OOOOOOOkay. TOO FAR, MALAWI. Too far. Anyway, I walked outside, and when the snake saw me, he back-peddled (er, back-slithered?) right back into my kitchen. I was still kind of in shock at this point, so I sat in my hallway and watched the kitchen door unsure what to do. A few minutes later, little bugger starts slithering right out again.. So I move, and in he goes. Then I’m still, and out he comes. At this point, one thing is abundantly clear to me: the last thing I can do is leave to get help, because that gives him the go-ahead to slide straight into my home. BUT WHAT THE HECK, THEN, DO I DO?! Answer: panga knife. After some practice swings and chopping sweet potatoes and sticks in half, I carefully position myself directly beside the kitchen door so once he slithers out, he won’t see me move until my PANGA KNIFE IS CHOPPING OFF HIS UGLY HEAD. So I wait... and wait… and wait… Finally, he slithers out.. sloooowly.. bit.. by.. bit.. and I don’t want to swing prematurely and not have enough snake in sight to chop in half.. but by the time I decide he’s far enough out, I’m freaking shaking so bad I’m afraid I might chop my own foot off instead! Finally, I work up my nerve, and SWING.. a few centimeters too short. AHHHH! In he goes, and now.. dude knows I’m after him. We continue this cat and mouse game for quite some time, and meanwhile, I’m peering out my side door wondering why this is the ONE DAY WHEN NO ONE IS WALKING BY, and my dreams of being “the girl who was once afraid of tiny spiders and grew up to DECAPITATE AN AFRICAN SNAKE WITH A PANGA KNIFE”.. are slowly dying. By 4 o’clock, I’ve brought a CHAIR outside so I can SIT while I wait for him. I realized even then how ridiculous this was, BUT WHAT WAS I SUPPOSED TO DO?! One’s legs get tired when they are standing as still as humanly possible for FOUR HOURS trying to lure and kill a snake. Finally, a group of kids walks by. “Iwe! Lutani ku nyumba ya Nyasulu! Nkhukhumba wovwiro chifukwa nili na njoka mu nyumba yane! (You! Go to Mr. Nyasulu’s house! I need help because I have a snake in my house!)” A few minutes later, my knight in shining armor arrives. I offer him my panga knife, he laughs at me, and instead opts for.. a freaking huge stick?! He told me to go inside, but I had to watch this thing die, so I climbed up on my oven to watch. Nyasulu opens the door, starts poking around in the bags of trash (ie. fire-starter) I have in my kitchen, and before you know it, he is BLUDGEONING the njoka to death.
He pulled the snake’s mangled body out of my kitchen so I could see, and then the kids put it down the chimbuzi (not mine – that would haunt me). Four hours of my life and fail. Mr. Nyasulu: job done in 3 minutes, tops. For what it’s worth, though, taking that snake on isn’t something I would have even considered many months ago, so I’m doing my best to feel good about that.
Backing up a bit, when I last wrote, I was down here for the 4th of July celebration. We had a great time, though I kind of failed at photographing that weekend. I took ONE picture during the whole Ambassador’s celebration! But I think that one shot pretty much sums it up:
The food wasn’t as epic as the Thanksgiving feast, but there was a pretty epic desert table. Basically, it was like 50 people had each brought a different homemade goodie – two long tables full when they were all put together. SCORE. Sadly, there was also a huge sign on said table limiting each guest to two pieces – WHAAAT?! Haha, some pretty awesomely shameless volunteers walked down the line eating things as they went and then walked away with only two pieces on their plate. Technically fair; breathtakingly bold. Luckily Jesi did better than I did on the picture front, so here are a few more shots of the soiree:
Notice anything wrong with Alexis’s flag? HAHAHA.
Mostly it was just great to see everyone again – we’re almost never all in the same place anymore. We went out to dinner…
And had jam sessions…
And tried to get others to join the photo ops when really it looks like we’re pushing them away…
HAHA. We fixed it, though we had to sacrifice Russell’s face:
We did some formal-wear shopping for the upcoming president’s luncheon (see below) and some of us couldn’t wait to wear our new garb out on the town:
And we all spooned at night because there just aren’t enough beds for us in Lilongwe (Jordan and I had some epic pillow talk that I won’t repeat in this forum). Altogether great time.
After the 4th, I went back to site for about a week and had my Form 4’s come to my house to do some literature work each day since technically were not allowed to hold school while the national exams are in session (at this point, the Form 2’s were taking their JCEs’s). It was nice and relaxing. Not to much to report from this week, though I did witness this all-too-literal portrait of “the grass is always greener”:
I thought that goat might rip his own leg off to get to the grass on the other side of the path. I also washed all my chitenjis, which isn’t particularly exciting, but they look so pretty hanging out to dry:
Moving on, the next week I traveled south again to work with the new education volunteers in Dedza. Jesi and I moved back into Mzengeresza, which was amazing. It was really wonderful to be back there and reflect on how I felt when I was there almost a year ago and how much has changed – you don’t realize you’ve really built a life for yourself until you’re forced back into that place where you were afraid you’d never be able to do it. I got to see my amayi again (though my sisters were away at school), and the new trainees are AWESOME. I’m so glad to have them here in country – they are motivated, and smart, and hilarious, and I can’t wait to get to know them better. Here are some photos from the week starting with the TEENIEST, TINIEST PUPPIES I HAVE EVER SEEN:
I can’t even process the cuteness. Also, check out these kids who were dying to be photographed as I took pictures of the puppies:
LOOK AT THE CRAZY-EYED KID IN THE FOREGROUND! AMAZING!
Here is homestay v.2:
And here are some of the trainees! Brett serenading us and the iwes:
Alan enjoying it:
And the Rachels, Isaac, and Maria in the sunset:
Here’s something great: a handout some of the trainees received from the Ministry of Education. Peace Corps Malawi: working to change the perception of THESE gender roles:
In the middle of the week, we got to do something pretty exciting: have lunch at the state house with the president of Malawi! President Bingu wa Mutharika (pronounced Metallica, I swear) had us all over on July 21st where we feasted, chatted, shook hands.. and then shook our booties on the dance floor! The best part: the whole thing was televised – HA! PCVs can’t go anywhere now without someone saying “Hey! I saw you on TV – DANCING WITH THE PRESIDENT!” Sadly, the cameras were off by the time Jordan and I had our epic dance-off. The world is a sadder place because of it. But look at this – volunteers! All dressed up! Looking CLEAN and like, like.. NORMAL PEOPLE!
Real men.. comb each other’s beards?
Here are the bwanas (on the left, Vic, the Peace Corps Malawi Country Director, and far right, Carla, his wife; in the middle, the Honorable President and First Lady):
And here are some various shots of the hand- and booty-shaking and other jollity:
And of course, the ultimate photo opportunity:
After my week in Dedza, I went allllll the way north again and spent some more time with my Form 4’s before their big test. This past weekend I had some of them over to watch the Leo & Claire Danes version of Romeo + Juliet, it was great. We made popcorn, they laughed hysterically at Mercutio dancing in drag, and they made all sorts of anxiety sounds watching Leo die as Claire Danes was slowly waking up, haha! At the end they agreed the death scene is better as written (where Romeo dies before Juliet wakes) because it was just too agonizing watching them just miss each other. GOSH I love these kids, what am I going to do without them?
From left to right, Austin (one of my best Form 2’s), Keshoni, Peter, Monica, and Charity.
I tease Charity because she is always smiling, but when she sees a camera pointed at her, insta-frown. So I tortured her with my camera throughout the film:
Also, three totally unrelated things. One, look at these awesome lines of clouds:
Two, are these tan-lines.. or dirt-lines?
I scrubbed them after taking the photo. Answer to above question: some combination of the two.
And three, a shout-out and thank you to all of you who have contributed to the growth of my inspiration and card walls:
You keep me goin’.
Anyway, after a week at home, I am back in Lilongwe YET AGAIN! You’d think I love that 14-hour journey. I’m here finalizing Camp SKY fundraising stuff and starting the shopping and logistical errands that have to be done in preparation for August 17th (SO SOON). Luckily, I’m not alone. The Health PCVs are here prepping for their camp (GLOW – Girls Leading Our World), Jordan is here with his pop, the 2nd year education volunteers are around after finishing their COS conference (completion of service), and Will is here picking up his mom and sister who are visiting. Will’s been gone for awhile, hiking Kili and such, so his hair (Jordan, Haak, and Will are all in a who-can-wait-the-longest-before-cutting-their-hair bet) was a bit.. shocking:
Doesn’t he look like a Japanese heartthrob?
I went with the GLOW kids to do one of many bulk shopping trips, and Duncan insisted on trying to ride his shopping cart back to the office. This almost ended in tragedy. More than once.
I teased him for being 5 years old.. and then agreed to get on a see-saw when we went to lunch? For some reason, I didn’t have enough forethought to predict what was going to happen when little me got on one end of a see-saw:
NOT FAIR. After awhile, Jeremy came over and helped me strand Duncan in the air instead.
Anywho.. I wanted to post a little update, but I must run. Things to look forward to in the coming weeks: Camp SKY aaaaaaaaaand *drumroll* MY MOMMY’S VISIT! My mom lands in Malawi on August 29th, and especially after having dinner with JoJo’s pops and meeting Will’s mom, I cannot WAIT for my favorite 4 foot 11 ball of energy and happiness to meet my new life =) Maybe I’ll have her as a guest writer on my next blog: Ann Day’s thoughts on the flavorlessness of nsima. IT’S GOING TO BE AMAZING.
To end things, I leave you with one other awesome group photo, a more proper version of which was given to Mr. President himself:
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