Not too much that is new...

But I thought I would post anyways - since we had to pay Regan's exam fees this month, money is pretty tight - so we have spent a lot of time in Lilongwe with not too much to do.
Unfortunately the pool at the portuguese club (which we were so excited to join as it would provide countless hours of free entertainment once the membership was paid) is completely green. They ran out of chemicals in May and have not treated the pool since. It is totally gross and I don't want to go to the club and just hang out BY the pool because #1 - I like water and want to be in it, not by it and #2 - it is free to do that anyways - the only thing we were paying for was access to the pool. What a miserable situation....
But we have been going for lots of walks, so that has been nice - and we found out that a bakery I like stocks BRIE. So I think we might indulge in a little fresh bread, brie and procuitto on Friday night as a treat!
Today is the start of the hot season of volleyball, so Chambo with head will start the season off tonight at 6:30 - I am excited to be playing again but wishing we had managed to slot at least ONE practice in during the six week break!
Anyways...on the work front, panic is setting in as I look at the crowded weeks ahead - you can now count to the end of my contract in weeks (well I guess you always could - but the number was much bigger before) and there is SO much still to do. I am trying to come up with a reasonable work plan for my remaining time here, but as weeks pass - I am so busy with other things that my work plan items get pushed to the next week...a process that can not continue indefinately!!!
Anyways - wish me luck as I continue to plug away!!!

Where do I start???

Well, I have yet again to apologize for the length of time it has taken for me to get around to getting another post up. I think besides being busy, I was a bit intimidated by the fact that since I now know how to upload pictures, I should be loading pics into every blog...and I haven't had time to sort through my photos, so....
Anyways, as I am sitting here today, I figure it will be better to just get a darn blog up than to fiddle with pictures, since it seems to be a bit of a block!
So I never really did justice to Mom and Meghan's trip here with us - I know my mom kept great notes, so I am hoping she will do a guest blog and email me some of her details so I can post them.
Since my last post, I completed the daunting amount of work required in order to facilitate my week long workshop on M&E....it was a battle, but I got the job done in the end, and have recently compiled the results of the workshop evaluation - it seems that many people were extremely happy with their experience and learned some valuable lessons, so that made me feel great. I can see how teaching is a rewarding experience - one day we were doing a recap and people were all participating a lot, and I realized that they learned some of the things we were talking about from ME! I was pretty tickled.
Anyways, the week after the workshop was a bit of a blur - I arrived home on Friday night and Jules and I celebrated our 15th wedding anniversary (1 day late) with Regan by going out for dinner, and then Regan went to a party while we went home and crashed out. On Saturday we went to a friend's birthday/one year in Malawi party, which was really nice - we met some new people and had a brilliant evening. On Sunday, I started getting really puffy eyes - I used to get this occasionally in Canada - some kind of undiagnosed allergy I guess, so I wasn't too worried, but it did continue until Monday when I spent the afternoon at home to rest my eyes. The rest of the week was taken up with trying to capture the notes from my workshop in order to create my workshop report and thinking about the best way to divide the rest of my (too short!) time here.
I don't know if I ever reported that we were finally able to recruit a counterpart for my position here? Originally, they were hoping to hire an M&E Officer that I was to work with way back in February just after my arrival...unfortunately the recruitment was unsuccessful, and my colleagues decided to wait until new salary levels were approved before attempting to recruit again. The new salary levels were supposed to be approved in February, but in actuality were not approved until June! Then there were all sorts of administrative delays involved and we didn't actually make offers until much later. Finally we thought we had the candidate lined up and the position was filled - the officer was invited to attend my workshop as his first week of work. I am trying not to be personally offended, but in fact, since the workshop ended, he has not been seen again here at CADECOM. Sorry - slight exaggeration - we had his computer all set up Monday morning and he did pop in Monday afternoon (when I had gone home to rest my poor eyes), but since then, he has not returned.
On Tuesday and Wednesday, I asked my boss what he was planning to do, and his response was that we should give him to the end of the week!!! When he hadn't shown up for two days with no phone call or anything??? Anyways, it was not my call, but he didn't show up all week, so we are now assuming he is not interested. I wasn't too sure of him after the workshop (he was pretty quiet and I worried how we would get on), so I am not sure if I am relieved or dissapointed, but I am definately back at square one. Not having a counterpart here has severely limited the amount I can hope to get done in my year here, and now with a new recruitment scheme on the horizon, it seems unlikely that we will get someone in before Christmas.
Anyways, most of this month I will be focussed on rewriting my work plan to accommodate these new circumstances and trying to plan for my highest impact activities to be completed before I go.
This week there is a week long training in Nutrition, but I am staying back today and tomorrow to try an finish up some loose ends from my workshop...I will attend while the focus is on successful program design and indicator selection for nutrition.
This past weekend was super - on Saturday we walked around and did some errands on foot, which got us outside and also some exercise. On Sunday, unfortunately I had puffy eyes again, worse than last weekend, so I wasn't capable of doing much and just laid around watching movies - since this is something I rarely do, I have to say it was a pretty enjoyable way to spend a Sunday! I am better today, so that is good.
Anyways, have piles of work to do so I must get on with it - I promise (AGAIN - do you still believe me at ALL?) to try and update more regularly now that things are back to normal after vacations and workshops etc...

Radio Silence....Continued

Well, I am sorry for the extended radio silence on this end, but I am sorry to report that it will likely continue for another week - but I do hope to get another post up before the end of the month (fingers crossed).
Mom and Meghan and the Arntz-Grays had a fabulous trip around Malawi. We viewed the majestic tea fields south of Blantyre, found out that it rains. Hard. In dry season on the Zomba plateau, saw TONS of elephants, hippos, warthogs, waterbuck, crocs and birds in Liwonde National Park, went snorkeling at Cape Maclear, and visited Senga Bay. Mom and I also discovered a great little place called Ntchisi Forest Lodge and went hiking in the temperate rain forest there.
With only one day of rest, we were back into travel gear and heading to Zambia, where we had a fabulous safari (food excepted) in South Luangwa National Park, viewing giraffes, zebra, lions, hippos, crocs and even the elusive leopard.
With spectacularly poor foresight I planned my major Monitoring and Evaluation workshop for this week, and Mom and Meghan just left on Friday...the result being that I have been working all weekend to try and finish due to my lack of focus last week...
Since I am (still) preparing, and the workshop is out of town in Zomba (we are leaving today at three), I will likely not have access to internet. It will be a hectic week (last workshop involved many 12 hour days and it was just a three day workshop whereas this is FIVE), so I expect to crawl into bed on Friday night and not emerge for some time. Hopefully I can pull together a better post with pics on Sunday - chat with you then!

Visitors!

So my Mom and Regan’s friend Meghan arrived safely on Monday. Thanks to my roommate Heather, we found out that there is a viewing platform at the airport from which you can watch the plane come in. Regan and I each paid 5 kwacha to go up and waited excitedly. The plane was pretty much on time, and we could see well enough to watch our guests come down the ramp. We waved excitedly and they saw us waving down at them.
We had thought they might be too tired from their trip to do anything, so had nothing planned, but they got a second wind and we took them down to the big vegetable market, then Regan and Meghan went out for chips with Regan’s best friend from school, Hawah, while I took my Mom to see where Jules works.
On Tuesday, the girls had some sleeping in planned and an afternoon shopping trip. Mom and I attended the Rotary Club of Lilongwe lunch meeting – it was my first Rotary experience here and it was very nice. Afterwards, we went to my workplace to meet some of my colleagues, though I hope we will visit again as there were many people away.
On Wednesday we were scheduled to drop off a donation of medical supplies that my Mom arranged at Madisi hospital, about an hour north of Lilongwe. We met the Hospital Administrator, the Matron and the doctor who will be working with the drugs. The drugs were very gratefully received and I think my Mom was inspired to make a presentation to her Rotary Club upon her return to see if more assistance can be given.
Thursday was the monitoring trip I had planned to take my Mom and Meghan along for so that they could see a Malawian village. Jules and Regan joined us for the trip, since neither of them has had an opportunity to see a village yet. The day started in the regional CADECOM office, where my colleagues briefed us on the work being done under the I-Life DAP program – a program being delivered throughout Malawi by a consortium of NGOs. In Mchingi, it is delivered by CADECOM. The strength CADECOM has at accomplishing work on the ground was apparent – CADECOM’s I-Life beneficiaries are the only ones (of the seven I-Life NGOs) to succeed in motivating their beneficiaries achieve self-sustainability in an irrigation scheme, as well as in a warehouse building project.

Since we were going into a village, we dressed in chitenges, traditional wear for females:

The event we were there to witness was a bicycle handover – the community members who volunteer to be leaders of actions in their communities receive bicycles in order to complete their work (they also act as an incentive). Nine bicycles were distributed and the event was attended by the local parish priest as well as the Traditional Authority (chief). At the village level, each village is represented by a village head, and a group of village heads will be organized under a GVH (group village head). A group of GVH’s will then be organized under the TA (Traditional Authority) – so you can imagine his importance. It was thrilling after the event for my Mom to formally be introduced to the chief and to sit for a short chat.
After the handover, my colleagues took us around to show us some of the work completed under the program. We met with a Village Savings and Loans committee that had saved up 104,000 kwacha, a marketing group who had completed building a warehouse and a group involved in an irrigation scheme. It happened to be the day a new chief was being inducted, and the gulewankulu (masked dancers) were out dancing as part of the celebration. It is a rare even to happen upon gulewankulu and from our cultural training we learned that outsiders are not always welcomed into the ceremony. I don’t know if it was because we were with CADECOM staff who are known to the community or if these dancers were just more open to outsiders, but we stopped the car and got out and were encouraged to take photos and mingle with the dancers – it was an incredible experience. Once we got back into our car, dancers jumped onto the back for a ride…again, very unusual and exciting. It was a very long and tiring day, but worth every minute….what an experience for us, and for Mom and Meghan as well.
Last night we invited all the WUSC volunteers to dinner at our favorite restaurant, Blue Ginger. The food, as always, was delicious and the company was great – Mom got to meet almost everyone we know here in Lilongwe in one night.
Now it is Saturday morning and we are finalizing our packing to leave on our big trip today…not sure how often I will have internet access, but I will try to keep you up to date!

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...):

On the road again

This week I will be away all week (again - seems like I am out of the office almost 2 weeks of every four!) in Mangochi - I will be attending the mid-term review meeting for our Integrated Food Security Program. Through the program we work with communities to promote crop diversification and new agricultural practices. It is a three year program and we are half way through implementation.
Last week was fun and relatively calm. We had dinner guests on Wednesday and had just greeted everyone when the power went out....we made due though (getting used to coping with power outages here as they are fairly frequent) and used the BBQ to make our stirfry by putting the veggies in tinfoil.
On Friday night we went to a play called Roj of the Antarctic – it was a one woman show about racism, homosexuality and climate change – kind of a bizarre combination but it was an incredible show – the woman was quite amazing. Basically she connects the themes by saying that the same attitudes that permit discrimination based on sexual orientation and race permit the destruction of the environment. Afterwards we went for dinner at Mama Mia’s with some friends – great night.
Saturday, Jules and I went hiking with our friend Jessica – she took us to Nkhoma mountain – we had never been there before – great find! It only takes about an hour and a half to get to the top, so it is sort of a perfect sized afternoon hike – strenuous, but not ridiculous.
On Sunday, I had another day of sewing all day and have now completed my first two African quilts!
One for Regan:

And one for Jules and I:
Ours is made from fabrics that have all been made in Malawi – I tried only to buy Malawian prints for Regan’s as well. Unfortunately when I bought the blue fabric for Regan’s quilt, I was told it was made in Malawi, but now that I am more familiar with the companies that make fabric in Malawi (there are only two), I know that it was not in fact a Malawian print. But it is still pretty!

I also got a picture of a guy painting lines on the street by hand:
Hope you will see more photos more often on my blog now that I am more in the habit of keeping current with the photos...and I know how to shrink them also!

Have a great week!

Updates! July in Malawi

I can't believe it has been two weeks since I last posted! Many apologies for the lapse. Work has really been picking up - after a month of freaking out about the impossibility of completing my mandate, I finally feel like I have a plan that will enable me to be successful (I hope!). But it is a lot of work, and I am still waiting for my counterpart to be hired (hopefully within the month now), so I have been pretty busy.
We had donors from Australia arrive in Lilongwe on June 28. We had a meeting on the 29th (Sunday???) to explain our progress to date on our Floods Response Program with the 31 year old female representative from Caritas Australia, Sandya. The meeting concluded with a lunch of local food made by the sisters that live on-site here at the Catholic Secretariat. Afterwards, my colleagues hadn't planned anything for our donor to do, so I offered to take Sandya to the market. She was really sweet and fun, and we ended up inviting her to join us for dinner at Blue Ginger (mmm....daal makhani) and then the Euro-cup final game at Chameleons.
We met Monday morning at 9 to depart on the monitoring trip we had planned to Mangochi, Blantyre and Chikwawa. Unfortunately, Carsterns (my boss), was not able to depart from the office til 10, then we were further held up by a fuel shortage (frequent event - travelling on time takes a lot of ahead planning!). We ended up leaving Lilongwe after 11, and stopping in Dedza for lunch at around 1. We ate at a place called Dedza Pottery Lodge - I had never been there before - the pottery was amazing. I am definately planning on making some purchases when we return there on the trip I am planning for when my Mom and Megan (Regan's friend, not my sister) come to visit!!!
All this meant that we didn't arrive in Mangochi until 5:20pm rather than 2pm as originally intended, so our meeting didn't start until 6pm!!! Talk about a long day....seems there is no taboo in Malawi about expecting people to stay late with no notice. While in Mangochi, I was also able to visit the little boy who was involved in the accident and he is recovering well, though still in hospital.
The next day was the second food distribution in Mangochi (all together there are three distributions of a one month supply of food for each household). It was much more subdued than the launch I attended in Mzuzu, but it went smoothly and people were glad to get their distributions. We also toured the site of an irrigation project which was very interesting, and we were welcomed with friendly, singing villagers.
On Wednesday, we drove to Blantyre and then down to Chikwawa for a meeting. Since we arrived in Blantyre three hours before the meeting (and Chikwawa is only an hour away), we decided to use our time to find accommodation. After a couple of sketchy lodges, we passed a sign that said ‘Hostellerie de France’ and decided to check it out. Our first impression was of the toilet seats that were on the front porch. Once we entered the place, we were welcomed with a booming ‘Bonjour Mes Amies!’. The character that owns the place definitely belongs in my memory as one of the strangest people I have met in Malawi….with his moustache waxed into curls and long graying hair and French accent. We booked rooms pretty much on the basis of the owner – and also because the dining room and backyard were amazing looking.
We drove down to an uneventful meeting in Chikwawa and returned to lounge over a couple of MGTs (Malawi Gin and Tonics) while our French dinner was prepared.
On Thursday, the food distribution took place in Chikwawa. Chikwawa was the site of my first field visit and it was just as memorable on my second visit to the south. The villagers (well the female ones) danced and sang and acted for us – many of the songs were portraying the hunger people experienced and the relief brought by the program and the need to work in the fields to ensure that food will be available after these distributions are finished. Sandya also interviewed some recipients to find out their response to the program. We were disappointed to learn that the food rations were often only lasting for 3 weeks as opposed to a month (the supply is based on government guidelines about the minimum requirements of an average household).
Heading back up to Blantyre, we picked up another WUSC volunteer, Sarah to join us for dinner and I also stayed with Sarah that night – it was a blast.
On Friday morning, I was informed of a sudden change in plans – we had planned to take the donors to the lake for a relaxing end to their busy visit, but it seems that one of the vehicles had to return to Lilongwe, so I went back on Friday morning. I didn’t mind, as we had plans to go to the lake anyways, and I had missed Regan and Jules!
The change in plans enabled us to quickly pack up and get to the lake Friday instead of Saturday in time to celebrate the fourth of July with some of our American friends. Friday night was a great party, and Saturday was filled with lots of beach volleyball followed by swimming and reading by the lake – awesome. On Saturday night we braaied up some veggie sausages and then hung out with some friends. Sunday, we decided to leave in order to still have a day at home (As Sunday was Malawian independence day, Monday was a holiday).
I spent most of Monday sewing (my idea of a pretty awesome day!) after a walk in the Nature Sanctuary. In the afternoon we were invited to a last minute braai at our friend Jessica’s (she is an American, here doing PhD research). Although there was some meat (and veggie alternatives) involved, the focus was definitely on dessert as Jess’s baking is excellent! Nice way to end off an afternoon.
We also bought some videos on Sunday – if I had known these things existed, I wouldn’t have brought so many with me! You can buy DVDs with 9 – 80 movies on them (note – I have never purchased one with more than 18, though my roommate Heather has one with 63). The videos can be a bit of a crap-shoot as they don’t all work, but I think we got our money’s worth. I bought a horror collection with all three Final Destinations, all three Mummy’s and another one I was excited about at the time but can’t now remember….we also got the Tom Cruise collection – mostly for the Mission Impossibles – though it also has Top Gun…Regan got a romantic classic one with a somewhat odd collection including the Break Up and In Her Shoes…and the last one was a crime and action collection with all three Ocean’s and the Italian Job.
OK – I may be revealing a bit much in here about my love of bad movies…