Rainy Season
The rainy season is upon us!
What an exciting, perpetually damp time this is.
The above picture was taken in January 2025. Textbooks report that the rainy season in Malawi runs from November to April. But the rains have already dissipated for the most part, and it is only early March.
This could be a terrible thing, or it could be a mildly good thing depending on your perspective.
A shorter rainy season = shorter growing season. This is generally considered bad by those who enjoy having food to eat. Fair enough.
Also, rain brings slightly cooler weather, which is much appreciated by this constantly-sweaty mzungu (a “loving” Chichewa pet name for foreigner).
On the other hand, a shorter rainy season = more sunshine for my solar panels = more power for my electronics = more time to spend Netflixing. And blog posting…
Speaking of which: Long time, no post. Oops. I have just been SO busy lately…
…grading assignments….
…and just trying to stay cool. A typical weekend afternoon.
A typical weekend morning is spent washing clothes.
Yaaay.
Anyway, the good news is, I have a bunch of photos from the past few months to dump in this post. So let’s get started.
Everything is luscious and green during rainy season. Gone is the red, sandy, dusty dirt that stains life in the dry season.
My school this week. Look— there’s grass!
The wildlife is incredible. Chicken and goat are part of the Big Five, right?
My house in the back is surrounded by the neighbors’ lush dimbas (gardens).
Maize.
Tobacco, maize, and chicken. The three staple crops.
Important life update: Peace Corps has given us gas stoves! It no longer takes half an hour to boil water over charcoal.
What do I cook on my fancy new gas stove? Mostly popcorn and pasta. Sometimes I cook couscous or I will have a big bowl of fresh fruit if I recently went grocery shopping in town. I have not fundamentally changed as a person - I am still not the most motivated cook.
Thankfully, I am served lunch at my school during the week. The meals consist of nsima and some kind of side dish. Monday is dried fish, Tuesday is stewed vegetables, Wednesday is beans, Thursday is eggs, and Friday is goat meat.
Tuesday, my favorite day: nsima and mpiru (mustard leaves) with tomatoes.
In February, I went to Lilongwe for a few days to attend Peace Corps training. It is always nice to see the other volunteers, eat at restaurants, and check out cool places around town.
I take public transportation, called “mini-buses”, whenever I need to travel out from my site. They are old, usually dilapidated, bus-like vans. With 11 seats, a minibus can carry 20+ people. Not counting chickens and goats, of course. They ride free.
Once I had arrived in Lilongwe, I immediately went on a very important errand. Lunch.
On Valentine’s Day, a group of us went to the Four Seasons garden center in town. It has nice restaurants, shops, and lovely gardens of course.
If you ever find yourself in Lilongwe (for some reason), I highly recommend a trip to the Four Seasons.
Finally, I want to end this post with a few photos of my school, me and my students.
Here I am presenting to my fellow teachers during a professional development day last term. See, I am an Education volunteer! I do work!
Drama performance by the Form 2 students. They did a great job and worked hard on their costumes.
In case you were wondering where I get my water. I use a borehole. It is located at the school, only about 300 meters from my house.
That is all for this post. Tiwonana! (See you later!)
Ku Nyanja (at Lake Malawi)
We arrived at the lake this afternoon! It was a 3.5 hour drive down from Lilongwe. We went through Dedza district, which borders Mozambique. Such a pretty part of the country.
We arrived at the lake around 2pm, and promptly went to the beach. Our lodge is right on the water.
It’s hard to understate just how big this lake is. It’s called the ”calendar lake” because it’s 365 miles long and 52 miles across. The lake makes up 20% of Malawi’s landmass. It’s huge.
Drinking a mango smoothie.
My chalet. I’m paying $50 USD per night for a single room en suite. It’s more expensive than sharing a room, but overall not a bad price.
Fish cakes for lunch. Delicious! Then swimming of course.
Drinks at sunset.
Tomorrow we’re going snorkeling around some islands on the lake. I’ll see all the amazing cichlids that Lake Malawi is known for. Can’t wait!
First Term Teaching
This is week 14 of term one. The students are taking exams. And I’m busy grading a million papers. Wednesday will be our last day of school before the Christmas/New Year holidays! We’ll have a 2-week break before term two begins on January 6th.
Over the holidays, I’ll be traveling to Lake Malawi with a few other volunteers. So excited!! I’ve never seen the lake. Now that I have completed my 3-month “integration” period in my community, I can take vacation time. Yay!
During that 3-month integration period, I was tasked with assessing the needs of my community in order to determine possible projects I might work on during my time here. Here are the projects we decided on:
(1) Acquiring classroom furniture (desks and chairs - we have very few. See pics further below)
(2) Starting an English club. The kids have asked for an art club so I’ll try to make our activities creative.
(3) Training on resource mobilization and establishing some income generating activities. We’ll see how it goes!
For context, here are a few pictures of my school.
Classrooms. The school has 4 classrooms in total. Each form (grade-level) has its own classroom. Imagine 120 students in here! That is a typical class size.
Library. I will be helping to organize and catalogue the books. Also, we need chairs in the library. The students sit on mats on the floor, currently.
That’s all for now! Next post will be from Lake Malawi 😎
P.S. Cyclone Chido went over Malawi today. I’m fine. It mostly hit the south of the country. Some volunteers near Blantyre were evacuated, and one PCV’s roof blew off. But all are well.
First Week as a PCV
It finally happened! I swore-in as a Peace Corps Volunteer on August 15th! Swearing-in marks the end of training and the beginning of the two-year service. The next day, I moved to my permanent village to begin my service. I’ve been here for about a week now, all on my own. This is my first real taste of freedom and independence since I arrived in Malawi - and it’s been very nice!
I won’t start teaching until the new school year begins in September; so until then, I’m just settling into my house, getting used to living on my own, and attending community events.
Here are some random pics to document my first week as a Volunteer. Scroll to the bottom for a tour of my house!
On Saturday, the Head Teacher (aka Principal) at my school very generously offered to drive me to the market in a neighboring town, since our small village does not have a market. I snapped these pics along the way. Our area is hilly and scattered with jutting, rocky “mountains”. Quite scenic!
Homemade potato chips! It took me, like, 4 hours to make this one bowl of chips - but it was worth it. Lays are pretty expensive here.
My kitchen setup / making of the potato chips. (Lighting a charcoal stove is the bane of my existence, but I persevered in the name of crunchy, familiar snacks.)
My new besties who come over daily.
I finally managed to find someone in my village who sells eggs! Yay! I made fried eggs for breakfast this morning to celebrate my win.
“Over-medium” turned into “scrambled” real quick.
HOUSE TOUR PHOTOS!!
Disclaimer: I have almost no furniture and very few possessions, but I figured I might as well show y’all my living conditions. I’ve spent the past week trying to make it as “home-y” as possible.
The view from my front patio.
Front door
“Main living space” aka living room, dining room, and indoor kitchen.
Note: The outlets and electrical box are just for looks. My house is wired for electricity, but is not connected to any power source.
No one in my village has electricity, though rumor has it my school might get connected sometime in the coming months.🤞
Indoor kitchen / pantry / dining
Makeshift sink
Also, please ignore the white powder all over the floors. It’s a chemical to prevent ants. A never ending battle :(
The lounge area. Where I like to sit and watch TV on my laptop while I drink my morning coffee.
(Shoutout to Andrew Bastian for setting up my hard drive with enough shows and movies to last me for 2 years! It’s been a real hit with the other volunteers too.)
“Guest bed” aka junk room
Indoor plumbing - Malawian style
Hallway, with storage closet straight ahead and my bedroom to the right.
My bedroom
My ingenious closet system
Really proud of that
View from back door
Outdoor kitchen (left) & bathing room (right)
The real kitchen! Where I cook on the charcoal stove.
Boiling water for a bath.
The bathing room where I take bucket baths.
And last but not least, my pit latrine!
You walk in, turn to the right…
…and there is a hole in the ground.
That’s all for this post! I hope it was interesting to see where I’m living. My day-to-day life feels so busy - everything takes so much longer to accomplish here. Just heating up water for a bath or simply making breakfast can be a 2 hour ordeal. Washing laundry is a half-day event. That is why my blog posts have been few and far between. I am hoping, though, that as time goes on and I adjust more, things will become easier for me so I will have more time to put together posts.
See ya soon!
Permanent Site Visit
Apologies for the lengthy delay between posts. The last few weeks have been busy!
First, I had a 2-week teaching practical at the local Secondary School. It was my very first time teaching and I was nervous - but it went well! I got great feedback from the administration and the students.
Secondly, I learned where my permanent site will be - the school and village where I will spend 2 years living and working! I’m not sure how many details I can reveal on the internet about my location (for safety reasons). My permanent site is a small village located in the Lilongwe district. I am less than a one-hour bus ride from the capital city. Very convenient!
Today is the 7th day of my site visit. I have spent the past week in my permanent village living in my house, meeting my colleagues at the school, and getting acquainted with the area and community. It’s been wonderful. Everyone is so friendly, welcoming and supportive. I’m very much looking forward to the coming 24 months here!!
I am still technically “in training”. On Saturday I will return to my training village across the country to finish up the last couple of weeks of training. Then, in mid August I will come back to my permanent site - permanently!
Lastly, I want to share some photos of the night sky. It really is breathtaking to see the stars here. These photos don’t do it justice.
First Month
Today marks 4 weeks since I left for Peace Corps. And it was a great day. I and my fellow trainees traveled from our small training village to the boma (district capital) for some administrative tasks.
We also went to the Peace Corps hub/office in the boma, and finally got access to our extra luggage! I grabbed my solar panel and power banks (!!) I left there in storage weeks ago.
They gave us cookies (!!!) and we hung out for a bit.
Shout out to Sidney for the best candid photography. 😊
In the afternoon, Peace Corps staff gave a training on regional Malawian culture. We learned about initiation ceremonies, weddings, and the secret society of Gule Wamkulu - definitely worth a quick google search! Supposedly, we will be meeting Gule Wamkulu at our swearing-in ceremony (when we officially swear-in as Peace Corps Volunteers, in mid August) so stay tuned for more on that.
In the evening, I completed my second homestay evaluation with the PC homestay coordinators. I was asked to start a charcoal fire and to cook rice (the Malawian way! - pictured below). This is to prove I’m capable of living alone here. It went well, and as a bonus, we had a nice dinner afterward - rice with nyama ya ng’ombe (beef) and masamba (vegetables).
What a wonderful way to wrap up the first 4 weeks of training! Only 7 more to go.
Nkhomaliro (aka lunch!)
Today’s lunch: nsima with beans and pumpkin leaves. Very typical meal! We also had this for dinner.
Nsima is made by mixing maize flour with water, heat and stir until thick, then form into patties. Nsima is always served with ndiwo (relish), often consisting of masamba (vegetables - usually stewed) and either meat, beans, or my personal favorite, soya pieces!
Bonus pic: cooking mpunga (rice) for dinner earlier this week.
First Morning of Homestay
I arrived at my host family’s house yesterday afternoon. They are such lovely people and I’m glad to be placed with them!
Here’s how my first morning went today:
Woke up at 5am to the sound of a rooster crowing screeching (nkhuku kulira)
Got out of bed at 6:15.
Started the fires to warm up my bath water and tea water (madzi wa tiyi)
Walked to the local water tap to collect water. Met just about every single resident of the village along the way. (Mwadzuka bwanji? How did you sleep, they ask. Ndadzuka bwino, kaya inu? I woke up well, and you? I answer.)
Collected the water in a bucket and carried it home (on top of my head!!! I only spilled about half of it!)
Cleaned the kitchen with my amayi (mother)
Boiled a bag of milk for our morning tea.
Took my malaria prophylaxis. So it must have been about 7:30am by now.
The water for my bath is ready! Headed to the bafa (bathing room) for my first bucket bath. The air is cold in the morning so the warm water was very nice!
Ate breakfast with my amayi and abambo (father). White bread and coffee with milk and lots of sugar!
Abambo ate quickly and returned to finish sweeping the garden.
As we ate amayi asked me why I don’t go to church. I explained it is not as common in America as it is in Malawi. Church music blared through the window - not the gospel music I’m used to.
Amayi and I washed my laundry. Cleaning clothes is done by hand in a bucket. There are 4 steps: (1) scrubbing the clothes in soapy water; (2) scrubbing the clothes in soapy water again; (3) scrubbing once again but with water that’s slightly less soapy; (4) and once more with clean water. Then we hung the clothes to dry outside. (“Pants” aka underwear must be dried inside.)
We cleaned my house. Sunday is “general cleaning” day. Sweep, mop, then dry the floors. Shake out the bed sheets and make the bed. Then we cleaned the front patio. Sweep, mop, dry.
Amayi and I fixed my water filter so it not longer leaks everywhere. Yay! Clean drinking water!
All done! Time to start studying.
It’s 10:45am now and I am exhausted! I’m writing this as that rooster continues to crow outside. Someone should really tell him that yes we already know, it’s morning.
