The Warm Heart of Africa

The experience keeps getting better and better. Today as a whole just made my heart crave for the rest of the service I am committing to. This morning we started with health talks about “diarrhea.” (No, this isn’t the part that made my heart happy haha). This probably sounds a little strange, but is actually a really big deal in Malawi, for locals and for PCV’s. Diarrhea can be caused by a number of situations, but what was the most important part of the talk was how we were going to deal with it. And to clarify, we were told as PCV’s in Malawi that diarrhea would be a big part of our next 2 years. Welcome to Africa haha. The biggest way to actually so call “cure” (stop) diarrhea is to drink plenty of treated water.

After the hours spent on such a lovely topic, and realizing that my next 2 years would be full of loose stools, we had an introduction to the Malawian language and culture. These 2 areas will be part of the main focus of our next few months as PCT’s in Malawi, as the Peace Corps wants us to be prepared and slightly integrated before we move to our site and start our service. The introduction the Malawians had for us will be unforgettable. To sum up an hour into a few sentences, our language/cultural teachers decided to put on an rehearsed “talk show,” showing us why this is such an important part of the beginning of our service. There was dancing, and music, and a ton of laugher from the audience. However, on the other side I learned a lot. The Malawians did an amazing job making me/us excited to learn.

Soon after laughing so hard we were crying we dove right into learning “survival” Chichewa. Chichewa is the second national language of Malawi, after English. Not everyone in my Peace Corps class will be placed at a site that speaks Chichewa after PCT, but because we are staying with host families in Kasungu for the first few months it is important that we all know a bit of basic language to get by. Besides Chichewa and English there are two other common languages that are spoken in Malawi and learned by Peace Corps volunteers; Chitunga and Chitambuca, both Bantu languages. On Tuesday we will find out the language that each of us will be focusing on during our PST (aka the language we will need to be able to speak at our service site). An amazing thing about today, and the future language classes we will be taking, is how one on one the lessons are. At most the ratio of teacher to volunteer is 1:4, but more likely to be 1:2-3. Today my trainer was named Beatrice, and the focus of the lesson was greeting words/phrases. Muli bwanji?...aka How are you?

Once all the groups had completed the language lesson, the rest of the day was ours. Free time has been so important during these first few days because it is the time we get to spend with other volunteers; talking and getting to know each other. This afternoon was awesome and more relaxing than any of the other days have been. For awhile Sophie and I just sat in the grass and listened to Trevor play banjo and Sam play mandolin. (The video posted above is them jamming). The some of us played sand volleyball, which was so much fun. It’s awesome to be able to do activities outside in the sun, and actually feel hot haha. Tonight we also shaved the first female’s head. Hilary decided that she was up for it, and so a group of like 10 of us squeezed in one of the dorm room while Paul used the clippers to remove all the hair from her head. Girls got guts, and she looks great!...Even more awesome because today is St. Baldricks day in the U.S. Later a lot of us had a beer and then played Never Have I Ever and Cards Against Humanity. After playing these games it’s official that our group rocks! Such another awesome day which makes me only more excited for the adventure to continue. Love everyone back home. Hope you’re staying warm in the cold weather. It’s like 75-80 here…don’t hate me :)

Until next time…

#peacecorps