-worker to translate. But they're worth it, because they're the ones that are always overlooked. The adults are always trained in caring for the sick; the children get all the free immunization, free education, and free food; the youths in school are getting an education. But the out-of-school youths are stuck with unemployment, prostitution, and pressure from their parents to engage in early marriages or cultural practices that lead to unwanted pregnancies and HIV transmission. I've been working mainly with the committee on leadership. I'll talk more about that later.

I still feel like a celebrity.

And it sucks.

I hate being a celebrity. I hate the fact that my status of beauty and my status of wealth is determined by one factor: the color of my skin. I hate the 50 pairs of eyes staring at me everywhere I go... to the market, to work, to my home. But even then I don't even want to go home because there are a couple pairs of eyes spying on me through my grass fence (those darn kids). I don't get any privacy here. I hate it when people ask me for money or food or sweets or just anything I have or even just to take them back to America. Even though some of them are living better off than me. I hate being in this weird position where the people I work with think I'm some kid so they don't treat me seriously, yet people of high positions treat me like I'm some goddess (even better than they would a chief). I hate how the men treat women here.

But I don't hate being in Malawi. I know I have much to learn and much to gain. I've met few people here who amaze me and bless me. There's an 80-year-old lil white lady living near me who's originally from South Africa, had 11 kids, and lost 9 of them to malaria here. Oh yeah, and she killed 2 chickens for me. haha She's sweet. :) Then, there's my Chichewa tutor aka my best friend here aka my only Malawian friend. He is nothing short of amazing yet I know few people recognize how truly amazing he is. He's one of the people that I know will succeed in every way in this life despite all the obstacles he had to go through in this life (and there's a lot, believe me). Then, there are a few people I work with who are truly hard-working and gentle people. They've helped me out so much and been so patient with me for learning everything so slowly. Then, there's the baby. His name's Hope. He's my substitute for Joshua Lee (but definitely not his replacement!). :P He's sooooooooo cute. Everytime I see him, he makes my day better no matter how crappy the day was.

And... that's about it.

ZABOBO!

Dude. I am so fluent in Chichewa.

*cough*

Yeah right.

But I'm getting there! Everyone thinks I'm learning Chichewa because I wanna get married here.

"So, do you have any promises?"
"*cough* Are you serious?!"

OK gotta jet. Tiwonana!