What a workshop!

Now, I am not saying that I expected an easy ride here in Malawi, but I must say, the work ethic here has taken my by surprise. I guess its not even so much a work ethic, as a willingness to put up with hours and expectations that could be considered pretty unreasonable.

I have gotten used to the fact that when you go into the field, you should expect a lot of waiting around, a lot of wasted time and long days. I guess I thought that attending a workshop would be different for some reason, since you are in one location the whole time...

Monday last week started pretty much as expected - we intended to leave at 1:30pm, but didn't leave until 4. And then had to stop for gas. As a result, we were left driving a good deal of the time in the dark, which is substantially slower than driving when it is light. We arrived at the hotel at 9:40pm. Fortunately, my friend Vi, another WUSC volunteer (but in Zomba instead of Lilongwe) was also attending the workshop and arrived at 9, so she was able to order dinner before the kicthen closed.

On Tuesday, we were supposed to meet a half hour before the workshop was scheduled to begin, in order to set up. I was the only one who showed up at 8. But, by 9:30, we were ready to start. The day was considerably behind schedule and ended after 6pm - I just don't think in Canada that people would stand for it??? But anyways, by 8, we had dinner and were ready for bed. On Wednesday, a field visit was scheduled for the afternoon (we were supposed to leave at 12:30pm). Anyone could see that there was not enough time scheduled...the field visit was scheduled to be in a village over 2 hours away from the conference location. But anyways, we didn't leave until after 1:30 - arriving in the village at 4pm. There were two sites to look at - at the first, we viewed an afforestation project, as well as a manure pit. At the second, we were looking at charcoal stoves - an energy saving initiative. The sun sets early in Malawi, especially in the cold season, so we left the second site just before 6pm, in the dark and drove back to the conference center, arriving at a quarter to nine. We had planned a get together for Wednesday night, so dinner and drinks and dancing ensued until about 3 in the morning - don't know how I lasted until 2 - must have been the Malawi gin.

Thursday morning I was among the first to arrive at the conference hall and one of three who arrived on time (out of 30). Anyways, most participants managed to drag themselves in for another half day of the conference. Scheduled to end at 11, we ended at 1:30. I ended up with a lunch meeting, followed by another meeting in the afternoon. By 4:30, we were done, and I managed to drag myself over to a beach chair to lie in an exhausted stupor until 6:30, when Vi and I ordered dinner. I think I was in bed before 8pm - heaven!

On Friday, we drove back to Lilongwe. Since you can buy food at the markets on the road much cheaper than in Lilongwe, every trip involves several stops for people to buy things. I used to get annoyed at how much longer it made the drive back (On Friday we took over 6 hours to complete a 4 hour drive)...but now I am out there with my colleagues bargaining away and crowing about the number of tomatoes I managed to get for 200 kwatcha.

I was ready to fall into bed on Friday night but was persuaded to attend a Century Club party (but I did NOT do the century) - it was a lot of fun, and we met up with Isaac, who we met at the hostel we stayed at when we went to Vic falls after Easter. On Saturday, we had a lovely BBQ at Melissa and Shawn's. Sunday featured a lot of working on a new quilt, and another BBQ (where the focus was on dessert as it always it at Jessicas) after Regan's ultimate frisbee match.

Reading through all of the above gives me some insight as to why I still feel exhausted today!!!

Oh, and in other news - the countdown to Mom and Meghan's visit is ON!

6 days and a couple hours to go!

I didn't manage to download photos from last week off my camera yet, so I will leave you with a photo of my FAVORITE hand washing sink in Malawi (so far...):