Waiting

Since arriving in Malawi, I have had many opportunities to improve (or exacerbate) my patience. Fortunately, for the most part, all of the waiting has made me more laid-back rather than more uptight. It would not take long for an impatient person to perish here simply from the anxiety caused by waiting, because it seems that one is nearly always waiting for something or someone. I thought that today I would share some recent examples.

There are the general everyday things, like waiting for the power to come back on. Waiting two hours after dinner to take my malarial medication, and then waiting another 30 minutes before it is safe to lay down and sleep. There is waiting in the office for 10-20 minutes for a 1.9 Mb report to download. And lately, another daily waiting activity has been the suspense of waiting to see if the Malawian telephone networks will allow international calls - my parents, despite numerous attempts, have only managed to connect through 2 or 3 times since May 26th.

Then of course, there is waiting for people. Yesterday I held a training session for the health promoters that will be carrying out the I-LIFE survey I designed (it starts today actually!). We waited for an hour for everyone to show up. This was actually not too bad considering the promoters came by bicycle, and one ever 3.5 hours by foot. I have heard horror stories from co-workers about waiting for a bus that showed up 8 hours late. Today there was a management meeting, and Helen said that nobody showed up at all. Things like that aren't all that uncommon here.

My most pronounced waiting experience, however, was photocopying the surveys this past Saturday. I started on Friday afternoon at 3 pm. I was delighted to learn that the photocopier in our office did double-sided printing. Except for the requirement to let the photocopier rest for 10 minutes between runs, things were going pretty smoothly. I had almost finished 120 copies by 5:30, when the photocopier ran out of toner. Of course, after inquiring with the other office, I found out that, of course, we had been waiting a while for a new order of toner. Since the toner cartridge from the other photocopying didn't fit in the first photocopier, I trekked up to the other office (called the "upper office" since it is just up the hill from my office, the "lower office"). The photocopier in the upper office not only did not do double-sided photocopying, but as I quickly learned, needed longer breaks between runs, and was extremely susceptible to frequent paper jams.

I started photocopying at 9 am on Saturday morning, figuring I'd be out by lunch. After all, I only had 320 copies left - a job that would only take 30 minutes on the Health Canada photocopiers I had used as a summer student in Ottawa. Surely this job wouldn't take any longer than 3 hours.

At 4 pm (7 hours later), I walked out of the office, tired but happy. They were done. That is all that mattered.

So, in short (or in long), it took 9.5 hours to make 440 copies of a 3-page, double-sided survey. And I am thankful to God it only took that - imagine had the toner run out in the second photocopier!

So be careful if you ever pray for patience. God might send you to Africa!

A Comedy of Errors

I have been quite pampered during my few weeks here in Malawi. Sarah Eggert looked after me as if she were my own mother. She did my laundry, and put out fabulous meals night after night. Because of this, I have not had to cook at all. The weekend the Eggerts went to Lilongwe, I was going to make a lentil stew, but was invited to eat with the Jones family. And so, my debut as a gourmet Malawian chef was *supposed* to be two nights ago, on Sunday.

On Sunday afternoon, I got busy slicing and dicing myriads of veggies for a delectable vegetable chowder. All of the prep work done, I headed off to Sunday volleyball, only to find out that Josh MacDowell was in town and speaking at the university in 45 minutes. Ben and I rushed back to our respective houses, and my veggies stayed put in the fridge. Instead I plowed down a bowl Corn Flakes with milk that tasted like water - I haven't yet got the right ratio for the powdered milk. "I will cook the chowder tomorrow," I told myself, and hurriedly rushed off to the university with Ben and Mike B. As my old friend Chung would say, "Worth it!!"

And so, I got home after swinging by the Eggert house to pick up some donated food. I put all the veggies in the pot, along with chicken bouillon, water, rice, and seasoning. Everything was going just fine until - the power went out.

For those of you who have never been to Africa, the power goes out quite often here. In Zomba where I'm living, there are power outages mostly every day, sometimes twice. They usually last 1.5 hours and hit between 6-7 pm. If there is a second power outage, it is in the morning or around lunch, but those usually do not last as long.

So here I am with a partially cooked chowder, and a conundrum. What should I do? Wait a likely 2.5 more hours to eat? It was already 6 pm. Call the Jones family, and go there for dinner? Eat more bread and peanut butter?

No, I thought. I musn't be so weak and dependent. Most Malawians didn't even have power, and cooked all their food over a fire. Why not me?

And so [aha my friends, the power just switched on. Hurray!]

...now I am going to write this at the risk of sounding incredibly foolish, however at the time it seemed like a good idea...

I resolved to make scrambled eggs by frying them over a candle.

It didn't work as well as I thought.

The pan wasn't heating up, so I borrowed the pot cover from my chowder. About 10 minutes into the "egg-scapade", I heard a dripping noise. I walked over to my clay water filter, frying pan in hand. Nope, no water coming out of the spigot. Okay, back to business...holding my frying pan, holding my frying pan. More dripping? I walked over again to inspect the water filter. Indeed, water was seeping from where the filter portion and the bottom vessel contacted. The vessel had overflown, and there was a mini-flood on the floor. I turned around abruptly to put down the frying pan as the cover went flying off and onto the floor. Frantically, I picked it up and set the frying pan on the counter. I went over and grabbed the top portion of the filter and pored out its contents. This filter is extremely heavy, and not wanting to contaminate it, I could not put it down. And so, one-hand holding the 10-pound clay mass and the other rummaging for a pot and a ladle, I scooped out the excess water from the bottom vessel so that I could put the 10-pound clay top back on the bottom. I did damage control on the flood with my mop made out of a bamboo branch. That over with, I went back to my "frying", and twenty minutes later, decided that I was done (though the egg was not).

Still, I figured the egg was done enough, so I slapped it between two pieces of plain bread, and prayed a very thankful prayer, realizing what a struggle it is to prepare food without electricity, and grateful that I had any food at all.

Then it was time to clean up. All seemed well until I noticed a thick black residue all over the underside of the frying pan. I suppose it was carbon monoxide. I opened the windows and started to scrub. Even now [it is Monday night], I am letting the sink soak in bleach to remove black stains that I don't think will come off. My hands look like I've spent my day cleaning chimneys. At least I didn't set anything on fire with the candles as I walked around the house.

So that, in detail, was my first Malawian cooking experience.

Smatterings

If you never thought that Africa could feel cold - well, you're wrong! It's coming into the Malawian winter. Now let me qualify that. You'll still feel warm (even hot) and maybe perspire when you're out in the sun in the middle of the day. But outside of the sun, even in the daytime, I need to where long sleeves, a light jacket, and socks. At nightime it is even colder. I am very happy I have a nice warm sleeping bag to sleep in. I think of the people living around me, and how some of their houses have no glass in the windows - nothing to keep the warm air in and the cold air out. And no fancy sleeping bag.

So now I am living just two doors down from my office. The house is on a beautiful fenced property, and the house has tiled floors! (No concrete) I have the house to myself for now. On the weekends I will be sharing with a family who weekends in Zomba. Then I was supposed to get roommates for the month of July, but who knows now since it looks like I'm going to have to move out of this house in a month since Dignitas (the actual renters of this house) have just hired some new staff. Oh how I hope for a mutually beneficial delay for the move-in! I don't want to move again (the story of my life - my parents can attest).

Yesterday I had the wonderful opportunity to attend a joint Chichewa/English joint service in Chinamwali to celebrate the opening of the pastor training institution by EBCM and EI. All I can say is WOW! The church I am going to in Zomba is quite conservative in terms of expression during worship. The Chinamwali service was more what I had envisionned an African church service to be. There was awesome dancing and choral singing in Chichewa. There was time for the whole church to pray. The sick were invited to come up and the pastors prayed over them. It felt sort of like what I envisioned an early church experience 2000 years ago to be like - but more expressive. One thing I didn't expect was the honour that they give to their visitors. All the visitors were invited to stand in the front, and then as the whole church erupted into song, every single man, woman, and child marched up single file to shake our hands in welcome. Think of a congo line. I was blown away, and quite humbled by the experience.

An unexpected bonus yesterday (for those who have heard of Josh MacDowell), I got to attend an evening service at the University of Malawi. Josh MacDowell spoke (he is a famous American Christian author). It was pretty cool to see him live - and in Malawi of all places! He looked exactly like I had pictured. I wonder if that's because one of his books I read when I was a kid had a profile picture or something...

Work is clickety-clacking along nicely. So far I am on schedule with my target dates. I will be finalizing my survey for my first project this week, after I get it translated and pre-test it with some people in the neighbourhood. Then I will train the field workers in how to administer the survey next Monday, and they will go to town (or 'village' should I say?) and carry it out. All in all, there will be 362 face-to-face oral surveys conducted in the next 3 weeks by 7 field staff.

Finally, after a long hiatus of 13 years, I have taken up volleyball again (recreationally of course!). I may not be the greatest gal on the court, but you know what? I'm not too bad either! And it's lots of fun - a great chance to get to know some Malawian friends, and get to know some EI co-workers better.

Well, I think that's it for now. I plan to upload some new pics soon of my new place. Tsalani bwino!