First of all, a little back business: here are the pictures I promised from the top of Mt. Mulanje. Not exactly the epic view we’d hoped for atop the third highest peak in Africa, but I think being inside of this ominous cloud with all the ridiculousness it came to represent is equally as grand. Reminds me of the amazing day Nick, Amira and I spent wandering the Great Wall in the Beijing mist (I miss you guys – come explore with me!). Whatever the case, this is what we got, and I’m happy with it:
And of course, the mandatory “be how you feel” shot: 
Also, remember how I said PCV’s enjoy making slap-bets? Yeah, here’s proof. If you can tear yourself away from watching the actual action, watch Russell’s face as he BEAMS with pride on the follow-through.
For what it’s worth, I got him back big-time, but videographer Meg McCracken failed HARD and missed getting it on film. But trust me, it was quality.
As always, here’s a small section on ridiculous signage and other sights of late. To start things off, an..inspirational?..calendar:
I don’t know how to feel about that.
Second, an advertisement for a hardware store with some pretty awesome merchandise. The first item is amazing, but don’t stop there..
I can’t help but wonder: WHAT did they MEAN?!
Third, it’s really unfortunate when the interchangeable r’s and l’s don’t even make it to the right place in the word..
Lastly, remember all of those commercials about “such-and-such is my anti drug”? Well, this goat is my anti-meat:
And while I know rain is really necessary for all of the crop-growing that goes on here, this one is my anti-rainy season:
SUCKS.
Moving on to happier things, here are a couple of shots of the northern lakeshore (aka. Paradise) as you come down off of the escarpment:
I always stare out the minibus in awe on my way home and wonder if it’s even possible to take a picture that captures how gorgeous it is. My 3-hour, back-of-a-pick-up-truck hitch to Mzuzu helped the cause, but you know how it is, everything is so much more breath-taking in real life. Speaking of that hitch…
…here we are, on our way to Elisabeth’s birthday at Kande! Open-air hitching does wonders for any hair-do, but Will’s hair is particularly awesome in this respect:
Amazing. Look how, uh.. windswept and gorgeous we look once we’ve arrived:
HAHA, right. Also, this is a great example of how we amuse ourselves in Malawi:
Sad, but true. Yeager and I once spent waaaay too long watching a rooster crow, over..and over..and over again. Elisabeth watches the bugs go kamikaze in her burning candles. Johnny claims that during the hot season, he goes to school and then sleeps under a mango tree until dinner. Every day. It’s a simpler life =)
Moving on, Kande beach!
And happy, relaxin’ PCV’s:
Here’s a shot of the brifday girl and me:
And some other lovely ladies I adore:
And a nice crew of us anxiously awaiting midnight so we can sing to Elis and devour the delicious cake that Meg baked:
Here’s one of Will, late into the evening and in tip-top shape, as you can see:
Peace Corps: the hardest job you’ll learn to love:
During IST, Will and I were elected as Fundraising Co-Chairs for Camp SKY, a 10-day camp that the education volunteers put on once a year for top Malawian students from Community Day Secondary Schools nationwide. We spent a week this past term doing lots of grant work in Lilongwe, and as I put up this post, we’re back at headquarters to do some more. There aren’t many interesting pictures from this trip as the majority of it was spent staring at a computer monitor, but we did find this guy at the hostel:
WHO SLEEPS LIKE THAT?! Will definitely didn’t harass him:
Nor did we go totally insane and listen to Akon and Jay Sean interchangeably for hours while “working” with Malaria-infected-Duncan and Rabies-infected-Yeager:
Ahem.. ANYWAY. Here’s something I wouldn’t so much call silver-lining, but it’s an interesting series, nonetheless: creatures I’ve recently found in my house! A few weeks ago, I found some sort of roach-cocoon in the lining of one of my shirts (even better, I was wearing said shirt at the time of discovery). I texted Jordan and said that while I felt I was doing pretty well in dealing with the many lizards, spiders, wasps, and other fun animals/insects/organisms that accost me on a daily basis, THIS ROACH HAD CROSSED THE LINE. Unfortunately, I totally jinxed myself with that text and my claim of coping, and I went home that evening to find this guy:
In case the scale is skewed, he was about the size of my outstretched hand. I went and got a shoe to kill him but couldn’t even do it – he was big enough to be a freaking mammal, man! And I was NOT about to piss him off.
This finding was also less than exciting:
God definitely had my back on this one, though – I stepped on this scorpion barefoot and somehow killed him before he stung me.
This guy I’m more okay with, though just generally baffled – he’s not exactly discreet, but I find him in my house ALL the TIME at night and NEVER during the day. WHERE DOES HE HIDE?!
Mr. Nyasulu says he’s got a toad in his house that evades him also. His toad will be heard and not seen – he lets out one long cccrrroooaaakkk at night and then lets you look for him for the next many hours. I like to imagine the toads get a total kick out of this. Like, mine must just come out and night and wait for me to stare at it in total amazement so it can silently laugh in victory. I accidentally stepped on him a few nights ago, though. Don’t think he was laughing then.
Moving on, right now is harvesting time in the beautiful rice paddies of the north, so Mr. Nyasulu took me out to his fields in the nearby village of Mphinga so I could learn the process. We biked out there because it’s 7 or 8 kilometres away and that alone was a pretty awesome adventure. Here are pictures of the locally-constructed bridges you cross to get there. On this first one, the planks lay on top of each other and are nailed together.. kind of:
This second one is just like a fallen tree over the river. We ditched our bikes and Mr. N carried our boots across first and then came back for me.
Also, there was this:
Dear Very Large Cow, You're kind of, um.. in our path. Thanks, Mr. N and Ash.
Out in the fields, it was MY turn to be the acrobat:
Got Mud?
We found some of my favorite students out at work, too. Mr. N rented a plot of land next to his own to let Jackson, a former-Fulirwa student who went to stay and study up at Kaporo, grow his own rice. Here are Jackson and me:
And here are some of my Form 4’s. Keshonie:
And Monica:
And one of my Form 1’s, Frank (or with the Malawian r/l interchange, Flank):
Here is Mr. N, dancing as always:
And here I am slashing away:
I was obviously an instant pro… YEAH RIGHT. I mean, I can wield a sickle if I need to, but these guys are SO FAST. It’s amazing! I was slowly but surely cutting down rice and nicely placing it in piles as I was taught when I caught a glimpse of Keshonie – it was like a freaking cartoon, I swear! His arm blurring as he slashed with fury, grass and rice flying everywhere as he decimated everything in his path – I felt like I was on Loony Toons! Look at ‘em go!
And here are the sisters, doin’ it for themselves =)
Before we left, I encouraged a little kuvina-ing (dancing). Oh yeah, baby. Denyani (basically, “get DOWN!”):
Later that day, Mr. N and I decided to take advantage of a wonderful new environmental condition that has arrived with the onset of the cooler season: WIND. I’m telling you, the movement of air has revolutionized my life. Anyway, since we’ve had wind, we’ve also had the opportunity to do something that I think Duncan correctly identified as “better than most things”: fly a kite!
Mr. N attempted first:
And then we taught my son (he had never flown a kite before!):
Peter totally rocked it, he was the kite katswiri (champion).
Look! Up in the sky! It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it's..
..a totally creepy-faced kite!
Once Peter got the kite waaay up there, the village kids spotted it, and started coming..
..and coming..
..and coming..
..aaaaand coming..
So we let them try to fly the kite. They kind of failed, but I think they enjoyed it.
I also got to play hide-and-seek with little Izy. As long as she’s in daddy’s arms, she feels safe and so she’s okay with me.
But if she’s not..
..she’s not so sure.
In other exciting Izy news, she celebrated her FIRST birthday on May 12th! So we had a little party for her =) Here she is with my son (I made her a hat out of paper and dental floss. She wasn’t feelin’ it. I think it was on her head for a grand total of three minutes.):
And her mommy:
And the whole Nyasulu family:
Here I am testing whether Izy is getting more used to me:
And here are all of us (mostly the Nyasulu’s and Ngwira’s) who came out to celebrate the occasion:
Malawians LOVE dancing, it’s awesome:
I tried to teach everyone the happy birthday song and, considering how terrible it usually sounds even in the states where everyone knows it, I think it turned out pretty well:
Izy enjoying her FIRST birthday cake!
And her brother, Patience, enjoying some Sobo (it’s like.. Tang):
This is mbwezi bane (my friend), Chimango. When I first came to Fulirwa, she announced to her daddy (my headmaster) that this is what I was, so we’ve stuck with that ever since. Her name means “peace” in Tumbuka.
And last but not least, one of my son and me at school:
His 18th birthday is next week! I think I’m going to try making carrot cake this time…
So there you have it, the exciting parts of my recent life in pictures. As for the rough stuff.. I had an awesome heart-to-heart with Mr. Nyasulu last week when everything sort of came to a pinnacle and I thought I might explode, and he said he always gets excited when challenges arise because he sees these times as opportunities to prove himself, his strength, his character. I’m doing my best to look at all of my obstacles this way. Whatever the case, I do have faith that it’s all happening for a reason, and that God will lead me in the right direction if I listen. But before that, I’m taking a little R&R this week and refueling – it feels pretty necessary at this point. On that note, I think it’s time for some ice cream with BanMan and J-Train. Stay well, everybody, and throw up a little prayer for me and Fulirwa (and while you’re at it, one for my cousin who was recently deployed to Afghanistan, please)! Miss you and love you!
Always,
Nyadazi
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