development through discos and compost

Since I am in Lilongwe and have some spare time I thought I would just spend some time to update my life since the football tournament at the beginning of May. Speaking of that, if you read my last post it might have come off as very pessimistic and while that it is still true, thankfully some good things have come out of it. The second place team continues to practice three times a week and now we are preparing on starting a team to compete in the premiere women’s league in Malawi. We are looking to recruit players from all over the area to form one team as well as to set them up with the local men’s premiere team as sort of a franchise. It’s still very new and not much has happened yet, but it’s exciting nonetheless as this was my hope from the beginning to form a premiere team in my community. Also, many other teams are starting up and I am being asked every day to give teams footballs so they can play. So although I wasn’t too happy with the outcome of the tournament, I am glad at least to see that some of the girls are continuing to play.


And some big, big news is that WE FINALLY HAVE THE FUNDING TO BUILD THE COMMUNITY HEALTH CLINIC! After a couple months of bugging my family and friends to give up some money, it has all come together and the project is about to begin. Within this week I will have all the money sent to my bank account and then immediately we’ll start buying all the materials (cement, iron sheets, trees, etc.) and hopefully it should take us about 2 months to get the structure built. I get a smile on my face every time I think about this project and I have decided to wait to tell the community until the money has finally reached into my account that the project is ready to go. I know they will be even more ecstatic than I am. Definitely stay tuned for more news and pictures on that front, and for the 1000th and not the last time I will say thank you to everyone who donated money. People’s lives will be changed and it’s because of you.

The HIV/AIDS group I am working with is still waiting to start the nutrition and income generating project, so while we are waiting this past week we made some really awesome compost to help with the medicinal garden. We made two different kinds of compost and it was a really great way to teach the members that you don’t need expensive chemical fertilizers to help these plants to grow well. The best things for these medicinal plants come right from their own homes and fields and it doesn’t cost them anything!

This week I will be spending a couple of days with at my sitemate Vanessa’s house, she is a secondary school teacher and she lives about 20 miles from my house. Myself and three other PC volunteers from my district will be assisting Vanessa with an HIV/AIDS day that she is running at her school. Not only will I be enjoying the company of my fellow PCVs and electricity for two days but I’ll also be teaching students about good nutrition and how it relates to HIV/AIDS.

The women’s group is in the last month of paying off their first loan. So far at least 7 of the 13 women are going to take another loan immediately after repaying their first one. This time most will increase the amount from an average of about $45-60 to about $70-100. We are also planning on doing some cash crop diversification since all the members have decided to no longer grow tobacco. It’s a decision I completely support not only because of the extremely low prices this year, but also because it requires chemical fertilizers and it is very harsh on the soil (and not forgetting the fact that it’s the main ingredient in cigarettes). So right now we are contemplating between growing paprika, soybeans, and/or groundnuts. I am hoping to have a mixture of the three just in case of potentially low prices next season.

I am still continuing to meet with the girl's volleyball club at my local secondary school. Although they are all busy with the end of the school year coming up, they have all told me over and over again how much they want to go on a trip and play another school. We have played a couple of other local teams in the area but I think that they want to go and play girls from another school. Of course they chose to go to Lake Malawi so they can enjoy both some volleyball and the lake. It sounds like a perfection combination to me but since there is no money we decided to do a fundraiser. So next Saturday the team will be hosting the "Kapiri Disco", and by disco I mean basically it will just be a dance party. So they'll sell tickets to get into the disco and maybe some food and drinks and hopefully the money generated from the event will help us to take a trip in the near future. Also, the girls really loved "HIV/AIDS Month" in March so basically I've just extended it and now once a week we do different activities related to that. Not all of it is directly related to HIV, some of it's also focused on helping them to become empowered, educated young women of Malawi. It's great!

On the personal front this month I'll be part of a few volunteers welcoming another new group to Malawi next week, this time we'll have 17 people who will be teachers placed throughout the country. The rest of the month of June will be dedicated to gardening, spring cleaning around my house, and trying to stay as warm as possible through the coldest month of the year. Also I'll be celebrating Independence Day on a one week hike around Lake Malawi with a bunch of friends. Very exciting!

kapiri women's football cup '11

For three months I have been planning and preparing for a soccer tournament involving only the females in my community. From finding sponsors, organizing teams, making the schedule, printing tshirts and finding other prizes, to practicing with my team from my village, I have been busy trying to put it all together as well as super excited to share my love of soccer with the women and girls. However...

From the start of the first day it seemed that everything was going to go wrong. We originally had 8 teams scheduled to play, but one team dropped out the day before the first game because the husbands refused to let their wives compete. I was disappointed but frankly not surprised, but thankfully was able to find another team that wanted to participate. But on the day the tournament started we had 4 of the 8 teams show up, and not even one came on time, not even the team from my own village who I have been asking for two months to not be late. Players, coaches, and even refs did not bother to come to the games less than one hour late, even with my strict "be on time or forfeit your game" policy. And from coaches bickering to players complaining, it at times seemed too much for me to handle. I however had a ton of help from 3 other Peace Corps volunteers in my district which was probably the only reason I stayed sane during the weekend.


To be honest I don’t really consider this tournament much of a success and I know for sure that I won’t do this kind of thing again while here. I guess I just consider this more of a learning experience for myself and hope that at least the women had fun while playing. I have learned that a lot of the things we do as Peace Corps volunteers is both very prone to failure and hard to be sustained. That’s just the nature of our service. We are here for two short years and in the timeframe of development it’s a small amount of time. So I hope to just do what I can while here and leave the rest up to them.


Although there were a lot of frustrations and disappointments, it was very encouraging to see close to 500 people show up to watch the finals. That included 15 local chiefs and other community leaders. After the championship game finished the second place team was given necklaces and water bottles and the each player from the first place team received a tournament t-shirt. Also, the MVP was presented with a World Cup ’10 replica ball. The theme of the tournament was “Mphamvu kwa Amayi” which means the strength of a woman. I don’t really know how empowered the women felt, but nonetheless I think they were happy to have a chance to compete and win some cool prizes.

If you'd like to see some pictures of the tournament you can go to my facebook album titled "projects and such" to view them...http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.519000862652.2024248.170100061#.

Sometimes you just gotta shake it off and say "zimachitika" (it happens).

april showers

Finally April is here and I am officially into my last year of service. The rainy season is slowly coming to an end and I am definitely looking forward to it. It means that I won't have any more sleepless nights as the sound of rain pounding down on my tin roof make it impossible to sleep. But anyway, projects are continuing to move along and I'm contemplating more and more about what I'll do when I leave Malawi next year. The finish line is definitely in sight!

I spent last week in Dedza with 42 Peace Corps trainnees in the health and environment programs. They are in the second half of their training and I was there for the "Health and HIV/AIDS" week. Myself and the enviro PCTs took a trip to a medicinal garden, hitched rides to the local market, discussed health issues such as malaria and HIV/AIDS, and had lots of language lessons. All the trainnees are spending their training with homestay families and it reminded me a lot of my own experience just a year ago. The five weeks I spent with my Malawian family was filled with lots of awkward cultural exchanges, silent glares due to my inability to speak Chichewa, hot bucket baths, and having all my meals cooked by my amayi. The second time around it was mostly the same but I am thankful to say that it wasn't quite so awkward or quiet. It was a really fun week and I enjoyed meeting the new guys and seeing their enthusiasm for PC, Malawi, development, and their future service.

Tomorrow I will be going back to my site and I will be diving right back in to work after being away for over a week. My biggest focus for this month is with the Kapiri Women's Football Cup which will be taking place from May 6th to the 8th. Registering teams, finding sponsors, making tshirts and getting other cool prizes, organizing the teams into brackets, convincing important community and government leaders to attend, as well as training with my own team is what I'll be doing right up until the tournament starts. Overall I am so happy as to how much excitement has been generated by the players as well as other community members and I'm really hoping this will be just the beginning of women's soccer in Kapiri. Females being empowered to play a sport traditionally played by men, wearing trowsers, learning how to work as a team, playing fearlessly against the boys, and not being afraid to throw an elbow or hip while playing is simply awesome to see.

Over $1000 has been raised so far to build the under five health clinic! It's really exciting and I'm so encouraged by the support so far, however there is still almost $4000 to go. So if you haven't given already, please do! And if you have -- thanks so much -- now please get your friends and family to donate as well! Here's the link once again if you want to check it out...https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=donate.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=614-226. Also this month the Health Surveillance Assistant and myself will be doing more safe water demonstrations and selling water treatment packets since the rainy season is high time for diarrhea, cholera, and other waterborne diseases.

Last week I turned in a grant to PC for a big HIV/AIDS project with a support group I am working with. It includes pig rearing, developing a medicinal garden, an oil press, and fruit trees for the group to make fruit juice and wine. It is designed to improve nutrition of the group members as well as to give them opportunities to make money from these activities. The support members are ready and excited for this project so all we are waiting for is the funding in order to start.

Next week I will be returning to Lilongwe to meet my "shadow" who is an environment trainnee that will be placed in my district. He or she will stay at my site a few days to see what life is like for a typical enviro volunteer and then I will take that person to meet their site for the very first time. It's one of the most exciting and nerve-wracking times in a PCV's service and I'm really looking forward to meeting my future sitemate.

Lastly, at the beginning of May I will go back to Dedza to the College of Forestry for my group's Mid Service Training. It will be three days of reflection of our first year of service and preparation for our second year as well as life after Peace Corps. It will be quite interesting to hear from all 20 people in our group about the diversity of our projects and site experiences we have had to date.

update on margaderina

It’s been a little while since I have given an update on my friend Margaderina. Needless to say she is doing very well, she received a 5,000 MK loan (about $35) from OIBM and she is using that money to help with her vegetable business which she runs every day. She is also about 7 months pregnant (her late husband is the father) and at the beginning of May she will go to the hospital for several weeks to stay until she gives birth. She is being very positive throughout all of this although I can’t imagine how tough it would be to do this without a husband to help you with everything. Fortunately she’s not going through this journey alone as she has her mom and several other family members looking after her. Also, there will be some expenses for the birth such as blankets, clothes, food for her and her daughter during their hospital stay, soap, etc. Thankfully someone has recently donated some money and so all of those things will be provided for her (and to that person who donated, I think you know who you are, thank you VERY much.  I know she is at peace knowing that she has everything she needs to have this baby). So expect some more updates on her and her family in the next few months!

one year

On Monday I celebrated one year that I have been in Malawi. So how did I celebrate? Since I was in Lilongwe I made sure to eat lots of food I don’t normally eat in the village like burritos, ice cream, Chinese food, and toast. I got to see a lot of friends, particularly those in my group who have also made it a year so far. But more than the food, I was able to celebrate this milestone for three other cool reasons…


1. The project to build an under five health clinic in my community is now ready for people to donate to. So if you are interested in learning more about this great project and how to donate, go to https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=donate.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=614-226. It’s a totally community supported and initiated project, my only role is to try to source the funding and to make sure the funds are used properly. So please consider giving today so that the building can start ASAP once finished the health services will be free and available for the women and kids in the community.

2. I got 8 soccer balls for a women’s soccer tournament in my area. I had the idea to start this tournament a while back and I thought it would not be very well-received since soccer is only played by men. However, with some cool prizes and a lot of excitement on my part and some other friends, we have been getting a lot of support from the community. The “Kapiri Women’s Football Cup” will be held in the first week of May and already some of the teams are practicing to get prepared for it. So these soccer balls will really help the women to train and learn how to play.

3. The women’s group finally received their loans!! They went yesterday to the bank and now they will be able to use the loans to jumpstart their own businesses. Their loans range from about $35 to $130 and will be paid back over a four month period. Hopefully this is just the first big step in enabling them to make their businesses run sustainably and profitably.


In other news...
I have four kittens! I’m still amazed that Chips was able to have that many, but now they are about 3 weeks old and soon enough they will be running around. I will most definitely make sure that no chimbudzi accidents happen like last time!

At the end of this month I will be going back to Dedza to the College of Forestry for the pre-service training of the new environment and health group who just arrived to country on Sunday. It’s a really exciting time for them and I am reminded that only a year ago I was just as wide-eyed, scared, excited, and pale as they are right now!

That's it for now, I want to say a big thank you to all who are reading this and who have been supporting me for this past year. I hope you all enjoy reading this just as much as I enjoy experiencing it!

you're not a real volunteer unless you name some babies

At least that’s what I have been thinking for this past year. I’m not sure why but I have got the notion in my head that you are not a true Peace Corps volunteer unless a Malawian does you the honor of asking you to name their baby. And with women here averaging over 5 babies in their lifetime, that’s A LOT of opportunities to name some kids. Women are constantly giving birth and yet not once in this past year have I been asked to name someone’s kid. I was honestly thinking that something was wrong with me, that maybe people here don’t really like me all that much or that I must not be a good volunteer. Plenty of other volunteers do it, but not me. It's just about the highest honor a national could give you, so I was discouraged to say the least…until now.



Not once, but twice in two days this past week have people asked me to name their baby. The first one is my amayi's (my Malawian mom) neice who just had her second baby. When I casually asked my amayi what the baby's name was, her reply was, "no, he's only 2 days old, duhhhh" (ok she didn't say "duh" but it was definitely implied). Some people here apparently wait even a month or two to name their child. And then after that she asked if I wanted to give her neice's son a name. I tried to casually say yes to hide my excitement but I don't think I did a good job.



Immediately after agreeing to name the baby I became nervous because now I am responsible for actually...naming...a...baby. That's a big responsibility. This kid will be called whatever name I choose for the rest of his life. What if I choose wrong and give him a really stupid name? So for a day and a half I thought carefully about a name that would fit this kid.



I came up with Isaiah because his family are all Christians and I love the passage in Isaiah 6 where when God asks who will be His messenger Isaiah emphatically says "here am I. Send me!". He was an emphatic servant of Christ, even though his job was not very well received by others. Also, I don't think it's possible to go wrong with a good, strong Bible name. Thankfully his family seemed to approve of his name.

meet Isaiah

my amayi with Isaiah

baby Isaiah's family + me



The day after naming Isaiah I met with my friend Foster who told me that he and his wife just had their first child, a daughter, the past week and he asked me to give her a name. With one successful baby-naming under my belt, I felt confident I could do it again. Almost immediately I had a burst of inspiration hit me and I knew there was only one name I could give her...Mia.

Mia Hamm has been my biggest role model since I was 10 years old I when I went to see the US Women's National Soccer team play for the first time. Ever since then I have been in awe of her as she is the greatest women's soccer player of all time. Not only has she scored more goals internationally than any man or woman, she also was a pioneer not only for women's soccer in the US, but for women's sports in general. Needless to say she has been my hero for a long time and I finally found a good opportunity to pay tribute to her. So I hope that Mia Kamsonga will grow up never believing that she is unable to do something simply because of her gender and that she will be unafraid and empowered as a woman, and if she turns out to be a good soccer player that's great too!

So I'm happy to finally feel like a true PC volunteer, and it's exciting to know that even long after I leave here I will have little Isaiah and Mia to remind me of my service and time here in Malawi and that's pretty awesome...

kapiri secondary school girls volleyball club

Since October of last year I have been working with high school girls at Kapiri Secondary School. From almost the first day in country I knew that I wanted to be a part of something specifically designed to empower teenage girls. And since I love volleyball I thought that to start a club where girls could learn about life skills, gender development, the environment, HIV/AIDS, nutrition, career development, etc., as well as play volleyball, it would be a good fit.

At Kapiri Private Secondary School there is about 250 students from Form 1 to Form 4. The school is operated without electricity, without running water, without access to many textbooks, and with no female teachers. Some of the students live at the school in hostels while others are day students who go home after classes are finished each day. Since most of the girls live at school they have a lot of free time between their classes to meet with boys, go to the local market, or just be idle. As you can imagine teenage pregnancy, spreading of HIV/AIDS, and even dropping out of school early to get married is a very common thing. So to have this club twice a week hopefully gives them a fun alternative.

The club meets for about 2 hours and the first hour is usually spent inside the classroom. It’s there that we discuss the theme for that month as well as to give the girls an open forum to talk about classes, life, music, family, boys, and anything else they want to share. The next hour is spent outside playing volleyball. I started out with the very, very basics of passing, setting, serving, etc. and now we are working on refining those skills as well as playing some scrimmage-like games.

The first two months of the club were at times difficult, I think for myself as well as for the girls. First of all, English is not their native language but since they are supposed to be learning it in school, I have the rule that the girls must speak in English while we are meeting as a club. For them to get a good job, to go on to university, or even to get a good score on their exams in school, they must be able to speak English. But getting them to actually speak it and for them to understand me when I am talking can be really challenging. Another frustration is through our difference in cultures. I have been taught to be confident in my God-given abilities, to believe that women have just as many rights as men, to not be afraid to voice my opinion, and to try to achieve anything I set my mind to. This however is not how girls and young women are raised. Malawian girls tend to be shy, quiet, submissive to men, and adverse to taking risks. So it can be really hard for me to relate to them as well as them to me. But we are getting there.
 
The last challenge was because of equipment. I only brought one volleyball with me to country, but thankfully my mom sent me an outdoor net and a volleyball early on in my service, thus giving me two volleyballs and a net to play on. And if you know anything about coaching, you can understand that trying to teach 40+ girls with only two volleyballs is not easy. It’s tough trying to teach them the skills like passing and hitting without having three quarters of the girls sit on the sideline just watching.

Therefore since I knew I was coming home for Christmas, I decided to contact my high school volleyball coach Margie Arm and her teams, the GPS Crush and Central Bucks East volleyball teams. Not only did I play volleyball for Coach Arm in high school, but I had the opportunity to coach club alongside her for three years. Needless to say I have learned so much about playing and coaching volleyball from her and I have a great deal of respect for her. She is a great coach and friend and has been very supportive of me in my PC service. So, I told her the situation and asked her if her teams would be willing to help the club out with about 20 volleyballs. Thankfully, Coach Arm agreed and I traveled back to Malawi with a suitcase full of balls. Not only that, but I was able to share with the two teams a little about the girls in the club, life in Malawi, their culture, etc. We swapped pictures and letters of the teams and I hope that in the future there will continue to be communication between my club and Coach Arm’s teams.

In the coming months I hope to take the girls on a field trip to Lilongwe where they can see the Malawi Women’s National Volleyball team play or even to take them to other schools to compete. And a concern of mine is sustainability so that when I leave the club will continue on. Therefore I am trying to find someone to help coach with me and then eventually let that person take over the club as I prepare to leave. But all-in-all the club has been a great experience so far despite the challenges and I hope that the girls as well as myself continue to learn from each other and have fun playing volleyball. Because that's what it's all about!