Bees

                Today our main item of business was the solar dryer again but this morning I went with Whitney to talk to the families instead of working on the solar dryer. Betha translated for Whitney and Austin (another intern from Bunda) translated for me. When we started we planned on just doing five each and leaving some to do tomorrow but we ended up finishing the interviews with all the families we had nutrition packets for. Now all we have left are the ones we didn’t get packets made for, we will do those next week with Dr. Johnston.

                Our sweet potatoes dried great. They all dried by the end of the day and I don’t think the dogs got to any more of them which was nice. We are still nailing down which treatments we are doing for our runs and exactly how many slices we’ll need for them. We have a few things we want to do with them when they are done.

                While Whitney and I were taking measurements after lunch, two girls came in to see what we were doing and they wanted to get into everything we were doing. It was a little stressful because we didn’t want them to mess up what we were doing too much but they were so cute and were ready to play with us. We just couldn’t play with them.

                Another thing about taking measurements, when the potatoes are dry, we put them in some bags to take back to BYU to do some testing. We left the bags in the conference room and found out later that we needed them because a lot of the samples were dry and ready to bag up, so I went to the conference room to get them but there was a swarm of bees in the building and you couldn’t get in or out of the conference room. I almost walked right into them but I heard them before it was too late. So I had to have Emily pass the bags and marker through the window. It was funny, and scary. Fortunately, nobody got hurt.

                There was a lot of down time again today so I took a shower and the water only ran out on me at the very end so I just had to rinse my hair with water from a bucket that we save water in for just such occasions. I also washed some clothes but they weren’t ready to dry until after dinner so they dried in my room overnight and I’ll put them outside in the morning. I also had some time for a nap which was so nice.

                It’s all getting to be pretty routine here. Nothing exciting, no new pictures, just doing what we came here to do.

Research Bugs

                We finally started our research today. We didn’t really know what exactly we were doing but we just needed to start so we knew what we didn’t know and how to fix it but we also had to start talking to some families and getting information from them for Dr. Johnston. So we split up. Emily and Whitney went to talk to the families with a couple of translators while John and I started getting the sweet potatoes ready to dry. There was a bit of scrambling around to try to get everything ready in the morning but somehow everything got done well enough.

                For our research we are looking at different ways to treat sweet potato slices before drying them to help them not brown, dry faster, rehydrate better and stuff like that. We are also comparing Dr. Steele’s solar dryer to traditional air drying on a drying mat. The treatments we are looking at this week are soaking in water, soaking in salt brine, soaking in brine with salt and brown sugar, another one with white sugar instead of brown sugar and blanching. Emily and Whitney finished before we did so they helped us finish pretreatments and clean out the solar dryer so we could put stuff in it. The solar dryer is a cool concept but the one we have here is not all that impressive so we are going to see if we can just make it a little bit better. Fixing racks and stuff like that. Basically we’re just seeing if the solar dryer is worth the investment because if it’s not as good as air drying, nobody is going to want to use it.

                It took half the day to get all of the samples drying and we were all a little tired after that. Then we finally could check our emails and such from the weekend. It was a pretty lazy afternoon which was ok because we were all a little tired.

                After dinner, we had to take the water activity of our potatoes again to see how they were drying and it took an hour and a half. Emily, Whitney and I were I a spare room in the boy’s hostel and it was dark so the bugs came in and were annoying. I do ok with most bugs now but there this one kind of bug that’s big, fat, ugly and stupid that I can’t stand! It flies around and gets really close to you and runs into stuff and you can hear it run into the wall it sounds like a marble hitting the wall, the worst part is that this bug will fly around in circles up near the light and then it’ll just stop flying and like dive bomb you. Occasionally they get in and just fly around and I was doing ok with it. As long as he was leaving me alone I could ignore him but then he landed on me and I just couldn’t take it and I freaked out and it all just went from caution to pandemonium. After I screamed and jumped around to get him off, Emily and I left the room and Whitney grabbed the nearest weapon, a plastic spoon, to take care of him. Whitney just has this way with bugs, they now that she’s just trying to take them back outside. Anyway she eventually knocked him down and was able to get him outside and we all calmed back down and finished up what we were doing, packed up and went to our hostel. Yeah, weird day and now I’m the girl that flipped out about the bug. At least we don’t have them in the US or I would die!

Everybody has those days

                Yesterday morning we started the day with our boat safari. I also got lots of good pictures for that. I’m obviously not going to include them all because that would take forever but here are some of the hippos, alligators and such we saw. Henry told us that the two most dangerous animals in Africa are the mosquito and the hippo but in Malawi it’s the mosquito and the alligator. The hippos can be violent when you annoy them too much but mostly they’re just shy. The safari was really nice and warm and the water was nice and gentle and I’m pretty sure a whole bunch of us were ready to fall back asleep by the end.

A monitor lizard! Just like in Duck Dynasty!

Yellow Fever tree. It actually cures malaria (or yellow fever, I don't remember which) instead of causing it

These birds have a name and they were also everywhere

A raft of hippos. That's what they're called because they sleep on each others backs and made a raft

more birds

Alligator! We saw lots of these too. 

 After the safari was checked out and said goodbye to the good life to move on to our next adventure. We seriously spent the rest of the day driving to Lilongwe to stay there for the night. Our driver had to go back to SAFI Sunday so we didn’t have the van available to take us to church so Moses took half of us and the other half stayed at Mabuya. Sunday was a really lazy day. We didn’t do much during the day but when it cooled down, Nicolle and Whitney ventured out and met Edward. He works at Mabuya and is a really cool guy. I haven’t really met him but they really like him so he must be a cool dude. They also ran back into Gift who we met at the market last week. He helped us look for Adam. Gift was drunk and possibly on some other drugs so he was actually kind of annoying but funny. He was hitting on everybody. Obviously he didn’t get anywhere because he was hitting on the wrong group of girls but whatever.

That night we learned that game I talked about earlier, I keep hearing different names for it. This time is was called Bao or something along those lines. It was at Mvuu and Akim, our driver, was teaching Nicolle how to play and she mastered it with Gift and his friends and then taught the rest of us. Adam has been spending a lot of time trying to figure out this game and he thought he understood it so he and Camille were playing but it was so not the right rules. Good thing Nicolle set us straight. After we finally got away from Gift and convinced him not to try to get us to stay with him another day, we watched Alice in Wonderland and went to sleep.

This morning Emily had a meeting with Moses and then Nicolle and Camille talked to him, so that kept us entertained for most of the morning. After that we all went to do whatever while we waited for Akim to pick us up which ended up being around 4. Adam, Whitney and Nicolle went into town to get lunch and some other things they needed. Emily worked on the survey she wants to use for her project, John played video games and emailed home (I didn’t because you had to buy it, not worth it), I thought Camille went into town but she actually sat by the pool and tanned. I played Bao by myself and read the Great Gatsby. It was a boring afternoon. On the plus side, Whitney and I have a phone now! We get to share because we’re almost always together and it’s mostly just for when we go to town and split up and such so it’s no big deal.

We were expecting Akim and noon but there was something about dropping other people off in Lilongwe and two guys from BYU coming to SAFI that pushed back out pick up time to 2 which is why our afternoon was so eventful. On our way back we were excited to meet these new people that we weren’t expecting. When we got back it was time for dinner and we were told to save some for them so we thought we might meet them at dinner. One guy did pop his head in for a second but he didn’t look like a student. Then we finished dinner and left without seeing him again. I was walking back with Whitney and was almost to the hostel when I realized that I left all my stuff at dinner so I went back to get it. When I got there, Emily and Nicolle were talking to the two new guys. They are from a non-profit to just help SAFI improve for a couple days.  I think they’re from Feed the World or something like that. Anyway, they showed up on Sunday, they are not BYU students, at least no anymore and they were really awesome. They were telling us all kinds of stuff that we didn’t know. They work with tons of programs to make them work and they weren’t too impressed with SAFI but still thought they were doing some awesome stuff. Basically they roughly did what Nicolle and Camille came here to do in a couple of days. They had lots of information and gave us lots of help for our projects. Nicolle got a copy of their survey that they use in lots of places and we’re hoping to get a copy of their nutrition lesson plans. They were just really interesting to talk to. They are both LDS so we also talked a little bit about how we cannot bring the gospel to these people until they can feed themselves and think about something other what they are going to eat next. So in a sense we are doing pre-missionary work. They were just really smart and helped me understand this whole process a lot better. It’s very intuitive but hard so lots of people don’t really get into it.

Anyway that was awesome and then I came back to the hostel and got into my room to find something not awesome. When they were mopping the hall this weekend, or something flooding, there was tons of water on the floor and it got into my room. My room didn’t flood, it’s just in one corner but it was in the one corner that I had my clothes, blankets, sheets, suitcase and everything that would absorb water. So all my clothes are half wet. I didn’t have and furniture in my room to hang it one so we pulled a couple of chairs from other room and just hung everything everywhere we could find. Tomorrow we’ll put as much as possible on the clothes lines. It just wasn’t an awesome experience. After everything dries and a pack it all up in my suitcase, again. I’ll have to make sure I keep it away from the door so it won’t get wet if that happens again. Not my best day and I’ll admit I kind of just discovered it and pulled everything out of my suitcase and Emily hung it all up while Bernadette and Chimango were cleaning up the water. It was just one of those situations I was too tired to care about.

On the plus side, since everything was pulled out of my suitcase, while I was looking for my flashlight, I found (drumroll) my memory card! I totally don’t remember packing it and I swear it wasn’t in there before but it is now! Too bad there’s already another one on the way. Oh well. An extra memory card never hurt anyone.

I hope everyone is doing well and is happy and healthy. It’s almost June which means there will only be two months left. Time is flying by!

Elephants!

                I finally got to see some animals! We got up early to leave for Mvuu and spent six hours driving. On the way a bee got stuck in our bus for two and half hours! Most of the time he was stuck in the back and didn’t bug me but sometimes he would try to make a break for it which stressed me out a little because he would buzz around me. Eventually, Whitney saved the saved the day and got him to go outside. I don’t think he’s going to find his family though. Sad day.

                We finally got to Mvuu around two and we were all famished. Nicolle even broke out the crackers she’s been saving from South Africa. We did get lunch here and we’ve been taken care of. It’s a really nice place. Probably the nicest place we will stay in while we are in Africa. We have nice big, comfortable beds with pillows that don’t deflate when you lay on them, multiple rooms in our chalet, warm water and everything. We even got a card to welcome us with most of our names on it. We actually got two notes. The first one was for Emily, Dekam and Renee. Whitney got left out and Emily got both of her names. The second one had everybody’s names. After checking out our rooms and taking pictures, we looked at the lake just outside our door to see what we could see. We saw some hippos way off in the distance and some monkeys hanging around. Then we went on our driving safari. It was the most fun I’ve had since we’ve been here! Our driver’s name was Henry and he’ll be taking us on our boat safari tomorrow morning.  He asked us if there was anything in particular we wanted to see so we told him elephant and zebras. He delivered. We got the best pictures of elephants ever! We also saw some hippos up close, warthogs, antelope type animals, mongeese, a python, Jesus birds, and a few cool trees. We did not see any zebras though, or the lone lion in the park. We will go to more parks and hopefully see zebras and giraffes. At one point after the sunset, Henry stopped the jeep and told us we were walking back to camp and that it would be an adventure. We all got a little excited and then he told us it was a joke. It’s a good thing we didn’t walk because it got dark and the hippos were out.

On the boat ride to Mvuu. We had to cross the lake to get there

Whitney is excited

Akim attempting to teach Adam Bao

Pumbas!

This room is nicer than lots I've stayed in in the US. I think the one with the robes is the only one better

Our View

Our bathroom

Ready for the Safari!

Don't remember the name of these but there were lots

Baoba Tree. Elephant can knock these over!

Elephants!!!!!

Sunset (Obviously)

Anaconda but it's just a baby  

                 That’s pretty much all we did today. Sorry this post is short but it does have lots of pictures!

Net Ball

                Today we woke up early so we could go for a run. Nicolle and I decided to just walk because people that run are crazy so the Whitney and Camille who were running just ran ahead of us. While we were walking we talked and watched the sun come up. We ran into a few women who were getting water and they told us about the funny people running. Apparently men will run and train but not women.

                When we got back we had breakfast and usual. After breakfast we went over our lesson plan today but it was postponed until tomorrow at 9 in the morning. Since our afternoon had just opened up, we decided that we would start our laundry. It’s a long process. We had to fill up some buckets with water and then I had to wait for my little detergent packet to dissolve and then I had to wash as many clothes as I could fit in that bucket by hand. Then we left our clothes in the bucket to soak a little. After lunch we went back and rung out our clothes and emptied the buckets only to fill them up with new water and ring them out again. It’s a good thing Donna didn’t come because her hands would be killer her. After we rung out our clothes a second time we hung them up to dry.

                While our clothes were soaking we worked on the nutrition packets that the international nutrition class made to give to the families. We chose one packet the had the best section about nutrients and why they were important so we could translate it once and give that part to all of the families. Dr. Johnston also wanted us to collect some information from the families so started the survey sheets for them and tried to match up the anthropometric data we collected yesterday to the right families but we didn’t get very far. We couldn’t figure out which children belonged to which family because sometimes we didn’t know the name of the children or the names were spelled wrong or were wrong but we did get a few matched up.

                The rest of the day has been pretty open about what we do. I spent lots of time reading. I got a little nap in in the conference room which felt good. I’ve been tired today so I’ve been resting my head on everything when I’m not doing anything and people have asked if I was feeling ok. I’m ok, just tired from stupid Jillian, yoga and walking. I even called home on Dr. Steele’s phone but nobody answered, sad. But I did get an email that said to call back so it wasn’t because I’m just unloved. When the phone did get back around to me, I did finally get a hold of my crazy mother. She just wasn’t expecting to get a call from me. Maybe next time I’ll try to catch her at 6 in the morning because she likes to do that to me. So while we were talking we discovered something funny. You remember that Malawian I texted? Guess what? That was my mother! I thought she knew that I would be texting from a different number and I have texted her from that number before but it didn’t register to her. Crazy Mom, and here I thought I wouldn’t be able to call or text her all summer. I SMH. It was good to talk to her anyway. I love her so much.

                After I got off the phone I went and watched the much anticipated (as is all day) net ball match. It’s basically basketball without a backboard and you can’t walk with the ball like in ultimate Frisbee. It was fun to watch but it was more fun to play with the kids. Just like usual, it was mostly the boys we played with but Ernest who is an intern here from Bunda College has a daughter who is visiting she is very cute and I got a picture of her just for my mom so she can see a cute girl instead of just the boys. The problem with taking your camera out with the kids around is they all want to be in the picture and do strange poses and then they want to take pictures. They will take no for an answer though unlike the people at the market. Some older kids, such as Yohon, decided we were cool enough to hang out with so we were a little better at communicating. We even got them to sing us a song! They sang a song about white fish but I didn’t really understand what they were saying so I can’t replicate it yet. They got really into it though.

Net Ball

Got a picture of a little girl!

Dancing with the boys

This is what happens when you pull out your camer

                Here are some funny stories that happened today. While we were in the conference room working on our various tasks, a bat flew in! At first I thought it was a bird and then when I saw it was a bat I freaked out a little inside. It just flew around a couple of times and flew back out. We also found a frog in my room today while Whitney was watching me organize all my stuff because I’m so great at keeping everything organized in my suitcase. We watched him climb all the way up the wall that was the first of I think five frogs I saw today, they are everywhere. There was even one in my shower! Apparently I’m very biased towards reptiles. At Mabuya, there was a lizard on the wall above my bed and it freaked me out but when they’re outside I think they’re cool. However, the frog in my room was just cool and I wasn’t afraid it would attack me. I’m just weird that way.

Froggy

Anthropometric Measurements

                This morning we were all planning on going for a little run/jog to kick off our little workout regimen but only two people had alarms and woke up apparently. So Emily and Camille went running at the rest of us woke up wondering why nobody woke us up to go running and who actually ended up going. We were promised that we would get a wakeup call tomorrow. Whitney was really excited for the run because she’s a pretty active person and hasn’t been exerting herself very much lately so she planned a run before dinner.

Today we had a meeting to talk about Emily’s project and to nail down specifics with Dr. Steele so we could get started. I got assigned to be the data logger person, which is actually pretty cool. I got to download the software and try them out. What data loggers are is they just keep track of things like temperature and humidity over time. They are handy to keep track of the conditions in the solar dryer while we have samples in there. They are nice too because we can put them in the solar dryer and when we are finished we just plug them into my computer and they spit out the data. I played with one a little bit and it works so that’s a plus.

                Next, we took anthropometric measurements at the school/daycare here. We started with the younger group of kids and they were doing alright until one of them started crying because she was afraid of us. Then everybody else got a little nervous and they were starting to get bored too so it got a little rowdy and loud. Right after we finished with the little kids they were let outside and the big kids were brought in and they went smoothly except for they were also loud and we moved them through faster which made it a little difficult for the people writing down the measurements. The process of taking their measurements was really simple. First we would measure their height in inches on an L shaped board with a measuring tape on it. We would put another L shaped board on their heads to make sure we measure accurately. Then they would move onto the scale which was just a bathroom scale (one of those with the dial that moves when you stand on it) and measure their weight in kilos. We are going to put that data together later to find out how well the kids are doing as far as how big they are for their age compared to other children.

                The children here are so beautiful. After we took their measurements they sang some songs for us. I really enjoyed it because we’ve been trying to get them to teach us songs or sing for us. They were so enthusiastic when they sang. Their instructor just had to say the first couple of words to the song and they would take off. They weren’t as nervous around us when they sang. They just belted out whatever it was they were singing. I just love children. I’m so excited to meet my new niece when I get home. Her pictures are so adorable.

                Later we hung out in the conference room a little more to do research and shoot emails or just pass the time. While we were doing that we all became Facebook friends, even Dr. Steele. We also started following each other’s blogs. Then we started talking about lesson plans because we still don’t have any direction which is hard because the families here have been taught all of their lessons and are leaving after harvest. We still need to prepare the nutritional information packets for them to take with them when they leave so we decided to do a two part lesson on those. The first part is just to go over the nutrients in the packets and explain to them that the packets have some information on them, why there are important and what foods they come from. Then we are just going to go over than information pretty briefly because we only have an hour. Teaching is interesting, it’s just hard when there isn’t really and direction and you come into it at the end of the class. I think teaching the new families in a few weeks will be exciting and fun.

                Whitney decided she didn’t want to run before dinner because Nicolle wasn’t feeling too hot and she didn’t want people to watch her run. Surprise, Surprise, nobody here works out to stay in shape. They just work so they think it’s a little weird for us to just run. To be honest, I side a little more with the Malawians that I do with the Americans on that issue.

At dinner we had Nsima which looks like cream of wheat but it’s made with corn flour. I wonder if we will be seeing it more often because the family farmers are starting to really get into the processing of corn into corn flour. We’ll have to see if we can check it out tomorrow. Anyway on our way into dinner, our lovely cooks told us how to make it so we can have an nsima party when I get back. They also decided that they were tired of us using utensils to eat it so they also showed us how to eat it with our hands. I actually thought it made eating it a little easier so I had my whole piece with my hands even though it made my hands messy. Don’t worry I used hand sanitizer on them first. Before dinner we had a little devotional and hymn to “relieve any tension between us” and per Dr. Steel and Adam’s request. Apparently there is tension between us. I didn’t know that. After dinner Nicolle and Camille finally convinced Whitney, Emily and me to try out one of their favorite games where one of them makes up a song and other follows along to try to make it sound like it’s a real song. I might bring that home too! I didn’t get too into it just because I’m shyer than most people but I did participate in a group song.

After all of that we did find an empty room to do Jillian Michaels and yoga in. Jillian Michaels was a little too much for me to be honest. It was only 20 minutes but she thinks of the hardest things to possibly do for 20 minutes. I roll my eyes. Doing yoga right after Jillian Michaels wasn’t the best idea either. Your body just needs a break to calm down a little. Anyway I liked to yoga a lot more. Apparently at some point while we were doing yoga, somebody was watching us which was weird. It didn’t really make me want to work out more. I felt like I was doing pretty good with all the walking, talking, singing and whatever we were doing. Apparently if you really want to get in shape you should exercise for an hour every day. I guess that is a bit of an exaggeration because we’re not here every day. We plan to have trips almost every weekend so we’ll take it a little easier on those but it’s still a lot. It’s just more intense than I’m used to but maybe it’ll grow on me. Tomorrow there is a group run/jog/walk and I’m opting for the walking part. Nicolle is a very persuasive person. (I feel like I’ve been talking a lot about Nicolle but she’s reading these now so I have to mention her J) Hopefully I’ll also be able to get in a shower and if I could get my laundry started that would be the best day ever! We’ll see how tomorrow goes.

I want to tell my brother and sister-in-law congratulations on Rylan’s arrival. So far she is my favorite niece. I wish I could visit with everybody and spoil her but maybe when I come back the new will be worn off and I can have her all to myself! I was showing pictures to everybody here and we had lots of fun. It made my day to have the surprise when I finally was able to check my email and Facebook. I’ve been trying to think of something I could possibly get her while I’m here but there isn’t a whole lot for babies. I guess you’ll just have to share with her.

I love you all. Don’t be afraid to email me. I tried to wifi text my Mom today and it doesn’t work while I’m out of the country, go figure. I got a text back from some confused Malawian. If I have time I’ll see if there’s one that works internationally or maybe I’ll call with Dr. Steele’s wifi phone before he leaves. Be on the lookout.

Mice!

                We went to church yesterday at the Lilongwe branch. It was fun and interesting. In sacrament meeting there were seriously a dozen confirmations. I didn’t actually count but it took up most of the meeting and we didn’t even have time for speakers after that. There was only time for a testimony from an Elder that just got back from his mission. We don’t know where he went but he spoke English really well but had a hard time speaking Chichewa which was unusual. There were also tons of missionaries there, like three companionships. I’m guessing we hit them on an unusual week.

                We also went to Sunday school and Relief Society of course. They were both good but I think we were all tired and had a hard time staying awake. The teachers would go back and forth between Chichewa and English a lot so it was harder to stay awake during the parts in Chichewa.

                After church we had meeting with Ken and Thompson who are with BFI to nail down what they wanted us to do for them while we are here. It turned out to be a really long meeting and I feel like the Food Science students really had much to do with it so that was also fun. Towards the end of our meeting there was precipitation! I felt it a few time and I got really excited but it didn’t really get anything wet. There was debate over whether it was actually raining or not and the definition of raining.

                After our meeting we went back to Mabuya Camp and just hung out.

                This morning we slept in because the only thing on our agenda was to come back to SAFI. BFI took the van to get the rest of the seats put in in the morning so we still had a lot of free time. We decided that we should go back to town and see it some more before we met up with Dr. Steele at the Sunbird hotel where he was hanging out to get picked up.

                We ended up walking through the market which was a little stressful. Camille and Nichole met a couple of cool people there that were friendly but they got ripped off a little bit for some paintings. They both got two paintings and Whitney also got two paintings but got them for about a third of the price that they did because that’s all the money she brought. I didn’t get anything because I thought it would be better to observe the first time through and get an idea of how it worked and get used to it a little. It was stressful because people would swarm around you and they wouldn’t leave you alone and some of them would even invade your bubble. There were some people there that were actually very respectful and understood that I didn’t want to buy anything that day but most of them were really aggressive and pushy. After we met up with Dr. Steele he gave us some tips and I think I have a pretty good idea of what to do when I want to get something. I do have an advantage because I will be here all summer so I’m not in a hurry to buy anything. I just haven’t really thought about what I would get. There were paintings, carvings, fabric, bracelets, earrings, purses and some other fun stuff that I didn’t really get to see too much of but if anybody wants anything in particular you should let me know because I think I can get lots for pretty cheap. Whitney got two paintings for 7500 kwacha which is about $10 apiece.

                While we were in the market Adam wandered off by himself and he didn’t have his phone because he gave it to Dr. Steele to use while he is here so we had no way to find him. We spent some time looking for him and hoping he would just turn up. Gift and Chico (the people Camille and Nichole met) called up their friends and told them to look for a tall American named Adam which we really appreciated. Eventually we decided to just go meet up at the Sunbird because we thought it was time to get picked up to pick  up our luggage we left in a storage room at Mabuya and go back to SAFI. As it turns out, Adam was there. It was kind of annoying because we spent so long looking for him and were worried but he really didn’t even consider us when he was making his decisions. Emily was especially stressed out because she’s the facilitator and is kind of responsible for us.

                We ended up spending about two and a half hours at Sunbird waiting for our ride because the van wasn’t ready until 3ish. We made bets on when we would actually get picked up and the latest guess was 3. I think we were actually picked up after 3:30.

                On the way home we passed some vendors selling mice and Dr. Steele had our drive (Mike) stop to check them out. They were on a bamboo stick and I should’ve got a picture but everybody else did so I should be to find one for you to see if it’s not on Whitney’s blog. They were boiled and still had the fur on them and were really gross looking but we bought them anyway because they were 300 kwacha which is less than a $1. The only problem was that there is no way any of us were eating them and we still had at least a 2 hour drive until we got home. When we got home we gave them to Chimango and told here we got them for her because she’s from here and we thought she ate mice. She told us that she didn’t. I used to think I could try anything once but I think I’m going to modify that to I’ll try anything that they locals would recommend once. Chimango told us that she would find somebody that would eat them so hopefully she does and whoever that is enjoys it.

                It’s nice to be back and SAFI but I do miss us all sleeping in a room together a little bit. I just like listening to everybody else talk and having fun. Especially with Dr. Steele here, our imaginations run a little wild. Right now there is an inside joke about John and Camille getting married, Emily and Adam hooking up and whoever gets married first can live in Dr. Steele’s basement as long as he approves of the match. We have also planned our reunion at Dr. Steele’s house for September 25^th and apparently we are all supposed to bring dates. It’ll be really fun and it better actually happen. I officially have one week under my belt and have about twelve more to go. I’m having a good time and I’m still safe and healthy. I did get sunburned but that is slowly turning into a tan and mosquitoes haven’t been a huge issue. I haven’t forgotten to take my Malaria medicine so everything is still going well. Tomorrow morning everybody else wants to start a pretty intense workout routine. I’m going to try to just take it easy until I really feel like I can get into it. It is going to make a lot more dirty laundry though which means we will have to have washing parties more often. I guess that’s just life.

                I love you all. I still get emails so let me know what you’re all up to. Don’t forget about me!

Mabuya Camp

                We spent the day in Lilongwe today. In the morning we checked out of the Korea Garden Lodge and checked into Mabuya Camp. This place is much cheaper and not as nice but I think we all like it more because it has a younger feel to it. It’s a lot more laid back than Korea Garden. There is an outdoor swimming pool and a weight room! I haven’t got a picture of it yet but I know Whitney did. I’ve been a little apprehensive about taking pictures since I lost all of mine from Kasungu. There were also these really cool chairs by the pool. It’s hard to describe them so I’ll get a picture when I get a picture of the weight room. It’s also kind of fun because the girls were staying in a dorm which has two bunk beds and really squishes us in there. Emily was girl number five which meant she didn’t have a bed. So she would keep all of her things in our room and chat with us until like 10:30 when we were all exhausted and she would go sleep in the general dorm with a bunch of people we didn’t know.

We checked in in the morning so we had to wait a while before our rooms were ready. While we waited we walked around, talked about what would be fun to do this summer and played a little bit of mancala because we found a board that kind of looked like a mancala board and it had rocks in it. I think it might actually be ntchiuwa which is a local game that we actually saw some people playing later that day on the way to the market. It can be a pretty intense game. The people we were watching were very good and had a huge set up on the ground. They even had teams of two to about five people playing. I didn’t really understand how to play it but you move like you do in mancala and the goal is the eliminate all of the other teams rocks. We were told it was kind of like chess.

When we went to the market it was overwhelming. There are so many people and we stood out really bad so lots of people were yelling at us trying to get us to buy stuff. We are casually looking for some fabric to make dresses out of because Chimango told us it was better to buy fabric and take it to a tailor so it would actually fit us. We are also casually looking for cell phones so we can split up ever y once in a while without worrying about where to meet back up and getting lost. It’s just hard to go through the market in large groups.

The market is a very interesting place; a lot of the shops sell clothes, food etc. and cell phones. We didn’t get anything yet. Dr. Steele said it wasn’t a good idea to try to buy something your first time to the market and just to look around and get a feel for it. He also gave us some tips on bargaining. He said that you shouldn’t pay more than 20USD for pretty much everything. Most stuff you can probably get for 10.

After the market Dr. Steele took us to dinner at an Indian place. It was really good but all the food was red so it was hard to tell anything apart because we were eating family style. You just picked up a bowl and tried it out. It was good though. We haven’t been getting to many crazy flavors lately. The food at SAFI is good but it’s all usually the same flavor.

After dinner we came back to camp and hung out a little bit before taking shower (which were hot!) and crawling into our bunk beds to sleep.

Whitney found a soccer ball in the pool

ntchiuwa

Lilongwe Part 1

              Today we went to Lilongwe for the weekend. We took the truck again because the BFI van still wasn’t quite ready and the whole situation of who takes us where between SAFI and BFI is a little confusing, at least to me. There were a lot of people coming this time. We fit nine people in the back of the truck along with lots of corn and a little bit of luggage. We ended up putting almost our entire luggage in the cab because there was more room in there for it. It was a long drive to Lilongwe and we had to stop a couple times for gas and to drop people off so we would get a little more comfortable then. I ended up getting sunburned but it’s not super bad, I can deal with it.

                We’re staying in the Korea Garden Lodge tonight and it’s alright it’s a little like SAFI except there’s two beds in a room and the mosquito net has some holes in it. After checking in we went on a walk to explore Lilongwe a little. On the way there we ran into Moses who was picking up the van and then we ran into him again at Spar which is a grocery store. Later we ran into Ken at the ATMs and his driver, who is also Moses, gave us a ride home.

                We went to a pizza place for dinner because I think we were all ready to have something besides chicken. I think one reason chicken is so popular is because it’s easy to raise and lots of the people are Muslim which means they eat Halal. I don’t quite remember what the restrictions on Halal are but I know one of them is no eating pork.  

                After dinner we went to the Spar to get food for tomorrow and then to Shoprite because most of us forgot shoes to wear to church on Sunday. Then we got a ride home and just hung out until we went to bed.

Outside of our room there are two cats that fight and it can get kind of scary. When we got home after dinner I heard a cat meowing at us and he seemed like he was in a nice mood so I looked out our little window and saw a cute little black kitten so I told Whitney and she got really excited. She went outside to go see him and we came right up to her. Then the cat kept trying to go past her into our room! He wouldn’t leave. He was cute but I really didn’t want to get any weird disease or have his mom come after us because the cat fights are serious business. It’s not like when Spy is bugging Noxy, it’s an all-out turf war.

 Tomorrow we are spending the day in Lilongwe again and seeing what there is to see. I would post pictures for you all but for whatever reason; I lost them, for reals. They are gone for forever. I guess I’m going to have to download my pictures every night so I don’t lose them. You’ll just have to look at Whitney’s blog to see pictures of what we’re doing. Hopefully my new memory card will come before too long so I can have something a little more reliable. I think my memory card is wearing out. 

Kasungu

5/16/13

                Today we spent the day in Kasungu. It was about an hour away from SAFI and we went around this weird shaped hill. We went there to observe the Lead Farmer Training. SAFI is working with a program called the Brighter Future Initiative (BFI). BFI is a program set up by Nuskin Japan and works with BYU and Bunda College. What they do is help the local people teach each other to be self-reliant. I’m still figuring out exactly how it works but there are AEDOs who I think are selected by the government. The AEDOs train the Lead Farmers. There are three modules. The first is rotational gardens and nutrition. The second is crop science and the third is livestock. Today the Lead farmers were learning module one. After learning a module, the Lead Farmers work under the direction of the AEDOs to teach their neighbors in their village using examples and such. Then they go back to learn the next module.

                We spent the whole day in Kasungu which was fun but I thought it was a little difficult to pay attention and for some reason I was really tired so I fell asleep for a little bit. We didn’t sit in on all the lessons because they went from about 8 to about 3. We got there at 9:30ish and just stayed in the dining hall after lunch just to talk. We did watch them do the practical stuff though. They build a garden and they have these hoes that are kind of interesting. They’re like a mix between a shovel, hoe and club. The basic shape is like a hoe but the blade is really big and curvy like a shovel and it pokes out of the stick that had a knobby part on the end they use like a club to break up dirt clods.

                On the way to Kasungu, I rode in the back of the truck because there wasn’t enough room in the cab. It was fun because we got to see lots of people and wave to all of them. I also got some good pictures while sitting back there. Everybody calls us azungu which means white people. It makes me laugh. They don’t mean it in a derogatory way; they’re just excited to see us. At first I thought it was a little strange that everybody was so friendly to us, liked us and trusted us without even knowing our names but after thinking about it. I’m sure the only white people that come here are the ones that are trying to help. I don’t think there’s really anything here to take advantage of and cause the Malawians to distrust us. The people here are really great. They are genuine and are really trying their best to learn to take care of their families and help their neighbors.

                I rode in the cab on the way back because my back was starting to get tired which turned out to be a good thing because we ended up picking up a few more people on the way home. I think there ended up being 8 people in the back and the bed wasn’t even a full sized pick up bed. I tried to get a picture of that too but it was really hard because I didn’t have much room to move. If you’re worried about me hauling around in the back of a truck all summer, don’t. BFI just bought a van and as soon as it’s registered and it has seats in the back, we can use it so that will be a little safer and more comfortable. Nuskin really doesn’t like having us ride in the back of trucks either.

                With so much going on I haven’t had much time to get on the internet so that’s why my posts are irregular. Tomorrow afternoon we are going to Lilongwe which should be fun. We have a meeting with either Thomas or Gibson on Sunday. I don’t remember which one but they are both with BFI. 

                I forgot to download my pictures so I'll post some more here after I download them.

Getting in the Groove

Today we taught our food safety lesson. We pretty much just talked about how to keep food safe. The sociology majors Nichole and Camille came to watch us. It was interesting teaching a class. I have never done that before. I also have never been translated before so it was definitely a new experience trying to plan a lesson that would be interesting and informative while leaving plenty of time for questions and translation. Our lesson was basically the “Fight Bac” campaign and was pretty simple but it still took an hour to get through it. Ester translated for us and it was cool to watch her because I know she wasn’t translating us word for word but just delivering the same idea to the students. She is a very good teacher and the students responded well to her. She teaches the parents here. Since this is a school for families, they have the spouses sit together. I thought it was a little strange that they didn’t sit together when they came to class but they all showed up at different times and after introductions they moved to sit next to each other.

After that we worked on the nutrition packets that we made in International Nutrition. We are going to give them to the families before they leave SAFI but they have to be translated first. The problem with that is that each packed has a description of what each nutrient does for the body and since there are 28 families that each have a packet, that means a lot of translation for that part even though the descriptions are short. To help Ester, we went through all the packets and found duplicating packets and decided on one packet’s nutrient section for Ester to translate and we can put that page in all the packets. Some of the packets are hard to read so we are going to fix that too.

After that we had lunch and some free time. I took a shower which felt great except I wore my flip flops today because my feet stank so bad from my Keens so my feet are dirty again but they don’t stink like they did. I don’t think I’m going to ever win this battle. The showers are also really cold and we run out of water a lot. When we take showers only one person can take on at a time, and you need to get yourself wet, turn off the water while you lather up and then turn it back on to rinse. It’s a little bit of a process but the cold water and standing in the stall all wet is good motivation to take a fast shower.

After my shower, Dr. Steele showed up which was great. He’s is really fun even though he mostly just watches us. It’s fun to have a different perspective in our dinner conversations. While Dr. Steele was moving into his room and settling in, we played with the kids and taught them some songs and games. Their favorite game was Duck, Duck, Goose. At first they would just say Duck and you knew you were it when they said it in a higher pitch which was funny. They would also cheat and sit in any open place in the circle. It was also funny when they started conspiring against us and people in the circle would start picking who would be picked. It was fun. Lots of people were watching and laughing. There was a group of boys that looked like they were about 11 who watched but wouldn’t play. I thought that was funny because they were acting like 11-year-olds in the US. They got pretty good really fast. I was definitely wearing the wrong shoes but it was still fun. I don’t think I’ve ever played Duck, Duck, Goose with an audience, especially one that would cheer a little like it was a sporting event.

When we finally finished playing, we went back to our rooms to get some more down time. Whitney braided my hair for me. She was really nervous but did a pretty good job the second time. She’ll probably post those pictures on her blog. We chatted for a while because that’s what we do. When we were bored again, I broke my sugar cane in half so we could take it over to John since he missed that little excursion. Now I have the shorted stick! Whitney and I were saying that there is no way we are going to go through our sticks and that they were more likely to go home as souvenirs but we didn’t know if customs would let us do that. When we went over the boys dorms we found Dr. Steele and we talked to him for a while. He talked about the big spiders and how the power goes out and how things have changed since he was here last year. A few minutes after he told us about how the power goes out but they have a generator but can’t always get it working right away, the power went out! We decided to go outside and just hang out until something happened. Everybody else was in the conference room. The internet must have been working before the power went out but it wasn’t working a good chunk of the day. When they showed up Dr. Steele was playing with his stargazing app. We found Ursa Minor with it which was cool I guess but Emily and I went back to the girl’s dorm to get more flashlights and on the way back we saw Orion. It was really close to the horizon and it was huge. They night sky is pretty different here. I didn’t know I would be able to tell the different between the sky here and back home but it does make sense that they are so different. I mean home is in the north west quadrant and I’m in the south east one.

The power went back on while Emily and I got our flashlights so we hung out in the dining room and just waited for dinner. The power went out a couple more times while we waited and were talking but we were prepared this time with flashlights.

At dinner yesterday, Nichole was talking about how she loved watching Twilight because it was so bad; she specifically talked about the last movie. She convinced us all to watch it if she downloaded it sot that was her quest today. We assumed that she didn’t get it downloaded because the internet was not at its best today but somehow it did. We are going to watch it in a few minutes.

Tomorrow we are going to the farmer training, in Kasungu then on Friday we are going to Lilongwe for the weekend where we can stock up on some things we need and get our cell phones. Next week we are going on a Safari so guess who is super excited! Moses was telling us about a park where we can see the five major African animals, he mentioned zebras specifically. Emily could tell I was really excited. I told her that I really like zebras. When I had my zebra flashlight at dinner she said she believed me like she didn’t before. I have tons of zebra stuff, apparently she just hasn’t noticed before.

Things are going well. I’m still not quite over my jet lag but it’s getting a little better I think. I still keep waking up about two hours early and then I have a hard time going back to sleep. I guess as long as I’m not tired I’m ok.

Sugar Cane!

     This morning I woke up at 4 but I didn’t know what time it was so I got ready and decided to figure out what time it was because I wasn’t seeing anybody else. When I found out it was four I obviously decided to go back to sleep. While I was sleeping I had a dream that I didn’t wake up until noon and nobody told me and I missed out on half the day. When I woke up I was a little grumpy but I hadn’t missed anything.

After breakfast we went with Chimango to see the village because everybody has only been hanging out in pretty much the same three buildings since we got here. The kids came with us and we all got some good pictures of SAFI and the kids. After that Emily talked about some of the things we were possibly going to do while we are here including some research for Dr. Steele with the solar dryer and helping the sociology majors with their research. We are also helping Ester with her nutrition classes; we are introducing and teaching a little lesson tomorrow about food safety. Ester is pregnant so she will actually be leaving very soon and will be gone for three months and Betha is going to take over for her while she is gone.

     A funny thing about the nutrition classes that that Dr. Johnston made us a little binder with lessons and survey forms for us to use for the class. They are a simplified version of what we learned in International Nutrition. The funny part is that as Whitney and I were reading them, some of the sentences weren’t complete which made us laugh because Dr. Johnston had lots of typos and mistakes on our handouts for class. Another funny thing was that Whitney was looking at a picture of a boiled egg which had instructions on how to boil and egg for the students. She said that she had never had a boiled egg and wanted to try one. I gave her a look like she was crazy because we had boiled eggs for breakfast. The picture she was looking at was an egg cut in half. For some reason she thought the white of the egg was a plate and the yoke was the boiled egg which looked a little like a soufflé. She blames it on jet lag.

     We also visited Ernest today who is an intern working with the fish ponds here. They are set up in a pretty cool way. They have a house for the ducks on the pond so their droppings go into the pond and made it better for the fish and they also use water from the pond to water the crops because it has lots of nutrients in it. Right now the lakes are kind of low because there isn’t as much rain anymore but they have a pump so they can pump water from a well into the ponds. He knows a lot about fish, I was very impressed. He just graduated from University of Malawi which is also called Bunda College. Nichole is one of the Sociology majors that is here with us and wanted some sugar cane so Ernest got all of us a stick. I got a stick the size of a walking cane so I’ll be working on that for a while. He showed how to peel it and eat it with our teeth so we all hacked away at it while he showed us Ester’s garden. Sugar cane is pretty much a soft sweet wood so lots of the fibers get stuck in your teeth and it can be a little bothersome but it was fun to watch everybody try to eat their canes.

     We were all hoping to see Dr. Steele tomorrow because his flight was coming in today but he didn’t make it and there isn't a flight tomorrow so we are going to have a wait a few more days before we get to see him. I also found out when I was downloading my pictures that I brought the wrong memory card with me. I have my old micro card with the adapter instead of my nice new one that will let me take lots of pictures and nice videos. It’s not the worst thing I could forget I guess I’ll just have to rough itJ.

     

This is us on our 14 hour flight from JFK to South Africa

In front of Out of Africa in South Africa

I have a stamp on my passport!

Some of the kids we ran into on our walk

Our hostel we're staying in

My room. I have no furniture besides my bed

My sugar cane walking stick. It'll take me all summer to go through it

Things are going well here. I still don’t think that it has quite sunk in that I’m actually in Africa for three months yet. I’ve been taking baby steps to get used the idea that I’m not going to have all the luxuries I’m used to this summer and that I’m going to miss out on all the exiting things that are happening this summer. I’m sure once I’ve been through a week or two I will be much more comfortable and used the smell.

Made It! (Finally)

I made it and I'm safe. On our flight from JFK, Whitney and I thought we wouldn't get to sit together because our letters weren't together and there were four people in the middle and we were both on the edge of the middle. As it turns out, we were on the only row that only had two in the middle so we got to sit next to each other and have some extra space. Our flight seemed like it would never end. There were personal TVs that had tons of movies on them that we could watch. I watched four and started Princess and the Frog before I got sick of watching movies. I also slept a lot which didn't help with my jet lag. By the end of the flight I was sick of movies and sleeping and sitting and everything else and I was really stiff.

South Africa was fun. We found a store in the airport called Out of Africa that had some cool stuff and we got our pictures with a guy made out of beads. I'll send some pictures later when I have more. Whitney also has a blog at http://whitanini.blogspot.com/. 

When we got into Lilongwe and through customs which took forever because we were the last in line. That was a common theme for everything. We met up with Akim, Ken and Moses and some other people. Akim drove us to SAFI while we just tried to stay awake. I didn't find a welcome sign to take a picture next to so I guess you'll just have to deal with hand made ones all over our hostel :).

The kids here are adorable. Every time they see us walking around they run up to us and hold our hands. They know a little bit of English and mostly speak in Chichiwa (or whatever language it is). We are learning
a little bit. I know how to say, "Hi, how are you." "I'm fine," and "snake" except I just forgot what that one. We already have meetings and things to go to this week but I only kind of know what they are. I
just plan to follow Emily for the first few days. We have a meeting with the Nutritionist tomorrow and on Thursday there's farmer training that we are going too.

Malawi is very small. On the way to SAFI I learned that there is one paved road and I really can't tell where cities begin and end. It was fun to see all the people. I saw lots of babies strapped on Mom's back and people carrying stuff on their heads. Lots of the women also were sarongs too which means I can have fun.

Anyway, I can't think of anything else that you're missing out on. Dr. Steele will be here on Wednesday