I realize it's been a while since I last posted.
I had a bad accident two weeks ago...it didn't involve another car, but it involved a little boy who ran in front of my vehicle. There are always people lining the sides of the road in Malawi and it is everyone's greatest fear, including my own, that one day you will hit someone.
You don't think it can happen to you though, really - I mean, I am so careful. I honk. I slow down. But it did happen to me.
I was driving for the first time without a driver on a business trip to my favorite diocesan office, Mangochi. I saw a group of children running alongside a bike and honked my horn (as is the custom here) to let them know I was coming. They moved further over to the left (you drive on the left in Malawi), so I went to pass. All of a sudden, just as I was overtaking them, one of the boys in the group veered to the right and ran straight across the road. The only thing I can think is that he was trying to beat the car across the road. There was no time to react enough and nowhere to go - I braked and swerved, but could not avoid hitting him. It was definately the worst moment of my life...I was pretty much completely disbelieving what had just happened and I got out of the car, totally panicking.
Thank God, a driver from the other direction stopped and assisted me as well as a few other people - we got the boy into the car, drove to a clinic for first aid and then to the hospital, where he is now recovering. I am so glad that he is alive and expected to fully recover.
The police did an investigation (again, I am grateful to the two witnesses that were able to explain the circumstances to the police) and declared the collision an accident.
I am still dealing with the post-traumatic stress of the incident, and am also realizing how many other thoughts I have are wrapped up in my emotions about the accident....how accepting the boys parents have been (everyone is so friendly whenever I visit the hospital), and the fact that when I do visit the hospital, the boy gets more attention....I feel a lot of this has to do with race and priviledge and I find it even more upsetting.
Anyways, I recognize that the stress of this will still be with me for a long time (well, forever really), but I am feeling much stronger this week and decided to post this.
It took me a while to decide to blog about the experience, but the purpose of the blog (besides letting you all know what is going on while we are away) is to document my year here in Malawi, and good or bad, all of my experiences here are forming this incredible adventure, so this experience belongs here along with the stories of parties, funny incidents, dancing in villages and my thoughts about our year here in Malawi.
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Monday, June 9, 2008
CADECOM gets down
But first,
Since I mentioned volleyball in my last post, I should update...
Unfortunately, despite a valiant effort and in the absence of our 6'6" captain Bryce, Chambo with head could not pull into a 2 wins for 6 situation. We lost the first game, came back to win the second and played well through the third but were beated by the Undutchables. 9:45pm time slot sucks. We pulled the early spot for this week, but I will unfortunately miss the game as I will be out of town for work.
On Friday, I was invited to attend a good-bye party for one of my co-workers, Father Nampimba. It was my first invite to a work event. I am also looking forward to the pre-wedding lunch we are invited to the week-end after this one. Anyways, we pledged what we would bring (mainly drinks) and I guess there was a budget for food. I expected a couple of drinks and maybe some snacky food, an hour to an hour and a half of polite conversation and then leaving. Elizabeth and Jessica had invited me to dinner with them at Blue Ginger (Indian restaurant I hadn't tried before), so I accepted and asked them to pick me up at work at 8pm, figuring 6 - 8 would be sufficient socializing time.
At 6, I arrived at the party with my little offering of cheese and crackers to hear Sexy Back playing out of an impressive sound system...I was a little taken aback - I mean, is Sexy Back appropriate music for a priest's party? I got out to where the bar was set up, and there was a box of red wine, white wine, Malawi gin, altar wine and vodka. Yes, I said Altar wine....on the bar. It was a bit surreal and I couldn't resist texting Regan and Jules (family don't attend work functions here) to let them know what the party was like. Throughout the night I was impressed with the dance club music selection until I finally asked the DJ (my co-worker Paul) whose CDs they were. They belong to my boss's boss, the Secretary General (head of ECM), Father Joseph!
Anyways, after I arrived and Father Joseph and I had gotten our glasses of wine, another coworker took the floor to open the event with a prayer. During the prayer (as I stood there with my glass of wine), they didn't turn off the music, they just turned it down...it was truly a surreal experience. Anyways, after a glass of Altar wine and tons and tons of amazing food (my cheese plate looked so SAD), it was time to open the dance floor. They let the guest of honour, Father Nampimba, choose his dance partner (me, of course!). This was awkward - they played that kind of song that always led to awkward confusion in highschool (is it fast? is it slow) - add to this the whole priest complication and you can see what I mean....anyways, it was OK - we took it as a fast song and enjoyed the dancing.
When Elizabeth and Jessica came to pick me up, I wasn't ready to leave, so they came down for a glass of Altar wine and to see the whole spread. They were just in time for the dancing out of the cake. It was awesome - the whole of ECM formed a line behind the cake and danced it across the floor. During this, the SG came up to me and asked me if I wanted to hear my Kanye song now (I had heard 'Stronger' come on while Paul was testing all the CDs and said "Oh I love this song"). So I said "sure" - I mean, why not???
After Stronger played, Elizabeth, Jessica and I sadly had to leave...next time I will know not to make plans after a work function, since Malawian catholics party very seriously!!!
Since I mentioned volleyball in my last post, I should update...
Unfortunately, despite a valiant effort and in the absence of our 6'6" captain Bryce, Chambo with head could not pull into a 2 wins for 6 situation. We lost the first game, came back to win the second and played well through the third but were beated by the Undutchables. 9:45pm time slot sucks. We pulled the early spot for this week, but I will unfortunately miss the game as I will be out of town for work.
On Friday, I was invited to attend a good-bye party for one of my co-workers, Father Nampimba. It was my first invite to a work event. I am also looking forward to the pre-wedding lunch we are invited to the week-end after this one. Anyways, we pledged what we would bring (mainly drinks) and I guess there was a budget for food. I expected a couple of drinks and maybe some snacky food, an hour to an hour and a half of polite conversation and then leaving. Elizabeth and Jessica had invited me to dinner with them at Blue Ginger (Indian restaurant I hadn't tried before), so I accepted and asked them to pick me up at work at 8pm, figuring 6 - 8 would be sufficient socializing time.
At 6, I arrived at the party with my little offering of cheese and crackers to hear Sexy Back playing out of an impressive sound system...I was a little taken aback - I mean, is Sexy Back appropriate music for a priest's party? I got out to where the bar was set up, and there was a box of red wine, white wine, Malawi gin, altar wine and vodka. Yes, I said Altar wine....on the bar. It was a bit surreal and I couldn't resist texting Regan and Jules (family don't attend work functions here) to let them know what the party was like. Throughout the night I was impressed with the dance club music selection until I finally asked the DJ (my co-worker Paul) whose CDs they were. They belong to my boss's boss, the Secretary General (head of ECM), Father Joseph!
Anyways, after I arrived and Father Joseph and I had gotten our glasses of wine, another coworker took the floor to open the event with a prayer. During the prayer (as I stood there with my glass of wine), they didn't turn off the music, they just turned it down...it was truly a surreal experience. Anyways, after a glass of Altar wine and tons and tons of amazing food (my cheese plate looked so SAD), it was time to open the dance floor. They let the guest of honour, Father Nampimba, choose his dance partner (me, of course!). This was awkward - they played that kind of song that always led to awkward confusion in highschool (is it fast? is it slow) - add to this the whole priest complication and you can see what I mean....anyways, it was OK - we took it as a fast song and enjoyed the dancing.
When Elizabeth and Jessica came to pick me up, I wasn't ready to leave, so they came down for a glass of Altar wine and to see the whole spread. They were just in time for the dancing out of the cake. It was awesome - the whole of ECM formed a line behind the cake and danced it across the floor. During this, the SG came up to me and asked me if I wanted to hear my Kanye song now (I had heard 'Stronger' come on while Paul was testing all the CDs and said "Oh I love this song"). So I said "sure" - I mean, why not???
After Stronger played, Elizabeth, Jessica and I sadly had to leave...next time I will know not to make plans after a work function, since Malawian catholics party very seriously!!!
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
What a weekend!
This past weekend, our Regional Director came in to Lilongwe to visit with the volunteers. Since CIDA is here evaluating the Uniterra program (after the weekend), WUSC brought all the volunteers together from throughout the country, so our RD decided to meet with us all over the weekend. It was great to see some of the volunteers from all over the country that we don't get the chance to visit with all the time! And we met the one volunteer we hadn't met yet (though she is leaving Malawi in 5 days) as well.
All in all, there was a lot of time spent in meetings, but we also got a lot of free food (so none of the volunteers were complaining about that!). On Friday night we took it (relatively) easy in preparation for the I love Malawi party on Saturday. We had Melissa and Shawn home for a welcome home dinner from Shawn, as he has finally returned from 3 months in the Sudan working to get refugees safely out of the country. Melissa and Shawn hosted my birthday dinner just 2 weeks after we had arrived (and shortly before Shawn left), and I wanted to repay the favour. We found sweet corn (it was SO yummy!!) and pork spare ribs (pigs are not a big thing for livestock farmers here, so pork is relatively scarce...it was delicious and the company was great.
On Saturday, Heather's mom wasn't feeling that great, but she did manage to make it to our volunteer dinner at Claud's. Claud's is one of the two italian places in Lilongwe, and although I am committing sacriledge by saying this (to most Lilongweans), it is not my favorite place. They have an excellen peri-peri chicken dish, but whenever I have ventured off the peri-peri, I haven't enjoyed my meal (not for the price anyways)...unfortunately Saturday was no exception...but the gin and tonics were great.
After dinner, we headed to the I love Malawi party we have been excited about all week - it was a blast - tons of Malawians as well as Mzungus and we actually drank the bar dry (not me personally!!!) and then headed to Chezntemba - site of many past dancing excursions. Unfortunately, Chez had a band on outside and we had to wait forever for them to put music on inside...oh well...
Sunday was an all afternoon meeting with our RD, followed by a cocktail party with our CIDA evaluator. Heather's mom went to the clinic in the morning as she still wasn't well, and she has Malaria!!! And she was taking Malarone (supposedly effective prophylaxis)!!! Our friend Meilssa just got over a bout of Malaria as well, so it is odd, given that it is dry season.
We went home after the cocktail party and started a movie...I think I saw all of 5 minutes before falling asleep at like 7:30.
On Monday we had presentations for the CIDA evaluator, and were invited to join her for dinner at our favorite restaurant in Lilongwe, Babas Delhi Darbar - it was fabulous...seriously one of the best indian restaurants I have ever been to. Our Malawian guests did not feel the same way though and just picked at their food - I don't want to generalize, but on the whole, most Malawians really do not vary their diet and are not as interested in exploring new options.
Anyways, did I blog that 'Chambo with head' (my volleyball team) actually won a game last week!!! Changing our record from 0 for 5 to 1 win of 6 games??? Progress! Anyways, we face off again tonight and unluckily pulled the late game, so we don't play until 9:45...wish us luck!
All in all, there was a lot of time spent in meetings, but we also got a lot of free food (so none of the volunteers were complaining about that!). On Friday night we took it (relatively) easy in preparation for the I love Malawi party on Saturday. We had Melissa and Shawn home for a welcome home dinner from Shawn, as he has finally returned from 3 months in the Sudan working to get refugees safely out of the country. Melissa and Shawn hosted my birthday dinner just 2 weeks after we had arrived (and shortly before Shawn left), and I wanted to repay the favour. We found sweet corn (it was SO yummy!!) and pork spare ribs (pigs are not a big thing for livestock farmers here, so pork is relatively scarce...it was delicious and the company was great.
On Saturday, Heather's mom wasn't feeling that great, but she did manage to make it to our volunteer dinner at Claud's. Claud's is one of the two italian places in Lilongwe, and although I am committing sacriledge by saying this (to most Lilongweans), it is not my favorite place. They have an excellen peri-peri chicken dish, but whenever I have ventured off the peri-peri, I haven't enjoyed my meal (not for the price anyways)...unfortunately Saturday was no exception...but the gin and tonics were great.
After dinner, we headed to the I love Malawi party we have been excited about all week - it was a blast - tons of Malawians as well as Mzungus and we actually drank the bar dry (not me personally!!!) and then headed to Chezntemba - site of many past dancing excursions. Unfortunately, Chez had a band on outside and we had to wait forever for them to put music on inside...oh well...
Sunday was an all afternoon meeting with our RD, followed by a cocktail party with our CIDA evaluator. Heather's mom went to the clinic in the morning as she still wasn't well, and she has Malaria!!! And she was taking Malarone (supposedly effective prophylaxis)!!! Our friend Meilssa just got over a bout of Malaria as well, so it is odd, given that it is dry season.
We went home after the cocktail party and started a movie...I think I saw all of 5 minutes before falling asleep at like 7:30.
On Monday we had presentations for the CIDA evaluator, and were invited to join her for dinner at our favorite restaurant in Lilongwe, Babas Delhi Darbar - it was fabulous...seriously one of the best indian restaurants I have ever been to. Our Malawian guests did not feel the same way though and just picked at their food - I don't want to generalize, but on the whole, most Malawians really do not vary their diet and are not as interested in exploring new options.
Anyways, did I blog that 'Chambo with head' (my volleyball team) actually won a game last week!!! Changing our record from 0 for 5 to 1 win of 6 games??? Progress! Anyways, we face off again tonight and unluckily pulled the late game, so we don't play until 9:45...wish us luck!
Monday, June 2, 2008
Weird expression
Everything is pre-paid in Malawi. You have to buy credit for your phone and input it in order to make a call. You have to do the same for your power (we have run out twice now and had to go to the gas station in the middle of the night to purchase additional credit).
Once you put the credit in, it is very expensive to make phone calls, so people are sparing with their time spent on the phone and often we communicate only through text messages. In addition, when people really have hardly any credit, they call you and hang up, waiting for you to call them back. This procedure is called flashing, and resulted in our friend Elizabeth asking two guys the other day "Now, if I give you my number, will you flash me?"
Once you put the credit in, it is very expensive to make phone calls, so people are sparing with their time spent on the phone and often we communicate only through text messages. In addition, when people really have hardly any credit, they call you and hang up, waiting for you to call them back. This procedure is called flashing, and resulted in our friend Elizabeth asking two guys the other day "Now, if I give you my number, will you flash me?"
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