Questions from Elementary School Students back home.

Thanks for the questions...I hope I answered them all!

What are you eating?

Tomatoes are the easiest thing to buy near my house, so I put them in pasta or rice. I eat things like cereal, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, potatoes, and soup. I have become pretty good at making French fries and as a treat, I will make popcorn. So far, I have avoided eating roasted mice, which are sold on the side of the road. You can also get a lot of fruit depending on where you are. The most common are mangos, bananas, strawberries, coconut, and apples.

You can get lollipops and donut like breads while waiting on the bus. Pop is cheaper than water. It costs anywhere from 40MK-100MK or between 30-70cents a bottle. They call them softies here, and you can get coke, sometimes sprite and always fanta (in orange, pineapple and exotic).

How do you cook?

Pretty well everything I eat has to be cooked. I either boil or fry all my meals, and I use a hot plate to do so. The power goes out often so I sometimes have to wait for the outage to end before I can eat. I would have to buy coal to cook outside.

How do you like Africa?

Living in rural Malawi is a lot like how you would live on a camping trip. This is a good thing, as I love camping. In fact, the only downside so far, is that because I live alone, and mostly work alone, it can get pretty quiet after a couple months of not having people around to talk too.

Why do you have to stay home after 6?

6 is when the sun goes down. Since there are no streetlights, or buildings that give off a lot of light, after 6, you cannot see anything. So for safety reasons, mainly not being able to see people or animals that are out, I have to stay inside my house.
What do you do when you are not working?

I live in the coffee fields that surround several villages. After work, I usually spend a lot of time walking around exploring the fields. At home, cooking and doing work around the house takes quite a bit of time but I’ll read, do crosswords, yoga, listen to the radio, and I had a few movies to watch on my laptop if the power hadn’t gone out but I’m all out of those for now.

On weekends I tend to do a bit of travelling like up to Lake Malawi, Liwonde National Park(where the hippo was), and the Zomba Plateau. I am also planning to go to Mt. Mulanje soon.

Have you found a way to kill the spiders?I think I finally have the spider situation under control. I don’t see as many big ones anymore. My fly swatter broke, but I find that throwing my hiking boots can get rid of them. The best way to get rid of spiders, rat, roaches and the like though, has been to keep an impeccably clean house. Dishes never stay in the sink longer than it takes to eat the meal, and nothing gets left on the floor. I also have a spray called DOOM, that’s meant to get rid of some of the crawlers. Even though I spend the night under a net, I still get some pretty strange bug bites.

How close were you to the Hippo?

When we saw this baby hippo, we were about 4 or 5 metres away in our canoe. He was sleeping on the shore until we got a little too close so he submerged back into the Shire River.

I’ve always thought hippos were interesting animals. They walk in single file on land and can snap a croc in half.

Is it hot enough to fry an egg?

I haven’t tried yet! I bet if you get up to the tarmac roads you could probably fry an egg on the hottest days I have had here.

What other animals are there?

There are all kinds of animals here. I have a family of vervet monkeys who live in the tree that leans against my house. As far as big animals go, there are hyenas, leopards, elephants, and crocs. Malawi is known for its hundreds of species of birds.  I have also seen tonnes of lizards that have either neon orange or blue tails and even some chameleons (with greyish/green stripes at the time).

What do the kids like to play?

I see the kids playing netball and football. On the weekends, there are always football games at the field near my house.

What language do the people there speak?

The main groups of people living in Malawi are called the Sena, Lomwe, Tonga, Ngoni, Tumbuka, Yao, and Chewa. To know what language they speak, simply add Chi before the name of the people. So where I live, the language is Chichewa as I am around Chewa villages. Chichewa is the national language, while English is the official (business) language. Very few people where I live speak English.

How do you do your laundry?

 I do my laundry in a bucket while sitting on the floor in my hallway. It’s all done by hand with a bar of soap. Fill the bucket up the first time to scrub everything, and then a second time to rinse, and then I wring out as much water as I can before hanging it up. I have to do it a couple times a week, not because there is a lot of stuff but because the clothesline I made that runs down the hall between two doors, can only hold so many things. Also, since the water is tinged, all my clothes have turned slightly red.

Have you made any new friends?
I have been able to meet many new people. Some are other volunteers both from Canada and around the world. The people in Kalino (the village where I live) have been incredibly welcoming, and despite the language barriers I have become friends with lots of people I see every day.